HISTORIC SPEECHES
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
Eulogy for Henry Clay
July 6, 1852
On the fourth day of July, 1776, the people of a few feeble
and oppressed colonies of Great Britain, inhabiting a portion of
the Atlantic coast of North America, publicly declared their
national independence, and made their appeal to the justice of
their cause, and to the God of battles, for the maintainance of
that declaration. That people were few in numbers, and without
resources, save only their own wise heads and stout hearts.
Within the first year of that declared independence, and while its
maintainance was yet problematical -- while the bloody struggle
between those resolute rebels, and their haughty would-be-masters,
was still waging, of undistinguished parents, and in an
obscure district of one of those colonies, Henry Clay was born.
The infant nation, and the infant child began the race of life
together. For three quarters of a century they have travelled
hand in hand. They have been companions ever. The nation
has passed its perils, and is free, prosperous, and powerful. The
child has reached his manhood, his middle age, his old age, and
is dead. In all that has concerned the nation the man ever
sympathised; and now the nation mourns for the man.
The day after his death, one of the public Journals, opposed
to him politically, held the following pathetic and beautiful
language, which I adopt, partly because such high and exclusive
eulogy, originating with a political friend, might offend good taste,
but chiefly, because I could not, in any language of my own, so
well express my thoughts--
"Alas! who can realize that Henry Clay is dead! Who can
realize that never again that majestic form shall rise in the
council-chambers of his country to beat back the storms of anarchy
which may threaten, or pour the oil of peace upon the troubled
billows as they rage and menace around? Who can realize, that
the workings of that mighty mind have ceased -- that the
throbbings of that gallant heart are stilled -- that the mighty sweep of
that graceful arm will be felt no more, and the magic of that
eloquent tongue, which spake as spake no other tongue besides, is
hushed -- hushed forever! Who can realize that freedom's
champion -- the champion of a civilized world, and of all tongues and
kindreds and people, has indeed fallen! Alas, in those dark hours,
which, as they come in the history of all nations, must come in
ours -- those 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?
Perchance, in the whole circle of the great and gifted of our
land, there remains but one on whose shoulders the mighty
mantle of the departed statesman may fall -- one, while we now
write, is doubtless pouring his tears over the bier of his brother
and his friend -- brother, friend ever, yet in political sentiment, as
far apart as party could make them. Ah, it is at times like these,
that the petty distinctions of mere party disappear. We see only
the great, the grand, the noble features of the departed statesman;
and we do not even beg permission to bow at his feet and
mingle our tears with those who have ever been his political
adherents -- we do [not?] beg this permission -- we claim it as a
right, though we feel it as a privilege. Henry Clay belonged to his
country -- to the world, mere party cannot claim men like him.
His career has been national -- his fame has filled the earth -- his
memory will endure to `the last syllable of recorded time.'
"Henry Clay is dead! -- He breathed his last on yesterday at
twenty minutes after eleven, in his chamber at Washington.
To those who followed his lead in public affairs, it more
appropriately belongs to pronounce his eulogy, and pay specific honors
to the memory of the illustrious dead -- but all Americans may
show the grief which his death inspires, for, his character and
fame are national property. As on a question of liberty, he knew
no North, no South, no East, no West, but only the Union, which
held them all in its sacred circle, so now his countrymen will
know no grief, that is not as wide-spread as the bounds of the
confederacy. The career of Henry Clay was a public career. From
his youth he has been devoted to the public service, at a period
too, in the world's history justly regarded as a remarkable era in
human affairs. He witnessed in the beginning the throes of the
French Revolution. He saw the rise and fall of Napoleon. He was
called upon to legislate for America, and direct her policy when
all Europe was the battle-field of contending dynasties, and when
the struggle for supremacy imperilled the rights of all neutral
nations. His voice, spoke war and peace in the contest with Great
Britain.
"When Greece rose against the Turks and struck for liberty,
his name was mingled with the battle-cry of freedom. When
South America threw off the thraldom of Spain, his speeches were
read at the head of her armies by Bolivar. His name has been,
and will continue to be, hallowed in two hemispheres, for it is--
`One of the few the immortal names
That were not born to die,'
"To the ardent patriot and profound statesman, he added a
quality possessed by few of the gifted on earth. His eloquence has
not been surpassed. In the effective power to move the heart of
man, Clay was without an equal, and the heaven born endowment,
in the spirit of its origin, has been most conspicuously
exhibited against intestine feud. On at least three important
occasions, he has quelled our civil commotions, by a power and
influence, which belonged to no other statesman of his age
and times. And in our last internal discord, when this Union trembled
to its center -- in old age, he left the shades of private life and
gave the death blow to fraternal strife, with the vigor of his
earlier years in a series of Senatorial efforts, which in themselves
would bring immortality, by challenging comparison with the
efforts of any statesman in any age. He exorcised the demon
which possessed the body politic, and gave peace to a distracted
land. Alas! the achievement cost him his life! He sank day by day
to the tomb -- his pale, but noble brow, bound with a triple wreath,
put there by a grateful country. May his ashes rest in peace,
while his spirit goes to take its station among the great and good
men who preceded him!"
While it is customary, and proper, upon occasions like the
present, to give a brief sketch of the life of the deceased, in the
case of Mr. Clay, it is less necessary than most others; for his
biography has been written and re-written, and read, and re-read,
for the last twenty-five years; so that, with the exception of a few
of the latest incidents of his life, all is as well known, as it can be.
The short sketch which I give is, therefore merely to maintain
the connection of this discourse.
Henry Clay was born on the 12th of April 1777, in Hanover
County, Virginia. Of his father, who died in the fourth or
fifth year of Henry's age, little seems to be known, except that he
was a respectable man, and a preacher of the baptist persuasion.
Mr. Clay's education, to the end of his life, was comparatively limited.
I say "to the end of his life," because I have understood that, from
time to time, he added something to his education during the
greater part of his whole life. Mr. Clay's lack of a more perfect
early education, however it may be regretted generally, teaches at
least one profitable lesson; it teaches that in this country, one can
scarcely be so poor, but that, if he will, he can acquire sufficient
education to get through the world respectably. In his twenty-third
year Mr. Clay was licenced to practice law, and emigrated
to Lexington, Kentucky. Here he commenced and continued the
practice till the year 1803, when he was first elected to the Kentucky
Legislature. By successive elections he was continued in the
Legislature till the latter part of 1806, when he was elected to fill
a vacancy, of a single session, in the United States Senate. In
1807 he was again elected to the Kentucky House of Representatives,
and by that body, chosen its Speaker. In 1808 he was re-elected
to the same body. In 1809 he was again chosen to fill a
vacancy of two years in the United States Senate. In 1811 he was
elected to the United States House of Representatives, and on the
first day of taking his seat in that body, he was chosen its speaker.
In 1813 he was again elected Speaker. Early in 1814, being the
period of our last British war, Mr. Clay was sent as commissioner,
with others, to negotiate a treaty of peace, which treaty was
concluded in the latter part of the same year. On his return from
Europe he was again elected to the lower branch of Congress,
and on taking his seat in December 1815 was called to his old
post -- the speaker's chair, a position in which he was retained by
successive elections, with one brief intermission, till the inauguration
of John Q. Adams in March 1825. He was then appointed
Secretary of State, and occupied that important station till the
inauguration of Gen. Jackson in March 1829. After this he
returned to Kentucky, resumed the practice of the law, and
continued it till the Autumn of 1831, when he was by the legislature
of Kentucky, again placed in the United States Senate. By a
re-election he continued in the Senate till he resigned his seat,
and retired, in March 1848. In December 1849 he again took his
seat in the Senate, which he again resigned only a few months
before his death.
By the foregoing it is perceived that the period from the
beginning of Mr. Clay's official life, in 1803, to the end of it in
1852, is but one year short of half a century; and that the sum
of all the intervals in it, will not amount to ten years. But mere
duration of time in office, constitutes the smallest part of Mr.
Clay's history. Throughout that long period, he has constantly
been the most loved, and most implicitly followed by friends, and
the most dreaded by opponents, of all living American politicians.
In all the great questions which have agitated the country, and
particularly in those great and fearful crises, the Missouri question
-- the Nullification question, and the late slavery question, as connected
with the newly acquired territory, involving and endangering the
stability of the Union, his has been the leading and most
conspicuous part. In 1824 he was first a candidate for the Presidency,
and was defeated; and, although he was successively defeated for
the same office in 1832 and in 1844, there has never been a
moment since 1824 till after 1848 when a very large portion of the
American people did not cling to him with an enthusiastic hope
and purpose of still elevating him to the Presidency. With other
men, to be defeated, was to be forgotten; but to him, defeat was
but a trifling incident, neither changing him, or the world's
estimate of him. Even those of both political parties who have been
preferred to him for the highest office, have run far briefer
courses than he, and left him, still shining high in the heavens of
the political world. Jackson, Van Buren, Harrison, Polk, and
Taylor, all rose after, and set long before him. The spell -- the
long enduring spell -- with which the souls of men were bound to
him, is a miracle. Who can compass it? It is probably true he
owed his pre-eminence to no one quality, but to a fortunate
combination of several. He was surpassingly eloquent; but many
eloquent men fail utterly; and they are not, as a class, generally
successful. His judgment was excellent; but many men of good
judgment, live and die unnoticed. His will was indomitable; but
this quality often secures to its owner nothing better than a
character for useless obstinacy. These then were Mr. Clay's leading
qualities. No one of them is very uncommon; but all taken together
are rarely combined in a single individual; and this is probably
the reason why such men as Henry Clay are so rare in the world.
Mr. Clay's eloquence did not consist, as many fine specimens
of eloquence does [do], of types and figures -- of antithesis, and elegant
arrangement of words and sentences; but rather of that deeply
earnest and impassioned tone, and manner, which can proceed
only from great sincerity and a thorough conviction, in the speaker
of the justice and importance of his cause. This it is, that truly
touches the chords of sympathy; and those who heard Mr. Clay
never failed to be moved by it, or ever afterwards, forgot the
impression. All his efforts were made for practical effect. He never
spoke merely to be heard. He never delivered a Fourth of July
oration, or an eulogy on an occasion like this. As a politician or
statesman, no one was so habitually careful to avoid all sectional
ground. Whatever he did, he did for the whole country. In the
construction of his measures he ever carefully surveyed every
part of the field, and duly weighed every conflicting interest.
Feeling, as he did, and as the truth surely is, that the world's best
hope depended on the continued Union of these States, he was
ever jealous of, and watchful for, whatever might have the
slightest tendency to separate them.
Mr. Clay's predominant sentiment, from first to last, was a
deep devotion to the cause of human liberty -- a strong sympathy
with the oppressed everywhere, and an ardent wish for their
elevation. With him, this was a primary and all controlling
passion. Subsidiary to this was the conduct of his whole life. He
loved his country partly because it was his own country, but
mostly because it was a free country; and he burned with a zeal
for its advancement, prosperity and glory, because he saw in such,
the advancement, prosperity and glory, of human liberty, human
right and human nature. He desired the prosperity of his countrymen
partly because they were his countrymen, but chiefly to
show to the world that freemen could be prosperous.
That his views and measures were always the wisest, needs
not to be affirmed; nor should it be, on this occasion, where so
many, thinking differently, join in doing honor to his memory.
A free people, in times of peace and quiet -- when pressed by no
common danger -- naturally divide into parties. At such times the
man who is of neither party, is not -- cannot be, of any consequence.
Mr. Clay, therefore, was of a party. Taking a prominent
part, as he did, in all the great political questions of his country
for the last half century, the wisdom of his course on many, is
doubted and denied by a large portion of his countrymen; and
of such it is not now proper to speak particularly. But there are
many others, about his course upon which, there is little or no
disagreement amongst intelligent and patriotic Americans. Of
these last are the War of 1812, the Missouri question, Nullification,
and the now recent compromise measures. In 1812 Mr. Clay,
though not unknown, was still a young man. Whether we should
go to war with Great Britain, being the question of the day, a
minority opposed the declaration of war by Congress, while the
majority, though apparently inclining to war, had, for years,
wavered, and hesitated to act decisively. Meanwhile British
aggressions multiplied, and grew more daring and aggravated. By
Mr. Clay, more than any other man, the struggle was brought to
a decision in Congress. The question, being now fully before
congress, came up, in a variety of ways, in rapid succession, on
most of which occasions Mr. Clay spoke. Adding to all the logic,
of which the subject was susceptible, that noble inspiration, which
came to him as it came to no other, he aroused, and nerved, and
inspired his friends, and confounded and bore-down all opposition.
Several of his speeches, on these occasions, were reported,
and are still extant; but the best of these all never was. During
its delivery the reporters forgot their vocations, dropped their
pens, and sat enchanted from near the beginning to quite the
close. The speech now lives only in the memory of a few old men;
and the enthusiasm with which they cherish their recollection of
it is absolutely astonishing. The precise language of this speech
we shall never know; but we do know -- we cannot help knowing
-- that, with deep pathos, it pleaded the cause of the injured sailor
-- that it invoked the genius of the revolution -- that it
apostrophised the names of Otis, of Henry and of Washington -- that it
appealed to the interest, the pride, the honor and the glory of the
nation -- that it shamed and taunted the timidity of friends -- that it
scorned, and scouted, and withered the temerity of domestic foes --
that it bearded and defied the British Lion -- and rising, and
swelling, and maddening in its course, it sounded the onset, till
the charge, the shock, the steady struggle, and the glorious
victory, all passed in vivid review before the entranced hearers.
Important and exciting as was the war question, of 1812, it
never so alarmed the sagacious statesmen of the country for the
safety of the republic, as afterwards did the Missouri question.
This sprang from that unfortunate source of discord -- negro
slavery. When our Federal Constitution was adopted, we owned
no territory beyond the limits or ownership of the States, except
the territory North-West of the River Ohio, and east of the
Mississippi. What has since been formed into the States of Maine,
Kentucky, and Tennessee, was, I believe, within the limits of or
owned by Massachusetts, Virginia, and North Carolina. As to the
North Western Territory, provision had been made, even before
the adoption of the Constitution, that slavery should never go
there. On the admission of the States into the Union carved from
the territory we owned before the constitution, no question -- or at
most, no considerable question -- arose about slavery -- those
which were within the limits of or owned by the old states, following,
respectively, the condition of the parent state, and those
within the North West territory, following the previously made
provision. But in 1803 we purchased Louisiana of the French;
and it included with much more, what has since been formed into
the State of Missouri. With regard to it, nothing had been done
to forestall the question of slavery. When, therefore, in 1819,
Missouri, having formed a State constitution, without excluding
slavery, and with slavery already actually existing within its limits,
knocked at the door of the Union for admission, almost the
entire representation of the non-slave-holding states, objected. A
fearful and angry struggle instantly followed. This alarmed thinking
men, more than any previous question, because, unlike all the
former, it divided the country by geographical lines. Other questions
had their opposing partizans in all localities of the country
and in almost every family; so that no division of the Union could
follow such, without a separation of friends, to quite as great an
extent, as that of opponents. Not so with the Missouri question.
On this a geographical line could be traced which, in the main,
would separate opponents only. This was the danger. Mr. Jefferson,
then in retirement, wrote:
"I had for a long time ceased to read newspapers, or to pay
any attention to public affairs, confident they were in good hands,
and content to be a passenger in our bark to the shore from which
I am not distant. But this momentous question, like a fire bell in
the night, awakened, and filled me with terror. I considered it at
once as the knell of the Union. It is hushed, indeed, for the
moment. But this is a reprieve only, not a final sentence. A
geographical line, co-inciding with a marked principle, moral and
political, once conceived, and held up to the angry passions of
men, will never be obliterated; and every irritation will mark it
deeper and deeper. I can say, with conscious truth, that there is
not a man on earth who would sacrifice more than I would to
relieve us from this heavy reproach, in any practicable way. The
cession of that kind of property, for so it is misnamed, is a
bagatelle which would not cost me a second thought, if, in that way,
a general emancipation, and expatriation could be effected; and,
gradually, and with due sacrifices I think it might be. But as it is,
we have the wolf by the ears and we can neither hold him, nor
safely let him go. Justice is in one scale, and self-preservation in
the other."
Mr. Clay was in congress, and, perceiving the danger, at once
engaged his whole energies to avert it. It began, as I have said,
in 1819; and it did not terminate till 1821. Missouri would not
yield the point; and congress -- that is, a majority in congress -- by
repeated votes, showed a determination to not admit the state
unless it should yield. After several failures, and great labor on
the part of Mr. Clay to so present the question that a majority
could consent to the admission, it was, by a vote, rejected, and as
all seemed to think, finally. A sullen gloom hung over the nation.
All felt that the rejection of Missouri, was equivalent to a
dissolution of the Union, because those states which already had, what
Missouri was rejected for refusing to relinquish, would go with
Missouri. All deprecated and deplored this, but none saw how to
avert it. For the judgment of Members to be convinced of the
necessity of yielding, was not the whole difficulty; each had a
constituency to meet, and to answer to. Mr. Clay, though worn
down, and exhausted, was appealed to by members, to renew his
efforts at compromise. He did so, and by some judicious
modifications of his plan, coupled with laborious efforts with individual
members, and his own over-mastering eloquence upon the floor,
he finally secured the admission of the State. Brightly, and
captivating as it had previously shown, it was now perceived that
his great eloquence, was a mere embellishment, or, at most, but
a helping hand to his inventive genius, and his devotion to his
country in the day of her extreme peril.
After the settlement of the Missouri question, although a
portion of the American people have differed with Mr. Clay, and
a majority even, appear generally to have been opposed to him
on questions of ordinary administration, he seems constantly to
have been regarded by all, as the man for a crisis. Accordingly,
in the days of Nullification, and more recently in the re-appearance
of the slavery question, connected with our territory newly
acquired of Mexico, the task of devising a mode of adjustment,
seems to have been cast upon Mr. Clay, by common consent --
and his performance of the task, in each case, was little else than,
a literal fulfilment of the public expectation.
Mr. Clay's efforts in behalf of the South Americans, and
afterwards, in behalf of the Greeks, in the times of their
respective struggles for civil liberty are among the finest on record,
upon the noblest of all themes; and bear ample corroboration of
what I have said was his ruling passion -- a love of liberty and
right, unselfishly, and for their own sakes.
Having been led to allude to domestic slavery so frequently
already, I am unwilling to close without referring more
particularly to Mr. Clay's views and conduct in regard to it. He ever
was on principle and in feeling, opposed to slavery. The very
earliest, and one of the latest public efforts of his life, separated
by a period of more than fifty years, were both made in favor of
gradual emancipation of the slaves in Kentucky. He did not
perceive, that on a question of human right, the negroes were to be
excepted from the human race. And yet Mr. Clay was the owner
of slaves. Cast into life where slavery was already widely spread
and deeply seated, he did not perceive, as I think no wise man
has perceived, how it could be at once eradicated, without
producing a greater evil, even to the cause of human liberty itself.
His feeling and his judgment, therefore, ever led him to oppose
both extremes of opinion on the subject. Those who would shiver
into fragments the Union of these States; tear to tatters its now
venerated constitution; and even burn the last copy of the Bible,
rather than slavery should continue a single hour, together with
all their more halting sympathisers, have received, and are
receiving their just execration; and the name, and opinions, and
influence of Mr. Clay, are fully, and, as I trust, effectually and
enduringly, arrayed against them. But I would also, if I could,
array his name, opinions, and influence against the opposite
extreme -- against a few, but an increasing number of men, who, for
the sake of perpetuating slavery, are beginning to assail and to
ridicule the white man's charter of freedom -- the declaration that
"all men are created free and equal." So far as I have learned,
the first American, of any note, to do or attempt this, was the late
John C. Calhoun; and if I mistake not, it soon after found its way
into some of the messages of the Governors of South Carolina.
We, however, look for, and are not much shocked by, political
eccentricities and heresies in South Carolina. But, only last year,
I saw with astonishment, what purported to be a letter of a very
distinguished and influential clergyman of Virginia, copied, with
apparent approbation, into a St. Louis newspaper, containing the
following, to me, very extraordinary language--
"I am fully aware that there is a text in some Bibles that is
not in mine. Professional abolitionists have made more use of it,
than of any passage in the Bible. It came, however, as I trace it,
from Saint Voltaire, and was baptized by Thomas Jefferson, and
since almost universally regarded as canonical authority, 'All men
are born free and equal.'
"This is a genuine coin in the political currency of our
generation. I am sorry to say that I have never seen two men of whom
it is true. But I must admit I never saw the Siamese twins, and
therefore will not dogmatically say that no man ever saw a proof
of this sage aphorism."
This sounds strangely in republican America. The like was
not heard in the fresher days of the Republic. Let us contrast
with it the language of that truly national man, whose life and
death we now commemorate and lament. I quote from a speech
of Mr. Clay delivered before the American Colonization Society in 1827.
"We are reproached with doing mischief by the agitation of
this question. The society goes into no household to disturb its
domestic tranquility; it addresses itself to no slaves to weaken
their obligations of obedience. It seeks to affect no man's property.
It neither has the power nor the will to affect the property of any
one contrary to his consent. The execution of its scheme would
augment instead of diminishing the value of the property left
behind. The society, composed of free men, concerns itself only
with the free. Collateral consequences we are not responsible for.
It is not this society which has produced the great moral revolution
which the age exhibits. What would they, who thus reproach
us, have done? If they would repress all tendencies towards
liberty, and ultimate emancipation, they must do more than put
down the benevolent efforts of this society. They must go back to
the era of our liberty and independence, and muzzle the cannon
which thunders its annual joyous return. They must renew
the slave trade with all its train of atrocities. They must suppress
the workings of British philanthropy, seeking to meliorate the
condition of the unfortunate West Indian slave. They must arrest the
career of South American deliverance from thraldom. They must
blow out the moral lights around us, and extinguish that greatest
torch of all which America presents to a benighted world -- pointing
the way to their rights, their liberties, and their happiness.
And when they have achieved all those purposes their work will
be yet incomplete. They must penetrate the human soul, and
eradicate the light of reason, and the love of liberty. Then, and not
till then, when universal darkness and despair prevail, can you
perpetuate slavery, and repress all sympathy, and all humane, and
benevolent efforts among free men, in behalf of the unhappy
portion of our race doomed to bondage."
The American Colonization Society was organized in 1816.
Mr. Clay, though not its projector, was one of its earliest
members; and he died, as for the many preceding years he had been,
its President. It was one of the most cherished objects of his
direct care and consideration; and the association of his name
with it has probably been its very greatest collateral support. He
considered it no demerit in the society, that it tended to relieve
slave-holders from the troublesome presence of the free negroes;
but this was far from being its whole merit in his estimation. In
the same speech from which I have quoted he says: "There is a moral
fitness in the idea of returning to Africa her
children, whose ancestors have been torn from her by the ruthless
hand of fraud and violence. Transplanted in a foreign land, they
will carry back to their native soil the rich fruits of religion,
civilization, law and liberty. May it not be one of the great designs
of the Ruler of the universe, (whose ways are often inscrutable by
short-sighted mortals,) thus to transform an original crime, into a
signal blessing to that most unfortunate portion of the globe?"
This suggestion of the possible ultimate redemption of the
African race and African continent, was made twenty-five years
ago. Every succeeding year has added strength to the hope of its
realization. May it indeed be realized! Pharaoh's country was
cursed with plagues, and his hosts were drowned in the Red Sea
for striving to retain a captive people who had already served
them more than four hundred years. May like disasters never
befall us! If as the friends of colonization hope, the present and
coming generations of our countrymen shall by any means,
succeed in freeing our land from the dangerous presence of slavery;
and, at the same time, in restoring a captive people to their
long-lost father-land, with bright prospects for the future; and this too,
so gradually, that neither races nor individuals shall have suffered
by the change, it will indeed be a glorious consummation. And if,
to such a consummation, the efforts of Mr. Clay shall have
contributed, it will be what he most ardently wished, and none of
his labors will have been more valuable to his country and his
kind.
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. But he is gone. Let us strive to deserve,
as far as mortals may, the continued care of Divine Providence,
trusting that, in future national emergencies, He will not
fail to provide us the instruments of safety and security.
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