During these five administrations, at least two important extensions or assertions of executive power were made. In 1803 Jefferson bought Louisiana, doing, he said, "an act beyond the Constitution." He was a strict constructionist, and was deeply concerned at the variance between his constitutional principles and a desire for the material advantage of his country. In an effort to preserve his consistency he suggested to his Cabinet and political friends an amendment to the Constitution approving and confirming the cession of this territory, but they, deeming such an amendment entirely unnecessary, received his suggestion coldly. In the debate on the Louisiana treaty in the Senate and the House, all speakers of both parties agreed that "the United States government had the power to acquire new territory either by conquest or by treaty."[164] Louisiana, "without its consent and against its will," was annexed to the United States, and Jefferson "made himself monarch of the new territory, and wielded over it, against its protests, the powers of its old kings."[165] The assertion by the President in 1823 of the Monroe Doctrine (which Mr. Worthington C. Ford has shown to be the John Quincy Adams doctrine) is an important circumstance in the development of the executive power. President John Quincy Adams was succeeded by Andrew Jackson, a man of entirely different character from those who had preceded him in the office, and he represented different aims. Adams deserved another term. His sturdy Americanism, tempered by the cautiousness in procedure which was due to his rare training, made him an excellent public servant, and the country erred in not availing itself of his further service. The change from the _regime_ of the first six Presidents to that of Jackson was probably inevitable. A high-toned democracy, based on a qualified suffrage, believing in the value of training for public life and administrative office, setting a value on refinement and good manners, was in the end sure to give way to a pure democracy based on universal suffrage whenever it could find a leader to give it force and direction. Jackson was such a leader. His followers felt: "He is one of us. He is not proud and does not care for style."[166] The era of vulgarity in national politics was ushered in by Jackson, who as President introduced the custom of rewarding political workers with offices, an innovation entirely indefensible; he ought to have continued the practice of his six predecessors. The interaction between government and politics on the one hand and the life of the people on the other is persistent, and it may be doubted whether the United States would have seemed as it did to Dickens had not Jackson played such an important part in the vulgarization of politics. Yet it was a happy country, as the pages of Tocqueville bear witness.