Page:Life of Henry Clay (Schurz; v. 2).djvu/269

Rh Clay's letter on the annexation question, while not reaching up to the standard of the Liberty party, had the approval of anti-slavery men of more moderate views, and was well calculated to attract to his support anti-slavery Democrats who were not willing to deceive themselves by voting for a candidate while protesting against that which he represented. Clay had, therefore, reason to hope that he would receive votes beyond the regular strength of his party, and this especially in the important State of New York. He had only to let his Raleigh letter produce its natural effect.

But in the planting states the excitement about the Texas question rose from day to day. It was still more inflamed by the news that the Senate, after a long and warm debate, had on June 8, by a large majority (35 to 16), refused to assent to the treaty of annexation; that then Tyler had sent a message to the House asking that annexation be accomplished by “some other form of proceeding,” but that Congress had adjourned without further action. The Southern Whigs became anxious, and some of them earnestly insisted that Clay should modify the expression of his views on the vexed question. In an evil hour Clay yielded to their entreaties, and ventured upon that most perilous of manœuvres on the political as well as the military field, — a change of front under the fire of the enemy. On July 1 he wrote a letter to Stephen F. Miller, of Tuscaloosa, Alabama, in which he disclaimed that, when speaking in his Raleigh letter