As the campaign drew to a close, circumstances pointed with increasing
sureness to the triumph of the Jackson forces. Adams, foreseeing the
end, found solace in harsh and sometimes picturesque entries in his
diary. A group of opposition Congressmen he pronounced "skunks of
party slander." Calhoun he described as "stimulated to frenzy by
success, flattery, and premature advancement; governed by no steady
principle, but sagacious to seize upon every prevailing popular breeze
to swell his own sails." Clay, likewise, became petulant and gloomy.
In the last two months of the canvass Jackson ordered a general
onslaught upon Kentucky, and when finally it was affirmed that the
State had been "carried out from under" its accustomed master, Clay
knew only too well that the boast was true. To Adams's assurances that
after four years of Jackson the country would gladly turn to the
Kentuckian, the latter could only reply that there would, indeed, be a
reaction, but that before another President would be taken from the
West he would be too old; and it was with difficulty that Adams
persuaded him not to retire immediately from the Cabinet.
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