unty,
Virginia. Of his father, who died in the fourth or fifth year of Henry's
age, little seems to be known, except that he was a respectable man and
a preacher of the Baptist persuasion. Mr. Clay's education to the end of
life was comparatively limited. I say "to the end of life," because I
have understood that from time to time he added something to his education
during the greater part of his whole life. Mr. Clay's lack of a more
perfect early education, however it may be regretted generally, teaches
at least one profitable lesson: it teaches that in this country one
can scarcely be so poor but that, if he will, he can acquire sufficient
education to get through the world respectably. In his twenty-third
year Mr. Clay was licensed to practise law, and emigrated to Lexington,
Kentucky. Here he commenced and continued the practice till the year
1803, when he was first elected to the Kentucky Legislature. By successive
elections he was continued in the Legislature till the latter part of
1806, when he was elected to fill a vacancy of a single session in the
United States Senate. In 1807 he was again elected to the Kentucky House
of Representatives, and by that body chosen Speaker. In 1808 he was
re-elected to the same body. In 1809 he was again chosen to fill a vacancy
of two years in the United States Senate. In 1811 he was elected to the
United States House of Representatives, and on the first day of taking his
seat in that body he was chosen its Speaker. In 1813 he was again elected
Speaker. Early in 1814, being the period of our last British war, Mr. Clay
was sent as commissioner, with others, to negotiate a treaty of peace,
which treaty was concluded in the latter part of the same year. On his
return from Europe he was again elected to the lower branch of Congress,
and on taking his seat in December, 1815, was called to his old post-the
Speaker's chair, a position in which he was retained by successive
elections, with one brief intermission, till the inauguration of John
Quincy Adams, in March, 1825. He was then appointed Secretary of State,
and occupied that important station till the inauguration of General
Jackson, in March, 1829. After this he returned to Kentucky, resumed the
practice of law, and continued it till the autumn of 1831, when he was by
the Legislature of Kentucky again placed in the United States Senate. By
a reelection he was continued in the Senate till he resigned his seat and
retired, in March,