largely employed in defaming the administration. In the House of Representatives, the struggle between the Jackson men and the adherents of the administration grew almost ludicrously passionate. The opposition were agreed as to the general charge that the administration was most damnable, but they were somewhat embarrassed as to the specifications. One drag-net investigation after another was ordered to help them out. These inquiries brought forth nothing of consequence, but that circumstance served only as a reason for repeating the charges all the louder. The noise of the conflict was prodigious. It increased in volume, and the mutual criminations and recriminations grew in rancor and unscrupulousness as the presidential canvass proceeded after the adjournment of Congress.
Until then the friends of Adams and Clay had mostly contented themselves with the defense of the administration from the accusations which were hurled at it with bewildering violence and profusion. But gradually they, too, warmed up to their work, and it may be said that the campaign of 1828 became one of the most furious and disgusting which the American people has ever witnessed. The passions were excited to fever heat, and all the flood-gates of scurrility opened. The detractors of John Quincy Adams not only assailed his public acts, but they traduced this most scrupulously correct of men as the procurer to the Emperor of Russia of a beautiful American girl.
