administration had, however, some well-written newspapers and able speakers on its side. They vigorously denounced the recklessness of the attacks made upon the government, and spoke of General Jackson as an illiterate “military chieftain.” But that phrase was a two-edged weapon; for, while thinking men were moved to the reflection that military chieftains were not the safest chiefs of republics, the masses would see in the military chieftain only the “old hero” who had right gallantly “whipped the Britishers at New Orleans.” The Jackson movement thus remained greatly superior in aggressive force and in unscrupulousness of denunciation.
On one occasion, however, this was carried to a very dangerous length by Jackson himself, and Clay apparently scored a great advantage. It is a strange story. In May, 1827, there appeared in a North Carolina newspaper a letter from Carter Beverly of Virginia, concerning a visit made by him to General Jackson at the Hermitage. The General had then said, before a large company, as the letter stated, that, before the election of Mr. Adams, “Mr. Clay's friends made a proposition to Jackson's friends that, if they would promise on his behalf not to put Mr. Adams in the seat of Secretary of State, Mr. Clay and his friends would in one hour make Jackson the President,” but that General Jackson had indignantly repelled the proposition. Beverly's letter created much excitement. His veracity being challenged, he
