And now ten years after the event its memory rose to influence the Presidential nomination of 1852.
Another explanation is more in consonance with Mr.Clay's magnanimity of character.

He was extremely anxious that an outspoken friend of the Compromise should be nominated.

He knew when he wrote his letter that the Democrats would pledge themselves to the finality of the Compromise, and he knew the Southern Whigs would be overwhelmed if there should be halting or hesitation on this issue either in their candidate or in their platform.

He felt, as the responsible author of the Compromise, that he was himself on trial, and it would be a peculiar mortification if the party which he had led so long should fail to sustain him in this final crisis of his public life.

He had been sufficiently humiliated by Taylor's triumph over him in the convention of 1848.