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366 much at heart. When he ceased to be Secretary of State, Jackson gave him the mission to England, holding in reserve higher honors for him. In the Senate, however, the nomination encountered strong opposition. With many Senators it was a matter of party politics. The strongest reason avowed was that, as Secretary of State, Van Buren had instructed the American Minister to England to abandon the claim, urged by the late administration, of a right to the colonial trade, on the express ground that those who had asserted that right had been condemned at the last presidential election by the popular judgment. The opponents of Van Buren denounced his conduct as a wanton humiliation of this Republic, and a violation of the principle that, in its foreign relations, the vicissitudes of party contests should not be paraded as reasons for a change of policy.

Clay, leading the opposition to Van Buren, found it not difficult to show that the policy followed by the administration of John Quincy Adams in this respect was substantially identical with that of Madison and Monroe, and that, by officially representing that policy as condemned by the people, Van Buren had cast discredit upon the conduct of this Republic in its intercourse with a foreign power. But he had still another, objection to Van Buren's appointment. He said: —

“I believe, upon circumstances which satisfy my mind, that to this gentleman is principally to be ascribed the introduction of the odious system of proscription for the