Anecdotes of public men; by John W. Forney.

PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES. 325
In I852 Mr. Buchanan was again presented and defeated, Frank
Pierce, another Accident, winning the prize. That year sounded the death-knell of the old Whig party. Rufus Choate was
present in the Whig National Convention as the champion of
Daniel Webster, and made a speech of marvelous force and
beauty in his support, but in vain. The politicians wanted an
Availability, and got him in General Scott, who was overthrown
in November by the Democrats. On the fourth trial, in I856, Mr.
Buchanan was successful at Cincinnati, because of his supposed
identity with the sentiment in favor of making Kansas a free
State. That event lost Judge Douglas his chance. He was
taken to Charleston, S. C., in I86o, and there defrauded, in advance of his more deliberate slaughter at the adjourned convention in Baltimore. Young Breckinridge was the candidate
of the extremists of that year, a curious sequel in a life which
opened in i851 in Congress in avowed sympathy with the antislavery idea.
Henry A. Wise, in his late work on John Tyler, reveals a picture of the disappointed ambition of Henry Clay, when in I840
he failed of the Whig nomination, and when he could easily
have defeated Van Buren. Alas! his fate had been the fate of
many. Crawford, Calhoun, Cass, Douglas, all felt the same
sharp sting before they were called away, and even some of
those who won the golden bauble lived to find it a barren
sceptre. A candidate for President soon realizes the value of
political fealty, and I have often thought that in the nervous
struggle for that high honor even the best man loses faith in
others, and forgets his own obligations in his distrust of his supporters. The vast patronage of the office, and the vexations
and heart-burnings of those who seek place, open a wide avenue
to intrigue and deception. And yet, as a general thing, the
conventions of the past have not been disgraced by corruption.
Douglas was undoubtedly juggled in I860, but there was no
direct use of money. He was simply overborne by the South.