Washington, D. C. Apr. 16, 1848.
Dear Thomas, I
received your letter of the 9th inst. today and I am very glad to hear you are
improving. You did not state to what point in Kentucky you expected to direct
your steps. I have an extensive acquaintance with the public men of Kentucky
and could give or furnish you letters to almost any point, and if you know
where you will probably remain longest and will write me I will procure such
letters as would no doubt greatly increase the comfort and pleasure of your
trip. I could send them to any point you might designate, if you are about
leaving. Mr. Crittenden, my particular friend and messmate, will leave here for
Kentucky about the first of June on a gubernatorial canvass in Kentucky. I will
commend you to him especially, and I hope you may fall in with him somewhere in
the state, if not at Frankfort, his residence. I will send by this mail or the
next some letters for Louisville where I suppose you will most likely land in
Kentucky. I hope you will find it convenient to call by Washington. There is
much to see here to interest an intelligent stranger; men, if not things.
Clay has behaved very badly this winter. His ambition is as
fierce as at any time of his life, and he is determined to rule or ruin the
party. He has only power enough to ruin it. Rule it he never can again. In
February while at Washington he ascertained that the Kentucky convention would
nominate Taylor. He procured letters to [McMillen ?] that he would decline when
he went home, and the Taylor men from Kentucky under this assurance wrote home
to their friends not to push him off the track by nominating Taylor. Mr. Clay
never intended to comply, but without now having the boldness to deny it he
meanly hints at having changed his determination. Bah! He now can deceive
nobody here. The truth is he has sold himself body and soul to the Northern
Anti-slavery Whigs, and as little as they now think it, his friends in Georgia
will find themselves embarrassed before the campaign is half over. I find
myself a good deal denounced in my district for avowing my determination not to
vote for him. It gives me not the least concern. I shall never be traitor
enough to the true interests of my constituents to gratify them in this
respect. I would rather offend than betray them. Mr. Botts of the House and Mr.
Berrien of the Senate and Mr. Buckner of Kentucky are the only three men from
the slave states who prefer Mr. Clay for our candidate, and there are not ten
Southern representatives who would not support Genl. Taylor against him if he
were nominated. The real truth is Clay was put up and pushed by Corwin and
McLean, Greeley & Co. to break down Taylor in the South. Having made that
use of him they will toss him overboard at the convention without decent
burial. It is more than probable that a third candidate may be brought forward,
and Scott stands a good chance to be the man. For my part I am a Taylor man
without a second choice.
SOURCE: Ulrich Bonnell Phillips, Editor, The Annual
Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1911, Volume 2: The
Correspondence of Robert Toombs, Alexander H. Stephens, and Howell Cobb, p.
103-4
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