If the story of Adams's Administration could be told in detail, it would be one long record of rancorous warfare between the President and the Jacksonian opposition in Congress. Adams, on the one hand, held inflexibly to his course, advocating policies and recommending measures which he knew had not the remotest chance of adoption; and, on the other hand, the opposition--which in the last two years of the Administration controlled the Senate as well as the House of Representatives--balked at no act that would humiliate the President and make capital for its western idol. At the outset the Jacksonians tried to hold up the confirmation of Clay. It fell furiously, and quite without discrimination, upon the President's great scheme of national improvements, professing to see in it evidence of an insatiable desire for "concentration." In the discussion of a proposed amendment to the Constitution providing for direct election of the President by the people it was constantly assumed and frequently stated that Adams had no moral right to the position which he occupied. The President's decision to send delegates to the Panama Congress of 1826 raised a storm of acrimonious debate and brought the Administration's enemies into closer unison. To cap the climax, Adams was solemnly charged with abuse of the federal patronage, and in the Senate six bills for the remedy of the President's pernicious practices were brought in by Benton in a single batch! Adams was able and honest, but he got no credit from his opponents for these qualities. He, in turn, displayed little magnanimity; and in refusing to shape his policies and methods to meet the conditions under which he had to work, he fell short of the highest statesmanship. As election year approached, it became clear that the people would at last have an opportunity to make a direct choice between Adams and Jackson. Each candidate was formally nominated by sundry legislatures and other bodies; no one so much as suggested nomination by congressional caucus. In the early months of 1828 the campaign rapidly rose to an extraordinary level of vigor and public interest. Each party group became bitter and personal in its attacks upon the other; in our entire political history there have been not more than two or three campaigns so smirched with vituperation and abuse. The Jackson papers and stump speakers laid great stress on Adams's aristocratic temperament, denounced his policies as President, and exploited the "corrupt bargain" charge with all possible ingenuity.