Studies in American History 
87 
dure than was being used ; it would not have aroused so much 
feeling and no doubt would have had the support of many 
anti-relief men since a real need for revision on some impor- 
tant matters really existed. Of course the radical party would 
hope to get the definite sanction in the new constitution for 
its pet relief measures, and particularly to try to make judges 
elective instead of appointive officers, having their terms lim- 
ited to a short time. But for these reasons, however, the 
anti-relief party put forth all sorts of objections to a con- 
vention, some foolish and absurd,^®® but it did urge most the 
one very sensible objection that in the state of mind then ob- 
taining, Kentucky should not attempt to frame a new consti- 
tution. The bill passed by the house to call a convention was 
lost in the senate by the close vote of 18 yeas and 18 
nays.^^® The judges of the court of appeals had not been 
remioved by address, they could not be persuaded to resign, 
nor was a convention called to change the constitution and 
thus rid the state of them; therefore it remained only to 
make the relief laws and the whole court question a campaign 
issue in 1824. 
There were really no national issues in the campaign of 
1824 well enough defined to arouse much interest; old party 
lines were broken to pieces and new alignments were not yet 
form^ed. But the campaign in Kentucky was spirited because 
Henry Clay was a candidate for president. Clay had been at 
Washington for a long time, and was not involved in the local 
relief and anti-relief quarrels. Tho there was considerable 
Jackson sentiment in the state,^®*^ Clay had the leaders of all 
factions on his side at the time of the election, and he received 
the electoral votes of the state.^®^ When in 1825, Adams was 
chosen president by the House of Representatives and ap- 
pointed Clay his secretary of state, Clay’s popularity decided- 
158 Kerr (ed.). History of Kentucky, II, 628. 
Niles’ Register, XXV, 260. 
Relative to Jackson sentiment in Kentucky, John Roche, a professor in Transyl- 
vania University, says he left Maysville in the early summer of 1824 for the East on 
a steamboat called the Velocipede, a fast boat consuming five cords of wood daily. The 
Velocipede had fifty passengers, and in order to break the monotony of the trip up 
the Ohio, a straw vote for president was taken. Jackson received thirty-one votes, 
Adams twelve, and Clay only six. Almost all the deck passengers voted for 
Jackson, and along the shore where the boat stopped, nineteen out of twenty were 
for him. Roche concludes “that were the people to vote personally, Jackson would be 
president”. See Journal of John Roche, Draper MSS., 17CC66. 
McElroy, Kentucky in the Nation’s Histwy, 389-391. 
