Mr.
Gallatin quickly discerned in the failure of the people to elect a president the collapse of the Republican party.

He considered it as "fairly defunct." Jackson had already announced the startling doctrine that no regard was to be had to party in the selection of the great officers of government, which Mr.Gallatin considered as tantamount to a declaration that principles and opinions were of no importance in its administration.

To lose sight of this principle was to substitute men for measures.
Jackson's idea of party, however, was personal fealty.

He engrafted the _pouvoir personnel_ on the Democratic party as thoroughly as Napoleon could have done in his place.

Moreover, Gallatin considered Jackson's assumption of power in his collisions with the judiciary at New Orleans and Pensacola, and his orders to take St.Augustine without the authority of Congress, as dangerous assaults upon the Constitution of the country and the liberties of the people, and he dreaded the substitution of the worship of a military chieftain for the maintenance of that liberty, the last hope of man.