reat political questions of his country for
the last half century, the wisdom of his course on many is doubted and
denied by a large portion of his countrymen; and of such it is not now
proper to speak particularly. But there are many others, about his course
upon which there is little or no disagreement amongst intelligent and
patriotic Americans. Of these last are the War of 1812, the Missouri
question, nullification, and the now recent compromise measures. In 1812
Mr. Clay, though not unknown, was still a young man. Whether we should
go to war with Great Britain being the question of the day, a minority
opposed the declaration of war by Congress, while the majority, though
apparently inclined to war, had for years wavered, and hesitated to act
decisively. Meanwhile British aggressions multiplied, and grew more daring
and aggravated. By Mr. Clay more than any other man the struggle was
brought to a decision in Congress. The question, being now fully before
Congress, came up in a variety of ways in rapid succession, on most of
which occasions Mr. Clay spoke. Adding to all the logic of which the
subject was susceptible that noble inspiration which came to him as it
came to no other, he aroused and nerved and inspired his friends, and
confounded and bore down all opposition. Several of his speeches on these
occasions were reported and are still extant, but the best of them all
never was. During its delivery the reporters forgot their vocation,
dropped their pens, and sat enchanted from near the beginning to quite the
close. The speech now lives only in the memory of a few old men, and the
enthusiasm with which they cherish their recollection of it is absolutely
astonishing. The precise language of this speech we shall never know; but
we do know we cannot help knowing--that with deep pathos it pleaded the
cause of the injured sailor, that it invoked the genius of the Revolution,
that it apostrophized the names of Otis, of Henry, and of Washington, that
it appealed to the interests, the pride, the honor, and the glory of
the nation, that it shamed and taunted the timidity of friends, that it
scorned and scouted and withered the temerity of domestic foes, that
it bearded and defied the British lion, and, rising and swelling and
maddening in its course, it sounded the onset, till the charge, the shock,
the steady struggle, and the glorious victory all passed in vivid review
before the entranced hearers.

Important and excitin