WASHINGTON, June 29, 1852.
Mr. Clay is dead: he
expired between eleven and twelve o'clock this morning. . . . Probably no
public man ever had more ardent or more numerous friends. He was a man of great
nobleness of heart. He has impressed his mind upon the policy of the country;
an impress, however, which is becoming fainter every year. On the slavery
question, he has always been far in advance of the people among whom he lived.
Had he belonged to the North, he would have become an antislavery man, and not
a treacherous or perfidious one like Mr. Webster. He has lived to see Webster
die a moral death, and Webster sees him die a natural one. I have no doubt,
such has been the secret hostility between them, that each is rejoiced at the
fortune of the other. Rivals for public favor for so many years, their
competition is now at an end. Both have failed in the supreme object of their
ambition. Would that all politicians and all men would learn a lesson from so
instructive an example!
SOURCE: Mary Tyler
Peabody Mann, Life of Horace Mann, p.
371-2
No comments:
Post a Comment