xt7hqb9v1p0f https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt7hqb9v1p0f/data/mets.xml Lathrop, J. H., (John Hiram) 1852 books b92-88-27380105 English Atwood & Buck, : Madison : Contact the Special Collections Research Center for information regarding rights and use of this collection. Clay, Henry, 1777-1852. Proceedings of the citizens of Madison, Wisconsin, on occasion of the death of Henry Clay, with an eulogy / by J.H. Lathrop, delivered in the capitol, July 19, 1852. text Proceedings of the citizens of Madison, Wisconsin, on occasion of the death of Henry Clay, with an eulogy / by J.H. Lathrop, delivered in the capitol, July 19, 1852. 1852 2002 true xt7hqb9v1p0f section xt7hqb9v1p0f

PROCEEDINGS

OF TIIE

CITIZENS OF MADISON, WISCONSIN,

ON OCCASION OF THE DEATH

HENRY CLAY,

WITH AN

EULOGY BY J. R. LATHROP, L.LID.,

CHANCELLOR OF WISCONSIN UNIVERSITY,

DELIVERED IN THE CAPITOL, JULY 19, 1852.

MADISON:

PRINTED BY ATWOOD BUCK.

1852.

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PROCEEDINGS.

UPON receiving the sad intelligence of the death of our great
Statesman, HENRY CLAY, the citizens of Madison, the Capital of
Wisconsin, convened at the Court House, desirous of expressing,
in an appropriate manner, their sorrow at this great national
calamity, and uniting their voices in the general lamentation and
mourning, which is heard throughout our common country, at
the sorrowful dispensation of Divine Providence,
Resolved, That a Committee of five be appointed to select some suitable
person to deliver an Eulogy upon the Life and Character of the late HENRY
CLAY. with authority to call a meeting for that purpose, and to make such
other arrangements as they may deem proper.
The following gentlemen were appointed a Committee to make
the necessary arrangements for the occasion: WM. N. SEYMOUR
N. B. EDDY, DAVID ATWOOD, J. T. CLARK and B. F. HOPKINS.
Messrs. A. L. COLLINS, JOHN CATLIN and JOHN Y. SMITH, were
appointed a Committee to draft suitable resolutions.
The committee of arrangements extended the following invita-
tation to Chancellor LATHROP to deliver the Eulogy on the occa-
sion:
MADISON, July 3, 1852.
Chancellor LATHROP,
Lear Sir-At a meeting of the citizens of Madison, held last evening,
the following resolution was adopted; to wit:
" Resolved, That a Committee of five be appointed to select some suita-
ble person to deliver an Eulogy upon the Life and Character of the late
HENRY CLAY, with authority to call a meeting for that purpose, and to
make such other arrangements as they may deem proper."
In accordance with this resolution, the undersigned were appointed said
Committee; and at a meeting of the Committee held this morning, it was
unanimously resolved that you be invited to deliver such Eulogy. We
now most cordially tender to you an invitation to favor our citizens with
such an Address as you may deem suitable on such an occasion, and trust
it will suit your convenience to accept the same.
With regard to the time of such meeting, we would leave that with you,
simply desiring that you will fix upon as early a day as will suit your on -
convenience. We have the honor to be your ob't serv'ta,
WM. N. SEYMOUR, DAVID ATWOOD,
N. B. EDDY, B. F. HOPXINS.
JULIUS T. CLARK.

P X 0 (' E E D I N G S.

To whieh the Chancellor replied as follows:
MADISON, July 3, 1852.
Gentlemen-I undertake the duty assigned me in your note of this
morning, under extreme pressure of professional engagements, attending
the close ot the collegiate year; and in the full confidence of an indulgent
hearing from my fellow-citizens.
I would name, subject to the approval of the Committee, Monday, the
19th inst., as a suitable (lay, for mnaking our united expression of grateful
respect for the eminent public character aid services of the departed States-
man. I have the honor to be, gentlemen, your obed't serv't,
J. H. LATHIROP.
To Wmr. N. SEYMOUR, J. T. CLARK and others, Committee.
The Committee accordingly fixed upon Monday, the 19th day
of July, for such ceremony; and the following named gentlemen
were selected as officers of' the day:
President-Gov. L. J. FARWELL.
Vice-Presidents-Hon. A. BOTKIN, lion. E. BRIGHIAM, lion.
J. C. FAIRCHILD, lion. N. B. EDDY and Hon. J. GRAY.
Secretaries-BERTAH BROWN and B. F. HOPKINS.
Mfarshals-Col. DAVI) ATWOOD, assisted by Wm. N. SEYMOuR
and N. W. DEAN.
In accordance with the arrangements, on the day specified, the
stores and places of business of our city were closed and appro-
priately hung in black, and a large concourse of citizens and
strangers assembled at the Court House, and from thence marched
in procession to the Assembly Hall at the Capitol.
The meeting was called to order by His Excellency, Governor
FARWELL, President of the day, and the exercises were announced
in the following order:
1. Music by the Band.
2. Prayer bv Rev. Mr. LORn.
3. Music by the Choir.
4. Eulogy by Chancellor LATHROP.
5. Resolutions from the Committee.
6. Music by the Choir.
7. Benediction.
The following are the resolutions presented by Col. A. L. COL-
LNSS, Chairman of the Committee for that purpose, which were
unanimously adopted:
Whereas, It has pleased Divine Providence in His wise dispensation, to
Ysmove from earth and from a sphere of great usefulness, HEINRY CLAY, of
this Repnblie, and rhrse.s, we have met together on this occasi n to
commingle our grief at the happening of this great and solemn, thou th

P U0 CB ED ING S.

not unlooked for, event, and in an appropriate manner to celbrate the
occasion; therefore,
Ilesolved, That the virtues and nol,le deeds of great and good men are
peculiarly the property of the country where the records of their lives anti
conduct are found, and that the American people cherish the name, fame and,
public services of HENRY CLAY, whose decease our nation mourns with the
profoundest grief.
Resolved, That we meet on this interesting occasion not as partizans, polit-
ical, religious or in any wise sectarian, but as patriots, philanthropists and
Christians; that tho', with hearts devoted to the good of their country and
the cause of common humanity, men do honestly differ as to means and
measures, and in those differences become often enthusiastic and arrayed
against each other, yet, where a long, useful and illustrious life, like that
of HENRY CLAY'S, is ended, with it is ended the recollection of slight differ-
ences and the i ecollections of good deeds and patriotic impulses, are grate-
fully cherished by a generous and enlightened people.
Resolved, That although HENRY CLAY had long been the pride of our
Nation and his name has long been hailed with heart-swelling pride by
every American-that although we have long been warned of his ap-
proaching and certain dissolution, and that his declining days and hours
were beautifully serene and peaceful, vet we were not ready for the sad
intelligence of his decease.
Resolved, That the fame pertaining to the illustrious name of HENRY
CLAY is not of a party or section, but his name is associated with the im-
portant events in the history of our common country for the last half cen-
tury, and that his fame and glory which shall survive nations and powers,
are the pride and property of the American Republic.
Resolved, That while we as a people feel gratefnl to an indulgent Su-
preme Ruler for many and continued great national blessings for a long
time enjoyed, and especially for the long life and services of HENRY CLAY,
lately deceased, and while we bow in humble and meek submission to His
will in withdrawing him from us and acknowledge his judgments to be
"true and righteous altogether" we yet mourn and lament his death as a
national calamity.
Mr. COLLINS offered the following resolution, which was unani-
mously adopted:
Resolved, That the proceedings on this occason, be prepared, under the
direction of the Committee of Arrangements, and together with the Eulogy
of Chancellor LATHROP, be published; and that a copy of the same be
forwarded to the Governor of the State of Kentucky, and to each of the
Senators in Congress from that State, to be by them communicated to the
family of the deceased.
B. F. HOPKINS,
Secretary of Committee.

C 0 B I E S P 0 N u E N C E.

MADISON, July 27, 1852.
SIR:-Pursuant to a resolutuion adopted on the occasion, com-
memorating the funeral obsequies of the late HENRY CLAY at
this place, instructing the Committee of arrangements to publish,
in a suitable manner, the proceedings of that day; on behalf of
the Committee, I would respectfully solicit a copy of the Eulogy,
pronounced by you upon that occasion for publication.
Hoping that you may grant our request,
I am, dear Sir, your most obed't serv't,
B. F. HOPKINS, Sec'y.
To Hon. J. H. LATHROP,
Madison, Wis.

MADISON, July 27, 1852.
SIR -I transmit to you, herewith, the manuscript referred to'
in your note of this morning; which you will please convey to,
the Committee, with my respects, and place at their disposal.
I am, Sir, very truly, your friend and obed't serv't,
J. H. LATHROP.
To B. F. HoPKINs, Esq.,
Secretary, c.

EULOGY.

Mr. President and Fellow-Citizens:
We have entered upon another year of the
life-time of our Republic.
Seventy-six years ago, those distinguished men,
who were commissioned of God to shape the des-
tinies of a great and free people, and through them,
to commend the cause of civil liberty to the heart
and the practice of the civilized world, declared
that these United Colonies are and of right ought
to be, free and independent States; and pledged
to each other, life, fortune and sacred honor, in sup-
port of the Declaration.
Every recurring year of time is adding its testi-
mony to the great fact, that the day we annually
celebrate, constitutes the most distinguished epoch
in the history of human freedom. In the magni-
tude of the results suspended on the Declaration-
ever developing, and never fully developed-that
day stands alone; and as other nations, each in its
turn, " in our light shall see light," and vindicate
themselves into freedom, they will, year by year,
come up and keep holy time with us, and if need
be, re-kindle their fires at our altar.
Happy, indeed, were those men, whose lot it was
as signers of the declaration, to inscribe their names
on a scroll which cannot die; to identify their lives

E U L O G Y .

with principles which shall live forever, and which
are destined to become universal.
Glorious, however, as was the Declaration, it was
but the prologue to the drama-the first act of
which was the trial by battle, to which it submitted
the great cause of freedom and independence in the
colonies.
God's soldier, in the person of the only WASH-
INGTON, ordained for the crisis-I speak it without
disparagement of the choice spirits which were
gathered around him-tried the cause, through all
the perils of a seven year's contest, from the open-
ing argument on the Heights of Dorchester, to the
glorious summing up at Yorktown; and the judg-
ment of Heaven was, that " the United Colonies
are Free and Independent States."
But how momentous are the responsibilites of the
free and the independent! That judgment of
Heaven which delivered our fathers from the house
of bondage, committed to their keeping, and to that
of their posterity, the lively oracles of freedom.-
It bade them build a tabernacle for the ark of our
liberties, the consecrated depository of the hopes
of human freedom throughout the world.
The second act, therefore, in our national drama,
was the construction of the frame work of our go-
vernment-the organization of our political system,.
and the adjustment of its machinery to the safe ac-
tion and the perpetual conservation of the principles
of civil liberty, so successfully vindicated in the
great battle of the revolution.
How best " to form a more perfect union, estab-

E U L O G Y.

lish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for
the common defence, promote the general welfare,
and secure the blessings of liberty to themselves and
their posterity," was the problem to be solved by
the convention of the framers of the constitution.
Central in this group of sages, whose virtues had
been disciplined in the school of the revolution, and
in unenvied distinction above them all, stands the
majestic figure of ourWAsIINGToN; not now God's
soldier, but as the presiding officer of the conven-
tion, the founder of our political institutions.
The labors of the convention resulted in the form-
ation of an instrument, compromising all antago-
nist claims and interests, and organizing a national
government which met with the unanimous assent
of the several sovereignties, represented in its de-
liberations; and the Constitution of the United
States became thenceforth a fixed fact; the bond of
our nationality; the arbiter of the mutual relations
of the States; the rule of civil administration to the
magistrate, and of civil obedience to the citizen.
Occupying the Chair of State in the opening
scene of the third act of our political drama, the ad-
ministration, namely, of the government of the
Union, we trace again the well-known lineaments
of that divine man, the Father of his Country, the
only WASHINGTON.
Gracefully did he retire from public life, the mo-
ment the Union was consolidated, the constitution
animated with an undying vitality, and the with-
drawal of his presence was compatible with the har-
monious and beneficent action of our political sys-

E U L O G Y.

tem. He adorned private life as the first citizen of
the Republic,till his spirit passed from earth,leaving
to rest under quiet shades of his own Mount Ver-
non, all that remained of WASHINGTON-WASIIIING-
TON!
-"clarum et venerabile nomen
Gentibus; et quod multum proderit urbi."
Yes, his was a great and venerable name, and as
long as memory endures, will it continue to reflect
honor and renown on the character of the great Re-
public.
The biography of this extraordinary man, is the
history of his country from the period of the colo-
nial wars which resulted in the expulsion of France
from North America, to the close of the 18th centu-
ry; during which period our libertiess were achiev-
ed, and its capabilities successfully tested, by an ad-
ministration as distinguished for its prudence and
its vigor, as it was spotless in its purity.
When the sun of WASHINGTON set in glory to
himself, but in sorrow and gloom to his afflicted
country, men knew not of the dawning light of an-
other luminary, which was to gild our political
heavens for another half century, to shed upon our
land a genial, a maturing, a saving influence.
No one who has been conversant with the history
of his country during that portion of the nineteenth
century which has elapsed, will fail to recognize, in
the lamented decease of the great statesman, whom
the nation mourns, and to whose memory you have
consecrated tois day, the extinction of one of the
greater lights of the tqge,

E V L O G Y.

I have not placed these two great men thus in jux-
taposition, in order to institute either comparison or
contrast; but I simply present each of them as the
exponent of the age in which he lived. As inti-
mately as WASIHINGTON was concerned in the great
events connected with the foundation of the Repub-
lic and its early organization, so thoroughly has the
public career of HENRY CLAY been interwoven with
every important movement connected with the sub-
sequent administration of the government, the de-
velopement of the resources, and the general pro-
gress of the country.
Although WVASHINGTcN has greatly the advantage
of the distinguished statesman who has just passed
away, in the official positions in which history pre-
sents him, although the aspirations of Mr. CLAY
were not unfrequently disappointed, and his policy
overborne, still in grouping the historical persona-
ges of our country for the first half of the nineteenth
century, it must be admitted by all, that the great
character of HENRY CLAY constitutes the principal
figure.
Although among the great men whose deeds
make up the civil and military history of our Repub-
lic during this eventful period, the force of circuns
stances and the advantages of position, may have
brought one and another, each in his turn and for
a season, more distinctly within the range of the
popular eye, a great central spirit, controlling, regu-
lating, balancing, compromising, when it could not
direct, is always discernable by the philosophical
observer, who studies the current of events for the

:E U L ) a Y.

sake of the lessons which our history is calculated
to teach.
In the grouping of the scene of the crucifixion,
the artist has not placed the manly form of the Ro-
man Centurion in the foreground, and made him oc-
cupy the larger space on the canvas, because he
constitutes the interest of the group. The divine
Sufferer, although represented of diminished pro-
portions in due perspective, is at once recognized as
the principal figure, the central point of harmony
and interest, in this admired production of art.
So in the presentation of human events, it is not
always the prominent and apparently successsful
actor, although he may for a season take the popu-
lar eye, and engross the popular attention, that is
destined to leave on the face of society the deepest
and most enduring impression.
That consideration amono men which accrues to
the possessor of mere power, whether it be due to
physical force or to fortunate political position, is in
its very nature, evanescent. It is sure to pass away
with the generation that had anything to hope, or
any thing to fear from its practical exhibition. The
great qnalities of wisdom and beneficence, unac-
companied, even by the advantages of the most ex-
alted position, constitute the basis of a more endu-
ring renown. It is for this reason that cotempora-
ry judgments of distinguisned men, are so gener.
allv corrected and amended, and sometimes reversed
by posterity.
Thus, although the public career of Mr. CLAY
bas been signalized by an almost continued strug4

3 U L 0 G Y.

gle with contending and often prevailing influen-
ces, although the crowning evidence of a popular,
appreciation of his eminent public services, was not
awarded to him in life, it is pleasing to contemplate,
after the storms of partizanship had subsided, the
heart homage, which was everywhere paid to the
illustrious Senator in his decline; the universal
prayer that he might be raised from his bed of
sickness and be still spared to his country; and
most of all, the sense of bereavement with which
the nation became consciotis of his desease, and the
profound, unaffected sorrow, with which a great
people have gathered around the bier of the pa-
triot statesman.
The distinguished individual, whose passing
away has occasioned this demonstration of public
feeling, owed nothing to hereditary advantages.
lie was indebted to God for his high inborn endow-
ments, to himself, for their culture and develope-
ment, to his country for the magnificent theatre
opened by her institutions for their exercise and
their display.
HENRY CLAY was born in Hanover county, in
Virginia, on the 12th day of April, 1177. Hewas
the son of a Baptist clergyman, the fifth of a family
of seven children. By the death of his father, he
became an orphan without patrimony, at the ten-
der age of four years.
His early education was only what his mother,
burdened, with the care of a numerous family, and
the defective neighborhood schools of lower Vir-
ginia, could furnish him at that period.

E U L 0 G T.

His active exertions were required in the common
support of a dependent family; and there is abun-
dant testimony that. he shunned no task imposed
upon him, but performed the manual labors of his
humble position, with all the alacrity and fidelity
with which he afterwards met the high obligations
of manhood and age. Whether as the millboy of
the Slashes, or the errand boy of a small retail
store in Richmond, he was gathering discipline for
manhood and for age.
His mother and family removed to Kentucky,
leaving the subject of this sketch at the early age
of fifteen, in the position of under clerk of the high
court of chancery in Richmond. He did not, like
many young persons in similar position, perform his
clerical duties mechanically, and allow the mind to
rin to waste, and the body to dissipation. He found
himself surrounded by intellects of a higher order
than heretofore, and by circumstances more conge-
nial with the native instincts of his soul.
His fidelity and promptitude, his quickness of
parts, and that winning animation of manner, which
marked the boy, as it afterwards marked the man,
engaged the attention of Chancellor Wythe, who
made him his amanuensis. In this confidential re-
lation, he enjoyed the instructive conversation of
his patron, by whom he was introduced to his
friends, made free of his library and other helps to
youthful improvement.
During this fortunate period of his life, the de-
fects of elementary instruction were repaired; and
by conversation, reflection and a diligent reading of

E U L 0 G Y.

choice English Literature, he not only acquired a
knowledge of things, but a command of the verna-
cular, which in perspicuity, copiousness, force and
expressiveness, has rarely been compassed without
the advantages of classical training.
Surrounded by these influences, and enjoying
these advantages, it is not strange that the law
should have been adopted by young CLAY, as his
profession-as the field in which he was resolved to
reap independence and distinction, in the harvest of
life.
Parting with Chancellor Wythe, he spent a year
in the office of an eminent counsellor, and was ad-
mitted to practice at the age of twenty, in the year
1797, the concluding year of Washington's admin-
istration.
He repaired at once to Lexington, Kentucky,
which he adopted as his future home, and where he
has ever since resided, except when in the immedi-
ate service of his country.
The temper of Mr. CLAY, like that of other young
men, was tried and disciplined by the peculiar anx-
ieties of the interval between the admki88on and the
_practie. His frank and honorable bearing, his
conversational ability, and his hearty sympathies,
attracted friendship and respect. But " confidence"
is said, on high authority, to be a "plant of slow
growth," and our youthful barrister must abide his
time.
It is worth while to allude to the critical incident
which terminated this uncomfortable transition pe-

E U L OG Y.

riod; a period which, to most professional men, has.
few pleasant reminiscences.
Mr. CLAY Was constant in his attendance on the
meetings of the debating society of the town, but
took no part in the discussions. On one occasion,
lwhen a question, after debate, was about to be put
upon its decision, he remarked to a by-stander that
the argument did not seem to him to be exhausted.
On that hint, it was immediately and unexpectedly
announced that Mr. CLAY would speak to the ques-
tion. Thus called out, he arose in much confusion,
and began his speech, as did once. an eminent New
England lawyer, his first prayer in the conference
room, " Gentlemen of the jury." Assaying to
amend his opening, his lips again refused to utter
aught else but "Gentlemen of the jury." The
crisis was to him eventful-he rallied-the buoyant
consciousness of ability brought the understanding
into position, and into vigor-every element of con-
fusion vanished, and a happy and successful argu-
ment terminated not only the debate, but his novi-
tiate at the bar.
From this period, Mr. CLAY may be regarded as
in full practice, on equal terms with the eminent
men, in the profession, in Kentucky, at that day.
His power lay rather with the jury than with the
court. His success in that quarter became so great
and so uniform, that persons charged with crime,
looked forward to his advocacy, as a sure precursor
of acquital.
It was not, perhaps, Mr. CLAY'S fault, that, by the
power of his address, justice was now and then dew

E U L O a Y.

prived of its victim. The old maxim is, " Jdex
damnnatar cum nocen8 abholvitur"-the Judge, not
the Counsel, is condemned, when the guilty is let go
unpunished.
The facility with which he, as an advocate, grasp-
ed the strong points of a case, approached intuition,
and was as characteristic of the man, and as condu-
cive to his successas were the clearness of narration
anti the admirable power of expression, with which
he presented them to the jury.
It so happened that the question of public policy
which first arrested the attention of Mr. CLAY, and
commanded his action-although yet a private citi-
zen of Kentucky, and scarcely past his majority-
concerned the adoption of constitutional provisions
for the gradual extinction of slavery. With all the
earnestness of his generous nature, he urged through
the press, and before the people, the measure, first
adopted in Pennsylvania under the auspices of Dr.
Franklin,and subsequently in other States,of declar-
ing all children born of slaves after a certain date,
to be free.
He advocated the measure, as a return, in prac-
tice, to those principles of human freedom, of which
we make profession before the world, and which
we alleged in justification of our separation from
Great Britain-he urged it as just to the holder
himself, and as eminently conducive to the progress
of Kentucky in political power and material
wealth.
His views, though concurred in by a highly re-
spectable minority, were overborne by numbers,
. )

E LJL (0 G; .

and the evil and the wrong were perpetuated in
the commonwealth.
This instinctive love of human freedom continued
as genial in the aged statesman, as it was far-seeing
and self-sacrificing in the youth. During the can-
vas for the election of delegates to the Constitutional
Convention of 1849, Mr. CLAY placed before the
people, in a long and able paper, his views on this
subject, and urged upon them the importance of
incorporating into their organic law, some specific
provision for gradual emancipation, but in vain.
Indeed, Mr. CLAY, in no act of his public life,,
has swerved from his original position in this be-
half. In debate, on the floor of Congress, relative
to the admission of Missouri into the Union, he ex-
pressed the uniform conviction of his life.-
While urging, with great earnestness, the admission
of the State without restriction, on the ground that
the decision of the question belonged to Missouri
alone, he made the memorable declaration, that
were he a citizen of Missouri, he would never con-
sent to a constitution tolerant of slavery.qo thorough
was his disapprobation of the system.
If the popularity of Mr. CLAY was endangered
in Kentucky by his early pronouncement against
slavery, it was abundantly re-established by the
part he bore in the public denunciation of the alien
and sedition laws.
These enactments originated, no doubt, in the pa-
triotic conviction, on the part of the administration
that passed them, that strong measures were neces-
sary to stem the tide of anarchy, which seemed to
them to be rolling in upon us, from the other side

E IT L 0 G Y.

of the Atlantic. These acts were repudiated by
Mr. CLAY-and the heart of Kentucky was with
him-as oppressive in their nature; and experience
proved them to have been ill-advised, and unneces-
sary as measures of precaution.
This same noble sentiment of Mr. CLAY, jealous
of every invasion of personal independence by pub-
lic enactment, was afterwards awakened by the
only attempt in our history, to suspend the Habeas
Corpus Act, which was made to enable the then
Executive to arrest Col.. Burr, without the forms of
law. The movement was ill-advised and unnecesa-
ry; and if it had prevailed, would have been of
evil example in the administration of our Repub-
lic.
The service of Mr. CLAY, in the Legislature of
Kentucky, was comprised within the years 1803
and 1809; interrupted by an Executive appoint-
ment to fill a vacancy in the Senate of the United
States.
He carried into the councils of his adopted State,
that ardent love of civil liberty, that powerful ad-
vocacy of individual right, with that self-sacrificing
opposition to every needless or ostentatious exercise
of naked power, which has illustrated his whole
political career.
His policy was conservative, although liberal.-
A single instance of his love of order, and opposi-
tion to empirical changes, even when the popular
bias set strongly in that direction, must suffice.
In the jealousy of everything which bore the
English name, which characterized the popular feel-
ing of the country, during the early part of the

20E U L 0 (G Y.

present century,Kentucky was specially distinguish-
ed. The English Language, bad any other been
at command, would have been in imminent jeopar-
dy. As it was, the English common law was a doom-
ed system, because it was English.
In their patriotic zeal, they forgot that the com-
mon law was the people's own law-that it was the
law of custom, and not of enactment, of privilege,
and not of imposition-that it is of authority here,
not because it is English, but because it is our own
-that we brought it with us in the Mayflower-
that we appealed to it, as our palladium, against
the encroachment of king and parliament-that
we fought and won the battle of indepen-
dence, in vindication of the great principles of hu-
man liberty and human justice embodied in it.
the tide of popular fury had taken possession of
the Legislature. Mr. CLAY found the victim already
bound, the fires smoking on the altar, and Judge
Lynch in the background, leering approbation of
the movement. With a manly and eloquent de-
fence of the common law, he rolled back the tide,
and by the first of those timely coxpRomisEs by
which his political life has been distinguished, he
softened down the revolutionary project into the
harmless enactment, that the decisions of English
courts, since the declaration of independence, should
not be of binding force in the courts of Kentucky.
During most of the period of Mr. CLAY'S connec-
tion with the State Legislature, he was Speaker of
the House; and in that capacity, and on the floor,
he did much for social order, and for the perma-

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nent improvement of the tone and character of that.
noble comuonnwealth.
After a brilliant and useful service,which brought
him into thorough acquaintance and fellowship
with the mind and temper of Kentucky, he took.
final leave of her halls in 1809, at which period he
was elected to the Senate of the United States, by
the Legislature, to fill a vacancy having two years
to run.
On entering the Senate for the first time, in
the session of 1806 '7 on appointment by the Gov-
ernor, when barely of the constitutional age, he
found the Senate equally divided on the question
of building a bridge across the Potomac; those
opposed to the structure denying the ccnstitution-
ality of the measure, and of course opening up the
whole subject of the power Of Congress to carry on
or aid in, works of internal improvement.
Much pains were taken by the enemies of the bill
to make it agreeable to the young member to vote
against it. His judgement, however, lay the other
way; and he took ground on the subject at that
time, which he uniformly mantained by voice and
by vote, during his connection with the national
councils, that wherever this power was subsidiary
to powers expressly granted, whether over the com-
merce of the country, over its postal arrangements,
over its military defences,or over the administration
of the national domain, its exercise was strictly con-
stituti