Even
as he saw victory approaching, the New England leader was filled
with gloomy forebodings over the prospects. "They are nattering for
the immediate issue," he recorded in his diary, "but the fearful
condition of them is that success would open to a far severer trial
than defeat."
CHAPTER XVI
PRESIDENT ADAMS AND THE OPPOSITION (1825-1827)
For eight years President Monroe had administered the executive
department of the federal government-years that have been called the
"Era of Good Feeling." The reader who has followed the evidences of
factional controversy among the rival presidential candidates in the
cabinet, and noted the wide-spread distress following the panic of
1819, the growing sectional jealousies, the first skirmishes in the
slavery struggle, and the clamor of a democracy eager to assert its
control and profoundly distrustful of the reigning political powers,
will question the reality of this good feeling. On the other hand,
in spite of temporary reverses, the nation as a whole was bounding
with vigor in these years of peace after war; and if in truth party
was not dead, and a golden age had not yet been given to the
American people, at least the heat of formal party contest had been
for a time allayed.
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