George Kremer

Kremer was born in Middletown in the Province of Pennsylvania. He studied law, was admitted to the bar and commenced practice in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. He was a member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives in 1812 and 1813.

Kremer was elected as a Jackson Republican to the Eighteenth Congress and reelected as a Jacksonian to the Nineteenth and Twentieth Congresses. He died in Middleburg, Pennsylvania. Interment in the private burial ground on the family estate near Middleburg, Pennsylvania.

Kremer is best-remembered for publishing (and later defending) an anonymous letter in the Philadelphia newspaper Columbian Observer in which he accused Henry Clay of having made a "bargain" with John Quincy Adams to throw Clay's support to Adams in the Presidential election of 1824 (which was decided in the House of Representatives) in exchange for the office of Secretary of State. Kremer's letter charged that Clay had first made the offer to Andrew Jackson, who had refused it. Clay vigorously disputed the allegations and demanded an official House investigation, at which Kremer refused to testify. The "Corrupt Bargain" charge continued to haunt Clay for the remainder of his political career.[1]

Russ, William A., Jr. The Political Ideas of George Kremer. Pennsylvania History 7 (October 1940): 201–12.

• The Political Graveyard

• United States Congress. "George Kremer (id: K000329)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.