BITTER OPPOSITION TO THE ADMINISTRATION OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS—BILL FOR THE RELIEF OF THE REVOLUTIONARY OFFICERS—THE PANAMA MISSION—INCIDENTAL REFERENCE TO SLAVERY. The circumstances attending the election of Mr. Adams led to the formation of a most powerful opposition to his administration, as soon as he was inaugurated. The friends of General Jackson, a numerous and compact body of public men, representing a much larger number of the people of the Union than the friends of Mr. Adams could be said to represent, felt that he had been unfairly deprived of the votes of States in the House of Representatives which should have been given to him. Especially was this the case, they said, in regard to the State of Kentucky, whose Legislature had plainly indicated the wish of a majority of her people that her vote in the House should be given to General Jackson; and when it was announced that Mr. Adams, who had received the unanimous electoral vote of only six States, had obtained the votes of thirteen States in the House, while General Jackson had obtained but seven, and when Mr. Clay had been appointed by Mr. Adams Secretary of State, there was a bitterness of feeling among the supporters of General Jackson, which evinced at once a fixed determination to elect him President at the end of the ensuing four years. In regard to the state of parties, viewed apart from the merely personal element of leadership and following, there was not much, in the beginning of Mr. Adams’s administration, to distinguish its supporters from its opponents. In the course, however, of that administration, those who defended it from the fierce assaults of the opposition, began to take the name of National Republicans, while the opponents of the administration began to call themselves Democrats. Included in the opposition were the political friends and followers of Mr. Calhoun, and the political friends and followers of General Jackson; the latter being distinctly known and classified as “Jackson men.” In the Senate there was a number of older men, who were not likely to form an active element of parliamentary opposition or defence; such as Mr. Silsbee of Massachusetts, Mr. Dickerson of New Jersey, Mr. Samuel Smith of Maryland, Mr. William Smith of South Carolina, Mr. Macon of Georgia, Mr. Rowan of Kentucky, and Mr. Hugh L. White of Tennessee. The opposition in the Senate was led by a younger class of men: Mr. Van Buren of New York, Mr. Woodbury of New Hampshire, Mr. Tazewell of Virginia, Mr. Hayne of South Carolina, Mr. Berrien of Georgia, and Mr. Benton of Missouri.[17] But it was not in the Senate that the great arena of debate between the assailants and the defenders of this administration was to be found during the first year or two of its term. In the House, at the opening of the 19th Congress, which began its session in December, 1825, there was an array of combatants—ardent, active and able debaters. Of these,