"various
difficult and complicated duties of the chief magistracy." Toward
Adams, Jackson was not ill disposed; before he decided to permit his
own name to be used, he said that he would give his support in 1824 to
the New Englander--unless one other person should be brought forward.
That person was Calhoun, for whom, among all the candidates of the
day, he thus far had the warmest regard.

Among so many aspirants--and not all have been mentioned--how should
the people make up their minds? In earlier days the party caucuses in
Congress would have eliminated various candidates, and the voters
would have found themselves called upon to make a choice between
probably but two opponents. The caucus was an informal, voluntary
gathering of the party members in the two houses to canvass the
political situation and decide upon the men to be supported by the
rank and file of the party for the presidency and vice presidency. In
the lack of other nominating machinery it served a useful purpose, and
nominations had been commonly made in this manner from 1796 onwards.
There were obvious objections to the plan--chiefly that the authority
exercised was assumed rather than delegated--and, as the campaign of
1824 approached, opposition flared up in a very impressive manner.

Crawford, as the "regular" candidate, wanted a caucus, and his
adherents supported him in the wish. But all his rivals were opposed
to it, partly because they felt that they could not gain a caucus
nomination, partly because their followers generally objected to the
system. "King Caucus" became the target of general criticism.
Newspapers, except those for Crawford, denounced the old system;
legislatures passed resolutions against it; public meetings condemned
it; ponderous pamphlets were hurled at it; the campaigns of Jackson
and Clay, in particular, found their keynote in hostility toward it.
Failing to perceive that under the changed circumstances a caucus
nomination might become a liability rather than an asset, the Crawford
element pushed its plans, and on February 14, 1824, a caucus--destined
to be the last of the kind in the country--was duly held. It proved a
fiasco, for it was attended by only sixty-six persons. Crawford was
"recommended to the people of the United States" by an almost
unanimous vote, but the only effect was to infuse fresh energy into
the campaigns of his leading competitors. "The caucus," wrote Daniel
Webster to his brother Ezekiel, "has