"Anybody is good enough for any job" was the favorite
watchword. But underneath this turmoil of desire for office,
significant party differences were shaping themselves. Henry
Clay, the alluring orator and master of compromise, brought
together a coalition of opposing fragments. He and his following
objected to Jackson's assumption of vast executive prerogatives,
and in a brilliant speech in the Senate Clay espoused the name
Whig. Having explained the origin of the term in English and
colonial politics, he cried: "And what is the present but the
same contest in another form? The partizans of the present
Executive sustain his favor in the most boundless extent. The
Whigs are opposing executive encroachment and a most alarming
extension of executive power and prerogative. They are contending
for the rights of the people, for free institutions, for the
supremacy of the Constitution and the laws."
There soon appeared three practical issues which forced the new
alignment. The first was the Bank. The charter of the United
States Bank was about to expire, and its friends sought a
renewal. Jackson believed the Bank an enemy of the Republic, as
its officers were anti-Jacksonians, and he promptly vetoed the
bill extending the charter. The second issue was the tariff.
Protection was not new; but Clay adroitly renamed it, calling it
"the American system." It was popular in the manufacturing towns
and in portions of the agricultural communities, but was bitterly
opposed by the slave-owning States.
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