What city
has presented Mr. Stanton with a house, or Mr. Welles with fifty
thousand dollars' worth of government bonds? Calhoun precipitated the
country into a war with Mexico; but what did he gain by it but new
bitterness of disappointment, while the winner of three little battles
was elected President? Henry Clay was the animating soul of the war of
1812, and we honor him for it; but while Jackson, Brown, Scott, Perry,
and Decatur came out of that war the idols of the nation, Clay was
promptly notified that _his_ footing in the public councils, _his_
hold of the public favor, was by no means stable.
His offence was that he voted for the compensation bill of 1816, which
merely changed the pay of members of Congress from the pittance of six
dollars a day to the pittance of fifteen hundred dollars a year. He
who before was lord paramount in Kentucky saved his seat only by
prodigious efforts on the stump, and by exerting all the magic of his
presence in the canvass.
No one ever bore cutting disappointment with an airier grace than this
high-spirited thorough-bred; but he evidently felt this apparent
injustice.
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