During the years that Democrats ran against Whigs, both parties incorporated both Jacksonian populism—the endless appeals to “the people”—and the spirit of evangelical reform (campaign rallies borrowed their style and zeal from revival meetings). Walt Whitman complained about “the neverending audacity of elected persons,” damning men in politics as members of the establishment, no matter their appeals to the people. But those appeals were hardly meaningless: undeniably, the nature of American democracy had changed. Not only were more men able to vote, but more men did vote: voter turnout rose
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