The candidates for the Presidency in 1824 were Jackson, John Quincy Adams, William H. Crawford, and Henry Clay. While Jackson received the largest popular vote, the House of Representatives, balloting by States, elected John Quincy Adams. It was believed that Clay used his influence for Adams against Jackson, and this caused the election of Adams, a scholarly man, the son of John Adams, and long our representative abroad. Four years later, in 1828, the people made their voices heard at the ballot-box, and Jackson was elected by a large majority. The contest had been exceedingly personal and annoying. The old stories about his marriage were again dragged through the press. Mrs. Jackson, a victim of heart-disease, was unduly troubled, and became broken in health. When he was elected, she said, "Well, for Mr. Jackson's sake, I am glad; for my own part, I never wished it." Jackson had built for her a small brick church in the Hermitage grounds, and here, where the neighbors and servants gathered, she found her deepest happiness, and sighed for no greater sphere of usefulness. When she urged the general to join her church, he said, "My dear, if I were to do that now, it would be said, all over the country, that I had done it for the sake of political effect. My enemies would all say so. I cannot do it _now_, but I promise you that, when once more I am clear of politics, I will join the church." The people of Nashville were of course proud that one from their city had been chosen to so high a position, and tendered him a banquet on December 23, the anniversary of the first battle at New Orleans. A few days before this, Mrs. Jackson was taken ill, but she urged her husband to make himself ready for the banquet. While he had watched by her bedside constantly, on the evening of December 22, she was so much better that he consented to lie down on a sofa in an adjoining room. He had not been there five minutes before a cry was heard from Mrs. Jackson. He hastened to her, but she never breathed again. He could not believe that she was dead. When they brought a table to lay her body upon it, he said tenderly, in a choking voice, "Spread four blankets upon it. If she does come to, she will lie so hard upon the table." All night long he sat beside the form of his beloved Rachel, often feeling of her heart and pulse. In the morning he was wholly inconsolable, and, when he found that she was really dead, the body could scarcely be forced from his arms.