Bellows Falls times. [volume] (Bellows Falls, Vt.) 1856-1965, 1868-01-10
Horace Greeley upon Henry Clay.

Mr.. Greeley devotes his last Ledger
article to the Clay canvass for the presi-
dency in 1874, giving history of it and
showing how the wings we're defeated. A
large part of it was before matter of
history. but this, relating to Mr.. Gree
ley's love for the great whig leader, his
own efforts for his election, and the sad
personal consequences, is new and full of
interest. Mr.. Greeley's pleasantly ego
tistical showing how the contest might
have been won instead of lost, is also
very good reading, and is worthy the at
tention of those who shall manage the
coming presidential canvass:
l have admired and trusted many
statesmen. 1 profoundly loved Henry
Clay. Though STAKEHOLDER, he was
champion Of gradual emancipation when
Kentucky formed her first state constitu-
ton in his early manhood (; and he was
openly the same when she came to revise
it, half century later. He was con-
servative in the true sense of that much
abused term satisfied to hold by the
present until he could see clearly how to
exchange it for the better: but his was
no obstinate, bigoted conservatism, but
such as became an intelligent and patri-
otic American. From his first entrance
into Congress, he had been Jealous and
effective champion of internal improve
ments, the protection of home industry,
a sound and uniform national currency
those leading features of comprehen-
sive, benificent national policy which
commanded the fullest assent of my
judgment and the best exertions of my
voice and pen. loved him for his gen
erous nature, his gallant bearing, his
thrilling eloquence and his lifelong de-
votion to what / deemed our country's
unity, prosperity, and Just renown.
Hence, from the hour of his nomination
in May to that of his defeat in Novem-
Der, | gave every hour, every effort, every
thought, to his election. My wife and
then surviving child (our third spent the
summer at farmhouse in a rural town
ship in Massachusetts,, while / gave heart
and soul to the canvass. / travelled and
spoke much l wrote, think, an aver
age of three columns of the Tribune
each secular day; and gave the residue
of the hours l could save from sleep to
watching the canvass and doing whatever
| could to render our side of it more eff
fective. Very often, | crept to my lodg-
ing near the Office at 2 to A. NJ, with
my head SO heated by fourteen to sixteen
hours of incessant reading and writing,
that could only win sleep by means of
copious effusions from shower-bath and
these, while they probably saved me from
a dangerous fever, brought out such my
riads of boils that-though / did not
heed them till after the battle was fought
out and lost was covered by them for
the six months ensuing, often fifty or six
! ty at once, so that | could contrive no
position in which to rest, but passed night
after night in an easy chair. And these
unwelcome visitors returned to plague
me, though less severely, throughout the
following winter. / have suffered from
their kindred since, though never as
did from their young luxuriance iii that
winter Of '44-5.
| Looking back through almost quar-
ter of a century on that Clay canvass of
1874, say deliberately that it should
not have been lost--that it need not have