Excerpt from The Life and Times of Henry Clay, Vol. 1 of 2 All the author desired was, that he might be permitted to exe cute his own plan, and be favored with the necessary facilities, which none but Mr. Clay could afford, by answering the author's inquiries, by giving access to his papers and correspondence, and by consenting to render such other aids as would insure correctness in matters of fact. This the author deemed of the highest impor tance. But the plan and execution of the work are the author's alone. Mr. Clay did not believe that the demand for the work would be sufficient to sustain the expense of it, and as his last ad vice, the author received from him a letter, dated March 21, 1845, of which the following is an extract: I am afraid you are too sanguine. So far as it [the work] relates to me, it will daily lose its interest. I should be distressed, if it should involve you in expense. You must acquit me of all charge of encouraging you. The expression, so far as relates to me, refers to the original plan of the work, which contemplated more history, and four vol umes, instead of two. But the author never allowed himself to believe, that the dim dence of Mr. Clay upon this subject, was a rule to determine the importance or propriety of his undertaking, however he might feel constrained to defer to such authority on questions of state. On the contrary, the author has felt, that a compilation of Mr. Clay's public history was alike necessary and desirable for public pur poses, and for private instruction. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.