Jackson’s attitude toward the leading political personalities of the time left no room for doubt.  He supported Monroe in 1816 and in 1820 and continued on friendly terms with him notwithstanding the President’s failure on certain occasions to follow his advice.  Among the new contenders for the presidency the one he disliked most was Crawford.  “As to Wm. H. Crawford,” he wrote to a friend in 1821, “you know my opinion.  I would support the Devil first.”  Clay, also, he disliked—­partly out of recollection of the Kentuckian’s censorious attitude during the Seminole debates, partly because of the natural rivalry between the two men for the favor of the western people.  Clay fully reciprocated by refusing to believe that “killing 2,500 Englishmen at New Orleans” qualified Jackson for the “various difficult and complicated duties of the chief magistracy.”  Toward Adams, Jackson was not ill disposed; before he decided to permit his own name to be used, he said that he would give his support in 1824 to the New Englander—­unless one other person should be brought forward.  That person was Calhoun, for whom, among all the candidates of the day, he thus far had the warmest regard.

Among so many aspirants—­and not all have been mentioned—­how should the people make up their minds?  In earlier days the party caucuses in Congress would have eliminated various candidates, and the voters would have found themselves called upon to make a choice between probably but two opponents.  The caucus was an informal, voluntary gathering of the party members in the two houses to canvass the political situation and decide upon the men to be supported by the rank and file of the party for the presidency and vice presidency.  In the lack of other nominating machinery it served a useful purpose, and nominations had been commonly made in this manner from 1796 onwards.  There were obvious objections to the plan—­chiefly that the authority exercised was assumed rather than delegated—­and, as the campaign of 1824 approached, opposition flared up in a very impressive manner.

Crawford, as the “regular” candidate, wanted a caucus, and his adherents supported him in the wish.  But all his rivals were opposed to it, partly because they felt that they could not gain a caucus nomination, partly because their followers generally objected to the system.  “King Caucus” became the target of general criticism.  Newspapers, except those for Crawford, denounced the old system; legislatures passed resolutions against it; public meetings condemned it; ponderous pamphlets were hurled at it; the campaigns of Jackson and Clay, in particular, found their keynote in hostility toward it.  Failing to perceive that under the changed circumstances a caucus nomination might become a liability rather than an asset, the Crawford element pushed its plans, and on February 14, 1824, a caucus—­destined to be the last of the kind in the country—­was duly held.  It proved a fiasco, for it was attended by only sixty-six persons.  Crawford was “recommended to the people of the United States” by an almost unanimous vote, but the only effect was to infuse fresh energy into the campaigns of his leading competitors.  “The caucus,” wrote Daniel Webster to his brother Ezekiel, “has hurt nobody but its friends.”