having voluntarily retired to the tranquil walks of private life, the grateful hearts of his countrymen will do him ample justice. But, come what may, Kentucky will stand by him, and still continue to cherish and defend, as her own, the fame of a son who has emblazoned her escutcheon with immortal renown.”
The nomination of the “Old Prince,” — a name by which some of his friends proudly called him — as the Whig candidate for the presidency in 1844, was treated as a matter of “justice to Henry Clay.” Too impatient to wait for a national convention, the Whigs of North Carolina brought forward his name as early as April, 1842; Georgia and Maine followed. The Whig members of the legislature of New York, the state which in 1840 had abandoned him, sent him a glowing address. In August the Whig State Convention of Maryland formally nominated him amid “tremendous enthusiasm,” supplemented with a salute of one hundred guns. Even the Whigs of Massachusetts, Webster's influence notwithstanding, could not be restrained. In September he was invited to a great Whig Convention at Dayton, in Ohio, where nearly one hundred thousand people were assembled, and where resolutions were adopted nominating Henry Clay and John Davis of Massachusetts as the Whig candidates for 1844. Wherever he appeared, he was greeted with extravagant demonstrations of affection. From Dayton he continued his triumphal “progress” into Indiana. It was there, in the town of Richmond, that an
