Mr. GENTRY said: Mr. Speaker, I do not rise to pronounce an eulogy on the life and character and public services of the illustrious orator and statesman whose death this nation deplores. Suitably to perform that task, a higher eloquence than I possess might essay in vain. The gushing tears of the nation, the deep grief which oppresses the hearts of more than twenty millions of people, constitute a more eloquent eulogium upon the life and character and patriot services of Henry Clay, than the power of language can express. In no part of our country is that character more admired, or those public services more appreciated, than in the state which I have the honor, in part, to represent. I claim for the people of that state a full participation in the general woe which the sad announcement of to-day will every where inspire.
Mr. BOWIE said: Mr. Speaker, I rise not to utter the measured phrases of premeditated woe, but to speak as my constituency would, if they stood around the grave now opening to receive the mortal remains, not of a statesman only, but of a beloved friend. If there is a state in this Union, other than Kentucky, which sends up a wail of more bitter and sincere sorrow than another, that state is Maryland.
In her midst, the departed statesman was a frequent and a welcome guest. At many a board, and many a fireside, his noble form was the light of the eyes, the idol of the heart. Throughout her borders, in cottage, hamlet, and city, his name is a household word, his thoughts are familiar sentences. Though not permitted to be the first at his cradle, Maryland would be the last at his tomb.
Through all the phases of political fortune, amid all the storms which darkened his career, Maryland cherished him in her inmost heart, as the most gifted, patriotic, and eloquent of men. To this hour, prayers ascend from many domestic altars, evening and morning, for his temporal comfort and eternal welfare. In the language of inspiration, Maryland would exclaim, ‘There is a prince and a great man fallen, this day, in Israel.’ Daughters of America! weep for him ‘who hath clothed you in scarlet and fine linen.’—The husbandman at his plough, the artisan at the anvil, and the seaman on the mast, will pause and drop a tear when he hears Clay is no more.
The advocate of freedom in both hemispheres, he will be lamented alike on the shores of the Hellespont and the banks of the Mississippiand Orinoco. The freed men of Liberia, learning and practising the art of self-government, and civilizing Africa, have lost in him a patron and protector, a father and a friend. America mourns the eclipse of a luminary, which enlightened and illuminated the continent; the United States, a counsellor of deepest wisdom and purest purpose; mankind, the advocate of human rights and constitutional liberty.
Mr. WALSH said: Mr. Speaker, The illustrious man whose death we this day mourn, was so long my political leader—so long almost the object of my personal idolatry—that I cannot allow that he shall go down to the grave, without a word at least of affectionate remembrance—without a tribute to a memory which will exact tribute as long as a heart shall be found to beat within the bosom of civilized man, and human agency shall be adequate in any form to give them an expression; and even, sir, if I had no heartfelt sigh to pour out here—if I had no tear for that coffin’s lid, I should do injustice to those whose representative in part I am, if I did not in this presence, and at this time, raise the voice to swell the accents of the profoundest public sorrow.
The state of Maryland has always vied with Kentucky in love and adoration of his name. Her people have gathered around him with all the fervour of a first affection, and with more than its duration. Troops of friends have ever clustered about his pathway with a personal devotion which each man of them regarded as the highest individual honor—friends, sir, to whose firesides the tidings of his death will go with all the withering influences which are felt when household ties are severed.
I wish, sir, I could offer now a proper memorial for such a subject and such an affection. But as I strive to utter it, I feel the disheartening influence of the well-known truth, that in view of death all minds sink into triteness. It would seem, indeed, sir, that the great leveller of our race would vindicate his title to be so considered, by making all men think alike in regard to his visitation—‘the thousand thoughts that begin and end in one’—the desolation here—the eternal hope hereafter—are influences felt alike by the lowest intellect and the loftiest genius.