troubled times, and often addressed public assemblies, in
this Capitol and elsewhere; but never before have I risen in
a deliberative body under more oppressed feelings, or with a
deeper sense of awful responsibility. Never before have I
risen to express my opinions upon any public measure fraught
with such tremendous consequences to the welfare and
prosperity of the country, and so perilous to the liberties
of the people, as I solemnly believe the bill under
consideration will be. If you knew, sir, what sleepless
hours reflection upon it has cost me, if you knew with what
fervor and sincerity I have implored Divine assistance to
strengthen and sustain me in my opposition to it, I should
have credit with you, at least, for the sincerity of my
convictions, if I shall be so unfortunate as not to have
your concurrence as to the dangerous character of the
measure. And I have thanked my God that he has prolonged my
life until the present time, to enable me to exert myself,
in the service of my country, against a project far
transcending in pernicious tendency any that I have ever had
occasion to consider. I thank him for the health I am
permitted to enjoy; I thank him for the soft and sweet
repose which I experienced last night; I thank him for the
bright and glorious sun which shines upon us this day."
And what _was_ the question at issue? It was whether Nicholas Biddle
should have the custody of the public money at Philadelphia, and use
the average balance in discounting notes; or whether Mr. Cisco should
keep it at New York in an exceedingly strong vault, and not use any of
it in discounting notes.
As the leader of a national party Mr. Clay failed utterly; for he was
neither bad enough to succeed by foul means, nor skilful enough to
succeed by fair means. But in his character of patriot, orator, or
statesman, he had some brilliant successes in his later years. When
Jackson was ready to concede _all_ to the Nullifiers, and that
suddenly, to the total ruin of the protected manufacturers, it was
Clay's tact, parliamentary experience, and personal power that
interposed the compromise tariff, which reduced duties gradually
instead of suddenly. The Compromise of 1850, also, which postponed the
Rebellion ten years, was chiefly his work. That Compromise was the
best then attainable; and we think that the country owes gratitude to
the man who deferred the Rebellion to a time when the United States
was strong enough to subdue it.
Posterity, however, will read the speeches of Mr. Clay upon the
various slavery questions agitated from 1835 to 1850 with mingled
feelings of admiration and regret. A man compelled to live in the
midst of slavery must hate it and actively oppose it, or else be, in
some degree, corrupted by it. As Thomas Jefferson came at length to
acquiesce in slavery, and live contentedly with it, so did Henry Clay
lose some of his early horror of the system, and accept it as a
necessity. True, he never lapsed into the imbecility of pretending to
think slavery right or best, but he saw no way of escaping from it;
and when asked his opinion as to the final solution of the problem, he
could only throw it upon Providence. Providence, he said, would remove
the evil in its own good time, and nothing remained for men but to
cease the agitation of the subject. His first efforts, as his last,
were directed to the silencing of both parties, but most especially
the Abolitionists, whose character and aims he misconceived. With John
C. Calhoun sitting near him in the Senate-chamber, and with
fire-eaters swarming at the other end of the Capitol, he could, as
late as 1843, cast the whole blame of the slavery excitement upon the
few individuals at the North who were beginning to discern the
ulterior designs of the Nullifiers. Among his letters of 1843 there is
one addressed to a friend who was about to write a pamphlet against
the Abolitionists. Mr. Clay gave him an outline of what he thought the
pamphlet ought to be.
"The great aim and object of your tract should be to arouse
the laboring classes in the Free States against abolition.
Depict the consequences to them of immediate abolition. The
slaves, being free, would be dispersed throughout the Union;
they would enter into competition with the free laborer,
with the American, the Irish, the German; reduce his wages;
be confounded with him, and affect his moral and social
standing. And as the ultras go for both abolition and
amalgamation, show that their object is to unite in marriage
the laboring white man and the laboring black man, and to
reduce the white laboring man to the despised and degraded
condition of the black man.
"I would show their opposition to colonization. Show its
humane, religious, and patriotic aims; that they are to
separate those whom God has separated. Why do the
Abolitionists oppose colonization? To keep and amalgamate
together the two races, in violation of God's will, and to
keep the blacks here, that they may interfere with, degrade,
and debase the laboring whites. Show that the British nation
is co-operating with the Abolitionists, for the purpose of
dissolving the Union, etc."
This is so very absurd, that, if we did not know it to express Mr.
Clay's habitual feeling at that time, we should be compelled to see in
it, not Henry Clay, but the candidate for the Presidency.
He really thought so in 1843. He was perfectly convinced that the
white race and the black could not exist together on equal terms. One
of his last acts was to propose emancipation in Kentucky; but it was
an essential feature of his plan to transport the emancipated blacks
to Africa. When we look over Mr. Clay's letters and speeches of those
years, we meet with so much that is short-sighted and grossly
erroneous, that we are obliged to confess that this man, gifted as he
was, and dear as his memory is to us, shared the judicial blindness of
his order. Its baseness and arrogance he did not share. His head was
often wrong, but his heart was generally right. It atones for all his
mere errors of abstract opinion, that he was never admitted to the
confidence of the Nullifiers, and that he uniformly voted against the
measures inspired by them. He was against the untimely annexation of
Texas; he opposed the rejection of the anti-slavery petitions; and he
declared that no earthly power should ever induce him to consent to
the addition of one acre of slave territory to the possessions of the
United States.
It is proof positive of a man's essential soundness, if he improves as
he grows old. Henry Clay's last years were his best; he ripened to the
very end. His friends remarked the moderation of his later opinions,
and his charity for those who had injured him most. During the last
ten years of his life no one ever heard him utter a harsh judgment of
an opponent. Domestic afflictions, frequent and severe, had chastened
his heart; his six affectionate and happy daughters were dead; one son
was a hopeless lunatic in an asylum; another was not what such a
father had a right to expect; and, at length, his favorite and most
promising son, Henry, in the year 1847, fell at the battle of Buena
Vista. It was just after this last crushing loss, and probably in
consequence of it, that he was baptized and confirmed a member of the
Episcopal Church.
When, in 1849, he reappeared in the Senate, to assist, if possible, in
removing the slavery question from politics, he was an infirm and
serious, but not sad, old man of seventy-two. He never lost his
cheerfulness or his faith, but he felt deeply for his distracted
country. During that memorable session of Congress he spoke seventy
times. Often extremely sick and feeble, scarcely able, with the
assistance of a friend's arm, to climb the steps of the Capitol, he
was never absent on the days when the Compromise was to be debated. It
appears to be well attested, that his last great speech on the
Compromise was the immediate cause of his death. On the morning on
which he began his speech, he was accompanied by a clerical friend, to
whom he said, on reaching the long flight of steps leading to the
Capitol, "Will you lend me your arm, my friend? for I find myself
quite weak and exhausted this morning." Every few steps he was obliged
to stop and take breath. "Had you not better defer your speech?" asked
the clergyman. "My dear friend," said the dying orator, "I consider
our country in danger; and if I can be the means, in any measure, of
averting that danger, my health or life is of little consequence."
When he rose to speak, it was but too evident that he was unfit for
the task he had undertaken. But, as he kindled with his subject, his
cough left him, and his bent form resumed all its wonted erectness and
majesty. He may, in the prime of his strength, have spoken with more
energy, but never with so much pathos and grandeur. His speech lasted
two days, and, though he lived two years longer, he never recovered
from the effects of the effort. Toward the close of the second day,
his friends repeatedly proposed an adjournment; but he would not
desist until he had given complete utterance to his feelings. He said
afterwards that he was not sure, if he gave way to an adjournment,
that he should ever be able to resume.
In the course of this long debate, Mr. Clay said some things to which
the late war has given a new interest. He knew, at last, what the
fire-eaters meant. He perceived now that it was not the few abhorred
Abolitionists of the Northern States from whom danger to the Union was
to be apprehended. On one occasion allusion was made to a South
Carolina hot-head, who had publicly proposed to raise the flag of
disunion. Thunders of applause broke from the galleries when Mr. Clay
retorted by saying, that, if Mr. Rhett had really made that
proposition, and should follow it up by corresponding acts, he would
be a TRAITOR; "and," added Mr. Clay, "I hope he will meet a traitor's
fate." When the chairman had succeeded in restoring silence, Mr. Clay
made that celebrated declaration which was so frequently quoted in
1861:
"If Kentucky to-morrow should unfurl the banner of
resistance unjustly, I will never fight under that banner. I
owe a paramount allegiance to the whole Union,--a
subordinate one to my own State."
He said also:
"If any one State, or a portion of the people of any State,
choose to place themselves in military array against the
government of the Union, I am for trying the strength of the
government. I am for ascertaining whether we have a
government or not."
Again:
"The Senator speaks of Virginia being my country. This
UNION, sir, is my country; the thirty States are my country;
Kentucky is my country, and Virginia no more than any State
in the Union."
And yet again:
"There are those who think that the Union must be preserved
by an exclusive reliance upon love and reason. That is not
my opinion. I have some confidence in this instrumentality;
but, depend upon it that no human government can exist
without the power of applying force, and the actual
application of it in extreme cases."
Who can estimate the influence of these clear and emphatic utterances
ten years after? The crowded galleries, the numberless newspaper
reports, the quickly succeeding death of the great orator,--all aided
to give them currency and effect. We shall never know how many
wavering minds they aided to decide in 1861. Not that Mr. Clay really
believed the conflict would occur: he was mercifully permitted to die
in the conviction that the Compromise of 1850 had removed all
immediate danger, and greatly lessened that of the future. Far indeed
was he from foreseeing that the ambition of a man born in New England,
calling himself a disciple of Andrew Jackson, would, within five
years, destroy all compromises, and render all future compromise
impossible, by procuring the repeal of the first,--the Missouri
Compromise of 1821.
Henry Clay was formed by nature to please, to move, and to impress his
countrymen. Never was there a more captivating presence. We remember
hearing Horace Greeley say that, if a man only saw Henry Clay's back,
he would know that it was the back of a distinguished man. How his
presence filled a drawing-room! With what an easy sway he held captive
ten acres of mass-meeting! And, in the Senate, how skilfully he showed
himself respectfully conscious of the galleries, without appearing to
address them! Take him for all in all, we must regard him as the first
of American orators; but posterity will not assign him that rank,
because posterity will not hear that matchless voice, will not see
those large gestures, those striking attitudes, that grand manner,
which gave to second-rate composition first-rate effect. He could not
have been a great statesman, if he had been ever so greatly endowed.
While slavery existed no statesmanship was possible, except that which
was temporary and temporizing. The thorn, we repeat, was in the flesh;
and the doctors were all pledged to try and cure the patient without
extracting it. They could do nothing but dress the wound, put on this
salve and that, give the sufferer a little respite from anguish, and,
after a brief interval, repeat the operation. Of all these physicians
Henry Clay was the most skilful and effective. He both handled the
sore place with consummate dexterity, and kept up the constitution of
the patient by stimulants, which enabled him, at last, to live through
the appalling operation which removed the cause of his agony.
Henry Clay was a man of honor and a gentleman. He kept his word. He
was true to his friends, his party, and his convictions. He paid his
debts and his son's debts. The instinct of solvency was very strong in
him. He had a religion, of which the main component parts were
self-respect and love of country. These were supremely authoritative
with him; he would not do anything which he felt to be beneath Henry
Clay, or which he thought would be injurious to the United States.
Five times a candidate for the Presidency, no man can say that he ever
purchased support by the promise of an office, or by any other
engagement savoring of dishonor. Great talents and a great
understanding are seldom bestowed on the same individual. Mr. Clay's
usefulness as a statesman was limited by his talent as an orator. He
relied too much on his oratory; he was never such a student as a man
intrusted with public business ought to be. Hence he originated
nothing and established nothing. His speeches will long be interesting
as the relics of a magnificent and dazzling personality, and for the
light they cast upon the history of parties; but they add scarcely
anything to the intellectual property of the nation. Of American
orators he was the first whose speeches were ever collected in a
volume. Millions read them with admiration in his lifetime; but
already they have sunk to the level of the works "without which no
gentleman's library is complete,"--works which every one possesses and
no one reads.
Henry Clay, regarded as a subject for biography, is still untouched.
Campaign Lives of him can be collected by the score; and the Rev.
Calvin Colton wrote three volumes purporting to be the Life of Henry
Clay. Mr. Colton was a very honest gentleman, and not wanting in
ability; but writing, as he did, in Mr. Clay's own house, he became,
as it were, enchanted by his subject. He was enamored of Mr. Clay to
such a degree that his pen ran into eulogy by an impulse which was
irresistible, and which he never attempted to resist. In point of
arrangement, too, his work is chaos come again. A proper biography of
Mr. Clay would be one of the most entertaining and instructive of
works. It would embrace the ever-memorable rise and first triumphs of
the Democratic party; the wild and picturesque life of the early
settlers of Kentucky; the war of 1812; Congress from 1806 to 1852; the
fury and corruption of Jackson's reign; and the three great
compromises which postponed the Rebellion. All the leading men and all
the striking events of our history would contribute something to the
interest and value of the work. Why go to antiquity or to the Old
World for subjects, when such a subject as this remains unwritten?
[Footnote 1: Mill's Principles of Political Economy, Book V. Ch. X. §
1.]
[Footnote 2: Daniel Webster once said of him in conversation: "Mr.
Clay is a great man; beyond all question a true patriot. He has done
much for his country. He ought long ago to have been elected
President. I think, however, he was never a man of books, a hard
student; but he has displayed remarkable genius. I never could imagine
him sitting comfortably in his library, and reading quietly out of the
great books of the past. He has been too fond of the world to enjoy
anything like that. He has been too fond of excitement,--he has lived
upon it; he has been too fond of company, not enough alone; and has
had few resources within himself. Now a man who cannot, to some
extent, depend upon himself for happiness, is to my mind one of the
unfortunate. But Clay is a great man; and if he ever had animosities
against me, I forgive him and forget them."
These words were uttered at Marshfield when the news reached there
that Mr. Clay was dying.]
[Footnote 3: This is the correct spelling of the name, as we learn
from a living relative of the unfortunate man. It has been hitherto
spelled Ambrister.]
DANIEL WEBSTER.
Of words spoken in recent times, few have touched so many hearts as
those uttered by Sir Walter Scott on his deathbed. There has seldom
been so much of mere enjoyment crowded into the compass of one
lifetime as there was into his. Even his work--all of his best
work--was only more elaborate and keenly relished play; for
story-telling, the occupation of his maturity, had first been the
delight of his childhood, and remained always his favorite recreation.
Triumph rewarded his early efforts, and admiration followed him to the
grave. Into no human face could this man look, nor into any crowd of
faces, which did not return his glance with a gaze of admiring love.
He lived precisely where and how it was happiest for him to live; and
he had above most men of his time that disposition of mind which makes
the best of bad fortune and the most of good. But when his work and
his play were all done, and he came calmly to review his life, and the
life of man on earth, this was the sum of his reflections, this was
what he had to say to the man to whom he had confided his daughter's
happiness:
"Lockhart, I may have but a minute to speak to you. My dear,
be a good man,--be virtuous,--be religious,--be a good man.
Nothing else will give you any comfort when you come to lie
here."
So do we all feel in view of the open coffin, much as we may differ as
to what it _is_ to be good, virtuous, and religious. Was this man, who
lies dead here before us, faithful to his trust? Was he sincere, pure,
just, and benevolent? Did he help civilization, or was he an obstacle
in its way? Did he ripen and improve to the end, or did he degenerate
and go astray? These are the questions which are silently considered
when we look upon the still countenance of death, and especially when
the departed was a person who influenced his generation long and
powerfully. Usually it is only the last of these questions which
mortals can answer with any certainty; but from the answer to that one
we infer the answers to all the others. As it is only the wise who
learn, so it is only the good who improve. When we see a man gaining
upon his faults as he advances in life, when we find him more
self-contained and cheerful, more learned and inquisitive, more just
and considerate, more single-eyed and noble in his aims, at fifty than
he was at forty, and at seventy than he was at fifty, we have the best
reason perceptible by human eyes for concluding that he has been
governed by right principles and good feelings. We have a right to
pronounce such a person _good_, and he is justified in believing us.
The three men most distinguished in public life during the last forty
years in the United States were Henry Clay, John C. Calhoun, and
Daniel Webster. Henry Clay improved as he grew old. He was a
venerable, serene, and virtuous old man. The impetuosity,
restlessness, ambition, and love of display, and the detrimental
habits of his earlier years, gave place to tranquillity, temperance,
moderation, and a patriotism without the alloy of personal objects.
Disappointment had chastened, not soured him. Public life enlarged,
not narrowed him. The city of Washington purified, not corrupted him.
He came there a gambler, a drinker, a profuse consumer of tobacco, and
a turner of night into day. He overcame the worst of those habits very
early in his residence at the capital. He came to Washington to
exhibit his talents, he remained there to serve his country; nor of
his country did he ever think the less, or serve her less zealously,
because she denied him the honor he coveted for thirty years. We
cannot say this of Calhoun. He degenerated frightfully during the last
twenty years of his life. His energy degenerated into intensity, and
his patriotism narrowed into sectionalism. He became unteachable,
incapable of considering an opinion opposite to his own, or even a
fact that did not favor it. Exempt by his bodily constitution from all
temptation to physical excesses, his body was worn out by the intense,
unhealthy working of his mind. False opinions falsely held and
intolerantly maintained were the debauchery that sharpened the lines
of his face, and converted his voice into a bark. Peace, health, and
growth early became impossible to him, for there was a canker in the
heart of the man. His once not dishonorable desire of the Presidency
became at last an infuriate lust after it, which his natural sincerity
compelled him to reveal even while wrathfully denying it. He
considered that he had been defrauded of the prize, and he had some
reason for thinking so. Some men avenge their wrongs by the pistol,
others by invective; but the only weapons which this man could wield
were abstract propositions. From the hills of South Carolina he hurled
paradoxes at General Jackson, and appealed from the dicta of Mrs.
Eaton's drawing-room to a hair-splitting theory of States' Rights.
Fifteen hundred thousand armed men have since sprung up from those
harmless-looking dragon's teeth, so recklessly sown in the hot
Southern soil.