Amos Kendall's place in journalism history rests largely on his service as a journalist turned government official in the two administrations of President Andrew Jackson. Historians have claimed that Kendall was an influential journalist of the "partisan press" era, but they have provided little documentation. That documentation has been provided through an examination of events leading up to Jackson's election of 1828. The performance of Amos Kendall as newspaper editor of the "Argus of Western America" (Frankford, Kentucky) during the elections of 1824 and 1828 reveals the following: (1) Henry Clay's early patronage of Amos Kendall meant that, although the two men had different political philosophies, Kendall actually supported Clay and John Quincy Adams against Jackson in 1824. (2) Clay's financial pressures on Kendall helped cause the latter to switch his political allegiance to Jackson in 1827. (3) In 1828 Kendall helped ensnare the Adams-Clay coalition in politically embarrassing situations by revealing some of his own surreptitious maneuverings against Clay's opponents when he had been "in the service" of Clay. (RL)