if a man like General Taylor, absolutely without experience in civil affairs, were elected, the presidency would fall to a succession of military chieftains. At the same time he told his friends that he would be a candidate only if there was a general popular call for him, and in the mean time he would maintain a passive attitude. But of sustaining that passive attitude he seems not to have been capable. In the winter of 1847-48 he visited Washington to appear in a case before the Supreme Court, and to take part in a meeting of the Colonization Society. But that was not all. “The only news is,” wrote Alexander H. Stephens, “that Mr. Clay has produced a great impression here. I expect he will give the Whigs some trouble. I think he will be flattered into the belief that he can be elected.” A few days later he wrote: “I am now well satisfied that Mr. Clay will not allow his name to be used in the convention.” Clay did not understand it so. He wrote to his friends that the strongest appeals were made to him against the withdrawal of his name. He complained bitterly of the Taylor movement in Kentucky. “Why is it?” he wrote. “After the long period of time during which I have had the happiness to enjoy the friendship and confidence of that state, what have I done, it is inquired, to lose it?” The opposition to him, and especially the circumstance that General Taylor, a man whom he thought utterly unfit for the presidency, was his competitor, seems to have sharpened his desire. A series of ova-
