[Sidenote: Threats of the organization of an anti-administration party.] Exactly who the Calhounites were at that moment, as distinct from the followers of Adams and Clay, is difficult to determine, since all the electors who voted for Adams for President also voted for Calhoun for Vice-President, except eight electors from Connecticut and one from New Hampshire, and of the thirty-seven electors who voted {143} for Clay, at least seven of them voted also for Calhoun. It was Crawford's supporters who had opposed Calhoun for the second place, not one of them having voted for him. This declaration made by Mr. Sullivan meant, therefore, that Jackson's friends were going to organize an opposition party to the Adams-Clay Administration and that the Vice-President was going to cast his lot with them. This was certainly a threat of danger, but Adams was not the man to be frightened from the course which he had chosen as just and politic. He immediately offered the first position in the cabinet to Clay, and, after some six days of reflection and of consultation with friends, Clay accepted. [Sidenote: The bargain between Clay and Adams a mere suspicion.] No sufficient evidence has ever been produced to convince a judicial mind that Adams and Clay had come to any understanding in regard to this matter either before Clay announced publicly that he should support Adams, or afterward. But men generally do not have judicial minds. "Diffused distrust and indiscriminate suspicion" mark the attitude of the vulgar mind toward personages in high station. Politicians know only too well that this is one of the most potent forces which can be called into play, and they know only too well how to take advantage of it. Conscious as both Adams and Clay doubtless were of their own rectitude, they did not sufficiently appreciate the proneness of the masses to believe in the corruption of their superiors. Neither did they correctly appreciate the ungenerous and uncandid spirit of the leaders among their opponents in clinging to this charge, and reiterating it, after they had failed to substantiate it by any credible evidence. They certainly did not comprehend that they had given their opponents a shibboleth which would lead them to certain victory. {144} [Sidenote: Clay's nomination to the secretaryship of State in the Senate.]