_Resolved_, That a committee of six be appointed by the
president of the senate, to take order for superintending the
funeral of Henry Clay, late a member of this body, which will
take place to-morrow at twelve o’clock, M., and that the senate
will attend the same.
_Resolved_, That the members of the senate, from a sincere
desire of showing every mark of respect to the memory of the
deceased, will go into mourning for one month by the usual mode
of wearing crape on the left arm.
_Resolved_, As a further mark of respect entertained by
the senate for the memory of Henry Clay, and his long and
distinguished services to his country, that his remains, in
pursuance of the known wishes of his family, be removed to the
place of sepulture selected by himself at Lexington, in Kentucky,
in charge of the sergeant at arms, and attended by a committee
of six senators, to be appointed by the president of the senate,
who shall have full power to carry this resolution into effect.
* * * * *
Mr. CASS.――Mr. President: Again has an impressive warning come to teach
us, that in the midst of life we are in death. The ordinary labors of
this hall are suspended, and its contentions hushed, before the power
of Him, who says to the storm of human passion, as He said of old to
the waves of Galilee, PEACE, BE STILL. The lessons of His providence,
severe as they may be, often become merciful dispensations, like that
which is now spreading sorrow through the land, and which is reminding
us that we have higher duties to fulfil, and graver responsibilities to
encounter, than those that meet us here, when we lay our hand upon His
holy word, and invoke His holy name, promising to be faithful to that
Constitution, which He gave us in His mercy, and will withdraw only in
the hour of our blindness and disobedience, and of His own wrath.
Another great man has fallen in our land, ripe indeed in years and in
honors, but never dearer to the American people than when called from
the theatre of his services and renown to that final bar where the
lofty and the lowly must all meet at last.
I do not rise, upon this mournful occasion, to indulge in the language
of panegyric. My regard for the memory of the dead, and for the
obligations of the living, would equally rebuke such a course. The
severity of truth is, at once, our proper duty and our best consolation.
Born during the revolutionary struggle, our deceased associate was
one of the few remaining public men who connect the present generation
with the actors in the trying scenes of that eventful period, and whose
names and deeds will soon be known only in the history of their country.
He was another illustration, and a noble one, too, of the glorious
equality of our institutions, which freely offer all their rewards
to all who justly seek them; for he was the architect of his own
fortune, having made his way in life by self-exertion; and he was
an early adventurer in the great forest of the West, then a world of
primitive vegetation, but now the abode of intelligence and religion,
of prosperity and civilization. But he possessed that intellectual
superiority which overcomes surrounding obstacles, and which local
seclusion cannot long withhold from general knowledge and appreciation.
It is almost half a century since he passed through Chilicothe,
then the seat of government of Ohio, where I was a member of the
legislature, on his way to take his place in this very body, which is
now listening to this reminiscence, and to a feeble tribute of regard
from one who then saw him for the first time, but who can never forget
the impression he produced by the charms of his conversation, the
frankness of his manner, and the high qualities with which he was
endowed. Since then he has belonged to his country, and has taken a
part, and a prominent part, both in peace and war, in all the great
questions affecting her interest and her honor; and though it has been
my fortune often to differ from him, yet I believe he was as pure a
patriot as ever participated in the councils of a nation, anxious for
the public good, and seeking to promote it, during all the vicissitudes
of a long and eventful life. That he exercised a powerful influence,
within the sphere of his action, through the whole country, indeed, we
all feel and know; and we know, too, the eminent endowments to which
he owed this high distinction. Frank and fearless in the expression of
his opinion, and in the performance of his duties, with rare powers of
eloquence, which never failed to rivet the attention of his auditory,
and which always commanded admiration, even when they did not carry
conviction――prompt in decision, and firm in action, and with a vigorous
intellect, trained in the contests of a stirring life, and strengthened
by enlarged experience and observation, joined withal to an ardent
love of country, and to great purity of purpose,――these were the
elements of his power and success; and we dwell upon them with mournful
gratification now, when we shall soon follow him to the cold and silent
tomb, where we shall commit “earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to
dust,” but with the blessed conviction of the truth of that Divine
revelation which teaches us that there is life and hope beyond the
narrow house, where we shall leave him alone to the mercy of his God
and ours.
He has passed beyond the reach of human praise or censure; but the
judgment of his contemporaries has preceded and pronounced the judgment
of history, and his name and fame will shed lustre upon his country,
and will be proudly cherished in the hearts of his countrymen for long
ages to come. Yes, they will be cherished and freshly remembered, when
these marble columns that surround us, so often the witnesses of his
triumph――but in a few brief hours, when his mortal frame, despoiled
of the immortal spirit, shall rest under this dome for the last time,
to become the witnesses of his defeat in that final contest, where the
mightiest fall before the great destroyer――when these marble columns
shall themselves have fallen, like all the works of man, leaving their
broken fragments to tell the story of former magnificence, amid the
very ruins which announce decay and desolation.
I was often with him during his last illness, when the world and the
things of the world were fast fading away before him. He knew that the
silver cord was almost loosened, and that the golden bowl was breaking
at the fountain; but he was resigned to the will of Providence, feeling
that he who gave has the right to take away, in his own good time
and manner. After his duty to his Creator, and his anxiety for his
family, his first care was for his country, and his first wish for the
preservation and perpetuation of the Constitution and the Union――dear
to him in the hour of death, as they had ever been in the vigor of
life. Of that Constitution and Union, whose defence in the last and
greatest crisis of their peril, had called forth all his energies,
and stimulated those memorable and powerful exertions, which he who
witnessed can never forget, and which no doubt hastened the final
catastrophe a nation now deplores, with a sincerity and unanimity, not
less honorable to themselves, than to the memory of the object of their
affections. And when we shall enter that narrow valley, through which
he has passed before us, and which leads to the judgment-seat of God,
may we be able to say, through faith in his Son, our Saviour, and in
the beautiful language of the hymn of the dying Christian――dying, but
ever living, and triumphant――
‘The world recedes, it disappears――
Heaven opens on my eyes! my ears
With sounds seraphic ring;
Lend, lend your wings! I mount――I fly!
Oh, Grave! where is thy victory?
Oh, Death! where is thy sting!’
‘Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last hour be like
his.’
* * * * *
Mr. HUNTER.――Mr. President: We have heard, with deep sensibility, what
has just fallen from the senators who have preceded me. We have heard,
sir, the voice of Kentucky――and, upon this occasion, she had a right to
speak――in mingled accents of pride and sorrow; for it has rarely fallen
to the lot of any state to lament the loss of such a son. But Virginia,
too, is entitled to her place in this procession; for she cannot be
supposed to be unmindful of the tie which bound her to the dead. When
the earth opens to receive the mortal part which she gave to man, it
is then that affection is eager to bury in its bosom every recollection
but those of love and kindness. And, sir, when the last sensible tie
is about to be severed, it is then that we look with anxious interest
to the deeds of the life, and to the emanations of the heart and the
mind, for those more enduring monuments which are the creations of an
immortal nature.
In this instance, we can be at no loss for these. This land, sir, is
full of the monuments of his genius. His memory is as imperishable as
American history itself, for he was one of those who made it. Sir, he
belonged to that marked class who are the men of their century; for
it was his rare good fortune not only to have been endowed with the
capacity to do great things, but to have enjoyed the opportunities of
achieving them. I know, sir, it has been said and deplored, that he
wanted some of the advantages of an early education; but it, perhaps,
has not been remembered that, in many respects, he enjoyed such
opportunities for mental training as can rarely fall to the lot of
man. He had not a chance to learn so much from books, but he had such
opportunities of learning from men as few have ever enjoyed. Sir, it
is to be remembered that he was reared at a time when there was a state
of society, in the commonwealth which gave him birth, such as has never
been seen there before nor since. It was his early privilege to see how
justice was administered by a Pendleton and a Wythe, with the last of
whom he was in the daily habit of familiar intercourse. He had constant
opportunities to observe how forensic questions were managed by a
Marshall and a Wickham. He was old enough, too, to have heard and to
have appreciated the eloquence of a Patrick Henry, and of George Keith
Taylor. In short, sir, he lived in a society in which the examples of a
Jefferson, and a Madison, and a Monroe, were living influences, and on
which the setting sun of a Washington cast the mild effulgence of its
departing rays.
He was trained, too, as has been well said by the senator from
Michigan, [Mr. Cass,] at a period when the recent revolutionary
struggle had given a more elevated tone to patriotism, and imparted
a higher cast to public feeling and to public character. Such lessons
were worth, perhaps, more to him than the whole encyclopedia of
scholastic learning. Not only were the circumstances of his early
training favorable to the development of his genius, but the theatre
upon which he was thrown, was eminently propitious for its exercise.
The circumstances of the early settlement of Kentucky, the generous,
daring, and reckless character of the people――all fitted it to be the
theatre for the display of those commanding qualities of heart and mind,
which he so eminently possessed. There can be little doubt but that
those people and their chosen leader exercised a mutual influence upon
each other; and no one can be surprised that, with his brave spirit,
and commanding eloquence, and fascinating address, he should have led
not only there, but elsewhere.
I did not know him, Mr. President, as you did, in the freshness of
his prime, or in the full maturity of his manhood. I did not hear him,
sir, as you have heard him, when his voice roused the spirit of his
countrymen for war――when he cheered the drooping, when he rallied the
doubting through all the vicissitudes of a long and doubtful contest.
I have never seen him, sir, when, from the height of the chair, he
ruled the House of Representatives by the energy of his will, or when
upon the level of the floor he exercised a control almost as absolute,
by the mastery of his intellect. When I first knew him, his sun had
a little passed its zenith. The effacing hand of time had just begun
to touch the lineaments of his manhood. But yet, sir, I saw enough of
him to be able to realize what he might have been in the prime of his
strength, and in the full vigor of his maturity. I saw him, sir, as you
did, when he led the ‘opposition’ during the administration of Mr. Van
Buren. I had daily opportunities of witnessing the exhibition of his
powers during the extra session under Mr. Tyler’s administration. And I
saw, as we all saw, in a recent contest, the exhibition of power on his
part, which was most marvellous in one of his years.
Mr. President, he may not have had as much of analytic skill as
some others, in dissecting a subject. It may be, perhaps, that he
did not seek to look quite so far ahead as some who have been most
distinguished for political forecast. But it may be truly said of
Mr. Clay, that he was no exaggerator. He looked at events through
neither end of the telescope, but surveyed them with the natural and
the naked eye. He had the capacity of seeing things as the people
saw them, and of feeling things as the people felt them. He had, sir,
beyond any other man whom I have ever seen, the true mesmeric touch
of the orator――the rare art of transferring his impulses to others.
Thoughts, feelings, emotions, came from the ready mould of his genius,
radiant and glowing, and communicated their own warmth to every heart
which received them. His, too, was the power of wielding the higher
and intenser forms of passion with a majesty and an ease, which none
but the great masters of the human heart can ever employ. It was his
rare good fortune to have been one of those who form, as it were, a
sensible link, a living tradition which connects one age with another,
and through which one generation speaks its thoughts and feelings,
and appeals to another. And, unfortunate is it for a country, when it
ceases to possess such men, for it is to them that we chiefly owe the
capacity to maintain the unity of the great Epos of human history, and
preserve the consistency of political action.
Sir, it may be said that the grave is still new-made which covers the
mortal remains of one of those great men who have been taken from our
midst, and the earth is soon to open to receive another. I know not
whether it can be said to be a matter of lamentation, so far as the
dead are concerned, that the thread of this life has been clipped when
once it had been fully spun. They escape the infirmities of age, and
they leave an imperishable name behind them. The loss, sir, is not
theirs, but ours; and a loss the more to be lamented that we see none
to fill the places thus made vacant on the stage of public affairs. But
it may be well for us, who have much more cause to mourn and to lament
such deaths, to pause amidst the business of life for the purpose of
contemplating the spectacle before us, and of drawing the moral from
the passing event. It is when death seizes for its victims those who
are, by ‘a head and shoulders, taller than all the rest,’ that we feel
most deeply the uncertainty of human affairs, and that ‘the glories of
our mortal state are shadows, not substantial things.’ It is, sir, in
such instances as the present that we can best study by the light of
example the true objects of life, and the wisest ends of human pursuit.
* * * * *
Mr. HALE.――Mr. President: I hope I shall not be considered obtrusive,
if on this occasion, for a brief moment, I mingle my humble voice
with those that, with an ability that I shall neither attempt nor
hope to equal, have sought to do justice to the worth and memory of
the deceased, and at the same time appropriately to minister to the
sympathies and sorrows of a stricken people. Sir, it is the teaching
of inspiration that ‘no man liveth and no man dieth unto himself.’
There is a lesson taught no less in the death than in the life of every
man――eminently so in the case of one who has filled a large space and
occupied a distinguished position in the thoughts and regard of his
fellow-men. Particularly instructive at this time is the event which we
now deplore, although the circumstances attending his decease are such
as are calculated to assuage rather than aggravate the grief which it
must necessarily cause. His time had fully come. The three score and
ten marking the ordinary period of human life had for some years been
passed, and, full of years and of honors, he has gone to his rest. And
now, when the nation is marshalling itself for the contest which is
to decide ‘who shall be greatest,’ as if to chasten our ambition, to
restrain and subdue the violence of passion, to moderate our desires
and elevate our hopes, we have the spectacle of one who, by the force
of his intellect and the energy of his own purpose, had achieved a
reputation which the highest official honors of the Republic might have
illustrated, but could not have enhanced, laid low in death――as if,
at the very outset of this political contest, on which the nation is
now entering, to teach the ambitious and aspiring the vanity of human
pursuit and end of earthly honor. But, sir, I do not intend to dwell
on that moral which is taught by the silent lips and closed eye of the
illustrious dead, with a force such as no man ever spoke with; but I
shall leave the event, with its silent and mute eloquence, to impress
its own appropriate teachings on the heart.
In the long and eventful life of Mr. Clay, in the various positions
which he occupied, in the many posts of public duty which he filled, in
the many exhibitions which his history affords of untiring energy, of
unsurpassed eloquence, and of devoted patriotism, it would be strange
indeed if different minds, as they dwell upon the subject, were all to
select the same incidents of his life, as preëminently calculated to
challenge admiration and respect.
Sir, my admiration――ay, my affection for Mr. Clay――was won and secured
many years since, even in my school-boy days――when his voice of counsel,
encouragement, and sympathy, was heard in the other hall of this
capitol, in behalf of the struggling colonies of the southern portion
of this continent, who, in pursuit of their inalienable rights, in
imitation of our own forefathers, had unfurled the banner of liberty,
and, regardless of consequences, had gallantly rushed into that contest
where ‘life is lost, or freedom won.’ And again, sir, when Greece,
rich in the memories of the past, awoke from the slumber of ages of
oppression and centuries of shame, and resolved
‘To call her virtues back, and conquer time and fate’――
there, over the plains of that classic land, above the din of battle
and the clash of arms, mingling with the shouts of the victors and the
groans of the vanquished, were heard the thrilling and stirring notes
of that same eloquence, excited by a sympathy which knew no bounds,
wide as the world, pleading the cause of Grecian liberty before the
American congress, as if to pay back to Greece the debt which every
patriot and orator felt was her due. Sir, in the long and honorable
career of the deceased, there are many events and circumstances upon
which his friends and posterity will dwell with satisfaction and pride,
but none which will preserve his memory with more unfading lustre to
future ages than the course he pursued in the Spanish, American, and
Greek revolutions.
* * * * *
Mr. CLEMENS.――Mr. President: I should not have thought it necessary
to add any thing to what has already been said, but for a request
preferred by some of the friends of the deceased. I should have been
content to mourn him in silence, and left it to other tongues to
pronounce his eulogy. What I have now to say shall be brief――very brief.
Mr. President, it is now less than three short years ago since I first
entered this body. At that period it numbered among its members many of
the most illustrious statesmen this republic has ever produced, or the
world has ever known. Of the living, it is not my purpose to speak; but
in that brief period, death has been busy here; and, as if to mark the
feebleness of human things, his arrows have been aimed at the highest,
the mightiest of us all. First, died Calhoun. And well, sir, do I
remember the deep feeling evinced on that occasion by him whose death
has been announced here to-day, when he said: “I was his senior in
years――nothing else. In the course of nature I ought to have preceded
him. It has been decreed otherwise; but I know that I shall linger here
only a short time, and shall soon follow him.” It was genius mourning
over his younger brother, and too surely predicting his own approaching
end.
He, too, is now gone from among us, and left none like him behind.
That voice, whose every tone was music, is hushed and still. That
clear, bright eye is dim and lustreless, and that breast, where grew
and flourished every quality which could adorn and dignify our nature,
is cold as the clod that soon must cover it. A few hours have wrought
a mighty change――a change for which a lingering illness had, indeed, in
some degree, prepared us; but which, nevertheless, will still fall upon
the nation with crushing force. Many a sorrowing heart is now asking,
as I did yesterday, when I heard the first sound of the funeral bell――
“And is he gone?――the pure of the purest,
The hand that upheld our bright banner the surest,
Is he gone from our struggles away?
But yesterday lending a people new life,
Cold, mute, in the coffin to-day.”
Mr. President, this is an occasion when eulogy must fail to perform
its office. The long life which is now ended is a history of glorious
deeds too mighty for the tongue of praise. It is in the hearts of
his countrymen that his best epitaph must be written. It is in the
admiration of a world that his renown must be recorded. In that deep
love of country which distinguished every period of his life, he may
not have been unrivalled. In loftiness of intellect, he was not without
his peers. The skill with which he touched every chord of the human
heart may have been equalled. The iron will, the unbending firmness,
the fearless courage, which marked his character, may have been shared
by others. But where shall we go to find all these qualities united,
concentrated, blended into one brilliant whole, and shedding a lustre
upon one single head, which does not dazzle the beholder only because
it attracts his love and demands his worship?
I scarcely know, sir, how far it may be allowable, upon an occasion
like this, to refer to party struggles which have left wounds not yet
entirely healed. I will venture, however, to suggest, that it should
be a source of consolation to his friends that he lived long enough
to see the full accomplishment of the last great work of his life,
and to witness the total disappearance of that sectional tempest
which threatened to whelm the republic in ruins. Both the great
parties of the country have agreed to stand upon the platform which he
erected, and both of them have solemnly pledged themselves to maintain
unimpaired the work of his hands. I doubt not the knowledge of this
cheered him in his dying moments, and helped to steal away the pangs
of dissolution.
Mr. President, if I knew any thing more that I could say, I would
gladly utter it. To me, he was something more than kind, and I am
called upon to mingle a private with the public grief. I wish that
I could do something to add to his fame. But he built for himself a
monument of immortality, and left to his friends no task but that of
soothing their own sorrow for his loss. We pay to him the tribute of
our tears. More we have no power to bestow. Patriotism, honour, genius,
courage, have all come to strew their garlands about his tomb; and well
they may, for he was the peer of them all.
* * * * *
Mr. COOPER.――Mr. President: It is not always by words that the living
pay to the dead the sincerest and most eloquent tribute. The tears of
a nation, flowing spontaneously over the grave of a public benefactor,
is a more eloquent testimonial of his worth and of the affection and
veneration of his countrymen, than the most highly-wrought eulogium of
the most gifted tongue. The heart is not necessarily the fountain of
words, but it is always the source of tears, whether of joy, gratitude,
or grief. But sincere, truthful, and eloquent, as they are, they leave
no permanent record of the virtues and greatness of him on whose tomb
they are shed. As the dews of heaven falling at night are absorbed by
the earth, or dried up by the morning sun, so the tears of a people,
shed for their benefactor, disappear without leaving a trace to tell to
future generations of the services, sacrifices, and virtues of him to
whose memory they were a grateful tribute. But as homage paid to virtue
is an incentive to it, it is right that the memory of the good, the
great, and noble of the earth should be preserved and honored.
The ambition, Mr. President, of the truly great, is more the
hope of living in the memory and estimation of future ages than
of possessing power in their own. It is this hope that stimulates
them to perseverance; that enables them to encounter disappointment,
ingratitude, and neglect, and to press on through toils, privations,
and perils to the end. It was not the hope of discovering a world, over
which he should himself exercise dominion, that sustained Columbus in
all his trials. It was not for this he braved danger, disappointment,
poverty, and reproach. It was not for this he subdued his native pride,
wandered from kingdom to kingdom, kneeling at the feet of princes, a
suppliant for means to prosecute his sublime enterprise. It was not
for this, after having at last secured the patronage of Isabella, that
he put off in his crazy and ill-appointed fleet into unknown seas, to
struggle with storms and tempests, and the rage of a mutinous crew. It
was another and nobler kind of ambition that stimulated him to contend
with terror, superstition, and despair, and to press forward on his
perilous course, when the needle in his compass, losing its polarity,
seemed to unite with the fury of the elements and the insubordination
of his crew in turning him back from his perilous but glorious
undertaking. It was the hope which was realized at last, when his
ungrateful country was compelled to inscribe, as an epitaph on his
tomb, ‘Columbus has given a New World to the Kingdoms of Castile and
Leon,’ that enabled him, at first, to brave so many disappointments,
and at last, to conquer the multitude of perils that beset his pathway
on the deep. This, sir, is the ambition of the truly great――not to
achieve present fame, but future immortality. This being the case, it
is befitting here to-day to add to the life of Henry Clay the record
of his death, signalized as it is by a nation’s gratitude and grief. It
is right that posterity should learn from us, the contemporaries of the
illustrious deceased, that his virtues and services were appreciated by
his country, and acknowledged by the tears of his countrymen poured out
upon his grave.
The career of Henry Clay was a wonderful one. And what an illustration
of the excellence of our institutions would a retrospect of his life
afford! Born in an humble station, ♦without any of the adventitious
aids of fortune by which the obstructions on the road to fame are
smoothed, he rose not only to the most exalted eminence of position,
but likewise to the highest place in the affections of his countrymen.
Taking into view the disadvantages of his early position, disadvantages
against which he had always to contend, his career is without a
parallel in the history of great men. To have seen him a youth, without
friends or fortune, and with but a scanty education, who would have
ventured to predict for him a course so brilliant and beneficent, and
a fame so well deserved and enduring? Like the pine, which sometimes
springs up amidst the rocks on the mountain side, with scarce a
crevice in which to fix its roots, or soil to nourish them, but which,
nevertheless, overtops all the trees of the surrounding forest, Henry
Clay, by his own inherent, self-sustaining energy and genius, rose to
an altitude of fame almost unequalled in the age in which he lived.
As an orator, legislator, and statesman, he had no superior. All his
faculties were remarkable, and in remarkable combination. Possessed
of a brilliant genius and fertile imagination, his judgment was sound,
discriminating, and eminently practical. Of an ardent and impetuous
temperament, he was nevertheless persevering and firm of purpose.
Frank, bold, and intrepid, he was cautious in providing against the
contingencies and obstacles which might possibly rise up in the road to
success. Generous, liberal, and entertaining broad and expanded views
of national policy, in his legislative course he never transcended the
limits of a wise economy.
But, Mr. President, of all his faculties, that of making friends and
attaching them to him was the most remarkable and extraordinary. In
this respect, he seemed to possess a sort of fascination, by which all
who came into his presence were attracted towards, and bound to him
by ties which neither time nor circumstances had power to dissolve or
weaken. In the admiration of his friends was the recognition of the
divinity of intellect; in their attachment to him a confession of his
generous personal qualities and social virtues.
Of the public services of Mr. Clay, the present occasion affords no
room for a sketch more extended than that which his respected colleague
[Mr. Underwood] has presented. It is, however, sufficient to say, that
for more forty years he has been a prominent actor in the drama of
American affairs. During the late war with England, his voice was more
potent than any other in awakening the spirit of the country, infusing
confidence into the people, and rendering available the resources for
carrying on the contest. In our domestic controversies, threatening
the peace of the country and the integrity of the Union, he has always
been first to note danger, as well as to suggest the means of averting
it. When the waters of the great political deep were upheaved by
the tempest of discord, and the ark of the Union, freighted with the
hopes and destinies of freedom, tossing about on the raging billows,
and drifting every moment nearer to the vortex which threatened to
swallow it up, it was his clarion voice, rising above the storm, that
admonished the crew of impending peril, and counselled the way to
safety.
But, Mr. President, devotedly as he loved his country, his aspirations
were not limited to its welfare alone. Wherever freedom had a votary,
that votary had a friend in Henry Clay; and in the struggle of the
Spanish colonies for independence he uttered words of encouragement
which have become the mottoes on the banners of freedom in every land.
But neither the services which he has rendered his own country, nor
his wishes for the welfare of others, nor his genius, nor the affection
of friends, could turn aside the destroyer. No price could purchase
exemption from the common lot of humanity. Henry Clay, the wise, the
great, the gifted, had to die; and his history is summed up in the
biography which the Russian poet has prepared for all, kings and serfs:
* * * * ‘Born, living, dying,
Quitting the still shore for the troubled wave,
Struggling with storm-clouds, over shipwrecks flying,
And casting anchor in the silent grave.’
But though time would not spare him, there is still this of consolation:
he died peacefully and happy, ripe in renown, full of years and of
honours, and rich in the affections of his country. He had, too, the
unspeakable satisfaction of closing his eyes whilst the country he had
loved so much and served so well was still in the enjoyment of peace,
happiness, union, and prosperity――still advancing in all the elements
of wealth, greatness, and power.
I know, Mr. President, how unequal I have been to the apparently
self-imposed task of presenting, in an appropriate manner, the merits
of the illustrious deceased. But if I had remained silent on an
occasion like this, when the hearts of my constituents are swelling
with grief, I would have been disowned by them. It is for this
reason――that of giving utterance to their feelings as well as of my
own――that I have trespassed on the time of the senate. I would that
I could have spoken fitter words; but such as they are, they were
uttered by the tongue in response to the promptings of the heart.
* * * * *
Mr. SEWARD.――Mr. President: Fifty years ago, Henry Clay, of Virginia,
already adopted by Kentucky, then as youthful as himself, entered
the service of his country, a representative in the unpretending
legislature of that rising state; and having thenceforward, with ardor
and constancy, pursued the gradual paths of an aspiring change through
halls of congress, foreign courts and executive councils, he has now,
with the cheerfulness of a patriot, and the serenity of a Christian,
fitly closed his long and arduous career, here in the senate, in the
full presence of the republic, looking down upon the scene with anxiety
and alarm, not merely a senator, like one of us who yet remain in
the senate-house, but filling that character which, though it had no
authority of law, and was assigned without suffrage, Augustus Cæsar
nevertheless declared was above the title of Emperor, _Primus inter
Illustres_――the Prince of the Senate.
Generals are tried, Mr. President, by examining the campaigns they
have lost or won, and statesmen by reviewing the transactions in which
they have been engaged. Hamilton would have been unknown to us, had
there been no constitution to be created; as Brutus would have died in
obscurity, had there been no Cæsar to be slain.
Colonization, Revolution, and Organization――three great acts in the
drama of our National Progress――had already passed when the Western
Patriot appeared on the public stage. He entered in that next division
of the majestic scenes which was marked by an inevitable rëaction of
political forces, a wild strife of factions and ruinous embarrassments
in our foreign relations. This transition stage is always more perilous
than any other in the career of nations, and especially in the career
of Republics. It proved fatal to the Commonwealth in England. Scarcely
any of the Spanish-American states have yet emerged from it; and more
than once it has been sadly signalized by the ruin of the republican
cause in France.
The continuous administration of Washington and John Adams had closed
under a cloud which had thrown a broad, dark shadow over the future;
the nation was deeply indebted at home and abroad, and its credit was
prostrate. The revolutionary factions had given place to two inveterate
parties, divided by a gulf which had been worn by the conflict in
which the Constitution was adopted, and made broader and deeper by
a war of prejudices concerning the merits of the belligerents in
the great European struggle that then convulsed the civilized world.
Our extraordinary political system was little more than an ingenious
theory, not yet practically established. The union of the states was
as yet only one of compact; for the political, social, and commercial
necessities to which it was so marvelously adapted, and which,
clustering thickly upon it, now render it indissoluble, had not
then been broadly disclosed, nor had the habits of acquiescence and
the sentiments of loyalty, always slow of growth, fully ripened. The
bark that had gone to sea, thus unfurnished and untried, seemed quite
certain to founder by reason of its own inherent frailty, even if
it should escape unharmed in the great conflict of nations which
acknowledged no claims of justice and tolerated no pretensions of
neutrality. Moreover, the territory possessed by the nation was
inadequate to commercial exigencies and indispensable social expansion;
and yet no provision had been made for enlargement, nor for extending
the political system over distant regions, inhabited or otherwise,
which must inevitably be acquired. Nor could any such acquisition be
made, without disturbing the carefully-adjusted balance of powers among
the members of the confederacy.
These difficulties, Mr. President, although they grew less with
time and by slow degrees, continued throughout the whole life of the
statesman whose obsequies we are celebrating. Be it known, then, and
I am sure that history will confirm the instruction, that conservatism
was the interest of the nation, and the responsibility of its rulers,
during the period in which he flourished. He was ardent, bold, generous,
and even ambitious; and yet, with a profound conviction of the true
exigencies of the country, like Alexander Hamilton, he disciplined
himself and trained a restless nation, that knew only self-control, to
the rigorous practice of that often humiliating conservatism which its
welfare and security in that particular crisis so imperiously demanded.
It could not happen, sir, to any citizen to have acted alone, nor even
to have acted always the most conspicuous part in a trying period so
long protracted. Henry Clay, therefore, shared the responsibilities of
government with not only his proper contemporaries, but also survivors
of the Revolution, as well as also many who will succeed himself.
Delicacy forbids the naming of those who retain their places here, but
we may without impropriety recall among his compeers a senator of vast
resources and inflexible resolve, who has recently withdrawn from this
chamber, but I trust not altogether from public life, (Mr. Benton);
and another, who, surpassing all his contemporaries within his country,
and even throughout the world, in proper eloquence of the forum, now in
autumnal years for a second time dignifies and adorns the highest seat
in the executive council, (Mr. Webster.) Passing by these eminent and
noble men, the shades of Calhoun, John Quincy Adams, Jackson, Monroe,
and Jefferson, rise up before us――statesmen whose living and local fame
has ripened already into historical and world-wide renown.
Among geniuses so lofty as these, Henry Clay bore a part in regulating
the constitutional freedom of political debate; establishing that
long-contested and most important line which divides the sovereignty
of the several states from that of the states confederated; asserting
the right of neutrality, and vindicating it by a war against Great
Britain, when that just but extreme measure became necessary; adjusting
the terms on which that perilous yet honorable contest was brought to
a peaceful close; perfecting the army and the navy, and the national
fortifications; settling the fiscal and financial policy of the
government in more than one crisis of apparently threatened revolution;
asserting and calling into exercise the powers of the government
for making and improving internal communications between the states;
arousing and encouraging the Spanish-American colonies on this
continent to throw off the foreign yoke, and to organize governments
on principles congenial to our own, and thus creating external
bulwarks for our own national defence; establishing equal and impartial
peace and amity with all existing maritime powers; and extending the
constitutional organization of government over all the vast regions
secured in his lifetime by purchase or by conquest, whereby the pillars
of the republic have been removed from the banks of the St. Mary to
the borders of the Rio Grande, and from the margin of the Mississippi
to the Pacific coast. We may not yet discuss here the wisdom of the
several measures which have thus passed in review before us, nor of the
positions which the deceased statesman assumed in regard to them, but
we may without offence dwell upon the comprehensive results of them all.
The Union exists in absolute integrity, and the republican system is
in complete and triumphant development. Without having relinquished any
part of their individuality, the states have more than doubled already,
and are increasing in numbers and political strength and expansion more
rapidly than ever before. Without having absorbed any state, or having
even encroached on any state, the Confederation has opened itself so
as to embrace all the new members who have come, and now, with capacity
for further and indefinite enlargements, has become fixed, enduring,
and perpetual. Although it was doubted only half a century ago whether
our political system could be maintained at all, and whether, if
maintained, it could guarantee the peace and happiness of society, it
stands now confessed by the world the form of government not only most
adapted to Empire, but also most congenial with the constitution of
Human Nature.
When we consider that the nation has been conducted to this haven,
not only through stormy seas, but altogether, also, without a course
and without a star; and when we consider, moreover, the sum of
happiness that has already been enjoyed by the American people, and
still more the influence which the great achievement is exerting for
the advancement and melioration of the condition of mankind, we see at
once that it might have satisfied the highest ambition to have been,
no matter how humbly, concerned in so great transaction.
Certainly, sir, no one will assert that Henry Clay in that transaction
performed an obscure or even a common part. On the contrary, from
the day on which he entered the public service until that on which
he passed the gates of death, he was never a follower, but always a
leader; and he marshalled either the party which sustained or that
which resisted every great measure, equally in the senate and among the
people. He led where duty seemed to him to indicate, reckless whether
he encountered one president or twenty presidents, whether he was
opposed by factions or even by the whole people. Hence it has happened,
that although that people are not yet agreed among themselves on the
wisdom of all, or perhaps of even any of his great measures, yet they
are nevertheless unanimous in acknowledging that he was at once the
greatest, the most faithful, and the most reliable of their statesmen.
Here the effort at discriminating praise of Henry Clay, in regard to
his public policy, must stop in this place, even on this sad occasion
which awakens the ardent liberality of his generous survivors.
But his personal qualities may be discussed without apprehension. What
were the elements of the success of that extraordinary man? You, sir,
knew him longer and better than I, and I would prefer to hear you speak
of them. He was indeed eloquent――all the world knows that. He held the
keys to the hearts of his countrymen, and he turned the wards within
them with a skill attained by no other master.
But eloquence was nevertheless only an instrument, and one of many that
he used. His conversation, his gesture, his very look, was persuasive,
seductive, irresistible. And his appliance of all these was courteous,
patient and indefatigable. Defeat only inspired him with new resolution.
He divided opposition by his assiduity of address, while he rallied and
strengthened his own bands of supporters by the confidence of success
which, feeling himself, he easily inspired among his followers. His
affections were high, and pure, and generous, and the chiefest among
them was that which the great Italian poet designated as the charity of
native land. And in him that charity was an enduring and overpowering
enthusiasm, and it influenced all his sentiments and conduct, rendering
him more impartial between conflicting interests and sections than
any other statesman who has lived since the Revolution. Thus with very
great versatility of talent and the most catholic equality of favor,
he identified every question, whether of domestic administration or
foreign policy, with his own great name, and so became a perpetual
Tribune of the people. He needed only to pronounce in favor of a
measure or against it, here, and immediately popular enthusiasm,
excited as by a magic wand, was felt, overcoming all opposition in
the senate chamber.
In this way he wrought a change in our political system, that I think
was not foreseen by its founders. He converted this branch of the
legislature from a negative position, or one of equilibrium between
the executive and the house of representatives, into the active ruling
power of the republic. Only time can disclose whether this great
innovation shall be beneficent, or even permanent.
Certainly, sir, the great lights of the senate have set. The
obscuration is not less palpable to the country than to us, who are
left to grope our uncertain way here, as in a labyrinth, oppressed
with self-distrust. The times, too, present new embarrassments. We are
rising to another and a more sublime stage of natural progress,――that
of expanding wealth and rapid territorial aggrandizement. Our
institutions throw a broad shadow across the St. Lawrence, and,
stretching beyond the valley of Mexico, it reaches even to the plains
of Central America; while the Sandwich Islands and the shores of China
recognise its renovating influence. Wherever that influence is felt, a
desire for protection under those institutions is awakened. Expansion
seems to be regulated, not by any difficulties of resistance, but by
the moderation which results from our own internal constitution. No one
knows how rapidly that restraint may give way. Who can tell how far or
how fast it ought to yield? Commerce has brought the ancient continents
near to us, and created necessities for new positions――perhaps
connections or colonies there――and with the trade and friendship of the
elder nations, their conflicts and collisions are brought to our doors
and to our hearts. Our sympathy kindles, our indifference extinguishes
the fire of freedom in foreign lands. Before we shall be fully
conscious that a change is going on in Europe, we may find ourselves
once more divided by that eternal line of separation that leaves on
the one side those of our citizens who obey the impulses of sympathy,
while on the other are found those who submit only to the counsels of
prudence. Even prudence will soon be required to decide whether distant
regions, East and West, shall come under our own protection, or be left
to aggrandize a rapidly spreading and hostile domain of despotism.
Sir, who among us is equal to these mighty questions? I fear there
is no one. Nevertheless, the example of Henry Clay remains for our
instruction. His genius has passed to the realms of light, but his
virtues still live here for our emulation. With them there will remain
also the protection and favor of the Most High, if by the practice of
justice and the maintenance of freedom we shall deserve it. Let, then,
the bier pass on. With sorrow, but not without hope, we will follow the
revered form that it bears to its final resting place; and then, when
that grave opens at our feet to receive such an inestimable treasure,
we will invoke the God of our fathers to send us new guides, like him
that is now withdrawn, and give us wisdom to obey their instructions.
* * * * *
Mr. JONES, of Iowa.――Mr. President: Of the vast number who mourn
the departure of the great man whose voice has so often been heard
in this hall, I have peculiar cause to regret that dispensation which
has removed him from among us. He was the guardian and director of
my collegiate days; four of his sons were my collegemates and my warm
friends. My intercourse with the father was that of a youth and a
friendly adviser. I shall never cease to feel grateful to him――to his
now heart-stricken and bereaved widow and children, for their many
kindnesses to me during four or five years of my life. I had the
pleasure of renewing my acquaintance with him, first, as a delegate
in congress, while he was a member of this body from 1835 to 1839,
and again in 1848, as a member of this branch of congress; and during
the whole of which period, some eight years, none but the most kindly
feeling existed between us.
As an humble and unimportant senator, it was my fortune to coöperate
with him throughout the whole of the exciting session of 1849–’50――the
labor and excitement of which is said to have precipitated his decease.
That coöperation did not end with the accordant vote on this floor, but,
in consequence of the ♦unyielding opposition to the series of measures
known as the ‘compromise,’ extended to many private meetings held
by its friends, at all of which Mr. Clay was present. And whether in
public or private life, he every where continued to inspire me with the
most exalted estimate of his patriotism and statesmanship. Never shall
I forget the many ardent appeals he made to senators, in and out of
the senate, in favor of the settlement of our then unhappy sectional
differences.
Immediately after the close of that memorable session of congress,
during which the nation beheld his great and almost superhuman efforts
upon this floor to sustain the wise counsels of the ‘Father of his
Country,’ I accompanied him home to Ashland, at his invitation, to
revisit the place where my happiest days had been spent, with the
friends who there continued to reside. During that, to me, most
agreeable and instructive journey, in many conversations he evinced
the utmost solicitude for the welfare and honor of the republic, all
tending to show that he believed the happiness of the people and the
cause of liberty throughout the world depended upon the continuance of
our glorious Union, and the avoidance of those sectional dissensions
which could but alienate the affections of one portion of the people
from another. With the sincerity and fervor of a true patriot, he
warned his companions in that journey to withhold all aid from men
who labored, and from every cause which tended, to sow the seeds of
disunion in the land; and to oppose such, he declared himself willing
to forego all the ties and associations of mere party.
At a subsequent period, sir, this friend of my youth, at my earnest
and repeated entreaties, consented to take a sea voyage from New
York to Havana. He remained at the latter place a fortnight, and then
returned by New Orleans to Ashland. That excursion by sea, he assured
me, contributed much to relieve him from the sufferings occasioned by
the disease which has just terminated his eventful and glorious life.
Would to Heaven that he could have been persuaded to abandon his duties
as a senator, and to have remained during the past winter and spring
upon that island of Cuba! The country would not now, perhaps, have been
called to mourn his loss.
In some matters of policy connected with the administration of our
general government, I have disagreed with him, yet the purity and
sincerity of his motives I never doubted; and as a true lover of his
country, as an honorable and honest man, I trust his example will
be reverenced and followed by the men of this, and of succeeding
generations.
* * * * *
Mr. BROOKE.――Mr. President: As an ardent, personal admirer and
political friend of the distinguished dead, I claim the privilege of
adding my humble tribute of respect to his memory, and of joining in
the general expression of sorrow that has gone forth from this chamber.
Death, at all times, is an instructive monitor as well as a mournful
messenger; but when his fatal shaft hath stricken down the great in
intellect and renown, how doubly impressive the lesson that it brings
home to the heart that the grave is the common lot of all――the great
leveller of all earthly distinctions! But at the same time we are
taught that in one sense the good and great can never die; for the
memory of their virtues and their bright example will live through
all coming time in an immortality that blooms beyond the grave. The
consolation of this thought may calm our sorrow; and, in the language
of one of our own poets, it may be asked:
‘Why weep ye, then, for him, who having run
The bound of man’s appointed years, at last,
Life’s blessings all enjoyed, life’s labors done,
Serenely to his final rest has pass’d;
While the soft memory of his virtues yet
Lingers, like twilight hues when the bright sun has set?’
It will be doing no injustice, sir, to the living or the dead to say,
that no better specimen of the true American character can be found in
our history than that of Mr. Clay. With no adventitious advantages of
birth or fortune, he won his way by the efforts of his own genius to
the highest distinction and honour. Ardently attached to the principles
of civil and religious liberty, patriotism was with him both a passion
and a sentiment――a passion that gave energy to his ambition, and a
sentiment that pervaded all his thoughts and actions, concentrating
them upon his country as the idol of his heart. The bold and manly
frankness in the expression of his opinions which always characterized
him, has often been the subject of remark; and in all his victories
it may be truly said he never ‘stooped to conquer.’ In his long and
brilliant political career, personal considerations never for a single
instant caused him to swerve from the strict line of duty, and none
have ever doubted his deep sincerity in that memorable expression to
Mr. Preston, ‘Sir, I had rather be right than be President.’
This is not the time nor occasion, sir, to enter into a detail of the
public services of Mr. Clay, interwoven as they are with the history
of the country for half a century; but I cannot refrain from adverting
to the last crowning act of his glorious life――his great effort in the
thirty-first congress for the preservation of the peace and integrity
of this great republic, as it was this effort that shattered his bodily
strength, and hastened the consummation of death. The Union of the
states, as being essential to our prosperity and happiness, was the
paramount proposition in his political creed, and the slightest symptom
of danger to its perpetuity filled him with alarm, and called forth
all the energies of his body and mind. In his earlier life he had met
this danger and overcome it. In the conflict of contending factions
it again appeared; and coming forth from the repose of private life,
to which age and infirmity had carried him, with unabated strength of
intellect, he again entered upon the arena of political strife, and
again success crowned his efforts, and peace and harmony were restored
to a distracted people. But, unequal to the mighty struggle, his bodily
strength sank beneath it, and he retired from the field of his glory
to yield up his life as a holy sacrifice to his beloved country. It
has well been said that peace has its victories as well as war; and
how bright upon the page of history will be the record of this great
victory of intellect, of reason, and of moral suasion, over the spirit
of discord and sectional animosities!
We this day, Mr. President, commit his memory to the regard and
affection of his admiring countrymen. It is a consolation to them and
to us to know that he died in full possession of his glorious intellect,
and, what is better, in the enjoyment of that ‘peace which the world
can neither give nor take away.’ He sank to rest as the full-orbed king
of day, unshorn of a single beam, or rather like the planet of morning,
his brightness was but eclipsed by the opening to him of a more full
and perfect day――
‘No waning of fire, no paling of ray,
But rising, still rising, as passing away.
Farewell, gallant eagle, thou’rt buried in light――
God speed thee to heaven, lost star of our night.’
The resolutions submitted by Mr. Underwood, were then unanimously
agreed to.
_Ordered_, That the secretary communicate these resolutions to
the House of Representatives.
On motion by Mr. Underwood,
_Resolved_, That, as an additional mark of respect to the memory
of the deceased, the senate do now adjourn.
* * * * *