intentions concerning me, you
never would have heard from me in answer to him. But when he imputes
to me a character and disposition unworthy of any public man, and
adduces in proof mere naked votes upon questions of great public
interest, all given under the solemn sense of duty, impressed by an
oath to support the constitution, and by the sacred obligations of a
public trust, to defend myself against charges so groundless and
unprovoked is, in my judgment, a duty of respect to you, no less
than a duty of self-vindication to me. I declare to you that not one
of the votes which General Smyth has culled from an arduous service
of five years in the Senate of the Union, to stigmatize them in the
face of the country, was given from any of the passions or motives
to which he ascribes them; that I never gave a vote either in
hostility to the administration of Mr. Jefferson, or in disregard to
republican principles, or in aversion to republican patriots, or in
favor of the slave-trade, or in denial of due protection to
commerce. I will add, that, having often differed in judgment upon
particular measures with many of the best and wisest men of this
Union of all parties, I have never lost sight either of the candor
due to them in the estimate of their motives, or of the diffidence
with which it was my duty to maintain the result of my own opinions
in opposition to theirs."

In 1823, as the Presidential election approached, the influences to
control and secure the interests predominating in the different
sections of the country became more active. Crawford, of Georgia,
Calhoun, of South Carolina, Adams, of Massachusetts, and Clay, of
Kentucky, were the most prominent candidates. In December, Barbour, of
Virginia, was superseded, as Speaker of the House of Representatives,
by Clay, of Kentucky; an event ominous to the hopes of Crawford, and to
that resistance to the tariff, and to internal improvements, which was
regarded as dependent on his success. The question whether a
Congressional caucus, by the instrumentality of which Jefferson,
Madison, and Monroe, had obtained the Presidency, should be again held
to nominate a candidate for that office, was the next cause of
political excitement. The Southern party, whose hopes rested on the
success of Crawford, were clamorous for a caucus. The friends of the
other candidates were either lukewarm or hos