The memory of this election will never fade from the minds of any who witnessed it.  At the meeting of the Legislature it was doubtful which party had the majority.  Two members chosen as favorable to the election of Troup, were unable from sickness to reach the seat of Government, and it was supposed this gave the majority to Talbot.  There was no political principle involved in the contest.  Both professedly belonged to the Republican party.  Both seemed anxious to sustain the principles and the ascendency of that party.  There were no spoils.  The patronage of the executive was literally nothing; and yet there was an intensity of feeling involved for which there was no accounting, unless it was the anxiety of one party to sustain Mr. Crawford at home for the Presidency, and on the other hand to gratify the hatred of Clarke, and sustain Mr. Calhoun.

During the period intervening between the meeting of the Legislature and the day appointed for the election, every means was resorted to, practicable in that day.  There was no money used directly.  There was not a man in that Legislature who would not have repelled with scorn a proposition to give his vote for a pecuniary consideration; but all were open to reason, State pride, and a sincere desire to do what they deemed best for the honor and interest of the State.  The friends of either candidate would have deserved their favorite instantly upon the fact being known that they had even winked at so base a means of success.  Every one was tenaciously jealous of his fame, and equally so of that of the State.  The machinery of party was incomplete, and individual independence universal.  There were a few members, whose characters forbade violence of prejudice, and who were mild, considerate, and unimpassioned.  These men were sought to be operated upon by convincing them that the great interests of the State would be advanced by electing their favorite.  The public services of Troup, and his stern, lofty, and eminently pure character, were urged by his friends as reasons why he should be chosen.  The people of the State were becoming clamorous for the fulfilment of the contract between the State and General Government for the removal of the Indians from the territory of the State, and Troup was urged upon the voters as being favorable in the extreme to this policy, and also as possessing the talents, will, and determination to effect this end.  Finally the day of election arrived.  The representative men of the State were assembled.  It was scarcely possible to find hotel accommodations for the multitude.  The judges of the different judicial districts, the leading members of the Bar, men of fortune and leisure, the prominent members of the different sects of the Christian Church, and especially the ministers of the gospel who were most prominent and influential, were all there.  The celebrated Jesse Mercer was a moving spirit amidst the excited multitude, and Daniel Duffie, who, as a most intolerant Methodist, and an especial hater of the Baptist Church and all Baptists, was there also, willing to lay down all ecclesiastical prejudice, and go to heaven even with Jesse Mercer, because he was a Troup man.