nd when I consider that to me
alone, of all the candidates before the nation, failure of success would
be equivalent to a vote of censure by the nation upon my past services,
I cannot dissemble to myself that I have more at stake in the result
than any other individual. Yet a man qualified for the duties of chief
magistrate of ten millions of people should be a man proof alike to
prosperous and adverse fortune. If I am able to bear success, I must be
tempered to endure defeat. He who is equal to the task of serving a
nation as her chief ruler must possess resources of a power to serve
her, even against her own will. This I would impress indelibly on my own
mind; and for a practical realization of which, in its proper result, I
look for wisdom and strength from above."

At the close of the year 1824, Mr. Adams responded to a like intimation:
"You will be disappointed. To me both alternatives are distressing in
prospect. The most formidable is that of success. All the danger is on
the pinnacle. The humiliation of failure will be so much more than
compensated by the safety in which it will leave me, that I ought to
regard it as a consummation devoutly to be wished."

At this period an apprehension being expressed to him that if he was
elected Federalists would be excluded from office, he said, he should
exclude no person for political opinion, or on account of personal
opposition to him; but that his great object would be to break up the
remnant of all party distinctions, and to bring the whole people
together, in point of sentiment, as much as possible; and that he should
turn no one out of office on account of his conduct or opinions in the
approaching election.

The result of this electioneering conflict was, that, by the returns of
the electoral colleges of the several states, it appeared that none of
the candidates had the requisite constitutional majority; the whole
number of votes being two hundred and sixty-one--of which Andrew Jackson
had ninety-nine, John Quincy Adams eighty-four, William H. Crawford
forty-one, and Henry Clay thirty-seven. For the office of Vice-President,
John C. Calhoun had one hundred and eighty votes, and was elected.

This result had not been generally anticipated by the friends of Mr.
Adams. His political course had been, for sixteen years, identified
with the policy of the leading statesmen of the Southern States, and
had been acceptable to that section of the Union. It had therefore be