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"This is the first Administration," said John Randolph, speaking on the resolution, "that has openly run the principle of patronage against that of patriotism; that has unblushingly avowed, aye, and executed its purposes of buying us up with our own money. Sir, there is honor among thieves shall it be wanting among the chief captains of our Administration? Let Judas have his thirty pieces of silver, whatever disposition he may choose to make of them hereafter-whether they go to buy a Potter's field in which to inter this miserable Constitution of ours, crucified between two gentlemen suffering for conscience' sake under the burden of the two first offices of this Government, or whether he shall do that justice to himself which the finisher of the law is not, as yet, permitted to do for him, is quite immaterial." A little later in the same speech Randolph declared that he was "defeated, horse, foot, and dragoons-cut up, and clean broke down by the coalition of Blifil and Black George-by the combination, unheard of till then, of the Puritan with the Blackleg."

This was too much for Clay. A challenge followed; the two met, exchanged shots, shook hands, and, with honor quite satisfied, went back unharmed to their posts at Washington, while Randolph's words describing "the coalition of Blifil and Black George, the combination of the Puritan and the Blackleg," swept over the country.

During the debate on a resolution that the Constitution. ought to be so amended as to prevent the choice of President devolving on the House and of Vice-President on the Senate, a representative from South Carolina spoke more plainly still. "I assert it as a fact," said he, " that the present Chief Magistrate was elevated to the presidency against the known and undoubted will of a clear constitutional majority of the people of this Union. If the present Secretary of State had not persevered against all hope, and thereby distracted the vote of the Western States, General Jackson would certainly have received the electoral vote of Kentucky, Ohio,

* Mr. McDuffie, of South Carolina, February 15, 1826; Register of Debates in Congress, vol. ii, part ii, 1825-1826, pp. 1955-1958.

1826.

THE CHARGE IN THE HOUSE.

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and Missouri, which, added to those actually received, would have swelled his number to one hundred and thirty-two-one more than a majority of the whole. In the first place, then, I say, in round terms, that Mr. Clay made the President, in opposition to the will of a decided majority of the State he represented and of the whole Union. He represented a State where an overwhelming majority of the people were in favor of General Jackson and opposed to Mr. Adams, and where the obligation of the representative to conform to the will of his constituents is regarded as a fundamental article of the true political creed. Yet, in direct opposition to the will of his constituents, of his State, and of the United States, he threw the whole weight of his influence in favor of a candidate whom he had habitually professed to despise as a man and detest as a politician. It is but too obvious, then, that Mr. Clay sacrificed his political animosities and his political principles, his duty to himself and his duty to his country, at the unhallowed shrine of ambition. Am I asked for proof? Hear it! He gives the vote of his own State in opposition to his own principles, against the will of the people of that State, and thereby makes the President; and then has the frontless, shameless audacity to set public opinion at defiance by instantly and openly receiving, as the reward of his treachery to the people, the highest office the President can confer upon him!"

The cry of bargain and corruption fabricated by Kremer, sanctioned by Jackson, and affirmed by senators and representatives in the halls of Congress, was next indorsed by political meetings under the guidance of party managers. In June the friends of General Jackson in Philadelphia declared that there was just cause to believe that the will of the American people was not treated by the present public agents with the profound acquiescence to which, in the spirit of American institutions, it was entitled; that efforts had been made and were making to defeat, intimidate, and suppress it by combinations as corrupt as they were disastrous; that they disapproved and condemned "the origin, character, and proceedings of the existing Administration"; and that they regarded the election of Jackson as essential to

the revival of republican principles.* As yet, however, the people gave little heed to the outcry of the politicians. The election over, they accepted the result without question and without suspicion. They were too busy gathering their crops, selling their wares and merchandise, and enjoying the fruits of prosperity to believe that the charge of bargain and corruption was seriously made. Even the toasts to which the revellers drank on Independence Day show no widespread animosity toward Adams and Clay.

Many events have made that particular Fourth of July a memorable one in our annals, for it was the fiftieth anniversary of the adoption by the Continental Congress of the document we know as the Declaration of Independence, and it was the day on which, within a few hours of each other, died Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, the man who wrote the declaration and the man who, more than any other, persuaded a hesitating Congress to approve it. Each had been a member of the committee that drafted the declaration; each had signed it when approved; each had served his country on a foreign mission; each had been raised by his countrymen first to the vice-presidency and then to the presidency; each had become the leader of a party; and that each should pass away on the same day was, in the language of the time, a 66 singular coincidence." But that the day should be the fiftieth anniversary of that event in which each had borne so conspicuous a part was a triple occurrence without parallel in our history.

As the autumn of 1826 drew to a close the indifference of the people to the coming struggle for the presidency began to wear away. The agitation of the politicians was taking effect, and at meeting after meeting the candidacy of Jackson was heartily indorsed. With the new year came new charges against the Administration, new journals to aid in spreading them, and a searching of the opinions of every public man that he might be forced to side with the one candidate or the other.

First came a letter written by a member of Congress who

Niles's Weekly Register, June 8, 1826, vol. xxx, p. 285.

1826.

THE EAST ROOM.

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pretended to have visited the White House on New Year's Day, and to have been greatly shocked at what he saw. He went, he said, to see the East Room, to furnish which twentyfive thousand dollars had been voted at the last session of Congress. "It was," said he, "truly a gorgeous sight to behold, but had too much the look of regal magnificence to be perfectly agreeable to my old republican feelings." The statement was wholly false. No attempt at decoration had been made, not a cent of the money had been drawn from the Treasury, and, save a few old chairs and a settee or two, the room was without furniture of any sort. Nevertheless, the story went the rounds of the press; convinced many a country voter that Adams was living in regal splendor, in undemocratic luxury; became serious enough to call forth a flat denial in the House of Representatives, and an explanation from the writer. He was not present himself, but had been informed by one who was, and who probably mistook some other gorgeously furnished apartment for the East Room in question. But campaign material, not truth, was wanted, and the denial and retraction went for naught.

Quite of a piece with this was the story of the billiard table and the chessmen. The committee on public buildings at the last session of Congress found it necessary to obtain an inventory of the furniture in the President's house bought with money previously appropriated, obtained the schedule from the private secretary, and, without examination, attached it to their report, which the House ordered printed. Most of the items were useless for campaign purposes, but among them were two which gave new proof of the extravagant and aristocratic tastes of John Quincy Adams. There was a billiard table, with cues and balls, valued at sixty-one dollars, and a set of chessmen said to have cost twenty-three dollars and a half. There are items in the account rendered," said a Georgia member while the report was under discussion, "which I wish had been kept in the dark and never brought to light." "Is it possible, Mr. Chairman,' exclaimed another, " to believe that it ever was intended by Congress that the public money should be applied to the purchase of gaming tables and gambling furniture? And if it is

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right to purchase billiard tables and chessmen, why not, also, faro banks, playing cards, race horses, and every other article necessary to complete a system of gambling at the President's palace, and let it be understood by the people that this is a most splendid gambling Administration? Such conduct in the Chief Magistrate of this nation is enough to shock and alarm the religious, the moral, and the reflecting part of the community.' There was, however, no occasion for any one to be shocked, for the billiard table had not been purchased. Indeed, no sooner did Adams see the printed report than he informed the chairman of the committee that the Secretary was mistaken, that the inventory was wrong, and that no part of the appropriation had or ever would be applied to the purchase of the chessmen or the table. But no member of the committee troubled himself to enter a denial, and the charge went out to the public, to be dragged forth a year later as good material for the campaign.

Meantime, Jackson had twice reiterated the bargain and corruption charge. In declining an invitation to come to Kentucky to "counteract the intrigue and management of certain prominent individuals against him" he took occasion to say that when he "reflected on the management and intrigue which are operating abroad, the magnitude of the principles which they are endeavoring to supplant, and the many means which they can draw to their assistance from the patronage of the Government " he felt it "due to himself" and "to the American people to steer clear of every conduct" which might give color to the belief that he was seeking his own aggrandizement. "If it be true," said he, "that the Administration have gone into power contrary to the voice of the nation and are now expecting, by means of this power thus acquired, to mould the public will into an acquiescence with their authority, then is the issue fairly made out Shall the Government or the people rule?" +

That the Administration had gone into power by such

* Register of Debates in Congress, 1825-1826, vol. ii, part ii, pp. 2655, 2656. The explanation of the chairman is in Niles's Weekly Register, April 26, 1827, vol. xxxii, pp. 149, 150.

Niles's Weekly Register, October 14, 1826, vol. xxxi, p. 103.

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