Social enjoyments,
therefore, were pursued under difficulties; and the city, although
improving, was dreary enough.
Society, too, was in a bad condition. The old forms and ceremonies of the
men of 1789 and the manners and breeding of our earliest generation of
statesmen had passed away, and the new democracy had not as yet a system of
its own. It was a period of transition. The old customs had gone, the new
ones had not crystallized. The civilization was crude and raw, and in
Washington had no background whatever,--such as was to be found in the old
cities and towns of the original thirteen States. The tone of the men in
public life had deteriorated and was growing worse, approaching rapidly its
lowest point, which it reached during the Polk administration. This was due
partly to the Jacksonian democracy, which had rejected training and
education as necessary to statesmanship, and had loudly proclaimed the
great truths of rotation in office, and the spoils to the victors, and
partly to the slavery agitation which was then beginning to make itself
felt.
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