Life of Henry Clay

American £tategmen

LIFE OF HENRY CLAY

BY

CARL SCHURZ

IN TWO VOLUMES
VOL. I.

\~B R "A"

BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
(€&e fitoerm&e $res
1896

Copyright, 1887,
Br CARL SCHUKZ.

All rights reserved.

The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass U. S A
Electrotype* and Printed by H. 0. Houghton & Company,

E

CONTENTS OF VOL. I.

3HO

CuSat

CHAPTER PAGE

I. YOUTH . . . ... . . . 1

II. THE KENTUCKY LAWYER .... 13

III. BEGINNINGS IN POLITICS . . . .27

IV. BEGINNINGS IN LEGISLATION . . 38
V. THE WAR OF 1812 . . . . .67

VI. GHENT AND LONDON . . ... 102

VII. IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES . . 126

VIII. THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE . . . 172

IX. CANDIDATE FOR THE PRESIDENCY . . . 203

X. PRESIDENT-MAKER . . . . 236

XI. SECRETARY OF STATE 258

XII. THE PARTY CHIEFS . . ... 311

XIII. THE CAMPAIGN OF 1832 350

HENRY CLAY.

CHAPTER I.

YOUTH.

FEW public characters in American history have
been the subjects of more heated controversy than
Henry Clay. There was no measure of detraction
and obloquy to which, during his lifetime, his op
ponents would not resort, and there seemed to be
no limit to the admiration and attachment of his
friends. While his enemies denounced him as a
pretender and selfish intriguer in politics and an
abandoned profligate in private life, his supporters
unhesitatingly placed him first among the sages of
the period, and, by way of defense, sometimes even
among its saints. The animosities against him
have, naturally, long ago disappeared; but even
now, more than thirty years after his death, we
may hear old men, who knew him in the days of
his strength, speak of him with an enthusiasm and
affection so warm and fresh as to convince us that
the recollection of having followed his leadership is
among the dearest treasures of their memory. The

remarkable fascination he exercised seems to have
l

2 HENRY CLAY.

reached even beyond his living existence. It is,
therefore, not to be wondered at that his biogra
phers, most of whom were his personal friends,
should have given us an abundance of rhapsodic
eulogy, instead of a clear account of what their
hero thought on matters of public interest, of what
he did and advised others to do, of his successes
and his failures, and of the influence he exercised
in shaping the development of this Republic.
This, indeed, is not an easy task, for Henry Clay
had, during the long period of his public life, cov
ering nearly half a century, a larger share in na
tional legislation than any other contemporary
statesman, — not, indeed, as an originator of ideas
and systems, but as an arranger of measures, and
as a leader of political forces. His public life may
therefore be said to be an important part of the
national history.

Efforts have been made by enthusiastic admir
ers to find for him a noble ancestry in England,
but with questionable success. We may content
ourselves with saying that the greatness of his
name rests entirely upon his own merit. The fam
ily from which he sprang emigrated from Eng
land not long after the establishment of the col
ony of Virginia, and settled on the southern side
of the James River. His biographers, some of
whom wrote under his own supervision, agree in
the statement that Henry Clay was born on April
12, 1777, in Hanover County, Virginia, in a neigh
borhood called the " Slashes." His father, John

YOUTH. 6

Clay, was a Baptist clergyman, of sterling char
acter, of great dignity of deportment, much es
teemed by all who knew him, and " remarkable for
his fine voice and delivery." The pastor's flock
consisted of poor people. A rock in South Anna
River has long been pointed out as a spot " from
which he used at times to address his congrega
tion." Henry Clay's mother was a daughter of
George Hudson, of Hanover County. She is said
to have been a woman of exemplary qualities as a
wife and a mother, and of much patriotic spirit.

The Reverend John Clay died in 1781, when
Henry was only four years old, and there is a tra
dition in the family that, while the dead body was
still lying in the house, Colonel Tarleton, com
manding a cavalry force under Lord Cornwallis,
passed through Hanover County on a raid, and
left a handful of gold and silver on Mrs. Clay's
table as a compensation for some property taken
or destroyed by his soldiers ; but that the spirited
woman, as soon as Tarleton was gone, swept the
money into her apron and threw it into the fire
place. It would have been in no sense improper,
and more prudent, had she kept it, notwithstand
ing her patriotic indignation ; for she was left a
widow with seven children, and there was only a
very small estate to support the family.

Under such circumstances Henry, the fifth of
the seven children of the widow, received no better
schooling than other poor boys of the neighbor
hood. The schoolhouse of the " Slashes " was a

4r HENRY CLAY.

small log-cabin with the hard earth for a floor, and
the schoolmaster an Englishman who passed under
the name of Peter Deacon, — a man of an uncer
tain past and somewhat given to hard drinking,
but possessing ability enough to teach the children
confided to him reading, writing, and elementary
arithmetic. When not at school Henry had to
work for the support of the family, and he was
often seen walking barefooted behind the plough,
or riding on a pony to Daricott's mill on the Pa-
munkey River, using a rope for a bridle and a bag
filled with wheat or corn or flour as a saddle.
Thus he earned the nickname of " the mill-boy of
the Slashes," which subsequently, in his campaigns
for the presidency, was thought to be worth a good
many votes.

A few years after her first husband's death, the
widow Clay married Captain Henry Watkins, a
resident of Richmond, who seems to have been a
worthy man and a good step-father to his wife's
children. To start young Henry in life Captain
Watkins placed him as a " boy behind the counter "
in the retail store kept by Richard Denny in the
city of Richmond. Henry, who was then fourteen
years old, devoted himself for about a year with
laudable diligence and fidelity to the duty of draw
ing molasses and measuring tape, giving his leisure
hours to the reading of such books as happened to
fall into his hands. But it occurred to Captain
Watkins that his step-son, the brightness and activ
ity of whose mind were noticed by him as well as

YOUTH. 5

others, might be found fit for a more promising
career. He contrived through the influence of his
friend Colonel Tinsley, a member of the House of
Burgesses, to obtain for young Henry a place in the
office of the Clerk of the High Court of Chancery,
that clerk being Mr. Peter Tinsley, the Colonel's
brother. There was really no vacancy, but the
Colonel's patronizing zeal proved irresistible, and
Henry was appointed as a supernumerary.

To Roland Thomas, the senior clerk of the office,
who lived to see and admire Henry Clay in his
greatness, we are indebted for an account of the
impression produced by the lad as he appeared in
his new surroundings. He was a rawboned, lank,
awkward youth, with a countenance by no means
handsome, yet not unpleasing. His garments, of
gray " figinny " cloth, were home-made and ill-fit
ting, and his linen, which the good mother had
starched for the occasion to unusual stiffness, made
him look peculiarly strange and uncomfortable.
With great uneasiness of manner he took his place
at the desk where he was to begin copying papers,
while his new companions could not refrain from
tittering at his uncouth appearance and his blush
ing confusion. But they soon learned to respect
and also to like him. It turned out that he could
talk uncommonly well when he ventured to talk
freely, and presently he proved himself the bright
est and also the most studious young man among
them. He continued to " read books " when the
hours of work were over, while most of his coin-

6 HENRY CLAY.

panions gav£ themselves up to the pleasures of the
town.

Then the fortunate accident arrived which is
so frequently found in the lives of young men of
uncommon quality and promise. He began to at
tract the attention of persons of superior merit.
George Wythe, the Chancellor of the High Court
of Chancery, who often had occasion to visit Peter
Tinsley's office, noticed the new-comer, and se
lected him from among the employees there to act
as an amanuensis in writing out and recording the
decisions of the court. This became young Clay's
principal occupation for four years, during which
his intercourse with the learned and venerable
judge grew constantly more intimate and elevat
ing. As he had to write much from the Chan
cellor's dictation, the subject-matter of his writing,
which at first was a profound mystery to him,
gradually became a matter of intelligent interest.
The Chancellor, whose friendly feeling for the
bright youth grew warmer as their relations be
came more confidential, began to direct his read
ing, at first turning him to grammatical studies,
and then gradually opening to him a wider range
of legal and historical literature. But — what was
equally, if not more important — in the pauses of
their work and in hours of leisure, the Chancellor
conversed with his young secretary upon grave
subjects, and thus did much to direct his thoughts
and to form his principles.

Henry Clay could not have found a wiser and

YOUTH. 1

nobler mentor. George Wythe was one of the most
honorably distinguished men of a period abound
ing in great names. Born in 1726, he received his
education at William and Mary College. At the
age of thirty he devoted himself to the study and
practice of the law, and rose quickly to eminence
in the profession. In 1758 he represented the
college in the House of Burgesses. In 1764 he
drew up a remonstrance against the Stamp Act,
addressed to the British Parliament. As a mem
ber of the Congress of 1776 he was one of the
signers of the Declaration of Independence. For
ten years he taught jurisprudence at William and
Mary. He aided Jefferson in revising the laws
of Virginia. In 1777 he was appointed a Judge of
the High Court of Chancery, and in 1786 became
Chancellor. He was a member of the convention
which framed the federal Constitution, and one
of its warmest advocates in the Virginia Conven
tion which ratified it. But he achieved a more
peculiar distinction by practically demonstrating
the sincerity of his faith in the humane philosophy
of the age. In his lifetime he emancipated all
his slaves and made a liberal provision for their
subsistence. There were few men in his day of
larger information and experience, and scarcely
any of higher principle. Nor was Henry Clay the
only one of his pupils who afterward won a great
name, for Thomas Jefferson and John Marshall
had been students of law in George Wythe's office.
When young Clay had served four years as the

8 HENRY CLAY.

Chancellor's amanuensis, his mind was made up
that he would become a lawyer. He entered the
office of Robert Brooke, the Attorney-General of
Virginia, as a regular law student, spent about a
year with him, and then obtained from the judges
of the Court of Appeals a license to practice the
profession. This was quick studying, or the li
cense must have been cheap, unless we assume
that the foundations of his legal knowledge were
amply laid in his intercourse with Chancellor
Wythe.

But in the mean time he had also been intro
duced in society. Richmond at that time possessed
less than 5,000 inhabitants, but it was the most im
portant city in the state, — the political capital as
well as the social centre of Virginia. The char
acter of Virginian society had become greatly
changed during the Revolutionary War. The glo
ries of Williamsburg, the colonial capital, with its
" palace," its Raleigh Tavern, its Apollo Hall, its
gay and magnificent gatherings of the planter
magnates, were gone never to return. Many of
the " first families " had become much reduced in
their circumstances. Moreover, the system of pri
mogeniture and entail had been abolished by legal
enactments moved by Jefferson, and thus the legal
foundation upon which alone a permanent landed
aristocracy can maintain itself had disappeared.
Although much of the old spirit still remained
alive, yet the general current was decidedly demo
cratic, and the distance between the blooded gentry

YOUTH. 9

and less " well-born " people was materially lessened.
Thus the " mill-boy of the Slashes," having become
known as a young man of uncommon intellectual
brightness, high spirits, and good character, and
being, besides, well introduced through his friend
ship with Chancellor Wythe, found it possible to
come into friendly contact with persons of social
pretensions far above his own. He succeeded even
in organizing a "rhetorical society," or debating
club, among whose members there were not a few
young men who subsequently became distinguished.
It was on this field that he first achieved something
like leadership, while his quick intelligence and
his sympathetic qualities made him a favorite in
a much larger circle. According to all accounts
Henry Clay, at that period of his life, was un
touched by vice or bad habit, and could in every
respect be esteemed as an irreproachable and very
promising young man.

But he soon discovered that all these things
would not give him a paying practice as an attor
ney in Richmond so quickly as he desired ; and as
his mother and step-father had removed to Ken
tucky in 1792, he resolved to follow them to the
western wilds, and there to " grow up with the
country." He was in his twenty-first year when
he left Richmond, with his license to practice as
an attorney, but with little else, in his pocket.

This was the end of Henry Clay's regular school
ing. Thenceforth he did not again in his life find
a period of leisure to be quietly and exclusively

10 EENRY CLAY.

devoted to study. What he had learned was little
enough. In Peter Deacon's schoolhouse he had re
ceived nothing but the first elementary instruction.
The year he spent behind the counter of Denny's
store could not have added much to his stock of
knowledge. In Peter Tinsley's office he had cul
tivated a neat and regular handwriting, of which
a folio volume of Chancellor Wythe's decisions,
once in the possession of Jefferson, now in the
library of the Supreme Court of the United States,
gives ample testimony. Under Chancellor Wythe's
guidance he had read Harris's Homer, Tooke's
Diversions of Purley, Bishop Lowth's Grammar,
Plutarch's Lives, some elementary law-books, and
a few works on history. Further, the Chancellor's
conversation had undoubtedly been in a high de
gree instructive and morally elevating. But all
these things did not constitute a well-ordered edu
cation. His only more or less systematic training
he received during the short year he spent as a law
student in the office of Attorney-General Brooke,
and that can scarcely have gone far beyond the
elementary principles of law and the ordinary rou
tine of practice in court. On the whole, he had
depended upon the occasional gathering of miscel
laneous information. He could thus, at besj, have
acquired only a slender equipment for the tasks
before him. This, however, would have been of
comparatively slight importance had he, in learn
ing what little he knew, cultivated thorough meth
ods of inquiry, and the habit of reasoning out

YOUTH. 11

questions, and of not being satisfied until the sub
ject in hand was well understood in all its aspects.
The habit he really had cultivated was that of
rapidly skimming over the surface of the subjects
of his study, in order to gather what knowledge
was needed for immediate employment ; and as
his oratorical genius was developed early and well,
he possessed the faculty of turning every bit of in
formation to such advantage as to produce upon
his hearers the impression that he possessed rich
accumulations behind the actual display. Some
times he may have thus satisfied and deceived even
himself. This superficiality remained one of his
weak points through life. No doubt he went on
learning, but he learned rather from experience
than from study ; and though experience is a good
school, yet it is apt to be irregular and fragmen
tary in its teachings.

Some of Henry Clay's biographers have ex
pressed the opinion that the scantiness and irregu
larity of instruction he received, without the aid of
academy or college, were calculated to quicken his
self-reliance and thereby to become an element of
strength in his character especially qualifying him
for political leadership. It is quite possible that,
had he in his youth acquired the inclination and
faculty for methodical inquiry and thus the habit
of examining both sides of every question with
equal interest, he would have been less quick in
forming final conclusions from first impressions,
less easily persuaded of the absolute correctness of

12 HENRY CLAY.

3iis own opinions, less positive and commanding in
the promulgation of them, and less successful in in
spiring his followers with a ready belief in his in
fallibility. But that he might have avoided grave
errors as a statesman had his early training been
such as to form his mind for more thorough think
ing, and thus to lay a larger basis for his later de
velopment, he himself seemed now and then to feel.
It was with melancholy regret that he sometimes
spoke of his " neglected education, improved by
his own irregular efforts, without the benefit of
systematic instruction."

When he settled down in Kentucky his new
surroundings were by no means such as to remedy
this defect. Active life in a new country stimu
lates many energies, but it is not favorable to the
development of studious habits. In this respect
Kentucky was far from forming an exception.

CHAPTER II.

THE KENTUCKY LAWYER.

AT the time when Henry Clay left Richmond to
seek his fortune in Kentucky, the valley of the
Ohio was the " Far West " of the country, attract
ing two distinct classes of adventurous and enter
prising spirits. Only nine years before, in 1788,
the Ohio River had floated down the flat-boats car
rying the pioneers who founded the first settle
ments on the northern bank at Marietta and on
the present site of Cincinnati ; but forthwith a
steady stream had poured in, which in twelve years
had swelled the population of the territory des
tined to become the State of Ohio to 45,000 souls.
They came mainly from New England, New York,
and Pennsylvania. Emigrants from the Slave
States, too, in considerable number, sought new
homes in the southern portion of the Northwest
Territory, but they formed only a minority. The
settlement of Kentucky was of an older date, and
its population of a different character. Daniel
Boone entered the "dark and bloody ground" in
1769, seven years before the colonies declared
themselves independent. Other hardy and in
trepid spirits soon followed him, to dispute the

14 HENRY CLAY.

possession of the land with the Indians. They
were hunters and pioneer farmers, not intent upon
founding large industrial communities, but fond
of the wild, adventurous, lonesome, unrestrained
life of the frontiersman. Ten years after Daniel
Boone's first settlement, Kentucky was said to
contain less than two hundred white inhabitants.
But then immigration began to flow in rapidly,
so that in 1790, when the first federal census was
taken, Kentucky had a population of 73,600, — of
whom 61,000 were white. About one half of the
whites and three fourths of the slaves had come
from Virginia, the rest mostly from North Caro
lina and Maryland, with a sprinkling of Pennsyl-
vanians. At the period when Henry Clay arrived
in Kentucky, in 1797, the population exceeded
18 0,000, about one fifth of whom were slaves, —
the later immigrants having come from the same
quarter as the earlier.

The original stock consisted of the hardiest race
of backwoodsmen. The forests of Kentucky were
literally wrested from the Indians by constant
fighting. The question whether the aborigines had
any right to the soil seems to have been utterly
foreign to the pioneer's mind. He wanted the
land, and to him it was a matter of course that
the Indian must leave it. The first settlements
planted in the virgin forest were fortified with
stockades and block-houses, which the inmates, not
seldom for months at a time, could not leave with-
out danger of falling into an Indian ambush and

THE KENTUCKY LAWYER. 15

being scalped. No part of the country has there
fore more stories and traditions of perilous advent-
tures, bloody fights, and hairbreadth escapes. For
a generation or more the hunting- shirt, leggins, and
moccasins of deerskin more or less gaudily orna
mented, and the long rifle, powder-horn, and hunt
ing-knife formed the regular " outfit " of a very
large proportion of the male Kentuckians. We
are told of some of the old pioneers who, many
years after populous towns had grown up on the
sites of the old stockades, still continued the habit
of walking about in their hunter's garb, with rifle
and powder-horn, although the deer had become
scarce and the Indian had long ago disappeared
from the neighborhood. They were loath to make
up their minds to the fact that the old wild life was
over. Thus the reminiscences and the character
istic spirit and habits left behind by that wild life
were still fresh among the people of Kentucky at
the period of which we speak. They were an un
commonly sturdy race of men, most of them fully
as fond of hunting, and perhaps also of fighting,
as of farming ; brave and generous, rough and
reckless, hospitable and much given to boisterous
carousals, full of a fierce love of independence,
and of a keen taste for the confused and turbulent
contests of frontier politics. Slavery exercised its
peculiar despotic influence there as elsewhere, al
though the number of slaves in Kentucky was com
paratively small. But among freemen a strongly
democratic spirit prevailed. There was as yet little

16 HENRY CLAY.

of that relation of superior and inferior between
the large planter and the small tenant or farmer
which had existed, and was still to some extent ex
isting, in Virginia. As to the white population,
society started on the plane of practical equality.

Where the city of Lexington now stands, the
first block-house was built in April, 1775, by Robert
Patterson, " an early and meritorious adventurer,
much engaged in the defense of the country." A
settlement soon formed under its protection, which
was called Lexington, in honor of the Revolution
ary battle then just fought in Massachusetts. The
first settlers had to maintain themselves in many
an Indian fight on that " finest garden spot in all
Kentucky," as the Blue Grass region was justly
called. In an early day it attracted " some people
of culture " from Virginia, North Carolina, and
Pennsylvania. In 1780 the first school was built
in the fort, and the same year the Virginia legis
lature — for Kentucky was at that time still a part
of Virginia — chartered the Transylvania Semi
nary to be established there. In 1787 Mr. Isaac
Wilson, of the Philadelphia College, opened the
" Lexington Grammar School," for the teaching of
Latin, Greek, " and the different branches of sci
ence." The same year saw the organization of a
" society for promoting useful knowledge," and
the establishment of the first newspaper. A year
later, in 1788, the ambition of social refinement
wanted and got a dancing - school, and also the
Transylvania Seminary was fairly ready to receive

THE KENTUCKY LAWYER. 17

students : " Tuition five pounds a year, one half in
cash, the other in property ; boarding nine pounds
a year, in property, pork, corn, tobacco, etc." In
ten years more the seminary, having absorbed the
Kentucky Academy established by the Presbyte
rians, expanded into the " Transylvania Univer
sity," with first an academical department, and the
following year adding one of medicine and another
of law. Thus Lexington, although still a small
town, became what was then called " the literary
and intellectual centre west of the Alleghanies,"
and a point of great attraction to people of means
and of social wants and pretensions. It would,
however, be a mistake to suppose that it was a
quiet and sedate college town like those of New
England. Many years later, in 1814, a young
Massachusetts Yankee, Amos Kendall, who had
drifted to Lexington in pursuit of profitable em
ployment, and was then a private teacher in Henry
Clay's family, wrote in his diary : " I have, I
think, learned the way to be popular in Kentucky,
but do not, as yet, put it in practice. Drink
whiskey and talk loud, with the fullest confidence,
and you will hardly fail of being called a clever
fellow." This was not the only " way to be pop
ular," but was certainly one of the ways. When
the Lexington of 1797, the year of Clay's arrival
there, is spoken of as a " literary and intellectual
centre," the meaning is that it was an outpost of
civilization still surrounded, and to a great extent
permeated, by the spirit of border life. The
2

18 HENRY CLAY.

hunter in his fringed buckskin suit, with long
rifle and powder-horn, was still a familiar figure
on the streets of the town. The boisterous hilar
ity of the bar-room and the excitement of the card
table accorded with the prevailing taste better than
a lecture on ancient history ; and a racing horse
was to a large majority of Lexingtonians an object
of far greater interest than a professor of Greek.
But compared with other Western towns of the
time, Lexington did possess an uncommon propor
tion of educated people ; and there were circles
wherein the social life displayed, together with the
freedom of tone characteristic of a new country, a
liberal dash of culture.

This was the place where Henry Clay cast an
chor in 1797. The society he found there was con
genial to him, and he was congenial to it. A
voung man of uncommon brightness of intellect, of
fascinating address, without effort making the lit
tle he knew pass for much more, of high spirits,
warm sympathies, a cheery nature, and sociable
tastes, he easily became a favorite with the edu
cated as a person of striking ability, and with the
many as a good companion, who, notwithstanding
a certain distinguished air, enjoyed himself as they
did. It was again as a speaker that he first made
his mark. Shortly after his arrival at Lexington,
before he had begun to practice law, he joined a
debating club, in several meetings of which he par
ticipated only as a silent listener. One evening,
when, after a long discussion, the vote upon the

THE KENTUCKY LAWYER. 19

question before the society was about to be taken,
he whispered to a friend, loudly enough to be over
heard, that to him the debate did not seem to have
exhausted the subject. Somebody remarked that
Mr. Clay desired to speak, and he was called upon.
Finding himself unexpectedly confronting the au
dience, he was struck with embarrassment, and, as
he had done frequently in imaginary appeals in
court, he began : " Gentlemen of the jury ! " A
titter running through the audience increased his
embarrassment, and the awkward words came out
once more. But then he gathered himself up ; his
nerves became steady, and he poured out a flow of
reasoning so lucid, and at the same time so impas
sioned, that his hearers were overcome with aston
ishment. Some of his friends who had been pres
ent said, in later years, that they had never heard
him make a better speech. This was, no doubt,
an exaggeration of the first impression, but at any
rate that speech stamped him at once as a remark
able man in the community, and laid open before
him the road to success.

He had not come to Lexington with extravagant
expectations. As an old man, looking back upon
those days, he said : " I remember how comfort
able I thought I should be if I could make one
hundred pounds a year, Virginia money, and with
what delight I received the first fifteen shillings
fee." He approached with a certain awe the com
petition with what he called " a bar uncommonly
distinguished by eminent members." But he did

20 HENRY CLAY.

not find it difficult to make his way among them.
His practice was, indeed, at first mostly in crimi
nal cases, and many are the stories told of the
marvelous effects produced by his eloquence upon
the simple-minded Kentuclsy jurymen, and of the
culprits saved by him from a well-merited fate. In
one of those cases, — that of a Mrs. Phelps, a re
spectable farmer's wife, who in a fit of angry pas
sion had killed her sister-in-law with a musket, — •
he used " temporary delirium " as a ground of de
fense, and thus became, if not the inventor, at least
one of the earliest advocates, of that theory of emo
tional insanity which has served so much to con
fuse people's notions about the responsibility of
criminals. But in the case of Mrs. Phelps the jury,
with characteristic confusion of judgment, found
that the accused was just insane enough not to be
hung, but not insane enough to be let off without
a term in jail. »

There is one very curious exploit on record, ex
hibiting in a strong light Clay's remarkable power,
not only as a speaker, but as an actor. A man
named Willis was tried for a murder of peculiar
atrocity. In the very teeth of the evidence, which
seemed to be absolutely conclusive, Clay, defend
ing him, succeeded in dividing the jury as to the
nature of the crime committed. The jurors having
been unable to agree, the public prosecutor moved
for a new trial, which motion Clay did not oppose.
But when, at the new trial, his turn came to ad
dress the jury, he argued that, whatever opinion the

THE KENTUCKY LAWYER. 21

jury might form from the testimony as to the guilt
of the accused, they could not now convict him, as
he had already been once tried, and it was the law
of the land that no man should be put twice in
jeopardy of his life for the same offense. The
court, having, of course, never heard that doctrine
so applied, at once peremptorily forbade Clay to go
011 with such a line of argument. Whereupon the
young attorney solemnly arose, and with an air of
indignant astonishment declared that, if the court
would not permit him to defend, in such manner as
his duty commanded him to adopt, a man in the
awful presence of death, he found himself forced
to abandon the case. Then he gathered up his
papers, bowed grandly, and stalked out of the room.
The bench, whom Clay had impressed with the be
lief that he was profoundly convinced of being
right in the position he had taken, and upon whom
he had in such solemn tones thrown the responsi
bility for denying his rights to a man on trial for
his life, was startled and confused. A messenger
was dispatched to invite Clay in the name of the
court to return and continue his argument. Clay
graciously came back, and found it easy work to
persuade the jury that the result of the first trial
was equivalent to an acquittal, and that the pris
oner, as under the law he could not be put in peril
of life twice for the same offense, was clearly en
titled to his discharge. The jury readily agreed
upon a verdict of " not guilty."

It is said that no murderer defended by Henry

22 HENRY CLAY.

Clay ever was sentenced to death, and very early
in his professional career he acquired the reputa
tion of being able to insure the life of any crimi
nal intrusted to his care, whatever the degree of
guilt. That his success in saving murderers from
the gallows did not benefit the tone and character
of Kentucky society, Clay himself seemed to feel.
44 Ah, Willis, poor fellow," he said once to the
man whose acquittal he had obtained by so auda
cious a dramatic coup, " I fear I have saved too
many like you, who ought to be hanged."

But he was equally successful in the opposite
direction when acting as public prosecutor. He
had frequently been asked to accept the office of
attorney for the commonwealth, but had always de
clined. At last he was prevailed upon to take it
temporarily, until he could obtain the appointment
of a friend, who, he thought, ought to have the
place. The first criminal case falling into his
hands was one of peculiar interest. A slave, who
was highly valued by his master on account of his
intelligence, industry, and self-respect, was, in the
absence of the owner, treated very unjustly and
harshly by an overseer, a white man. Once the
slave, defending himself against the blows aimed
at him, seized an axe and killed his assailant.
Clay, as public prosecutor, argued that, had the
deed been done by a free man, considering that it
was done in self-defense, it would have been justi
fiable homicide, or, at worst, manslaughter. But
having been done by a slave, who was in duty

THE KENTUCKY LAWYER. 23

bound to submit to chastisement, it was murder,
and must be punished as such. It was so punished.
The slave was hung ; but his self-contained and
heroic conduct in the presence of death extorted
admiration from all who witnessed it ; and this
occurrence made so deep and painful an impres
sion upon Clay himself that he resigned his place
as soon as possible, and never failed to express his
sorrow at the part he had played in this case
whenever it was mentioned.

It was not long, however, that he remained
confined to criminal cases. Soon he distinguished
himself by the management of civil suits also,
especially suits growing out of the peculiar land
laws of Virginia and Kentucky. In this way he
rapidly acquired a lucrative practice and a promi
nent place at the bar of his state. That with all
his brilliant abilities he never worked his way into
the front rank of the great lawyers of the country
was due to his characteristic failing. He studied

O

only for the occasion, as far as his immediate need
went. His studies were never wide and profound.
His time was too much occupied by other things, —
not only by his political activity, which gradually
grew more and more exacting, but also by pleasure.
He was fond of company, and in that period of his
life not always careful in selecting his comrades ; a
passion for cards grew upon him, so much so, in
deed, that he never completely succeeded in over
coming it ; and these tastes robbed him of the hours
and of the temper of mind without which the calm

24 HENRY CLAY.

gathering o£ thought required for the mastery of
a science is not possible. Moreover, it is not
improbable that his remarkable gift of speaking,
which enabled him to make little tell for much,
and to outshine men of vastly greater learning, de
ceived him as to the necessity for laborious study.
The value of this faculty he appreciated well. He
knew that oratory is an art, and in this art he
trained himself with judgment and perseverance.
For many years, as a young man, he made it a rule
to read, if possible every day, in some historical or
scientific book, and then to repeat what he had
read in free, off-hand speech, "sometimes in a
cornfield, at others in the forest, and not unfre-
quently in a distant barn with the horse and ox for
auditors." Thus he cultivated that facility and
affluence of phrase, that resonance of language,
as well as that freedom of gesture, which, aided
by a voice of rare power and musical beauty, gave
his oratory, even to the days of declining old age,
so peculiar a charm.

Only a year and a half after his arrival at Lex
ington, in April, 1799, he had achieved a position
sufficiently respected and secure to ask for and to
obtain the hand of Lucretia Hart, the daughter of
a man of high character and prominent standing
in the state. She was not a brilliant, but a very
estimable woman, and a most devoted wife to him.
She became the mother of eleven children. His
prosperity increased rapidly ; so that soon he was
able to purchase Ashland, an estate of some sh?

THE KENTUCKY LAWYER. 25

hundred acres, near Lexington, which afterward
became famous as Henry Clay's home.

Together with the accumulation of worldly goods
he laid up a valuable stock of popularity. Indeed,
few men ever possessed in greater abundance and
completeness those qualities which attract popular
regard and affection. A tall stature ; not a hand
some face, but a pleasing, winning expression ; a
voice of which some of his contemporaries say that
it was the finest musical instrument they ever
heard ; an eloquence always melodious and in turn
majestic, fierce, playful, insinuating, irresistibly
appealing to all the feelings of human nature,
aided by a gesticulation at the same time natural,
vivid, large, and powerful ; a certain magnificent
grandeur of bearing in public action, and an easy
familiarity, a never failing natural courtesy in pri
vate, which, even in his intercourse with the low
liest, had nothing of haughty condescension in it ;
a noble generous heart making him always ready
to volunteer his professional services to poor
widows and orphans who needed aid, to slaves
whom he thought entitled to their freedom, to free
negroes who were in danger of being illegally re
turned to bondage, and to persons who were per
secuted by the powerful and lawless, in serving
whom he sometimes endangered his own safety ;
a cheery sympathetic nature, withal, of exuberant
vitality, gay, spirited, always ready to enjoy, and
always glad to see others enjoy themselves, — his
very faults being those of what was considered

26 HENRY CLAY.

good fellowship in his Kentuckian surroundings ;
a superior person, appearing, indeed, immensely
superior at times, but making his neighbors feel
that he was one of them, — such a man was born
to be popular. It has frequently been said that
later in life he cultivated his popularity by clever
acting, and that his universal courtesy became some
what artificial. If so, then he acted his own char
acter as it originally was. It is an important fact
that his popularity at home, among his neighbors,
indeed in the whole state, constantly grew stronger
as he grew older, and that the people of Kentucky
clung to him with unbounded affection.

CHAPTER III.

BEGINNINGS IN POLITICS.

HENRY CLAY'S first participation in politics was
highly honorable to him. The people of Kentucky
were dissatisfied with those clauses in their Con
stitution which provided for the election of the
governor and of the state senators through the
medium of electors. They voted that a convention
be called to revise the fundamental law. This
convention was to meet in 1799. Some public-
spirited men thought this a favorable opportunity
for an attempt to rid the state of slavery. An
amendment to the Constitution was prepared pro
viding for general emancipation, and among its
advocates in the popular discussions which pre
ceded the meeting of the convention, Clay was
one of the most ardent. It was to this cause that
he devoted his first essays as a writer for the press,
and his first political speeches in popular assem
blies. But the support which that cause found
among the farmers and traders of Kentucky was
discouragingly slender.

The philosophical anti-slavery movement which
accompanied the American Revolution had by this
time very nearly spent Its force. In fact, its prac-

28 HENRY CLAY.

tical effects had been mainly confined to the North,
where slavery was of little economic consequence,
and where, moreover, the masses of the population
were more accessible to the currents of opinion
and sentiment prevailing among men of thought
and culture. There slavery was abolished. Fur
ther, by the Ordinance of 1787, slavery was ex
cluded from the territory northwest of the Ohio.
But nothing was accomplished in the South except
the passage of a law by the Virginia legislature in
1778, prohibiting the further introduction of slaves
from abroad, and the repeal, in 1782, of the old
colonial statute, which forbade the emancipation
of slaves except for meritorious services. Mary
land followed the example of Virginia, but then
Virginia, ten years after the repeal, put a stop to
individual emancipation by reenacting the old
colonial statute. The convention framing the
Constitution of the United States did nothing but
open the way for the abolition of the slave-trade
at some future time. On the whole, as soon as the
philosophical anti-slavery movement threatened to
become practical in the South, it stirred up a very
determined opposition, and the reaction began.
Indeed, the hostility to slavery on the part of some
of the Southern Revolutionary leaders was never
of a very practical kind. Very characteristic in
this respect was a confession Patrick Henry made
concerning the state of his own mind as early as
1773, in a letter to a Quaker : —

BEGINNINGS IN POLITICS. 29

" Is it not amazing that, at a time when the rights of
humanity are defined and understood with precision, in
a country above all others fond of liberty, in such an
age, we find men professing a religion the most humane,
mild, meek, gentle, and generous, adopting a principle
as repugnant to humanity as it is inconsistent with the
Bible, and destructive of liberty ? Every thinking,
honest man rejects it in speculation, but how few in
practice, from conscientious motives 1 Would any one
believe that I am a master of slaves of my own pur
chase ? I am drawn along by the general inconvenience
of living without them. I will not, I cannot, justify it ;
however culpable my conduct, I will so far pay my de
voir to virtue as to own the excellence and rectitude of
her precepts, and lament my want of conformity to
them."

This merely theoretical kind of anti - slavery
spirit lost all aggressive force, as those whose pe
cuniary interests and domestic habits were identi
fied with slavery grew more defiant and exacting.
In 1785 Washington complained in a letter to
Lafayette that " petitions for the abolition of slav
ery, presented to the Virginia legislature, could
scarcely obtain a hearing." While the prohibition
of slavery northwest of the Ohio by the Ordinance
of 1787 proceeded from Southern statesmen, the
slave-holding interest kept all the land south of
the Ohio firmly in its grasp.

At the period of the elections for the conven
tion called to revise the Constitution of Kentucky,
the philosophical anti-slavery spirit of the Revolu
tion survived in that state only in a comparatively

30 HENRY CLAY.

feeble flicker among the educated men who had
come there from Virginia and Pennsylvania. It
had never touched the rough pioneers of Kentucky
with any force. The number of slaves held in the
state was, indeed, small enough to render easy the
gradual abolition of the system. But the Ken
tucky farmer could not understand why, if he had
money to buy negroes, he should not have them to
work for him in raising his crops of corn, and
hemp, and tobacco, and in watching his cattle and
swine in the forest. His opposition to emancipa
tion in any form was, therefore, vehement and over
whelming. The cause so fervently advocated by
Clay, following his own generous impulses, as wrell
as the teachings of his noble mentor, Chancellor
Wythe, and by a small band of men of the same
way of thinking, was, therefore, desperate from
the beginning. But they deserve the more credit
for their courageous fidelity to their convictions.
Clay was then a promising young man just attract
ing public attention. At the very start he boldly
took the unpopular side, thus exposing himself to
the displeasure of a power, which, in the South,
was then already very strong, and threatened to
become unforgiving and merciless. Nor did he
ever express regret at this first venture in his pub
lic career. On the contrary, all his life he con
tinued to look back upon it with pride. In a speech
he delivered at Frankfort, the political capital of
Kentucky, in 1829, he said : —

BEGINNINGS IN POLITICS. 31

" More than thirty years ago, an attempt was made,
in this commonwealth, to adopt a system of gradual
emancipation, similar to that which the illustrious Frank
lin had mainly contributed to introduce in 1780, in the
state founded by the benevolent Penn. And among
the acts of my life which I look back to with most sat
isfaction is that of my having cooperated, with other
zealous and intelligent friends, to procure the establish
ment of that system in this state. We were overpow
ered by numbers, but submitted to the decision of the
majority with that grace which the minority in a repub
lic should ever yield to that decision. I have, neverthe
less, never ceased, and shall never cease, to regret a de
cision, the effects of which have been to place us in the
rear of our neighbors, who are exempt from slavery, in
the state of agriculture, the progress of manufactures,
the advance of improvements, and the general progress
of society."

His early advocacy of that cause no doubt dis
pleased the people of Kentucky ; but what helped
him promptly to overcome that displeasure was the
excitement caused by another topic of great public
interest, on which he was in thorough accord with
them, — the alien and sedition laws, that tremen
dous blunder of the Federalists in the last days of
their power. The conduct of the French govern
ment toward the United States, and especially the
corrupt attempts of its agents, revealed by the fa
mous X Y Z correspondence, had greatly weak
ened that sympathy with the French Revolution
which was one of the most efficacious means of
agitation in the hands of the American Democrats.

32 HENRY CLAY.

The tide of popular sentiment turned so strongly
in favor of the Federalists that they might easily,
by prudent conduct, have attracted to themselves
a large portion of the Republican rank and file,
thus severely crippling the opposition to the ad
ministration of John Adams. But to push an ad
vantage too far is one of the most dangerous errors
a political party can commit ; and this is what the
Federalists did in giving themselves the appear
ance of trying to silence their opponents by the
force of law. Nothing could have been better cal
culated not only to alarm the masses, but also to
repel thinking men not blinded by party spirit,
than an attempt upon the freedom of speech and
of the press, wholly unwarranted by any urgency
of public danger. The result was as might have
been foreseen. The leaders of the opposition, with
Jefferson at their head, were not slow in taking
advantage of this stupendous folly. Their appeals
to the democratic instincts of the people, who felt
themselves threatened in their dearest rights, could
not fail to meet with an overwhelming response.
That response was especially strong west of the
Alleghanies, where Federalism had never grown
as an indigenous plant, but existed only as an ex
otic. In the young communities of Kentucky, the
excitement was intense, and Clay, fresh from the
Virginia school of democracy, threw himself into
the current with all the fiery spirit of youth. Of
the speeches he then delivered in popular gather-
ings, none are preserved even in outline. But it

BEGINNINGS IN POLITICS. 33

is known that his resonant declamation produced
a prodigious impression upon his hearers, and that
after one of the large field meetings held in the
neighborhood of Lexington, where he had spoken
after George Nicholas, a man noted for his elo
quence, he and Nicholas were put in a carriage
and drawn by the people through the streets of the
town amid great shouting and huzzaing.

It was not, however, until four years afterward,
in 1803, that he was elected to a seat in the legis
lature of the state, having been brought forward
as a candidate without his own solicitation. The
sessions in which he participated were not marked
by any discussions or enactments of great impor
tance ; but Clay, who had so far been only the re
markable man of Lexington and vicinity, soon was
recognized as the remarkable man of the state.
In such debates as occurred, he measured swords
with the " big men" of the legislature who thus far
had been considered unsurpassed ; and the atten
tion attracted by his eloquence was such that
the benches of the Senate became empty when he
spoke in the House.

At this time, too, he paid his first tribute to
what is euphoniously called the spirit of chivalry.
A Mr. Bush, a tavern-keeper at Frankfort, was
assaulted by one of the magnates of Kentucky,
Colonel Joseph Hamilton Daviess, then District
Attorney of the United States. The Colonel's influ
ence was so powerful that no attorney at Frankfort
would institute an action against him for Mr. Bush.

34 HENRY CLAY.

Clay, seeing a man in need of help, volunteered.
In the argument on the preliminary question he
expressed his opinion of Daviess's conduct with
some freedom, whereupon the redoubtable Colonel
sent him a note informing him that he was not
in the habit of permitting himself to be spoken
of in that way and warning him to desist. Clay
promptly replied that he, on his part, permitted
nobody to dictate to him as to the performance of
his duty, and . that he " held himself responsible,"
etc. The Colonel sent him a challenge, which Clay
without delay accepted. The hostile parties had
already arrived at the place agreed upon, when
common friends interposed and brought about an
accommodation.

He soon met Colonel Daviess again in connec
tion with an affair of greater importance. In the
latter part of 1806, Aaron Burr passed through
Kentucky on his journey to the Southwest, enlist
ing recruits and making other preparations for his
mysterious expedition, the object of which was
either to take possession of Mexico and to unite
with it the Western States of the Union, the whole
to be governed by him, or, according to other re
ports, to form a large settlement on the Washita
River. A newspaper published at Frankfort, the
" Western World," denounced the scheme as a
treasonable one, and on November 3d Colonel
Daviess, as District Attorney of the United States,
moved in court that Aaron Burr be compelled to
attend, in order to answer a charge of being en-

BEGINNINGS IN POLITICS. 35

gaged in an unlawful enterprise designed to injure
a power with which the United States were at
peace. Burr applied to Henry Clay for profes
sional aid. Colonel Daviess, the District Attorney,
being a Federalist, the attempted prosecution of
Burr was at once looked upon by the people as a
stroke of partisan vindictiveness ; popular sym
pathy, therefore, ran strongly on Burr's side.
Clay, no doubt, was moved by a similar feeling ;
he, too, considered it something like a duty of
hospitality to aid a distinguished man arraigned
on a grave charge far away from his home, and
for this reason he never accepted the fee offered
to him by his client. Yet he had some misgiv
ings as to Burr's schemes, and requested from him
assurances of their lawful character. Burr was
profuse in plausibilities, and Clay consented to
appear for him. During the pendency of the pro
ceedings, which finally resulted in Burr's discharge
for want of proof, Clay was appointed to repre
sent Kentucky in the Senate of the United States
in the place of General Ad air, who had resigned.
Thereupon, feeling a greater weight of public re
sponsibility upon him, he deemed it necessary to
ask from Burr a statement in writing concerning
the nature of his doings and intentions. This re
quest did not seem to embarrass Burr in the least.
In a letter addressed to Clay he said that he had
no design, nor had he taken any measure, to pro
mote the dissolution of the Union or the separa
tion of any state from it ; that he had no inten

36 HENRY CLAY.

tion to meddle with the government or disturb
the tranquillity of the United States ; that he had
neither issued, nor signed, nor promised any com
mission to any one for any purpose ; that he did
not own any kind of military stores, and that no
body else did by his authority ; that his views had
been fully explained to several officers of the gov
ernment and were approved by them ; that he be
lieved his purposes were well understood by the
administration, and that they were such as every
man of honor and every good citizen must approve.
" Considering the high station you now fill in our
national councils," the letter concluded, "I have
thought these explanations proper, as well to coun
teract the chimerical tales which malevolent per
sons have so industriously circulated, as to satisfy
you that you have not espoused the cause of a man
in any way unfriendly to the laws or the interests
of the country."

Clay did not know the man he was dealing with.
He knew only that Burr had been Vice-President
of the United States; that he was a prominent
Republican ; that the Federalists hated him ; that
the stories told about his schemes were almost too
adventurous to be true. Burr's letter seemed to
be straightforward, such as an innocent man would
write. If the administration, at the head of which
stood Jefferson himself, knew and approved of
Burr's plans, they could not but be honorable.
This is what Clay believed, and so he defended
Burr faithfully and conscientiously. Nothing could

BEGINNINGS IN POLITICS. 37

be more absurd than the attempt made at the
time, and repeated at a later period, to hold him
in part responsible for Burr's schemes, the true na
ture of which he discovered only when he had his
first interview with President Jefferson at Wash
ington. Then his mortification was great. " It
seems," he wrote to Thomas Hart, of Lexington,
" that we have been much mistaken in Burr.
When I left Kentucky, I believed him both an in
nocent and persecuted man. In the course of my
journey to this place, still entertaining that opin
ion, I expressed myself without reserve, and it
seems, owing to the freedom of my sentiments at
Chillicothe, I have exposed myself to the strictures
of some anonymous writer at that place. They
give me no uneasiness, as I am sensible that all
my friends and acquaintances know me incapable
of entering into the views of Burr." The letter
by which Burr had deceived him, he delivered into
the President's hands. Nine years later he acci
dentally met Burr again in New York, where, after
aimless wanderings abroad, the adventurer had
stealthily returned. Burr advanced to salute him,
but Clay refused his hand.

CHAPTER IV.

BEGINNINGS IN LEGISLATION.

CLAY took his seat in the Senate of the United
States on December 29, 1806. When a man at
so early an age is chosen for so high a place, a
place, in fact, reserved for the seniors in politics,
be it even to " serve out an unexpired term," it
shows that he is considered by those who send
him there a person forming an exception to ordi
nary rules. But it is a more remarkable circum
stance that Clay, when he entered the Senate, was
not yet constitutionally eligible to that body, and
that this fact was not noticed at the time. Accord
ing to the biographers whose dates were verified by
him, he was born on April 12, 1777. On Decem
ber 29, 1806, when he entered the Senate, he there
fore lacked three months and seventeen days of
the age of thirty years, which the Constitution pre
scribes as a condition of eligibility to the Senate
of the United States. The records of the Senate
show no trace of a question having been raised
upon this ground when Clay was sworn. It does
not seem to have occurred to any member of that
body that the man who stood before them might
not be old enough to be a Senator. In all prob«

BEGINNINGS IN LEGISLATION. 39

ability Clay himself did not think of it. He was
sworn in as a matter of course, and, without the
bashful hesitation generally expected of young sen
ators, he plunged at once into the current of pro
ceedings as if he had been there all his life. On
the fourth day after he had taken his seat, we find
him offering a resolution concerning the circuit
courts of the United States ; a few days later, an
other concerning an appropriation of land for the
improvement of the Ohio rapids ; then another
touching Indian depredations ; and another pro
posing an amendment to the federal Constitution
concerning the judicial power of the United States.
We find the young man on a variety of committees,
sometimes as chairman, charged with the considera
tion of important subjects, and making reports to
the Senate. We find him taking part in debate
with the utmost freedom, and on one occasion as
tonishing with a piece of very pungent sarcasm an
old Senator, who was accustomed to subdue with
lofty assumptions of superior wisdom such younger
colleagues as ventured to differ from him.

In one important respect Clay's first beginnings
in national legislation were characteristic of the
natural bent of his mind and the character of his
future statesmanship. His first speech was in ad
vocacy of a bill providing for building a bridge
across the Potomac ; and the measure to which
he mainly devoted himself during his first short
term in the Senate was an appropriation of land
" toward the opening of the canal proposed to be

40 HENRY CLAY.

cut at the rapids of the Ohio, on the Kentucky
shore." This was in the line of the policy of
" internal improvements." Those claim too much
for Henry Clay who call him the inventor, the
"father," of that policy. It was thought of by
others before him, and all he did was to make
himself, in this as in other cases, so prominent a
champion, so influential and commanding a leader
in the advocacy of it, that presently the policy itself
began to pass as his own. In fact it was only his
child by adoption, not by birth. But at the time
of Clay's first appearance in the Senate there were
two things giving that policy an especial impulse.
One wras a revenue beyond the current needs of
the government, and the other was the material
growth of the country.

It would be difficult to find in the history of
the United States a period of more general con
tentment and cheerfulness of feeling than the
first and the early part of the second term of
Jefferson's presidency. Never before, since the
establishment of the government, had the country
been so free from any harassing foreign compli
cations. The difference with Great Britain about
the matter of impressments had not yet taken its
threatening form, and the Indians, under the influ
ence of humane treatment, were for a time leaving
the frontier settlements in peace. The American
people, also, for the first time .became fully con
scious of the fact that the government really be-
longed to them, and not to a limited circle of im-

BEGINNINGS IN LEGISLATION. 41

portant gentlemen. Jefferson's conciliatory policy,
proclaimed in the famous words, " We are all
Republicans, we are all Federalists," produced the
desired effect of withdrawing from the Federalist
leaders a large portion of the rank and file, and of
greatly mitigating the acerbity of party contests,
which under the preceding administration had been
immoderately violent. The Republican majority in
Congress and in the country grew so large that the
struggle of the minority against it ceased to be
very exciting. On the other hand, the Federalists
had left the machinery of the government 011 the
whole in so good a condition that the party coming
into power, although critically disposed, found not
much to change. Those at the head of the gov
ernment professed to be intent upon carrying on
public affairs in the simplest and most economical
style. Under such circumstances the popular mind
could give itself without restraint to the develop
ment of the country in the material sense. The
disturbed state of Europe having thrown a large
proportion of the carrying trade on the ocean into
the hands of the American merchant marine, the
foreign commerce of the seaboard cities expanded
largely. Agriculture, too, was remarkably prosper
ous, cotton was rapidly becoming the great staple
of the South, and other crops in increasing variety
were greatly augmented by the breaking of virgin
soils. Manufacturing industry began to take pos
session of the abundant water-powers of the coun
try, and to produce a constantly growing volume

42 HENRY CLAY.

and variety of articles. All these fields of activity
were enlivened by a cheerful spirit of enterprise.

But beyond all this new perspectives of terri
torial grandeur and national power had opened
themselves to the American people, which raised
their self-esteem and stimulated their ambition.
The United States had ceased to be a mere string
of settlements along the seaboard, with a few in
land outposts. The " great West " had risen
above the horizon as a living reality. The idea
of a " boundless empire " belonging to the Ameri
can people seized upon the popular imagination,
and everything connected with the country and its
government began to assume a larger aspect. The
young democracy felt its sap, and stretched its
limbs. By the Louisiana purchase the Mississippi
had become from an outer boundary an American
inland river from source to mouth, — the ramifica
tion of the sea through American territory. The
acquisition of the whole of Florida was only a
question of time. The immense country beyond
the Mississippi was still a vast mystery, but steps
were taking to explore that grand national domain.
In the message sent to Congress at the opening of
the very session during which Henry Clay entered
the Senate, President Jefferson announced that
" the expedition of Messrs. Lewis and Clarke, for
exploring the river Missouri, and the best com
munication from that to the Pacific Ocean, had had
all the success which could have been expected,"
and that they had " traced the Missouri nearly to

BEGINNINGS IN LEGISLATION. 43

its source, descended the Columbia to the Pacific
Ocean, and ascertained with accuracy the geogra
phy of that interesting communication across OUR
CONTINENT."

While only a few daring explorers and adven
turous hunters penetrated the immense wilderness
beyond the Mississippi, a steady stream of emigra
tion from the Atlantic States, reinforced by new
comers from the old world, poured into the fertile
region stretching from the Appalachian Mountains
to the great river. They found their way either
through Pennsylvania across the mountain ridges
to Pittsburgh, and then by flat or keel boat down
the Ohio, or through northern New York to the
Great Lakes, and then on by water. The building
of the famous Cumberland Road farther south had
then only been just begun. Great were the diffi
culties and hardships of the journey. While the
swift stage-coach reached Pittsburgh in six days
from Philadelphia, the heavy carrier cart, or the
emigrant wagon, had a jolt of three weeks to trav
erse the same distance. The roads were indescrib
able, and the traveler on the river found his course
impeded by snags, sand-bars, and dangerous rap
ids. It was, therefore, not enough to have the
great country ; it must be made accessible. Noth
ing could have been more natural than that, as
the West hove in sight larger and richer, the cry
for better means of communication between the
East and the West should have grown louder and
more incessant.

44 HENRY CLAY.

At the same time the commercial spirit of the
East was busy, planning improved roads and wa
terways from the interior to the seaports, and from
one part of the coast to the other. Canal projects
in great variety, large and small, were discussed
with great ardor. While some of these, like the
New York and Erie Canal, which then as a scheme
began to assume a definite shape, were designed
to be taken in hand by single states, the general
government was looked to for aid with regard to
others. The consciousness of common interests
grew rapidly among the people of different states
and sections, and with it the feeling that the gen
eral government was the proper instrumentality
by which those common interests should be served,
and that it was its legitimate business to aid in
making the different parts of this great common
domain approachable and useful to the people.

This feeling was the source from which the pol
icy of " internal improvements " sprang. There
was scarcely any difference of opinion among the
statesmen of the time on the question whether it
was desirable that the general government should
aid in the construction of roads and canals, and
the improvement of navigable rivers. The only
trouble in the minds of those who construed the
Constitution strictly was, that they could not find
in it any grant of power to appropriate public
funds to such objects. But the objects themselves
seemed to most of them so commendable that they
suggested the submission to the state legislatures

BEGINNINGS IN LEGISLATION. 45

of an amendment to the Constitution expressly
granting this power. This was the advice of Jef
ferson. While in his private correspondence he
frequently expressed the apprehension that the ap
propriation of public money to such works as roads
and canals, and the improvement of rivers, would
lead to endless jobbery and all sorts of demoraliz
ing practices, he found the current of popular sen
timent in favor of these things too strong for his
scruples. In his message of December, 1806, he
therefore suggested the adoption of a constitu
tional amendment to enable Congress to apply the
surplus revenue " to the great purposes of the pub
lic education, roads, rivers, canals, and such other
objects of public improvement as may be thought
proper," etc. " By these operations," he said,
" new channels of communication will be opened
between the states ; the lines of separation will
disappear ; their interests will be identified, and
their union cemented by new and indissoluble
ties." This certainly looked to an extensive sys
tem of public works. No amendment to the Con
stitution was passed ; but even Jefferson was found
willing to employ now and then some convenient
reason for doing without the expressed power;
such as, in the case of the Cumberland Road, the
consent of the states within which the work was to
be executed.

Clay took up the advocacy of this policy with all
his natural vigor. He was a Western man. He
had witnessed the toil and trouble with which the

46 HENRY CLAY.

emigrant coming from the East worked his way to
the fertile western fields. The necessity of mak
ing the navigation of the Ohio safe and easy came
home to his neighbors and constituents. But he
did not confine his efforts to that one measure.
He earnestly supported the project of government
aid for the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, which, in
the language of the report, was to serve " as the
basis of a vast scheme of interior navigation, con
necting the waters of the Lakes with those of the
most southern states ; " and if he was not, as some
of his biographers assert, the mover, — for as such
the annals of Congress name Senator "Worthington,
from Ohio, — he was at least the zealous advocate
of a resolution, " that the Secretary of the Treas
ury be directed to prepare and report to the Sen
ate at their next session, a plan for the application
of such means as are 'within the power of Congress,
to the purposes of opening roads and making ca
nals, together with a statement of undertakings of
that nature, which, as objects of public improve
ment, may require and deserve the aid of govern
ment," etc., a direction to which Gallatin, then
Secretary of the Treasury, responded in an elab
orate report. Thus Clay marched in large com
pany, but ahead of a part of it ; for while Jeffer
son and his immediate followers, admitting the
desirability of a large system of public improve
ments, asserted the necessity of a constitutional
amendment to give the government the appropri
ate power, Clay became the recognized leader of

BEGINNINGS OF LEGISLATION. 47

those who insisted upon the existence of that power
under the Constitution as it was.

The senatorial term, for a fraction of which
Clay had been appointed, ended on March 4, 1807.
He had enjoyed it heartily. "My reception in
this place," he wrote to Colonel Hart on February
1st, " has been equal, nay, superior to my expec
tations. I have experienced the civility and at
tention of all I was desirous of obtaining. Those
who are disposed to flatter me say that I have ac
quitted myself with great credit in several debates
in the Senate. But after all that I have seen,
Kentucky is still my favorite country. There
amidst my dear family I shall find happiness in a
degree to be met with nowhere else." We have,
also, contemporaneous testimony, showing how oth
ers saw him at that period. William Plumer, a
Senator from New Hampshire, a Federalist, wrote
in his diary : —

" December 29, 1806. This day Henry Clay, the suc
cessor of John Adair, was qualified, and took his seat
in the Senate. He is a young lawyer. His stature is
tall and slender. I had much conversation with him,
and it afforded me much pleasure. He is intelligent
and appears frank and candid. His address is good,
and his manners easy."

And later : —

" Mr. Clay is a young lawyer of considerable emi
nence. He came here as senator for this session only.
His clients, who have suits depending in the Supreme
Court, gave him a purse of three thousand dollars to at-

48 HENRY CLAY.

tend to their suits here. He would not be a candidate
for the next Congress, as it would materially injure his
business. On the second reading of the bill to erect a
bridge over the Potomac, Henry Clay made an eloquent
and forcible speech against the postponement. He ani
madverted with great severity on Tracy's observations.
As a speaker Clay is animated, his language bold and
flowery. He is prompt and ready at reply, but he does
not reason with the force and precision of Bayard."

And finally : —

" February 13. Henry Clay is a man of pleasure ;
fond of amusements. He is a great favorite with the
ladies ; is in all parties of pleasure ; out almost every
evening ; reads but little ; indeed, he said he meant this
session should be a tour of pleasure. He is a man of
talents ; is eloquent ; but not nice or accurate in his dis
tinctions. He declaims more than he reasons. He is a
gentlemanly and pleasant companion ; a man of honor
and integrity."

The reports of Clay's speeches delivered at this
session, which have been preserved, do not bear out
Mr. Plumer's description of them. His oratory
seldom was what might properly be called u flow
ery." While his appeals rose not unfrequently to
somewhat lofty flights of rhetoric, he used figu
rative language sparingly. His speeches, occa
sional passages excepted, consisted of argumenta
tive reasoning, which, in print, appears not seldom
somewhat dry and heavy. But the dramatic fire
of delivery peculiar to him gave that reasoning f
vivacity to which the Senate, then a very small anu

BEGINNINGS IN LEGISLATION. 49

quiet body, was not accustomed, and which the
good Mr. Pluraer probably considered too dashing
for the place and the occasion.

Clay had scarcely returned to Kentucky when
the citizens of his county sent him again to the
state legislature as their representative, and he was
elected Speaker of the Assembly. The debates
which occurred gave him welcome opportunity for
taking position on the questions of the time. The
comfortable, calm, and joyous prosperity of the
country, which had prevailed under Jefferson's first
and at the beginning of his second administration,
had meanwhile been darkly overclouded by foreign
complications. The tremendous struggle between
Napoleonic France and the rest of Europe, led by
England, was raging more furiously than ever.
The profitable neutral trade of the American mer
chant marine was rudely interrupted by arbitrary
measures adopted by the belligerents to cripple
each other, in utter disregard of neutral rights.
The impressment and blockade policy of Great
Britain struck the American mind as particularly
offensive. Of this more hereafter. The old ani
mosity against England, which had somewhat
cooled during the short period of repose and gen
eral cheerfulness, was fanned again into flame.
Especially in the South and West it burst out in
angry manifestations. In the Kentucky legislature
its explosion was highly characteristic of the lin
gering backwoods spirit. It was moved that in no
court of Kentucky should any decision of a British

50 HENRY CLAY.

court, or any British elementary work on law, be
read as an authority. The proposition was im
mensely popular among the members of the As
sembly. More than four fifths of them declared
their determination to vote for it. Clay was as
fiery a patriot as any of them ; but he would not
permit his state to make itself ridiculous by a puer
ile and barbarous demonstration. He was young
and ambitious, but he would not seek popularity
by joining, or even acquiescing, in a cry which of
fended his good sense. Without hesitation he le|t
the Speaker's chair to arrest this absurd clamor.
He began by moving as an amendment that the
exclusion of British decisions and opinions from
the courts of Kentucky should apply only to those
which had been promulgated after July 4, 1776,
as before that date the American colonies were a
part of the British dominion, and Americans and
"English were virtually one nation, living substan
tially under the same laws. Then he launched
into a splendid panegyric upon the English com
mon law, and an impassioned attack upon the bar
barous spirit which would " wantonly make wreck
of a system fraught with the intellectual wealth of
centuries." His speech was not reported, but it
was described in the press of the time as one of
extraordinary power and beauty, and it succeeded
in saving for Kentucky the treasures of English
jurisprudence.

Other demonstrations of patriotism on his part
were not wanting. In December, 1808, when the

BEGINNINGS IN LEGISLATION. 51

cloud had grown darker still, he introduced a se
ries of resolutions expressing approval of the
embargo, denouncing the British Orders in Council
by which the rights of neutral ships were arbitra
rily overruled, pledging to the general government
the active aid of Kentucky in anything it might
determine upon to resist British exactions, and de
claring that President Jefferson was entitled to the
gratitude of the country " for the ability, upright
ness, and intelligence which he had displayed in
the management both of our foreign relations and
domestic concerns." This brought to his feet the
Federalist Humphrey Marshall, a man of ability and
standing, — he had been a Senator of the United
States, — but who was also noted for the bitterness
of his animosities and the violence of his temper.
Looking down upon Clay as a young upstart, he
opposed the resolutions with extraordinary viru
lence, but commanded only his own vote against
them.

Clay then offered another resolution, recommend
ing that the members of the legislature should
wear only such clothes as were the product of do
mestic manufacture. The avowed object was the
encouragement of home industry, to the end of
making the country industrially independent of a
hated foreign power. This was Henry Clay's first
effort in favor of a protective policy, evidently
designed to be a mere demonstration. Humphrey
Marshall at once denounced the resolution as the
clap-trap of a demagogue. A fierce altercation

52 ' HENRY CLAY.

followed, and then came the customary challenge
and the " hostile encounter," in which both com
batants were slightly wounded, whereupon the sec
onds interfered to prevent more serious mischief.
Henry Clay may, therefore, be said to have fought
and bled for the cause of protection when he first
championed it, by a demonstration in favor of
home manufactures as against those of a foreign
enemy.

In the winter of 1809-10 Clay was again sent to
the Senate of the United States to fill an unex-
pired term of two years, Mr. Buckner Thurston
having resigned his seat. In April, 1810, he found
an opportunity for expressing his opinions on the
" encouragement of home industry " in a more
tangible and elaborate form. To a bill appropri
ating money for procuring munitions of war and
for other purposes, an amendment was moved in
structing the Secretary of the Navy to purchase
supplies of hemp, cordage, sail-cloth, etc., and to
give preference to articles raised or manufactured
on American soil. The discussion ranged over the
general policy of encouraging home manufactures.
Clay's line of argument was remarkable. A large
conception of industrial development as the result
of a systematic tariff policy was entirely foreign to
his mind. He looked at the whole subject from
the point of view of a Kentucky farmer, who found
it most economical to clothe himself and his fam
ily in homespun, and who desired to secure a sure
and profitable market for his hemp. Besides this,

BEGINNINGS IN LEGISLATION. 53

he thought it wise that the American people
should, in case of war, not be dependent upon any
foreign country for the things necessary to their
sustenance and defense. " A judicious American
farmer," said he, " in his household way manufac
tures whatever is requisite for his family. He
squanders but little in the gewgaws of Europe.
He presents, in epitome, what the nation ought to
be in extenso. Their manufactories should bear
the same proportion, and effect the same object in
relation to the whole community, which the part of
his household employed in domestic manufacturing
bears to the whole family. It is certainly desira
ble that the exports of the country should continue
to be the surplus production of tillage, and not be
come those of manufacturing establishments. But
it is important to diminish our imports ; to furnish
ourselves with clothing, made by our own industry ;
and to cease to be dependent, for the very coats we
wear, upon a foreign, and perhaps inimical, coun
try. The nation that imports its clothing from
abroad is but little less dependent than if it im
ported its bread."

He was especially anxious not to be understood
as favoring a large development of manufacturing
industries with a numerous population of opera
tives. Referring to the indigence and wretchednesr
which had been reported to prevail among thfc
laboring people of Manchester and Birmingham,
he said : " Were we to become the manufacturers
of other countries, effects of the same kind might

54 HENRY CLAY.

result. But if we limit our efforts by our own
wants, the evils apprehended would be found to be
chimerical." He had no doubt " that the domestic
manufactories of the United States, fostered by
government, and aided by household exertions,
were fully competent to supply us with at least
every necessary article of clothing." He was,
therefore, " in favor of encouraging them, not to
the extent to which they are carried in Europe,
but to such an extent as will redeem us entirely
from all dependence on foreign countries." And,
aside from clothing, he did not forget to mention
that " our maritime operations ought not to de
pend upon the casualties of foreign supply ; " that
" with very little encouragement from government
he believed we should not want a pound of Russia
hemp ; " that " the increase of the article in Ken
tucky had been rapidly great," there having been
but two rope manufactories in Kentucky ten years
ago, and there being about twenty now, and about
ten or fifteen of cotton-bagging.

Thus what he had in view at that time was not
the building up of larsfe industries bv a protective

O -. «/ JL

system, but just a little manufacturing to run
along with agriculture, enough to keep the people
in clothes and the navy well supplied with hemp,
and so to relieve the country of its dependence
on foreign countries in case of war. For this
home industry he wanted encouragement. What
kind of encouragement ? In his speech he briefly
referred to two means of encouraging manufac-

BEGINNINGS IN LEGISLATION. 55

tures : bounties, against which, as he was aware,
it was urged that the whole community was taxed
for the benefit of only a part of it ; and protec
tive duties, in opposition to which it was, as he
said, " alleged that you make the interest of one
part, the consumer, bend to the interest of the
other part, the manufacturer." He merely stated
these points, together with the " not always ad
mitted " answer that " the sacrifice is only tempo
rary, being ultimately compensated by the greater
abundance and superiority of the article produced
by the stimulus." He did not, however, commit
himself clearly in favor of either proposition. But
he thought of all " practical forms of encourage
ment," the one under discussion, providing merely
for a preference to be given to home products
in the purchase of naval supplies, whenever it
could be done without material detriment to the
service, was certainly innocent enough and should
escape opposition. He was also in favor of making
advances, under proper security, to manufacturers
undertaking government contracts, believing " that
this kind of assistance, bestowed with prudence,
will be productive of the best results."

A few days after Clay had made this speech,
Albert Gallatin, Secretary of the Treasury, pre
sented to Congress a report on the manufacturing
industries of the United States, in which he showed
that several of them were already " adequate to
the consumption of the country," — among them
manufactures of wood, leather, and manufactures

56 HENRY CLAY.

of leather, soap, and candles, etc., — and that others
were supplying either the greater, or at least a
considerable, part of the consumption of the coun
try, such as iron and manufactures of iron ; manu
factures of cotton, wool, and flax; hats, paper,
several manufactures of hemp, gunpowder, window
glass, several manufactures of lead, etc. Home
industry was, therefore, practically not far from
the point of development indicated by Clay as the
goal to be reached. In response to the request of
Congress, to suggest methods by which the manu
facturing industries might be encouraged, Gallatin
suggested that " occasional premiums might be
beneficial ; " that " a general system of bounties
was more applicable to articles exported than to
those manufactured for home consumption ; " that
prohibitory duties were " liable to the treble ob
jection of destroying competition, of taxing the
consumer, and of diverting capital and industry
into channels generally less profitable than those
which would have naturally been pursued by indi
vidual interest left to itself." A moderate increase
of duties would be less dangerous, he thought ; but,
if adopted, it should be continued during a certain
period to avoid the injury to business arising from
frequent change. But, he added, " since the com
parative want of capital is the principal obstacle
to the introduction and advancement of manufac
tures," and since the banks were not able to give
sufficient assistance, " the United States might
create a circulating stock bearing a low rate of
interest, and lend it at par to manufacturers."

BEGINNINGS IN LEGISLATION. 57

It will strike any reader conversant with the his
tory of that period, that Clay's argument, if taken
as a plea for protection, was far less decided in
tone and strong in reasoning than many speeches
which had been made in Congress on that side of
the question before ; and also that the methods of
encouraging manufacturing industries suggested by
him were, although less clearly stated, not materi
ally different from those suggested by Gallatin,
who was on principle a free trader.

This topic was, in fact, only one of a great
variety of subjects to which he devoted his atten
tion. He evidently endeavored to become not only
a brilliant speaker, but a useful, working legislator.
During the same session he made a report on a
bill granting a right of preemption to settlers on
public land in certain cases, which was passed
without amendment. Indian affairs, too, received
his intelligent attention. A bill supplementary to
" an Act to regulate trade and intercourse with the
Indian tribes and to preserve peace on the fron
tier," was introduced by him and referred to a
committee of which he was made chairman ; and
his report displayed sentiments as wise as they
were humane. More conspicuous and important
was the part he took during the session of 1810-11
in the debates on the occupation of West Florida,
and on a bill to renew the charter of the Bank of
the United States.

The West Florida case gave him his first in
troduction to the fieid of foreign affairs, and at

58 HENRY CLAY.

once he struck the key-note of that national feeling
which carried the American people into the War of
1812. Florida was at that time in the possession of
Spain. The boundaries of Louisiana, as that ter
ritory had passed from France to the United States
in 1803, were ill defined. According to a plausible
construction the Louisiana purchase included that
part of Florida to the west of the Perdido Kiver,
which was commonly called West Florida. But
the United States had failed to occupy it, leaving
the Spanish garrisons quietly in possession of their
posts. Negotiations for the purchase of the whole
of Florida from Spain had meanwhile been carried
on, but without success. When Napoleon invaded
Spain and that kingdom appeared doomed to fall
into his hands, insurrectionary movements broke
out in several of the Spanish American provinces.
West Florida, too, was violently agitated. The rev
olutionists there, among whom were many persons
of English and of American birth, set up an inde
pendent government and applied for recognition
by the United States. There were rumors of Brit
ish intrigues for the object of getting West Florida
into the hands of England. The revolutionary
excitement in the territory moreover threatened
seriously to disturb the peace of the frontier.
President Madison thought this an opportune mo
ment to settle the boundary question. He issued a
proclamation on October 27, 1810, asserting the
claim of the United States to West Florida, the
delay in the occupation of which "was not the

BEGINNINGS OF LEGISLATION. 59

result of any distrust of their title, but was occa
sioned by their conciliatory views," and announc
ing that " possession should be taken of the said
territory in the name and behalf of the United
States." A bill was then introduced in the Senate
December 18, 1810, providing that the Territory
of Orleans, one of the two territories into which
Louisiana was divided, " shall be deemed, and is
hereby declared, to extend to the river Perdido,"
and that the laws in force in the Territory
of Orleans should extend over the district in
question.

The Federalists, who always had a deep-seated
jealousy of the growing West, attacked the steps
taken by President Madison as acts of spoliation
perpetrated upon an unoffending and at the time
helpless power, and their spokesmen in the Senate,
Timothy Pickering of Massachusetts, and Horsey
of Delaware, strenuously denied that the United
States had any title to West Florida. Clay took
up the gauntlet as the champion not merely of
the administration, but of his country. For the
first time in the Senate he put forth the fullness
of his peculiar power. " Allow me, sir," said
he, with severe irony, " to express my admiration
at the more than Aristidean justice which, in a
question of territorial title between the United
States and a foreign nation, induces certain gentle
men to espouse the pretensions of the foreign na
tion. Doubtless, in any future negotiations, she
will have too much magnanimity to avail herself of

60 HENRY CLAY.

these spontaneous concessions in her favor, made
on the floor of the Senate of the United States."
He then went into an elaborate historical examina
tion of the question, giving evidence of much re
search, and set forth with great clearness and force
of statement. The case he made out for the
American claim was indeed plausible. Accept
ing his patriotic assumptions, his defense of the
President's conduct seemed complete. The plea
that the Spanish government was sorely pressed
and helpless furnished him only an opportunity for
holding up his opponents as the sympathizers of
kings. " I shall leave the honorable gentleman
from Delaware," he exclaimed, " to mourn over the
fortunes of the fallen Charles. I have no commis
eration for princes. My sympathies are reserved
for the great mass of mankind, and I own that the
people of Spain have them most sincerely." But
he had a still sharper arrow in his quiver. Mr.
Horsey had been so unfortunate as to speak of the
displeasure which the steps taken by the President
might give to Great Britain. Clay turned upon
him with an outburst which resounded through the
whole country : —

" The gentleman reminds us that Great Britain, the
ally of Spain, may be obliged, by her connection with
that country, to take part with her against us, and to
consider this measure of the President as justifying an
appeal to arms. Sir, is the time never to arrive, when
we may manage our own affairs without the fear of
insulting his Britannic majesty ? Is the rod of the

BEGINNINGS IN LEGISLATION, 61

British power to be forever suspended over our heads ?
Does Congress put an embargo to shelter our rightful
commerce against the piratical depredations committed
upon it on the ocean ? We are immediately warned of
the indignation of offended England. Is a law of non-
intercourse proposed ? The whole navy of the haughty
mistress of the seas is made to thunder into our ears0
Does the President refuse to continue a correspondence
with a minister who violates the decorum belonging to
his diplomatic character, by giving and repeating a de
liberate affront to the whole nation ? We are instantly
menaced with the chastisement which English pride will
not fail to inflict. Whether we assert our rights by sea,
or attempt their maintenance by land, — whithersoever
we turn ourselves, this phantom incessantly pursues us.
Already it has too much influence on the councils of the
nation. Mr. President, I most sincerely desire peace
and amity with England ; I even prefer an adjustment
of differences with -her before one with any other nation.
But if she persists in a denial of justice to us, or if she
avails herself of the occupation of West Florida to com
mence war upon us, I trust and hope that all hearts will
unite in a bold and vigorous vindication of our rights."

This was an appeal to that national pride which
lie himself of all the statesmen of his time felt
most strongly, and therefore represented most
effectively. Although he was the youngest man in
the Senate, he had already acquired a position of
leadership among the members of the Republican
majority. He won it in his characteristic fashion ;
that is to say, he straightway seized it, and in def
erence to his boldness and abiJ'ty it was conceded

62 HENRY CLAY.

to him. In the debate on the West Florida ques
tion he was decidedly the most conspicuous and
important figure ; and when the veteran Timothy
Pickering, in a speech in reply to Clay, quoted a
document which years before »had been communi
cated to the Senate in confidence, it was the young
Kentuckian who promptly stepped forward as the
leader of the majority, offering a resolution to cen
sure Pickering for having committed a breach of
the rules, and the majority obediently followed.

From this debate he came forth the most strik
ing embodiment of the rising spirit of Young
America. But the manner in which he opposed
the re-charter of the Bank of the United States
was calculated to bring serious embarrassment
upon him in his subsequent career ; for he fur
nished arguments to his bitterest enemy. The first
Bank of the United States was chartered by Con
gress in 1791, the charter to run for twenty years.
Its establishment formed an important part of
Hamilton's scheme of national finance. It was to
aid in the collection of the revenue ; to secure to
the country a safe and uniform currency ; to serve
as a trustworthy depository of public funds ; to
facilitate the transmission of money from one part
of the country to another ; to assist the govern
ment in making loans, funding bond issues, and
other financial operations. These offices it had on
the whole so well performed that the Secretary of
the Treasury, Gallatin, although belonging to the
political school which had originally opposed the

BEGINNINGS IN LEGISLATION. 63

Bank, strongly favored the renewal of its charter.
He was especially anxious to preserve the powerful
working force of this financial agency in view of
necessities which the impending war with Great
Britain would inevitably bring upon the govern
ment.

The opposition which the re-charter met in Con
gress sprang from a variety of sources. Although
for twenty years the constitutionality of the charter
had been practically recognized by every depart
ment of the government, the constitutional ques
tion was raised again. As the Bank had been
organized while the Federalists were in power,
and many of its officers and directors belonged
to that party, its management was accused of polit
ical partiality in the distribution of its favors and
accommodations. Some of its stock was owned
by British subjects ; hence the charge that its
operations were conducted under too strong a
foreign influence. All these things were used to
inflame the popular mind, and the opponents of
the Bank actually succeeded in creating so strong
a current of feeling against it, that several state
legislatures passed resolves calling upon members
of Congress to refuse the renewal of the charter.

Gallatin, the ablest public financier of his time,
and indeed one of the few great finance ministers
in our history, ranking second only to Hamilton,
knew the importance of the Bank as a fiscal agent
of the government at that time too well not to
make every honorable effort to sustain it. With-

64 HENRY CLAY.

out difficulty he refuted the charges with which it
was assailed. But his very solicitude told against
the measure he advocated. A very influential
coterie, represented in the Cabinet by the Secre
tary of the Navy, Smith, and especially strong in
the Senate, entertained a deadly hostility to the
Secretary of the Treasury, and sought to drive
him out of the administration by defeating every
thing he thought important to his success as a
public financier. There is no reason to suspect
that Clay was a party to this political intrigue.
Nevertheless, he espoused the anti-Bank cause with
the whole fervor of his nature. One reason was
that the legislature of his state had instructed him
to do so. But he did not rest his opposition upon
that ground. He sincerely believed in many of
the accusations that had been brought against the
Bank ; to his imagination it appeared as the em
bodiment of a great money power that might be
come dangerous to free institutions. But his prin
cipal objection was the unconstitutionality of the
Bank, and this he urged with arguments drawn so
deeply from his conception of the nature of the
federal government, and in language so emphatic,
as to make it seem impossible for him ever to escape
from the principles then laid down.

"What is the nature of this government? (he said.)
It is emphatically federal, vested with an aggregate of
specified powers for general purposes, conceded by ex
isting sovereignties, who have themselves retained what
is not so conceded. It is said there are cases in which

BEGINNINGS IN LEGISLATION. 65

it must act on implied powers. This is not contro
verted, but the implication must be necessary, and ob
viously flow from the enumerated power with which it is
allied. The power to charter companies is not specified
in the grant, and I contend it is not transferable by
mere implication. It is one of the most exalted attri
butes of sovereignty. In the exercise of this gigantic
power we have seen an East India Company created,
which is in itself a sovereignty, which has subverted
empires and set up new dynasties, and has not only
made war, but war against its legitimate sovereign !
Under the influence of this power we have seen arise a
South Sea Company, and a Mississippi Company, that
distracted and convulsed all Europe, and menaced a
total overthrow of all credit and confidence, and uni
versal bankruptcy ! Is it to be imagined that a power
so vast would have been left by the wisdom of the
Constitution to doubtful inference? In all cases where
incidental powers are acted upon, the principal and
incidental ought to be congenial with each other, and
partake of a common nature. The incidental power
ought to be strictly subordinate and limited to the end
proposed to be attained by the specific power. In other
words, under the name of accomplishing one object
which is specified, the power implied ought not to be
made to embrace other objects which are not specified
in the Constitution. If, then, you could establish a
bank to collect and distribute the revenue, it ought to
be expressly restricted to the purpose of such collec
tion and distribution. It is mockery worse than usur
pation to establish it for a lawful object, and then to
extend it to other objects which are not lawful. In de
ducing the power to create corporations, such as I have
5

66 HENRY CLAY.

described it, from the power to collect taxes, the relation
and condition of principal and incidental are prostrated
and destroyed. The accessory is exalted above the
principal."

The strictest of strict constructionists could not
have put the matter more strongly. The reader
should remember this argument, to compare it with
the reasons given by Henry Clay a few years later
for his vote in favor of chartering a new Bank of
the United States, illustrating the change which
was taking place not only in his, but also in other
men's minds as to the constitutional functions of
the government.

The bill to re-charter the Bank was defeated
in the House of Representatives by a majority
of one, and in the Senate by the casting vote of
the Vice-President. It is not unfair to assume
that, had Clay cast his vote in the Senate, and also
employed his influence with his friends in the
House in favor of the bill, he would have saved it,
and that, in this sense, his opposition made him
responsible for its defeat.

CHAPTER V.

THE WAR OF 1812.

UPON the expiration of his term in the Senate,
Henry Clay was elected a member of the national
House of Representatives for the Lexington dis
trict, and took his seat on November 4, 1811. To
him this was a welcome change. He " preferred
the turbulence of the House to the solemn stillness
of the Senate." Naturally it was a more congen
ial theatre of action to the fiery young statesman.
The House was then much less under the domina
tion of its committees than it is at present. It
was not yet muzzled by rules permitting only now
and then a free exchange of opinions. It still pos
sessed the character of a debating body in the best
sense of the phrase. The House of Representa
tives then was what the Senate afterwards be
came, — the platform to which the people looked
for the most thorough discussion of their interests,
and from which a statesman could most effectively
impress his views upon the public mind. More
over, it was in the House that the Young America of
the time gathered in force to make their strength
and spirit tell — the young Republicans who had
grown somewhat impatient at the timidity and the

68 HENRY CLAY.

over-anxious considerations of economy and peace
with which the old statesmen of their own party,
in their opinion, constantly hampered the national
ambition and energy. Of all political elements
.this was to Clay the most congenial ; he was its
natural leader, and no sooner had he appeared in
the House than he was elected Speaker by a very
large majority. It was well understood that the
duties of this position would not exclude him from
participation in debate. On almost every occasion
of importance he availed himself of the committee
of the whole to proclaim his opinions, and for this
the stirring events of the time furnished ample op
portunity. It may be said without exaggeration
that it was his leadership in the House which
hastened the War of 1812.

Of the events which figured as the immediate
cause of that war only a short summary can find
room here. The profitable maritime trade which
the great struggle between France and England
had, from its beginning, thrown into the hands of
American merchants, could be preserved only so
long as the United States remained neutral and
as their neutral rights were respected. President
Jefferson earnestly endeavored to remain at peace
with both belligerents, hoping that each would be
anxious to propitiate, or at least not to offend this
Republic, from fear of driving it into an active al
liance with the other. In this he was disappointed.
They both looked upon the United States as a
weak neutral, whose interests could be injured, and
whose feelings could be outraged, with impunity.

THE WAR OF 1812. 69

England and France sought to destroy one an
other not only by arms, but by commercial restric
tions. In 1804 Great Britain declared the French
coast from Ostend to the Seine in a state of block
ade. In 1806 the blockade was extended from
the Elbe to Brest. It thus became in part a mere
" paper blockade." Napoleon answered by the
Berlin Decree of November 21, 1806, establishing
the " continental system," designed to stop all trade
between Great Britain and the European continent.
Thereupon came from the British side the " Orders
in Council " of January 7 and November 11, 1807,
declaring the blockade of all places and ports be
longing to France and her allies, from which the
British flag was excluded, also all their colonies ;
prohibiting all trade in the produce or manufac
tures of those countries and colonies, and making
subject to capture and condemnation all vessels
trading with and from them, and all merchandise
on board such vessels. The return shot on the
part of Napoleon was the Milan Decree of Decem
ber 17, 1807, declaring that every ship, of what
ever nation, and whatever the nature of its cargo,
sailing from the ports of England or her colonies,
or of countries occupied by English troops, and
every ship which had made any voyage to England,
or paid any tax to that government, or submitted
to search by an English ship, should be lawful
prize.

Between these decrees and counter-decrees, which
were utterly unwarranted by international law, the

70 HENRY CLAY.

trade of neutrals was crushed as between two mill
stones. Indeed, these measures were purposely di
rected by the two great belligerents as much against
neutral trade as against one another. Great Britain
would not let her maritime commerce slip out of
her grasp to build up a commercial rival sailing
under a neutral flag. She would therefore permit
no trading at all except on condition that it should
go through her hands, or " through British ports
where a transit duty was levied for the British
treasury." Napoleon, on the other hand, desired
to constrain the neutrals, especially the United
States, to become his active allies, by forcing upon
them the alternative : either allies or enemies.
There must be no neutrals, or if there were, they
must have no rights. Thus American ships were
taken and condemned by both parties in great
numbers, and American maritime trade was suffer
ing terribly. But this was not all. British men-
of-war stopped American vessels on the high seas,
and even in American waters, to search them for
British subjects or for men they chose to consider
as such, whom they pressed into the British naval
service. A large number of these were Americans,
not a few of whom refused to serve under the Brit
ish flag, and horrible stories were told of the dun
geons into which they were thrown, and of the
cruelties they had to suffer.

The steps taken by the United States to protect
their neutral rights were those of a peace-loving
power not over-confident of its own strength. Mad«

THE WAR OF 1812. 71

ison, President Jefferson's Secretary of State, made
an appeal to the sense of right and fairness of the
British government. That innocent effort having
proved fruitless, commercial restrictions were re
sorted to, — first, the non-importation Act of 1806,
prohibiting the importation of certain articles of
British production. At the same time negotiation
was tried, and a treaty was actually agreed upon
by the American envoys, Monroe and Pinkney,
and the British government ; but as it contained
no abandonment by Great Britain of the right of
search for the purpose of impressment, President
Jefferson did not submit it to the Senate. An at
tempt at further negotiation failed. In June, 1807,
the British man-of-war Leopard fired into the
United States frigate Chesapeake, and overhauled
her for British deserters, some of whom claimed to
be American citizens, an outrage which created
intense excitement and indignation all over the
country. An explanation was demanded, which it
took four years to obtain. In the autumn of 1807,
Jefferson called an extra session of Congress, and
the famous embargo was resolved upon, forbidding
the departure, unless by special direction of the
President, of any American vessel from any port
of the United States bound to any foreign coun
try, — a very curious measure, intended to defend
the foreign commerce of the country by killing that
commerce at one blow. The effect was not, as had
been hoped, to compel the belligerents by commer
cial inconvenience at once to respect the rights of

72 HENRY CLAY.

neutrals ; but on the other hand great dissatisfac
tion was created in the shipping towns of the
United States ; for most of the ship-owners and
merchants would rather take what little chance of
trade the restrictive measures of the belligerents
still left them, than let their ships rot at the
wharves and thus accept financial ruin from the
hands of their own government.

The embargo would indeed have been proper
enough as a measure preparatory for immediate
war. But Jefferson was a man of peace by tem
perament as well as philosophy. His favorite gun
boat policy appears like mere boyish dabbling in
warlike contrivance. His nature shrank from the
conflict of material forces. The very thought of
war, with its brutal exigencies and sudden vicissi
tudes, distressed and bewildered his mind. His
whole political philosophy contemplated lasting-
peace with the outside world. War, as a reign of
force, was utterly hostile to the realization of his
political ideals. When he saw that the comfort
able repose and the general cheerfulness which
prevailed during his first term were overclouded
by foreign complications, and that the things he
feared most were almost sure to come, he greeted
the election of his successor, which took place in
1808, as a deliverance ; and without waiting for
Madison's inauguration, virtually dropped the reins
of government, leaving all further responsibility to
Congress and to the next President.

In February, 1809, Congress resolved to raise

THE WAR OF 1812. 73

the embargo, and to substitute for it commercial
non-intercourse with England and France until
the obnoxious orders and decrees should be with
drawn. A gleam of sunshine seemed to break
through the clouds when, in April, a provisional
arrangement, looking to the withdrawal of the
Orders in Council in case of the reopening of com
mercial intercourse, and to an atonement for the
Chesapeake outrage, was agreed upon by the Sec
retary of State and Mr. Erskine, the British Min
ister. President Madison at once issued a procla
mation declaring commercial intercourse with Great
Britain restored. But the ships had hardly left
their harbors, when the general rejoicing was
rudely interrupted. It turned out that Erskine, a
well-meaning and somewhat enthusiastic young
man, had gone beyond his instructions. He was
sternly disavowed and recalled by the British gov
ernment. A new Minister, Mr. Jackson, was sent
in his place, who, in discussing the transactions
between Erskine and the Secretary of State, made
himself so offensive that further communication
with him was declined. The situation was darker
than ever. Non-intercourse with Great Britain was
resumed ; but a partial change of ministry in Eng
land — the Marquis of Wellesley succeeding Mr.
Canning in the Foreign Office — seemed to open a
new chance for negotiation. To aid this, Congress
on May 1, 1810, passed an act providing that com
mercial non-intercourse with the belligerent pow
ers should cease with the end of the session, only

74 HENRY CLAY.

armed ships being excluded from American ports ;
and further, that, in case either of them should re
call its obnoxious orders or decrees, the President
should announce the fact by proclamation, and if
the other did not do the same within three months,
the non-intercourse act should be revived against
that one, — a measure adopted only because Con
gress, in its helplessness, did not know what else
to do.

The conduct of France had meanwhile been no
less offensive than that of Great Britain. On all
sorts of pretexts American ships were seized in the
harbors and waters controlled by French power.
A spirited remonstrance on the part of Armstrong,
the American Minister, was answered by the issue
of the Rambouillet Decree in May, 1810, ordering
the sale of American vessels and cargoes seized,
and directing like confiscation of all American
vessels entering any ports under the control of
France. This decree was designed to stop the
surreptitious trade that was still being carried on
between England and the continent in American
bottoms. When it failed in accomplishing that
end, Napoleon instructed his Minister of Foreign
Affairs, Cbampagny, to inform the American Min
ister that the Berlin and Milan Decrees were re
voked, and would cease to have effect on Novem
ber 1, 1810, if the English would revoke their Or
ders in Council, and recall their new principles of
blockade, or if the United States would " cause
their rights to be respected by the English," — in

THE WAR OF 1812. 75

the first place restore the non-intercourse act as to
Great Britain. This declaration was made by
Champagny to the American representative on
August 5. The British government, being noti
fied of this by the American Minister, declared on
September 29, that Great Britain would recall
the Orders in Council when the revocation of the
French decrees should have actually taken effect,
and the commerce of neutrals should have been re
stored. Thus France would effectually withdraw
her decrees when Great Britain had withdrawn her
Orders in Council ; and Great Britain would with
draw her Orders in Council when France had ef
fectually withdrawn her decrees.

Madison, however, leaning toward France, as
was traditional with the Republican party, and
glad to grasp even at the semblance of an advan
tage, chose to regard the withdrawal of the Berlin
and Milan Decrees as actual and done in jrood

O

faith, and announced it as a matter of fact on No
vember 1, 1810. French armed ships were no
longer excluded from American ports. On Feb
ruary 2, 1811, the non-importation act was revived
as to Great Britain. In May the British Court of
Admiralty delivered an opinion that no evidence
existed of the withdrawal of the Berlin and Milan
Decrees, which resulted in the condemnation of a
number of American vessels and their cargoes.
Additional irritation was caused by the capture,
off Sandy Hook, of an American vessel bound
to France, by some fresh cases of search and im-

76 HENRY CLAY.

pressment, and by an encounter between the Amer
ican frigate President and the British sloop Little
Belt, which fired into one another, the British ves
sel suffering most.

But was American commerce safe in French
ports? By no means. The French Council of
Prize had continued to condemn American vessels,
as if the Berlin and Milan Decrees were in undi-
minished force ; outrages on American ships by
French men-of-war and privateers went on as be
fore, and Napoleon refused reparation for the con
fiscations under the Rambouillet Decree. The pre
tended French concession was, therefore, a mere
farce.

Truly, there were American grievances enough.
Over nine hundred American ships had been
seized by the British, and more than five hundred
and fifty by the French. The number of Amer
ican citizens impressed as British seamen, or kept
in prison if they refused to serve, was reported
to exceed six thousand, and it was estimated that
there were as many more of whom no informa
tion had been obtained. The remonstrances of
the American government had been treated with
haughty disdain. By both belligerents the United
States had been kicked and cuffed like a mere in
terloper among the nations of the earth, who had
no rights entitled to respectful consideration. Their
insolence seemed to have been increased by the
irresolution of the American government, the dis
traction of counsel in Congress, and the division

THE WAR OF 1812. 77

of sentiment among the people, resulting in a
shifting, aimless policy, which made the attitude
of the Republic appear weak, if not cowardly, in
the eyes of the European powers.

Such was the situation of affairs when Henry
Clay entered the House of Representatives and
was made its Speaker. In his annual message
Madison held fast to the fiction that France had
withdrawn the offensive decrees, while at the same
time he complained that the French government
had not shown any intention to make reparation
for the injuries inflicted, and he hinted at a re
vival of non-intercourse. But the sting of the
message was directed against Great Britain, who
had refused to withdraw the Orders in council, and
continued to do things " not less derogatory to the
dearest of our national rights than vexatious to our
trade," virtually amounting to " war on our law
ful commerce." Madison therefore advised that
the United States be put " into an armor and at
titude demanded by the crisis, and corresponding
with the national spirit and expectations." This
had a warlike sound, while, in fact, Madison was
an exceedingly unwarlike man. He ardently
wished, and still hoped to prevent, an armed con
flict. To make him adopt a war policy required
pushing.

But the young Republican leaders came to the
front to interpret the 4< national spirit and expec
tation." They totally eclipsed the old chiefs by
their dash and brilliancy. Foremost among them

78 HENRY CLAY.

stood Henry Clay ; then John C. Calhoun, Wil
liam Lowndes, Felix Grundy, Langdon Cheves, and
others. They believed that, if the American Re
public was to maintain anything like the dignity of
an independent power, and to preserve, or rather
regain, the respect of mankind in any degree, — ay,
its self-respect, — it must cease to submit to humil
iation and contemptuous treatment ; it must fight,
— fight somebody who had wronged or insulted it.

The Republicans, having always a tender side for
France, and the fiction of French concessions be
ing accepted, the theory of the war party was that,
of the two belligerents, England had more inso
lently maltreated the United States. Rumors were
spread that an Indian war then going on, and re
sulting in the battle of Tippecanoe on November
7, 1811, was owing to English intrigues. Adding
this to the old Revolutionary reminiscences of
British oppression, it was not unnatural t that the
national wrath should generally turn against Great
Britain.

Madison was all his life, even in his youth, some
what like a timid old man. He did not desire
war ; neither did he venture to resist the warlike
current. He was quite willing to have Congress
make a policy for him, and to follow its lead. In
this respect he could not have found a man more
willing to urge, or drive, or lead him, than Henry
Clay, who at once so composed the important com-
mittees of the House as to put them under the con
trol of the war party. Then early in the session

THE WAR OF 1812. 79

he took the floor in favor of putting at the disposal
of the President a much larger army than the
President himself had recommended. Every word
of his speech breathed war. He spoke of war not
as an uncertain event, but as something sure to
come. As to the reason for it, he pointed out
that " the real cause of British aggression was not
to distress an enemy, but to destroy a rival." To
that end, " not content with seizing upon all our
property which falls within her rapacious grasp,
the personal rights of our countrymen — rights
which forever must be sacred — are trampled upon
and viqlated " through the " impressment of our
seamen." Was the question asked : " What are
we to gain by war ? " With ringing emphasis he
replied : " What are we not to lose by peace ?
Commerce, character, a nation's best treasure,
honor ! " With such words of fire he stirred the
House and the people. The character and result
of the war, too, were predetermined in his imagi
nation. It was to be an aggressive war, a war of
glorious conquest. He saw the battalions of the
Republic marching victoriously through Canada
and laying siege to doomed Quebec. His dream
was of a peace dictated at Halifax.

Not only the regular army was increased, but
the President was authorized to accept and employ
50,000 volunteers. Then a bill was introduced
providing for the building of ten new frigates,
which gave Clay an opportunity for expressing his
views as to what the American navy should be.

80 HENRY CLAY.

A large portion of the war party, Western and
Southern men, insisted upon confining the conflict
with England to operations on land. The navy
was not popular with them. They denounced na
vies generally as curses to the countries which pos
sessed them ; as very dangerous to popular liberty ;
as sources of endless expense without correspond
ing benefit ; as nurseries of debt, corruption, de
moralization, and ruin. Especially in the war
then in prospect a navy would be absolutely use
less, — a curious prediction in the light of subse
quent events. Cheves and Lowndes spoke with
ability in favor of a maritime armament, but
Clay's speech took a wider sweep. He easily dis
posed of the assertion that a navy was as danger
ous to free institutions as a standing army, and
then laid down his theory upon which the naval
force of the United States should be organized.
It should not be such " a force as would be capa
ble of contending with that wrhich any other na
tion is able to bring on the ocean, — a force that,
boldly scouring every sea, would challenge to com
bat the fleets of other powers, however great.'*
To build up so extensive an establishment, he ad
mitted, was impossible at the time, and would prob
ably never be desirable. The next species of naval
power, which, " without adventuring into distant
seas, and keeping generally on our coasts, would
be competent to beat off any squadron which might
be attempted to be permanently stationed in our
waters," he did deem desirable. Twelve ships of

THE WAR OF 1812. 81

the line and fifteen to twenty frigates, he thought,
would be sufficient ; and if the present state of
the finances forbade so large an outlay, he was at
least in favor of beginning the enlargement of the
navy with such an end in view. But what he
would absolutely insist upon was the building up
of a force " competent to punish any single ship
or small naval expedition " attempting to " endan
ger our coasting trade, to block up our harbors, or
to lay under contribution our cities," such a force
being " entirely within the compass of our means "
at the time. " Because we cannot provide against
every danger," he asked, " shall we provide against
none?"

This was a sensible theory, in its main prin
ciples applicable now as well as then : to keep a
force not so expensive as to embarrass the coun
try financially, not so large as to tempt the gov
ernment into unnecessary quarrels, but sufficient
for doing such duty of high police as might be
necessary to protect our harbors and coasts against
casual attack and annoyance, and to " show the
flag," and serve as a sign of the national power in
foreign parts, where American citizens or Ameri
can property might occasionally need protection.
With great adroitness Clay enlisted also the sym
pathies of the Western members in behalf of the
navy, by showing them the importance of protect
ing the mouth of the Mississippi, the only outlet
for the products of the Western country.

The war spirit in the country gradually rose, and

82 HENRY CLAY.

manifested itself noisily in public meetings, pass
ing resolutions, and memorializing Congress. It
was increased in intensity by a sensational " ex
posure," a batch of papers laid before Congress by
the President in March, 1812. They had been
sold to the government by John Henry, an Irish
adventurer, and disclosed a confidential mission to
New England, undertaken by Henry in 1809 at
the request of Sir James Craig, the Governor of
Canada, to encourage a disunion movement in the
Eastern States. This was the story. Whatever its
foundation, it was believed, and greatly increased
popular excitement. Yet the administration seemed
to be still halting, and the war party felt obliged
to push it forward. Their programme was in the
first place a short embargo of thirty days, upon
which Clay, as their leader, had a conference with
the President. Madison agreed to recommend an
embargo of sixty days to Congress, and this he did
in a confidential message on April 1. The House
passed a corresponding bill the same day ; the
Senate the next day increased the time of the em
bargo to ninety days, which the House accepted,
and on April 4 the bill became a law. The
moderate Republicans and the Federalists had
procured the extension of the time, still hoping for
a pacific turn of negotiation. But Clay vehemently
declared that the embargo meant war and nothing
but war. When he was reminded of the danger of
such a contest, and of the circumstance that the
conduct of France furnished cause of war equally

THE WAR OF 1812. 83

grave, he burst out in thundering appeals to Amer
ican courage and honor. " Weak as we are," he
exclaimed, " we could fight France too, if neces
sary, in a good cause, — the cause of honor and in
dependence." We had complete proof, he added,
" that Great Britain would do everything to de
stroy us. Resolution and spirit were our only
security. War, after all, was not so terrible a
thing. There was no terror in it except its nov
elty. Such gentlemen as chose to call these senti
ments Quixotic, he pitied for their deficient sense
of honor."

All over the country the embargo was under
stood as meaning an immediate preparation for
war. In the South and the West and in Pennsyl
vania enthusiastic demonstrations expressed and
further excited the popular feeling. It was a re
markable circumstance that the war spirit was
strongest where the people were least touched in
their immediate interests by the British Orders in
Council and the impressment of seamen, while the
population engaged in maritime commerce, who had
suffered most and who feared a total annihilation
of their trade by the war, were in favor of pacific
measures," and under the lead of the Federalists
violently denounced the measures of the govern
ment and the war party.

In May, 1812, President Madison was nomi
nated for reelection by the congressional caucus.
It has been said that he was dragooned into the war
policy by Clay and his followers with the threat

84 HENRY CLAY.

that, unless he yielded to their views, another can
didate for the presidency would be chosen. This
Clay denied, and there was no evidence to dis
credit his denial. Madison was simply swept into
the current by the impetuosity of Young America.
He himself declared in 1827, in a letter to Wheaton,
that " the immediate impulse " to the declaration of
war was given by a letter from Lord Castlereagh
to the British Minister at Washington, Forster.
which was communicated to the President, and
which stated " that the Orders in Council, to which
we had declared we would not submit, would not
be repealed without the repeal of the internal
measures of France. With this formal notice
no choice remained, but between war and degra
dation."

John Randolph made a last attempt to prevent
the extreme step. Having heard that the Presi
dent was preparing a message to Congress recom
mending a declaration of war, he tried to force a
discussion in the House by offering a resolution,
"that it was inexpedient to resort to war with
Great Britain." He began to debate it on the
spot. Clay, as Speaker, interrupted him, and put
to the House the question whether it would pro
ceed to the consideration of the resolution. The
House voted in the negative, and Randolph was
silenced. On June 1 the President's war mes
sage came. On June 18 a bill in accordance
with it, which had passed both Houses, was signed
by the President, who proclaimed hostilities the
next day.

THE WAR OF 1812. 85

Thus Young America, led by Henry Clay, carried
their point. But there was something disquiet
ing in their victory. The majority they com
manded in Congress was not so large as a majority
for a declaration of war should be. In the House5
Pennsylvania and the states south and west of it
gave 62 votes for the war, and 32 against it; the
states north and east of Pennsylvania gave 17
yeas and 32 nays, — in all 79 for and 49 against
war. This showed a difference of sentiment ac
cording to geographical divisions. Not even all the
Republicans were in favor of war. Thirteen North
ern and two Southern Republicans voted against
it. In the Senate the vote stood 19 to 13, and
among the latter were six Republicans. So large a
minority had an ugly look. It signified that there
would be a peace party in the United States during
the war. And indeed, those who called themselves
the " friends of peace, liberty, and commerce " did
make themselves felt in obstructing military prep
arations and subscriptions to the national loan. In
some parts of New England this opposition assumed
an almost seditious character.

Nor were the United States in any sense well
prepared for a war with a first class power. The
Republic was still comparatively weak in military
resources. The population, including slaves, had
not yet reached eight millions. Ohio, Kentucky,
and Tennessee were the westernmost states. Indi
ana was still a territory, and part of it in the pos
session of Indian tribes. The battle of Tippecanoe

86 HENRY CLAY.

had been fought the year before on its soil. The
regular army had scarcely 10,000 effective men.
Volunteer and militia levies had to be mainly de
pended upon, and to command these the number
of experienced officers, aside from superannuated
" Revolutionary veterans," was extremely small.
The naval force consisted of a few old frigates and

O

some smaller vessels. These were all the means
at hand, when war was declared, to force Great
Britain, through a rapid conquest of Canada, to
respect the maritime rights of the United States.

All this looked unpromising enough. But Clay
believed in the power of enthusiasm. His voice
resounded through the land. His eloquence filled
volunteer regiments and sent them off full of fight
ing spirit and hope of victory. From place to
place he went, reassuring the doubters, arousing
the sluggards, encouraging the patriots, — in one
word, " firing the national heart." But, after all,
his enthusiasm could not beat the enemy. His
conquest of Canada turned out to be a much more
serious affair than he had anticipated. Active
operations began. The first attempt at invasion,
made by General Hull on the Western frontier,
resulted in the ignominious surrender of that com
mander, with his whole force, to the British, at
Detroit. Other attempts on the Niagara River
and on Lake Champlain ended but little less in-
gloriously. These failures were not only military
disasters, but were calculated to bury in ridicule
the advocates of the war with their glowing pre-

THE WAR OF 1812. 87

dictions of the taking of Quebec and the peace
dictated at Halifax. Only the little navy did
honor to the country. The American men-of-war
gathered laurels in one encounter after another, to
the astonishment of the world. It was a revelation
to England as well as to the American people.

Meanwhile the situation was curiously changed
by other events. Before the declaration of war was
known in Europe, Napoleon tried to increase the
excitement of the Americans against England, and
to propitiate their feeling with regard to France, by
causing to be exhibited to the American Minister
a decree pretending to have been signed on April
28, 1810, but really manufactured for the occasion,
to the effect that the Berlin and Milan Decrees
should, as to the United States, be considered as
having been of no force since November 1, 1810.
On the other hand, in England the mercantile in
terest and the manufacturing population had at
last become dissatisfied with the prohibition of
the American trade. There had been a parlia
mentary inquiry into the effects of the Orders in
Council, and the government, pressed by motions
in Parliament for their repeal, had finally yielded
and withdrawn the obnoxious measures on June
23, 1812, reserving the right to renew them, should
the Americans persist in a policy hostile to British
interests. But five days before, unknown to the
British government, the United States had de
clared war. The Orders in Council had no doubt
been considered the principal cause for that war.

88 HENRY CLAY.

Now Great Britain had shown herself ready to re
move that cause. Nothing remained but the com
plaint about the impressment of American seamen.
On that ground the war went on, — with what
success at first, we have seen.

It is reported that Madison seriously contem
plated making Clay commanding general of the
forces in the field, and that Gallatin dissuaded him,
saying : " But what shall we do without Clay in
Congress ? " Indeed, the next session showed how
much he was needed there.

When Congress met in the fall of 1812 the
general situation was dismal in the extreme. On
land there had been nothing but defeat and humili
ation. On the sea some splendid achievements, in
deed, in duels between ship and ship, but 110 pros
pect of success in a struggle between navy and
navy. England had not yet begun to put forth her
colossal power. What was to happen when she
should ! With all this, the offered withdrawal of
the Orders in Council stood as conclusive proof of
the fact that, had the United States only waited
a little longer with the declaration of war, the prin
cipal cause of complaint might have been peace
ably removed. What an opportunity for an able
opposition ! Madison was indeed reflected to the
presidency in the fall of 1812, by an electoral vote
of 128 against 89 ; but the opposition, especially
bitter in New England, had no reason to be dis«
couraged by that proportion.

Bills to increase the navy were swiftly passed,

THE WAR OF 1812, 89

almost without objection, for the Federalists them
selves, especially those from the shipping states,
desired a more efficient naval force. But on a bill
for reinforcing the army the attack came. At first
it was tame enough. The bill had already passed
by a large majority to a third reading, when Josiah
Quincy, of Massachusetts, the leader of the Fed
eralists in the House, made an assault upon the
whole war policy, which in brilliancy of diction and
bitterness of spirit has hardly ever been excelled
in our parliamentary history. He depicted the
attempted invasion of Canada as a buccaneering
expedition, an act of bloodthirsty cruelty against
unoffending neighbors. Its failure was a dis
grace, but "the disgrace of failure was terrestrial
glory compared with the disgrace of the attempt."
If an army were put into the field strong enough
to acccomplish the conquest of Canada, it would
also be strong enough to endanger the liberties of
the American people. In view of the criminality
of the attempt, he thanked God that the people
of New England — referring to their vote against
Madison in the preceding national election - — "had
done what they could to vindicate themselves and
their children from the burden of this sin." This
was not the way to obtain an early and honorable
peace. " Those must be very young politicians,"
he exclaimed, his eye fixed on the youthful Speaker
of the House, — " their pin-feathers not yet grown,
and, however they may flutter on this floor, they
are not yet fledged for any high or distant flight,

90 HENRY CLAY.

who think that threats and appealing to fear are
the ways of producing any disposition to negoti
ate in Great Britain, or in any other nation which
understands what it owes to its own safety and
honor." The voluntary yielding of England with
regard to the Orders in Council had shown how
peace might have been secured. But he was con
vinced that the administration did not want peace.
The administration party had its origin and found
its daily food in hatred of Great Britain. He re
viewed the whole diplomatic history of the United
States to show that Republican influence had always
been bent upon forcing a quarrel with England,
and that during Jefferson's and Madison's admin
istrations there had been constant plotting against
peace and friendship. This review he followed
with a scathing exposure of the subserviency of the
administration to the audacious and insulting du
plicity of Bonaparte, and the shameful humiliation
of the government in consequence of it. Finally,
he declared that, while he would unite with any
man for purposes of maritime and frontier defense,
he would unite with no one nor with any body of
men " for the conquest of any country, either as a
means of carrying on this war or for any other
purpose. "

This savage attack struck deeply. It was fol
lowed by several speeches on the same side, insist
ing that the quarrel between the United States and
England had, after the revocation of the Orders in
Council, been narrowed down to the impressment

THE WAR OF 1812. 91

question, and that the United States would never
have gone to war on that account alone.

Then Clay, the foremost of the young politicians
whose " pin-feathers were not yet grown," took up
the gauntlet. Quincy and his followers had made
a mistake not unusually made under such circum
stances. They had overshot the mark. The most
serious danger of an opposition in time of war is
to expose themselves to the suspicion of a lack of
patriotism. This danger they did not avoid.

The report we have of Clay's speech, delivered
on January 8 and 9, 1813, although not perfect, is
sufficient to stamp this as one of his greatest per
formances. He did not find it difficult to defend
Jefferson and Madison — who, indeed, had toiled
enough to maintain peaceable relations with every
body — against the charge of having wantonly pro
voked a war with England. It was, he said, the in
terest, as well as the duty, of the administration to
preserve peace. Nothing was left untried to that
end. The defensive measures — non -importation
and embargo — adopted to protect our maritime
trade, were " sacrificed on the altar of conciliation."
Any " indication of a return to the public law and
the path of justice on the part of either belliger
ent was seized upon with avidity by the adminis
tration ; " so the friendly disposition shown by
Erskine. But — here the orator skillfully passed
to the offensive — what was the conduct of the op-
I>osition meanwhile ? When peaceful experiments
were undergoing a trial, the opposition was "the

92 HENRY CLAY.

champion of war, the proud, the spirited, the sole
repository of the nation's honor, denouncing the
administration as weak, feeble, pusillanimous," and
incapable of being kicked into war : —

" When, however, foreign nations, perhaps emboldened
by the very opposition here made, refuse to listen to
amicable appeals ; when, in fact, war with one of them
has become a matter of necessity, demanded by our
independence and our sovereignty, behold the opposi
tion veering round and becoming the friends of peace
and commerce, telling of the calamities of war, the waste
of the public treasury, the spilling of innocent blood —
* Gorgons, hydras, and chimeras dire.' Now we see
them exhibiting the terrific form of the roaring king
of the forest ; now the meekness and humility of the
lamb. They are for war and no restrictions, when the
administration is for peace. They are for peace and
restrictions, when the administration is for war. You
find them, sir, tacking with every gale, displaying the
colors of every party and of all nations, steady only in
one unalterable purpose, — to steer, if possible, into the
haven of power."

Over the charge that the administration had
been duped by France, a very sore point, he skipped
nimbly, ridiculing the idea of French influence as
well as the tremendous denunciations of Bona
parte, in which the opposition were fond of indulg
ing. With these denunciations he dexterously
coupled an attack made by Quincy upon Jefferson ;
and then, to inflame the party spirit of wavering
Republicans, he burst out in that famous eulogy

THE WAR OF 1812. 93

on Jefferson which has long figured in our school-
books : —

" Neither his retirement from public office, nor his
eminent services, nor his advanced age, can exempt this
patriot from the coarse assaults of party malevolence.
Sir, in 1801 he snatched from the rude hand of usurpa
tion the violated Constitution of his country, and that is
his crime. He preserved that instrument in form, and
substance, and spirit, a precious inheritance for genera
tions to come ; and for this he can never be forgiven.
How vain and impotent is party rage directed against
such a man ! He is not more elevated by his lofty resi
dence upon the summit of his favorite mountain than
he is lifted, by the serenity of his mind, and the con
sciousness of a well-spent life, above the malignant pas
sions and bitter feelings of the day."

Did the opposition speak of the danger to pop
ular liberty arising from a large army ? They
were the same party that had tried to strangle
popular liberty with the alien and sedition laws.
Did the opposition, as Quincy had done, accuse
the Republican leaders of cabinet plots, presiden
tial plots, and all manner of plots for the gratifica
tion of personal ambition ? "I wish," he replied
with stinging force, "that another plot — a plot
that aims at the dismemberment of the Union —
had only the same imaginary existence." Then,
with a moderation of tone which made the arraign
ment all the more impressive, he pointed at the
efforts made to alienate the minds of the people
of New England from the Union.

94 HENRY CLAY.

On the second day of his speech he discussed
the causes of the war. " The war was declared,"
he said, " because Great Britain arrogated to her
self the pretension of regulating our foreign com
merce, under the delusive name of retaliatory Or
ders in Council ; because she persisted in the prac
tice of impressing American seamen ; because she
had instigated the Indians to commit hostilities
against us; and because she refused indemnity
for her past injuries upon our commerce. The
war, in fact, was announced, on our part, to meet
the war which she was waging on her part." Why
not declare war against France, also, for the inju
ries she inflicted upon American commerce, and
the outrageous duplicity of her conduct ? "I will
concede to gentlemen," he said, " everything they
ask about the injustice of France toward this coun
try. I wish to God that our ability was equal to
our disposition to make her feel the sense that we
entertain of that injustice." But one war at a
time was enough. Great Britain, he argued, de
manded more than the repeal of the French de
crees as to America ; she demanded their repeal as
to Great Britain and her allies, also, before giving
up the Orders in Council ; and she gave them up
only in consequence of an inquiry, reluctantly con
sented to by the ministry, into the effect of our
non-importation law, or by reason of our warlike
attitude, or both.

But now came the ticklish question : Were the
Orders in Council the decisive cause of the war, and

THE WAR OF 1812. 95

should their withdrawal end it? Does it follow,
he answered, that what in the first instance would
have prevented the war should also terminate it ?
By no means. The war of the Revolution was an
example, begun for one object and prosecuted for
another. He declared that he had always con
sidered the impressment of American seamen as
the most serious aggression, no matter upon what
principle Great Britain defended her policy. " It
is in vain," he said, " to set up the plea of neces
sity, and to allege that she cannot exist without
the impressment of her seamen. The naked truth
is, she comes, by her press-gangs, on board of our
vessels, seizes our native as well as naturalized sea
men, and drags them into her service. It is wrong
that we should be held to prove the nationality
of our seamen ; it is the business of Great Brit
ain to identify her subjects. The colors that float
from the mast-head should be the credentials of
our seamen." Then he put forth his whole melo
dramatic power, drawing tears from the eyes of
his listeners.

" It is impossible that this country should ever aban
don the gallant tars who have won for us such splendid
trophies. Let me suppose that the genius of Columbia
should visit one of them in his oppressor's prison, and
attempt to reconcile him to his forlorn and wretched
condition. She would say to him, in the language of
gentlemen on the other side : ' Great Britain intends
you no harm ; she did not mean to impress you, but
one of her own subjects. Having taken you by mis-

96 HENRY CLAY.

take, I will remonstrate and try to prevail upon her, by
peaceable means, to release you ; but I cannot, my son,
fight for you.' If he did not consider this mockery, the
poor tar would address her judgment and say : * You
owe me, my country, protection ; I owe you, in return,
obedience. I am not a British subject ; I am a native
of Massachusetts, where lives my aged father, my wife,
my children. I have faithfully discharged my duty.
Will you refuse to do yours ? ' Appealing to her pas
sions, he would continue : * I lost this eye in fighting
under Truxton with the Insurgente ; I got this scar be
fore Tripoli ; I broke this leg on the Constitution, when
the Guerriere struck.' If she remained still unmoved,
he would break out, in the accents of mingled distress
and despair, —

' Hard, hard is my fate ! Once I freedom enjoyed,
Was as happy, as happy could be !
Oh, how hard is my fate, how galling these chains ! '

" I will not imagine the dreadful catastrophe to which
he would be driven by an abandonment of him to his
oppressor. It will not be, it cannot be, that his country
will refuse him protection ! If there be any descrip
tion of rights, which, more than any other, should unite
all parties in all quarters of the Union, it is unquestion
ably the rights of the person. No matter what his voca
tion, whether he seeks subsistence amid the dangers of
the sea, or draws them from the bowels of the earth, or
from the humblest occupations of mechanic life, where-
ever the sacred rights of an American freeman are as
sailed, all hearts ought to unite and every arm be braced
to vindicate his cause."

After this, the objections to the invasion of
Canada were easily disposed of. Canada was

THE WAR OF 1812. 97

simply a base of supplies and of operations for
the British. Moreover, " what does a state of war
present? The united energies of one people ar
rayed against the combined energies of another ;
a conflict in which each party aims to inflict all
the injury it can, by sea and land, upon the terri
tories, property, and citizens of another, subject
only to the rules of mitigated war practiced by
civilized nations." This was his final appeal : —

" The administration has erred in the steps to restore
peace ; but its error has not been in doing too little, but
in betraying too great a solicitude for that event. An
honorable peace is attainable only by an efficient war.
My plan would be, to call out the ample resources of the
country, give them a judicious direction, prosecute the
war with the utmost vigor, strike wherever we can reach
the enemy, at sea and on land, and negotiate the terms
of a peace at Quebec or at Halifax. We are told that
England is a proud and lofty nation, which, disdaining
to wait for danger, meets it half way. Haughty as she
is, we once triumphed over her, and, if we do not
listen to the counsels of timidity and despair, we shall
again prevail. In such a cause, with the aid of Provi
dence, we must come out crowned with success. But
if we fail, let us fail like men, lash ourselves to our gal
lant tars, and expire together in one common struggle,
fighting for Free Trade and Seamen's Rights ! "

This speech produced a profound impression in
the House. What became known of it outside
rang like a bugle-call all over the country. The
increase of the army was voted by Congress. The

7

98 HENRY CLAY.

war spirit rose again with renewed ardor. But
what news came from the front? In the West,
General Winchester was overpowered at French-
town on February 22. His command had to sur
render and part of it was massacred. General
Harrison found himself obliged to fall back. On
the Niagara and the St. Lawrence, an expedition
was pushed forward, which, on April 27, resulted
in the temporary capture of York (now Toronto),
but no lodgment was effected. While the navy
had struck some splendid blows, the British gradu
ally increased their force and made the superior
ity of their power tell. They strengthened their
blockade of New York, of the Delaware, and the
Chesapeake. British ships ascended the bays and
the rivers, and landed parties to plunder and set
fire to villages on the banks. Philadelphia, Bal
timore, and Annapolis became alarmed for their
safety. In Virginia, a slave insurrection was
feared. The port of Charleston was strictly
blockaded.

Every day it became clearer, too, that the Mad
ison administration was ill-fitted for times of great
exigency. The war and navy departments were
wretchedly managed. There was incapacity above
and below. The Treasury was in a state of ex
haustion. By April 1, the requisitions of the war
and navy departments must have gone unsatisfied
had not Astor, Parish, and Girard, three rich for
eigners, come to the assistance of the government.
New England Federalism grew constantly more

THE WAR OF 1812. 99

threatening in its hostility to the war policy. In
addition to all this, tidings of evil import arrived
from Europe. Napoleon's disastrous retreat from
Moscow brought forth new European combinations
against him in aid of England. More and more
English ships and English veteran regiments might
then be spared from the European theatre of war,
to be hurled against the United States. The pros
pect of dictating a peace at Quebec or Halifax
grew exceedingly dim.

Just then a ray of peace flashed from an unex
pected quarter. When, late in the summer of
1812, the Emperor of Russia learned that the
United States had declared war against Great
Britain, it struck him as very inconvenient that his
ally, England, should be embarrassed by this out
side affair while Napoleon was invading Russia,
and while a supreme effort seemed to be required
to prevent him from bringing all Europe to his
feet. Alexander resolved to offer himself as a me
diator. His Chancellor, Romanzoff, on September
21, opened the matter to the American Minister
at St. Petersburg, John Quincy Adams, as well as
to the British envoy. At the same time, the Rus
sian Minister at Washington, Daschkoff, was in
structed to communicate to President Madison the
Emperor's wish. This he did in March, 1813,
a few days after Madison's second inauguration.
Madison received the proposition with exceeding
gladness. Without waiting to learn whether this
Russian mediation was acceptable to England, he

100 HENRY CLAY.

forthwith nominated as ministers, to act jointly
with John Quincy Adams in negotiating a peace,
Albert Gallatin, the Secretary of the Treasury,
and Senator Bayard of Delaware, a patriotic Fed
eralist, and a man of excellent abilities. They
sailed for St. Petersburg early in May, and took
instructions with them in which impressments and
illegal blockades were designated as the chief
causes of the war. With regard to the impress
ment question, the instructions said : " If this en
croachment is not provided against, the United
States have appealed to arms in vain. If your ef
forts to accomplish it should fail, all further nego
tiation will cease, and you will return home with
out delay."

The envoys reached St. Petersburg in July, and
learned that Great Britain was not inclined to ac
cept any mediation. The haughty mistress of the
sea would not submit her principles of blockade
and her claim to the right of impressment and
search to the judgment of any third party. She
preferred to treat with the United States directly ;
and when the Russian offer of mediation was re
newed, the British government sent a proposal
of direct negotiation to Washington. This was
promptly accepted, and the President appointed
for that purpose a new commission, consisting of
John Quincy Adams, Bayard, Clay, Jonathan Rus
sell, then Minister of the United States to Sweden,
and Gallatin.

Clay had again been elected Speaker, in May,

THE WAR OF 1812. 101

1813, when the new Congress met. He had again
done all he could to " fire the national heart," this
time by a resolution to inquire into certain acts of
barbarous brutality committed by the British and
their savage allies during the winter and spring.
But when the President urged upon him a place
in the peace commission, he accepted. His subse
quent conduct permits the guess that his motive
in accepting it was his anxious desire to prevent
a humiliating peace. On January 14, 1814, he re
signed the speakership of the House of Represen
tatives, and soon afterward he set out on one of
the strangest diplomatic missions of our time.

CHAPTER VI.

GHENT AND LONDON.

THE British government, when offering to nego
tiate directly with the United States, had desig
nated London, or Qottenburg in Sweden, as the
places where the negotiators might meet. Its pur
pose was to isolate the United States as much as
possible. It desired to be left alone in dealing
with the Americans, and to shut out all influences
friendly to them. To this end, London and Got-
tenburg seemed to be convenient localities. Fi
nally, however, it agreed that the peace commis
sioners should meet at Ghent, in the Netherlands.
The American envoys had all arrived there on
July 6, 1814. There were among them men so
different in point of character and habits and
ways of thinking, that to make them agree among
themselves might have appeared almost as difficult
as to make a satisfactory treaty with England.
The principal clash was between Adams and Clay.
John Quincy Adams was then forty-seven years
old, with all his peculiarities fully matured, — a
man of great ability, various knowledge, and large
experience ; of ardent patriotism, and high princi
ples of honor and duty ; brimful of courage, and a

GHENT AND LONDON. 103

pugnacious spirit of contention ; precise in his
ways ; stiff and cold in manners ; tenacious of his
opinions ; irritable of temper ; inclined to be sus
picious, and harsh in his judgments of others, and,
in the Puritan spirit, also severe with himself ; one
of the men who keep diaries, and in them regu
lar accounts of their own as well as other people's
doings. Two days after the commissioners had all
arrived at Ghent, he wrote in his journal : —

"I dined again at the table d'hote at one. The other
gentlemen dined together at four. They sit after din
ner, and drink bad wine and smoke cigars, which neither
suits my habits nor my health, and absorbs time which
I can ill spare. I find it impossible, even with the most
rigorous economy of time, to do half the writing that I
ought."

He had been a Federalist, but his patriotic soul
had taken fire at the injuries and insults his coun
try had suffered from Great Britain. For this
reason he had broken with his party, exposed him
self to the ill-will of his neighbors, and supported
Jefferson's and Madison's administrations in their
measures of resistance to British pretensions.

Clay was ten years younger than Adams, cer
tainly no less enthusiastic an American patriot,
nor less spirited, impulsive, and hot - tempered ;
having already acquired something of that imperi-
ousness of manner which, later in his career, was
so much noticed ; quick in forming opinions, and
impatient of opposition, but warm - hearted and
genial ; no Puritan at all in his ways ; rather in-

104 HENRY CLAY.

dined to " sit after dinner," whether the wine was
good or bad ; and, while willing to work, also bent
on having his full share of the enjoyments of this
world. " Just before rising," Adams wrote in his
Diary one day, " I heard Mr. Clay's company re
tiring from his chamber. I had left him with Mr.
Russell, Mr. Bentzon, and Mr. Todd, at cards.
They parted as I was about to rise." John Quincy
Adams played cards, too, but it was that solemn
whist, which he sometimes went through with the
conscientious sense of performing a diplomatic
duty. No wonder the prim New Englander and
the lordly Kentuckian, one the representative of
eastern, the other of western, ways of thinking,
when they had struck points of disagreement,
would drift into discussions much more animated
than was desirable for the task they had in com
mon. Russell, a man of ordinary ability, was
much under the influence of Clay, while Bayard,
although not disposed to quarrel with anybody,
showed not seldom a disposition to stick to his opin
ion, when it differed from those of his colleagues,
with polite but stubborn firmness. " Each of us,"
wrote Mr. Adams, " takes a separate and distinct
view of the subject - matter, and each naturally
thinks his own view of it the most important." A
commission so constituted would hardly have been
fit to accomplish a task of extraordinary delicacy,
had it not been for the conspicuous ability, the
exquisite tact, the constant good-nature, the " play
fulness of temper," as Mr. Adams expressed it,

GHENT AND LONDON. 105

and the inexhaustible patience of Albert Gallatin,
a man whose eminence among his contemporaries
has probably never been appreciated as it deserves.
Without in the least obtruding himself, he soon
became the peacemaker, the moderating and guid
ing mind of the commission.

The British envoys, who arrived at Ghent on
August 6, having permitted the Americans to wait
for them one full month, were Lord Gambier, a
vice-admiral, Henry Goulburn, Secretary in the
colonial department, and Dr. William Adams, an
admiralty lawyer, men not remarkable for ability
or standing, but apparently somewhat inclined to
be overbearing in conduct. Indeed, the advantage
of position was altogether on their side.

Since the time when President Madison seized
upon the Russian offer of mediation, in March,
1813, the fortunes of war had been vacillating.
The Americans had made a successful expedition
against Fort George, and the British had been re
pulsed at Sackett's Harbor. But the first great
naval disaster then happened in the defeat of the
Chesapeake by the Shannon off Boston Light.
New naval successes, especially Perry's splendid
victory on Lake Erie, September 10, 1813, re
lieved the gloom. General Harrison won in the
fight of the Thames, in which Tecumseh was killed,
on October 5. But a winter expedition led by
Hampton and Wilkinson against Montreal failed ;
Fort Niagara was lost, Black Rock and Buffalo
were burned, and great quantities of provisions and

106 HENRY CLAY.

stores destroyed. These disasters were scarcely
counterbalanced by General Jackson's success
against the Creeks in the Southwest ; but this
and the recovery of Detroit were the only consid
erable advantages gained on land in 1813. The
opening spring brought another failure of an ex
pedition along the shore of Lake Champlain into
Canada under Wilkinson. The blockade was con
stantly growing more rigid. Not a single Amer
ican man-of-war was on the open sea. The suc
cessful fights at Chippewa and Lundy's Lane,
and then the crowning disgrace of the capture of
Washington, were still to come. Meanwhile the
discontent with the war prevailing in New Eng
land, which was destined to culminate in the Hart
ford Convention, although apparently not spread
ing, continued to be active and to threaten rebellious
outbreaks. But the most ominous events were the
downfall of Napoleon, the conclusion of peace in
Europe, and, in consequence, the liberation of the
military, naval, and financial resources of Great
Britain for a vigorous prosecution of the war in
America. What had already happened was only
child's play. The really serious business was now
to come. The outlook appeared, therefore, ex
tremely gloomy. While on his way to Ghent, Gal-
latin had spent some time in London, and had ear
nestly tried there to interest, in behalf of the
United States, the Emperor of Russia, who was on
a visit to his English ally. That effort, too, had
failed. The United States were without an active
friend.

GHENT AND LONDON. 107

Most of these things had become known, not
only to the Americans, but also to the British com
missioners. These gentlemen were, therefore, nat
urally inclined to treat the United States as a de
feated enemy suing for peace. At the opening of
the negotiation the British demanded as a sine
qua non that a large territory in the United States,
all the country now occupied by the states of
Michigan, Illinois, and Wisconsin, the larger part
of Indiana, and about one third of Ohio, should be
set apart for the Indians, to constitute a sort of In
dian sovereignty under British guaranty, not to be
purchased from the Indians by the United States,
and to serve as a " buffer," a perpetual protection
of the British possessions against American ambi
tion. They demanded also that the United States
should relinquish the right of keeping any armed
vessels on the Great Lakes ; and, in addition to all
this, they asked for the cession of a piece of Maine
in order to make a road from Halifax to Quebec,
and for a formal renewal of the provision of the
treaty of 1783 giving English subjects the right of
navigating the Mississippi.

This meant almost a surrender of American in
dependence. It was the extreme of humiliation.
That such a proposition could be thought of was a
most painful shock to the American envoys. All
they could do was promptly to reject the sine qua
non, and then think of going home. This they
did. They not only thought of going home, but
they openly spoke of it. The British commission-

108 HENRY CLAY.

ers received the impression, and reported it to their
government, that the Americans were very much
in earnest, and that what they really desired was
not to make peace, but to put things in an aspect
calculated to unite their people at home in favor of
the war. Then something of decisive importance
happened behind the scenes, which, no doubt, the
Americans would have been glad to know. The
leading statesmen in England were not at all anx
ious to break off negotiations, especially not upon
points a final rupture on which might have " made
the war popular in America." In fact, as Lord
Liverpool wrote to Lord Castlereagh, they were
apprehensive that then the war would be a long
affair ; that " some of their European allies would
not be indisposed to favor the Americans," mean
ing especially the Emperor of Kussia, and that this
American business would " entail upon them pro
digious expense." They did not desire to have it
said that " the property tax was continued for the
purpose of securing a better frontier for Canada."
Besides, the state of the negotiations at the Vienna
Congress was " unsatisfactory ; " the situation of
the interior of France was " alarming ; " the Eng
lish people were tired of war taxes. Was it not
more prudent after all to let the Americans off
without a cession of territory ? The Duke of Wel
lington was consulted ; he emphatically expressed
himself against any territorial or other demand
which would " afford the Americans a proper and
creditable ground " for declining to make peace,

GHENT AND LONDON. 109

The British commissioners were instructed accord
ingly.

Of this the Americans were, of course, ignorant.
Only Clay felt it intuitively. According to Mr.
Adams's Diary, Clay had " an inconceivable idea
that they will recede from the ground they have
taken." That is to say, he had the instinct of the
situation. The British dropped their sine qua
non ; they gave up a proposition which they made
to treat on the basis of uti possidetis, each nation
to hold what it possessed or occupied at the time
of signing the treaty ; they finally showed them
selves willing to accept the American proposition
of the status ante helium as a basis for the final
arrangement. But one thing they would not do :
they would not listen to anything about stipula
tions touching principles of blockade, rights of
neutrals, impressment and right of search, con
cerning which the Americans insisted upon sub
mitting the draft of an article. This they declined
so peremptorily that all further discussion seemed
useless. What, then, became of " Free Trade and
Seamen's Rights ? " What of the original in
struction that the commissioners should break off
forthwith and come home if they failed in obtain
ing a concession with regard to impressment?
President Madison had in the mean time reconsid
ered the matter and sent further instructions au
thorizing them to treat on the basis of the status
ante bellum, — substantially, to restore things to
the state in which the war had found them. Not

110 HENRY CLAY.

a proud thing to do, but better, he thought, than to
go on with such a war.

When the British accepted this basis, and the
Americans gave up their contention for definite
stipulations concerning the principles of blockade
and the impressment question, the peace was vir
tually assured. Only matters of detail had to be
agreed upon, which, if both parties sincerely de
sired peace, would not be difficult. But confused
and apparently interminable wrangles sprang up
concerning the definition of the status ante bcl-

O

lum, mainly with regard to the British right to
the navigation of the Mississippi and the American
right to fish in British waters, which had been
coupled together in the first treaty of peace, in
1783, between the United States and Great Brit
ain. The British commissioners now insisted upon
the British right to navigate the Mississippi, but
proposed to put an end to the American right to
the fisheries. It is needless to recount in detail
the propositions and counter -propositions which
passed between the two parties upon this point, as
well as the furious altercations in the American
commission between Clay and Adams, taxing to
the utmost Gallatin's resources as a peacemaker ;
Clay insisting that a renewal of the right of the
British to navigate the Mississippi, which had been
conceded in the treaty of 1783, and again in Jay's
treaty of 1794, when Spain held the whole of the
right bank of the Mississippi, with part of the left,
and the British dominions were erroneously sup

GHENT AND LONDON. Ill

posed to touch on the head-waters of the great
river, would be giving them a privilege far more
important than we should secure in return, as the
fisheries were " a matter of trifling moment ; " and
Adams maintaining with equal heat that the fish
eries were a thing of great value, while the privi
lege to navigate the Mississippi enjoyed by the
British under the treaty of 1783 had never led to
any trouble or inconvenience. At last, after these
long and angry discussions, after much sending of
notes and replies, in which the American envoys
displayed great skill in argument, and after re
peated references of the disputed points by the Brit
ish commissioners to the Foreign Office in London
and long waiting for answers, the British govern
ment declared that it was willing to accept a treaty
silent on both subjects, the fisheries as well as the
navigation of the Mississippi. This declaration
reached the American commissioners December 22,
1814, and with it the last obstacle to a final agree
ment was removed. It appeared that the British
government had become fully as anxious for peace
as the American. Clay adhered to his first im
pressions in this respect throughout the negotia
tion ; for ten days before, on December 12, when
other members of the commission still suspected
the British of seeking an occasion for breaking off,
Adams wrote in his Diary : " Mr. Clay was so con
fident that the British government had resolved
upon peace, that he said he would give himself as
a hostage and a victim to be sacrificed if they

112 HENRY CLAY.

broke off on these points." There is reason to be
lieve that he would not have been sorry if they had
broken off.

The treaty was signed on December 24, 1814.
It may well be imagined that the American com
missioners heaved a sigh of relief, all, at least, ex
cept Clay. For five weary months they had been
fighting from point to point a foe who seemed to
have all the advantages of strength and position,
and all the while they had been in constant appre
hension that any hour might bring more evil news
to destroy the fruit of their anxious labors. With
dignity but not without impatience they had borne
the gruffness with which the English commission
ers had frequently thought proper to emphasize the
superiority of the power behind them. Like brave
men they had gone through the dinners with their
British colleagues, the ghastly humor of which dur
ing the first period of the negotiation consisted in
cheerful conversations about the impossibility of
agreeing, the short and fruitless visit of the Amer
ican commissioners to Europe, their speedy return
home, and so on. Then finally the altercations
among themselves, which grew warmer as the ne
gotiation proceeded, had made it appear doubtful
more than once whether they would be able to pre
sent a united front upon all the important points.
In these altercations Clay had appeared especially
fretful, constantly dissatisfied, and ungovernable.
Adams's Diary teems with significant remarks about
Clay " waxing loud and warm; " about his "great

GHENT AND LONDON. 113

heat and anger ; " how " Mr. Clay lost his temper,
as he generally does whenever the right of the Brit
ish to navigate the Mississippi is discussed ; " how
" Mr. Clay, who was determined to foresee no pub
lic misfortune in our affairs, bears them with less
temper, now they have come, than any of us ; he
rails at commerce and the people of Massachusetts,
and tells us what wonders the people of Kentucky
would do if they should be attacked ; " how " Mr.
Clay is growing peevish and fractious," — and, rec
ollecting himself, Adams contritely adds : " I too
must not forget to keep guard on my temper."
At the very last, just before separating, Adams and
Clay quarreled about the custody of the papers,
in language bordering upon the unparliamentary.
But for the consummate tact and the authority of
Gallatin the commission would not seldom have
been in danger of breaking up in heated contro
versy.

The complaints about Clay's ill-tempered moods
were undoubtedly well founded. Always some
what inclined to be dictatorial and impatient of
opposition, he had on this occasion especial reason
for being ill at ease. He, more than any one else,
had made the war. He had advised the invasion
of Canada, and predicted an easy conquest. He
had confidently spoken of dictating a peace at
Quebec or Halifax. He had, after the withdrawal
of the Orders in Council, insisted that the matter
of impressment alone was sufficient reason for war.
He had pledged the honor of the country for the

114 HENRY CLAY.

maintenance of the cause of " Free Trade and
Seamen's Rights." Now to make a peace which
was not only not dictated at Quebec or Halifax,
but looked rather like a generous concession on the
part of a victorious enemy ; to make peace while
disgraceful defeats of the American arms, among
them the capture of the seat of government and the
burning of the Capitol, were still unavenged, and
while, after some brilliant exploits, the American
navy was virtually shut up in American harbors
by British blockading squadrons ; a peace based
upon the status ante bellum, without even an allu
sion to the things that had been fought for, — in
one word, a peace, which, whatever its merits and
advantages, was certainly not a glorious peace, —
this could not but be an almost unendurable
thought to the man who, above all things, wanted
to be proud of his country.

It is, therefore, not surprising that, during these
five weary months of negotiation, Clay should have
been constantly tormented by the perhaps half-un
conscious desire to secure to his country another
chance to retrieve its fortunes and restore its
glory on the field of war, and, to that end, to
break off negotiations on some point that would
rouse and rally the American people. Thus we
find that, according to Adams, on October 31,
when complaint was made of the delays of the
British government in furnishing passports for
vessels to carry the despatches of the American
commissioners, " Mr. Clay was for making a strong

GHENT AND LONDON. 115

remonstrance on the subject, and for breaking off
the negotiation upon that point, if they did not give
us satisfaction." A passport arrived the same
day, rendering the remonstrance unnecessary.
When the negotiation had gone on for three
months and it was perfectly well understood that
the British would not listen at all to any proposi
tion concerning impressment, Clay, who alone had
pressed this subject, was again " so urgent to pre
sent an article " on impressment that Mr. Adams
" acquiesced in his wishes ; " the article was pre
sented and rejected by the British at once. Less
than two weeks before the final agreement, discuss
ing the question of the fisheries and the naviga
tion of the Mississippi in the commission, Clay
broke out, saying, " he was for a war three years
longer ; he had no doubt three years more of war
would make us a warlike people, and that then we
should come out of the war with honor, — whereas
at present, even upon the best terms we could pos
sibly obtain, we shall have only a half -formed
army, and half retrieve our military reputation."
His agony grew as an agreement was approached,
and culminated two days before the treaty was
signed, when the British note on the fisheries and
the navigation of the Mississippi had been received,
which seemed to make the conclusion of the peace
certain. " Mr. Clay came to my chamber " (writes
Mr. Adams), "and on reading the British note
manifested some chagrin. He still talked of break
ing off the negotiation, but he did not exactly dis-

116 HENRY CLAY.

close the motive of his ill-humor, which was, how
ever easily seen through. In the evening we met,
and Mr. Clay continued in his discontented humor.
He was for taking time to deliberate upon the
British note. He was for meeting about it to-mor
row morning. He was sounding all round for sup
port in making another stand of resistance at this
stage of the business. At last he turned to me
and asked me whether I would not join him now
and break off the negotiation. I told him, No,
there was nothing now to break off on."

Only then he gave it up, and with a heavy heart
he consented to sign the treaty of peace. The
treaty provided that hostilities should cease imme
diately iipon its ratification. It further stipulated
for a mutual restoration of territory (except some
small disputed islands), of property, archives, etc. ;
a mutual restoration of prisoners of war ; a com
mission to settle boundary questions, those ques
tions, if the commission should disagree, to be sub
mitted to some friendly government for arbitration ;
cessation of Indian hostilities, each party to restore
the Indians with whom they were still at war to
all possessions and rights they enjoyed in 1811 ;
compensation for slaves abducted by British forces ;
a promise by both governments to promote the en
tire abolition of the slave-trade ; but not a word to
indicate what the British and the Americans had
been fighting about.

Thus ended the war of 1812, on paper ; in real
ity, it went on until the news of the peace arrived

GHENT AND LONDON. 117

in America. It stands as one of the most singular
wars in history. It was begun on account of out
rages committed upon the maritime commerce of
the United States ; but those parts of the country
which had least to do with that maritime com
merce, the South and West, were most in favor of
the war, while those whose fortunes were on the sea
most earnestly opposed it. Considering that the
conduct of Napoleon toward the United States had
been in some respects more outrageous, certainly
more perfidious and insulting, than the conduct of
Great Britain, it might be questioned whether the
war was not waged against the wrong party. As
a matter of fact the Orders in Council furnished
the principal cause of the war. That principal
cause happened to disappear at the same time that
the war was declared. Hostilities were continued
on a secondary issue. But when peace was made,
neither the one nor the other was by so much as a
single word alluded to in the treaty. To cap the
climax, the principal battle of the war, the battle
of New Orleans, was fought after the peace had
been signed, but before it had become known in
America. It is questionable whether such a peace
would have been signed at all, had that battle hap
pened at an earlier period. While the peace, as to
the United States, was not one which a victorious
power would make, the closing triumph in Amer- [
ica had given to the American arms a prestige (
they had never possessed before.

Neither was the reception the treaty met with

118 HENRY CLAY.

in accord with the fears of the American, or the
hopes of the British commissioners. While the
leading statesmen of England congratulated one
another, as Lord Castlereagh, writing from Vienna,
expressed it in a letter to Lord Liverpool, upon
beinsr " released from the millstone of an Ameri-

O

can war," the war party in England, who wanted
to " punish " the impudence of the United States,
were deeply mortified. They would not admit
that the peace on the British side was an " honor
able " one, since England had failed to " force her
principles on America," and had retired from the
contest with some defeats unavenged. In the
United States, on the other hand, where some of
the American envoys, especially Clay, had feared
their work would find very little favor, the news of
peace was received with transports of joy. To the
American people it came after the victory of New
Orleans ; and their national pride, relieved of the
terrible anxieties of the last two years, and elated
at the great closing triumph on the field of battle,
which seemed to wipe out all the shame of previous
defeats, was content not to look too closely at the
articles of the treaty. Indeed, the American com
missioners received, for what they had done, the
praise of all their fellow-citizens who were unbi
ased by party feeling, — praise, which, taking into
account the perplexities of their situation, they
well deserved. With no decisive victories on their
side to boast of, with no well-organized armies to
support their pretensions, with no national ships

GHENT AND LONDON. 119

on the high seas, with the capture of Washington,
the burning of the Capitol, and the hurried flight
of the President still a favorite theme of jest at
the dinner-tables and in the clubs all over Eu
rope, they had to confront the representatives of
the haughtiest, and, in some respects, the strong
est power on earth. If it was true that they had
not succeeded in forcing the British formally to
renounce the right of impressment and to accept
just principles of blockade and of neutral rights, it
was also true that the British had begun the ne
gotiation with extravagant, humiliating, peremp
tory demands, presenting them in the most over
bearing manner as sine qua non ; that they had
found themselves obliged to drop these one after
another ; that in the discussion about the fisheries
and the navigation of the Mississippi, they had
been dislodged from position after position, until
finally they accepted a treaty which stood in
strange contrast to their original attitude. The
American commissioners had the satisfaction of
hearing the Marquis of Wellesley declare in the
House of Lords, that "in his opinion they had 1
shown a most astonishing superiority over the /
British during the whole of the correspondence."

However reluctantly Clay had signed the peace,
his proud patriotic heart became reconciled to it as
the general effects of all that had been done dis
closed themselves. These effects were indeed very
great, and he had reason to be satisfied with them.
The question has been much discussed, whether

120 HENRY CLAY.

there was any statesmanship, any good sense, in
making the war of 1812 at all. It is true that
it was resolved upon without preparation, and that
it was wretchedly managed. But if war is ever jus
tified, there was ample provocation for it. The le
gitimate interests of the United States had been
trampled upon by the belligerent powers, as if en
titled to no respect. The American flag had been
treated with a contempt scarcely conceivable now.
The question was whether the American people
should permit themselves not only to be robbed,
and maltreated, and insulted, but also to be de
spised, — all this for the privilege of picking up the
poor crumbs of trade which the great powers of
Europe would still let them have. When a nation
knowingly and willingly accepts the contempt of
others, it is in danger of losing also its respect for
itself. Against this the national pride of Young
America rose in revolt. When insulted too griev
ously, it felt an irresistible impulse to strike. It
struck wildly, to be sure, and received ugly blows in
return. But it proved, after all, that this young
democracy could not be trampled upon with im
punity, that it felt an insult as keenly as older na
tions, and that it was capable of risking a fight
with the most formidable power on earth in resent
ing it. It proved, too, that this most formidable
power might find in the young democracy a very
uncomfortable antagonist.

If the warlike impulse in this case was mere
sentiment, as has been said, it was a statesmanlike

GHENT AND LONDON. 121

sentiment. For the war of 1812, with all the
losses in blood and treasure entailed by it, and in
spite of the peace which ignored the declared
causes of the war, transformed the American Re
public in the estimation of the world from a feeble
experimental curiosity into a power, — a real power,
full of brains, and with visible claws and teeth.
It made the American people, who had so far con
sisted of the peoples of so many little common
wealths, not seldom wondering whether they could
profitably stay long together, a consciously united
nation, with a common country, a great country,
worth fighting for ; and a common national des
tiny, nobody could say how great ; and a common
national pride, at that time filling every American
heart brimful. The war had encountered the first
practical disunion movement, and killed it by ex
posing it to the execration of the true American
feeling ; killed it so dead, at least on its field of
action, in New England, that a similar aspiration
has never arisen there again. The war put an end
to the last remnant of colonial feeling ; for from
that time forward there was no longer any French
party or any English party in the United States ;
it was thenceforth all American as against the
world. A war that had such results was not
fought in vain.

Clay might, therefore, well say, as he did say a
year later in a debate in the House of Representa
tives : —

" I gave a vote for the declaration of war. I exerted

122 HENRY CLAY.

all the little influence and talent I could command to
make the war. The war was made. It is terminated.
And I declare, with perfect sincerity, if it had been per
mitted to me to lift the veil of futurity, and to foresee
the precise series of events which has occurred, my vote
would have been unchanged. We had been insulted,
and outraged, and spoliated upon by almost all Europe,
— by Great Britain, by France, Spain, Denmark, Na
ples, and, to cap the climax, by the little contemptible
power of Algiers. We had submitted too long and too
much. We had become the scorn of foreign powers,
and the derision of our own citizens. What have we
gained by the war ? Let any man look at the degraded
condition of this country before the war, the scorn of
the universe, the contempt of ourselves ; and tell me if
we have gained nothing by the war ? What is our sit
uation now ? Respectability and character abroad, se
curity and confidence at home."

All this was true ; but he was very far from fore
seeing such happy results at the time when he put
his name to the treaty of peace. To him it seemed
then a "damned bad treaty," and his mind was
restless with dark forebodings as to its effect upon
the character of his country and his own standing
as a public man.

But the sojourn in Ghent was after all by no
means all gloom to his buoyant nature. He had
found things to enjoy. The American commis
sioners were most hospitably received by the au
thorities and the polite burghers of Ghent. Public
and private entertainments in their honor crowded
one another, and they enjoyed them. Even Mr.

GHENT AND LONDON. 123

Adams enjoyed them, he, however, not without
characteristic remorse, for thus he castigates him
self in his Diary : " There are several particulars
in my present mode of life in which there is too
much relaxation of self - discipline. I have this
month frequented too much the theatre and other
public amusements ; indulged too much convivial
ity, and taken too little exercise. The consequence
is that I am growing corpulent, and that industry
becomes irksome to me. May I be cautious not
to fall into any habit of indolence or dissipation ! "
Clay's temperament, no doubt, enabled him to bear
such pleasures with more fortitude and less appre
hension of dire consequences. There was no twinge
of self-reproach in his mind, and later in life he
often spoke of the days of Ghent with great satis
faction. He would certainly have enjoyed them
still more, had he at the time looked farther into
the future.

The diplomatic business at Ghent completed,
Clay, in conjunction with Adams and Gallatin,
was instructed to go to London for the purpose of
negotiating a treaty of commerce. He did not,
however, make haste to present himself in Eng
land, for there was still a feeling weighing upon
his mind, as if, after the many defeats in America
and the to him unsatisfactory peace, he would not
like to be in the land of a triumphant enemy. So
he lingered in Paris. But as soon as he heard of
the battle of New Orleans, he was ready to start.
" Now," said he to the bearer of the news, " now

124 HENRY CLAY.

I can go to England without mortification." While
in Paris he was introduced to the polite society of
the French capital. A clever saying is reported
of him in a conversation with Madame de Stael :
" I have been in England," said she, " and have
been battling for your cause there. They were so
much enraged against you that at one time they
thought seriously of sending the Duke of Welling
ton to lead their armies against you." " I am very
sorry," replied Mr. Clay, " that they did not send
the duke." "And why?" " Because if he had
beaten us, we should but have been in the condi
tion of Europe, without disgrace. But if we had
been so fortunate as to defeat him, we should have
greatly added to the renown of our arms."

He arrived in London in March and went to
work with Gallatin to open the negotiation in
trusted to them. Mr. Adams did not follow them
until May. They met again, as British commis
sioners, Goulburn and Dr. Adams. Mr. Robinson,
afterwards Lord Goderich and Earl Ripon, then
Vice-President of the Board of Trade, were substi
tuted for Lord Gambler. The negotiation lasted
three months ; it was friendly in character, but re
sulted in very little. The British government de
clined to open the questions of impressment, block
ade, trade with enemies' colonies in time of war,
West Indian and Canadian trade ; nothing of value
was obtained save some advantages in the com
merce with the East Indies, and a provision abol
ishing discriminating duties.

GHENT AND LONDON. 125

Clay arrived in the United States again in Sep
tember, 1815, and was duly received and feasted
by his friends and admirers. The people of the
Lexington district in Kentucky had in the mean
time reflected him to the national House of Kep-
reseiitatives.

CHAPTER VII.

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.

BEFORE Clay left Lexington to take his seat in
Congress, he received a letter from the Secretary
of State, James Monroe, offering him the mission
to Russia. He declined it. He was evidently re
solved to remain in Congress while Madison was
President, for when, less than a year later, in
August, 1816, Madison invited him to a place in
his cabinet as Secretary of War, his answer was
still a refusal.

On the first day of the session, December 4,
1815, Clay was again elected Speaker. In both
Houses the Republicans had strong majorities; in
the Senate twenty-two against fourteen Federal
ists, and in the House of Representatives one hun
dred and seventeen against sixty -five. But the
Federalists, as a party contending for power, were
weaker even than these numbers indicated. There
is no heavier burden for a political party to bear,
than to have appeared unpatriotic in time of war.
The Federal party went down under this load at a
period when its principles were, one after another,
unconsciously adopted by its victorious opponents.

The Republicanism left behind by the war of

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. 127

1812 was no longer the Republicanism of frugal
economy, simple, unpretentious, narrowly circum
scribed government, and peace and friendship with
all the world, which the famous triumvirate, Jef
ferson, Madison, and Gallatin, had set out with in
1801^ and which was the political ideal of bucolic
democracy. The rough jostle with the strong pow
ers of the external world had made sad havoc of
the idyl. Instead of the least possible government
there had been, even before the war, while Jeffer
son himself was President, during that painful
struggle under the oppressive practices of the Eu
ropean belligerents, enormous stretches of power,
such as the laws enforcing the embargo, which
equaled, if not outstripped, anything the Federalists
had ever done. Instead of frugal economy and reg
ular debt paying, there had been enormous war ex
penses with new taxes and heavy loans. Instead of
unbroken peace and general friendship, there had
been a long and bloody war with the nearest of kin.
Now, with that war finished, there was a large pub
lic debt, a frightfully disordered currency, a heavy
budget of yearly expenditures, and a people awak
ened to new wants and new ambitions, for the sat
isfaction of which they looked, more than ever
before, to the government. The old triumvirate
of leaders were indeed still alive ; but Jefferson
was sitting in his lofty Monticello, the sage of the
period, giving forth oracular sounds, many of them
very wise, always respectfully received, but apt to
be minded only when what he said corresponded

128 HENRY CLAY.

with the wishes of his listeners ; Gallatin, having
witnessed and sagaciously recognized the break
down of his favorite theory of government, was
serving the Republic as a diplomatic representa
tive abroad ; Madison was still President, but, hav
ing never been a strong leader of men for his own
purposes, he could offer but feeble resistance to
the new tendencies. A new school of Republican
leaders had pressed forward into the places of these
retired veterans, — new leaders, who would speak
with pity of a government " going on in the old
imbecile method, contributing nothing by its meas
ures to the honor and reputation of the country ; "
who wanted a conduct of public affairs "on an en
larged policy ; " who thought that revenues might
be raised, not only to provide for the absolute
wants of the government, but, beyond that, for the
advancement of the public benefit.

Of this new Republican school Clay and Calhoun
were the foremost champions. Clay boldly put
forth its programme in a speech made in commit
tee of the whole on January 29, 1816, on a bill re
ported by Lowndes, to reduce the direct taxes im
posed during the war. After having defended,
with great force, the war of 1812 as a just and
necessary war, and the peace of Ghent as an hon
orable peace, he enumerated the reasons why he
deemed no great reduction of taxes advisable. Our
relations with Spain, he said, were unsatisfactory ;
there would be more wars with Great Britain ; and
the United States might have to aid the Spanish

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. 129

South American colonies in their struggle for in
dependence. It was necessary, therefore, to main
tain a respectable military establishment, to aug
ment the navy, and to provide for coast defenses,
Furthermore he would, " as earnestly, commence
the great work, too long delayed, of internal im
provement. He desired to see a chain of turnpike
roads and canals from Passamaquoddy Bay to New
Orleans, and other similar roads intersecting the
mountains, to facilitate intercourse between all
parts of the country, and to bind and connect us
together." He would also " effectually protect our
manufactories, — not so much for the manufacto
ries themselves, as for the general interest. We
should thus have our wants supplied, when foreign
resources are cut off ; and we should also lay the
basis of a system of taxation to be resorted to when
the revenue from imports is stopped by war."
Provision for the contingency of war was a prom
inent consideration in all this ; Clay's political
ideas had not yet come down to the peace footing.
Calhoun followed him with a vigorous speech of
similar tenor. These arguments prevailed, and the
direct tax was in part retained.

Then the tariff was taken in hand. The em
bargo, the non - intercourse, and the war, while
dealing the shipping interest a terrible blow, had,
by excluding foreign products, served as a pow
erful stimulus to manufacturing industry. But
after the war the country was flooded by a tremen
dous importation of English goods. American

130 HENRY CLAY.

industry, artificially developed by an abnormal
state of things, was now to be artificially sustained
against that competition. Tariff duties were re
sorted to for that avowed purpose, and a scheme
was proposed by Dallas, the Secretary of the
Treasury. He arranged the articles subject to
duty in three classes : 1. Those of which the home
supply was sufficient to satisfy the demand ; they
were to bear the highest duty, thirty-five per cent,
ad valorem. 2. Those of which the domestic supply
was only partially sufficient to satisfy the demand,
comprising cotton and woolen goods, as well as
iron and most of its coarser products, distilled
spirits, etc. ; these were to bear twenty per cent.
And 3, those of which the home production was
small, or nothing ; these were to bear a simple
revenue tax.

Most of the Federalists opposed this protective
policy, while the Eepublican protectionists, illus
trating the remarkable mutation of things, quoted
against them Hamilton's famous report on manu
factures. Webster and most of the New England
men opposed it, because it would injure the ship
ping interest. John Randolph, independent of
party, opposed it, because it would benefit the
Northern States at the expense of the South. Cal-
houn, Lowndes, and their Southern followers sup
ported it, not only as a means of national defense,
but also in order to help the cotton interest, since
England at that time levied a discriminating duty
on raw materials to the disadvantage of cotton

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. 131

raised in America, and since the coarser cotton
fabrics imported into the United States were
mostly made of India cotton. The principal argu
ment urged by Clay and generally accepted by the
Republicans was, that certain manufacturing indus
tries must be built up and sustained for the safety
of the country in time of war. Thus the tariff of
1816 was enacted, embodying substantially the
scheme proposed by Dallas.

So far Clay had, as to definite measures of pub
lic concern, preserved a plausible consistency with
the principles and measures advocated by him be
fore the war of 1812. But he should not be spared
the ordeal brought on by direct self-contradiction.
The war had thrown the currency into great dis
order. Upon the expiration of the charter of the
United States Bank, the renewal of which Clay
had helped to defeat, the notes of that institution
were withdrawn, and the notes of state banks took
their place. These banks multiplied very rapidly.
In the years 1811, 1812, and 1813 one hundred
and twenty of them went into operation, many with
insufficient capital. The Secretary of the Treas
ury endeavored in vain to bring the banks into
prudent cooperation. They began to refuse one
another's bills. In 1814 specie payments were
suspended. Reckless paper issues produced a cor
responding inflation of prices. Under such circum
stances Dallas finally saw no other way to restore
order in the currency than by the promptest pos
sible return to specie payments, and to this end

132 HENRY CLAY.

he proposed the establishment of a specie-paying
national bank, virtually a revival of the old Bank
of the United States.

The Republican majority of 1816 was ready to
return to Hamilton's plan of a financial agency,
which the Republicans of 1811 had denounced and
rejected ; and they were ready, too, to enlarge that
plan in all the features formerly objected to. But
how could Clay support such a scheme ? We shall
see.

On January 8, 1816, Calhoun reported to the
House of Representatives a bill providing that a
Bank of the United States should be chartered for
twenty years, with a capital of $35,000,000, divided
into 350,000 shares, Congress to have the power to
authorize an increase of the capital to $50,000,000 ;
70,000 shares, amounting to 17,000,000, to be sub
scribed and paid for by the United States, and
280,000 shares to be taken by individuals, compa
nies, or corporations ; the government to appoint
five of the twenty-five directors ; the bank to be
authorized to establish branches, to have the de
posits of the public money, subject to' the discre
tion of the Secretary of the Treasury, and to pay
to the government $1,500,000 in three instalments,
as a bonus for its charter. This was substantially
Hamilton's National Bank of 1791, only on a
larger scale. It was exactly the thing which, five
years before, Clay had found so utterly unconsti
tutional, and in its very nature so dangerous, that
he could under no circumstances consent to a pro»
longation of its existence.

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. 133

Again the two parties found themselves reversed
in position : the Federalists were now opposing the
bank, — some of them, like Webster, because the
capital was too large ; while the Republicans, with
some exceptions, were favoring it as a necessity.
But how did Clay perform his somersault ? He
made a speech which his contemporary friends
praised as very able. It was not reported, but he
reproduced its main propositions in an address sub
sequently delivered before his constituents for the
purpose of defending himself against that charge
which has such terrors for public men, — the
charge of inconsistency. This was his argument :
In 1811 the legislature of his state had instructed
him to oppose the re-chartering of the bank, while
now the people of his district, as far as he had been
able to ascertain their minds by conversation with
them, were in favor of a new bank. Secondly, the
old bank had abused its powers for political pur
poses, while the new bank would be deterred from
doing so by the fate of its predecessor. This was
making an audacious draft upon the credulity of
his audience. Thirdly, the bank had been uncon
stitutional in 1811, but it was constitutional in
1816, owing to a change of circumstances. We re
member that magnificent passage in Clay's speech
of 1811 in which he arrayed in parade the monster
corporations of history, arguing that so tremendous
a power as the authority to charter such compa
nies could not possibly have been given to the fed
eral government by mere inference and iniplica-

134 HENRY CLAY.

tion ; that, if the Constitution did not grant that
power in so many words, directly, specifically, un
mistakably, it was not granted at all. What did
he say now ?

" The Constitution contained powers delegated and pro
hibitory, powers expressed and constructive. It vests
in Congress all powers necessary to give effect to the enu
merated powers. The powers that may be so necessary
are deducible by construction. They are not defined in
the Constitution. They are in their nature undefinable.
With regard to the degree of necessity various rules
have been, at different times, laid down ; but perhaps, at
last, there is no other than a sound and honest judgment,
exercised under the control which belongs to the Consti
tution and the people. It is manifest that this necessity
may not be perceived at one time under one state of
things, while it is perceived at another time under a
different state of things. The Constitution, it is true,
never changes ; it is always the same ; but the force of
circumstances and the lights of experience may evolve,
to the fallible persons charged with its administration,
the fitness and necessity of a particular exercise of con
structive power to-day, which they did not see at a
former period."

And how did he apply this constitutional theory
to the pending case ? In 1811, he said, the bank
did not seem to him necessary, because it was sup
ported mainly upon the ground " that it was indis
pensable to the Treasury operations," which, in his
opinion, could have been sufficiently aided by the
state banks then existing. Therefore the re-char
tering of the United States Bank would have been,

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. ' 135

in his view, at that time unconstitutional. But
now he beheld specie payments suspended. He
saw about three hundred banking institutions which
had lost the public confidence in a greater or less
degree, and which were exercising what had always
and everywhere been considered " one of the high
est attributes of sovereignty," namely, the " reg
ulation of the current medium of the country."
They were no longer capable of aiding, but were
really obstructing, the operations of the Treasury.
To renew specie payments and to prevent further
disaster and distress a national bank now appeared
to him " not only necessary, but indispensably nec
essary." Under these circumstances, therefore, he
considered the chartering of a national bank con
stitutional. " He preferred," he added, " to the
suggestions of the pride of opinion the evident in
terests of the community, and determined to throw
himself upon their candor and justice. Had he in
1811 foreseen what now existed, and no objection
had lain against the renewal of the charter other
than that derived from the Constitution, he should
have voted for the renewal."

This was virtually a confession that he had se
riously mistaken the situation of things in 1811,
when, against Gallatin's judgment, he had helped
in disarranging the fiscal machinery of the govern
ment on the eve of a war. But it was a confes
sion, too, that he had thrown overboard that con
stitutional theory according to which such things
as the power of chartering corporations, not being

136 HENRY CLAY.

among the specifically granted powers, could not
be an implied power. He had familiarized him
self with larger views of governmental .function,
as the Republic had grown in dimensions, in
strength, and in the reach of its interests. In
deed, the reasoning with which he justified his
change of position in 1816 stopped but little, if at
all, short of the assertion that whatever may be
considered necessary, or even eminently desirable,
to help the country over a temporary embarrass
ment, may also be considered constitutional. Clay,
who seldom, if ever, reasoned out a point in all
its logical bearings, would not have admitted that
as a general proposition. But he evidently in
clined to the most latitudinarian construction. His
constitutional principles had become prodigiously
elastic according to the requirements of the occa
sion. In this respect he was not peculiar. Most
of our public men have been inclined to interpret
the Constitution according to their purposes. This
tendency was especially strong among the young
Republicans of that period ; and there it was all
the more remarkable as their party had in its de
sign and beginning been a living protest against
the strong government theory favored by the Fed
eralists. There was, however, this difference left
between them and their old antagonists : the Fed
eralists believed that government, in order to be
good, or even tolerable, must be strong enough to
restrain the disorderly tendencies of democracy ,*
while the young Republicans rejected the theory

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. 137

of strong government in that sense, but believed
that it must have large powers in order to do the
things which they thought it should do for the de
velopment of a great nation.

At the next session of Congress, in February,
1817, Calhoun took the lead in advocating a bill
to set apart and pledge the bonus of the national
bank and the share of the United States in its divi
dends, as a permanent fund for " constructing roads
and canals and improving the navigation of water
courses, in order to facilitate, promote, and give
security to internal commerce among the several
states, and to render more easy and less expensive
the means and provisions for the common de
fense." In his speech Calhoun pronounced him
self strongly in favor of a latitudinarian construc
tion of constitutional powers, and a liberal exer
cise of them for the purpose of binding the people
of this vast country more closely together, and of
preventing "the greatest of all calamities, next
to the loss of liberty, and even that in its conse
quence — disunion." Clay thanked him for " the
able and luminous view which he had submitted
to the committee of the whole," and vigorously
urged the setting apart of a fund to be used at a
future time when the specific objects to be accom
plished should have been more clearly ascertained
and fixed. This contemplated the accumulation
of funds in the Treasury with the expectation that
suitable objects would be found for which to spend
them, — a dangerous practice in a democratic gov-

188 HENRY CLAY.

eminent. " Congress," he said, " could at some
future day examine into the constitutionality of
the question, and if it had the power, it could ex
ercise it ; if it had not, the Constitution, there
could be no doubt, would be so amended as to con
fer it." At any rate, he wished to have the fund
set apart. Clay himself did not doubt that Con
gress had the constitutional power to use that
fund, and possibly he thought that, if only the
money were provided to be spent, Congress would
easily come to the same conclusion.

The bill passed both houses, but old-school Re
publicanism once more stemmed the tide. Presi
dent Madison, who himself had formerly expressed
opinions favorable to internal improvements, ve
toed it on strictly constitutional grounds, much to
the astonishment and disgust of the young Re
publican statesmen. It was his last act.

Clay had in the mean time, by way of episode,
gone through the experience of flagging popularity.
It was not 011 account of his constitutional doc
trines, or any other great question of state, but by
reason of a matter to which he had probably given
but little thought. At the previous session he had
voted for a bill to increase the pay of members of
Congress from a per diem of six dollars to a fixed
salary of $1,500 a year, the law to apply to the
Congress then in session. He supported it on the
ground that he had never been able to make both
ends meet at Washington. " The rate of compen
sation," he said, "ought to be such at least as

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. 139

that ruin should not attend a long service in Con
gress." Such arguments prevailed, and the bill
passed both houses. But many of Clay's con
stituents thought differently. To the Kentucky
farmers a yearly income of $1,500 for a few
months' sitting on cushioned chairs in the Capitol
looked monstrously extravagant. They were sure
men could be found who would do the business for
less money. When the election of members of
Congress came on, Clay was fortunate enough to
force the candidate opposing him into a " joint
debate," in which, as that gentleman had been
" against the war," Clay made short work of him.
But he himself had an arduous canvass. It was
then that his meeting with the old hunter oc
curred, which furnished material for a school-book
anecdote. The old hunter, who had always voted
for Clay, was now resolved to vote against him on
account of the back-pay bill. u My friend," said
Clay, u have you a good rifle ? " " Yes." " Did
it ever flash? " " Yes, but only once." " What
did you do with the rifle when it flashed, — throw
it away ? " " No, I picked the flint, tried again,
and brought down the game." " Have I ever
flashed, except upon the compensation bill ? "
" No." " Well, will you throw me away ? " " No,
Mr. Clay ; I will pick the flint and try you again."
Clay was tried again, but only by a majority of
some six or seven hundred votes. At the next
session of Congress he voted for the repeal of the
compensation act, avowedly on the ground of its

140 HENRY CLAY.

unpopularity; but he favored the raising of the
per diem. The pay of members of Congress was
fixed at eight dollars per day. This was the only
time that his home constituency threatened to fail
him.

James Monroe was elected President in 1816
with little opposition. He received 183 electoral
votes ; while his competitor, Rufus King, the can
didate of the Federalists, had only 34. Mon
roe was inaugurated March 4, 1817, and the fa
mous " era of good feeling " set in, — that is to
say, with the disappearance of the Federal party
as a national organization, the great organized con
tests of the old parties for power ceased, to make
room for the smaller contests of personal ambi
tions. But these infused fully as much bitterness
into the era of good feeling as the differences on
important questions of public policy had infused
into great party struggles. Until then the Presi
dents of the United States had been men of note
in the American Revolution. Monroe was the last
of the Revolutionary generation and of the "Vir
ginia dynasty." It was taken for granted that he
would have his two terms, and that then the com
petition for the presidency would be open to a new
class of men. As Madison had been Jefferson's
Secretary of State before he became President, and
Monroe had been Madison's, the secretaryship of
state was looked upon as the stepping-stone to the
presidency. Those who expected to be candidates
for the highest place in the future, therefore, cov
eted it with peculiar solicitude.

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. 141

One of them was Henry Clay. Among the citi
zens of the United States he could find none, to
whom the succession to Mr. Monroe, as he believed,
belonged more rightfully than to himself. Thus
he started on the career of a candidate for the
presidency, and that career began with a disap
pointment. Monroe selected for the secretaryship
John Quincy Adams, a most excellent selection,
although Clay very decidedly did not think so.
Monroe also signified his appreciation of Clay's
merits by offering him the war department, and
then the mission to England. But Clay declined
both places, on the ground, as Mr. Adams reports,
" that he was satisfied with the situation which he
held, and could render more service to the public
in it than in the other situations offered him."
This was true enough ; but it is also probable that
he was then already resolved to stand as a candi
date for the presidency after Monroe's second term,
although Adams had been designated as heir-appa
rent; and, moreover, his disappointment had so
affected his personal feelings toward Monroe and
Adams, as to make unsuitable his acceptance of a
place among the President's confidential advisers.
This supposition is borne out by his subsequent
conduct.

The fifteenth Congress met on December 1,
1817, and Clay was on the same day reflected
Speaker of the House of Representatives by an
almost unanimous vote, — 140 to 7. An oppor
tunity for an open disagreement between Clay

142 HENRY CLAY.

and the administration was not long in appearing.
In his first message to Congress, Monroe, refer
ring to the passage at the preceding session of the
act concerning a fund for internal improvements,
which Madison vetoed, deemed it proper to make
known his sentiments on that subject beforehand,
so that there should be no uncertainty as to his
prospective action in case such a bill were passed
again. He declared it to be his " settled con
viction " that Congress did not possess the right
of constructing roads and canals. " It is not con
tained in any of the specified powers granted to
Congress ; nor can I consider it incidental to, or
a necessary means, viewed on the most liberal scale,
for carrying into effect any of the powers specific
ally granted." He then suggested, as Jefferson
and Madison had done, the adoption of a constitu
tional amendment to give to Congress the right in
question.

This spontaneous declaration by the President
of what he intended to do in certain contingencies
was taken as something like a challenge, and the
challenge was promptly accepted. Calhoun, next
to Clay the foremost champion of internal improve
ments, having gone into the Cabinet as Secretary
of War, Tucker of Virginia reported on December
15, from a select committee, a resolution equiva
lent to that which Madison had vetoed. Against
it Monroe's constitutional objections were mar
shaled in debate. Clay took up the gauntlet and
made two speeches, in which he disclosed his views

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 143

of policy, as well as his constitutional principles:
more pointedly than he had ever done before. He
maintained that the Constitution did give the gen
eral government the power to construct roads and
canals, and that the consent of the states, which
had been thought necessary in the case of the
Cumberland Road, was not required at all. He
spoke as a western man, as a representative of a
new country and a pioneer population, needing
means of communication, channels of commerce
and intelligence, as the breath of life. He spoke as
a citizen of the Union, looking forward to a great
destiny. Was the Constitution, he asked, giving
Congress the power to establish post-offices and
post-roads, and to regulate commerce between the
states, made for the benefit of the Atlantic mar
gin of the country only? Was the Constitution
made only for the few millions then inhabiting this
continent ? No ! " Every man," he exclaimed,
" who looks at the Constitution in the spirit to en
title him to the character of a statesman, must
elevate his views to the height which this nation
is destined to reach in the rank of nations. We
are not legislating for this moment only, or for
the present generation, or for the present populated
limits of the United States; but our acts must
embrace a wider scope, — reaching northwestward
to the Pacific, and southwardly to the river Del
Norte. Imagine this extent of territory covered
with sixty, or seventy, or an hundred millions of
people. The powers which exist in this govern-

144 HENRY CLAY.

ment now will exist then; and those which will
exist then exist now."

" What was the object of the Convention," he
asked, "in framing the Constitution? The lead
ing object was UNION. Union, then, peace ex
ternal and internal, and commerce, but more par
ticularly union and peace, the great objects of the
framers of the Constitution, should be kept stead
ily in view in the interpretation of any clause of
it ; and where it is susceptible of various inter
pretations, that construction should be preferred
which tends to promote the objects of the framers
of the Constitution, to the consolidation of the
Union." This he emphasized with still greater
force. " I am a friend, a true friend, to state
rights, but not in all cases as they are asserted.
We should equally avoid that subtile process of
argument which dissipates into air the powers of
the government, and that spirit of encroachment
which would snatch from the states powers not
delegated to the general government. We shall
then escape both the dangers I have noticed, —
that of relapsing into the alarming weakness of
the Confederation, which was described as a mere
rope of sand ; and also that other, perhaps not the
greatest, danger, consolidation. No man depre
cates more than I do the idea of consolidation ;
yet between separation and consolidation, painful
as would be the alternative, I should greatly pre
fer the latter."

Here was the well-spring from which Henry

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. 145

Clay drew his political inspirations, — a grand
conception of the future destiny of the American
Republic, and of a government adapted to the
fulfillment of that great destiny ; an ardent love
for the Union, as the ark of liberty and national
grandeur, a Union to be maintained at any price ;
an imaginative enthusiasm which infused its patri
otic glow into his political opinions, but which was
also apt to carry him beyond the limits of existing
things and conditions, and not seldom unfitted him
for the formation of a clear and well-balanced
judgment of facts and interests. But this enthu
siastic conception of national grandeur, this lofty
Unionism constantly appearing as the inspiration
of his public conduct, gave to his policies, as they
stood forth in the glow of his eloquence, a pecul
iarly potent charm.

The result of this debate was the passage, not of
the resolution reported by Tucker, but of a substi
tute declaring that " Congress has power, under
the Constitution, to appropriate money for the con
struction of post-roads, military and other roads,
and of canals, and for the improvement of water
courses." Other resolutions, asserting the power
of Congress not only to appropriate money for
such roads and canals, but to construct them, failed
by small majorities, so that Clay carried his point
only in part.

That Clay would continue to assert the power
of Congress to construct internal improvements,
President Monroe's message notwithstanding, ev-
10

146 HENRY CLAY.

erybody expected. But when he interspersed that
advocacy with keen criticism of Monroe's attitude
concerning that subject, — criticism which had a
strong flavor of bitterness in it, — the effect was
not to his advantage. The unfriendly tone of his
remarks was generally attributed to his disappoint
ment in the matter of the secretaryship of state.
Not many men like to see personal resentments
carried into the discussion of public interests ; and
in this case, to make the matter worse, the dem
onstrations of resentment were, in the shape of
oratorical flings, darted at a President who was
by no means a great man, rather a man of mod
erate parts, but who was regarded as inoffensive
and well-meaning, and as honestly busying himself
about his presidential duties, — one of those re
spectable mediocrities in high public station, with
whom people are apt to sympathize in their
troubles, especially when unnecessarily attacked
and humiliated by persons of greatly superior
ability.

But the disappointment of the aspirant for the
presidency was so little under his control that he
permitted it to appear even in another of his great
endeavors, which, in order to succeed, required
particularly prudent management. This was his
effort in behalf of the Spanish American colonies,
which had risen against the mother country, and
were struggling to achieve their independence.

It has been said by Clay's opponents that his
zeal for the cause of the South American patriots

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. 147

was wholly owing to his desire to annoy the Monroe
administration. This is clearly an unjust charge,
for he had loudly proclaimed his ardent sympa
thies with the South American insurgents while
Madison was still President. We remember that
in his speech on the direct taxes in January, 1816,
he seriously put the question whether the United
States would not have openly " to take part with
the patriots of South America." So on January
24, 1817, before Monroe's inauguration, he had
stoutly opposed a bill " more effectually to pre
serve the neutral relations of the United States,''
intended to stop the fitting out of armed cruisers
in American ports ; he had opposed the bill on
the ground that it might be advantageous to old
Spain in the South American struggle. All this
had sprung naturally from his emotional enthusi
asm. He was therefore, although imprudent in his
propositions, yet only true to himself, when, under
Monroe's administration, he continued to demand
that the neutrality law of 1817 be repealed ; that
our neutrality be so arranged as to be as advan
tageous as possible to the insurgent colonies ; and
finally that the United States send a minister to
the " United Provinces of Rio de la Plata," there
by formally recognizing that revolutionized col
ony as an independent state. This he proposed in
March, 1818. Three commissioners had been ap
pointed by the President to go to South America
for the purpose of looking into the condition of
things ; and, to cover the necessary expenses, the

148 HENRY CLAY.

President asked for an appropriation. Clay strenu
ously opposed this on the ground that the com
missioners had been appointed without the advice
and consent of the Senate. He moved instead an
appropriation for a regular minister to be sent
there.

The speech with which he supported this propo
sition was in his grandest style. South America
had set his imagination on fire. In gorgeous
colors he drew a picture of "the vast region in
which we behold the most sublime and interesting
objects of creation ; the loftiest mountains, the
most majestic rivers in the world ; the richest
mines of the precious metals, the choicest produc
tions of the earth; we behold there a spectacle
still more interesting and sublime, — the glorious
spectacle of eighteen millions of people struggling
to burst their chains and to be free." A burning
description followed of their degradation and suf
ferings, and of the terrible cruelties inflicted upon
them by their relentless oppressors. In his imagi
nation they were a people of high mental and
moral qualities, notwithstanding their ignorance
and their subserviency to the influence of the
church. He was sure that, " Spanish America
being once independent, whatever may be the
form of the governments established in its several
parts, these governments will be animated by an
American feeling, and guided by an American
policy." Pie affirmed that they had established
and for years maintained an independent govern-

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. 149

ment on the river La Plata, and that, as the United
States always recognized de facto governments, it
was a duty to recognize this. He demanded it in
the name of a just neutrality. As the United
States had received a minister sent by Spain, so
they were " bound " to receive a minister of the
La Plata republic if they meant to be neutral.
" If the royal belligerent is represented and heard
at our government, the republican belligerent ought
also to be heard." All this, he thought, could be
done without any danger of war. Spain herself
was too much crippled in her resources to make
war on the United States, and no other power
would do so.

It was a brilliant display of oratorical splen
dors, but the House resisted the fascination. In
the discussion which followed, much of the halo,
with which Clay's poetic fancy had surrounded the
South American people and their struggle, was dis
sipated by sober statements of fact. Neither was
it difficult to show that Clay was much in error
in his views of true neutrality, and that neu
trality between two belligerents did by no means
always require equal diplomatic relations with
them. Finally, the contemptuous flings at the
President and the Secretary of State, with which
Clay seasoned his speech, displeased a large part
of the House. It was well known that Monroe
and Adams were not at all unfriendly to the in
surgent colonies ; only they wanted to be sure of
the fact that the new government had the neces-

150 HENRY CLAY.

sary element of stability to justify recognition ;
they hoped to obtain the cooperation of England
in that recognition ; they desired to avoid the em
barrassment which a hasty recognition would cause
in the negotiations between the United States
and Spain concerning the cession of Florida ; and
finally, they wanted to be first assured that the
public opinion of the country would sustain them
in so important a step.

The motion was defeated by a vote of 115
against 45. But Monroe was terribly disturbed
at Clay's hostile attitude, so much so indeed that,
two or three days after Clay's great speech, Adams
wrote in his Diary : —

" The subject which seems to absorb all the faculties
of his (Monroe's) mind is the violent systematic opposi
tion that Clay is raising against his administration. . . .
Mr. Monroe added, if Mr. Clay had taken the ground
that the Executive had gone as far as he could go with
propriety towards the acknowledgment of the South
Americans, that he was well disposed to go further,
if such were the feeling of the nation and of Congress,
and had made his motion with that view, to ascertain
the real sentiments of Congress, it might have been in
perfect harmony with the Executive. But between thaL
and the angry, acrimonious course pursued by Mr. Clay,
there was a wide difference."

Monroe was perfectly right. Clay would have
served better the cause he had at heart had he
maintained friendly relations with the administra
tion. But that strange disturber of impulses and

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. 151

motives, of perceptions and conclusions — the aspi
ration to the presidency — clouded his discernment.
In the second session of the fifteenth Congress
a debate took place which was destined to be of far
greater consequence to Clay's political fortunes
than anything that had gone before. It was the
first clash between Henry Clay and Andrew Jack
son. This is the story. The Floridas were still in
the possession of Spain. They served as a place of
refuge for runaway slaves, and a base of operations
for raiding Indians. Spain was bound by treaty to
prevent hostile excursions on the part of the sav
ages, but too weak or too negligent to do so. There
were frequent collisions between whites and Indi
ans on the border, one party being as often the
aggressor as the other. General Gaines sent sol
diers against the Indians, and an Indian war be
gan. In December, 1817, General Jackson took
command. He received authority to pursue the
Indians, but, as the administration understood it,
he was to respect Spanish rights. This was Jack
son's famous Seminole war. He enlisted volun
teers in Tennessee by his own proclamation, without
waiting for the President to call upon the governor
for a levy of militia in the legal, regular way. He
broke into Florida in March, 1818, took the Span
ish fort of St. Mark's, hung Indian chiefs who had
been captured by stratagem ; ordered a Scotchman
and an Englishman, Arbuthnot and Ambrister,
whom he had found with the Indians, to be tried
by court-martial for having instigated the sav-

152 HENRY CLAY.

ages to hostilities ; and when, on very insufficient
evidence, they were found guilty, he had them
promptly executed, after having changed the sen
tence in Ambrister's case from mere flogging to the
penalty of death by shooting ; he took Pensacola
on his way home, deposed the Spanish governor,
appointed a new one, left a garrison there, and con
ducted himself throughout as a victorious general
with absolute power in a conquered country, like a
Roman proconsul in a subjugated province.

When the news arrived in Washington, the
President and the Cabinet were astonished and
perplexed. Except Adams, who was always in
clined to take the highest ground for his country
against any foreign power, they all agreed that
General Jackson had gone far beyond his instruc
tions and done lawless things. Calhoun, the Sec
retary of War, thought that the General should
promptly be held to a severe account. But they
shrunk from affronting the "hero of New Orleans."
The administration finally concluded to restore to
the Spaniards possession of the forts taken by
General Jackson, and to affirm that the capture of
those places by Jackson and his conduct generally
were justified, on the principle of self-defense, by
the hostile attitude of the Spanish governors, thus
denying that any warlike step had been taken
against Spain, while at the same time making a
case against her officers.

On January 16, 1819, the House of Represen
tatives began the discussion of a resolution reported

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. 153

by its military committee, " disapproving the pro
ceedings in the trial of Arbuthnot and Ambrister,"
to which three further resolutions were added, de
claring the seizure of Pensacola and Fort Barrancas
to have been contrary to the Constitution of the
United States, and calling for appropriate legisla
tion. A debate of three weeks followed, in which
Clay was the most prominent figure on the anti-
Jackson side. He had no personal feeling against
General Jackson. On the contrary he was sin
cerely and profoundly grateful to the man who,
after all the disgraceful failures of the war of 1812,
had so brilliantly restored the lustre of the Amer
ican arms, and enabled him to " go to England
without mortification." But as a friend of constitu
tional government he felt that he could not possibly
approve of the General's lawless conduct in Flor
ida. There is no reason to attribute the position
he took to any but conscientious motives. But he
•was an aspirant to the presidency, and known to be
such, while Jackson, too, was beginning to be whis
pered about as a possible candidate for that honor.
Would not a frank expression of his views on
Jackson's conduct appear like an attempt to injure
a dreaded rival ? It dawned upon him that his
unnecessary flings at the Monroe administration
had subjected his motives to suspicion, and thus,
while attacking, he felt himself on the defensive.
He began with an almost painful effort to retrieve
the ground which he feared that he had lost in the
confidence of the House and the country : —

154 HENRY CLAY.

" In rising to address you, sir, I must be allowed to
say, that all inferences, drawn from the course which it
will be my painful duty to take in this discussion, of un
friendliness either to the chief magistrate of the coun
try, or to the illustrious military chieftain whose opera
tions are under investigation, will be wholly unfounded.
Toward that distinguished captain who shed so much
glory on our country, whose renown constitutes so great
a portion of its moral property, I never had, I never can
have, any other feelings than those of the most profound
respect and of the utmost kindness. I know the mo
tives which have been, and will again be, attributed to
me in regard to the other exalted personage alluded to.
They have been and they will be unfounded. I have no
interest other than that of seeing the concerns of my
country well and happily administered. Rather than
throw obstructions in the way of the President, I would
precede him and pick out those, if I could, which might
jostle him in his progress. I may be again reluctantly
compelled to differ from him, but I will with the utmost
sincerity assure the committee that I have formed no
resolution, come under no engagements, and that I never
will form any resolution, or contract any engagements,
for systematic opposition to his administration, or to
that of any other chief magistrate. "

This might have been sufficient to disarm suspi
cion, had he not been believed to have an eye to
ward the presidency.

He arraigned General Jackson's conduct with
dignity and a certain degree of moderation. He
emphatically acquitted him of "any intention to
violate the laws of his country, or the obligations

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. 155

of humanity." He declared himself far from wish
ing to intimate that " General Jackson cherished
any design inimical to the liberties of the people."
He believed the General's " intentions to be pure
and patriotic." But he denounced the hanging of
Indian chiefs without trial, " under color of retal
iation," as utterly unjustifiable and disgraceful.
He admitted retaliation as justifiable only when
" calculated to produce an effect in the war," but
never on the motive of mere vengeance. As to
Arbuthnot and Ambrister, whether they were in
nocent or guilty, he utterly rejected the argument
by which Jackson tried to justify their execution,
namely, " that it is an established principle of the
law of nations, that any individual of a nation,
making war against the citizens of any other na
tion, they being at peace, forfeits his allegiance,
and becomes an outlaw and a pirate." He main
tained that, " whatever may be the character of in
dividuals making private war, the principle is to
tally erroneous when applied to such individuals
associated with a power, whether Indian or civil
ized, capable of maintaining the relations of peace
or war." He showed that Jackson's doctrine
would make every foreign subject serving in an
American army an outlaw and a pirate ; he might
have cited La Fayette and Steuben. This was the
moral he drew : —

" However guilty these men were, they should not have
been condemned or executed without the authority of
law. I will not dwell on the effect of these prece-

156 HENRY CLAY.

dents in foreign countries, but I shall not pass unnoticed
their dangerous influence in our own. Bad examples
are generally set in the case of bad men, and often re
mote from the central government. It was in the prov
inces that were laid the seeds of the ambitious projects
which overturned the liberties of Rome."

He affirmed that Jackson, going far beyond the
spirit of his instructions, had not only assumed, by
an unauthorized construction of his own, to deter
mine what Spain was bound by treaty to do, but had
" also assumed the power, belonging to Congress
alone, of determining what should be the effect
and consequence of her breach of engagement ; "
that then he had seized the Spanish forts and thus
usurped the power of making war, which the Con
stitution had " expressly and exclusively " vested
in Congress, " to guard our country against pre
cisely that species of rashness which has been man
ifested in Florida." A glowing peroration fol
lowed, protesting against " the alarming doctrine
of unlimited discretion in our military command
ers," and pointing out how other free nations,
from antiquity down, had lost their liberties, and
how we might lose ours. " Are former services,"
he exclaimed, " however eminent, to preclude even
inquiry into recent conduct ? Is there to be no
limit, no prudential bounds to the national grati
tude ? I hope gentlemen will deliberately survey
the awful isthmus on which we stand. They may
bear down all opposition ; they may even vote the
General the public thanks; they may carry him

IN TEE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. 157

triumphantly through this House. But if they do
so, it will be a triumph of the principle of insub
ordination, a triumph of the military over the civil
authority, a triumph over the powers of this House,
a triumph over the Constitution of the land. And
I pray most devoutly to Heaven that it may not
prove, in its ultimate effects and consequences, a
triumph over the liberties of the people."

It was a fine speech and much admired ; brill
iant in diction ; statesmanlike in reasoning ; full
of stirring appeals ; also undoubtedly right in its
general drift of argument. But it had some very
weak points. Clay had again gone a little beyond
what the occasion required ; he had attacked, aside
from Jackson's conduct in Florida, certain Indian
treaties which Jackson had made, and this attack
was based upon an imperfect knowledge of facts.
Such flaws were exposed, and thus the impression
was created that he had been rather quick in mak
ing his assault without having taken the trouble of
thoroughly studying his case. In fact, he had not
exactly measured the power which in this instance
he had to deal with. It was the popularity of a
victorious soldier.

A military " hero " has an immense advantage
over ordinary mortals, especially in a country
where the military hero is a rare character. The
achievements of statesmen usually remain subject
to differences of opinion. A victory 011 the field
of battle won for the country is a title to public
gratitude, seldom to be questioned by anybody.

158 HENRY CLAY.

It is a matter of common pride. It lives in the
imagination of the people. That imagination is
apt to attribute to the hero of such a victory an
abundance of other good qualities. His failings
are judged with leniency. To many it appears
almost sacrilegious to think that a man who has
rendered his country service so valuable in the
crisis of war should ever be able to act upon any
but the most patriotic motives. It will require
an extraordinary degree of wrong-doing on his
part to make suspicion and criticism with regard
to him acceptable to the popular mind ; and even
then he is apt to be easily forgiven.

General Jackson enjoyed this advantage in the
highest degree. He had given the American peo
ple a brilliant victory when it was most needed to
soothe the popular pride. Would he disgrace and
endanger the Republic after having so magnifi
cently fought for it ? To convince the people, and
to make Congress declare, that he had done so,
would have required a very calm and careful pre
sentation of the case, moving from point to point
of the allegation, and proving every position with
evidence so conclusive as to extort a verdict of
guilty from ever so unwilling a jury. Even then
the result would not have been certain. But any
argument not absolutely irrefutable ; any arraign
ment having in it the smallest flaw ; any appeal
proceeding in the slightest degree upon a mere as
sumption of fact, was sure to be drowned by a cry
far more powerful than any oratorical declamation,

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. 159

— the battle of New Orleans. So it was in this
instance. The hero of New Orleans could not have
intended, he could not have done, any wrong. At
any rate, he had full absolution for what he had
done, perhaps also for what he might do in the
future, and the resolutions disapproving his con
duct were voted down by heavy majorities.

Thus was Henry Clay defeated in his first en
counter with Andrew Jackson. The great duel
had begun which was to embitter the best part of
Clay's life. His war of 1812 had put the military
hero into his way, and a military hero, too, of the
most exasperating kind ; a hero who would not be
conciliated by a mere recognition of his good in
tentions ; who demanded absolute compliance with
his will, and who treated any one finding fault
with him as little better than " an outlaw and a
pirate ; " a hero who not seldom made Clay al
most despair of the Republic. The case was in
deed not as desperate as Clay sometimes feared.
Victorious generals begin to become really danger
ous to republican institutions when a large portion
of the people are tired of popular liberty. It is
true, however, that their peculiarly privileged posi
tion before the popular mind may put those in
stitutions at all times to temporary strain, and fa
cilitate the establishment of precedents prolific of
evil.

For the present General Jackson, " vindicated "
by the House of Representatives, was received
wherever he went with great enthusiasm, and was

160 HENRY CLAY.

"thought of in connection with the presidency,"
not only as a hero, but as a persecuted hero. At
the same time Clay's star seemed to be somewhat
obscured. The impression that his disappoint
ment with regard to the secretaryship of state had
led him to make a factious opposition to the ad
ministration, had lowered him in the estimation
of many men. This impression had become so
general as to make his reasons for permitting now
and then an administration measure to pass un
challenged a matter of gossiping speculation. A
striking instance of this is found in Mr. Adams's
Diary, where Mr. Middleton, of South Carolina, is
introduced as telling the story, that Clay neglected
to oppose a certain bill because " the last fortnight
of the session Clay spent almost every night at
the card table, and one night Poindexter had won
of him eight thousand dollars. This discomposed
him to such a degree that he paid no attention to
the business of the House the remainder of the
session. Before it closed, however, he had won
back from Poindexter all that he had lost, except
about nine hundred dollars." Whether this story
in all its details was true or not, certain it is that
Clay at that period spent far more time at the card
table than was good for his reputation. Indeed,
Nathan Sargent says in his recollections (" Pub
lic Men and Events ") : " When a candidate for
the presidency, Mr. Clay was denounced as a
gambler. He was no more a gambler than was al
most every Southern and Southwestern gentleman

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. 161

of that day. Play was a passion with them ; it
was a social enjoyment ; they loved its excitement,
and they played whenever and wherever they met ;
not for the purpose of winning money of one an
other, which is the gambler's motive, but for the
pleasure it gave them. They bet high as a matter
of pride and to give interest to the game." But
Clay himself felt that his habits in that respect
had been unfavorably noticed. Soon afterwards,
in a speech in the House, he referred by way of il
lustration to games of chance, as " an amusement
which in early life he had sometimes indulged in,
but which years and experience had determined
him to renounce." To a man of Clay's standing
before the country there was a keen self-humilia
tion in a remark like this, and he would hardly
have made it, had he not thought something like
a promise of better conduct urgently called for.
The promise referred, however, only to " games of
chance," for whist seemed to maintain an almost
irresistible charm over him, except in his own
house at Ashland, where no card playing was al
lowed.

Clay's political standing was so much shaken
that about the time of the opening of the sixteenth
Congress, in December, 1819, several members of
the House went to President Monroe to consult
with him as to whether it would be advisable to
displace Clay as Speaker. Adams says in his
Diary that Monroe advised against it, partly be
cause such a movement would increase Clay's im-
11

162 HENRY CLAY.

portance, partly because Clay's course had injured
liis own influence more than that of the adminis
tration, and partly because, as there was no western
man in the Cabinet, it was a matter of pride with
that part of the country to have a western man in
the Speaker's chair, and there was no western man
of sufficient eminence to be put in competition with
Clay. " In all this," wrote Adams, " I think the
President has acted and spoken wisely." It was
indeed wisely spoken, for, had a contest been made,
it would after all have appeared that most of the
members of the House, although they voted against
Clay time and again in his opposition to the ad
ministration, were proud of the lustre his brill
iant abilities shed upon the House, believed in his
patriotism, and liked the gay, spirited, dashing
Kentuckian as a man. So he was, on the first
day of the session, December 6, 1819, reflected
Speaker virtually without opposition.

Before long he was up in arms against the ad
ministration again. After long and arduous nego
tiation, Mr. Adams had, in February, 1819, con
cluded a treaty with the Spanish Minister, which
provided for the cession of the whole of Florida
to this Republic, fixed the southwestern boundary
line of the United States along the Sabine River
(thus excluding Texas), expunged the claims of
Spanish subjects against the United States, and
provided that the United States, as a compensation
for the cession of Florida, should undertake to set
tie the claims of American citizens against Spain

JN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. 163

to an amount not exceeding 15,000,000. The
treaty was unanimously approved by the Sen
ate ; but the King of Spain, faithlessly it was
thought, withheld his ratification of it, which ratifi
cation should have taken place within six months.
This conduct produced an irritating effect in the
United States. Many were in favor of treating
the whole matter again as an open one. The prop
osition to take forcible possession of Florida was
freely discussed and widely approved, and a bill
to that effect was introduced in Congress. Then
the news arrived that the Spanish government had
sent a new minister. Under these circumstances
Monroe addressed a special message to Congress,
on March 27, 1820, mentioning the friendly inter
est taken in the matter by the great powers of
Europe, — England, Russia, and France ; express
ing the hope that, in response to their solicitations,
the King of Spain would soon ratify the treaty,
and suggesting that Congress for the time being
should postpone action on the matter.

This brought Clay to his feet. He took the
ground that, as the King of Spain had not ratified
it within the prescribed time, the whole treaty had
fallen, and that it ought not to be renewed, mainly
because it had, by accepting the Sabine as the
southwestern boundary line, instead of insisting
upon the Rio Grande del Norte, surrendered to
Spain a large and valuable territory belonging to
the United States, namely Texas. It had indeed
been a disputed question whether the limits of

164 HENRY CLAY.

Louisiana did not embrace Texas. If so, Texas
belonged by purchase to the United States ; if not,
it was considered part of the Spanish American
territory. Adams, in making his treaty, had only
reluctantly given up the line of the Rio Grande
del Norte, and accepted that of the Sabine ; he
might have carried his point, had not Monroe, with
the concurrence of the rest of the Cabinet, desired
the Sabine as a boundary for peculiar reasons.
In a letter to General Jackson he said : " Having
long known the repugnance with which the eastern
portion of our Union have seen its aggrandizement
to the West and South, I have been decidedly of
opinion that we ought to be content with Florida
for the present." It was, therefore, in deference
to what Monroe understood to be northeastern sen
timent that Texas was given up, and it was the
abandonment of Texas which Clay put forward as
a decisive reason for not renewing the Spanish
treaty.

He introduced two resolutions in the House :
one asserting that no treaty making a cession of
territory was valid without the concurrence of Con
gress ; and the other, substantially, that the cession
of Florida to the United States was not an " ade
quate equivalent " for the " transfer " of Texas by
the United States to Spain. In support of these
resolutions he made a fiery speech, fiercely casti
gating the administration for truckling to foreign
powers, and extolling the value of Texas, which he
stoutly assumed to belong to the United States un-

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. 165

der the Louisiana purchase. Texas was, in his
opinion, much more valuable than Florida. Even
if the treaty were not renewed, Florida would
surely drop into our lap at last, but Texas might
escape us. Lowndes answered, as to the first reso
lution, that, if the principle asserted by Clay were
admitted in its whole breadth, the treaty-making
power under the Constitution (the President and
the Senate) would no longer have authority to
make a treaty for a boundary rectification, which
almost always involved a cession of territory on
one side or the other ; and, as to the second resolu
tion, that Texas had always been considered by
the United States as a debatable territory, and it
had been given up as such, not as a territory
clearly belonging to this Republic.

Clay's resolutions failed. The King of Spain
finally ratified the treaty, the Senate reaffirmed it
by all except four votes, and it was proclaimed by
Monroe, February 22, 1821. But Clay had made
his mark as maintaining the right of the United
States to Texas. Plow little could he then foresee
what a fateful part the acquisition of Texas was to
play twenty-four years later in his public career !

The miscarriage of his opposition to the Spanish
treaty did not deter him from renewing his efforts
for the South American colonies. On May 20,
1820, he spoke to a resolution he had moved, de
claring it expedient to provide outfits and salaries
for a minister or ministers to be sent to " any of
the governments in South America which have es-

166 HENRY CLAY.

tablished and are maintaining their independence
of Spain." His attacks became more virulent.
For instance : " If Lord Castlereagh says we may
recognize, we do ; if not, we do not. A single ex
pression of the British Minister to the present Sec
retary of State, then our minister a,broad, I am
ashamed to say, has moulded the policy of our gov
ernment toward South America." In the same
speech he furnished a picture of the character of
the South American people and their future rela
tions with the people of the United States, as his
imagination painted it. " That country has now a
population of eighteen millions. The same activ
ity in the principle of population would exist in
that country as here. Twenty-five years hence, it
might be estimated at thirty -six millions ; fifty
years hence at seventy-two. We have now a popu
lation of ten millions. From the character of our
population we must always take the lead in com
merce and manufactures. Imagine the vast power
of the two countries, and the value of the inter
course between them, when we shall have a popula
tion of forty, and they of seventy millions ! " The
fifty years are over, and we have had ample op
portunity to appreciate this forecast. As to their
political capabilities, too, he entertained glowing
expectations. " Some gentlemen," he said, " had
intimated that the people of the South were unfit
for freedom. In some particulars, he ventured to
say, the people of South America were in advance
of us. Grenada, Venezuela, and Buenos Ayres

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. 167

had all emancipated their slaves; — [recollecting
himself] he did not say that we ought to do so,
or that they ought to have done so under different
circumstances, but he rejoiced that the circum
stances were such as to permit them to do it."

His resolution passed by 80 yeas to 75 nays,
but the administration, which was then still occu
pied with the Spanish treaty, did not stir. Clay
returned to the charge in February, 1821, when he
moved directly an appropriation for the sending
of a minister or ministers to South America, which
was defeated by a small majority, owing probably
to the arrival at that time of the ratification of the
Spanish treaty by the king. But, nothing daunted,
he was up again shortly afterwards with a resolu
tion " that the House of Representatives partici
pates with the people of the United States in the
deep interest which they feel for the Spanish prov
inces of South America, which are struggling to
establish their liberty and independence, and that
it will give its constitutional support to the Presi
dent of the United States whenever he may deem
it expedient to recognize the sovereignty and inde
pendence of any of the said provinces." This reso
lution, being mainly a declaration of mere senti
ment, passed, the first clause by 134 yeas to 12
nays, and the second by 87 to 68. A committee
was appointed, at the head of which was Clay
himself, to present this resolution to the President.
Still the administration would not move until a
year later, when the ability of the South Ameri-

168 HENRY CLAY.

can republics to maintain their independence was
as a matter of fact beyond reasonable doubt. On
March 8, 1822, Monroe sent a message to Con
gress recommending the recognition of the inde
pendent South American governments, which was
promptly responded to.

Clay's efforts in behalf of this cause gave him
great renown in South America. Some of his
speeches were translated into Spanish and read at
the head of the revolutionary armies. His name
was a household word among the patriots. In the
United States, too, his fervid appeals in behalf
of an oppressed people fighting for their liberty
awakened the memories of the North American
war for independence, and called forth strong emo
tions of sympathy. There is no doubt that those
appeals were on his part not a mere mano3uvre of
opposition, but came straight from his generous
impulses. The idea of the whole American con
tinent being occupied by a great family of repub
lics naturally flattered his imagination. That im
agination supplied the struggling brethren with
all the excellent qualities he desired them to pos
sess, and his chivalrous nature was impatient
to rush to their aid. This tendency was rein
forced by his general aptness to take a somewhat
superficial view of things, and, as is often the
case with men of the oratorical temperament, to
persuade himself with the gorgeous flow of his
own rhetoric. That his own thoughts appear to
him originally in the seductive garb of sonorous

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. 169

phrase, is a source of serious danger to the orator
ical statesman. The influence which his embit
tered feeling towards the administration had on
Clay's conduct, was simply to make him more in
accessible to the prudential reasons which the ad
ministration had for its dilatory policy. There
was indeed a fundamental difference of views be
tween them. The administration had the Spanish
treaty much at heart, and would not permit the
recognition of the Spanish American republics to
complicate that transaction. Clay wanted his
country to possess all it could obtain, and as he
thought that Florida would some time drop into
the lap of the United States in any event, and as
the Spanish treaty relinquished the claim to Texas,
it was from his point of view the correct thing to
hasten the recognition of the South American re
publics and thereby to defeat the Spanish treaty.

There was also a great difference of opinion as
to the character of the South American revolution.
Adams gives in his Diary an account of an inter
view between him and Clay in March, 1821, at
which an interesting conversation took place.

" I regretted (he wrote) the difference between his
[Clay's] views and those of the administration upon
South American affairs. That the final issue of their
present struggle would be their entire independence of
Spain I had never doubted. That it was our true policy
and duty to take no part in the contest was equally
clear. The principle of neutrality in all foreign wars
was, in my opinion, fundamental to the continuance of

170 HENRY CLAY.

our liberties and our Union. So far as they were com
tending for independence I wished well to their cause ;
but I had seen, and yet sec, no prospect that they would
establish free or liberal institutions of government.
They are not likely to promote the spirit either of free
dom or order by their example. They have not the
first elements of free or good government. Arbitrary
power, military and ecclesiastical, was stamped upon
their education, upon their habits, and upon all their in
stitutions. Civil dissension was infused into all their
seminal principles. War and mutual destruction was
in every member of their organization, moral, political,
and physical. I had little expectation of any beneficial
result to this country from any future connection with
them, political or commercial. We should derive no
improvement to our own institutions by any communion
with theirs. Nor was there any appearance of any dis
position in them to take any political lesson from us.
As to the commercial connection, there was no basis for
much traffic between us. They want none of our pro
ductions, and we could afford to purchase very few of
theirs. Of these opinions, both his and mine, time must
be the test."

This kind of reasoning appeared painfully cold
by the side of Clay's glowing periods. But it must
be confessed that Adams's prognostications have
in the main stood the test of time far better than
Clay's. It seems that Clay then did not command
sufficient information to answer such arguments,
for we find it recorded that when Adams had fin
ished his lecture, Clay " did not pursue the discus-
sion." Neither would he, at that moment, have

JN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. 171

believed the prediction, if anybody had made it,
that only four years later he and Adams, as mem
bers of the same administration, would bear a com
mon responsibility and suffer the same reproach
for a common policy friendly to the Spanish
American republics.

At any rate a popular vein had been struck by
his speeches in behalf of a foreign people. But
he strengthened his reputation and political stand
ing more substantially by his efforts to avert a
danger which threatened the disruption of his own
country.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE.

ON March 6, 1818, a petition was presented in
the House of Representatives praying that Mis
souri be admitted as a state. A bill authorizing
the people of Missouri to form a state government
was taken up in the House on February 13, 1819,
and Tallmadge of New York moved as an amend
ment, that the further introduction of slavery
should be prohibited, and that all children born
within the said state should be free at the age of
twenty -five years. Thus began the struggle on
the slavery question in connection with the admis
sion of Missouri, which lasted, intermittently, until
March, 1821.

No sooner had the debate on Tallmadge's pro
position begun than it became clear that the philo
sophical anti-slavery sentiment of the revolution
ary period had entirely ceased to have any influence
upon current thought in the South. The aboli
tion of the foreign slave - trade had not, as had
been hoped, prepared the way for the abolition
of slavery or weakened the slave interest in any
sense. On the contrary, slavery had been im
mensely strengthened by an economic development

THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE. 173

making it more profitable than it ever had been
before. The invention of the cotton gin by Eli
Whitney in 1793 had made the culture of cotton
a very productive source of wealth. In 1800
the exportation of cotton from the United States
was 19,000,000 pounds, valued at 15,700,000. In
1820 the value of the cotton export was nearly
$20,000,000, almost all of it the product of slave
labor. The value of slaves may be said to have
at least trebled in twenty years. The breeding of
slaves became a profitable industry. Under such
circumstances the slave-holders arrived at the con
clusion that slavery was by no means so wicked
and hurtful an institution as their revolutionary
fathers had thought it to be. The anti-slavery
professions of the revolutionary time became to
them an awkward reminiscence, which they would
have been glad to wipe from their own and other
people's memories.

On the other hand, in the Northern States there
was no such change of feeling. Slavery was still,
in the nature of things, believed to be a wrong and
a sore. The change of sentiment in the South had
not yet produced its reflex in the North. The
slavery question had not become a subject of dif
ference of opinion and of controversy among the
Northern people. As they had abolished slavery
in their states, so they took it for granted that it
ought to disappear, and would disappear in time,
everywhere else. Slavery had indeed, now and
then, asserted itself in the discussions of Congress

174 HENRY CLAY.

as a distinct interest, but not in such a way as to
arouse much alarm in the Free States. The amend
ment to the Missouri bill, providing for a restric
tion with regard to slavery, came therefore in a
perfectly natural way from that Northern senti
ment which remained still faithful to the traditions
of the revolutionary period. And it was a great
surprise to most Northern people that so natural a
proposition should be so fiercely resisted on the part
of the South. It was the sudden revelation of a
change of feeling in the South which the North
had not observed in its progress. " The discus
sion of this Missouri question has betrayed the
secret of their souls," wrote John Quincy Adams.
The slave-holders watched with apprehension the
steady growth of the Free States in population,
wealth, and power. In 1790 the population of
the two sections had been nearly even. In 1820
there was a difference of over 600,000 in favor of
the North in a total of less than ten millions. In
1790 the representation of the two sections in
Congress had been about evenly balanced. In
1820 the census promised to give the North a pre
ponderance of more than thirty votes in the House
of Representatives. As the slave-holders had no
longer the ultimate extinction, but now the per
petuation, of slavery in view, the question of sec
tional power became one of first importance to
them, and with it the necessity of having more
Slave States for the purpose of maintaining the
political equilibrium at least in the Senate. A

THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE. 175

struggle for more Slave States was to them a
struggle for life. This was the true significance
of the Missouri question.

The debate was the prototype of all the slavery
debates which followed in the forty years to the
breaking out of the civil war. One side offered
the constitutional argument that any restriction as
to slavery in the admission of a new state would
nullify one of the most essential attributes of state
sovereignty and break the " Federal compact ; " the
moral argument that negro slavery was the most
beneficial condition for the colored race in this
country, and for the white race too, so long as the
two races must live together ; and the economic
argument that negro slavery was necessary to the
material prosperity of the Southern States, as
white men could not work in the cotton and rice
fields. The other side offered the constitutional
argument that slavery was not directly recognized
by the Constitution itself ; that the power of the
general government to exclude slavery from the
territories had always been recognized, and that,
in admitting a new state, conditions of admission
could be imposed upon it ; the moral argument
that slavery was a great wrong in itself, and that
in its effects it demoralized the whites together
with the blacks ; and the economic argument that,
wherever it went, it degraded labor, paralyzed
enterprise and progress, and greatly injured the
general interest.

No debate on slavery had ever so stirred the

176 HENRY CLAY.

passions to the point of open defiance. The disso«
lution of the Union, civil war, and streams of blood
were freely threatened by Southern men, while
some anti-slavery men declared themselves ready to
accept all these calamities rather than the spread
of slavery over the territories yet free from it.
Neither was the excitement confined to the halls of
Congress. As the reports of the speeches made
there went over the land, the people were pro
foundly astonished and alarmed. The presence of
a great danger, and a danger, too, springing from
an inherent antagonism in the institutions of the
country, suddenly flashed upon their minds. They
experienced something like a first violent shock
of earthquake, making them feel that the ground
under their very feet was at the mercy of volcanic
forces. It is true, wise men had foretold some
thing like this, but actual experience was far more
impressive than the mere prediction had been.
Resolutions earnestly demanding the exclusion of
slavery from Missouri were passed by one after
another of the Northern legislatures except those
of New England, where, however, the same senti
ment found vigorous expression in numerous me
morials from cities and towns. Of the slave-hold
ing states, one, Delaware, spoke through a unani
mous resolve of its legislature in the same sense ;
and even in Baltimore a public meeting protested
against the extension of slavery. But beyond these
points no anti-slavery sentiment made itself heard
in the South. The legislatures of Virginia and

THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE. 177

Kentucky pronounced loudly for the admission of
Missouri with slavery, and the Maryland legisla
ture joined them. Public sentiment in the other
Slave States spoke out with equal emphasis. Thus
the country found itself divided geographically
upon a question of vital importance.

On February 16, 1819, the House of Eepresen-
tatives adopted the amendment restricting slavery,
and thus passed the Missouri bill. But the Sen
ate, eleven days afterwards, struck out the anti-
slavery provision and sent the bill back to the
House. A bill was then passed organizing the
Territory of Arkansas, an amendment moved by
Taylor of New York prohibiting the further intro
duction of slavery there having been voted down.
Clay had opposed that amendment in a speech and
thrown the casting vote of the Speaker adversely
to it on a motion to reconsider. Thus slavery was
virtually fastened on Arkansas. But the Mis
souri bill failed in the fifteenth Congress. The
popular excitement steadily increased.

The sixteenth Congress met in December, 1819.
In the Senate the admission of Missouri with slav
ery was coupled with the admission of Maine, on
the balance-of-power principle that one free state
and one slave state should always be admitted at
the same time. An amendment was moved abso
lutely prohibiting slavery in Missouri, but it was
voted down. Then Mr. Thomas, a Senator from
Illinois, on January 18, 1820, proposed that no re
striction as to slavery be imposed upon Missouri in

12

178 HENRY CLAY.

framing a state constitution, but that in all the rest
of the country ceded by France to the United States
north of 36° 30', this being the southern boundary
line of Missouri, there should be neither slavery
nor involuntary servitude. This was the essence
of the famous Missouri Compromise, and after long
and acrimonious debates and several more votes in
the House for restriction and in the Senate against
it, this compromise was adopted. By it the slave
power obtained the present tangible object it con
tended for ; free labor won a contingent advantage
in the future. The South was strongly bound to
gether by a material interest ; it obeyed a common
impulse and an intolerant will, presenting a solid
and determined front. The Northern anti-slavery
men were held together, not by a well understood
common interest, but by a sentiment ; and as this
sentiment was stronger or weaker in different in
dividuals, they would stand firm or yield to the
entreaties or threats of the Southern men. Thus
the bargain was accomplished.

Clay has been widely credited with being the
" father " of the Missouri Compromise. As to the
main features of the measure this credit he did
not deserve. So far he had taken a prominent but
not an originating part in the transaction. His
leadership in disposing of the Missouri question
belonged to a later stage of the proceeding. But
the part he had so far taken appeared to be little
in accord with his early anti-slavery professions.
The speeches he made in the course of these de»

THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE. 179

bates, among them one of four hours, have never
been reported. But some of the things he said we
can gather from the speeches of those who replied
to him. Thus we find that he most strenuously
opposed the exclusion of slavery from Missouri,
and any interference with it ; we find him asserting
that Congress had no right whatever to prescribe
conditions to newly organized states in any way
restricting their " sovereign rights ; " we find him
sneering at the advocates of slavery-restriction as
afflicted with " negrophobia ; " we find him pathet
ically, in the name of humanity, excusing the ex
tension of slavery as apt to improve the condition
of the negro, and advancing the argument that the
evils of slavery might be cured by spreading it ;
we find him provoking a reply like the following
from Taylor of New York : —

"It [labor] is considered low and unfit for freemen.
I cannot better illustrate this truth than by referring to
a remark of the honorable gentleman from Kentucky
[Mr. Clay]. I have often admired the liberality of his
sentiments. He is governed by no vulgar prejudices ;
yet with what abhorrence did he speak of the perform
ance, by your wives and daughters, of those domestic
offices which he was pleased to call servile ! What
comparison did he make of the " black slaves " of
Kentucky arid the " white slaves " of the North ;
and how instantly did he strike a balance in favor
of the condition of the former ! If such opinions and
expressions, even in the ardor of debate, can fall from
that honorable gentleman, what ideas do you suppose
are entertained of laboring men by the majority of
slave-holders ! "

180 HENRY CLAY.

We find him arguing that the provision of the
Constitution, " The citizens of each state shall be
entitled to all the privileges and immunities of cit
izens in the several states," would be violated by
the restriction to be imposed on Missouri as to
slavery.

The compromise as proposed he supported heart
ily, and when the bill embodying it had passed we
find him resorting to a very sharp and question
able trick to save it from further interference.
The bill passed on March 2. On the morning of
March 3, John Randolph, having voted with the
majority, offered a motion that the vote be recon
sidered. Clay, as Speaker, promptly ruled the
motion out of order " until the ordinary business
of the morning, as prescribed by the rules of the
House, should be disposed of." The House went
on receiving and referring petitions. When peti
tions were called for from the members from Vir
ginia, Randolph moved " that the House retain in
their possession the Missouri bill until the period
should arrive when, according to the rules of the
House, a motion to reconsider should be in order."
Speaker Clay " declared this motion out of order
for the reason assigned on the first application
of Mr. Randolph on this day." When the morn
ing business was at last disposed of, Randolph
" moved the House now to reconsider their vote of
yesterday." Then Speaker Clay — so the record
runs — " having ascertained the fact, stated to
the House that the proceedings of the House on

THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE. 181

that bill yesterday had been communicated to the
Senate by the clerk, and that, the bill not being
in possession of the House, the motion to recon
sider could not be entertained." The bill had
been hurried up to the Senate while Speaker Clay
was ruling Randolph's motions out of order. It is
certain that a mere hint by the Speaker to the clerk
would have kept the bill in the House. It is also
probable, if not certain, that the first motion by
Randolph, being heard by the clerk, would have
had the same effect, had not that official received
a hint from the Speaker, that he desired the bill
to be hurried off, out of Randolph's reach. The
history of the House probably records no sharper
trick.

Thus it is clear that Clay, who at the beginning
of his public life had risked all his political pros
pects by advocating emancipation in Kentucky,
now not only favored a compromise admitting a
new slave state — some of the sincerest anti-slav
ery men did that — but in doing so used some of
the very arguments characteristic of those who had
wrorked themselves up to a belief in slavery as a
blessing and endeavored to strengthen and perpet
uate its rule.

Were these his real sentiments? Clay's con
duct with regard to the slavery question appears
singularly inconsistent. It is impossible to believe
that his condemnations of the system of slavery,
and his professions of hope that it would be extin
guished, were insincere. His feelings in this re-

182 HENRY CLAY.

spect would occasionally burst out in an unpre
meditated, unstudied, and unguarded way, as when,
at this same period, while the Missouri struggle was
going on in all its fury, he complimented the new
South American republics for having emancipated
their slaves. But the same man would advocate
" with great force," and " in a speech of consider
able length," a bill to facilitate the catching of
" fugitives from justice, and persons escaping from
the service of their masters." He would in the
Missouri struggle ugo with his section" in doing
what could be done at the time to secure the foot
hold of slavery in new states, and thus to facili
tate the growth of its power. It is a remarkable
circumstance at the same time that none of the
speeches he made on the pro-slavery side, although
they were mentioned in the record of the debates,
were reported, even in short outline. Did he sup
press them ? Did he dislike to see such arguments
in print coupled with his name ? We do not know.
We shall find more such puzzles in his career.

At the close of the session in May, 1820, Clay
announced to the House that he found himself
obliged to retire from public life for some time.
He had formed that resolution on account of the
embarrassed condition of his private affairs. He
had lost a large sum of money by indorsing the
obligations of a friend, and there was a rumor also,
whether true or not, that he had suffered heavily
at play. At any rate, his necessities must have
been pressing, for he strenuously urged with the

THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE. 183

President and the Secretary of State an old claim
for a " half -outfit," $ 4,500, due him as a commis
sioner of the United States in negotiating a com
mercial convention with Great Britain in 1815.
He returned to Kentucky with the hope of repair
ing his fortunes by industrious application to his
legal practice ; and at the meeting of the sixteenth
Congress for its second session, in November, 1820,
a letter from him was read to the House, in which,
"owing to imperious circumstances," he resigned
the office of Speaker, as he would not be able to
attend until after the Christmas holidays. In fact
he did not reach Washington until January 16,
1821. Then his services were urgently in demand.
The " Missouri question," which in the previous
session seemed to have been put to rest by the
compromise, had risen again in a new, unexpected,
and threatening form. The bill passed at the last
session had authorized the people of Missouri to
make a state constitution without any restriction
as to slavery. The formal admission of the state
was now to follow. But the Constitution with
which Missouri presented herself to Congress not
only recognized slavery as existing there ; it pro
vided also that it should be the duty of the legis
lature to pass such laws as would be necessary to
prevent free negroes or mulattoes from coming
into or settling in the state. This was more than
those Northern men who accepted the compromise
of the last session had bargained for. Not a few
of them, at heart profoundly dissatisfied with what

184 HENRY CLAY.

had been done, and whose scruples had been re
vived and strengthened by their contact with the
popular feeling at home, were ready to seize upon
this obnoxious clause in the state Constitution, to
reopen the whole question. A good many South
ern men, too, disliked the compromise, on account
of the exclusion of slavery from the territory north
of 36° 30'. The most prudent among them were
willing to yield a point on the questioned constitu
tional clause, rather than put in jeopardy the solid
advantage of the admission of Missouri as a slave
state. But the bulk of them were for insisting
upon the reception of the state without further con
dition. A few Southern extremists still thought
of upsetting the 36° 30' restriction. In the Senate,
Eaton of Tennessee offered to the resolution ad
mitting Missouri an amendment providing " that
nothing herein contained shall be so construed as
to give the assent of Congress to any provision of
the Constitution of Missouri, if any there be, that
contravenes the clause in the Constitution of the
United States that ' the citizens of each state shall
be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of
citizens in the several states," — the point being
that, as free persons of color were citizens in some
states, for example, Massachusetts, Vermont, and
New Hampshire, the proposed Constitution of Mis
souri deprived them in that state of the privileges
granted them by the federal Constitution. After
long and acrimonious debates, the resolution with
this amendment passed the Senate, on Decembei
12, 1820, by a majority of eight.

THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE. 185

In the House the struggle raged at the same time.
On November 23, Lowndes of South Carolina re
ported a resolution to admit Missouri, taking the
ground that, as Congress at the last session had
authorized the people of Missouri to form a state
constitution, Missouri had thereby been invested
with all the rights and attributes of a state, and all
those who in good faith respected the acts of the
government would now vote for the formal admis
sion of Missouri as a matter of course. This \vas
vigorously combated by John Sergeant of Pennsyl
vania, a staunch opponent of slavery, and a man of
fine ability and high character, whom we shall meet
again in political companionship with Clay under
interesting circumstances. He stoutly maintained
that Congress, when authorizing the people of Mis
souri to form a constitution, had not parted with
the power of looking into that constitution to see
whether it conformed to the prescribed conditions.
The debate then ranged again over the whole sla
very question, growing hotter as it went on, and
finally the resolution admitting Missouri was, on
December 13, rejected by a majority of fourteen.
The excitement which followed was intense. When
the vote was announced, Lowndes rose and solemnly
called upon the House to take measures for the pre
servation of peace in Missouri. The apprehension
that the fate of the Union trembled in the balance
was again freely expressed. Six weeks later, on
January 24, a resolution offered by Eustis of Mas
sachusetts, to admit Missouri on condition that

186 HENRY CLAY.

she expunge from her Constitution the provision
discriminating against free persons of color, was
taken up for consideration. It was voted down by
146 yeas to 6 nays. When the vote had been
announced, there was a pause in the proceedings.
The deadlock seemed complete. A feeling of help
lessness appeared to pervade the House. It was
then that Clay, who had arrived a week before,
took the matter in hand. Breaking the silence
which prevailed, he rose and said that, if no other
gentleman made any motion on the subject, " he
should on the day after to-morrow move to go into
committee of the whole to take into considera
tion the resolution from the Senate on the subject
of Missouri."

He did so on January 29. He declared himself
ready to vote for the senate resolution even with
the proviso it contained, although he did not deem
that proviso necessary. The speeches he delivered
on this occasion were again left unreported, but
their arguments appear in the replies they called
forth. Admitting that the clause in the Missouri
Constitution respecting free persons of color was
incompatible with the Constitution of the United
States, this circumstance could not, he argued, be
an objection to the admission of Missouri as a
state of the Union, because the legislators of Mis
souri would be bound by their oaths to support the
federal Constitution, and would, therefore, never
make any law obnoxious to it. The weakness of
this argument did not escape the attention of his

THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE. 187

audience. But, he said, if the Missouri legisla
ture should enact any law in pursuance of the
obnoxious clause in their Constitution, it would be
declared void by the courts of the United States.
However, he added, a limitation or restriction upon
the power of the legislature of Missouri might be
imposed by adding to the senate resolution a pro
vision, that no law should be enacted, under the
obnoxious clause of the state Constitution, affecting
the rights of citizens of other states. Thus he ar
gued on both sides of the question, trying to con
ciliate the good-will of all, at the same time ad
dressing to them the most fervid appeals to unite
in a spirit of harmony, in order to save the country
from this dangerous quarrel which threatened the
disruption of the Union. But the peacemaker had
a complicated task before him. In order to unite,
he had to convince or move men who pursued the
most different objects, ranging from the absolute
exclusion of new slave states to the unconditional
admission of them. There were not a few also
who thought of postponing the whole subject to
the meeting of the next Congress. Several amend
ments to the senate resolution were moved, but all
were voted down. Nothing was found on which
a majority could be united. The perplexity and
excitement increased. Then, as a last expedient,
Clay moved to refer the senate resolution to a
special committee of thirteen members. This was
agreed to, and Clay was put at the head of the
committee.

188 HENRY CLAY.

On February 10 he brought in a report, which
was rather an appeal than an argument. " Your
committee believe that all must ardently unite in
wishing an amicable termination of a question,
which, if it be longer kept open, cannot fail to
produce, and possibly to perpetuate, prejudices and
animosities among a people to whom the conserva
tion of their moral ties should be even dearer, if
possible, than that of their political bond." The
committee then proposed a resolution to admit Mis
souri into the Union " on an equal footing with the
original states in all respects whatever, upon the
fundamental condition that the said state shall
never pass any law preventing any description of
persons from coming to and settling in the said
state who now are, or hereafter may become, citi
zens of any of the states of this Union." This
was to satisfy the Northern people. The resolu
tion provided further that, as soon as the Missouri
legislature should, by solemn public act, have de
clared the assent of the state to this fundamental
condition, the President should by proclamation
announce the fact, whereupon the admission of the
state should be considered complete. This was to
prevent further trouble in Congress. Finally the
resolution declared that nothing contained in it
should " be construed to take from the said state
of Missouri, when admitted into this Union, the
exercise of any right or power which can now be
constitutionally exercised by any of the original
states." This was to conciliate the extreme state-

THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE. 189

sovereignty men. " Thus consulting the opinions
of both sides of the House," he said in opening
the debate, " in that spirit of compromise which is
occasionally necessary to the existence of all soci
eties, he hoped it would receive the countenance
of the House." He concluded by " earnestly in
voking the spirit of harmony and kindred feeling
to preside over the deliberations of the House on
the subject." But this appeal still failed. After
a heated debate the resolution was voted down in
committee of the whole by a majority of nine, in
the House by a majority of three, and upon recon
sideration by a majority of six. Among the yeas
there were but few Northern, among the nays only
four Southern votes, and these were extremists of
the John Randolph type. This was on February
13. There were not many days of the session
left. The situation became more and more critical
and threatening.

On February 14 the electoral vote was to be
counted, Monroe having in the preceding autumn
been reflected President. The people of Mis
souri had chosen electors. The question occurred,
should their votes be counted ? Some Southern
members hotly maintained that Missouri was of
right a state. Northern men asserted with equal
warmth that she was only a territory, having no
right to take part in a presidential election. The
Missouri quarrel threatened to invade, and perhaps
to break up in disorder, the joint convention of
the two Houses sitting to count the electoral vote.

190 HENRY CLAY.

The danger was averted by skillful management.
Clay reported, from the joint committee to which
the matter had been referred, a resolution " that,
if any objection be made to the votes of Missouri,
and the counting or omitting to count which shall
not essentially change the result of the election, —
in that case they shall be reported by the President
of the Senate in the following manner : Were
the votes of Missouri to be counted, the result
would be, for A. B. for President of the United

States, votes; if not counted, for A. B. as

President of the United States, votes ; but in

either case A. B. is elected President : and in the
same manner for Vice-President." This resolution
was adopted and served its purpose. Fortunately
the three electoral votes of Missouri were of no
practical importance, Monroe having received all
the votes but one, and Tompkins, for Vice-Presi
dent, a very large majority.

But as soon as Missouri was reached in the
electoral count, objection was made by a Northern
member to the counting of her votes, on the
ground that she was not a state of the Union.
The Senate then withdrew, and the House having
been called to order, Floyd of Virginia moved a
resolution that Missouri was a state of the Union,
and that her vote should be counted. He thought
he had now forced the issue, so that it could
not be avoided. " Let us know," he exclaimed
in closing his speech, " whether Missouri be a
state of the Union or not. Sir, we cannot take

THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE. 191

another step without hurling this government into
the gulf of destruction. For one, I say I have
gone as far as I can go in the way of compromise ;
and if there is to be a compromise beyond that
point, it must be at the edge of the sword." After
some more speaking in a similar vein, mainly by
John Randolph, Clay rose to pour oil on the
troubled waters. He calmly reminded the House
of the fact that a resolution had been adopted
covering the treatment of the vote of Missouri, to
bridge over the very difficulty now presenting it
self. He therefore moved that Floyd's resolution
be laid on the table, which was done by a large
majority. The Senate then was invited to return,
and the counting of the electoral vote proceeded to
the end. When the result was to be announced,
Randolph and Floyd tried once more to interpose,
but were ruled out of order ; the President of the
Senate finished his announcement, and the act of
vote-counting was happily concluded.

But after all this, the Missouri question seemed
to be no nearer its solution. As the end of the
session approached, the excitement rose and spread.
Some attempts were made in the Senate and the
House to find a basis of agreement, but without
avail. Then, as a last resort, Clay moved the ap
pointment of a committee, together with a similar
committee to be appointed by the Senate, to con
sider and report " whether it be expedient or not
to make provision for the admission of Missouri
into the Union, and for the execution of the laws

192 HENRY CLAY.

of the United States within Missouri ; and if not,
whether any other and what provision, adapted to
her condition, ought to be made by law." This
was adopted by 101 yeas to 55 nays. The com
mittee was to consist of twenty-three members, the
number of the states then in the Union. Although
it was to be elected by ballot, Clay was by tacit
consent permitted to draw up a list to be voted for.
The Senate elected a committee of seven to join
the twenty-three of the House. On February 28
Clay reported a resolution, the same in effect as
that which he had previously reported from his
committee of thirteen, and in introducing it he said
that the committee on the part of the Senate was
unanimously in its favor, and that on the part of
the House nearly so. After a short debate the
resolution was adopted by 86 yeas to 82 nays.
The bulk of the Northern vote went against it ; of
the Southerners, only a few extreme men under
Randolph's lead. The resolution passed the Senate
likewise. Missouri promptly complied with the
fundamental condition, and thus the struggle which
had so violently agitated Congress and the country
came to an end.

It was generally admitted that this final accom
modation was mainly due to Clay's zeal, persever
ance, skill, and the moving warmth of his personal
appeals. He did not confine himself to speeches
addressed to the House, but he went from man to
man, expostulating, beseeching, persuading, in his
most winning way. Even his opponents in de-

TEE MISSOURI COMPROMISE. 193

bate acknowledged, involuntarily sometimes, the
impressive sincerity of his anxious entreaties.
What helped him in gaining over the number of
votes necessary to form a majority was the grow
ing fear that this quarrel would break up the
ruling party, and lead to the forming of new divi
sions. His success added greatly to his reputation
and gave new strength to his influence. Adams
wrote in his journal that one of " the greatest re
sults of this conflict of three sessions " was " to
bring into full display the talents and resources
and influence of Mr. Clay." In newspapers and
speeches he was praised as " the great pacificator."
As a measure of temporary pacification the com
promise could not indeed have been more success
ful. Only a short time before its accomplishment
the aged Jefferson, from his retreat at Monticello,
had sent forth a cry of alarm in a private letter,
which soon became public : " The Missouri question
is the most portentous one that ever threatened the
Union. In the gloomiest moments of the Revo
lutionary War I never had any apprehension equal
to that I feel from this source." No sooner had
the compromise passed than the excitement, and
anxiety subsided. With that singular careless
ness, that elasticity of temper, which is character
istic of the American, the danger, of which the
shock of earthquake had warned him, was forgot
ten. The public mind turned at once to things of
more hopeful interest, and the Union seemed safer
than ever.

13

194 HENRY CLAY.

The American people have since become pain
fully aware that this was a delusion ; and the ques
tion has often been asked whether, in view of
what came afterwards, those who accommodated
the Missouri quarrel really did a good service to
their country. It is an interesting question. The
compromise had in fact settled only two points :
the admission of Missouri as a slave state ; and
the recognition of the right of slavery to go, if the
settlers there wanted it, into the territory belong
ing to the Louisiana purchase south of 36° 30 '.
It was practically so recognized in the newly or
ganized territory of Arkansas. So far, the com
promise directly and substantially strengthened
the slave interest. On the other hand, the slave
interest had, in order to secure these advantages,
been compelled to acquiesce in two constitutional
doctrines : that Congress had the power to exclude
slavery from the territories of the United States,
and that the admission of new states could be
made subject to conditions. But these points,
especially the first one, were yielded only for the
occasion, and might be withdrawn when the inter
ests of slavery should demand that the territory
north of 36° 30' be opened to its invasion, as act
ually happened some thirty-four years later in the
case of Kansas.

The compromise had another sinister feature,
The anti-slavery sentiment in the North, invoked
by the Missouri controversy, was no doubt strong
and sincere. The South threatened the dissolution

THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE. 195

of the Union ; and, frightened by that threat, a
sufficient number of Northern men were found
willing to acquiesce, substantially, in the demands
of the South. Thus the slave power learned the
weak spot in the anti-slavery armor. It was likely
to avail itself of that knowledge, to carry further
points by similar threats, and to familiarize itself
more and more with the idea that the dissolution
of the Union would really be a royal remedy for
all its complaints.

Would it not have been better statesmanship,
then, to force the Missouri question to a straight
issue at any risk, rather than compromise it ?

It was certain that the final struggle between
slavery and free labor would ultimately come, and
also that then, as slavery was an institution utterly
abhorrent to the spirit of modern civilization, it
would at last be overcome by that spirit and
perish. The danger was that in its struggle for
life slavery might destroy the Union and free in
stitutions in America. The question, therefore,
which the statesmanship of the time had to con
sider was, which would be the safer policy, — to
resist the demands of the South at any risk, or to
tide over the difficulty until it might be fought out
under more favorable circumstances ?

Had the anti-slavery men in Congress, by un
yielding firmness., prevented the admission of Mis
souri as a slave state, thus shutting out all pros
pect of slavery extension, and had the South
then submitted, without attempting the dissolution

196 HENRY CLAY.

of the Union, the probability is that the slave
power would have lost hope, that emancipation
movements would have sprung up with renewed
strength, and that slavery would have gradually
declined and died. But would the South in
1820 have submitted without attempting dissolu
tion? There is good reason to believe that it
would not. The Union feeling had indeed been
greatly strengthened by the war of 1812, but it
had not grown strong enough in the South to com
mand the self-sacrifice of an interest which at that
time was elated by the anticipation of great wealth
and power. In New England all there was of
anti-Union sentiment had been crushed, but not so
in the South. The dissolution of the Union was
not then, in the popular imagination, such a mon
strous thing as it is now. The Union was still, in
some respects, regarded as an experiment ; and
when a great material interest found itself placed
at a disadvantage in the Union, it was apt to con
clude that the experiment had failed. To specu
late upon the advisability of dissolving the Union
did not then appear to the popular mind politically
treasonable and morally heinous.

That the dissolution of the Union was freely
discussed among the Southern members of the
Sixteenth Congress is certain. James Barbour of
Virginia, a man of very high character, was re
ported to be canvassing the free-state members as
to the practicability of a convention of the states
to dissolve the Union, and to make arrangements

TEE MISSOURI COMPROMISE. 197

for distributing its assets and liabilities. At one
period during the Missouri struggle, the Southern
members seriously contemplated withdrawing from
Congress in a body ; and John Randolph, although
he had not been for some time on speaking terms
with Clay, one evening approached him, saying:
" Mr. Speaker, I wish you would leave the chair.
I will follow you to Kentucky, or anywhere else in
the world." " That is a very serious proposition,"
answered Clay, " which we have not now time to
discuss. But if you will come into the Speaker's
room to-morrow morning, before the House as
sembles, we will discuss it together." They met.
Clay strongly advised against anything like seces
sion, and in favor of a compromise, while Ran
dolph was for immediate and decisive action. The
slave-holders, he said, had the right on their side ;
matters must come to an extremity, and there
could be no more suitable occasion to bring them
to that issue.

The secession of the Southern delegations from
Congress did indeed not come to pass ; it was pre
vented by the compromise. But Clay himself,
when the excitement was at its height, gloomily
expressed his apprehension that in a few years
the Union would be divided into three confeder
ations, — a Southern, an Eastern, and a Western.

While thus the thought of dissolving the Union
occurred readily to the Southern mind, the thought
of maintaining the government and preserving the
Union by means of force hardly occurred to any-

198 HENRY CLAY.

body. It seemed to be taken for granted on all
sides that, if the Southern States insisted upon cut
ting loose from the Union, nothing could be done
but to let them go. It is true there was talk
enough about swords and blood ; but the wars were
expected to turn upon questions of boundary and
the like, after dissolution, not upon the right of
states to go out. Even such a man as John Quincy
Adams, not only an anti-slavery man but a states
man always inclining to strong measures, approved
of the compromise as " all that could be effected
under the present Constitution, and from extreme
unwillingness to put the Union at hazard ; " and
then wrote in addition : " But perhaps it would
have been a wiser as well as a bolder course to
have persisted in the restriction upon Missouri, till
it should have terminated in a convention of the
states to revise and amend the Constitution. This
would have produced a new Union of thirteen or
fourteen states unpolluted with slavery, with a
great and glorious object to effect, — namely, that
of rallying to their standard the other states by
the universal emancipation of their slaves. If the
Union must be dissolved, slavery is precisely the
question upon which it ought to break." Thus
even this patriotic statesman thought rather of
separating in order to meet again in a purer con
dition of existence — a remarkably fantastic plan
• — than of denying the right of secession, and of
maintaining by a vigorous exertion of power the
government of which he was a leading member,

THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE. 199

and the Union of which his father had been one
of the principal founders. It must be admitted
also that, while the North was superior to the South
in population and means at that period, yet the
disproportion was not yet large enough to make
the maintenance of the Union by force a promis
ing task.

An attempt by the South, or by the larger part
of it, to dissolve the Union would therefore, at that
time, have been likely to succeed. There would
probably have been no armed collision about the
dissolution itself, but a prospect of complicated
quarrels and wars afterwards about the property
formerly held in common, and perhaps about other
matters of disagreement. A reunion might pos
sibly have followed after a sad experience of sepa
ration. But that result would have had to be
evolved from long and confused conflicts, and the
future would at best have been dark and uncer
tain. Even in the event of reunion, the fatal
principle of secession at will, once recognized,
would have passed into the new arrangement.

In view of all this, it seemed good statesmanship
to hold the Union together by a compromise, and
to adjourn the final and decisive struggle on the
slavery question to a time when the Union feeling
should be strong and determined enough to main
tain the integrity of the Republic, if necessary, by
force of arms, and when the Free States should be
so superior in men and means to the slave-holding
section as to make the result certain.

200 HENRY CLAY.

That this train of reasoning was Clay's conscious
motive in doing what he did will not be asserted.
It is more likely that he simply followed his instinct
as a devoted friend of the Union, leaving for the
moment all other interests out of view. Although
he had not originated the main part of the com
promise, having exercised decisive influence only
at the close of the controversy, yet, by common
consent, he carried off the honors of the occasion.
As the peculiar brilliancy of the abilities he pos
sessed, his involuntary showiness, made him always
the most conspicuous figure whenever he appeared
in a parliamentary contest, so he had impressed
himself in this instance upon the popular mind as
the leading actor in the drama. He retired, there
fore, to private life with a larger stock of popular
ity than he had ever possessed. What he had lost
by the appearance of captiousness in his opposition
to Monroe's administration was now amply re
trieved by the great patriotic service rendered in
bringing a very dangerous controversy to what was
considered a happy conclusion. It is interesting
to hear the judgment passed upon him at that pe
riod by another public man of high distinction.
After a visit he had received from Clay, John
Quiney Adams delivered himself in his Diary as
follows : —

" Clay is an eloquent man, with very popular man
ners and great political management. He is, like almost
all the eminent men of this country, only half educated.
His school has been the world, and in that he is profi-

THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE. 201

cient. His morals, public and private, are loose, but he
has all the virtues indispensable to a popular man. As
he is the first distinguished man that the Western coun
try has presented as a statesman to the Union, they are
profoundly proud of him. Clay's temper is impetuous
and his ambition impatient. He has long since marked
me as the principal rival in his way, and has taken no
more pains to disguise his hostility than was necessary
for decorum, and to avoid shocking the public opinion.
His future fortunes and mine are in wiser hands than
ours. I have never even defensively repelled his
attacks. Clay has large and liberal views of public
affairs, and that sort of generosity which attaches indi
viduals to his person. As President of the Union, his
administration would be a perpetual succession of in
trigue and management with the legislature. It would
also be sectional in its spirit, and sacrifice all interests
to those of the Western country and the slave-holders.
But his principles relative to internal improvements
would produce results honorable and useful to the
nation."

This was not the judgment of a friend, but of a
man always inclined to be censorious, and, when
stung by conflicts of opinion, uncharitable. It was
the judgment, too, of a rival in the race for the
presidency, — a rival careful to admit to himself
the strong qualities of the adversary, while dwell
ing with some satisfaction upon his weak points.
When speaking of Clay's " loose " public morals,
Adams can have meant only the apparently factious
opposition to Monroe's administration, and his re
sort to tricky expedients in carrying his points in

202 HENRY CLAY.

the House. He cannot have meant anything like
the use of official power and opportunities for pri
vate pecuniary advantage, for in this respect Clay's
character was and remained above reproach. No
species of corruption stained his name. Neither
could Clay be justly charged with a sectional
spirit. His feelings were, on the contrary, as
largely and thoroughly national as those of any
statesman of his time. Although he had at first
spoken the language of the slave-holder in the Mis
souri debate, it could certainly not be said that he
was willing to " sacrifice all interests to those of

o

the slave-holders." He would have stood by the
Union against them at all hazards, and his tariff
and internal improvement policy soon became ob
noxious to them. But, barring these points, Ad
ams's judgment was not far astray. In the course
of this narration we shall find more opinions of
Adams on Clay, expressed at a time when the two
men had learned to understand each other better.

When Clay left Washington, his professional
prospects were very promising. The Bank of the
United States engaged him, upon liberal terms, as
its standing counsel in Ohio and Kentucky. He
expected his practice to retrieve his fortunes in
three or four years, and to enable him then to
return to the service of the country.

CHAPTER IX.

CANDIDATE FOR THE PEESIDENCY.

CLAY'S retirement was not of long duration.
The people of Kentucky were then passing through
the last stages of a confused excitement caused by
a popular delusion that riches can be created and
happiness acquired by a plentiful issue of paper
money and an artificial inflation of prices. The
consequence was what it always is. The more
plenty the paper money became, the more people
ran into debt. They then sought " relief " by leg
islative contrivances in favor of debtors, which
caused a political division into the "relief" and
the " anti-relief " parties. The " relief measures "
came before the highest state court, which declared
them unconstitutional ; whereupon the court was
abolished and a new one created, and this brought
forth the "old court" and the "new court" parties
in Kentucky. The whole story is told with admir
able clearness in Professor Sunmer's biography of
Andrew Jackson. In these fierce controversies,
Clay took position as an advocate of good sense,
honesty, and sound principles of finance, some
times against a current of popular feeling which
seemed to be overwhelming. He made enemies

204 HENRY CLAY.

in that way from whom he was to hear in later
years; but, on the whole, his popularity weathered
the storrn. Without opposition, he was elected to
represent his faithful Lexington district in the
House of Representatives of the eighteenth Con
gress, which met on the first Monday in December,
1823. During his absence from the House there
had been contest enough about the speakership-
But as soon as he appeared again, an overwhelm
ing majority of the members gathered around him,
and he was elected Speaker by 139 to 42, the
minority voting for Philip P. Barbour of Virginia,
who had been Speaker during the seventeenth
Congress.

This was the session preceding the presidential
election of 1824, and Clay was a confessed candi
date for the succession to Monroe. His friends in
Kentucky — or, as many would have it, the people
of Kentucky — were warm and loud in their ad
vocacy of his "claims." His achievement as "the
great pacificator" had much increased his popu
larity in other states. His conduct in the House
was likely to have some effect upon his chances,
and to be observed with extraordinary interest*
The first thing he did was to take the unpopular
side of a question appealing in an unusual degree
to patriotic emotion and human sympathy. He
opposed a bill granting a pension to the mother of
Commodore Perry, the hero of Lake Erie. The
death of her illustrious son had left the old matron
in needy circumstances. The debate ran largely

CANDIDATE FOR THE PRESIDENCY. 205

upon the great services rendered to the country by
Commodore Perry in the days of great public dan
ger and distress ; and, by way of contrast, on the
sorrows and cares of the bereft mother. The elo
quence expended upon these points had been formi
dable, threatening with the contempt of the Ameri
can people those who dared to " go back to their
constituents " to tell them " that they had turned
from their door, in the evening of a long life, the
aged and venerable mother of the gallant Perry,
and doomed her to the charity of the world." It
looked like a serious matter for any presidential
candidate who naturally desired to be popular with
people of tender sensibilities and patriotic feelings,
and who had also to look after the soldier and sailor
vote. Of this aspect of the case, however, Clay did
not seem to think. He calmly argued that this
case, however great the sympathy it deserved, did
not fall within the principles of the pension laws,
since Commodore Perry had not died of injuries
received in the service ; that the principle of the
law had already been overstepped in granting a
pension to his widow and children ; that there must
be a limit to gratitude at the public expense for
military and naval service ; that he saw no reason
why the services of the warrior should be held in so
much higher esteem than the sometimes even more
valuable services of the civil officer of the Repub
lic, and so on. His apprehension concerning the
superiority in popular favor of military glory over
civil merit, he was to find strikingly confirmed by

206 HENRY CLAY.

his own experience. Evidently this candidate for
the presidency still had opinions of his own and
courage to express them. It was not by the small
tricks of the demagogue, but rather by a strong
advocacy of the policies he believed in, that he
hoped to commend himself to the confidence of the
people. So we find him soon engaged in a hot
debate on internal improvements.

In May, 1822, Monroe had vetoed a bill to estab
lish tollgates on the Cumberland Road, and on the
same occasion submitted to Congress an elaborate
statement supporting his belief that the practical
execution of works of internal improvement by the
general government was unwarranted by the Con
stitution, admitting however the power of Congress
under the Constitution to grant and appropriate
money in aid of works of internal improvement to
be executed by others. In January, 1824, a bill
was reported authorizing the President to cause the
necessary surveys, plans, and estimates to be made
for such a system of roads and canals as he might
deem of national importance in a postal, commer
cial, or military point of view. For this purpose
the bill proposed an appropriation of $30,000.
The debate turned mainly on the point of constitu
tional power, and in his most dashing style Clay
attacked Monroe's constitutional doctrines, stop
ping but little short of ridicule, and pronounced
himself again in favor of the most liberal con
struction of the fundamental law. In the power
" to establish " post roads, he easily found the

CANDIDATE FOR THE PRESIDENCY. 207

power to build roads and to keep them in repair.
The power to " regulate commerce among the sev
eral states " had to his mind little meaning, if it
did not imply " authority to foster " inter - state
commerce, " to promote it, to bestow on it facilities
similar to those which had been conceded to our
foreign trade." To him, this involved unquestion
ably the power to build canals. " All the powers
of this government," he argued, " should be inter
preted in reference to its first, its best, its greatest
object, the Union of these states. And is not that
Union best invigorated by an intimate social and
commercial connection between all the parts of the
confederacy?" He described the unsatisfied needs
of the great West in stirring terms, and then
opened once more that glorious perspective of the
great ocean-bound Republic which his ardent mind
was so fond of contemplating. " Sir," he ex
claimed, " it is a subject of peculiar delight to me
to look forward to the proud and happy period,
distant as it may be, when circulation and associa
tion between the Atlantic and the Pacific and the
Mexican Gulf shall be as free and perfect as they
are at this moment in England, and in any other,
the most highly improved country on the globe.
Sir, a new world has come into being since the
Constitution was adopted. Are the narrow, limited
necessities of the old thirteen States, indeed of
parts only of the old thirteen States as they existed
at the formation of the Constitution, forever to re
main a rule of its interpretation ? Are we to for-

208 HENRY CLAY.

get the wants of our country ? Are we to neglect
and refuse the redemption of that vast wilderness
which once stretched unbroken beyond the Alle-
ghany ? I hope for better and nobler things ! "

These were captivating appeals, but they in
volved the largest of latitudinarian doctrines, —
namely, that the powers granted by the Constitu
tion must grow with the size of the country. The
bill passed the House by a handsome majority ; it
passed the Senate too, and Monroe signed it on
the ground that it provided merely for the collec
tion of information. It resulted in nothing beyond
the making of surveys for some roads and canals.
However, Clay had on the occasion of this debate
not only put the internal-improvement part of his
programme once more in the strongest form be
fore Congress and the people, but he had also man
aged to revive the memory of his opposition to the
Monroe administration.

Next came a plunge into the domain of foreign
politics. The rising of the Greeks against the
Turks was at that time occupying the attention
of civilized mankind. The Philhellenic fever, fed
partly by a genuine sympathy with a nation fight
ing for its freedom, partly by a classical interest
in the country of Leonid as, Phidias, and Plato,
swept over all Europe and America alike. In the
United States meetings were held, speeches made,
and resolutions passed, boiling over with enthusi
asm for the struggling Greeks. It is curious to
find even the cool-headed Gallatin, at that period

CANDIDATE FOR THE PRESIDENCY. 209

Minister of the United States in Paris, proposing
in a despatch (" as if he was serious," writes
Adams) that the government of the United States
should assist the Greeks with its naval force then
in the Mediterranean. Monroe expressed his sym
pathy with the Greeks in his message ; and Daniel
Webster, in January, 1824, in the House of Rep
resentatives presented a resolution to provide for
the sending of an agent or commissioner to Greece,
whenever the President should find it expedient.
This resolution he introduced by a speech not only
eulogizing the Greek cause, but also gravely and
elaborately arraigning the " Holy Alliance " as a
league of despotic governments against all popular
aspirations towards constitutional liberty.

A nation fighting for its freedom naturally called
Clay to the front. He not only supported Web
ster's motion, but remembering that the " Holy
Alliance," while it hung like a dark cloud over
Europe, also threatened to cast its shadow upon
these shores, he flung down the gauntlet by offer
ing a resolution of his own to be called up at some
future time. It declared that the American peo
ple " would not see without serious inquietude any
forcible interposition of the allied powers of Eu
rope in behalf of Spain, to reduce to their former
subjection those parts of America which have pro
claimed and established for themselves, respect
ively, independent governments, and which have
been solemnly recognized by the United States."

This was essentially in the spirit of the utter-

14

210 HENRY CLAY.

ances which had appeared at the opening of the
session in Monroe's message to Congress, and
which have since become celebrated as the Mon
roe doctrine. The message had been even a little
stronger in language. Referring to the difference
existing between the political system of the " allied
powers " in Europe, and that of the American re
publics, it declared that " we should consider any
attempt on their part to extend their system to any
portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace
and safety." Further, with regard to schemes sup
posed to be contemplated by the allied powers, for
interfering with the independence of the newly es
tablished Spanish American republics, it said that
the American people could not view such interpo
sition "in any other light than as the manifes
tation of an unfriendly disposition toward the
United States." Here, then, Clay found himself
in thorough accord with the Monroe administra
tion, whose master spirit in all that concerned
foreign affairs was John Quincy Adams. More
over, although his resolution did not touch it,
Clay certainly agreed with the other point of the
Monroe doctrine, " that the American continents,
by the free and independent condition which they
have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to
be considered as subjects for future colonization by
any European power."

But when he thrust his resolution into the de
bate on the Greek question, though with no inten-
tion of having it discussed immediately, there was

CANDIDATE FOR THE PRESIDENCY. 211

an evident flutter in the House. It was darkly,
shyly hinted at in several speeches as something
"extraordinary," something peculiarly calculated
to involve the United States in dangerous compli
cations with foreign powers. The consequence was
that Clay, irritated, broke out with a speech full
of fire but rather loose in argument. He predicted
that a " tremendous storm was ready to burst upon
our happy country," meaning a design on the part
of the " Holy Alliance" to subvert free institutions
in America ; he denounced as " low and debased "
those who did not " dare " to express their sympa
thies with suffering Greece ; and finally he defied
them to go home, if they " dared," to their constit
uents, to tell them that their representatives had
" shrunk from the declaration of their own senti
ments," just as he had been " dared " when oppos
ing the pension to Commodore Perry's mother.

Some members of the House resented such lan
guage, and a bitter altercation followed, especially
undesirable in the case of a candidate for the
presidency. Indeed, ambitious statesmen gifted
with oratorical temperaments, whose perorations
are apt to run away with their judgment, may
study this debate with profit, to observe some
things which it is well to avoid. Richard M.
Johnson of Kentucky, at the time one of Clay's
most ardent friends and backers for the presidency,
dolefully remarked after this debate that " Clay
was the most imprudent man in the world."

The resolution on the Greek cause was never

212 HENRY CLAY.

acted upon, and Clay's resolution concerning the
Spanish American republics never called up. We
shall see him return to that subject as the head of
the department of foreign affairs in the govern
ment of the United States.

Clay's most important oratorical effort at this
session, and indeed one of the most important of
his life, was brought forth by a debate on the
tariff. The country had gone through trying ex
periences during the last eight years. As we re
member, the tariff of 1816 had been enacted to
ward off the flood of cheap English goods which,
immediately after the close of the war of 1812,
were pouring into the country and underselling
American fabrics. That object, however, was not
accomplished, except in the case of cheap cotton
goods, which had the advantage of a " minimum "
provision : that all cotton fabrics invoiced at less
than twenty-five cents should be taken to have
cost that price at the place of exportation, and
should be taxed accordingly. The tariff did not
prevent the reaction naturally following the abnor
mally stimulated business and the inflated values
of war times. When prices rose, people ran into
debt in the hope of a still greater rise. Those
who made money became accustomed to more ex
pensive living. With the return of peace, the
expenditures of the government were contracted.
There was less demand for breadstuffs. Then
came currency troubles. The return to specie
payments in England, and the raising of the

CANDIDATE FOR THE PRESIDENCY. 213

Frencli indemnity, created an unusual demand for
the precious metals in Europe, which rendered
more difficult the reestablishment of specie pay
ments in America. The notes of the state banks
outside of New England were depreciated, and
these banks resisted the efforts of the Bank of the
United States toward general resumption. A
great tightness of money ensued. Times became
pinching. Prices, went down. A crisis broke out
in 1819. Many business failures followed. The
necessity of returning to more frugal ways of liv
ing was painfully felt. " Cheap money " theories
sprung up. The distress was greatest where the
local bank currency was most uncertain in its
value. The manufacturing interest suffered heav
ily, but the difficulties under which it labored were
only a part of those troubles always occurring when
the business enterprise of a country has, by abnor
mal circumstances or artificial means, been over-
stimulated in certain directions, and then has to
accommodate itself to entirely different conditions.
The process of natural recuperation had, however,
already begun, and that too on a solid basis, after
the elimination of the unsound elements of busi
ness. But the cry for " relief " was still kept up,
and a demand for " more protection " arose.

In 1818 the duty on iron was raised. In 1820
an attempt was made, and supported by Clay in
an eloquent speech, for a general revision of the
tariff, with a view to higher rates. The bill passed
the House, but failed in the Senate. Now, in

214 HENRY CLAY.

January, 1824, the Committee on Manufactures
reported to the House a bill which, in the way
of protecting the manufacturing industries, was to
accomplish what the tariff of 1816 had so signally
failed to do. The duties proposed were : 1, on
articles the importation of which would not inter
fere with home manufactures, such as silks, linens,
cutlery, spices, and some others, these being mere
revenue duties ; and 2, on iron, hemp, glass, lead,
wool and woolen goods, cotton goods, etc., these
being high protective duties.

Clay soon assumed the championship of the bill
in committee of the whole. The debate began
with a skirmish on details; but then the friends of
the bill forced a discussion on its general principles,
which lasted two months. This gave Clay one of
his great opportunities. He was now no longer
the Kentucky farmer pleading for hemp and home
spun, nor the cautious citizen anxious to have his
country make its own clothes and blankets in time
of war. He had developed into the full-blown
protectionist, intent upon using the power of the
government, so far as it would go, to multiply and
foster manufactures, not with commerce, but rather
in preference to commerce. His speech, one of
the most elaborate and effective he ever made, pre
sented in brilliant array the arguments which were
current among high-tariff men then, and which re
main so still. He opened with a harrowing de
scription of the prevailing distress, and among the
most significant symptoms of the dreadful condition

CANDIDATE FOR THE PRESIDENCY. 215

of things he counted " the ravenous pursuit after
public situations, not for the sake of their honors
and the performance of their public duties, but as
a means of private subsistence." "The pulse of in
cumbents," he said in his picturesque style, " who
happen to be taken ill, is not marked with more
anxiety by the attending physicians than by those
who desire to succeed them, though with very
opposite feelings." (To " make room " for one
man simply by removing another was at that time
not yet readily thought of.) The cause of the
prevailing distress he found in the dependence of
this country on the foreign market, which was at
the mercy of foreign interests, and which might
for an indefinite time be unable to absorb our
surplus of agricultural products ; and in too great
a dependence on foreign sources of supply. It
seemed to him necessary to provide a home mar
ket for our products, the superiority of which
would consist in its greater steadiness, in the cre
ation of reciprocal interests, in greater security,
and in an ultimate increase of consumption, and
consequently of comfort, owing to an increased
quantity of the product, and a reduction of prices
by home competition. To this end the develop
ment of manufacturing industries was required,
which could not be accomplished without high
protective, in some cases not without prohibitory,
tariff duties. No country had ever flourished with
out such a policy, and England especially was a
shining example of its wisdom. British statesman-

216 HENRY CLAY.

ship had therefore strictly adhered to it. A mem.
ber of Parliament remonstrating against the pas
sage of the corn-laws in favor of foreign production
would, he thought, make a poor figure.

This policy Clay now christened " the American
system." The opposite policy he denounced as
" the foreign policy." He then reviewed elab
orately one after another the objections urged
against the " American system," and closed with a
glowing appeal to the people of the planting states
to submit to the temporary loss which this policy
would bring upon them, since that loss would be
small in comparison with the distress which the
rest of the country would suffer without it.

This speech on the " American system" exhib
ited conspicuously Clay's strong as well as his
weak points : his skill of statement ; his inge
nuity in the grouping of facts and principles ; his
plausibility of reasoning ; his brilliant imagination ;
the fervor of his diction ; the warm patriotic tone
of his appeals : and on the other hand, his super
ficial research ; his habit of satisfying himself with
half -knowledge ; his disinclination to reason out
propositions logically in all their consequences.
We find there statements like this : —

" The measure of the wealth of a nation is indicated
by the measure of its protection of its industry. Great
Britain most protects her industry, and the wealth of
Great Britain is consequently the greatest. France is
next in the degree of protection, and France is next in
the order of wealth. Spain most neglects the duty of

CANDIDATE FOR THE PRESIDENCY. 217

protecting the industry of her subjects, and Spain is one
of the poorest of European nations. Unfortunate Ire
land, disinherited, or rendered in her industry subser
vient to England, is exactly in the same state of pov
erty with Spain, measured by the rule of taxation. And
the United States are still poorer than either."
And this still mere startling remark : —

" No man pays the duty assessed on the foreign article
by compulsion, but voluntarily ; and this voluntary duty,
if paid, goes into the common exchequer, for the common
benefit of all. Consumption has four objects of choice :
First, it may abstain from the use of the foreign article,
and thus avoid the payment of the tax ; second, it may
employ the rival American fabric ; third, it may en
gage in the business of manufacturing, which this bill is
designed to foster ; fourth, it may supply itself from
the household manufactures."

By the side of this amazing revelation of the
means by which the consumer can for himself
neutralize the effects of a high tariff, we find strik
ingly wise sayings, which, however, sometimes fit
economic theories different from his own. He ob
served, for instance, that : —

" The great desideratum in political economy is the
same as in private pursuits ; that is, what is the best
application of the aggregate industry of a nation that
can be made honestly to produce the largest sum of
national wealth ? "

Notwithstanding its weak points the speech made
a great impression. The immediate effect may be
judged from the extent to which it monopolized

218 HKNRY CLAY,

the attention of speakers on the other side. Among
these stood forth as the strongest Daniel Webster.
A remarkable contrast it was when, against the
flashing oratory of the gay, spirited Kentuckian,
there rose up the dark-browed New Englander with
his slow, well-measured, massive utterances. These
two speeches together are as interesting an eco
nomic study as can be found in our parliamentary
history. The student can scarcely fail to be struck
with Webster's superiority in keenness of analysis,
in logical reasoning, in extent and accuracy of
knowledge, in reach of thought and mastery of
fundamental principles. Not only the calm pre
cision with which Webster's speech exposed some
of Clay's reckless statements and conclusions, but
the bright flashes of light which it threw upon a va
riety of important economic questions, — such as
the relation of currency to the production of wealth,
the balance of trade, the principles of exchange, the
necessary limits of protection, — give it a high and
lasting value in our literature. It is a remarkable
fact that Webster — although four years after
wards he became an advocate of high tariffs on the
ground that New England had taken protection as
the settled policy of the country, had therefore en
gaged its capital in manufactures, and should not
be left in the lurch — never could deny or reason
away the principles laid down in his great argu
ment of 1824. It stands to-day as his strongest
utterance upon economic subjects.

But Clay carried the day. After a long~strug«

CANDIDATE FOR THE PRESIDENCY. 219

gle the tariff bill passed the House by a majority
of five, and after being slightly amended was also
passed in the Senate by a majority of four. The
vote in the House was significant in its geograph
ical distribution. It was thus classed by Niles :
The " navigating and fishing states " of New Eng
land — Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Maine
— gave twenty-two votes against and only three
for the bill. Of the " manufacturing states,"
Rhode Island and Connecticut, seven votes went for
and one against it. Of the " grain-growing states,"
Vermont, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania,
Delaware, Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and
Missouri, ninety-two votes were given for and nine
against it. The " tobacco-planting and grain-grow
ing state " of Maryland gave six against and three
for it. The " cotton and grain growing state,"
Tennessee, gave seven against and two for it.
The " tobacco and cotton planting states," Vir
ginia. North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia,
Mississippi and Alabama, threw fifty-four votes
against and one for it. All the three votes of the
" sugar and cotton planting state," Louisiana, went
against it. Since the time when Calhoun had elo
quently argued for the fostering of manufacturing
industries and internal improvements, a significant
change had taken place in the current of Southern
sentiment. The planting interest, most closely
identified with slavery, began to present an almost
solid front not only against the tariff, but against
everything not in harmony with its system of labor.

220 HENRY CLAY.

Massachusetts, Maine, and New Hampshire op
posed the tariff because it would be injurious to
commerce. But they soon accommodated them
selves to it. It was a combination of the grain-
growing with the manufacturing interest, the idea
of the " home market," that carried the day.

Clay achieved a great triumph for himself. He
had not only far outshone all others by his cham
pionship of the successful measure, but he had
given to the protective policy a new name, the
"American system," which became inseparably
identified with his own. This appellation was in
deed not without its ludicrous side, which Webster
did not fail promptly to perceive and to exhibit
with keen sarcasm. " If names are thought nec
essary," said he, " it would be well enough, one
would think, that the name should be in some
measure descriptive of the thing: and since Mr.
Speaker denominates the policy which he recom
mends, ; a new policy in this country ; ' since he
speaks of the present measure as a new era in our
legislation; since he professes to invite us to depart
from our accustomed course, to instruct ourselves
by the wisdom of others, and to adopt the policy
of the most distinguished foreign states, — one is a
little curious to know with what propriety of speech
this imitation of other nations is denominated an
4 American policy,' while, on the contrary, a pref
erence for our own established system, as it now
actually exists and always has existed, is called a
'foreign policy.' This favorite American policy

CANDIDATE FOR THE PRESIDENCY. 221

is what America has never tried ; and this odious
foreign policy is what, as we are told, foreign
states have never pursued." But although the
" American system " had nothing peculiarly Amer
ican about it, the name was adroitly chosen and
served its purpose. It proved a well-sounding cry
which to many minds was as good as an argument.

Thus Clay had put his opinions on internal im
provements, on the tariff, and on the foreign policy
of the country, as conspicuously as possible before
the people ; his platform left nothing to desire as
to completeness and precision. He was ready for
the presidential campaign.

The " era of good feeling " under Monroe left
the country without national parties ; for when
there is only one, there is practically none. The
Federal party had disappeared as a national organ
ization ; it had only a local existence. There were
differences of opinion on matters of public interest
within the Republican party — about the tariff, for
instance, and about internal improvements, which
had some effect in the campaign, but which did not
yet produce well-defined and lasting divisions. The
violent and threatening excitement on slavery
called forth by the Missouri trouble had come and
gone like a thunderstorm. In the planting states
the question was sometimes quietly asked, when a
public man was discussed, whether he had been for
or against " slavery restriction ; " but in the rest
of the country the antagonists of an hour had, after
the compromise was passed, silently agreed to say

222 HENRY CLAY.

no more about it, — at least for the time being.
Under these circumstances the personal question be
came the most important one. Hitherto candidates
for the presidency had been formally nominated
by the party caucus of members of Congress. But
in the course of time the Congressional caucus had
become odious, there being a popular impression
that it was too much subject to intrigue. Recom
mendations of candidates had always been made
by state legislatures, or even by meetings of citi
zens, but they had been looked upon merely as
more or less respectable demonstrations of public
sentiment. These, however, as the Congressional
caucus fell into discredit, gained in importance.
National conventions of political parties had not
yet been invented. A suggestion to call one was
made in Pennsylvania, but it remained unheeded.
In the breaking up of old political habits, the tra
ditional notion that the secretaryship of state should
be regarded as the stepping stone to the presidency,
had also become very much weakened. There
opened itself, then, a free field for what might
irreverently be called a " scramble."

The consequence was that no less than six can
didates for the presidency presented themselves
to the people : Crawford of Georgia, Jackson of
Tennessee, Adams of Massachusetts, Clay of Ken
tucky, Calhoun of South Carolina, and Clinton
of New York. The two last named were soon
withdrawn. All belonged to the ruling party.
Crawford was Secretary of the Treasury. He

CANDIDATE FOR THE PRESIDENCY 223

was a man of imposing presence. He had filled
several public stations of importance creditably
enough, but in none of them had he rendered ser
vices so eminent as to entitle him to rank among
the first order of statesmen. Still he had man
aged to pass in those days as a great man. His
was that temporary sort of greatness which appears
in history as the reputation of a reputation. He
had much of the intriguing politician in him. He
was strongly and not unjustly suspected of manipu
lating the patronage of his department for his own
political benefit. It was he who in 1820 had
caused the four-years'-term law to be enacted, —
that law which has done so much to develop the
" spoils system." He insisted upon holding a
" regular " Congressional caucus, having made his
arrangements to control it. It was accordingly
called to meet on February 14, 1824 ; but of two
hundred and sixteen Republicans, only sixty-six
appeared, and two more sent their proxies. Of
these sixty-eight votes, Crawford received sixty-four.
Thus he had the " regular " nomination ; but as it
had been made only by a majority of a minority,
all but his friends having refused to attend the
caucus, it lacked authoritative weight. Moreover,
his health was seriously impaired by a paralytic
attack, which naturally injured him much as a
candidate.

The candidacy of General Andrew Jackson was
an innovation in American politics. From Wash
ington down, no man had been elected to the presi-

224 HENRY CLAY.

dency, nor indeed been a candidate for it, who had
not grown up to eminence in civil station. Every
President had been known as a statesman. Now,
for the first time, a candidate was presented for the
highest office whose reputation had been won en
tirely on a different field. General Jackson had
indeed held civil positions. As a young man of
thirty, he had for a short time represented Tennes
see in Congress. But there he had shown no sign
of capacity as a legislator, and had attracted at
tention in debate, as Jefferson said, only because
" he could never speak on account of the rashness
of his feelings," for as often as he attempted it he
would " choke with rage." Next he had become a
judge, but nothing was heard of his decisions. It
was only as a soldier that he won brilliant successes,
and in the field indeed achieved great renown by
his energy, his intrepid spirit, and the natural
gift of command. But whenever the general had
to exercise any function of authority beyond the
handling of troops on the march or in action, he
distinguished himself by an impatience of restraint,
a reckless disregard of the laws, an uncontrollable
violence of temper, and a daring assumption of
power, not seldom seriously compromising the
character as well as the peace of the country. His
private life too, while it was that of a man of in
tegrity and generous impulses, abounded in tumult
uous broils and bloody encounters. Thus his mil
itary achievements had given him his only prestige,
while at the same time he had shown in their strong-

CANDIDATE FOR THE PRESIDENCY. 225

est development those qualities sometimes found in
the successful man of war, which render him pecul
iarly unfit for responsible position and the delicate
tasks of statesmanship in time of peace.

But his candidacy, although a complete abandon
ment of the good old tradition and made possible
only by the battle of New Orleans, was " worked
up " with consummate skill by one of his friends
in Tennessee, Major Lewis, who thus earned a
place in the very front rank of political managers.
Some letters deprecating the spirit of partisan pro
scription in filling public offices, which General
Jackson had written to Monroe years before, were
brought before the public to propitiate the rem
nants of the Federal party. He was made to
write another letter, to Dr. L. H. Coleman, pro
nouncing in a vague way in favor of a protective
tariff. In order to keep a man of ability and
character, but unfriendly to him, out of the Sen
ate of the United States, and also to give the
General an opportunity to renew friendly relations
with public men with whom he had quarreled,
Jackson himself was elected a senator from Ten
nessee, and took his seat in December, 1823. The
Tennessee legislature had expressed its preference
for him as a candidate for the presidency in 1822.
A convention of Federalists at Harrisburg in
Pennsylvania, a state in which the Federalists still
maintained an organization, likewise nominated
him in February, 1824, and a month later a Dem
ocratic convention at the same place followed their

15

226 HENRY CLAY.

example. Thus Jackson was fairly started as a
" man of the people," and presently many began
to see in him not only the greatest military hero
in history, but also a political sage.

The candidate who most completely answered
the traditional requirements was unquestionably
John Quincy Adams, the candidate of New Eng
land. He had been longest in public duty. He
had won eminence by conspicuous service. His
experience and knowledge as a statesman were
unexcelled by any American of his time. His
private life was spotless, and his public character
above reproach. Austere, cold and distant in his
manners, he lacked altogether those qualities which
" make friends." He was the embodied sense of
duty, commanding respect but not kindling affec
tion. Although full of ambition to be President,
he would owe his elevation solely to the recognition
of his merits. His election was to signify the pop
ular approval of his public conduct. He would
not " work " to obtain it, nor countenance his
friends in "working" for him. He would grate
fully and proudly take the presidency from the
hands of the people, but not be obliged to any per
son for procuring it. A letter which he wrote in
reply to a suggestion that he should ask and en
courage others to promote his interests as a candi
date, portrays his ideal of public virtue : —

" Detur digniori is the inscription upon the prize,
The principle of the Constitution in its purity is, that
the duty shall be assigned to the most able and the most

CANDIDATE FOR THE PRESIDENCY. 227

worthy. Politicians and newspapers may bestir them
selves to point out who that is ; and the only question
between us is, whether it be consistent with the duties of
a citizen, who is supposed to desire that the choice should
fall upon himself, to assist, countenance, and encourage
those who are disposed to befriend him in the pursuit.
The law of friendship is a reciprocation of good offices.
He who asks or accepts the offer of friendly service con
tracts the obligation of meeting it with a suitable return.
If he seeks or accepts the aid of one, he must ask or ac
cept the aid of multitudes. Between the principle of
which much has been said in the newspapers, that a
President of the United States must remember those to
whom he owes his elevation, and the principle of accept
ing no aid on the score of friendship or personal kind
ness to him, there is no alternative. The former, as it
has been announced and urged, I deem to be essentially
and vitally corrupt. The latter is the only principle to
which no exception can be taken."

This principle he not only professed, but he
acted upon it. Compared with what the political
usages of our days have accustomed us to consider
admissible, such a principle may appear to be an
exaggerated refinement of feeling, fitted only for
an ideal state of society. It may be said that a
statesman so conscientious will throw away his
chance of rising into power, and thus set narrow
limits to his own usefulness. But, after all, a con
scientious public man, in order to remain perfectly
true to his public duty, will either have to accept
the principle insisted upon by John Quincy Adams,
or at least he must make the friends, who promote

228 HENRY CLAY.

his interests, clearly understand that there may be
circumstances under which he will consider it a
virtue to forget the obligations of friendship, and
that, whenever the public interest demands it, he
will always have the courage of ingratitude.

Clay was first nominated as a candidate for the
presidency by the members of the Kentucky legis
lature in November, 1822. Similar demonstrations
followed in Louisiana, Missouri, and Ohio. Of
his anxiety to be elected President he made no
secret. He conducted a large correspondence
with friends all over the country, from whom he
received reports, and to whom he sent his sugges
tions in return. One of his most active canvassers
was Thomas H. Benton, who represented the young
State of Missouri in the Senate. Benton travelled
through Tennessee, Ohio, and Missouri advocating
Clay's interest and reporting progress from time
to time. Before long we shall find these two men
engaged in a very different sort of conversation.
A part of Clay's correspondence about the can
vass with General Peter B. Porter and W. B.
Rochester of New York, Senator J. S. Johnston
of Louisiana, and his old friend Francis Brooke
of Virginia, is still preserved. It reveals a very
warm and active interest on his part in the conduct
of his campaign — sometimes quite urgent as to
things to be done. He was very much chagrined
not to see a vigorous movement in his favor in
Virginia, his native state, and he pressed his
friends repeatedly, with evident impatience, to
take some demonstrative step.

CANDIDATE FOR THE PRESIDENCY. 229

Thus he did not, as a candidate for the pres
idency, adopt the lofty standard of John Quincy
Adams's principles for the guidance of his conduct.
He did accept and encourage the aid of friends,
and was quite active in spurring and directing
their zeal. But beyond that he did not go. He
kept rigidly clear of promises and bargains. As
early as January 31, 1823, he wrote to Francis
Brooke : —

" On one resolution my friends may rest assured I will
firmly rely, and that is, to participate in no intrigues, to
enter into no arrangements, to make no promises or
pledges ; but that, whether I am elected or not, I will
have nothing to reproach myself with. If elected I will
go into the office with a pure conscience, to promote
with my utmost exertions the common good of our coun
try, and free to select the most able and faithful public
servants. If not elected, acquiescing most cheerfully in
the better selection which will thus have been made, I
will at least have the satisfaction of preserving my honor
unsullied and my heart uncorrupted."

And when in the heat of the canvass a proposi
tion was made to him which looked like a bargain,
he wrote (to J. S. Johnston, June 15, 1824) : —

" If the communication from Mr. is to be consid
ered in the nature of an overture, there can be but one
answer given. I can make no promises of office of any
sort, to any one, upon any condition whatever. What
ever support shall be given to me must be spontaneous
and unsought."

When in the course of the campaign Martin Van

230 HENRY CLAY.

Buren, then a leading manager for Crawford, be
coming alarmed at the unexpected strength of the
Jackson movement, caused Clay to be approached
with the suggestion of a coalition between the
Crawford and Clay forces to make Crawford Pres
ident and Clay Vice-President, Clay replied that he
was resolved neither to offer nor to accept any ar
rangement with regard to himself or to office for
others, and that he would not decline the Vice-
Presidency, provided it were offered to him " by
the public having the right to tender it." Neither
can it be said that Clay, in the House of Represen
tatives or in his public utterances elsewhere, had
tried, as a candidate for the presidency, to trim
his sail to the wind, to truckle to the opinions of
others, to carry water on both shoulders. In the
advocacy of his principles and policies he was as
outspoken and straightforward as he ever had
been, perhaps even more dashing and combative
than he had occasion to be. It would hardly have
been predicted then that twenty years later he
would lose the presidency by an equivocation.

In the course of the canvass it became obvious
that no one of the four candidates could obtain a
majority of the electoral vote, and that the election
would devolve upon the House of Representatives.
This, however, did not prevent the campaign from
becoming very animated. There being no marked
difference of principle or opinion between the com
petitors, the effusions of stump orators and of news
papers turned mainly on personalities. Adams

CANDIDATE FOR THE PRESIDENCY. 231

wrote in August : " The bitterness and violence
of presidential electioneering increase as the time
advances. It seems as if every liar and calumni
ator in the country was at work day and night
to destroy my character. It is impossible to be
wholly insensible to this process while it is in oper
ation. It distracts my attention from public busi
ness and consumes precious time." But the other
candidates fared no better than he. Against
Crawford charges of corruption were brought.
Jackson was denounced as a murderer ; and Clay's
well known fondness for the card-table came home
to him in giving him the name of a gambler. His
adherents in Ohio resolved at a meeting that, as
" all the gentlemen named as candidates for the
presidency were honorable and intelligent men,
and to degrade and vilify them was discreditable
to the moral sense and sound judgment of the
country," the friends of Mr. Clay would " not in
dulge in the unworthy practice of vilifying the
candidates whom they did not support." This,
however, did not have the effect of improving the
temper of his opponents. As the day of election
approached, the Jackson managers started a report
that Clay, seeing no chance for himself, would
withdraw from the contest and throw his influence
for Crawford ; whereupon his friends issued an
other proclamation, declaring that Clay " would
not be withdrawn from the contest except by the
•fiat of his Maker." There were demonstrations
of enthusiasm, too, — not, indeed, by uniformed

232 HENRY CLAY.

campaign organizations and great torchlight pa
rades ; but splendors of a different kind were not
lacking. Niles records, for instance : " Presiden
tial vests ! A large parcel of silk vestings have
been received at New York, from France, stamped
with pretty good likenesses of Washington and
of the presidential candidates, Adams, Clay, and
Jackson." There was great confusion at the be
ginning of the campaign as to the vice-presidency.
The Jackson men rallied on Calhoun. The friends
of Adams tried to " run " Jackson for the second
office. Indeed, such a combination had long been
in the mind of Adams himself. Gallatin was at
first on the Crawford ticket, but then withdrew en
tirely from the contest. The Clay men selected
Sanford of New York.

The result of the election did not become fully
known before December. It turned out that Jack
son had won ninety-nine electoral votes, Adams
eighty-four, Crawford forty-one and Clay thirty-
seven. No one having received a clear majority,
the election devolved upon the House of Represen
tatives ; and as, according to the Constitution, the
choice by the House was confined to the three can
didates having the highest number of votes, Clay's
chance was gone. He received the whole electoral
vote of only three states, Kentucky, Ohio, and
Missouri, and four votes from New York. For
the vice-presidency, Calhoun had a decided major
ity, one hundred and eighty-two out of two hun«
dred and sixty one.

CANDIDATE FOR THE PRESIDENCY. 233

Clay was deeply disappointed. He had hoped
to be at least among the three eligible by the
House of Representatives. He had counted upon
a majority -(jf the electoral vote of Illinois ; he had
not desp.'t... ,i of Virginia, his native state. It was
said that the five votes of Louisiana had been
taken from Clay by a trick in the legislature, and
that if he had received them, which would have
put him ahead of Crawford, his personal popular
ity in the House would have given him the presi
dency. What " might have been " only sharpened
the sting of the disappointment he suffered. In
his letters he spoke philosophically enough: "As it
is, I shall yield a- cheerful acquiescence in the pub
lic decision. We must not despair of the Kepub-
lic. Our institutions, if they have the value which
we believe them to possess and are worth preserv
ing, will sustain themselves, and will yet do well."
But Martin Van Buren wrote on December 31,
1824, to a friend : " He (Clay) appears to me not
to sustain his defeat with as much composure and
fortitude as I should have expected, and evinces a
degree of despondency not called for by the actual
state of things." This is not improbable, for a
man of Clay's sanguine, impulsive temperament
feels misfortune as keenly as he enjoys success.

His greatest trial, however, was still to come.
But before it came, he had as Speaker of the House
a ceremonial act to perform, which at the same
time was an act of friendship, and which, by the
emotions it awakened, may for a moment have

234 HENRY CLAY.

made him forget the humiliation of defeat and the
anxieties besetting him. Lafayette was visiting
the United States, and wherever he went, all the
bitter quarrels of the presidential struggle were si
lenced by the transports of enthu.iiii.sni with which
he was received. He appeared among the Amer
ican people as the impersonation of their heroic
ancestry to whom they owed everything they were
proudest of. Only Washington himself, had he
risen from the grave, could have called forth
deeper feelings of reverence and affection. As the
guest of the nation, he was invited to the Capitol,
and Clay had to welcome him in the House of Rep
resentatives. It was a solemn and touching scene.
Clay delivered an address full of feeling. With
delicate instinct, the orator seized upon the poetic
side of Lafayette's visit. " T^he vain wish has
been sometimes indulged," said he, "that Provi
dence would allow the patriot, after death, to re
turn to his country, and to contemplate the inter
mediate changes which had taken place, to view
the forests felled, the cities built, the mountains
leveled, the canals cut, the highways constructed,
the progress of the arts, the advancement of learn
ing, and the increase of population. General, your
present visit to the United States is a realization
of the consoling object of that wish. You are in
the midst of posterity."

The relations between Clay and Lafayette were
of the friendliest character. They had long been
in correspondence, which continued for years after

CANDIDATE FOR THE PRESIDENCY. 235

this meeting at Washington. Lafayette's letters
to Clay, many of which have been preserved,
abound in expressions not only of regard, but of
affection. It seems that the heart of the old pa
triot was completely captured by the brilliant,
frank, and generous American, and he was repeat
edly heard to speak of Clay as the man he wished
to see made President of the United States.

CHAPTER X.

PKESIDENT- MAKER.

INSTEAD of being made President, Clay found
himself invested with the dangerous power of
choosing one among his rivals for the great office.
It was generally admitted that his influence com
manded in the House of Representatives a suffi
cient number of votes to decide the contest be
tween Adams, Jackson, and Crawford. He was,
therefore, so long as his preference remained un
known, a much-sought, much-courted man. In a
letter written on January 8 to Francis P. Blair,
whom he then counted among his friends in Ken
tucky, he humorously described the situation : " I
am sometimes touched gently on the shoulder by a
friend, for example, of General Jackson, who will
thus address me : ' My dear sir, all my dependence
is upon you ; don't disappoint us ; you know our
partiality was for you next to the hero, and how
much we want a Western President.' Immedi
ately after a friend of Mr. Crawford will accost
me : ' The hopes of the Republican party are con
centrated on you ; for God's sake preserve it. If
you had been returned instead of Mr. Crawford,
every man of us would have supported you to the

PRESIDENT-MAKER. 237

last hour. We consider you and him as the only
genuine Republican candidates.' Next a friend of
Mr. Adams comes with tears in his eyes [an allu
sion to Adams's watering eyes] : 4 Sir, Mr. Adams
has always had the greatest respect for you, and
admiration of your talents. There is no station to
which you are not equal. Most undoubtedly you
are the second choice of New England, and I pray
you to consider seriously whether the public good
and your own future interests do not point most
distinctly to the choice which you ought to make ? '
How can one withstand all this disinterested hom
age and kindness ? "

General Jackson himself thought it good pol
icy now to be on pleasant terms with Clay. There
had been " non - intercourse " between them ever
since that memorable debate in which Clay found
fault with the General's conduct in the Florida
war. Jackson had left Clay's visit of courtesy un-
returned, and when accidentally meeting Clay at a
Kentucky village inn, in the summer of 1819, he
had hardly deigned to notice Clay's polite saluta
tion. But now, having become an anxious candi
date for the presidency while Clay was believed to
control the decisive vote in the House of Repre
sentatives, Jackson took a less haughty view of
things. Several members of Congress from Ten
nessee approached Clay to bring about an accom
modation. They declared in General Jackson's
behalf, that when treating Clay's courtesy with
apparent contempt, he was "laboring under some

238 HENRY CLAY.

indisposition," and meant no offence. Clay in re
sponse said that in censuring General Jackson's
official conduct he had merely " expressed opinions
in respect to public acts," without any feeling of
personal enmity. The Tennessee delegation then
arranged a dinner to which both Clay and Jackson
were invited, and at which both appeared. They
exchanged salutations and dined together. When
Clay retired from the table, Jackson and his friend
Eaton followed him to the door and insisted that
he should take a seat with them in their carriage.
Clay, dismissing his own coach, rode with them
and was set down at his door. Jackson then in
vited him to dinner and he accepted. Soon after
wards Jackson with several members of Congress
dined at Clay's lodgings, and then they "fre
quently met in the course of the winter, always
respectfully addressing each other." Thus the
" non-intercourse " was laboriously raised.

But all the while Clay was firmly resolved to
give his vote and influence to Adams. He had
made this declaration to J. J. Crittenden before he
left Kentucky for Washington, and he informed
Benton of his determination early in December.
The legislature of Kentucky passed a resolution
requesting the members of Congress from that
state to vote for Jackson, but even that could not
swerve Clay from his purpose. His conclusion
was, for him, the only possible one. Crawford
was a paralytic. For months he had been unable,
as Secretary of the Treasury, to sign his official

PRESIDENT-MAKER. 239

•

papers with his own hand. It was extremely
doubtful whether, if elected President, he would
ever be able to discharge the duties of the office.
For this reason, aside from other considerations,
Clay could not vote for him. Could he vote for
Jackson ? We remember Clay's speech on Jack
son's lawless conduct in the Seminole <Var. He
had not since changed his opinion. " As a friend
of liberty, and to the permanence of our institu
tions," he wrote to Francis Brooke, " I cannot con
sent, in this early stage of their existence, by con
tributing to the election of a military chieftain, to
give the strongest guaranty that the Republic will
march in the fatal road which has conducted every
other republic to ruin." So again he wrote to
Blair : " Mr. Adams, you know well, I should
never have selected, if at liberty to draw from the
whole mass of our citizens, for a President. But
there is no danger in his elevation now, or in time
to come. Not so of his competitor, of whom I
cannot believe that killing two thousand five hun
dred Englishmen at New Orleans qualifies for the
various difficult and complicated duties of the
chief magistracy." These were his honest opinions.
How could he vote to make Jackson President ?

It was indeed argued that, as Jackson had re
ceived, not a majority of the electoral votes (for
he had only ninety-nine out of two hundred and
sixty one), but more votes than any one of his
competitors, the members of the House of Repre
sentatives were bound, in obedience to the popular

240 HENRY CLAY.

will, to ratify that verdict. Not to do so was, as
Benton expressed it with a desperate plunge into
Greek, "a violation of the demos krateo princi
ple." This was equivalent to saying that a mere
plurality of the electoral vote should be sufficient
to elect a President ; for if the House of Repre
sentatives were in duty bound to ratify that plu
rality as if it were a majority, then the plurality
would practically elect. But the Constitution ex
pressly provides that a President shall not be
elected by a plurality of the electoral votes, and
that, when no clear majority is obtained, the House
of Representatives shall freely choose from those
three candidates who shall have received the high
est numbers. Moreover, the electors having in six
states been appointed by the legislatures, it was a
mere matter of conjecture whether General Jack
son would have had a plurality of the popular vote,
had the electors in all the states been chosen by
the people. Finally, there was nothing to prove
that Adams would not have been the second choice
of the friends of Crawford and Clay, in a sufficient
number of cases to insure him a clear majority in
an election confined to him and Jackson. The
presumption may be said to have been in favor of
this, if, as proved to be the fact, the House of
Representatives was inclined to give him that ma
jority. There was, therefore, nothing in such an
argument to limit the freedom of Clay's choice.

Benton himself admitted that his " demos kra
teo principle " was in conflict with the theory of

PRESIDENT-MAKER. 241

the Constitution. Indeed, if carried to its logical
consequences, it would have demanded that a can-
didate receiving an absolute majority of the electo%
ral vote, but a smaller popular vote than another
candidate, could not legitimately be President.
Nobody could have gone this length. But in 1825
a great cry was raised because a mere plurality
was not regarded as a majority, and it had much
effect.

When the friends of Jackson and of Crawford
began to suspect that Clay favored Adams, their
conduct towards him changed abruptly. As they
could not persuade him, they sought to drive and
even to frighten him. He received anonymous
letters full of abuse and menace. Some of them
contained threats of personal violence. In others
he was informed that, unless Jackson were elected,
there would be insurrection and bloodshed. A pe
culiar kind of fanaticism seems to have been blaz
ing up among Jackson's friends. Their newspa
pers opened furiously on Clay, and denounced his
unwillingness to vote for Jackson as a sort of high
treason. But Clay could not be moved. " I shall
risk," he said in a letter to his friend Brooke, " I
shall risk without emotion these effusions of mal
ice, and remain unshaken in my purpose. What
is a public man worth if he will not expose him
self, on fit occasions, for the good of the country?"

At last the Jackson party resorted to a desper
ate expedient. The election in the House was to
take place on February 9. On January 28 a letter

16

242 HENRY CLAY.

dated at Washington appeared in a Philadelphia
newspaper pointedly accusing Clay of having struck
a corrupt bargain with Adams. Clay, the writer
said, was to transfer his friends to Adams for the
purpose of making Adams President, and Adams
was then to make Clay Secretary of State. " And
the friends of Mr. Clay," so the letter continued,
" gave the information to the friends of Jackson
that, if the friends of Jackson would offe? the same
price, they would close with them. But none of the
friends of Jackson would descend to such mean
barter and sale." The letter pretended to come
from a member of Congress, whofc however, did not
give his name. A copy of the pz^er was mailed to
Clay. This stung him to the q^.ick. On February
1 he published " a card " in (Vie " National Intelli
gencer," in which he expressed his belief that the
letter purporting to come from a member of the
House was a forgery ; " but,*' he added, " if it be
genuine, I pronounce the member, whoever he may
be, a base and infamous calumniator, a dastard
and liar ; and if he dare unveil himself and avow
his name, I will hold him responsible, as I here
admit myself to be, to all the laws which govern
and regulate men of honor." Clay's hot blood had
run away with his judgment. He himself felt it
as soon as he saw his " card " in print. But a high-
spirited man, conscious of his rectitude, should not
be judged too harshly if the first charge of cor
ruption publicly brought against him does not find
him cool enough to determine whether the sileoca

PRESIDENT-MAKER. 243

of contempt or the angry cry of insulted honor will
better comport with his dignity.

Unfortunately, the threat of a challenge, which
would have been wrong under any circumstances,
in this case turned out to be even ludicrous. Two
days afterwards another " card " appeared in the
''National Intelligencer," in which George Kremer,
a Representative from Pennsylvania, avowed him
self as the author of the letter. George Kremer
was one of those men in high political station of
whom people wonder " how they ever got there ; "
an insignificant, ordinarily inoffensive, simple soul,
uneducated, ignorant, and eccentric, attracting at
tention in Washington mainly by a leopard-skin
overcoat of curious cut which he was in the habit
of wearing. This man now revealed himself as the
great Henry Clay's antagonist, declaring himself
" ready to prove, to the satisfaction of unpreju
diced minds, enough to satisfy them of the accu
racy of the statements which were contained in
that letter." The thought of a duel with George
Kremer in his leopard-skin overcoat appeared at
once so farcical that the most passionate duelist
would not have seriously entertained it. As Dan
iel Webster wrote to his excellent brother Ezekiel,
who lived on a farm in New Hampshire, " Mr.
Kremer is a man with whom one would think of
having a shot about as soon as with your neigh
bor, Mr. Simeon Atkinson, whom he somewhat
resembles."

The rashness of Clay's fierce proclamation was

244 HENRY CLAY.

thus well punished. He had now to retrieve the
dignity of his character. On the day of the ap
pearance of Kremer's card, Clay rose solemnly in
the House to ask for a special committee to inquire
into the charges made by that gentleman, uin
order that if he [Clay] were guilty, here the proper
punishment might be applied, or, if innocent, here
his character and conduct might be vindicated."
He expressed the anxious hope that his request for
an investigation of the charges would be granted.
" Emanating from such a source," he said, " this
was the only notice he could take of them." The
challenge to mortal combat, Henry Clay against
George Kremer, was thus withdrawn. A motion
was made by Forsyth of Georgia that the com
mittee asked for be appointed. This unexpected
turn of affairs threw poor Kremer into a great
flutter. He followed Forsyth, saying that, if it
should appear that he had not sufficient reason to
justify his statements, he trusted he should receive
proper reprobation. He was willing to meet the
inquiry and abide the result, but he desired to have
the honorable Speaker's " card " referred to the
committee too. He was restless and bustled about,
saying to one member that the letter in question
was not really of his own making ; to others, that
he had not intended at all to make any charge
against Mr. Clay. Then he put a sort of disclaimer
on a piece of paper and sent it to Clay, asking
whether this would be satisfactory ; but he received
the answer that the matter was now in the hands

PRESIDENT-MAKER. 245

of the House. After two days' debate the com
mittee was elected by ballot, not one member being
on it who had supported Clay for the presidency.

On February 9, the very day when the electoral
vote was to be counted and the election by the
House was to take place, the committee reported.
And what was the report ? George Kremer, \i ho
at first had promised to " meet the inquiry and
abide the result," had reconsidered over night ;
instead of giving the testimony the committee
asked of him, he sent to that tribunal a long letter,
refusing to testify. He would not, he wrote, ap
pear before the committee either as an accuser or
a witness, as there was no constitutional authority
by which the House could assume jurisdiction over
the case ; such an assumption would threaten a
dangerous invasion of the liberty of speech and
of the press ; he therefore protested against the
whole proceeding, and preferred to communicate to
his constituents the proofs of his statements with
regard to the corrupt bargain charged.

This letter the committee laid before the House,
and that was all the report they made. In the
course of time, much light has been thrown upon
this remarkable transaction. It has now become
clear that, instead of a bargain being struck be
tween Adams and Clay, overtures were made by
Jackson's friends to Clay's friends ; that George
Kremer, a simple-minded man and a fanatical ad
herent of Jackson, was used as a tool by the Jack
son managers, especially Senator Eaton from Ten-

246 HENRY CLAY.

nessee ; that they were the real authors of Kremer's
first letter to the Philadelphia newspaper ; that
Clay's demand for an inquiry by the House into
the charge made by Kremer was an unwelcome
surprise to them ; that Kremer, having been told
by them that the charge would be substantiated,
blunderingly assented to the inquiry when the
motion was made ; that they, knowing the charge
to be false, wanted to avoid an investigation of it
by the House ; that, when the committee called
upon Kremer for proofs, he was taken in hand by
the Jackson managers, who wrote for him the letter
protesting against the Congressional proceeding;
that, in avoiding an investigation by the House and
a report 011 the merits of the case, their purpose
was to keep the charge without any authoritative
refutation before the people ; that they first hoped
to terrorize Clay into supporting Jackson, or at
least to separate his friends from him, while, in the
event of Jackson's defeat, the cry of his having
been defrauded of his rights by a corrupt bargain
would help in securing his election the next time.
This was the famous "bargain and corruption " af
fair, which during a long period excited the minds
of men all over the United States. It was an in
famous intrigue against the good name of two hon
orable men, designed to promote the political for
tunes of a third.

The " inside view " of the relations between
Adams and Clay came, long after this period,
to public knowledge through the publication of

PRESIDENT-MAKER. 247

Adams's Diary. The most unfavorable inference
which can be drawn from the revelations therein
made is, that some of Clay's friends very urgently
desired his appointment as Secretary of State ; and
that one of them, Letcher of Kentucky, a good-
natured but not very strong-headed man, had said
to Adams that Clay's friends, in supporting Adams,
would expect Clay to have an influential place in
the administration, disclaiming, however, all au
thority from Clay, and receiving no assurance from
Adams. Those who have any experience of public
life know that the adherents of a prominent public
man are almost always extremely anxious to see
him in positions of power, and very apt to go ahead
of his wishes in endeavoring to put him there, thus
not seldom compromising him without his fault.
Adams received a good many visits of men who
washed to sound his disposition, among them Web
ster, who desired to obtain a promise that the Fed
eralists would not be excluded from office, and who
himself hoped to be appointed minister to Eng
land, though he did not express such a wish at the
time. Clay too visited Adams, to tell him that he
would have the vote of Kentucky, and to converse
with him upon the general situation. It would be
absurd to see in these occurrences anything to sup
port the charge that Clay's vote and influence were
thrown for Adams in execution of a bargain secur
ing him a place in the Cabinet ; for by the testi
mony of Crittenden and Ben ton, the fact stands
conclusively proven that, before all these conver-

248 HENRY CLAY.

sations with Adams happened, Clay had already
declared his firm determination to vote for Adams,
upon the grounds then and afterwards avowed.
The " bargain and corruption " charge remains,
therefore, simply a calumny.

The effect produced at the time upon Clay's
mind by these things appears in his correspond
ence. They aroused in him the indignant pride
of one who feels himself high above the venal
crowd. Just before the appearance of Kremer's
letter he wrote to Blair : " The knaves cannot
comprehend how a man can be honest. They can
not conceive that I should have solemnly interro
gated my conscience, and asked it to tell me seri
ously what I ought to do." And to Francis
Brooke on February 4 : " The object now is, on
the part of Mr. Crawford and General Jackson,
to drive me from the course which my deliberate
judgment points out. They all have yet to learn
my character if they suppose it possible to make
me swerve from my duty by any species of intimi
dation or denunciation." When the election came
on, Clay's whole influence went in favor of Adams,
who, 011 the first ballot in the House of Represen
tatives, received the votes of a majority of the
states, and was declared to be elected President.

But Clay's trials were not over. When Adams
began to make up his Cabinet, he actually did
offer to Clay the secretaryship of state. After
what had happened, should Adams have made the
offer, and should Clay have accepted it? These

PRESIDENT-MAKER. 249

questions have been discussed probably with more
interest than anything connected with a cabinet
appointment in our political history.

Under ordinary circumstances, the offer would
have been regarded as a perfectly proper and even
natural one. Clay was by far the most brilliant
leader of the ruling party. His influence was large
and his ability equal to his influence. It was de
sirable to have a Western man in the Cabinet.
Clay towered so high above all the public charac
ters in that region that it would have looked almost
grotesque to pass him by, exalting somebody else.
It is true that Adams had differed from Clay on
important things, and had expressed some unfa
vorable opinions of him, as, indeed, he had of al
most all other public men of note. But the sub
jects on which they had differed were disposed of ;
and as to personal feelings, it was one of the
remarkable features of Adams's character that,
strong as his prejudices and resentments were,
he put them resolutely aside when they stood in
the way of the fulfillment of a public duty. So,
to the end of conciliating the Crawford element,
he sufficiently overcame a feeling of strong per
sonal dislike to offer to Crawford himself, in spite
of that gentleman's physical disabilities, to con
tinue him as the head of the Treasury Depart
ment, — an offer which Crawford promptly de
clined. Adams had even conceived the idea of
tendering the War Department to General Jack
son, but learned that Jackson would take such an

250 HENRY CLAY.

offer "in ill part." In an administration thus de
signed to be constructed upon the principle that
the leaders of the ruling party should form part
of it, Clay was of course a necessary man ; and
to offer him a place in the Cabinet appeared not
only in itself proper, but unavoidable. Clay would
therefore undoubtedly have been invited into the
Cabinet whether he had or had not exercised any
influence favorable to Mr. Adams's election.

Neither would there have been any question as
to the propriety of Clay's accepting any place in
the new administration under ordinary circum
stances. But that the actual circumstances were
not of the ordinary kind, Clay himself felt. When
Adams, a few days after the election by the House,
offered him at a personal interview the secretary
ship of state, he replied that he " would take it
into consideration," and answer "as soon as he
should have time to consult his friends." It was
an anxious consultation. At first some of his
friends were opposed to acceptance. Would not
his taking the secretaryship of state be treated as
conclusive evidence proving the justice of the im
putations which had been made against him ? It
was known that Clay and Adams had not been on
terms of cordial friendship. They had seriously
differed on important points at Ghent. Clay had
made opposition to Monroe's administration, and
especially had criticised Adams as Secretary of
State. Less than two years before, Adams had
been attacked by one of the Ghent Commissioners,

PRESIDENT-MAKER. 251

Jonathan Eussell ; he had published an elaborate
defense, in which he referred, with regard to some
points of fact, to Clay as a witness, and Clay had,
in a public and somewhat uncalled-for letter, ques
tioned the correctness of Adams's recollections, —
an act which was generally looked upon as an in
dication of an unfriendly spirit. Would not this
sudden reconciliation, accompanied with an ex
change of political favors, look suspicious, and ren
der much more plausible the charge of a corrupt
bargain ? Besides, was not the House of Repre
sentatives Clay's true field ? Would not the ad
ministration want his support there more than in
the Cabinet ? Would not the Western people
rather see him there than in an executive depart
ment ?

These were weighty questions. On the other
hand, it was urged, whether he accepted or not,
he would be subject to animadversion. If he de
clined, it would be said that the patriotic Kremer,
by bravely exposing the corrupt bargain, had act
ually succeeded in preventing its consummation.
Conscious of his own rectitude, should he attach
such importance to an accusation coming from so
insignificant a person ? Indeed, would not either
of the other candidates, had he been elected, have
made him the same offer? Moreover, there was
a consideration of duty. It might be difficult to
form the administration without him. Could he
permit it to be said or suspected that, after having
contributed so much to the election of Adams as

252 HENRY CLAY.

President, he thought too ill of him to accept the
first place in his Cabinet? As Adams was now
the constitutional head of the government, ought
not Clay to regard him as such, dismissing any
personal objections which he might have had to
him ? These arguments, as we know from Clay's
correspondence, finally changed the opinions of
those of his friends who had at first been averse
to his taking office. The friends of Adams in
New England were especially urgent. Some of
Crawford's adherents too, and even some of those
of General Jackson, expressed to Clay their con
viction that he should accept. He had declared
that he would follow the advice of his friends, and
so he did. To Brooke he wrote : " I have an un
affected repugnance to any executive employment,
and my rejection of the offer, if it were in con
formity to their deliberate judgment, would have
been more compatible with my feelings than its
acceptance."

In spite of that "repugnance," it is not prob
able that much persuasion was required to make
him accept. He was a high-spirited, proud man.
When George Kremer made a charge, should
Henry Clay run away ? Not he. He would not
appear to be afraid. This may not have been all.
Clay's ambition for the presidency was ardent and
impatient. He would forget it for a moment when
discussing public questions. But it was not likely
to be absent from his mind when considering
whether he should not take the place offered him

PRESIDENT-MAKER. 253

He had looked upon the secretaryship of state
as the stepping-stone to the presidency before ;
he probably continued to do so. The presidential
fever is a merciless disease. It renders its victims
blind and deaf. So now Clay misjudged the sit
uation altogether. "An opposition is talked of
here," he wrote to Brooke ; " but I regard that as
the ebullition of the moment. There are elements
for faction, none for opposition. Opposition to
what ? To measures and principles which are yet
to be developed ! " He believed the new admin
istration would be judged on its merits. He did
not know the spirit it was to meet. When he de
clared himself resolved to accept the secretaryship
of state, six days after the offer had been made, he
was very far from having counted the cost.

Immediately before the final adjournment of the
Eighteenth Congress, on March 3, 1825, the House
of Representatives passed a resolution thanking
" the Honorable Henry Clay for the able, impartial,
and dignified manner in which he had presided
over its deliberations," etc. In response, " retiring,
perhaps forever," from the office of Speaker, Clay
was able to say that, in the fourteen years during
which he had, with short intervals, occupied that
difficult and responsible position, not one of his
decisions had ever been reversed by the House.
Indeed, Henry Clay stands in the traditions of the
House of Representatives as the greatest of its
Speakers. His perfect mastery of parliamentary
law, his quickness of decision in applying it, his

254 HENRY CLAY.

unfailing" presence of mind and power of command
in moments of excitement and confusion, the cour
teous dignity of his bearing, are remembered as
unequaled by any one of those who had preceded
or who have followed him. The thanks of the
House were voted to him with zest. Yet many of
those who felt themselves obliged to assent to this
vote were then already his bitter enemies.

The next day John Quincy Adams was inaugu
rated as President of the United States. As soon
as the nomination of Henry Clay for the office of
Secretary of State came before the Senate, the war
against him began in due form. An address by
George Kremer to his constituents, in which all
conceivable gossip was retailed to give color to the
" bargain and corruption " cry, was freely used in
Washington to prevent Clay's nomination from
being confirmed. General Jackson himself ex
pressed his hope of its rejection. A letter written,
evidently for publication, by Jackson to his friend
Samuel Swartwout, in New York, which bristled
with insidious insinuations against Clay, was circu
lated in Washington on the eve of the day when
Clay's nomination was to be acted upon.

Still trying to obtain an authoritative investiga
tion of his conduct, Clay asked a Senator to move
a formal inquiry by a senate committee, if any
charge should be made against him in that body.
But no tangible charge was brought forward ; only
one Senator indulged in some vague animadver
sions, presenting no ground for an inquiry. Genera]

PRESIDENT-MAKER. 255

Jackson, then still a member of the Senate, said
nothing ; but he, together with fourteen other Sen
ators, among them the leading Southerners, voted
against consenting to the nomination. It was,
however, confirmed by a majority of twelve, seven
Senators being absent.

On the day of the inauguration, General Jack
son had been one of the earliest of those who
" took the hand " of President Adams, congratu
lating him upon his accession to power. The news
papers highly praised the magnanimity of the de
feated candidate. But after the adjournment of
the Senate, when Jackson was on his way to his
home in Tennessee, his tone changed. Everywhere
he was cordially received ; and to every one willing
to hear it, at public receptions, in hotels, on steam
boats, he was ready to say that the will of the
people had been fraudulently defeated, and that
the presidential office had virtually been stolen
from its rightful owner by a corrupt combination.
This foreshadowed the presidential campaign of
1828. The cry was to be : " The rights of the
people against bargain and corruption."

Not having had the benefit of an official inquiry,
Clay now tried to put down the calumny once and
forever by an explicit statement of the case over
his cwn signature. On March 26, not many days
after he had become a member of the new adminis
tration, he published an address to his old constit
uents in Kentucky, in which he elaborately re
viewed the whole story, conclusively refuted the

256 HENRY CLAY.

charges brought against him, and fully explained
and defended his conduct. It was an exceedingly
able document, temperate in tone, complete and
lucid in the presentation of facts, and unanswer
able in argument. One of its notable passages
may be mentioned as characteristic. Clay was
very much ashamed of having threatened to chal
lenge George Kremer. Expressing his regret
therefor, he added : "I owe it to the community to
say that, whatever I may have done, or by inevit
able circumstances might be forced to do, no man
in it holds in deeper abhorrence than I do that
pernicious practice [of dueling]. Condemned as
it must be by the judgment and the philosophy, to
say nothing of the religion, of every thinking man,
it is an affair of feeling, about which we cannot,
although we should, reason. Its true correction
will be found when all shall unite, as all ought to
unite, in its unqualified proscription." But until
that comes to pass, shall we go on challenging and
fighting, the slaves of false notions of honor ? At
any rate, we shall soon see the Honorable Henry
Clay again with pistol in hand.

Clay may have thought that his address would
make an end of the " bargain and corruption "
charge for all time, and so it should have done.
Indeed, he received letters from such men as Chief
Justice Marshall, John Tyler, Justice Story, Daniel
Webster, Lewis Cass, and others, congratulating
him upon the completeness of his vindication and
triumph. But he lived to appreciate the wonder.

PRESIDENT-MAKER. 257

ful vitality of a well - managed political lie. No
body believes that lie now. But it defeated his
dearest ambitions, and darkened the rest of his
public life. It kept him refuting and explaining,
explaining and refuting, year after year ; yet still
thousands of simple-minded citizens would continue
honestly to believe that Henry Clay was a great
knave, who had defeated the will of the people by
bargain and corruption, and cheated the old hero
of New Orleans out of his rights.
17

CHAPTER XL

SECRETARY OF STATE.

THE administration of John Quincy Adams was
the last one in which the conduct of the govern
ment accorded strictly with the best traditions of
the Republic. Nothing was farther from his mind
than to use the power of appointment and removal
for political ends. At that time the notion that
the accession of a new President must necessarily
involve a thorough reconstruction of the Cabinet,
was not yet invented. Following the example of
most of his predecessors, he applied the rule that
no unnecessary changes should be made, even in
the heads of the executive departments. His elec
tion to the presidency and Calhoun's to the vice-
presidency had vacated the secretaryships of state
and of war, and these vacancies he filled with
Henry Clay, and James Barbour of Virginia. As
we have seen, he offered to continue Crawford at
the head of the Treasury Department, and only
after Crawford had declined he summoned to that
place Richard Rash of Pennsylvania. Southard of
New Jersey remained Secretary of the Navy, and
William Wirt of Virginia, Attorney General. The
Postmaster General, McLean, was also left in his

SECRETARY OF STATE. 259

place, but that officer did not at that time occupy
a seat in the Cabinet ; and there was no Depart
ment of the Interior. The members of the Cabi
net all passed as Republicans. But the Federal
ists, of whom there were scattered remnants here
and there, — some of them looked up to as vener
able relics, — were by no means excluded from
place. When De Witt Clinton had declined the
mission to England, Adams urged it upon Rufus
King of New York, who then stood in the politics
of the country as a fine and reverend monument of
ancient Federalism.

The new administration had hardly taken the
reins in hand, when that spirit of hostility to it
which prevailed among the following of Jackson,
Crawford, and Calhoun appeared even among per
sons in federal office ; and the question whether
it would not be well to fill the service with friends,
or at least to clear it of enemies, presented itself
in a very pointed form. Then Adams proved the
quality of his principles, as witness, by way of ex
ample, this case : The member of the House of
Representatives from Louisiana denounced Sterret,
the Naval Officer at New Orleans, as a noisy and
clamorous reviler of the administration, who had
even gone so far as to get up a public demonstra
tion to insult the member of Congress for having
voted to make Mr. Adams President. The member
of Congress, therefore, demanded Sterret's removal.
There seemed to be no doubt about the facts. The
insulting demonstration had not actually come off,

260 HENRY CLAY.

but Sterret had been active in making preparations
for it.

Clay agreed with the member. During the pend
ency of an election, said lie, every man in the
service should feel free to " indulge his prefer
ence ; " but no officer should, after election, " be
permitted to hold a conduct in open and continual
disparagement of the administration and its head."
In the treatment of persons in the service, he
thought, the administration " should avoid, on the
one hand, political persecution, and on the other
an appearance of pusillanimity." Adams came to
a different conclusion^ He looked upon this as a
test case, and it is wholesome to remember what a
President of the United States thought upon such
a question in the year 1825. He asked Clay in
reply why he should remove this man. The in
sulting demonstration, of which the member of
Congress complained, had only been intended, but
not practically carried out. Would a mere " in
tention never carried into effect " justify the re
moval of a man from office ? " Besides," he con
tinued, "should I remove this man for this cause,
it must be upon some fixed principle, which would
apply to others as well as to him. And where was
it possible to draw the line ? Of the custom house
officers throughout the Union four fifths, in all
probability, were opposed to my election. They
were all now in my power, and I had been urged
very earnestly to sweep away my opponents and
provide, with their places, for my friends. I can

SECRETARY OF STATE. 261

justify the refusal to adopt this policy only by the
steadiness and consistency of my adhesion to my
own. If I depart from this in one instance, I shall
be called upon by my friends to do the same thing
in many. An insidious and inquisitorial scrutiny
into the personal dispositions of public officers will
creep through the whole Union, and the most self
ish and sordid passions will be kindled into activity
to distort the conduct and misrepresent the feelings
of men whose places may become the prize of slan
der upon them." This was the President's answer to
Clay's suggestions, and, as the Diary tells us, " Mr.
Clay did not press the subject any farther." It
would have been useless.

What moved Adams, in laying down this rule of
action, was not faint-heartedness He was one of
the most courageous of men ; he never shrank from
a responsibility. He even enjoyed a conflict when
he found one necessary to enforce his sense of
right. Here he made his stand for the principles
upon which the government in its early days had
been conducted, and his decision in the Sterret case
became the rule by which his administration was
governed from beginning to end. He made only
two removals during the four years, and these were
for bad official conduct. With unbending firm
ness he resisted every attempt to make him dismiss
officers who intrigued against his reelection, or
openly embraced the cause of his opponents. The
reappointment of worthy officers upon the expira
tion of their terms, without regard to politics, was
a matter of course.

262 HENRY CLAY.

Clay continued to think, not without reason, that
the President carried his toleration to a dangerous
extreme. He would not have permitted men in
office to make their hostility to the administration
conspicuous and defiant. But he was far from
favoring the use of the appointing and removing
power as a political engine. He was opposed to
arbitrary removals, as to everything that would
give the public offices the character of spoils.

While these were the principles upon which the
administration was conducted, the virulent hostility
of its opponents continued to crop out in a cease
less repetition, in speech and press, of the assaults
upon its members, which had begun with the elec
tion. In May Clay went to Kentucky to meet his
family and to take them to Washington. Wher
ever he passed, his friends greeted him with enthu
siastic demonstrations. Public dinners crowded
one another, not only in Kentucky, but in Virginia,
Pennsylvania, and Ohio, along his route of travel ;
but everywhere, in response to expressions of af
fection and confidence, he felt himself obliged to
say something in explanation of his conduct in
the last presidential election. The spectre of the
" bargain and corruption " charge seemed to pur
sue him wherever he went.

When he returned to Washington, in August,
he was in deep affliction, two of his daughters hav
ing died in one month, one of them on her way to
the national capital. But as to the state of the
public mind he felt somewhat encouraged. He

SECRETARY OF STATE. 263

had found many friends to welcome him with
great warmth. He had heard the President spoken
of with high respect and confidence. Daniel Web
ster, too, sent him cheering reports as to " an en
tire and not uneasy acquiescence in the events of
last winter," which he had found on his summer
excursions. Clay almost persuaded himself that
the storm had blown over. But then he was
startled again by some stirring manifestation of
the bitterness which the last presidential election
had left behind it. One day he met a general
of the regular army, with his aid-de-camp, in the
President's ante-room. The aid^de-camp being in
troduced to him, Clay politely offered his hand,
which the young man, drawing back, refused to
take. It turned out that he was a connection of
General Jackson. Clay was so shocked by this
rude demonstration that he wrote the General a
complaining letter about it.

Something far more serious happened in October.
The legislature of Tennessee met, and proceeded
forthwith to nominate General Jackson as a candi
date for President to be elected in 1828. On Oc
tober 13, more than three years before the period
of the election, General Jackson addressed a letter
to the legislature, accepting the nomination, and at
the same time resigning his seat in the Senate. In
this letter he laid down his " platform." He gave
the world to understand that there was much cor
ruption at Washington, and that, unless a certain
remedy were applied, corruption would " become

264 HENRY CLAY.

the order of the day there." The remedy was an
amendment to the Constitution declaring " any
member of Congress ineligible to office under the
general government during the term for which he
was elected, and for two years thereafter, except in
cases of judicial office." This letter was generally
understood. It wras hardly taken as the promise
of a valuable reform to be carried out if Jackson
should become President. Nobody attached much
importance to that ; certainly Jackson did not,
for when he did become President, he, as we shall
see, appointed a much larger number of members
of Congress to office than had been so appointed
by any one of his predecessors. But it was taken
as a proclamation by General Jackson that he had
been defrauded of the presidency by a corrupt
bargain between a sitting member of Congress and
a presidential candidate, the member of Congress
obtaining a cabinet office as a reward for seating
the candidate in the presidential chair. It pointed
directly at Adams and Clay. Thus — it being also
understood that, according to custom, Adams would
be supported by his followers as a candidate for a
second term — the campaign of 1828 was opened,
not only constructively, but in clue form, with the
cry of "bargain and corruption" sanctioned by the
standard-bearer of the opposition. It became more
lively with the opening of the Nineteenth Congress
in December, 1825.

Under Monroe, during the " era of good feel
ing," there had been individual opposition to this

SECRETARY OF STATE. 265

or that measure, or to the administration generally,
but there had been no opposition party. With
the accession of Adams the era of good feeling was
well over, and those new groupings began to appear
which, in the course of time, developed into new
party organizations. Men were driven apart or
drawn together by different motives. Of these,
the commotion caused by the last presidential elec
tion furnished the most potent at that time. A
great many of the adherents of the defeated candi
dates, especially the Jackson men, were bound to
make odious and to break down the Adams admin
istration by any means and at any cost. This was
a personal opposition, virulent and remorseless.
There were rumors, too, of an opposition being
systematically organized by Calhoun, who then
began to identify his ambition exclusively with the
cause of slavery. In the vote against Clay's con
firmation Adams saw " the rallying of the South
and of Southern interests and prejudices to the
men of the South." Not a few Southern men be
gan to feel an instinctive dread of the spirit repre
sented by Adams.

But the hostility to the administration was soon
furnished with an opportunity to rally on a ques
tion of constitutional principle. Already in his
inaugural address, President Adams had brought
forth something vigorous on internal improve
ments. But in his first message to Congress he
went beyond what had ever been uttered upon that
subject before. After having laid down the far-

266 HENRY CLAY.

reaching doctrine that " the great object of the
institution of civil government is the improvement
of those who are parties to the social compact,"
he enumerated a vast array of powers granted in
the Constitution, and added that, " if these powers
may be effectually brought into action by laws
promoting the improvement of agriculture, com
merce, and manufactures, the cultivation of the
mechanic and of the elegant arts, the advancement
of literature, and the progress of the sciences, orna
mental and profound, to refrain from exercising
them for the benefit of the people themselves
would be to hide in the earth the talent committed
to our charge, — would be treachery to the most
sacred of trusts." lie spoke of the establishment
of a national university, astronomical observatories,
and scientific enterprises, and suggested that, while
European nations advanced with such rapid strides,
it would be casting away the bounties of Provi
dence if we stood still, confessing that we were
" palsied by the will of our constituents." This
was opening a perspective of governmental func
tions much larger than the American mind was
accustomed to contemplate. There had been some
serious shaking of heads when this part of the mes
sage was discussed in the Cabinet, especially on the
part of Barbour and Clay. This went a long way
beyond the building of roads and the digging of
canals, upon which Clay had been so fond of dis
coursing. But Adams, who was always inclined
to express his opinions in the most uncompromising

SECRETARY OF STATE. 267

form, insisted upon doing so this time. The doc
trine that the Constitution conferred by implication
upon the government powers of almost unlimited
extent, and also imposed upon it the duty of keep
ing those powers in constant activity, not only dis
turbed the political thinkers of the Democratic
school, but it was especially apt to alarm the slave-
holding interest, which at that period began to see
in the strictest construction, and in the mainte
nance of the extremest states' rights principles, its
citadel of safety.

The first actual collision between the adminis
tration and its opponents occurred upon another
question. The President announced in his message
that the Spanish-American republics had resolved
upon a congress to meet on the Isthmus of Panama,
in which they should all be represented ; that they
had also invited the United States to send plenipo
tentiaries ; that this invitation had been accepted,
and that ministers on the part of the United States
would be commissioned to " attend at those delib
erations." This was the famous Panama mission.

A grand council of the South and Central Ameri
can republics was planned as early as 1821, Bolivar
favoring it, and a series of treaties with regard to
it was concluded between them. In April, 1825,
Clay was approached by the Mexican and Colom
bian ministers with the inquiry whether an invita
tion to the United States to be represented in the
Panama Congress would be favorably considered.
Nothing could be more apt to strike Clay's fancy

268 HENRY CLAY.

than such an undertaking. The Holy Alliance
darkly plotting at its conferences and congresses
in Europe to reestablish the odious despotism of
Spain over South and Central America, and thus
to gain a basis of operations for interference with
the North American Republic, had frequently dis
turbed his dreams. To form against this league
of despotism in the old world a league of republics
in the new, and thus to make this great continent
the ark of human liberty and a higher civilization,
was one of those large, generous conceptions well
calculated to fascinate his ardent mind. He suc
ceeded even in infusing some of his enthusiasm
into Adams's colder nature. The invitation was
promptly accepted. But the definition of the ob
jects of the Congress, filtered through Adams's
sober mind, appeared somewhat tame by the side of
the original South American scheme, and probably
of Clay's desires, too. The South Americans had
thought of a league for resistance against a common
enemy; of a combination of forces, among them
selves at least, to be favored by the United States,
for the liberation of Cuba and Porto Rico from
Spanish power ; of some concert of action for the
general enforcement of the principles of the Amer
ican policy proclaimed by President Monroe, and
so on. It is very probable that Clay, although not
going quite so far, had in his mind some perma
nent concert among American states looking to ex
pressions of a common will, and to united action
when emergency should require.

SECRETARY OF STATE. 269

But the purposes of our participation in the
Panama Congress, as they appeared in the Presi
dent's messages to the Senate and the House, and
later in Clay's instructions to the American en
voys, were cautiously limited. The Congress was
to be looked upon as a good opportunity for giving
to the Spanish-American brethren kindly advice,
even if it were only as to their own interests ; also
for ascertaining in what direction their policy was
likely to run. Advantageous arrangements of
commercial reciprocity might be made ; proper
definitions of blockade and neutral rights might
be agreed upon. The " perpetual abolition of pri
vate war on the ocean," as well as a " concert of
measures having reference to the more effectual
abolition of the slave - trade," should be aimed at.
The Congress should also be used as " a fair occa
sion for urging upon all the new nations of the
South the just and liberal principles of religious
liberty," not by interference with their concerns,
but by claiming for citizens of the United States
sojourning in those republics the right of free
worship. The Monroe doctrine should be inter
preted to them as meaning only that each American
nation should resist foreign interference, or attempts
to establish new colonies upon its soil, with its own
means. The recognition of Hayti as an indepen
dent state was to be deprecated, — this against
Clay's first impulse, — on the ostensible ground
that Hayti, by yielding exclusive commercial ad
vantages to France, had returned to a semi -de-

270 HENRY CLAY.

pendent condition. All enterprises upon Cuba and
Porto Rico, such as had been planned by Mexico
and Colombia, were by all means to be discour
aged.

This, by the way, was an exceedingly ticklish
subject. If Cuba and Porto Rico were to be revo
lutionized, slave insurrections would follow, and
the insurrectionary spirit would be likely to com
municate itself to the slave population of the
Southern States. Cuba and Porto Rico would
hardly be able to maintain their independence, and
if they should fall into the hands of a great naval
power, that power would command the Mexican
Gulf and the mouth of the Mississippi. The slave-
holding influence, therefore, demanded that Cuba
and Porto Rico should not be revolutionized. The
general interests of the United States demanded
that the two islands should not pass into the hands
of a great naval power. It was, therefore, thought
best that they should quietly remain in the posses
sion of Spain. That possession was threatened so
long as peace was not declared between Spain and
her former colonies. It seemed, therefore, espe
cially desirable that the war should come to a final
close. To this end the Emperor of Russia, whom
American diplomacy had fallen into the habit of
regarding as a sort of benevolent uncle, was to be
pressed into service. He was asked to persuade
Spain, in view of the utter hopelessness of further
war, to yield to necessity and recognize the inde
pendency of her former colonies on the American

SECRETARY OF STATE. 271

continent. Clay's instructions to Middleton, the
American Minister at St. Petersburg, setting forth
the arguments to be submitted to the Emperor,
were, in this respect, a remarkable piece of rea
soning and persuasiveness.

At the Panama Congress all was then to be done

o

to prevent the designs of Mexico and Colombia
upon Cuba and Porto Rico from being executed.
On the whole, that Congress was to be regarded only
as a consultative assembly, a mere diplomatic con
ference, leaving the respective powers represented
there perfectly free to accept and act upon the
conclusions arrived at, or not, as they might choose.
There was to be no alliance of any kind, no entan
gling engagement, on the part of the United States.
This was the character in which the Panama mis
sion was presented to Congress.

The first thing at which the Senate took of
fence was that the President in his message had
spoken of " commissioning " ministers at his own
pleasure. A practical issue on this point was
avoided when Adams sent to the Senate the nom
inations of the ministers to be appointed. Then
the policy of the mission itself became the subject
of most virulent attack. The opposition was com
posed of two distinct elements. One consisted of
the slave-holding interest, which feared every con
tact with the new republics that had abolished slav
ery; which scorned the thought of envoys of the
United States sitting in the same assembly with
the representatives of republics that had negroes

272 HENRY CLAY.

and mulattoes among their generals and legislators ;
which dreaded the possible recognition of the inde
pendence of Hayti as a demonstration showing the
negro slaves in the Union what they might gain
by rising in insurrection and killing their masters.
This element of opposition was thoroughly in ear
nest. It had an unbending logic on its side. If
slavery was to exist in the United States, it had to
demand that not only the home policy, but also the
foreign policy, of the Republic must be accommo
dated to the conditions of its existence.

The other element of the opposition consisted
mainly of those who were determined to break
down the administration in any event and at any
cost. Their principal argument was that, notwith
standing the assurances given by the President,
participation in the Panama Congress would lead
the United States into entangling alliances ; and
if it did not do so at first, it would do so in its con
sequences. In the country, however, the Panama
mission was popular. A grand Amphictyonic coun
cil of the American republics, held on the great
isthmus of the continent, to proclaim the glories
of free government to the world, pleased the fancy
of the people. When public opinion seemed to
become impatient at the interminable wrangle in
Congress, the Senate voted down an adverse report
of its Committee on Foreign Relations by twenty-
four to nineteen, and confirmed the nominations
for the Panama mission. In the House of Repre
sentatives another debate sprang up on the bill

SECRETARY OF STATE. 273

making the necessary appropriation, which passed
by more than two to one. The spirit of the " op
position in any event " betrayed itself in unguarded
utterances, such as the following, ascribed to Van
Buren, the anti-administration leader in the Sen
ate : " Yes, they have beaten us by a few votes,
after a hard battle ; but if they had only taken the
other side and refused the mission, we should have
had them."

But that was not the end of the debate in the
Senate. The attack on the administration was
continued in the discussion on a resolution offered
by Branch, of North Carolina, denying the compe
tency of the President to send ministers to the Pan
ama Congress without the previous advice and
consent of the Senate, which competency the Presi
dent had originally. claimed in his message to Con
gress. This presented to John Randolph an op
portunity for a display of his peculiar power of
vituperation. In a long, rambling harangue he in
sinuated that the invitations to the Panama Con
gress addressed by the ministers of the Southern
republics to the government of the United States
had been written, or at least inspired, by the State
Department, and were therefore fraudulent. It
was in this speech that he characterized the admin
istration, alluding to Adams and Clay, as " the co
alition of Blifil and Black George, — the combi
nation, unheard of till then, of the Puritan with
the blackleg."

When Clay heard of this, he boiled over with

18

274 UENRY CLAY.

rage. Only a few months before he had, in the
address to his constituents, spoken of the duel as
a relic of barbarism, much to be discountenanced.
The same Clay now promptly sent a challenge to
Randolph. The explanation, which might have
averted the duel, Randolph refused to give. On
April 8 they umet," Randolph not intending to
harm Clay, but Clay in terrible earnest. They ex
changed shots, and both missed ; only Randolph's
coat was touched. At the second fire Clay put an
other bullet through Randolph's coat, but Randolph
emptied his pistol into the air, and said : " I do not
fire at you, Mr. Clay." Thereupon they shook
hands, and all was over. Randolph's pistol had
failed to prove that Clay was a " blackleg," and
Clay's pistol had also failed to prove that Ran
dolph was a calumniator ; but, according to the
mysterious process of reasoning which makes the
pistol the arbiter of honor, the honor of each was
satisfied. Webster wrote to Judge Story : " You
will have heard of the bloodless duel. I regret it
very much, but the conduct of Mr. Randolph has
been such that I suppose it was thought that it
could no longer be tolerated." Benton looked at
the matter from a different point of view. With
the keen relish of a connoisseur, he describes the
whole affair down to the minutest detail in his
" Thirty Years' View," devoting nearly eight of its
large pages to it, and sums up : " It was about the
last high-toned duel that I have witnessed, and
among the highest toned I have ever witnessed,

SECRETARY OF STATE. 275

and so happily conducted to a fortunate issue, — a
result due to the noble character of the seconds, as
well as to the generous and heroic spirit of the
principals."

The net result was that Randolph's epigram
about " the combination of the Puritan and the
blackleg " received all the more currency, and that
Clay, by his example, had given new sanction
to the practice he had denounced as barbarous.
He was by no means a professional duelist. His
hand was in fact so unused to the pistol that on
this occasion he feared he would not be able to fire
it within the time given him. He simply did not
possess that courage which is higher than the cour
age to face death. ;

The debates on the Panama mission served as
a first general drill of the opposition. It went
on harassing the Adams administration to its last
hour, some of the most virulent attacks being di
rected against Clay. Every measure which was
suspected of being specially favored by the admin
istration had to meet bitter resistance. In the
Senate an amendment to the Constitution was in
troduced, in accordance with Jackson's recommen
dation, to exclude members of Congress from ex
ecutive appointments ; another to circumscribe the
power of the general government with regard to
internal improvements ; also a bill to limit the
executive patronage. However much good there
may have been in these propositions, it became
apparent that they were brought forward mainly

276 HENRY CLAY.

for the purpose of giving point to the opposition
and to keep its spirit hot. Not one of them led to
any practical result.

The confinement of office life, the anxieties of
his position, and probably a feeling of regret that
he had put himself into a situation in which he
could only with difficulty defend himself against the
virulent hostility assailing him without cessation,
began to tell upon Clay's health. He felt weary
and ill, so seriously sometimes that he thought of
giving up his place in the administration. After
the adjournment of Congress he visited his home
in Kentucky. Again he was cheered and feasted
on the way, as well as by his old constituents at
home, and again he had, at dinners and receptions,
to tell the story of the last presidential election
over and over, in order to prove that the " bargain
and corruption " charge was false. Again he re
turned to Washington, encouraged by the enthusi
astic affection of his friends, and their assurance
that there were large masses of people believing in
the honorable character of the President and the
Secretary of State.

The elections for the twentieth Congress which
took place that summer and autumn began to show
new lines of party division. In many districts the
struggle was avowedly between those friendly and
those hostile to the administration. The forming
groups were not yet divided by clearly defined dif
ferences of principle or policy, but the air was full
of charges, insinuations, and personal detraction.

SECRETARY OF STATE. 277

General Jackson's voice, too, was heard again in
characteristic tones. He took good care to keep his
grievance before the people. Having been invited
by some of his friends in Kentucky to visit that
state "for the purpose of counteracting the in
trigue and management of certain prominent indi
viduals against him," he wrote a long letter de
clining the invitation.

" But [he added] if it be true that the administration
have gone into po\ver contrary to the voice of the nation,
and are now expecting, by means of this power, thus ac
quired, to mould the public will into an acquiescence
with their authority, then is the issue fairly made out —
shall the government or the people rule ? And it be
comes the man whom the people shall indicate as their
rightful representative in this solemn issue, so to have
acquitted himself that, while he displaces these enemies
of liberty, there will be nothing in his own example to
operate against the strength and durability of the gov
ernment."

No candidate for the presidency had ever held
such language. Here he plainly denounced the con
stitutionally elected chief magistrate as a usurper,
and arraigned him and the members of his adminis
tration as " these enemies of liberty " who were
using the power of the government to dragoon the
public will into acquiescence. This fierce denunci
ation was hurled against a President so conscien
tious in the exercise of his power that, among the
public officers, his most virulent enemies and the
most enthusiastic supporters of his opponent were
as safe in their places as were his friends.

278 HENRY CLAY.

The last session of the Nineteenth Congress,
which opened in December, 1826, passed over with
out any event of importance, but not without many
demonstrations of " the bitter and rancorous spirit
of the opposition," which, as Adams recorded,
" produced during the late session of Congress
four or five challenges to duels, all of which, how
ever, happily ended in smoke ; " and, he added,
" at a public dinner given last week to John Ran
dolph of Roanoke, a toast was given directly insti
gating assassination." No opportunity was lost
for defaming the administration. A fierce attack
was made on Clay for having, in the exercise of his
power as Secretary of State, made some changes
in the selection of newspapers for the publication
of the laws.

The clamor of the opposition grew, indeed, so
loud that people not specially engaged in politics
wondered in amazement whether the Republic
really was on the brink of destruction. The sedate
Nilcs, immediately after the adjournment of Con
gress, expressed in the " Register " his fear that
the coming presidential election, which was still a
year and a half ahead, would " cause as much
heat, if not violence, as any other event that ever
happened in this country ; that father would be
arrayed against son, and son against father, old
friends become enemies, and social intercourse be
cruelly interrupted ; " and all this because " the
resolution to put up or put down individuals swal
lowed up every consideration of right and of
wrong."

SECRETARY OF STATE. 279

The frenzy to which politicians wrought them
selves up was sometimes grotesque in its manifes
tations. In Virginia it became known that John
Tyler had written a letter to Clay approving his
conduct in the last presidential election ; where
upon the " Virginia Jackson Republican," a news
paper published at Richmond, broke out in these
exclamations : " John Tyler identified with Henry
Clay ! We are all amazement ! heartsick ! ! chop-
fallen ! ! dumb ! ! ! Mourn, Virginia, mourn ! !
for you, too, have your time-serving aspirants who
press forward from round to round on the ladder
of political promotion, under the disguises of re
publican orthodoxy, while they conceal in their
bosoms the lurking dagger, with which, upon the
mature conjuncture, to plunge the Goddess of Lib
erty to the heart." So John Tyler found himself
obliged to explain, in a letter several columns long,
that he might have approved of Clay's vote for
Adams without supporting the Adams adminis
tration.

General Floyd, a member of Congress from
Virginia, in a speech to his constituents, spoke of
" times like these, when great political revolutions
are in progress," and told his hearers that they
were " now engaged in a great war, -^— a war of
patronage and power against patriotism and the
people." He fiercely denounced the " coalition "
which had put Mr. Adams in power, and now
made " the upper part of Virginia the great theatre
S)f its intrigues;" but at the sains time he informed

280 HENRY CLAY.

his friends that " the combinations for the eleva
tion of General Jackson were nearly complete.'1
Martin Van Bur en, who in the last presidential
election had been the great leader of the Craw
ford forces in New York, but now, discerning in
General Jackson the coining man, was traveling
through the Southern States in the interest of this
candidate, wrote mysteriously to some gentlemen
at Raleigh, who had invited him to a public din
ner : " The spirit of encroachment has assumed a
new and far more seductive aspect, and can only
be resisted by the exercise of uncommon virtues."
Thus the leaders of the Jackson movement
worked busily to excite the popular mind with
spectral visions of unprecedented corruption pre
vailing, and of terrible dangers hang/ing over the
country ; and their newspapers, led by a central
organ which they had established at Washington,
the " Telegraph," edited by Duff Green, day after
day hurled the most reckless charges of profligacy
and abuse of power at the administration. They
also brought the organization of local committees
as electioneering machinery to a perfection never
known until then, and these committees were kept
constantly active in feeding the agitation. Repeat
ing, by the press and in speech, without cessation,
the cry of bargain and corruption, and usurpation
of power ; never withdrawing a charge, even if ever
so conclusively refuted, but answering only with
new accusations equally terrific, — they gradually
succeeded in making a great many well-meaning

SECRETARY OF STATE. 281

people believe that the administration of John
Quincy Adams, one of the purest and most con
scientious this Republic has ever had, was really
a sink of iniquity, and an abomination in the sight
of all just men ; and that, if such a dreadful event
as the reelection of Adams should happen, it would
inevitably be the end of liberty and republican in
stitutions in America. Such a calamity could be
prevented only by the election of the " old hero,"
who, having once been " cheated out of the presi
dency by bargain and corruption," was now "justly
entitled to the office."

On the other hand, the friends of the adminis
tration were not entirely idle. The President did
not, indeed, give them any encouragement in the
way of opening places for them. While being
constantly accused of employing the power and
patronage of the government to corrupt public
opinion, and to dragoon the people into " acquies
cence," John Quincy Adams kept the even tenor
of his way. The public service was full of his ene
mies, but he did not remove one of them. Even
when well persuaded that McLean, the Postmas
ter-General, had been intriguing against him and
using the patronage of his department in the in
terest of the opposition, and Clay with other mem
bers of the Cabinet urged McLean's dismissal, the
President refused, because he thought the Post Of
fice Department was on the whole well conducted.
That he did not exclude his friends from place,
was perhaps all that could be truthfully said. The

282 HENRY CLAY.

administration had, however, some well - written
newspapers and able speakers on its side. They
vigorously denounced the recklessness of the at
tacks made upon the government, and spoke of
General Jackson as an illiterate " military chief
tain." But that phrase was a two-edged weapon ;
for, while thinking men were moved to the reflec
tion that military chieftains were not the safest
chiefs of republics, the masses would see in the
military chieftain only the " old hero " who had
right gallantly " whipped the Britishers at New
Orleans." The Jackson movement thus remained
greatly superior in aggressive force and in unscru-
pulousiiess of denunciation.

On one occasion, however, this was carried to a
very dangerous length by Jackson himself, and
Clay apparently scored a great advantage. It is
a strange story. In May, 1827, there appeared in
a North Carolina newspaper a letter from Carter
Beverly of Virginia, concerning a visit made by
him to General Jackson at the Hermitage. The
General had then said, before a large company, as
the letter stated, that, before the election of Mr.
Adams, " Mr. Clay's friends made a proposition to
Jackson's friends that, if they would promise on
his behalf not to put Mr. Adams in the seat of
Secretary of State, Mr. Clay and his friends
would in one hour make Jackson the President,"
but that General Jackson had indignantly repelled
the proposition. Beverly's letter created much
excitement. His veracity being challenged, he

SECRETARY OF STATE. 283

fell back upon General Jackson, and the General
wrote a long reply, telling the story somewhat
differently. According to his account, " a respect
able member of Congress " had told him that, as
he had been informed by Mr. Clay's friends, Mr.
Adams's friends had held out the secretaryship of
state to Mr. Clay as a price for his influence, say
ing that, if General Jackson were elected Presi
dent, Adams would be continued as Secretary of
State, that then " there would be no room for
Kentucky," and that, if General Jackson would
promise not to continue Mr. Adams as Secretary
of State, they would put an end to the presiden
tial contest in one hour. Then he, General Jack
son, had contemptuously repelled this " bargain
and corruption."

When this letter of General Jackson appeared
in the newspapers, Clay thought he had at last
what he had long been looking for, — a responsible
sponsor for the wretched gossip. He forthwith, in
an address to the public, made an unqualified and
indignant denial of General Jackson's statements,
and called for Jackson's proof. In a very spirited
speech delivered at a dinner given him by his old
constituents at Lexington, he once more went over
the whole dreary story, and in the most pointed
language he defied General Jackson to produce his
"respectable member of Congress," or, in default
thereof, to stand before the American people as a
wilful defamer. The General could not evade this,
and named James Buchanan of Pennsylvania, as

284 EP:NRY CLAY.

his authority. Now Buchanan had to rise and
explain. Accordingly, in a public letter, he de
nied having spoken to General Jackson on behalf
of Mr. Clay or his friends ; he had said nothing
that General Jackson could have so understood ;
had he seen reason for suspecting that the General
had so understood him at the time, he would have
set himself right immediately. He even suggested
that the whole story of the attempted bargain
might have been an afterthought on the part of
the General. Thus Jackson's only witness utterly
failed him. Not only that, but Buchanan's letter,
together with the correspondence which followed,
left ample room for the suspicion that, if bargain
ing was thought of and attempted, it was rather in
the Jackson camp than among Clay's friends.

Clay now felt as if he had the slander under
his heel. To make its annihilation quite com
plete, he called all his friends upon the witness
stand. If their votes in Congress had been trans
ferred to Mr. Adams by a corrupt bargain, many
persons must have known of it. One after another
they came forward in public letters, declaring that,
while the election was pending, they had never
heard of any attempt at bargaining to control their
votes in favor of Mr. Adams, and that, had the
attempt been made, they would have refused to
be controlled. All these things were elaborately
summed up and set forth in another address to the
people published by Clay in December.

The case appeared perfect. Clay and his friends

SECRETARY OF STATE. 285

were jubilant. Letters of congratulation came
pouring in upon him. Webster was lavish in his
praise of Clay's dinner speech at Lexington, and
thought General Jackson would never recover from
the blow he had received. Was it possible that, in
the face of this overwhelming evidence, General
Jackson should refuse to retract his charges, or
that anybody in the United States should still be
lieve them to be true, and have the hardihood to
repeat them ? It was. General Jackson did not
retract. His whole moral sense was subjugated by
the dogged belief that a man who seriously dis
agreed with him must necessarily be a very bad
man, capable of any villainy, and must be put
down. He attempted no reply to Buchanan's let
ter and Clay's addresses, but, as we shall see, sev
enteen years later, at a most critical period in
Clay's public life, when Carter Beverly, in a.
regretful letter to Clay, had retracted all asper-*
sions upon him, Jackson repeated the slander and |
reaffirmed his belief in it. Neither did General
Jackson's friends remain silent ; on the contrary,
they lustily proclaimed that Buchanan's letter had
proved Jackson's charge, and that now there could
be no further doubt about it. Among the masses
of the people, too, who did not read long expla
nations and sift evidence, especially in Pennsylva
nia and in the West and South, the bargain and
corruption cry remained as powerful as ever. It
became with them a sort of religious belief that, in
die year 1824, General Jackson, a guileless soldier,

286 HENRY CLAY.

the hero of New Orleans, and the savior of his
country, had been cheated out of his rights by two
rascally politicians, Clay and Adams, who had cor
ruptly usurped the highest offices of the govern
ment, and plotted to destroy the liberties of the
American people.

- The twentieth Congress, which had been elected
while all this was going on, and which assembled
in December, 1827, had a majority hostile to the
administration in both branches, — a thing which,
as Adams dolefully remarked, had never occurred
during the existence of the government. More
over, that opposition was determined, if it could,
not only to harass the administration, but utterly to
destroy it in the opinion of the country. The only
important measure of general legislation passed at
this session was the famous tariff of 1828, called
the "tariff of abominations," on account of its
peculiarly incongruous and monstrous provisions.
Members of Congress from New England, where,
since 1824, much capital had been turned into
manufacturing industry, from the Middle States,
and from the West, no matter whether Republi
cans or Federalists, Jackson men or Adams men,
vied with one another in raising protective duties,
by a wild log-rolling process, on the different arti
cles in which their constituents were respectively
interested. It created great dissatisfaction in the
planting states, and more will be said of it when
we reach the nullification movement.

The time not occupied by the tariff debate was

SECRETARY OF STATE. 287

largely employed in defaming the administration.
In the House of Representatives, the struggle be
tween the Jackson men and the adherents of the
administration grew almost ludicrously passionate.
The opposition were agreed as to the general
charge that the administration was most damna
ble, but they were somewhat embarrassed as to the
specifications. One drag - net investigation after
another was ordered to help them out. These in
quiries brought forth nothing of consequence, but
that circumstance served only as a reason for re
peating the charges all the louder. The noise of
the conflict was prodigious. It increased in vol
ume, and the mutual criminations and recrimina
tions grew in rancor and unscrupulousness as the
presidential canvass proceeded after the adjourn
ment of Congress.

Until then the friends of Adams and Clay had
mostly contented themselves with the defense of
the administration from the accusations which were
hurled at it with bewildering violence and pro
fusion. But gradually they, too, warmed up to
their work, and it may be said that the campaign
of 1828 became one of the most furious and dis
gusting which the American people has ever wit
nessed. The passions were excited to fever heat,
and all the flood-gates of scurrility opened. The
detractors of John Quincy Adams not only as
sailed his public acts, but they traduced this most
scrupulously correct of men as the procurer to the
Emperor of Russia of a beautiful American girl.

288 HENRY CLAY.

With frantic energy the speakers and newspapers
of the Jackson party rang the changes upon the
" bargain and corruption " charge, and Clay, al
though not himself a candidate, was glibly reviled
as a professional gambler, a swindling bankrupt, an
abandoned profligate, and an accomplice of Aaron
Burr. On the other hand, not only the vulnerable
points of Jackson's public career were denounced,
but also his private character, and even the good
name of his wife, were ruthlessly dragged in the
dust. Such was the vile war of detraction which
raged till the closing of the polls.

Some of Mr. Adams's friends, among them
Webster, were hopeful to the last. But Adams
himself, and with him the cooler heads on his side,
did not delude themselves with flattering expecta
tions. When the votes were counted, it turned out
that Adams had carried all New England, with the
exception of one electoral vote in Maine ; also
New Jersey, Delaware, four ninths of the vote of
New York, and six of the eleven Maryland votes.
South of the Potomac, and west of the Alleghanies,
Jackson had swept everything before him. In
Pennsylvania he had a popular majority of fifty
thousand. The electoral vote for Jackson was one
hundred and seventy-eight, that for Adams eighty-
three. All the Clay states of 1824 had gone to
Jackson. Calhoun was elected Vice-President.

The overwhelming defeat of John Quincy Adams
has by some been attributed to the stubborn con
sistency with which he refused to build up a party

SECRETARY OF STATE. 289

for himself by removing his enemies, and distribut
ing the offices of the government among his polit
ical friends. This is a mistake. The civil service
reformer of our days would say that President
Adams did not act wisely, nor according to correct
principles, in permitting public servants to take
part in the warfare of political parties with as little
restraint as if they had been private citizens ; for
whenever public officers do so, their official power
and opportunities are almost always taken advan
tage of for the benefit of the party, endangering
the freedom of elections as well as the integrity of
the service. But this is a conclusion formed in
our time, when the abuses growing out of a parti
san service have fully developed themselves and
demand a remedy, which was not then the case.
Adams simply followed the traditions of the first
administrations. Had he silenced his enemies to
gether with his friends in office, it would have
benefited him in the canvass very little. Neither
could the use of patronage as a weapon in the
struggle have saved him, had he been capable of
resorting to it. Patronage so used is always de
moralizing, but it can have decisive effect only in
quiet times, while the popular mind is languid and
indifferent. When there are strong currents of
popular feeling and the passions are aroused, a
shrewd management of patronage, although it may
indeed control the nomination of candidates by
packing conventions, will not decide elections. In
1828 there were such elementary forces to encoun-

19

290 HENRY CLAY.

ter. Not only had the Jackson party the more
efficient organization and the shrewder managers,
but they were favored by a peculiar development
in the condition of the popular mind.

In the early times of the Republic the masses of
the American people were, owing to their cir
cumstances, uneducated and ignorant, and, owing
to traditional habit, they had a reverential respect
for superiority of talent and breeding, and yielded
readily to its leadership. Their growing prosper
ity, the material successes achieved by them in the
development of the country, strengthened their
confidence in themselves ; and the result of this
widening self-consciousness was the triumph of the
democratic theory of government in the election of
Jefferson. Still the old habit of readily accepting
the leadership of superior intelligence and educa
tion remained sufficiently strong to permit the
succession of several presidents taken from the
ranks of professional statesmen. But there always
comes a time in the life of a democracy — and
it is a critical period — when the masses grow
impatient of all pretensions or admissions of su
periority ; when a vague distrust of professional
statesmanship, of trained skill in the conduct of
the government, seizes upon them, and makes them
easily believe that those who possess such trained
skill will, if constantly intrusted with the manage
ment of public affairs, take some sort of advantage
of those less trained ; that, after all, the business of
governing is no more difficult than other business;

SECRETARY OF STATE. 291

and that it would be safer to put into the highest
places men more like themselves, not skilled states
men, but " men of the people."

By the time the revolutionary generation of
presidents had run out, — that is to say, with the
close of Monroe's second administration, — large
numbers of voters in the United States had reached
that state of mind. Its development was wonder
fully favored by the " bargain and corruption "
cry, which, after the election of Adams in 1825,
represented " the people's candidate " as cheated
out of his right to the presidency by a conspiracy
of selfish and tricky professional politicians. As
this cry was kept resounding all over the coun
try, accompanied with stories of other -dreadful
encroachments and intrigues, the masses were im
pressed with the feeling not only that a great
wrong had been done, but that some darkly lurk
ing danger was threatening their own rights and
liberties, and that nothing but the election of a
man of the people, such as " the old hero," could
surely save the Republic. This was the real./'
strength of the Jackson movement. It is a sig
nificant fact that it was weakest where there were
the most schools, and that it gathered its greatest
momentum where the people were least accustomed
to reading and study, and therefore most apt to be
swayed by unreasoning impressions.

No patronage, no machine work, could have
stemmed this tide. No man endowed with all the
charms of personal popularity could have turned it

292 HENRY CLAY.

back. But of all men John Quincy Adams was
the least fitted for such a task. We can learn
from him how to act upon lofty principles, and
also how to make their enforcement thoroughly
disagreeable. He possessed in the highest degree
that uprightness which leans backward. He had
a horror of demagogy, and, lest he should render
himself guilty of anything akin to it, he would but
rarely condescend to those innocent amenities by
which the good-will of others may be conciliated.
His virtue was freezing cold of touch, and forbid
ding in its looks. Not only he did not court, but
he repelled popularity. When convinced of being
right in an opinion, he would make its expression
as uncompromising and aggressive as if he desired
rather to irritate than to persuade- His friends
esteemed, and many of them admired him, but
their devotion and zeal were measured by a cold
sense of duty. To the eye of the people he seemed
so distant that they were all the more willing to
believe ill of him. With such a standard-bearer
such a contest was lost as soon as it was begun.

Clay tried to bear the defeat with composure.
" The inauspicious issue of the election," he wrote
to Niles, " has shocked me less than I feared it
would. My health and my spirits, too, have been
better since the event was known than they were
many weeks before." The hardest blow was that
even his beloved Kentucky had refused to follow
his leadership, and had joined the triumphal pro
cession of the military chieftain.

SECRETARY OF STATE. 293 .._=.

On the day before General Jackson's inaugu
ration Clay put his resignation into the hands of
Mr. Adams, and thus ended his career as Secretary
of State. It may, on the whole, be called a very
creditable one, although its failures were more con
spicuous than its successes. His greatest affair,
that of the Panama Congress, had entirely miscar- A
ried. This, however, was not the fault of his man
agement. He had desired to confide the mission to
the best diplomatic mind in America, Albert Gal-
latin, but Gallatin, after some consideration, de
clined. John Sergeant of Pennsylvania, of whom
we have already heard as an anti-slavery man in
the Missouri struggle, and Richard C. Anderson
of Kentucky, were then selected. Owing to the
long delays in Congress, the envoys did not start
on their mission until early in the summer of
1826. Anderson died on the way. In his place
Joel R. Poinsett, American Minister in Mexico,
was instructed to attend the Congress. When
Sergeant arrived at Panama, the Congress had
adjourned with a resolution to meet again at Ta-
cubaya, in Mexico. But by the time that meeting
was to be held, the attention of our southern sis
ter republics was already fully engaged by internal
discords and conflicts The meeting, therefore,
never took place, and Sergeant returned without
ever having seen the Congress. To Clay this was
a deep disappointment. His zeal in behalf of the
Spanish American republics had been generous and
ardent. He had sincerely believed that national

294 HENRY CLAY.

independence and the practice of free institutions
would lift those populations out of their ignorance,
superstition, and sloth, and develop in them the
moral qualities of true freemen. He had battled
for their cause, and clung to his hopes even against
the light of better information. He had infused
some of his enthusiasm into Mr. Adams himself, al
though the cooler judgment of the President, even
in his warmest recommendations to Congress, al
ways kept the contingency of failure in view. Clay
had seen his gorgeous conception of a grand broth
erhood of free peoples on American soil almost
realized, as he thought, by the convocation of the
Panama Council. Then the pleasing picture van
ished. He was obliged to admit to himself that in
the conversation of 1821, concerning the southern
republics, Adams, after all, had been right ; that
free government cannot be established by mere
revolutionary decrees; that written constitutions,
in order to last, must embody the ways of thinking
and the character of the people ; that the people of
the thirteen North American colonies (to whom rev
olution and national independence meant not the
creation of freedom, but the maintenance of liber
ties already possessed, enjoyed, and practiced, the
defense of principles which had been to them like
mother Is milk) were an essentially different people
from the Spanish Americans, who had grown up
under despotic rule, to whom liberty was a new
thing they did not know what to do with, and who
lived mostly in a tropical climate where the suste-

SECRETARY OF STATE. 295

nance of animal man requires but little ingenuity
and exertion, and where all the influences of nature
favor the development of indolence and of the pas
sions rather than the government of thrift, reason,
and law.

The disappointment was indeed painful, and he
could not refrain from expressing his feelings on a
notable occasion. In 1827 Bolivar wrote him a
formal letter complimenting him " upon his bril
liant talents and ardent love of liberty," adding :
" All America, Colombia, and myself owe your
Excellency our purest gratitude for the incompar
able services you have rendered to us by sustaining
our cause with a sublime enthusiasm." Clay an
swered, nearly a year later, in chilling phrase, that
the interest of the people of the United States in
the struggles of South America had been inspired
by the hope that " along with its independence would
be established free institutions, insuring all the
blessings of civil liberty," an object to the accom
plishment of which the people of the United States
were still anxiously looking. But, lest Bolivar
might fail in making a practical application of these
words, Clay added : " I should be unworthy of
the consideration with which your Excellency hon
ors me, if I did not on this occasion state that
ambitious designs have been attributed by your
enemies to your Excellency, which have created in
my mind great solicitude. They have cited late
events in Colombia as proofs of these designs.
But I cannot allow myself to believe that your Ex-

296 HENRY CLAY.

eellency will abandon the bright and glorious path
which lies plainly before you, for the bloody road
on which the vulgar crowd of tyrants and military
despots have so often trodden. I will not doubt
that your Excellency will in due time render a sat
isfactory explanation to Colombia and to the world
of the parts of your public conduct which have ex
cited any distrust," and so on. The lecture thus
administered by the American statesman to the
South American dictator was the voice of sadly
disappointed expectations. Clay was probably
aware that Bolivar's ambitions were by no means
the greatest difficulty threatening the Spanish
American republics.

Another disappointment he suffered in the fail
ure of an effort to remedy what he considered the
great defect in the Spanish treaty of 1819. In
March, 1827, he instructed Poinsett, the American
Minister to Mexico, to propose the purchase of
Texas. But the attempt came to nothing.

In his commercial diplomacy Clay followed the
ideas of reciprocity generally accepted at the time,
which not only awarded favor for favor, but also
set restriction against restriction. This practice of
fighting restriction with equal or greater restric
tion was apt to work well enough when the oppo
site party was the one less able to endure the re
striction, and therefore obliged by its necessities
to give up the fight quickly. But when the re
strictions were long maintained, the effect was sim
ply that each party punished its own commerce in

SECRETARY OF STATE. 297

seeking to retaliate upon the other. This practice
played a great part in the transactions taking place
in and between Great Britain and the United
States concerning the colonial trade. The tradi
tional policy of Great Britain was to keep the
trade with the colonies as exclusively as possible
in the hands of the mother country. The United
States, of course, desired to have the greatest pos
sible freedom of trade with the British colonies,
especially those in America, including the West
India islands. Various attempts were made in
that direction, but without success. The commer
cial conventions of 1815 and 1818 between the
United States and Great Britain had concluded
nothing in this respect, leaving the matter to be
regulated by legislation on either side. The result
was a confusion of privileges, conditions, and re
strictions most perplexing and troublesome. The
desirability of a clear mutual understanding being
keenly felt, negotiations were resumed. In July,
1825, Parliament passed an act offering large
privileges with regard to the colonial trade on con
dition of complete reciprocity, the acceptance of
the conditional offer to be notified to the British
government within one year. Congress neglected
to take action on the offer. Meanwhile Galla-
tin, upon whom the government was apt to fall
back for difficult diplomatic service, had been ap
pointed Minister to England in the place of Rufus
King, whose health had failed. When Gallatin
arrived in London he was met by an Order in

298 HENRY CLAY.

Council issued on July 27, 1826, prohibiting all
commercial intercourse between the United States
and the British West Indies. At the same time
Canning, the Foreign Secretary, who was fond of
treating the United States cavalierly, informed him
that all further negotiation upon this subject was
declined. A lively exchange of notes followed, in
which Gallatin and Clay not only had the best of
the argument, but excelled by pointed retorts given
in excellent temper. Another session of Congress
having passed without action, the President, in
accordance with an act passed in 1823, issued a
proclamation on March 17, 1827, declaring, on
the part of the United States, the prohibition of
all trade and intercourse with the ports from which
the commerce of the United States was excluded.
Soon afterwards Canning died. Lord Goderich
rose to the post of Prime Minister, and Gallatin
succeeded in making a treaty keeping the conven
tion of 1815 indefinitely in force subject to one
year's notice. Thus, while the controversy had not
been brought to the desired conclusion, at least
nothing was lost ; the dignity of the United States
was maintained ; more dangerous complications
were avoided ; and the way was prepared for more
satisfactory arrangements in the future. But it
was, in popular opinion, a failure after all, and,
the temporary cutting off of the West India trade
being severely felt, naturally told against the ad
ministration. It was with regard to this transac*
tion that, as we shall see, Martin Van Buren, when

SECRETARY OF STATE. 299

General Jackson's Secretary of State, gave those
famous instructions which cost him the consent of
the Senate to his nomination as Minister to Eng
land.

On the whole, there was evidence of a liberal,
progressive spirit in Clay's diplomatic transactions ;
and it gave him much pleasure to say that, during
the period when he was Secretary of State, " more
treaties between the United States and foreign na
tions had been actually signed than had been dur
ing the thirty-six years of the existence of the pres
ent Constitution." He concluded treaties of amity,
commerce, and navigation with Central America,
Prussia, Denmark, the Hanseatic Republics, Swe
den and Norway, and Brazil, and a boundary treaty
with Mexico. With Great Britain he was least
successful in bringing matters in controversy to
a definite and quite satisfactory conclusion. So a
treaty concerning the disputed territory on the
northwest coast, the Columbia country, provided
only for an extension of the joint occupation
agreed upon in the treaty of 1818, thus merely
adjourning a difficulty, while by another treaty the
northeastern boundary question was referred to a
friendly sovereign or state, to be agreed upon, for
arbitration.

The one disputed question between Great Brit
ain and the United States which he did bring to a
conclusion was one left behind by the treaty of
Ghent, — the indemnity for slaves carried off by
the British forces in the war of 1812. After seven

f OF TT?R

(

300 HENRY CLAY.

years of fruitless negotiation, the matter had been
referred to the Emperor Alexander of Russia. He
decided in favor of the claim. But the British
government raised new objections, and a second
negotiation followed. Great Britain finally agreed
to pay a lump sum for the value of the slaves, and
payment was made in 1827. Thus the adminis
tration of John Quincy Adams achieved, diplo
matically, one of its most decided successes in a
matter in which its sympathies were least enlisted.
But a kindred question turned up in another
form still more unsympathetic. On May 10, 1828,
the House of Representatives passed a resolution
asking the President to open negotiations with the
British government concerning the surrender of
slaves taking refuge in Canada. Clay accordingly
instructed Gallatin to propose to the British gov
ernment a stipulation, first, " for the mutual sur
render of deserters from the military and naval
service and from the merchant service of the two
countries ; " and, second, " for a mutual surrender
of all persons held to service or labor under the
laws of one party who escape into the territories of
the other." The first proposition was evidently
to serve only as a prop to the second; for, as the
instruction argued, while Great Britain had little
interest in the mutual surrender of fugitive slaves,
she had much interest in the mutual surrender of
military or naval deserters. The British govern
ment, however, as was to be expected, replied
promptly that it " was utterly impossible for them

SECRETARY OF STATE. 301

to agree to a stipulation for the surrender of fugi
tive slaves."

The negotiation presents a melancholy spectacle :
a republic offering to surrender deserters from the
army or navy of a monarchical power, if that power
would agree to surrender slaves escaped from their
owners in that republic ! And this happened un
der the administration of John Quincy Adams;
the instructions were signed by Henry Clay, and
the proposition was laid before the British govern
ment by Albert Gallatin ! It is true that in Clay's
despatches on this subject we find nothing of his
accustomed strength of statement and fervor of
reasoning. Neither did there appear anything like
zeal in Gallatin's presentation of the matter. It
was a mere perfunctory " going through the mo
tions," as if in expectation of a not unwelcome
failure. But even as such, it is a sorry page of
history which we should gladly miss. Slavery was
a hard taskmaster to the government of this proud
American Republic.

It would not be just to assume that a man who
had grown up in the anti-slavery school of the rev
olutionary period, and whose first effort on the
political field was made in behalf of emancipation,
would lend himself without reluctance to such
transactions, unless his conscience had become
completely debauched or his opinions thoroughly
changed. Clay had remained essentially different,
in his ways of thinking and feeling, from the or
dinary pro-slavery man. That nervous, sleepless,

302 HENRY CLAY.

instinctive watchfulness for the safety of the pecu-
liar institution, which characterized the orthodox
slave-holder, was entirely foreign to him. He had
to be told what the interests of slavery demanded,
in order to see and feel its needs. The original
anti-slavery spirit would again and again inspire
his impulses and break out in his utterances. We
remember how he praised the Spanish American
republics for having abolished slavery. In his
great " American System " speech he had argued
for the superior claims of free labor as against
those of " servile labor." He was scarcely seated
in the office of Secretary of State, when, in April,
1825, as Mr. Adams recorded, he expressed the
opinion that "the independence of Hayti must
shortly be recognized," - — an idea most horrible to
the American slave-holder. When he eagerly ac
cepted the invitation to the Panama Congress, the
association with new states that had liberated then-
slaves, and counted negroes and mulattoes among
their generals and legislators, had nothing alarm
ing to him. Little more than a year before he in
structed Gallatin to ask of Great Britain the sur
render of fugitive slaves from Canada, he had
made one of the most striking demonstrations of
his genuine feeling at a meeting of the African
Colonization Society, which is worthy of special
attention.

That society had been organized in 1816, with
the object of transporting free negroes to Africa and
of colonizing them there. It was in the main com-

SECRETARY OF STATE. 303

posed of two elements, — pro-slavery men, even of
the extreme type of John Randolph, who favored
the removal of free negroes from this country, be
cause they considered them a dangerous element, a
"pest," in slave - holding communities; and phi
lanthropists, some of whom sincerely believed that
the exportation of colored people on a grand scale
was possible, and would ultimately result in the
extinguishment of slavery, while others contented
themselves with a vague impression that some good
might be done by it, and used it as a convenient
excuse for not doing anything more efficacious.

Clay was one of the sincere believers in the col
onization scheme as practicable on a grand scale,
and as an aid to gradual emancipation. In his
speech before the Colonization Society in January,
1827, he tried to prove — and he had armed him
self for the task with an arsenal of figures — that
it was " not beyond the ability of the country " to
export and colonize a sufficient number of negroes
to effect a gradual reduction of the colored popula
tion in this country, and thus by degrees to eradi
cate slavery, or at least to neutralize its dangerous
effects. We know now that these sanguine calcu
lations were entirely delusive ; neither did his pre
diction come true, that the free negro "pests,"
when colonized in Africa, would prove the most
effective missionaries of civilization on that conti
nent. But he believed in all this ; to his mind the
colonization scheme was an anti-slavery agency, and
it was characteristic of his feelings when he ex
claimed : —

304 HENRY CLAY.

*'If I could be instrumental in eradicating this deepest
stain upon the character of our country, and removing
all cause of reproach on account of it by foreign nations ;
if I could only be instrumental in ridding of this foul
blot that revered state which gave me birth, or that not
less beloved state which kindly adopted me as her son,
I would not exchange the proud satisfaction which I
should enjoy for the honor of all the triumphs ever
decreed to the most successful conqueror."

We might almost imagine we heard the voice of
an apostle of " abolition " in his reply to the charge
that the Colonization Society was " doing mischief
by the agitation of this question." These were his
words, spoken in his most solemn tone : —

" What would they who thus reproach us have done ?
If they would repress all tendency toward liberty and
ultimate emancipation, they must do more than put down
the benevolent efforts of this society. They must go
back to the era of our liberty and independence, and
muzzle the cannon which thunder its annual joyous re
turn. They must revive the slave - trade with all its
train of atrocities. They must suppress the workings of
British philanthropy, seeking to meliorate the condition
of the unfortunate West Indian slaves. They must arrest
the career of South American deliverance from thraldom.
They must blow out the moral lights around us, and ex
tinguish that greatest torch of all, which America presents
to a benighted world, pointing the way to their rights,
their liberties, and their happiness. And when they
have achieved all these purposes, the work will yet be
incomplete. They must penetrate the human soul, and
eradicate the light of reason and the love of liberty

SECRETARY OF STATE. 305

Then, and riot till then, when universal darkness and
despair prevail, can you perpetuate slavery, and repress
all sympathies, and all human and benevolent efforts
among freemen, in behalf of the unhappy portion of our
race doomed to bondage."

This, no doubt, was Henry Clay the man, speak
ing the language of his heart, and he spoke it, too,
at a time when he must have known that the slave-
holding interest was growing very sensitive, and
that its distrust and disfavor might become fatal to
all his ambitions as a candidate for the presidency.
Knowing this, he said things which might have
come from the most uncompromising and defiant
enemy of slavery. Yet this was the same man
who had helped to strengthen the law for the re
covery of fugitive slaves ; who had opposed the
exclusion of slavery from new states ; who at the
beginning of the Adams administration had given
the British government to understand that further
negotiations for common action for the suppression
of the slave-trade would be useless, as the Senate
would not confirm such treaties ; who, after having
made that anti-slavery speech, would lend himself
to a negotiation with a foreign government for the
mutual surrender of fugitive slaves and military
and naval deserters ; who would, at a later period,
vehemently denounce the abolitionists, again op
pose the exclusion of slavery from new territories,
again strengthen the fugitive - slave law, while in
the intervals repeating his denunciations of slavery,
and again declaring himself in favor of gradual
emancipation.

806 HENRY CLAY.

This contrast between expression of feeling on
the one side, and action on the other, was incom
prehensible to the abolitionists, who, after the
Missouri struggle, began to make themselves felt
by agitating, with constantly increasing zeal, the
duty of instantly overthrowing slavery on moral
grounds. It is not easily understood by our gen
eration, who look back upon slavery as a moral
abnormity in this age, and as the easily discernible
cause of great conflicts and calamities, which it
would have been best to attack and extinguish, the
earlier the better. We can only with difficulty
imagine the thoughts and emotions of men of that
period, who, while at heart recognizing slavery as
a wrong and a curse, yet had some of that feeling
expressed by Patrick Henry, in his remarkable
letter of 1773, — who thought that the abolition
of the great evil, while sure finally to come, would
still be impossible for a considerable period, and
that in the mean time, while slavery legally existed,
it must be protected in its rights and interests
against outside interference, and especially against
all commotions which might disturb the peace of
the community. We can now scarcely appreciate
the dread of the consequences of sudden emanci
pation, the constitutional scruples, the nervous
anxiety about the threatened Union, and the vague
belief in the efficacy of compromises and pallia
tives, which animated statesmen of Clay's way of
thinking and feeling. It is characteristic of that
period, that even a man of John Quincy Adams's

SECRETARY OF STATE. 307

stamp, who was not under any pro-slavery influ
ence at home, and all whose instincts and impulses
were against slavery, permitted that negotiation
with Great Britain about the surrender of fugitive
slaves to go on under his presidential responsi
bility, without mentioning it by a single word in
his journal as a matter of importance. Less sur
prising appears such conduct in Clay, who was con
stantly worked upon by the interests and anxieties
of the slave-holding community in which he had
his home, and who was a natural compromiser, be
cause his very nature was a compromise.

His four years' service as Secretary of State
formed on the whole an unhappy period in Clay's
life. Although many of his state papers testify
by their vigor and brilliancy to the zest with which
they were worked out, — even the cool-headed Gal-
latin recognized that Clay had " vastly improved
since 1814," — yet the office labor, with its con
stant confinement, grew irksome to him. Here was
a lion in a cage. His health suffered seriously.
He seemed to be in danger of paralysis, and several
times he himself became so alarmed that he could
only with difficulty be persuaded by President
Adams to remain in office. It was believed by his
friends, and it is very probable, that the war of
vilification waged against him had something to do
with his physical ailment. There is abundance of
evidence to prove that he felt deeply the assaults
upon his character. The mere fact that anybody
dare to represent him as capable of dishonor-

308 HENRY CLAY.

able practices is a stinging humiliation to a proud
man. There is refuge in contempt, but also the
necessity of despising any one is painful to a gen
erous nature.

Moreover the feeling grew upon him that he had
after all made a great mistake in accepting the
secretaryship of state in the Adams administra
tion. He became painfully aware that this accept"
ance had given color to the " bargain and corrup -
tion " charge. It kept him busy year after year,
in dreary iteration, at the humiliating task of prov
ing that he was an honest man ; while, had he not
accepted, he might have remained in Congress, the
most formidable power in debate, leading a host
of enthusiastic friends, and defying his enemies to
meet him face to face. Thus for the secretaryship
of state he felt that he had given up his active
leadership on the field where he was strongest ;
and that secretaryship, far from being to him a
stepping-stone to the presidency, had become the
most serious stumbling-block in his way.

The most agreeable feature of Clay's official
life, aside from his uncommon popularity with the
diplomatic corps, consisted in his personal relations
with Mr. Adams. Their daily intercourse sup
planted the prejudices, which formerly had pre
vailed between them, with a constantly growing
esteem and something like friendship. In 1828
Clay said of Adams, in a letter to Crawford : " I
had fears of Mr. Adams's temper and disposition,
but I must say that they have not been realized.

SECRETARY OF STATE. 309

and I have found in him, since I have been as
sociated with him in the executive government, as
little to censure or condemn as I could have ex
pected in any man." With chivalrous loyalty
Clay stood by his chief, and Adams gave him his
full confidence. Adams's Diary does not mention
a single serious difference of opinion as having in
any manner clouded his relationship with the Secre
tary during the four years of their official connec
tion. On several occasions, when Clay's ill health
seemed to make his resignation necessary, Adams
with unusal warmth of feeling expressed the high
value he put upon Clay's services, assuring him
that it would be extremely difficult to fill his place,
and earnestly trying to dissuade him from his pur
pose. Toward the close of his presidential term,
Adams offered Clay a place on the bench of the
Supreme Court, which Clay declined. John Quincy
Adams probably never spoke with more fervor of
any public man than he spoke of Clay shortly
after the close of his administration, in answer to
an address of a committee of citizens of New Jer
sey : —

" Upon him the foulest slanders have been showered.
The department of state itself was a station which, by
its bestowal, could confer neither profit nor honor upon
him, but upon which he has shed unfading honor by the
manner in which he has discharged its duties. Preju
dice and passion have charged him with obtaining that
office by bargain and corruption. Before you, my fel
low-citizens, in the presence of our country and Heaven,

310 HENRY CLAY.

I pronounce that charge totally unfounded. As to my
motives for tendering him the Department of State
when I did, let the man who questions them come for
ward. Let him look around among the statesmen and
legislators of the nation and of that day. Let him then
select and name the man whom, by his preeminent
talents, by his splendid services, by his ardent patriot
ism, by his all-embracing public spirit, by his fervid elo
quence in behalf of the rights and liberties of mankind,
by his long experience in the affairs of the Union, foreign
and domestic, a President of the United States, intent
only upon the honor and welfare of his country, ought to
have preferred to Henry Clay."

These warm words did honor to the man who
spoke them, but the " bargain and corruption " cry
went on nevertheless.

John Quincy Adams, after his crushing defeat,
took leave of the presidency with the feeling that
" the sun of his public life had set in the deepest
gloom." He thought of nothing but final retire
ment, not anticipating that the most glorious part
of his career was still in store for him. Clay, too,
spoke of retirement. But at the same time he
asked Edward Everett, of Massachusetts, whether
he thought that, at the next presidential election,
in 1832, the Eastern States could be counted upon
for him, Henry Clay; he would then feel sure of
the Western. Here was the old ambition, ever
dominant and restless, bound to drive him into
new struggles, and to bring upon him new disap'
pointments.

CHAPTER XII.

THE PARTY CHIEFS.

UNDEK Monroe's presidency the old Federal
party had indeed maintained a local organization
here and there, and filled a few seats in Congress,
but it had even then become extinct as a national
organization. The Republicans were in virtually
undisputed possession of the government. The
" era of good feeling " abounded in personal bick
erings, jealousies of cliques, conflicts of ambition,
and also controversies on matters of public interest,
but there was no gathering of forces in opposite
camps on a great scale. In the presidential canvass
of 1824 all the candidates were recognized as Re
publicans. It was the election of John Quincy
Adams in the House of Representatives that
brought about the first lasting schism in the Re
publican ranks. In its beginning this schism ap
peared to bear an essentially personal character.
The friends of the defeated candidates, of Jackson
and Crawford, with the following of Calhoun,
banded together against the friends of Adams and
Clay. Their original rallying cry was that Jack
son had been wronged, and that the Adams-Clay
administration must be broken down in any event,

312 HENRY CLAY.

whatever policy it might follow. The division
was simply between Jackson men on one side, and
Adams and Clay men on the other.

The two prominent questions of the time, that of
the tariff and that of internal improvements, were
not then in issue between them. There were
strenuous advocates of a high tariff and of inter
nal improvements on both sides. Jackson himself
had in his Coleman letter spoken the language of
a protectionist, and he had voted for several inter
nal improvement bills while he was in the Senate.
In several states he had been voted for as a firm
friend of those two policies. Even during the
whole of Adams's administration, while a furious
opposition was carried on against it, there con
tinued to be much diversity of opinion among its
assailants on these subjects. In fact the tariff of
1828, the " tariff of abominations," was passed by
Congress, and the strict construction principles
maintained by Madison and Monroe concerning
internal improvements suffered one defeat after
another, while both Houses were controlled by ma
jorities hostile to Adams and Clay. The question
of the National Bank was not touched in the cam
paign of 1824, nor wrhile Adams was President ;
nor was there, at the time the opposition started,
any other defined principle or public interest con
spicuously at issue between him and his opponents ;
for the inaugural address, and the messages in
which Adams took such advanced positions in the
direction of paternal government, did not precede,

THE PARTY CHIEFS. 313

but followed, the break destined to become a last
ing one.

But it is also true that, while the Jackson party
taken as a whole was, at the beginning, in a chaotic
state as to political principles and aims, a large
and important Southern fraction of it gradually
rallied upon something like a fixed programme.
At a former period Southern men had been among
the foremost advocates of a protective tariff and
internal improvements. We have seen Calhoun al
most contesting Clay's leadership as to those ob
jects. The governmental power required, Southern
ers could at that time contemplate without terror.
But a great change of feeling came over many of
them. The struggle about the admission of Mis
souri had produced no open and lasting party di
visions, but it had left in the Southern mind a
lurking sense of danger. The slave-holding in
terest gradually came to understand that the whole
drift of sentiment outside of the slave-holding com
munities was decidedly hostile to the peculiar in
stitution ; that a wall must be built around slavery
for its protection ; that state sovereignty and the
strictest construction of the Constitution concerning
the functions and powers of the general govern
ment were the bulwark of its safety ; that any
sort of interference with the home affairs of the
Slave States, even in the way of internal improve
ment, would tend to undermine that bulwark ; that
the Slave States, owing to their system of labor,
must remain purely agricultural communities ; that

314 HENRY CLAY.

anything enhancing the price of those things which
the agriculturists had to buy would be injurious
to the planter, and that, therefore, a protective
tariff raising the prices of manufactured goods
must be rejected as hostile to the interests of the
South.

This was a tangible and consistent policy. The
spirit animating it early found an opportunity for
asserting itself by a partisan demonstration in the
extreme position taken by President Adams in his
first official utterances concerning the necessary
functions of the national government. These ut
terances, which gave the Jackson men a welcome
occasion for raising against Adams the cry of
Federalism, startled many old Kepublicans of the
Jeffersonian school. This was especially the case
in the South. The reason was not that the North
had been less attached than the South to the cause
of local self-government. On the contrary, home
rule in its democratic form was more perfectly de
veloped and more heartily cherished in New Eng
land, with her town-meeting system, than in the
South, where not only a large part of the popula
tion, the negroes, were absolutely excluded from
all participation in self-government, but where the
aristocratic class of slave-holders enjoyed immense
advantages of political influence over the rest of
the whites. But in New England, and in the
North generally, local self-government was felt to
be perfectly compatible with a vigorous national
authority, while at the South there was constant

THE PARTY CHIEFS. 315

fear of encroachment, and the assertion of the
home rule principle was, therefore, mainly directed
against the national power. That the national
government had a natural tendency hostile to local
self-government was mainly a Southern idea.

The Southern interest, knowing what it wanted,
compact, vigilant, and represented by able politi
cians, was naturally destined to become the lead
ing force in that aggregation of political elements
which, beginning in a mere wild opposition to the
Adams administration, hardened into a political
party. An extensive electioneering machinery,
which was skillfully organized, and used with great
effect in the four years' campaign, beginning with
the election of John Quincy Adams and ending
with Jackson's election in 1828, continued to form
one of its distinguishing features.

The followers of Adams and Clay were, by the
'necessities of their situation, driven to organize on
their side. Having been the regular administra
tion party during Adams's presidency, they became
the regular opposition after Jackson's inaugura
tion. A majority of those who favored a liberal
construction of the constitutional powers of the
general government gathered on that side, inter
spersed, however, with not a few state-rights men.
Among them the protective tariff and the policy of
internal improvements found most of their advo
cates.

Each of these new parties claimed at first to be
the genuine, orthodox Republican party, but, by

316 HENRY CLAY.

way of distinction, the Jackson men called them
selves Democratic Republicans, and the followers
of Clay and Adams National Republicans, — ap
pellations which a few years later gave room to the
shorter names of Democrats and Whigs.

These two new political organizations are com
monly assumed to have been mere revivals of the
old Federal and Republican parties. This they
were, however, only in a limited sense. It cer
tainly cannot be said that the Democrats were all
old Republicans, and the Nationals all, or nearly
all, old Federalists. John Quincy Adams himself
had indeed been a Federalist ; but he had joined
the Republicans during Jefferson's presidency, when
the conflict with England was approaching. Clay
had been a Republican leader from the start, and
most of his followers came from the same ranks.
On the other hand many old Federalists, who hated
Adams on account of what they called his deser
tion, joined the opposition to his administration,
and then remained with the Democratic party, in
which some of them rose to high places. As to the
antecedents of their members, both new parties
were, therefore, composed of mixed elements.

They did, indeed, represent two different politi
cal tendencies, somewhat corresponding with those
which had divided their predecessors, — one favor
ing a more strict, the other a more latitudinarian,
construction of constitutional powers. But this,
too, must be taken with a qualification. The old
Republican party, before Jefferson's election to the

THE PARTY CHIEFS. 317

presidency, had been terribly excited at the as
sumptions of power by the Federalists, such as the
alien and sedition laws. But when in possession
of the government, they went fully as far in that
direction as the Federalists had done. Their lead
ers admitted that they had exceeded the warrant
of the Constitution in the purchase of Louisiana ;
and their embargoes, and the laws and executive
measures enforcing them, were, as encroachments
upon local self-goVernment and individual rights,
hardly less objectionable in principle than the alien
and sedition laws had been. But it must be ad
mitted that these things were not done for the pur
pose of enlarging the power of the government,
and of encroaching upon home rule and individual
rights. It was therefore with a self -satisfied sense
of consistency that they continued to preach, as a
matter of doctrine, the most careful limitation of
the central power and the largest scope of local
self-government. In this respect the new Demo
cratic party followed in their footsteps.

The old Federalists, on the other hand, had
openly declared themselves in favor of a govern
ment strong enough to curb the unruly democracy.
The National Republicans, or Whigs, having in
great part themselves been Jeffersonian Republi
cans, mostly favored a liberal construction of con
stitutional powers, not with a view to curbing the
unruly democracy, but to other objects, such as in
ternal improvements, a protective tariff, and a
national bank.

318 HENRY CLAY.

In practice, indeed, the lines thus more or less
distinctly dividing the two new parties were not as
strictly observed by the members of each as might
have been inferred from the fierce fights occasion
ally raging between them. Strict constructionists,
when in power, would sometimes yield to the temp
tation of stretching the Constitution freely ; while
latitudinarians in opposition would, when conven
ient to themselves, insist upon the narrowest inter
pretation of the fundamental lam On the whole,
however, the new Democratic party, by its advo
cacy of the largest local self-government and a
strict limitation of the central authority, secured
to itself the prestige of the apostolic succession to'
Jefferson. It placed itself before the people as the
true representative of the genuine old theory of
democratic government, as the popular party, and
as the legitimate possessor of power in the nation.
This position it maintained until thirty years later,
when its entanglement with slavery caused its
downfall.

The National Republican, or Whig party, was
led by men who recognized the elevated character
of John Quincy Adams's administration, and who
sustained it against partisan assaults and popular
clamor. They dreaded the rule of an ignorant
and violent military chieftain such as Jackson was
thought to be. They took a lively interest in the
industrial developments of the times, and thought
that the government, or rather themselves in pos
session of the government, could give those devel-

THE PARTY CHIEFS. 319

opments more intelligent impulse, aid, and direc
tion than the people would do if let alone. They
felt themselves called upon to take care of the peo
ple in a larger sense, in a greater variety of ways,
than did statesmen of the Democratic creed. Thus,
while the Democratic party found its principal con
stituency among the agricultural population, in
cluding the planters in the Southern States, with
all that depended upon them, and among the poorer
and more ignorant people of the cities, the National
Republicans, or Whigs, recruited themselves — of
course not exclusively, but to a conspicuous extent
— among the mercantile and industrial classes, and
generally among the more educated and stirring in
other walks of life. The Democratic party suc
cessfully asserting itself as the legitimate adminis
trator of the national power, the Nationals found
themselves consigned, for the larger part of the
time, to the role of a critical opposition, always
striving to get into power, but succeeding only oc
casionally as a temporary corrective. Whenever
any members of the majority party were driven
into opposition by its fierce discipline, they found
a ready welcome among the Nationals, who could
offer them brilliant company in an uncommon
array of men of talent. The Whig party was thus
admirably fitted for the business of criticism, and
that criticism was directed not only against the
enemy, but not seldom against itself, at the ex
pense of harmonious cooperation. Its victories
were mostly fruitless. In point of drill and dis-

320 HENRY CLAY.

cipline it was greatly the inferior of its antagonist ;
nor could it under ordinary circumstances make
up for that deficiency by superior enthusiasm. It
had a tendency in the direction of selectness, which
gave it a distinguished character, challenging the
admiration of others as well as exciting its own,
but also calculated to limit its popularity.

There were, then, two political parties again, and
at the same time two party leaders whose equals —
it may be said without exaggeration — the Ameri
can people had never seen before, and have never
seen since, excepting Abraham Lincoln, who, how
ever, was something more than a party leader.
They were, indeed, greatly inferior to Hamilton in
creative statesmanship, and to Jefferson in the
faculty of disseminating ideas, and of organizing,
stimulating, and guiding an agitation from the
closet. But they were much stronger than either
in the power of inspiring great masses of followers
with enthusiastic personal devotion, of inflaming
them for an idea or a public measure, of marshal
ing them for a conflict, of leading them to victory,
or rallying them after defeat. But while each of
them possessed the magic of leadership in the
highest degree, it would be difficult to find two
men more different in almost all other respects.

Andrew Jackson, when he became President,
was a man of sixty-two. A life of much exposure,
hardship, and excitement, and also ill-health, had
made him appear older than he was. His great
military achievement lay fifteen years back in the

THE PARTY CHIEFS. 321

past, and made him the " old hero." He was. very
ignorant. In his youth he had mastered scarcely
the rudiments of education, and he did not possess
that acquisitive intellectuality which impels men,
with or without preparation, to search for knowl
edge and to store it up. While he had keen in
tuitions, he never thoroughly understood the merits
of any question of politics or economics. But his
was in the highest degree the instinct of a supe
rior will, the genius of command. If he had been
on board a vessel in extreme danger, he would have
thundered out his orders without knowing anything
of seamanship, and been indignantly surprised if
captain and crew had not obeyed him. At a fire, his
voice would have made by-standers as well as fire
men promptly do his will. In war, he was of course
made a general, and without any knowledge of mil
itary science he went out to meet the enemy, made
raw militia fight like veterans, and won the most
brilliant victory in the war of 1812. He was not
only brave himself ; his mere presence infused
bravery into others.

To his military heroship he owed that popularity
tyhich lifted him into the presidential chair, and he
carried the spirit of the warrior into the business
of the government. His party was to him his
army ; those who opposed him, the enemy. He
knew not how to argue, but how to command ; not
how to deliberate, but how to act. He had that
impulsive energy which always creates dramatic
Conflicts, and the power of passion he put into them

21

322 HENRY CLAY.

made all his conflicts look tremendous. When he
had been defeated in 1825 by the influence of Clay,
he made it appear as if he were battling against all
the powers of corruption which were threatening
the life of the Kepublic. We shall see him fight
Nicholas Biddle, of the United States Bank, as if
he had to defend the American people against the
combined money power of the world seeking to en
slave them. In rising up against nullification, and
in threatening France with war to make her pay a
debt, we shall see him saving the Union from
deadly peril, and humiliating to the dust the inso
lence of the old world. Thus he appeared like an
invincible Hercules constantly meeting terrible
monsters dangerous to the American people, and
slaying them all with his mighty club.

This fierce energy was his nature. It had a
wonderful fascination for the popular fancy, which
is fond of strong and bold acts. He became the
idol of a large portion of the people to a degree
never known before or since. Their belief was
that with him defeat was impossible ; that all the
legions of darkness could not prevail against him ;
and that, whatever arbitrary powers he might as
sume, and whatever way he might use them, it
would always be for the good of the country, — a
belief which he sincerely shared. His ignorance of
the science of statesmanship, and the rough manner
in which he crossed its rules, seemed to endear him
all the more to the great mass of his followers. In
numerable anecdotes about his homely and robust

THE PARTY CHIEFS. 323

sayings and doings were going from mouth to
mouth, and with delight the common man felt that
this potent ruler was '• one of us."

This popularity gave him an immense authority
over the politicians of his party. He was a warm
friend and a tremendous foe. By a faithful friend
he would stand to the last extremity. But one who
seriously differed from him on any matter that was
near his heart, was in great danger of becoming an
object of his wrath. The ordinary patriot is apt
to regard the enemies of his country as his per
sonal enemies. But Andrew Jackson was always
inclined, with entire sincerity, to regard his per
sonal opponents as the enemies of his country. He
honestly believed them capable of any baseness,
and it was his solemn conviction that such nui
sances must be abated by any power available for
that purpose. The statesmen of his party fre
quently differed from him on matters of public
importance ; but they knew that they had to choose
between submission and his disfavor. His friends
would sometimes exercise much influence upon him
in starting his mind in a certain direction ; but
when once started, that mind was beyond their
control. His personal integrity was above the
reach of corruption. He always meant to do right ;
indeed, he was always firmly convinced of being
right. His idea of right was not seldom obscured
by ignorance and prejudice, and in following it he
would sometimes do the most unjust or dangerous
things. But his friends, and the statesmen of his

324 HENRY CLAY.

party, knowing that, when he had made up his
mind, especially on a matter that had become a
subject of conflict between him and his " enemies,"
it was absolutely useless to reason with him, accus
tomed themselves to obeying orders, unless they
were prepared to go to the rear or into opposition.
It was, therefore, not a mere invention of the
enemy, but sober truth, that, when Jackson's ad
ministration was attacked, sometimes the only an
swer left to its defenders, as well as the all-suffi
cient one with the Democratic masses, was simply
a " Hurrah for Jackson ! "

Henry Clay was, although in retirement, the
recognized chief of the National Republicans. He
was then fifty-two years old, and in the full matur
ity of his powers. He had never been an arduous
student ; but his uncommonly vivacious and re
ceptive mind had learned much in the practical
school of affairs. He possessed that magnificent
confidence in himself which extorts confidence from
others. He had a full measure of the temper ne
cessary for leadership : the spirit of initiative ; but
not always the discretion that should accompany
it. His leadership was not of that mean order
which merely contrives to organize a personal fol
lowing ; it was the leadership of a statesman zeal
ously striving to promote great public interests.
Whenever he appeared in a deliberative assembly,
or in the councils of his party, he would, as a mat
ter of course, take in his hands what important
business was pending, and determine the policy to

THE PARTY CHIEFS. 325

be followed. His friends, and some even among
his opponents, were so accustomed to yield to him,
that nothing seemed to them concluded without the
mark of his assent ; and they involuntarily looked
to him for the decisive word as to what was to be
done. Thus he grew into a habit of dictation,
which occasionally displayed itself in a manner of
peremptory command, and an intolerance of ad
verse opinion apt to provoke resentment.

It was his eloquence that had first made him fa
mous, and that throughout his career mainly sus
tained his leadership. His speeches were not mas
terpieces of literary art, nor exhaustive disserta
tions. They do not offer to the student any pro
found theories of government or expositions of
economic science. They will not be quoted as au
thorities on disputed points. Neither were they
strings of witty epigrams. They were the impas
sioned reasoning of a statesman intensely devoted
to his country and to the cause he thought right.
There was no appearance of artifice in them. They
made every listener feel that the man who uttered
them was tremendously in earnest, and that the
thoughts he expressed had not only passed through
his brain, but also through his heart. They werj
the speeches of a great debater, and, as may be
said of those of Charles James Fox, cold print
could never do them justice. To be fully appre
ciated they had to be heard on the theatre of ac
tion, in the hushed senate chamber, or before the
eagerly upturned faces of assembled multitudes.

326 HENRY CLAY.

To feel the full charm of his lucid explanations,
and his winning persuasiveness, or the thrill which
was flashed through the nerves of his hearers by
the magnificent sunbursts of his enthusiasm, or
the fierce thunderstorms of his anger and scorn,
one had to hear that musical voice cajoling, flatter
ing, inspiring, overawing, terrifying in turn, — a
voice to the cadences of which it was a physical
delight to listen ; one had to see that face, not
handsome, but glowing with the fire of inspiration ;
that lofty mien, that commanding stature con
stantly growing under his words, and the grand
sweep of his gesture, majestic in its dignity, and
full of grace and strength, — the whole man a
superior being while he spoke.

Survivors of his time, who heard him at his best,
tell us of the effects produced by his great appeals
in the House of Representatives or the Senate, the
galleries trembling with excitement, and even the
members unable to contain themselves ; or, in
popular assemblies, the multitudes breathlessly
listening, and then breaking out in unearthly shouts
of enthusiasm and delight, weeping and laughing,
and rushing up to him with overwhelming demon
strations of admiring and affectionate rapture.

Clay's oratory sometimes fairly paralyzed his
opponents. A story is told that Tom Marshall,
himself a speaker of uncommon power, was once
selected to answer Clay at a mass meeting, but
that he was observed, while Clay was proceeding,
slowly to make his way back through the listening

THE PARTY CHIEFS. 327

crowd, apparently anxious to escape. Some of his
friends tried to hold him, saying : " Why, Mr.
Marshall, where are you going ? You must reply
to Mr. Clay. You can easily answer all he has
said." " Of course, I can answer every point,"
said Marshall, " but you must excuse me, gentle
men ; I cannot go up there and do it just now,
after his speech."

There was a manly, fearless frankness in the
avowal of his opinions, and a knightly spirit in his
defense of them, as well as in his attacks on his
opponents. He was indeed, on the political field,
the preux chevalier, marshaling his hosts, sound
ing his bugle blasts, and plunging first into the
fight ; and with proud admiration his followers
called him " the gallant Harry of the West."

No less brilliant and attractive was he in his
social intercourse with men ; thoroughly human in
his whole being ; full of high spirits ; fond of en
joying life and of seeing others happy ; generous
and hearty in his sympathies ; always courteous,
sometimes studiously and elaborately so, perhaps
beyond what the occasion seemed to call for, but
never wounding the most sensitive by demonstra
tive condescension, because there was a truly kind
heart behind his courtesy ; possessing a natural
charm of conversation and manner so captivating
that neither scholar nor backwoodsman could with
stand its fascination ; making friends wherever he
appeared, and holding them — and surely to no
public man did friends ever cling with more affec-

328 RENRY CLAY.

tionate attachment. It was not a mere political,
it was a sentimental devotion, — a devotion aban
doning even that criticism which is the duty of
friendship, and forgetting or excusing all his weak
nesses and faults, intellectual, and moral, — more
than was good for him.

Behind him he had also the powerful support of
the industrial interests of the country, which saw
in him their champion, while the perfect integrity
of his character forbade the suspicion that this
championship was serving his private gain.

Such were the leaders of the two parties as they
then stood before the country, — individualities
so pronounced and conspicuous, commanders so
faithfully sustained by their followers, that, while
they were facing each other, the contests of parties
appeared almost like a protracted political duel
between two men. It was a struggle of singular
dramatic interest.

There was no fiercer hater than Andrew Jackson,
and no man whom he hated so fiercely as he did
Henry Clay. That hatred was the passion of the
last twenty years of his life. He sincerely deemed
Clay capable of any villainy, and no sooner had he
the executive power in his hands than he used it
to open hostilities. His cabinet appointments
were determined upon several days before his in
auguration as President. Five of the places were
filled with men who had made their mark as ene
mies of Clay. Among these were two Senators,
who in 1825 had voted against the nomination of

THE PARTY CHIEFS. 329

Clay for the secretaryship of state, — Branch of
North Carolina, whom Jackson made Secretary of
the Navy, and Berrien, who became Attorney
General. Eaton of Tennessee, whom Jackson se
lected as his Secretary of War, was the principal
author of the " bargain and corruption " story ;
and Ingham of Pennsylvania, the elect for the
Treasury Department, had distinguished himself in
his state by the most zealous propagation of the
slander. Barry of Kentucky, chosen for the post
master generalship, possessed the merit of having
turned against Clay in 1825, on account of the
" bargain and corruption," and of having contested
Kentucky in 1828 as the anti-Clay candidate for
Governor.

But the most striking exhibition of animosity
took place in the State Department, at the head of
which had stood Clay himself so long as John
Quincy Adams was President. General Jackson
had selected Martin Van Buren for that office ; but
Van Buren, being then Governor of New York,
could not at once come to Washington to enter
upon his new position. Jackson was determined
that the State Department should not remain in
any sense under the Clay influence for so much as
an hour after he became President. On March
4, just before he went to the Capitol to take the
oath of office, he put into the hands of Colonel
James A. Hamilton of New York, his trusted ad
herent, a letter running thus : " Sir, — -You are ap
pointed to take charge of the Department of State,

330 HENRY CLAY.

and to perform the duties of that office until Gov
ernor Van Buren arrives in this city. Your obe
dient servant, Andrew Jackson." A strange pro
ceeding ! Colonel Hamilton's account of what
then took place is characteristic : " He (General
Jackson) said, ' Colonel, you don't care to see me
inaugurated ? ' ' Yes, General, I do ; I came here
for that purpose.' ' No ; go to the State House,
and as soon as you hear the gun fired, I am Presi
dent and you are Secretary. Go and take charge
of the department.' I do not state the reason he
gave for this haste." Colonel Hamilton did as
directed, and the moment the gun was fired, the
danger that Clay might still exercise any influence
in the State Department was averted from the
country. The removal of Clay's friends, who were
in the public service, began at once.

Three days after Jackson's inauguration Clay
addressed his friends at a dinner given in his honor
by citizens of Washington. He deplored the elec
tion to the presidency of a military hero, entirely
devoid of the elements of fitness for so difficult a
civil position. He beheld in it " an awful fore
boding of the fate which, at some future day, was
to befall this infant Republic." He recounted the
military usurpations which had recently taken
place in South and Central America, and said :
" The thunders from the surrounding forts and
the acclamations of the multitude on the Fourth,
told us what general was at the head of our af
fairs." And he added, sadly : " A majority of my

THE PARTY CHIEFS. 331

fellow-citizens, it would seem, do not perceive the
dangers which I apprehend from the example."
He also mentioned the " wanton, unprovoked, and
unatoned injustice " which General Jackson had
done him. Nevertheless, Jackson was now Presi
dent, and his acts were to be discussed with de
corum, and judged with candor.

Clay was mistaken if he thought that the well-
used refrain about the military chieftain raised
to the presidency without any of the statesman's
qualifications, would still produce any effect upon
the masses of the American people. They felt, at
that period, exceedingly prosperous and hopeful.
The improved means of communication — all the
accessible inland waters being covered with steam
boats — had greatly promoted the material progress
of the country. Railroad building had just begun,
and opened a vast prospect of further develop
ment. In the public mind there was little anxiety
and plenty of gorgeous expectation. Under such
circumstances the generality of people did not feel
the necessity of being taken care of by trained
statesmanship. On the contrary, the only alarm
of the time — and that an artificial and groundless
one — had been that the trained statesmen were
in corrupt combination to curtail in some way the
people's rights, from which danger the election of
General Jackson was supposed to have saved them.
The masses saw in him a man who thought as they
thought, who talked as they talked, who was be
lieved to be rather fond of treading on the toes of

332 HENRY CLAY.

aristocratic pretensions, who was a living proof of
the fact that it did not require much learning to
make a famous general or to be elected President,
and whose example, therefore, assured them that
every one of them had a chance at high distinction
for himself.

But President Jackson soon furnished a new
point of attack. For the first time in the history
of the Republic, the accession of a new President
was followed by a systematic proscription for
opinion's sake in the public service. What we
understand by " spoils politics " had, indeed, not
been unknown before. It had been practiced
largely and with demoralizing effect in the state
politics of New York and Pennsylvania. But by
the patriotic statesmen who filled the presidential
chair from the establishment of the Constitution
down to the close of the term of John Quincy
Adams, public office had been scrupulously re
garded as a public trust. Removals by wholesale
for political reasons, or the turning over of the
public service to the members of one party as a
reward for partisan services rendered, or as an
inducement for partisan services to be rendered,
would have been thought, during the first half
century of the Republic, not only a scandal and a
disgrace, but little less than a criminal attempt
to overthrow free institutions. Even when, after
a fierce struggle, the government passed, by the
election of Jefferson, from the Federalists to the
Republicans, and the new President found the

THE PARTY CHIEFS. 333

bulk of the offices in the hands of men whom the
victors considered inimical to all they held dear, —
even at that period of intense party feeling, Jeffer
son made only thirty-nine removals in the eight
years during which he occupied the presidential
chair. Some of these were made for cause ; others
he justified upon the ground, not that the offices
were patronage which the victors could rightly
claim, but that there should be members of each
party in the service, to show that neither had,
even temporarily, a monopoly right to them, and
that, this fair distribution being accomplished, ap
pointments should thereafter, regardless of party
connection, depend exclusively on the candidate's
integrity, business fitness, and fidelity to the Con
stitution. This sentiment was so firmly rooted in
the public mind that even Jackson, at the begin
ning of Monroe's administration, advised the Pres
ident against excluding from office members of the
opposite party.

When he himself became President he announced
in his inaugural address that the popular will had
imposed upon him " the task of reform," which
would require " particularly the correction of those
abuses that have brought the patronage of the
federal government into conflict with the freedom
of elections." Never was the word " reform "
uttered with a more sinister meaning. An im
mense multitude had assembled in Washington to
see their party chief invested with the executive
power, and to claim their rewards for the services

334 HENRY CLAY.

they had rendered him. It was as if a victorious
army had come to take possession of a conquered
country, expecting their general to distribute among
them the spoil of the land. A spectacle was en
acted never before known in the capital of the
Republic.

Jackson had not that reason for making partisan
changes which had existed in Jefferson's days.
For when Jackson became President the civil ser
vice was teeming with his adherents, whom John
Quincy Adams's scrupulous observance of the tra
ditional principle had left undisturbed in their
places. There was, therefore, no party monopoly
in the public service to be broken up. Yet now
removals and appointments were made with the
avowed object of rewarding friends and punishing
opponents, to the end of establishing, as to the of
fices of the government, a monopoly in favor of the
President's partisans. Washington, John Adams,
Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, John Quincy Adams
had made in all seventy-four removals, all but a
few for cause, during the forty years of their ag
gregate presidential terms. In one year, the first
of his administration, Jackson removed four hun
dred and ninety-one postmasters and two hundred
and thirty-nine other officers, and, since the new
men appointed new clerks and other subordinates,
the sum total of changes in that year was reckoned
at more than two thousand. The first arbitrary dis
missals of meritorious men indicated what was to
come, and threw the service into the utmost con.

THE PARTY CHIEFS. 835

sternation. " Among the official corps here,"
wrote Clay on March 12, the day before his de
parture from Washington, " there is the greatest
solicitude and apprehension. The members of it
feel something like the inhabitants of Cairo when
the plague breaks out : no one knows who is next
to encounter the stroke of death, or, which with
many of them is the same thing, to be dismissed
from office. You have no conception of the moral
tyranny which prevails here over those in employ
ment." Bad as this appeared, it was not the worst
of it. The " spoils system," full fledged, had
taken possession of the national government, and,
as we shall see, its most baneful effects were soon
to appear.

Clay foresaw the consequences clearly, and, at a
great public feast given to him by his neighbors
upon his arrival at his home, he promptly raised
his voice against the noxious innovation. This
principle he laid down as his starting - point :
" Government is a trust, and the officers of the
government are trustees ; and both the trust and
the trustees are created for the benefit of the peo
ple." In solemn words of prophecy he painted
the effects which the systematic violation of this
principle, inaugurated by Jackson, must inevitably
bring about : political contests turned into scram
bles for plunder ; a " system of universal rapac
ity " substituted for a system of responsibility ;
favoritism for fitness ; " Congress corrupted, the
press corrupted, general corruption ; until, the sub*

336 HENRY CLAY.

stance of free government having disappeared,
some pretorian band would arise, and, with the
general concurrence of a distracted people, put an
end to useless forms." This was the protest of
the good old order of things against the new dis
order. Such warnings, however, were in vain.
They might move impartially thinking men to seri
ous reflections. But Jackson was convinced that
the political opponents he dismissed from office
were really very dangerous persons, whom it was a
patriotic duty to render harmless ; and the Demo
cratic masses thought that Jackson could do no
wrong. Many of them found something peculiarly
flattering in this new conception of democratic
government, that neither high character nor special
ability, but only political opinions of the right
kind, should be required to fit an American citizen
for the service of his country ; that, while none but
a good accountant would be accepted to keep the
books of a dry-goods shop, anybody might keep
the books of the United States Treasury ; that,
while nobody would think of taking as manager of
an importing business a man who did not know
something of merchandise, anybody was good
enough to be an appraiser in a custom-house.

Indeed, the manner in which Jackson selected
his cabinet was characteristic of the ruling idea.
Colonel James A. Hamilton, one of his confidential
advisers at that time, tells us in his " Reminis
cences " : " In this important work by President
Jackson, no thought appeared to be given as to the

THE PARTY CHIEFS. 337

fitness of the persons for their places. 1 am sure I
never heard one word in relation thereto, and I cer
tainly had repeated conversations with him in re
gard to these appointments." To be a good hater
of Henry Clay was considered a greater requisite
for a cabinet place than statesmanlike ability and
experience. In this way Jackson collected in his
executive council, with the exception of one or two,
a rare assortment of mediocrities; and nothing
could have been more characteristic than that the
matter which most distracted this high council of
statesmen was a difference of opinion concerning
— not some important public question, but the
virtue of Secretary Eaton's wife. The principle
that the fitness of a man for a place, in point
of character and acquirements, had nothing to do
with his appointment to that place, was at once
recognized and exemplified above and below ; and
thus a virus was infused into the politics of the
nation, destined to test to the utmost the native
robustness of the American character.

Clay was nominally in retirement. When, after
his return from Washington, the representative of
his district in Congress offered to vacate the seat
in order that he might succeed to it, he declined.
Neither would he accept a place in the legislature
of Kentucky. For a while he heartily enjoyed the
quiet life of the farmer. He delighted in raising
fine animals, — horses, blood cattle, mules, pigs, and
sheep. He corresponded with his friends about a
lot of " fifty full-blooded merino ewes," which he
22

338 HENRY CLAY.

had bought in Pennsylvania. His dairy was prof
itably managed by his excellent wife. He raised
good crops of hemp and corn. But, after all, the
larger part of his correspondence ran on congres
sional elections, the prospects of his party, and
the doings of President Jackson. He thought
that Jackson could not possibly hold his following
together. Jackson's friends in Congress " must
decide on certain leading measures of policy ; " if
he came out for the tariff, the South would leave
him ; if against the tariff, there would be " such
an opposition to him in the tariff states as must
prevent his reelection," - in all which prophesy-
ings the prophet proved mistaken. He also be
lieved that the great majority at the last election
was directed rather against Mr. Adams than
against himself, and that his own public position
was improving from day to day.

After the great defeat of 1828 the plaudits of
the multitude were especially sweet to him. On
his way from Washington to Lexington in March,
he had been received everywhere by crowds of en
thusiastic admirers. With profound complacency
he wrote to a friend : " My journey has been
marked by every token of attachment and heartfelt
demonstrations. I never experienced more testi
monies of respect and confidence, nor more enthu
siasm, — dinners, suppers, balls, etc. I have had
literally a free passage. Taverns, stages, tolL
gates, have been generally thrown open to me, free
from all charge. Monarchs might be proud of the

THE PARTY CHIEFS. 339

reception with which I have everywhere been
honored."

After a short period of rest at Ashland, he could
not withhold himself from fresh contact with the
people. During the autumn of 1829 he visited
several places in Kentucky ; and in January, 1830,
he went to New Orleans and the principal towns
on the Mississippi, where he had one ovation after
another. In the spring he wrote to his friends
again about the delights of his rural occupations,
— how he was almost " prepared to renounce for
ever the strifes of public life," and how he thought
he would make " a better farmer than statesman."
But in the summer of the same year we find him
at Columbus, Cincinnati, and other places in Ohio,
being " received " and feasted, and speaking as he
went. It was " private business " that led him
there, but private business well seasoned with
politics, and accompanied with brass bands and
thundering cannon. In an elaborate speech on
the questions of the day, which he delivered at
Cincinnati in August, 1830, he could not refrain
from describing his experiences.

" Throughout my journey (he said), undertaken solely
for private purposes, there has been a constant effort on
my side to repress, and on that of my fellow-citizens of*
Ohio to exhibit, public manifestations of their affettion
and confidence. It has been marked by a succession of
civil triumphs. I have been escorted from village to
village, and have everywhere found myself surrounded
by large concourses of my fellow-citizens, often of both
sexes, greeting and welcoming me.'

340 HENRY CLAY.

No wonder that his sanguine nature was inspired
with new hope, and that he felt himself to be the
man who could rally the defeated hosts, and over
throw the " military chieftain " with all his " pre-^
torian bands."

He was certainly not alone in thinking so. It
began to be looked upon as a matter of course
among the National Republicans that Clay would
be their candidate against Jackson in 1832. On
May 29, 1830, Daniel Webster wrote to him :
" You are necessarily at the head of one party, and
General Jackson will be, if he is not already,
identified with the other. The question will be
put to the country. Let the country decide it."
But in the mean time a curious movement had
sprung up, dividing the opposition of which Clay
was the head. It was the Anti-Masonic movement.
In 1826 one Captain William Morgan, a brick
layer living at Batavia, in western New York,
undertook to write a book revealing the secrets of
Freemasonry. Some Freemasons of the neigh
borhood sought to persuade and then to force him,
by all sorts of chicanery, to give up his design,
but without success. He was then abducted, and,
as was widely believed, murdered. The crime
was charged upon some fanatical Freemasons ;
but the whole order was accused of countenanc
ing it, and was held responsible for obstructing
the course of justice on the occasion of the investi
gations and trials which followed. The excitement
springing from these occurrences, at first confined

THE PARTY CHIEFS. 341

to one or two counties in western New York,
gradually spread, and grew into a crusade against
secret societies bound together by oaths. In spite
of the efforts of leading politicians to restrain it —
for they feared its disorganizing influence — it
soon assumed a political character, and then some
of them, vigorously turned it to their advantage.
Beginning with a few country towns where the
citizens organized for the exclusion of all Free
masons from office, the " Anti-Masons " rapidly
extended their organizations over the western half
of the state. Committees were formed, conventions
were held, -and not a few men of standing and in
fluence took an active part in the movement. In
1828, when Adams and Jackson were the presi
dential candidates, the Anti-Masons were mostly
on the side of Adams ; while the Masons generally
rallied under Jackson's flag, who was himself a
Mason. The Anti-Masons, however, refusing to
support the candidate of the National Republicans
for the governorship of New York, made a nomi
nation of their own for that office. The result was
the election of the Jackson candidate, Martin Van
Buren. But from the large vote polled by the
Anti-Masons it appeared that in the state election
the balance of power had been in their hands.
They also elected many members of the legislature,
and secured a representation in Congress. Thus
encouraged, the movement invaded the Western
Reserve of Ohio, and won many adherents in Ver
mont, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Connecticut,

342 HENRY CLAY.

and Indiana. It had its newspaper organs and a
" Eeview," and presently it was prepared to con
test a presidential election as a " party."

Clay had many friends among the Anti-Masons
who would have been glad to obtain from him
some declaration of sentiment favorable to their
cause, in order to make possible a union of forces.
But he gave them no encouragement. To the
many private entreaties addressed to him he uni
formly replied that he did not desire to make him
self a party to that dispute ; that, although he had
been initiated in the order, he had long ceased to
be a member of any lodge ; that he had never acted,
either in private or in public life, under any Ma
sonic influence, but that Masonry or Anti-Masonry
had in his opinion nothing to do with politics.

He believed that, if the Anti-Masons were seri
ously thinking of nominating a candidate of their
own for the presidency, they would not find a man
of weight willing to stand, and that the bulk of the
Anti-Masonic forces would drift over to himself.
In this expectation he was disappointed. The
Anti-Masons held a national convention at Balti
more in September, 1831, which nominated for the
presidency William Wirt, late Attorney General
under Monroe and John Quincy Adams ; and for
the vice-presidency, Amos Ellmaker of Pennsyl
vania. Wirt was at heart in favor of Clay's elec
tion, but, having once accepted the Anti-Masonic
nomination, he found it impossible to withdraw
from the field. Some of the leading Anti-Masons

THE PARTY CHIEFS. 343

indulged in the hope that Clay himself might be
prevailed upon to give up his candidacy, and per
mit the whole opposition to the Jackson regime to
be united under Anti-Masonic auspices. Far from
entertaining such a proposition, he declared, with
sharp emphasis, in a public letter to a committee
of citizens of Indiana, that the Constitution did
not give the general government the slightest
power to interfere with the subject of Freema
sonry, and that he thought the presidential office
should be filled by one who was capable, " un
swayed by sectarian feelings or passions, of admin
istering its high duties impartially towards the
whole people, however divided into religious, social,
benevolent, or literary associations."

He felt so strongly on this point that he wrote
to his friend Brooke : "If the alternative be be
tween Andrew Jackson and an Anti-Masonic can
didate, with his exclusive prescriptive principles, I
should be embarrassed in the choice. I am not sure
that the old tyranny is not better than the new."
It is not surprising that he, with many others, should
have under-estimated the strength of the movement.
We find it now hard to believe that men of good
sense should have seriously thought of making the
question of Freemasonry the principal issue of a
national contest upon which the American people
were to divide. But we meet among those who
were prominently engaged in that enterprise such
names as William H. Seward, Thurlow Weed,
Francis Granger, Thaddeus Stevens, Richard Rush

344 HENRY CLAY.

and William Wirt, two of Clay's colleagues in
Adams's Cabinet, and even John Quincy Adams
himself. Indeed, while Clay would have been
loath to choose between Jackson and an Anti-
Masonic candidate, Adams gravely wrote in his
Diary: "The dissolution of the Masonic institu
tion in the United States I believe to be really
more important to us and our posterity than the
question whether Mr. Clay or General Jackson
shall be the President chosen at the next election."
The Anti-Masonic movement furnished a curious
example of mental contagion. But odd as it was,
it kept the opposition to Jackson divided.

Many things had in the mean time occurred which
created a loud demand for Clay's personal presence
and leadership on the theatre of action at the na
tional capital. President Jackson, treating the
members of his Cabinet more as executive clerks
than as political advisers, and dispensing with reg
ular cabinet meetings, had surrounded himself with
the famous " Kitchen Cabinet," a little coterie of
intimates, from whom he largely received his polit
ical inspirations and advice, — a secret council of
state, withdrawn entirely from public responsibility,
consisting of able, crafty, personally honest men,
skillful politicians, courageous to audacity, and
thoroughly devoted to General Jackson. The mem
bers of this secret council were William B. Lewis
from Tennessee, one of Jackson's warmest home
friends ; Isaac Hill of New Hampshire ; Amos
Kendall, who was employed in the Treasury ; and

THE PARTY CHIEFS. 345

Duff Green, the editor of Jackson's first news
paper organ. He fell from grace as being a friend
of Calhoun, and was supplanted by Francis P.
Blair. Kendall and Blair had been journalists in
Kentucky, and near friends of Henry Clay, but
had turned against him mainly in consequence of
the so - called " relief " movement in that state,
which, as already mentioned, was one of those epi
demic infatuations which make people believe that
they can get rid of their debts and become rich by
legislative tricks and the issue of promises to pay.
The movement developed intense hostility to the
Bank of the United States. There had been per
sonal disputes, too, between Clay and Kendall, en
gendering much ill feeling. The existence and
known influence of the Kitchen Cabinet kept the
political world in constantly strained expectation
as to what would turn up next.

The " Globe " newspaper had been established,
with Francis P. Blair in the editorial chair, as
President Jackson's organ, to direct and discipline
his own party, and to castigate its opponents.

In his first message to Congress, in December,
1829, President Jackson had thrown out threaten
ing hints as to the policy of rechartering the Bank
of the United States, the charter of which would
expire in 1836 ; and in the message of 1830 those
threats were repeated. The approaching extinc
tion of the national debt rendering a reduction of
the revenue necessary, there was much apprehen
sion as to what the fate of the protective tariff

346 HENRY CLAY.

would be. Large meetings of free-traders as well
as of protectionists were held to influence legis
lation.

President Jackson had vetoed the " Marysville
Road Bill," and thereby declared his hostility to
the policy of internal improvements. With regard
to the proceedings of the State of Georgia against
the Cherokees, President Jackson had submitted
to the extreme state-sovereignty pretensions of the
state, in disregard — it might be said, in defiance
— of the decisions of the Supreme Court of the
United States.

A great commotion had arisen in South Caro
lina against the tariff laws, leading to the promul
gation of the doctrine that any single state had the
power to declare a law of the United States uncon
stitutional, void, and not binding, — the so-called
nullification theory. Webster had thrilled the
country with his celebrated plea for Liberty and
Union in his reply to Hayne, winning a "noble
triumph," as Clay called it in a letter. Jackson
had, at a banquet on Jefferson's birthday, in Apri7
1830, given an indication of the spirit aroused in
him, by offering the famous toast, " Our Federal
Union : it must be preserved."

Jackson had declared hostilities against Vice-
President Calhoun in consequence of the discovery
that Calhoun, as a member of Monroe's Cabinet,
had condemned Jackson's proceedings in the Semi-
nole war of 1818. In June, 1831, the whole Cab
inet had resigned, or rather been compelled to re«

THE PARTY CHIEFS. 347

sign, mainly for the purpose of eliminating from
the administration Calhoun's friends, and a new
Cabinet had been appointed, in which Edward Liv
ingston was Secretary of State ; Louis McLane of
Delaware, Secretary of the Treasury ; Roger JB.
Taney, Attorney General ; and Levi Woodbury,
Secretary of the Navy; the Post Office Depart
ment remaining in Barry's hands.

The Kitchen Cabinet had elicited demonstrations
from the legislature of Pennsylvania, subsequently
indorsed by that of New York, calling upon Gen
eral Jackson to stand for a second term, notwith
standing his previous declarations in favor of the
one-term principle, and it was generally understood
that he would do so.

All these occurrences, added to the impression
that in the President and his confidential advisers
there was to be dealt with a force yet undefined
and beyond the ordinary rules of calculation, pro
duced among the opposition party a singular feel
ing of insecurity. They looked for a strong man
to lead them ; they wanted to hear Clay's voice in
Congress ; and it is characteristic that Daniel Web
ster, who had just then reached the zenith of his
glory, and was by far the first man in the Senate,
should have given the most emphatic expression to
that anxiety for energetic leadership. 'fc You must
be aware," he wrote to Clay from Boston on Octo
ber 5, 1831, " of the strong desire manifested in
many parts of the country that you should come
into the Senate : the wish is entertained here as

348 HENRY CLAY.

earnestly as anywhere. We are to have an inter
esting and arduous session. Everything is to be
attacked. An array is preparing much more for
midable than has ever yet assaulted what we think
the leading and important public interests. Not
only the tariff, but the Constitution itself, in its
elementary and fundamental provisions, will be
assailed with talent, vigor, and union. Everything
is to be debated as if nothing had ever been set
tled. It would be an infinite gratification to me
to have your aid, or rather your lead. I know
nothing so likely to be useful. Everything valu
able in the government is to be fought for, and we
need your arm in the fight."

Clay was reluctant to yield to these entreaties.
His instinct probably told him that for a presiden
tial candidate the Senate is not a safe place, espe
cially while the canvass is going on. But he obeyed
the call of his friends, which at the same time ap
peared to be the call of the public interest. When
it became known that he would be a candidate for
the Senate of the United States before the Ken
tucky legislature, the Washington " Globe," Presi
dent Jackson's organ, opened its batteries with
characteristic fury. Commenting upon the fact
that Clay attended the legislature in person, and
forgetting that his competitor, Richard M. Johnson,
the Jackson candidate, did the same, the " Globe "
spoke thus : —

" If under these circumstances Mr. Clay should come
to the Senate, he will but consummate his ruin. He wil]

THE PARTY CHIEFS. 349

stand in that body, not as the representative of Ken
tucky, but of a few base men rendered infamous in elect
ing him. He will no longer represent his countrymen,
but, like an Irish patriot become an English pensioner,
he will represent an odious oligarchy, and, owing his sta
tion altogether to chicane and management, he will be
stripped of the dignity of his character, and gradually
sink into insignificance."

Nevertheless Clay was elected, but only by a
small majority. Thus he entered upon his sena
torial career, more heartily welcomed by his friends,
and more bitterly hated by his enemies, than ever
before.

CHAPTEE XIII.

THE CAMPAIGN OF 1832.

HENRY CLAY appeared in Washington at the
opening of Congress in December, 1831, in the
double character of Senator and candidate for the
presidency. It was at that period that the method
of putting presidential candidates in the field by
national conventions of party delegates found gen
eral adoption. The Anti - Masons had held their
national convention in September. The National
Republicans were to follow on December 12. That
Henry Clay would be their candidate for the pres
idency was a foregone conclusion. Nobody ap
peared as a competitor for the honor. But it re
mained still to be determined what issues should
be put prominently forward in the canvass. On
this point the opinion of the recognized leader was
naturally decisive. As a matter of course, a pro
tective tariff and internal improvements, and an
emphatic condemnation of the " spoils system,"
would form important parts of his programme.
But a grave question turned up, on the treatment
of which his friends seriously differed in opinion.
It was that of the National Bank. The existing
Bank of the United States had been created, with

THE CAMPAIGN OF 1832. 351

Clay's help, in 1816. Its charter was to run for
twenty years, and would therefore expire in 1836.
In order to understand how the rechartering of
that bank became a burning question in 1831, a
short retrospect is necessary.

When President Jackson came into office the
country was in a prosperous condition. There was
little speculation, but business in all directions
showed a healthy activity, and yielded good re
turns. The currency troubles, which had long
been disturbing the country, especially the South
and W'est, were over. The "circulating medium"
was more uniform and trustworthy, 4 and, on the
whole, in a more satisfactory condition than it ever
had been before. The agency of the Bank of
the United States in bringing about these results
was generally recognized. In the first two years
after its establishment the bank had been badly
managed. But Langdon Cheves, appointed its
president in 1819, put the conduct of its business
upon a solid footing, and thereafter it continued
steadily to grow in the confidence of the business
community. No serious difficulty was therefore
anticipated as to the rechartering ; and as there
would be no necessity for final action on that mat
ter until 1836, three years after the expiration of
General Jackson's first presidential term, the pub
lic generally expected that any question about it
would be permitted to rest at least until after the
election of 1832.

Great was therefore the surprise when, in his

352 HENRY CLAY.

very first message to Congress, in December, 1829,
President Jackson said that, although the charter
of the Bank of the United States would not ex
pire until 1836, it was time to take up that subject
for grave consideration ; that " both the constitu
tionality and the expediency of the law creating
the bank were well questioned by a large number
of our fellow-citizens ; and that it must be admitted
by all to have failed in the great end of establish
ing a uniform and sound currency." Then he
submitted to the wisdom of the legislature whether
a " national bank, founded upon the credit of the
government and its revenue, might not be devised."
What did all this mean? People asked themselves
whether the President knew something about the
condition of the bank that the public did not
know, and the bank shares suffered at once a seri
ous decline at the Exchange.

The true reasons for this hostile demonstration
became known afterwards. Benton's assertion to
the contrary notwithstanding, Jackson had no in
tention to overthrow the United States Bank when
he came to Washington. His Secretary of the
Treasury, Ingham, complimented the bank on the
valuable services it rendered, several months after
the beginning of the administration. The origin
of the trouble was characteristic. Complaint came
from New Hampshire, through Levi Woodbury, a
Senator from that state and a zealous Jackson
Democrat, and through Isaac Hill, a member of the
" Kitchen Cabinet," that Jeremiah Mason, a Fed*

THE CAMPAIGN OF 1832. 353

eralist and a friend of Daniel Webster, had been
made president of the branch of the United States
Bank at Portsmouth, and that he was an unaccom
modating person very objectionable to the people.
A correspondence concerning this case sprang up
between Secretary Ingham and Nicholas Biddle,
the President of the Bank of the United States, a
man of much literary ability, who was rather fond
of an argument, and liked to say clever things.
No impartial man can read the letters which passed
to and fro without coming to the conclusion that
influential men in the Jackson party desired to use
the bank and its branches for political purposes ;
that Biddle wished to maintain the political inde
pendence of the institution, and that his refusal to
do the bidding of politicians with regard to Jere
miah Mason was bitterly resented. It appears,
also, from an abundance of testimony, of which
Ingham's confession, published after he had ceased
to be Secretary of the Treasury, forms part, that
the members of the "Kitchen Cabinet" told Jack
son all sorts of stories about efforts of the bank to
use its power in controlling elections in a manner
hostile to him ; that he trustingly listened to all
"ihe allegations against it which reached his ears,
and that he at last honestly believed the bank to
be a power of evil, corrupt and corrupting, dan
gerous to the liberties of the people and to the ex
istence of the Republic.

The first message did not produce on Congress
the desired effect. The President's own party

23

354 HENRY CLAY.

failed to stand by him. In the House of Repre
sentatives the Committee of Ways and Means
made a report, affirming, what was well known,
that the constitutionality of the bank had been
recognized by the Supreme Court, that it was a
useful institution, and that the establishment of a
bank such as that suggested in the message would
be a dangerous experiment. A similar report was
made in the Senate. In the House, resolutions
against rechartering the bank, and calling for a
comprehensive report upon its doings, were de
feated by considerable majorities. Bank stock
went up again.

In his second message, in December, 1830, Presi
dent Jackson said that nothing had occurred u to

O

lessen in any degree the dangers" which many
citizens apprehended from the United States Bank
as actually organized. He then suggested the or
ganization of " a bank, with the necessary officers,
as a branch of the Treasury Department." Con
gress did not take action on the matter, but Ben-
ton made his first attack in the Senate on the
United States Bank, not to produce any immediate
effect in Congress, but to stir up the people.

In his third message, in December, 1831, Presi
dent Jackson simply said that on previous occa
sions he had performed his duty of bringing the
bank question to the attention of the people, and
that there he would "for the present" leave it. At
the same time the Secretary of the Treasury, Me*
Lane, submitted in his report to Congress an

THE CAMPAIGN OF 1832. 355

elaborate argument in favor of the United States
Bank. There is much reason for believing that
Jackson at that period was inclined to accept some
accommodation or compromise concerning the bank
question, or at least not to force a fight just then.
Thurlow Weed, in his " Autobiography," gives
an account of a conference between the Secretary
of the Treasury and the president of the bank, in
which the assent of the administration to the re-
charter was offered on condition of certain modifi
cations of the charter. It is further reported that
the officers of the bank were strongly in favor of
accepting the proposition, but that, when they con
sulted Clay and Webster on the matter, they found
determined resistance, to which they yielded.

The officers and the most discreet friends of the
United States Bank felt keenly that a great finan
cial institution, whose operations and interests
were closely interwoven with the general business
of the country, should not become identified with
a political party in all the vicissitudes of fortune,
and should never permit itself to be made the foot
ball of political ambitions. They were strongly
inclined not to press the rechartering of the bank
until it should be necessary, and thus to keep the
question out of the presidential campaign.

Clay thought otherwise. As to the time when
the renewal of the charter should be asked for, he
maintained that the present time was the best.
There were undoubted majorities favorable to the
bank in both houses. If the President should de-

856 HENRY CLAY.

feat the renewal with his veto, he would only ruin
himself. He had already greatly weakened his
popularity by attacking the bank. It had many
friends in the Jackson party who would stand by
it rather than by the President. Being located in
Philadelphia, the bank wielded great power and
enjoyed great popularity in Pennsylvania, the hot
bed of Jackson ism. Losing that state, Jackson
would lose the election. Moreover, the bank had
a strong hold upon the business interests of the
country everywhere, and everywhere those inter
ests would support the bank in a decisive struggle.
The bank issue was therefore the strongest which
the National Republicans could put forward. That
issue should be made as sharp as possible, and to
give it a practical shape, the renewal of the char
ter should be applied for at the present session of
Congress. Such was Clay's reasoning and advice,
or rather his command ; and both the bank and
the party obeyed.

On December 12, 1831, the convention of the
National Republicans was held at Baltimore. Clay
was nominated unanimously, and with the greatest
enthusiasm, for the presidency. The nomination for
the vice-presidency fell to John Sergeant of Penn
sylvania, a man of excellent character, whom we
remember to have met, at the time of the struggle
about the admission of Missouri, as one of the
strongest advocates of the exclusion of slavery.
The convention also issued an address to the peo
ple, which eulogized the Bank of the United States,

THE CAMPAIGN OF 1832. 357

denounced the attack made upon it by President
Jackson in his messages, and declared that, " if the
President be reflected, it may be considered cer
tain that the bank will be abolished." Thus the
issue was made up : Jackson must be defeated if
the Bank of the United States was to be saved.
The memorial of the bank, praying for a renewal
of its charter, was presented in the Senate early in
January, 1832, to the end of forcing Congress and
the President to act without delay. If it was
Clay's object to make the bank question the most
prominent one in the canvass, he succeeded beyond
expectation ; and if he had cast about for the
greatest blunder possible under the circumstances,
he could not have found a more brilliant one.
This we shall appreciate when, at a later period of
the session, we hear both sides speak.

The first subject which Clay took up for discus
sion in the Senate was the tariff. Two circum
stances of unusual moment had brought this topic
into the foreground : one was the excitement pro
duced by the tariff of 1828, " the tariff of abomi
nations," in the planting states, and especially in
South Carolina, where it had assumed the threat
ening form of the nullification movement ; and the
other was the fact that the revenue furnished by
the existing tariff largely exceeded the current
expenditures, and would, after the extinguishment
of the national debt, which was rapidly going for
ward, bring on that bane of good government in
a free country, a heavy surplus in the treasury,

358 HENRY CLAY.

without legitimate employment. A reduction of
the revenue was therefore necessary, and lively
discussions were going on among the people as to
how it should be effected. In September and
October large popular conventions of free traders
had been held. One of their principal spokesmen
was the venerable Albert Gallatin, who insisted on
lower rates of duties throughout. The protection
ists, fearing lest the reduction of the revenue
should injure the protective system, were equally
vigorous in their demonstrations.

Jackson's views with regard to the tariff had
undergone progressive changes. When first a can
didate for the presidency, in 1824, he had pro
nounced himself substantially a protectionist. In
his first message to Congress, in 1829, he recom
mended duties which would place our own manu
factures " in fair competition with those of foreign
countries, while, with regard to those of prime
necessity in time of war," we might even " advance
a step beyond that point." He also advocated the
distribution of the surplus revenue among the
states " according to the ratio of representation "
in Congress, and a reduction of duties on articles
" which cannot come into competition with our
own production." This meant a protective tariff,
In his second message, December, 1830, he ex
pressed the opinion that " objects of national im
portance alone ought to be protected ; of these the
productions of our soil, our mines, and our work
shops, essential to national defense, occupy the first

THE CAMPAIGN OF 1832. 359

rank." In his third message, December, 1831, he
invited attention to the fact that the public debt
would be extinguished before the expiration of his
term, and that, therefore, " a modification of the
tariff, which shall produce a reduction of the rev
enue to the wants of the government," was very
advisable. He added that, in justice to the inter
ests of the merchant as well as the manufacturer,
the reduction should be prospective, and that the
duties should be adjusted writh a view " to the
counteraction of foreign policy, so far as it may be
injurious to our national interests." This meant
a revenue tariff with incidental retaliation. He
had thus arrived at a sensible plan to avoid the ac
cumulation of a surplus.

Clay took the matter in hand in the Senate,
or rather in Congress, for he held a meeting of
friends of protection among Senators and Repre
sentatives to bring about harmony of action in the
two houses. At that meeting he laid down the
law for his party in a manner, as John Quincy
Adams records, courteous, but "exceedingly per
emptory and dogmatical." He recognized the
necessity of reducing the revenue, but he would
reduce the revenue without reducing protective du
ties. The "American system" should not suffer.
It must, therefore, not be done in the manner pro
posed by Jackson. He insisted upon confining the
reduction to duties on articles not coming into
competition with American products. He would
not make the reductions prospective, to begin after

360 HENRY CLAY.

the public debt was extinguished, but immediate,
as he was not in favor of a rapid extinguishment
of the debt. Instead of abolishing protective du
ties he would rather reduce the revenue by making
some of them prohibitory. He also insisted upon
" home valuation " — i. e., valuation at the port of
entry — of goods subject to ad valorem duties, and
upon reducing the credits allowed for their pay
ment. When objection was made that this would
be a defiance of the South, of the President, and
of the whole administration party, he replied, as
Adams reports, that "to preserve, maintain, and
strengthen the American system, he would defy
the South, the President, and the devil."

He introduced a resolution in the Senate " that
the existing duties upon articles imported from
foreign countries, and not coming into competition
with similar articles made or produced within the
United States, ought to be forthwith abolished, ex
cept the duties upon wines and silks, and that those
ought to be reduced ; and that the Committee on
Finance be instructed to report a bill accordingly."
On this resolution, which led to a general debate
upon the tariff, he made two speeches, one of
which took rank among his greatest efforts. Its
eloquent presentation of the well known arguments
in favor of protection excited great admiration
at the time, and served the protectionists as a text
book for many years. He declared himself strongly
against the preservation of existing duties "in
order to accumulate a surplus in the treasury, for

THE CAMPAIGN OF 1832. 361

the purpose of subsequent distribution among the
several states." To collect revenue " from one
portion of the people and give it to another " he
pronounced unjust. If the revenue were to be
distributed for use by the states in their public ex
penditure, he knew of no principle in the Constitu
tion " that authorized the federal government to
become such a collector for the states, nor of any
principle of safety or propriety which admitted of
the states becoming such recipients of gratuity
from the general government." He thought, how
ever, that the proceeds of the sales of public lands
should be devoted to internal improvements. He
called free trade the " British colonial system " in
contradistinction to the protective "American
system," two names which themselves did the duty
of arguments. He contrasted the effects of the
two systems, using as an illustration the seven
years of distress preceding, and the seven years of
prosperity following, the enactment of the tariff of
1824, — which drew from Southern Senators the
answer that the picture of prosperity fitted the
North, but by no means the South. He discussed
the effect of the tariff on the South in a kindlier
tone than that in which he had spoken in the meet
ing of his friends, but he denounced in strong terms
the threats of nullification and disunion. He said :

"The great principle, which lies at the foundation of
all free government, is that the majority must govern,
from which there can be no appeal but the sword. That
majority ought to govern wisely, equitably, moderately,

362 HENRY CLAY.

and constitutionally ; but govern it must, subject only
to that terrible appeal. If ever one or several state?,
being a minority, can, by menacing a dissolution of the
Union, 'succeed in forcing an abandonment of great
measures deemed essential to the interests and prosper
ity of the whole, the Union from that moment is practi
cally gone. It may linger on in form and name, but its
vital spirit has fled forever."

This seemed to exclude every thought of com
promise.

The efforts of the free traders to discredit tin
44 American system," by resolutions, addresses, and
pamphlets against the tariff, annoyed him greatly ;
and nothing seems to have stung him more than a
calmly argumentative memorial from the pen of
Albert Gallatin. Only the deepest irritation can
explain the most ungenerous attack he made upon
that venerable statesman in his great speech. This
is the language he applied to him : —

" The gentleman to whom I am about to allude, al
though long a resident in this country, has no feelings,
no attachments, no sympathies, no principles, in common
with our people. Nearly fifty years ago Pennsylvania
took him to her bosom, and warmed, and cherished, and
honored him ; and how does he manifest his gratitude ?
By aiming a vital blow at a system endeared to her by
a thorough conviction that it is indispensable to her
prosperity. He has filled, at home and abroad, some
of the highest offices under this government, during
thirty years, and he is still at heart an alien. The au
thority of his name has been invoked, and the labors of
his pen, in the form of a memorial to Congress, ha\e

THE CAMPAIGN OF 1832. 363

been engaged, to overthrow the American system, and
to substitute the foreign. Go home to your native Eu
rope, and there inculcate upon her sovereigns your
Utopian doctrines of free trade ; and when you have
prevailed upon them to unseal their ports, and freely
to admit the produce of Pennsylvania and other states,
come back, and we shall be prepared to become converts
and to adopt your faith."

This assault was an astonishing performance.
Gallatin had come to America a very young man.
Under the presidency of the first Adams he had
been intellectually the leader of the Republicans
in the House of Representatives. He had been a
member of that famous triumvirate, Jefferson,
Madison, Gallatin. Jefferson had made him Sec
retary of the Treasury ; and Madison, equally sen
sible of his merits, had kept him in that most im
portant position. His services had put his name
in the first line of the great American finance
ministers. Clay had met him as one of his col
leagues at Ghent, and he would hardly have de
nied that the conclusion of the treaty of peace was
owing more to Gallatin's prudence, skill, and good
temper, than to his own efforts. As Minister to
France under Monroe, Gallatin had added to his
distinguished services by his patriotism and rare
diplomatic ability. When Clay, as Secretary of
State, needed a man of peculiar wisdom and trust
worthiness to whom to confide the interests of this
Republic, he had thought first of Gallatin. It was
xjrallatin whom he had selected first for the most

364 HENRY CLAY.

American of American missions, that to the Panama
Congress. It was Gallatin whom he had sent to
England after the retirement of Rufus King, to
protect American interests amid uncommonly tan
gled circumstances. But now, suddenly, the same
American statesman, not present and unable to
answer, was denounced by him in the Senate as
one who had " no feelings, no sympathies, no
principles, in common with our people," as " an
alien at heart," who should "go home to Europe;"
and all this because Clay found it troublesome to
answer Gallatin's arguments on the tariff.

Gallatin, during his long career, had much to
suffer on account of his foreign birth. The same

O

persons who had praised him as a great statesman
and a profound thinker, when he happened to agree
with their views and to serve their purposes, had
not unfrequently, so soon as he expressed opinions
they disliked, denounced him as an impertinent
foreigner who should " go home." He was accus
tomed to such treatment from small politicians.
But to see one of the great men of the Republic,
and an old friend too, descend so far, could not
fail to pain the septuagenarian deeply.

But the irony of fate furnished a biting com
mentary on Clay's conduct. Scarcely a year after-
lie had so fiercely denounced Gallatin as "an alien
at heart " for having recommended a gradual re
duction of tariff duties to a level of about twenty-
five per cent, Clay himself, as we shall see, pro«
posed and carried a gradual reduction of duties to

THE CAMPAIGN OF 1832. 365

a maximum of twenty per cent, all the while feel
ing himself to be a thorough American "at heart."

After a long debate Clay's tariff resolution was
adopted, and in June, 1832, a bill substantially in
accord with it passed both houses, known as the
tariff act of 1832. It reduced or abolished the
duties on many of tlieT unprotected articles, but
left the protective system without material change.
As a reduction of the revenue it effected very little.
The income of the government for the year was
about thirty millions ; its expenditures, exclusive
of the public debt, somewhat over thirteen mil
lions ; the prospective surplus, after the payment
of the debt, more than sixteen millions. The re
duction proposed by Clay, according to his own
estimate, was not over seven millions ; the reduc
tion really effected by the new tariff law scarcely
exceeded three millions. Clay had saved the
American system at the expense of the very object
contemplated by the measure. It was extremely
short-sighted statesmanship. The surplus was as
threatening as ever, and the dissatisfaction in the
South grew from day to day.

One of the important incidents of the session
was the rejection by the Senate of the nomina
tion of Martin Van Buren as Minister to England.
Van Buren was one of Jackson's favorites. He
had stood by Jackson when other members of the
cabinet refused to take the presidential view of
Mrs. Eaton's virtue. He had greatly facilitated
that dissolution of the Cabinet which Jackson had

366 HENRY CLAY.

much at heart. When he ceased to be Secretary
of State, Jackson gave him the mission to Eng
land, holding in reserve higher honors for him.
In the Senate, however, the nomination encoun
tered strong opposition. With many Senators it
was a matter of party politics. The strongest
reason avowed was that, as Secretary of State, Van
Buren had instructed the American Minister to
England to abandon the claim, urged by the late
administration, of a right to the colonial trade, on
the express ground that those who had asserted
that right had been condemned at the last presi
dential election by the popular judgment. The
opponents of Van Buren denounced his conduct as
a wanton humiliation of this Republic, and a vio
lation of the principle that, in its foreign relations,
the vicissitudes of party contests should not be
paraded as reasons for a change of policy.

Clay, leading the opposition to Van Buren,
found it not difficult to show that the policy fol
lowed by the administration of John Quincy
Adams in this respect was substantially identical
with that of Madison and Monroe, and that, by
officially representing that policy as condemned by
the people, Van Buren had cast discredit upon the
conduct of this Republic in its intercourse with a
foreign power. But he had still another, objection
to Van Buren's appointment. He said : —

" I believe, upon circumstances which satisfy my mind,
that to this gentleman is principally to be ascribed the
introduction of the odious system of proscription for the

TEE CAMPAIGN OF 1832. 367

exercise of the elective franchise in the g^vv^rnment of
the United States. I understand that it is the system
upon which the party in his own state, of which he is
the reputed head, constantly acts. It is a detestable
system, drawn from the worst periods of the Roman
Republic ; and if it were to be perpetuated, — if the
offices, honors, and dignities of the people were to be
put up to a scramble, and to be decided by the result of
every presidential election, — our government and in
stitutions would finally end in a despotism as inexorable
as that at Constantinople."

That Van Buren was a " spoils politician " is
undoubtedly true. But that to him " the introduc
tion of the odious system " in the general govern
ment was " principally to be ascribed," is not
correct. Jackson was already vigorously at work
" rewarding his friends and punishing his ene
mies," when, a few weeks after the beginning of
the administration, Van Buren arrived at Wash
ington. Jackson would doubtless have introduced
the " spoils system," with all its characteristic fea
tures, had Van Buren never been a member of his
Cabinet. In the Senate, however, Van Buren's
friends did not defend him on that ground. It
was in reply to Clay's speech that Marcy, speak
ing for the politicians of New York, proclaimed
that they saw " nothing wrong in the rule that to
the victors belong the spoils of the enemy."

The rejection of Van Buren's nomination was
accomplished by the casting vote of the Vice-Presi-
dent, Calhoun, who thought that after such a de-

368 HENRY CLAY.

feat Van Buren would " never kick again." Clay
wrote to his friend Brooke : " The attempt to ex
cite public sympathy in behalf of the 'little ma
gician ' has totally failed ; and I sincerely wish
that he may be nominated as Vice-President. That
is exactly the point to which I wish to see matters
brought." Clay's wish was to be gratified. The
rejection of Van Buren made it one of the darling
objects of Jackson's heart to revenge him upon his
enemies. He employed his whole power to secure
Van Buren's election to the vice-presidency first,
and to the presidency four years later. Both Clay
and Calhoun had yet to learn what that power was.
The dangers to which a candidate for the presi
dency is exposed when a member of the Senate,
were strikingly exemplified by a curious trick re
sorted to by Clay's opponents. They managed to
refer the question of reducing the price of the
public lands to the Committee on Manufactures, of
which Clay was the leading member, an arrange
ment on its very face unnatural. Clay understood
at once the object of this unusual proceeding.
" Whatever emanated from the committee," he
said, in a speech on the subject, " was likely to be
ascribed to me. If the committee should propose
a measure of great liberality toward the new states,
the old states might complain. If the measure
should lean toward the old states, the new might
be dissatisfied. And if it inclined to neither class,
but recommended a plan according to which there
would be distributed impartial justice among all

THE CAMPAIGN OF 1832. 369

the states, it was far from certain that any would
be pleased." However, he undertook the task, and
the result was his report on the public lands, the
principles of which became for many years a part
of the Whig platform.

In 1820 the price of public lands, which had
been 12.00 an acre on credit and $1.64 for cash,
was fixed at 11.25 in cash. The settlement of the
new states and territories had indeed been rapid,
but various plans were devised to accelerate it still
more. One was, that the public lands should be
given to the states ; another, that they should be
sold to the states at a price merely nominal ; an
other, that they should be sold to settlers at grad
uated prices, — those which had been in the market
a certain time without finding a purchaser to be
considered " refuse " lands, and to be sold at
greatly reduced rates. These propositions were
advanced by some in good faith for the benefit of
the settlers, but by others for speculative ends.
Beritoii was the principal advocate of cheap lands,
for reasons no doubt honest. Jackson had never
put forth any definite scheme of land policy ; but
McLane, his Secretary of the Treasury, recom
mended in his report of December, 1831, that the
public lands should be turned over at fair rates to
the several states in which they were situated, the
proceeds to be distributed among all the states.

Under such circumstances, the subject was re
ferred to Clay's Committee on Manufactures. He
reported that the general government should not

24

370 HENRY CLAY.

give up its control of the public lands ; that it
would be unjust to the old states if the -public
lands were disposed of exclusively for the benefit
of the new states ; that the price should not be re
duced ; and that the proceeds of the sales, excepting
ten per cent set apart for the new states, should
be distributed among all the states according to
their federal representative population, to be ap
plied to the promotion of education, to internal
improvements, or to the redemption of any debt
contracted for internal improvements, or to the
colonization of free negroes, as each state might
see fit, — such distribution to take place only in
time of peace, while in time of war the public land
should again become a source of revenue to the
general government. While condemning the prin
ciple of the distribution of surplus revenue arising
from taxation, he defended the distribution of the
proceeds of public land sales, on the ground that
Congress had authority to stop revenue from tax
ation, but not, without the exercise of arbitrary
power, the revenue from the public lands.

No sooner had Clay submitted his report than
it was referred to the Committee on Public Lands,
where the whole subject should have gone origi
nally. That committee, under the inspiration of
Benton, made a counter-report, setting forth that
the net proceeds of the land sales could be arrived
at only by deducting from the gross proceeds the
whole cost of the administration of the land de-
partment, inclusive of surveying ; that such a de.

THE CAMPAIGN OF 1832. 371

duction would leave little to be distributed ; and
that, if distribution were made of the gross pro
ceeds, it would be equivalent to taking so much
from the customs revenue to divide among the
states under the name of proceeds of land sales, —
a scheme against which Clay himself had loudly
protested as utterly unwarranted by the Constitu
tion. This criticism was undoubtedly correct, and
Clay could not controvert it. The Land Commit
tee further recommended a reduction of the price
of land from 11.25 to §1.00 per acre ; the offering
of lands remaining unsold for five years after hav
ing been offered once, at fifty cents per acre ; fifteen
per cent of the proceeds of land sales to be set
apart for the benefit of the new states.

A debate followed, in the course of which Clay
made some predictions proving how little a mind
even so large as his, and so intent upon grasping
the proportions of the rapid growth of this Repub
lic, was able to form a just estimate of future de
velopments. He said : " Long after we shall cease
to be agitated by the tariff, ages after our manu
factures shall have acquired a stability and perfec
tion which will enable them successfully to cope
with the manufactures of any other country, the
public lands will remain a subject of deep and
enduring interest. We may safely anticipate that
long, if not centuries, after the present day, the
representatives of our children's children may be
deliberating in the halls of Congress on laws relat
ing to the public lands." He did not foresee — as

372 HENRY CLAY.

probably nobody did at that period — that, fifty-five
years after he spoke thus, the protected industries,
having for twenty-five consecutive years enjoyed
an " American system " far more protective than
his, would still be demanding more, and bidding-
fair to continue doing so for an indefinite time;
while, on the other hand, the public lands still
under the control of the government would have
shrunk to a comparatively poor remnant in quan
tity and quality, likely to be in private hands in
another generation, except perhaps some deserts,
and some forest reserves in mountainous regions.

His bill passed the Senate, but failed to be acted
upon in the House of .Representatives. It did,
however, not fail, as some of those who forced the
subject upon him had foreseen, seriously to injure
the candidate for the presidency in the Western
States, as being an opponent of " cheap lands."

But the principal, and the most ominous, strug
gle of the session was still to come — the struggle
concerning the Bank of the United States. As we
have seen, the memorial of the bank praying for
a renewal of its charter was presented to Congress
in January. The committees in the two houses, to
which the memorial was referred, reported favor
ably, recommending the renewal of the charter
with some modifications. It was well known that
good majorities in both houses were ready to vote
for the renewal.

The enemies of the bank, or rather President
Jackson's nearest friends, under Benton's leader-

TEE CAMPAIGN OF 1832. 373

ship, then rushed to the attack. Several serious
charges against the Bank of the United States,
drawn up by Benton, were made in the House,
with a demand for an investigation by committee.
The majority of the committee was composed of
known opponents of the bank ; among the minor
ity, probably the most conscientiously impartial
man of all, was John Quincy Adams, then in the
first year of his distinguished career as a member
of the House of Representatives. An exposition
of the charges and specifications, and of the find
ings of the committee in detail, will not be under
taken here. The reader will find an eminently
clear and complete presentation of the case in
Professor W. G. Simmer's " Andrew Jackson."
John Quincy Adams made a separate report, which
was of especial value. The majority of the com
mittee declared that the bank was unsound, and
recommended that it should not be rechartered ;
the minority said that it was safe and useful, and
ought to be rechartered ; in this latter view John
Quincy Adams substantially concurred. One mem
ber of the majority declared that he had seen
nothing in the conduct of the president and direc
tors " inconsistent with the purest honor and in
tegrity ; " but, being a warm friend of General
Jackson, he consented to sign the majority report.
Tackson himself honestly believed all the charges,
whether proved or disproved. On the whole, the
result of the investigation was regarded as favor
able to the bank. The bill to renew the charter

374 HENRY CLAY.

passed the Senate June 11, 1832, by 28 to 20, and
the House July 3, by 109 to 76. It looked like a
great victory ; it was only the prelude to a crush
ing defeat.

If Jackson had ever been inclined to drop his
attack on the bank, that inclination vanished the
moment the National Republican Convention made
the bank question an issue in the presidential can
vass. From that hour he saw in the bank his
personal enemy — that is to say, an enemy of the
country, whose destruction was one of the duties
he had to perform. His combativeness became
aroused to its highest energy. But there was his
Cabinet divided, the Secretary of the Treasury hav
ing in his official report made an elaborate argu
ment in favor of the bank ; there was his party
divided, some of its leading men in and out of
Congress being warm friends of the bank ; there
was his faithful Pennsylvania, the seat of the
bank, and more than any other state under its in
fluence, likely to be turned away from him by that
influence ; there was Congress, with Democratic
majorities in both houses, yet both houses having
emphatically declared for rechartering the bank.
Could he, in the face of these facts, continue the
fight? He did not hesitate a moment. The bill
to renew the bank charter, as passed by both houses,
was presented to him on July 4, 1832, and on July
10 came his veto.

As a legal, financial, and historical argument,
that veto presented many vulnerable points; but

THE CAMPAIGN OF 1832. 375

as a campaign document it was a masterpiece. No
more powerful stump speech was ever delivered.
In ingenious variations of light and color, it ex
hibited the bank before the eyes of the people as
an odious monopoly ; a monopoly granted to fa
vored individuals without any fair equivalent ; a
monopoly that exercised a despotic sway over the
business of the country; a monopoly itself con
trolled by a few persons ; a monopoly giving dan
gerous advantages to foreigners as stockholders ; a
monopoly the renewal of which would put millions
into the pockets of a few men ; a monopoly in its
very nature unconstitutional, the decision of the
Supreme Court notwithstanding ; a monopoly mis
managing its business to the detriment of the peo
ple, and using its power for corrupt purposes ; a
monopoly tending to make the rich richer and the
poor poorer.

This was in substance Jackson's veto message.
There was one bitter pill in it intended for Clay's
special enjoyment. As to the constitutionality of
the bank, Jackson simply repeated the argument
which Clay had used in 1811, when opposing the
rechartering of the first Bank of the United States.
The Supreme Court, Jackson argued, had decided
the charter to be constitutional on the ground that
the Constitution gave Congress power " to pass all
laws which shall be necessary and proper for carry
ing these powers [the granted powers] into execu
tion." Chartering a bank might have been neces
sary and proper then, but the President was sure

376 HENRY CLAY.

that it was not at all necessary and proper now.
Just so Clay had reasoned in 1811. It was in
overruling the Supreme Court that Jackson in the
veto uttered the famous sentence : " Each public
officer who takes an oath to support the Constitu
tion swears that he will support it as he under
stands it, and not as it is understood by others."

The arrival of the veto in the Senate was the
signal for a grand explosion of oratory. Webster
opened the debate with his heaviest artillery of
argument ; Clay, Ewing, and Clayton spoke,
thundering magnificently against the veto and its
author. With great force it was argued that the
bank denounced by Jackson as an unconstitutional
and tyrannical monopoly was, in all essential fea
tures, the bank established under Washington and
sanctioned by him ; that the privileges it enjoyed
were far outweighed by the services it rendered to
the country ; that the holding of bank stock by
foreigners, who were excluded from taking part in
its management, was as little dangerous to the
country as the holding by foreigners of United
States bonds ; that, according to the doctrine of
President Jackson, a law held to be constitutional
by the Supreme Court was not binding upon him
if he saw fit to deny its constitutionality ; that, if
such a doctrine prevailed, there was an end of all
law and judicial authority, and the President was
an autocrat like Louis XIV. ; and finally, that the
overthrow of the bank would plunge all business
interests into confusion, and the whole country

THE CAMPAIGN OF 1832. 381

talent of the country, sought to make a campaign
of argument, and flooded the country with ad
dresses, pamphlets, and printed campaign matter
of all kinds. The United States Bank itself did
its share of the work. But this kind of effort
failed to reach the large class of voters, then much
larger than now, who were not " reading people."
The Jackson party trusted more to speeches, meet
ings, and processions. The figure of the " old
hero," grown to greater proportions than ever
since he was engaged in his struggle against the
"monster monopoly," exercised a wonderful charm
over the popular imagination, — a charm against
which all the learned arguments about the useful
ness of the Bank of the United States and its con
stitutionality, and the abuse of the veto power,
availed nothing. Before the eyes of the masses
Jackson appeared as a St. George killing the
dragon, and as the invincible champion of " hard
cash," of the " yellow boys," driving out " Old
Nick's money " and " Clay's rags." Further, the
country was made to ring with the old " bargain
and corruption " charge, revived to do new service^
At a late period of the campaign the hopes of
the Clay party were highly excited by the defection
of the New York " Courier and Enquirer," under
James Watson Webb, and of several other news
papers which turned from Jackson to Clay. The
National Republicans became extremely sanguine
of success. So much the more terrible was their
disappointment when the returns of the election

382 HENRY CLAY.

came in. Of the 288 electoral votes Jackson had
won 219, Clay only 49, those of Massachusetts,
Rhode Island, Maryland, Delaware, and Kentucky.
Wirt, the candidate of the Anti-Masons, had car
ried Vermont ; South Carolina gave her vote to
John Floyd of Virginia. It was a stunning de
feat. Clay and his friends stood wondering how
it could have happened.

Clay had committed two grave blunders in
statesmanship, and one equally grave in political
tactics.

The South was in a dangerous ferment against
the tariff. The impending extinguishment of the
public debt made a large reduction of the revenue
necessary. Clay might, therefore, in recognition
of the necessity for reducing the revenue, have
proposed a reduction of tariff duties sufficient to
take off the edge of the Southern discontent, with
out the least appearance of yielding to Southern
threats. The measure he did propose reduced the
revenue very little, and, by maintaining the high
protective duties, exasperated the South still more.
This was the first blunder in statesmanship.

The other was that, instead of advising the
United States Bank to keep clear of politics and
to accede to any reasonable modification of its
charter that might avert the opposition of Jackson,
he forced the fight, and made the question of the
bank a party question ; thus involving in the chang
ing fortunes of party warfare the most important
financial institution of the country, whose solvency,

THE CAMPAIGL OF 1832. 383

credit, and political impartiality were of the high
est concern to the business community.

The blunder in political tactics was that he be
lieved he could excite the enthusiasm of the masses
for a great moneyed corporation in its contest
against a popular hero like Jackson, — a most
amazing infatuation ; and thus he made the bank
question the leading issue in the presidential cam
paign.

Without these blunders he would, probably, not
have been victorious ; but with them his defeat be
came certain and overwhelming.

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