and a most alarming extension of executive power and prerogative. They are contending for the rights of the people, for free institutions, for the supremacy of the Constitution and the laws.”
The name of “Whig” remained, but Clay did not succeed in fastening the name of “Tory” upon their adversaries. The Whig party was strengthened by the accession of men from the Democratic side who were alarmed at Jackson's proceedings and sought refuge among the opposition. Thus it received in its ranks a mixture of incongruous elements which were destined, in the course of events, to break out in distracting divergences of opinion. Moreover, the common opposition to Jackson had brought them into relations of alliance with Calhoun and his following of nullifiers. This was a source of great discomfort to Clay. On every possible occasion Calhoun pushed his nullification principles to the foreground, and began to taunt Clay with having been obliged to fall back upon the aid of the nullifiers to save protection. Clay treated Calhoun with great courtesy, but the companionship galled him. “The nullifiers are doing us no good,” he wrote to Brooke, in April, 1834. The alliance was felt on both sides to be an unnatural one that could not endure.
The anti-Jackson current in the local elections, which cheered the Whigs so much, did not last long. The business panic caused by the removal of the deposits was for a time genuine and serious enough. But, as people became aware that the
