decrees usually were, this distinction did not stick to Mr. Kremer. It justly became a source of ridicule to Jackson himself. In this matter, at least, "honest George Kremer" was a burlesque. It was held by some, at that and even a much later date, that Mr. Kremer did not understand what he was doing, that he simply believed what he was told, and was willing to stand in the place of those who did not believe. But this was a childish mistake. Kremer was not so dull as that. He understood what he was doing perfectly well, and was willing to do it, hoping that those in whose interest he worked would be more powerful than their opponents. The consequences were not as satisfactory as he had hoped for. Still few causes have been so bad as to be without friends and supporters, and Kremer had the consolation of knowing that the great General Jackson was on his side, and would go to his grave with his faith in this scandal untarnished, to all outward appearances.

The events now recorded in this scandal had occurred before the 9th of February. And although the originators and the dupe failed to come forward and prove their charges, they believed they had effectually forestalled any action on the part of Mr. Clay which would be detrimental to their candidate before the House.

Now, if Mr. Clay threw his influence for Mr. Adams, what better evidence would they need of the truth of their charge? And if he then accepted the position in Mr. Adams's Cabinet, what other proof of bargain and corruption could be desired? At this juncture in the game, the House met and elected a President on the first ballot.

Mr. Parton says that five days after this result General Jackson wrote to his manager, William B. Lewis:

"I am informed this day, by Colonel R. M. Johnson, of the Senate, that Mr. Clay has been offered the office of Secretary of State, and that he will accept it. So, you see, the Judas of the West has closed the contract, and will receive the thirty pieces of silver. His end will be the same. Was there ever witnessed such a barefaced corruption in any country before? The Senate (if this nomination is sent to it) will do its duty. No imputation will be left at its door."

If it had not been for the means employed to defeat him, the General would have been perfectly happy! This is the construction he openly placed on the matter in his conduct at Washington. But from whatever source came the defeat, no man was as unhappy over the result as General Jackson. And this he was not long in making fully apparent.

As a part of the scheme to make Jackson President the Tennessee Legislature had sent him to the United States Senate, and after his defeat he was anxious to return home, having neither taste nor fitness for the office into which he had been thrust, or, indeed, for the atmosphere of the Capital. After awaiting for the Senate "to rise," for the sole purpose of " doing his duty" toward preventing the confirmation of Mr. Clay as Secretary of State, the General set out on one of his triumphal journeys to Tennessee. His feelings were intense, riotous almost. Even under calmer circumstances it was difficult or impossible for General Jackson to control either his temper or his tongue.

This journey presented many temptations for a display of the General's unpresidential and bombastic qualities. A very large portion of the intelligent, as

well as the unintelligent, considered that he had been cheated out of the Presidency, and in this aspect was presented the sympathy he received on the trip. Something extraordinary only could account for the defeat of General Jackson. So it happened at different points and in the hearing of various persons that the General let fall substantially such sentiments as, "If he had made the same promises and offers to Mr. Clay that Mr. Adams had done, he and not Adams would then be President;" and "The people had been cheated, the corruptions and intrigues at Washington had defeated the will of the people in the election of their President."

Nobody knew better than Jackson the efficacy of this kind of appeal, to the people, to the people! He was in no mood then, if he ever was afterwards, to see how unworthily he was talking for one who desired to be the people's President, and how fallacious was his general statement as to the person who should by the will of the people then be President; nor did he see that he was, on utterly indefensible grounds, already sliding into the position which "honest George Kremer" had not been able to maintain, as the accuser of Adams and Clay. Still for a year or two the General's extravagant talk about this matter was held comparatively quiet, while the charge against Mr. Adams was kept alive in every possible way to benefit Jackson in the contest of 1828.

At last, however, in the spring of 1827, this letter appeared in a North Carolina newspaper:

"NASHVILLE, March 8, 1827.

"I have just returned from General Jackson's. I found a crowd of company with him. Seven Virginians were of the

number.

He gave me a most friendly reception, and urged me to stay some days longer with him. He told me this morning, before all his company, in reply to a question I put to him concerning the election of J. Q. Adams to the Presidency, that Mr. Clay's friends made a proposition to his friends, that if they would promise for him (General Jackson) not to put Mr. Adams into the seat of Secretary of State, Mr. Clay and his friends would, in one hour, make him (Jackson) the President. He (General Jackson) most indignantly rejected the proposition, and declared he would not compromit himself; and unless most openly and fairly made the President by Congress, he would never receive it. He declared, that he said to them, he would see the whole earth sink under them, before he would bargain or intrigue for it."

This letter at once threw Jackson into the attitude of an avowed public accuser of Mr. Clay, and inferentially of Mr. Adams. It was no difficult matter to deny the veracity of its author, Carter Beverley, a Virginia "gentleman," who had sat at the General's table. But Mr. Beverley appealed to his principal, who was seldom or never known to shrink from assuming any responsibility when his own will and feelings were involved, and the following letter was the result:

"" HERMITAGE, June 6, 1827.

"DEAR SIR,-Your letter of the 15th ultimo, from Louisville, Kentucky, is just received, and in conformity with your request, I address my answer to Wheeling, Virginia. Your inquiries relative to the proposition of bargain made through Mr. Clay's friends, to some of mine, concerning the then pending Presidential election, were answered freely and frankly at the time, but without any calculation that they would be thrown into the public journals. But facts can not be altered. And as your letter seems not to have been written for publication, I can assure you, that, having no concealment myself, nor any dread arising from what I may have said on the occasion and subject alluded to, my feelings toward you are not the least changed. I always intended, should Mr. Clay come out over his own name, and deny having any knowledge of the communication made by

his friends to my friends, and to me, that I would give him the name of the gentleman, through whom that communication came. I have not seen your letter alluded to as having been published in the Telegraph.' Although that paper, as I am informed, is regularly mailed for me at Washington, still I receive it irregularly, and that containing your letter has not come to hand. Of course I can not say whether your statement is substantially correct or not. I will repeat, however, again, the occurrence, and to which my reply to you must have conformed, and from which, if there has been any variation, you can correct it. It is this: Early in January, 1825, a member of Congress, of high respectability, visited me one morning, and observed, that he had a communication he was desirous to make to me; that he was informed there was a great intrigue going on, and that it was right I should be informed of it; that he came as a friend, and let me receive the communication as I might, the friendly motives through which it was made, he hoped, would prevent any change of friendship or feeling in regard to him. To which I replied, from his high standing as a gentleman and member of Congress, and from his uniform friendly and gentlemanly conduct toward myself, I could not suppose he would make any communication to me, which he supposed was improper; therefore, his motives being pure, let me think as I might of the communication, my feelings toward him would remain unaltered. The gentleman proceeded: He said he had been informed by the friends of Mr. Clay, that the friends of Mr. Adams had made overtures to them, saying, if Mr. Clay and his friends would unite in aid of Mr. Adams's election, Mr. Clay should be Secretary of State; that the friends of Mr. Adams were urging, as a reason to induce the friends of Mr. Clay to accede to their proposition, that if I were elected President, Mr. Adams would be continued Secretary of State (innuendo, there would be no room for Kentucky); that the friends of Mr. Clay stated, the West did not wish to separate from the West, and if I would say, or permit any of my confidential friends to say, that in case I were elected President, Mr. Adams should not be continued Secretary of State, by a complete union of Mr. Clay and his friends, they would put an end to the Presidential contest in one hour. And he was of opinion it was right to fight such intriguers with their own weapons. To which, in substance, I replied, that in politics, as in everything else, my guide was principle; and contrary to