Jeniffer electronic book

But if its life was saved, its safety was chiefly due to its
ostensible enemies. While the Whigs were less national in feeling and
purpose than their ideas demanded, the Democrats were more national than
they knew. From 1830 to 1850 American nationality was being attenuated
as a conscious idea, but the great unconscious forces of American life
were working powerfully and decisively in its favor.
Most assuredly the failure of the Whigs is susceptible of abundant
explanation. Prevailing conditions were inimical to men whose strength
lay more in their intelligence than in their will. It was a period of
big phrases, of personal motives and altercations, of intellectual
attenuation, and of narrow, moral commonplaces,--all of which made it
very difficult for any statesman to see beyond his nose, or in case he
did, to act upon his knowledge. Yet in spite of all this, it does seem
as if some Whig might have worked out the logic of the national idea
with as much power and consistency as Calhoun worked out the logic of
his sectional idea.


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