Already the clique around the President had secretly decided that in
1832 he must run again, with Van Buren as a mate, and that the New
Yorker should be the presidential candidate in 1836. Though irritated
by the Vice President's conduct in the Eaton affair and in other
matters, Jackson threw over the understanding of 1828 with reluctance.
Even when, on the last day of 1829, his friends, alarmed by the state
of his health, persuaded him to write a letter to a Tennessee judge
warmly commending Van Buren and expressing grave doubts about the
South Carolinian--a statement which, in the event of worst fears being
realized, would be of the utmost value to the Van Buren men--he was
unwilling to go the full length of an open break.
But Lewis and his coworkers were craftily laying the train of powder
that would lead to an explosion, and in the spring of 1830 they were
ready to apply the match. When the President had been worked up to the
right stage of suspicion, it was suddenly made known to him that it
was Calhoun, not Crawford, who in Monroe's Cabinet circle in 1818 had
urged that the conqueror of Florida be censured for his bold deeds.
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