tile to that expedient.
Pennsylvania, whose general policy favored a protective tariff and
public improvements, hesitated. In 1816 she had manifested an
opposition to that plan of Congressional influence, and in 1823 a
majority of her representatives declined attending any partial meeting
of members of Congress that might attempt a nomination. But the
Democracy of that state, ever subservient to the views of the Southern
aristocracy, held meetings at Philadelphia, and elsewhere, recommending
a Congressional caucus. This motion would have been probably adopted,
had not the Legislature of Alabama, about this time, nominated Andrew
Jackson for the Presidency, and accompanied their resolutions in his
favor with a recommendation to their representatives to use their best
exertions to prevent a Congressional nomination of a President. The
popularity of Jackson, and the obvious importance to his success of the
policy recommended by Alabama, fixed the wavering counsels of
Pennsylvania, so that only three representatives from that state
attended the Congressional caucus, which was soon after called, and
which consisted of _only sixty members_, out of _two hundred and
sixty-one_, the whole number of the House of Representatives; of which
Virginia and New York, under the lead of Mr. Van Buren, constituted
nearly one half. Notwithstanding this meagre assemblage, Mr. Crawford
was nominated for the Presidency, under a confident expectation that
the influence of the caucus would be conclusive with the people, and
the candidate and policy of Virginia would be confirmed in ascendency.
But the days of Congressional caucuses were now numbered. The people
took the nomination of President into their own hands, and the insolent
assumption of members of Congress to dictate their choice in respect of
this office was henceforth rebuked.

While these intrigues were progressing, Mr. Adams was zealously and
laboriously fulfilling his duties as Secretary of State, neither
endeavoring himself, nor exciting his friends, to counteract these
political movements, one of the chief objects of which was to defeat his
chance for the Presidency.

The course of Mr. Adams relative to the application of the Greeks, then
struggling for independence, for the aid and countenance of the United
States, next brought him into opposition to the prevailing tendency of
the popular feeling of the time. A letter was addressed to him, as
Secretary of State, by Andrew Luri