The bound of man’s appointed years, at last,
Life’s blessings all enjoyed, life’s labors done,
Serenely to his final rest has pass’d;
While the soft memory of his virtues yet
Lingers, like twilight hues when the bright sun has set?’
It will be doing no injustice, sir, to the living or the dead to say, that no better specimen of the true American character can be found in our history than that of Mr. Clay. With no adventitious advantages of birth or fortune, he won his way by the efforts of his own genius to the highest distinction and honour. Ardently attached to the principles of civil and religious liberty, patriotism was with him both a passion and a sentiment—a passion that gave energy to his ambition, and a sentiment that pervaded all his thoughts and actions, concentrating them upon his country as the idol of his heart. The bold and manly frankness in the expression of his opinions which always characterized him, has often been the subject of remark; and in all his victories it may be truly said he never ‘stooped to conquer.’ In his long and brilliant political career, personal considerations never for a single instant caused him to swerve from the strict line of duty, and none have ever doubted his deep sincerity in that memorable expression to Mr. Preston, ‘Sir, I had rather be right than be President.’
This is not the time nor occasion, sir, to enter into a detail of the public services of Mr. Clay, interwoven as they are with the history of the country for half a century; but I cannot refrain from adverting to the last crowning act of his glorious life—his great effort in the thirty-first congress for the preservation of the peace and integrity of this great republic, as it was this effort that shattered his bodily strength, and hastened the consummation of death. The Union of the states, as being essential to our prosperity and happiness, was the paramount proposition in his political creed, and the slightest symptom of danger to its perpetuity filled him with alarm, and called forth all the energies of his body and mind. In his earlier life he had met this danger and overcome it. In the conflict of contending factions it again appeared; and coming forth from the repose of private life, towhich age and infirmity had carried him, with unabated strength of intellect, he again entered upon the arena of political strife, and again success crowned his efforts, and peace and harmony were restored to a distracted people. But, unequal to the mighty struggle, his bodily strength sank beneath it, and he retired from the field of his glory to yield up his life as a holy sacrifice to his beloved country. It has well been said that peace has its victories as well as war; and how bright upon the page of history will be the record of this great victory of intellect, of reason, and of moral suasion, over the spirit of discord and sectional animosities!
We this day, Mr. President, commit his memory to the regard and affection of his admiring countrymen. It is a consolation to them and to us to know that he died in full possession of his glorious intellect, and, what is better, in the enjoyment of that ‘peace which the world can neither give nor take away.’ He sank to rest as the full-orbed king of day, unshorn of a single beam, or rather like the planet of morning, his brightness was but eclipsed by the opening to him of a more full and perfect day—
‘No waning of fire, no paling of ray,
But rising, still rising, as passing away.