It was the remark of a distinguished Senator, that Mr. Clay's eloquence was absolutely intangible to delineation; that the most labored and thrilling description could not embrace it; and that, to be understood, it must be seen and felt. During his long public life he enchanted millions, and no one could tell how he did it. He was an orator by nature. His eagle eye burned with true patriotic ardor, or dashed indignation and defiance upon his foes, or was suffused with tears of commiseration or of pity; and it was because he felt, that he made others feel. "The clear conception, the high purpose, the firm resolve, the dauntless spirit, speaking on the tongue, beaming from the eye, informing every feature, and urging the whole man onward, right onward to his object"—this was the eloquence of Henry Clay; or, rather, to pursue the definition, "it was something greater and higher than eloquence; it was action—noble, sublime, God-like."
While the coffin containing all that remained of the great Orator of Nature was being carried up the steps of the City-Hall, a by-stander remarked, in hearing of the writer:
Well, we never shall look upon his like again. What an orator he was! I heard him speak but once, yet that once I shall always remember. It was a good many years ago, now. It was in the immense car-house, or dépôt, at Syracuse. The crowd was immense; and every eye was turned toward the platform from which he was to speak, as if the whole crowd were but one expectant face.
Presently he arose—tall, erect as a statue; looked familiarly around upon the audience, as if he were in an assembly of personal friends (as in truth he was), and began. He commenced amidst the most breathless silence; and as he warmed up with his subject, there was not a look of his eye, not a movement of his long, graceful right arm, not a swaying of his body, that was not full of grace and effect. Such a voice I never heard. It was wonderful![9]
Once he took out his snuff-box, and, after taking a pinch of snuff, and returning the box to his pocket, he illustrated a point which he was making by an anecdote:
"While I was abroad," said he, "laboring to arrange the terms of the Treaty of Ghent, there appeared a report of the negotiations, or letters relative thereto; and several quotations from my remarks or letters, touching certain stipulations in the treaty, reached Kentucky, and were read by my constituents.
"Among them, was an odd old fellow, who went by the nickname of 'Old Sandusky,' and he was reading one of these letters, one evening, at a near resort, to a small collection of the neighbors. As he read on, he came across the sentence, 'This must be deemed a sine qua non."
"'What's a sine qua non?' said a half-dozen by-standers.
"'Old Sandusky' was a little bothered at first, but his good sense and natural shrewdness was fully equal to a 'mastery of the Latin.'
"'Sine—qua—non?' said 'Old Sandusky,' repeating the question very slowly; 'why, Sine Qua Non is three islands in Passamaquoddy Bay, and Harry Clay is the last man to give them up! 'No Sine Qua Non, no treaty,' he says; and he'll stick to it!'"