Fiery Jackson read them, and found
them perfectly to his taste. Gentle Harrison read them to his
Tippecanoe heroes. When the war was going all wrong in the first year,
President Madison wished to appoint Clay Commander-in-Chief of the
land forces; but, said Gallatin, "What shall we do without him in the
House of Representatives?"
Henry Clay was not a man of blood. On the contrary, he was eminently
pacific, both in his disposition and in his politics. Yet he believed
in the war of 1812, and his whole heart was in it. The question
occurs, then, Was it right and best for the United States to declare
war against Great Britain in 1812? The proper answer to this question
depends upon another: What ought we to think of Napoleon Bonaparte? If
Napoleon _was_, what English Tories and American Federalists said he
was, the enemy of mankind,--and if England, in warring upon him, _was_
fighting the battle of mankind,--then the injuries received by neutral
nations might have been borne without dishonor. When those giant
belligerents were hurling continents at one another, the damage done
to bystanders from the flying off of fragments was a thing to be
expected, and submitted to as their share of the general ruin,--to be
compensated by the final suppression of the common foe.
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