Political Virtue in the Age of Jackson
The neoclassical ideal of the lawmaker formulated by the Founding Fathers was the "virtuous republican" whose hallmark was his active and exclusive concern for the public good and the general welfare. He was expected to display the detached and disinterested judgment of the statesman, to behave with integrity and independence, and publicly to debate issues purely on their merits. This ideal was instrumental in determining the earliest national image of the republic and its leaders. As a strong party system developed in the second quarter of the nineteenth century, however, legislators learned that in order to stay in politics they had to act like party men. They began to see the principled party as an instrument of service to the nation and to make a virtue of the sacrifices party loyalty entailed.' Consequently, the idea of the nonpartisan as the bearer of republican virtue had to be changed; armed with new political values, rhetoric, and weaponry, the "virtuous republican" was transformed into a political partisan, the "democratic soldier."2