Today, presidential candidates appealing to the masses via public rallies and even social media is expected, but as you’re probably aware that wasn’t always the case.
In Andrew Jackson & The Bank War (1967), Robert Remini states:
Although attendance at public rallies by presidential candidates was frowned upon at this time, Jackson occasionally showed up at party gatherings to wave to the folks while he was returning home or traveling to Washington. Whenever he made such appearances, opposition newspapers immediately pounced on him. A report that he had stopped off on his way through Lexington, KY, to attend a barbecue brought a prompt rebuke from the Washington National Intelligencer. “This is certainly a new mode of electioneering,” scolded the editor. “We do not recollect before to have heard of a President of the United States descending in person into the political arena.
More context from Jon Meacham's American Lion (2008):
AS SEPTEMBER GAVE way to October, Jackson set out from the Hermitage for Washington on what amounted to the first major personal presidential campaign tour. The 1832 contest featured much that was to become commonplace in American politics: national nominating conventions, intense tactical organization, considered use of the incumbent's time and energies in appearances before the public, and an interesting but unsuccessful third-party bid. Though not all of this began with Jackson and his men, much of it did, particularly the shaping of the candidate's image and the marshaling of his personal charisma.
...
It was a personal measure, but because it was Jackson’s, it was now a public measure. His view of the presidency was that he was in the White House to fight the people’s battles as best he could. Earlier presidents tended to limit their appeals to the broader public (in part because the voting population was much smaller prior to 1828). Jackson was committed to the idea that if left to their own devices, the elite would serve their own interests at the expense of the interests of the many.
Neither go into much detail about why or how public presidential campaign tours were looked down upon so I came here. Why/How were they frowned upon before the election of 1832?
Great sources! Remini is typically my go-to on Andrew Jackson.
In order to understand why a candidate publicly campaigning was frowned upon, one needs to examine the dynamics of politics and civil service (as well as that of family structures and localities) in the colonies and immediately after the Revolution.
The best starting point would be to address part of your selected quotes: Earlier presidents tended to limit their appeals to the broader public (in part because the voting population was much smaller prior to 1828). Yes, the voting population was smaller prior to 1828, but why?
Robert Remini's The Revolutionary Age of Andrew Jackson delves into this query. During the time of the original 13 colonies, and after the Revolution, Jackson and his followers subscribed to the notion that there should be an "equality of opportunity."^(1) Prior to the election and campaign of 1828, Jackson (and others) noticed the "artificial distinctions" which placed some at higher advantage than others, including the right to vote. During the colonial era, a white man was eligible to vote if he possessed one hundred dollars worth of land; Remini notes that by the time of the 1828 election this practice had been gradually done away with through the individual state constitutions of newly formed states. Another equality of opportunity those contemporaneous with Jackson wanted was that of economic opportunity, specifically reducing monopolies and offering a more competitive process when contracts were awarded. Increased enfranchisement meant a step toward "popular election of presidential electors."^(2) More succinctly, an increase in voters allowed more diverse candidates to be elected, those such as Jackson.
So by the time of 1828, there is a seemingly collective call for more diverse candidates through the power of the increased voting masses, thereby reducing familial dynasties within seats of power. Again, why was this necessary? During the American Revolution, the Constitutional Convention, and the early years of the American Republic, those in political positions practiced what Gordon S. Wood describes as political disinterestedness, meaning that those who serve the public should remain seemingly unambitious to the public/on the surface. To be publicly ambitious reminded the Revolutionaries, and colonists who supported the Revolution, of the tyrannical ambition/desire for power of the British monarchy they (the Revolutionaries) fought to eschew. Therefore pandering to the public would damage reputations, so peers would nominate each other for positions of power; however, once an offer had been made, the nominee typically had to initially turn down or at the very least appear to struggle in accepting said offer as to avoid appearing ambitious (Wood mentions further in the reading that Washington struggled to accept his nomination for President).^(3) Also during this time, a change in the type of paternalism practiced contributed to this distant, impartial, unambitious pillar of power who would arguably work best for the betterment of society as a whole. A key question here is how did the generation who would fight for the American Revolution reach this distinct leadership style?
Once more Wood provides insight into the shifting dynamics between the generation who would be remembered as American Revolutionaries and that of their parent's generation (and previous generations of the 18th century). The generation of the parents of the Revolutionaries more actively pursued ambitious endeavors/allowed their ambition to show. “And so it had always been through the ages and was still for many in the eighteenth century: only the ambitions and actions of the great, of the high-ranking, of kings and generals, of aristocrats and gentlemen, counted in the direction and movement of events.”^(4) Of course this blatant show of ambition (I hate the repetition...but alas) rankled the Revolutionaries as they grew of age and discussed the direction the newly formed country would take regarding those in positions of power. Of note, Wood also mentions that the generation in power before the Revolutionaries/Founding Fathers slightly pandered, or condescended with lower classes. “Gentlemen mingled affably with their inferiors at sporting events and other popular entertainments and rubbed shoulders in taverns and streets more easily than would be the case a half century later. Only a hierarchical society that knew its distinctions well could have placed so much value on a gentleman’s capacity for condescension—that voluntary humiliation, that willing descent from superiority to equal terms with inferiors.”^(5) And Wood also notes the reaction of those of later generations: “By the early nineteenth century men looked back puzzled by the “unsophisticated” and “illiberal” “semi-barbarism” of their eighteenth –century childhood.”^(6) These selected quotes allow one to realize that despite the fact that those in power prior to the Revolutionaries, still maintained fairly firm class boundaries, the fact that they willingly rubbed shoulders with lower classes seemed to blur those class distinctions as well from the perspective of their sons who would become the generation of the Founding Fathers.
^(1)Robert V. Remini, The Revolutionary Age of Andrew Jackson, (New York: Harper & Row, 1976), 5.
^(2)Ibid,15.
^(3)Gordon S. Wood, The Radicalism of the American Revolution, (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1992), 191.
^(4)Ibid, 28.
^(5)Ibid, 41.
^(6)Ibid, 42.
Another great source to view is Joseph Ellis' The Quartet: Orchestrating the Second American Revolution.