The State guard., 1848-05-23
From the Washington Union. The Whigs & their Letter.yyri.

tCfS.
 The whigs are constantly twitting us with the divisions in our political family. Will they excuse us for looking behind their curtain, and spying some of the diff culties which they have to encounter at home
 For some time past, the whig leaders have been zealously engaged in doing the work of their opponents, and preparing their own disunion and defeat. Mir. Clay's chance to be President was but slim when he started from Ashland and his pilgrim age homeward, and his famous letter ''To the Public" which was the result of it, certainly did not improve his position be- fore the country, while it manjlcstly put his friends upon their honor not to aban- don his claims in favor of any other man. Just before, Judge Mclean, whose posi- ton upon the bench shielded him from the necessity of offending any portion of his countrymen, and who doubtless would have been strong candidate in some sections, chose seriously to damage his prospects, by putting forth, in relation to the war, letter which has nothing to redeem or ex- cuse it in the eye of any patriotic Ameri- can. In the same way, General Scott, whose brilliant battles had doubtless done much towards rendering him available, saw fit, an evil hour, to lay his lance in rest, and run tilt against the Secretary of War :; and the whigs know better and more bitterly than we can tell them, how fatal he found the result of the encounter to be
 Meantime, Gen. Taylor had for some months been writing-about once week, at least-in Freply to whole series of letters, spurious and genuine. First, he needessly wrote himself out of favor with the democratic party. Then, because he knew the whig leaders looked upon him with an evil eye, he protested his .'inde- pendence" of all parties, until even the whigs concluded that they could do noth- ing of him, and must give him up. There upon Mir. Clay became the ascendant of the hour: and how the Generals pen-or the pen of his friends for him has lately bestirred itself in view of this fact, our readers already know.
 Now, such series of letters as this is enough to ruin the political prospects of any party. One and all, they are on their face mere bids for the presidency. Un- called for by any special emergency or prominent question in public affairs, they tend directly-one and all of them--to confirm the prcpossessions and exasperate the hostility of the different whig cliques In particular, MT. Clay's last letter, and the two last of Gen. Taylor, have made a decisive rupture in the whig ranks almost inevitable. Mir. Clay will not withdraw his claims from the convention. Gen. Taylor will urge his claims upon the con- vention, while distinctly refusing to abide by that decision if it shall be against him. Mir. Clay is not the man to submit to such treatment at the hands of one whom it is clear enough that he and his friends regard as suspicicious interloper in the whig ranks, unless we greatly deceive ourselves in all our inferences from MT. Clay's past history. General Taylor, whether nomi- h"tCu ol Hot uoiliiHutcu u] tuc WIllg COIL vention, when going before that body un- der the dictatorial terms laid down in his letters, will not be President of tile Uni ted States if Mir. Clay and his friends can prevent his election. But they can do a great deal more than prevent it. General Taylor has no chance at all, even if he be nominated, to be elected without the most cordial and unanimous and zealous aid of all the Clay men. To that aid he has for feiied every pretence of claim by his open refusal to abide by the decision ofthe con- vention. It would not surprise us to hear at any day another roar of the Lion at Ashland on this very point. But it is not against the Clay men alone that General Taylor has to contend, not only for his nomination, but for his election if he shall be nominated. There l sa feud between the friends of General Taylor and General Scott, growing out of