In 1823, as the Presidential election approached, the influences to control and secure the interests predominating in the different sections of the country became more active. Crawford, of Georgia, Calhoun, of South Carolina, Adams, of Massachusetts, and Clay, of Kentucky, were the most prominent candidates. In December, Barbour, of Virginia, was superseded, as Speaker of the House of Representatives, by Clay, of Kentucky; an event ominous to the hopes of Crawford, and to that resistance to the tariff, and to internal improvements, which was regarded as dependent on his success. The question whether a Congressional caucus, by the instrumentality of which Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe, had obtained the Presidency, should be again held to nominate a candidate for that office, was the next cause of political excitement. The Southern party, whose hopes rested on the success of Crawford, were clamorous for a caucus. The friends of the other candidates were either lukewarm or hostile to that expedient. Pennsylvania, whose general policy favored a protective tariff and public improvements, hesitated. In 1816 she had manifested an opposition to that plan of Congressional influence, and in 1823 a majority of her representatives declined attending any partial meeting of members of Congress that might attempt a nomination. But the Democracy of that state, ever subservient to the views of the Southern aristocracy, held meetings at Philadelphia, and elsewhere, recommending a Congressional caucus. This motion would have been probably adopted, had not the Legislature of Alabama, about this time, nominated Andrew Jackson for the Presidency, and accompanied their resolutions in his favor with a recommendation to their representatives to use their best exertions to prevent a Congressional nomination of a President. The popularity of Jackson, and the obvious importance to his success of the policy recommended by Alabama, fixed the wavering counsels of Pennsylvania, so that only three representatives from that state attended the Congressional caucus, which was soon after called, and which consisted of _only sixty members_, out of _two hundred and sixty-one_, the whole number of the House of Representatives; of which Virginia and New York, under the lead of Mr. Van Buren, constituted nearly one half. Notwithstanding this meagre assemblage, Mr. Crawford was nominated for the Presidency, under a confident expectation that the influence of the caucus would be conclusive with the people, and the candidate and policy of Virginia would be confirmed in ascendency. But the days of Congressional caucuses were now numbered. The people took the nomination of President into their own hands, and the insolent assumption of members of Congress to dictate their choice in respect of this office was henceforth rebuked.