[AT the close of Mr. Adams’s administration, Mr. Clay,
having resigned his office of secretary of state before the
inauguration of general Jackson as president of the United
States, was invited to meet his friends at Washington city,
and others from various parts of the union, at a public dinner,
which he accepted, while preparing to return to the place of
his residence at the west. On this occasion the fifth toast was:
‘Health, prosperity, and happiness to our highly valued and
esteemed guest and fellow-citizen, Henry CLAY. Whatever the
future destination of his life, he has done enough for honor,
and need desire no higher reward than the deep seated affection
and respect of his friends and his country.’
This having been received with much feeling and applause,
Mr. Clay arose and addressed the company as follows:]
IN rising, Mr. President, to offer my respectful acknowledgments for
the honors of which I am here the object, I must ask the indulgence
of yourself and the other gentlemen now assembled, for an unaffected
embarrassment, which is more sensibly felt than it can be distinctly
expressed. This city has been the theatre of the greater portion of
my public life. You, and others whom I now see, have been spectators
of my public course and conduct. You and they are, if I may borrow
a technical expression from an honorable profession of which you and
I are both members, jurors of the vicinage. To a judgment rendered
by those who have thus long known me, and by others though not of
the panel, who have possessed equal opportunities of forming correct
opinions, I most cheerfully submit. If the weight of human testimony
should be estimated by the intelligence and respectability of the
witness, and the extent of his knowledge of the matter on which he
testifies, the highest consideration is due to that which has been this
day spontaneously given. I shall ever cherish it with the most grateful
recollection, and look back upon it with proud satisfaction.
I should be glad to feel that I could with any propriety abstain from
any allusion at this time and at this place, to public affairs. But
considering the occasion which has brought us together, the events
which have preceded it, and the influence which they may exert upon
the destinies of our country, my silence might be misinterpreted,
and I think it therefore proper that I should embrace this first
public opportunity which I have had of saying a few words, since the
termination of the late memorable and embittered contest. It is far
from my wish to continue or to revive the agitation with which that
contest was attended. It is ended, for good or for evil. The nation
wants repose. A majority of the people has decided, and from their
decision there can and ought to be no appeal. Bowing, as I do, with
profound respect to them, and to this exercise of their sovereign
authority, I may nevertheless be allowed to retain and to express
my own unchanged sentiments, even if they should not be in perfect
coincidence with theirs. It is a source of high gratification to me to
believe that I share these sentiments in common with more than half a
million of freemen, possessing a degree of virtue, of intelligence, of
religion, and of genuine patriotism, which, without disparagement to
others, is unsurpassed, in the same number of men in this or any other
country, in this or any other age.
I deprecated the election of the present president of the United
States, because I believed he had neither the temper, the experience,
nor the attainments requisite to discharge the complicated and arduous
duties of chief magistrate. I deprecated it still more, because his
elevation, I believed, would be the result exclusively of admiration
and gratitude for military service, without regard to indispensable
civil qualifications. I can neither retract, nor alter, nor modify,
any opinion which, on these subjects, I have at any time heretofore
expressed. I thought I beheld in his election an awful foreboding of
the fate which, at some future (I pray to God that, if it ever arrive,
it may be some far distant) day, was to befall this infant republic.
All past history has impressed on my mind this solemn apprehension.
Nor is it effaced or weakened by contemporaneous events passing upon
our own favored continent. It is remarkable that, at this epoch, at
the head of eight of the nine independent governments established
in both Americas, military officers have been placed, or have placed
themselves. General Lavalle has, by military force, subverted the
republic of La Plata. General Santa Cruz is the chief magistrate of
Bolivia; colonel Pinto of Chili; general Lamar of Peru; and general
Bolivar of Colombia. Central America, rent in pieces, and bleeding
at every pore, from wounds inflicted by contending military factions,
is under the alternate sway of their chiefs. In the government of
our nearest neighbor, an election, conducted according to all the
requirements of their constitution, has terminated with a majority of
the states in favor of Pedrazza, the civil candidate. An insurrection
was raised in behalf of his military rival; the cry, not exactly of
a bargain, but of corruption, was sounded; the election was annulled,
and a reform effected by proclaiming general Guerrero, having only a
minority of the states, duly elected president. The thunders from the
surrounding forts, and the acclamations of the assembled multitude,
on the fourth, told us what general was at the head of our affairs. It
is true, and in this respect we are happier than some of the American
states, that his election has not been brought about by military
violence. The forms of the constitution have yet remained inviolate.
In reasserting the opinions which I hold, nothing is further from
my purpose than to treat with the slightest disrespect those of
my fellow-citizens, here or elsewhere, who may entertain opposite
sentiments. The fact of claiming and exercising the free and
independent expression of the dictates of my own deliberate judgment,
affords the strongest guarantee of my full recognition of their
corresponding privilege.
A majority of my fellow-citizens, it would seem, do not perceive
the dangers which I apprehended from the example. Believing that they
are not real, or that we have some security against their effect,
which ancient and modern republics have not found, that majority, in
the exercise of their incontestable right of suffrage, have chosen
for chief magistrate a citizen who brings into that high trust no
qualification other than military triumphs.
That citizen has done much injustice――wanton, unprovoked, and
unatoned injustice. It was inflicted, as I must ever believe, for the
double purpose of gratifying private resentment and promoting personal
ambition. When, during the late canvass, he came forward in the public
prints under his proper name, with his charge against me, and summoned
before the public tribunal his friend and his only witness to establish
it, the anxious attention of the whole American people was directed
to the testimony which that witness might render. He promptly obeyed
the call and testified to what he knew. He could say nothing, and he
said nothing, which cast the slightest shade upon my honor or integrity.
What he did say was the reverse of any implication of me. Then all
just and impartial men, and all who had faith in the magnanimity
of my accuser, believed that he would voluntarily make a public
acknowledgment of his error. How far this reasonable expectation has
been fulfilled, let his persevering and stubborn silence attest. But
my relations to that citizen by a recent event are now changed. He is
the chief magistrate of my country, invested with large and extensive
powers, the administration of which may conduce to its prosperity or
occasion its adversity. Patriotism enjoins as a duty, that whilst he
is in that exalted station, he should be treated with decorum, and his
official acts be judged of in a spirit of candor. Suppressing, as far
as I can, a sense of my personal wrong, willing even to forgive him, if
his own conscience and our common God can acquit him; and entertaining
for the majority which has elected him, and for the office which he
fills, all the deference which is due from a private citizen; I most
anxiously hope, that under his guidance the great interests of our
country, foreign and domestic, may be upheld, our free institutions be
unimpaired, and the happiness of the nation be continued and increased.
While I am prompted by an ardent devotion to the welfare of my
country, sincerely to express this hope, I make no pledges, no promises,
no threats, and I must add, I have no confidence. My public life, I
trust, furnishes the best guarantee for my faithful adherence to those
great principles of external and internal policy, to which it has been
hitherto zealously dedicated. Whether I shall ever hereafter take any
part in the public councils or not, depends upon circumstances beyond
my control. Holding the principle that a citizen, as long as a single
pulsation remains, is under an obligation to exert his utmost energies
in the service of his country, if necessary, whether in private or
public station, my friends, here and every where, may rest assured that,
in either condition, I shall stand erect, with a spirit unconquered,
whilst life endures, ready to second their exertions in the cause of
liberty, the union, and the national prosperity.
Before I sit down, I avail myself with pleasure of this opportunity
to make my grateful acknowledgments, for the courtesies and friendly
attentions which I have uniformly experienced from the inhabitants of
this city. A free and social intercourse with them, during a period of
more than twenty years, is about to terminate, without any recollection
on my part of a single painful collision, and without leaving behind me,
as far as I know, a solitary personal enemy. If, in the sentiment with
which I am about to conclude, I do not give a particular expression
to the feelings inspired by the interchange of civilities and friendly
offices, I hope the citizens of Washington will be assured that their
individual happiness and the growth and prosperity of this city will
ever be objects of my fervent wishes. In the sentiment which I shall
presently offer, they are indeed comprehended. For the welfare of
this city is indissolubly associated with that of our union, and the
preservation of our liberty. I request permission to propose,
=LET US NEVER DESPAIR OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC.=
* * * * *