ASHLAND, June 21, 1849.
MY DEAR SIR,—I
received your favors of the 1st and 4th instant. I regret extremely that many
of the appointments of the Executive are so unsatisfactory to the public; and
still more that there should be just occasion for it. I fear that the President
confides that matter too much to the Secretaries, and that they have selfish
and ulterior views in the selections which they make. It is undeniable that the
public patronage has been too exclusively confined to the original supporters
of General Taylor, without sufficient regard to the merits and just claims of
the great body of the Whig party. This is both wrong and impolitic.
You tell me that it
will be difficult to repress an expression of the Whig dissatisfaction, prior
to the meeting of Congress. I should be very sorry if this was done so early,
if it should become necessary (I hope it may not) to do it at all. I think
there ought not to be any denunciation of the Administration, unless it is
rendered proper for its plans of public policy. If before these are developed,
the Administration should be arraigned, it would be ascribed to disappointment
as to the distribution of the patronage of Government. It will be different,
if, contrary to what we have a right to hope and expect, the Administration
should fail to support and recommend the great measures of the Whig party.
As to myself, I need
not say to you, that I shall go to Washington, if I am spared, with a firm
determination to oppose or support measures according to my deliberate sense of
their effects upon the interests of our country.
SOURCE: Calvin
Colton, Editor, The Private Correspondence of Henry Clay, p. 587-8
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