Finally, both of the powerful political parties were under the domination of wealth; not, to be sure, openly so, but insidiously. Differences of issue there assuredly were, but these issues did not in any way affect the basic structure of society, or threaten the overthrow of any of the fundamental privileges held by the rich. The political campaigns, except that later contest which decided the eventual fate of chattel slavery, were, in actuality, sham battles. Never were the masses so enthusiastic since the campaign of 1800 when Jefferson was elected, as they were in 1832 when they sided with President Jackson in his fight against the United States Bank. They considered this contest as one between the people, on the one side, and, on the other, the monied aristocracy of the country. The United States Bank was effaced; but the State banks promptly took over that share of the exploitative process so long carried on by the United States Bank and the people, as has already been explained, were no better off than they were before. One set of ruling capitalists had been put down only to make way for another. Both parties received the greater part of their campaign funds from the men of large property and from the vested corporations or other similar interests. Astor, for example, was always a liberal contributor, now to the Whig party and again to the Democratic. In return, the politicians elected by those parties to the legislature, the courts or to administrative offices usually considered themselves under obligations to that element which financed its campaigns and which had the power of defeating their reelection by the refusal of funds or by supporting the opposite party. The masses of the people were simply pawns in these political contests, yet few of them understood that all the excitement, partisan activity and enthusiasm into which they threw themselves, generally had no other significance than to enchain them still faster to a system whose beneficiaries were continuously getting more and more rights and privileges for themselves at the expense of the people, and whose wealth was consequently increasing by precipitate bounds. ASTOR BECOMES AMERICA'S RICHEST MAN. Astor was now the richest man in America. In 1847 his fortune was estimated at fully $20,000,000. In all the length and breadth of the United States there was no man whose fortune was within even approachable distance of his. With wonderment his contemporaries regarded its magnitude. How great it ranked at that period may be seen by a contrast with the wealth of other men who were considered very rich.