vention "as false and spurious, put in circulation for the use of the party in Free Soil latitudes."ו

Gen. Scott afterwards wrote a letter of acceptance to the President of the Convention, stating that he adopted the platform sent him by the Convention. Every Whig Free Soiler in Congress approved his position, as nothing in his letter bound him to veto any law repealing any of the Compromise measures; and Mr. Stevens, of Pennsylvania, said, August 24th, in response to a quesby Mr. Polk:

"I mean to say, then, as far as I know any thing of the Whig party in Pennsylvania, that some of them support Gen. Scott because the word 'final,' is in the platform, and some because it is not in the platform.''

And moreover, "that no thinking Whig could be bound by the action of the Whig Convention."

If the nomination of Gen. Taylor were the deathwarrant of the Whig party, as many thought at the time, certainly Gen. Scott was its executioner. In nominating him the Whig party lost its grandest opportunity; it might have been nationalized; it was instead sectionalized; it might have been made powerful; it was instead defeated and disintegrated. Had it given evidence of its sincerity by nominating a man who would have carried out its published platform in good faith, such as Mr. Webster or Mr. Fillmore, every true Whig would have rallied to his support, and whether elected or not, the party would have retained its identity and its entity. But it had lost its last opportunity, and its doom was sealed. Its national character was gone forever, its Northern wing thereafter being absorbed into the great Abolition party, of which Seward was chief leader; its Southern wing taking refuge with the Democracy, or else trying something new and hopeless of success, as the Know Nothing ebullition.

The real contest, all the while, was, not between Scott and Fillmore, but between Seward and Fillmore. It was really Clay, Fillmore, the Compromise, the Constitution and the Union, against Seward, Abolition and the higher-law party with Gen. Scott as their figure-head; Mr. Seward, it was said and believed, expecting to hood-wink the Conservatives by the pretended adherence of the Convention and its candidate to the Compromise until after Scott was elected, and then to control Scott through the weakness of his character, and his lack of ability as a statesman. Gen. Scott, with all his six feet and over, of a superb physique, must have been a mere puppet in this man's hands. Otherwise, he would certainly have investigated and disclaimed the deception put upon his party by the omission of the word "final" in the platform sent him. But instead of occupying a high and open position, he stood, as one of the Fillmore Whigs said, more tersely than elegantly, "with a padlock on his mouth and his principles in Seward's breeches pocket.'""

DEATH OF CLAY.

The Whig party had, most unfortunately, suffered the loss of its two great leaders, in the Senate; Mr. Webster having accepted a place in the Cabinet, at Mr. Fillmore's earnest solicitation, and Mr. Clay's ill health having precluded him from all exertion for the entire session of 1851-'52. A few days after the nomination of Gen. Scott he breathed his last. It is to be hoped that he died consoled with the thought that both the great parties of the country had adopted his Compromise, and that he did not know that even then the leaders of the Whigs in the one section were already contemplating the breaking of the pledges they had made regarding it, in the platform of their convention.

Mr. Clay's death occurred on the 29th of June, 1852, at the National Hotel in Washington City, in the seventysixth year of his age. In full possession of his faculties, he died with "perfect composure, and without a groan or struggle." Even Death had joined the vast army of those who acknowledged him as their superior, and shrank back with awe as his great spirit entered that invisible realm.

No man of his day had such enthusiastic devotion while living as Henry Clay-never were so many, and such, eulogies delivered as after his death. Nor were these confined to men of his own party-for he compelled the admiration of his opponents as well as the love of his adherents. He had the grandest presence of any man in the world, and stood a veritable king among men. The only men who did not love him were those who hated or feared or misjudged him, or else, those whom he angered by his superiority, or wounded by neglect, as was sometimes complained of him. But omnipotence itself could scarcely have returned the devotion of all the worshipers of Henry Clay. The tall, graceful, willowy form, rocked and swayed by the might of his own passion; the flashing of his blue-gray eye, commanding, controlling, subduing, persuading, or withering; the majestic embodiment of a spirit of fire; the impersonation of an imperial will superhuman in its energy and power; the concentration of a sublime force which compelled men to yield to the fascination of his genius, to the wonderful eloquence which charmed and thrilled them like some magical strain of music-these were some of the qualities which gave him such a place in the hearts of the American people. But more even than all his genius, all his eloquence, all his marvelous gifts of command-were the settled convictions in the minds of the people of his true and sincere patriotism. Said Mr. Faulkner, of Virginia, a Democrat: "He never paused to consider how far any step which

he was about to take would lead to his own personal advancement; he never calculated what he might lose or what he might gain by his advocacy of, or his opposition to, any particular measure; his single inquiry was, is it right? Is it in accordance with the Constitution of the land? Will it redound to the permanent welfare and interest of the country? When satisfied upon these points, his determination was fixed-his purpose was immovable. With him, the love of the Union was a passion-an absorbing sentiment which gave color to every act of his public life. It triumphed over party; it triumphed over policy; it subdued the natural fierceness and haughtiness of his temper and brought him into the most kindly and cordial relations with those who, upon all other questions, were deeply and bitterly opposed to him."

"I know no North, no South, no East, no West." "I had rather be right than be President." "These lofty words," said one of his eulogists, "were a clue to his whole character-the secret of his hold upon the heads as well as the hearts of the American people-nay, the key to his immortality."2

CHAPTER XVI.

1852-The principle of Non-intervention indorsed in Pierce's election to the Presidency-Archibald Dixon takes his seat in the SenateDeath of Webster-Attempt to organize the Nebraska Territory.

The election returns in November of 1852 showed an overwhelming majority for Pierce over Scott. Only four States were for Scott-Vermont and Massachusetts in the North; Kentucky and Tennessee in the South; Tennessee by only 1,000 majority, and Kentucky, which gave Henry Clay over 9,000 majority in '44, now giving Scott only 3,262, even with all her 6,500 Emancipation Whigs, who, of course, voted for him. All of the other States (26 in number) were for Pierce-Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, North Carolina, Virginia, Georgia, Mississippi, Louisiana, Florida, Alabama, Iowa, Ohio, Arkansas, Missouri, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, Texas, and California-and the popular majority they rolled up for him was 202,008; whilst Polk's popular majority over Clay, in 1844, was only 37,370, and Taylor's over Cass, in 1848, 138,447.1 Never did Abolition and disunion, higher law and chicanery, receive so severe a rebuke as in this immense popular majority for Pierce over Scott, whose military fame, splendid personal appearance, Whig antecedents and Abolition backing, all failed to save him and his party from the most inglorious defeat.

The election of Pierce was a complete triumph of the principles of the Compromise measures of 1850. These measures embraced the principles of non-intervention by Congress with slavery in the Territories, of equality