This certainly was in his mind in the
following year (1838), when the rumor was abroad that he was again
contemplating retirement from the Senate; and it is highly probable that
the same motive was at bottom the controlling one in 1837. But whatever the
cause of his wish to resign, the opposition of his friends everywhere, and
of the Legislature of Massachusetts, formally and strongly expressed, led
him to forego his purpose. He consented to hold his seat for the present,
at least, and in the summer of 1837 made an extended tour through the West,
where he was received as before with the greatest admiration and
enthusiasm.
The distracted condition of the still inchoate Whig party in 1836, and the
extraordinary popularity of Jackson, resulted in the complete victory of
Mr. Van Buren. But the General's chosen successor and political heir found
the great office to which he had been called, and which he so eagerly
desired, anything but a bed of roses. The ruin which Jackson's wild policy
had prepared was close at hand, and three months after the inauguration the
storm burst with full fury.
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