Thus, from the very beginning of the Jackson régime, Tyler was suspicious, and ripe for the Opposition. In the spoils system he found a pretext for dissatisfaction, and he proceeded to develop this into a rather petty persecution. It would be a mistake to underrate the effect of his opposition. He was highly respected by his colleagues. His dignity, courtliness, urbanity, and ease gave him a certain social prestige. He was an interesting and likable companion, and his polished conversation had impelled an English novelist[218] to describe it as superior to that of any one he had met in America. His appearance was not against him. Tall and slender, of patrician mould, his Roman nose, firm mouth, broad and lofty brow, and honest blue eyes combined to give him a distinction that marked him in an assembly. He was not a mere professional politician of a type to be developed later in the Republic. His letters to his daughter[219] concerning her studies, on poetry, fiction, and history, denote a discriminating student and lover of literature. It was this occasional detachment from the political world which made it possible for him, during the famous debate on the Foot Resolution, to entertain himself in the Senate Chamber in the reading of Moore’s “Life of Byron.” We shall now observe him launch the White Terror against the Red. III Among the nominations, mostly for comparatively minor positions, sent to the Senate by Jackson were those of a “batch of editors.”[220] Strangely enough, this seems to have rather affronted the somewhat ponderous dignity of that body. So strongly did it then impress the Senate that it has made an ugly impression upon a number of historians. Even Schouler[221] is distressed to find so many mere “press writers” on the list. Whether the fact that they were mere editors was enough to make them “infamous characters,” we are left to conjecture. The secret of the strange antipathy to a class long conceded to be among the most influential of any nation is probably to be found in the fact that until this time the lawyers were conceded a monopoly in public station. There was a reason for Jackson’s change of policy, and it grew out of the organization of party and the democratization of government. Unlike his predecessors, he had not depended for support, nor did he expect to look exclusively for support to the professional politicians and the wealthy. As a candidate his appeal had been--for the first time in American history--to the people. As a President he proposed to look to the same quarter. With the people actually established as the ultimate power in the State, according to the theory of American institutions, he was not unmindful of the necessity of reaching the people with his case. He was the first President fully to appreciate the power of the press. He could see no reason why men capable of presenting and popularizing a policy or principle should be excluded from the privilege of helping put it in operation.