Mr. Speaker, I offer the following resolutions:
Resolved, That the House of Representatives of the United States has received with the deepest sensibility, intelligence of the death of Henry Clay.
Resolved, That the officers and members of the House of Representatives willwear the usual badge of mourning for thirty days, as a testimony of the profound respect this house entertains for the memory of the deceased.
Resolved, That the officers and members of the House of Representatives, in a body, will attend the funeral of Henry Clay, on the day appointed for that purpose by the senate of the United States.
Resolved, That the proceedings of this house, in relation to the death of Henry Clay, be communicated to the family of the deceased by the clerk.
Resolved, That as a further mark of respect for the memory of the deceased, this house do now adjourn.
Mr. EWING rose, and said: A noble heart has ceased to beat for ever. A long life of brilliant and self-devoted public service is finished at last. We now stand at its conclusion, looking back through the changeful history of that life to its beginning, contemporaneous with the very birth of the republic, and its varied events mingle, in our hearts and our memories, with the triumphs and calamities, the weakness and the power, the adversity and prosperity of a country we love so much. As we contemplate this sad event, in this place, the shadows of the past gather over us; the memories of events long gone crowd upon us, and the shades of departed patriots seem to hover about us, and wait to receive into their midst the spirit of one who was worthy to be a cölaborer with them in a common cause, and to share in the rewards of their virtues. Henceforth he must be to us as one of them.
They say he was ambitious. If so, it was a grievous fault, and grievously has he answered it. He has found in it naught but disappointment. It has but served to aggravate the mortification of his defeats, and furnish an additional lustre to the triumph of his foes. Those who come after us may—ay, they will—inquire why his statue stands not among the statues of those whom men thought ablest and worthiest to govern.
But his ambition was a high and holy feeling, unselfish, magnanimous. Its aspirations were for his country’s good, and its triumph was his country’s prosperity. Whether in honour or reproach, in triumph or defeat, that heart of his never throbbed with one pulsation, save for her honor and her welfare. Turn to him in that last best deed, and crowning glory of a life so full of public service and of honor, when his career of personal ambition was finished for ever. Rejected again and again by his countrymen; just abandoned by a party which would scarce have had an existence without his genius, his courage, and his labors, that great heart, ever firm and defiant to the assaults of his enemies, but defenceless against the ingratitude of friends, doubtless wrung with the bitterest mortification of his life—then it was, and under such circumstances as these, the gathering storm rose upon his country. All eyes turned to him; all voices called for those services which, in the hour of prosperity and security, they had so carelessly rejected. With no misanthropic chagrin; with no morose, selfish resentment, he forgot all but his country, and that country endangered. He returns to the scene of his labors and his fame, which he had thought to have left for ever.A scene—that American senate chamber—clothed in no gorgeous drapery, shrouded in no superstitious awe or ancient reverence for hereditary power, but to a reflecting American mind more full of interest, or dignity, and of grandeur than any spot on this broad earth, not made holy by religion’s consecrating seal. See him as he enters there tremblingly, but hopefully, upon the last, most momentous, perhaps most doubtful conflict of his life. Sir, many a gay tournament has been more dazzling to the eye of fancy, more gorgeous and imposing in the display of jewelry and cloth of gold, in the sound of heralds’ trumpets, in the grand array of princely beauty and of royal pride. Many a battle-field has trembled beneath a more ostentatious parade of human power, and its conquerors have been crowned with laurels, honored with triumphs, and ‘apotheosised’ amid the demigods of history; but to the thoughtful, hopeful, philanthropic student of the annals of his race, never was there a conflict in which such dangers were threatened, such hopes imperiled, or the hero of which deserved a warmer gratitude, a nobler triumph, or a prouder monument.