An Emerging Identity 91to kill each other. For some southerners, such as William Yancey of
Alabama, “a duel was only a pleasant morning recreation.”
Over the next several years the differences widened between the
nationalistic administration and the Jacksonians. The era of rule by a
single party ended. New parties formed and the two-party system re-
emerged. Under the direction of Senator Martin Van Buren of New
York, with the help of Vice President John C. Calhoun, the opponents
of the administration aligned themselves in support of the candidacy of
Jackson for President in the upcoming election of 1828. They soon took
the name Democratic-Republicans, or Democrats, and emphasized
states’ rights and fiscal conservatism. The friends of Adams and Clay
advocated a more active role for the government in addressing domestic
issues and were known as National Republicans. Thus the ill-termed
“Era of Good Feelings” passed into history.
One object of the Adams administration was the imposition of high
tariffs in order to advance the manufacturing segment of the country.
The tariff had been increased in 1824 but it did not satisfy its propo-
nents. So the House Committee on Manufactures, chaired by Rollin
C. Mallory of Vermont, a strong protectionist, set about concocting
a new set of duties. But Mallory and his allies were outnumbered
and outmaneuvered in the committee by Jacksonians, headed by Silas
Wright Jr. of New York, a close associate of Van Buren.
The new tariff recommendations, as finally put forward by this
committee, startled and then outraged the friends of the administra-
tion. Here was not a bill to encourage manufactures, but rather, as John
Randolph rightly described it, a measure to “manufacture a President.”
The committee, explained Wright to his political friends in New York,
jacked up the rates on all products from those states Jackson needed to
win election in 1828. At the same time it limited protection on items
produced by industries from states supporting Adams, particularly
New England. Consequently woolen goods, produced mainly in Mas-
sachusetts, failed to get the rates necessary to contend against British
competition. How had this happened? Well, explained Wright, the
committee raised the rates upon “all kinds of woolen cloths” as “high as
our own friends in Pennsylvania, Kentucky & Ohio would vote them.”
Then he jumped the rates on molasses, flax, hemp, and lead to attract
votes from western states where these products were produced. And