It would be an absolutely intolerable rebuke if in 1852 Taylor's policy should be preferred to his own by a Whig national convention.

Taylor, indeed, was in his grave, but his old military compatriot, Scott, was a candidate for the Presidency, and the anti-Compromise Whigs under Seward's lead were rallying to his support.

Mr.Clay believed that Fillmore, with the force of the national administration in his hands, could defeat General Scott, and that Mr.Webster's candidacy was a needless division of friends.

Hence he sustained Fillmore, not from hostility to Webster, but as the sure and only means of securing an indorsement of the Compromise measures, and of doing justice to a Northern President who had risked every thing in support of Mr.Clay's policy.
The contest was long and earnest.

Mr.Webster's friends, offended by what they considered the ingratitude of Southern Whigs, persistently refused to go over to Fillmore, though by so doing they could at any moment secure his nomination.