Nor was it in Mr. Clay’s nature to lag behind until measures of adjustment were matured, and then come forward to swell a majority. On the contrary, like a bold and real statesman, he was ever among the first to meet the peril, and hazard his fame upon the remedy. It is fresh in the memory of us all that, when lately the fury of sectional discord threatened to sever the confederacy, Mr. Clay, though withdrawn from public life, and oppressed by theburden of years, came back to the senate—the theatre of his glory—and devoted the remnant of his strength to the sacred duty of preserving the union of the states.
With characteristic courage he took the lead in proposing a scheme of settlement. But while he was willing to assume the responsibility of proposing a plan, he did not, with petty ambition, insist upon its adoption to the exclusion of other modes; but, taking his own as a starting point for discussion and practical action, he nobly labored with his compatriots to change and improve it in such form as to make it an acceptable adjustment. Throughout the long and arduous struggle, the love of country expelled from his bosom the spirit of selfishness, and Mr. Clay proved, for the third time, that though he was ambitious and loved glory, he had no ambition to mount to fame on the confusions of his country. And this conviction is lodged in the hearts of the people; the party measures and the party passions of former times have not, for several years, interposed between Mr. Clay and the masses of his countrymen. After 1850, he seemed to feel that his mission was accomplished; and, during the same period, the regards and affections of the American people have been attracted to him in a remarkable degree. For many months, the warmest feelings, the deepest anxieties of all parties, centered upon the dying statesman; the glory of his great actions shed a mellow lustre on his declining years; and to fill the measure of his fame, his countrymen, weaving for him the laurel wreath, with common hands, did bind it about his venerable brows, and send him, crowned, to history.
The life of Mr. Clay, sir, is a striking example of the abiding fame which surely awaits the direct and candid statesman. The entire absence of equivocation or disguise, in all his acts, was his master-key to the popular heart; for while the people will forgive the errors of a bold and open nature, he sins past forgiveness who deliberately deceives them. Hence Mr. Clay, though often defeated in his measures of policy, always secured the respect of his opponents without losing the confidence of his friends. He never paltered in a double sense. The country was never in doubt as to his opinions or his purposes. In all the contests of his time, his position on great public questions was as clear as the sun in a cloudless sky. Sir, standing by the grave of this great man, and considering these things, how contemptible does appear the mere legerdemain of politics! What a reproach is his life on that false policy which would trifle with a great and upright people! If I were to write his epitaph, I would inscribe, as the highest eulogy, on the stone which shall mark his resting-place, ‘Here lies a man who was in the public service for fifty years, and never attempted to deceive his countrymen.’
While the youth of America should imitate his noble qualities, they may take courage from his career, and note the high proof it affords that, under our equal institutions, the avenues to honor are open to all. Mr. Clay rose by the force of his own genius, unaidedby power, patronage, or wealth. At an age when our young men are usually advanced to the higher schools of learning, provided only with the rudiments of an English education, he turned his steps to the west, and amidst the rude collisions of a border-life, matured a character whose highest exhibitions were destined to mark eras in his country’s history. Beginning on the frontiers of American civilization, the orphan boy, supported only by the consciousness of his own powers, and by the confidence of the people, surmounted all the barriers of adverse fortune, and won a glorious name in the annals of his country. Let the generous youth, fired with honorable ambition, remember that the American system of government offers on every hand bounties to merit. If, like Clay, orphanage, obscurity, poverty, shall oppress him; yet if, like Clay, he feels the Promethean spark within, let him remember that his country, like a generous mother, extends her arms to welcome and to cherish every one of her children whose genius and worth may promote her prosperity or increase her renown.
Mr. Speaker, the signs of woe around us, and the general voice, announce that another great man has fallen. Our consolation is that he was not taken in the vigor of his manhood, but sank into the grave at the close of a long and illustrious career. The great statesmen who have filled the largest space in the public eye, one by one are passing away. Of the three great leaders of the senate, one alone remains, and he must follow soon. We shall witness no more their intellectual struggles in the American forum; but the monuments of their genius will be cherished as the common property of the people, and their names will continue to confer dignity and renown upon their country.
Not less illustrious than the greatest of these will be the name of Clay—a name pronounced with pride by Americans in every quarter of the globe; a name to be remembered while history shall record the struggles of modern Greece for freedom, or the spirit of liberty burn in the South American bosom; a living and immortal name—a name that would descend to posterity without the aid of letters, borne by tradition from generation to generation. Every memorial of such a man will possess a meaning and a value to his countrymen. His tomb will be a hallowed spot. Great memories will cluster there, and his countrymen, as they visit it, may well exclaim—
‘Such graves as his are pilgrim shrines,
Shrines to no creed or code confined;
The Delphian vales, the Palestines,
The Meccas of the mind.’