CHAPTER XI
PARTY POLITICS (1820-1822)
To the superficial observer, politics might have seemed never more
tranquil than when, in 1820, James Monroe received all but one of
the electoral votes for his second term as president of the United
States. One New Hampshire elector preferred John Quincy Adams,
although he was not a candidate, and this deprived Monroe of ranking
with Washington in the unanimity of official approval. But in truth
the calm was deceptive. The election of 1820 was an armistice rather
than a real test of political forces. The forming party factions
were not yet ready for the final test of strength, most of the
candidates were members of the cabinet, and the reelection of
Monroe, safe, conciliatory, and judicious, afforded an opportunity
for postponing the issue.
As we have seen, the Missouri contest had in it the possibility of a
revolutionary division of the Republican party into two parties on
sectional lines. The aged Jefferson, keen of scent for anything that
threatened the ascendancy of the triumphant democracy, saw in the
dissolution of the old alliance between Virginia and the
"fanaticized" Pennsylvania, [Footnote: Jefferson, Writings (Ford's
ed.
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