and to the interests and projects of the
Southern States. The character and principles of Mr. Adams were not
adapted to become subservient to her views, and she saw with little
complacency his elevation to the office of Secretary of State, which was
in popular opinion a proximate step to the President's chair. Yet it
could not be doubted that his appointment had the assent, if not the
approbation, of Jefferson and Madison, without whose concurrence Monroe
would scarcely have ventured to raise a citizen of Massachusetts to that
station.

The prospective change, in the principles and influences of public
affairs, which the close of Mr. Monroe's term of office would effect,
elevated the hopes and awakened the activity of the partisans of
Crawford, of Georgia, Clay, of Kentucky, and De Witt Clinton, of New
York. Crawford, who had been Secretary of the Treasury under Madison,
and who was again placed in that office by Monroe, was understood to be
the favorite candidate of Virginia. Clay, one of the most talented and
popular politicians of the period, had been an active supporter of
Monroe for the presidency. His friends did not conceal their
disappointment that he was not invited to take the office of Secretary
of State; nor did he disguise his dissatisfaction at the appointment of
Mr. Adams. In New York, De Witt Clinton, in his struggles with Van Buren
for ascendency in that state, by one of those mysterious changes to
which political tempests are subject, had been at one moment cast out of
the mayoralty of the city, and at the next into the governor's chair.
His partisans, deeming his position and popularity now favorable to his
elevation to the presidency, which he had long desired and once
attempted to attain, placed him in nomination for that office.

Each of these candidates possessed great personal and local popularity,
spirit and power adapted to success, and adherents watchful and
efficient. To cope with all these rival influences, Mr. Adams had
talents, integrity, fidelity to his country, and devotion to the
fulfilment of official duty, in which he had no superior. Having been
absent eight years in foreign countries in public service, he had no
Southern or Western current in his favor; and that which set from the
North, though generally favorable, being divided, was comparatively
feeble, and rather acquiescent in his elevation than active in promoting
it.

On his appointment as Secretary of State, Mr. Adams rem