territory. In 1823 he was elected to the U. S. senate. Some of his friends, under the lead of William B. Lewis, had already conceived the idea of making him president. At first Gen. Jackson cast ridicule upon the idea. “Do they suppose,” said he, “that I am such a d—d fool as to think myself fit for president of the United States? No, sir, I know what I am fit for. I can command a body of men in a rough way, but I am not fit to be president.” Such is the anecdote told by H. M. Brackenridge, who was Jackson's secretary in Florida. In 1821 the general felt old and weak, and had made up his mind to spend his remaining days in peace on his farm. Of personal ambition, as ordinarily understood, Jackson had much less than many other men. But he was, like most men, susceptible to flattery, and the discovery of his immense popularity no doubt went far to persuade him that he might do credit to himself as president. On 20 July, 1822, he was nominated for that office by the legislature of Tennessee. On 22 Feb., 1824, he was nominated by a Federalist convention at Harrisburg, Pa., and on 4 March following by a Republican convention at the same place. The regular nominee of the congressional caucus was W. H. Crawford, of Georgia. The other candidates were J. Q. Adams and Henry Clay. There was a general agreement upon Calhoun for the vice-presidency. All the candidates belonged to the Republican party, which had kept the presidency since Jefferson's election in 1800. The Federalists were hopelessly discredited by their course in the war of 1812-'15. Of the four candidates Adams and Clay were loose constructionists, while Crawford and Jackson were strict constructionists, and in this difference was foreshadowed a new division of parties. At the election in November, 1824, there were 99 electoral votes for Jackson, 84 for Adams, 41 for Crawford, and 37 for Clay. As none of the candidates had a majority, it was left for the house of representatives to choose a president from the three highest names on the list, in accordance with the twelfth amendment to the constitution. As Clay was thus rendered ineligible, there was naturally some scheming among the friends of the other candidates to secure his powerful co-operation. Clay and his friends quite naturally supported the other loose-constructionist candidate, Adams, with the result that 13 states voted for Adams, 7 for Jackson, and 4 for Crawford. Adams thus became president, and Jackson's friends, in their disappointment, hungered for a “grievance” upon which they might vent their displeasure, and which might serve as a “rallying cry” for the next campaign. Benton, who was now one of Jackson's foremost supporters, went so far as to maintain that, because Jackson had a greater number of electoral votes than any other candidate, the house was virtually “defying the will of the people” in choosing any name but his. To this it was easily answered that in any case our electoral college, which was one of the most deliberately framed devices of the constitution, gives but a very indirect and partial expression of the “will of the people”; and furthermore, if Benton's argument was sound, why should the constitution have provided for an election by congress, instead of allowing a simple plurality in the college to decide the election? The extravagance of Benton's objection, coming from so able a source, is an index to the bitter disappointment of Jackson's followers. The needed “grievance” was furnished when Adams selected Clay as his secretary of state. Many of Jackson's friends interpreted this appointment as the result of a bargain whereby Clay had made Adams president in consideration of obtaining the first place in the cabinet, carrying with it, according to the notion then prevalent, a fair prospect of the succession to the presidency. It was natural enough for the friends of a disappointed candidate to make such a charge. It was to Benton's credit that he always scouted the idea of a corrupt bargain between Adams and Clay. Many people, however, believed it. In congress, John Randolph's famous allusion to the “coalition between Blifil and Black George — the Puritan and the blackleg” — led to a duel between Randolph and Clay, which served to impress the matter upon the popular mind without enlightening it; the pistol is of small value as an agent of enlightenment. The charge was utterly without support and in every way improbable. The excellence of the appointment of Clay was beyond cavil, and the sternly upright Adams was less influenced by what people might think of his actions than any other president since Washington. But the appointment was no doubt ill-considered. It made it necessary for Clay, in many a public speech, to defend himself against the cruel imputation. To mention the charge to Jackson, whose course in Florida had been severely censured by Clay, was enough to make him believe it; and he did so to his dying day.
It is not likely that the use made of this “grievance” had much to do with Jackson's victory in 1828. The causes at work lay far deeper. The population west of the Alleghanies was now beginning to count for much in politics. Jackson was our first western president, and his election marks the rise of that section of our country. The democratic tendency was moreover a growing one. Heretofore our presidents had been men of aristocratic type, with advantages of wealth, or education, or social training. A stronger contrast to them than Jackson afforded cannot well be imagined. A man with less training in statesmanship would have been hard to find. In his defects he represented average humanity, while his excellencies were such as the most illiterate citizen could appreciate. In such a man the ploughboy and the blacksmith could feel that in some essential respects they had for president one of their own sort. Above all, he was the great military hero of the day, and as such he came to the presidency as naturally as Taylor and Grant in later days, as naturally as his contemporary Wellington became prime minister of England. A man far more politic and complaisant than Adams could not have won the election of 1828 against such odds. He obtained 83 electoral votes against 178 for Jackson. Calhoun was re-elected vice-president. Jackson came to the presidency with a feeling that he had at length succeeded in making good his claim to a violated right, and he showed this feeling in his refusal to call on his illustrious predecessor, who he declared had got the presidency by bargain and sale.
In Jackson's cabinet, as first constituted, Martin Van Buren, of New York, was secretary of state; Samuel D. Ingham, of Pennsylvania, secretary of the treasury; John H. Eaton, of Tennessee, secretary of war; John Branch, of North Carolina, secretary of the navy; John M. Berrien, of Georgia, attorney-general; William T. Barry, of Kentucky, postmaster-general. As compared with earlier cabinets — not merely with such men as Hamilton, Madison, or Gallatin, but with Pickering, Wolcott, Monroe, or even Crawford — these were obscure names. The innovation in the personal character of the cabinet was even more marked than the innovation in the presidency. The autocratic Jack-
