ASHLAND, June 22, 1848.
MY DEAR SIR, — I
wished much to see you, and hope soon to meet you. I got your letter from
Choles' on your way home, and I have received to-day your favor of the 20th
with the newspaper you sent me. Judge Robertson has returned, and has given me
much information; but there are some points which you can best elucidate.
I shall take no
active or partisan part in the canvass, but remain quiet, submitting to what
has been done so far as relates to myself. I think this is the course prompted
by self-respect and personal dignity. I shall attend no ratification meetings.
How can I sanction and approve what the seven delegates from Kentucky did in
the Convention, without virtually condemning what the five delegates did? How
can I publicly and warmly support a candidate who declared that, in a reversal
of conditions, he would not have supported, but opposed me? I am not misled by
the humbuggery of the Louisiana delegates. What credentials, what instructions
had they? They showed none, and had none.
In November, if I am
spared, I shall, with all the lights then before me, go to the polls and vote
for that candidate whose election I believe will be least prejudicial to the
country. Of course I can never vote for Cass.
It is too soon to
form any satisfactory opinion as to the issue of the contest. Neither candidate
seems to be entirely acceptable to the party which supports him. And I suppose
that party will probably succeed between whose members there will be ultimately
the least division and the greatest intermediate reconciliation.
P. S. The Governor
very handsomely tendered me the Executive appointment to the Senate, which I
this day declined accepting.
SOURCE: Calvin Colton, Editor, The Private Correspondence of Henry Clay, pp. 565-6
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