Only in two cases did the party system seem to lose its grip, was it thrown off its base by the inception of a new party from without--in the elections of Jackson and of Lincoln. Jackson came in as the representative of a new democratic West which had no tradition of suffrage qualifications, and Lincoln as a minority candidate in a time of factional and sectional strife. But the discomfiture of the party politicians was short. The party system proved perfectly capable of assimilating both of these new movements. Jackson’s insurrection was soon captured by the old machinery and fed the slavocracy, and Lincoln’s party became the property of the new bonanza capitalism. Neither Jackson or Lincoln made the slightest deflection in the triumphal march of the party system. In practically no other contests has the electorate had for all practical purposes a choice except between two candidates, identical as far as their political rôle would be as representatives of the significant classes in the State. Campaigns such as Bryan’s, where one of the parties is captured by an element which seeks a real transference of power from the significant to the less significant classes, split the party, and sporadic third party attacks merely throw the scale one way or the other between the big parties, or, if threatening enough, produce a virtual coalition against them. To most of the Americans of the classes which consider themselves significant the war brought a sense of the sanctity of the State, which, if they had had time to think about it, would have seemed a sudden and surprising alteration in their habits of thought. In times of peace, we usually ignore the State in favor of partisan political controversies, or personal struggles for office, or the pursuit of party policies. It is the Government rather than the State with which the politically-minded are concerned. The State is reduced to a shadowy emblem which comes to consciousness only on occasions of patriotic holiday.