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they caused crowds of normally reserved

people to weep and shout and

generally lose their decorum. “Nothing

gives me more pain and distress than to

see a minister standing almost motionless,

coldly plodding on as a mathematician

would calculate the distance of

the Moon from the Earth,” complained

a religious newspaper in 1837.

As this disdain suggests, early Americans

revered action and were suspicious

of intellect, associating the life of

the mind with the languid, ineffectual

European aristocracy they had left behind.

The 1828 presidential campaign

pitted a former Harvard professor, John

Quincy Adams, against Andrew Jackson,

a forceful military hero. A Jackson

campaign slogan tellingly distinguished

the two: “John Quincy Adams who can

write / And Andrew Jackson who can

fight.”

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