Calhoun ranks among the foremost of American statesmen, and as the
champion of the South his place is far above any who appeared before or
who have come after him. As a speaker, he was logical, clear, and always
deeply in earnest. Daniel Webster said of him: "He had the indisputable
basis of all high character--unspotted integrity and honor unimpeached.
Nothing groveling, low, or meanly selfish came near his head or his
heart."

HENRY CLAY.

[Illustration: HENRY CLAY. (1777-1852).]

Henry Clay was born April 12, 1777, in the "Slashes," Virginia. He
studied law, and at the age of twenty removed to Kentucky, which is
proud to claim the honor of having been his home and in reality his
State. His great ability and winning manners made him popular
everywhere. He served in the Kentucky Legislature, and, before he was
thirty years old, was elected to the United States Senate, of which he
was a member from 1806 to 1807. He soon became recognized as the
foremost champion of the cause of internal improvements and of the
tariff measures, known as the "American System." His speakership of the
Kentucky Assembly, his term as United States senator again, 1809-11, and
as a member of the House of Representatives in 1811, followed rapidly.
Against precedent, being a newcomer, he was chosen Speaker, and served
until his resignation in 1814. He was as strenuous an advocate of the
war with Great Britain as Calhoun, and it has been stated that he was
one of the commissioners who negotiated the treaty of Ghent in 1814. The
following year he was again elected to the House of Representatives, and
acted without a break as Speaker until 1821. He was the most powerful
advocate of the recognition of the Spanish-American States in revolt,
and but for Clay the Missouri Compromise would not have been prepared
and adopted.

Absent but a brief time from Congress, he again acted as Speaker in
1823-25. President Adams appointed him his secretary of State, and he
retired from office in 1829, but two years later entered the Senate from
Kentucky. For the following twenty years he was the leader of the Whig
party, opposed Jackson in the bank controversy, and secured the tariff
compromise of 1833 and the settlement with France in 1835. He retired
from the Senate in 1843, his nomination for the presidency following a
year later. Once more he entered the Senate, in 1849, and brought about
the great compromise of 1850. He died June 29, 1852.

Clay's vain