try, too ready to receive such reports in regard to public men. Both
Mr. Adams and Mr. Clay were greatly prejudiced by this alleged
collusion--a prejudice which years did not efface.

This charge first appeared in a tangible form shortly previous to the
election by the House of Representatives, in an anonymous letter in the
"Columbian Observer," at Philadelphia. It was soon ascertained to have
been written by Mr. Kremer, a member of the House of Representatives from
Pennsylvania. Mr. Clay immediately published a card in the National
Intelligencer, denying, in unequivocal terms, the allegation, and
pronouncing the author "an infamous calumniator, a dastard, and a liar!"

A few days after this, Mr. Kremer acknowledged himself the author of the
letter in the "Columbian Observer," and professed himself ready to prove
the corruptions alleged: whereupon Mr. Clay demanded that the House raise
a committee to investigate the case. The committee was appointed; but Mr.
Kremer, on grounds of the most frivolous description, refused to appear
before the committee, or to furnish a particle of proof of the truth of
the grave assertions he had uttered--thus virtually acknowledging their
slanderous character.

Mr. Clay being in this manner denied the privilege of vindicating his
innocence, and showing the depravity of his accusers, the matter continued
in an unsettled state until the next presidential campaign, when it was
revived in a more tangible form, and brought to bear adversely to Mr.
Adams's administration and reelection. In 1827, Gen. Jackson, in a letter
to Mr. Carter Beverly, which soon appeared in public print, made the
following statement:--

"Early in January, 1825, a member of Congress of high respectability
visited me one morning, and observed that he had a communication he was
desirous to make to me; that he was informed there was a great intrigue
going on, and that it was right I should be informed of it. * * * * * * *
He said he had been informed by the friends of Mr. Clay, that the friends
of Mr. Adams had made overtures to them, saying, if Mr. Clay and his
friends would unite in aid of Mr. Adams's election, Mr. Clay should be
Secretary of State; that the friends of Mr. Adams were urging, as a reason
to induce the friends of Mr. Clay to accede to their proposition, that if
I were elected President, Mr. Adams would be continued Secretary of State;
that the friends of Mr. Clay stated the West did not wish to separate