ABSTRACT
During the month before William Alexander Caruthers agreed to allow Charles Yancey to publish Knights of the Horse-Shoe, the Old Hero, Andrew Jackson, died at his Tennessee plantation. He had lived there as an elder statesman and gentleman farmer since leaving office in 1837, but he had remained a national presence so long as his hand-picked successor, Van Buren, remained on the national scene. George Balcombe and Alexander Spotswood are developed in some detail, but both seemed, at least to some readers, too good to be believed. The Proprietary in Rob of the Bowl is more sketchily developed, and he is never referred to by name. That is, he must give up personal identity to be the ruler-father. The ruler-father, like Balcombe and Spotswood, would have to recognize and coordinate the interests of his subordinates, but his efforts in this regard would fail if the subordinates could not recognize that they had reconcilable interests.
