But whatever the loss our country has been and is suffering from this cause, our popular philosophers welcome rather than deplore it.

We adapt our ideals of individuality to its local examples.

When orators of the Jacksonian Democratic tradition begin to glorify the superlative individuals developed by the freedom of American life, what they mean by individuality is an unusual amount of individual energy successfully spent in popular and remunerative occupations.

Of the individuality which may reside in the gallant and exclusive devotion to some disinterested, and perhaps unpopular moral, intellectual, or technical purpose, they have not the remotest conception; and yet it is this kind of individuality which is indispensable to the fullness and intensity of American national life.
III THE WHIG FAILURE The Jacksonian Democrats were not, of course, absolutely dominant during the Middle Period of American history.

They were persistently, and on a few occasions successfully, opposed by the Whigs.