Crawford one. Virginia had given all of her electoral votes, twenty-four, to Mr. Crawford. Louisiana had given three of her electoral votes to General Jackson, and two to Mr. Adams. The electoral votes of Illinois had gone two for General Jackson, and one for Mr. Adams. Which of these doubtful States would be won in the great contest for General Jackson, and which for Mr. Adams, was now the all-absorbing topic, and the result depended very much upon the course of Mr. Clay. Among the scandals which hung around this election, it was afterward said that Mr. Buchanan, while the matter was pending before the House of Representatives in the winter of 1824–5, had, as an agent or friend of Mr. Clay, approached General Jackson and sought to secure his promise to make Mr. Clay Secretary of State, in consideration of his receiving Mr. Clay’s vote and influence in the House. There was not much intrinsic probability in this imputation, for the relations between Mr. Clay and Mr. Buchanan were not such as would naturally have led to the selection of the latter as Mr. Clay’s agent in such a negotiation, even if Mr. Clay had been capable of making such an attempt to obtain from General Jackson a promise to make him Secretary of State, while the election of a President was pending in the House. But inasmuch as General Jackson, nearly twenty years afterward, was quoted in support of this statement, it is proper that I should lay before the reader Mr. Buchanan’s own explicit account of what actually took place. It will be seen hereafter that General Jackson, who always believed that there had been a corrupt political bargain between Mr. Clay and Mr. Adams, was led afterwards to think that Mr. Buchanan had at the time of the election entertained the same belief, and yet that Mr. Buchanan had refrained from denouncing the bargain as he should have done, because he had himself made the same kind of attempt for Mr. Clay, in the conversation which he had with General Jackson before the election took place. Mr. Buchanan’s own account of his interview with General Jackson shows very clearly that, instead of seeking an interview with General Jackson for the purpose of proposing to him to make a bargain with Mr. Clay about the office of Secretary of State, his sole object was to obtain from General Jackson a denial of a prevailing rumor that he had said he would continue Mr. Adams in that office, if elected President.