* AT "Ov • 5- * v '7Vi' ,0 C> *o . » * A tf V. • * ^G /.c^.^ «♦•«>- ""<> v^ * * *> f* a- * 7 * \^3M&: £°* '-iSfe^ ' $*+ ... -v ^ *\^> ^ a?* •i^* •> . ^f> Ap v »i*a*. ^ *••.%> , % ^' % a r o^ t «' • , •> • THE JUNIUS TRACTS. No. IV. Sept.] published every second month. [1843. LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. BY JUNIUS. Author of " The Crisis of the Country," and other Tracts of 1840. Price, 3 cents single, $2 50 c(s. per 100, or $20 per 1000. Tracts already published. No. I. THE TEST, or Parties tried by their Acts- " II. THE CURRENCY. " III. THE TARIFF. « IV. LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. « V. POLITICAL ABOLITION. H7* NOTICE : Committees, Clubs, and all persons desirous of obtaining these Tracts, are requested to send their orders, with remittances, to the publishers, Greeley $ McElrath, Tribune Office, New York, who will promptly forward them to any part of the Union, as may be directed. Remittances by mail, post paid or free, at the risk of the proprietor. Price tor any one of the series, $2 50 cts. per 100 copies', or $20 per 1000. £7* Postmasters are authorized by law to make remittances under their frank. NEW YORK: PUBLISHED BY GREELEY & McELRATH, TRIBUNE BUILDING8, 160 NASSAU STREET. 1844. [Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1843, by Calvin Colton, in the Clerk's office of the District Court of the United States, in and for the Southern District of New York.] lET* Extracts in Newspapers, for purpose of review, are allowed, but the republication of this Tract is forbidden. ■' ■■>■ ■■■ — .»- ,....,— — , . „ i - -■ - ■ ,.— ■■ ^ [One Sheet Periodical, Postage under 100 miles 1 J cents ; over 100 miles 2J.J I t LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. Mr. Clay was born the 12th of April, 1777, in Hanover county, Virginia. His father was a Baptist minister, who left his wife a widow in indigence, when Henry was in his fifth year, with seven young children, and two younger than Henry. Mr. Robert Hughes, a playfellow of Henry Clay in boyhood, said «f his old friend, at a dinner on the Fourth of July, 1843, at Campbell Court House, Virginia : " He and I were born close to the slashes of old Hanover. He worked barefooted, and so did I. He went to mill, and so did I. He was good to his mamma, and so was I. I know him like a book, and love him like a brother." The boy that works barefooted for his mother, will be very likely, when he comes to be a man, if Providence opens the way, to serve his country well. The two spheres are kindred to each other. Mr. Clay's first rudiments of education were acquired in a log schoolhouse. In the mean- time, he had to work barefooted and go to mill. He is familiarly called in " old Hanover" the " Mill-boy of the Slashes," — having been so often seen between his mother's house and Mrs. Darricott's grist-mill on the Pamunkey, mounted on a bag and a poney, guided by a rope-bridle. At the age of fourteen, he went to serve as clerk witli Mr. Richard Denny, druggist, in Richmond, Va. ; and the next year, 1792, went into the office of Peter Tinsley, Esq., clerk of the High Court of Chaneery,*where he attracted the notice, and received the kind regards of the venerable Chancellor Wythe, who afterward employed him as his amanu- ensis in recording his decisions, comments, &c. In these not unfavorable positions, spurred on by his ambition, and cherished by the Chancellor and others who had the sagacity to recog- nise the germe of his future eminence, he made rapid advances in legal and other studies. After spending his nineteenth year in the office of Robert Brooke, Esq., Attorney General for the State of Virginia, Mr. Clay obtained license for the practice of law from the Judges of the Court of Appeals in his native State. Removal to Kentucky. In 1792 Mr. Clay's mother had married Mr. Henry Watkins, and removed with her family to Woodford county, Kentucky. Attracted by his filial regard, Henry was induced to follow her; and in 1797 Mr. Clay, a youth of twenty, opened an attorney's office in Lexington, as he says in his speech of June 6, 1842, at that place, "without patrons, without the favor or countenance of the great or opulent, and without the means of paying my weekly board. I remember how comfortable I thought I should be, if I could make one hundred pounds, Virginia money, a year, and with what delight I received the first fiftem-shilling fee. My hopes were more than realized. I immediately rushed into a lucrative practice." A pleasant story. While Mr. Clay was yet a stranger at Lexington, he joined a debating club, but for some time declined taking any part in the discussions. After a while, however, it happened that a question was about to be put by the chairman for decision, when Mr. Clay, in a low voice, said to a fellow-member by his side, that he thought the question was not exhausted. Where- upon, glad of the chance, and without leave, Mr. Clay's friend suddenly rose, and said, " Mr. Chairman, Mr. Clay will speak on this question." Thus unexpectedly forced up, and abashed with that diffidence which gifted minds usually feel before they are used to collision with other minds, Mr. Clay began : " Gentlemen of the Jury," and perceiving his mistake, he stopp-d short. But through the politeness of the chairman and the club, who had wished to see him come out, he was encouraged to begin again : " Gentlemen of the Jury," said Mr. Clay, and there he stopped. At last, however, he got over the distressing balk, and gradually acquiring self-possession, he made an argument that excited the astonishment and admiration of all. The ice being thus broken, he walked straight into a reputation, that has never flagged, and never baen stained. The self-made man. " Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them." The first certainly was not the lot of Henry Clay, nor was greatness thrust upon him. All the distinction he has acquired, was achieved— achieved by his single arm, by his own lofty aims. Such is the self-made man. He will ever be honored, who, by his own inherent vigor and high aspirations, has successfully contended against obstacles that would dispirit ordinary minds, and baffled in an honorable career the adverse winds and storms of unhopeful birth and fortune In the blood and on the graves of our fathers, martyrs to freedom, was laid a plat- form for such endeavors, on which our youth, whatever their origin, may build high hopes, and earn an imperishable fame. The spectacle of the boy working " barefooted" for his mother, touches all hearts; and when that boy, in riper years, is seen toiling through a like career for his country, the mother of us all, he obeys the instincts, and fulfils the high destiiw of his filial piety. Mr. Clay at the bar. It might be difficult to say, whether Mr. Clay was more able in the management of criminal or civil causes ; but it is easy to decide in which he early acquired the highest reputation. His characteristic sympathy for the unfortunate, especially for persons in peril of life, awoke the profoundest feelings of his nature, and he never failed of success in his defence of persons ac- cused of capital crime, though he had cases in hand which seemed to all others hopeless, as for example, those of Mrs. Phelps, of the two Germans, father and son, and of Willis, all clearly cases of murder in an aggravated degree, but all successfully defended by this young advocate. The only capital case in which he appeared for plaintiffs, was against a slave, who had killed his master while undertaking to chastise him, which resulted in the slave's condemnation. With this exception, Mr. Clay has always been the defender of slaves, and often, never without success, volunteered his services in suits for their freedom, and in other cases. It has ever been a scrupulous rule with Mr. Clay, that no man, freeman or slave, should go without defence in law for want of money, when it was in his power to aid them. Nor was Mr. Clay less successful in civil cases. Down to this time, he has been regarded as second to no counsellor in the Union. In one case, involving the land laws of Virginia and Kentucky, while yet a young man, he had, in a necessary absence, left it in the hands of an associate counsel, who was foiled by his opponents at all points, during a two-days contest ; but just as the case was being submitted to the Court, who would doubtless have decided against him, Mr. Clay came in, had a moment's conversation with his colleague, addressed the Court for half an hour, in total ignorance of the evidence that had been adduced, and gained the cause ! Mr. Clay and emancipation. When Mr. Clay arrived in Kentucky, he found the people of the State agitating the question of remodelling the Constitution, and a very respectable minority were in favor of introducing a clause for the gradual emancipation of the slaves, as had been done in some of the northern States, by freeing at a specific age those born after the adoption of the proposed Constitution, that ultimately all should be free. Mr. Clay enlisted in this project of emancipation with great zeal, and devoted all his energies, through the press, by personal influence, and in an active campaign, to accomplish this end. But he and his associates were unsuccessful. More than twenty years afterwards, when he proposed the compromise to settle the Missouri ques- tion, he declared, on the floor of Congress, that, if he were a citizen of Missouri, he would use all his influence to establish a system of gradual and ultimate emancipation, and he earnestly recommended it. In a speech at the anniversary of the American Colonization Society, in 1827, Mr. Clay said of slavery, " If I could only be instrumental in eradicating this deepest stain upon the character of our country, I would not exchange the proud satisfaction I should enjoy, for the honor of all the triumphs ever decreed to the most successful conqueror." The alien and sedition laws. These two laws were passed at the Session of 1798-'9. The first gave power to the Presi- dent to banish an alien at his discretion, if he judged his presence here prejudicial to the in-' tercsts of the country ; and the second put a stopper on freedom of speech and of the press, in discussing the merits of public men. The second was certainly against the Constitution, and the first was no less a bold stride towards monarchical power. Kentucky was the first of the States that shook the dewdrops from her mane, and Henry Clay was the organ of her indigna- tion. Then only twenty-two years of age, the thunders of his eloquence electrified the people. No other man was so prominent in the field, and none so effective in that influence, which raised Mr. Jefferson to power, as this young champion of democracy. A true democrat then, he is so still, and ever has been. Where can be found, in this broad land, a more vigi- lant sentinel of popular rights, or a more faithful denouncer of Executive usurpations, and the abuses of Executive power ? The saddle on the wrong horse. In a reply to Mr. Calhoun, while the sub-treasury was under debate, Mr. Clay said : " All Hie former grounds of difference which distinguished that (the Federal) party, and were the subjects of contention between them and the Republicans, have ceased, from lapse of time and change of circumstance, except one, and that is the maintenance and increase of Executive povier. This was the leading policy of the Federal party. A strong, powerful, and energetic Executive was its favorite tenet. I tell the gentleman, that he will find the true- old democratic parly, who were for resisting the encroachments of power, and limiting Executive patronage, on this side, of the Senate, and not with his new allies, who do not hold a solitary principle m common with the republican party of 1798. It is the old Federal party with Whom he is NOW ACTING." Mr. Clay's entrance into public life. In 1803 Mr. Clay was elected from Fayette county to a seat in the lower house of the Ken- tucky legislature, and was immediately pitted against Mr. Felix Grundy in defending the charter of the Lexington Insurance Company against a movement for its repeal, in which he was successful by convincing the Senate, who listened to his argument in the Assembly, though he lost the vote of his own house. It was in this field that Mr. Clay's parliamentary powers were first presented to public gaze, and gave earnest of future and high promise. He was a leader there, as everywhere, and a favorite of the public. From this time to the war of 1812, we find him alternately in the legislature of his adopted State, and in the coun- cils of the nation at Washington. In 1S06 he was transferred to the Senate of the United States for one session, to fill out the unexpired term of the Hon. John Adair, resigned, where lie immediately distinguished himself as one of the earliest movers — •more properly, perhaps, the founder — of tiie internal improvement system. After having been again returned to the house of assembly in Kentucky, and made speaker, he was in 1809 sent back to the United States Senate for two years, to complete the term of the Hon. Buckner Thurston, who had resigned. It was in April, 1811, while a bill to provide munitions of war, &c, was under debate in the Senate, and during the pendency of an amendment giving -preference to article* of American grouih and manufacture, that Mr. Clay boldly and distinctly propounded and advocated his views on the policy of protection. The amendment prevailed. Mr. Madison found himself sustained by all the powers of Mr. Clay, in his proclamation to assert our jurisdiction to the line of the Perdido in Florida. Various and active were the exertions ot Mr. Clay in the Senate, during this Congress ; and among the rest, as is known, he was found in. opposition to the rechartet of the Bank of the United States. Mr. Clay and Aaron Burr. There was a time when the envious rivals of Mr. Clay, if such men could be his rivals, undertook to calumniate him for consenting to defend Colonel Burr on his first trial. Mr. Burr had written to Mr. Clay, and assured him, on the honor of a gentleman, that theis was no foundation for the charges against him ; whereupon Mr. Clay, with his characteristic generosity, undertook his defence, and succeeded; bat afterward, having discovered the truth, treated him as he deserved. Kven if Mr. Clay had had no such assurances from Col. Burr, it would be a slender compliment tu our laws and institutions, which profess u guaranty an accused person a fair trial, to deny him counsel ! Mr. Cl'iy elected to the House of Representatives of the United States. In all the public stations, successively, which Mr. Clay occupied from 1803 to 1811, we find him always prominent: always looked up to, though a young man; always leading oil" on some stirring theme or in some important measure, riveting the attention and commanding the respect of the bodies of which he was a member, and rising in this western hemisphere a star of uncommon brilliancy. Having a choice of a seat in the Senate or House of Repre- sentatives of the United State-, in 181 1, he did not hesitate to prefer the latter,for the stirring and eventful period that was then before the country, in a prospect of war with Great Britain. On the first ballot he was ma le Speaker, an honor never before or since conferred on a new member. Mr. Clay and the war. It is known that W,e went into the war with Great Britain in the midst of powerfully-con- flicting opinions as to the necessity, propriety, or expediency of so momentous a step ; that the administration and its friends were vigorously assailed from where they had need and some claims for encouragement and support ; that the first stages of the war were disastrous, and, as such, gave eminent advantage to the opposition and to the enemy. But the brilliant achievements of its later stages, and the final result, put the whole matter in a new and dif- ferent light. The lapse of nearly thirty years has served only to impart additional validity to a general conviction at first entertained, that we acquired by that struggle very important benefits anil needful advantages. The part borne by Mr. Clay, in that trying period of our history, adds not less to his claims on the gratitude of his country, than to the blaze of his reputation. At one time portraying. in manly terms and with flashing indignation, the injuries and insults of the foe; at another. remonstrating with domestic opponents: then turning, with a true American heart, and laying his electrifying hand on the heart of the American people, he disarmed opposition, chased away the fears of the timid, imparted fresh courage to the strong, and stood by the Government, erect, prominent, and influential in its counsels, both in the origination and conduct of the war. He was as a general-in-chief over the intellectual power of the country, and the breath of his mouth moved over it as the wind of heaven sways the forests of an unbroken wilderness. His animating spirit, his stirring eloquence, his useful counsels, and bis untiring ogertcy, from the position he occupied, were everywhere felt, and equally bene- ficial in our army and navy, to excite them to noble and successful deeds, as in the presiding magistracy of the nation, to give it constancy and vigor. By his timely advice, and by the magic of his persuasions, the resources of the country started up from then - places of repose, organized, disciplined, and in force; and the nation was victorious. He was the guidiug genius of the conflict, which ended, not less by his instrumentality, for the honor and enduring good of the republic. See the detail of his action as Speaker and Member of the House of Representatives, and read his speeches, as an illustration and in proof of this brief sketch. Mr. Mudison's estimate of Mr. Clay. He invited him repeatedly into his Cabinet, and offered him the mission to Russia, then deemed very important. He even proposed to put Mr. Clay at the head of the army ; and was only deterred from sending in his name to the Senate for the appointment of General-in- Chief by the advice that he could not be spared from the public councils. Mr. Clay's services in the Treaty of Ghent. When the offensive demands first put forward by the British Commissioners were chiefly waived, a difficulty arose in a want of harmony in our own Board, on a very important i/i-duellist, if wc understand him. " I owe it to the community to say," he publicly observed in later years, " that no man holds in deeper abhorrence than I do, that pernicious practice. Its true corrective will be found, when all shall unite, as all ought to unite, in its unqualified proscription." In 1819, when invited to a game of "bragg," he replied, "Excuse me, gentlemen. I have not played a game of hazard for more than twelve years, and I take this opportunity to warn you all to avoid a practice destructive of a good name, and drawing after it evil consequences of incalculable magnitude." Mr. Clay's private fortune. Sometime previous to 1820, Mr. Clay suffered deeply by suretyship, and was obliged to be absent from Congress two or three years, to get his affairs righted in the practice of his pro- fession. No man has sacrificed more to his country in a pecuniary point of view, than Mr. Clay. As no lawyer ever had better chances, he might have acquired one of the largest fortunes in the Union, if, instead of devoting his life to the public, he had spent it in his pro- fession. Mr. Clay is frugal in his habits, though not parsimonious. "Here is a hundred dollars ," said Mr. Clay to a young man, handing it over to him, when he came to consult him for the recovery of an estate that belonged to him by rightful inheritance. " Take this," said Mr. Clay, " and when you want more, call on me." This is a fair specimen of the man. Notwithstanding this liberality of disposition, Mr. Clay has saved a comfortable and unem- barrassed estate. The person of Mr. Clay — his manners — eloquence. Mr. Clay is tall, and slenderly, but tightly built, light-haired, and blue-eyed. He is accused by phrenologists of eagle-eyed perception. They aver, that he observes all, and sees through all, and is apt to hit game, when he fires. Some one has also suggested, that his mother a long time ago gave him a " mellow — mellow horn" to wind. Certain it is, if it was not nat- urally musical, and of surprising compass, he has made it so by practice. It has thundered deep tones, piped shrill notes, and performed all manner of musical functions between these extremes. Though it may be a little worse for wear, it is good yet, and preferred to all others. Mr. Clay ha3 grace, dignity, and command — the first to charm, the second to beget respect, and the third to excite awe. Mix them all together, and they make a very perfect man. As to his eloquence, it must have been matchless in his youth, judging from its effects. The courts, juries, and legislature of Kentucky, popular assemblies there and elsewhere, and both houses of Congress, have successively, for nearly half a century, been swayed by him. Mr. Clay the caiulidate of the people, for the Presidency in 1844. We have never yet seen the Whig man that could make up his mouth to say otherwise. The simultaneous rush of the Whig press, of Whig conventions, of Whig assemblies, formal and informal, of nineteen twentieths, if not ninety-nine hundredths of the Whig party through- out the Union, to put forward the name of Henry Clay for 1844, after the faithlessness of the Acting President was placed beyond question, is a most extraordinary fact ; and the constantly augmenting power of this general feeling, is another remarkable fact. The suggestion, that it was unseasonable, can not well be sustained. It was an extraordinary, unparalleled position of the public mind. All confidence in the unfortunate choice that had been made of the second on the ticket of 1840, who, by a melancholy event of Providence, succeeded as principal, was lost. The great and victorious party of 1840, was without a chief, and temporarily doomed to a most vexatious overthrow of their hopes. If they could not rally without delay, and concentrate their affections somewhere, they would be scattered to the winds. So far from being unseasonable, it was a necessity. It was the irresistible action of the instincts of self-preservation. And where else should they — could they go ? Wait they must, but not to know what they might hope for in the end, was like the agony of final dissolution — like the winding-sheet of despair. Most fortunately, fortunate beyond all example in such a case, there was a man not un- known to fame — a man whom they would and should have had before — a tried and faithful man — a man equal to any and all emergencies, as proved by almost every variety of public service lor forty years — who never faltered or made a mistake in the great exigencies of tha 16 . » nation — who filled the eye of the great world, and for whom the world cherished a profound regard — a man equally respected at home and abroad — and whose high endowments and rare gifts seemed to have been made and modelled for the occasion. Upon him, without pause, and with unexampled unanimity, they fixed their eyes and their hopes. A more settled, or more determined purpose has rarely, if ever characterized a state of the public mind. As well might you turn back the rivers, or roll back the tides of the ocean, as to oppose these accu- mulating forces. Gratitude — Ingratitude. If there has been occasion for the saying, that " republics are ungrateful," we do not yet con- sent that the libel describes the American people. It was gratitude that led the people of this country into one of the greatest mistakes they ever committed. General Jackson did us great, eminent, heroic service, as a soldien Not to confess it, would indeed be ungrateful. And military achievements are always attractive, imposing, and captivating with a susceptible and generous people. But the very qualities which made Andrew Jackson a great general, unfitted him to guide the helm of State. That strong and unbending will, which is the best qualification to lead an army, is the worst possible to preside over a true democracy, where the will of all is to be consulted ; that despotic authority which is necessary in the field, is most unsuitable in the Chief Magistrate of a free people ; and that impetuosity which bears down a foe, in the onset of battle, will carry away the pillars of a republic. Here is the secret of the misfortunes of our country in having chosen for President such a man as Andrew Jackson. But it was gratitude that made him President. While General Jackson was the military idol of the nation, Mr. Clay was borne down by the calumnies already noticed — calumnies which for a long period, poisoned the public rnind, but which have since been driven and chiefly eradicated from the field they occupied. He now stands before the whole country a patriot as spotless as he is disinterested, having the advantage, not only of all his recognised merits, but of a man, who, emerging i'rom a dark cloud of aspersion, justified by the certificate of his foes, and ennobled by the dignity of his bearing while suffering injustice, is received into the bosoms of a generous people with a thousand fold more enthusiasm, than would otherwise have been felt for him, with all his exalted gifts. " He is too good a man to be President," was all that could be urged against his nomination at Harrisburg in 1839. We shall see whether such a libel on the American people will be proved, now they know what he is. Not till it is proved, will we consent to the charge of ingratitude on this republic towards such a man. The Harrisburg Convention. We may assume it as a principle, that a departure from democratic or republican practice, in the action of the representatives of the people, will result badly. All know that the Harrisburg Convention of 1839 disappointed the wishes of the great majority of their constituency, and that the murmurs of the Whig party were alarming, when the result was announced. Nothing but the peculiar and distressing state of the country, so imperatively demanding a change in the Government, could have united them on such a nomination for the campaign of 1840. Nay, if Mr. Clay had not himself gone forward as captain, taken the colors into his own hand, and dashed into the thickest of the foe, at the head of his own legions, saying, "ir is for the country, and therefore for me, for us all," the summons to the onset would have failed. '• If,'" said he, in a private letter read to the Convention, after the nomination was made, " if the deliberations of the Convention shall lead them to the choice of another," (than himself,) ''as the candidate, far from feeling any discontent, the nomination will have my best wisher;, and RBCEIVE my CORDIAL support!" Such magnanimity is not common in the selfish squabbles of this world. Such being the facts, the inference is fair, that the nomination generally desired by the people, would have been successful in a much greater degree. Availability, if anything other than the wishes of the people be brought into the question, is a dangerous doctrine to act upon in such a Convention, as it takes the question out of the people's hands, and is hostile to the true principles of democracy. Did not a few, a very few decide the nomination at Harrisburg, against the wishes of ihe people 1 The result has been immeasurably disastrous. Who ever thought of John Tyler for the Vice-Presidency, in the appointment of the members of that Convention? It was the first error which led to that fatality in the second. Once break loose from sound principles, and there is no knowing where we shall land. An impromptu nomina- tion, made at the discretion, and on the sole responsibility of representatives, is a perilous one. We say not this for reproach or rebuke, but because we still have before us the selection of a second to him who is already pointed out by the acclamations of the people, and because the saddest experience of the nation lias taught us, that that selection may bo momentous. A Contrast. In 1829, at the end of Mr. Adams' Administration, it could be said, that Congress had been independent, and the dominant power in the republic, as the immediate representatives of the people ever ought to be. Then, our commerce, agriculture, and manufactures were in a most flourishing condition, never so much so ; our currency system was sound, the best in the world ; labor was sure of employment, and of a fair reward ; there were few brokers, usurers, and money-lenders ; work, and not speculation, was the business of the people ; our habits were simple and democratic ; and our national honor and commercial credit, without a stain. Wo were a prosperous, wealthy, thriving, happy people. Such was the state of the country when its government was conducted on the principles of Mr. Clay, and he a part of the Government. Hut in 1829, democracy was superseded by One Man Power ; Congress became a mere Executive tool ; a train of devastation, social and commercial, moral and physical, such as no other country ever experienced in so short a lime, from similar causes, followed ; our manufactures were nearly prostrated ; trade was paralyzed; agriculturo was depressed ; the currency was ruined; general morals were corrupted; our honor sullied and our credit gone ; wild and ruinous speculations drove industry and economy from the field of enterprise ; brokers and jobbers rode the nation out of breath and out of flesh ; and the Government of the country, in all its branches and agencies, was put up at auction to the highest bidders in a system of utter political venality and crime. " Look on this picture— then on that." §9 f <* '^W * G°V^N % c -* 1 u. «f % * ^\. «v ^ A <\ */77i V" - o « o ,* % ^ > V^, I' %kj$ -«n/» LIBRARY OF CONGRESS inn 009 936 447 6