is what America has never tried; and this odious foreign policy is what, as we are told, foreign states have never pursued.” But although the “American system” had nothing peculiarly American about it, the name was adroitly chosen and served its purpose. It proved a well-sounding cry which to many minds was as good as an argument.
Thus Clay had put his opinions on internal improvements, on the tariff, and on the foreign policy of the country, as conspicuously as possible before the people; his platform left nothing to desire as to completeness and precision. He was ready for the presidential campaign.
The “era of good feeling” under Monroe left the country without national parties; for when there is only one, there is practically none. The Federal party had disappeared as a national organization; it had only a local existence. There were differences of opinion on matters of public interest within the Republican party — about the tariff, for instance, and about internal improvements, which had some effect in the campaign, but which did not yet produce well-defined and lasting divisions. The violent and threatening excitement on slavery called forth by the Missouri trouble had come and gone like a thunderstorm. In the planting states the question was sometimes quietly asked, when a public man was discussed, whether he had been for or against “slavery restriction;” but in the rest of the country the antagonists of an hour had, after the compromise was passed, silently agreed to say
