From such cares as these the Southern leaders

were quite free. Politics were so completely under the control of the gentry that scarcely any appeal could be made in any quarter against their class sentiment. The Virginia dynasty was the political expression of the natural hegemony of the great state of Virginia in a compact confederation of social interests which ruled the South, and by means of an united South ruled the Union. The security in which Jefferson and his close successors abided as regards their own section gave them a free hand in the turbulent politics of the North. If a Northern politician became dangerous, the federal patronage could be used against him with effect. Aaron Burr was the first to experience this. Up to the time of the struggle which ensued when the presidential election of 1800 devolved on the House of Representatives, Burr was recognized as the head of the Republican interest in New York. But under Jefferson's administration De Witt Clinton became the party leader in that state. Clinton resigned his seat in the United States Senate to become mayor of New York City, the power and influence of which office gave him the best opportunity of undermining Burr's local interest. Burr, weighed down by the odium of his fatal duel with Hamilton, was unable to maintain himself as a party leader; but before submitting to political extinction he made an instructive test of the fitness of the stage of public

affairs for a rôle which at one time or another has been successfully enacted in every other country, and which still affords an opening to political talent in Central and South American states. He turned conspirator. The result showed conclusively that American politics do not afford a field for such adventure. The political habits and instinctive prejudices of the American people are so firmly attached to constitutional government that not in any mood will they hearken to proposals which do not claim its sanction. However fierce an outburst of public sentiment may be, even though it reach to the stage of insurrection or civil war, it must keep under the cover of a constitutional theory.

A Southern politician, who might become recalcitrant, could not be disposed of as easily as was Burr. When John Randolph of Roanoke turned against the administration, Jefferson had to endure his galling attacks, for he could not cut the ground from under Randolph's feet in his own constituency. But when De Witt Clinton, in his turn, assumed an attitude of opposition to the national administration, during Madison's term, he could be dealt with as Burr had been. The federal patronage was turned against him, contributing to the defeat which Clinton then sustained in the struggle for the control of state politics.

Similar interferences of federal influence in the contests of state factions, in furtherance of the

party interests of the national administration, were of frequent occurrence, and in this way the federal patronage acted as a stimulus to democratic tendencies. The road to political consideration being thus plainly pointed out, travel naturally turned that way. The organization of political clubs and societies antagonized the family politics of the old state factions and gradually broke down the old methods. Democratic gains increased democratic pressure upon the restraints put against popular activity in politics, and set in motion processes of change which profoundly altered political conditions. A race of politicians grew up who were not the men to entertain scruples about disturbing gentlemen in their snug berths. The longer the · office-holders had been in the more reason why they should get out, so as to make room for others and give every one a chance at the public crib. The survival of the old prejudice may, however, be traced in the behavior of Clinton, who, in the violent faction struggles of New York, was several times in power, wielding the state patronage in behalf of his party, and was several times overthrown, to become the victim of a fierce proscription aimed at him and his adherents. At one time he advocated the removal of heads of departments only. Then he took up Jefferson's line of argument and proposed a fair division of minor offices. between the two parties. In 1817 he won a great victory by appealing to the rural counties with his

scheme for the construction of the Erie canal. Believing himself then independent of New York City politics, he declared his opposition to partisan proscription and, beyond turning out a few Tammany office-holders, made no removals on party grounds. This was the last stand made in New York against the use of the offices for party purposes. Clinton was antagonized by a combination of factions, and during Monroe's administration the federal patronage was so actively employed against him that he made it a subject of formal complaint in a message to the legislature. Clinton was driven back to his former methods, which became the settled practice of all administrations.

Not alone in New York, but in Pennsylvania and in other Northern states, the development of the new method of affecting party concentration for administrative purposes made rapid progress. The transfer of those methods to the sphere of national government was simply a matter of time, but it was not accomplished until the new influences at work in American society swelled in volume until they inundated the whole field of national politics.

CHAPTER XII

THE NATIONALIZING INFLUENCE OF PARTY

THE growth of national parties tended to develop in the people of every state a conception of equitable rights in the political arrangements of all the states. If the party did not receive fair play anywhere, it suffered everywhere. The popular sense of injury in this respect, once excited, was very alert and suspicious, and there was incessant complaint against the unfair discriminations which existed.

The inability of the framers of the constitution to get much beyond general principles in reaching an agreement, had left a latitude to state action in national politics which resulted in gross inequality of political circumstances. The state legislatures elected United States Senators as they pleased, appointed presidential electors as they pleased, and provided for the election of state quotas in the House of Representatives as they pleased. The variety and uncertainty of the conditions to which national party action was subjected were especially exasperating with respect to the presidential election. The system was not made for democratic use, and its unsuitability soon