[AUTOGRAPH LETTER, SIGNED, FROM HENRY CLAY TO JACOB VAN ORDEN, DENYING ANY INTENTION OF RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT AS AN INDEPENDENT WHIG FOLLOWING HIS FAILURE TO WIN THE PARTY'S NOMINATION IN 1848]

Clay, Henry

Published by Ashland [Lexington, Ky.], 1848

[1]p. autograph letter, signed, in ink on single quarto sheet. Old folds, with two small closed tears along horizontal fold lines. Light age toning. Very good. In a folding half morocco and marbled boards case, spine gilt (spine a bit sunned). An autograph letter, signed and dated September 19, 1848, from Henry Clay to Jacob Van Orden, denying any intention of running for President as an independent Whig candidate in the election of 1848. Henry Clay (1777-1852), often dubbed "the Great Compromiser," was one of the most consequential and influential figures in antebellum American politics. A Whig politician, he served as both a United States Congressman and Senator from Kentucky, as Speaker of the House of Representatives, and as Secretary of State in the administration of John Quincy Adams. Infamously, Clay made several unsuccessful bids for President. He was defeated three times, in the general elections of 1824, 1832, and 1844. In 1848, Clay was again in the running for his party's presidential nomination, but his hopes were dashed at the Whig National Convention (June 7-9, 1848) in Philadelphia. There Clay lost the nomination to Zachary Taylor, who on the fourth ballot clinched the majority necessary to claim the nomination. Taylor had risen to national prominence more than a year earlier for his victory in the Mexican-American War at the Battle of Buena Vista, and while Clay criticized Taylor in private, dismissing him as a mere "military man without the least experience in civil affairs" (Taylor had never held public office), he expressed in letter after letter to his correspondents an unwavering determination to abide by the convention's decision and refused to either publicly endorse or oppose Taylor's candidacy (see Clay's letter to James Lynch). Nevertheless, many hardline Whigs remained skeptical of Taylor, who did not help matters by refusing to pledge his commitment to Whig principles. "I am not a party candidate," wrote Taylor to George Lippard on July 24, 1848, "and if elected cannot be President of a party, but the President of the whole people" (as quoted in Holt). Worse, according to Clay, was Taylor's willingness "to receive any and every nomination no matter from what quarter it might proceed" (Clay to James Lynch). In a letter to the CHARLESTON NEWS, Taylor went so far as to say that he would have accepted the Democratic Party's nomination at Baltimore had it been offered. This enraged many northern Whigs, so much so that on September 7, 1848, a mass meeting of New York Whigs assembled at Vauxhall Gardens to name a slate of electors for a new independent Whig ticket consisting of Henry Clay and Millard Fillmore. It was in this context that Clay wrote the present letter to Jacob Van Orden on September 19, 1848, from Ashland, his home in Lexington, Kentucky. In it, Clay thanks Van Orden and his fellow delegates from New York for their support of his nomination at the Philadelphia convention three months earlier. He explains that, since his defeat in June, he has "submitted with entire acquiescence" to the convention's decision, having "given no countenance or encouragement, at any time or to any person, to the further use of my name in connection with that office." However, in case his wishes were not clear enough, Clay goes on to state in no uncertain terms that "I would not accept of a nomination, if it were tendered to me. And I shall deeply lament if any of my friends should persist in the use of my name, contrary to my own most decided wishes." "The Presidential election," he insists, "is already greatly complicated. The introduction of my name into the Canvass, at this time, would be attended with no public good whatever. If it had any effect, it would be to increase the existing danger of devolving on the H. of Representatives the choice of a Chief Magistrate, and that is an event which all ought to unite in deprecating." Clay here alludes to a possible scenario in which no candidate wins a majority of. Seller Inventory # WRCAM62216

Bibliographic Details

Title: [AUTOGRAPH LETTER, SIGNED, FROM HENRY CLAY ...
Publisher: Ashland [Lexington, Ky.]
Publication Date: 1848