, 546.]
The president who rejected these favorite instruments of political
success was unable to find compensation in personal popularity or
the graces of manner. Cold and repellent, he leaned backward in his
desire to do the right, and alienated men by his testy and
uncompromising reception of advances. And yet there never was a
president more in need of conciliating, for already the forces of
the opposition were forming. Even before his election he had been
warned that the price of his victory would be an organized
opposition to the measures of the administration, [Footnote: Ibid.,
476, 481, 495, 506, 510.] and that Calhoun and his friends in South
Carolina and Pennsylvania would be the leaders. [Footnote: Am. Hist.
Assoc., Report 1899, II., 230, 231; Calhoun, Works, III., 51;
Sargent, Public Men and Events, I., 106, 109.]
The union of the opposition forces into a party was perfected
slowly, for between Crawford, Jackson, and Calhoun there had been
sharp rivalry. Virginia by no means relished the idea of the
promotion of the military hero; and in New York Jackson had been
sustained by Clinton in 1824 against Crawford, the candidate of Van
Buren.
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