election of Jackson threw both his friends and his foes
into a fever of expectancy. There was enough of the Delphic
element in his utterances to give color to every story as to his
intentions; and rumor followed hot upon rumor through the
streets of Washington, out into the country presses, and back
again in new fantastic guise. The office-holding class and their
friends put on a bold face. Webster wrote in January, 1829, “Great efforts are making to put him up to a general sweep, as to all offices; springing from great doubt whether he is disposed to go it.” The inaugural did not cast Webster down; he wrote of it March 4, 1829, “What it says about reform in office may be either a prelude to a general change in office, or a mere sop to soothe the hunger, without satisfying it, of the thousand expectants for office who throng the city, and clamor all over the country. I expect some changes, but not a great many at present.”
This blindness of the administrative class, whose views
Webster voiced, is not without excuse. Impregnated with tradition, they felt themselves indispensable, and could not believe that the new president would attempt to run the government without them: it very often happens that a revolution surprises no one so much as its victims. Their sense of security was doubtless fostered by those letters of Jackson to Monroe which have been already cited; though if they could have interpreted these in
the light of an intimate knowledge of Jackson's character, they
would have realized that his lenity toward Federalists arose, not from a disregard of party lines, but from a conviction that the old alignment of parties should be replaced by a new one depending on personal allegiance to himself; that while he could not proscribe a man for being a Federalist or a Republican, he would do so for a failure to support the candidacy of Andrew Jackson. While this air of confidence was sufficiently widespread to deceive most historians who have treated of the period into a belief that the cataclysm of 1829 was wholly unexpected, assurance was not universal even among Jackson's opponents; and doubtless many hearts beat fearsomely when, on the Sunday before inauguration, Robert Little preached from the text, “When Christ drew near the city he wept over it.”
The supporters of Jackson were boastfully confident that
he would interpret reform as they desired. The Richmond
Enquirer, the most powerful newspaper of the South, prophesied
January 1, 1829, “A salutary reform will be attempted
under the coming Republican administration . . .; in perfecting
it friends will be preferred to opponents — coöperatives to
assailants.” On the same day it said: “Some have been pleased
to speak of reform in this case as synonymous with proscription. This is a designed perversion of the word. The National Journal is loquacious as a parrot in its denunciations of the anticipated ‘proscription.’ If that pensioned press can torture a salutary change in the administration of the general government, more or less applicable to all departments, and to official agents generally, into a proscription for opinion's sake, its powers are considerably greater than we or the public have hitherto given it credit for. As well may the people be charged with proscription for having removed an unfaithful executive and elected another. They began the work, they conferred the power to effect it.” The official organ of the new party at Washington was the Daily Telegraph, edited by General Duff
Green. Certainly no one who read its pages could plead
ignorance as to the intentions of the Jackson managers. As early
as November 2, 1828, it announced, “We know not what line
of policy General Jackson will adopt; we take it for granted, however, that he will reward his friends and punish his enemies.”