AND AMERICAN DEMOCRACY SEVENTY YEARS AGO 283 



ing cry " for the next campaign. Benton went so far 

 as to maintain that because Jackson had a greater 

 number of electoral votes than any other candidate, 

 the House was virtually " defying the will of the peo- 

 ple " in choosing any name but his. To this it was 

 easily answered that in any case our electoral college, 

 which was one of the most deliberately framed devices 

 of the Constitution, gives but a very indirect and par- 

 tial expression of the " will of the people " ; and 

 furthermore, if Benton's arguments were sound, why 

 should the Constitution have provided for an election 

 by Congress, instead of allowing a simple plurality in 

 the college to decide the election ? The extravagance 

 of Benton's objection, coming from so able a source, is 

 an index to the bitter disappointment of Jackson's fol- 

 lowers. The needed " grievance " was furnished when 

 Adams selected Clay as his Secretary of State. Many 

 of Jackson's friends interpreted this appointment as 

 the result of a bargain whereby Clay had made Adams 

 President in consideration of obtaining the first place 

 in the cabinet, carrying with it, according to the notion 

 then prevalent, a fair prospect of the succession to the 

 presidency. It was natural enough for the friends of 

 a disappointed candidate to make such a charge. It 

 was to Benton's credit that he always scouted the idea 

 of a corrupt bargain between Adams and Clay. Many 

 people, however, believed it. In Congress, John Ran- 

 dolph's famous allusion to the " coalition between 

 Blifil and Black George the Puritan and the black- 

 leg " led to a duel between Randolph and Clay, 

 which served to impress the matter upon the popular 

 mind without enlightening it; the pistol is of small 

 value as an agent of enlightenment. The charge was 



