Crawford was the choice of Jefferson and Madison as well as of Gallatin.

The principles of the Republican party had so changed that Nathaniel Macon could say in 1824, in reply to a request from Mr.Gallatin to take part in a caucus for the purpose of forwarding Mr.Crawford's nomination, that there were "not five members of Congress who entertained the opinions which those did who brought Mr.Jefferson into power." But Macon was of the Brutus stamp of politicians; of that stern cast of mind which does not 'alter when it alteration finds or bend with the remover to remove,' and held yielding to the compulsion of circumstances to be an abandonment of principle.
Jefferson still held the consolidation of power to be the chief danger of the country, and the barrier of state rights, great and small, to be its only protection even against the Supreme Court.

Gallatin took broader ground, and found encouragement in the excellent working of universal suffrage in the choice of representatives to legislative bodies.

But he was opposed to the extension of the principle to municipal officers having the application of the proceeds of taxes, forgetting that universal suffrage is the lever by which capital is moved to educate labor and relieve it from the burdens of injury, disease, and physical incapacity at the expense of the whole.

Without stopping to argue these debatable questions, Mr.Gallatin, with practical statesmanship, determined to maintain in power the only agency by which he could at all shape the political future, and he threw himself into the canvass with zeal.
Crawford had unfortunately been stricken with paralysis, and the choice of a vice-president became a matter of grave concern.