Three days afterward, the most influential and active friends of John Quincy Adams and Henry Clay decided that a state convention--consisting of as many delegates as there were members of the Assembly, to be chosen by voters opposed to William H. Crawford for President and in favour of restoring the choice of presidential electors to the people--should assemble at Utica, on September 21, 1824, to nominate candidates for governor and lieutenant-governor. It had long been a dream of Clinton to have nominations made by delegates elected by the people. That dream was now to be realised, and the door to a new political era opened. Though Clinton had announced a determination to support Andrew Jackson, he displayed no zeal in the state contest, and contented himself with writing gossipy letters to Post and in watching the rapid growth of the Erie canal. As early as 1819, the canal had been opened between Utica and Rome, and from the Hudson to Lake Champlain. The middle section, recently completed, was now actively in use between Utica and Montezuma. In little more than a year, the jubilee over the letting in of the waters of Lake Erie would deaden the strife of parties with booming of cannon and expressions of joy. Throughout all the delays and vexations of this wonderful enterprise, DeWitt Clinton had been the great inspiring force, and, although for several years the board of canal commissioners had been reorganised in the interest of the Bucktails, not a whisper was heard intimating any desire or intention to interfere with him. When it was known, however, that James Tallmadge had been agreed upon as the candidate of the People's party for governor, the Regency, in order to split his forces, determined upon Clinton's removal from all participation in the management of the canal. If Tallmadge voted for such a resolution, reasoned the Van Buren leaders, it would alienate the political friends with whom he was just now acting; if he voted against it, he would alienate Tammany.