USA > Mississippi > A history of Mississippi : from the discovery of the great river > Part 29
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None of his compeers arrayed facts more skillfully-none urged them with so much power. He had not the compact, clean- cut, sententious brevity which marked some of those the public ranked as his equals; on the contrary, without being diffuse, he abounded in episodes ; he introduced much matter bearing upon his point, certainly, but bearing upon it indirectly-not unfre- quently, also, introducing matter which did not much help the question on hand. He abounded in the argumentum ad hominum, in personal appeal, in sarcasm, with much of personal allusion and circumstantial explanation, often carrying him away from his subject for some time, to which, however, he always returned at precisely the point where he had left it.
It is difficult among the great masters of oratory and debate to select one whom he closely resembled. It is not probable that he had ever studied any of them closely ; and even had he done so, the originality of his genius and the intense pride of his haughty temper would have prevented him from stooping to select a model. If he resembled any of them, he did not know it, and he would have cared as little to abolish the points of re- semblance as to make them. To Demosthenes, to whom he has often been compared, he bore a likeness in his passion, his in- tensity, and in his occasional want of logie; but he was utterly unlike him in other respects. He had none of his terseness, his nakedness, and the straight-forward, unhalting directness with which he dashed on to his end. To Cicero he bore no resem- blance whatever. Among the eminent English speakers it would be almost as difficult to trace with him a parallel in any consid- erable degree exact or close. The profound philosophy of Burke, with his gorgeous, lurid and golden language, rolling on with the pomp and power of an army blazing with banners, he in no degree approached. Sheridan's bright and pungent style, glit- tering with antithesis and point, was equally unlike him.
I am inclined to think that of all the speakers I have read, though with less of logic and wit, and more of passion, he most resembled Charles Fox. The same rigid adherence actually to his point, even when seeming to be away from it; the same abundance and exuberance of matter; the same gladiatorial struggle to strike down his opponent, though the victory might slightly affect the question involved; the same felicitous blend- ing of passion and logic, with sparkles of sarcasm and personality spangling the whole-all produced strong points of resemblance, not to be traced with any other orator.
To all these eminent merits as a speaker was united a pro- found knowledge of men, of their motives, and of their weak- nesses. Though it may be that in the early part of his life, he had learned but little from books, yet amid the frank, bold and reckless pioneers which formed Kentucky's carly population, where this man stood forth in all the originality and nakedness of his nature, and amid the stormy scenes of the hustings in
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in which he was early plunged, he had gained that quick insight into the human heart, which in practical life goes farther to at- tempt success thar reams of reading. He knew men thoroughly, and not only knew how, but possessed the magnetic power to bend them to his purposes.
There is probably no position in life which requires such a combination of rare and high qualities as that of a great popu- lar leader. He must be bold and prudent, prompt and patient, stern and conciliating, captivating, commanding, far-seeing, and above all, brave to perfection. The first man in the nation, the first in power, undoubtedly, whatever may be his place, is the leader of the administration, be he in Congress or in the Cabi- net, President, or private. The leader of the opposition can hardly be called the second man in rank or power, but if his party be strong and struggling, his position is one of great strength, and enables him, though out of the government, to strongly affect it in the direction of the affairs of the nation. One of these attitudes Mr. Clay held throughout the greater part, and all the latter portion of his life. He led the adminis- tration party under Mr. Madison's presidency, throughout the trying scenes of the war, and upon him fell the brunt of that fierce Congressional struggle. When the cowardice of some commanders and the incapacity of all of them in the commence- ment of the war, had abont a series of shameful disasters, which made every American blush for the country, Henry Clay stood forth in advance of all to encourage, to console, and to rouse his countrymen to renewed efforts. Defeats, disasters, blunders and shame hung heavy upon the party in power and disheart- ened its followers, while the eloquent chiefs of the opposition poured forth a tempest of invective, denunciation, and ridicule against the feeble and futile efforts, in which the honor of the nation was sullied, and its strength lost. But the fiercer roared the storm, the sterner and higher pealed forth his trumpet voice to rally his broken forces, and marshal them anew for the strug- gle. To Henry Clay, far in front of all others, that administra- tion owed its support through the trying scenesof that bitter con- test.
He afterwards led the opposition through the terms of Jack- son, Van Buren and Tyler. The unexampled dexterity, skill, patience, firmness and hardihood with which, in spite of repeat- ed defeats, he still maintained the war, must excite unmixed admiration in all who may study his career.
Courage is a high quality-courage, perfect, multiform and unquenchable, one of the highest and rarest. Of all moral qual- ities, it is the most essential to a great popular leader, most especially the leader of an opposition ; and with that glorious gift nature had endowed Mr. Clay to extremity. There was no political responsibility which he ever avoided to take; there was no personal peril which he ever shunned to dare; there was no
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van in the opposing party which he ever failed to strike. His heart never failed him in any extremity. He met every crisis promptly and at once, and in this he bore a remarkable contrast to almost every other politician of the age; none ot his contem- poraries approached him, in this bold, unhesitating promptness, but the man of his destiny, his great rival, Jackson, with whom, in so many other points, so close a parallel might be traced. In democracies, where the will of the people must be the ultimate law of the land, an uncertainty as to their decision is apt to in- duce politicians to wait and watch for indications of the prob- able result. The timid time-server will fear to move; he will fear to take ground upon any question until some gleams of light break out from the mass of the people to show him the probable path of safety. Fears, misgivings, uncertainty as to his per- sonal interest keep him silent and still, while the masses stum- ble onward to their decision without the light of a leader. But no faint-hearted doubts ever clouded his bright eye, when bold Henry Clay was in the field. Like the white plume ot Murat, amid the smoke and the roar and the turmoil of battle his lofty crest was ever glittering in the van for the rally of his host. He waited for no indications of popularity, for he received his in- spirations from his own clear head and dauntless heart. His convictions were so strong, his self-confidence so unbounded, his will so indomitable, his genius so grand and lofty, that he seemed to bear, stamped upon his brow, nature's patent to command. He moved among his partisans with an imperial, never-doubting, overpowering air of authority, which few were able to resist. He tolerated no insubordination. Opposition seemed to him to be rebellion, and to obey or quit the camp, death or tribute was his motto, and he rarely failed to force obedience. Though the powerful rally which was made against him among his associates in 1840 and 1848, when fortune furnished the weapon to strike, exposed how much of secret dislike his despotic will had banded against him, yet it was generally beaten down to submission. His ablest and haughtiest comrades would, in general, sullenly obey. "Willing to wound, but yet afraid to strike." When in 1832, he wheeled short upon his footsteps with his compromise bill upon the tariff, he carried with him the great bulk of his partisans in Congress, and the whole of them in the country, though directly committed to the support of that measure. In 1825, he carried with him his friends from Ohio, Missouri and Kentucky, for Mr. Adams, against General Jackson, though with that vote political destruction loomed up darkly in their front. Nor was it necessary that the question should be in his path to make him meet it. He spoke out bold and free on all points in front or around him, far or near. In 1825, he was Secretary of State, and not necessarily involved in the ephemeral domestic politics of his State. Kentucky was boiling like a mighty caul- dron upon the subject of her relief laws. True to his nature, Mr. Clay spoke out clear and strong in behalf of justice and
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sound policy against the current of an overwhelming majority. Under the same circumstances he took the same responsibility two years afterwards, upon the question of the old and new courts. This unhesitating and honest audacity necessarily en- tailed upon him many temporary disasters, but he always came up again fresh and strong. Like the fabled wrestler of anti- quity, he rose from his mother earth stronger in his rebound than before his fall.
Overwhelmed with calumny, he encountered a defeat in 1828 which would have broken the heart and blighted the fame of any other popular leader in the nation. Even Kentucky, the last covert of the hunted stag, was beaten from his grasp ; yet he still made head, banded his broken forces, and four years afterwards, again met his destiny in the same man. . He encountered a defeat terrible and overwhelming, yet he stood under it erect and lofty as a tower. He had now left the retirement, from whence as a general he had marshaled his array, and had come down into the arena of the halls of Congress to strike, as well as order. And in the tremendous struggles of those stormy sessions, the battle of the giants, most gloriously did he lead the assault. It is in- spiring to see how manfully he upheld the day. The repeated disasters which had crushed the hope and cowed the spirit of his partisans, broke vainly upon his haughty front. Defiance, stern and high, blazed in every feature, and war to the knife in every word. It was a brave sight to see how gallantly he would dash into the melee, deal his crashing blows right and left among Van Buren, Benton, Forsyth and Wright; trample the wretched curs of party into the dust beneath his feet, and strike with all his strength full at the towering crest of Jackson.
Nor was it only in the bold and stern qualities of the party leader that he excelled; he could be winning and gentle too. While there was any hope of winning an opponent to the sup- port of a measure, no man was more conciliating ; while his par- tisans would obey, no man was more kind and gentle; and his high-strung nature rendered his courtesy more attractive than the most dexterous flattery of other men. As instances of this skill, I may mention that he twice carried through his land bill against a dead majority in both houses ; that he carried through his Missouri compromise, when at first the effort seemed hope- less ; and that he won a passage for his bank bills in 1832 and 1841, with a minority of supporters in the first instance, and with an uncertain, hesitating, unreliable majority in the last.
He was patient, too, and could bide his time. In 1840, intes- tine commotion first appeared in his party, and he first met for- midable and organized resistance to his will. He had for years fought out every campaign as the leader of the opposition ; his tactics had been brilliant, dextrous and admirable. The party in power was broken down, and he thought he saw himself close upon the long delayed fruition of all his hopes. The bright crown of glory which had so long glittered before his eyes, but
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to elude his grasp, was now within his reach. But another was selected to wear, when he had won it. Another was chosen to reap the harvest, which he had worked and watched and tended. Then, for the first time, he met, what he felt to be, rebellion in his camp. Then, for the first time, he saw his standard deserted. His own appreciation of the services he had rendered his party, was strong and intense, and under so crushing a blow, a fiery, impetuous man might be expected to commit some imprudence. Doubtless his heart beat thick with a sense of injustice, and his blood boiled with resentment. Yet he betrayed nothing of it, at least, not in public. The great party leader knew how to bide his time. He bowed gracefully to the decision, threw himself cordially into the movement, and was still the recognized chief of the host which mustered under the banner of another. His was the power behind the throne, greater than the throne itself. Four years afterwards, he reaped the fruit of his prudence and his patience. He was supported with zeal and unanimity by those who had before struck him down, and certainly nothing but the mine which was so suddenly sprung beneath his feet pre- vented his triumph. After a close and most desperate struggle he fell again, and apparently forever. Yet, even after this apparently final blow, another effort was made, which most strikingly illus- trates his character, and displayed upon a broad ground his prodigious power over men, and his buoyant, confident, sanguine, unbreakable spirit. When he was struck down in 1844, it seemed that his race was run. His defeats had been so numerous and continued, he had been so long in the public eye, he was so far advanced in years, the rivals of his middle age, Adams, Jackson, Crawford, had all passed away, and he seemed to be of a former generation. The public heart felt that his career was closed. The old make way for the young, and a new race had arisen.
Taylor's victories had arrested the public mind, and the vet- eran statesman of Ashland was forgotten; yet he attempted to stem the tide of victory in the very fullness of its power. His control over men was so prodigious, he bestirred himself so vigorously, he struck so hard and true to his mark, that with most of his close friends directly committed against him, and in spite of the general sense of the public, he scarcely failed to win. None but a spirit as dauntless as his own would have dared the struggle. None but a power so great could have made it.
As a statesman, undoubtedly Mr. Clay was entitled to the very highest rank among all his contemporaries. It had been gener- ally conceded that his learning was not profound or various. Of science, in its limited sense, he knew but little, and of the lighter and less important branches of study and accomplishment, still less. It is said that he cared nothing for literature, had never searched deeply into history; and it is remarkable, that though at one time a minister abroad, and for four years Secretary of State, in constant relations and intercourse with foreign envoys
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of every nation, he spoke no language but his own. But he knew thoroughly that which it most imported him most to know. He was profoundly versed in the theory and practices of our own government, and in a knowledge of the powers of each branch of it. He knew intimately and to the bottom, the connection, political and commercial, of America with all other nations. He knew perfectly the relation which each part of the country bore to the other, and he understood profoundly the character, genius and wants of the American people. There was nothing sectional in his policy. His broad and comprehensive genius held in its vision the interest of the whole nation, and his big American heart throbbed for it all. He was intensely American in all his thoughts and all his feelings. To cherish the interest and the glory, and to build up the power of his country, and his whole country, was the aim of all his policy, and the passion of his life. No candid reader, who may study his career, can deny, that on all great occasions he was not only purely patriotic, but eminently self-sacrificing. Far brighter examples of this patri- otic spirit will at once occur to all who are familiar with his ca- reer ; but at this moment I will only allude to the instances in which he took ground upon Kentucky State politics, which I cited as examples of his unhesitating boldness, when I was discuss- ing his character as a party leader. Like all other true states- men, his ideas were all relative, not absolute. He was in no degree a man of one idea. He was not wedded peremptorily and at all hazards, to any measure or any principle.
He understood the policy of a nation, not as a fixed mathe- matical theorem, where under all circumstances and at all times, every result but one must be wrong ; but as a practical science of fitting measures to the occasion, to necessity, and to the times. The best practical good which could be secured was his aim, and under some circumstances he would maintain, what, under a dif- ferent condition of affairs, he would oppose. Without discuss- ing the philosophical soundness of his political economy, or the correctness of all his measures, it may be stated with truth, that in them all, he looked to the integrity and independence, polit- ical and commercial, of the nation. The energy of his support of it, gave to him the rank of the champion of the protective tariff policy, though it was established before he came into po- litical life ; and his arguments in its favor, principally turn upon the maintenance of the commercial independence of the coun- try. Yet, he was not wedded to it; and when its continuance menaced danger to the country, he himself led the way in pull- ing it down. The monument to his memory upon the Cumber- land road bears testimony to his efforts in behalf of national works of internal improvement. He was also the author of some important, and of some great and vital measures. He originated the scheme for the distribution among. the States of the public lands; he was the author of the Missouri compromise, and of
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the adjustment of the last stormy agitation of the slavery sub- ject. These three measures were his own. They were struck off in the mint of his own mind. The first of these measures must be criticised, both as the movement of a party leader and a states- man, and with regard to the condition of things at the time, to understand its real merit, and to deal justice to its author. Shortly after the revolution, in the magnanimous spirit of that immortal age, the States ceded the lands to the general govern- ment, as a security for the payment of the national debt. That debt was nearly satisfied when Mr. Clay's measure was devised, and the treasury was overflowing with revenue. It was the general sense of all parties, that the land should be withdrawn from the current support of the general government; and Con- gress was overrun with schemes to squander it. Some of the States asserted the monstrous heresy of a title hold to all within their limits, by right of their sovereignty. Propositions for grants to States. companies and individuals were rite in each hall, and probably by no other movement would it have been possible to rescue and preserve, for the benefit of the Union, that immense fund from squandering dissipation. Considered with- out reference to the schemes of abandonment, which it was nec- essary to oppose, the measure does not appear to be founded on philosophical soundness and policy. In the United States we have two circles of government, with a common constituency. The State and Federal governments are organs of the same peo- ple. They have separate and distinct powers, different circles and measures of authority and action, but a common and the same constituency. Both governments are mere abstractions, while the living, breathing power is the people and the same people. The same men are citizens of one government and the other. The same people bear the burden, pay the revenue and enjoy the benefits of them both. Both governments are ideal exis- tences, artificial organs of one common master. Therefore, it does not appcar, when abstractly considered, to be sound or philosophical statesmanship, to give to the people, through one organ, a portion of the public revenue, when the same people will be compelled to pay it back again, in a different shape to the other. It seems to be shifting a treasure from one pocket to the other, with some loss on the passage.
But considered as a movement to prevent that great fund from being squandercd, it was the stroke of a statesman, and as the tactics of a party leader the conception was most dextrous. The country was upon the eve of a Presidential election, and the disposition of the land fund was to the candidates a most peril- ous and embarrassing question. Mr. Clay's opponents in the Senate, constituting a majority, determined to complicate him with the subject, and in spite of the remonstrances and votes of himself and his friends, they referred it to the Committee upon Manufactures, of which he was chairman, the last Committee in
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the House to which the subject was appropriate and germain. This disposal of the subject, unjust as it was, compelled him to take it up. If he favored the proposition to cede the lands to the new States, he disgusted the old. If he opposed it, he offended the new. But the invention of the old party leader came to his rescue, and as his return blow, he conceived the counterstroke of a distribution among all the States.
On the two other great occasions, when sectional excitement shook the Union to its centre, to which I have referred, he ap- peared as a mediator. He was the author of the Missouri Com- promise, and of the adjustment measures of the stormy session of 1850. The completely relative cast of all his political ideas, the total absence from his character of fanaticism upon any opinion of principle, eminently fitted him for a mediator, and upon all dangerous questions he always acted that part. When- ever conflicting interests or opinions menaced the integrity of the Union, he stood forth as the harbinger and the champion of peace and conciliation. He saw the wretched condition of the miserable little republics of South America, feeble, demoralized and contemptible at war with each other, trampled upon by every European power, and despised by the world; he was a member of a great nation ; he loved his country, and his whole country, from North to South, from the big lakes to the gulf, from ocean to ocean, from the sunrise to the sunset, and every feeling of his heart, every thought of his brain revolted at dis- memberment. It is enough to say, in eulogy of those measures, and it should immortalize the great statesman who conceived them, that both the great divisions of the American people have adopted them both, as a part of their political creed.
Doubtless some portion of his influence in the adjustment of those perilous questions arose from the entirely moderate and conservative character of his opinions upon that subject, and from the peculiarity of his position. He was a native and a representative of a slave State ; he had never lived anywhere else; and while unflinchingly true, at all times and upon all points, to the rights of the Southern States, yet he considered slavery as a great though unavoidable evil. But he was in no degree impassioned and blinded in regard to it. He looked at the subject calmly and without exaggeration; not through the magnifying glass of religious fanaticism or distorted philan- thropy, but with the calm eye of a practical statesman. He maintained the policy of gradual emancipation on both occasions that the subject was agitated in Kentucky, openly and vigor- ously ; contending that the great numerical preponderance of the whites over the blacks in that State rendered their gradual eman- cipation and removal safe and easily attainable. At the same time be always declared that he considered all such schemes to be utterly impracticable in the planting States ; and if a citizen of one of them, would oppose them all, because the numbers of the blacks would render their removal impossible, and their con-
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tinual presence disadvantageous and perilous to the whites. He favored emancipation in Kentucky, while farther South he de- clared he considered it utterly impracticable. These views he urged and amplified at length, not only in the discussion of the question in his own State, but also in the United States Sen- ate, while discussing the reception of petitions for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia. This position might also be referred to, as another illustration of the practical and completely relative character of all his political ideas. Doubtless, as an abstract proposition, considered without refer- ence to its inevitable existence, or the perilous consequences of its cessation, he was opposed to slavery ; for liberty was the pas- sion of his life. His own country, and his own countrymen, were the first and the principal objects in his thoughts and in his heart ; but his broad and extended philanthropy embraced the world. Even the degraded African slave, separated from his own race by a wide and impassable gulf, found in him a well-wisher to his moral and mental elevation, when it could occur safely in a different land and in another clime. Wherever abroad, freedom found a votary, that votary found in him a champion. When Greece, the classic land of Greece-the fountain of refinement, the birth place of eloquence and poetry and liberty-when Greece awoke from the long slumber of ages, and beat back the fading crescent to its native east-when Macedon at last called to mind the feats of her conquering boy, and the Spartan again struck for the land which had bred him, in Henry Clay's voice the words of cheering rolled over the blue waters, from the far west, as the greeting of the new world to the old. When Mexico, and our sister republics of the extreme South, shook off the rotted yoke of the fallen Spaniard, and freedom's face for one brief moment gleamed 'under the pale light of the Southern cross, it was he who spoke out again to cheer and to rouse its champions. The regenerated Greek, the dusky Mexican, the Peruvian mountaineer, all, who would strike one blow for liberty, found in him a friend and an advocate. His words of cheering swept over the plains of Marathon and came ringing back from the peaks of the Andes. But that voice is now stilled, and his bright eye closed forever. He has gone from our midst, and the wailing of grief which rose from the nation, and the plumage of mourning which shrouded its cities, its halls and its altars, attest his countrymen's sense of their loss. He has gone, and gone in glory. From us rises the dirge ; with him floats the pean of triumph.
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