Naturally, in 1828 the _Post_ supported Jackson against J. Q. Adams for the Presidency, Bryant adding new reasons to those Coleman had used against Adams four years earlier. He represented the section that clamored for protection, while Jackson was for a lower tariff. Under the urgings of Senator Rufus King a decade before, the _Post_ had said hard things about Jackson, but now it praised him for his long public service, for his Roman strength of will, and for his clearsighted political tenets. When he became President, it supported his Indian policy; it urged him on, as we shall see later, in his determination to crush the United States Bank. The tariff act of 1832, carrying a moderate reduction of duties, it naturally applauded. It was a compromise bill, Bryant admitted. “Yet a large majority of the friends of free trade are satisfied with it, because although not what they would have it, it is still a positive good, it simplifies the collection of the revenue, it removes many of the embarrassments in the way of the fair trader, it diminishes the temptation to smuggling, and it is an approach, if nothing more, to a fair and equal system of duties.” While giving the _Evening Post_ a clear-cut, courageous tariff policy, Bryant did much else with the editorial page. Early in 1827 he came out with a far more ringing denunciation of lotteries than it had before printed, and in August he induced it to announce that it would accept no more advertisements relating directly or indirectly to tickets in them. During the same year, following a number of business failures in the city, he wrote in advocacy of a comprehensive national bankruptcy act, such as was not passed till near the end of the century. To his surprise, merchants frowned on the proposal, and the _Evening Post_ was left, in his expressive words, “like a public actor who believes he has just said something highly to the purpose, and looks around for applause, but meets only hisses.” Later, in 1837, Van Buren formally recommended a general bankruptcy law to Congress, but again it met with no favor. A number of steamboat accidents caused the journal to press for legislation punishing criminal carelessness and manslaughter by fitting penitentiary sentences. It took up with zeal, following Jackson’s inaugural message, the Administration’s campaign against the policy of national aid to internal improvements, for Bryant regarded such gifts to special local and political interests as an evil almost as great as protective tariff.