Mr. Clay’s efforts, during his secretaryship, contributed much in making Mr. Adams’s administration peculiarly American. They afforded material aid in cherishing and strengthening those principles, which would render the United States independent of foreign nations――principles for which he contended with a zeal that nothing could dampen, and which would not allow any compromise. In giving Mr. Adams his vote, he was not mistaken in supposing that he would be their able supporter too. In their adherence to these, they went hand in hand. This was a source of most vexatious uneasiness to the enemies of those principles. Hence the cause of their excessive hostility towards the administration of Mr. Adams, for they believed it was materially shaped by Mr. Clay. They little expected, and less designed, that their opposition should thus pay him the highest possible compliment――that of wielding a power scarcely inferior to that of the executive himself. The enemies of Mr. Clay, therefore, became the enemies of Mr. Adams, whose administration they determined to prostrate, let the expense be what it might. ‘_It must be put DOWN_,’ said one of general Jackson’s most prominent supporters, ‘_though as pure as the angels at the right hand of God_.’ The foulest charges were preferred against Mr. Adams and Mr. Clay, the mildest of which was, CORRUPTION. Of the latter, in consequence of his having made some transfers, in publishing the laws, from one printing establishment to another, it was alleged, that he attempted to corrupt the press, which, with a great outcry, was bruited from one end of the land to the other. He was charged with having made the transfer from interested party considerations, and an attempt was made to cause him to communicate to congress what changes he had made, with his reasons. It failed, however, on the ground that the house had no jurisdiction over the matter. At the very time (or nearly) that his enemies in the house were thus engaged in subjecting him to this gross charge, their coadjutors in the senate, led on by Mr. Van Buren, were endeavoring to deprive the National Intelligencer of the printing of that body. _Notable consistency!_ Not an act of Mr. Adams, or Mr. Clay, which was not made to pass through the traducing ordeal of their enemies’ malice, and pronounced corrupt and ruinous in their tendency. The same acts might be submitted to the examination of any impartial tribunal, who would rise up from it, and declare them as nearly faultless as any human ones could be; indeed, that of posterity, whose decisions are never reversed, is fast rendering such a verdict. Many an eye now dims with tears, and many a heart heaves with regret, at the recollection of Mr. Adams’s administration. The political degeneracy and pollution of the present day, were far from it. Economy, dignity, and liberality, were written all over it, in such indelible characters, that the most intemperate flood of opposition could not expunge them.