How rare is it, Mr. Speaker, that the great man, living, can with confidence rely on extensive personal friendship, or dying, think to awaken a sentiment of regret beyond that which includes the public loss or the disappointment of individual hopes. Yet, sir, the message which yesterday went forth from this city that Henry Clay was dead, brought sorrow—personal, private, special sorrow—to the hearts of thousands; each of whom felt that from his own love for, his long attachment to, his disinterested hopes in Henry Clay, he had a particular sorrow to cherish and express, which weighed upon his heart, separate from the sense of national loss.
No man, Mr. Speaker, in our nation had the art so to identify himself with public measures of the most momentous character, and to maintain at the same time almost universal affection, like that great statesman. His business, from his boyhood, was with national concerns, and he dealt with them as with familiar things. And yet his sympathies were with individual interests, enterprises, affections, joys, and sorrows; and while every patriot bowed in humble deference to his lofty attainments and heartfelt gratitude for his national services, almost every man in this vast republic knew that the great statesman was, in feeling and experience, identified with his own position. Hence the universal love of the people; hence their enthusiasm in all times for his fame. Hence, sir, their present grief.
Many other public men of our country have distinguished themselves and brought honor to the nation by superiority in some particular branch of public service, but it seems to have been the gift of Mr. Clay to have acquired peculiar eminence in every path of duty he was called to tread. In the earnestness of debate, which great public interests and distinguished opposing talents excited in this house, he had no superior in energy, force, or effect. Yet, as the presiding officer, by blandness of language and firmness of purpose, he soothed and made orderly; and thus, by official dignity, he commanded the respect which energy had secured to him on the floor.
Wherever official or social duties demanded an exercise of his power, there was a preëminence which seemed prescriptively his own. In the lofty debate of the senate and the stirring harangues to popular assemblages, he was the orator of the nation and of the people; and the sincerity of purpose and the unity of design evinced in all he said or did, fixed in the public mind a confidence strong and expansive as the affections he had won.
Year after year, sir, has Henry Clay been achieving the work of the mission with which he was intrusted; and it was only when the warmest wishes of his warmest friends were disappointed, that he entered on the fruition of a patriot’s highest hopes, and stood in the full enjoyment of that admiration and confidence which nothing but the antagonism of party relations could have divided.
How rich that enjoyment must have been it is only for us to imagine. How eminently deserved it was we and the world can attest.
The love and the devotion of his political friends were cheering and grateful to his heart, and were acknowledged in all his life—were recognized even to his death.
The contest in the senate chamber or the forum were rewarded with success achieved, and the great victor could enjoy the ovation which partial friendship or the gratitude of the benefit prepared. But the triumph of his life was no party achievement. It was not in the applause which admiring friends and defeated antagonists offered to his measureless success, that he found the reward of his labors, and comprehended the extent of his mission.
It was only when friends and antagonists paused in their contestsappalled at the public difficulties and national dangers which had been accumulating, unseen and unregarded; it was only when the nation itself felt the danger, and acknowledged the inefficacy of party action as a remedy, that Henry Clay calculated the full extent of his powers, and enjoyed the reward of their saving exercise. Then, sir, you saw, and I saw, party designations dropped, and party allegiance disavowed, and anxious patriots, of all localities and name, turn toward the country’s benefactor as the man for the terrible exigencies of the hour; and the sick chamber of Henry Clay became the Delphos whence were given out the oracles that presented the means and the measures of our Union’s safety. There, sir, and not in the high places of the country, were the labors and sacrifices of half a century to be rewarded and closed. With his right yet in that senate which he had entered the youngest, and lingered still the eldest member, he felt that his work was done, and the object of his life accomplished. Every cloud that had dimmed the noonday lustre had been dissipated; and the retiring orb, which sunk from the sight of the nation in fullness and in beauty, will yet pour up the horizon a posthumous glory that shall tell of the splendor and greatness of the luminary that has passed away.