The Origin of the Jackson Party Author:Homer Carey Hockett Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: causes of their alienation; but Lewis prevented such a catastrophe at this crisis.1 Lev/is also knew how to secure appropriate utterances at opportune moments... more », and how to make effective use of them. Many of the General's public letters and papers are undoubtedly the promptings of the clever manager, and often the v/ork of his pen. In 181o Jackson had corresponded with Monroe, advising him to abandon the policy of proscription of the Federalists which had been pursued since Jefferson's election in 1800. "Now is the time," he wrote, "to exterminate that monster called party spirit. By selecting characters most conspicuous for their probity, virtue, capacity, and firmness, without any regard to party, you v/ill go far to, if not entirely, eradicate those feelings which, on former occasions, threw so many obstacles in the way of government; and perhaps have the pleasure and honor to unite people heretofore politically divided. The chief magistrate of a great and powerful nation should never indulge in party feelings. His conduct should be liberal and disinterested, always bearing in mind that he acts for the whole and not a part of the community..." During the heat of the campaign a rumor got abroad that letters favoring the Federalists had been written by Jackson to President Monroe, and his opponents brought against him the charge of Federalism, hoping to weaken his support among the Democrats. Such was the prejudice still existing against the Federalists 1 Sargent, Public Men and Events, I, 61. '¿ Parten's Jackson, II, 357-370. that real injury seems to have ???? threatened to Jackson's prospects. 1 This state of affairs furnished a pretext for the publication of the Monroe correspondence, which Lewis promptly did. Puzzled by the origin of the rumor with regard to this cor...« less