last presidential election, or to the friends of either of them, for the purpose of influencing the result of the election, or for any other purpose." Mr. Buchanan himself then made a statement that it had "never once entered my head that he [General Jackson] believed me to be the agent of Mr. Clay or of his friends, or that I had intended to propose to him terms of any kind from them." One might suppose that this should have been conclusive. Even so thorough-going an admirer of Jackson as James Parton admits that "no charge was ever more plausible or more groundless . . . none was ever more completely refuted." Yet Jackson persisted in it to the end, and took pains, in 1844, only a year before his death, to deny that he had "recanted" it, and to affirm that his opinion "had undergone no change."

There is no need to rely on negative testimony to prove Mr. Clay's innocence; for almost immediately after the meetings of the electors he had announced to Senator Thomas H. Benton his intention to support Mr. Adams. Mr. Benton records, in his "Thirty Years' View," the fact that Mr. Clay made to him a communication of this intention before the 15th of December, 1824, which, Mr. Benton believes, was "probably before Mr. Adams knew it himself." It is a pity that Mr. Benton did not make public the evidence in his possession until November, 1827, when all possible harm to Mr. Clay's reputation which the false accusation could do had long been done. Of course the purpose of keeping the scandal alive was the defeat of Mr. Adams, who could not be innocent if Mr. Clay had been guilty of the corrupt bargain. It is only because of its bearing on the ensuing election, and because the accusation, if true, would have been an indelible stain upon the character of one of our Presidents, that so much attention has been given to it in these pages.

The electoral votes were counted on the 9th of February, 1825. The result as announced is given on page 140.

The President of the Senate, Mr. Gaillard, then declared that no person had received a majority of the votes given for President of the United States; that Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams, and William H. Crawford were the three persons who had received the highest number of votes, and that the remaining duties in the choice of a President now devolved upon the House of Representatives; and that John C. Calhoun was duly elected Vice-President.

Total

99 84 41 37 182 30 24 13 9 2

The Senate having retired, the House immediately proIceeded to elect a President. A roll-call showed that every member of the House except Mr. Garnett, of Virginia, who was sick at his lodgings in Washington, was present. Mr. Webster, of Massachusetts, and Mr. Randolph, of Virginia, were appointed tellers. The House conducted the election according to the rules already adopted, and on the first ballot John Quincy Adams was chosen. The votes of thirteen States were given to him, those of seven to Jackson, and of four to Crawford. The Speaker declared Mr. Adams elected, and notice of the result was sent to the Senate. The votes of

the States are shown by the following table, which indicates both the divisions within the delegations and the person for whom the vote of each State was given.

The inauguration of Mr. Adams took place in the Representatives' Hall. A military escort accompanied the retiring. President and the President-elect to the Capitol, where all the departments of the government and representatives of foreign powers had assembled. Mr. Adams, as all of his predecessors had been on a similar occasion, was arrayed in a full suit of plain cloth of American manufacture. Mr. Adams rose and read his inaugural address in a firm voice, after which the oath was administered to him by the venerable Chief Justice Marshall. Among the first to take the hand of Mr. Adams, after the ceremony, was Senator Andrew Jackson.

XII

JACKSON'S TRIUMPH

MR. ADAMS was foredoomed to defeat in 1828, - from the day of his inauguration. His political enemies were the most astute managers the country had produced. They had the chagrin of a failure to wipe out and avenge. They had a candidate ready for the canvass for whom it was easy to arouse popular enthusiasm. On the other hand, Mr. Adams, while supported by faithful and trusty statesmen, was surrounded also by officers whom he retained in the places to which they had been appointed by his predecessor, although he was fully aware of their treachery toward himself. Senators came to him to assure him that they were friendly to his administration, and then went to the Capitol and voted with the opposition, and assisted in passing some of the most malignantly insulting resolutions ever spread upon the records of the Senate. One member of the President's official family, the PostmasterGeneral, not then admitted to the cabinet, used the patronage of his office, during the whole of the four years' term, to the injury of the administration. More than once the members of the cabinet united in an earnest request to Mr. Adams to remove him; but he refused. The President would not, even when another man would have been goaded by desperation to turn upon his perfidious office-holders, remove any man because that man was not his personal supporter. There are numerous entries in his diary showing his steady adherence to a policy which is most completely set forth in this passage: "I see yet no reason sufficient to justify a departure from the principle with which I entered upon the administration, of removing no public officer for merely preferring another candidate for the presidency."

Another fact which would alone have been fatal to Mr. Adams's hopes of reëlection, if he had entertained such hopes, was his lack of the personal qualities that attract popular support. At best he had been, in 1824, but the candidate of a

minority. To ensure success at the next election it would have been necessary to find new friends among those who had been rather the adherents of other candidates than direct opponents of himself. He was not the man to conciliate. He was made of too stern and uncompromising stuff. He would stoop to none of the arts of the politician, not even to measures which in these days of undoubtedly greater political virtue are deemed innocent and harmless. He was too good for this wicked world, not too wise, not too tactful, not too tolerant. He was nevertheless wise enough to be aware that he had little or no chance of reëlection. His diary during 1828 abounds in comments upon the hopeful assurances of his visitors, stating in plain language that he was not deceived by them. He remarks upon Mr. Rush's preference for the mission to England to the chance of being elected Vice-President on the ticket with himself: "I can easily conjecture what it is the preference of the harbor to the tempest." Again, when he is communing with himself upon the appointment of Governor Barbour to the same place he says, May 1, 1828, "In my own political downfall I am bound to involve unnecessarily none of my friends." He thinks the effect of the appointment upon the administration will be bad," violent, and probably decisive. But why should I require men to sacrifice themselves for me?"

The political questions that arose during Mr. Adams's administration were by no means of such importance as to justify the formation of parties where none existed before. It is impossible to comprehend how men who, at the outset, had no complaint against Mr. Adams save that he had been successful over their own candidate, could have worked themselves into opposition so rancorous as they manifested to the proposition of the Panama mission, a conference of American republics. It was a harmless scheme that promised good results; but these men jumped upon it and trampled it under their feet with fury, for no better reason than that it was a project which the President and Mr. Clay desired most earnestly to see carried through. It was upon this measure that, as Mr. Adams himself records, in January, 1826, the first attempt was made "to unite the Jackson, Crawford, and Calhoun forces." The tariff became an issue in politics in 1828; but that was long after the opposition was fully organized and felt itself on the eve of victory. Mr. Adams's position on the question of