If the contents of the letter to Mr. Swartwout, were such as justly to excite surprise, there were other circumstances not calculated to diminish it. Of all the citizens of the United States, that gentleman is one of the last to whom it was necessary to address any vindication of general Jackson. He had given abundantevidence of his entire devotion to the cause of the general. He was here after the election, and was one of a committee who invited the general to a public dinner, proposed to be given to him in this place. My letter to judge Brooke was published in the papers of this city on the twelfth of February. The general’s note, declining the invitation of Messrs. Swartwout and others, was published on the fourteenth, in the National Journal. The probability, therefore, is, that he did not leave this city until after he had a full opportunity to receive, in a personal interview with the general, any verbal observations upon it which he might have thought proper to make. The letter to Mr. Swartwout, bears date the twenty-third of February. If received by him in New York, it must have reached him, in the ordinary course of mail, on the twenty-fifth or twenty-sixth. Whether intended or not as a ‘private communication,’ and not for the ‘public eye,’ as alleged by him, there is much probability in believing that its publication in New York, on the fourth of March, was then made, like Mr. Kremer’s address, with the view to its arrival in this city in time to affect my nomination to the senate. In point of fact, it reached here the day before the senate acted on that nomination.
Fellow-citizens, I am sensible that, generally, a public officer had better abstain from any vindication of his conduct, and leave it to the candor and justice of his countrymen, under all its attending circumstances. Such has been the course which I have heretofore prescribed to myself. This is the first, as I hope it may be the last, occasion of my thus appearing before you. The separation which has just taken place between us, and the venom, if not the vigor of the late onsets upon my public conduct, will, I hope, be allowed in this instance to form an adequate apology. It has been upwards of twenty years since I first entered the public service. Nearly three fourths of that time, with some intermissions, I have represented the same district in congress, with but little variation in its form. During that long period, you have beheld our country passing through scenes of peace and war, of prosperity and adversity, and of party divisions, local and general, often greatly exasperated against each other. I have been an actor in most of those scenes. Throughout the whole of them, you have clung to me with an affectionate confidence which has never been surpassed. I have found in your attachment, in every embarrassment in my public career, the greatest consolation, and the most encouraging support. I should regard the loss of it as one of the most afflicting public misfortunes which could befall me. That I have often misconceived your true interests, is highly probable. That I have ever sacrificed them to the object of personal aggrandizement, I utterly deny. And, for the purity of my motives, however in other respects I may be unworthy to approach the throne of grace and mercy, I appeal to the justice of my God, with all the confidence which can flow from a consciousness of perfect rectitude.
ON THE ELECTION OF PRESIDENT BY CONGRESS, IN 1825.
SPEECH AT LEWISBURG, VIRGINIA, AUGUST 30, 1826.
[IN the following remarks at a public dinner given him by citizens of Lewisburg and its vicinity, while he was secretary of state, under president Adams, Mr. Clay explains the motives which influenced him in voting for that gentleman for the office of president, and afterwards accepting a seat in his cabinet. He also alludes to some of the measures of the administration, of which he was then a member, in a manner which will be found to possess great interest.]
Lewisburg, August 23d, 1826.
THE HONORABLE HENRY CLAY:
Sir, at a meeting of a respectable number of the inhabitants of Lewisburg and its vicinity, convened in the court house on the twenty-second instant, it was unanimously determined to greet your arrival amongst them by some public demonstration of the respect which they in common with a great portion of the community, feel towards one of their most distinguished fellow-citizens. It was therefore unanimously resolved, as the most eligible means of manifesting their feelings, to request the honor of your presence at a public dinner to be given at the tavern of Mr. Frazer, in the town of Lewisburg, on Wednesday the thirtieth instant.
In pursuance of the above measures, we, as a committee, have been appointed to communicate their resolutions and solicit a compliance with their invitation. In performing this agreeable duty, we cannot but express our admiration of the uniform course which, during a long political career, you have pursued with so much honor to yourself and country. Although the detractions of envy, and the violence of party feeling have endeavored to blast your fair reputation, and destroy the confidence reposed in you by the citizens of the United States, we rejoice to inform you, that the people of the western part of that state which claims you as one of her most gifted sons, still retain the same high feeling of respect, which they have always manifested in spite of the maledictions and bickerings of disappointed editors and interested politicians. We cannot close our communication without hailing you as one of the most distinguished advocates of that system of internal improvement which has already proved so beneficial to our country, and which at no distant period will make even these desert mountains to blossom as the rose.