The administration of Mr.Adams marks the close of the "era of good feeling," as it was called, and sowed the germs of those divisions which were soon to result in new and definite party combinations.

Mr.Adams and Mr.Clay represented the conservative and General Jackson and his friends the radical or democratic elements in the now all-embracing Republican party.

It was inevitable that Mr.Webster should sympathize with the former, and it was equally inevitable that in doing so he should become the leader of the administration forces in the House, where "his great and commanding influence," to quote the words of an opponent, made him a host himself.

The desire of Mr.Adams to send representatives to the Panama Congress, a scheme which lay very near his heart and to which Mr.Clay was equally attached, encountered a bitter and factious resistance in the Senate, sufficient to deprive the measure of any real utility by delaying its passage.

In the House a resolution was introduced declaring simply that it was expedient to appropriate money to defray the expenses of the proposed mission.