The Democratic Party: A History

Jackson's victory was the first true evidence that the American electorate had undergone a fundamental metamorphosis. The deferential politics of the Founding Fathers-where influence flowed downward from the landed gentry to the yeoman farmer-had been incinerated by the sheer force of Jackson's biography. To the frontiersman in Tennessee, the small shopkeeper in Pennsylvania, and the laborer in the nascent industrial pockets of the North, Jackson was not a candidate; he was a mirror. His scars, his duels, his defiance of British regulars at New Orleans, and his legendary temper were not liabilities in this new age. They were proof of authenticity. He entered the Executive Mansion not as a statesman bound by precedent, but as an agent of retribution. The establishment, represented by the polished, cautious John Quincy Adams, viewed Jackson's ascent as the beginning of mob rule. They saw in him a man who would trade the stability of the institution for the roar of the crowd. And in many ways, they were right. Jackson brought with him a conviction that the government did not exist to protect the interests of the established order, but to serve as the sword of the majority.