Buren, then a leading manager for Crawford, becoming alarmed at the unexpected strength of the Jackson movement, caused Clay to be approached with the suggestion of a coalition between the Crawford and Clay forces to make Crawford President and Clay Vice-President, Clay replied that he was resolved neither to offer nor to accept any arrangement with regard to himself or to office for others, and that he would not decline the Vice-Presidency, provided it were offered to him “by the public having the right to tender it.” Neither can it be said that Clay, in the House of Representatives or in his public utterances elsewhere, had tried, as a candidate for the presidency, to trim his sail to the wind, to truckle to the opinions of others, to carry water on both shoulders. In the advocacy of his principles and policies he was as outspoken and straightforward as he ever had been, perhaps even more dashing and combative than he had occasion to be. It would hardly have been predicted then that twenty years later he would lose the presidency by an equivocation.
In the course of the canvass it became obvious that no one of the four candidates could obtain a majority of the electoral vote, and that the election would devolve upon the House of Representatives. This, however, did not prevent the campaign from becoming very animated. There being no marked difference of principle or opinion between the competitors, the effusions of stump orators and of newspapers turned mainly on personalities. Adams
