(p. 157)
singular instance of a man of such character rising to the eminence he
now occupies; that there has not been in the history of the Union
another man with abilities so ordinary, with services so slender, and
so thoroughly corrupt, who had contrived to make himself a candidate
for the Presidency." Nor was this a solitary expression of the
feelings of the distinguished South Carolinian.

Mr. E. H. Mills, Senator from Massachusetts, and a dispassionate
observer, speaks of Crawford with scant favor as "coarse, rough,
uneducated, of a pretty strong mind, a great intriguer, and determined
to make himself President." He adds: "Adams, Jackson, and Calhoun all
think well of each other, and are united at least in one thing,--to
wit, a most thorough dread and abhorrence of Crawford."

Yet Crawford was for many years not only never without eager
expectations of his own, which narrowly missed realization and might
not have missed it had not his health broken down a few months too
soon, but he had a large following, strong friends, and an extensive
influence. But if he really had great ability he had not the good
fortune of an opportunity to show it; and he lives in history rather
as a man from whom much was expected than as a man who achieved (p. 158)
much. One faculty, however, not of the best, but serviceable, he had
in a rare degree: he thoroughly understood all the artifices of
politics; he knew how to interest and organize partisans, to obtain
newspaper support, and generally to extend and direct his following
after that fashion which soon afterward began to be fully developed by
the younger school of our public men. He was the _avant courier_ of a
bad system, of which the first crude manifestations were received with
well-merited disrelish by the worthier among his contemporaries.

It is the more easy to believe that Adams's distrust of Crawford was a
sincere conviction, when we consider his behavior towards another
dangerous rival, General Jackson. In view of the new phase which the
relationship between these two men was soon to take on, Adams's hearty
championship of Jackson for several years prior to 1825 deserves
mention. The Secretary stood gallantly by the General at a crisis in
Jackson's life when he greatly needed such strong official backing,
and in an hour of extreme need Adams alone in the Cabinet of Monroe
lent an assistance which Jackson afterwards too readily forgot. Seldom
has a government been b