Of your friendship, sincerity, and patriotic motives I am most perfectly satisfied. My nomination has been a miscalculation, and however painful the results may be to our feelings, having nothing to reproach ourselves with throughout the whole transaction, there is nothing in it save the effect it may have on the public cause that can give us any permanent uneasiness.
I have but one observation to add. From my experience, both when Mr. Jefferson was made Vice-President and when, in 1808, Mr. Clinton was re-elected to the same office, I know that nothing can be more injurious to an Administration than to have in that office a man in hostility with that Administration, as he will always become the most formidable rallying-point for the opposition.
I remain, respectfully and sincerely, your friend and obedient servant.
This chapter of secret political history will hardly stand comparison with what were at least the earnest phases of party politics in the days when Mr. Gallatin was really a leader. Parties had no longer a principle, and it was clearly time for Mr. Gallatin to retire. On the 3d December, when it was certain that no choice had been made by the people, he wrote from New Geneva to his son: “The Republican party seems to me to be fairly defunct. Our principal misfortune was perhaps the want of a popular candidate. The great defect of our system is the monarchical principle admitted in our Constitution.”
1825.
The election of Mr. Adams took place on February 9, 1825. Rumors in regard to the new Cabinet were communicated by Mr. Stewart, the representative of Fayette County, to James Gallatin, at Baltimore, who wrote them to his father. Mr. Gallatin replied in a letter of February 19. Mr. James Gallatin, who, as a boy at Ghent, had been a favorite of Mr. Adams, enclosed this letter to the new President without his father’s knowledge. Mr. Adams replied at once, and the correspondence will serve to close this account of the election of 1824-25, disappointing and unsatisfactory to every one who shared in it.
ANDREW STEWART TO JAMES GALLATIN.
Washington, 15th February, 1825.
... Many rumors are afloat on the subject of the new Cabinet. The Treasury Department has been offered to Mr. Crawford in the most flattering terms, which he has, however, declined. It is confidently asserted that it has been or will be offered to your father. Whether he will be disposed to accept you know best. There is evidently a strong wish to conciliate the friends of Mr. Crawford to the new Administration....
ALBERT GALLATIN TO JAMES GALLATIN.