as beginning
to be felt seriously by his friends. In the mean time, rumors reached
the popular ear that the proofs of its veracity were in the hands of
General Jackson, whose popularity was running through the country with
the warmth and rapidity of a fire upon the prairies.

There was now a responsible sponsor, and Mr. Clay at once addressed a
note to Creemer, demanding his authority for the charge. This was
answered, and General Jackson's was the name given, as his authority.
Mr. Clay sent his friend, General Leslie Combs, with a note to
Jackson, with a copy of Creemer's communication. Combs was a weak,
vain man, and so full of the importance of his mission that he made no
secret of his object in visiting Jackson at the Hermitage; and it was
soon running through the country in the party press, each retailing
the story as he had heard it, or as his imagination and party bias
desired it. It was soon current that Mr. Clay had challenged General
Jackson, and a duel was soon to occur between these distinguished men.
General Jackson, however, gave as his author, James Buchanan, of
Pennsylvania. In turn, Mr. Buchanan was called upon by Clay, but he
denied ever having made any such communication to General Jackson; at
the same time, making certain statements under the seal of secrecy to
Mr. Letcher, Clay's friend. What these revelations were will never be
known: death has set his seal on all who knew them; and no revelation
disclosed them in time. Long after this interview between Letcher and
Buchanan, the former called on the latter, and asked to be relieved
from this imputation, and for permission to give to the public these
statements; but Mr. Buchanan peremptorily refused. Mr. Letcher
insisted that they were important to the reputation of more than Mr.
Clay: still Buchanan refused; and to this day the question of veracity
remains unsettled between Jackson and Buchanan. The public have,
however, long since declared that General Jackson was too brave a man
to lie.

Toward the close of Mr. Clay's life, one Carter Beverly, of Virginia,
wrote Mr. Clay some account of the part he himself had taken in the
concoction of this slander, craving his forgiveness. This letter was
received by Mr. Clay while a visitor at the home of the writer, and
read to him: it dissipated all doubts upon the mind of Mr. Clay, if
any remained, of the fact of the whole story being the concoction of
Buchanan. Creemer was a colleague of Buchanan, and wa