A Peculiar Virtue

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>From "Bryan, Thou Shouldst Be Living," which appeared in the September 1931
issue of Harper's Magazine. By Gerald W. (Gerald White) Johnson - partially
reprinted in the January 2017 issue with the title "A Peculiar Virtue",
offering, maybe some hope.

"Only once have we elected a really ignorant man to the Presidency. Andrew
Jackson was almost completely innocent of book-learning when he came to the
White House. Furthermore, he was the most violent of all the Presidents and
the least inclined to submit his prejudices to intellectual analysis.

Nevertheless, the fact remains that it was while this unmistakable
nonintellectual reigned in the Executive Mansion that our political life
attained and maintained a brilliance it had not reached before, and has not
approached since. It was Jackson's peculiar virtue that he could heat the
opposition to such a point that it burst into incandescence.

One has only to call the roll of the names of the men who opposed him to
realize something of the brilliance of that period - John Quincy Adams,
Daniel Webster, Henry Clay, John C. Calhoun, John Randolph of Roanoke, John
Tyler, Rufus Choate, Edward Everett. It would be preposterous to insinuate
that Jackson dowered these men with any part of their ability; but it is
only sober truth to assert that in the enterprise of saving the country - as
they saw it - from Jackson, they attained heights which they might never
have reached except under the sting of a sharp and roweling spur.

Even to hold his own, much less to make headway, against such a force as
Andrew Jackson a man had to be good. It may be true that Jackson thought
little; but in order to stand up against him at all other men had to think
furiously; and in the course of their efforts to cope with him they
developed every latent power within them. The sudden efflorescence of genius
in Congress at this period was not altogether an accident. Under the
grueling discipline to which members were subjected, it is entirely
reasonable to believe that not a few mediocre men grew strong, and that
strong men grew great.

..."

Michel.

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