an extraordinary power of application,
equipped him with varied information, and made him an authority on
many subjects. He joined Benjamin F. Butler in the revision of the
statutes of the State, and was associated with Daniel Webster in
settling the limits of the bankruptcy legislation of the state and
federal governments. Just now he was still a young man, only in his
thirty-ninth year; but those who had seen his keen, clever articles on
neutral rights, polished and penetrating in style, and who heard his
skilful and fearless advocacy of the people's right to choose
electors, were not surprised to learn of his appointment, in later
life, as a lecturer at Harvard, or to read his great work on the
_Elements of International Law_, published in 1836. As a reward for
the part he took in the election of 1824, President Adams sent him to
Denmark, from whence he went to Prussia--these appointments keeping
him abroad for twenty years.

John Van Ness Yates urged his uncle to recommend a change in the law
regulating the choice of electors; and if the Governor had possessed
the political wisdom necessary in such an emergency, he would
doubtless have taken the suggestion. But Yates thought it wise to
follow the Regency; the Regency thought it wise to follow Van Buren;
and Van Buren opposed a change, as prejudicial to Crawford's
interests. The result was a bungling attempt on the part of the
Governor to evade the direct expression of an opinion. Finally,
however, he said that as Congress was likely soon to present an
amendment to the Constitution for legislative sanction, it was
inadvisable "under existing circumstances" to change the law "at this
time."[226] This was neither skilful nor truthful. Congress had no
thought of doing anything of the kind, and, if it had, men knew that
an amendment could not be secured in time to operate at the coming
election. Yates' message, therefore, was pronounced "a shabby dodge,"
a trick familiar to many statesmen in difficulties.

[Footnote 226: _Governors Speeches_, Aug. 2, 1824, p. 218.]

When the Legislature convened, in January, 1824, a bill authorising
the people to choose electors naturally excited a long and bitter
debate, in which Azariah C. Flagg represented the Regency. Flagg was
a printer by trade, the publisher of a Republican paper at Plattsburg,
and a veteran of the War of 1812. He was not prepossessing in
appearance; his diminutive stature, surmounted by a big, round head
gave