cite before his class in the log
schoolhouse, DETERMINED TO BECOME AN ORATOR.
Henry Clay, the brilliant lawyer and statesman, the American
Demosthenes who could sway multitudes by his matchless oratory, once
said, "In order to succeed a man must have a purpose fixed, then let
his motto be VICTORY OR DEATH." When Henry Clay, the poor country boy,
son of an unknown Baptist minister, made up his mind to become an
orator, he acted on this principle. No discouragement or obstacle was
allowed to swerve him from his purpose. Since the death of his father,
when the boy was but five years old, he had carried grist to the mill,
chopped wood, followed the plow barefooted, clerked in a country
store,--did everything that a loving son and brother could do to help
win a subsistence for the family.
In the midst of poverty, hard work, and the most pitilessly unfavorable
conditions, the youth clung to his resolve. He learned what he could at
the country schoolhouse, during the time the duties of the farm
permitted him to attend school. He committed speeches to memory, and
recited them aloud, sometimes in the forest, sometimes while working in
the cornfield, and frequently in a barn with a horse and an ox for his
audience.
In his fifteenth year he left the grocery store where he had been
clerking to take a position in the office of the clerk of the High
Court of Chancery. There he became interested in law, and by reading
and study began at once to supplement the scanty education of his
childhood. To such good purpose did he use his opportunities that in
1797, when only twenty years old, he was licensed by the judges of the
court of appeals to practice law.
When he moved from Richmond to Lexington, Kentucky, the same year to
begin practice for himself, he had no influential friends, no patrons,
and not even the means to pay his board. Referring to this time years
afterward, he said, "I remember how comfortable I thought I should be
if I could make one hundred pounds Virginia money (less than five
hundred dollars) per year; and with what delight I received the first
fifteen-shilling fee."
Contrary to his expectations, the young lawyer had "immediately rushed
into a lucrative practice." At the age of twenty-seven he was elected
to the Kentucky legislature. Two years later he was sent to the United
States Senate to fill out the remainder of the term of a senator who
had withdrawn. In 1811 he was elected to Congress, and made Speak
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