xt7hqb9v1p36 https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt7hqb9v1p36/data/mets.xml United States. Congress (32nd, 1st session : 1851-1852) 1852 books b92-94-27763343 English Printed by R. Armstrong, : Washington : Contact the Special Collections Research Center for information regarding rights and use of this collection. Clay, Henry, 1777-1852. Obituary addresses on the occasion of the death of the Hon. Henry Clay : a senator of the United States from the State of Kentucky, delivered in the Senate and in the House of Representatives of the United States, June 30, 1852, and the funeral sermon of the Rev. C.M. Butler, Chaplain of the Senate, preached in the Senate, July 1, 1852 / printed by order of the Senate and House of Representatives. text Obituary addresses on the occasion of the death of the Hon. Henry Clay : a senator of the United States from the State of Kentucky, delivered in the Senate and in the House of Representatives of the United States, June 30, 1852, and the funeral sermon of the Rev. C.M. Butler, Chaplain of the Senate, preached in the Senate, July 1, 1852 / printed by order of the Senate and House of Representatives. 1852 2002 true xt7hqb9v1p36 section xt7hqb9v1p36

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OBITUARY ADDRESSES

OX THE

OCCASION OF THE DEATH

0 TlEx

HON. HENRY CLAY,

A SENATOR OF

THE UNITED STATES
KENTUCKY,

FROM THE STATE OF

DELIVERED IN TEL

9feu Aqd 69 1e i foqie of iepvwt bes

of Aie NOe+ Athfeas,

JUNE 30, 1852,

AND Tfl

FUN RAL SIERON OF THE REV. C. X. BUTLER,

CHAl UP OF T NATEA

PREACHED IN THE SENATE, JULY 1, 1852.

PNfea by oiWe of the Serilte na Itoqts of Repese"ftfibes.

WASHINGTON:
PRINTED BY ROBERT ARMSTRONG.
1852.

This page in the original text is blank.

SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES.

JULY 2, 1852.

Mr. MANGUM submitted the following resolution, which
was considered, by unanimous consent, and agreed to:-
Resolved, That the Committee of Arrangements
cause to be published in a pamphlet form, and in
such manner as may seem to them appropriate, for
the use of the Senate, ten thousand copies of the
addresses made by the members of the Senate, and
members of the House of Representatives, together
with the discourse of the Rev. Dr. BUTLER, upon the
occasion of the death of the Hon. HENRY CLAY.
Attest,
ASBURY DICKINS,
ecretary.

This page in the original text is blank.

OBITUARY ADDRESSES.

SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES,

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 30, 1852.

After the reading of the Journal, Mr. UNDERWOOD rose,
and addressed the Senate, as follows:
Mr. PRESIDENT: I rise to announce the death of
my colleague, Mr. CLAY. He died at his lodgings,
in the National Hotel of this city, at seventeen
minutes past eleven o'clock yesterday morning, in
the seventy-sixth year of his age. He expired with
perfect composure, and without a groan or struggle.
By his death our country has lost one of its most
eminent citizens and statesmen; and, I think, its
greatest genius. I shall not detain the Senate by
narrating the transactions of his long and useful life.
His distinguished services as a statesman are insepa-
rably connected with the history of his country.
As Representative and Speaker in the other House
of Congress, as Senator in this body, as EWretary of
State, and as Envoy abroad, he has, in all these
positions, exhibited a wisdom and patriotism which
have made a deep and lasting impression upon the
grateful hearts of his countrymen. His thoughts

and his actions have already been published to the
world in written biography; in Congressional de-
bates and reports; in the Journals of the two Houses;
and in the pages of American history. They have
been commemorated by monuments erected on the
wayside. They have been engraven on medals of
gold. Their memory will survive the monuments
of marble and the medals of gold; for these are ef-
faced and decay by the friction of ages. But the
thoughts and actions of my late colleague have be-
come identified with the immortality of the human
mind, and will pass down from generation to genera-
tion as a portion of our national inheritance, incapa-
ble of annihilation so long as genius has an admirer,
or liberty a friend.
Mr. PRESIDENT, the character of HENRY CLAY Was
formed and developed by the influence of our free
institutions. His physical, mental, and moral facul-
ties were the gift of God. That they were greatly
superior to the faculties allotted to most men cannot
be questioned. They were not cultivated, improved,
and directed by a liberal or collegiate education.
His respectable parents were not wealthy, and had
not the means of maintaining their children at col-
lege. Moreover, his father died when he was a boy.
At an early period, Mr. CLAY was thrown upon his
own resources, without patrimony. He grew up in
a clerk's office in Richmond, Virginia. He there
studied law. He emigrated from his native State

and settled in Lexington, Kentucky, where he com-
menced the practice of his profession before he was
of full age.
The road to wealth, to honour, and fame, was
open before him. Under our Constitution and laws
he might freely employ his great faculties unob-
structed by legal impediments, and unaided by ex-
clusive privileges. Very soon Mr. CLAY made a
deep and favourable impression upon the people
among whom he began his career. The excellence
of his natural faculties was soon displayed. Neces-
sity stimulated him in their cultivation. His as-
siduity, skill, and fidelity in professional engage-
ments secured public confidence. He was elected
member of the Legislature of Kentucky, in which
body he served several sessions prior to 1806. In
that year he was elevated to a seat in the Senate of
the United States.
At the bar and in the General Assembly of Ken-
tucky, Mr. CLAY first manifested those high qualities
as a public speaker which have secured to him so
much popular applause and admiration. His physi-
cal and mental organization eminently qualified him
to become a great and impressive orator. His per-
son was tall, slender, and commanding. His tem-
perament ardent, fearless, and full of hope. His
countenance clear, expressive, and variable-indicat.
ing the emotion which predominated at the moment
with exact similitude. His voice, cultivated and

modulated in harmony with the sentiment he de-
sired to express, fell upon the ear like the melody
of enrapturing music. His eye beaming with intelli-
gence and flashing with coruscations of genius. His
gestures and attitudes graceful and natural. These
personal advantages won the prepossessions of an
audience, even before his intellectual powers began
to move his hearers; and when his strong common
sense, his profound reasoning, his clear conceptions
of his subject in all its bearings, and his striking and
beautiful illustrations, united with such personal
qualities, were brought to the discussion of any
question, his audience was enraptured, convinced,
and led by the orator as if enchanted by the lyre of
Orpheus.
No man was ever blessed by his Creator with
faculties of a higher order of excellence than those
given to Mr. CLAY. In the quickness of his per-
ceptions, and the rapidity with which his con-
clusions were formed, he had few equals and no
superior. He was eminently endowed with a nice
discriminating taste for order, symmetry, and beauty.
He detected in a moment every thing out of place
or deficient in his room, upon his farm, in his own
or the dress of others. He was a skilful judge of
the form and qualities of his domestic animals, which
he delighted to raise on his farm. I could give you
instances of the quickness and minuteness of his
keen faculty of observation which never overlooked

any thing. A want of neatness and order was offen-
sive to him. He was particular and neat in his
handwriting, and his apparel. A slovenly blot or
negligence of any sort met his condemnation; while
he was so organized that he attended to, and arranged
little things to please and gratify his natural love
for neatness, order, and beauty, his great intellectual
faculties grasped all the subjects of jurisprudence
and politics with a facility amounting almost to in-
tuition. As a lawyer, he stood at the head of his
profession. As a statesman, his stand at the head
of the Republican Whig party for nearly half a
century, establishes his title to pre-eminence among
his illustrious associates.
Mr. CLAY was deeply versed in all the springs of
human action. He had read and studied biography
and history. Shortly after I left college, I had
occasion to call on him in Frankfort, where he was
attending court, and well I remember to have found
him with Plutarch's Lives in his hands. No one
better than he knew how to avail himself of human
motives, and all the oircumstances which surrounded
a subject, or could present them with more force and
skill to accomplish the object of an argument.
Mr. CLAY, throughout his public career, was in-
fluenced by the loftiest patriotism. Confident in the
truth of his convictions and the purity of his pur-
poses, he was ardent, sometimes impetuous, in the
pursuit of objects which he believed essential to the

general welfare. Those who stood in his way were
thrown aside without fear or ceremony. He never
affected a courtier's deference to men or opinions
which he thought hostile to the best interests of his
country; and hence he may have wounded the
vanity of those who thought themselves of conse-
quence. It is certain, whatever the cause, that at
one period of his life Mr. CLAY might have been
referred to as proof that there is more truth than
fiction in those profound lines of the poet-

"He who ascends the mountain top shall find
Its loftiest peaks most wrapt in clouds and snow;
He who surpasses or subdues mankind,
Must look down on the hate of those below:
Though far above the sun of glory glow,
And far beneath the earth and ocean spread.,
Round him are icy rocks, and loudly blow
Contending tempests on his naked head,
And thus reward the toils which to those summits led."

Calumny and detraction emptied their vials upon
him. But how glorious the change! He outlived
malice and envy. He lived long enough to prove to
the world that his ambition was no more than a
holy aspiration to make his country the greatest,
most powerful, and best governed on the earth. If
he desired its highest office, it was because the
greater power and influence resulting from such
elevation would enable him to do more than he
otherwise could for the progress and advancement-
first of his own countrymen, then of his whole race.
His sympathies embraced all. The African slave,

the Creole of Spanish America, the children of reno-
vated classic Greece-all families of men, without
-respect to color or clime, found in his expanded
bosom and comprehensive intellect a friend of their
elevation and amelioration. Such ambition as that,
is God's implantation in the human heart for raising
the down-trodden nations of the earth, and fitting
them for regenerated existence in politics, in morals,
and religion.
Bold and determined as Mr. CLAY was in all his
actions, he was, nevertheless, conciliating. He did
not obstinately adhere to things impracticable. If
he could not accomplish the best, he contented him-
self with the nighest approach to it. 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 perpe-
tuity 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. No guest ever thence departed
without feeling happier for his visit. But, alas!
that hospitable mansion has already been converted
into a house of mourning; already has intelligence
of his death passed with electric velocity to that aged

and now widowed lady who, for more than fifty
years, bore to him all the endearing relations of wife,
and whose feeble condition prevented her from join-
ing him in this city, and soothing the anguish of
life's last scene by those endearing attentions which
no one can give so well as woman and a wife. May
God infuse into her heart and mind the Christian
spirit of submission under her bereavement! It
cannot be long before she may expect a reunion in
Heaven. A nation condoles with her and her chil-
dren on account of their irreparable loss.
Mr. CLAY, from the nature of his disease, declined
very gradually. He bore his protracted sufferings
with great equanimity and patience. On one occa-
sion, he said to me, that when death was inevitable
and must soon come, and when the sufferer was
ready to die, he did not perceive the wisdom of
praying to be "cdelivered from sudden death." He
thought under such circumstances the sooner suffer-
ing was relieved by death the better. He desired
the termination of his own sufferings, while he
acknowledged the duty of patiently waiting and
abiding the pleasure of God. Mr. CLAY frequently
spoke to me of his hope of eternal life, founded upon
the merits of Jesus Christ as a Saviour; who, as he
remarked, came into the world to bring "life and
immortality to light." He was a member of the
Episcopalian Church. In one of our conversations
he told me, that as his hour of dissolution ap-

proached, he found that his affections were concen-
trating more and more upon his domestic circle-his
wife and children. In my daily visits he was in the
habit of asking me to detail to him the transactions
of the Senate. This I did, and he manifested much
interest in passing occurrences. His inquiries were
less frequent as his end approached. For the week
preceding his death he -seemed to be altogether ab-
stracted from the concerns of the world. When he
became so low that he could not converse without
being fatigued, he frequently requested those around
him to converse. He would then quietly listen.
He retained his mental faculties in great perfection.
His memory remained perfect. He frequently men-
tioned events and conversations of recent occurrence,
showing that he had a perfect recollection of what
was said and done. He said to me that he was
grateful to God for continuing to him the blessing of
reason, which enabled him to contemplate and reflect
on his situation. He manifested during his confine-
ment the same characteristics which marked his
conduct through the vigour of his life. He was ex-
ceedingly averse to give his friends "trouble," as he
called it. Some time before he knew it, we com-
menced waiting through the night in an adjoining
room. He said to me, after passing a painful day,
"Perhaps some one had better remain all night in
the parlour." From this time he knew some friend
was constantly at hand ready to attend to him.

Mr. President, the majestic form of Mr. CLAY will
no more grace these Halls. No more shall we hear
that voice which has so often thrilled and charmed
the assembled representatives of the American peo-
ple. No more shall we see that waving hand and
eye of light, as when he was engaged unfolding his
policy in regard to the varied interests of our grow-
ing and mighty republican empire. His voice is
silent on earth for ever. The darkness of death has
obscured the lustre of his eye. But the memory of
his services-not only to his beloved Kentucky, not
only to the United States, but for the cause of
human freedom and progress throughout the world
-will live through future ages, as a bright example,
stimulating and encouraging his own countrymen
and the people of all nations in their patriotic devo-
tions to country and humanity.
With Christians, there is yet a nobler and a
higher thought in regard to Mr. CLAY. They will
think of him in connection with eternity. They
will contemplate his immortal spirit occupying its
true relative magnitude among the moral stars of
glory in the presence of God. They will think of
him as having fulfilled the duties allotted to him on
earth, having been regenerated by Divine grace, and
having passed through the valley of the shadow of
death, and reached an everlasting and happy home
in that "house not made with hands, eternal in the
heavens."

On Sunday morning last, I was watching alone at
Mr. CLAY's bedside. For the last hour he had been
unusually quiet, and I thought he was sleeping. In
that, however, he told me I was mistaken. Opening
his eyes and looking at me, he said, "Mr. Under-
wood, there may be some question where my re-
mains shall be buried. Some persons may designate
Frankfort. I wish to repose at the cemetery in
Lexington, where many of my friends and connec-
tions are buried." My reply was," I will endeavour
to have your wish executed."
I now ask the Senate to have his corpse trans-
mitted to Lexington, Kentucky, for sepulture. Let
him sleep with the dead of that city, in and near
which his home has been for more than half a cen-
tury. For the people of Lexington, the living and
the dead, he manifested, by the statement made to
me, a pure and holy sympathy, and a desire to
cleave unto them, as strong as that which bound
Ruth to Naomi. It was his anxious wish to return
to them before he died, and to realize what the
daughter of Moab so strongly felt and beautifully
expressed: "Thy people shall be my people, and
thy God my God. Where thou diest will I die, and
there will I be buried."
It is fit that the tomb of HENRY CLAY should be in
the city of Lexington. In our Revolution, liberty's
first libation-blood was poured out in a town of that
name in Massachusetts. On hearing it, the pioneers

of tentucky consecrated the name, and applied it
to the place where Mr. CLAY desired to be buried.
The associations connected with the name harmonize
with his character; and the monument erected to
his memory at the spot selected by him will be visited
by the votaries of genius and liberty with that
reverence which is inspired at the tomb of Wash-
ington. Upon that monument let his epitaph be
engraved.
Mr. President, I have availed myself of Doctor
Johnson's paraphrase of the epitaph on Thomas
Hanmer, with a few alterations and additions, to
express in borrowed verse my admiration for the
life and character of Mr. CLAY, and with this heart-
tribute to the memory of my illustrious colleague I
conclude my remarks:

Born when Freedom her stripes and stars unfurl'd,
When Revolution shook the startled world-
Heroes and sages taught his brilliant mind
To know and love the rights of all mankind.
"In life's first bloom his public toils began,
At once commenced the Senator and man:
In business dext'rous, weighty in debate,
Near fifty years he labour'd for the State.
In every speech persuasive wisdom flow'd,
In every act refulgent virtue glow'd;
Suspended faction ceased from rage and strife,
To hear his eloquence and praise his life.
Resistless merit fixed the Members' choice,
Who hail'd him Speaker with united voice."
His talents ripening with advancing years-
His wisdom growing with his public cares-
A chosen envoy, war's dark horrors cease,
And tides of carnage turn to streams of peace.

Conflicting principles, internal strife,
Tariff and slavery, disunion rife,
All are compromued by his great hand,
And beams of joy illuminate the land.
Patriot, Christian, Husband, Father, Friend,
Thy work of life achieved a glorious end!

I offer the following resolutions:
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 warn-
ing come to teach us, that in the midst of life we
are in death. The ordinary labours of this Hall are
suspended, and its contentions hushed, before the
2

-.0

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 dispen-
sations, like that which is now spreading sorrow
through the land, and which is reminding us that we
have higher duties to fulfil, and graver responsibili-
ties to encounter, than those that meet us here, when
we lay our hands upon His holy word, and invoke
His holy name, promising to be faithful to that Con-
stitution, which He gave us in His mercy, and will
withdraw only in the hour of our blindness and dis-
obedience, and of His own wrath.
Another great man has fallen in our land, ripe in-
deed in years and in honours, 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 in-
dulge 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 revolution-
ary 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

J U

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 civiliza-
tion. 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
Chillicothe, 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 promi-
nent part, both in peace and war, in all the great
questions affecting her interest and her honour; 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 endow-
ments 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 ad-
miration, 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 stir-
ring 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 his-
tory, 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 de-
stroyer-when these marble columns shall them-
selves 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 fad-
ing 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 man-
ner. 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 vigour of

life. Of that Constitution and Union, whose de-
fence 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 honourable 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 trium-
phant-

"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 sen-
sibility, what has just fallen from the Senators who
have preceded ine. 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 Vir-
ginia, 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 kind-
ness. 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 emana-
tions 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 Ameri-
can 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 as 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 ob-
serve 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 Mon-
roe 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 bad 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

favourable 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 exer-
cised 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 u