Henry Clay

“ Nothing could have imparted greater sweetness to his triumph than the reflection that the man whose work had been stamped by the act of the Senate with such unprecedented ignominy was Henry Clay, whom he hated more fiercely than any other human being. Indeed, that triumph could scarcely have been more complete. Incessantly attacked by Clay at the head of the most brilliant array of talent ever marshaled by any parliamentary leader in American history, Jackson had carried every one of his favorite measures, and been sustained by a most emphatic popular majority in a presidential election. ”

“ When we think of such a man as Henry Clay, his long life, his mighty influence cast always into the scale against the slave, of that irresistible fascination with which he moulded every one to his will; when we remember that, his conscience acknowledging the justice of our cause, and his heart open on every other side to the gentlest impulses, he could sacrifice so remorselessly his convictions and the welfare of millions to his low ambition ”

“ Alas! in those dark hours of peril and dread which our land has experienced, and which she may be called to experience again—to whom now may her people look up for that counsel and advice, which only wisdom and experience and patriotism can give, and which only the undoubting confidence of a nation will receive?
But Henry Clay is dead. His long and eventful life is closed. Our country is prosperous and powerful; but could it have been quite all it has been, and is, and is to be, without Henry Clay? Such a man the times have demanded, and such, in the Providence of God, was given us. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In Henry Clay we have an American of a most authentic pattern. There was no man of his generation who represented more of America than he did. The singular, almost irresistible attraction he had for men of every class and every temperament came, not from the arts of the politician, but from the instant sympathy established between him and every fellow-countryman of his. ”

“ Few public characters in American history have been the subjects of more heated controversy than Henry Clay. There was no measure of detraction and obloquy to which, during his lifetime, his opponents would not resort, and there seemed to be no limit to the admiration and attachment of his friends. ”

“ Of our public men of the sixty years preceding the war, Henry Clay was certainly the most shining figure. Was there ever a public man, not at the head of a state, so beloved as he? Who ever heard such cheers, so hearty, distinct, and ringing, as those which his name evoked? Men shed tears at his defeat, and women went to bed sick from pure sympathy with his disappointment. ”

“ One thing is certain, that no man in the country exercised so great an influence, for a generation, in shaping the policy of national legislation as Henry Clay, a policy which, on the whole, has proved enlightened, benignant, and useful. And hence his name and memory will not only be honorably mentioned by historians, but will be fondly cherished so long as American institutions shall endure. He is one of the greater lights in the galaxy of American stars, as he was the advocate of principles which have proved conducive to national prosperity in the first century of the nation's history. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Henry Clay was a graduate of the University of Hard Knocks; he also took several post-graduate courses at the same institution. Very early in life we see that he possessed the fine, eager, receptive spirit that absorbs knowledge through the finger-tips; and the ability to think and to absorb is all that even college can ever do for a man. I doubt whether college would have helped Clay, and it might have dimmed the diamond luster of his mind, and diluted that fine audacity which carried him on his way. In this capacity to comprehend in the mass, Clay's character was essentially feminine. ”

“ It was on this field that he first achieved something like leadership, while his quick intelligence and his sympathetic qualities made him a favorite in a much larger circle. According to all accounts Henry Clay, at that period of his life, was untouched by vice or bad habit, and could in every respect be esteemed as an irreproachable and very promising young man. ”

“ The pastor's flock consisted of poor people. A rock in South Anna River has long been pointed out as a spot “from which he used at times to address his congregation.” Henry Clay's mother was a daughter of George Hudson, of Hanover County. She is said to have been a woman of exemplary qualities as a wife and a mother, and of much patriotic spirit. ”

“ Clay had no equal in America. In him, intellect, person, eloquence, and courage, united to form a character fit to command. He fired with his own enthusiasm, and controlled by his amazing will, individuals and masses. No reverse could crush his spirit, nor defeat reduce him to despair. Equally erect and dauntless in prosperity and adversity, when successful, he moved to the accomplishment of his purposes with severe resolution ”

“ At any rate, he had full absolution for what he had done, perhaps also for what he might do in the future, and the resolutions disapproving his conduct were voted down by heavy majorities.
Thus was Henry Clay defeated in his first encounter with Andrew Jackson. The great duel had begun which was to embitter the best part of Clay's life. His war of 1812 had put the military hero into his way, and a military hero, too, of the most exasperating kind; a hero who would not be conciliated by a mere recognition of his good intentions ”

“ They undoubtedly prove, however, that the man behind them, and not the manner or matter of them, was the thing that made Henry Clay the most lovable character in American history.
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Bibliography. There are many biographies of Clay, and numerous collections of his speeches. Carl Schurz's Henry Clay (Boston, 1887, two vols.) , is the best account of the statesman; Henry Clay, by Thomas H. Clay (Philadelphia, 1910) , is adequate for Clay the man; and Daniel Mallory's Life and Speeches of the Hon. Henry Clay (New York, 1844) , is the finest collection of his speeches made hitherto. ”

“ Clay, sir, is a striking example of the abiding fame which surely awaits the direct and candid statesman. The entire absence of equivocation or disguise, in all his acts, was his master-key to the popular heart; for while the people will forgive the errors of a bold and open nature, he sins past forgiveness who deliberately deceives them. Hence Mr. Clay, though often defeated in his measures of policy, always secured the respect of his opponents without losing the confidence of his friends. ”

“ He has been the great compromiser of those political agitations and opposing opinions which have, in the belief of thousands, at different times, endangered the perpetuity of our Federal Government and Union.
Mr. Clay was no less remarkable for his admirable social qualities than for his intellectual abilities. As a companion, he was the delight of his friends; and no man ever had better or truer. They have loved him from the beginning, and loved him to the last. His hospitable mansion at Ashland was always open to their reception. ”

“ But he has gone from among men; and it is for US now to awake and apply ourselves, with renewed fervor and increased fidelity, to the welfare of the country HE loved so well and served so truly and so long—the glorious country yet saved to us! Yes, Henry Clay has fallen, at last!—as the ripe oak falls, in the stillness of the forest. ”

“ Distinction amid such competition was true renown—
‘The fame which a man wins for himself is best—
That he may call his own.’
It was such a fame that he made for himself in that most eventful era in our history. To me, sir, the recollection of that day, and the events which distinguish it, is filled with an overpowering interest. I never can forget my enthusiastic admiration of the boldness, the eloquence, and the patriotism of Henry Clay during the war of 1812. In the bright array of talent which adorned the congress of the United States ”

“ Clay is an eloquent man, with very popular manners and great political management. He is, like almost all the eminent men of this country, only half educated. His school has been the world, and in that he is proficient. His morals, public and private, are loose, but he has all the virtues indispensable to a popular man. As he is the first distinguished man that the Western country has presented as a statesman to the Union, they are profoundly proud of him. Clay's temper is impetuous and his ambition impatient. ”

“ The frenzy to which politicians wrought themselves up was sometimes grotesque in its manifestations. In Virginia it became known that John Tyler had written a letter to Clay approving his conduct in the last presidential election; where upon the “Virginia Jackson Republican,” a newspaper published at Richmond, broke out in these exclamations: “John Tyler identified with Henry Clay! We are all amazement! ”

“ There, on the 12th of April, 1777, Henry Clay, the great American statesman, was born, and from the district-schools of his neighborhood he derived his education. He was the son of a Baptist clergyman of very limited means, hence his early advantages were of necessity meager. He was very bashful and diffident, scarcely [255] dare recite before his class at school, but he determined to become an orator, he accordingly began the plan of committing speeches and then reciting them in the corn-fields; at other times they were delivered in the barn, before the cows and horse. ”

“ There is no more familiar and interesting figure in our political history than Henry Clay, and no party leader who was more idolized, or followed with more enthusiasm. His political life began with the century and continued until his death in 1852, and his biography therefore includes the political history of that half-century. ”

“ Henry Clay appears as an active, memorable, and abiding force and personality, a man eminent for failings as well as for great virtues and great services to the Republic, and a generation which knows scarcely anything clearly and definitely of Clay's place in the affairs of his country will read it with abounding pleasure and assured profit. ”

“ The great Compromise of 1850 sapped his rapidly waning strength, though it greatly added to his fame as a statesman. On June 29, 1852, Henry Clay died at Washington City, in the seventy-sixth year of his age. His body was brought back to the land he loved so well, and to which he had brought world-wide fame, and was buried at Lexington, where a grateful people have erected a cloud-tipped monument to his memory. He is one of the American immortals, though it is not at all difficult to quarrel with many of his public acts. ”

“ Efforts have been made by enthusiastic admirers to find for him a noble ancestry in England, but with questionable success. We may content ourselves with saying that the greatness of his name rests entirely upon his own merit. The family from which he sprang emigrated from England not long after the establishment of the colony of Virginia, and settled on the southern side of the James River. His biographers, some of whom wrote under his own supervision, agree in the statement that Henry Clay was born on April 12, 1777, in Hanover County, Virginia, in a neighborhood called the “Slashes.” ”

“ His prosperity increased rapidly; so that soon he was able to purchase Ashland, an estate of some six hundred acres, near Lexington, which afterward became famous as Henry Clay's home.
Together with the accumulation of worldly goods he laid up a valuable stock of popularity. Indeed, few men ever possessed in greater abundance and completeness those qualities which attract popular regard and affection. A tall stature; not a handsome face, but a pleasing, winning expression ”

“ There was no fiercer hater than Andrew Jackson, and no man whom he hated so fiercely as he did Henry Clay. That hatred was the passion of the last twenty years of his life. He sincerely deemed Clay capable of any villainy, and no sooner had he the executive power in his hands than he used it to open hostilities. His cabinet appointments were determined upon several days before his inauguration as President. Five of the places were filled with men who had made their mark as enemies of Clay. ”

“ Let him then select and name the man whom, by his preëminent talents, by his splendid services, by his ardent patriotism, by his all-embracing public spirit, by his fervid eloquence in behalf of the rights and liberties of mankind, by his long experience in the affairs of the Union, foreign and domestic, a President of the United States, intent only upon the honor and welfare of his country, ought to have preferred to Henry Clay. ”