Clay? Who could have supposed that he and his friends had been,
for fourteen days, hatching a plot to blast the good name of Mr. Adams
and Mr. Clay, by spreading abroad the base insinuation that Clay had
been bought over to the support of Adams by the promise of the first
place in the Cabinet? Who could have supposed that, on his way home to
Tennessee, while the newspapers were paragraphing his magnanimity in
defeat, as shown by his behavior at the levee, he would denounce Adams
and Clay, in bar-rooms and public places, as guilty of a foul compact
to frustrate the wishes of the people?
It was calumny's masterpiece. It was a rare stroke of art to get an
old dotard of a member of Congress to publish, twelve days _before_
the election, that Mr. Clay had agreed to vote for Mr. Adams, and that
Mr. Adams had agreed to reward him by the office of Secretary of
State. When the vote had been given and the office conferred, how
plausible, how convincing, the charge of bargain!
It is common to censure Mr. Clay for accepting office under Mr. Adams.
We honor him for his courage in doing so.
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