Page:Life of Henry Clay (Schurz; v. 1).djvu/349

Rh fitness of the persons for their places. I am sure I never heard one word in relation thereto, and I certainly had repeated conversations with him in regard to these appointments.” To be a good hater of Henry Clay was considered a greater requisite for a cabinet place than statesmanlike ability and experience. In this way Jackson collected in his executive council, with the exception of one or two, a rare assortment of mediocrities; and nothing could have been more characteristic than that the matter which most distracted this high council of statesmen was a difference of opinion concerning — not some important public question, but the virtue of Secretary Eaton's wife. The principle that the fitness of a man for a place, in point of character and acquirements, had nothing to do with his appointment to that place, was at once recognized and exemplified above and below; and thus a virus was infused into the politics of the nation, destined to test to the utmost the native robustness of the American character.

Clay was nominally in retirement. When, after his return from Washington, the representative of his district in Congress offered to vacate the seat in order that he might succeed to it, he declined. Neither would he accept a place in the legislature of Kentucky. For a while he heartily enjoyed the quiet life of the farmer. He delighted in raising fine animals, — horses, blood cattle, mules, pigs, and sheep. He corresponded with his friends about a lot of “fifty full-blooded merino ewes,” which he