The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1896-06-21
CLAY'S DISAPPOINTMENT.
HIS DEFEAT FOR THE PREsIDEN-
TTAL NOMINATION. IN 1889.
Bounds and He Abused Them in
Most Unmeasured Terms.

The Wing convention of 1889 was held in
new Lutheran church in Harrisburg,
Pa, and it is g. safe assumption that never
before or since has a house of God been
made the scene of SO much and so adroit
political manoeuvering as went on there
Icr the purpose OF preventing the nomin-
atom of Henry Clay for the presidency.
me chlef man.puiator was Ihurlow Weed,
VINO appeared there as the friend OF
governor Seward, and the future men,
Der of the powerful firm of Seward, Weed
o. Greeley. This firm was, indeed, the
outcome of the ensuing campaign. Greeley
was at the conyenuon-little dreaming
tnat the campaign which was TO follow
would give him the opportunity for de-
Veloplng the qualities which were to make
MN the first editor of the time, and lead
10 the foundation of a great newspaper
TO be forever linked indisSolubly with his
name. Weed went TO The convention with
the determination of defeating Clay. He
says in his Autobiography that ne had
mad the New York delegation instructed
for Scott TO keep it from Clay, his real
candidate being Harrison. He entereu
into an agreement with friends of Web
Ster; On the way TO Harrisburg from New
ork city, TO act together for Clay'S de-
feat Webster was in Europe at the
Tune, ana had sent word to his friends
declining to be- a candidate, primarily
because OF Weeds refusal to support him.
After detailing these facts, Mr.. Weed
burg, we found a decided plurality in
favor of Mr. Clay" but that, lin the
opinion of the delegates from Pennsyi-
vania and New York. Mr. Clay could not
carry either of those states, and without
them he could. not be elected
Weed admits a bargain in favor of
Harrison with the friends both of Web
ster and of Scott and says the final
vote was Intentionally delayed by the
friends of the stronger candidate (Harri-
SOM for twenty-four hours" in order to
placate the angry friends of Clay, whose
disappointment and vexation found ex-
cited expression" Greeley makes frank
admission, in his "Recollections of a
Busy Life" as to the plot, by saying
that the parties to it, chiefly Weed,
Judged that he CLAY could not be
I chosen, If nominated, while another could
be, and acted accordingly" adding: IF
politics do not mediate the achievements
of beneficent ends, through the choice
and use of the safest and most effective
means, / wholly Inexperienced them. -
| This somewhat Jesuitical view did not
strike Clay and his friends as an adequate
justification of the methods by which
! an admitted majority of the convention
had been prevented from expressing its
will. John Tyler of Virginia, one of Clay's
most ardent friends in the convention,
was so overcome with grief at Harrison s
nomination that he shed tears; and after
several unavailing efforts to get some
one else to take the nomination for vice
president, Tyler was named for it, his
tears having convinced the convention
that the placing of SO devoted a friend
OF Clay OH. the ticket would go far to
heal the wounds that the methods of the
i convention had caused.
ClayS rage at the outcome was uIl-
bounded. He had been assuming in the
/ senate a lofty Indifference to the presi-
dency, his famous saying, II would rather
/ be right than be president having been
made public only a short time before the
convention met. There was nobody in
1 the senate at that time of sufficient MINI
4 Bile wit to think of the biting retort which
| Speaker Reed many years later made to
congressman who for the thousandth
+ time was Strutting about in ClayS cast
off garments, Don't give yourself the
slightest uneasineSS: you'll never be
either" But Clay had given himself great
uneasiness. He had been candidate
eight years earlier, when he had no chance
of election, and he believed firmly now
that if nominated he could be elected.
When the news from Harrisburg reached
him in Washington, he lost all control of
himself. HE had been drinking heavily
in the excitement of expectation" says
rose from his chair, and, walking back
ward and forward rapidly, lifting his feet
like a horse stringhalted in both legs.
stamped his steps upon the floor, exclairn-
ing: MY friends are not worth the
powder and shot it would take to kill
them. 1t is diabolical intrigue, know
now, which has betrayed me. / am the
most unfortunate man in the history of
parties-always run by my friends when
for a nomination when 1, or any one,
would besure of an on."-Humor and
Pathos of Presidential Conventions by
Joseph B. Bishop, in the June Century.