he
trust assigned to him by his country through her constitutional organs,
confiding in the wisdom of the legislative councils for his guide, and
relying above all on the direction of a superintending Providence.

CHAPTER VII.

ADMINISTRATION AS PRESIDENT.--POLICY.--RECOMMENDATIONS TO CONGRESS.--
PRINCIPLES RELATIVE TO OFFICIAL APPOINTMENTS AND REMOVALS.--COURSE IN
ELECTION CONTESTS.--TERMINATION OF HIS PRESIDENCY.

Those sectional, party, and personal influences, which at all times tend
to throw a republic out of the path of duty and safety, were singularly
active and powerful during the Presidency of Mr. Adams. They were
peculiar and unavoidable. His administration, beyond all others, was
assailed by an unprincipled and audacious rivalry. Its course and
consequences belong to the history of the United States, and will be
here no further stated, or made the subject of comment, than as they
affect or throw light on his policy and character.

Immediately after his inauguration, Mr. Adams appointed Henry Clay, of
Kentucky, Secretary of State; Richard Rush, of Pennsylvania, Secretary
of the Treasury; James Barbour, of Virginia, Secretary of War; Samuel L.
Southard, of New Jersey, Secretary of the Navy; John McLean, of Ohio,
Postmaster-General; and William Wirt, of Virginia, Attorney-General. The
election of Mr. Adams to the Presidency depended on the vote of Henry
Clay, who recognized and voluntarily assumed the responsibility. By
voting for General Jackson, he would have coincided with the majority of
popular voices; but, actuated, as he declared, by an irrepressible sense
of public duty, in open disregard of instructions from the dominant
party in Kentucky, he dared to expose himself to the coming storm, the
violence of which he anticipated, and soon experienced. In a letter to
Mr. F. Brooke, dated 28th of January, 1825, which was soon published,[1]
he thus expressed his views: "As a friend to liberty and the permanence
of our institutions, I cannot consent, in this early stage of their
existence, by contributing to the election of a military chieftain, to
give the strongest guaranty that this republic will march in the fatal
road which has conducted every other republic to ruin." In a letter
dated the 26th of March, 1825, addressed to the people of his
Congressional district, in Kentucky, Mr. Clay more fully illustrated the
motives for his vote: "I did not believe General Jackson