bottled porter, and in raving balderdash of the meridian of
Wapping to revile the absent and the present, the living and the
dead." This, he says, was "tolerated by Calhoun, because Randolph's
ribaldry was all pointed against the Administration, especially
against Mr. Clay and me." Again he writes of Randolph: "The rancor of
this man's soul against me is that which sustains his life: the agony
of [his] envy and hatred of me, and the hope of effecting my downfall,
are [his] chief remaining sources of vitality. The issue of the
Presidential election will kill [him] by the gratification of [his]
revenge." So it was also with W. B. Giles, of Virginia. But Giles's
abuse was easier to bear since it had been poured in torrents upon
every reputable man, from Washington downwards, who had been prominent
in public affairs since the adoption of the Constitution, so that (p. 212)
Giles's memory is now preserved from oblivion solely by the connection
which he established with the great and honorable statesmen of the
Republic by a course of ceaseless attacks upon them. Some of the
foregoing expressions of Mr. Adams may be open to objection on the
score of good taste; but the provocation was extreme; public retaliation
he would not practise, and wrath must sometimes burst forth in
language which was not so unusual in that day as it is at present. It
is an unquestionable fact, of which the credit to Mr. Adams can hardly
be exaggerated, that he never in any single instance found an excuse
for an unworthy act on his own part in the fact that competitors or
adversaries were resorting to such expedients.

* * * * *

The election of 1828 gave 178 votes for Jackson and only 83 for Adams.
Calhoun was continued as Vice-President by 171 votes, showing plainly
enough that even yet there were not two political parties, in any
customary or proper sense of the phrase. The victory of Jackson had
been foreseen by every one. What had been so generally anticipated
could not take Mr. Adams by surprise; yet it was idle for him to seek
to conceal his disappointment that an Administration which he (p. 213)
had conducted with his best ability and with thorough conscientiousness
should not have seemed to the people worthy of continuance for another
term. Little suspecting what the future had in store for him, he felt
that his public career had culminated and probably had closed forever,
and that if it had not closed exa