last hour. We consider you and him as the only genuine Republican candidates.’ Next a friend of Mr. Adams comes with tears in his eyes [an allusion to Adams's watering eyes]: ‘Sir, Mr. Adams has always had the greatest respect for you, and admiration of your talents. There is no station to which you are not equal. Most undoubtedly you are the second choice of New England, and I pray you to consider seriously whether the public good and your own future interests do not point most distinctly to the choice which you ought to make?’ How can one withstand all this disinterested homage and kindness?”
General Jackson himself thought it good policy now to be on pleasant terms with Clay. There had been “non-intercourse” between them ever since that memorable debate in which Clay found fault with the General's conduct in the Florida war. Jackson had left Clay's visit of courtesy unreturned, and when accidentally meeting Clay at a Kentucky village inn, in the summer of 1819, he had hardly deigned to notice Clay's polite salutation. But now, having become an anxious candidate for the presidency while Clay was believed to control the decisive vote in the House of Representatives, Jackson took a less haughty view of things. Several members of Congress from Tennessee approached Clay to bring about an accommodation. They declared in General Jackson's behalf, that when treating Clay's courtesy with apparent contempt, he was “laboring under some
