Jackson and Clay were, in fact, the leaders of the two parties into which the old Republican party was now divided. Their rise to leadership meant that a new set of public men and a new set of questions had come to the front; it meant a more thoroughgoing experiment of democracy than had yet been tried in America. Adams's administration is properly considered to have been the last of one series and Jackson's the first of another. Under the earlier Presidents, national affairs were committed mainly to a few trained statesmen, the people simply approving or disapproving the men and the measures brought before them, but not of themselves putting forward candidates for the higher offices or in any wise initiating policies. The rule of the people was thus a passive sort of rule, a rule by consent. But with the wide prevalence of manhood suffrage, and the prominence of domestic questions,--of questions concerning the business and the daily life of the Republic,--and with the disappearance of the profound questions concerning the organization of the government and the nature of government in general, the people began to assert themselves. Under Jackson and his successors, they made themselves felt more and more at Washington; their opinions and sentiments, their likes and dislikes, their whims and prejudices, were projected into their government. Henceforth, public men were to be powerful not so much in proportion to their knowledge of statecraft as in proportion to their popularity. They must represent the popular will, or commend themselves and their policies to popular favor. The public men of the old order, like Adams, might be wise and faithful, but they lacked Clay's and Jackson's sympathetic understanding of the common people. And of the two new leaders Jackson had by far the stronger hold on the popular mind and heart. The people had sent him to Washington because he was of them and like them, and because they liked him. Both he and they felt that he was their President, and he held himself responsible to them only.