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 Entered according to Ad of Congress. W43 
 
• • • • • 
 
 • •* • •• 
 
 
THE 
 
 LIFE AND SPEECHES 
 
 
 HON. HENRY CLAY 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES. 
 
 COMPILED AND EDITED BY 
 
 DAN EL. M ALIO It I 
 
 <V 01-' TI{K • -^? 
 
 Sstzortii HOttfon. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 ROBERT P. BIX BY & CO 
 1843. 
 

 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the Year Eighteen Hundred and Forty -Three, 
 
 BY SAMUEL N. DICKINSON, 
 
 In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 
 
 l%&>\ 
 
 , . . . 
 
 
 bostos: 
 
 SAMUEL, N. DICKINSON, PRINTER, 
 WASHINGTON STREET. 
 
CONTENTS OF YOLUME I. 
 
 PREFACE, 5 
 
 LIFE OF HENRY CLAY, 9 
 
 SPEECH ON DOMESTIC MANUFACTURES. 195 
 
 SPEECH ON THE LINE OF THE PERDIDO, 200 
 
 SPEECH ON RENEWING THE CHARTER OF THE FIRST BANK OF THE 
 
 UNITED STATES, 210 
 
 ^T SPEECH ON THE AUGMENTATION OF MILITARY FORCE 222 
 
 SPEECH ON THE INCREASE OF THE NAVY, v 230 
 
 r SPEECH ON THE NEW ARMY BILL, 24 ° 
 
 SPEECH ON HIS RETURN FROM GHENT, S 59 
 
 SPEECH ON THE UNITED STATES BANK QUESTION, 262 
 
 SPEECH ON THE DIRECT TAX, AND THE STATE OF THE NATION AFTER 
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE WAR WITH GREAT BRITAIN, 2G8 
 
 SPEECH ON THE BILL FOR FORCING NEUTRALITY, 2S6 
 
 SPEECH ON COMMERCIAL RESTRICTIONS WITH FOREIGN NATIONS, 
 
 
 SPEECH ON INTERNAL IMPROVEMENT, 294 
 
 SPEECH ON THE WAR BETWEEN SPAIN AND HER COLONIES, 29,7.. 
 
 SPEECH ON INTERNAL IMPROVEMENT, 300 
 
 SPEECHES ON THE EMANCIPATION OF SOUTH AMERICA, 321,348, "i - 
 
 SPEECH ON THE SEMINOLE WAR, * 3G4 
 
 SPEECH ON SOUTH AMERICAN AFFAIRS, '-390^ 
 
 SPEECH ON THE SPANISH TREATY, 392 
 
 SPEECH ON THE PROTECTION OF HOME INDUSTRY, 405 
 
 SPEECH ON THE MISSION TO SOUTH AMERICA, 425 V *>'< 
 
 SPEECH ON THE GREEK REVOLUTION, 432 
 
 SPEECH ON AMERICAN INDUSTRY, 440 
 
 SPEECH IN REPLY TO JOHN RANDOLPH, 483 
 
 ADDRESS TO LA FAYETTE, 484 
 
IV CONTENTS. 
 
 ADDRESS TO HIS CONSTITUENTS ON THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 1825, . 486 
 SPEECH ON THE ELECTION OF PRESIDENT BY CONGRESS IN 1825, ... 507 
 
 SPEECH ON AFRICAN COLONIZATION, 515 
 
 SPEECH ON THE CHARGE OF CORRUPTION, 538 
 
 SPEECH ON THE POLITICAL CONDITION OF THE UNITED STATES DURING 
 
 J. Q. ADAMS'S ADMINISTRATION, 554 
 
 SPEECH ON RETIRING FROM OFFICE, 560 
 
 SPEECH ON THE COMMENCEMENT OF JACKSON'S ADMINISTRATION, . . 564 
 SPEECH ON THE EFFECT OF THE PROTECTIVE SYSTEM ON THE SOUTH- 
 ERN STATES, 582 
 
 SPEECH ON THE REDUCTION OF DUTIES ON IMPORTS, 586 
 
 SPEECH ON THE NOMINATION OF MR. VAN BUREN, AS MINISTER TO GREAT 
 
 BRITAIN, 599 
 
PREFACE 
 
 In writing the Biography of Henry Clay, we are conscious of 
 entering a field several times explored, by individuals of great ability, 
 who have spread before a delighted public the rich rewards of their 
 researches. But its great amplitude — the loftiness of its hills — the 
 breadth of its valleys — and the vastness of its enclosures, induce the 
 belief, that the office of another explorer would not be altogether that 
 of a gleaner; on the contrary, that the proper performance of its 
 duties would result in the discovery of new beauties, and in the 
 acquisition of new treasure. Under the influence of this belief, the 
 resolution was taken and preliminaries settled of our undertaking, 
 and ourself brought to its borders, indulging in visions of anticipated 
 pleasure, not unlike those which an enthusiastic botanist experiences, 
 who, with feranthos across his shoulders, and analyzing apparatus in 
 his satchel, is about to enter the fair field of nature, to cull and 
 examine the loveliest specimens of her skill. Personal gratification, 
 however, was not the only nor chief motive prompting us to the 
 undertaking. We desired to procure a larger and better collection 
 than had ever been made of the mental gems of him who had moved 
 in patriotic majesty over it, and adorned its enclosures of intellectual 
 verdure with the brilliants of pure and lofty action ; to gather and 
 collocate these, we were strongly urged by the consideration that we 
 should thus contribute, in some degree, to carry into execution that 
 which forms one of the most interesting features of Mr. Clay's char- 
 acter — a desire to submit his every public act to the closest public 
 scrutiny — a desire which has not been introduced to subserve a 
 certain purpose, but which is coeval with his political existence, and 
 which he has, under all circumstances, unequivocally avowed. A 
 further motive was derived from our own ardent desire to behold a 
 
VI PREFACE. 
 
 more deeply-seated and generally-extended conviction of the purity, 
 disinterestedness, and inestimable value of his services, which, in 
 view of our own experience, we firmly believed would be the inva- 
 riable issue-of-a -careful and candid examination of them. That we 
 sincerely and strongly wished the dissemination and establishment of 
 this conviction we gladly affirm, not because we attached the slightest 
 importance to it, considered as a mere isolated fact, but because we 
 knew it would be productive of great and permanent good in the 
 minds of all where it should find a lodgment. 
 
 It is a well known and prominent truth, that those who are familiar 
 with the beauties and sublimities of the natural world, are distin- 
 guished for expansive, liberal, and noble views. An effect parallel to 
 this is distinctly seen in those who are surrounded by the magnificent 
 scenery of the mental and moral world, and whose dwellings are 
 irradiated by their effulgent luminaries. Hence, a sage custom of the 
 ancient Greeks, as related by one of their historians, of causing their 
 youth to be similarly circumstanced — especially those who were 
 being educated with direct reference to the assumption of the duties 
 and responsibilities of public life. In qualifying these appropriately 
 to discharge the former and sustain the latter, their guardians and 
 preceptors deemed it of vital importance to place before them the 
 noblest scenes and subjects. In close connection with the precept 
 'know thyself' they enjoined that of ' know the good and great of 
 others' To them it was well known, that the contemplation of deeds 
 of mental and moral grandeur was most salutary — that it generated 
 a desire to imitate and surpass them — nay, more; that it limned 
 them upon the walls of the soul," and filled it with the most beautiful 
 intellectual imagery, which would eventually develope itself in action 
 — magnanimous, patriotic, and conservative of the best interests of 
 mankind. To attempt to prove that such deeds thickly adorn the 
 field of Mr. Clay's history would be superfluous, since the fact is well 
 established in all civilized countries. 
 
 So much in relation to the motives for our undertaking. A brief 
 statement of the manner and circumstances of its performance may 
 not be inappropriate. 
 
 Our visions of anticipated pleasure, at its commencement, were 
 fully realized during its progress. We had expected to be rewarded 
 by the discovery of intellectual diamonds of the first water, but not 
 in such rich profusion as we found them. In consequence of the 
 frequent struggles between our inclination and inability to gather and 
 bring away all, we fear that many of intrinsic value have been left 
 behind ; but we trust and believe, that the most beautiful and impor- 
 
PREFACE. Y [[ 
 
 tant specimens, will be found in our collection. Entire originality for 
 it is not claimed, but aid from various sources has been received in 
 its formation. Deeming the facts and events of Mr. Clay's career 
 public property, we have freely taken and appropriated them, wherever 
 found, without considering it incumbent upon us to designate their 
 locality. 
 
 With regard to the Speeches of Mr. Clay, no labor has been spared 
 in seeking for them, and it is believed that few, if any, which have 
 been reported, will be found wanting in our collection. A brief 
 memoir has been prefixed to each, illustrative of the subject and 
 occasion on which it was delivered, and the fate of the question. In 
 this labor, we have been materially assisted by Mr. Edwin Williams, 
 the former secretary of the American Institute ; a gentleman well 
 known for his accuracy and ability in historical and statistical matters. 
 
 In giving the result of our investigations, we express our fears that 
 it will be found to contain imperfections, notwithstanding our endeav- 
 ors to guard against them It has been exceedingly difficult to speak 
 of Mr. Clay's eminent acts, without sliding imperceptibly into the 
 path of eulogy. This, perhaps, has led to the error of saying too 
 much sometimes, and too little at others. For defects of this nature, 
 however, the intelligent reader will require no apology. But the defi- 
 ciency most prominent, and one which we lament most sincerely, is, 
 that of not having done justice to his transcendent talents and abili- 
 ties as an orator. For this, an excuse must be furnished by our 
 incompetency ; the consciousness of which fell upon us, with over- 
 whelming force, as we stood in the presence of his eloquence. We 
 watched its wonderful and spirit-like movements and operations, and 
 turned away from the task of adequate description, as we would have 
 shrank from the fruitless endeavor to take the dimensions of a bound- 
 less and unfathomable ocean. Attempts at describing it we have 
 indeed made, but they are abortive — dim shadows of its noble sub- 
 stance, and tenantless abodes of its beauty. Our belief of the utter 
 impossibility to convey an adequate idea of it through the medium of 
 written or verbal statement, has been confirmed by the opinion of 
 those who have often beheld its manifestations. A distinguished 
 senator remarked to us very recently, that Mr. Clay's eloquence was 
 absolutely intangible tcylelineation — that the most labored and thril- 
 ling description could not embrace it, and that, to be understood, it 
 must be seen and felt. Neither is it contained in those inimitable 
 productions of mind — his speeches. Abundant evidences of its 
 magic influence are found in these. The monuments heaved up by its 
 hand of power, stand thick about its gorgeous pathway, which runs 
 
Vlll PREFACE. 
 
 through them all like a golden tissue, but it is not there. Its nature 
 is too closely allied to etheriality to find a fit terrestrial abode. 
 
 What has been said of Mr. Clay's eloquence, is, to a great extent, 
 true of his philanthropy and patriotism. No individual was ever less 
 controlled by sectional feeling. The height of benevolence on which 
 he planted himself was so. lofty as to enable him, while legislating for 
 his own country, in particular, to have an eye to, and care for, the 
 interests of all other countries. In what manner and to what extent 
 they have been benefited, by his exalted and humane services, it is 
 believed an ample and authentic source of information will be found 
 in our compilation of them. In the full assurance that these will 
 endure the ordeal of the closest and most philosophic scrutiny to the 
 end of time, we present them to the public, and cannot avoid giving 
 utterance to the desire that they may be speedily subjected to it, and 
 in the same liberal spirit which distinguished their performance. 
 Should such a result be realized, we shall consider the time employed 
 in gathering and arranging them most profitably occupied. 
 

 LIFE OF HENEY CLAY. 
 
 Biographic usage might require us to give the pedigree of the 
 distinguished individual who forms the subject of the following 
 memoir. Many considerations, however, combine to induce a 
 departure from this usage. In the first place, we are strongly dis- 
 posed to question the practical utility of it ; and in the second, to 
 doubt our ability, even after the most diligent search, to exhibit 
 what is ordinarily the object of such a search — an illustrious 
 pedigree. Indeed, we regard it as very problematical, whether we 
 should be able to get beyond the pale of republican simplicity. 
 But the most cogent consideration is the belief that our efforts 
 would not be more highly appreciated than were those of the 
 emperor of Austria by Napoleon Bonaparte. The Austrian 
 monarch, desirous of proving his future son-in-law royally de- 
 scended, was busily engaged in making the searches requisite to 
 establish the fact. Napoleon, becoming acquainted with his inten- 
 tion, immediately visited him, and exclaimed, ' Stop, stop, sire ! I 
 alone am the author of my fortune, and desire it to be so understood : 
 neither royal descent nor royalty has contributed any thing to its 
 achievement, and though I might legitimately claim both, would 
 not mention either.' We do not know that a similar indifference 
 is felt by Mr. Clay, in relation to his lineage, but his plain, unosten- 
 tatious habits, and firm adherence to republican principles, warrant 
 us in presuming that such is the case. Certain it is, however, that 
 for his present elevated position, he is as little indebted to any 
 adventitious advantages of birth or fortune, as was the mighty 
 conqueror ; and with equal propriety might he say, in view of the 
 means by which he had attained that position, I alone am the 
 architect of my fortune. Without attempting, therefore, to invest 
 his origin with the splendors of a titled ancestry, it may suffice to 
 observe, that family reminiscences render it certain that his imme- 
 vol. i. 2 
 
10 LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 diate progenitors were distinguished for sterling worth, virtue and 
 integrity. His father, a. Baptist clergyman, labored in his official 
 capacity .with great #pe?ptance, in a district of country in Hanover 
 county,* Virginiaj familiarly denominated 'The Slashes,' where, 
 on the 12th o£* A'prH, 17.77,. his fifth child, Henry, was born. He 
 was not destined to enjoy those instructions and counsels which a 
 father only knows how to impart, — for when he had attained his 
 fifth year, his father died. This event consigned him entirely 
 to the care of his mother — a woman of an uncommonly vigorous 
 mind, richly adorned with feminine graces, and every way compe- 
 tent to superintend his incipient education. 
 
 Unfortunately, the embarrassed condition of her husband's 
 estate at his death, besides greatly augmenting her cares, prevented 
 her from giving Henry that thorough course of study which she 
 designed him to pursue. So far, therefore, from receiving a liberal, 
 he did not receive a good elementary education. The lowly district 
 school of that region, to which his instructions were limited, was 
 deficient in almost every essential respect. But even under these 
 inauspicious circumstances, in early boyhood he manifested a strong 
 desire for knowledge, which in consequence of the pecuniary diffi- 
 culties before mentioned, could not be gratified. All that the 
 fondest maternal tenderness could do, was to lead him to the rills 
 of learning, whose sweet waters, instead of allaying, rendered that 
 desire more intense, and induced the resolution to seek its gratifi- 
 cation at their unadulterated source. This, in after life, by his 
 indomitable energy, he was enabled to execute. 
 
 The means of education afforded him, though meagre in the 
 extreme, he did not uninterruptedly enjoy. The straitened cir- 
 cumstances of the family made it necessary for him, in common 
 with his brothers, to devote large portions of time to manual 
 employments. He was no stranger to the use of the plough, the 
 spade, and the hoe, over which literally by the sweat of his brow 
 he earned his daily bread. He gained for himself the title of 
 • Mill Boy of the Slashes,' by his frequent visits to a neighboring 
 grist-mill, on the Pamunkey river. These he usually made, seated 
 on a bag of grain thrown across a horse, which he thus rode with 
 a rope bridle, without a saddle. 
 
 He appears not to have shrunk from any employment, however 
 humble, when directed to it by his beloved mother. To her his 
 attachment was most ardent, and often has he expressed' his deep 
 regret that he was permitted to enjoy her society during so brief a 
 period. In 1792 she was married to Mr. Henry Watkins, and 
 removed to Woodford county, Kentucky, accompanied by all her 
 children, except Henry and his eldest brother. At the age of four- 
 teen we find him in a small drug store, in Richmond, Virginia, 
 kept by Mr. Richard Denny. His stay here was short, and at the 
 commencement of 1792 he entered the office of Mr. Peter Tinsley, 
 
LIFE OP HENRY CLAY. 11 
 
 clerk of the High Court of Chancery. Here he found employ- 
 ment more congenial to his taste than any to which he had hitherto 
 devoted himself, as well as more ample means for mental culture. 
 
 The venerable chancellor Wythe, a gentleman of great personal 
 worth and profound erudition, attracted by his industrious habits 
 and amiable appearance, took him into his especial favor, gave 
 him the benefit of his instructions, and finally made him his aman- 
 uensis. By the opportunities for familiar intercourse with this 
 great man, which were now afforded him, the most salutary 
 impressions were received and rapid advances made in the acqui- 
 sition of knowledge. He sought to become better acquainted with 
 his vernacular language, and in this was aided by his friend, who 
 recommended several works for his perusal, calculated to assist 
 him. Much of his time was employed in copying the lengthy 
 official documents of the chancellor, who, being passionately fond 
 of Greek, interlarded them liberally with passages from his most 
 admired authors. This rendered his task peculiarly onerous, for 
 he was compelled to copy them in the original, and by imitation, 
 as he was ignorant of the language. He acquitted himself, how- 
 ever, to the entire satisfaction of his employer, won his esteem, 
 obtained much valuable, legal, and general information, and laid 
 the foundation of those habits of regularity and methodical appli- 
 cation which were subsequently of such great practical advantage 
 to him. 
 
 During the year of 1796 he left the office of Mr. Tinsley and 
 went to reside with the attorney general of Virginia, Robert 
 Brooke, Esq. Here his advantages for studying law were better 
 than they had previously been, of which he eagerly availed himself, 
 and with much success. The year 1797 appears to be the only 
 one in which he pursued the study of law uninterrupted, yet it 
 must be certain that during his residence of several years in the 
 capital of Virginia, daily cognizant of legal proceedings, and 
 associating with the most eminent legal gentlemen of the period, 
 he acquired an amount of legal information neither inconsiderable 
 nor unimportant. Near the close of the year he was licensed to 
 practice law, by the judges of the Virginia Court of Appeals. He 
 entered on the duties of his profession at Lexington, Kentucky, 
 under auspices not the most favorable, as appears from his speech 
 of June, 1842, at the same place. In this he says he ' was without 
 patrons, without friends, and destitute of the means of paying his 
 weekly board. I remember how comfortable I thought I should 
 be, if I could make £100, Virginia money, per annum, and with 
 what delight I received the first fifteen shilling fee. My hopes 
 were more than realized ; I immediately rushed into a lucrative 
 practice.' 
 
 Though success most unexpected, crowned his first efforts, he 
 did by no means relax his exertions to qualify himself more thor- 
 
12 LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 oughly for the profession he had chosen. While other young men 
 of his own age, and not more eligibly situated, with regard to means 
 and employment, were spending their evenings in recreations suited 
 to their juvenile dispositions, he was eagerly conning over his own 
 self-directed and unaided lessons of learning. Most assiduously 
 did he devote his every leisure hour in enriching his mind, and in 
 polishing his mental armor. Modest, unassuming, apparently 
 feeble in constitution, languid and listless in his movements, he 
 exhibited little in his deportment indicative of those lofty powers 
 of eloquence and commanding talents, which in latent energy 
 were reposing in .his mind. An incident, however, occurred a 
 short time after, at a meeting of a debating society, by which they 
 were brought to light. He had been a member of the society some 
 time, but refrained from taking an active part in its exercises. 
 This was attributed to those traits of character before mentioned. 
 At the meeting referred to, a question had been discussed at con- 
 siderable length and apparently with much ability, on which the 
 customary vote was about to be taken, when he observed in an 
 under tone to a person seated by him, ' the subject does not seem 
 to be exhausted.' The individual addressed, exclaimed, i do not 
 put the question yet, Mr. Clay will speak.' The chairman by a 
 smile and nod of the head signified his willingness to allow the 
 discussion to be continued by him, who thereupon arose under every 
 appearance of trepidation and embarrassment. The first words 
 that fell from his lips were, ? Gentlemen of the jury.' His embar- 
 rassment now was extreme ; blushing, hesitating, and stammering, 
 he repeated the words, ' Gentlemen of the jury.' The audience 
 evinced genuine politeness and good breeding, by seeming not to 
 notice his peculiarly unpleasant and trying condition. Suddenly 
 regaining his self-possession, he made a speech of such force and 
 eloquence, as to carry conviction and astonishment at once to the 
 hearts of his hearers. Subsequently he took a prominent part in 
 the debates of the society, and became one of its most efficient 
 members. 
 jy/ Shortly after, he was admitted to the Court of Quarter Sessions 
 of Fayette county, a court of general jurisdiction. Perhaps at no 
 previous period was the Lexington bar more highly distinguished 
 for the talents and learning of its members than at that time. 
 Among them were George Nicholas, John Brekenridge, William 
 Murray, and others, whose long established reputation and profes- 
 sional skill seemed to set competition at defiance. They found in 
 Mr. Clay, however, a most formidable competitor: one who, 
 though bland, courteous, and affable, in the ordinary intercourse of 
 life, yet on the field of civic strife was as unyielding and invulnera- 
 ble as the 'gnarled oak.' His talents ^secured respect, and soon 
 placed him on a level with the highest. He possessed the unbound- 
 ed confidence of the community where he resided, and the ease 
 
LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 13 
 
 with which he secured this was truly surprising. So perfectly- 
 insinuating and winning were his ways, and so captivating his 
 appearance, that it was usually yielded at the first interview. Such 
 attributes of mind and person could not and did not fail to surround 
 him with influential and devoted friends, and secure for him a more 
 than respectable patronage. A few short months previous he stood 
 alone, a stranger, unaided, unfriended and destitute, amid the wilds 
 of the then far-off west. Now, the obstacles which then seemed 
 gigantic, had dwindled into insignificance. The rough and forbid- 
 ding aspect of the road which he had marked out for himself to 
 pursue, had entirely disappeared, and friends and favors poured in 
 upon him from all quarters, and he found himself borne along by 
 the breeze of popular approbation, unconscious that it had yet 
 been awakened. 
 
 One to him important result of that confidence which a discern- 
 ing and generous public reposed in him, was continual professional 
 employment. His acute and refined sensibilities, his philanthropic 
 heart, and sympathizing disposition, joined to his profound knowl- 
 edge of human nature and commanding powers of eloquence, 
 pointed him out as one eminently well qualified to conduct criminal 
 cases. With these, therefore, we find him much and successfully 
 engaged, and it is a remarkable fact, taking into consideration the 
 large number of these cases committed to his care, that never in a 
 single instance was he defeated. One of the most important early 
 criminal suits in which he was retained, was that of the wife of a 
 very reputable farmer by the name of Phelps, a woman who stood 
 high in the estimation of those who knew her, and deservedly, for 
 she had led hitherto an irreproachable life. In a fit of passion, 
 caused by some personal reflection of her husband's sister, she 
 seized a gun and shot her through the heart. The poor girl had 
 only time to exclaim, * Sister, you have killed me,' and expired. 
 The great respectability of the parties caused the most intense 
 excitement, and an immense crowd assembled to witness the trial. 
 Of the fact of killing the proof was most abundant, and the only 
 point to be considered was that which respected the nature of the 
 crime. It was argued with great ability on the part of the prose- 
 cuting attorney, who labored hard to make it out a case of deliber- 
 ate wilful murder; but in this he was foiled by the superior skiD 
 and adroitness of Mr. Clay, who not only succeeded in saving the 
 life of his client, but obtained as light a verdict for imprisonment 
 as the law would allow. 
 
 In another similar suit, which occurred shortly after, he evinced, 
 if possible, greater ability. Two men, Germans, father and son, 
 were indicted for murder, and were tried in Harrison county. The 
 act of killing, in this instance also, was proven by evidence so 
 clear and strong, that it was considered not only a case of murder, 
 but an exceedingly aggravated one. The trial lasted five days, at 
 
14 LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 the close of which he addressed the jury in the most impassioned 
 and eloquent manner, who were so moved by his pathetic appeals 
 that they rendered a verdict of manslaughter only. After another 
 hard day's struggle he succeeded in obtaining an arrest of judg- 
 ment, by which his clients were set at liberty. They expressed 
 their gratitude in the warmest terms to their deliverer, in which 
 they were joined by an old ill-favored female, the wife of one and 
 the mother of the other, who adopted a different mode, however, 
 of tendering her thanks, which was by throwing her arms around 
 Mr. Clay's neck and repeatedly kissing him, in the presence of the 
 court and spectators. Respecting her feelings, he did not attempt 
 to repulse her, but submitted with such grace and dignity to her 
 caresses as to elicit outbursts of applause. 
 
 Mr. Clay manifested great sagacity in discerning and turning 
 to his advantage a technical law-point, involving doubt. The 
 following case illustrates this. A man by the name of Willis, 
 indicted for murder, escaped conviction by the disagreement of 
 the jury, and was put upon his trial the second time for the crime 
 alleged. After hearing the arguments of the prosecuting attorney, 
 he brought forward the well known rule of law, that the life of no 
 one shall be put in jeopardy twice for the same offence, and insisted 
 on its applicability to the case under consideration, contending that 
 the trial, according to that rule, was manifestly illegal, and that 
 therefore conviction would be impossible. At first the court was 
 disposed to rule out his objections, which was met on the part of 
 Mr. Clay with a prompt refusal to proceed with the case, unless 
 allowed to view it in this aspect, and actually left the room for that 
 purpose. He was soon recalled and permitted to proceed, and, 
 without the remotest reference to the testimony previously given, he 
 obtained an acquittal solely on the ground assumed. In only one 
 instance do we find him engaged as public prosecutor, in which 
 he procured the conviction of a slave for the murder of his over- 
 seer. With great reluctance he discharged the duties of his office 
 in this case, and has often been heard to regret that he had any 
 agency in procuring the execution of the friendless black. 
 
 In civil suits he also won great celebrity. In the settlement of 
 important land claims, he rendered himself very conspicuous. It 
 is related of him that being engaged in one that involved immense 
 interests, he associated with him a prominent lawyer to whom he 
 intrusted its management, as urgent business demanded his absence 
 from court. Two days were occupied in discussing the legal 
 points that were to govern the instructions of the court to the jury, 
 on all of which his colleague was frustrated, Mr. Clay returned 
 before a decision was rendered, and without acquainting himself 
 with the nature of the testimony, or ascertaining the manner in 
 which the discussion was conducted, after conferring a few min- 
 utes with his associate, he prepared and presented in a few words 
 
LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 15 
 
 the form in which he wished the instructions to be given, accompa- 
 nying it with his reasons, which were so convincing that the suit 
 was terminated in his favor, in less than an hour after he reentered 
 the court room. 
 
 His genius and talents now seen and acknowledged by all had 
 gained for him high professional honors, and fitted him to act a 
 prominent part on another and more extended field — that of the 
 patriot politician. The date of his entrance on this field may be 
 placed as far back as 1797, and it is worthy of particular remark, 
 that the first subject he was led to investigate, on approaching it, 
 was one peculiarly calculated to call into exercise those prominent 
 features of his character, philanthropy and patriotism. Slavery,\ 
 although existing in Kentucky in its mildest form, could not and 
 did not appear to him otherwise than unsightly and revolting — an 
 evil, and one of great magnitude ; nor did he hesitate to pronounce 
 it such. To him, its practical tendencies, in public and civil no 
 less than in private and social life, were obviously bad. He saw it 
 diffusing its baneful influences through the halls of legislation, and 
 twining its sable folds around the very pillars of government, con- 
 taminating and withering. His was not the position of an unmoved 
 or speculating observer ; the mightiest energies, the holiest impulses 
 of his nature were kindled within him, to arrest its progress, to 
 break up the unnatural, the unhallowed alliance. But in yielding, 
 as he did, prompt obedience to those emotions, he did not rush 
 madman-like, impelled by a blind zeal, into the work, regardless of 
 results. The sanguinary consequences of such a course rose up 
 and stared him full in the face, with most appalling power, nor 
 could he shut his eyes to the palpable fact, that it would inevitably 
 eventuate in the utter annihilation of those very interests he sought 
 to protect. It appeared necessary, therefore, to advance cautiously, 
 to sit down, and, divested of all prejudice, wisely count the cost. 
 He found it requisite to act the part of a skilful and experienced 
 operator, not that of a conceited empiric; to have the bandage 
 and the liniment ready before resorting to the scalpel and caulter- 
 ing iron. After taking the most enlightened view of the subject, 
 regarding it in all its aspects and bearings, he came to the conclu- ■ 
 sion, that the only feasible method which would both ensure the I 
 safety of the body politic, and preserve inviolate their domestic 
 institutions, was a gradual disengagement. Hence he sought by ; 
 every available means, through the press by his touching and 
 eloquent descriptions, by night and by day, to secure the introduction 
 of a provision to that effect, in a new constitution, then under 
 consideration for adoption. Happy would it have been for Ken- 
 tucky had she listened to the entreaties of her son in this behalf, for 
 slavery would have long since ceased to blacken her borders. His 
 humane efforts were not, however, successful ; a majority of the 
 members of the convention being opposed to the provision. It 
 
16 LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 cannot be doubted that Mr. Clay very clearly foresaw that the 
 contest would thus terminate, possessing as he did accurate knowl- 
 edge of the state of the public mind, in relation to the subject of 
 slavery ; hence our surprise and admiration. It is not more certain 
 that his efforts were earnest and vigorous in defence of the measure, 
 than that they were prompted by disinterested motives. The nature 
 of his circumstances at this period is such as to render it certain 
 that he did not stop to estimate the consequences of defeat, either 
 to his popularity or his purse ; in short, that so far as personality 
 was concerned, ' cui bono ' was neither in his mind nor on his lips. 
 How ridiculously absurd then, in the light of such abundant 
 evidence to the contrary, the assertions of his enemies, that he was 
 actuated by selfish motives, by an inordinate desire to attract atten- 
 tion. There was no ground for such a desire. In Kentucky, at 
 least, his popularity would hardly admit of augmentation, and 
 daily, and almost hourly the testimonials of approbation lavished 
 upon him, and the high appreciation of his character, his services, 
 and his talents, cannot be enumerated. Though defeated, he was 
 not discouraged nor disheartened. Conscious that his action had 
 been in accordance with his conviction of duty, he derived great 
 consolation from the fact, and girded himself to do battle again for 
 the same principle in a different connection. 
 
 Mr. Clay was a lover of Liberty, not exclusively on account of 
 any particular advantages her possession might confer, but on 
 account of her own intrinsic loveliness and inalienability. In look- 
 ing at his political career, we find that his most gigantic efforts were 
 put forth whenever he discovered a disposition to abridge her lawful 
 exercise. It seems to have been even at its commencement a 
 settled principle with him, to resist oppression under whatever form 
 presented. This he discovered in the odious Alien and Sedition 
 laws, enacted in 1798-9. These were anathematised by the democ- 
 racy of the country, as hostile to our institutions, involving an 
 unwarrantable assumption of power, manifestly unconstitutional, 
 savoring strongly of tyrannical usurpation, and not to be tolera- 
 ted. The Alien law empowered the president to command any alien 
 whom he should judge dangerous to the peace and safety of the 
 country, to depart out of the territory within such time as he should 
 specify, under penalty of being imprisoned for a time not exceeding 
 three years. The Sedition law was intended to guard against the 
 abuse of speech and of the press. Besides subjecting to imprison- 
 ment, it imposed a heavy pecuniary fine, on such as combined, 
 conspired, or united, to oppose any governmental measure, — who 
 should utter, write, print, publish, &c, any false, and scandalous, 
 and malicious writing, against the government of the United States 
 or the president, &c. The appearance of these laws was greeted 
 with one general outburst of indignation, from one end of the land 
 to the other, but in no section was the expression of disapprobation 
 
LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 17 
 
 move strongly marked or prompt than in Kentucky. In the front 
 rank of those who opposed them stood young Clay, dealing blows 
 so thick and heavy with the ponderous battle-axe of his eloquence, 
 as to drive his foes in disorder and dismay from the field of politi- 
 cal strife. 
 
 It is related that on one occasion the people had assembled in a 
 large crowd in a grove near Lexington, to listen to a discussion to 
 come off between the advocates and opposers of these laws. The 
 greatest interest had been awakened, extensive preparation made 
 by the combatants, and with the most inflammatory zeal they entered 
 the lists. The assemblage was first addressed by Mr. George 
 Nicholas, a gentleman of distinguished ability and commanding 
 eloquence. His effort is represented as having been one of great 
 vigor, and characterized by that logical and philosophical acumen, 
 for which he was so celebrated. When he ceased, the populace, 
 wrought up to the highest degree of enthusiasm, poured out their 
 rapturous applause. ' Clay,' ' Clay,' was now loudly called from 
 all directions, and as he ascended the stand, it was clearly percepti- 
 ble by his eagle eye and compressed lips that no ordinary emotions 
 were struggling in his bosom. As the spirit of the tempest finds 
 the ocean when he descends in his mightiest energy, so he found 
 the boisterous mass swelling to and fro like the surges of the deep. 
 But he was at home doing his legitimate work, pouring the oil of 
 eloquence over a turbulent sea of passion, until its tumultuous 
 heavings subsided and left one quiet, calm, and unruffled surface. 
 The subject in his hands appeared in a new light, and he soon 
 succeeded in securing for it that attention which is accompanied 
 with feelings too deep for utterance : like those experienced by one 
 standing on the edge of a crater, gazing down into its fiery abyss. 
 His predecessor had poured a flood of sunshine over the multitude, 
 which caused those heartfelt, spontaneous out-gushings of joyful 
 emotion, which are its usual comcomitants. But his office was 
 that of the lightning's flash and thunder peal, hushing, awing, and 
 subduing. When he closed there were no clamorous expressions, 
 no deafening shouts of applause, but something far more signifi- 
 cant he read in the quivering lips, indignant looks, and frowning 
 brows around him ; and heard, in the deep low growl that came 
 up, a much more flattering tribute to his talents. He was followed 
 by Mr. William Murray, an orator of great popularity, and well 
 qualified to exhibit acceptably the merits of those laws, if indeed 
 they possessed any. His efforts, however, were futile. The con- 
 viction of their pernicious tendency had been planted too deep in 
 the minds of the people by Mr. Clay, to permit them to listen to 
 their merits, or to allow them to believe that they had any. He 
 would not have been suffered to proceed had not the previous 
 speakers urgently solicited permission. Another attempt was made 
 to reply, but the people could be restrained no longer, and made a 
 vol. i. 3 
 
J 
 
 18 LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 furious rush towards the place occupied by the speaker, who was 
 compelled to make a precipitate retreat to escape personal violence. 
 They now seized Nicholas and Clay, bore them on their shoulders 
 to a carriage, and amid the most enthusiastic cheering, drew them 
 through the streets of Lexington. A proud day was this for Mr. 
 Clay; a day in which he earned a far more glorious title than any 
 that royal hands could confer upon him, that of the ' great com- 
 moner.' It was the first of the bright days of the years of his 
 fame — the sure precursor of that unfading chaplet which time was 
 destined to bind about his brow. 
 
 In 1803, Mr. Clay, in company with several of his personal 
 friends, was spending several weeks at the Olympian Springs, in 
 Bath county, for the benefit of his health, and during that time 
 there was an election of members to the legislature. His friends, 
 without his knowledge, and as appears contrary to his wishes, 
 brought him forward as a candidate. The prospect of his election 
 was not very flattering ; indeed, it seemed to be impossible. Sev- 
 eral candidates who were veterans in the business, had occupied 
 the field sometime in advance of him, and besides electioneering 
 warmly for themselves, employed the influence of powerful friends. 
 Though he ran very well at the commencement, it was thought 
 that he was somewhat behind. His opponents, besides using every 
 legitimate, resorted to unfair means to accomplish his defeat, 
 reporting that he was incapacitated for the office by ill health ; that 
 he did not desire, neither would accept it. Such measures in all 
 probability would have been successful, had not his opportune 
 return before the canvass had progressed very far, furnished occular 
 proof of the falsehood of these assertions, and enabled him to coun- 
 teract the influence of the slanderous reports put in circulation. It 
 was repugnant to his feelings, contrary to his exalted ideas of honor, 
 and did not comport with the dignity of the office to set forth per- 
 sonally his claims and qualifications. But yielding to the entreaties 
 of his friends, and urged also by the base subterfuges and low 
 intrigues every where practiced to defeat his election, he consented 
 to enter the arena, and right well did he acquit himself, as the 
 sequel will show. His remarks were few, exceedingly pertinent, 
 conveying to the electors his views of state policy, refuting such of 
 the reports as were false, and admitting such as were true : to wit, 
 that he was young and inexperienced, that he had not proclaimed 
 himself a candidate, nor sought their suffrage ; but since his friends 
 had seen proper to place his name before the people, it would be 
 gratifying to them if he could be elected. While thus engaged in 
 stump speaking, as it is termed in Kentucky, an incident occurred 
 which it may not be amiss to relate. It illustrates his tact and 
 ingenuity in seizing and turning to good account trivial circumstan- 
 ces, for which he is so celebrated, and to which he is indebted for 
 the enviable title of being great in little things. He had been 
 
LIFE OP HENRY CLAY. 19 
 
 engaged in speaking some time, when a company of riflemen, who 
 had been performing military exercise, attracted by his attitude, 
 concluded to go and hear what that fellow had to say, as they 
 termed it, and accordingly drew near. They listened with respect- 
 ful attention and evidently with deep interest, until he closed, when 
 one of their number, a man about fifty years of age, who had 
 evidently seen much backwoods service, stood leaning on his rifle, 
 regarding the young speaker with a fixed and most sagacious look. 
 He was apparently the Nimrod of the company, for he exhibited 
 every characteristic of a mighty hunter, — buckskin breeches and 
 hunting-shirt, coon-skin cap, black bushy beard, and a visage which, 
 had it been in juxtaposition with his leathern bullet pouch, might 
 have been taken for part and parcel of the same. At his belt hung 
 the knife and hatchet, and the huge indispensable powder-horn 
 across a breast bare and brown as the bleak hills he often traversed, 
 yet which concealed as brave and noble a heart as ever beat beneath 
 a fairer covering. He beckoned with his hand to Mr. Clay to 
 approach him, who immediately complied. ' Young man,' said 
 he, ' you want to go to the legislature, I see ? ' ' Why, yes,' replied 
 Mr. Clay, ; yes, I should like to go, since my friends have seen 
 proper to put me up as a candidate before the people ; I do not wish 
 to be defeated.' ' Are you a good shot ? ' * The best in the country.' 
 1 Then you shall go ; but you must give us a specimen of your skill ; 
 we must see you shoot.' ' I never shoot any rifle but my own, 
 and that is at home.' ' No matter, here is old Bess, she never fails 
 in the hands of a marksman ; she has often sent death through a 
 squirrel's head one hundred yards, and daylight through many a 
 red skin twice that distance ; if you can shoot any gun you can 
 shoot old Bess.' ' Well, put up your mark, put up your mark,' 
 replied Mr. Clay. The target was placed at the distance of about 
 eighty yards, when, with all the coolness and steadiness of an old 
 experienced marksman, he drew old Bess to his shoulder and fired. 
 The bullet pierced the target near the centre. ' Oh, a chance shot ! 
 a chance shot!' exclaimed several of his political opponents. 'A 
 chance shot ! He might shoot all day and not hit the mark again ; 
 let him try it over, let him try it over.' < No ; beat that, beat that, 
 and then I will,' retorted Mr. Clay. But as no one seemed disposed 
 to make the attempt, it was considered that he had given satisfac- 
 tory proof of being the best shot in the county ; and this unimpor- 
 tant incident gained him the vote of every hunter and marksman 
 in the assembly, which was composed principally of that class 
 of persons, as well as the support of the same throughout the 
 county. The most remarkable feature respecting the whole trans- 
 action is yet to be told. Said Mr. Clay, ' I had never before fired a 
 rifle, and have not since.' The result of the election proved Mr. 
 Clay much more popular than it had been supposed he was ; he- 
 was elected almost by acclamation. Our astonishment may well 
 
 i 
 
20 LIFE OP HENRY CLAY. 
 
 be excited, when we consider that this was the first time that he 
 was a candidate for an office, and the circumstances under which 
 it took place. It must be certain that he was esteemed a young 
 man of great promise and ability. That confidence he seems so 
 early to have inspired he has ever retained, and it is a no less just 
 than flattering tribute to his worth, that where he is known best, 
 there he is esteemed the most. This appears from the fact that the 
 citizens of Fayette county have never refused him an office when 
 brought forward by his friends as a candidate. 
 
 At the time of his election to this, his first office, the public mind 
 was much agitated in reference to the Lexington Insurance Com- 
 pany. Felix Grundy, a political partizan of great eminence, had 
 proclaimed himself hostile to its existence, and expressed his inten- 
 tion to move the repeal of its charter. This question was brought 
 to bear directly on the election, and as the views of Mr. Clay were 
 known to be opposed to his, he was selected to advocate the claims 
 of the institution. The attempt made during the ensuing session 
 to procure the repeal of the incorporating law was easily defeated 
 by him, but in the succeeding one Mr. Grundy himself was a 
 member, and a majority of the House came pledged to support 
 the measures advocated by him. Argument in such a state of 
 things it was thought would avail little ; for the representative, feel- 
 ing bound to obey the will of his constituents, would be compelled 
 to vote for the repeal, although convinced of its injustice. The 
 debate that ensued was one of great ability, conducted by Mr. 
 Clay and Mr. Grundy, and attracted crowds of spectators. They 
 were both young, aspiring after forensic honors, and both eloquent. 
 Mr. Grundy, though wily, shrewd, and a good political manager;in 
 strength of argument, force, and felicity of illustration, and the 
 faculty of setting his subject in a strong light before his hearers, 
 was evidently inferior to his antagonist. Mr. Grundy at first 
 waged an aggressive war, and with great boldness and vigor 
 demolishing his enemy's outposts, pushed his way far into his 
 country. Elated with success, and the ease with which he over- 
 came all opposition, he imagined victory already achieved. But 
 he was destined to be checked midway in his brilliant career, to 
 encounter his enemy's strong corps de reserve. The contest is 
 represented as having exhibited a scene of eloquent sublimity, 
 seldom witnessed or surpassed. Mr. Grundy had marshalled his 
 forces with the skill of a veteran, and flanked by powerful auxilia- 
 ries, was proceeding in the utmost regularity, and as he thought 
 with absolute certainty, to strike the last decisive blow. A phalanx 
 thus appointed, led on by such a general, seemed invincible, and 
 indeed was, if any could be in such a conflict. Up to the time of 
 the grand onslaught, Mr. Clay seemed to be regardless of the 
 operations of his adversary. He was, however, silently engaged in 
 collecting and arranging his resources, and treasuring his energies 
 
LIFE OF HENRY CLAY 21 
 
 for the final hour ; and when it came he arose and hurled them at 
 the heads of his mighty foe and emissaries as the avalanche hurls 
 his ice-mount, or the volcano his scathing flood of flame. Mr. 
 Grundy's struggle to maintain his ground was desperate, but short, 
 for no force could do it under such circumstances ; and, finding 
 himself borne backwards by the impetuosity of his assailant, he 
 attempted to effect an honorable retreat. In this he failed, and was 
 finally compelled to surrender. • 
 
 Although the measure passed the house, the senate, whose 
 members had listened to the discussion, without any efforts, pro or 
 con, refused most unanimously to sustain it ; and thus the com- 
 pany, through the efforts of its vindicator, was suffered to retain 
 its charter. 
 
 An event occurred during the session of 1S05, highly illustrative 
 of the versatility of Mr. Clay's genius. An attempt was made to 
 obtain the removal of the capital from Frankfort. Mr. Clay, in a 
 speech delivered at the time, reverted to the peculiar physical 
 appearance of the place, as furnishing an argument in favor of the 
 proposed removal. Frankfort is walled in on all sides by towering 
 rocky precipices, and not unlike a vast pit. It presents, said Mr. 
 Clay, the model of an inverted hat. Frankfort is the body of the 
 hat, and the lands adjacent are the brim. To change the figure, it 
 is nature's great penitentiary ; and if the members would know the 
 bodily condition of the prisoners, let them look at those poor crea- 
 tures in the gallery. As he said this he directed their attention to 
 some half a dozen emaciated, spectre-like specimens of humanity, 
 who happened to be moping about there, looking as though they 
 had just stolen a march from the grave-yard. On observing the 
 eyes of the house thus turned towards them, and aware of their 
 ghostly aspect, they screened themselves with such ridiculous pre- 
 cipitancy behind the pillars and railing as to cause the most violent 
 laughter. This well-directed effort at wit and humor was com- 
 pletefully successful, and the house gave their votes in favor of the 
 measure. The resolution, however, was never carried into effect, 
 as it was found impossible to agree upon a new location. It would 
 be difficult, and perhaps not particularly desirable, to follow Mr. 
 Clay through all the various and numerous services rendered by 
 him in the legislature of Kentucky. We shall give an outline 
 only of them, presenting such specimens as shall illustrate the 
 leading characteristics of his mind, and dwell longer on that portion 
 of his history which regards him as connected with the manage- 
 ment of the affairs of the nation. While acting in the capacity of 
 a state legislator, he was distinguished for zeal in prosecuting his 
 professional labors, which soon conducted him to the summit of 
 that lofty legal eminence, far above the murky regions of pettifog- 
 gery and low intrigue. Here, surrounded by an atmosphere redo- 
 lent of judicial purity, and seated fast by the throne of Justice, 
 
22 LIFEOFHENRYCLAY. 
 
 he exerted himself to preserve inviolate the sanctity of her temple, 
 and to see that her decisions were rigidly and impartially enforced. 
 He particularly delighted, on the one hand, to procure her favors for 
 the poor and obscure, in facilitating the approach to her courts of 
 those who by poverty or oppression were debarred access ; and 
 on the other, to oppose the unjust prosecutor. No bribe could 
 induce him to countenance, directly or indirectly, his designs. 
 While acting under the influence of these most noble principles, 
 he became engaged in an unpleasant affair of honor. It appears 
 that Col. Joseph Hamilton Daviess, district attorney of the United 
 States, had struck an inn-keeper in Frankfort, who had made some 
 remark offensive to him ; the inn-keeper endeavored to obtain legal 
 reparation for the wound his honor had sustained, and for that 
 purpose applied for a writ. This was readily obtained, but owing 
 to the high standing and influence of the accused, no lawyer could 
 be found who was willing to conduct the prosecution. In this 
 state of things, after consulting with his friends he wrote a letter to 
 Mr. Clay, detailing the facts in the case, and soliciting his aid. He 
 promptly sent a reply, in which he consented to act as his attorney. 
 The suit was brought at Lexington, and Mr. Clay, whose sympa- 
 thetic feelings were warmly interested in behalf of his client, 
 vindicated him from the rude and unreasonably harsh treatment 
 which he received at the hands of Mr. Daviess, who was his own 
 attorney. Mr. Clay's strictures were keen and cutting to such an 
 extent, that Col. Daviess, at a pause in the trial, sent Mr. Clay a 
 note, couched in not very civil, and somewhat threatening terms, 
 warning him to desist from such bitter remarks. Mr. Clay replied 
 that he should conduct his client's case as his judgment prompted, 
 uninfluenced and unawed from any source — least of all from his 
 client's antagonist. At the close of the trial Col. Daviess sent him a 
 challenge to single combat, which he accepted. Subsequently the 
 affair was settled, through the mutual interference of the friends of 
 both parties, and the most cordial friendship existed between them 
 till the death of Col. Daviess, who was killed at the battle of 
 Tippecanoe. 
 
 Near the close of 1806 Mr. Clay received an application from 
 Aaron Burr to appear in his behalf. Burr had been arrested on a 
 charge of being engaged in illegal military operations. The pop- 
 ular mind was much agitated by the belief of his treasonable 
 designs, founded on various rumors of his projected invasion of 
 the Mexican provinces, in which the whole western territory was 
 implicated. While these rumors were occasioning much public 
 anxiety, two men, named John Wood and J. M. Street, arrived 
 from Virginia and located at Frankfort. Their object seemed to 
 be to publish a weekly paper, which they styled the ' Western 
 World,' in which they revived an old political controversy which 
 had slumbered nearly twenty years. The subject of the rumors 
 
LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 23 
 
 was also introduced into its columns, and several statements made 
 in reference thereto, which seemed, if true, to make out the evidence 
 of treason and conspiracy as more than probable. They were 
 however, for the most part assumptive, and not substantiated by 
 any well authenticated testimony, besides appearing under a very 
 questionable character, being contained in communications over 
 the signature of 'an observer.' It was subsequently ascertained 
 that these were written by one of the most violent federalists of 
 the day — notorious for his antipathy toward the democratic party, 
 of which at that time Mr. Burr was a distinguished member. 
 His name was Humphrey Marshall. He and his emissaries, to 
 accomplish their purposes, resorted to the most base and dishon- 
 orable means. In an address prepared by Mr. Marshall, he 
 reiterated the statements of 'an observer,' of which he himself 
 was the author, and also charged the leading members of the 
 Jefferson party in Kentucky, among whom were Mr. Clay's most 
 intimate friends, with the treasonable design of annexing that 
 state to the Spanish dominions in North America. The address 
 was laid before the legislature, who investigated the matter ; but 
 not succeeding in eliciting any thing to corroborate the charges 
 made, it was dropped. The public mind was wrought up to a 
 high degree of indignation at these attempts to ruin some of the 
 most worthy and talented men in the community. While the 
 public was still under the influence of the sympathetic feelings 
 excited in behalf of those against whom such gross accusations 
 had been made, Mr. Burr was charged with a conspiracy of more 
 recent date, and in course was regarded with the same sympathy 
 extended to those previously criminated. He was esteemed a 
 persecuted patriot, and his innocence was matter of popular belief. 
 It was thought pretty generally, that his arrest originated in deep- 
 rooted prejudice existing in the mind of colonel Daviess, the district 
 attorney, a warm admirer of colonel Alexander Hamilton, who 
 was killed in a duel by Mr. Burr. There was good ground for 
 believing that the attorney was prompted more by revengeful 
 feelings than a desire of promoting the administration of justice. 
 During the same year, soon after Mr. Burr had returned from New 
 Orleans, the public mind was again inflamed by the ' observer,' 
 which contained statements of such a nature as to direct the attention 
 of the district attorney to Mr. Burr, whose arrest he attempted to 
 procure, but without success. Mr. Burr witnessed the proceedings, 
 and in a speech which he made at the time, alluded to them, which 
 he characterized as harsh and oppressive in the extreme, expressing 
 himself perfectly willing, and indeed soliciting to be Iried by an 
 unprejudiced court. His dignified deportment, and fair, open 
 proposition, caused the popular feeling to be deeply enlisted in his 
 favor. His request was granted, a jury chosen, and a day appointed 
 for trial. When it arrived, universal surprise was created by the 
 
24 MFB OF HENRY CLAY, 
 
 novel and very unusual course pursued by Col. Daviess. He 
 moved the discharge of the jury in consequence of an important 
 witness being absent. He succeeded, to the great regret of Mr. 
 Burr, who was desirous of placing the whole business before a 
 competent and impartial judicial tribunal. 
 
 The attorney, some months subsequent, imagined himself war- 
 ranted in resuming the prosecution. The second day of December 
 was appointed for the trial. On the day previous Mr. Burr addressed 
 a note to Mr. Clay, soliciting his aid, of which the following is an 
 extract. ' I have no design nor have I taken any measure to pro- 
 mote a dissolution of the Union, or a separation of any one or 
 more states from the residue. I have neither published a line on 
 this subject, nor has any one, through my agency or with my 
 knowledge. I have no design to intermeddle with the government 
 or to disturb the tranquillity of the United States, or of its territories, 
 or any part of them. I have neither given, nor signed, nor prom- 
 ised a commission to any person for any purpose. I do not own 
 a musket, nor bayonet, nor any single article of military stores ; 
 nor does any person for me, by my authority, or with my knowl- 
 edge. My views have been fully explained to, and approved by, 
 several of the principal officers of government, and I believe are 
 well understood by the administration, and seen by it with compla- 
 cency. They are such as every man of honor, and every good 
 citizen must approve. Considering the high station you now fill 
 in our national councils, I have thought these explanations proper 
 as well to counteract the chimerical tales which malevolent persons 
 have so industriously circulated, as 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 his country.' 
 
 Mr. Burr was doubtless aware of the scruples felt by Mr. Clay 
 respecting the propriety of acting as his counsel, which scruples 
 were occasioned principally by the new and interesting relation 
 just assumed by him — that of United States senator. Mr. Clay's 
 doubts were satisfied, and he consented to appear at his trial as his 
 attorney, in connection with Col. John Allen. To them Mr. Burr in 
 the expectation of securing their services, had previously sent a 
 large sum of money, which they declined receiving, and returned 
 to him. The day appointed for trial at length arrived, and again 
 the attorney sought to delay the proceedings of the court, on the 
 ground of the absence of an important witness. Mr. Clay strenu- 
 ously contended that such tardy procedure, where such interests 
 were involved, and where the most speedy action was requisite, 
 was unsanctioned by correct judicial usage ; that the accused was 
 sustaining material injury in consequence of the obstacles thus 
 thrown in the way of his establishing his innocence, which he was 
 Impatiently and anxiously waiting to do. Mr. Clay's representa- 
 tions succeeded. The attorney was required by the court to 
 
LIFE OF HENRY CL AY . 25 
 
 proceed immediately. Accordingly all the evidence he could pro- 
 duce was spread before the grand jury, who, after a patient and 
 careful investigation, returned the indictment accompanied with 
 their refusal to consider it a true bill, and reasons for the same, — 
 alleging that the testimony contained nothing to criminate the 
 accused, ' nor can we from all the inquiry and investigation of the 
 subject discern that any thing improper or injurious to the govern- 
 ment of the United States, or contrary to the laws thereof, is 
 designed or contemplated.' Their decision was received with the 
 strongest demonstrations of approbation from all quarters, which 
 were exceedingly gratifying to Mr. Clay, and served to strengthen 
 his conviction of Mr. Burr's innocence when he consented to act 
 as his counsel. It is unnecessary to say, that had he been aware 
 of Mr. Burr's real designs, no inducement could have been held 
 out by that person strong enough to have determined him to appear 
 in his defence. Subsequent events show this to be true — events 
 which removed all doubts as to Mr. Burr's guilt. A mass of 
 unequivocal testimony had been obtained, in relation to his opera- 
 tions upon which he had already entered, and of his future projects, 
 by the exertions of Mr. Jefferson, which testimony was exhibited 
 to Mr. Clay, at Washington, where he repaired soon after the trial 
 to take his seat in the senate. One of the most remarkable and 
 indubitable portions of the evidence alluded to, was a letter in cipher 
 which Mr. Burr had sent by captain Samuel Swartwout to the 
 commander of the United States army, general Wilkinson, which 
 contained a somewhat circumstantial account of his proceedings 
 and intended proceedings. In this he expressly stated his design 
 of seizing on Baton Rouge, preliminary to extending his conquests 
 into the Spanish provinces. Such disclosures opened the eyes of 
 the public to the true character of Mr. Burr, and called forth expres- 
 sions of their just indignation, in which Mr. Clay also united, — 
 who, after an interval of several years, for the first time subsequent 
 to the trial, met Mr. Burr in the city of New York. Mr. Clay was 
 sitting in the court room of the City Hall, when a gentleman 
 approached and tendered him his hand with the customary saluta- 
 tion. But Mr. Clay recognizing, treated him with marked coldness 
 and refused to receive or return the proffered civility. Mr. Burr, 
 however, endeavored to engage him in conversation, congratulating 
 him on his successful efforts at Ghent, in relation to the treaty, 
 and an arrangement which he and his associates had effected with 
 Great Britain, whereby valuable comniercial advantages were 
 secured to America. To all his efforts at conversation Mr. Clay 
 turned a deaf ear, replying very briefly to his inquiries and giving 
 him no encouragement to proceed. On leaving, Mr. Burr requested 
 the privilege of a brief interview with him, who in answer, 
 informed him where he had taken lodgings. The colonel, how- 
 ever, did not call, and thus terminated all the intercourse ever had 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
26 LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 by Mr. Clay with him. We have thus endeavored faithfully and 
 impartially to record all the facts in relation to that intercourse, that 
 the world may see and decide upon the truth or falsehood of the 
 charges made against Mr. Clay, in consequence of it. How can 
 they be tortured so as to yield any evidence calculated to impeach 
 his integrity ? How to make it appear manifestly wrong to act as 
 his counsel, and to conduct that trial, the right to which was guar- 
 antied by the constitution ? But above all, how can they be made 
 to furnish a foundation for those cruel charges of acting in concert 
 with the accused, of being privy to his plans, as aiding and abet- 
 ting him, and of disrobing him of his hard, well earned, unspotted 
 robes of legal and political purity, and clothing him in the black 
 habiliments of a traitor, engaged in bartering away the liberties 
 of his country ? But in the language of another, ' the shaft, though 
 aimed with a will sufficiently deadly, fell upon a breast of steel.' 
 The charge of treason preferred against a man who has done more 
 for his own country than any other living statesman, and whose 
 voice has echoed beyond her confines, and with a tone of creative 
 power called other republics into being, is like the other infamous 
 calumnies that have been propagated against the same illustrious 
 individual, and like them, must soon be lost amid the lumber of 
 forgotten things. Such conspiracies to ruin a patriot can only end 
 in the prostration of the conspirators. 
 
 ' He who of old would rend the oak, 
 Dreamed not of the rebound.' 
 
 Mr. Clay's election to the senate of the United States was for 
 one session only — the unexpired portion of general Adair's term, 
 who had resigned his seat. Immediately after his initiation into 
 his new office, he engaged actively in the senatorial business. He 
 found the senate discussing the merits of a bill providing for the 
 erection of a bridge over the Potomac. Its erection was strongly 
 desired by the inhabitants of Washington and Alexandria, and as 
 strongly deprecated by those of Georgetown. Many efforts were 
 made by both parties to secure his services in aid of their particu- 
 lar predilections, but nothing definite could be ascertained respecting 
 his views in relation to the "bill, and he refused to commit himself 
 by pledging his support or opposition to it. He was not, though, 
 indifferent to the proposed measure, but diligently employed him- 
 self in settling in his own mind the question of its constitutionality, 
 and in deciding on its expediency. The result of his investiga- 
 tions was the conviction that it was sanctioned by the constitution, 
 and a judicious measure of internal policy. He so regarded it in 
 a speech which he made in its favor, by which he succeeded in 
 producing a similar conviction in the minds of all the members 
 who had not pledged themselves to oppose it, and thus secured its 
 passage. This speech, although never reported, is represented as 
 one of his happiest efforts, distinguished for satire and humor, as 
 
LI ( FE OF HENRY CLAY. 27 
 
 well as gravity and sound logical argument, indeed, as embodying 
 all the characteristics of a perfect specimen of eloquence. From 
 the ground there taken, and the first time publicly, as to what he 
 deemed true governmental policy, in relation to internal improve- 
 ment, he has never in a single instance receded. With proud 
 satisfaction may the friends of that system of which he has been 
 justly styled ' the Father] point to this unparalleled example of 
 unwavering adherence and fidelity to principles since demonstrated 
 to be the only permanent source of our national prosperity. In 
 what an interesting attitude do we behold their originator' and 
 vindicator — a youth from Kentuckian wilds, rising up in the midst 
 of grave senators and hoary-headed sages, and stretching out a 
 timid, yet patriot-nerved arm, towards the shrine of Liberty. 
 He plucks from her altar a burning brand and applies it to those 
 inflammable materials which his genius and talents had collected 
 around him. The flame that followed, though bright, he did not 
 suppose would be seen and felt far beyond the precincts of her 
 home. The utmost stretch of his fancy could not present to him 
 the cheering vision, of the deepest recesses of the woody wilds he 
 had left, illumined by its benign beams — that they were destined to 
 play around the summits of the Alleghanies, glance across the 
 broad prairie, blaze over the lake, and flash along the river, pene- 
 trating every department of industrial life, with their developing, 
 moulding, and preserving power, until the broad breast of our vast 
 republic should beam bright and beautiful as the ' brow of night.' 
 An anecdote is related of Mr. Clay, aptly illustrating his ability 
 to encounter opposition, in whatever manner presented. A sena- 
 tor from Connecticut had endeavored to inspire the younger mem- 
 bers of the senate with a respect for him, nearly allied to awe, and 
 to this end was accustomed to use towards them harsh and exceed- 
 ingly haughty language, but especially to make an ostentatious 
 display of his attainments and his supposed superior knowledge 
 of the subject under discussion. Mr. Clay could ill brook his 
 insolent looks and language, and haughty, overbearing manner, and 
 took occasion in his speech to hit them off, which he did by quoting 
 the laughable simile of Peter Pindar's Magpie : 
 
 1 Thus have I seen a magpie in the street, 
 A chattering bird we often meet, 
 A bird for curiosity well known, 
 
 With head awry, 
 
 And cunning eye, 
 Peep knowingly into a marrow bone.' 
 
 It would be difficult to say which was the greater, the merri- 
 ment which this sally caused, or the chagrin of the senator 
 mentioned. 
 
 During the session an attempt was made to clothe the executive 
 with power to arrest and confine colonel Burr, if deemed necessary 
 by him, without experiencing the delays often consequent on the 
 
28 LIFEOFHENRYCLAY. 
 
 uncertain operations of law. Mr. Clay did not take an active part 
 in the discussion that ensued, but barely recorded his vote against 
 it. He regarded the suspension of the act of habeas corpus, by 
 which alone this power could be conferred, as highly dangerous, 
 and which could be justified in the greatest emergency only. He 
 thought it, however, unadvisable to mingle in the discussion in 
 consequence of having acted as Mr. Burr s counsel. The measure 
 passed the senate, but was defeated in the lower house. 
 
 In the month of February of the same year, Mr. Clay exerted 
 himself to procure an appropriation for the purpose of constructing 
 a canal in Kentucky, having presented a resolution to that effect. 
 The subject was referred to a committee, to whom as chairman he 
 submitted a lengthy and able report. He also brought forward a 
 resolution to improve the navigation of the Ohio river, which was 
 favorably received by the senate, and adopted with unanimity. 
 The secretary of the treasury also was called upon to obtain all 
 the information he could impart and report the same, relative to 
 constructing canals and making such other internal improvements 
 as might come legitimately within the sphere of congressional 
 action. With what deep interest Mr. Clay regarded the prosecu- 
 tion of these and kindred works, may be learned from the phrase- 
 ology of the resolutions which he introduced recommending them. 
 In the report before mentioned there is the following passage. 
 1 How far is it the policy of the government to aid in works of this 
 kind when it has no distinct interest ? Whether indeed in such a 
 case it has the constitutional power of patronage and encourage- 
 ment, it is not necessary to be decided in the present instance. 
 The resolution directing the secretary to procure information, is 
 as follows. ' Resolved, that the secretary of the treasury be 
 directed to prepare and report to tfre senate at their next session a 
 plan for the application of such means as are within the power of 
 congress, to the purposes of opening roads and making canals, 
 together with a statement of undertakings of that nature, which as 
 objects of public improvement may require and deserve the aid of 
 government, and also a statement of works of the nature men- 
 tioned, which have been commenced, the progress which has been 
 made in them, and the means and prospect of their being comple- 
 ted, and all such information as in the opinion of the secretary 
 shall be material, in relation to the objects of this resolution." 
 This resolution passed almost unanimously. 
 
 At the expiration of his senatorial term the citizens of Fayette 
 county gave him their suffrages again for the state legislature, to 
 which he was elected by a majority much larger than his most 
 sanguine friends expected. In consequence of the part Mr. Clay 
 had performed in the affair of colonel Burr, his popularity sustained 
 some diminution, which, however, was only temporary. His ene- 
 mies • attempted to excite similar feelings of odium towards him 
 
LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 29 
 
 with which Mr. Burr was visited, and partially succeeded, but 
 which were dissipated by an address made by Mr. Clay, in relation 
 to his connection with him, and succeeded to such an overwhelm- 
 ing extent in turning the tide of calumny directed towards him, 
 against hi3 enemies, that it would have been exceedingly hazardous 
 for any one, in the presence of his friends, to repeat the slanderous 
 charges. He was elected speaker of the assembly at the next 
 session, although opposed by a very popular member as a candi- 
 date for the same office. In this station he was distinguished for 
 zeal, energy, and decision, exhibited in discharging its duties. 
 He would sometimes engage in the debates of the house when a 
 subject of unusual interest was before it. An attempt was made 
 during this term worthy of the dark ages — an attempt to prohibit 
 the reading of any British elementary work on law, and reference 
 to any precedent of a British court. Contrary to what might have 
 been expected, this monstrous proposition, this antinomian attempt 
 found favor in the eyes of more than four-fifths of the members of 
 the house, and had not Mr. Clay rushed to the rescue, the whole 
 system of common law, so far as Kentucky was concerned, would 
 have been destroyed. His timely interference averted the catas- 
 trophe. The prohibition was advocated on the ground that it was 
 inexpedient for an independent nation to derive any assistance 
 in the administration of justice, from the legal decisions of a foreign 
 court ; especially from those of the one in question. It cannot be 
 doubted that the friends of the prohibition were stimulated by 
 ardent though somewhat bigoted patriotism. Those deep seated 
 feelings of repugnance towards the nation at whose hands we had 
 received such oppressive treatment but a few years previous, had 
 not yet subsided, and very naturally extended to every thing per- 
 taining to that nation. This fact partially apologizes for that 
 intemperate and inconsiderate zeal with which more than four-fifths 
 of the house set about demolishing what it was vitally important 
 should be incorporated with the fabric of our liberties, and become 
 a constituent part of the same. They desired to be removed as 
 far as possible from Great Britain, in legal as well as in other 
 respects, without carefully considering the effect of that, removal. 
 This law, viewed through the distorted medium of prejudice and 
 hatred, seemed a huge excrescence on the body of our institutions, 
 whose incumbency exerted a crushing instead of a sustaining 
 influence, draining their energies, instead of imparting to them no 
 inconsiderable portion of their vitality, and instantly the axe of 
 judicial reform was seized by these sapient legislators for its ampu- 
 tation. Against this fratricidal attempt, Mr. Clay raised his power- 
 ful arm. He had witnessed with feelings of unfeigned regret, this 
 rash attempt to lay violent hands on that system with which was 
 associated every thing valuable and venerable in jurisprudence. 
 That system which might justly be styled the legal Thesaurus of 
 
30 LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 the world, founded by the hand of social exigency amid fearful 
 convulsions, and reared by the united efforts of the most eminent 
 jurisconsulats the world ever saw, he endeavored to shield against 
 the ruthless assaults of this legislative vandalism. He was aware 
 that the popular opinion considered this system as unnecessarily 
 voluminous — an immense mixture of superfluities, prolixities, and 
 absurdities, unadapted to, and unneeded by, our institutions. 
 These erroneous apprehensions and long existing prejudices, he 
 combated and corrected. He demonstrated its utility by a lucid 
 exposition of the beauty, symmetry, and simplicity of its funda- 
 mental principles, and its necessity, by depicting in most glowing 
 colors the disastrous consequences which would inevitably follow 
 its destruction. Fearing, however, that the resolution would pass, 
 he met its supporters in the spirit of compromise, and moved so 
 to amend it, that the prohibition should extend to those decisions 
 only, that had been given since the fourth day of July, 1776. His 
 reasons for permitting those to remain, which were given previous 
 to that period, were as convincing as they were sensible. He 
 argued that up to the time of the declaration of independence, the 
 laws of the one nation were those of the other, and that therefore 
 the adoption of the primary resolution would be in effect abolish- 
 ing our own laws. He is said to have given on this occasion, one 
 of the most splendid specimens of elocution ever witnessed. A 
 gentleman who was present describes it as a perfect model. « Every 
 muscle of the orator's face was at work ; his whole body seemed 
 agitated, as if each part was instinct with a separate life ; and his 
 small white hand, with its blue veins apparently distended almost 
 to bursting, moved gracefully, but with all the energy of rapid and 
 vehement gesture. The appearance of the speaker seemed that 
 of a pure intellect, wrought up to its mightiest energies, and brightly 
 glowing through the thin and transparent veil of flesh that enrobed 
 it.' His control over his auditory was most absolute and astonish- 
 ing — now bathing them in tears, and now convulsing them 
 with laughter, causing them to alternate between hope and fear, 
 love and hate, at his bidding. When he concluded, scarcely a 
 vestige of opposition remained, and the amended resolution was 
 adopted almost by acclamation. While the prominence, which 
 this and similar efforts gave Mr. Clay, was a source of satisfaction 
 to him, and gratification to his friends, it was attended with the 
 unpleasant effect of exposing him to the keenest shafts of his 
 political enemies. In the year 1808 he was most violently assailed 
 by Humphrey Marshall, an ultra federalist, a man of talents and 
 eloquence. He let no opportunity pass unimproved to give vent 
 to his rancorous feelings toward Mr. Clay, and indeed towards all 
 the prominent supporters of Mr. Jefferson's administration. He 
 had repeatedly attacked Mr. Clay through the press, but now, being 
 a member of the legislature, was enabled to make them in person. 
 
LJFE OF HENRY CLAY. 31 
 
 Mr. Clay's friends, desirous of bringing them together, made 
 arrangements to this effect, by not re-electing him speaker. Mr. 
 Marshall seemed anxious to measure weapons with Mr. Clay ; fol- 
 lowing him in all his movements, and opposing him at every turn. 
 In the early part of the session, Mr. Clay placed several resolutions 
 before the house, relating to the embargo and British orders in 
 council, remonstrating against the arbitrary demands of that nation, 
 and pledging Kentucky to action, comformable to the decisions of 
 the general government in relation thereto. They recognized Mr. 
 Jefferson's policy as sound, approved his measures, and pronounced 
 him entitled to the thanks of his country, for the ability, upright- 
 ness, and intelligence which he displayed in the management, both 
 of our foreign relations and domestic concerns. Mr. Marshall 
 endeavored to procure their amendment, sc as to condemn the 
 embargo, and reprobate, without stint or measure, Mr. Jefferson's 
 administration. Their rejection was most emphatic, by a vote of 
 sixty-four to one — he voting in their favor, — and Mr. Clay's were 
 adopted by the same vote. But the vials of Mr. Marshall's fiercest 
 and most, vituperative wrath were reserved for the occasion when 
 Mr. Clay stood up in defence of his favorite policy, of affording 
 protection to domestic industry, by introducing a resolution, declar- 
 ing that it was expedient for each member of the house, for the 
 purpose of giving unequivocal evidence of his attachment to this 
 principle, to clothe himself in fabrics of domestic manufacture. 
 This patriotic attempt was not only denounced by his foe as dem- 
 agogic, and prompted by motives of the most inordinate and 
 grasping ambition ; but leaving the resolution, he attacked its author 
 in genuine billingsgate style. Utterly regardless of every rule of 
 gentlemanly courtesy, parliamentary propriety, or common decency 
 even, he exhausted the vocabulary in search of opprobious and 
 insulting epithets, which he applied in the spirit of the most liberal 
 abuse. Such foul and unmerited treatment could not be quietly 
 borne by a person of Mr. Clay's ardent and sensitive temperament, 
 and he rebuked him in language deservedly harsh, and calculated 
 to sting him to the quick. The quarrel progressed until it reached 
 that stage where Mr. Clay considered himself bound, according to 
 Kentuckian interpretation of the law of honor, to challenge Mr. 
 Marshall to meet him and settle it in single combat. It was 
 accepted, and the parties, pursuant to appointment, met and ex- 
 changed two or three shots, resulting in a slight wound to each. 
 The duel was terminated by the interference of the seconds, who 
 protested against its further procedure. 
 
 In 1809, a case of contested election came before the legislature, 
 in the settlement of which, Mr. Clay acted a conspicuous part. 
 The electors of Hardin county had given four hundred and thirty- 
 six votes for Charles Helm, three hundred and fifty for Samuel 
 Haycroft, and two hundred and seventy-one for John Thomas, two 
 
32 LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 of whom were entitled to seats. It appeared that Mr. Haycroft, at 
 the time of the election, held an office, which, according to the 
 constitution of Kentucky, rendered him ineligible to a seat in the 
 general assembly. Mr. Clay submitted his views of the case, in a 
 report prepared by him, as chairman of a committee appointed in 
 accordance with a motion made by him to inquire whether Mr. 
 Haycroft was entitled to a seat, and if not, to decide on the claims 
 of Mr. Thomas to one. This report was adopted unanimously, 
 and has since constituted the rule in similar cases in Kentucky. 
 Its doctrines are so sound, and at the same time so simple, that we 
 cannot forbear inserting an extract. ' The fact being ascertained 
 that Mr. Haycroft held an office of profit under the commonwealth 
 at the time of the election, the constitutional disqualification 
 attaches and excludes him; he was ineligible and therefore cannot 
 be entitled to his seat It remains to inquire into the pretensions 
 of Mr. Thomas. His claim can only be supported by a total 
 rejection of the votes given to Mr. Haycroft, as void to all intents 
 whatever. It is not pretended that they were given by persons not 
 qualified according to the constitution, and consequently, if rejected 
 it must be not for any inherent objection in themselves, but because 
 they have been bestowed in a manner forbidden by the constitution 
 or laws. By an act passed 18th of December, 1S00, it is required 
 that persons holding offices incompatible with a seat in the legis- 
 lature, shall resign them before they are voted for ; and it is provi- 
 ded that all votes given to any such person prior to such resigna- 
 tion shall be utterly void. This act, when applied to the case in 
 question, perhaps admits of the construction that the votes given 
 to Mr. Haycroft, though void and ineffectual in creating any right 
 in him to a seat in the house, cannot affect in any manner the situ- 
 ation of his competitor. Any other exposition of it is, in the 
 opinion of your committee, wholly inconsistent with the constitu- 
 tion, and would be extremely dangerous in practice. It would be 
 subversive of the great principle of free government that the 
 majority shall prevail. It would operate as a deception of the 
 people, for it cannot be doubted that the votes given to Mr. Hay- 
 croft were bestowed upon a full persuasion that he had a right to 
 receive them. And it would infringe the rights of this house, 
 guarantied by the constitution, to judge of the qualifications of its 
 members. It would, in fact, be a declaration that disqualification 
 produces qualification — that the incapacity of one man capacitates 
 another to hold a seat in this house. Your committee are therefore 
 unanimously and decidedly of opinion that neither of the gentle- 
 men is entitled to a seat.' 'This act closed his career in the legis- 
 lature of Kentucky, to which he tendered his resignation soon after. 
 He was elected to the senate of the United States for two years — 
 the unexpired portion of Mr. Buckner Thurston's term, who had 
 resigned his seat in that body. During Mr. Clay's continuance in 
 
LIFE OF HENRY CLAY 
 
 the legislature, he had produced the deepest impression of his abil- 
 ity and talents, and won the favor of his associates, to what extent 
 may be determined from the fact of their selecting him for the office 
 before named, by a vote of two thirds. He retired, accompanied 
 with their expressions of sincere regret for his loss, and high esti- 
 mate of his services. The annals of Kentucky present no brighter 
 spot than that which in imperishable' characters records his name. 
 It is the oasis of her history, verdant and beautiful, begirt with the 
 wreath of his noble deeds, brilliant with the gems of benevolence, 
 philanthropy and patriotism. 
 
 The manner in which he discharged his duties while connected 
 with her legislature, is forcibly described by one intimately ac- 
 quainted with him. ' He appears to have been the pervading 
 spirit of the whole body. He never came to the debates without 
 the knowledge necessary to the perfect elucidation of his subject, 
 and he always had the power of making his knowledge so practi- 
 cal, and lighting it so brightly up with the fire of eloquence, and 
 the living soul of intellect, that without resorting to the arts of in- 
 sidiousness, he could generally control the movements of the legis- 
 lature at will. His was not an undue influence ; it was the sim- 
 ple ascendency of mind over mind. The bills which originated 
 with him, instead of being characterized by the eccentricities and 
 ambitious innovations which are too often visible in the course of 
 young men of genius suddenly elevated to power and influence, 
 were remarkable only for their plain common sense, and their ten- 
 dency to advance the substantial interests of the state. Though 
 he carried his plans into effect by the aid of the magical incanta- 
 tions of the orator, he always conceived them with the coolness 
 and discretion of a philosopher. No subject was so great as to 
 baffle his powers, none so minute as to elude them. He could 
 handle the telescope and the microscope with equal skill. In him 
 the haughty demagogues of the legislature found an antagonist 
 who never failed to foil them in their bold projects, and the intriguers 
 of lower degree were baffled with equal certainty whenever 
 they attempted to get any petty measure through the house for 
 their own personal gratification or that of their friends. The peo- 
 ple, therefore, justly regarded him as emphatically their own. 
 
 In the winter of 1809-10, soon after he took his seat the seconc 
 time in the senate, his attention was turned towards a subject kin-^ 
 dred to that to which it had been directed when he first became a 
 member of that body — that of domestic manufactures. It is 
 remarkable fact, that the first two subjects which demanded and 
 secured his aid on entering congress, were those of primary im- 
 portance to the welfare of the republic — subjects subsequently 
 shown, in the unillusive light of experience, to be not only as inti-! 
 mately connected with private as with public prosperity, but as 
 constituting the very lungs of Liberty herself, generating and dif- 
 vol. i. 5 
 
34 LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 fusing copious alimental streams to every organ and member of 
 her body, thus producing that health and vigor whereby she was 
 enabled to extend proper encouragement and protection to all her 
 children. Up to this period but little thought, and less action had 
 been bestowed by government upon the subject of domestic 
 manufactures, and the light duties imposed on articles of foreign 
 growth and manufacture, were for the purpose of raising a revenue, 
 and not intended to afford any protection or encouragement to any 
 branch of domestic industry. Our country, instead of putting her 
 young, muscular hands vigorously forth, and from her own inex- 
 haustible resources constructing such articles as she needed, sat 
 still in the same supine attitude of abject dependence on Great 
 Britain which she was in when the war of the revolution com- 
 menced, stretching them out to foreign artificers, and receiving 
 those articles at their hands. How long she might have remained 
 in this inglorious position, it is difficult to determine, had not her 
 relations with that nation assumed an aspect so threatening and 
 belligerent, as to alarm and induce her to withdraw and employ 
 them in her own protection. Now the increasing prospect of war 
 served in some degree to arouse the nation from that lethargic 
 state of indifference in which it had so long slumbered. At least 
 it was deemed advisable to anticipate such an event, by making 
 provision for the materials usually needed in such an emergency. 
 Accordingly a bill was introduced to appropriate a sum of money 
 to purchase cordage, sail cloths, and the ordinary munitions of 
 war, and so amended as to give preference to articles of domestic 
 growth and manufacture, provided the interests of the nation should 
 not suffer thereby. Mr. Lloyd, a senator from Massachusetts, 
 moved to strike out the amendment granting the preference, and 
 supported his motion by a long and powerful speech. A general 
 and interesting discussion ensued, in which the policy of extend- 
 ing direct protection by the government to domestic manufactures 
 was considered. Mr. Clay was among the first to avow himself 
 decidedly in favor of the policy, and by his speech made at the 
 time proved both its expediency and wisdom. His remarks were 
 plain and practical, chiefly confined to statements of facts, with 
 brief comments, yet so philosophically and skilfully arranged as to 
 produce their intended effect. In the course of his observations, 
 he alluded to that preference generally given in our country to ar- 
 ticles of foreign production, by saying, that ' a gentleman's head 
 could not withstand the influence of the solar heat unless covered 
 with a London hat ; his feet could not bear the pebbles or the frost 
 unless protected by London shoes ; and the comfort and ornament 
 of his person was consulted only where his coat was cut out by the 
 shears of a tailor just from London. At length, however, the won- 
 derful discovery has been made that it is not absolutely beyond the 
 reach of American skill and ingenuity to produce these articles, com- 
 
LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 35 
 
 bining with equal elegance greater durability. And I entertain no 
 doubt that in a short time the no less' important fact will be devel- 
 oped, that the domestic manufactures of the United States, fostered 
 by government, and aided by household exertions, are fully compe- 
 tent to supply us with at least every necessary article of clothing. 
 I, therefore, for one, (to use the fashionable cant of the day,) am 
 in favor of encouraging them ; not to the extent to which they are 
 carried in England, but to such an extent as will redeem us en- 
 tirely from all dependence on foreign countries.' 
 
 Mr. Clay exposed the fallacy of the specious reasoning of Mr. 
 Lloyd and other members hostile to the measure, who based their 
 opposition on the ground of the bad practical tendency of a system 
 of domestic manufactures fostered by government ; and in illus- 
 tration of which they cited the wretched and most famished con- 
 dition of the operatives of Manchester, Birmingham, and other 
 manufacturing cities of Great Britain. They maintained that the 
 introduction of such a system into America would be attended 
 with the same sad consequences — that these were the natural 
 results of such a system, surrounded by such governmental en- 
 couragement, and inseparably connected with it. Mr. Clay in re- 
 ply declared that this was a non sequiter — that although such con- 
 sequences might be, and doubtless were incidental to such a 
 system, it by no means followed that they were unavoidably and 
 inevitably consequent upon it under all circumstances. The case 
 instanced, he said, furnished no proof to that effect, — that the de- 
 plorable condition of the manufacturing districts of Great Britain 
 had not been, neither could be satisfactorily accounted for in the 
 manner attempted. It was not attributable to the fact of their 
 being manufacturing districts — to the existence of that system 
 which they were then considering, but to the abuse of that system. 
 That it would be just as philosophical and logical, in view of the 
 excruciating sufferings of the gormandizer, to conclude that the 
 invariable tendency of food when introduced into the stomach is 
 deleterious, as to adduce the squalor and wretchedness of England's 
 manufacturing population as proof positive of the pernicious ten- 
 dency of the system under which they operated. This was not 
 sufficiently restricted. It was too grasping — intended to make her 
 the manufacturing monopolist of the world, and so shaped as to 
 shut out effectually all rivalry. To this grand, distinctive feature 
 of that system the evil in question could be directly traced — an 
 evil that would be seen attendant on any vast, artificial establish- 
 ment similarly conducted, whether encouraged by public or private 
 patronage. That the objections, therefore, of opposing members 
 lost all their validity when directed towards the system itself, which 
 they possibly might possess when directed towards the feature 
 mentioned, if it were not known that this was merely conventional, 
 and not inherent, which might be retained or rejected at pleasure. 
 
36 LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 It had not been, indeed it could not be denied, that to this system, 
 badly as it was organized, England was materially indebted for 
 that extensive developement of her natural resources which she 
 had made, and especially for her maratime importance. That her 
 literary and scientific institutions owed their permanence and emi- 
 nence" mainly to it, which had diffused also streams of beneficial 
 influence through every part of her vast dominions. In the case 
 of England, throwing the broad shield of her protection around 
 this system, two results were witnessed, the satisfaction of her own 
 and the world's wants in relation to manufactures. But it was not 
 intended nor desired to imitate her in this respect by carrying the 
 principle of protection so far. The public aid solicited for the 
 American manufacturer was moderate, just sufficient to enable 
 him to supply the domestic demand for his fabrics. The measure, 
 even then, was most obviously one of expedience and wisdom, 
 and doubtless always would be ; but there were indications to 
 render it certain that it would soon become one of necessity. 
 There was a strong prospect of our being deprived of our accus- 
 tomed commercial intercourse, in consequence of the arbitrary 
 and illegal proceedings of the belligerent nations of Europe, and 
 that we should be obstructed by military power from an exercise 
 of our right to carry the productions of our own soil to the proper 
 market for them. The circumstances that then surrounded the 
 country rendered it imperiously incumbent upon her to look to 
 herself, and in herself, and from her inestimably valuable raw materi- 
 als make for herself such articles as were requisite for her pros- 
 perity in peace, and protection in war. In short, to take such 
 measures as to forever obviate the necessity of resorting to the work- 
 shops of the old world for them. Mr. Clay referred to our immense 
 natural resources, scattered in rich and varied profusion over the 
 land, as furnishing an argument in favor of the policy he was ad- 
 vocating. In contending for our manufacturing interests, it by no 
 means followed, as had been intimated, that he deemed them of 
 paramount importance to the nation. He did not hesitate to admit 
 that on the culture of the soil her happiness and wealth chiefly 
 depended; — that here lay the mine from which her treasury must 
 be replenished by the hand of agriculture, if she would have an 
 overflowing one, and expressed his decided belief that commerce 
 was, and ought to be more indebted to it than to manufactures. 
 He did not desire the department of the plough and sickle to be 
 encroached upon by that of the spindle and shuttle ; yet he con- 
 tended that it was proper that we should supply ourselves ' with 
 clothing made by our own industry, and no longer be dependent 
 for our very coats upon a country that was then an envious rival, 
 and might soon be an enemy. A judicious American farmer in 
 the household way,' said he, 'manufactures whatever is requisite for 
 his family. He squanders but little in the gewgaws of Europe. 
 
LIFEOFHENRYCLAY. 37 
 
 He presents in epitome what the nation ought to be in extenso. 
 Their manufactures should bear the same proportion, and effect 
 the same object in relation to the whole community, which the part 
 of the household employed in domestic manufacturing bears to 
 the whole family.' The view taken by Mr. Clay was so enlight- 
 ened, sound and practical, as to commend the bill to their most 
 favorable consideration, and induce them to adopt it as amended. 
 The salutary effects that flowed from it soon became apparent. The 
 public purveyors immediately succeeded in making arrangements 
 for the specified articles with American capitalists, on most advan- 
 tageous terms, so that when the storm burst upon us, as it did soon 
 after, though not perfectly prepared for its encounter, we were 
 not as defenceless as we should have been, had our dependence 
 been placed exclusively on foreign nations. The impetus given 'to 
 domestic manufactures was astonishing, resulting in their increase 
 during the following year over those of the year previous, to the 
 amount of more than fifty millions of dollars. Of this increase, 
 Mr. Madison, in his message to congress the following session, 
 makes most favorable mention, by declaring that he felt particular 
 satisfaction in remarking that an interior view of the country pre- 
 sented many grateful proofs of the extension of useful manufac- 
 tures ; the combined product of professional occupation and 
 household industry. He expressed his conviction that, the change 
 which had introduced these substitutes for supplies heretofore 
 obtained by foreign commerce, might, in a national view, be justly 
 regarded as of itself more than a recompense for those privations 
 and losses resulting from foreign injustice, which first suggested 
 the propriety of fostering them. Here then, from that system, while 
 yet in the germ, was gathered an antepast of that immense fruition, 
 which it was destined to yield, when its stately trunk had towered 
 in symmetry and majesty toward heaven, imparting prosperity and 
 security to millions of freemen, dwelling beneath its branches. 
 But let it not be forgotten that it is to the persevering and unremit- 
 ting exertions of Henry Clay that we are indebted for the planting 
 and the growth of that goodly tree. 
 
 He had scarcely ceased from his efficient labors in procuring the 
 adoption of the bill before mentioned, when another opportunity 
 presented itself for the exercise of that expansive patriotism for 
 which his every public act is distinguished, and one which he em- 
 braced with his characteristic eagerness and promptitude. There 
 was strong prospect that the United States would be dismembered 
 of a portion of her territory — the large and fertile district included 
 between the Mississippi and Perdido Rivers, being the present 
 states of Mississippi and Alabama, and the territory of West 
 Florida, or the greater part of it. To prevent this, Mr. Clay came 
 boldly forth, triumphing over all opposition, and clearly vindicated 
 her right to it. The United States became possessed of it in 1803, 
 
38 LTFE OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 when it was ceded to her by France, with every thing appertaining 
 just as she had received it from Spain, who formally acquiesced in 
 the cession in 1804. The United States, from conciliatory motives 
 partly, and partly in consequence of events which they could not 
 control, suffered it to remain in the possession of Spain, who tem- 
 porarily exercised authority over it. But her authority was now 
 being subverted, a large portion of the inhabitants of the province 
 refusing to submit to it. Reports also were rife that agents des- 
 patched by the king of England, were actively engaged in endeav- 
 oring to induce the people to come under British government. In 
 this emergency, president Madison, thinking that longer delay in 
 taking possession of it would expose the country to ulterior events 
 which might affect the rights and welfare of the Union, contraven- 
 ing, perhaps, the views of both parties, endangering the tranquillity 
 and security of the adjoining territories, and afford fresh facilities 
 to violations of our revenue and commercial laws, issued his proc- 
 lamation, directing that immediate possession should be taken of 
 the said territory. Mr. Claiborne, governor of Orleans territory, 
 was instructed to take immediately the requisite steps for annexing 
 it to that over which he presided, and to see that the laws of the 
 United States were rigidly enforced, to which he yielded prompt 
 obedience. At this conjuncture the cry that came up from the 
 party opposing his administration was loud and long. They 
 attempted to prove that this measure was not only impolitic and 
 uncalled for, but extremely unjust toward Spain, intended to in- 
 volve us in a war with England, who, as her ally, would take um- 
 brage on account of it, and that it was also unconstitutional. The 
 federalists, through the press, and in legislative assemblies, repre- 
 sented the country as already surrounded in circumstances of great 
 peril in consequence of this procedure. A warm debate ensued in 
 congress on a bill reported by a committee to whom the procla- 
 mation was referred, which declared that the laws then in force in 
 the territory of Orleans, extended and had full force to the river 
 Perdido. Mr. Pope, one of the committee, in a speech made at 
 the time, explained the grounds which induced them to make the 
 report, and was followed by Mr. Horsey, a senator from Delaware, 
 in opposition. He pronounced the title of the United States in- 
 valid, thought it inexpedient to take possession of the territory by 
 force, and questioned the right of the president to issue his procla- 
 mation to that effect. He declared that document both war and 
 legislation, inasmuch as it authorized occupancy by military force, 
 and invested a governor with all the authorities and functions in 
 regard to the province in question, that he legitimately possessed in 
 presiding over his own. His sympathies seemed to be strongly 
 enlisted in behalf of the king of Spain, whose prospective loss he 
 deplored in language of deep commiseration. His speech was in 
 many respects able, but it had been much more appropriately de- 
 
LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 39 
 
 livered in Madrid at the foot of the Spanish monarch's throne, and 
 in the presence of his court, than at Washington, beneath the aegis 
 of liberty, and surrounded by patriotic and intelligent freemen. 
 Mr. Clay regarded with feelings of deep regret as well as surprise, 
 this anti-republican effort, this unnatural attempt by a son of Free- 
 dom to support the unfounded pretensions of a foreign prince to a 
 portion of her own blood-bought soil, — that soil from which he 
 drew his sustenance, and on which were reared those institutions 
 that constitute it an appropriate asylum for the down-trodden of 
 every other nation beneath the canopy of heaven. Although la- 
 boring under a severe indisposition, he could not, while he posses- 
 sed the power of utterance, sit tamely still and listen to such senti- 
 ments promulgated in the very temple of liberty. He rose to reply 
 in that graceful, dignified manner, so peculiar to himself. As he 
 drew up his tall form into that commanding attitude which he was 
 accustomed to assume as preliminary to a mighty parliamentary 
 effort, it could be easily discovered in his countenance, what was 
 the nature of his feelings, and how deep the fountain of eloquence 
 had been stirred within him, whose effusions, directed with unerring 
 precision, were soon to bear his auditory away on their resistless 
 tide, to the goal on which his keen eye was fixed. This speech of 
 Mr. Clay may justly be regarded as one of the most finished spec- 
 imens of argumentative eloquence, profound investigation, purity 
 of diction, and logical reasoning, that the records of any legislative 
 body can furnish. It evinced by its demonstrative and inferential 
 character, the most thorough and patient examination of the sub- 
 ject, in all its minute details, and indicated most clearly his main 
 design to be, not a brilliant and striking display, calculated to 
 please and captivate the fancy, but to array before the senate a for- 
 midable front of facts, to hem in the whole house with a wall* of 
 adamantine argument, which could be neither scaled nor sapped \ 
 and he was completely successful. He commenced by a brief 
 exordium of the most caustic irony, which fell like molten lead 
 upon the heads of his opponents. He expressed his admiration at 
 the more than Aristidean justice which prompted certain gentle- 
 men, in a question of territorial title between the United States 
 and a foreign nation, to espouse the cause of the foreign, presuming 
 that Spain in any future negotiations, would be magnanimous 
 enough not to avail herself of these voluntary concessions in her 
 favor in the senate of the United States. He said he would leave 
 the honorable gentleman from Delaware to bewail the fallen for- 
 tunes of the king of Spain, without stopping to inquire whether 
 their loss was occasioned by treachery or not, or whether it could 
 be traced to any agency of the American government. He con- 
 fessed that he had little sympathy for princes, but that it was reser- 
 ved for the people, the great mass of mankind, and did not hesi- 
 tate to declare that the people of Spain had it most unreservedly 
 
40 LIFE OF HENRY CLAY.. 
 
 and most sincerely. He went into a minute and circumstantial 
 history of the territory in dispute, and proved by a chain of reason- 
 ing the most clear and satisfactory, that its title was in the United 
 States. In doing this he adopted that mode which the nature of 
 the subject suggested, by a critical examination of all the title pa- 
 pers, transfers, and all other documents in any way relating or ap- 
 pertaining to it. He examined the patent granted by Louis the 
 XIV to Crozat in 1712, which patent covered the province in 
 question, and declared that it was at that time designated by the 
 name of the Province of Louisiana, and was bounded on the 
 west by old and new Mexico, and on the east by Carolina. This 
 document he regarded as settling the question beyond all doubt, 
 that the country under consideration was embraced within the 
 limits of Louisiana. He proved that it originally belonged to 
 France, who claimed it by virtue of certain discoveries made by 
 La Solle and others during the seventeenth century; that she 
 ceded it to Spain in 1762, who retroceded it to France in 1800, by 
 the treaty of St. Ildefonso, and that it belonged to the United 
 Slates by purchase from her as a portion of Louisiana in 1803. 
 After the most thorough investigation, considering all the ambigu- 
 ous expressions unintentionally incorporated with the treaties 
 relating to the territory, and applying to them the most impartial 
 and rigid rules of construction, he presented the title of the United 
 States te it as most indefeasible, and as standing on a basis which 
 all the sophistry, and ingenuity, and ill-directed sympathy of the 
 opposition could not shake. He then proceeded to inquire if the 
 proclamation directing the occupation of property thus acquired by 
 solemn treaty was an unauthorized measure of war and legislation. 
 In this, his vindication of the course pursued by Mr. Madison 
 was most triumphant. He proved by citing acts of congress 
 passed in 1803-4, that the president was fully empowered to au- 
 thorize the occupation of the territory. He maintained that these 
 laws furnished ' a legislative construction of the treaty correspon- 
 dent with that given by the executive, and they vest in this branch 
 of the government indisputably a power to take possession of the 
 country whenever it might be proper in his discretion ; so far, 
 therefore, from having violated the constitution in the action he 
 had taken and caused to be taken, he had hardly carried out its 
 provisions, one of which expressly enjoined it upon him to see 
 that the laws of the United States were faithfully and impartially 
 executed, in every district of country over which she could right- 
 fully exercise jurisdiction. After settling the questions of title and 
 constitutional action of the president, he proceeded to notice 
 some of the arguments of the opposition against taking forcible 
 possession, which attempted to show that war would result. ' We 
 are told,' said he, ' of the vengeance of resuscitated Spain. If Spain, 
 under any modification of her government, choose to make war 
 
LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 41 
 
 upon us for the act under consideration, the nation, I have no 
 doubt, will be willing to meet war. But the gentleman' (Mr. 
 Horsey) ' reminds us that Great Britain, the ally of Spain, may be 
 obliged by her connection with Spain to take part with her against 
 us, and to consider this measure of the president as justifying an 
 appeal to arms. Sir, is the time never to arrive when we may 
 manage our own affairs without the fear of insulting his Britannic 
 majesty ? Ts the rod of British power to be for ever suspended 
 over our heads ? Does congress put on an embargo to shelter our 
 rightful commerce against the piratical depredations committed 
 upon it on the ocean ? we are immediately warned of the indigna- 
 tion of offended England. Is a law of non-intercourse proposed? 
 the whole navy of the haughty mistress of the seas is made to 
 thunder in our ears. Does the president refuse to continue a cor- 
 respondence with a minister who violates the decorum belonging 
 to his diplomatic character, by giving and deliberately repeating an 
 affront to the w T hole nation ? we are instantly menaced with the 
 chastisement wirich English pride will not fail to inflict. "Whether 
 we assert our rights by sea or attempt their maintenance by land — 
 whithersoever we turn ourselves, this phantom incessantly pursues 
 us. Already has it had too much influence on the councils of the 
 nation. It contributed to the repeal of the embargo — that dishon- 
 orable repeal which has so much tarnished the character of our 
 government. Mr. president, I have before said on this floor, and 
 now take occasion again to remark, that I most sincerely desire 
 peace and amity with England; that I even prefer an adjustment 
 of all differences with her, before one with any other nation. But 
 if she persist in a denial of justice to us, or if she avails herself of 
 the occupation of West Florida to commence war upon us, I trust 
 and hope that all hearts will unite in a bold and vigorous vindica- 
 tion of our rights.' The effect produced by Mr. Clay's speech was 
 most obvious, inducing many of the most strenuous opposers of 
 the course pursued by the president, who were firmly resolved on 
 recording their votes in disapproval of it, to come frankly forward 
 and candidly to acknowledge their error, and express their deter- 
 mination to sustain him in this measure. They were true to their 
 declaration, and thus the approval of the proclamation was secu- 
 red. But ' had there been at that time in the senate no democratic 
 champion like Mr. Clay — one who could stand up among the tall 
 and fierce spirits of faction to vindicate the rights of our country, 
 and utter a solemn warning in the ears of those who would wan- 
 tonly throw the key of her strength into the hands of an enemy — it 
 is difficult to say how imminently dangerous might have been the 
 present condition of the republic' 
 
 Mr. Clay's labors during the remainder of the session were ar- 
 duous and unremitted, as well as most valuable, to particular 
 individuals as well as to the nation. The discharge of his duty 
 vol* L 6 
 
42 LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 towards his country, he seems ever to have considered of the most 
 pressing importance, and it is gladdening to the heart of every true 
 American to witness the disinterested, the noble and generous 
 manner with which it was performed. In whatever relations, and 
 however circumstanced we find him, we see him presenting, in 
 this respect, one unvaried aspect. He took an active part in all the 
 discussions of consequence, where any important and essential 
 principle was involved. He was several times appointed one of a 
 committee, to whom matters of interest were referred. Here he 
 displayed accurate discrimination, soundness of judgment, and great 
 ability, in immediately discerning and seizing the strong points 
 of a subject, calculated to render conspicuous its merits or expose 
 its defects. He acted as chairman of a committee, to whom was 
 recommitted a bill, granting a right of preemption to purchasers of 
 public lands, in certain cases, and reported it with amendments, 
 which were read. After receiving some alterations, it w T as again 
 recommitted, reported, and finally passed the senate. The cause 
 of the poor settler and the hardy pioneer could not have been 
 committed to better hands — to one who would more studiously 
 and feelingly consult their best interests. Experience had made 
 him acquainted with the privations, wants, and toils, which they 
 were compelled to encounter, in causing the forest to recede before 
 their slow, fatiguing march, and this opened a wide avenue to 
 the fountain of his sympathetic feelings, which gushed sponta- 
 neously forth whenever he contemplated the evils and the difficul- 
 ties which beset their path. This he exerted himself to render as 
 smooth as possible. Hence he early and continually advocated 
 a most liberal policy towards that class of his country's yeomanry, 
 maintaining that she should extend to them every facility in her 
 power, consistent with wisdom and justice. Mr. Clay has always 
 watched the movements of the emigrant with feelings of almost 
 paternal solicitude, and wherever he has pitched his temporary 
 tent, or made his permanent abode, there he has exerted himself to 
 induce his country to extend her beneficial legislation, and to lay at 
 his door as many of the benefits of civilized life as possible, with 
 their ameliorating influences. How illiberal then, how unjust the 
 attempts of those inimical to him, to convert his noble benevolence 
 into a weapon of hostility against him, by endeavoring to procure 
 credence for those senseless reports, which represented him as un- 
 friendly to the interests of the emigrant, and as endeavoring to 
 aggrandize himself at their expense. But time is fast dispelling the 
 cloud of error, which was thus raised and caused to brood over the 
 public mind, and the sun-light of truth is pouring in its irradiating 
 beams, most clearly revealing the justice and wisdom of his advo- 
 cacy, in relation to the public domain. 
 
 His attention was engrossed by other and correlative subjects soon 
 after — that of the protection of the hardy back-woods men and 
 
LIFE OF. HENRY CLAY. 43 
 
 frontier inhabitants against Indian depreciations, and the regulating 
 of intercourse between them. He reported a bill supplementary 
 to an act entitled ' an act to regulate trade and intercourse with the 
 Indian tribes, and to preserve peace on the frontier.' This was 
 placed before a committee, of which he was chairman ; and by his 
 philanthropic exertions and diligent labors, the whole west were laid 
 under deep obligations to him, for those wise measures adopted in 
 reference to them, whereby their interests and lives were shielded 
 against the predatory attack of the aborigines. 
 
 He warmly espoused the cause of the people of Orleans Terri- 
 tory, who were desirous of forming a constitution and government. 
 Accordingly, on the twentieth of April of the same session, he 
 succeeded in causing such action to be taken relative to the sub- 
 ject, as to secure an amendment of a bill before the senate, so as 
 to require the laws, records and legislative proceedings of the 
 state, to be in the English language. A few days subsequent, 
 leave of absence was granted him during the remainder of the 
 session. 
 
 On the third day of December, 1810, the commencement of the 
 third session of the eleventh congress, Mr. Clay was found in his 
 place in the senate. A subject that had been much agitated in 
 private many months previous, and up to that time, was now 
 brought forward for public discussion — that of re-chartering the 
 United States bank. This was the all absorbing topic of the ses- 
 sion, and called into exercise Mr. Clay's most vigorous powers. 
 His instructions from the legislature of Kentucky required him to 
 oppose the re-charter of that institution, and these were in coinci- 
 dence with his own views relative to it. It had been his design to 
 limit his opposition to merely recording his vote against the renewal 
 of its charter, without entering into the discussion which would 
 probably ensue, but the virulent and menacing character of the 
 proceedings of those advocating its re-charter, unsealed his lips, 
 and caused him to apply the lash of his eloquence to their backs 
 with most tremendous effect. These embraced the whole body of 
 the federal, and many of the democratic party — an array of mem- 
 bers and strength which might have deterred any ordinary man 
 from confronting. Against this, he stood almost alone, deserted 
 even by Mr. Pope, his colleague : yet he stood firm ; and, from 
 the effect that followed his exertions, proved himself more deserving 
 the title of ' Macedonian Phalanx,' than the federal party to whom 
 he had applied it. The attack was provoked by that party, and it 
 was made in the spirit of conscious might, which not only meets 
 opposition with the utmost certainty of overthrowing, but which 
 seeks it. He alluded to that deep-seated prejudice in the public 
 mind, against the bank, and the foundation of that prejudice. It 
 did not escape his notice that the bank was created by the federal 
 party — its warmest and most devoted friends, then resorting to 
 
44 LIFE OP HENRY CLAY. 
 
 every expedient and means to prolong its existence. He was also 
 well aware of the aid rendered that party, by Mr. Crawford and 
 others, who had in this measure left the democratic ranks and gone 
 over to it. He referred, also, to the astounding fact, that the insti- 
 tution was in reality in the hands of foreigners, since foreign 
 capitalists were more deeply interested in its continuance than our 
 own, who owned a moiety only of its stock ; neither did he fail to 
 suggest, that perhaps the violent struggle then going on to keep it 
 in existence, was instigated and maintained, to no inconsiderable 
 extent, by foreign influence. In no equivocal manner he depicted 
 the absurdity, to say nothing of the danger, of permitting Great 
 Britain to acquire such an influence as she evidently could acquire, 
 by having her monetary interests, to so great an extent, identified 
 with the United States bank — an influence which would place 
 facilities in her hands, that, in case she felt disposed, she could use 
 to our most serious detriment. These and many other considera- 
 tions, he brought forward as furnishing good and valid ground of 
 alarm, and legitimately calculated to awaken patriotic opposition. 
 But his greatest fundamental objection was one which he derived 
 from the constitution itself, and one which he urged with a vehe- 
 mence sure to prevail. He maintained that no specific provision 
 was found in that instrument, authorizing or permitting the charter 
 of the bank, neither could it be so construed as to imply the power 
 to that effect. In opposing, therefore, the renewal of its charter, 
 his remarks were principally confined to the objectionable feature 
 of its unconstitutionality ; and they furnish one of the strongest 
 arguments against a national bank ever made, and one that is often 
 referred to as authority of a high order. It may be well to insert 
 a portion of his speech, illustrative of their pertinence and beauty. 
 
 1 This vagrant power to erect a bank, after having wandered 
 throughout the whole constitution in quest of some congenial spot 
 to fasten upon, has been at length located, by the gentleman from 
 Georgia, on that provision which authorized congress to lay and 
 collect taxes. In 1791 the power is referred to one part of the 
 instrument, and in 1811 to another. Sometimes it is alleged to be 
 deducible from the power to regulate commerce. Hard pressed 
 here, it disappears, and shows itself under the grant to coin money. 
 
 ' What is the nature of the government ? It is emphatically 
 federal, vested with an aggregate of specific powers for general 
 purposes, conceded by existing sovereignties, who have themselves 
 retained what is not so conceded. It is said that there are cases in 
 which it must act on implied powers. This is not controverted, 
 but the implication must be necessary, and obviously flow from 
 the enumerated power with which it is allied. The power to 
 charter companies is not specified in the grant, and I contend is 
 of a nature not transferable by mere implication. It is one of the 
 most exalted acts of sovereignty. In the exercise of this gigantic 
 
LIFEOFHENRYCLAY. 45 
 
 power we have seen an East India Company erected, which has 
 carried dismay, desolation and death, throughout one of the largest 
 portions of the habitable world — a company which is in itself a 
 sovereignty, which has subverted empires, and set up new dynas- 
 ties, and has not only made war, but war against its legitimate 
 sovereign. Under the influence of this power we have seen arise 
 a South Sea Company, and a Mississippi Company, that distrac- 
 ted and convulsed all Europe, and menaced a total overthrow of 
 all credit and confidence, and universal bankruptcy. Is it to be 
 imagined that a power so vast would have been left by the consti- 
 tution to doubtful inference ? It has been alleged that there are 
 many instances in the constitution, where powers in their nature 
 incidental, and which would necessarily have been vested along 
 with the principal, are nevertheless expressly enumerated, and the 
 power to make rules and regulations for the government of the 
 land and naval forces, which it is said is incidental to the power to 
 raise armies and provide a navy, is given as an example. What 
 does this prove ? How extremely cautious the convention were to 
 leave as little as possible to implication. In all cases where inci- 
 dental powers are acted on, the principal and incidental ought to 
 be congenial with each other, and partake of a common nature. 
 The incidental power ought to be strictly subordinate, and limited 
 to the end proposed to be attained by the specific power. In other 
 words, under the name of accomplishing one object which is spe- 
 cified, the power implied ought not to be made to embrace other 
 objects which are not specified in the constitution. If then, as is 
 contended, you could establish a bank to collect and distribute the 
 revenue, it ought to be expressly restricted to the purpose of such 
 collection and distribution. It is mockery worse than usurpation, 
 to establish it for a lawful object, and then to extend it to other 
 objects which are not lawful. In deducing the power to create 
 corporations, such as I have described it, from the power to collect 
 taxes, the relation of principal and incident are prostrated and 
 destroyed. The accessory is exalted above the principal. As well 
 might it be said that the great luminary of day is an accessory, a 
 satellite to the humblest star that twinkles forth its feeble light in the 
 firmament of heaven. 
 
 1 Suppose the constitution had been silent as to an individual 
 department of the government, could you, under the power to lay 
 and collect taxes, establish a judiciary? I presume not; but if 
 you could derive the power by mere implication, could you vest it 
 with any other authority than to enforce the collection of the reve- 
 nue? A bank is made for the ostensible purpose of aiding in the 
 collection of the revenue, and whilst it is engaged in this, the most 
 inferior and subordinate of all its functions, it is made to diffuse 
 itself throughout society, and to influence all the great operations 
 of credit, circulation, and commerce. Like the Virginia justice, 
 
46 LIFE OF HENRY CLAY, 
 
 you tell the man whose turkey had been stolen, that your books of 
 precedents furnish no form for his case, but then you will grant 
 him a precept to search for a cow, and when looking for that lie 
 may possibly find his turkey ! You say to this corporation, we 
 cannot authorize you to discount — to emit paper — to regulate 
 commerce — no! our book has no precedents of that kind. But 
 then we can authorize you to collect the revenue, and whilst occu- 
 pied with that, you may do whatever else you please. 
 
 ' What is a corporation, such as the bill contemplates ? It is a 
 splendid association of favored individuals, taken from the mass 
 of society, and invested with exemptions, and surrounded by im- 
 munities and privileges. The honorable gendeman from Massa- 
 chusetts has said that the original law establishing the bank was 
 justly liable to the objection of vesting in that institution an exclu- 
 sive privilege, — the faith of the government being pledged that no 
 other bank should be authorized during its existence. This objec- 
 tion, he supposes, is obviated by the bill under consideration ; but 
 all corporations enjoy exclusive privileges — that is, the corporators 
 have privileges which no others possess ; if you create fifty corpo- 
 rations instead of one, you have only fifty privileged bodies instead 
 of one. I contend that the states have the exclusive power to 
 regulate contracts, to declare the capacities and incapacities to con- 
 tract, and to provide as to the extent of the responsibility of debtors 
 to their creditors. If congress have the power to create an artifi- 
 cial body and say it shall be endowed with the attributes of an 
 individual, if you can bestow on this object of your own creation 
 the ability to contract, may you not in contravention of state rights 
 confer upon slaves, infants, and femes covert, the ability to con- 
 tract? And if you have the power to say that an association of 
 individuals shall be responsible for their debts only in a certain 
 limited degree, what is to prevent an extension of a similar exemp- 
 tion to individuals ? Where is the limitation upon this power to 
 set up corporations ? You establish one in the heart of a state, 
 the basis of whose capital is money. You may erect others, whose 
 capital shall consist of land, slaves, and personal estate, and thus 
 the whole property within the jurisdiction of a state might be 
 absorbed by those political bodies. The existing bank contends 
 that it is beyond the power of a state to tax it, and if this preten- 
 sion be well founded, it is in the power of congress by chartering 
 companies to dry up all the sources of state revenue. This gov- 
 ernment has the power to lay taxes, to raise armies, provide muni- 
 tions, make war, regulate commerce, coin money, etc., etc. It 
 would not be difficult to show as intimate a connection between a 
 corporation established for any purpose whatever, and some one or 
 other of those great powers, as there is between the revenue and 
 the bank of the United States.' 
 
 Mr. Clay noticed the danger to which the United States were 
 
LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 47 
 
 exposed from the fact that the capital of the bank was principally- 
 subject to foreign control, in the following glowing language. 
 
 ' The power of a nation is said to consist in the sword and the 
 purse. Perhaps at last all power is resolvable into that of the 
 purse, for with it you may command almost every thing else. The 
 specie circulation of the United States is estimated by some cal- 
 culators at ten millions of dollars; and if it be no more, one 
 moiety is in the vaults of this bank. May not the time arrive 
 when the concentration of such a vast portion of the circulating 
 medium of the country in the hands of any corporation will be 
 dangerous to our liberties? By whom is this immense power 
 wielded ? By a body who, in derogation of the great principle of 
 all our institutions, responsibility to the people, is amenable only 
 to a few stockholders, and they chiefly foreigners. Suppose an 
 attempt to subvert this government — would not the traitor first aim, 
 by force or corruption, to acquire the treasure of this company ? 
 Look at it in another aspect. Seven tenths of its capital are in 
 the hands of foreigners, chiefly English subjects. We are possi- 
 bly on the eve of a rupture with that nation. Should such an 
 event occur, do you apprehend that the English premier would 
 experience any difficulty in obtaining the entire control of the insti- 
 tution. Republics, above all other governments, ought most seri- 
 ously to guard against foreign influence. All history proves that 
 the internal dissensions excited by foreign intrigue, have produced 
 the downfall of almost every free government that has hitherto 
 existed ; and yet gentlemen contend that we are benefited by the 
 possession of this foreign capital ! ' 
 
 His powerful arguments and convincing reasoning prevailed — 
 resulting in a most signal victory over those opposed to him, who) 
 entered on the discussion with sanguine expectations of success. \ 
 The charter was not then renewed. Many more subjects of interest / 
 came before the senate during the session of 1810-11, in the consider- 
 ation of which he displayed his usual zeal and solicitude in behalf of 
 the interests of the commonwealth, which were now with favor 
 generally recognized. Mr. Clay had produced an impression of 
 his eloquent powers and brilliant talents, that was not confined to 
 his associates and those witnessing their every day exercise, but it _ 
 was as extensive as his country. His reputation as a debater, S- 
 orator, and sound logical reasoner, was now immovably established, y 
 The star of his fame, which first appeared in the political horizon, 
 under circumstances of doubt and gloom, struggling through dense 
 clouds of indigence and obscurity, emitting what political animos- 
 ity termed an ignis fatiws glare around the cabins of the emigrant 
 and the hunter in western forests, was now in the ascendant, illu- 
 minating and vivifying, not only the woody homes, the rural ham- 
 lets, and sylvan abodes of his own forest land, but mingling its 
 bright beams most beautifully with those that streamed from 
 
48 LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 Liberty's altar. Henceforth it will be our delightful duty to mark it 
 steadily careering its glorious way upwards, higher and higher, 
 making its blessed influences to be felt in every nook and corner 
 of our extensive country, penetrating the kingly court, flashing 
 amid the diadems of crowned heads, and introducing hope and 
 peace into the tenement of the oppressed on distant shores. It 
 requires no prophetic skill to predict, from present indications, that it 
 is rapidly approaching the zenith, when (every philanthropic heart 
 will hope) its effulgence shall illumine the globe. 
 
 At the close of his second term of service, which was for two 
 years, he returned to Kentucky, but his fame had preceded him — 
 the eyes of Kentuckians had been fixed gratefully on him daring 
 his senatorial services, and they were prepared to return him speed- 
 ily to the halls of congress, to adorn which, he had given such 
 abundant proof of his capability. According to the proclamation 
 of the president, congress convened on the fourth day of Novem- 
 ber, 1811, and on the first ballot for speaker to the house of repre- 
 sentatives, Mr. Clay was elected by a majority of thirty-one over 
 the opposing candidates. When it is recollected that this was his 
 first appearance in that body, it must be regarded as a remarkable 
 occurrence, and entirely aside from the ordinary course of events ; 
 indeed, as an instance of early and strong confidence reposed in 
 one, to which a parallel cannot be found in the history of any indi- 
 vidual. There were many circumstances, however, explanatory of 
 this hasty, unreserved reliance. He was known to have acted in 
 that capacity in the legislature of Kentucky, and to have discharged 
 its duties with singular ability and acceptance ; also of his con- 
 spicuity in the senate they were not ignorant, and perhaps a desire 
 to see Mr. Randolph, of Virginia, restrained in his gross violations 
 of order and decorum, for which he was noted, whom it was 
 imagined Mr. Clay could curb, induced several members to vote 
 for him, who otherwise had not supported him for the office. 
 That confidence so generously, spontaneously, and by him so unex- 
 pectedly yielded, he very appropriately noticed, in a pertinent speech 
 made by him on assuming the responsible station, and he proved 
 by his faithfulness, zeal, and decision, with which he discharged its 
 onerous duties, that it was most judiciously confided. He showed 
 himself equal to the task of curbing Mr. John Randolph, or any 
 other turbulent spirit in the assembly over which he presided. He 
 was subsequently chosen several times to fill the same important 
 post, and never did he betray his trust, or disappoint the just expec- 
 tations of his friends. The manner in which he exercised his 
 authority may be considered as somewhat stern, slightly approxi- 
 mating to arbitrariness, evincing great decision and firmness of 
 character, and a disposition not to tolerate the slightest disrespect 
 or indignity towards the house. During the long period in which 
 he discharged the functions of speaker, including many sessions 
 
LIFE OF HENRY CLAY, 49 
 
 of great turbulence and strife, not one of his decisions was ever 
 reversed on an appeal from the chair. This fact speaks volumes 
 in his praise. 
 
 At the time when he was inducted into his office, the affairs of 
 the republic were in an exceedingly critical condition. Those 
 who had been sustaining themselves with the cherished expecta- 
 tions that England would repeal her orders in council, since the 
 revocation of the edicts of France had removed the causes 
 inducing their passage, now utterly abandoned them, on beholding 
 her, instead of relaxing, enforcing them more rigorously than ever. 
 To every unbiassed mind, the time seemed to have arrived when 
 it was necessary to rise and put a stop to the long series of unpro- 
 voked depredations and outrages, committed against our com- 
 merce, by both that and the French nation. Such was the juncture 
 of affairs as to make it obvious that if the American nation would 
 preserve the semblance of freedom even, and command national 
 respect, she must resort to more efficient measures than she had 
 hitherto employed ; that she must retrieve her tarnished honor, and 
 vindicate boldly her rights. France manifested some disposition 
 to be influenced by the remonstrances of the United States- against 
 her spoliations, by rescinding the opprobious Berlin and Milan 
 decrees of Napoleon, which she had so construed as to make them 
 sanction the seizure and confiscation of our property. Not so, 
 however, with Great Britain ; she refused to recognize their repeal, 
 and even pretended to deny that they had been revoked. She still 
 persisted in obstructing the commerce of America, declaring all 
 the ports of France in a state of blockade, seizing our merchant- 
 men bound to them, and confiscating their cargoes, in direct viola- 
 tion of the law of nations, permitting any neutral power to trade 
 to any foreign port, when the blockade is not maintained by the 
 actual presence of an adequate force. But England, by proclama- 
 tion, blockaded every French port, from the Elbe to Brest, inter- 
 dicting all vessels from entering them which did not carry on their 
 trade through her, and seized such as made the attempt, while at 
 the same time she neglected to keep a naval force on the coast of 
 France sufficient to legalize the blockade. Her cruisers pursued 
 our trading vessels to the very mouths of our own rivers and har- 
 bors, and seized, condemned, and confiscated them for violating 
 this pseudo blockade. It seemed, by the number and enormity of 
 the illegalities practiced towards us by Great Britain, as though 
 she had commenced an organized, systematic crusade against our 
 commerce, which aimed at nothing less than its utter extinction. 
 But her barbarous system of impressment capped the climax of 
 her cruelties. Under the assumed right of searching our ships, 
 thousands of our seamen had been forced into her service on 
 suspicion that they were British subjects. This execrable cus- 
 tom had carried steven thousand American freemen into cap- 
 
 VOLi h 7 
 
50 LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 tivity, as appeared from official reports made during that session, 
 and the number was constantly augmenting ; scarcely a breeze 
 came across the Atlantic without wafting to our shores intelligence 
 of some fresh enormity. To submit quietly to such unheard of 
 oppression, would be an anomaly in the history of civilized nations. 
 To expect redress by mild measures was out of the question. 
 These had long been tried and found ineffectual. Madison, Pinck- 
 ney, and Monroe, in their correspondence with the British govern- 
 ment, had remonstrated again and again, but to no other purpose 
 than to embolden the aggressor in his nefarious proceedings. 
 There seemed, therefore, no alternative left the United States but 
 to put themselves strongly on the defensive, and by force of arms, 
 put a stop to these accumulating injuries. Every thing lovely in 
 liberty, every thing sacred and hallowed in the memory of those 
 by whom it was won, protested against further forbearance, and 
 forbade further delay in unsheathing the sword of retributive 
 justice. In short, the conviction had become deep and settled that 
 nothing short of war could preserve an inch of canvass on an 
 American vessel, on the face of the ocean. 
 
 Thus circumstanced, the United States seemed to be shut up to 
 forcible resistance. The eyes of the whole country were turned 
 towards congress, looking for measures of relief. It had been con- 
 vened earlier than usual, that the subject of a declaration of war 
 might come speedily before them. It is needless to remark that 
 Mr. Clay's views were favorable to war. An individual like him, 
 jealous of his country's honor almost to a fault, who could never 
 contemplate oppression but with feelings of the deepest detestation, 
 nor without experiencing the instantaneous desire to punish it ; 
 would grasp the weapons of defence instinctively, and if neces- 
 sary, pour out his blood like water, rather than bow submissively 
 beneath the galling yoke. With him, then, there was no equivoca- 
 tion nor hesitation, in advocating prompt warlike action, although 
 he was compelled to do it in the face of formidable opposition. 
 There was a strong party in the United States at that time, friendly 
 to Great Britain, and disposed, rather than array themselves against 
 her in a sanguinary conflict, to submit quietly to her rapacious 
 attacks upon our liberties and lives. This party was well repre- 
 sented in congress. Many members of talent and influence were 
 found in its ranks, in both houses, and they did not hesitate to 
 employ them detrimentally to the interests of their country. But 
 happily these found in him a giant champion — one who Was well 
 able to guard them, and willing to spend his last energy in their 
 support. Lowndes, Calhoun, and other powerful coadjutors also 
 stood with him, who labored hard to inspire the same ardent flame 
 of patriotism in the breasts of others, that burned so intensely in 
 their own. 
 
 In the message of the president, the causes of complaint against 
 
LIFE OP HENRY CLAY. 51 
 
 Great Britain were stated, and also a concise summary of the 
 abuses we had received, and were then receiving at her hands. It 
 recommended the adoption of efficient and immediate measures 
 of redress, by providing the means of prosecuting vigorously a war 
 of defence and offence. This document was referred to a com- 
 mittee, which was selected by him. He was extremely solicitous 
 that the subject of our foreign relations should receive that consid- 
 eration which their exceedingly interesting character demanded ; 
 and to secure this, he was careful to choose those whose views, in 
 reference to them, coincided with his own. Peter B. Porter, of New 
 York, was the chairman of the committee. He presented their 
 report to the house on the 29th of November. It stated succinctly 
 and in a patriotic tone, the injuries we had received at the hands 
 of both England and France, denominating them as ' so daring in 
 character, and so disgraceful in execution, that it would be impos- 
 sible for the people of the United States to remain indifferent. 
 We must now tamely and quietly submit, or we must resist by 
 those means which God has placed within our reach. Your com- 
 mittee would not cast a slander over the American name, by the 
 expression of a doubt which branch of this alternative will be 
 embraced. The occasion is now presented when the national 
 character, misrepresented and traduced for a time, by foreign 
 and domestic enemies, should be vindicated. 
 
 < If we have not rushed to the field of battle like the nations 
 who are led by the mad ambition of a single chief, or the avarice 
 of a corrupted court, it has not proceeded from a fear of war, 
 but from our love of justice and humanity. That proud spirit 
 of liberty and independence, which sustained our fathers in the 
 successful assertion of their rights against foreign aggression, 
 is not yet sunk. The patriotic fire of the revolution still burns in 
 the American breast, with a holy and inextinguishable flame, and 
 will conduct this nation to those high destinies which are not less 
 the reward of dignified moderation than of exalted virtue. 
 
 1 But we have borne with injury until forbearance has ceased to 
 be a virtue. The sovereignty and independence of these states, pur- 
 chased and sanctified by the blood of our fathers, from whom we 
 received them, not for ourselves only, but as the inheritance of our 
 posterity, are deliberately and systematically violated. And the 
 period has arrived, when, in the opinion of your committee, it is 
 the sacred duty of congress to call forth the patriotism and resour- 
 ces of the country. By the aid of these, and with the blessing of 
 God, we confidently trust we shall be enabled to procure that 
 redress which has been sought for by justice, by remonstrance and 
 forbearance, in vain.' 
 
 They introduced into the report suitable resolutions for accom- 
 plishing the object which it proposed, which received the deliberate 
 and careful consideration of the house. 
 
52 LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 Mr. Clay, being in the chair, had little opportunity to engage in 
 the stirring debate that followed, yet he seemed to infuse a portion 
 of his own glowing spirit into the friends of the measure, which 
 caused others to approach it in the most determined resolution of 
 sustaining any feasible and just course calculated to sustain the 
 dignity and honor of the nation. The doctrines of the report were 
 soon known throughout the country, and were hailed by the great 
 mass of the people with every demonstration of approbation, and 
 the echoes of their loud rejoicings rang back through the halls of 
 congress like the tones of the ' storm stirred deep,' with most 
 thrilling effect on the hearts of their representatives. The whole 
 nation was kindled into a blaze by that document; it was what the 
 people had been expecting, and impatiently waiting for. This 
 applied the last bundle of fagots to the flame of patriotism that 
 burned in the hearts of millions remote from the neighborhood of 
 the outrages complained of, the extent and enormity of which, 
 vague rumor only had conveyed to them. But this instrument 
 made them acquainted, not only with their number, but also with 
 their turpitude and murderous design. It showed them, on the one 
 hand, the haughty, menacing attitude of England, and on the other, 
 our own crouching, succumbing posture at her feet. It placed in 
 bold relief before them, the babaric depredations of the former on 
 the ocean, her inhuman treatment of our seamen, and the huge 
 paw of her lion tearing and lacerating our commercial interests 
 whenever it could be placed upon them. The exhibition was 
 viewed with feelings of surprise and indignation, causing them 
 to stand aghast, and with difficulty to credit the evidence of their 
 senses — to believe the picture accurately drawn. But the period 
 of their stupified amazement was brief, and then the loud yell of 
 vengeance which succeeded, was such as freemen only can send up 
 when the iron heel of oppression is on their necks, and their 
 precious heritage in his ravenous jaws. Like the earthquake, it shook 
 the whole land, and its burden, repeated from every hill-top and 
 valley, was war, vindictive war. For this there was great una- 
 nimity among the populace, who could not rest, now that the 
 knowledge of the long-inflicted wrongs was brought to their 
 dwellings; but there was not a corresponding unanimity in congress. 
 It was painful to Mr. Clay to witness, in some members, a mani- 
 festation of awe and reverence even towards Great Britain, and in 
 others, feelings of favor. By the revelations that had been made, 
 his soul was wrought up to the highest point of manly and bold 
 resistance, and he could not conceive it possible, that free legisla- 
 tors, similarly circumstanced with himself, could be affected 
 otherwise. In many he witnessed a disposition to believe that the 
 country was not in a suitable condition to commence and carry 
 successfully on a war with so formidable a power as England. Our 
 small and badly equipped army, our depressed navy, exhaust- 
 
LIFE OP HENRY CLAY. 53 
 
 ed treasury, heavy indebtedness, and general lack of the requisite 
 means, were pleaded by those opposed to the rupture. But 
 Mr. Clay, in the towering majesty and strength of an intellectual 
 giant, took all the obstacles and objections which their combined 
 force could bring forward, in his powerful grasp, and compressed 
 them into a nut-shell, entirely divested of their intimidating power. 
 Among those opposed to war was Mr. Randolph. ' Mr. Ran- 
 dolph's intellect was then in its vigor, and the effort which he 
 made in opposition to the report of the committee was perhaps 
 the greatest in his whole congressional life. The extensive 
 resources of his mind, the stately march of his eloquent periods, the 
 s f artling flashes of his indignation, and the sneering devil that 
 lurked in his tone and look, rendered him an opponent at that 
 day, whom it was by no means safe to encounter. Mr. Clay was 
 the only man in the house, who could dash aside, with unerring 
 certainty, the weapons of this Ishmael.' 
 
 On the sixth of December the house resolved itself into a com- 
 mittee of the whole, and took up the report. After a brief speech 
 from Mr. Porter, elucidating and maintaining its positions and reso- 
 lutions, it was adopted. It furnished ground of discussion in the 
 house for several days, warmly and vigorously sustained by its 
 friends, and violently opposed by its enemies. Among the latter, 
 Mr. Randolph rendered himself the most conspicuous, both by his 
 anti-republican and eccentric views, and the hostility evinced by 
 him towards all who dissented from them, whom he visited 
 with the most bitter personal invective. His fertile imagination 
 conjured up a host of reasons, to deter us from embarking in the 
 offensive war, which the report recommended. He threatened the 
 advocates of it with the total loss of their political power, and 
 magnified the might of England to an overwhelming extent; 
 suggesting that it would be far more appropriate to approach her 
 in a suppliant position, with downcast looks and folded arms, 
 than to rush with shield and buckler and rashly dare her to the 
 conflict. He seemed to sympathize with Great Britain, deprecating 
 that censure heaped upon her as unjust, and advocated the 
 policy of farther negotiations with her. His arguments, and 
 those of his friends, were, however, unavailing, and when the 
 debate ceased, the resolutions were separately adopted by large 
 majorities. 
 
 On the thirty-first of December, the house again resolved itself 
 into a committee of the whole on a bill from the senate providing 
 for the raising of twenty-five thousand troops. Mr. Breckenridge 
 being in the chair, an opportunity was furnished Mr. Clay to 
 express his views in relation to it, which he embraced. Among 
 those in favor of war in the house, much diversity of opinion 
 prevailed in regard to the number of men it was desirable to raise. 
 Many were in favor of fifteen thousand only — a force in his 
 
54 LIFEOFHENRYCLAY. 
 
 estimation by far too small to meet the exigences which had then 
 arisen, and would be likely to arise. The secretary of war, in his 
 report, had stated that at least twelve thousand troops would be 
 wanted for the sole purpose of garrisoning the fortresses on the 
 sea-board. During the progress of the proposed war, it might be 
 deemed important to attack and subjugate Quebec in Canada, in 
 which case it would be necessary, he contended, to post in the 
 various military stations of strength on the route, a considerable 
 number of men, to retain their possession. Allowances he 
 thought should be made for the various contingences probable to 
 occur, always incident to the operations of an army, and calcula- 
 ted to diminish their number. Even if the projected invasion of 
 the British Provinces should be abandoned, Mr. Clay contended 
 that the single circumstance of the immense extent of frontier to 
 be guarded, rendered it obvious that twenty-five thousand men 
 would constitute a force by no means too large. Inasmuch as it 
 was the painful but imperative duty of America to strike the blow, 
 he was in favor of so concentrating her energies, that when it fell, 
 there would remain no necessity for its repetition. Subsequent 
 events have proved his policy both wise and sagacious. 
 
 Mr. Randolph mingled his erratic and visionary views in the 
 discussion, and exerted himself to the utmost, to foment prejudice 
 against a regular army ; the effect of which would be worse than 
 that of the locusts of Egypt, famishing, impoverishing, and de- 
 luging the country with blood, and erect a throne to some idol 
 conqueror. Said Mr. Clay in reply, ' I am not the advocate of 
 standing armies: but the standing armies which excite most 
 my fears, are those which are kept up in time of peace. I confess 
 I do not perceive any real source of danger in a military force of 
 twenty-five thousand men in the United States, provided only for 
 a state of war, even supposing it to be corrupted, and its arms 
 turned by the ambition of its leaders against the freedom of the 
 country. I see abundant security against any such treasonable 
 attempt. The diffusion of information among the great body of 
 the people, constitutes a powerful safeguard. The American char- 
 acter has been much abused by Europeans, whose tourists, whether 
 on horse or foot, in verse and prose have united in depreciating it. 
 It is true we do not exhibit as many signal instances of scientific 
 acquirement in this country, as are furnished in the old world, but 
 it is undeniable that the great mass of the people possess more 
 intelligence than any other people on the globe. Such a people, 
 consisting of upwards of seven millions, affording a physical 
 power of about a million of men capable of bearing arms, and 
 ardently devoted to liberty, cannot be subdued by an army of 
 twenty-five thousand men. The wide extent of country over 
 which we are spread, is another security. In other countries, 
 France and England for example, the fall of Paris or London is 
 
LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 55 
 
 the fall of the nation. Here are no such dangerous aggregations 
 of people. New York, and Philadelphia, and Boston, and every 
 city on the Atlantic, may be subdued by a usurper, and he will 
 have made but a small advance in the accomplishment of his pur- 
 pose. Even let the whole country east of the Alleghany, submit 
 to the ambition of some daring chief, and the liberty of the Union 
 will be still unconquered. It will find successful support from 
 the west. A great portion of the militia, nearly the whole, I 
 understand, of Massachusetts, have arms in their hands, and I 
 trust in God that this great object will be persevered in, till every 
 man in the nation can proudly shoulder the musket, which is to 
 defend his country and himself. A people having, besides the 
 benefit of one general government, other local governments in full 
 operation, capable of exerting and commanding great portions of 
 the physical power, all of which must be prostated before our con- 
 stitution is subverted — such a people have nothing to fear from a 
 petty contemptible force of twenty-five thousand regulars.' 
 
 Many of the opposition affected to believe that the interests of 
 the country would not be subserved, whether the war eventuated 
 in her favor, or that of her enemy ; they could see nothing to be 
 gained by it ; to which Mr. Clay said, ' I will ask what are we not 
 to lose by peace ? — commerce, character, a nation's best treasure 
 and honor ! If pecuniary considerations alone are to govern, there 
 are sufficient motives for the war. Our revenue is reduced by the 
 operation of the belligerent edicts, to about six millions of dollars. 
 The year preceding the embargo, it was sixteen. Take away the 
 orders in council, it will again mount up to sixteen millions. By 
 continuing, therefore, in peace — if the mongrel situation in which 
 we are deserves that denomination — we lose annually, in revenue 
 alone, ten millions of dollars. Gentlemen will say, repeal the law 
 of non-importation. If the United States were capable of that 
 perfidy, the revenue would not be restored to its former state, the 
 orders in council continuing. Without an export trade, which these 
 orders prevent, inevitable ruin will ensue if we import as freely as 
 we did prior to the embargo. A nation that carries on an import 
 trade without an export trade to support it, must in the end be as 
 certainly bankrupt, as the individual would be who incurred an 
 annual expenditure without an income.' 
 
 Mr. Clay contended that England, in assigning the cause of her 
 aggressions to be the punishment of France, with whom she was 
 at war, was practicing a deceptive part ; that this was her ostensi- 
 ble and not real course. It was her inordinate desire of supremacy 
 on the seas, which could not brook any appearance of rivalry, that 
 prompted her hostilities. She saw in your numberless ships, 
 which whitened every sea, in your hundred and twenty thousand 
 gallant tars, the seeds of a naval force, which, in thirty years, would 
 rival her on her own element. She therefore commenced the odious 
 
56 LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 system of impressment, of which no language can paint my execra- 
 tion! She dared to attempt the subversion of the personal freedom 
 of your mariners ! ' 
 
 He closed by expressing his decided conviction of the justice of 
 the undertaking, and hoping that unless redress was obtained by 
 peaceable means speedily, war would be resorted to before the 
 close of the session. 
 
 On the fourth of January following, the bill passed the house, 
 after several ineffectual attempts to introduce amendments, by a 
 vote of ninety-four to thirty-four, several voting for, who at the 
 commencement of the discussion were bitterly opposed to it. 
 This was the initiatory step taken by the government in relation 
 to the war. 
 
 On the twenty-second of the same month, the committee to 
 whom that portion of the president's message was referred that 
 contemplated a naval establishment, reported a bill in favor of its 
 increase. To this also Mr. Clay gave his most vigorous support, 
 advocating the construction of several warlike vessels, combating 
 the many specious objections of those opposed to its increase, and 
 showed clearly their fallacy. He described three degrees of naval 
 power. The first was one of sufficient magnitude and strength as 
 would enable us to go forth and successfully cope with that of any 
 belligerent nation on the globe. But such a force, he contended, 
 it was out of the power of the American nation to raise, neither 
 under her present circumstances was it particularly desirable. 
 
 The second, was one by which we should be able to beat off 
 any naval force or armament which Great Britain, or any other 
 nation, might be able to send to and permanently station on our 
 coasts. The force requisite would be about one third of that 
 despatched by the foreign nation, according to nautical experience. 
 He estimated that twelve line-of-battle ships and fifteen or twenty 
 frigates would be sufficient to keep at bay the most formidable 
 fleet England could send against us and maintain in American 
 waters, during her conflict with European powers. A naval force 
 like that, however, he admitted could not be raised then, but he 
 urged congress to take such measures as should secure its con- 
 struction as soon as possible, and estimated that its completion 
 might be confidently expected in a few years. To him there was 
 nothing in the vast extent of Great Britain's naval resources intim- 
 idating. He maintained that her great distance from us, the 
 perils which would environ a squadron on a foreign shore, and the 
 ease with which, from the extent of our sea-coast, we could harass 
 or escape an enemy, furnished proof sufficient to convince any 
 unprejudiced mind, that we should be able very soon to assemble 
 a navy capable of maintaining all our maritime rights and interests. 
 The correctness of Mr. Clay's views has since been amply veri- 
 fied, and the accuracy with which he foresaw and foretold future 
 
LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 57 
 
 events shows him to have been gifted with no ordinary degree of 
 prescience. 
 
 The third degree of naval force, Mr. Clay regarded as entirely 
 in the power of the nation to raise and sustain. It was a force 
 competent to prevent any single vessel, however large, from inter- 
 rupting our coasting trade, from entering our harbors, and levying 
 contributions from our large cities. This he argued and proved 
 w r as within the immediate means of the nation, although vigor- 
 ously opposed by those hostile to the war. He triumphed, how- 
 ever, singularly over them, reprobating with severity the policy 
 that refused to provide a'gainst any dangers because it could not 
 guard against all. 'If,' said he, 'we are not able to meet the 
 gathered wolves of the forest, shall we put up with the barking 
 impudence of every petty cur that trips across our way ? ' 
 
 It was Mr. Clay's ardent desire to provide a navy whose power 
 should be commensurate with the interest it was designed to pro- 
 tect. This, our limited means in actual possession, the unavaila- 
 bility of those in our immediate vicinity, but above all, the depress- 
 ing tendency on our financial department of those measures 
 of inhuman cruelty towards our mariners on the one hand, and 
 of arbitrary commercial exactions on the other by transatlantic 
 powers, forbade us to expect. His remarks at that time in rela- 
 tion to this branch of our national defence, are worthy of the most 
 attentive perusal. They abound with lucid argument, beautiful 
 illustration, and convincing demonstration, with which it would 
 be difficult to find a speech of similar length more replete. 
 
 It was an invariable rule with Mr. Clay, from which we find no 
 instance of his deviation, whenever he investigated a measure of a 
 public nature, to determine first accurately its bearing upon the 
 whole community ; how the happiness and prosperity of the nation 
 would be affected by its introduction ; and in the second place to 
 graduate his efforts accordingly. Although rich in mental resources, 
 possessing an inexhaustible intellectual mine, and an unfailing 
 fountain of eloquence, he never drew largely on these when a 
 subject of chimerical sectional importance came before him. It 
 was only when one involving the public honor or dishonor arose 
 — one on which the destinies of the republic were suspended — 
 one which aimed at subverting or upholding the liberties of the 
 people — that he made great drafts on them. He never wandered 
 through the interminable wilds of diffuse debate, undetermined 
 and undirected. As a skilful physician ascertains the state of his 
 patient before prescribing for him, so Mr. Clay, previous to legisla- 
 tion, carefully scanned the social, civil, and political condition of 
 the whole region for which he was to legislate, and then, without 
 any meandering or circumlocution, procured and applied the appro- 
 priate remedy. Though often found amid the dust of debate, it 
 was not of his own raising. The caballers of faction, the more 
 vol. i. 8 
 
58 LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 easily to accomplish their base designs, often darkened the political 
 atmosphere, which one blast of his eloquence seldom failed to 
 purify. Perhaps at no previous period in our political history 
 were demagogues, both in and out of congress, more busily or 
 violently engaged than at this. Disclosures of the most astound- 
 ing character had been made, and were making, by which it ap- 
 peared that there were those who waited only for a suitable occa- 
 sion to barter away their country's freedom for foreign gold. The 
 arguments of those who opposed an increase of our navy were of 
 such a nature as to cause their patriotism to be questioned. No* 
 withstanding it was a fact which could not be concealed, that our 
 sea-coast was entirely defenceless and exposed to the ravages of a 
 hostile nation, and our commerce crippled, many contended that 
 nothing beneficial could be realized from such increase, and even 
 went so far as to say that our foreign commerce was not worth 
 protecting. Mr. Clay was convinced that it was the most provi- 
 dent measure that could under the then existing circumstances be 
 adopted, and advocated it with a zeal and energy that knew no 
 bounds. He demonstrated its necessity, not only to the Atlantic 
 states, but to the vast west. * If, ' said he, ' there be a point more 
 than any other in the United States demanding the aid of naval 
 protection, that point is the mouth of the Mississippi. The popu- 
 lation of the whole western country are dependent on this single 
 outlet for their surplus productions. These productions can be 
 transported in no other way. Close the mouth of the Mississippi, 
 and their export trade is annihilated. Abandon all idea of pro- 
 tecting by maratime force the mouth of the Mississippi, and we shall 
 hold the inestimable right of the navigation of that river by the 
 most precarious tenure. The whole commerce of the Mississippi, 
 a commerce that is destined to be the richest that was ever 
 borne by a single stream, is placed at the mercy of a single 
 ship lying off the Balize ! Can gentlemen, particularly from 
 the western country, contemplate such possible, nay probable 
 events, without desiring to see at least the commencement of 
 such a naval establishment as will effectually protect the Missis- 
 sippi ? ' He showed the intimate connection of commerce with a 
 navy, by saying that 'a marine is the natural, the appropriate 
 guardian of foreign commerce. The shepherd and his faithful 
 dog are not more necessary to guard the flocks that browse and 
 gambol on the neighboring mountain. Neglect to provide the one, 
 and you must abandon the other. Suppose the expected war with 
 Great Britain is commenced — you enter and subjugate Canada, 
 and she still refuses to do you justice — what other possible mode 
 will remain to operate on the enemy, but upon that element where 
 alone you can come in contact with her? And if you do not 
 prepare to protect there your own commerce and to assail his, 
 will he not sweep from the ocean every vessel bearing your flag, 
 
LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 59 
 
 and destroy even the coasting trade ? ' To the argument that 
 foreign trade was not worth protecting, he asked, ' What is this 
 foreign commerce that has suddenly become so inconsiderable ? It 
 has with very trifling aid from other sources, defrayed the expen- 
 ses of the government ever since the adoption of the present con- 
 stitution, maintained an expensive and successful war with the 
 Indians, a war with the Barbary powers, a quasi war with 
 France, sustained the charges of suppressing two insurrections, 
 and extinguishing upwards of forty-six millions of the public debt. 
 In revenue, it has since the year 1789 yielded one hundred and 
 ninety-one millions of dollars.' Alluding to the eminent danger 
 of our commercial metropolis, he remarked, < Is there a reflecting 
 man in the nation who would not charge congress with a culpable 
 neglect of its duty, if for the want of such a force a single ship 
 were to bombard one of our cities ? Would not every honorable 
 member of the committee inflict on himself the bitterest reproaches, 
 if by failing to make an inconsiderable addition to our gallant 
 little navy, a single British vessel should place New York under 
 contribution ? ' 
 
 Mr. Clay's arguments went home to the hearts of the mem- 
 bers of the house with most convincing energy, dispelling the 
 dense cloud of prejudice which interested faction, strongly con- 
 trolled by foreign influence, had succeeded in raising, driving his v 
 opponents from their strong holds of open opposition, and drag- 
 ging from their hiding places those who were dealing their blows 
 in secret. He succeeded in causing the congressional pulsations 
 to be in unison with his own — to pass the bill by a handsome 
 majority. Thus an appropriation was secured for repairing and 
 enlarging the shield of our protection, that it might be able to 
 meet and ward off the blow that seemed about to descend upon 
 us, secured mainly by the indefatigable exertions of Mr. Clay. 
 The result was in complete accordance with his far-seeing sagac- 
 ity. Augmented and equipped according to the provisions of the 
 bill, our navy was sent forth to battle and to victory. W T ith the 
 cry of our impressed and suffering seamen, mingled soon the 
 joyful notes of triumph ; release speedily succeeded ; aggression 
 ceased, and beneath the ' star spangled banner,' respected and 
 honored, our merchantmen pursued their way to traffic where 
 they pleased unmolested. 
 
 Most of the state legislatures signified their approval of the 
 measures adopted by congress in relation to the war by corres- 
 ponding resolutions. Kentucky early regarded with just indigna- 
 tion the tyrannical treatment of Great Britain, and evinced a 
 disposition to resort immediately to coercive measures for redress, 
 and guarantied her support to the extent of her ability to any 
 course the general government might think proper to pursue. She 
 declared that ' should we tamely submit, the world ought to despise 
 
60 LIFEOFHENRYCLAY. 
 
 us — we should despise ourselves — England herself would 
 despise us.' In view of the prospect of immediate rupture, she 
 resolved that ' the state of Kentucky, to the last mite of her strength 
 and resources, will contribute them to maintain the contest and sup- 
 port the right of their country against such lawless violations, and that 
 the citizens of Kentucky are prepared to take the field when called on.' 
 
 After the passage of the navy bill, which was on- the 29th of 
 January, 1812, congress was employed with matters pertaining to 
 our relations with Great Britain, in all of which Mr. Clay exhib- 
 ited untiring energy and unflagging zeal. In the language of 
 another, ' in all of them Mr. Clay was the champion and the guide 
 of the democratic party. No difficulties could weary .or withstand 
 his energies. lie, moved in majesty, for he moved in strength. 
 Like the Carthaginian chief in the passage of the Alps, he kept 
 his place in front of his comrades, putting aside with a giant 
 effort every obstacle that opposed his progress, applauding the 
 foremost of his followers, and rousing those who lingered by words 
 of encouragement or reproach, until he succeeded in posting them 
 upon a moral eminence from which they could look down upon 
 the region where their prowess was to meet its long expected 
 reward.' 
 
 On the first day of April ensuing, the following document 
 was transmitted by the president to congress : 
 
 * Considering it as expedient under existing circumstances and 
 prospects, that a general embargo be laid on all vessels now in 
 port, or hereafter arriving, for the period of sixty days, I recom- 
 mend the immediate passage of a law to that effect.' 
 
 Mr. Porter, the chairman of the committee on foreign relations, 
 to whom the message was referred, reported a bill, and the house 
 went into a committee of the whole to consider it. A warm and 
 protracted discussion ensued, and Mr. Clay was among the first to 
 come forward and express his hearty concurrence with the opinion 
 of Mr. Madison relative to the embargo. ' I approve of it,' said 
 he, 'because it is to be viewed as a direct precursor to war. As 
 an American and a member of that house, he felt proud that the 
 executive had recommended the measure.' 
 
 As a matter in course, those who opposed war opposed the 
 embargo, which was obviously intended as a step preparatory to it, 
 to give sufficient time to place our commercial interests in a secure 
 condition, so that when hostilities should actually commence, our 
 trading vessels should not be in a situation to become an easy 
 prey to British cruisers. Among the most rabid was Mr. Ran- 
 dolph, who denounced the embargo, and in opposition to Mr. 
 Clay, declared it a subterfuge — a retreat frpm battle — and not a 
 step preparatory to war. » Sir,' said he, • we are now in secret 
 conclave. The eyes of the world are not upon us, but the eyes of God 
 behold our doings. He knows the spirit of our minds. * Shall we 
 
LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 61 
 
 deliberate on this subject in the spirit of sobriety and candor, or 
 with that spirit which has too often characterized our discussions 
 like the present ? We ought to realize that we are in the presence 
 of that God who knows our thoughts and motives, and to whom 
 we must render an account for the deeds done in the body. What 
 new cause of war or of an embargo has arisen within the last 
 twelve months ? The affair of the Chesapeake is settled ; no new 
 principles of blockade have been interpolated in the laws of na- 
 tions. Every man of candor would ask why we did not then go 
 to war twelve months ago.' He said that the honorable speaker 
 was laboring under a mistake by declaring that the message was 
 for war ; that he (Mr. Randolph) had 'too much reliance on the 
 wisdom and virtue of the president to believe that he would be 
 guilty of such gross and unparalleled treason.' 
 
 Mr. Clay replied in a becoming manner, in language that fell 
 upon the house burning with the fire of his patriotic eloquence. 
 1 The gentleman from Virginia need not have reminded them in 
 the manner he had of that Being who watched over and surroun- 
 ded them. From this sentiment we should draw very different 
 conclusions from those which occurred to him. It ought to influ- 
 ence them to that patriotism and to a display of those high quali- 
 fications, so much more honorable to the human character. The 
 gentleman asks what new cause of war has been avowed ? The 
 affair of the Chesapeake is settled, to be sure ; but only to paralyse 
 the spirit of the country. Has Great Britain abstained from im- 
 pressing our seamen — from depredating upon our property? 
 We have complete proof in her capture of our ships, in her excit- 
 ing our frontier Indians to hostility, and in her sending an emis- 
 sary to our cities to excite civil war, that she will do every thing to 
 destroy us. Our resolution and spirit are our only dependence. 
 Although I feel warm upon this subject, I pride myself upon 
 those feelings, and should despise myself if I were destitute of 
 them.' 
 
 Mr. Randolph still persisted in his Intemperate opposition, aver- 
 ring that public sentiment was not in favor of either the embargo 
 or war, and said that he had ' known gentlemen not inferior in 
 gallantry, in wisdom, in experience, in the talents of a statesman, 
 to any upon the floor, consigned to oblivion for advocating a war 
 upon the public sentiment.' That the public mind was averse to 
 these measures, Mr. Clay proved to be not true, by citing the great 
 unanimity in the southern and western states, among both federal- 
 ists and republicans, and the unequivocal resolutions of fourteen 
 state legislatures in favor of both. If possible, Mr. Randolph was 
 exceeded in the fierceness of his opposition by Mr. Josiah Quincy 
 of Massachusetts ; at least by the low and scurrilous language in 
 which he expressed it. He condemned the embargo as treason- 
 able to the interests of the nation, as absurd and contrary to 
 
62 LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 common sense. He boasted of having sent, in connection with 
 his colleagues, expresses to the eastern cities, in the expectation 
 that an embargo would be laid, that information to that effect 
 might be given to merchants, so that they could obtain clearances 
 for their vessels before it should take effect. Said he, ' we did it 
 to escape into the jaws of the British lion and of the French tiger, 
 which are places of repose, of joy and delight, when compared 
 with the grasp and fang of this hyena embargo. Look now upon 
 the river below Alexandria, and you will see the sailors towing 
 down their vessels as from a pestilence, against wind and tide, 
 anxious to escape from a country which would destroy instead of 
 preserving them. I object to it because it is no efficient prepara- 
 tion, because it is not a progress towards honorable war, but a 
 subterfuge from the question. If we must perish, let us perish by 
 any hand except our own ; any fate is better than self-slaughter.' 
 
 In meeting the storm of opposition which raged like a tempest 
 around him, Mr. Clay is represented to have been ' a flame of fire.' 
 He had now brought congress to the verge of what he conceived 
 to be a war for liberty and honor, and his voice, inspired by the 
 occasion, ran through the capitol like a trumpet-tone sounding for 
 the onset. On the subject of the policy of the embargo, his elo- 
 quence, like a Roman phalanx, bore down all opposition, and he 
 put to shame those of his opponents who flouted the government 
 as being unprepared for war. ' Why is it,' he exclaimed, indig- 
 nantly, ' that we are no better prepared ? Because the gentlemen 
 themselves have thrown every possible obstacle in our way! 
 They have opposed the raising of an army — the fitting out of a 
 naval armament — the fortification of our frontiers — and now 
 talk of the madness of engaging in a war for which we are not 
 prepared ! It is asked what new cause of war ? In reply I will 
 ask what old cause of war is avenged ? Has Great Britain 
 abstained from impressing our seamen ? I have no doubt but 
 that the late Indian hostilities on the Wabash were excited by 
 the British. Is not this cause of war ?' 
 
 There was no withstanding his eloquent and patriotic appeals. 
 They made every heart in the house vibrate and glow with intense 
 desire to arouse and avenge the aggravated abuse heaped upon us 
 by our foreign foe. 
 
 After an ineffectual attempt to procure an amendment to the bill 
 by extending the embargo to ninety days, it passed by a vote of 
 seventy to forty-one. It was then sent to the senate, which introduced 
 the amendment proposed in the house, which was adopted by it, and 
 after receiving the signature of the president, it became the law of 
 the land on the fourth day of April 
 
 Now war had become the settled policy of the nation ; indeed 
 the first initiatory step was taken. The Rubicon had been approached, 
 and not to cross it would entail disgrace. Congress, therefore, 
 
LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 63 
 
 set vigorously about preparing for war. The tardy procedure 
 of government in bringing the subject to a crisis, it was 
 thought would operate prejudicially in its prosecution, by allow- 
 ing the eagerness and zeal then so prevalent for the conflict to 
 subside. A result of the correspondence then going on between 
 America and England, and which was continued after the embargo 
 had taken effect, was, to render undecided a large and patriotic 
 portion of the people, who were earnest in demanding redress, 
 but as long as there was the slightest prospect of obtaining it by 
 negotiation, chose to delay rather than meet the expenses and 
 horrors of war. Hopes were entertained, from time to time, by the 
 tone of the British minister's communications, that all differences 
 between the two nations would be pacifically arranged. But it 
 soon appeared obvious, that nothing satisfactory would be pro- 
 posed by him, that Great Britain had an ulterior object in view, in 
 causing such expectations to be created, and that it would be 
 better to abandon at once, and forever, all reliance upon this mode 
 of procedure, resorted to from motives of the most amicable 
 nature, on the part of the United States, and pursued so long and 
 faithfully, yet ineffectully. Hope finally fled, though reluctantly 
 and with a heavy heart, casting many ' a lingering look behind/ 
 and ' grim visaged war ' assumed her place. The most amicably 
 disposed threw down the olive branch, and seized the sword. 
 Remonstrance, entreaty, argument, and forbearance had been 
 exhausted, and the nation, conscious of the righteousness of her 
 cause, arose, buckled on her armor, and appealed to the God of 
 battles for the maintenance of her rights. 
 
 Mr. Clay was one of a deputation appointed to wait upon Mr. 
 Madison, to urge upon him the pressing necessity of making 
 speedy and efficient preparation for the event which would inevi- 
 tably occur. The views of congress, and of the country generally, 
 relative to the subject of war, he spread before the president, 
 argued that it was impolitic to waste any more time in fruitless 
 negotiation, and expressed his sincere conviction, that, with their 
 present resources, and those of which they could avail themselves, 
 judiciously employed, as they would be by patriotic and indignant 
 freemen, no alarming apprehensions need be entertained respecting 
 the nature of the result. The muscular and mental energies of a 
 free and united yeomanry of an independent and enlightened 
 nation, arrayed in defence of home and every thing that made 
 it happy, he believed constituted a force invincible — one that could 
 not be crushed by the hireling soldiery of the combined powers of 
 Europe. 
 
 The president, though inclined to advance with extreme caution, 
 whose trepidation was increased by several members of his cabinet 
 opposed to warlike movements, was nerved with fresh courage and 
 fired with fresh patriotism, by the energetic remarks of Mr. Clay, 
 
64 LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 and induced to hasten the blow from the axe of executive power, 
 which alone could burst the bands which bound and restrained the 
 thunderbolt of war. 
 
 About this time, while in the exercise of his official prerogative, 
 Mr. Clay became entangled in a disagreeable controversy with Mr. 
 Randolph. This gentleman, though possessing talenls and elo- 
 quence of a high order, employed them in such a manner as 
 to make himself distinguished for the most extravagant eccentrici- 
 ties and wild vagaries. There had existed not the most cordial 
 understanding between him and Mr. Clay, during several months 
 previous. Their intercourse was not very uniform ; sometimes it 
 would be suspended for weeks, when not a word would be spoken 
 by either to the other. The great difficulty of living on terms of 
 intimacy or common civility even, with Mr. Randolph, caused Mr. 
 Clay to adopt this course. He did not desire to o fiend the capri- 
 cious gentleman, nor to place himself in a situation to receive 
 offence from him. Occasionally, when the milk of human kind- 
 ness was superabundant in his heart, Mr. Randolph would approach, 
 and in the most honied accents and blandest manner, salute Mr. 
 Clay and inquire after his health, with every demonstration of 
 regard. 
 
 One of Mr. Randolph's peculiarities was exceeding uneasiness 
 under restriction ; indeed, he seldom quietly submitted to any par- 
 liamentary restraint, however necessary and salutary. He regarded 
 the rules of the house as trammels and shackles, more honored by 
 the breach than observance, and struggled violently against their 
 enforcement in his case. During the day previous to that when 
 the controversy mentioned occurred, Mr. Clay, in conversing with 
 a friend of Mr. Randolph, remarked that the president would prob- 
 ably transmit a message to congress, recommending a declaration 
 of war, on the following Monday. This information was commu- 
 nicated to Mr. Randolph, who the next morning appeared in his 
 seat, and commenced one of his usual windy harangues, without 
 submitting any motion to the house. After discussing some time 
 the subject of our foreign relations, although he well knew that 
 such discussion was designed to be strictly private, manifesting 
 more than his accustomed hostility to declaring war with Great 
 Britain, and zeal in justifying her cruelties towards the United 
 States, he was called to order, on the ground that there was no 
 resolution before the house. Mr. Bibb, being in the chair, suffered 
 him to proceed. Soon after, Mr. Clay resumed his seat, when he 
 was again called to order, and required to submit his motion in 
 writing to the chair. Mr. Clay observed that a standing rule of the 
 house rendered it incumbent on any member who attempted to 
 address it, after a few pertinent prefatory remarks, to submit his 
 proposition in due form to the house, and then confine his remarks 
 to it. ' My proposition,' said Mr. Randolph, ' is that it is not expe- 
 
LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 65 
 
 dient at this time, to resort to a war with Great Britain.' He 
 expressed great surprise when it was decided by the speaker that 
 he could not proceed to discuss his proposition unless it was sec- 
 onded and reduced to writing. < Then I appeal from that decision.' 
 The speaker briefly stated his reasons for his decision, which was 
 sustained by a vote of sixty-seven to forty-two. * Then, sir, under 
 the compulsion to submit my motion in writing, I offer it,' said 
 Mr. Randolph. The speaker replied, ' there is no compulsion in 
 the case, because the gentleman may or may not offer it, at his 
 option.' The motion was read from the chair, and the speaker 
 observed that the house must first agree to consider it, before it 
 could be in order to debate it. From this decision Mr. Randolph 
 appealed, but at the suggestion of a friend, withdrew his appeal. 
 Mr. Clay made a brief speech, justifying his decision, and then 
 put the question whether the house would consider Mr. Randolph's 
 resolution. It was rejected by a vote of seventy-two to thirty-seven. 
 
 Mr. Randolph, thus compelled to take his seat, was greatly cha- 
 grined. On the following day he published a vindictive address 
 to his constituents, in which he inveighed in the most bitter terms 
 against Mr. Madison's administration, declaring that the move- 
 ments that had been made in reference to war, were not made with 
 the intention of promoting the welfare of the country, and desired 
 those whom he represented not to sanction the proposed declara- 
 tion. Freedom of speech he declared had been invaded ; that for 
 the first time in the person of their representative had it been de- 
 cided, that silence must be maintained upon the most important 
 subject that could be brought forward for legislative action. He 
 characterized this as * usurpation, more flagitious than any which 
 had ever been practiced under the reign of terror by the father of 
 the sedition laws, and the people must interfere and apply a remedy 
 or bid adieu to a free government forever.' 
 
 Mr. Clay noticed this singular paper in a communication over 
 his own name, which was published in the National Intelligencer, 
 reviewing briefly the controversy, stating the grounds of his action 
 in relation to it, and established the two following principles : ' that the 
 house had a right to know through its organ, the specific motion 
 which a member intends making before he undertakes to argue it at 
 large, and that it reserves to itself the exercise of the power of deter- 
 mining whether it will consider it at the particular time when 
 offered, prior to his thus proceeding to argue it.' These principles 
 have subsequently formed the rule in the house in similar cases, the 
 operation of which has tended, in no small degree, to promote the 
 interests of the country, by restraining within proper bounds the 
 freedom of debate. 
 
 On the first of June, the president despatched to the house a mes- 
 sage, containing a summary statement of our grievances demand- 
 ing reparation, narrating the various pacific and often repeated 
 vol. i. 9 
 
66 LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 attempts of the United States to adjust all existing difficulties with 
 Great Britain, remarking the cold indifference or haughty repulse 
 with which the latter had invariably met the amicable advances of 
 the former, and recommending to the early consideration of con- 
 gress the question whether the United States should 'continue 
 passive under these progressive usurpations and these accumulating 
 wrongs, or opposing force to force in defence of their natural 
 rights, should commit a just cause into the hands of the almighty 
 disposer of events.' An 'immediate appeal to arms 1 was recom- 
 mended in a report of the committee on foreign relations, to whom 
 the message was referred, on the eighteenth, and the act declaring war 
 passed both houses of congress the same day, and on the nineteenth 
 Mr. Madison issued his proclamation, declaring hostilities as ac- 
 tually commenced. On the sixth of July congress adjourned, to 
 assemble on the first Monday in November. 
 
 The crisis towards which so many eyes had long been directed, 
 had at last come — a crisis which, though sought by government, 
 was sought reluctantly. Any measure that would have obviated its 
 necessity, had been embraced with eager joy. Every expedient 
 was resorted to, in order to prevent the waste of treasures and 
 effusion of blood, with which it would be attended. The great 
 master spirits, Messrs. Clay, Lowndes, Cheves and Calhoun, the 
 bold pioneers in paving the way to and hastening on this crisis, 
 did not attempt to shrink from their duty, nor to shake off the 
 solemn responsibility which they assumed to their country in 
 undertaking to conduct the ark of her liberties, now when they had 
 guided it into the roaring vortex of war. They did not prove recreant 
 to the precious trusts committed to their care, by traitorously de- 
 serting their posts. Though the billows of fierce conflict dashed 
 against its sides, they did not withdraw the hand that had hitherto 
 supported it. There was no looking back, no cowardly avoiding 
 of danger, but shoulder to shoulder manfully they breasted the 
 dark surges of belligerent strife, until in safety the harbor of suc- 
 cess was finally attained. 
 
 With the view of shortening the conflict and ameliorating the 
 condition of those engaged in it as much as possible, previous and 
 subsequent to the declaration of war, they sought to place the 
 financial department of the nation in a situation to meet the de- 
 mands that would be made upon it in case of that event. In 
 pursuance of this view, the secretary of the treasury, Mr. Gallatin, 
 whose reputation for financiering stood high, was selected to devise 
 and report a system that should accomplish the desired object. 
 The public disappointment was excessive when his report ap- 
 peared, which, instead of exhibiting any new feature infinance — 
 instead of deriving revenue from the vast, existing and appropriate 
 national sources — proposed to obtain it in the old obnoxious ways 
 from excise, stamp duties, &c. Although deeply regretting that a 
 
LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 67 
 
 more efficient plan was not provided, still, with a spirit that seemed 
 resolved to turn to the best possible account the propositions of 
 the secretary, they commenced levying taxes according to his plan. 
 To this end Mr. Cheves, chairman of the committee of ways and 
 means, diligently employed himself in preparing bills, whose object 
 was the raising of revenue. After their completion and presenta- 
 tion, a discovery was made that well nigh proved fatal to this. It 
 was ascertained through the efforts of Mr. Smiley, an intimate 
 friend of the secretary of the treasury, that both he and the presi- 
 dent were opposed to levying taxes at the time of the declaration 
 of war, declaring ' that the people would not take both war and 
 taxes together.' 
 
 The non-concurrence of the executive in their financial scheme, 
 was a source of bitter though unavailing regret to Mr. Clay and 
 his coadjutors. It was, to be sure, defective, but had not this 
 insuperable obstacle been interposed in the way of its being carried 
 out, the treasury would have been to a considerable extent replen- 
 ished with funds ; the early want of which was a serious detriment 
 felt during the whole war. To the influence of Mr. Gallatin, in a 
 great measure, doubtless, the opposition of Mr. Madison to the 
 conjunction of the two measures was owing. He was very sus- 
 ceptible of influence, especially from those in whom he reposed 
 confidence, such as he did in the secretary. The same kind of 
 influence, inducing him to procrastinate a declaration of war, Mr. 
 Clay found him laboring under, when, as one of a deputation, he 
 was sent to wait on and urge him to delay no longer, telling him 
 that farther argument was useless, that the ultima thule of talking 
 had been reached, and that the time for prompt and vigorous action 
 had arrived. To illustrate the difference between speaking and 
 writing, and acting, he repeated to Mr. Madison an anecdote of 
 two Kentucky judges. ' One talked incessantly from the bench. 
 He reasoned every body to death. He would deliver an opinion, 
 and first try to convince the party that agreed with him, and then 
 the opposite party. The consequence was that business lagged, 
 the docket accumulated, litigants complained, and the community 
 were dissatisfied. He was succeeded by a judge who never gave 
 any reasons for his opinion, but decided the case simply for the 
 plaintiff or defendant. His decisions were rarely reversed by the 
 appellate court, the docket melted away, litigants were no longer 
 exposed to ruinous delay, and the community were contented.' 
 This humorous sally of Mr. Clay occasioned the president much 
 mirth, who replied by relating an anecdote which occurred to him, 
 of a French judge, who, said he, after hearing the arguments of 
 the parties, put their papers in opposite scales, and decided the 
 case according to the preponderance of weight. 
 
 Attempts on the part of the United States to prevent hostilities, 
 did not cease until war had been declared, and even then a dispo- 
 
68 LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 sition was manifested to put a speedy termination to them, for in 
 one week after this event, Mr. Jonathan Russell, our charge d } affaires 
 at the court of St. James, received instructions to agree to an 
 armistice as a preliminary to a treaty, provided the British gov- 
 ernment should repeal her orders in council, and discontinue the 
 impressment of our seamen, and afterwards without insisting upon 
 any particular agreement. All our pacific efforts, however, were 
 fruitless, our proposals refused with disdain, and accompanied 
 with language of reproach and insult, even conveying the idea 
 that the conduct of the United States was pusillanimous. She 
 refused to treat with us at all, unless as preliminary we would 
 recall our letters of marque and reprisal, and cease all hostile acts 
 towards British property and British subjects. Such degrading 
 conditions could never be submitted to by the United States, 
 although the federal party were willing and even clamorous to 
 comply with them. The virtue and patriotism of the people, how- 
 ever, preponderated over all the vile attempts at causing the nation 
 to accept the disgraceful terms dictated by her haughty foe, to pro- 
 cure the repose she desired. The middle of September found us 
 still endeavoring to procure an adjustment of our difficulties 
 amicably. The proposals of Mr. Russell, though of the most liberal 
 nature, were treated contemptuously, and at an interview on the 
 seventeenth of September, lord Castlereagh expressed great astonish- 
 ment that American commissioners should still continue to indulge 
 the expectation that the right of impressment should ever be relin- 
 quished, and even had the arrogance to say that ' our friends in 
 congress had been so confident in that mistake, that they had 
 ascribed the failure of such an arrangement solely to the miscon- 
 duct of the American government.' The demands of the British 
 in insolence seemed to have no limits ; asking if the ' United 
 States would deliver up the native British seamen who might be 
 naturalized in America.' ' If,' said lord Castlereagh, ' the Ameri- 
 can government was so anxious to get rid of the war, it would 
 have an opportunity of doing so, on learning the revocation of the 
 orders in council.' 
 
 It was sufficiently obvious now that nothing remained but to 
 prosecute the war as vigorously as possible. Our arms, in several 
 cases, had been unsuccessful. The circumstances of the delivery 
 of Detroit into the hands of the enemy by general Hull, were such 
 as to render it certain that freason had some agency in it. These 
 disasters tended to dampen the ardor of some, and to render more 
 confident and blustering demagogues and federalists, who went 
 about croaking like birds of ill omen, doing all in their power to 
 infuse a spirit inimical to the course then pursuing, and bring 
 opprobrium on the administration party. They continually referred 
 to those partial failures as the sure prognostics that the whole coun- 
 try would fall an easy prey to the enemy. But these reverses were 
 
LIFE OF HENRY CI,AY. 69 
 
 subsequently in a measure repaired, by the successful and gallant 
 achievements of a body of western volunteers, led on by general 
 Harrison, over the British and their allies, the barbarous savages. 
 Our brilliant victories on the sea were such as to kindle up the 
 expiring energies in the hearts of the despairing, and to nerve to 
 nobler deeds the intrepid. They evinced what could be accom- 
 plished by determination and valor combined. The British frigate 
 Guerriere had been captured by captain Hull, commander of the 
 frigate Constitution ; commodore Rodgers had rendered most 
 signal service to our commercial interests; all which tended to 
 impart a fresh impulse to our army and navy. 
 
 During the interval between the adjournment and re-assembling 
 of congress, Mr. Clay watched the progress of the war with the 
 most intense interest. This was the all-absorbing subject of his 
 soul, engaging its every faculty and principle ; and the efforts which 
 he made to secure its successful termination were as strenuous as 
 they were unremitted. In public assemblies, in private circles, it 
 was the theme on which he dwelt continually, and around which 
 he twined the richest wreaths of his oratorical and colloquial 
 skill. He always had a weapon ready to prostrate the opposition 
 of the federalist and demagogue, however speciously presented. 
 The grounds of encouragement to proceed, and the prospect of 
 ultimate success, were so clearly elucidated by him, that the timid 
 gathered confidence, and the bold redoubled their energies. Hope 
 and courage were his constant companions, from which fear and 
 cowardice fled away. These spread their animating influences 
 far and wide, and like a beacon light lit up the whole land. Had 
 Mr. Clay been engaged in a personal enterprize in which he had 
 embarked his all, where fortune, fame, reputation, and life itself 
 were at issue, he could not have manifested greater solicitude for 
 the result, or put forth more gigantic efforts to render it favorable, 
 than he did in relation to the war of the nation. If patriotism, 
 undoubted and unadulterated, be not deducible from his agency 
 in originating, prosecuting and consummating the war, on what 
 page of the world's annals is it chronicled ? The history of the 
 Grecian and Roman republics furnish many instances of exalted, 
 self-sacrificing patriotism — of those who under its influence met 
 death as joyfully as they would have met a friend. Inspired by 
 this principle we hear one of their bards exclaim, 
 
 1 Bulce est pro patria mori.' 
 It is sweet to die for one's country. 
 
 But the lofty action of Mr. Clay in connection with this his 
 country's crisis, his prompt response to her cry for aid, his unwa- 
 vering attachment to her cause, and his ardent devotion to her 
 interests, present an example of patriotic love and zeal, which 
 may be placed by the side of similar ones on the records of those 
 
70 t LIFE OF HENftY CLAY. 
 
 nations, without the slightest fear of disparagement, — indeed as 
 justifying the belief that if she had required a similar sacrifice, 
 the victim would not have been wanting. 
 
 Mr. Clay advocated war, not as an experimental measure, 
 not for the purpose of furnishing him an opportunity of gratifying 
 his ambitious private projects, as his enemies desired it to be be- 
 lieved, but as the dernier resort, as that only which could raise 
 from her prostrate condition his country, and restore her to that 
 rank to which she was entitled as an independent nation. The 
 result proved the correctness of his prediction, while it exposed the 
 falsity of that pronouncing the measure as certain to eventuate in 
 her ruin. 
 
 When he first approached the subject, he found it surrounded by 
 a cloud of gloom, rendered dense and dark by the adverse circum- 
 stances of his country, and which was made every day more murky 
 by the unpatriotic attitude of the disaffected, and the insidious efforts 
 of the openly hostile. To dispel this, all his energies were directed, 
 and on the re-assembling of congress, pursuant to adjournment, 
 he was gratified to behold some few glimmerings of light through 
 the sombre mass. This cheering indication, added to the reviving 
 influence imparted to him by his recent immediate contact with 
 the people, fired his soul with an irrepressible fervency, and caused 
 the flame of his patriotic ardor to burn so intensely as to consume 
 all opposing materials. For this flame, plenty of fuel was fur- 
 nished by those, who evinced, by their deadly hostility, a desire to 
 see the unequal struggle then going on between England and 
 the United States, terminate in favor of the former. In some, this 
 hostility, breaking over all bounds of decency, vented itself in the 
 grossest lampoon. Their endeavors appeared more like the spas- 
 modic efforts of a drowning man, than the skilfully directed 
 attempts of enlightened opposers, as though they were determined, 
 if possible, to accomplish the fulfilment of their predictions, which 
 now, from the recent victorious feats of our arms, seemed quite 
 dubious. Soon after the commencement of the session, the first 
 subject of importance that came before the representatives of the 
 people, was that of increasing the army. Mr. Clay, and those 
 whose views were coincident with his, desired to concentrate the 
 nation's energies in prosecuting the war to a glorious completion ; 
 to do which, fresh and gratifying evidence had been given. To 
 secure this, it was proposed to augment the army by a recruit of 
 twenty thousand men. The committee on military affairs in the 
 house reported a bill for the purpose, which was considered in 
 committee of the whole, and debated at length. From the oppo- 
 sition, this proposition met the most violent assault, and also those 
 who supported it. The warmest opposers were found in the 
 persons of Messrs Randolph, Pitkin and Quincy. The speech of 
 the latter gentleman is said to have ' produced disgust on all sides 
 
LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 71 
 
 of the house,' and for violence and abuse stands unrivalled. 
 Its most scurrilous expressions have been expunged; enough, 
 however, remains to determine its original character. Speaking of 
 the war, he observed, ' there is nothing in history like this war 
 since the invasion of the bucaneers. The disgrace of our armies 
 is celestial glory compared to the disgrace reflected on our country 
 by this invasion ; ' (the proposed invasion of Canada ;) ' yet it is 
 called a war for glory ! Glory ? Yes, such glory as that of the 
 tiger when he tears the bowels from the lamb, filling the wilderness 
 with its savage roars ; the glory of Zenghis Khan, without his 
 greatness ; the glory of Bonaparte. Far from me and mine, and far 
 from my country be such glory ! ' He stigmatized those in favor 
 of the war as * household troops, who lounge for what they can 
 pick up about the government house ; who come here, and with 
 their families live and suck upon the breast of the treasury ; toad- 
 eaters, who live on eleemosynary, ill-purchased courtesy, upon the 
 palace, swallow great men's spittle, and get judgeships, and wonder 
 at the fine sights, and fine rooms, and fine company, and most of 
 all, wonder how they themselves got there.' The state of public 
 feeling in Massachusetts respecting the invasion, he stated by 
 saying, that ' he had conversed upon the question with men of all 
 ranks and conditions in Massachusetts, with men hanging over the 
 plough and on the spade, judicious, honest, patriotic, sober men, 
 who, if it were requisite, and their sense of moral duty went along 
 with the war, would fly to the standard of their country at the 
 winding of a horn, but who now hear yours with the same indif- 
 ference they would have heard a jews-harp or a banjo.' He was 
 particularly severe on those in the house who advised the rigid 
 prosecution of the war, by calling them ' young politicians, with 
 the pin-feathers yet unshed, the shell still sticking upon them; 
 perfectly unfledged, though they fluttered and cackled on the 
 floor ; who favored such extravagant and ignorant opinions of a 
 very proud nation.' He said, 'it would ill become a man whose 
 family had been two centuries settled in the state, and whose 
 interests, connections and affections were exclusively American, to 
 shrink from his duty for the yelping of those blood-hound mon- 
 grels who were kept in pay to hunt down all who opposed the 
 court ; a pack of mangy hounds of recent importation ; their backs 
 still sore with the stripes of European castigation, and their necks 
 marked with the check collar.' 
 
 Mr. Clay replied to him in a speech of most pointed yet merited 
 rebuke, and couched in language that stung like a scorpion. 
 During the course of his remarks, Mr. Quincy <pok occasion to 
 travel out of his way to attack the character of Mr. Jefferson. This 
 uncalled for and unexpected abuse of an aged ex-president, a 
 p; triot living in retirement, Mr. Clay thus notices. 
 
 ' Neither his retirement from public office, his eminent services, 
 
72 LIFE OF HENRY CLAY, 
 
 nor his advanced age. can exempt this patriot from the coarse 
 assaults of party malevolence, in 1801, he snatched from the 
 rude hand of usurpation the violated constitution of his country, 
 and that is his crime. He preserved that instrument, in form, and 
 substance, and spirit, a precious inheritance for generations to 
 come, and for this, he can never be forgiven. How vain and 
 impotent is party rage directed against such a man ! He is nol 
 more elevated by his lofty residence on the summit of his own 
 favorite mountain, than he is lifted by the serenity of his mind, 
 and the consciousness of a well-spent life, above the malignant 
 passions and bitter feelings of the day. No ! his own beloved 
 Monticello is not less moved by the storms that beat against its 
 sides, than is this illustrious man by the howlings of the whole 
 British pack set loose from the Essex kennel.' 
 
 Speaking of the notoriety Mr. Quincy had gained by attempting to 
 impeach Mr. Jefferson a few years previous, he said, ' the final vote 
 stood one for, and one hundred and seventeen against the propo- 
 sition ! ' (of impeachment.) ' The same historic page that transmitted 
 to posterity the virtue and the glory of Henry the Great of France, 
 for their admiration and example, has preserved the infamous 
 name of the frantic assassin of that excellent monarch.' Mr. Clay 
 vindicated most ably the character of that exalted patriot, from the 
 foul aspersions thus attempted to be cast upon it ; after which, he 
 alluded to the vacillating course pursued by those opposed to the 
 administration party, in the following language. ' The course of 
 that opposition by which the administration of the government 
 has been unremittingly impeded for the last twelve years, is 
 singular, and I believe unexampled in the history of any country. 
 The administration has not been forgetful of its solemn obliga- 
 tions. No art has been left unessayed, no experiment promis- 
 ing a favorable result left untried, to maintain the peaceful relations 
 of the country. When some six or seven years ago, the affairs of 
 the nation assumed a threatening aspect, a partial non-importation 
 was adopted. As they grew more alarming an embargo was 
 imposed. It would have accomplished its purport, but it was 
 sacrificed on the altar of conciliation. Vain and fruitless attempt 
 to propitiate ! Then came along the non-intercourse, and a general 
 non-importation followed in the train. In the mean time, any 
 indications of a return to the public law and the path of justice on 
 the part of either belligerent, are seized upon with avidity by the 
 administration. The arrangement with Mr. Erskine is concluded. 
 It is first applauded, and then censured by the opposition. No 
 matter with what unfeigned sincerity, with what real effort the 
 administration cultivates peace, the opposition insist that it alone 
 is culpable for every breach that is made between the two countries. 
 Restriction after restriction has been tried. Negotiation has been 
 resorted to until further negotiation would have been disgraceful. 
 
LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 73 
 
 Whilst these peaceful experiments are undergoing a trial, what 
 is the conduct of the opposition ? They are the champions of 
 war — the proud, the spirited, the sole repository of the nation's 
 honor — the men of exclusive vigor and energy. The adminis- 
 tration, on the contrary, is weak, feeble, and pusillanimous — inca- 
 pable of being kicked into a war. The maxim, ' not a cent for 
 tribute, millions for defence,' is loudly proclaimed. The opposi- 
 tion is tired, sick, disgusted with negotiation. They want to 
 draw the sword and avenge the nation's wrongs. When, however, 
 foreign nations, perhaps emboldened by the very opposition here 
 made, refuse to listen to the amicable appeals, which have been 
 repeated and reiterated by the administration, to their justice and 
 their interests — when, in fact, war with one of them has become 
 identified with our existence and our sovereignty, and to abstain 
 from it was no longer possible, behold the opposition veering 
 round and becoming the friends of peace and commerce. They 
 tell you of the calamities of war — its tragical events — the squan- 
 dering away of your resources — the waste of the public treasure, 
 and the spilling of innocent blood. Now we see them exhibiting 
 the terrific forms of the roaring king of the forest. Now the 
 meekness and humility of the lamb. They are for war and no 
 restriction when the administration is for peace. They are for 
 peace and restrictions when the administration is for war. You 
 find them tacking with every gale, displaying the colors of every 
 party and of all nations, steady only in one unalterable purpose, 
 to steer if possible into the haven of power.' 
 
 Mr. Clay's sentiments in relation to the British system of im- 
 pressment were of the most affecting description, drawing tears 
 from the eyes of almost every individual present, and concluded 
 by saying, that ' My plan would be to call out the ample resources 
 of the country, give them a judicious direction, prosecute the war 
 with the utmost vigor, strike wherever we can reach the enemy at 
 sea or on land, and negotiate the terms of a peace at Quebec or 
 Halifax. We are told that England is a proud and lofty nation, 
 which, disdaining to wait for danger, meets it half way. Haughty 
 as she is, we once triumphed over her, and if we do not listen to 
 the counsels of timidity and despair, we shall again prevail. In 
 such a cause, with the aid of Providence, we must come out crowned 
 with success ; but if we fail, let us fail like men — lash ourselves to 
 our gallant tars, and expire together in one common struggle, 
 fighting for free trade and seamen's rights.' 
 
 A correct idea of the effect produced it is impossible to gather 
 from his reported speech, though in general accurately given. 
 Look, tone, gesture, and manner contributed largely to its great- 
 ness, — perhaps as much as the ' thoughts that breathe and words 
 that burn,' which in one continuous stream fell from his eloquent 
 lips, causing the hearts of his hearers to thrill alternately with 
 
 vol. i. 10 
 
74 LIFE -OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 pleasure and pain. It is represented as having been an exquisite 
 specimen of grand eloquence — a felicitous blending of the beau- 
 tiful, pathetic and sublime. He seemed to wave the enchanted 
 wand of the fabled magician, now spreading peace and quiet, and 
 now causing the most stormy emotions to swell the hearts of 
 those who listened to him. The editor of the National Intelli- 
 gencer says that the pathetic effect produced by the appeal admits 
 not of description. Although the day was extremely cold, so cold 
 that Mr. Clay, for the only time in his life, was unable to keep him- 
 self warm by the exercise of speaking, there were few individuals 
 in the house who did not bear witness by their streaming eyes to 
 the orator's control over their sensibilities. Members of both 
 political parties — men whose patriotic souls had been sustained by 
 his eloquence, and those who had been writhing and agonizing 
 under his indignation, forgot their antipathies and wept together. 
 
 Mr. Clay had the pleasure of seeing the bill, as advocated by 
 him, pass the house, on the fourteenth of January, 1S13, by a vote 
 of seventy-seven to forty-two. On the sixteenth ( having passed 
 the senate,) it received the signature of the president ; and thus 
 was taken another and very important step in carrying out that 
 system of manly and bold resistance devised and introduced by 
 him, and which was destined to redress all our grievances and 
 restore our violated rights. 
 
 On the eighteenth of February, congress proceeded to ascertain 
 the result of an election for president and vice president, which 
 was as follows. For president, James Madison, one hundred and 
 twenty-eight, De Witt Clinton, eighty-nine. For vice president, 
 Elbridge Gerry, one hundred and thirty-one, Jared Ingersoll, 
 eighty-six. Thus the re-election of Mr. Madison furnished un- 
 doubted evidence that the people, from whom there is no appeal, 
 sustained the measures of war. 
 
 On the twenty-fourth of May,. Mr. Clay was elected speaker to 
 the house again, over Mr. Pitkin, by a majority of thirty-five, and 
 whenever an opportunity was afforded him, he mingled in the 
 discussions that were almost constantly agitating the house, in 
 reference to prosecuting the war. At the commencement of this, 
 the first session of the thirteenth congress, he called the attention 
 of the house to that portion of the president's message which 
 describes the manner in which the British had been waging war : 
 which characterized it as ' adding to the savage fury of it on one 
 frontier, a system of plunder and conflagration on ihe other, equally 
 forbidden by respect for national character, and by the established 
 rules of civilized warfare.' In a few pertinent remarks, he adverted 
 to this description embodied by the message, censuring somewhat 
 severely the nation guilty of such enormities, and said, < if they 
 should be found to be as public report had stated them, they called 
 for the indignation of all Christendom, and ought to be embodied 
 
LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 75 
 
 in an authentic document which might perpetuate them on the 
 page of history.' An investigation instituted on a motion of Mr. 
 Clay, in reference to these, developed the astounding fact that the 
 most barbaric outrages were committed repeatedly, on American 
 prisoners, by the savage allies of the British, with their approval. 
 The indignation of the house was aroused to a high pitch, on 
 learning the truth of the report, which took immediate measures 
 for causing to be laid before it every instance of such flagrant 
 violation of the rules of warfare recognized by all civilized nations. 
 
 War had now become the settled policy and regular business of 
 the nation ; a business which though at first she performed rather 
 bunglingly, was now despatched in a more workmanlike manner. 
 The plough, the spade, and the various implements of husbandry 
 and mechanism, had become partially forgotten, by the familiarity 
 which had been effected with the musket and the sword, so that 
 greater skill was manifested in the use of the latter, which resulted 
 in greater success than accompanied the first attempts at their use. 
 York, the capital of Upper Canada, had fallen into our hands, and 
 five naval victories had been achieved. Indecision and timidity 
 had to a great extent disappeared, and a spirit of indomitable deter- 
 mination had been made to take their place, mainly through the 
 irresistible influence of Mr. Clay's eloquent appeals. These were 
 all-powerful, agitating the whole nation, paralyzing opposition, and 
 organizing and arraying the talent, influence, and means of all 
 classes, to do battle to death, if necessary, in defence of our pre- 
 cious liberties. A noble and enthusiastic feeling was diffused 
 throughout the country. Public opinion was far and wide aroused in 
 favor of the war, and its majestic roar shook down the unconsecra- 
 ted temples of treason, and bared their secrets to the light of heaven. 
 Patriot answered aloud to patriot — the sentinels of freedom caught 
 up the watchword — from town to town the signal fires flashed free, 
 and all things proclaimed that the spirit of the country was up for 
 glory. 
 
 Both the friends and foes of Mr. Clay agree that at this period 
 the control he had acquired was almost unlimited. In the house 
 it was probably equal to that which he had acquired a few years 
 previous in the legislature of Kentucky. This was always exer- 
 cised in the spirit of the greatest liberality, and in such a manner 
 as to promote the public interests. Towards the close of 1813, 
 negotiations for peace commenced, at the suggestion of Alexander, 
 the emperor of Russia, who proffered his mediation between the 
 two belligerent nations. On the part of the United States, his 
 proffer was favorably received, and a willingness manifested to 
 accede to it, accompanied with expressions of regret that the com- 
 mercial interests of Russia should be infringed or endangered in 
 any way by her collision with Great Britain. This was first for- 
 mally made at Washington, by the Russian minister, M. Dasch- 
 
76 LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 koff, as early as March of the same year, and eagerly embraced by 
 the president. It had, however, several months previous, been 
 hinted to Mr. Adams, our minister at St. Petersburgh, by the 
 emperor himself, who manifested great desire that hostilities should 
 cease. On the part of Great Britain his pacific proposition was 
 rejected, who alleged that the peculiar nature of her domestic and 
 naval regulations rendered incompatible its acceptance, but declared 
 her perfect willingness to treat with the American envoys, either at 
 London, or Paris, or indeed at any convenient place selected by 
 the two powers. This proposal was accepted, and the preliminary 
 steps taken to accomplish the object proposed. Messrs. Albert 
 Gallatin and James A. Bayard were selected as two of the com- 
 missioners for the United States, and directed to repair without 
 delay and join Mr. J. Q. Adams, at St. Petersburgh, there to await 
 the further action of government. 
 
 A short time after, a proposal from the English ministry to nego- 
 tiate with us at Gottingen was accepted, and Messrs. Clay and 
 Jonathan Russell were selected commissioners, who, in connection 
 with the three in Russia, were invested with full power to treat 
 with lord Gambier, Henry Goulborne, and William Adamos, 
 commissioners on the part of the British government. 
 
 Although Gottingen had been first agreed upon as the city 
 where to conduct the negotiation, subsequently it was determined 
 that Ghent should be the place. The sixth of August, 1814, found 
 the plenipotentiaries of both nations (except Mr. Gallatin, who 
 joined them soon after,) at the latter city, ready to proceed with 
 their legitimate business. They commenced by a mutual inter- 
 change of kind feeling, evincing a disposition to approach the 
 subject in the true spirit of conciliation, and to frame their stipula- 
 tions so as to subserve the interests of the powers they represented. 
 In consequence of the proximity of the British ministers to their 
 government, they enjoyed a superior advantage over the American 
 commissioners, of which they availed themselves freely, for when- 
 ever they received from the latter a note of any importance, it was 
 directly sent to London, where its contents were carefully scruti- 
 nized by the English ministry, who prepared and sent back an 
 answer containing instructions, w^hich were to govern their actions 
 ill relation to it. This mode of procedure adopted by them, greatly 
 retarded the negotiation, while the remoteness of the American 
 negotiators from their government, made it impossible for them to 
 resort to a similar method. The plan which they adopted on 
 receiving a communication from the former, was to consider its 
 contents deliberately, and with great circumspection ; after which 
 it was committed to the care of one of their number deputed to 
 prepare an answer. This underwent a rigid examination, when 
 each member considered it in private, making such alterations as 
 he deemed proper. Afterwards they all assembled and subjected 
 
LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 77 
 
 them to a thorough scrutiny, which terminated in their adoption or 
 rejection. Their proceedings in detail were never reported, so that 
 it is impossible to state to what extent they were influenced by 
 each member of the diplomacy, but it is matter of general credence 
 that Mr. Clay, in their joint colloquial meetings, bore a prominent 
 part and exercised a controlling power over the character of the 
 stipulations. It is understood that Mr. Gallatin drew up more 
 official communications than any one of his associates, that Mr. 
 Adams ranked next, and Mr. Clay next. The various papers pre- 
 pared by these gentlemen during the period of their negotiation, 
 which continued about five months, furnish some of the finest 
 specimens of English composition. For purity of diction, terse- 
 ness of style, happy illustration, and logical construction, they will 
 not suffer in comparison with the best political disquisitions in the 
 English language. 
 
 The favorable indications which appeared at the commencement 
 of the negotiation, soon gave place to those of a different charac- 
 ter. The tone of the British commissioners, in laying the founda- 
 tion of the treaty, soon became so dictatorial as almost to preclude 
 the possibility of proceeding with it. In enumerating the various 
 subjects which they designed to review and determine, besides the 
 seizure of mariners from merchantmen on the high seas, boundary 
 line, and the privileges heretofore enjoyed by the United States in 
 carrying on their fisheries within the limits of British jurisdiction, 
 they declared as a sine qua non to the completion of the treaty, 
 that it must embrace provisions for rendering pacific the various 
 Indian tribes within our borders, for settling their boundaries by 
 a specific treaty with Great Britain, and that the right to purchase 
 their lands without her consent must be unconditionally ceded. 
 On such grounds the American commissioners unhesitatingly and 
 unanimously refused to advance. The overbearing and haughty 
 pretensions and arbitrary demands thus set up and insisted on 
 at the very outset, seemed to interpose an insurmountable barrier 
 towards effecting an amicable and honorable arrangement with 
 our foe. Not only did she by prescription unadvised with us, 
 exhibit an intention to have it all in her own way, but she avowed 
 her design to obtain the control of certain islands in Passama- 
 quoddy Bay, over which our right of jurisdiction had not been 
 questioned up to that time, and to cause us to agree not to keep 
 any naval force on the lakes, nor garrison soldiers on their eastern 
 shores. The thought of submitting for a moment to such obnox- 
 ious exactions and requisitions could not be tolerated, and the 
 American commissioners peremptorily informed them that nego- 
 tiation under such circumstances was entirely out of the question, 
 and that an unqualified abandonment of the objectionable portion 
 of their demands must be complied with, before their consent to 
 proceed another step in the business could be obtained. They 
 
78 LIFEOFHENRYCLAY. 
 
 saw it was requisite to be thus decided, in order to put an early 
 and effectual stop to such unwarrantable assumptions and encroach- 
 ments, which, if quietly submitted to, they clearly foresaw ( by their 
 maintaining a right to ' vary and regulate their demands,' ) would 
 be indefinitely extended. In their first despatches to Washington, 
 therefore, instead of holding out any encouragement of success, 
 they stated that there was no ' hope of peace.' Immediately alter 
 their arrival, they were spread before the people by the public jour- 
 nalists, whose indignation was greatly augmented, on becoming 
 acquainted with treatment ostensibly given for the purpose of 
 consummating a treaty of peace on grounds of mutual reciprocity, 
 but which in reality recognized the nation with whom it was to be 
 effected, as enslaved rather than free. The demands of England 
 were characterized as ' arrogant, insulting to the United States, 
 meriting instantaneous rejection, and demanding the united exer- 
 tions of every citizen of these states, in the vigorous prosecution 
 of the war until it shall be terminated in a just and honorable 
 peace.' 
 
 The publication of their despatches was not anticipated by our 
 commissioners, and great was their astonishment on perusing them 
 in the newspapers at Ghent. Their fears were excited lest it 
 should have an unfavorable bearing on the negotiations, if it did 
 not put an abrupt period to them. The English negotiators 
 maintained a guarded silence on the subject. Mr. Clay being 
 solicitous to ascertain their opinions in relation thereto, addressed 
 them, beginning with lord Gambier, whom he accosted by saying, 
 'you perceive, my lord, that our government has published our 
 despatches, and that now the whole world knows what we are 
 doing here.' l Yes,' said he, ' I have seen it with infinite surprise, 
 and the proceeding is without example in the civilized world.' 
 1 Why, my lord,' said Mr. Clay, mildly, ' you must recollect that at 
 the time of the publication of those despatches, our government 
 had every reason to suppose, from the nature of the pretensions 
 and demands which yours brought forward, that our negotiation 
 would not terminate successfully, and that the publication would 
 not find us here together. I am quite sure that if our government 
 had anticipated the present favorable aspect of our deliberations, 
 the publication of the despatches would not have been ordered. 
 Then your lordship must also recollect, that if, as you truly 
 asserted, the publication of despatches pending a negotiation is not 
 according to the custom of European diplomacy, our govern- 
 ment is organized on principles totally different from those on which 
 European governments are constituted. With us, the business in 
 which we are here engaged is the people's business. We are 
 their servants, and they have a right to know how their business is 
 going on. The publication, therefore, was to give the people 
 information of what ultimately affected them ' 
 
LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 79 
 
 Although unable to controvert this explanation by Mr. Clay, of 
 the reasons for publishing the official papers relative to the nego- 
 tiation, he expressed himself not perfectly satisfied with it, and his 
 opinion was concurred in by his colleagues. However, the 
 injurious consequences apprehended from their publication were 
 not experienced, and the business of the treaty proceeded as if it 
 had not been made. 
 
 Mr. Clay reciprocated an act of kindness of Mr. Goulborne, 
 who had sent him a British periodical containing an account of 
 the taking of Washington by the arms of his nation, by sending 
 to him some American papers which he had recently received, 
 describing a splendid victory won on lake Champlain or lake 
 Erie, by the navy of his country over that of the British. 
 
 After the receipt of such unpleasant intelligence from Ghent, 
 it. was resolved that redoubled energy should be put forth in push- 
 ing forward the war, which caused the noble feats of our gallant 
 navy and army to be greatly multiplied. At Plattsburgh, 
 Chippewa, and many other places, victory perched upon our 
 banner. The hearts of our hardy sailors gathered fresh strength, 
 whose .successful attempts in annoying the enemy by capturing 
 his trading vessels, caused the most bitter lamentations throughout 
 his realm, and underwriters to advance their rates of insurance 
 between England and Ireland from three-fourths of one to five 
 per cent. The determined spirit thus evinced by us, Great Britain 
 correctly attributed to the arbitrarily assumptive course which she 
 attempted to pursue in conducting the negotiations at Ghent ; a 
 spirit which she had the sagacity to discover would never brook 
 the slightest shade of vassalage, or permit the acceptance of 
 dishonorable terms, and also the wisdom to avert the destructive 
 consequences which her varied and wide-spread interests would 
 certainly sustain from the aggressions of those actuated by it, in 
 speedily removing the causes by which it was aroused. A recession 
 was immediately made, not only by the British ministers, who 
 reduced their sine qua non so as to require only the effection of 
 Indian pacification, but by the public journalists in both England 
 and her provinces. They spoke in more respectful terms of the 
 United States, and abated to a good extent their domineering 
 attempts. Still some of the objectionable terms proposed at first 
 as the basis of an arrangement, were adhered to. The cession of 
 such a portion of our territory as should secure a permanent and 
 safe communication to England between Quebec and Halifax, was 
 required pertinaciously. The American commissioners assumed 
 the responsibility, at the risk of breaking off the negotiation, 
 of rejecting such terms, and indeed all that did not come within 
 the limit of their instructions, by informing the English commis- 
 sioners, that it was perfectly fruitless, besides a waste of time, to 
 bring forward and attempt to connect with the treaty, subjects 
 
80 LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 respecting which they were not empowered to negotiate ; subjects 
 which were many of them foreign to their purpose, had no natural 
 relation to it, and which if desirable might be definitely settled by 
 subsequent negotiation, without being made a party to their 
 present proposed arrangement. They affirmed that they had ? no 
 relation to the subsisting differences between the two countries ; 
 they are inconsistent with acknowledged principles of public 
 law ; they are founded neither on reciprocity nor on any of the 
 usual bases of negotiation, neither on that of the uti possidetis or 
 of status ante bellum ; they would inflict the most vital injury on 
 the United States by dismembering their territory, by arresting 
 their natural growth and increase of population, and by leaving 
 their northern and western frontiers equally exposed to British 
 invasion and Indian aggression ; they are above all dishonorable 
 to the United States, in demanding from them to abandon territory 
 and a portion of their citizens, to admit a foreign interference in 
 their domestic concerns, and to cease to exercise their natural 
 rights on their own shores and in their own waters. A treaty 
 concluded on such terms would be but an armistice. It cannot 
 be supposed that America would long submit to conditions so 
 injurious and degrading. It is impossible, in the natural course of 
 events, that she should not, at the first favorable opportunity, recur 
 to arms for the recovery of her territory, of her rights, and her 
 honor. Instead of settling existing difficulties, such a peace would 
 only create new causes of war, sow the seeds of permanent 
 hatred, and lay the foundation of hostilities for an indefinite period. 
 It is not necessary to refer such demands to the American govern- 
 ment for its instruction. They will be only a fit subject of 
 deliberation when it becomes necessary to decide upon the expe- 
 diency of an absolute surrender of national independence.' 
 
 There was no mistaking the meaning of such language, respect- 
 ful but pungent, expressing perspicuously the true principles of 
 diplomatic action. Although it was self-evident that the spirit 
 which dictated such sentiments as that communication contained, 
 would not allow any truckling or swerving, still the British nego- 
 tiators appeared determined to persevere until they accomplished 
 what from the very commencement seemed to be to them a 
 favorite feature in the treaty, viz : the exposure of our whole north- 
 ern frontier to the mercy of their nation. She found that the 
 Indian hordes could be advantageously employed by her, indeed 
 she had already employed them to such an extent as to give, so far 
 as she was concerned, a most truculent aspect to the war ; hence 
 the invincible determination manifested by her legalized commis- 
 sioners, to have the treaty so framed as to secure to her their abso- 
 lute control. This disposition was regarded by the American 
 commissioners with feelings not only of regret, but of horror, who 
 protested against ' the employment of savages, whose known rule 
 
LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 81 
 
 of warfare is the indiscriminate torture and butchery of women, 
 children, and prisoners,' as constituting ' a departure from the 
 principles of humanity observed between all civilized and chris- 
 tian nations even in war.' They stated that instead of endeavoring 
 to effect that control, it would be much more comportable with the 
 dignity and grandeur of the British nation to abandon forever the 
 barbarous practice, and to stipulate with America to that purpose 
 in case of waging any future war with her. They would not 
 recede an inch from the ground which they had taken, in relation 
 to the Indians and northern frontier. After directing their com- 
 bined diplomatic artillery against them for the space of several 
 weeks incessantly, to drive them from it, but without the slightest 
 success, the British diplomatists finally abandoned it. Soon after, 
 the American commissioners proposed to guaranty the pacification 
 of the Indians when the treaty should be ratified, and expressed 
 their unaltered determination to treat upon no subjects respecting 
 which they had received no instructions. To this their opponents 
 acceded, and the negotiation proceeded, the American commis- 
 sioners dictating nearly all the terms, and finally issued in the pro- 
 duction of a treaty, on the twenty-fourth of December, 1814. 
 
 Throughout the negotiation the utmost unanimity prevailed 
 among our ministers, and never was there a difference of opinion, 
 except in one instance. This related to certain fishery privileges, 
 and the navigation of the Mississippi river. 
 
 In a treaty of peace concluded in 1783, between Great Britain 
 and the United States, it was stipulated that the latter should enjoy 
 the liberty of taking fish of every kind on all the banks of New- 
 foundland, Grand Bank, gulf of St. Lawrence, and in all other 
 places where the inhabitants of both countries had been accus- 
 tomed to fish — that the same should be enjoyed on all the coasts, 
 bays and creeks of his Britannic majesty's dominions in America ; 
 that she should have full permission to dry and cure fish in the 
 unsettled bays, &c. of Nova Scotia, Magdalen Islands, and Lab- 
 rador, so long as they should remain unsettled, but that after they 
 were settled, such permission must be sanctioned by their occu- 
 pants ; and also that the Mississippi river should be open forever to 
 the navigation of both nations, from its mouth to its source. The 
 latter stipulation was included in a treaty negotiated by Mr. Jay, 
 in 1794. 
 
 The United States, anticipating that, the subjects of the fisheries 
 and navigation of the Mississippi would be brought forward by 
 the British government, had directed the secretary of state, Mr. 
 Monroe, to give her commissioners special instructions relative to 
 them. He accordingly authorized them, in case she should require 
 the United States to relinquish her fishing privileges, to treat the 
 requisition as it deserved. They were given to understand that 
 these privileges must not be brought into the discussion, and that, 
 
 VOL. I. i 11 
 
82 LIFE OF HENBY CLAY. 
 
 if insisted on, their negotiations must terminate. He instructed 
 them not to grant to Great Britain the right to navigate any river 
 within the exclusive jurisdiction of the United States. 
 
 At an early stage of the negotiation, it had been intimated to 
 the American commissioners by the British, that the privilege in 
 question would not be renewed, unless the United States offered 
 something to Great Britain which should be deemed an ample 
 equivalent. The subject of this equivalent caused the difference 
 of opinions to which allusion has been made. Mr. Adams 
 contended that no equivalent could or ought to be demanded for 
 the right of fishing stipulated in the treaty of 1783. He did not 
 believe with his colleagues, that the article in that treaty, relating 
 to this right, expired at the commencement of the war, but 
 contended that it had survived the war, and that therefore it was 
 absurd to treat concerning the renewal of a right, of which they 
 were then in the legitimate possession. The great importance of 
 preserving this right unabridged was felt by all. Mr. Gallatin 
 went so far as to propose to permit Great Britain to exercise the 
 right of navigating the Mississippi as an equivalent for that of 
 fishing in the waters within her jurisdiction. After a warm 
 debate, Messrs. Adams, Gallatin and Bayard declared themselves 
 in favor of doing so, and Messrs. Clay and Russell opposed. Mr. 
 Clay then affirmed, that his signature should not be appended to 
 a treaty including such a proposition, who was joined soon after 
 by Mr. Bayard, and consequently it was not included. A most 
 animated discussion ensued, in which Mr. Clay demonstrated the 
 impolicy of extending such a privilege to Great Britain, contended 
 that America ought to come out of the war in the uinimpaired 
 possession of all the rights and privileges which she enjoyed 
 prior to its commencement, and that the right of discussing the 
 question of the fisheries did not come within the purview of their 
 instructions. In regard to the navigation of the Mississippi, a 
 mere glance at its unlimited connections and dependencies, the 
 vast advantage which an easy access to them would confer, 
 rendered no deliberation requisite in deciding upon granting a 
 right to it to Great Britain. It would be almost tantamount to 
 placing in her hands a tube communicating with the very vitals 
 of the republic, through which she could suck its life blood; it 
 would give her unbounded facilities for employing against us the 
 numerous tribes of Indians at the north west, of which she 
 would doubtless with avidity avail herself, and greatly to our 
 detriment, and thus jeopard the great and growing interests of 
 the whole west. As it respected the right which she imagined 
 she possessed in virtue of the treaties of 1783 and 1794, Mr. Clay 
 contended that the grounds upon which it was based were suppo- 
 sititious, and that therefore it could not be valid ; that at the dates 
 of those treaties, it was supposed that the law of nations would 
 
LIFE OF HENRY CLAY, 83 
 
 entitle her to the right, inasmuch as it was believed that her 
 dominions bordered on the Upper Mississippi, and that this 
 supposed bordering of her territory on the river, was the principal 
 reason adduced in stipulating for the right of its navigation ; that 
 now since it was certainly determined and known, that such was 
 not the fact, she possessed no natural grounds on which to found 
 the right : that Spain at the date of those treaties owned the entire 
 western bank of the river from its mouth to its source, and conse- 
 quently possessed an equal interest with the United States in its navi- 
 gation, who could not, therefore, convey to a third party that interest, 
 or any portion of it, unsanctioned by the former ; that in 1803, 
 by purchase, the United States became possessed of the entire 
 Spanish interest, which placed her upon different grounds from 
 those on which she stood in 1783 and 1794. Besides, Mr. Clay 
 argued, what connection is there between the fishing privilege, and 
 the right of navigating the Mississippi? The treaties showed 
 none, their nature none. "Why select as the equivalent for the 
 privilege, the Mississippi ? Why not barter the Potomac, or the 
 Hudson for it? There was something calculated to excite 
 suspicion in this attempt of our powerful enemy to introduce her 
 invincible navy to the ' father of rivers.' It looked like feeling for 
 the purse-strings of the nation. He would as soon yield a portion 
 of her blood-bought territory, as this noblest of her streams, to 
 become the resort of the British lion, where he might make his 
 permanent lair, and eventually place his huge paw upon the crest 
 of her eagle. Though as anxious as his colleagues possibly 
 could be for the preservation of their fishing privileges, he could 
 not consent to effect it by a purchase so expensive as that 
 proposed. Thus Mr. Clay remained immovably determined to 
 act in accordance with his convictions of duty in consulting 
 the interests of that nation which he represented. The value of 
 those interests, undoubtedly secured by the decided position which 
 he assumed and maintained, is of such magnitude as to be 
 inappreciable ; they constitute a corner stone of the temple of 
 liberty, destined to abide as long as she shall make it her abode. 
 
 Subsequently to the British ministers' becoming acquainted with 
 the conclusion of the American commissioners, respecting the 
 exchange, they, in a counter project of a treaty, submitted to the 
 latter, proposed among other articles one to renew the right of nav- 
 igation in question, without any equivalent. After much delibera- 
 tion this was rejected. Finally, it was mutually agreed by both 
 parties to refrain from inserting any article in the treaty, relating 
 either to the fisheries or the navigation of the Mississippi. Thus 
 the pride of the west and the glory of America was suffered to 
 roll his majestic tide in beauty and grandeur to the ocean, unbur- 
 thened by foreign vessels and unfettered by regal sway. 
 
 Several years afterwards, Mr. Clay became involved in an un- 
 
84 LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 pleasant controversy between Messrs. Russell and Adams, which 
 originated from something connected with their negotiations at 
 Ghent. On the day next subsequent to the signing of the treaty, 
 the commissioners drew up a sketch of their discussions in relation 
 to the difference of opinion among them, concerning complying 
 with the demands of the British commissioners, which represented 
 the offer of the navigation of the Mississippi as made by a major- 
 ity of the American plenipotentiaries. At the same time, Mr. 
 Russell communicated to Mr. Monroe the fact of his being in the 
 minority in that offer, and declared his intention of submitting his 
 reasons for disagreeing with his associates, at a future convenient 
 period, which he subsequently carried into effect. These papers 
 were deposited among the documents of the nation, where they 
 remained till 1822, when they were placed before the house of 
 representatives, at its request, by the president, together with a pri- 
 vate communication from Mr. Russell, purporting to be a duplicate 
 of one found among the private papers of the president. A state- 
 ment was made by each of these letters, between which there was 
 a discrepancy, which caused Mr. Adams to reprimand Mr. Russell 
 severely, through the medium of the press. Mr. Clay addressed a 
 letter to Mr. Russell designed to be private, in which he signified 
 his acquiescence in the reprimand, and also gave a concise state- 
 ment of their debates connected with their disagreement. It 
 appeared that Mr. Adams was laboring under the impression that 
 Mr. Clay coincided with him in construing the treaties of 1783 
 and 1794, or that part of them referring to the fisheries and Missis- 
 sippi, from the fact of his signature being attached to the commu- 
 nication of the American to the British commissioners, embodying 
 the views of the former in relation to them. Mr. Clay corrected 
 that impression by declaring that he had not concurred with him. 
 He stated that his object in advising the insertion of the words i a 
 majority] in the despatch to the secretary of state, was to announce 
 to his government the fact of a division among them, and with the 
 view of concealing it from the power with whom they were treat- 
 ing, he appended his signature to the communication. The dispute 
 was maintained some time between Messrs. Russell and Mr. 
 Adams, and with great acrimony, but no impeachment of Mr. 
 Clay's conduct or motives was attempted by either. Both awarded 
 to him the honor of having acted well his part, in bringing to so 
 felicitous a consummation the treaty of peace. 
 
 Immediately after the close of the negotiation, Mr. Clay repaired 
 to Paris, having resolved not to visit England until he learned the 
 ratification of the treaty. At the request of Mr. Crawford, our 
 minister at Paris, he took lodgings in his hotel, where he found an 
 invitation to a ball, given by Mr. Hottinguor, the American banker, 
 in honor of the conclusion of the treaty. There he was introduced 
 to the celebrated madame de Stael, and had a pleasant interview 
 with her. 
 
LIFE OF HENRY CLAY, 85 
 
 She informed him that she had recently visited England, and 
 had openly espoused the cause of the United States there, 
 remarking that the British were greatly exasperated against them, 
 and entertained serious intentions of despatching the duke of 
 Wellington at the head of their armies, for the purpose of inflicting 
 proper, and as they thought well merited chastisement upon them. 
 He politely thanked her for the interest she had manifested in 
 behalf o? his country, at the same time expressing his regret that 
 England had not carried out her intentions. ' Why ? ' said she. 
 1 Because, madame, if he had beaten us, we should only have 
 been in the condition of Europe, without disgrace. But if we 
 had been so fortunate as to defeat him, we should have greatly 
 added to the renown of our arms.' 
 
 He afterwards met her at a select coterie at her own dwelling, 
 where he found the marshals of France, duke of Wellington, and 
 many other persons of rank. On introducing Mr. Clay to the 
 duke, madame de Stael repeated the above anecdote. He replied 
 promptly and gracefully, that had he been so fortunate in the 
 execution of such a commission as to triumph over a foe evincing 
 as much bravery as the Americans had, he should regard it as a 
 greater honor than the most brilliant victory he had ever achieved. 
 
 Mr. Clay tarried at the French metropolis two months, during 
 which time news of the glorious victory at New Orleans was 
 communicated to him, whereupon he was heard to remark, ' now 
 I can go to England without mortification.' He expressed, how- 
 ever, much chagrin at the reported flight of a body of Kentucky 
 militia from the field of battle on that occasion, but declared his 
 belief, from a personal acquaintance with their bravery, that it 
 must be false. 
 
 Soon after, he went to England, where the treaty had been 
 ratified formally, a few days previous to his leaving Paris. In 
 England he received the most marked attention, and formed many 
 valuable acquaintances, which subsequently proved a source of 
 pleasure and profit to him. He won the esteem of lord Castle- 
 reagh, who treated him with particular politeness, offering to 
 present him to the prince regent, which Mr. Clay civilly declined, 
 in consequence of his unwillingness to submit to the courtly 
 formalities of such an introduction. 
 
 Several days had elapsed, when he was informed by his host 
 that an individual desired to speak with him. Mr. Clay requested 
 that he might be admitted, who accordingly was, who proved to 
 be a person splendidly dressed, and, refusing to be seated at Mr. 
 Clay's request, announced himself as the first waiter of my lord 
 Castlereag-h ! i Indeed ! ' replied Mr. Clay, ' what is your pleasure 
 with me ? ' ' Why, if your excellency pleases,' said the man, ' it 
 is usual for a foreign minister when he is presented to lord 
 Castlereagh to make to his first waiter a present, or pay the custom- 
 
86 LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 ary stipend ; ' at the same time presenting him with a catalogue of 
 names of foreign ministers, with the amount that each had paid 
 him placed opposite his name. 
 
 Mr. Clay, believing it a vile attempt to extort money from him, 
 endeavored to get rid of him in the easiest way possible, by 
 saying that he was not the minister to England ; that Air. Adams, 
 who was, would probably soon arrive from Paris, who would 
 doubtless comply with the custom of the country in that respect. 
 The servant, not being inclined to release him so easily, quickly 
 replied, that it was immaterial whether he was a resident or special 
 minister. Mr. Clay thought finally that the most effectual way 
 to release himself, was to comply with his demand, and presented 
 him a small sum. 
 
 While he was at London the battle of Waterloo was fought, 
 and he witnessed the public rejoicings on account of its favorable 
 termination to the British. He was one day dining at lord 
 Castlereagh's house in company with many of the nobility, when 
 the conversation turned on the late victory, and the whereabouts of 
 Napoleon, as it was not known where he had gone. Some 
 intimated that he had sailed for America. ' If he goes there,' 
 said lord Liverpool to Mr. Clay, 'will he not give you much 
 trouble ? ' * None whatever,' instantly replied Mr. Clay, l we shall 
 be glad to receive such a distinguished, though unfortunate exile, 
 and we shall soon make a good democrat of him.' 
 
 During his residence in England, Mr. Clay passed his time 
 very agreeably, and laid the foundation for many grateful reminis- 
 cences. By the late sir James Mackintosh he was delightfully 
 entertained. He embraced the opportunity of renewing his 
 intimacy with lord Gambier, whose amiable qualities and piety 
 had secured Mr. Clay's strong attachment. With him he spent a 
 week, visiting with him during that time several places of interest, 
 one of which was the residence of a descendant of William Penn. 
 
 In September, 1815, he embarked for New York, where, on his 
 arrival, he and Mr. Gallatin were complimented with a public 
 dinner. 
 
 In every transaction of a public nature in which Mr. Clay has 
 had any agency, he has always rendered himself conspicuous ; 
 but in no one did he gather greener laurels, or make a longer 
 stride towards immortal fame, than in that of the negotiation at 
 Ghent. Rumor had preceded him, trumpeting his honors — the 
 faithful and scrupulously jealous manner in which he had almost 
 sleeplessly watched over the interests of his country, and crushed 
 with the strength of a giant the incipient risings of a disposition 
 to destroy or abridge her natural or conventional rights ; and when 
 he approached her shores, she opened wide her arms to receive 
 him. In Kentucky, warm, noble-hearted Kentucky, his reception 
 was like that of a dutiful and affectionate son in the long and 
 
LIFEOFHENRYCLAY. S7 
 
 passionate embrace of a beloved mother. She welcomed him 
 with a tenderness that would hardly allow the winds of heaven to 
 visit him with gentle rudeness. Enthusiastic rejoicings were 
 enkindled, and spontaneous outpourings of grateful feeling were 
 lavished upon him like rain. He had even been re-elected to 
 congress while he was still in Europe, and unanimously. A doubt 
 having arisen touching the legality of this election, a new one was 
 commenced, which resulted as at first. 
 
 At the commencement of the next session, the house again called 
 him to preside over its deliberations, where he soon became engaged 
 in directing successfully the affairs of the nation. As a matter in 
 course, the new treaty was brought forward at an early stage, out 
 of which the federalists, and the opposers of the war in general, 
 endeavored to obtain food for their carping, fault-finding appetites. 
 Passing indifferently and silently by the great advantages which 
 it secured to the United States, they sought, with an eagerness 
 worthy of a better cause, to find some defective or weak point. 
 If in this they were successful, although it might be so diminutive 
 as to escape the detection of any except their microscopic vision 
 when thus employed, it was ridiculously amusing to listen to their 
 barkings, and howlings, and wranglings over it, often for hours ; 
 and the multitude and variety of hard names and scurrilous 
 epithets which they would bandy about on such occasions, 
 rendered it necessary for one to go beyond the English vocabulary 
 if he desired to satisfy his curiosity respecting their location. 
 But Mr. Clay soon brought to bear upon them the tremendous 
 battery of his eloquence, which sent the whole yelping pack to 
 their kennels, both in and out of congress. This he did on the 
 twenty-ninth of January, 1816. 
 
 Said he, on that occasion, ' I gave a vote for the declaration of 
 war. I exerted all the little influence and talents I could com- 
 mand to make the war. The war was made. It is terminated ; 
 and I declare with perfect sincerity, if it had been permitted to me 
 to lift the veil of futurity, and to have foreseen the precise series of 
 events which has occurred, my vote would have been unchanged. 
 We had been insulted, and outraged, and spoliated upon by nearly 
 all Europe ; by Great Britain, by France, Spain, Denmark, Naples, 
 and, to cap the climax, by the little contemptible power of Algiers. 
 We had submitted too long and too much. We had become the 
 scorn of foreign powers, and the derision of our own citizens.' 
 
 These opposers laid no small emphasis upon the fact that no 
 stipulation was contained in the treaty respecting the impressment 
 of our seamen. He met this in a strain of lofty argument, whose 
 pungency sank into their hearts like a spear. Said he, ' one of 
 the great causes of the war and of its continuance was the practice 
 of impressment exercised by Great Britain ; and if this claim had 
 been admitted by necessary implication or express stipulation, the 
 
88 LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 rights of our seamen would have been abandoned ! It is with 
 utter astonishment that I hear it has been contended in this 
 country, that because our right of exemption from the practice had 
 not been expressly secured in the treaty, it was therefore given up ! 
 It is impossible that such an argument can be advanced on this 
 floor. No member who regarded his reputation would venture to 
 advance such a doctrine.' 
 
 He concluded by stating the position in which the country 
 ought to be speedily placed; advised the preservation of her 
 present naval and military force ; to make provision for the 
 increase of the navy ; to fortify her most defenceless points ; to 
 multiply military roads and canals ; and to commence in earnest 
 the great work of internal improvement. ' I would see a chain 
 of turnpike roads and canals from Passamaquoddy to New 
 Orleans, and other similar roads intersecting the mountains, to 
 facilitate intercourse between all parts of the country, and to bind 
 and to connect us together. / would also effectually protect our 
 manufactories. I would afford them protection not so much 
 for the sake of the manufacturers themselves as for the general 
 interest.' 
 
 Mr. Clay resumed his duties in the house by evincing the same 
 far reaching anxiety for the welfare of his whole country, that he 
 manifested when he resigned his station for a foreign mission. To 
 his influence, in a great measure, the origin of the war was owing, 
 its bold prosecution, and satisfactory termination. But besides 
 the advantages which we reaped as the fruits of it, we realized 
 many detrimental consequences incidental to it. An immense 
 debt had been contracted ; our commercial, manufacturing, and 
 agricultural interests had been partially suspended, if not totally 
 neglected; we found ourselves greatly in want of articles, the 
 product of mechanical ingenuity, to supply which it was necessary 
 to resort to foreign work-shops ; this of course caused large expor- 
 tations of specie, which seldom returned; the bank issues 
 amounted to upwards of one hundred millions of dollars, while 
 at the same time there was only about fifteen millions of specie 
 in the country. These institutions had of course been obliged to 
 suspend specie payment; distress and pressure every where 
 abounded, and the well disposed and patriotic began seriously to 
 look about them for measures of relief, and restoration to the 
 country. The most judicious and reflecting in the nation, believed 
 that the greatest source of distress was to be found in the deranged 
 state of the currency. Indeed it was completely vitiated. The 
 government paper, bearing interest at six per cent., the redemption 
 of which it had guarantied by pledging the faith of the nation, 
 was depreciated some twenty per cent., and doubt and distrust in 
 money matters were prominent features of the condition of the 
 country. Something must be done, it was obvious, to remove 
 
LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 89 
 
 that doubt, and restore confidence, or general stagnation would 
 invade every industrial department throughout the nation. At this 
 period, the individual states presented the singular appearance of 
 being engaged in doing what the constitution evidently intended 
 should be performed by the general government, namely, in reality 
 regulating the currency, through the banking institutions operating 
 under their sanction. This they were executing in a most unfi- 
 nancial-like manner, in many instances making their paper a legal 
 tender, thus compelling the creditor to accept it or yield his claim. 
 In this state of things, it was imperiously demanded of congress 
 to interpose the power vested in it by the constitution, and recover 
 that control over the currency which it had suffered to be usurped 
 by the states. The articles in that instrument granting congress 
 the exclusive power of coining money, and prohibiting the states 
 from doing it, and also from issuing bills of credit, rendered it 
 apparent that the power of regulating the general currency was 
 lodged with that body. This was the belief of the most able 
 financiers of that time, and adopted by those of the present. 
 Acting under the influence of this belief, Mr. Madison had at the 
 opening of the session of 1815 - 16, recommended f the establish- 
 ment of a national bank,' which ' he regarded as the best and 
 perhaps the only adequate resource to relieve the country and the 
 government from the present embarrassment. Authorized to issue 
 notes which will be received in all payments to the United States, 
 the circulation of its issues will be coextensive with the union, 
 and there will exist a constant demand, leaving a just proportion 
 to the annual amount of the duties and taxes to be collected, 
 independent of the general circulation for commercial and social 
 purposes. A national bank will therefore possess the means and 
 the opportunity of supplying a circulating medium of equal use 
 and value in every state and in every district of every state. Estab- 
 lished by the authority of the United States, accredited by the 
 government to the whole amount of its notes in circulation, and 
 intrusted as the depository of the government with all the accumu- 
 lations of the public treasure, the national bank, independent of 
 its immediate capital, will enjoy every recommendation w T hich 
 can merit and secure the confidence of the public. Organized 
 upon principles of responsibility, but of independence, the national 
 bank will be retained within its legitimate sphere of action without 
 just apprehensions from the misconduct of its directors, or from 
 the encroachments of the government. Eminent in its resources, 
 and in its example, the national bank will conciliate and lead the 
 state banks in all that is necessary for the restoration of credit, 
 public and private. And acting upon a compound capital, partly 
 of stock, and partly of gold and silver, the national bank will be 
 the ready instrument to enhance the value of the public securities, 
 and to restore the currency of the national coin.' 
 
 VOL. I. 12 
 
90 
 
 LIFE OF HENRY CLAY 
 
 Such were Mr. Madison's views in relation to a national bank, 
 which were immediately referred to the committee on the national 
 currency ; and on the eighth of January, 1816, the chairman of 
 that committee, Mr. John C. Calhoun, of South Carolina, 
 presented an able and elaborate report in relation thereto, advo- 
 cating the immediate chartering of such a bank as the president 
 had recommended, and detailed its prominent features. When 
 the bill was brought forward for the action of the house, Mr. Clay 
 unequivocally declared himself in favor of its provisions in a 
 speech of great ability and argumentative force, although well 
 knowing that he would thereby subject himself to the charge of 
 inconsistency. He was charged with it by his political enemies, 
 who magnified his departure from the position taken by him in 
 1811 in relation to the same bank, into a monstrous blemish in his 
 political character ; which, if correctly considered, is seen to consti- 
 tute an ornament, instead. A careful contrast of the grounds on 
 which, and the circumstances under which he then opposed that 
 institution, with those on and under which he now advocated it, 
 will, to any unprejudiced mind, forever exempt him from that 
 charge. Such a contrast will clearly show, that the total change 
 of circumstances which had taken place during the five years 
 that had elapsed since he first examined the merits of that bank, and 
 that wrought in the policy of the general government in that time, to 
 say nothing of the experience received in prosecuting the war, of 
 the utility of and necessity for such an establishment, not only dis- 
 armed and rendered invalid now, objections which then were both 
 valid and weighty when directed against it, but absolutely con- 
 verted them into arguments in its favor. At the time when it was 
 proposed to renew the charter of the old United States bank, Mr. 
 Clay did not think it so essential in accomplishing any of the 
 objects definitely specified in the constitution, as to justify its 
 establishment, on grounds purely constructive. It was supported, 
 too, principally by the federal party, and on the ground that its 
 agency was requisite in executing the financial concerns of 
 government ; which ground then was falsely assumed, inasmuch 
 as the local banks of the several states had, in certain cases, been 
 employed to perform that office, which they were successfully 
 executing. They, therefore, being known to compass the specific 
 object for which it was stated the charter of the bank was to be 
 renewed, it was justly regarded by Mr. Clay as a matter of super- 
 erogation to renew it, and accordingly he opposed its renewal. 
 In 1816, Mr. Clay supported the bank mainly on the ground of its 
 necessity, to enable congress to exercise that ample and salutary 
 supervision over the commercial and monetary interests of the 
 country, which the constitution expressly gave it; and that, there- 
 fore, out of this very necessity, was fairly deducible its constitution- 
 ality, since it was absurd to suppose that the constitution would 
 
LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 91 
 
 grant to congress a specified right, and at the same time withhold 
 the only means by which it could exercise that right. A stormy 
 and protracted discussion arose respecting the bank charter, during 
 which Mr. Clay came again into collision with Mr. Randolph, 
 causing unusual sensation in the house, and giving rise to appre- 
 hensions that something serious might grow out of it. Mr. 
 Randolph animadverted somewhat harshly upon Mr. Clay's 
 custom of maintaining a uniform silence in his private intercourse 
 respecting his change of opinion in regard to the expediency and 
 constitutionality of a United States bank, using language that 
 might admit of very offensive construction. When he ceased, Mr. 
 Clay, with his usual self-possession and deliberation, rose, and in a 
 few words declared that the offensive language needed explanation ; 
 that he should refrain from saying what he conceived himself 
 bound to say, until Mr. Randolph should make it. Mr. Randolph 
 rose, and made the explanation, which Mr. Clay pronounced 
 unsatisfactory ; and Mr. Randolph again explained, disavowing all 
 intention to offer offence. During the altercation, an almost 
 breathless stillness had been preserved in the house ; a pin might 
 be heard to fall in any part of it. 
 
 The bank bill passed the house by a vote of eighty to seventy- 
 one, and the senate by a vote of twenty-two to twelve. On 
 the tenth of April it became a law, went into operation in the 
 early part of 1817, and more than justified the expectations of its 
 friends, in regard to its influence for good upon the varied interests 
 of the country. • 
 
 During this session, Mr. Clay gave his support to a bill propos-v 
 ing a reduction of the direct tax laid upon the United States. HeV 
 expressed himself in favor of a moderate land tax, and regarded I 
 the existing one as too high for a state of peace. He maintained 
 that ' in time of peace we should look to foreign importations as 
 the chief source of revenue, and in war when they are cut off, that 
 it was time enough to draw deeply on our internal resources.' His 
 plan was to make up for a still further decrease of the land tax, by 
 an increase of the duties on imports. 
 
 It was deemed desirable to increase the pay of members of con- 
 gress, which led to the framing and passage of the celebrated 
 compensation bill. It was generally agreed among the members 
 that their compensation ( six dollars per day,) was not sufficient for 
 their maintenance at Washington, and allow them to enjoy the 
 society of their families. The principal question that arose res- 
 pected the mode by which it should be increased. Some were in 
 favor of a stipulated salary, and others of an increase of the per 
 diem pay. On the sixth of March, colonel Richard M. Johnson, 
 one of the committee to whom the business had been referred, 
 reported a bill regulating the pay of members, by a salary of fifteen 
 hundred dollars per session, for each member in congress, which 
 
92 LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 passed both houses. Mr. Clay voted for this bill, but at the same 
 time declaring his preference for the per diem rate. The passage 
 of this bill proved particularly obnoxious to the demagogues, 
 throughout the country, who exerted themselves incessantly to 
 excite the passions of the people, evidently for the purpose of 
 accumulating political capital. In no section of the union did the 
 excitement rage to such an extent as in Kentucky. It seemed a3 
 though scarcely an individual in the whole state was friendly to it. 
 The ambitious and designing demagogues and ultra federalists 
 united in Kentucky their furious forces, with exultations of 
 delight at what appeared to them the certain prospect of accom- 
 plishing the total overthrow of Mr. Clay. They had succeeded to 
 such a degree in kindling a flame of indignation against the meas- 
 ure, that there were at least some grounds of danger. They had 
 long been impotently watching for this opportunity, and now from 
 their various places of concealment they rushed forth, bent upon 
 accomplishing their purpose. After some consultation as to the 
 mode they should adopt, it was finally determined that Mr. John 
 Pope, an eloquent and influential gentleman, should take the field 
 in opposition to Mr. Clay. Accordingly, he immediately com- 
 menced political operations in the approved style of the country, 
 by riding about among the inhabitants, addressing them often, set- 
 ting forth his own merits and claims, and decrying those of his 
 rival. It was not until after being repeatedly importuned by his 
 friends, that Mr. Clay would consent to take the field in person 
 against Mr. Pope. He finally went forth for the first time in his 
 life, to vindicate in person to his constituents, his public political 
 acts. 
 
 It has been said that Mr. Clay was the first Kentuckian who 
 preserved dignity and independence of character on an election- 
 eering tour. It was customary at that day in Kentucky, for any 
 one who solicited an office in the gift of the people, to clothe him- 
 self in tattered garments, and in the attitude and with the tone of a 
 menial, to go around among them and thus ask it at their hands. 
 Mr. Clay's exalted sense of dignity and honor would not permit 
 him to conform to this degrading custom, and he visited his con- 
 stituents attired just as he would go to his seat in congress. He 
 appealed to the people, expressing his entire willingness to be gov- 
 erned by their will, as he was in duty bound, and that he would 
 vote for the repeal of the offensive law, if they instructed him to 
 do so. He corrected their erroneous impressions, and occasionally 
 made those happy and effective appeals to their hearts, which he 
 knew so well how to direct, and he soon found himself almost 
 entirely reinstated in their affections. Mr. Pope, perceiving that he 
 was fast losing ground, made a desperate effort at regaining it, by 
 challenging his rival to meet him on a designated day and discuss 
 their respective claims to the suffrage of the people. It was unhes- 
 
LIFE OF HENRY CLAY, 93 
 
 itatingly accepted. They met according to appointment, and in 
 the presence of an immense assemblage, fought their battle of 
 argument, which resulted in the signal defeat of Mr. Pope. Mr. 
 Clay was re-elected by a large majority. The compensation bill 
 was among the first subjects considered by congress after it con- 
 vened again, which was repealed. The per diem allowance was 
 finally increased to eight dollars per day. 
 
 During the canvass, Mr. Clay met an old hunter who had pre- 
 viously been his devoted friend, but now opposed him on the 
 ground of the compensation bill. ' Have you a good rifle, my 
 friend ? ' asked Mr. Clay. ' Yes.' ' Does it ever flash ? ' ' Once 
 only.' ' What did you do with it, throw it away?' ' No, I picked 
 the flint, tried it again, and brought down the game.' ' Have I 
 ever flashed but on the compensation bill?' 'No.' 'Will you 
 throw me away?' 'No! no!' quickly replied the hunter, nearly 
 overwhelmed by his enthusiastic feelings, '/ will pick the flint and 
 try you asrain ! ' Ever afterwards he was the unwavering friend 
 of Mr. Clay. 
 
 An Irish barber residing at Lexington, had always given Mr. 
 Clay his vote, and on all occasions when he was a candidate for 
 office, electioneered warmly for him. His ardent temperament 
 and unrestrained passions frequently involved him in scrapes and 
 difficulties, out of which Mr. Clay had generally succeeded in 
 extricating him. While the canvass was progressing, after the 
 compensation bill, the barber did not evince his usual zeal and 
 animation, on the contrary seemed to be indifferent as to the result 
 of the election. To all inquiries for whom he designed to vote he 
 answered evasively. He was accosted a few days previous to the 
 election, by a gentleman for whom he entertained the most pro- 
 found regard, with the question, ' for whom, Jerry, do you mean 
 to vote?' Regarding his interrogator with an earnest, shrewd look, 
 he replied, ' Faix, an' sure, docthur, I mane to vote for the man 
 who can't put more nor one hand into the threasury? Mr. Pope, 
 the opponent of Mr. Clay, had the misfortune to lose an arm in 
 early life, and this circumstance, while it gave pertinence to the 
 Irishman's reply, indicated for whom he intended to vote. A few 
 days subseqent to the election, the barber met Mr. Clay in Lexing- 
 ton, and approaching him, burst into tears, saying that he had 
 wronged him, and manifested bitter regret for his ingratitude. ' My 
 poor dear wife,' said he, ' got round me, blubbering, and was after 
 vexing herself and me too. She tould me that I was too bad, too 
 bad, to desart like a base spalpleen, me ould frind. ' Niver's the 
 time, Jerry, dear, when you got in jail or any bad fixin', niver's the 
 time he didn't come to you an' hilp you out. Och ! bad luck to 
 you, for not giving him your vote.' ' The barber was ever after 
 true to Mr. Clay. 
 
 In all matters of public importance brought before the house, 
 
94 LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 whenever it was compatible with his station, Mr. Gay interested 
 himself, concerning which his manifestation of regard for the wel- 
 fare of his country was characterized by unusual uniformity. 
 There was nothing fitful or erratic about his zeal ; it burned with 
 a steady, certain light, revealing the secrets of his very soul, in 
 relation to his public intentions and desires. Defeat could not 
 diminish, nor opposition extinguish it; always irrepressible, con- 
 flicting circumstances only rendered it more intense. No meas- 
 ures passed through his hands without bearing its impress, and so 
 deep as to appear a part of the same. But there were periods of 
 extraordinary interest, when it blazed with more than meteoric 
 brilliancy — when it constituted the aurora borealis of the political 
 horizon, seen and admired by the whole universe. One of these 
 periods we now approach — a period which reflects the highest 
 honor on his character, for philanthropy and benevolence, and 
 which caused his memory to be enshrined in the hearts of millions 
 remote from the field of his fame — the period of the struggles of 
 the Spanish colonies in South America, to become independent of 
 the mother country. These he contemplated with as much 
 anxiety and solicitude for their result, as though he had been an 
 actual participator in them. 
 
 Happily for America, the allotment of Providence introduced 
 Mr. Clay to the stage of public action at one of the most critical 
 times in her history, when just such influence as he could exert was 
 imperiously demanded. The din of the revolution had hardly 
 died away, and the blood with which it was achieved scarcely 
 dried up, when he first came forward in the defence of his country's 
 rights. The spirit of ; seventy-six ' had indeed felled the tall trees 
 of tyranny, and plucked up the rank weeds of oppression, and 
 planted the germ of liberty. But the little band of men inhaling 
 that spirit, who had arrayed around the place of the precious 
 deposit a rampart of iron hearts, after irrigating and enriching it 
 with their blood, had either sunk down to an enviable rest in the 
 sacred soil, or with diminished energy and flagging zeal still 
 maintained their posts. Their pristine strength, however, the storm 
 of war had swept away, and though they still stretched out their 
 scar-covered arms to shield it from invasion, their feeble efforts 
 were hardly sufficient to the task. Dangers were numerous, boding 
 disaster in case the vigilance of that veteran band should slumber. 
 The enemies of freedom, though beaten back, had retired with 
 their weapons in their hands, and from their secret lurking places 
 looked forth, ready to avail themselves of the first favorable mo- 
 ment to sally forth and nip it in the bud. Such were the circum- 
 stances, when Mr. Clay joined that weak and diminished company 
 of watchers. He found the tree of liberty a strong and vigorous 
 plant, unfolding its beautiful leaves, but needing great care and 
 culture. There was much foreign rubbish to be removed which 
 
LIFE OF HENRY CLAY, 95 
 
 retarded its growth. A glance at its situation determined his 
 course. Nothing within the compass of his ability necessary to 
 hasten on its progress towards maturity, was wanting. Morning, 
 noon and night found him pouring the dew of his diligence upon 
 it in copious effusions. Under its genial influences the trunk shot 
 upward stately and strong, and the wide-spreading branches soon 
 bent beneath large clusters of delicious fruit. The taste of that 
 fruit caused the heart of the nation to bound with gladness, and 
 her good and great men to desire that the inhabitants of the whole 
 world might partake of it. Not a few of them gave utterance to 
 that desire in words that burned with benevolence, but none spoke 
 louder or with more effect than Mr. Clay. His voice infused 
 courage into the hearts of those who were toiling to plant a similar 
 tree on the fertile pampas of South America. Its thunder-tones rever- 
 berated among the lofty heights of the Andes, and rang through the 
 halls of the incas. The hunter heard them, and departed for the 
 battle-field to seek a nobler quarry. The gauchios left his lasso 
 on the plain and buckled on his armor. From rank to rank of 
 their embattled hosts they pealed, and nerved their arms to deal 
 the liberating blows. 
 
 The first public expression of Mr. Clay's feelings in relation to 
 South American independence, was made in connection with a^ 
 proposition to reduce the direct taxes of the United States, which 
 he thought too high for a state of peace. The aspect of our 
 foreign relations at that time was peculiarly amicable, although, 
 from a report that the Spanish minister had made an informal 
 demand for a portion of Florida, seemed to indicate that a rupture 
 with Spain was by no means improbable, and he expressed him- 
 self in favor of husbanding our means as much as practicable, 
 in anticipation of such an event. At the same time, he hinted the 
 propriety of assisting her colonial dependents in their endeavors to 
 establish a free government. His remarks caused Mr. Randolph 
 to express his sentiments concerning the same subject, which 
 among other things charged Mr. Clay with entertaining a desire 
 for conquest, indeed as being influenced by unworthy motives. 
 He said he was not ' going a tilting for the liberties of South 
 America.' She came not to our aid ; let us mind our own business, 
 and not tax our people for the liberties of the people of Spanish 
 America. He declared that her inhabitants were incapable of appre- 
 ciating or enjoying liberty. He thought Mr. Clay had imbibed the 
 war-spirit of Europe. ' The honorable gentleman has been sent on a 
 late occasion to Europe ; he had been near the field of Waterloo, 
 and he was apprehensive had snuffed the carnage and caught the 
 infection.' He intimated that Mr. Clay advocated an increase of 
 the army for the purpose of marching them to the scene of action. 
 ' What! increase our standing army in time of peace on the sug- 
 gestion that we are to go on a crusade to South America ? ' Mr. 
 
96 LIFEOFHENRYCLAY. 
 
 Clay denied having made the most remote suggestions to that 
 effect, — that his remarks were incapable of being so construed. 
 1 Do I not understand the gentleman ? ' — 'I am sorry I do not. 
 I labor under two great misfortunes — I can never understand the 
 honorable speaker, and he can never Understand me.' Such being 
 the case, Mr. Randolph remarked, he should be under the necessity 
 of abandoning the argument with him, since it would be impossi- 
 ble to proceed. 
 
 Mr. Clay again alluded to the same subject a few days after, 
 in a most feeling manner. A bill was brought forward to prohibit 
 < our citizens from selling vessels of war to subjects of a foreign 
 power,' which he vigorously opposed because of its evident bear- 
 ing upon the belligerent state of South America. He said it was 
 impossible to conceal the true character of that bill. ' Bestow 
 upon it what denomination you will, disguise it as you may, it 
 will be understood by the world as a law to discountenance any 
 aid being given to the South American patriots, now in a state of 
 revolution against the parent country. With respect to the nature 
 of that struggle, I have not now for the first time to express my 
 opinion and wishes. I wish them independence. It is the first 
 step towards improving their condition. Let them have a free 
 government, if they are capable of enjoying it. At any rate let 
 them have independence. Yes, from the inmost recesses of my 
 soul I wish them independence. In this I may be accused of 
 imprudence in the utterance of my feelings on this occasion. I 
 care not, when the independence, the happiness, the liberty of a 
 whole people is at stake, and that people our neighbors, our 
 brethren occupying a portion of the same continent, imitating our 
 example, and participating of the same sympathies with ourselves.' 
 
 During the following month an attempt was made to appro- 
 priate and pledge the bonus paid by the United States bank into 
 the public treasury, as a permanent fund to be employed in 
 constructing works of internal improvement. Mr. Clay gave his 
 hearty concurrence to this measure, declaring his belief that ' there 
 were no two subjects which could engage* the attention of the 
 national legislature, more worthy of its deliberate consideration, 
 than those of internal improvements and domestic manufactures.' 
 A bill was passed constituting such fund, but the president vetoed 
 it on alleged constitutional grounds. 
 
 Mr. Clay's remarks caused great interest to be felt in behalf of 
 South American liberty, and during the summer following, the 
 president appointed three commissioners, Messrs. Rodney, Gra- 
 ham, and Bland, to proceed to South America, and examine her 
 political, civil and social condition as preliminary to rendering 
 them any assistance. Mr. Clay regarded the appointment as 
 impolitic, and when a bill came before the house in March 1818, 
 providing for the support of government, objected to having it 
 
LIFEOFHENRYCLAY. 97 
 
 embrace a clause appropriating thirty thousand dollars for their com- 
 pensation, for constitutional reasons. For it he proposed to 
 substitute an amendment, appropriating eighteen thousand dollars 
 as the outfit and one year's salary of a minister from the United 
 States to the Independent Provinces of the river La Plata 
 in South America. He accompanied the presentation of the 
 amendment with a speech of great power, evincing great geo- 
 graphical and historical knowledge, and setting forth clearly the 
 condition of the people. The amendment, however, was not 
 adopted. 
 
 Many members of prominence differed with Mr. Clay, for 
 whose opinions he expressed his respect, and regretted that his 
 own convictions of expediency and duty led him to take a different 
 view of the subject. He directly avowed that considerations of 
 liberty and humanity had no little weight with him in advocating 
 their cause, but at the same time his belief, that the adoption of 
 the measure under consideration, while it would add to the renown 
 of the republic, would render material assistance to those who 
 were greatly in need of it He vindicated himself from the charge 
 which had been made, that he was desirous of fomenting a war 
 between the states and Spain. He indulged in animating antici- 
 pations of the number and importance of the governments which 
 might be formed in those vast, fertile, and beautiful provinces. To 
 attempts at proving the movements of the colonists as rebellious, 
 opposing the lawful government of Spain, he replied by clearly 
 showing that if that power had possessed a legal claim to their allegi- 
 ance, she had forfeited it by withholding that protection requisite to 
 entitle her to it, and that consequently the people of Spanish America 
 were contending for nothing more than their legal and natural rights. 
 * But ' said Mr. Clay, ' I take a broader, bolder position. I main- 
 tain that an oppressed people are authorized, whenever they can, 
 to rise and break their fetters. This was the great principle of 
 the English revolution. It was the great principle of our own. 
 We must therefore pass sentence of condemnation upon the 
 founders of our liberty, say that they were rebels and traitors, and 
 that we are at this moment legislating without competent powers, 
 before we can condemn the course of Spanish America.' He 
 contended that if we were justified in our attempts at independence, 
 much more was she, who had writhed beneath the scourge of 
 oppression so long, so much longer than we; that if they were 
 worthy of success, if they were entitled to succeed from the just- 
 ness of their cause, then surely we ought to wish it, especially 
 when we consider the barbarous character of the war. He 
 maintained that we were deeply interested, in recognizing their 
 independence. Even then our commerce with those provinces 
 was considerable, and would greatly increase after they should 
 become permanently settled as free and independent nations. The 
 vol. i. 13 
 
98 LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 act would attach them to us, nay, it would bind them to us by- 
 relations as intimate as those of kindred ; they would become our 
 powerful allies. Mr. Clay said he took this ground, not because 
 he desired to force our principles where they were not wished, but 
 simply from feelings of sympathy. We knew by experience how 
 sweet it was to receive that when we were in circumstances that 
 tried men's souls. There could be no danger, nor objection to 
 stretch out towards their people the hand of friendly sympathy, 
 to present to those abused and oppressed communities an expres- 
 sion of our good will, to make them a tender of those great 
 principles which we have adopted as the basis of our institu- 
 tions. Their ignorance and inability had been brought forward, 
 by those opposing the measure, as completely incapacitating them 
 for self-government. These, he contended, had been greatly 
 magnified, but admitting them to be as unqualifying as they had 
 been represented to be, the fact ought rather to increase our pity 
 for them, and to urge us to seek the more earnestly, by all reasona- 
 ble and just means within our reach, their liberation from that 
 detestable system which chained them to such a servile state. He 
 ridiculed the idea that recognition could be made a just pretext 
 for war. ' Recognition' said he, 'without aid is no just cause of 
 war ; with aid, it is not because of the recognition, but because of 
 the aid, as aid without recognition is cause of war.' Mr. Clay's 
 efforts were not successful at this time ; no minister was despatched 
 to South America; the friendly mission was deferred until 1821, 
 when he submitted, on the tenth of February, a resolution to the 
 house, l declaring that the house of representatives participated 
 with the people of the United States in the deep interest which 
 they felt for the success of the Spanish provinces of South 
 America, which were struggling to establish their liberty and inde- 
 pendence, and that it would give its constitutional support to the 
 president of the United States, whenever he might deem it 
 expedient to recognize the sovereignty and independence of those 
 provinces.' 
 
 On this resolution, a warm and protracted debate ensued, which 
 was finally adopted, by a vote of eighty-seven to sixty-eight, and 
 Mr. Clay was appointed chairman of a committee to communicate 
 to the president the action of the house. 
 
 On the eighth day of March, 1822, the president transmitted to 
 the house of representatives a message recommending the recogni- 
 tion, which Mr. Clay had so long struggled for. On the twenty- 
 eighth the vote of recognition was taken, when it appeared that 
 there was but one dissenting voice. 
 
 Thus at last were the noble and generous efforts of the patriot 
 statesman crowned with success as complete as they had been 
 persevering. Years had elapsed between their commencement 
 and glorious consummation ; years of toil, anxiety, and hope, but 
 
LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 99 
 
 now the harvest time had come. The president and congress, 
 from vehemently opposing his views in relation to their indepen- 
 dence, by his persuasive arguments were brought over to them, 
 who officially stretched out the hand of the nation, to clasp with 
 friendly pressure those of the infant republics of the south. As a 
 matter of course, the act was denounced as one of folly and fraught 
 with danger, by the personal and political enemies of Mr. Clay ; 
 but the truly philanthropic, throughout the land, regarded it with 
 approbation, and described it as just what ihe greatest free nation 
 on the globe should do towards those who were worthy of it. It 
 was applauded throughout the world, but particularly by those 
 towards whom it was directed, with enthusiastic expressions of 
 gratitude. The supreme congress of Mexico voted him the thanks 
 of the nation, for his zeal and efficient labors in their behalf. 
 
 During the struggle, his speeches were frequently read at the head 
 of the patriot army, and the effect was always to increase their 
 intrepidity and valor. The name of Clay became associated with 
 every thing dear and valuable in freedom, and was pronounced by 
 both officer and soldier with reverence ; and many were the epis- 
 tolary notices which he received, of the high estimation in which 
 his services were held, by that suffering, but successfully struggling 
 people. The following is a specimen. 
 
 ' Bogota, 21st November, 1827. 
 
 Sir, — I cannot omit availing myself of the opportunity afforded me by the depart- 
 ure of colonel Watts, chargd d'affaires of the United States, of taking the liberty to 
 address your excellency. This desire has long been entertained by me, for the pur- 
 pose of expressing my admiration of your excellency's brilliant talents and ardent 
 love of liberty. All America, Colombia, and myself, owe your excellency our purest 
 gratitude, for the incomparable services you have rendered to us, by sustaining our 
 course with a sublime enthusiasm. Accept, therefore, this sincere and cordial testi- 
 mony, which I hasten to offer to your excellency and to the government of the United 
 States, who have so greatly contributed to the emancipation of your southern brethren. 
 
 ' I have the honor to offer to your excellency my distinguished consideration. 
 1 Your excellency's obedient servant, 
 
 'BOLIVAR.' 
 
 To the above, Mr. Clay replied, of which the following is an 
 extract. 
 
 Washington, 21th October, 1828. 
 1 Sir, — It is very gratifying to me to be assured directly by your excellency, that 
 the course which the government of the United States took on this memorable occa- 
 sion, and my humble efforts, have excited the gratitude and commanded the approba- 
 tion of your excellency. I am persuaded that I do not misinterpret the feelings of 
 the people of the United States, as I certainly express my own, in saying that the 
 interest which was inspired in this country by the arduous struggles of South Amer- 
 ica, arose principally from the hope that along with its independence would be estab- 
 lished free institutions, insuring all the blessings of civil liberty. To the accomplish- 
 ing of that object we still anxiously look. We are aware that great difficulties 
 oppose it, among which not the least is that which arises out of the existence of a 
 large military force, raised for the purpose of resisting the power of Spain. Standing 
 armies, organized with the most patriotic intentions, are dangerous instruments. 
 They devour the substance, debauch the morals, and too often destroy the liberties 
 of a people. Nothing can be more perilous or unwise, than to retain them after the 
 
100 LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 necessity has ceased which led to their formation, especially if their numbers are 
 disproportioned to the revenues of the state. 
 
 ' But nothwithstanding all these difficulties, we had fondly cherished and still 
 indulge the hope that South America would add a new triumph to the cause of 
 human liberty, and that Providence would bless her as he had her northern sister, 
 with the genius of some great and virtuous man, to conduct her securely through all 
 her trials. We had even Battered ourselves that we beheld that genius in your excel- 
 lency. But I should be unworthy the consideration with which your excellency 
 honors me, and deviate from the frankness which I have ever endeavored to practice, 
 if I did not on this occasion state that ambitious designs have been attributed by your 
 enemies, to your excellency, which have created in my mind great solicitude. They 
 ha've cited late events in Colombia as proofs of these designs. But slow in the 
 withdrawal of confidence which I have once given, I have been most unwilling to 
 credit the unfavorable accounts which have from time to time reached me. 
 
 ' I cannot allow myself to believe that your excellency will abandon the bright and 
 glorious path which lies plainly before you, for the bloody road passing over the 
 liberties of the human race, on which the vulgar crowd of tyrants and military 
 despots have so often trodden. I will not doubt that your excellency will in due 
 time render a satisfactory explanation to Colombia, and to the world, of the parts of 
 your public conduct which have excited any distrust, and that preferring the true 
 glory of our immortal Washington to the ignoble fame of the destroyers of liberty, 
 you have formed the patriotic resolution of ultimately placing the freedom of Colom- 
 bia upon a firm and sure foundation. That your efforts to that end may be crowned 
 with complete success, I most fervently pray. 
 
 ' I request that your excellency will accept assurances of my sincere wishes for 
 your happiness and prosperity. 
 
 xl. ILAl. 
 
 | His magnanimity, his disinterestedness, and his philanthropy, stand 
 out in bold relief, in the above extract from his apeal to Bolivar. It 
 
 I evinces the same spirit of kind regard for the welfare of the South 
 American republics which he invariably manifested towards that 
 of his own. Its tone, the nature of its sentiments, and its more 
 than open frankness, utterly preclude the belief that selfishness 
 had any agency in its dictation. It exhibits him, cherishing as 
 strong a desire that the happy institutions, immunities, and priv- 
 ileges of liberty should be established and enjoyed in them, as he 
 felt in supporting and perpetuating those of his own. No one 
 can rise up from its perusal and candidly question the purity of his 
 motives, nor charge him with an overweening ambition. In short, 
 no one unblinded by prejudice can fail of beholding in it, his 
 generous, uncalculating attitude. 
 
 During Mr. Madison's administration, Mr. Clay was twice 
 offered a seat in his cabinet by him, or the mission to Russia. 
 The president reposed in him most unbounded confidence, and cor- 
 rectly appreciated his preeminent abilities. At the breaking out of 
 hostilities, Mr. Madison selected him as commander-in-chief of the 
 army. But Mr. Clay, thinking that he could render his country more 
 efficient service in her public councils, declined all attempts at remov- 
 ing him from them, though he well knew that he did so at the expense 
 of his private interests. These, however, never appear to have 
 entered into or influenced in the least his calculations. ' My 
 country first, myself afterwards,' is legibly written on every part of 
 his public career. 
 
LIFE OF HENRY CLAY',, ... . 101 
 
 After the accomplishment of his desire's in relation to, South 
 America, he again reverted to his favorite poltcy ? favbryte; ■k£Q*:&$& 
 he saw its intimate connection with the growth and prosperity of 
 his country, as calculated to develope her vast resources, and to 
 pour into her lap the blessings of a virtuous and free people. The 
 formation of Mr. Clay's attachment to internal improvements and 
 domestic manufactures, is coeval with his entrance into congress ; 
 and when matters demanding immediate attention had been 
 disposed of, he would bring them forward, and labor to make the 
 conviction of their importance sink deep into the heart of the 
 nation. When Mr. Madison returned, with his objections, the bill 
 appropriating the bonus of the United States bank for purposes of 
 internal improvements, Mr. Clay expressed his astonishment. 
 He had confidently calculated on its receiving the signature of the 
 president ; for he had particularly invited the attention of congress, 
 in his message, 'to the expediency of exercising their existing 
 powers, and where necessary, of resorting to the prescribed mode 
 of enlarging them, in order to effectuate a comprehensive system 
 of roads and canals, such as will have the effect of drawing more 
 closely together every part of our country, by promoting intercourse 
 and improvements, and by increasing the share of every part in 
 the common stock of national prosperity.' Mr. Clay had heard, 
 through the medium of uncertain rumor, that Mr. Madison designed 
 to veto the bill, whereupon he sent him a communication, requesting 
 him, if he entertained any constitutional scruples about signing it, 
 to let the whole matter rest and pass over to his successor for 
 action. The president, however, took a different view of the 
 subject, and on the third of March, returned the bill. On the 
 following day, Mr. Monroe was inducted into his office, who, it 
 was conjectured, prior to seeing Mr. Madison's veto-message, had 
 prepared his inaugural address in such a manner as to recommend, 
 in strong terms, the policy of promoting internal improvements, 
 but that, on reading Mr. Madison's objections to the bill, he 
 changed his opinion. It was thought he was led to do so partly 
 from fear, and partly from a desire to conform his views with 
 those of his predecessor. Subsequently he stated that a careful 
 investigation had conducted him to the conclusion, that the 
 power of making internal improvements was not vested in con- 
 gress, and that to clothe that body with it, an amendment of 
 the constitution was requisite. Opposition such as this policy 
 had encountered, from so exalted a source as that of three 
 chief magistrates, (Messrs. Jefferson, Madison and Monroe,) 
 would have appalled a mind of ordinary strength and persever- 
 ance ; but Mr. Clay was one who never formed an opinion with 
 precipitancy, but only when, by the most diligent inquiry, he had 
 established a foundation for it in reason and philosophy. Erected 
 upon this basis, he would adhere to it, though confronted by the 
 
XQ2 • LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 combined opposition of. the world. A compromise of principle 
 hfc ! ^?a^ « i .stronger to. Nothing disheartened, therefore, by the 
 magnitude of the obstacles opposed to his progress in advocating 
 his favorite measures, by those high in authority, he seemed to 
 gather fresh energy from every new one that he encountered. In 
 March, 1818, a resolution was submitted to the house, declaring 
 that congress had power to construct military post-roads and 
 canals, and also to appropriate money for that object. The oppo- 
 sition to this presented a formidable array of strength, and brought 
 forward every objection that political ingenuity could devise. Mr. 
 Clay did not deem it advisable to consume the time of the house 
 in examining in detail any except those denominated constitutional. 
 His whole aim, therefore, was to prove that the power alleged in 
 the resolution, was derivable from the constitution ; and this he 
 accomplished in the most convincing manner. In construing this 
 instrument, he observed the same rules which governed his action 
 in relation to the bank bill of 1816. He maintained that every 
 power, which appeared necessary and proper, to secure the lawful 
 exercise of constitutional rights, ivas fairly impliable, and that this 
 necessity and propriety must be determined by the discretion of 
 those who exercised it, ' under all the responsibility of a solemn 
 oath,' and the knowledge that they were the subjects of those laws 
 that they passed, and that they were amenable to the people, who 
 held in reserve the right to resist tyrannic usurpation. Mr. Clay 
 argued that the power to establish post-roads, expressly specified 
 in the constitution, involved the power to construct them. This 
 position he illustrated with the clearness of demonstration, by 
 referring to that clause which gives congress the power of making 
 war, and employing the resources of the country in prosecuting it. 
 He declared that, from the same provision, the power of transport- 
 ing those means was derived by implication ; and that therefore, 
 to secure such transportation, congress might legally construct 
 military roads, &c. His adversaries, compelled to yield before 
 his powerful reasoning, fell back, and intrenched themselves 
 behind the concession that peculiar emergencies might justify the 
 exercise of the power in question. From this he drove them, 
 by proving that this concession contained the admission that the 
 constitution conveyed ' the power ; and,' said Mr. Clay, ■ we may 
 safely appeal to the judgment of the candid and enlightened to 
 decide between the wisdom of these two constructions, of which 
 one requires you to wait for the exercise of your power until the 
 arrival of an emergency, which may not allow you to exert it, and 
 the other, without denying the power if you can exercise it during 
 the emergency, claims the right of providing beforehand against 
 the emergenc)'.' They finally fortified themselves behind the 
 position, that it was not requisite for the general government to 
 construct such works, because individual enterprise would do it 
 
LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 103 
 
 as soon as sectional interests should demand their construction. 
 Here he hemmed in and captured them. His motion was adopted 
 by a vote of ninety to seventy-five. It was a triumph, and a 
 signal one, over opposition that had been accumulating and 
 strengthening during two previous administrations ; and which in 
 the then existing one, was directed against him with all the 
 violence and impetuosity that reserved energies could impart to it. 
 It must have been a moment of proud satisfaction to the indefat- 
 igable statesman, as he beheld the last vestige of opposition 
 disappear beneath his feet, and himself the sole occupant of the 
 place on which he had so happily succeeded in founding a basis 
 for that noble, incomparably noble system, fraught with every 
 good and every immunity which a virtuous people could desire. 
 This system has since been erected so much under his supervision, 
 and through his direct instrumentality, as to give him the title of 
 4 its father/ 
 
 Mr. Clay advocated the policy of carrying forward the construc- 
 tion of the Cumberland road, as rapidly as possible, and exerted 
 himself from time to time, to procure appropriations for that purpose ; 
 with what earnestness, we may learn from his own language, 
 declaring that ' he had to beg, entreat, and supplicate congress, 
 session after session, to grant the necessary appropriations to com- 
 plete the road.' Said he, ' I have myself toiled until my powers 
 have been exhausted- and prostrated to prevail on you to make the 
 grant.' A monument of stone has been erected on the road, 
 surmounted by the genius of liberty, and bearing as an inscription, 
 the name of ' Henry Clay.' The importance of this road to the 
 public may be learned from some remarks made by Mr. Clay, on 
 the occasion of a dinner given him by the mechanics of Wheeling, 
 Virginia, in which he declared the great interest that work had 
 awakened in his breast, and expressed his ardent desire that it 
 might be prosecuted to a speedy completion. He said that a few 
 years since, he and his family had employed the whole or greater 
 part of a day, in travelling the distance of about nine miles, 
 from Uniontown to Freeman's on Laurel Hill, which now, since 
 the construction of the Cumberland road over the mountains, 
 could be accomplished, together with seventy more, in the same 
 time. He considered its importance so great to the union, that he 
 would not consent to give it up to the keeping of the several states 
 through which it passed. 
 
 Mr. Clay's latest congressional efforts in behalf of internal 
 improvements, were made on the sixteenth of January, 1824, when 
 he made a speech before the house, on a bill authorizing the presi- 
 dent to cause certain surveys and estimates of roads and canals to 
 be made. Mr. Monroe and a strong party of supporters assumed 
 the ground, that congress had no control over the post roads, other 
 than to use such as had been established by the states individually, 
 
104 LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 and that their construction and repair (and consequent alteration 
 and closure) did not belong to the general government. To this 
 doctrine Mr. Clay replied, by saying, ' is it possible that this con- 
 struction of the constitution can be correct — a construction which 
 allows a law of the United States, enacted for the good of the 
 whole, to be obstructed or defeated in its operations by a county 
 court in any one of the twenty-four sovereignties ? Suppose a 
 state, no longer having occasion to use a post-road for its own 
 separate and peculiar purposes, withdraws all care and attention 
 from its preservation. Can the state be compelled to repair it ? 
 No! Then may not the general government repair this road, 
 which is abandoned by the state power ? And may it not protect 
 and defend that which it has thus repaired, and which there is no 
 longer an interest or inclination in the state to protect and defend ? 
 Is it contended that a road may exist in the statute book, which 
 the state will not, and the general government cannot repair and 
 improve ? What sort of an account should we render to the 
 people of the United States, of the execution of the high trust 
 committed to us for their benefit, if we were to tell them, that we 
 had failed to execute it because a state would not make a 
 road for us? The same clause of the constitution which 
 authorizes congress to establish post roads, authorizes it also to 
 establish post offices. Will it be contended that congress, 
 in the exercise of the power to establish post offices, can do 
 no more than adopt or designate some preexisting office, enacted 
 and kept in repair by state authority ? There is none such. 
 It may then fix, build, create and repair offices of its own, and 
 its power over the post roads, is by the constitution equally 
 extensive. ' Mr. Barbour, of Virginia, was among the most vigor- 
 ous assailants of the policy advocated by Mr. Clay. He contended, 
 that if it were carried out, an encroachment on the rights of the 
 states would be the inevitable consequence ; that their jurisdiction 
 would be abridged. He was answered in such a manner as to 
 show that there was no ground of alarm to be apprehended from 
 that source ; that all the control which the general government 
 sought to exercise, related simply to constructing and preserving 
 the road, and the maintenance of the necessary measures of its 
 defence, and that all illegal acts committed upon it would be left 
 for adjudication by the state through which it passed. Mr. Clay 
 contended that the general government derived the right of construct- 
 ing canals, from the specified rights of making war and regulating 
 domestic and foreign commerce. His reasoning was clear and con- 
 clusive, and when the final vote was taken, the majority was much 
 greater than the most sanguine supporters of the measure had antici- 
 pated, showing a great increase since 1818, when he discussed the 
 same subject. The opposition were now prostrated, indeed they had 
 on this occasion brought out their whole strength, and many were 
 
LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 105 
 
 heard to say, that if defeated now, they should regard the policy of 
 internal improvements permanently settled. Many, therefore, who 
 had formerly opposed it, on witnessing Mr. Clay's complete 
 triumph, adopted his views, and came over to his aid. 
 
 It has always been a prominent principle with Mr. Clay, in his 
 legislative career, to give a judicious direction to his exertions, so 
 that if they were successful, his country would be benefited, but 
 if unsuccessful, that she should not sustain any harm. In this one 
 feature of his action, is seen, as in a mirror, the purity of his pa- 
 triotism. His exertions, as directed towards the subject of internal 
 improvements, have been productive of incalculable benefit to the 
 nation, and to individuals. They have awakened, and employed, 
 and given an impetus to an amount of enterprise unmeasured, the 
 salutary effects of which, every hill and vale of our vast country 
 has felt. And the sea has felt them too ; the sails of commerce 
 have been multiplied by them, and foreign shores have groaned 
 beneath the burdens of rich freights, which they have heaped upon 
 them. But who, in imagination, even, can enumerate the number 
 and the depth of the new channels of enterprise which they are 
 destined yet to create, where industry may roll her golden tide, 
 and build by their sides the abodes of a mighty, free, and happy 
 people. Through the long vista of years to come, it needs no 
 prophetic ken to look, and read, on many a monument of adamant, 
 interspersed among them, in characters of imperishable fame, 
 inscribed the name of Henry Clay. 
 
 Near the commencement of 1817, efforts were made by the 
 friends of the free colored population in the United States, to ame- 
 liorate their condition. For this purpose, a meeting was convened 
 at Washington, on the twenty-first of December, 1816, over which 
 Mr. Clay was called to preside. On taking the chair, he stated 
 the object of the meeting to be, to consider the propriety and prac- 
 ticability of colonizing the free people of color of the United 
 States, and of forming an association relative to that object. In 
 regard to the various schemes of colonization which had been sug- 
 gested, that appeared the most feasible, which contemplated some 
 portion of the coast of Africa. There, he said, ample provision 
 might be made for the colony itself, and it might be rendered 
 instrumental in introducing into that extensive portion of the globe, 
 the arts of civilization and Christianity. He said there was a pecu- 
 liar and moral fitness in restoring them to the land of their fathers. 
 He went on to state, that he had understood it constituted no part 
 of the object of the meeting to touch or agitate in the slighest 
 degree, a delicate question connected with another portion of the 
 colored population of our country. It was not proposed to delib- 
 erate on or consider at all, any question of emancipation, or that 
 was connected with the abolition of slavery. It was upon that 
 condition alone, he was sure that many gentlemen from the south 
 vol. i. 14 
 
106 LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 and west, whom he saw present, had attended, or could be expected 
 to cooperate. The meeting resulted in the formation of the Colo- 
 nization Society, of which Bushrod Washington was chosen 
 president. 
 
 In March previous, Mr. Clay expressed his views relative to 
 holding congressional caucuses, for the purpose of making nomi- 
 nations. He thought them not compatible with the nature of the 
 powers delegated to them by the people, as calculated to meet their 
 disapprobation, and establish a precedent which might prove dan- 
 gerous to their liberties. 
 
 When congress adjourned, in March, 1817, the house unani- 
 mously voted Mr. Clay their thanks, for the ability and impartiality 
 with which he had presided over their deliberations, and the cor- 
 rectness of his decisions on all questions referred to the chair. He 
 replied in an apposite and beautiful manner, saying that next to 
 the approbation of one's own conscience, and one's own country, 
 was that of the immediate representatives of the people. He spoke 
 of the difficulties of legislation ; said there were three periods that 
 might be denominated difficult ; the first was that which immedi- 
 ately preceded a state of war; the second was that which existed 
 during its continuance ; and the third was that which immediately 
 succeeded it. The last was the one through which they had just 
 passed — the most difficult of the three, when every thing pertain- 
 ing to the general and state governments was unsettled, and when 
 disorganization to a greater or less extent prevailed ; when the 
 task of supplying deficiences, strengthening weaknesses, and cor- 
 recting abuses, was by no means light or pleasant. He congratu- 
 lated them on the efficient manner in which they had discharged 
 that task, to which the records of the house bore ample testimony. 
 He closed by tendering them his thanks, for the flattering expres- 
 sion of good feeling with which they had honored him, presuming 
 that it was prompted more by a spirit of kindness, than by a sense 
 of justice to him, as he was sure he did not merit it, and by pledg- 
 ing their united efforts, as an offering to their common country, in 
 advancing their best interests. 
 
 When he reached Lexington, its citizens gave him a dinner, and 
 as heretofore, showered on him their enthusiastic approbation 
 and applause. 
 
 In January, 1817, the subject of the well known Seminole war 
 was brought before the house for its consideration. Several 
 features relating to the mode in which it had been conducted, 
 demanded, in the opinion of many humane members, a critical 
 investigation. The character which had been given to that war, 
 by the chieftain to whose management it was intrusted, was 
 reflecting strongly on the honor and justice of our country. She 
 had sustained a grievous injury from a portion of the Seminole 
 Indians, who, daring the last war, aided the British arms against 
 
LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 107 
 
 her, and feeling that she had just cause for seeking redress, de- 
 spatched general Andrew Jackson, at the head of a strong military 
 force, to obtain it. He marched into their territory, and in a short 
 time so reduced them, that a portion sued for peace. A treaty was 
 accordingly prepared, in August, 1814, but which was not signed 
 by many of the chiefs, except those previously friendly to our 
 country, who constituted only about one third of the nation. This 
 misnomered treaty, from its cruel and unheard-of tyrannical exac- 
 tions, had found a much more appropriate resting place by the side 
 of Ihe ruthless interdicts of a Nero, or a Trajan, than in the archives 
 of a christian nation. The poor natives, reduced to actual starva- 
 tion, their wigwams and villages in ashes, withering in the dust 
 beneath the feet of the conqueror, had no alternative but to submit 
 to death, or just such terms as he chose to dictate. They preferred 
 the latter, which was meted out with a hand nerved with all the 
 unrelenting sternness of patriotism, without any of its mercy. 
 The Indians obtained what they sought, but they paid dearly for it. 
 The instrument granted them peace, on condition that they would 
 cede a large portion of their territory to the United States, and 
 yield them important powers and privileges over the remainder, 
 and deliver into the hands of the conqueror the prophets of their 
 nation. It needed only a superficial knowledge of the Indian 
 character, to perceive that their proud and haughty spirit would 
 not long brook a compliance with terms so abjectly humiliating. 
 Not many months elapsed before they began to renew their depre- 
 dations on our frontiers. Though acts of cruelty, on the part of 
 the Seminoles, were of frequent occurrence, apparently calling 
 loudly for vengeance, still they were greatly palliated by a letter 
 from ten of the Seminole towns, addressed to the commanding offi- 
 cer of fort Hawkins, on the eleventh of September, 1817, in which 
 it was stated that not a solitary white man had been butchered by 
 them, except in revenge for the unprovoked murder of an Indian. 
 ' The white people,' it declared, ' killed our people first, the Indians 
 then took satisfaction. There are yet three men that the red people 
 have never taken satisfaction for.' The governor of Georgia, 
 accurately acquainted with all the facts, declared his honest and 
 sincere conviction that they were not in fault. But supposing the 
 whites had not been guilty of outrages on the Seminoles, subse- 
 quent to the date of the treaty, yet its unjustly oppressive character, 
 the paucity of their chieftains' signatures attached to it, and the 
 obligations imposed on the United States, by the ninth article of 
 the treaty of Ghent, towards the Indian tribes, to say nothing of 
 the law of nature, justified, in our humble opinion, the attempts of 
 the Seminoles to shake off the insupportably heavy burden which 
 military despotism had bound upon them. In view of these facts, 
 in relation to general Jackson's treatment of the Seminoles, it is 
 unnecessary to say, that his second expedition against them was. 
 
103 LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 not marked by one mitigating or lenient feature ; that they were 
 treated more like dogs than men ; that their chiefs were decoyed 
 by him into his camp, and there seized and instantly put to death. 
 In short, that every principle of honor, humanity, and justice, which 
 ought to accompany the operations of a civilized army, was utterly 
 disregarded. It is not surprising, therefore, that the patriotically 
 disposed, in congress, on beholding the dark spot gathering on the 
 escutcheon of their country's fame, in consequence of such high- 
 handed proceedings, should rise up and attempt to efface it. Gen- 
 eral Jackson's conduct in the Florida war, was made the subject 
 of special investigation, during the session of 1818-19. A series 
 of resolutions were offered to congress, severely censuring it, which 
 Mr. Clay sustained in a speech of unparalleled ability. Although 
 on terms of personal intimacy with the general, although he 
 accorded to him his just meed of praise, for the distinguished ser- 
 vice he had rendered his country in the battle of New Orleans, 
 still Mr. Clay thought he had transcended the limits of both law 
 and equity, and did not allow his feelings of friendship for him to 
 interpose any obstacle to the frank and fearless avowal of his sen- 
 timents. He commented very severely upon his treatment of 
 Indian prisoners, in ordering their inhuman massacre, after obtain- 
 ing possession of them, by the artifice of a * false flag ,' not hesita- 
 ting to pronounce it wanton, barbaric, and uncalled for. But his 
 flagrant violations of the rights of neutrality called forth his sharp- 
 est animadversions. During the campaign, two Indian traders, 
 Messrs. Arbuthnot and Ambrister, the former a Scotchman, the 
 latter an Englishman, had fallen into the hands of general Jackson. 
 Ambrister was found in the Indian camp, Arbuthnot within the 
 limits of Spanish jurisdiction. The Englishman was suspected 
 of having instigated the savages to make war upon the whites, 
 and the Scotchman was charged with informing the Indians of 
 their rights, as secured to them by the treaty of Ghent, and of hav- 
 ing advised them to maintain them by force of arms. These 
 unfortunate men, he ordered the one to be shot and the other hung, 
 in direct opposition to the decision of a court martial of his own 
 choosing. The turpitude of this act, Mr. Clay exhibited in its 
 true colors. He contrasted the execution of Arbuthnot with the 
 blackest act of Napoleon, the execution of Louis of France, and 
 showed that for atrocity, and disregard for justice and clemency, 
 it cast the latter far into the back-ground. His aggression commit- 
 ted upon the Spanish authorities, in seizing upon St. Marks and 
 Pensacola, fell under the rod of his reprobation. Mr. Clay de- 
 nounced these acts as falling little short of tyrannic usurpation, 
 and which could not be justified on any ground of justice or rea- 
 son. His speech on this occasion, has been compared to the 
 polished orations of Sheridan, in the case of Hastings, but as 
 exhibiting a much milder spirit, one of sincere sorrow, instead of 
 revenge. 
 
LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 109 
 
 The resolutions were rejected by a small majority, which is not 
 surprising, on considering that Mr. Monroe, his cabinet, and nearly 
 all the house, were disinclined to arraign the conduct of general 
 Jackson in the Seminole war, and when we reflect that Mr. Clay 
 did not repeat his efforts, as he usually did. The general, who 
 soon after visited Washington, took umbrage at Mr. Clay's speech, 
 and carried his animosity so far as to refuse to have any intercourse 
 with him, although he called on him directly after his arrival, thus 
 evincing an unabatement of friendship. 
 
 To whatever part of Mr. Clay's congressional career we turn 
 our eyes, we invariably find him actively engaged in building up 
 that magnificent system of domestic utility, whenever circumstan- 
 ces admitted. This he commenced, as we have seen, previous to 
 the war, and his attachment to it had been increasing ever since, 
 until the conviction of its indispensable importance to the coun- 
 try had sunk so deep into his mind, as to cause him to toil 
 unremittingly, in order that the beneficial influences of that system 
 might be diffused over it as soon as possible. For these, the 
 farmer at his plough and the mechanic in his shop were stretching 
 out. their hands. These, our infant manufactories, which sprang 
 up to supply the demands caused by the war, demanded, and 
 these were requisite to make the union (what Mr. Clay never lost 
 sight of,) independent in reality, as she was in name, of all 
 foreign powers. 
 
 It was obvious to both parties in congress, that in order to 
 accomplish an object so essential to the welfare of the nation, a 
 protective tariff was necessary. Accordingly, on the twelfth of 
 March, 1816, Mr. Lowndes, of South Carolina, one of the com- 
 mittee of ways and means, made a report relative to the policy of 
 protection. He sustained the policy by an able speech, and was 
 followed by Mr. Calhoun, who also advocated it. Mr. Clay 
 yielded his unqualified assent and vindication, and sought to cause 
 the bill to be so formed as to secure efficient protection for woollen 
 fabrics. It was finally adopted. 
 
 In April, 1820, the subject of a protective tariff came again 
 before congress. The distress which the country had experienced 
 since 1816, was seen to have originated, in a great degree, from 
 inadequate protection, particularly that which had fallen upon the 
 manufacturing districts. To a bill revising and improving the 
 tariff of 1816, Mr. Clay gave his ardent support. As on former 
 similar occasions, he urged its adoption on the high ground of 
 national utility. ' I frankly own,' said he, ' that I feel great 
 solicitude for the success of this bill. The entire independence of 
 my country of all foreign states, as it respects a supply of our 
 essential wants, has ever been with me a favorite object. The 
 war of our revolution effected our political emancipation. The 
 last war contributed greatly towards accomplishing our com- 
 
110 LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 mercial freedom. But our complete independence will only 
 be consummated after the policy of this bill shall be recognized 
 and adopted.' The bill, though passed by the house, was defeated 
 in the senate. 
 
 In 1824, the distress of the country had increased to such an 
 enormous extent, that the most serious apprehensions began to be 
 entertained, lest the productive energies of the land would be com- 
 pletely annihilated, unless some remedy should be devised. There 
 was no department which did not feel its blighting influence ; 
 navigation and commerce, no less than agriculture and manufac- 
 tures, tottered beneath the tremendous weight of gloom, which, 
 like a dense cloud of ruin, overshadowed the whole nation. Our 
 vessels were either lying idle at their moorings, or mostly going in 
 ballast; all encouragement for enterprise was taken away; produce 
 was plenty, but purchasers few ; our granaries and store houses 
 were full to overflowing, and in many instances, their contents 
 were going to decay; to obtain money, except at ruinous rates, 
 was out of the question, consequently labor was in little demand 
 and poorly rewarded ; the depreciation of property of all kinds 
 was unparalleled, and disorder and embarrassment pervaded 
 every rank and condition of every industrial department. It was 
 under such circumstances, that a farther revision and enlargement 
 of the tariff of 1816 was proposed. In the house, the committee 
 on manufactures reported a bill to that effect, at the same time 
 expressing their opinion, that the evils which then existed, were 
 clearly traceable to inefficient protection of domestic industry, and 
 of relying too much on foreign producers, thereby allowing the 
 specie, the life-blood of the country, to be drained out of it. This 
 defect the bill proposed to remedy. Mr. Clay came forward in 
 its support, under the most solemn impressions of the exceedingly 
 lamentable condition which his country was in, and evinced, by 
 every tone of his voice and look of his countenance, his deep 
 anxiety to extend to her the hand of speedy relief. ' If it were 
 allowable for us at the present day,' said he, ' to imitate ancient 
 examples, I would invoke the aid of the Most High. I would 
 anxiously and fervently implore his divine assistance, that he would 
 be graciously pleased to shower on my country his richest bless- 
 ings, and that he would sustain, on this interesting occasion, the 
 individual who stands before him, and lend him the power, moral 
 and physical, to perform the solemn duties which now belong to 
 his public station.' He felt that it was indeed a sad sight, to behold 
 a free and mighty nation sitting in sackcloth and ashes, with her 
 hands shackled by a policy as unwise as it was foreign to her 
 interests, with which, had they been free, she could have clothed 
 herself with beautiful garments, excited the envy and admiration 
 of the world, and brushed like chaff every vestige of depression 
 and distress from, her borders. He contended that the causes of 
 
LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. Ill 
 
 these were easily discoverable, and as easily removable ; that they 
 were entirely within our control, and that we had but to will it and 
 the work was done, and it was high time, he said, to set about it. 
 Evils of every description had been accumulating during the last 
 ten years, until they had become so numerous and great as to be 
 no longer patible. But it was a source of satisfaction to know 
 that they need not be endured — that they were medicable — that 
 with a change of policy they would disappear, as certainly as dark- 
 ness disappears before light. A cultivation of her own resources, he 
 said, would relieve the country. If she would break away from that 
 state of foreign vassalage, into which she had voluntarily entered, 
 the streams of commerce would again fertilize her fair fields. If she 
 would but exend her hand and pluck from her breast the thorn, which 
 her own suicidal policy had planted there, he avowed his belief that 
 the rose of industry would spring up in its place. This change of 
 policy, he believed, would accomplish all that would be requisite 
 to her peace and prosperity. In supporting the bill, however, he 
 had to encounter much and strong opposition, at the head of 
 which stood Daniel Webster. The collision of these eloquent 
 and intellectual giants, is said to have been inconceivably grand. 
 Says a gentleman who witnessed it, ' the eloquence of Mr. Webster 
 was the majestic roar of a strong and steady blast, pealing through 
 the forest ; but that of Mr. Clay was the tone of a god-like instrument, 
 sometimes visited by an angel touch, and swept anon by all the 
 fury of the raging elements.' Mr. Clay, aware that he was con- 
 tending for the very vitality of his country, had nerved himself up 
 to one of his mightiest efforts, one which would demolish every 
 opposing obstacle, and plant his foot in complete triumph on the 
 ruins of the strongest holds of his assailants. He turned aside 
 every weapon directed against his system, and entirely disarmed 
 all opposition. The bill passed the house on the sixteenth of April, 
 by a vote of one hundred and seven to one hundred and two, and 
 shortly after became a law, and its beneficial effects were felt 
 throughout the country. The operations of this system, in connec- 
 tion with the United States bank, which was now rapidly correct- 
 ing the derangements in the currency, filled the land with gladness 
 and prosperity. Enterprise came forth from his retiracy, to which 
 the previous embarrassment had driven him, and shaking the dust 
 of sloth from his garments, cast his eyes about over the vast and 
 beautiful field which invited his occupancy. Encouraged by the 
 loud and united voices of this wisely regulated institution, and 
 the American system, he took immediate possession. The desert 
 bloomed, the forest fell, the mill arose, and the w T heel of industry, 
 which before was slumbering on its rusting axle, under the guid- 
 ance of his potent hand began again its healthful revolutions, and 
 soon the land was belted by her green and golden tracks. He 
 hushed the voice of woe, and caused the loud shout of joy to go 
 
112 LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 up from every hill and vale throughout the nation. After she had 
 enjoyed his life-imparting influence eight years, Mr. Clay thus 
 describes her appearance. ' We have the agreeable contemplation 
 of a people out of debt, innumerable flocks and herds browsing 
 on ten thousand hills and plains covered with rich and verdant 
 grasses, our cities expanded, and whole villages springing up as it 
 were by enchantment, our exports and imports increased and 
 increasing, our tonnage, foreign and coastwise, fully occupied, the 
 rivers of our interior animated by countless steamboats, the cur- 
 rency sound and abundant, the public debt of two wars nearly 
 redeemed, and, to crown all, the public treasury overflowing, 
 embarrassing congress, not to find subjects of taxation, but to select 
 the objects which shall be relieved from the imposts. If the term 
 of seven years were to be selected, of the greatest prosperity which 
 this people have enjoyed since the establishment of their present 
 constitution, it would be exactly the period of seven years which 
 immediately followed the passage of the tariff of 1824.' Who 
 can doubt, after an impartial survey of the whole ground, (and a 
 superficial one is sufficient,) who can doubt that the materials for 
 limning the above strong, but correct picture, were furnished by a 
 sound currency, and a judicious tariff. As long as the term tariff 
 shall remain in the English vocabulary, will the memory of Henry 
 Clay, in all the verdancy of spring, abide in the heart of the 
 nation. 
 
 Notwithstanding the sturdy opposition which Mr. Webster 
 arrayed against this system, as advocated by Mr. Clay, he became 
 its ardent supporter when time had tested and proved its impor- 
 tance. Many other public functionaries also, who had assailed it 
 in the most vindictive manner, laid down their weapons, and cor- 
 dially embraced, with strong protecting arms, its salutary provisions. 
 Even bigotry and prejudice were forced into an unwilling acknowl- 
 edgement of its utility, and were soon seen placing themselves 
 in a situation where its benign influences would fall upon them. 
 
 In 1819, the most exciting question that ever agitated the coun- 
 cils of the nation, came before congress for adjustment — the 
 question of admitting Missouri as a state into the Union. It was 
 correctly called a ' distracting question] for it caused a political 
 earthquake, whose quaking influences were felt from one end of 
 the land to the other; and even now its recollection causes a 
 sensation of terror to come over those who were the immediate 
 witnesses of it. Its contemplation made the stout-hearted patriot, 
 and the immovably good of all classes, to turn pale with fear, who 
 believed, that unless it could be calmed, it would engulph in irre- 
 mediable ruin the liberties of the republic. It was not the simple 
 question of admission which convulsed the country, but the terms 
 with which it was proposed to connect her reception into the con- 
 federacy — terms involving another question, one which furnished 
 
LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 113 
 
 all the fuel which kindled the fires of the most acrimonious strife, 
 in every section of the nation — 'the question of slavery. The 
 question of admission divided the country into two great parties. 
 A large and respectable portion of her representatives at Washing- 
 ton, desired the admission to be unconditional, while the other 
 wished it to be subject to certain conditions, among which was the 
 following : that ' all children of slaves, born within the said state 
 after the admission thereof into the union, shall be free, but may 
 be held to service until the age of twenty-five years, and the farther 
 introduction of slavery or involuntary servitude is prohibited, 
 except for the punishment of crimes whereof the party shall have 
 been duly convicted.' With the certainty of intuition, Mr. Clay 
 foresaw and predicted the alarming consequences which would 
 flow from the fiery crucible of public debate, if this combustible 
 condition was placed in it, and rang the tocsin peal of his voice in 
 the ears of the nation. Although opposed to slavery, and declaring 
 that if he were a citizen of Missouri, he would strenuously oppose 
 any farther introduction of slaves into her, and provide for the 
 emancipation of those already within her borders, still he believed 
 we had no right to compel her to adopt our opinions, especially as 
 she was unrepresented, and preferred leaving the subject of slavery 
 to be settled by her alone. 
 
 The condition, however, was made the subject of the most 
 stormy debate in the house, and carried. The bill containing it 
 was sent to the senate, which returned it to the house, after reject- 
 ing the condition. Neither house would abandon its opinion, con- 
 sequently the bill for admitting Missouri was defeated, and unfor- 
 tunately the question was laid over for the action of the next ses- 
 sion. This gave time greatly to augment and embitter the tempest 
 of contention that had been raised over this matter in congress, 
 which soon drew within its eddying vortex, in one fierce wrangle, 
 the entire people. Their representatives, on the adjournment of 
 congress, carried the infection among them in every direction, which 
 created the most violent monomania relative to this condition, 
 demanding the sacrifice of ease, domestic avocations, and even 
 health itself. The press reeked with inflammatory appeals, and 
 when they reassembled at the session of 1819-20, they were almost 
 wafted to their seats on the wings of the furious commotion. Un- 
 der such circumstances the discussion was renewed, which was 
 conducted in such an angry manner as to add fresh fuel to the 
 flame raging without. Resolutions in favor of, and opposed to the 
 condition, were passed by several states, and placed on the tables 
 in congress, which already groaned beneath the ponderous weight 
 of similar documents, from associations and public meetings 
 throughout the country. These, instead of shortening, tended only 
 to prolong the debate. At one time, Mr. Clay spoke about four 
 hours against the condition, but his speech, we regret to say, was 
 vol. i. 15 
 
114 LIFE OF H E-N R Y CL A Y . 
 
 never reported. Those who were in favor of subjecting her admis- 
 sion to the specific condition, brought forward the acts of congress 
 passed in connection with the admission of Ohio, Indiana, and 
 Illinois, into the union, which was coupled with a similar condition, 
 or one even more restrictive in relation to slavery, as proof that it 
 had a right to impose conditions on admitting a state. The prin- 
 cipal argument of those opposed to the condition was derived 
 from the constitution, which they contended bestowed on congress 
 no power whatever over slaves, except what had already been ex- 
 ercised, in prohibiting their importation after the year 1808, that the 
 slave states never would have joined the confederacy, if the power 
 now claimed had been conferred by the constitution, that the day 
 when it should be usurped, would be the last of the union, that 
 Louisiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, and Alabama, had 
 been admitted into the union, unsubjected to any such condition, 
 and that therefore Missouri should also be received on the same 
 ground. 
 
 After the smoke of the political battle had somewhat cleared up, 
 the vote was again taken on the question of restriction, which 
 showed a majority in the senate against, and in the house for it. 
 At the same time before congress was an application from Maine 
 for admission to the privileges of a state, which the senate coupled 
 with that of Missouri, but the house re/used to sanction the union. 
 Finally, the question was referred to a joint committee from both 
 houses, who attempted to decide it by compromise. By this, Mis- 
 souri was admitted without restriction, but it was provided ' that in 
 all that territory ceded by France to the United States, under the 
 name of Louisiana, which lies north of thirty-six degrees and 
 thirty minutes north latitude, not included within the limits of the 
 state contemplated by this act, slavery and involuntary servitude, 
 otherwise than in the punishment of crimes whereof the parties 
 shall have been duly convicted, shall be and is hereby forever pro- 
 hibited. Provided always, that any person escaping into the same, 
 from whom labor or service is lawfully claimed, in any state, or 
 territory of the United States, such fugitive may be lawfully 
 reclaimed and conveyed to the person claiming his or her labor or 
 service as aforesaid.' 
 
 By this act of congress the territory was authorized to frame a 
 constitution and state government, which should not infringe any 
 article of the constitution of the United States, and required to 
 transmit to congress ' a true and attested copy of the same,' when 
 a final resolution of congress would be requisite to its admission 
 into the union. 
 
 In June, 1820, the territory complied with these conditions, and 
 introduced into her constitution an article making it the duty of 
 the legislature { as soon as might be to pass such laws as were 
 necessary to prevent free negroes and mulattoes from coming to 
 
LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 115 
 
 and settling in the state under any pretext whatever.' This clause 
 called forth the most violent censure of the friends of restriction, 
 which caused the flames of contention to burst out anew and with 
 redoubled violence. Mr. Clay found himself, in the autumn of 
 1820, obliged to resign his seat as speaker, and retire from congress, 
 to repair by the practice of law, his fortune, which had been greatly 
 diminished by heavy losses sustained by his becoming security 
 for a friend. 
 
 At the commencement of the session of 1820-21, the constitu- 
 tion of Missouri was placed in the hands of a committee, who 
 reported in favor of her admission. The senate passed an act to 
 that effect, but the house rejected it. The admission of Missouri 
 was opposed on the ground that free people of color were citizens 
 of the state of their residence, and as such they possessed an 
 undoubted right to remove to Missouri, and that her prohibition of 
 their removal within her limits, was a flagrant violation of the 
 constitution of the United States. On the other hand it was main- 
 tained that whether bond or free, the African race were not parties 
 to our political institutions, that therefore free negroes and mulat- 
 toes were not citizens within the meaning of the constitution of 
 the United States, and that even if the constitution of Missouri 
 were repugnant to that of the United States, the latter was perma- 
 nent and would overrule the conflicting provision of the former, 
 without the interference of congress. 
 
 Such was the question which menaced a disruption of the union. 
 Almost daily, in some form or other, it presented itself, wearing a 
 more threatening aspect at each successive appearance, engender- 
 ing in the hearts of the two contending parties, feelings of the 
 most bitter animosity, clogging the wheels of government, and 
 effectually impeding, and almost extinguishing all legislative 
 action. Says one familiar with this question, ' popular meetings, 
 legislative resolves, and other demonstrations of feeling and pas- 
 sion were resorted to; crimination and recrimination followed; 
 and separation, disunion, and civil war, with all its infinite of hor- 
 rors, were the common topics of every village and hamlet. Had 
 a few more materials of excitement been kindled, the work of 
 destruction would have been instant and complete. 
 
 In this crisis, when the last lingerings of hope seemed to have 
 departed, that an amicable adjustment of the question would be 
 effected, all eyes were turned towards Mr. Clay, as the only 
 person who could avert the calamities which seemed suspended 
 over the nation. He reached Washington on the sixteenth of 
 January 1821, and found congress in the greatest scene of confusion 
 imaginable. Legislation was absolutely terminated. The most 
 envenomed feelings of hatred rankled in the bosoms of the two 
 parties, who, frowning darkly on each other, bore a stronger resem- 
 blance to two belligerent armies, with their weapons in their hands. 
 
116 LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 impatiently waiting for the word to rush into the maddening conflict, 
 than to companies of grave and sober legislators. He was immedi- 
 ately waited on by both parties, who expressed the strongest anxiety 
 that the vexed question might be settled and entreated him to devise 
 some method by which it might be consummated. He expressed 
 his views freely, and urged them to select some common ground on 
 which both parties could meet and harmonize their opinions. On 
 the second day of February, he made a motion to commit the 
 question to a committee of thirteen, to be chosen from both parties, 
 a number suggested by the original states of the union, which 
 was accepted. Mr. Clay, in a report submitted to the house on 
 the tenth of February, by him as chairman of the committee of 
 thirteen, introduced a resolution for the admission of Missouri, on 
 the following conditions : 
 
 It is provided that the said state shall never pass any law pre- 
 venting any description of persons from coming to or settling in 
 the said state, who now are or may hereafter become citizens of 
 any of the states of this union, and also that the legislature of the 
 said state by a public act shall declare the assent of the state to 
 this provision, and shall transmit to the president of the United 
 States, on or before the fourth Monday in November next, an 
 authentic copy of the said act, upon the receipt whereof, the presi- 
 dent by proclamation shall announce the fact, whereupon and 
 without any farther proceedings on the part of congress, the admis- 
 sion of the said state into the union shall be considered as com- 
 plete, and it is provided further that nothing herein contained shall 
 be construed to take from the state of Missouri, when admitted 
 into the union, the exercise of any right or power which can now 
 be constitutionally exercised by any of the original states.' The 
 report was made to include this provision with direct reference to 
 those who opposed the admission in consequence of the repug- 
 nance of a clause of the constitution of Missouri to the constitu- 
 tion of the United States, which, if they were sincere in their 
 opposition, would cause them to desist. The house took up the 
 report on the twelfth, when Mr. Clay entered into a minute detail 
 of the deliberations of the committee, the difficulties that attended 
 them, and the causes which led to the adoption of the resolution 
 in the report, and concluded by beseeching them to cherish a feel- 
 ing of conciliation, and to temper their proceedings by modera- 
 tion. The report was rejected in committee of the whole on the 
 state of the union, but was afterwards adopted in the house. On 
 the third reading of the resolution, another sharp debate ensued, 
 which was terminated by Mr. Clay, who is represented as having 
 reasoned, remonstrated, and entreated, that the house would settle 
 the question. He is represented as having been almost the only 
 individual who was collected and calm. While others were covered 
 with the foam of fierce debate, and lashed into fury by the com- 
 
LIFE OF HENRY CLAY 117 
 
 bined influences of political or personal animosity, he seemed like 
 one dwelling in the region of perpetual serenity on some lofty 
 mountain, and contemplating unmoved the storm that was raging 
 and bursting around its base. ' Every darker passion seemed to 
 have died within him, and he looked down upon the maddening 
 and terrific scene with that calm and sublime regret, and gave 
 utterance to his thoughts in that high, majestic, and pathetic 
 eloquence, which seemed almost to designate him as a superior 
 being commissioned by heaven to warn our country against the 
 sin of anarchy and blood.' The resolution, notwithstanding his 
 exertions, was lost. 
 
 On the fourteenth, the two houses met for the purpose of ascer- 
 taining the result of an election that had been held for president 
 and vice president, and while the ceremony was being performed, 
 a scene of confusion occurred, on the presentation of the votes of 
 the electors for Missouri. The senate withdrew, and with much 
 difficulty Mr. Clay finally succeeded in restoring order, when the 
 senate, on its being announced to them that the house was ready 
 to complete the business for which they were assembled, returned. 
 On proclaiming the result, it appeared that James Monroe had 
 received two hundred and thirty-one votes, including those of the 
 electors from Missouri, and two hundred and twenty-eight, if these 
 were excluded. While the president of the senate was announc- 
 ing the result, two members of the house claimed the floor to 
 inquire what disposition had been made of the votes of Missouri, 
 whereupon a scene of confusion and turmoil ensued, that beggars 
 description, and the house was compelled to adjourn, in order to 
 put a period to it. 
 
 The rejection of the report of thirteen, both in and out of con- 
 gress, was regarded as a disaster. Those who had been most 
 active in effecting it, soon began to repent their rashness, and the 
 blackness of despair seemed to be settling down upon the councils 
 of the nation. Mr. Clay sagaciously concluded that the feelings of 
 despondency which they began to evince, would, if allowed to take 
 their course, accomplish what reason, and argument, and philoso- 
 phy could not ; that they would cause the headstrong to reflect, and 
 retrace their steps. He had driven them to the very ' ultima thule ' 
 of argumentative debate, applying the lash of logic at every step, 
 until they had become insensible to its infliction. * What is your 
 plan as to Missouri,' he would say to them. ' She is no longer a 
 territory. She is a state, whether admitted into the union or not. 
 She is capable of self-government, and she is governing herself. 
 Do you mean to force her permanently from the union ? Do you 
 mean to lose the vast public domain which lies within her limits ? 
 Do you mean to drive her back to a territorial condition ? Do 
 you intend to coerce her to alter her constitution ? How will you 
 do all this ? Is it your design to employ the bayonet ? We tell 
 
118 LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 you frankly our views. They are, to admit her absolutely if we 
 can, and if not, with the condition which we have offered. You 
 are bound to disclose your views with equal frankness. You aspire 
 to be thought statesmen. As sagacious and enlightened statesmen, 
 you should look forward to the fearful future, and let the country 
 understand what is your remedy for the evils which lie before us.' 
 
 Various propositions were submitted in both houses, for the 
 purpose of healing the breach which every day seemed to be 
 widening, but all fell short of accomplishing the object. Finally, 
 on the twenty-second, Mr. Clay presented the following resolu- 
 tion : 
 
 1 Resolved, that a committee be appointed on the part of the 
 house, jointly with such committee as may be appointed on the 
 part of the senate, to consider and report to the senate and house 
 of representatives respectively, whether it be expedient or not, to 
 make provision for the admission of Missouri into the union, on 
 the same footing as the original states, and for the due execution 
 of the laws of the United States within Missouri, and if not, 
 whether any other, and what provision adapted to her actual condi- 
 tion ought to be made a law.' 
 
 This resolution was adopted in the house by a majority of nearly 
 two-thirds, and in the senate by a much larger one. The com- 
 mittee, Mr. Clay proposed, should consist of twenty-three, a num- 
 ber answering to all the states in the union, and so exerted his 
 influence in their selection, as to secure a majority favorable to 
 the settlement of the whole matter, in the manner and form 
 proposed. 
 
 The joint committees met on the twenty-fifth of February, 1821, 
 and proceeded to consider and discuss the question of admission. 
 Mr. Clay, with a vigilance that did not slumber for an instant, 
 exerted himself to infuse into the members of the committees a 
 portion of his own conciliatory spirit, exhorting them to mutual 
 concession, and declared that it would be utterly futile to report 
 any plan of adjustment in which they could not unanimously 
 concur, when it should be submitted to the final test. So firmly 
 convinced was he, that the effort which they were then making, 
 was the last feasible one that could be made for the settlement of 
 the question on w*hich they were deliberating, as to cause him to 
 address individually the members of the committees, in order to 
 make such thorough preparation as to preclude the possibility of 
 defeat. And it was found on the next day that such preparation 
 had been made ; the resolution was adopted by a vote of eighty- 
 seven to eighty-one in the house, and despatched to the senate, 
 which unhesitatingly agreed to it, and thus the question which 
 had convulsed congress for three sessions, and nearly distracted the 
 land, was at last settled, and mainly through the influence of Mr. 
 Clay. The proclamation of the president was issued, and Mis- 
 
LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 119 
 
 souri took her place among her sisters of the confederacy. This 
 event was greeted with the highest demonstrations of joy, and 
 Missouri, beautiful Missouri, from her majestic forests and broad 
 prairies, from her ancient mounds and mighty rivers, pealed her 
 loud anthems of grateful praise to her and her country's deliverer, 
 hailing him as the second Washington, as one who had plucked 
 the brand of discord from the hands of ten millions of enraged 
 and exasperated people, and put in its place the olive branch of 
 peace. The incense of exulting hearts was lavished on Mr. Clay 
 like rain. His agency in settling one of the most difficult and 
 dangerous questions that ever has arisen since the adoption of our 
 present constitution, was clearly seen, deeply and gratefully felt, 
 and thus publicly acknowledged. No one then was so blind 
 as not to see that it was his hand that rent the pall of gloom, 
 which enshrouded the whole land. His labors and his incessant 
 . and health-destroying toils to bring this question to a happy 
 consummation, constituted a topic of conversation which was in 
 the mouth of every one. Although the journals of the day do 
 not record the many speeches made by him on the occasion, yet it 
 is reported that his exertions in speaking and acting were almost 
 superhuman. If a stranger arrived in Washington, whose influ- 
 ence he thought could be made to bear favorably on the settle- 
 ment of the question, he instantly endeavored to enlist it. Mr. 
 Clay himself was heard to say, that so intense had become his 
 excitement, and so exhausting his efforts, his life would in all proba- 
 bility have been sacrificed to them, if the admission of Missouri 
 had been delayed a fortnight longer. There is no doubt, that he 
 taxed his patriotism, his eloquence, his philanthropy, his intellect, 
 and his every attribute of mind and body, to the utmost, and 
 strained the bow of life almost to breaking, to accomplish this, and 
 it is saying very little to observe, that a nation's thanks are his due, 
 and that his signal service, in allaying the most tremendous storm 
 that passion, prejudice, and sectional feeling ever raised, has 
 imposed a debt of gratitude upon her, which posterity alone can 
 pay. 
 
 At the time of the greatest turbulence over the Missouri ques- 
 tion, when the fury of the contending parties in congress had 
 broken down every barrier of order and decency, and was rushing 
 rampant over the field of debate, certain southern gentlemen in the 
 house, headed by Mr. Randolph, concocted a plan for withdrawing 
 the entire body of members from the slaveholding states, from its 
 deliberations, and abandon the business to the representatives of 
 the other states. Had this been carried out, anarchy, civil war, 
 and the effusion of blood would have followed inevitably. About 
 this time, when an amicable settlement was nearly despaired of, 
 and when the house was in session one evening, Mr. Randolph 
 approached Mr. Clay and said, ' Mr. speaker, I wish you would 
 
120 LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 leave the house. I will follow you to Kentucky, or any where else 
 in the world.' Mr. Clay, regarding him with one of his most 
 searching looks for an instant, replied, in an under tone, '-Mr. Ran- 
 dolph, your proposition is an exceedingly serious one, and demands 
 most serious consideration ; be kind enough to call at my room 
 to-morrow morning, and we will deliberate over it together/ Punc- 
 tual to a minute, Mr. Randolph was there, and closeted with Mr. 
 Clay, discussed for some time the then all absorbing question con- 
 nected with the admission of Missouri. Mr. Clay maintained, 
 with all the force of his fine colloquial powers, the plan of comprom- 
 ise, as the wisest and best which he could suggest, and, in his 
 opinion, that could be suggested, declaring his sincere conviction 
 that the slaveholding states" might adopt it, without any sacrifice of 
 principle or interest. On the other hand, Mr. Randolph contended 
 that it could not and would not be adopted ; that the slave states 
 occupied a correct position, and would maintain it at all hazards,, 
 and would not proceed an inch towards a compromise. They 
 finally separated without agreeing on any thing that was calculated 
 to harmonize their action in congress. ' Oh ! Mr. Randolph,' said 
 Mr. Clay, as the former was about stepping from the house, ' Mr. 
 Randolph, with your permission I will embrace the present occa- 
 sion to observe, that your language and deportment on the floor of 
 the house, it has occurred to me, were rather indecorous and 
 ungentlemanly on several occasions, and very annoying indeed to 
 me, for, being in the chair, I had no opportunity of replying.' Ad- 
 mitting that such, perhaps, might be the case, Mr. Randolph 
 replied that he too had often been much vexed at witnessing Mr. 
 Clay's neglect to attend to him when speaking. Said he, ' I have 
 seen you often, when I have been addressing the chair, I have seen 
 you often turn away your head and ask for a pinch of snuff? ' Oh ! 
 you are certainly mistaken, Mr. Randolph, you are mistaken if you 
 think I do not listen to you ; although I frequently turn away my 
 head, it is true, and ask for a pinch of snuff, still I hear every thing 
 you say, when seeming to hear nothing, and I will wager, retentive 
 as I know your memory to be, Mr. Randolph, that I can repeat as 
 much of any of your recent speeches as you yourself can? i Well, 
 I do not know but I am mistaken,' he replied, ' and suppose we 
 drop the matter, shake hands, and become good friends again.' 
 ' Agreed,' said Mr. Clay, and extended his hand, which was cor- 
 dially embraced by Mr. Randolph. They never spoke to each 
 other, however, during the remainder of the session. 
 
 Soon after this meeting, Mr. Clay was successively, and without 
 concert, informed by the late governor Edwards and general C. F. 
 Mercer, the one a senator and the other a member of the house, 
 that Mr. Randolph was present at and witnessed the death scene 
 of the gallant and lamented commodore Decatur, that he remained 
 gazing a long time upon his corpse, agitated with deep emotions, 
 
LIFE OF HENRY 
 
 and that he had been heard to express a 
 
 Mr. Clay, an affair of honor similar to that 
 
 to his untimely end. This information naturally put Mr. Clay 
 
 upon his guard, and ever after during the session, whenever he 
 
 met Mr. Randolph, he refrained from addressing him. 
 
 It is said that Mr. Randolph used all his influence in trying to 
 induce one of the gentlemen above mentioned not to agree to a 
 settlement of the Missouri question, as he ( Mr. Randolph ) feared 
 that this, if accomplished as it was desired, would secure Mr. 
 Clay's election to the presidency. 
 
 During the same session, and some time previous to their inter- 
 view, Mr. Randolph accosted Mr. Clay with a look and manner 
 betokening the deepest concern, exhibiting to him a letter couched 
 in very abusive and insulting terms, threatening to cow-hide him, 
 and asked Mr. Clay's advice as to the course he should pursue in 
 relation to it. ' What caused the writer to send you such an insult- 
 ing epistle, Mr. Randolph ? ' said Mr. Clay. • Why, I suppose,' 
 said he, i it was in consequence of what I said to him the other 
 day.' ' What did you say?' 'Why, sir, I was standing in the 
 vestibule of the house, when the writer came up and introduced to 
 me a gentleman who accompanied him, and I asked him what 
 right he had to introduce that man to me, and told him that the 
 man had just as good a right to introduce him to me, whereat he 
 was very indignant, and said I had treated him scandalously, and 
 turning on his heel went away. I expect that made him write the 
 letter.' ' Do you not think that he was a little out of his head to 
 talk in that way ? ' replied Mr. Clay. l Why, I have been thinking 
 about that,' said Mr. Randolph, ' I have my doubts respecting his 
 sanity.' ' Well, that being the case, would it not be the wisest 
 course not to bring the matter before the house ? I will direct the 
 sergeant-at-arms to keep a sharp look out for the man, and to cause 
 him to be arrested, should he attempt any thing improper.' Mr. 
 Randolph expressed his acquiescence in the speaker's opinion, and 
 nothing more was heard of the subject. 
 
 On another occasion, when the same question was before the 
 house, Mr. Randolph informed Mr. Clay that he had come to the 
 conclusion to abandon his invective and caustic irony in debate, 
 and in future to confine himself to pure argument ; that he had 
 come to this conclusion in consequence of the advice of chief jus- 
 tice Marshall. He tried pure argument, but was unsuccessful, not 
 awakening any interest in those who listened to him. He finally 
 fell back into his old eccentric, sarcastic track, where he was at 
 home, and crowds flocked to hear him, as usual. In Mr. Ran- 
 dolph's hands ridicule was a powerful weapon, and one which no 
 member knew how to use better than he, but sound reasoning and 
 logical disquisition he wielded awkwardly — they were untem- 
 pered weapons when used by him, about as effective as a rush in 
 vol. i. 16 
 
122 LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 the hands of a child. One day he came in contact with a very 
 able debater, Mr. Sheffey, one of his colleagues from Virginia, 
 who, in a playful sally, had made some remarks which aroused 
 the irascible temper of Mr. Randolph, who replied to him and con- 
 cluded by offering him the following morceau of advice. ' My 
 worthy colleague possesses talents of a high order, but they are not 
 very versatile. They qualify him for a particular sphere only, beyond 
 the limits .of which nature never designed him to travel. That sphere 
 is logic. In this he can do battle with the boldest, but when he 
 transcends it, he has less power than a pigmy. Therefore, as a 
 friend, I would in the spirit of kindness, advise him never to leave 
 it for any other; but especially would I caution him, as he values 
 his reputation and safety, never to venture within the unexplored 
 and unsubjugated regions of wit, for whose labyrinths and intrica- 
 cies he has neither taste nor talent. As no other motive but a 
 tender solicitude for the gentleman's welfare, has prompted this 
 advice, I hope it will be received and appreciated accordingly.' 
 Mr. Sheffey, in reply, remarked that he did not like to remain in 
 Mr. Randolph's debt, and would therefore cancel the heavy demand 
 which he owed the gentleman, for his exceedingly valuable advice, 
 by returning the compliment. He accordingly advised him never 
 to aspire after logic, as it was an instrument of whose use his 
 ignorance was more than sophomoric, and that in his hand it was 
 like a knife in the hands of a child. ' In my opinion, from the 
 armory of wit the facetious member may draw weapons every way 
 adapted to his capacity, and I would therefore advise him never to 
 resort to any other.' When he concluded, Mr. Randolph sprang 
 to his feet, and in his quick, off-hand way, said, ' I will take back 
 all that I have said, by way of advice, to my colleague, for he has 
 given satisfactory evidence that he is a man both of logic and wit.' 
 The incident furnished much mirth to the house. The next day, 
 Mr. Randolph recommenced the attack with increased bitterness, 
 and was called to order several times by Mr. Clay, who, after 
 repeated trials, succeeded in checking him. Mr. Sheffey was 
 much excited, and was called to order also, w T hen Mr. Clay observed 
 that he would be out of order in replying, as he was, to any other 
 member, except Mr. Randolph. 
 
 At one time, Mr. Randolph, in a strain of most scorching irony, 
 had indulged in some personal taunts towards Mr. Clay, commis- 
 erating his ignorance and limited education, to whom Mr. Clay 
 replied by saying, ' sir, the gentleman from Virginia was pleased 
 to say, that in one point, at least, he coincided with me — in an 
 humble estimate of my grammatical and philological acquirements. 
 I know my deficiences. I was born to no proud patrimonial estate 
 from my father. I inherited only infancy, ignorance, and indigence ; 
 I feel my defects ; but so far as my situation in early life is con- 
 cerned, I may without presumption say, they are more my misfor- 
 
LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 123 
 
 tune than my fault. But, however I deplore my inability to 
 furnish to the gentleman a better specimen of powers of verbal 
 criticism, I will venture to say my regret is not greater than the 
 disappointment of this committee, as to the strength of his argu- 
 ment.' 
 
 The following incident aptly illustrates Mr. Clay's readiness at 
 repartee. At the time of the passage of the tariff bill, April six- 
 teenth, 1824, as the house was about adjourning, a friend of the 
 bill observed to Mr. Clay, 'we have done pretty well to-day.' 
 ' Very well, indeed,' rejoined Mr. Clay, instantly, 'very well; we 
 made a good stand, considering we lost both our Feet ;' alluding 
 to Mr. Foote, of New York, and Mr. Foot, of Connecticut, both 
 having opposed the bill, who it was confidently expected but a 
 short time previous would support it. 
 
 During Mr. Clay's absence from congress, which, as has been 
 before stated, was occasioned to furnish him an opportunity to 
 repair pecuniary losses, he was appointed, in connection with Mr. 
 Bibb, to attend the Virginia legislature, for the purpose of adjusting 
 certain Kentuckian land claims. The land laws of Kentucky were 
 a source of great perplexity and litigation, subjecting those who 
 had settled there prior to her separation from Virginia, to great 
 inconvenience and loss. In his appeal to the general assembly of 
 Virginia, Mr. Clay manifested unusual anxiety to protect the 
 interests of the occupants of the soil, in the state from which he 
 was a delegate, and succeeded in awakening a corresponding 
 feeling of sympathy in the hearts of those whom he addressed. 
 He drew a vivid picture of the privations and hardships which the 
 settler had to encounter, placed him before them in the attitude of 
 bidding adieu to the 'tombs and temples of his fathers,' then 
 followed him to the wilderness, and traced his toilsome progress, 
 step by step, until he brought him to the period when he began to 
 reap the reward of his labors. He exhibited him sitting at twilight 
 in the door of his comfortable tenement, looking out upon his 
 broad enclosures, the happy partner of his cares by his side, and 
 his dear little ones enjoying their innocent pastimes around him, 
 and almost made them see the heavings of his grateful heart, and 
 the moistening of his eye, as he surveyed the abundance of 
 domestic bliss, and peace, and plenty, which his industrious hand 
 had gathered about him. This, said Mr. Clay, is the bright side 
 of the picture ; now let us look at the dark ; and then, in his solemn, 
 impressive, and inimitably graphic manner, with a quivering lip, 
 and a hand tremulous with emotion, he pointed to the same group, 
 yet he painted no happy look, he caused no shout of sportive joy 
 to ascend, but he rendered audible the deep sigh, the suffocating 
 sob, and piercing groan ; he made almost visible the furrowed 
 brow of toil-worn manhood wet with the dew of despair, a broken- 
 hearted wife drowned in grief, surrounded by sorrowing childhood, 
 
124 LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 all fixing a last look upon a home dear to them as their lives, as 
 they were about to depart to rear a new abode in the uninviting 
 wilderness. This is no picture of a heated imagination, said Mr. 
 Clay, it is suggested by scenes of almost every day occurrence, 
 and it is to prevent their occurrence that prompts us to attempt 
 the adjustment of these conflicting ' land claims.' Equity, human- 
 ity, and benevolence, all urge this ; they all mingle their voices of 
 mercy, and beseech that when the settler has by his honest and 
 industrious efforts acquired the comforts and blessings of social 
 and domestic life, he shall be permitted to enjoy them, and not be 
 in danger of being dispossessed by a prior claim to his domain, 
 and of which he was ignorant. In one of his most pathetic 
 strains, he attempted to quote the affecting lines of sir Walter 
 Scott : 
 
 4 Lives there a heart so cold and dead, 
 That never to itself hath said — 
 This is my own, my native land ! ' 
 
 He commenced, but could not finish them ; some words had 
 escaped his memory, but without the least hesitation he pressed 
 his hand upon his forehead a moment, in recalling them. All 
 believed that this momentary hesitation was caused by the recol- 
 lections of other years, which were swelling in his heart and 
 checking utterance, and when he withdrew his hand from his 
 brow and cast his tearful eyes over the assembly, and in his impas- 
 sioned manner repeated the lines, there was one general gushing 
 of tears, as if all hearts had been melted beneath his look and tone. 
 
 In the course of the year, Mr. Clay, in behalf of Kentucky, and 
 B. W. Leigh, Esq., in behalf of Virginia, met at Ashland, and 
 concluded a convention, which was ratified by the legislature of 
 Kentucky, and by the house of delegates of Virginia, but was 
 rejected in her senate, by a small majority. 
 
 Mr. Clay had now, during his three years absence from congress, 
 realized his wishes in repairing his pecuniary losses, and at the 
 earnest and repeated requests of his fellow citizens, accepted a 
 renomination, and was again elected without opposition a mem- 
 ber of the house of representatives. 
 
 In consequence of intense application to his professional duties, 
 Mr. Clay's health had become materially impaired ; indeed his life 
 was despaired of. During the summer of 1823, he had visited, 
 without receiving much benefit, the Olympian Springs, in Ken- 
 tucky, and submitted to a thorough course of medicine, but all 
 remedial means failed to arrest what appeared to be a gradual 
 decline, which was conducting him apparently rapidly to the period 
 of his dissolution. He began to think seriously, as a last resort, on 
 going south to spend the ensuing winter, but it was requisite for 
 him to be in Washington in November, and his own feelings 
 inclined him to be there at the commencement of the session, in 
 
LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 125 
 
 case it were practicable. He finally, after consulting with his 
 friends, abandoned the prescriptions of his physicians, procured a 
 light carriage and a good saddle-horse, and riding, driving, and 
 walking, leisurely made his way to the seat of government. When 
 he reached Washington, he was nearly well. 
 
 At the opening of the eighteenth congress, on the first Monday 
 of December, 1823, Mr. Clay was elected speaker to the house, 
 over Mr. Barbour, of Virginia, the late speaker, by a vote of one 
 hundred and thirty-nine to forty-two. Shortly after his election, 
 the following beautiful jeu d' esprit appeared in the National In- 
 telligencer. 
 
 1 As near the Potomac's broad stream, t' other day, 
 
 Fair Liberty strolled in solicitous mood, 
 Deep-pondering the future, unheeding her way, 
 
 She met goddess Nature beside a green wood. 
 ' Good mother,' she cried, ' deign to help me at need ! 
 
 I must make for my guardians a Speaker to-day ; 
 The first in the world I would give them/ ' Indeed ! 
 
 When I made the first speaker, I made him of Clay? ' 
 
 Mr. Clay accepted the appointment in a brief but pertinent 
 speech, in which he gave a succinct view of the duties of the 
 chair, and presented the house his thanks for placing him in it. 
 
 In the course of the session, the subject of the Greek revolution 
 came before congress. Mr. Webster, of Massachusetts, on the 
 fifth of December, introduced it to the house, in a resolution 
 4 providing by law for defraying the expenses incident to the 
 appointment of an agent or commissioner to Greece, whenever 
 the president shall deem it expedient to make such appointment.' 
 This he sustained by a speech of great power. Mr. Clay brought 
 to its support the same feelings, the same warm sympathies, and 
 the same strength of argument that he had arrayed round the sub- 
 ject of South American independence. They both fought hard 
 to procure the adoption of this resolution, but it was lost. The 
 struggling Greek, however, Mr. Clay never lost sight of, and when 
 he became secretary of state, succeeded in accomplishing that for 
 them, in which he was defeated now. 
 
 While the question of recognition was before the house, Mr. 
 Clay was violently assailed by a member from New Hampshire, 
 recently arrived. It was thought his motive in doing this was to 
 bring himself into notice, by attacking the most distinguished man 
 in the house. He received such a rebuke from Mr. Clay, admin- 
 istered with mingled feelings of indignation and pity, as almost to 
 wither his energies during the remainder of the session. 
 
 It will be recollected, that during this session, the great tariff 
 measure was passed. An incident grew out of Mr. Clay's exer- 
 tions in its behalf, which occasioned no little amusement in 
 Washington, at the time, and throughout Virginia. Mr. William 
 B. Giles, since governor of Virginia, on the appearance of Mr. 
 
126 LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 Clay's tariff speech, published several articles entitled ' The Golden 
 Casket,' in which he introduced Mr. Clay's name pretty often, and 
 in no very courteous connection. The articles were of course 
 perused by Mr. Clay, who, aware of the foibles of their author, 
 took no serious offence thereat, but set to work to manufacture 
 amusement from them. He sat down in a comic mood one day, 
 and wrote Mr. Giles a long letter, complimenting him on the vigor 
 of his intellect, his great mental ability, and his accurate critical 
 acumen, but praising him especially for those qualities of which 
 he was utterly destitute. When it was completed, he showed it 
 to Mr. Archer, of Virginia, and several other friends, all of whom 
 enjoyed it immoderately, and urged him to send it to Mr. Giles, 
 and accordingly he sent it. As had been anticipated, the old gen- 
 tleman devoured it with the greatest gusto and satisfaction. It 
 contained just what he most desired — praise of his weakest traits 
 of character. He read it repeatedly, and at each successive read- 
 ing his heart relented towards the author, to such a degree as to 
 cause him to observe, that had he received the communication 
 previous to the publication of his ' Casket] he should not have 
 spoken of Mr. Clay as he did in that work. Shortly after, he 
 exhibited this letter to some of his intimate friends, to let them see 
 in what high estimation he was held by the great orator and states- 
 man, but unfortunately nearly the first one who read it, discovered 
 the hoax played on him, and immediately circulated it. Curiosity 
 to see the letter now pervaded the whole community, and some 
 difference of opinion prevailed as to its true character. A few of 
 Mr. Giles' friends expressed their belief that it had been written in 
 good faith, but most that it was intended for a joke at his expense. 
 Quite a violent dispute grew out of it; one party instigated by angry, 
 and the other by mirthful feelings. At length, Mr. Archer, who 
 resided in the same district with Mr. Giles, returned from congress, 
 and the true version of the matter was soon trumpeted through the 
 community, which caused unusual merriment. This was too 
 much for Mr. Giles, who sent his son, a lad of sixteen years of 
 age, to demand an explanation of Mr. Clay. He received the boy 
 very civilly, who made known to Mr. Clay the nature of his busi- 
 ness, saying that he was commissioned by his father to ask if he 
 were the author of that letter, at the same time exhibiting to him 
 the famous epistle, and if he were, to demand his motives in 
 writing it. When he had concluded his interrogations, Mr. Clay 
 coolly replied, ' tell your father that I shall make no explanation to 
 him through his own son. If he will employ a proper messenger, 
 I will render him another answer.' The lad departed, and nothing 
 more was heard from Mr. Giles. 
 
 On the fifteenth of August, 1824, general Lafayette, the nation's 
 guest, arrived at New York, and on the tenth of December 
 following, was introduced to the house of representatives by a select 
 
LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 127 
 
 committee appointed for the purpose, and was received by 
 Mr. Clay, in an apposite and beautiful address, of which the 
 following is an extract. ' The vain wish has been sometimes 
 indulged, that providence would allow the patriot after death, to 
 return to his country, and to contemplate the intermediate change 
 that had taken place, to view the forests felled, the cities built, the 
 mountains levelled, the canals cut, the highways constructed, the 
 progress of the arts, the advancement of learning, and the increase 
 of population. General, your present visit to the United States, 
 is a realization of the consoling object of that wish. You are in 
 the midst of posterity. Every where you must have been struck 
 with the great changes, physical and moral, which have occurred 
 since you left us. Even this city, bearing a venerated name, alike 
 endeared to you and to us, has since emerged from the forest which 
 then covered its site. In one respect you find us unaltered, and 
 that is, in the sentiment of continued devotion to liberty, and of 
 ardent affection and profound gratitude to your departed friend, the 
 father of his country, and to you, and to your illustrious associates 
 in the field and the cabinet, for the multiplied blessings which sur- 
 round us, and for the very privilege of addressing you, which 1 
 now exercise. This sentiment, now fondly cherished by more than 
 ten millions of people, will be transmitted with unabated vigor, down 
 the tide of time, through the countless millions who are destined 
 to inhabit this continent, to the latest posterity.' 
 
 To this address, the general replied in a manner which evinced 
 that he had been most deeply affected by it ; indeed, it was calcu- 
 lated to thrill his heart with proud joy, conveying to him as it did 
 a rich tribute of gratitude from a mighty nation, expressed in the 
 full, silvery voice of sincerity and affection, whose every tone 
 sank into his soul with the power of a warm welcome. He 
 contracted a strong attachment for Mr. Clay, which existed to the 
 day of his death. 
 
 At this period, Mr. Clay's influence had reached a commanding 
 height. His control over the legislation of the United States, was 
 unquestionably greater than that of any other individual, not even 
 excepting the executive himself. Although Mr. Clay disagreed 
 with president Monroe on the great measures of national policy, 
 internal improvements, and the tariff, and also respecting the mode 
 of recognizing South American independence, still, the latter, enter- 
 taining the most profound regard for his ability, and appreciating 
 the value of his services to his country, repeatedly offered him a 
 seat in his cabinet, and the choice of all the foreign missions. 
 Justice to Mr. Clay's disinterested patriotism demands it to be 
 recorded, that his honest conviction, that he could be more ser- 
 viceable to his country by remaining in her popular assembly, 
 than in representing her abroad, was one of the most weighty 
 motives which prevented him from planting his foot upon one of 
 
128 LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 the many stepping-stones, to place and power, which the hand of 
 executive favor had, unsolicited, laid before him. The differences 
 of opinion existing between him and Mr. Monroe, never inter- 
 rupted for a moment, the amicable relations of social intercourse 
 which they mutually maintained. 
 
 Towards the close of his second term, which expired in 1825, 
 the question of the next presidency was generally agitated. As 
 candidates for this office, Messrs. J. Q. Adams, Andrew Jackson, 
 Henry Clay, and William H. Crawford, had been brought forward 
 by their respective friends. As early as November, 1822, in a 
 meeting of the members of the legislature of Kentucky, Mr. Clay 
 had been nominated to it, and a short time after, he was nominated 
 also in meetings of the members of the legislatures of Missouri, 
 Ohio, and Louisiana. Enthusiastic expressions, approbating this 
 nomination, issued from large assemblies throughout the land, and 
 as the period for the election approached, there were many cheering 
 indications that it would be carried in his favor. But efforts were 
 resorted to, not the most creditable to those who employed them, 
 for the purpose of defeating his election. About the commence- 
 ment of the canvass, reports were industriously circulated, calcu- 
 lated to diminish his support. Among them was one announcing 
 his withdrawal from the contest, for which the unscrupulous exer- 
 tions of many of his opponents gained extensive credence, 
 notwithstanding our late lamented chief magistrate, and many 
 other friends of Mr. Clay in Ohio, published a counter report, 
 declaring that he ' would not be withdrawn from the contest but by 
 the fiat of his Maker.' The probabilities, however, of his success, 
 continued to increase, until the time of the choice of electors in 
 Louisiana, by the legislature of that state. In that body, Mr. Clay's 
 popularity was such as to secure him the vote of the state ; this 
 was evident from the fact of his nomination by it. The members 
 of the legislature friendly towards the other candidates, endeavored 
 to effect a compromise with those who supported Mr. Clay ; but 
 the latter, aware of their strength, rejected it. The compromise 
 proposed to give him four of the five electoral votes to which the 
 state was entitled, which would have carried him into the house of 
 representatives, to the exclusion of Mr. Crawford, as one of the 
 highest three candidates, from which, according to the constitution, 
 it would be obliged to make a selection. Unfortunately, about 
 the time when the state of Louisiana made choice of her electors, 
 three of Mr. Clay's friends became so seriously indisposed, as to 
 preclude their attendance on the legislature. This event furnished 
 the friends of Mr. Adams and general Jackson an opportunity to 
 form a coalescence, which they eagerly embraced, and divided the 
 five votes so as to give the former three and the latter two. This 
 consequently excluded Mr. Clay from the house, into which, had 
 he gone, there is no doubt that his unbounded popularity in that 
 
LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 129 
 
 body would have secured his election to the office. When, how- 
 ever, it became apparent, that no election of president would be 
 made by the people, with a nobleness and a nice sense of honor, 
 so characteristic of him, he resolved not to go into the house, but 
 to withdraw his name, and at a time too when the prospect was of 
 his being one of the highest three candidates. With great magna- 
 nimity, therefore, he pat into execution his resolution, assign- 
 ing to several of his intimate friends his reasons, among which 
 was the belief, that by his doing so, the choice would be more 
 readily and pacifically made. Such generous and self-sacrificing 
 conduct, while it illustrates the purity and strength of his patriot- 
 ism, is worthy of all admiration and commendation. 
 
 Near the close of December, 1824, the result of the canvass was 
 ascertained, by which it appeared that the three candidates returned 
 to the house, were Andrew Jackson, John Q. Adams, and W. H. 
 Crawford, by votes of ninety-nine, eighty-four, and forty-one. 
 
 Mr. Clay's position now was exceedingly delicate as well as 
 important. He had it in his power, by placing himself at the head 
 of the party who went with him in the house, to control its choice 
 of the three candidates returned to it. This he well knew, as also 
 their friends, who beset him continually and in every possible 
 manner, to secure his influence in behalf of their favorite candi- 
 dates. His predilection was well known to his personal friends, 
 but he sedulously refrained from making it the basis of any cau- 
 cusses or intrigues, which, knowing the unhealthy excitement 
 always generated by them, he desired to avoid. During the 
 several weeks immediately pending the election, the warm parti- 
 sans of the parties supporting Messrs. Jackson and Adams, 
 approached him in the most obsequious manner, expressing the 
 deepest regret that he had not been returned to the house, and 
 lavished on him the most fulsome flatteries and mawkish caresses. 
 After trying these for some time ineffectually, finding the more 
 than Roman firmness of the statesman unmoved by them, they 
 attempted to coerce him into a compliance with their wishes, and 
 the most unprincipled attempts were made to accomplish this. He 
 was attacked through the medium of anonymous letters inces- 
 santly, filled with abusive, and menacing language. These arrived 
 almost hourly, from every part of the country ; indeed, the enginery 
 of compulsion discharged their missiles at him from every fortress 
 of his political opponents, in the hope of making him espouse their 
 cause. Vain hope! A foolish waste of power, as they might 
 have known. It were easier for the infant of a day with his puny 
 hand to bow the oak of a thousand years, than for the combined 
 efforts of his enemies to cause him to yield an inch of the high 
 ground he had taken. In writing to a friend, he thus alludes to 
 the blandishments and brow-beatings which he received at this 
 time. Of the former, he said, ' I am enjoying whilst alive, the 
 vol. i. 17 
 
130 LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 posthumous honors which are usually awarded to the illustrious 
 dead;' and of the latter, he remarked, 'I bore them, I trust, as 
 your representative ought to have borne them, and as became me.' 
 But the basest attempts which they made, one which capped the 
 climax of their depraved assaults, and which was intended to fix 
 the foul stigma of disgrace indelibly upon their victim, was 
 embraced by a letter published in a Philadelphia newspaper, called 
 the ' Columbian Observer.' Without any preamble, this charged 
 Mr. Clay with the deliberate intention of selling his vote to the 
 highest bidder. This letter purported to have been written by a 
 member of congress from Pennsylvania, and declared that the 
 terms of a contract had been settled, which gave Mr. Clay the 
 secretaryship, for which he was to bring his influence to bear in 
 electing Mr. Adams. This allegation, the former lost no time in 
 denying, in a communication published in the National Intelli- 
 gencer, over his own signature, in which he pronounces the author 
 of the letter ' a base and infamous calumniator,' and called upon 
 him, whoever he might be, to come out boldly, avow and sustain 
 the charge. This was answered a few days after, by a member of 
 congress from Pennsylvania, Mr. George Kremer, who admitted 
 himself the author, and also his readiness to substantiate his asser- 
 tions in relation to the character of Mr. Clay. Subsequent devel- 
 opements have made it more than probable that Kremer did not 
 write the epistle in question, his declaration to the contrary notwith- 
 standing, but that it was written by the individual who sustained 
 the ' Columbian Observer,' John H. Eaton, and the latter did not 
 deny the authorship, although Mr. Clay directly charged him wilh 
 it. The evidence elicited was such as to show Mr. Kremer's 
 entire passivity in the whole matter — a mere machine, moved by 
 the hands of the vile plotters behind the scene, made to speak and 
 act as they directed, and caused to father the villanous slander, 
 which was generated amid the slime of their hearts, as destitute of 
 honor and patriotism as the icebergs of Greenland of verdure. 
 This supple tool had the frankness (to his credit be it spoken,) to 
 acknowledge afterwards to Mr. Crowninshield, a member of 
 congress from Massachusetts, that he ivas not the originator or 
 author of it. 
 
 The more effectually to vindicate himself, Mr. Clay desired to 
 place the subject before the house. To this he was prompted by 
 his own feelings, and also by the belief that the dignity and honor 
 of the body over which he presided, demanded that a complete 
 investigation should be instituted, of those gross charges which had 
 caused such disreputable imputations to rest upon his character. 
 In accordance, therefore, with his request, a committee was ap- 
 pointed on the fifth of February, 1825, consisting of many leading 
 members in the house, all of whom were his political opponents. 
 Probably the matter had now gone farther than Mr. Kremer wished 
 
LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 131 
 
 or expected it to go, as he began to manifest considerable uneasi- 
 ness respecting the result, notwithstanding he had but a day or 
 two previous arisen in his place and substantially reiterated the 
 contents of the communication he had acknowledged, stating that 
 1 if, upon an investigation being instituted, it should appear that 
 he had not sufficient reason to justify the statements he had made, 
 he trusted he should receive the marked reprobation which had 
 been suggested by the speaker. Let it fall where it might, he was 
 willing- to meet the inquiry and abide the result? And yet, when it 
 was proposed to adopt a course which would establish the truth or 
 falsehood of his statements, which would test this willingness ' to 
 meet the inquiry} he shrank back and shuffled under a mean 
 subterfuge. The committee, in their report, declared that Mr. 
 Kremer refused to appear before, or communicate to them any 
 facts of which he had virtually admitted himself to be in possession, 
 and protested against acting either as an accuser or a witness, 
 although strongly urged thereto by them, and not feeling author- 
 ized to use compulsion in procuring evidence, they suffered the 
 subject to drop. While it was in the hands of the house, he was 
 heard to remark to Messrs. Brent and Little, one of whom was a 
 warm friend of general Jackson, that he never intended to charge 
 Mr. Clay with corruption ; that he had transferred or could transfer 
 the votes or interests of his friend; and that he was among the last 
 men in the nation to make such a charge against Mr. Clay. To 
 this declaration both these gentlemen certified. Although Mr. 
 Kremer was weak enough to allow himself to be made the organ 
 of the abominable conspirators, and, as it appears, a little contrary 
 to his convictions of truth and honor, he could not stifle the com- 
 punctious visitations of conscience, which he experienced on 
 account of the abusive treatment which, through him, had fallen 
 on an unoffending individual, and that individual one of the main 
 pillars of the republic. He often expressed his intention of apolo- 
 gizing to Mr. Clay, and even went so far as to prepare an apology, 
 containing a minute explanation of all the circumstances connected 
 with the whole affair, from its inception to its completion, and 
 which fully exonerated Mr. Clay from every charge brought against 
 him in the letter. Information of his repentings and intended 
 reparation soon came to the ears of the grand instigators, which 
 carried panic to their cowardly hearts, and caused them to quake, 
 lest their party-colored covering, composed of the very quintessence 
 of meanness, baseness, and falsehood, should be stripped from 
 them, and their nakedness exposed to the view and the derision of 
 the world. To prevent such dreaded consequences, they began 
 instantly to bestir themselves, at what expense of principle or 
 integrity, they stopped not to consider. Their first efforts were 
 very naturally directed towards the instrument of their machina- 
 tions, who was seized, the apology taken from, and a muzzle 
 
132 LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 fastened upon him, to prevent the slightest utterance of his repent- 
 ant emotions. They then drew up a labored statement in his 
 name, and laid it before the house, reeking with duplicity, and 
 infecting the very atmosphere with its nauseating effluvia. Who 
 can contemplate the loathsome picture of depravity, worthy of the 
 arch fiend himself, which those evidently instigated by him, painted 
 f~ and attempted to suspend on the walls of the nation's dwelling- 
 place — the holy home of Liberty — in desecrating and contamina- 
 ting proximity to the canvass emblazoning the form and the 
 features of the 'father of his country,' and the glorious scenes 
 of his revolutionary valor, without mingled feelings of disgust, 
 indignation, and regret ? — what patriotic heart, what lover of liberty 
 and political virtue, in view of the fountain of immaculate purity, 
 on the one hand, whose streams went forth incessantly, to fertilize, 
 and gladden, and bless a mighty nation, and their diabolical attempts, 
 on the other, to pollute and blot it from existence, without sending 
 up the fervent ejaculation, ' Heaven save my country from falling 
 into such hands ' ? 
 
 After the dust and fog created by their unnatural endeavors had 
 passed away, the object of their malice appeared in his proper 
 place, as unmoved and serene as though the clangor of their strife 
 had not saluted his ears, and as unaffected by the showers of their 
 envenomed arrows, as though he had been sitting in his native 
 forests amid the rain-like fall of autumnal leaves. Their loud and 
 discordant clamors did not for a moment interrupt his meditations 
 concerning that important, that solemn duty, which had devolved 
 upon him, in the performance of which he had resolved that no 
 arts of wheedling or coercion should influence him ; that no man 
 nor set of men should act as his casuist; and that he would not 
 select from the numerous casuistical proposals, which party zeal 
 had placed before him, one that should determine the mode of its 
 discharge. No ! he chose to settle that question at a tribunal from 
 which there was no appeal — at the tribunal of Nature, which 
 Nature's God had erected in his own bosom. To that he resorted ; 
 indeed, it was one of his most favorite resorts ; and spreading out 
 this momentous question before her bar, we hear him exclaim, 
 < My position in relation to the presidential contest is highly critical, 
 and such as to leave me no path on which I can move without 
 censure. I have pursued in regard to it the rule which I always 
 observe in the discharge of my public duty. I have interrogated 
 my conscience as to what I ought to do, and that faithful guide 
 tells me that I ought to vote for Mr. Adams. I shall fulfil its 
 injunctions. Mr. Crawford's state of health, and the circumstances 
 under which he presents himself to the house, appear to me to be 
 conclusive against him. As a friend to liberty, and to the perma- 
 nence of our institutions, I cannot consent, in this early stage of 
 their existence, by contributing to the election of a military chief- 
 
LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 133 
 
 tain, to give the strongest guarantee that this republic will march in 
 the fatal road which has conducted every other republic to ruin. I 
 am, and shall continue to be, assailed by all the abuse which parti- 
 san zeal, malignity and rivalry can invent. I shall view without 
 emotion these effusions of malice, and remain unshaken in my 
 purpose. What is a public man worth, if he will not expose him- 
 self, on fit occasions, for the good of his country ? ' Yes ! he did 
 act according to the response which that 'faithful guide ' gave to 
 his sincere interrogation, and had the anathemas of the world been 
 thundered in his ears, they would not have driven him from thus 
 acting. He deemed her will paramount to that of his constituents, 
 who had desired him to vote for general Jackson. They afterwards, 
 however, not only justified, but highly approved — as must every 
 good man — his decision. It would be an act of superfluity to 
 specify minutely the grounds of Mr. Clay's preference. He had 
 obtained occular evidence of Mr. Crawford's inability to sustain 
 the responsibilities and perform the arduous duties of the chief 
 magistracy. He ascertained it to be a fact, but one carefully con- 
 cealed from the community, that Mr. Crawford had become almost 
 entirely debilitated by paralysis, both physically and mentally, 
 which itself, aside from the knowledge which he possessed, that his 
 influence could not elect him, was sufficient to induce his rejection. 
 Between general Jackson and Mr. Adams, it cannot be supposed 
 that Mr. Clay would long hesitate to choose. His determination 
 had been taken a long time previous to his knowing the result of 
 the election by the people. He had repeatedly given utterance to 
 that determination to friends and foes, at home and at Washington, 
 in public and in private, declaring that no supposable contingency 
 could arise to constrain him to vote for general Jackson, and even 
 went so far as to say, that if, in consequence of his well known 
 and often promulged opinion of the character, acquirements, and 
 abilities, of that individual, he should sustain him, he would subject 
 himself to the just contempt and reprobation of all parties. Neither 
 did he nor his friends look for Mr. Clay's support, and said that if 
 he did give it, he would be guilty of duplicity. It is very natural 
 to suppose, that a consultation of his experience would be sufficient 
 to cause Mr. Clay to prefer Mr. Adams. He had been associated 
 with the latter in many situations of trust and responsibility, requir- 
 ing the most consummate skill and statesmanship, and he had 
 invariably found him more than sufficient for them all. He had 
 always found him prepared for any emergency or exigency, how- 
 ever suddenly or unexpectedly it might arise. But in reference 
 to the military chieftain, its consultation elicited evidence just the 
 reverse; he searched in vain for a page recording his diplomatic 
 wisdom, sound expositions of governmental policy, and accurate 
 estimates of presidential qualifications; it was wanting. But on 
 many he found indelibly written, acts of unwarrantable and unjust- 
 
134 LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 ifiable usurpation, evincing a disposition to trample on law, 
 humanity, and the constitution itself. But general Jackson's sup- 
 posed hostility to internal improvements and protection to domestic 
 manufactures, had these enumerated deficiences and defects in his 
 character been wanting, would have been sufficient to exclude him 
 from receiving Mr. Clay's suffrage. These cherished systems, 
 which he regarded as of no subordinate importance to the nation, 
 and to establish which he had expended the prime of his life, he knew, 
 found a firm supporter in Mr. Adams. This fact furnished the 
 fundamental reason ( if any one may be thus denominated) which 
 determined his choice. Mr. Clay therefore gave Mr. Adams his 
 vote, who was elected president. He immediately tendered the 
 former the office of secretary of state, which was accepted with 
 that promptitude and decision which he always manifested in 
 entering upon the discharge of those duties to which he believed 
 his country called him. By this act he proved himself consistent 
 with his advocacy of the claims of Mr. Adams to the presidency, 
 under whom he believed that he could render more efficient service, 
 than in his present position in the house. There can be no other 
 reason assigned, which carries with it even the shadow of validity, 
 inducing him to accept a place in the cabinet of the president. 
 The same place had been tendered him by Messrs. Madison and 
 Monroe, and had been declined, on the ground of his belief that 
 he could make himself more serviceable to the nation, by continu- 
 ing where he was. The great measures of national policy which 
 were suspended upon his shoulders, at the time they desired to 
 transfer him from that body to their cabinets, he had disposed of, 
 and had also happily removed most of the serious impediments 
 and obstructions which then greatly retarded the wheels of legisla- 
 tion, so that there was a fair prospect that they would roll on 
 smoothly, without requiring his immediate aid. He could, there- 
 fore, seek with safety another sphere, and one where he could exert 
 a more extended and salutary influence. 
 
 In relation to his having bargained for the office of secretary of 
 state, Mr. Adams speaks, in reply to an address from a committee 
 of gentlemen, expressing their confidence in his purity and patriot- 
 ism, and a hope that the evening of his days would be passed in 
 that tranquillity which is only the lot of the good. He said that 
 upon Mr. Clay, ' the foulest slanders have been showered. Long 
 known and appreciated, as successively a member of both houses 
 of your national legislature, as the unrivalled speaker, and at the 
 same time, most efficient leader of debates in both of them, as an 
 able and successful negotiator for your interests in war and in 
 peace with foreign powers, and as a powerful candidate for the 
 highest of your trusts. The department of state itself was a 
 station, which, by its bestowal, could confer neither profit nor 
 honor upon him, but upon which he has shed unfading honor by the 
 
LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 135 
 
 manner in which he has discharged its duties. Prejudice and pas- 
 sion have charged him with obtaining that office by bargain and 
 corruption. Before you, my fellow citizens, in the presence of our 
 country, and of heaven, I pronounce that charge totally unfounded. 
 This tribute of justice is due from me to him, and I seize with 
 pleasure the opportunity, offered me by your letter, of discharging 
 the obligation. 
 
 i As to my motives for tendering to him the department of state 
 when I did, let that man who questions them come forward. Let 
 him look around among statesmen and legislators of this nation, 
 and of that day. Let him then select and name the man, whom, 
 by his preeminent talents, by his splendid services, by his ardent 
 patriotism, by his all-embracing public spirit, by his fervid elo- 
 quence in behalf of the rights and liberties of mankind, by his 
 long experience in the affairs of the union, foreign and domestic, 
 a president of the United States, intent only upon the honor and 
 welfare of his country, ought to have preferred to Henry Clay. 
 Let him name the man, and then judge you, my fellow citizens, of 
 my motives/ 
 
 Five years subsequent to his election, in a letter to a friend, Mr. 
 Adams referred to the above testimonial of Mr. Clay's talents and 
 character, as one from which he could deduct nothing, but to 
 which he could add much. He also said, that such was his opinion 
 of Mr. Clay's abilities, that he had expressed to him his candid 
 intention, at the time he resigned the speakership, in 1820, if a 
 vacancy should occur in the mission to Great Britain, he should 
 deem it his duty to recommend the nomination of him to that 
 office. He also speaks of the great despatch and facility, with 
 which Mr. Clay transacted business, notwithstanding the feeble- 
 ness of his health during the whole time. Indeed, he regarded 
 him as a perfect model of fitness for the office to which he called 
 him, and as having honored and adorned it with the intellectual 
 wealth of his fertile mind. No station in which he was placed, 
 suffered, either through remissness, or deficiency. The fact that 
 his entrance to office was always hailed with general joy, and his 
 departure witnessed with regret, furnished the highest possible 
 compliment to his ability and eminence. Had we space, and felt 
 disposed, we could multiply individual complimentary expressions 
 to almost any extent, but this is not necessary, for his fame and 
 praise are in the mouth of the world. The period of Mr. Clay's 
 speakership may be adduced as one of the most brilliant of his 
 public life. He illustrated it by all the lofty attainments of one 
 profoundly versed in the arts of government, under the guidance 
 of patriotism, that subordinated every thing to its ardor and devo- 
 tion. During his occupancy of the chair, from 1811 to 1825, except 
 two years of voluntary absence, his decisions, though prompt, were 
 rarely reversed. Though a warm partisan, he never allowed his 
 
136 LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 own particular views to influence them in the least, and both 
 friends and foes unite in declaring, that their rendition was far 
 removed from all suspicion of party or venal considerations, in 
 short; that on them all was stamped impartiality, in everduring char- 
 acters. But Mr. Clay, besides rendering himself conspicuous for 
 the correctness of his decisions, won also the regard and confidence 
 of the house for the courteously stern manner in which he governed 
 and guided its deliberations. He combined, in a preeminent 
 degree, the suaviter in modo with the fortiter in re. There was an 
 indescribable something in his look, gesture, and tone of voice, 
 added to his dignity and self-possession, that always restrained 
 and conciliated the turbulent and inimical, and bound to him, with 
 the silken ligaments of love, the peaceable and friendly. At no 
 period of our political history, were subjects so momentous and 
 dangerous in their nature, and so difficult to adjust, brought before 
 congress, as during that of which we are speaking. The politi- 
 cal heavens had never been so black, nor the political ocean 
 heaved his surges so high, before, and had not he been there to spread 
 the bow of serenity upon the one, and calm the wild fury of the 
 other, it is hardly too much to say, that our liberties, our institutions, 
 and our every thing nationally valuable, would have been swept 
 by the besom of their rage into the tomb of chaos, if not into 
 oblivion. But he ivas there, ruling, tempering, guiding, and bless- 
 ing. He seemed to act as though he were conscious that his coun- 
 try stood at his side, with her piercing eyes fixed full upon him, 
 reading the secrets of his heart, — as though he heard her voice 
 sounding in his ears, imploring and beseeching him to guard and 
 watch over, faithfully, those interests which she had so unreservedly 
 placed in his hands, and whenever he lifted his arm, or opened his 
 mouth, it seemed to be for the single purpose of executing her 
 revealed will. No wonder that in view of such unparalleled pa- 
 triotism and disinterestedness, applause should be extorted from 
 the mouth of enmity itself. No wonder that it should be heard 
 saying, ' Mr. Clay accomplished what no other man could have 
 performed. ' 
 
 Many incidents occurred during his speakership, highly illustra- 
 tive of his playfulness, wit, and readiness, of which the following 
 may serve as a specimen. 
 
 On one occasion, the late general Alexander Smyth, of Vir- 
 ginia, a gentleman of unusual ability and erudition, had been 
 speaking a long time, fatiguing and vexing the house with the 
 length and number of his quotations, and citations of authorities, 
 and justified his unbearable prolixity by saying to Mr. Clay, who 
 was seated near him, 'you, sir, speak for the present generation, but 
 i" speak for posterity.' ' Yes,' he immediately replied, ' and you 
 seem resolved to speak until the arrival of your audience !' 
 
 On another, the house was harangued by the late governor 
 
LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 137 
 
 Lincoln, of Maine, in his usual eloquent, but verbose and declam- 
 atory manner. He was considering the revolutionary pension 
 bill, and replying to an argument which opposed it on the ground 
 that those to whom it proposed to extend pecuniary aid, might 
 perhaps live a long time, and thus cause heavy drafts to be made 
 upon the treasury. In one of his elevated flights of patriotic 
 enthusiasm, he burst out with the exclamation, ' soldiers of the 
 revolution, live forever /' Mr. Clay succeeded him, in favor also 
 of the humane provision, but did not respond to his desire rela- 
 tive to the length of the lives of those worthies for whose benefit 
 it was devised, and when he closed, turned suddenly towards Mr. 
 Lincoln, and, with a smile upon his countenance, observed, ' I hope 
 my worthy friend will not insist upon the very great duration of 
 these pensions which he has suggested. Will he not consent, by 
 way of a compromise, to a term of nine hundred and ninety- 
 nine years, instead of eternity ? ' 
 
 We have seen, that the contest which resulted in placing Mr. 
 Adams at the head of the nation, was one of unusual violence, 
 and in waging which, the most unscrupulous means were employed; 
 and that one of its most unredeeming features was the unmiti- 
 gated calumny and abuse, which they heaped upon Mr. Clay. 
 But soon after the combatants had retired from the field of conflict, 
 and resumed their various avocations, the jarring elements of 
 political faction became quiescent, the blood of the ambitious 
 demagogue fell from its fever heat to its ordinary temperature, and 
 the foul slanderer, fearing exposure, had slunk away to his dark 
 retreat, to deplore his discomfiture, and concoct new materials. 
 Every thing gave omen that a season of peace and grateful repose 
 would be enjoyed. It was thought that no lover of these and of 
 good order, much less a patriot, could be found, who would be base 
 and foolhardy enough to stir up the expiring embers of strife, and 
 add fresh fuel to their flames. Those who entertained this belief, 
 however, found themselves mistaken. They saw one coming forth, 
 one who boasted long and loud of patriotism and devotion to 
 country, and, stooping from his supposed lofty eminence of politi- 
 cal virtue, pick up the relaxed bow of slander, and discharge 
 the most envenomed arrows of malice and detraction, at one of 
 the fairest ornaments of that very country, to whose interests he 
 professed himself so strongly attached. To their utter astonish- 
 ment, they beheld, in that individual, thus anomalously engaged, 
 no less a personage than that of ' the hero of New Orleans? Gen- 
 eral Jackson had the distinguished honor of reviving the thousand 
 times refuted report of ' bargain and corruption,' in relation to Mr. 
 Clay's acceptance of the department of state. A letter, dated 
 March eighth, 1825, went the rounds of the newspapers, pretending 
 to give the substance of a conversation which passed between the 
 writer and general Jackson, to the effect that Mr. Clay's friends in 
 vol. i. 18 
 
138 LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 congress had proposed to his friends, that if they would agree that 
 Mr. Adams should not be retained in the department of state, that 
 then their (Mr. Clay and his supporters') influence should be imme- 
 diately used to elect general Jackson, who, it affirmed, rejected the 
 proposal with becoming indignation. Soon after the appearance 
 of this communication, the author, Mr. Carter Beverly, addressed 
 general Jackson, requesting him to confirm it, who replied, June 
 fifth, 1827, by a letter directly charging the friends of Mr. Clay 
 with having proposed to him, through a member of congress, to 
 give him their support in case he (general Jackson) would pledge 
 himself not to retain Mr. Adams as aforesaid, and who intimated 
 that the proposition originated with Mr. Clay ; and, to give the last 
 finishing stroke, and one which should ensure it credence, he went 
 so far in that reply as to state, that immediately after the rejection 
 of the proposition, Mr. Clay came out openly for Mr. Adams. He 
 also declared, that, in reply to this proposition, he stated, that 
 before he would reach the presidential chair by such ignoble 
 means, ' he would see the earth open and swallow both Mr. 
 Clay and his friends, and himself with them!' The name of 
 the member of congress was demanded by Mr. Clay, and that 
 of Mr. Buchanan, of Pennsylvania, was given, a warm per- 
 sonal friend of general Jackson's. His version of the matter 
 proved the assertion of the latter a barefaced falsehood, unsup- 
 ported by even the semblance of truth. Mr. Buchanan flatly 
 and promptly denied, that such a proposition had been made 
 through him as had been alleged, and entirely exonerated Mr. Clay 
 and his adherents from all connection with it. He stated, that, 
 during the month of December, 1824, hearing it currently reported 
 in Washington, that general Jackson, imcase he was elected presi- 
 dent, designed to continue Mr. Adams as secretary of state, and 
 thinking that such a report, if not properly contradicted, would ope- 
 rate detrimentally to his interests, he called on him, and expressed 
 his opinion in relation thereto, and that the general declared, that 
 he entertained a high opinion of Mr. Adams, but had never 
 said any thing in relation to retaining or rejecting him as secretary 
 of state, and that he (Mr. Buchanan) was authorized to state, that 
 such was the result of the interview. Mr. Buchanan also declared 
 his honest and sincere conviction, that 'general Jackson did not 
 believe or entertain the most distant idea that he came on behalf of 
 Mr. Clay or of his friends, until the publication of the letter mak- 
 ing that accusation.' 
 
 Thus the burden of proof of the vile calumny, which had been 
 placed upon the shoulders of the calumniator himself, remained 
 unmoved. The united efforts of himself and friends, instead of 
 disengaging it, only rendered its magnitude more visible, and its 
 deformity more gross. The eyes of the nation have been directed 
 to it, and many pure patriots, of all parties, in view of it, with sad- 
 
LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 139 
 
 dened hearts, have exclaimed, 'alas, alas, for the all-absorbing 
 prevalence of party spirit — for the frailty of human nature!' 
 
 Though no substantiating evidence was, or could be, produced, 
 by those who sought to produce it, a mass of refuting testimony 
 was obtained by Mr. Clay and his friends, perfectly overwhelming. 
 A circular letter was addressed to the western delegation of 1825, 
 who were the principal individuals implicated in the charges against 
 Mr. Clay, soliciting their views respecting them, who unhesitatingly 
 pronounced them false ; and many stated, that their determination 
 to vote for Mr. Adams was formed previous to knowing Mr. Clay's 
 intention. This testimony Mr. Clay embodied in a pamphlet, 
 which he published in January, 1828, containing evidence more 
 than sufficient to convince any unprejudiced mind, that he had re- 
 peatedly and unambiguously declared his intention to vote for Mr. 
 Adams, long before the alleged proposition was said to have been 
 made. In this he says, ' I make no appeal to public sympathy. 
 I invoke only stern justice. If truth has not lost its force, reason 
 its sway, and the fountains of justice their purity, the decision 
 must be auspicious. With a firm reliance upon the enlightened 
 judgment of the public, and conscious of the zeal and uprightness 
 with which I have executed every trust committed to my care, I 
 await the event without alarm or apprehension. Whatever it may 
 be, my anxious hopes will continue for the success of the great 
 cause of human liberty, and of those high interests of national 
 policy, to the promotion of which, the best exertions of my life have 
 been faithfully dedicated. And my humble, but earnest prayers will 
 be unremitted, that all danger may be averted from our common 
 country, and especially that our union, our liberty, and our institu- 
 tions, may long survive, a cheering exception from the operations 
 of that fatal decree, which the voice of all history has hitherto uni- 
 formly proclaimed.' 
 
 Though utterly abortive were all the attempts of the enemies of 
 Mr. Clay, to injure him in the estimation of the unprejudiced and 
 the good, still, they managed to make political capital out of the 
 charges of bargain and corruption. Notwithstanding this final 
 appeal to the people, embraced, substantially, the numerous evi- 
 dences of their falsehood, evidences that had been repeated again 
 and again, still, there were found thousands who believed these 
 charges, and many servile partisan presses to circulate them, and 
 carefully suppress the proofs of their untruth. These labored 
 unremittingly, to make the community believe, that general Jack- 
 son was absolutely cheated out of his election by Mr. Clay, and 
 multitudes settled down on this belief, and clung to it with an 
 obstinacy, that would not have been moved, had he sealed his pro- 
 testation of their falsehood with his blood. This belief was so con- 
 genial to the feelings of many, as to cause them to turn a deaf ear 
 to any statement calculated to weaken it. A specimen of this 
 
140 LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 class of individuals fell under the personal observation of Mr. 
 Clay, while, in 1828, he was travelling in Virginia, accompanied by- 
 some friends. ' We halted,' said he, ' at night, at a tavern kept by 
 an aged gentleman, who, after supper, sat down by me, and, without 
 hearing my name, but understanding that I was from Kentucky, 
 remarked, that he had four sons in that state, and that he was 
 very sorry they were divided in politics, two being for Adams, 
 and two for Jackson. He wished they were all for Jackson. 
 Why ? I asked him. Because, he said, that fellow Clay, and 
 Adams, had cheated Jackson out of the presidency. Have you ever 
 seen any evidence, my old friend, said 1, of that? No, he replied, 
 none, and he wanted to see none. But, I observed, looking him direct- 
 ly and steadily in the face, suppose Mr. Clay were to come here and 
 assure you, upon his honor, that it was all a vile calumny, and not 
 a word of truth in it, would you believe him ? No, replied the old 
 man, promptly and emphatically. I said to him, in conclusion, will 
 you be good enough to show me to bed, and bade him good night. 
 The next morning, having in the interval learnt my name, he came to 
 me full of apologies, but I at once put him at his ease, by assuring him 
 that I did not feel, in the slightest degree, hurt or offended with him.' 
 These calumnious allegations have expended their strength, and 
 are now remembered and denominated only as the vilest fabrica- 
 tion of the most unscrupulous political malice, to destroy the most 
 exalted patriotism and unsullied political virtue, that ever adorned 
 this or any other country. The individual against whom they 
 were directed, still lives, and lifts his head, encircled by the civic 
 wreath of honor, in which flashes, in everduring brilliancy, many 
 a gem of public favor. It was a sublime sight, for a mighty nation 
 to see her most distinguished son, single-handed, holding on his 
 patriotic course, now breasting the ungovernable waves of faction, 
 and now making his way through the serried ranks of vindictive 
 assailants, casting their weapons from him as the lion shakes the 
 dewdrops from his mane, or, seated in the unmoved majesty of 
 his integrity, regarding them as the ocean rock looks down and 
 laughs at the impotency of surge and storm, breaking harmlessly 
 against his feet. Through all, he passed to the chair of state, 
 unshorn of a lock of his might. The duties of that arduous station 
 he discharged with a zeal and fidelity, which may be equalled, but 
 not surpassed. These had become greatly multiplied when Mr. 
 Clay entered upon it, in consequence of the extension of our for- 
 eign relations, which required the preparation of many documents 
 that devolved upon it. It would be impracticable to give even a 
 list of these. His health was so feeble, that he intimated to the 
 president his intention of resigning his office in 1828, but, through 
 the persuasion of his friends, consented to remain. It is surprising, 
 that, under such circumstances, the official records, during his term 
 of service, show a greater amount of labor performed than was 
 
LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 141 
 
 accomplished by any of his predecessors, who enjoyed those 
 collateral aids which it was impracticable for him to obtain. In 
 the single article of treaties, his incumbency was illustrious. The 
 number negotiated and concluded by him, at Washington, is 
 greater than that of all which had ever been previously concluded 
 there, from the first adoption of the constitution. These relate 
 chiefly to commerce, navigation, and neutral rights, and were 
 entered into between the United States, Central America, Prussia, 
 Denmark and the Hanseatic Republic, and Austria, though he 
 vacated his office previous to the ensealing of the treaty with the 
 latter. With foreign ministers at Washington, he was a great 
 favorite, and on terms of salutary intimacy, which enabled him to 
 consult most advantageously the best interests of his country, in 
 negotiating with them. In devising and framing these instruments, 
 Mr. Clay not only found ample scope for the exercise of his mental 
 faculties, but also for those amiable qualities of his character which 
 enhanced the pleasure of his personal intercourse, and which con- 
 tributed not a little in obtaining liberal terms for his country. He 
 laid the foundation of an arrangement with Russia, for the settle- 
 ment of certain claims of American citizens. These treaties furnish 
 a full refutation of the charge often preferred against him, of being 
 indifferent to, and unmindful of our foreign commercial interests, 
 and as being willing to sacrifice them in fostering domestic trade 
 and manufactures. A perusal of these is sufficient to convince 
 the most skeptical, that our foreign commercial interests lay as near 
 his heart as any other subject of diplomatic action. He abrogated 
 in them a clause introduced into the London treaty of 1815, by 
 which English and American vessels were restricted, in their com- 
 mercial intercourse with one another, to articles of the growth or 
 manufacture of each, and inserted one in its place, permitting them 
 to enter their ports, without any regard being had to the place of 
 growth and manufacture of their cargoes. This removed what 
 experience had proved to be a most serious impediment to our 
 navigation, and seemed so just and proper in Mr. Clay's estimation, 
 that, in speaking of it, he says, ' its reciprocity is perfect ; and when 
 it comes to be adopted by all nations, we can scarcely see any 
 thing beyond it, in the way of improvement to the freedom and 
 interests of their mutual navigation. The devices of maratime 
 nations have been various, to augment their marine, at the expense 
 of other powers. When there has been a passive acquiescence in 
 the operation of these devices, without any resort to countervailing 
 regulations, their success has sometimes been very great. But 
 nations are now too enlightened to submit quietly to the selfish 
 efforts of any one power to engross, by its own separate legislation, 
 a disproportionate share of navigation in their mutual intercourse. 
 These efforts are now met by opposite efforts, restriction begets 
 restriction, until the discovery is at last made, after a long train of 
 
142 LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 vexatious and irritating acts and manoeuvres on both sides, that the 
 course of selfish legislation, ultimately, does not effect the distribu- 
 tion of maritime power, whilst it is attended with the certain evil 
 of putting nations into an ill humor with each other. Experience 
 at last teaches, that, in every view, it is better to begin and continue 
 in the career of liberality.' 
 
 This restriction, however, Great Britain would not abandon, when 
 urged thereto by Mr. Gallatin, whom Mr. Adams had empowered 
 to treat with that nation, in relation to the trade between the United 
 States and her colonial dependencies. He was particularly instruct- 
 ed by Mr. Clay to make the subject of the West India trade a 
 matter of special negotiation. Unsuccessful efforts to effect a 
 mutually advantageous arrangement, had been made several years 
 previous, and Mr. Gallatin was despatched to resume them, at the 
 request of the British minister at Washington. The former was 
 told, immediately after presenting his credentials, that the British 
 government would not treat concerning the West India trade, and 
 also that she would not admit the United States to participate in 
 it, because they had not complied with the provision of a certain 
 act of parliament relating to it, of which act they were in utter 
 ignorance. Its passage had never been officially announced to 
 them, at London or at Washington. The act itself was vague, 
 and when the British minister was questioned by Mr. Clay respect- 
 ing its application, the former was unable to explain its ambiguity, 
 or to say whether it was intended to apply to the United States or 
 not, as there was nothing in his instructions relating to it. In con- 
 nection with refusing to negotiate with Mr. Gallatin, Great Britain 
 insulted the United States through him, by declaring that they were 
 bound to know and take notice of the acts of parliament ! We 
 doubt whether the diplomacy of any other nation ever presented 
 such a flagrant assertion, so arrogantly assumptive, and so palpably 
 unjust. The result, of course, was inevitable ; direct intercourse 
 between the United States and the West India ports of Great 
 Britain, in British or American vessels, was mutually prohibited. 
 Mr. Clay's official correspondence, in relation to this question, is 
 replete with argument and sound reasoning. 
 
 The expansiveness of Mr. Clay's love of freedom, again exhib- 
 ited itself soon after entering upon the duties of his office. Although 
 they were such as to keep him continually and exhaustingly 
 engaged, he nevertheless found time to extend his commiseration 
 and his aid to those nations, the recognition of whose independence, 
 by his country, he had endeavored to procure some time previous. 
 His situation was now such as to give him an opportunity of 
 accomplishing this. From time to time he spread the subject 
 before the executive, and so eloquently pleaded their cause, that a 
 minister was despatched by our government to Greece, which 
 resulted in the recognition of her independence by it. In this the 
 
LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 143 
 
 United States was first, and through the influence of Mr. Clay did 
 she make this benevolent movement. As he had anticipated, it 
 infused new strength into the hearts of the struggling Greeks, who 
 had begun to sink beneath the Turkish scimetar. 
 
 Mr. Clay's official letter to Mr. Middleton, our minister at Rus- 
 sia, dated May tenth, 1825, is a paper of great polish and skill. 
 Mr. Clay had witnessed, for seventeen years, the devastating wars 
 which had raged between Spain and her South American colonies, 
 and fervently desired to see them terminated. For this purpose, he 
 projected and prepared the document aforesaid, independent of all 
 suggestion or aid, from any public functionary. He had familiar- 
 ized himself with the facts connected with these wars, which, in 
 the most striking and beautiful manner, he spread out before the 
 emperor, and urged him to use his influence in bringing about an 
 event which he so ardently desired. This communication was so 
 skilfully and ingeniously framed, as to direct the attention of 
 Alexander to the struggling Greeks, and enlist his influence in 
 their behalf, which was precisely what the writer wished, though 
 he did not say so in so many words. Mr. Clay's efforts were 
 triumphantly successful. The emperor instructed his minister at 
 the Spanish court, to use every proper exertion to terminate these 
 sanguinary conflicts, which eventuated in the acknowledgement of 
 South American independence, by the parent country. The 
 emperor also took sides with the Greeks, made certain proposals, 
 relative to them, to the grand sultan, and, on their being rejected, 
 instantly set about making preparations to march against him. 
 Before their completion he deceased, but his successor took them 
 up, and struck a blow so decisive as to put instant period to his 
 barbarities. Thus Mr. Clay's influence, through this instrument, 
 set in motion means that moved both hemispheres, and accom- 
 plished results, the sum of whose benefits and blessings, never has 
 been, and never can be, ascertained. 
 
 If we were to single out one from the multitude of official papers 
 prepared by Mr. Clay during his secretaryship, as evincing the 
 most ability and skill, it would be the letter of instructions to 
 Messrs. John Sergeant and Richard C. Anderson, delegates from 
 the United States to the congress at Panama, convened at the 
 request of the republics of Colombia, Mexico, and Central Amer- 
 ica, whose representatives were also present. The object of this 
 congress was not very definitely stated in the request for it, and, 
 before appointing delegates, Mr. Clay endeavored to ascertain the 
 nature and extent of the subjects upon which they would deliber- 
 ate, and the powers with which it would be proper to clothe them. 
 This object, though not precisely ascertained, was presumed to be 
 honorable ; indeed, the convention was belieyed to have been sug- 
 gested by the declaration of president Monroe, that, in case of any 
 interference of any of the allied powers, in the contest between 
 
L44 LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 Spain and her former colonies, the United States would not remain 
 an indifferent spectator. This declaration very naturally led the 
 republics before mentioned, towards whom the Holy Alliance main- 
 tained a hostile attitude, to seek the cultivation of those amicable 
 relations with the United States, which would secure their aid, in 
 case it should be desired. In Mr. Clay's letter of instructions, the 
 delegates were authorized to treat of peace, friendship, commerce, 
 navigation, maritime law, neutral and belligerent rights, and other 
 subjects of mutual interest. Subjoined, is an extract from this 
 able document. 
 
 Speaking of the regulation respecting private property, which 
 ought to exist on the ocean in time of war, he says : ' although. 
 in the arrangement of things, security against oppression should 
 be the greatest where it is most likely to be often practiced, it is 
 nevertheless remarkable, that the progress of enlightened civiliza- 
 tion has been much more advanced on the land than on the ocean. 
 And, accordingly, personal rights, and especially those of property, 
 have both a safety and protection on the former, which they do not 
 enjoy on the latter element. Scarcely any circumstance would 
 now tend more to exalt the character of America, than that of 
 uniting its endeavors to bring up the arrears of civilization as 
 applied to the ocean, to the same forward point which it has 
 attained on the land, and, thus rendering men and their property 
 secure against all human injustice and violence, leave them 
 exposed only to the action of those storms and disasters, sufficiently 
 perilous, which are comprehended in the dispensations of providence. 
 It is under the influence of these and similar considerations, that 
 you will bring forward, at the contemplated congress, the proposi- 
 tion to abolish war against private property and non-combatants 
 on the ocean. Private property of an enemy is protected, when 
 on land, from seizure and confiscation. Those who do not bear 
 arms there, are not disturbed in their vocations. Why should not 
 the same humane exemption be extended to the sea ? ' 
 
 Respecting religious toleration, he remarks, 'you will avail 
 yourselves of all suitable occasions to press upon the minister of 
 the other American states, the propriety of a free toleration of reli- 
 gion, within their respective limits. In the United States, we 
 experience no inconvenience from the absence of any religious 
 establishment, and the universal toleration which happily prevails. 
 We believe that none would be felt by other nations who should 
 allow equal religious freedom. It would be deemed rash to assert, 
 that civil liberty and an established church cannot exist together in 
 the same state ; but it may be safely affirmed, that history affords 
 no example of their union, where the religion of the state has not 
 only been established, but exclusive. If any of the American pow- 
 ers thjnk proper to introduce into their systems an established 
 religion, although we should regret such a determination, we would 
 
LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 145 
 
 have no right to make a formal complaint, unless it should be 
 exclusive. As the citizens of any of the American nations have a 
 right, when here, without hindrance, to worship the Deity accord- 
 ing to the dictates of their own consciences, our citizens ought to 
 be allowed the same privilege, when, prompted by business or 
 inclination, they visit any of the American states. You are ac- 
 cordingly authorized to propose a joint declaration, to be subscribed 
 by the ministers of all or any of the powers represented, that, within 
 their limits, there shall be free toleration of religious worship. The 
 declaration on this subject in which you are authorized to unite, as 
 well as that directed against European colonization within the terri- 
 torial limits of any of the American nations herein before men- 
 tioned, does no more than announce, in respect to the United States, 
 the existing state of their institutions and laws.' 
 
 These instructions reflect the highest honor on Mr. Clay, and 
 when, in March, 1829, their publication was called for, in connection 
 with other documents relating to the Panama mission, it was ran- 
 corously opposed by his enemies, who foresaw clearly that it would 
 increase his popularity and add to his celebrity, as well as refute 
 their assertion, that the object of the administration, in sending del- 
 egates to the Panama congress, was to carry into effect objects 
 utterly at variance with the interests and true policy of the United 
 States. 
 
 Mr. Clay's method of preparing state papers, was, to make him- 
 self perfectly master of the subjects to be considered, by perusing 
 all the papers on file relating to them, and afterwards draw up the 
 documents in a form that seemed to him correct, and then submit 
 them to the inspection of the president, who, it is understood, 
 seldom found it necessary to suggest the slightest alteration. 
 
 During his term of service, Mr. Clay was under the painful 
 necessity of reproving a foreign minister. Our charge d'affaires 
 at the court of Brazil, had, by his intimidating manner, rendered 
 himself very unpopular, and brought our affairs into great embar- 
 rassment at Rio de Janeiro. He frequently indulged in harsh and 
 disrespectful language toward officers of the Brazilian government. 
 Mr. Clay conveyed to him the rebuke of the United States, for 
 these misdemeanors, which, though severe, was couched in lan- 
 guage calculated to give the least possible pain. 
 
 The confidence of Mr. Adams was liberally and voluntarily 
 given to Mr. Clay, nor could it have been better bestowed. With 
 all the acts of the latter, he expressed himself entirely satisfied — 
 except his affair of honor with Mr. Randolph. Of this he disap- 
 proved, most heartily and unequivocally; and Mr. Clay himself 
 greatly regretted it. Many evidences are on record of Mr. Adams's 
 regard for Mr. Clay, both of a public and private character. The 
 following is an interesting one. 
 
 Says a correspondent of the Newark Daily Advertiser, 'J 
 vol. i. 19 
 
146 LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 have frequently observed ladies' albums circulating through the 
 house and senate chamber, with the view of collecting the auto- 
 graphs of the members. I saw one this morning which contained 
 a page of well written poetry, dated twenty-third July, 1842, in 
 the tremulous hand-writing of John Q. Adams, descriptive of the 
 wild chaos at present spread over our political affairs, and antici- 
 pated coming events, which would bring order out of disorder. 
 The closing verse was as follows : 
 
 ' Say, for whose brow this laurel crown 1 
 
 For whom this web of life is spinning ? 
 Turn this, thy album, upside down, 
 
 And take the end for the beginning.' 
 
 The meaning of this was somewhat mystical, but, by turning to 
 the back of the book, and inverting it, on its last page a piece was 
 found with the signature of ' H. Clay!' 
 
 Seldom, perhaps, has an administration been assailed with more 
 violence, or with less cause, than that of Mr. Adams. Perhaps the 
 hostility manifested towards it, was occasioned, to a considerable 
 extent, by Mr. Clay's connection with it, and from the fact that the 
 •views of the president, in relation to the great measures of national 
 policy, harmonized perfectly with his own. This gave to the 
 opposition, of the ultra advocates of state rights, its bitterest venom, 
 which was profusely lavished upon it. As soon as Mr. Clay left 
 the house, his old eccentric foe, Mr. Randolph, cast off all restraint, 
 and spoke and acted as though law and order were not for him ; 
 suffering no occasion to pass unimproved in abusing Mr. Clay, 
 and often travelling out of his way to seek one. The subject of 
 the Panama mission furnished him rich materials for exercising 
 his peculiar genius, which he employed in the most insulting man- 
 ner towards him. He characterized that unison of sentiment to 
 which we have alluded, which existed between the president and 
 Mr. Clay, as a i coalition of Blifil and Black George — a combi- 
 nation of the Puritan with the black-leg ' — and charged Mr. Clay 
 with ■ stealing a leaf from the curse book of Pandemonium.' Such 
 language would be disgraceful under any circumstances, but espe- 
 cially on the floor of the senate chamber. Mr. Randolph seemed 
 determined to bring about a personal conflict with Mr. Clay, from 
 what motives it is difficult to determine, for the latter gave him no 
 cause of abuse, carefully avoiding him as he did. But the former 
 went on, day after day, unprovoked, adding injury to injury, 
 heaping insult upon insult upon the latter, until further forbearance 
 became exceedingly difficult, to say the least, especially as Mr. 
 Clay was surrounded by his family. Says an individual intimately 
 acquainted with the parties, ■ Mr. Randolph knew that his every 
 word, whether spoken in his sober or inebriated moments,- was 
 pregnant with death, to the pride and the happiness of the innocent 
 and the lovely.' Although he himself had no family: although he 
 
LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 147 
 
 was an individual in reference to whom a distinguished friend of 
 ours once thanked God in congress, that monsters could not per- 
 petuate their species; still he must have known, from hearsay, that 
 the feelings of a wife and a daughter are keenly sensitive. Had Mr. 
 Clay held a seat in the senate, Mr. Randolph, dark as were his 
 designs, and much as he longed for a quarrel, would not have 
 dared to use the language of open outrage. There was ever some- 
 thing in Mr. Clay's eye, before which his spirit quailed and blinked, 
 like a frighted thing. Mr. Clay, however, was absent, and every day 
 of his forbearance added bitterness to the insults that were heaped 
 on him. What could he do ? Undoubtedly, that religion, whose 
 kingdom is not of this world, required him to endure patiently 
 unto the end. It is a matter of regret that he did not, but who 
 shall censure him harshly, for having, in a moment of uncontrolla- 
 ble exasperation, turned upon his pursuer and dared him to single 
 combat ! 
 
 Of the duel, itself, it is not necessary to say much. Mr. Ran- 
 dolph, in defiance of established usage, went upon the field in a 
 huge morning gown ; and the seconds, had not Mr. Clay interfered, 
 would have made this singular conduct the occasion of a quarrel. 
 In due time the parties fired, and luckily for both of them, or at 
 least for Mr. Clay, Mr. Randolph's life was saved by his gown*. 
 The unseemly garment constituted such a vast circumference, that 
 the locality of ' the thin and swarthy senator ' was at least a matter 
 of very vague conjecture. Mr. Clay might as well have fired into 
 the outspread top of an oak, in the hope of hitting a bird that he 
 supposed to be snugly perched somewhere among the branches. 
 His ball hit the centre of the visible object, but Randolph was not 
 there ! and of course the shot did no harm and no good. After 
 the first discharge, Mr. Randolph, by firing into the air, showed his 
 disinclination to continue the fight. He immediately walked up 
 to Mr. Clay, who was still standing in his place, and, parting the 
 folds of his gown, pointed to the hole where the bullet of the former 
 had pierced his coat, and, in the shrillest tones of his squeaking 
 voice, exclaimed, 'Mr. Clay, you owe me a coat, you owe me a 
 coat !' to which he replied, in a voice of slow and solemn empha- 
 sis, at the same time pointing directly to Mr. Randolph's heart, ' Mr. 
 Randolph, I thank God that I am no deeper in your debt!' 
 
 We are no apologist for the duelist ; we regard the practice of 
 duelling with the deepest detestation and abhorrence, and believe 
 it unjustified, under any circumstances: still, we unhesitatingly 
 say, that those which surrounded Mr. Clay, were approximated as 
 nearly to a justification, as any possibly could. He had resorted 
 to all honorable means to avoid a duel with Mr. Randolph ; calling 
 upon and desiring him to explain or retract his insulting language, 
 but he flatly refused. It may not be amiss to state, in this connec- 
 tion, that Mr. Clay reprobates the practice of duelling, himself. 
 
148 LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 This appears from his avowed sentiment relative thereto. ' I owe 
 it,' says he, « to the community, to say, that whatever, heretofore, I 
 may have done, or by inevitable circumstances may be forced to 
 do, no man in it holds in deeper abhorrence than I do, the perni- 
 cious 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 cannot, 
 although we should, reason. The true corrective will be found, 
 when all shall unite, as all ought to unite, in its unqualified pro- 
 scription.' 
 
 ( The hostile meeting between Mr. Randolph and Mr. Clay, occur- 
 red April eighth, 1826. Their last interview took place in March, 
 1833, a short time previous to the decease of the former. He was 
 on his way to Philadelphia, where he died. Being unable to walk 
 or stand without assistance, he was borne into the senate chamber, 
 to which he was about to pay his last visit. The senate was in 
 session by candlelight. Mr. Clay had risen to make some remarks 
 on the compromise act. ' Help me up,' said Mr. Randolph, sitting 
 in a chair, and speaking to his half-brother, Mr. Tucker, ' help me 
 up ; / have come to hear that voice once more? When Mr. Clay 
 concluded, he approached, and shook Mr. Randolph cordially by 
 the hand, and thus terminated their intercourse forever. 
 
 Mr. Clay's efforts, during his secretaryship, contributed much in 
 making Mr. Adams's administration peculiarly American. They 
 afforded material aid in cherishing and strengthening those princi- 
 ples, which would render the United States independent of for- 
 eign nations — principles for which he contended with a zeal that 
 nothing could dampen, and which would not allow any compro- 
 mise. In giving Mr. Adams his vote, he was not mistaken in sup- 
 posing that he would be their able supporter too. In their adherence 
 to these, they went hand in hand. This was a source of most vexa- 
 tious uneasiness to the enemies of those principles. Hence the 
 cause of their excessive hostility towards the administration of Mr. 
 Adams, for they believed it was materially shaped by Mr. Clay. 
 They little expected, and less designed, that their opposition should 
 thus pay him the highest possible compliment — that of wielding 
 a power scarcely inferior to that of the executive himself. The 
 enemies of Mr. Clay, therefore, became the enemies of Mr. Adams, 
 whose administration they determined to prostrate, let the expense 
 be what it might. l It must be put down,' said one of general Jack- 
 son's most prominent supporters, ' though as pure as the angels at 
 the right hand of God? The foulest, charges were preferred against 
 Mr. Adams and Mr. Clay, the mildest of which was, corruption. 
 Of the latter, in consequence of his having made some transfers, 
 in publishing the laws, from one printing establishment to another, 
 it was alleged, that he attempted to corrupt the press, which, with 
 a great outcry, was bruited from one end of the land to the other. 
 
LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 149 
 
 He was charged with having made the transfer from interested 
 party considerations, and an attempt was made to cause him to 
 communicate to congress what changes he had made, with his 
 reasons. It failed, however, on the ground that the house had 
 no jurisdiction over the matter. At the very time, (or nearly) that 
 his enemies in the house were thus engaged in subjecting him to 
 this gross charge, their coadjutors in the senate, led on by Mr. Van 
 Buren, were endeavoring to deprive the National Intelligencer of 
 the printing of that body. Notable consistency ! Not an act of Mr. 
 Adams, or Mr. Clay, which was not made to pass through the tra- 
 ducing ordeal of their enemies' malice, and pronounced corrupt 
 and ruinous in their tendency. The same acts might be submitted 
 to the examination of any impartial tribunal, who would rise up 
 from it, and declare them as nearly faultless as any human ones 
 could be; indeed, that of posterity,- whose decisions are never 
 reversed, is fast rendering such a verdict. Many an eye now dims 
 with tears, and many a heart heaves with regret, at the recollection 
 of Mr. Adams's administration. The political degeneracy and 
 pollution of the present day, were far from it. Economy, dignity, 
 and liberality, were written all over it, in such indelible characters, 
 that the most intemperate flood of opposition could not expunge 
 them. It can be said of Mr. Adams, that he never dismissed a 
 public functionary solely on the ground of party considerations, 
 and in selecting these, he did not permit himself to be governed by 
 them. But, unexceptionable, as was the course pursued by him, 
 detraction and calumny performed their utmost to bring him into 
 disrepute, and with too much success. Party prejudice and sec- 
 tional feelings were aroused and inflamed in all parts of the country. 
 The wants of each were catered for, without stint or measure ; 
 coalitions, combinations, caucusses, and all the unnamed and 
 undescribed pharaphernalia of party manoeuvring, were organized, 
 drilled, arrayed, and brought out, to be used by strong and willing 
 hands, in the most ignoble and base employment in which they 
 could be engaged — in crushing an administration without any 
 regard to its merit or demerit. The prime movers of the whole 
 heterogeneous mass had decreed, that it ' must be put down,' and 
 its loud ergo pealed up, ' it ought to be put down. 1 Contradictory 
 and paradoxical reasoning was employed, with success equal to 
 that of true, in different parts of the country. Their creed was 
 comprehensive enough to embrace all, how various soever their 
 names or tenets. From such an army political virtue and honesty 
 fled away and hid themselves, which, like the devouring locusts 
 of Egypt, passed over the whole land, blighting and destroying 
 every green thing in its political enclosures. Sometime previous 
 to the close of the administration, the opposition gained the ascen- 
 dency in congress, which greatly facilitated their operations, which 
 resulted in the election of their candidate, Andrew Jackson, to the 
 presidential chair, in the autumn of 1828. 
 
150 LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 The prevalence of truth is sure. It may be temporarily sup- 
 pressed, error may triumph over it, and it may seem to be lost, but 
 its disenthralment is just as certain, as the release of the earth by 
 solar heat from the mists that press upon its bosom. Error gravi- 
 tates — its nature is downwards ; but truth soars — its own intrinsic 
 buoyant power bears it, sooner or later, to the surface of human 
 observation. It cannot perish ; it is the ally of immortality, and 
 will survive all sublunary things, and be seen and admired ages 
 after falsehood and all his base companions shall have gone down 
 to their dark dwelling-place. This attribute of truth seems to have 
 been overlooked or disregarded, by those who, with a blind zeal 
 and misguided patriotism, sought the overthrow of an administra- 
 tion too good to escape the shafts of envy, and dispensing more 
 benefits than could be enumerated or appreciated by them when 
 thus engaged. Those who were most active in elevating general 
 Jackson to the presidency, displayed great skill in party tactics, 
 and a most liberal education in the schools of intrigue and detrac- 
 tion. Experience had taught them, that a public functionary was 
 most vulnerable through the minds of his constituents ; that if the 
 lodgment of a certain principle could be effected there, their work 
 was done, his ruin was accomplished. This was precisely the mode 
 of warfare pursued by the opponents of Mr. Adams and Mr. Clay. 
 All their efforts were directed to the single end, of instilling into 
 the minds of the people the belief, that these eminent statesmen, 
 these great and good men, were vampyres upon their pockets, shap- 
 ing their measures so as to drain them of their contents. The cry 
 of extravagance drowned every other, and that of economy, re- 
 trenchment, and reform, was iterated and reiterated so often, that 
 the truth of the first, and imperious necessity of the others, soon 
 became their permanent belief. It is not surprising, that under 
 the influence of this, they should rise, and pluck them from their 
 places, without stopping to inquire, whether those who excited 
 them to the committal of this act, did not do it for the express pur- 
 pose of thrusting their hands still deeper into their pockets. . The 
 sequel seemed to furnish good grounds for such an opinion. From 
 the purses of the people, general Jackson's administration took 
 about two dollars to Mr. Adams's one, and Mr. Van Buren's about 
 three. The necessity for diminishing the public expenditures, 
 suddenly ceased, upon their becoming safely installed in their 
 places, and their sympathy for the ' dear people] in view of their 
 pretended robbery, which seemed to be so expansive before, imme- 
 diately returned to the narrow limits of their own bosoms. But 
 truth, whose voice was completely stifled in reference to the admin- 
 istration of Mr. Adams, and the herculean labors of Mr. Clay, as 
 connected with it, in the political melee of 1828, is fast justifying 
 its measures, and causing many to regret, who zealously sought, its 
 overthrow, and fervently pray for its return. 
 
LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 151 
 
 A few days after general Jackson's inauguration into the presi- 
 dential chair, Mr. Clay prepared to return to the retirement and the 
 social delights of his home ; where, at his leisure, he could review 
 his public acts, and devise new measures for benefiting his country. 
 About the time of his departure from Washington, his friends 
 residing in that city, as a testimonial of their regard for his private 
 and public character, gave him a dinner. In a speech, on that 
 occasion, he alluded to his public career, and the duties of citizen- 
 ship, in the following beautiful language. ' Whether I shall ever 
 hereafter take any part in the public councils or not, depends upon 
 circumstances beyond my control. Holding the principle that a 
 citizen, as long as a single pulsation remains, is under an obliga- 
 tion to exert his utmost energies in the service of his country, if 
 necessary, whether in a public or private station, my friends here 
 and every where may rest assured, that, in either condition, I shall 
 stand erect, with a spirit unconquered, whilst life endures ready to 
 second their exertions in the cause of liberty, the union, and the 
 national prosperity.' 
 
 Of general Jackson he remarked, \ that citizen has done me 
 much injustice. It was inflicted, as I must ever believe, for the 
 double purpose of gratifying private resentment, and promoting 
 personal ambition. When, during the late canvass, he came for- 
 ward in the public prints, under his proper name, with his charge 
 against me, and summoned before the public tribunal his friend 
 and his only witness, (Mr. Buchanan,) to establish it, the anxious 
 attention of the whole American people was directed to the testi- 
 mony which that witness might render. He promptly obeyed the 
 call, and testified to what he knew. He could say nothing, and he 
 said nothing- which cast the slighest shade upon my honor or integ- 
 rity. What he did say was the reverse of any implication of me. 
 Then all just and impartial men, and all who had faith in the 
 magnanimity of my accuser, believed that he would make a public 
 acknowledgement of his error. How far this reasonable expecta- 
 tion has been fulfilled, let his persevering and stubborn silence 
 attest. But my relations to that citizen, by a recent event,-are now 
 changed. He is the chief magistrate of my country, invested with 
 large and extensive powers, the administration of which may con- 
 duce to its prosperity, or occasion its adversity. Patriotism enjoins 
 as a duty, that while he is in that exalted station he should be 
 treated with decorum, and his official acts be judged of in a spirit 
 of candor.' 
 
 The rancor of his enemies had pursued Mr. Clay as though he 
 had been a devastating monster, laying waste the fair and fertile 
 fields of his country, instead of enriching them by his toils. It. 
 overstepped, not only the bounds of prudence, but of propriety 
 and decency. It followed him to the sanctuary of his home, and 
 violated that. In a letter written in May, 1828, he thus speaks of 
 
152 LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 their attempts to destroy his pecuniary credit. ' The variety in 
 their modes of attack, and the industry of my enemies, are remark- 
 able, if not always commendable. I observe that some of them 
 about Lexington, have carefully searched the records of Fayette, 
 and extracted from them a formidable list of mortgages, which are 
 paraded as evidence of my bankruptcy. The fairness of this pro- 
 ceeding, in my absence on arduous public service, and without 
 inquiry into the fact whether the mortgages be extinguished or not, 
 is submitted to my fellow citizens of Fayette. I do not consider, 
 that a man who honestly fulfils his pecuniary engagements, is enti- 
 tled to any special praise, or I would not observe, that I can confi- 
 dently appeal to all with whom I ever had pecuniary transactions, 
 to bear testimony to the fidelity with which I have discharged 
 mine. I invite the severest scrutiny into my conduct in that 
 respect, and request a comparison of it with that of any one of 
 those who now assail me. I never was sued in my life, for an 
 uncontested debt ; indeed, I have no recollection at this time of 
 having ever been sued for any ascertained debt, contested or 
 uncontested, and whether I was principal or endorser. I am not 
 free absolutely from debt. I am not rich. I never coveted riches. 
 But my estate would even now be estimated at not much less than 
 one hundred thousand dollars. Whatever it may be worth, it is a 
 gratification to me to know, that it is the produce of my own honest 
 labor, no part of it being hereditary, except one slave, who would 
 oblige me very much if he would accept his freedom. It is suffi- 
 cient, after paying all my debts, to leave my family above want, if 
 I should be separated from them. It is a matter, also, of consola- 
 tion to me, to know that this wanton exposure of my private affairs 
 can do me no pecuniary prejudice. My few creditors will not 
 allow their confidence in me to be shaken by it. It has, indeed, led 
 to one incident, which was at the same time a source of pleasure 
 and pain. A friend lately called on me, at the instance of another 
 friend, and informed me that they were apprehensive that my 
 private affairs were embarrassed, and that I allowed their embar- 
 rassment to prey upon my mind. He came, therefore, with their 
 authority, to tell me that they would contribute any sum that I 
 might want, to relieve me. The emotions which such a proposi- 
 tion excited, can be conceived by honorable men. I felt most 
 happy to be able to undeceive them, and to decline their benevo- 
 lent proposition.' 
 
 Though Mr. Clay's enemies were greatly gratified at his eject- 
 ment from office, they were more disappointed and chagrined at 
 the fortitude, and humor, even, with which he bore it. They had 
 prepared a rich feast of enjoyment over his anticipated sorrow, on 
 the occurrence of that event, which was spoiled by him, in not 
 complying with the conditions that would make it palatable. In- 
 stead of being sad, he was merry. At the time of his departure 
 
LIFE OP HENRY CLAY. 153 
 
 from Washington for Kentucky, the roads were very bad, which 
 induced him to send his private conveyance in advance, and resort 
 to the stage-coach. On one occasion, the roughness of them 
 caused him to take a seat beside the driver, which he occupied on 
 entering Uniontown, in Pennsylvania, at which his friends in that 
 place expressed great surprise, to which he replied, ' gentlemen, 
 although I am with the outs, yet I can assure you that the ins 
 behind me, have much the worst of it.' His health, which had 
 become much enfeebled by his arduous duties, improved rapidly 
 during his journey home, and the flow of his exuberant spirits more 
 than kept pace with it. The most kindly receptions greeted him 
 at every stage of it ; indeed, in the expressions of regard for his 
 character and services, there was scarcely any cessation, from the 
 time he left the seat of government until he reached his home, to 
 which he was welcomed by one of those warm, spontaneous, and 
 eloquent outbursts of Kentuckian feeling, which, to be known, 
 must be witnessed, for no description can do it justice. Hardly 
 had he disrobed himself of his travelling garments, and become 
 seated in his residence at Ashland, before he was importuned to 
 exchange it for one in congress, or in the legislature of Kentucky; 
 but ill health, and a desire for temporal repose, caused him to 
 decline. Scarcely a day passed away which did not bring to his 
 abode testimonials of regard and affection, from his friends in all 
 parts of the country. He was urged repeatedly to participate in 
 their hospitality, which had he complied with to the extent in 
 which it was proffered, the strength of a thousand men would 
 have been requisite to carry him uninjured through it. These 
 invitations were prompted by a consciousness of his worth, and a 
 desire to gather his opinions and sentiments, in relation to national 
 policy. This desire was always gratified, at those which he 
 accepted. In May, 1829, he was honored by a public dinner, 
 served up at Fowler's garden, at which about three thousand sat 
 down. His presence called forth the following toast: 'our 
 distinguished guest, friend, and neighbor, Henry Clay — with 
 increased proofs of his worth, we delight to renew the assurance 
 of our confidence in his patriotism, talents, and incorruptibility — 
 may health and happiness attend him in retirement, and a grateful 
 nation do justice to his virtues.' After its announcement, he spoke 
 for the space of one hour and a half, with more than his usual 
 eloquence and energy. He reviewed somewhat minutely his public 
 career, the administration of Mr. Adams, and spoke in terms of 
 deserved censure of the means resorted to, by his enemies, to put 
 him down. He animadverted severely upon the course pursued 
 by general Jackson, in removing faithful public officers, and con- 
 sidered his conduct, in that respect, unjustifiable, and as calculated 
 to establish a dangerous precedent. His sentiments concerning the 
 principles which ought to govern public servants, are worthy of all 
 vol. i. 20 
 
154 LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 acceptance, and should be inscribed in letters of gold on the 
 phylacteries of all office-holders and office-seekers. He closed by 
 saying, ' in the presence of my God, and of this assembled multi- 
 tude, I can and I will say, that I have honestly and faithfully 
 served my country, that I have never wronged it, and that, however 
 unprepared I lament that I am, to appear in the Divine presence 
 on other accounts, I invoke the stern justice of His judgment on 
 my public conduct, without the smallest apprehension of His 
 displeasure.' 
 
 Mr. Clay never attempted concealment either of his sentiments or 
 his actions in relation to public matters ; on the contrary, he invited 
 the most searching scrutiny, conscious that in the maintenance of 
 the former, and the performance of the latter, he was actuated by 
 upright motives. 
 
 In 1829-30 he visited various parts of Kentucky, loaded with 
 favors wherever he came ; upholding those measures which were 
 truly national, and denouncing, without any reserve, those that were 
 of an opposite character. Of this description he found many connect- 
 ed with the administration of general Jackson, neither did he allow 
 himself to be deterred from expressing his views freely in relation 
 to them, from any motives of a personal consideration. Mr. Clay 
 was not the man to shrink from the duty of directing the attention 
 of the country to measures whose tendency he believed was det- 
 rimental to its interests. He would not hesitate to lift his warning 
 voice, though it would be at the expense of his hard-earned fame, 
 when he saw means employing to jeopard its safety. He visited 
 New Orleans at the commencement of 1830, where, if possible, the 
 attentions bestowed upon him exceeded those which he received 
 from his own constituents. Although his visit was occasioned by 
 business of a private character, he was continually thronged by the 
 people, of all parties, tendering him the mede of honor due his dis- 
 tinguished eminence. It was with difficulty he could resist their 
 warm importunity to accept a public dinner. He left for Natchez, 
 Mississippi, on the ninth of March, amid an immense concourse of 
 people, assembled to witness his departure. The levee, tops of 
 steamboats, and houses, were completely covered by them, who rent 
 the air with their enthusiastic cheering. As the steamer that bore him 
 moved from the pier, they were almost deafening, which, with the 
 waving of banners and handkerchiefs, and firing of cannon, made 
 it appear more like the departure of a mighty conqueror, than of a 
 private citizen. At Natchez, his arrival was anticipated, by the 
 congregating of individuals from all parts of Mississippi, comprising 
 the elite of her distinguished men, irrespective of partisanship, who 
 thronged the wharf, waiting to receive him. On the arrival of the 
 boat, the rush into it was so great as to excite alarm, and the mul- 
 titude environing it was so large and dense, that some time was 
 consumed in making an opening through it. Mr. Clay found it 
 
LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 155 
 
 easier to accept an invitation to a public dinner, than to resist the 
 importunity with which it was tendered. The guests were numer- 
 ous. Says one who witnessed the assembly, ' it was no partisan 
 gathering. The warmest political opponents, set down face to face 
 with each other, united in one subject at least — the desire to do 
 honor to their distinguished guest — to one whose patriotic motives 
 none of them could doubt, however much they might differ from his 
 principles. In his remarks, he was interrupted more than once by the 
 deep, involuntary murmurs of applause, which burst forth around 
 him. Every word which he uttered, went down and rested upon the 
 hearts of his auditors, like the kind tones of some blessed visitant. 
 It was a proud moment for Henry Clay. The dark elements of 
 faction sank down into quietude before him. Men who had been 
 arrayed for years in political contention, who had hitherto met each 
 other with the compressed lip and knitted brow of hatred, gave back, 
 on this occasion, the smiles of one another. 
 
 1 Mr. Clay commenced by an acknowledgment of his gratitude 
 for the honors bestowed upon him. ■ There is nothing in life,' said 
 he, ' half so delightful to the heart, as to know that, notwithstanding 
 the conflicts that arise among men — the w T hirlwind and madness 
 of party feeling — there yet are times, as on the present occasion, 
 when passion and prejudice slumber — moments, when old differ- 
 ences cease from troubling, and when all that is turbulent, and all 
 that is distrustful, are sacrificed to the generous and social dictates 
 of humanity.' 
 
 ' He spoke of general Jackson. He spoke of his great battle. 
 Darkly as he had been traduced, deeply as he had been injured by 
 that man, he yet hesitated not to bestow upon him his full measure of 
 patriotic encomium. His feelings rose with the subject. His eye 
 kindled. There was a moral grandeur in his look ; and all who 
 saw it felt that it was the visible manifestation of the triumph of 
 his nobler feelings over the dark sense of wrong. 
 
 ' At that moment I would have given my right hand, to have seen 
 general Jackson confronted before his magnanimous opponent — 
 face to face with the man whom he had so foully injured. Had he been 
 there — under the eye of that noble-hearted speaker — every word of 
 commendation, every generous acknowledgment of his services, 
 would have fallen upon his head like a rain of fire.' In every town 
 which he visited, the citizens gathered round him, and wherever he 
 turned, a hundred hands were extended to clasp his own. Public 
 feeling flowed after him as the tides of the ocean follow the moving 
 moon. Passing through Donaldsonville, where the legislature 
 of Louisiana was in session, he unexpectedly entered the hall 
 of the house of representatives, when that body, including speaker, 
 and members of both parties, simultaneously rose to receive him. 
 In the summer of 1830, business called him to Columbus, the cap- 
 ital of Ohio. At the time, a celebration was had by the mechanics 
 
156 LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 of the place and vicinity, at which the following honorary toast was 
 given : ' our inestimable guest, Henry Clay. An efficient laborer 
 in support of the industry of the country. Farmers and mechanics 
 know kow to appreciate his services'' — to which he responded, in a 
 speech which embraced allusions to his favorite theme, internal 
 improvements, in connection with the hostility of general Jackson to 
 them, as evinced in his veto of acts passed by congress, expressive 
 of its views of that system, and the established policy of the nation. 
 He vindicated their action, and proved its accordance with the 
 provisions of the constitution. The operation of the tariff he also 
 considered, and showed it salutary. In his concluding remarks he 
 adverted to his own circumstances. * Why,' said he, * were the fires of 
 unabated persecution kindled around him? Why was the artillery 
 of the press incessantly levelled upon him? W T hat had he done ? 
 The history of his past life was before the people. If he had erred 
 in any of his endeavors to subserve the best interests of the public, 
 he regretted it. His conscience, at least, did not reproach him. 
 And what was he doing to draw upon him the maledictions of his 
 countrymen? He was a private citizen. He could exercise 
 authority over none, nor had he any engine of governmental 
 patronage, to pervert and make subservient to purposes of personal 
 aggrandizement.' 
 
 At this meeting he exposed the turpitude of the odious doctrines 
 of nullification, which had begun to be agitated at the south. 
 
 On the seventeenth of December, 1S29, Mr. Clay delivered an 
 address before the Colonization Society, of Kentucky, at Frankfort, 
 in which the principles and objects of that humane institution were 
 ably and eloquently supported. In it, he alluded pointedly to the 
 subject of slavery, surveyed the numerous train of evils consequent 
 upon it, and expressed his hearty desire to cooperate with any 
 society which would mitigate, lessen, or remove them. He lin- 
 gered, with peculiar pleasure, upon the success which had unex- 
 pectedly crowned the efforts of the American Colonization Society, 
 and declared his sincere conviction, that it had most abundant en- 
 couragement to persevere and endeavor to redouble its exertions. 
 * We may boldly challenge the annals of human nature,' said he, 
 'for the record of any human plan for the melioration of the con- 
 dition or the advancement of our race, which promises more 
 unmixed good, in comprehensive benevolence, than that of the 
 Colonization Society, if carried into full operation. Its benevolent 
 purposes are not confined to the limits of one continent — not to the 
 prosperity of a solitary race. They embrace the largest two portions 
 of the earth, with the peace and happiness of both descriptions of 
 their present inhabitants, and the countless millions of their poster- 
 ity. The colonists, reared in the bosom of this republic, with a 
 knowledge of the blessings which liberty imparts, although now 
 unable to share them, will carry a recollection of them to benighted 
 
LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 157 
 
 Africa, and light up, in time, her immense territory. And may we 
 not indulge the hope, thai, in a period of time not surpassing in 
 duration that of our own colonial and national existence, we shall 
 behold a confederation of republican states on the western shores 
 of Africa, with their congress, and their annual legislatures, thun- 
 dering forth in behalf of the rights of man, and causing tyrants to 
 tremble on their thrones ! ' 
 
 Mr. Clay regarded the society, if judiciously managed, compe- 
 tent to diffuse the light and blessings of civilization and Christian- 
 ity, under the guidance of Providence, through the entire vast 
 regions of Africa ; saying, that it proposed 'to send, not one or two 
 pious members of Christianity, into a foreign land, among a differ- 
 ent and perhaps a suspicious race, of another complexion, but to 
 transport annually, for an indefinite number of years, thousands 
 of efficient missionaries, of the descendants of Africa itself, with 
 the same interests, sympathies, and constitutions of the natives, to 
 communicate the benefits of our holy religion, and of the arts of 
 civilization. And this colony of missionaries is to operate, not 
 alone by preaching the words of truth and revelation, which, how- 
 ever delightful to the ears of the faithful and intelligent, are not 
 always comprehended by untutored savages, but also by works of 
 occular demonstration. It will open the great forest, it will build 
 up cities, erect temples for christian worship, and thus practically 
 exhibit to the native sons of Africa, the beautiful moral spectacle, 
 and the superior advantages, of our religious and social systems. 
 In this unexaggerated view of the subject, the African colony, 
 compared with other missionary plans, presents the force and 
 grandeur of the noble steamer majestically ascending, and with 
 ease subduing the current of the Mississippi, in comparison with 
 the feeble and tottering canoe, moving slowly among the reeds 
 which fringe its shores. It holds up the image of the resistless 
 power of the Mississippi itself, rushing down from the summit 
 of the Rocky mountains, and making its deep and broad and rapid 
 course through the heart of this continent, thousands of miles, to 
 the gulf of Mexico, in comparison with that of an obscure rivulet, 
 winding its undiscernable way through dark and dense forests or 
 luxuriant prairies, where it is quickly and forever lost. 
 
 1 Confiding in the approving judgment of Divine Providence, 
 and conscious of the purity and benevolence of our intentions, we 
 may fearlessly advance in our great work. And when we shall, 
 as soon we must, be translated from this into another existence, 
 is the hope presumptuous, that we shall then behold the common 
 Father of the white and the black, the Ruler of the universe, cast 
 his all-seeing eye upon civilized and regenerated Africa, its culti- 
 vated fields, its coasts studded with numerous cities, and adorned 
 with temples dedicated to the religion of his redeeming Son, its 
 far-famed Niger, and all its great rivers, lined with flourishing 
 
158 LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 villages, and navigated by that wonderful power which American 
 genius first applied ; and that, after dwelling with satisfaction upon 
 the glorious spectacle, he will deign to look with approbation upon 
 us, his humble instruments, who have contributed to produce it.' 
 
 Mr. Clay believed that the association would eventually abolish 
 slavery, whose existence how deeply he deplored, may be gathered 
 from the following language. 'If I could be instrumental in 
 eradicating this deepest stain upon the character of our country, 
 and removing all cause of reproach on account of it, by foreign 
 nations; if I could only be instrumental in ridding of this foul 
 blot that revered state that gave me birth, or that not less beloved 
 state which kindly adopted me as her son, I would not exchange 
 the proud satisfaction which I should enjoy, for the honor of all the 
 triumphs ever decreed to the most successful conqueror? 
 
 Mr. Clay was elected to the United States senate, by the legisla- 
 ture of Kentucky, in the autumn of 1S31. About the same time, 
 in a national convention, at Baltimore, he was nominated to the 
 presidency, in opposition to general Jackson. 
 
 Soon after taking his seat in the senate, the subject of the tariff 
 came up for consideration, to which he gave his most efficient aid. 
 The president avowed his hostility to protective measures, and in 
 consequence of his great influence in congress, there was great 
 danger that they would be frittered away, so as to impair very ma- 
 terially their utility, or be entirely destroyed. The south began to 
 murmur their enmity towards them, which they believed operated 
 against their interests. They were violently opposed to the policy 
 of imposing duties on cotton fabrics, which were imported into the 
 United States from Great Britain, the principal consumer of her 
 staple production. From the attitude which she began to assume, 
 in relation to the protective system, just ground of alarm for its 
 safety was apprehended, and furnished an occasion sufficiently 
 critical to call forth one of Mr. Clay's mightiest efforts. He en- 
 deavored to conciliate the south, and cause, if possible, their views 
 to harmonize with the north. On the ninth of January, 183.2, he 
 introduced a resolution, providing that the existing duties upon 
 articles imported from foreign countries, and not coming into com- 
 petition with similar articles made or produced in the United 
 States, ought to be forthwith abolished, except the duties on wines 
 and silks, and that they ought to be reduced, and that the commit- 
 tee on finance be instructed to report a bill accordingly. In de- 
 fence of this resolution, he made a speech, powerfully illustrating 
 the importance to the whole country of protective enactments. 
 He was followed by Mr. Hayne, of South Carolina, in reply. 
 The discussion was continued several days, during which, Mr. 
 Clay made his brilliant speech, in which he signally sustained the 
 American system against the British colonial system. Its delivery 
 occupied several days, and when he ceased, this masterly produc- 
 
LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 159 
 
 tion of sound and argumentative reasoning, logical deduction, and 
 legitimate inference, presented to the delighted view of the friends 
 of that system, a mighty monument, destined to perpetuate its 
 practical utility, in connection with the fame of the founder, while, 
 to the enemies of that system, it presented the impregnable bul- 
 wark of its defence. Mr. Clay's speech, on this occasion, may be 
 justly regarded as a complete text-book, where every thing requisite 
 for the defence of protection and internal improvement may be 
 found. 
 
 On the thirteenth of March, Mr. Dickerson, from the committee 
 on manufactures, reported a bill, framed in accordance with the 
 suggestions of Mr. Clay's resolution. This was opposed, on the 
 ground that it did not embrace the whole subject of the tariff, 
 because the duties on articles which were protected, were not 
 reduced. Upon this bill a sharp debate followed, which resulted in 
 its being laid upon the table. After being amended, and variously 
 altered, it passed both houses, and became a law in July, 1832. 
 
 This bill preserved all the essential features and characteristics of 
 the protective system unimpaired ; too much, indeed, to please the 
 south. Violently opposed to any measures of protection which 
 made the slightest encroachment upon their sectional interests, they 
 regarded the provisions of this bill with the most bitter hatred. The 
 leaven of nullification, which was rapidly spreading itself at the 
 south, gloated over these, and derived new strength to go forth and 
 disseminate its invalidating dogmas. Its aspect grew more and 
 more menacing every day, until, at last, indubitable evidences of an 
 organized opposition to this bill began to appear. In this, South 
 Carolina took the lead. The legislature of that state ratified an or- 
 dinance, passed by a state convention at Columbus, in November, 
 1832, declaring the tariff acts unconstitutional, and utterly null and 
 void. The most decided determination was expressed, to disregard 
 them, and not a few were found insisting upon the right to do so. 
 Measures were devised to resist their enforcement, and munitions 
 of war procured, and warlike preparations made ; the other southern 
 states were invited to join her ; reports were put in circulation, that 
 Great Britain was about to become her fast and firm ally ; and the 
 lovers of liberty began to tremble for the result. The anti-republi- 
 cans began to chuckle over the fancied prospect, that their predic- 
 tions were about to be verified — that our liberties, our institutions, 
 and our union, were about to be overwhelmed in utter destruction, 
 by the all-devouring jaws of civil war. President Jackson prompt- 
 ly issued his proclamation, denouncing the doctrines of nullifica- 
 tion, and declared that the entire military force of the United States, 
 if necessary, should be employed to put down all attempts to 
 oppose or resist any enactment of the general government. He 
 remonstrated with the people of South Carolina, and urged them to 
 submit to the laws of the United States. His wishes, however, 
 
180 LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 were not heeded. The governor ( Mr. Hayne) immediately issued a 
 counter proclamation, setting forth the arbitrary measures which the 
 federal executive sought to subject them to, and counselling thern 
 to resist these, even by force of arms, if necessary. The danger 
 that impended increased every hour, notwithstanding the bold and 
 decided stand, which the president took by the side of the laws of 
 the union. In this respect his conduct is entitled to all praise. But 
 it was not occasioned by any good or friendly feeling towards the 
 protective system, nor by any diminution of his hostility towards this. 
 He gave increasing evidence of his willingness to contribute to its 
 destruction, by yielding to the rebellious state all she desired, in 
 abandoning the principle of protection. This had been distinctly 
 avowed, in the report of the secretary of the treasury, recommend- 
 ing the reduction of duties to a revenue standard, and on the twenty- 
 seventh of December, Mr. Verplanck, from the committee on ' ways 
 and means,' reported a bill which, in accordance with the recommen- 
 dation of the secretary's report, proposed to reduce the duties on im- 
 ported goods, to an average of about fifteen per cent, upon the foreign 
 valuation. This bill was designed to take immediate effect, and to 
 make a further redaction of duties, on all protected articles, in March, 
 1834. Thus the administration came over to the ground which the 
 nullifiers desired it to occupy. After the bill had been discussed 
 about a week, the president transmitted a message to congress, togeth- 
 er with the abrogating enactments of South Carolina, and recom- 
 mended the course he deemed proper to be pursued in relation to 
 them. A bill to enforce the collection of the revenue, was brought 
 before the senate a few days subsequent, directing coercive measures 
 to be employed, in case of resistance. Matters seemed fast coming to 
 extremities. The disorganizers, though in a state of readiness, took 
 no decisive steps, but seemed to be looking for an adjustment of 
 the subject occasioning their disquietude, in a way to suit their 
 peculiar views. But the prospect that this would be accomplished, 
 grew every day fainter. At this critical juncture, when no source 
 of help was visible, when the political heavens were continually 
 gathering blackness, and the thunder of insurgency fell with appal- 
 ling plainness upon the ear, Mr. Clay stepped forth to disperse the 
 gloom, and clothe with the garments of peace, an almost distracted 
 people. He clearly saw, that, to heal the breach which had been 
 made, and which was continually widening, it was necessary to 
 make a partial retrocession from the vantage ground, which by toil 
 and strife he had gained, in relation to the American system. To 
 yield an inch of this, of such vital importance did he conceive it to 
 be to the country, was like allowing the sources of his own existence 
 to be annihilated, one by one. But the salvation of it depended, 
 at this crisis, on making this retrogade movement, as well as the 
 peace, and perhaps life, of no inconsiderable portion of the people. 
 Under these circumstances, he did not hesitate as to the course he 
 
LIFE OF HE 21 RY CLAY. 161 
 
 ought to pursue. It seemed as though he had, some time previous, 
 cast his solicitous eyes over the whole ground ; that he had foreseen 
 while in embryo the dark elements of faction and resistance, and 
 nullification, and foresaw that they would commingle, and ferment, 
 and finally originate just such an emergency, as that which reared 
 its horrid front before him. Something like compromise had sug- 
 gested itself to him, some weeks previous, while spending a season 
 of leisure with a relative in Philadelphia. He then gave the sub- 
 ject considerable consideration, and digested a plan suited to the 
 extremity, which he knew would, sooner or later, arrive. It had 
 come, bringing in its train, remote though they might be, consequen- 
 ces which no patriot, no well-wisher to his country, could contem- 
 plate, without standing aghast. To avert these, Mr. Clay deemed 
 it not only desirable, but highly obligatory upon those who were 
 the recipients of the blessings of freedom. Having completed his 
 remedial plan, he spread it before the senate on the eleventh of 
 February, 1833, in the form of a compromise bill. This was the 
 result of mature deliberation and much consultation, both with the 
 friends and enemies of protection. He thought it expedient to 
 ascertain, not only the manner of its reception, but of its operation. 
 Many of those w T hom he consulted did not approve of his plan. 
 Among ihese was Mr. Webster. With him Mr. Clay discussed the 
 provisions thoroughly, and though partially convinced of its utility, 
 he did not yield it his entire confidence. Mr. Webster's opinion, 
 carrying with it great weight, tended to gather a pretty formidable 
 opposition around him at the north, while nullification at the south 
 contributed its share. Mr. Clay, therefore, found it necessary to 
 advance with great caution ; to survey carefully every inch of ground 
 he intended to occupy, previous to setting foot upon it. Never, 
 perhaps, was a bill brought before congress under such peculiar 
 circumstances, or when greater talent and skill were needed. The 
 south was willing to be conciliated, but somewhat inclined to 
 dictate terms. A hair-breadth deviation from the line which her pre- 
 dilection designated, might prove fatal to his scheme, and cause the 
 gathering storm to pour its desolating strength upon the land. As 
 far as practicable, Mr. Clay ascertained the feelings of this section 
 in relation to it, and had several interviews with Mr. Calhoun, and 
 o:her influential members from the south. The proclamation of 
 the president had temporarily diverted their enmity from the system 
 of protection, towards him. To the summary and stern manner 
 in which generd Jackson proposed, and even seemed anxious, 
 to settle existing difficulties, there was a great and growing repug- 
 nance at the norlh, and which operated favorably in disposing the 
 south to embrace any plan that might be proposed, though it should 
 not embody all the peculiarities of their views. 
 
 Mr. Clayton, of Delaware, zealously cooperated with Mr. Clay, 
 incessantly exerting himself to propagate his views, and, in conse- 
 vol. i. 21 
 
162 LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 quence of his commanding influence, his efforts were crowned 
 with gratifying success. He was strongly attached to Mr. Calhoun, 
 and many other southern members, and would often express his 
 admiration of their distinguished talents and noble qualities, and 
 a desire to see them retained in the service of their and his country. 
 ' Noble fellows, Clay ! noble fellows ! ' he would say. ' We must 
 save them, if possible ; it will not do to let general Jackson hang 
 them ; the country needs them ; she cannot spare them yet ! ' 
 Southern members generally took sides with South Carolina, so 
 far as to consult her wishes in selecting such measures as would 
 satisfy her. The principle of home valuation, which Mr. Clay 
 and his friends insisted upon incorporating with his compromise 
 bill, they opposed at first,' but finally most of them agreed to it, 
 among whom was Mr. Calhoun. When the bill was taken up by 
 the senate, he, for the first time, signified his assent to that principle, 
 and paid a handsome tribute to the patriotism and motives of Mr. 
 Clay. He intimated, plainly, that Mr. Clay's bill was calculated to 
 heal the wound which the confederacy had received, and expressed 
 the strongest anxiety that this would be accomplished without 
 abandoning a tittle of the constitutional right of protection. In a 
 debate, which was protracted several days, the enemies of the bill 
 arrayed against it all their power. Mr. Webster, with the mighty 
 weapons which his giant intellect was capable of forging, assaulted 
 it with tremendous vehemence. Its defeat was considered at one 
 stage of the discussion as certain. Said Mr. Forsyth, tauntingly, 
 4 the tariff is at its last gasp; no hellebore can cure it. 1 i It contains 
 nothing but protection, from beginning to end, 1 said Mr. Smith, of 
 Maryland, ' and therefore I oppose iV 
 
 During the debate, a personal difficulty occurred between Mr. 
 Poindexter, of Mississippi, and Mr. Webster, which threatened to 
 lead to something serious. Mr. Clay, by his generous interference, 
 pacificated the parties, by bringing about a satisfactory explanation. 
 
 The compromise bill finally was adopted in the house, by a 
 vote of one hundred and twenty to eighty-four, and in the senate, 
 by a vote of twenty-nine to sixteen, and received the president's 
 signature, in March, 1833. And thus the country once more 
 breathed freely ; the good and benevolent, who had clad themselves 
 in sackcloth, and, in a posture of the deepest humiliation and grief, 
 sat supplicating a kind Providence to shield her, in this her hour 
 of imminent peril, and guide her safely through it, arose and 
 poured out to Him the libations of their gratitude. Neither did 
 they forget the instrument which he had deigned to employ in 
 accomplishing her deliverance. Both friends and foes acknowl- 
 edged his agency in this. As in the settlement of the Missouri 
 question, so in this, he was hailed as the liberator of a nalion from 
 the jaws of impending danger, and perhaps of ruin. The tide of 
 popular praise and profound regard set towards him from all parts 
 
LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 163 
 
 of it, like the streams of gravitation towards the centre of the 
 earth. Men of all parties contributed to swell this. Those who 
 rarely spoke of him, except in detracting terms, now joined heartily 
 in the popular cry of approval. Said the present chief magistrate, 
 several years subsequent to the passage of Mr. Clay's bill, in view 
 of his agency in carrying it through congress, ' in my deliberate 
 opinion, there was but one man who could have arrested the then 
 course of things (the tendency of nullification to dissolve the union), 
 and that man was Henry Clay. It rarely happens to the most gifted 
 and talented and patriotic, to record their names upon the page of 
 history, in characters indelible and enduring. But if to have 
 rescued his country from civil war — if to have preserved the con- 
 stitution and union from hazard and total wreck — constitute any 
 ground for an immortal and undying name among men, then do I 
 believe that he has won for himself that high renown. I speak 
 what I do know, for I was an actor in the scenes of that perilous 
 period. When he rose in the senate chamber, and held in his 
 hand the olive branch of peace, I, who had not known what envy 
 was before, envied him. I was proud of him as my fellow coun- 
 tryman, and still prouder that the slashes of Hanover^ within the 
 limit of my old district, gave him birth.' 
 
 The above is a fair sample of the expressions of praise and 
 regard, for his eminent services rendered, in connection with intro- 
 ducing those wise and sanative provisions which poured the balm 
 of peace into the lacerated hearts of an afflicted people. Probably 
 they were never more united in any one measure, than in that of 
 expressing their gratitude to Mr. Clay, for his successful interfer- 
 ence. And well did he merit it. The task which he performed 
 was no easy one. It cost an amount of mental labor which can- 
 not be easily estimated. Many sleepless nights were passed in 
 exhausting thought, in revolving in his mind the subject, in all its 
 aspects and details, with an anxiety to devise some remedy that 
 would meet the exigencies of the case, that drank up the very 
 sources of his existence. It required the mightiest effort of his 
 great and varied powers, to prevent its strangulation at its incep- 
 tion. While in the hands of the committee, its enemies endeav- 
 ored to cause the impression to be received, that the bill, as designed 
 by Mr. Clay, could not pass ; that there was not the slightest chance 
 of its success ; and several members of the committee were deter- 
 mined that it should not be reported to the senate in any form, and 
 were more than once on the point of abandoning their places to 
 secure this. ' Gentlemen,' Mr. Clay would say, ' this subject has 
 been committed to us, and we must not dismiss it in this manner ; 
 it is our duty to report it in some shape, and it shall, at all events, 
 be reported.' It appeared subsequently, from the testimony of Mr. 
 Hugh L. White, on whom the duty of selecting the committee 
 devolved, that general Jackson had, in person, urged him to choose 
 
164 LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 such members as were friendly to Mr. Verplanctt s bill, and conse- 
 quently hostile to Mr. Clay's. It is matter of great surprise, that, 
 under such circumstances, it should have passed at all, except with 
 the entire abandonment of protection. More than sleepless vigi- 
 lance was requisite, to bring it safely out from beneath the uplifted 
 arms of a powerful party, led on by the executive himself, arid 
 place it on the statute book of the nation. Columbus hardly 
 encountered fiercer storms, or braved greater dangers, in discovering 
 America, than Mr. Clay in originating, sustaining, and con- 
 summating, a measure that resulted in the preservation of a great 
 portion of it from falling into the hands of the worst of all human 
 enemies, civil war. Well did he deserve, then, the meed of praise 
 which its inhabitants unanimously accorded to him. Most right- 
 eous was their decision, in relation to his motives — that they were 
 unimpeachably pure. In these days of political degeneracy, it is 
 refreshing to look back and suffer one's vision to rest upon that 
 spot on which he planted his feet, and fought his glorious, patriotic 
 battle ; their prints are still seen ; they have gathered greenness 
 with the lapse of years, presaging that the floods and storms of 
 time will never obliterate or mar them. 
 
 We have before alluded to Mr. Clay's indomitable adhesion to 
 principle, that no party or selfish consideration could induce him 
 for a moment to swerve from it. This led him to act for the good 
 of his whole country, and never to act, while a member of her 
 councils, unless an occasion when that was at stake arose. We 
 have searched long, but in vain, for evidence to the contrary. We 
 have examined, with great care, his public character, as spread out 
 upon the records of the nation, and solemnly declare our belief, 
 that none, either expressed or implied, exists. If, in relation to his 
 public career, we were asked, ( what is its most prominent character- 
 istic ? ' we should unhesitatingly reply, purity of motive. We believe, 
 in reference to this, that he stands on a moral eminence, high 
 enough to command a view of the globe. So prominent does 
 this appear, the more it is examined, the conviction cannot be 
 resisted, that, in all his public action, of which his country was the 
 object, his desire to act right was stronger than that of life itself. 
 Says one of his personal friends, * on one occasion he did me the 
 honor to send for and consult with me, in reference to a step he 
 was about to take. After stating what he proposed, I suggested, 
 whether there would not be danger in it, whether such a course 
 would not injure his own prospects, as well as those of the whig 
 party in general.' His reply was, ' I did not send for you to ask 
 what might be the effects of the proposed movement on my pros- 
 pects, but whether it is right; i" would rather be right than 
 be president? A noble sentiment ! and would it were more com- 
 mon among politicians. 
 
 The compromise act was intended to expire in 1842, to which 
 
LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 165 
 
 time it provided for a gradual reduction of duties, when twenty 
 per centum should be the rate until otherwise regulated by law. 
 
 Soon after the adjournment of congress, accompanied by a por- 
 tion of his family, Mr. Clay took a long-contemplated tour to the 
 eastern cities. This gave the people an opportunity of beholding 
 the great and successful champion of their rights, and in many 
 instances of tendering to him their thanks. His whole route was 
 like the movement of some mighty conqueror — almost one un- 
 broken triumphal procession. He was taken into the arms of 
 popular favor, as soon as he stepped from the threshold of his 
 dwelling, and hardly suffered to alight, until they had returned him 
 thilher.^ He was escorted into all the principal places through 
 which he passed, with the highest possible respect. At New York, 
 every demonstration of gratitude and rejoicing welcomed him. 
 An immense throng of gentlemen on horseback, escorted him to 
 his lodgings. The governor's room in the city hall, was appro- 
 priated to his use, and was crowded by a constant succession of 
 visiters. All parties seemed to vie with each other in devising 
 and presenting the most fitting testimonials of regard. Through 
 the eastern states, his reception was marked with every token of 
 esteem ; their inhabitants rose up from their occupations, almost 
 like one person, to do him homage. For a season, their spindles, 
 shuttles, and manufacturing establishments, ceased operation, in 
 honor of the presence of their defender. Arrived at Boston, whose 
 population had been anticipating and preparing for his arrival, the 
 enthusiasm which had been swelling and increasing and accom- 
 panying his progress, was given back from Faneuil hall and 
 Bunker hill, in echoes that reverberated to the remotest parts of the 
 country. The young men of that city presented him a pair of 
 superb silver pitchers, weighing one hundred and fifty ounces ; 
 committees waited on and addressed him ; and invitations to 
 public festivals on his account were numerous. On his return, 
 after visiting Troy and Albany, his reception at New York, Phila- 
 delphia, Baltimore, and other places, was, if possible, more enthusi- 
 astic than it was when he passed through them on his way east. 
 He was released from the 'bondage' of the people's favor, in 
 season for him to renew his efforts in vindicating their privileges 
 and their liberties. 
 
 The policy advocated by Mr. Clay in disposing of the public 
 lands, rendered him a fit subject for the continuance of that favor 
 which the people had lavished so unsparingly upon him, and a 
 target for his enemies to give fresh specimens of their skill in archery. 
 The question came up in this manner. Mr. Bibb, of Kentucky, 
 
 * In one of the many speeches which he made during his journey, he thus alludes 
 to the tenderness with which he was treated. ' I was taken into custody, made 
 captive of, but placed withal in such delightful bondage, that I could find no strength and 
 no desire to break away from it.' 
 
166 LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 on the twenty-second of March, 1832, moved to reduce the price 
 of public lands, and Mr. Robinson, of Illinois, the propriety of 
 ceding them to the several states in which they were located. The 
 administration party managed to have this question referred 
 (though with manifest, impropriety) to the committee on manufac- 
 tures. This they did with the obvious intent of perplexing Mr. 
 Clay, who was a member of that committee. They knew his 
 prompt and decided manner ; that he would not dismiss the ques- 
 tion, without taking some definite action. They knew, also, that 
 local prejudices and interests were so deeply involved in it, as to 
 make its consideration peculiarly difficult, and to bring down 
 upon the agent of its adjustment, the loud displeasure of that 
 section, whose interests must, in a measure, from its very nature, 
 be sacrificed. Their only motive was to impair his popularity 
 with the east, if he suffered their interest to be transferred to 
 the west, and with the latter, if he made provision for its 
 maintenance. To a narrow-minded politician, this subject would 
 have presented a dilemma, but to Mr. Clay none at all. He gave 
 his enemies fresh and most overwhelming evidence, of the utter 
 fruitlessness of appealing to what scarcely existed within him — 
 to his cupidity. He would not deviate a hair from the path of 
 rectitude, to accept the highest gift which the nation could confer. 
 Its reference to the committee on manufactures he knew to be, 
 and pronounced, highly irregular, as well as improper, yet it 
 had been made, and for one he was resolved not to shrink from 
 the duty of examining it. He therefore took up the subject, and 
 according to his notion of equity and justice to all in any way 
 interested in the disposal of the public domain, framed his noted 
 4 land bill,' of which the following is a synopsis. It provided, that, 
 after the thirty-first day of December, 1832, twelve and a half per 
 centum of the net proceeds of the sales of the public lands within 
 Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Alabama, Missouri, and Mississippi, should 
 be paid to them independent of what they were entitled to according 
 to the terms of their admission into the confederacy. This was to 
 be appropriated for purposes of internal improvement and educa- 
 tion, under the supervision of their several legislatures. The 
 remainder of the proceeds was to be distributed among all the 
 states in proportion to their representative population, for similar 
 purposes, and under similar control, or in liquidation of any 
 debt contracted in making internal improvement. 
 
 The act was to continue five years, except in case of war. 
 Additional provisions were to be made for any new state that 
 might be admitted during its continuance. 
 
 The minimum price of the lands was not to be increased, and 
 not less than eighty thousand dollars per annum to be applied in 
 completing the public surveys. Land offices were to be discon- 
 tinued, where the net proceeds of the sales in them should not be 
 
LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 167 
 
 sufficient to defray the expense of their continuance, and that 
 certain designated quantities of land should be granted to six of 
 the new states, not to be sold at a less than the minimum price of 
 lands sold by the United States. 
 
 Such was the bill introduced by Mr. Clay, and great was the 
 astonishment of the administration party in view of its munificent 
 provisions, and that exemplary impartiality, which consulted the 
 interests of all sections of the country alike. Being a candidate 
 for the presidency, they had confidently expected that he would 
 make such a disposition of the question as to secure the support 
 of all the western states, or, at least, so manage as to make it bear 
 favorably on his election. Great, therefore, was their astonish- 
 ment, in subjecting his bill to their microscopic scrutiny, in not 
 being able to find the remotest reference to self, not the slightest 
 looking towards the presidency, and great was their disappointment 
 also. They had tried various schemes to destroy his popularity, 
 without success, and, thinking that he would reason on this subject 
 as they themselves, concluded that he would become entangled in 
 their snare. They almost began to chuckle over the anticipated 
 cry of 'bargain' and 'corruption,' with which they should be able 
 to fill the land, on the appearance of his bill. Great was their 
 disappointment, therefore, when his sterling integrity, his purity of 
 intention, appeared in their place. 
 
 On the twentieth of June, Mr. Clay's land bill was taken up by 
 the senate. He exerted himself nobly in its defence, and was 
 opposed by Mr. Benton, who, together with other administration 
 men, strenuously supported the policy of reducing the price of a 
 part of the public lands, and of surrendering the remainder to the 
 states in which they lie. 
 
 Efforts were made to postpone and amend the bill, but it was so 
 ably enforced, and the objections to it so completely refuted, that it 
 passed the senate by a vote of twenty to eighteen, on the third of 
 July. The house, in regard to some of its provisions, disagreed, 
 and this circumstance enabled its enemies to postpone its consider- 
 ation, until December, next following, by a vote of ninety-one 
 to eighty-eight. At the next session it was taken up and passed, 
 by votes of twenty-four to twenty in the senate, and ninety-six to 
 forty in the house, and sent to the president for his signature. 
 Had he returned it immediately, even with his veto, it would have 
 become a law, according to the constitution, requiring a vote of two 
 thirds ; but, unfortunately for the country, the president's constitu- 
 tional privilege of retaining bills a designated length of time, did 
 not expire until after the adjournment of congress, which gave 
 general Jackson an opportunity of taking the business of legisla- 
 tion out of the hands of the people, which he eagerly embraced — 
 to trample this bill, as Mr. Benton exultingly said, 'under his big 
 foot,' although he knew it expressed the obvious wishes of the 
 
168 LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 people. He, therefore, kept the bill, until the commencement of 
 the next session, (fifth of December, 1833,) when he returned it to 
 the house, with his objections. He regarded Mr. Clay's proposition 
 of giving a certain per centage of the sales of the public lands 
 to the states in which they were located, as an 'indirect and 
 undisguised violation of the pledge given by congress to the states 
 before a single cession was made, abrogating the condition on 
 which some of the states came into the union, and setting at 
 nought the terms of cession spread upon the face of every grant, 
 under which the title of that portion of the public lands are held 
 by the federal government.' In close connection with his objection 
 to surrendering a part of the public domain to the several states, 
 as mentioned, came his proposal to yield them the whole. To 
 grant them a part, would be unconstitutional ; but to grant them 
 the whole, would be constitutional. This reasoning is perfectly 
 sui generis ; presenting a singular specimen of logic and consis- 
 tency united. It behoved the president to support his veto by 
 some prop, but no person supposed he would select such a crooked 
 and frail one. The fact that he did, shows how long and tedious 
 must have been his wanderings through the political forest, with his 
 executive axe upon his shoulder, in search of a straight and firm 
 one. ' The truth of the whole matter probably is, that the veto 
 originated more from his personal hostility to Mr. Clay himself, 
 than from any valid constitutional objection to his land bill. This 
 view of the subject receives strong confirmation, by a reference to 
 his message of December fourth, 1832. In this, the president 
 specifically recommended the basis of just such a bill as that intro- 
 duced by Mr. Clay. Stubborn facts justify us in saying, that if 
 the same bill, containing the same provisions, had been introduced 
 and advocated by Mr. Benton, or Mr. Buchanan, or indeed by any 
 ardent supporter of the administration, the veto never would have 
 been thought of. But it was presented by a hated hand ; a hand, 
 that, in the estimation of the president, polluted every thing it 
 touched, and he indignantly spurned its contents to the dust; a 
 hand respecting which he was always ready to ask, 'can any 
 good thing come out of it?' There is too much truth in the 
 remark that has been made of him, both by his friends and foes, 
 thousands of times — '■lie would have every thing his own way? 
 
 But, though defeated by the despotic will of one man, Mr. Clay 
 was not, and could not be, silenced by it. While he had strength 
 to stand up in the councils of his country, he resolved to stand firmly 
 by the side of her rights, and paralyze, if possible, the hand uplift- 
 ed to infringe them. Though not a participator in those scenes of 
 blood and carnage, in which her broad and beautiful fields were 
 won, yet his sympathizing heart too vividly portrayed the floods of 
 tears, and treasure, and anguish, which the eastern states poured out 
 in perfecting their title papers, to sit tamely down and see them 
 
, LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 169 
 
 defrauded of their interest in these. The tombs of their heroes who 
 fell in these struggles, would cry aloud for vengeance, if he sealed his 
 mouth, and hid himself, when he saw the robber approaching. No ! 
 Henry Clay was not the man to act thus ; his country's rights were 
 his rights, her wishes his wishes, and he would maintain the former, 
 and consult the latter, at any cost. The ' big foot,' therefore, of 
 general Jackson, though it ruthlessly 'trampled' on his work, dared 
 not ' trample ' on him, and he vigorously set about exposing the 
 fallacy, and puerility, even, of the president's reasons for his veto. 
 This he did in a report which he submitted to the senate, from the 
 committee on public lands, May second, 1834, with special reference 
 to the return of the land bill. Subsequently, from time to time, 
 during several years, efforts were made to wrest the public domain 
 from its rightful owners, which Mr. Clay successfully resisted, and 
 finally succeeded in placing it beyond the reach of those who were 
 bent upon its plunder, giving to each section of the country its 
 equitable share in it. His exertions in accomplishing this have 
 established a foundation for his fame to rest upon, as immovable 
 as the hills which they protected, and which shall endure as long 
 as the verdure which clothes them shall be an object of grateful 
 contemplation. 
 
 In 1831-32, Mr. Van Buren's nomination as minister to England 
 came before the senate for confirmation. Mr. Clay opposed it, on 
 the ground of that gentleman's anti-republican conduct in giving, 
 while secretary of state, instructions to Mr. McLane. In these he 
 not only manifested a desire to attach unnecessary blame to the 
 United States, in their intercourse with Great Britain, but unjustly 
 disparaged, in the eyes of that power, the preceding administration. 
 He stated, that its acts had induced England to withhold from them 
 certain privileges, which it otherwise would have extended to them. 
 On the objectionable portions of these instructions, Mr. Clay ani- 
 madverted with merited severity. ' According to Mr. Van Buren,' 
 said he, 'on our side all was vjrong- — on the British side all was 
 right. We brought forward nothing but claims and pretensions ; 
 the British government asserted, on the other hand, a clear and 
 incontestible right. We erred, in too tenaciously and too long 
 insisting upon our pretensions, and not yielding at once to the force 
 of just demands. And Mr. McLane was commanded, to avail 
 himself of all the circumstances in his power to mitigate our offence, 
 and to dissuade the British government from allowing their feelings, 
 justly incurred by the past conduct of the party driven from power, 
 to have an adverse influence towards the American party now in 
 power. Sir, was that becoming language, from one independent 
 nation to another ? Was it proper in the mouth of an American 
 minister? Was it in conformity with the high, unsullied, and 
 dignified character of our previous diplomacy? Was it not, on 
 the contrary, the language of an humble vassal to a proud and 
 vol. i. 22 
 
170 LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 haughty lord ? Was it not prostrating and degrading the American 
 eagle before the British lion ? ' 
 
 The nomination was rejected in the senate by the casting vote 
 of Mr. Calhoun, the vice president. Mr. Clay's opposition to it 
 was based upon grounds purely national — on a desire to maintain 
 the dignity and honor of his country's character. It was fair for 
 him, and for every one, to infer, that the spirit of cringing obsequious- 
 ness which Mr. Van Buren evinced, in framing instructions for a 
 foreign minister, would display itself before the court of St. James, 
 in acts as humiliating to her feelings as derogatory to her honor ; 
 in a word, that he would take the low attitude of the parasite, and 
 not the erect position of the high-minded representative of an 
 independent and mighty nation. How could Mr. Clay's course 
 have been otherwise ? Viewed with the eye of a partisan, it may 
 be deemed impolitic; it may have contributed more than any 
 thing else to elevate Mr. Van Buren to the presidency, by recom- 
 mending him more strongly to the favor of his party, as the victim 
 of political persecution. Party politics, however, had nothing to 
 do in determining Mr. Clay's action ; this was not the result of the 
 consultations of any clique, nor the product of any party machinery ; 
 it was the offspring of his prompt, spontaneous, and unqualified 
 obedience to his country's mandate. He was never found 
 grovelling among the dingy kennels and filthy sewers of party 
 cabal, seeking the performance of some dirty job ; for his country, 
 his whole country, gave him too much and too honorable employ- 
 ment to allow him any leisure for this, had he been thus inclined. 
 We have seen that it was his ardent desire to develope the resour- 
 ces of his country to their greatest possible extent, and to cause 
 the tide of prosperity to flow unremittingly into the depositaries of 
 her treasures ; and he possessed the abilities requisite to accomplish 
 both, if these could have been suitably directed. Unfortunately, 
 however, circumstances rendered it necessary for them to be almost 
 constantly employed in beating off those who were determined to 
 lay violent hands on her facilities and riches. Instead, therefore, 
 of erecting new political edifices, his time was incessantly occupied 
 in preventing her enemies from tearing down those that were 
 already established. These, he fought and belabored to the last, 
 and plucked from their ravenous jaws many fair portions of his 
 country's possessions. But it needed more than human aid to 
 overthrow their now combined and embattled forces. We have 
 reached the period rendered memorable by their ruthless ravages, 
 the darkest and most disgraceful of our history — chronicling the 
 vilest acts of those in power, and the noblest deeds of those out of 
 power. Hitherto, in tracing the public career of Mr. Clay, our 
 path has been, for the most part, smooth and flowery ; but now it 
 is to become rugged and thorny, for we have arrived at the border 
 of the great desert of our political annals — a region of ruin, 
 
LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 171 
 
 covered with the black monuments of political depravity and 
 unprincipled faction — a region we would gladly avoid, did not 
 our path lead across it, which we enter reluctantly, and with feelings 
 not unlike those of the traveller who has journeyed through 
 an enlightened country, beautified by art, literature, and science, 
 and is about to pass into one destitute of the conveniences and 
 necessaries of civilization. As he pauses and turns to take a last 
 look of the beauty of the former, before he plunges into the gloom 
 and dreariness of the latter, so let us cast a glance at the bright 
 region behind, before entering the dismal one before us. The 
 vision is cheered by a vast country, basking in the sunshine of 
 high prosperity, with its various departments organized and 
 governed with the most scrupulous fidelity, and with strict regard 
 for the interests of those for whom they were established. No 
 evils are seen to exist, except such as are incident to the most 
 wisely regulated human institutions. On all sides we behold a 
 population harmonious and happy, pursuing their different voca- 
 tions without clashing or defection, or rejoicing over the rewards 
 of honest and judicious industry. The great sources of their thrift, 
 and most conspicuous features of their country, are the broad, 
 deep, and crystalline streams of agriculture, commerce, currency, 
 and domestic manufactures, with its noble tributary, internal im- 
 provement. These meander throughout its whole extent, deposit 
 their sweet waters at every man's dwelling, and make the whole 
 land vocal with innocent mirth and pure enjoyment. Such was 
 the condition of the country through which we have just journeyed, 
 and, had we leisure, would gladly linger to enumerate more partic- 
 ularly the benefits and blessings which the enriching influences of 
 those magnificent streams generated ; but we must hasten to trace 
 their progress in the country before us. Previously, however, to 
 commencing our cheerless march, let us, from our lofty position, 
 survey their appearance, after they enter its lonely wilds and bar- 
 rens. According to a universal and fundamental law of nature, 
 their magnitude should be greatly increased, but they present an 
 instance of its suspension, for some have dwindled to mere rills, 
 and some have entirely disappeared, while others, encountering 
 some unnatural impediments, have become dammed up, and 
 inundated immense tracts with their waters, which stagnate and 
 pollute the atmosphere with noxious vapors. The appearance of 
 the country and its inhabitants, is sickening to behold. The 
 former, broken, uncouth, and uncultivated, looks as though it 
 were laboring under an attack of delirium tremens. Among the 
 latter, commotion, confusion, and disorder, prevail. There is an 
 abundance of action, but it is that of desperation and excitement, 
 but it is perfectly veneficial. A noble few seem to be struggling 
 virtuously against a tide of ruin and excess ; but the great mass 
 appear to be in the hot pursuit of the wildest schemes that human 
 
172 LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 imagination ever invented, trampling upon all order and restraint, 
 diffusing the wildest intoxication through every department of 
 public and private life, and making them the rendezvous of the 
 worst evils known or named among men. The causes of these 
 singular phenomena, a brief recital of facts, as connected with 
 the subject of our memoir, will explain ; to gather which, we must 
 enter the territory whose condition we have been anticipating. 
 The first that we notice is the policy of general Jackson towards 
 the bank of the United States — an institution which he found in 
 most prosperous circumstances, and answering every expectation 
 that could be reasonably entertained in relation to such an estab- 
 lishment, and pronounced by the best financiers sound and safe. 
 Nevertheless, soon after entering upon his official duties, he com- 
 menced his ' humble efforts' at improving its condition, which, 
 however, aimed at nothing more nor less than making it subservient 
 to party interests. Attempts were made to accomplish this, which, 
 however, proved utterly abortive ; the president of the bank reply- 
 ing to them, that its management should not be in any way 
 connected with politics, and that the position which it should 
 maintain, would be that of a faithful and impartial friend to the 
 government, and not that of a party or government politician. 
 Enticement proving unsuccessful, resort was then had to threats, 
 which, however, failed of their effect. President Jackson, in his 
 first message, commenced paving the way for the destruction of 
 the bank, by causing the impression to be received that it was 
 unsound, and that the people questioned the constitutionality and 
 expediency of the law by which it was established. In his second 
 message he intimates the same, and makes such allusions to the 
 veto power as to show that he designed to employ it, unless his 
 own peculiar views should be consulted in renewing the charter of 
 the bank. In his third message he takes similar ground in relation 
 to it, but says he c leaves the subject to the investigation of the 
 people and their representatives.' This was promptly made, and 
 resulted in rechartering the bank, by a vote of one hundred 
 and seven to eighty-five in the house, which was as promptly vetoed 
 by him. In his veto message is the following remarkable passage. 
 1 If the executive had been called on to furnish the project of a 
 national bank, the duty would have been cheerfully performed? 
 
 In the senate, Mr. Clay met the veto in a becoming manner, 
 and denounced its absurd doctrines in the most faithful manner. 
 On this occasion he gave a full expose of his views respecting it ; 
 proving its spirit at variance with our institutions, and expressed 
 himself decidedly in favor of permanently limiting its exercise. 
 The most absurd of its dogmas related to expounding the consti- 
 tution, which declared that every public officer might interpret it 
 as he pleased. This called forth one of Mr. Clay's most impetuous 
 bursts of eloquence. ' I conceive,' said he, * with great deference, 
 
LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 173 
 
 that the president has mistaken the purport of the oath to 
 support the constitution of the United States. No one swears to 
 support it as he understands it, but to support it simply as it is in 
 truth. All men are bound to obey the laws — of which the consti- 
 tution is supreme — but must they obey them as they understand 
 them, or as they are ? If the obligation of obedience is limited 
 and controlled by the measure of information — in other words, if 
 the party is bound to obey the constitution only as he understands 
 it — what would be the consequence ? There would be general 
 disorder and confusion throughout every branch of administration, 
 from the highest to the lowest offices — universal nullification? 
 
 The insinuations and charges of the president led to a rigid 
 examination of the affairs of the bank, which showed its assets to 
 exceed its liabilities, by more than forty millions of dollars. So 
 perfectly safe did congress consider the public deposits in its vaults, 
 that the house passed a vote, of one hundred and nine to forty-six, 
 expressive of their belief of their safety. Not the shadow of 
 evidence was adduced, to give the slightest coloring of truth to the 
 assumptions of the president, or that there was any necessity for 
 augmenting the f limited powers ' (as he' termed them) of the 
 secretary of the treasury over the public money. But general 
 Jackson had declared its continuance in the bank dangerous, 
 and he seemed determined on acting as though it were in fact the 
 case. It was requisite for him to have some justifying pretext for 
 the arbitrary measure he designed to adopt, in subverting that 
 noble institution; hence, his hints of the unconstitutionality and 
 inexpediency of its existence, and the unsafety of the people's 
 money in its vaults; but these were now merged in direct attack. 
 He succeeded in withdrawing from them the public deposits — 
 an act that spread panic, embarrassment, and unparalleled distress, 
 through the country, and was the great prolific cause of causes, of 
 all the evils with which it was subsequently visited. This act, to 
 all intents and purposes, was the president's, although it was per- 
 formed through the instrumentality of Mr. Taney, the secretary of 
 the treasury, who executed the unconstitutional bidding of the 
 president, for decidedly refusing to execute which, two previous 
 secretaries, Messrs. McLane and Duane, he had removed. Indeed, 
 in his message of 1833, he distinctly avowed, that he urged the 
 removal of the public money. 
 
 Mr. Clay introduced resolutions to the senate, calling for a copy 
 of the documents in which the secretary pretended to find prece- 
 dents, justifying the course he had pursued, which passed the 
 senate, and, on the thirteenth of December, Mr. Taney placed in 
 the hands of that body, a communication, which contained, how- 
 ever, nothing satisfactory, or contemplated by the resolutions. Mr. 
 Clay declared the ground which the secretary assumed, untenable, 
 and, on the twenty-sixth of December, introduced resolutions to 
 
174 LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 the senate, pronouncing his reasons for removing the deposits, as 
 communicated to congress, unsatisfactory and insufficient, and that 
 the president, in dismissing the secretary of the treasury because 
 he would not, in violation of his sense of duty, remove, as directed, 
 the public money, had assumed the exercise of a power over the 
 treasury of the United States, not granted by the constitution and 
 laws, and dangerous to the liberties of the people. In defence of 
 these, Mr. Clay made one of his ablest speeches, and forcibly 
 demonstrated the unconstitutionality and illegality of the pro- 
 cedure of the president and secretary. He foretold, with prophetic 
 accuracy, the fatal consequences which would flow from it, and 
 depicted in glowing colors the dangers that threatened the best 
 interests of the nation. These resolutions passed the senate, and, 
 on the seventeenth of April, 1833, the president communicated to 
 the senate his celebrated protest — a document perfectly character- 
 istic of him, replete with the most arrogant assumptions and 
 declarations. This led to a warm and protracted debate, in which 
 Messrs. Clay, Poindexter, Sprague, Frelinghuysen, and Southard, 
 joined, whose powerful arguments drove the president from the 
 last vestige of the fallacious grounds he had assumed, and 
 scattered the doctrines of his protest to the winds. The senate, by 
 a vote of twenty-seven to sixteen, excluded it from the journals, 
 and maintained that the president possessed no right to protest 
 against any of its proceedings. During the discussion, Mr. Leigh, 
 of Virginia, paid Mr. Clay a rich and merited compliment, for his 
 services in allaying the spirit of nullification at the south, in 1832 
 and 1833. ' I cannot but remember,' said he, 'when all men were 
 trembling under the apprehension of civil war — trembling from 
 the conviction, that if such a contest should arise, let it terminate 
 how it might, it would put our present institutions in jeopardy, and 
 end either in consolidation or disunion ; for I am persuaded that 
 the first drop of blood which shall be shed in a civil strife between 
 the federal government and any state, will flow from an irreme- 
 diable wound, that none may ever hope to see healed. I cannot 
 but remember, that the president, though weilding such a vast 
 power and influence, never contributed the least aid to bring about 
 the compromise that saved us from the evils which all men, I 
 believe, and I, certainly, so much dreaded. The men are not 
 present to whom we are chiefly indebted for that compromise ; and 
 I am glad they are absent, since it enables me to speak of their 
 conduct, as I feel I might not without, from a sense of delicacy. I 
 raise my humble voice in gratitude for that service, to Henry C/ay, 
 of the senate, and Robert P. Letcher, of the house of representatives.' 
 At the time of introducing resolutions pronouncing secretary 
 Taney's reasons insufficient, Mr. Clay took occasion to refute an 
 assertion which a prominent person had made in relation to his 
 (Mr. Clay's) connection with the United States bank, which 
 
LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 175 
 
 intimated that it was dishonorable. He declared that he did not 
 owe the bank, nor any of its branches, a cent ; that he had never 
 received a gratuity from it, in any form ; that he had acted as 
 counsel, and transacted a vast amount of business for it, in Ohio, 
 and received only the customary fees ; and that, in consequence of 
 endorsing for a friend, he had become indebted to the bank, to a 
 considerable amount, but that, by establishing a system of rigid 
 economy, he had entirely liquidated it. 
 
 Immediately after the passage of the resolutions excluding the 
 protest, Mr. Clay introduced others, providing for the restoration of 
 the deposits, and reiterating the insufficiency of the secretary's 
 reasons for removing them, and remarked, that whatever might be 
 the fate of the resolutions at the other end of the capitol, or in any 
 other building, that consideration ought not to influence, in any 
 degree, their action. They passed the senate, but, as had been 
 expected, were laid on the table in the house. 
 
 During the celebrated session, of 1833-34, known as the panic 
 session, Mr. Clay performed an amount of labor seldom equalled. 
 He let no suitable occasion pass, without opposing the despotic 
 proceedings of the president, and raising his warning voice against 
 his suicidal policy. The distress caused by the removal of the 
 deposits, and consequent curtailment of the issues of the United 
 States bank, called forth memorials from the people, which poured 
 into congress continually, denouncing the president's financial 
 experiment, and calling for relief. Many of these were presented 
 by Mr. Clay, who generally accompanied them by a brief speech. 
 One, which he made in presenting a memorial from Kentucky, 
 and one from Troy, contains an accurate and faithful picture of 
 the condition of the country at that period. The evils of the ' pet 
 bank system,' soon began to develope themselves. On one 
 occasion, in alluding to it, Mr. Clay remarked as follows. ' The 
 idea of uniting thirty or forty local banks for the establishment 
 and security of an equal currency, could never be realized. As 
 well might the crew of a national vessel be put on board thirty or 
 forty bark canoes, tied together by a grape vine, and sent out upon 
 the troubled ocean, while the billows were rising mountains high, 
 and the tempest was exhausting its rage on the foaming elements, 
 in the hope that they might weather the storm, and reach their 
 distant destination in safety. The people would be contented by 
 no such fleet of bark canoes, with admiral Taney in their com- 
 mand. They would be heard again calling out for old Ironsides, 
 which had never failed them in the hour of trial, whether amidst 
 the ocean storm, or in the hour of battle.' 
 
 The session terminated the last of June, when Mr. Clay set out 
 for Kentucky. While travelling in the stage-coach from Charles- 
 town to Winchester, Virginia, he narrowly escaped death, by its 
 upsetting, a young gentleman being instantly killed by his side. 
 
176 LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 In 1834-35, the subject of French spoliations came before 
 congress, in considering which, Mr. Clay rendered valuable services. 
 A treaty had been concluded with France, stipulating for indemni- 
 fication, the first instalment of which was not promptly paid, 
 whereupon the president, with injudicious precipitancy, recom- 
 mended the passage of a law authorizing reprisals upon French 
 property, unless at the next session of the French chamber provi- 
 sion should be made for its payment. The tendency of this 
 recommendation was most deleterious upon our commercial 
 interests. The subject was referred to the committee on foreign 
 relations, at the head of which the senate had placed Mr. Clay. 
 On the sixth of January, 1835, he read a lengthy and most able 
 report, which detailed, with great minuteness and perspicuity, the 
 facts connected with the subject of the spoliations, which was 
 'received with great applause, and twenty thousand copies printed 
 and circulated through the country, which soon restored commer- 
 cial confidence. The doctrines of the report were such as com- 
 mended themselves to every patriotic heart — simple, just, exacting 
 to the last tithe our demands on France, but yet deprecating rash- 
 ness in obtaining them. The committee did not doubt the power 
 of the United States to enforce payment, but deemed it inexpedi- 
 ent to exercise it, until other means had been exhausted. They 
 coincided with the president in a determination to have the treaty 
 fulfilled, but desired to avoid too great haste. They concluded by 
 recommending the senate to adopt a resolution, declaring it ' inex- 
 pedient to pass, at this time, any law vesting in the president 
 authority for making reprisals upon French property, in the contin- 
 gency of provision not being made for paying to the United States 
 the indemnity stipulated by the treaty of 1831, during the present 
 session of the French chambers.' 
 
 On the fourteenth of January, in accordance with previous 
 arrangement, Mr. Clay called for the consideration of the report 
 and its accompanying resolution. It being expected that he would 
 address the senate, the members of the house generally left their 
 seats to listen to him, nor were they disappointed ; for he spoke 
 nearly an hour, in strains of eloquence that thrilled the hearts of 
 all who listened to him. After being slightly modified, the resolu- 
 tion passed the senate unanimously, and thus, mainly through the 
 efforts of Mr. Clay, a hostile collision with France was averted, 
 and that pacific intercourse which had previously existed between 
 her and the United States reestablished, and the consummation of 
 the treaty greatly accelerated. As he justly deserved, his country 
 awarded him sincere praise, for his magnanimous course in achiev- 
 ing this. 
 
 Soon after the president's recommendation of reprisals, the 
 French minister was recalled from Washington, and passports 
 presented to our minister at Paris, by the order of Louis Philippe, 
 
LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 177 
 
 the French king, in anticipation of a rupture with the United 
 States. In consequence of these proceedings, Mr. Clay, near the 
 close of the session, made a short report from the committee on 
 foreign relations, recommending that the senate adhere to the resolu- 
 tion previously adopted, await the result of another appeal to the 
 French chambers, and hold itself in readiness for whatever exigency 
 might arise. The advice of the committee was adopted by the 
 senate, and thus terminated the consideration of the subject. 
 
 On the fourth of February, 1835, an occasion occurred favorable 
 for the exercise of Mr. Clay's philanthropic feelings, which he 
 promptly embraced. He had received a memorial from certain 
 Indians of the Cherokee tribe, setting forth their condition, griev- 
 ances, wants, and rigid and cruel policy pursued towards them 
 by the state of Georgia. A portion desired to remain where they 
 were, and a portion to remove beyond the Mississippi. In present- 
 ing their petition, Mr. Clay made remarks which came burning 
 with pathos and eloquence from his inmost soul. He manifested 
 the deepest feeling, as he dwelt upon the story of their wrongs, 
 and their downtrodden state. This he represented as worse than 
 that of the slave, for his master cared for and fed him, ' but what 
 human being, 1 said he, ' is there, to care for the unfortunate Indian?' 
 Mr. Clay alluded to the numerous solemn treaties, in which the 
 United States pledged their faith towards the red man, to allow him 
 the unmolested occupancy of his hunting grounds. He was much 
 affected, and many of his audience were bathed in tears. Mr. 
 Clay's sympathetic feelings flow forth unbidden, and unchecked 
 by selfish considerations, whenever he beholds suffering humanity, 
 and no class have participated more largely in them than the poor, 
 friendless aborigines. He has always advocated their claims, and 
 a full redress of their grievances. The presence of a Cherokee 
 chief and a female of the tribe greatly enhanced the interest of the 
 occasion, who seemed to hang upon the lips of the benevolent 
 speaker, and drink in every word as though it had been water to 
 their thirsty souls. In conclusion, Mr. Clay submitted a resolution, 
 directing the committee on the judiciary to inquire into the expe- 
 diency of making further provision, by law, to enable Indian tribes 
 to whom lands have been secured by treaty, to defend and main- 
 tain their rights to such lands, in the courts of the United States. 
 Also, a resolution directing the committee on Indian affairs, to 
 inquire into the expediency of setting apart a district of country 
 west of the Mississippi, for such of the Cherokee nations as were 
 disposed to emigrate, and for securing in perpetuity their peaceful 
 enjoyment thereof, to themselves and their descendants. 
 
 A bill was reported to the senate, abating executive patronage, 
 which Mr. Clay supported by a speech, on the eighteenth of Feb- 
 ruary, 1835, embodying an accurate account of the multifarious 
 evils resulting from the selfish and arbitrary course pursued by the 
 vol. i. 23 
 
178 LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 chief magistrate — evils which no lover of his country and her 
 liberties could contemplate but with apprehensions of terror. He 
 also spoke in favor of making an appropriation for continuing the 
 construction of the Cumberland road, and against surrendering it 
 to the control of the states through which it passed. 
 
 During the session of 1835-6, a further consideration of the 
 subject of French spoliations was had. Mr. Clay, being again 
 placed at the head of the committee on foreign relations, on the 
 eleventh of January, 1836, introduced a resolution to the senate, 
 calling on the president for information relative to our affairs with 
 France. Three weeks subsequently, he introduced another, calling 
 for the expose which accompanied the French bill of indemnity, 
 for certain notes which passed between the Due de Broglie, and 
 our charge, Mr. Barton, and those between our minister, Mr. Liv- 
 ingston, and the French minister of foreign affairs. With some 
 modifications, these resolutions were adopted. 
 
 On the announcement of the president, February eighth, 1836, 
 that Great Britain had offered her mediation between the United 
 States and France, Mr. Clay took occasion to remark that he could 
 not withhold the expressions of his congratulations to the senate, 
 for the agency it had in producing the happy termination of our 
 difficulties with France. If the senate had not, by its unanimous 
 vote of last September/declared that it was inexpedient to adopt 
 any legislative action upon the subject of our relations with France, 
 if it had yielded to the recommendations of the executive, in 
 ordering reprisals against that power, it could not be doubted but 
 that war would have existed, at that moment, in its most serious 
 state. 
 
 On the fourteenth of April, Mr. Clay's land bill was taken up 
 in the senate, and discussed at length, for several days, during 
 which he ably and faithfully defended it. On the twenty-sixth, he 
 made a speech in its behalf, which was not far behind his most 
 brilliant efforts. In reference to it says the National Intelligencer, 
 ' we thought, after hearing the able and comprehensive arguments 
 of Messrs. Ewing, Southard, and White, in favor of this benefi- 
 cent measure, that the subject was exhausted ; that, at any rate, but 
 little new could be urged in its defence. Mr. Clay, however, in 
 one of the most luminous and forcible arguments which we have 
 ever heard him deliver, placed the subject in new lights, and gave 
 to it new claims to favor. The whole train of his reasoning 
 appeared to us a series of demonstrations.' 
 
 By a vote of twenty-five to twenty, it passed the senate, May 
 fourth, 1836, in the same form, substantially, as that vetoed by 
 general Jackson ; but in the house his influence was too powerful 
 to admit of its passage there at that time. 
 
 On the right of petition, Mr. Clay stated his views, which sup- 
 ported the belief that the servants of the people ought to examine, 
 
LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 179 
 
 deliberate, and decide, either to grant or refuse the prayer of a 
 petition, giving the reasons for such decision ; and that such was 
 the best mode of putting an end to the agitation of the public on 
 the subject. The right of congress to abolish slavery in the 
 District of Columbia, he thought, existed, but seemed inclined to 
 question the expediency of exercising it, under the circumstances 
 then existing. 
 
 The condition of the deposit banks was made the subject of a 
 report by the secretary of the treasury, on the seventeenth of March, 
 1836, when Mr. Clay demonstrated the insecurity of the public 
 monies in their keeping, and foretold, with astonishing accuracy, 
 the crisis which in 1837 occurred. 
 
 The recognition of the independence of Texas, was effected by 
 the exertions of Mr. Clay, on ascertaining that it had a civil 
 government in successful operation. Up to the close of the session, 
 (July fourth, 1836,) Mr. Clay's vigilance and activity in the service 
 of his country did not abate in the least. The fortification bill, 
 reduction of duties on articles not coming in collision with the 
 manufacturing interests, and various other questions of national 
 importance, engaged his attention. 
 
 On returning to Kentucky, a dinner was tendered him, by the 
 citizens of Woodford county, at which he reviewed, in a masterly 
 manner, the doings of the administration, and expressed his deter- 
 mination to withdraw from public life, and even went so far as to 
 declare his wish that the state would look for some other individual 
 to fill the station then occupied by him, but which would soon be 
 vacant by the expiration of his term. 
 
 While surveying his cattle, in the autumn of 1836, he narrowly 
 escaped death, by a furious bull, which rushed towards him, plung- 
 ing his horns into the horse on which he was seated, killing him 
 suddenly, and throwing Mr. Clay several feet. He, however, 
 escaped with a slight contusion. 
 
 In 1836, Mr. Clay accepted the appointment of president of the 
 American Colonization Society, in the place of ex-president 
 Madison, deceased. 
 
 Being strongly importuned from a variety of sources, Mr. Clay 
 consented to become a candidate for the senatorship again, and 
 was reelected. Immediately after the convening of congress, he 
 once more brought forward his land bill. After being read twice, 
 it was referred to the appropriate committee, at the head of which 
 was Mr. Walker, of Mississippi, who said, that he had been 
 instructed by it to move the indefinite postponement of the bill, 
 whenever it should come up for consideration. A few days after, 
 he introduced his own bill, proposing to restrict the sales of lands 
 to actual settlers. On the ninth of February, 1837, Mr. Calhoun 
 introduced his bill, which ostensibly sold, but in reality gave to the 
 new state?, the public lands. This plan was vigorously denounced 
 
180 LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 by Mr. Clay, who expressed himself opposed to all schemes of 
 disposing of the national domain which would deprive the old 
 states of their rightful interest in it, and that, while he had strength 
 to stand and speak, he would employ it in protesting against 
 their adoption. He implored the senate not to appeal to the 
 cupidity of the new states from party inducements, and exhorted 
 a faithful adhesion to equity and justice in apportioning the public 
 lands. 
 
 On a bill, originating with the committee on finance, which 
 contained provisions conflicting with the compromise act, Mr. Clay 
 spoke at considerable length ; also on a resolution introduced by 
 Mr. Ewing, rescinding the specie circular, which required ail 
 payments for public lands to be in specie. 
 
 On the sixteenth of January, Mr. Clay discussed the question of 
 expunging from the records of the senate, for 1834, his resolution 
 censuring general Jackson for removing the deposits unconstitu- 
 tionally; Mr. Benton having introduced a resolution requiring its 
 erasure. In his speech, Mr. Clay so blended indignant invective, 
 sarcasm, scorn, humor, and argument, as to make it one of the 
 most withering rebukes ever administered. 'What patriotic 
 purpose,' said he, 'is to be accomplished by this expunging 
 resolution ? Can you make that not to be, which has been ? 
 Can you eradicate from memory, and from history, the fact, that 
 in March, 1834, a majority of the senate of the United States 
 passed the resolution which excites your enmity? Is it your vain 
 and wicked object to arrogate to yourself that power of annihilating 
 the past, which has been denied to omnipotence itself? Do you 
 intend to thrust your hands into our hearts, and to pluck out the 
 deeply rooted convictions wiiich are there ? Or is it your design 
 merely to stigmatize us ? You cannot stigmatize us. 
 
 • Ne'er yet did base dishonor blur our name.' 
 
 ' Standing securely upon our conscious rectitude, and bearing 
 aloft the shield of the constitution of our country, your puny 
 efforts are impotent, and we defy all your power. Put the 
 majority of 1834 in one scale, and that by which this expunging 
 resolution is to be carried in the other, and let truth and justice in 
 heaven above and on earth below, and liberty and patriotism, 
 decide the preponderance. 
 
 ' What patriotic purpose is to be accomplished by this expunging 
 resolution? Is it to appease the wrath, and heal the wounded 
 pride, of the chief magistrate? If he be really the hero that his 
 friends represent him, he must despise all mean condescension, 
 all grovelling sycophancy, all self-degradation and self-abasement. 
 He would reject with scorn and contempt, as unworthy of his 
 fame, your black scratches and your baby lines, in the fair records 
 of his country.' 
 
LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 181 
 
 The expunging resolution, however, passed, and thus the just 
 resolution of Mr. Clay was stricken from the national records, 
 but not from the record of memory; there will it live until her 
 functions cease, the memento of a patriotic purpose to place the 
 signet of a nation's displeasure upon as unprincipled an act as any 
 ruler of that nation ever perpetrated. 
 
 In the autumn of 1836, the presidential election took place, 
 which resulted in elevating Mr. Van Buren to the chair of the 
 chief magistracy, by one hundred and seventy of the two hundred 
 and ninety-four electoral votes. At the time he entered upon the 
 discharge of his official duties, the situation of the country was 
 deplorable in the extreme. She was reaping the bitter fruits, which 
 Mr. Clay had again and again predicted general Jackson would 
 bring back from his experimental crusade and thrust down her 
 throat. From Maine to Florida, her population were eating them, 
 and gnashing their teeth with rage, when they contrasted their 
 present lamentable condition, with what it was during the halcyon 
 and equitable administration of Mr. Adams. Then, there was 
 every thing to admire, and nothing to deprecate ; now, there was 
 nothing to admire and every thing to deprecate ; then, the most 
 devoted patriot, as he cast his eyes over his country, discovered 
 abundant evidence of health, and the existence of few evils, and 
 those medicable, or, if not, easily patible ; now, wounds and bruises 
 and putrescence, disfiguring it, he beheld at every stage of his 
 survey, and ills of untold magnitude and enormity, for which no 
 remedy could be devised. But there is no necessity for specifica- 
 tion ; it is sufficient to say, that when general Jackson took up the 
 reins of government, he found the country prosperous and happy, 
 and that when he laid them down, its condition was just the reverse. 
 For every good which he found, its opposite evil had been substi- 
 tuted; for solvency, insolvency; for confidence, suspicion; for 
 credit, discredit; for a sound and safe currency, one, if possible, 
 worse than unsound and unsafe; for honesty, dishonesty; for 
 purity, corruption ; for justice, injustice; for frankness and candor, 
 intrigue and duplicity; for order, disorder; for quiet, turmoil; for 
 fidelity, infidelity ; for enterprise, indolence ; for wealth, poverty ; 
 for patient, industry, wild speculation ; for republican simplicity, 
 haughty aristocracy ; for wisdom, folly ; for health, disease ; for 
 happiness, misery ; for hope, despair ; and for life, death. This 
 substitution, Mr. Clay clearly foresaw would be made ; he predicted 
 it, and forewarned the country of it. Such was the condition of 
 the country, when Mr. Van Buren attempted to 'walk in the foot- 
 steps of his illustrious predecessor.' Soon after his inauguration, 
 he issued his proclamation, ordering an extra session of congress, 
 to commence the first Monday in September. Pursuant to this, 
 congress met to prescribe some mode of relief. In his message, 
 the president recommended the sub-treasury system for the deposit, 
 
182 LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 transfer, and disbursement of the public revenue. This was the 
 engrossing topic of the session, and which Mr. Clay combated 
 and denounced unsparingly. He detected in it, and lucidly exposed, 
 that which was calculated, not only to perpetuate the excesses and 
 abuses under which the land was then groaning, but to superin- 
 duce fresh ones. He saw in it the grand link of that chain, 
 destined to bind the resources and patronage of the government 
 to the car of party, which for eight long years Mr. Van Buren's 
 predecessor had been so busily engaged in forging. Mr. Clay's 
 speech on this occasion is an inimitable specimen of close argu- 
 mentative reasoning. After exposing the defects, absurdities, and 
 danger of the sub-treasury scheme, he declared his decided convic- 
 tion, that the only practicable measure for restoring a sound, 
 safe, and uniform currency to the United States, was a properly 
 organized United States bank, but that it would be unwise to 
 propose such an institution, until the conviction of its necessity 
 should become permanently impressed upon the minds of the 
 people. The sub-treasury bill passed the senate by a vote of 
 twenty-five to twenty, but in the house was laid on the table by 
 a vote of one hundred and twenty to one hundred and seven. 
 
 Petitions for the erection of a national bank poured into con- 
 gress incessantly, quite too fast to please the administration, which 
 began to tremble for the safety of its darling projects. Mr. Wright, 
 from the committee on finance, moved that the prayer of the 
 memorialists ought not. to be granted. Mr. Clay said, if the honorable 
 senator persisted in his opposition, he should feel constrained to 
 move to strike out all after resolved, and substitute ' that it will be 
 expedient to establish a bank of the United States, whenever it 
 shall be manifest, that a clear majority of the people of the United 
 States desire such an institution.' 
 
 On the nineteenth of February, 1838, Mr. Clay once more 
 addressed the senate in opposition to the sub-treasury plan, in one 
 of the longest speeches he ever delivered, and made a complete 
 expose of the ulterior intentions of the present and previous 
 administrations, which were, to subvert the whole banking system, 
 and build upon its ruins a mighty government, treasury bank, to be 
 mainly organized and controlled by the executive department. 
 
 During the session, Mr. Clay, in presenting a petition for the 
 establishment of a national bank, communicated some of his own 
 views in relation to such an institution. He desired, first, that its 
 capital should not be enormously large — about fifty millions of 
 dollars — and its stock divided between the general government, the 
 states, and individual subscribers ; secondly, that in its organiza- 
 tion, reference should be had to public and private control, public 
 and private interests, and to the exclusion of foreign influence ; 
 thirdly, that a portion of its capital should be set apart, and 
 placed in permanent security, adequate to meet any contingency 
 
LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 183 
 
 that might arise in connection with the issues of the bank; 
 fourthly, perfect publicity in relation to all its affairs ; fifthly, that 
 its dividends should be limited to a certain per centum ; sixthly, 
 a prospective reduction in the rate of interest to six, and, if practi- 
 cable, to five per centum ; seventhly, that there should be a restric- 
 tion upon the premium demanded upon post notes and checks 
 "used for remittance, to about one and a half per centum as the 
 maximum between the most remote points of the union, thereby 
 regulating domestic exchanges; eighthly, that effective provisions 
 should be made against executive interference with the bank, and 
 of it with the elections of the country. Such a public banking 
 institution Mr. Clay advocated, from the conviction that it would 
 perform every thing requisite in furnishing a good currency. The 
 question of its constitutionality, he considered as satisfactorily 
 settled by the fact, that the people during forty years had cherished 
 the bank, that it had been approved by Washington, the father 
 of his country, by Madison, the father of the constitution, and by 
 Marshall, the father of the judiciary. 
 
 The subject of abolition was introduced into the senate, which 
 Mr. Clay approached, and freely discussed, although urged to avoid 
 it by his friends. He considered it, as it might be expected he would, 
 in the true spirit of philanthropy, benevolence, and patriotism. His 
 sentiments were conceived and uttered in such a noble, liberal, 
 and magnanimous manner, as to elicit expressions of approbation 
 and of commendation even from both anti and pro slavery men. 
 Mr. Calhoun admitted the correctness of his sentiments, and the 
 entire security which their adoption would promise to the union. 
 As a matter in course, the enemies of Mr. Clay strove to cause the 
 impression to be received, that, in his thus advocating the right of 
 petition, he was actuated by motives of a personal nature, by a 
 desire to render himself popular with abolitionists. His advocacy 
 of this right did render him popular, not only with that class of 
 individuals, but with all who revere and love the immutable and 
 eternal principles of truth and justice, and rejoice to see the out- 
 pourings of sympathy towards a worthy object. 
 
 During the summer of 1839, in his return from a northeastern 
 tour, he visited the city of New York, where his reception was as 
 gratifying to his feelings as it was spontaneous and brilliant on the 
 part of those who gave it. The whole city joined in it, and it may 
 well be questioned, whether any individual ever entered the city, 
 attended by such enthusiastic tokens of popular favor. He 
 approached it in the steamer James Madison, at the foot of Ham- 
 mond street, Greenwich, early in the afternoon. As he stepped 
 on the wharf, the air was rent by the welcoming acclamations of 
 an immense multitude assembled there, which were taken up and 
 continued by similar collections of people lining his whole route 
 (a distance of three miles) to the Astor House, where lodgings 
 
184 LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 had been prepared for him. He sat in an open barouche, preceded 
 by a band of music, and followed by an immense concourse of 
 citizens in carriages. The streets through which he passed were 
 crowded with one dense mass of people, and the houses were 
 covered with them* At all the principal places in his route, bands 
 of music were stationed, that, as he approached, sent forth their 
 spirit-stirring peals, which, with the vociferous shouts of thousands 
 on thousands, and waving of handkerchiefs, flags, and banners, 
 rendered his march like that of an oriental pageant. When he 
 reached the Park, the shouting was almost deafening, which went 
 up like the roar of the sea. The most interesting feature of this 
 grand reception, was its spontaneousness. It w r as not ' got up? but 
 it was the unprovided for, the unsolicited, and voluntary act of 
 the people, tendering to their best, their most devoted friend, their 
 sincere and heart-felt greetings and gratulations. Mr. Clay had 
 greatly endeared himself to all capable of appreciating lofty and 
 disinterested action, who, as Mr. Van Buren's presidential term 
 drew to a close, began to be mentioned continually as the most 
 suitable whig candidate for president. On the fourth of Decem- 
 ber, 1839, the democratic whig convention met at Harrisburgh 
 to nominate one. Not a doubt was entertained that Mr. Clay 
 was the man of their choice, when they assembled, and that his 
 selection would have been the result of their assembling, had not 
 the most dishonorable means been employed to defeat it. 
 
 On the fifth of December, the convention was organized, Hon. 
 James Barbour being appointed president. The committee 
 appointed to report a candidate, after a session of two days, during 
 which the intriguers were busy in circulating their falsehoods, and 
 reading letters pretended to have been received from distinguished 
 individuals in different parts of the country, and which were filled 
 with false assertions of Mr. Clay's unpopularity, finally decided 
 upon William Henry Harrison. Their decision was received by 
 those of Mr. Clay's friends who stood by him to the last, without 
 a murmur, although with melancholy looks, and silent disappoint- 
 ment. Mr. Banks, one of the delegation from Kentucky, was the 
 first to rise and express their cordial concurrence in the nomination 
 made. Mr. Preston expressed himself similarly, and desired that 
 a letter from Mr. Clay, which had been in the possession of a 
 delegate several days, should be read to the convention, and which 
 had not been previously shown, lest the motives for its exhibition 
 should have been misconstrued. It was read by colonel Coombs, 
 of Kentucky. In this, Mr. Clay says, 'with a just and proper 
 sense of the high honor of being called to the office of president 
 of the United States, by a great, free, and enlightened people, and 
 profoundly grateful to those of my fellow citizens who are desirous 
 to see me placed in that exalted and responsible station, I must 
 nevertheless say, in entire truth and sincerity, that, if the delibera- 
 
LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 185 
 
 tions of the convention shall lead them to the choice of another, as 
 the candidate of the opposition, far from feeling any discontent, 
 the nomination will have my best wishes, and receive my cordial 
 support.' He then exhorted the delegation from Kentucky to think 
 not of him, but of their bleeding, prostrate country, and to cooperate 
 with the convention in selecting such an individual as should seem 
 most competent to deliver her from the perils and dangers with 
 which she was environed. 
 
 The reading of this remarkable communication, sent a thrill of 
 astonishment and admiration through the hearts of all who listened to 
 it. Many were affected to tears. Mr. Barbour said, after assenting 
 to the determination of the convention, that he had been on terms 
 of intimacy with Mr. Clay for thirty years, and that a more devoted 
 or purer patriot and statesman never breathed, and that during that 
 period he had never heard him give utterance to a single sentiment 
 unworthy this character; that there was no place in his heart for 
 one petty or selfish consideration. Mr. Leigh, of Virginia, said, 
 he never thought that Mr. Clay needed the office, but that the 
 country needed him. That office could confer no dignity or honor 
 on Henry Clay. The measure of his fame was full, and whenever 
 the tomb should close over him, it w^ould cover the loftiest intellect 
 and the noblest heart that this age had produced or known. ' I 
 envy Kentucky, for when he dies she will have his ashes /' said the 
 venerable Peter R. Livingston, of New York. 
 
 In selecting a candidate for the vice presidency, it was thought 
 that a suitable one was found in John Tyler, of Virginia, who was 
 accordingly chosen. 
 
 Mr. Clay concurred, cheerfully and nobly, in the nomination of 
 general Harrison, and exerted himself manfully in promoting his 
 election. Mr. Clay did not evince the slightest disappointment at 
 the result of the nominating convention, but seemed to rejoice over 
 it. In the presidential canvass, preceding the election of general 
 Harrison, Mr. Clay took a prominent part. In advocating the 
 claims of general Harrison to the presidency, he labored sedulously, 
 also, to procure the adoption of those principles which he consid- 
 ered ought to constitute the rule of action to all virtuous politicians. 
 Averse to every thing like concealment himself, respecting his 
 political sentiments, he ascertained, 'accurately, those of general 
 Harrison, and then faithfully exhibited them. The contest resulted 
 in the election of general Harrison, who received two hundred and 
 thirty-four of the two hundred and ninety-four electoral votes cast. 
 By the same vote Mr. Tyler was elected to the vice presidency. 
 
 Mr. Clay continued, with unrelaxing energy, his services during 
 the session of 1839-40. The land bill came up again, and a 
 warm debate ensued between him and Mr. Calhoun, and some- 
 what harsh language passed between them. The latter insinuated, 
 that, at a certain time, he had the ascendency over Mr. Clay in 
 vol. i. 24 
 
186 LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 debale — that he was his (Mr. Clay's) master. In reply, Mr. Clay 
 said, that so far from admitting Mr. Calhoun to be his master, he 
 would not own him for a slave. Mr. Clay, however, was not the 
 man to harbor hard feelings towards any one, especially towards a 
 political opponent. Soon after retiring from the senate in 1842, he 
 met Mr. Calhoun as he was passing out of the senate chamber, 
 and exchanged with him cordial salutations, while tears came to 
 the eyes of both. 
 
 On a variety of questions of public interest, Mr. Clay spoke, 
 the principal of which were, that of the abolition of slavery, the 
 Maine boundary line, the navy appropriation bill, branch mints, 
 expenditures of government, Cumberland road, and internal im- 
 provements. On the twentieth of January, 1840, he delivered a 
 speech of rare ability on the sub-treasury, now called the indepen- 
 dent treasury bill, which he denominated a government bank in 
 disguise. 
 
 On all suitable occasions Mr. Clay frankly avowed his political 
 faith, but never, perhaps, more minutely or explicitly, than at a 
 dinner given to him at Taylorsville, in June, 1840. His speech at 
 that time is a storehouse of sound political tenets, among which 
 we find the following. 
 
 First. That there should be a provision to render a person 
 ineligible to the office of president of the United States, after a 
 service of one term. 
 
 Second. That the veto power should be more precisely defined, 
 and be subjected to further limitations and qualifications. 
 
 Third. That the power of dismission from office should be 
 restricted, and the exercise of it rendered responsible. 
 
 Fourth. That the control over the treasury of the United States 
 should be confided and confined exclusively to congress ; and all 
 authority of the president over it, by means of dismissing the 
 secretary of the treasury, or other persons having the immediate 
 charge of it, be rigorously precluded. 
 
 Fifth. That the appointment of members of congress to any 
 office, or any but a few specific offices, during their continuance in 
 office, and for one year thereafter, be prohibited. 
 
 General Harrison, previously to commencing his journey to 
 Washington, visiled Mr. Clay, and tendered him any office in the 
 president's gift, but he courteously, yet firmly, declined accepting 
 one, and expressed his unalterable resolution to withdraw from 
 public life, as soon as he should see those fundamental measures, 
 for which he had been so long and so ardently struggling, put in a 
 train of accomplishment. To the very last of Mr. Van Buren's 
 administration, he labored untiringly to place them in such a 
 position. He was the strenuous advocate of a uniform system 
 of bankruptcy. This was embodied in a bill reported to the 
 senate by the judiciary committee, in the spring of 1840, on 
 
LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 187 
 
 account of the numerous petitions presented in its favor. It passed 
 the senate, by a vote of twenty-four to twenty-three, but was 
 defeated in the house. 
 
 Directly after the inauguration of general Harrison, he issued 
 his proclamation ordering an extra session of congress, to com- 
 mence on the last Monday in May. Before that period arrived, 
 the president was no more. He died just one month after his 
 introduction to office. The intelligence of his death filled the 
 nation with sadness, yet no serious grounds of fear were enter- 
 tained, because it was believed that Mr. Tyler would discharge 
 the duties of the presidency with fidelity. Congress assembled in 
 accordance with the proclamation of the late lamented Harrison. 
 Mr. Clay commenced the public business with vigor and alacrity. 
 The subjects which he deemed of pressing importance, and should 
 engage the immediate attention of the senate, were, 
 
 First, the repeal of the sub-treasury law. 
 
 Secondly, the incorporation of a bank adapted to the w r ants of 
 the people and government. 
 
 Thirdly, the provision of an adequate revenue, by the imposition 
 of duties, and including an authority to contract a temporary loan 
 to cover the public debt created by the last administration. 
 
 Fourthly, the prospective distribution of the proceeds of the 
 public lands. 
 
 Fifthly, the passage of necessary appropriation bills. 
 
 Sixthly, some modification in the banking system of the District 
 of Columbia, for the benefit of the people of the district. 
 
 From the head of the committee on finance, Mr. Clay moved 
 the appointment of a select committee, to take into consideration 
 the bank question, of which he was made chairman. 
 
 In June, Mr. Clay reported a plan for a national bank, which, 
 after an animated discussion, was adopted by both houses, which, 
 on the sixteenth of August, was vetoed by president Tyler. The 
 return of the bill was hailed with mingled surprise, sorrow, 
 and alarm, in the senate, which was addressed on the subject of 
 the veto, by Mr. Clay, in strains of lofty eloquence, almost 
 surpassing himself. Another bill was then framed with special 
 reference to the objections of the president ; in other words, it was 
 just such a bill as he had recommended. The surprise and 
 indignation were overwhelming, when it was known that this bill 
 had encountered the fate of its predecessor. Mr. Clay did not 
 scruple to denounce the exercise of the veto, as he had denounced 
 it in the case of general Jackson, as unjustifiable, and as involving 
 a manifest encroachment upon the liberties of the people. 
 
 With the solitary exception of Mr. Webster, the cabinet resigned 
 their seats, and the feeling of indignation, enkindled at Washing- 
 ton, spread through and lit up the whole country into a glow of 
 wrath, at the uncalled for and unexpected procedure of Mr. Tyler. 
 
188 LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 Although baffled, and in a measure defeated, by the despotism 
 of one man, still Mr. Clay did not slacken his exertions to render 
 relief to his suffering and distracted country. He was at the head 
 of two important committees, and performed an amount of labor 
 truly surprising. He had the gratification of witnessing the repeal 
 of the abominable sub-treasury scheme, the passage of the 
 bankrupt law, and his land bill. 
 
 An attempt to adjust the tariff was made, which occasioned 
 another veto from the president. This was directed mainly against 
 the distribution clause, which was finally surrendered to accom- 
 modate the views of the president. The tariff bill at length 
 became a law. 
 
 I On the thirty-first of March, 1842, Mr. Clay executed his long 
 and fondly cherished design of retiring to the quiet of private 
 life. Pie resigned his seat in the senate, and presented to that 
 body the credentials of Mr. Crittenden, his friend, and successor. 
 The scene which ensued when he tendered his resignation, was 
 indescribably thrilling. It was not unlike that, when the father of 
 his country, surrounded by his companions in arms, pronounced 
 his farewell address, as they were about to disband and enter upon 
 the possession and enjoyment of that independence which their 
 invincible arms had won. Had the guardian genius of congress 
 and the nation been about to take his departure, and giving his 
 parting admonitions, deeper feeling could hardly have been mani- 
 fested, than when Mr. Clay rose to address, for the last time, his 
 congressional compeers. An individual witnessing the breathless 
 silence that pervaded the densely crowded senate chamber, and 
 the tears flowing freely and copiously from the eyes of all. would 
 have said, that wherever else Mr. Clay might have enemies, he had 
 none in that assembly. In those who were politically opposed, 
 and in those who were personally hostile to him, the movings of 
 the best principles of our being were not subjected to the cruel 
 control of selfishness or envy, but permitted to respond to the 
 voice of nature, calling them in her most enticing tones to unite 
 with his devoted friends, in bearing appropriate testimony to his 
 public worth. The former no less than the latter, manifested the 
 most sincere regret at the prospect of his departure. All felt that 
 a master spirit was bidding them adieu — that the pride and orna- 
 ment of the senate and the glory of the nation was being removed, 
 and all grieved in view of the void that would be made. He 
 spoke as it might be expected the patriot warrior of a thousand 
 victorious battles would speak, standing on the field where they 
 were fought — the living, burning, sublime sentiments of patriot- 
 ism. His feelings often overpowered him. His voice, naturally 
 musical, seemed the very refinement of sweetness and pathos, 
 whose honied accents sank into the hearts of his hearers, like 
 heaven's benediction. When Mr. Clay closed, the most intense 
 
LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 189 
 
 emotion agitated the senate. Mr. Preston rose, and remarked, in 
 view of it, that he presumed there would be little disposition to 
 transact business; that the event that had just occurred, was an 
 epoch in the legislative history of the nation, and that therefore he 
 would move that the senate adjourn. The motion was adopted 
 unanimously. 
 
 Thus terminated the senatorial career of one of the greatest 
 statesmen of this or any other age — a career disfigured with as 
 few imperfections, and adorned with as many ornaments of genius 
 and intellect, as that of any one who ever lived. A career achieved 
 in the service of, and bequeathed to the people, they will regard it 
 as a precious legacy, and derive from it ample aliment for the 
 sustenance of patriotic and philanthropic principle, to the end of 
 time. It shall be the favorite resort of the worshippers of liberty 
 from all lands, who, with astonishment, admiration, and pure 
 delight, will trace it, dwell with feelings of moral grandeur upon 
 its scenes of political sublimity and disinterested patriotism, and, 
 amid their rejoicings over its beauties and excellencies, will envy the 
 nation to which it belongs. We take our leave of Mr. Clay's public 
 life, to notice, briefly, some incidents connected more particularly 
 with his private history. The personal appearance of Mr. Clay is 
 imposing and prepossessing. He is tall, and somewhat thin, but 
 very muscular, exhibiting lofty and dignified grace and ease in his 
 deportment and carriage, and an entire absence of every thing like 
 stiffness or haughtiness. His manner is cordial and kind, inviting 
 rather than repelling approach. His countenance is open and 
 bland, on which his soul may be said to sit, so faithfully does it 
 mirror its feelings. It is impossible to describe its varying expres- 
 sions. His eyes are of a blue, or dark gray color, small, and when 
 he is animated flash with unearthly vividness. His forehead is 
 high and broad. His mouth is large, but strikingly indicative of 
 genius and energy. His voice is exceedingly silvery, deep toned, 
 and most exquisitely modulated — a fit organ to herald forth to 
 the world, the noble sentiments of a noble heart. It may be 
 regarded as no unimportant element of his fame, inseparably and 
 imperishably interwoven with his course. When speaking, he 
 possesses the rare faculty of not only throwing his own soul wholly 
 into his subject, but of carrying along with it the souls of his 
 hearers, and, as it were, making them take a part in its considera- 
 tion, assenting or dissenting as he did. His action is peculiarly 
 graceful and appropriate, harmonizing admirably with the charac- 
 ter of the sentiments uttered. 
 
 We shall not attempt an analysis of his mind, conscious of our 
 inability to do it justice. Its powers are so numerous and so great, 
 as to make the task no light one. Its most prominent attribute is 
 patriotism. This is the sun of its lofty faculties, which revolve 
 about it in the order of satellites. Every thing is subordinate to, 
 
L90 LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 or absorbed by it. This is seen in every part of his career, tower- 
 ing magnificently upwards, like a mighty mountain to bathe its 
 head in everlasting sunshine, and forms its loveliest and. most 
 attractive feature. With Mr. Clay, patriotism was no unmeaning 
 word. He made it the grand test of both principle and measure, 
 and the main-spring of action. His devotion to it is most 
 remarkable ; so exclusive, as to lead him to sacrifice every other 
 consideration upon its altar. On one occasion, acting under its 
 influence, he said to Mr. Grundy, ' tell general Jackson, that if he 
 will sign that bill (the land bill), I will pledge myself to retire from 
 congress, and never enter public life again;'' of such vital impor- 
 tance did he consider that bill to the welfare of his beloved country. 
 One cannot avoid breaking out in exclamations of admiration, and 
 reverence, even, in view of such self-immolating political purity, as 
 this sincere declaration evinces. My country, my country, seems 
 to have been the constant apex of his thoughts and wishes. This 
 attribute gives to his commanding eloquence its invincible power, 
 and is the rocky pedestal on which he has reared the temple of his 
 immortal fame. 
 
 Political consistency is another prominent characteristic of Mr. 
 Clay. This, like a line of light, is traceable through all his public 
 life. The soundness of his judgment is worthy of note, by which 
 he is enabled to predict, with almost prophetic accuracy, the effect 
 of the adoption of certain measures. As a writer, Mr. Clay's 
 style is nervous, perspicuous, and concise, evincing the freshness 
 and beauty of originality, usually moving on in a deep and quiet 
 current, but at times rushing like the mountain torrent, overthrow- 
 ing all obstacles. He is peculiarly qualified for the regions of 
 argument and close investigation, yet he can soar into that of 
 imagination, and whenever he does, it is the flight of the eagle 
 towards heaven. His power of illustration is felicitous, demon- 
 strating an intimate acquaintance with the secret springs of the 
 soul, and a sagacious knowledge of its mysterious movements. 
 His conversational faculties are striking, and exceedingly versatile, 
 enabling him to accommodate himself to the capacities of all, to 
 the humblest, as well as to the loftiest intellect. It was remarked 
 of Mr. Burke, by Dr Johnson, that if a tempest, or any other 
 occurrence, should cause him to take shelter under the roof of a 
 peasant, he would find sufficient topics to employ his conversa- 
 tional powers, and would so employ them as to leave indelibly 
 impressed upon the mind of its lowly occupant, the belief, that he 
 was listening to no ordinary man. This would be emphatically 
 true of Mr. Clay, who possesses, in an eminent degree, the faculty 
 attributed to Mr. Burke. It is the exercise of this, that has so 
 endeared him to all who have been privileged to come within the 
 sphere of its influence, and which invests his domestic and social 
 relations with their greatest charms. 
 
LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 191 
 
 In private life, Mr. Clay exhibits the noblest characteristics of 
 human nature, which may be expressed by one word — open- 
 heartedness. He is kind and liberal to a fault. Says one who is 
 intimate with him, ' his door and his purse are alike open to the 
 friendless stranger and the unfortunate neighbor. Frank, open, 
 and above the meanness of deception himself, and consequently 
 never searching for duplicity and treachery in those around him, he 
 has more than once suffered from the vile ingratitude of men who 
 have been cherished by his bounty and upheld by his influence. 
 
 ' The curse of aristocracy has never chilled the warm flow of his 
 natural feelings. His heart is as warm, his hand is as free, and his I 
 smile as familiar as they were forty years ago, when, without \ 
 friends and without influence, he first responded to the hearty ! 
 welcome of the Kentuckian. His feelings have never changed 
 with his fortunes.' 
 
 Mr. Clay is admirably qualified for the interchange of social and 
 friendly feelings, in which he indulges most judiciously. His 
 convivial interviews are enlivened by enjoyments of a marked 
 intellectual character. His readiness at repartee, and aptitude foi 
 reply, are conspicuous features in his character. No emergency, 
 however sudden or unexpected, finds him unprepared, or disarms 
 him. He perceives the bearing of remarks, with the quickness of 
 intuition, however vague or ambiguous they may be, and with the 
 suddenness of thought frames and utters a suitable reply. An 
 instance, illustrative of this rare attribute, occurred not long after 
 his return from Ghent. It grew out of the subjects of the fisheries, 
 and the navigation of the Mississippi river, which came before the 
 commissioners during their negotiations at that place, two of 
 whom, on the part of the United States, were Messrs. Clay and 
 Adams. It is well known that Mr. Adams, whose constituents 
 were deeply interested in the fisheries, insisted strenuously upon 
 their preservation, and seemed disposed to grant to Great Britain 
 the equivalent which she demanded for them — the right to navi- 
 gate the Mississippi. It is equally well known that Mr. Clay as 
 strenuously opposed the granting of that right to her, even if the 
 loss of the fisheries in question should be the price of the refusal 
 to grant it. Soon after the return of the commissioners, Mr. 
 Adams received a huge Codfish, probably from some person or 
 persons concerned in the fisheries, as a testimonial of appreciation 
 of his services in advocating their maintenance. The fish was an 
 enormous one, weighing something like eighty pounds ; indeed, 
 it wa& so large that no dish could be found sufficiently capacious 
 to contain the monster when cooked, as Mr. Adams desired it to 
 be whole. Consequently he was under the necessity of getting one 
 constructed suited to the dimensions of his fishship. After he had 
 completed his arrangements for having it served up according to 
 hi3 fancy, taking special care in ordering it to be placed in the 
 
192 LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 most conspicuous part of the dining-table, that its appearance 
 might be as imposing as possible, he invited several of his personal 
 friends to dine with him, among whom was Mr. Clay. When 
 dinner was announced, Mr. Adams led the way to the dining 
 room, closely followed by Mr. Clay, who, on beholding the huge 
 fish, started back, with the exclamation of ' what on earth is that, 
 Mr. Adams!' ' I 1 hat, sir?' replied Mr. Adams, Hhat is a codfish, 
 from my constituents of Marblehead!' 'I will not touch it,' said 
 the facetious and witty statesman ; ' I will not touch it!' ' Why not 
 sir — why notV was the very natural inquiry. l Because,'' said he, 
 * every bone of it would stick in my throat like a Mississippi Snag.' 
 >The most exemplary accuracy and fidelity characterizes all Mr. 
 Clay's business habits. He makes it a point never to be indebted 
 ♦to any man ; to live within his income, and to maintain strict 
 punctuality in all his engagements. It is his habitual usage, 
 whenever he receives a communication, to return an answer 
 instantly. All his papers are filed and arranged in the utmost 
 neatness and order. He rises early, and observes such method in 
 the divison of his time and distribution of his business plans, as 
 to enable him to accomplish an amount of labor truly surprising. 
 
 That Mr. Clay has faults, we do not pretend to deny; this would 
 be asserting of human nature that from which it never was, and 
 never will be, exempt; but they are such as originated in early 
 life, in his ardent temperament, leading him to seek scenes of 
 excitement, where he was frequently betrayed into errors and 
 indiscretions. To the vice of gambling he is said to have been 
 considerably addicted in early life — a vice which no one more 
 sincerely deprecates than himself, as the following anecdote will 
 .show. 
 
 In the spring of 1819, we had the pleasure of being a fellow 
 passenger with Mr. Clay, from New Orleans to Louisville. After 
 a general acquaintance had been established among the cabin 
 passengers, to pass away the time more agreeably it was proposed 
 to have a game of cards, in which one of the number was requested 
 to invite Mr. Clay to join. When the invitation was given, he 
 inquired what game was proposed. The reply was, ' Bragg-.' 
 The sudden compression of the lips, and the change from easy 
 politeness to the dignified deportment of one entitled to give 
 advice, evinced, at once, a determination not to engage in the 
 game. ' Excuse me, gentlemen,' said he, ' I have not played a 
 game of any kind of hazard for more than twelve years, and I 
 take this occasion to warn you all to avoid a practice destructive 
 of a good name, and drawing after it evil consequences of incal- 
 culable magnitude. In earlier days it was my misfortune, owing 
 to a lively and ardent temperament, to fall into this vice, and to a 
 considerable extent, and no one can lament more sincerely the evil 
 and the consequences of it, than I do. These have followed me 
 
LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 193 
 
 into nearly all the walks of life, and though I have long since 
 abandoned the pernicious practice which led to them, it seems that 
 they will never abandon me.' We remarked, that it was reported 
 'you won large sums of the British commissioners, at Ghent.' 
 ' So the papers reported,' said he, ' but not truly. The only game 
 played at Ghent was whist, and that not over a guinea a corner.' 
 Whatever may be Mr. Clay's defects, we are happy to be able 
 to state, that they do not grow out of principle, but that they are 
 referable to the sanguineous nature of his constitution, rendering 
 him easily excitable and irritable ; in other words, his errors are 
 those of feeling, and venial ones, if any are. Our surprise is, not 
 that he occasionally suffered its impetuous tide to control his 
 judgment, momentarily, but our astonishment, on the other hand, 
 is, that this was not borne entirely away by it, and stranded among 
 the quicksands of folly and violence, set upon, as he was, at every 
 stage of his career, by political harpies and vampyres, and bayed 
 by the furious mastiffs of unprincipled and licentious faction, as if 
 he had been a beast of prey, prowling through the land to devour 
 its substance. Fatigued, exhausted, and lacerated, with such a 
 temperament as he possessed, it must have required, if possible, 
 more than the ' patience of Job,' to bear in silence the most painful 
 inflictions which the ingenuity of his legion of tormenters could 
 devise. It is not surprising that he should turn to the ' quiet shades 
 of Ashland,' to seek that repose for which he had long pined, the 
 enjoyment of which, for a lengthy period, he had debarred himself, 
 that his country might receive the benefits of his labors. Amid 
 these shades, we leave him, in an attitude interesting, becoming, 
 and dignified, dividing his time between the employments and 
 enjoyments of agriculture and literature, and so wisely as daily to 
 give increasing evidence of his ability to sustain the threefold 
 character which he has long borne, of enlightened statesman, 
 devoted patriot, and genuine republican. Heaven grant, the time 
 may not be far distant, when it shall be changed to fourfold, by 
 the addition of another character, which the people only can confer; 
 and one, which, if any individual can merit, at their hands, by 
 laborious, lengthy, and most exalted services in their behalf, that 
 individual is Henry Clay. 
 
 vol. i. 25 
 
I 
 
SPEECHES, &c 
 
 ON DOMESTIC MANUFACTURES. 
 
 IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, APRIL 6, 1810. 
 
 [ This is the first speech on record, of Mr. Clay's efforts during his congressional 
 career. He had been previously elected to fill a vacancy in the United States senate, 
 for a single session, in 1S06, during which, in 1807, he delivered an able speech on 
 internal improvement, which we regret has not been preserved. "In 1809, the legislature 
 of Kentucky again elected him a United States senator, and in the following remarks, 
 fie, avowed himself in favor of the policy of encouraging ddfrnstic manufactures, which 
 policy he had before advocated in the legislature of his own state. His early support 
 of these two branches of national policy, which he afterwards called ' the American 
 System,' is thus shown by his two first speeches in congress, and his name and 
 influence have become identified with the cause, of which he has always stood forth 
 the distinguished champion. ] 
 
 Mr. President, 
 
 The local interest of the quarter of the country, which I have the 
 honor to represent, will apologize for the trouble I may give you on 
 this occasion. My colleague has proposed an amendment to the 
 bill, before you, instructing the secretary of the navy, to provide 
 supplies of cordage, sail-cloth, hemp, &c. and to give a preference 
 to those of American growth and manufacture. It has been moved 
 by the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Lloyd) to strike out this 
 part of the amendment ; and, in the course of the discussion which 
 has arisen, remarks have been made on the general policy of promot- 
 ing manufactures. The propriety of this policy is, perhaps, not 
 very intimately connected with the subject before us; but it is. 
 nevertheless, within the legitimate and admissible scope of debate. 
 Under this impression I offer my sentiments. 
 
 In inculcating the advantages of domestic manufactures, it never 
 entered the head, I presume, of any one, to change the habits of 
 the nation from an agricultural to a manufacturing community 
 
196 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 No one, I am persuaded, ever thought of converting the plough- 
 share and the sickle into the spindle and the shuttle. And yet this 
 is the delusive and erroneous view too often taken of the subject 
 The opponents of the manufacturing system transport themselves 
 to the establishments of Manchester and Birmingham, and, dwell- 
 ing on the indigence, vice, and wretchedness prevailing there, by 
 pushing it to an extreme, argue that its introduction into this 
 country will necessarily be attended by the same mischievous and 
 dreadful consequences. But what is the fact ? That England is 
 the manufacturer of a great part of the world ; and that, even there, 
 the numbers thus employed bear an inconsiderable proportion to 
 the whole mass of population. Were we to become the manufac- 
 turers of other nations, effects of the same kind might result. But 
 if we limit our efforts, by our own wants, the evils apprehended 
 would be found to be chimerical. The invention and improve- 
 ment of machinery, for which the present age is so remarkable, 
 dispensing in a great degree with manual labor ; and the employ- 
 ment of those persons, who, if we were engaged in the pursuit of 
 agriculture alone, would be either unproductive, or exposed to 
 indolence and immorality ; will enable us to supply our wants 
 without withdrawing our attention from agriculture — that first and 
 greatest source of national wealth and happiness. A judicious 
 American farmer, in the household way, manufactures whatever is 
 requisite for his family. He squanders but little in the gewgaws 
 of Europe. He presents in epitome, what the nation ought to be 
 in extenso. Their manufactories should bear the same proportion, 
 and effect the same object in relation to the whole community, 
 which the part of his household employed in domestic manufactur- 
 ing, bears to the whole family. Lit is certainly desirable, that the 
 exports of the country should continue to be the surplus production 
 of tillage, and not become those of manufacturing establishments. 
 But it is important to diminish our imports ; to furnish ourselves 
 w^ith clothing, made by our own industry; and to cease to be 
 dependent, for the very coats we wear, upon a foreign and perhaps 
 inimical country. The nation that imports its clothing from abroad 
 is but little less dependent than if it imported its bread. J 
 
 The fallacious course of reasoning urged against domestic 
 manufactures, namely, the distress and servitude produced by those 
 of England, would equally indicate the propriety of abandoning 
 agriculture itself. Were you to cast your eyes upon the miserable 
 peasantry of Poland, and revert to the days of feudal vassalage, 
 you might thence draw numerous arguments, of the kind now 
 under consideration, against the pursuits of the husbandman! 
 What would become of commerce, the favorite theme of some 
 gentlemen, if assailed with this sort of weapon ? The fraud, 
 perjury, cupidity, and corruption, with which it is unhappily too 
 often attended, would at once produce its overthrow. In short, 
 
ON DOMESTIC MANUFACTURES. 197 
 
 sir, take the black side of the picture, and every human occupation 
 will be found pregnant with fatal objections. 
 
 The opposition to manufacturing institutions recalls to my 
 recollection the case of a gentleman, of whom I have heard. He 
 had been in the habit of supplying his table from a neighboring 
 cook, and confectioner's shop, and proposed to his wife a reform, 
 in this particular. She revolted at the idea. The sight of a scullion 
 was dreadful, and her delicate nerves could not bear the clattering 
 of kitchen furniture. The gentleman persisted in his design ; his 
 table was thenceforth cheaper and better supplied, and his neighbor, 
 the confectioner, lost one of his best customers. In like manner 
 dame Commerce will oppose domestic manufactures. She is a 
 flirting, flippant, noisy jade, and if we are governed by her fantasies, 
 we shall never put off the muslins of India and the cloths of Europe. 
 But I trust that the yeomanry of the country, the true and genuine 
 landlords of this tenement, called the United States, disregarding 
 her freaks, will persevere in reform, until the whole national family 
 is furnished by itself with the clothing necessary for its own use. 
 
 It is a subject no less of curiosity than of interest, to trace the 
 prejudices in favor of foreign fabrics. In our colonial condition, 
 we were in a complete state of dependence on the parent country, 
 as it respected manufactures, as well as commerce. For many 
 years after the war, such was the partiality for her productions, iri 
 this country, that a gentleman's head could not withstand the 
 influence of solar heat, unless covered with a London hat; his 
 feet could not bear the pebbles, or frost, unless protected by 
 London shoes ; and the comfort or ornament of his person was 
 only consulted when his coat was cut out by the shears of a tailor 
 'just from London.' (~At length, however, the wonderful discovery 
 has been made, that it is not absolutely beyond the reach of 
 American skill and ingenuity, to provide these articles, combining 
 with equal elegance greater durability. And I entertain no doubt, 
 that, in a short time, the no less important fact will be developed, 
 that the domestic manufactories of the United States, fostered by 
 government, and aided by household exertions, are fully competent 
 to supply us with at least every necessary article of clothing^ I 
 therefore, sir, for one (to use the fashionable cant of the day), am 
 in favor of encouraging them, not to the extent to which they are 
 earned in England, but to such an extent as will redeem us entirely 
 from all dependence on foreign countries.*} There is a pleasure — 
 a pride (if I may be allowed the expression, and I pity those who 
 cannot feel the sentiment,) — in being clad in the productions of our 
 own families. Others may prefer the cloths of Leeds and of 
 London, but give me those of Humphreysville. 
 
 Aid may be given to native institutions in the form of bounties 
 and of protecting duties. But against bounties it is urged, lliat 
 you tax the whole for the benefit of apart only, of the community $ 
 
198 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY* 
 
 and in opposition to duties it is alleged, that you make the interest 
 of one part, the consumer, bend to the interest of another part, the 
 manufacturer. The sufficiency of the answer is not always 
 admitted, that the sacrifice is merely temporary, being ultimately 
 compensated by the greater abundance and superiority of the 
 article produced by the stimulus. But, of all practicable forms of 
 encouragement, it might have been expected, that the one under 
 consideration would escape opposition, if every thing proposed in 
 congress were not doomed to experience it. What is it ? The 
 bill contains two provisions — one prospective, anticipating the 
 appropriation for clothing for the army, and the amendment 
 proposes extending it to naval supplies, for the year 1811 — and 
 the other, directing a preference to be given to home manufactures, 
 and productions, whenever it can be done without material detriment 
 to the public service. The object of the first is, to authorize contracts 
 to be made beforehand, with manufacturers, and by making ad- 
 vances to them, under proper security, to enable them to supply the 
 articles wanted, in sufficient quantity. When it is recollected that 
 they are frequently men of limited capitals, it will be acknowl- 
 edged that this kind of assistance, bestowed with prudence, will 
 be productive of the best results. It is, in fact, only pursuing a 
 principle long acted upon, of advancing to contractors with govern- 
 ment, on account of the magnitude of their engagements. The 
 appropriation contemplated to be made for the year 1811, may be 
 restricted to such a sum as, whether we have peace or war, we 
 must necessarily expend. The discretion is proposed to be vested 
 in officers of high confidence, who will be responsible for its abuse, 
 and who are enjoined to see that the public service receives no 
 material detriment. It is stated, that hemp is now very high, and 
 that contracts, made under existing circumstances, will be injurious 
 to government. But the amendment creates no obligation upon 
 the secretary of the navy, to go into market at this precise moment 
 In fact, by enlarging his sphere of action, it admits of his taking 
 advantage of a favorable fluctuation, and getting a supply below 
 the accustomed price, if such a fall should occur prior to the usual 
 annual appropriation. 
 
 I consider the amendment, under consideration, of the first 
 importance, in point of principle. It is evident, that whatever 
 doubt may be entertained, as to the general policy of the manufac- 
 turing system, none can exist, as to the propriety of our being able 
 to furnish ourselves with articles of the first necessity, in time of 
 war. Our maritime operations ought not, in such a state, to 
 depend upon the casualties of foreign supply. It is not necessary 
 that they should. With very little encouragement from government, 
 I believe we shall not want a pound of Russia hemp. The 
 increase of the article in Kentucky has been rapidly great. Ten 
 years ago there were but two rope manufactories in the state. Now 
 
ON DOMESTIC MANUFACTURES. 199 
 
 there are about twenty, and between ten and fifteen of cotton 
 bagging; and the erection of new ones keeps pace with the annual 
 augmentation of the quantity of hemp. Indeed, the western coun- 
 try, alone, is not only adequate to the supply of whatever of this 
 article is requisite for our own consumption, but is capable of 
 affording a surplus for foreign markets. The amendment proposed 
 possesses the double recommendation of encouraging, at the same ' 
 time, both the manufacture and the growth of hemp. For by 
 increasing the demand for the wrought article, you also increase 
 the demand for the raw material, and consequently present new 
 incentives to its cultivator. 
 
 £ The three great subjects that claim the attention of the national 
 legislature, are the interests of agriculture, commerce, and manufac- 
 tures. We have had before us, a proposition to afford a manly 
 protection to the rights of commerce, and how has it been treated ? 
 Rejected! You have been solicited to promote agriculture, by 
 increasing the facilities of internal communication, through the 
 means of canals and roads, and what has been done ? Postponed ! 
 We are now called upon to give a trifling support to our domestic 
 manufactures, and shall we close the circle of congressional 
 inefficiency, by adding this also to the catalogue ? 1 
 
ON THE LINE OF THE PEKDIDO. 
 
 IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, DECEMBER 25, 1810. 
 
 [The Perdido is the name of a river and bay, which form the boundary line between 
 the present state of Alabama and Florida. It will be recollected, that Florida was a 
 Spanish colony, previous to its cession to the United States by Spain, in 1S19. It 
 was discovered by Juan Ponce de Leon, a Spanish navigator, in 1512, and by him it 
 was called Florida. The French made an attempt to colonize the territory in 1502, 
 but their settlement was broken up by the Spaniards, who founded, in 1505. the city 
 of St. Augustine, in East Florida. Pensacola, in West Florida, was founded in 1099. 
 Though often invaded by the French and English, Florida remained part of Spanish 
 America until 1703, when it was ceded to Great Britain ; but, by the definitive treaty 
 of 1783, it was receded by Great Britain to Spain. When Florida was a colony of 
 Spain, and Louisiana of France, or from 1099 to 1703, the Perdido river was a com- 
 mon boundary, but, by the treaty of 1703, Louisiana having been ceded by France to 
 Spain, the Spaniards in 1709, for their own convenience, incorporated that part of 
 Louisiana, between the Mississippi and Perdido rivers, with Florida. This act 
 caused a controversy between Spain and the United States; the latter having 
 purchased Louisiana of France, in 1603, to which power it had been ceded by Spain, 
 in 1S00. President Madison, in 1810, took possession of the territory in dispute, for 
 which act he was assailed by the opposition members in the senate, particularly by 
 Mr. Horsey, of Delaware ; to whom Mr. Clay replied, in defence of the administra- 
 tion, as follows.] 
 
 Mr. President, 
 
 It would have gratified me if some other gentleman had under- 
 taken to reply to the ingenious argument, which you have just 
 heard. (Speech of Mr. Horsey.) But not perceiving any one 
 disposed to do so, a sense of duty obliges me, though very unwell, 
 to claim your indulgence, whilst I offer my sentiments on this 
 subject, so interesting to the union at large, but especially to the 
 western portion of it. Allow me, sir, to express my admiration at 
 the more than Aristidean justice, which, in a question of territorial 
 title between the United States and a foreign nation, induces 
 certain gentlemen to espouse the pretensions of the foreign nation. 
 Doubtless, in any future negotiations, she will have too much 
 magnanimity to avail herself of these spontaneous concessions in 
 her favor, made on the floor of the senate of the United States. 
 
 It was to have been expected, that, in a question like the present, 
 gentlemen, even on the same side, would have different views, and 
 although arriving at a common conclusion, would do so by various 
 
ONTIIE LINE OF THE PERDIDO. 201 
 
 arguments. And hence the honorable gentleman from Vermont, 
 entertains doubt with regard to our title against Spain, whilst he 
 feels entirely satisfied of it against France. Believing, as I do, 
 that our title against both powers is indisputable, under the treaty 
 of St. Ildefonso, between Spain and France, and the treaty 
 between the French republic and the United States, I shall not 
 inquire into the treachery, by which the king of Spain is alleged 
 to have lost his crown ; nor shall I stop to discuss the question 
 involved in the overthrow of the Spanish monarchy, and how far 
 the power of Spain ought to be considered as merged in that of 
 France. I shall leave the honorable gentleman from Delaware to 
 mourn over the fortunes of the fallen Charles. I have no commis- 
 eration for princes. My sympathies are reserved for the great 
 mass of mankind, and I own that the people of Spain have them 
 most sincerely. 
 
 I will adopt the course suggested by the nature of the subject, 
 and pursued by other gentlemen, of examining into our title to the 
 country lying between the 'Mississippi and the Rio Perdido, 
 (which, to avoid circumlocution, I will call West Florida, although 
 it is not the whole of it,) and the propriety of the recent measures 
 taken for the occupation of that territory. Our title, then, depends, 
 first, upon the limits of the province or colony of Louisiana, and, 
 secondly, upon a just exposition of the treaties before mentioned. 
 
 On this occasion it is only necessary to fix the eastern boundary. 
 In order to ascertain this, it will be proper to take a cursory view 
 of the settlement of the country, because the basis of European 
 title to colonies in America, is prior discovery, or prior occupancy. 
 In 1682, La Salle migrated from Canada, then owned by France, 
 descended the Mississippi, and named the country which it waters, 
 Louisiana. About 1698, D' Iberville discovered, by sea, the mouth 
 of the Mississippi, established a colony at the Isle Dauphine, or 
 Massacre, which lies at the mouth of the bay of Mobile, and one 
 at the mouth of the river Mobile, and was appointed, by France, 
 governor of the country. In the year 1717, the famous West 
 India Company sent inhabitants to the Isle Dauphine, and found 
 some of those who had been settled there under the auspices of 
 D'Iberville. About the same period, Baloxi, near the Pascagoula, 
 was settled. In 1719, the city of New Orleans was laid off, and 
 the seat of government of Louisiana was established there ; and in 
 1736 the French erected a fort on Tombigbee. These facts prove 
 that France had the actual possession of the country as far east 
 as the Mobile, at least. But the great instrument which ascertains, 
 beyond all doubt, that the country in question is comprehended 
 within the limits of Louisiana, is one of the most authentic and 
 solemn character which the archives of a nation can furnish ; I 
 mean the patent granted in 1712, by Louis XIV, to Crozat. 
 [Here Mr. C. read such parts of the patent as were applicable to 
 vol. i. 26 
 
202 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 the subject.*] According to this document, in describing the 
 province or colony of Louisiana, it is declared to be bounded by 
 Carolina on the east, and Old and New Mexico on the west. 
 Under this high record evidence, it might be insisted that we have 
 a fair claim to East as well as West Florida, against France, at 
 least, unless she has, by some convention, or other obligatory act, 
 restricted the eastern limit of the province. It has, indeed, been 
 asserted, that, by a treaty between France and Spain, concluded in 
 the year 1719, the Perdido was expressly stipulated to be the 
 boundary between their respective provinces of Florida on the 
 east, and Louisiana on the west ; but as I have been unable to find 
 any such treaty, I am induced to doubt its existence. 
 
 About the same period, to wit, towards the close of the seven- 
 teenth century, when France settled the Isle Dauphine, and the 
 Mobile, Spain erected a fort at Pensacola. Bat Spain never 
 pushed her actual settlements, or conquests, farther west than the 
 bay of Pensacola, whilst those of the French were bounded on 
 the east by the Mobile. Between those two points, a space of 
 about thirteen or fourteen leagues, neither nation had the exclusive 
 possession. The Rio Perdido, forming the bay of the same name, 
 
 * Extract from the Grant to Crozat, dated at 
 
 1 Fontainbleau, September 14, 1712. 
 Lotus, By the grace of God, &c. 
 
 ' The care we have always had to procure the welfare and advantage of our 
 subjects, having induced us, &c. to seek for all possible opportunities of enlarging 
 and extending the trade of our American colonies, we did, in the year 1683, give our 
 orders to undertake a discovery of the countries and lands which are situated in the 
 northern part of America, between New France and New Mexico ; and the Sieur de 
 la Salle, to whom we committed that enterprise, having had success, enough to 
 confirm a belief that a communication might be settled from New France to the Gulf 
 of Mexico, by means of large rivers, this obliged us, immediately after the peace of 
 Ryswic, to give orders for establishing a colony there, and maintaining a garrison, 
 which has kept and preserved the possession we had taken in the very year 1683, of the lands, 
 coasts, and islands, which are situated in the Gulf of Mexico between Carolina on the 
 east, and old and new Mexico on the west. But a new war having broke out in 
 Europe shortly after, there was no possibility, till now, of reaping from that colony 
 the advantages that might have been expected from thence, &c. And, whereas, upon 
 the information we have received concerning the disposition and situation of tie said 
 countries, known at present by the name of the Province of Louisiana, we are of opinion, 
 that there may be established therein considerable commerce, &c, we have resolved 
 to grant the commerce of the country of Louisiana to the Sieur Anthony Crozat, &c. 
 For these reasons, &c. we, by these presents signed by our hand, have appointed and 
 do appoint the said Sieur Crozat, to carry on a trade in all the lands possessed by us, 
 and bounded by New Mexico and by the lands of the English of Carolina, all the 
 establishments, ports, havens, rivers, and principally the port and haven of the Isle 
 Dauphine, heretofore called Massacre ; the river of St. Louis, heretofore called 
 Mississippi, from the edge of the sea as far as the Illinois, together with the river St. 
 Philip, heretofore called the Missouri, and of St. Jerome, heretofore called Onabache, 
 with all the countries, territories, and lakes within land, and the rivers which fall 
 directly or indirectly into that part of the river St. Louis. 
 
 ' The Articles — 1. Our pleasure is, that all the aforesaid lands, countries, streams, 
 rivers, and islands be, and remain comprised under the na?ne of the government of Louisiana, 
 which shall be dependent upon the general government of New France, to which it 
 is subordinate; and further, that all the lands which we possess from the Illinois, be 
 united, &c to the general government of New France, and become part thereof, &c.' 
 
ON THE LINE OF THE PER DIDO. 203 
 
 discharges itself into the Gulf of Mexico, between the Mobile and 
 Pensacola, and, being a natural and the most notorious object 
 between them, presented itself as a suitable boundary between the 
 possessions of the two nations. It accordingly appears very early 
 to have been adopted as the boundary, by tacit if not expressed 
 consent. The ancient charts and historians, therefore, of the 
 country, so represent it. Dupratz, one of the most accurate 
 historians of the time, in point of fact and detail, whose work was 
 published as early as 1758, describes the coast as being bounded 
 on the east by the Rio Perdido. In truth, sir, no European nation 
 whatever, except France, ever occupied any portion of West 
 Florida, prior to her cession of it to England, in 1762. The 
 gentlemen on the other side do not, indeed, strongly controvert, if 
 they do not expressly admit, that Louisiana, as held by the French 
 anterior to her cessions of it in 1762, extended to the Perdido. 
 The only observation made by the gentleman from Delaware to 
 the contrary, to wit, that the island of New Orleans, being particu- 
 larly mentioned, could not, for that reason, constitute a part of 
 Louisiana, is susceptible of a very satisfactory answer. That 
 island was excepted out of the grant to England, and was the 
 only part of the province east of the river that was so excepted. 
 It formed in itself one of the most prominent and important 
 objects of the cession to Spain originally, and was transferred to 
 her with the portion of the province west of the Mississippi. It 
 might with equal propriety be urged that St. Augustine is not in 
 East Florida, because St. Augustine is expressly mentioned by 
 Spain in her cession of that province to England. From this view 
 of the subject, I think it results that the province of Louisiana 
 comprised West Florida, previous to the year 1762. 
 
 What was done with it at this epoch ? By a secret convention 
 of the third of November, of that year, France ceded the country 
 lying west of the Mississippi, and the island of New Orleans, to 
 Spain ; and by a contemporaneous act, the articles preliminary to 
 the definitive treaty of 1763, she transferred West Florida to 
 England. Thus, at the same instant of time, she alienated the 
 whole province. Posterior to this grant, Great Britain, having also 
 acquired from Spain her possessions east of the Mississippi, 
 erected the country into two provinces, East and West Florida. 
 In this state of things it continued until the peace of 1783, when 
 Great Britain, in consequence of the events of the war, surrendered 
 the country to Spain, who, for the first time, came into actual 
 possession of West Florida. Well, sir, how does she dispose of 
 it? She reannexes it to the residue of Louisiana — extends the 
 jurisdiction of that government to it, and subjects the governors, or 
 commandants, of the districts of Baton Rouge, Feliciana, Mobile, 
 and Pensacola, to the authority of the governor of Louisiana, 
 residing at. New Orleans ; while the governor of East Florida U 
 
204 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 placed wholly without his control, and is made amenable directly 
 to the governor of the Havannah. Indeed, sir, I have been 
 credibly informed, that all the concessions, or grants of land, made 
 in West Florida, under the authority of Spain, run in the name of 
 the government of Louisiana. You cannot have forgotten that, 
 about the period when we took possession of New Orleans, under 
 the treaty of cession from France, the whole country resounded 
 with the nefarious speculations, which were alleged to be making 
 in that city with the connivance, if not actual participation, of the 
 Spanish authorities, by the procurement of surreptitious grants of 
 land, particularly in the district of Feliciana. West Florida, then, 
 not only as France had held it, but as it was in the hands of Spain, 
 made a part of the province of Louisiana; as much so as the 
 jurisdiction or district of Baton Rouge constituted a part of West 
 Florida. 
 
 What, then, is the true construction of the treaties of St. Ildefonso, 
 and of April, 1803, from whence our title is derived? If an 
 ambiguity exist in a grant, the interpretation most favorable to the 
 grantee is preferred. It was the duty of the grantor to have 
 expressed himself in plain and intelligible terms. This is the 
 doctrine, not of Coke only, (whose dicta I admit have nothing to 
 do with the question,) but of the code of universal law. The 
 doctrine is entitled to augmented force, when a clause only of the 
 instrument is exhibited, in which clause the ambiguity lurks, and 
 the residue of the instrument is kept back by the grantor. The 
 entire convention of 1762, by which France transferred Louisiana 
 to Spain, is concealed, and the whole of the treaty of St. Ildefonso, 
 except a solitary clause. We are thus deprived of the aid which a 
 full view of both of those instruments would afford. But we have 
 no occasion to resort to any rules of construction, however reason- 
 able in themselves, to establish our title. A competent knowledge 
 of the facts connected with the case, and a candid appeal to the 
 treaties, are alone sufficient to manifest our right. The negotiators 
 of the treaty of 1803, having signed, with the same ceremony, Iwo 
 copies, one in English and the other in the French language, it has 
 been contended, that in the English version the term ' cede ' has 
 been erroneously used instead of 'retrocede,' which is the expres- 
 sion in the French copy. And it is argued, that we are bound by 
 the phraseology of the French copy, because it is declared that the 
 treaty was agreed to in that language. It would not be very unfair 
 to inquire, if this is not like the common case in private life, where 
 individuals enter into a contract of which each party retains a copy, 
 duly executed. In such case, neither has the preference. We 
 might as well say to France, we will cling by the English copy, as 
 she could insist upon an adherence to the French copy; and if she 
 urged ignorance on the part of Mr. Marbois, her negotiator, of our 
 language, we might with equal propriety plead ignorance, on the 
 
ON THE LINE OF THE PERDIDO. 205 
 
 part of our negotiators, of her language. As this, however, is a 
 disputable point, I do not avail myself of it; gentlemen shall have 
 the full benefit of the expressions in the French copy. According 
 to this, then, in reciting the treaty of St. Ildefonso, it is declared by 
 Spain, in 1800, that she retrocedes to France, the colony or 
 province of Louisiana, with the same extent which it then had in 
 the hands of Spain, and which it had when France possessed it, 
 and such as it should be after the treaties subsequently entered 
 into between Spain and other states. This latter member of the 
 description has been sufficiently explained by my colleague. 
 
 It is said, that since France, in 1762, ceded to Spain only 
 Louisiana west of the Mississippi, and the Island of New Orleans, 
 the retrocession comprehended no more — that the retrocession ex 
 vi termini was commensurate with and limited by the direct cession 
 from France to Spain. If this were true, then the description, such 
 as Spain held it, that is, in 1800, comprising West Florida, and 
 such as France possessed it, that is, in 1762, prior to the several 
 cessions, comprising also West Florida, would be totally inopera- 
 tive. But the definition of the term retrocession contended for by 
 the other side is denied. It does not exclude the instrumentality 
 of a third party. It means restoration, or reconveyance of a thing 
 originally ceded, and so the gentleman from Delaware acknowl- 
 edged. I admit that the thing restored, must have come to the 
 restoring party from the party to whom it is retroceded ; whether 
 directly or indirectly is wholly immaterial. In its passage, it may 
 have come through a dozen hands. The retroceding parly must 
 claim under and in virtue of the right originally possessed by the 
 party to whom the retrocession takes place. Allow me to put a 
 case. You own an estate called Louisiana. You convey one 
 moiety of it to the gentleman from Delaware, and the other to me ; 
 he conveys his moiety to me, and I thus become entitled to the 
 whole. By a suitable instrument, I reconvey, or retrocede the 
 estate called Louisiana to you as I now hold it, and as you held 
 it ; what passes to you ? The whole estate or my moiety only ? 
 Let me indulge another supposition — that the gentleman from 
 Delaware, after he received from you his moiety, bestowed a new 
 denomination upon it and called it West Florida; would that 
 circumstance vary the operation of my act of retrocession to you ? 
 The case supposed, is, in truth, the real one between the United 
 States and Spain. France, in 1762, transfers Louisiana, west of 
 the Mississippi, to Spain, and at the same time conveys the eastern 
 portion of it, exclusive of New Orleans, to Great Britain. Tw^enty- 
 one years after, that is, in 1783, Great Britain cedes her part to 
 Spain, who thus becomes possessed of the entire province ; one 
 portion by direct cession from France, and the residue by indirect 
 cession. Spain, then, held the whole of Louisiana under France, 
 and in virtue of the title of France. The whole moved or passed 
 
206 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 from France to her. When, therefore, in this state of things, she 
 says, in the treaty of St. Ildefonso, that she retrocedes the province 
 to France, can a doubt exist that she parts with, and gives back 
 to France the entire colony ? To preclude the possibility of such 
 a doubt, she adds, that she restores it, not in a mutilated condition, 
 but in that precise condition in which France had and she herself 
 possessed it. 
 
 Having thus shown, as I conceive, a clear right in the United 
 Stales to West Florida, I proceed to inquire, if the proclamation 
 of the president directing the occupation of property, which is thus 
 fairly acquired by solemn treaty, be an unauthorized measure of war 
 and of legislation, as has been contended ? 
 
 The act of October, 1803, contains two sections, by one of 
 which the president is authorized to occupy the territories ceded to 
 us by France in the April preceding. The other empowers the 
 president to establish a provisional government there. The first 
 section is unlimited in its duration ; the other is restricted to the 
 expiration of the then session of congress. The act, therefore, of 
 March, 1804, declaring that the previous act of October should 
 continue in force until the first of October, 1804, is applicable to 
 the second and not the first section, and was intended to continue 
 the provisional government of the president. By the act of twenty- 
 fourth February, 1S04, for laying duties on goods imported into 
 the ceded territories, the president is empowered whenever he deems 
 it expedient to erect the bay and river Mobile, &c. into a separate 
 district, and to establish therein a port of entry and delivery. By 
 this same act the Orleans territory is laid off, and its boundaries are 
 so denned, as to comprehend West Florida. By other acts the 
 president is authorized to remove by force, under certain circum- 
 stances, persons settling on, or taking possession of lands ceded to 
 the United States. 
 
 These laws furnish a legislative construction of the treaty, 
 corresponding with that given by the executive, and they indispu- 
 tably vest in this branch of the general government the power to 
 take possession of the country, whenever it might be proper in his 
 discretion. The president has not, therefore, violated the constitu- 
 tion and usurped the war-making power, but he would have 
 violated that provision which requires him to see that the laws are 
 faithfully executed, if he had longer forborne to act. It is urged, that 
 he has assumed powers belonging to congress, in undertaking to 
 annex the portion of West Florida, between the Mississippi and 
 the Perdido, to the Orleans territory. But congress, as has been 
 shown, has already made this annexation, the limits of the Orleans 
 territory, as prescribed by congress, comprehending the country in 
 question. The president, by his proclamation, has not made law, 
 but has merely declared to the people of West Florida, what the 
 law is. This is the office of a proclamation, and it was highly 
 
ON THE LINE OF THE PER DIDO. 207 
 
 proper that the people of that territory should be thus notified. 
 By the act of occupying the country, the government de facto, 
 whether of Spain, or the revolutionists, ceased to exist ; and the 
 laws of the Orleans territory, applicable to the country, by the 
 operation and force of law, attached to it. But this was a state of 
 things which the people might not know, and which every dictate 
 of justice and humanity, therefore, required should be proclaimed. 
 I consider the bill before us merely in the light of a declaratory law. 
 Never could a more propitious moment present itself, for the 
 exercise of the discretionary power placed in the president ; and, 
 had he failed to embrace it, he would have been criminally inatten- 
 tive to the dearest interests of this country. It cannot be too often 
 repeated, that if Cuba on the one hand, and Florida on the other, are 
 in the possession of a foreign maritime power, the immense extent 
 of country belonging to the United States, and watered by streams 
 discharging themselves into the Gulf of Mexico — that is, one third, 
 nay, more than two thirds of the United States, comprehending 
 Louisiana, are placed at. the mercy of that power. The possession 
 of Florida is a guarantee absolutely necessary to the enjoyment 
 of the navigation of those streams. The gentleman from Dela- 
 ware anticipates the most direful consequences, from the occupa- 
 tion of the country. He supposes a sally from a Spanish garrison 
 upon the American forces, and asks what is to be done ? We 
 attempt a peaceful possession of the country to which we are fairly 
 entitled. If the wrongful occupants, under the authority of Spain, 
 assail our troops, I trust they will retrieve the lost honor of the 
 nation, in the case of the Chesapeake. Suppose an attack upon 
 any portion of the American army, within the acknowledged limits 
 of the United States, by a Spanish force ? In such event, there 
 would, exist but a single honorable and manly course. The gen- 
 tleman conceives it ungenerous, that we should at this moment, 
 when Spain is encompassed and pressed, on all sides, by the 
 immense power of her enemy, occupy West Florida. Shall we 
 sit by, passive spectators, and witness the interesting transactions 
 of that country — transactions which tend, in the most imminent 
 degree, to jeopardize our rights, without attempting to interfere ? 
 Are you prepared to see a foreign power seize what belongs to us? 
 I have heard, in the most credible manner, that, about the period 
 when the president took his measures in relation to that country, 
 agents of a foreign power were intriguing with the people there, to 
 induce them to come under his dominion; but whether this be 
 the fact or not, it cannot be doubted, that, if you neglect the present 
 auspicious moment, if you reject the proffered boon, some other 
 nation, profiting by your errors, will seize the occasion to get a 
 fatal footing in your southern frontier. I have no hesitation in 
 saying, that if a parent country will not or cannot maintain its 
 authority, in a colony adjacent to us, and there exists in it a state 
 
20S SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 of misrule and disorder, menacing our peace ; and if, moreover, 
 such colony, by passing into the hands of any other power, would 
 become dangerous to the integrity of the union, and manifestly 
 tend to the subversion of our laws ; we have a right, upon the 
 eternal principles of self-preservation, to lay hold upon it. This 
 principle alone, independent of any title, would warrant our occu- 
 pation of West Florida. But it is not necessary to resort to it — 
 our title being, in my judgment, incontestably good. We are told 
 of the vengeance of resuscitated Spain. If Spain, under any 
 modification of her government, choose to make war upon us, for 
 the act under consideration, the nation, I have no doubt, will be 
 willing to embark in such a contest. But the gentleman reminds 
 us that Great Britain, the ally of Spain, may be obliged, by her 
 connection with that country, to take part with her against us, and 
 to consider this measure of the president as justifying an appeal 
 to arms. Sir, is the time never to arrive, when we may manage 
 our own affairs without the fear of insulting his Britannic majesty? 
 Is the rod of British power to be for ever suspended over our heads ? 
 Does congress put on an embargo to shelter our rightful commerce 
 against the piratical depredations committed upon it on the ocean? 
 We are immediately warned of the indignation of offended Eng- 
 land. Is a law of non-intercourse proposed ? The whole navy 
 of the haughty mistress of the seas, is made to thunder in our ears. 
 Does the president refuse to continue a correspondence with a 
 minister, who violates the decorum belonging to his diplomatic 
 character, by giving and deliberately repeating an affront to the 
 whole nation ? We are instantly menaced with the chastisement 
 which English pride will not fail to inflict. W T hether we assert 
 our rights by sea, or attempt their maintenance by land — whither- 
 soever we turn ourselves, this phantom incessantly pursues us. Al- 
 ready has it had too much influence on the councils of the nation. 
 It contributed to the repeal of the embargo — that dishonorable 
 repeal, which has so much tarnished the character of our govern- 
 ment. Mr. President, I have before said on this floor, and now 
 take occasion to remark, that I most sincerely desire peace and 
 amity with England ; that I even prefer an adjustment of all differ- 
 ences with her, before one with any other nation. But if she 
 persists in a denial of justice to us, or if she avails herself of the 
 occupation of West Florida, to commence war upon us, I trust 
 and hope that all hearts will unite, in a bold and vigorous vindica- 
 tion of our rights. I do not believe, however, in the prediction, 
 that war will be the effect of the measure in question. 
 
 It is asked, why, some years ago, when the interruption of the 
 right of deposit took place at New Orleans, the government did 
 not declare war against Spain; and how it has happened, that 
 there has been this long acquiescence in the Spanish possession of 
 West Florida. The answer is obvious. It consists in the genius 
 
ON THE LINE OF THE PERDIDO. 209 
 
 of the nation, which is prone to peace ; in that desire to arrange, 
 by friendly negotiation, our disputes with all nations, which has 
 constantly influenced the present and preceding administration ; 
 and in the jealousy of armies, with which we have been inspired 
 by the melancholy experience of free estates. But a new state of 
 things has arisen ; negotiation has become hopeless. The power 
 with whom it was to be conducted, if not annihilated, is in a 
 situation that precludes it ; and the subject matter of it is in danger 
 of being snatched for ever from our power. Longer delay would 
 be construed into a dereliction of our right, and would amount to 
 treachery to ourselves. May I ask, in my turn, why certain gentle- 
 men, now so fearful of war, were so urgent for it with Spain, when 
 she withheld the right of deposit ? and still later, when in 1805 or 
 6, this very subject of the actual limits of Louisiana, was before 
 congress ? I will not say, because I do not know that I am 
 authorized to say, that the motive is to be found in the change of 
 relation, between Spain and other European powers, since those 
 periods. 
 
 Does the honorable gentleman from Delaware really believe, that 
 he finds in St. Domingo a case parallel with that of West Florida? 
 and that our government, having interdicted an illicit commerce 
 with the former, ought not to have interposed in relation to the 
 latter ? It is scarcely necessary to consume your time by remark- 
 ing, that we had no pretensions to that island; that it did not 
 menace our repose, nor did the safety of the United States require 
 that they should occupy it. It became, therefore, our duty to attend 
 to the just remonstrance of France, against American citizens' 
 supplying the rebels with the means of resisting her power. 
 
 I am not, sir, in favour of cherishing the passion of conquest. 
 But I must be permitted, in conclusion, to indulge the hope of 
 seeing, ere long, the new United States (if you will allow me the 
 expression) embracing, not only the old thirteen States, but the 
 entire country east of the Mississippi, including East Florida, and 
 some of the territories of the north of us also. 
 
 vol. i. 27 
 
ON RENEWING THE CHARTER OF THE FIRST 
 BANK OF THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, 1811. 
 
 [The Bank of the United States, which was incorporated by an act of congress, 
 during the administration of general Washington, in 1791, having applied to congress 
 for a renewal of its charter, which was to expire, by limitation, in 1811 ; the question 
 came up first for decision in the senate. The renewal was advocated by the federal 
 members, and by Mr. Crawford, of Georgia, Mr. Pope, the colleague of Mr. Clay, 
 also by a few other democratic senators ; and the bill was finally defeated, by the 
 casting vote of the vice president ( George Clinton). Mr. Clay, having been instructed 
 by the legislature of Kentucky to oppose the renewal of the charter, acted in obedi- 
 ence to those instructions, notwithstanding the opposite course of his colleague. 
 His argument against the bill, shows that he then believed the bank charter uncon- 
 stitutional — an opinion which subsequent reflection and examination induced him 
 to reverse, some years afterwards. In this change of opinion, he was sustained by 
 the example of Mr. Madison, who signed the charter of the bank, incorporated in 
 1816, and other eminent statesmen. This being the only subject of great importance 
 on which Mr. Clay has been known to have changed his views of national policy, 
 during his long public career, the following speech will be read with much interest.] 
 
 Mr. President, 
 
 When the subject involved in the motion now under considera- 
 tion was depending before the other branch of the legislature, a 
 disposition to acquiesce in their decision was evinced. For 
 although the committee who reported this bill, had been raised 
 many weeks prior to the determination of that house, on the prop- 
 osition to recharter the bank, except the occasional reference to it 
 of memorials and petitions, we scarcely ever heard of it. The 
 rejection, it is true, of a measure brought before either branch of 
 congress, does not absolutely preclude the other from taking up the 
 same proposition; but the economy of our time, and a just 
 deference for the opinion of others, would seem to recommend a 
 delicate and cautious exercise of this power. As this subject, at 
 the memorable period when the charter was granted, called forth 
 the best talents of the nation, as it has, on various occasions, 
 undergone the most thorough investigation, and as we can hardly 
 expect that it is susceptible of receiving any further elucidation, it 
 was to be hoped that we should have been spared useless debate. 
 This was the more desirable, because there are, I conceive, much 
 superior claims upon us, for every hour of the small portion of the 
 
ON THE BANK CHARTER. 211 
 
 session yet remaining to us. Under the operation of these motives, 
 I had resolved to give a silent vote, until I felt myself bound, by 
 the defying manner of the arguments advanced in support of the 
 renewal, to obey the paramount duties I owe my country and its 
 constitution ; to make one effort, however feeble, to avert the 
 passage of what appears to me a most unjustifiable law. After 
 my* honorable friend from Virginia (Mr. Giles) had instructed 
 and amused us, with the very able and ingenious argument, which 
 he delivered on yesterday, I should have still forborne to trespass 
 on the senate, but for the extraordinary character of his speech. 
 He discussed both sides of the question, with great ability and 
 eloquence, and certainly demonstrated, to the satisfaction of all 
 who heard him, both that it was constitutional and unconstitutional, 
 highly proper and improper, to prolong the charter of the bank. 
 The honorable gentleman appeared to me in the predicament in 
 which the celebrated orator of Virginia, Patrick Henry, is said to 
 have been once placed. Engaged in a most extensive and lucra- 
 tive practice of the law, he mistook, in one instance, the side of the 
 cause in which he was retained, and addressed the court and jury 
 in a very masterly and convincing speech, in behalf of his antago- 
 nist. His distracted client came up to him, whilst he was thus 
 employed, and, interrupting him, bitterly exclaimed, 'you have 
 undone me! You have ruined me!' ' Never mind, give yourself 
 no concern,' said the adroit advocate ; and, turning to the court and 
 jury, continued his argument, by observing, ' may it please your 
 honors, and you, gentlemen of the jury, I have been stating to you 
 what I presume my adversary may urge on his side. I will now 
 show you how fallacious his reasonings, and groundless his preten- 
 sions, are.' The skilful orator proceeded, satisfactorily refuted 
 every argument he had advanced, and gained his cause ! — a suc- 
 cess with which I trust the exertion of my honorable friend will 
 on this occasion be crowned. 
 
 It has been said, by the honorable gentleman from Georgia (Mr. 
 Crawford), that this has been made a party question; although 
 the law incorporating the bank was passed prior to the formation 
 of parties, and when congress was not biassed by party prejudices. 
 (Mr. Crawford explained. He did not mean, that it had been made 
 a party question in the senate. His allusion was elsewhere.) I 
 do not think it altogether fair, to refer to the discussions in the 
 house of representatives, as gentlemen belonging to that body have 
 no opportunity of defending themselves here. It is true that this 
 law was not the effect, but it is no less true that it was one of the 
 causes, of the political divisions in this country. And if, during 
 the agitation of the present question, the renewal has, on one side, 
 been opposed on party principles, let me ask if, on the other, it 
 has not been advocated on similar principles. Where is the 
 Macedonian phalanx, the opposition, in congress? I believe, sir, I 
 
212 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 shall not incur the charge of presumptuous prophecy, when I 
 predict we shall not pick up from its ranks one single su-aggler! 
 And if, on this occasion, my worthy friend from Georgia has gone 
 over into the camp of the enemy, is it kind in him to look back 
 upon his former friends, and rebuke them for the fidelity with 
 which they adhere to their old principles ? 
 
 I shall not stop to examine how far a representative is bound by 
 the instructions of his constituents. That is a question between 
 the giver and receiver of the instructions. But I must be permit- 
 ted to express my surprise at the pointed difference which has been 
 made between the opinions and instructions of state legislatures, 
 and the opinions and details of the deputations with which we 
 have been surrounded from Philadelphia. Whilst the resolutions 
 of those legislatures — known, legitimate, constitutional, and delib- 
 erative bodies — have been thrown into the back-ground, and their 
 interference regarded as officious; these delegations from self- 
 created societies, composed of nobody knows whom, have been 
 received by the committee, with the utmost complaisance. Their 
 communications have been treasured up with the greatest diligence. 
 Never did the Delphic priests collect with more holy care the frantic 
 expressions of the agitated Pythia, or expound them with more 
 solemnity to the astonished Grecians, than has the committee 
 gathered the opinions and testimonies of these deputies, and, 
 through the gentleman from Massachusetts, pompously detailed 
 them to the senate ! Philadelphia has her immediate representa- 
 tives, capable of expressing her wishes, upon the floor of the other 
 house. If it be improper for states to obtrude upon congress their 
 sentiments, it is much more highly so, for the unauthorized depu- 
 ties of fortuitous congregations. 
 
 The first singular feature that attracts attention in this bill, is the 
 new and unconstitutional veto which it establishes. The constitu- 
 tion has required only, that after bills have passed the house of 
 representatives and the senate, they shall be presented to the presi- 
 dent, for his approval or rejection ; and his determination is to be 
 made known in ten days. But this bill provides, that when all the 
 constitutional sanctions are obtained, and when, according to 
 the usual routine of legislation, it ought to be considered as a law, 
 it is to be submitted to a new branch of the legislature, consisting 
 of the president and twenty-four directors of the bank of the 
 United States, holding their sessions in Philadelphia ; and if they 
 please to approve it, why then is it to become a law ! And three 
 months (the term allowed by our law of May last, to one of the 
 great belligerents, for revoking his edicts, after the other shall have 
 repealed his) are granted them, to decide whether an act of congress 
 shall be the law of the land or not! — an act which is said to be 
 indispensably necessary to our salvation, and without the passage 
 of which, universal distress and bankruptcy are to pervade the 
 
ON THE BANK CHARTER. 213 
 
 country. Remember, sir, that the honorable gentleman from Geor- 
 gia, has contended that this charter is no contract. Does it, then, 
 become the representatives of the nation, to leave the nation at the 
 mercy of a corporation ? Ought the impending calamities to be 
 left to the hazard of a contingent remedy ? 
 
 This vagrant power to erect a bank, after having wandered 
 throughout the whole constitution in quest of some congenial spot 
 to fasten upon, has been at length located by the gentleman from 
 Georgia on that provision which authorizes congress to lay and 
 collect taxes, &,c. In 1791, the power is referred to one part of the 
 instrument; in 1811, to another. Sometimes it is alleged to be 
 deducible from the power to regulate commerce. Hard pressed 
 here, it disappears, and shows itself under the grant to coin money. 
 The sagacious secretary of the treasury, in 1791, pursued the wisest 
 course ; he has taken shelter behind general high sounding and 
 imposing terms. He has declared, in the preamble to the act 
 establishing the bank, that it will be very conducive to the success- 
 ful conducting of the national finances; will tend to give facility to 
 the obtaining of loans, and will be productive of considerable 
 advantage to trade and industry in general. No allusion is made 
 to the collection of taxes. What is the nature of this government ? 
 It is emphatically federal, vested with an aggregate of specified 
 powers for general purposes, conceded by existing sovereignties, 
 who have themselves retained what is not so conceded. It is said 
 that there are cases in which it must act on implied powers. This 
 is not controverted, but the implication must be necessary, and 
 obviously flow from the enumerated power with which it is allied. 
 The power to charter companies is not specified in the grant, and 
 I contend is of a nature not transferable by mere implication. It 
 is one of the most exalted attributes of sovereignty. In the exer- 
 cise of this gigantic power we have seen an East India Company 
 created, which has carried dismay, desolation, and death, throughout 
 one of the largest portions of the habitable world — a company 
 which is, in itself, a sovereignty, which has subverted empires and set 
 up new dynasties, and has not only made war, but war against, its 
 legitimate sovereign ! Under the influence of this power, we have 
 seen arise a South Sea Company, and a Mississippi Company, that 
 distracted and convulsed all Europe, and menaced a total over- 
 throw of all credit and confidence, and universal bankruptcy. Is 
 it to be imagined that a power so vast would have been left by 
 the wisdom of the constitution to doubtful inference ? It has been 
 alleged that there are many instances, in the constitution, where 
 powers in their nature incidental, and which would have necessa- 
 rily been vested along with the principal, are nevertheless expressly 
 enumerated ; and the power ' to make rules and regulations for 
 the government of the land and naval forces,' which it is said is 
 incidental to the power to raise armies and provide a navy, is given 
 
214 
 
 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 as an example. What does this prove ? How extremely cautious 
 the convention were to leave as little as possible to implication. In 
 all cases where incidental powers are acted upon, the principal and 
 incidental ought to be congenial with each other, and partake of a 
 common nature. The incidental power ought to be strictly subor- 
 dinate and limited to the end proposed to be attained by the 
 specified power. In other words, under the name of accomplish- 
 ing one object which is specified, the power implied ought not to 
 be made to embrace other objects, which are not specified in the 
 constitution. If, then, you could establish a bank, to collect and 
 distribute the revenue, it ought to be expressly restricted to the 
 purpose of such collection and distribution. It is mockery, worse 
 than usurpation, to establish it for a lawful object, and then to 
 extend it to other objects which are not lawful. In deducing ihe 
 power to create corporations, such as I have described it, from the 
 power to collect taxes, the relation and condition of principal and 
 incident are prostrated and destroyed. The accessory is exalted 
 above the principal. As well might it be said, that the great 
 luminary of day is an accessory, a satellite, to the humblest star 
 that twinkles forth its feeble light in the firmament of heaven ! 
 
 Suppose the constitution had been silent as to an individual 
 department of this government, could you, under the power to 
 lay and collect taxes, establish a judiciary ? I presume not ; but if 
 you could derive the power by mere implication, could you vest 
 it with any other authority than to enforce the collection of the 
 revenue ? A bank is made for the ostensible purpose of aiding 
 in the collection of the revenue, and whilst it is engaged in this, 
 the most inferior and subordinate of all its functions, it is made to 
 diffuse itself throughout society, and to influence all the great 
 operations of credit, circulation, and commerce. Like the Virginia 
 justice, you tell the man whose turkey had been stolen, that your 
 books of precedent furnish no form for his case, but that you will 
 grant him a precept to search for a cow, and when looking for that 
 he may possibly find his turkey ! You say to this corporation, we 
 cannot authorize you to discount, to emit paper, to regulate 
 commerce, &c. No ! Our book has no precedents of that kind. 
 But then we can authorize you to collect the revenue, and, whilst 
 occupied with that, you may do whatever else you please ! 
 
 What is a corporation, such as the bill contemplates ? It is a 
 splendid association of favored individuals, taken from the mass of 
 society, and invested with exemptions and surrounded by immu- 
 nities and privileges. The honorable gentleman from Massachu- 
 setts (Mr. Lloyd) has said, that the original law, establishing the 
 bank, was justly liable to the objection of vesting in that institution 
 an exclusive privilege, the faith of the government being pledged, 
 that no other bank should be authorized during its existence. This 
 objection, he supposes, is obviated by the bill under consideration ; 
 
ON THE BANK CHARTER. 215 
 
 but all corporations enjoy exclusive privileges ; that is, the corpora- 
 tors have privileges which no others possess ; if you create fifty 
 corporations instead of one, you have only fifty privileged bodies 
 instead of one. I contend, that the states have the exclusive power 
 to regulate contracts, to declare the capacities and incapacities to 
 contract, and to provide as to the extent of responsibility of debtors 
 to their creditors. If congress have the power to erect an artificial 
 body, and say it shall be endowed with the attributes of an indi- 
 vidual ; if you can bestow on this object of your own creation 
 the ability to contract, may you not, in contravention of state 
 rights, confer upon slaves, infants, and femes covert the ability to 
 contract ? And if you have the power to say, that an association 
 of individuals shall be responsible for their debts only in a certain 
 limited degree, what is to prevent an extension of a similar exemp- 
 tion to individuals ? Where is the limitation upon this power to 
 set up corporations. You establish one in the heart of a state, the 
 basis of whose capital is money. You may erect others whose 
 capital shall consist of land, slaves, and personal estates, and thus 
 the whole property within the jurisdiction of a state might be 
 absorbed by these political bodies. The existing bank contends 
 that it is beyond the power of a state to tax it, and if this pretension 
 be well founded, it is in the power of congress, by chartering 
 companies, to dry up all the sources of state revenue. Georgia 
 has undertaken, it is true, to levy a tax on the branch within her 
 jurisdiction, but this law, now under a course of litigation, is 
 considered as invalid. The United States own a great deal of 
 land in the state of Ohio ; can this government, for the purpose of 
 creating an ability to purchase it, charter a company ? Aliens are 
 forbidden, I believe, in that state, to hold real estate; could you, in 
 order to multiply purchasers, confer upon them the capacity to hold 
 land, in derogation of the local law ? I imagine this will be hardly 
 insisted upon; and yet there exists a more obvious connection be- 
 tween the undoubted power, which is possessed by this government, 
 to sell its land, and the means of executing that power by increasing 
 the demand in the market, than there is between this bank and 
 the collection of a tax. This government has the power to levy 
 taxes, to raise armies, provide a navy, make war, regulate commerce, 
 coin money, &c. &c. It would not be difficult to show as intimate 
 a connection between a corporation, established for any purpose 
 whatever, and some one or other of those great powers, as there is 
 between the revenue and the bank of the United States. 
 
 Let us inquire into the actual participation of this bank in the 
 collection of the revenue. Prior to the passage of the act of 1800, 
 requiring the collectors of those ports of entry, at which the 
 principal bank, or any of its offices, are situated, to deposit with 
 them the custom-house bonds, it had not the smallest agency in 
 the collection of the duties. During almost one moiety of the 
 
216 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 period to which the existence of this institution was limited, it was 
 nowise instrumental in the collection of that revenue, to which it is 
 now become indispensable ! The collection, previous to 1S00, was 
 made entirely by the collectors ; and even at present, where there 
 is one port of entry, at which this bank is employed, there are eight 
 or ten at which the collection is made as it was before 1800. And, 
 sir, what does this bank or its branches, where resort is had to it ? 
 It does not adjust with the merchant the amount of duty, nor take 
 his bond; nor, if the bond is not paid, coerce the payment by 
 distress or otherwise. In fact, it has no active agency whatever in 
 the collection. Its operation is merely passive ; that is, if the 
 obligor, after his bond is placed in the bank, discharges it, all is 
 very well. Such is the mighty aid afforded by this tax-gatherer, 
 without which the government cannot get along! Again, it is not 
 pretended that the very limited assistance which this institution 
 does in truth render, extends to any other than a single species of 
 tax, that is, duties. In the collection of the excise, the direct and 
 other internal taxes, no aid was derived from any bank. It is true, 
 in the collection of those taxes, the former did not obtain the same 
 indulgence which the merchant receives in paying duties. But 
 what obliges congress to give credit at all ? Could it not demand 
 prompt payment of the duties? And, in fact, does it not so 
 demand in many instances ? Whether credit is given or not is a 
 matter merely of discretion. If it be a facility to mercantile 
 operations (as I presume it is) it ought to be granted. But I deny 
 the right to engraft upon it a bank, which you would not otherwise 
 have the power to erect. You cannot create the necessity of a 
 bank, and then plead that necessity for its establishment. In the 
 administration of the finances, the bank acts simply as a payer and 
 receiver. The secretary of the treasury has money in New York, 
 and wants it in Charleston; the bank will furnish him wilh a 
 check, or bill, to make the remittance, which any merchant would 
 do just as well. 
 
 I will now proceed to show by fact, actual experience, not 
 theoretic reasoning, but by the records of the treasury themselves, 
 that the operations of that department may be as well conducted 
 without as with this bank. The delusion has consisted in the use 
 of certain high-sounding phrases, dexterously used on the occasion; 
 
 * the collection of the revenue,' ' the administration of the finance,' 
 
 * the conducting of the fiscal affairs of the government,' the usual 
 language of the advocates of the bank, extort express assent, or 
 awe into acquiescence, without inquiry or examination into its 
 necessity. About the commencement of this year there appears, 
 by the report of the secretary of the treasury, of the seventh of 
 January, to have been a little upwards of two million and four 
 hundred thousand dollars in the treasury of the United States ; and 
 more than one third of this whole sum was in the vaults of local 
 
ON THE BANK CHARTER. 217 
 
 banks. In several instances, where opportunities existed of selecting 
 the bank, a preference has been given to the state bank, or at least a 
 portion of the deposits has been made with it. In New York, for 
 example, there were deposited with the Manhattan bank one 
 hundred and eighty-eight thousand and six hundred and seventy- 
 dollars, although a branch bank is in that city. In this district, 
 one hundred and fifteen thousand and eighty dollars were deposited 
 with the bank of Columbia, although here also is a branch bank, 
 and yet the state banks are utterly unsafe to be trusted ! If the 
 money, after the bonds are collected, is thus placed with these 
 banks, I presume there can be no difficulty in placing the bonds 
 themselves there, if they must be deposited with some bank for 
 collection, which I deny. 
 
 Again, one of the most important and complicated branches of 
 the treasury department, is the management of our landed system. 
 The sales have, in some years, amounted to upwards of half a 
 million of dollars, and are generally made upon credit, and yet no 
 bank whatever is made use of to facilitate the collection. After it 
 is made, the amount, in some instances, has been deposited with 
 banks, and, according to the secretary's report, which I have before 
 adverted to, the amount so deposited, was, in January, upwards of 
 three hundred thousand dollars, not one cent of which was in the 
 vaults of the bank of the United States, or in any of its branches, 
 but in the bank of Pennsylvania, its branch at Pittsburgh, the 
 Marietta bank, and the Kentucky bank. Upon the point of 
 responsibility, I cannot subscribe to the opinion of the secretary of 
 the treasury, if it is meant that the ability to pay the amount of any 
 deposits which the government may make, under any exigency, is 
 greater than that of the state banks ; that the accountability of a 
 ramified institution, whose affairs are managed by a single head, 
 responsible for all its members, is more simple than that of a 
 number of independent and unconnected establishments, I shall 
 not deny; but, with regard to safety, I am strongly inclined to 
 think it is on the side of the local banks. The corruption or 
 misconduct of the parent, or any of its branches, may bankrupt or 
 destroy the whole system, and the loss of the government in that 
 event, will be of the deposits made with each; whereas, in the 
 failure of one state bank, the loss will be confined to the deposit in 
 the vault of that bank. It is said to have been a part of Burr's 
 plan to seize on the branch bank, at New Orleans. At that period 
 large sums, imported from La Vera Cruz, are alleged to have 
 been deposited with it, and if the traitor had accomplished the 
 design, the bank of the United States, if not actually bankrupt, 
 might have been constrained to stop payment. 
 
 It is urged by the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Lloyd), 
 that as this nation advances in commerce, wealth, and population, 
 new energies will be unfolded, new wants and exigences will arise, 
 vol. t. 28 
 
218 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 and hence he infers that powers must be implied from the consti- 
 tution. But, sir, the question is, shall we stretch the instrument to 
 embrace cases not fairly within its scope, or shall we resort to that 
 remedy, by amendment, which the constitution prescribes ? 
 
 Gentlemen contend, that the construction which they give to the 
 constitution has been acquiesced in by all parties and under all 
 administrations ; and they rely particularly on an act which passed 
 in 1804, for extending a branch to New Orleans ; and another act 
 of 1807, for punishing those who should forge or utter forged 
 paper of the bank. With regard to the first law, passed, no doubt, 
 upon the recommendation of the treasury department, I would 
 remark, that it was the extension of a branch to a territory over 
 which congress possesses the power of legislation almost uncon- 
 trolled, and where, without any constitutional impediment, charters 
 of incorporation may be granted. As to the other act, it was 
 passed no less for the benefit of the community than the bank ; to 
 protect the ignorant and unwary from counterfeit paper, purporting 
 to have been emitted by the bank. "When gentlemen are claiming 
 the advantage supposed to be deducible from acquiescence, let me 
 inquire, what they would have had those to do, who believed the 
 establishment of a bank an encroachment upon state rights. 
 Were they to have resisted, and how? By force? Upon the 
 change of parties in 1800, it must be well recollected, that the 
 greatest calamities were predicted as a consequence of that event 
 Intentions were ascribed to the new occupants of power, of 
 violating the public faith, and prostrating national credit. Under 
 such circumstances, that they should act with great circumspection 
 was quite natural. They saw in full operation a bank, chartered 
 by a congress who had as much right to judge of their constitu- 
 tional powers as their successors. Had they revoked the law 
 which gave it existence, the institution would, in all probability, 
 have continued to transact business notwithstanding. The judiciary 
 would have been appealed to, and, from the known opinions and 
 predilections of the judges then composing it, they would have 
 pronounced the act of incorporation, as in the nature of a contract, 
 beyond the repealing power of any succeeding legislature. And, 
 sir, what a scene of confusion would such a state of things have 
 presented ; an act of congress, which was law in the statute book, 
 and a nullity on the judicial records ! was it not the wisest to wait 
 the natural dissolution of the corporation rather than accelerate 
 that event by a repealing law involving so many delicate consid- 
 erations ? 
 
 When gentlemen attempt to carry this measure upon the ground 
 of acquiescence or precedent, do they forget that we are not in 
 Westminster Hall? In courts of justice, the utility of uniform 
 decision exacts of the judge a conformity to the adjudication of his 
 predecessor. In the interpretation and administration of the law, 
 
ON THE BANK CHARTER. 219 
 
 this practice is wise and proper, and without it, every thing 
 depending upon the caprice of the judge, we should have no 
 security for our dearest rights. It is far otherwise when applied to 
 the source of legislation. Here no rule exists but the constitution, 
 and to legislate upon the ground, merely, that our predecessors 
 thought themselves authorized, under similar circumstances, to 
 legislate, is to sanctify error and perpetuate usurpation. But if we 
 are to be subjected to the trammels of precedent, I claim, on the 
 other hand, the benefit of the restrictions under which the intelli- 
 gent judge cautiously receives them. It is an established rule, that 
 to give to a previous adjudication any effect, the mind of the judge 
 who pronounced it must have been awakened to the subject, and 
 it must have been a deliberate opinion formed after full argument. 
 In technical language, it must not have been sub silentio. Now 
 the acts of 1804 and 1807, relied upon as pledges for the recharter- 
 ing of this company, passed not only without any discussions what- 
 ever of the constitutional power of congress to establish a bank, 
 but, I venture to say, without a single member having had his 
 attention drawn to this question. I had the honor of a seat in the 
 senate when the latter law passed, probably voted for it, and I 
 declare, with the utmost sincerity, that I never once thought of that 
 point, and I appeal confidently to every honorable member who 
 was then present, to say if that was not his situation. 
 
 This doctrine of precedents, applied to the legislature, appears 
 to me to be fraught with the most mischievous consequences. The 
 great advantage of our system of government over all others, is, 
 that we have a written constitution defining its limits, and 
 prescribing its authorities; and that however for a time faction 
 may convulse the nation, and passion and party prejudice sway its 
 functionaries, the season of reflection will recur, when, calmly 
 retracing their deeds, all aberrations from fundamental principle 
 will be corrected. But once substitute practice for principle ; the 
 exposition of the constitution for the text of the constitution, and 
 in vain shall we look for the instrument in the instrument itself! 
 It will be as diffused and intangible as the pretended constitution 
 of England ; and must be sought for in the statute book, in the 
 fugitive journals of congress, and in the reports of the secretary of 
 the treasury ! What would be our condition, if we were to take 
 the interpretations given to that sacred book, which is, or ought to 
 be, the criterion of our faith, for the book itself ? We should find 
 the holy bible buried beneath the interpretations, glosses, and 
 comments of councils, synods, and learned divines, which have 
 produced swarms of intolerant and furious sects, partaking less of 
 the mildness and meekness of their origin, than of a vindictive 
 spirit of hostility towards each other! They ought to afford us a 
 solemn warning to make that constitution, which we have sworn 
 to support, our invariable guide. 
 
220 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 I conceive, then, sir, that we were not empowered by the consti- 
 tution, nor bound by any practice under it, to renew the charter of 
 this bank, and I might here rest the argument. But as there are 
 strong objections to the renewal on the score of expediency, and as 
 the distresses which will attend the dissolution of the bank have 
 been greatly exaggerated, I will ask for your indulgence for a 
 few moments longer. That some temporary inconvenience will 
 arise, I shall not deny; but most groundlessly have the recent 
 failures in New York been attributed to the discontinuance of this 
 bank. As well might you ascribe to that cause the failures of 
 Amsterdam and Hamburg, of London and Liverpool. The 
 embarrassments of commerce, the sequestrations in France, the 
 Danish captures; in fine, the belligerent edicts are the obvious 
 sources of these failures. Their immediate cause is the return of 
 bills upon London, drawn upon the faith of unproductive or 
 unprofitable shipments. Yes, sir, the protests of the notaries of 
 London, not those of New York, have occasioned these bank- 
 ruptcies. 
 
 The power of a nation is said to consist in the sword and the 
 purse. Perhaps, at last, all power is resolvable into that of the 
 purse, for with it you may command almost every thing else. The 
 specie circulation of the United States is estimated by some 
 calculators at ten millions of dollars, and if it be no more, one 
 moiety is in the vaults of this bank. May not the time arrive, 
 when the concentration of such a vast portion of the circulating 
 medium of the country in the hands of any corporation, will be 
 dangerous to our liberties? By whom is this immense power 
 wielded? By a body, that, in derogation of the great principle 
 of all our institutions, responsibility to the people, is amenable 
 only to a few stockholders, and they chiefly foreigners. Suppose 
 an attempt to subvert this government ; would not the traitor first 
 aim, by force or corruption, to acquire the treasure of this company? 
 Look at it in another aspect. Seven tenths of its capital are in 
 the hands of foreigners, and these foreigners chiefly English 
 subjects. We are possibly on the eve of a rupture with that 
 nation. Should such an event occur, do you apprehend that the 
 English premier would experience any difficulty in obtaining the 
 entire control of this institution? Republics, above all other 
 governments, ought most seriously to guard against foreign influ- 
 ence. All history proves, that the internal dissensions excited by 
 foreign intrigue have produced the downfall of almost every free 
 government that has hitherto existed ; and yet, gentlemen contend 
 that we are benefited by the possession of this foreign capital ! If 
 we could have its use, without its attending abuse, I should be 
 gratified also. But it is in vain to expect the one without the 
 other. Wealth is power, and, under whatsoever form it exists, its 
 proprietor, whether he lives on this or the other side of the Atlantic, 
 
ON THE BANK CHARTER. 221 
 
 will have a proportionate influence. It is argued, that our posses- 
 sion of this English capital gives us a great influence over the 
 British government. If this reasoning be sound, we had better 
 revoke the interdiction as to aliens holding land, and invite 
 foreigners to engross the whole property, real and personal, of the 
 country. We had better, at once, exchange the condition of 
 independent proprietors for that of stewards. We should then be 
 able to govern foreign nations, according to the reasoning of the 
 gentlemen on the other side. But let us put aside this theory and 
 appeal to the decisions of experience. Go to the other side of the 
 Atlantic and see what has been achieved for us there, by English- 
 men holding seven tenths of the capital of this bank. Has it 
 released from galling and ignominious bondage one solitary Amer- 
 ican seaman, bleeding under British oppression ? Did it prevent 
 the unmanly attack upon the Chesapeake? Did it arrest, the 
 promulgation, or has it abrogated the orders in council — those 
 orders which have given birth to a new era in commerce ? In spite 
 of all its boasted effect, are not the two nations brought to the very 
 brink of war? Are we quite sure, that, on this side of the water, 
 it has had no effect favorable to British interests. It has often been 
 stated, and although I do not know that it is susceptible of strict 
 proof, I believe it to be a fact, that this bank exercised its influence 
 in support of Jay's treaty; and may it not have contributed to 
 blunt the public sentiment, or paralyse the efforts of this nation 
 against British aggression. 
 
 The duke of Northumberland is said to be the most considerable 
 stockholder in the bank of the United States. A late lord chan- 
 cellor of England, besides other noblemen, was a large stockholder. 
 Suppose the prince of Essling, the duke of Cadore, and other 
 French dignitaries, owned seven eighths of the capital of this bank, 
 should we witness the same exertions (I allude not to any made in 
 the senate) to recharter it ? So far from it, would not the danger 
 of French influence be resounded throughout the nation? 
 
 I shall, therefore, give my most hearty assent to the motion for 
 striking out the first section of the bill. 
 
ON THE AUGMENTATION OE MILITARY FORCE, 
 
 IN THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 
 DECEMBER 31, 1811. 
 
 [ In our biographical sketch, we have mentioned, that Mr. Clay, having left the 
 senate of the United States in 181 1, was the same year elected to the house of repre- 
 sentatives, where he took his seat, and was chosen speaker of that body on the 
 opening of the session. This took place at an eventful period in our national history. 
 The numerous and aggravated wrongs which the nation had sustained and endured for 
 years, both from France and England, but more especially from the latter, had aroused 
 the attention of the whole country. The celebrated orders in council, the impress- 
 ment of our seamen, and the right of searching our vessels, claimed and exercised 
 by Great Britain, had prepared the people to expect that some decisive steps would 
 be taken by their representatives in congress. In accordance with public sentiment, 
 president Madison transmitted, November fourth, 1811, a message to congress, recom- 
 mending appropriate measures for the vindication of our national honor, and the 
 redress of our violated rights. The political parties, however, into which the people 
 were divided, differed widely as to the course to be pursued in our foreign relations. 
 The opposition to the administration numbered many eminent men, among whom 
 the most talented and troublesome was John Randolph, of Virginia ; his intellectual 
 powers at this juncture being in full force and vigor. The committee on foreign 
 relitions proposed an immediate increase of the military force, and accordingly a bill 
 passed, to raise thirteen additional regiments for the public service. It was the 
 consideration of this measure, which induced Mr. Clay to address the house, when in 
 committee of the whole, as follows. ] 
 
 Mr. Clay (the speaker) said, that when the subject of this bill 
 was before the house in the abstract form of a resolution, proposed 
 by the committee of foreign relations, it was the pleasure of the 
 house to discuss it whilst he was in the chair. He did not com- 
 plain of this course of proceeding; for he did not at any time 
 wish the house, from considerations personal to him, to depart 
 from that mode of transacting the public business which they 
 thought best. He merely adverted to the circumstance as an 
 apology for the trouble he was about to give the committee. He 
 was at all times disposed to take his share of responsibility, and 
 under this impression, he felt that he owed it to his constituents 
 and to himself, before the committee rose, to submit to their atten- 
 tion a few observations. 
 
 He saw with regret a diversity of opinion amongst those who 
 had the happiness generally to act together, in relation to the 
 quantum of force proposed to be raised. For his part, he thought 
 it was too great for peace, and he feared too small for war. He 
 
AUGMENTATION OF MILITARY FORCE. 223 
 
 had been in favor of the number recommended by the senate, and 
 he would ask gentlemen, who had preferred fifteen thousand, to take 
 a candid and dispassionate view of the subject. It was admitted, on 
 all hands, that it was a force to be raised for the purposes of war, 
 and to be kept up and used only in the event of war. It was 
 further conceded, that its principal destination would be the 
 provinces of our enemy. By the bill which had been passed, to 
 complete the peace establishment, we had authorized the collection of 
 a force of about six thousand men, exclusive of those now in service, 
 which, with the twenty-five thousand provided for by this bill, will 
 give an aggregate of new troops of thirty-one thousand men. 
 Experience in military affairs, has shown, that when any given 
 number of men is authorized to be raised, you must, in counting 
 upon the effective men which it will produce, deduct one fourth or 
 one third for desertion, sickness, and other incidents to which raw 
 troops are peculiarly exposed. In measures relating to war, it is 
 wisest, if you err at all, to err on the side of the largest force, and 
 you will consequently put down your thirty-one thousand men 
 at not more than an effective force in the field of about twenty- 
 one thousand. This, with the four thousand now in service, will 
 amount to twenty-five thousand effective men. The secretary of 
 war has stated, in his report, that, for the single purpose of manning 
 your forts and garrisons on the sea-board, twelve thousand and six 
 hundred men are necessary. Although the whole of that number 
 will not be taken from the twenty-five thousand, a portion of it, 
 probably, w T ill be. We are told, that in Canada, there are between 
 seven and eight thousand regular troops. If it is invaded, the 
 whole of that force will be concentrated in Quebec, and would 
 you attempt that almost impregnable fortress, with less than double 
 the force of the besieged? Gentlemen who calculate upon volun- 
 teers as a substitute for regulars, ought not to deceive themselves. 
 No man appreciated higher than he did the spirit of the country. 
 But, although volunteers were admirably adapted to the first opera- 
 tions of the war, to the making of a first impression, he doubted 
 their fitness for a regular siege, or for the manning and garrisoning 
 of forts. He understood it was a rule in military affairs, never to 
 leave in the rear a place of any strength undefended. Canada is 
 invaded ; the upper part falls, and you proceed to Quebec. It is 
 true there would be no European army behind to be apprehended: 
 but the people of the country might rise ; and he warned gentle- 
 men who imagined that the affections of the Canadians were with 
 us, against trusting too confidently on such a calculation, the basis 
 of which was treason. He concluded, therefore, that a portion of 
 the invading army would be distributed in the upper country, after 
 its conquest, amongst the places susceptible of military strength 
 and defence. The army, considerably reduced, sets itself down 
 before Quebec. Suppose it falls. Here again will be required a 
 
224 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 number of men to hold and defend it. And if the war be 
 prosecuted still further, and the lower country and Halifax be 
 assailed, he conceived it obvious, that the whole force of twenty- 
 five thousand men would not be too great. 
 
 The difference between those who were for fifteen thousand, and 
 those who were for twenty-five thousand men, appeared to him to 
 resolve itself into the question, merely, of a short or protracted war ; 
 a war of vigor, or a war of languor and imbecility. If a competent 
 force be raised in the first instance, the war on the continent will 
 be speedily terminated. He was aware that it might still rage on 
 the ocean. But where the nation could act with unquestionable 
 success, he was in favor of the display of an energy correspondent 
 to the feelings and spirit of \the country. Suppose one third of the 
 force he had mentioned (twenty-five thousand men) could reduce 
 the country, say in three years, and that the whole could accomplish 
 the same object in one year; taking into view the greater hazard 
 of the repulsion and defeat of the small force, and every other 
 consideration, do not wisdom and true economy equally decide in 
 favor of the larger force, and thus prevent failure in consequence 
 of inadequate means? He begged gentlemen to recollect the 
 immense extent of the United States ; our vast maritime frontier, 
 vulnerable in almost all its parts to predatory incursions, and he 
 was persuaded, they would see that a regular force, of twenty-five 
 thousand men, was not much too great daring a period of war, if 
 all designs of invading the provinces of the enemy were abandoned. 
 
 Mr. Clay proceeded next to examine the nature of the force 
 contemplated by the bill. It was a regular army, enlisted for a 
 limited time, raised for the sole purpose of war, and to be disbanded 
 on the return of peace. Against this army, all our republican 
 jealousies and apprehensions are attempted to be excited. He was 
 not the advocate of standing armies; but the standing armies 
 which excite most his fears, are those which are kept up in time of 
 peace. He confessed, he did not perceive any real source of 
 danger in a military force of twenty-five thousand men in the 
 United States, provided only for a state of war, even supposing it to 
 be corrupted, and its arms turned, by the ambition of its leaders, 
 against the freedom of the country. He saw abundant security 
 against the success of any such treasonable attempt. The diffusion 
 of political information amongst the great body of the people, 
 constituted a powerful safeguard. The American character has 
 been much abused by Europeans, whose tourists, whether on 
 horse or foot, in verse and prose, have united in depreciating it. It 
 is true, that we do not exhibit as many signal instances of scientific 
 acquirement in this country as are furnished in the old world; but 
 he believed it undeniable, that the great mass of the people 
 possessed more intelligence than any other people on the globe. 
 Such a people, consisting of upwards of seven millions, affording 
 
AUGMENTATION OF MILITARY FORCE. 225 
 
 a physical power of about a million of men, capable of bearing 
 arms, and ardently devoted to liberty, could not be subdued by an 
 army of twenty-five thousand men. The wide extent of country 
 over which we are spread, was another security. In other countries, 
 France and England, for example, the fall of Paris or London, is 
 the fall of the nation. Here are no such dangerous aggregations 
 of people. New York, and Philadelphia, and Boston, and every 
 city on the Atlantic, might be subdued by an usurper, and he would 
 have made but a small advance in the accomplishment of his 
 purpose. He would add a still more improbable supposition, that 
 the country east of the Allegany, was to submit to the ambition of 
 some daring chief, and he insisted that the liberty of the union 
 would be still unconquered. It would find successful support 
 from the west. We are not only in the situation just described, but a 
 great portion of the militia — nearly the whole, he understood, of 
 that of Massachusetts — have arms in their hands ; and he trusted 
 in God, that that great object would be persevered in, until every 
 man in the nation could proudly shoulder the musket, which was 
 to defend his country and himself. A people having, besides ihe 
 benefit of one general government, other local governments in full 
 operation, capable of exerting and commanding great portions of 
 the physical power, all of which must be prostrated before our 
 constitution is subverted. Such a people have nothing to fear from 
 a petty contemptible force of twenty-five thousand regulars. 
 
 Mr. Clay proceeded, more particularly, to inquire into the object 
 of the force. That object he understood distinctly to be war, and 
 war with Great Britain. It had been supposed, by some gentle- 
 men, improper to discuss publicly so delicate a question. He did 
 not feel the impropriety. It was a subject in its nature incapable 
 of concealment. Even in countries where the powers of govern- 
 ment were conducted by a single ruler, it was almost impossible 
 for that ruler to conceal his intentions when he meditates war. 
 The assembling of armies, the strengthening of posts ; all the 
 movements preparatory to war, and which it is impossible to 
 disguise, unfolded the intentions of the sovereign. Does Russia 
 or France intend war, the intention is almost invariably known 
 before the war is commenced. If congress were to pass a law, 
 with closed doors, for raising an army for the purpose of war, its 
 enlistment and organization, which could not be done in secret, 
 would indicate the use to which it was to be applied ; and we 
 cannot suppose England would be so blind, as not to see that she 
 was aimed at. Nor could she, did she apprehend, injure us more 
 by thus knowing our purposes, than if she were kept in ignorance 
 of them. She may, indeed, anticipate us, and commence the war. 
 But that is what she is in fact doing, and she can add but little to 
 the injury which she is inflicting. If she choose to declare war in 
 form, let her do so, the responsibility will be with her. 
 vol. i. 29 
 
226 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 What are we to gain by the war ? has been emphatically asked. 
 In reply, he would ask, what are we not to lose by peace ? Com- 
 merce, character, a nation's best treasure, honor! If pecuniary 
 considerations alone are to govern, there is sufficient motive for 
 the war. Our revenue is reduced, by the operation of the bellige- 
 rent edicts, to about six millions of dollars, according to the 
 secretary of the treasury's report. The year preceding the embargo 
 it was sixteen. Take away the orders in council, it will again 
 mount up to sixteen millions. By continuing, therefore, in peace, 
 (if the mongrel state in which we are deserve that denomination,) 
 we lose annually in revenue alone ten millions of dollars. Gentle- 
 men will say, repeal the law of non-importation. He contended, 
 that, if the United States, were capable of that perfidy, the revenue 
 would not be restored to its former state, the orders in council 
 continuing. Without an export trade, which those orders prevent, 
 inevitable ruin would ensue, if we imported as freely as we did 
 prior to the embargo. A nation that carries on an import trade, 
 without an export trade to support it, must, in the end, be as 
 certainly bankrupt, as the individual would be, who incurred an 
 annual expenditure without an income. 
 
 He had no disposition to magnify or dwell upon the catalogue 
 of injuries we had received from England. He could not, how- 
 ever, overlook the impressment of our seamen — an aggression 
 upon which he never reflected, without feelings of indignation, 
 which would not allow him appropriate language to describe its 
 enormity. Not content with seizing upon all our property which 
 falls within her rapacious grasp, the personal rights of our country- 
 men — rights which forever ought to be sacred — are trampled 
 upon and violated. The orders in council were pretended to have 
 been reluctantly adopted, as a measure of retaliation. The French 
 decrees, their alleged basis, are revoked. England resorts to the 
 expedient of denying the fact of the revocation, and Sir William 
 Scott, in the celebrated case of Fox and others, suspends judgment 
 that proof may be adduced to it. At the same moment, when the 
 British ministry, through that judge, is thus affecting to controvert 
 that fact, and to place the release of our property upon its estab- 
 lishment, instructions are prepared for Mr. Foster, to meet at 
 Washington the very revocation which they were contesting. And 
 how does he meet it? By fulfilling the engagement solemnly 
 made to rescind the orders ? No, sir ; but by demanding that we 
 shall secure the introduction, into the continent, of British manu- 
 factures ! 
 
 England is said to be fighting for the world, and shall we, it is 
 asked, attempt to weaken her exertions ? If, indeed, the aim of the 
 French emperor be universal dominion, (and he was willing to 
 ajlow it to the argument,) how much nobler a cause is presented to 
 British valor! But how is her philanthropic purpose to be 
 
AUGMENTATION OF MILITARY FORCE. 227 
 
 achieved? By a scrupulous observance of the rights of others, 
 by respecting that code of public law which she professes to 
 vindicate, and by abstaining from self-aggrandizement. Then 
 would she command the sympathies of the world. What are we 
 required to do by those who would engage our feelings and wishes 
 in her behalf? To bear the actual cuffs of her arrogance, that we 
 may escape a chimerical French subjugation! We are invited, 
 conjured, to drink the potion of British poison, actually presented 
 to our lips, that we may avoid the imperial dose prepared by 
 perturbed imaginations. We are called upon to submit to debase- 
 ment, dishonor, and disgrace ; to bow the neck to royal insolence, 
 as a course of preparation for manly resistance to gallic invasion ! 
 What nation, what individual, was ever taught, in the schools of 
 ignominious submission, these patriotic lessons of freedom and 
 independence ? Let those who contend for this humiliating 
 doctrine, read its refutation in the history of the very man against 
 whose insatiable thirst of dominion we are warned. The expe- 
 rience of desolated Spain, for the last fifteen years, is worth volumes. 
 Did she find her repose and safety in subserviency to the will of 
 that man? Had she boldly stood forth and repelled the first 
 attempt to dictate to her councils, her monarch would not be now 
 a miserable captive in Marseilles. Let us come home to our own 
 history ; it was not by submission that our fathers achieved our 
 independence. The patriotic wisdom that placed you, Mr. Chair- 
 man, under that canopy, penetrated the designs of a corrupt 
 ministry, and nobly fronted encroachment on its first appearance. 
 It saw, beyond the petty taxes with which it commenced, a long 
 train of oppressive measures, terminating in the total annihilation 
 of liberty, and, contemptible as they were, it did not hesitate to 
 resist them. Take the experience of the last four or five years, 
 which he was sorry to say exhibited, in appearance, at least, a 
 different kind of spirit. He did not wish to view the past, further 
 than to guide us for the future. We were but yesterday contend- 
 ing for the indirect trade ; the right to export to Europe the coffee 
 and sugar of the West Indies. To-day we are asserting our claim 
 to the direct trade; the right to export our cotton, tobacco, and 
 other domestic produce, to market. Yield this point, and to-mor- 
 row intercourse between New York and New Orleans, between 
 the planters on James river and Richmond, will be interdicted. 
 For, sir, the career of encroachment is never arrested by submis- 
 sion. It will advance while there remains a single privilege on 
 which it can operate. Gentlemen say, that this government is 
 unfit for any war, but a war of invasion. What, is it not equiva- 
 lent to invasion, if the mouths of our harbors and outlets are 
 blocked up, and we are denied egress from our own waters ? Or, 
 when the burglar is at our door, shall we bravely sally forth and 
 repel his felonious entrance, or meanly skulk within the cells of 
 the castle ? 
 
228 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 He contended, that the real cause of British aggression was, not 
 to distress an enemy, but to destroy a rival. A comparative view of 
 our commerce with that of England and the continent, would satisfy 
 any one of the truth of this remark. Prior to the embargo, the 
 balance of trade between this country and England was between 
 eleven and fifteen millions of dollars in favor of England. Our 
 consumption of her manufactures was annually increasing, and 
 had risen to nearly fifty millions of dollars. We exported to her 
 what she most wanted, provisions and raw materials for her 
 manufactures, and received in return what she was most desirous 
 to sell. Our exports to France, Holland, Spain, and Italy, taking 
 an average of the years 1802, 1803, and 1804, amounted to about 
 twelve million dollars of domestic, and about eighteen million 
 dollars of foreign produce. Our imports from the same countries, 
 amounted to about twenty-five million dollars. The foreign pro- 
 duce exported, consisted chiefly of luxuries, from the West Indies. 
 It is apparent that this trade, the balance of which was in favor, not 
 of France, but of the United States, was not of very vital conse- 
 quence to the enemy of England. Would she, therefore, for the 
 sole purpose of depriving her adversary of this commerce, relin- 
 quish her valuable trade with this country, exhibiting the essential 
 balance in her favor; nay, more, hazard the peace of the country? 
 No, sir; you must look for an explanation of her conduct in the 
 jealousies of a rival. She sickens at your prosperity, and beholds, 
 in your growth — your sails spread on every ocean, and your 
 numerous seamen — the foundations of a power which, at no very 
 distant day, is to make her tremble for her naval superiority. He 
 had omitted before to notice the loss of our seamen, if we 
 continued in our present situation. What would become of the 
 one hundred thousand (for he understood there was about that 
 number) in the American service ? Would they not leave us 
 and seek employment abroad, perhaps in the very country that 
 injures us? 
 
 It is said, that the effect of the war at home, will be a change of 
 those who administer the government, who will be replaced by 
 others that will make a disgraceful peace. He did not believe it. 
 Not a man in the nation could really doubt the sincerity with 
 which those in power have sought, by all honorable and pacific 
 means, to protect the interests of the country. When the people 
 saw exercised towards both belligerents the utmost impartiality; 
 witnessed the same equal terms tendered to both ; and beheld the 
 government successively embracing an accommodation with each, 
 in exactly the same spirit of amity, he was fully persuaded, now 
 that war was the only alternative left to us, by the injustice of one 
 of the powers, that the support and confidence of the people would 
 remain undiminished. He was one, however, who was prepared 
 (and he would not believe that he was more so than any other 
 
AUGMENTATION OF MILITARY FORCE. 229 
 
 member of the committee) to march on in the road of his duty, at 
 all hazards. What! shall it be said, that our amor patr ice is located 
 at these desks ; that we pusillanimously cling to our seats here, 
 rather than boldly vindicate the most inestimable rights of the 
 country ? Whilst the heroic Daviess, and his gallant associates, 
 exposed to all the dangers of treacherous savage warfare, are 
 sacrificing themselves for the good of their country, shall we 
 shrink from our duty? 
 
 He concluded, by hoping that his remarks had tended to prove 
 that the quantum of the force required was not too great, that in 
 its nature it was free from the objections urged against it, and that 
 the object of its application was one imperiously called for by the 
 present peculiar crisis. 
 
ON THE INCREASE OF THE NAVY. 
 
 IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, JANUARY 22, 1812. 
 
 [The bill making provisions for the general repair and increase of the Navy, 
 followed the preceding measure for augmenting the army. During Mr. Jefferson's 
 administration, the Navy had been unpopular with the democratic party, and the 
 policy of reducing that branch of the national force had been pursued, in opposition 
 to the former course, adopted by the administration of John Adams. Many of the 
 democratic supporters of Mr Madison's administration, still adhered to the policy of 
 Mr. Jefferson; while Mr. Clay, Mr. Cheves, and other members of that party, saw the 
 importance of sustaining the navy, in prospect of war. Among the arguments in 
 opposition to the bill, now introduced, it was insisted that the fitting out of naval 
 armaments would require a pecuniary expenditure which the people were not 
 prepared to meet. The bill contained a section, providing for new frigates, leaving a 
 blank for the number. Mr. Cheves (of South Carolina) moved to fill the blank with 
 ten. Mr. Rhea (of Tennessee) moved to strike out this section of the bill. In 
 committee of the whole, a warm debate ensued. Mr. Clay, in the following speech, 
 sustained the proposition of Mr. Cheves, and the motion to strike out was rejected, 
 by a vote of fifty-two to forty-seven. An appropriation was made, and the Navy 
 fitted out with despatch. The result is known by the naval victories, which, in less 
 than two years, crowned this right arm of the nation with glory, and gave it an 
 enduring popularity with the people.] 
 
 Mr. Clay (the speaker) rose to present his views on the bill 
 before the committee. He said, as he did not precisely agree in 
 opinion with any gentleman who had spoken, he should take the 
 liberty of detaining the committee a few moments, while he offered 
 to their attention some observations. He was highly gratified with 
 the temper and ability with which the discussion had hitherto been 
 conducted. It was honorable to the house, and, he trusted, would 
 continue to be manifested on many future occasions. 
 
 On this interesting topic a diversity of opinion has existed, 
 almost ever since the adoption of the present government. On the 
 one hand, there appeared to him to have been attempts made to 
 precipitate the nation into all the evils of naval extravagance, 
 which had been productive of so much mischief in other countries; 
 and, on the other, strongly feeling this mischief, there has existed 
 an unreasonable prejudice against providing such a competent 
 naval protection, for our commercial and maritime rights, as is 
 demanded by their importance, and as the increased resources of 
 the country amply justify. 
 
ON THE INCREASE OF THE NAVY. 231 
 
 The attention of congress has been invited to this subject by the 
 president, in his message, delivered at the opening of the session. 
 Indeed, had it been wholly neglected by the chief magistrate, from 
 the critical situation of the country, and the nature of the rights 
 proposed to be vindicated, it must have pressed itself upon our 
 attention. But, said Mr. Clay, the president, in his message, 
 observes: 'your attention will, of course, be drawn to such 
 provisions on the subject of our naval force, as may be required 
 for the service to which it is best adapted. I submit to congress 
 the seasonableness, also, of an authority to augment the stock of 
 such materials as are imperishable in their nature, or may not, at 
 once, be attainable?' The president, by this recommendation, 
 clearly intimates an opinion, that the naval force of this country is 
 capable of producing effect; and the propriety of laying up 
 imperishable materials, was no doubt suggested for the purpose 
 of making additions to the navy, as convenience and exigences 
 might direct. 
 
 It appeared to Mr. Clay a little extraordinary, that so much, as it 
 seemed to him, unreasonable jealousy, should exist against the 
 naval establishment. If, said he, we look back to the period of the 
 formation of the constitution, it will be found that no such jealousy 
 was then excited. In placing the physical force of the nation at 
 the disposal of congress, the convention manifested much greater 
 apprehension of abuse in the power given to raise armies, than in 
 that to provide a navy. In reference to the navy, congress is put 
 under no restrictions ; but with respect to the army, that description 
 of force which has been so often employed to subvert the liberties 
 of mankind, they are subjected to limitations designed to prevent 
 the abuse of this dangerous power. But it was not his intention 
 to detain the committee, by a discussion on the comparative utility 
 and safety of these two kinds of force. He would, however, be 
 indulged in saying, that he thought gentlemen had wholly failed in 
 maintaining the position they had assumed, that the fall of mari- 
 time powers was attributable to their navies. They have told you, 
 indeed, that Carthage, Genoa, Venice, and other nations, had 
 navies, and, notwithstanding, were finally destroyed. But have 
 they shown, by a train of argument, that their overthrow was, in 
 any degree, attributable to their maritime greatness? Have they 
 attempted, even, to show that there exists in the nature of this 
 power a necessary tendency to destroy the nation using it? 
 Assertion is substituted for argument; inferences not authorized 
 by historical facts are arbitrarily drawn; things wholly unconnected 
 with each other are associated together; a very logical mode of 
 reasoning, it must be admitted! In the same way he could 
 demonstrate how idle and absurd our attachments are to freedom 
 itself. He might say, for example, that Greece and Rome had 
 forms of free government, and that they no longer exist; and, 
 
232 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 deducing their fall from their devotion to liberty, the conclusion, in 
 favor of despotism, would very satisfactorily follow ! He demanded 
 what there is in the nature and construction of maritime power, 
 to excite the fears that have been indulged ? Do gentlemen really 
 apprehend, that a body of seamen will abandon their proper 
 element, and, placing themselves under an aspiring chief, will 
 erect a throne to his ambition ? Will they deign to listen to the 
 voice of history, and learn how chimerical are their apprehen- 
 sions? 
 
 But the source of alarm is in ourselves. Gentlemen fear, that if 
 we provide a marine, it will produce collisions with foreign nations ; 
 plunge us into war, and ultimately overturn the constitution of the 
 country. Sir, if you wish to avoid foreign collision, you had 
 better abandon the ocean ; surrender all your commerce ; give up 
 all your prosperity. It is the thing protected, not the instrument 
 of protection, that involves you in war. Commerce engenders 
 collision, collision war, and war, the argument supposes, leads to 
 despotism. Would the counsels of that statesman be deemed 
 wise, who would recommend that the nation should be unarmed ; 
 that the art of war, the martial spirit, and martial exercises, should 
 be prohibited; who should declare, in the language of Othello, that 
 the nation must bid farewell to the neighing steed, and the shrill 
 trump, the spirit-stirring drum, the ear-piercing fife, and all the 
 pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war ; and that the great 
 body of the people should be taught, that national happiness was 
 to be found in perpetual peace alone ? No, sir. And yet, every 
 argument in favor of a power of protection on land, applies, in 
 some degree, to a power of protection on the sea. Undoubtedly 
 a commerce void of naval protection is more exposed to rapacity 
 than a guarded commerce ; and if we wish to invite the continu- 
 ance of the old, or the enactment of new edicts, let us refrain from 
 all exertion upon that element where we must operate, and where, 
 in the end, they must be resisted. 
 
 For his part (Mr. Clay said) he did not allow himself to be 
 alarmed by those apprehensions of maritime power, which 
 appeared to agitate other gentlemen. In the nature of our govern- 
 ment he beheld abundant security against abuse. He would be 
 unwilling to tax the land to support the rights of the sea, and was 
 for drawing from the sea itself, the resources with which its 
 violated freedom should at all times be vindicated. Whilst this 
 principle is adhered to, there will be no danger of running into the 
 folly and extravagance which so much alarms gentlemen ; and 
 whenever it is abandoned — whenever congress shall lay burden- 
 some taxes, to augment the navy beyond what may be authorized 
 by the increased wealth, and demanded by the exigences, of the 
 country, the people will interpose, and, removing their unworthy re- 
 presentatives, apply the appropriate corrective. Mr. Clay, then, could 
 
ON THE INCREASE OF THE NAVY. 233 
 
 not see any just ground of dread in the nature of naval power. 
 It was, on the contrary, free from the evils attendant upon standing 
 armies. And the genius of our institutions — the great represen- 
 tative principle, in the practical enjoyment of which we are so 
 eminently distinguished — afforded the best guarantee against the 
 ambition and wasteful extravagance of government. What mar- 
 itime strength is it expedient to provide for the United States? In 
 considering this subject, three different degrees of naval power pre- 
 sent themselves. In the first place, such a force as would be capa- 
 ble of contending with that which any other nation i3 able to bring 
 on the ocean — a force that, boldly scouring every sea, would chal- 
 lenge to combat the fleets of other powers, however great. He 
 admitted it was impossible at this time, perhaps it never would be 
 desirable, for this country to establish so extensive a navy. Indeed, 
 he should consider it as madness in the extreme in this government 
 to attempt to provide a navy able to cope with the fleets of Great 
 Britain, wherever they might be met. 
 
 The next species of naval power to which he would advert, is 
 that which, without adventuring into distant seas, and keeping 
 generally in our own harbors, and on our coasts, would be compe- 
 tent to beat off any squadron which might be attempted to be 
 permanently stationed in our waters. His friends from South 
 Carolina (Messrs. Cheves and Lowndes) had satisfactorily shown, 
 that, to effect this object, a force equivalent only to one third of that 
 which the maintenance of such a squadron must require, would be 
 sufficient ; that if, for example, England should determine to station 
 permanently upon our coast a squadron of twelve ships of the 
 line, it would require for this service thirty-six ships of the line ; 
 one third in port, repairing, one third on the passage, and one third 
 on the station. But that is a force which it has been shown that 
 even England, with her boasted navy, could not spare for the 
 American service, whilst she is engaged in the present contest. 
 Mr. Clay said, that he was desirous of seeing such a force as he 
 had described ; that is, twelve ships of the line and fifteen or twenty 
 frigates, provided for the United States ; but he admitted that it 
 was unattainable in the present situation of the finances of the 
 country. He contended, however, that it was such as congress 
 ought to set about providing ; and he hoped, in less than ten years, 
 to see it actually established. He was far frdm surveying the vast 
 maritime power of Great Britain, with the desponding eye with 
 which other gentlemen beheld it. He could not allow himself to 
 be discouraged at a prospect of even her thousand ships. This 
 country only required resolution, and a proper exertion of its 
 immense resources, to command respect, and to vindicate every 
 essential right. When we consider our remoteness from Europe, 
 the expense, difficulty, and perils, to which any squadron would 
 be exposed, while stationed off our coasts, he entertained no doubt 
 vol. i. 30 
 
234 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 that the force to which he referred, would insure the command of 
 our own seas. Such a force would avail itself of our extensive 
 sea-board and numerous harbors, every where affording asylums 
 to which it could safely retire from a superior fleet, or from which 
 it could issue, for the purpose of annoyance. To the opinion of 
 his colleague (Mr. M'Kee), who appeared to think that it was in 
 vain for us to make any struggle on the ocean, he would oppose 
 the sentiments of his distinguished connection, the heroic Daviess, 
 who fell in the battle of Tippecanoe. [Here Mr. Clay read certain 
 parts of a work, written by colonel Daviess, in which the author 
 attempts to show, that, as the aggressions upon our commerce were 
 not committed by fleets, but by single vessels, they could, in the 
 same manner, be best retaliated ; that the force of about twenty or 
 thirty- frigates, would be capable of inflicting great injury on 
 English commerce, by picking up stragglers, cutting off convoys, 
 and seizing upon every moment of supineness ; and that such a 
 force, with our seaports and harbors well fortified, and aided by 
 privateers, would be really formidable, and would annoy the British 
 navy and commerce, just as the French army was assailed in 
 Egypt, the Persian army in Scythia, and the Roman army in 
 Parthia.] 
 
 The third description of force, worthy of consideration, is, that 
 which would be able to prevent any single vessel, of whatever 
 metal, from endangering our whole coasting trade, blocking up our 
 harbors, and laying under contribution our cities — a force compe- 
 tent to punish the insolence of the commander of any single ship, 
 and to preserve in our own jurisdiction, the inviolability of our 
 peace and our laws. A force of this kind is entirely within the 
 compass of our means, at this time. Is there a reflecting man in 
 the nation, who would not charge congress with a culpable neglect 
 of its duty, if, for the want of such a force, a single ship were to 
 bombard one of our cities ! Would not every honorable memb*er 
 of the committee inflict on himself the bitterest reproaches, if, by 
 failing to make an inconsiderable addition to our little gallant 
 navy, a single British vessel should place New York under contri- 
 bution ! Yes, sir, when the city is in flames, its wretched inhabi- 
 tants begin to repent of their neglect, in not providing engines and 
 water-buckets. If, said Mr. Clay, we are not able to meet the 
 wolves of the forest, shall we put up with the barking impudence 
 of every petty cur that trips across our way? Because we cannot 
 guard against every possible danger, shall we provide against 
 none ? He hoped not. He had hardly expected that the instruct- 
 ing but humiliating lesson, was so soon to be forgotten, which 
 was taught us in the murder of Pierce, the attack on the Chesa- 
 peake, and the insult offered in the very harbor of Charleston, 
 which the brave old fellow who commanded the fort in vain 
 endeavored to chastise. It was a rule with Mr. Clay, when acting 
 
ON THE INCREASE OF THE NAVY. 235 
 
 either in a public or private character, to attempt nothing more than 
 what there existed a prospect of accomplishing. He was therefore 
 not in favor of entering into any mad projects on this subject, but 
 for deliberately and resolutely pursuing what he believed to be 
 within the power of government. Gentlemen refer to the period 
 of 1798, and we are reminded of the principles maintained by the 
 opposition at that time. He had no doubt of the correctness of 
 that opposition. The naval schemes of that day were premature, 
 not warranted by the resources of the country, and were contem- 
 plated for an unnecessary war, into which the nation was about to 
 be plunged. He always admired and approved the zeal and 
 ability with which that opposition was conducted, by the distin- 
 guished gentleman now at the head of the treasury. But the state 
 of things is totally altered. What was folly in 1798, may be 
 wisdom now. At that time, we had a revenue only of about six 
 millions. Our revenue now, upon a supposition that commerce is 
 restored, is about sixteen millions. The population of the country, 
 too, is greatly increased, nearly doubled, and the wealth of the 
 nation is perhaps tripled. Whilst our ability to construct a navy is 
 thus enhanced, the necessary maritime protection is proportionably 
 augmented. Independent of the extension of our commerce, 
 since the year 1798, we have had an addition of more than five 
 hundred miles to our coast, from the bay of Perdido to the mouth 
 of the Sabine — a weak and defenceless accession, requiring, more 
 than any other part of our maritime frontier, the protecting arm of 
 government. 
 
 The groundless imputation, that those who were friendly to a 
 navy, were espousing a principle inimical to freedom, should not 
 terrify him. He was not ashamed when in such company as the 
 illustrious author of the notes on Virginia, whose opinion on the 
 subject of a navy, contained in that work, contributed to the forma- 
 tion of his own. But the principle of a navy, Mr. Clay contended, 
 was no longer open to controversy. It was decided when Mr. 
 Jefferson came into power. With all the prejudices against a navy, 
 which are alleged by some to have been then brought into the 
 administration, with many honest prejudices, he admitted, the 
 rash attempt was not. made to destroy the establishment. It was 
 reduced to only what was supposed to be within the financial 
 capacity of the country. If, ten years ago, when all those preju- 
 dices were to be combatted, even in time of peace, it was deemed 
 proper, by the then administration, to retain in service ten frigates, 
 he put it to the candor of gentlemen to say, if now, when we are 
 on the eve of a war, and taking into view the actual growth of the 
 country, and the acquisition of our coast on the Gulf of Mexico, 
 we ought not to add to the establishment. 
 
 Mr. Clay said, he had hitherto alluded more particularly to the 
 exposed situation of certain parts of the Atlantic frontier. Whilst 
 
236 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 he felt the deepest solicitude for the safety of New York, and 
 other cities on the coast, he would be pardoned by the committee, 
 for referring to the interests of that section of the union from which 
 he came. If, said he, there be a point more than any other in the 
 United States, demanding the aid of naval protection, that point is 
 the mouth of the Mississippi. What is the population of the 
 western country, dependent on this single outlet for its surplus 
 productions? Kentucky, according to the last enumeration, has 
 four hundred and six thousand five hundred and eleven ; Tennes- 
 see, two hundred and sixty-one thousand seven hundred and 
 twenty-seven ; and Ohio, two hundred and thirty thousand seven 
 hundred and sixty. And when the population of the western 
 parts of Virginia, and Pennsylvania, and the territories which are 
 drained by the Mississippi or its waters, is added, it will form an 
 aggregate equal to about one fifth of the whole population of the 
 United States, resting all their commercial hopes upon this solitary 
 vent ! The bulky articles of which their surplus productions 
 consist, can be transported in no other way. They will not bear the 
 expense of a carriage up the Ohio and Tennessee, and across the 
 mountains, and the circuitous voyage of the lakes is out of the 
 question. Whilst most other states have the option of numerous 
 outlets, so that, if one be closed, resort can be had to others, this 
 vast population has no alternative. Close the mouth of the Mis- 
 sissippi, and their export trade is annihilated. He called the 
 attention of his western friends, especially his worthy Kentucky 
 friends, (from whom he felt himself, with regret, constrained to 
 differ on this occasion,) to the state of the public feeling in that 
 quarter, whilst the navigation of the Mississippi was withheld by 
 Spain ; and to the still more recent period, when the right of depot 
 was violated. The whole country was in commotion, and, at the 
 nod of government, would have fallen on Baton Rouge and New 
 Orleans, and punished the treachery of a perfidious government. 
 Abandon all idea of protecting, by maritime force, the mouth of 
 the Mississippi, and we shall have the recurrence of many similar 
 scenes. W T e shall hold the inestimable right of the navigation of 
 that river, by the most precarious tenure. The whole commerce 
 of the Mississippi — a commerce that is destined to be the richest 
 that was ever borne by a single stream — is placed at the mercy of 
 a single ship, lying oft the Balize ! Again ; the convulsions of the 
 new world, still more, perhaps, than those of Europe, challenge 
 our attention. Whether the ancient dynasty of Spain is still to be 
 upheld or subverted, is extremely uncertain, if the bonds connecting 
 the parent country with her colonies, are not for ever broken. What 
 is to become of Cuba ? Will it assert independence, or remain 
 the province of some European power? In either case, the whole 
 trade of the western country, which must pass almost within gun- 
 shot of the Moro Castle, is exposed to danger. It was not, however, 
 
ON THE INCREASE OF THE NAVY. 237 
 
 of Cuba he was afraid. He wished her independent. But sup- 
 pose England gets possession of that valuable island. With Cuba 
 on the south, and Halifax on the north — and the consequent 
 means of favoring or annoying commerce, of particular sections of 
 the country — he asked, if the most sanguine amongst us would 
 not tremble for the integrity of the union? If, along with Cuba, 
 Great Britain should acquire East Florida, she will have the abso- 
 lute command of the Gulf of Mexico. Can gentlemen, particularly 
 gentlemen from the western country, contemplate such possible, 
 nay, probable, events, without desiring to see at least the com- 
 mencement of such a naval establishment as would effectually 
 protect the Mississippi? He entreated them to turn their attention 
 to the defenceless situation of the Orleans Territory, and to the 
 nature of its population. It is known, that, whilst under the Span- 
 ish government, they experienced the benefit of naval security. 
 Satisfy them, that, under the government of the United States, they 
 will enjoy less protection, and you disclose the most fatal secret. 
 
 The general government receives annually, for the public lands, 
 about six hundred thousand dollars. One of the sources whence 
 the western people raise this sum, is the exportation of the surplus 
 productions of that country. Shut up the Mississippi, and this 
 source is, in a great measure, dried up. But suppose this govern- 
 ment to look upon the occlusion of the Mississippi, without 
 making an effort on that element, where alone it could be made suc- 
 cessfully, to remove the blockading force, and, at the same time, to 
 be vigorously pressing payment for the public lands ; he shuddered 
 at the consequences. Deep-rooted as he knew the affections of 
 the western people to be to the union, (and he would not admit 
 their patriotism to be surpassed by any other quarter of the country,) 
 if such a state of things were to last any considerable time, he 
 should seriously apprehend a withdrawal of their confidence. Nor, 
 sir, could we derive any apology for the failure to afford this pro- 
 tection, from the want of the materials for naval architecture. On 
 the contrary, all the articles entering into the construction of a 
 navy — iron, hemp, timber, pitch — abound in the greatest quantities 
 on the waters of the Mississippi. Kentucky alone, he had no 
 doubt, raised hemp enough the last year for the whole consump- 
 tion of the United States. 
 
 If, as he conceived, gentlemen had been unsuccessful in showing 
 that the downfall of maritime nations was ascribable to their navies, 
 they have been more fortunate in showing, by the instances to 
 which they had referred, that, without a marine, no foreign com- 
 merce could exist to any extent. It is the appropriate, the natural 
 (if the term may be allowed) connection of foreign commerce. 
 The shepherd and his faithful dog, are not more necessary to guard 
 the flocks, that browse and gambol on the neighboring mountain. 
 He considered the prosperity of foreign commerce indissolubly 
 
238 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 allied to marine power. Neglect to provide the one, and you must 
 abandon the other. Suppose the expected war with England is 
 commenced, you enter and subjugate Canada, and she still refuses 
 to do you justice ; what other possible mode will remain to 
 operate on the enemy, but upon that element where alone you can 
 then come in contact with him ? And if you do not prepare to 
 protect there your own commerce, and to assail his, will he not 
 sweep from the ocean every vessel bearing your flag, and destroy 
 even the coasting trade? But, from the arguments of gentlemen, 
 it would seem to be questioned, if foreign commerce is worth the 
 kind of protection insisted upon. What is this foreign commerce, 
 that has suddenly become so inconsiderable ? It has, with very 
 trifling aid from other sources, defrayed the expenses of govern- 
 ment, ever since the adoption of the present constitution ; main- 
 tained an expensive and successful war with the Indians ; a war 
 with the Barbary powers ; a quasi war with France ; sustained the 
 charges of suppressing two insurrections, and extinguishing 
 upwards of forty-six millions of the public debt. In revenue, it 
 has, since the year 17S9, yielded one hundred and ninety-one 
 millions of dollars. During the first four years after the commence- 
 ment of the present government, the revenue averaged only about 
 two millions annually ; during a subsequent period, of four years, 
 it rose to an average of fifteen millions, annually, or became 
 equivalent to a capital of two hundred and fifty millions of dollars, 
 at an interest of six per centum per annum. And if our commerce 
 is reestablished, it will, in the course of time, net a sum for which 
 we are scarcely furnished with figures, in arithmetic. Taking the 
 average of the last nine years, (comprehending, of course, the 
 season of the embargo,) our exports average upwards of thirty- 
 seven millions of dollars, which is equivalent to a capital of more 
 than six hundred millions of dollars, at six per centum interest; 
 all of which must be lost in the event of a destruction of foreign 
 commerce. In the abandonment of that commerce, is also involved 
 the sacrifice of our brave tars, who have engaged in the pursuit, 
 from w T hich they derive subsistence and support, under the confi- 
 dence that government would afford them that just protection 
 which is due to all. They will be driven into foreign employment, 
 for it is vain to expect that they will renounce their habits of life. 
 The spirit of commercial enterprise, so strongly depicted by the 
 gentleman from New York (Mr. Mitchel), is diffused throughout 
 the country. It is a passion as unconquerable as any with which 
 nature has endowed us. You may attempt, indeed, to regulate, 
 but you cannot destroy it. It exhibits itself as well on the waters 
 of the western country, as on the waters and shores of the Atlantic. 
 Mr. Clay had heard of a vessel, built at Pittsburg, having crossed 
 the Atlantic and entered an European port (he believed that of 
 Leghorn). The master of the vessel laid his papers before the 
 
ON THE INCREASE OF THE NAVY. 239 
 
 proper custom-house officer, which, of course, stated the place of 
 her departure. The officer boldly denied the existence of any such 
 American port as Pittsburg, and threatened a seizure of the vessel, 
 as being furnished with forged papers. The affrighted master 
 procured a map of the United States, and, pointing out the Gulf 
 of Mexico, took the officer to the mouth of the Mississippi, traced 
 the course of the Mississippi more than a thousand miles, to the 
 mouth of the Ohio, and conducting him still a thousand miles 
 higher, to the junction of the Allegany and Monongahela, — 
 there, he exclaimed, stands Pittsburg, the port from which 1 sailed ! 
 The custom-house officer, prior to the production of this evidence, 
 would have as soon believed that the vessel had performed a 
 voyage from the moon. 
 
 In delivering the sentiments he had expressed, Mr. Clay consid- 
 ered himself as conforming to a sacred constitutional duty. When 
 the power to provide a navy was confided to congress, it must have 
 been the intention of the convention to submit only to the discretion 
 of that body, the period when that power should be exercised. 
 That period had, in his opinion, arrived, at least for making a 
 respectable beginning. And whilst he thus discharged what he 
 conceived to be his duty, he derived great pleasure from the reflec- 
 tion, that he was supporting a measure calculated to impart 
 additional strength to our happy union. Diversified as are the 
 interests of its various parts, how admirably do they harmonize 
 and blend together! We have only to make a proper use of the 
 bounties spread before us, to render us prosperous and powerful. 
 Such a navy as he had contended for, will form a new bond of 
 connection between the states, concentrating their hopes, their 
 interests, and their affections. 
 
ON THE NEW ARMY BILL. 
 
 IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, JANUARY 8, 1813. 
 
 f On the eighteenth of June, 1812, war was declared by congress against Great Britain, 
 and the next session of congress commenced in November, 1812, when the president, 
 in his annual message to the two houses, gave a sketch of the events which had 
 transpired during the recess. The military operations on the frontier had resulted, at 
 first, in a series of unexpected and disgraceful disasters to our arms. Amidst all 
 discouragements, Mr. Clay was the leader, and the life and soul of the administration 
 party in the house. His early biographer says of him : ' he moved in majesty, for 
 he moved in strength. No difficulties could weary or withstand his energies. Like 
 the Carthagenian chief in the passage of the Alps, he kept his place in front of his 
 comrades, putting aside, with a giant effort, every obstacle that opposed his progress, 
 applauding the foremost of his followers, and rousing those who lingered, by words 
 of encouragement or reproach, till he succeeded in putting them upon a moral 
 eminence, from which they could look down upon the region where their prowess 
 was to meet with its long expected reward.' 
 
 Among the first measures proposed at this session of congress, to raise the spirit of 
 the nation, and retrieve the fortunes of war, made gloomy by the disasters upon the 
 frontier, was a bill to increase the army, by raising twenty additional regiments. In 
 support of this bill, and on the merits of the war, as well as in reply to the arguments 
 of the opposition members, Mr. Clay addressed the committee of the whole house, 
 in the following speech. J 
 
 Mr. Clay (the speaker) said he was gratified yesterday by the 
 recommitment of this bill to a committee of the whole house, from 
 two considerations ; one, since it afforded him a slight relaxation 
 from a most fatiguing situation ; and the other, because it furnished 
 him with an opportunity of presenting to the committee his senti- 
 ments, upon the important topics which had been mingled in the 
 debate. He regretted, however, that the necessity under which the 
 chairman had been placed, of putting the question,* precluded the 
 opportunity he had wished to enjoy, of rendering more acceptable 
 to the committee any thing he might have to offer on the interest- 
 ing points, on which it was his duty to touch. Unprepared, how- 
 ever, as he was, to speak on this day, of which he was the more 
 sensible from the ill state of his health, he would solicit the 
 attention of the committee for a few moments. 
 
 I was a little astonished, I confess, said Mr. Clay, when I found 
 this bill permitted to pass silently through the committee of the 
 
 * The chairman had risen to put the question, which would have cut Mr. Clay 
 off from the opportunity of speaking, by carrying the bill to the house. — Editor. 
 
ON THE NEW ARMY BILL. 241 
 
 whole, and not selected until the moment when the question was 
 to be put for its third reading, as the subject on which gentlemen 
 in the opposition chose to lay before the house their views of the 
 interesting attitude in which the nation stands. It did appear to 
 me, that the loan bill, which will soon come before us, would have 
 afforded a much more proper occasion, it being more essential, as 
 providing the ways and means for the prosecution of the war. 
 But the gentlemen had the right of selection, and having exercised 
 it, no matter how improperly, I am gratified, whatever I may think 
 of the character of some part of the debate, at the latitude in which, 
 for once, they have been indulged. I claim only, in return, of 
 gentlemen on the other side of the house, and of the committee, a 
 like indulgence in expressing my sentiments, with the same 
 unrestrained freedom. Perhaps, in the course of the remarks, 
 which I may feel myself called upon to make, gentlemen may 
 apprehend, that they assume too harsh an aspect ; but I have only 
 now to say, that I shall speak of parties, measures, and things, as 
 they strike my moral sense, protesting against the imputation of 
 any intention, on my part, to w T ound the feelings of any gentlemen. 
 Considering the situation in which this country is now placed — 
 a state of actual war with one of the most powerful nations on 
 the earth — it may not be useless to take a view of the past, and 
 of the various parties which have at different times appeared in 
 this country, and to attend to the manner by which we have been 
 driven from a peaceful posture, to our present warlike attitude. 
 Such an inquiry may assist in guiding us to that result, an hon- 
 orable peace, which must be the sincere desire of every friend to 
 America. The course of that opposition, by which the adminis- 
 tration of the government had been unremittingly impeded for the 
 last twelve years, was singular, and, I believe, unexampled in the 
 history of any country. It has been alike the duty and the interest 
 of the administration to preserve peace. It was their duty, because 
 it is necessary to the growth of an infant people, to their genius, and to 
 their habits. It was their interest, because a change of the condition 
 of the nation, brings along with it a danger of the loss of the affec- 
 tions of the people. The administration has not been forgetful of 
 these solemn obligations. No art has been left unessayed, no experi- 
 ment, promising a favorable result, left untried, to maintain the 
 peaceful relations of the country. When, some six or seven years 
 ago, the affairs of the nation assumed a threatening aspect, a par- 
 tial non-importation was adopted. As they grew more alarming, 
 an embargo was imposed. It would have accomplished its pur- 
 pose, but it was sacrificed upon the altar of conciliation. Vain 
 and fruitless attempt to propitiate! Then came along non-inter- 
 course ; and a general non-importation followed in the train. In 
 the mean time, any indications of a return to the public law and 
 the path of justice, on the part of either belligerent, are seized upon 
 
 VOL. I. 31 
 
242 SPEECHES OF H E .\ R % CLAY. 
 
 with avidity by the administration. The arrangement with Mr. 
 Erskine is concluded. It is first applauded, and then censured by 
 the opposition. No matter with what unfeigned sincerity, with 
 what real effort, the administration cultivates peace, the opposition 
 insists, that it alone is culpable for every breach that is made between 
 the two countries. Because the president thought proper, in ac- 
 cepting the proffered reparation for the attack on a national vessel, 
 to intimate, that it would have better comported with the justice of 
 the king (and who does not think so?) to punish the offending 
 officer, the opposition, entering into the royal feelings, sees, in that 
 imaginary insult, abundant cause for rejecting Mr. Erskine's ar- 
 rangement. On another occasion, you cannot have forgotten the 
 hypocritical ingenuity which they displayed, to divest Mr. Jackson's 
 correspondence of a premeditated insult to this country. If gen- 
 tlemen would only reserve for their own government, half the 
 sensibility which is indulged for that of Great Britain, they would 
 find much less to condemn. Restriction after restriction has been 
 tried; negotiation has been resorted to, until further negotiation 
 would have been disgraceful. Whilst these peaceful experiments 
 are undergoing a trial, what is the conduct of the opposition? 
 They are the champions of war — the proud — the spirited — the 
 sole repository of the nation's honor — the men of exclusive vigor 
 and energy. The administration, on the contrary, is weak, feeble, 
 and pusillanimous — 'incapable of being kicked into a war.' The 
 maxim, 'not a cent for tribute, millions for defence,' is loudly pro- 
 claimed. Is the administration for negotiation ? The opposition 
 is tired, sick, disgusted with negotiation. They want to draw the 
 sword, and avenge the nation's wrongs. When, however, foreign 
 nations, perhaps emboldened by the very opposition here made, 
 refuse to listen to the amicable appeals, which have been repeated 
 and reiterated by the administration, to their justice and to their 
 interest — when, in fact, war with one of them has become identi- 
 fied with our independence and our sovereignty, and to abstain 
 from it was no longer possible, behold the opposition veering round 
 and becoming the friends of peace and commerce. They tell you 
 of the calamities of war, its tragical events, the squandering away 
 of your resources, the waste of the public treasure, and the spilling of 
 innocent blood. ' Gorgons, hydras, and chimeras dire.' They tell 
 you, that honor is an illusion! Now, we see them exhibiting the 
 terrific forms of the roaring king of the forest. Now, the meekness 
 and humility of the lamb! They are for war and no restrictions, 
 when the administration is for peace. They are for peace and 
 restrictions, when the administration is for war. You find them, 
 sir, tacking with every gale, displaying the colors of every party, 
 and of all nations, steady only in one unalterable purpose — to 
 steer, if possible, into the haven of power. 
 
 During all this time, the parasites of opposition do not fail, by 
 
ON THE NEW ARMY BILL. 243 
 
 cunning sarcasm, or sly inuendo, to throw out the idea of French 
 influence, which is known to be false, which ought to be met in 
 one manner only, and that is by the lie direct. The administration 
 of this country devoted to foreign influence ! The administration 
 of this country subservient to France ! Great God ! what a 
 charge! how is it so influenced? By what ligament, on what 
 basis, on what possible foundation does it rest? Is it similarity of 
 language ? No ! we speak different tongues, we speak the English 
 language. On the resemblance of our laws ? No ! the sources 
 of our jurisprudence spring from another and a different country. 
 On commercial intercourse ? No ! we have comparatively none 
 with France. Is it from the correspondence in the genius of the 
 two governments ? No ! here alone is the liberty of man secure 
 from the inexorable despotism, which, every where else, tramples it 
 under foot. Where, then, is the ground of such an influence? 
 But, sir, I am insulting you by arguing on such a subject. Yet, 
 preposterous and ridiculous as the insinuation is, it is propagated 
 with so much industry, that there are persons found foolish and 
 credulous enough to believe it. You will, no doubt, think it 
 incredible, (but I have nevertheless been told it is a fact,) that an 
 honorable member of this house, now in my eye, recently lost his 
 election by the circulation of a silly story in his district, that he was 
 the first cousin of the emperor Napoleon. The proof of the charge 
 rested on the statement of facts, which was undoubtedly true. 
 The gentleman in question, it was alleged, had married a connec- 
 tion of the lady of the President of the United States, who was the 
 intimate friend of Thomas Jefferson, late President of the United 
 States, who some years ago, was in the habit of wearing red 
 French breeches. Now, taking these premises as established, you, 
 Mr. Chairman, are too good a logician not to see that the conclu* 
 sion necessarily follows ! 
 
 Throughout the period he had been speaking of, the opposition 
 has been distinguished, amidst all its veerings and changes, by 
 another inflexible feature — the application to Bonaparte of every 
 vile and opprobious epithet our language, copious as it is in terms 
 of vituperation, affords. He has been compared to every hideous 
 monster, and beast, from that mentioned in the Revelations, down 
 to the most insignificant quadruped. He has been called the 
 scourge of mankind, the destroyer of Europe, the great robber, the 
 infidel, the modern Attila, and heaven knows by what other 
 names. Really, gentlemen remind me of an obscure lady, in a 
 city not very far off, who also took it into her head, in conversation 
 with an accomplished French gentleman, to talk of the affairs of 
 Europe. She, too, spoke of the destruction of the balance of 
 power; stormed and raged about the insatiable ambition of the 
 emperor ; called him the curse of mankind, the destroyer of 
 Europe. The Frenchman listened to her with perfect patience, 
 
244 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 and when she had ceased, said to her, with ineffable politeness, 
 1 madame, it would give my master, the emperor, infinite pain, if 
 he knew how hardly you thought of him.' Sir, gentlemen appear 
 to me to forget, that they stand on American soil; that they are not 
 in the British house of commons, but in the chamber of the house 
 of representatives of the United States ; that we have nothing to 
 do with the affairs of Europe, the partition of territory and sover- 
 eignty there, except so far as these things affect the interests of our 
 own country. Gentlemen transform themselves into the Burkes, 
 Chathams, and Pitts, of another country, and forgetting, from honest 
 zeal, the interests of America, engage with European sensibility in 
 the discussion of European interests. If gentlemen ask me, 
 whether I do not view with regret and horror the concentration of 
 such vast power in the hands of Bonaparte, I reply, that I do. I 
 regret to see the emperor of China holding such immense sway 
 over the fortunes of millions of our species. I regret to see Great 
 Britain possessing so uncontrolled a command over all the waters 
 of our globe. If 1 had the ability to distribute among the nations 
 of Europe their several portions of power and of sovereignty, I 
 would say, that Holland should be resuscitated, and given the 
 weight she enjoyed in the days of her De Witts. I would confine 
 France within her natural boundaries, the Alps, Pyrenees, and the 
 Rhine, and make her a secondary naval power only. I would 
 abridge the British maritime power, raise Prussia and Austria to 
 their original condition, and preserve the integrity of the empire 
 of Russia. But these are speculations. I look at the political 
 transactions of Europe, with the single exception of their possible 
 bearing upon us, as I do at the history of other countries, or other 
 times. I do not survey them with half the interest that I do the 
 movements in South America. Our political relation with them 
 is much less important than it is supposed to be. I have no fears 
 of French or English subjugation. If we are united we are 
 too powerful for the mightiest nation in Europe, or all Europe com- 
 bined. If we are separated and torn asunder, we shall become an 
 easy prey to the weakest of them. In the latter dreadful contin- 
 gency, our country will not be worth preserving. 
 
 Next to the notice which the opposition has found itself called 
 upon to bestow upon the French emperor, a distinguished citizen 
 of Virginia, formerly president of the United States, has never for 
 a moment failed to receive their kindest and most respectful atten- 
 tion. An honorable gentleman from Massachusetts, (Mr. Quincy,) 
 of whom I am sorry to say, it becomes necessary for me, in the 
 course of my remarks, to take some notice, has alluded to him in a 
 remarkable manner. Neither his retirement from public office, 
 his eminent services, nor his advanced age, can exempt this patriot 
 from the coarse assaults of party malevolence. No, sir, in 1801, he 
 snatched from the rude hand of usurpation the violated constitu- 
 
ON THE NEW ARMY BILL. 245 
 
 tion of his country, and that is his crime. He preserved that instru- 
 ment, in form, and substance, and spirit, a precious inheritance for 
 generations to come, and for this he can never be forgiven. How- 
 vain and impotent is party rage, directed against such a man ! He 
 is not more elevated by his lofty residence, upon the summit of his 
 own favorite mountain, than he is lifted, by the serenity of his 
 mind, and the consciousness of a well-spent life, above the malig- 
 nant passions and bitter feelings of the day. No! his own beloved 
 Monticello is not more moved by the storms that beat against its 
 sides, than is this illustrious man, by the howlings of the whole 
 British pack, set loose from the Essex kennel! When the gentle- 
 man to whom I have been compelled to allude, shall have mingled 
 his dust with that of his abused ancestors, when he shall have 
 been consigned to oblivion, or, if he lives at all, shall live only in 
 the treasonable annals of a certain junto, the name of Jefferson 
 will be hailed with gratitude, his memory honored and cherished 
 as the second founder of the liberties of the people, and the period 
 of his administration will be looked back to, as one of the happiest 
 and brightest epochs of American history^ — an oasis in the 
 midst of a sandy desert. But I beg the gentleman's pardon ; he 
 has indeed secured to himself a more imperishable fame than I 
 had supposed ; I think it was about four years ago that he submit- 
 ted to the house of representatives, an initiative proposition for an 
 impeachment of Mr. Jefferson. The house condescended to con- 
 sider it. The gentleman debated it with his usual temper, modera- 
 tion, and urbanity. The house decided upon it in the most solemn 
 manner, and, although the gentleman had some how obtained a 
 second, the final vote stood, one for, and one hundred and seven- 
 teen against the proposition ! 
 
 In one respect there is a remarkable difference between the 
 administration and the opposition; it is in a sacred regard for 
 personal liberty. When out of power, my political friends condemn- 
 ed the surrender of Jonathan Robbins ; they opposed the violation 
 of the freedom of the press, in the sedition law; they opposed the 
 more insidious attack upon the freedom of the person, under the 
 imposing garb of an alien law. The party now in opposition, then 
 in power, advocated the sacrifice of the unhappy Robbins, and 
 passed those two laws. True to our principles, we are now 
 struggling for the liberty of our seamen against foreign oppression. 
 True to theirs, they oppose a war undertaken for this object. They 
 have indeed lately affected a tender solicitude for the liberties of 
 the people, and talk of the danger of standing armies, and the 
 burden of taxes. But it must be evident to you, Mr. Chairman, 
 that they speak in a foreign idiom. Their brogue evinces that it is 
 not their vernacular tongue. What ! the opposition, who, in 1798 
 
 * This prediction is already beginning to be realized. — Editor. 
 
246 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 and 1799, could raise a useless army to fight an enemy three 
 thousand miles distant from us, alarmed at the existence of one 
 raised for a known and specified object — the attack of the 
 adjoining provinces of the enemy. What! the gentleman from 
 Massachusetts, who assisted by his vote to raise the army of 
 twenty- five thousand, alarmed at the danger of our liberties from 
 this very army! 
 
 But, sir, I must speak of another subject, which I never think of 
 but with feelings of the deepest awe. The gentleman from 
 Massachusetts, in imitation of some of his predecessors of 1799, has 
 entertained us with a picture of cabinet plots, presidential plots, and 
 all sorts of plots, which have been engendered by the diseased state 
 of the gentleman's imagination. I wish, sir, that another plot, of a 
 much more serious and alarming character — a plot that aims at 
 the dismemberment of our union — had only the same imaginary 
 existence. But no man, who has paid any attention to the tone of 
 certain prints, and to transactions in a particular quarter of the 
 union, for several years past, can doubt the existence of such a 
 plot. It was far, very far from my intention to charge the opposi- 
 tion with such a design. No, I believe them generally incapable 
 of it. But 1 cannot say as much for some, who have been unwor- 
 thily associated with them in the quarter of the union to which I 
 have referred. The gentleman cannot have forgotten his own 
 sentiment, uttered even on the floor of this house, ' peaceably if 
 we can, forcibly if we must,' nearly at the very time Henry's 
 mission to Boston was undertaken. The flagiliousness of that 
 embassy had been attempted to be concealed, by directing the 
 public attention to the price which, the gentleman says, was given 
 for the disclosure. As if any price could change the atrociousness 
 of the attempt on the part of Great Britain, or could extenuate, in 
 the slightest degree, the offence of those citizens, who entertained 
 and deliberated upon a proposition so infamous and unnatural! 
 There was a most remarkable coincidence between some of the 
 things which that man states, and certain events in the quarter 
 alluded to. In the contingency of war with Great Britain, it will 
 be recollected, that the neutrality and eventual separation of that 
 section of the union was to be brought about. How, sir, has it 
 happened, since the declaration of war, that British officers in 
 Canada have asserted to American officers, that this very neutrality 
 would take place? That they have so asserted can be established 
 beyond controversy. The project is not brought forward openly, 
 with a direct avowal of the intention. No, the stock of good sense 
 and patriotism in that portion of the country is too great to be 
 undisguisedly encountered. It is assailed from the masked batte- 
 ries of friendship, of peace and commerce, on the one side, and by 
 the groundless imputation of opposite propensities, on the other.' 
 The affections of the people, there, are gradually to be undermined. 
 
ON THE NEW ARajY BILL. 247 
 
 The project is suggested or withdrawn ; the diabolical dramatis 
 personce, in this criminal tragedy, make their appearance or exit, as 
 the audience, to whom they address themselves, applaud, or 
 condemn. I was astonished, sir, in reading lately a letter, or 
 pretended letter, published in a prominent print in that quarter, and 
 written, not in the fervor of party zeal, but coolly and dispassion- 
 ately, to find that the writer afYected to reason about a separation, 
 and attempted to demonstrate its advantages to the different portions 
 of the union ; deploring the existence now of what he terms 
 prejudices against it, but hoping for the arrival of the period when 
 they shall be eradicated. But, sir, I will quit this unpleasant 
 subject; I will turn from one, whom no sense of decency or 
 propriety could restrain from soiling the carpet on which he treads,^ 
 to gentlemen, who have not forgotten what is due to themselves, to 
 the place in which we are assembled, or to those by whom they are 
 opposed. The gentlemen from North Carolina (Mr. Pearson), 
 from Connecticut (Mr. Pitkin), and from New York (Mr. Bleeker), 
 have, with their usual decorum, contended that the war would not 
 have been declared, had it not been for the duplicity of France, in 
 withholding an authentic instrument, repealing the decrees of 
 Berlin and Milan ; that upon the exhibition of such an instrument, 
 the revocation of the orders in council took place; that this main 
 cause of the war, but for which it would not have been declared, 
 being removed, the administration ought to seek for the restoration 
 of peace; and that, upon its sincerely doing so, terms compatible 
 with the honor and interest of this country might be obtained. It 
 is my purpose, said Mr. Clay, to examine, first, into the circumstances 
 under which the war was declared; secondly, into the causes of 
 continuing it ; and, lastly, into the means which have been taken, 
 or ought to be taken, to procure peace ; but, sir, I am really so 
 exhausted, that, little as I am in the habit of asking of the house an 
 indulgence of this kind, I feel I must trespass on their goodness. 
 
 [ Here Mr. Clay sat down. Mr. Newton moved, that the com- 
 mittee rise, report progress, and ask leave to sit again, which was 
 done. On the next day he proceeded. ] 
 
 I am sensible, Mr. Chairman, that some part of the debate, to 
 which this bill has given rise, has been attended by circumstances 
 much to be regretted, not usual in this house, and of which it is to 
 be hoped, there will be no repetition. The gentleman from Boston 
 had so absolved himself from every rule of decorum and propriety, 
 had so outraged all decency, that I have found it impossible to 
 suppress the feelings excited on the occasion. His colleague, whom 
 I have the honor to follow, (Mr. Wheaton,) whatever else he might 
 
 * It is due to Mr. Clay to observe, that one of the most offensive expressions used by 
 Mr. Quincy, an expression which produced disgust on all sides of the house, has been 
 omitted in that gentleman's reported speech, which in other jespects has been much 
 softened. — Editor. 
 
248 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 not have proved, in his very learned, ingenious, and original 
 exposition of the powers of this government — an exposition in 
 which he has sought, where nobody before him has, and nobody 
 after him will look, for a grant of our powers, I mean the preamble 
 to the constitution — has clearly shown, to the satisfaction of all 
 who heard him, that the power of defensive war is conferred. I 
 els im the benefit of a similar principle, in behalf of my political 
 fritnds, against the gentlemen from Boston. I demand only the 
 exeicise of the right of repulsion. No one is more anxious than I 
 am to preserve the dignity and the freedom of debate ; no member 
 is more responsible for its abuse, and, if, on this occasion, its just 
 limits have been violated, let him, who has been the unprovoked 
 aggressor, appropriate to himself, exclusively, the consequences. 
 
 I omitted yesterday, sir, when speaking of a delicate and pain- 
 ful subject, to notice a powerful engine which the conspirators 
 against the integrity of the union employ, to effect their nefarious 
 purposes; I mean southern influence. The true friend to his 
 country, knowing that our constitution was the work of compro- 
 mise, in which interests apparently conflicting were attempted to 
 be reconciled, aims to extinguish or allay prejudices. But this 
 patriotic exertion does not suit the views of those, who are urged 
 on by diabolical ambition. They find it convenient, to imagine the 
 existence of certain improper influences, and to propagate with their 
 utmost industry a belief of them. Hence the idea of southern 
 preponderance, Virginia influence, the yoking of the respectable 
 yeomanry of the north with negro slaves to the car of southern 
 nabobs. If Virginia really cherished a reprehensible ambition, an 
 aim to monopolize the chief magistracy of the country, how was 
 such a purpose to be accomplished ? Virginia, alone, cannot elect 
 a president, whose elevation depends upon a plurality of electoral 
 votes, and a consequent concurrence of many states. Would 
 Vermont, disinterested Pennsylvania, the Carolinas, independent 
 Georgia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio, Louisiana, all consent to be- 
 come the tools of inordinate ambition ? But the present incumbent 
 was designated to the office before his predecessor had retired. How? 
 By public sentiment; public sentiment, which grew out of his 
 known virtues, his illustrious services, and his distinguished abilities. 
 Would thp gentleman crush this public sentiment? — is he prepared 
 to admit, that he would arrest the progress of opinion ? 
 
 The war was declared, because Great Britain arrogated to 
 herself the pretension of regulating our foreign trade, under the 
 delusive name of retaliatory orders in council — a pretension by 
 which she undertook to proclaim to American enterprise, ' thus 
 far shall thou go, and no further' — orders which she refused to 
 revoke, after the alleged cause of their enactment had ceased ; 
 because she persisted in the practice of impressing American 
 seamen ; because she had instigated the Indians to commit hostili- 
 
ON THE NEW ARMY BILL. 249 
 
 ties against us ; and because she refused indemnity for her past 
 injuries upon our commerce. I throw out of the question other 
 wrongs. The war in fact was announced, on our part, to meet the 
 war which she was waging on her part. So undeniable were the 
 causes of the war, so powerfully did they address themselves to the 
 feelings of the whole American people, that when the bill was 
 pending before this house, gentlemen in the opposition, although 
 provoked to debate, would not, or could not, utter one syllable 
 against it. It is true, they wrapped themselves up in sullen silence, 
 pretending they did not choose to debate such a question in secret 
 session. Whilst speaking of the proceedings on that occasion, I 
 beg to be permitted to advert to another fact which transpired; 
 an important fact, material for the nation to know, and which I 
 have often regretted had not been spread upon our journals. My 
 honorable colleague (Mr. M'Kee) moved, in committee of the 
 whole, to comprehend France in the war ; and when the question 
 was taken upon the proposition, there appeared but ten votes in 
 support of it, of whom, seven belonged to this side of the house, 
 and three only to the other! It is said, that we were inveigled into 
 the war by the perfidy of France ; and that, had she furnished the 
 document in time, which was first published in England, in May 
 last, it would have been prevented. I will concede to gentlemen, 
 every thing they ask about the injustice of France towards this 
 country. I wish to God, that our ability was equal to our disposi- 
 tion, to make her feel the sense that we entertain of that injustice. 
 The manner of the publication of the paper in question, was, 
 undoubtedly, extremely exceptionable. But I maintain, that, had it 
 made its appearance earlier, it would not have had the effect sup- 
 posed; and the proof lies in the unequivocal declarations of the 
 British government. I will trouble you, sir, with going no further 
 back than to the letters of the British minister, addressed to the 
 secretary of state, just before the expiration of his diplomatic 
 functions. It will be recollected by the committee, that he exhib- 
 ited to this government a despatch, from lord Castlereagh, in which 
 the principle was distinctly avowed, that, to produce the effect of a 
 repeal of the orders in council, the French decrees must be abso- 
 lutely and entirely revoked as to all the world, and not as to 
 America alone. A copy of that despatch was demanded of him, 
 and he very awkwardly evaded it. But on the tenth of June, after 
 the bill declaring war had actually passed this house, and was 
 pending before the senate, (and which, I have no doubt, was 
 known to him,) in a letter to Mr. Monroe, he says : ' I have no 
 hesitation, sir, in saying, that Great Britain, as the case has hitherto 
 stood, never did, nor never could, engage, without the greatest 
 injustice to herself and her allies, as well as to other neutral nations, 
 to repeal her orders as affecting America alone, leaving them in 
 force against other states, upon condition that France would 
 vol. i. 32 
 
250 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 except, singly and specially, America from the operation of her 
 decrees.' On the fourteenth of the same month, the bill still 
 pending before the senate, he repeats : ' I will now say, that I feel 
 entirely authorized to assure you, that if you can, at any time, 
 produce a full and unconditional repeal of the French decrees, as 
 you have a right to demand it, in your character of a neutral nation, 
 and that it be disengaged from any question concerning our 
 maritime rights, we shall be ready to meet you with a revocation 
 of the orders in council. Previously to your producing such an 
 instrument, which I am sorry to see you regard as unnecessary, 
 you cannot expect of us to give up our orders in council.' Thus, 
 sir, you see, that the British government would not be content with 
 a repeal of the French decrees, as to us only. But the French 
 paper in question was such a repeal. It could not, therefore, satisfy 
 the British government. It could not, therefore, have induced that 
 government, had it been earlier promulgated, to repeal the orders 
 in council. It could not, therefore, have averted the war. The 
 withholding of it did not occasion the war, and the promulgation 
 of it would not have prevented the war. But gentlemen have 
 contended, that, in point of fact, it did produce a repeal of the 
 orders in council. This I deny. After it made its appearance in 
 England, it was declared by one of the British ministry, in parlia- 
 ment, not to be satisfactory. And all the world knows, that the 
 repeal of the orders in council resulted from the inquiry, reluctantly 
 acceded to by the ministry, into the effect upon their manufactur- 
 ing establishments, of our non-importation law, or to the warlike 
 attitude assumed by this government, or to both. But it is said, 
 that the orders in council are withdrawn, no matter from what 
 cause; and that having been the sole motive for declaring the war, 
 the relations of peace ought to be restored. This brings me to 
 the examination of the grounds for continuing the present hostili- 
 ties between this country and Great Britain. 
 
 I am far from acknowledging, that, had the orders in council 
 been repealed, as they have been, before the war was declared, the 
 declaration of hostilities would of course have been prevented. 
 In a body so numerous as this is, from which the declaration 
 emanated, it is impossible to say, with any degree of certainty, 
 what would have been the effect of such a repeal. Each member 
 must answer for himself. As to myself, I have no hesitation in 
 saying, that I have always considered the impressment of American 
 seamen as much the most serious aggression. But, sir, how have 
 those orders at last been repealed? Great Britain, it is true, has 
 intimated a willingness to suspend their practical operation, but 
 she still arrogates to herself the right to revive them upon 
 certain contingences, of which she constitutes herself the sole 
 judge. She waives the temporary use of the rod, but she suspends 
 it in terrorem over our heads. Supposing it to be conceded to 
 
ON THE NEW ARMY BILL. 251 
 
 gentlemen, that such a repeal of the orders in council as took 
 place on the twenty-third of June last, exceptionable as it is, being 
 known before the war was proclaimed, would have prevented it; 
 does it follow that it ought to induce us to lay down our arms, with- 
 out the redress of any other injury of which we complain ? Does 
 it follow, in all cases, that that which would in the first instance 
 have prevented would also terminate the war ? By no means. 
 It requires a strong and powerful effort in a nation, prone to peace 
 as this is, to burst through its habits, and encounter the difficulties 
 and privations of war. Such a nation ought but seldom to embark 
 in a belligerent contest; but. when it does, it should be for obvious 
 and essential rights alone, and should firmly resolve to extort, at all 
 hazards, their recognition. The war of the revolution is an ex- 
 ample of a war begun for one object and prosecuted for another. 
 It was waged, in its commencement, against the right asserted by 
 the parent country to tax the colonies. Then, no one thought of 
 absolute independence. The idea of independence was repelled. 
 But the British government would have relinquished the principle 
 of taxation. The founders of our liberties saw, however, that 
 there was no security short of independence, and they achieved 
 that independence. When nations are engaged in war, those rights 
 in controversy, which are not acknowledged by the treaty of peace, 
 are abandoned. And who is prepared to say, that American 
 seamen shall be surrendered as victims to the British principle of 
 impressment ? And, sir, what is this principle ? She contends, 
 that she has a right to the services of her own subjects ; and that, 
 in the exercise of this right, she may lawfully impress them, even 
 although she finds them in American vessels, upon the high seas, 
 without her jurisdiction. Now I deny that she has any right, 
 beyond her jurisdiction, to come on board our vessels, upon the 
 high seas, for any other purpose, than in the pursuit of enemies, or 
 their goods, or goods contraband of war. But she further contends, 
 that her subjects cannot renounce their allegiance to her, and 
 contract a new obligation to other sovereigns. I do not mean to 
 go into the general question of the right of expatriation. If, as is 
 contended, all nations deny it, all nations at the same time admit 
 and practice the right of naturalization. Great Britain herself does 
 this. Great Britain, in the very case of foreign seamen, imposes, 
 perhaps, fewer restraints upon naturalization than any other nation. 
 Then, if subjects cannot break their original allegiance, they may, 
 according to universal usage, contract a new allegiance. What is 
 the effect of this double obligation ? Undoubtedly, that the sove- 
 reign, having possession of the subject, would have the right to the 
 services of the subject. If he return within the jurisdiction of his 
 primitive sovereign he may resume his right to his services, of 
 which the subject, by his own act, could not divest himself. But 
 hi3 primitive sovereign can have no right to go in quest of him, 
 
252 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 out of his own jurisdiction, into the jurisdiction of another sove- 
 reign, or upon the high seas, where there exists either no jurisdic- 
 tion, or it is possessed by the nation owning the ship navigating 
 them. But, sir, this discussion is altogether useless. It is not to 
 the British principle, objectionable as it is, that we are alone to 
 look ; it is to her practice ; no matter what guise she puts on. It is 
 in vain to assert the inviolability of the obligation of allegiance. 
 It is in vain to set up the plea of necessity, and to allege that she 
 cannot exist, without the impressment of her seamen. The naked 
 truth is, she comes, by her press-gangs, on board of our vessels, 
 seizes our native as well as naturalized seamen, and drags them 
 into her service. It is the case, then, of the assertion of an errone- 
 ous principle, and of a practice not conformable to the asserted 
 principle — a principle, which, if it were theoretically right, must 
 be for ever practically wrong — a practice which can obtain counte- 
 nance from no principle whatever, and to submit to which, on our 
 part, would betray the most abject degradation. We are told, by 
 gentlemen in the opposition, that government has not done all that 
 was incumbent on it to do, to avoid just cause of complaint on the 
 part of Great Britain ; that, in particular, the certificates of protec- 
 tion, authorized by the act of 1796, are fraudulently used. Sir, 
 government has done too much in granting those paper protections. 
 I can never think of them without being shocked. They resemble 
 the passes which the master grants to his negro slave — 'let the 
 bearer, Mungo, pass and repass without molestation.' What do 
 they imply ? That Great Britain has a right to seize all who are 
 not provided with them. From their very nature, they must be 
 liable to abuse on both sides. If Great Britain desires a mark, by 
 which she can know her own subjects, let her give them an ear 
 mark. The colors that float from the mast-head should be the 
 credentials of our seamen. There is no safety to us, and the gentle- 
 men have shown it, but in the rule, that all who sail under the flag 
 (not being enemies) are protected by the flag. It is impossi- 
 ble, that this country should ever abandon the gallant tars, who 
 have won for us such splendid trophies. Let me suppose that the 
 genius of Columbia should visit one of them in his oppressor's 
 prison, and attempt to reconcile him to his forlorn and wretched 
 condition. She would say to him, in the language of gentlemen 
 on the other side, * Great Britain intends you no harm ; she did not 
 mean to impress you, but one of her own subjects ; having taken 
 you by mistake, I will remonstrate, and try to prevail upon her, by 
 peaceable means, to release you ; but I cannot, my son, fight for 
 you.' If he did not consider this mere mockery, the poor tar would 
 address her judgment, and say, 'you owe me, my country, protec- 
 tion ; I owe you, in return, obedience. I am no British subject, 
 I am a native of old Massachusetts, where lived my aged father, 
 my wife, my children. I have faithfully discharged my duty. 
 
ON THE NEW ARMY BILL. 253 
 
 Will you refuse to do yours?' Appealing to her passions, he 
 would continue : ' I lost this eye in fighting under Truxton, with 
 the Insurgente ; I got this scar before Tripoli; I broke this leg on 
 board the Constitution, when the Guerriere struck.' If she remained 
 still unmoved, he would break out, in the accents of mingled dis- 
 tress and despair, 
 
 Hard, hard is my fate ! once I freedom enjoyed, 
 
 Was as happy as happy could be ! 
 
 Oh! how hard is my fate, how galling these chains!* 
 
 I will not imagine the dreadful catastrophe to which he w^ould be 
 driven, by an abandonment of him to his oppressor. It will not be, 
 it cannot be, that his country will refuse him protection. 
 
 It is said, that Great Britain has been always willing to make a 
 satisfactory arrangement of the subject of impressment ; and that 
 Mr. King had nearly concluded one, prior to his departure from 
 that country. Let us hear what that minister says, upon his return 
 to America. In his letter, dated at New York, in July, 1S03, after 
 giving an account of his attempt to form an arrangement for the 
 protection of our seamen, and his interviews to this end with lords 
 Hawkesbury and St. Vincent; and stating, that, when he had 
 supposed the terms of a convention were agreed upon, a new 
 pretension was set up, (the mare clausum,) he concludes : ' I regret 
 to have been unable to put this business on a satisfactory footing, 
 knowing, as I do, its very great importance to both parties ; but I 
 flatter myself that I have not misjudged the interests of our own 
 country, in refusing to sanction a principle, that might be produc- 
 tive of more extensive evils than those it was our aim to prevent.' 
 The sequel of his negotiation on this affair, is more fully given in 
 the recent conversation between Mr. Russell and lord Castlereagh, 
 communicated to congress during its present session. Lord Castle- 
 reagh says to Mr. Russell : 
 
 ' Indeed, there has evidently been much misapprehension on this 
 subject ; an erroneous belief entertained, that an arrangement, in 
 regard to it, has been nearer an accomplishment than the facts will 
 warrant. Even our friends in congress, I mean those who are 
 opposed to going to war with us, have been so confident in this 
 mistake, that they have ascribed the failure of such an arrange- 
 ment solely to the misconduct of the American government. This 
 error probably originated with Mr. King; for, being much esteemed 
 here, and always well received by the persons in power, he seems 
 to have misconstrued their readiness to listen to his representations, 
 and their warm professions of a disposition to remove the com- 
 
 * It is impossible to describe the pathetic effect produced by this part of the speech. 
 The day was chilling cold ; so much so, that Mr. Clay has been heard to declare, that 
 it was the only time he ever spoke, when he was unable to keep himself warm by 
 the exercise of speaking ; yet there were few eyes that did not testify to the sensibility 
 excited. — Editor 
 
254 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 plaints of America, in relation to impressment, into a supposed 
 conviction, on their part, of the propriety of adopting the plan 
 which he had proposed. But lord St. Vincent, whom he might 
 have thought he had brought over to his opinions, appears never 
 for a moment to have ceased to regard all arrangement on the 
 subject to be attended with formidable if not insurmountable 
 obstacles. This is obvious, from a letter which his lordship 
 addressed to sir William Scott, at the time.' Here lord Castlereagh 
 read a letter, contained in the records before him, in which lord St. 
 Vincent states to sir William Scott, the zeal with which Mr. King 
 had assailed him, on this subject of impressment ; confesses his 
 own perplexity, and total incompetency to discover any practical 
 project, for the safe discontinuance of that practice, and asks for 
 counsel and advice. \ Thus you see/ proceeded lord Castlereagh, 
 'that the confidence of Mr. King, on this subject, was entirely 
 unfounded.' 
 
 Thus it is apparent, that at no time has the enemy been willing 
 to place this subject on a satisfactory footing. I will speak here- 
 after of the overtures made by the administration since the war. 
 
 The honorable gentleman from New York (Mr. Bleeker), in the 
 very sensible speech with which he favored the committee, made 
 one observation, which did not comport with his usual liberal and 
 enlarged views. It was, that those who are most interested against 
 the practice of impressment, did not desire a continuance of the 
 war, on account of it; whilst those (the southern and western 
 members) who had no interest in it, were the zealous advocates of 
 American seamen. It was a provincial sentiment, unworthy of 
 that gentleman. It was one which, in a change of condition, he 
 would not express, because I know he coald not feel it. Does not 
 that gentleman feel for the unhappy victims of the tomahawk, in 
 the western wilds, although his quarter of the union may be 
 exempted from similar barbarities ? I am sure he does. If there 
 be a description of rights, which, more than any other, should unite 
 all parties in all quarters of the union, it is unquestionably the 
 rights of the person. No matter what his vocation ; whether he 
 seeks subsistence amidst the dangers of the deep, or draws them 
 from the bowels of the earth, or from the humblest occupations of 
 mechanic life ; whenever the sacred rights of an American freeman 
 are assailed, all hearts ought to unite, and every arm should be 
 braced, to vindicate his cause. 
 
 The gentleman from Delaware sees in Canada no object worthy 
 of conquest. According to him, it is a cold, sterile, and inhospita- 
 ble region. And yet, such are the allurements which it offers, that 
 the same gentleman apprehends that, if it be annexed to the United 
 States, already too much weakened by an extension of territory, 
 the people of New England will rush over the line and depopulate 
 that section of the union ! That gentleman considers it honest to 
 
ON THE NEW ARMY BILL. 255 
 
 hold Canada as a kind of hostage, to regard it as a sort of bond, 
 for the good behavior of the enemy. But he will not enforce the 
 bond. The actual conquest of that country would, according to 
 him, make no impression upon the enemy ; and yet the very appre- 
 hension only, of such a conquest, would at all times have a power- 
 ful operation upon him ! Other gentlemen consider the invasion 
 of that country as wicked and unjustifiable. Its inhabitants are 
 represented as harmless and unoffending; as connected with those 
 of the bordering states by a thousand tender ties, interchanging 
 acts of kindness, and all the offices of good neighborhood. Canada, 
 said Mr. Clay, innocent! Canada unoffending! Is it not in 
 Canada, that the tomahawk of the savage has been moulded into 
 its death-like form ? Has it not been from Canadian magazines, 
 Maiden and others, that those supplies have been issued, which 
 nourish and continue the Indian hostilities — supplies which have 
 enabled the savage hordes to butcher the garrison of Chicago, and 
 to commit other horrible excesses and murders? Was it not by the 
 joint cooperation of Canadians and Indians, that a remote Ameri- 
 can fort, Michilimackinac, was assailed and reduced, while in 
 ignorance of a state of war? But, sir, how soon have the opposi- 
 tion changed their tone! When the administration was striving, by 
 the operation of peaceful measures, to bring Great Britain back to 
 a sense of justice, they were for old-fashioned war. And, now 
 they have got old-fashioned war, their sensibilities are cruelly 
 shocked, and all their sympathies lavished upon the harmless 
 inhabitants of the adjoining provinces. What does a state of war 
 present? The united energies of one people arrayed against the 
 combined energies of another; a conflict in which each party 
 aims to inflict all the injury it can, by sea and land, upon the terri- 
 tories, property, and citizens of the other ; subject only to the rules 
 of mitigated war, practiced by civilized nations. The gentleman 
 would not touch the continental provinces of the enemy, nor, I 
 presume, for the same reason, her possessions in the West Indies. 
 The same humane spirit would spare the seamen and soldiers of 
 the enemy. The sacred person of his majesty must not be attacked ; 
 for the learned gentlemen, on the other side, are quite familiar with 
 the maxim, that the king can do no wrong. Indeed, sir, I know 
 of no person on whom we may make war, upon the principles of 
 the honorable gentlemen, but Mr. Stephen, the celebrated author of 
 the orders in council, or the board of admiralty, who authorize and 
 regulate the practice of impressment! 
 
 The disasters of the war admonish us, we are told, of the 
 necessity of terminating the contest. If our achievements by land 
 have been less splendid than those of our intrepid seamen by 
 water, it is not because the American soldier is less brave. On 
 the one element, organization, discipline, and a thorough knowledge 
 of their duties, exist, on the part of the officers and their men. On 
 
256 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 the other, almost every thing is yet to be acquired. "We have, 
 however, the consolation, that our country abounds with the richest 
 materials, and that in no instance, when engaged in action, have 
 our arms been tarnished. At Brownstown and at Queenstown, the 
 valor of veterans was displayed, and acts of the noblest heroism 
 were performed. It is true, that the disgrace of Detroit remains to 
 be wiped off. That is a subject on which I cannot trust my feel- 
 ings ; it is not fitting I should speak. But this much I will say, it 
 was an event which no human foresight could have anticipated, 
 and for which the administration cannot be justly censured. It 
 was the parent of all the misfortunes we have experienced on land. 
 But for it, the Indian war would have been, in a great measure, 
 prevented or terminated ; the ascendency on lake Erie acquired, 
 and the war pushed on, perhaps, to Montreal. With the exception 
 of that event, the war, even upon the land, has been attended by a 
 series of the most brilliant exploits, which, whatever interest they 
 may inspire on this side of the mountains, have given the greatest 
 pleasure on the other. The expedition, under the command of 
 governor Edwards and colonel Russell, to lake Pioria, on the 
 Illinois, was completely successful. So was that of captain Craig, 
 who, it is said, ascended that river still higher. General Hopkins 
 destroyed the prophet's town. We have just received intelligence 
 of the gallant enterprise of colonel Campbell. In short, sir, the 
 Indian towns have been swept from the mouth to the source of the 
 Wabash ; and a hostile country has been penetrated far beyond the 
 most daring incursions of any campaign, during the former Indian 
 war. Never was more cool, deliberate bravery displayed, than that 
 by Newman's party, from Georgia. And the capture of the Detroit, 
 and the destruction of the Caledonia, (whether placed to a maritime 
 or land account,) for judgment, skill, and courage, on the part of 
 lieutenant Elliot, have never been surpassed. 
 
 It is alleged, that the elections in England are in favor of the 
 ministry, and that those in this country are against the war. If, in 
 such a cause, (saying nothing of the impurity of their elections,) 
 the people of that country have rallied round their government, it 
 affords a salutary lesson to the people here ; who, at all hazards, 
 ought to support theirs, struggling as it is to maintain our just 
 rights. But the people here have not been false to themselves ; a 
 great majority approve the war, as is evinced by the recent reelec- 
 tion of the chief magistrate. Suppose it were even true, that an 
 entire section of the union were opposed to the war; that section 
 being a minority, is the will of the majority to be relinquished ? 
 In that section the real strength of the opposition had been greatly 
 exaggerated. Vermont has, by two successive expressions of her 
 opinion, approved the declaration of war. In New Hampshire, 
 parties are so nearly equipoised, that out of thirty or thirty-five 
 thousand votes, those who approved and are for supporting it, lost 
 
ON THE NEW ARMY BILL. 257 
 
 the election by only one thousand or one thousand five hundred. 
 In Massachusetts alone have they obtained any considerable 
 accession. If we come to New York, we shall find that other and 
 local causes have influenced her elections. 
 
 What cause, Mr. Chairman, which existed for declaring the war, 
 has been removed? We sought indemnity for the past, and 
 security for the future. The orders in council are suspended, not 
 revoked; no compensation for spoliations ; Indian hostilities, which 
 were before secretly instigated, are now openly encouraged ; and 
 the practice of impressment unremittingly persevered in and in- 
 sisted upon. Yet the administration has given the strongest demon- 
 strations of its love of peace. On the twenty-ninth of June, less than 
 ten days after the declaration of war, the secretary of state writes 
 to Mr. Russell, authorizing him to agree to an armistice, upon two 
 conditions only, and what are they? That the orders in council 
 should be repealed, and the practice of impressing American sea- 
 men cease, those already impressed being released. The proposi- 
 tion was for nothing more than a real truce ; that the war should in 
 fact cease on both sides. Again, on the twenty-seventh of July, 
 one month later, anticipating a possible objection to these terms, 
 reasonable as they are, Mr. Monroe empowers Mr. Russell to 
 stipulate in general terms for an armistice, having only an in- 
 formal understanding on these points. In return, the enemy is 
 offered a prohibition of the employment of his seamen in our 
 service, thus removing entirely all pretext for the practice of im- 
 pressment. The very proposition which the gentleman from 
 Connecticut (Mr. Pitkin) contends ought to be made^ has been 
 made. How are these pacific advances met by the other party ? 
 Rejected, as absolutely inadmissible ; cavils are indulged about the 
 inadequacy of Mr. Russell's powers, and the want of an act of 
 congress is intimated. And yet the constant usage of nations, I 
 believe, is, where the legislation of one party is necessary to carry 
 into effect a given stipulation, to leave it to the contracting party to 
 provide the requisite laws. If he fail to do so, it is a breach of 
 good faith, and becomes the subject of subsequent remonstrance 
 by the injured party. When Mr. Russell renews the overture, in 
 what was intended as a more agreeable form to the British govern- 
 ment, lord Castlereagh is not content with a simple rejection, but 
 clothes it in the language of insult. Afterwards, in conversation 
 with Mr. Russell, the moderation of our government is misinter- 
 preted, and made the occasion of a sneer, that we are tired of the 
 war. The proposition of admiral Warren is submitted in a 
 spirit not more pacific. He is instructed, he tells us, to propose, 
 that the government of the United States shall instantly recall their 
 letters of marque and reprisal against British ships, together with 
 all orders and instructions for any acts of hostility whatever, against 
 the territories of his majestv, or the persons or property of his 
 vol. i. 33 
 
258 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 subjects. That small affair being settled, he is further authorized 
 to arrange as to the revocation of the laws which interdict the 
 commerce and ships of war of his majesty from the harbors and 
 waters of the United States. This messenger of peace comes 
 with one qualified concession in his pocket, not made to the justice 
 of our demands, and is fully empowered to receive our homage, a 
 contrite retraction of all our measures adopted against his master! 
 And, in default, he does not fail to assure us, the orders in council 
 are to be forthwith revived. The administration, still anxious to 
 terminate the war, suppresses the indignation which such a proposal 
 ought to have created, and, in its answer, concludes by informing 
 admiral Warren, ' that if there be no objection to an accommodation 
 of the difference relating to impressment, in the mode proposed, 
 other than the suspension of the British claim to impressment 
 during the armistice, there can be none to proceeding, ivithont 
 the armistice^ to an immediate discussion and arrangement of an 
 article on that subject.' Thus it has left the door of negotiation 
 unclosed, and it remains to be seen, if the enemy will accept the 
 invitation tendered to him. The honorable gentleman from North 
 Carolina (Mr. Pearson) supposes, that if congress would pass a 
 law, prohibiting the employment of British seamen in our service, 
 upon condition of a like prohibition on their part, and repeal the 
 act of non-importation, peace would immediately follow. Sir, I 
 have no doubt, if such a law were to pass, with all the requisite 
 solemnities, and the repeal to take place, lord Castlereagh would 
 laugh at our simplicity. No, sir, the administration has erred in the 
 steps which it has taken to restore peace, but its error has been, not 
 in doing too little, but in betraying too great a solicitude for that 
 event. An honorable peace is attainable only by an efficient war. 
 My plan would be, to call out the ample resources of the country, 
 give them a judicious direction, prosecute the war with the utmost 
 vigor, strike wherever we can reach the enemy, at sea or on land, 
 and negotiate the terms of a peace at Quebec or at Halifax. We 
 are told, that England is a proud and lofty nation, which, disdain- 
 ing to wait for danger, meets it half way. Haughty as she is, we 
 once triumphed over her, and, if we do not listen to the counsels of 
 timidity and despair, we shall again prevail. In such a cause, with 
 the aid of Providence, we must come out crowned with success ; 
 but. if we fail, let us fail like men, lash ourselves to our gallant tars, 
 and expire together in one common struggle, fighting for free 
 
ON HIS RETURN FROM GHENT. 
 
 AT LEXINGTON, KENTUCKY, OCTOBER 7, 1815. 
 
 [In the following brief speech, delivered at a public dinner, given to him by his 
 fellow-citizens of Lexington, Kentucky, after his return from the negotiation of a 
 treaty of peace, at Ghent, Mr. Clay takes a summary view of the results of the war 
 with Great Britain, and the benefits which the United States, as a nation, had gained 
 by that contest with a gigantic foe, triumphant at last in all her European wars. 
 His allusions to the discussions at Ghent, and the proud and dignified attitude assumed 
 and maintained by our commissioners, on that occasion, will be read with interest, 
 while his views of the bright prospects opened to our country by the peace, have been 
 verified by subsequent national prosperity, particularly when the measures of public 
 policy advocated and recommended by Mr. Clay have been adopted. 
 
 The sixth toast was : 
 
 ' Our able negotiators at Ghent Their talents for diplomacy have kept pace with 
 the valor of our arms, in 'demonstrating' to the enemy, that these states will be free.' 
 
 This toast was received with loud and repeated cheering. After it had subsided, 
 JMr. Clay addressed the assembly as follows.] 
 
 I feel myself called on, by the sentiment just expressed, to return 
 my thanks, in behalf of my colleagues and myself. I do not, and 
 am quite sure they do not, feel, that, in the service alluded to, they are 
 at all entitled to the compliment which has been paid them. We 
 could not do otherwise than reject the demand made by the other 
 party ; and if our labors finally terminated in an honorable peace, 
 it was owing to causes on this side of the Atlantic, and not to any 
 exertion of ours. Whatever diversity of opinion may have existed 
 as to the declaration of the war, there are some points on which all 
 may look back with proud satisfaction. The first relates to the 
 time of the conclusion of the peace. Had it been made immedi- 
 ately after the treaty of Paris, we should have retired humiliated 
 from the contest, believing that we had escaped the severe chastise- 
 ment with which we were threatened, and that we owed to the 
 generosity and magnanimity of the enemy, what we were incapable 
 of commanding by our arms. That magnanimity would have 
 been the theme of every tongue, and of every press, abroad and at 
 home. We should have retired, unconscious of our own strength, 
 and unconscious of the utter inability of the enemy, with his whole 
 undivided force, to make any serious impression upon us. Our 
 military character, then in the lowest state of degradation, would 
 
260 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 have been unretrieved. Fortunately for us, Great Britain chose to 
 try the issue of the last campaign. And the issue of the last cam- 
 paign has demonstrated, in the repulse before Baltimore, the retreat 
 from Plattsburgh, the hard-fought action on the Niagara frontier, 
 and in that most glorious day. the eighth of January, that we have 
 always possessed the finest elements of military composition, and 
 that a proper use of them, only, was necessary, to insure for the 
 army and militia a fame as imperishable as that which the navy 
 had previously acquired. 
 
 Another point which appears to me to afford the highest conso- 
 lation is, that we fought the most powerful nation, perhaps, in 
 existence, single-handed and alone, without any sort of alliance. 
 More than thirty years has Great Britain been maturing her physi- 
 cal means, which she had rendered as efficacious as possible, by 
 skill, by discipline, and by actual service. Proudly boasting of the 
 conquest of Europe, she vainly flattered herself with the easy con- 
 quest of America also. Her veterans were put to flight or defeated, 
 while all Europe — I mean the governments of Europe — was 
 gazing with cold indifference, or sentiments of positive hatred of 
 us, upon the arduous contest. Hereafter no monarch can assert 
 claims of gratitude upon us, for assistance rendered in the hour of 
 danger. 
 
 There is another view of which the subject of the war is fairly 
 susceptible. From the moment that Great Britain came forward 
 at Ghent with her extravagant demands, the war totally changed its 
 character. It became, as it were, a new war. It was no longer an 
 American war, prosecuted for redress of British aggressions upon 
 American rights, but became a British war, prosecuted for objects 
 of British ambition, to be accompanied by American sacrifices. 
 And what were those demands ? Here, in the immediate neigh- 
 borhood of a sister state and territories, which were to be made in 
 part the victims, they must have been felt, and their enormity justly 
 appreciated. They consisted of the erection of a barrier between 
 Canada and the United States, to be formed by cutting off. from 
 Ohio and some of the territories a country more extensive than 
 Great Britain, containing thousands of freemen, who were to be 
 abandoned to their fate, and creating a new power, totally unknown 
 upon the continent of America ; of the dismantling of our fortresses, 
 and naval power on the lakes, with the surrender of the military 
 occupation of those waters to the enemy, and of an arrondissement 
 for two British provinces. These demands, boldly asserted, and 
 one of them declared to be a sine qua non, were finally relinquished. 
 Taking this view of the subject, if there be loss of reputation by 
 either party, in the terms of peace, who has sustained it? 
 
 The effects of the war are highly satisfactory. Abroad, our 
 character, which at the time of its declaration was in the lowest 
 state of degradation, is raised to the highest point of elevation. It 
 
ON HIS RETURN FROM GHENT. 261 
 
 is impossible for any American to visit Europe, without being 
 sensible of this agreeable change, in the personal attentions which 
 he receives, in the praises which are bestowed on our past exertions, 
 and the predictions which are made as to our future prospects. At 
 home, a government, which, at its formation, was apprehended by 
 its best friends, and pronounced by its enemies to be incapable of 
 standing the shock, is found to answer all the purposes of its insti- 
 tution. In spite of the errors which have been committed (and 
 errors have undoubtedly been committed), aided by the spirit and 
 patriotism of the people, it is demonstrated to be as competent to 
 the objects of effective war, as it has been before proved to be to 
 the concerns of a season of peace. Government has thus acquired 
 strength and confidence. Our prospects for the future, are of the 
 brightest kind. With every reason to count on the permanence of 
 peace, it remains only for the government to determine upon 
 military and naval establishments adapted to the growth and exten- 
 sion of our country and its rising importance, keeping in view a 
 gradual but not burdensome increase of the navy ; to provide for 
 the payment of the interest, and the redemption of the public debt, 
 and for the current expenses of government. For all these objects, 
 the existing sources of the revenue promise not only to be abun- 
 dantly sufficient, but will probably leave ample scope to the exercise 
 of the judgment of congress, in selecting for repeal, modification, 
 or abolition, those which may be found most oppressive, inconve- 
 nient, or unproductive. 
 
 [The eighteenth and last toast was, 'our gue9t, Henry Clay. We welcome his 
 return to that country, whose rights and interests he has so ably maintained, at home 
 and abroad.'] 
 
 My friends, I must again thank you for your kind and affection- 
 ate attention. My reception has been more like that of a brother, 
 than a common friend or acquaintance, and I am utterly incapable 
 of finding words to express my gratitude. My situation is like 
 that of a Swedish gentleman, at a dinner given in England, by the 
 Society of Friends of Foreigners in Distress. A toast having 
 been given complimentary to his country, it was expected, as is 
 usual on such occasions, that he would rise and address the com- 
 pany. The gentleman, not understanding the English language, 
 rose under great embarrassment, and said, 'sir, I wish you to 
 consider me A Foreigner in Distress.' I wish you, gentlemen, 
 to consider me a Friend in distress. 
 
ON THE UNITED STATES BANK QUESTION. 
 
 ADDRESS TO HIS CONSTITUENTS AT LEXINGTON, JUNE 3, 1816. 
 
 [ Mr. Clay here explains to the electors of the congressional district of Kentucky 
 which he represented, the grounds of his change of opinion on the subject of a 
 national bank. We have seen, by his speech delivered in the senate of the United 
 States, in 1811, that he had opposed the renewal of the charter of the first bank of 
 the United States, and now, in 1816, he had advocated the bill brought in by Mr. 
 Calhoun, of South Carolina, for incorporating a similar institution, which bill passed 
 both houses of congress, and received the signature of president Madison.* A peru- 
 sal of the following address will, it is, believed, satisfy all candid persons of the 
 sincerity and patriotism of Mr. Clay, on both occasions. As one of his biographers 
 remarks, ' there is no other instance, in the whole history of his life, where he has 
 changed his opinions, on an important subject. His ingenuousness is evinced by his 
 having changed once, but his firmness by his having done so 6m/ once. And what was 
 it that wrought this single revolution in his sentiments'? A mighty event, whose 
 consequences could be learned only from experience — the occurrence of a war 
 with Great Britain, which changed, not only his views of the policy of a ba*nk, but 
 those of almost every other leading politician in the country.' ] 
 
 On one subject, that of the bank of the United States, to which 
 at the late session of congress he gave his humble support, Mr. 
 Clay felt particularly anxious to explain the grounds on which he 
 had acted. This explanation, if not due to his own character, the 
 state, and the district to which he belonged, had a right to demand. 
 It would have been unnecessary, if his observations, addressed to 
 the house of representatives, pending the measure, had been 
 published; but they were not published, and why they were not 
 published he was unadvised. 
 
 When he was a member of the senate of the United States, he 
 was induced to oppose the renewal of the charter to the old bank 
 of the United States by three general considerations. The first 
 was, that he was instructed to oppose it by the legislature of the 
 state. What were the reasons that operated with the legislature, 
 in giving the instruction, he did not know. He has understood 
 from members of that body, at the time it was given, that a clause, 
 declaring that congress had no power to grant the charter, was 
 stricken out ; from which it might be inferred, either that the legis- 
 
 * This speech was never published. 
 
ON THE BANK QUESTION. 263 
 
 lature did not believe a bank to be unconstitutional, or that it had 
 formed no opinion on that point. This inference derives additional 
 strength from the fact, that, although the two late senators from this 
 state, as well as the present senators, voted for a national bank, the 
 legislature, which must have been well apprized that such a meas- 
 ure was in contemplation, did not again interpose, either to protest 
 against the measure itself, or to censure the conduct of those sena- 
 tors. From this silence on the part of a body which has ever fixed 
 a watchful eye upon the proceedings of the general government, 
 he had a right to believe, that the legislature of Kentucky saw, 
 without dissatisfaction, the proposal to establish a national bank ; 
 and that its opposition to the former one was upon grounds of 
 expediency, applicable to that corporation alone, or no longer exist- 
 ing. But when, at the last session, the question came up as to the 
 establishment of a national bank, being a member of the house of 
 representatives, the point of inquiry with him, was, not so much 
 what was the opinion of the legislature, although undoubtedly the 
 opinion of a body so respectable would have great weight with 
 him under any circumstances, as, what were the sentiments of his 
 immediate constituents. These he believed to be in favor of such 
 an institution, from the following circumstances. In the first place, 
 his predecessor (Mr. Hawkins) voted for a national bank, without 
 the slightest murmur of discontent. Secondly, during the last fall, 
 when he was in his district, he conversed freely with many of his 
 constituents upon that subject, then the most common topic of 
 conversation, and all, without a single exception, as far as he 
 recollected, agreed that it was a desirable if not the only efficient 
 remedy for the alarming evils in the currency of the country. 
 And, lastly, during the session, he received many letters from his 
 constituents, prior to the passage of the bill, all of which concurred, 
 he believed without a solitary exception, in advising the measure. 
 So far then from being instructed by his district to oppose the bank, 
 he had what was perhaps tantamount to an instruction to support 
 it — the acquiescence of his constituents in the vote of their former 
 representative, and the communications, oral and written, of the 
 opinions of many of them in favor of a bank. 
 
 The next consideration which induced him to oppose the 
 renewal of the old charter, was, that he believed the corporation 
 had, during a portion of the period of its existence, abused its 
 powers, and had sought to subserve the views of a political party. 
 Instances of its oppression, for that purpose, were asserted to have 
 occurred at Philadelphia and at Charleston ; and, although denied in 
 congress by the friends of the institution, during the discussions on 
 the application for the renewal of the charter, they were, in his 
 judgment, satisfactorily made out. This oppression, indeed, was 
 admitted in the house of representatives, in the debate on the 
 present bank, by a distinguished member of that party which had 
 
264 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 so warmly espoused the renewal of the old charter. It may be 
 said, what security is there, that the new bank will not imitate this 
 example of oppression ? He answered, the fate of the old bank, 
 warning all similar institutions to shun politics, with which they 
 ought not to have any concern ; the existence of abundant compe- 
 tition, arising from the great multiplication of banks; and the 
 precautions which arc to be found in the details of the present bill. 
 
 A third consideration upon which he acted in 1811, was, that as 
 the power to create a corporation, such as was proposed to be 
 continued, was not specifically granted in the constitution, and did 
 not then appear to him to be necessary to carry into effect any 
 of the powers which were specifically granted, congress was not au- 
 thorized to continue the bank. The constitution, he said, contained 
 powers delegated and prohibitory, powers expressed and construc- 
 tive. It vests in congress all powers necessary to give effect to the 
 enumerated powers — all that may be necessary to put into motion 
 and activity the machine of government which it constructs. The 
 powers that may be so necessary are deducible by construction. 
 They are not denned in the constitution. They are, from their 
 nature, indefinable. When the question is in relation to one of these 
 powers, the point of inquiry should be, is its exertion necessary to 
 carry into effect any of the enumerated powers and objects of the 
 general government? With regard to the degree of necessity, 
 various rules have been, at different times, laid down ; but, perhaps, 
 at last, there is no other than a sound and honest judgment exer- 
 cised, under the checks and control which belong to the constitu- 
 tion and to the people. 
 
 The constructive powers being auxiliary to the specifically 
 granted powers, and depending for their sanction and existence 
 upon a necessity to give effect to the latter, which necessity is to be 
 sought for and ascertained by a sound and honest discretion, it is 
 manifest that this necessity may not be perceived, at one time, 
 under one state of things, when it is perceived at another time, 
 under a different state of things. The constitution, it is true, never 
 changes ; it is always the same ; but the force of circumstances 
 and the lights of experience may evolve to the fallible persons 
 charged with its administration, the fitness and necessity of a 
 particular exercise of constructive power to-day, which they did 
 not see at a former period. 
 
 Mr. Clay proceeded to remark, that when the application was 
 made to renew the old charter of the bank of the United States, 
 such an institution did not appear to him to be so necessary to the 
 fulfilment of any of the objects specifically enumerated in the 
 constitution, as to justify congress in assuming, by construction, a 
 power to establish it It was supported mainly upon the ground 
 that it was indispensable to the treasury operations. But the local 
 institutions in the several states were at that time in prosperous 
 
ON THE BANK QUESTION. 265 
 
 existence, confided in by the community, having a confidence in 
 each other, and maintaining an intercourse and connection the 
 most intimate. Many of them were actually employed by the 
 treasury to aid that department, in a part of its fiscal arrangements ; 
 and they appeared to him to be fully capable of affording to it all 
 the facility that it ought to desire in all of them. They superseded, 
 in his judgment, the necessity of a national institution. But how* 
 stood the case in 1816, when he was called upon again to examine 
 the power of the general government to incorporate a national 
 bank? A total change of circumstances was presented; events of 
 the utmost magnitude had intervened. 
 
 A general suspension of specie payments had taken place, and 
 this had led to a train of consequences of the most alarming nature. 
 He beheld, dispersed over the immense extent of the United States, 
 about three hundred banking institutions, enjoying in different 
 degrees the confidence of the public, shaken as to them all, under 
 no direct control of the general government, and subject to no 
 actual responsibility to the state authorities. These institutions 
 were emitting the actual currency of the United States ; a currency 
 consisting of a paper, on which they neither paid interest nor 
 principal, whilst it was exchanged for the paper of the community, 
 on which both were paid. He saw these institutions in fact exercis- 
 ing what had been considered, at all times and in all countries, 
 one of the highest attributes of sovereignty, the regulation of the 
 current medium of the country. They were no longer competent 
 to assist the treasury in either of the great operations of collection, 
 deposit, or distribution, of the public revenues. In fact, the paper 
 which they emitted, and which the treasury, from the force of events, 
 found itself constrained to receive, was constantly obstructing the 
 operations of that department. For it would accumulate where it 
 was not wanted, and could not be used where it was wanted for 
 the purposes of government, without a ruinous and arbitrary 
 brokerage. Every man who paid or received from the government, 
 paid or received as much less than he ought to have done as was 
 the difference between the medium in which the payment was 
 effected and specie. Taxes were no longer uniform. In New 
 England, where specie payments have not been suspended, the 
 people were called upon to pay larger contributions than where 
 they were suspended. In Kentucky as much more was paid by 
 the people in their taxes than was paid, for example, in the state of 
 Ohio, as Kentucky paper was worth more than Ohio paper. 
 
 It appeared to Mr. Clay, that, in this condition of things, the 
 general government could depend no longer upon these local 
 institutions, multiplied and multiplying daily ; coming into exist- 
 ence by the breath of eighteen state sovereignties, some of which 
 by a single act of volition had created twenty or thirty at a time. 
 Even if the resumption of specie payments could have been 
 vol. i. 34 
 
266 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 anticipated, the general government remaining passive, it did not 
 seem to him that the general government ought longer to depend 
 upon these local institutions exclusively for aid in its operations. 
 But he did not believe it could be justly so anticipated. It was 
 not the interest of all of them that the renewal of specie payments 
 should take place, and yet, without concert between all or most of 
 them it could not be effected. With regard to those disposed to 
 return to a regular state of things, great difficulties might arise, as 
 to the time of its commencement. 
 
 Considering, then, that the state of the currency was such that 
 no thinking man could contemplate it without the most serious 
 alarm ; that it threatened general distress, if it did not ultimately lead 
 to convulsion and subversion of the government ; it appeared to 
 him to be the duty of congress to apply a remedy, if a remedy 
 could be devised. A national bank, with other auxiliary measures, 
 was proposed as that remedy. Mr. Clay said, he determined to 
 examine the question with as little prejudice as possible arising 
 from his former opinion. He knew that the safest course to him, 
 if he pursued a cold, calculating prudence, was to adhere to that 
 opinion, right or wrong. He was perfectly aware, that if he 
 changed, or seemed to change it, he should expose himself to some 
 censure. But, looking at the subject with the light shed upon it by 
 events happening since the commencement of the war, he could no 
 longer doubt. A bank appeared to him not only necessary, but 
 indispensably necessary, in connection with another measure, to 
 remedy the evils of which all were but too sensible. He preferred 
 to the suggestions of the pride of consistency, the evident interests 
 of the community, and determined to throw himself upon their 
 candor and justice. That which appeared to him in 1811, under 
 the state of things then existing, not to be necessary to the general 
 government, seemed now to be necessary, under the present state 
 of things. Had he then foreseen what now exists, and no objec- 
 tion had lain against the renewal of the charter other than that 
 derived from the constitution, he should have voted for the renewal. 
 
 Other provisions of the constitution, but little noticed, if noticed 
 at all, on the discussions in congress in 1811, would seem to urge 
 that body to exert all its powers to restore to a sound state the 
 money of the country. That instrument confers upon congress 
 the power to coin money, and to regulate the value of foreign 
 coins ; and the states are prohibited to coin money, to emit bills of 
 credit, or to make any thing but gold and silver coin a tender in 
 payment of debts. The plain inference is, that the subject of the 
 general currency was intended to be submitted exclusively to the 
 general government. In point of fact, however, the regulation of 
 the general currency is in the hands of the state governments, or, 
 which is the same thing, of the banks created by them. Their 
 paper has every quality of money, except that of being made a 
 
ON THE BANK QUEST 
 
 tender, and even this is imparted to it by some states, in the law 
 by which a creditor must receive it, or submit to a ruinous suspen- 
 sion of the payment of his debt. It was incumbent upon congress 
 to recover the control which it had lost over the general currency. 
 The remedy called for, was one of caution and moderation, but of 
 firmness. Whether a remedy directly acting upon the banks and 
 their paper thrown into circulation, was in the power of the general 
 government or not, neither congress nor the community were 
 prepared for the application of such a remedy. An indirect 
 remedy, of a milder character, seemed to be furnished by a 
 national bank. Going into operation, with the powerful aid of 
 the treasury of the United States, he believed it would be highly 
 instrumental in the renewal of specie payments. Coupled with the 
 other measure adopted by congress for that object, he believed the 
 remedy effectual. The local banks must follow the example which 
 the national bank would set them, of redeeming their notes by the 
 payment of specie, or their notes will be discredited and put down. 
 
 If the constitution, then, warranted the establishment of a bank, 
 other considerations, besides those already mentioned, strongly 
 urged it. The want of a general medium is every where felt. 
 Exchange varies continually, not only between different parts 
 of the union, but between different parts of the same city. If 
 the paper of a national bank were not redeemed in specie, 
 it would be much better than the current paper, since, although its 
 value in comparison with specie might fluctuate, it would afford an 
 uniform standard. 
 
 If political power be incidental to banking corporations, there 
 ought, perhaps, to be in the general government some counterpoise 
 to that which is exerted by the states. Such a counterpoise might 
 not indeed be so necessary, if the states exercised the power to 
 incorporate banks equally, or in proportion to their respective 
 populations. But that is not the case. A single state has a banking 
 capital equivalent, or nearly so, to one-fifth of the whole banking 
 capital of the United States. Four states combined, have the 
 major part of the banking capital of the United States. In the 
 event of any convulsion, in which the distribution of banking 
 institutions might be important, it may be urged, that the mischief 
 would not be alleviated by the creation of a national bank, since its 
 location must be within one of the states. But in this respect the 
 location of the bank is extremely favorable, being in one of the 
 middle states, not likely from its position, as well as its loyalty, to 
 concur in any scheme for subverting the government. And a 
 sufficient security against such contingency is to be found in the 
 distribution of branches in different states, acting and reacting 
 upon the parent institution, and upon each other. 
 
ON THE DIRECT TAX, 
 
 AND THE STATE OF THE NATION AFTER THE CLOSE OF THE WAR 
 WITH GREAT BRITAIN. 
 
 IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, JANUARY, 1816. 
 
 [In this speech, which was made in committee of the whole, on a proposition to 
 lay a direct tax for the purpose of providing for the interest on the public debt, and 
 for other objects, as expressed in the report of the committee of ways and means, 
 Mr. Clay enters into a general view of the state of public affairs, as they existed at 
 the conclusion of the war with Great Britain. His defence of the policy of the war, 
 and of the treaty of peace concluded by himself and the other commissioners at Ghent, 
 will be found interesting and valuable, as a portion of our national history. On the 
 present occasion, it wilf be observed. Mr. Clay first boldly avows his sympathies for 
 the cause of the patriots of South America; thus shadowing forth, at this early period, 
 the feelings which prompted him, in ISIS, to propose, in a definite form, the recogni- 
 tion of their independence. This speech concludes with a masterly, although rapid, 
 sketch of the true policy of the country, in which are seen the outlines of the Amer- 
 ican system, a subject always prominent in the thoughts of this statesman.] 
 
 Mr. Clay (speaker) said, the course had been pursued, ever 
 since he had had the honor of a seat on this floor, to select some 
 subject during the early part of the session, on which, by a general 
 understanding, gentlemen were allowed to indulge themselves in 
 remarks on the existing state of public affairs. The practice was 
 a very good one, he said, and there could be no occasion more 
 proper than that of a proposition to lay a direct tax. 
 
 Those who have for fifteen years past administered the affairs of 
 this government, have conducted this nation to an honorable point 
 of elevation, at which they may justly pause, challenge a retrospect, 
 and invite attention to the bright field of prosperity which lies 
 before us. 
 
 The great objects of the committee of finance, in the report 
 under consideration, are, in the first place, to provide for the pay- 
 ment of the public debts, and in the second, to provide for the 
 support of the government, and the payment of such expenses as 
 should be authorized by congress. The greater part of the debt, 
 Mr. Clay admitted, had grown out of the late war; yet a consider- 
 able portion of it consisted of that contracted in the former war for 
 
ON THE DIRECT TAX. 269 
 
 independence, and a portion of it, perhaps, of that which arose out 
 of the wars with Tripoli and Algiers. Gentlemen had, on this 
 occasion, therefore, fairly a right to examine into the course of 
 administration heretofore, to demonstrate the impolicy of those wars, 
 and the injudiciousness of the public expenditures generally. In 
 the cursory view which he should take of this subject, he must be 
 allowed to say, he should pay no particular attention to what had 
 passed before, in debate. An honorable colleague (Mr. Hardin) 
 who spoke the other day, like another gentleman who preceded 
 him in debate, had taken occasion to refer to his (Mr. Clay's) late 
 absence from this country on public business ; but, Mr. Clay said, 
 he trusted, among the fruits of that absence were a greater respect 
 for the institutions which distinguish this happy country, a greater 
 confidence in them, and an increased disposition to cling to them. 
 Yes, sir ; I was in the neighborhood of the battle of Waterloo, and 
 some lessons I did derive from it ; but they were lessons which 
 satisfied me, that national independence was only to be maintained 
 by national resistance against foreign encroachments ; by cherishing 
 the interests of the people, and giving to the whole physical power 
 of the country an interest in the preservation of the nation. I have 
 been taught that lesson ; that we should never lose sight of the 
 possibility, that a combination of despots, of men unfriendly to 
 liberty, propagating what in their opinion constitutes the principle 
 of legitimacy, might reach our happy land, and subject us to that 
 tyranny and degradation which seems to be one of their objects in 
 another country. The result of my reflections is, the determination 
 to aid with my vote in providing my country with all the means to 
 protect its liberties, and guard them even from serious menace. 
 Motives of delicacy, which the committee would be able to under- 
 stand and appreciate, prevented him from noticing some of his 
 colleague's (Mr. Hardin's) remarks ; but he would take the occasion 
 to give him one admonition — that, when he next favored the house 
 with an exhibition of his talent for wit — with a display of those 
 elegant implements, for his possession of which, the gentleman 
 from Virginia had so handsomely complimented him — that he 
 would recollect that it is bought, and not borrowed wit, which the 
 adage recommends as best. With regard to the late war with 
 Great Britain, history, in deciding upon the justice and policy of 
 that war, will determine the question according to the state of things 
 which existed when that war was declared. I gave a vote for the 
 declaration of war. I exerted all the little influence and talents I 
 could command to make the war. The war was made ; it is 
 terminated; and I declare with perfect sincerity, if it had been 
 permitted me to lift the veil of futurity, and to have foreseen the 
 precise series of events which has occurred, my vote would have 
 been unchanged. The policy of the war, as it regarded our state 
 of preparation, must be determined with reference to the state of 
 
270 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 things at the time that war was declared. He need not take up 
 the time of the house, in demonstrating that we had cause sufficient 
 for war. We had been insulted and outraged, and spoilatcd upon 
 by almost all Europe — by Great Britain, by France, Spain, Den- 
 mark, Naples, and, to cap the climax, by the little, contemptible 
 power of Algiers. We had submitted too long and too much. We 
 had become the scorn of foreign powers, and the contempt of our 
 own citizens. The question of the policy of declaring war at the 
 particular time when it was commenced, is best determined by 
 applying to the enemy himself ; and what said he! — that of all 
 the circumstances attending its declaration, none was so aggravat- 
 ing as that we should have selected the moment which of all 
 others was most inconvenient to him ; when he was struggling for 
 self-existence in a last effort against the gigantic power of France. 
 The question of the state of preparation for war at any time is a 
 relative question — relative to our own means, the condition of the 
 other power, and the state of the world at the time of declaring it. 
 We could not expect, for instance, that a war against Algiers would 
 require the same means or extent of preparation, as a war against 
 Great Britain ; and if it was to be waged against one of the 
 primary powers of Europe, at peace with all the rest of the world, 
 and therefore all her force at command, it could not be commenced 
 with so little preparation, as if her whole force were employed in 
 another quarter. Jt is not necessary again to repel the stale, ridic- 
 ulous, false story of French influence, originating in Great Britain, 
 and echoed here. I now contend, as I have always done, that we 
 had a right to take advantage of the condition of the world, at the 
 time war was declared. If Great Britain were engaged in war, we 
 had a right to act on the knowledge of the fact, that her means of 
 annoyance, as to us, were diminished ; and we had a right to obtain 
 all the collateral aid we could, from the operations of other powers 
 against her, without entering into those connections which are- 
 forbidden by the genius of our government. But it was rather like 
 disturbing the ashes of the dead, now to discuss the questions of 
 the justice or expediency of the war. They were questions long 
 since settled, and on which the public opinion was decisively made 
 up, in favor of the administration. 
 
 He proceeded to examine the conditions of the peace and the 
 fruits of the war — questions of more recent date, and more imme- 
 diately applicable to the present discussion. The terms of the 
 peace must be determined by the same rule that was applicable to 
 the declaration of war — that rule which was furnished by the state 
 of the world at the lime the peace was made ; and, even if it were 
 true, that all the sanguine expectations which might have been 
 formed at the time of the declaration of war, were not realized by 
 the terms of the subsequent peace, it did not follow that the war 
 was improperly declared, or the peace dishonorable, unless the 
 
ON THE DIRECT TAX. 271 
 
 condition of the parties, in relation to other powers, remained sub- 
 stantially the same, throughout the struggle, and at the time of the 
 termination of the war, as it was at the commencement of it. 
 At the termination of the war, France was annihilated — blotted out 
 of the map of Europe; the vast power wielded by Bonaparte 
 existed no longer. Let it be admitted, that statesmen, in laying 
 their course, are to look at probable events; that their conduct is to 
 be examined, with reference to the course of events, which in all 
 human probability might have been anticipated; and is there a 
 man in this house, in existence, who can say, that on the eighteenth 
 day of June, 1812, when the war was declared, it would have been 
 anticipated, that Great Britain, by the circumstance of a general 
 peace, resulting from the overthrow of a power whose base- 
 ments were supposed to be deeper laid, more ramified, and more 
 extended, than those of any power ever were before, would be 
 placed in the attitude in which she stood in December, 1814? 
 Would any one say, that this government could have anticipated 
 such a state of things, and ought to have been governed in its 
 conduct accordingly ? Great Britain, Russia, Germany, did not 
 expect — not a power in Europe believed — as late even as January, 
 1814, that, in the ensuing March, Bonaparte would abdicate, and 
 the restoration of the Bourbons would follow. What, then, was 
 the actual condition of Europe, when peace was concluded ? 
 A perfect tranquillity reigned throughout ; for, as late as the first of 
 March, the idea of Napoleon's reappearing in France, was as little 
 entertained as that of a man's coming from the moon to take upon 
 himself the government of the country. In December, 1814, a 
 profound and apparently a permanent peace existed ; Great Britain 
 was left to dispose of the vast force, the accumulation of twenty- 
 five years, the work of an immense system of finance and protracted 
 war; she was at liberty to employ that undivided force against this 
 country. Under such circumstances, it did not follow, according 
 to the rules laid down, either that the war ought not to have been 
 made, or that peace on such terms ought not to have been 
 concluded. 
 
 What, then, were the terms of the peace? The regular opposi- 
 tion in this country, the gentlemen on the other side of the house, 
 had not come out to challenge an investigation of the terms of the 
 peace, although they had several times given a sidewipe at the 
 treaty, on occasions with which it had no necessary connection. It 
 had been sometimes said, that we had gained nothing by the war, 
 that the fisheries were lost, &c. How, he asked, did this question 
 of the fisheries really stand ? By the first part of the third article 
 of the treaty of 1783, the right was recognized in the people of the 
 United States to take fish of every kind on the Grand Bank, and 
 on all the other banks of Newfoundland; also in the gulf of St. 
 Lawrence, and at all other places in the sea, where the inhabitants 
 
272 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 of both countries used at any time to fish. This right was a 
 necessary incident to our sovereignty, although it is denied to some 
 of the powers of Europe. It was not contested at Ghent ; it has 
 never been drawn in question by Great Britain. But by the same 
 third article it was further stipulated, that the inhabitants of the 
 United States shall have ' liberty to take fish of every kind on such 
 part of the coast of Newfoundland as British fishermen shall use 
 (but not to dry or cure the same on that island), and also on the 
 coasts, bays, and creeks, of all other of his Britannic majesty's 
 dominions in America; and that the American fishermen shall 
 have liberty to dry and cure fish in any of the unsettled bays, 
 harbors, and creeks of Nova Scotia, Magdalen islands, and Lab- 
 rador, so long as the same shall remain unsettled ; but so soon as 
 the same or either of them shall be settled, it shall not be lawful 
 for the said fishermen to dry or cure fish at such settlement, without 
 a previous agreement for that purpose with the inhabitants, propri- 
 etors, or possessors of the ground.' The British commissioners, 
 assuming that these liberties had expired by the war between the 
 two countries, at an early period of the negotiation, declared that 
 they would not be revived without an equivalent. Whether the 
 treaty of 1783 does not form an exception to the general rule, 
 according to which treaties are vacated by a war breaking out 
 between the parties, is a question on which he did not mean to 
 express an opinion. The first article of that treaty, by which the 
 king of Great Britain acknowledges the sovereignty of the United 
 States, certainly was not abrogated by the war ; that all the other 
 parts of the same instrument, which define the limits, privileges, 
 and liberties attaching to that sovereignty, were equally unaffected 
 by the war, might be contended for with at least much plausibility. 
 If we determined to offer them the equivalent required, the ques- 
 tion was, what should it be? When the British commissioners 
 demanded, in their projet, a renewal to Great Britain of the right 
 to the navigation of the Mississippi, secured by the treaty of 1783, 
 a bare majority of the American commissioners offered to renew it, 
 upon the condition that the liberties in question were renewed to 
 us. He was not one of that majority. He would not trouble the 
 committee with his reasons for being opposed to the offer. A 
 majority of his colleagues, actuated he believed by the best motives, 
 made, however, the offer, and it was refused by the British com- 
 missioners. 
 
 If the British interpretation of the treaty of 1783 be correct, we 
 have lost the liberties in question. What the value of them really 
 is, he had not been able to meet with any two gentlemen who 
 agreed. The great value of the whole mass of our fishery inter- 
 ests, as connected with our navigation and trade, was sufficiently 
 demonstrated by the tonnage employed ; but of what was the rela- 
 tive importance of these liberties, there was great contrariety of 
 
ON THE DIRECT TAX. 273 
 
 statements. They were liberties to be exercised within a foreign 
 jurisdiction, and some of them were liable to be destroyed by the 
 contingency of settlement. He did not believe, that much impor- 
 tance attached to such liberties. And, supposing them to be lost, 
 we are, perhaps, sufficiently indemnified by the redemption of the 
 British mortgage upon the navigation of the Mississippi. This 
 great stream, on that supposition, is placed where it ought to be, in 
 the same independent condition with the Hudson, or any other river 
 in the United States. 
 
 If, on the contrary, the opposite construction of the treaty of 
 1783 be the true one, these liberties remain to us, and the right to 
 the navigation of the Mississippi, as secured to Great Britain by 
 that instrument, continues with her. 
 
 But he was surprised to hear a gentleman from the western 
 country (Mr. Hardin) exclaim, that we had gained nothing by the 
 war. Great Britain acquired, by the treaty negotiated by Mr. Jay, 
 the right to trade with the Indians within our territories. It was a 
 right upon which she placed great value, and from the pursuit of 
 which she did not desist without great reluctance. It had been 
 exercised by her agents in a manner to excite the greatest sensi- 
 bility in the western country. This right was clearly lost by the 
 war ; for, whatever may be the true opinion as to the treaty of 
 1783, there can be no doubt that the stipulations of that of 1794 no 
 longer exist. 
 
 It had been said, that the great object, in the continuation of the 
 war, had been to secure our mariners against impressment, and 
 that peace was made without accomplishing it. With regard 
 to the opposition, he presumed that they would not urge any such 
 argument. For, if their opinion was to be inferred (though he 
 hoped in this case it was not) from that of an influential and 
 distinguished member of the opposition, we had reason to believe 
 that they did not think the British doctrines wrong on this subject. 
 He alluded to a letter said to be written by a gentleman of great 
 consideration, residing in an adjoining state, to a member of this 
 house, in which the writer states, that he conceives the British 
 claim to be right, and expresses his hope that the president, however 
 he might kick at it, would be compelled to swallow the bitter pill. 
 If the peace had really given up the American doctrine, it would 
 have been, according to that opinion, merely yielding to the force 
 of the British right. In that view of the subject, the error of the 
 administration would have been in contending for too much in 
 behalf of this country ; for he presumed there was no doubt, that, 
 whether right or wrong, it would be an important principle gained 
 to secure our seamen against British impressment. And he trusted 
 in God that all future administrations would rather err on the side 
 of contending for too much than too little for America. 
 
 But he was willing to admit, that the conduct of the administra- 
 vol. i. 35 
 
274 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 tion ought to be tried by their own opinions, and not those of the 
 opposition. One of the great causes of the war, and of its con- 
 tinuance, was the" practice of impressment exercised by Great 
 Britain, and if this claim has been admitted, by necessary implica- 
 tion or express stipulation, the administration has abandoned the 
 rights of our seamen. It was with utter astonishment that he heard, 
 that it had been contended in this country, that because our right 
 of exemption from the practice had not been expressly secured in 
 the treaty, it was therefore given up ! It was impossible that such 
 an argument could be advanced on the floor. No member who 
 regarded his reputation would have dared advance such an argu- 
 ment here. 
 
 Had the war terminated, the practice continuing, he admitted 
 that such might be a fair inference ; and on some former occasion 
 he had laid down the principle, which he thought correct, that if 
 the United States did not make peace with Great Britain, the war 
 in Europe continuing, and therefore she continuing the exercise of 
 the practice, without any stipulation to secure us against its effects, 
 the plain inference would be, that we had surrendered the right. 
 But what is the fact? At the time of the conclusion of the treaty 
 of peace, Great Britain had ceased the practice of impressment ; 
 she was not only at peace with all the powers of Europe, but there 
 was every prospect of a permanent and durable peace. The treaty 
 being silent on the subject of impressment, the only plain rational 
 result was, that neither party had conceded its rights, but they were 
 left totally unaffected by it. He recollected to have heard, in the 
 British house of commons, whilst he was in Europe, the very 
 reverse of the doctrine advanced here on this subject. The 
 British ministry were charged by a member of the opposition with 
 having surrendered their right of impressment, and the same course 
 of reasoning was employed to prove it, as he understood was em- 
 ployed in this country to prove our acquiescence in that practice. 
 The argument was this : the war was made on the professed 
 ground of resistance of the practice of impressment ; the peace 
 having been made without a recognition of the right of America, 
 the treaty being silent on the subject, the inference was, that the 
 British authorities had surrendered the right — that they had failed 
 to secure it, and, having done so, had in effect yielded it. The 
 member of the opposition in England was just as wrong as any 
 member of the house would be, who should contend that the right 
 of impressment is surrendered to the British government. The 
 fact was, neither party had surrendered its rights ; things remain as 
 though the war had never been made — both parties are in posses- 
 sion of all the rights they had anterior to the war. Lest it might 
 be deduced that his sentiments on the subject of impressment had 
 undergone a change, he took the opportunity to say, that, although 
 he desired to preserve peace between Great Britain and the United 
 
ON THE DIRECT TAX. 275 
 
 States, and to maintain between them lhat good understanding 
 calculated to promote the interest of each, yet, whenever Great 
 Britain should give satisfactory evidence of her design to apply her 
 doctrine of impressment as heretofore, he was, for one, ready to 
 take up arms again to oppose her. The fact was, that the two 
 nations had been placed in a state of hostility as to a practice 
 growing out of the war in Europe. The war ceasing between 
 Great Britain and the rest of Europe, left England and America 
 engaged in a contest on an aggression which had also practically 
 ceased. The question had then presented itself, whether the United 
 States should be kept in war, to gain an abandonment of what 
 had become a mere abstract principle ; or, looking at the results, 
 and relying on the good sense and sound discretion of both 
 countries, we should not recommend the termination of the war. 
 When no practical evil could result from the suspension of hostili- 
 ties, and there was no more than a possibility of the removal of 
 the practice of impressment, I, as one of the mission, consented 
 with sincere pleasure to the peace, satisfied that we gave up no 
 right, sacrificed no honor, compromited no important principle. 
 He said, then, applying the rule of the actual state of things, as 
 that by which to judge of the peace, there was nothing in the 
 conditions or terms of the peace that was dishonorable, nothing for 
 reproach, nothing for regret. 
 
 Gentlemen have complained, that we had lost the islands 
 in the bay of Passamaquoddy. JIave they examined into that 
 question, and do they know the grounds on which it stands ? 
 Prior to the war we occupied Moose Island, the British Grand 
 Menan. Each party claimed both islands ; America, because they 
 are within the limits of the United States, as defined by the treaty 
 of 1783 ; and Great Britain, because, as she alleges, they were in 
 the exception contained in the second article of that treaty as to 
 islands within the limits of the province of Nova Scotia. All the 
 information which he had received concurred in representing 
 Grand Menan as the most valuable island. Does the treaty, in 
 stipulating for an amicable and equitable mode of settling this 
 controversy, yield one foot of the territory of the United States ? 
 If our title to Moose Island is drawn in question, that of Great 
 Britain to Grand Menan is equally so, If we may lose the one, 
 she may the other. The treaty, it was true, contained a provision 
 that the party in possession, at the time of its ratification, may hold 
 on until the question of right is decided. The committee would 
 observe, that this stipulation, as to possession, was not limited to 
 the moment of the signature, but looked to the period of the rati- 
 fication of the treaty. The American commissioners had thought 
 they might safely rely on the valor of Massachusetts, or the arms 
 of the United States, to drive the invader from our soil ; and had 
 also hoped that we might obtain possession of Grand Menan. It 
 
276 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 is true, they have been disappointed in the successful application 
 of the force of that state and of that of the union. But it is not 
 true that we have parted with the right. It is fair to presume 
 that Great Britain will, with good faith, cooperate in carrying the 
 stipulations into effect; and she has, in fact, already promptly 
 proceeded to the appointment of commissioners under the treaty. 
 What have we gained by the war ? He had shown we had lost 
 nothing in rights, territory, or honor ; nothing for which we ought 
 to have contended, according to the principles of the gentlemen on 
 the other side, or according to our own. Have we gained nothing 
 by the war? Let any man look at the degraded condition of this 
 country before the war — the scorn of the universe, the contempt 
 of ourselves — and tell me, if we have gained nothing by the war ? 
 What is our present situation ? Respectability and character 
 abroad ; security and confidence at home. If we have not obtained, 
 in the opinion of some, the full measure of retribution, our charac- 
 ter and constitution are placed on a solid basis, never to He shaken. 
 The glory acquired by our gallant tars, by our Jacksons and our 
 Browns on the land, is that nothing? True, we have had our 
 vicissitudes — that there were humiliating events which the patriot 
 could not review without deep regret. But the great account, 
 when it came to be balanced, thank God, would be found vastly 
 in our favor. Is there a man, he asked, who would have obliterated 
 from the proud pages of our history the brilliant achievements of 
 Jackson, Brown, Scott, and the host of heroes on land and sea 
 whom he would not enumerate ? Is there a man who could not 
 desire a participation in the national glory acquired by the war? — 
 yes, national glory ; which, however the expression may be con- 
 demned by some, must be cherished by every genuine patriot. 
 What do I mean by national glory ? Glory such as Hull, of the 
 Constitution, Jackson, Lawrence, Perry, have acquired. And are 
 gentlemen insensible to their deeds? to the value of them, in 
 animating the country in the hour of peril hereafter? Did the 
 battle of Thermopylae preserve Greece but once ? W T hilst the 
 Mississippi continues to bear the tributes of the Iron mountains 
 and the Alleghany to her Delta and to the Gulf of Mexico, the 
 eighth of January shall be remembered, and the glory of that day 
 shall stimulate future patriots, and nerve the arms of unborn freemen, 
 in driving the presumptuous invader from our country's soil! 
 Gentlemen may boast of their insensibility to feelings inspired by 
 the contemplation of such events. But he would ask, does the 
 recollection of Bunker's hill, of Saratoga, of York-town, afford them 
 no pleasure ? Every act of noble sacrifice to the country — overy 
 instance of patriotic devotion to her cause — has its beneficial 
 influence. A nation's character is the sum of its splendid deeds. 
 They constitute one common patrimony — the nation's inheritance. 
 They awe foreign powers. They arouse and animate our own 
 
ON THE DIRECT TAX. 277 
 
 people. Do gentlemen derive no pleasure from the recent transac- 
 tions in the Mediterranean ? Can they regard unmoved the honor- 
 able issue of a war, in support of our national rights, declared, 
 prosecuted, and terminated by a treaty in which the enemy 
 submitted to a carte blanche, in the short period of forty days ? 
 The days of chivalry are not gone. They have been revived in 
 the person of commodore Decatur, who, in releasing from infidel 
 bondage Christian captives — the subjects of a foreign power — 
 and restoring them to their country and their friends, has placed 
 himself beside the most renowned knights of former times. I love 
 true glory. It is this sentiment which ought to be cherished ; and 
 in spite of cavils and sneers and attempts to put it down, it will 
 finally conduct this nation to that height to which God and nature 
 have destined it. Three wars, those who at present administer 
 this government may say, and say with proud satisfaction, they 
 have safely conducted us through. Two with powers, which, 
 though otherwise contemptible, have laid almost all Europe under 
 tribute — a tribute from which we are exonerated. The third, with 
 one of the most gigantic powers that the world ever saw. These 
 struggles have not been without their sacrifices, nor without their 
 lessons. They have created, or rather greatly increased, the public 
 debt. They have taught, that, to preserve the character we have 
 established, preparation for war is necessary. 
 
 The public debt exists. However contracted, the faith of the 
 nation is pledged for its redemption. It can only be paid by 
 providing an excess of revenue beyond expenditure, or by retrench- 
 ment. Did gentlemen contend that the results of the report were 
 inaccurate — that the proceeds of the revenue would be greater, or 
 the public expenses less, than the estimate ? On these subjects, 
 he believed it would be presumption in him, w T hen the defence of 
 the report was in such able hands (Mr. Lowndes's), to attempt its 
 vindication. Leaving the task to that gentleman, he should 
 assume, for the present, its accuracy. He would lay down a 
 general rule, from which there ought never to be a departure, 
 without absolute necessity — that the expenses of the year ought 
 to be met by the revenue of the year. If in time of war it were 
 impossible to observe this rule, we ought, in time of peace, to 
 provide for as speedy a discharge of the debt contracted in the 
 preceding war as possible. This can only be done by an effective 
 sinking fund, based upon an excess of revenue beyond expendi- 
 ture, and a protraction of the period of peace. If in England the 
 sinking fund had not fulfilled what was promised, it was because 
 of a failure to provide such a revenue, and because the interests of 
 peace in that country had been too few and too short. From the 
 revolution to 1812, a period of one hundred and twenty-four years, 
 there had been sixty-three years of war, and only sixty-one of 
 peace ; and there had been contracted £638,129,577 of debt, and 
 
278 SPEECHE3 OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 discharged only £39,594,305. The national debt at the peace of 
 Utrecht amounted to £52,681,076, and during the peace which 
 followed, being twenty-seven years, from 1714 to 1740, there was 
 discharged only £7,231,503. When the operations of our sinking 
 fund were contrasted with those of Great Britain, they would be found 
 to present the most gratifying results. Our public debt, existing on 
 the first day of January, 1802, amounted to $78,754,568 70 ; and on 
 the first of January, 1815, we had extinguished $33,873,463 98. 
 Thus in thirteen years, one half the period of peace that followed 
 the treaty of Utrecht, we had discharged more public debt than 
 Great Britain did during that period. In twenty-six years she did 
 not pay much more than a seventh of her debt. In thirteen years 
 we paid more than a third of ours. If, then, a public debt, con- 
 tacted in a manner, he trusted, satisfactory to the country, imposed 
 upon us a duty to provide for its payment ; if we were encouraged, 
 by past experience, to persevere in the application of an effective 
 sinking fund, he would again repeat, that the only alternatives 
 were the adoption of a system of taxation producing the revenue 
 estimated by the committee of ways and means, or by great 
 retrenchment of the public expenses. 
 
 In what respect can a reduction of the public expenses be effected? 
 Gentlemen who assailed the report on this ground have, by the in- 
 definite nature of the attack, great advantage on their side. Instead 
 of contenting themselves with crying out retrenchment ! retrench- 
 ment ! a theme always plausible, an object always proper, when 
 the public interest will admit of it, let them point the attention of 
 the house to some specified subject. If they really think a reduc- 
 tion of the army and navy, or either of them, be proper, let them 
 lay a resolution upon the table to that effect. They had generally, 
 it was true, singled out, in discussing this report, (and he had no 
 objection to meet them in this way, though he thought the other 
 the fairest course,) the military establishment. He was glad that 
 the navy had fought itself into favor, and that no one appeared 
 disposed to move its reduction or to oppose its gradual augmenta- 
 tion. But the ' standing army ' is the great object of gentlemen's 
 apprehensions. And those who can bravely set at defiance 
 hobgoblins, the creatures of their own fertile imaginations, are 
 trembling for the liberties of the people, endangered by a standing 
 army of ten thousand men. Those who can courageously vote 
 against taxes, are alarmed for the safety of the constitution and 
 the country, at such a force scattered over our extensive territory ! 
 This could not have been expected, at least in the honorable 
 gentleman (Mr. Ross), who, if he had been storming a fort, could 
 not have displayed more cool, collected courage than he did, when 
 he declared, that he would show to Pennsylvania, that she had one 
 faithful representative, bold and independent enough to vote against 
 a tax ! 
 
ON THE DIRECT TAX. 279 
 
 He had happened, very incidentally, the other day, and in a 
 manner which he had supposed could not attract particular atten- 
 tion, to state, that the general condition of the world admonished 
 us to shape our measures with a view to the possible conflicts into 
 which we might be drawn ; and he said, he did not know when he 
 should cease to witness the attacks made upon him in consequence 
 of that general remark ; when he should cease to hear the cry of 
 ' standing army,' ' national glory,' &c. &c. From the tenor of gen- 
 tlemen's observations, it would seem as if, for the first time in the 
 history of this government, it was now proposed, that a certain 
 regular force should constitute a portion of the public defence. 
 But from the administration of general Washington, down to this 
 time, a regular force, a standing army (if gentlemen please), had 
 existed, and the only question about it, at any time, had been, what 
 should be the amount. Gentlemen themselves, who most loudly 
 decry this establishment, did not propose an entire disbandment of 
 it; and the question, ever with them, is, not whether a regular force be 
 necessary, but whether a regular force of this or that amount be 
 called for by the actual state of our affairs. 
 
 The question is not, on any side of the house, as to the nature, 
 but the quantum of the force. He maintained the position, that, 
 if there was the most profound peace that ever existed ; if we had 
 no fears from any quarter whatever ; if all the world was in a state 
 of the most profound and absolute repose ; a regular force of ten 
 thousand men was not too great for the purposes of this govern- 
 ment. We knew too much, he said, of the vicissitudes of human 
 affairs, and the uncertainty of all our calculations, not to know, that, 
 even in the most profound tranquillity, some tempest may suddenly 
 arise, and bring us into a state requiring the exertion of military 
 force, which cannot be created in a moment, but requires time for 
 its collection, organization, and discipline. When gentlemen 
 talked of the force which was deemed sufficient some twenty years 
 ago, what did they mean ? That this force was not to be progres- 
 sive ? That the full grown man ought to wear the clothes and 
 habits of his infancy ? That the establishment maintained by this 
 government, when its population amounted to four or five millions 
 only, should be the standard by which our measures should be 
 regulated, in all subsequent states of the country ? If gentlemen 
 meant this, as it seemed to him they did, he and they should not 
 agree. He contended, that establishments ought to be commen- 
 surate with the actual state of the country, should grow with its 
 growth, and keep pace with its progress. Look at that map (said 
 he, pointing to the large map of the United States, which hangs in 
 the hall of representatives) — at the vast extent of that country which 
 stretches from the Lake of the Woods, in the northwest, to the Bay 
 of Fundy, in the east. Look at the vast extent of our maritime 
 coast; recollect we have Indians and powerful nations conter- 
 
280 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 minous on the whole frontier; and that we know not at what 
 moment the savage enemy, or Great Britain herself, may seek to 
 make war with us. Ought the force of the country to be graduated 
 by the scale of our exposure, or are we to be uninfluenced by the 
 increase of our liability to war? Have we forgotten that the 
 power of France, as a counterpoise to that of Great Britain, is 
 annihilated — gone, never to rise again, I believe, under the weak, 
 unhappy, and imbecile race who now sway her destinies ? Any 
 individual must, I think, come to the same conclusion with myself, 
 who takes these considerations into view, and reflects on our growth, 
 the state of our defence, the situation of the nations of the world, 
 and above all, of that nation with whom we are most likely to 
 come into collision — for it is in vain to conceal it; this country 
 must have many a hard and desperate tug with Great Britain, let 
 the two governments be administered how and by whom they may. 
 That man must be blind to the indications of the future, who cannot 
 see that we are destined to have war after war with Great Britain, 
 until, if one of the two nations be not crushed, all grounds of 
 collision shall have ceased between us. I repeat, if the condition 
 of France were that of perfect repose, instead of that of a volcano, 
 ready to burst out again with a desolating eruption ; if with Spain 
 our differences were settled ; if the dreadful war raging in South 
 America were terminated; if the marines of all the powers of 
 Europe were resuscitated as they stood prior to the revolution of 
 France ; if there was universal repose, and profound tranquillity 
 among all the nations of the earth ; considering the actual growth 
 of our country, in my judgment, the force of ten thousand men 
 would not be too great for its exigences. Do gentlemen ask, if I 
 rely on the regular force entirely for the defence of the country ? 
 I answer, it is for garrisoning and keeping in order our fortifica- 
 tions, for the preservation of the national arms, for something like 
 a safe depository of military science and skill, to which we may 
 recur in time of danger, that I desire to maintain an adequate 
 regular force. I know, that in the hour of peril, our great reliance 
 must be on the whole physical force of the country, and that no 
 detachment of it can be exclusively depended on. History proves 
 that no nation, not destitute of the military art, whose people were 
 united in its defence, ever was conquered. It is true, that in 
 countries where standing armies have been entirely relied on, ihe 
 armies have been subdued, and the subjugation of the nation has 
 been the consequence of it ; but no example is to be found of a 
 united people being conquered, who possessed an adequate degree 
 of military knowledge. Look at the Grecian republics, struggling 
 successfully against the overwhelming force of Persia; look more 
 recently at Spain. I have great confidence in the militia, and I 
 would go with my honorable colleague (Mr. M'Kee), whose views 
 I know are honest, hand in hand, in arming, disciplining, and 
 
ON THE DIRECT TAX. 281 
 
 rendering effective, the militia ; I am for providing the nation with 
 every possible means of resistance. I ask my honorable colleague, 
 after I have gone thus far with him, to go a step further with me, 
 and let us retain the force we now have for the purposes I have 
 already described. J ask gentlemen who propose to reduce the 
 army, if they have examined in detail the number and extent of 
 the posts and garrisons on our maritime and interior frontier? If 
 they have not gone through ihis, process of reasoning, how shall 
 we arrive at the result that we can reduce the army with safety? 
 There is not one of our forts adequately garrisoned at this moment; 
 and there is nearly one fourth of them that have not one solitary 
 man. I said the other day, that I would rather vote for the aug- 
 mentation than the reduction of the army. When returning to my 
 country from its foreign service, and looking at this question, it 
 appeared to me that the maximum was twenty thousand, the 
 minimum ten thousand of the force we ought to retain. And I 
 again say, that rather than reduce I would vote to increase the 
 present force. 
 
 A standing army had been deemed necessary, from the com- 
 mencement of the government to the present time. The question 
 was only as to the quantum of force ; and not whether it should 
 exist. No man who regards his political reputation, would place 
 himself before the people, on a proposition for its absolute disband- 
 ment. He admitted a question as to quantum might be carried so 
 far as to rise into a question of principle. If we were to propose 
 to retain an army of thirty, or forty, or fifty thousand men, then 
 truly the question would present itself, whether our rights were not 
 in some danger from such a standing army ; whether reliance was 
 to be placed altogether on a standing army, or on that natural safe 
 defence which, according to the habits of the country and the 
 principles of our government, is considered the bulwark of our 
 liberties. But, between five and ten thousand men, or any number 
 under ten thousand, it could not be a question of principle ; for, 
 unless gentlemen were afraid of spectres, it was utterly impossible 
 that any danger could be apprehended from ten thousand men, 
 dispersed on a frontier of many thousand miles ; here twenty or 
 thirty, there an hundred ; and the largest amount, at Detroit, not 
 exceeding a thin regiment. And yet, brave gentlemen — gentle- 
 men who are not alarmed at hobgoblins — who can intrepidly vote 
 even against taxes — are alarmed by a force of this extent! What, 
 he asked, was the amount of the army in the time of Mr. Jefferson — 
 a time, the orthodoxy of which had been so ostentatiously pro- 
 claimed? It was true, when that gentleman came into power, 
 it was with a determination to retrench, as far as practicable. 
 Under the full influence of these notions, in 1802, the bold step of 
 wholly disbanding the army, never was thought of. The military 
 peace establishment was then fixed at about four thousand men* 
 v6l. i. 36 
 
282 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 But, before Mr. Jefferson went out of power, what was done — 
 that is, in April, 1808 ? In addition to the then existing peace 
 establishment, eight regiments, amounting to between five and six 
 thousand men, were authorized, making a total force precisely- 
 equal to the present peace establishment. It was true, that all this 
 force had never been actually enlisted and embodied; that the 
 recruiting service had been suspended ; and that at the commence- 
 ment of the war we had far from this number ; and we have not now 
 actually ten thousand men — being at least two thousand deficient 
 of that number. He adverted to what had been said, on this and 
 other occasions, of Mr. Jefferson's not having seized the favorable 
 moment for war, which was afforded by the attack on the Chesa- 
 peake. He had always entertained the opinion, he said, that Mr. 
 Jefferson on that occasion took the correct, manly, and frank course, 
 in saying to the British government, your officers have done this ; 
 it is an enormous aggression; do you approve the act; do you 
 make it your cause, or not ? That government did not sanction 
 the act ; it disclaimed it, and promptly too ; and although they for 
 a long time withheld the due redress, it was ultimately tendered. 
 If Mr. Jefferson had used his power to carry the country into a 
 war at that period, it might have been supported by public opinion, 
 during the moment of fever, but it would soon abate, and the 
 people would begin to ask, why this war had been made without 
 understanding whether the British government avowed the conduct 
 of its officers, and so forth. If the threatening aspect of our rela- 
 tions with England had entered into the consideration which had 
 caused the increase of the army at that time, there were considera- 
 tions equally strong at this time, with our augmented population, 
 for retaining our present force. If, however, there were no threat- 
 enings from any quarter; if the relative force of European nations, 
 and the general balance of power existing before the French 
 revolution were restored; if South America had not made the 
 attempt, in which he trusted in God she would succeed, to achieve 
 her independence ; if our affairs with Spain were settled, he would 
 repeat, that ten thousand men would not be too great a force for 
 the necessities of the country, and with a view to future emergences. 
 He had taken the liberty, the other day. to make some observa- 
 tions which he might now repeat as famishing auxiliary considera- 
 tions for adopting a course of prudence and precaution. He had 
 then said, that our affairs with Spain were not settled ; that the 
 Spanish minister was reported to have made some inadmissible 
 demands of our government. The fact turned out as he had 
 presented it. It appeared that what was then rumor, was now fact ; 
 and Spain had taken the ground, not only that there must be a 
 discussion of our title to that part of Louisiana, formerly called 
 West Florida, (which it might be doubted whether it ought to take 
 place,) but had required that we must surrender the territory first, 
 
ON THE DIRECT TAX. 2S3 
 
 and discuss the right to it afterwards. Besides this unsettled state 
 of our relations with Spain, he said, there were other rumors, and 
 he wished to God we had the same means of ascertaining their 
 correctness, as we had found of ascertaining the truth of the rumor 
 just noticed ; it was rumored that the Spanish province of Florida 
 had been ceded, with all her pretensions, to Great Britain. Would 
 gentlemen tell him, then, that this was a time when any statesman 
 would pursue the hazardous policy of disarming entirely, of quietly 
 smoking our pipes by our firesides, regardless of impending 
 danger ? It might be a palatable doctrine to some, but he was 
 persuaded was condemned by the rules of conduct in private life, 
 by those maxims of sound precaution by which individuals would 
 regulate their private affairs. He did not here mean to take up 
 the question in relation to South America. Still, it was impossible 
 not to see, that, in the progress of things, we might be called on to 
 decide the question, whether we would or would not lend them our 
 aid. This opinion he boldly declared, and he entertained it, not in 
 any pursuit of vain glory, but from a deliberate conviction of its 
 being conformable to the best interests of the country ; that, having 
 a proper understanding with foreign powers — that understanding 
 which prudence and a just precaution recommended — it would 
 undoubtedly be good policy to take part with the patriots of 
 South America. He believed it could be shown, that, on the 
 strictest principles of public law, we have a right to take part with 
 them, that it is our interest to take part with them, and that our 
 interposition in their favor would be effectual. But he confessed, 
 with infinite regret, that he saw a supineness on this interesting 
 subject, throughout our country, which left him almost without 
 hope, that what he believed the correct policy of the country would 
 be pursued. He considered the release of any part of America 
 from the dominions of the old world, as adding to the general 
 security of the new. He could not contemplate the exertions of 
 the people of South America, without wishing that they might 
 triumph, and nobly triumph. He believed the cause of humanity 
 would be promoted by the interposition of any foreign power 
 which should terminate the contest between the friends and enemies 
 of independence in that quarter, for a more bloody and cruel war 
 never had been carried on since the days of Adam, than that which 
 is now raging in South America ; in which not the least regard is 
 paid to the laws of war, to the rights of capitulation, to the rights 
 of prisoners, nor even to the rights of kindred. I do not offer 
 these views, expecting to influence the opinions of others ; they 
 are opinions of my own. But, on the question of general policy, 
 whether or not we shall interfere in the war in South America, it 
 may turn out that, whether we will or will not choose to interfere 
 in their behalf, we shall be drawn into the contest in the course of 
 its progress. Among other demands by the minister of Spain, is 
 
284 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 the exclusion of the flag of Buenos Ayres, and other parts of South 
 America, from our ports. Our government has taken a ground on 
 this subject, of which I think no gentleman can disapprove — that 
 all parties shall be admitted and hospitably treated in our ports, 
 provided ihey conform to our laws whilst among us. What course 
 Spain may take on this subject, it was impossible now to say. 
 Although I would not urge this as an argument for increasing our 
 force, I would place it among those considerations which ought to 
 have weight with every enlightened mind, in determining upon 
 the propriety of its reduction. It is asserted that Great Britain has 
 strengthened, and is strengthening herself in the provinces adjoin- 
 ing us. Is this a moment when in prudence we ought to disarm ? 
 No, sir. Preserve your existing force. It would be extreme indis- 
 cretion to lessen it. 
 
 Mr. Clay here made some observations, to show that a reduction 
 of the army to from four to five thousand men, as had been sug- 
 gested, would not occasion such a diminution of expense as to 
 authorize the rejection of the report, or any essential alteration in 
 the amount of revenue, which the system proposes to raise from 
 internal taxes, and his colleague (Mr. M'Kee) appeared equally 
 hostile to all of them. Having, however, shown that we cannot in 
 safety reduce the army, he would leave the details of the report in 
 the abler hands of the honorable chairman (Mr. Lowndes), who, 
 he had no doubt, could demonstrate, that with all the retrenchments 
 which had been recommended, the government would be bankrupt 
 in less than three years, if most of these taxes were not continued. 
 He would now hasten to that conclusion, at which the committee 
 could not regret more than he did, that he had not long since 
 arrived, 
 p As to the attitude in which this country should be placed, the 
 duty of congress could not be mistaken. My policy is to preserve 
 the present force, naval and military ; to provide for the augmenta- 
 tion of the navy ; and, if the danger of war should increase, to 
 increase the army also. Arm the militia, and give it the most 
 effective character of which it is susceptible. Provide in the most 
 ample manner, and place in proper depots, all the munitions and 
 instruments of war. Fortify and strengthen the weak and vulner- 
 able points indicated by experience. Construct military roads and 
 canals, particularly from the Miami of the Ohio to the Miami of 
 Erie ; from the Sciota to the bay of Sandusky ; from the Hudson 
 to Ontario ; that the facilities of transportation may exist, of the men 
 and means of the country, to points where they may be wanted. I 
 would employ on this subject a part of the army, which should also 
 be employed on our line of frontier, territorial and maritime, in 
 strengthening the works of defence. I would provide steam batteries 
 for the Mississippi, for Borgne and Ponchartrain, and for the Ches- 
 apeake, and for any part ot the north or east, where they might be 
 
ON THE DIRECT TAX. 285 
 
 beneficially employed. In short, I would act seriously, effectively act, 
 on the principle, that in peace we ought to prepare for war ; for I 
 repeat, again and again, that, in spite of all the prudence exerted 
 by the government, and the forbearance of others, the hour of trial 
 will come. These halcyon days of peace, this calm will yield to 
 the storm of war, and when that comes, I am for being prepared 
 to breast it. Has not the government been reproached for the want 
 of preparation at the commencement of the late war? And yet 
 the same gentlemen who utter these reproaches, instead of taking 
 counsel from experience, would leave the country in an unprepared 
 condition. 
 
 He would as earnestly commence the great work, too long 
 delayed, of internal improvement. He desired to see a chain of 
 turnpike roads and canals, from Passamaquoddy to New Orleans ; 
 and other similar roads intersecting the mountains, to facilitate 
 intercourse between all parts of the country, and to bind and 
 connect us together. He would also effectually protect our manu- 
 factories. We had given, at least, an implied pledge to do so, by 
 the course of administration. He would afford them protection, 
 not so much for the sake of the manufacturers themselves, as for 
 the general interest. We should thus have our wants supplied, 
 when foreign resources are cut off, and we should also lay the 
 basis of a system of taxation, to be resorted to when the revenue 
 from imports is stopped by war. Such, Mr. Chairman, is a rapid 
 sketch of the policy which it seems to me it becomes us to pursue. 
 It is for you now to decide, whether we shall draw wisdom from 
 the past, or, neglecting the lessons of recent experience, we shall 
 go on headlong without foresight, meriting and receiving the 
 reproaches of the community. I trust, sir, notwithstanding the 
 unpromising appearances sometimes presenting themselves, during 
 the present session, we shall yet do our duty. I appeal to the 
 friends around me, with whom I have been associated for years in 
 public life ; who nobly, manfully vindicated the national character by 
 a war, waged by a young people, unskilled in arms, single-handed, 
 against a veteran power — a war which the nation has emerged 
 from, covered with laurels ; let us now do something to ameliorate 
 the internal condition of the country ; let us show that objects of 
 domestic, no less than those of foreign policy, receive our attention; 
 let us fulfil the just expectations of the public, whose eyes are 
 anxiously directed towards this session of congress ; let us, by a 
 liberal and enlightened policy, entitle ourselves, upon our return 
 home, to that best of all rewards, the grateful exclamation, c well 
 done, thou good and faithful servant. , 
 
ON THE BILL FOR ENFORCING NEUTRALITY, 
 
 IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, JANUARY 24, 1817. 
 
 [President Madison, in a message dated December 26, 1816, had apprized con- 
 gress, that the existing laws did not enable him to preserve the peace of the United 
 States with foreign powers. The subject having been referred to the committee on 
 foreign relations, that committee, through their chairman, Mr. Forsyth, of Georgia, 
 reported a bill for enforcing neutrality. This bill was debated in committee of the 
 whole, on the 24th of January, 1817, by Messrs. Forsyth, Smith, of Maryland, 
 Grosvenor, of New York, Randolph, of Virginia, Sharp, of Kentucky, Sheffey, of Vir- 
 ginia, Hopkinson, of Pennsylvania, and Clay (speaker). In the brief remarks of Mr. 
 Clay it will be observed, that he renews the expression of his sympathies with the 
 people of South America in their struggle for independence; and, considering the bill 
 tinder discussion as intended to discountenance that revolution, he avowed his oppo- 
 sition to it.] 
 
 Mr. Clay (speaker). As long as the government abstained 
 from taking any part in the contest now carrying on in the southern 
 part of this continent, it was unquestionably its duty to maintain a 
 strict neutrality. On that point there was and could be no difference 
 of opinion. It ought not, however, to be overlooked, that the two 
 parties stood with this government on unequal ground. One of 
 them had an accredited minister here, to watch over its interests, 
 and to remonstrate against any acts of which it might complain; 
 whilst the other, being wholly unrepresented, had no organ 
 through which to communicate its grievances. This inequality of 
 condition in the contending parties, imposed upon us the duty of 
 great circumspection and prudence in what we might do. 
 
 Whenever a war exists, whether between two independent states 
 or between parts of a common empire, he knew of but two rela- 
 tions in which other powers could stand towards the belligerents ; 
 the one was that of neutrality, and the other that of a belligerent. 
 
 Being then in a state of neutrality respecting the contest, and 
 bound to maintain it, the question was, whether the provisions of 
 the bill were necessary to the performance of that duty ? It will 
 be recollected that we have an existing law, directed against arma- 
 ments, such as are described in the bill. That law was passed in 
 1794. It was intended to preserve our neutrality in the contest 
 between France and her enemies. The circumstances under which 
 it was passed, must be yet fresh in our recollection. The French 
 
BILL FOR ENFORCING NEUTRALITY. 297 
 
 revolution had excited a universal enthusiasm in the cause of liberty. 
 The flame reached this country, and spread with electric rapidity 
 throughout the continent. There was not a state, county, city, or 
 village, exempted from it. An ardent disposition to enter into the con- 
 flict, on the side of France, was every where felt. General Washing- 
 ton thought it the interest of this country to remain neutral, and the 
 law of 1794 was enacted, to restrain our citizens from taking part 
 in the contest. If that law had been effectual to preserve the neu- 
 trality of this country, during the stormy period of the French revo- 
 lution, we ought to pause before we assent to the adoption of new 
 penalties and provisions. If the law did not reach the case (which 
 he understood to be doubtful from some judicial decisions), he was 
 willing to legislate so far as to make it comprehend it. Further 
 than that, as at present advised, he was not willing to go. 
 
 But the present bill not only went further, but, in his judgment, 
 contained provisions not demanded of us by our neutral duties. 
 It contained two principles not embraced by the law of 1794. The 
 first was, the requisition of a bond from the owners of armed ves- 
 sels, that persons, to whom they might sell these vessels, should 
 not use them in the contest. The second was, the power vested 
 in the collectors to seize and detain, under certain circumstances, 
 any such vessels. Now, with regard to the first provision, it is not 
 denied that an armed vessel may be lawfully sold by an American 
 citizen to a foreign subject, other than a subject of Spain. But on 
 what, ground is it possible, then, to maintain, that it is the duty of 
 the American citizen to become responsible for the subsequent use 
 which may be made of such vessel by the foreign subject ? We 
 are bound to take care that our own citizens do not violate our 
 neutrality, but we are under no such obligation as it respects the 
 subjects of foreign powers. It is the business of those foreign 
 powers to guard the conduct of their own subjects. If it be true, 
 as he had heard it asserted, that Fell's Point exhibits an activity in 
 hostile preparation, not surpassed during the late war, we had 
 enough to do with our own citizens. It was not incumbent upon, 
 us, as a neutral power, to provide, after a legal sale had been made 
 of an armed vessel to a foreign subject, against any illegal use of 
 the vessel. 
 
 Gentlemen have contended, that this bill ought to be considered 
 as intended merely to enforce our own laws ; as a municipal regu- 
 lation, having no relation to the war now existing. It was impos- 
 sible to deceive ourselves, as to the true character of the measure. 
 Bestow on it what denomination you please, disguise it as you 
 may, it is a law, and will be understood by the whole world as a 
 law, to discountenance any aid being given to the South American 
 colonies in a state of revolution against the parent country. With 
 respect to the nature of that struggle, he had not now, for the first 
 time, to express his opinion and his wishes. An honorable gentle- 
 
288 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 man from Virginia (Mr. Sheffey) had said, the people of South 
 America were incapable, from the ignorance and superstition 
 which prevail among them, of achieving independence or enjoying 
 liberty. And to what cause is that ignorance and superstition 
 owing? Was it not to the vices of their government? to the 
 tyranny and oppression, hierarchical and political, under which 
 they groaned ? If Spain succeeded in riveting their chains upon 
 them, would not that ignorance and superstition be perpetuated ? 
 In the event of that success, he feared the time would never arrive, 
 when the good wishes of the honorable gentleman from Virginia 
 would be conciliated in behalf of that oppressed and suffering 
 people. For his part, he wished their independence. It was the 
 first step towards improving their condition. Let them have free 
 government, if they be capable of enjoying it; but let them have, 
 at all events, independence. Yes, from the inmost recesses of my 
 soul, I wish them independence. I may be accused of an impru- 
 dent utterance of my feelings, on this occasion. I care not ; when 
 the independence, the happiness, the liberty of a whole people is at 
 stake, and that people our neighbors, our brethren, occupying a 
 portion of the same continent, imitating our example, and partici- 
 pating of the same sympathies with ourselves, I will boldly avow 
 my feelings and my wishes in their behalf, even at the hazard of 
 such an imputation. 
 
 - But, notwithstanding the feelings which he cherished on this 
 subject, Mr. Clay admitted that it became us not to exhibit the 
 spectacle of a people at war and a government at peace. We 
 ought to perform our neutral duties, whilst we are neutral, without 
 regard to the unredressed injuries inflicted upon us by old Spain, 
 on the one hand, or to the glorious object of the struggle of the South 
 American patriots on the other. We ought to render strict justice, 
 and no more. If the bill on the table was limited to that object, 
 he would vote for it. But he thought it w T ent further; that it 
 assumed obligations which we were not bound to incur, and, 
 thinking so, he could not, in its present shape, give to it his assent. 
 
ON COMMERCIAL RESTRICTIONS WITH 
 FOREIGN NATIONS. 
 
 IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, JANUARY 30, 1817. 
 
 [ On the fifth of February, 1816, Mr. Cyrus King, of Massachusetts, presented for 
 consideration a resolution, instructing the committee on foreign relations to inquire 
 into the expediency of excluding from the ports of the United States all foreign 
 vessels, owned in. coming from, bound to, or touching at any of his Britannic 
 majesty's possessions in the West Indies, and in the continent of North America, 
 from which the vessels of the United States are excluded 5 and of prohibiting or 
 increasing the duties on the importation in foreign vessels, of any articles, the growth, 
 produce, or manufacture of such possessions. This resolution underwent much dis- 
 cussion, but was finally laid upon the table, and the subject not again introduced 
 during the same session. But on the twenty-seventh of January, 1817, there was 
 introduced 'a bill to prohibit all commercial intercourse with ports or places, into or 
 with which, the vessels of the United States are not ordinarily permitted to enter or 
 trade.' On the thirtieth of January, this bill was called up and debated in committee 
 of the whole. Among the speakers on the subject, were Messrs. Cyrus King, of 
 Massachusetts, Smith, of Maryland, Wilde, of Georgia, Randolph, of Virginia, 
 Lowndes, of South Carolina, Hopkinson, of Pennsylvania, and Clay (speaker). 
 
 The whole subject was finally again laid on the table. The following are Mr. 
 Clay's remarks in this debate. ] 
 
 Mr. Clay (speaker) said, that in one sentiment expressed by 
 the gentleman from Georgia he most heartily concurred ; that the 
 measure contemplated by the bill, or by the proposed substitute, 
 was the most important, as respected at least our foreign relations, 
 that had come before congress at this session, or would probably 
 be brought before it for some years ; a measure, which, whatever 
 fate attended it, ought to attract the attention of honorable members 
 of this house, and to which, he hoped, before the final question on 
 it, they would give the most mature consideration. 
 
 The importance of the question by no means depended simply 
 on the value of the trade between this country and the colonies 
 of Great Britain. But considering the question as it related 
 merely to that trade, when the fact was stated, that it consisted of 
 six millions of dollars imports, and of course a like amount of 
 exports, it must be admitted, the question was one of deep import, 
 compared to any which at present presented itself to the attention 
 of congress. But, as was stated in the president's message, it was 
 not solely important on account of the effect of the colonial system 
 vol. 1. 37 
 
290 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 on that trade, but the fact was, that the exclusion from a participa- 
 tion in that navigation, essentially affected the trade between this 
 country and the British European possessions, and, by the opera- 
 tion of the system, deprived us, in a great measure, of the benefits 
 of the convention of commerce with Great Britain, which provided 
 for the establishment of a perfect reciprocity of commerce between 
 the United States and the British European possessions. Even if 
 gentlemen were not disposed to do something to obtain for the 
 navigation of this country a participation in the colonial trade, 
 they ought to go so far as to place them on an equal footing as 
 regarded the European trade. Some measure ought to be devised, 
 by which the navigation of Great Britain should be prevented 
 from enjoying peculiar advantages over us, in a trade wherein 
 reciprocity had been solemnly promised by the convention, to 
 which he had alluded. 
 
 Let us, then, inquire into the character of the evil proposed to 
 be remedied, and of the remedy that is offered. What is the evil ? 
 Great Britain says, that the whole commerce between her colonies 
 and the United States shall be carried on in British ships, absolutely 
 excluding American ships from any participation in it. The most 
 natural course of the exchange of commodities between nations 
 might be thus defined ; that each nation should carry its own 
 products to market ; that we should carry of our produce what we 
 do not want, but they do, to British ports ; and that they should 
 bring what they do not want, but we do, to our ports. With this 
 course, however, Great Britain was not satisfied. The next and 
 perhaps the most equal and best mode of providing for the free 
 and fair interchange of commodities, was, to open the trade equally 
 and reciprocally to both parties, to let each carry the commodities 
 of both countries, in a fair competition. Great Britain was not, 
 however, disposed to do this. She not only prohibited the carriage 
 of her colonial commodities in our vessels ; not only entirely 
 engrossed the export trade from her colonies, but refused to allow 
 us any participation, by conventional regulation or otherwise, in 
 the trade to the colonies. The effect was, to deprive us of the 
 advantages, in the augmentation of our commerce and increase of 
 our seamen, which would result from the carriage of our own 
 produce, to the amount of six millions of dollars annually. 
 
 With regard to the importance of encouraging our navigation, 
 he said, he need not resort to argument. The question of the 
 importance of a navy, to maintain and defend our rights, which 
 had been some years ago a question of a theoretical nature, was no 
 longer so ; it was now a question of practical experience. All felt its 
 importance, and all acknowledged the expediency of cherishing, by 
 all means in our power, that important branch of national defence. 
 
 Gentlemen alarmed themselves by the apprehension, that the 
 other party wo aid view as inimical any regulations countervailing 
 
ON COMMERCIAL RESTRICTIONS. 291 
 
 her colonial policy, and that the issue of this conflict of commercial 
 regulations would be war. He believed in no such result. If an 
 exclusion of the navigation and shipping of Great Britain from our 
 ports be a measure of a hostile character, said Mr. Clay, Great 
 Britain has set us the example ; for she excludes our navigation 
 and shipping from an extensive range of her ports. He considered 
 this rather as a diplomatic than a hostile measure ; but, if it were 
 otherwise, she had set the example, which she could not complain 
 if we followed. 
 
 But, said he, let us look to the fact. What would be the light in 
 which Great Britain would view any such regulations as are pro- 
 posed by the bill ? The convention of London contains an express 
 stipulation on the subject ; and I will observe to gentlemen, that the 
 clause which exempts the colonial trade from the second article of 
 the convention, was introduced with the express view of retaining 
 in our hands the right to countervail the British regulations in this 
 respect. It was so understood by the framers of that convention. 
 But we have later evidence than that which is furnished by the 
 terms of the convention. The president, in his message at the 
 opening of the session, says, that it is ascertained, \ that the British 
 government declines all negotiation on this subject ; with a dis- 
 avowal, however, of any disposition to view in an unfriendly light, 
 whatever countervailing' regulations the United States may oppose 
 to the regulations of which they complain.' Thus, then, we have 
 evidence, both from the nature of the case, and from the express 
 declarations of the British government, that it will not, because it 
 cannot, view in an unfriendly light any regulations which this gov- 
 ernment may find it expedient to adopt, to countervail their policy. 
 Mr. Clay said, he did not think that the adoption of this policy on 
 the part of Great Britain, ought to excite any hostile feeling towards 
 her. She was not singular in this respect. Every country that has 
 colonies in the West Indies, and which is not too weak to defend 
 them, endeavored, he said, to appropriate to itself all the advantages 
 of the trade with those colonies ; and it would be found that the 
 relaxation of the rigor of that system by one nation or another, was 
 precisely graduated by the degree of ability to maintain their colo- 
 nies in peace, and defend them in war. There was nothing in the 
 regulations of Great Britain, which could be offensive, or possibly 
 lead to war. They might be complained of as selfish or unfriendly, 
 they certainly were the former. But Great Britain had a perfect 
 right to set the example before us ; and the question was, whether 
 the total exclusion of our ships from the colonial ports of Britain, 
 was such a measure as we ought to fold our arms and submit to, 
 without an effort to obtain some part of the trade which she had 
 attempted to appropriate exclusively to herself ? 
 
 Gentlemen had properly said, that this was a question which 
 ought to be well weighed before decided. Whatever we do, it 
 
292 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 ought to be with a determination to adhere firmly to it. For, depend 
 upon it, Great Britain will never lightly relax her policy. 
 
 The policy of Great Britain was deeply laid in selfish consider- 
 ations ; a policy which she had never relaxed, except in periods of 
 war, when it became her interest to do so, from the commencement 
 of her colonies to this time. The measure which we address to her 
 interest, to induce her to relax from the rigor of her colonial policy, 
 should be a measure framed with ample deliberation, which, when 
 we adopt with resolution, we will maintain with fortitude. For, 
 the first conclusion of the British government would undoubtedly 
 be, that the American government would be incapable of maintain- 
 ing its regulations for any length of time ; and that government,- in 
 the expectation of a retraction of the measure, would persevere in 
 its policy as long as it could. 
 
 The question which presents itself, then, is, whether we will 
 adopt measures to induce a relaxation so desirable to our interest ? 
 
 What ought to be done, if any thing is ? There were two prop- 
 ositions before the house, and the question now was, on substituting 
 high duties for the prohibitory system. He preferred the prohibi- 
 tion ; and if any gentleman would candidly compare the merits of 
 the two proposed remedies, he would find that the whole value 
 of the remedy, by the imposition of duties, was derived from its 
 approximation to prohibition. 
 
 Suppose the measure of prohibition be adopted, what would be 
 its effect ? In the opinion of Mr. Clay, a mere change in the direc- 
 tion of the trade. St. Domingo would be opened to us, St. Thomas, 
 Vera Cruz, and possibly St. Bartholomews, and other islands and 
 ports. But, if not one port should be open, the necessity Great 
 Britain would be under, to obtain supplies for her colonies, would 
 dictate the expediency of opening some port at which an inter- 
 change of commodities could take place. If this operation took 
 place, all that is proposed to be effected by the bill is accomplished, 
 by the participation of our navigation in the transportation of the 
 articles thus exchanged. Our ships will have obtained an employ- 
 ment, in carrying our products to that entrepot, and bringing return 
 cargoes, of the same amount they would have now, if American, 
 instead of British ships, wholly engrossed the trade. There might, 
 in the case supposed, be some little increase in the cost of the arti- 
 cles, but so inconsiderable, as not to amount to any offset to the 
 great advantages accruing to this country, from the employment of 
 its tonnage. 
 
 The present moment Mr. Clay considered as particularly pro- 
 pitious to the adoption of this regulation ; because, as regarded the 
 great direct trade between the United States and British ports in 
 Europe, that was regulated and unalterable for nearly three years. 
 It stood on the footing of convention ; and we should not, by any 
 regulation adopted in regard to the colonial trade, put to hazard the 
 advantages in the other, at least until that convention expired. 
 
ON COMMERCIAL RESTRICTIONS. 293 
 
 Regarding this regulation in another view, he anticipated bene- 
 ficial effects from it. In consequence of the weakness of some of 
 the powers of Europe in their maritime force, they had found it 
 convenient to open ports to us, which were formerly shut, and we 
 could thence draw our supplies, thus effecting a mere change in 
 the channel of supply with the advantage of the employment of our 
 own navigation, as already stated. South America, besides, would 
 be open to us, and we could there obtain a large portion of the 
 commodities we import from the West Indies, except, perhaps, the 
 article of rum. Whether that could be obtained there or not, he 
 did not know. Sugar might be obtained, in quantity, from Louis- 
 iana, where the product of that article increased every year. Georgia, 
 and a portion of South Carolina, too, had turned their attention to 
 that object ; and the effect of this measure would be, to encourage 
 the cultivation of that article. With respect to the article of spirits, 
 if its importation were totally cut off, he thought it would be a ben- 
 efit. He believed, he said, that America was the only country that 
 imported as great a quantity of spirituous liquors ; every other 
 country he was acquainted with, used more of its own man- 
 ufacture. 
 
 I think that the suffering of the navigating interest, to which the 
 attention of congress is attracted, is one which calls loudly on this 
 body to do something to alleviate it. It is attributable greatly to 
 the colonial system of Great Britain, though no doubt also greatly 
 to the state of peace, and the consequent resumption of their naviga- 
 tion by the powers of Europe, who, during war, suspended a great 
 proportion of it. Taking care of the interests of the nation, and 
 guarding our commerce against the effect of foreign regulations, it 
 becomes us to act on this subject. He should, he said, cheerfully 
 give his assent, therefore, to the bill before the house ; and should 
 vote for it, but with reluctance, if the amendment proposed by Mr. 
 Forsyth should succeed. 
 
 The great question was, the modus operandi of this bill, to use a 
 favorite expression of a member of another body. Operating on 
 the sympathy as well as the direct interest of the parent country, it 
 would induce her to relax her system. Great Britain would find a 
 greater interest in securing the amount of six millions of trade, 
 necessary to support and cherish her colonies, than she would gain 
 merely on the transportation of the articles of which that trade con- 
 sists. That was the question on which the British people would 
 be called on to decide ; and he believed the effect of this measure 
 would be such as to induce them to decide in favor of admitting us, 
 on a footing of reciprocity, into the West India trade. If the British 
 government did not take this course, it would have to wink at the 
 formation of entrepots, by which the object proposed by the bill 
 would be substantially accomplished. 
 
ON INTERNAL IMPROVEMENT. 
 
 IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, FEBRUARY 4, 1817. 
 
 [ The house resolved itself into a committee of the whole on the bill to set apart, 
 and pledge, as a fund for internal improvement, the bonus and United States share of 
 the dividends of the national bank. The discussion was commenced by Mr. Calhoun, 
 of South Carolina, who advocated the constitutionality, importance, and expediency 
 of a system of internal' improvements, under the authority of the general government. 
 The same views were expressed by Mr. Clay (speaker), Mr. Gold, of New York, Mr. 
 ShefFey, of Virginia, and others. The bill finally passed both houses (but was 
 vetoed by president Madison, on constitutional grounds, on the third of March, 1817). 
 In the brief* remarks of Mr. Clay on this occasion, which are subjoined, he expresses 
 the same sentiments as will be found more at length in his subsequent speeches on 
 this subject.] 
 
 Mr. Clay (speaker) observed, that it was not his intention to 
 enter into the general discussion of the subject; he wished only to 
 say, that he had long thought that there were no two subjects which 
 could engage the attention of the national legislature, more worthy 
 of its deliberate consideration, than those of internal improvements 
 and domestic manufactures. 
 
 As to the constitutional point which had been made, he had not 
 a doubt on his mind ; but it was not necessary, in his judgment, to 
 embarrass the passage of the bill with the argument of that point 
 at this time. It was a sufficient answer to say, that the power was 
 not now to be exercised. It was proposed merely to designate the 
 fund, and, from time to time, as the proceeds of it came in, to invest 
 them in the funded debt of the United States. It would thus be 
 accumulating; and congress could, at some future day, examine 
 into the constitutionality of the question, and if it has the power, it 
 would exercise it ; if it has not, the constitution, there could be very 
 little doubt, would be so amended as to confer it It was quite 
 obvious, however, that congress might so direct the application of 
 the fund, as not to interfere with the jurisdiction of the several 
 states, and thus avoid the difficulty which had been started. It 
 might distribute it among those objects of private enterprise which 
 called for national patronage in the form of subscriptions to the 
 capital stock of incorporated companies, such as that of the Dela- 
 ware and Chesapeake canal, and other similar institutions. Perhaps 
 
ON INTERNAL IMPROVEMENT. 295 
 
 that might be the best way to employ the fund ; but, he repeated, 
 this was not the time to go into this inquiry. 
 
 With regard to the general importance of the proposition ; 
 the effect of internal improvements in cementing the union; 
 ill facilitating internal trade ; in augmenting the wealth and 
 the population of the country ; he would not consume the time 
 of the committee in discussing those interesting topics, after 
 the able manner in which they had been treated by his friend 
 from South Carolina. In reply to those who thought that in- 
 ternal improvements had better be left to the several states, he 
 would ask, he would put it to the candor of every one, if there 
 were not various objects in which many states were interested, and 
 which, requiring therefore their joint cooperation, would, if not 
 taken up by the general government, be neglected, either for the 
 want of resources, or from the difficulty of regulating their respec- 
 tive contributions. Such was the case with the improvement of 
 the navigation of the Ohio at the rapids ; the canal from the 
 Hudson to the lakes; the great turnpike road, parallel with the 
 coast from Maine to Louisiana. These, and similar objects were 
 stamped with a national character ; and they required the wisdom 
 and the resources of the nation to accomplish them. No particular 
 state felt an individual interest, sufficient to execute improvements 
 of such magnitude. They must be patronised, efficaciously 
 patronised, by the general government, or they never would be 
 accomplished. 
 
 The practical effect of turnpike roads in correcting the evil, if it 
 be one, of the great expansion of our republic, and in conquering 
 space itself, as was expressed by the gentleman from South 
 Carolina, is about to be demonstrated by the great turnpike road 
 from Cumberland to Wheeling. That road is partially executed, 
 and will probably be completed in about three years. In the 
 mean time, Maryland is extending a line of turnpike roads from 
 Baltimore to Cumberland, which is also partially finished, and 
 will be completed in the same period. Three years from the 
 present time, we shall have a continued line of turnpike roads 
 from Baltimore to Ohio. The ordinary time requisite to travel 
 from Wheeling to Baltimore, prior to the erection of these roads, 
 was eight days. When the roads are completed, the same journey 
 may be performed in three days. The distance, in effect, between 
 those two points, will be diminished in the proportion of five 
 eighths, or, in other words, they will be brought five days nearer 
 to each other. Similar results will follow wherever this species 
 of improvement is effected. 
 
 Mr. Clay owned that he felt anxiously desirous for the success 
 of this measure. He was anxious, from its intrinsic merits ; from 
 his sincere conviction of its tendency greatly to promote the 
 welfare of our common country. He was anxious from other, 
 
296 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 perhaps more selfish, considerations. He wished the fourteenth 
 congress to have the merit of laying the foundations of this great 
 work. He wished this congress, who, in his opinion, had so 
 many other just grounds for the national approbation, notwith- 
 standing the obloquy which had attended a single unfortunate 
 measure, to add this new claim to the public gratitude. 
 
ON THE WAR BETWEEN SPAIN AND HER 
 COLONIES. 
 
 IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, DECEMBER 3, 1817. 
 
 [The president's message being under consideration in committee of the whole, 
 Mr. Taylor moved a series of resolutions, embracing references of various parts of the 
 message. 
 
 The first resolution having been read for consideration, Mr. Clay (speaker) moved 
 to amend the same by adding to the end thereof the following words : 
 
 ' And that the said committee be instructed to inquire, whether any, and, if any, 
 what provisions of law are necessary to insure, to the American colonies of Spain, a 
 just observance of the duties incident to the neutral relation in which the United 
 States stand, in the existing war between them and Spain.'] 
 
 Mr. Clay said, that his presenting, at so early a period of the 
 session, this subject to the consideration of the house, was in 
 consequence of certain proceedings which he had seen represented 
 in the public prints as having taken place before certain of our 
 courts of justice. Two or three cases bearing on this subject had 
 come to his knowledge, which he wished to state to the house. 
 The first had occurred at Philadelphia, before the circuit court of 
 the United States held in that city. The circumstances of the 
 case, for which, however, he did not pretend to vouch, having 
 received them through the channel already indicated, were these ; 
 if they were incorrectly stated, he was happy that a gentleman had 
 taken his seat this morning from that city, who would be able to 
 correct him : that nine or ten British disbanded officers had formed 
 in Europe the resolution to unite themselves with the Spanish 
 patriots in the contest existing between them and Spain ; that, to 
 carry into effect this intention, they had sailed from Europe, and in 
 their transit to South America had touched at the port of Philadel- 
 phia ; that during their residence in Philadelphia, wearing perhaps 
 the arms and habiliments of military men, making no disguise of 
 their intention to participate in the struggle, they took passage in a 
 vessel bound to some port in South America ; that a knowledge 
 of this fact having come to the ears of the public authorities, or, 
 perhaps, at the instigation of some agent of the Spanish govern- 
 ment, a prosecution was commenced against these officers, who, 
 vol. i. 38 
 
298 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 from their inability to procure bail, were confined in prison. If, 
 said Mr. Clay, the circumstances attending this transaction be 
 correctly stated, it becomes an imperious duty in the house to 
 institute the inquiry contemplated by the amendment which I have 
 proposed. That this was an extraordinary case, was demonstrated 
 by the fact of the general sensation which it had excited on the 
 subject, in the place where it had occurred. Filled, as that respect- 
 able and populous city is, with men who differ widely on political 
 topics, and entertaining various views of public affairs, but one 
 sentiment prevailed on this subject, which was favorable to the 
 persons thus arraigned. With regard to the conduct of the court 
 on this occasion, he would say nothing. The respect which, whilst he 
 had a seat on this floor, he should always show to every branch of the 
 government, the respect he entertained for the honorable judge who 
 had presided, forbade him from pronouncing the decision of that 
 court to have been unwarranted by law. But he felt himself 
 perfectly sustained in saying, that if the proceeding was warranted 
 by the existing law, it was the imperious duty of congress to alter 
 the law in this respect. For what, he asked, was the neutral obli- 
 gation which one nation owed to another engaged in war? The 
 essence of it is this ; that the belligerent means of the neutral shall 
 not be employed in the war in favor of either of the parties. That 
 is the whole of the obligation of a third party in a war between two 
 others ; it certainly does not require of one nation to restrain the 
 belligerent means of other nations. If those nations choose to 
 permit their means to be employed in behalf of either party, it is 
 their business to look to it, and not ours. Let the conduct of the 
 persons prosecuted be regarded in the most unfavorable light ; let it 
 be considered as the passage of troops through our country, and 
 there was nothing in our neutral obligations forbidding it. The 
 passage of troops through a neutral country, according to his 
 impressions, was a question depending on the particular interest, 
 quiet, or repose, of the country traversed, and might be granted or 
 refused at its discretion, without in any degree affecting the obliga- 
 tions of the neutral to either of the parties engaged in the contro- 
 versy. But, surely, this was not a case of the passage of troops ; 
 the persons apprehended not being in sufficient number, nor 
 organized or equipped in such manner, as, under any construc- 
 tion, to constitute a military corps. On this case he would detain 
 the house no longer, he said ; for he was satisfied they could not 
 but agree with him, if the law justified the proceeding that had 
 taken place, that law ought to be immediately amended. Other 
 cases had occurred, in which it appeared to him it became the 
 congress to interpose its authority. Persons sailing under the flag 
 of the provinces had been arraigned in our courts, and tried for 
 piracy ; in one case, after having been arraigned, tried, and 
 acquitted of piracy, the same individuals, on the instigation of a 
 Spanish officer or agent, had been again arraigned for the same 
 
WAR BETWEEN SPAIN AND HER COLONIES. 299 
 
 offence. The gentleman from Massachusetts would correct him if 
 he was wrong, for the case had occurred in the town of Boston. 
 We admit the flag of these colonies into our ports ; we profess to 
 be neutral ; but if our laws pronounce, that the moment the 
 property and persons under that flag enter our ports, they . shall be 
 seized, the one claimed by the Spanish minister or consul as the 
 property of Spain, and the other prosecuted as pirates, that law 
 ought to be altered, if we mean to perform our neutral professions. 
 I have brought the subject before this house thus promptly, because 
 I trust that in this house the cause will find justice ; that, however 
 treated elsewhere, on this floor will be found a guardian interest 
 attending to our performance of the just obligations of neutrality. 
 Hitherto, he said, whatever might have been our intentions, our 
 acts had been all on the other side. From the proclamation of 
 1815, issued to terminate an expedition supposed to be organizing 
 in Louisiana, an expedition only in the mind of Chevalier de Onis, 
 down to the late act — whether the measure was a proper one or 
 not, he did not say ; his confidence in the executive led him to 
 suppose it was adopted on sufficient grounds — down to the order 
 for suppressing, as it was called, the establishments at Amelia 
 Island and Galveston — all the acts of the government had been 
 on one side ; they all bore against the colonies, against the cause 
 in which the patriots of South America were arduously engaged. 
 It became us, he said, to look to the other side, honestly intending 
 neutrality, as he believed we did. Let us recollect the condition 
 of the patriots ; no minister here to spur on our government, as was 
 said in an interesting, and, it appeared to him, a very candid work, 
 recently published in this country, respecting the progress of the 
 South American revolution ; no minister here to be rewarded by 
 noble honors, in consequence of the influence he is supposed to 
 possess with the American government. No ; their unfortunate 
 case was what ours had been, in the years 1778 and 1779 ; their 
 ministers, like our Franklins and Jays at that day, were. skulking 
 about Europe, imploring inexorable legitimacy for one kind look 
 — some aid to terminate a war afflicting to humanity. Nay, their 
 situation was worse than ours ; for we had one great and magnan- 
 imous ally to recognize us, but no nation had stepped forward to 
 acknowledge any of these provinces. Such disparity between the 
 parties, demanded a just attention to the interests of the party 
 which was unrepresented ; and if the facts which he had men- 
 tioned, and others which had come to his knowledge, were correct, 
 they loudly demanded the interposition of congress. He trusted 
 the house would give the subject their attention, and show that 
 here, in this place, the obligations of neutrality would be strictly 
 regarded in respect to South America. 
 
 [Mr. Sergeant, of Philadelphia, said the statement made by Mr. Clay was substan- 
 tially correct, and, after a few other remarks by the same gentleman, the amendment 
 moved by Mr. Clay was agreed to, without opposition.] 
 
ON INTERNAL IMPROVEMENT. 
 
 IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, MARCH 13, 1818. 
 
 [The bill making appropriations for purposes of internal improvement, which 
 passed congress in 1817, having been vetoed by president Madison, on the last day of 
 his term, March third, 1817 ; his successor, Mr. Monroe, in his first message to con- 
 gress, declared his sentiments on the subject, concurring with Mr. Madison in the 
 opinion that the power of making internal improvements was not vested in congress. 
 Three national executives having decided against the constitutionality of the power, 
 a great effort was made by the friends of the system, to obtain a contrary and favora- 
 ble expression by congress. A resolution was offered in the house of representatives, 
 declaring that congress had power, under the constitution, to appropriate money for 
 the construction of military roads, post roads, and canals. On this interesting occa- 
 sion, the resolution being under discussion in committee of the whole, Mr. Clay made 
 the following speech, in vindication of the constitutionality of internal improvements 
 by the national government, in which views he was sustained by the house, in the 
 adoption of the resolution, by a vote of ninety to seventy-five. This triumph in the 
 face of a new and popular administration, may be considered one of the most splen- 
 did events in parliamentary history.] 
 
 I have been anxious to catch the eye of the chairman for a few 
 moments, to reply to some of the observations which have fallen 
 from various gentlemen. I am aware that, in doing this, I risk the 
 loss of what is of the utmost value — the kind favor of the house, 
 wearied as its patience is, by this prolonged debate. But when I 
 feel what a deep interest the union at large, and particularly that 
 quarter of it whence I cqme, has, in the decision of the present 
 question, I cannot omit any opportunity of earnestly urging upon 
 the house the propriety of retaining the important power which 
 this question involves. It will be recollected, that if unfortunately 
 there should be a majority both against the abstract proposition 
 asserting the power, and against its practical execution, the power 
 is gone for ever — the question is put at rest, so long as the consti- 
 tution remains as it is ; and with respect to any amendment, in this 
 particular, I confess I utterly despair. It will be borne in mind, 
 that the bill which passed congress on this subject, at the last 
 session, was rejected by the late president of the United States ; 
 that at the commencement of the present session, the president 
 communicated his clear opinion, after every effort to come to a 
 different conclusion, that congress does not possess the power 
 contended for, and called upon us to take up the subject, in the 
 
ON INTERNAL IMPROVEMENT. 301 
 
 shape of an amendment to the constitution ; and, moreover, that the 
 predecessor of the present and late presidents, has also intimated 
 his opinion, that congress does not possess the power. With the 
 great weight and authority of the opinions of these distinguished 
 men against the power, and with the fact, solemnly entered upon 
 the record, that this house, after a deliberate review of the ground 
 taken by it at the last session, has decided against the existence of 
 it, (if such, fatally, shall be the decision,) the power, I repeat, is 
 gone — gone for ever, unless restored by an amendment of the 
 constitution. With regard to the practicability of obtaining such 
 an amendment, I think it altogether out of the question. Two 
 different descriptions of persons, entertaining sentiments directly 
 opposed, will unite and defeat such an amendment ; one embracing 
 those who believe that the constitution, fairly interpreted, already 
 conveys the power ; and the other, those who think that congress 
 has not and ought not to have it. As a large portion of congress, 
 and probably a majority, believes the power to exist, it must be 
 evident, if I am right in supposing that any considerable number 
 of that majority would vote against an amendment which they do 
 not believe necessary, that any attempt to amend would fail. Con- 
 sidering, as I do, the existence of the power as of the first impor- 
 tance, not merely to the preservation of the union of the states, 
 paramount as that consideration ever should be over all others, but 
 to the prosperity of every great interest of the country, agriculture, 
 manufactures, commerce, in peace and in war, it becomes us sol- 
 emnly, and deliberately, and anxiously, to examine the constitution, 
 and not to surrender it, if fairly to be collected from a just interpre- 
 tation of that instrument. 
 
 With regard to the alarm sought to be created, as to the nature 
 of the power, by bringing up the old theme of 'state rights,' I 
 would observe, that if the illustrious persons just referred to are 
 against us in the construction of the constitution, they are on our 
 side as to the harmless and beneficial character of the power. For 
 it is not to be conceived, that each of them would have recom- 
 mended an amendment to the constitution, if they believed that 
 the possession of such a power, by the general government, would 
 be detrimental, much less dangerous, to the independence and 
 liberties of the states. What real ground is there for this alarm ? 
 Gentlemen have not condescended to show how the subversion of 
 the rights of the states is to follow from the exercise of the power 
 of internal improvements by the general government. We contend 
 for the power to make roads and canals, to distribute the intelli- 
 gence, force, and productions of the country, through all its parts ; 
 and for such jurisdiction only over them, as is necessary to their 
 preservation from wanton injury and from gradual decay. Sup- 
 pose such a power is sustained and in full operation ; imagine it 
 to extend to every canal made, or proposed to be made, and to 
 
302 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 every post-road ; how inconsiderable and insignificant is the power 
 in a political point of view, limited as it is, with regard to place 
 and to purpose, when contrasted with the great mass of powers 
 retained by the state sovereignties ! What a small subtraction 
 from the mass! Even upon these roads and canals, the state 
 governments, according to our principles, will still exercise juris- 
 diction over every possible case arising upon them, whether of 
 crime or of contract, or any other human transaction, except only 
 what immediately affects their existence and preservation. Thus 
 defined, thus limited, and stripped of all factitious causes of alarm, 
 I will appeal to the candor of gentlemen to say, if the power really 
 presents any thing frightful in it ? With respect to post-roads, our 
 adversaries admit the right of way in the general government. 
 There have been, however, on this question, some instances of 
 conflict, but they have passed away without any serious difficulty. 
 Connecticut, if I have been rightly informed, disputed, at one 
 period, the right of passage of the mail on the Sabbath. The 
 general government persisted in the exercise of the right, and 
 Connecticut herself, and every body else, have acquiesced in it. 
 
 The gentleman from Virginia (Mr. H. Nelson) has contended, that 
 I do not adhere, in the principles of construction which I apply to 
 the constitution, to the republican doctrines of 1798, of which that 
 gentleman would have us believe he is the constant disciple. Let 
 me call the attention of the committee to the celebrated state paper 
 to which we both refer for our principles in this respect — a paper 
 which, although I have not seen it for sixteen years, (until The 
 gentleman had the politeness to furnish me with it during this 
 debate,) made such an impression on my mind, that I shall never 
 forget the satisfaction with which I perused it. I find that I have 
 used, without having been aware of it, when I formerly addressed 
 the committee, almost the same identical language employed by 
 Mr. Madison in that paper. It will be recollected, that I claimed 
 no right to exercise any power under the constitution, unless such 
 power was expressly granted, or necessary and proper to carry into 
 effect some granted power. I have not sought to derive power 
 from the clause which authorizes congress to appropriate money. 
 I have been contented with endeavoring to show, that according to 
 the doctrines of 1798, and according to the most rigid interpretation 
 which any one will put upon the instrument, it is expressly given 
 in one case, and fairly deducible in others. 
 
 [Here Mr. Clay read sundry passages from Mr. Madison's report to the Virginia 
 legislature, in an answer to the resolutions of several states, concerning the alien and 
 sedition laws, showing that there were no powers in the general government but 
 what were granted ; and that, whenever a power was claimed to be exercised by it, 
 such power must be shown to be granted, or to be necessary and proper to carry into 
 effect one of the specified powers.] 
 
ON INTERNAL IMPROVEMENT. 303 
 
 It will be remarked, that Mr. Madison, in his reasoning on the 
 constitution, has not employed the language fashionable during 
 this debate ; he has not said, that an implied power must be abso- 
 lutely necessary to carry into effect the specified power, to which it 
 is appurtenant, to enable the general government to exercise it. 
 No ! This was a modern interpretation of the constitution. Mr. 
 Madison has employed the language of the instrument itself, and 
 has only contended that the implied power must be necessary and 
 proper to carry into effect the specified power. He has only 
 insisted, that when congress applied its sound judgment to the 
 constitution in relation to implied powers, it should be clearly seen 
 that they were necessary and proper to effectuate the specified 
 powers. These are my principles ; but they are not those of the 
 gentleman from Virginia and his friends on this occasion. They 
 contend for a degree of necessity absolute and indispensable ; that 
 by no possibility can the power be otherwise executed. 
 
 That there are two classes of powers in the constitution, I believe 
 has never been controverted by an American politician. We 
 cannot foresee and provide specifically for all contingences. Man 
 and his language are both imperfect. Hence the existence of 
 construction, and of constructive powers. Hence also the rule, that 
 a grant of the end is a grant of the means. If you amend the 
 constitution a thousand times, the same imperfection of our nature 
 and our language will attend our new works. There are two 
 dangers to which we are exposed. The one is, that the general 
 government may relapse into the debility which existed in the old 
 confederation, and finally dissolve from the want of cohesion. The 
 denial to it of powers plainly conferred, or clearly necessary and 
 proper to execute the conferred powers, may produce this effect. 
 And I think, with great deference to the gentleman on the other 
 side, this is the danger to which their principles directly tend. The 
 other danger, that of consolidation, is, by the assumption of powers 
 not granted nor incident to granted powers, or the assumption of 
 powers which have been withheld or expressly prohibited. This 
 was the danger of the period of 1798-9. For instance, that, in direct 
 contradiction to a prohibitory clause of the constitution, a sedition 
 act was passed ; and an alien law was also passed, in equal violation 
 of the spirit, if not of the express provisions, of the constitution. 
 It was by such measures that the federal party, (if parties might be 
 named,) throwing off the veil, furnished to their adversaries the most 
 effectual ground of opposition. If they had not passed those acts, 
 I think it highly probable that the current of power would have 
 continued to flow in the same channel ; and the change of parties 
 in 1801, so auspicious to the best interests of the country, as I 
 believe, would never have occurred. 
 
 I beg the committee — I entreat the true friends of the confed- 
 erated union of these states — to examine this doctrine of state rights, 
 
304 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 and see to what abusive, if not dangerous consequences, it may 
 lead, to what extent it has been carried, and how it has varied by 
 the same state at different times. In alluding to the state of Massa- 
 chusetts, I assure the gentlemen from that state, and particularly 
 the honorable chairman of the committee to whom the claim of 
 Massachusetts has been referred, that I have no intention to create 
 any prejudice against that claim. I hope that when the subject is 
 taken up it will be candidly and dispassionately considered, and 
 that a decision will be made on it consistent with the rights of the 
 union, and of the state of Massachusetts. The high character, 
 amiable disposition, and urbanity of the gentleman to whom I have 
 alluded, (Mr. Mason, of Massachusetts,) will, if I had been other- 
 wise inclined, prevent me from endeavoring to make impressions 
 unfavorable to the claim, whose justice that gentleman stands 
 pledged to manifest. But in the period of 1798 - 9, what was the 
 doctrine promulgated by Massachusetts ? It was, that the states, 
 in their sovereign capacity, had no right to examine into the 
 constitutionality or expediency of the measures of the general 
 government. 
 
 [Mr. Clay here quoted several passages from the answer of the state of Massachu- 
 setts to the Virginia and Kentucky resolutions, concerning the alien and sedition laws, 
 to prove his position.] 
 
 We see here an express disclaimer, on the part of Massachusetts, 
 of any right to decide on the constitutionality or expediency of the 
 acts of the general government. But what was the doctrine which 
 the same state, in 1813, thought proper to proclaim to the world, 
 and that, too, when the union was menaced on all sides ? She not 
 only claimed but exercised the right which, in 1799, she had so 
 solemnly disavowed. She claimed the right to judge of the pro- 
 priety of the call made by the general government for her militia, 
 and she refused the militia called for. There is so much plausi- 
 bility in the reasoning employed by that state in support of her 
 modern doctrine of state rights, that, were it not for the unpopular- 
 ity of the stand she took in the late war, or had it been in other 
 times, and under other circumstances, she would very probably 
 have escaped a great portion of that odium which has so justly 
 fallen to her lot. The constitution gives to congress power to 
 provide for calling out the militia to execute the laws of the union, 
 to suppress insurrections, and to repel invasions ; and in no other 
 cases. The militia was called out by the general government, 
 during the late war, to repel invasions. Massachusetts said, as you 
 have no right to the militia, but in certain contingences, she was 
 competent to decide whether those contingences had or had not 
 occurred. And, having examined the facts, what then ? She said, 
 all was peace and quietness in Massachusetts — no non-execution 
 of the laws ; no insurrection at home ; no invasion from abroad, 
 
ON INTERNAL IMPROVEMENT. 305 
 
 nor any immediate danger of invasion. And, in truth, I believe 
 there was no actual invasion for nearly two years after the requisi- 
 tion. Under these circumstances, were it not for the supposed 
 motive of her conduct, would not the case which Massachusetts 
 made out have looked extremely plausible ? I hope it is not 
 necessary for me to say, that it is very far from my intention to 
 convey any thing like approbation of the conduct of Massachusetts. 
 No ! My doctrine is, that the states, as states, have no right to oppose 
 the execution of the powers which the general government asserts. 
 Any state has undoubtedly the right to express its opinion, in the 
 form of resolution or otherwise, and to proceed, by constitutional 
 means, to redress any real or imaginary grievance; but it has no 
 right to withhold its military aid, when called upon by the high 
 authorities of the general government, much less to obstruct the 
 execution of a law regularly passed. To suppose the existence of 
 such an alarming right, is to suppose, if not disunion itself, such a 
 state of disorder and confusion as must inevitably lead to it. 
 
 Greatly as I venerate the state which gave me birth, and much 
 as I respect the judges of its supreme court, several of whom are 
 my personal friends, I am obliged to think that some of the 
 doctrines which that state has recently held concerning state rights, 
 are fraught with much danger. If those doctrines had been asserted 
 during the late war, a large share of the public disapprobation 
 which has been given to Massachusetts would have fallen to Vir- 
 ginia. What are these doctrines ? The courts of Virginia assert, 
 that they have a right to determine on the constitutionality of any 
 law or treaty of the United States, and to expound them according 
 to their own views, even if they should vary from the decision of the 
 supreme court of the United States. They assert more — that 
 from their decision there can be no appeal to the supreme court of 
 the United States ; and that there exists in congress no power to 
 frame a law, obliging the court of the state, in the last resort, to 
 submit its decision to the supervision of the supreme court of the 
 United States; or, if I do not misunderstand the doctrine, to 
 withdraw from the state tribunal, controversies involving the law3 
 of the United States, and to place them before the federal judiciary. 
 I am a friend, a true friend, to state rights ; but not in all cases as 
 they are asserted. The states have their appointed orbit ; so has 
 the union ; and each should be confined within its fair, legitimate, 
 and constitutional sphere. We should equally avoid that subtle 
 process of argument which dissipates into air the powers of this 
 government, and that spirit of encroachment which would snatch 
 from the state, powers not delegated to the general government. 
 We shall thus escape both the dangers I have noticed — that of 
 relapsing into the alarming weakness of the confederation, which 
 is described as a mere rope of sand ; and also that other, perhaps 
 not the greatest danger, consolidation. No man deprecates more 
 vol. i. 39 
 
3C6 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 than I do, the idea of consolidation ; yet, between separation and 
 consolidation, painful as would be the alternative, I would greatly 
 prefer the latter. 
 
 I will now proceed to endeavor to discover the real difference, in 
 the interpretation of the constitution, between the gentlemen on the 
 other side and myself. It is agreed, that there is no power in the 
 general government but that which is expressly granted, or which 
 is impliable from an express grant. The difference, then, must be 
 in the application of this rule. The gentleman from Virginia, who 
 has favored the house with so able an argument on the subject, has 
 conceded, though somewhat reluctantly, the existence of incidental 
 powers, but he contended that they must have a direct and neces- 
 sary relation to some specified power. Granted. But who is to 
 judge of this relation ? And what rule can you prescribe, different 
 from that which the constitution has required, that it should be 
 necessary and proper? Whatever may be the rule, in whatever 
 language you may choose to express it, there must be a certain 
 degree of discretion left to the agent who is to apply it. But gen- 
 tlemen are alarmed at this discretion — that law of tyrants, on which 
 they contend there is no limitation. It should be observed, in the 
 first place, that the gentlemen arc brought, by the very course of 
 reasoning which they themselves employ, by all the rules which 
 they would lay down for the constitution, to cases where discretion 
 must exist. But is there no limitation, no security against the abuse 
 of it ? Yes, there is such security in the fact of our being members 
 of the same society, equally affected ourselves by the laws we pro- 
 mulgate. There is the further security in the oath which is taken 
 to support the constitution, and which will tend to restrain congress 
 from deriving powers which are not proper and necessary. There 
 is the yet further security, that, at the end of every two years, the 
 members must be amenable to the people for the manner in which 
 their trusts have been performed. And there remains also that 
 further, though awful security, the last resort of society, which I 
 contend belongs alike to the people and to the states in their 
 sovereign capacity, to be exercised in extreme cases, and when 
 oppression becomes intolerable, the right of resistance. Take the 
 gentleman's own doctrine, (Mr. Barbour,) the most restricted which 
 has been asserted, and what other securities have we against the 
 abuse of power, than those which I have enumerated ? Say that 
 there must be an absolute necessity to justify the exercise of an 
 implied power, who is to define that absolute necessity, and then to 
 apply it? "Who is to be the judge ? Where is the security against 
 transcending that limit? The rule the gentleman contends for has 
 no greater security than that insisted upon by us. It equally leads 
 to the same discretion, a sound discretion, exercised under all the 
 responsibility of a solemn oath, of a regard to our fair fame, of a 
 knowledge that we are ourselves the subjects of those laws which 
 
ON INTERNAL IMPROVEMENT. 307 
 
 we pass, and, lastly, of the right of resisting insupportable tyranny. 
 And, by way of illustration, if the sedition act had not been 
 condemned by the indignant voice of the community, the right of 
 resistance would have accrued. If congress assumed the power to 
 control the right of speech, and to assail, by penal statutes, the 
 greatest of all the bulwarks of liberty, the freedom of the press, and 
 there were no other means to arrest their progress, but that to which 
 I have referred, lamentable as would be the appeal, such a monstrous 
 abuse of power, I contend, would authorize a recurrence to 
 that right. 
 
 If, then, the gentlemen on the other side and myself differ so 
 little in our general principles, as I think I have shown, I will 
 proceed, for a few moments, to look at the constitution a little more 
 in detail. I have contended, that the power to construct post-roads 
 is expressly granted in the power to establish post-roads. If it be, 
 there is an end of the controversy ; but if not, the next inquiry is, 
 whether that power may be fairly deduced, by implication, from 
 any of the special grants of power. To show that the power is 
 expressly granted, I might safely appeal to the arguments already 
 used, to prove that the word establish, in this case, can mean only 
 one thing — the right of making. Several gentlemen have con- 
 tended, that the word has a different sense ; and one has resorted 
 to the preamble of the constitution, to show that the phrase ' to 
 establish justice,' there used, does not convey the power of creation. 
 If the word ' establish' is there to be taken in the sense which gentle- 
 men claim for it, that of adoption or designation, congress could 
 have a choice only of systems of justice preexisting. Will any 
 gentleman contend, that we are obliged to take the Justinian code, 
 the Napoleon code, the code of civil, or the code of common or 
 canon law? Establishment means in the preamble, as in other 
 cases, construction, formation, creation. Let me ask, in all cases 
 of crime, which are merely malum prohibitum, if you do not resort 
 to construction, to creating, when you make the offence ? By your 
 laws denouncing certain acts as criminal offences, laws which the 
 good of society requires you to pass, and to adapt to our peculiar 
 condition, you do construct and create a system of rules, to be 
 administered by the judiciary. But gentlemen say, that the word 
 cannot mean make; that you w^ould not say, for example, to 
 establish a ship, to establish a chair. In the application of this, 
 as of all other terms, you must be guided by the nature of the 
 subject ; and if it cannot properly be used in all cases, it does not 
 follow that it cannot be in any. And when we take into considera- 
 tion, that, under the old articles of confederation, congress had over 
 the subject of post-roads just as much power as gentlemen allow 
 to the existing government, that it was the general scope and spirit 
 of the new constitution to enlarge the powers of the general 
 government, and that, in fact, in this very clause, the power to 
 
308 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 establish post-offices, which was alone possessed by the former 
 government, I think that I may safely consider the argument, on 
 this part of the subject, as successfully maintained. With respect 
 to military roads, the concession that they may be made when called 
 for by the emergency, is admitting that the constitution conveys 
 the power. And we may safely appeal to the judgment of the 
 candid and enlightened, to decide between the wisdom of these 
 two constructions, of which one requires you to wait for the 
 exercise of your power until the arrival of an emergency, which 
 may not allow you to exert it, and the other, without denying you 
 the power, if you can exercise it during the emergency, claims the 
 right of providing beforehand against the emergency. 
 
 One member has stated what appeared to him a conclusive 
 argument against the power to cut canals, that he had understood 
 that a proposition, made in the convention to insert such a power, 
 was rejected. To this argument more than one sufficient answer 
 can be made. In the first place, the fact itself has been denied, 
 and I have never yet seen any evidence of it. But, suppose that 
 the proposition had been made and overruled, unless the motives 
 of the refusal to insert it are known, gentlemen are not authorized 
 to draw the inference that it was from hostility to the power, or from 
 a desire to withhold it from congress. May not one of the objec- 
 tions be, that the power was fairly to be inferred from some of the 
 specific grants of power, and that it was therefore not necessary to 
 insert the proposition ; that to adopt it, indeed, might lead to 
 weaken or bring into doubt other incidental powers not enumer- 
 ated? A member from New York, (Mr. Storrs,) whose absence I 
 regret on this occasion, not only on account of the great aid which 
 might have been expected from him, but from the cause of that 
 absence, has informed me, that, in the convention of that state, one 
 of the objections to the constitution by the anti-federalists was, that 
 it was understood to convey to the general government the power 
 to cut canals. How often, in the course of the proceedings of this 
 house, do we reject amendments, upon the sole ground that they 
 are not necessary, the principle of the amendment being already 
 contained in the proposition. 
 
 I refer to the Federalist, for one moment, to show that the only 
 notice taken of that clause of the constitution which relates to post- 
 roads, is favorable to my construction. The power, that book says, 
 must always be a harmless one. I have endeavored to show, not 
 only that it is perfectly harmless, but that every exercise of it must 
 be necessarily beneficial. Nothing which tends to facilitate inter- 
 course among the states, says the Federalist, can be unworthy of 
 the public care. What intercourse? Even if restricted on the 
 narrowest theory of gentlemen on the other side, to the intercourse 
 of intelligence, they deny that to us, since they will not admit that 
 we have the power to repair or improve the way, the right of which 
 
ON INTERNAL IMPROVEMENT. 309 
 
 they yield us. In a more liberal and enlarged sense of the word, 
 it will comprehend all those various means of accomplishing the 
 object, which are calculated to render us a homogeneous people — 
 one in feeling, in interest, and affection; as we are one in our 
 political relation. 
 
 Is there not a direct and intimate relation between the power to 
 make war, and military roads and canals? It is in vain that the 
 convention have confided to the general government the tremendous 
 power of declaring war; have imposed upon it the duty to employ 
 the whole physical means of the nation to render the war, whatever 
 may be its character, successful and glorious ; if the power is with- 
 held of transporting and distributing those means. Let us appeal 
 to facts, which are sometimes worth volumes of theory. We have 
 recently had a war raging on all the four quarters of the union. 
 The only circumstance which gave me pain at the close of that 
 war, the detention of Moose Island, would not have occurred, if 
 we had possessed military roads. Why did not the union, why 
 did not Massachusetts, make a struggle to reconquer the island ? 
 Not for the want of men ; not for the want of patriotism, I hope ; 
 but from the want of physical ability to march a force sufficient to 
 dislodge the enemy. On the northwestern frontier, millions of 
 money, and some of the most precious blood of the state from 
 which I have the honor to come, was wastefully expended for the 
 want of such roads. My honorable friend from Ohio (General 
 Harrison), who commanded the army in that quarter, could furnish 
 a volume of evidence on this subject. What now paralyses our 
 arms on the southern frontier, and occasioned the recent massacre 
 of fifty of our brave soldiers ? What, but the want of proper 
 means for the communication of intelligence, and for the transpor- 
 tation of our resources from point to point ? Whether we refer to 
 our own experience, or that of other countries, we cannot fail to 
 perceive the great value of military roads. Those great masters of 
 the world, the Romans, how did they sustain their power so many 
 centuries, diffusing law and liberty, and intelligence, all around 
 them ? They made permanent military roads ; and among the 
 objects of interest which Europe now presents are the remains 
 of those Roman roads, which are shown to the curious inquirer. 
 If there were no other monument remaining of the sagacity and 
 of the illustrious deeds of the unfortunate captive of St. Helena, 
 the internal improvements which he made, the road from Ham- 
 burgh to Basle, would perpetuate his memory to future ages. In 
 making these allusions, let me not be misunderstood. I do not 
 desire to see military roads established for the purpose of conquest, 
 but of defence ; and as a part of that preparation which should be 
 made in a season of peace for a season of war. I do not wish to 
 see this country ever in that complete state of preparation for war, 
 for which some contend ; that is, that we should constantly have a 
 
310 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 large standing army, well disciplined, and always ready to act. I 
 want to see the bill reported by my friend from Ohio, or some other, 
 embracing an effective militia system, passed into a law ; and a 
 chain of roads and canals, by the aid of which our physical means 
 can be promptly transported to any required point. These, con- 
 nected with a small military establishment to keep up our forts and 
 garrisons, constitute the kind of preparation for war, which, it 
 appears to me, this country ought to make. No man, who has paid 
 the least attention to the operations of modern war, can have failed 
 to remark, how essential good roads and canals are to the success of 
 those operations. How often have battles been won by celerity 
 and rapidity of movement! It is one of the most essential 
 circumstances in war. But, without good roads, it is impossible. 
 Members will recall to their recollection the fact, that, in the senate, 
 several years ago, an honorable friend of mine (Mr. Bayard), whose 
 premature death I shall ever deplore, who was an ornament to 
 the councils of his country, and who, when abroad, was the able 
 and fearless advocate of her rights, did, in supporting a subscrip- 
 tion which he proposed the United States bank should make to the 
 stock of the Delaware and Chesapeake canal company, earnestly 
 recommend the measure as connected with our operations in war. 
 I listened to my friend with some incredulity, and thought he pushed 
 his argument too far. I had, soon after, a practical evidence of its 
 justness. For, in travelling from Philadelphia, in the fall of 1813, 
 I saw transporting, by government, from Elk river to the Delaware, 
 large quantities of massy timbers for the construction of the 
 Guerriere or the Franklin, or both ; and, judging from the number 
 of wagons and horses, and the number of days employed, I believe 
 the additional expense of that single operation would have gone 
 very far to complete that canal, whose cause was espoused with so 
 much eloquence in the senate, and with so much effect, too ; bills 
 having passed that body more than once to give aid, in some shape 
 or other, to that canal. With notorious facts like this, is it not 
 obvious, that a line of military canals is not only necessary and 
 proper, but almost indispensable to the war-making power ? 
 
 One of the rules of construction which has been laid down, I 
 acknowledge my incapacity to comprehend. Gentlemen say, that 
 the power in question is a substantive power; and that no substan- 
 tive power can be derived by implication. What is their definition 
 of a substantive power? Will they favor us with the principle of 
 discrimination between powers which, being substantive, are not 
 grantable but by express grant, and those which, not being substan- 
 tive, may be conveyed by implication ? Although I do not perceive 
 why this power is more entitled than many implied powers, to the 
 denomination of substantive, suppose that be yielded, how do 
 gentlemen prove that it may not be conveyed by implication ? If 
 the positions were maintained, which have not yet been proved, 
 
ON INTERNAL IMPROVEMENT. 311 
 
 that the power is substantive, and that no substantive power can 
 be implied, yet I trust it has been satisfactorily shown that there is 
 an express grant. 
 
 My honorable friend from Virginia, (Mr. Nelson,) has denied the 
 operation of executive influence on his mind ; and has informed 
 the committee, that from that quarter he has nothing to expect, to 
 hope, or to fear. I did not impute to my honorable friend any 
 such motive ; I knew his independence of character and of mind 
 too well to do so. But I entreat him to reflect, if he does not 
 expose himself to such an imputation by those less friendly disposed 
 towards him than myself. Let us look a little at facts. The pres- 
 ident recommends the establishment of a bank. If ever there were 
 a stretch of implied powers conveyed by the constitution, it has 
 been thought that the grant of the charter of the national bank was 
 one. But the president recommends it. Where was then my 
 honorable friend, the friend of state rights, who so pathetically 
 calls upon us to repent, in sackcloth and ashes, our meditated 
 violation of the constitution ; and who kindly expresses his hope, 
 that we shall be made to feel the public indignation ? Where was 
 he at that awful epoch ? Where was that eloquent tongue, which 
 we have now heard with so much pleasure ? Silent ! Silent as 
 the grave ! 
 
 [Mr. Nelson said, across the house, that he had voted against the bank bill when 
 first recommended.] 
 
 Alas ! my honorable friend had not the heart to withstand a 
 second recommendation from the president ; but, when it came, 
 yielded, no doubt most reluctantly, to the executive wishes, and 
 voted for the bank. At the last session of congress, Mr. Madison 
 recommended, (and I will presently make some remarks on that 
 subject,) an exercise of all the existing powers of the general 
 government, to establish a comprehensive system of internal 
 improvements. Where was my honorable friend on that occasion? 
 Not silent as the grave, but he gave a negative vote, almost as 
 silent. No effort was made on his part, great as he is when he 
 exerts the powers of his well-stored mind, to save the common- 
 wealth from that greatest of all calamities, a system of internal 
 improvement. No; although a war with all the allies, he now 
 thinks, would be less terrible than the adoption of this report, not 
 one word then dropped from his lips against the measure. 
 
 [Mr. Nelson said he voted against the bill.] 
 
 That he whispered out an unwilling negative, I do not deny ! 
 but it was unsustained by that torrent of eloquence which he has 
 poured out on the present occasion. But we have an executive 
 message noiv, not quite as ambiguous in its terms, nor as oracular 
 
312 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 in its meaning, as that of Mr. Madison appears to have been. No! 
 the president now says, that he has made great efforts to vanquish 
 his objections to the power, and that he cannot but believe that it 
 does not exist. Then my honorable friend rouses, thunders forth 
 the danger in which the constitution is, and sounds the tocsin of 
 alarm. Far from insinuating that he is at all biased by the execu- 
 tive wishes, I appeal to his candor to say, if there is not a remark- 
 able coincidence between his zeal and exertions, and the opinions 
 of the chief magistrate? 
 
 Now let us review those opinions, as communicated at different 
 periods. It was the opinion of Mr. Jefferson, that, although there 
 was no general power vested by the constitution in congress, to 
 construct roads and canals, without the consent of the states, yet 
 such a power might be exercised wilh their assent. Mr. Jefferson 
 not only held this opinion in the abstract, but he practically execu- 
 ted it in the instance of the Cumberland road; and how? First, 
 by a compact made with the state of Ohio, for the application of a 
 specified fund, and then by compacts with Virginia, Pennsylvania, 
 and Maryland, to apply the fund so set apart within their respective 
 limits. If, however, I rightly understood my honorable friend the 
 other day, he expressly denied (and in that I concur with him) that 
 the power could be acquired by the mere consent of the state. 
 Yet he defended the act of Mr. Jefferson, in the case referred to. 
 
 [Mr. Nelson expressed his dissent to this statement of his argument.] 
 
 It is far from my intention to misstate the gentleman. I cer- 
 tainly understood him to say, that, as the road was first stipulated 
 for, in the compact with Ohio, it was competent afterwards to carry 
 it through the states mentioned, with their assent. Now, if we 
 have not the right to make a road in virtue of one compact made 
 with a smgle state, can we obtain it by two contracts made with 
 several states? The character of the fund cannot affect the ques- 
 tion. It is totally immaterial whether it arises from the sales of 
 the public lands, or from the general revenue. Suppose a contract 
 made with Massachusetts, that a certain portion of the revenue, 
 collected at the port of Boston, from foreign trade, should be 
 expended in making roads and canals leading to that state, and 
 that a subsequent compact should be made with Connecticut or 
 New Hampshire, for the expenditure of the fund on these objects, 
 within their limits. Can we acquire the power, in this manner, 
 over internal improvements, if we do not possess it independently 
 of such compacts ? I conceive, clearly not. And I am entirely at 
 a loss to comprehend how gentlemen, consistently with their own 
 principles, can justify the erection of the Cumberland road. No 
 man is prouder than I am of that noble monument of the provi- 
 dent care of the nation, and of the public spirit of its projectors; 
 
ON INTERNAL IMPROVEMENT. 313 
 
 and I trust that, in spite of all constitutional and other scruples, 
 here or elsewhere, an appropriation will be made to complete that 
 road. I confess, however, freely, that I am entirely unable to con- 
 ceive of any principle on which that road can be supported, that 
 would not uphold the general power contended for. 
 
 I will now examine the opinion of Mr. Madison. Of all the 
 acts of that pure, virtuous, and illustrious statesman, whose admin- 
 istration has so powerfully tended to advance the glory, honor, and 
 prosperity of this country, I most regret, for his sake and for the 
 sake of the country, the rejection of the bill of the last session. I 
 think it irreconcilable with Mr. Madison's own principles — those 
 great, broad, and liberal principles, on which he so ably administered 
 the government. And, sir, when I appeal to the members of the 
 last congress, who are now in my hearing, I am authorized to say, 
 with regard to the majority of them, that no circumstance, not even 
 an earthquake, that should have swallowed up one half of this city, 
 could have excited more surprise than when it was first communi- 
 cated to this house, that Mr. Madison had rejected his own bill — I 
 say his own bill, for his message at the opening of the session 
 meant nothing, if it did not recommend such an exercise of power 
 as was contained in that bill. My friend, who is near me, (Mr. 
 Johnson, of Virginia,) the operations of whose vigorous and inde- 
 pendent mind, depend upon his own internal perceptions, has 
 expressed himself with becoming manliness, and thrown aside the 
 authority of names, as having no bearing with him on the question. 
 But their authority has been referred to, and will have influence 
 with others. It is impossible, moreover, to disguise the fact, that 
 the question is now a question between the executive on the one 
 side, and the representatives of the people on the other. So it is 
 understood in the country, and such is the fact. Mr. Madison 
 enjoys, in his retreat at Montpelier, the repose and the honors due 
 to his eminent and laborious services ; and I would be among the 
 last to disturb it. However painful it is to me to animadvert upon 
 any of his opinions, I feel perfectly sure that the circumstance can 
 only be viewed by him with an enlightened liberality. What are 
 the opinions which have been expressed by Mr. Madison on this 
 subject? I will not refer to all the messages wherein he has 
 recommended internal improvements ; but to that alone which he 
 addressed to congress, at the commencement of the last session, 
 which contains this passage : 
 
 ' I particularly invite again the attention of congress to the expediency of exercis- 
 ing their existing powers, and, where necessary, of resorting to the prescribed mode of 
 enlarging them, in order to effectuate a comprehensive system of roads and canals, such as 
 will have the effect of drawing more closely together every part of our country, by 
 promoting intercourse and improvements, and by increasing the share of every part 
 in the common stock of national prosperity.' 
 
 vol. i. 40 
 
314 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 In the examination of this passage, two positions force themselves 
 upon our attention. The first is, the assertion that there are existing 
 powers in congress to effectuate a comprehensive system of roads 
 and canals, the effect of which would be to draw the different parts 
 of the country more closely together. And I would candidly admit, 
 in the second place, that it was intimated, that, in the exercise of 
 those existing powers, some defect might be discovered which 
 would render an amendment of the constitution necessary. Noth- 
 ing could be more clearly affirmed than the first position ; but in 
 the message of Mr. Madison returning the bill, passed in conse- 
 quence of his recommendation, he has not specified a solitary case 
 to which those existing powers are applicable; he has not told us 
 what he meant by those existing powers ; and the general scope of 
 his reasoning, in that message, if well founded, proves that there are 
 no existing powers whatever. It is apparent, that Mr. Madison 
 himself has not examined some of those principal sources of the 
 constitution from which, during this debate, the power has been 
 derived. I deeply regret, and I know that Mr. Madison regretted, 
 that the circumstances under which the bill was presented to him 
 (the last day but one of a most busy session) deprived him of an 
 opportunity of that thorough investigation of which no man is 
 more capable. It is certain, that, taking his two messages at the 
 same session together, they are perfectly irreconcilable. What, 
 moreover, was the nature of that bill ? It did not apply the money 
 to any specific object of internal improvement, nor designate any 
 particular mode in w^hich it should be applied; but merely set apart 
 and pledged the fund to the general purpose, subject to the future 
 disposition of congress. If, then, there were any supposable case 
 whatever, to which congress might apply money in the erection of 
 a road, or cutting a canal, the bill did not violate the constitution. 
 And it ought not to have been anticipated, that money constitu- 
 tionally appropriated by one congress would be unconstitutionally 
 expended by another. 
 
 I come now to the message of Mr. Monroe; and if, by the com- 
 munication of his opinion to congress, he intended to prevent dis- 
 cussion, he has most wofully failed. I know that, according to a 
 most venerable and excellent usage, the opinion, neither of the 
 president nor of the senate, upon any proposition depending in this 
 house, ought to be adverted to. Even in the parliament, of Great 
 Britain, a member who would refer to the opinion of the sovereign, 
 in such a case, would be instantly called to order ; but under the 
 extraordinary circumstances of the president having, with, I have 
 no doubt, the best motives, volunteered his opinion on this head, 
 and inverted the order of legislation by beginning where it should 
 end, I am compelled, most reluctantly, to refer to that opinion. I 
 cannot but deprecate the practice of which the president has, in this 
 instance, set the example to his successors. The constitutional 
 
ON INTERNAL IMPROVEMENT. 315 
 
 order of legislation supposes that every bill originating in one 
 house, shall be there deliberately investigated, without influence 
 from any other branch of the legislature ; and then remitted to the 
 other house for a like free and unbiased consideration. Having 
 passed bolh houses, it is to be laid before the president; signed if 
 approved, and if disapproved, to be returned, with his objections, to 
 the originating house. In this manner, entire freedom of thought 
 and of action is secured, and the president finally sees the proposi- 
 tion in the most mamred form which congress can give to it. The 
 practical effect, to say no more, of forestalling the legislative opinion, 
 and telling us what we may or may not do, will be to deprive the 
 president himself of the opportunity of considering a proposition 
 so matured, and us of the benefit of his reasoning applied specifi- 
 cally to such proposition. For the constitution further enjoins it 
 upon him, to state his objections upon returning the bill. The 
 originating house is then to reconsider it, and deliberately to weigh 
 those objections ; and it is further required, when the question is 
 again taken, shall the bill pass, those objections notwithstanding ? 
 that the votes shall be solemnly spread, by ayes and noes, upon the 
 record. Of this opportunity of thus recording our opinions, in 
 matters of great public concern, we are deprived, if we submit to 
 the innovation of the president. I will not press this part of the 
 subject further. I repeat, again and again, that I have no doubt 
 but that the president was actuated by the purest motives. I am 
 compelled, however, in the exercise of that freedom of opinion 
 which, so long as I exist, I will maintain, to say, that the proceeding 
 is irregular and unconstitutional. Let us, however, examine the 
 reasoning and opinion of the president. 
 
 1 A difference of opinion has existed from the first formation of our constitution to 
 the present time, among our most enlightened and virtuous citizens, respecting the 
 right of congress to establish a system of internal improvement. Taking into view 
 the trust with which I am now honored, it would be improper, after what has passed, 
 that this discussion should be revived, with an uncertainty of my opinion respecting 
 the right. Disregarding early impressions, I have bestowed on the subject all the 
 deliberation which its great importance and a just sense of my duty required and Ihe 
 result is, a settled conviction in my mind, that congress does not possess the right. 
 It is not contained in any of the specified powers granted to congress; nor can I con- 
 sider it incidental to, or a necessary mean, viewed on the most liberal scale, for carry- 
 ing into effect any of the powers which are specifically granted. In communicating 
 this result, I cannot resist the obligation which I feel, to suggest to congress the pro- 
 priety of recommending to the states the adoption of an amendment to the constitu- 
 tion, which shall give the right in question. In cases of doubtful construction, 
 especially of such vital interest, it comports with the nature and origin of our insti- 
 tutions, and will contribute much to preserve them, to apply to our constituents for 
 an explicit grant of power. We may confidently rely, that, if it appears to their 
 satisfaction that the power is necessary, it will always be granted.' 
 
 In this passage, the president has furnished us with no reasoning, 
 no argument in support of his opinion — nothing addressed to the 
 understanding. He gives us, indeed, an historical account of the 
 operations of his own mind, and he asserts that he has made a 
 
816 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 laborious effort to conquer his early impressions, but that the result 
 is a settled conviction against the power, without a single reason. 
 In his position, that the power must be specifically granted, or inci- 
 dent to a power so granted, it has been seen, that I have the honor 
 to entirely concur with him ; but, he says, the power is not among 
 the specified powers. Has he taken into consideration the clause 
 respecting post-roads, and told us how and why that does not con- 
 vey the power ? If he had acted within what I conceive to be his 
 constitutional sphere of rejecting the bill, after it had passed both 
 houses, he must have learned that great stress was placed on that 
 clause, and we should have been enlightened by his comments upon 
 it. As to his denial of the power, as an incident to any of the 
 express grants, I would have thought that we might have safely 
 appealed to the experience of the president, during the late war, 
 when the country derived so much benefit from his judicious 
 administration of the duties of the war department, whether roads 
 and canals for military purposes were not essential to celerity and 
 successful result in the operations of armies. This part of the mes- 
 sage is all assertion, and contains no argument which I can com- 
 prehend, or which meet the points contended for during this debate. 
 Allow me here to say, and I do it without the least disrespect to that 
 branch of the government, on whose opinions and acts it has been 
 rendered my painful duty to comment ; let me say, in reference to 
 any man, however elevated his station, even if he be endowed with 
 the power and prerogatives of a sovereign, that his acts are worth 
 infinitely more, and are more intelligible, than mere paper senti- 
 ments or declarations. And what have been the acts of the presi- 
 dent? During his tour of the last summer, did he not order a road 
 to be cut or repaired from near Plattsburgh to the St. Lawrence? 
 My honorable friend will excuse me, if my comprehension is too 
 dull to perceive the force of that argument, which seeks to draw a 
 distinction between repairing an old and making a new road. 
 
 [ Mr. Nelson said, he had not drawn that distinction, having only stated the fact. ] 
 
 Certainly no such distinction is to be found in the constitution, or 
 exists in reason. Grant, however, the power of reparation, and we 
 will make it do. "We will take the post-roads, sinuous as they are, 
 and put them in a condition to enable the mails to pass, without 
 those mortifying delays and disappointments, to which we, at least 
 in the west, are so often liable. The president, then, ordered a road 
 of considerable extent to be constructed or repaired, on his sole 
 authority, in a time of profound peace, when no enemy threatened 
 the country, and when, in relation to the power as to which alone 
 that road could be useful in time of war, there exists the best under- 
 standing, and a prospect of lasting friendship, greater than at any 
 other period. On his sole authority the president acted, and we are 
 
ON INTERNAL IMPROVEMENT. 317 
 
 already called upon by the chairman of the committee of ways and 
 means to sanction the act by an appropriation. This measure has 
 been taken, too, without the consent of the state of New York ; 
 and what is wonderful, when we consider the magnitude of the 
 state rights which are said to be violated, without even a protest on 
 the part of that state against it. On the contrary, I understand, 
 from some of the military officers who are charged with the execu- 
 tion of the work, what is very extraordinary, that the people through 
 whose quarter of the country the road passes, do not view it as a 
 national calamity ; that they would be very glad that the president 
 would visit them often} and that he would order a road to be cut 
 and improved, at the national expense, every time he should visit 
 them. Other roads, in other parts of the union, have, it seems, been 
 likewise ordered, or their execution, at the public expense, sanction- 
 ed by the executive, without the concurrence of congress. If the 
 president has the power to cause these public improvements to be 
 executed at his pleasure, whence is it derived ? If any member 
 will stand up in this place and say the president is clothed with this 
 authority, and that it is denied to congress, let us hear from him ; 
 and let him point to the clause of the constitution which vests it in 
 the executive and withholds it from the legislative branch. 
 
 There is no such clause ; there is no such exclusive executive 
 power. The power is derivable by the executive only from those 
 provisions of the constitution which charge him with ihe duties of 
 commanding the physical force of the country, and the employ- 
 ment of that force in war, and the preservation of the public 
 tranquillity, and in the execution of the laws. But congress has 
 paramount powers to the president. It alone can declare war, can 
 raise armies, can provide for calling out the militia, in the specified 
 instances, and can raise and appropriate the ways and means 
 necessary to those objects. Or is it come to this, that there are to 
 be two rules of construction for the constitution — one, an enlarged 
 rule, for the executive, and another, a restricted rule, for the legis- 
 lature? Is it already to be held, that, according to the genius and 
 nature of our constitution, powers of this kind may be safely 
 intrusted to the executive, but, when attempted to be exercised by 
 the legislature, are so alarming and dangerous, that a war with all 
 the allied powers would be less terrible, and that the nation should 
 clothe itself straightway in sackclolh and ashes ! No, sir ; if the 
 power belongs only by implication to the chief magistrate, it is 
 placed both by implication and express grant in the hands of 
 congress. I am so far from condemning the act of the president, 
 to which I have referred, that I think it deserving of high approba- 
 tion. That it was within the scope of his constitutional authority, 
 I have no doubt; and I sincerely trust, that the secretary at war 
 will, in time of peace, constantly employ in that way the military 
 force. It will at the same time guard that force against the vices 
 
318 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 incident to indolence and inaction, and correct the evil of sub- 
 tracting from the mass of the labor of society, where labor is more 
 valuable than in any other country, that portion of it which enters 
 into the composition of the army. But I most solemnly protest 
 against any exercise of powers of this kind by 'the president, which 
 are denied to congress. And, if the opinions expressed by him, 
 in his message, were communicated, or are to be used here, to 
 influence the judgment of the house, their authority is more than 
 countervailed by the authority of his deliberate acts. 
 
 Some principles drawn from political economists have been 
 alluded to, and we are advised to leave things to themselves, upon 
 the ground that, when the condition of society is ripe for internal 
 improvements — that is, when capital can be so invested with a 
 fair prospect of adequate remuneration, they will be executed by 
 associations of individuals, unaided by government. With my 
 friend from South Carolina (Mr. Lowndes) I concur in this as a 
 general maxim ; and I also concur with him that there are excep- 
 tions to it. The foreign policy which I think this country ought to 
 adopt, presents one of those exceptions. It would perhaps be better 
 for mankind, if, in the intercourse between nations, all would leave 
 skill and industry to their unstimulated exertions. But this is not 
 done ; and if other powers will incite the industry of iheir subjects, 
 and depress that of our citizens, in instances where they may come 
 into competition, we must imitate their selfish example. Hence 
 the necessity to protect our manufactures. In regard to internal 
 improvements, it does not follow, that they will always be con- 
 structed whenever they will afford a competent dividend upon the 
 capital invested. It may be true generally that, in old countries, 
 where there is a great accumulation of surplus capital, arid a 
 consequent low rate of interest, they will be made. But, in a new 
 country, the condition of society may be ripe for public works long 
 before there is, in the hands of individuals, the necessary accumu- 
 lation of capital to effect them ; and, besides, there is generally, in 
 such a country, not only a scarcity of capital, but such a multipli- 
 city of profitable objects presenting themselves as to distract the 
 judgment. Further; the aggregate benefit resulting to the whole 
 society, from a public improvement, may be such as to amply 
 justify the investment of capital in its execution, and yet that 
 benefit may be so distributed among different and distant persons, 
 that they can never be got to act in -concert. The turnpike roads 
 wanted to pass the Alleghany mountains, and the Delaware and 
 Chesapeake canal, are objects of this description. Those who will 
 be most benefited by these improvements, reside at a considerable 
 distance from the sites of them ; many of those persons never have 
 seen and never will see them. How is it possible to regulate the 
 contributions, or to present to individuals so situated a sufficiently 
 lively picture of their leal interests, to get them to make exertions 
 
ON INTERNAL IMPROVEMENT, 319 
 
 in effectuating the object, commensurate with their respective abili- 
 ties ? I think it very possible that the capitalist, who should invest 
 his money in one of these objects, might not be reimbursed three 
 per centum annually upon it; and yet society, in various forms, 
 might actually reap fifteen or twenty per centum. The benefit 
 resulting from a turnpike road, made by private associations, is 
 divided between the capitalist who receives his tolls, the lands 
 through which it passes, and which are augmented in their value, 
 and the commodities whose value is enhanced by the diminished 
 expense of transportation. A combination, upon any terms, much 
 less a just combination, of ail those interests, to effect the improve- 
 ment, is impracticable. And if you await the arrival of the period 
 when the tolls alone can produce a competent dividend, it is evident 
 that you will have to suspend its execution long after the general 
 interests of society would have authorized it. 
 
 Again, improvements, made by private associations, are gene- 
 rally made by local capital. But ages must elapse before there will 
 be concentrated in certain places, where the interests of the whole 
 community may call for improvements, sufficient capital to make 
 them. The place of the improvement, too, is not always the most 
 interested in its accomplishment. Other parts of the union — the 
 whole line of the seaboard — are quite as much, if not more inter- 
 ested, in the Delaware and Chesapeake canal, as the small tract 
 of country through which it is proposed to pass. The same 
 observation will apply to turnpike roads passing through the 
 Alleghany mountain. Sometimes the interest of the place of the 
 improvement is adverse to the improvement and to the general 
 interest. I would cite Louisville, at the rapids of the Ohio, as an 
 example, whose interest will probably be more promoted by the 
 continuance, than the removal of ihe obstruction. Of all the modes 
 in which a government can employ its surplus revenue, none is 
 more permanently beneficial than that of internal improvement. 
 Fixed to the soil, it becomes a durable part of the land itself, 
 diffusing comfort, and activity, and animation, on all sides. The 
 first direct effect is on the agricultural community, into whose 
 pockets comes the difference in the expense of transportation 
 between good and bad ways. Thus, if the price of transporting a 
 barrel of flour by the erection of the Cumberland turnpike should 
 be lessened two dollars, the producer of the article would receive 
 that two dollars more now than formerly. 
 
 But, putting aside all pecuniary considerations, there may be 
 political motives sufficiently powerful alone to justify certain internal 
 improvements. Does not our country present such ? How are 
 they to be effected, if things are left to themselves ? I will not 
 press the subject further. I am but too sensible how much I have 
 abused the patience of the committee by trespassing so long upon 
 its attention. The magnitude of the question, and the deep interest 
 
320 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 I feel in its rightful decision, must be my apology. We are now 
 making the last effort to establish our power, and I call on the 
 friends of congress, of this house, or the true friends of state rights, 
 (not charging others with intending to oppose them,) to rally round 
 the constitution, and to support by their votes, on this occasion, 
 the legitimate powers of the legislature. If we do nothing this 
 session but pass an abstract resolution on the subject, I shall, under 
 all circumstances, consider it a triumph for the best interests of the 
 country, of which posterity will, if we do not, reap the benefit. I 
 trust, that by the decision which shall be given, we shall assert, 
 uphold, and maintain, the authority of congress, notwithstanding 
 all that has been or may be said against it. 
 
 [The resolution of giving the power of congress, first, to appropriate money to the 
 construction of military and post roads, make canals, and improve water-courses, was 
 adopted: yeas ninety; nays seventy-five: secondly, to construct such roads: lost: 
 yeas eighty-two ; nays eighty-four : thirdly, to construct roads and canals for com- 
 mercial purposes: lost: yeas seventy-one; nays ninety-five: fourthly, to construct 
 canals for military purposes : lost : eighty-one to eighty-three.] 
 
ON THE EMANCIPATION OF SOUTH AMERICA. 
 
 IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, MARCH 24, 1818. 
 
 [The following is considered one of the most important speeches made by Mr. 
 Clay, during his congressional career. It is here that he appears as an advocate for 
 the cause of human liberty — 'when, striving to usher the southern republics into 
 the great family of nations, he stood up before his countrymen like an apostle, com- 
 missioned by Freedom, to welcome her new votaries to the reward of their labors 
 and their sacrifices. The glory which he won by the discharge of that commission, is 
 as imperishable as liberty itself. It will rise freshly above his grave, and grow greener 
 with the lapse of centuries.' At the sessions of congress, in 1816 and 1S17, he had 
 made allusions to the situation of the South American patriots, and expressed his 
 warm sympathies in their behalf, as may be observed in preceding speeches, and he 
 now proposes to recognize the independence of the United Provinces of La Plata or 
 Buenos Ayres, as the first established republic of South America. 
 
 In the summer of 1817, the president of the United States (Mr. Monroe) appointed 
 Messrs. Rodney, Graham, and Bland, commissioners to proceed to South America, 
 for the purpose of ascertaining the condition of the country, the character of the 
 people, and their ability for self-government. At the present session of congress, 
 (March twenty-fourth, 1818,) the house being in committee of th e whole, on the bill 
 making appropriations for the support of government, which "BTtl proposed thirty 
 thousand dollars, for compensation to the commissioners above mentioned; this item 
 being passed by for the time, Mr. Clay (speaker) moved to amend the bill, by adding, 
 and 'for one yeaj^s salary and an outfit to a minister to the United Provinces of Rio de 
 La Plata, the satiny to commence, and the outfit to be paid, whenever the president 
 shall deem it expedient to send a minister to the said United Provinces, a sum not 
 exceeding eighteen thousand dollars.' 
 
 This motion he followed up by the subjoined argument, and on this occasion he 
 differed with many of his political and personal friends in congress, as well as the 
 
 President and heads of departments. The house rejected his proposition at this time, 
 ut in 1820, by recognizing its principles, and the independence of South America, 
 congress acknowledged his triumph.] 
 
 I Ristf under feelings of deeper regret than I have ever experi- 
 enced on any former occasion, inspired, principally, by the painful 
 consideration, that I find myself, on the proposition which I meant 
 to submit, difFering from many highly esteemed friends, in and out 
 of this house, for whose judgment I entertained the greatest respect. 
 A knowledge of this circumstance has induced me to pause ; to 
 subject my own convictions to the severest scrutiny, and to revolve 
 the question over and over again. But all my reflections have 
 conducted me to the same clear result ; and, much as I value those 
 friends, great as my deference is for their opinions, I cannot 
 hesitate, when reduced to the distressing alternative of conforming 
 vol. i. 41 
 
322 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 my judgment to theirs, or pursuing the deliberate and mature 
 dictates of my own mind. I enjoy some consolation, for the want 
 of their cooperation, from the persuasion that, if I err on this occa- 
 sion, I err on the side of the liberty and happiness of a large portion 
 of the human family. Another, and, if possible, indeed a greater, 
 source of the regret to which I refer, is the utter incompetency, 
 which I unfeignedly feel, to do any thing like adequate justice to 
 the great cause of American independence and freedom, whose 
 interests I wish to promote by my humble exertions in this instance. 
 1 Exhausted and worn down as I am, by the fatigue, confinement, 
 and incessant application incident to the arduous duties of the 
 honorable stalion I hold, during a four months' session, I shall need 
 all that kind indulgence which has been so often extended to me 
 by the house. 
 
 I beg, in the first place, to correct misconceptions, if any exist, 
 in regard to my opinions. I am averse to war with Spain, or 
 with any power. I would give no just cause of war to any power 
 — not to Spain herself. I have seen enough of war, and of its 
 calamities, even when successful. No country upon earth has 
 more interest than this in cultivating peace and avoiding war, as 
 long as it is possible honorably to avoid it. Gaining additional 
 strength every day ; our numbers doubling in periods of twenty- 
 iive years ; with an income outstripping all our estimates, and so 
 great, as, after a war in some respects disastrous, to furnish results 
 which carry astonishment, if not dismay, into the bosom of states 
 jealous of our rising importance; we have every motive for ihe 
 love of peace, I cannot, however, approve, in all respects, of the 
 manner in which our negotiations with kSpain have been conducted. 
 If ever a favorable time existed for the demand, on the part of an 
 injured nation, of indemnity for past wrongs from the aggressor, 
 such is the present time. Impoverished and exhausted at home, 
 by the wars which have desolated the peninsula; with a foreign 
 war, calling for infinitely more resources, in men and money, than 
 she can possibly command, this is the auspicious period for insist- 
 ing upon justice at her hands, in a firm and decided tone. Time 
 is precisely what Spain now most wants. Yet what are we told 
 by the president, in his message at the commencement of congress ? 
 That Spain had procrastinated, and we acquiesced in her procras- 
 tination. And the secretary of state, in a late communication with 
 Mr. Onis, after ably vindicating all our rights, 1ells the Spanish 
 minister, with a good deal of sang' froid, that we had patiently 
 waited thirteen years for a redress of our injuries, and that it 
 required no great effort to wait longer! I would have abstained 
 from thus exposing our intentions. Avoiding the use of the lan- 
 guage of menace, I would have required, in temperate and decided 
 terms, indemnity for all our wrongs; for the spoliations of our 
 commerce; for the interruption of the right of depot at New 
 
Orleans, guarantied by treaty ; for the insults repeatedly offered to 
 our flag ; for the Indian hostilities, which she was bound to prevent; 
 for belligerent use made of her ports and territories, by our enemy, 
 during the late war; and the instantaneous liberation of the free 
 citizens of the United States, now imprisoned in her jails. Con- 
 temporaneous with that demand, without waiting for her final 
 answer, and with a view to the favorable operation on her councils 
 in regard to our own peculiar interests, as well as in justice to the 
 cause itself, I would recognize any established government in 
 Spanish America. I would have left Spain to draw her own 
 inferences from these proceedings, as to the ultimate step which 
 this country might adopt, if she longer withheld justice from us. 
 And if she persevered in her iniquity, after we have conducted the 
 negotiation in the manner I have endeavored to describe, I would 
 then take up and decide the solemn question of peace or war, with 
 the advantage of all the light shed upon it, by subsequent events, 
 and the probable conduct of Europe. 
 
 Spain has undoubtedly given us abundant and just cause of 
 v war. But it is not every cause of war that should lead to war. 
 f^yWwt is one of those dreadful scourges, that so shakes the founda- 
 tions of society, overturns or changes the character of governments, 
 interrupts or destroys the pursuits of private happiness, brings, in 
 short, misery and wretchedness in so many forms, and at last is, in 
 its issue, so doubtful and hazardous, that nothing but dire neces- 
 sity can justify an appeal to arms, llf we are to have war with 
 Spain, I have, however, no hesitation in saying, that no mode of 
 bringing it about could be less fortunate than that of seizing, at this 
 time, upon her adjoining province. There was a time, under 
 certain circumstances, when we might have occupied East Florida 
 with safety ; had we then taken it, our posture in the negotiation 
 with Spain would have been totally different from what it is. But 
 we have permitted that time, not with my consent, to pass by 
 unimproved. If we were now to seize upon Florida, after a great 
 change in those circumstances, and after declaring our intention to 
 acquiesce in the procrastination desired by Spain, in what light 
 should we be viewed by foreign powers, particularly Great Britain? 
 "We have already been accused of inordinate ambition, and of 
 seeking to aggrandize ourselves by an extension, on all sides, of 
 our limits. Should we not, by such an act of violence, give color 
 to the accusation ? No, Mr. Chairman ; if we are to be involved 
 in a war with Spain, let us have the credit of disinterestedness. 
 Let us put her yet more in the wrong. Let us command the 
 respect which is never withheld from those who act a noble and 
 generous part. I hope to communicate to the committee the con- 
 viction which I so strongly feel, that the adoption of the amend- 
 ment which I intend to propose, would not hazard, in the slightest 
 degree, the peace of the country. But if that peace is to be 
 
324 
 
 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY 
 
 endangered, I would infinitely rather it should be for our exerting 
 the right appertaining to every state, of acknowledging the inde- 
 pendence of another state, than for the seizure of a province, which, 
 sooner or later, we must certainly acquire. 
 
 In contemplating the great struggle in which Spanish America 
 is now engaged, our attention is first fixed by the immensity and 
 character of the country which Spain seeks again to subjugate. 
 Stretching on the Pacific ocean from about the fortieth degree of 
 north latitude to about the fifty-fifth degree of south latitude, and 
 extending from the mouth of the Rio del Norte, (exclusive of 
 East Florida,) around the Gulf of Mexico, and along the South 
 'Atlantic to near Cape Horn ; it is about five thousand miles in 
 length, and in some places near three thousand in breadth. Within 
 this vast region we behold the most sublime and interesting objects 
 of creation ; the loftiest mountains, the most majestic rivers in the 
 world ; the richest mines of the precious metals, and the choicest 
 productions of the earth. We behold there a spectacle still more 
 ^interesting and sublime — the glorious spectacle of eighteen 
 \_ millions nf people, strugg lin g to" burst their chains and to_ be free. 
 When we take a little nearer aiiot^rriore ^etailc d^Ylew, we perceive 
 that nature has, as it were, ordained that this people and this 
 country shall ultimately constitute several different nations. 
 Leaving the United States on the north, we come to New Spain, 
 or the vice-royalty of Mexico on the south ; passing by Guatemala, 
 we reach the vice-royalty of New Grenada, the late captain- 
 generalship of Venezuela, and Guiana, lying on the east side of 
 the Andes. Stepping over the Brazils, we arrive at the united 
 provinces of La Plata, and crossing the Andes, we find Chili on 
 their west side, and, further north, the vice-royalty of Lima, or 
 Peru. Each of these several parts is sufficient in itself, in point 
 of limits, to constitute a powerful state ; and, in point of popu- 
 lation, that which has the smallest, contains enough to make it 
 respectable. Throughout all the extent of that great portion of the 
 world, which I have attempted thus hastily to describe, the spirit 
 of revolt against the dominion of Spain has manifested itself. The 
 revolution has been attended with various degrees of success in 
 the several parts of Spanish America. In some it has been 
 already crowned, as I shall endeavor to show, with complete 
 success, and in all I am persuaded that independence has struck 
 such deep root, that the power of Spain can never eradicate it. 
 What are the causes of this great movement ? 
 
 Three hundred years ago, upon the ruins of the thrones of 
 Montezuma and the incas of Peru, Spain erected ihe most stupen- 
 dous system of colonial despotism that the world has ever seen — 
 the most vigorous, the most exclusive. The great principle and 
 object of this system, has been, to render one of the largest portions 
 of the world exclusively subservient, in all its faculties, to the 
 
EMANCIPATION OF SOUTH AMERICA. 325 
 
 interests of an inconsiderable spot in Europe. To effectuate this 
 aim of her policy, she locked up Spanish America from all the 
 rest of the world, and prohibited, under the severest penalties, any 
 foreigner from entering any part of it. To keep the natives them- 
 selves ignorant of each other, and of the strength and resources of 
 the several parts of her American possessions, she next prohibited 
 the inhabitants of one vice-royalty or government from visiting 
 those of another; so that the inhabitants of Mexico, for example, 
 were not allowed to enter the vice-royalty of New Granada. The 
 agriculture of those vast regions was so regulated and restrained, 
 as to prevent all collision with the agriculture of the peninsula. 
 Where nature, by the character and composition of the soil, had 
 commanded, the abominable system of Spain has forbidden, the 
 /growth of certain articles. Thus the olive and the vine, to which 
 \§panish America is so well adapted, are prohibited, wherever their 
 culture can interfere with the olive and the vine of the peninsula. 
 The commerce of the country, in the direction and objects of the 
 exports and imports, is also subjected to the narrow and selfish 
 views of Spain, and fettered by the odious spirit of monopoly, 
 existing in Cadiz. She has sought, by scattering discord among 
 the several castes of her American population, and by a debasing 
 course of education, to perpetuate her oppression. Whatever 
 concerns public law, or the science of government, all writers upon 
 political economy, or that tend to give vigor, and freedom, and 
 expansion, to the intellect, are prohibited. Gentlemen would be 
 astonished by the long list of distinguished authors, whom she 
 proscribes, to be found in Depon's and other works. A main 
 feature in her policy, is that which constantly elevates the European 
 and depresses the American character. Out of upwards of seven 
 hundred and fifty viceroys and captains general, whom she has 
 appointed since the conquest of America, about eighteen only have 
 been from the body of the American population. On all occasions, 
 she seeks to raise and promote her European subjects, and to 
 degrade and humiliate the Creoles. Wherever in America her 
 sway extends, every thing seems to pure and wither beneath its 
 baneful influence. The richest regions of the earth : man, his 
 happiness and his education, all the fine faculties of his soul, 
 are regulated, and modified, and moulded, to suit the execrable 
 purposes of an inexorable despotism. 
 
 Such is a brief and imperfect picture of the state of things in 
 Spanish America, in 1808, when the famous transactions of 
 Bayonne occurred. The king of Spain and the Indies (for Span- 
 ish America has always constituted an integral part of the Spanish 
 empire) abdicated his throne and became a voluntary captive. 
 Even at this day, one does not know whether he should most 
 condemn the baseness and perfidy of the one party, or despise the 
 meanness and imbecility of the other. If the obligation of 
 
326 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 obedience and allegiance existed on the part, of the colonies to the 
 king of Spain, it was founded on the duty of projection which he 
 owed them. By disqualifying himself for the performance of this 
 duty, they became released from that obligalion. The monarchy 
 was dissolved ; and each integral part had a right to seek its own 
 happiness, by the institution of any new government adapted to 
 its wants. Joseph Bonaparte, the successor de facto of Ferdinand, 
 recognized this right on the part of the colonies, and recommended 
 them to establish their independence. Thus, upon the ground of 
 strict right; upon the footing of a mere legal question, governed by 
 forensic rules, the colonies, being absolved by the acts of the parent 
 country from the duty of subjection to it, had an indisputable 
 right to set up for themselves. But I take a broader and a bolder 
 position. I maintain, that an oppressed people are authorized, 
 whenever they can, to rise and break their fetters. This was the 
 great principle of the English revolution. It was the great principle 
 of our own. Vattel, if authority were w T anting, expressly supports 
 this right. We must pass sentence of condemnation upon the 
 founders of our liberty, say that they were rebels, traitors, and 
 that we are at this moment legislating without competent powers, 
 before we can condemn the cause of Spanish America. Our 
 revolution was mainly directed against the mere theory of tyranny. 
 We had suffered comparatively but little ; we had, in some respects, 
 been kindly treated ; but our intrepid and intelligent fathers saw, 
 in the usurpation of the power to levy an inconsiderable tax, the 
 long train of oppressive acts that were to follow. They rose; they 
 breasted the storm ; they achieved our freedom. Spanish America 
 for centuries has been doomed to the practical effects of an odious 
 tyranny. If we were justified, she is more lhan justified. 
 
 I am no propagandist. I would not seek to force upon other 
 nations our principles and our liberty, if they do not want them. I 
 would not disturb the repose even of a detestable despotism. But, 
 if an abused and oppressed people will their freedom ; if they seek 
 to establish it ; if, in truth, they have established it; we have a right, 
 as a sovereign power, to notice the fact, and to act as circumstances 
 and our interest require. I will say, in the language of the 
 venerated father of my country, 'born in a land of liberty, my 
 anxious recollections, my sympathetic feelings, and my best wishes, 
 are irresistibly excited, whensoever, in any country, I see an 
 oppressed nation unfurl the banners of freedom.' Whenever I 
 think of Spanish America, the image irresistibly forces itself upon 
 my mind, of an elder brother, whose education has been neglected, 
 whose person has been abused and maltreated, and who has been 
 disinherited by ihe unkindness of an unnatural parent. And, when 
 I contemplate the glorious struggle which that country is now 
 making, I think I behold that brother rising, by the power and 
 energy of his fine native genius, to the manly rank which nature, 
 and nature's God, intended for him. 
 
EMANCIPATION OF SOUTH AMERICA. 327 
 
 If Spanish America be entitled to success from the justness of 
 her cause, we have no less reason to wish that success, from the 
 horrible character which the royal arms have given to the war. 
 More atrocities, than those which have been perpetrated during its 
 existence, are not to be found, even in the annals of Spain herself. 
 And history, reserving some of her blackest pages for the name of 
 Morillo, is prepared to place him by the side of his great prototype, 
 the infamous desolater of the Netherlands. He who has looked 
 into the history of the conduct of this war, is constantly shocked 
 at the revolting scenes which it portrays ; at the refusal, on the part 
 of the commanders of the royal forces, to treat, on any terms, with 
 the other side ; at the denial of quarters ; at the butchery, in cold 
 blood, of prisoners; at the violation of flags, in some cases, after 
 being received with religious ceremonies ; at the instigation of 
 slaves to rise against their owners ; and at acts of wanton and 
 useless barbarity. Neither the weakness of the other sex, nor the 
 imbecility of old age, nor the innocence of infants, nor the reve- 
 rence due to the sarcedotal character, can stay the arm of royal 
 vengeance. On this subject, I beg leave to trouble the committee, 
 with reading a few passages from a most authentic document, the 
 manifesto of the congress of the United Provinces of Eio del la 
 Plata, published in October lasl. This is a paper of the highest 
 authority; it. is an appeal to the world ; it asserts facts of notoriety 
 in the face of the whole world. It is not to be credited, that the 
 congress would come forward with a statement which was not true, 
 when the means, if it were false, of exposing their fabrications, 
 must be so abundant, and so easy to command. It is a document, 
 in short, that stands upon the same footing of authority with our 
 own papers, promulgated during the revolution by our congress. 
 I will add, that many of the facts which it affirms, are corroborated 
 by most respectable historical testimony, which is in my own 
 possession. 
 
 1 Memory shudders at the recital of the horrors that were committed by Goyeneche 
 in Cochabamba. Would to tieaven it were possible to blot from remembrance the 
 name of that ungrateful and blood-thirsty American; who, on the day of his entry, 
 ordered the virtuous governor and intendant, Antesana, to be shot; who, beholding 
 from the balcony of his house that infamous murder, cried out with a ferocious voice 
 to the soldiers, that they must not fire at the head, because he wanted it to be affixed 
 to a pole : and who, after the head was taken off, ordered the cold corpse to be dragged 
 through the streets; and, by a barbarous decree, placed the lives and fortunes of the 
 citizens at the mercy of his unbridled soldiery, leaving them to exercise their licen- 
 tious and brutal sway during several days! But those blind and cruelly capricious 
 men (the Spaniards) rejected the mediation of England, and despatched rigorous 
 orders to all the generals, to aggravate the war, and to punish us with more severity. 
 The scaffolds were every where multiplied, and invention was racked to devise means 
 for spreading murder, distress, and consternation. 
 
 ' Thenceforth they made all possible efforts to spread division amongst us. to incite 
 us to mutual extermination ; they have slandered us with the most atrocious calum- 
 nies; accusing us of plotting the destruction of our holy religion, the abolition of all 
 morality, and of introducing licentiousness of manners. They wage a religious war 
 
328 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 against us, contriving a thousand artifices to disturb and alarm the consciences of the 
 people, making the Spanish bishops issue decrees of ecclesiastical condemnation, 
 public excommunications, and disseminating, through the medium of some ignorant 
 confessor, fanatical doctrines in the tribunal of penitence. By means of these religious 
 discords, they have divided families against themselves ; they have caused disaffection 
 between parents and children ; they have dissolved the tender ties which unite man 
 and wife; they have spread rancor and implacable hatred between brothers most 
 endeared, and they have presumed to throw all nature into discord. 
 
 'They have adopted the system of murdering men indiscriminately, to diminish 
 our numbers ; and, on their entry into towns, they have swept off all, even the market 
 people, leading them to the open squares, and there shooting them one by one. The 
 cities of Chuquisacaand Cochabamba have more than once been the theatres of these 
 horrid slaughters. 
 
 ' They have intermixed with their troops soldiers of ours, whom they had taken 
 prisoners, carrying away the officers in chains, to garrisons where it is impossible to 
 preserve health for a year; they have left others to die in their prisons, of hunger and 
 misery, and others they have forced to hard labor on the public works. They have 
 exultingly put to death our bearers of flags of truce, and have been guilty of the 
 blackest atrocities to our chiefs, after they had surrendered, as well as to other 
 principal characters, in disregard of the humanity with which we treated prisoners ; 
 as a proof of it, witness the deputy Mutes of PUosi, the captain-general Pumacagua, 
 general Augulo, and his brother commandant Munecas, and other partisan chiefs, 
 who were shot in cold blood after having been prisoners for several days. 
 
 1 They took a brutal pleasure in cropping the ears of the natives of the town of 
 Ville-Grande, and sending a basket full of them as presents to the head-quarters. 
 They afterwards burnt that town, and set fire to thirty other populous towns of Peru, 
 and, worse than the worst of savages, shutting the inhabitants up in the houses before 
 setting them on fire, that they might be burnt alive. 
 
 . • They have not only been cruel and unsparing in their mode of murder, but they 
 have been void of all morality and public decency, causing aged ecclesiastics and 
 women to be lashed to a gun, and publicly flogged, with the abomination of first 
 having them stripped, and their nakedness exposed to shame, in the presence of their 
 troops. 
 
 'They established an inquisitorial system in all these punishments; they have 
 seized on peaceable inhabitants, and transported ihem across the sea, to be judged for 
 suspected crimes, and they have put a great number of citizens to death every where, 
 without accusation or the form of a trial. 
 
 ' They have invented a crime of unexampled horror, in poisoning our water and 
 provisions, when they were conquered by general Pineto at Lapaz; and, in return for 
 the kindness with which we treated them, after they had surrendered at discretion, 
 they had the barbarity to blow up the head-quarters, under which they had con- 
 structed a mine, and prepared a train, beforehand. 
 
 ' He has branded us with the stigma of rebels, the moment he returned to Madrid ; 
 he refused to listen to our complaints, or to receive our supplications : and, as an act 
 of extreme favor, he offered us pardon. He confirmed the viceroys, governors, and 
 generals whom he found actually glutted with carnage. He declared us guilty of a 
 high misdemeanor, for having dared to frame a constitution for our own government, 
 free from the control of a deified, absolute, and tyrannical power, under which we had 
 groaned three centuries ; a measure that could be offensive only to a prince, an enemy 
 to justice and beneficence, and consequently unworthy to rule over us. 
 
 ' He then undertook, with the aid of his ministers, to equip large military arma- 
 ments, to be directed against us. He caused numerous armies to be sent out, to 
 consummate the work of devastation, fire, and plunder. 
 
 1 He has sent his generals, with certain decrees of pardon, which they publish to 
 deceive the ignorant, and induce them to facilitate their entrance into towns, whilst 
 at the same time he has given them other secret instructions, authorizing them, as 
 soon as they could get possession of a place, to hang, burn, confiscate, and sack; to 
 encourage private assassinations, and to commit every species of injury in their 
 power, against the deluded beings who had confided in his pretended pardon. It is 
 in the name of Ferdinand of Bourbon, that the heads of patriot officers, prisoners, 
 are fixed up in the highways, that they beat and stoned to death a commandant of light 
 tro >ps. and that, after having killed colonel Camugo, in the same manner, by the 
 hands of the indecent Centeno, they cut off his head, and sent it as a present to general 
 Pazuela, telling him it was a miracle of the virgin of the Carmelites.' 
 
EMANCIPATION OF SOUTH AMERICA. 329 
 
 In the establishment of the independence of Spanish America, 
 the United States have the deepest inierest. I have no hesitation 
 in asserting my firm belief, that there is no question in the foreign 
 policy of this country, which has ever arisen, or which I can 
 conceive as ever occurring, in the decision of which we have had 
 or can have so much at stake. This interest concerns our politics, 
 our commerce, our navigation. There cannot be a doubt that 
 Spanish America, once independent, whatever may be the form of 
 the governments established in its several parts, these governments 
 will be animated by an American feeling, and guided by an 
 American policy. They will obey the laws of the system of the 
 new world, of which they will compose a part, in contradistinc- 
 tion to that of Europe. Without the influence of that vortex in 
 Europe, the balance of power between its several parts, the preserva- 
 tion of which has so often drenched Europe in blood, America is 
 sufficiently remote to contemplate the new wars which are to afflict 
 that quarter of the globe, as a calm if not a cold and indifferent 
 spectator. In relation to those wars, the several parts of America 
 will generally stand neutral. And as, during the period when they 
 rage, it will be important that a liberal system of neutrality should 
 be adopted and observed, all America will be interested in main- 
 taining and enforcing such a system. The independence of Spanish 
 America, then, is an interest of primary consideration. Next to 
 that, and highly important in itself, is the consideration of the 
 nature of their governments. That is a question, however, for 
 themselves. They will, no doubt, adopt those kinds of govern- 
 ments which are best suited to their condition, best calculated for 
 their happiness. Anxious as I am that they should be free 
 governments, we have no right to prescribe for them. They are, 
 and ought to be, the sole judges for themselves. I am strongly 
 inclined to believe that they will in most, if not all parts of their 
 country, establish free governments. We are iheir great example. 
 Of us they constantly speak as of brothers, having a similar origin. 
 They adopt our principles, copy our institutions, and, in many 
 instances, employ the very language and sentiments of our revolu- 
 tionary papers. 
 
 1 Having, then, been thus impelled by the Spaniards and their king, we have 
 calculated all the consequences, and have constituted ourselves independent, prepared 
 to exercise the right of nature to defend ourselves against the ravages of tyranny, at 
 the risk of our honor, our lives, and fortune. We have sworn to the only King we 
 acknowledge, the supreme judge of the world, that we will not abandon the cause of 
 justice ; that we will not suffer the country which he has given us, to be buried in 
 ruins, and inundated with blood, by the hands of the executioner,' &c. 
 
 But it is sometimes said, that they are too ignorant and too 
 
 superstitious to admit of the existence of free government. This 
 
 charge of ignorance is often urged by persons themselves actually 
 
 ignorant of the real condition of that people. I deny the alleged 
 
 vol; i* 42 
 
330 
 
 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 fact of ignorance ; I deny the inference from that fact, if it were 
 true, that they want capacity for free government ; and I refuse 
 assent to the further conclusion, if the fact were true, and the 
 inference just, that we are to be indifferent to their fate. All the 
 writers of the most established authority, Depons, Humboldt, and 
 others, concur in assigning to the people of Spanish America great 
 quickness, genius, and particular aptitude for the acquisition of the 
 exact sciences, and others which they have been allowed to culti- 
 vate. In astronomy, geology, mineralogy, chemistry, botany, and 
 so forth, they are allowed to make distinguished proficiency. They 
 justly boast of their Abzate, Velasques, and Gama, and other 
 illustrious contributors to science. They have nine universities, 
 and in the city of Mexico, it is affirmed by Humboldt, that there 
 are more solid scientific establishments than in any city even of 
 North America. I would refer to the message of the supreme 
 director of La Plata, which I shall hereafter have occasion to use 
 for another purpose, as a model of fine composition of a state 
 paper, challenging a comparison with any, the most celebrated, 
 that ever issued from the pens of Jefferson or Madison. Gentle- 
 men will egregiously err, if they form their opinions of the present 
 moral condition of Spanish America, from what it was under the 
 debasing system of Spain. The eight years' revolution in which 
 it has been engaged, has already produced a powerful effect. 
 Education has been attended to, and genius developed. 
 
 1 As soon as the project of the revolution arose on the shores of La Plata, genius 
 and talent exhibited their influence; the capacity of the people became manifest, and 
 the means of acquiring knowledge were soon made the favorite pursuit of the youth. 
 As far as the wants or the inevitable interruption of affairs has allowed, every thing 
 has been done to disseminate useful information. The liberty of the press has indeed 
 met with some occasional checks ; but in Buenos Ayres alone, as many periodical 
 works weekly issue from the press as in Spain and Portugal put together.' 
 
 The fact is not therefore true, that the imputed ignorance exists; 
 but, if it do, I repeat, I dispute the inference. J(lt is the doctrine of 
 thrones, that man is too ignorant to govern himself. Their parti- 
 sans assert his incapacity, in reference to all nations; if they cannot 
 command universal assent to the proposition, it is then demanded 
 as to particular nations ; and our pride and our presumption too 
 often make converts of us. I contend, that it is to arraign the 
 dispositions of Providence himself, to suppose that he has created 
 beings incapable of governing themselves, and to be trampled on 
 by kings. Self-government is the natural government of man, and 
 for proof, I refer to the aborigines of our own land. Were I to 
 speculate in hypotheses unfavorable to human liberty, my specula- 
 tions should be founded rather upon the vices, refinements, or 
 density of population. Crowded together in compact masses, even 
 if they were philosophers, the contagion of the passions is com- 
 municated and caught, and the effect too often, I admit, is the 
 
EMANCIPATION OF SOUTH AMERICA. 331 
 
 overthrow of liberty. Dispersed over such an immense space as 
 that on which the people of Spanish America are spread, their 
 physical, and I believe also their moral condition, both favor their 
 liberty. 
 
 With regard to their superstition, they worship the same God 
 with us. Their prayers are offered up in their temples to the same 
 Redeemer, whose intercession we expect to save us. Nor is there 
 any thing in the Catholic religion unfavorable to freedom. All 
 religions united with government, are more or less inimical to 
 liberty. All, separated from government, are compatible with liberty. 
 If the people of Spanish America have not already gone as far in 
 religious toleration as we have, the difference in their condition 
 from ours should not be forgotten. Every thing is progressive ; 
 and, in time, I hope to see them imitating, in this respect, our 
 example. But grant that the people of Spanish America are 
 ignorant, and incompetent for free government, to whom is that 
 ignorance to be ascribed ? Is it not to the execrable system of 
 Spain, which she seeks again to establish and to perpetuate? So 
 far from chilling our hearts, it ought to increase our solicitude for 
 our unfortunate brethren. It ought to animate us to desire the 
 redemption of the minds and the bodies of unborn millions, from 
 the brutifying effects of a system, whose tendency is to stifle the 
 faculties of the soul, and to degrade man to the level of beasts. I 
 would invoke the spirits of our departed fathers. Was it for your- 
 selves only that you nobly fought ? No, no ! It was the chains 
 that were forging for your posterity, that made you fly to arms, and, 
 scattering the elements of these chains to the winds, you transmit- 
 ted to us the rich inheritance of liberty. V 
 
 The exports of Spanish America (exclusive of those of the 
 islands) are estimated in the valuable little work of M. Torres, 
 deserving to be better known, at about eighty-one millions of 
 dollars. Of these, more than three fourths consist of the precious 
 metals. The residue are cocoa, coffee, cochineal, sugar, and some 
 other articles. No nation ever offered richer commodities in 
 exchange. It is of no material consequence, that we produce but 
 little that Spanish America wants. Commerce, as it actually 
 exists in the hands of maritime states, is no longer confined to a 
 mere barter, between any two states, of their respective productions. 
 It renders tributary to its interests the commodities of all quarters 
 of the world ; so that a rich American cargo, or the contents of an 
 American commercial warehouse, present you with whatever is 
 rare or valuable, in every part of the globe. Commerce is not to 
 be judged by its results in transactions with one nation only. 
 Unfavorable balances existing with one state, are made up by 
 contrary balances with other states, and its true value should be 
 tested by the totality of its operations. Our greatest trade, that 
 with Great Britain, judged by the amount of what we sell for her 
 
332 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 consumption, and what we buy of her for ours, would he pro- 
 nounced ruinous. Bat the unfavorable balance is covered by the 
 profits of trade with other nations. We may safely trust to the 
 daring enterprise of our merchants. The precious metals are in 
 South America, and they will command the articles wanted in 
 South America, which will purchase them. Our navigation will 
 be benefited by the transportation, and our country will realize the 
 mercantile profits. Already the item in our exports of American 
 manufactures is respectable. They go chiefly to the West Indies 
 and to Spanish America. This item is constantly augmenting. 
 And I would again, as I have on another occasion, ask gentlemen 
 to elevate themselves to the actual importance and greatness of our 
 republic ; to reflect, like true American statesmen, that we are not 
 legislating for the present day only; and to contemplate this 
 country in its march to true greatness, when millions and millions 
 will be added to our population, and when the increased productive 
 industry will furnish an infinite variety of fabrics for foreign 
 consumption, in order to supply our own wants./ The distribution 
 of the precious metals has hitherto been principally made through 
 the circuitous channel of Cadiz. No one can foresee all the effects 
 which will result from a direct distribution of them from the mines 
 which produce them. One of these effects will probably be, to 
 give us the entire command of the Indian trade. The advantage 
 we have on the map of the world over Europe, in that respect, is 
 prodigious. Again, if England, persisting in her colonial monop- 
 oly, continues to occlude her ports in the West Indies to us, and 
 we should, as I contend we ought, meet her system by a counter- 
 vailing measure, Venezuela, New Granada, and other parts of 
 Spanish America, would afford us all we get from the British 
 W r est Indies. I confess that I despair, for the present, of adopting 
 that salutary measure. It was proposed at the last session, and 
 postponed. During ihe present session, it has been again proposed, 
 and, I fear, will be again postponed. I see, and I own it wiih 
 infinite regret, a tone and a feeling in the councils of the country, 
 infinitely below that which belongs to the country. It is, perhaps, 
 the moral consequence of the exertions of the late war. We are 
 alarmed at dangers, we know not what; by spectres conjured up 
 by our own vivid imaginations. 
 
 The West India bill is brought up. We shrug our shoulders, 
 talk of restrictions, non-intercourse, embargo, commercial warfare, 
 make long faces, and — postpone the bill. The time will however 
 come, must come, when this country will not submit to a commerce 
 with the British colonies, upon the terms which England alone 
 prescribes. And, I repeat, when it arrives, Spanish America will 
 afford us an ample substitute. Then, as to our navigation ; gentle- 
 men should recollect, lhat if reasoning from past experience were 
 safe for the future, our great commercial rival will be in war a 
 
EMANCIPATION OF SOUTH AMERICA. 333 
 
 greater number of years than she will be in peace. Whenever 
 she shall be at war, and we are in peace, our navigation being free 
 from the risks and insurance incident to war, we shall engross 
 almost the whole transportation of the Spanish American com- 
 merce. For I do not believe that that country will ever have a 
 considerable marine. Mexico, the most populous part of it, has 
 but two ports, La Vera Cruz and Acapulca, and neither of them 
 very good. Spanish America has not the elements to construct a 
 marine. It wants, and must always want, hardy seamen. I do 
 not believe, that, in the present improved state of navigation, any 
 nation so far south will ever make a figure as a maritime power. 
 If Carthage and Rome, in ancient times, and some other states of 
 a later period, occasionally made great exertions on the water, it 
 must be recollected that they were principally on a small theatre, 
 and in a totally different state of the art of navigation, or when 
 there was no competition from northern states. 
 
 I am aware that, in opposition to the interest, which I have been 
 endeavoring to manifest, that this country has in the independence 
 of Spanish America, it is contended that we shall find that country 
 a great rival in agricultural productions. There is something so 
 narrow, and selfish, and grovelling, in this argument, if founded in 
 fact, something so unworthy the magnanimity of a great and a 
 generous people, that I confess I have scarcely patience to notice 
 it. But it is not true to any extent. Of the eighty odd millions 
 of exports, only about one million and a half consist of an article 
 which can come into competition with us, and that is cotton. The 
 tobacco which Spain derives from her colonies, is chiefly produced 
 in her islands. Bread stuffs can nowhere be raised and brought 
 to market in any amount materially affecting us. The table-lands 
 of Mexico, owing to their elevation, are, it is true, well adapted to 
 the culture of grain; but the expense and difficulty of getting it to 
 the Gulf of Mexico, and the action of the intense heat at La Vera 
 Cruz, the only port of exportation, must always prevent Mexico 
 from being an alarming competitor. Spanish America is capable 
 of producing articles so much more valuable than those which we 
 raise, that it is not probable they will abandon a more profitable 
 for a less advantageous culture, to come into competition with us. 
 The West India islands are well adapted to the raising of cotton ; 
 and yet the more valuable culture of coffee and sugar is constantly 
 preferred. Again, Providence has so ordered it, that, with regard 
 to countries producing articles apparently similar, there is some 
 peculiarity, resulting from climate, or from some other cause, that 
 gives to each an appropriate place in the general wants and con- 
 sumption of mankind. The southern part of the continent, La 
 Plata and Chili, is too remote to rival us. 
 
 The immense country watered by the Mississippi and its 
 branches, has a peculiar interest, which I trust I shall be excused 
 
334 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 for noticing. Having but the single vent of New Orleans for all 
 the surplus produce of their industry, it is quite evident that they 
 would have a greater security for enjoying the advantages of that 
 outlet, if the independence of Mexico upon any European power 
 were effected. Such a power, owning at the same time Cuba, the 
 great key of the Gulf of Mexico, and all the shores of that gulf, 
 with the exception of the portion between the Perdido and the Rio 
 del Norte, must have a powerful command over our interests. 
 Spain, it is true, is not a dangerous neighbor at present, but, in the 
 vicissitudes of states, her power may be again resuscitated. 
 
 Having shown that the cause of the patriots is just, and that we 
 have a great interest in its successful issue, I will next inquire what 
 course of policy"it becomes us to adopt. I have already declared 
 it to be one of strict and impartial neutrality. It is not necessary 
 for their interests, it is not expedient for our own, that we should 
 take part in the war. All they demand of us is a just neutrality. 
 It is compatible with this pacific policy, it is required by it, that 
 we should recognize any established government, if there be any 
 established government in Spanish America. Recognition alone, 
 without aid, is no just cause of war. With aid, it is; not because 
 of the recognition, but because of the aid ; as aid, without recogni- 
 tion, is cause of war. The truth of these propositions I will main- 
 tain upon principle, by the practice of other states, and by the usage 
 of our own. There is no common tribunal among nations, to 
 pronounce upon the fact of the sovereignty of a new state. Each 
 power does and must judge for itself. It is an attribute of sove- 
 reignty so to judge. A nation, in exerting this incontestable right, 
 in pronouncing upon the independence, in fact, of a new state, 
 takes no part in the war. It gives neither men, nor ships, nor 
 money. It merely pronounces that, in so far as it may be 
 necessary to institute any relations, or to support any intercourse, 
 with the new power, that power is capable of maintaining those 
 relations, and authorizing that intercourse. Martens and other 
 publicists lay down these principles. 
 
 When the United Provinces formerly severed themselves from 
 Spain, it was about eighty years before their independence was 
 finally recognized by Spain. Before that recognition, the United 
 Provinces had been received by all the rest of Europe, into the 
 family of nations. It is true, that a war broke out between Philip 
 and Elizabeth, but it proceeded from the aid which she determined 
 to give, and did give, to Holland. In no instance, I believe, can it 
 be shown, from authentic history, that Spain made war upon any 
 power, on the sole ground lhat such power had acknowledged the 
 independence of the United Provinces. 
 
 In the case of our own revolution, it was not until after France 
 had given us aid, and had determined to enter into a treaty of 
 alliance with us — a treaty by which she guarantied our indepen- 
 
EMANCIPATION OF SOUTH AMERICA. 335 
 
 dence — that England declared war. Holland also was charged by 
 England with favoring our cause, and deviating from the line of 
 strict neutrality. And, when it was perceived that she was, more- 
 over, about to enter into a treaty with us, England declared war. 
 Even if it were shown that a proud, haughty, and powerful nation 
 like England, had made war upon other provinces, on the ground 
 of a mere recognition, the single example could not alter the public 
 law, or shake the strength of a clear principle. 
 
 But what has been our uniform practice ? We have constantly 
 proceeded on the principle, that the government de facto is that we 
 can alone notice. Whatever form of government any society of 
 people adopts, whoever they acknowledge as their sovereign, we 
 consider that government or that sovereign as the one to be 
 acknowledged by us. We have invariably abstained from assum- 
 ing a right to decide in favor of the sovereign de jvre, and against 
 the sovereign de facto. That is a question for the nation in which 
 it arises to determine. And, so far as we are concerned, the 
 sovereign de facto is the sovereign de jure. Our own revolution 
 stands on the basis of the right of a people to change their rulers. 
 I do not maintain that every immature revolution, every usurper, 
 before his power is consolidated, is to be acknowledged by us ; 
 but that as soon as stability and order are maintained, no matter 
 by whom, we always have considered, and ought to consider, the 
 actual as the true government. General Washington, Mr. Jefferson, 
 Mr. Madison, all, while they were respectively presidents, acted on 
 these principles. 
 
 In the case of the French republic, general Washington did not 
 wait until some of the crowned heads of Europe should set him 
 the example of acknowledging it, but accredited a minister at 
 once. And it is remarkable, that he was received before the 
 government of the republic was considered as established. It will 
 be found in Marshall's Life of Washington, that, when it was 
 understood that a minister from the French republic was about to 
 present himself, president Washington submitted a number of 
 questions to his cabinet for their consideration and advice, one of 
 which was, whether, upon the reception of the minister, he should 
 be notified that America would suspend the execution of the 
 treaties between the two countries, until France had an established 
 government. General Washington did not stop to inquire whether 
 the descendants of St. Louis were to be considered as ihe legiti- 
 mate sovereigns of France, and if the revolution was to be 
 regarded as unauthorized resistance to their sway. He saw 
 France, in fact, under the government of those who had subverted 
 the throne of the Bourbons, and he acknowledged ihe actual 
 government. During Mr. Jefferson's and Mr. Madison's adminis- 
 trations, when the cortes of Spain and Joseph Bonaparte respec- 
 tively contended for the crown, those enlightened statesmen said, 
 
336 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 we will receive a minister from neither party ; settle the question 
 between yourselves, and we will acknowledge the party that 
 prevails. We have noihing to do with your feuds ; whoever all 
 Spain acknowledges as her sovereign, is the only sovereign with 
 whom we can maintain any relations. Mr. Jefferson, it is under- 
 stood, considered whether he should not receive a minister from 
 both parties, and finally decided against it, because of the incon- 
 veniences to this country, which might result from the double 
 representation of another power. As soon as the French armies 
 were expelled from the peninsula, Mr. Madison, still acting on the 
 principle of the government de facto, received the present minister 
 from Spain. During all the phases of the French government, 
 republic, directory, consuls, consul for life, emperor, king, emperor 
 again, king, our government has uniformly received the minister. 
 If, then, there be an established government in Spanish America, 
 deserving to rank among the nations, we are morally and politically 
 bound to acknowledge it, unless we renounce all the principles 
 which ought to guide, and which hitherto have guided our councils. 
 I shall now undertake to show, that the United Provinces of the 
 Rio de la Plata possess such a government. Its limits, extending 
 from the south Atlantic ocean to the Pacific, embrace a territory 
 equal to that of the United States, certainly equal to it exclusive 
 of Louisiana. Its population is about three millions, more than 
 equal to ours at the commencement of our revolution. That 
 population is a hardy, enterprising, and gallant population. The 
 establishments of Montevideo and Buenos Ayres have, during 
 different periods of their history, been attacked by the French, 
 Dutch. Danes, Portuguese, English, and Spanish ; and such is the 
 martial character of the people, that, in every instance, the attack 
 has been repulsed. In 1807, general Whitlocke, commanding a 
 powerful English army, was admitted, under the guise of a friend, 
 into Buenos Ayres, and, as soon as he was supposed to have 
 demonstrated inimical designs, he was driven by the native and 
 unaided force of Buenos Ayres from the country. Buenos Ayres 
 has, during now nearly eight years, been, in point of fact, in the 
 enjoyment of self-government. The capital, containing more than 
 sixty thousand inhabitants, has never been once lost. As early as 
 1811, the regency of old Spain made war upon Buenos Ayres, 
 and the consequence subsequently was, the capture of a Spanish 
 army in Montevideo, equal to that of Burgoyne. This government 
 has now, in excellent discipline, three well-appointed armies, with 
 the most abundant material of war; the army of Chili, the army of 
 Peru, and the army of Buenos Ayres. The first, under San Martin, 
 has conquered Chili; the second is penetrating in a northwestern 
 direction from Buenos Ayres, into the vice-royalty of Peru ; and, 
 according to the last accounts, had reduced the ancient seat of 
 empire of the incase The third remains at Buenos Ayres to 
 
EMANCIPATION OF SOUTH AMERICA. 337 
 
 oppose any force which Spain may send against it. To show the 
 condition of the country in July last, I again call the attention of 
 the committee to the message of the supreme director, delivered to 
 the congress of the United Provinces. It is a paper of the same 
 authentic character with the speech of the king of England on 
 opening his parliament, or the message of the president of the 
 United States at the commencement of congress. 
 
 1 The army of this capital was organized at the same time with those of -the Ancles 
 and of the interior; the regular force has been nearly doubled ; the militia has made 
 great progress in military discipline ; our slave population has been formed into bat- 
 talions, and taught the military art as far as is consistent with their condition. The 
 capital is under no apprehension that an army of ten thousand men can shake its 
 liberties, and should the peninsularians send against us thrice that number, ample 
 provision has been made to receive them. 
 
 ' Our navy has been fostered in all its branches. The scarcity of means under 
 which we labored until now, has not prevented us from undertaking very considerable 
 operations, with respect to the national vessels ; all of them have been repaired, and 
 others have been purchased and armed, for the defence of our coasts and rivers; 
 provisions have been made, should necessity require it, for arming many more, so 
 that the enemy will not find himself secure from our reprisals, even upon the ocean. 
 
 s Our military force, at every point which it occupies, seems to be animated with 
 the same spirit ; its tactics are uniform, and have undergone a rapid improvement 
 from the science of experience, which it has borrowed from warlike nations. 
 
 ' Our arsenals have been replenished with arms, and a sufficient store of cannon 
 and munitions of war have been provided, to maintain the contest for many years; 
 and this, after having supplied articles of every description to those districts, which 
 have not as yet come into the union, but whose connection with us has been only 
 intercepted by reason of our past misfortunes. 
 
 " Our legions daily receive considerable augmentations from new levies ; all our 
 preparations have been made, as though we were about to enter upon the contest 
 anew. Until now, the vastness of our resources was unknown to us, and our enemies 
 may contemplate, with deep mortification and despair, the present flourishing state 
 of these provinces after so many devastations. 
 
 ' While thus occupied in providing for our safety within, and preparing for assaults 
 from without, other objects of solid interest have not been neglected, and which 
 hitherto were thought to oppose insurmountable obstacles. 
 
 1 Our system of finance had hitherto been on a footing entirely inadequate to the 
 unfailing supply of our wants, and still more to the liquidation of the immense debt 
 which had been contracted in former years. An unremitted application to this 
 object has enabled me to create the means of satisfying the creditors of the state who 
 had already abandoned their debts as lost, as well as to devise a fixed mode, by which 
 the taxes may be made to fall equally and indirectly on the whole mass of our 
 population. It is not the least merit of this operation, that it has been effected in 
 despite of the writings by which it was attacked, and which are but little creditable 
 to the intelligence and good intentions of their authors. At no other period have 
 the public exigences been so punctually supplied, nor have more important works 
 been undertaken. 
 
 ' The people, moreover, have been relieved from many burdens, which being 
 partial, or confined to particular classes, had occasioned vexation and disgust. Other 
 vexations, scarcely less grievous, will by degrees be also suppressed, avoiding as far 
 as possible a recurrence to loans, which have drawn after them the most fatal conse- 
 quences to states. Should we, however, be compelled to resort to such expedients, 
 the lenders will not see themselves in danger of losing their advances. 
 
 'Many undertakings have been set on foot for the advancement of the general 
 prosperity. Such has been the reestablishing of the college, heretofore named San 
 Carlos, but hereafter to be called the Union of the Souih, as a point designated for 
 the dissemination of learning to the youth of every pait of the state, on the most 
 extensive scale, for the attainment of which object the government is at the present 
 moment engaged in putting in practice every possible diligence. It will not be long 
 before these nurseries will flourish, in which the liberal end exact sciences will be 
 
 vol. i. 43 
 
V 
 
 333 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 cultivated, in which the hearts of those young men will be formed, who are destined 
 at some future day to add new splendor to our country. 
 
 ' Such has been the establishment of a military depot on the frontier, with its 
 spacious magazine, a necessary measure to guard us from future dangers, a work 
 which does more honor to the prudent foresight of our country, as it was undertaken 
 in the moment of its prosperous fortunes, a measure which must give more occasion 
 for reflection to our enemies than they can impose upon us by their boastings. 
 
 ' Fellow citizens, we owe our unhappy reverses and calamities to the depraving 
 system of our ancient metropolis, which, in condemning us to the obscurity and 
 opprobrium of the most degraded destiny, has sown with thorns the path that con- 
 ducts us to liberty. Tell that metropolis that even she may glory in your works ! 
 
 * Already have you cleared all the rocks, escaped every danger, and conducted these 
 provinces to the flourishing condition in which we now behold them. Let the 
 enemies of your name contemplate with despair the energies of your virtues, and let 
 
 • the nations acknowledge that you already appertain to their illustrious rank. Let us 
 felicitate ourselves on the blessings we have already obtained, and let us show to 
 the world that we have learned to profit by the experience of our past misfortunes.' 
 
 There is a spirit of bold confidence running through this fine 
 state paper, which nothing but conscious strength could communi- 
 cate. Their armies, their magazines, their finances, are on the 
 most solid and respectable footing. And, amidst all the cares of 
 war, and those incident to the consolidation of their new institu- 
 tions, leisure is found to promote the interests of science, and the 
 education of the rising generation. It is true, the first part of the 
 message portrays scenes of difficulty and commotion, the usual 
 attendants upon revolution. The very avowal of their troubles 
 manifests, however, that they are subdued. And what state, 
 passing through the agitation of a great revolution, is free from 
 them ? We had our tories, our intrigues, our factions. More than 
 once were the affections of the country, and the confidence of our 
 councils, attempted to be shaken in the great father of our liberties. 
 Not a Spanish bayonet remains within the immense extent of the 
 territories of the La Plata, to contest the authority of the actual 
 government. It is free, it is independent, it is sovereign. It man- 
 ages the interests of the society that submits to its sway. It is 
 capable of maintaining the relations between that society and other 
 nations. 
 
 Are we not bound, then, upon our own principles, to acknowl- 
 edge this new republic ? If we do not, who will ? Are we to 
 expect that kings will set us the example of acknowledging the 
 only republic on earth, except our own ? We receive, promptly 
 receive, a minister, from whatever king sends us one. From the 
 great powers and the little powers, we accredit ministers. We do 
 more : we hasten to reciprocate the compliment ; and, anxious to 
 manifest our gratitude for royal civility, we send for a minister (as 
 in the case of Sweden and the Netherlands) of the lowest grade, 
 one of the highest rank recognized by our laws. We are the 
 natural head of the American family. I would not intermeddle in M 
 the affairs of Europe. We wisely keep aloof from their broiis. I 
 would not even intermeddle in those of other parts of America, 
 
EMANCIPATION OF SOUTH AMERICA. 339 
 
 further than to exert the incontestable rights appertaining to us as a 
 free, sovereign, and independent power; and I contend, that the 
 accrediting of a minister from the new republic is such a right. 
 We are bound to receive their minister, if we mean to be really 
 neutral. If the royal belligerent is represented and heard at our 
 government, the republican belligerent ought also to be heard. 
 Otherwise, one party will be in the condition of the poor patriots, 
 who were tried ex-parte the other day, in the supreme court, without 
 counsel, without friends. Give Mr. Onis his conge, or receive the 
 republican minister. Unless you do so, your neutrality is nominal. 
 I will next proceed to inquire into the consequences of a recog- 
 nition of the new republic. Will it involve us in war with Spain ? 
 I have shown, I trust successfully shown, that there is no just cause 
 of war to Spain. Being no cause of war, we have no right to 
 expect that war will ensue. If Spain, without cause, will make 
 war, she may make it whether we do or do not acknowledge the 
 republic. But she will not, because she cannot, make war against 
 us. I call the attention of the committee to a report of the minister 
 of the Hacienda to the king of Spain, presented about eight months 
 ago. A more beggarly account of empty boxes was never ren- 
 dered. The picture of Mr. Dallas, sketched in his celebrated report 
 during the last war, may be contemplated without emotion, after 
 surveying that of Mr. Gary. The expenses of the current year 
 required eight hundred and thirty million two hundred and sixty- 
 seven thousand eight hundred and twenty-nine reals, and the deficit 
 of the income is represented as two hundred and thirty-three 
 million one hundred and forty thousand nine hundred and thirty- 
 two reals. This, besides an immense mass of unliquidated debt, 
 which the minister acknowledges the utter inability of the country 
 to pay, although bound in honor to redeem it. He states, that the 
 vassals of the king are totally unable to submit to any new taxes, 
 and the country is without credit, so as to render anticipation by 
 loans wholly impracticable. Mr. Gary appears to be a virtuous 
 man, who exhibits frankly the naked truth ; and yet such a minister 
 acknowledges, that the decorum due to one single family, that of a 
 monarch, does not admit, in this critical condition of his country, 
 any reduction of the enormous sum of upwards of fifty-six millions 
 of reals, set apart to defray the expenses of that family ! He states 
 that a foreign war would be the greatest of all calamities, and one 
 which, being unable to provide for it, they ought to employ every 
 possible means to avert. He proposed some inconsiderable contri- 
 bution from the clergy, and the whole body was instantly in an 
 uproar. Indeed, I have no doubt that, surrounded as Mr. Gary is 
 by corruption, by intrigue, and folly, and imbecility, he will be 
 compelled to retire, if he has not already been dismissed, from a 
 post for which he has too much integrity. It has been now about 
 four years since the restoration of Ferdinand; and if, during that 
 
340 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 period, the whole energies of the monarchy have been directed, 
 unsuccessfully, against the weakest and most vulnerable of all the 
 American possessions, Venezuela, how is it possible for Spain to 
 encounter the difficulties of a new war with this country ? Morillo 
 has been sent out with one of the hnest armies that has ever left 
 the shores of Europe — consisting of ten thousand men, chosen 
 from all the veterans who have fought in the peninsula. It has 
 subsequently been reinforced with about three thousand more. 
 And yet, during the last summer, it was reduced, by the sword and 
 the climate, to about four thousand effective men. And Venezuela, 
 containing a population of only about one million, of which near 
 two thirds are persons of color, remains unsubdued. The little 
 island of Margaritta, whose population is less than twenty thousand 
 inhabitants — a population fighting for liberty, with more than 
 Roman valor — has compelled that army to retire upon the main. 
 Spain, by the late accounts, appeared to be deliberating upon the 
 necessity of resorting to that measure of conscription, for which 
 Bonaparte has been so much abused. The effect of a war with 
 this country would be, to insure success, beyond all doubt, to the 
 cause of American independence. Those parts even, over which 
 Spain has some prospect of maintaining her dominions, would 
 probably be put in jeopardy. Such a war would be attended with 
 the immediate and certain loss of Florida. Commanding the 
 Gulf of Mexico, as we should be enabled to do by our navy, 
 blockading the port of Havana, the port of La Vera Cruz, and the 
 coast of Terra Firma, and throwing munitions of war into Mexico, 
 Cuba would be menaced, Mexico emancipated, and Morillo's 
 army, deprived of supplies, now drawn principally from this country 
 through the Havana, compelled to surrender. The war, I verily 
 believe, would be terminated in less than two years, supposing no 
 other power to interpose. 
 
 Will the allies interfere ? If, by the exertion of an unquestion- 
 able attribute of a sovereign power, we should give no just cause 
 of war to Spain herself, how can it be pretended that we should 
 furnish even a specious pretext to the allies for making war upon 
 us? On what ground could they attempt to justify a rupture wilh 
 us, for the exercise of a right which we hold in common with 
 them, and with every other independent state ? But we have a 
 surer guarantee against their hostility, in their interests. That all 
 the allies, who have any foreign commerce, have an interest in the 
 independence of Spanish America, is perfectly evident. On what 
 ground, I ask, is it likely, then, that they would support Spain, in 
 opposition to their own decided interests ? To crush the spirit of 
 revolt, and prevent the progress of free principles? Nations, like 
 individuals, do not sensibly feel, and seldom act upon dangers 
 which are remote either in time or place. Of Spanish America, 
 but little is known by the great body of the population of Europe. 
 
EMANCIPATION OF SOUTH AMERICA. 341 
 
 Even in this country, the most astonishing ignorance prevails 
 respecting it. Those European statesmen who are acquainted 
 with the country, will reflect, that, tossed by a great revolution, it 
 will most probably constitute four or five several nations, and that 
 the ultimate modification of all their various governments is by no 
 means absolutely certain. But I entertain no doubt that the 
 principle of cohesion among the allies is gone. It was annihilated 
 in the memorable battle of Waterloo. When the question was, 
 whether one should engross all, a common danger united all. 
 How long was it, even with a clear perception of that danger, 
 before an effective coalition could be formed ? How often did one 
 power stand by, unmoved and indifferent to the fate of its neighbor, 
 although the destruction of that neighbor removed the only barrier 
 to an attack upon itself? No; the consummation of the cause of 
 the allies was, and all history and all experience will prove it, the 
 destruction of the alliance. The principle is totally changed. It 
 is no longer a common struggle against the colossal power of 
 Bonaparte, but it has become a common scramble for the spoils of 
 his empire. There may, indeed, be one or two points on which 
 a common interest still exists, such as the convenience of subsisting 
 their armies on the vitals of poor suffering France. But as for 
 action, for new enterprises, there is no principle of unity, there 
 can be no accordance of interests, or of views, among them. 
 
 What is the condition in which Europe is left after all its efforts ? 
 It is divided into two great powers, one having the undisputed 
 command of the land, the other of the water. Paris is transferred 
 to St. Petersburgh, and the navies of Europe are at the bottom of 
 the sea, or concentrated in the ports of England. Russia — that 
 huge land animal — awing by the dread of her vast power all 
 continental Europe, is seeking to encompass the Porte ; and, 
 constituting herself the kraken of the ocean, is anxious to lave her 
 enormous sides in the more genial waters of the Mediterranean. 
 It is said, I know, that she has indicated a disposition to take part 
 with Spain. No such thing. She has sold some old worm-eaten, 
 decayed fir-built ships to Spain, but the crews which navigate them 
 are to return from the port of delivery, and the bonus she is to get, 
 I believe to be the island of Minorca, in conformity with the 
 cardinal point of her policy. France is greatly interested in 
 whatever would extend her commerce, and regenerate her marine, 
 and consequently, more than any other power of Europe, England 
 alone excepted, is concerned in the independence of Spanish 
 America. I do not despair of France, so long as France has a 
 legislative body collected from all its parts, the great repository of 
 its wishes and its will. Already has that body manifested a spirit 
 of considerable independence. And those who, conversant with 
 French history, know what magnanimous stands have been made 
 by the parliaments, bodies of limited extent, against the royal 
 
342 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 prerogative, will be able to appreciate justly the moral force of such 
 a legislative body. Whilst it exists, the true interests of France 
 will be cherished and pursued on points of foreign policy, in 
 opposition to the pride and interests of the Bourbon family, if the 
 actual dynasty, impelled by this pride, should seek to subserve 
 these interests. 
 
 England finds that, after all her exertions, she is every where 
 despised on the continent ; her maratime power viewed with jeal- 
 ousy ; her commerce subjected to the most onerous restrictions ; 
 selfishness imputed to all her policy. All the accounts from France 
 represent that every party, Bonapartists, Jacobins, royalists, mode- 
 res, ultras, all burn with indignation towards England, and pant 
 for an opportunity to avenge themselves on the power to whom 
 they ascribe all their disasters. 
 
 [Here Mr. Clay read a part of a letter which he had just received from an intelli- 
 gent friend at Paris, and which composed only a small portion of the mass of evidence 
 to the same effect, which had come under his notice.] 
 
 It is impossible, that with powers, between whom so much 
 cordial dislike, so much incongruity exists, there can be any union 
 or concert. Whilst the free principles of the French revolution 
 remained, those principles which were so alarming to the stability 
 of thrones, there never was any successful or cordial union ; coali- 
 tion after coalition, wanting the spirit of union, was swept away 
 by the overwhelming power of France. It was not until those 
 principles were abandoned, and Bonaparte had erected on their 
 ruins his stupendous fabric of universal empire; nor, indeed, until 
 after the frosts of heaven favored the cause of Europe, that an effec- 
 tive coalition was formed. No, the complaisance inspired in the 
 allies from unexpected if not undeserved success, may keep them 
 nominally together; but for all purposes of united and combined 
 action, the alliance is gone ; and I do not believe in the. chimera 
 of their crusading against the independence of a country, whose 
 liberation would essentially promote all their respective interests. 
 
 But the question of the interposition of the allies, in the event 
 of our recognizing the new republic, resolves itself into a question, 
 whether England, in such event, would make war upon us; if it 
 can be shown that England would not, it results, either that the 
 other allies would not, or that, if they should, in which case 
 England would most probably support the cause of America, it 
 would be a war without the maratime ability to maintain it. I 
 contend, that England is alike restrained by her honor and by her 
 interests from waging war against us, and consequently against 
 Spanish America, also, for an acknowledgment of the independence 
 of the new state. England encouraged and fomented the revolt, 
 of the colonies as early as June, 1797. Sir Thomas Picton, 
 governor of Trinidad, in virtue of orders from the British minister 
 
EMANCIPATION OF SOUTH AMERICA. 343 
 
 of foreign affairs, issued a proclamation, in which he expressly 
 assures the inhabitants of Terra Firma, that the British govern- 
 ment will aid in establishing their independence. 
 
 • With regard to the hope you entertain of raising the spirits of those persons with 
 whom you are in correspondence, towards encouraging the inhabitants to resist the 
 oppressive authority of their government, I have little more to say than that they 
 may be certain, that whenever they are in that disposition, they may receive at 
 your hands all the succors to be expected from his Britannic majesty, be it with forces 
 or with arms and ammunition to any extent ; with the assurance that the views of 
 his Britannic majesty go no further than to secure to them their independence,' and so 
 forth. 
 
 In the prosecution of the same object, Great Britain defrayed 
 the expenses of the famous expedition of Miranda. England, in 
 1811, when she was in the most intimate relations with Spain, 
 then struggling against the French power, assumed the attitude of 
 a mediator between the colonies and the peninsula. The terms, 
 on which she conceived her mediation could alone be effectual, 
 were rejected by the cortes, at the lowest state of the Spanish 
 power. Among these terms, England required for the colonies a 
 perfect freedom of commerce, allowing only some degree of 
 preference to Spain ; that the appointments of viceroys and 
 governors should be made indiscriminately from Spanish Ameri- 
 cans and Spaniards ; and that the interior government, and every 
 branch of public administration, should be intrusted to the cabildo, 
 or municipalities, and so forth. If Spain, when Spain was almost 
 reduced to the island of St. Leon, then rejected those conditions, 
 will she now consent to them, amounting, as they do, substantially, 
 to the independence of Spanish America ? If England, devoted 
 as she was at that time to the cause of the peninsula, even then 
 thought those terms due to the colonies, will she now, when no 
 particular motive exists for cherishing the Spanish power, and after 
 the ingratitude with which Spain has treated her, think that the 
 colonies ought to submit to less favorable conditions ? And would 
 not England stand disgraced in the eyes of the whole world, if, 
 after having abetted and excited a revolution, she should now 
 attempt to reduce the colonies to unconditional submission, or 
 should make war upon us for acknowledging that independence 
 which she herself sought to establish ? 
 
 No guarantee for the conduct of nations or individuals ought to 
 be stronger than that which honor imposes ; but for those who put 
 no confidence in its obligations, I have an argument to urge of 
 more conclusive force. It is founded upon the interests of England. 
 Excluded almost as she is from the continent, the commerce of 
 America, South and North, is worth to her more than the com- 
 merce of the residue of the world. That to all Spanish America 
 has been alone estimated at fifteen millions sterling. Its aggregate 
 value to Spanish America and the United States may be fairly 
 
344 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 stated at upwards of one hundred thousand dollars. The effect of 
 a war with the two countries would be, to divest England of this 
 great interest, at a moment when she is anxiously engaged in 
 repairing the ravages of the European war. Looking to the present 
 moment only, and merely to the interests of commerce, England 
 is concerned more than even this country, in the success of the 
 cause of independence in Spanish America. The reduction of 
 the Spanish power in America has been the constant and favorite 
 aim of her policy for two centuries ; she must blot out her whole 
 history, reverse the maxims of all her illustrious statesmen, extin- 
 guish the spirit of commerce which animates, directs, and controls 
 all her movements, before she can render herself accessary to the 
 subjugation of Spanish America. No commercial advantages 
 which Spain may offer by treaty, can possess the security for 
 her trade, which independence would communicate. The one 
 would be most probably of limited duration, and liable to violation 
 from policy, from interest, or from caprice. The other would be 
 as permanent as independence. That I do not mistake the views 
 of the British cabinet, the recent proclamation of the prince regent 
 I think proves. The committee will remark, that the document 
 does not describe the patriots as rebels, or insurgents, but, using 
 a term which I have no doubt has been well weighed, it declares 
 the existence of a ' state of warfare.' And with regard to English 
 subjects, who are in the armies of Spain, although they entered the 
 service without restriction as to their military duties, it requires 
 that they shall not take part against the colonies. The subjects of 
 England freely supply the patriots with arms and ammunition, and 
 an honorable friend of mine (Colonel Johnson) has just received 
 a letter from one of the West India islands, stating the arrival 
 there from England of the skeletons of three regiments, with many 
 of the men to fill them, destined to aid the patriots. In the 
 Quarterly Review of November last, a journal devoted to the 
 ministry, and a work of the highest authority, as it respects their 
 views, the policy of neutrality is declared and supported as the 
 true policy of England ; and that, even if the United States were to 
 take part in the war; and Spain is expressly notified, that she 
 cannot and must not expect aid from England. 
 
 • In arguing, therefore, for the advantage of a strict neutrality, we must enter an 
 early protest against any imputations of hostility to the cause of genuine freedom, or 
 of any passion for despotism and the inquisition. We are no more the panegyrists of 
 legitimate authority in all times, circumstances, and situations, than we are advocates 
 for revolution in the abstract,' and so forth. ' But it has been plausibly asserted, that, 
 by abstaining from interference in the affairs of South America, we are surrendering 
 to the United States all the advantages which might be secured to ourselves from 
 this revolution: that we are assisting to increase the trade and power of a nation 
 which alone can ever be the maritime rival of England. It appears to us extremely 
 doubtful, whether any advantage, commercial or political, can be lost to England by 
 a neutral conduct ; it must be observed, that the United States themselves, have 
 given every public proof of their intention to pursue the same line of policy. But 
 
EMANCIPATION OF SOUTH AMERICA. 345 
 
 admitting that this conduct is nothing more than a decent pretext ; or admitting, still 
 further, that they will afford to the independents direct and open assistance, our view 
 of the case w r ould remain precisely the same,' and so forth. ' To persevere in force, 
 unaided, is to miscalculate her (Spain's) own resources, even to infatuation. To 
 expect the aid of an ally in such a cause would, if that ally were England, be to sup- 
 pose this country as forgetful of its own past history as of its immediate interests 
 and duties. Far better would it be for Spain, instead of calling for our aid, to profit 
 by our experience 5 and to substitute, ere it be too late, for efforts like those by which 
 the North American colonies were lost to this country, the conciliatory measures by 
 which they might have been retained.' 
 
 In the case of the struggle between Spain and her colonies, 
 England, for once, at least, has manifested a degree of wisdom 
 highly deserving our imitation, but unfortunately the very reverse 
 of her course has been pursued by us. She has so conducted, by 
 operating upon the hopes of the two parties, as to keep on the 
 best terms with both ; to enjoy all the advantages of the rich 
 commerce of both. We have, by a neutrality bill containing 
 unprecedented features, and still more by a late executive measure, 
 to say the least of it, of doubtful constitutional character, contrived 
 to dissatisfy both parties. We have the confidence neither of 
 Spain nor the colonies. 
 
 It remains for me to defend the proposition which I meant to 
 submit, from an objection which I have heard intimated, that it 
 interferes with the duties assigned to the executive branch. On 
 this subject I feel the greatest solicitude ; for no man, more than 
 myself, respects the preservation of the independence of the several 
 departments of government, in the constitutional orbits which are 
 prescribed to them. It is my favorite maxim, that each, acting 
 within its proper sphere, should move with its constitutional 
 independence, and under its constitutional responsibility, without 
 influence from any other. I am perfectly aware that the constitu- 
 tion of the United States — and I admit the proposition in its 
 broadest sense — confides to the executive the reception and the 
 deputation of ministers. But, in relation to the latter operation, 
 congress has concurrent will, in the power of providing for the 
 payment of their salaries. The instrument nowhere says or implies 
 that the executive act of sending a minister to a foreign country, 
 shall precede the legislative act which provides for the payment of 
 his salary. And, in point of fact, our statutory code is full of 
 examples of legislative action prior to executive action, both in 
 relation to the deputation of agents abroad, and to the subject 
 matter of treaties. Perhaps the act of sending a minister abroad, 
 and the act of providing for the allowance of his salary, ought to 
 be simultaneous ; but if, in the order of precedence, there be more 
 reason on the one side than on the olher, I think it is in favor of 
 the priority of the legislative act, as the safer depository of power. 
 When a minister is sent abroad, although the legislature may be 
 disposed to think his mission useless; although, if previously 
 consulted, they would have said they would not consent to pay 
 vol. 1. 44 
 
346 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 such a minister; the duty is delicate and painful to refuse to pay 
 the salary promised to him whom the executive has even unneces- 
 sarily sent abroad. I can illustrate my idea by the existing missions 
 to Sweden and to the Netherlands. I have no hesitation in saying, 
 that if we had not ministers of the first grade there, and if the 
 legislature were asked, prior to sending them, whether it would 
 consent to pay ministers of that grade, I would not, and I believe 
 congress would not, consent to pay them. 
 
 If it be urged that, by avowing our willingness, in a legislative 
 act, to pay a minister not yet sent, and whom the president may 
 think it improper to send abroad, we operate upon the president 
 by all the force of our opinion ; it may be retorted, that when we 
 are called upon to pay any minister, sent under similar circum- 
 stances, we are operated upon by all the force of the president's 
 opinion. The true theory of our government, at least, supposes 
 that each of the two departments, acting on its proper constitutional 
 responsibility, will decide according to its best judgment, under all 
 the circumstances of the case. If we make the previous appropri- 
 ation, we act upon our constitutional responsibility, and the presi- 
 dent afterwards will proceed upon his. And so if he makes the 
 previous appointment. We have the right, after a minister is sent 
 abroad, and we are called upon to pay him, and we ought, to 
 deliberate upon the propriety of his mission ; we may and ought 
 to grant or withhold his salary. If this power of deliberation is 
 conceded subsequently to the deputation of the minister, it must 
 exist prior to that deputation. Whenever we deliberate, we delib- 
 erate under our constitutional responsibility. Pass the amendment 
 I propose, and it will be passed under that responsibility. Then 
 the president, when he deliberates on the propriety of the mission, 
 will act under his constitutional responsibility. Each branch of 
 government, moving in its proper sphere, will act with as much 
 freedom from the influence of the other, as is practically attainable. 
 
 There is great reason, from the peculiar character of the American 
 government, for a perfect understanding between the legislative 
 and executive branches, in relation to the acknowledgment of a 
 new power. Every where else the power of declaring war resides 
 with the executive. Here it is deposited with the legislature. If, 
 contrary to my opinion, there be even a risk that the acknowledg- 
 ment of a new stale may lead to war, it is advisable that the step 
 should not be taken without a previous knowledge of the will of 
 the war-making branch. I am disposed to give to the president all 
 the confidence which he must derive from the unequivocal expres- 
 sion of our will. This expression I know may be given in the 
 form of an abstract resolution, declaratory of that will ; but I prefer 
 at this time proposing an act of practical legislation. And if I 
 have been so fortunate as to communicate to the committee, in 
 any thing like that degree of strength in which I entertain them, 
 
EMANCIPATION OF SOUTH AMERICA. 347 
 
 the convictions that the cause of the patriots is just; that the 
 character of the war, as waged by Spain, should induce us to wish 
 them success; that we have a great interest in that success; that 
 this interest, as well as our neutral attitude, requires us to acknowl- 
 edge any established government in Spanish America ; that the 
 United Provinces of the river Plate is such a government; that we 
 may safely acknowledge its independence, without danger of war 
 from Spain, from the allies, or from England ; and that, without 
 unconstitutional interference with the executive power, with peculiar 
 fitness, we may express, in an act of appropriation, our sentiments, 
 leaving him to the exercise of a just and responsible discretion ; 
 I hope the committee will adopt the proposition which I have now 
 the honor of presenting to them, after a respectful tender of my 
 acknowledgments for their attention and kindness, during, I fear, 
 the tedious period I have been so unprofitably trespassing upon 
 their patience. 
 
EMANCIPATION OF SOUTH AMERICA. 
 
 IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, MARCH 28, 1818. 
 
 [The house having again resolved itself into a committee of the whole on the general 
 appropriation bill, to which Mr. Clay had moved an amendment, which was still 
 pending, 'o introduce an appropriation for a mission to Buenos Ayres (as stated in 
 the last foregoing speech), Mr. Clay s.iid. that as no other gentleman appeared 
 disposed to address the chair, he would avail himself of this opportunity of making 
 some remarks in reply to the opponents of his motion. The members who had 
 spoken against the measure were Messrs. Lowndes, of South Carolina, Forsyth, of 
 Georgia, Smith, of Maryland, Smyth and H. Nelson, of Virginia, and Poindexter, of 
 Mississippi ; while those who supported it were Messrs. Robertson, of Louisiana, 
 Holmes, of Massachusetts. Floyd and Tucker, of Virginia, and R. M. Johnson, of Ken- 
 tucky. The amendment was rejected by a vote of one hundred and fifteen to forty- 
 five ; a result which was reversed in 1820.] 
 
 The first objection which I think it incumbent on me to notice 
 is that of my friend from South Carolina (Mr. Lowndes), who 
 opposed the form of the proposition, as being made on a general 
 appropriation bill, on which he appeared to think nothing ought 
 to be engrafted which was likely to give rise to a difference 
 between the two branches of the legislature. If the gentleman 
 himself had always acted on this principle, his objection would be 
 entitled to more weight; but, the item in the appropriation bill 
 next following this, and reported by the gentleman himself, is 
 infinitely more objectionable — which is, an appropriation of thirty 
 thousand dollars for defraying the expenses of three commissioners, 
 appointed, or proposed to be paid, in an unconstitutional form. It 
 cannot be expected that a general appropriation bill will ever pass 
 without some disputable clauses, and in case of a difference be- 
 tween the two houses (a difference which we have no right to 
 anticipate in this instance), which cannot be compromised as to 
 any article, the obvious course is, to omit such article altogether, 
 retaining all the others ; and, in a case of this character, relative to 
 brevet pay, which has occurred during the present session, such 
 has been the ground the gentleman himself has taken in a confer- 
 ence with ihe senate, of which he is a manager. 
 
 The gentleman from South Carolina, has professed to concur 
 with me in a great many of his general propositions; and neither 
 
EMANCIPATION OF SOUTH AMERICA. 349 
 
 he nor any other gentleman has disagreed with me, that the mere 
 recognition of the independence of the provinces is no cause of 
 war with Spain,' except the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. 
 Smith), to whom I recommend, without intending disrespect to 
 him, to confine himself to the operation of commerce, rather than 
 undertake to expound questions of public law; for I can assure 
 the gentleman, that, although he may make some figure, with his 
 practical knowledge, in the one case, he will not in the other. No 
 man, except the gentleman from Maryland, has had what I should 
 call the hardihood to contend, that, on the ground of principle and 
 mere public law, the exercise of the right of recognizing another 
 power is cause of war. But though the gentleman from South 
 Carolina admitted, that the recognition would be no cause of war, 
 and that it was not likely to lead to a war with Spain, we find 
 him, shortly after, getting into a war with Spain, how, I do not see, 
 and by some means, which he did not deign to discover to us, 
 getting us into a war with England also. Having satisfied himself, 
 by this course of reasoning, the gentleman has discovered, that the 
 finances of Spain are in a most favorable condition. On this part 
 of the subject, it is not necessary for me to say any thing after 
 what the committee has heard from the eloquent gentleman from 
 Massachusetts (Mr. Holmes), whose voice, in a period infinitely 
 more critical in our affairs than the present, has been heard with so 
 much delight from the east in support of the righls and honor of 
 the country. He has clearly shown, that there is no parallel 
 between the state of Spain and of this country — the one of a 
 country whose resources are completely impoverished and ex- 
 hausted; the other of a country whose resources are almost un- 
 touched. But, I would ask of the gentleman from Soulh Carolina, 
 if he can conceive that a state, in the condition of Spain, whose 
 minister of the treasury admits that the people have no longer the 
 means of paying new taxes — a nation with an immense mass of 
 floating debt, and totally without credit — can feel any anxiety to 
 engage in a war with a nation like this, whose situation is, in every 
 possible view, directly the reverse ? I ask, if an annual revenue, 
 equal only to five eighths of the annual expenditure, exhibits a 
 financial ability to enter upon a new war, when, too, the situation 
 of Spain is altogether unlike that of the United States and Eng- 
 land, whose credit, resting upon a solid basis, enables them to 
 supply, by loans, any deficit in the income ? 
 
 Notwithstanding the diversity of sentiment which has been 
 displayed during the debate, I am happy to find that, with one 
 exception, every member has done justice to the struggle in the 
 south, and admitted it to be entitled to the favor of the best feelings 
 of the human heart. Even my honorable friend near me (Mr. 
 Nelson) has made a speech on our side, and we should not have 
 found out, if he had not told us, that he would vote against us. 
 
350 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 Although his speech has been distinguished by his accustomed 
 eloquence, I should be glad to agree on a cartel with the gentlemen 
 on the other side of the house, to give them his speech for his vote. 
 The gentleman say£ his heart is with us, that he ardently desires 
 the independence of the south. Will he excuse me for telling him, 
 that if he will give himself up to the honest feelings of his heart, 
 he will have a much surer guide than by trusting to his head, to 
 which, however, I am far from offering any disparagement ? 
 
 But, sir, it seems that a division of the republican party is about 
 to be made by the proposition. Who is to furnish, in this respect, 
 the correct criterion — whose conduct is to be the slandard of 
 orthodoxy ? What has been the great principle of the party to 
 which the gentleman from Virginia refers, from the first existence 
 of the government to the present day ? An attachment to liberty, 
 a devotion to the great cause of humanity, of freedom, of self- 
 government, and of equal rights. If there is to be a division, as 
 the gentleman says ; if he is going to leave us, who are following 
 the old track, he may, in his new connections, find a great variety 
 of company, which, perhaps, may indemnify him for the loss of 
 his old friends. What is the great principle that has distinguished 
 parties in all ages, and under all governments — democrats and 
 federalists, whigs and tories, plebeians and patricians ? The one, 
 distrustful of human nature, appreciates less the influence of 
 reason and of good dispositions, and appeals more to physical 
 force ; the other party, confiding in human nature, relies much 
 upon moral power, and applies to force as an auxiliary only to the 
 operations of reason. Ail the modifications and denominations 
 of political parties and sects may be traced to this fundamental 
 distinction. It is that which separated the two great parties in this 
 country. If there is to be a division in the republican party, I 
 glory that I, at least, am found among those who are anxious for 
 the advancement of human rights and of human liberty ; and the 
 honorable gentleman who spoke of appealing to the public senti- 
 ment, will find, when he does so, or I am much mistaken, that 
 public sentiment is also on the side of public liberty and of human 
 happiness. 
 
 But the gentleman from South Carolina has told us, that the 
 constitution has wisely confided to the executive branch of the 
 government, the administration of the foreign interests of the 
 country. Has the honorable gentleman attempted to show, though 
 his proposition be generally true, and will never be controverted 
 by me, that we also have not our participation in the administration 
 of the foreign concerns of the country, when we are called upon, in 
 our legislative capacity, to defray the expenses of foreign missions, 
 or to regulate commerce ? I stated, when up before, and I have 
 listened in vain for an answer to the argument, that no part of the 
 constitution says which shall have the precedence, the act of making 
 
EMANCIPATION OF SOUTH AMERICA. 351 
 
 the appropriation for paying a minister, or the act of sending one. 
 I have contended, and now repeat, that either the acts of deputing 
 and of paying a minister should be simultaneous, or, if either has 
 the preference, the act of appropriating his pay should precede the 
 sending of a minister. I challenge gentlemen to show me any thing 
 in the constitution which directs that a minister shall be sent before 
 his payment is provided for. I repeat, what I said the other day. 
 that, by sending a minister abroad, during the recess, to nations 
 between whom and us no such relations existed as to justify 
 incurring the expense, the legislative opinion is forestalled, or 
 unduly biased. I appeal to the practice of the government, and 
 refer to various acts of congress for cases of appropriations, without 
 the previous deputation of the agent abroad, and without the 
 preliminary of a message from the president, asking for them, 
 
 [Mr. Clay here quoted the act, authorizing the establishment of certain consulates 
 in the Mediterranean, and affixing salaries thereto, in consequence of which the 
 president had subsequently appointed consuls, who had been receiving their salaries 
 to this day.] 
 
 From these it appears that congress has constantly pursued the 
 great principle of the theory of the constitution, for which I now 
 contend — that each department of the government must act within 
 its own sphere, independently, and on its own responsibility. It 
 is a little extraordinary, indeed, after the doctrine which was 
 maintained the other day, of a sweeping right in congress to 
 appropriate money to any object, that it should now be contended 
 that congress has no right to appropriate money to a particular 
 object. The gentleman's (Mr. Lowndes's) doctrine is broad, com- 
 prehending every case ; but, when proposed to be exemplified in 
 any specific case, it does not apply. My theory of the constitution, 
 on this particular subject, is, that congress has the right of appro- 
 priating money for foreign missions, the president the power to use 
 it. The president having the power, I am willing to say to him, 
 1 here is the money, which we alone have a right to appropriate, 
 which will enable you to carry your power into effect, if it seems 
 expedient to you.' Both being before him, the power and the 
 means of executing it, the president would judge, on his own 
 responsibility, whether or not it was expedient to exercise it. In 
 this course, each department of the government would act inde- 
 pendently, without influence from, and without interference with, 
 the other. I have stated cases, from the statute-book, to show, 
 that, in instances where no foreign agent has been appointed, but 
 only a possibility of their being appointed, appropriations have 
 been made for paying them. Even in the case of the subject 
 matter of negotiation (a right much more important than that of 
 sending an agent), an appropriation of money has preceded the 
 negotiation of a treaty — thus, in the third volume of the new 
 
352 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 edition of the laws, page twenty-seven, a case of an appropriation 
 of twenty-five thousand eight hundred and eighty dollars to defray 
 the expense of such treaties as the president of the United States 
 might deem proper to make with certain Indian tribes. An act, 
 which has been lately referred to, appropriating two millions for 
 the purchase of Florida, is a case still more strongly in point, as 
 contemplating a treaty, not with a savage, but a civilized power. 
 In this case there may have been, though I believe there was not, 
 an executive message, recommending the appropriation ; but I 
 take upon myself to assert, that, in almost all the cases 1 have 
 quoted, there was no previous executive intimation that the appro- 
 priation of the money was necessary to the object; but congress 
 has taken up the subject, and authorized these appropriations, 
 without any official call from the executive to do so. 
 
 With regard to the general condition of the provinces now in 
 revolt against the parent country, I will not take up much of the 
 time of the house. Gentlemen are, however, much mistaken as to 
 many of the points of their history, geography, commerce, and 
 produce, which have been touched upon. Gentlemen have 
 supposed there would be from those countries a considerable 
 competition of the same products which we export. I venture to 
 say, that, in regard to Mexico, there can be no such competition ; 
 that the table-lands are at such a distance from the seashore, and 
 the difficulty of reaching it is so great, as to make the transportation 
 to La Vera Cruz too expensive to be borne, and the heat so intense 
 as to destroy the bread-stuffs as soon as they arrive. With respect 
 to New Grenada, the gentleman from Maryland is entirely mistaken. 
 It is the elevation of Mexico, principally, which enables it to 
 produce bread-stnffs; but New Granada, lying nearly under the 
 line, cannot produce them. The productions of New Granada for 
 exportation are, the precious metals, (of which, of gold, particularly, 
 a greater portion is to be found than in any of the provinces, 
 except Mexico,) sugar, coffee, cocoa, and some other articles of a 
 similar character. Of Venezuela, the principal productions are 
 coffee, cocoa, indigo, and some sugar. Sugar is also produced in 
 all the Guianas — French, Spanish, and Dutch. The interior of the 
 provinces of La Plata may be productive of bread stuffs, but they 
 are too remote to come into competition with us in the West India 
 market, the voyages to the United States generally occupying from 
 fifty to sixty days, and some times as long as ninety days. By 
 deducting from that number the average passage from the United 
 States to the West Indies, the length of the usual passage between 
 Buenos Ayres and the West Indies will be found, and will show 
 that, in the supply of the West India market with bread-stuffs, the 
 provinces can never come seriously into competition with us. And 
 in regard to Chili, productive as it may be, does the gentleman 
 from Maryland suppose that vessels are going to double Cape 
 
EMANCIPATION OF SOUTH AMERICA. 353 
 
 Horn and come into competition with us in the West Indies ? It is 
 impossible. Bat I feel a reluctance at pursuing the discussion of 
 this part of the question ; because I am sure these are considerations 
 on which the house cannot act, being entirely unworthy of the 
 subject. We may as well stop all our intercourse with England, 
 with France, or with the Baltic, whose products are in many 
 respects the same as ours, as to act on the present occasion, under 
 the influence of any such considerations. It is too selfish, too 
 mean a principle for this body to act on, to refuse its sympathy for 
 the patriots of the south, because some little advantage of a com- 
 mercial nature may be retained to us from their remaining in the 
 present condition, which, however, I totally deny. Three fourths 
 of the productions of the Spanish provinces are the precious 
 metals, and the greater part of the residue not of the same character 
 as the staple productions of our soil. But it seems that a pamphlet 
 has recently been published on this subject to which gentlemen 
 have referred. Now permit me to express a distrust of all pam- 
 phlets of this kind, unless we know their source. It may, for 
 aught I know, if not composed at the instance of the Spanish 
 minister, have been written by some merchant who has a privilege 
 of trading to Lima under royal license ; for such do exist, as I am 
 informed, and some of them procured under the agency of 'a 
 celebrated person by the name of Sarmiento, of whom perhaps 
 the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Smith) can give the house 
 some information. To gentlemen thus privileged to trade with the 
 Spanish provinces under royal authority, the effect of a recognition 
 of ihe independence of the provinces would be, to deprive them 
 of that monopoly. The reputed author of the pamphlet in ques- 
 tion, if I understand correctly, is one who has been, if he is not 
 now, deeply engaged in the trade, and I will venture to say, that 
 many of his statements are incorrect. In relation to the trade of 
 Mexico, I happen to possess the Royal Gazette of Mexico of 1804, 
 showing what was the trade of that province in 1803 ; from which 
 it appears that, without making allowance for the trade from the 
 Philippine Islands to Acapulco, the imports into the port of Vera 
 Cruz were in that year twenty-two millions in value, exclusive of 
 contraband, the amount of which was very considerable. Among 
 these articles were many which the United States could supply as 
 well, if not on better terms, than they could be supplied from any 
 other quarter; for example, brandy and spirits, paper, iron, imple- 
 ments for agriculture and the mines; wax, spices, naval stores, salt 
 fish, butter, provisions; these articles amounting in the whole to 
 one seventh part of the whole import trade to Mexico. With 
 regard to the independence of that country, which gentlemen 
 seemed to think improbable, I rejoice that I am able to congratu- 
 late the house, that we have this morning intelligence that Mina 
 yet lives, and the patriot flag is still unfurled, and the cause 
 vol. i. 45 
 
354 
 
 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY 
 
 infinitely more prosperous than ever. This intelligence I am in 
 hopes will prove true, notwithstanding the particular accounts of 
 his death, which, there is so much of fabrication and falsehood in 
 the Spanish practice, are not entitled to credit, unless corroborated 
 by other information. Articles are manufactured in one province 
 to produce effect on other provinces, and in this country ; and I am, 
 therefore, disposed to think, that the details respecting the capture 
 and execution of Mina, are too minute to be true, and were made 
 up to produce an effect here. 
 
 With regard to the general value of the trade of a country, it is 
 to be determined by the quantum of its population, and its 
 character, its productions, and the extent and character of the 
 territory; and, applying these criteria to Spanish America, no nation 
 offers higher inducements to commercial enterprise. Washed on 
 the one side by the Pacific, on the other by the south Atlantic ; 
 standing between Africa and Europe on the one hand, and Asia 
 on the other; lying along side of the United States; her commerce 
 must, when free from the restraints of despotism, be immensely 
 important ; particularly when it is recollected how great a proportion 
 of the precious metals it produces ; for that nation which can 
 command the precious metals, may be said to command almost the 
 resources of the world. For one moment, imagine the mines of 
 the south locked up from Great Britain for two years, what would 
 be the effect on her paper system? Bankruptcy, explosion, 
 revolution. Even if the supply which we get abroad of the 
 precious metals was cut off for any length of time, I ask if the 
 effect on our paper system would not be, not perhaps equally as 
 fatal as to England, yet one of the greatest calamities which could 
 befall this country. The revenue of Spain, in Mexico alone, was, 
 in 1809, twenty millions of dollars, and in the other provinces in 
 about the same proportion, taking into view their population, 
 independent of the immense contributions annually paid to the 
 clergy. When you look at the resources of the country, and the 
 extent of its population, recollecting that it is double our own ; that 
 its consumption of foreign articles, under a free commerce would 
 be proportionably great ; that it yields a large revenue under the 
 most abominable system, under which nearly three fourths of the 
 population are unclad, and almost naked as from the hands of 
 nature, because absolutely deprived of the means of clothing 
 themselves, what may not be the condition of this country, under 
 the operation of a different system, which would let industry 
 develope its resources in all possible forms? Such a neighbor 
 cannot but be a valuable acquisition in a commercial point of view. 
 
 Gentlemen have denied the fact of the existence of the 
 independence of Buenos Ayres at as early a date as I have 
 assigned to it. The gentleman from South Carolina, who is well 
 informed on the subject, has not, I think, exhibited his usual 
 
EMANCIPATION OF SOUTH AMERICA. 355 
 
 candor on this part of it. When the gentleman talked of the 
 upper provinces being out of the possession of the patriots as late 
 as 1815, he ought to have gone back and told the house what was 
 the actual state of the fact, with which I am sure the gentleman is 
 very well acquainted. In 1811, the government of Buenos Ayres 
 had been in possession of every foot of the territory of the vice- 
 royalty. The war has been raging from 1811 to 1814 in those 
 interior provinces, bordering on Lima, which have been as often 
 as three times conquered by the enemy, and as often recovered, 
 and from which the enemy is now finally expelled. Is this at all 
 remarkable during the progress of such a revolution ? During the 
 different periods of our war of independence, the British had 
 possession of different parts of our country ; as late as 1780, the 
 whole of the southern states were in their possession ; and at an 
 earlier date they had possession of the great northern capitals. 
 There is, in regard to Buenos Ayres, a distinguishing trait, which 
 does not exist in the history of our revolution. That is, that from 
 1810 to the present day, the capital of the republic of La Plata has 
 been invariably in the possession of the patriot government. Gen- 
 tlemen must admit that when, in 1814, she captured at Monte- 
 video an army as large as Burgoyne's captured at Saratoga, they 
 were then in possession of independence. If they have been since 
 1810 in the enjoyment of self-government, it is, indeed, not very 
 material under what name or under what form. The fact of their 
 independence is all that is necessary to be established. In reply 
 to the argument of the gentleman from South Carolina, derived 
 from his having been unable to find out the number of the 
 provinces, this arose from the circumstance that, thirty-six years 
 ago, the vice-royalty had been a captain-generalship ; that it ex- 
 tended then only to Tucuman, whilst of late and at present the 
 government extends to Desaguedera, in about the sixteenth degree 
 of south latitude. There are other reasons why there is some 
 confusion in the number of the provinces, as stated by different 
 writers; there is, in the first place, a territorial division of the 
 country; then a judicial; and next a military division; and the 
 provinces have been stated at ten, thirteen, or twenty, according 
 to the denominations used. This, however, with the gentleman 
 from South Carolina, I regard as a fact of no sort of consequence. 
 I will pass over the report lately made to the house by the de- 
 partment of state, respecting the state of South America, with only 
 one remark — that it appears to me to exhibit evidence of an adroit 
 and experienced diplomatist, negotiating, or rather conferring on a 
 subject with a young and inexperienced minister, from a young 
 and inexperienced republic. From the manner in which this 
 report was communicated, after a call for information so long 
 made, and after a lapse of two months from the last date in the 
 correspondence on the subject, I was mortified at hearing the 
 
356 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 report read. Why talk of the mode of recognition ? Why make 
 objections to the form of the commission ? If the minister has not a 
 formal power, why not tell him to send back for one ? Why ask 
 of him to enumerate the particular states whose independence he 
 wished acknowledged ? Suppose the French minister had asked 
 of Franklin what number of states he represented ? Thirteen, if 
 you please, Franklin would have replied. But Mr. Franklin, will 
 you tell me if Pennsylvania, whose capital is in possession of the 
 British, be one of them? What would Dr. Franklin have said? 
 It would have comported better with the frankness of the American 
 character, and of American diplomacy, if the secretary, avoiding 
 cavils about the form of the commission, had said to the minister 
 of Buenos Ayres, ' at the present moment we do not intend to 
 recognise you, or to receive or to send a minister to you.' 
 
 But among the charges which gentlemen have industriously 
 brought together, the house has been told of factions prevailing in 
 Buenos Ayres. Do not factions exist every where ? Are they not 
 to be found in the best regulated and most firmly established 
 governments? Respecting the Carreras, public information is 
 abused ; they were supposed to have had improper views, designs 
 hostile to the existing government, and it became necessary to 
 deprive them of the power of doing mischief. And what is the 
 fact respecting the alleged arrest of American citizens? Buenos 
 Ayres has been organizing an army to attack Chili. Carrera 
 arrives at the river La Plata with some North Americans ; he had 
 before defeated the revolution in Chili, by withholding his coopera- 
 tion ; the government of Buenos Ayres therefore said to him, we 
 do not want your resources; our own army is operating; if you 
 carry yours there, it may produce dissension, and cause the loss of 
 liberty; you shall not go. On his opposing this course, what 
 was done which has called forth the sympathy of gentlemen ? He 
 and those who attended him from this country were put in con- 
 finement, but only long enough to permit the operations of the 
 Buenos Ayrean army to go on ; they were then permitted to go, 
 or made their escape to Montevideo, and afterwards where they 
 pleased. With respect to the conduct of that government, I would 
 only recall the attention of gentlemen to the orders which have 
 lately emanated from it, for the regulation of privateers, which has 
 displayed a solicitude to guard against irregularity, and to respect 
 the rights of neutrals, not inferior to that ever shown by any gov- 
 ernment, which has on any occasion attempted to regulate this 
 licentious mode of warfare. 
 
 The honorable gentleman from Georgia commenced his remarks 
 the other day by an animadversion which he might well have 
 spared, when he told us, that even the prayers of the chaplain of 
 this house had been offered up in behalf of the patriots. And was 
 it reprehensible, that an American chaplain, whose cheeks are 
 
EMANCIPATION OF SOUTH AMERICA. 357 
 
 furrowed by age, and his head as white as snow, who has a 
 thousand times, during our own revolution, implored the smiles of 
 heaven on our exertions, should indulge in the pious and patri- 
 otic feelings flowing from his recollections of our own revolution? 
 Ought he to be subject to animadversion for so doing, in a place 
 where he cannot be heard ? Ought he to be subject to animad- 
 version for soliciting the favor of heaven on the same cause as lhat 
 in which we fought the good fight, and conquered our indepen- 
 dence ? I trust not. 
 
 But the gentleman from Georgia, it appears, can see no parallel 
 between our revolution and that of the Spanish provinces. Their 
 revolution, in its commencement, did not aim at complete inde- 
 pendence, neither did ours. Such is the loyalty of the Creole 
 character, that, although groaning under three hundred years of 
 tyranny and oppression, they have been unwilling to cast off their 
 allegiance to that throne, which has been the throne of their ances- 
 tors. But, looking forward to a redress of wrongs, rather than a 
 change of government, they gradually, and perhaps at first unin- 
 tentionally, entered into a revolution. I have it from those who 
 have been actively engaged in our revolution, from that venerable 
 man (chancellor Wythe), whose memory I shall ever cherish with 
 filial regard, that, a very short time before our declaration of inde- 
 pendence, it would have been impossible to have got a majority 
 of congress to declare it Look at the language of our petitions 
 of that day, carrying our loyalty to the foot of the throne, and 
 avowing our anxiety to remain under the crown of our ancestors ; 
 independence was then not even remotely suggested as our object. 
 
 The present state of facts, and not what has passed and gone in 
 South America, must be consulted. At the present moment, the 
 patriots of the south are fighting for liberty and independence; for 
 precisely what we fought. But their revolution, the gentleman 
 told the house, was stained by scenes which had not occurred in 
 ours. If so, it was because execrable outrages had been committed 
 upon them by troops of the mother country, which were not upon 
 us. Can it be believed, if the slaves had been let loose upon us in 
 the south, as they have been let loose in Venezuela ; if quarters 
 had been refused ; capitulations violated ; that general Washing- 
 ton, at the head of the armies of the United States, would not 
 have resorted to retribution ? Retaliation is sometimes mercy, 
 mercy to both parties. The only means by which the coward soul 
 that indulges in such enormities can be reached, is to show to him 
 that they will be visited by severe but just retribution. There are 
 traits in the history of this revolution, which show what deep root 
 liberty has taken in South America. I will state an instance. The 
 only hope of a wealthy and reputable family was charged, at the 
 head of a small force, with the care of the magazine of the army. 
 He saw that it was impossible to defend it. ' Go/ said he to his 
 
358 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 companions in arms, ' I alone am sufficient for its defence.' The 
 assailants approached ; he applied a match and blew up the maga- 
 zine, with himself, scattering death and destruction on his enemy. 
 There is another instance of the intrepidity of a female of the 
 patriot party. A lady in New Granada had given information to 
 the patriot forces, of plans and instructions by which the capitol 
 might be invaded. She was put upon the rack to divulge her 
 accomplices. She bore the torture with the greatest fortitude, and 
 died exclaiming, 'you shall not hear it from my mouth; I will 
 die, and may those live who can free my country.' 
 
 But the house has been asked, and asked with a triumph worthy 
 of a better cause, why recognise this republic ? Where is the 
 use of it? And is it possible that gentlemen can see no use in 
 recognising this republic ? For what did this republic fight? To 
 be admitted into the family of nations. Tell the nations of the 
 world, says Pueyrredon, in his speech, that we already belong to 
 their illustrious rank. What would be the powerful consequences 
 of a recognition of their claim ? I ask my honorable friencf before 
 me (general Bloomfield), the highest sanction of whose judgment 
 in favor of my proposition, I fondly anticipate, with what anxious 
 solicitude, during our revolution, he and his glorious compatriots 
 turned their eyes to Europe and asked to be recognised, I ask 
 him, the patriot of '76, how the heart rebounded with joy, on the 
 information that France had recognised us. The moral influence 
 of such a recognition, on the patriot of the south, will be irresistible. 
 He will derive assurance from it, of his not having fought in vain. 
 Tn the constitution of our natures there is a point, to which adversity 
 may pursue us, without perhaps any worse effect than that of 
 exciting new energy to meet it. Having reached that point, if no 
 gleam of comfort breaks through the gloom, we sink beneath the 
 pressure, yielding reluctantly to our fate, and in hopeless despair 
 lose all stimulus to exertion. And is there not reason to fear such 
 a fate to the patriots of La Plata? Already enjoying independence 
 for eight years, their ministers are yet spurned from the courts of 
 Europe, and rejected by the government of a sister republic. 
 Contrast this conduct of ours with our conduct in other respects. 
 No matter whence the minister comes, be it from a despotic power, 
 we receive him ; and even now, the gentleman from Maryland, 
 (Mr. Smith) would have us send a minister to Constantinople, to 
 beg a passage through the Dardanelles to the Black Sea, that, I 
 suppose, we might get some hemp and bread-stuffs there, of which 
 we ourselves produce none ; he, who can see no advantage to the 
 country from opening to its commerce the measureless resources 
 of South America, would send a minister to Constantinople for a 
 little trade. Nay, I have seen a project in the newspapers, and I 
 should not be surprised, after what we have already seen, at its 
 being carried into effect, for sending a minister to the porte. Yes, 
 
EMANCIPATION OF SOUTH AMERICA. $59 
 
 sir, from Constantinople, or from the Brazils ; from Turk or 
 christian ; from black or white ; from the dey of Algiers or the 
 bey of Tunis ; from the devil himself, if he wore a crown, we 
 should receive a minister. We even paid the expenses of the 
 minister of *his sublime highness, the bey of Tunis, and thought 
 ourselves highly honored by his visit. But, let the minister come 
 from a poor republic, like that of La Plata, and we turn our back 
 on him. The brilliant costumes of the ministers of the royal 
 governments are seen glistening in the circles of our drawing- 
 rooms, and their splendid equipages rolling through the avenues 
 of the metropolis ; but the unaccredited minister of the republic, if 
 he visit our president or secretary of state at all, must do it incog- 
 nito, lest the eye of don Onis should be offended by so unseemly 
 k sight! I hope the gentleman from South Carolina, who is so 
 capable of estimating the effect of moral causes, will see some use 
 in recognising the independence of La Plata. I appeal to the 
 powerful effect of moral causes, manifested in the case of the 
 French revolution, when, by their influence, that nation swept from 
 about her the armies of the combined powers, by which she was 
 environed, and rose up, the colossal power of Europe. There is 
 an example of the effect of moral power. All the patriots ask, all 
 they want at our hands, is, to be recognised as, what they have 
 been for the last eight years, an independent power. 
 
 But, it seems, we dare not do this, lest we tread on sacred 
 ground ; and an honorable gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Smyth), 
 who, when he has been a little longer in this house, will learn to 
 respect its powers, calls it an usurpation on the part of this house. 
 Has the gentleman weighed the terms which he employed? If I 
 mistake not, the gentleman, in the debate respecting the power to 
 make internal improvements, called that too an usurpation on the 
 part of this house. That power, too, however, he admitted to 
 belong to the executive, and traced it to an imperial source, 
 informing us that Caesar or somebody else, had exercised it. Sir, 
 the gentleman has mistaken his position here ; he is a military 
 chieftain, and an admirable defender of executive authority, but he 
 has yet to learn his horn-book as to the powers of this branch of 
 the legislature. Usurpation is arrogating to yourself aulhority 
 which is vested elsewhere. But what is it that I propose, to which 
 this term has been applied? To appropriate money to pay a 
 foreign minister his outfit and a year's salary. If that be an 
 usurpation, we have been usurping power from the commencement 
 of the government to the present time. The chairman of the 
 committee of ways and means has never reported an appropria- 
 tion bill without some instance of this usurpation. 
 
 There are three modes under our constitution, in which a nation 
 may be recognised; by the executive receiving a minister; 
 secondly, by its sending one thither; and, thirdly, this house 
 
360 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 unquestionably nas the right to recognise, in the exercise of the 
 constitutional power of congress to regulate foreign commerce. 
 To receive a minister from a foreign power, is an admission that 
 the party sending him is sovereign and independent. So the 
 sending a minister, as ministers are never sent but to sovereign 
 powers, is a recognition of the independence of the power to 
 whom the minister is sent. Now, the honorable gentleman from 
 South Carolina would prefer the expression of our opinion by a 
 resolution, independent of the appropriation bill. If the gentle- 
 man will vote for it in that shape, I will readily gratify him; all 
 that I want to do is, to convey to the president an expression of 
 oar willingness, that the government of Buenos Ayres should be 
 recognised. Whether it shall be done by receiving a minister or 
 sending one, is quite immaterial. It is urged, that there may be an 
 impropriety in sending a minister, not being certain, after what has 
 passed, that he will be received ; but that is one of the questions 
 submitted to the direction of the executive, which he will determine, 
 upon a view of all the circumstances; and who, of course, will 
 previously have an understanding, that our minister will be duly 
 respecteoV ,^If gentlemen desire 10 know what a minister from us? 
 is to do, I would have him congratulate the republic on the 
 establishment of free government and on their liberation from the 
 ancient dynasty of Spain ; assure it of the interest we feel in its 
 welfare, and of our readiness to concur in any arrangement which 
 may be advantageous to our mutual interest. Have we not a 
 minister at the Brazils, a nation lying along side of the provinces 
 of La Plata ; and, considering the number of slaves in it, by no 
 means so formidable as the latter, and about equi-distant from us. 
 In reference to the strength of the two powers, that of La Plata 
 is much stronger, and the government of Brazil, trembling under 
 the apprehension of the effect of the arms of La Plata, has gone 
 further than any other power to recognise its independence, having 
 entered into a military convention with the republic, by which 
 each power guaranties the possessions of the other. And we have 
 exchanged ministers with the Brazils. The one, however, is a 
 king-dom, the other a republic ; and if any gentleman can assign 
 any other better reason why a minister should be sent to one and 
 not to the other of these powers, I shall be glad to hear it disclosed, 
 for I have not been able myself to discover it. 
 
 A gentleman yesterday told the house that the news from Buenos 
 Ayres was unfavorable. Take it altogether, I believe it is not. 
 But I put but little trust in such accounts. In our revolution, 
 incredulity of reports and newspaper stories, propagated by the 
 enemy, was so strengthened by experience, that at last, nothing 
 was believed which was not attested by the signature of ' Charles 
 Thomson.' lam somewhat similarly situated ; I cannot believe 
 these reports ; I wish to see ' Charles Thomson ' before I give 
 
EMANCIPATION OF SOUTH AMERICA. 361 
 
 full credit to them. The vessel which has arrived at Baltimore — 
 and, by the way, by its valuable cargo of specie, hides, and tallow, 
 gives evidence of a commerce worth pursuing — brought some 
 rumor of a difference between Artigas and the authorities of 
 Buenos Ayres. With respect to the Banda Oriental, which is 
 said to be occupied by Artigas, it constitutes but a very subordinate 
 part of the territory of the United Provinces of La Plata; and it 
 can be no more objection to recognising the nation, because that 
 province is not included within its power, than it could have been 
 to our recognition, because several states held out against the 
 adoption of the constitution. Before I attach any confidence to a 
 letter not signed ' Charles Thomson,' I must know who the man 
 is who writes it, what are his sources of information, his character 
 for veracity, and so forth, and of all those particulars, we are 
 deprived of the information, in the case of the recent intelligence 
 in the Baltimore papers, as extracted from private letters. 
 
 But we are charged, on the present occasion, with treading on 
 sacred ground. Let me suppose, what I do not believe to be the 
 case, that the president has expressed an opinion one way and we 
 another. At so early a period of our government, because a 
 particular individual fills the presidential chair — an individual 
 whom I highly respect, more perhaps than some of those who 
 would be considered his exclusive friends — is the odious doctrine to 
 be preached here, that the chief magistrate can do no wrong? Is 
 the doctrine of passive obedience and non-resistance, are the 
 principles of the Stuarts, to be revived in this free government ? 
 Is an opinion to be suppressed and scouted, because it is in oppo- 
 sition to the opinion of the president? Sir, as long as I have a 
 seat on this floor, I shall not hesitate to exert the independence 
 which belongs to the representative character ; I shall not hesitate 
 to express my opinions, coincident or not with those of the execu- 
 tive. But I can show that this cry has been raised on the present 
 occasion without reason. Suppose a case — that the president had 
 sent a minister to Buenos Ayres, and this house had been called 
 on to make an appropriation for the payment of his salary. I ask 
 of gentlemen, whether in that case they would not have voted an 
 appropriation ? And has not the house a right to deliberate on the 
 propriety of doing so, as well before, as after a minister is sent ? 
 Will gentlemen please to point out the difference? I contend that 
 we are the true friends of the executive ; and that the title does not 
 belong to those who have taken it. We wish to extend his 
 influence, and give him patronage ; to give him means, as he has 
 now the power, to send another minister abroad. But, apart from 
 this view of the question, as regards the executive power, this 
 house has the incontestable right to recognise a foreign nation in 
 the exercise of its power, to regulate commerce with foreign nations. 
 Suppose, for example, we pass an act to regulate trade between 
 vol. i. 46 
 
362 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 the United States and Buenos Ayres, the existence of the nation 
 would be thereby recognised, as we could not regulate trade with 
 a nation which does not exist. 
 
 The gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Smith) and the gentleman 
 from Virginia (Mr. Smyth), the great champions of executive 
 power, and the opponent of legislative authority, have, contended 
 that recognition would be cause of war. These gentlemen are 
 reduced to this dilemma. If it is cause of war, the executive 
 ought not to have the right to produce a war upon the country, 
 without consulting congress. If it is no cause of war, it is an act 
 which there is no danger in performing. There is very little differ- 
 ence in principle, between vesting the executive with the power of 
 declaring war, or with the power of necessarily leading the country 
 into war, without consulting the authority to whom the power of 
 making war is confided. But I deny that it is cause of war; but 
 if it is, the sense of congress ought certainly in some way or other 
 to be taken on it, before that step is taken. I know that some of 
 the most distinguished statesmen in the country have taken the 
 view of this subject, that the power to recognise the independence 
 of any nation does not belong to the president ; that it is a power 
 too momentous and consequential in its character, to belong to the 
 executive. My own opinion, I confess, is different, believing the 
 power to belong to either the president or congress, and- that it 
 may, as most convenient, be exercised by either. If aid is to be 
 given, to afford which will be cause of war, however, congress 
 alone can give it. 
 
 This house, then, has the power to act on the subject, even though 
 the president has expressed an opinion, which he has not, further 
 than, as appears by the report of the secretary of state, to decide 
 that in January last, it would not be proper to recognise them. 
 But the president stands pledged to recognise the republic, if on 
 the return of the commissioners whom he has deputed, they shall 
 make report favorable to the stability of the government. Suppose 
 the chairman of the committee of foreign relations had reported a 
 provision for an appropriation of that description which I propose, 
 should we not all have voted for it? And can any gentleman be 
 so pliant, as, on the mere ground of an executive recommendation, 
 to vote an appropriation without exercising his own faculties on 
 the question ; and yet, when there is no such suggestion, will not 
 even so far act for himself as to determine whether a republic is so 
 independent that we may fairly take the step of recognition of it? 
 I hope that no such submission to the executive pleasure will 
 characterize this house. 
 
 One more remark, and I have done. One gentleman told the 
 house that the population of the Spanish provinces is eighteen 
 millions; that we, with a population of two millions only, have 
 conquered our independence ; and that, if the southern provinces 
 
EMANCIPATION OF SOUTH AMERICA. 363 
 
 willed it, they must be free. This population, I have already- 
 stated, consists of distinct nations, having but little, if any, inter- 
 course, the largest of which is Mexico ; and they are so separated 
 by immense distances, that it is impossible there should be any 
 cooperation between them. Besides, they have difficulties to 
 encounter which we had not. They have a noblesse ; they are 
 divided into jealous castes, and a vast proportion of Indians; to 
 which adding the great influence of the clergy, and it will be 
 seen how widely different the circumstances of Spanish America 
 are, from those under which the revolution in this country was 
 brought to a successful termination. I have already shown how 
 deep-rooted is the spirit of liberty in that country. I have instanced 
 the little island of Margarita, against which the whole force of 
 Spain has been in vain directed ; containing a population of only 
 sixteen thousand souls, but where every man, woman, and child, is 
 a Grecian soldier, in defence of freedom. For many years the 
 spirit of freedom has been struggling in Venezuela, and Spain 
 has been unable to conquer it. Morillo, in an official despatch, 
 transmitted to the minister of marine of his own country, avows 
 that Angostura and all Guayana are in possession of the patriots, 
 as well as all that country from which supplies can be drawn. 
 According to the last accounts, Bolivar and other patriot comman- 
 ders, are concentrating their forces, and are within one day's march 
 of Morillo ; and if they do not forsake the Fabian policy, which is 
 the true course for them, the result will be, that even the weakest 
 of the whole of the provinces of Spanish America, will establish 
 their independence, and secure the enjoyment of those rights and 
 blessings, which rightfully belong to them. 
 
ON THE SEMINOLE WAR. 
 
 IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, JANUARY 17, 1819. 
 
 [The Seminoles were a tribe of Indians inhabiting Florida, and parts of the 
 adjacent country. Daring the war between the United States and Great Britain, 
 from 1812 to 1815, the Seminoles and Creek Indians made attacks upon our frontier 
 settlements in the southwest, and in consequence, general Andrew Jackson, then 
 a major-general of militia in Tennessee, was sent against them, at the head of a 
 considerable force, by which, after a sanguinary contest, the Indians were subdued, 
 and a treaty concluded with the Creek nation, in 1814. After the peace of 1815, 
 the Seminoles, being sheltered in Florida, at that time a Spanish province, made 
 frequent depredations upon the people of the United States. In December, 1817, the 
 department of war ordered general Jackson, who in 1S14 was appointed a major- 
 general in the United States army, to assume the command of the forces in the 
 southwest, and march against the Indians ; also to adopt the necessary measures to 
 terminate a conflict which has since been called ' the Seminole war.' In the early 
 part of 1818, general Jackson took command of an army of regulars, militia, and 
 friendly Creeks, and pursued the Seminoles into Florida, destroying their towns, and 
 killing and capturing many Indians and run -a- way negroes. He also took possession 
 of the Spanish fortresses of St. Marks, Pensacola, and the Barancas, during a period 
 of peace between Spain and the United States. Two Indian traders, Arbuthnor, a 
 Scotchman, and Ambrisler, an Englishman, were taken prisoners, (being found 
 among the Indians and Spaniards,) tried by a court martial, and executed by order of 
 general Jackson. Two Indian chiefs, who were captured, were also put to death by 
 his order, and sundry other cruel and high-handed acts committed, to which the 
 attention of congress was called, at the session of 1818- 19. 
 
 The subject having been referred to the committee on military affairs, that committee 
 brought in a report, concluding with the following resolution : ' Resolved, that the 
 house of representatives disapproves the proceedings in the trial and execution of 
 Alexander Arbuthnot and ,Robert C. Ambrister.' To this resolution, Mr. Cobb, of 
 Georgia, moved to add others, disapproving of the execution of Indian captives, and 
 declaring that the seizure of the Spanish posts was contrary to the constitution, and 
 so forth. The discussion on these resolutions caused one of the most exciting and 
 interesting debates ever known in congress. Thirty-one of the most distinguished 
 members of the house participated in the debate, which was opened on the eighteenth 
 of January, in committee of the whole, and concluded on the tenth of February, 
 when the question on the resolutions was taken, and decided in the negative, by 
 majorities varying from thirty to forty-six, in a house of one hundred and seventy 
 members present. General Jackson, besides his own popularity, as the victor of New 
 Orleans, had the advantage of being sustained by the influence and power of Mr. 
 Monroe's administration, the president being considered as implicated with him in 
 some of his transactions in Florida, by having sanctioned the same. Among those 
 who coincided with Mr. Clay, in condemning these proceedings, were Messrs. Cobb, 
 of Georgia, Storrs, of New York, Colston, J. Johnson. T. M. Nelson, and Mercer, of 
 Virginia, Hopkinson, of Pennsylvania, Williams, of Connecticut, Harrison, of Ohio, 
 Tyler, of Virginia, (the two latter since presidents of the United States,) Lowndes, of 
 South Carolina, and Reed, of Maryland : while, on the other side, Messrs. Holmes, of 
 Massachusetts, Tallmadge, of New York, P. P. Barbour, and Floyd, of Virginia. 
 Baldwin, of Pennsylvania, R. M. Johnson, of Kentucky, and others, made able 
 speeches in support of the administration, and general Jackson's military course in 
 this campaign. 
 
 Mr. Clay twice addressed the committee of the whole on the subject ; the firs* 
 speech only, is reported at length, as follows.] 
 
ON THE SEMINOLE WAR. 365 
 
 Mr. Chairman : 
 
 In rising to address you, sir, on the very interesting subject which 
 now engages trie attention of congress, I must be allowed to say, 
 that all inferences drawn from the course which it will be my 
 painful duty to take in this discussion, of unfriendliness eilher to 
 the chief magistrate of the country, or to the illustrious military 
 chieftain whose operations are under investigation, will be wholly 
 unfounded. Towards that distinguished captain, who shed so 
 much glory on our country, whose renown constitutes so great a 
 portion of its moral property, I never had, I never can have, any 
 other feelings than those of the most profound respect, and of the 
 utmost kindness. With him my acquaintance is very limited, but, 
 so far as it has extended, it has been of the most amicable kind. 
 I know the motives which have been, and which will again be, 
 attributed to me, in regard to the other exalted personage alluded 
 to. They have been and will be unfounded. I have no interest, 
 other than that of seeing the concerns of my country well and 
 happily administered. It is infinitely more gratifying to behold 
 the prosperity of my country advancing by the wisdom of the 
 measures adopted to promote it, than it would be to expose the 
 errors which may be committed, if there be any, in the conduct of 
 its affairs. Little as has been my experience in public life, it has 
 been sufficient to teach me that the most humble station is sur- 
 rounded by difficulties and embarrassments. Rather than throw 
 obstructions in the way of the president, I would precede him, and 
 pick out those, if I could, which might jostle him in his progress ; 
 I would sympathize with him in his embarrassments, and com- 
 miserate with him in his misfortunes. It is true that it has been 
 my mortification to differ from that gentleman on several occasions. 
 I may be again reluctantly compelled to differ from him ; but I 
 will with the utmost sincerity, assure the committee, that I have 
 formed no resolution, come under no engagements, and that I 
 never will form any resolution, or contract any engagements, for 
 systematic opposition to his administration, or to that of any other 
 chief magistrate. 
 
 I beg leave further to premise, that the subject under considera- 
 tion, presents two distinct aspects, susceptible, in my judgment, of 
 the most, clear and precise discrimination. The one I will call its 
 foreign, the other its domestic aspect. In regard to the first, I will 
 say, that I approve entirely of the conduct of our government, and 
 that Spain has no cause of complaint. Having violated an 
 important stipulation of the treaty of 1795, that power has justly 
 subjected herself to all the consequences which ensued upon the 
 entry into her dominions, and it belongs not to her to complain of 
 those measures which resulted from her breach of contract ; still 
 
 
366 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 less has she a right to examine into the considerations connected 
 with the domestic aspect of the subject. 
 
 What are the propositions before the committee ? The first in 
 order, is that reported by the military committee, which asserts the 
 disapprobation of this house, of the proceedings in the trial and 
 execution of Arbuthnot and Ambrister. The second, being the 
 first contained in the proposed amendment, is the consequence of 
 that disapprobation, and contemplates the passage of a law to 
 prohibit the execution hereafter of any captive, taken by the army, 
 without the approbation of the president. The third proposition 
 is, that this house disapproves of the forcible seizure of the Spanish 
 posts, as contrary to orders, and in violation of the constitution. 
 The fourth proposition, as the result of the last, is, that a law shall 
 pass to prohibit the march of the army of the United States, or any 
 corps of it, into any foreign territory, without the previous authori- 
 zation of congress, except it be in fresh pursuit of a defeated 
 enemy. The first and third are general propositions, declaring the 
 sense of the house in regard to the evils pointed out ; and the 
 second and fourth, propose the legislative remedies against the 
 recurrence of those evils. 
 
 It will be at once perceived, by this simple statement of the 
 propositions, that no other censure is proposed against general 
 Jackson himself, than what is merely consequential. His name 
 even does not appear in any of the resolutions. The legislature 
 of the country, in reviewing the state of the union, and considering 
 the events which have transpired since its last meeting, finds that 
 particular occurrences, of the greatest moment, in many respects, 
 have taken place near our southern border. I will add, that the 
 house has not sought, by any officious interference with the doings 
 of the executive, to gain jurisdiction over this matter. The presi- 
 dent, in his message at the opening of the session, communicated 
 the very information on which it was proposed to act. I would 
 ask, for what purpose ? That we should fold our arms and yield 
 a tacit acquiescence, even if we supposed that information dis- 
 closed alarming events, not merely as it regards the peace of the 
 country, but in respect to its constitution and character ? Impos- 
 sible. In communicating these papers, and voluntarily calling the 
 attention of congress to the subject, the president must himself 
 have intended, that we should apply any remedy that we might be 
 able to devise. Having the subject thus regularly and fairly 
 before us, and proposing merely to collect the sense of the house 
 upon certain important transactions which it discloses, with the 
 view to the passage of such laws as may be demanded by the 
 public interest, I repeat, that there is no censure any where, except 
 such as is strictly consequential upon our legislative action. The 
 supposition of every new law, having for its object to prevent the 
 recurrence of evil, is, that something has happened which ought 
 
ON THE SEMINOLE WAR. 367 
 
 not to have taken pla^e, and no other than this indirect sort of 
 censure will flow from the resolutions before the committee. 
 
 Having thus given my view of the nature and character of the 
 propositions under consideration, I am far from intimating that it 
 is not my purpose to go into a full, a free, and a thorough investi- 
 gation of the facts, and of the principles of law, public, municipal, 
 and constitutional, involved in them. And, whilst I trust I shall 
 speak with the decorum due to the distinguished officers of the 
 government whose proceedings are to be examined, I shall 
 exercise the independence which belongs to me as a representative 
 of the people, in freely and fully submitting my sentiments. 
 
 In noticing the painful incidents of this war, it is impossible not 
 to inquire into its origin. I fear that it will be found to be the 
 famous treaty of Fort Jackson, concluded in August, 1814 ; and I 
 must ask the indulgence of the chairman while I read certain parts 
 of that treaty. 
 
 ' Whereas an unprovoked, inhuman, and sanguinary war, waged by the hostile 
 Creeks against the United States, hath been repelled, prosecuted, and determined, 
 successfully on the part of the said states, in conformity with principles of national 
 justice and honorable warfare : and whereas consideration is due to the rectitude of 
 proceedings dictated by instructions relating to the reestablishing of peace : Be it 
 remembered, that, prior to the conquest of that part of the Creek nation hostile to 
 the United States, numberless aggressions had been committed against the peace, the 
 property, and the lives of citizens of the United States, and those of the Creek nation 
 in amity with her, at the mouth of Duck river, Fort Mimms, and elsewhere, contrary 
 to national faith, and the regard due to an article of the treaty concluded at New 
 York, in the year 1790, between the two nations ; that the United States, previous to 
 the perpetration of such outrages, did, in order to insure future amity and concord 
 between the Creek nation a.nd the said states, in conformity with the stipulations of 
 former treaties, fulfil, with punctuality and good faith, her engagements to the said 
 nation ; that more than two thirds of the whole number of chiefs and warriors of the 
 Creek nation, disregarding the genuine spirit of existing treaties, suffered themselves 
 to be instigated to violations of their national honor, and the respect due to a part 
 of their own nation, faithful to the United States, and the principles of humanity, by 
 impostors, denominating themselves prophets, and by the duplicity and misrepresen- 
 tations of foreign emissaries, whose governments are at war, open or understood, 
 with the United States. 
 
 Article 2. The United States will guaranty to the Creek nation the integrity of 
 all their territory eastwardly and northwardly of the said line, (described in the first 
 article.) to be run and described as mentioned in the first article. 
 
 Article 3. The United States demand that the Creek nation abandon all communi- 
 cation, and cease to hold intercourse with any British post, garrison, or town; and 
 that they shall not admit among them any agent or trader, who shall not derive 
 authority to hold commercial or other intercourse with them, by license from the 
 President or other authorized agent of the United States. 
 
 Article 4. The United States demand an acknowledgment of the right to establish 
 military posts and trading houses, and to open roads within the territory guarantied 
 to the Creek nation by the second article, and a right to the free navigation of all its 
 waters. 
 
 Article 5. The United Slates demand that a surrender be immediately made, of 
 all the persons and property taken from the citizens of the United States, the friendly 
 part of the Creek nation, the Cherokee, Chickasaw, and Choctaw nations, to the 
 respective owners ; and the United States will cause to be immediately restored to 
 the formerly hostile Creeks all the property taken from them since their submission, 
 either by the United States, or by any Indian nations in amity with the United States, 
 together with all the prisoners taken from them during the \v;ir. 
 
 Article G. The United States demand the caption and surrender of all the prophets 
 
368 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 and instigators of the war, whether foreigners or natives, who have not submitted to 
 the arms of the United States, and become parties to these articles of capitulation, 
 if ever they shall be found within the territory guarantied to the Creek nation by the 
 second article. 
 
 Article 7. The Creek nation being reduced to extreme want, and not at present 
 having the means of subsistence, the United Stales, from motives of humanity, will 
 continue to furnish gratuitously the necessaries of life, until the crops of corn can be 
 considered competent to yield the nation a supply, and will establish trading houses 
 in the nation, at the discretion of the president of the United States, and at such 
 places as he shall direct, to enable the nation, by industry and economy, to procure 
 clothing.' 
 
 I have never perused this instrument until within a few days 
 past, and I have read it with the deepest mortification and regret. 
 A more dictatorial spirit I have never seen displayed in any instru- 
 ment. I would challenge an examinalion of all the records of 
 diplomacy, not excepting even those in the most haughty period 
 of imperial Rome, when she was carrying her arms into the barba- 
 rian nations that surrounded her, and I do not believe a solitary 
 instance can be found of such an inexorable spirit of domination 
 pervading a compact purporting to be a treaty of peace. It consists 
 of the most severe and humiliating demands — of the surrender of 
 a large territory ; of the privilege of making roads through the 
 remnant which was retained; of the right of establishing trading- 
 houses ; of the obligation of delivering into our hands their 
 prophets. And all this of a wretched people reduced to the last 
 extremity of distress, whose miserable existence we have to 
 preserve by a voluntary stipulation to furnish them with bread ! 
 When did the all-conquering and desolating Rome ever fail to 
 respect the altars and the gods of those whom she subjugated ? 
 Let me not be told that these prophets were impostors, who de- 
 ceived the Indians. They were their prophets ; the Indians 
 believed and venerated them, and it is not for us to dictate a 
 religious belief to them. It does not belong to the holy character 
 of the religion which we profess, to carry its precepts, by the force 
 of the bayonet, into the bosoms of other people. Mild and gentle 
 persuasion was the great instrument employed by the meek 
 founder of our religion. We leave to the humane and benevolent 
 efforts of the reverend professors of Christianity to convert from 
 barbarism those unhappy nations yet immersed in its gloom. But, 
 sir, spare them their prophets ! spare their delusions ! spare their 
 prejudices and superstitions ! spare them even their religion, such 
 as it is, from open and cruel violence. When, sir, was that treaty 
 concluded ? On the very day, after the protocol was signed, of 
 the first conference between the American and British commis- 
 sioners, treating of peace, at Ghent. In the course of that nego- 
 tiation, pretensions so enormous were set up by the other party, 
 that, when they were promulgated in this country, there was one 
 general burst of indignation throughout the continent. Faction 
 itself was silenced, and the firm and unanimous determination of 
 
ON THE SEMINOLE WAR. 369 
 
 all parties was, to fight until the last man fell in the ditch, rather 
 than submit to such ignominious terms. What a contrast is 
 exhibited between the contemporaneous scenes of Ghent and of 
 Fort Jackson ! what a powerful voucher would the British com- 
 missioners have been furnished with, if they could have got hold 
 of that treaty ! The United States demand, the United States 
 demand, is repeated five or six times. And what did the preamble 
 itself disclose? That two thirds of the Creek nation had been 
 hostile, and one third only friendly to us. Now I have heard, (I 
 cannot vouch for the truth of the statement,) that not one hostile 
 chief signed the treaty. I have also heard that perhaps one or two 
 of them did. If the treaty were really made by a minority of the 
 nation, it was not obligatory upon the whole nation. It was void, 
 considered in the light of a national compact. And, if void, the 
 Indians were entitled to the benefit of the provision of the ninth 
 article of the treaty of Ghent, by which we bound ourselves to 
 make peace with any tribes with whom we might be at war on 
 the ratification of the treaty, and to restore to them their lands, as 
 they held them in 1811. I do not know how the honorable senate, 
 that body for which I hold so high a respect, could have given their 
 sanction to the treaty of Fort Jackson, so utterly irreconcilable as it 
 is with those noble principles of generosity and magnanimity which 
 I hope to see my country always exhibit, and particularly toward 
 the miserable remnant of ihe aborigines. It would have comported 
 better with those principles, to have imitated the benevolent policy 
 of the founder of Pennsylvania, and to have given to the Creeks, 
 conquered as they were, even if they had made an unjust war 
 upon us, the trifling consideration, to them an adequate compensa- 
 tion, which he paid for their lands. That treaty, I fear, has been 
 the main cause of the recent war. And, if it has been, it only adds 
 another melancholy proof to those with which history already 
 abounds, that hard and unconscionable terms, extorted by the 
 power of the sword and the right of conquest, serve but to whet 
 and stimulate revenge, and to give old hostilities, smothered, not 
 extinguished, by the pretended peace, greater exasperation and 
 more ferocity. A truce, thus patched up with an unfortunate 
 people, without the means of existence, without bread, is no real 
 peace. The instant there is the slightest prospect of relief from 
 such harsh and severe conditions, the conquered party will fly to 
 arms, and spend the last drop of blood rather than live in such 
 degraded bondage. Even if you again reduce him to submission, 
 the expenses incurred by this second war, to say nothing of the 
 human lives that are sacrificed, will be greater than what it would 
 have cost you to grant, him liberal conditions in the first instance. 
 This treaty, I repeat it, was, I apprehend, the cause of the war. 
 It led to those excesses on our southern borders which began it. 
 Who first commenced them, it is perhaps difficult to ascertain. 
 Vol. i. 47 
 
370 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 There was, however, a paper on this subject, communicated at the 
 last session by the president, that told, in language pathetic and 
 feeling, an artless tale ; a paper that carried such internal evidence, 
 at least, of the belief of the authors of it that they were writing the 
 truth, that I will ask the favor of the committee to allow me to 
 read it. 
 
 To the Commanding Officer at Fort Hawkins : 
 
 Dear Sir: 
 
 Since the last war, after you sent word that we must quit the war, we, the red 
 people, have come over on this side. The white people have carried all the red people's 
 cattle off. After the war, I sent to all my people to let the white people alone, and 
 stay on this side of the river: and they did so; hut the white people still continued to 
 carry off their cattle. Bernard's son was here, and I inquired of him what was to be 
 done ; and he said we must go to the head man of the white people and complain. I 
 did so, and there was no head white man, and there was no law in this case. The whites 
 first began, and there is nothing said about that; but great complaint about what the 
 Indians do. This is now three years since the white people killed three Indians ; 
 since that time they have killed three other Indians, and taken their horses, and what 
 they had ; and this summer they killed three more ; and very lately they killed one 
 more. We sent word to the white people that these murders were done, and the 
 answer was, that they were people that were outlaws, and we ought to go and kill 
 them. The white people killed our people first; the Indians then took satisfaction. 
 There are yet three men that the red people have never taken satisfaction for. You 
 have wrote that there were houses burnt; but we know of no such thing being done ; 
 the truth, in such cases, ought to be told, but this appears otherwise. On that side 
 of the river, the white people have killed five Indians, but there is nothing said about 
 that; and all that the Indians have done is brought up. Ml the mischief the white people 
 have done, ought to be told to their head man. When there is any thing done, you write 
 to us; but never write to your head man what the white people do. When the red 
 people send talks, or write, they always send the truth. You have sent to us for 
 your horses, and we sent all that we could find ; but there were some dead. It 
 appears that all the mischief is laid on this town ; but all the mischief that has been 
 done by this town, is two horses; one of them is dead, and the other was sent back. 
 The cattle that we are accused of taking, were cattle that the white people took from us. 
 Our young men went and brought them back, with the same marks and brands. 
 There were some of our young men out hunting, and they were killed; others went 
 to take satisfaction, and the kettle of one of the men that was killed, was found in 
 the house where the woman and two children were killed; and they supposed it had 
 been her husband who had killed the Indians, and took their satisfaction there. We 
 are accused of killing the Americans, and so on ; but since the word was sent to us 
 that peace was made, we stay steady at home, and meddle with no person. You have 
 sent to us respecting the black people on the Suwany river; we have nothing to do 
 with them. They were put there by the English, and to them you ought to apply 
 for any thing about them. We do not wish our country desolated by an army passing 
 through it, for the concern of other people. The Indians have slaves there also; a 
 great many of them. When we have an opportunity, we shall apply to the English 
 for them ; but we cannot get them now. 
 
 This is what we have to say at present. 
 
 Sir, I conclude by subscribing myself, 
 
 Your humble servant, &c. 
 
 September, the 11th day, 1817. 
 
 N. B. There are ten towns have read this letter, and this is the answer. 
 
 A true copy of the original. Wm. Bell, Aid-de-camp. 
 
 I should be very unwilling to assert, in regard to this war, that 
 the fault was on our side ; I fear it was. I have heard that a very 
 respectable gentleman, now no more, who once filled the executive 
 chair of Georgia, and who, having been agent of Indian affairs in 
 
ON THE SEMINOLE WAR. 371 
 
 that quarter, had the best opportunity of judging of the origin of 
 this war, deliberately pronounced it as his opinion, that the Indians 
 were not in fault. I am far from attributing to general Jackson 
 any other than the very slight degree of blame that attaches to him 
 as the negotiator of the treaty of Fort Jackson, and will be shared 
 by those who subsequently ratified and sanctioned that treaty. 
 But if there be even a doubt as to the origin of the war, whether 
 we were censurable or the Indians, that doubt will serve to increase 
 our regret at any distressing incidents which may have occurred, 
 and to mitigate, in some degree, the crimes which we impute to 
 the other side. I know that when general Jackson was summoned 
 to the field, it was too late to hesitate ; the fatal blow had been 
 struck, in the destruction of Fowl-town, and the dreadful massacre 
 of lieutenant Scott and his detachment ; and the only duty which 
 remained to him, w T as to terminate this unhappy contest. 
 
 The first circumstance which, in the course of his performing 
 that duty, fixed our attention, has filled me with regret. It was the 
 execution of the Indian chiefs. How, I ask, did they come into 
 our possession? Was it in the course of fair, and open, and 
 honorable war ? No ; but by means of deception — by hoisting 
 foreign colors on the staff from which the stars and stripes should 
 alone have floated. Thus ensnared, the Indians were taken on 
 shore ; and without ceremony, and without delay, were hung. 
 Hang an Indian ! We, sir, who are civilized, and can comprehend 
 and feel the effect of moral causes and considerations, attach 
 ignominy to that mode of death. And the gallant, and refined, 
 and high-minded man, seeks by all possible means to avoid it. 
 But what cares an Indian whether you hang or shoot him ? The 
 moment he is captured, he is considered by his tribe as disgraced, 
 if not lost. They, too, are indifferent about the manner in which 
 he is despatched. But I regard the occurrence with grief, for other 
 and higher considerations. It was the first instance that I know 
 of, in the annals of our country, in which retaliation, by executing 
 Indian captives, has ever been deliberately practiced. There may 
 have been exceptions, but if there are, they met with contempora- 
 neous condemnation, and have been reprehended by the just pen 
 of impartial history. The gentleman from Massachusetts may tell 
 me, if he chooses, what he pleases about the tomahawk and 
 scalping knife ; about Indian enormities, and foreign miscreants 
 and incendiaries. I, too, hate them ; from my very soul I abomi- 
 nate them. But I love my country, and its constitution ; I love 
 liberty and safety, and fear military despotism more, even, than I 
 hate these monsters. The gentleman, in the course of his remarks, 
 alluded to the state from which I have the honor to come. Little, 
 sir, does he know of the high and magnanimous sentiments of the 
 people of that state, if he supposes they will approve of the trans- 
 action to which he referred. Brave and generous, humanity and 
 
372 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 clemency towards a fallen foe constitute one of their noblest 
 characteristics. Amidst all the struggles for that fair land, between 
 the natives and the present inhabitants, I defy the gentleman to 
 point out one instance, in which a Kentuckian has stained his hand 
 by — nothing but my high sense of the distinguished services and 
 exalted merits of general Jackson, prevents my using a different 
 term — the execution of an unarmed and prostrate captive. Yes, 
 there is one solitary exception, in which a man, enraged at behold- 
 ing an Indian prisoner who had been celebrated for his enormities, 
 and who had destroyed some of his kindred, plunged his sword 
 into his bosom. The wicked deed was considered as an abomina- 
 ble outrage when it occurred, and the name of the man has been 
 handed down to the execration of posterity. I deny your right 
 thus to retaliate on the aboriginal proprietors of the country ; and 
 unless I am utterly deceived, it may be shown that it does not 
 exist. But before I attempt this, allow me to make the gentleman 
 from Massachusetts a little better acquainted with those people, to 
 whose feelings and sympathies he has appealed through their 
 representative. During the late war with Great Britain, colonel 
 Campbell, under the command of my honorable friend from Ohio 
 (general Harrison), was placed at the head of a detachment, con- 
 sisting chiefly, I believe, of Kentucky volunteers, in order to destroy 
 the Mississinaway towns. They proceeded and performed the 
 duty, and took some prisoners. And here is the evidence of the 
 manner in which they treated them. 
 
 1 But the character of this gallant detachment, exhibiting, as it did, perseverance, 
 fortitude, and bravery, would, however, be incomplete, if, in the midst of victory, they 
 had forgotten the feelings of humanity. It is with the sincerest pleasure that the 
 general has heard, that the most punctual obedience was paid to his orders, in not 
 only saving all the women and children, but in sparine; all the warriors who ceased to 
 resist: and that even when vigorously attacked by the enemy, the claims of mercy 
 prevailed over every sense of their own danger, and this heroic band respected the lives 
 of their prisoners. Let an account of murdered innocence be opened in the records 
 of heaven, against our enemies alone. The American soldier will follow the example 
 of his government, and the sword of the one will not be raised against the fallen and 
 the helpless, nor the gold of the other be paid for scalps of a massacred enemy.' 
 
 I hope, sir, the honorable gentleman will now be able better to 
 appreciate the character and conduct of my gallant countrymen, 
 than he appears hitherto to have done. 
 
 But, sir, I have said that you have no right to practice, under 
 color of retaliation, enormities on the Indians. I will advance in 
 support of this position, as applicable to the origin of all law, the 
 principle, that whatever has been the custom, from the commence- 
 ment of a subject, whatever has been the uniform usage, coeval 
 and coexistent with the subject to which it relates, becomes its 
 fixed law. Such is the foundation of all common law; and such, 
 I believe, is the principal foundation of all public or international 
 law. If, then, it can be shown that from the first settlement of the 
 
ON THE SEMINOLE WAR. 373 
 
 colonies, on this part of the American continent, to the present 
 time, we have constantly abstained from retaliating upon the In- 
 dians the excesses practiced by them towards us, we are morally 
 bound by this invariable usage, and cannot lawfully change it 
 without the most cogent reasons. So far as my knowledge ex- 
 tends, from the first settlement at Plymouth or at Jamestown, it has 
 not been our practice to destroy Indian captives, combatants or 
 non-combatants. I know of but one deviation from the code which 
 regulates the warfare between civilized communities, and that was 
 the destruction of Indian towns, which was supposed to be author- 
 ized upon the ground that we could not bring the war to a termi- 
 nation but by destroying the means which nourished it. With this 
 single exception, the other principles of the laws of civilized nations 
 are extended to them, and are thus made law in regard to them. 
 When did this humane custom, by which, in consideration of their 
 ignorance, and our enlightened condition, the rigors of war were 
 mitigated, begin ? At a time when we were weak, and they 
 comparatively strong; when they were the lords of the soil, and 
 we were seeking, from the vices, from the corruptions, from the 
 religious intolerance, and from the oppressions of Europe, to gain 
 an asylum among them. And when is it proposed to change this 
 custom, to substitute for it the bloody maxims of barbarous ages, 
 and to interpolate the Indian public law with revolting cruelties ? 
 At a time when the situation of the two parties is totally changed — 
 when we are powerful and they are weak — at a time when, to use 
 a figure drawn from their own sublime eloquence, the poor children 
 of the forest have been driven by the great wave which has flowed 
 in from the Atlantic ocean almost to the base of the Rocky mountains, 
 and, overwhelming them in its terrible progress, has left no other 
 remains of hundreds of tribes, now extinct, than those which indicate 
 the remote existence of their former companion, the mammoth of 
 the new world ! Yes, sir, it is at this auspicious period of our 
 country, when we hold a proud and lofty station among the first 
 nations of the world, that we are called upon to sanction a depar- 
 ture from the established laws and usages which have regulated 
 our Indian hostilities. And does the honorable gentleman from 
 Massachusetts expect, in this august body, this enlightened assem- 
 bly of christians and Americans, by glowing appeals to our 
 passions, to make us forget our principles, our religion, our clemen- 
 cy, and our humanity ? Why is it that we have not practiced 
 towards the Indian tribes the right of retaliation, now for the first 
 time asserted in regard to them ? It is because it is a principle 
 proclaimed by reason, and enforced by every respectable writer on 
 the law of nations, that retaliation is only justifiable as calculated 
 to produce effect in the war. Vengeance is a new motive for 
 resorting to it. If retaliation will produce no effect on the enemy, 
 we are bound to abstain from it by every consideration of humanity 
 
374 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 and of justice. Will it then produce effect on the Indian tribes ? 
 No ; they care not about the execution of those of their warriors 
 who are taken captive. They are considered as disgraced by the 
 very circumstance of their captivity, and it is often mercy to the 
 unhappy captive to deprive him of his existence. The poet evinced 
 a profound knowledge of the Indian character, when he put into 
 the mouth of a son of a distinguished chief, about to be led to the 
 stake and tortured by his victorious enemy, the words : 
 
 ' Begin, ye tormentors ! your threats are in vain : 
 The son of Alknomook will never complain.' 
 
 Retaliation of Indian excesses, not producing then any effect in 
 preventing their repetition, is condemned by both reason and the 
 principles upon which alone, in any case, it can be justified. On 
 this branch of the subject much more might be said, but as I shall 
 possibly again allude to it, I will pass from it, for the present, to 
 another topic. 
 
 It is not necessary, for the purpose of my argument in regard to 
 the trial and execution of Arbuthnot and Ambrister, to insist on the 
 innocency of either of them. I will yield for the sake of that 
 argument, without inquiry, that both of them were guilty ; that both 
 had instigated the war; and that one of them had led the enemy to 
 battle. It is possible, indeed, that a critical examination of the 
 evidence would show, particularly in the case of Arbuthnot, that 
 the whole amount of his crime consisted in his trading, without the 
 limits of the United States, with the Seminole Indians, in the 
 accustomed commodities which form the subject of Indian trade, 
 and that he sought to ingratiate himself with his customers by 
 espousing their interests, in regard to the provision of the treaty 
 of Ghent, which he may have honestly believed entitled them to 
 the restoration of their lands. And if, indeed, the treaty of Fort 
 Jackson, for the reasons already assigned, were not binding upon 
 the Creeks, there would be but too much cause to lament his 
 unhappy if not unjust fate. The first impression made, on the 
 examination of the proceedings in the trial and execution of those 
 two men, is, that on the part of Ambrister there was the most guilt, 
 but, at the same time, the most irregularity. Conceding the point 
 of guilt of both, with the qualification which I have stated, I will 
 proceed to inquire, first, if their execution can be justified upon the 
 principles assumed by general Jackson himself. If they do not 
 afford a justification, I will next inquire, if there be any other 
 principles authorizing their execution; and I will in the third place 
 make some other observations upon the mode of proceeding. 
 
 The principle assumed by general Jackson, which may be found 
 in his general orders commanding the execution of these men, is, 
 ' that it is an established principle of the law of nations, that any 
 individual of a nation making war against the citizens of any other 
 
ON THE SEMINOLE WAR. 375 
 
 nation, they being at peace, forfeits his allegiance, and becomes an 
 outlaw and a pirate.' Whatever may be the character of individ- 
 uals waging private war, the principle assumed is totally erroneous 
 when applied to such individuals associated with a power, whether 
 Indian or civilized, capable of maintaing the relations of peace and 
 war. Suppose, however, the principle were true, as asserted, what 
 disposition should he have made of these men ? What jurisdiction, 
 and how acquired, has the military over pirates, robbers, and 
 outlaws ? If they were in the character imputed, they were alone 
 amenable, and should have been turned over, to the civil authority. 
 But the principle, I repeat, is totally incorrect, when applied to men 
 in their situation. A foreigner connecting himself with a bellige- 
 rent, becomes an enemy of the party to whom that belligerent is 
 opposed, subject to whatever he may be subject, entitled to 
 whatever he is entitled. Arbuthnot and Ambrister, by associating 
 themselves, became identified with the Indians ; they became our 
 enemies, and we had a right to treat them as we could lawfully 
 treat the Indians. These positions are so obviously correct, that I 
 shall consider it an abuse of the patience of the committee to 
 consume time in their proof. They are supported by the practice 
 of all nations, and of our own. Every page of history, in all 
 times, and the recollection of every member, furnish evidence 
 of their truth. Let us look for a moment into some of the conse- 
 quences of this principle, if it were to go to Europe, sanctioned by 
 the approbation, express or implied, of this house. We have now 
 in our armies probably the subjects of almost every European 
 power. Some of the nations of Europe maintain the doctrine 
 of perpetual allegiance. Suppose Britain and America in peace, 
 and America and France at war. The former subjects of England, 
 naturalized and unnaturalized, are captured by the navy or army 
 of France. What is their condition? According to the principle 
 of general Jackson, they would be outlaw r s and pirates, and liable 
 to immediate execution. Are gentlemen prepared to return to 
 their respective districts with this doctrine in their mouths, and to 
 say to their Irish, English, Scotch, and other foreign constituents, 
 that they are liable, on the contingency supposed, to be treated as 
 outlaws and pirates ? 
 
 Is there any other principle which justifies the proceedings ? On 
 this subject, if I admire the wonderful ingenuity with which gentle- 
 men seek a colorable pretext for those executions, I am at the same 
 time shocked at some of the principles advanced. What said the 
 honorable gentlemen from Massachusetts (Mr. Holmes), in a cold 
 address to the committee? Why, that these executions were only 
 the wrong mode of doing a right thing. A wrong mode of doing 
 a right thing! In what code of public law; in what system of 
 ethics ; nay, in what respectable novel ; where, if the gentleman 
 were to take the range of the whole literature of the world ; will he 
 
376 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 find any sanction for a principle so monstrous? I will illustrate 
 its enormity by a single case. Suppose a man, being guilty of 
 robbery, is tried, condemned, and executed, for murder, upon an 
 indictment for that robbery merely. The judge is arraigned for 
 having executed, contrary to law, a human being, innocent at heart 
 of the crime for which he was sentenced. The judge has nothing 
 to do, to insure his own acquittal, but to urge the gentleman's plea, 
 that he had done a right thing in a wrong way ! 
 
 The principles which attached to the cases of Arbuthnot and 
 Ambrister, constituting them merely par ticipes in the war, supposing 
 them to have been combatants, which the former was not, he having 
 been taken in a Spanish fortress, without arms in his hands, all that 
 we could possibly have a right to do, was to apply to them the rules 
 which we had a right to enforce against the Indians. Their English 
 character was only merged in iheir Indian character. Now, if the 
 law regulating Indian hostilities be established by long and 
 immemorial usage, that we have no moral right to retaliate upon 
 them, we consequently had no right to retaliate upon Arbuthnot 
 and Ambrister. Even if it were admitted that, in regard to future 
 wars, and to other foreigners, their execution may have a good 
 effect, it would not thence follow that you had a right to execute 
 them. It is not always just to do what may be -advantageous. 
 And retaliation, during a war, must have relation to the events of 
 that war, and must, to be just, have an operation on that war, and 
 upon the individuals only who compose the belligerent party. It 
 becomes gentlemen, then, on the other side, to show, by some 
 known, certain, and recognised rule of public or municipal law, 
 that the execution of these men was justified. Where is it? I 
 should be glad to see it. We are told in a paper emanating from 
 the department of state, recently laid before this house, distinguished 
 for the fervor of ils eloquence, and of which the honorable gentle- 
 man from Massachusetts has supplied us in part with a second 
 edition, in one respect agreeing with the prototype — that they both 
 ought to be inscribed to the American public — we are justly told 
 in that paper, that this is the first instance of the execution of 
 persons for the crime of instigating Indians to war. Sir, there are 
 two topics which, in Europe, are constantly employed by the friends 
 and minions of legitimacy against our country. The one is an 
 inordinate spirit of aggrandizement — of coveting other people's 
 goods; the other is the treatment which we extend to the Indians. 
 Against both these charges, the public servants who conducted at 
 Ghent the negotiations with the British commissioners, endeavored 
 to vindicate our country, and I hope with some degree of success. 
 What will be the condition of future American negotiators, when 
 pressed upon this head, I know not, after the unhappy executions 
 on our southern border. The gentleman from Massachusetts 
 seemed yesterday to read, with a sort of triumph, the names of the 
 
ON THE SEMINOLE WAR. 377 
 
 commissioners employed in the negotiation at Ghent. Will he 
 excuse me for saying, that I thought he pronounced, even with more 
 complacency, and with a more gracious smile, the first name in the 
 commission, than he emphasized that of the humble individual who 
 addresses you ? 
 
 [Mr. Holmes desired to explain.] 
 
 There is no occasion for explanation ; I am perfectly satisfied. 
 
 [ Mr. Holmes, however, proceeded to say that his intention was, in pronouncing the 
 gentleman's name, to add to the respect due to the negotiator that which was due to 
 the speaker of this house.] 
 
 To return to, the case of Arbuthnot and Ambrister. Will the 
 principle of these men having been the instigators of the war, 
 justify their execution? It is a new one; there are no landmarks 
 to guide us in its adoption, or to prescribe limits in its application. 
 If William Pitt had been taken by the French army, during the 
 late European war, could France have justifiably executed him on 
 the ground of his having notoriously instigated the continental powers 
 to war against France ? Would France, if she had stained her 
 character by executing him, have obtained the sanction of the 
 world to the act, by appeals to the passions and prejudices, by 
 pointing to the cities sacked, the countries laid waste, the human 
 lives sacrificed in the wars which he had kindled, and by exclaiming 
 to the unfortunate captive, you, miscreant, monster, have occasioned 
 all these scenes of devastation and blood ? What has been the 
 conduct even of England towards the greatest instigator of all the 
 wars of the present age? The condemnation of that illustrious 
 man to the rock of St. Helena, is a great blot on the English name. 
 And I repeat what I have before said, that if Chatham, or Fox, or 
 even William Pitt himself, had been prime minister in England, 
 Bonaparte had never been so condemned. On that transaction history 
 will one day pass its severe but just censure. Yes, although 
 Napoleon had desolated half Europe ; although there was scarcely 
 a power, however humble, that escaped the mighty grasp of his 
 ambition; although in the course of his splendid career, he is 
 charged with having committed the greatest atrocities, disgraceful 
 to himself and to human nature, yet even his life has been spared. 
 The allies would not, England would not, execute him upon the 
 ground of his being an instigator of wars. 
 
 The mode of the trial and sentencing these men was equally 
 objectionable with the principles on which it has been attempted to 
 prove a forfeiture of their lives. I know the laudable spirit which 
 prompted the ingenuity displayed in finding out a justification for 
 these proceedings. I wish most sincerely that I could reconcile 
 them to my conscience. It has been attempted to vindicate the 
 vol. i. 48 
 
378 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 general upon grounds which I am persuaded he would himself 
 disown. It has been asserted, that he was guilty of a mistake in 
 calling upon the court to try them, and that he might have at once 
 ordered their execution, without that formality. I deny that there 
 was any such absolute right in the commander of any portion 
 of our army. The right of retaliation is an attribute of 
 sovereignty. It is comprehended in the war-making power that 
 congress possesses. It belongs to this body not only to declare 
 war, but to raise armies, and to make rules and regulations for 
 their government. It is in vain for gentlemen to look to the law of 
 nations for instances in which retaliation is lawful. The laws of 
 nations merely lay down the principle or rule ; it belongs to the 
 government to constitute the tribunal for applying that principle or 
 rule. There is, for example, no instance in which % the death of a 
 captive is more certainly declared by the law of nations to be 
 justifiable, than in the case of spies. Congress has accordingly 
 provided, in the rules and articles of war, a tribunal for the trial of 
 spies, and consequently for the application of the principle of the 
 national law. The legislature has not left the power over spies 
 undefined, to the mere discretion of the commander-in-chief, or of 
 any subaltern officer in the army. For, if the doctrines now 
 contended for were true, they would apply to the commander of 
 any corps, however small, acting as a detachment. Suppose 
 congress had not legislated in the case of spies, what would have 
 been their condition ? It would have been a casus omissus, and 
 although the public law pronounced their doom, it could not be 
 executed, because congress had assigned no tribunal for enforcing 
 that public law. No man can be executed in this free country 
 without two things being shown — first, that the law condemns him 
 to death ; and, secondly, that his death is pronounced by that tribunal 
 which is authorized by the law to try him. These principles will 
 reach every man's case, native or foreign, citizen or alien. The 
 instant quarters are granted to a prisoner, the majesty of the law 
 surrounds and sustains him, and he cannot be lawfully punished 
 with death without the concurrence of the two circumstances just 
 insisted upon. I deny that any commander-in-chief, in this country, 
 has this absolute power of life and death, at his sole discretion. It 
 is contrary to the genius of all our laws and institutions. To 
 concentrate in the person of one individual the powers to make the 
 rule, to judge and to execute the rule, or to judge and execute the 
 rule only, is utterly irreconcilable with every principle of free 
 government, and is the very definition of tyranny itself; and 
 I trust that this house will never give even a tacit assent 
 to such a principle. Suppose the commander had made even 
 reprisals on property, would that property have belonged to 
 the nation, or could he have disposed of it as he pleased? 
 Had he more power, will gentlemen tell me, over the lives 
 
ON THE SEMINOLE WAR. 379 
 
 of human beings than over property? The assertion of such 
 a power to the commander-in-chief is contrary to the practice of 
 the government. By an act of congress which passed in 1799, 
 vesting the power of retaliation in certain cases in the president of 
 the United States — an act which passed during the quasi war with 
 France — ihe president is authorized to retaliate upon any of the 
 citizens of the French republic, the enormities which may be 
 practiced, in certain cases, upon our citizens. Under what admin- 
 istration was this act passed ? It was under that which has been 
 justly charged with stretching the constitution to enlarge the 
 executive powers. Even during the mad career of Mr. Adams, 
 when every means was resorted to for the purpose of infusing 
 vigor into the executive arm, no one thought of claiming for him 
 the inherent right of retaliation. I will not trouble the house with 
 reading another law, which passed thirteen or fourteen years after, 
 during the late war with Great Britain, under the administration of 
 that great constitutional president, the father of the instrument itself, 
 by which Mr. Madison was empowered to retaliate on the British in 
 certain instances. It is not only contrary to the genius of our 
 institutions, and to the uniform practice of the government, but it 
 is contrary to the obvious principles on which the general himself 
 proceeded; for, in forming the court, he evidently intended to 
 proceed under the rules and articles of war. The extreme number 
 which they provide for is thirteen, precisely that which is detailed 
 in the present instance. The court proceeded not by a bare 
 plurality, but by a majority of two thirds. In the general orders 
 issued from the adjutant general's office, at head quarters, it is 
 described as a court-martial. The prisoners are said, in those 
 orders, to have been tried, ' on the following charges and specifica- 
 tions.' The court understood itself to be acting as a court-martial. 
 It was so organized, it so proceeded, having a judge advocate, 
 hearing witnesses, and the written defence of the miserable 
 trembling prisoners, who seemed to have a presentiment of their 
 doom. And the court was finally dissolved. The whole proceed- 
 ing manifestly shows, that all parties considered it as a court- 
 martial, convened and acting under the rules and articles of war. 
 In his letter to the secretary of war, noticing the transaction, the 
 general says, 'these individuals were tried under my orders, 
 leg-ally convicted as exciters of this savage and negro war, legally 
 condemned, and most justly punished for their iniquities.' The 
 Lord deliver us from such legal conviction, and such legal condem- 
 nation ! The general himself considered the laws of his country 
 to have justified his proceedings. It is in vain then to talk of a 
 power in him beyond the law, and above the law, when he himself 
 does not assert it. Let it be conceded that he was clothed w T ith 
 absolute authority over the lives of those individuals, and that, 
 upon his own fiat, without trial, without defence, he might have 
 
380 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 commanded their execution. Now, if an absolute sovereign, in 
 any particular respect, promulgates a rule, which he pledges him- 
 self to observe, if he subsequently deviates from that rule, he 
 subjects himself to the imputation of odious tyranny. If general 
 Jackson had the power, without a court, to condemn these men, he 
 had also the power to appoint a tribunal. He did appoint a tribunal, 
 and became, therefore, morally bound to observe and execute the 
 sentence of that tribunal. In regard to Ambrister, it is with grief 
 and pain I am compelled to say, that he was executed in defiance 
 of all law; in defiance of the law to which general Jackson had 
 voluntarily, if you please, submitted himself, and given, by his 
 appeal to the court, his implied pledge to observe. I know but 
 little of military law, and what has happened, has certainly not 
 created in me a taste for acquiring a knowledge of more; but I 
 believe there is no example on record, where the sentence of the court 
 has been erased, and a sentence not pronounced by it carried into 
 execution. It has been suggested that the court had pronounced 
 two sentences, and that the general had a right to select either. 
 Two sentences! Two verdicts! It was not so. The first being 
 revoked, was as though it had never been pronounced. And there 
 remained only one sentence, which was put aside upon the sole 
 authority of the commander, and the execution of the prisoner 
 ordered. He either had or had not a right to decide upon the fate 
 of that man, with the intervention of a court. If he had the right, 
 he waived it, and having violated the sentence of the court, there 
 was brought upon the judicial administration of the army a 
 reproach, which must occasion the most lasting regret. 
 
 However guilty these men were, they should not have been 
 condemned or executed without the authority of the law. I will 
 not dwell, at this time, on the effect of these precedents in foreign 
 countries; but I shall not pass unnoticed their dangerous influence 
 in our own country. Bad examples are generally set in the cases of 
 bad men, and often remote from the central government. It was 
 in the provinces that were laid the abuses and the seeds of the 
 ambitious projects which overturned the liberties of Rome. I 
 beseech the committee not to be so captivated with the charms of 
 eloquence, and the appeals made to our passions and our sympa- 
 thies, as to forget the fundamental principles of our government. 
 The influence of a bad example will often be felt, when its authors 
 and all the circumstances connected with it are no longer remem- 
 bered. I know of but one analogous instance of the execution of 
 a prisoner, and that has brought more odium than almost any other 
 incident on the unhappy emperor of France. I allude to the 
 instance of the execution of the unfortunate member of the 
 Bourbon house. He sought an asylum in the territories of Baden. 
 Bonaparte despatched a corps of gen-d'armes to the place of his 
 retreat, seized him, and brought him to the dungeons of Vincennes. 
 
ON THE SEMINOLE WAR. 381 
 
 He was there tried by a court-martial, condemned, and shot. 
 There, as here, was a violation of neutral territory ; there, the 
 neutral ground was not stained with the blood of him whom 
 it should have protected. And there is another most unfortunate 
 difference for the American people. The duke d'Enghein was 
 executed according to his sentence. It is said by the defenders of 
 Napoleon, that the duke had been machinating not merely to 
 overturn the French government, but against the life of its chief. 
 If that were true, he might, if taken in France, have been legally 
 executed. Such was the odium brought upon the instruments of 
 this transaction, that those persons who have been even suspected 
 of participation in it, have sought to vindicate themselves from 
 what they appear to have considered as an aspersion, before foreign 
 courts. In conclusion of this part of my subject, I most cheerfully 
 and entirely acquit general Jackson of any intention to violate the 
 laws of the country, or the obligations of humanity. I am 
 persuaded, from all that I have heard, that he considered himself 
 as equally respecting and observing both. With respect to the 
 purity of his intentions, therefore, I am disposed to allow it in the 
 most extensive degree. Of his acts, it is my duty to speak, with the 
 freedom which belongs to my station. And I shall now proceed 
 to consider some of them, of the most momentous character, 
 as it regards the distribution of the powers of government. 
 
 Of all the powers conferred by the constitution of the United 
 Stales, not one is more expressly and exclusively granted, than that 
 which gives to congress the power to declare war. The immortal 
 convention who formed that instrument, had abundant reason, 
 drawn from every page of history, for confiding this tremendous 
 power to the deliberate judgment of the representatives of the 
 people. It was there seen, that nations are often precipitated into 
 ruinous war, from folly, from pride, from ambition, and from the 
 desire of military fame. It was believed, no doubt, in committing 
 this great subject to the legislature of the union, we should be safe 
 from the mad wars that have afflicted, and desolated, and ruined 
 other countries. It was supposed, that before any war was 
 declared, the nature of the injury complained of, would be care- 
 fully examined, and the power and resources of the enemy esti- 
 mated, and the power and resources of our own country, as well as 
 the probable issue and consequences of the war. It was to guard 
 our country against precisely that species of rashness which has 
 been manifested in Florida, that the constitution was so framed. 
 If, then, this power, thus cautiously and clearly bestowed upon 
 congress, has been assumed and exercised by any other functionary 
 of the government, it is cause of serious alarm, and it becomes this 
 body to vindicate and maintain its authority by all the means in 
 its power; and yet there are some gentlemen, who would have 
 us not merely to yield a tame and silent acquiescence in the 
 encroachment, but even to pass a vote of thanks to the author. 
 
382 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 On the twenty-fifth of March, 1818, the president of the United 
 States communicated a message to congress in relation to the 
 Seminole war, in which he declared, that although, in the prosecu- 
 tion of it, orders had been given to pass into the Spanish territory, 
 they were so guarded as that the local authorities of Spain should 
 be respected. How respected ? The president, by the documents 
 accompanying the message, the orders themselves which issued 
 from the department of war to the commanding general, had 
 assured the legislature that, even if the enemy should take shelter 
 under a Spanish fortress, the fortress was not to be attacked, but 
 the fact to be reported to that department for further orders. Con- 
 gress saw, therefore, that there was no danger of violating the 
 existing peace. And yet, on the same twenty-fifth day of March, 
 (a most singular concurrence of dates,) when the representatives 
 of the people received this solemn message, announced in the 
 presence of the nation and in the face of the world, and in the 
 midst of a friendly negotiation with Spain, does general Jackson 
 write from his head-quarters, that he shall take St. Marks as a 
 necessary depot for his military operations ! The general states, 
 in his letter, what he had heard about the threat on the part of the 
 Indians and negroes, to occupy the fort, and declares his purpose 
 to possess himself of it, in either of the two contingences, of its 
 being in their hands, or in the hands of the Spaniards. He 
 assumed a right to judge what Spain was bound to do by her 
 treaty, and judged very correctly ; but then he also assumed the 
 power, belonging to congress alone, of determining what should 
 be the effect and consequence of her breach of engagement. Gen- 
 eral Jackson generally performs what he intimates his intention to 
 do. Accordingly, finding St. Marks yet in the hands of the 
 Spaniards, he seized and occupied it. Was ever, I ask, the just 
 confidence of the legislative body, in the assurances of the chief 
 magistrate, more abused? The Spanish commander intimated 
 his willingness that the American army should take post near him, 
 until he could have instructions from his superior officer, and 
 promised to maintain, in the mean time, the most friendly relations. 
 No ! St. Marks was a convenient post for the American army, 
 and delay was inadmissible. I have always understood that the 
 Indians but rarely take or defend fortresses, because they are 
 unskilled in the modes of attack and defence. The threat, there- 
 fore, on their part, to seize on St. Marks, must have been empty, 
 and would probably have been impossible. At all events, when 
 general Jackson arrived there, no danger any longer threatened the 
 Spaniards, from the miserable fugitive Indians, who fled on all 
 sides, upon his approach. And, sir, upon what plea is this viola- 
 tion of orders, and this act of war upon a foreign power, attempted 
 to be justified? Upon the grounds of the conveniency of the 
 depot and the Indian threat. The first I will not seriously examine 
 
ON THE SEMINOLE WAR. 383 
 
 and expose. If the Spanish character of the fort had been totally 
 merged in the Indian character, it might have been justifiable to 
 seize it. But that was not the fact; and the bare possibility of its 
 being forcibly taken by the Indians, could not justify our anticipat- 
 ing their blow. Of all the odious transactions which occurred 
 during the late war between France and England, none was more 
 condemned in Europe and in this country, than her seizure of the 
 fleet of Denmark, at Copenhagen. And I lament to be obliged to 
 notice the analogy which exists in the defences made of the two 
 cases. If my recollection does not deceive me, Bonaparte had 
 passed the Rhine and the Alps, had conquered Italy, the Nether- 
 lands, Holland, Hanover, Lubec, and Hamburg, and extended his 
 empire as far as Altona, on the side of Denmark. A few days' 
 march would have carried him through Holstein, over the two 
 Belts, through Funen, and into the island of Zealand. What then 
 was the conduct of England ? It was my lot to fall into conversa- 
 tion with an intelligent Englishman on this subject. ' We knew 
 (said he) that we were fighting for our existence. It was absolutely 
 necessary that we should preserve the command of the seas. If 
 the fleet of Denmark fell inlo the enemy's hands, combined with 
 his other fleets, that command might be rendered doubtful. Den- 
 mark had only a nominal independence. She was, in truth, 
 subject to his sway. We said to her, give us your fleet; it will 
 otherwise be taken possession of by your secret and our open 
 enemy. We will preserve it, and restore it to you whenever the 
 danger shall be over. Denmark refused. Copenhagen was bom- 
 barded, gallantly defended, but the fleet was seized Everywhere 
 the conduct of England was censured ; and the name even of the 
 negotiator who was employed by her, who was subsequently the 
 minister near this government, was scarcely ever pronounced here 
 without coupling with it an epithet, indicating his participation in 
 the disgraceful transaction. And yet we are going to sanction 
 acts of violence, committed by ourselves, which but too much 
 resemble it! What an important difference, too, between the 
 relative condition of England and of this country! She, perhaps, 
 was struggling for her existence. She was combating, single- 
 handed, the most enormous military power that the world has ever 
 known. With whom were we contending? With a few half- 
 starved, half-clothed, wretched Indians, and fugitive slaves. And, 
 whilst carrying on this inglorious war, inglorious as it regards 
 the laurels or renown won in it, we violate neutral rights, which 
 the government had solemnly pledged itself to respect, upon the 
 principle of convenience, or upon ihe light presumption that, by 
 possibility, a post might be taken by this miserable combination 
 of Indians and slaves. 
 
 On the eighth of April, the general writes from St. Marks, that he 
 shall march for the Suwaney river ; the destroying of the establish- 
 
384 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 ments on which will, in his opinion, bring the war to a close. 
 Accordingly, having effected that object, he writes, on the twentieth 
 of April, that he believes he may say that the war is at an end for 
 the present. He repeats the same opinion in his letter to the 
 secretary of war, written six days after. The war being thus ended, 
 it might have been hoped that no further hostilities would be 
 committed. But on the twenty-third of May, on his way home, 
 he receives a letter from the commandant of Pensacola, intimating 
 his surprise at the invasion of the Spanish territory, and the acts 
 of hostility performed by the American army, and his determina- 
 tion, if persisted in, to employ force to repel them. Let us pause 
 and examine the proceeding of the governor, so very hostile and 
 affrontive in the view of general Jackson. Recollect that he was 
 governor of Florida; that he had received no orders from his 
 superiors, to allow a passage to the American army; that he had 
 heard of the reduction of St. Marks ; and that general Jackson, at 
 the head of his army, was approaching in the direction of Pensa- 
 cola. He had seen the president's message of the twenty-fifth of 
 March, and reminded general Jackson of it, to satisfy him that 
 the American government could not have authorized all those 
 measures. I cannot read the allusion made by the governor to that 
 message, without feeling that the charge of insincerity, which it 
 implied, had at least but too much the appearance of truth in it. 
 Could the governor have done less than write some such letter? 
 We have only to reverse situations, and to suppose him to have 
 been an American governor. General Jackson says, that when he 
 received that letter, he no longer hesitated. No, sir, he did no 
 longer hesitate. He received it on the twenty-third, he was in 
 Pensacola on the twenty-fourth, and immediately after set himself 
 before the fortress of San Carlos de Barancas, which he shortly 
 reduced. Veni, vidi, vici. Wonderful energy! Admirable 
 promptitude ! Alas, that it had not been an energy and a prompti- 
 tude within the pale of the constitution, and according to the orders 
 of the chief magistrate. It is impossible to give any definition of 
 war, that would not comprehend these acts. It was open, undis- 
 guised, and unauthorized hostility. 
 
 The honorable gentleman from Massachusetts has endeavored 
 to derive some authority to general Jackson from the message 
 of the president, and the letter of the secretary of war to governor 
 Bibb. The message declares, that the Spanish authorities are to be 
 respected wherever maintained. What the president means by 
 their being maintained, is explained in the orders themselves, by 
 the extreme case being put of the enemy seeking shelter under a 
 Spanish fort. If even in that case he was not to attack, certainly 
 he was not to attack in any case of less strength. The letter to 
 governor Bibb admits of a similar explanation. When the 
 secretary says, in that letter, that general Jackson is fully empow- 
 
ON THE SEMINOLE WAR. 385 
 
 ered to bring the Seminole war to a conclusion, he means that he 
 is so empowered by his orders, which, being now before us, must 
 speak for themselves. It does not appear that general Jackson 
 ever saw that letter, which w T as dated at this place after the capture 
 of St. Marks. I will take a momentary glance at the orders. On 
 the second of December, 1817, general Gaines was forbidden to 
 cross the Florida line. Seven days after, the secretary of war 
 having arrived here, and infused a little more energy into our 
 councils, he was authorized to use a sound discretion in crossing 
 or not. On the sixteenth, he was instructed again to consider 
 himself at liberty to cross the line, and pursue the enemy ; but, 
 if he took refuge under a Spanish fortress, the fact was to be 
 reported to the department of war. These orders were transmitted 
 to general Jackson, and constituted, or ought to have constituted, 
 his guide. There was then no justification for the occupation 
 of Pensacola, and the attack on the Barancas, in the message of the 
 president, the letter to governor Bibb, or in the orders themselves. 
 The gentleman from Massachusetts will pardon me for saying, that 
 he has undertaken what even his talents are not competent to — 
 the maintenance of directly contradictory propositions, that it was 
 right in general Jackson to take Pensacola, and wrong in the 
 president to keep it. The gentleman has made a greater mistake 
 than he supposes general Jackson to have done in attacking 
 Pensacola for an Indian town, by attempting the defence both 
 of the president and general Jackson. If it were right in him to 
 seize the place, it is impossible that it should have been right in the 
 president immediately to surrender it. We, sir, are the supporters 
 of the president. We regret that we cannot support general 
 Jackson also. The gentleman's liberality is more comprehensive 
 than ours. I approve with all my heart of the restoration of 
 Pensacola. I think St. Marks ought, perhaps, to have been also 
 restored; but I say this with doubt and diffidence. That the 
 president thought the seizure of the Spanish posts was an act of 
 war, is manifest from his opening message, in which he says that, 
 to have retained them, would have changed our relations with 
 Spain, to do which the power of the executive was incompetent, 
 congress alone possessing it. The president has, in this instance, 
 deserved well of his country. He has taken the only course which 
 he could have pursued, consistent with the constitution of the land. 
 And I defy the gentleman to make good both his positions, that 
 the general was right in taking, and the president right in giving up, 
 the posts. 
 
 [Mr. Holmes explained. We took these posts, he said, to keep them from the 
 hands of the enemy, and, in restoring them, made it a condition that Spain should not 
 let our enemy have them. We said to her, here is your dagger ; we found it in the 
 hands of our enemy, and, having wrested it from him, we restore it to you, in the 
 hope that you will take better care of it for the future.] 
 
 vol. i. 49 
 
386 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 The gentleman from Massachusetts is truly unfortunate; fact or 
 principle is always against him. The Spanish posts were not in 
 the possession of the enemy. One old Indian only was found in 
 the Barancas, none in Pensacola, none in St. Marks. There was 
 not even the color of a threat of Indian occupation as it regards 
 Pensacola and the Barancas. Pensacola was to be restored 
 unconditionally, and might, therefore, immediately have come into 
 the possession of the Indians, if they had the power and the will to 
 take it. The gentleman is in a dilemma from which there is no 
 escape. He gave up general Jackson when he supported the 
 president, and gave up the president when he supported general 
 Jackson. I rejoice to have seen the president manifesting, by the 
 restoration of Pensacola, his devotedness to the constitution. When 
 the whole country was ringing with plaudits for its capture, I said, 
 and I said alone, in the limited circle in which I moved, that the 
 president must surrender it ; that he could not hold it. It is not 
 my intention to inquire, whether the army was or was not constitu- 
 tionally marched into Florida. It is not a clear question, and I am 
 inclined to think that the express authority of congress ought to 
 have been asked. The gentleman from Massachusetts will allow 
 me to refer to a part of the correspondence at Ghent different from 
 that which he has quoted. He will find the condition of the 
 Indians there accurately denned. And it is widely variant from 
 the gentleman's ideas on this subject. The Indians, inhabiting the 
 United States, according to the statement of the American commis- 
 sioners at Ghent, have a qualified sovereignty only, the supreme 
 sovereignty residing in the government of the United States. 
 They live under their own laws and customs, may inhabit and 
 hunt their lands ; but acknowledge the protection of the United 
 States, and have no right to sell their lands but to the government 
 of the United States. Foreign powers or foreign subjects have no 
 right to maintain any intercourse with them, without our permission. 
 They are not, therefore, independent nations, as the gentleman 
 supposes. Maintaining the relation described with them, we must 
 allow a similar relation to exist between Spain and the Indians 
 residing within her dominions. She must be, therefore, regarded 
 as the sovereign of Florida, and we are, accordingly, treating with 
 her for the purchase of it. In strictness, then, we ought first to 
 have demanded of her to restrain the Indians, and, that failing, we 
 should have demanded a right of passage for our army. But, if 
 the president had the power to march an army into Florida, without 
 consulting Spain, and without the authority of congress, he had no 
 power to authorize any act of hostility against her. If the gentle- 
 man had even succeeded in showing that an authority was 
 conveyed by the executive to general Jackson to take the Spanish 
 posts, he would only have established that unconstitutional orders 
 had been given, and thereby transferred the disapprobation from 
 
ON THE SEMINOLE WAR. 387 
 
 the military officer to the executive. But no such orders were, in 
 truth, given. The president acted in conformity to the constitution, 
 when he forbade the attack- of a Spanish fort, and when, in the. 
 same spirit, he surrendered the posts themselves. 
 
 I will not trespass much longer upon the time of the committee ; 
 but I trust I shall be indulged with some few reflections upon the 
 danger of permitting the conduct on which it has been my painful 
 duty to animadvert, to pass without a solemn expression of the 
 disapprobation of this house. Recall to your recollection the free 
 nations which have gone before us. "Where are they now ? 
 
 * Gone glimmering through the dream of things that were, 
 A school-boy's tale, the wonder of an hour.' 
 
 And how have they lost their liberties? If we could transport 
 ourselves back to the ages when Greece and Rome flourished in 
 their greatest prosperity, and, mingling in the throng, should ask 
 a Grecian if he did not fear that some daring military chieftain, 
 covered with glory, some Philip or Alexander, would one day 
 overthrow the liberties of his country, the confident and indignant 
 Grecian would exclaim, no! no! we have nothing to fear from our 
 heroes ; our liberties will be eternal. If a Roman citizen had been 
 asked, if he did not fear that the conqueror of Gaul might establish a 
 throne upon the ruins of public liberty, he would have instantly 
 repelled the unjust insinuation. Yet Greece fell ; Caesar passed 
 the Rubicon, and the patriotic arm even of Brutus could not 
 preserve the liberties of his devoted country! The celebrated 
 Madame de Stael, in her last and perhaps her best work, has said, 
 that in the very year, almost the very month, when the president of 
 the directory declared that monarchy would never more show its 
 frightful head in France, Bonaparte, with his grenadiers, entered 
 the palace of St. Cloud, and dispersing, with the bayonet, the 
 deputies of the people, deliberating on the affairs of the state, laid 
 the foundation of that vast fabric of despotism which overshadowed 
 all Europe. I hope not to be misunderstood ; I am far from inti- 
 mating that general Jackson cherishes any designs inimical to the 
 liberties of the country. I believe his intentions to be pure and 
 patriotic. I thank God that he would not, but I thank him still 
 more that he could not if he would, overturn the liberties of the 
 republic. But. precedents, if bad, are fraught with the most danger- 
 ous consequences. Man has been described, by some of those 
 who have treated of his nature, as a bundle of habits. The 
 definition is much truer when applied to governments. Precedents 
 are their habits. There is one important difference between the 
 formation of habits by an individual and by governments. He 
 contracts it only after frequent repetition. A single instance fixes 
 the habit and determines the direction of governments. Against 
 
388 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 the alarming doctrine of unlimited discretion in our military 
 commanders when applied even to prisoners of war, I must enter 
 my protest. It begins upon them ; it will end on us. I hope our 
 happy form of government is to be perpetual. But, if it is to be 
 preserved, it must be by the practice of virtue, by justice, by 
 moderation, by magnanimity, by greatness of soul, by keeping a 
 watchful and steady eye on the executive; and, above all, by 
 holding to a strict accountability the military branch of the public 
 force. 
 
 We are fighting a great moral battle, for the benefit not only of 
 our country, but of all mankind. The eyes of the whole world are 
 in fixed attention upon us. One, and the largest portion of it, is 
 gazing with contempt, with jealousy, and with envy; the other 
 portion, with hope, with confidence, and with affection. Every- 
 where the black cloud of legitimacy is suspended over the world, 
 save only one bright spot, which breaks out from the politi- 
 cal hemisphere of the west, to enlighten, and animate, and gladden 
 the human heart. Obscure that, by the downfall of liberty here, 
 and all mankind are enshrouded in a pall of universal darkness. 
 To you, Mr. Chairman, belongs the high privilege of transmitting, 
 unimpaired, to posterity, the fair character and liberty of our 
 country. Do you expect to execute this high trust, by trampling, 
 or suffering to be trampled down, law, justice, the constitution, and 
 the rights of the people ? by exhibiting examples of inhumanity, 
 and cruelty, and ambition ? When the minions of despotism 
 heard, in Europe, of the seizure of Pensacola, how did they 
 chuckle, and chide the admirers of our institutions, tauntingly 
 pointing to the demonstration of a spirit of injustice and aggran- 
 dizement made by our country, in the midst of an amicable 
 negotiation. Behold, said they, the conduct of those who are 
 constantly reproaching kings. You saw how those admirers were 
 astounded and hung their heads. You saw, too, when that illus- 
 trious man, who presides over us, adopted his pacific, moderate, 
 and just course, how they once more lifted up their heads with 
 exultation and delight beaming in their countenances. And 
 you saw how those minions themselves were finally compelled 
 to unite in the general praises bestowed upon our government. 
 Beware' how you forfeit this exalted character. Beware how 
 you give a fatal sanction, in this infant period of our republic, 
 scarcely yet two score years old, to military insubordination. Re- 
 member that Greece had her Alexander, Rome her Csesar, England 
 her Cromwell, France her Bonaparte, and that if we would escape 
 the rock on which they split, we must avoid their errors. 
 
 How different has been the treatment of general Jackson, and 
 that modest, but heroic young man, a native of one of the smallest 
 states in the union, who achieved for his country, on lake Erie, 
 one of the most glorious victories of the late war. In a moment 
 
ON THE SEMINOLE WAR. 389 
 
 of passion, he forgot himself, and offered an act of violence which 
 was repented of as soon as perpetrated. He was tried, and 
 suffered the judgment to be pronounced by his peers. Public 
 justice was thought not even then to be satisfied. The press and 
 congress took up the subject. My honorable friend from Virginia 
 (Mr. Johnson), the faithful and consistent sentinel of the law and 
 of the constitution, disapproved in that instance, as he does in this, 
 and moved an inquiry. The public mind remained agitated and 
 unappeased, until the recent atonement so honorably made by the 
 gallant commodore. And is there to be a distinction between the 
 officers of the two branches of the public service? Are former 
 services, however eminent, to preclude even inquiry into recent 
 misconduct ? Is there to be no limit, no prudential bounds to the 
 national gratitude ? I am not disposed to censure the president 
 for not ordering a court of inquiry, or a general court-martial. 
 Perhaps, impelled by a sense of gratitude, he determined, by 
 anticipation, to extend to the general that pardon which he had the 
 undoubted right to grant after sentence. Let us not shrink from 
 our duty. Let us assert our constitutional powers, and vindicate 
 the instrument from military violation. 
 
 I hope gentlemen will deliberately survey the awful isthmus on 
 which we stand. They may bear down all opposition ; they may 
 even vote the general the public thanks ; they may carry him 
 triumphantly through this house. But, if they do, in my humble 
 judgment, it will be a triumph of the principle of insubordination, 
 a triumph of the military over the civil authority, a triumph over 
 the powers of this house, a triumph over the constitution of the 
 land. And I pray most devoutly to Heaven, that it may not prove, 
 in its ultimate effects and consequences, a triumph over the liberties 
 of th3 people. 
 
ON SOUTH AMERICAN AFFAIRS. 
 
 IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, FEBRUARY 9, 1S19. 
 
 [The house being in committee of the whole, on the bill to increase the salaries 
 of certain officers of government, Mr. Clay rose and said :] 
 
 It had been his settled intention to renew, pending this bill, the 
 proposition which he had the honor of submitting at the last 
 session, having for its object the recognition of the independence 
 of the United Provinces of South America. He was restrained 
 from executing that intention, by two considerations; one was his 
 personal indisposition, but another and more important one, was, 
 the small portion of the session yet remaining, to transact the 
 public business. Whilst he was up, he would say, that so far 
 from his opinions, expressed on the former occasion, having under- 
 gone any change, they had been strengthened and confirmed, by 
 all the occurrences which had subsequently taken place. He had 
 been anxious, if time had permitted, to examine what appeared to 
 him very exceptionable reasons assigned for declining to recognise 
 our sister republic, in a paper entitled to the most profound respect, 
 the message of the president at the opening of congress. He was 
 desirous, also, of noticing the still more exceptionable grounds 
 taken in a paper recently transmitted to the house, from the depart- 
 ment of state (it ought to be laid on our table ; why it was not, he 
 did not know; he hoped our worthy clerk would, in his fulure 
 contract for the public printing, guard against the delay to which 
 we have so often been subjected). From that paper it appeared, 
 that even a consul could not be received from the southern republic, 
 because the grant of an exequator implied recognition ! We 
 receive her flag, we admit her commerce, and yet refuse the 
 consular protection which that flag and commerce necessarily 
 drew with them! But to submit his proposition, would be to 
 occasion, perhaps, a protracted debate. And considering the few 
 days yet left us, the pressing and urgent, though not more impor- 
 tant business yet to be done, he should not hold himself excusable 
 to the house and to the country, after having himself so materially 
 contributed to the consumption of time in debate, if he were even 
 
ON SOUTH AMERICAN AFFAIRS. 391 
 
 the unintentional instrument of preventing the passage of what 
 might be thought essential laws. He would like exceedingly to 
 contrast the objections urged against the reception of the Venezue- 
 lan minister, with the more forcible and stronger personal ones 
 that lay to the present Spanish minister. But deep as the interest 
 which he heretofore had felt and still felt, in the success of that 
 great struggle to the south, he must, for the reasons assigned, 
 forbear to press any proposition upon the house, at present. Should 
 it be necessary at another session, and should he have the honor 
 of a seat on this floor then, he pledged himself to bring up the 
 subject, unless adverse causes should render it highly inexpedient. 
 

 ON THE SPANISH TREATY. 
 
 IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, APRIL 3, 1820. 
 
 [A pkrusal of this speech will be always gratifying and instructive, to all who 
 would wish to be well informed in the political history of the United States. While 
 it shows, in a striking manner, the foresight and sagacity of Mr. Clay, as an American 
 statesman, it contains facts of much importance with regard to the settlement of the 
 southern boundaries of the United States and the acquisition of Florida. It will be 
 seen, that Mr. Clay disapproved of the treaty between this country and Spain, made 
 in 1819, by the administration of Mr. Munroe, for reasons stated in this speech, which 
 was made' before the treaty was ratified by Spain. His principal objection to the 
 treaty appears to have been, that it relinquished our claim to Texas, which territory 
 Mr. Clay considered of much greater value to us than Florida. The settlement of 
 these questions, by the subsequent ratification of the treaty, in October, 1820, by 
 which we relinquished Texas and acquired Florida, does not diminish the value of 
 this record of Mr. Clay's views on a subject, which has increased in importance since 
 the independence of both Mexico and Texas has been established.] 
 
 The house having resolved itself into a committee of the whole, 
 on the state of the union, and the following resolutions, submitted 
 some days ago by Mr. Clay (the speaker) being under consider- 
 ation : 
 
 First, resolved, that the constitution of the United States vests 
 in congress the power to dispose of the territory belonging to them ; 
 and that no treaty, purporting to alienate any portion thereof, is 
 valid without the concurrence of congress : 
 
 Second, resolved, that the equivalent proposed to be given by 
 Spain to the United States in the treaty concluded between them, 
 on the twenty-second of February, 1819, for that part of Louisiana 
 lying west of the Sabine, was inadequate ; and that it would be 
 inexpedient to make a transfer thereof to any foreign power, or to 
 renew the aforesaid treaty : 
 
 Mr. Clay said, that, whilst he felt very grateful to the house for 
 the prompt and respectful manner in which they had allowed him 
 to enter upon the discussion of the resolutions which he had the 
 honor of submitting to their notice, he must at the same time 
 frankly say, that he thought their character and consideration, in 
 the councils of this country, were concerned in not letting the 
 present session pass off without deliberating upon our affairs with 
 
ON THE SPANISH TREATY. 393 
 
 Spain. In coming to the present session of congress, it had been 
 his anxious wish to be able to concur with the executive branch 
 of the government in the measures which it might conceive itself 
 called upon to recommend on that subject, for two reasons, of 
 which the first, relating personally to himself, he would not trouble 
 the committee with further noticing. The other was, that it 
 appeared to him to be always desirable, in respect to the foreign 
 action of this government, that there should be a perfect coincidence 
 in opinion between its several coordinate branches. In time of 
 peace, however, it might be allowable, to those who are charged 
 with the public interests, to entertain and express their respective 
 views, although there might be some discordance between them. 
 In a season of war there should be no division in the public 
 councils ; but a united and vigorous exertion to bring the war to 
 an honorable conclusion. For his part, whenever that calamity 
 may befall his country, he would entertain but one wish, and that 
 is, that success might crown our struggle, and the war be honorably 
 and gloriously terminated. He would never refuse to share in the 
 joys incident to the victory of our arms, nor to participate in the 
 griefs of defeat and discomfiture. He conceded entirely in the 
 sentiment once expressed by that illustrious hero, whose recent 
 melancholy fall we all so sincerely deplore, that fortune may attend 
 our country in whatever war it may be involved. 
 
 There are two systems of policy, he said, of which our govern- 
 ment had had the choice. The first was, by appealing to the 
 justice and affections of Spain, to employ all those persuasives 
 which could arise out of our abstinence from any direct countenance 
 to the cause of South America, and the observance of a strict 
 neutrality. The other was, by appealing to her justice also, and to 
 her fears, to prevail upon her to redress the injuries of which we 
 complain — her fears by a recognition of the independent govern- 
 ments of South America, and leaving her in a state of uncertainty 
 as to the further step we might take in respect to those governments. 
 The unratified treaty was the result of the first system. It could 
 not be positively affirmed, what effect the other system would have 
 produced; but he verily believed that, whilst it rendered justice to 
 those governments, and would have better comported with that 
 magnanimous policy which ought to have characterized our own, 
 it would have more successfully tended to an amicable and 
 satisfactory arrangement of our differences with Spain. 
 
 The first system has so far failed. At the commencement of the 
 session, the president recommended an enforcement of the provis- 
 ions of the treaty. After three months' deliberation, the committee 
 of foreign affairs, not being able to concur with him, has made us 
 a report, recommending the seizure of Florida in the nature of a 
 reprisal. Now the president recommends our postponement of the 
 subject until the next session. It had been his intention j whenever 
 
 VOL* I. 60 
 
394 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 the committee of foreign affairs should engage the house to act 
 upon their bill, to offer, as a substitute for it> the system which he 
 thought it became this country to adopt, of which the occupation of 
 Texas, as our own, would have been a part, and the recognition of 
 the independent governments of South America another. If he 
 did not now bring forward this system, it was because the committee 
 proposed to withdraw their bill, and because he knew too much 
 of the temper of the house and of the executive, to think that it 
 was advisable to bring it forward. He hoped that some suitable 
 opportunity might occur during the session, for considering the 
 propriety of recognising the independent governments of South 
 America. 
 
 Whatever he might think of the discretion which was evinced in 
 recommending the postponement of the bill of the committee of 
 foreign relations, he could not think that the reasons, assigned by 
 the president for that recommendation, were entitled to the weight 
 which he had given them. He thought the house was called upon, 
 by a high sense of duty, seriously to animadvert upon some of 
 those reasons. He believed it was the first example, in the annals 
 of the country, in which a course of policy, respecting one foreign 
 power, which we must suppose had been deliberately considered, 
 has been recommended to be abandoned, in a domestic communi- 
 cation from one to another coordinate branch of the government, 
 upon the avowed ground of the interposition of foreign powers. 
 And what is the nature of this interposition ? It is evinced by a 
 cargo of scraps, gathered up from this charge d'affaires, and that ; 
 of loose conversations held with this foreign minister, and 
 that — perhaps mere levee conversations, without a commitment in 
 writing, in a solitary instance, of any of the foreign parties 
 concerned, except only in the case of his imperial majesty; and 
 what was the character of his commitment we shall presently see. 
 But, he must enter his solemn protest against this and every other 
 species of foreign interference in our matters with Spain. What 
 have they to do with them ? Would they not repel as officious 
 and insulting intrusion, any interference on our part in their concerns 
 with foreign states ? Would his imperial majesty have listened 
 with complacency, to our remonstrances against the vast acquisi- 
 tions which he has recently made ? He has lately crammed his 
 enormous maw with Finland, and with the spoils of Poland, and, 
 whilst the difficult process of digestion is going on, he throws 
 himself upon a couch, and cries out, don't, don't disturb my 
 repose. 
 
 He charges his minister here to plead the cause of peace and 
 concord! The American 'government is too enlightened' (ah! 
 sir, how sweet this unction is, which is poured down oar backs,) 
 to take hasty steps. And his imperial majesty's minister here is 
 required to engage (Mr. Clay said, he hoped the original expression 
 
ON THE SPANISH TREATY. 395 
 
 was less strong, but he believed the French word engager bore the 
 same meaning,) ' the American government,' &c. ' Nevertheless, 
 the emperor does not interpose in this discussion.' No ! not he. 
 He makes above all ' no pretension to exercise influence in the 
 councils of a foreign power.' Not the slightest. And yet, at the 
 very instant when he is protesting against the imputation of this 
 influence, his interposition is proving effectual! His imperial 
 majesty has at least manifested so far, in this particular, his 
 capacity to govern his empire, by the selection of a sagacious 
 minister. For if count Nesselrode had never written another 
 paragraph, the extract from his despatch to Mr. Poletica, which 
 has been transmitted to this house, will demonstrate that he merited 
 the confidence of his master. It is quite refreshing to read such 
 state papers, after perusing those (he was sorry to say it, he wished 
 there was a veil broad and thick enough to conceal them for ever,) 
 which this treaty had produced on the part of our government. 
 
 Conversations between my lord Castlereagh and our minister at 
 London had also been communicated to this house. Nothing 
 from the hand of his lordship is produced; no! he does not 
 commit himself in that way. The sense in which our minister 
 understood him, and the purport of certain parts of despatches 
 from the British government to its minister at Madrid, which he 
 deigned to read to our minister, are alone communicated to us. 
 Now we know very well how diplomatists, when it is their 
 pleasure to do so, can wrap themselves up in mystery. No man 
 more than my lord Castlereagh, who is also an able minister, 
 possessing much greater talents than are allowed to him generally 
 in this country, can successfully express himself in ambiguous 
 language, when he chooses to employ it. He recollected himself 
 once to have witnessed this facility, on the part of his lordship. 
 The case was this. When Bonaparte made his escape from Elba, 
 and invaded France, a great part of Europe believed it was with 
 the connivance of the British ministry. The opposition charged 
 them, in parliament, with it, and they were interrogated, to know 
 what measures of precaution they had taken against such an event. 
 Lord Castlereagh replied by stating, that there was an understand- 
 ing with a certain naval officer of high rank, commanding in the 
 adjacent seas, that he was to act on certain contingences. Now, 
 Mr. Chairman, if you can make any thing intelligible out of this 
 reply, you will have much more success than the English opposi- 
 tion had. 
 
 The allowance of interference by foreign powers in the affairs 
 of our government, not pertaining to themselves, is against the 
 councils of all our wisest politicians — those of Washington, 
 Jefferson, and he would also add those of the present chief magis- 
 trate; for, pending this very Spanish negotiation, the offer of 
 the mediation of foreign states was declined, upon the true ground, 
 
396 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 that Europe had her system, and we ours ; and that it was not 
 compatible with our policy to entangle ourselves in the labyrinths 
 of hers. But a mediation is far preferable to the species of inter- 
 ference on which it had been his reluctant duty to comment. The 
 mediator is a judge, placed on high ; his conscience his guide, the 
 world his spectators, and posterity his judge. His position is 
 one, therefore, of the greatest responsibility. But what respon- 
 sibility is attached to this sort of irregular, drawing-room, intriguing 
 interposition ? He could see no motive for«governing or influenc- 
 ing our policy, in regard to Spain, furnished in any of the 
 communications which respected the disposition of foreign powers. 
 He regretted, for his part, that they had at all been consulted. 
 There was nothing in the character of the power of Spain, nothing 
 in the beneficial nature of the stipulations of the treaty to us, which 
 warranted us in seeking the aid of foreign powers, if in any case 
 whatever that aid were desirable. He was far from saying that, 
 in the foreign action of this government, it might not be prudent 
 to keep a watchful eye upon the probable conduct of foreign 
 powers. That might be a material circumstance to be taken into 
 consideration. But he never would avow to our own people, never 
 promulgate to foreign powers, that their wishes and interference 
 were the controlling cause of our policy. Such promulgation 
 would lead to the most alarming consequences. It was to invite 
 further interposition. It might, in process of time, create in the 
 bosom of our country a Russian faction, a British faction, a French 
 faction. Every nation ought to be jealous of this species of inter- 
 ference, whatever was its form of government. But of all forms of 
 government, the united testimony of ail history, admonished a 
 republic to be most guarded against it. From the moment Philip 
 intermeddled with the affairs of Greece, the liberty of Greece was 
 doomed to inevitable destruction. 
 
 Suppose, said Mr. Clay, we could see the communications which 
 have passed between his imperial majesty and the British govern- 
 ment, respectively, and Spain, in regard to the United States; what 
 do you imagine would be their character ? Do you suppose the same 
 language has been held to Spain and to us? Do you not, on the 
 contrary, believe that sentiments have been expressed to her, consol- 
 ing to her pride ? That we have been represented, perhaps as an 
 ambitious republic, seeking to aggrandize ourselves at her expense? 
 
 In the other ground taken by the president, the present distressed 
 condition of Spain, for his recommendation of forbearance to act 
 during the present session, he was also sorry to say, that it did not 
 appear to him to be solid. He could well conceive, how the weak- 
 ness of your aggressor might, when he was withholding from you 
 justice, form a motive for your pressing your equitable demands 
 upon him ; but he could not accord in the wisdom of that policy 
 which would wait his recovery of strength, so as to enable him 
 
ON THE SPANISH TREATY. 397 
 
 successfully to resist those demands. Nor would it comport with 
 the practice of our government heretofore. Did we not, in 1811, 
 when the present monarch of Spain was an ignoble captive, and 
 the people of the peninsula were contending for the inestimable 
 privilege of self-government, seize and occupy that part of Louis- 
 iana which is situated between the Mississippi and the Perdido? 
 What must the people of Spain think of that policy which would 
 not spare them, and which commiserates alone an unworthy prince, 
 who ignominiously surrendered himself to his enemy; a vile 
 despot, of whom I cannot speak in appropriate language, without 
 departing from the respect due to this house or to myself? What 
 must the people of South America think of this sympathy for 
 Ferdinand, at a moment when they, as well as the people of the 
 peninsula, themselves, (if we are to believe the late accounts, and 
 God send that, they may be true,) are struggling for liberty ? 
 
 Again: when we declared our late just war against Great 
 Britain, did we wait for a moment when she was free from embar- 
 rassment or distress ; or did we not rather wisely select a period 
 when there was the greatest probability of giving success to our 
 arms ? What was the complaint in England; what the language 
 of faction here? Was it not, that we had cruelly proclaimed the 
 war at a time when she was struggling for the liberties of the 
 world ? How truly, let the sequel and the voice of impartial 
 history tell. 
 
 Whilst he could not, therefore, persuade himself, that the reasons 
 assigned by the president for postponing the subject of oar Spanish 
 affairs until another session, were entitled to all the weight which 
 he seemed to think belonged to them, he did not, nevertheless, 
 regret that the particular project recommended by the committee 
 of foreign relations was thus to be disposed of; for it was war — 
 war, attempted to be disguised. And if w T e went to war, he 
 thought it should have no other limit than indemnity for the past, 
 and security for the future. He had no idea of the wisdom of 
 that measure of hostility which would bind us, whilst the other 
 party is left free. 
 
 Before he proceeded to consider the particular propositions which 
 Ihe resolutions contained, which he had had the honor of submit- 
 ting, it was material to determine the actual posture of our relations 
 to Spain. He considered it too clear to need discussion, that the 
 treaty was at an end; that it contained, in its present state, no 
 obligation whatever upon us, and no obligation whatever on the 
 part of Spain. It was, as if it had never been. We are remitted 
 back to the state of our rights and our demands which existed 
 prior to the conclusion of the treaty, with this only difference, that, 
 instead of being merged in, or weakened by the treaty, they had 
 acquired all the additional force which the intervening time, and 
 the faithlessness of Spain, can communicate to them. Standing 
 
398 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 on this position, he should not deem it necessary to interfere with 
 the treaty-making power, if a fixed and persevering purpose had 
 not been indicated by it, to obtain the revival of the treaty. Now 
 he thought it a bad treaty. The interest of the country, as it 
 appeared to him, forbade its renewal. Being gone, it was perfectly 
 incomprehensible to him, why so much solicitude was manifested 
 to restore it. Yet it is clung to with the same sort of frantic affec- 
 tion with which the bereaved mother hugs her dead infant, in the 
 vain hope of bringing it back to life. 
 
 Has the house of representatives a right to express its opinion 
 upon the arrangement made in that treaty? The president, by 
 asking congress to carry it into effect, has given us jurisdiction of 
 the subject, if we had it not before. We derive from that circum- 
 stance the right to consider, first, if there be a treaty ; secondly, if 
 we ought to carry it into effect ; and, thirdly, if there be no treaty, 
 whether it be expedient to assert our rights, independent of the 
 treaty. It will not be contended that we are restricted to that 
 specific mode of redress which the president intimated in his 
 opening message. 
 
 The first resolution which he had presented, asserted, that the 
 constitution vests in the congress of the United States the power to 
 dispose of the territory belonging to them ; and that no treaty, 
 purporting to alienate any portion thereof, is valid, without the 
 concurrence of congress.* It was far from his wish to renew at 
 large a discussion of the treaty-making power. The constitution 
 of the United States had not defined the precise limits of that 
 power, because, from the nature of it, they could not be prescribed. 
 It appeared to him, however, that no safe American statesman 
 would assign to it a boundless scope. He presumed, for example, 
 that it would not be contended that in a government which was 
 itself limited, there was a functionary without limit. The first 
 great bound to the power in question, he apprehended, was, that 
 no treaty could constitutionally transcend the very objects and 
 purposes of the government itself. He thought, also, that wherever 
 there were specific grants of powers to congress, they limited and 
 controlled, or, he would rather say, modified the exercise of the 
 general grant of the treaty-making power, upon the principle which 
 was familiar to every one. He did not insist, that the treaty-making 
 power could not act upon the subjects committed to the charge of 
 congress ; he merely contended that the concurrence of congress, in 
 its action upon those subjects, was necessary. Nor would he insist, 
 that the concurrence should precede that action. It would be 
 always most desirable that it should precede it, if convenient, to 
 guard against the commitment of congress, on the one hand, by 
 
 * The proposition which it asserts was, he thought, sufficiently maintained by 
 barely reading 1 the clause in the constitution on which it rests: 'the congress shall 
 have power to dispose, &c. the territory or other property belonging to the United 
 States.' 
 
ON THE SPANISH TREATY. 399 
 
 the executive, or on the other, what might seem to be a violation 
 of the faith of the country, pledged for the ratification of the treaty. 
 But he was perfectly aware, that it would be very often highly 
 inconvenient to deliberate, in a body so numerous as congress, on 
 the nature of those terms on which it might be proper to treat with 
 foreign powers. In the view of the subject which he had been 
 taking, there was a much higher degree of security to the interests 
 of this country. For, with all respect to the president and senate, 
 it could not disparage the wisdom of their councils, to add to lhat 
 of this house also. But, if the concurrence of this house be not 
 necessary in the cases asserted, if there be no restriction upon the 
 power he was considering, it might draw to itself and absorb the 
 whole of the powers of government. To contract alliances ; to 
 stipulate for raising troops to be employed in a common war about 
 to be waged ; to grant subsidies ; even to introduce foreign troops 
 within the bosom of the country ; were not unfrequent instances of 
 the exercise of this power; and if, in all such cases, the honor and 
 faith of the nation were committed, by the exclusive act of the 
 president and senate, the melancholy duty alone might be left to 
 congress of recording the ruin of the republic* 
 
 Supposing, however, that no treaty, which undertakes to dispose 
 of the territory of the United States, is valid, without the concurrence 
 of congress, it may be contended, that such treaty may constitution- 
 ally fix the limits of the territory of the United States, where they 
 are disputed, without the cooperation of congress. He admitted it, 
 when the fixation of the limits simply was the object. As in the 
 case of the river St. Croix, or the more recent stipulation in the treaty 
 of Ghent, or in that of the treaty of Spain in 1795. In all these cases, 
 the treaty-making power merely reduces to certainty that which 
 was before unascertained. It announces the fact; it proclaims, in a 
 tangible form, the existence of the boundary. It does not make a 
 new boundary; it asserts only w T here the old boundary was. But 
 it cannot, under color of fixing a boundary previously existing, 
 though not in fact marked, undertake to cede away, without the 
 concurrence of congress, whole provinces. If the subject be one of 
 a mixed character, if it consists partly of cession, and partly of the 
 fixation of a prior limit, he contended that the president must come 
 here for the consent of congress. But in the Florida treaty it was 
 not pretended that the object was simply a declaration of where the 
 western limit of Louisiana was. It was, on the contrary, the case 
 
 * The house of representatives has uniformly maintained its right to deliherate 
 upon those treaties, in which their cooperation was asked by the executive Tn the 
 first case that occurred in the operation of our government, that of the treaty commonly 
 called Mr. Jay's treaty, after general Washington refused to communicate his instruc- 
 tions to that minister, the house asserted its rights, by fifty odd votes to thirty odd. 
 In the last case that occurred, the convention in 1815 with Great Britain, although it 
 passed off upon what was called a compromise, this house substantially obtained its 
 object; for. if that convention operated as a repeal of the laws with which it was 
 incompatible, the act which passed was altogether unnecessary. 
 
400 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 of an avowed cession of territory from the United States to Spain. 
 The whole of ihe correspondence manifested that the respective 
 parties to the negotiation were not engaged so much in an inquiry 
 where the limit of Louisiana was, as that they were exchanging 
 overtures as to where it should be. Hence, we find various limits 
 proposed and discussed. At one time the Mississippi is proposed; 
 then the Missouri; then a river discharging itself into the gulf east 
 of the Sabine. A vast desert is proposed to separate the territories 
 of the two powers ; and finally the Sabine, which neither of the 
 parties had ever contended was the ancient limit of Louisiana, is 
 adopted, and the boundary is extended from its source by a line 
 perfectly new and arbitrary ; and the treaty itself proclaims its 
 purpose to be a cession from the United States to Spain. 
 
 The second resolution comprehended three propositions; the 
 first of which was, that the equivalent granted by Spain to the 
 United States, for the province of Texas, was inadequate. To 
 determine this, it was necessary to estimate the value of what 
 we gave, and of what we received. This involved an inquiry into 
 our claim to Texas. It was not his purpose to enter at large into 
 this subject. He presumed the spectacle would not be presented 
 of questioning, in this branch of the government, our title to 
 Texas, which had been constantly maintained by the executive for 
 more than fifteen years past, under three several administrations. 
 He was, at the same time, ready and prepared to make out our 
 title, if any one in the house were fearless enough to controvert it. 
 He would, for the present, briefly state, that the man who is most 
 familiar with the transactions of this government, who largely 
 participated in the formation of our constitution, and all that has 
 been done under it, who, besides the eminent services that he has 
 rendered his country, principally contributed to the acquisition of 
 Louisiana, who must be supposed, from his various opportunities, 
 best to know its limits, declared, fifteen years ago, that our title to 
 the Rio del Norte was as well founded as it was to the island of 
 New Orleans. [Here Mr. Clay read an extract from a memoir 
 presented in 1805, by Mr. iMonroe and Mr. Pinckney, to Mr. 
 Cevallos, proving that the boundary of Louisiana extended east- 
 ward to the Perdido, and westward to the Rio del Norte, in which 
 they say, 'the facts and principles which justify this conclusion, 
 are so satisfactory to their government as to convince it, that the 
 United States have not a better right to the island of New Orleans, 
 under the cession referred to, than they have to the whole district of 
 territory thus described.'] The title to the Perdido on the one side, 
 and to the Rio del Norte on the other, rested on the same principle 
 — the priority of discovery and of occupation by France. Spain 
 had first discovered and made an establishment at Pensacola ; 
 France at Dauphine island, in the bay of Mobile. The interme- 
 diate space was unoccupied; and ihe principle observed among 
 European nations having contiguous settlements^ beings that the 
 
ON THE SPANISH TREATY. 401 
 
 unoccupied space between them should be equally divided, was 
 applied to it, and the Perdido thus became the common boundary. 
 So, west of the Mississippi, La Salle, acting under France, in 
 1682 or 3, first discovered that river. In 1685, he made an estab- 
 lishment on the bay of St. Bernard, west of the Colorado, emptying 
 into it. The nearest Spanish settlement was Panuco; and the 
 Rio del Norte, about the midway line, became the common boun- 
 dary. 
 
 All the accounts concurred in representing Texas to be extremely 
 valuable. Its superficial extent was three or four times greater 
 than that of Florida. The climate was delicious; the soil fertile; 
 the margins of the rivers abounding in live oak; and the conn- 
 try admitting of easy settlement. It. possessed, moreover, if he 
 were not misinformed, one of the finest ports in the Gulf of 
 Mexico. The productions of which it was capable were suited to 
 our wants. The unfortunate captive of St. Helena wished for 
 ships, commerce, and colonies. We have them all, if we do not 
 wantonly throw them away. The colonies of other countries are 
 separated from them by vast seas, requiring great expense to 
 protect them, and are held subject to a constant risk of their being 
 torn from their grasp. Our colonies, on the contrary, are united to 
 and form a part of our continent; and the same Mississippi, from 
 whose rich deposit the best of them (Louisiana) has been formed, 
 will transport on her bosom the brave, the patriotic men from her 
 tributary streams, to defend and preserve the next most valuable, 
 the province of Texas. 
 
 We wanted Florida, or rather we shall want it ; or, to speak 
 more correctly, we want no body else to have it. We do not desire 
 it for immediate use. It fills a space in our imagination, and we 
 wish it to complete the arrondissement of our territory. It must 
 certainly come to us. . The ripened fruit will not more surely fall. 
 Florida is enclosed in between Alabama and Georgia, and cannot 
 escape. Texas may. Whether we get Florida now, or some five 
 or ten years hence, it is of no consequence, provided no other 
 power gets it; and if any other power should attempt to take it, 
 an existing act of congress authorizes the president to prevent it. 
 He was not disposed to disparage Florida, but its intrinsic value 
 was incomparably less than that of Texas. Almost its sole value 
 was military. The possession of it would undoubtedly communi- 
 cate some additional security to Louisiana, and to the American 
 commerce in the Gulf of Mexico But it was not very essential 
 to have it for protection to Georgia and Alabama. There could 
 be no attack upon either of them, by a foreign power, on the side 
 of Florida. It now covered those states. Annexed to the United 
 States, and we should have to extend our line of defence so as to 
 embrace Florida. Far from being, therefore, a source of immediate 
 profit, it would be the occasion of considerable immediate expense* 
 Von i. 61 
 
402 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 The acquisition of it was certainly a fair object of our policy ; and 
 ought never to be lost sight of. It is even a laudable ambition, in 
 any chief magistrate, to endeavor to illustrate the epoch of his 
 administration, by such an acquisition. It was less necessary, 
 however, to fill the measure of honors of the present chief magis- 
 trate, than that of any other man, in consequence of the large share 
 which he had in obtaining all Louisiana. But, whoever may 
 deserve the renown which may attend the incorporation of Florida 
 into our confederacy, it is our business, as the representatives of 
 that people who are to pay the price of it, to take care, as far as we 
 constitutionally can, that too much is not given. He would not 
 give Texas for Florida in a naked exchange. We were bound by 
 the treaty to give not merely Texas, but five millions of dollars, 
 also, and the excess beyond that sum of all our claims upon Spain, 
 which have been variously estimated at from fifteen to twenty 
 millions of dollars ! 
 
 The public is not generally apprized of another large consideration 
 which passed from us to Spain ; if an interpretation which he had 
 heard given to the treaty were just; and it certainly was plausible. 
 Subsequent to the transfer, but before the delivery of Louisiana 
 from Spain to France, the then governor of New Orleans (he 
 believed his name was Gayoso) made a number of concessions, 
 upon the payment of an inconsiderable pecuniary consideration, 
 amounting to between nine hundred thousand and a million acres 
 of land, similar to those recently made at Madrid io the royal 
 favorites. This land is situated in Feliciana, and between the 
 Mississippi and the Amite, in the present state of Louisiana. It 
 was granted to persons who possessed the very best information 
 of the country, and is no doubt, therefore, the choice land. The 
 United States have never recognised, but have constantly denied 
 the validity of these concessions. It is contended by the parties 
 concerned, that they are confirmed by the late treaty. By the 
 second article his catholic majesty cedes to the United States, in 
 full property and sovereignty, all the territories which belong to 
 him, situated to the eastward of the Mississippi, known by the 
 name of East and West Florida. And by the eighth article, all 
 grants of land made before the twenty-fourth of January, 1818, by 
 his catholic majesty, or by his lawful authorities, shall be ratified 
 and confirmed, &c. Now, the grants in question having been 
 made long prior to that day, are supposed to be confirmed. He 
 understood from a person interested, that don Onis had assured 
 him it was his intention to confirm them. Whether the American 
 negotiator had the same intention or not, he did not know. It 
 will not be pretended, that the letter of Mr. Adams, of the twelfth 
 of March, 1818, in which he declines to treat any further with 
 respect to any part of the territory included within the limits of the 
 state of Louisiana, can control the operation of the subsequent 
 treaty. That treaty must be interpreted by what is in it, and not 
 
ON THE, SPANISH TREATY. 403 
 
 by what is out of it. The overtures which passed between the 
 parties respectively, prior to the conclusion of the treaty, can neither 
 restrict nor enlarge its meaning. Moreover, when Mr. Madison 
 occupied, in 1811, the country between the Mississippi and the 
 Perdido, he declared, that in our hands it should be, as it has been, 
 subject to negotiation. 
 
 It results, then, that we have given for Florida, charged and 
 incumbered as it is, 
 
 First, unincumbered Texas ; 
 
 Secondly, five millions of dollars ; 
 
 Thirdly, a surrender of all our claims upon Spain, not included 
 in that five millions ; and, 
 
 Fourthly, if the interpretation of the treaty which he had stated 
 were well founded, about a million of acres of the best unseated 
 land in the state of Louisiana, worth perhaps ten millions of 
 dollars. 
 
 The first proposition contained in the second resolution, was 
 thus, he thought, fully sustained. The next was, that it was inex- 
 pedient to cede Texas to any foreign power. They constituted, in 
 his opinion, a sacred inheritance of posterity, w T hich we ought to 
 preserve unimpaired. He wished it was, if it were not, a funda- 
 mental and inviolable law of the land, that they should be 
 inalienable to any foreign power. It was quite evident, that it 
 was in the order of providence ; that it was an inevitable result of 
 the principle of population, that the whole of this continent, 
 including Texas, was to be peopled in process of time. The 
 question was, by whose race shall it be peopled ? In our hands it 
 will be peopled by freemen, and the sons of freemen, carrying 
 with them our language, our laws, and our liberties ; establishing, 
 on the prairies of Texas, temples dedicated to the simple, and 
 devout modes of worship of God, incident to our religion, and 
 temples dedicated to that freedom which we adore next to Him. 
 In the hands of others, it may become the habitation of despotism 
 and of slaves, subject to the vile dominion of the inquisition and 
 of superstition. He knew that there were honest and enlightened 
 men, who feared that our confederacy was already too large, and 
 that there was danger of disruption, arising out of the want of 
 reciprocal coherence between its several parts. He hoped and 
 believed, that the principle of representation, and the formation of 
 states, would preserve us a united people. But if Texas, after 
 being peopled by us, and grappling with us, should, at some distant 
 day, break off, she will carry along with her a noble crew, consist- 
 ing of our children's children. The difference between those who 
 might be disinclined to its annexation to our confederacy, and him, 
 was, that their system began where his might, possibly, in some 
 distant future day, terminate; and their's began with a foreign 
 race, aliens to every thing that we hold dear, and his ended with a 
 race partaking of all our qualities. 
 
404 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 The last proposition which the second resolution affirms, is, that 
 it is inexpedient to renew the treaty. If Spain had promptly 
 ratified it, bad as it is, he would have acquiesced in it. Alter the 
 protracted negotiation which it terminated ; after the irritating and 
 exasperating correspondence which preceded it, he would have 
 taken the treaty as a man who has passed a long and restless 
 night, turning and tossing in his bed, snatches at day an hour's 
 disturbed repose. But she would not ratify it; she would not 
 consent to be bound by it ; and she has liberated us from it. Is it 
 wise to renew the negotiation, if it is to be recommenced, by 
 announcing to her at once our ultimatum? Shall we not give 
 her the vantage ground? In early life he had sometimes indulged 
 in a species of amusement, which years and experience had 
 determined him 1o renounce, which, if the committee would allow 
 him to use it, furnished him with a figure — shall we enter on the 
 game, with our hand exposed to the adversary, whilst he shuffles 
 the cards to acquire more strength ? What has lost us his ratifica- 
 tion of the treaty ? Incontestably, our importunity to procure the 
 ratification, and the hopes which that importunity inspired, that he 
 could yet obtain more from us. Let us undeceive him. Let us 
 proclaim the acknowledged truth, that the treaty is prejudicial to 
 the interests of this country. Are we not told, by the secretary of 
 state, in the bold and confident assertion, that don Onis was 
 authorized to grant us muck more, and that Spain dare not deny 
 his instructions? The line of demarcation is /or within his limits? 
 If she would have then granted us more, is her position now more 
 favorable to her in the negotiation ? In our relations to foreign 
 powers, it may be sometimes politic to sacrifice a portion of our 
 rights to secure the residue. But is Spain such a power, as that it 
 becomes us to sacrifice those rights ? Is she entitled to it by her 
 justice, by her observance of good faith, or by her possible annoy- 
 ance of us in the event of war? She will seek, as she has sought, 
 procrastination in the negotiation, taking the treaty as the basis. 
 She will dare to offend us, as she has insulted us, by asking the 
 disgraceful stipulation, that we shall not recognise the patriots. 
 Let us put aside the treaty; tell her to grant us our rights, to their 
 uttermost extent. And if she still palters, let us assert those rights 
 by whatever measures it is for the interest of our country to adopt. 
 
 If the treaty were abandoned; if we were not on the contrary 
 signified, too distinctly, that there was to be a continued and unre- 
 mitting endeavor to obtain its revival; he would not think it 
 advisable for this house to interpose. But, with all the information 
 in our possession, and holding the opinions which he entertained, 
 he thought it the bounden duty of the house to adopt the resolu- 
 tions. He had acquitted himself of what he deemed a solemn 
 duty, in bringing up the subject. Others would discharge their's, 
 according to their own sense of them. 
 
ON THE PROTECTION OF HOME INDUSTRY. 
 
 IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, APRIL 26, 1820. 
 
 [ On the twenty-second of March, Mr. Baldwin, of Pennsylvania, from the com- 
 mittee on manufactures, reported a tariff bill, embracing provisions of great importance, 
 particularly as a measure of protection to home industry, and the same being under 
 consideration in committee of the whole, Mr. Clay (speaker) renewed his efforts in 
 support of the American system, in the following speech. The bill passed the house 
 by a vote of ninety to sixty-nine, but was postponed in the senate twenty-two to 
 twenty-one.] 
 
 Mr. Chairman, 
 
 Whatever may be the value of my opinions on the interesting 
 subject now before us, they have not been hastily formed. It may 
 possibly be recollected by some gentlemen, that I expressed them 
 when the existing tariff was adopted; and that I ihen urged, that 
 the period of t.he termination of the war, during which the manu- 
 facturing industry of the country had received a powerful spring, 
 was precisely that period when government was alike impelled, by 
 duty and interest, to protect it against the free admission of foreign 
 fabrics, consequent upon a state of peace. I insisted, on that 
 occasion, that a less measure of protection would prove more 
 efficacious, at that time, than one of greater extent at a fulure day. 
 My wishes prevailed only in part; and we are now called upon to 
 decide whether we will correct the error which, I think, we then 
 committed. 
 
 In considering the subject, the first important inquiry that we 
 should make is, whether it be desirable that such a portion of the 
 capital and labor of the country should be employed in the busi- 
 ness of manufacturing, as would furnish a supply of our necessary 
 wants ? Since the first colonization of America, the principal 
 direction of the labor and capital of the inhabitants, has been to 
 produce raw materials for the consumption or fabrication of foreign 
 nations. We have always had, in great abundance, the means of 
 subsistence, but we have derived chiefly from other countries our 
 clothes, and the instruments of defence. Except during ihose 
 interruptions of commerce arising from a state of war, or from 
 measures adopted for vindicating our commercial rights, we have 
 
406 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 experienced no very great inconvenience heretofore from this mode 
 of supply. , The limited amount of our surplus produce, resulting 
 from the smallness of our numbers, and the long and arduous 
 convulsions of Europe, secured us good markets for that surplus 
 in her ports, or those of her colonies. But those convulsions have 
 now ceased, and our population has reached nearly ten millions. 
 A new epoch has arisen ; and it becomes us deliberately to con- 
 template our own actual condition, and the relations which are 
 likely to exist between us and the other parts of the world. The 
 actual state of our population, and the ratio of its progressive 
 increase, when compared with the ratio of the increase of the 
 population of the countries which have hitherto consumed our raw- 
 produce, seem, to me, alone to demonstrate the necessity of divert- 
 ing some portion of our industry from its accustomed channel. We 
 double our population in about the term of twenty-five years. If 
 there be no change in the mode of exerting our industry, we shall 
 double, during the same term, the amount of our exportable 
 produce. Europe, including such of her colonies as we have free 
 access to, taken altogether, does not duplicate her population in a 
 shorter term, probably, than one hundred years. The ratio of the 
 increase of her capacity of consumption, therefore, is, to that of 
 our capacity of production, as one is to four. And it is manifest, 
 from the simple exhibition of the powers of the consuming 
 countries, compared with those of the supplying country, that the 
 former are inadequate to the latter, It is certainly true, that a 
 portion of the mass of our raw produce, which we transmit to her, 
 reverts to us in a fabricated form, and that this return augments 
 with our increasing population. This is, however, a very incon- 
 siderable addition to her actual ability to afford a market for the 
 produce of our industry. 
 
 I believe that we are already beginning to experience the want 
 of capacity in Europe to consume our surplus produce. Take the 
 articles of cotton, tobacco, and bread-stuffs. For the latter we 
 have scarcely any foreign demand. And is there not reason to 
 believe, that we have reached, if we have not passed, the maximum 
 of the foreign demand for the other two articles? Considerations 
 connected with the cheapness of cotton, as a raw material, and the 
 facility with which it can be fabricated, will probably make it to be 
 more and more used as a substitute for other materials. But, after 
 you allow to the demand for it the utmost extension of which it is 
 susceptible, it is yet quite limited — limited by the number of 
 persons who use it, by their wants and their ability to supply them. 
 If we have not reached, therefore, the maximum of the foreign 
 demand, (as I believe we have,) we must soon fully satisfy it. With 
 respect to tobacco, that article affording an enjoyment not neces- 
 sary, as food and clothes are, to human existence, the foreign demand 
 for it is still more precarious, and I apprehend that we have already 
 
ON PROTECTION OF HOME INDUSTRY. 407 
 
 passed its limits. It appears to me, then, that, if we consult our 
 interest merely, we ought to encourage home manufactures. But 
 there are other motives to recommend it, of not less importance. 
 
 The wants of man may be classed under three heads ; food, 
 raiment, and defence. They are felt alike in the state of barbarism 
 and of civilization. He must be defended against the ferocious beasts 
 of prey in the one condition, and against the ambition, violence, 
 and injustice, incident to the other. If he seeks to obtain a supply 
 of those wants without giving an equivalent, he is a beggar or a 
 robber; if by promising an equivalent which he cannot give, he is 
 fraudulent; and if by commerce, in which there is perfect free- 
 dom on his side, whilst he meets with nolhing but restrictions on 
 the other, he submits to an unjust and degrading inequality. What 
 is true of individuals is equally so of nations. The counlry, then, 
 which relies upon foreign nations for either of those great essentials, 
 is not, in fact, independent. Nor is it any consolation for our 
 dependence upon other nations, that they are also dependent upon 
 us, even were it true. Every nation should anxiously endeavor to 
 establish its absolute independence, and consequently be able to feed, 
 and clothe, and defend itself. If it. rely upon a foreign supply, thai 
 may be cut off by the caprice of the nation yielding it, by war with 
 it, or even by war with other nations, it cannot be independent. 
 But it is not true, that any other nations depend upon us in a 
 degree any thing like equal to that of our dependence upon ihem for 
 the great necessaries to which I have referred. Every other nation 
 seeks to supply itself with them from its own resources ; and, so 
 strong is the desire which they feel to accomplish this purpose, that 
 they exclude the cheaper foreign article, for the dearer home 
 production. Witness the English policy in regard to corn. So 
 selfish, in this respect, is the conduct of other powers, that, in some 
 instances, they even prohibit the produce of the industry of their 
 own colonies, when it comes into competition wilh the produce of 
 the parent country. All other countries but our own, exclude by 
 high duties, or absolute prohibitions, whatever they can respectively 
 produce within themselves. The truth is, and it is in vain to 
 disguise it, that we are a sort of independent colonies of England 
 — politically free, commercially slaves. Gentlemen tell us of the 
 advantages of a free exchange of the produce of the world. But 
 they tell us of what has never existed, does not exist, and perhaps 
 never will exist. They invoke us to give perfect freedom on our 
 side, whilst, in the ports of every other nation, we are met with a 
 code of odious restrictions, shutting out entirely a great part of our 
 produce, and letting in only so much as they cannot possibly do 
 without. I will hereafter examine their favorite maxim, of leaving 
 things to themselves, more particularly. At present, I will only say 
 th it I too am a friend to free trade, but it must be a free trade of 
 perfect reciprocity. If the governing consideration were cheapness ; 
 
408 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 if national independence were to weigh nothing ; if honor nothing; 
 why not subsidize foreign powers to defend us? why not hire 
 Swiss or Hessian mercenaries to protect us ? why not get our arms 
 of all kinds, as we do in part, the blankets and clothing of our 
 soldiers, from abroad ? We should probably consult economy by 
 these dangerous expedients. 
 
 But, say gentlemen, 1 here are to the manufacturing system some 
 inherent objections, which should induce us to avoid its introduc- 
 tion into this country ; and we are warned by the example of 
 England, by her pauperism, by the vices of her population, her 
 wars, and so forth. It would be a strange order of Providence, if 
 it were true, that he should create necessary and indispensable 
 wants, and yet should render us unable to supply them without 
 the degradation or contamination of our species. 
 
 Pauperism is, in general, the effect of an overflowing population. 
 Manufactures may undoubtedly produce a redundant population ; 
 but so may commerce, and so may agriculture. In this respect they 
 are alike ; and from whatever cause the disproportion of a popula- 
 tion to the subsisting faculty of a country may proceed, its effect of 
 pauperism is the same. Many parts of Asia would exhibit, perhaps, 
 as afflicting effects of an extreme prosecution of the agricultural 
 system, as England can possibly furnish, respecting the manufac- 
 turing. It is not, however, fair to argue from these extreme cases, 
 against either the one system or the other. There are abuses 
 incident to every branch of industry, to every profession. It would 
 not be thought very just or wise to arraign the honorable profes- 
 sions of law and physic, because the one produces the pettifogger, 
 and the other the quack. Even in England it has been estab- 
 lished, by the diligent search of Colquhoun, from the most authentic 
 evidence, the judicial records of the country, that the instances of 
 crime were much more numerous in the agricultural than in the 
 manufacturing districts; thus proving that the cause of wretch- 
 edness and vice in that country was to be sought for, not in this or 
 that system, so much as in the fact of the density of its popula- 
 tion. France resembles this country more than England, in respect 
 to the employments of her population ; and we do not find that 
 there is any thing in the condition of the manufacturing portion 
 of it, which ought to dissuade us from the introduction of it into 
 our own country. But. even France has not that great security 
 against the abuses of the manufacturing system, against the effects 
 of too great a density of population, which we possess in our 
 waste lands. While this resource exists, we have nothing to 
 apprehend. Do capitalists give too low wages ; are the laborers 
 too crowded, and in danger of starving? the unsettled lands will 
 draw off* the redundancy, and leave the others better provided for. 
 If an unsettled province, such as Texas, for example, could, by 
 some convulsion of nature, be wafted alongside of^and attached to, 
 
ON PROTECTION OF HOME INDUSTRY. 409 
 
 the island of Great Britain, the instantaneous effect would be, to 
 draw off the redundant portion of the population, and to render 
 more comfortable both the emigrants and those whom they would 
 leave behind. I am aware, that while the public domain is an 
 acknowledged security against the abuses of the manufacturing, or 
 any other system, it constitutes, at the same time, an impediment, 
 in the opinion of some, to the success of manufacturing industry, 
 by its tendency to prevent the reduction of the wages of labor. 
 Those who urge this objection have their eyes too much fixed on 
 the ancient system of manufacturing, when manual labor was the 
 principal instrument which it employed. During the last half 
 century, since the inventions of Arkwright, and the long train of 
 improvements which followed, the labor of machinery is principally 
 used. I have understood, from sources of information which I 
 believe to be accurate, that the combined force of all the machinery 
 employed by Great Britain, in manufacturing, is equal to the labor 
 of one hundred millions of able-bodied men. If we suppose the 
 aggregate of the labor of all the individuals which she employs 
 in that branch of industry to be equal to the united labor of two 
 millions of able-bodied men, (and I should think it does not 
 exceed it,) machine labor will stand to manual labor, in the propor- 
 tion of one hundred to two. There cannot be a doubt that we 
 have skill and enterprise enough to command the requisite amount 
 of machine power. 
 
 There are, too, some checks to emigration from the settled parts 
 of our country to the waste lands of the west. Distance is one, 
 and it is every day becoming greater and greater. There exists, 
 also, a natural repugnance (felt less, it is true, in the United States 
 than elsewhere, but felt even here,) to abandoning the place of our 
 nativity. Women and children, who could not migrate, and who 
 would be comparatively idle if manufactures did not exist, may be 
 profitably employed in them. This is a very great benefit. I 
 witnessed the advantage resulting from the employment of this 
 description of our population, in a visit which I lately made to the 
 Waltham manufactory, near Boston. There, some hundreds of 
 girls and boys were occupied in separate apartments. The greatest 
 order, neatness, and apparent comfort, reigned throughout the 
 whole establishment. The daughters of respectable farmers, in 
 one instance, I remember, the daughter of a senator in the state 
 legislature, were usefully employed. They would come down to 
 the manufactory, remain perhaps some months, and return, with 
 their earnings, to their families, to assist them throughout the year. 
 But one instance had occurred, I was informed by the intelligent 
 manager, of doubtful conduct on the part of any of the females, 
 and, after she was dismissed, there was reason to believe that 
 injustice had been done her. Suppose that establishment to be 
 destroyed, what would become of all the persons who are there 
 vol. i. 52 
 
410 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 engaged so beneficially to themselves, and so usefully to the state ? 
 Can it be doubted that, if the crowds of little mendicant boys and 
 girls who infest this edifice, and assail us, every day, at its very 
 thresholds, as we come in and go out, begging for a cent, were 
 employed in some manufacturing establishment, it would be better 
 for them and the city ? Those who object to the manufacturing 
 system should recollect, that constant occupation is the best security 
 for innocence and virtue, and that idleness is the parent of vice and 
 crime. They should contemplate the laboring poor with employ- 
 ment, and ask themselves what would be their condition without 
 it. If there are instances of hard taskmasters among the manufac- 
 turers, so also are there in agriculture. The cause is to be sought 
 for, not in the nature of this or that system, but in the nature of 
 man. If there are particular species of unhealthy employment in 
 manufactures, so there are in agriculture also. There has been 
 an idle attempt to ridicule the manufacturing system, and we 
 have heard the expression, ' spinning-jenny tenure.' It is one of 
 the noblest inventions of human skill. It has diffused comforts 
 among thousands who, without it, would never have enjoyed them ; 
 and millions yet unborn will bless the man by whom it was 
 invented. Three important inventions have distinguished the last 
 half century, each of which, if it had happened at long intervals of 
 time from the other, would have been sufficient to constitute an 
 epoch in the progress of the useful arts. The first was that of 
 Arkwright ; and our own country is entitled to the merit of the 
 other two. The world is indebted to Whitney for the one, and 
 to Fulton for the other. Nothing is secure against the shafts of 
 ridicule. What would be thought of a man who should speak of 
 a cotton-gin tenure, or a steamboat tenure ? 
 
 In one respect there is a great difference in favor of manufac- 
 tures, when compared with agriculture. It is the rapidity with 
 which the whole manufacturing community avail themselves of an 
 improvement. It is instantly communicated and put in operation. 
 There is an avidity for improvement in the one system, an aver- 
 sion to it in the other. The habits of generation after generation 
 pass down the long track of time in perpetual succession without 
 the slightest change in agriculture. The ploughman who fastens 
 his plough to the tails of his cattle, will not own that there is any 
 other mode equal to his. An agricultural people will be in the 
 neighborhood of other communities, who have made the greatest 
 progress in husbandry, without advancing in the slightest degree. 
 Many parts of our country are one hundred years in advance of 
 Sweden in the cultivation and improvement of the soil. 
 
 It is objected, that the effect of the encouragement of home 
 manufactures, by the proposed tariff, will be, to diminish the 
 revenue from the customs The amount of the revenue from that 
 source will depend upon the amount of importations, and the 
 
ON PROTECTION OF HOME INDUSTRY. 411 
 
 measure of these will be the value of the exports from this country. 
 The quantity of the exportable produce will depend upon the 
 foreign demand ; and there can be no doubt that, under any dis- 
 tribution of the labor and capital of this country, from the greater 
 allurements which agriculture presents than any other species of 
 industry, there would be always a quantity of its produce sufficient 
 to satisfy that demand. If there be a diminution in the ability of 
 foreign nations to consume our raw produce, in the proportion of 
 our diminished consumption of theirs, under the operation of this 
 system, that will be compensated by the substitution of a home for 
 a foreign market, in the same proportion. It is true, that we cannot 
 remain in the relation of seller, only to foreign powers, for any 
 length of time; but if, as I have no doubt, our agriculture will 
 continue to supply, as far as it can profitably, to the extent of the 
 limits of foreign demand, we shall receive not only in return many 
 of the articles on which the tariff operates, for our own consumption, 
 but they may also form the objects of trade with South America 
 and other powers, and our comforts may be multiplied by the 
 importation of other articles. Diminished consumption, in conse- 
 quence of the augmentation of duties, does not necessarily imply 
 diminished revenue. The increase of the duty may compensate 
 the decrease in the consumption, and give you as large a revenue 
 as you before possessed. 
 
 Can any one doubt the impolicy of government resting solely 
 upon the precarious resource of such a revenue ? It is constantly 
 fluctuating. It tempts us, by its enormous amount, at one time, 
 into extravagant expenditure ; and we are then driven, by its sudden 
 and unexpected depression, into the opposite extreme. We are 
 seduced by its flattering promises into expenses which we might 
 avoid ; and we are afterwards constrained by its treachery, to avoid 
 expenses which we ought to make. It is a system under which 
 there is a sort of perpetual war, between the interest of the govern- 
 ment and the interest of the people. Large importations fill the 
 coffers of government, and empty the pockets of the people. Small 
 importations imply prudence on the part of the people, and leave 
 Ihe treasury empty. In war, the revenue disappears ; in peace it 
 is unsteady. On such a system the government will not be able 
 much longer exclusively to rely. We all anticipate that we shall 
 have shortly to resort to some additional supply of revenue within 
 ourselves. I was opposed to the total repeal of the internal revenue. 
 I would have preserved certain parts of it at least, to be ready for 
 emergences such as now exist. And I am, for one, ready to 
 exclude foreign spirits altogether, and substitute for the revenue 
 levied on them a tax upon the spirits made within the country. 
 No other nation lets in so much of foreign spirits as we do. By 
 the encouragement of home industry, you will lay a basis of 
 internal taxation, when it gets strong, that will be steady and 
 
412 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 uniform, yielding alike in peace and in war. We do not derive 
 our ability from abroad, to pay taxes. That depends upon our 
 wealth and our industry ; and it is the same, whatever may be the 
 form of levying the public contributions. 
 
 But it is urged, that you tax other interests of the state to sustain 
 manufacturers. The business of manufacturing, if encouraged, 
 will be open to all. It is not for the sake of the particular indi- 
 viduals who may happen to be engaged in it, that we propose to 
 foster it ; but it is for the general interest. We think that it is 
 necessary to the comfort and well-being of society, that fabrication, 
 as well as the business of production and distribution, should be 
 supported and taken care of. Now, if it be even true, that the 
 price of the home fabric will be somewhat higher, in the first 
 instance, than the rival foreign articles, that consideration ought 
 not to prevent our extending reasonable protection to the home 
 fabric. Present temporary inconvenience may be well submitted 
 to for the sake of future permanent benefit. If the experience of 
 all other countries be not utterly fallacious ; if the promises of the 
 manufacturing system be not absolutely illusory; by the compe- 
 tition which will be elicited in consequence of your parental care, 
 prices will be ultimately brought down to a level with that of the 
 foreign commodity. Now, in a scheme of policy which is devised 
 for a nation, we should not limit our views to its operation during 
 a single year, or for even a short term of years. We should look 
 at its operation for a considerable time, and in war as well as in 
 peace. Can there be a doubt, thus contemplating it, that we shall 
 be compensated by the certainly and steadiness of the supply in 
 all seasons, and the ultimate reduction of the price for any tempo- 
 rary sacrifices we make ? Take the example of salt, which the 
 ingenious gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Archer) has adduced. 
 He says, during the war, the price of that article rose to ten dollars 
 per bushel, and he asks if you would lay a duty, permanent in its 
 duration, of three dollars per bushel, to secure a supply in war. 
 I answer, no, I would not lay so high a duty. That which is now 
 proposed, for the encouragement of the domestic production, is 
 only five cents per bushel. In forty years the duty would amount 
 only to two dollars. If the recurrence of war shall be only after 
 intervals of forty years' peace, (and we may expect it probably 
 oftener,) and if, when it does come, the same price should again be 
 given, there will be a clear saving of eight dollars, by promoting 
 the domestic fabrication. All society is an affair of mutual con- 
 cession. If we expect to derive the benefits which are incident to 
 it, we must sustain our reasonable share of burdens. The great 
 interests which it is intended to guard and cherish, must be sup- 
 ported by their reciprocal action and reaction. The harmony of 
 its parts is disturbed, the discipline which is necessary to its order 
 is incomplete, when one of the three great and essential branches 
 
ON PROTECTION OF HOME INDUSTRY. 413 
 
 of its industry is abandoned and unprotected. If you want to find 
 an example of order, of freedom from debt, of economy, of expen- 
 diture falling below rather than exceeding income, you will go to 
 the well-regulated family of a farmer. You will go to the house 
 of such a man as Isaac Shelby ; you will not find him haunting 
 taverns, engaged in broils, prosecuting angry lawsuits ; you will 
 behold every member of his family clad with the produce of their 
 own hands, and usefully employed ; the spinning-wheel and the 
 loom in motion by day-break. With what pleasure will his wife 
 carry you into her neat dairy, lead you into her store-house, and point 
 you to the table-cloths, the sheets, the counterpanes which lie on 
 this shelf for one daughter, or on that for another, all prepared in 
 advance by her provident care for the day of their respective 
 marriages. If you want to see an opposite example, go to the 
 house of a man who manufactures nothing at home, whose family 
 resorts to the store for every thing they consume. You will find 
 him perhaps in the tavern, or at the shop at the cross-roads. He 
 is engaged, with the rum-grog on the table, taking depositions to 
 make out some case of usury or fraud. Or perhaps he is furnish- 
 ing to his lawyer the materials to prepare a long bill of injunction 
 in some intricate case. The sheriff is hovering about his farm to 
 serve some new writ. On court-days — he never misses attending 
 them — you will find him eagerly collecting his witnesses to defend 
 himself against the merchant and doctor's claims. Go to his 
 house, and, after the short and giddy period that his wife and 
 daughters have flirted about the country in their calico and muslin 
 frocks, what a scene of discomfort and distress is presented to you 
 there ! What the individual family of Isaac Shelby is, I wish to 
 see the nation in the aggregate become. But I fear we shall 
 shortly have to contemplate its resemblance in the opposite picture. 
 If statesmen would carefully observe the conduct of private indi- 
 viduals in the management of their own affairs, they would have 
 much surer guides in promoting the interests of the state, than the 
 visionary speculations of theoretical writers. 
 
 The manufacturing system is not only injurious to agriculture, 
 but, say its opponents, it is injurious also to foreign commerce. 
 We ought not to conceal from ourselves our present actual position 
 in relation to other powers. During the protracted war which has 
 so long convulsed all Europe, and which will probably be succeeded 
 by a long peace, we transacted the commercial business of other 
 nations, and largely shared with England the carrying trade of. the 
 world. Now, every other nation is anxiously endeavoring to 
 transact its own business, to rebuild its marine, and to foster its 
 navigation. The consequence of the former state of things was, 
 that our mercantile marine, and our commercial employment were 
 enormously disproportionate to the exchangeable domestic produce 
 of our country. And the result of the latter will be, that, as 
 
414 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 exchanges between this country and other nations will hereafter 
 consist principally, on our part, of our domestic produce, that 
 marine and that employment will be brought down to what is 
 necessary to effect those exchanges. I regret exceedingly this 
 reduction. I wish the mercantile class could enjoy the same 
 extensive commerce that they formerly did. But, if they cannot, 
 it would be a folly to repine at what is irrecoverably lost, and we 
 should seek rather to adapt ourselves to the new circumstances in 
 which we find ourselves. If, as I think, we have reached the 
 maximum of our foreign demand for our three great staples, cotton, 
 tobacco, and flour, no man will contend that we should go on to 
 produce more and more, to be sent to the glutted foreign markel, 
 and consumed by devouring expenses, merely to give employment 
 to our tonnage and to our foreign commerce. It would be 
 extremely unwise to accommodate our industry to produce, not 
 what is wanted abroad, but cargoes for our unemployed ships. I 
 would give our foreign trade every legitimate encouragement, and 
 extend it whenever it can be extended profitably. Hitherto it has 
 been stimulated too highly, by the condition of the world, and our 
 own policy acting on that condition. And we are reluctant to 
 believe that we must submit to its necessary abridgment. The 
 habits of trade, the tempting instances of enormous fortunes 
 which have been made by the successful prosecution of it, are 
 such, that we turn with regret from its pursuit ; we still cherish a 
 lingering hope ; we persuade ourselves that something will occur, 
 how and what it may be, we know not, to revive its former activ- 
 ity ; and we would push into every untried channel, grope through 
 the Dardanelles into the Black sea, to restore its former profits. I 
 repeat it, let us proclaim to the people of the United States the 
 incontestable truth, that our foreign trade must be circumscribed 
 by the altered state of the world ; and, leaving it in the possession 
 of all the gains which it can now possibly make, let us present 
 motives to the capital and labor of our country, to employ them- 
 selves in fabrication at home. There is no danger that, by a with- 
 drawal of that portion which is unprofitably employed on other 
 objects, and an application of it to fabrication, our agriculture 
 would be too much cramped. The produce of it will always 
 come up to the foreign demand. Such are the superior allure- 
 ments belonging to the cultivation of the soil to all other branches 
 of industry, that it will always be preferred when it can profitably 
 be followed. The foreign demand will, in any conceivable state 
 of things, limit the amount of the exportable produce of agricul- 
 ture. The amount of our exportations will form the measure of 
 our importations, and, whatever these may be, they will constitute 
 the basis of the revenue derivable from customs. 
 
 The manufacturing system is favorable to the maintenance of 
 peace. Foreign commerce is the great source of foreign wars. 
 
ON PROTECTION OF HOME INDUSTRY. 415 
 
 The eagerness with which we contend for every branch of it, the 
 temptations which it offers, operating alike upon us and our foreign 
 competitors, produce constant collisions. No country on earth, by 
 the extent of its superfices, the richness of its soil, the variety of 
 its climate, contains within its own limits more abundant facilities 
 for supplying all our rational wants than ours does. It is not 
 necessary or desirable, however, to cut off all intercourse with 
 foreign powers. But, after securing a supply, within ourselves, of 
 all the great essentials of life, there will be ample scope still left 
 for preserving such an intercourse. If we had no intercourse with 
 foreign states, if we adopted the policy of China, we should have 
 no external wars. And in proportion as we diminish our depend- 
 ence upon them, shall we lessen the danger of the recurrence of 
 war. Our late war would not have existed if the counsels of the 
 manufacturers in England had been listened to. They finally did 
 prevail, in their steady and persevering effort to produce a repeal 
 of the orders in council ; but it was too late to prevent the war. 
 Those who attribute to the manufacturing system the burdens and 
 misfortunes of that country, commit a great error. These were 
 probably a joint result of the operation of the whole of her sys- 
 tems, and the larger share of it was to be ascribed to her foreign 
 commerce, and to the ambition of her rulers, than to any other 
 cause. The war of our revolution, in which that ambition dis- 
 played its monstrous arrogance and pretensions, laid the broad 
 foundation of that enormous debt under which she now groans. 
 
 The tendency of reasonable encouragement to our home industry 
 is favorable to the preservation and strength of our confederacy. 
 Now our connection is merely political. For the sale of the 
 surplus of the produce of our agricultural labor, all eyes are con- 
 stantly turned upon the markets of Liverpool. There is scarcely 
 any of that beneficial intercourse, the best basis of political 
 connection, which consists of the exchange of the produce of our 
 labor. On our maritime frontier there has been too much stimulus, 
 an unnatural activity ; in the great interior of the country, there 
 exists a perfect paralysis. Encourage fabrication at home, and 
 there will instantly arise animation and a healthful circulation 
 throughout all the parts of the republic. The cheapness, fertility, 
 and quantity of our waste lands, offer such powerful inducements 
 to cultivation, that our countrymen are constantly engaging in it. 
 I would not check this disposition, by hard terms in the sale of it. 
 Let it. be easily accessible to all who wish to acquire it. But I 
 would countervail this predilection, by presenting to capital and 
 labor motives for employment in other branches of industry. 
 Nothing is more uncertain than the pursuit of agriculture, when 
 we mainly rely upon foreign markets for the sale of its surplus 
 produce. In the first place, it is impossible to determine, a priori, 
 the amount of this surplus; and, in the second, it is equally impos- 
 
416 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 sible to anticipate the extent of the foreign demand. Both the one 
 and the other depend upon the seasons. From the fluctuations 
 incident to these, and from other causes, it may happen that the 
 supplying country will, for a long series of years, have employed 
 a larger share of its capital and labor than is wise, in production, 
 to supply the wants of the consuming countries, without becoming 
 sensible of its defect of policy. The failure of a crop, or the 
 failure of a market, does not discourage the cultivator. He renews 
 his labors another year, and he renews his hopes. It is otherwise 
 with manufacturing industry. The precise quantum of its produce, 
 at least, can with some accuracy be previously estimated. And 
 the wants of foreign countries can be with some probability 
 anticipated. 
 
 I am sensible, Mr. Chairman, if I have even had a success, 
 which I dare not presume, in the endeavor I have been making to 
 show that sound policy requires a diversion of so much of the 
 capital and labor of this country from other employments as may 
 be necessary, by a different application of them, to secure, within 
 ourselves, a steady and adequate supply of the great necessaries 
 of life, I shall have only established one half of what is incumbent 
 upon me to prove. It will still be required by the other side, that 
 a second proposition be supported, and that is, that government 
 ought to present motives for such a diversion and new application 
 of labor and capital, by that species of protection which the tariff 
 holds out. Gentlemen say, we agree with you ; you are right in 
 your first proposition ; but, c let things alone,' and they will come 
 right in the end. Now, I agree with them, that things would 
 ultimately get right ; but not until after a long period of disorder 
 and distress, terminating in the impoverishment, and perhaps ruin, 
 of the country. Dissolve government, reduce it to its primitive 
 elements, and, without any general effort to reconstruct it, there 
 would arise, out of the anarchy which would ensue, partial combi- 
 nations for the purpose of individual protection, which would 
 finally lead to a social form, competent to the conservation of 
 peace within, and the repulsion of force from without. Yet no 
 one would say, in such a state of anarchy, let things alone ! If 
 gentlemen, by their favorite maxim, mean only that, within the 
 bosom of the state, things are to be left alone, and each individual, 
 and each branch of industry, allowed to pursue their respective 
 interests, without giving a preference to either, I subscribe to it. 
 But if they give it a more comprehensive import ; if they require 
 that things be left alone, in respect not only to interior action, but 
 to exterior action also ; not only as regards the operation of our 
 own government upon the mass of the interests of the state, but 
 as it relates to the operation of foreign governments upon that 
 mass, I dissent from it. 
 
 This maxim, in this enlarged sense, is indeed every where 
 
ON PROTECTION OF HOME INDUSTRY. 417 
 
 proclaimed; but nowhere practiced. It is truth in the books ol 
 European political economists. It is error in the practical code of 
 every European state. It is not applied where it is most appli- 
 cable ; it is attempted to be introduced here, where it is least 
 applicable; and even here its friends propose to limit it to the 
 single branch of manufacturing industry, whilst every other interest 
 is encouraged and protected according to the policy of Europe. 
 The maxim would best suit Europe, where each interest is 
 adjusted and arranged to every other, by causes operating during 
 many centuries. Every thing there has taken and preserved its 
 ancient position. The house that was built centuries ago, is 
 occupied by the descendants of its original constructor. If one 
 could rise up, after the lapse of ages, and enter a European shop, 
 he would see the same hammer at work, on the same anvil or last, 
 and almost by the same hand. There every thing has found its 
 place and its level, and every thing, one would think, might there 
 be safely left alone. But the policy of the European states is 
 otherwise. Here every thing is new and unfixed. Neither the 
 state, nor the individuals who compose it, have settled down in 
 their firm and permanent positions. There is a constant tend- 
 ency, in consequence of the extent of our public domain, towards 
 production for foreign markets. The maxim, in the compre- 
 hensive sense in which I am considering it, requires, to entitle it 
 to observation, two conditions, neither of which exists. First, that 
 there should be perpetual peace, and secondly, that the maxim 
 should be every where respected. When war breaks out, that free 
 and general circulation of the produce of industry among the 
 nations which it recommends, is interrupted, and the nation that 
 depends upon a foreign supply of its necessaries, must be subjected 
 to the greatest inconvenience. If it be not every where observed, 
 there will be, between the nation that does not, and the nation that 
 does, conform to it, an inequality alike condemned by honor and 
 by interest. If there be no reciprocity ; if, on the one side, there is 
 perfect freedom of trade, and on the other a code of odious restric- 
 tions ; will gentlemen still contend that we are to submit to such an 
 unprofitable and degrading intercourse ? Will they require that 
 we shall act upon the social system, whilst every other power acts 
 upon the selfish ? Will they demand of us to throw widely open 
 our ports to every nation, whilst all other nations entirely or partly 
 exclude theirs against our productions? It is, indeed, possible, 
 that some pecuniary advantage might be enjoyed by our country in 
 prosecuting the remnant of the trade which the contracted policy 
 of other powers leaves to us. But what security is there for our 
 continuing to enjoy even that? And is national honor, is national 
 independence, to count as nothing ? I will not enter into a detail 
 of the restrictions with which we are every where presented in 
 foreign countries. I will content myself with asserting that they 
 vol. i. 53 
 
418 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 take nothing from us which they can produce themselves, upon 
 even worse terms than we could supply them. Take, again, as an 
 example, the English corn-laws. America presents the image of a 
 fine, generous-hearted young fellow, who had just come to the 
 possession of a rich estate — an estate, which, however, requires 
 careful management. He makes nothing; he buys every thing. 
 He is surrounded by a parcel of Jews, each holding out his hand 
 with a packet of buttons or pins, or some other commodity, for sale. 
 If he asks those Jews to buy any thing which his estate produces, 
 they tell him no ; it is not for our interest ; it is not for yours. Take 
 this new book, says one of them, on political economy, and you 
 will there perceive it is for your interest to buy from us, and to let 
 things alone in your own country. The gentleman from Virginia, 
 to whom I have already referred, has surrendered the whole argu- 
 ment, in the example of the East India trade. He thinks that 
 because India takes nothing but specie from us ; because there is 
 not a reciprocal exchange between us and India, of our respective 
 productions, that the trade ought to be discontinued. Now I do 
 not agree with him, that it ought to be abandoned, though I would 
 put it under considerable restrictions, when it comes in compe- 
 tition with the fabrics of our own country. If the want of entire 
 reciprocity be a sufficient ground for the total abandonment of a 
 particular branch of trade, the same principle requires that, where 
 there are some restrictions on the one side, they should be counter- 
 vailed by equal restrictions on the other. 
 
 But this maxim, according to which gentlemen would have us 
 abandon the home industry of the country, to the influence of the 
 restrictive systems of other countries, without an effort to protect 
 and preserve it, is not itself observed by the same gentlemen, in 
 regard to the great interests of the nation. We protect our fisheries 
 by bounties and drawbacks. We protect our tonnage, by excluding 
 or restricting foreign tonnage, exactly as our tonnage is excluded 
 or restricted by foreign states. We passed, a year or two ago, the 
 bill to prohibit British navigation from the West India colonies 
 of that power to the United States, because ours is shut out from 
 them. The session prior to the passage of that law, the gentleman 
 from South Carolina and I, almost alone, urged the house to pass 
 it. But the subject was postponed until the next session, when it 
 was passed by nearly a unanimous vote, the gentleman from South 
 Carolina, and the two gentlemen from Virginia (Messrs. Barbour 
 and Tyler) voting with the majority. We have now upon our 
 table other bills connected with that object, and proposing restric- 
 tion upon the French tonnage to countervail theirs upon ours. I 
 shall, with pleasure, vote for these measures. We protect our 
 foreign trade, by consuls, by foreign ministers, by embargoes, by 
 non-intercourse, by a navy, by fortifications, by squadrons constantly 
 acting abroad, by war, and by a variety of commercial regulations 
 
ON PROTECTION OF HOME INDUSTRY. 419 
 
 in our statute-book. The whole system of the general government, 
 from its first formation to the present time, consists, almost exclu- 
 sively, in one unremitting endeavor to nourish, and protect, and 
 defend the foreign trade. Why have not all these great interests 
 been left to the operation of the gentlemen's favorite maxim ? Sir, 
 it is perfectly right that we should have afforded this protection. 
 And it is perfectly right, in my humble opinion, that we should 
 extend the principle to the home industry. I am a friend to 
 foreign trade, but I protest against its being the monopolist of all 
 the parental favor and care of this government. 
 
 But, sir, friendly as I am to the existence of domestic manu- 
 factures, I would not give to them unreasonable encouragement, 
 by protecting duties. Their growth ought to be gradual, but sure. 
 I believe all the circumstances of the present period highly favor- 
 able to their success. But they are the youngest and the weakest 
 interest of the state. Agriculture wants but little or no protection 
 against the regulations of foreign powers. The advantages of our 
 position, and the cheapness, and abundance, and fertility of our 
 land, afford to that greatest interest of the state almost all the 
 protection it wants. As it should be, it is strong and flourishing ; 
 or, if it be not, at this moment, prosperous, it is not because its 
 produce is not ample, but because, depending, as we do altogether, 
 upon a foreign market for the sale of the surplus of that produce, 
 the foreign market is glutted. Our foreign trade, having almost 
 exclusively engrossed the protecting care of government, wants no 
 further legislative aid. And, whatever depression it may now 
 experience, it is attributable to causes beyond the control of this 
 government. The abundance of capital, indicated by the avidity 
 with which loans are sought, at the reduced rate of five per 
 centum ; the reduction in the wages of labor, and the decline in 
 the price of property of every kind, as well as that of agricultural 
 produce, all concur favorably for domestic manufactures. Now, as 
 when we arranged the existing tariff, is the auspicious moment for 
 government to step in and cheer and countenance them. We did 
 too little then, and I endeavored to warn this house of the effects 
 of inadequate protection. We were called upon, at that time, by 
 the previous pledges we had given, by the inundation of foreign 
 fabrics, which was to be anticipated from their free admission after 
 the termination of the war, and by the lasting interests of this 
 country, to give them efficient support. We did not do it; but let 
 us not now repeat the error. Our great mistake has been in the 
 irregularity of the action of the measures of this government upon 
 manufacturing industry. At one period it is stimulated too high, 
 and then, by an opposite course of policy, it is precipitated into a 
 condition of depression too low. First there came the embargo ; 
 then non-intercourse, and other restrictive measures followed ; and 
 finally, that greatest of all stimuli to domestic fabrication, war. 
 
420 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 During all that long period, we were adding to the positive effect 
 of the measures of government, all the moral encouragement 
 which results from popular resolves, legislative resolves, and other 
 manifestations of the public will and the public wish to foster our 
 home manufactures, and to render our confederacy independent of 
 foreign powers. The peace ensued, and the country was flooded 
 with the fabrics of other countries; and we, forgetting all our 
 promises, coolly and philosophically talk of leaving things to them- 
 selves ; making up our deficiency of practical good sense, by the 
 stores of learning which we collect from theoretical writers. I, too, 
 sometimes amuse myself with the visions of these writers, (as I do 
 with those of metaphysicians and novelists,) and, if I do not forget, 
 one of the best among them enjoins it upon a country to protect 
 its industry against the injurious influence of the prohibitions and 
 restrictions of foreign countries, which operate upon it. 
 
 Monuments of the melancholy effects upon our manufactures, 
 and of the fluctuating policy of the councils of the union in regard 
 to them, abound in all parts of the country. Villages, and parts of 
 villages, which sprang up but yesterday in the western country, 
 under the excitement to which I have referred, have dwindled into 
 decay, and are abandoned. In New England, in passing along 
 the highway, one frequently sees large and spacious buildings, 
 with the glass broken out of the windows, the shutters hanging 
 in ruinous disorder, without any appearanre of activity, and 
 enveloped in solitary gloom. Upon inquiring what they are, you 
 are almost always informed that they were somje cotton or other 
 factory, which their proprietors could no longer keep in motion 
 against the overwhelming pressure of foreign competition. 
 Gentlemen ask for facts to show the expediency and propriety of 
 extending protection to our manufactures. Do they want stronger 
 evidence than the condition of things I have pointed out ? They 
 ask, why the manufacturing industry is not resumed under the 
 encouraging auspices of the present time? Sir, the answer is 
 obvious ; there is a general dismay ; there is a want of heart ; there 
 is the greatest moral discouragement experienced throughout the 
 nation. A man who engages in the manufacturing business is 
 thought by his friends to be deranged. Who will go to the ruins 
 of Carthage or Balbec to rebuild a city there? Let government 
 commence a systematic but moderate support of this important 
 branch of our industry. Let it announce its fix^d purpose, that 
 the protection of manufactures against the influence of the meas- 
 ures of foreign governments, will enter into the scope of our 
 national policy. Let. us substitute, for the irregular action of our 
 measures, one that shall be steady and uniform ; and hope, and 
 animation, and activity, will again revive. The gentleman from 
 South Carolina (Mr. Lowndes) offered a resolution, which the 
 house rejected, having for its object to ascertain the profits now 
 
ON PROTECTION OF HOME INDUSTRY. 421 
 
 made upon capital employed in manufacturing. It is not, I repeat 
 it, the individuals, but the interests we wish to have protected. 
 From the infinite variety of circumstances under which different 
 manufacturing establishments are situated, it is impossible that any 
 information, such as the gentleman desires, could be obtained, 
 that ought to guide the judgment of this house. It may happen 
 that, of two establishments engaged in the same species of fabri- 
 cation, one will be prospering and the other laboring. Take the 
 example of the Waltham manufactory near Boston, and that of 
 Brunswick in Maine. The former has the advantage of a fine 
 water situation, a manager of excellent information, enthusiastically 
 devoted to its success, a machinist of most invenlive genius, who 
 is constantly making some new improvement, and who has carried 
 the water loom to a degree of perfection which it has not attained 
 in England — to such perfection as to reduce the cost of weaving 
 a yard of cloth adapted to shirting to less than a cent — while it is 
 abundantly supplied with capital by several rich capitalists in 
 Boston. These gentlemen have the most extensive correspondence 
 with all parts of the United States. Owing to this extraordinary 
 combination of favorable circumstances, the Waltham establish- 
 ment is doing pretty well ; whilst that of Brunswick, not possessing 
 all of + hem, but perhaps as many as would enable it, under adequate 
 protection, to flourish, is laboring arduously. Will gentlemen infer, 
 from the success of a few institutions having peculiar advantages, 
 which form exceptions to the languishing condition of manufac- 
 turing industry, that there exists no necessity for protection ? In 
 the most discouraging state of trade and navigation, there are, no 
 doubt, always some individuals who are successful in prosecuting 
 them. Would it be fair to argue, from these instances, against any 
 measure brought forward to revive their activity ? 
 
 The gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Whitman) has mani- 
 fested peculiar hostility to the tariff, and has allowed himself to 
 denominate it a mad, quixotic, ruinous scheme. The gentleman 
 is dissatisfied with the quarter — the west — from which it emanates. 
 To give higher tone and more effect to the gentleman's declama- 
 tion, which is vague and indefinite, he has even assumed a new 
 place in this house. Sir, I would advise the gentleman to return 
 to his ancient position, moral and physical. It was respectable and 
 useful. The honorable gentleman professes to be a friend to 
 manufacturers ! And yet he has found an insurmountable constitu- 
 tional impediment to their encouragement, of which, as no other 
 gentleman has relied upon it, I shall leave him in the undisturbed 
 possession. The honorable gentleman a friend to manufacturers ! 
 And yet he has delivered a speech, marked with peculiar emphasis, 
 against their protection. The honorable gentleman a friend to 
 manufacturers ! And yet he requires, if this constitutional difficulty 
 could be removed, such an arrangement of the tariff as shall please 
 
422 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 him, although every one else should be dissatisfied. The intimation 
 is not new of the presumptuousness of western politicians, in 
 endeavoring to give to the policy of this country such a direction 
 as will assert its honor and sustain its interests. It was first made 
 whilst the measures preparatory to the late war were under consid- 
 eration, and it now probably emanates from the same quarter. The 
 predilection of the school of the Essex junto for foreign trade and 
 British fabrics — I am far from insinuating that other gentlemen 
 who are opposed to the tariff are actuated by any such spirit — is 
 unconquerable. We disregarded the intimation when it was first 
 made ; we shall be uninfluenced by it now. If, indeed, there were 
 the least color for the assertion, that the foreign trade is to be crushed 
 by the tariff, is it not strange, that the whole of the representation 
 from all our great commercial metropolises should unite to destroy 
 it? The member from Boston, — to whose rational and disinter- 
 ested course I am happy, on this, as on many other occasions, to be 
 able to testify, — the renresentatives from the city of New York, 
 from Philadelphia, from Baltimore, all entered into this confederacy, 
 to destroy it, by supporting this mad and ruinous scheme. Some 
 gentlemen assert that it is too comprehensive. But its chief 
 recommendation to me is, that it leaves no important interest 
 unprovided for. 
 
 The same gentlemen, or others, if it had been more limited, 
 would have objected to its partial operation. The general measure 
 of the protection which it communicates, is pronounced to be 
 immoderate and enormous. Yet no one ventures to enter into a 
 specification of the particular articles of which it is composed, to 
 show that it deserves thus to be characterized. The article of 
 molasses has, indeed, been selected, and held up as an instance of 
 the alleged extravagance. The existing tariff imposes a duty of 
 five cents, the proposed tariff ten cents per gallon. We tax foreign 
 spirits very high, and yet we let in, with a very low duty, foreign 
 molasses, which ought to be considered as rum in disguise, filling 
 the space of so much domestic spirits. If (which I do not believe 
 will immediately be the case, to any considerable extent) the 
 manufacture of spirits from molasses, should somewhat decline 
 under the new tariff, the manufacture of spirits from the raw 
 material, produced at home, will be extended in the same ratio. 
 Besides the incidental advantage of increasing our security against 
 the effect of seasons of scarcity, by increasing the distillation of 
 spirits from grain, there is scarcely any item in the tariff which 
 combines so many interests in supporting the proposed rate of 
 duty. The grain-growing country, the fruit country, and the 
 culture of cane, would be all benefited by the duty. Its operation 
 is said, however, to be injurious to a certain quarter of the union. 
 It is not to be denied, that each particular section of the country 
 will feel some one or more articles of the tariff to bear hard upon 
 
ON PROTECTION OF HOME INDUSTRY. 423 
 
 it, during a short period ; but the compensation is to be found in 
 the more favorable operation of others. Now I am fully persuaded 
 that, in the first instance, no part of the union would share more 
 largely than New England, in the aggregate of the benefits result- 
 ing from the tariff. But the habits of economy of her people, their 
 industry, their skill, their noble enterprise, the stimulating effects 
 of their more rigorous climate, all tend to insure to her the first 
 and the richest fruits of the tariff. The middle and the western 
 states will come in afterwards for their portion, and all will partici- 
 pate in the advantage of internal exchanges and circulation. No 
 quarter of the union will urge, with a worse grace than New 
 England, objections to a measure, having for its object the advance- 
 ment of the interests of the whole; for no quarter of the union 
 participates more extensively in the benefits flowing from the 
 general government. Her tonnage, her fisheries, her foreign trade, 
 have been constantly objects of federal care. There is expended 
 the greatest portion of the public revenue. The building of the 
 public ships; their equipments; the expenses incident to their 
 remaining in port, chiefly take place there. That great drain on 
 the revenue, the revolutionary pension law, inclines principally 
 towards New England. I do not, however, complain of these 
 advantages which she enjoys. She is probably fairly entitled to 
 them. But gentlemen from that quarter may, at least, be justly 
 reminded of them, when they complain of the onerous effect of 
 one or two items of the tariff. 
 
 Mr. Chairman, I frankly own that I feel great solicitude for the 
 success of this bill. The entire independence of my country on 
 all foreign states, as it respects a supply of our essential wants, has 
 ever been with me a favorite object. The war of our revolution 
 effected our political emancipation. The last war contributed 
 greatly towards accomplishing our commercial freedom. But our 
 complete independence will only be consummated after the policy 
 of this bill shall be recognised and adopted. We have, indeed, 
 great difficulties to contend with — old habits, colonial usages, the 
 obduracy of the colonial spirit, the enormous profits of a foreign 
 trade, prosecuted under favorable circumstances, which no longer 
 continue. I will not despair ; the cause, I verily believe, is the 
 cause of the country. It may be postponed ; it may be frustrated 
 for the moment, but it must finally prevail. Let us endeavor to 
 acquire for the present congress, the merit of having laid this solid 
 foundation of the national prosperity. If, as I think, fatally for 
 the public interest, the bill shall be defeated, what will be the 
 character of the account which we shall have to render to our 
 constituents upon our return among them ? We shall be asked, 
 what have you done to remedy the disorders of the public cur- 
 rency ? Why, Mr. Secretary of the treasury made us a long report 
 on that matter, containing much valuable information, and some 
 
424 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 very good reasoning, but, upon the whole, we found that subject 
 rather above our comprehension, and we concluded that it was 
 wisest to let it regulate itself. What have you done to supply the 
 deficit in the treasury ? We thought that, although you are all 
 endeavoring to get out of the banks, it was a very good time for us 
 to go into them, and we have authorized a loan. You have done 
 something then, certainly, on the subject of retrenchment. Here, at 
 home, we are practicing the greatest economy, and our daughters, 
 no longer able to wear calico gowns, are obliged to put on home- 
 spun. Why, we have saved, by the indefatigable exertions of a 
 member from Tennessee (general Cocke), fifty thousand dollars, 
 which were wanted for the Yellow Stone expedition. No, not 
 quite so much ; for thirty thousand dollars of that sum were still 
 wanted, although we stopped the expedition at the Council Bluffs. 
 And we have saved another sum, which we hope will give you 
 great satisfaction. After nearly two days' debate, and a division 
 between the two houses, we struck off two hundred dollars from 
 the salary of the clerk of the attorney general. W T hat have you 
 done to protect home industry from the effects of the contracted 
 policy of foreign powers? We thought it best, after much delibe- 
 ration, to leave things alone at home and to continue our encourage- 
 ment to foreign industry. Well, surely you have passed some law 
 to reanimate and revive the hopes of the numerous bankrupts that 
 have been made by the extraordinary circumstances of the world, 
 and the ruinous tendency of our policy? No; the senate could 
 not agree on that subject, and the bankrupt bill failed ? Can we 
 plead, sir, ignorance of the general distress, and of the ardent 
 wishes of the community for that protection of its industry which 
 this bill proposes ? No, sir, almost daily, throughout the session, 
 have we been receiving petitions, with which our table is now 
 loaded, humbly imploring us to extend this protection. Unanimous 
 resolutions from important state legislatures have called upon us 
 to give it, and the people of whole states in mass — almost in 
 mass, of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Ohio — have 
 transmitted to us their earnest and humble petitions to encourage 
 the home industry. Let us not turn a deaf ear to them. Let us 
 not disappoint their just expectations. Let us manifest, by the 
 passage of this bill, that congress does not deserve the reproaches 
 which have been cast on it, of insensibility to the wants and 
 sufferings of the people. 
 
MISSION TO SOUTH AMERICA. 
 
 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, MAY 10, 1820. 
 
 [At this period of the session of the sixteenth congress, only five days before its 
 close, after which he temporarily retired, in November following, by resigning as 
 speaker, Mr. Clay had the gratification of witnessing the triumphant result of his oft- 
 repeated efforts in the cause of South American independence. The resolution on 
 the subject which he had offered on the third of April, was supported on this occasion 
 by the following speech, and adopted by the house by a vote of eighty to seventy -five. 
 It was understood that the measure was carried against the wishes and influence of 
 the administration. 
 
 The wisdom of the policy proposed and advocated by Mr. Clay, from 1818, or even 
 an earlier period, until finally adopted by the congress of the United States, namely, 
 in recognising the independence of the infant republics of South America, was proved 
 by the course of the British government, in being the first of the great European 
 powers to follow the example. In June, 1824, the cabinet of George the Fourth 
 determined on the recognition of Mexico, Colombia, and Buenos Ayres, as indepen- 
 dent states; and in 1826, that great s'atesm an, Mr Canning, in a speech in the house 
 of commons, alluding to the occupation of Spain by a French army, about that time, 
 used the following memorable words ■ ' I admit that the entry of a French army into 
 Spain was a disparagement to Great Britain. Do you think, that for the disparagement 
 to England we have not been compensated ? I looked, sir, at Spain by another name 
 than Spain. 1 looked upon that power as ' Spain and the Indies? I looked at the 
 Indies, and there I have called a new world into existence, and thus redressed the balance 
 of power.' A comparison of dates will show how much the American statesman 
 was in advance of the British minister, in ' calling this new world into existence.'] 
 
 The house being in committee of the whole, on the state of the 
 union, and a motion being made to that effect, the committee 
 resolved to proceed to the consideration of the following resolu- 
 tions : 
 
 Resolved, That it is expedient to provide by law a suitable outfit 
 and salary for such minister or ministers as the president, by and 
 with the advice and consent of the senate, may send to any of the 
 governments of South America, which have established, and are 
 maintaining, their independence on Spain : 
 
 Resolved, That provision ought to be made for requesting the 
 president of the United States to cause to be presented to the 
 general, the most worthy and distinguished, in his opinion, in the 
 service of any of the independent governments of South America, 
 the sword which was given by the viceroy of Lima to captain 
 Biddle of the Ontario, during her late cruise in the Pacific, and 
 vol. i. 54 
 
426 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 which is now in the office of the department of state, with the 
 expression of the wish of the congress of the United States, that 
 it may be employed in the support and preservation of the liberties 
 and independence of his country: 
 
 When Mr. Clay arose and said : It is my intention, Mr. Chair- 
 man, to withdraw the latter resolution. Since I offered it, this 
 house (by the passage of the v bill to prevent, under suitable penalties, 
 in future, the acceptance of presents, forbidden by the constitution, 
 to prohibit the carrying of foreigners in the public vessels, and to 
 limit to the case of our own citizens, and to regulate, in that case, 
 the transportation of money in them,) has, perhaps, sufficiently 
 animadverted on the violation of the constitution, which produced 
 that resolution. I confess, that when I heard of captain Biddle 
 receiving from the deputy of a king the sword in question, I felt 
 greatly mortified. I could not help contrasting his conduct with 
 that of the surgeon on board an American man-of-war, in the bay 
 of Naples, (I regret that I do not recollect his name, as I should like 
 to record, with the testimony which I with pleasure bear to his high- 
 minded conduct,) who, having performed an operation on one of 
 the suite of the emperor of Austria, and being offered fifteen 
 hundred pistoles or dollars for his skilful service, returned the purse, 
 and said, that what he had done was in the cause of humanity, and 
 that the constitution of his country forbade his acceptance of the 
 proffered boon. There was not an American heart that did not 
 swell with pride on hearing of his noble disinterestedness. It did 
 appear to me, also, that the time of captain Biddle's interposition 
 was unfortunate to produce an agreement between the viceroy of 
 Lima and Chili, to exchange their respective prisoners, however 
 desirable the accomplishment of such a humane object might be. 
 The viceroy had constantly refused to consent to any such exchange. 
 And it is an incontestable fact, that the barbarities which have 
 characterized the civil war in Spanish America have uniformly 
 originated with the royalists. After the memorable battle of Maipu, 
 decisive of the independence of Chili, and fatal to the arms of the 
 viceroy, this interposition, if I am not mistaken, took place. The 
 transportation of money, upon freight, from the port of Callao to 
 that of Rio Janeiro, for royalists, appeared to me also highly 
 improper. If we wish to preserve, unsullied, the illustrious 
 character, which our navy justly sustains, we should repress the 
 very first instances of irregularity. But I am willing to believe that 
 captain Biddle's conduct has been inadvertent. He is a gallant 
 officer, and belongs to a respectable and patriotic family. His 
 errors, I am persuaded, will not be repeated by him or imitated by 
 others. And I trust that there is no man more unwilling than I 
 am, unnecessarily to press reprehension. It is thought, moreover, by 
 some, that the president might feel an embarrassment in executing 
 the duty required of him by the resolution, which it was far from 
 my purpose to cause him. I withdraw it 
 
MISSION TO SOUTH AMERICA. 427 
 
 There is no connection intended, or in fact, between that 
 resolution and the one I now propose briefly to discuss. The 
 proposition, to recognise the independent governments of South 
 America, offers a subject of as great importance as any which could 
 claim the deliberate consideration of this house. 
 
 Mr. Clay then went on to say, that it appeared to him the object 
 of this government, heretofore, had been, so to manage its affairs, in 
 regard to South America, as to produce an effect on its existing 
 negotiations with the parent country. The house were now 
 apprized, by the message from the president, that this policy had 
 totally failed ; it had failed, because our country would not dishonor 
 itself by surrendering one of the most important rights incidental 
 to sovereignty. Although we had observed a course toward the 
 patriots, as Mr. Gallatin said, in his communication read yesterday, 
 greatly exceeding in rigor the course pursued towards them either 
 by France or England; although, also, as was remarked by the 
 secretary of state, we had observed a neutrality so strict that blood 
 had been spilt in enforcing it; still, Spanish honor was not 
 satisfied, and fresh sacrifices were demanded of us. If they were 
 resisted in form, they were substantially yielded by our course as 
 to South America. We will not stipulate with Spain not to 
 recognise the independence of the south ; but we nevertheless grant 
 her all she demands. 
 
 Mr. Clay said, it had been his intention to have gone into a 
 general view of the course of policy which has characterized the 
 general government ; but on account of the lateness of the session, 
 and the desire for an early adjournment, he should waive, for that 
 purpose, and, in the observations he had to make, confine himself 
 pretty much to events subsequent to the period at which he had 
 submitted to the house a proposition having nearly the same object 
 as this. 
 
 After the return of our commissioners from Soulh America; 
 after they had all agreed in attesting the fact of independent 
 sovereignty being exercised by the government of Buenos Ayres ; 
 the whole nation looked forward to the recognition of the indepen- 
 dence of that country, as the policy which the government ought 
 to pursue. He appealed to every member to say, whether there 
 was not a general opinion, in case the report of lhat mission should 
 turn out as it did, that the recognition of the independence of that 
 government would follow, as a matter of course. The surprise at 
 a different course being pursued by the executive at the last session, 
 was proportionably great. On this subject, so strong was the 
 message of the president at the commencement of the present 
 session, that some of the presses took it for granted, lhat the recog- 
 nition would follow of course, and a paper in this neighborhood 
 has said that there was, in regard to that question, a race of popu- 
 larity between the president of the United States and the humble 
 
428 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 individual who now addressed the house. Yet, faithless Ferdinand 
 refuses to ratify his own treaty, on the pretext of violations of our 
 • neutrality.; but, in fact, because we will not basely surrender an 
 important attribute of sovereignty. Two years ago, he said, would, 
 in his opinion, have been the proper lime for recognising the 
 independence of the south. Then the struggle was somewhat 
 doubtful, and a kind office on the part of this government would 
 have had a salutary effect. Since that period, what had occurred ? 
 Any thing to prevent a recognition of their independence, or to 
 make it less expedient? No; every occurrence tended to prove 
 the capacity of that country to maintain its independence. He 
 then successively adverted to the battles of Maipu, and Bojaca, 
 their great brilliancy, and their important consequences. Adverting 
 to the union of Venezuela and New Grenada in one republic, he 
 said one of their first acts was, to appoint one of their most distin- 
 guished citizens, the vice president Zea, a minister to this country. 
 There was a time, he said, when impressions are made on individ- 
 uals and nations, by kindness towards them, which lasts for ever, 
 when they are surrounded with enemies, and embarrassments 
 present themselves. Ages and ages may pass away, said he, 
 before we forget the help we received in our day of peril, from the 
 hands of France. Her injustice, the tyranny of her despot, may 
 alienate us for a time ; but, the moment it ceases, we relapse into a 
 good feeling towards her. Do you mean to wait, said he, until 
 these republics are recognised by the whole world, and then step 
 in and extend your hand to them, when it can no longer be with- 
 held? If we are to believe general Vives, we have gone about 
 among foreign powers, and consulted with lord Castlereagh and 
 count Nesselrode, to seek some aid in recognising the indepen- 
 dence of these powers. What ! after the president has told us that 
 the recognition of the independence of nations is an incontestable 
 right of sovereignty, shall we lag behind till the European powers 
 think proper to advance ? The president has assigned, as a reason 
 for abstaining from the recognition, that the congress of Aix-la- 
 Chapelle might take offence at it. So far from such an usurped 
 interference being a reason for stopping, he would have exerted the 
 right the sooner for it. But, ihe congress of Aix-la-ChapcIle had 
 refused to interfere, and on that point the president was mistaken. 
 Spain, it was true, had gone about begging the nations of Europe 
 not to interfere in behalf of the South Americans; but the wishes 
 of the whole unbiassed world must be in their favor. And while 
 we had gone on, passing neutrality bill after neutrality bill, and 
 bills to punish piracy — with respect to unquestioned piracy, no 
 one was more in favor of punishing it than he; but he had no 
 idea of imputing piracy to men fighting under the flag of a people 
 at war for independence — whilst we pursued this course, even in 
 advance of the legitimates of Europe, what, he asked, had been 
 
MISSION TO SOUTH AMERICA. 429 
 
 the course of England herself on this head ? Here he quoted a 
 few passages from the work of Abbe de Pradt, recently translated 
 by one of our citizens, which, he said, though the author was not • 
 very popular among crowned heads, no man could read without 
 being enlightened and instructed. These passages dwelt on the 
 importance of the commerce of South America, when freed from 
 its present restraints, and so forth. What would I give, exclaimed 
 he, could we appreciate the advantages which may be realized by 
 pursuing the course which I propose ! It is in our power to create 
 a system of which we shall be the centre, and in which all South 
 America will act with us. In respect to commerce', we shall be 
 most benefited; this country would become the place of deposit of - N 
 the commerce of the world. Our citizens engaged in foreign 
 trade at present were disheartened by the condition of that trade; 
 they must take new channels for it, and none so advantageous 
 could be found, as those which the trade with South America '* 
 would afford. Mr. Clay took a prospective view of the growth of 
 wealth, and increase of population of this country and South - 
 
 America. That country had now a population of upwards of 
 
 eighteen millions. The same activity in the principle of popula- 
 tion would exist in that country as here. Twenty-five years hence 
 it might be estimated at thirty-six millions; fifty years hence, at 
 seventy-two millions. We now have a population often millions. 
 From the character of our population, we must always take the 
 lead in the prosecution of commerce and manufactures. Imagine 
 the vast power of the two countries, and the value of the inter- 
 course between them, when we shall have a population of forty 
 millions, and they of seventy millions ! In relation to South Amer- 
 ica, the people of the United States will occupy the same position 
 as the people of New England do to the rest of the United States. 
 Our enterprise, industry, and habits of economy, will give us the 
 advantage in any competition which South America may sustain^/ 
 with us, and so forth. 
 
 But, however important our early recognition of the indepen- , 
 dence of the south might be to us, as respects our commercial and ' 
 manufacturing interests, was there not another view of the subject, / 
 infinitely more gratifying? We should become the centre of a 
 system which would constitute the rallying point of human Treedom 
 against all the despotism of the old world. Did any man doubt 
 the feelings of the south towards us? In spite of our coldness 
 towards them, of the rigor of our laws, and the conduct of our 
 officers, their hearts still turned towards us, as to their brethren ; 
 and he had no earthly doubt, if our government would take the 
 lead and recognise them, they would become yet more anxious to 
 imitate our institutions, and to secure to themselves and to their . 
 posterity the same freedom which we enjoy. 
 
 On a subject of this sort, he asked, was it possible we could be 
 
430 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 content to remain, as we now were, looking anxiously to Europe, 
 watching the eyes of lord Castlereagh, and getting scraps of letters 
 * doubtfully indicative of his wishes ; and sending to the czar of 
 Russia and getting another scrap from count Nesselrode ? Why 
 not proceed to act on our own responsibility, and recognise these 
 governments as independent, instead of taking the lead of the holy 
 alliance in a course which jeopardizes the happiness of unborn 
 millions. He deprecated this deference for foreign powers. If 
 lord Castlereagh says we may recognise, we do; if not, we do 
 not A single expression of the British minister to the present 
 secretary of state, then our minister abroad, he was ashamed to 
 say, had moulded the policy of our government towards South 
 America. Our institutions now make us free ; but how long shall 
 we continue so, if we mould our opinions on those of Europe ? 
 Let us break these commercial and political fetters; let us no 
 longer watch the nod of any European politician ; let us become 
 real and true Americans, and place ourselves at the head of the 
 American system. 
 
 Gentlemen all said, they were all anxious to see the indepen- 
 dence of the South established. If sympathy for them was enough, 
 the patriots would have reason to be satisfied with the abundant 
 expressions of it. But something more was wanting. Some 
 gentlemen had intimated, that the people of the south were unfit 
 /for freedom. Will gentlemen contend, said Mr. Clay, because 
 those people are not like us in all particulars, they are therefore 
 _,-- unfit for freedom ? In some particulars, he ventured to say, that 
 the people of South America were in advance of us. On the 
 point which had been so much discussed on this floor, during the 
 present session, they were greatly in advance of us. Grenada, 
 Venezuela, and Buenos Ayres, had all emancipated their slaves. 
 He did not say that we ought to do so, or that they ought to have 
 done so, under different circumstances ; but he rejoiced that the 
 circumstances were such as to permit them to do it. 
 
 Two questions only, he argued, were necessarily preliminary to 
 the recognition of the independence of the people of the south ; 
 first, as to the fact of their independence ; and, secondly, as to the 
 capacity for self-government. On the first point, not a doubt 
 existed. On the second, there was every evidence in their favor. 
 They had fostered schools with great care, there were more news- 
 papers in the single town of Buenos Ayres (at the time he was 
 speaking) than in the whole kingdom of Spain. He never saw a 
 question discussed with more ability than that in a newspaper of 
 Buenos Ayres, whether a federative or consolidated form of gov- 
 ernment was best. 
 
 But, though every argument in favor of the recognition should 
 be admitted to be just, it would be said, that another' revolution 
 had occurred in Spain, and we ought, therefore, to delay. On the 
 
MISSION TO SOUTH AMERICA. 431 
 
 contrary, said he, every consideration recommended us to act now. 
 If Spain succeeded in establishing her freedom, the colonies must f- 
 also be free. The first desire of a government itself free, must be 
 to give liberty to its dependencies. On the other hand, if Spain 
 should not succeed in gaining her freedom, no man can doubt 
 that Spain, in her reduced state, would no longer have power to 
 carry on the contest. So many millions of men could not be 
 subjugated by the enervated arm and exhausted means of aged 
 Spain. In ten years of war, the most unimportant province of 
 South America had not been subdued by all the wealth and the - 
 resources of Spain. The certainty of the successful resistance of 
 the attempts of Spain to reduce them, would be found in the great 
 extent of the provinces of South America — of larger extent than 
 all the empire of Russia. The relation of the colonies and mother 
 country could not exist, from the nature of things, under whatever 
 aspect the government of Spain might assume. The condition 
 of Spain was no reason for neglecting now to do what we ought 
 to have done long ago. Every thing, on the contrary, tended to 
 prove that this, this was the accepted time. 
 
 With regard to the form of his proposition, all he wanted was, 
 to obtain an expression of the opinion of the house on this subject; 
 and whether a minister should be authorized to one or the other of 
 these governments, or whether he should be of one grade or of 
 another, he cared not. This republic, with the exception of the 
 people of South America, constituted the sole depository of politi- 
 cal and religious freedom ; and can it be possible, said he, that we. 
 can remain passive spectators of the struggle of those people to-^ 
 break the same chains which once bound us? The opinions of 
 the friends of freedom in Europe is, that our policy has been cold, 
 heartless, and indifferent, towards the greatest cause which could 
 possibly engage our affections and enlist our feelings in its behalf. 
 
 Mr. Clay concluded by saying that, whatever might be the 
 decision of this house on this question, proposing shortly to go 
 into retirement from public life, he should there have the consola- 
 tion of knowing that he had used his best exertions in favor of a 
 people inhabiting a territory calculated to contain as many souls 
 as the whole of Christendom besides, whose happiness was at 
 stake, and which it was in the power of this government to do so 
 much towards securing. 
 
ON THE GREEK REVOLUTION. 
 
 IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, JANUARY 20, 1824. 
 
 [The house being in committee of the whole, on the resolution offered by Mr. 
 Webster, of Massachusetts, in the words following: 
 
 Resolved, That provision ought to be made by law, for defraying the expense 
 incident to the appointment of an agent or commissioner to Greece, whenever the 
 president shall deem it expedient to make such appointment : 
 
 Mr. Clay addressed the committee in the following speech in support of the reso- 
 lution, in which it will be seen he was true to the principles which he had so often 
 vindicated when the independence of South America was under consideration. Not- 
 withstanding the combined efforts of Mr. Clay and Mr Webster, the resolution was 
 /"not sustained by a majority of the house, although there is no doubt that the measure 
 [ proposed was in accordance with public opinion, in the sympathies then felt for the 
 \ cause of the Greeks.] 
 
 In rising, let me state distinctly the substance of the original 
 proposition of the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. "Webster), 
 with that of the amendment of the gentleman from South Caro- 
 lina (Mr. Poinsett). The resolution proposes a provision of the 
 means to defray the expense of deputing a commissioner or agent 
 to Greece, ivhenever the president, who knows, or ought to know, 
 the disposition of all the European powers, Turkish or Christian, 
 shall deem it proper. The amendment goes to withhold any appro- 
 priation to that object, but to make a public declaration of our 
 sympathy with the Greeks, and of our good wishes for the success 
 of their cause. And how has this simple, unpretending, unam- 
 bitious, this harmless proposition, been treated in debate ? It has 
 been argued as if it offered aid to the Greeks ; as if it proposed 
 the recognition of the independence of their government; as a 
 measure of unjustifiable interference in the internal affairs of a 
 foreign state, and, finally, as war. And they who thus argue the 
 question, whilst they absolutely surrender themselves to the illu- 
 sions of their own fervid imaginations, and depict, in glowing 
 terms, the monstrous and alarming consequences which are to 
 spring out of a proposition so simple, impute to us, who are its 
 humble advocates, quixotism, quixotism ! Whilst they are taking 
 the most extravagant and boundless range, and arguing any thing 
 and every thing but the question before the committee, they accuse 
 us of enthusiasm, of giving the reins to excited feeling, of being 
 
ON THE GREEK REVOLUTION. 433 
 
 transported by our imaginations. No, sir, the resolution is no 
 proposition for aid, nor for recognition, nor for interference, nor for 
 war. 
 
 I know that there are some who object to the resolution on 
 account of the source from which it has sprung — who except to 
 its mover, as if its value or importance were to be estimated by 
 personal considerations. I have long had the pleasure of knowing 
 the honorable gentleman from Massachusetts, and sometimes that 
 of acting with him ; and I have much satisfaction in expressing 
 my high admiration of his great talents. But I would appeal to 
 my republican friends, those faithful sentinels of civil liberty with 
 whom I have ever acted, shall we reject a proposition, consonant 
 to our principles, favoring the good and great cause, on account of 
 the political character of its mover ? Shall we not rather look to 
 the intrinsic merits of the measure, and seek every fit occasion to 
 strengthen and perpetuate liberal principles and noble sentiments ? 
 If it were possible for republicans to cease to be the champions of 
 human freedom, and if federalists become its only supporters, I 
 would cease to be a republican ; I would become a federalist. 
 The preservation of the public confidence can only be secured, or 
 merited, by a faithful adherence to the principles by which it has 
 been acquired. 
 
 Mr. Chairman, is it not extraordinary that for these two successive 
 years the president of the United States should have been freely 
 indulged, not only without censure, but with universal applause, to 
 express the feelings which both the resolution and the amendment 
 proclaim, and yet, if this house venture to unite with him, the 
 most awful consequences are to ensue ? From Maine to Georgia, 
 from the Atlantic ocean to the Gulf of Mexico, the sentiment of 
 approbation has blazed with the rapidity of electricity. Every 
 where the interest in the Grecian cause is felt with the deepest 
 intensity, expressed in every form, and increases with every new 
 day and passing hour. And are the representatives of the people 
 alone to be insulated from the common moral atmosphere of the 
 whole land ? Shall we shut ourselves up in apathy, and separate 
 ourselves from our country, from our constituents, from our chief 
 magistrate, from our principles ? 
 
 The measure has been most unreasonably magnified. Gentle- 
 men speak of the watchful jealousy of the Turk, and seem to think 
 the slightest movement of this body will be matter of serious spec- 
 ulation at Constantinople. I believe that neither the sublime porte, 
 nor the European allies, attach any such exaggerated importance 
 to the acts and deliberations of this body. The Turk will, in all 
 probability, never hear of the names of the gentlemen who either 
 espouse or oppose the resolution. It certainly is not without a 
 value ; but that value is altogether moral ; it throws our little tribute 
 into the vast stream of public opinion, which sooner or later must 
 vol. i. 65 
 
434 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 regulate the physical action upon the great interests of the civilized 
 world. But, rely upon it, the Ottoman is not about to declare war 
 against us because this unoffending proposition has been offered 
 by my honorable friend from Massachusetts, whose name, however 
 distinguished and eminent he may be in our own country, has 
 probably never reached the ears of the sublime porte. The allied 
 powers are not going to be thrown into a state of consternation, 
 because we appropriate some two or three thousand dollars to send 
 an agent to Greece. 
 
 The question has been argued as if the Greeks would be exposed 
 to still more shocking enormities by its passage ; as if the Turkish 
 cimeter would be rendered still keener, and dyed deeper and yet 
 deeper in christian blood. Sir, if such is to be the effect of the 
 declaration of our sympathy, the evil has been already produced. 
 That declaration has been already publicly and solemnly made by 
 the chief magistrate of the United States, in two distinct messages. 
 It is this document which commands at home and abroad the most 
 fixed and universal attention ; which is translated into all the foreign 
 journals; read by sovereigns and their ministers; and, possibly, in 
 the divan itself. But our resolutions are domestic, for home con- 
 sumption, and rarely, if ever, meet imperial or royal eyes. The 
 president, in his messages, after a most touching representation of 
 the feelings excited by the Greek insurrection, tells you that the 
 dominion of the Turk is gone for ever ; and that the most sanguine 
 hope is entertained that Greece will achieve her independence. 
 Well, sir, if this be the fact, if the allied powers themselves may, 
 possibly, before we again assemble in this hall, acknowledge that 
 independence, is it not fit and becoming in this house to make 
 provision that our president shall be among the foremost, or at least 
 not among the last, in that, acknowledgment ? So far from this 
 resolution being likely to whet the vengeance of the Turk against 
 his Grecian victims, I believe its tendency will be directly the 
 reverse. Sir, with all his unlimited power, and in all the elevation 
 of his despotic throne, he is at last but man, made as we are, of 
 flesh, of muscle, of bone and sinew. He is susceptible of pain, 
 and can feel, and has felt the uncalculating valor of American 
 freemen in some of his dominions. And when he is made to 
 understand that the executive of this government is sustained by 
 the representatives of the people ; that our entire political fabric, 
 base, column, and entablature, rulers and people, with heart, soul, 
 mind, and strength, are all on the side of the gallant people whom 
 he would crush, he will be more likely to restrain than to increase 
 his atrocities upon suffering and bleeding Greece. 
 
 The gentleman from New Hampshire (Mr. Bartlett) has made, 
 on this occasion, a very ingenious, sensible, and ironical speech — 
 an admirable debvt for a new member, and such as I hope we shall 
 often have repeated on this floor. But, permit me to advise my 
 
ON THE GREEK REVOLUTION. 435 
 
 young friend to remember the maxim, < that sufficient unto the day- 
 is the evil thereof; ' and when the resolution* on another subject, 
 which I had the honor to submit, shall come up to be discussed, I 
 hope he will not content himself with saying, as he has now done, 
 that it is a very extraordinary one ; but that he will then favor the 
 house with an argumentative speech, proving that it is our duty 
 quietly to see laid prostrate every fortress of human hope, and to 
 behold, with indifference, the last outwork of liberty taken and 
 destroyed. 
 
 It has been said, that the proposed measure will be a departure 
 from our uniform policy with respect to foreign nations ; that it 
 will provoke the wrath of the holy alliance ; and that it will, in 
 effect, be a repetition of their own offence, by an unjustifiable inter- 
 position in the domestic concerns of other powers. No, sir, not even 
 if it authorized, which it does not, an immediate recognition of 
 Grecian independence. What has been the settled and steady 
 policy and practice of this government, from the days of Wash- 
 ington to the present moment ? In the case of France, the father of 
 his country and his successors received Genet, Fouchet, and all 
 the French ministers who followed them, whether sent from king, 
 convention, anarchy, emperor, or king again. The rule we have 
 ever followed has been this ; to look at the state of the fact, and 
 to recognise that government, be it what it might, which was in 
 actual possession of sovereign power. When one government is 
 overthrown, and another is established on its ruins, without embar- 
 rassing ourselves with any of the principles involved in the contest, 
 we have ever acknowledged the new and actual government as 
 soon as it had undisputed existence. Our simple inquiry has been, 
 is there a government de facto ? We have had a recent and memo- 
 rable example. When the allied ministers retired from Madrid, 
 and refused to accompany Ferdinand to Cadiz, ours remained, and 
 we sent out a new minister, who sought at that port to present 
 himself to the constitutional king. Why ? Because it was the 
 government of Spain, in fact. Did the allies declare war against 
 us for the exercise of this incontestable attribute of sovereignty ? 
 Did they even transmit any diplomatic note, complaining of our 
 conduct ? The line of our European policy has been so plainly 
 described, that it is impossible to mistake it. We are to abstain 
 from all interference in their disputes, to take no part in their 
 contests, to make no entangling alliances with any of them ; but to 
 assert and exercise our indisputable right of opening and main- 
 taining diplomatic intercourse with any actual sovereignty. 
 
 There is reason to apprehend, that a tremendous storm is ready 
 to burst upon our happy country ; one which may call into action 
 
 • The resolution, offered by Mr. Clay, declaring that the United States would not 
 see with indifference any interference of the holy alliance in behalf of Spain against 
 the new American republics. 
 
436 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 all our vigor, courage, and resources. Is it wise or prudent, in 
 preparing to breast the storm, if it must come, to talk to this nation 
 of its incompetency to repel European aggression ; to lower its 
 spirit, to weaken its moral energy, and to qualify it for easy con- 
 quest and base submission ? If there be any reality in the dangers 
 which are supposed to encompass us, should we not animate the 
 people, and adjure them to believe, as I do, that our resources are 
 ample ; and that we can bring into the field a million of freemen, 
 ready to exhaust their last drop of blood, and to spend the last 
 cent in the defence of the country, its liberty, and its institutions? 
 Sir, are these, if united, to be conquered by all Europe combined ? 
 All the perils to which we can possibly be exposed, are much less 
 in reality, than the imagination is disposed to paint them. And 
 they are best averted by an habitual contemplation of them, by 
 reducing them to their true dimensions. If combined Europe is 
 to precipitate itself upon us, we cannot too soon begin to invigo- 
 rate our strength, to teach our heads to think, our hearts to conceive, 
 and our arms to execute, the high and noble deeds which belong 
 to the character and glory of our country. The experience of the 
 world instructs us, that conquests are already achieved, which are 
 boldly and firmly resolved on ; and that men only become slaves 
 who have ceased to resolve to be free. If we wish to cover 
 ourselves with the best of all armor, let us not discourage our 
 people, let us stimulate their ardor, let us sustain their resolution, 
 let us proclaim to them that we feel as they feel, and that, with 
 them, we are determined to live or die like freemen. 
 
 Surely, sir, we need no long or learned lectures about the nature 
 of government, and the influence of property or ranks on society. 
 We may content ourselves with studying the true character of our 
 own people ; and with knowing that the interests are confided to 
 us of a nation capable of doing and suffering all things for its 
 liberty. Such a nation, if its rulers be faithful, must be invincible. 
 I well remember an observation made to me by the most illustrious 
 female* of the age, if not of her sex. All history showed, she 
 said, that a nation was never conquered. No, sir, no united 
 nation, that resolves to be free, can be conquered. And has it come 
 to this ? Are we so humbled, so low, so debased, that we dare not 
 express our sympathy for suffering Greece ; that we dare not articu- 
 late our detestation of the brutal excesses of which she has been 
 the bleeding victim, lest we might offend some one or more of 
 their imperial and royal majesties? If gentlemen are afraid to act 
 rashly on such a subject, suppose, Mr. Chairman, that we unite in 
 an humble petition, addressed to their majesties, beseeching them, 
 that of their gracious condescension, they would allow us to express 
 our feelings and our sympathies. How shall it run ? ' We, the 
 
 * Madame de Stael. 
 
ON THE GREEK REVOLUTION. 437 
 
 representatives of the free people of the United States of America, 
 humbly approach the thrones of your imperial and royal majesties, 
 and supplicate that, of your imperial and royal clemency — ' I 
 cannot go through the disgusting recital ; my lips have not yet 
 learned Ao pronounce the sycophantic language of a degraded 
 slave ! IK^re we so mean, so base, so despicable, that we may not 
 attempt to express our horror, utter our indignation, at the most 
 brutal and atrocious war that ever stained earth or shocked high 
 heaven ? at the ferocious deeds of a savage and infuriated soldiery, 
 stimulated and urged on by the clergy of a fanatical and inimical 
 religion, and rioting in all the excesses of blood and butchery, at 
 the mere details of which the heart sickens and recoils ? 
 
 If the great body of Christendom can look on calmly and coolly, 
 whilst all this is perpetrated on a christian people, in its own 
 immediate vicinity, in its very presence, let us at least evince, that 
 one of its remote extremities is susceptible of sensibility tO/6hristian 
 wrongs, and capable of sympathy for christian suffering/; t hat, in 
 thuL-X££»ote quarter of the world, there are hearts not yet closed 
 against compassion for human woes, that can pour out their 
 indignant feelings at the oppression of a people endeared to us by 
 every ancient recollection, and every modern tie. Sir, attempts 
 have been made to alarm the committee, by the dangers to our 
 commerce in the Mediterranean ; and a wretched invoice of figs 
 and opium has been spread before us to repress our sensibilities 
 and to eradicate our humanity. Ah! sir, 'what shall it profit a 
 man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul,' or what 
 shall it avail a nation to save the whole of a miserable trade, and 
 lose its libertiej^^ 
 
 On the subject of the other independent American states, hitherto 
 it has not been necessary to depart from the rule of our foreign 
 relations, observed in regard to Europe. Whether it will become 
 us to do so or not, will be considered when we take up another 
 resolution, lying on the table. But we may not only adopt this 
 measure ; we may go further ; we may recognise the government 
 in the Morea, if actually independent, and it will be neither war, 
 nor cause of war, nor any violation of our neutrality. Besides, 
 sir, what is Greece to the allies ? A part of the dominions of any 
 of them ? By no means. Suppose the people in one of the 
 Philippine isles, or any other spot still more insulated and remote, 
 in Asia or Africa, were to resist their former rulers, and set up and 
 establish a new government, are we not to recognise them, in dread 
 of the holy allies ? If they are going to interfere, from the danger of 
 the contagion of the example, here is the spot, our own favored 
 land, where they must strike. This government, you, Mr. Chair- 
 man, and the body over which you preside, are the living and 
 cutting reproach to allied despotism. If we are to offend them, it 
 is not by passing this resolution. We are daily and hourly giving 
 
438 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 them cause of war. It is here, and in our free institutions, that 
 they will assail us. They will attack us because you sit beneath 
 that canopy, and we are freely debating and deliberating upon the 
 great interests of freemen, and dispensing the blessings of free 
 government. They will strike, because we pass one of those bills 
 on your table. The passage of the least of them, by our free 
 authority, is more galling to despotic powers, than would be the 
 adoption of this so much dreaded resolution. Pass it, and what 
 do you do ? You exercise an indisputable attribute of sovereignty, 
 for which you are responsible to none of them. You do the same 
 when you perform any other legislative function ; no less. If the 
 allies object to this measure, let them forbid us to take a vote in this 
 house ; let them strip us of every attribute of independent govern- 
 ment ; let them disperse us. 
 
 Will gentlemen attempt to maintain that, on the principles of 
 the law of nations, those allies would have cause of war ? If 
 there be any principle which has been settled for ages, any which 
 is founded in the very nature of things, it is that every independent 
 state has the clear right to judge of the fact of the existence of 
 other sovereign powers. I admit that there may be a state of 
 inchoate initiative sovereignty, in which a new government, just 
 struggling into being, cannot be said yet perfectly to exist. But the 
 premature recognition of such new government can give offence 
 justly to no other than its ancient sovereign. The right of recogni- 
 tion comprehends the right to be informed ; and the means of 
 information must, of necessity, depend upon the sound discretion 
 of the party seeking it. You may send out a commission of 
 inquiry, and charge it with a provident attention to your own people 
 and your own interests. Such will be the character of the proposed 
 agency. It will not necessarily follow, that any public functionary 
 will be appointed by the president. You merely grant the means by 
 which the executive may act when he thinks proper. What does 
 he tell you in his message ? That Greece is contending for her 
 independence; that all sympathize with her; and that no power 
 has declared against her. Pass this resolution, and what is the 
 reply which it conveys to him ? ' You have sent us grateful 
 intelligence ; we feel warmly for Greece, and we grant you money, 
 that, when you shall think it proper, when the interests of this 
 nation shall not be jeoparded, you may depute a commissioner or 
 public agent to Greece.' The whole responsibility is then left 
 where the constitution puts it. A member in his place may make 
 a speech or proposition, the house may even pass a vote, in respect 
 to our foreign affairs, which the president, with the whole field lying 
 full before him, would not deem it expedient to effectuate. 
 
 But, sir, it is not for Greece alone that I desire to see this measure 
 adopted. It will give to her but little support, and that purely of 
 a moral kind. It is principally for America, for the credit and 
 
ON THE GREEK REVOLUTION. 439 
 
 character of our common country, for our own unsullied name, that 
 I hope to see it pass. Mr. Chairman, what appearance on the 
 page of history would a record like this exhibit ? ' In the month 
 of January, in the year of our Lord and Saviour, 1824, while all 
 European Christendom beheld, with cold and unfeeling indifference, 
 the unexampled wrongs and inexpressible misery of christian 
 Greece, a proposition was made in the congress of the United 
 States, almost the sole, the last, the greatest depository of human 
 hope and human freedom, the representatives of a gallant nation, 
 containing a million of freemen ready to fly to arms, while the 
 people of that nation were spontaneously expressing its deep-toned 
 feeling, and the whole continent, by one simultaneous emotion, 
 was rising, and solemnly and anxiously supplicating and invoking 
 high heaven to spare and succor Greece, and to invigorate her 
 arms in her glorious cause, whilst temples and senate houses were 
 alike resounding with one burst of generous and holy sympathy ; 
 in the year of our Lord and Saviour, that Saviour of Greece and 
 of us ; a proposition was offered in the American congress to send a 
 messenger to Greece, to inquire into her state and condition, with 
 a kind expression of our good wishes and our sympathies — and 
 it was rejected !' Go home, if you can ; go home, if you dare, to 
 your constituents, and tell them that you voted it down ; meet, if 
 you can, the appalling countenances of those who sent you here, 
 and tell them that you shrank from the declaration of your own 
 sentiments; that you cannot tell how, but that some unknown 
 dread, some indescribable apprehension, some indefinable danger, 
 drove you from your purpose ; that the spectres of cimiters, and 
 crowns, and crescents, gleamed before you and alarmed you ; and 
 that you suppressed all the noble feelings prompted by religion, 
 by liberty, by national independence, and by humanity. I cannot 
 bring myself to believe, that such will be the feeling of a majority 
 of the committee. But, for myself, though every friend of the 
 cause should desert it, and I be left to stand alone with the gentle- 
 man from Massachusetts, I will give to his resolution the poor 
 sanction of my unqualified approbation. 
 
ON AMERICAN INDUSTRY. 
 
 IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, MARCH 30 and 31, 1824. 
 
 [The tariff of 1S24, as it passed both houses of congress and became a law, was 
 avowedly adopted as a measure to protect American industry. The bill was reported 
 by the committee on manufactures, of which Mr Tod of Pennsylvania was chair- 
 man. While under discussion in committee of the whole, Mr. Clay (speaker) made 
 the following elaborate argument in support of an American system for the protec- 
 tion of American industry. On this occasion he met and replied to the ablest 
 opponents of the system, which at that time included Mr. Webster. The latter 
 subsequently changed his opinion and became a supporter of protection.] 
 
 The gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Barbour) has embraced the 
 occasion produced by the proposition of the gentleman from 
 Tennessee to strike out the minimum price in the bill on cotton 
 fabrics, to express his sentiments at large on the policy of the 
 pending measure ; and it is scarcely necessary for me to say that 
 he has evinced his usual good temper, ability, and decorum. The 
 parts of the bill are so intermingled and interwoven together, that 
 there can be no doubt of the fitness of this occasion to exhibit its 
 merits or its defects. It is my intention, with the permission of the 
 committee, to avail myself also of this opportunity, to present to 
 its consideration those general views, as they appear to me, of the 
 true policy of this country, which imperiously demand the passage 
 of this bill. I am deeply sensible, Mr. Chairman, of the high 
 responsibility of my present situation^ But that responsibility 
 inspires me with no other apprehension than that I shall be unable 
 to fulfil my duty ; with no other solicitude than that I may, at least, 
 in some small degree, contribute to recall my country from the 
 pursuit of a fatal policy, which appears to me inevitably to lead to 
 its impoverishment and ruin. I do feel most awfully this responsi- 
 bility. And, if it were allowable for us, at the present day, to 
 imitate ancient examples, I would invoke the aid of the Most 
 High. I would anxiously and fervently implore His divine assist- 
 ance ; that He would be graciously pleased to shower on my 
 country His richest blessings ; and that He would sustain, on this 
 interesting occasion, the humble individual who stands before Him, 
 and lend him the power, moral and physical, to perform the solemn 
 duties which now belong to his public station. 
 
ON AMERICAN INDUSTRY. 441 
 
 Two classes of politicians divide the people of the United 
 States. According to the system of one, the produce of foreign 
 industry should be subjected to no other impost than such as may 
 be necessary to provide a public revenue ; and the produce of 
 American industry should be left to sustain itself, if it can, with no 
 other than that incidental protection, in its competition, at home as 
 well as abroad, with rival foreign articles. According to the system 
 of the other class, whilst they agree that the imposts should be 
 mainly, and may under any modification be safely, relied on as a 
 fit and convenient source of public revenue, they would so adjust 
 and arrange the duties on foreign fabrics as to afford a gradual but 
 adequate protection to American industry, and lessen our depend- 
 ence on foreign nations, by securing a certain and ultimately a 
 cheaper and better supply of our own wants from our own 
 abundant resources. Both classes are equally sincere in their 
 respective opinions, equally honest, equally patriotic, and desirous 
 of advancing the prosperity of the country. In the discussion and 
 consideration of these opposite opinions, for the purpose of 
 ascertaining which has the support of truth and reason, we should, 
 therefore, exercise every indulgence, and the greatest spirit of mutual 
 moderation and forbearance. And, in our deliberations on this 
 great question, we should look fearlessly and truly at the actual 
 condition of the country, retrace the causes which have brought us 
 into it, and snatch, if possible, a view of the future. We should, 
 above all, consult experience — the experience of other nations, as 
 well as our own — as our truest and most unerring guide. 
 
 In casting our eyes around us, the most prominent circumstance 
 which fixes our attention, and challenges our deepest regret, is the 
 general distress which pervades the whole country. It is forced 
 upon us by numerous facts of the most incontestable character. It 
 is indicated by the diminished exports of native produce ; by the 
 depressed and reduced state of our foreign navigation ; by our 
 diminished commerce ; by successive unthrashed crops of grain, 
 perishing in our barns and barn-yards for the want of a market ; 
 by the alarming diminution of the circulating medium ; by the 
 numerous bankruptcies, not limited to the trading classes, but 
 extending to all orders of society ; by a universal complaint of the 
 want of employment, and a consequent reduction of the wages of 
 labor ; by the ravenous pursuit after public situations, not for the 
 sake of their honors and the performance of their public duties, but 
 as a means of private subsistence ; by the reluctant resort to the 
 perilous use of paper money ; by the intervention of legislation in 
 the delicate relation between debtor and creditor ; and, above all, 
 by the low and depressed state of the value of almost every 
 description of the whole mass of the property of the nation, which 
 has, on an average, sunk not less than about fifty per centum within 
 a few years. This distress pervades every part of the union, every 
 vol. i 56 
 
442 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 class of society ; all feel it, though it may be felt, at different places, 
 in different degrees. It is like the atmosphere which surrounds 
 us — all must inhale it, and none can escape it. In some places it 
 has burst upon our people, without a single mitigating circumstance 
 to temper its severity. In others, more fortunate, slight alleviations 
 have been experienced in the expenditure of the public revenue, 
 and in other favoring causes. A few years ago, the planting 
 interest consoled itself with its happy exemptions, but it has now 
 reached this interest also, which experiences, though with less 
 severity, the general suffering. It is most painful to me to attempt 
 to sketch or to dwell on the gloom of this picture. But I have 
 exaggerated nothing. Perfect fidelity to the original would have 
 authorized me to have thrown on deeper and darker hues. And it 
 is the duty of the statesman, no less than that of the physician, to 
 survey, with a penetrating, steady, and undismayed eye, the actual 
 condition of the subject on which he would operate ; to probe to 
 the bottom the diseases of the body politic, if he would apply 
 efficacious remedies. We have not, thank God, suffered in any 
 great degree for food. But distress, resulting from the absence of a 
 supply of the mere physical wants of our nature, is not the only 
 nor perhaps the keenest distress, to which we may be exposed. 
 Moral and pecuniary suffering is, if possible, more poignant. It 
 plunges its victim into hopeless despair. It poisons, it paralyses, 
 the spring and source of all useful exertion. Its unsparing action 
 is collateral as well as direct. It falls with inexorable force at the 
 same time upon the wretched family of embarrassment and insol- 
 vency, and upon its head. They are a faithful mirror, reflecting 
 back upon him, at once, his own frightful image, and that, no less 
 appalling, of the dearest objects of his affection. What is the 
 cause of this wide-spreading distress, of this deep depression, 
 which we behold stamped on the public countenance ? We are 
 the same people. We have the same country. We cannot arraign 
 the bounty of Providence. The showers still fall in the same 
 grateful abundance. The sun still casts his genial and vivifying 
 influence upon the land ; and the land, fertile and diversified in its 
 soils as ever, yields to the industrious cultivator, in boundless 
 profusion, its accustomed fruits, its richest treasures. Our vigor is 
 unimpaired. Our industry has not relaxed. If ever the accusa- 
 tion of wasteful extravagance could be made against our people, it 
 cannot now be justly preferred. They, on the contrary, for the few 
 last years, at least, have been practicing the most rigid economy. 
 The causes, then, of our present affliction, whatever they may be, 
 are human causes, and human causes not chargeable upon the 
 people, in their private and individual relations. 
 
 What, again I would ask, is the cause of the unhappy condition 
 of our country, which I have faintly depicted? It is to be found 
 in the fact that, during almost the whole existence of this govern- 
 
ON AMERICAN INDUSTRY. 443 
 
 ment, \ge have shaped our industry, our navigation, and our 
 commerce, in refe rence to an extraordinary war in Euro pe, and to 
 foreign markets, which no longer exist; in the fact, that we have 
 depended too m uch upon foreign sources of supp l y , and excited 
 too little the native ; in the fact that, whilst we have cultivated, 
 with assiduous care, our foreign resources, we have suffered those 
 at home to wither, in a state of neglect and abandonment. The 
 consequence of the termination of the war of Europe has been, 
 the resumption of European commerce, European navigation, and 
 the extension of European agriculture and European industry, in 
 all its branches. Europe, therefore, has no longer occasion, to any 
 thing like the same extent as that she had during her wars, for 
 American commerce, American navigation, the produce of Amer- 
 ican industry. Europe, in commotion, and convulsed throughout 
 all her members, is to America no longer the same Europe as she 
 is now, tranquil, and watching with the most vigilant attention all 
 her own peculiar interests, without regard to the operation of her 
 policy upon us. The effect of this altered state of Europe upon 
 us has been, to circumscribe the employment of our marine, and 
 greatly to reduce the value of the produce of our territorial labor. 
 The farther effect of this twofold reduction has been, to decrease 
 the value of all property, whether on the land or on the ocean, and 
 which I suppose to be about fifty per centum. And the still 
 further effect has been, to diminish the amount of our circulating 
 medium, in a proportion not less, by its transmission abroad, or its 
 withdrawal by the banking institutions, from a necessity which 
 they could not control. The quantity of money, in whatever form 
 it may be, which a nation wants, is in proportion to the total mass 
 of its wealth, and to the activity of that wealth. A nation that has 
 but little wealth, has but a limited want of money. In stating the 
 fact, therefore, that the total wealth of the country has diminished, 
 within a few years, in a ratio of about fifty per centum, we shall, 
 at once, fully comprehend the inevitable reduction which must 
 have ensued, in the total quantity of the circulating medium of the 
 country. A nation is most prosperous when there is a gradual 
 and untempting addition to the aggregate of its circulating medium. 
 It is in a condition the most adverse, when there is a rapid diminu- 
 tion in the quantity of the circulating medium, and a consequent 
 depression in the value of property. In the former case, the wealth 
 of individuals insensibly increases, and income keeps ahead of 
 expenditure. But in the latter instance, debts have been contracted, 
 engagements made, and habits of expense established, in reference 
 to the existing state of wealth and of its representative. When 
 these come to be greatly reduced, individuals find their debts still 
 existing, their engagements unexecuted, and their habits inveterate. 
 They see themselves in the possession of the same property, on 
 which, in good faith, they had bound themselves. But that prop- 
 
444 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 erty, without their fault, possesses no longer the same value ; and 
 hence discontent, impoverishment, and ruin, arise. Let us suppose, 
 Mr. Chairman, that Europe was again the theatre of such a 
 general war as recently raged throughout all her dominions — such 
 a state of the war as existed in her greatest exertions and in our 
 greatest prosperity ; instantly there would arise a greedy demand 
 for the surplus produce of our industry, for our commerce, for our 
 navigation. The languor which now prevails in our cities, and in 
 our sea-ports, would give way to an animated activity. Our roads 
 and rivers would be crowded with the produce of the interior. 
 Every where we should witness excited industry. The precious 
 metals would reflow from abroad upon us. Banks, which have 
 maintained their credit, would revive their business; and new 
 banks would be established to take the place of those which have 
 sunk beneath the general pressure. For it is a mistake to suppose 
 that they have produced our present adversity ; they may have 
 somewhat aggravated it, but they were the effect and the evidence 
 of our prosperity. Prices would again get up ; the former value 
 of property would be restored. And those embarrassed persons 
 who have not been already overwhelmed by the times, would 
 suddenly find, in the augmented value of their property, and the 
 renewal of their business, ample means to extricate themselves 
 from all their difficulties. The greatest want of civilized society 
 is, a market for the sale and exchange of the surplus of the produce 
 of the labor of its members. This market may exist at home or 
 abroad, or both ; but it must exist somewhere, if society prospers ; 
 and, wherever it does exist, it should be competent to the absorption 
 of the entire surplus of production. It is most desirable that there 
 should be both a home and a foreign market. But, with respect 
 to their relative superiority, I cannot entertain a doubfcX^ The home 
 market is first in order, and paramount in importance.X The 
 object of the bill under consideration, is, to create this home market, 
 and to lay the foundations of a genuine American policy. It is 
 opposed ; and it is incumbent upon the partizans of the foreign 
 policy (terms which I shall use without any invidious intent), to 
 demonstrate that the foreign market is an adequate vent for the 
 surplus produce of our labor. But is it so ? First, foreign nations 
 cannot, if they would, take our surplus produce. If the source of 
 supply, no matter of what, increases in a greater ratio than the 
 demand for that supply, a glut of the market is inevitable, even if 
 we suppose both to remain perfectly unobstructed. The duplication 
 of our population takes place in terms of about twenty-five years. 
 The term will be more and more extended as our numbers multi- 
 ply. But it will be a sufficient approximation to assume this ratio 
 for the present. We increase, therefore, in population, at the rate 
 of about four per centum per annum. Supposing the increase of 
 our production to be in the same ratio, we should, every succeeding 
 
ON AMERICAN INDUSTRY. 445 
 
 year, have of surplus produce, four per centum more than that of 
 the preceding year, without taking into the account the differences 
 of seasons which neutralize each other. If, therefore, we are to 
 rely upon the foreign market exclusively, foreign consumption 
 ought to be shown to be increasing in the same ratio of four per 
 centum per annum, if it be an adequate vent for our surplus 
 produce. But, as I have supposed the measure of our increasing 
 production to be furnished by that of our increasing population, 
 so the measure of their power of consumption must be determined 
 by that of the increase of their population. Now, the total foreign 
 population, who consume our surplus produce, upon an average, 
 do not double their aggregate number in a shorter term than that 
 of about one hundred years. Our powers of production increase 
 then, in a ratio four times greater than their powers of consump- 
 tion. And hence their utter inability to receive from us our surplus 
 produce. 
 
 But, secondly, if they could, they will not. The policy of all 
 Europe is adverse to the reception of our agricultural produce, so 
 far as it comes into collision with its own ; and under that limita- 
 tion we are absolutely forbid to enter their ports, except under 
 circumstances which deprive them of all value as a steady market. 
 The policy of all Europe rejects those great staples of our country, 
 which consist of objects of human subsistence. The policy of all 
 Europe refuses to receive from us any thing but those raw materials 
 of smaller value, essential to their manufactures, to which they can 
 give a higher value, with the exception of tobacco and rice, which 
 they cannot produce. Even Great Britain, to which we are its 
 best customer, and from which we receive nearly one half in value 
 of our whole imports, will not take from us articles of subsistence 
 produced in our country cheaper than can be produced in Great 
 Britain^s In adopting this exclusive policy, the states of Europe 
 do not inquire what is best for us, but what suits themselves 
 respectively ;)they do not take jurisdiction of the question of our 
 interests, but limit the object of their legislation to that of the 
 conservation of their own peculiar interests, leaving us free to 
 prosecute ours as we please. They do not guide themselves by 
 that romantic philanthropy, which we see displayed here, and 
 which invokes us to continue to purchase the produce of foreign 
 industry, without regard to the state or prosperity of our own, that 
 foreigners may be pleased to purchase the few remaining articles 
 of ours, which their restricted policy has not yet absolutely excluded 
 from their consumption. What sort of a figure would a member 
 of the British parliament have made, what sort of a reception 
 would his opposition have obtained, if he had remonstrated against 
 the passage of the corn-law, by which British consumption is 
 limited to the bread-stuffs of British production, to the entire 
 exclusion of American, and stated, that America could not and 
 
446 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 would not buy British manufactures, if Britain did not buy 
 American flour ? 
 
 Both the inability and the policy of foreign powers, then, forbid 
 us to rely upon the foreign market, as being an adequate vent for 
 the surplus produce of American labor. Now let us see if this 
 general reasoning is not fortified and confirmed by the actual 
 experience of this country. If the foreign market may be safely 
 relied upon, as furnishing an adequate demand for our surplus 
 produce, then the official documents will show a progressive 
 increase, from year to year, in the exports of our native produce, in 
 a proportion equal to that which I have suggested. If, on the 
 contrary, we shall find from them that, for a long term of past years, 
 some of our most valuable staples have retrograded, some remained 
 stationary, and others advanced but little, if any, in amount, with 
 the exception of cotton, the deductions of reason and the lessons 
 of experience will alike command us to withdraw our confidence 
 in the competency of the foreign market. The total amount of all 
 our exports of domestic produce for the year, beginning in 1795, and 
 ending on the thirtieth September, 1796, was forty millions seven 
 hundred and sixty-four thousand and ninety-seven. Estimating 
 the increase according to the ratio of the increase of our popula- 
 tion, that is, at four per centum per annum, the amount of the 
 exports of the same produce, in the year ending on the thirtieth 
 of September last, ought to have been eighty-five millions four 
 hundred and twenty thousand eight hundred and sixty-one. It 
 was in fact, only forty-seven millions one hundred and fifty-five 
 thousand four hundred and eight. Taking the average of five 
 years, from 1803 to 1807, inclusive, the amount of native produce 
 exported, was forty-three millions two hundred and two thousand 
 seven hundred and fifty-one for each of those years. Estimating 
 what it ought to have been, during the last year, applying the 
 principle suggested to that amount, there should have been exported 
 seventy-seven millions seven hundred and sixty-six thousand seven 
 hundred and fifty-one, instead of forty-seven millions one hundred 
 and fifty-five thousand four hundred and eight. If these compara- 
 tive amounts of the aggregate actual exports, and what they ought 
 to have been, be discouraging, we shall find, on descending into 
 particulars, still less cause of satisfaction. The export of tobacco 
 in 1791, was one hundred and twelve thousand four hundred and 
 twenty-eight hogsheads. That was the year of the largest exporta- 
 tion of that article ; but it is the only instance in which I have 
 selected the maximum of exportation. The amount of what we 
 ought to have exported last year, estimated according to the scale 
 of increase which I have used, is two hundred and sixty-six 
 thousand three hundred and thirty-two hogsheads. The actual 
 export was ninety-nine thousand and nine hogsheads. We 
 exported, in 1803, the quantity of one million three hundred and 
 
ON AMERICAN INDUSTRY. 447 
 
 eleven thousand eight hundred and fifty-three barrels of flour; 
 and ought to have exported last year, two millions three hundred 
 and sixty-one thousand three hundred and thirty-three barrels. 
 We, in fact, exported only seven hundred and fifty-six thousand 
 seven hundred and two barrels. Of that quantity, we sent to South 
 America one hundred and fifty thousand barrels, according to a 
 statement furnished me by the diligence of a friend near me, (Mr. 
 Poinsett,) to whose valuable mass of accurate information, in 
 regard to that interesting quarter of the world, I have had occasion 
 frequently to apply. But that demand is temporary, growing out 
 of the existing state of war. Whenever peace is restored to it, and 
 I now hope, that the day is not distant when its independence will 
 be generally acknowledged, there cannot be a doubt that it will 
 supply its own consumption. In all parts of it, the soil, either 
 from climate or from elevation, is well adapted to the culture of 
 wheat ; and no where can better wheat be produced, than in some 
 portions of Mexico and Chili. Still the market of South America, 
 is one which, on other accounts, deserves the greatest consideration. 
 And I congratulate you, the committee, and the country, on the 
 recent adoption of a more auspicious policy towards it. 
 
 We exported, in 1803, Indian corn to the amount of two 
 millions seventy-four thousand six hundred and eight bushels. 
 The quantity should have been, in 1823, three millions seven 
 hundred and thirty-four thousand two hundred and eighty-eight 
 bushels. The actual quantity exported, was seven hundred and 
 forty-nine thousand and thirty-four bushels, or about one fifth of 
 what it should have been, and a little more than one third of what 
 it was more than twenty years ago. We ought not, then, to be 
 surprised at the extreme depression of the price of that article, of 
 which I have heard my honorable friend (Mr. Bassett) complain, 
 nor of the distress of the corn-growing districts adjacent to the 
 Chesapeake Bay. We exported seventy-seven thousand nine 
 hundred and thirty-four barrels of beef in 1803, and last year but 
 sixty-one thousand four hundred and eighteen, instead of one 
 hundred and forty thousand two hundred and seventy-four barrels. 
 In the same year (1803) we exported ninety-six thousand six 
 hundred and two barrels of pork, and last year fifty-five thousand 
 five hundred and twenty-nine, instead of one hundred and seventy- 
 three thousand eight hundred and eighty-two barrels. Rice has 
 not advanced, by any means, in the proportion which it ought to 
 have done. All the small articles, such as cheese, butter, candles, 
 and so forth, too minute to detail, but important in their aggregate, 
 have also materially diminished. Cotton alone has advanced. 
 But, whilst the quantity of it is augmented, its actual value is 
 considerably diminished. The total quantity last year, exceeded 
 that of the preceding year, by nearly thirty millions of pounds. 
 And yet the total value of the year of smaller exportation, exceeded 
 
448 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 that of the last year by upwards of three and a half millions 
 of dollars. If this article, the capacity of our country to produce 
 which was scarcely known in 1790, were subtracted from the 
 mass of our exports, the value of the residue would only be a little 
 upwards of twenty-seven millions during the last year. The 
 distribution of the articles o£ our exports throughout the United 
 States, cannot fail to fix the attention of the committee. Of the 
 forty-seven millions one hundred and fifty-five thousand four 
 hundred and eight, to which they amounted last year, three articles 
 alone, (cotton, rice, and tobacco,) composed together twenty-eight 
 millions five hundred and forty-nine thousand one hundred and 
 seventy-seven. Now these articles are chiefly produced to the 
 south. And if we estimate that portion of our population who are 
 actually engaged in their culture, it would probably not exceed two 
 millions. Thus, then, less than one fifth of the whole population 
 of the United States produced upwards of one half, nearly two 
 thirds, of the entire value of the exports of the last year. 
 
 Is this foreign market, so incompetent at present, and which, 
 limited as its demands are, operates so unequally upon the pro- 
 ductive labor of our country, likely to improve in future? If I am 
 correct in the views which I have presented to the committee, it 
 must become worse and worse. What can improve it? Europe 
 will not abandon her own agriculture to foster ours. We may even 
 anticipate that she will more and more enter into competition with 
 us in the supply of the West India market. That of South Amer- 
 ica, for articles of subsistence, will probably soon vanish. The 
 value of our exports, for the future, may remain at about what it 
 was last year. But, if we do not create some new market ; if we 
 persevere in the existing pursuits of agriculture, the inevitable con- 
 sequence must be, to augment greatly the quantity of our produce, 
 and to lessen its value in the foreign market. Can there be a doubt 
 on this point ? Take the article of cotton, for example, which is 
 almost the only article that now remunerates labor and capital. A 
 certain description of labor is powerfully attracted towards the 
 cotton -growing country. The cultivation will be greatly extended, 
 the aggregate amount annually produced, will be vastly augmented. 
 The price will fall. The more unfavorable soils will then be gradu- 
 ally abandoned. And I have no doubt that, in a few years, it will 
 cease to be profitably produced, any where north of the thirty-fourth 
 degree of latitude. But, in the mean time, large numbers of the 
 cotton-growers will suffer the greatest distress. And whilst this 
 distress is brought upon our own country, foreign industry will be 
 stimulated by the very cause which occasions our distress. For, by 
 surcharging the markets abroad, the price of the raw material being 
 reduced, the manufacturer will be able to supply cotton fabrics 
 cheaper; and the consumption, in his own country, and in foreign 
 nations, other than ours, (where the value of the import must be 
 
ON AMERICAN INDUSTRY. 449 
 
 limited to the value of the export, which I have supposed to remain 
 the same,) being proportionally extended, there will be, conse- 
 quently, an increased demand for the produce of his industry. 
 
 Our agricultural is our greatest interest. It ought ever to be 
 predominant; All others should bend to it. And, in considering 
 what is for its advantage, we should contemplate it in all its 
 varieties, of planting, farming, and grazing. Can we do nothing 
 to invigorate it; nothing to correct the errors of the past, and to 
 brighten the still more unpromising prospects which lie before us ? 
 We have seen, I think, the causes of the distresses of the country. 
 We have seen, that an exclusive dependence upon the foreign 
 market must lead to still severer distress, to impoverishment, to 
 ruin. We must then change somewhat our course. We must 
 give a new direction to some portion of our industry. We must 
 speedily adopt a genuine American policy. Still cherishing the 
 foreign market, let us create also a home market, to give further 
 scope to the consumption of the produce of American industry. 
 Let us counteract the policy of foreigners, and withdraw the sup- 
 port which we now give to their industry, and stimulate that of our 
 own country. It should be a prominent object with wise legis- 
 lators, to multiply the vocations and extend the business of society, 
 as far as it can be done, by the protection of our interests at home, 
 against the injurious effects of foreign legislation. Suppose we 
 were a nation of fishermen, or of skippers, to the exclusion of every 
 other occupation, and the legislature had the power to introduce 
 the pursuits of agriculture and manufactures, would not our happi- 
 ness be promoted by an exertion of its authority ? All the existing 
 employments of society — the learned professions — commerce — 
 agriculture — are now overflowing. We stand in each other's way. 
 Hence the want of employment. Hence the eager pursuit after 
 public stations, which I have before glanced at. I have been again 
 and again shocked, during this session, by instances of solicitation 
 for places, before the vacancies existed. The pulse of incumbents, 
 who happen to be taken ill, is not marked with more anxiety by 
 the attending physicians, than by those who desire to succeed them, 
 though with very opposite feelings. Our old friend, the faithful 
 sentinel, who has stood so long at our door, and the gallantry of 
 whose patriotism deserves to be noticed, because it was displayed 
 when that virtue was most rare and most wanted, on a memorable 
 occasion in this unfortunate city, became indisposed some weeks 
 ago. The first intelligence which I had of his dangerous illness, 
 was by an application for his unvacated place. I hastened to assure 
 myself of the extent of his danger, and was happy to find that the 
 eagerness of succession outstripped the progress of disease. By 
 creating a new and extensive business, then, we should not only 
 give employment to those who want it, and augment the sum of 
 national wealth, by all that this new business would create, but we 
 vol. i. 57 
 
450 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 should meliorate the condition of those who are now engaged in 
 existing employments. In Europe, particularly in Great Britain, 
 their large standing armies, large navies, large even on their peace 
 arrangement, their established church, afford to their population 
 employments, which, in that respect, the happier constitution of 
 our government does not tolerate but in a very limited degree. 
 The peace establishments of our army and our navy, are extremely" 
 small, and I hope ever will be. We have no established church, 
 and I trust never shall have. In proportion as the enterprise of our 
 citizens in public employments is circumscribed, should we excite 
 and invigorate it in private pursuits. 
 
 The creation of a home market is not only necessary to procure 
 for our agriculture a just reward of its labors, but it is indispensable 
 to obtain a supply of our necessary wants. If we cannot sell, we 
 cannot buy. That portion of our population, (and we have seen 
 that it is not less than four fifths,) which makes comparatively 
 nothing that foreigners will buy, has nothing to make purchases 
 with from foreigners. It is in vain that we are told of the amount 
 of our exports supplied by the planting interest. They may enable 
 the planting interest to supply all its wants : but they bring no 
 ability to the interests not planting ; unless, which cannot be pre- 
 tended, the planting interest was an adequate vent for the surplus 
 produce of the labor of all other interests. It is in vain to tantalize 
 us with the greater cheapness of foreign fabrics. There must be an 
 ability to purchase, if an article be obtained, whatever may be the 
 price, high or low, at which it is sold. And a cheap article is as 
 much beyond the grasp of him who has no means to buy, as a high 
 one. Even if it were true that the American manufacturer would 
 supply consumption at dearer rates, it is better to have his fabrics 
 than the unattainable foreign fabrics ; because it is better to be ill 
 supplied than not supplied at all. A coarse coat, which will com- 
 municate warmth and cover nakedness, is better than no coat. The 
 superiority of the home market results, first, from its steadiness and 
 comparative certainty at all times ; secondly, from the creation of re- 
 ciprocal interest ; thirdly, from its greater security ; and, lastly, from 
 an ultimate and not distant augmentation of consumption, (and con- 
 sequently of comfort,) from increased quantity and reduced prices. 
 But this home market, highly desirable as it is, can only be created 
 and cherished by the protection of our own legislation against 
 the inevitable prostration of our industry, which must ensue from 
 the action of foreign policy and legislation. The effect and the 
 value of this domestic care of our own interests will be obvious from 
 a few facts and considerations. Let us suppose that half a million 
 of persons are now employed abroad in fabricating, for our con- 
 sumption, those articles, of which, by the operation of this bill, a 
 supply is intended to be provided within ourselves. That half a 
 million of persons are, in effect, subsisted by us ; but their actual 
 
ON AMERICAN INDUSTRY. 451 
 
 means of subsistence are drawn from foreign agriculture. If we 
 could transport them to this country, and incorporate them in the 
 mass of our own population, there would instantly arise a demand 
 for an amount of provisions equal to that which would be requisite 
 for their subsistence throughout the whole year. That demand, 
 in the article of flour alone, would not be less than the quantity 
 of about nine hundred thousand barrels, besides a proportionate 
 quantity of beef, and pork, and other articles of subsistence. But 
 nine hundred thousand barrels of flour exceeded the entire quantity 
 exported last year, by nearly one hundred and fifty thousand barrels. 
 What activity would not this give, what cheerfulness would it not 
 communicate, to our now dispirited farming interest! But if, instead 
 of these five hundred thousand artisans emigrating from abroad, 
 we give by this bill employment to an equal number of our own 
 citizens, now engaged in unprofitable agriculture, or idle, from the 
 want of business, the beneficial effect upon the productions of our 
 farming labor would be nearly doubled. The quantity would be 
 diminished by a subtraction of the produce from the labor of all 
 those who should be diverted from its pursuits to manufacturing 
 industry, and the value of the residue would be enhanced, both by 
 that diminution and the creation of the home market, to the extent 
 supposed. And the honorable gentleman from Virginia may repress 
 any apprehensions which he entertains, that the plough will be 
 abandoned, and our fields remain unsown. For, under all the 
 modifications of social industry, if you will secure to it a just 
 reward, the greater attractions of agriculture will give to it that 
 proud superiority which it has always maintained. If we suppose 
 no actual abandonment of farming, but, what is most likely, a 
 gradual and imperceptible employment of population in the 
 business of manufacturing, instead of being compelled to resort to 
 agriculture, the salutary effect would be nearly the same. Is any 
 part of our common country likely to be injured by a transfer of 
 the theatre of fabrication, for our own consumption, from Europe 
 to America ? All that those parts, if any there be, which will not, 
 nor cannot engage in manufactures, should require, is, that their 
 consumption should be well supplied ; and if the objects of that 
 consumption are produced in other parts of the union, that can 
 manufacture, far from having on that account any just cause of 
 complaint, their patriotism will and ought to inculcate a cheerful 
 acquiescence in what essentially contributes, and is indispensably 
 necessary, to the prosperity of the common family. 
 
 The great desideratum in political economy is the same as in 
 private pursuits ; that is, what is the best application of the aggre- 
 gate industry of a nation, that can be made honestly to produce the 
 largest sum of national wealth ? Labor is the source of all wealth ; 
 but it is not natural labor only. And the fundamental error of the 
 gentleman from Virginia, and of the school to which he belongs, 
 
452 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 in deducing, from our sparse population, our unfitness for the 
 introduction of the arts, consists in their not sufficiently weighing 
 the importance of the power of machinery. In former times, when 
 but little comparative use was made of machinery, manual labor, 
 and the price of wages, were circumstances of the greatest consid- 
 eration. But it is far otherwise in these latter times. Such are the 
 improvements and the perfection of machinery, that, in analysing 
 the compound value of many fabrics, the element of natural labor 
 is so inconsiderable as almost to escape detection. This truth is 
 demonstrated by many facts. Formerly, Asia, in consequence of 
 the density of her population, and the consequent lowness of 
 wages, laid Europe under tribute for many of her fabrics. Now 
 Europe reacts upon Asia, and Great Britain, in particular, throws 
 back upon her countless millions of people, the rich treasures 
 produced by artificial labor, to a vast amount, infinitely cheaper 
 than they can be manufactured by the natural exertions of that 
 portion of the globe. But Britain is herself the most striking 
 illustration of the immense power of machinery. Upon what 
 other principle can you account for the enormous wealth which she 
 has accumulated, and which she annually produces? A statistical 
 writer of that country, several years ago, estimated the total amount 
 of the artificial or machine labor of the nation, to be equal to that 
 of one hundred millions of able-bodied laborers. Subsequent 
 estimates of her artificial labor, at the present day, carry it to the 
 enormous height of two hundred millions. But the population of 
 the three kingdoms is twenty-one millions five hundred thousand. 
 Supposing that, to furnish able-bodied labor to the amount of four 
 millions, the natural labor will be but two per centum of the artificial 
 labor. In the production of wealth she operates, therefore, by a 
 power (including the whole population) of two hundred and 
 twenty-one millions five hundred thousand; or, in other words, by 
 a power eleven times greater than the total of her natural power. 
 If we suppose the machine labor of the United States to be equal 
 to that of ten millions of able-bodied men, the United States will 
 operate, in the creation of wealth, by a power (including all their 
 population) of twenty millions. In the creation of wealth, therefore, 
 the power of Great Britain, compared to that of the United States, 
 is as eleven to one. That these views are not imaginary, will be, I 
 think, evinced, by contrasting the wealth, the revenue, the power, of 
 the two countries. Upon what other hypothesis can we explain 
 those almost incredible exertions which Britain made during the 
 late wars of Europe ? Look at her immense subsidies ! Behold 
 her standing, unaided and alone, and breasting the storm of 
 Napoleon's colossal power, when all continental Europe owned 
 and yielded to its irresistible sway; and finally, contemplate her 
 vigorous prosecution of the war, with and without allies, to its 
 splendid termination, on the ever-memorable field of Waterloo! 
 
ON AMERICAN INDUSTRY. 45$ 
 
 The British works which the gentleman from Virginia has quoted, 
 portray a state of the most wonderful prosperity, in regard to wealth 
 and resources, that ever was before contemplated. Let us look a 
 little into the semi-official pamphlet, written with great force, 
 clearness, and ability, and the valuable work of Lowe, to both of 
 which that gentleman has referred. The revenue of the united 
 kingdom amounted, during the latter years of the war, to seventy 
 millions of pounds sterling; and one year it rose to the astonishing 
 height of ninety millions sterling, equal to four hundred millions 
 of dollars. This was actual revenue, made up of real contribu- 
 tions, from the purses of the people. After the close of the war, 
 ministers slowly and reluctantly reduced the military and naval 
 establishments, and accommodated them to a state of peace. The 
 pride of power, every where the same, always unwillingly surren- 
 ders any of those circumstances, which display its pomp and 
 exhibit its greatness. Contemporaneous with this reduction, Britain 
 was enabled to lighten some of the heaviest burdens of taxation, 
 and particularly that most onerous of all, the income tax. In this 
 lowered state, the revenue of peace, gradually rising from the 
 momentary depression incident to a transition from war, attained, 
 in 1822, the vast amount of fifty-five millions sterling, upwards of 
 two hundred and forty millions of dollars, and more than eleven 
 times that of the United States for the same year ; thus indicating 
 the difference, which I have suggested, in the respective productive 
 powers of the two countries. The excise alone (collected under 
 twenty-five different heads) amounted to twenty-eight millions, 
 more than one half of the total revenue of the kingdom. This 
 great revenue allows Great Britain to constitute an efficient sinking 
 fund of five millions sterling, being an excess of actual income 
 beyond expenditure, and amounting to more than the entire revenue 
 of the United States. 
 
 If we look at the commerce of England, we shall perceive that 
 its prosperous condition no less denotes the immensity of her riches. 
 The average of three years' exports, ending in 1789, was between 
 thirteen and fourteen millions. The average for the same term, 
 ending in 1822, was forty millions sterling. The average of the 
 imports for three years, ending in 1789, was seventeen millions. 
 The average for the same term, ending in 1822, was thirty-six 
 millions, showing a favorable balance of four millions. Thus, in 
 a period not longer than that which has elapsed since the establish- 
 ment of our constitution,' have the exports of that kingdom been 
 trippled ; and this has mainly been the effect of the power of 
 machinery. The total amount of the commerce of Great Britain 
 is greater since the peace, by one fourth, than it was during the 
 war. The average of her tonnage, during the most flourishing 
 period of the war, was two millions four hundred thousand tons. 
 Its average, during the three years, 1819, 1820, and 1821, was two 
 
454 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 millions six hundred thousand; exhibiting an increase of two 
 hundred thousand tons. If we glance at some of the more 
 prominent articles of her manufactures, we shall be assisted in 
 comprehending the true nature of the sources of her riches. The 
 amount of cotton fabrics exported, in the most prosperous year of 
 the war, was eighteen millions sterling. In the year 1820, it was 
 sixteen millions six hundred thousand ; in 1821, twenty millions 
 five hundred thousand; in 1822, twenty-one millions six hundred 
 and thirty-nine thousand pounds sterling; presenting the aston- 
 ishing increase in two years of upwards of five millions. The 
 total amount of imports in Great Britain, from all foreign parts, of 
 the article of cotton wool, is five millions sterling. After supplying 
 most abundantly the consumption of cotton fabrics within the 
 country, (and a people better fed and clad and housed, are not to 
 be found under the sun than the British nation,) by means of her 
 industry, she gives to this cotton wool a new value, which enables 
 her to sell to foreign nations to the amount of twenty-one millions 
 six hundred and thirty-nine thousand pounds, making a clear profit 
 of upwards of sixteen millions five hundred thousand pounds 
 sterling! In 1821, the value of the export of woollen manufac- 
 tures was four millions three hundred thousand pounds. In 1822, 
 it was five millions five hundred thousand pounds. The success 
 of her restrictive policy is strikingly illustrated in the article of 
 silk. In the manufacture of that article she labors under great 
 disadvantages, besides that of not producing the raw material. 
 She has subdued them all, and the increase of the manufacture has 
 been most rapid. Although she is still unable to maintain, in 
 foreign countries, a successful competition with the silks of France, 
 of India, and of Italy, and therefore exports but little, she gives to 
 the two millions of the raw material which she imports, in various 
 forms, a value of ten millions, which chiefly enter into British 
 consumption. Let us suppose that she was dependent upon foreign 
 nations for these ten millions, what an injurious effect would it not 
 have upon her commercial relations with them ? The average of 
 the exports of British manufactures, during the peace, exceeds the 
 average of the most productive years of the war. The amount of 
 her wealth annually produced, is three hundred and fifty millions 
 sterling; bearing a large proportion to all of her preexisting wealth. 
 The agricultural portion of it is said, by the gentleman from 
 Virginia, to be greater than that created by any other branch of her 
 industry. But that flows mainly from a policy similar to that 
 proposed by this bill. One third only of her population is engaged 
 in agriculture ; the other two thirds furnishing a market for the 
 produce of that third. Withdraw this market, and what becomes 
 of her agriculture ? The power and the wealth of Great Britain 
 cannot be more strikingly illustrated than by a comparison of her 
 population and revenue with those of other countries and with our 
 
ON AMERICAN INDUSTRY. 455 
 
 own. [Here Mr. Clay exhibited the following table, made out 
 from authentic materials.! 
 
 
 Population. 
 
 Taxes k public 
 
 Taxation. 
 
 
 
 burdens. 
 
 per capita. 
 
 Russia in Europe, 
 
 37,000,000 
 
 £18,000,000 
 
 £0 9 9 
 
 France, including Corsica, 
 
 30,700,000 
 
 37,000,000 
 
 14 
 
 Great Britain, exclusive of Ireland,! 
 
 
 
 
 (the taxes computed according to ! 
 the value of money on the European j 
 
 14,500,000 
 
 40,000,000 
 
 2 15 
 
 continent,) J 
 
 
 
 
 Great Britain and Ireland collectively, 
 
 21,500,000 
 
 44,000,000 
 
 2 
 
 England alone, 
 
 11,000 000 
 
 36,000,000 
 
 3 2 
 
 Spain, 
 
 11,000,000 
 
 6,000,000 
 
 11 
 
 Ireland, 
 
 7,000,000 
 
 4,000,000 
 
 11 
 
 The United States of America, 
 
 10,000,000 
 
 4,500,000 
 
 9 
 
 From this exhibit we must remark, that the wealth of Great Britain, 
 and consequently her power, is greater than that of any of the 
 other nations with which it is compared. The amount of the 
 contributions which she draws from the pockets of her subjects, is 
 not referred to for imitation, but as indicative of their wealth. The 
 burden of taxation is always relative to the ability of the subjects 
 of it. A poor nation can pay but little. And the heavier taxes of 
 British subjects, for example, in consequence of their greater wealth, 
 may be more easily borne than the much lighter taxes of Spanish 
 subjects, in consequence of their extreme poverty. The object of 
 wise governments should be, by sound legislation, so to protect the 
 industry of their own citizens against the policy of foreign powers, 
 as to give to it the most expansive force in the production of wealth. 
 Great Britain has ever acted, and still acts, on this policy. She has 
 pushed her protection of British interest, further than any other 
 nation has fostered its industry. The result is, greater wealth 
 among her subjects, and consequently greater ability to pay their 
 public burdens. If their taxation is estimated by their natural 
 labor alone, nominally it is greater than the taxation of the subjects 
 of any other power. But, if on a scale of their national and 
 artificial labor, compounded, it is less than the taxation of any 
 other people. Estimating it on that scale, and assuming the aggre- 
 gate of the natural and artificial labor of the united kingdom to 
 be what I have already stated, two hundred and twenty-one 
 millions five hundred thousand, the actual taxes paid by a British 
 subject, are only about three and seven-pence sterling. Estima- 
 ting our own taxes, on a similar scale — that is, supposing both 
 descriptions of labor to be equal to that of twenty millions of 
 able-bodied persons — the amount of tax paid by each soul in the 
 United States is four shillings and six-pence sterling. ^^^ 
 
 The committee will observe, from that table, that the measure 
 of the wealth of a nation is indicated by the measure of its protec- 
 tion of its industry ; and that the measure of the poverty of a 
 nation is marked by that of the degree in which it neglects and « 
 
 J 
 
456 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 / abandons the care of its own industry, leaving it exposed to the 
 / action of foreign powers. Great Britain protects most her industry, 
 V and the wealth of Great Britain, is consequently the greatest. 
 
 France is next in the degree of protection, and France is next in 
 
 the order of wealth. Spain most neglects the duty of protecting 
 the industry of her subjects, and Spain is one of the poorest of 
 European nations. Unfortunate Ireland, disinherited or rendered 
 in her industry subservient to England, is exactly in the same state 
 of poverty with Spain, measured by the rule of taxation. And 
 the United States are still poorer than either. 
 
 The views of British prosperity, which I have endeavored to 
 present, show that her protecting policy is adapted alike to a state 
 of war and of peace. Self-poised, resting upon her own internal 
 resources, possessing a home market, carefully cherished and 
 guarded, she is ever prepared for any emergency. We have seen 
 her coming out of a war of incalculable exertion, and of great 
 duration, with her power unbroken, her means undiminished. We 
 have seen, that almost every revolving year of peace has brought 
 along with it an increase of her manufactures, of her commerce, 
 and, consequently, of her navigation. We have seen, that, con- 
 structing her prosperity upon the solid foundation of her own 
 protecting policy, it is unaffected by the vicissitudes of other states. 
 What is our own condition ? Depending upon the state of foreign 
 powers, confiding exclusively in a foreign, to the culpable neglect 
 of a domestic policy, our interests are affected by all their move- 
 ments. Their wars, their misfortunes, are the only source of our 
 prosperity. In their peace, and our peace, we behold our condition 
 the reverse of that of Great Britain, and all our interests stationary 
 or declining. Peace brings to us none of the blessings of peace. 
 Our system is anomalous ; alike unfitted to general tranquillity, and 
 to a state of war or peace, on the part of our own country. It can 
 succeed only in the rare occurrence of a general state of war 
 throughout Europe. I am no eulogist of England. I am far from 
 recommending her systems of taxation. I have adverted to them 
 only as manifesting her extraordinary ability. The political and 
 foreign interests of that nation may have been, as 1 believe them 
 to have been, often badly managed. Had she abstained from the 
 wars into which she has been plunged by her ambition, or the 
 mistaken policy of her ministers, the prosperity of England would, 
 unquestionably, have been much greater. But it may happen that 
 the public liberty, and the foreign relations of a nation, have been 
 badly provided for, and yet that its political economy has been 
 wisely managed. The alacrity or sullenness with which a people 
 pay taxes, depends upon their wealth or poverty. If the system of 
 their rulers leads to their impoverishment, they can contribute but 
 little to the necessities of the state ; if to their wealth, they cheer- 
 fully and promptly pay the burdens imposed on them. Enormous 
 
ON AMERICAN INDUSTRY. 457 
 
 as British taxation appears to be, in comparison with that of other 
 na ions, but really lighter, as it in fact is, when we consider its great 
 wealth, and its powers of production, that vast amount is collected 
 with the most astonishing regularity. [Here Mr. Clay read certain 
 passages from Holt, showing that, in 1822, there was not a solitary 
 prosecution arising out of the collection of the assessed taxes, 
 which are there considered among the most burdensome, and that 
 the prosecution for violations of the excise laws, in all its numerous 
 branches, were sensibly and progressively decreasing.] 
 
 Having called the attention of the committee to the present 
 adverse state of our country, and endeavored to point out the 
 causes which have led to it ; having shown that similar causes, 
 wherever they exist in other countries, lead to the same adversity 
 in their condition ; and having shown that, wherever we find 
 opposite causes prevailing, a high and animating state of national 
 prosperity exists, the committee will agree with me in thinking 
 that it is the solemn duty of government to apply a remedy to the 
 evils which afflict our country, if it can apply one. I Is there no 
 remedy within the reach of the government ? Are we doomed to 
 behold our industry languish and decay, yet more and more ? 
 But there is a remedy, and that remedy consists in modifying our 
 foreign policy, and in adopting a genuine American system. We\ 
 must naturalize the arts in our country ; and we must naturalize, 
 them by the only means which the wisdom of nations has yeF 
 discovered to be effectual ; by adequate protection against th< 
 otherwise overwhelming influence of foreigners. This is only to, 
 be accomplished by the establishment of a tariff, to the considera- 
 tion of which I am now brought^ 
 
 And what is this tariff? It Ferris to have been regarded as a 
 sort of monster, huge and deformed — a wild beast, endowed with 
 tremendous powers of destruction, about to be let loose among 
 our people, if not to devour them, at least to consume their 
 substance. But let us calm our passions, and deliberately survey 
 this alarming, this terrific being. The sole object of the tariff is 
 to tax the produce of foreign industry, with the view of promoting 
 American industry. The tax is exclusively levelled at foreign 
 industry. That is the avowed and the direct purpose of the tariff. 
 If it subjects any part of American industry to burdens, that is 
 an effect not intended, but is altogether incidental, and perfectly 
 voluntary. 
 
 It has been treated as an imposition of burdens upon one part 
 of the community by design, for the benefit of another; as if, in 
 fact, money were taken from the pockels of one portion of the 
 people and put into the pockets of another. But is that a fair 
 representation of it? No man pays the duty assessed on the 
 foreign article by compulsion, but voluntarily; and this voluntary 
 duty, if paid, goes into the common exchequer, for the common 
 vol. i. 58 
 
458 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 benefit of all. Consumption has four objects of choice. First, it 
 may abstain from the use of the foreign article, and thus avoid the 
 payment of the tax. Second, it may employ the rival American 
 fabric. Third, it may engage in the business of manufacturing, 
 which this bill is designed to foster. Fourth, or it may supply 
 itself from the household manufactures. But it is said, by the 
 honorable gentleman from Virginia, that the south, owing to the 
 character of a certain portion of its population, cannot engage in 
 the business of manufacturing. Now, I do not agree in that 
 opinion, to the extent in which it is asserted. The circumstance 
 alluded to may disqualify the south from engaging in every branch 
 of manufacture, as largely as other quarters of the union, but to 
 some branches of it, that part of our population is well adapted. 
 It indisputably affords great facility in the household or domestic 
 line. But, if the gentleman's premises were true, could his con- 
 clusion be admitted ? According to him, a certain part of our 
 population, happily much the smallest, is peculiarly situated. The 
 circumstance of its degradation unfits it for the manufacturing 
 arts. The well-being of the other, and the larger part of our 
 population, requires the introduction of those arts. What is to be 
 done in this conflict? The gentleman would have us abstain 
 from adopting a policy called for by the interest of the greater and 
 freer part of our population. But is that reasonable ? Can it be 
 expected that the interests of the greater part should be made to 
 bend to the condition of the servile part of our population ? That, 
 in effect, would be to make us the slaves of slaves. I went, with 
 great pleasure, along with my southern friends, and I am ready 
 again to unite with them in protesting against the exercise of any 
 legislative power, on the part of congress, over that delicate subject, 
 because it was my solemn conviction, that congress was interdicted, 
 or at least not authorized, by the constitution, to exercise any &uch 
 legislative power. And I am sure that the patriotism of the south 
 may be exclusively relied upon to reject a policy which should be 
 dictated by considerations altogether connected with that degraded 
 class, to the prejudice of the residue of our population. But does 
 not a perseverance in the foreign policy, as it now exists in fact, 
 make all parts of the union, not planting, tributary to the planting 
 parts? What is the argument? It is, that we must continue 
 freely to receive the produce of foreign industry, without regard to 
 the protection of American industry, that a market may be retained 
 for the sale abroad of the produce of the planting portion of the 
 country; and that, if we lessen in all parts of America — those 
 which are not planting as well as the planting sections — the 
 consumption of foreign manufactures, we diminish to that extent 
 the foreign market for the planting produce. The existing state of 
 things, indeed, presents a sort of tacit compact between the cotton- 
 grower and the British manufacturer, the stipulations of which are, 
 
ON AMERICAN INDUSTRY. 459 
 
 on the part of the cotton-grower, that the whole of the United 
 States, the other portions as well as the cotton-growing, shall 
 remain open and unrestricted in the consumption of British man- 
 ufactures ; and, on the part of the British manufacturer, that, in 
 consideration thereof, he will continue to purchase the cotton of 
 the south. Thus, then, we perceive that the proposed measure, 
 instead of sacrificing the south to the other parts of the union, 
 seeks only to preserve them from being absolutely sacrificed under 
 the operation of the tacit compact which I have described. Sup- 
 posing the south to be actually incompetent, or disinclined, to 
 embark at all in the business of manufacturing, is not its interest, 
 nevertheless, likely to be promoted by creating a new and an 
 American source of supply for its consumption ? Now foreign 
 powers, and Great Britain, principally, have the monopoly of the 
 supply of southern consumption. If this bill should pass, an 
 American competitor, in the supply of the south, would be raised up, 
 and ultimately, I cannot doubt, that it will be supplied more cheaply 
 and better. I have before had occasion to state, and will now 
 again mention, the beneficial effects of American competition with 
 Europe, in furnishing a supply of the article of cotton bagging. 
 After the late war, the influx of the Scottish manufacture prostrated 
 the American establishments. The consequence was, that the 
 Scotch possessed the monopoly of the supply ; and the price of it 
 rose, and attained, the year before the last, a height which amounted 
 to more than an equivalent for ten years protection to the American 
 manufacture. This circumstance tempted American industry 
 again to engage in the business, and several valuable manufacto- 
 ries have been established in Kentucky. They have reduced the 
 price of the fabric very considerably ; but, without the protection 
 of government, they may again be prostrated, and then, the Scot- 
 tish manufacturer engrossing the supply of our consumption, the 
 price will probably again rise. It has been tauntingly asked, if 
 Kentucky cannot maintain herself in a competition with the two 
 Scottish towns of Inverness and Dundee? But is that a fair state- 
 ment of the case ? Those two towns are cherished and sustained 
 by the whole protecting policy of the British empire, whilst Ken- 
 tucky cannot, and the general government will not, extend alike 
 protection to the few Kentucky villages in which the article is 
 made. 
 
 If the cotton-growing consumption could be constitutionally 
 exempted from the operation of this bill, it might be fair to exempt 
 it, upon the condition that foreign manufactures, the proceeds of 
 the sale of cotton abroad, should not enter at all into the consump- 
 tion of the other parts of the United States. But such an arrange- 
 ment as that, if it could be made, would probably be objected to 
 by the cotton-growing country itself. 
 
 Second. The second objection to the proposed bill is, that it 
 
460 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 will diminish the amount of our exports. It can have no effect 
 upon our exports, except those which are sent to Europe. Except 
 tobacco and rice, we send there nothing but the raw materials. 
 The argument is, that Europe will not buy of us, if we do not 
 buy of her. The first objection to it is, that it calls upon us to 
 look to the question, and to take care of European ability in legis- 
 lating for American interests. Now if, in legislating for their 
 interests, they would consider and provide for our ability, the 
 principle of reciprocity would enjoin us so to regulate our inter- 
 course with them, as to leave their ability unimpaired. But I have 
 shown that, in the adoption of their own policy, their inquiry is 
 strictly limited to a consideration of their peculiar interests, without 
 any regard to that of ours. The next remark I would make, is, 
 that the bill only operates upon certain articles of European 
 industry, which it is supposed our interest requires us to manufac- 
 ture within ourselves; and although its effect will be to diminish 
 the amount of our imports of those articles, it leaves them free to 
 supply us with any other produce of their industry. And since 
 the circle of human comforts, refinements, and luxuries, is of great 
 extent, Europe will still find herself able to purchase from us what 
 she has hitherto done, and to discharge the debt in some of those 
 objects. If there be any diminution in our exports to Europe, it 
 will probably be in the article of cotton to Great Britain. I have 
 stated that Britain buys cotton wool to the amount of about five 
 millions sterling, and sells to foreign states to the amount of 
 upwards of twenty-one millions and a half. Of this sum, we take 
 a little upwards of a million and a half. The residue, of about 
 twenty millions, she must sell to other foreign powers than to the 
 United States. Now their market will .continue open to her, as 
 much after the passage of this bill, as before. She will therefore 
 require from us the raw material to supply their consumption. 
 But, it is said, she may refuse to purchase it of us, and seek a 
 supply elsewhere. There can be but little doubt that she now resorts 
 to us, because we can supply her more cheaply and better than 
 any other country. And it would be unreasonable to suppose that 
 she would cease, from any pique towards us, to pursue her own 
 interest. Suppose she was to decline purchasing from us. The 
 consequence would be, that she would lose the market for the 
 twenty millions sterling, which she now sells other foreign powers, 
 or enter it under a disadvantageous competition with us, or with 
 other nations, who should obtain their supplies of the raw material 
 from us. If there should be any diminution, therefore, in the 
 exportation of cotton, it would only be in the proportion of about 
 one and a half to twenty; that is, a little upwards of five per 
 centum ; the loss of a market for which, abroad, would be fully 
 compensated by the market for the article created at home. Lastly, 
 I would observe, that the new application of our industry, produc- 
 
ON AMERICAN INDUSTRY. 461 
 
 ing new objects of exportation, and they possessing much greater 
 value than in the raw state, we should be, in the end, amply 
 indemnified by their exportation. Already the item in our foreign 
 exports of manufactures is considerable; and we know that our 
 cotton fabrics have been recently exported in a large amount to 
 South America, where they maintain a successful competition 
 with those of any other country. 
 
 Third. The third objection to the tariff is, that it will diminish 
 our navigation. This great interest deserves every encouragement, 
 consistent with the paramount interest of agriculture. In the order 
 of nature it is secondary to both agriculture and manufactures. 
 Its business is the transportation of the productions of those two 
 superior branches of industry. It cannot therefore be expected, 
 that they shall be moulded or sacrificed to suit its purposes ; but, 
 on the contrary, navigation must accommodate itself to the actual 
 state of agriculture and manufactures. If, as I believe, we have 
 nearly reached the maximum in value of our exports of raw 
 produce to Europe, the effect hereafter will be, as it respects that 
 branch of our trade, if we persevere in the foreign system, to retain 
 four navigation at the point which it has now reached. By reducing, 
 indeed, as will probably take place, the price of our raw materials, 
 a further quantity of them could be exported, and, of course, 
 additional employment might, in that way, be given to our tonnage ; 
 but that would be at the expense of the agricultural interest. If I 
 am right in supposing that no effect will be produced by this 
 measure upon any other branch of our export trade, but that to 
 Europe; that, with regard to that, there will be no sensible diminu- 
 tion of our exports; and that the new direction given to a portion 
 of our industry will produce other objects of exportation ; the 
 probability is, that our foreign tonnage will be even increased 
 under the operation of this bill. But, if I am mistaken in these 
 views, and it should experience any reduction, the increase in our 
 coasting tonnage, resulting from the greater activity of domestic 
 exchanges, will more than compensate the injury. Although our 
 navigation partakes in the general distress of the country, it is less 
 depressed than any other of our great interests. The foreign 
 tonnage has been gradually, though slowly, increasing, since 1818. 
 And our coasting tonnage, since 1816, has increased upwards of 
 one hundred thousand tons. 
 
 Fourth. It is next contended that the effect of the measure will be 
 to diminish our foreign commerce. The objection assumes, what I 
 have endeavored to controvert, that there will be a reduction in the 
 value of our exports. Commerce is an exchange of commodities. 
 Whatever will tend to augment the wealth of a nation must in- 
 crease its capacity to make these exchanges. By new productions, 
 or creating new values in the fabricated forms which shall be given 
 to old objects of our industry, we shall give to commerce a fresh 
 
462 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 spring, a new aliment. The foreign commerce of the country, from 
 causes, some of which I have endeavored to point out, has been 
 extended as far as it can be. And I think there can be but little 
 doubt that the balance of trade is, and for some time past has been, 
 against us. I was surprised to hear the learned gentleman from 
 Massachusetts (Mr. Webster) rejecting, as a detected and explo- 
 ded fallacy, the idea of a balance of trade. I have not time nor 
 inclination now to discuss that topic. But I will observe, that all 
 nations act upon the supposition of the reality of its existence, and 
 seek to avoid a trade, the balance of which is unfavorable, and to 
 foster that which presents a favorable balance. However the 
 account be made up, whatever may be the items of a trade, commod- 
 ities, fishing industry, marine labor, the carrying trade, all of which 
 I admit should be comprehended, there can be no doubt, I think, 
 that the totality of the exchanges of all descriptions made by one 
 nation with another, or against the totality of the exchanges of all 
 other nations together, may be such as to present the state of an 
 unfavorable balance with the one or with all. It is true that, in 
 the long run, the measures of these exchanges, that is, the totality 
 in value of what is given and of what is received, must be equal to 
 each other. But great distress may be felt long before the coun- 
 terpoise can be effected. In the mean time, there will be an export 
 of the precious metals, to the deep injury of internal trade, an 
 unfavorable state of exchange, an export of public securities, a resort 
 to credit, debt, mortgages. Most of, if not all, these circumstances, 
 are believed now to be indicated by our country, in its foreign com- 
 mercial relations. What have we received, for example, for the 
 public stocks sent to England? Goods. But those stocks arc 
 our bond, which must be paid. Although the solidity of the credit 
 of the English public securities is not surpassed by that of our 
 own, strong as it justly is, when have we seen English stocks sold 
 in our market, and regularly quoted in the prices current, as Amer- 
 ican stocks are in England? An unfavorable balance with one 
 nation, may be made up by a favorable balance with other nations ; 
 but the fact of the existence of that unfavorable balance is strong 
 presumptive evidence against the trade. Commerce will regulate 
 itself! Yes, and the extravagance of a spendthrift heir, who squan- 
 ders the rich patrimony which has descended to him, will regulate 
 itself ultimately. But it ^will be a regulation which will exhibit 
 him in the end safely confined within the walls of a jail. Com- 
 merce will regulate itself! But is it not the duty of wise govern- 
 ments to watch its course, and, beforehand, to provide against even 
 distant evils, by prudent legislation stimulating the industry of 
 their own people, and checking the policy of foreign powers as it 
 operates on them ? The supply, then, of the subjects of foreign 
 commerce, no less than the supply of consumption at home, re- 
 quires of us to give a portion of our labor such a direction as will 
 
ON AMERICAN INDUSTRY. 463 
 
 enable us to produce them. That is the object of the measure 
 under consideration, and I cannot doubt that, if adopted, it will 
 accomplish its object. 
 
 Fifth. The fifth objection to the tariff is, that it will diminish the 
 public revenue, disable us from paying the public debt, and finally 
 compel a resort to a system of excise and internal taxation. This 
 objection is founded upon the supposition that the reduction in the 
 importation of the subjects, on which the increased duties are to 
 operate, will be such as to produce the alleged effect. All this is 
 matter of mere conjecture, and can only be determined by experi- 
 ment. I have very little doubt, with my colleague, (Mr. Trimble,) 
 that the revenue will be increased considerably, for some years at 
 least, under the operation of this bill. The diminution in the quan- 
 tity imported will be compensated by the augmentation of the duty. 
 In reference to the article of molasses, for example, if the import of 
 it should be reduced fifty per centum, the amount of duty col- 
 lected would be the same as it now is. But it will not, in all 
 probability, be reduced by any thing like that proportion. And then 
 there are some other articles which will continue to be introduced 
 in as large quantities as ever, notwithstanding the increase of duty, 
 the object in reference to them being revenue, and not the encour- 
 agement of domestic manufactures. Another cause will render the 
 revenue of this year, in particular, much more productive than it 
 otherwise would have been ; and that is, that large quantities of 
 goods have oeen introduced into the country, in anticipation of the 
 adoption of this measure. The eagle does not dart a keener gaze 
 upon his intended prey, than that with which the British manufac- 
 turer and merchant watches the foreign market, and the course 
 even of our elections as well as our legislation. The passage of 
 this bill has been expected ; and all our information is that the 
 importations, during this spring, have been immense. But, further, 
 the measure of our importations is that of our exportations. If I 
 am right in supposing that, in future, the amount of these, in the 
 old or new forms of the produce of our labor, will not be dimin- 
 ished, but probably increased, then the amount of our importations, 
 and consequently of our revenue, will not be reduced, but may be 
 extended. If these ideas be correct, there will be no inability 
 on the part of government to extinguish the public debt. The 
 payment of that debt, and the consequent liberation of the public 
 resources from the charge of it, is extremely desirable. No one is 
 more anxious than I am to see that important object accomplished. 
 But I entirely concur with the gentleman from Virginia, (Mr. 
 Barbour,) in thinking that no material sacrifice of any of the great 
 interests of the nation ought to be made to effectuate it. Such is the 
 elastic and accumulating nature of our public resources, from the 
 silent augmentation of our population, that if, in any given state of 
 the public revenue, we throw ourselves upon a couch and go to 
 
464 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 sleep, we may, after a short time, awake with an ability abundantly 
 increased to redeem any reasonable amount of public debt with 
 which we may happen to be burdened. The public debt of the 
 United States, though nominally larger now than it was in the year 
 1791, bears really no sort of discouraging comparison to its amount 
 at that time, whatever standard we may choose to adopt to institute 
 the comparison. It was in 1791 about seventy-five millions of dol- 
 lars. It is now about ninety. Then we had a population of about 
 four millions. Now we have upwards of ten millions. Then we 
 had a revenue short of five millions of dollars. Now our revenue 
 exceeds twenty. If we select population as the standard, our pres- 
 ent population is one hundred and fifty per centum greater than it 
 was in 1791 ; if revenue, that is four times more now than at the 
 former period ; whilst the public debt has increased only in a ratio 
 of twenty per centum. A public debt of three hundred millions of 
 dollars, at the present day, considering our actual ability, com- 
 pounded both of the increase of population and of revenue, would 
 not be more onerous now than the debt of seventy-five millions of 
 dollars was, at the epoch of 1791, in reference to the same circum- 
 stances. If I am right in supposing that, under the operation of 
 the proposed measure, there will not be any diminution, but a 
 probable increase of the public revenue, there will be no difficulty 
 in defraying the current expenses of government, and paying the 
 principal as well as the interest of the public debt, as it becomes due. 
 Let us, for a moment, however, indulge the improbable supposition 
 of the opponents of the tariff, that there will be a reduction of the 
 revenue to the extent of the most extravagant calculation which has 
 been made, that is to say, to the extent of five millions. That sum 
 deducted, we shall still have remaining a revenue of about fifteen 
 millions. The treasury estimates of the current service of the years 
 1822, 1823, and 1824, exceeds, each year, nine millions. The 
 lapse of revolutionary pensions, and judicious retrenchments which 
 might be made, without detriment to any of the essential establish- 
 ments of the country, would probably reduce them below nine mil- 
 lions. Let us assume that sum, to which add about five millions 
 and a half for the interest of the public debt, and the wants of gov- 
 ernment would require a revenue of fourteen and a half millions, 
 leaving a surplus of revenue of half a million beyond the public 
 expenditure. Thus, by a postponement of the payment of the prin- 
 cipal of the public debt, in which the public creditors would gladly 
 acquiesce, and confiding, for the means of redeeming it, in the 
 necessary increase of our revenue from the natural augmentation 
 of our population and consumption, we may safely adopt the pro- 
 posed measure, even if it should be attended (which is confidently 
 denied) with the supposed diminution of revenue. We shall not, 
 then, have occasion to vary the existing system of taxation ; we 
 shall be under no necessity to resort either to direct taxes or to an 
 
ON AMERICAN INDUSTRY. 465 
 
 excise. But, suppose the alternative were really forced upon us of 
 continuing the foreign system, with its inevitable impoverishment 
 of the country, but with the advantage of the present mode of 
 collecting the taxes, or of adopting the American system, with its 
 increase of the national wealth, but with the disadvantage of an 
 excise, could any one hesitate between them ? Customs and an 
 excise agree in the essential particulars, that they are both taxes 
 upon consumption, and both are voluntary. They differ only in the 
 mode of collection. The office for the collection of one is located 
 on the frontier, and that for the other within the interior. I believe 
 it was Mr. Jefferson, who, in reply to the boast of a citizen of New 
 York of the amount of the public revenue paid by lhat city, asked 
 who would pay it, if the collector's office were removed to Paulus 
 Hook, on the New Jersey shore ? National wealth is the source of all 
 taxation. And, my word for it, the people are too intelligent to be 
 deceived by mere names, and not to give a decided preference to 
 that system which is based upon their wealth and prosperity, 
 rather than to that which is founded upon their impoverishment 
 and ruin. 
 
 Sixth. But, according to the opponents of the domestic policy, the 
 proposed system will force capital and labor into new and reluc- 
 tant employments ; we are not prepared, in consequence of the 
 high price of wages, for the successful establishment of manufac- 
 tures, and we must fail in the experiment. We have seen, that the 
 existing occupations of our society, those of agriculture, commerce, 
 navigation, and the learned professions, are overflowing with 
 competitors, and that the want of employment is severely felt. 
 Now what does this bill propose ? To open a new and extensive 
 field of business, in which all that choose may enter. There is no 
 compulsion upon any one to engage in it. An option only is 
 given to industry, to continue in the present unprofitable pursuits, 
 or to embark in a new and promising one. The effect will be, to 
 lessen the competition in the old branches of business, and to 
 multiply our resources for increasing our comforts, and augment- 
 ing the national wealth. The alleged fact of the high price of 
 wages is not admitted. The truth is, that no class of society 
 suffers more, in the present stagnation of business, than the laboring 
 class. That is a necessary effect of the depression of agricul- 
 ture, the principal business of the community. The wages of 
 able-bodied men vary from five to eight dollars per month, and 
 such has been the want of employment, in some parts of the union, 
 that instances have not been unfrequent, of men working merely for 
 the means of present subsistence. If the wages for labor here and in 
 England are compared, they will be found not to be essentially 
 different. I agree with the honorable gentleman from Virginia, 
 that high wages are a proof of national prosperity ; we differ only 
 in the means by which that desirable end shall be attained. But, 
 vol. i» 69 
 
466 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 if the fact were true, that the wages of labor are high, I deny the 
 correctness of the argument founded upon it. The argument as- 
 sumes, that natural labor is the principal element in the business 
 of manufacture. That was the ancient theory. But the valuable 
 inventions and vast improvements in machinery, which have been 
 made within a few past years, have produced a new era in the 
 arts. The effect of this change, in the powers of production, may 
 be estimated, from what I have already stated in relation to Eng- 
 land, and to the triumphs of European artificial labor over the 
 natural labor of Asia. In considering the fitness of a nation for the 
 establishment of manufactures, we must no longer limit our views 
 to the state of its population, and the price of wages. All cir- 
 cumstances must be regarded, of which that is, perhaps, the least 
 important. Capital, ingenuity in the construction and adroitness 
 in the use of machinery, and the possession of the raw materials, 
 are those which deserve the greatest consideration. All these 
 circumstances (except that of capital, of which there is no 
 deficiency,) exist in our country in an eminent degree, and more 
 than counterbalance the disadvantage, if it really existed, of 
 the lower wages of labor in Great Britain. The dependence upon 
 foreign nations for the raw material of any great manufacture, has 
 been ever considered as a discouraging fact. The state of our 
 population is peculiarly favorable to the most extensive introduc- 
 tion of machinery. We have no prejudices to combat, no persons 
 to drive out of employment. The pamphlet, to which we have 
 had occasion so often to refer, in enumerating the causes which 
 have brought in England their manufactures to such a state of 
 perfection, and which now enable them, in the opinion of the 
 writer, to defy all competition, does not specify, as one of them, 
 low wages. It assigns three : first, capital ; secondly, extent and 
 costliness of machinery ; and, thirdly, steady and persevering in- 
 dustry. Notwithstanding the concurrence of so many favorable 
 causes, in our country, for the introduction of the arts, we are 
 earnestly dissuaded from making the experiment, and our ultimate 
 failure is confidently predicted. Why should we fail ? Nations, 
 like men, fail in nothing which they boldly attempt, when sus- 
 tained by virtuous purpose and firm resolution. I am not willing 
 to admit this depreciation of American skill and enterprise. I am 
 not willing to strike before an effort is made. All our past history 
 exhorts us to proceed, and inspires us with animating hopes of 
 success. Past predictions of our incapacity have failed, and 
 present predictions will not be realized. At the commencement 
 of this government, we were told that the attempt would be idle to 
 construct a marine adequate to the commerce of the country, or 
 even to the business of its coasting trade. The founders of our 
 government did not listen to these discouraging counsels; and, 
 behold the fruits of their just comprehension of our resources. Our 
 
ON AMERICAN INDUSTRY. 467 
 
 restrictive policy was denounced, and it was foretold that it would 
 utterly disappoint all our expectations. But our restrictive policy 
 has been eminently successful ; and the share which our naviga- 
 tion now enjoys in the trade with France, and with the British 
 West India islands, attests its victory. What were not the dis- 
 heartening predictions of the opponents of the late war ? Defeat, 
 discomfiture, and disgrace, were to be the certain, but not the 
 worst effect of it. Here, again, did prophecy prove false ; and the 
 energies of our country, and the valor and the patriotism of our 
 people, carried us gloriously through the war. We are now, and 
 ever will be, essentially an agricultural people. Without a ma- 
 terial change in the fixed habits of the country, the friends of this 
 measure desire to draw to it, as a powerful auxiliary to its indus- 
 try, the manufacturing arts. The difference between a nation 
 with and without the arts may be conceived, by the difference 
 between a keel-boat and a steam-boat, combating the rapid torrent 
 of the Mississippi. How slow does the former ascend, hugging 
 the sinuosities of the shore, pushed on by her hardy and exposed 
 crew, now throwing themselves in vigorous concert on their oars, 
 and then seizing the pendant boughs of overhanging trees : she 
 seems hardly to move ; and her scanty cargo is scarcely worth the 
 transportation ! With what ease is she not passed by the steam- 
 boat, laden with the riches of all quarters of the world, with a crew 
 of gay, cheerful, and protected passengers, now dashing into the 
 midst of the current, or gliding through the eddies near the shore ! 
 Nature herself seems to survey, with astonishment, the passing 
 wonder, and, in silent submission, reluctantly to own the magni- 
 ficent triumphs, in her own vast dominion, of Fulton's immortal 
 genius. 
 
 Seventh. But it is said that, wherever there is a concurrence of 
 favorable circumstances, manufactures will arise of themselves, 
 without protection ; and that we should not disturb the natural 
 progress of industry, but leave things to themselves. If all nations 
 would modify their policy on this axiom, perhaps it would be better 
 for the common good of the whole. Even then, in consequence 
 of natural advantages and a greater advance in civilization and 
 in the arts, some nations would enjoy a state of much higher pros- 
 perity than others. But there is no universal legislation. The 
 globe is divided into different communities, each seeking to appro- 
 priate to itself all the advantages it can, without reference to the 
 prosperity of others. Whether this is right or not, it has always 
 been, and ever will be the case. Perhaps the care of the interests 
 of one people is sufficient for all the wisdom of one legislature ; 
 and that it is among nations as among individuals, that the happi- 
 ness of the whole is best secured by each attending to its own 
 peculiar interests. The proposition to be maintained by -our ad- 
 versaries is, that manufactures, without protection, will in due time 
 
468 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 spring up in our country, and sustain themselves, in a competition 
 with foreign fabrics, however advanced the arts, and whatever the 
 degree of protection may be in foreign countries. Now I contend, 
 that this proposition is refuted by all experience, ancient and 
 modern, and in every country. If I am asked, why unprotected 
 industry should not succeed in a struggle with protected industry, 
 I answer, the fact has ever been so, and that is sufficient; I reply, 
 that uniform experience evinces that it cannot succeed in such an 
 unequal contest, and that is sufficient. If we speculate on the 
 causes of this universal truth, we may differ about them. Still the 
 indisputable fact remains. And we should be as unwise in not 
 availing ourselves of the guide which it furnishes, as a man would 
 be, who should refuse to bask in the rays of the sun, because he 
 could not agree with judge Woodward as to the nature of the 
 substance of that planet, to which we are indebted for heat and 
 light. If I were to attempt to particularize the causes which 
 prevent the success of the manufacturing arts, without protection, 
 I should say that they are, first, the obduracy of fixed habits. No 
 nation, no individual, will easily change an established course of 
 business, even if it be unprofitable ; and least, of all is an agricul- 
 tural people prone to innovation. With what reluctance do they 
 not adopt improvements in the instruments of husbandry, or in 
 modes of cultivation ! If the farmer makes a good crop, and sells 
 it badly ; or makes a short crop ; buoyed up by hope he perse- 
 veres, and trusts that a favorable change of the market, or of the 
 seasons, will enable him, in the succeeding year, to repair the mis- 
 fortunes of the past. Secondly, the uncertainty, fluctuation, and 
 unsteadiness of the home market, when liable to an unrestricted 
 influx of fabrics from all foreign nations; and, thirdly, the superior 
 advance of skill, and amount of capital, which foreign nations 
 have obtained, by the protection of their own industry. From the 
 latter, or from other causes, the unprotected manufactures of a 
 country are exposed to the ganger of being crushed in their in- 
 fancy, either by the design or from the necessities of foreign man- 
 ufacturers. Gentlemen are incredulous as to the attempts of 
 foreign merchants and manufacturers to accomplish the destruc- 
 tion of ours. Why should they not make such attempts? If the 
 Scottish manufacturer, by surcharging our market, in one year, 
 with the article of cotton bagging, for example, should so reduce 
 the price as to discourage and put down the home manufacture, 
 he would secure to himself the monopoly of the supply. And now, 
 having the exclusive possession of the market, perhaps for a long 
 term of years, he might be more than indemnified for his first loss, 
 in the subsequent rise in the price of the article. W^hat have we 
 not seen under our own eyes! The competition for the transporta- 
 tion of the mail, between this place and Baltimore, so excited, that 
 to obtain it an individual offered, at great loss, to carry it a whole 
 
ON AMERICAN INDUSTRY. 469 
 
 year for one dollar! His calculation no doubt was, that, by driving 
 his competitor off the road, and securing to himself the carriage of 
 the mail, he would be afterwards able to repair his original loss by 
 new contracts with the department. But the necessities of foreign 
 manufacturers, without imputing to them any sinister design, may 
 oblige them to throw into our markets the fabrics which have 
 accumulated on their hands, in consequence of obstruction in the 
 ordinary vents, or from over-calculation ; and the forced sales, at 
 losing prices, may prostrate our establishments. From this view 
 of the subject, it follows, that, if we would place the industry of our 
 country upon a solid and unshakable foundation, we must adopt 
 the protecting policy, which has every where succeeded, and reject 
 that which would abandon it, which has every where failed. 
 
 Eighth. But if the policy of protection be wise, the gentle- 
 man from Virginia (Mr. Barbour) has made some ingenious 
 calculations, to prove that the measure of protection, already 
 extended, has been sufficiently great. With some few exceptions, 
 the existing duties, of which he has made an estimate, were laid 
 with the object of revenue, and without reference to that of 
 encouragement to our domestic industry; and although it is 
 admitted that the incidental effect of duties, so laid, is to promote 
 our manufactures, yet, if it falls short of competent protection, the 
 duties might as well not have been imposed, with reference to that 
 purpose. A moderate addition may accomplish this desirable 
 end ; and the proposed tariff is believed to have this character. 
 
 Ninth. The prohibitory policy, it is confidently asserted, is 
 condemned by the wisdom of Europe, and by her most enlightened 
 statesmen. Is this the fact ? We call upon gentlemen to show 
 in w T hat instance a nation that has enjoyed its benefits has surren- 
 dered it. [Here Mr. Barbour rose (Mr. Clay giving way) and 
 said, that England had departed from it in the China trade, in 
 allowing us to trade with her East India possessions, and in tolera- 
 ting our navigation to her West India colonies.] With respect to the 
 trade to China, the whole amount of what England has done, is, 
 to modify the monopoly of the East India company, in behalf of 
 one and a small part of her subjects, to increase the commerce of 
 another and the greater portion of them. The abolition of the 
 restriction, therefore, operates altogether among the subjects of 
 England ; and does not touch at all the interests of foreign powers. 
 The toleration of our commerce to British India, is for the sake of 
 the specie, with which we mainly carry on that commerce, and 
 which, having performed its circuit, returns to Great Britain in 
 exchange for British manufactures. The relaxation from the 
 colonial policy, in the instance of our trade and navigation with 
 the West Indies, is a most unfortunate example for the honorable 
 gentleman ; for in it is an illustrious proof of the success of our 
 restrictive policy, when resolutely adhered to. Great Britain had 
 
470 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 prescribed the terms on which we were to be graciously allowed 
 to carry on that trade. The effect of her regulations was, to exclude 
 our navigation altogether, and a complete monopoly, on the part 
 of the British navigation, was secured. We forbade it, unless our 
 vessels should be allowed a perfect reciprocity. Great Britain 
 stood out a long time, but finally yielded, and our navigation now 
 fairly shares with hers in the trade. Have gentlemen no other to 
 exhibit than these trivial relaxations from the prohibitory policy, 
 which do not amount to a drop in the bucket, to prove its abandon- 
 ment by Great Britain? Let them show us that her laws are 
 repealed which prohibit the introduction of our flour and provisions ; 
 of French silks, laces, porcelain, manufactures of bronze, mirrors, 
 woollens ; and of the manufactures of all other nations ; and then, 
 we may be ready to allow that Great Britain has really abolished 
 her prohibitory policy. We find there, on the contrary, that 
 system of policy in full and rigorous operation, and a most 
 curiously interwoven system it is, as she enforces it. She begins 
 by protecting all parts of her immense dominions against foreign 
 nations. She then protects the parent country against the colonies ; 
 and, finally, one part of the parent country against another. The 
 sagacity of Scotch industry has carried the process of distillation 
 to a perfection, which would place the art in England on a footing 
 of disadvantageous competition, and English distillation has been 
 protected accordingly. But suppose it were even true that Great 
 Britain had abolished all restrictions upon trade, and allowed the 
 freest introduction of the produce- of foreign labor, would that 
 prove it unwise for us to adopt the protecting system? The 
 object of protection is the establishment and perfection of the arts. 
 In England it has accomplished its purpose, fulfilled its end. If 
 she has not carried every branch of manufacture to the same high 
 state of perfection that any other nation has, she has succeeded in 
 so many, that she may safely challenge the most unshackled 
 competition in exchanges. It is upon this very ground that many 
 of her writers recommend an abandonment of the prohibitory 
 system. It is to give greater scope to British industry and enter- 
 prise. It is upon the same selfish principle. The object of the 
 most perfect freedom of trade, with such a nation as Britain, and 
 of the most rigorous system of prohibition, with a nation whose 
 arts are in their infancy, may both be precisely the same. In both 
 cases, it is to give greater expansion to native industry. They 
 only differ in the theatres of their operation. The abolition of the 
 restrictive system by Britain, if by it she could prevail upon other 
 nations to imitate her example, would have the effect of extending 
 the consumption of British produce in other countries, where her 
 writers boldly affirm it could maintain a fearless competition with 
 the produce of native labor. The adoption of the restrictive system, 
 on the part of the United States, by excluding the produce of foreign 
 
ON AMERICAN INDUSTRY. 471 
 
 labor, would extend the consumption of American produce, unable, 
 in the infancy and unprotected state of the arts, to sustain a com- 
 petition with foreign fabrics. Let our arts breathe under the 
 shade of protection ; let them be perfected, as they are in England, 
 and we shall then be ready, as England now is said to be, to put 
 aside protection, and to enter upon the freest exchanges. To what 
 other cause, than to their whole prohibitory policy, can you ascribe 
 British prosperity ? It will not do to assign it to that of her 
 antiquity ; for France is no less ancient ; though much less rich 
 and powerful, in proportion to the population and natural advanta- 
 ges of France. Hallam, a sensible and highly approved writer on 
 the middle ages, assigns the revival of the prosperity of the north 
 of Europe to the success of the woollen manufactories of Flanders, 
 and the commerce of which their fabrics became the subject ; and 
 the commencement of that of England to the establishment of 
 similar manufactures there under the Edwards, and to the prohibi- 
 tions which began about the same time. As to the poor-rates, the 
 theme of so much reproach without England, and of so much 
 regret within it, among her speculative writers, the system was a 
 strong proof, no less of her unbounded wealth than of her pauper- 
 ism. What other nation can dispense, in the form of regulated 
 charity, the enormous sum, I believe, of ten or twelve millions 
 sterling? [Mr. Barbour stated it was reduced to six; to which Mr. 
 Clay replied, that he entertained no doubt, but that the benign 
 operation of British protection of home industry, had greatly 
 reduced it within the last few years, by the full employment of her 
 subjects, of which her flourishing trade bore evidence.] The 
 number of British paupers was the result of pressing the principle 
 of population to its utmost limits, by her protecting policy, in the 
 creation of wealth, and in placing the rest of the world under 
 tribute to her industry. Doubtless the condition of England would 
 be better, without paupers, if in other respects it remained the same. 
 But in her actual circumstances, the poor system has the salutary 
 effect of an equalizing corrective of the tendency to the concentra- 
 tion of riches, produced by the genius of her political institutions 
 and by her prohibitory system. 
 
 But is it true, that England is convinced of the impolicy of the 
 prohibitory system, and desirous to abandon it ? What proof have 
 we to that effect ? We are asked to reject the evidence deducible 
 from the settled and steady practice of England, and to take lessons 
 in a school of philosophical writers, whose visionary theories are 
 no where adopted; or, if adopted, bring with them inevitable 
 distress, impoverishment, and ruin. Let us hear the testimony of 
 an illustrious personage, entitled to the greatest attention, because 
 he speaks after the full experiment of the unrestrictive system made 
 in his own empire. I hope I shall give no offence in quoting from 
 a publication issued from ' the mint of Philadelphia;' from a work 
 
472 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 of Mr. Carey, of whom I seize, with great pleasure, the occasion 
 to say, that he merits the public gratitude, for the disinterested 
 diligence with which he has collected a large mass of highly useful 
 facts, and for the clear and convincing reasoning with which he 
 generally illustrates them. PJhe emperor of Russia, in March, 1822, 
 after about two years triaiof the free system, says, through count 
 Nesselrode : 
 
 * To produce happy effects, the principles of commercial freedom 
 must be generally adopted. The state which adopts, whilst others 
 reject them, must condemn its own industry and commerce, to pay 
 a ruinous tribute to those of other nations.' 
 
 ' From a circulation exempt from restraint, and the facility 
 afforded by reciprocal exchanges, almost all the governments at 
 first resolved to seek the means of repairing the evil which Europe 
 had been doomed to suffer; but experience, and more correct 
 calculations, because they were made from certain data, and upon 
 the results already known of the peace that had just taken place, 
 forced them soon to adhere to the prohibitory system. 
 
 ' England preserved hers. Austria remained faithful to the rule 
 she had laid down, to guard herself against the rivalship of foreign 
 industry. France, with the same views, adopted the most rigorous 
 measures of precaution. And Prussia published a new tariff in 
 October last, which proves that she found it impossible not to 
 follow the example of the rest of Europe.' 
 
 1 In proportion as the prohibitory system is extended and rendered 
 perfect in other countries, that state which pursues the contrary 
 system, makes, from day to day, sacrifices more extensive and 
 more considerable. * * * It offers a continual 
 
 encouragement to the manufactures of other countries, and its own 
 manufactures perish in the struggle which they are, as yet, unable 
 to maintain. 
 
 ' It is with the most lively feelings of regret we acknowledge it 
 is our own proper experience which enables us to trace this picture. 
 The evils which it details have been realized in Russia and 
 Poland, since the conclusion of the act of the seventh and nine- 
 teenth of December, 1818. ^^Agriculture without a market, industry 
 ivithout protection, languish and decline. Specie is exported, and 
 the most solid commercial houses are shaken. The public 
 prosperity would soon feel the wound inflicted on private fortunes, 
 if new regulations did not promptly change the actual state of 
 affairs. 
 
 *■ Events have proved, that our agriculture and our commerce, as 
 well as our manufacturing, industry, are not only paralysed, but 
 brought to the brink of ruinTj 
 
 The example of Spain has been properly referred to, as 
 affording a striking proof of the calamities which attend a state 
 that abandons the care of its own internal industry. Her pros- 
 
ON AMERICAN INDUSTRY. 473 
 
 perity was the greatest when the arts, brought there by the Moors, 
 flourished most in that kingdom. Then she received from Eng- 
 land her wool, and returned it in the manufactured state ; and then 
 England was least prosperous. The two nations have reversed 
 conditions. Spain, after the discovery of America, yielding to an 
 inordinate passion for the gold of the Indies, sought in their mines 
 that wealth which might have been better created at home. Can 
 the remarkable difference in the state of the prosperity of the two 
 countries be otherwise explained, than by the opposite systems 
 which they pursued? England, by a sedulous attention to her 
 home industry, supplied the means of an advantageous commerce 
 with her colonies. Spain, by an utter neglect of her domestic 
 resources, confided altogether in those which she derived from her 
 colonies, and presents an instance of the greatest adversity. 
 Her colonies were infinitely more valuable than those of England ; 
 and, if she had adopted a similar policy, is it unreasonable to 
 suppose that, in wealth and power, she would have surpassed that 
 of England? I think the honorable gentleman from Virginia 
 does great injustice to the catholic religion, in specifying that as 
 one of the leading causes of the decline of Spain. It is a religion 
 entitled to great respect; and there is nothing in its character 
 incompatible with the highest degree of national prosperity. Is 
 not France, the most polished, in many other respects the most 
 distinguished state, of Christendom, catholic ? Is not Flanders, the 
 most populous part of Europe, also catholic? Are the catholic 
 parts of Switzerland and of Germany less prosperous than those 
 which are protestant? 
 
 Tenth. The next objection of the honorable gentleman from 
 Virginia, which I shall briefly notice, is, that the manufacturing 
 system is adverse to the genius of our government, in its tendency 
 to the accumulation of large capitals in a few hands; in the 
 corruption of the public morals, which is alleged to be incident to 
 it ; and in the consequent danger to the public liberty. The first 
 part of the objection would apply to every lucrative business, to 
 commerce, to planting, and to the learned professions. Would the 
 gentleman introduce the system of Lycurgus? If his principle be 
 correct, it should be extended to any and every vocation which had 
 a similar tendency. The enormous fortunes in our country — the 
 nabobs of the land — have been chiefly made by the profitable 
 pursuit of that foreign commerce, in more propitious times, which 
 the honorable gentleman would so carefully cherish. Immense 
 estates have also been made in the south. The dependents are, 
 perhaps, not more numerous upon that wealth which is accumu- 
 lated in manufactures, than they are upon that which is acquired 
 by commerce and by agriculture. We may safely confide in the 
 laws of distributions, and in the absence of the rule of primogeni- 
 ture, for the dissipation, perhaps too rapid^ of large fortunes. What 
 
 VOL. I; 
 
474 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 has become of those which were held two or three generations back 
 in Virginia ? Many of the descendants of the ancient aristocracy, 
 as it was called, of that state, are now in the most indigent condi- 
 tion. The best security against the demoralization of society, is 
 the constant and profitable employment of its members. The 
 greatest danger to public liberty is from idleness and vice. If 
 manufactures form cities, so does commerce. And the disorders 
 and violence which proceed from the contagion of the passions, are 
 as frequent in one description of those communities as in the other. 
 There is no doubt but that the yeomanry of a country is the safest 
 depository of public liberty. In all time to come, and under any 
 probable direction of the labor of our population, the agricultural 
 class must be much the most numerous and powerful, and will 
 ever retain, as it ought to retain, a preponderating influence in our 
 councils. The extent and the fertility of our lands constitute an 
 adequate security against an excess in manufactures, and also 
 against oppression, on the part of capitalists, towards the laboring 
 portions of the community. 
 
 Eleventh. The last objection, with a notice of which I shall 
 trouble the committee, is, that the constitution does not authorize 
 the passage of the bill. The gentleman from Virginia does not 
 assert, indeed, that it is inconsistent with the express provisions of 
 that instrument, but he thinks it incompatible with the spirit of the 
 constitution. If we attempt to provide for the internal improve- 
 ment of the country, the constitution, according to some gentlemen, 
 stands in our way. If we attempt to protect American industry 
 against foreign policy and the rivalry of foreign industry, the 
 constitution presents an insuperable obstacle. This constitution 
 must be a most singular instrument ! It seems to be made for any 
 other people than our own. Its action is altogether foreign. 
 Congress has power to lay duties and imposts, under no other 
 limitation whatever than that of their being uniform throughout the 
 United States. But they can only be imposed, according to the 
 honorable gentleman, for the sole purpose of revenue. This is a 
 restriction which we do not find in the constitution. No doubt 
 revenue was a principal object with the framers of the constitution 
 in investing congress with the power. But, in executing it, 
 may not the daties and imposts be so laid as to secure domestic 
 interests ? Or is congress denied all discretion as to the amount 
 or the distribution of the duties and imposts ? 
 
 The gentleman from Virginia has, however, entirely mistaken 
 the clause of the constitution on which we rely. It is that which 
 gives to congress the power to regulate commerce with foreign 
 nations. The grant is plenary, without any limitation whatever, 
 and includes the whole power of regulation, of which the subject 
 to be regulated is susceptible. It is as full and complete a grant 
 of the power, as that is to declare war. What is a regulation of 
 
ON AMERICAN INDUSTRY. 475 
 
 commerce ? It implies the admission or exclusion of the object 
 of it, and the terms. Under this power some articles, by the 
 existing laws, are admitted freely ; others are subjected to duties so 
 high as to amount to their prohibition, and various rates of duties 
 are applied to others. Under this power, laws of total non-inter- 
 course with some nations, embargoes, producing an entire cessation 
 of commerce with all foreign countries, have been, from time to 
 time, passed. These laws, I have no doubt, met with the entire 
 approbation of the gentleman from Virginia. [Mr. Barbour said 
 that he was not in congress.] Wherever the gentleman was, 
 whether on his farm or in the pursuit of that profession of which 
 he is an ornament, I have no doubt that he gave his zealous support 
 to the laws referred to. 
 
 The principle of the system under consideration, has the sanc- 
 tion of some of the best and wisest men, in all ages, in foreign 
 countries as well as in our own — of the Edwards, of Henry the 
 Great, of Elizabeth, of the Colberts, abroad; of our Franklin, 
 Jefferson, Madison, Hamilton, at home. But it comes recom- 
 mended to us by a higher authority than any of these, illustrious as 
 they unquestionably are — by the master-spirit of the age — that 
 extraordinary man, who has thrown the Alexanders and the Caesars 
 infinitely further behind him than they stood in advance df the 
 most eminent of their predecessors — that singular man, who, 
 whether he was seated on his imperial throne, deciding the fate of 
 nations and allotting kingdoms to the members of his family, with 
 the same composure, if not with the same affection, as that with which 
 a Virginia father divides his plantations among his children, or on 
 the miserable rock of St. Helena, to which he was condemned by 
 the cruelty and the injustice of his unworthy victors, is equally an 
 object of the most intense admiration. He appears to have 
 comprehended, with the rapidity of intuition, the true interests of a 
 state, and to have been able, by the turn of a single expression, to 
 develope the secret springs of the policy of cabinets. We find 
 that Las Cases reports him to have said : 
 
 1 He opposed the principles of economists, which he said were 
 correct in theory though erroneous in their application. The 
 political constitution of different states, continued he, must render 
 these principles defective ; local circumstances continually call for 
 deviations from their uniformity. Duties, he said, which were so 
 severely condemned by political economists, should not, it is true, 
 be an object to the treasury; they should be the guaranty and 
 protection of a nation, and should correspond with the nature and 
 the objects of its trade. Holland, which is destitute of productions 
 and manufactures, and which was a trade only of transit and 
 commission, should be free of all fetters and barriers. France, on 
 the contrary, which is rich in every sort of production and manu- 
 factures, should incessantly guard against the importations of a 
 
476 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 rival, who might still continue superior to her, and also against the 
 cupidity, egotism, and indifference, of mere brokers. 
 
 1 I have not fallen into the error of modern systematizers,' said 
 the emperor, ' who imagine that all the wisdom of nations is 
 centred in themselves. Experience is the true wisdom of nations. 
 And what does all the reasoning of economists amount to ? They 
 incessantly extol ihe prosperity of England, and hold her up as our 
 model ; but the custom-house system is more burdensome and 
 arbitrary in England than in any other country. They also 
 condemn prohibitions; yet it was England set the example of 
 prohibitions; and they are in fact necessary with regard to certain 
 objects. Duties cannot adequately supply the place of prohibitions ; 
 there will always be found means to defeat the object of the legis- 
 lator. In France we are still very far behind on these delicate 
 points, which are still unperceived or ill understood by the mass of 
 society. Yet, what advancement have we not made; what 
 correctness of ideas has been introduced by my gradual classifica- 
 tion of agriculture, industry, and trade; objects so distinct in 
 themselves, and which present so great and positive a graduation! 
 
 ' First. Agriculture ; the soul, the first basis, of the empire. 
 
 'Second. Industry; the comfort and happiness of the popu- 
 lation. 
 
 ' Third. Foreign trade ; the superabundance, the proper appli- 
 cation, of the surplus of agriculture and industry. 
 
 1 Agriculture was continually improving during the whole course 
 of the revolution. Foreigners thought it ruined in France. In 
 1814, however, the English were compelled to admit that we had 
 little or nothing to learn from them. 
 
 ' Industry or manufactures, and internal trade, made immense 
 progress during my reign. The application of chemistry to the 
 manufactures, caused them to advance with giant strides. I gave 
 an impulse, the effects of which, extended throughout Europe. 
 
 1 Foreign trade, which, in its results, is infinitely inferior to 
 agriculture, was an object of subordinate importance in my mind. 
 Foreign trade is made for agriculture and home industry, and not 
 the two latter for the former. The interests of these three funda- 
 mental cases are diverging and frequently conflicting. I always 
 promoted them in their natural gradation, but I could not and 
 ought not to have ranked them all on an equality. Time will 
 unfold what I have done, the national resources which I created, 
 and the emancipation from the English which I brought about. 
 We have now the secret of the commercial treaty of 1783. France 
 still exclaims against its author; but the English demanded it on 
 pain of resuming the war. They wished to do ihe same after the 
 treaty of Amiens, but I was then all-powerful ; I was a hundred 
 cubits high. I replied, that if they were in possession of the 
 heights of Montmartre I would still refuse to sign the treaty. 
 These words were echoed through Europe. 
 
ON AMERICAN INDUSTRY. 477 
 
 1 The English will now impose some such treaty on France, at 
 least, if popular clamor and the opposition of the mass of the 
 nation, do not force them to draw back. This thraldom would be 
 an additional disgrace in the eyes of that nation, which is now 
 beginning to acquire a just perception of her own interests. 
 
 1 When I came to the head of the government, the American 
 ships, which were permitted to enter our ports on the score of their 
 neutrality, brought us raw materials, and had the impudence to 
 sail from France without freight, for the purpose of taking in 
 cargoes of English goods in London. They, moreover, had the 
 insolence to make their payments, when they had any to make, by 
 giving bills on persons in London. Hence the vast profits reaped 
 by the English manufacturers and brokers, entirely to our prejudice. 
 I made a law that no American should import goods to any 
 amount, without immediately exporting their exact equivalent. A 
 loud outcry was raised against this: it was said that I had ruined 
 trade. But what was the consequence? Notwithstanding the 
 closing of my ports, and in spite of the English, who ruled the 
 seas, the Americans returned and submitted to my regulations. 
 What might I not have done under more favorable circumstances? 
 
 ' Thus I naturalized in France the manufacture of cotton, which 
 includes, 
 
 1 First, spun cotton. We did not previously spin it ourselves ; 
 the English supplied us with it, as a sort of favor. 
 
 I Secondly, the web. We did not yet make it ; it came to us 
 from abroad. 
 
 * Thirdly, the printing-. This was the only part of the manufac- 
 ture that we performed ourselves. I wished to naturalize the two 
 first branches ; and I proposed to the council of state, that their 
 importation should be prohibited. This excited great alarm. I 
 sent for Oberkamp, and I conversed with him a long time. I 
 learned from him, that this prohibition would doubtless produce a 
 shock, but that, after a year or two of perseverance, it would prove 
 a triumph, whence we should derive immense advantages. Then 
 I issued my decree in spite of all ; this was a true piece of states- 
 manship. 
 
 I I at first confined myself merely to prohibiting the web ; then 
 I extended the prohibition to spun cotton ; and we now possess, 
 within ourselves, the three branches of the cotton manufacture, to 
 the great benefit of our population, and the injury and regret of 
 the English ; which proves that, in civil government, as well as in 
 war, decision of character is often indispensable to success/ 
 
 I will trouble the committee with only one other quotation, 
 which I shall make from Lowe ; and from hearing which, the 
 committee must share with me in the mortification which I felt on 
 perusing it. That author says, ' it is now above forty years since 
 the United States of America were definitely separated from us, 
 
478 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 and since, their situation has afforded a proof that the benefit of 
 mercantile intercourse may be retained, in all its extent, without 
 the care of governing, or the expense of defending, these once 
 regretted provinces.' Is there not too much truth in this observa- 
 tion? By adhering to the foreign policy, which I have been 
 discussing, do we not remain essentially British, in every thing 
 but the form of our government? Are not our interests, our 
 industry, our commerce, so modified as to swell British pride, and 
 to increase British power ? 
 
 Mr. Chairman, our confederacy comprehends, within its vast 
 limits, great diversity of interests ; agricultural, planting, farming, 
 commercial, navigating, fishing, manufacturing. No one of these 
 interests is felt in the same degree, and cherished with the same 
 solicitude, throughout all parts of the union. Some of them are 
 peculiar to particular sections of our common country. But all 
 these great interests are confided to the protection of one govern- 
 ment — to the fate of one ship ; and a most gallant ship it is, with 
 a noble crew. If we prosper, and are happy, protection must be 
 extended to all ; it is due to all. It is the great principle on which obe- 
 dience is demanded from all. If our essential interests cannot find 
 protection from our own government against the policy of foreign 
 powers, where are they to get it ? We did not unite for sacrifice, 
 but for preservation. The inquiry should be, in reference to the 
 great interests of every section of the union, (I speak not of minute 
 subdivisions,) what would be done for those interests if that section 
 stood alone and separated from the residue of the republic ? If 
 the promotion of those interests would not injuriously affect any 
 other section, then every thing should be done for them, which 
 would be done if it formed a distinct government. If they come 
 into absolute collision with the interests of another section, a 
 reconciliation, if possible, should be attempted, by mutual conces- 
 sion, so as to avoid a sacrifice of the prosperity of either to that of 
 the other. In such a case, all should not be done for one which 
 would be done, if it were separated and independent, but some- 
 thing ; and, in devising the measure, the good of each part and of 
 the whole, should be carefully consulted. This is the only mode 
 by which we can preserve, in full vigor, the harmony of the whole 
 union. The south entertains one opinion, and imagines that a 
 modification of the existing policy of the country, for the protection 
 of American industry, involves the ruin of the south. The north, 
 the east, the west, hold the opposite opinion, and feel and contem- 
 plate, in a longer adherence to the foreign policy, as it now exists, 
 their utter destruction. Is it true, that the interests of these great 
 sections of our country are irreconcilable with each other? Are 
 we reduced to the sad and afflicting dilemma of determining which 
 shall fall a victim to the prosperity of the other? Happily, I think, 
 there is no such distressing alternative. If the north, the west. 
 
ON AMERICAN INDUSTRY. 479 
 
 and the east, formed an independent state, unassociated with the 
 south, can there be a doubt that the restrictive system would be 
 carried to the point of prohibition of every foreign fabric of which 
 they produce the raw material, and which they could manufacture ? 
 Such would be their policy, if they stood alone; but they are 
 fortunately connected with the south, which believes its interests to 
 require a free admission of foreign manufactures. Here then is a 
 case for mutual concession, for fair compromise. The bill under 
 consideration presents this compromise. It is a medium between 
 the absolute exclusion and the unrestricted admission of the 
 produce of foreign industry. It sacrifices the interest of neither 
 section to that of the other ; neither, it is true, gets all that it wants, 
 nor is subject to all that it fears. But it has been said that the 
 south obtains nothing in this compromise. Does it lose any thing? 
 is the first question. I have endeavored to prove that it does not, 
 by showing that a mere transfer is effected in the source of the 
 supply of its consumption from Europe to America ; and that the 
 loss, whatever it may be, of the sale of its great staple in Europe, 
 is compensated by the new market created in America. But does 
 the south really gain nothing in this compromise ? The consump- 
 tion of the other sections, though somewhat restricted, is still left 
 open by this bill, to foreign fabrics purchased by southern staples. 
 So far its operation is beneficial to the south, and prejudicial to 
 the industry of the other sections, and that is the point of mutual 
 concession. The south will also gain by the extended consump- 
 tion of its great staple, produced by an increased capacity to 
 consume it in consequence of the establishment of the home 
 market. But the south cannot exert its industry and enterprise in 
 the business of manufactures! Why not? The difficulties, if 
 not exaggerated, are artificial, and may, therefore, be surmounted. 
 But can the other sections embark in the planting occupations of 
 the south? The obstructions which forbid them are natural, 
 created by the immutable laws of God, and, therefore, unconquer- 
 able. 
 
 Other and animating considerations invite us to adopt the policy 
 of this system. Its importance, in connection with the general 
 defence in time of war, cannot fail to be duly estimated. Need I 
 recall to our painful recollection the sufferings, for the want of an 
 adequate supply of absolute necessaries, to which the defenders of 
 their country's rights and our entire population, were subjected 
 during the late war ? Or to remind the committee of the great 
 advantage of a steady and unfailing source of supply, unaffected 
 alike in war and in peace? Its importance, in reference to the 
 stability of our union, that paramount and greatest of all our 
 interests, cannot fail warmly to recommend it, or at least to concil- 
 iate the forbearance of every patriot bosom. Now our people 
 present the spectacle of a vast assemblage of jealous rivals, all 
 
480 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 eagerly rushing to the sea-board, jostling each other in their way, 
 to hurry oft' to glutted foreign markets the perishable produce of 
 their labor. The tendency of that policy, in conformity to which 
 this bill is prepared, is to transform these competitors into friends 
 and mutual customers ; and, by the reciprocal exchanges of their 
 respective productions, to place the confederacy upon the most 
 solid of all foundations, the basis of common interest. And is 
 not government called upon, by every stimulating motive, to adapt 
 its policy to the actual condition and extended growth of our great 
 republic. At the commencement of our constitution, almost the 
 whole population of the United States was confined between the 
 Alleghany mountains and the Atlantic ocean. Since that epoch, 
 the western part of New York, of Pennsylvania, of Virginia, all 
 the western states and territories, have been principally peopled. 
 Prior to that period we had scarcely any interior. An interior has 
 sprung up, as it were by enchantment, and along with it new 
 interests and new relations, requiring the parental protection of 
 government. Our policy should be modified accordingly, so as to 
 comprehend all, and sacrifice none. And are we not encouraged 
 by the success of past experience, in respect to the only article 
 which has been adequately protected ? Already have the predic- 
 tions of the friends of the American system, in even a shorter 
 time than iheir most sanguine hopes could have anticipated, been 
 completely realized in regard to that article ; and consumption is 
 now better and more cheaply supplied with coarse cottons, than it 
 was under the prevalence of the foreign system. 
 
 Even if the benefits of the policy were limited to certain sections 
 of our country, would it not be satisfactory to behold American 
 industry, wherever situated, active, animated, and thrifty, rather 
 than persevere in a course which renders us subservient to foreign 
 industry ? But these benefits are twofold, direct and collateral, and, 
 in the one shape or the other, they will diffuse themselves through- 
 out the union. All parts of the union will participate, more or less, 
 in both. As to the direct benefit, it is probable that the north and 
 the east will enjoy the largest share. But the west and the south 
 will also participate in them. Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Rich- 
 mond, will divide with the northern capitals the business of manu- 
 facturing. The latter city unites more advantages for its successful 
 prosecution than any other place I know; Zanesville, in Ohio, only 
 excepted. And where the direct benefit does not accrue, that wiil 
 be enjoyed of supplying the raw material and provisions for the 
 consumption of artisans. Is it not most desirable to put at rest and 
 prevent the annual recurrence of this unpleasant subject, so well 
 fitted, by the various interests to which it appeals, to excite irritation 
 and to produce discontent? Can that be effected by its rejection ? 
 Behold the mass of petitions which lie on our table, earnestly and 
 anxiously entreating the protecting interposition of congress against 
 
ON AMERICAN INDUSTRY. 481 
 
 the ruinous policy which we are pursuing. Will these petitioners, 
 comprehending all orders of society, entire states and communities, 
 public companies and private individuals, spontaneously assem- 
 bling, cease in their humble prayers by your lending a deaf ear ? 
 Can you expect that these petitioners and others, in countless num- 
 bers, that will, if you delay the passage of this bill, supplicate your 
 mercy, should contemplate their substance gradually withdrawn to 
 foreign countries, their ruin slow, but certain and as inevitable as 
 death itself, without one expiring effort ? You think the measure 
 injurious to you ; we believe our preservation depends upon its 
 adoption. Our convictions, mutually honest, are equally strong. 
 What is to be done ? I invoke that saving spirit of mutual conces- 
 sion under which our blessed constitution was formed, and under 
 which alone it can be happily administered. I appeal to the south 
 — to the high-minded, generous, and patriotic south — with which 
 I have so often cooperated, in attempting to sustain the honor and 
 to vindicate the rights of our country. Should it not offer, upon 
 the altar of the public good, some sacrifice of its peculiar opinions? 
 Of what does it complain ? A possible temporary enhancement in 
 the objects of consumption. Of what do we complain? A total 
 incapacity, produced by the foreign policy, to purchase, at any 
 price, necessary foreign objects of consumption. In such an alter- 
 native, inconvenient only to it, ruinous to us, can we expect too 
 much from southern magnanimity ? The just and confident expec- 
 tation of the passage of this bill has flooded the country with recent 
 importations of foreign fabrics. If it should not pass, they will 
 complete the work of destruction of our domestic industry. If it 
 should pass, they will prevent any considerable rise in the price of 
 foreign commodities, until our own industry shall be able to supply 
 competent substitutes. 
 
 To the friends of the tariff I would also anxiously appeal. Every 
 arrangement of its provisions does not suit each of you ; you desire 
 some further alterations ; you would make it perfect. You want 
 what you will never get. Nothing human is perfect. And I have 
 seen, with great surprise, a piece signed by a member of congress, 
 published in the National Intelligencer, stating that this bill must 
 be rejected, and a judicious tariff brought in as its substitute. A 
 judicious tariff! No member of congress could have signed that 
 piece ; or, if he did, the public ought not to be deceived. If this 
 bill do not pass, unquestionably no other can pass at this session, 
 or probably during this congress. And who will go home and say 
 that he rejected all the benefits of this bill, because molasses has 
 been subjected to the enormous additional duty of five cents per 
 gallon ? I call, therefore, upon the friends of the American policy, 
 to yield somewhat of their own peculiar wishes, and not to reject 
 the practicable in the idle pursuit after the unattainable. Let us 
 imitate the illustrious example of the framers of the constitution, 
 vol. i. 61 
 
482 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 and, always remembering that whatever springs from man partakes 
 of his imperfections, depend upon experience to suggest, in future, 
 Jhe necessary amendments. 
 
 We have had great difficulties to encounter. First, the splendid 
 talents which are arrayed in this house against us. Second, we 
 are opposed by the rich and powerful in the land. Third, the 
 executive government, if any, affords us but a cold and equivocal, 
 support. Fourth, the importing and navigating interest, I verily 
 believe from misconception, are adverse to us. Fifth, the British 
 factors and the British influence are inimical to our success. Sixth, 
 long-established habits and prejudices oppose us. Seventh, the 
 reviewers and literary speculators, foreign and domestic. And, 
 lastly, the leading presses of the country, including the influence of 
 that which is established in this city, and sustained by the public 
 purse. 
 
 From some of these, or other causes, the bill may be postponed, 
 thwarted, defeated. But the cause is the cause of the country, and 
 it must and will prevail. It is founded in the interests and affec- 
 tions of the people. It is as native as the granite deeply imbosomed 
 in our mountains. And, in conclusion, I would pray God, in his 
 infinite mercy, to avert from our country the evils which are 
 impending over it, and, by enlightening our councils, to conduct 
 us into that path which leads to riches, to greatness, to glory. 
 
REPLY TO JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 1824. 
 
 [During the session of 1823-4, attempts were made to run at Mr. Clay, on account 
 of his peculiar situation in being named for the presidency, while speaker of the house 
 of representatives, and for his zealous support of the American system. In a debate 
 on an improvement bill he encountered Mr. Randolph of Virginia, who had endeavored 
 to provoke him to reply, and the following remarks were made by Mr. Clay on that 
 occasion, in the course of the debate.] 
 
 Sir, I am growing old. I have had some little measure of ex- 
 perience in public life, and the result of that experience has brought 
 me to this conclusion, that when business, of whatever nature, is 
 to be transacted in a deliberative assembly, or in private life, cour- 
 tesy, forbearance, and moderation, are best calculated to bring it to 
 a successful conclusion. Sir, my age admonishes me to abstain 
 from involving myself in personal difficulties ; would to God that 
 I could say, I am also restrained by higher motives. I certainly 
 never sought any collision with the gentleman from Virginia. My 
 situation at this time is peculiar, if it be nothing else, and might, 
 I should think, dissuade, at least, a generous heart from any wish to 
 draw me into circumstances of personal altercation. I have expe- 
 rienced this magnanimity from some quarters of the house. But I 
 regret, that from others it appears to have no such consideration. 
 The gentleman from Virginia was pleased to say, that in one point at 
 least he coincided with me — in an humble estimate of my gram- 
 matical and philological acquirements. I know my deficiencies. 
 I was born to no proud patrimonial estate ; from my father I in- 
 herited only infancy, ignorance, and indigence. I feel my defects ; 
 but, so far as my situation in early life is concerned, I may, 
 without presumption, say they are more my misfortune than my 
 fault. But, however I regret my want of ability to furnish to the 
 gentleman a better specimen of powers of verbal criticism, I will 
 venture to say, it is not greater than the disappointment of this 
 committee as to the strength of his argument. 
 
ADDRESS TO LA FAYETTE. 
 
 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, DECEMBER 10, 1824. 
 
 [In the year 1524, general La Fayette visited the United States, as the guest of the 
 nation, and was welcomed with the most gratifying testimonies of affection and 
 respect by the whole American people, in behalf of whose rights and liberty he had 
 so gallantly fought, and performed other important services during the revolutionary 
 war. The general landed at New York in August 1824, (having embarked at the 
 same place about forty years before, namely, in December, 1784, on his return to 
 France.) After visiting various parts of the United States, he was received at the 
 city of Washington with distinguished honors by the people and the public authori- 
 ties, and on the tenth of December, 1824, he was introduced to the house of representa- 
 tives by a committee appointed for that purpose. The general, being conducted to 
 the sofa placed for his reception, the speaker (Mr. Clay) addressed him in the follow- 
 ing words.] 
 
 General, 
 
 The house of representatives of the United States, impelled 
 alike by its own feelings, and by those of the whole American 
 people, could not have assigned to me a more gratifying duty than 
 that of presenting to you cordial congratulations upon the occasion 
 of your recent arrival in the United States, in compliance with the 
 wishes of Congress, and to assure you of the very high satisfaction 
 which your presence affords on this early theatre of your glory and 
 renown. Although but few of the members who compose this 
 body shared with you in the war of our revolution, all have, from 
 impartial history, or from faithful tradition, a knowledge of the 
 perils, the sufferings, and the sacrifices, which you voluntarily 
 encountered, and the signal services, in America and in Europe, 
 which you performed for an infant, a distant, and an alien people ; 
 and all feel and own the very great extent of the obligations under 
 which you have placed our country. But the relations in which 
 you have ever stood to the United States, interesting and important 
 as they have been, do not constitute the only motive of the respect 
 and admiration which the house of representatives entertain for you. 
 Your consistency of character, your uniform devotion to regulated 
 liberty, in all the vicissitudes of a long and arduous life, also 
 commands its admiration. During all the recent convulsions of 
 Europe, amidst, as after the dispersion of, every political storm, the 
 
ADDRESS TO LA FAYETTE. 485 
 
 people of the United States have beheld you, true to your old 
 principles, firm and erect, cheering and animating with your well- 
 known voice, the votaries of liberty, its faithful and fearless cham- 
 pion, ready to shed the last drop of that blood which here you so 
 freely and nobly spilt, in the same holy cause. 
 
 The vain wish has been sometimes indulged, that Providence 
 would allow the patriot, after death, to return to his country, and to 
 contemplate the intermediate changes which had taken place ; to 
 view the forests felled, the cities built, the mountains levelled, the 
 canals cut, the highways constructed, the progress of the arts, the 
 advancement of learning, and the increase of population. Gen- 
 eral, your present visit to the United States is a realization of the 
 consoling object of that wish. You are in the midst of posterity. 
 Every where, you must have been struck with the great changes, 
 physical and moral, which have occurred since you left us. Even 
 this very city, bearing a venerated name, alike endeared to you 
 and to us, has since emerged from the forest which then covered 
 its site. In one respect you behold us unaltered, and this is in the 
 sentiment of continued devotion to liberty, and of ardent affection 
 and profound gratitude to your departed friend, the father of his 
 country, and to you, and to your illustrious associates in the field 
 and in the cabinet, for the multiplied blessings which surround us, 
 and for the very privilege of addressing you which I now exercise. 
 This sentiment, now fondly cherished by more than ten millions 
 of people, will be transmitted, with unabated vigor, down the tide 
 of time, through the countless millions who are destined to inhabit 
 this continent, to the latest posterity. 
 
 [After the above address, La Fayette rose, and in a tone influenced by powerful 
 feeling, made an eloquent reply.] 
 

 ADDRESS TO HIS CONSTITUENTS. 
 
 ON THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 1825. MARCH 26, 1825. 
 
 [In the year 1816, as the term of president Madison was about to expire the following 
 year, a caucus of the democratic members of congress was held, in conformity to 
 previous custom, to designate a candidate to succeed Mr. Madison, as president. It 
 being the general impression and understanding that Mr. Monroe would be nominated, 
 much surprise was fell when it whs ascertained that he had received only a small 
 majority in the caucus — the votes standing thus; for James Monroe sixty-five, for 
 William H. Crawford fifty-four. In consequence of this circumstance it was evident 
 that the popular will with regard to nominations might be defeated by caucus manage- 
 ment, and a powerful opposition to nominations of president by members of congress 
 grew up, previous to the election of a successor to Mr. Monroe. It was ascertained 
 that Mr. Crawford, then secretary of the treasury, would be the caucus candidate in 
 1824, and the people began to look around for candidates to oppose him. John Quincy 
 Adams, Andrew Jackson, H»*nry Clay, and John C. Calhoun, were each warmly advo- 
 cated by their friends for the succession. Mr. Calhoun was withdrawn and supported 
 for vice-president, to which office he was elected. Neither of the other four candi- 
 dates being withdrawn, and Mr. Crawford having been nominated by a minority of 
 only sixty-six members of congress, in caucus, it became evident that no election 
 would be made by the people. The result was. that general Jackson received ninety- 
 nine electoral votes, Mr. Adams eighty-four. Mr.' Crawford forty-one, and Mr. Clay 
 thirty-seven. The constitution requiring that the house of representatives should 
 now choose the president, from the three highest names on the list, (Mr. Clay being 
 excluded.) the greatest interest was felt by the friends of all the candidates, as to the 
 course which would be pursued by Mr Clay and his friends in the house, of which 
 he was then speaker. It was soon known, as he had previously declared, that, he 
 would vote for Mr. Adams, which he did, and that gentleman was elected president. 
 A cry of • bargain and corruption ' was thereupon set up by the disappointed and 
 zealous partisans of general Jackson, in which they were joined by some of the 
 friends of Mr. Crawford. This charge having been agitated by members of congress 
 at Washington, and reiterated in other quarters, was indignantly repelled by Mr. Clay, 
 and in refutation he issued the following address to his constituents in Kentucky, 
 composed of the people of the counties of Fayette, Woodford, and Clarke.] 
 
 The relations of your representative and of your neighbor, in 
 which I have so long stood, and in which I have experienced so 
 many strong proofs of your confidence, attachment, and friendship, 
 having just been, the one terminated, and the other suspended, I 
 avail myself of the occasion on taking, I hope a temporary, leave 
 of you, to express my unfeigned gratitude for all your favors, and 
 to assure you, that I shall cherish a fond and unceasing recollection 
 of them. The extraordinary circumstances in which, during the 
 late session of congress, I have been placed, and the unmerited 
 
ADDRESS TO HIS CONSTITUENTS. 487 
 
 animadversions which I have brought upon myself, for an honest 
 and faithful discharge of my public duty, form an additional motive 
 for this appeal to your candor and justice. If, in the office which 
 I have just left, I have abused your confidence and betrayed your 
 interests, I cannot deserve your support in that on the duties of 
 which I have now entered. On the contrary, should it appear that 
 I have been assailed without just cause, and that misguided zeal 
 and interested passions have singled me out as a victim, I cannot 
 doubt that I shall continue to find, in the enlightened tribunal of 
 the public, that cheering countenance and impartial judgment, 
 without which a public servant cannot possibly discharge with 
 advantage the trust confided to him. 
 
 It is known to you, that my name had been presented, by the 
 respectable states of Ohio, Kentucky, Louisiana, and Missouri, for the 
 office of president, to the consideration of the American public, and 
 that it had attracted some attention in other quarters of the union. 
 When, early in November last, I took my departure from the district 
 to repair to this city, the issue of the presidential election before the 
 people was unknown. Events, however, had then so far transpired 
 as to render it highly probable that there would be no election by 
 the people, and that I should be excluded from the house of repre- 
 sentatives. It became, therefore, my duty to consider, and to make 
 up an opinion on, the respective pretensions of the three gentlemen 
 who might be returned, and at that early period I stated to Dr. 
 Drake, one of the professors in the medical school of Transylvania 
 university, and to John J. Crittenden, esquire, of Frankfort, my 
 determination to support Mr. Adams in preference to general 
 Jackson. I wrote to Charles Hammond, esquire, of Cincinnati, 
 about the same time, and mentioned certain objections to the 
 election of Mr. Crawford, (among which was that of his continued 
 ill health,) that appeared to me almost insuperable. During my 
 journey hither, and up to near christmas, it remained uncertain 
 whether Mr. Crawford or myself would be returned to the house 
 of representatives. Up to near christmas, all our information made 
 it highly probable that the vote of Louisiana would be given to 
 me, and that I should consequently be returned, to the exclusion 
 of Mr. Crawford. And, while that probability was strong, I 
 communicated to Mr. senator Johnston, from Louisiana, my resolu- 
 tion not to allow my name, in consequence of the small number 
 of votes by which it would be carried into the house, if I were 
 returned, to constitute an obstacle, for one moment, to an election 
 in the house of representatives. 
 
 During the month of December, and the greater part of January, 
 strong professions of high consideration, and of unbounded 
 admiration of me, were made to my friends, in the greatest profu- 
 sion, by some of the active friends of all the returned candidates. 
 Every body professed td regret^ after I was* excluded from the 
 
488 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 house, that I had not been returned to it. I seemed to be the 
 favorite of every body. Describing my situation to a distant friend, 
 I said to him, ' I am enjoying, whilst alive, the posthumous honors 
 which are usually awarded to the venerated dead.' A person not 
 acquainted with human nature would have been surprised, in 
 listening to these praises, that the object of them had not been 
 elected by general acclamation. None made more or warmer 
 manifestations of these sentiments of esteem and admiration than 
 some of the friends of general Jackson. None were so reserved as 
 those of Mr. Adams; under an opinion, (as I have learned since 
 the election,) which they early imbibed, that the western vote would 
 be only influenced by its. own sense of public duty; and that if its 
 judgment pointed to any other than Mr. Adams, nothing which 
 they could do would secure it to him. These professions and 
 manifestations were taken by me for what they were worth. I 
 knew that the sunbeams would quickly disappear, after my opinion 
 should be ascertained, and that they would be succeeded by a 
 storm ; although I did not foresee exactly how it would burst upon 
 my poor head. I found myself transformed from a candidate 
 before the people, into an elector for the people. I deliberately 
 examined the duties incident to this new attitude, and weighed all 
 the facts before me, upon which my judgment was to be formed 
 or reviewed. If the eagerness of any of the heated partisans of 
 the respective candidates suggested a tardiness in the declaration 
 of my intention, I believed that the new relation in which I was 
 placed to the subject, imposed on me an obligation to pay some 
 respect to delicacy and decorum. 
 
 Meanwhile, that very reserve supplied aliment to newspaper criti- 
 cism. The critics could not comprehend how a man standing as 
 I had stood towards the other gentlemen, should be restrained, by 
 a sense of propriety, from instantly fighting under the banners of 
 one of them, against the others. Letters were issued from the 
 manufactory at Washington, to come back, after performing long 
 journeys, for Washington consumption. These letters imputed to 
 ' Mr. Clay and his friends a mysterious air, a portentous silence,' and 
 so forth. From dark and distant hints the progress was easy to open 
 and bitter denunciation. Anonymous letters, full of menace and 
 abuse, were almost daily poured in on me. Personal threats were 
 communicated to me, through friendly organs, and I was kindly 
 apprized of all the glories of village effigies which awaited me. A 
 systematic attack was simultaneously commenced upon me from 
 Boston to Charleston, with an object, present and future, which it 
 was impossible to mistake. No man but myself could know the 
 nature, extent, and variety, of means which were employed to awe 
 and influence me. I bore them, I trust, as your representative 
 ought to have borne them, and as became me. Then followed the 
 letter, afterwards adopted as his own, by Mr. Kremer, to the 
 
ADDRESS TO HIS CONSTITUENTS. 489 
 
 Columbian Observer. With its character and contents you are well 
 acquainted. When I saw that letter, alleged to be written by a 
 member of the very house over which I was presiding, who was 
 so far designated as to be described as belonging to a particu- 
 lar delegation by name, a member with whom I might be daily 
 exchanging, at least on my part, friendly salutations, and who was 
 possibly receiving from me constantly acts of courtesy and kind- 
 ness, I felt that I could no longer remain silent. A crisis appeared 
 to me to have arisen in my public life. I issued my card. I ought 
 not to have put in it the last paragraph, because, although it 
 does not necessarily imply the resort to a personal combat, it 
 admits of that construction ; nor will I conceal that such a possible 
 issue was within my contemplation. I owe it to the community 
 to say, that whatever heretofore I may have done, or, by inevitable 
 circumstances, might be forced to do, no man in it holds in deeper 
 abhorrence than I do, that pernicious practice. 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 cannot, although we should, reason. Its true corrective 
 will be found when all shall unite, as all ought to unite, in its 
 unqualified proscription. 
 
 A few days after the publication of my card, ' another card,' 
 under Mr. Kremer's name, was published in the Intelligencer. The 
 night before, as I was voluntarily informed, Mr. Eaton, a senator from 
 Tennessee, and the biographer of general Jackson, (who boarded 
 in the end of this city opposite to that in which Mr. Kremer took 
 up his abode, a distance of about two miles and a half,) was clos- 
 eted for some time with him. Mr. Kremer is entitled to great credit 
 for having overcome all the disadvantages, incident to his early 
 life and want of education, and forced his way to the honorable 
 station of a member of the house of representatives. Ardent in his 
 attachment to the cause which he had espoused, general Jackson 
 is his idol, and of his blind zeal others have availed themselves, 
 and have made him their dupe and their instrument. I do not 
 pretend to know the object of Mr. Eaton's visit to him. I state the 
 fact, as it was communicated to me, and leave you to judge. Mr. 
 Kremer's card is composed with some care and no little art, and he 
 is made to avow in it, though somewhat equivocally, that he is the 
 author of the letter to the Columbian Observer. To Mr. Crown- 
 inshield, a member from Massachusetts, formerly secretary of the 
 navy, he declared that he was not the author of that letter. In his 
 card he draws a clear line of separation between my friends and 
 me, acquitting them, and undertaking to make good his charges in 
 that letter, only so far as I was concerned. The purpose of this 
 discrimination is obvious. At that time the election was undecided, 
 and it was therefore as important to abstain from imputations 
 against my friends, as it was politic to fix them upon me. If they 
 vol. i. 62 
 
490 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 could be made to believe that I had been perfidious, in the transport 
 of their indignation, they might have been carried to the support of 
 general Jackson. I received the National Intelligencer, containing 
 Mr. Kremer's card, at breakfast, (the usual time of its distribution,) 
 on the morning of its publication. As soon as I read the card, I 
 took my resolution. The terms of it clearly implied that it had 
 not entered into his conception to have a personal affair with me ; 
 and I should have justly exposed myself to universal ridicule, if I 
 had sought one with him. I determined to lay the matter before 
 the house, and respectfully to invite an investigation of my con- 
 duct. I accordingly made a communication to the house on the 
 same day, the motives for which I assigned. Mr. Kremer was in 
 his place, and, when I sat down, rose and stated that he was pre- 
 pared and willing to substantiate his charges against me. This 
 was his voluntary declaration, unprompted by his aiders and 
 abettors, who had no opportunity of previous consultation with 
 him on that point. Here was an issue publicly and solemnly 
 joined, in which the accused invoked an inquiry into serious 
 charges against him, and the accuser professed an ability and a 
 willingness to establish them. A debate ensued on the next day 
 which occupied the greater part of it, during which Mr. Kremer 
 declared to Mr. Brent, of Louisiana, a friend of mine, and to Mr. 
 Little, of Maryland, a friend of general Jackson, as they have certi- 
 fied, c that he never intended to charge Mr. Clay with corruption 
 or dishonor, in his intended vote for Mr. Adams, as president, or 
 that he had transferred, or could transfer, the votes or interests of 
 his friends; that he (Mr. Kremer) was among the last men in the 
 nation to make such a charge against Mr. Clay; and that his letter 
 was never intended to convey the idea given to it' Mr. Digges, a 
 highly respectable inhabitant of this city, has certified to the same 
 declarations of Mr. Kremer. 
 
 A message was also conveyed to me, during the discussion, 
 through a member of the house, to ascertain if I would be satis- 
 fied with an explanation which was put on paper and shown me, 
 and which it was stated Mr. Kremer was willing, in his place, to 
 make. I replied that the matter was in the possession of the 
 house. I was afterwards told, that Mr. Ingham, of Pennsylvania, 
 got hold of that paper, put it in his pocket, and that he advised Mr. 
 Kremer to take no step without the approbation of his friends. Mr. 
 Cook, of Illinois, moved an adjournment of the house, on infor- 
 mation which he received of the probability of Mr. Kremer's making 
 a satisfactory atonement on the next day, for the injury which he 
 had done me, which I have no doubt he would have made, if he 
 had been left to the impulses of his native honesty. The house 
 decided to refer my communication to a committee, and adjourned 
 until the next day to appoint it by ballot. In the mean time Mr. 
 Kremer had taken, I presume, or rather there had been forced upon 
 
ADDRESS TO HIS CONSTITUENTS. 491 
 
 him, the advice of Ids friends, and I heard no more of the apology. 
 A committee was appointed of seven gentlemen, of whom not one 
 was my political friend, but who were among the most eminent 
 members of the body. I received no summons or notification from 
 the committee from its first organization to its final dissolution, but 
 Mr. Kremer was called upon by it to bring forward his proofs. For 
 one moment be pleased to stop here and contemplate his posture, 
 his relation to the house and to me, and the high obligations under 
 which he had voluntarily placed himself. He was a member of 
 one of the most august assemblies upon earth, of which he was 
 bound to defend the purity or expose the corruption by every 
 consideration which ought to influence a patriot bosom. A most 
 responsible and highly important constitutional duty was to be 
 performed by that assembly. He had chosen, in an anonymous 
 letter, to bring against its presiding officer charges, in respect to that 
 duty, of the most flagitious character. These charges comprehend 
 delegations from several highly respectable states. If true, that 
 presiding officer merited not merely to be dragged from the chair, 
 but to be expelled the house. He challenges an investigation into 
 his conduct, and Mr. Kremer boldly accepts the challenge, and 
 promises to sustain his accusation. The committee appointed by 
 the house itself, with the common consent of both parties, calls 
 upon Mr. Kremer to execute his pledge publicly given, in his 
 proper place, and also previously given in the public prints. Here 
 is the theatre of the alleged arrangements ; this the vicinage in which 
 the trial ought to take place. Every thing was here fresh in the 
 recollection of the witnesses, if there were any. Here all the proofs 
 were concentrated. Mr. Kremer was stimulated by every motive 
 which could impel to action ; by his consistency of character; by 
 duty to his constituents, to his country ; by that of redeeming his 
 solemn pledge ; by his anxious wish for the success of his favorite, 
 whose interests could not fail to be advanced by supporting his 
 atrocious charges. But Mr. Kremer had now the benefit of the 
 advice of his friends. He had no proofs, for the plainest of all 
 reasons, because there was no truth in his charges. They saw 
 that to attempt to establish them and to fail, as he must fail in the 
 attempt, might lead to an exposure of the conspiracy, of which he 
 was the organ. They advised, therefore, that he should make a 
 retreat, and their adroitness suggested, that in an objection to that 
 jurisdiction of the house, which had been admitted, and in the 
 popular topics of the freedom of the press, his duty to his constit- 
 uents, and the inequality in the condition of the speaker of the 
 house, and a member on the floor, plausible means might be found 
 to deceive the ignorant and conceal his disgrace. A labored com- 
 munication was accordingly prepared by them, in Mr. Kremer's 
 name, and transmitted to the committee, founded upon these sug- 
 gestions. Thus the valiant champion, who had boldly stepped 
 
492 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 forward, and promised, as a representative of the people, to ■ cry- 
 aloud and spare not,' forgot all his gratuitous gallantry and boasted 
 patriotism, and sank at once into profound silence. 
 
 With these remarks, I will for the present leave him, and proceed 
 to assign the reasons to you, to whom alone I admit myself to be 
 officially responsible, for the vote which I gave on the presidential 
 election. The first inquiry which it behooved me to make was, as 
 to the influence which ought to be exerted on my judgment, by 
 the relative state of the electoral votes which the three returned 
 candidates brought into the house from the colleges. General 
 Jackson obtained ninety-nine, Mr. Adams eighty-four, and Mr. 
 Crawford forty-one. Ought the fact of a plurality being given to 
 one of the candidates to have any, and what, weight? If the 
 constitution had intended that it should have been decisive, the 
 constitution would have made it decisive, and interdicted the 
 exercise of any discretion, on the part of the house of representa- 
 tives. The constitution has not so ordained, but, on the contrary, 
 it has provided, lhat ' from the persons having the highest numbers, 
 not exceeding three, on the list, of those voted for as president, the 
 house of representatives shall choose, immediately, by ballot, a 
 president.' Thus a discretion is necessarily invested in the house; 
 for choice implies examination, comparison, judgment. The 
 fact, therefore, that one of the three persons was the highest 
 returned, not being, by the constitution of the country, conclusive 
 upon the judgment of the house, it still remains to determine what 
 is the true degree of weight belonging to it ? It has been contended 
 that it should operate, if not as an instruction, at least in the nature 
 of one, and that in this form it should control the judgment of the 
 house. But this is the same argument of conclusiveness which 
 the constitution does not enjoin, thrown into a different but more 
 imposing shape. Let me analyze it. There are certain states, the 
 aggregate of whose electoral votes conferred upon the highest 
 returned candidate, indicate their wish that he should be the presi- 
 dent. Their votes amount in number to ninety-nine, out of two 
 hundred and sixty-one electoral votes of the whole union. These 
 ninety-nine do not, and cannot, of themselves, make the president. 
 If the fact of particular states giving ninety-nine votes, can, accord- 
 ing to any received notions of the doctrine of instruction, be 
 regarded in that light, to whom are those instructions to be consid- 
 ered addressed? According to that doctrine, the people who 
 appoint, have the right to direct, by their instruction, in certain 
 cases, the course of the representative whom they appoint. The 
 states, therefore, who gave those ninety-nine votes, may in some 
 sense be understood thereby to have instructed their representatives 
 in the house to vote for the person on whom they were bestowed, 
 in the choice of a president. But most clearly the representatives 
 coming from other states, which gave no part of those ninety-nine 
 
ADDRESS TO HIS CONSTITUENTS. 493 
 
 votes, cannot be considered as having been under any obligation 
 to surrender their judgments to those of the states which gave the 
 ninety-nine votes. To contend that they are under such an 
 obligation, would be to maintain that the people of one state have 
 a right to instruct the representatives from another state. It would 
 be to maintain a still more absurd proposition ; that in a case 
 where the representatives from a state did not hold themselves 
 instructed and bound by the will of that state, as indicated in its 
 electoral college, the representatives from another state were, never- 
 theless, instructed and bound by that alien will. Thus the entire 
 vote of North Carolina, and a large majority of that of Maryland, 
 in their respective electoral colleges, were given to one of the three 
 returned candidates, for whom the delegation from neither of those 
 states voted. And yet the argument combated requires that the 
 delegation from Kentucky, who do not represent the people of 
 North Carolina nor Maryland, should be instructed by, and give 
 an effect to, the indicated will of the people of those two states, 
 when their own delegation paid no attention to it. Doubtless, 
 those delegations felt themselves authorized to look into the actual 
 composition of, and all other circumstances connected with, the 
 majorities which gave the electoral votes, in their respective states ; 
 and felt themselves justified, from a view of the whole ground, to 
 act upon their responsibility, and according to their best judgments, 
 disregarding the electoral votes in their states. And are represen- 
 tatives from a different state not only bound by the will of the 
 people of a different commonwealth, but forbidden to examine 
 into the manner by which the expression of that will was brought 
 about — an examination which the immediate representatives them- 
 selves, feel it their duty to make ? 
 
 Is the fact, then, of a plurality to have no weight? Far from it. 
 Here are twenty-four communities united under a common govern- 
 ment. The expression of the will of any one of them is entitled 
 to the most respectful attention. It ought to be patiently heard and 
 kindly regarded by the others ; but it cannot be admitted to be 
 conclusive upon them. The expression of the will of ninety-nine 
 out of two hundred and sixty-one electors, is entitled to very 
 great attention, but that will cannot be considered as entitled to 
 control the will of the one hundred and sixty-two electors who 
 have manifested a different will. To give it such controlling 
 influence, would be a subversion of the fundamental maxim of the 
 republic — that the majority should govern. The will of the 
 ninety-nine can neither be allowed rightfully to control the remain- 
 ing one hundred and sixty-two, nor any one of the one hundred 
 and sixtv-two electoral votes. It may be an argument, a persuasion, 
 addressed to all and to each of them, but it is binding and obliga- 
 tory upon none. It follows, then, that the fact of a plurality was 
 only one among the various considerations which the house was 
 
494 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 called upon to weigh, in making up its judgment. And the weight 
 of the consideration ought to have been regulated by the extent of 
 the plurality. As between general Jackson and Mr. Adams, the 
 vote standing in the proportions of ninety-nine to eighty-four, it 
 was entitled to less weight ; as between the general and Mr. Craw- 
 ford, it was entitled to more, the vote being as ninety-nine to forty- 
 one. The concession may even be made that, upon the supposition 
 of an equality of pretensions between competing candidates, the 
 preponderance ought to be given to the fact of a plurality. 
 
 With these views of the relative state of the vote with which 
 the three returned candidates entered the house, I proceeded to 
 examine the other considerations which belonged to the question. 
 For Mr. Crawford, who barely entered the house, with only four 
 votes more than one candidate not returned, and upon whose case, 
 therefore, the argument derived from the fact of plurality operated 
 with strong, though not decisive force, I have ever felt much 
 personal regard. But I was called upon to perform a solemn 
 public duty, in which my private feelings, whether of affection or 
 aversion, were not to be indulged, but the good of my country 
 only consulted. It appeared to me that the precarious state of that 
 gentleman's health, although I participated with his best friends in 
 all their regrets and sympathies on account of it, was conclusive 
 against him, to say nothing of other considerations of a public 
 nature, which would have deserved examination if, happily, in that 
 respect he had been differently circumstanced. He had been ill 
 near eighteen months ; and, although I am aware that his actual 
 condition was a fact depending upon evidence, and that the 
 evidence in regard to it, which had been presented to the public, 
 w T as not perfectly harmonious, I judged for myself upon what I 
 saw and heard. He may, and I ardently hope will, recover ; but I 
 did not think it became me to assist in committing the executive 
 administration of this great republic, on the doubtful contingency 
 of the restoration to health of a gentleman who had been so long 
 and so seriously afflicted. Moreover, if, under all the circumstan- 
 ces of his situation, his election had been desirable, I did not think 
 it practicable. I believed, and yet believe, that, if the votes of the 
 western states, given to Mr. Adams, had been conferred on Mr. 
 Crawford, the effect would have been to protract in the house the 
 decision of the contest, to the great agitation and distraction of the 
 country, and possibly to defeat an election altogether ; the very 
 worst result, I thought, that could happen. It appeared to me, 
 then, that, sooner or later, we must arrive at the only practical issue 
 of the contest before us, and that was between Mr. Adams and 
 general Jackson, and I thought that the earlier we got there, the 
 better for the country, and for the house. 
 
 In considering this only alternative, I was not unaware of your 
 strong desire to have a western president ; but I thought that I 
 
ADDRESS TO HIS CONSTIT 
 
 knew enough of your patriotism and magnanimity, displayed on 
 so many occasions, to believe that you could rise above the mere 
 gratification of sectional pride, if the common good of the whole 
 required you to make the sacrifice of local partiality. I solemnly 
 believed it did, and this brings me to the most important consider- 
 ation which belonged to the whole subject — that arising out of the 
 respective fitness of the only two real competitors, as it appeared 
 to my best judgment. In speaking of general Jackson, I am aware 
 of the delicacy and respect which are justly due to that distinguished 
 citizen. It is far from my purpose to attempt to disparage him. I 
 could not do it if I were capable of making the attempt ; but I 
 shall nevertheless speak of him, as becomes me, with truth. I did 
 not believe him so competent to discharge the various, intricate, 
 and complex duties of the office of chief magistrate, as his com- 
 petitor. He has displayed great skill and bravery, as a military 
 commander, and his own renown will endure as long as the means 
 exist of preserving a recollection of human transactions. But to 
 be qualified to discharge the duties of president of the United 
 States, the incumbent must have more than mere military attain- 
 ments — he must be a statesman. An individual may be a 
 gallant and successful general, an eminent lawyer, an eloquent 
 divine, a learned physician, or an accomplished artist ; and doubt- 
 less the union of all these characters in the person of a chief 
 magistrate would be desirable, but no one of them, nor all com- 
 bined, will qualify him to be president, unless he superadds that 
 indispensable requisite of being a statesman. Far from meaning 
 to say that it is an objection to the elevation to the chief magistracy 
 of any person, that he is a military commander, if he unites the 
 other qualifications, I only intend to say that, whatever may be the 
 success or splendor of his military achievements, if his qualifica- 
 tions be only military, that is an objection, and I think a decisive 
 objection, to his election. If general Jackson has exhibited, either 
 in the councils of the union, or in those of his own state, or in 
 those of any other state or territory, the qualities of a statesman, the 
 evidence of the fact has escaped my observation. It would be as 
 painful as it is unnecessary, to recapitulate some of the incidents, 
 which must be fresh in your recollection, of his public life. But I 
 was greatly deceived in my judgment if they proved him to be 
 endowed with that prudence, temper, and discretion, which are 
 necessary for civil administration. It was in vain to remind me 
 of the illustrious example of Washington. There was in that 
 extraordinary person, united, a serenity of mind, a cool and 
 collected wisdom, a cautious and deliberate judgment, a perfect 
 command of the passions, and, throughout his whole life, a famil- 
 iarity and acquaintance with business, and civil transactions, which 
 rarely characterize any human being. No man was ever more 
 deeply penetrated than he was, with profound respect for the safe 
 
496 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 and necessary principle of the entire subordination of the military 
 to the civil authority. I hope I do no injustice to general Jackson 
 when I say, that I could not recognise, in his public conduct, those 
 attainments, for both civil government and military command, 
 which contemporaries and posterity have alike unanimously 
 concurred in awarding as yet only to the father of his country. I 
 was sensible of the gratitude which the people of this country 
 justly feel towards general Jackson, for his brilliant military 
 services. But the impulses of public gratitude should be controlled, 
 as it appeared to me, by reason and discretion, and I was not 
 prepared blindly to surrender myself to the hazardous indulgence 
 of a feeling, however amiable and excellent that feeling may be, 
 when properly directed. It did not seem to me to be wise or 
 prudent, if, as I solemnly believe, general Jackson's competency 
 for the office was highly questionable, that he should be placed in 
 a situation where neither his fame nor the public inteiests would 
 be advanced. General Jackson himself would be the last man to 
 recommend or vote for any one for a place for which he thought 
 him unfit. I felt myself sustained by his own reasoning, in his 
 letter to Mr. Monroe, in which, speaking of the qualifications of 
 our venerable Shelby for the department of war, he remarked : ' I 
 am compelled to say to you, that the acquirements of this worthy 
 man arc not competent to the discharge of the multiplied duties 
 of this department. I therefore hope he may not accept the 
 appointment. I am fearful, if he does, he will not add much 
 splendor to his present well-earned standing as a public character.' 
 Such was my opinion of general Jackson, in reference to the 
 presidency. His conviction of governor Shelby's unfitness, by the 
 habits of his life, for the appointment of secretary of war, were 
 not more honest nor stronger than mine were of his own want of 
 experience, and the necessary civil qualifications to discharge the 
 duties of a president of the United States. In his elevation to this 
 office, too, I thought I perceived the establishment of a fearful 
 precedent; and I am mistaken in all the warnings of instructive 
 history, if I erred in my judgment. Undoubtedly there are other 
 and many dangers to public liberty, besides that which proceeds 
 from military idolatry ; but I have yet to acquire the knowledge 
 of it, if there be one more perilous, or more frequent. 
 
 Whether Mr. Adams would or would not have been my choice 
 of a president, if I had been left freely to select from the whole 
 mass of American citizens, was not the question submitted to my 
 decision. I had no such liberty ; but I was circumscribed, in the 
 selection I had to make, to one of the three gentlemen whom the 
 people themselves had thought proper to present to the house of 
 representatives. Whatever objections might be supposed to exist 
 against him, still greater appeared to me to apply to his competitor. 
 Of Mr. Adams, it is but truth and justice to say, that he is highly 
 
ADDRESS TO HIS CONSTITUENTS. 497 
 
 gifted, profoundly learned, and long and greatly experienced in 
 public affairs, at home and abroad. Intimately conversant with 
 the rise and progress of every negotiation with foreign powers, 
 pending or concluded ; personally acquainted with the capacity 
 and attainments of most of the public men of this country, whom 
 it might be proper to employ in the public service ; extensively 
 possessed of much of that valuable kind of information which is 
 to be acquired neither from books nor tradition, but which is the 
 fruit of largely participating in public affairs ; discreet and saga- 
 cious ; he would enter upon the duties of the office with great 
 advantages. I saw in his election the establishment of no danger- 
 ous example. I saw in it, on the contrary, only conformity to the 
 safe precedents which had been established in the instances of Mr. 
 Jefferson, Mr. Madison, and Mr. Monroe, who had respectively 
 filled the same office from which he was to be translated. 
 
 A collateral consideration of much weight, was derived from the 
 wishes of the Ohio delegation. A majority of it, during the 
 progress of the session, made up their opinions to support Mr. 
 Adams, and they were communicated to me. They said, ' Ohio 
 supported the candidate who was the choice of Kentucky. We 
 failed in our common exertions to secure his election. Now, 
 among those returned, we have a decided preference, and we think 
 you ought to make some sacrifice to gratify us.' Was not much 
 due to our neighbor and friend ? 
 
 I considered, with the greatest respect, the resolution of the 
 general assembly of Kentucky, requesting the delegation to vote 
 for general Jackson. That resolution, it is true, placed us in a 
 peculiar situation. Whilst every other delegation, from every other 
 state in the union, was left by its legislature entirely free to examine 
 the pretensions of all the candidates, and to form its unbiased 
 judgment, the general assembly of Kentucky thought proper to 
 interpose, and request the delegation to give its vote to one of the 
 candidates, whom they were pleased to designate. I felt a sincere 
 desire to comply with a request emanating from a source so 
 respectable, if I could have done so consistently with those para- 
 mount duties which I owed to you and to the country. But, after 
 full and anxious consideration, I found it incompatible with my 
 best judgment of those duties, to conform to the request of the 
 general assembly. The resolution asserts, that it was the wish of 
 the people of Kentucky, that their delegation should vote for the 
 general. It did not inform me by what means that body had 
 arrived at a knowledge of the wish of the people. I knew that 
 its members had repaired to Frankfort before I departed from home 
 to come to Washington. I knew that their attention was fixed on 
 important local concerns, well entitled, by their magnitude, exclu- 
 sively to engross it. No election, no general expression of the 
 popular sentiment* had occurred since that in November* when 
 vol. i. 63 
 
498 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 electors were chosen, and at that the people, by an overwhelming 
 majority, had decided against general Jackson. I could not see 
 how such an expression against him, could be interpreted into that 
 of a desire for his election. If, as is true, the candidate whom 
 they preferred was not returned to the house, it is equally true that 
 the state of the contest, as it presented itself here to me, had never 
 been considered, discussed, and decided by the people of Kentucky, 
 in their collective capacity. What would have been their decision 
 on this new state of the question, I might have undertaken to 
 conjecture, but the certainty of any conclusion of fact, as to their 
 opinion, at which I could arrive, was by no means equal to that 
 certainty of conviction of my duty to which I was carried by the 
 exertion of my best and most deliberate reflections. The letters 
 from home, which some of the delegation received, expressed the 
 most opposite opinions, and there were not wanting instances of 
 letters from some of the very members who had voted for that 
 resolution, advising a different course. I received from a highly 
 respectable portion of my constituents a paper, instructing me as 
 follows : 
 
 ' We, the undersigned voters in the congressional district, having viewed the 
 instruction or request of the legislature of Kentucky, on the subject of choosing a 
 president and vice-president of the United States, with regret, and the said request or 
 instruction to our representative in congress from this district being without our 
 knowledge or consent, we, for many reasons known to ourselves, connected with so 
 momentous an occasion, hereby instruct our representative in congress to vote on this 
 occasion agreeably to his own judgment, and the best lights he may have on the 
 subject, with or without the consent of the legislature of Kentucky.' 
 
 This instruction came both unexpectedly and unsolicited by me, 
 and it was accompanied by letters assuring me that it expressed the 
 opinion of a majority of my constituents. I could not, therefore, 
 regard the resolution as conclusive evidence of your wishes. 
 
 Viewed as a mere request, as it purported to be, the general 
 assembly doubtless had the power to make it. But, then, with 
 deference, I think it was worthy of serious consideration, whether 
 the dignity of the general assembly ought not to have induced it 
 to forbear addressing itself, not to another legislative body, but to 
 a small part of it, and requesting the members who composed that 
 part, in a case which the constitution had confided to them, to vote 
 according to the wishes of the general assembly, whether those 
 wishes did or did not conform to their sense of duty. I could not 
 regard the resolution as an instruction ; for, from the origin of our 
 state, its legislature has never assumed or exercised the right to 
 instruct the representatives in congress. I did not recognise the 
 right, therefore, of the legislature, to instruct me. I recognised that 
 right only when exerted by you. That the portion of the public 
 servants who made up the general assembly, have no right to 
 instruct that portion of them who constituted the Kentucky delega- 
 
ADDRESS TO HIS CONSTITUENTS. 499 
 
 tion in the house of representatives, is a proposition too clear to be 
 argued. The members of the general assembly would have been 
 the first to behold as a presumptuous interposition, any instruction, 
 if the Kentucky delegation could have committed the absurdity to 
 issue, from this place, any instruction to them to vote in a particular 
 manner on any of the interesting subjects which lately engaged 
 their attention at Frankfort. And although nothing is further from 
 my intention than to impute either absurdity or presumption to 
 the general assembly, in the adoption of the resolution referred 
 to, I must say, that the difference between an instruction emanating 
 from, them to the delegation, and from the delegation to them, is 
 not in principle, but is to be found only in the degree of superior 
 importance which belongs to the general assembly. 
 
 Entertaining these views of the election on which it was made 
 my duty to vote, I felt myself bound, in the exercise of my best 
 judgment, to prefer Mr. Adams; and I accordingly voted for him. 
 I should have been highly gratified if it had not been my duty to 
 vote on the occasion ; but that was not my situation, and I did not 
 choose to shrink from any responsibility which appertained to your 
 representative. Shortly after the election, it was rumored that Mr. 
 Kremer was preparing a publication, and the preparations for it 
 which were making excited much expectation. Accordingly, on 
 the twenty-sixth of February, the address, under his name, to the 
 * electors of the ninth congressional district of the state of Pennsyl- 
 vania,' made its appearance in the Washington City Gazette. No 
 member of the house, I am persuaded, believed that Mr. Kremer 
 ever wrote one paragraph of that address, or of the plea, which 
 was presented to the committee, to the jurisdiction of the house. 
 Those who counselled him, and composed both papers, and their 
 purposes, were just as well known as the author of any report from 
 a committee to the house. The first observation which is called 
 for by the address is the place of its publication. That place was 
 in this city, remote from the centre of Pennsylvania, near which 
 Mr. Kremer's district is situated, and in a paper having but a very 
 limited, if any circulation in it. The time is also remarkable. 
 The fact that the president intended to nominate me to the senate 
 for the office which I now hold, in the course of a few days, was 
 then well known, and the publication of the address was, no doubt, 
 made less with an intention to communicate information to the 
 electors of the ninth congressional district of Pennsylvania, than to 
 affect the decision of the senate on the intended nomination. Of 
 the character and contents of that address of Messrs. George 
 Kremer & Co., made up, as it is, of assertion without proof, of 
 inferences without premises, and of careless, jocose, and quizzing 
 conversations of some of my friends, to which I was no party, and 
 of which I had never heard, it is not my intention to say much. It 
 carried its own refutation, and the parties concerned saw its abortive 
 
500 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 nature the next day, in the indignant countenance of every 
 unprejudiced and honorable member. In his card, Mr. Kremer 
 had been made to say, that he held himself ready ' to prove, to the 
 satisfaction of unprejudiced minds, enough to satisfy them of the 
 accuracy of the statements which are contained in that letter, to the 
 extent that they concerned the course of conduct of H. Clay. 1 The 
 object for excluding my friends from this pledge has been noticed. 
 But now the election was decided, and there no longer existed a 
 motive for discrimination between them and me. Hence the only 
 statements that are made, in ihe address, having the semblance of 
 proof, relate rather to them than to me ; and the design was, by 
 establishing something like facts upon them, to make those facts 
 react upon me. 
 
 Of the few topics of the address upon which I shall remark, the 
 first is, the accusation brought forward against me, of violating 
 instructions. If the accusation were true, who was the party 
 offended, and to whom I was amenable ? If I violated any instruc- 
 tions, they must have been yours, since you only had the right to 
 give them, and to you alone was I responsible. Without allowing 
 hardly time for you to hear of my vote, without waiting to know 
 what your judgment was of my conduct, George Kremer & Co. 
 chose to arraign me before the American public as the violater of 
 instructions which I was bound to obey. If, instead of being, as 
 you are, and 1 hope always will be, vigilant observers of the 
 conduct of your public agents, jealous of your rights, and compe- 
 tent to protect and defend them, you had been ignorant and culpably 
 confiding, the gratuitous interposition, as your advocate, of the 
 honorable George Kremer, of the ninth congressional district in 
 Pennsylvania, would have merited your most grateful acknowledg- 
 ments. Even upon that supposition, his arraignment of me would 
 have required for its support one small circumstance, which happens 
 not to exist, and that is, the fact of your having actually instructed 
 me to vote according to his pleasure. 
 
 The relations in which I stood to Mr. Adams constitute the next 
 theme of the address, which I shall notice. I am described as 
 having assumed ' a position of peculiar and decided hostility to the 
 election of Mr. Adams,' and expressions towards him are attributed 
 to me, which I never used. I am also made responsible for 
 ' pamphlets and essays of great ability,' published by my friends in 
 Kentucky in ihe course of the canvass. The injustice of the 
 principle of holding me thus answerable, may be tested by apply- 
 ing it to the case of general Jackson, in reference to publications 
 issued, for example, from the Columbia Observer. That I was 
 not in favor of the election of Mr. Adams, when the contest was 
 before the people, is most certain. Neither was I in favor of that 
 of Mr. Crawford or general Jackson. That I ever did any thing 
 against Mr. Adams, or either of the other gentlemen, inconsistent 
 
ADDRESS TO HIS CONSTITUENTS. 501 
 
 with a fair and honorable competition, I utterly deny. My rela- 
 tions to Mr. Adams have been the subject of much misconception, 
 if not misrepresentation. I have been stated to be under a public 
 pledge to expose some nefarious conduct of that gentleman, during 
 the negotiation at Ghent, which would prove him to be entirely 
 unworthy of public confidence ; and that, with the knowledge of 
 his perfidy, I nevertheless voted for him. If these imputations are 
 well founded, I should, indeed, be a fit object of public censure ; 
 but if, on the contrary, it shall be found that others, inimical both 
 to him and to me, have substituted their own interested wishes for 
 my public promises, I trust that the indignation, which they would 
 excite, will be turned from me. My letter, addressed to the editors 
 of the Intelligencer, under date of the fifteenth of November, 1822, 
 is made the occasion for ascribing to me the promise and the 
 pledge to make those treasonable disclosures on Mr. Adams. Let 
 that letter speak for itself, and it will be seen how little justice there 
 is for such an assertion. It adverts to the controversy which had 
 arisen between Messrs. Adams and Russell, and then proceeds to 
 state that, ' in the course of several publications, of which it has 
 been the occasion, and particularly in the appendix to a pamphlet, 
 which had been recently published by the honorable John Quincy 
 Adams, I think there are some errors, no doubt unintentional, both 
 as to matters of fact and matters of opinion, in regard to the trans- 
 actions at Ghent, relating to the navigation of the Mississippi, and 
 certain liberties claimed by the United States in the fisheries, and 
 to the part vihich I bore in those transactions. These important 
 interests are now well secured.' ' An account, therefore, of what 
 occurred in the negotiation at Ghent, on those two subjects, is not, 
 perhaps, necessary to the present or future security of any of the 
 rights of the nation, and is only interesting as appertaining to its 
 past history. With these dm pressions, and being extremely un- 
 willing to present myself, at any time, before the public, I had 
 almost resolved to remain silent, and thus expose myself to the in- 
 ference of an acquiescence in the correctness of all the statements 
 made by both my colleagues ; but I have, on more reflection, 
 thought it may be expected of me, and be considered as a duty on 
 my part, to contribute all in my power towards a full and faithful 
 understanding of the transactions referred to. Under this convic- 
 tion, I will, at some future period, more propitious than the present 
 to calm and dispassionate consideration, and when there can be no 
 misinterpretation of motives, lay before the public a narrative of 
 those transactions, as I understood them.' 
 
 From even a careless perusal of that letter, it. is apparent, that 
 the only two subjects of the negotiations at Ghent, to which it 
 refers, were the navigation of the Mississippi, and certain fishing 
 liberties ; that the errors which I had supposed were committed, 
 applied to both Mr. Russell and Mr. Adams, though more particu- 
 
502 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 larly to the appendix of the latter ; that they were unintentional ; 
 that they affected myself principally ; that I deemed them of no 
 public importance, as connected with the then, or future security 
 of any of the rights of the nation, but only interesting to its past 
 history ; that I doubted the necessity of my offering to the public 
 any account of those transactions ; and that the narrative which I 
 promised was to be presented at a season of more calm, and when 
 there could be no misinterpretation of motives. Although Mr. 
 Adams believes otherwise, I yet think there are some unintentional 
 errors in the controversial papers between him and Mr. Russell 
 But I have reserved to myself an exclusive right of judging when 
 I shall execute the promise which I have made, and I shall be 
 neither quickened nor retarded in its performance by the friendly 
 anxieties of any of my opponents. 
 
 If injury accrue to any one by the delay in publishing the narra- 
 tive, the public will not suffer by it. It is already known by the 
 publication of the British and American projets, the protocols, and 
 the correspondence between the respective plenipotentiaries, that 
 the British government made at Ghent a demand of the navigation 
 of the Mississippi, by an article in their projet nearly in the same 
 words as those which were employed in the treaty of 1783 ; that a 
 majority of the American commissioners was in favor of acceding 
 to that demand, upon the condition that the British government 
 would concede to us the same fishing liberties within their juris- 
 diction, as were secured to us by the same treaty of 1783 ; and 
 that both demands were finally abandoned. The fact of these 
 mutual propositions was communicated by me to the American 
 public in a speech which I delivered in the house of representa- 
 tives, on the twenty-ninth day of January, 1816. Mr. Hopkinson 
 had arraigned the terms of the treaty of peace, and charged upon 
 the war and the administration the loss of the fishing liberties, 
 within the British jurisdiction, which we enjoyed prior to the war. 
 In vindicating, in my reply to him, the course of the government, 
 and the conditions of the peace, I stated : 
 
 ' When the British commissioners demanded, in their projet, a renewal to Great 
 Britain of the right to the navigation of the Mississippi, secured by the treaty of 1783, 
 a bare majority of the American commissioners offered to renew it, upon the condi- 
 tion that the liberties in question were renewed to us. I was not one of that majority. 
 I will not trouble the committee with my reasons for being opposed to the offer. A 
 majority of my colleagues, actuated, I believe, by the best motives, made, however, 
 the offer, and it was refused by the British commissioners.' 
 
 And what I thought of my colleagues of the majority, appears 
 from the same extract. The spring after the termination of the 
 negotiations at Ghent, I went to London, and enlered upon a new 
 and highly important negotiation with two of them, (Messrs. 
 Adams and Gallatin,) which resulted, on the third day of July, 
 1815, in the commercial convention, which has been since made 
 
ADDRESS TO HIS CONSTITUENTS. 503 
 
 the basis of most of our commercial arrangements with foreign 
 powers. Now, if I had discovered at Ghent, as has been asserted, 
 that either of them was false and faithless to his country, would I 
 have voluntarily commenced with them another negotiation ? 
 Further: there never has been a period, during our whole acquaint- 
 ance, that Mr. Adams and I have not exchanged, when we have 
 met, friendly salutations, and the courtesies and hospitalities of 
 social intercourse. 
 
 The address proceeds to characterize the support which I gave 
 to Mr. Adams as unnatural. The authors of the address have not 
 stated why it is unnatural, and we are therefore left to conjecture 
 their meaning. Is it because Mr. Adams is from New England, 
 and I am a citizen of the west ? If it be unnatural in the western 
 states to support a citizen of New England, it must be equally 
 unnatural in the New England states to support a citizen of the 
 west. And, on the same principle, the New England states ought 
 to be restrained from concurring in the election of a citizen of the 
 southern states, or the southern states from cooperating in the 
 election of a citizen of New England. And, consequently, the 
 support which the last three presidents have derived from New 
 England, and that which the vice-president recently received, has 
 been most unnaturally given. The tendency of such reasoning 
 would be to denationalize us, and to contract every part of the 
 union within the narrow, selfish limits of its own section. It would 
 be still worse ; it would lead to the destruction of the union itself. 
 For if it be unnatural in one section to support a citizen in another, 
 the union itself must be unnatural ; all our ties, all our glories, all 
 that is animating in the past, all that is bright and cheering in the 
 future, must be unnatural. Happily, such is the admirable texture 
 of our union, that the interests of all its parts are closely inter- 
 woven. If there are strong points of affinity between the south 
 and the west, there are interests of not less, if not greater, strength 
 and vigor, binding the west, and the north, and the east. 
 
 Before I close this address, it is my duty, which I proceed to 
 perform with great regret, on account of the occasion which calls 
 for it, to invite your attention to a letter, addressed by general 
 Jackson to Mr. Swartwout, on the twenty-third day of February 
 last. The names of both the general and myself had been before 
 the American public for its highest office. We had both been 
 unsuccessful. The unfortunate have usually some sympathy for 
 each other. For myself, I claim no merit for the cheerful acqui- 
 escence which I have given in a result by which I was excluded 
 from the house. I have believed that the decision by the consti- 
 tuted authorities, in favor of others, has been founded upon a 
 conviction of the superiority of their pretensions. It has been my 
 habit, when an election is once decided, to forget, as soon as 
 possible, all the irritating circumstances which attended the pre- 
 
504 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 ceding canvass. If one be successful, he should be content with 
 his success. If he have lost it, railing will do no good. v I never 
 gave general Jackson nor his friends any reason to believe that I 
 would, in .any contingency, support him. He had, as I thought, 
 no public claim, and, I will now add, no personal claims, if these 
 ought to be ever considered, to my support. No one, therefore, 
 ought to have been disappointed or chagrined that I did not vote 
 for him, no more than I was neither surprised nor disappointed 
 that he did not, on a more recent occasion, feel it to be his duty to 
 vote for me. After commenting upon a particular phrase used in 
 my letter to judge Brooke, a calm reconsideration of which will, 
 I think, satisfy any person that it was not employed in an offensive 
 sense, if indeed it have an offensive sense, the general, in his letter 
 to Mr. Swartwout, proceeds to remark : ' No one beheld me 
 seeking, through art or management, to entice any representative 
 in congress from a conscientious responsibility of his own, or the 
 wishes of his constituents. No midnight taper burnt by me ; no 
 secret conclaves were held, nor cabals entered into to persuade any 
 one to a violation of pledges given, or of instructions received 
 By me no plans were concerted to impair the pure principles ol 
 our republican institutions, nor to prostrate that fundamental 
 maxim which maintains the supremacy of the people's will. On 
 the contrary, having never in any manner, before the people or 
 congress, interfered in the slightest degree with the question, my 
 conscience stands void of offence, and will go quietly with me, 
 regardless of the insinuations of those who, through management, 
 may seek an influence not sanctioned by integrity and merit.' I am 
 not aware that this defence of himself was rendered necessary by 
 any charges brought forward against the general. Certainly I 
 never made any such charges against him. I will not suppose 
 that, in the passage cited, he intended to impute to me the mis- 
 conduct which he describes, and yet, taking the whole context of 
 his letter together, and coupling it with Mr. Kremer's address, it 
 cannot be disguised that others may suppose he intended to refer 
 to me. I am quite sure that, if he did, he could not have formed 
 those unfavorable opinions of me upon any personal observation 
 of my conduct made by himself; for a supposition that they were 
 founded upon his own knowledge, would imply that my lodgings 
 and my person had been subjected to a system of espionage 
 wholly incompatible with the open, manly, and honorable conduct 
 of a gallant soldier. If he designed any insinuations against me, 
 I must, believe that he made them upon the information of others, 
 of whom I can only say that they have deceived his credulity, and 
 are entirely unworthy of all credit. I entered into no cabals ; I held 
 no secret conclaves ; I enticed no man to violate pledges given or 
 inductions received. The members from Ohio, and from the 
 other western states, with whom I voted, were all of them as com- 
 petent as I was to form an opinion on the pending election. The 
 
ADDRESS TO HIS CONSTITUENTS. 505 
 
 McArthurs and the Metcalfs, and the other gentlemen from the 
 west, (some of whom have, if I have not, bravely ' made an 
 effort to repel an invading foe,') are as incapable of dishonor as 
 any men breathing ; as disinterested, as unambitious, as exclusively 
 devoted to the best interests of their country. It was quite as likely 
 that I should be influenced by them, as that I could control their 
 votes. Our object was not to impair, but to preserve from all 
 danger, the purity of our republican institutions. And how I pros- 
 trated the maxim which maintains the supremacy of the people's 
 will, I am entirely at a loss to comprehend. The illusions of the 
 general's imagination deceive him. The people of the United 
 States had never decided the election in his favor. If the people 
 had willed his election, he would have been elected. It was 
 because they had not willed his election, nor that of any other 
 candidate, that the duty of making a choioe devolved on the house 
 of representatives. The general remarks : 
 
 ! Mr. Clay has never yet risked himself for his country. He has never sacrificed 
 his repose, nor made an effort to repel an invading foe ; of course his conscience 
 assured him it was altogether wrong in any other man to lead his countrymen to 
 battle and victory.' 
 
 The logic of this conclusion is not very striking. General 
 Jackson fights better than he reasons. When have I failed to 
 concur in awarding appropriate honors to those who, on the sea or 
 on the land, have sustained the glory of our arms, if I could not 
 always approve of the acts of some of them ? It is true, that it 
 has been my misfortune never to have repelled an invading foe, 
 nor to have led my countrymen to victory. If I had, I should have 
 left to others to proclaim and appreciate the deed. The general's 
 destiny and mine have led us in different directions. In the civil 
 employments of my country, to which I have been confined, I 
 regret that the little service which I have been able to render it falls 
 far short of my wishes. But why this denunciation of those who 
 have not repelled an invading foe, or led our armies to victory ? 
 At the very moment when he is inveighing against an objection to 
 his election to the presidency, founded upon the exclusive military 
 nature of his merits, does he not perceive that he is establishing its 
 validity by proscribing every man who has not successfully fought 
 the public enemy ; and that, by such a general proscription, and 
 the requirement of successful military service as the only condition 
 of civil preferment, the inevitable effect would be the ultimate 
 establishment of a military government ? 
 
 If the contents of the letter to Mr. Swartwout, were such as 
 justly to excite surprise, there were other circumstances not calcu- 
 lated to diminish it. Of all the citizens of the United States, that 
 gentleman is one of the last to whom it was necessary to address 
 any vindication of general Jackson. He had given abundant 
 vol. i. 64 
 
506 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 evidence of his entire devotion to the cause of the general. He 
 was here after the election, and was one of a committee who 
 invited the general to a public dinner, proposed to be given to him 
 in this place. My letter to judge Brooke was published in the 
 papers of this city on the twelfth of February. The general's note, 
 declining the invitation of Messrs. Swartwout and others, was 
 published on the fourteenth, in the National Journal. The proba- 
 bility, therefore, is, that he did not leave this city until after he had 
 a full opportunity to receive, in a personal interview with the 
 general, any verbal observations upon it which he might have 
 thought proper to make. The letter to Mr. Swartwout, bears date 
 the twenty-third of February. If received by him in New York, 
 it must have reached him, in the ordinary course of mail, on the 
 twenty-fifth or twenty-sixth. Whether intended or not as a ' private 
 communication,' and not for the * public eye,' as alleged by him, 
 there is much probability in believing that its publication in New 
 York, on the fourth of March, was then made, like Mr. Kremer's 
 address, with the view to its arrival in this city in time to affect my 
 nomination to the senate. In point of fact, it reached here the 
 day before the senate acted on that nomination. 
 
 Fellow-citizens, I am sensible that, generally, a public officer had 
 better abstain from any vindication of his conduct, and leave it to 
 the candor and justice of his countrymen, under all its attending 
 circumstances. Such has been the course which I have heretofore 
 prescribed to myself. This is the first, as I hope it may be the last, 
 occasion of my thus appearing before you. The separation which 
 has just taken place between us, and the venom, if not the vigor 
 of the late onsets upon my public conduct, will, I hope, be allowed 
 in this instance to form an adequate apology. It has been 
 upwards of twenty years since I first entered the public service. 
 Nearly three fourths of that time, with some intermissions, I have 
 represented the same district in congress, with but little variation 
 in its form. During that long period, you have beheld our country 
 passing through scenes of peace and war, of prosperity and 
 adversity, and of party divisions, local and general, often greatly 
 exasperated against each other. I have been an actor in most of 
 those scenes. Throughout the whole of them, you have clung to 
 me with an affectionate confidence which has never been surpassed. 
 I have found in your attachment, in every embarrassment in my 
 public career, the greatest consolation, and the most encouraging 
 support. I should regard the loss of it as one of the most afflict- 
 ing public misfortunes which could befall me. That I have often 
 misconceived your true interests, is highly probable. That I have 
 ever sacrificed them to the object of personal aggrandizement, I 
 utterly deny. And, for the purity of my motives, however in 
 other respects I may be unworthy to approach the throne of grace 
 and mercy, I appeal to the justice of my God, with all the confi- 
 dence which can flow from a consciousness of perfect rectitude. 
 
ON THE ELECTION OE PRESIDENT BY 
 CONGRESS, IN 1825, 
 
 SPEECH AT LEWISBURG, VIRGINIA, AUGUST 30, 1826. 
 
 [In the following remarks at a public dinner given him by citizens of Lewisburg, 
 and its vicinity, while he was secretary of state, under president Adams, Mr. Clay 
 explains the motives which influenced him in voting for that gentleman for the office 
 of president, and afterwards accepting a seat in his cabinet. He also alludes to some 
 of the measures of the administration, of which he was then a member, in a manner 
 which will be found to possess great interest] 
 
 Lewisburg, August 23rf, 1826. 
 The honorable Henry Clay : 
 
 Sir, at a meeting of a respectable number of the inhabitants of Lewisburg 
 and its vicinity, convened in the court house on the twenty-second instant, it was 
 unanimously determined to greet your arrival amongst them by some public demon- 
 stration of the respect which they in common with a great portion of the community, 
 feel towards one of their most distinguished fellow-citizens. It was therefore unani- 
 mously resolved, as the most eligible means of manifesting their feelings, to request 
 the honor of your presence at a public dinner to be given at the tavern of Mr. Frazer, 
 in the town of Lewisburg, on Wednesday the thirtieth instant. 
 
 In pursuance of the above measures, we, as a committee, have been appointed to 
 communicate their resolutions and solicit a compliance with their invitation. In 
 performing this agreeable duty, we cannot but express our admiration of the uniform 
 course which, during a long political career, you have pursued with so much honor to 
 yourself and country. Although the detractions of envy, and the violence of party 
 feeling have endeavored to blast your fair reputation, and destroy the confidence 
 reposed in you by the citizens of the United States, we rejoice to inform you, that the 
 people of the western part of that state which claims you as one of her most gifted 
 sons, still retain the same high feeling of respect, which they have always manifested 
 in spite of the maledictions and bickerings of disappointed editors and interested politi- 
 cians. We cannot close our communication without hailing you as one of the most 
 distinguished advocates of that system of internal improvement which has already 
 proved so beneficial to our country, and which at no distant period will make even 
 these desert mountains to blossom as the rose. 
 
 We have the honor to subscribe ourselves, yours with esteem, 
 
 J. G. M'Clenachen. John Beirne, 
 
 James M'Laughlin, J. A. North, 
 
 J F. Caldwell, Henry Erskine. 
 
 White Sulphur Springs, 24th Jugust, 1826. 
 
 Gentlemen, I have received the note which you did me the honor on yesterday 
 
 to address to me, inviting me in behalf of a respectable number of the citizens of Lewis' 
 
 burg and its vicinity, to a public dinner at Mr. Frazer's tavern, on Wednesday next, 
 
 which they have the goodness to propose, in consequence of my arrival amongst 
 
508 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 them, as a manifestation of their Respect. Such a compliment was most unexpected 
 by me on a journey to Washington, by this route, recommended to my choice by the 
 pure air of a mountain region, and justly famed mineral waters, a short use of which 
 I hoped might contribute to the perfect re>"stablishment of my health. The gratifi- 
 cation which I derive from this demonstration of kindness and confidence, springs, in 
 no small degree, from the consideration that it is the spontaneous testimony of those 
 with whom I share a common origin, in a venerated state, endeared to me by an early 
 tie of respect and affection, which no circumstance can ever dissolve. In communi- 
 cating to that portion of the citizens of Lewisburg and its vicinity, who have been 
 pleased thus to favor me. by their distinguished notice, my acceptance of their hospi- 
 table invitation, I pray you to add my profound acknowledgments. And of the friendly 
 and flattering manner in which you have conveyed it, and for the generous sympathy, 
 characteristic of Virginia, which you are so obliging as to express, on account of the 
 detractions of which I have been the selected object, and the meditated victim, be 
 assured that I shall always retain a lively and grateful remembrance. 
 
 I am, gentlemen, with great esteem and regard, faithfully, your obedient servant, 
 
 Henry Clay. 
 
 Messrs. M'Clenachen, North, M'Laughlin, Caldwell, Beirne, and Erskine, &c, &c 
 
 TOAST. 
 
 Seventh. Our distinguished guest, Henry Clay — the statesman, orator, patriot, and 
 philanthropist; his splendid talents shed lustre on his native state, his eloquence is 
 an ornament to his country. 
 
 When this toast was drunk, Mr. Clay rose, and addressed the 
 company in a speech, which occupied nearly an hour in the delivery, 
 of which we can only attempt an imperfect sketch. 
 
 He said, that he had never before felt so intensely the want of 
 those powers of eloquence which had been just erroneously ascribed 
 to him. He hoped, however, that in his plain and unaffected 
 language, he might be allowed, without violating any established 
 usage which prevails here, to express his grateful sensibility, excited 
 by the sentiment with which he had been honored, and for the kind 
 and respectful consideration of him manifested on the occasion 
 which had brought them together. In passing through my native 
 state, said he, towards which I have ever borne, and shall continue, 
 in all vicissitudes, to cherish, the greatest respect and affection, I 
 expected to be treated with its accustomed courtesy and private 
 hospitality. But I did not anticipate that I should be the object of 
 such public, distinguished, and cordial manifestations of regard. 
 In offering you the poor and inadequate return of my warm and 
 respectful thanks, I pray you to believe that I shall treasure up these 
 testimonies among the most gratifying reminiscences of my life. 
 The public service which I have rendered my country, your too 
 favorable opinion of which has prompted you to exhibit these 
 demonstrations of your esteem, has fallen far below the measure of 
 usefulness, which I should have been happy to have filled. I claim 
 for it only the humble merit of pure and patriotic intention. Such 
 as it has been, I have not always been fortunate enough to give 
 satisfaction to every section and to all the great interests of our 
 country. 
 
 When an attempt was made to impose upon a new state, about 
 
ELECTION OF PRESIDENT BY CONGRESS. 509 
 
 to be admitted into the union, restrictions incompatible as I thought 
 with her coequal sovereign power, I was charged in the north with 
 being too partial to the south, and as being friendly to that unfor- 
 tunate condition of slavery, of the evils of which none are more 
 sensible than I am. 
 
 At another period, when I believed that the industry of this 
 country required some protection against the selfish and contracted 
 legislation of foreign powers, and to constitute it a certain and safe 
 source of supply, in all exigencies ; the charge against me was 
 transposed, and I was converted into a foe of southern, and an 
 infatuated friend of northern and western interests. 
 
 There were not wanting persons, in every section of the union, 
 in another stage of our history, to accuse me with rashly contributing 
 to the support of a war, the only alternative left to our honor by 
 the persevering injustice of a foreign nation. These contradictory 
 charges and perverted views gave me no concern, because I was 
 confident that time and truth would prevail over all misconcep- 
 tions ; and because they did not impeach my public integrity. But 
 I confess I was not prepared to expect the aspersions which I have 
 experienced on account of a more recent discharge of public duty. 
 My situation on the occasion to which I refer, was most peculiar 
 and extraordinary, unlike that of any other American citizen. One 
 of the three candidates for the presidency, presented to the choice 
 of the house of representatives, was out of the question for noto- 
 rious reasons now admitted by all. Limited as the competition 
 was to the other two, I had to choose between a statesman long 
 experienced at home and abroad in numerous civil situations, and 
 a soldier, brave, gallant, and successful, but a mere soldier, who, 
 although he had also filled several civil offices, had quickly resigned 
 them all, frankly acknowledging, in some instances, his incompe- 
 tency to discharge their duties. 
 
 It has been said that I had some differences with the present 
 chief magistrate, at Ghent. It is true that we did not agree on one 
 of the many important questions which arose during the negotia- 
 tions in that city, but the difference equally applied to our present 
 minister at London and to the lamented Bayard, between whom 
 and myself, although we belonged to opposite political parties, 
 there existed a warm friendship to the hour of his death. It was 
 not of a nature to prevent our cooperation together in the public 
 service, as is demonstrated by the convention at London subse- 
 quently negotiated by Messrs. Adams, Gallatin, and myself. It was 
 a difference of opinion on a point of expediency, and did not relate 
 to any constitutional or fundamental principle. But with respect 
 to the conduct of the distinguished citizen of Tennessee, I had 
 solemnly expressed, under the highest obligations, opinions, which, 
 whether right or wrong, were sincerely and honestly entertained, 
 and are still held. These opinions related to a military exercise of 
 
510 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 power believed to be arbitrary and unconstitutional. I should have 
 justly subjected myself to the grossest inconsistency, if I had given 
 him my suffrage. I thought if he were elected, the sword and the 
 constitution, bad companions, would be brought too near together. 
 I could not have foreseen that, fully justified as I have been by 
 those very constituents, in virtue of whose authority I exerted the 
 right of free suffrage, I should nevertheless be charged with a 
 breach of duty and corruption by strangers to them, standing in no 
 relation to them but that of being citizens of other states, members 
 of the confederacy. It is in vain that these revilers have been 
 called upon for their proofs; have been defied, and are again 
 invited, to enter upon any mode of fair investigation and trial ; 
 shrinking from every impartial examination, they persevere, with 
 increased zeal, in the propagation of calumny, under the hope of 
 supplying by the frequency and boldness of asseveration, the want 
 of truth and "the deficiency of evidence ; until we have seen the 
 spectacle exhibited of converting the hall of the first legislative 
 assembly upon earth, on the occasion of discussions which above 
 all others should have been characterized by dignity, calmness, and 
 temperance, into a theatre for spreading suspicions and groundless 
 imputations against an absent and innocent individual. 
 
 Driven from every other hold, they have seized on the only plank 
 left within their grasp, that of my acceptance of the office of secre- 
 tary of state, which has been asserted to be the consummation of a 
 previous corrupt arrangement. What can I oppose to such an 
 assertion, but positive, peremptory, and unqualified denial, and a 
 repetition of the demand for proof and trial ? The office to which 
 I have been appointed is that of the country, created by it, and 
 administered for its benefit. In deciding whether I should accept 
 it or not, I did not take counsel from those who, foreseeing the 
 probability of my designation for it, sought to deter me from its 
 acceptance by fabricating anticipated charges, which would have 
 been preferred with the same zeal and alacrity, however I might 
 have decided. I took counsel from my friends, from my duty, 
 from my conscious innocence of unworthy and false imputations. 
 I was not left at liberty by either my enemies or my friends to 
 decline the office. I would willingly have declined it from an 
 unaffected distrust of my ability to perform its high duties, if I could 
 have honorably declined it. I hope the uniform tenor of my whole 
 public life will protect me against the supposition of any unrea- 
 sonable avidity for public employment. During the administration 
 of that illustrious man, to whose civil services more than to those of 
 any other American patriot, living or dead, this country is indebted 
 for the blessings of its present constitution, now more than ten 
 years ago, the mission to Russia, and a place in his cabinet, were 
 successively offered me. A place in his cabinet, at that period of 
 my life, was more than equivalent to any place under any admin- 
 
ELECTION OF PRESIDENT BY CONGRESS. 511 
 
 istration, at my present more advanced age. His immediate 
 successor tendered to me the same place in his cabinet, which he 
 anxiously urged me to accept, and the mission to England. Gen- 
 ilemen, I hope yon will believe that far from being impelled by any 
 vain or boastful spirit, to mention these things, I do it with humili- 
 ation and mortification. 
 
 If I had refused the department of state, the same individuals 
 who now, in the absence of all proof, against all probability, and in 
 utter disregard of all truth, proclaim the existence of a corrupt pre- 
 vious arrangement, would have propagated the same charge with 
 the same affected confidence which they now unblushingly assume. 
 And it would have been said, with at least much plausibility, that 
 1 had contributed to the election of a chief magistrate, of whom t 
 thought so unfavorably that I would not accept that place in his 
 cabinet which is generally regarded as the first. I thought it 
 my duty, unawed by their denunciations, to proceed in the office 
 assigned me by the president and senate, to render the country the 
 best service of which my poor abilities are capable. If this admin- 
 istration should show itself unfriendly to American liberty and to 
 free and liberal institutions; if it should be conducted upon a 
 system adverse to those principles of public policy, which I have 
 ever endeavored to sustain, and I should be found still clinging to 
 office ; then nothing which could be said by those who are inimical 
 to me, would be undeserved. 
 
 But the president ought not to have appointed one who had 
 voted for him. Mr. Jefferson did not think so, who called to his 
 cabinet a gentleman who had voted for him, in the most warmly 
 contested election that has ever occurred in the house of represent- 
 atives, and who appointed to other highly important offices other 
 members of the same house, who voted for him. Mr. Madison did 
 not think so, who did not feel himself restrained from sending me 
 on a foreign service, because I had supported his election. Mr. 
 Monroe did not think so, who appointed in his cabinet a gentle- 
 man, now filling the second office in the government, who attended 
 the caucus that nominated and warmly and efficiently espoused 
 his election. But, suppose the president acted upon the most 
 disinterested doctrine which is now contended for by those who 
 opposed his election, and were to appoint to public office from 
 their ranks only, to the entire exclusion of those who voted for 
 him, would he then escape their censure ? No ! we have seen him 
 charged, for that equal distribution of the public service among 
 every class of citizens, which has hitherto characterized his admin- 
 istration, with the nefarious purpose of buying up portions of the 
 community. A spirit of denunciation is abroad. "With some, 
 condemnation, right or wrong, is the order of the day. No matter 
 what prudence and wisdom may stamp the measures of the admin- 
 istration, no matter how much the prosperity of the country may 
 
512 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 be advanced, or what public evils may be averted, under its guid- 
 ance, there are persons who would make general, indiscriminate, 
 and interminable opposition. This is not a fit occasion, nor 
 perhaps am I a fit person, to enter upon a vindication of its meas- 
 ures. But I hope I shall be excused for asking what measure of 
 domestic policy has been proposed or recommended by the present 
 executive, which has not its prototype in previous acts or recom- 
 mendations of administrations at the head of which was a citizen 
 of Virginia? Can the liberal and high-minded people of this state, 
 condemn measures emanating from a citizen of Massachusetts, 
 which, when proposed by a Virginian, commanded their express 
 assent or silent acquiescence, or to which, if in any instance they 
 made opposition, it was respectful, limited, and qualified? The 
 present administration desires only to be judged by its measures, 
 and invites the strictest scrutiny and the most watchful vigilance 
 on the part of the public. 
 
 With respect to the Panama mission, it is true that it was not 
 recommended by any preceding administration, because the circum- 
 stances of the world were not then such as to present it as a subject 
 for discussion. But during that of Mr. Monroe, it has been seen 
 that it was a matter of consideration, and there is every reason to 
 believe, if he were now at the head of affairs, his determination 
 would correspond with that of his successor. Let me suppose that 
 it was the resolution of this country, under no circumstances, to 
 contract with foreign powers intimate public engagements, and to 
 remain altogether unbound by any treaties of alliance ; what should 
 have been the course taken with the very respectful invitation 
 which was given to the United States to be represented at Panama ? 
 Haughtily folding your arms, would you have given it a cold and 
 abrupt refusal ? Or would you not rather accept it, send ministers, 
 and, in a friendly and respectful manner, endeavor to satisfy those 
 who are looking to us for counsel and example, and imitating our 
 free institutions, that there is no necessity for such an alliance ; that 
 the dangers which alone could, in the opinion of any one, have 
 justified it, have vanished, and that it is not good for them or for us? 
 
 What may be the nature of the instructions with which our 
 ministers may be charged, it is not proper that I should state ; but 
 all candid and reflecting men must admit, that we have great 
 interests in connection with the southern republics, independent of 
 any compacts of alliance. Those republics, now containing a 
 population of upwards of twenty millions, duplicating their num- 
 bers probably in periods still shorter than we do, comprising within 
 their limits the most abundant sources of the precious metals, offer 
 to our commerce, to our manufactures, to our navigation, so many 
 advantages, that none can doubt the expediency of cultivating the 
 most friendly relations with them. If treaties of commerce and 
 friendship, and liberal stipulations in respect to neutral and bellige- 
 
ELECTION OF PRESIDENT BY CONGRESS. 513 
 
 rent rights, could be negotiated with each of them at its separate 
 seat of government, there is no doubt that much greater facilities 
 for the conclusion of such treaties present themselves at a point 
 where, all being represented, the way may be smoothed and all 
 obstacles removed by a disclosure of the views and wishes of all, 
 and by mutual and friendly explanations. There was one con- 
 sideration which had much weight with the executive, in the 
 decision to accept the mission; and that was the interest which this 
 country has, and especially the southern states, in the fate and 
 fortunes of the island of Cuba. No subject of our foreign rela- 
 tions has created with the executive government more anxious 
 concern, than that of the condition of that island and the possibility 
 of prejudice to the southern states, from the convulsions to which 
 it might be exposed. It was believed, and is yet believed, that the 
 dangers which, in certain contingencies, might threaten our quiet 
 and safety, may be more successfully averted at a place at which 
 all the American powers should be represented than any where else. 
 And I have no hesitation in expressing the firm conviction, that, if 
 there be one section of this union more than all others interested 
 in the Panama mission, and the benefits which may flow from it, 
 that section is the south. It was, therefore, with great and unaffected 
 surprise, that I witnessed the obliquity of those political views 
 which led some gentlemen from that quarter to regard the measure, 
 as it might operate on the southern states, in an unfavorable light. 
 Whatever may be the result of the mission, its moral effect in 
 Europe will be considerable, and it cannot fail to make the most 
 friendly impressions upon our southern neighbors. It is one of 
 which it is difficult, in sober imagination, to conceive any possible 
 mischievous consequences, and which the executive could not 
 have declined, in my opinion, without culpable neglect of the 
 interests of this country, and without giving dissatisfaction to 
 nations whose friendship we are called upon by every dictate of 
 policy to conciliate. 
 
 There are persons who would impress on the southern states the 
 belief that they have just cause of apprehending danger to a 
 certain portion of their property from the present administration. 
 It is not difficult to comprehend the object and the motive of these 
 idle alarms. What measure of the present administration gives 
 any just occasion for the smallest apprehension to the tenure by 
 which that species of property is held? ' However much the 
 president and the members of his administration may deprecate 
 the existence of slavery among us, as the greatest evil with which 
 we are afflicted, there is not one of them that does not believe that 
 the constitution of the general government confers no authority to 
 interpose between the master and his slave, none to apply an 
 adequate remedy, if indeed there be any remedy within the scope 
 of human power. Suppose an object of these alarmists were 
 vol. i. 65 
 
514 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 accomplished, and the slave-holding states were united in the 
 sentiment, that the policy of this government in all time to come, 
 should be regulated on the basis of the fact of slavery, would not 
 union on the one side lead to union on the other ? And would 
 not such a fatal division of the people and states of this confede- 
 racy, produce perpetual mutual irritation and exasperation, and 
 ultimately disunion itself? The slave-holding states cannot forget 
 that they are now in a minority, which is in a constant relative 
 diminution, and should certainly not be the first to put forth a 
 principle of public action by which they would be the greatest losers. 
 
 I am but too sensible of the unreasonable trespass on your time 
 which I have committed, and of the egotism of which my 
 discourse has partaken. I must depend for my apology upon 
 the character of the times, on the venom of the attacks which 
 have been made upon my character and conduct, and upon the 
 generous sympathy of the gentlemen here assembled. During 
 this very journey a paper has been put into my hands, in which a 
 member of the house of representatives is represented to have said 
 that the distinguished individual at the head of the government, 
 and myself, have been indicted by the people. If that is the case, 
 I presume that some defence is lawful. By the bye, if the honora- 
 ble member is to have the sole conduct of the prosecution without 
 the aid of other counsel, I think that it is not difficult to predict 
 that his clients will be nonsuited, and that they will be driven out 
 of court with the usual judgment pronounced in such cases. 
 
 In conclusion, I beg leave to offer a toast which, if you are as 
 dry as I am, will, I hope, be acceptable for the sake of the wine, if 
 not the sentiment. 
 
 * The continuation of the turnpike road which passes through 
 Lewisburg, and success to the cause of internal improvement, 
 under every auspice.' 
 
 He then took his seat amid the repeated cheers of the whole 
 company. 
 
ON AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 
 
 IN THE HALL OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, AT THE 
 
 ANNUAL MEETING OF THE AMERICAN COLONIZATION 
 
 SOCIETY, AT WASHINGTON CITY, JANUARY 20, 1827. 
 
 [The subject of colonizing the free people of color and emancipated slaves, became 
 one of deep and profound interest, at an early period, in the history of the United 
 States. The question was agitated in Virginia in 1800, and a resolution passed in 
 the legislature of that state, requesting the governor to correspond with the president 
 of the United States, on the subject of purchasing land for a colony 5 and president 
 Jefferson made efforts, which, however, were unsuccessful, to obtain by negotiation 
 an establishment within the British colonies, in Africa, or the Portuguese colonies, 
 in South America. The movement which finally led to a successful result, in estab- 
 lishing an American colony on the roast of Africa, commenced in the legislature of 
 Virginia, in December, 1816, by instructing the executive of that state, and their 
 members of congress, to cooperate with the United States government in endeavoring 
 to obtain a territory on the before-mentioned coast, for an asylum for free persons of 
 color. Through the instrumentality of the Rev. Robert Finley, an early and zealous 
 friend of the cause, a meeting of public men and private citizens was held at Wash- 
 ington city, on the twenty-first of December, 1816, over which Mr. Clay, then speaker 
 of the house of representatives, was called to preside. A constitution of the Ameri- 
 can Colonization Society was adopted, at an adjourned meeting on the twenty-eighth 
 of December, and on the first of January, 1817, the officers of the society were 
 chosen, judge Bushrod Washington being elected president, and Henry Clay, William 
 H. Crawford, Andrew Jackson, Robert Finley, and others, vice-presidents. Mr. Clay 
 has always taken a warm and decided interest in the promotion of the objects of this 
 society, and at the annual meeting thereof, in 1827 (being then secretary of state), he 
 delivered the following address.] 
 
 I cannot withhold the expression of my congratulations to the 
 society, on account of the very valuable acquisition which we 
 have obtained in the eloquent gentleman from Boston, (Mr. 
 Knapp,) who has just before favored us with an address. He has 
 told us of his original impressions, unfavorable to the object of the 
 society, and of his subsequent conversion. If the same industry, 
 investigation, and unbiased judgment, manifested by himself and 
 another gentleman (Mr. Powell), who avowed at the last meeting 
 of the society a similar change wrought in his mind, were carried, 
 by the public at large, into the consideration of the plan of the 
 society, the conviction of its utility would be universal. 
 
 I have risen to submit a resolution, in behalf of which I would 
 bespeak the favor of the society. But before I offer any observa- 
 
516 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 tions in its support, I must say that, whatever part I shall take in 
 the proceedings of this society, whatever opinions or sentiments I 
 may utter, they are exclusively my own. Whether they are worth 
 any thing or not, no one but myself is at all responsible for them. 
 I have consulted with no person out of this society, and I have 
 especially abstained from all communication or consultation with 
 any one to whom I stand in any official relation. My judgment 
 on the object of this society has been long since deliberately 
 formed. The conclusions to which, after much and anxious con- 
 sideration, my mind has been brought, have been neither produced 
 nor refuted, by the official station the duties of which have been 
 confided to me. 
 
 From the origin of this society, every member of it has, I 
 believe, looked forward to the arrival of a period, when it would 
 become necessary to invoke the public aid in the execution of the 
 great scheme which it was instituted to promote. Considering 
 itself as the mere pioneer in the cause which it had undertaken, it 
 was well aware that it could do no more than remove preliminary 
 difficulties, and point out a sure road to ultimate success ; and that 
 the public only could supply that regular, steady, and efficient 
 support, to which the gratuitous means of benevolent individuals 
 would be found incompetent. My surprise has been, that the 
 society has been able so long to sustain itself, and to do so much 
 upon the charitable contributions of good, and pious, and enlight- 
 ened men, whom it has happily found in all parts of our country. 
 But our work has so prospered and grown under our hands, that 
 the appeal to the power and resources of the public, should be no 
 longer deferred. The resolution which I have risen to propose, 
 contemplates this appeal. It is in the following words : 
 
 ' Resolved, that the board of managers be empowered and 
 directed, at such time or times as may seem to them expedient, to 
 make respectful application to the congress of the United States, 
 and to the legislatures of the different states, for such pecuniary 
 aid, in furtherance of the object of this society, as they may respect- 
 ively be pleased to grant.' 
 
 In soliciting the countenance and support of the legislatures of 
 the union and the states, it is incumbent on the society, in making 
 out its case, to show, first, that it offers to their consideration a 
 scheme which is practicable, and secondly, that the execution of 
 the practicable scheme, partial or entire, will be fraught with such 
 beneficial consequences as to merit the support which is solicited. 
 I believe both points to be maintainable. First, it is now a little 
 upwards of ten years since a religious, amiable, and benevolent 
 resident* of this city, first conceived the idea of planting a colony, 
 
 * It has been, since the delivery of the speech, su£r?ested, that the reverend Robert 
 Finley, of New Jersey, (who is also, unfortunately, dead,) contemplated the formation 
 of a society, with a view to the establishment of a colony in Africa, and probably first 
 
ON AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 517 
 
 from the United States, of free people of color, on the western 
 shores of Africa. He is no more, and the noblest eulogy which 
 could be pronounced on him would be, to inscribe upon his tomb, 
 the merited epitaph, ' here lies the projector of the American 
 Colonization Society.' Amongst others, to whom he communicated 
 the project, was the person who now has the honor of addressing 
 you. My first impressions, like those of all who have not fully 
 investigated the subject, were against it. They yielded to his 
 earnest persuasions and my own reflections, and 1 finally agreed 
 with him that the experiment was worthy of a fair trial. A meeting 
 of its friends was called, organized as a deliberative body, and a 
 constitution was formed. The society went into operation. He 
 lived to see the most encouraging progress in its exertions, and died 
 in full confidence of its complete success. The society was 
 scarcely formed before it was exposed to the derision of the 
 unthinking; pronounced to be visionary and chimerical by those 
 who were capable of adopting wiser opinions, and the most confi- 
 dent predictions of its entire failure were put forth. It found itself 
 equally assailed by the two extremes of public sentiment in regard 
 to our African population. According to one, (that rash class 
 which, without a due estimate of the fatal consequence, would 
 forthwith issue a decree of general, immediate, and indiscriminate 
 emancipation,) it was a scheme of the slaveholder to perpetuate 
 slavery. The other (that class which believes slavery a blessing, 
 and which trembles with aspen sensibility at the appearance of the 
 most distant and ideal danger to the tenure by which that descrip- 
 tion of property is held,) declared it a contrivance to let loose on 
 society all the slaves of the country, ignorant, uneducated, and 
 incapable of appreciating the value or enjoying the privileges of 
 freedom.* The society saw itself surrounded by every sort of 
 embarrassment. What great human enterprise was ever under- 
 taken without difficulty ? What ever failed, within the compass 
 of human power, when pursued with perseverance and blessed by 
 the smiles of Providence? The society prosecuted undismayed 
 its great work, appealing for succor to the moderate, the reasonable, 
 the virtuous, and religious portions of the public. It protested, from 
 the commencement, and throughout all its progress, and it now 
 protests, that it entertains no purpose, on its own authority or by its 
 own means, to attempt emancipation, partial or general; that it 
 knows the general government has no constitutional power to 
 
 commenced the project. It is quite likely that he did: and Mr. Clay recollects seeing 
 Mr. Finley and consulting with him on the subject, about the period of the formation 
 of the society. But the allusion to Mr. Caldwell was founded on the facts, well 
 known to Mr. Clay, of his active agency in the organization of the society, and his 
 unremitted subsequent labors, which were not confined to the District of Columbia, 
 in promoting: the cause. 
 
 * A society of a few individuals, without power, without other resources than those 
 which are supplied by spontaneous benevolence, to emancipate all the slaves of the 
 country ! 
 
518 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 achieve such an object ; that it believes that the states, and the states 
 only, which tolerate slavery, can accomplish the work of emanci- 
 pation; and that it ought to be left to them, exclusively, absolutely, 
 and voluntarily, to decide the question 
 
 The object of the society was the colonization of the free colored 
 people, not the slaves, of the country. Voluntary in its institution, 
 voluntary in its continuance, voluntary in all its ramifications, all 
 its means, purposes, and instruments, are also voluntary. But it was 
 said that no free colored persons could be prevailed upon to aban- 
 don the comforts of civilized life and expose themselves to all the 
 perils of a settlement in a distant, inhospitable, and savage country ; 
 that, if they could be induced to go on such a quixotic expedition, 
 no territory could be procured for their establishment as a colony ; 
 that the plan was altogether incompetent to effectuate its professed 
 object; and that it ought to be rejected as the idle dream of 
 visionary enthusiasts. The society has outlived, thank God, all 
 these disastrous predictions. It has survived to swell the list of 
 false prophets. It is no longer a question of speculation whether 
 a colony can or cannot be planted from the United States of free 
 persons of color on the shores of Africa. It is a matter demon- 
 strated ; such a colony, in fact, exists, prospers, has made successful 
 war, and honorable peace, and transacts all the multiplied business 
 of a civilized and christian community.* It now has about five 
 hundred souls, disciplined troops, forts, and other means of defence, 
 sovereignty over an extensive territory, and exerts a powerful and 
 salutary influence over the neighboring clans. 
 
 Numbers of the free African race among us are willing to go to 
 Africa. The society has never experienced any difficulty on that 
 subject, except that its means of comfortable transportation have 
 been inadequate to accommodate all who have been anxious to 
 migrate. Why should they not go ? Here they are in the lowest 
 state of social gradation; aliens — political, moral, social aliens — 
 strangers, though natives. There, they would be in the midst of 
 their friends and their kindred, at home, though born in a foreign 
 land, and elevated above the natives of the country, as much as 
 they are degraded here below the other classes of the community. 
 But on this matter, I am happy to have it in my power to furnish 
 indisputable evidence from the most authentic source, that of large 
 numbers of free persons of color themselves. Numerous meetings 
 have been held in several churches in Baltimore, of the free people 
 of color, in whjch, after being organized as deliberative assemblies, 
 by the appointment of a chairman (if not of the same complexion) 
 presiding as you, Mr. Vice-president, do, and secretaries, they have 
 voted memorials addressed to the white people, in which they have 
 
 * See the last annual report and the highly interesting historical sketch of the 
 reverend Mr. Ashmun. 
 
ON AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 519 
 
 argued the question with an ability, moderation, and temper, 
 surpassing any that I can command, and emphatically recommended 
 the colony of Liberia to favorable consideration, as the most 
 desirable and practicable scheme ever yet presented on this inter- 
 esting subject. I ask permission of the society to read this highly 
 creditable document. 
 
 [Here Mr. Clay read the memorial referred to.] 
 
 The society has experienced no difficulty in the acquisition of a 
 territory, upon reasonable terms, abundantly sufficient for a most 
 extensive colony. And land in ample quantities, it has ascer- 
 tained, can be procured in Africa, together with all rights of 
 sovereignty, upon conditions as favorable as those on which the 
 United States extinguish the Indian title to territory within their 
 own limits. 
 
 In respect to the alleged incompetency of the scheme to accom- 
 plish its professed object, the society asks that that object should be 
 taken to be, not what the imaginations of its enemies represent it 
 to be, but what it really proposes. They represent that the purpose 
 of the society is, to export the whole African population of the 
 United States, bond and free ; and they pronounce this design to 
 be unattainable. They declare that the means of the whole 
 country are insufficient to effect the transportation to Africa of a 
 mass of population approximating to two millions of souls. 
 Agreed ; but that is not what the society contemplates. They have 
 substituted their own notion for that of the society. "What is the 
 true nature of the evil of the existence of a portion of the African 
 race in our population ? It is not that there are some, but that there 
 are so many among us of a different caste, of a different physical, 
 if not moral, constitution, who never can amalgamate with the 
 great body of our population. In every country, persons are to be 
 found varying in their color, origin, and character, from the native 
 mass. But this anomaly creates no inquietude or apprehension, 
 because the exotics, from the smallness of their number, are known 
 to be utterly incapable of disturbing the general tranquillity. Here, 
 on the contrary, the African part of our population bears so large a 
 proportion to the residue, of European origin, as to create the most 
 lively apprehension, especially in some quarters of the union, 
 Any project, therefore, by which, in a material degree, the dangerous 
 element in the general mass, can be diminished or rendered 
 stationary, deserves deliberate consideration. 
 
 The colonization society has never imagined it to be practicable, 
 or within the reach of any means which the several governments 
 of the union could bring to bear on the subject, to transport the 
 whole of the African race within the limits of the United States. 
 Nor is that necessary to accomplish the desirable objects of domestic 
 
520 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 tranquillity, and render us one homogeneous people. The population 
 of the United States has been supposed to duplicate in periods of 
 twenty-five years. That may have been the case heretofore, but 
 the terms of duplication will be more and more protracted as we 
 advance in national age ; and I do not believe that it will be found, 
 in any period to come, that our numbers will be doubled in a less 
 term than one of about thirty-three and a third years. I have not 
 time to enter now into details in support of this opinion. They 
 would consist of those checks which experience has shown to 
 obstruct the progress of population, arising out of its actual 
 augmentation and density, the settlement of waste lands, &c. 
 Assuming the period of thirty-three and a third, or any other 
 number of years, to be that in which our population will hereafter 
 be doubled, if, during that whole term, the capital of the African 
 stock could be kept down, or stationary, whilst that of European 
 origin should be left to an unobstructed increase, the result, at the 
 end of the term, would be most propitious. Let us suppose, for 
 example, that the whole population at present of the United States, 
 is twelve millions, of which ten may be estimated of the Anglo- 
 Saxon, and two of the African race. If there could be annually 
 transported from the United States an amount of the African 
 portion equal to the annual increase of the whole of that caste, 
 whilst the European race should be left to multiply, we should find 
 at the .termination of the period of duplication, whatever it may be, 
 that the relative proportions would be as twenty to two. And if 
 the process were continued, during a second term of duplication, 
 the proportion would be as forty to two — one which would eradi- 
 cate every cause of alarm or solicitude from the breasts of the most 
 timid. But the transportation of Africans, by creating, to the extent 
 to which it might be carried, a vacuum in society, would tend to 
 accelerate the duplication of the European race, who by all the 
 laws of population, would fill up the void space. 
 
 This society is well aware, I repeat, that they cannot touch the 
 subject of slavery. But it is no objection to their scheme, limited, 
 as it is, exclusively to those free people of color who are willing to 
 migrate, that it admits of indefinite extension and application, by 
 those who alone, having the competent authority, may choose to 
 adopt and apply it. Our object has been to point out the way, to 
 show that colonization is practicable, and to leave it to those states 
 or individuals who may be pleased to engage in the object, to 
 prosecute it. We have demonstrated that a colony may be planted 
 in Africa, by the fact that an American colony there exists. The 
 problem which has so long and so deeply interested the thoughts 
 of good and patriotic men, is solved; a country and a home have 
 been found, to which the African race may be sent, to the promo- 
 tion of their happiness and our own. 
 
 But, Mr. Vice-president, I shall not rest contented with the fact 
 
ON AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 521 
 
 of the establishment of the colony, conclusive as it ought to be 
 deemed, of the practicability of our purpose. I shall proceed to 
 show, by reference to indisputable statistical details and calcula- 
 tions, that it is within the compass of reasonable human means. 
 I am sensible of the tediousness of all arithmetical data, but I will 
 endeavor to simplify them as much as possible. It will be borne 
 in mind that the aim of the society is, to establish in Africa a 
 colony of the free African population of the United States, to an 
 extent which shall be beneficial both to Africa and America. The 
 whole free colored population of the United States, amounted, in 
 1790, to fifty-nine thousand four hundred and eighty-one; in 1800, 
 to one hundred and ten thousand and seventy-two ; in 1810, to 
 one hundred and eighty-six thousand four hundred and forty-six; 
 and in 1820, to two hundred and thirty-three thousand five hun- 
 dred and thirty. The ratio of annual increase during the first term 
 of ten years, was about eight and a half per cent, per annum ; 
 during the second, about seven per cent, per annum; and during 
 the third, a little more than two and a half. The very great differ- 
 ence in the rate of annual increase, during those several terms, 
 may probably be accounted for by the effect of the number of 
 voluntary emancipations operating with more influence upon the 
 total smaller amount of free colored persons at the first of those 
 periods, and by the facts of the insurrection in St. Domingo, and 
 the acquisition of Louisiana, both of which, occurring during the 
 first and second terms, added considerably to the number of our 
 free colored population. 
 
 Of all descriptions of our population, that of the free colored, 
 taken in the aggregate, is the least prolific, because of the checks 
 arising from vice and want. During the ten years, between 1810 
 and 1820, when no extraneous causes existed to prevent a fair 
 competition in the increase between the slave and the free African 
 race, the former increased at the rate of nearly three per cent, per 
 annum, whilst the latter did not much exceed two and a half. 
 Hereafter it may be safely assumed, and I venture to predict, will 
 not be contradicted by the return of the next census, that the 
 increase of the free black population will not surpass two and a 
 half per cent, per annum. Their amount at the last census, being 
 two hundred and thirty-three thousand five hundred and thirty, for 
 the sake of round numbers, their annual increase may be assumed 
 to be six thousand, at the present time. Now if this number could 
 be annually transported from the United Stales during a term of 
 years, it is evident that, at the end of that term, the parent capital 
 will not have increased, but will have been kept down at least to 
 what it was at the commencement of the term. Is it practicable, 
 then, to colonize annually six thousand persons from the United 
 States, without materially impairing or affecting any of the great 
 interests of the United States ? This is the question presented to 
 vol. i» 66 
 
522 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 the judgments of the legislative authorities of our country. This 
 is the whole scheme of the society. From its actual experience, 
 derived from the expenses which have been incurred in transport- 
 ing the persons already sent to Africa, the entire average expense 
 of each colonist, young and old, including passage money and 
 subsistence, may be stated at twenty dollars per head. There is 
 reason to believe that it may be reduced considerably below that 
 sum. Estimating that to be the expense, the total cost of trans- 
 porting six thousand souls, annually to Africa, would be one 
 hundred and twenty thousand dollars. The tonnage requisite to 
 effect the object, calculating two persons to every five tons, (which 
 is the provision of existing law) would be fifteen thousand tons. 
 But as each vessel could probably make two voyages in the year, 
 it may be reduced to seven thousand five hundred. And as both 
 our mercantile and military marine might be occasionally employed 
 on this collateral service, without injury to the main object of the 
 voyage, a further abatement might be safely made in the aggregate 
 amount of the necessary tonnage. The navigation concerned in 
 the commerce between the colony and the United States, (and it 
 already begins to supply subjects of an interesting trade,) might 
 be incidentally employed to the same end. 
 
 Is the annual expenditure of a sum no larger than one hundred 
 and twenty thousand dollars, and the annual employment of 
 seven thousand five hundred tons of shipping, too much for 
 reasonable exertion, considering the magnitude of the object in 
 view? Are they not, on the contrary, within the compass of 
 moderate efforts? 
 
 Here is the whole scheme of the society — a project which has 
 been pronounced visionary by those who have never given them- 
 selves the trouble to examine it, but to which I believe most 
 unbiassed men will yield their cordial assent, after they have inves- 
 tigated it. 
 
 Limited as the project is, by the society, to a colony to be formed 
 by the free and unconstrained consent of free persons of color, it is 
 no objection, but on the contrary a great recommendation, of the 
 plan, that it admits of being taken up and applied on a scale of 
 much more comprehensive utility. The society knows, and it 
 affords just cause of felicitation, that all or any one of the states 
 which tolerate slavery, may carry the scheme of colonization into 
 effect, in regard to the slaves within their respective limits, and 
 thus ultimately rid themselves of a universally acknowledged 
 curse. A reference to the results of the several enumerations of 
 the population of the United States will incontestably prove the 
 practicability of its application on the more extensive scale. The 
 slave population of the United States amounted, in 1790, to six 
 hundred and ninety-seven thousand, six hundred and ninety-seven; 
 in 1800, to eight hundred and ninety-six thousand, eight hundred 
 
ON AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 523 
 
 and forty-nine ; in 1810, to eleven hundred and ninety-one thous- 
 and, three hundred and sixty-four; and in 1820, to fifteen hundred 
 and thirty-eight thousand, one hundred and twenty-eight. The 
 rate of annual increase, (rejecting fractions and taking the integer 
 to which they make the nearest approach,) during the first term of 
 ten years, was not quite three per centum per annum, during the 
 second, a little more than three per centum per annum ; and during 
 the third, a little less than three per centum. The mean ratio of 
 increase for the whole period of thirty years, was very little more 
 than three per centum per annum. During the first two periods, 
 the native stock was augmented by importations from Africa in 
 those states which continued to tolerate them, and by the acquisi- 
 tion of Louisiana. Virginia, to her eternal honor, abolished the 
 abominable traffic among the earliest acts of her self-government. 
 The last term alone presents the natural increase of the capital 
 unaffected by any extraneous causes. That authorizes, as a safe 
 assumption, that the future increase will not exceed three per 
 centum per annum. As our population increases, the value of 
 slave labor will diminish, in consequence of the superior advan- 
 tages in the employment of free labor. And when the value of 
 slave labor shall be materially lessened, either by the multiplication 
 of the supply of slaves beyond the demand, or by the competition 
 between slave and free labor, the annual increase of slaves will be 
 reduced, in consequence of the abatement of the motives to provide 
 for and rear the offspring. 
 
 Assuming the future increase to be at the rate of three per 
 centum per annum, the annual addition to the number of slaves 
 in the United States, calculated upon the return of the last census, 
 (one million five hundred and thirty-eight thousand, one hundred 
 and twenty-eight) is forty-six thousand. Applying the data which 
 have been already stated and explained, in relation to the coloniza- 
 tion of free persons of color from the United States to Africa, to 
 the aggregate annual increase, both bond and free, of the African 
 race, and the result will be found most encouraging. The total 
 number of the annual increase of both descriptions is fifty-two 
 thousand. The total expense of transporting that number to 
 Africa, (supposing no reduction of present prices) would be one 
 million and forty thousand dollars, and the requisite amount of 
 tonnage would be only one hundred and thirty thousand tons of 
 shipping — about one ninth part of the mercantile marine of the 
 United States. Upon the supposition of a vessel's making two 
 voyages in the year, it would be reduced to one half, sixty-five 
 thousand. And this quantity would be still further reduced, by 
 embracing opportunities of incidental employment of vessels 
 belonging both to the mercantile and military marines. 
 
 But, is the annual application of one million and forty thousand 
 dollars, and the employment of sixty-five or even one hundred and 
 
524 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 thirty thousand tons of shipping, considering the magnitude of the 
 object, beyond the ability of this country? Is there a patriot, 
 looking forward to its domestic quiet, its happiness, and its glory, 
 that would not cheerfully contribute his proportion of the burden, 
 to accomplish a purpose so great and so humane ? During the 
 general continuance of the African slave trade, hundreds of thous- 
 ands of slaves have been, in a single year, imported into the 
 several countries whose laws authorized their admission. Not- 
 withstanding the vigilance of the powers now engaged to suppress 
 the slave trade, I have received information, that in a single year, 
 in the single island of Cuba, slaves equal in amount to one half 
 of the above number of fifty-two thousand, have been illicitly 
 introduced. Is it possible that those who are concerned in an 
 infamous traffic can effect more than the states of this union, if 
 they were seriously to engage in the good work ? Is it credible, 
 is it not a libel upon human nature to suppose, that the triumphs 
 of fraud, and violence, and iniquity, can surpass those of virtue, 
 and benevolence, and humanity? 
 
 The population of the United States being, at this time, esti- 
 mated at about ten millions of the European race, and two of the 
 African, on the supposition of the annual colonization of a num- 
 ber of the latter, equal to the annual increase, of both of its classes, 
 during the whole period necessary to the process of duplication of 
 our numbers, they would, at the end of that period, relatively stand 
 twenty millions for the white and two for the black portion. But 
 an annual exportation of a number equal to the annual increase, at 
 the beginning of the term, and persevered in to the end of it, would 
 accomplish more than to keep the parent stock stationary. The 
 colonists would comprehend more than an equal proportion of 
 those of the prolific ages. Few of those who had passed that age 
 would migrate. So that the annual increase of those left behind, 
 would continue gradually, but at first insensibly, to diminish ; and 
 by the expiration of the period of duplication, it would be found 
 to have materially abated. But it is not merely the greater relative 
 safety and happiness which would, at the termination of that period, 
 be the condition of the whites. Their ability to give further 
 stimulus to the cause of colonization will have been doubled, 
 whilst the subjects on which it would have to operate, will have 
 decreased or remained stationary. If the business of colonization 
 should be regularly continued, during two periods of duplication, 
 at the end of the second, the whites would stand to the blacks, as 
 forty millions to not more than two, whilst the same ability will 
 have been quadrupled. Even if colonization should then alto- 
 gether cease, the proportion of the African to the European race 
 will be so small, that the most timid may then, for ever, dismiss all 
 ideas of danger from within or without, on account of that incon- 
 gruous and perilous element in our population. 
 
ON AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 525 
 
 Further; by the annual withdrawal of fifty-two thousand persons 
 of color, there would be annual space created for an equal number 
 of the white race. The period, therefore, of the duplication of the 
 whiles, by the laws which govern population, would be accelerated. 
 
 Such, Mr. Vice-president, is the project of the society ; and 
 such is the extension and use which may be made of the principle 
 of colonization, in application to our slave population, by those 
 states which are alone competent to undertake and execute it. All, 
 or any one, of the states which tolerate slavery, may adopt and 
 execute it, by cooperation or separate exertion. If I could be 
 instrumental in eradicating this deepest stain upon the character of 
 our country, and removing all cause of reproach on account of it, 
 by foreign nations; if I could only be instrumental in ridding of 
 this foul blot that revered state that gave me birth, or that not less 
 beloved state which kindly adopted me as her son ; I would not 
 exchange the proud satisfaction which I should enjoy, for the 
 honor of all the triumphs ever decreed to the most successful 
 conqueror. 
 
 Having, I hope, shown that the plan of the society is not vision- 
 ary, but rational and practicable ; that a colony does in fact exist, 
 planted under its auspices ; that free people are willing and anxious 
 to go ; and that the right of soil as well as of sovereignty, may be 
 acquired in vast tracts of country in Africa, abundantly sufficient 
 for all the purposes of the most ample colony, and at prices almost 
 only nominal, the task which remains to me of showing the bene- 
 ficial consequences which would attend the execution of the 
 scheme, is comparatively easy. 
 
 Of the utility of a total separation of the two incongruous por- 
 tions of our population, supposing it to be practicable, none have 
 ever doubted. The mode of accomplishing that most desirable 
 object, has alone divided public opinion. Colonization in Hayti, 
 for a time, had its partisans. Without throwing any impediments 
 in the way of executing that scherne, the American Colonization 
 Society has steadily adhered to its own. The Haytien project 
 has passed away. Colonization beyond the Stony mountains has 
 sometimes been proposed ; but it would be attended with an 
 expense and difficulties far surpassing the African project, whilst it 
 would not unite the same animating motives. There is a moral 
 fitness in the idea of returning to Africa her children, whose 
 ancestors have been torn from her by the ruthless hand of fraud 
 and violence. Transplanted in a foreign land, they will carry back 
 to their native soil the rich fruits of religion, civilization, law, and 
 liberty. May it not be one of the great designs of the Ruler of 
 the universe, (whose ways are often inscrutable by short-sighted 
 mortals,) thus to transform an original crime into a signal blessing, 
 to that most unfortunate portion of the globe. Of all classes of our 
 population, the most vicious is that of the free colored. It is the 
 
526 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 inevitable result of their moral, political, and civil degradation. 
 Contaminated themselves, they extend their vices to all around 
 them, to the slaves and to the whites. If the principle of coloniza- 
 tion should be confined to them ; if a colony can be firmly estab- 
 lished and successfully continued in Africa which should draw off 
 annually an amount of that portion of our population equal to its 
 annual increase, much good will be done. If the principle be 
 adopted and applied by the states, whose laws sanction the exist- 
 ence of slavery, to an extent equal to the annual increase of slaves, 
 still greater good will be done. This good will be felt by the Afri- 
 cans who go, by the Africans who remain, by the white popula- 
 tion of our country, by Africa, and by America. It is a project 
 which recommends itself to favor in all the aspects in which it can 
 be contemplated. It will do good in every and any extent in which 
 it may be executed. It is a circle of philanthrophy, every segment 
 of which tells and testifies to the beneficence of the whole. 
 
 Every emigrant to Africa is a missionary carrying with him 
 credentials in the holy cause of civilization, religion, and free insti- 
 tutions. Why is it that the degree of success of missionary exer- 
 tions is so limited, and so discouraging to those whose piety and 
 benevolence prompt them ? Is it not because the missionary is 
 generally an alien and a stranger, perhaps of a different color, and 
 from a different tribe ? There is a sort of instinctive feeling of 
 jealousy and distrust towards foreigners which repels and rejects 
 them in all countries ; and this feeling is in proportion to the degree 
 of ignorance and barbarism which prevail. But the African colo- 
 nists, whom we send to convert the heathen, are of the same color, 
 the same family, the same physical constitution. When the pur- 
 poses of the colony shall be fully understood, they will be received 
 as long lost brethren restored to the embraces of their friends and 
 their kindred by the dispensations of a wise providence. 
 
 The society is reproached for agitating this question. It should 
 be recollected that the existence of free people of color is not lim- 
 ited to the states only which tolerate slavery. The evil extends 
 itself to all the states, and some of those which do not allow of 
 slavery, (their cities especially,) experience the evil in an extent 
 even greater than it exists in the slave states. A common evil 
 confers a right to consider and apply a common remedy. Nor is 
 it a valid objection that this remedy is partial in its operation or 
 distant in its efficacy. A patient, writhing under the tortures of 
 excruciating disease, asks of his physician to cure him if he can, 
 and, if he cannot, to mitigate his sufferings. But the remedy pro- 
 posed, if generally adopted and perseveringly applied, for a sufficient 
 length of time, should it not entirely eradicate the disease, will 
 enable the body politic to bear it without danger and without suf- 
 fering. 
 
 We are reproached with doing mischief by the agitation of 
 
ON AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 527 
 
 this question. The society goes into no household to disturb its 
 domestic tranquillity ; it addresses itself to no slaves to weaken 
 their obligations of obedience. It seeks to affect no man's property. 
 It neither has the power nor the will to affect the property of any 
 one contrary to his consent. The execution of its scheme would 
 augment instead of diminishing the value of the property left 
 behind. The society, composed of free men, concerns itself only 
 with the free. Collateral consequences we are not responsible for. 
 It is not this society which has produced the great moral revolution 
 which the age exhibits. What would they, who thus reproach us, 
 have done? If they would repress all tendencies towards liberty 
 and ultimate emancipation, they must do more than put down the 
 benevolent efforts of this society. They must go back to the era of 
 our liberty and independence, and muzzle the cannon which ihun- 
 ders its annual joyous return. They must revive the slave trade, 
 with all its train of atrocities. They must suppress the workings 
 of British philanthropy, seeking to meliorate the condition of the 
 unfortunate West Indian slaves. They must arrest the career of 
 South American deliverance from thraldom. They must blow out 
 the moral lights around us, and extinguish that greatest torch of 
 all which America presents to a benighted world, pointing the way 
 to their rights, their liberties, and their happiness. And when they 
 have achieved all these purposes, their work will be yet incomplete. 
 They must penetrate the human soul, and eradicate the light of 
 reason and the love of liberty. Then, and not till then, when 
 universal darkness and despair prevail, can you perpetuate slavery, 
 and repress all sympathies, and all humane and benevolent efforts 
 among freemen, in behalf of the unhappy portion of our race 
 doomed to bondage. 
 
 Our friends, who are cursed with this greatest of human evils, 
 deserve the kindest attention and consideration. Their property and 
 their safety are both involved. But the liberal and candid among 
 them will not, cannot, expect that every project to deliver our 
 country from it is to be crushed because of a possible and ideal 
 danger. Animated by the encouragement of the past, let us pro- 
 ceed under the cheering prospects which lie before us. Let us 
 continue to appeal to the pious, the liberal, and the wise. Let us 
 bear in mind the condition of our forefathers, when, collected on 
 the beach in England, they embarked, amidst the scoffings and the 
 false predictions of the assembled multitude, for this distant land ; 
 and here, in spite of all the perils of forest and ocean, which they 
 encountered, successfully laid the foundations of this glorious 
 republic. Undismayed by the prophecies of the presumptuous, let 
 us supplicate the aid of the American representatives of the people, 
 and redoubling our labors, and invoking the blessings of an all- 
 wise Providence, I boldly and confidently anticipate success. I 
 hope the resolution which I offer will be unanimously adopted* 
 
528 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY 
 
 EXTRACTS 
 
 PROM THE REPORT OF THE BOARD OF MANAGERS OF THE AMERICAN 
 COLONIZATION SOCIETY, PRESENTED AT ITS ANNUAL MEETING, 
 JANUARY THIRTEENTH, 1827, READ BY MR. CLAY IN THE COURSE 
 OF THE DELIVERY OF THE PRECEDING SPEECH. 
 
 The system of government established with the full consent of 
 the colonists, in the autumn of 1824, and which the managers had 
 the happiness to represent in their last report, as having thus far ful- 
 filled all the purposes of its institution, has continued ils operations 
 during the year without the least irregularity, and with undimin- 
 ished success. The republican principle is introduced as far as is 
 consistent with the youthful and unformed character of the settle- 
 ment, and in the election of their officers the colonists have evinced 
 such integrity and judgment as afford promise of early preparation 
 for all the duties of self-government. ' The civil prerogatives and 
 government of the colony and ihe body of the laws by which they 
 are sustained,' says ihe colonial agent, ' are the pride of all. I am 
 happy in the persuasion I have, that I hold the balance of the laws 
 in the midst of a people, with whom the first perceptible inclina- 
 tion of the sacred scale determines authoritatively their sentiments 
 and their conduct. There are individual exceptions, but these re- 
 marks extend to the body of the settlers.' 
 
 The moral and religious character of the colony exerts a powerful 
 influence on its social and civil condition. That piety which had 
 guided most of the early emigrants to Liberia, even before they 
 left this country, to respectability and usefulness among their asso- 
 ciates, prepared them, in laying the foundations of a colony, to act 
 with a degree of wisdom and energy which no earthly motives 
 could inspire. Humble, and for the most part unlettered men ; 
 born and bred in circumstances the most unfavorable to mental 
 culture ; unsustained by the hope of renown, and unfamiliar with 
 the history of great achievements and heroic virtues, theirs was 
 nevertheless a spirit unmoved by dangers or by sufferings, which 
 misfortunes could not darken, nor death dismay. They left 
 America, and felt that it was forever ; they landed in Africa, possi- 
 bly to find a home, but certainly a grave. Strange would it have 
 been had the religion of every individual of these early settlers 
 proved genuine ; but immensely changed as have been their cir- 
 cumstances and severely tried their faith, most have preserved 
 untarnished the honors of their profession, and to the purity of 
 their morals and the consistency of their conduct, is in a great 
 measure to be attributed the social order and general prosperity of 
 the colony of Liberia. Their exnmple has proved most salutary ; 
 and while subsequent emigrants have found themselves awed and 
 
ON AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 529 
 
 restrained, by their regularity, seriousness, and devotion, the poor 
 natives have given their confidence and acknowledged the excel- 
 lence of practical Christianity. ' It deserves record,' says Mr. Ash- 
 mun, c that religion has been the principal agent employed in 
 laying and confirming the foundations of the settlement. To this 
 sentiment, ruling, restraining, and actuating the minds of a large 
 proportion of the colonists, must be referred the whole strength of 
 our civil government.' Examples of intemperance, profaneness, or 
 licentiousness, are extremely rare, and vice, wherever it exists, is 
 obliged to seek concealment from the public eye. The sabbath is 
 universally respected ; sunday schools, both for the children of the 
 colony and for the natives, are established ; all classes attend regu- 
 larly upon the worship of God ; some charitable associations have 
 been formed for the benefit of the heathen ; and though it must not 
 be concealed, that the deep concern on the subject of religion 
 which resulted, towards the conclusion of the year 1825, in the 
 public profession of Christianity by about fifty colonists, has in a 
 measure subsided, and some few cases of delinquency since oc- 
 curred ; and though there are faults growing out of the early 
 condition and habits of the settlers which require amendment ; yet 
 the managers have reason to believe, that there is a vast and in- 
 creasing preponderance on the side of correct principle and virtuous 
 practice. 
 
 The agriculture of the colony has received less attention than its 
 importance demands. This is to be attributed to the fact, that the 
 labor of the settlers has been applied to objects conducing more 
 immediately to their subsistence and comfort. 
 
 It will not, the board trust, be concluded that, because more 
 might have been done for the' agricultural interests of the colony, 
 what has been effected is inconsiderable. Two hundred and 
 twenty-four plantations, of from five to ten acres each, were, in 
 June last, occupied by the settlers, and most of them are believed 
 to be at present under cultivation. One hundred and fourteen of 
 these are on cape Montserado, thirty-three on Stockton creek, (de- 
 nominated the half-way farms, because nearly equidistant from 
 Monrovia and Caldwell, the St. Paul's settlement) and seventy- 
 seven at the confluence of Stockton creek with the St. Paul's. 
 
 The St. Paul's territory includes the half-way farms, and is 
 represented as a beautiful tract of country, comparatively open, 
 well watered and fertile, and still further recommended as having 
 been for ages selected by the natives, on account of its productive- 
 ness for their rice and cassada plantations. The agricultural 
 habits of the present occupants of this tract, concur with the advan- 
 tages of their situation, in affording promise of success to their 
 exertions. 'Nothing,' says the colonial agent, 'but circumstances 
 of the most extraordinary nature, can prevent them from making 
 their way directly to respectability and abundance.* 
 vol. i. 67 
 
530 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 Oxen were trained to labor in the colony in 1825, and it was 
 then expected that the plough would be introduced in the course 
 of another year. Although commerce has thus far taken the lead 
 of agriculture, yet the excellence of the soil, the small amount of 
 labor required for its cultivation, and the value and abundance of its 
 products, cannot fail, finally, to render the latter the more cherished, 
 as it is, certainly, the more important interest of the colony. 
 
 The trade of Liberia has increased with a rapidity almost un- 
 exampled, and while it has supplied the colonists not only with 
 the necessaries, but with the conveniences and comforts of life, 
 the good faith with which it has been conducted, has conciliated 
 the friendship of the natives, and acquired the confidence of 
 foreigners. 
 
 The regulations of the colony allowing no credits, except by a 
 written permission, and requiring the barter to be carried on through 
 factories established for the purpose, has increased the profits of 
 the traffic, and prevented numerous evils which must have attended 
 upon a more unrestricted license. 
 
 Between the first of January and the fifteenth of July, 1826, no 
 less than fifteen vessels touched at Monrovia, and purchased the 
 produce of the country, to the amount, according to the best 
 probable estimate, of forty-three thousand nine hundred and eighty 
 dollars, African value. The exporters of this produce realize, on 
 the sale of the goods given in barter for it, a profit of twenty- 
 one thousand nine hundred and ninety dollars, and on the freight, 
 of eight thousand seven hundred and eighty-six dollars, making a 
 total profit of thirty thousand seven hundred and eighty-six dollars. 
 
 A gentleman in Portland has commenced a regular trade with 
 the colony ; and for his last cargo landed in Liberia, amounting to 
 eight thousand dollars, he received payment in the course of ten 
 days. The advantages of this trade to the colony, are manifest 
 from the high price of labor, (that of mechanics being two dollars 
 per day, and that of common laborers from seventy-five cents to 
 one dollar and twenty-five cents,) and from the easy and comforta- 
 ble circumstances of the settlers. ' An industrious family, twelve 
 months in Africa, destitute of the means of furnishing an abundant 
 table, is not known ; and an individual, of whatever age or sex, 
 without ample provision of decent apparel, cannot, it is believed, 
 be found.' ' Every family,' says Mr. Ashmun, ' and nearly every 
 single adult person in the colony, has the means of employing from 
 one to four native laborers, at an expense of from four to six dollars 
 the month ; and several of the settlers, when called upon in conse- 
 quence of sudden emergences of the public service, have made 
 repeated advances of merchantable produce, to the amount of three 
 hundred to six hundred dollars each.' 
 
 The managers are happy to state, that the efforts of the colonial 
 agent to enlarge the territory of Liberia, and particularly to bring 
 
ON AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 531 
 
 under the government of the colony a more extended line of coast, 
 have been judicious and energetic, and in nearly every instance 
 resulted in complete success. From cape Mount to Tradetown, a 
 distance of one hundred and fifty miles, the colonial government has 
 acquired partial jurisdiction. Four of the most important stations 
 on this tract, including Montserado, belong to the society, either 
 by actual purchase, or by a deed of perpetual lease ; and such nego- 
 tiations have been entered upon with the chiefs of the country, as 
 amount to a preclusion of all Europeans from any possessions 
 within these limits. The fine territory of the St. Paul's, now 
 occupied by settlers, was described in the last annual report of the 
 society. 
 
 The territory of Young Sesters, recently ceded to the society, is 
 ninety miles south of Montserado, in the midst of a very produc- 
 tive rice country, affording also large quantities of palm oil, 
 camwood, and ivory. The tract granted to the colony, includes 
 the bed of the Sester's river, and all the land on each side, to the 
 distance of half a league, and extending longitudinally from the 
 river's mouth to its source. In compliance with the terms of the 
 contract, the chief of the country has constructed a commodious 
 storehouse, and put a number of laborers sufficient for the cultiva- 
 tion of a rice plantation of forty acres, under the direction of a 
 respectable colonist, who takes charge of the establishment. 
 
 The right of use and occupancy have also been obtained to a 
 region of country on the south branch of the St. John's river, north 
 nine miles from Young Sesters, and the trading factory established 
 there, under the superintendence of a family from Monrovia, has 
 already provided a valuable source of income to the colony. Rice 
 is also here to be cultivated, and the chief who cedes the territory, 
 agrees to furnish the labor. 
 
 The upright and exemplary conduct of the individual at the head 
 of this establishment, has powerfully impressed the natives with 
 the importance of inviting them to settle in their country; and 
 consequently, the offer made by the colonial agent for the purchase 
 of Factory island, has been accepted by its proprietor. This 
 island is in the river St. John's, four miles from its mouth, from 
 five to six miles in length, and one third of a mile in breadth, and 
 is among the most beautiful and fertile spots in Africa, A few 
 families are about to take up their residence upon it, and prepare 
 for founding a settlement, ' which cannot fail,' says Mr. Ashmun, 
 4 in a few years, to be second to no other in the colony, except 
 Monrovia.' 
 
 Negotiations are also in progress with the chiefs of cape Mount, 
 which, if successful, will secure to the colony the whole trade of 
 that station, estimated at fifty thousand dollars per annum, and 
 may ultimately lead to its annexation to the territories of Liberia. 
 1 The whole country between cape Mount and Tradetown,' 
 
532 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 observes Mr. Ashmun, ■ is rich in soil and other natural advantages, 
 and capable of sustaining a numerous and civilized population 
 beyond almost any other country on earth. Leaving the seaboard, 
 the traveller, every where, at the distance of a very few miles, 
 enters upon a uniform upland country, of moderate elevation, 
 intersected by innumerable rivulets, abounding in springs of 
 unfailing water, and covered with a verdure which knows no 
 other changes except those which refresh and renew its beauties. 
 The country directly on the sea, although verdant and fruitful to a 
 high degree, is found every where to yield, in both respects, to the 
 interior.' 
 
 Much progress has been made the last year in the construction 
 of public buildings and works of defence, though w T ith adequate 
 supplies of lumber, more might doubtless have been accomplished. 
 Two handsome churches, erected solely by the colonists, now 
 adorn the village of Monrovia. Fort Stockton has been rebuilt in 
 a style of strength and beauty. A receptacle capable of accommo- 
 dating one hundred and fifty emigrants, is completed. The new 
 agency-house, market-house, Lancasterian school, and town-house, 
 in Monrovia, were some months since far advanced, and the 
 finishing strokes were about to be given to the government-house 
 on the St. Paul's. The wing of the old agency-house has been 
 ' handsomely fitted up for the colonial library, which now consists 
 of twelve hundred volumes systematically arranged in glazed 
 cases with appropriate hangings. All the books are substantially 
 covered, and accurately labelled ; and files of more than ten 
 newspapers, more or less complete, are preserved. The library is 
 fitted up so as to answer the purpose of a reading-room, and it is 
 intended to make it a museum of all the natural curiosities of 
 Africa, which can be procured.' 
 
 No efforts have been spared to place the colony in a state of 
 adequate defence, and while it is regarded as perfectly secure from 
 the native forces, it is hoped and believed, that it may sustain 
 itself against any piralical assaults. ' The establishment has fifteen 
 large carriage guns and three small pivot guns, all fit for service.' 
 Fort Stockton overlooks the whole town of Monrovia, and a strong 
 battery is now building on the height of Thompson-town, near the 
 extremity of the cape, which it is thought will afford protection to 
 vessels anchoring in the roadstead. The militia of the colony 
 consists of two corps appropriately uniformed, one of artillery of 
 about fifty men, the other of infantry of forty men, and on various 
 occasions have they proved themselves deficient neither in disci- 
 pline nor courage. 
 
ON AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 533 
 
 EXTRACTS FROM THE REV. J. ASHMUN'S REPORT OF THE COLONY. 
 
 The money expended on these various objects has necessarily 
 been considerable; but, in comparison with the expense which 
 similar objects in this country cost European governments, it will 
 be found not merely moderate, but trifling. Less than has been 
 effected towards the extension of our limits, I could not attempt : 
 and I am certain that where the direction of every other establish- 
 ment on the coast, except the Portuguese, would regard itself not 
 only authorized, but obliged, to pay away thousands, I have in 
 countless instances spent not a dollar. But that species of economy 
 which sacrifices to itself any object essential to the success of this 
 undertaking, I am as little able to practice as the board is to 
 approve. 
 
 The natives of the country, but particularly of the interior, not- 
 withstanding their habitual indolence, produce, after supplying 
 their own wants, a considerable surplus of the great staple of this 
 part of Western Africa, rice. The moderate rate at which this 
 grain is purchased by such as deal directly with the growers, 
 and the various uses of which it is susceptible in the domestic 
 economy, easily place the means of supplying the first necessities 
 of nature in the reach of every one. Rice, moreover, always 
 commands a ready sale with transient trading vessels or coasters ; 
 and forms a useful object of exchange for other provisions and 
 necessaries, between individuals of the colony. 
 
 To this succeeds, as next in importance, the camwood of the 
 country, of which several hundred tons every year pass through 
 the hands of the settlers, and serve to introduce, in return, ihe 
 provisions and groceries of America; and the dry goods and 
 wares, both of Europe and America, which, from the necessary 
 dependence of the members of every society on each other, come 
 soon to be distributed, for the common advantage of all. 
 
 The ivory of Liberia is less abundant, and less valuable, than 
 that of other districts of Western Africa. It, however, forms a 
 valuable article 6f barter and export, to the settlement ; and the 
 amount annually bought and sold, falls between five and eight 
 thousand dollars. 
 
 No less than five schools for different descriptions of learners, 
 exclusive of the Sunday schools, have been supported during the 
 year, and still continue in operation. The youths and children of 
 the colony discover, for their age, unequivocal proofs of a good 
 degree of mental accomplishment. The contrast between children 
 several years in the enjoyment of the advantages of the colony, 
 and most others of the same age, arriving from the United States, 
 is striking, and would leave an entire stranger at no loss to distin- 
 guish the one from the other. Should emigration, but for a very 
 
534 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 few months, cease to throw the little ignorants into the colony, 
 from abroad, the phenomenon of a child of five years, unable to 
 read, it is believed, would not exist among us. 
 
 The first successful essay in the construction of small vessels, 
 has been made the past year. I have built, and put upon the rice 
 trade, between our factories to the leeward, and cape Montserado, 
 a schooner of ten tons burthen, adapted to the passage of the bars 
 of all the navigable rivers of the coast. The sailing qualities of 
 this vessel are so superior, that before the wind, it is believed, few, 
 or none of the numerous pirates of the coast, can overtake her. 
 She makes a trip, freighted both ways, in ten days ; and commonly 
 carries and brings merchandise and produce, to the amount of from 
 four to eight hundred dollars each trip. Another craft of equal 
 tonnage, but of very indifferent materials, has been built by one of 
 the colonists. The model of the St. Paul's (the public boat) was 
 furnished by myself; but she was constructed under the superin- 
 tendence of J. Blake, who has thus entitled himself to the character 
 of a useful and ingenious mechanic. 
 
 One of the most obvious effects of this colony, has already been 
 to check, in this part of Africa, the prevalence of the slave-trade. 
 The promptness and severity with which our arms have, in every 
 instance, avenged the insults and injuries offered by slave ships 
 and factories to the colony, have, I may confidently say, banished 
 it for ever from this district of the coast. Our influence with the 
 natives of this section of the coast, is known to be so great as to 
 expose to certain miscarriage, any transaction entered into with 
 them for slaves. But there is a moral feeling at work in the minds 
 of most of our neighbors, contracted, doubtless, by means of their 
 intercourse with the colony, which represents to them the dark 
 business in a new aspect of repulsiveness and absurdity. Most 
 are convinced that it is indeed a bad business, and are apparently 
 sincere in their determination to drop it for ever, unless compelled 
 by their wants to adventure a few occasional speculations. 
 
 In the punishment of offences, the most lenient maxims of 
 modern jurisprudence have been observed, by way of experiment 
 on human nature, in that particular modification of it exhibited by 
 the population of this colony. The result has been, so far, favor- 
 able to the policy pursued. The passion to which corporeal and 
 other ignominious punishments address their arguments, is certainly 
 one of the least ingenuous of the human constitution. 
 
 EXTRACTS FROM A MEMORIAL FROM THE FREE PEOPLE OF COLOR 
 TO THE CITIZENS OF BALTIMORE. 
 
 We have hitherto beheld, in silence, but with the intensest 
 interest, the efforts of the wise and philanthropic in our behalf. If 
 it became us to be silent, it became us also to feel the liveliest 
 anxiety and gratitude. 
 
ON AFRJPAN COLONIZATION. 535 
 
 The time has now arrived, as we believe, in which your work 
 and our happiness may be promoted by the expression of our 
 opinions. We have therefore assembled for that purpose, from 
 every quarter of the city, and every denomination, to offer you this 
 respectful address, with all the weight and influence which our 
 number, character, and cause, can lend it. 
 
 We reside among you, and yet are strangers ; natives, and yet 
 not citizens ; surrounded by the freest people and most republican 
 institutions in the world, and yet enjoying none of the immunities 
 of freedom. 
 
 It is not to be imputed to you that we are here. Your ancestors 
 remonstrated against the introduction of the first of our race, who 
 were brought amongst you ; and it was the mother country that 
 insisted on their admission, that her colonies and she might profit, 
 as she thought, by their compulsory labor. But the gift was a 
 curse to them, wilhout being an advantage to herself. The colonies, 
 grown to womanhood, burst from her dominion ; and if they have 
 an angry recollection of their union and rupture, it must be at the 
 sight of the baneful institution which she has entailed upon them. 
 
 How much you regret its existence among you, is shown by the 
 severe laws you have enacted against the slave-trade, and by your 
 employment of a naval force for its suppression. You have gone 
 still further. Not content with checking the increase of the already 
 too growing evil, you have deliberated how you might best exter- 
 minate the evil itself. This delicate and important subject has 
 produced a great variety of opinions ; but we find, even in that 
 diversity, a consolatory proof of the interest with which you regard 
 the subject, and of your readiness to adopt that scheme which may 
 appear to be the best. 
 
 Leaving out all considerations of generosity, humanity, and 
 benevolence, you have the strongest reasons to favor and facilitate 
 the withdrawal from among you of such as wish to remove. It ill 
 consists, in the first place, with your republican principles, and 
 with the health and moral sense of the body politic, that there 
 should be, in the midst of you, an extraneous mass of men, united 
 to you only by soil and climate, and irrevocably excluded from 
 your institutions. Nor is it less for your advantage in another 
 point of view. Our places might, in our opinion, be better occu- 
 pied by men of your own color, who would increase the strength 
 of your country. In the pursuit of livelihood, and the exercise of 
 industrious habits, we necessarily exclude from employment many 
 of the whites, your fellow-citizens, who would find it easier, 
 in proportion as we depart, to provide for themselves and their 
 families. 
 
 But if you have every reason to wish for our removal, how much 
 greater are our inducements to remove ! Though we are not 
 slaves, we are not free. We do not, and never shall, participate 
 
536 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 in the enviable privileges which we continually witness. Beyond 
 a mere subsistence, and the impulse of religion, there is nothing to 
 arouse us to the exercise of our faculties, or excite us to the attain- 
 ment of eminence. 
 
 Of the many schemes that have been proposed, we most approve 
 of that of African colonization. If we were able, and at liberty to 
 go whithersoever we would, the greater number, willing to leave 
 this community, would prefer Liberia, on the coast of Africa. 
 Others, no doubt, would turn them towards some other regions ; 
 the world is wide. Already established there, in the settlement of 
 the American colonization society, are many of our brethren, the 
 pioneers of African restoration, who encourage us to join them. 
 Several were formerly residents of this city, and highly considered 
 by the people of their own class and color. They have been 
 planted at cape Montserado, the most eligible, and one of the most 
 elevated sites on the western coast of Africa, selected in 1821 ; 
 and their number has augmented to five hundred. Able, as we 
 are informed, to provide for their own defence and support, and 
 capable of self-increase, they are now enjoying all the necessaries 
 and comforts, and many of the luxuries of larger and older com- 
 munities. In Africa we shall be freemen indeed, and republicans, 
 after the model of this republic. We shall carry your language, 
 your customs, your opinions and Christianity to that now desolate 
 shore, and thence they will gradually spread, with our growth, far 
 into the continent. The slave-trade, both external and internal, 
 can be abolished only by settlements on the coast. Africa, if 
 destined to be ever civilized and converted, can be civilized and 
 converted by that means only. 
 
 We foresee that difficulties and dangers await those who 
 emigrate, such as every infant establishment must encounter and 
 endure; such as your fathers suffered, when first they landed on 
 this now happy shore. 
 
 The portion of comforts which they may lose, they will cheer- 
 fully abandon. Human happiness does not consist in meat and 
 drink, nor in costly raiment, nor in stately habitations ; to contribute 
 to it even, they must be joined with equal rights, and respectability, 
 and it often exists in a high degree without them. 
 
 That you may facilitate the withdrawal from among you of such 
 as wish to remove, is what we now solicit. It can best be done, 
 we think, by augmenting the means at the command of the Amer- 
 ican Colonization Society, that the colony of Liberia may be 
 strengthened and improved for their gradual reception. The 
 greater the number of persons sent thither, from any part of this 
 nation whatsoever, so much the more capable it becomes of 
 receiving a still greater. Every encouragement to it, therefore, 
 though it may not seem to have any particular portion of emigrants 
 directly in view, will produce a favorable effect upon all The 
 
ON AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 537 
 
 emigrants may readily be enabled to remove, in considerable 
 numbers every fall, by a concerted system of individual contribu- 
 tions, and still more efficiently by the enactment of laws to promote 
 their emigration, under the patronage of the state. The expense 
 would not be nearly so great as it might appear at first sight ; for, 
 when once the current shall have set towards Liberia, and inter- 
 course grown frequent, the cost will, of course, diminish rapidly, 
 and many will be able to defray it for themselves. Thousands 
 and tens of thousands poorer than we, annually emigrate from 
 Europe to your country, and soon have it in their power to hasten 
 the arrival of those they left behind. Every intelligent and indus- 
 trious colored man would continually look forward to the day, 
 when he or his children might go to their veritable home, and 
 would accumulate all his little earnings for that purpose. 
 
 We have ventured these remarks, because we know that you 
 take a kind concern in the subject to w T hich they relate, and because 
 we think they may assist you in the prosecution of your designs. 
 If we were doubtful of your good will and benevolent intentions, 
 we would remind you of the time when you were in a situation 
 similar to ours, and when your forefathers were driven, by religious 
 persecution, to a distant and inhospitable shore. We are not so 
 persecuted : but we, too, leave our homes, and seek a distant and 
 inhospitable shore : an empire may be the result of our emigration, 
 as of their's. The protection, kindness, and assistance which you 
 would have desired for yourselves under such circumstances, now 
 extend to us : so may you be rewarded by the riddance of the stain 
 and evil of slavery, the extension of civilization and the gospel, and 
 the blessings of our common Creator ! 
 
 WILLIAxM CORNISH, 
 Chairman of the meeting in Bethel church. 
 
 ROBERT COWLEY, 
 Secretarv of the meeting in Bethel church. 
 
 JAMES DEAVER, 
 Chairman of the meeting in the African church, Sharp street. 
 
 REMUS HARVEY, 
 Secretary of the meeting in the African church, Sharp street 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 68 
 

 ON THE CHARGE OF CORRUPTION, 
 
 AT LEXINGTON, KENTUCKY, JULY 12. 1827. 
 
 [In June, 1827, Mr. Carter Beverley, of Virginia, published in the United States 
 Telegraph, printed at Washington, a letter from general Jackson, charging Mr. Clay 
 with corrupt motives in having voted for his competitor, Mr. Adams, for president, of 
 the United States, in the election by congress, in 1825. Mr. Clay being on a visit to 
 Kentucky during the same summer, attended various meetings of his former constitu- 
 ents and friends, who were desirous of testifying their continued regard for him. At 
 a public dinner given him at Lexington, the following toast was given, in the course 
 of his answer to which, Mr. Clay takes the opportunity to refute the charges of 
 general Jackson against him, as will be seen in the subjoined remarks.] 
 
 1 Our distinguished guest, Henry Clay. The furnace of persecution may be heated 
 seven times hotter, and seventy times more he will come out unscathed by the fire 
 of malignity, brighter to all and dearer to his friends; while his enemies shall sink 
 with the dross of their own vile materials.' 
 
 Mr. President, friends, and fellow-citizens, 
 
 I beg permission to offer my hearty thanks, and to make my res- 
 pectful acknowledgments, for the affectionate reception which has 
 been given me during my present visit to my old congressional 
 district, and for this hospitable and honorable testimony of your 
 esteem and confidence. And I thank you especially for the friendly 
 sentiments and feelings expressed in the toast which you have just 
 done me the honor to drink. I always had the happiness of knowing 
 that I enjoyed, in a high degree, the attachment of that portion of 
 my fellow-citizens whom I formerly represented ; but I should 
 never have been sensible of the strength and ardor of their affec- 
 tion, except for the extraordinary character of the times. For near 
 two years and a half I have been assailed with a rancor and bitter- 
 ness which have few examples. I have found myself the particular 
 object of concerted and concentrated abuse ; and others, thrusting 
 themselves between you and me, have dared to arraign me for treach- 
 ery to your interests. But my former constituents, unaffected by the 
 calumnies which have been so perseveringly circulated to my preju- 
 dice, have stood by me with a generous confidence and a noble 
 magnanimity. The measure of their regard and confidence has risen 
 with, and even surpassed, that of the malevolence, great as it is, of 
 
ON THE CHARGE OF CORRUPTION. 539 
 
 my personal and political foes. I thank you, gentlemen, who are a 
 large portion of my late constituents. I thank you, and every one of 
 them, with all my heart, for the manly support which I have uniformly 
 received. It has cheered and consoled me, amidst all my severe 
 trials; and may I not add, that it is honorable to the generous 
 hearts and enlightened heads who have resolved to protect the 
 character of an old friend and faithful servant. 
 
 The numerous manifestations of your confidence and attach- 
 ment will be among the latest and most treasured recollections of 
 my life. They impose upon me obligations which can never be 
 weakened or cancelled. One of these obligations is, that I should 
 embrace every fair opportunity to vindicate that character which 
 you have so generously sustained, and to evince to you and to the 
 world, that you have not yielded to the impulses of a blind and 
 enthusiastic sentiment. I feel that I am, on all fit occasions, espe- 
 cially bound to vindicate myself to my former constituents. It 
 was as their representative, it was in fulfilment of a high trust 
 which they confided to me, that I have been accused of violating 
 the most sacred of duties — of treating their wishes with contempt, 
 and their interests with treachery. Nor is this obligation, in my 
 conception of its import, at all weakened by the dissolution of the 
 relations which heretofore existed between us. I would instantly 
 resign the place I hold in the councils of the nation, and directly 
 appeal to the suffrages of my late constituents, as a candidate for 
 reelection, if I did not know that my foes are of that class whom 
 one rising from the dead cannot convince, whom nothing can silence, 
 and who wage a war of extermination. On the issue of such an 
 appeal they would redouble" their abuse of you and of me, for 
 their hatred is common to us both. 
 
 They have compelled me so often to be the theme of my 
 addresses to the people, that I should have willingly abstained, on 
 this festive occasion, from any allusion to this subject, but for a new 
 and imposing form which the calumny against me has recently 
 assumed. I am again put. on my defence, not of any new charge, 
 nor by any new adversary ; but of the old charges, clad in a new 
 dress, and exhibited by an open and undisguised enemy. The 
 fictitious names have been stricken from the foot of the indictment, 
 and that of a known and substantial prosecutor has been voluntarily 
 offered. Undaunted by the formidable name of that prosecutor, I 
 will avail myself, with your indulgence, of this fit opportunity of 
 free and unreserved intercourse with you, as a large number of my 
 late constituents, to make some observations on the past and 
 present state of the question. When evidence shall be produced, 
 as I have now a clear right to demand, in support of the accusa- 
 tion, it will be the proper time for me to take such notice of it as 
 its nature shall require. 
 
 In February, 1825* it was my duty, as the representative of this 
 
540 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 district, to vote for some one of the three candidates for the presi- 
 dency, who were returned to the house of representatives. It has 
 been established, and can be further proved, that, before I left this 
 state the preceding fall, I communicated to several gentlemen of 
 the highest respectability, my fixed determination not to vote for 
 general Jackson. The friends of Mr. Crawford asserted to the 
 last, lhat the condition of his health was such as to enable him to 
 administer the duties of the office. I thought otherwise, after I 
 reached Washington city, and visited him to satisfy myself; and 
 thought that physical impediment, if there were no other objections, 
 ought to prevent his election. Although the delegations from four 
 states voted for him, and his pretensions were zealously pressed to 
 the very last moment, it has been of late asserted, and I believe by 
 some of the very persons who then warmly espoused his cause, 
 that his incompetency was so palpable as clearly to limit the 
 choice to two of the three returned candidates. In my view of 
 my duty, there was no alternative but that which I embraced. 
 That I had some objections to Mr. Adams, I am ready freely to 
 admit; but these did not weigh a feather in comparison with the 
 greater and insurmountable objections, long and deliberately enter- 
 tained against his competitor. I take this occasion, with great 
 satisfaction, to state, that my objections to Mr. Adams arose 
 chiefly from apprehensions which have not been realized. I have 
 found him at the head of the government able, enlightened, patient 
 of investigation, and ever ready to receive with respect, and, when 
 approved by his judgment, to act upon, the counsels of his official 
 advisers. I add, with unmixed pleasure, that, from the commence- 
 ment of the government, with the exception of Mr. Jefferson's 
 administration, no chief magistrate has found the members of his 
 cabinet so united on all public measures, and so cordial and 
 friendly in all their intercourse, private and official, as these are of 
 the present president. 
 
 Had I voted for general Jackson, in opposition to the well-known 
 opinions which I entertained of him, one tenth part of the ingenuity 
 and zeal which have been employed to excite prejudices against 
 me, would have held me up to universal contempt ; and what 
 would have been worse, /should have fell that I really deserved it. 
 
 Before the election, an attempt was made by an abusive letter, 
 published in the Columbian Observer, at Philadelphia, a paper 
 which, as has since transpired, was sustained by Mr. senator Eaton, 
 the colleague, the friend, and the biographer of general Jackson, to 
 assail my motives, and to deter me in the exercise of my duty. 
 This letter being avowed by Mr. George Kremer, I instantly 
 demanded from the house of representatives an investigation. A 
 committee was accordingly, on the fifth day of February, 1825, 
 appointed in the rare mode of balloting by the house, instead of by 
 selection of ihe speaker. It was composed of some of the leading 
 
ON THE CHARGE OF CORRUPTION. 541 
 
 members of that body, not one of whom was my political friend in 
 the preceding presidential canvass. Although Mr. Kremer, in 
 addressing the house, had declared his willingness to bring forward 
 his proofs, and his readiness to abide the issue of the inquiry, his 
 fears, or other counsels than his own, prevailed upon him to take 
 refuge in a miserable subterfuge. Of all possible periods, that was 
 the most fitting to substantiate the charge, if it were true. Every 
 circumstance was then fresh ; the witnesses all living and present ; 
 the election not yet complete ; and therefore the imputed corrupt 
 bargain not fulfilled. All these powerful considerations had no 
 weight with the conspirators and their accessories, and they 
 meanly shrunk from even an attempt to prove their charge, for the 
 best of all possible reasons — because, being false and fabricated, 
 they could adduce no proof which was not false and fabricated. 
 
 During two years and a half, which have now intervened, a 
 portion of the press devoted to the cause of general Jackson has 
 been teeming with the vilest calumnies against me, and the charge, 
 under every chameleon form, has been a thousand times repeated. 
 Up to this time, I have in vain invited investigation, and demanded 
 evidence. None, not a particle, has been adduced. 
 
 The extraordinary ground has been taken, that the accusers were 
 not bound to establish by proof the guilt of their designated victim. 
 In a civilized, christian, and free community, the monstrous 
 principle has been assumed, that accusation and conviction are 
 synonymous; and that the persons who deliberately bring forward 
 an atrocious charge are exempted from all obligations to substan- 
 tiate it ! And the pretext is, that the crime, being of a political 
 nature, is shrouded is darkness, and incapable of being substan- 
 tiated. But is there any real difference, in this respect, between 
 political and other offences ? Do not all the perpetrators of crime 
 endeavor to conceal their guilt and to elude detection? If the 
 accuser of a political offence is absolved from the duty of support- 
 ing his accusation, every other accuser of offence stands equally 
 absolved. Such a principle, practically carried into society, would 
 subvert all harmony, peace, and tranquillity. None — no age, nor 
 sex, nor profession, nor calling — would be safe against its baleful 
 and overwhelming influence. It would amount to a universal 
 license to universal calumny ! 
 
 No one has ever contended that the proof should be exclusively 
 that of eye-witnesses, testifying from their senses positively and 
 directly to the fact. Political, like other offences, may be estab- 
 lished by circumstantial as well as positive evidence. But I do 
 contend, that some evidence, be it what it may, ought to be 
 exhibited. If there be none, how do the accusers know that an 
 offence has been perpetrated ? If they do know it, let us have the 
 fact on which their conviction is based. I will not even assert, 
 that, in public affairs, a citizen has not a right freely to express his 
 
542 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 opinions of public men, and to speculate upon the motives of their 
 conduct. But if he chooses to promulgate opinions, let them be 
 given as opinions. The public will correctly judge of their value 
 and their grounds. No one has a right to put forth a positive 
 assertion, that a political offence has been committed, unless he 
 stands prepared to sustain, by satisfactory proof of some kind, its 
 actual existence. 
 
 If he who exhibits a charge of political crime is, from its very 
 nature, disabled to establish it, how much more difficult is the 
 condition of the accused ? How can he exhibit negative proof of 
 his innocence, if no affirmative proof of his guilt is or can be 
 adduced ? 
 
 It must have been a conviction that the justice of the public 
 required a definite charge, by a responsible accuser, that has at last 
 extorted from general Jackson his letter of the sixth of June, lately 
 published. I approach that letter with great reluctance, not on my 
 own account, for on that I do most heartily and sincerely rejoice 
 that it has made its appearance. But it is reluctance, excited by 
 the feelings of respect which I would anxiously have cultivated 
 towards its author. He has, however, by that letter, created such 
 relations between us, lhat, in any language which I may employ, 
 in examining its contents, I feel myself bound by no other obliga- 
 tions than those which belong to truth, to public decorum, and to 
 myself. 
 
 The first consideration which must, on the perusal of the letter, 
 force itself upon every reflecting mind, is that which arises out of 
 the delicate posture in which general Jackson stands before the 
 American public. He is a candidate for the presidency, avowed 
 and proclaimed. He has no competitor at present, and there is no 
 probability of his having any, but one. The charges which he has 
 allowed himself to be the organ of communicating to the very 
 public who is to decide the question of the presidency, though 
 directly aimed at me, necessarily implicate his only competitor. 
 Mr. Adams and myself are both guilty, or we are both innocent 
 of the imputed arrangement between us. His innocence is abso- 
 lutely irreconcilable with my guilt. If general Jackson, therefore, 
 can establish my guilt, and, by inference or by insinuation, that of 
 his sole rival, he will have removed a great obstacle to the consum- 
 mation of the object of his ambition. And if he can, at the same 
 time, make out his own purity of conduct, and impress the 
 American people with the belief, that his purity and integrity alone 
 prevented his success before the house of representatives, his claims 
 will become absolutely irresistible. Were there ever more powerful 
 motives to propagate, was there ever greater interest, at all hazards, 
 to prove the truth of charges ? 
 
 I state the case, I hope, fairly ; I mean to state it fairly and 
 fearlessly. If the position be one which exposes general Jackson 
 
ON THE CHARGE OF CORRUPTION. 543 
 
 to unfavorable suspicions, it must be borne in mind that he has 
 voluntarily taken it, and he must abide the consequences. I am 
 acting on the defensive, and it is he who assails me, and who has 
 called forth, by the eternal laws of self-protection, the right to use 
 all legitimate means of self-defence. 
 
 General Jackson has shown in his letter, that he is not exempt 
 from the influence of that bias towards one's own interest, which 
 is unfortunately the too common lot of human nature. It is his 
 interest to make out that he is a person of spotless innocence, and 
 of unsullied integrity; and to establish by direct charge, or by 
 necessary inference, the want of those qualities in his rival. 
 Accordingly, we find, throughout the letter, a labored attempt to set 
 forth his own immaculate purity in striking contrast with the corrup- 
 tion which is attributed to others. We would imagine from his 
 letter, that he very seldom touches a newspaper. The Telegraph 
 is mailed regularly for him at Washington, but it arrives at the 
 Hermitage very irregularly. He would have the public to infer, 
 that the postmaster at Nashville, whose appointment happened not 
 to be upon his recommendation, obstructed his reception of it. In 
 consequence of his not receiving the Telegraph, he had not on the 
 sixth of June, 1827, seen Carter Beverley's famous Fayetteville 
 letter, dated the eighth of the preceding March, published in 
 numerous gazettes, and published, I have very little doubt, although 
 I have not the means of ascertaining the fact, in the gazettes of 
 Nashville. I will not say, contrary to general Jackson's assertion, 
 that he had never read that letter, when he wrote that of the sixth 
 of June, but I must think that it is very strange that he should not 
 have seen it; and I doubt whether there is another man of any 
 political eminence in the United States who has not read it. There 
 is a remarkable coincidence between general Jackson and certain 
 editors who espouse his interest, in relation to Mr. Beverley's 
 letter. They very early took the ground, in respect to it, that I 
 ought, under my own signature, to come out and deny the state- 
 ments. And general Jackson now says, in his letter of the sixth 
 of June, that he * always intended, should Mr. Clay come out over 
 his own signature, and deny having any knowledge of the commu- 
 nication made by his friends to my friends and to me, that I would 
 give him the name of the gentleman through whom that commu- 
 nication came.' 
 
 The distinguished member of congress who bore the alleged 
 overture, according to general Jackson, presented himself with 
 diplomatic circumspection, lest he should wound the very great 
 sensibility of the general. He avers that the communication was 
 intended\vith the most friendly motives, < that he came as a friend,' 
 and that he hoped, however it might be received, there would be no 
 alteration in the friendly feelings between them. The general 
 graciously condescends to receive the communication, and, in 
 
544 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 consideration of the high standing of the distinguished member, 
 and of his having always been a professed friend, he is promised 
 impunity, and assured that there shall be no change of amicable 
 ties. After all these necessary preliminaries are arranged between 
 the high negotiating powers, the envoy proceeds : * he had been 
 informed by the friends of Mr. Clay, that the friends of Mr. Adams 
 had made overtures to them, saying if Mr. Clay and his friends 
 would unite in aid of the election of Mr. Adams, Mr. Clay should 
 be secretary of state ; that the friends of Mr. Adams were urging, 
 as a reason to induce the friends of Mr. Clay to accede to their 
 proposition, that if I was elected president, Mr. Adams would be 
 continued secretary of state, (inuendo, there would be no room for 
 Kentucky.)' [Is this general Jackson's inuendo, or that of the 
 distinguished member of congress ? ] ' That the friends of Mr. 
 Clay stated the west does not want to separate from the west, and 
 if I would say, or permit any of my confidential friends to say 
 that, in case I was elected president, Mr. Adams should not be 
 continued secretary of state, by a complete union of Mr. Clay and 
 his friends, they would put an end to the presidential contest in one 
 hour ; and he was of opinion it was right to fight such intriguers 
 with their own weapons.' To which the general states himself to 
 have replied in substance, ' that in politics, as in every thing else, 
 my guide was principle, and contrary to the expressed and unbiased 
 will of the people or their constituted agents, I never would step 
 into the presidential chair; and requested him to say to Mr. Clay 
 and his friends, (for I did suppose he had come from Mr. Clay, 
 although he used the terms Mr. Claijs friends,) that before I would 
 reach the presidential chair by such means of bargain and corrup- 
 tion, I would see the earth open and swallow both Mr. Clay and 
 his friends and myself with them.' Now all these professions are 
 very fine, and display admirable purity. But its sublimity would 
 be somewhat more impressive, if some person other than general 
 Jackson had proclaimed it. He would go into the presidential 
 chair, but never, no ! never, contrary to ' the expressed and unbiased 
 will of the people, or their constituted agents:' two modes of 
 arriving at it the more reasonable, as there happens to be no other 
 constituted way. He would see 'the earth open and swallow both 
 Mr. Clay and his friends and myself,' before he would reach the 
 presidential chair by ' such means of bargain and corruption.' I 
 hope general Jackson did not intend that the whole human race 
 should be also swallowed up, on the contingency he has stated, or 
 that they were to guaranty that he has an absolute repugnance 
 to the employment of any exceplionable means to secure his 
 elevation to the presidency. If he had rendered the distinguished 
 member of congress a little more distinguished, by instantly 
 ordering him from his presence, and by forthwith denouncing him 
 and the infamous propositions which he bore, to the American 
 
ON THE CHARGE OF CORRUPTION. 545 
 
 public, we should be a little better prepared to admit the claims to 
 untarnished integrity, which the general so modestly puts forward. 
 But, according to his own account, a corrupt and scandalous 
 proposal is made to him ; the person who conveyed it, advises him 
 to accept it, and yet that person still retains the friendship of general 
 Jackson, who is so tender of his character that his name is carefully 
 concealed and reserved to be hereafter brought forward as a 
 witness ! A man, who, if he be a member of the house of repre- 
 sentatives, is doubly infamous — infamous for the advice which he 
 gave, and infamous for his willingness to connive at the corruption 
 of the body of which he is a sworn member — is the credible 
 witness by whom general Jackson stands ready to establish the 
 corruption of men, whose characters are never questioned ! 
 
 Of all the properties which belong to honorable men, not one is 
 so highly prized as that of character. General Jackson cannot be 
 insensible to its value, for he appears to be the most anxious to set 
 forth the loftiness and purity of his own. How has he treated 
 mine ? During the dispensation of the hospitalities of the her- 
 mitage, in the midst of a mixed company of individuals from 
 various states, he permits himself to make certain statements 
 respecting my friends and me, which, if true, would forever 
 dishonor and degrade us. The words are hardly passed from his 
 mouth, before they are committed to paper, by one of his guests, 
 and transmitted in the form of a letter to another state, when they 
 are published in a newspaper, and thence circulated throughout the 
 union. And now he pretends that these statements were made 
 * without any calculation that they were to be thrown into the public 
 journals.' Does he reprove the indiscretion of this guest who had 
 violated the sanctity of a conversation at the hospitable board ? 
 Far from it. The public is incredulous. It cannot be, general 
 Jackson would be so wanting in delicacy and decorum. The guest 
 appeals to him for the confirmation of the published statements ; 
 and the general promptly addresses a letter to him, in which ' he 
 unequivocally confirms (says Mr. Carter Beverley,) all I have said 
 regarding the overture made to him pending the last presidential 
 election before congress ; and he asserts a great deal more than he 
 ever told me? I should be glad to know if all the versions of the 
 tale have now made their appearance, and whether general Jack- 
 son will allege, that he did not ' calculate' upon the publication of 
 his letter of the sixth of June. 
 
 The general states that the unknown envoy used the terms, ' Mr. 
 Clay's friends,' to the exclusion, therefore, of myself, but he never- 
 theless inferred that he had come from me. Now, why did he draw 
 this inference contrary to the import of the statement which he 
 received ? Does not this disposition to deduce conclusions unfa- 
 vorable to me, manifest the spirit which actuates him ? And does 
 not general Jackson exhibit throughout his letter a desire to give a 
 vol. h 60 
 
546 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 coloring to the statements of his friend, the distinguished member 
 of congress, higher than they would justify ? No one should ever 
 resort to implication but from necessity. Why did he not ascertain 
 from the envoy if he had come from me ? Was any thing more 
 natural than that general Jackson should ascertain the persons who 
 had deputed the envoy ? If his slacked sensibility and indignant 
 virtue and patriotism would not allow him to inquire into particu- 
 lars, ought he to have hazarded the assertion, that I was privy to 
 the proposal, without assuring himself of the fact ; could he not, 
 after rejecting the proposal, continuing, as he did, on friendly terms 
 with the organ of it, have satisfied himself if I were conusant of 
 it ? If he had not time then, might he not have ascertained the fact 
 from his friend or from me, during the intervening two and a half 
 years? The compunctions of his own conscience appear for a 
 moment to have visited him towards the conclusion of his letter, 
 for he there does say, ' that in the supposition stated, J may have 
 done injustice to Mr. Clay ; if so, the gentleman informing me can 
 explain.' No good or honorable man will do another voluntarily 
 any injustice. It was not necessary that general Jackson should 
 have done me any. And he cannot acquit himself of the rashness 
 and iniquity of his conduct towards me, by referring at this late 
 day to a person whose name is withheld from the public. This 
 compendious mode of administering justice, by first hanging and 
 then trying a man, however justifiable it may be, according to the 
 precepts of the Jackson code, is sanctioned by no respectable 
 system of jurisprudence. 
 
 It is stated in the letter of the sixth of June, that the overture 
 was made early in January ; and that the second day after the 
 communication, it ' was announced in the newspapers, that Mr. 
 Clay had come out openly and avowedly in favor of Mr. Adams.' 
 The object of this statement is obvious. It is to insinuate that the 
 proposal which was rejected with disdain by general Jackson, was 
 accepted with promptitude by Mr. Adams. This renders the fact 
 as to the time of the alleged annunciation very important. It is to 
 be regretted that general Jackson had not been a little more precise. 
 It was early in January that the overture was made, and the second 
 day after, the annunciation of my intention took place. Now, I 
 will not assert that there may not have been some speculations in 
 the newspapers about that time, (although I do not believe there 
 were any speculations so early,) as to the probable vote which I 
 should give ; but I should be glad to see any newspaper which the 
 second day after early in January, asserted in its columns, that I 
 had come out ' openly and avowedly in favor of Mr. Adams.' I 
 challenge the production of such a paper. I do not believe my 
 intention so to vote for Mr. Adams was announced in the news- 
 papers openly and avowedly during the whole month of January, 
 or at any rate until late in that month. The only avowal of my 
 
ON THE CHARGE OF CORRUPTION. 547 
 
 intention to vote for him, which was publicly made in the news- 
 papers, prior to the election, is contained in my letter to Judge 
 Brooke, which is dated the twenty-eighth of January. It was first 
 published in the Enquirer at Richmond, some time in the ensuing 
 month. I go further ; I do not believe any newspaper at Wash- 
 ington can be produced, announcing, before the latter part of 
 January, the fact, whether upon my avowal or not, of my intention 
 to vote for Mr. Adams. General Jackson's memory must deceive 
 him. He must have confounded events and circumstances. His 
 friend, Mr. George Kremer, in his letter to the Columbian Observer 
 bearing date the twenty-fifth of January, has, according to my 
 recollection of the public prints, a claim to the merit of being the 
 first, or among the first, to announce to the public my intended 
 vote. That letter was first published at Philadelphia, and returned 
 in the Columbian Observer to Washington city, on the thirty-first 
 of January. How long before its date that letter was written to 
 Mr. Kremer, does not appear. Whether there be any connection 
 made by the distinguished member of congress, and that letter, 
 perhaps general Jackson can explain. 
 
 At the end of more than two years after a corrupt overture has 
 been made to general Jackson, he now, for the first time, openly 
 proclaims it. It is true, as I have ascertained since the publica- 
 tion of Mr. Beverley's Fayetteville letter, the general has been for 
 a long time secretly circulating the charge. Immediately on the 
 appearance at Washington of that letter in the public prints, the 
 editor of the Telegraph asserted, in his paper, that general Jackson 
 had communicated the overture to him about the period of the 
 election, not as he now states, but according to Mr. Beverley's 
 version of the tale. Since I left Washington on the tenth of last 
 month, I have understood that general Jackson has made a similar 
 communication to several other persons at different and distant 
 points. Why has the overture been thus clandestinely circulated ? 
 Was it that through the medium of the Telegraph, the leading 
 paper supporting the interest of general Jackson, and through his 
 other depositories, the belief of the charge should be duly and 
 gradually infused into the public mind, and thus contribute to the 
 support of his cause ? The zeal and industry with which it has 
 been propagated, the daily columns of certain newspapers can 
 testily. Finding the public still unconvinced, has the general found 
 it to be necessary to come out in proper person, through the thin 
 veil of Mr. Carter Beverley's agency ? 
 
 W T hen the alleged overture was made, the election remained 
 undecided. Why did not general Jackson then hold up to univer- 
 sal scorn and indignation the infamous bearer of the proposal, and 
 those who dared to insult his honor, and tamper with his integrity ? 
 If he had at that time denounced all the infamous parties concerned, 
 demanded an inquiry in the house of representatives, and estab- 
 
548 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 lished by satisfactory proof the truth of his accusation, there might 
 and probably would have been a different result to the election. 
 Why, when at my instance, a committee was on the fifth day of 
 February, 1825, (only four days before the election,) appointed to 
 investigate the charges of Mr. Kremer, did not general Jackson 
 present himself and establish their truth ? Why, on the seventh of 
 that month, two days before the election, when the committee 
 reported that Mr. Kremer declined to come forward, and that ' if 
 they knev) of any reason for such investigation, they would have 
 asked to be clothed with the proper power, but not having them- 
 selves any such knowledge, they have felt it to be their duty only 
 to lay before the house the communication which they have 
 received;' why did not general Jackson authorize a motion to 
 recommit the report, and manfully come forward with all his 
 information ? The congress of the nation is in session. An 
 important election has devolved on it. All eyes are turned towards 
 Washington. The result is awaited with intense anxiety and 
 breathless expectation. A corrupt proposition, affecting the elec- 
 tion, is made to one of the candidates. He receives it, is advised 
 to accept it, deliberates, decides upon it. A committee is in session 
 to investigate the very charge. The candidate, notwithstanding, 
 remains profoundly silent, and, after the lapse of more than two 
 years, when the period of another election is rapidly approaching, 
 in which he is the only competitor for the office, for the first time, 
 announces it to the American republic ! They must have more 
 than an ordinary share of credulity who do not believe that general 
 Jackson labors under some extraordinary delusion. 
 
 It is possible that he may urge by way of excuse, for what must 
 be deemed his culpable concealment of meditated corruption, that 
 he did not like to volunteer as a witness before the committee, or 
 to transmit to it the name of his friend, the distinguished member 
 of the house of representatives, although it is not very easy to 
 discern any just reason for his volunteering now, which would not 
 have applied with more force at that time. But what apology can 
 be made for his failure to discharge his sacred duty as an American 
 senator? More than two months after the alleged overture, my 
 nomination to the office which I now hold, was made to the senate 
 of the United States, of which general Jackson was then a sworn 
 member. On that nomination he had to deliberate and to act in 
 the most solemn manner. If I were privy to a corrupt proposal to 
 general Jackson, touching the recent election ; if I had entered into 
 a corrupt bargain with Mr. Adams to secure his elevation, I was 
 unworthy of the office to which I was nominated; and it was the 
 duty of general Jackson, if he really possessed the information 
 which he now puts forward, to have moved the senate to appoint 
 a committee of inquiry, and by establishing my guilt, to have pre- 
 served the national councils from an abominable contamination. 
 
ON THE CHARGE OF CORRUPTION. 549 
 
 As the conspiracy of George Kremer & Co. had a short time 
 before meanly shrunk from appearing before the committee of the 
 house of representatives, to make good their charges, I requested 
 a senator of the United States, when my nomination should be 
 taken up, to ask of the senate the appointment of a commitlee of 
 inquiry, unless it should appear to him to be altogether unneces- 
 sary. One of our senators was compelled, by the urgency of his 
 private business, to leave Washington before my nomination was 
 disposed of; and as 1 had but little confidence in the fidelity and 
 professed friendship of the other, I was constrained to present my 
 application to a senator from another state. I was afterwards 
 informed that when it was acted upon, general Jackson, and every 
 other senator present, was silent as to the imputation now made; 
 no one presuming to question my honor or integrity. How can 
 general Jackson justify to his conscience or to his country, this 
 palpable breach of his public duty ? It is in vain to say that he 
 gave a silent negative vote. He was in possession of information 
 which, if true, must have occasioned the rejection of my nomina- 
 tion. It does not appear that any other senator possessed the 
 same information. Investigation was alike due to the purity of 
 the national councils, to me, and, as an act^ of strict justice, to all 
 the other parties implicated. It is impossible for him to escape 
 from the dilemma that he has been faithless as a senator of the 
 United States, or has lent himself to the circulation of an atrocious 
 calumny. 
 
 After the election, general Jackson was among the first who 
 eagerly pressed his congratulations upon his successful rival. If 
 Mr. Adams had been guilty of the employment of impure means 
 to effect his election, general Jackson ought to have disdained to 
 sully his own hands by touching those of his corrupt competitor. 
 
 On the tenth of February, 1825, the very next day after the 
 election, general Jackson was invited to a public dinner at Wash- 
 ington, by some of his friends. He expressed to them his wish 
 that he might be excused from accepting the invitation, because, 
 alluding to the recent election, he said, 'any evidence of kindness 
 and regard, such as you propose, might, by many, be viewed as 
 conveying with it exception, murmurings, and feelings of com- 
 plaint, which I sincerely hope belong to none of my friends.' 
 More than one month after the corrupt proposal is pretended to 
 have been received, and after, according to the insinuation of 
 general Jackson, a corrupt arrangement had been made between 
 Mr. Adams and me : after the actual termination of an election, 
 the issue of which was brought about, according to general Jack- 
 son, by the basest means, he was unwilling to accept the honors 
 of a public dinner, lest it should imply even an exception against 
 the result of the election. 
 
 General Jackson professes in his letter of the sixth of June — I 
 
550 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 quote again his words — 'to have always intended, should Mr. Clay 
 come out over his own signature, and deny having any knowledge 
 of the communication made by his friends to my friends, and to 
 me, that I would give him the name of the gentleman through 
 whom that communication came.' He pretends never to have 
 seen the Fayetteville letter; and yet the pretext of a denial under 
 my signature is precisely that which had been urged by the princi- 
 pal editors who sustain his cause. H this be an unconeerted, it is 
 nevertheless a most wonderful coincidence. The general never 
 communicated to me his professed intention, but left me in entire 
 ignorance of his generous purpose ; like the overture itself, it was 
 profoundly concealed from me. There was an authorized denial 
 from me, which went to the circle of the public prints, immedi- 
 ately after the arrival at Washington of the Fayetteville letter. In 
 that denial my words are given. They were contained in a letter 
 dated at Washington city on the eighteenth day of April last, and 
 are correctly stated to have been ' that the statement that his (my) 
 friends had made such a proposition as the latter describes to the 
 friends of general Jackson was, as far as he knew or believed, 
 utterly destitute of foundation; that he was unwilling to believe 
 that general Jackson fyad made any such statement; but that no 
 matter with whom it had originated, he was fully persuaded it was 
 a gross fabrication of the same calumnious character with the 
 Kremer story, put forth for the double purpose of injuring his 
 public character, and propping the cause of general Jackson ; and 
 then for himself and for his friends he defied the substantiation of 
 the charge before any fair tribunal whatever.' Such were my own 
 words, transmitted in the form of a letter from a friend to a knoicn 
 person. Whereas the charge which they repelled was contained 
 in a letter written by a person then unknown to some person also 
 unknown. Did I not deny the charge under my own signature, 
 in my card of the thirty-first of January, 1825, published in the 
 National Intelligencer? Was not there a substantial denial of it 
 in my letter to Judge Brooke, dated the twenty-eighth of the same 
 month? In my circular to my constituents? In my Lewisburg 
 speech ? And may I not add, in the whole tenor of my public 
 life and conduct ? If general Jackson had offered to furnish me 
 the name of a member of congress, who was capable of advising 
 his acceptance of a base and corrupt proposition, ought I to have 
 resorted to his infamous and discredited witness? 
 
 It has been a thousand times asserted and repeated, that I viola- 
 ted instructions which I ought to have obeyed. I deny the charge ; 
 and I am happy to have this opportunity of denying it in the 
 presence of my assembled constituents. The general assembly 
 requested the Kentucky delegation to vote in a particular way. A 
 majority of that delegation, including myself, voted in opposition 
 to that request. The legislature did not intend to give an impera- 
 
ON THE CHARGE OF CORRUPTION. 551 
 
 live instruction. The distinction between a request and an instruc- 
 tion was familiar to the legislature, and their rolls attest that the 
 former is always addressed to the members of the house of repre- 
 sentatives, and the latter only to the senators of the United States. 
 
 But I do not rely exclusively on this recognised distinction. I 
 dispute at once the right of the legislature to issue a mandatory 
 instruction to the representatives of the people. Such a right has 
 no foundation in the constitution, in the reason or nature of things, 
 nor in usage of the Kentucky legislature. Its exercise would be a 
 manifest usurpation. The general assembly has the incontroverti- 
 ble right to express its opinions and to proclaim its wishes on any 
 political subject whatever; and to such an expression great defer- 
 ence and respect are due ; but it is not obligatory. The people, 
 when, in August, 1824, they elected members to the general 
 assembly, did not invest them with any power to regulate or control 
 the exercise of the discretion of the Kentucky delegation in the 
 congress of the United States. I put it to the candor of every 
 elector present, if he intended to part with his own right, or antici- 
 pated the exertion of any such power, by the legislature, when he 
 gave his vote in August, 1824? 
 
 The only instruction which I received from a legitimate source, 
 emanated from a respectable portion of my immediate constituents; 
 and that directed me to exercise my own discretion, regardless of 
 the will of the legislature. You subsequently ratified my vote by 
 unequivocal demonstrations, repeatedly given, of your affectionate 
 attachment and your unshaken confidence. You ratified it two 
 years ago, by the election of my personal and political friend, 
 (judge Clarke) to succeed me in the house of representatives, who 
 had himself subscribed the only legitimate instruction which I 
 received. You ratify it by the presence and the approbation, of 
 this vast and respectable assemblage. 
 
 I rejoice again and again, that the contest has at last assumed 
 its present practical form. Heretofore, malignant whispers and 
 dark surmises have been clandestinely circulated, or openly or 
 unblushingly uttered by irresponsible agents. They were borne 
 upon the winds, and like them were invisible and intangible. No 
 responsible man stood forward to sustain them, with his acknowl- 
 edged authority. They have at last a local habitation and a name. 
 General Jackson has now thrown off the mask and comes confes- 
 sedly forth from behind his concealed batteries, publicly to accuse 
 and convict me. We stand confronted before the American 
 people. Pronouncing the charges, as I again do, destitute of all 
 foundation, and gross aspersions, whether clandestinely or openly 
 issued from the halls of the capitol, the saloons of the hermitage, 
 or by press, by pen, or by tongue, and safely resting on my 
 conscious integrity, I demanded the witness, and await the event 
 with fearless confidence. 
 
552 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 The issue is fairly joined. The imputed offence does not com- 
 prehend a single friend, but the collective body of my friends in 
 congress; and it accuses them of ottering, and me with sanction- 
 ing, corrupt propositions, derogating from honor, and in violation 
 of the most sacred of duties. The charge has been made after 
 two years deliberation. General Jackson has voluntarily taken his 
 position, and without provocation. In voting against him as 
 president of the United States, I gave him no just cause of offence. 
 1 exercised no more than my indisputable privilege, as, on a 
 subsequent occasion, of which I have never complained, he exer- 
 cised his in voting against me as secretary of state. Had I voted 
 for him, I must have gone counter to every fixed principle of my 
 public life. I believed him incompetent, and his election fraught 
 with danger. At this early period of the republic, keeping steadily 
 in view the dangers which had overturned .every other free state, I 
 believed it to be essential to the lasting preservation of our liberties, 
 that a man, devoid of civil talenls, and offering no recommendation 
 but one founded on military service, should not be selected to 
 administer the government. I believe so yet; and I shall consider 
 the days of the commonwealth numbered, when an opposite 
 principle is established. I believed, and still believe, that now, 
 when our institutions are in comparative infancy, is the time to 
 establish the great principle, that military qualification alone is not 
 a sufficient title to the presidency. If we start right, wc may run 
 a long race of liberty, happiness, and glory. If we stumble in 
 setting out, we shall fall as others have fallen before us, and fall 
 without even a claim to the regrets or sympathies of mankind. 
 
 I have never done general Jackson, knowingly, any injustice. I 
 have taken pleasure, on every proper occasion, to bestow on him 
 merited praise, for the glorious issue of the battle of New Orleans. 
 No American citizen enjoyed higher satisfaction than I did with 
 the event. I heard it for the first time on the boulevards of Paris ; 
 and I eagerly perused the details of the actions, with the anxious 
 hope that I should find that the gallant militia of my own state 
 had avenged, on the banks of the Mississippi, the blood which 
 they had so freely spilt on the disastrous field of Raisin. That 
 hope was not then gratified; and although I had the mortification 
 to read in the official statement, that they ingloriously fied, I was 
 nevertheless thankful for the success of the arms of my country, 
 and felt grateful to him who had most contributed to the ever 
 memorable victory. This concession is not now made for the 
 purpose of conciliating the favor or mitigating the wrath of general 
 Jackson. He has erected an impassable barrier between us, and 1 
 would scorn to accept any favor at his hands. I thank my God 
 that He has endowed me with a soul incapable of apprehensions 
 from the anger of any being but himself. 
 
ON THE CHARGE OF CORRUPTION. 553 
 
 I have, as your representative, freely examined, and, in my delib- 
 erate judgment, justly condemned the conduct of general Jackson 
 in some of our Indian wars. I believed and yet believe him to 
 have trampled upon the constitution of his country, and to have 
 violated the principles of humanity. Entertaining these opinions, 
 1 did not and could not vote for him. 
 
 I owe you, my friends and fellow-citizens, many apologies for 
 this long interruption of the festivities of the day. I hope that my 
 desire to vindicate their honored object, and to satisfy you that he 
 is not altogether unworthy of them, will be deemed sufficient. 
 
 vol. i. 70 
 

 ON THE POLITICAL CONDITION OF THE UNITED STATES 
 DURING J. Q. ADAMS'S ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 DELIVERED AT CINCINNATI, AUGUST 23, 1828. 
 
 [On Friday, (twenty-second August,) Mr. Clay arrived in Cincinnati. During the 
 day he was visited by a large number of the citizens. On Saturday, at two o'clock, 
 he met his fellow-citizens at Mr. Ruffner's, where a collation was prepared. A vast 
 concourse of persons were present. The general impression was, that the number 
 exceeded five thousand. Mr. Clay was introduced to the company by a short address 
 from the chairman of the .administration committee, S. W. Davies, Esq., to which he 
 replied in the following words.] 
 
 Mr. Chairman, 
 
 Although it is not entirely compatible with the precautions 
 which are enjoined by the delicate state of my health, to which 
 you have so obligingly alluded, to present myself in this attitude, 
 I cannot refrain from making a public expression to you, and to 
 my fellow-citizens here assembled, of my profound acknowledg- 
 ments for the hearty welcome and the cordial, spontaneous, and 
 enthusiastic manifestation of respect and attachment with which 
 my present visit to your city has been attended. It has been 
 frequently, but not less truly said, that the highest reward for 
 public service, is the approbation of the public. The support of 
 public opinion is the greatest incentive to the faithful and beneficial 
 discharge of official duty. If, as you have truly suggested, it has 
 been my misfortune for several years, to have been abused and 
 assailed without example, I have nevertheless had the satisfaction 
 to have been cheered and sustained, in all parts of the union, by 
 some of the best and most virtuous men in it. And I seize with 
 pleasure this occasion to say, that, even among my political oppo- 
 nents, many of the most moderate and intelligent have done me 
 the justice to discredit and discountenance the calumnies of which 
 I have been the object. But nowhere have I found more constant, 
 ardent, and effective friends than in this city. I thank them most 
 heartily for all their friendly sentiments and exertions. 
 
 Whatever may be the issue of the contest which at present 
 unhappily divides and distracts our country, I trust that the bene- 
 ficial system, to which you have referred, will survive the struggle, 
 
ADMINISTRATION OF J. Q, . ADAMS. 555 
 
 and continue to engage the affections, and to cheer and animate 
 the industry of the people of the United States. It has indeed 
 been recently attacked in another quarter of the union, by some of 
 our fellow-citizens, with a harshness and intemperance which 
 mast every where excite the patriot's regret. It has been denounced 
 as if it were a new system, that sprung into existence but yesterday, 
 or at least with the present administration, if not during the last 
 session of congress. But it owes its origin to a much earlier date. 
 The present administration, though sincerely attached to it, and 
 most anxious for its preservation, has not the merit of having first 
 proposed or first established it. The manufacturing system was 
 quickened into existence by the commercial restrictions which 
 preceded the late war with Great Britain, and by that greatest of 
 them all, the war itself. Our wants, no longer supplied from 
 abroad, must have been supplied at home, or we must have been 
 deprived of the necessaries and comforts of civilization, if we had 
 not relapsed into a state of barbarism. The policy of Jefferson and 
 Madison fostered, if it did not create, the manufactures of our 
 country. The peace brought with it a glut of foreign fabrics, which 
 would have prostrated our establishments, if government had been 
 capable of unjustly witnessing such a spectacle, without interposing 
 its protective power. Protection, therefore, was not merely called 
 for by the substantial independence of our country, but it was a 
 parental duty of government to those citizens who had been tempted 
 by its restrictive policy to embark all their hopes and fortunes in 
 the business of manufacturing. Twelve years ago congress took 
 up the subject, and after long and mature deliberation, solemnly 
 decided to extend that measure of protection which was alike 
 demanded by sound policy and strict justice. Then the founda- 
 tions were laid of the American system ; and all that has been 
 subsequently done, including the act of the last session of congress, 
 are but the consequences of the policy then deliberately adopted, 
 having for their object the improvement and perfection of the great 
 work then begun. It is not the least remarkable of the circum- 
 stances of these strange times, that some who assisted in the 
 commencement, who laid corner-stones of the edifice, are now 
 ready to pull down and demolish it. 
 
 It is not the fact of the existence of an opposition to the tariff, 
 that can occasion any inquietude; nor that of large and respectable 
 assemblies of the people, to express their disapprobation of the 
 policy, and their firm resolution to consume only the produce of 
 their own industry. These meetings are in the true spirit of our 
 free institutions, and that resolution is in the true spirit of the 
 American system itself. But what must excite deep regret is, that 
 any persons should allow themselves to speak of open and forcible 
 resistance to the government of their country, and to threaten a 
 dissolution of the union. What is the state of the case ? A great 
 
556 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 measure of national policy is proposed ; it is a subject of discussion 
 for a period of twelve years, in the public prints, in popular assem- 
 blies, in political circles, and in the congress of the United States. 
 That body, after hearing the wishes and wants of all parts of the 
 union, fairly stated by their respective representatives, decides by 
 repeated majorities, to adopt the measure. It is accordingly put 
 into successful operation, improved from time to time, and is 
 rapidly fulfilling all the hopes and expectations of its friends. In 
 this encouraging condition of things, a small number of the citizens 
 composing the minority, (for I will not impute to the great body 
 of the minority any such violent purposes,) threaten the employ- 
 ment of force, and the dissolution of the union! Can any principle 
 be more subversive of all government, or of a tendency more 
 exceptionable and alarming. It amounts to this, that whenever 
 any portion of the community finds itself in a minority, in reference 
 to any important act of the government, and by high coloring and 
 pictures of imaginary distress, can persuade itself that the measure 
 is oppressive, that minority may appeal to arms, and if it can, 
 dissolve the union. Such a principle would reverse the estab- 
 lished maxim of representative government, according to which, 
 the will of the majority must prevail. If it were possible that the 
 minority could govern and control, the union may indeed as well 
 be dissolved ; for it would not then be worth preserving. The 
 conduct of an individual would not be more unwise and suicidal, 
 who, because of some trifling disease afflicting his person, should, 
 in a feverish and fretful moment, resolve to terminate his existence. 
 
 Nothing can be more unfair and ridiculous, than to compare any 
 of the acts of the congress of the United States, representing all, 
 and acting for all, to any of the acts of the British parliament, which 
 led to our revolution. The principle on which the colonies seceded 
 was, that there should be no taxation without representation. They 
 were not represented in the British parliament, and to have submitted 
 to taxation, would have been to have submitted to slavery, and to 
 have surrendered the most valuable privileges of freemen. If the 
 colonies had been fairly represented in the British parliament, and 
 equal taxes, alike applicable to all parts of the British empire, had 
 been imposed by a majority, a case of remote analogy to any act 
 of congress to which a minority is opposed, might be deduced from 
 the history of the revolution. But every state of this confederacy 
 is fairly represented, and has the faculty of being fully heard in the 
 congress of the United States. The representation has been regu- 
 lated by a joint principle of distribution, the result of a wise spirit 
 of mulvnl compromise and concession, which I hope never to see 
 disturbed, of which none can justly complain, and least of all, those 
 citizens who have resorted to threats of an appeal to arms and 
 disunion. 
 
 But there is, I hope and believe, no reason to apprehend the 
 
ADMINISTRATION OF J. Q . ADAMS. 557 
 
 execution of those empty threats. The good sense, the patriotism, 
 and the high character of the people of South Carolina, are sure 
 guarantees for repressing, without aid, any disorders, should any be 
 attempted within her limits. The spirit of Marion, and Pickens, 
 and Sumpter, of the Rutledges, the Pinckneys, and of Lowndes, 
 yet survives, and animates the high-minded Carolinians. The 
 Taylors, and the Williamses, and their compatriots of the present 
 day, will be able to render a just account of all, if there be any who 
 shall dare to raise their parricidal hands against the peace, the 
 constitution, and the union of the states. Rebuked by public 
 opinion — a sufficient corrective — and condemned by their own 
 sober reflections, the treasonable purpose will be relinquished, if it 
 were ever seriously contemplated by any. 
 
 I have no fears for the permanency of our union, whilst our 
 liberties are preserved. It is a tough and strong cord, as all will 
 find who shall presumptuously attempt to break it. It has been 
 competent to suppress all the domestic insurrections, and to carry 
 us safely through all the foreign wars with which we have been 
 afflicted since it was formed, and it has come out of each with 
 more strength, and greater promise of durability. It is the choicest 
 political blessing which, as a people, we enjoy, and I trust and 
 hope that Providence will permit us to transmit it, unimpaired, to 
 posterity, through endless generations. 
 
 I thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the flattering opinion which you 
 have expressed of my public services, and especially of those which 
 1 have endeavored to render to the west. Whilst I am sensible 
 that you appreciate them much too highly, it is at the same time 
 true, that I have sought, on all occasions that appeared to me 
 proper, to advance the interests of that section, of which I am 
 proud to be a citizen, whenever I have thought it could be done 
 without prejudice to the predominant interests of the whole. I 
 have, nevertheless, in several important instances, given my most 
 zealous support to measures, (the navy, and the late war, for 
 example,) in which the west could not be regarded as having any 
 distinct or other interest, than that which belongs to the honor, the 
 prosperity, and the character, of the whole confederacy. During 
 the short period of the present administration, I hope I may be 
 permitted to say, without meaning to claim for it exclusive merit, 
 that more has been done and recommended for the west, than ever 
 was done during the whole preceding period of our present con- 
 stitution, with the exception only of the acquisition of Louisiana, 
 under the administration of Mr. Jefferson. I have not strength or 
 time to enter into details to establish the general proposition ; but 
 those who will take the trouble to examine the appropriations of 
 land and of money, for objects of internal improvement and edu- 
 cation, the measures which have been adopted or recommended, 
 in respect to the public domain, the judiciary; and s6 forth', will 
 find that proposition fully sustained; 
 
558 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 There are here many who, by a too flattering estimate of my 
 capacity, decided me worthy of the office of chief magistrate, and, 
 during the last presidential canvass, honored me with their support. 
 To them I take this occasion to say, that, if instead of the present 
 abused chief magistrate, they had obtained the preference, the 
 measures of the administration would not have been, in any 
 essential particular, different from those which have been adopted. 
 All the principal acts and measures of the existing administration, 
 have met with my humble and hearty concurrence. 
 
 Cultivating a farm in Kentucky, and having other objects of 
 private concern, I have found it necessary, both on that account, 
 and the relaxation from official business, indispensable to the 
 preservation of health, annually to visit this quarter of the union, 
 during the period of my connection with the executive of the 
 United States. In these visits, I have frequently met large portions 
 of my fellow-citizens, upon their friendly and pressing invitations. 
 My object has been called in question, and my motives assailed. 
 It has been said, that my purpose was electioneering. If it be 
 intended to charge me with employing improper or dishonorable 
 acts, to secure my election, I deny the charge, and disclaim the 
 purpose. I defy my most malignant enemies to show that I ever, 
 during any period of my life, resorted to such acts to promote my 
 own election, or that of any other person. I have availed myself 
 of these assemblies, and of other opportunities, to defend myself 
 against an accusation, publicly made, and a thousand times 
 repeated. I had a right to do this by the immutable laws of self- 
 defence. My addresses to the public, heretofore, have been gen- 
 erally strictly defensive. If they have ever given pain to any of 
 my adversaries, they must reproach themselves with its infliction. 
 There is one way, and but one way, in which they can silence 
 me. My traducers have attributed to me great facility in making 
 a bargain. Whether I possess it or not, there is one bargain 
 which, for their accommodation, I am willing to enter into with 
 them. If they will prevail upon their chief to acknowledge that 
 he has been in error, and has done me injustice, and if they will 
 cease to traduce and abuse me, I will no longer present myself 
 before public assemblies, or in public prints, in my own defence. 
 That is one bargain which I have no expectation of being able to 
 conclude ; for men who are in a long-established line of business, 
 will not voluntarily quit their accustomed trade, and acknowledge 
 themselves bankrupts to honor, decency, and truth. 
 
 Some who have persuaded themselves that they saw in my 
 occasional addresses to the people, incompatibility with the dignity 
 and reserve belonging to the office I hold, I know not according 
 to what standard, (it can hardly be any deduced from a popular 
 representative government,) these gentlemen have regulated their 
 opinions. True dignity appears to me to be independent of office 
 
ADMINISTRATION OF J. Q. ADAMS. 559 
 
 or station. It belongs to every condition ; but if there be a differ- 
 ence between private and public life, the more exalted the station, 
 the greater is the obligation of the public functionary, in my 
 humble judgment, to render himself amiable, affable, and accessible. 
 The public officer who displays a natural solicitude to defend 
 himself against a charge deeply affecting his honor and his char- 
 acter, manifests, at the same time, a just respect for the community. 
 It is, I think, an erroneous judgment of the nature of office, and its 
 relations, to suppose that it imposes the duty on the officer, of 
 abstracting himself from society, and a stiff and stately port. 
 Without, I hope, forgetting what was due to myself, my habit, 
 throughout life, has been that of friendly, free, and frank intercourse 
 with my fellow-citizens. I have not thought it necessary to change 
 my personal identity in any of the various offices through which I 
 have passed, or to assume a new character. It may not be easy 
 to draw the line, as to the occasions in which a man should 
 remain silent, or defend himself. In the general, it is better, 
 perhaps, that he should leave his public acts, and the measures 
 which he espouses or carries, to their own vindication ; but if his 
 integrity be questioned, and dishonorable charges, under high and 
 imposing names, be preferred against him, he cannot remain silent 
 without a culpable insensibility to all that is valuable in human 
 life. 
 
 Sir, I feel that I have trespassed too much, both upon you and 
 myself. If prudence were a virtue of which I could boast, I should 
 have spared both you and me. But I could not deny myself the 
 gratification of expressing my thanks to my Cincinnati friends, for 
 the numerous instances which I have experienced of their kind 
 and respectful consideration. I beg you, sir, and every gentleman 
 here attending, to accept my acknowledgments ; and I especially 
 owe them to the gentlemen of the committee, who did me the 
 honor to meet me at Louisville, and accompany me to this city. 
 Whatever may be my future destiny, whilst my faculties are 
 preserved, I shall cherish a proud and grateful recollection of these 
 testimonies of respect and attachment. 
 
ON RETIRING PROM OFFICE. 
 
 AT WASHINGTON, MARCH 7, 1829 
 
 [At the close of Mr. Adams's administration, Mr. Clay, having resigned his office 
 of secretary of state before the inauguration of general Jackson as president of the 
 United States, was invited to meet his friends at Washington city, and others from 
 various parts of the union, at a public dinner, which he accepted, while preparing to 
 return to the place of his residence at the weat. On this occasion the fifth toast was: 
 
 ' Health, prosperity, and happiness to our highly valued and esteemed guest and 
 fellow-citizen, Henry Clay. Whatever the future destination of his life, he has 
 done enough for honor, and need desire no higher reward than the deep seated affec- 
 tion and respect of his friends and his country.' 
 
 This having been received with much feeling and applause, Mr. Clay arose and 
 addressed the company as follows: ] 
 
 In rising, Mr. President, to offer my respectful acknowledgments 
 for the honors of which I am here the object, I must ask the 
 indulgence of yourself and the other gentlemen now assembled, 
 for an unaffected embarrassment, which is more sensibly felt than 
 it can be distinctly expressed. This city has been the theatre of 
 the greater portion of my public life. You, and others whom I 
 now see, have been spectators of my public course and conduct. 
 You and they are, if I may borrow a technical expression from an 
 honorable profession of which you and I are both members, jurors 
 of the vicinage. To a judgment rendered by those who have thus 
 long known me, and by others though not of the panel, who have 
 possessed equal opportunities of forming correct opinions, I most 
 cheerfully submit. If the weight of human testimony should be 
 estimated by the intelligence and respectability of the witness, and 
 the extent of his knowledge of the matter on which he testifies, the 
 highest consideration is due to that which has been this day spon- 
 taneously given. I shall ever cherish it with the most grateful 
 recollection, and look back upon it with proud satisfaction. 
 
 I should be glad to feel that I could with any propriety abstain 
 from any allusion at this time and at this place, to public affairs. 
 But considering the occasion which has brought us together, the 
 events which have preceded it, and the influence which they may 
 exert upon the destinies of our country, my silence might be 
 misinterpreted, and 1 think it therefore proper that I should embrace 
 
ON RETIRING FROM OFFICE. 561 
 
 this first public opportunity which I have had of saying a few 
 words, since the termination of the late memorable and embittered 
 contest. It is far from my wish to continue or to revive the agita- 
 tion with which that contest was attended. It is ended, for good 
 or for evil. The nation wants repose. A majority of the people 
 has decided, and from their decision there can and ought to be no 
 appeal. Bowing, as I do, with profound respect to them, and to 
 this exercise of their sovereign authority, I may nevertheless be 
 allowed to retain and to express my own unchanged sentiments, 
 even if they should not be in perfect coincidence with theirs. It is 
 a source of high gratification to me to believe that I share these 
 sentiments in common with more than half a million of freemen, 
 possessing a degree of virtue, of intelligence, of religion, and of 
 genuine patriotism, which, without disparagement to others, is 
 unsurpassed, in the same number of men in this or any other 
 country, in this or any other age. 
 
 I deprecated the election of the present president of the United 
 States, because I believed he had neither the temper, the experi- 
 ence, nor the attainments requisite to discharge the complicated and 
 arduous duties of chief magistrate. I deprecated it still more, 
 because his elevation, I believed, would be the result exclusively of 
 admiration and gratitude for military service, without regard to 
 indispensable civil qualifications. I can neither retract, nor alter, 
 nor modify, any opinion which, on these subjects, I have at any 
 time heretofore expressed. I thought I beheld in his election an 
 awful foreboding of the fate which, at some future (I pray to God 
 that, if it ever arrive, it may be some far distant) day, was to befall 
 this infant republic. All past history has impressed on my mind 
 this solemn apprehension. Nor is it effaced or weakened by 
 contemporaneous events passing upon our own favored continent. 
 It is remarkable that, at this epoch, at the head of eight of the nine 
 independent governments established in both Americas, military 
 officers have been placed, or have placed themselves. General 
 Lavalle has, by military force, subverted the republic of La Plata. 
 General Santa Cruz is the chief magistrate of Bolivia; colonel 
 Pinto of Chili ; general Lamar of Peru ; and general Bolivar of 
 Colombia. Central America, rent in pieces, and bleeding at every 
 pore, from wounds inflicted by contending military factions, is 
 under the alternate sway of their chiefs. In the government of 
 our nearest neighbor, an election, conducted according to all the 
 requirements of their constitution, has terminated with a majority 
 of the states in favor of Pedrazza, the civil candidate. An insur- 
 rection was raised in behalf of his military rival ; the cry, not 
 exactly of a bargain, but of corruption, was sounded ; the election 
 was annulled, and a reform effected by proclaiming general 
 Guerrero, having only a minority of the states, duly elected presi- 
 dent. The thunders from the surrounding fortsj and the acclama- 
 vol* n 71 
 
562 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 tions of the assembled multitude, on the fourth, told us what general 
 was at the head of our affairs. It is true, and in this respect we 
 are happier than some of the American states, that his election has 
 not been brought about by military violence. The forms of the 
 constitution have yet remained inviolate. 
 
 In reasserting the opinions which I hold, nothing is further from 
 my purpose than to treat with the slightest disrespect those of my 
 fellow-citizens, here or elsewhere, who may entertain opposite senti- 
 ments. The fact of claiming and exercising the free and inde- 
 pendent expression of the dictates of my own deliberate judgment, 
 affords the strongest guarantee of my full recognition of their 
 corresponding privilege. 
 
 A majority of my fellow-citizens, it would seem, do not perceive 
 the dangers which I apprehended from the example. Believing 
 that they are not real, or that we have some security against their 
 effect, which ancient and modern republics have not found, that 
 majority, in the exercise of their incontestable right of suffrage, 
 have chosen for chief magistrate a citizen who brings into that high 
 trust no qualification other than military triumphs. 
 
 That citizen has done much injustice — wanton, unprovoked, 
 and unatoned injustice. It was inflicted, as I must ever believe, 
 for the double purpose of gratifying private resentment and promo- 
 ting personal ambition. When, during the late canvass, he came 
 forward in the public prints under his proper name, with his charge 
 against me, and summoned before the public tribunal his friend 
 and his only witness to establish it, the anxious attention of the 
 whole American people was directed to the testimony which that 
 witness might render. He promptly obeyed the call and testified 
 to what he knew. He could say nothing, and he said nothing, 
 which cast the slightest shade upon my honor or integrity. What 
 he did say was the reverse of any implication of me. Then all 
 just and impartial men, and all who had faith in the magnanimity 
 of my accuser, believed that he would voluntarily make a public 
 acknowledgment of his error. How far this reasonable expectation 
 has been fulfilled, let his persevering and stubborn silence attest. 
 But my relations to that citizen by a recent event are now changed. 
 He is the chief magistrate of my country, invested with large and 
 extensive powers, the administration of which may conduce to its 
 prosperity or occasion its adversity. Patriotism enjoins as a duty, 
 that whilst he is in that exalted station, he should be treated with 
 decorum, and his official acts be judged of in a spirit of candor. 
 Suppressing, as far as I can, a sense of my personal wrong; 
 willing even to forgive him, if his own conscience and our common 
 God can acquit him ; and entertaining for the majority which has 
 elected him, and for the office which he fills, all the deference which 
 is due from a private citizen; I most anxiously hope, that under his 
 guidance the great interests of our country, foreign and domestic, 
 
ON RETIRING FROM OFFICE. 56o 
 
 may be upheld, our free institutions be unimpaired, and the 
 happiness of the nation be continued and increased. 
 
 While I am prompted by an ardent devotion to the welfare of 
 my country, sincerely to express this hope, I make no pledges, no 
 promises, no threats, and I must add, I have no confidence. My 
 public life, I trust, furnishes the best guarantee for my faithful 
 adherence to those great principles of external and internal policy, 
 to which it has been hitherto zealously dedicated. Whether I shall 
 ever hereafter take any part in the public councils or not, depends 
 upon circumstances beyond my control. Holding the principle 
 that a citizen, as long as a single pulsation remains, is under an 
 obligation to exert his utmost energies in the service of his country, 
 if necessary, whether in private or public station, my friends, here 
 and every where, may rest assured that, in either condition, I shall 
 stand erect, with a spirit unconquered, whilst life endures, ready to 
 second their exertions in the cause of liberty, the union, and the 
 national prosperity. 
 
 Before I sit down, I avail myself with pleasure of this oppor- 
 tunity to make my grateful acknowledgments, for the courtesies and 
 friendly attentions which I have uniformly experienced from the 
 inhabitants of this city. A free and social intercourse with them, 
 during a period of more than twenty years, is about to terminate, 
 without any recollection on my part of a single painful collision, 
 and without leaving behind me, as far as I know, a solitary 
 personal enemy. If, in the sentiment with which I am about to 
 conclude, I do not give a particular expression to the feelings 
 inspired by the interchange of civilities and friendly offices, I hope 
 the citizens of Washington will be assured that their individual 
 happiness and the growth and prosperity of this city will ever be 
 objects of my fervent wishes. In the sentiment which I shall 
 presently offer, they are indeed comprehended. For the welfare 
 of this city is indissolubly associated with that of our union, and 
 the preservation of our liberty. I request permission to propose, 
 
 Let us never despair of the American republic. 
 
ON THE COMMENCEMENT OF JACKSON'S 
 ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 AT FOWLER'S GARDEN, LEXINGTON, KENTUCKY, MAY 16, 1629. 
 
 [After the election of general Jackson as president of the United States, Mr. Clay, 
 having retired to private life at his former residence in Kentucky, was occasionally 
 invited to meet his friends and neighbors at public entertainments, where large 
 concourses always assembled to manifest for him their continued regard and 
 confidence. On one of these occasions he made the following speech, in which he 
 contrasts the proscriptive course of Jackson's administration in removals from office, 
 with that adopted and pursued by previous presidents. He also alludes to other 
 subjects of prominent public interest.] 
 
 TOAST. 
 
 Our distinguished guest, friend, and neighbor. Henry Clay. With increased 
 proofs of his w Tth, we delight to renew the assurance of our confidence in his 
 patriotism, talents, and incorruptibility. May health and happiness attend him in 
 retirement, and a grateful nation do justice to his virtues. 
 
 After the above, Mr. Clay rose and addressed the immense 
 assemblage of people present, as follows : 
 
 I fear, friends and fellow-citizens, that if I could find language 
 to express the feelings which now animate me, I could not be 
 heard throughout this vast assembly. My voice, once strong and 
 powerful, has had its vigor impaired by delicate health and 
 advancing age. You must have been separated, as I have been, 
 for four years past, from some of your best and dearest friends, 
 with whom during the greater part of your lives, you had associated 
 in the most intimate friendly intercourse; you must have been 
 traduced, as I have been, after exerting with zeal and fidelity the 
 utmost of your powers to promote the welfare of our country ; and 
 you must have returned among those warm-hearted friends, and 
 been greeted and welcomed and honored by them, as I have 
 recently been ; before you could estimate the degree of sensibility 
 which I now feel, or conceive how utterly inadequate ail human 
 language is to portray the grateful emotions of my heart. I behold 
 gathered here, as I have seen in other instances since my return 
 among you, sires far advanced in years, endeared to me by an inter- 
 change of friendly office and sympathetic feeling, beginning more 
 
BEGINNING OF JACKSON'S ADMINISTRATION. 565 
 
 than thirty years ago. Their sons, grown up during my absence 
 in the public councils, accompanying them ; and all, prompted by 
 ardent attachment, affectionately surrounding and saluting me, as 
 if I belonged to their own household. Considering the multitude 
 here assembled, their standing and respectability, and the distance 
 which many have come personally to see me, and to testify their 
 respect and confidence, I consider this day and this occasion as the 
 proudest of my life. The tribute, thus rendered by my friends, 
 neighbors, and fellow-citizens, flows spontaneously from their 
 hearts, as it penetrates the inmost recesses of mine. Tendered in 
 no servile spirit, it does not aim to propitiate one in authority. 
 Power could not buy or coerce it. The offspring of enlightened 
 and independent freemen, it is addressed to a beloved fellow- 
 citizen in private life, without office, and who can present nothing 
 in return, but his hearty thanks. I pray all of you, genllemen, to 
 accept these. They are due to every one of you for the sentiment, 
 just pronounced, and for the proceedings of this day. And I owe 
 a particular expression of them to that portion of my friends, who, 
 although I had the misfortune to differ from them in the late 
 contest, have honored me by their attendance here. I have no 
 reproaches to make them. Regrets I have; but I give, as I have 
 received from them, the hand of friendship as cordially as it is 
 extended to any of my friends. It is highly gratifying to me to 
 know, that they, and thousands of others who cooperated with 
 them in producing the late political change, were unaffected towards 
 me by the prejudice attempted to be excited against me. I enter- 
 tain too high respect for the inestimable privilege of freely exercising 
 one's independent judgment on public affairs, to draw in question 
 the right of any of my fellow-citizens to form and to act upon 
 their opinions in opposition to mine. The best and wisest among 
 us are, at best, but weak and fallible human beings. And no man 
 ought to set up his own judgment as an unerring standard, by 
 which the correctness of all others is to be tested and tried. 
 
 It cannot be doubted that, with individual exceptions, the great 
 body of every political party that has hitherto appeared in this 
 country, has been honest in its intentions, and patriotic in its aims. 
 Whole parties may have been sometimes deceived and deluded, 
 but without being conscious of it ; they no doubt sought to advance 
 the welfare of the country. Where such a contest has existed as 
 that which we have recently witnessed, ihere will be prejudices on 
 the one side, and predilections on the other. If, during its progress, 
 we cannot calm the passions, and permit truth and reason to have 
 their undisturbed sway, we ought, at least, after it has terminated, 
 to own their empire. Judging of public men and public measures 
 in a spirit of candor, we should strive to eradicate every bias, and 
 to banish from our minds every consideration not connected with 
 the good of our country. 
 
566 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 I do not pretend to be, more than other men, exempt from the 
 influence of prejudice and predilection. But I declare most 
 sincerely, that I have sought, in reference to the present adminis- 
 tration, and shall continue to strive, to discard all prejudices, and 
 to judge its acts and measures as they appear to me to affect 
 the interests of our country. 
 
 A large portion of my friends and fellow-citizens, from whom I 
 differed on the late occasion, did not disagree with me as to the 
 foreign or domestic policy of government. We only differed in 
 the selection of agents to carry that policy into effect. Experience 
 can alone determine who was right. If that policy continues to be 
 pursued under the new administration, it shall have as cordial 
 support from me, as if its care had been confided to agents of my 
 choice. If, on the contrary, it shall be neglected or abandoned, the 
 friends to whom I now refer will be bound by all the obligations 
 of patriotism and consistency to adhere to the policy. 
 
 We take a new commencement from the fourth of March last. 
 After that day, those who supported the election of the present 
 chief magistrate were left as free to judge of the conduct of his 
 administration, as those who opposed it. It will be no more incon- 
 sistent in them, if it disappoint their expectations, to disapprove 
 his administration, than it will be to support it, if, disappointing ours, 
 he should preserve the established policy of the nation, and intro- 
 duce no new principles of alarming tendency. 
 
 They bestowed their suffrages upon the supposition that the 
 government would be well administered ; that public pledges would 
 be redeemed, solemn professions be fulfilled, and the rights and 
 liberties of the people be protected and maintained. If they shall 
 find themselves deceived in any of these respects ; should principles 
 avowed during the canvass be violated during the presidency, and 
 new principles of dangerous import, neither avowed to nor antici- 
 pated by them, be put forth, they will have been betrayed ; the 
 distinguished individual for whom they voted will have failed to 
 preserve his identity, and they will be urged by the most sacred of 
 duties to apply the proper corrective. 
 
 Government is a trust, and the officers of government are trustees ; 
 and both the trust and the trustees are created for the benefit of 
 the people. Official incumbents are bound, therefore, to admin- 
 ister the trust, not for their own private or individual benefits, but 
 so as to promote the prosperity of the people. This is the vital 
 principle of a republic. If a different principle prevail, and a govern- 
 ment be so administered as to gratify the passions or to promote the 
 interests of a particular individual, the forms of free institutions 
 may remain, but that government is essentially a monarchy. The 
 great difference between the two forms of government is, that in a 
 republic all power and authority and all public offices and honors 
 emanate from the people, and are exercised and held for their 
 
BEGINNING OF JACKSON'S ADMINISTRATION. 567 
 
 benefit. In a monarchy, all power and authority, all offices and 
 honors, proceed from the monarch. His interests, his caprices and 
 his passions, influence and control the destinies of the kingdom. 
 In a republic, the people are every thing, and a particular indi- 
 vidual nothing. In a monarchy, the monarch is every thing, and 
 the people nothing. And the true character of the government is 
 stamped, not by the forms of the appointment to office alone, but 
 by its practical operation. If in one, nominally free, the chief 
 magistrate, as soon as he is clothed with power, proceeds to exercise 
 it, so as to minister to his passions, and to gratify his favorites, and 
 systematically distributes his rewards and punishments, in the 
 application of the power of patronage, with which he is invested for 
 the good of the whole, upon the principle of devotion and attach- 
 ment to him, and not according to the ability and fidelity with 
 which the people are or may be served, that chief magistrate, for 
 the time being, and within the scope of his discretionary powers, 
 is in fact, if not in form, a monarch. 
 
 It was objected to the late administration, that it adopted and 
 enforced a system of proscription. During the whole period of it, 
 not a solitary officer of the government, from Maine to Louisiana, 
 within my knowledge, was dismissed on account of his political 
 opinions. It was well known to the late president, that many 
 officers, who held their places subject to the power of dismission, 
 were opposed to his reelection, and were actively employed in 
 behalf of his competitor. Yet not one was discharged from that 
 cause. In the commencement and early part of his administration, 
 appointments were promiscuously made from all the parties in the 
 previous canvass. And this course was pursued until an oppo- 
 sition was organized, which denounced all appointments from its 
 ranks as being made for impure purposes. 
 
 I am aware that it may be urged, that a change was made in 
 some of the publishers of the laws. There are about eighty 
 annually designated. Of these, during the four years of the late 
 administration, about twelve or fifteen were changed. Some of 
 the changes were made from geographical or other local consider- 
 ations. In several instances one friend was substituted for another. 
 In others, one opponent for another. 
 
 Several papers, among the most influential in the opposition, 
 but otherwise conducted with decorum, were retained. Of the 
 entire number of changes, not more than four or five were made 
 because of the scurrilous character of their papers, and not 
 on account of the political sentiments of the editors. It was 
 deemed injurious to the respect and moral influence, which the 
 laws should always command, that they should be promulgated in 
 the columns of a public paper, parallel with which were other 
 columns, in the same paper, of the grossest abuse of the government 
 and its functionaries. 
 
56S SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 On this subject I can speak with certainty, and I embrace with 
 pleasure this opportunity for explanation. The duty of designating 
 the printers of the laws appertains to the office which J lately tilled. 
 The selection is usually made at the commencement of every 
 session of congress. It was made by me, without any particular 
 consultation with the president, or any member of his cabinet. In 
 making it, i felt under no greater obligation to select the publisher 
 of the laws of the previous year, than an individual feels himself 
 bound to insert a succeeding advertisement in the same paper which 
 published his last. The law does not require it, but leaves the 
 secretary of state at liberty to make the selection according to his 
 sense of propriety. A publisher of the laws is not an officer of the 
 government. It has been judicially so decided. He holds no 
 commission. The accuracy of the statement, therefore, that no 
 officer of the government was dismissed by the late administration, 
 in consequence of his political opinions, is not impaired by the 
 few changes of publishers of the laws which were made. 
 
 But if they had been officers of government, who could have 
 imagined that those who objected to the removal, would so soon 
 have themselves put in practice a general and sweeping system of 
 exclusion. 
 
 The president is invested with ihe tremendous power of dismis- 
 sion, to be exercised for the public good, and not to gratify any 
 private passions or purposes. It was conferred to prevent the 
 public from suffering through faithless or incompetent officers. It 
 was made summary because, if the slow progress of trial before a 
 judicial tribunal were resorted to, the public might be greatly 
 injured during the progress and prior to the decision of the case. 
 But it never was in the contemplation of congress, that the power 
 would or could be applied to the removal of competent, diligent, 
 and faithful officers. Such an application of it is an act of arbitrary 
 power, and a great abuse. 
 
 I regret extremely that I feel constrained to notice the innovation 
 upon the principles and practice of our institutions now in progress. 
 I had most anxiously hoped, that I could heartily approve the acts 
 and measures of the new administration. And I yet hope that it 
 will pause, and hereafter pursue a course more in unison with the 
 spirit of a free government. I entreat my friends and fellow- 
 citizens, here and elsewhere, to be persuaded that I now perform 
 a painful dutv ; and that it is far from my wish to say one word 
 that can inflict any wound upon the feelings of any of them. I 
 think, indeed, that it is the dutv of all of them to exercise their 
 judgments freely and independently on what is passing; and that 
 none ought to feel themselves restrained, by false pride, or by any 
 part which they took in the late election, from condemning what 
 their hearts cannot approve. 
 
 Knowing the imputations to which I expose myself) I would 
 
BEGINNING OF JACKSON'S ADMINISTRATION. 569 
 
 remain silent if I did not solemnly believe that there was serious 
 cause of alarm in the principle of removal, which has been 
 recently acted on. Hitherto, the uniform practice of the govern- 
 ment has been, where charges are preferred against public officers, 
 foreign or domestic, to transmit to them a copy of the charges, for 
 the purpose of refutation or explanation. This has been considered 
 an equitable substitute to the more tedious and formal trials before 
 judicial tribunals. But now, persons are dismissed, not only 
 without trial of any sort, but without charge. And, as if the 
 intention were to defy public opinion, and to give to the acts of 
 power a higher degree of enormity, in some instances the persons 
 dismissed have carried with them, in their pockets, the strongest 
 testimonials to their ability and integrity, furnished by the very 
 instruments employed to execute the purposes of oppression. If 
 the new administration had found these discharged officers wanting 
 in a zealous cooperation to execute the laws, in consequence of 
 their preference at the preceding election, there would have been 
 ground for their removal. But this has not been pretended; and 
 to show that it formed no consideration, they have been dismissed 
 among its first acts, without affording them an opportunity of 
 manifesting that their sense of public duty was unaffected by the 
 choice which they had at the preceding election. 
 
 I will not dwell on the injustice and individual distress which 
 are the necessary consequences of these acts of authority. Men 
 who accepted public employments entered on them with the 
 implied understanding, that they would be retained as long as they 
 continued to discharge their duties to the public honestly, ably, and 
 assiduously. All their private arrangements are made accordingly. 
 To be dismissed without fault, and without trial ; to be expelled, 
 with their families, without the means of support, and in some 
 instances disqualified by age or by official habits from the pursuit 
 of any other business, and all this to be done upon the will of one 
 man, in a free government, was surely intolerable oppression. 
 
 Our institutions proclaim, reason enjoins, and conscience 
 requires, that every freeman shall exercise the elective franchise 
 freely and independently ; and that among the candidates for his 
 suffrage, he shall fearlessly bestow it upon him who will best 
 advance the interests of his country. The presumption is, that 
 this is always done, unless the contrary appears. But if the 
 consequence of such a performance of patriotic duty is to be 
 punishment ; if an honest and sincere preference of A. to J. is to 
 be treated as a crime, then our dearest privilege is a mockery, and 
 our institutions are snares. 
 
 During the reign of Bonaparte, upon one of those occasions in 
 
 which he affected to take the sense of the French people as to his 
 
 being made consul for life, or emperor, an order was sent to the 
 
 French armies to collect their suffrages. They were told in a 
 
 vol. i. 72 
 
570 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 public proclamation, that they were authorized and requested to 
 vote freely, according to the dictates of their best judgments, and 
 their honest convictions. But a mandate was privately circulated 
 among them, importing that if any soldier voted against Bonaparte, 
 he should be instantly shot. 
 
 Is there any other difference, except in the mode of punishment, 
 between that case and the arbitrary removal of men from their 
 public stations, for no other reasons, than that of an honest and 
 conscientious preference of one presidential candidate to another? 
 And can it be doubted, that the spirit which prompts these removals 
 is restrained from being extended to all, in private life, who 
 manifested a similar preference, only by barriers which it dare not 
 yet break down ? But should public opinion sanction them, how 
 long will these barriers remain ? 
 
 One of the worst consequences of the introduction of this tenure 
 of public office will be, should it be permanently adopted, to 
 substitute for a system of responsibility, founded upon the ability 
 and integrity with which public officers discharge their duties to 
 the community, a system of universal rapacity. Incumbents, 
 feeling the instability of their situations, and knowing their liability 
 to periodical removals, at short terms, without any regard to the 
 manner in which they have executed their trusts, will be disposed 
 to make the most of their uncertain offices while they hold them. 
 And hence we may expect innumerable cases of fraud, peculation, 
 and corruption. 
 
 President Jackson commenced his official career on the fourth 
 of March last, with every motive which should operate on the 
 human heart to urge him to forget the prejudices and passions 
 which had been exhibited in the previous contest, and to practice 
 dignified moderation and forbearance. He had been the choice 
 of a considerable majority of the people, and was elected by a 
 large majority of the electoral votes. He had been elected mainly 
 from the all-powerful influence of gratitude for his brilliant 
 military services, in spite of doubts and fears entertained by many 
 who contributed to his elevation. He was far advanced in years, 
 and if fame speak true, was suffering under the joint infirmities of 
 age and disease. He had recently been visited by one of the 
 severest afflictions of Providence, in the privation of the partner 
 of his bosom, whom he is represented to have tenderly loved, and 
 who warmly returned all his affection. He had no child on whom 
 to cast his honors. Under such circumstances, was ever man more 
 imperiously called upon to stifle all the vindictive passions of his 
 nature, to quell every rebellious feeling of his heart, and to dedicate 
 the short residue of his life to the God who had so long blessed and 
 spared him, and to the country which had so greatly honored him ? 
 
 I sincerely hope that he will yet do this. I hope so for the sake 
 of human nature, and for the sake of his own reputation. Whether 
 
BEGINNING OF JACKSON'S ADMINISTRATION. 571 
 
 he has, during the two months of his administration, so conducted 
 himself, let facts tell and history pronounce. Truth is mighty, and 
 will prevail. 
 
 It was objected to Mr. Adams, that by appointing several 
 members of congress to public places, he endangered the purity 
 of the body, and established a precedent fraught with the most 
 dangerous consequences. And president Jackson, (no, he begged 
 his pardon, it was candidate Jackson,) was so much alarmed by 
 these appointments, for the integrity and permanency of our institu- 
 tions, that in a solemn communication which he made to the 
 legislature of Tennessee, he declared his firm conviction to be, that 
 no member of congress ought to be appointed to any office except 
 a seat upon the bench. And he added, that he himself would 
 conform to that rule. 
 
 During the four years of Mr. Adams's administration, the whole 
 number of appointments made by him from congress, did not 
 exceed four or five. In the first four weeks of that of his successor, 
 more than double that number have been appointed by him. In 
 the first two months of president Jackson's administration, he has 
 appointed more members of congress to public office, than I believe 
 were appointed by any one of his predecessors during their whole 
 period of four or eight years. And it appears, that no office is too 
 high or too low to be bestowed by him on this favored class, from 
 that of a head of a department, down to an inconsiderable collector- 
 ship, or even a subordinate office under a collector. If I have not 
 been misimformed, a representative from the greatest commercial 
 metropolis in the United States, has recently been appointed to 
 some inferior station, by the collector of the port of New York. 
 
 Without meaning to assert as a general principle, that in no 
 case would it be proper that a resort should be had to the halls of 
 congress, to draw from them tried talents, and experienced public 
 servants, to aid in the executive or judicial departments, all must 
 agree, that such a resort should not be too often made and that there 
 should be some limit both as to the number and the nature of the 
 appointments. And I do sincerely think, that this limit has, in 
 both particulars, been transcended beyond all safe bounds, and so 
 as to excite serious apprehensions. 
 
 It is not, however, my opinion, but that of president Jackson, 
 which the public has now to consider. Having declared to the 
 American people, through the Tennessee legislature, the danger 
 of the practice ; having deliberately committed himself to act in 
 consonance with that declared opinion, how can he now be justified 
 in violating this solemn pledge, and in entailing upon his country 
 a perilous precedent, fraught with the corrupting tendency which 
 he described? 
 
 It is in vain to say, that the constitution, as it now stands, does 
 not forbid these appointments. It does not enjoin them. If there 
 
572 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 be an inherent defect in the theoretical character of the instrument, 
 president Jackson was bound to have redeemed his pledge, and 
 employed the whole influence and weight of his name to remedy 
 the defect in its practical operation. The constitution admitted of 
 the service of one man in the presidential office, during his life, if 
 he could secure successive elections. That great reformer, as 
 president Jackson describes him, whom he professes to imitate, did 
 not wait for an amendment of the constitution, to correct that defect; 
 but after the example of the father of his country, by declining to 
 serve longer than two terms, established a practical principle which 
 is not likely to be violated. 
 
 There was another class of citizens upon whom public offices 
 had been showered in the greatest profusion. I do not know the 
 number of editors of newspapers that have been recently appointed, 
 but I have noticed in the public prints, some fifteen or twenty. 
 And they were generally of those whose papers had manifested 
 the greatest activity in the late canvass, the most vulgar abuse of 
 opponents, and the most fulsome praise of their favorite candidate. 
 Editors are as much entitled to be appointed as any other class of 
 the community ; but if the number and the quality of those 
 promoted, be such as to render palpable the motive of their 
 appointment; if they are preferred, not on account of their fair 
 pretensions, and their ability and capacity to serve the public, but 
 because of their devotion to a particular individual, I ask if the 
 necessary consequence must not be to render the press venal, and 
 in time to destroy this hitherto justly cherished palladium of our 
 liberty. 
 
 If the principle of all these appointments, this monopoly of 
 public trusts by members of congress and particular editors, be 
 exceptionable, (and I would not have alluded to them but from my 
 deliberate conviction that they are essentially vicious,) their effects 
 are truly alarming. I will not impute to president Jackson any 
 design to subvert our liberties. I hope and believe, that he does 
 not now entertain any such design. But I must say, that if 
 an ambitious president sought the overthrow of our government, 
 and ultimately to establish a different form, he would, at the com- 
 mencement of his administration, proclaim by his official acts, that 
 the greatest public virtue was ardent devotion to him. That no 
 matter what had been the character, the services, or the sacrifices of 
 incumbents or applicants for office, what their experience or ability 
 to serve the republic, if they did not bow down and worship him, 
 they possessed no claim to his patronage. Such an ambitious 
 president would say, as monarchs have said, ' I am the state.' He 
 would dismiss all from public employment who did not belong to 
 the true faith. He would stamp upon the whole official corps of 
 government one homogeneous character, and infuse into it one 
 uniform principle of action. He would scatter, with an open and 
 
BEGINNING OF JACKSON^ ADMINISTRATION. 573 
 
 liberal hand, offices among members of congress, giving the best 
 to those who had spoken, and written, and franked, most in his 
 behalf. He would subsidize the press. It would be his earnest 
 and constant aim to secure the two greatest engines of operation 
 upon public opinion — congress and the press. He would promul- 
 gate a new penal code, the rewards and punishments of which, 
 would be distributed and regulated exclusively by devotion or 
 opposition to him. And when all this powerful machinery was 
 put in operation, if he did not succeed in subverting the liberties of 
 his country, and in establishing himself upon a throne, it would be 
 because some new means or principle of resistance had been 
 discovered, which was unknown in other times or to other republics. 
 
 But if an administration, conducted in the manner just supposed, 
 did not aim at the destruction of public liberty, it would engender 
 evils of a magnitude so great as gradually to alienate the affections 
 of the people from their government, and finally to lead to its 
 overthrow. According to the principle now avowed and practiced, 
 all offices, vacant and rilled, within the compass of the Excutive 
 power, are to be allotted among the partisans of the successful 
 candidate. The people and the service of the state are to be put 
 aside, and every thing is to be decided by the zeal, activity, and 
 attachment, in the cause of a particular candidate, which were 
 manifested during the preceding canvass. The consequence of 
 these principles would be to convert the nation into one perpetual 
 theatre for political gladiators. There would be one universal 
 scramble for the public offices. The termination of one presiden- 
 tial contest would be only the signal for the commencement of 
 another. And on the conclusion of each we should behold the 
 victor distributing the prizes and applying his punishments, like a 
 military commander, immediately after he had won a great victory. 
 Congress corrupted, and the press corrupted, general corruption 
 would ensue, until the substance of free government having disap- 
 peared, some pretorian band would arise, and with the general 
 concurrence of a distracted people, put an end to useless forms. 
 
 I am aware that the late acts of administration on which it has 
 been my disagreeable duty to animadvert, (I hope without giving 
 pain to any of my fellow-citizens, as I most sincerely wish to give 
 none,) were sustained upon some vague notion or purpose ol 
 reform. And it was remarkable that among the loudest trum- 
 peters of reform were some who had lately received appointments 
 to lucrative offices. Now it must be admitted that, as to them, a 
 most substantial and valuable reform had taken place ; but I trust 
 that something more extensively beneficial to the people at large 
 was intended by that sweet sounding word. I know that, at the 
 commencement, and throughout nearly the whole progress of the 
 late administration, a reform in the constitution was talked of, so as 
 to exclude from public office members of congress, during the 
 
574 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 periods for which they were elected, and a limited term beyond 
 them. The proposition appeared to be received with much favor, 
 was discussed in the house of representatives, session after session, 
 at great length, and with unusual eloquence and ability. A 
 majority of that body seemed disposed to accede to it, and I 
 thought for some time, that there was high probability of its pas- 
 sage, at least, through that house. Its great champion (general 
 Smyth, of Virginia,) pressed it with resolute perseverance. But 
 unfortunately, at the last session, after the decision of the presiden- 
 tial question, it was manifest that the kindness with which it had 
 been originally received had greatly abated. Its determined patron 
 found it extremely difficult to engage the house to consider it. 
 When, at length, he prevailed by his frequent and earnest appeals 
 to get it taken up, new views appeared to have suddenly struck 
 the reformists. It was no longer an amendment in their eyes, so 
 indispensable to the purity of our constitution ; and the majority 
 which had appeared to be so resolved to carry it, now, by a direct 
 or indirect vote, gave it the go-by. That majority, I believe, was 
 composed in part of members who, after the fourth of March last, 
 gave the best practical recantation of their opinions, by accepting 
 from the new president lucrative appointments, in direct opposition 
 to the principle of their own amendment. And now general Smyth 
 would find it even more impracticable to make amongst them 
 proselytes to his conservative alteration in the constitution, than he 
 did to gain any to his exposition of the Apocalypse. 
 
 Reform, such as alone could interest a whole people, can only 
 take place in the constitution, or laws, or policy of the government. 
 Now and then, under every administration, and at all times, a 
 faithless or incompetent officer may be discovered, who ought to 
 be displaced. And that, in all the departments of the government. 
 But I presume that the correction of such occasional abuses could 
 hardly be expected to fulfil the promise of reform which had been 
 bo solemnly made. I would then ask, what was the reform 
 intended ? What part of the constitution was to be altered ? what 
 law repealed ? what branch of the settled policy of the country was 
 lo be changed ? The people have a right to know what great 
 blessing was intended by their rulers for them, and to demand 
 some tangible practical good, in lieu of a general, vague, and 
 undefined assurance of reform. 
 
 I know that the recent removals from office are attempted to be 
 justified by a precedent drawn from Mr. Jefferson's administration. 
 But there was not the most distant analogy between the two cases. 
 "Several years prior to his election, the public offices of the country 
 had been almost exclusively bestowed upon the party to which that 
 at the head of which he stood was opposed. When he commenced 
 his administration he found a complete monopoly of them in the 
 hands of the adverse party. He dismissed a few incumbents for 
 
BEGINNING OF JACKSON'S ADMINISTRATION. 575 
 
 the purpose of introducing in their places others of his own party, 
 and thus doing equal justice to both sects. But the number of 
 removals was far short of those which are now in progress. When 
 president Jackson entered on his administration, he found a far 
 different state of things. There had been no previous monopoly. 
 Public offices were alike filled by his friends and opponents in the 
 late election. If the fact could be ascertained, I believe it would 
 be found that there was a larger number of officers under the 
 government attached than opposed to his late election. 
 
 Further, in the case of Mr. Jefferson's election, it was the 
 consequence of the people having determined on a radical change 
 of system. There was a general belief among the majority who 
 brought about that event, that their opponents had violated the 
 constitution in the enactment of the alien and sedition laws ; that 
 they had committed other great abuses, and that some of them 
 contemplated an entire change in the character of our government, 
 so as to give it a monarchical cast. I state the historical fact, 
 without intending to revive the discussion, or deeming it necessary 
 to examine whether such a design existed or not. But those who 
 at that day did believe it, could hardly be expected to acquiesce in 
 the possession by their opponents, the minority of the nation, of all 
 the offices of a government to which some of them were believed 
 to be hostile in principle. The object of Mr. Jefferson was, to break 
 down a preexisting monopoly in the hands of one party, and to 
 establish an equilibrium between the two great parties. The object 
 of president Jackson appears to be, to destroy an existing equili- 
 brium between the two parties to the late contest, and to establish 
 a monopoly. The object of president Jefferson was the republic, 
 and not himself. That of president Jackson is himself, and not 
 the state. 
 
 It never was advanced under Mr. Jefferson's administration, that 
 devotion and attachment to him were an indispensable qualification, 
 without which no one could hold or be appointed to office. The 
 contrast between the inaugural speech of that great man, and that 
 of his present successor, was remarkable in every respect. Mr. 
 Jefferson's breathed a spirit of peace. It breathed a spirit of calm 
 philosophy and dignified moderation. It treated the nation as one 
 family. ' We are all republicans, all federalists.' It contained no 
 denunciations ; no mysterious or ambiguous language ; no reflec- 
 tions upon the conduct of his great rival and immediate predecessor. 
 What is the character of the inaugural speech of the present chief 
 magistrate, I shall not attempt to sketch. Mr. Jefferson, upon the 
 solemn occasion of his installation into office, laid down his rule 
 for appointment to office — 'is he honest ? is he capable ? is he 
 faithful to the constitution ? ' But capacity and integrity and fidelity, 
 according to the modern rule, appear to count for nothing, without 
 the all-absorbing virtue of fidelity to president Jackson. 
 
576 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 I will not consume the time of my friends and fellow-citizens 
 with observations upon many of the late changes. 
 
 My object has been, to point your attention to the principle 
 which appears to have governed all of them, and to classes. I 
 would not have touched this unpleasant topic, but that it seems to 
 me to furnish much and just occasion for serious alarm. I hope 
 that I have treated it in a manner becoming me, without incurring 
 the displeasure of any one now present. I believe the times 
 require all the calm heads and sound hearts of the country. And 
 I would not intentionally say one word to excite the passions. 
 
 But there are a few cases of recent removal of such flagrant 
 impropriety, as I sincerely think, that I cannot forbear alluding to 
 them. Under no administration prior to the present, from the 
 commencement of the government, have our diplomatic represen- 
 tatives been recalled from abroad, on account of the political 
 opinions they entertained in regard to a previous presidential 
 election. Within my recollection, at this time, there has been but 
 one instance of recall of a foreign minister under the present constitu- 
 tion, on account of any dissatisfaction with him. But president 
 Washington did not recall colonel Monroe (the case referred to) 
 from France, on his individual account, but because he was not 
 satisfied with the manner in which he performed the duties of the 
 mission. President Jackson has ordered home two of our foreign 
 ministers, one filling the most important European mission, and 
 the other the most important of our missions on this continent. 
 In both cases the sole ground of recall is, that they were opposed 
 to his election as president. And as if there should be no possible 
 controversy on this head, one of them was recalled before it was 
 known at Washington that he had reached Bogota, the place of 
 his destination ; and consequently before he could have possibly 
 disobeyed any instruction, or violated any duty. 
 
 The pecuniary effect of these changes, is the certain expenditure, 
 in outfits, of eighteen thousand dollars, and perhaps more than 
 triple that sum in contingences. Now it does seem to me, 
 that (and I put it to your candid judgments whether) this is too 
 large a sum for the public to pay, because two gentlemen had 
 made a mistake of the name which they should have written on a 
 little bit of paper thrown into the ballot-boxes. Mistake ! They 
 had, in fact, made no practical mistake. They had not voted at 
 all, one being out of the United States, and the other out of his 
 own state at the time of the election. The money is therefore to 
 be paid because they made a mistake in the abstract opinions 
 which they held, and might possibly, if they had been at home, 
 have erroneously inscribed one name instead of another on their 
 ballots. 
 
 There would be some consolation for this waste of public 
 treasure, if it were compensated by the superiority of qualification 
 
BEGINNING OF JACKSON'S ADMINISTRATION. 577 
 
 on the part of the late appointments, in comparison with the 
 previous. But I know all four of the gentlemen perfectly well, 
 and my firm conviction is, that in neither change has the public 
 gained any intellectual advantage. In one of them, indeed, the 
 victor of Tippecanoe and of Thames, of whose gallantry many 
 who are now here were witnesses, is replaced by a gentleman 
 who, if he possesses one single attainment to qualify him for the 
 office, I solemnly declare it has escaped my discernment. 
 
 There was another class of persons whose expulsion from office 
 was marked by peculiar hardship and injustice. Citizens of the 
 District of Columbia were deprived of all actual participation in 
 the elections of the United States. They are debarred from voting 
 for a president, or any member of congress. Their sentiments, 
 therefore, in relation to any election of those officers, are perfectly 
 abstract. To punish them, as in numerous instances has been 
 done, by dismissing them from their employments, not for what 
 they did, but for what they thought, is a cruel aggravation of their 
 anomalous condition. I know well those who have been dis- 
 charged from the department of state, and I take great pleasure in 
 bearing testimony to their merits. Some of them would have 
 done honor to any bureau in any country. 
 
 We may worship God according to the dictates of our own 
 consciences. No man's right, in that respect, can be called in 
 question. The constitution secures it. Public offices are happily, 
 according to the theory of our constitution, alike accessible to all, 
 protestants and catholics, and to every denomination of each. But 
 if our homage is not paid to a mortal, we are liable to a punish- 
 ment which an erroneous worship of God does not bring upon us. 
 Those public officers, it seems, who have failed to exhibit their 
 devotion to that mortal, are to be visited by all the punishment 
 which he can inflict, in virtue of laws, the execution of which was 
 committed to his hands for the public good, and not to subserve 
 his private purposes. 
 
 At the most important port of the United States, the office of 
 collector was filled by Mr. Thompson, whose removal was often 
 urged upon the late administration by some of its friends, upon 
 the ground of his alleged attachment to general Jackson. But the 
 late president was immovable in his resolution to deprive no man 
 of his office, in consequence of his political opinions, or preferences. 
 Mr. Thompson's removal was so often and so strongly pressed, for 
 the reason just stated, that an inquiry was made of the secretary of 
 the treasury, into the manner in which the duties of the office were 
 discharged. The secretary stated, that there was no better collector 
 in the public service ; and that his returns and accounts were 
 regularly and neatly rendered, and all the duties of his office ably 
 and honestly performed, as far as he knew or believed. This 
 meritorious officer has been removed to provide a place for Mr. 
 vol. i. 73 
 
578 SPEECHES OF HE N fiY CLAY. 
 
 Swartwout, whose association with colonel Burr is notorious 
 throughout the United States. I put it to the candor of all who 
 are here, to say if such a change can be justified in the port of 
 New York, the revenue collected at which amounts to about ten 
 millions of dollars, or more than one third of the whole revenue of 
 the United States. 
 
 I will detain the present assembly no longer, upon subjects 
 connected with the general government. I hope that I shall find, 
 in the future course of the new administration, less cause for 
 public disapprobation. I most anxiously hope, that when its 
 measures come to be developed, at the next and succeeding 
 sessions of congress, they shall be perceived to be such as are best 
 adapted to promote the prosperity of the country. I will say, with 
 entire sincerity, that I shall be most happy to see it sustaining the 
 American system, including internal improvements, and upholding 
 the established policy of the government at home and abroad. 
 And I shall ever be as ready to render praise where praise is due, 
 as it is now painful to me, under existing circumstances, to par- 
 ticipate in the disapprobation which recent occurrences have 
 produced. 
 
 No occasion can be more appropriate than the present, when 
 surrounded by my former constituents, to say a few words upon 
 the unimportant subject of myself. Prior to my return home I 
 had stated, in answer to all inquiries whether I should be again 
 presented as a candidate to represent my old district in the house 
 of representatives, that I should come to no absolute decision, 
 until I had taken time for reflection, and to ascertain what might 
 be the feelings and wishes of those who had so often honored me 
 with their suffrages. The present representative of the district has 
 conducted himself towards me with the greatest liberality, and I 
 take pleasure now in making my public acknowledgments, so 
 justly due to him. He had promptly declined being a candidate, 
 if I would offer, and he warmly urged me to offer. 
 
 Since my return home, I have mixed freely as I could with my 
 friends and fellow-citizens of the district. They have met me 
 with the greatest cordiality. Many of them have expressed a wish 
 that I would again represent them. Some of the most prominent 
 and respectable of those who voted for the present chief magistrate, 
 have also expressed a similar wish. I have every reason to believe, 
 that, there would be no opposition to me, from any quarter or any 
 party, if I were to offer. But if I am not greatly deceived in the 
 prevailing feeling throughout the district, it is one more delicate 
 and respectful towards me, and I appreciate it much higher, than if 
 it had been manifested in loud calls upon me to return to my old 
 post. It referred the question to my own sober judgment. My 
 former constituents were generally ready to acquiesce in any 
 decision 1 might think proper to make. If I were to offer for 
 
BEGINNING OF JACKSON'S ADJJINI 8 T B ATION. 579 
 
 congress, they were prepared to support me with their accustomed 
 zeal and true-heartedness. I thank them all, from the very bottom 
 of my heart, whether they agreed or differed with me in the late 
 contest, for this generous confidence. 
 
 I have deliberated much on the question. My friends in other 
 parts of the union, are divided in opinion about the utility of any 
 services which I could render, at the present period, in the national 
 legislature. This state of things, at home and abroad, left me free 
 to follow the impulse of my own feelings, and the dictates of my 
 own judgment. These prompted me to remain in private life. In 
 coming to this resolution, I did not mean to impair the force of the 
 obligation under which every citizen, in my opinion, stood, to the 
 last flickering of human life, to dedicate his best exertions to the 
 service of the republic. I am ready to act in conformity with that 
 obligation, whenever it shall be the pleasure of the people ; and 
 such a probability of usefulness shall exist as will justify my 
 acceptance of any service which they may choose to designate. 
 
 I have served my country now near thirty years. My constitu- 
 tion, never very vigorous, requires repose. My health, always of 
 late years very delicate, demands care. My private affairs want 
 my attention. Upon my return home, I found my house out of 
 repair ; my farm not in order, the fences down, the stock poor, the 
 crop not set, and late in April the corn-stalks of the year's growth 
 yet standing in the field — a sure sign of slovenly cultivation. 
 
 Under all circumstances, I think that, without being liable to the 
 reproach of dereliction of any public duty to my country or to my 
 friends, I may continue at home for a season, if not during the 
 remainder of my life, among my friends and old constituents, 
 cheering and cheered by them, and interchanging all the kind and 
 friendly offices incident to private life. I wished to see them all ; 
 to shake hands cordially with them ; to inquire into the deaths, 
 births, marriages, and other interesting events among them ; to 
 identify myself in fact, as I am in feeling, with them, and with the 
 generation which has sprung up whilst I have been from home, 
 serving them. I wish to put my private affairs to rights, and if I 
 can, with the blessing of Providence, to reestablish a shattered 
 constitution and enfeebled health. 
 
 It has been proposed to me to offer for a seat in the legislature 
 of the state. I should be proud of the selection, if I believed I 
 could be useful at Frankfort. I see, I think, very clearly, the wants 
 of Kentucky. Its finances are out of order, but they could be 
 easily put straight, by a little moral courage, on the part of the 
 general assembly, and a small portion of candor and good will 
 among the people. Above all, we want an efficient system of 
 internal improvements adopted by the state. No Kentuckian who 
 travelled in or out of it, could behold the wretched condition of 
 our roads, without the deepest mortification. We are greatly in 
 
580 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 the rear of almost all the adjacent states, some of which sprung 
 into existence long after we were an established commonwealth. 
 Whilst they are obeying the spirit of the age, and nobly marching 
 forward in the improvement of their respective territories, we are 
 absolutely standing still, or rather going backwards. It is scarcely 
 credible, but nevertheless true, that it took my family, in the 
 month of April, nearly four days to travel, through mud and mire, 
 a distance of only sixty-four miles, over one of the most frequented 
 roads in the state. 
 
 And yet our wants, on this subject, are perfectly within the 
 compass of our means, judiciously applied. An artificial road 
 from Maysville to the Tennessee line, one branch in the direction 
 of Nashville, and a second to strike the mouth of Cumberland or 
 Tennessee river; an artificial road extending from Louisville to 
 intersect the other, somewhere about Bowling Green ; one passing 
 by Shelbyville and Frankfort, to the Cumberland gap; and an 
 artificial road extending from Frankfort to the mouth of Big Sandy; 
 compose all the leading roads which at present need the resources 
 of the state. These might be constructed, partly upon the Mc 
 Adams method, and partly by simply graduating and bridging 
 them, which latter mode can be performed at an expense less than 
 one thousand dollars per mile. Other lateral connecting these 
 main roads, might be left to the public spirit of the local authorities 
 and of private companies. 
 
 Congress, without doubt, would aid the state, if we did not call 
 upon Hercules without putting our shoulders to the wheel. But 
 without that aid we could ourselves accomplish all the works which 
 I have described. It would not be practicable to complete them 
 in a period of less than seven or eight years, and of course not 
 necessary to raise the whole sum requisite to the object in one 
 year. Funds drawn from executed parts of the system might be 
 applied to the completion of those that remained. This auxiliary 
 source, combined with the ample means of the state, properly 
 developed, and faithfully appropriated, would enable us to construct 
 all the roads which I have sketched, without burdening the people. 
 
 But, solicitous as I feel on this interesting subject, I regret that I 
 have not yet seen sufficient demonstrations of the public will, to 
 assure me that the judgment of the people had carried them to the 
 same or similar conclusions to which my mind has conducted me. 
 We have been, for years past, unhappily greatly distracted and 
 divided. These dissensions have drawn us off from a view of 
 greater to less important concerns. They have excited bitter feel- 
 ings and animosities, and created strong prejudices and jealousies. 
 I fear that from these causes the public is not yet prepared dispas- 
 sionately to consider and adopt a comprehensive, I think the only 
 practical, system of internal improvements, in this state. A prema- 
 ture effort might retard, instead of accelerating, the object. And J 
 
BEGINNING OF JACKSON'S ADMINISTRATION. 581 
 
 must add, that I fear extraneous causes would bias and influence 
 the judgment of the legislature. 
 
 Upon the whole, I must decline acceding to the wishes of those 
 who desired to see me in the legislature. Retirement, unqualified 
 retirement, from all public employment, is what I unaffectedly 
 desire. I would hereafter, if my life and health are preserved, be 
 ready at all times to act on the principles I have avowed, and 
 whenever, at a more auspicious period, there shall appear to be a 
 probability of my usefulness to the union or to the state, I will 
 promptly obey any call which the people may be pleased to make. 
 
 And now, my friends and fellow-citizens, I cannot part from 
 you, on possibly this last occasion of my ever publicly addressing 
 you, without reiterating the expression of my thanks from a heart 
 overflowing with gratitude. I came among you, now more than 
 thirty years ago, an orphan boy, pennyless, stranger to you all, 
 without friends, without the favor of the great. You took me up, 
 cherished me, caressed me, protected me, honored me. You have* 
 constantly poured upon me a bold and unabated stream of innu- 
 merable favors. Time, which wears out every thing, has increased 
 and strengthened your affection for me. When I seem deserted 
 by almost the whole world, and assailed by almost every tongue, 
 and pen, and press, you have fearlessly and manfully stood by me, 
 with unsurpassed zeal and undiminished friendship. When I felt 
 as if I should sink beneath the storm of abuse and detraction, 
 which was violently raging around me, I have found myself upheld 
 and sustained by your encouraging voices, and your approving 
 smiles. I have doubtless committed many faults and indiscretions, 
 over which you have thrown the broad mantle of your charity. 
 But I can say, and in the presence of my God and of this assem- 
 bled multitude, I will say, that I have honestly and faithfully served 
 my country; that I have never wronged it; and that, however 
 unprepared I lament that I am to appear in the Divine presence 
 on other accounts, I invoke the stern justice of his judgment on 
 my public conduct, without the smallest apprehension of his 
 displeasure. 
 
 Mr. Clay concluded by proposing the following toast : 
 
 The State of Kentucky. A cordial union of alt parties in favor of an efficient 
 system of internal improvements, adapted to the wants of the state. 
 
 v 
 
 M0i I 1 
 
EFFECT OF THE PROTECTIVE SYSTEM 
 ON THE SOUTHERN STATES. 
 
 AT NATCHEZ, MISSISSIPPI, MARCH 13, 1830. 
 
 [On this occasion, Mr. Clay (then in private life) being on his return home from a 
 visit to New Orleans, was invited by the citizens of Natchez to partake of a public 
 dinner, which invitation he accepted. A brief sketch of his remarks in reply to a 
 toast in honor of him, taken from a Natchez paper, is given below, in which he 
 shows that the operation of a protective tariff is beneficial to the cotton-growing 
 regions of the south, as well as to the interests of the north, although the latter are 
 more directly employed in manufactures.] 
 
 THE RECEPTION AND ENTERTAINMENT OF MR. CLAY. 
 
 1 The manner in which Mr. Clay has been received in Natchez, reflects great credit 
 upon the citizens ; nothing they could do, becoming a patriotic and hospitable people, 
 was neglected, and the attentions were not confined to his political friends; he 
 accepted private entertainments from others, and was visited by all. 
 
 ' On Saturday (thirteenth instant) a public dinner was given to Mr. Clay by the 
 people of the city and county, agreeably to previous engagements ; on this occasion 
 numbers came to see him from distant counties. But on one occasion of the kind, 
 have we seen in this city a larger assemblage of citizens, and that was in honor of 
 La Fayette.' 
 
 'The honorable Edward Turner, judge of the supreme court of this state, presided, 
 assisted by several vice-presidents. 1 
 
 4 Previous to giving the toast in honor of Mr. Clay, judge Turner addressed the 
 company, in which he alluded to his (Mr. Clay's) great public services, and concluded 
 by announcing the following sentiment, which was received with the strongest 
 emotion. 
 
 ' Our distinguished guest — the firm and patriotic statesman; the grandeur 
 and usefulness of his political views can only be surpassed by his eloquence and 
 ability in advocating them.' 
 
 To which Mr. Clay replied in substance as follows : 
 
 Mr. President and fellow-citizens, 
 
 I not only rise in gratitude for the favorable opinions you enter- 
 tain of me, but to avail myself of an opportunity to acknowledge 
 my sense of the honors conferred upon me by my fellow-citizens 
 of Mississippi. I did, indeed, expect to receive from them such 
 kind attentions, as they are celebrated for extending to every 
 stranger having had the satisfaction to visit them; but it is my 
 pride to acknowledge, that those paid to me, have far, very far, 
 
THE PROTECTIVE SYSTEM. 583 
 
 exceeded my expectations ; to have received and not acknowledge 
 how sensible I am of them, would seem an affectation of conceal- 
 ing feelings, which I ought to rejoice in possessing, and which 
 justice to myself, as well as to those who bestow this kindness, 
 requires of me to avow. 
 
 Ere I landed on your shores, your welcome and congratulations 
 came to meet me ; and they came too the more welcome, because 
 I saw commingling around me, citizens, who, though at variance 
 on political subjects, do not suffer their differences to interfere with 
 the claims, which, as friends and as countrymen, they have on each 
 other; and if I have done aught deserving their approbation as 
 well as their censure, believe me, in all that I have done, I have 
 acted in view of the interest and happiness of our common 
 country. 
 
 There is nothing in life half so delightful to the heart, as to know, 
 that, notwithstanding all the conflicts that arise among men, yet 
 there comes a time when their passions and prejudices shall slumber, 
 and that the stranger guest shall be cheered in seeing, that whatever 
 differences may arise among them, yet there are moments when 
 they shall cease from troubling, and when all that is turbulent and 
 distrustful among them, shall be sacrificed to the generous and 
 social dictates of their nature ; and it would be to me a source of 
 great satisfaction to think, that a recollection of the present would 
 act as a mediator, and soften the asperities of your divisions, as 
 circumstances and events may renew them. 
 
 The gentleman who sits at the head of this festive board, and 
 near whose person your kind consideration and courtesy has placed 
 me, was the companion of my early days ; and neither time nor 
 distance have weakened in him the feelings which began with our 
 youth, the strong and bright evidences of which are shown in the 
 narration he has given of my public services. But I fear that he 
 has rather conceived me to be what his wishes would have me ; 
 and that to these, more than to my own deservings, must I attribute 
 his flattering notice of me. 
 
 He then adverted to that part of judge Turner's address which 
 spoke of Mr. Clay as the decided advocate of the late war. We 
 cannot attempt to draw even the outlines of his observations, or to 
 portray the feelings he discovered while depicting the part which 
 Kentucky acted in the war ; of the volunteers she sent forth to 
 battle, of the privations she suffered, of the money expended, and 
 of the blood that flowed from her sons, in supporting the nation in 
 the defence of her rights and independence. The expression of 
 his eye, his attitude, and gestures, evinced how deeply the subject 
 affected him. The people of Kentucky, he said, acted nobly 
 throughout the whole contest; and whether in defeat or in victory, 
 she still showed the determination to sustain the American charac- 
 ter, and to maintain American independence ; and it would be 
 
584 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 only to repeat, what was a common observation among the people 
 of his state, to say, that their countrymen of Mississippi, acted with 
 a spirit during the war worthy the best days of the revolution. 
 
 In speaking of the invasion of Louisiana, and of the battle of 
 New Orleans, his feelings and his voice seemed to rise with the 
 subject. The encomiums he passed upon the hero who had 
 achieved the victory, though said in a few w T ords, were such as 
 might be expected from a statesman so great in honor, and so 
 exalted in patriotism as Mr. Clay. He concluded this part of his 
 speech, by saying, that, although by the negotiations at Ghent, 
 none of the objects for which the nation went to war, were guaran- 
 tied by the treaty of peace ; yet they were secured to us by a power 
 much stronger than any treaty stipulations could give ; the influence 
 of our arms, the resources and power of the republic, as brought 
 forth and shown in the contest. 
 
 He now spoke of the apprehensions entertained by many, that 
 the union would be dissolved ; but he considered all apprehensions 
 of this kind, as arising more from our fears that such a misfortune 
 should visit the country, than from any substantial reasons to justify 
 them. Rumors, he said, had gone abroad ever since the adoption 
 of the present constitution, that the republic would be dismembered. 
 Whenever any important question arose, in which the passions and 
 prejudices of party, rather than the reason of the people, was 
 brought to bear on the discussion, the cry would be heard, that the 
 union would fall in the conflict ; to-day, the disposition to separate 
 would be charged on the west ; to-morrow, against the north or 
 the east; and then it would be returned back again to the south; 
 but as long as I have lived, said Mr. Clay, I have seen nothing to 
 give me any serious fears that such an evil could befall us. First, 
 the people were divided into democrats and federalists ; then we 
 had the funding system, and the bank of the United States ; then 
 came the Missouri question, and last the tariff. On this question 
 my partial friend has honored me with the appellation of the 
 advocate of domestic industry. I am, indeed, from conscientious 
 convictions, the friend of that system of public policy, which has 
 been called the American system ; and here, among those who 
 honestly differ with me on this question, I would be indulged, 
 by this magnanimous people, in offering a few remarks on this 
 subject. 
 
 It has been objected to this policy by a distinguished statesman 
 in congress, that our country was too extended, the lands too cheap 
 and fertile, and our population too sparse to admit of the manu- 
 facturing system ; that our people were physically incapable of that 
 confined degree of labor, necessary to excellence in manufactures ; 
 but experience has surely disproved these positions. We are by 
 nature inferior to no people, physically or mentally, and time has 
 proved and will continue to prove it. 
 
THE PROTECTIVE SYSTEM. 585 
 
 I am aware that the people of this quarter of the union consci- 
 entiously believe, that the tariff bears heavily on them ; yet I feel 
 also well assured, from a retrospect of the past, that if the laws on 
 this subject were even more severe in their operation than I believe 
 them to be, this patriotic people would endure them patiently. 
 Yes, if the independence of the country, the interests, and above 
 all the cavse of the union required heavy sacrifices, they would 
 endure them. But whilst claiming no immunity from error, I feel 
 the most sincere, the deepest conviction, that the tariff, so far from 
 having proved injurious to the peculiar interests of this section of 
 country, has been eminently beneficial. I ask leave to put two 
 questions to those interested in your great staple. I would take the 
 common operations of sale and of purchase ; has the operation of the 
 tariff lowered the price of what you sell ? The price of every article 
 must be regulated mainly by the demand ; has, then, the consump- 
 tion of cotton diminished since the tariff of 1824, or 1828? No, 
 it has increased, greatly increased ; and why ? Because the 
 protection extended by this policy, has created a neiv customer in 
 the American manufacturer, who takes two hundred thousand 
 bales, without having lessened the demand for the European 
 market. 
 
 British merchants have found new markets for their cotton 
 fabrics, and the competition, thus created, while it has reduced the 
 price of the manufactured article, has increased the consumption 
 of the raw material. Again, has the tariff increased the price of 
 what you buy ? Take the article of domestic cottons, for example ; 
 has not the American manufacturer, since the adoption of this 
 system, afforded you a better article and at less price than before ? 
 Take a familiar instance, one in which having some personal 
 interest, I ought to be acquainted with ; take the article manufac- 
 tured in my own state, for the covering of your cotton bales ; take 
 any period, say six years before and six years since the tariff of 
 1824; has the average price of cotton bagging increased or 
 diminished, in that period? I think I can appeal confidently to 
 those around me, for the reply. We afford you a better article than 
 the European, and at a greatly reduced price. But, I am permit- 
 ting myself to be carried away by the subject ; I will obtrude no 
 longer on the indulgence of this generous people. I feel my 
 inability to express my profound and heartfelt gratitude, for the too 
 flattering reception you have given me, and for the sentiments you 
 have been pleased to honor me with, an humble individual in 
 private life. I ask permission to offer a sentiment. 
 
 ' The health and prosperity of the people of the state of Mississippi.' 
 
 vol. i. 74 
 
ON THE REDUCTION OF DUTIES ON IMPORTS. 
 
 IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, JANUARY 11, 1832. 
 
 [The following resolution, previously offered by Mr. Clay, was taken up for 
 consideration : 
 
 'Resolved, that the existing duties upon articles imported from foreign countries, 
 and not coming into competition with similar articles made or produced within the 
 United States, ought to be forthwith abolished, except the duties upon wines and silks, 
 and that those ought to be reduced. And that the committee on finance be instructed 
 to report a bill accordingly.' 
 
 To meet the approaching crisis of the extinguishment of the national debt, and to 
 endeavor to allay the hostility to a protective tariff, then existing in the southern 
 states, Mr. Clay offered the above proposition, which he supported in the following 
 speech. The discussion of the subject, in the senate, led to a debate which was not 
 terminated until late in the month of March, when the resolution was referred to the 
 committee on manufactures. Mr. Clay having given his views in part in this opening 
 of the debate, followed it up in February by a more elaborate speech in defence of 
 the American system (as will be seen by the one which we have given under that 
 head). The resolution having been read, Mr. Clay rose and addressed the senate as 
 follows.! 
 
 I have a few observations, Mr. President, and only a few, to 
 submit to the senate, on the measure now before you, in doing 
 which I have to ask all your indulgence. 1 am getting old ; I feel 
 but too sensibly and unaffectedly the effects of approaching age, 
 and I have been for some years very little in the habit of addressing 
 deliberative assemblies. I am told that I have been the cause — 
 the most unwilling cause, if I have been — of exciting expectations, 
 the evidence of which is around us. I regret it ; for, however the 
 subject on which I am to speak, in other hands, might be treated, to 
 gratify or to reward the presence and attention now given in mine, 
 I have nothing but a plain, unvarnished, and unambitious exposi- 
 tion to make. 
 
 It forms no part of my present purpose to enter into a considera- 
 tion of the established policy of protection. Strong in the convic- 
 tions and deeply seated in the affections of a large majority of the 
 people of the United States, it stands self-vindicated in the general 
 prosperity, in the rich fruits which it has scattered over the land, in 
 the experience of all prosperous and powerful nations, present and 
 past, and now in that of our own. Nor do I think it necessary to 
 discuss that policy on this resolution. Other gentlemen may think 
 
REDUCTION OF DUTIES ON IMPORTS. 587 
 
 differently, and may choose to argue and assail it. If they do, I 
 have no doubt that in all parts of the senate, members more 
 competent than I am, will be ready to support and defend it. My 
 object now is to limit myself to a presentation of certain views and 
 principles connected with the present financial condition of the 
 country. 
 
 A consideration of the state of the public revenue has become 
 necessary in consequence of the near approach of the entire 
 extinction of the public debt; and I concur with you, sir, in 
 believing that no season could be more appropriate than the present 
 session of congress, to endeavor to make a satisfactory adjustment 
 of the tariff. The public debt chiefly arose out of the late war, 
 justly denominated the second contest for national independence. 
 An act, commonly called the sinking fund act, was passed by 
 congress nearly fifteen years ago, providing for its reimbursement. 
 That act was prepared by a friend of yours and mine, and proposed 
 by him, whose premature death was not a loss merely to his native 
 state, of which he was one of its brightest ornaments, but to the 
 whole nation. No man with whom I ever had the honor to be 
 associated in the legislative councils, combined more extensive and 
 useful information, with more firmness of judgment, and blandness 
 of manner, than did the lamented Mr. Lowndes. And when in 
 the prime of life, by the dispensation of an all- wise Providence, he 
 was taken from us, his country had reason to anticipate the greatest 
 benefits from his wisdom and discretion. By that act an annual 
 appropriation was made, of ten millions of dollars, towards the 
 payment of the principal and interest of the public debt, and also 
 any excess which might yearly be in the treasury, beyond two 
 millions of dollars, which it was thought prudent to reserve for 
 unforeseen exigences. 
 
 But this system of regular and periodical application of public 
 revenue to the payment of the public debt, would have been 
 unavailing if congress had neglected to provide the necessary ways 
 and means. Congress did not, however, neglect the performance 
 of that duty. By various acts, and more especially by the tariff 
 of 1824 — the abused tariff of 1824 — the public coffers were 
 amply replenished, and we have been enabled to reach our present 
 proud eminence of financial prosperity. After congress had thus 
 abundantly provided funds, and directed their systematical applica- 
 tion, the duty remaining to be performed by the executive was one 
 simply ministerial. And no executive, and no administration, can 
 justly claim for itself any other merit in the discharge of the public 
 debt, than that of a faithful execution of the laws ; no other merit 
 than that similar one to which it is entitled, for directing a regular 
 payment of what is due from time to time to the army and navy, 
 or to the officers of the civil government, for their salaries. 
 
 The operation of the sinking fund act commenced with the 
 
588 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 commencement of Mr. Monroe's administration. During its 
 continuance, of eight years, in consequence of the embarrassments 
 of the treasury, the ten millions were not regularly applied to the 
 payment of the debt, and upon the termination of that adminis- 
 tration the treasury stood largely in arrear to the sinking fund. 
 During the subsequent administration of four years, not only were 
 the ten millions faithfully applied during each year, but those 
 arrears were brought up, and all previous deficiencies made good. 
 So that, when the present administration began, a plain, unincum- 
 bered, and well-defined path lay directly before it. Under the 
 measures which have been devised in the short term of fifteen 
 years, the government has. paid nearly one hundred millions of 
 principal, and about an equal sum of interest, leaving the small 
 remnant behind, of twenty-four millions. Of that amount, thirteen 
 millions consist of three per cent, stock, created by the act of 
 1790, which the government does not stand bound to redeem at 
 any prescribed time, but which it may discharge whenever it may 
 suit its own convenience, and when it is discharged it must be 
 done by the payment of dollar for dollar. I cannot think, and I 
 should suppose congress can hardly believe with the secretary of 
 the treasury, that it would be wise to pay off a stock of thirteen 
 millions, entitling its holders to but three per cent., with a capital 
 of thirteen millions, worth an interest of six per cent. In other 
 words, to take from the pockets of the people two dollars, to pay 
 one in the hands of the stockholder. 
 
 The moral value of the payment of a national debt consists in 
 the demonstration which it affords of the ability of a country to 
 meet, and its integrity in fulfilling, all its engagements. That the 
 resources of this country, increasing, as it constantly is, in popula- 
 tion and wealth, are abundantly sufficient to meet any debt, which 
 it may ever prudently contract, cannot be doubted. And its 
 punctuality and probity, from the period of the assumption, in 1790, 
 of the debt of the revolution, down to the present time, rest upon a 
 solid and incontestable foundation. The danger is not, perhaps, 
 that it will not fairly meet its engagements, but that, from an inordi- 
 nate avidity, arising from temporary causes, it may bring discredit 
 upon itself by improvident arrangement, which no prudent man, in 
 the management of his private affairs, would ever think of adopting. 
 
 Of the residue of that twenty-four millions of debt, after 
 deducting the thirteen millions of three per cent., less than two 
 millions are due, and of right payable within the present year. If 
 to that sum be added the moiety which becomes due on the thirty- 
 first of December next, of the four million four hundred and fifty- 
 iour thousand seven hundred and twenty-seven dollars, created by 
 the act of the twenty-sixth of May, 1824, we have but a sum of 
 about four millions, which the public creditor can lawfully 
 demand, or which the government is bound to pay in the 
 
REDUCTION OF DUTIES ON IMPORTS. 589 
 
 course of this year. If more is paid, it can only be done by 
 anticipating the period of its payment, and going into the public 
 market to purchase the stock. Can it be doubted that, if you do 
 so, the vigilant holder of the stock, taking advantage of your 
 anxiety, will demand a greater price than its value ? Already we 
 perceive, that the three per cent, have risen to the extraordinary 
 height of ninety-six per cent. The difference between a pay- 
 ment of the inconsiderable portion remaining of the public debt 
 in one, two, or three years, is certainly not so important as to justify 
 a resort to highly disadvantageous terms. 
 
 Whoever may be entitled to the credit of the payment of the 
 public debt, I congratulate you, sir, and the country, most cordially, 
 that it is so near at hand. It is so nearly being totally extinguished, 
 that we may now safely inquire whether, without prejudice to any 
 established policy, we may not relieve the consumption of the 
 country, by the repeal or reduction of duties, and curtail consid- 
 erably the public revenue. In making ihis inquiry, the first question 
 that presents itself is, whether it is expedient to preserve the 
 existing duties in order to accumulate a surplus in the treasury, for 
 the purpose of subsequent distribution among the several states. I 
 think not. If the collection for the purpose of such a surplus is to 
 be made from the pockets of one portion of the people, to be 
 ultimately returned to the same pockets, the process would be 
 attended with the certain loss arising from the charges of collection, 
 and with the loss also of interest while the money is performing 
 the unnecessary circuit, and it would therefore be unwise. If it is 
 to be collected from one portion of the people and given to another, 
 it would be unjust. ]f it is to be given to the states in their corpo- 
 rate capacity, to be used by them in their public expenditure, I know 
 of no principle in the constitution that authorizes the federal 
 government to become such a collector for the states, nor of any 
 principle of safety or propriety which admits of the states becoming 
 such recipients of gratuity from the general government. 
 
 The public revenue, then, should be regulated and adapted to 
 the proper service of the general government. It should be ample ; 
 for a deficit in the public income, always to be deprecated, is 
 sometimes attended, as we know well from history and from what 
 has happened in our own time, with fatal consequences. In a 
 country so rapidly growing as this is, with such diversified interests, 
 new wants and unexpected calls upon the public treasury must 
 frequently occur. Take some examples from this session. The 
 state of Virginia has presented a claim for an amount but little 
 short of a million, which she presses with an earnestness demon- 
 strating her conviction of its justice. The state of South Carolina has 
 also a claim for no inconsiderable sum, being upwards of one hundred 
 thousand dollars, which she urges with equal earnestness. The 
 gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Wilkins) has brought forward a 
 
590 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 claim arising out of French spoliations previous to the convention of 
 1800, which is perhaps not short of five millions, and to some 
 extent I have no doubt it has a just foundation. In any provision 
 of public revenue, congress ought so to fix it as to admit of the 
 payment of honest and proper demands, which its justice cannot 
 reject or evade. 
 
 I hope, too, that either in the adjustment of the public revenue, 
 or what would be preferable, in the appropriation of the proceeds of 
 the public lands, effectual and permanent provision will be made 
 for svch internal improvements as may be sanctioned by congress. 
 This is due to the American people, and emphatically due to the 
 western people. Sir, temporary causes may exact a reluctant 
 acquiescence from the people of the west in the suspension of appro- 
 priations to objects of internal improvement, but as certain as you 
 preside in that chair, or as the sun performs its diurnal revolution, 
 they will not be satisfied with an abandonment of the policy. They 
 will come here and tell you, not in a tone of menace or suppli- 
 cation, but in the language of conscious right, that they must share 
 with you in the benefits, as they divide with you the burdens and the 
 perils, of a common government. They will say that they have no 
 direct interest in the expenditures for the navy, the fortifications, nor 
 even the army, those greatest absorbents of the public treasure. That 
 they are not indifferent, indeed, to the safety and prosperity of any 
 part of our common country. On the contrary, that every portion of the 
 republic is indirectly, at least, interested in the welfare of the whole, 
 and that they ever sympathize in the distresses and rejoice in the hap- 
 piness of the most distant quarter of the union. And to demonstrate 
 that they are not careless or indifferent to interests not direclly their 
 own, they may proudly and triumphantly appeal to the gallant part 
 which they bore in the late war, and point to the bloody fields on 
 which some of their most patriotic sons nobly fell fighting in the 
 common cause. But they will also say, that these paternal and just 
 sentiments ought to be reciprocated by their Atlantic brethren. 
 That these ought not to be indifferent to the welfare of the west, 
 and that they have the same collateral or indirect interest in its 
 success and advancement that the west has in theirs. That it does 
 not ask internal improvements to be confined exclusively to itself, 
 but that it may receive, in common with the rest of the union, a 
 practical benefit in the only form compatible with its interior 
 condition. 
 
 The appropriation of the proceeds of the public lands, or a 
 considerable portion of them, to that object, would be a most 
 natural and suitable disposition. And I do hope, sir, that that 
 great resource will be cherished and dedicated to some national 
 purpose, worthy of the republic. Utterly opposed as I trust con- 
 gress will show itself to be, to all the mad and wild schemes — and 
 to that latest, but maddest and wildest of all, recommended by the 
 
REDUCTION OF DUTIES ON IMPORTS. £91 
 
 secretary of the treasury — for squandering the public domain, I 
 hope it will be preserved for the present generation and for posterity, 
 as it has been received from our ancestors, a rich and bountiful 
 inheritance. In these halcyon days of peace and plenty and an 
 overflowing treasury, we appear to embarrass ourselves in devising 
 visionary schemes for casting away the bounties with which the 
 goodness of Providence has blessed us. But, sir, the storm of war 
 will come when we know not, the day of trial and difficulty will 
 assuredly come, and now is the time, by a prudent forecast, to 
 husband our resources, and this, the greatest of them all. Let them 
 not be hoarded and hugged with a miser's embrace, but liberally 
 used. Let the public lands be administered in a generous spirit; 
 and especially towards the states within which they are situated. 
 Let the proceeds of the sales of the public lands be applied in a 
 season of peace to some great object and when war does come, 
 by suspending that application of them during its continuance, you 
 will be at once put in possession of means for its vigorous prose- 
 cution. More than twenty-five years ago, when first I took a seat 
 in this body, I was told by the fathers of the government, that if we 
 had any thing perfect in our institutions, it was the system for 
 disposing of the public lands, and I was cautioned against rash 
 innovations in it. Subsequent experience fully satisfied me of the 
 wisdom of their counsels, and that all vital changes in it ought to 
 be resisted. 
 
 Although it may be impracticable to say what the exact amount 
 of the public revenue should be for the future, and what would be 
 the precise produce of any given system of imports, we may safely 
 assume that the revenue may now be reduced, and considerably 
 reduced. This reduction may be effected in various ways and on 
 different principles. Only three modes shall now be noticed. 
 
 First, to reduce duties on all articles in the same ratio, without 
 regard to the principle of protection. 
 
 Second, to retain them on the unprotected articles, and augment 
 them on the protected articles. And, 
 
 Third, to abolish and reduce the duties on unprotected articles, 
 retaining and enforcing the faithful collection of those on the 
 protected articles. 
 
 To the first mode there are insuperable objections. It would 
 lead inevitably to the destruction of our home manufactures. It 
 would establish a sort of bed of Procrustes, by which the duties on 
 all articles should be blindly measured, without respect to their 
 nature or the extent of their consumption. And it would be 
 derogatory to every principle of theory or practice on which the 
 government has hiiherto proceeded. 
 
 The second would be still more objectionable to the foes of the 
 tariff* than either of the others. But it cannot be controverted, that, 
 by augmenting considerably the duties on the protected class, so as 
 
592 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 to carry them to the point, or near to the confines, of absolute 
 prohibition, the object in view, of effecting the necessary reduction 
 of the public revenue, may be accomplished without touching the 
 duties on the unprotected class. The consequence of such an 
 augmentation would be, a great diminution in the importation of 
 the foregoing article, and of course in the duties upon it. But 
 against entire prohibition, except perhaps in a few instances, I have 
 been always and still am opposed. By leaving the door open to 
 the foreign rival article, the benefit is secured of a salutary compe- 
 tition. If it be hermetically closed, the danger is incurred of 
 monopoly. 
 
 The third mode is the most equitable and reasonable, and it 
 presents an undebatable ground, on which I had hoped we all could 
 safely tread without difficulty. It exacts no sacrifice of principle 
 from the opponent of the American system, it comprehends none 
 on the part of its friends. The measure before you embraces this 
 mode. It is simple, and free from all complexity. It divides the 
 whole subject of imports according to its nature. It settles at once 
 what ought not to be disputed, and leaves to be settled hereafter, if 
 necessary, what may be controverted. 
 
 A certain part of the south has hitherto complained, that it pays 
 a disproportionate amount of the imports. If the complaint be 
 well founded, by the adoption of this measure it will be relieved at 
 once, as will be hereafter shown, from at least a fourth of its 
 burdens. The measure is in conformity with the uniform practice 
 of the government from its commencement, and with the professions 
 of all the eminent politicians of the south until of late. It assumes 
 the right of the government, in the assessment of duties, to discrim- 
 inate between those articles which sound policy requires it to foster 
 and those which it need not encourage. This has been the 
 invariable principle on which the government has proceeded, from 
 the act of congress of the fourth of July, 1789, down to the present 
 time. And has it not been admitted by almost every prominent 
 southern politician ? Has it not even been acknowledged by the 
 fathers of the free-trade church, in their late address promulgated 
 from Philadelphia to the people of the United States? If we 
 never had a system of foreign imports, and were now called upon 
 for the first time lo originate one, should we not discriminate 
 between the objects of our own industry and those produced by 
 foreigners? And is there any difference in its application between 
 the modification of an existing system and the origination of a new 
 one ? If the gentlemen of the south, opposed to the tariff, were to 
 obtain complete possession of the powers of government, would 
 they hazard their exercise on any other principle? If it be said 
 that some of the articles that would by this measure be liberated 
 from duties, are luxuries, the remark is equally true of some of the 
 articles remaining subject to duties. In the present advanced stage 
 
REDUCTION OF DUTIES ON IMPORTS. 593 
 
 of civilization and comfort, it is not easy to draw the line between 
 luxuries and necessaries. It will be difficult to make the people 
 believe that bohea tea is a luxury, and the article of fine broadcloth 
 is a necessary, of life. 
 
 In stating that the duties on the protected class ought to be 
 retained, it has been far from my wish to preclude inquiry into 
 their adequacy or propriety. If it can be shown that in any instance 
 they are excessive or disproportionately burdensome on any section 
 of the union, for one I am ready to vote for their reduction, or 
 modification. The system contemplates an adequate protection ; 
 beyond that it is not necessary to go. Short of that its operation 
 will be injurious to all parties. 
 
 The people of this country, or a large majority of them, expect 
 that the system will be preserved. And its abandonment would 
 produce general surprise, spread desolation over the land, and 
 occasion as great a shock as a declaration of war forthwith against 
 the most powerful nation of Europe. 
 
 But if the system be preserved, it ought to be honestly, fairly, 
 and faithfully enforced. That there do exist the most scandalous 
 violations of it, and the grossest frauds upon the public revenue in 
 regard to some of the most important articles, cannot be doubted. 
 As to iron, objects really belonging to one denomination to which 
 a higher duty is attached, are imported under another name, to 
 which a lower duty is assigned, and thus the law is evaded. False 
 invoices are made as to woollens, and the classifications into 
 minimums is constantly eluded. The success of the American 
 manufacture of cotton bagging has been such that, by furnishing 
 a better and cheaper article, the bagging of Inverness and Dundee 
 has been almost excluded from the consumption of the states 
 bordering on the Mississippi and its tributaries. There has not yet 
 been sufficient time to fabricate and transport the article in neces- 
 sary quantities from the western states to the southern Atlantic 
 states, which have therefore been almost exclusively supplied from 
 the Scottish manufactories. The payment of the duty is evaded by 
 the introduction of the foreign fabric, under the name of burlops, 
 or some other mercantile phrase, and instead of paying five cents 
 the square yard, it is entered with a duty of only fifteen per centum 
 ad valorem. That this practice prevails is demonstrated by the 
 treasury report of the duties accruing on cotton bagging for the 
 years 1828, 1829-30. During the first year the amount was one 
 hundred thirty-seven thousand five hundred and six dollars, the 
 second, one hundred and six thousand and sixty-eight dollars, 
 and the third it sank down to fourteen thousand one hundred 
 and forty-one dollars. 
 
 The time has arrived when the inquiry ought to be seriously 
 made, whether it be not practicable to arrest this illegitimate course 
 of trade, and secure the faithful execution of the laws. No time 
 vol. i. 75 
 
594 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 could be more suitable than that at which it is contemplated to 
 make a great reduction of the public revenue. Two radical 
 changes have presented themselves to my mind, and which I will 
 now suggest for consideration and investigation. On such a sub- 
 ject, I would, however, seek from the mercantile community and 
 practical men, all the light which they are so capable of affording, 
 and should be reluctant to act on my own convictions, however 
 strong. 
 
 The first is, to make a total change in the place of valuation. 
 Now the valuation is made in foreign countries. We fix the 
 duties, and we leave to foreigners to assess the value on articles 
 paying ad valorem duties. That is, we prescribe the rule and leave 
 its execution to the foreigner. This is an anomaly, I believe, 
 peculiar to this country. It is evident that the amount of duty 
 payable on a given article, subject to an ad valorem duty, may be 
 effected as much by the fixation of the value, as by the specifica- 
 tion of the duty. And, for all practical purposes, it would be just 
 as safe to retain to ourselves the ascertainment of the value, and 
 leave to the foreigner to prescribe the duty, as it is to reserve to 
 ourselves the right to declare the duty and allow to him the privilege 
 to assess the value. 
 
 The effect of this vicious condition of the law has been, to throw 
 almost the whole import trade of the country, as to some important 
 articles, into the hands of the foreigner. I have been informed 
 that seven eighths of the importation of woollens into the port of 
 New York, where more is received than in all the other ports of 
 the United States together, are in his hands. This has not pro- 
 ceeded from any want of enterprise, intelligence, or capital, on the 
 part of the American merchant; for in these particulars he is 
 surpassed by the merchant of no country. It has resulted from 
 his probity, his character, and his respect to the laws and institu- 
 tions of his country — a respect which does not influence the 
 foreigner. I am aware that it is made, by law, the duty of the 
 appraiser to ascertain the value of the goods in certain cases. But 
 what is his chief guide. It is the foreign invoice, made by whom 
 he knows not ; certainly by no person responsible to our laws. 
 And if its fairness be contested, they will bring you cart-loads of 
 certificates and affidavits, from unknown persons, to verify its 
 exactness and the first cost of the article. 
 
 Now, sir, it seems to me that this is a state of things to which 
 we should promptly apply an efficient remedy ; and no other 
 appears to me but that of taking into our own hands both parts of 
 the operation — the ascertainment of the value as well as the duty 
 to be paid on the goods. If it be said that we might have in 
 different ports different rules, the answer is, that there could be no 
 diversity greater than that to which we are liable, from the fact of 
 the valuation being now made in all the ports of foreign countries, 
 
REDUCTION OF DUTIES ON IMPORTS. 595 
 
 from which we make our importations. And that it is better to 
 have the valuations made by persons responsible to our own 
 government, and regulated by one head, than by unknown foreign- 
 ers, standing under no responsibility whatever to us. The other 
 change to which I allude, is, to reduce the credits allowed for the 
 payment of duties, and to render them uniform. It would be 
 better, if not injurious to commerce, to abolish them altogether. 
 Now we have various periods of credit, graduated according to 
 the distance of the foreign port, and the nature of the trade. These 
 credits operate as so much capital, on which the foreign merchant 
 can sometimes make several adventures, before the day of payment 
 arrives. There is no reciprocal advantage afforded to the Ameri- 
 can merchant, I believe, in any foreign port. As we shall probably 
 abolish, or greatly reduce the duties on all articles imported beyond 
 the cape of Good Hope, on which the longest credits are allowed, 
 the moment would seem to be propitious for restricting the other 
 credits in such manner, that while they afforded a reasonable 
 facility to the merchant, they should not supply the foreigner, at 
 the instance of the public, with capital for his mercantile operations. 
 If the laws can be strictly enforced, and some such alterations as 
 have been suggested can be carried into effect, it is quite probable 
 that a satisfactory reduction may be made, on some of the articles 
 falling within the system of protection. And without impairing 
 its principle, other modes of relief may probably be devised to 
 some of those interests upon which it is suffered to press most 
 heavily. 
 
 There remains one view to present to the senate, in respect to 
 the amount of reduction of the revenue which will be produced by 
 the proposed measure, if adopted, and its influence upon the 
 payment of the public debt within the time suggested by the 
 secretary of the treasury. The estimate which I have made of 
 that amount, is founded upon treasury returns prior to the late 
 reduction of duties on tea, coffee, and cocoa. Supposing the duties 
 on wines and silks to be reduced as low as I think they may be, 
 the total amount of revenue with which the proposed measure will 
 dispense, will be about seven millions of dollars. The secretary 
 of the treasury estimates the receipts of the present year, from all 
 sources, at thirty million one hundred thousand dollars; and he 
 supposes those of the next year will be of an equal amount. He 
 acknowledges that the past year has been one of extraordinary 
 commercial activity, but on what principles does he anticipate 
 that the present will also be? The history of our commerce 
 demonstrates that it allernates, and that a year of intemperate 
 speculation, is usually followed by one of more guarded importa- 
 tion. That the importations of the last year have been excessive, 
 I believe is generally confessed, and is demonstrated by two 
 unerring facts. The first is, that the imports have exceeded the 
 
596 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 exports, by about seventeen millions of dollars. Whatever may- 
 be the qualifications to which the theory of the balance of trade 
 may be liable, it may be safely affirmed, that when the aggregate 
 of the importations from all foreign countries exceeds the aggregate 
 of the exportalions to all foreign countries, considerably, the 
 unfavorable balance must be made up by a remittance of the 
 precious metals to some extent. Accordingly we find the existence 
 of the other fact to which I allude, the high price of bills of exchange 
 on England. It is, therefore, fairly to be anticipated, that the 
 duties accruing this year will be less in amount, than those of the 
 past year. And I think it would be unwise to rely upon our 
 present information, as to the income of either of these two years, 
 as furnishing a safe guide for the future. The years 1829-30 
 will supply a surer criterion. There is a remarkable coincidence 
 in the amount of the receipts into the treasury during those two 
 years, it having been the first, from all sources, twenty-four million 
 eight hundred and twenty-seven thousand six hundred and twenty- 
 seven dollars and thirty-eight cents, and the second, twenty-four 
 million eight hundred and forty-four thousand one hundred and 
 sixteen dollars and fifty-one cents, differing only about seventeen 
 thousand dollars. 
 
 The mode recommended by the secretary for the modification 
 of the tariff is, to reduce no part of the duties on the unprotected 
 articles prior to March, 1833, and then to retain a considerable 
 portion of them. And as to the protected class, he would make a 
 gradual but prospective reduction of the duties. The effect of this 
 would be, to destroy the protecting system, by a slow but certain 
 poison. The object being to reduce the revenue, every descending 
 degree in the scale of his plan of gradual reduction, by letting in 
 more of the foreign article to displace the domestic rival fabric, 
 would increase the revenue, and create the necessity for further and 
 further reduction of duties, until they would be carried so low as 
 to end in the entire subversion of the system of protection. 
 
 For the reasons which have been assigned, it would, I think, be 
 unwise in congress at this time to assume for the future, that there 
 would be a greater amount of net annual revenue from all sources, 
 including the public lands, than twenty-five millions of dollars. 
 Deducting from that sum the amount of seven millions of dollars, 
 which it has been supposed ought to be subtracted, if the resolution 
 before you should be adopted, there would remain eighteen millions 
 of dollars, as the probable revenue for future years. This includes 
 the sum of three millions of dollars, estimated as the future annual 
 receipt from the sale of the public lands — an estimate which I 
 presume will be demonstrated by experience to be much too large. 
 
 If a reduction so large as seven millions be made at this session, 
 and if the necessary measures be also adopted to detect and punish 
 frauds, and insure a faithful execution of the laws, we may safely 
 
REDUCTION OF DUTIES ON IMPORTS. 597 
 
 make a temporary pause, and await the development of the effect 
 of these arrangements upon the revenue. That the authority of 
 the laws should be vindicated, all ought to agree. Now the fraud- 
 ulent importer, after an exposure of his fraud, by a most strange 
 treasury construction of the law, (made, I understand, however, 
 not by the present secretary,) eludes all punishment, and is only 
 required to pay those very duties which he was originally bound 
 for, but which he dishonestly sought to evade. Other measures, 
 with a view to a further reduction of the revenue, may be adopted. 
 In some instances there might be an augmentation of duties for 
 that purpose. I will mention the article of foreign distilled spirits. 
 In no other country upon earth is there so much of the foreign 
 article imported, as in this. The duties ought to be doubled, and 
 the revenue thereby further reduced from six hundred thousand, to 
 a million of dollars. The public morals, the grain-growing country, 
 the fruit-raising and the cane-planting country, would be all ben- 
 efited by rendering the duty prohibitory. I have not proposed the 
 measure, because it ought to originate, perhaps, in the other house. 
 
 That the measure which I have proposed may be adopted, 
 without interfering with the plan of the secretary of the treasury 
 for the payment of the public debt by the fourth of March next, I 
 will now proceed to show. The secretary estimates that the 
 receipts of the present year, after meeting all other just engage- 
 ments, will leave a surplus of fourteen millions of dollars, applicable 
 to the payment of the principal of the debt. With this sum, eight 
 millions of dollars, which he proposes to derive from the sale of 
 the bank stock, and two millions of dollars, which he would 
 anticipate from the revenue of the next year, he suggests that the 
 whole of the debt remaining, may be discharged by the time 
 indicated. The fourteen millions, I understand, (although on this 
 subject the report is not perfectly explicit,) are receipts anticipated 
 this year, from duties which accrued last year. If this be the 
 secretary's meaning, it is evident that he wants no part of the duties 
 which may accrue during the current year, to execute his plan. 
 But if his meaning be, that the fourteen millions will be composed, 
 in part, of duties accruing- and payable within the present year, 
 then the measure proposed might prevent the payment of the whole 
 of the remnant of the debt by the exact day which has been stated. 
 If, however, the entire seven millions embraced by the resolution 
 on your table were subtracted from the fourteen, it would still leave 
 him seven millions, besides the bank stock to be applied to the 
 debt, and that, of itself, would be three millions more than can be 
 properly applied to the object in the course of this year, as I have 
 already endeavored to show. 
 
 I came here, sir, most anxiously desiring that an arrangement 
 of the public revenue should be made, which, without sacrificing 
 any of the great interests of the country, would reconcile and 
 
59S SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 satisfy all its parts. I thought T perceived, in the class of objects 
 not produced within the country, a field on which we could all 
 enter, in a true and genuine spirit of compromise and harmony, 
 and agree upon an amicable adjustment. Why should it not be 
 done ? Why should those who are opposed to the American 
 system, demand of its friends an unconditional surrender? Our 
 common object should be, so to reduce the public revenue as to 
 relieve the burdens of the people, if the people of this country can 
 be truly said to be burdened. The government must have a 
 certain amount of revenue, and that amount must be collected 
 from the imports. Is it material to the consumer, wherever situated, 
 whether the collection be made upon a few, or many objects, 
 provided, whatever be the mode, the amount of his contribution to 
 the public exchequer remains the same ? If the assessment can 
 be made on objects which will greatly benefit large portions of the 
 union, without injury to him, why should he object to the selection 
 of those objects ? Yes, sir, I came here in a spirit of warm attach- 
 ment to all parts of our beloved country, with a lively solicitude to 
 restore and preserve its harmony, and with a firm determination 
 to pour oil and balm into existing wounds, rather than further 
 to lacerate them. For the truth and sincerity of these declarations, 
 I appeal to Him whom none can deceive. I expected to be met 
 by corresponding dispositions, and hoped that our deliberations, 
 guided by fraternal sentiments and feelings, would terminate in 
 diffusing contentment and satisfaction throughout the land. And 
 that such may be the spirit presiding over them, and such their 
 issue, I yet most fervently hope. 
 
ON THE NOMINATION OF MR. YAN BURIN AS MINISTER 
 TO GREAT BRITAIN. 
 
 IN SECRET SESSION IN THE U. S. SENATE, JANUARY 24, 1832. 
 
 [In April, 1831, a rupture in the cabinet of president Jackson terminated in the 
 resignation of the four secretaries, and the attorney general. Among them was Mr. 
 Martin Van Buren, who resigned the office of secretary of state, which he had held a 
 little over two years. General Jackson soon afterwards appointed Mr. Van Buren 
 minister to Great Britain, and he took his departure for London during the recess of 
 the senate ; of course, before the nomination could be submitted to that body, for their 
 action. At ihe ensuing session of congress, the president sent in his name to the 
 senate, and the subject was as usual acted upon in secret session, but the injunction 
 of secrecy was afterwards removed, which enables us to give Mr. Clay's brief but 
 pointed remarks on the occasion. The principal ground of opposition to the con- 
 firmation of the nomination, was. that Mr. Van Buren, while secretary of slate, in 
 July. 1829, had instructed Mr. McLane, then minister to Great Britain, to represent 
 to the British government that a change of administration in the United States had 
 produced a change of policy ; thus bringing our party politics into our negotiations 
 with a tbreign power. The senate, therefore, rebuked Mr. Van Buren and the presi- 
 dent, by rejecting his nomination on this occasion, by an equal vote of the senators, 
 and the casting vote of the vice-president (Mr. Calhoun). 
 
 Mr. President, 
 
 I regret that I find myself utterly unable to reconcile with the 
 duty I owe to my country a vole in favor of this nomination. I 
 regret it, because in all the past strife of party the relations of 
 ordinary civility and courtesy were never interrupted between the 
 gentleman whose name is before us and myself. But I regard my 
 obligations to the people of the United States, and to the honor and 
 character of their government, as paramount to every private 
 consideration. There was no necessity known to us for the 
 departure of this gentleman from the United States, prior to the 
 submission of his name to the senate. Great Britain was repre- 
 sented here by a diplomatic agent, having no higher rank than that 
 of a charge des affaires. We were represented in England by one 
 of equal rank ; one who had shed lustre upon his country by his 
 high literary character, and of whom it may be justly said, that in 
 no respect was he inferior to the gentleman before us. Although 
 I shall not controvert the right of the president, in an extraordinary 
 case, to send abroad a public minister without the advice and 
 
600 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 consent of the senate, I do not admit that it ever ought to be done 
 without the existence of some special cause, to be communicated 
 to the senate. We have received no communication of the exist- 
 ence of any such special cause. This view of the matter might 
 not have been sufficient alone to justify a rejection of this nomi- 
 nation ; but it is sufficient to authorize us to examine the subject 
 with as perfect freedom as we could have done if the minister had 
 remained in the ' United Slates, and awaited ihe decision of the 
 senate. I consider myself, therefore, not committed by the separate 
 and unadvised act of the president in despatching Mr. Van Buren 
 in the vacation of the senate, and not a very long time before it 
 was to assemble. 
 
 My main objection to the confirmation of his appointment 
 arises out of his instructions to the late minister of the United 
 States at the court of Great Britain. The attention of the senate 
 has been already called to parts of those instructions, but there are 
 oiher parts of them, in my opinion, highly reprehensible. Speaking 
 of the colonial question, he says, ' in reviewing the events which 
 have preceded, and more or less contributed, to a result so much to 
 be regretted, there will be found three grounds, on which we are 
 most assailable. First, in our too long and too tenaciously resisting 
 the right of Great Britain to impose protecting duties in her 
 colonies.' * # # * ■ And, thirdly, in omitting to accept the 
 terms offered by the act of parliament of July, 1825, after the subject 
 had been brought before congress, and deliberately acted upon by 
 our government. # # # # You will, therefore, see the pro- 
 priety of possessing yourself of all the explanatory and mitigating 
 circumstances connected with them, that you may be enabled to 
 obviate, as far as practicable, the unfavorable impression which they 
 have produced.' And after reproaching the late administration with 
 setting up claims for the first time, which they explicitly aban- 
 doned, he says, in conclusion, \ I will add nothing as to the 
 impropriety of suffering any feelings, that find their origin in the 
 past pretensions of this government, to have adverse influence upon 
 the present conduct of Great Britain.' 
 
 On our side, according to Mr. Van Buren, all was wrong; on 
 the British side, all was right. We brought forward nothing but 
 claims and pretensions. The British government asserted, on the 
 other hand, a clear and incontestable right. We erred in too 
 tenaciously and loo long insisting upon our pretensions, and not 
 yielding at once to the force of their just demands. And Mr. 
 McLane was commanded to avail himself of all ihe circumstances 
 in his power to mitigate our offence, and to dissuade the British 
 government from allowing their feelings, justly incurred by the 
 past conduct of the party driven from power, to have an adverse 
 influence towards the American party now in power. Sir, was 
 this becoming language from one independent nation to another ? 
 
NOMINATION d *" M fc. VAN BUREN. 601 
 
 Was it proper, in the mouth of an American minister? Was it 
 in conformity with the high, unsullied, and dignified character of 
 our previous diplomacy? Was it not, on the contrary, the 
 language of an humble vassal to a proud and haughty lord ? Was 
 it not prostrating and degrading the American eagle before the 
 British lion ? 
 
 Let us examine a little those pretensions which the American 
 government so unjustly put forward, and so pertinaciously 
 maintain. The American government contended, that the produce 
 of the United States ought to be admitted into the British West 
 Indies, on the same terms as similar produce of the British 
 American continental possessions ; that without this equality our 
 produce could not maintain in the British West Indies a fair 
 competition with the produce of Canada, and that British preference 
 given to the Canadian produce in the West Indies would draw 
 from the western part of New York, and the northern part of Ohio, 
 American produce into Canada, aggrandizing Montreal and 
 Quebec, and giving employment to British shipping, to the 
 prejudice of the canals of New York, the port of New York, and 
 American shipping. 
 
 This was the offence of the American government, and we are 
 at this moment realizing the evils which it foresaw. Our produce 
 is passing into Canada, enriching her capitals, and nourishing 
 British navigation. Our own wheat is transported from the western 
 part of New York into Canada, there manufactured, and then 
 transported in British ships in the form of Canadian flour. We 
 are thus deprived of the privilege even of manufacturing our own 
 grain. And when the produce of the United States, shipped from 
 the Atlantic ports, arrives at the British West Indies, it is unable, 
 in consequence of the heavy duties with which most of it is 
 burdened, to sustain a competition with British or colonial produce, 
 freely admitted. 
 
 The general rule may be admitted, that every nation has a right 
 to favor its own productions, by protecting duties, or other regula- 
 tions ; but, like all general rules, it must have its exceptions. And 
 the relation in which Great Britain stands to her continental and 
 West India colonies, from which she is separated by a vast sea, 
 and the relations in which the United States stand to those colonies, 
 some of which are in juxtaposition with them, constitute a fit case 
 for such an exception. 
 
 It is true, that the late administration did authorize Mr. Gallatin 
 to treat with Great Britain on the basis of the rule which has been 
 stated, but it was with the express understanding, that some 
 competent provision should be made in the treaty to guard against 
 the British monopoly of the transportation of our own produce 
 passing through Canada. Mr. Gallatin was informed, 'that the 
 United States consent to the demand which they have heretofore 
 vol. i. 76 
 
602 SPEECHES OP HENRY CLAY. 
 
 made of the admission of their productions into British colonies, at 
 the same and no higher rate of duty as similar productions are 
 chargeable with when imported from one into another British colony, 
 with the exception of our produce descending the St. Lawrence and 
 the SoreW 
 
 There was no abandonment of our right, no condemnation of 
 the previous conduct of our government, no humiliating admission, 
 that we had put forth and too tenaciously clung to unsustainable 
 pretensions, and that Great Britain had all along been in the right. 
 We only forebore for the present to assert a right, leaving ourselves 
 at liberty subsequently to resume it. What Mr. Gallatin was au- 
 thorized to do was, to make a temporary concession, and it was 
 proposed with this preliminary annunciation. ' But, notwithstand- 
 ing on a full consideration of the whole subject, the president, 
 anxious to give a strong proof to Great Britain of the desire of the 
 government of the United States to arrange this long contested 
 matter of the colonial intercourse in a manner mutually satisfactory, 
 authorizes you,' &c. And Mr. Gallatin was required ' to endeavor 
 to make a lively impression on the British government of the 
 conciliatory spirit of that of the United States, which has dictated 
 the present liberal offer, and of their expectation to meet, in the 
 progress of the negotiations, with a corresponding friendly dispo- 
 sition.' 
 
 Now, sir, keeping sight of the object which the late secretary of 
 state had in view, the opening of the trade with the British colonies, 
 which was the best mode to accomplish it — to send our minister 
 to prostrate himself as a suppliant before the British throne, and to 
 say to the British king, we have offended your majesty ! the late 
 American administration brought forward pretensions which we 
 cannot sustain, and they too long and too tenaciously adhered to 
 them ! your majesty was always in the right ; but we hope that 
 your majesty will be graciously pleased to recollect, that it was 
 not we who are now in possession of the American power, but 
 those who have been expelled from it, that wronged your majesty, 
 and that we, when out of power, were on the side of your majesty ; 
 and we do humbly pray, that your majesty, taking all mitigating 
 circumstances into consideration, will graciously condescend to 
 extend to us the privileges of the British act of parliament of 1825, 
 and to grant us the boon of a trade with your majesty's West 
 India colonies — or to have presented himself before the British 
 monarch in the manly and dignified attitude of a minister of this 
 republic, and, abstaining from all condemnation or animadversion 
 upon the past conduct of his own government, to have placed the 
 withdrawal of our former demand upon the ground of concession 
 in a spirit of amity and compromise ? 
 
 But the late secretary of state, the appointed organ of the Amer- 
 ican people to vindicate their rights with all foreign powers, and to 
 
NOMINATION OF MR. VAN BUREN. G03 
 
 expose the injustice of any unfounded demands which they might 
 assert, was not content to exert his own ingenuity to put his own 
 country in the wrong, and the British government in the right. 
 He endeavored to attach to the late administration the discredit of 
 bringing forward unfounded pretensions, and by disclaiming them, 
 to propitiate the favor of the British king. He says, that the views 
 of the present administration upon the subject of the colonial trade 
 1 have been submitted to the people of the United States, and the 
 counsels by which your conduct is now directed are the result of 
 the judgment, expressed by the only earthly tribunal to which the 
 late administration was amenable for its acts. It should be sufficient, 
 that the claims set up by them, and what caused the interruption 
 of the trade in question, have been explicitly abandoned by those 
 who first asserted them, and are not revived by their successors.' 
 The late secretary of state — the gentleman under consideration — 
 here makes the statement, that the late administration were the 
 first to set up the claims to which he refers. Now, under all the 
 high responsibility which belongs to the seat which I occupy, 
 I deliberately pronounce that this statement is untrue, and that the 
 late secretary either must have known it to be untrue, or he was 
 culpably negligent of his duty in not ascertaining what had been 
 done under prior administrations. I repeat the charge, the statement 
 must have been known to be untrue, or there was culpable negli- 
 gence. If it were material, I believe it could be shown, that the 
 claim in question — the right to the admission into the British 
 West Indies of the produce of the United States upon an equal 
 footing with similar produce of the British continental colonies — 
 is coeval with the existence of our present constitution, and that 
 whenever the occasion arose for asserting the claim, it was asserted. 
 But I shall go no further back than to Mr. Madison's administration. 
 Mr. Monroe, the then secretary of state, instructed our then minister 
 at London upon this subject. He negotiated with lord Castle- 
 reagh in respect to it, and this very claim prevented an adjustment 
 at that time of the colonial question. It was again brought forward 
 under Mr. Monroe's administration, when Mr. Eush was our 
 minister at London. He opened a long and protracted negotia- 
 tion upon this and other topics, which was suspended in the summer 
 of 1824, principally because the parties could not agree on any 
 satisfactory arrangement of this very colonial question. 
 
 Thus, at least, two administrations prior to that of Mr. Adams's 
 had brought forward this identical claim or pretension, which his 
 was the first to assert, according to the late secretary of state. 
 
 The next charge which the late secretary of state — * the official 
 defender of the rights of the American people — preferred against 
 his own government, was that of ' omitting to accept the terms 
 offered by the act of parliament, of July, 1825, after the subject 
 had been brought before congress, and deliberately acted upon by 
 
604 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 our government.' Never was there a more unfounded charge 
 brought forward by any native against his own government, and 
 never was there a more unwarranted apology set up for a foreign 
 government ; and a plain, historical narrative, will demonstrate the 
 truth of both these propositions. 
 
 It has been already stated, that the negotiations of Mr. Rush, 
 embracing the precise colonial claim under consideration, ivas 
 suspended in 1824, within understanding between the two govern- 
 ments, that it was to be resumed on all points, at some future 
 convenient period. Early in July, 1825, neither government having 
 then proposed a resumption of the negotiation, the British parlia- 
 ment passed an act to regulate the colonial trade with foreign 
 powers. This act was never, during the late administration, either 
 at London or Washington, officially communicated by the British 
 to the American government, and we only obtained it through other 
 channels. Now if it had been the purpose of the British govern- 
 ment, by the passage of that act, to withdraw the colonial question 
 from the negotiation, it ought to have communicated that purpose 
 to this government, and at the same time, the act of parliament, as 
 supplanting and substituting the negotiation. But it never did 
 communicate such purpose. The act itself did not specifically 
 embrace the United States, and offered terms, which, upon the 
 face of the act, it was impossible for the United States to 
 accede to. It required, for example, that, to entitle powers not 
 possessing colonies, to the benefit of the act, they must place the 
 navigation and commerce of Great Britain upon the footing of the 
 most favored nations. To have done this, would have admitted 
 British shipping to import into the United States, on the same 
 conditions with native shipping, the productions of any quarter of 
 the globe, without a reciprocal liberty, on the part of the shipping 
 of the United States, in British ports. The act itself was differ- 
 ently construed, in different colonial ports of Great Britain, and an 
 order of the local government of Halifax, closing that port against 
 our vessels from the fifth of January, was subsequently revoked, 
 thereby confirming the impression, that the act of parliament was 
 not intended to dispense with the previous negotiation. And to 
 conclude this part of the narrative, as late as the twentieth of 
 October, 1826, Mr. Vaughan, the British minister, upon being 
 interrogated by the then secretary of state, was totally uninstructed 
 to afford any information, as to the meaning or intent of the act of 
 July, 1825. 
 
 Meantime, in March, more than six months after the passage of 
 the act of parliament, Mr. Vaughan notified the department of 
 state, that he had < received instructions from his majesty's govern- 
 ment, to acquaint you that it is preparing to proceed to the impor- 
 tant negotiations between that country and the United States, now 
 placed in the hands of the American minister, in London.' * * * 
 
NOMINATION OF MR. VAN BUREN. 605 
 
 * The negotiations will therefore be forthwith resumed.' * * * 
 Here the negotiations were spoken of without exception of the 
 colonial question, the most important of them. If it had been 
 intended to withdraw that, no time could have been more 
 suitable to announce that intention, but no such annunciation 
 was made. Mr. Vaughan was informed, that we also would 
 prepare for the negotiation, (including, of course, the colonial ques- 
 tion,) and Mr. Gallatin was accordingly shortly after sent out, with 
 full powers and instructions, amicably "to settle that question. On 
 his arrival in England, in the summer of 1826, he was told by the 
 British government, that they would not negotiate on the colonial 
 question ; that they had made up their mind, from the passage of 
 the act of July, 1825, not to negotiate about it; and he was 
 informed by the sarcastic Mr. Canning, that as we had failed to 
 accept the boon which the British government had then offered, we 
 were then too late ! 
 
 Such is the state of the case on which the late secretary of state so 
 authoritatively pronounces judgment against his own government, 
 for < omitting to accept the terms offered by the act of parliament, 
 of July, 1825 ! ' He adds, indeed, ' after the subject had been 
 brought before congress, and deliberately acted upon by our gov- 
 ernment.' It was brought before congress in the session of 1825-6, 
 not at the instance of the American executive, but upon the spon- 
 taneous and ill-judged motion of the gentleman from Maryland, 
 (Mr. Smith), and Mr. Gallatin was informed that if the bill proposed 
 by that gentleman had been passed, it would have been unsatisfac- 
 tory to the British government. 
 
 I have another objection to this nomination. I believe, upon 
 circumstances which satisfy my mind, that to this gentleman is 
 principally to be ascribed the introduction of the odious system of 
 proscription, for the exercise of the elective franchise, in the govern- 
 ment of the United States. I understand that it is the system on 
 which the party in his own state, of which he is the reputed head, 
 constantly acts. He was among the first of the secretaries, to 
 apply that system to the dismission of clerks in his department, 
 known to me to be highly meritorious, and among them one who 
 is now a representative in the other house. It is a detestable system, 
 drawn from the worst periods of the Roman republic, and if it 
 were to be perpetuated — if the offices, honors, and dignities of the 
 people were to be put up to a scramble, and to be decided by the 
 results of every presidential election — our government and institu- 
 tions, becoming intolerable, would finally end in a despotism as 
 inexorable as that at Constantinople. 
 
 Sir, the necessity under which we are placed is painful. But it 
 is no fault of the senate, whose consent and advice are required by 
 the constitution, to consummate this appointment, that the minister 
 has been sent out of the United States, without their concurrence. 
 
606 SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY. 
 
 I hope that the public will not be prejudiced by his rejection, if he 
 should be rejected. And I feel perfectly assured, that if the govern- 
 ment to which he has been deputed, shall learn that he has been 
 rejected, because he has there, by his instructions to Mr. McLane, 
 stained the character of our country, the moral effect of our 
 decision will greatly outweigh any advantages to be derived from 
 his negotiations, whatever they may have been intended to be. 
 
 END OF VOLUME FTRST. 
 
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