Page:Life of Henry Clay (Schurz; v. 2).djvu/272

262 was perhaps the only thing that could prevent the annexation of Texas: there were, therefore, many reasons why the anti-slavery men should have supported Clay. Yet their opposition to him was not without logic. They did not expect to decide the contest between the two great parties. Their work was, as they conceived it, missionary work. They simply desired to strengthen their organization for future action, and naturally endeavored to draw recruits from that party in which they had the largest number of sympathizers, — the Whigs. To that end they endeavored to make the anti-slavery Whigs dissatisfied with their party and their candidate. Hence the vigor of their warfare upon Clay. And that warfare was undoubtedly inspired also by a tendency always prevailing among men who are struggling for the realization of ideas in advance of their time, — the tendency to censure more bitterly those from whom they expect sympathy and aid, if that sympathy and aid do not come, than those from whom they expect and receive nothing but hostility. Thus the Liberty party gave up the Democrats as hopeless, and severely castigated the Whigs for not rising to its own standard.

Had Clay abstained from disturbing the impression produced by his Raleigh letter, that he would firmly oppose the annexation of Texas, those attacks of the Liberty party would not have become dangerous to him, because they would have appeared unreasonable. But his Alabama letters made him appear like one of those trimming poli-