a deputation of political friends, and stand to be kissed by ladies and pump-handled by men, and hide the enormous bore of it beneath a fixed smile till the very muscles of the face are rigid; to receive by every mail letters enough for a large town; to have your life written several times a year; to be obliged continually to refute calumnies and “define your position”; to live under a horrid necessity to be pointedly civil to all the world; to find your most casual remarks and most private conversations getting distorted in print,—­this, and more than this, it was to be a candidate for the Presidency.  The most wonderful thing that we have to say of Henry Clay is, that, such were his native sincerity and healthfulness of mind, he came out of this fiery trial still a patriot and a man of honor.  We believe it was a weakness in him, as it is in any man, to set his heart upon living four years in the White House; but we can most confidently say, that, having entered the game, he played it fairly, and bore his repeated disappointments with genuine, high-bred composure.  The closest scrutiny into the life of this man still permits us to believe that, when he said, “I would rather be right than be President,” he spoke the real sentiments of his heart; and that, when he said to one of his political opponents, “Tell General Jackson that, if he will sign my Land Bill, I will pledge myself to retire from public life and never to re-enter it,” he meant what he said, and would have stood to it.  It is our privilege to believe this of Henry Clay; nor do we think that there was ever anything morbidly excessive in his desire for the Presidency.  He was the head and choice of a great political party; in the principles of that party he fully believed; and we think he did truly desire an election to the Presidency more from conviction than ambition.  This may not have been the case in 1824, but we believe it was in 1832 and in 1844.

The history of Henry Clay’s Presidential aspirations and defeats is little more than the history of a personal feud.  In the year 1819, it was his fortune to incur the hatred of the best hater then living,—­Andrew Jackson.  They met for the first time in November, 1815, when the hero of New Orleans came to Washington to consult with the administration respecting the Indian and military affairs of his department.  Each of these eminent men truly admired the other.  Jackson saw in Clay the civil hero of the war, whose fiery eloquence had powerfully seconded its military heroes.  Clay beheld in Jackson the man whose gallantry and skill had done most to justify the war in the sight of the people.  They became immediately and cordially intimate.  Jackson engaged to visit Ashland in the course of the next summer, and spend a week there.  On every occasion when Mr. Clay spoke of the heroes of the war, he bestowed on Jackson the warmest praise.