nd a national misfortune,
however popular he was with the masses. Yet he was in accord with his
generation.

It is singular that this man did nothing to attract national notice
until he was forty-five years of age. The fortune of war placed him on a
throne, where he reigned as a dictator, so far as his powers would
allow. Happily, in his eventful administration he was impeded by hostile
and cynical senators; but this wholesale restraint embittered his life.
His great personal popularity continued to the end of his life in 1845,
but his influence is felt to this day, both for good and for evil. His
patriotism and his prejudices, his sturdy friendships and his relentless
hatreds, his fearless discharge of duty and his obstinacy of self-will,
his splendid public services and the vast public ills he inaugurated,
will ever make this picturesque old hero a puzzle to moralists. His life
was turbulent, and he was glad, when the time came, to lay down his
burden and prepare himself for that dread Tribunal before which all
mortals will be finally summoned,--the one tribunal in which he
believed, and the only one which he was prompt to acknowledge.

AUTHORITIES.

The works written on Jackson are very numerous. Probably the best is the
biography written by Parton, defective as it is. Professor W.E. Sumner's
work, in the series of "American Statesmen," is full of interesting and
important facts, especially in the matters of tariff and finance. See
also Benton's Thirty Years in the United States Senate; Cobbett's Life
of Jackson; Curtis's Life of Webster; Colton's Life and Times of Henry
Clay, as well as Carl Schurz on the same subject; Von Holst, Life of
Calhoun; Memoir of John Quincy Adams; Tyler's Life of Taney; Sargent's
Public Men; the Speeches of Webster, Clay, and Calhoun.

HENRY CLAY.

1777-1852.

COMPROMISE LEGISLATION.

All the presidents of the United States, with the exception of three or
four, must yield in influence to Henry Clay, so far as concerns
directing the policy, and shaping the institutions of this country. Only
two other American statesmen--Hamilton and Webster--can be compared to
him in genius, power, and services. These two great characters will be
found treated elsewhere.

In regard to what is called "birth," Clay was not a patrician, like
Washington, nor had he so humble an origin as Andrew Jackson or Abraham
Lincoln. Like most other great men, he was the architect of of his own
fortunes,