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344 and William Wirt, two of Clay's colleagues in Adams's Cabinet, and even John Quincy Adams himself. Indeed, while Clay would have been loath to choose between Jackson and an Anti-Masonic candidate, Adams gravely wrote in his Diary: “The dissolution of the Masonic institution in the United States I believe to be really more important to us and our posterity than the question whether Mr. Clay or General Jackson shall be the President chosen at the next election.” The Anti-Masonic movement furnished a curious example of mental contagion. But odd as it was, it kept the opposition to Jackson divided.

Many things had in the mean time occurred which created a loud demand for Clay's personal presence and leadership on the theatre of action at the national capital. President Jackson, treating the members of his Cabinet more as executive clerks than as political advisers, and dispensing with regular cabinet meetings, had surrounded himself with the famous “Kitchen Cabinet,” a little coterie of intimates, from whom he largely received his political inspirations and advice, — a secret council of state, withdrawn entirely from public responsibility, consisting of able, crafty, personally honest men, skillful politicians, courageous to audacity, and thoroughly devoted to General Jackson. The members of this secret council were William B. Lewis from Tennessee, one of Jackson's warmest home friends; Isaac Hill of New Hampshire; Amos Kendall, who was employed in the Treasury; and