LADIES AND
GENTLEMEN,—I am very sensible of the difficulty and magnitude of the task which
I have undertaken.
I am to address you
in commemoration of the public services of HENRY CLAY, and in celebration of
his obsequies. His death filled his whole country with mourning, and the loss
of no citizen, save the Father of his Country, has ever produced such
manifestations of the grief and homage of the public heart. His history has
indeed been read "in a nation's eyes." A nation's tears proclaim,
with their silent eloquence, its sense of the national loss. Kentucky has more
than a common share in this national bereavement. To her it is a domestic
grief,—to her belongs the sad privilege of being the chief mourner. He was her
favorite son, her pride, and her glory. She mourns for him as a mother. But let
her not mourn as those who have no hope or consolation. She can find the
richest and the noblest solace in the memory of her son, and of his great and
good actions; and his fame will come back, like a comforter, from his grave, to
wipe away her tears. Even while she weeps for him, her tears shall be mingled
with the proud feelings of triumph which his name will inspire; and Old
Kentucky, from the depths of her affectionate and heroic heart, shall exclaim,
like the Duke of Ormond, when informed that his brave son had fallen in battle,
"I would not exchange my dead son for any living son in Christendom."
From these same abundant sources we may hope that the widowed partner of his
life, who now sits in sadness at Ashland, will derive some pleasing
consolations. I presume not to offer any words of comfort of my own. Her grief
is too sacred to permit me to use that privilege. You, sons and daughters of
Kentucky, have assembled here to commemorate his life and death. How can I
address you suitably on such a theme? I feel the oppressive consciousness that
I cannot do it in terms adequate to the subject, or to your excited feelings. I
am no orator, nor have I come here to attempt any idle or vainglorious display
of words; I come as a plain Kentuckian, who, sympathizing in all your feelings,
presents you with this address, as his poor offering, to be laid upon that
altar which you are here erecting to the memory of Henry Clay. Let it not be
judged according to its own value, but according to the spirit in which it is
offered. It would be no difficult task to address you on this occasion in the
extravagant and rhetorical language that is usual in funeral orations; but my
subject deserves a different treatment—the monumental name of Henry Clay rises
above all mere personal favor and flattery; it rejects them, and challenges the
scrutiny and the judgment of the world. The noble uses to which his name should
be applied, are to teach his country, by his example, lessons of public virtue
and political wisdom; to teach patriots and statesmen how to act, how to live,
and how to die. I can but glance at a subject that spreads out in such bright
and boundless expanse before me.
Henry Clay lived in
a most eventful period, and the history of his life for forty years has been
literally that of his country. He was so identified with the government for
more than two-thirds of its existence, that, during that time, hardly any act
which has redounded to its honor, its prosperity, its present rank among the
nations of the earth, can be spoken of without calling to mind involuntarily
the lineaments of his noble person. It would be difficult to determine whether
in peace or in war, in the field of legislation or of diplomacy, in the
springtide of his life, or in its golden ebb, he won the highest honor. It can
be no disparagement to any one of his contemporaries to say that, in all the
points of practical statesmanship, he encountered no superior in any of the
employments which his constituents or his country conferred upon him.
For the reason that
he had been so much and so constantly in the public eye, an elaborate review of
his life will not be expected of me. All that I shall attempt will be to sketch
a few leading traits, which may serve to give those who have had fewer
opportunities of observation than I have had something like a just idea of his
public character and services. If, in doing this, I speak more at large of the
earlier than of the later periods of his life, it is because, in regard to the
former, though of vast consequence, intervening years have thrown them somewhat
in the background.
Passing by,
therefore, the prior service of Mr. Clay in the Senate for brief periods in
1806 and 1810-11, I come at once to his Speakership in the House of Representatives,
and his consequent agency in the war of 1812.
To that war our
country is indebted for much of the security, freedom, prosperity, and
reputation which it now enjoys. It has been truly said by one of the living
actors in that perilous era, that the very act of our going to war was heroic.1
By the supremacy of the naval power of England the fleets of all Europe had
been swept from the seas; the banner of the United States alone floated in
solitary fearlessness. She seemed to encircle the earth with her navies, and to
be the undisputed mistress of the ocean. We went out upon the deep with a sling
in our hands. When, in all time, were such fearful odds seen as we had against
us?
The events of the
war with England, so memorable, and even wonderful, are too familiar to all to
require any particular recital on this occasion. Of that war,—of its causes and
consequences,—of its disasters, its bloody battles, and its glorious victories
by land and sea, history and our own official records have given a faithful
narrative. A just national pride has engraven that narrative upon our hearts.
But even in the fiercest conflicts of that war, there was nothing more truly
heroic than the declaration of it by Congress.
Of that declaration,
of the incidents, personal influences, and anxious deliberations which preceded
and led to it, the history is not so well or generally known. The more it is
known the more it will appear how important was the part that Mr. Clay acted,
and how much we are indebted to him for all the glorious and beneficial issues
of the declaration of that war, which has not inappropriately been called the
Second War of Independence.
The public grounds
of the war were the injustice, injury, and insults inflicted on the United
States by the government of Great Britain, then engaged in a war of maritime
edicts with France, of which the commerce of the United States was the victim,
our merchant ships being captured by British cruisers on every sea, and
confiscated by her courts, in utter contempt of the rights of this nation as an
independent power. Added to this, and more offensive than even those outrages,
was the arrogation, by the same power, of a right to search American vessels
for the purpose of impressing seamen from vessels sailing under the American
flag. These aggressions upon our national rights constituted, undoubtedly,
justifiable cause of war. With equal justice on our part, and on the same
grounds (impressment of seamen excepted), we should have been warranted in
declaring war against France also; but common sense (not to speak of policy)
forbade our engaging with two nations at once, and dictated the selection, as
an adversary, of the one that had power, which the other had not, to carry its
arbitrary edicts into full effect. The war was really, on our part, a war for
national existence.
When Congress
assembled, in November, 1811, the crisis was upon us. But, as may be readily
imagined, it could be no easy matter to nerve the heart of Congress, all
unprepared for the dread encounter, to take the step, which there could be no
retracing, of a declaration of war.
Nor could that task,
in all probability, ever have been accomplished, but for the concurrence,
purely accidental, of two circumstances: the one, the presence of Henry Clay in
the chair of the popular branch of the national legislature; and the other,
that of James Monroe, as Secretary of State, in the executive administration of
the government.
Mr. Monroe had
returned but a year or two before from a course of public service abroad, in
which, as minister plenipotentiary, he had represented the United States at the
several courts, in succession, of France, Spain, and Great Britain. From the
last of these missions he had come home, thoroughly disgusted with the
contemptuous manner in which the rights of the United States were treated by
the belligerent powers, and especially by England. This treatment, which even
extended to the personal intercourse between their ministers and the
representatives of this country, he considered as indicative of a settled
determination on their part, presuming upon the supposed incapacity of this
government for war, to reduce to system a course of conduct calculated to
debase and prostrate us in the eyes of the world. Reasoning thus, he had
brought his mind to a serious and firm conviction that the rights of the United
States, as a nation, would never be respected by the powers of the Old World
until this government summoned up resolution to resent such usage, not by
arguments and protests merely, but by an appeal to arms. Full of this
sentiment, Mr. Monroe was called, upon a casual vacancy, when it was least
expected by himself or the country, to the head of the Department of State.
That sentiment, and the feelings which we have thus accounted for, Mr. Monroe
soon communicated to his associates in the cabinet, and, in some degree it
might well be supposed, to the great statesman then at the head of the government.
The tone of
President Madison's first message to Congress (November 5, 1811), a few months
only after Mr. Monroe's accession to the cabinet, can leave hardly a doubt in
any mind of such having been the case. That message was throughout of the
gravest cast, reciting the aggressions and aggravations of Great Britain, as
demanding resistance, and urging upon Congress the duty of putting the country
"into an armor and attitude demanded by the crisis and corresponding with
the national spirit and expectations."
It was precisely at
this point of time that Mr. Clay, having resigned his seat in the Senate,
appeared on the floor of the House of Representatives, and was chosen, almost
by acclamation, Speaker of that body. From that moment he exercised an
influence, in a great degree personal, which materially affected, if it did not
control, the judgment of the House. Among the very first acts which devolved
upon him by virtue of his office was the appointment of the committees raised
upon the President's message. Upon the select committee of nine members to
which was referred "so much of the message as relates to our foreign
relations," he appointed a large proportion from among the fast friends of
the administration, nearly all of them being new members and younger than
himself, though he was not then more than thirty-five years of age. It is
impossible, at this day, to call to mind the names of which this committee was
composed (Porter, Calhoun, and Grundy being the first named among them),
without coming to the conclusion that the committee was constituted with a view
to the event predetermined in the mind of the Speaker. There can be no question
that when, quitting the Senate, he entered the representative body, he had
become satisfied that, by the continued encroachments of Great Britain on our
national rights, the choice of the country was narrowed down to war or
submission. Between these there could be no hesitation in such a mind as that
of Mr. Clay which to choose. In this emergency he acted for his country as he
would in a like case for himself. Desiring and cultivating the good will of
all, he never shrank from any personal responsibility, nor cowered before any
danger. More than a year before his accession to the House of Representatives
he had, in a debate in the Senate, taken occasion to say that "he most
sincerely desired peace and amity with England; that he even preferred an
adjustment of all differences with her to one with any other nation; but, if
she persisted in a denial of justice to us, he trusted and hoped that all
hearts would unite in a bold and vigorous vindication of our rights." It
was in this brave spirit, animated to increased fervency by intervening
aggressions from the same quarter, that Mr. Clay entered into the House of
Representatives.
Early in the second
month of the session, availing himself of the right then freely used by the
Speaker to engage in discussion while the House was in committee of the whole,
he dashed into the debates upon the measures of military and naval preparation
recommended by the President and reported upon favorably by the committee. He
avowed, without reserve, that the object of this preparation was war, and war
with Great Britain.
In these debates he
showed his familiarity with all the weapons of popular oratory. In a tempest of
eloquence, in which he wielded alternately argument, persuasion, remonstrance,
invective, ridicule, and reproach, he swept before him all opposition to the
high resolve to which he exhorted Congress. To the argument (for example)
against preparing for a war with England, founded upon the idea of her being
engaged, in her conflict with France, in fighting the battles of the world, he
replied, that such a purpose would be best achieved by a scrupulous observance
of the rights of others, and by respecting that public law which she professed
to vindicate. "Then," said he, "she would command the sympathies
of the world. But 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 called upon to
submit to debasement, 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?" And to
the argument that this government was unfit for any war but a war against
invasion,-so signally since disproved by actual events,-he exclaimed, with
characteristic vehemence, "What! is it not equivalent to invasion, if the
mouths of our outlets and harbors 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? What! shall it be said that our
amor patriæ is located at these desks? that we pusillanimously cling to our seats here, rather than vindicate the
most inestimable rights of our country?" Whilst in debate upon another
occasion, at nearly the same time, he showed how well he could reason upon a question which demanded
argument rather than declamation. To his able support of the proposition of Mr.
Cheves to add to our then small but gallant navy ten frigates, may be ascribed
the success, though by a lean majority, of that proposition. Replying to the objection,
urged with great zeal by certain members, that navies were dangerous to
liberty, he argued that the source of this alarm was in themselves. “Gentlemen
fear," said he, "that if we provide a marine it will produce
collision 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 a word, that the great body of the people should be taught
that national happiness was to be found in perpetual peace alone?"
While Mr. Clay, in
the capitol, was, with his trumpet-tongue, rousing Congress to prepare for war,
Mr. Monroe, then Secretary of State, gave his powerful co-operation, and lent
the Nestor-like sanction of his age and experience to the bold measures of his
young and more ardent compatriot. It was chiefly through their fearless
influence that Congress was gradually warmed up to a war spirit, and to the
adoption of some preparatory measures. But no actual declaration of war had yet
been proposed. There was a strong opposition in Congress, and the President,
Mr. Madison, hesitated to recommend it, only because he doubted whether
Congress was yet sufficiently determined and resolved to maintain such a
declaration, and to maintain it to all the extremities of war.
The influence and
counsel of Mr. Clay again prevailed. He waited upon the President, at the head
of a deputation of members of Congress, and assured him of the readiness of a
majority of Congress to vote the war if recommended by him. Upon this the
President immediately recommended it by his message to Congress of the first
Monday of June, 1812. A bill declaring war with Great Britain soon followed in
Congress, and, after a discussion in secret session for a few days, became a
law. Then began the war.
When the doors of
the House of Representatives were opened, the debates which had taken place in
secret session were spoken of and repeated, and it appeared, as must have been
expected by all, that Mr. Clay had been the great defender and champion of the
declaration of war.
Mr. Clay continued
in the House of Representatives for some time after the commencement of the
war, and having assisted in doing all that could be done for it in the way of
legislation, was withdrawn from his position in Congress to share in the
deliberations of the great conference of American and British Commissioners
held at Ghent. His part in that convention was such as might have been expected
from his course in Congress—high-toned and high-spirited, despairing of
nothing.
I need not add, but
for form, that acting in this spirit, Mr. Clay, and his patriotic and able
associates, succeeded beyond all the hopes at that time entertained at home, in
making a treaty, which, in putting a stop to the war, if it did not accomplish
everything contended for, saved and secured, at all points, the honor of the
United States.
Thus began and ended
the war of 1812. On our part it was just and necessary, and, in its results,
eminently beneficial and honorable.
The benefits have
extended to all the world, for, in vindicating our own maritime rights, we
established the freedom of the seas to all nations, and since then no one of
them has arrogated any supremacy upon that ocean given by the Almighty as the
common and equal inheritance of all.
To Henry Clay, as
its chief mover and author, belongs the statesman's portion of the glory of
that war; and to the same Henry Clay, as one of the makers and signers of the
treaty by which it was terminated, belong the blessings of the peacemaker. His
crown is made up of the jewels of peace and of war.
Prompt to take up
arms to resent our wrongs and vindicate our national rights, the return of
peace was yet gladly hailed by the whole country. And well it might be. Our
military character, at the lowest point of degradation when we dared the fight,
had been retrieved. The national honor, insulted at all the courts of Europe, had
been redeemed; the freedom of the seas secured to our flag and all who sail
under it; and what was most influential in inspiring confidence at home, and
assuring respect abroad, was the demonstration, by the result of the late
conflict, of the competency of this government for effective war, as it had
before proved itself for all the duties of a season of peace.
The Congress which
succeeded the war, to a seat in which Mr. Clay was elected while yet abroad,
exhibited a feature of a national jubilee, in place of the gravity and almost
gloom which had settled on the countenance of the same body during the latter
part of the war and of the conference at Ghent. Joy shone on every face. Justly
has that period been termed "the era of good feeling." Again placed in
the chair of the House of Representatives, and all important questions being
then considered as in committee of the whole, in which the Speaker descends to
the floor of the House, Mr. Clay distinguished himself in the debates upon
every question of interest that came up, and was the author, during that and
following Congresses, of more important measures than it has been the fortune
of any other member, either then or since, to have his name identified with.
It would exceed the
proper limits of this discourse to particularize all those measures. I can do
no more than refer to a very few of them, which have become landmarks in the
history of our country.
First in order of
these was his origination of the first proposition for the recognition of the
independence of the states of South America, then struggling for liberty. This
was on the 24th of March, 1818. It was on that day that he first formally
presented the proposition to the House of Representatives. But neither the
President nor Congress was then prepared for a measure so bold and decisive,
and it was rejected by a large majority of the House, though advocated and
urged by him with all the vehemence and power of his unsurpassed ability and
eloquence. Undaunted by this defeat, he continued to pursue the subject with
all the inflexible energy of his character. On the 3d of April, 1820, he
renewed his proposition for the recognition of South American independence, and
finally succeeded, against strong opposition, not only in passing it through
the House of Representatives, but in inducing that body to adopt the emphatic
and extraordinary course of sending it to the President by a committee
especially appointed for the purpose. Of that committee Mr. Clay was the
chairman, and, at its head, performed the duty assigned them. In the year 1822
Mr. Clay's noble exertions on this great subject were crowned with complete
success by the President's formal recognition of South American independence,
with the sanction of Congress.
It requires some
little exertion, at this day, to turn our minds back and contemplate the vast
importance of the revolutions then in progress in South America, as the subject
was then presented, with all the uncertainties and perils that surrounded it.
Those revolutions constituted a great movement in the moral and political
world. By their results great interests and great principles throughout the
civilized world, and especially in our own country, might, and probably would,
be materially affected.
Mr. Clay
comprehended the crisis. Its magnitude and its character were suited to his
temper and to his great intellect.
He saw before him,
throughout the vast continent of South America, the people of its various
states or provinces struggling to cast off that Spanish oppression and tyranny
which for three hundred years had weighed them down and seeking to reclaim and
re-establish their long-lost liberty and independence.
He saw them not only
struggling but succeeding, and with their naked hands breaking their chains and
driving their oppressors before them. But the conflict was not yet over; Spain
still continued to wage formidable and desperate hostilities against her
colonies to reduce them to submission. They were still struggling and bleeding,
and the result yet depended on the uncertain issues of war.
What a spectacle was
there presented to the contemplation of the world! The prime object of
attention and interest there to be seen was man bravely struggling for liberty.
That was enough for Henry Clay. His generous soul overflowed with sympathy. But
this was not all; there were graver and higher considerations that belonged to
the subject, and these were all felt and appreciated by Mr. Clay.
If South America was
resubjugated by Spain, she would in effect become European and relapse into the
system of European policy, the system of legitimacy, monarchy, and absolutism.
On the other hand, if she succeeded in establishing her independence, the
principle of free institutions would be established with it, and republics,
kindred to our own, would rise up to protect, extend, and defend the rights and
liberties of mankind.
It was not, then, a
mere struggle between Spain and her colonies. In its consequences, at least, it
went much further, and, in effect, was a contest between the great antagonist
principles and systems of arbitrary European governments and of free American
governments. Whether the millions of people who inhabited, or were to inhabit,
South America, were to become the victims and the instruments of the arbitrary
principle, or the supporters of the free principle, was a question of momentous
consequence now and in all time to come.
With these views,
Mr. Clay, from sympathy and policy, embraced the cause of South American
independence. He proposed no actual intervention in her behalf, but he wished
to aid her with all the moral power and encouragement that could be given by a
welcome recognition of her by the government of the United States.
To him belongs the
distinguished honor of being the first among the statesmen of the world to
espouse and plead the cause of South America, and to propose and urge the
recognition of her independence. And his own country is indebted to him for the
honor of being the first nation to offer that recognition.
When the magnitude
of the subject, and the weighty interest and consequences attached to it, are
considered, it seems to me that there is no more palmy day in the life of Mr.
Clay than that in which, at the head of his committee, he presented to the President
the resolution of the House of Representatives in favor of the recognition of
South American independence.
On that occasion he
appears in all the sublimity of his nature, and the statesman, invested with
all the sympathies and feelings of humanity, is enlarged and elevated into the
character of the friend and guardian of universal liberty.
How far South
America may have been aided or influenced in her struggles by the recognition
of our government, or by the noble appeals which Mr. Clay had previously
addressed, in her behalf, to Congress and to the world, we cannot say; but it
is known that those speeches were read at the head of her armies, and that
grateful thanks were returned. It is not too much to suppose that he exercised
great and, perhaps, decisive influence in her affairs and destinies.
Years after the
first of Mr. Clay's noble exertions in the cause of South America, and some
time after those exertions had led the government of the United States to
recognize the new States of South America, they were also recognized by the
government of Great Britain, and Mr. Canning, her minister, thereupon took
occasion to say, in the House of Commons, "there (alluding to South
America) I have called a new world into existence!" That was a vain boast.
If it can be said of any man, it must be said of Henry Clay, that he called
that “new world into existence.”2
Mr. Clay was the
father of the policy of internal improvement by the general government. The
expediency of such legislation had, indeed, been suggested, in one of his later
annual messages to Congress, by President Jefferson, and that suggestion was
revived by President Madison in the last of his annual messages. The late Bank
of the United States having been then just established, a bill passed, in
supposed conformity to Mr. Madison's recommendation, for setting aside the
annual bonus, to be paid by the bank, as a fund for the purposes of internal
improvement. This bill Mr. Madison very unexpectedly, on the last day of the
term of his office, returned to the House of Representatives without his
signature, assigning the reasons for his withholding it,―reasons which related
rather to the form than the substance,—and recommending an amendment to the
Constitution to confer upon Congress the necessary power to carry out that
policy. The bill of course fell through for that session. Whilst this bill was
on its passage, Mr. Clay had spoken in favor of it, declaring his own decided
opinion in favor of the constitutionality and expediency of the measure. Mr. Monroe,
immediately succeeding Mr. Madison in the Presidency, introduced into his first
annual message a declaration, in advance of any proposition on the subject, of
a settled conviction on his mind that Congress did not possess the right to
enter upon a system of internal improvement. But for this declaration, it may
be doubted that the subject would have been again agitated so soon after Mr.
Madison's veto. The threat of a recurrence to that resort by the new President
roused up a spirit of defiance in the popular branch of Congress, and
especially in the lion heart of Mr. Clay; and by his advice and counsel a
resolution was introduced declaring that Congress has power, under the
Constitution, to make appropriations for the construction of military roads,
post-roads, and canals. Upon this proposition, in committee of the whole House,
Mr. Clay attacked, with all his powers of argument, wit, and raillery, the
interdiction in the message.
He considered that
the question was now one between the executive on the one hand, and the
representatives of the people on the other, and that it was so understood by
the country; that if, by the communication of his opinion to Congress, the
President intended to prevent discussion, he had “most wofully failed;"
that in having (Mr. Clay had no doubt the best motives) volunteered his opinion
upon the subject, he had "inverted the order of legislation by beginning
where it should end;" and, after an able and unanswerable argument on the
question of the power, concluded by saying, “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 interest of the country, of which posterity
will, if we do not, reap the benefit." And the abstract resolution did
pass by a vote of 90 to 75; and a triumph it was which Mr. Clay had every right
to consider as his own, and all the more grateful to his feelings because he had
hardly hoped for it.
Referring on the
final success, at a distance of thirty-five years, of the principle thus
established, in the recent passage by Congress of the act for the improvement
of certain of the ports and harbors and navigable rivers of the country, let
"posterity" not forget, on this occasion, to what honored name is
undoubtedly due the credit of the first legislative assertion of the power.
Mr. Clay was,
perhaps, the only man since Washington, who could have said, with entire truth,
as he did, "I had rather be right than be President." Honor and
patriotism were his great and distinguishing traits. The first had its spring
and support in his fearless spirit; the second in his peculiar Americanism of
sentiment. It was those two principles which ever threw his whole soul into
every contest where the public interest was deeply involved, and above all,
into every question which in the least menaced the integrity of the Union. This
last was, with him, the Ark of the Covenant; and he was ever as ready to peril
his own life in its defense as he was to pronounce the doom of a traitor on any
one who would dare to touch it with hostile hands. It was the ardor of this
devotion to his country, and to the sheet-anchor of its liberty and safety, the
union of the States, that rendered him so conspicuous in every conflict that
threatened either the one or the other with harm. All are familiar with his
more recent, indeed, his last, great struggle for his country, when the
foundations of the Union trembled under the fierce sectional agitation, so
happily adjusted and pacified by the wise measures of compromise which he
proposed in the Senate, and which were, in the end, in substance adopted. That
brilliant epoch in his history is fresh in the memory of all who hear me, and
never will be forgotten by them. An equally glorious success, achieved by his
patriotism, his resoluteness, and the great power of his oratory, was one which
few of this assembly are old enough vividly to remember; but which, in the
memory of those who witnessed the effort, and the success of that greatest
triumph of his master-spirit, will ever live the most interesting in the life
of the great statesman. I mean the Missouri controversy. Then, indeed, did
common courage quail, and hope seemed to sink before the storm that burst upon
and threatened to overwhelm the Union.
Into the history of
what is familiarly known as the "Missouri Question," it is not
necessary, if time would allow, that I should enter at any length. The subject
of the controversy, as all my hearers know, was the disposition of the House of
Representatives, manifested on more than one occasion, and by repeated votes,
to require-as a condition of the admission of the Territory of Missouri into
the Union as a State-the perpetual prohibition of the introduction of slavery
into the Territories of the United States west of the Mississippi. During the
conflict to which this proposition gave rise in 1820, the debates were from the
beginning earnest, prolonged, and excited. In the early stages of them Mr. Clay
exerted to the utmost his powers of argument, conciliation, and persuasion,
speaking, on one occasion, it is stated, for four and a half hours without
intermission. A bill finally passed both houses, authorizing the people of the
Territory of Missouri to form a constitution of State government, with the
prohibition of slavery restricted to the territory lying north of 36 deg. 30
min. of north latitude. This was in the first session of the Sixteenth
Congress, Mr. Clay still being Speaker of the House. On the approach of the
second session of this Congress, Mr. Clay, being compelled by his private
affairs to remain at home, forwarded his resignation as Speaker, but retained
his seat as a member, in view of the pendency of this question. Mr. Taylor, of
New York, the zealous advocate of the prohibition of slavery in Missouri and
elsewhere in the West, was chosen Speaker to succeed Mr. Clay. This fact, of
itself, under all the circumstances, was ominous of what was to follow.
Alarmed, apparently, at this aspect of things, Mr. Clay resumed his seat in the
House on the 16th of January, 1821. The constitution formed by Missouri and
transmitted to Congress, under the authority of the act passed in the preceding
session, contained a provision (superfluous even for its own object) making it
the duty of the General Assembly, as soon as might be, to pass an act to
prevent free negroes and mulattoes from coming to or settling in the State of
Missouri "upon any pretext whatever." The reception of the
constitution with this offensive provision in it was the signal of discord
apparently irreconcilable, when, just as it had risen to its height, Mr. Clay,
on the 16th of January, 1821, resumed his seat in the House of Representatives.
Less than six weeks of the term of Congress then remained. The great hold which
he had upon the affections, as well as the respect, of all parties induced upon
his arrival a momentary lull in the tempest. He at once engaged earnestly and
solicitously in counsel with all parties in this alarming controversy, and on
the 2d of February moved the appointment of a committee of thirteen members to
consider the subject. The report of that committee, after four days of
conference, in which the feelings of all parties had clearly been consulted,
notwithstanding it was most earnestly supported by Mr. Clay in a speech of such
power and pathos as to draw tears from many hearers, was rejected by a vote of
83 nays to 80 yeas. No one, not a witness, can conceive the intense excitement
which existed at this moment within and without the walls of Congress,
aggravated as it was by the arrival of the day for counting the electoral votes
for President and Vice-President, among which was tendered the vote of Missouri
as a State, though not yet admitted as such. Her vote was disposed of by being
counted hypothetically, that is to say, that with the vote of Missouri, the
then state of the general vote would be so and so; without it, so and so. If
her vote, admitted, would have changed the result, no one can pretend to say
how disastrous the consequences might not have been.
On Mr. Clay alone
now rested the hopes of all rational and dispassionate men for a final
adjustment of this question; and one week only, with three days of grace,
remained of the existence of that Congress. On the 22d of the month, Mr. Clay
made a last effort, by moving the appointment of a joint committee of the two
houses, to consider and report whether it was expedient or not to make
provision for the admission of Missouri into the Union on the same footing of
the original States; and, if not, whether any other provision, adapted to her
actual condition, ought to be made by law. The motion was agreed to, and a
committee of twenty-three members appointed by ballot under it. The report by
that committee (a modification of the previously rejected report) was ratified
by the House, but by the close vote of 87 to 81. The Senate concurred, and so
this distracting question was at last settled, with an acquiescence in it by
all parties, which has never been since disturbed.
I have already
spoken of this as the great triumph of Mr. Clay; I might have said, the
greatest civil triumph ever achieved by mortal man. It was one towards which
the combination of the highest ability and the most commanding eloquence would
have labored in vain. There would still have been wanting the ardor, the
vehemence, the impetuousness of character of Henry Clay, under the influence of
which he sometimes overleaped all barriers, and carried his point literally by
storm. One incident of this kind is well remembered in connection with the
Missouri question. It was in an evening sitting, whilst this question was yet in
suspense. Mr. Clay had made a motion to allow one or two members to vote who
had been absent when their names were called. The Speaker (Mr. Taylor), who, to
a naturally equable temperament, added a most provoking calmness of manner when
all around him was excitement, blandly stated, for the information of the
gentleman, that the motion "was not in order." Mr. Clay then moved to
suspend the rule forbidding it, so as to allow him to make the motion; but the
Speaker, with imperturbable serenity, informed him that, according to the rules
and orders, such a motion could not be received without the unanimous consent
of the House. "Then," said Mr. Clay, exerting his voice even beyond
its highest wont, “I move to suspend ALL the rules of the House! Away with them!
Is it to be endured, that we shall be trammeled in our action by mere forms and
technicalities at a moment like this, when the peace, and perhaps the
existence, of this Union is at stake?"
Besides those to
which I have alluded, Mr. Clay performed many other signal public services,
which would have illustrated the character of any other American statesman.
Among these we cannot refrain from mentioning his measures for the protection
of American industry, and his compromise measure of 1833, by which the country
was relieved from the dangers and agitations produced by the doctrine and
spirit of "nullification." Indeed, his name is identified with all
the great measures of government during the long period of his public life. But
the occasion does not permit me to proceed further with this review of his
public services. History will record them to his honor.
Henry Clay was
indebted to no adventitious circumstances for the success and glory of his
life. Sprung from an humble stock, “he was fashioned to much honor from his
cradle;" and he achieved it by the noble use of the means which God and
nature had given him. He was no scholar, and had none of the advantages of
collegiate education. But there was a "divinity that stirred within
him." He was a man of a genius mighty enough to supply all the defects of
education. By its keen, penetrating observation, its quick apprehension, its
comprehensive and clear conception, he gathered knowledge without the study of
books; he could draw it from the fountain-head,— pure and undefiled; it was
unborrowed; the acquisition of his own observation, reflection, and experience;
and all his own. It entered into the composition of the man, forming part of
his mind, and strengthening and preparing him for all those great scenes of intellectual
exertion or controversy in which his life was spent. His armor was always on,
and he was ever ready for the battle.
This mighty genius
was accompanied, in him, by all the qualities necessary to sustain its action,
and to make it most irresistible. His person was tall and commanding, and his
demeanor—
"Lofty and sour to them that loved him not;
But to those men that sought him sweet as summer.”
He was direct and
honest, ardent and fearless, prompt to form his opinions, always bold in their
avowal, and sometimes impetuous or even rash in their vindication. In the
performance of his duties he feared no responsibility. He scorned all evasion
of untruth. No pale thoughts ever troubled his decisive mind.
Be just and fear
not" was the sentiment of his heart and the principle of his action. It
regulated his conduct in private and public life; all the ends he aimed at were
his country's, his God's, and truth's.
Such was Henry Clay,
and such, were his talents, qualities, and objects. Nothing but success and
honor could attend such a character. We have adverted briefly to some portions
of his public life. For nearly half a century he was an informing spirit,
brilliant and heroic figure in our political sphere, marshaling our country in
the way she ought to go. The "bright track of his fiery car" may be
traced through the whole space over which in his day his country and its
government have passed in the way to greatness and renown. It will still point
the way to further greatness and renown.
The great objects of
his public life were to preserve and strengthen the Union, to maintain the
Constitution and laws of the United States, to cherish industry, to protect
labor, and to facilitate, by all proper national improvements, the
communication between all the parts of our widely-extended country. This was
his American system of policy. With inflexible patriotism he pursued and
advocated it to his end. He was every inch an American. His heart and all that
there was of him were devoted to his country, to its liberty, and its free
institutions. He inherited the spirit of the Revolution in the midst of which
he was born; and the love of liberty and the pride of freedom were in him
principles of action.
A remarkable trait
in the character of Mr. Clay was his inflexibility in defending the public
interest against all schemes for its detriment. His exertions were, indeed, so
steadily employed and so often successful in protecting the public against the
injurious designs of visionary politicians or party demagogues, that he may be
almost said to have been, during forty years, the guardian angel of the
country. He never would compromise the public interest for anybody, or for any
personal advantage to himself.
He was the advocate
of liberty throughout the world, and his voice of cheering was raised in behalf
of every people who struggled for freedom. Greece, awakened from a long sleep
of servitude, heard his voice, and was reminded of her own Demosthenes. South
America, too, in her struggle for independence, heard his brave words of
encouragement, and her fainting heart was animated and her arm made strong.
Henry Clay is the
fair representative of the age in which he lived, an age which forms the
greatest and brightest era in the history of man,-an age teeming with new
discoveries and developments, extending in all directions the limits of human
knowledge, exploring the agencies and elements of the physical world and
turning and subjugating them to the uses of man, unfolding and establishing
practically the great principles of popular rights and free governments, and
which, nothing doubting, nothing fearing, still advances in majesty, aspiring
to, and demanding further improvement and further amelioration of the condition
of mankind.
With the chivalrous
and benignant spirit of this great era Henry Clay was thoroughly imbued. He
was, indeed, moulded by it and made in its own image. That spirit, be it
remembered, was not one of licentiousness, or turbulence, or blind innovation.
It was a wise spirit, good and honest as it was resolute and brave; and truth
and justice were its companions and guides.
These noble
qualities of truth and justice were conspicuous in the whole public life of
Henry Clay. On that solid foundation he stood erect and fearless; and when the
storms of state beat around and threatened to overwhelm him, his exclamation
was still heard, “truth is mighty and public justice certain." What a
magnificent and heroic figure does Henry Clay here present to the world! We can
but stand before and look upon it in silent reverence. His appeal was not in
vain; the passions of party subsided; truth and justice resumed their sway, and
his generous countrymen repaid him for all the wrong they had done him with
gratitude, affection, and admiration in his life and tears for his death.
It has been objected
to Henry Clay that he was ambitious. So he was. But in him ambition was virtue.
It sought only the proper, fair objects of honorable ambition, and it sought
these by honorable means only,-by so serving the country as to deserve its
favors and its honors. If he sought office, it was for the purpose of enabling
him by the power it would give, to serve his country more effectually and
pre-eminently; and, if he expected and desired thereby to advance his own fame,
who will say that was a fault? Who will say that it was a fault to seek and
desire office for any of the personal gratifications it may afford, so long as
those gratifications are made subordinate to the public good?
That Henry Clay's
object in desiring office was to serve his country, and that he would have made
all other considerations subservient, I have no doubt. I knew him well; I had
full opportunity of observing him in his most unguarded moments and conversations,
and I can say that I have never known a more unselfish, a more faithful or
intrepid representative of the people, of the people's rights, and the people's
interests, than Henry Clay. It was most fortunate for Kentucky to have such a
representative, and most fortunate for him to have such a constituent as
Kentucky, fortunate for him to have been thrown, in the early and susceptible
period of his life, into the primitive society of her bold and free people. As
one of her children, I am pleased to think that from that source he derived
some of that magnanimity and energy which his after-life so signally displayed.
I am pleased to think, that, mingling with all his great qualities, there was a
sort of Kentuckyism (I shall not undertake to define it) which, though it may
not have polished or refined, gave to them additional point and power, and free
scope of action.
Mr. Clay was a man
of profound judgment and strong will. He never doubted or faltered; all his
qualities were positive and peremptory, and to his convictions of public duty
he sacrificed every personal consideration.
With but little
knowledge of the rules of logic, or of rhetoric, he was a great debater and
orator. There was no art in his eloquence, no studied contrivances of language.
It was the natural outpouring of a great and ardent intellect. In his speeches
there were none of the trifles of mere fancy and imagination; all was to the
subject in hand, and to the purpose; and they may be regarded as great actions
of the mind, rather than fine displays of words. I doubt whether the eloquence
of Demosthenes or Cicero ever exercised a greater influence over the minds or
passions of the people of Athens and of Rome, than did Mr. Clay's over the
minds and passions of the people of the United States.
You all knew Mr.
Clay; your knowledge and recollection of him will present him more vividly to
your minds than any picture I can draw of him. This I will add: He was, in the
highest, truest sense of the term, a great man, and we ne'er shall look upon
his like again. He has gone to join the mighty dead in another and better world.
How little is there of such
a man that can die?
His fame, the memory of his benefactions, the lessons of his wisdom, all remain
with us; over these death has no power.
How few of the great
of this world have been so fortunate as he? How few of them have lived to see
their labors so rewarded? He lived to see the country that he loved and served
advanced to great prosperity and renown, and still advancing. He lived till
every prejudice which, at any period of his life had existed against him, was
removed; and until he had become the object of the reverence, love, and
gratitude of his whole country. His work seemed then to be completed, and fate
could not have selected a happier moment to remove him from the troubles and
vicissitudes of this life.
Glorious as his life
was, there was nothing that became him like the leaving of it. I saw him
frequently during the slow and lingering disease which terminated his life. He
was conscious of his approaching end, and prepared to meet it with all the
resignation and fortitude of a Christian hero. He was all patience, meekness,
and gentleness; these shone round him like a mild, celestial light, breaking
upon him from another world,
"And, to add greater honors to his age
Than man could give, he died fearing God."
1 Hon. Mr. Rush.
2 See Mr. Rush's letter to Mr. Clay, vol. i.
Collins's Life of Henry Clay.
SOURCE: Ann Mary
Butler Crittenden Coleman, Editor, The Life of John J. Crittenden: With
Selections from His Correspondence and Speeches, Vol. 2, p. 39-57
