Page:Life of Henry Clay (Schurz; v. 2).djvu/422

412 would have more than once pushed him forward. But no one can study Clay's career without feeling that he would have been a happier and a greater man if he had never coveted the glittering prize. When such an ambition becomes chronic, it will be but too apt to unsettle the character and darken the existence of those afflicted with it by confusing their appreciation of all else. As Cæsar said that the kind of death most to be desired was “a sudden one,” so the American statesman may think himself fortunate to whom a nomination for the presidency comes, if at all, without a long agony of hope and fear. During a period of thirty years, from the time when he first aspired to be Monroe's successor until 1848, Clay unceasingly hunted the shadow whose capture would probably have added nothing either to his usefulness or his fame, but the pursuit of which made his public life singularly restless and unsatisfactory to himself. Nor did he escape from the suspicion of having occasionally modified the expression of his opinions according to supposed exigencies of availability. The peculiar tone of his speech against the abolitionists before the campaign of 1840, his various letters on the annexation of Texas in 1844, and some equivocations on other subjects during the same period, illustrated the weakening influence of the presidential candidate upon the man; and even his oft-quoted word that he would “rather be right than be President” was spoken at a time when he was more desirous of being President than sure of being right.