Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1848-04-28
From The ". Y. Courier and Enquirer.
New YoRK, April 10, 1918.
Hen. HENnY CLAY -

SiR-ln the IrtOuHe ~ tnlS moving l ma
a letter dated Ashland, April 10Th, 1913, over
your signature. The letter is addressed. ]
J presume, 10 the American people. If ] did
not know you we'll. the intervening space Of
three days only between lis date and its ami
val mere, would lead me to suspect its a%uliien-
,icity. IL your determination 10 allow your
name TO 90 before the Philadelphia Conven-
ton as a candidate for the Presidency had
been in accordance merely with your wishes
and individual judgment, | should have kept
a respectful silence. But as your determine.
ton is based upon The supposed interest Of
the Uhig purity, | shall venture, unaskcd, to
add my opinion TO that OF the numerous
Wings TO whom you refer. When | tell you
that royqHy rarely hears the truth, you will
think, no doubt, that | repeat a very stale
dogma, if not altogether out of place in a re-
public. But there are parasites in republics
as well as in deSpotisms, and Of those you
have q very liberal portion just now. Were
| 10 claim 10 be your personal friend, | might
better, perhaps, accomplish my purposes; but
as | have never avowed one class of senti-
ments whilst in reality holding another, |
tell you frankly that although from my earli-
est youth | had been something more than a
cold admiter of yourself. so ,Ohen yott started
on The l4h Of .4ugust, lS45, to the Virsinia
Springs, leaning your friends and family 10
murder me in ing sick bed, for uindicdling
those principles uhich yOu had taught me in
your speeches, al least, | ceased TO be your
friend, and became, by the necessity Of my
nature, your enemy. What | shall say TO
you now, then, will have the more weight,
because you wi. see that it comes from an
honest, if not an unprejudIced man; whilst
| shall attempt to divest myself of the indi-
vidual and speak as the member OF a great
party.
| shall then take up your letter in its pro-
per order. In saying that you had "a strong
Dissemination to the use of my [your] name
in connection with that Office" courtesy leads
me TO confne myself to the remark that you
deceive yourself-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 a
manner that led me, almost with the power
of certainty, TO remark 10 some friends that
Henry Clay is a candidate again for the Pro-
sidency. Time attests my sagacity.
So strong was my conviction that YOU
would be a candidate, when letters were read
in the Convention of the Wing friends of
Gen. Taylor" in the State House at Frank
fort, from the Hon. J. j. Crittenden, Hon.
Charles S. Morehead and Hon. J. p. Gaines,
begging us not 10 nominate Gen. Taylor, and
thus push you from the track, and saving that
you would on your return home retire from
the canvass, in the presence OF the thousands
there assembled | rose up and declared that
although | respected these gentlemen | had
not the least confidence that you would in
truth withdraw. Time atiests my sagaciiy.
After you had gone on 10 New York, and
delegates were chosen TO the National Con-
vention whilst you were the ciiy's guest, and
it was again asserted that you would decline
on your return home, | said no, you refused
TO go to New York last Summer, you would
not have gone now. unless you had determin-
ed to run for the Presidency. Time atlests
the truth of the prediction. You say that
your friends represent that the withdrawal
of my name would be fatal TO their Success"
If they so speak TO you, they speak a differ
ent language 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 10 tell
you that | have heard almost universally that
your name would again bring us defeat. In
that opinion | concur, and | will give you
my reasons. Because ] I'm not g~uilIless N.Y.
self, and because of The bad taste of the thing,
| will not urge objections to your private cha
racter. Neither will / press your prestige of
ill., 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 lamenled in com
mon, the fall of the tariff, the bank. and in
ternal Improvements, under your lead! !
shall confine myself then to the question of
availability. Three times have we run you
and three times your name has brought de-
d.. feat! So soon as Gen. w. ii. Harrison had
brought us up from a miserable minority,
where you had left us, TO a large majority,
you hurried on to Washington, when Mr.. Ty-
Ter under MIR. Webster's lead was doing good
service 10 The country and party, and, by al
tempting TO force on him and US the 'obso-
lete BaHk" which We had purposely slurred
in the canvass, you brought us 10 a speedy
minority!
= A"long time ago." being too old 10 per-
r form the comparatively light duties of Sena-
] tor, you gave the public a fareweH address
and retired from public life. The Democratic
party by the excess Of its numbers, was at
4, once split into widely separated fragments.
: Mess!s. Cass, Calhoun, Van Buren,, Tyler,
Polk, and others, were all pressing their
claims with a bitterness before unknown to
the party. Whom the gods wish to de-
stroy, they first make mad" They deter
mined 10 bring Texas into the Union, apow-
ediy 10 break down The power of the free
| North, and to make this nation a slave en-
IS pire. The friends of liberty rallied once
n more, and in spite Of yOur Missouri compro-
mise, and your constant denunciation of all
real anti-slarery action, your Raleigh letter
made you by some fatality our candidate once
d more. The Democratic feuds were at once
cured up by the greater hatred of Henry Clay.
Mr.. Van Buren,, who had taken similar ground
ID with yourself, but who could not unite the
10 party, was overthrown, and Mr.. James X.
Polk substituted. Notwithstanding The claims
If of other Wings, | will now restrict myself
IN saying your equals, were postponed, who
y 10 one doubts could have been elected, we,
: the Wing party, all united on you. We
fought with The moral pOULr of a noble cause,