When the Legislature convened, in January, 1824, a bill authorising the people to choose electors naturally excited a long and bitter debate, in which Azariah C. Flagg represented the Regency. Flagg was a printer by trade, the publisher of a Republican paper at Plattsburg, and a veteran of the War of 1812. He was not prepossessing in appearance; his diminutive stature, surmounted by a big, round head gave him the appearance of Atlas with the world upon his shoulders. His voice, too, was shrill and unattractive; but he suddenly evinced shrewdness and address in legislative tactics that greatly worried his opponents and pleased his friends. A majority of the Assembly, however, afraid of their excited and indignant constituents, finally passed the bill. When it reached the Senate, the supporters of Crawford indefinitely postponed it by a vote of seventeen to fourteen. The defeat of this measure raised a storm of popular indignation. People were exasperated. Newspapers, opposed to the Van Buren leaders, published in black-letter type the names of senators who voted against it, while the frequenters of public places denounced them as "traitors, villains, and rascals," with the result that most of them were consigned to retirement during the remainder of their lives. "The impression here is that Van Buren and his junto are politically dead," wrote DeWitt Clinton to Henry Post on the 17th of February, 1824. "The impression will produce the event."[227] [Footnote 227: DeWitt Clinton's Letters to Henry Post, in _Harper's Magazine_, Vol. 50, p. 568.] In the midst of this excitement, came the selection of a candidate for governor, to be elected in the following November. Yates had done the bidding of the Regency and Flagg demanded his renomination, but the men who supported a change in the mode of choosing electors declared that Yates was the original opponent of the people's wishes, and that, if renominated, he could not be re-elected. "If the Governor is to be sacrificed for his fidelity," retorted Flagg, "I am ready to suffer with him." From a sentimental standpoint, this avowal was most creditable and generous, but it had no place in the councils of politicians to whom sentiment never appeals when the shrouded figure of defeat stands at the open door. Just now, too, their fears increased as evidence accumulated that Samuel Young would certainly be offered a nomination by the People's party, and would certainly accept it, if he were not quickly nominated by the Regency Republicans. When the legislators went into caucus on the 3d of April, 1824, therefore, the friends of Van Buren were ready to throw over Yates and to accept Young, with Erastus Root for lieutenant-governor.