Thirty Years' View (Vol. 2 of 2) / or, A History of the Working of the American Government for Thirty Years, from 1820 to 1850

by Thomas Hart Benton

The termination of the presidential election in November, was the period at which Mr. Clay intended to retire: the determination was formed before that time—formed from the moment that he found himself superseded at the head of his party by a process of intricate and trackless filtration of public opinion which left himself a dreg where he had been for so many years the head. It was a mistake, the effect of calculation, which ended more disastrously for the party than for himself. Mr. Clay could have been elected at that time. The same power which elected General Harrison could have elected him. The banks enabled the party to do it. In a state of suspension, they could furnish, without detriment to themselves, the funds for the campaign. Affecting to be ruined by the government, they could create distress: and thus act upon the community with the double battery of terror and seduction. Lending all their energies and resources to a political party, they elected General Harrison in a hurrah! and could have done the same by Mr. Clay. With him the election would have been a reality—a victory bearing fruit: with General Harrison and Mr. Tyler—through Providence with one, and defection in the other—the triumph, achieved at so great expense, became ashes in the mouths of the victors. He then gave his reasons for not resigning, as he had intended, at the termination of the election: it was the hope of carrying his measures at the extra session, which he foresaw was to take place.

"But I learned very soon, what my own reflections indeed prompted me to suppose would take place, that there would be an extra session; and being desirous, prior to my retirement, to co-operate with my friends in the Senate in restoring, by the adoption of measures best calculated to accomplish that purpose, that degree of prosperity to the country, which had been, for a time, destroyed, I determined upon attending the extra session, which was called, as was well known, by the lamented Harrison. His death, and the succession which took place in consequence of it, produced a new aspect in the affairs of the country. Had he lived, I do not entertain a particle of doubt that those measures which, it was hoped, might be accomplished at that session, would have been consummated by a candid co-operation between the executive branch of the government and Congress; and, sir, allow me to say (and it is only with respect to the extra session), that I believe if there be any one free from party feelings, and free from bias and from prejudice, who will look at its transactions in a spirit of candor and of justice, but must come to the conclusion to which, I think, the country generally will come, that if there be any thing to complain of in connection with that session, it is not as to what was done and concluded, but as to that which was left unfinished and unaccomplished."

Disappointed in his expectations from the extra session, by means which he did not feel it necessary to recapitulate, Mr. Clay proceeds to give the reasons why he still deferred his proposed resignation, and appeared in the Senate again at its ensuing regular session.

"After the termination of that session, had Harrison lived, and had the measures which it appeared to me it was desirable to have accomplished, been carried, it was my intention to have retired; but I reconsidered that determination, with the vain hope that, at the regular session of Congress, what had been unaccomplished at the extra session, might then be effected, either upon the terms proposed or in some manner which would be equivalent. But events were announced after the extra session—events resulting, I believe, in the failure to accomplish certain objects at the extra session—events which seemed to throw upon our friends every where present defeat—this hope, and the occurrence of these events, induced me to attend the regular session, and whether in adversity or in prosperity, to share in the fortunes of my friends. But I came here with the purpose, which I am now about to effectuate, of retiring as soon as I thought I could retire with propriety and decency, from the public councils."

Events after the extra session, as well as the events of the session, determined him to return to the regular one. He does not say what those subsequent events were. They were principally two—the formation of a new cabinet wholly hostile to him, and the attempt of Messrs. Tyler, Webster and Cushing to take the whig party from him. The hostility of the cabinet was nothing to him personally; but it indicated a fixed design to thwart him on the part of the President, and augured an indisposition to promote any of his measures. This augury was fulfilled as soon as Congress met. The administration came forward with a plan of a government bank, to issue a national currency of government paper—a thing which he despised as much as the democracy did; and which, howsoever impossible to succeed itself, was quite sufficient, by the diversion it created, to mar the success of any plan for a national bank. Instead of carrying new measures, it became clear that he was to lose many already adopted. The bankrupt act, though forced upon him, had become one of his measures; and that was visibly doomed to repeal. The distribution of the land revenue had become a political monstrosity in the midst of loans, taxes and treasury notes resorted to to supply its loss: and the public mind was in revolt against it. The compromise act of 1833, for which he was so much lauded at the time, and the paternity of which he had so much contested at the time, had run its career of folly and delusion—had left the Treasury without revenue, and the manufacturers without protection; and, crippled at the extra session, it was bound to die at this regular one—and that in defiance of the mutual assurance for continued existence put into the land bill; and which, so far from being able to assure the life of another bill, was becoming unable to save its own. Losing his own measures, he saw those becoming established which he had most labored to oppose. The specie circular was taking effect of itself, from the abundance of gold and the baseness of paper. The divorce of Bank and State was becoming absolute, from the delinquency of the banks. There was no prospect ahead either to carry new measures, or to save old ones, or to oppose the hated ones. All was gloomy ahead. The only drop of consolation which sweetened the cup of so much bitterness was the failure of his enemies to take the whig party from him. That parricidal design (for these enemies owed their elevation to him) exploded in its formation—aborted in its conception; and left those to abjure whiggism, and fly from its touch, who had lately combined to consolidate Congress, President and people into one solid whig mass. With this comfort he determined to carry into effect his determination to resign, although it was not yet the middle of the session, and that all-important business was still on the anvil of legislation—to say nothing of the general diplomatic settlement, to embrace questions from the peace of 1783, which it was then known Great Britain was sending out a special mission to effect. But, to proceed with the valedictory. Having got to the point at which he was to retire, the veteran orator naturally threw a look back upon his past public course.

"From the year 1806, the period of my entering upon this noble theatre of my public service, with but short intervals, down to the present time, I have been engaged in the service of my country. Of the nature and value of those services which I may have rendered during my long career of public life, it does not become me to speak. History, if she deigns to notice me, and posterity—if a recollection of any humble service which I may have rendered shall be transmitted to posterity—will be the best, truest, and most impartial judges; and to them I defer for a decision upon their value. But, upon one subject, I may be allowed to speak. As to my public acts and public conduct, they are subjects for the judgment of my fellow-citizens; but my private motives of action—that which prompted me to take the part which I may have done, upon great measures during their progress in the national councils, can be known only to the Great Searcher of the human heart and myself; and I trust I shall be pardoned for repeating again a declaration which I made thirty years ago: that whatever error I may have committed—and doubtless I have committed many during my public service—I may appeal to the Divine Searcher of hearts for the truth of the declaration which I now make, with pride and confidence, that I have been actuated by no personal motives—that I have sought no personal aggrandizement—no promotion from the advocacy of those various measures on which I have been called to act—that I have had an eye, a single eye, a heart, a single heart, ever devoted to what appeared to be the best interests of the country."

With this retrospection of his own course was readily associated the recollection of the friends who had supported him in his long and eventful, and sometimes, stormy career.

"But I have not been unsustained during this long course of public service. Every where on this widespread continent have I enjoyed the benefit of possessing warm-hearted, and enthusiastic, and devoted friends—friends who knew me, and appreciated justly the motives by which I have been actuated. To them, if I had language to make suitable acknowledgments, I would now take leave to present them, as being all the offering that I can make for their long continued, persevering and devoted friendship."

These were general thanks to the whole body of his friends, and to the whole extent of his country; but there were special thanks due to nearer friends, and the home State, which had then stood by him for forty-five years (and which still stood by him ten years more, and until death), and fervidly and impressively he acknowledged this domestic debt of gratitude and affection.

"But, sir, if I have a difficulty in giving utterance to an expression of the feelings of gratitude which fill my heart towards my friends, dispersed throughout this continent, what shall I say—what can I say—at all commensurate with my feelings of gratitude towards that State whose humble servitor I am? I migrated to the State of Kentucky nearly forty-five years ago. I went there as an orphan, who had not yet attained his majority—who had never recognized a father's smile—poor, penniless, without the favor of the great—with an imperfect and inadequate education, limited to the means applicable to such a boy;—but scarcely had I set foot upon that generous soil, before I was caressed with parental fondness—patronized with bountiful munificence—and I may add to this, that her choicest honors, often unsolicited, have been freely showered upon me; and when I stood, as it were, in the darkest moments of human existence—abandoned by the world, calumniated by a large portion of my own countrymen, she threw around me her impenetrable shield, and bore me aloft, and repelled the attacks of malignity and calumny, by which I was assailed. Sir, it is to me an unspeakable pleasure that I am shortly to return to her friendly limits; and that I shall finally deposit (and it will not be long before that day arrives) my last remains under her generous soil, with the remains of her gallant and patriotic sons who have preceded me."