A History of the American People

been designed to represent interests from all over the Union and its members were a cross-
section of the ruling class, insofar as America had one-they were gentlemen. The Kitchen
Cabinet, by contrast, brought into the exercise of power hitherto excluded classes such as
journalists. Kendall despised Washington society, which he accused of trying to ape London and
Paris. He thought late dinner' wasa ridiculous English custom,' drinking champagne instead of
whiskey 'uppety,' low-cut evening dresses disgusting.' The idea of men like Kendall helping to rule America was appalling to men like Adams. But there it was. Jackson had successfully wooed the masses, and they now had their snouts in the trough. Jackson not only set up a new political dynasty which was to last, with one or two exceptions, up to the Civil War. He also changed the power-structure permanently. The Kitchen Cabinet, which proliferated in time into the present enormous White House bureaucracy and its associated agencies, was the product of the new accretion of presidential power made possible by the personal contract drawn up every four years between the president and the mass electorate. That a man like Kendall came to symbolize these new arrangements was appropriate, for if Jackson was the first man to sign the new contract with democracy, the press was instrumental in drawing it up. Ordinary people did not care much whether they were ruled by a formal Cabinet or a kitchen one, as long as that rule was light. And, under Jackson, it was. He let the economy expand and boom. As a result, the revenue from indirect taxation and land sales shot up, the meager bills of the federal government were paid without difficulty, and the national debt was reduced. In 1835 and 1836, it was totally eliminated, something which has never happened before in a modern state-or since. There is no doubt that electors liked this frugal, minimalist, popular style of government, with no frills and no pretensions to world greatness. In 1831 Jackson was reelected by a landslide, the first in American presidential history. The luckless Clay was his main opponent. It is a curious fact that, although Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe had all been Masons, Clay was the only one whose Masonry was held against him (perhaps because he never went to church), especially in New York. So in 1832 Clay had to face an anti-Mason candidate, Thurlow Weed, who got a popular vote of 101,051, which would have gone mainly to Clay. Clay campaigned frantically, and oscillated between Kentucky and Washington, much of the time with his wife and grandson, four servants, two carriages, six horses, a jackass, and a big shepherd dog-all to no avail. He got 437,462 to Jackson's 688,242 votes, and in the electoral college the margin was even greater-a mere 49 to Jackson's 219. This was the beginning of the Jacksonian Democratic dominance. Jackson virtually appointed his successor, Van Buren, and though Van Buren failed to get reelected in 1840 because of a severe economic crisis, that was the only blip in the long series of Democratic victories. The Democrats returned with James K. Polk orLittle Hickory' as he was known, in 1844, with
Zachary Taylor in 1848 (who, dying in office, was succeeded by Millard Fillmore), and then by
two solid Jacksonians, Franklin Pierce, 1852, and James Buchanan, 1856. In effect, Jackson, or
his ideas, ruled America from 1828 to the Civil War.
And what were these ideas? One was Union. No one was ever stronger for the Union than
Jackson, not even Lincoln himself. Jackson might be a slave-owner, a small government man, a
states' rights man and, in effect, a Southerner, or a Southwesterner, but first and foremost he was
a Union man. He made this clear when portions of the South, especially South Carolina,
threatened to leave the federal Union, or nullify its decisions, unless Washington's economic
policy was tailored to fit Southern interests. The South, being a huge exporter of cotton and
tobacco, was strongly in favor of low tariffs. The North, building up its infant industry, wanted