A Biography of Henry Clay, the Senator from Kentucky / Containing Also, a Complete Report of All His Speeches; Selections From His Private Correspondence; Eulogies in the Senate and House; and a Poem, by George D. Prentice, Esq.

by Unknown

Before the election, an attempt was made by an abusive letter, published in the Columbian Observer, at Philadelphia, a paper which, as has since transpired, was sustained by Mr. senator Eaton, the colleague, the friend, and the biographer of general Jackson, to assail my motives, and to deter me in the exercise of my duty. This letter being avowed by Mr. George Kremer, I instantly demanded from the house of representatives an investigation. A committee was accordingly, on the fifth day of February, 1825, appointed in the rare mode of balloting by the house, instead of by selection of the speaker. It was composed of some of the leadingmembers of that body, not one of whom was my political friend in the preceding presidential canvass. Although Mr. Kremer, in addressing the house, had declared his willingness to bring forward his proofs, and his readiness to abide the issue of the inquiry, his fears, or other counsels than his own, prevailed upon him to take refuge in a miserable subterfuge. Of all possible periods, that was the most fitting to substantiate the charge, if it were true. Every circumstance was then fresh; the witnesses all living and present; the election not yet complete; and therefore the imputed corrupt bargain not fulfilled. All these powerful considerations had no weight with the conspirators and their accessories, and they meanly shrunk from even an attempt to prove their charge, for the best of all possible reasons—because, being false and fabricated, they could adduce no proof which was not false and fabricated.

During two years and a half, which have now intervened, a portion of the press devoted to the cause of general Jackson has been teeming with the vilest calumnies against me, and the charge, under every chameleon form, has been a thousand times repeated. Up to this time, I have in vain invited investigation, and demanded evidence. None, not a particle, has been adduced.

The extraordinary ground has been taken, that the accusers were not bound to establish by proof the guilt of their designated victim. In a civilized, christian, and free community, the monstrous principle has been assumed, that accusation and conviction are synonymous; and that the persons who deliberately bring forward an atrocious charge are exempted from all obligations to substantiate it! And the pretext is, that the crime, being of a political nature, is shrouded in darkness, and incapable of being substantiated. But is there any real difference, in this respect, between political and other offences? Do not all the perpetrators of crime endeavor to conceal their guilt and to elude detection? If the accuser of a political offence is absolved from the duty of supporting his accusation, every other accuser of offence stands equally absolved. Such a principle, practically carried into society, would subvert all harmony, peace, and tranquillity. None—no age, nor sex, nor profession, nor calling—would be safe against its baleful and overwhelming influence. It would amount to a universal license to universal calumny!

No one has ever contended that the proof should be exclusively that of eye-witnesses, testifying from their senses positively and directly to the fact. Political, like other offences, may be established by circumstantial as well as positive evidence. But I do contend, that some evidence, be it what it may, ought to be exhibited. If there be none, how do the accusers know that an offence has been perpetrated? If they do know it, let us have the fact on which their conviction is based. I will not even assert, that, in public affairs, a citizen has not a right freely to express hisopinions of public men, and to speculate upon the motives of their conduct. But if he chooses to promulgate opinions, let them be given as opinions. The public will correctly judge of their value and their grounds. No one has a right to put forth a positive assertion, that a political offence has been committed, unless he stands prepared to sustain, by satisfactory proof of some kind, its actual existence.

If he who exhibits a charge of political crime is, from its very nature, disabled to establish it, how much more difficult is the condition of the accused? How can he exhibit negative proof of his innocence, if no affirmative proof of his guilt is or can be adduced?

It must have been a conviction that the justice of the public required a definite charge, by a responsible accuser, that has at last extorted from general Jackson his letter of the sixth of June, lately published. I approach that letter with great reluctance, not on my own account, for on that I do most heartily and sincerely rejoice that it has made its appearance. But it is reluctance, excited by the feelings of respect which I would anxiously have cultivated towards its author. He has, however, by that letter, created such relations between us, that, in any language which I may employ, in examining its contents, I feel myself bound by no other obligations than those which belong to truth, to public decorum, and to myself.

The first consideration which must, on the perusal of the letter, force itself upon every reflecting mind, is that which arises out of the delicate posture in which general Jackson stands before the American public. He is a candidate for the presidency, avowed and proclaimed. He has no competitor at present, and there is no probability of his having any, but one. The charges which he has allowed himself to be the organ of communicating to the very public who is to decide the question of the presidency, though directly aimed at me, necessarily implicate his only competitor. Mr. Adams and myself are both guilty, or we are both innocent of the imputed arrangement between us. His innocence is absolutely irreconcilable with my guilt. If general Jackson, therefore, can establish my guilt, and, by inference or by insinuation, that of his sole rival, he will have removed a great obstacle to the consummation of the object of his ambition. And if he can, at the same time, make out his own purity of conduct, and impress the American people with the belief, that his purity and integrity alone prevented his success before the house of representatives, his claims will become absolutely irresistible. Were there ever more powerful motives to propagate, was there ever greater interest, at all hazards, to prove the truth of charges?

I state the case, I hope, fairly; I mean to state it fairly and fearlessly. If the position be one which exposes general Jacksonto unfavorable suspicions, it must be borne in mind that he has voluntarily taken it, and he must abide the consequences. I am acting on the defensive, and it is he who assails me, and who has called forth, by the eternal laws of self-protection, the right to use all legitimate means of self-defence.

General Jackson has shown in his letter, that he is not exempt from the influence of that bias towards one’s own interest, which is unfortunately the too common lot of human nature. It is his interest to make out that he is a person of spotless innocence, and of unsullied integrity; and to establish by direct charge, or by necessary inference, the want of those qualities in his rival. Accordingly, we find, throughout the letter, a labored attempt to set forth his own immaculate purity in striking contrast with the corruption which is attributed to others. We would imagine from his letter, that he very seldom touches a newspaper. The Telegraph is mailed regularly for him at Washington, but it arrives at the Hermitage very irregularly. He would have the public to infer, that the postmaster at Nashville, whose appointment happened not to be upon his recommendation, obstructed his reception of it. In consequence of his not receiving the Telegraph, he had not on the sixth of June, 1827, seen Carter Beverley’s famous Fayetteville letter, dated the eighth of the preceding March, published in numerous gazettes, and published, I have very little doubt, although I have not the means of ascertaining the fact, in the gazettes of Nashville. I will not say, contrary to general Jackson’s assertion, that he had never read that letter, when he wrote that of the sixth of June, but I must think that it is very strange that he should not have seen it; and I doubt whether there is another man of any political eminence in the United States who has not read it. There is a remarkable coincidence between general Jackson and certain editors who espouse his interest, in relation to Mr. Beverley’s letter. They very early took the ground, in respect to it, that I ought, under my own signature, to come out and deny the statements. And general Jackson now says, in his letter of the sixth of June, that he ‘always intended, should Mr. Clay come out over his own signature, and deny having any knowledge of the communication made by his friends to my friends and to me, that I would give him the name of the gentleman through whom that communication came.’

The distinguished member of congress who bore the alleged overture, according to general Jackson, presented himself with diplomatic circumspection, lest he should wound the very great sensibility of the general. He avers that the communication was intended with the most friendly motives, ‘that he came as a friend,’ and that he hoped, however it might be received, there would be no alteration in the friendly feelings between them. The general graciously condescends to receive the communication, and, inconsideration of the high standing of the distinguished member, and of his having always been a professed friend, he is promised impunity, and assured that there shall be no change of amicable ties. After all these necessary preliminaries are arranged between the high negotiating powers, the envoy proceeds: ‘he had been informed by the friends of Mr. Clay, that the friends of Mr. Adams had made overtures to them, saying if Mr. Clay and his friends would unite in aid of the election of Mr. Adams, Mr. Clay should be secretary of state; that the friends of Mr. Adams were urging, as a reason to induce the friends of Mr. Clay to accede to their proposition, that if I was elected president, Mr. Adams would be continued secretary of state, (inuendo, there would be no room for Kentucky.)’ [Is this general Jackson’s inuendo, or that of the distinguished member of congress?] ‘That the friends of Mr. Clay stated the west does not want to separate from the west, and if I would say, or permit any of my confidential friends to say that, in case I was elected president, Mr. Adams should not be continued secretary of state, by a complete union of Mr. Clay and his friends, they would put an end to the presidential contest in one hour; and he was of opinion it was right to fight such intriguers with their own weapons.’ To which the general states himself to have replied in substance, ‘that in politics, as in every thing else, my guide was principle, and contrary to the expressed and unbiased will of the people or their constituted agents, I never would step into the presidential chair; and requested him to say to Mr. Clay and his friends, (for I did suppose he had come from Mr. Clay, although he used the terms Mr. Clay’s friends,) that before I would reach the presidential chair by such means of bargain and corruption, I would see the earth open and swallow both Mr. Clay and his friends and myself with them.’ Now all these professions are very fine, and display admirable purity. But its sublimity would be somewhat more impressive, if some person other than general Jackson had proclaimed it. He would go into the presidential chair, but never, no! never, contrary to ‘the expressed and unbiased will of the people, or their constituted agents:’ two modes of arriving at it the more reasonable, as there happens to be no other constituted way. He would see ‘the earth open and swallow both Mr. Clay and his friends and myself,’ before he would reach the presidential chair by ‘such means of bargain and corruption.’ I hope general Jackson did not intend that the whole human race should be also swallowed up, on the contingency he has stated, or that they were to guaranty that he has an absolute repugnance to the employment of any exceptionable means to secure his elevation to the presidency. If he had rendered the distinguished member of congress a little more distinguished, by instantly ordering him from his presence, and by forthwith denouncing him and the infamous propositions which he bore, to the Americanpublic, we should be a little better prepared to admit the claims to untarnished integrity, which the general so modestly puts forward. But, according to his own account, a corrupt and scandalous proposal is made to him; the person who conveyed it, advises him to accept it, and yet that person still retains the friendship of general Jackson, who is so tender of his character that his name is carefully concealed and reserved to be hereafter brought forward as a witness! A man, who, if he be a member of the house of representatives, is doubly infamous—infamous for the advice which he gave, and infamous for his willingness to connive at the corruption of the body of which he is a sworn member—is the credible witness by whom general Jackson stands ready to establish the corruption of men, whose characters are never questioned!