GIFT OF 
 
 ~ Richardson 
 

 University of California Berkeley 
 
* > % 
 
 LEADING INCIDENTS IN THE LIFE 
 
 OF 
 
 HENRY CLAY 
 
 HIS PATRIOTISM, STATESMANSHIP, AND 
 ELOQUENCE 
 
 Bn 
 
 BY 
 
 ERASTUS BROOKS 
 
 Before the NEW YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY, April 6, 1886 
 
 AND 
 
 Before the PENNSYLVANIA HISTORICAL SOCIETY, May 14, 1886 
 
 Firm in the right, implacable to wrong, 
 
 * * He knew no North, no South, nor East, nor West 
 But the whole country held his patriot soul, 
 
 And wore it like a jewel on her breast. 
 
 ANN S. STEPHENS. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 TROWS PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING CO. 
 
 201-213 EAST TWELFTH STREET 
 1886 
 
LEADING INCIDENTS IN THE LIFE 
 
 OF 
 
 HENRY CLAY 
 
 HIS PATRIOTISM, STATESMANSHIP, AND 
 ELOQUENCE 
 
 Sn Hfcbress 
 
 BY 
 
 ERASTUS BROOKS 
 
 Before the NEW YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY, April 6, 1886 
 
 AND 
 
 Before the PENNSYLVANIA HISTORICAL SOCIETY, May 14, 1886 
 
 Firm in the right, implacable to wrong, 
 
 * * He knew no North, no South, nor East, nor West 
 But the whole country held his patriot soul, 
 
 And wore it like a jewel on her breast. 
 
 ANN S. STEPHENS. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 TROWS PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING CO. 
 
 201-213 EAST TWELFTH STREET 
 
 1 886 
 
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN OF THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY 
 OF PENNSYLVANIA: 
 
 I am asked by your society to recall some of my 
 recollections of HENRY CLAY the great " American 
 Commoner/' as he was for so many years called and 
 known. This service, while it is for many reasons a 
 very pleasant one, is for other reasons the source of 
 sadness. Henry Clay's fame and fate recalls the story 
 of the fabled Titan, who, notwithstanding his many 
 gifts to mankind, was doomed to suffer many agonies. 
 Unlike so many public men of the present day, he 
 was never rich, and almost his only possessions were 
 those which belong to great self-denial and to the 
 highest character. My special interest in him was 
 the natural result of his great kindness to young 
 men, and to me especially when a very young man 
 a kindness beginning in the winter of 1835-36, the 
 winter of the great December fire in the city of New 
 York, and of the suspension of specie payments. by the 
 United States Bank, events leading to important legis 
 lation, special and public, the former for the relief of the 
 merchants who suffered most, and the latter to financial 
 legislation affecting almost every form of business, and 
 which in time gave to the country a more national cur 
 rency and one wholly free from the controversies of the 
 present time. 
 
 The .time named was when the country was repre 
 sented in the two Houses of Congress by a class of men 
 some of whose names will survive as long as the coun 
 try lives. What Patrick Henry, John Marshall, the 
 elder Adams, Jefferson, Hamilton, and Madison were 
 
as civilians in one era of the country's history, were the 
 names of Clay, Webster, and Calhoun in another gen 
 eration, and close on to this period were the names of 
 Lincoln, Douglas, Everett, Winthrop, Preston, Berrien, 
 Southard, and a score of kindred spirits. All save 
 Winthrop are now dead ; and all of them, then as now, 
 prove that genius, talent, and patriotism are in no sense 
 sectional or geographical. 
 
 As an observer and chronicler of events for some 
 sixteen consecutive sessions of Congress, it was my 
 good fortune to be familiar with public life at the capi 
 tal of the country fifty years ago, and an observer of its 
 public men. I shall therefore speak of them, at the risk 
 of being called an " old fogy," to which appellation for 
 a great many years I have had no objection, as old fogy- 
 ism resolves itself, with me, into the belief that it simply 
 means " hold fast to that which is good," " cease to do 
 evil, and learn to do well." In this view, the kind of 
 men who represented the Government thirty, forty, fifty, 
 and sixty years ago either do not now exist or the pub 
 lic service has in these years sadly degenerated and 
 changed. 
 
 " I HAD RATHER BE RIGHT THAN BE PRESIDENT." 
 
 Henry Clay was the chief among the men in Wash 
 ington whom I knew both from observation and study. 
 While he had not the sententious brevity of Calhoun, 
 not the solid learning, logic, and condensation of 
 Webster, he had what I may call an aptitude and 
 fitness for 'public service which eclipsed all other men. 
 He possessed courage, earnestness, conviction, self- 
 reliance, embodied in a force of purpose and strength 
 of character which made him, to me, the one man of 
 the Senate, and for a long period of time, in all re- 
 
lations of personal politics, the foremost man of the 
 country. In all that belongs to patriotism, no man was 
 before him. 
 
 I recall one incident in the speech where Mr. Clay 
 said, "/ had rather be right than be President ! " The 
 old Senate Chamber, now the room where the Supreme 
 Court meets, which, compared with the present, was but 
 little more than a very large parlor in a large private 
 dwelling, was thronged in door-ways, galleries, on the 
 floor, behind the Vice-President's chair, and hundreds 
 tried in vain to coax, force, or hold an entrance. The 
 chamber was then open to ladies. The time was the 
 usual first or long session of Congress, and this one 
 preceded the nomination of the candidate for President. 
 The friends of Mr. Clay were intensely interested in 
 the speech to be made, and fearful that words spoken 
 in debate would injure his chances for the nomination. 
 He never had any concealments, and was then as clear 
 in his words and work as the sun in the heavens. 
 
 Whether on or off the floor, when he took part in 
 debate, he was sure to say just what he thought of the 
 fire-eaters of the South and the extremists of the North. 
 At the time named I was chairman of the Whig 
 Young Men's Committee of the city of New York, 
 and having the right to the floor (the rules are much 
 more strict now), I ventured to whisper into his ear, 
 in an impulse of real love for the man, the deep and 
 general anxiety felt by the Whig Young Men of New 
 York, and of the country, that nothing should be 
 said by him that could by possibility defeat his ex 
 pected nomination. One of Mr. Clay's penetrating 
 looks, and one that meant to me what Milton calls 
 " expressive silence " in reply, was the only answer 
 to my appeal. This speech, as the result soon made 
 manifest, was in no sense a politic one for a candi- 
 
6 
 
 date for the Presidency. In the spirit of his Alabama 
 letter, it spared neither men, nor party, nor sections 
 of country where censure was deserved. For himself, 
 with an earnestness and honesty and force of will in 
 voice and manner that electrified those who heard him, 
 the conclusion of the whole matter was : "I had rather 
 be right than be President ! " 
 
 And when all was over, and congratulations ended, 
 " calm as a summer's morning," he came to the desk 
 where I was standing, and in just two sentences said, 
 first of all, " I hope you were not hurt by my silence 
 before I spoke;" and, secondly, now that I have 
 spoken, " I trust I have said nothing to wound or 
 hurt my young friends in New York, or my friends 
 elsewhere." 
 
 Mr. Clay never willingly wounded foe or friend. 
 His nature was most generous ; and he never gave 
 blows where they were not provoked, nor in the ab 
 sence of an opponent. In open Senate I have heard 
 from him the frankest apologies for words spoken in 
 the heat of debate. He knew literally " how to abate 
 and how to abound." In any necessary conflict he re 
 joined as to a foeman worthy of his steel. In methods 
 of attack and defence he was unrivalled. When Mar 
 tin Van Buren presided in the Senate, he was often, and 
 from good-humor alone, the torment of the Vice-Presi- 
 dent ; but, like so many lawyers in conflict at the bar, 
 the hard words were forgiven, if not forgotten, just 
 when and where the argument closed. Mr. Clay's ten 
 der of his snuff-box was always an olive-branch and a 
 peacemaker. Once, in a manner all his own, pointing 
 " to the Senator in the corner," as Mr. Clay called an 
 elderly Senator who had greatly provoked him, he 
 quoted the two lines : 
 
" Old politicians chew on wisdom past, 
 And totter on in blunders to the last." 
 
 The Senate was convulsed with laughter as Mr. 
 Clay's opponent, repeating the words in part, said, suit 
 ing the action to the words, " I t-o-t-t-e-r, sir I tot 
 ter, sir ! " Literally the words did totter, if not the 
 limbs of the much-offended Senator. Mr. Clay at once, 
 feeling the wound he had made, made a graceful apol 
 ogy, and restored good-humor to the Senate. 
 
 The same Senator, after a previous attack, little 
 dreaming of the return which would follow, was 
 obliged to meet with this ready response from Peter 
 Pindar : 
 
 " Thus have I seen a magpie in the street, 
 A chattering bird we often meet, 
 A bird of curiosity well known, 
 With head awry, 
 And cunning eye, 
 Peep knowingly into a marrow-bone." 
 
 The more hostile shafts thus aimed, no matter how 
 deadly the point, usually fell upon a breast of steel 
 
 PECULIARITIES, PRINCIPLES, AND OPINIONS. 
 
 "You do not remember my name? " said a lady friend 
 to him, upon one occasion. " No," was the prompt re 
 sponse ; " for when we met, long ago, I was sure your 
 beauty and accomplishments would very soon compel 
 you to change it." 
 
 With all Mr. Clay was ever ready with an answer ; 
 with men he was strong and persuasive ; with women 
 bland, gentle, and respectful ; and with children child 
 like and loving. 
 
 He possessed a very independent spirit, and believed 
 in an independent judiciary and in all the moral forces of 
 
8 
 
 the common law ; and if he ever departed from this prin 
 ciple, it was when he once saved the life of his client in 
 defence of the legal dictum that "no man can be put 
 in jeopardy twice for the same offence." The oppos 
 ing counsel took exceptions : the judge wavered. Mr. 
 Clay enforced his position by precedents and authori 
 ties ; and his strong will-power made him master of the 
 case, the subject, and the decision. In another case, 
 where he had saved the life of an undeserving son, the 
 mother, when the verdict of acquittal came, rushed into 
 his arms and almost smothered him in embraces and 
 kisses, to the great amusement of the open court. His 
 control over counsel and audience, all in one, was abso 
 lute, absorbing, and astonishing ; and often this control 
 in quick succession led to eyes bathed in tears and faces 
 wreathed with smiles. There was a charm in his man 
 ner, his voice, and even in his assurance, for in each he 
 was most captivating. Once, pausing for a moment, in 
 an argument before the United State Supreme Court, 
 and probably more than once, advancing to one of the 
 justices, who held a snuff-box in his hand, airily took a 
 pinch, remarking : " I see that your honor sticks to the 
 Scotch ! " Justice Story said of it : "I have been on 
 this bench for thirty-four years, and I do not believe 
 there is a man in this country who could have done that 
 but Henry Clay." 
 
 Upon questions of State rights, as defined in the 
 letter of the Constitution; the tariff, except in 1820, 
 when Mr. Webster was opposed to protection ; the 
 abridgment of Executive power, in the form of the 
 Jackson vetoes the two Senators were in accord, 
 though in early public life they were not of the same 
 party. Later on in life, with the same ambition for the 
 same high honors, they were not always "in harmony. 
 In the forum of debate in Congress, Mr. Clay seemed 
 
9 
 
 to be less a man of study than of close observation, 
 except when public duty imposed upon him the task of 
 careful investigation as when chairman of the Finance 
 Committee, framing, exposing, or defending a revenue 
 and tariff bill. He aimed to be properly informed 
 upon whatever subject he discussed ; and especially was 
 this true in the court-room, where in early life he was 
 a brilliant and almost uniformly successful advocate and 
 counsellor. In criminal cases he was unrivalled, and in 
 this practice he never lost a case. Whether in the 
 Senate, as a leader in debate ; in the House of Repre 
 sentatives, over which he presided ; or before the bench 
 of judges, whatever the subject or the occasion, his 
 voice had a magnetic charm which compelled attention 
 and awakened general sympathy and interest. 
 
 I have often heard Mr. Clay, using the language of 
 another, "thunder in anger, soften in sorrow, tremble 
 in fear, and melt in love." He had a quick, sharp eye, 
 a keen and ready ear, and at times, changing " from 
 grave to gay, from lively to severe," he seemed to me to 
 illustrate all the passions pictured in the famous ode of 
 Collins. 
 
 The accomplished Madame de Stael, whom Mr. Clay 
 met at Paris first at her own home, and later on in Lon 
 don was charmed with her American guest, and intro 
 duced him to the Duke of Wellington just before the 
 battle of Waterloo, which took place while he was in 
 London. This accomplished woman had taken the part 
 of the United States in the war with England. And 
 when the Duke and American commissioner met they 
 had their sallies of wit. The New Orleans victory was 
 used as an offset for the greater conquest over Napo 
 leon at Waterloo. Mr. Clay did not return to London 
 until he was strengthened by the brilliant conquest of 
 General Jackson over Packenham, after the articles of 
 
IO 
 
 peace were signed. " Now," he said, " I can go to 
 England without mortification." Soon he left Europe, 
 and on September I5th resumed his seat in Congress. 
 
 You have perhaps heard of that famous political 
 firm known, more than fifty years ago, as " John 
 Holmes, Felix Grundy," and a name perhaps not to 
 be mentioned to ears polite. Holmes was from Maine, 
 Grundy from Tennessee, and the name of the third 
 party in the partnership is more familiar than either 
 of the two. Grundy was a power with General 
 Jackson, when Mr. Clay said to him, " Tell General 
 Jackson, if he will sign the Land Bill, I will pledge 
 myself to retire from Congress and never enter public 
 life again ! " Mr. Clay's land policy, I need not say, was 
 not for syndicates, nor corporations, but for the people. 
 
 My friends, I have meant this address, as you 
 may see, not so much to give the life of Henry Clay 
 in birth and education, as to illustrate and interest 
 you in his public character. Something, however, is 
 due to the beginning of the end I have imperfectly 
 traced. His father was a clergyman of the Baptist 
 faith. His mother he loved with the tenderness of a 
 child. His birthplace was in Hanover County, Vir 
 ginia, and in a body of land known as the Slashes. 
 In early and later life, as success began to crown his 
 work, he was known as the " Mill-boy of the Slashes ;" 
 and this meant that in his work he was familiar with 
 the corn, the grind, and the meal taken to and from the 
 mill. Nor was he a stranger to the plough, the spade, 
 the hoe ; he used them all. At fourteen he was a clerk 
 in a drug-store at Richmond, and as poor as poverty 
 could make him. One of his sad exclamations in early 
 days was, " I am without patrons, without friends, and 
 destitute of the means of paying my week's board ;" 
 but from the beginning he was never without ambition. 
 
II 
 
 " My inheritance," he once said in public, as a stimu 
 lus to other young men born as poor as himself, 
 was " indigence and ignorance," and as the fifth son 
 of a poor country clergyman, a hundred years ago 
 the parson was indeed " passing rich with 40 a 
 year." And books, fourscore years gone by, were 
 almost as scarce as ready money. But all this time, 
 and onward, Henry Clay went up higher, from the 
 boy at the mill, the plough, the spade, and the hoe, to 
 the city clerk, and then as the student at law, earning 
 his way from day to day. In the midst of this kind 
 of toil, he said : " I remember how comfortable I 
 thought I should be if I could make ^100, Virginia 
 money, per annum, and with what delight I received 
 my first 15^. fee." And then he adds, with true joy, 
 " My hopes were more than realized ; I immediately 
 rushed into a lucrative practice." A joint friend, in 
 a beautiful poem to his fame and memory, has said 
 of him : 
 
 41 He early learned the mighty power of truth; " 
 
 and so, in the end, 
 
 " Close to the gates of Heaven he calmly fell, 
 And there the angels found him when they came." 
 
 Mr. Clay often reminded me of the elder Pitt. Both 
 were poor and of no family importance in politics. Pitt, 
 with an income of ^200 a year, and scorning all those 
 forms of bribery which had made Walpole a power, 
 and Newcastle rich, was the great Commoner of Eng 
 land, as Clay was the great Commoner of America. 
 Both of them were equally patriotic, faithful to the 
 nation and to party, conciliatory to friends, unyielding 
 to enemies, and each at times assuming and arrogant ; 
 
12 
 
 but withal persuasive, magnetic, and supreme in con 
 trol. Their flashes of genius in the forum were like 
 the lightning and the thunder in the sky. In the 
 storms of debate, Clay, in the Senate, and in the House, 
 often recalled to my mind Chatham before Parliament, 
 when, in the War of the Revolution, he cried out for the 
 King, and Lords, and Commons, and for all to hear, 
 " You cannot conquer America ! If I were an Ameri 
 can, as I am an Englishman, while a foreign troop was 
 landed in my country, I would never lay down my arms ; 
 never, never, never ! " and it was just this spirit that 
 made the two men alike. Often they were hated by 
 the party in power, but at the same time well beloved 
 by people not bound to those in power. 
 
 Upon provocation, and sometimes without it, there 
 was a constant fire within, and the fire flashed through 
 a pair of eyes remarkable for their brightness. His 
 large brow indicated his brain, and his tall stat 
 ure, broad mouth, and singular face, which in repose 
 was without real beauty of expression, gave evidence 
 in look and force of the man upon whose shoulders it 
 rested. A homely face at rest, it was full of life when 
 Mr. Clay was upon his feet in debate. Nearly all hu 
 man voices in the same families in some form harmo 
 nize. Mr. Clay's in tone was all his own for sweetness 
 and distinctness ; it seemed to enter the very hearts 
 and minds of those who heard it. Someone said, in 
 1842, when he left the Senate, that his voice was 
 like a benediction from Heaven. The words which 
 came from his lips were, as a rule, born of " thoughts 
 that breathe " as well as " words that burn." 
 
 I recall many of Mr. Clay's speeches, from 1835-36 
 on to his retirement and touching farewell in 1842, in the 
 Senate. Like John Quincy Adams, he died, if not in 
 the building of the old Capitol, at the seat of the Fed- 
 
13 
 
 eral Government, in the National Hotel, in close and 
 daily communion with it and its representative men. 
 
 HENRY CLAY AND Louis KOSSUTH. 
 
 It was in this his last sickness, in this hotel, that he 
 had his interesting interview with Louis Kossuth, whose 
 visit to the United States was one of the remarkable 
 events in the history of the country. Mr. Webster, 
 when asked by an eminent brother lawyer in New 
 York " What he thought of it?" answered that the 
 effect it was having upon the people was " like the vis 
 its of the sea-serpent through the country ! " No man 
 for a few months was more popular than Kossuth, and 
 his mission seemed to him a complete success, even long 
 before he had left the harbor of New York, at Staten 
 Island, and received his enthusiastic reception from the 
 bar in the city, from the clergy, the people, and the 
 leading political clubs. His purpose was by argument 
 or eloquence to persuade, or through public opinion 
 compel, national interference in behalf of Hungary 
 against Austria. When I met him in his chamber par 
 lor, then at Howard's Hotel, at the corner of Broadway 
 and Chambers Street, New York, with an address and 
 contribution from the Young Whigs of New York City, 
 he was reading Irving's " Life of Washington," and try 
 ing to find words or conclusions where Washington 
 might perchance unsay what he had taught in his fare 
 well address to "beware of entangling alliances with 
 foreign nations." And here let me say, that for Amer 
 ica wiser words than these were never uttered by mor 
 tal man. 
 
 Mr. Clay was always in sympathy with true liberty, 
 always against despotism, always for free and indepen 
 dent States under the Federal Government, limited by 
 
H 
 
 the powers of the written constitution. He had urged, 
 and with a power which gave him the name at the time 
 throughout the land of " the Apostle of Liberty," the 
 recognition of the independence of South America ; 
 and Bolivar once wrote to him : " All America, Colum 
 bia, and myself owe our present gratitude for the in 
 comprehensible service you have rendered to us by sus 
 taining our course with a sublime enthusiasm." 
 
 " His words that like a bugle blast 
 
 Erst rang along the Grecian shore, 
 And o'er the hoary Andes passed, 
 
 Will still ring on forevermore ! 
 Great Liberty will catch the sounds 
 
 And start to newer, brighter life, 
 And summon from earth's utmost bounds 
 
 Her children to the glorious strife." 
 
 We see something of this spirit in the Greece of 
 to-day with Turkey at the front, and England, France, 
 Italy, and Germany placing the Isles of Greece be 
 tween the upper and nether millstone of autocratic and 
 despotic power, and where five strong powers com 
 bine to crush the weaker nation for claiming her own 
 in what belonged to her, and what most of these strong 
 powers had guaranteed to her. 
 
 Mr. Clay would have been as glad to see Hungary 
 free as he was glad to speak for South America and 
 Greece ; but he was never ready for political interven 
 tion with foreign powers, from which the Government, 
 thanks to Washington and the wise international policy 
 of his successors, has from its beginning been free. 
 When, therefore, Kossuth plead with Henry Clay for 
 material aid from the Government, the latter dealt 
 with him as a father with his son. Kossuth now for 
 the first time felt that his mission was a failure, and 
 from that hour the sober second thought of the people 
 
assumed its proper supremacy. The show of the "sea- 
 serpent " was over, and he, who had entered the country 
 like a chieftain leading an army and sure of victory, left 
 it, if not unhonored, almost unknown. 
 
 The English critics have not been just to Mr. Clay. 
 The part he took in the War of 1812-15, as peace com 
 missioner with Adams, Bayard, Gallatin, and Russell, 
 at Ghent, gave him prominence abroad and at home. 
 He was earnest for the war, and for peace only upon 
 terms which the splendid commission of which he was 
 a part finally accepted. The English critic to which I 
 refer says, of Mr. Clay's part in the treaty of peace, 
 that " his acuteness secured for America some advan 
 tages." 
 
 Mr. Clay was also intensely national and especially 
 anti-British upon the tariff, though Great Britain in the 
 period of the early tariff was more for protection than 
 for free trade. His words in behalf of Greece, in a res 
 olution moved by Mr. Webster, and heartily seconded 
 by Mr. Clay, were in warm sympathy for all the people 
 of the world who were struggling for freedom. For 
 Greece and South America, when Secretary of State, 
 he secured the double purpose of sending ministers 
 from the United States, and in one of the grandest let 
 ters in diplomacy he awakened the sympathy and ef 
 forts of the Emperor Alexander of Russia, first against 
 Turkey, in behalf of Greece, and, secondly, through his 
 minister at Spain, after nineteen years of war against 
 South America States, in behalf of the independence of 
 the Spanish republics. 
 
 As Secretary of State under Mr. Adams, Mr. Clay 
 performed more labor and accomplished more in trea 
 ties, correspondence, and practical work than any of his 
 predecessors in the same office. The charge once made, 
 of " bargain and corruption," against him, because he 
 
i6 
 
 preferred John Quincy Adams for President to General 
 Jackson or Crawford, and because Mr. Adams made 
 him Secretary of State, was for a time, and in his very 
 sensitive nature, like a dagger in his heart. Investiga 
 tion proved its falsity ; only political malice started the 
 lie or repeated the slander. Both Madison and Monroe 
 long before had tendered him a place in their Cabinets, 
 and Mr. Monroe, whose policy he had at times opposed, 
 and opposed in spite of appeals and protests, tendered 
 him the full mission to England. 
 
 In all his civil life, even with such associates as 
 Lowndes, Calhoun, Cheves, Webster, his qualities of 
 character, and his work in the Cabinet, in the Senate 
 and in the House of Representatives, as the minister 
 of peace, as the defender of war, as counsellor for the 
 right, and the enemy of wrong, his services were pre 
 eminent, and his face always at the front. 
 
 Two of the leading incidents in Mr. Clay's life 
 were his conduct in the War of 1812-15, and, as I have 
 said, his taking leave of the Senate, in 1842. The 
 latter event was a life-long memory for all who were 
 present. In the former, the two strong men against 
 him were Josiah Quincy, of Massachusetts, and his 
 constant enemy, John Randolph, of Virginia, the two 
 men making one of the strongest alliances in the 
 political history of the country. The Virginian was 
 the Ishmael of the war, and the Massachusetts member 
 acted as the Thersites of the council chamber. There 
 had been the embargo which reduced the revenues 
 of the country from sixteen to six millions of dollars. 
 King, Commons, and ministers were insisting upon the 
 impressment of seamen in American vessels, and of 
 this last wrong Mr. Clay said, " No language can paint 
 my execration of this odious system." For a time it 
 was only his burning eloquence that touched the pre- 
 
I? 
 
 vailing stupor in Congress, and compelled the final 
 declaration of war, the voting of men, and the urgency 
 upon the sea of twelve line-of-battle ships and fifteen 
 or twenty frigates. The Rubicon was now passed, 
 and the war went on. 
 
 MR. CLAY'S TEMPER, POLICY, AND DUELS. 
 
 In recalling the life of Henry Clay, it would be an 
 offence to true friendship to forget that he was twice 
 the antagonist of his enemies upon what is miscalled 
 " the field of honor." Once he had received, and 
 accepted, a challenge from a United States district at 
 torney, Colonel Joseph Hamilton Davies, who became 
 offended because Mr. Clay accepted the clientage of a 
 citizen after all the lawyers near him had, from abso 
 lute fear or dread of annoyance, declined the service 
 of counsel. This United States officer had struck a 
 tavern-keeper in Frankfort, Ky., and Mr. Clay, upon 
 a written appeal for justice, accepted the case. The 
 colonel argued his own cause, and his words, if 
 possible, were worse than his blows. Mr. Clay suf 
 fered no client, black or white, bond or free, to be in 
 sulted. Often he retaliated, but always in the spirit 
 of a man ready to defend the right. The United 
 States colonel and attorney became incensed, and 
 sent a note of warning to Mr. Clay during the trial. 
 The prompt answer followed in writing, that, as the 
 plaintiff's attorney, he would exercise his own judg 
 ment, and least of all accept advice from the enemy 
 of his client. This answer at once called forth a chal 
 lenge, when friends interposed, and in time secured 
 a reconciliation. 
 
 Humphrey Marshall, a leading Federalist, which Mr. 
 Clay was not, who wrote a " History of Kentucky," was 
 
i8 
 
 another of Mr. Clay's antagonists. Marshall's special 
 vituperation was called forth by a characteristic resolu 
 tion of Mr. Clay offered in the Kentucky Legislature 
 which was in the spirit, and almost in the words, of 
 General Washington to General Knox, written in Jan 
 uary, 1789, asking Knox "to procure some homespun 
 broadcloth at Hartford to make a suit of clothes for 
 himself," and adding in his letter these words : " I hope 
 it will not be a great while before it will be unfashion 
 able for a gentleman to appear in any other dress ! " 
 
 Mr. Clay's resolution was that each member of the 
 Kentucky Legislature, of which he was one, for the pur 
 pose of encouraging the industry of the country, should 
 clothe himself in garments made in the country. Mar 
 shall denounced the resolution in the coarsest vitupera 
 tion. Following the spirit of the times, Mr. Clay sent 
 him a challenge. Three shots were exchanged. Each 
 of the combatants were slightly wounded, when the sec 
 onds put an end to the fight. 
 
 I recall this duel because it grew out of a measure of 
 public policy which for many years prompted Mr. Clay 
 to be recognized as the father of the so-called " Amer 
 ican system ; " but the American system of that day, 
 let me add, meant moderate duties on foreign imports, 
 and the early manufacturers of the country were con 
 tent with moderation. 
 
 More than once, and I commend this evidence to 
 free traders and high protectionists, I heard Mr. Clay 
 say that home manufacturers who could not live on 
 twenty and twenty-five per cent, duties on foreign im 
 ports, with the additional advantage which belonged to 
 the cost of importation on the sea, and often double 
 transportation on the land, should not be supported by 
 the Federal Government in the form of a direct tax 
 upon trade. 
 
i 9 
 
 The really sad surrender of moral principle on the 
 part of Mr. Clay was when he sent his challenge to John 
 Randolph. The provocations were insults deliberately 
 made ; words and manner were aggravating- and offen 
 sive. John Randolph hated Henry Clay, and intended, 
 according to the code, to compel what is called satisfac 
 tion from a more successful and more brilliant man. 
 
 In the House, with Mr. Clay in the speaker's chair, 
 John Randolph upon the. floor, and the latter in his full 
 vigor of intellectual power and matchless sarcasm and 
 invective, and what was called " the swearing devil that 
 lurked in his tone and look," there was hardly room 
 for both. Randolph was among the foremost opponents 
 of the War of 1812-15, and the master of the anti-war 
 party. Mr. Clay was leader and champion for the free 
 dom of the seas against impressment, for a larger land 
 force, though only 25,000 men were asked for, when 
 8,000 British troops were in Canada, and a strong body 
 of men in the fortress of Quebec a fortress which, as 
 few were then likely to forget, was at one time the 
 scene of the great discomfiture of American troops in 
 the War of the Revolution, where Montgomery fell and 
 the tide of independence rolled back. 
 
 The scourge of war, the praises of England, and the 
 abuse of France under Napoleon were the arguments 
 against the war before the House, but the masterly de 
 fence of Mr. Clay ended in a vote of 94 to 34 that the 
 country was now prepared for war, and the impress 
 ment of seamen sailing under the American flag was de 
 clared to be piracy. 
 
 Mr. Clay's success now was one of Randolph's many 
 grievances, and hence, later on, upon the grossest prov 
 ocation, came the famous duel between these two 
 eminent civilians. Mr. Clay, when the challenge came, 
 was a member of the Cabinet, where there was no forum 
 
2O 
 
 of debate, no opportunity to reply. Mr. Randolph, then 
 in the Senate, was the embodiment, not only of the most 
 grotesque eccentricities, but the very essence of bad 
 temper toward those who would not court his favor or 
 accept his advice. 
 
 It is always well, where fair play and just opinions 
 are to weigh in the balances of wise conclusions, to put 
 yourself in the place of the person you censure. The 
 epithets which Randolph uttered, when and where they 
 could not be answered, were the excuse for the challenge 
 sent, and for the duel fought. The parties met, fired, 
 and neither of them was hurt. Mr. Randolph's body 
 was saved from the fact that his thin and attenuated 
 form was concealed in a morning-gown loosely worn 
 and of capacious quantity. The robe was hit, but the 
 man was unhurt. Mr. Randolph, with characteristic 
 oddity, and perhaps I might more justly say, timely 
 generosity, fired into the air ; and so the duel ended. 
 And after Mr. Randolph had fired, he advanced to Mr. 
 Clay, held out his hand, showed the hole in his robe, 
 and said: "Mr. Clay, you owe me a coat!" "Thank 
 God," said the Kentuckian, " the debt is not greater ! " 
 
 Long after, Mr. Clay, in an address to his fellow- 
 citizens, made a confession which is worthy of remem 
 brance, preservation, and obedience. And it is but 
 just to say that this confession came when the duel was 
 both the practice of men in Congress assembled and 
 the sentiment of the Southern people : 
 
 " I owe it to the community to say, that whatever 
 heretofore I may have done, or by inevitable circum 
 stances may be forced to do, no man in it holds in 
 deeper abhorrence than I do the pernicious practice of 
 duelling. Condemned, as it must be, by the judgment 
 and philosophy, to say nothing of the religion, of every 
 thinking man, it is an affair of feeling about which we 
 
21 
 
 cannot, although we should, reason. The true correc 
 tive will be found when all shall unite, as all ought to 
 unite, in its unqualified proscription." 
 
 And Mr. Clay spoke just as strongly against the 
 practice of gambling. Once urged to play a game of 
 brag, on the Mississippi, his answer was " No," and 
 this as far back as 1819. "I have not/' he then said,* 
 " played for money for a dozen years," and he advised 
 his friends, one and all, not to play for money. 
 
 HENRY CLAY AND AARON BURR. 
 
 The people of the United States who read and think 
 seem to be unlearning some of their old prejudices 
 against Aaron Burr. In the War of the Revolution, 
 then a very young man, he was one of the busiest, 
 bravest, and most useful of its defenders, and this alike 
 with the United States Army in Canada and in the 
 States. He had been a United States officer in the army, 
 and Senator and Vice-President of the United States. 
 His great offence was the killing of Alexander Hamil 
 ton in a duel, but not without the provocation of hard 
 words. The worst crime charged against him was his 
 intended, if not open, treason against the United States. 
 The alleged offence was that he was one of a party, of 
 conspirators to divide the Union, and to establish an in 
 dependent government, of which he was to be the chief. 
 Mr. Clay was asked to be Colonel Burr's counsel, after 
 he had been once arraigned and acquitted at Frankfort, 
 Ky., where the judgment, except with the United States 
 district attorney, was uniform that he was innocent. 
 The prejudices against him were strengthened by the 
 consequences of the duel, and he was a second time ar 
 rested, tried, and acquitted. Mr. Clay a second time 
 was implored to become his counsel. Before accepting 
 this unwelcome service, he received the solemn assur- 
 
22 
 
 ance from Burr, in writing, that he had never taken any 
 measure to dissolve the Union, to separate one or more 
 States from the rest ; that he had never published a line 
 upon the subject, through his own agency or with his 
 own knowledge, nor promised a commission to any per 
 son for any purpose whatever ; that he neither owned 
 nor controlled bayonet, musket, nor any single article 
 of military stores ; had no design to intermeddle with the 
 Government, and, finally, he added : " I have thought 
 these explanations proper, to satisfy you that you have 
 not espoused the cause of a man in any way unfriendly 
 to the laws, the Government, or the interests of the 
 country." 
 
 On this record, though just elected a Senator in 
 Congress, Mr. Clay consented a second time to be 
 Colonel Burr's counsel. The United States attorney 
 submitted his second indictment, with evidence, to the 
 jury ; and the jury answered that the bill was not true, 
 and added the voluntary address that there was nothing 
 in the evidence to justify the accusations. 
 
 The verdict was received by the people in and 
 around the court-room with rounds of applause, adding 
 to the popular the legal evidence that Colonel Burr was 
 innocent. Mr. Clay shared in these honors of acquittal ; 
 but later in life, after reading the evidence collected by 
 Jefferson, and the letter written by Burr in cypher, and 
 transmitted by Colonel Samuel Swartwout to the United 
 States Army commander, General Wilkinson, believed 
 that Burr had deceived him as to the fact of his intended 
 treason ; and later on, upon receiving the tender of his 
 hand in the court-room of the city of New York, in the 
 presence of bench and bar, openly refused to take it. 
 This act was, at the time, far more damaging to Burr's 
 reputation than his acquittal by the jury of any court. 
 
 In more recent years, many who have scanned and 
 
23 
 
 canvassed this evidence believe that Burr's ambition, 
 if anything, meant a republic beyond the confines of the 
 American States, and beyond Florida, which had been 
 acquired from Spain, and beyond Louisiana, purchased 
 from Napoleon, and probably a republic to be estab 
 lished in Mexico. Burr, Mr. Clay believed in his de 
 fence, intended to seize first upon Baton Rouge, and 
 then in time upon the Spanish province beyond. 
 
 In the midst of the rage of party spirit under Mr. 
 Madison, when Randolph and Quincy were the leaders 
 against Clay, Florida was declared, by proclamation of 
 the President, annexed to the Orleans territory pur 
 chased from France. The Federal party insisted that 
 the territory belonged to Spain, that the proclamation 
 was an act of usurpation, and that holding the territory 
 by force of arms was an act of plunder. 
 
 The simple but masterly answer of Mr. Clay was 
 that the first ownership was in France, which ceded 
 Florida to Spain in 1762 ; and that in the year 1800, by 
 treaty, Spain ceded the territory back to the French, 
 which government, under the treaty of 1803 with the 
 United States, sold it to this Government. This terri 
 tory was indispensable to the free navigation of the 
 Perdido, the Mississippi, and essential to the safe ex 
 istence of the United States. The commerce of the 
 Father of Waters, and the waters leading to it, Jeffer 
 son had the wisdom to see, Madison always the 
 warm friend of Mr. Clay the forecast to hold, and 
 Henry Clay the courage to defend, against all the 
 sophistries of the old Federal party. 
 
 Of all the masterpieces of political wisdom, the 
 peaceful acquisition of Louisiana, at the small cost of 
 $16,000,000, was the greatest, and in its results the 
 grandest, for the country of all that had gone before, 
 or has since transpired. 
 
MISSOURI AND MR. CLAY. 
 
 It was John Randolph who twice voted against Mr. 
 Clay, and with members from the free States, to kill the 
 bill for the final admission of Missouri as a slave-holding 
 State, after Congress had voted that Maine and Mis 
 souri should be received into the Union upon equal 
 terms and under one act as slave-holding and free 
 States. This was before the duel, and when Mr. Clay 
 was speaker. Leaving the chair, Mr. Randolph ac 
 costed him with this proposition : " Mr. Speaker, I wish 
 you would quit the chair, and leave the House ; I will 
 follow you to Kentucky or anywhere else ! " The an 
 swer was that the proposition was very serious, but that 
 he would discuss it the next morning in the speaker's 
 room, where Mr. Clay defended the two compromise 
 measures, one of which was defeated by Randolph's co- 
 workers, composed of the class of men whom he once 
 called dough- faces. Before this interview closed, these 
 two men agreed to forget the past and to be at peace for 
 the future ; but with Randolph this was a moral impossi 
 bility. At their next meeting the Virginian forgot his 
 promise, and the two members neither spoke to each 
 other nor exchanged salutations to the end of the ses 
 sion. 
 
 All along he had argued that the adjustment of the 
 Missouri conflict would in the end elect Mr. Clay Presi 
 dent of the United States. He had failed to persuade him 
 to leave the chair, or to imitate the example started 
 when Southern members met together to resist the re 
 ception of anti-slavery petitions. He had fought against 
 peace and compromise inch by inch, day by day ; and, 
 beyond this, he had become melancholy and morose, 
 as he gazed for the last time upon the countenance of 
 the brave and beloved Decatur, who had been killed in 
 
25 
 
 a duel. Mr. Clay was assured by members of the Sen 
 ate and House that Randolph, who still heartily hated 
 the Kentuckian, desired, in his great excitement, to see 
 his antagonist dead as Decatur died, and by the same 
 code of honor. The bark in this respect soon proved 
 much worse than the bite, but the bite was deep and 
 venomous. 
 
 THE MISSOURI CONTROVERSY 
 
 was the greatest national struggle previous to the 
 Rebellion. In Congress the sectional strifes from 1850 
 to 1 86 1 were not equalled by the fiery debates of 
 1818 to 1821. Thrice after admission into the Union, 
 by the vote of a previous Congress, the Senators and 
 Representatives from Missouri had been refused the 
 right of representation. The Senate voted one way for 
 the majority of States, and the House of Representa 
 tives a different way for the majority of the people. 
 
 Business in Congress was at a dead-lock, and legisla 
 tion practically suspended. By a vote of 83 to 80, Ran 
 dolph and two other Southern members apparently bent 
 upon like mischief, voted with the North, and defeated 
 the compromise report made by Mr. Clay as chairman of 
 the special committee of thirteen. The previous report, 
 made a month earlier, admitting Missouri without condi 
 tions, had been rejected, and the two Houses became 
 hopelessly divided. The members, Northern and South 
 ern, were in a state of temper that seemed to make re 
 conciliation, by joint majority of the two Houses, or by 
 any concurrence of opinion, impossible. Senate and 
 House were much farther apart than the Lords and 
 Commons of England in 1885, and since Slavery in all 
 its aspects, and especially the ordinance of 1787, was 
 involved in the debate. Free States once in the Union, 
 
26 
 
 regardless of this ordinance, it was held, could introduce 
 and maintain slavery at their own pleasure. 
 
 In the midst of these contentions, Mr. Clay, whose 
 necessities and business at home compelled his absence 
 from Washington, was implored to return to the capi 
 tal, and by his long absence he came better prepared 
 than if he had taken part in the storm that raged dur 
 ing the previous weeks of the session. He was for the 
 admission of Missouri without conditions, as the right of 
 the people ; but, as in the period which later on threat 
 ened nullification, he knew that neither threats, nor 
 jealousies, nor sectional and personal animosities could 
 force Missouri into the Union ; and he knew, also, that 
 then, as in 1860 and 1861, there were men of hot blood 
 who talked, threatened, and some of whom meant to 
 establish a Southern Confederacy. It needed now a 
 true man and a brave leader to direct the nation in its 
 crisis. Mr. Clay was calm, brave, intensely earnest, 
 and unquestionably patriotic. He had the respect of 
 the best men of the two Houses. When a com 
 mittee of twenty-three were chosen by ballot, he was 
 permitted, and requested by his fellow- members, to se 
 lect this committee. His choice was accepted ; and, as 
 the result of his patience, intelligence, and the confi 
 dence reposed in him, he submitted the proposition, 
 which was adopted after brief debate by a vote of 
 87 to 8 1 in the House, and promptly concurred in by the 
 Senate. 
 
 The conflict was now over, after an excitement 
 hardly equalled in the session when the elder Adams 
 was made President, when Jefferson defeated Burr by 
 one vote in the House, or the more recently eight to 
 seven votes when Congress counted out Governor 
 Tilden and counted in Governor Hayes, but without 
 counting all the votes of States and people. It is 
 
27 
 
 hardly necessary to say that such precedents are both 
 startling and dangerous, and leave wounds that time 
 cannot wholly heal. 
 
 What Mr. Clay finally presented for Missouri was 
 the restriction of slavery to all territory south of the 
 line of 36 30', and free territory everywhere north 
 of this line. This, indeed, later on, was the spirit 
 of the compromise measures of 1850, the support of 
 which politically killed Mr. Webster, and the failure of 
 which almost broke Mr. Clay's heart. Together, and 
 apart, they were practically beaten in the Senate. It 
 was destiny or providence, if this is a better word- 
 that slavery should come to an end, and if not peacea 
 bly, then by civil war and rebellion ; and it was a 
 double interposition of this same providence that the 
 States which provoked the war should destroy the very 
 institution which caused the war. 
 
 MR. CLAY'S ANTI-SLAVERY SENTIMENTS 
 
 were as old almost as the commencement of the century. 
 Born in 1777, as a young lawyer at the age of twenty 
 he found the people of Kentucky, his adopted State, en 
 gaged in the choice of delegates to frame a new con 
 stitution for the State. One of the provisions to be 
 submitted to the people was the gradual emancipation 
 of the slave population. By birth a Virginian, he stood 
 where Jefferson had before led the way in his own Com 
 monwealth as an honest, earnest, eloquent friend of 
 emancipation. He spoke and wrote for emancipation, 
 but failed in Kentucky, as Mr. Jefferson had failed in 
 Virginia. Later on in life he sought partial relief for 
 the existence and growth of slavery through the Ameri 
 can Colonization Society, of which he was long the 
 president. But where one born a slave was sent to 
 
28 
 
 Africa a freeman, a hundred were born for continued 
 bondage. No man ever spoke with more power of the 
 vices of slavery, and of its possible consequences to the 
 country. I have heard him more than once pray and 
 with all the earnestness of his intense nature that he 
 might not survive the American States separated or 
 wrecked, and the old Union dissolved. This result, as 
 he believed, was the greatest possible national calamity, 
 and death at last came to his relief eight or nine years 
 before the temporary separation of the Southern States, 
 or in June, 1852. If the Union fell, he believed that 
 slavery would be the cause of the downfall. 
 
 The Constitution, he held, maintained this institu 
 tion ; and this was his only reason for its continued ex 
 istence, and this he would have changed if he could, as 
 the slave trade had been abandoned years before. 
 
 My limited space is nearly finished, and with almost 
 as much unsaid as one who knew the man would like 
 to record as his remembrances of one in voice, manner, 
 and courage next to Patrick Henry, if not equal to him, 
 the greatest national orator of the country. . It was Clay 
 who said, when it was proposed, in the years of the War 
 of 1812-15, to give certificates to American seamen, 
 to prevent the boarding of American ships on the open 
 sea by British commanders for purposes of impressment, 
 that " the colors which float from the masthead of our 
 ships are the credentials of our seamen," and he closed 
 this speech with these memorable words : " If we fail, 
 let us fail like men, and expire together in one common 
 struggle fighting for free trade and seamen s rights!' 
 
 Then, as always, whether against the alien and sedi 
 tion law, for freedom in Greece and South America; 
 whether for war with Great Britain, which in 1811 he 
 said must be a " war of vigor, and not a war of languor 
 and imbecility," or for an honorable peace with the 
 
2 9 
 
 mother country ; for a system of internal improvements 
 which opened the way for post-roads across the Alle- 
 ghanies, or for free inland navigation his voice and 
 votes were for what was wholly American, against what 
 was in any sense alien, sectional, or personal. He was 
 against the annexation of Texas when annexation was 
 most popular at the South, against what was called 
 squatter sovereignty when most popular at the West, 
 and for the constitutional rights of the Southern States ; 
 and this made him unpopular at times and many times 
 in the North and South, and in the West and East. To 
 be a successful politician one must too often be all things 
 to all men. Mr. Clay was never, never, that kind of a 
 man ; and hence his double defeat both in nominating 
 conventions and before the people when a candidate 
 for President. 
 
 Mr. Clay's fame is associated with three great 
 national compromises, all now belonging to the dead 
 past. I have named, with some important facts in his 
 tory, the Missouri settlement of 1820-21. In the great 
 domestic trouble of 1833, this " father of the American 
 (protective) system," when the duties on foreign im 
 ports largely exceeded twenty per cent., had them re 
 duced ten per cent, in each of the years 1833, 1835, 
 1837, and 1839, and one-half of the remaining excess in 
 1841, and all of the excess at the close of the year 1842. 
 Such a revision of the tariff substantially now, if the 
 strife between capital and labor could be justly closed, 
 would restore peace to the business of the country. Mr. 
 Clay's peace-offering and argument in 1833, and in 1850, 
 was in brief in these words : " I am for mutual conces 
 sion, for peace and harmony. I want no civil war ; 
 no sacked cities ; no embattled armies ; no streams of 
 American blood shed by American armies ! " The war, 
 however, was simply postponed from 1833 to 1861, and 
 
30 
 
 the efforts of Clay in 1850, with all the strong support 
 from Webster, Cass, and Douglas, to end the strife by 
 peaceful measures, were failures. 
 
 To illustrate both the hope, and the hope deferred, 
 early in 1848 Mr. Clay visited Philadelphia, where he 
 was welcomed at the station by more than one thou 
 sand citizens on horseback, and escorted to his hotel ; 
 and all along the line, from the walks and the public 
 roadway to the house-tops, cheered by strong voices 
 from men of warm hearts, and with a presence of 
 people bearing flags, and banners, and emblems, that 
 showed both love and admiration for the man. His 
 figure, over six feet in height, and now as erect as 
 in the vigor of youth, recalled these noble words, 
 spoken long before : " What is a public man worth, 
 if he will not expose himself, on fitting occasions, for 
 the good of his country ? " In this spirit, and for State 
 reasons, he opposed Crawford and the election of a 
 military chieftain, because, in the light of history, "it 
 was the fatal road which has led every other re 
 public to ruin ! " On this same occasion, in this same 
 City of Brotherly Love, he was welcomed at Inde 
 pendence Hall, where the people thronged the square 
 to receive him ; and as the women could not, in such 
 crowds, show their admiration, more than five thousand 
 assembled at the Chinese Museum, to give public proof 
 of their respect, as the mothers and daughters of the 
 city. His response was a brief address on " Women's 
 real Rights." He did not, however, believe in the 
 woman's rights as now called for by the select few 
 from the very many women of the present day. When 
 the majority of women ask for this, the majority of men 
 will give what is asked for, and probably not before. 
 
 A few weeks later, in this same Chinese Museum, 
 upon a question of political expediency practised by 
 
men who falsified their professions of preference and 
 affection, Henry Clay was defeated, and Zachary Taylor 
 nominated, and in the following November elected, 
 President of the United States. The shortness of his 
 term of service, the inexperience and unfitness for pub 
 lic life of even this brave, successful soldier for such 
 a place in the highest civil service, gave one more 
 evidence of the uncertainty of human life, and of the 
 ingratitude of parties and people to those who have 
 served them best. . The more recent tragedies in high 
 places, however, have left much deeper wounds than 
 all the calamities and failures that had gone before. 
 
 MR. CLAY ON HIS DEATH-BED. 
 
 Mr. Clay was a long sufferer in Washington near 
 the close of his life. Of the final dissolution he had no 
 fear, but there was a dread of prolonged sickness and 
 physical suffering. When told by his physician, Dr. 
 Jackson, of Philadelphia, after earnest inquiry, what the 
 end would be, the welcome, wise, and sagacious answer 
 was that he would pass out of the world as quietly as an 
 infant falls asleep in its cradle. " You give me infinite 
 relief," was the grateful reply, and death had now no 
 more terrors for him. He was just beyond his seventy 
 years, and soon, and very soon, passed away the man 
 whose countenance showed intense vitality, and in the 
 midst of great bodily weakness the calmness of perfect 
 self-possession. 
 
 Long before John Quincy Adams had declared him 
 to be, what I may now repeat, " the unrivalled orator, 
 the able and successful negotiator for his country in 
 war ; and we may all believe, at least all who knew 
 him," he added, "among its wisest, bravest, and truest 
 friends, in all its years of peace, from the beginning to 
 the end of his public life." And as the end approached, 
 the man was ready for the summons. 
 
32 
 
 " And so, with an unfaltering trust, he went 
 To that mysterious realm where each shall take 
 His chamber in the silent halls of death, . . . 
 Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch 
 About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams." 
 
 If my rapidly drawn sketch of one of the really 
 great men of the country great intellectually, and 
 great as statesman and patriot by the confessions of all 
 who knew him seems to bear too deep or too high a 
 coloring, you must pardon something to that spirit of 
 liberty which was born of the friendship of youth for 
 old age, to the remembrances of many personal kind 
 nesses and numberless courtesies now revived in the 
 years of my own advanced life. These recollections 
 naturally grow with growth, and strengthen with passing 
 years. But my case was not one by itself. It was a 
 part of the man, and I speak as one of multitudes 
 who knew, and therefore loved Henry Clay. Such 
 memory never dies. In the treasures of my own 
 thoughts what you have heard was written, with one of 
 Powers' grand busts of Henry Clay in my library, a 
 picture of the homestead of beautiful Ashland and its 
 owner in my own chamber, and upon my desk, as a keep 
 sake, the bronze medallion bearing upon one side : 
 " HENRY CLAY," and underneath his face the words 
 " Born April 12, 1777; Died June 29, 1852." On the 
 other side his right hand presses a shield, and on it 
 are the words of the compromises he proposed, and in 
 large Roman letters, above all, I read: " The Eloqiient 
 Defender of National Rights and National Independ 
 ence." Supporting the shield is the one most impres 
 sive national word, alike for the States, for the na 
 tion, and for the people who make States and nations, 
 the word " Constitution " -that Constitution which is 
 the source of our civil liberties, the defence of our 
 privileges, and the only real bond of an honorable 
 and enduring American Union.