house, that I had not been returned to it. I seemed to be the favorite of every body. Describing my situation to a distant friend, I said to him, 'I am enjoying, whilst alive, the posthumous honors which are usually awarded to the venerated dead.' A person not acquainted with human nature would have been surprised, in listening to these praises, that the object of them had not been elected by general acclamation. None made more or warmer manifestations of these sentiments of esteem and admiration than some of the friends of general Jackson. None were so reserved as those of Mr. Adams; under an opinion, (as I have learned since the election,) which they early imbibed, that the western vote would be only influenced by its own sense of public duty; and that if its judgment pointed to any other than Mr. Adams, nothing which they could do would secure it to him. These professions and manifestations were taken by me for what they were worth. I knew that the sunbeams would quickly disappear, after my opinion should be ascertained, and that they would be succeeded by a storm; although I did not foresee exactly how it would burst upon my poor head. I found myself transformed from a candidate before the people, into an elector for the people. I deliberately examined the duties incident to this new attitude, and weighed all the facts before me, upon which my judgment was to be formed or reviewed. If the eagerness of any of the heated partisans of the respective candidates suggested a tardiness in the declaration of my intention, I believed that the new relation in which I was placed to the subject, imposed on me an obligation to pay some respect to delicacy and decorum.

Meanwhile, that very reserve supplied aliment to newspaper criticism. The critics could not comprehend how a man standing as I had stood towards the other gentlemen, should be restrained, by a sense of propriety, from instantly fighting under the banners of one of them, against the others. Letters were issued from the manufactory at Washington, to come back, after performing long journeys, for Washington consumption. These letters imputed to Mr. Clay and his friends a mysterious air, a portentous silence,' and so forth. From dark and distant hints the progress was easy to open and bitter denunciation. Anonymous letters, full of menace and abuse, were almost daily poured in on me. Personal threats were

communicated to me, through friendly organs, and I was kindly apprized of all the glories of village effigies which awaited me. A systematic attack was simultaneously commenced upon me from Boston to Charleston, with an object, present and future, which it was impossible to mistake. No man but myself could know the nature, extent, and variety, of means which were employed to awe and influence me. I bore them, I trust, as your representative ought to have borne them, and as became me. Then followed the letter, afterwards adopted as his own, by Mr. Kremer, to the

Columbian Observer. With its character and contents you are well acquainted. When I saw that letter, alleged to be written by a member of the very house over which I was presiding, who was so far designated as to be described as belonging to a particu lar delegation by name, a member with whom I might be daily exchanging, at least on my part, friendly salutations, and who was possibly receiving from me constantly acts of courtesy and kindness, I felt that I could no longer remain silent. A crisis appeared to me to have arisen in my public life. I issued my card. I ought not to have put in it the last paragraph, because, although it does not necessarily imply the resort to a personal combat, it admits of that construction; nor will I conceal that such a possible issue was within my contemplation. I owe it to the community to say, that whatever heretofore I may have done, or, by inevitable circumstances, might be forced to do, no man in it holds in deeper abhorrence than I do, that pernicious practice. Condemned as it must be by the judgment and philosophy, to say nothing of the religion, of every thinking man, it is an affair of feeling about which we cannot, although we should, reason. Its true corrective will be found when all shall unite, as all ought to unite, in its unqualified proscription.

A few days after the publication of my card,' another card,' under Mr. Kremer's name, was published in the Intelligencer. The night before, as I was voluntarily informed, Mr. Eaton, a senator from Tennessee, and the biographer of general Jackson, (who boarded in the end of this city opposite to that in which Mr. Kremer took up his abode, a distance of about two miles and a half,) was closeted for some time with him. Mr. Kremer is entitled to great credit for having overcome all the disadvantages, incident to his early life and want of education, and forced his way to the honorable station of a member of the house of representatives. Ardent in his attachment to the cause which he had espoused, general Jackson is his idol, and of his blind zeal others have availed themselves, and have made him their dupe and their instrument. I do not pretend to know the object of Mr. Eaton's visit to him. I state the fact, as it was communicated to me, and leave you to judge. Mr. Kremer's card is composed with some care and no little art, and he is made to avow in it, though somewhat equivocally, that he is the author of the letter to the Columbian Observer. To Mr. Crowninshield, a member from Massachusetts, formerly secretary of the navy, he declared that he was not the author of that letter. In his card he draws a clear line of separation between my friends and me, acquitting them, and undertaking to make good his charges in that letter, only so far as I was concerned. The purpose of this discrimination is obvious. At that time the election was undecided, and it was therefore as important to abstain from imputations against my friends, as it was politic to fix them upon me. If they

could be made to believe that I had been perfidious, in the transport of their indignation, they might have been carried to the support of general Jackson. I received the National Intelligencer, containing Mr. Kremer's card, at breakfast, (the usual time of its distribution.) on the morning of its publication. As soon as I read the card, I took my resolution. The terms of it clearly implied that it had not entered into his conception to have a personal affair with me; and I should have justly exposed myself to universal ridicule, if I had sought one with him. I determined to lay the matter before the house, and respectfully to invite an investigation of my conduct. I accordingly made a communication to the house on the same day, the motives for which I assigned. Mr. Kremer was in his place, and, when I sat down, rose and stated that he was prepared and willing to substantiate his charges against me. This was his voluntary declaration, unprompted by his aiders and abettors, who had no opportunity of previous consultation with him on that point. Here was an issue publicly and solemnly joined, in which the accused invoked an inquiry into serious charges against him, and the accuser professed an ability and a willingness to establish them. A debate ensued on the next day which occupied the greater part of it, during which Mr. Kremer declared to Mr. Brent, of Louisiana, a friend of mine, and to Mr. Little, of Maryland, a friend of general Jackson, as they have certified, that he never intended to charge Mr. Clay with corruption or dishonor, in his intended vote for Mr. Adams, as president, or that he had transferred, or could transfer, the votes or interests of his friends; that he (Mr. Kremer) was among the last men in the 'nation to make such a charge against Mr. Clay; and that his letter was never intended to convey the idea given to it.' Mr. Digges, a highly respectable inhabitant of this city, has certified to the same declarations of Mr. Kremer.

A message was also conveyed to me, during the discussion, through a member of the house, to ascertain if I would be satisfied with an explanation which was put on paper and shown me, and which it was stated Mr. Kremer was willing, in his place, to make. I replied that the matter was in the possession of the house. I was afterwards told, that Mr. Ingham, of Pennsylvania, got hold of that paper, put it in his pocket, and that he advised Mr. Kremer to take no step without the approbation of his friends. Mr. Cook, of Illinois, moved an adjournment of the house, on information which he received of the probability of Mr. Kremer's making a satisfactory atonement on the next day, for the injury which he had done me, which I have no doubt he would have made, if he had been left to the impulses of his native honesty. The house decided to refer my communication to a committee, and adjourned until the next day to appoint it by ballot. In the mean time Mr. Kremer had taken, I presume, or rather there had been forced upon

him, the advice of his friends, and I heard no more of the apology. A committee was appointed of seven gentlemen, of whom not one was my political friend, but who were among the most eminent members of the body. I received no summons or notification from the committee from its first organization to its final dissolution, but Mr. Kremer was called upon by it to bring forward his proofs. For one moment be pleased to stop here and contemplate his posture, his relation to the house and to me, and the high obligations under which he had voluntarily placed himself. He was a member of one of the most august assemblies upon earth, of which he was bound to defend the purity or expose the corruption by every consideration which ought to influence a patriot bosom. A most responsible and highly important constitutional duty was to be performed by that assembly. He had chosen, in an anonymous letter, to bring against its presiding officer charges, in respect to that duty, of the most flagitious character. These charges comprehend delegations from several highly respectable states. If true, that presiding officer merited not merely to be dragged from the chair, but to be expelled the house. He challenges an investigation into his conduct, and Mr. Kremer boldly accepts the challenge, and promises to sustain his accusation. The committee appointed by the house itself, with the common consent of both parties, calls upon Mr. Kremer to execute his pledge publicly given, in his proper place, and also previously given in the public prints. Here is the theatre of the alleged arrangements; this the vicinage in which the trial ought to take place. Every thing was here fresh in the recollection of the witnesses, if there were any. Here all the proofs were concentrated. Mr. Kremer was stimulated by every motive which could impel to action; by his consistency of character; by duty to his constituents, to his country; by that of redeeming his solemn pledge; by his anxious wish for the success of his favorite, whose interests could not fail to be advanced by supporting his atrocious charges. But Mr. Kremer had now the benefit of the advice of his friends. He had no proofs, for the plainest of all reasons, because there was no truth in his charges. They saw that to attempt to establish them and to fail, as he must fail in the attempt, might lead to an exposure of the conspiracy, of which he was the organ. They advised, therefore, that he should make a retreat, and their adroitness suggested, that in an objection to that jurisdiction of the house, which had been admitted, and in the popular topics of the freedom of the press, his duty to his constituents, and the inequality in the condition of the speaker of the house, and a member on the floor, plausible means might be found to deceive the ignorant and conceal his disgrace. A labored communication was accordingly prepared by them, in Mr. Kremer's name, and transmitted to the committee, founded upon these suggestions. Thus the valiant champion, who had boldly stepped

forward, and promised, as a representative of the people, to 'cry aloud and spare not,' forgot all his gratuitous gallantry and boasted patriotism, and sank at once into profound silence.

With these remarks, I will for the present leave him, and proceed to assign the reasons to you, to whom alone I admit myself to be officially responsible, for the vote which I gave on the presidential election. The first inquiry which it behooved me to make was, as to the influence which ought to be exerted on my judgment, by the relative state of the electoral votes which the three returned candidates brought into the house from the colleges. General Jackson obtained ninety-nine, Mr. Adams eighty-four, and Mr. Crawford forty-one. Ought the fact of a plurality being given to one of the candidates to have any, and what, weight? If the constitution had intended that it should have been decisive, the constitution would have made it decisive, and interdicted the exercise of any discretion, on the part of the house of representatives. The constitution has not so ordained, but, on the contrary, it has provided, that 'from the persons having the highest numbers, not exceeding three, on the list of those voted for as president, the house of representatives shall choose, immediately, by ballot, a president.' Thus a discretion is necessarily invested in the house; for choice implies examination, comparison, judgment. The fact, therefore, that one of the three persons was the highest returned, not being, by the constitution of the country, conclusive upon the judgment of the house, it still remains to determine what is the true degree of weight belonging to it? It has been contended that it should operate, if not as an instruction, at least in the nature of one, and that in this form it should control the judgment of the house. But this is the same argument of conclusiveness which the constitution does not enjoin, thrown into a different but more imposing shape. Let me analyze it. There are certain states, the aggregate of whose electoral votes conferred upon the highest returned candidate, indicate their wish that he should be the presi dent. Their votes amount in number to ninety-nine, out of two hundred and sixty-one electoral votes of the whole union. These ninety-nine do not, and cannot, of themselves, make the president. If the fact of particular states giving ninety-nine votes, can, according to any received notions of the doctrine of instruction, be regarded in that light, to whom are those instructions to be considered addressed? According to that doctrine, the people who appoint, have the right to direct, by their instruction, in certain cases, the course of the representative whom they appoint. The states, therefore, who gave those ninety-nine votes, may in some sense be understood thereby to have instructed their representatives in the house to vote for the person on whom they were bestowed, in the choice of a president. But most clearly the representatives coming from other states, which gave no part of those ninety-nine