important questions of economic development, describing their competition as a "clash of democracy with capitalism". Whigs held that the government had a duty to promote economic prosperity for the people, especially during economic downturns. The Whigs further believed that individual regions of the country lacked the capital necessary for economic growth, and thus the federal government should subsidize large infrastructure projects and promote policies to facilitate the operations of banks and corporations. Democrats, by contrast, argued that government action would inevitably favor the privileged few; thus, Democrats held that government should intervene in the economy as little as possible, especially at the federal level. Gregory Bowen notes that the two parties were polar opposite and highly ideological: "At the heart of Democratic ideology was a militant egalitarianism which contrasted sharply with the Whigs' support for equality of opportunity to produce a meritocratic society." Democrats glorified individualism while Whigs said it was a dangerous impulse that must be subordinated to the greater good of an organic society; they called for individuals to restrain themselves and focus on doing their duty. Howe characterizes the Whigs' anti-individualism as an "Aristotlean" desire to perfect human nature by subordinating animal impulses to reason and self-control. Historian John Burt expands on Howe's argument, noting that Whigs "saw unmediated expressions of popular will in roughly the same way as they saw unmediated compulsions of appetite...[a]s a person driven by appetites is not free but the slave of the body, so a polity driven by popular will is not free but the slave of whatever urgencies drive King Numbers". The Whigs opposed President Jackson because they saw him as a demagogue recklessly exploiting the will of the majority, and they supported a strong Congress as a means of restraining that will within the bounds of a stable, constitutional framework. Despite their differences, both parties sought to portray themselves as the true protectors of an American political tradition of equality and self-government. Though their Democratic rivals cast them as a continuation of the Federalists, the Whig Party's ideology was rooted in the agenda proposed by Clay and other nationalist Democratic-Republican Party leaders in the aftermath of the War of 1812. Many of these nationalist ideas were influenced by the economic program of Federalist leader Alexander Hamilton, but after the War of 1812 they were also supported by President James Madison, one of the founders of the Democratic-Republican Party. Unlike