Ingham were
extremely busy in search of charges against the administration, and
asserted that there was a large item of secret services, vouched only by
the certificate of Mr. Adams. A member of Congress informed him of their
proceedings, and asked, if there should be any clamorers on that
subject, whether he would have any objection to make a communication
with regard to it. Mr. Adams replied: "Certainly. The secret was
enjoined on me by the constitution and the law, and I shall not divulge
it. It might be alleged as probable--and such was the fact--that,
although the accounts had been but lately settled, the expenditures had
been incurred and the payment authorized by the direction of the late
President Monroe."

As the electioneering struggle was progressing, Mr. Adams, being asked
to advance money in aid of his own election, replied: "The Presidency of
the United States is not an office to be either sought or declined. To
pay money for securing it is, in my opinion, incorrect in principle. The
practices of all parties are tending to render elections altogether
venal, and I am not disposed to countenance them."

On the subject of personal interviews with the President, he thus
expressed himself: "I have never denied access to me as President to any
one, of any color; and, in my opinion of the duties of that office, it
never ought to be denied. Place-hunters are not pleasant visitors, or
correspondents, and they consume an enormous disproportion of time. To
this personal importunity the President ought not to be subjected; but
it is, perhaps, not possible to relieve him from it, without excluding
him from interviews with the people more, perhaps, than comports with
the nature of our institutions."

In Kentucky the Senate of the state constituted itself into an
inquisition on a charge against Mr. Adams of corruption, sent for
persons and papers, and invited _ex parte_ depositions and garbled
statements, where the parties inculpated had no opportunity of being
heard, and where the testimony given and the testimony suppressed were
alike adapted to promote groundless slanders.

In South Carolina movements were made towards civil war and the
dissolution of the Union, for the purpose of carrying the election by
intimidation, or, if they should fail in that, of laying the foundation
of a future forcible resistance, to break down or overawe the
administration after the event.

Evidences of the vehement party war stimula