Their crusade against the "Money Power" meant that in their opinion money must not become a power in a democratic state.

They had no objection, of course, to certain inequalities in the distribution of wealth; but they fiercely resented the idea that such inequalities should give a group of men any special advantages which were inaccessible to their fellow-countrymen.
The full meaning of their complaint against the Bank was left vague and ambiguous, because the Bank itself possessed special legal privileges; and the inference was that when these privileges were withdrawn, the "Money Power" would disappear with them.

The Western Democrat devoutly believed that an approximately equal division of the good things of life would result from the possession by all American citizens of equal legal rights and similar economic opportunities.

But the importance of this result in their whole point of view was concealed by the fact that they expected to reach it by wholly negative means--that is, by leaving the individual alone.

The substantially equal distribution of wealth, which was characteristic of the American society of their own day, was far more fundamental in their system of political and social ideas than was the machinery of liberty whereby it was to be secured.