The Democratic and Whig parties conceived individualism to be very different. The Democrats were still torn between what they felt and what society felt, where as the Whigs were very secure in their internal feelings. "The Whigs were comfortable with rational, self-interested human relations (Kohl 63)." "Most Jacksonians (Democrats) found that they could adapt their behaviors more easily than their feelings (Kohl 21)."
The Jacksonian Democrats way of thinking was vastly different than the thinking of the Whigs. "While, as an individual, he (JD) still relied heavily on the secure relations of a personal world, his society increasingly bestowed its benefits on those who were more comfortable with an ethic of individualism (Kohl 21)." "Democrats were often induced to take up the new ways, but the political policies they enacted and the language they used to describe them reveal an anxiety born of inner conflict (Kohl 21)."
Many Jacksonians felt that the world was treating them unfair
"The Jacksonian was prone to the belief that he was always investing more in the world than he was deriving form it (Kohl 21-22)" "If he progressed, it was despite obstacles which had been thrown in his way (Kohl 22)." "If he did well he should have done better (Kohl 22)." "Some reward was always withheld from him (Kohl 22)." "Any progress he made was individual and solitary; associations and institutions tended to retard, not facilitate his purposes (Kohl 22)."
"Whigs had an intense desire for order, both in themselves and in society at large (Kohl 63)." "Freed from the communal constraints of traditional society and solely responsible for their won well-being, these were men intent on bringing order to their lives (Kohl 63)." "They saw both individual and collective progress as dependent on the willingness of Americans to exercise self-control (Kohl 63)." "They championed those institutions devoted to inculcation this virtue in the young and those remedial institutions respons
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