CINCINNATI, March 1, 1848.
MY DEAR SIR, — Your
favor from Baltimore was lately received at this place, it having been
forwarded to me by Mr. Botts.
The manifestations
of confidence and affection by your fellow-citizens in your late tour must be
gratifying to you, as they certainly have been to your friends. No higher
honors could be bestowed than those which you have received.
No one can so fully
understand and appreciate the importance of your position, as connected with
the future, as yourself; and this knowledge best qualifies you to determine
your course of action. Standing in the advance of all your compeers in age and
in renown, you owe much to yourself. But your fame is not exclusively your own.
It belongs also to the nation. No one friendly to his country could desire a
step to be taken or omitted by you, which might not result, as it would be
designed, for the general good.
You can not be
insensible to the claims of duty, but your friends have no right to expect from
you personal sacrifices. I can only repeat what I said to you in Washington,
that if, on a full view of the whole ground, your friends believe, and your own
judgment shall concur with theirs, that there exists the highest probability of
success, you ought not to withhold your name. But, in all frankness, I will say
that you ought not to enter into a doubtful contest. Your fame is of too much
value to yourself and to your country to compromise it, in any degree, on a
hazardous result.
Political success is
no longer a test of merit or qualification. Had this been otherwise, you would
long since have been at the head of the Government. If your name shall be
brought before the country, with your assent, I shall feel the utmost
solicitude for your success.
SOURCE: Calvin Colton, Editor, The Private Correspondence of Henry Clay, pp. 556-7
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