The case of the people against the politicians was aided by the peculiar circumstances attending this election of 1824. At the preceding election, there had been but one candidate. At this election, there were so many that no one of them had the required majority. Electors had been pledged in advance, so that it was not a return to the original idea of a free choice of the best man. Fortunately, the framers of the Constitution had provided against this contingency by allowing the House of Representatives, voting by States, to choose the President from the three candidates having received the highest number of electoral votes. Jackson, the war hero, headed the list in both popular and electoral votes. John Quincy Adams, "the secretarial successor," had the second highest number of electoral votes, and Crawford, the candidate of the caucus, the next. With his usual ill-fortune, Clay had the least and must be dropped. He had carried the three States of Kentucky, Ohio, and Missouri. It was to be presumed that he would throw his influence in these States to Jackson, his fellow of the South-west. But the Representatives from these three States gave a total of eleven votes to Adams, six to Jackson, and two to Crawford. This gave the States to Adams and made him President. That Clay should have immediately afterward accepted the first place in Adams's Cabinet is not strange. Presidents have frequently honoured their rivals in convention in this way in later times. But it gave the people the impression that these two politicians had made a "corrupt bargain," and this story hampered the entire administration of Adams. No Administration had met with as much opposition since the stormy four years of his father. The strict Republicans asserted that Adams was a "consolidationist," and Clay's views of the paternalistic duty of the National Government, no less than his association with Adams, placed him in the same category. The new President gave out his political creed in his inaugural address. "Whatsoever is of domestic concernment," said he, "unconnected with the other members of the Union, or with foreign lands, belongs exclusively to the administration of the State governments. Whatsoever directly involves the rights and interests of the federative fraternity, or of foreign powers, is of the resort of this General Government." At the same time, he expressly stated the various formative actions of the General Government which had been allowed by the States. He expressed the hope that "by the same process of friendly, patient, and persevering deliberation all constitutional objections will ultimately be removed."