CLAY, HENRY. 1777-1852.
Autograph Letter Signed (“H. Clay”), 4 pp recto and verso, 4to (conjoining leaves), Ashland, KY, November 21, 1829, to P.R. Fendall, with original autograph transmittal envelope, leaves lightly creased and toned, mild offsetting to all pages.
Clay writes this letter to his attorney just a year after Andrew Jackson defeated John Quincy Adams in a bitter presidential race, and Clay, as Adams’ Secretary of State, returned to private life at his estate in Kentucky: “However much gratified I should be, in some respects, to see you a resident of Kentucky, I should regret it extremely if it were to be the consequence of the failure of the Journal. That paper has been edited with very great ability, generally since the commencement of the present administration; and is considered in this quarter as standing unquestionably at the head of the papers which are arrayed against the military despot … I do not think that any discouragement ought to arrive out of the results of the late Elections. The last Presidential contest was too recent, and the next is too remote. This had a double operation to stimulate our opponents, flushed with recent victory, and to produce apathy among our friends, who saw nothing near at hand worthy of a great struggle. Even with this unfavorable aspect, we have sustained no positive loss except in N. Jersey, of which I have had such explanations as to induce me to count it as nothing. On the other hand, both in N. York and Penna some gleams of hope have broken out of the darkness that enveloped these two states.”
Clay writes this letter to his attorney just a year after Andrew Jackson defeated John Quincy Adams in a bitter presidential race, and Clay, as Adams’ Secretary of State, returned to private life at his estate in Kentucky: “However much gratified I should be, in some respects, to see you a resident of Kentucky, I should regret it extremely if it were to be the consequence of the failure of the Journal. That paper has been edited with very great ability, generally since the commencement of the present administration; and is considered in this quarter as standing unquestionably at the head of the papers which are arrayed against the military despot … I do not think that any discouragement ought to arrive out of the results of the late Elections. The last Presidential contest was too recent, and the next is too remote. This had a double operation to stimulate our opponents, flushed with recent victory, and to produce apathy among our friends, who saw nothing near at hand worthy of a great struggle. Even with this unfavorable aspect, we have sustained no positive loss except in N. Jersey, of which I have had such explanations as to induce me to count it as nothing. On the other hand, both in N. York and Penna some gleams of hope have broken out of the darkness that enveloped these two states.”
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