‘Si quæris monumentum, circumspice.’
The mind of Mr. Clay has been the governing mind of the country, more or less, ever since he has been on the stage of public action. In a minority or majority—more, perhaps, even in a minority than in a majority—he seems to have had some commission, divine as it were, to persuade, to convince, to govern other men. His patriotism, his grand conceptions, have created measures which the secret fascination of his manners in-doors, or his irresistible eloquence without, have enabled him almost always to frame into laws. Adverse administrations have yielded to him, or been borne down by him, or he has taken them captive as a leader, and carried the country and congress with him. This power he has wielded now for nearly half a century, with nothing but reason and eloquence to back him. And yet when he came here, years ago, he came from a then frontier state of this Union, heralded by no loud trumpet of fame, nay, quite unknown! unfortified even by any position, social or pecuniary;—to quote his own words, ‘my only heritage has been infancy, indigence, and ignorance.’
In these days, Mr. Speaker, when mere civil qualifications for high public places—when long civil training and practical statesmanship are held subordinate—a most discouraging prospect would be rising up before our young men, were it not for some such names as Lowndes, Crawford, Clinton, Gaston, Calhoun, Clay, and the like, scattered along the pages of our history, as stars or constellations along a cloudless sky. They shine forth, and show us, that if the chief magistracy cannot be won by such qualifications, a memory among men can be—a hold upon posterity, as firm, as lustrous—nay, more imperishable. In the Capitolium of Rome there are long rows of marble slabs, on which are recorded the names of the Roman consuls; but the eye wanders over this wilderness of letters but to light up and kindle upon some Cato or Cicero. To win such fame, thus unsullied, as Mr. Clay has won, is worth any man’s ambition. And how was it won? By courting the shifting gales of popularity? No, never! By truckling to the schemes, the arts, and seductions of the demagogue? Never, never! His hardest battles as a public man—his greatest, most illustrious achievements—have been against, at first, an adverse public opinion. To gain an imperishable name, he has often braved the perishable popularity of the moment. That sort of courage which, in a public man, I deem the highest of all courage—that sort of courage most necessary under our form of government to guide as well as to save a state—Mr. Clay was possessed of more than any public man I ever knew. Physical courage, valuable, indispensable though it be, we share but with the brute; but moral courage, to dare to do right amid all temptations to do wrong,is, as it seems to me, the very highest species, the noblest heroism, under institutions like ours. ‘I had rather be right than be President,’ was Mr. Clay’s sublime reply when pressed to refrain from some measure that would mar his popularity. These lofty words were the clue of his whole character—the secret of his hold upon the heads as well as hearts of the American people; nay, the key of his immortality.
Another of the keys, Mr. Speaker, of his universal reputation was his intense nationality. When taunted but recently, almost within our hearing, as it were, on the floor of the senate by a southern senator, as being a southern man unfaithful to the south—his indignant but patriotic exclamation was, ‘I know no south, no north, no east, no west.’ The country, the whole country, loved, reverenced, adored such a man. The soil of Virginia may be his birth-place, the sod of Kentucky will cover his grave—what was mortal they claim—but the spirit, the soul, the genius of the mighty man, the immortal part, these belong to his country and to his God.
Mr. FAULKNER, of Virginia, said: Representing, in part, the state which gave birth to that distinguished man whose death has just been announced upon this floor, and having for many years held toward him the most cordial relations of friendship, personal and political, I feel that I should fail to discharge an appropriate duty, if I permitted this occasion to pass by without some expression of the feeling which such an event is so well calculated to elicit. Sir, this intelligence does not fall upon our ears unexpectedly. For months the public mind has been prepared for the great national loss which we now deplore; and yet, as familiar as the daily and hourly reports have made us with his hopeless condition and gradual decline, and although
‘Like a shadow thrown
Softly and sweetly from a passing cloud,
Death fell upon him,’
it is impossible that a light of such surpassing splendor should be, as it is now, for ever extinguished from our view, without producing a shock, deeply and painfully felt, to the utmost limits of this great republic. Sir, we all feel that a mighty intellect has passed from among us; but, happily for this country, happily for mankind, not until it had accomplished to some extent the exalted mission for which it had been sent upon this earth; not until it had reached the full maturity of its usefulness and power; not until it had shed a bright and radiant lustre over our national renown; not until time had enabled it to bequeath the rich treasures of its thought and experience for the guidance and instruction of the present and of succeeding generations.