There was but one man who ever imputed dishonesty to him, or selfish motives in any act. When the claims of Mr. Adams and Mr. Crawford for the Presidency were being discussed, and party asperity sought to slay its victims, Ninian Edwards, a senator of Congress from Illinois, charged Mr. Crawford with impropriety of conduct in depositing, for selfish and dishonest purposes, the public moneys arising from the sale of lands in Illinois, in banks notoriously insolvent. Edwards had been appointed minister to Mexico, had left the Senate, and had gone to his home, preparatory to his leaving for Mexico; and from his home made this attack upon Mr. Crawford. The son-in-law of Edwards, a man named Cook, was the representative in Congress from Illinois, and, if I remember correctly, was the only representative who at the time reiterated these charges from his seat. Mr. Crawford immediately demanded an investigation of his conduct. This was had, and the result was a triumphant acquittal from all blame; and so damaging was this investigation to Edwards that the President recalled the commission of Edwards as minister to Mexico, and appointed Joel R. Poinsett, of South Carolina, in his stead. Edwards was at New Orleans when the letter of recall from the President reached him, that far on his way to Mexico: he returned in disgrace, and soon faded from public notice forever. At the time, it was asserted he was the brother-in-law of Mr. Adams, and knowing that some of the banks in which Crawford had deposited the public treasure had failed, he imagined complicity of a dishonest character, on the part of Crawford, with the officers of the banks, and expected to injure him and subserve the interest of Adams. In what contrast does this transaction place the purity of the Government, as then administered, with its conduct of to-day, and how peerless were those who were trusted then with public confidence and high places, in comparison with the public men who fill their places now!