Page:Life of Henry Clay (Schurz; v. 2).djvu/191

Rh friends are not worth the powder and shot it would take to kill them! He added: “If there were two Henry Clays, one of them would make the other President of the United States.” And when Wise reminded him that he had been warned of the intrigues going on, he replied: “It is a diabolical intrigue, I know now, which has betrayed me. I am the most unfortunate man in the history of parties: always run by my friends when sure to be defeated, and now betrayed for a nomination when I, or any one, would be sure of an election.”

The lack of dignity in this explosion of wrath was certainly unbecoming a great leader. But there can be no doubt that Clay had reason for being angry. He was the chief of the Whig party. He had always been its foremost champion in the field. He had fought its battles, and received the blows struck at it. His personal integrity was clear. If it could be said that its honors were due to any one, they were due to him. He found himself cast aside for a man whose significance could not be compared to his. And more; the methods employed to defeat him had been those of intrigue, designed to falsify the feelings of the masses and to muzzle the enthusiasm of his friends, — unscrupulous, crafty, without precedent in American politics. All this was true.

On the other hand, Clay had himself done much, if not most, to make the Whig party what it was in 1839 and 1840, — a coalition rather than a