pointed out by the Clay delegates, but he declined. Clayton, Tallmadge, and Southard declined like wise, until finally John Tyler was nominated, as Thurlow Weed said, “because we could get nobody else to accept,” but probably because the convention remembered that something was due to the man who had sacrificed his seat in the Senate rather than vote for the expunging resolution, and then been set aside in favor of a late comer in the opposition.
In the convention, after Harrison had been nominated, a letter from Clay to the Kentucky delegation was read, in which he assured them that, while he should highly appreciate the honor of a nomination, yet if it were thought wise to nominate somebody else, he would, “far from feeling any discontent,” give the nominee his best wishes and cordial support, and admonishing his friends not to hesitate if they found it necessary to select some other candidate than himself in order to unite the party. He was, however, when he wrote that letter, far from anticipating such an emergency. The news of his defeat threw him into paroxysms of rage. As Henry A. Wise, who was with Clay at the moment when the tidings from Harrisburg arrived at Washington, tells the story, Clay, who had been drinking freely in the excitement of expectation, “rose from his chair, and, walking backwards and forwards rapidly, lifting his feet like a horse string-halted in both legs, stamped his steps upon the floor, exclaiming: ‘My
