AND THE WHIG COALITION 359 



Adams had raised new political issues, we find the 

 Whig theory everywhere discomfited. The bank was 

 too completely dead to find any mourners. The pro- 

 tective tariff was reduced to such a point that we were 

 abreast with England in the march toward free trade, 

 and our foreign commerce was beginning to rival that 

 of England, when the Civil War and its war taxes set 

 us back for a while. At the same time the policy of 

 internal improvements remained, as it still remains, on 

 the defensive. Viewed in its large relations, it was a 

 noble victory for the sound Democratic doctrine of 

 " government of the people, by the people, and for the 

 people." The four eminent men who represented this 

 doctrine were Jackson, Van Buren, Benton, and Blair. 

 They also stood for the Union, against all separatist 

 schemes, as strongly and devotedly as Webster and 

 Clay. As for Tyler, while we cannot call him a 

 great man, while for breadth of view and sound grasp 

 of fundamental principles he is immeasurably below 

 Van Buren, at the same time he is not so trivial a 

 personage as his detractors would have us believe. 

 He was honest and courageous, and in the defeat of 

 Mr. Clay's theory of government he played an impor- 

 tant and useful part. If he is small as compared with 

 Jackson and Van Buren, he is great as compared with 

 Pierce and Buchanan. 



We cannot here consider the close of Mr. Tyler's 

 presidency, because that would introduce a new set of 

 considerations, and our time is now at an end. When 

 the question of the annexation of Texas came into the 

 foreground, the lines were speedily drawn between 

 North and South, as they had not been drawn since 

 1820. Mr. Tyler and his State Rights Whigs had 



