VALEDICTORY ADDRESS TO THE SENATE.
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, MARCH 31, 1842.
[THE congressional career of Mr. Clay, having been one of the longest known in our annals, being about to close by his resignation of his seat in the senate, to take effect this day, he avails himself of the occasion to make a farewell address to that honorable body, which, as a specimen of his peculiar eloquence, will favorably compare with any of his previous efforts on which his claims rest as an orator and statesman, whether delivered at the capitol, before the legislators of the nation, or to assemblages of the people in various parts of the country.]
MR. CLAY rose, with deep and solemn emotion, and said, that, before proceeding to make the motion for which he had risen, he begged leave to submit, on the only occasion remaining to him, an observation or two on a different subject. It would be remembered that he had offered, on a former day, some resolutions proposing certain amendments in the constitution of the United States; they had undergone some discussion, and he had been desirous of replying to the able arguments which had been urged in opposition to them, and of obtaining an expression of the sense of the senate; but owing to the infirm state of his health, to the pressure of business in the senate, and especially to the absence, at this moment, of several of his friends, he had concluded that this was unnecessary. He regretted the want of an opportunity to present what he thought would be a satisfactory answer to those arguments. He should commit the subject, therefore, to the hands of the senate, to be disposed of as their judgment should dictate; concluding what he had to say in relation to them with the remark, that the convictions he had before entertained in regard to the several amendments, he still deliberately held, after all that he had heard upon the subjects; and that he firmly believed the true and permanent security of the just checks and balances of the constitution required their adoption.
And now, said Mr. C., allow me to announce, formally and officially, my retirement from the senate of the United States, and to present the last motion I shall ever make in this body. But, before I make that motion, I trust I shall be pardoned if I avail myself, with the permission and indulgence of the senate, of this last occasion of addressing to it a few more observations.
I entered the senate of the United States in December, 1806. I regarded that body then, and still consider it, as one which may compare, without disadvantage, with any legislative assembly, either in ancient or modern times, whether I look to its dignity, the extent and importance of its powers, the ability by which its individual members have been distinguished, or its organic constitution. If compared in any of these respects with the senates either of France or of England, that of the United States will sustain no derogation. With respect to the mode of constituting those bodies, I may observe, that, in the house of peers in England, with the exceptions of Ireland, and of Scotland—and in that of France with no exception whatever—the members hold their places in their individual rights under no delegated authority, not even from the order to which they belong, but derive them from the grant of the crown, transmitted by descent, or created in new patents of nobility; while here we have the proud and more noble title of representatives of sovereign states, of distinct and independent commonwealths.
If we look again at the powers exercised by the senates of France and England, and by the senate of the United States, we shall find that the aggregate of power is much greater here. In all, the respective bodies possess the legislative power. In the foreign senates, as in this, the judicial power is invested, although there it exists in a larger degree than here. But, on the other hand, that vast, undefined, and undefinable power involved in the right to coöperate with the executive in the formation and ratification of treaties, is enjoyed in all its magnitude and consequence by this body, while it is possessed by neither of theirs: besides which, there is another function of very great practical importance—that of sharing with the executive branch in distributing the immense patronage of this government. In both these latter respects we stand on grounds different from the house of peers either of England or France. And then, as to the dignity and decorum of its proceedings, and ordinarily, as to the ability of its members, I may, with great truth, declare that, during the whole long period of my knowledge of this senate, it can, without arrogance or presumption, stand an advantageous comparison with any deliberative body that ever existed in ancient or modern times.
Full of attraction, however, as a seat in the senate is, sufficient as it is to satisfy the aspirations of the most ambitious heart, I have long determined to relinquish it, and to seek that repose which can be enjoyed only in the shades of private life, in the circle of one’s own family, and in the tranquil enjoyments included in one enchanting word—Home.
It was my purpose to terminate my connection with this body in November, 1840, after the memorable and glorious political struggle which distinguished that year: but I learned, soon after, what indeed I had for some time anticipated from the result of my own reflections,that an extra session of congress would be called; and I felt desirous to coöperate with my political and personal friends in restoring, if it could be effected, the prosperity of the country, by the best measures which their united counsels might be able to devise; and I therefore attended the extra session. It was called, as all know, by the lamented Harrison; but his death, and the consequent accession of his successor, produced an entirely new aspect of public affairs. Had he lived, I have not one particle of doubt that every important measure to which the country had looked with so confident an expectation would have been consummated, by the coöperation of the executive with the legislative branch of the government. And here allow me to say, only, in regard to that so much reproached extra session of congress, that I believe if any of those, who, through the influence of party spirit, or the bias of political prejudice, have loudly censured the measures then adopted, would look at them in a spirit of candor and of justice, their conclusion, and that of the country generally, would be, that if there exist any just ground of complaint, it is to be found not in what was done, but in what was not done, but left unfinished.
Had president Harrison lived, and the measures devised at that session been fully carried out, it was my intention then to have resigned my seat. But the hope (I feared it might prove vain) that, at the regular session, the measures which we had left undone might even then be perfected, or the same object attained in an equivalent form, induced me to postpone the determination; and events which arose after the extra session, resulting from the failure of those measures which had been proposed at that session, and which seemed for the moment to subject our political friends to the semblance of defeat, confirmed me in the resolution to attend the present session also, and, whether in prosperity or adversity, to share the fortune of my friends. But I resolved, at the same time, to retire as soon as I could do so with propriety and decency.
From 1806, the period of my entrance upon this noble theatre, with short intervals, to the present time, I have been engaged in the public councils, at home or abroad. Of the services rendered during that long and arduous period of my life it does not become me to speak; history, if she deign to notice me, and posterity, if the recollection of my humble actions shall be transmitted to posterity, are the best, the truest, and the most impartial judges. When death has closed the scene, their sentence will be pronounced, and to that I commit myself. My public conduct is a fair subject for the criticism and judgment of my fellow-men; but the motives by which I have been prompted are known only to the great searcher of the human heart and to myself; and I trust I may be pardoned for repeating a declaration made some thirteen years ago, that, whatever errors, and doubtless there have been many, may be discovered in a review of my public service, I can with unshakenconfidence appeal to that divine arbiter for the truth of the declaration, that I have been influenced by no impure purpose, no personal motive; have sought no personal aggrandizement; but that, in all my public acts, I have had a single eye directed, and a warm and devoted heart dedicated, to what, in my best judgment, I believed the true interests, the honor, the union, and the happiness of my country required.
During that long period, however, I have not escaped the fate of other public men, nor failed to incur censure and detraction of the bitterest, most unrelenting, and most malignant character; and though not always insensible to the pain it was meant to inflict, I have borne it in general with composure, and without disturbance here, [pointing to his breast,] waiting as I have done, in perfect and undoubting confidence, for the ultimate triumph of justice and of truth, and in the entire persuasion that time would settle all things as they should be, and that whatever wrong or injustice I might experience at the hands of man, He to whom all hearts are open and fully known, would, by the inscrutable dispensations of his providence, rectify all error, redress all wrong, and cause ample justice to be done.
But I have not meanwhile been unsustained. Everywhere throughout the extent of this great continent I have had cordial, warm-hearted, faithful, and devoted friends, who have known me, loved me, and appreciated my motives. To them, if language were capable of fully expressing my acknowledgments, I would now offer all the return I have the power to make for their genuine, disinterested, and persevering fidelity and devoted attachment, the feelings and sentiments of a heart overflowing with never ceasing gratitude. If, however, I fail in suitable language to express my gratitude to them for all the kindness they have shown me, what shall I say, what can I say at all commensurate with those feelings of gratitude with which I have been inspired by the state whose humble representative and servant I have been in this chamber? [Here Mr. C’s feelings overpowered him, and he proceeded with deep sensibility and difficult utterance.]
I emigrated from Virginia to the state of Kentucky now nearly forty-five years ago; I went as an orphan boy who had not yet attained the age of majority; who had never recognised a father’s smile, nor felt his warm caresses; poor, pennyless, without the favor of the great, with an imperfect and neglected education, hardly sufficient for the ordinary business and common pursuits of life; but scarce had I set my foot upon her generous soil when I was embraced with parental fondness, caressed as though I had been a favorite child, and patronised with liberal and unbounded munificence. From that period the highest honors of the state have been freely bestowed upon me; and when, in the darkest hour of calumny and detraction, I seemed to be assailed by all the rest of the world,she interposed her broad and impenetrable shield, repelled the poisoned shafts that were aimed for my destruction, and vindicated my good name from every malignant and unfounded aspersion. I return with indescribable pleasure to linger a while longer, and mingle with the warm-hearted and whole-souled people of that state; and, when the last scene shall for ever close upon me, I hope that my earthly remains will be laid under her green sod with those of her gallant and patriotic sons.
But the ingenuity of my assailants is never exhausted. It seems I have subjected myself to a new epithet; which I do not know whether to take in honor or derogation: I am held up to the country as a ‘dictator.’ A dictator! The idea of a dictatorship is drawn from Roman institutions; and at the time the office was created, the person who wielded the tremendous weight of authority it conferred, concentrated in his own person an absolute power over the lives and property of all his fellow-citizens; he could levy armies; he could build and man navies; he could raise any amount of revenue he might choose to demand; and life and death rested on his fiat. If I were a dictator, as I am said to be, where is the power with which I am clothed? Have I any army? any navy? any revenue? any patronage? in a word, any power whatever? If I had been a dictator, I think that even those who have the most freely applied to me the appellation must be compelled to make two admissions; first, that my dictatorship has been distinguished by no cruel executions, stained by no blood, sullied by no act of dishonor; and I think they must also own, (though I do not exactly know what date my commission of dictator bears; I suppose, however, it must have commenced with the extra session;) that if I did usurp the power of a dictator, I at least voluntarily surrendered it within a shorter period than was allotted for the duration of the dictatorship of the Roman commonwealth.
If to have sought at the extra session and at the present, by the coöperation of my friends, to carry out the great measures intended by the popular majority of 1840, and to have earnestly wished that they should all have been adopted and executed; if to have ardently desired to see a disordered currency regulated and restored, and irregular exchanges equalized and adjusted; if to have labored to replenish the empty coffers of the treasury by suitable duties; if to have endeavored to extend relief to the unfortunate bankrupts of the country, who had been ruined in a great measure by the erroneous policy, as we believed, of this government; to limit, circumscribe, and reduce executive authority; to retrench unnecessary expenditure and abolish useless offices and institutions; and the public honor to preserve untarnished by supplying a revenue adequate to meet the national engagements and incidental protection to the national industry; if to have entertained an anxious solicitude to redeem every pledge, and execute every promise fairly made bymy political friends, with a view to the acquisition of power from the hands of an honest and confiding people; if these constitute a man a DICTATOR, why, then, I must be content to bear, although I still ought only to share with my friends, the odium or the honor of the epithet, as it may be considered on the one hand or the other.
That my nature is warm, my temper ardent, my disposition, especially in relation to the public service, enthusiastic, I am ready to own; and those who suppose that I have been assuming the dictatorship, have only mistaken for arrogance or assumption that ardor and devotion which are natural to my constitution, and which I may have displayed with too little regard to cold, calculating, and cautious prudence, in sustaining and zealously supporting important national measures of policy which I have presented and espoused.
In the course of a long and arduous public service, especially during the last eleven years in which I have held a seat in the senate, from the same ardor and enthusiasm of character, I have no doubt, in the heat of debate, and in an honest endeavor to maintain my opinions against adverse opinions alike honestly entertained, as to the best course to be adopted for the public welfare, I may have often inadvertently and unintentionally, in moments of excited debate, made use of language that has been offensive, and susceptible of injurious interpretation towards my brother senators. If there be any here who retain wounded feelings of injury or dissatisfaction produced on such occasions, I beg to assure them that I now offer the most ample apology for any departure on my part from the established rules of parliamentary decorum and courtesy. On the other hand, I assure senators, one and all, without exception and without reserve, that I retire from this chamber without carrying with me a single feeling of resentment or dissatisfaction to the senate or any one of its members.
I go from this place under the hope that we shall, mutually, consign to perpetual oblivion whatever personal collisions may at any time unfortunately have occurred between us; and that our recollections shall dwell in future only on those conflicts of mind with mind, those intellectual struggles, those noble exhibitions of the powers of logic, argument, and eloquence, honorable to the senate and to the nation, in which each has sought and contended for what he deemed the best mode of accomplishing one common object, the interest and the most happiness of our beloved country. To these thrilling and delightful scenes it will be my pleasure and my pride to look back in my retirement with unmeasured satisfaction.
And now, Mr. President, allow me to make the motion which it was my object to submit when I rose to address you. I present the credentials of my friend and successor. If any void has been created by my withdrawal from the senate, it will be amply filled by him, whose urbanity, whose gallant and gentlemanly bearing, whose steady adherence to principle, and whose rare and accomplishedpowers in debate, are known to the senate and to the country. I move that his credentials be received, and that the oath of office be now administered to him.
In retiring, as I am about to do, for ever, from the senate, suffer me to express my heartfelt wishes that all the great and patriotic objects of the wise framers of our constitution may be fulfilled; that the high destiny designed for it may be fully answered; and that its deliberations, now and hereafter, may eventuate in securing the prosperity of our beloved country, in maintaining its rights and honor abroad, and upholding its interests at home. I retire, I know, at a period of infinite distress and embarrassment. I wish I could take my leave of you under more favorable auspices; but, without meaning at this time to say whether on any or on whom reproaches for the sad condition of the country should fall, I appeal to the senate and to the world to bear testimony to my earnest and continued exertions to avert it, and to the truth that no blame can justly attach to me.
May the most precious blessings of heaven rest upon the whole senate and each member of it, and may the labors of every one redound to the benefit of the nation and the advancement of his own fame and renown. And when you shall retire to the bosom of your constituents, may you receive that most cheering and gratifying of all human rewards—their cordial greeting of ‘well done, good and faithful servant.’
And now, Mr. President, and senators, I bid you all a long, a lasting, and a friendly farewell.
Mr. Crittenden was then duly qualified, and took his seat; when
Mr. Preston rose and said: what had just taken place was an epoch in their legislative history, and from the feeling which was evinced, he plainly saw that there was little disposition to attend to business. He would therefore move that the senate adjourn; which motion was unanimously agreed to.