Page:Life of Henry Clay (Schurz; v. 2).djvu/420

410 mended by Gallatin as Secretary of the Treasury; and he became a firm supporter of Madison's administration only when, as to the war against Great Britain, it had yielded to his pressure. No fault can be found with him for asserting in all important things the freedom of his opinion; but a less impetuous statesman would have found it possible to avoid a conflict with Monroe, and to maintain harmonious relations with General Taylor.

On the other hand, he never sought to organize or strengthen his following by the arts of the patronage-monger. The thought that a political party should be held together by the public plunder, or that the party leader should be something like a paymaster of a body of henchmen at the public expense, or that a party contest should be a mere scramble for spoils, was entirely foreign to his mind, and far below the level of his patriotic aspirations.

It has been said that Clay was surrounded by a crowd of jobbers and speculators eager to turn his internal improvement and tariff policies to their private advantage. No doubt those policies attracted such persons to him. But there is no reason for suspecting that he was ever in the slightest degree pecuniarily interested in any scheme which might have been advanced by his political position or influence. In no sense was he a money-maker in politics. His integrity as a public man remained without blemish throughout his long career. He preserved an equally intact name in the