The State guard., 1848-05-09
Cassius N. CIay's response to
 Henry Clay's letter.
NEw YORK, April l3 la4s.
HoS. HENRY CLAY;

I find letter dated Ashland, April IOth lS45, over your signature. The letter is addressed, l presume to the American people If l did not know you well, the intervening space of three days only be. tween is date and it's arrival here would lead me to suspect it's authenticity. Il your determination to allow your name to go before the Philadelphia Convention as a candidate for the Presidency had been in accordance merely with your wishes and individual judgement, I should have kept respectful silence. But as your determination is based upon the supposed interest of the Whig party, I shall ven. ture unasked, to add my opinion to thai of the numerous Wings to whom you re. fer. When 1 tell you that rogalty rare. ly hears the truth, you will think, nc doubt. that l repeat very stale dogma, if not altogether out of place in re- public. But there are parasites in repub- lies as well as in despotisms, and ol those you have very liberal portion just now. Were 1 to claim to be your per sonal friend, might better, perhaps, ac- complish my purposes but as l have never. ayowed one class of sentiments whilst in reality holding another, I tell you frankly that, although from my earli- est youth had been something more than cold admirer of yourself so when you started, on the l4th of August, 1s45, to the Virginia Springs, leaving your friends and family to murder me in my sick bed, for vindicating those principles which you had taught me, in your speech es, at least, 1 ceased to be your friend, and became. by the necessity of my na- ture, your enemy. What l shall say to you now, then, will have the more weight, because you will see that it comes from an honest, if not an unpre- iudiced man; whilst 1 shall attempt to divest myself of the individual and speak as the member of a great par. ty.
 shall then take up your letter in it's proper order In saying that you had "a strong disinclination to the use oI my [yourl name in connection with that olfice,'' courtesy leads me to con fine myself to the remark that you de- ceived yoursele-but no one else So soon as you were defeated in the last election, a committee of your friends from Frankfort waited upon you and condoled with you on that melancholy event. You responded in manner that led me, almost with the power of certain ty, to remark to some friend that Henry Clay is again a candidate for the Prcsi- dency. Time attests my sagacity.
 So strong was my conviction that you would be a candidate, when letters were read in the Convention of "tle Whig friends Gen. Taylor in the State House at Frankfort, from the Hon. J. J. C.itten. den. Hon. Charles s. hlorehead and Hon. J. P. Gaines, begging us not 10 nominate Gen. Taylor, and thus push you from the track, and saying that you would, on your return home retire from the canvass, in the presence of the thousands there as. sembled rose up and declared that altho' l respected these gentlemen, had not the least confidence that you would in truth withdraw. Time attests my sagacity.- After you had gone on to New York, and delegates were chosen to the National Convention whilst you were the cay's guest, and it was again asserted that you would decline on your return home, I said no; you refused to go to New York last summer you would not have gone now un less you had determined to run for the Pre- sidency. Time attests the truth of the prediction. You say that your friends rep resent that ''the withdrawal of my name would be fatal to their success.' If they so speak to you, they speak different lan- guage elsewhere. have been told that all the members of Congress from our own State, but one, told you that you could not be elected, and that divers others whom could name, told you the same thing. But, if these reports be untrue, allow me to tell you that 1 have heard al- most universally that your name would again bring us defeat. In that opinion concur, and 1 will give you my reasons. Because l am not guiltless myself, and be- cause of the bad taste of the thing, will not urge objections to your private char acter. Neither will l press your prestige of M luck, in saying that all the measures which you have urged upon the people, except the Missouri compromise, have been erased from the statute book. For we lament in common the fall of the tariff the bank, and internal improvements, un- der your lead 1 shall confne myself then to the question of availability. Three times have we run you, and three times your name has brought us defeat So soon as Gen. w. H. Harrison had brought us up from miserable minority, where you had left us, to large majol ity, you hurried on to Washington, when Mr. Tyler under Mir. Webster's lead was do- ing good service to the country and party, and by attempting to force on him and us the ''obsolete Bank" which we had pur- posely slurred in the canvass, you brought us to aspeedy minorityi ahi
 A Hong time ago. being too old to perform the comparatively light duties of Senator, you gave the public a fneacell address and retired from public life. The