Carroll Free Press

To the Editors of the National Intelligencer.

Washington, May 3, 1844.

Gentlemen: Prior to the commencement and during the progress of the journey which I have recently made to some of the Southern States, I received numerous invitations to visit my fellow citizens at various points of the Union. I was compelled to decline accepting the greater number of them, and, in most instances, transmitted answers accordingly; but, as I may have omitted to reply to some of them, and as others addressed to me may not have reached me, to all such I request to be allowed, through the National Intelligencer, to communicate a general and respectful answer, and to state the ground on which I shall feel constrained to place any similar invitations with which I may be in future honored.

These popular demonstrations of friendship, attachment, and confidence towards me, are highly gratifying to my feelings, and are entitled to an expression of my profound and grateful acknowledgments. If it were suitable and proper, in my judgment, to meet assemblages of my fellow citizens on the occasions proposed, I would embrace the opportunity with pleasure & should exchange friendly salutations with them with a warmth and enthusiasm on my part not exceeded by their own. But an event of importance took place on the first instant in Baltimore. A Convention of Delegates from the Whig party, coming from all parts of the United States, acting in conformity with the well ascertained wishes and sentiments of the Whigs of the United States, has formally announced my name as a candidate for the office of President of the United States, and, from a high sense of duty, I have accepted the nomination. It has been, moreover, ratified by another Convention, composed of Delegates from every part of the United States, who assembled on the 2d instant in Baltimore. Being thus placed, with my own consent, in the attitude of a candidate for that high office, I feel myself bound to respect and perform all the duties and obligations which appertain to me in that character.

The election of a Chief Magistrate of a free, great and enlightened nation, is one of the gravest and most momentous functions which the people can exercise. It is emphatically, and ought to be exclusively, their own business. Upon the wisdom of their choice depends the preservation and soundness of free institutions, and the welfare and prosperity of themselves. In making it they should be free, impartial, and wholly unbiased by the conduct of a candidate himself. Not only, in my opinion, is it his duty to abstain from all solicitation, direct or indirect, of their suffrages, but he should avoid being voluntarily placed in situations to seek, or in which he might be supposed to seek, to influence their judgment.

Entertaining those views of what becomes a candidate for the exalted office of President of the United States, I shall act in strict conformity with them. Hereafter, and until the pending Presidential election is decided, I cannot accept nor attend any public meeting of my fellow citizens, assembled in reference to that object, to which I may have been or shall be invited. It is my wish and intention, when I leave this city, to return home as quietly and quickly as possible, and employing myself in my private business and affairs, there to await the decision of the Presidential election, acquiescing in it, whatever it may be, with the most perfect submission.

I hope those who have honored me with invitations to which I have not yet replied, and those who may have intended me the honor of transmitting others, will accept without disapprobation, this exposition of the motive by which I am governed.

I am, gentlemen, your friend and obedient servant,

H. CLAY.