Eighteen-forty was also a year of climax; it marked the
fruition of the so-called age of the common man. The organ-
ized ballyhoo of this election seemed to symbolize a stage
just reached in American political development. During the
twenties and thirties barriers to public control of the public
power had been broken down, bit by bit, when state after
state extended the franchise and placed the ballot in the
hands of the common man. As if to typify the shifting balance
in the scale of political power, Andrew Jackson had been
swept into office in 1828.

Conservatives and doubters had shuddered or sneered that
the rule of "KingMob" was at hand; Jackson, the gnarled
warrior, the simple hero of the masses, seemed invincible at
the polls. For eight stormy years he reigned at the White
House, and his personality permeated and shaped not only
his party but every major public issue. Then in 1837 he
retired, exhausted and enfeebled, to the Hermitage, but not
until he had ensconced his chosen successor, Martin Van
Buren, in the Presidency.

After twelve years under the omnipotent Jacksonians, the
Whig opposition arose and sought to beat the Democracy
at its own game. Into the next election the Whigs hurled
every resource which money could buy and ingenuity could
devise, desperately seeking to prove that theirs was truly
the party of the people. It was natural, therefore, that loftier
appeals to the voters' reasoning should make way for a pre-
pared effort to organize mass hysteria over more easily under-
stood, but inconsequential, campaign jargon. Discussion of
public finances and tariffs was replaced by song, hard cider,
and parades. Thus emerged the furor of 1840.

Carried away by such theatrics, it was all too easy for

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