[Footnote 5: Senator Mills says of this grand ball: "Eight large rooms were open and literally filled to overflowing. There must have been at least a thousand people there; and so far as Mr. Adams was concerned it certainly evinced a great deal of taste, elegance, and good sense.... Many stayed till twelve and one.... It is the universal opinion that nothing has ever equalled this party here either in brilliancy of preparation or elegance of the company."]
He was in favor of offering to the General the position of (p. 163) minister to Mexico; and before Jackson had developed into a rival of himself for the Presidency, he exerted himself to secure the Vice-Presidency for him. Thus by argument and by influence in the Cabinet, in many a private interview, and in the world of society, also by wise counsel when occasion offered, Mr. Adams for many years made himself the noteworthy and indeed the only powerful friend of General Jackson. Nor up to the last moment, and when Jackson had become his most dangerous competitor, is there any derogatory passage concerning him in the Diary.
As the period of election drew nigh, interest in it absorbed everything else; indeed during the last year of Monroe's Administration public affairs were so quiescent and the public business so seldom transcended the simplest routine, that there was little else than the next Presidency to be thought or talked of. The rivalship for this, as has been said, was based not upon conflicting theories concerning public affairs, but solely upon individual preference for one or another of four men no one of whom at that moment represented any great principle in antagonism to any of the others. Under no circumstances could the temptation to petty intrigue and malicious tale-bearing be greater than when votes were (p. 164) to be gained or lost solely by personal predilection. In such a contest Adams was severely handicapped as against the showy prestige of the victorious soldier, the popularity of the brilliant orator, and the artfulness of the most dexterous political manager then in public life. Long prior to this stage Adams had established his rule of conduct in the campaign. So early as March, 1818, he was asked one day by Mr. Everett whether he was "determined to do nothing with a view to promote his future election to the Presidency as the successor of Mr. Monroe," and he had replied that he "should do absolutely nothing." To this resolution he sturdily adhered. Not a breach of it was ever brought home to him, or indeed--save in one instance soon to be noticed--seriously charged against him. There is not in the Diary the faintest trace of any act which might be so much as questionable or susceptible of defence only by casuistry. That he should have perpetuated evidence of any flagrant misdoing certainly could not be expected; but in a record kept with the fulness and frankness of this Diary we should read between the lines and detect as it were in its general flavor any taint of disingenuousness or concealment; we should discern moral unwholesomeness in its atmosphere. A thoughtless sentence would slip from the pen, a sophistical argument would be (p. 165) formulated for self-comfort, some acquaintance, interview, or arrangement would slide upon some unguarded page indicative of undisclosed matters. But there is absolutely nothing of this sort. There is no tinge of bad color; all is clear as crystal. Not an editor, nor a member of Congress, nor a local politician, not even a private individual, was intimidated or conciliated. On the contrary it often happened that those who made advances, at least sometimes stimulated by honest friendship, got rebuffs instead of encouragement. Even after the contest was known to have been transferred to the House of Representatives, when Washington was actually buzzing with the ceaseless whisperings of many secret conclaves, when the air was thick with rumors of what this one had said and that one had done, when, as Webster said, there were those who pretended to foretell how a representative would vote from the way in which he put on his hat, when of course stories of intrigue and corruption poisoned the honest breeze, and when the streets seemed traversed only by the busy tread of the go-betweens, the influential friends, the wire-pullers of the various contestants,--still amid all this noisy excitement and extreme temptation Mr. Adams held himself almost wholly aloof, wrapped in the cloak of his rigid integrity. His proud honesty was only not quite (p. 166) repellent; he sometimes allowed himself to answer questions courteously, and for a brief period held in check his strong natural propensity to give offence and make enemies.