elping hand to his inventive genius and his devotion to his
country in the day of her extreme peril.

After the settlement of the Missouri question, although a portion of the
American people have differed with Mr. Clay, and a majority even
appear generally to have been opposed to him on questions of ordinary
administration, he seems constantly to have been regarded by all as the
man for the crisis. Accordingly, in the days of nullification, and more
recently in the reappearance of the slavery question connected with
our territory newly acquired of Mexico, the task of devising a mode of
adjustment seems to have been cast upon Mr. Clay by common consent--and
his performance of the task in each case was little else than a literal
fulfilment of the public expectation.

Mr. Clay's efforts in behalf of the South Americans, and afterward in
behalf of the Greeks, in the times of their respective struggles for civil
liberty, are among the finest on record, upon the noblest of all themes,
and bear ample corroboration of what I have said was his ruling passion--a
love of liberty and right, unselfishly, and for their own sakes.

Having been led to allude to domestic slavery so frequently already, I am
unwilling to close without referring more particularly to Mr. Clay's
views and conduct in regard to it. He ever was on principle and in feeling
opposed to slavery. The very earliest, and one of the latest, public
efforts of his life, separated by a period of more than fifty years, were
both made in favor of gradual emancipation. He did not perceive that on
a question of human right the negroes were to be excepted from the human
race. And yet Mr. Clay was the owner of slaves. Cast into life when
slavery was already widely spread and deeply seated, he did not perceive,
as I think no wise man has perceived, how it could be at once eradicated
without producing a greater evil even to the cause of human liberty
itself. His feeling and his judgment, therefore, ever led him to oppose
both extremes of opinion on the subject. Those who would shiver into
fragments the Union of these States, tear to tatters its now venerated
Constitution, and even burn the last copy of the Bible, rather than
slavery should continue a single hour, together with all their more
halting sympathizers, have received, and are receiving, their just
execration; and the name and opinions and influence of Mr. Clay are fully
and, as I trust, effectually and enduringly array