From the details of the personal struggles
(usually less important to the student of party history) one must
learn the tendency towards the reappearance of parties in this
period, when idealists believed that all factions had been fused
into one triumphant organization. In all of the great sections,
candidates appeared, anxious to consolidate the support of their own
section and to win a following in the nation. It is time that we
should survey these men, for the personal traits of the aspirants
for the presidency had a larger influence than ever before or since
in the history of the country. Moreover, we are able to see in these
candidates the significant features of the sections from which they
came.
New England was reluctantly and slowly coming to the conclusion that
John Quincy Adams was the only available northern candidate. Adams
did not fully represent the characteristics of his section, for he
neither sprang from the democracy of the interior of New England nor
did he remain loyal to the Federalist ideas that controlled the
commercial interests of the coast.
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