papers and stump speakers laid great stress on Adams's aristocratic
temperament, denounced his policies as President, and exploited the
"corrupt bargain" charge with all possible ingenuity.

On the other hand, the Adams-Clay forces dragged forth in long array
Jackson's quarrels, duels, and rough-and-tumble encounters to prove
that he was not fit to be President; they distributed handbills
decorated with coffins bearing the names of the candidate's victims;
they cited scores of actions, from the execution of mutinous
militiamen in the Creek War to the quarrel with Callava, to show his
arbitrary disposition; and they strove in a most malicious manner to
undermine his popularity by breaking down his personal reputation, and
even that of his wife and of his mother. It has been said that "the
reader of old newspaper files and pamphlet collections of the Adamsite
persuasion, in the absence of other knowledge, would gather that
Jackson was a usurper, an adulterer, a gambler, a cock-fighter, a
brawler, a drunkard, and withal a murderer of the most cruel and
blood-thirsty description." Issues--tariff, internal improvements,
foreign policy, slavery--receded into the background; the campaign
became for all practical purposes a personal contest between the
Tennessee soldier and the two statesmen whom he accused of bargain and
corruption. "Hurrah for Jackson!" was the beginning and end of the
creed of the masses bent on the Tenneseean's election.

Jackson never wearied of saying that he was "no politician." He was,
none the less, one of the most forceful and successful politicians
that the country has known. He was fortunate in being able to
personify a cause which was grounded deeply in the feelings and
opinions of the people, and also in being able to command the services
of a large group of tireless and skillful national and local managers.