Page:Life of Henry Clay (Schurz; v. 1).djvu/394

382 came in. Of the 288 electoral votes Jackson had won 219, Clay only 49, those of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Maryland, Delaware, and Kentucky. Wirt, the candidate of the Anti-Masons, had carried Vermont; South Carolina gave her vote to John Floyd of Virginia. It was a stunning defeat. Clay and his friends stood wondering how it could have happened.

Clay had committed two grave blunders in statesmanship, and one equally grave in political tactics.

The South was in a dangerous ferment against the tariff. The impending extinguishment of the public debt made a large reduction of the revenue necessary. Clay might, therefore, in recognition of the necessity for reducing the revenue, have proposed a reduction of tariff duties sufficient to take off the edge of the Southern discontent, without the least appearance of yielding to Southern threats. The measure he did propose reduced the revenue very little, and, by maintaining the high protective duties, exasperated the South still more. This was the first blunder in statesmanship.

The other was that, instead of advising the United States Bank to keep clear of politics and to accede to any reasonable modification of its charter that might avert the opposition of Jackson, he forced the fight, and made the question of the bank a party question; thus involving in the changing fortunes of party warfare the most important financial institution of the country, whose solvency,