e remained in Boston.
He thence proceeded amid public demonstrations to Worcester,
Springfield, Hartford, Northampton, Pittsfield, Troy, Albany, and back
again to New York. The carriage-makers of Newark begged his acceptance
of one of their most costly carriages for the use of his wife. No one
except Washington, Lafayette, and General Grant ever received more
enthusiastic ovations in New England,--all in recognition of his
services as a statesman, without his having reached any higher position
than that of Senator or Secretary of State.

In such a rapid review of the career of Mr. Clay as we are obliged to
make, it is impossible to enter upon the details of political movements
and the shifting grounds of party organizations and warfare. We must
not, however, lose sight of that most characteristic element of Clay's
public life,--his perennial candidature for the presidency. We have
already seen him in 1824, when his failure was evident, throwing his
influence into the scale for John Quincy Adams. In 1828, as Adams'
Secretary of State, he could not be a rival to his chief, and so escaped
the whelming overthrow with which Jackson defeated their party. In 1832
he was an intensely popular candidate of the National Republicans,
especially the merchants and manufacturers of the North and East and the
friends of the United States Bank; but Southern hostility to his tariff
principles and the rally of "the people" in support of Jackson's war on
moneyed institutions threw him out again in notable defeat. In 1836 and
again in 1840, Clay was prominent before the Conventions of the Whig or
National Republican party, but other interests subordinated his claims
to nomination, and the election of Van Buren by the Democrats in 1836,
and of Harrison by the Whigs in 1840, kept him still in abeyance. In
1844 Clay was again the Whig candidate, the chief issue being the
admission of Texas, but he was defeated by Polk and the Democrats; and
after that the paramount slavery question pushed him aside, and he
dropped out of the race.

The bitter war which Clay made on the administration of General Jackson,
especially in reference to the United States Bank question, has already
been noticed, and although it is an important passage in his history, I
must pass it by to avoid repetition, which is always tedious. All I
would say in this connection is that Clay was foremost among the
supporters of the Bank, and opposed not only the removal of deposits