Homes of American Statesmen; With Anecdotical, Personal, and Descriptive Sketches
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On the floor of the House, Mr. Clay was often impetuous in discussion, and delighted to relieve the tedium of debate, and modify the sternness of antagonism by a sportive jest or lively repartee. On one occasion, Gen. Alexander Smythe of Virginia, who often afflicted the House by the verbosity of his harangues and the multiplicity of his dry citations, had paused in the middle of a speech which seemed likely to endure for ever, to send to the library for a book from which he wished to note a passage. Fixing his eye on Mr. Clay, who sat near him, he observed the Kentuckian writhing in his seat as if his patience had already been exhausted. "You, sir," remarked Smythe addressing the Speaker, "speak for the present generation; but I speak for posterity." "Yes," said Mr. Clay, "and you seem resolved to speak until the arrival of your auditory."
Revolutionary pensions were a source of frequent passages between eastern and western members; the greater portion of those pensions being payable to eastern survivors of the struggle. On one occasion when a Pension Bill was under discussion, Hon. Enoch Lincoln (afterwards Governor of Maine) was dilating on the services and sufferings of these veterans, and closed with the patriotic adjuration, "Soldiers of the Revolution! live for ever!" Mr. Clay followed, counselling moderation in the grant of pensions, that the country might not be overloaded and rendered restive by their burden, and turning to Mr. Lincoln with a smile, observed – "I hope my worthy friend will not insist on the very great duration of these pensions which he has suggested. Will he not consent, by way of a compromise, to a term of nine hundred and ninety-nine years instead of eternity?"
A few sentences culled from the remarks in Congress elicited by his death, will fitly close this hasty daguerreotype of the man Henry Clay.
Mr. Underwood (his colleague) observed in Senate that "his physical and mental organization eminently qualified him to become a great and impressive orator. His person was tall, slender and commanding. His temperament, ardent, fearless, and full of hope. His countenance, clear, expressive, and variable – indicating the emotion which predominated at the moment with exact similitude. His voice, cultivated and modulated in harmony with the sentiment he desired to express, fell upon the ear with the melody of enrapturing music. His eye beaming with intelligence and flashing with coruscations of genius. His gestures and attitudes graceful and natural. These personal advantages won the prepossessions of an audience even before his intellectual powers began to move his hearers; and when his strong common sense, his profound reasoning, his clear conceptions of his subject in all its bearings, and his striking and beautiful illustrations, united with such personal qualities, were brought to the discussion of any question, his audience was enraptured, convinced and led by the orator as if enchanted by the lyre of Orpheus.
"No man was ever blessed by his Creator with faculties of a higher order than Mr. Clay. In the quickness of his perceptions, and the rapidity with which his conclusions were formed, he had few equals and no superiors. He was eminently endowed with a nice discriminating taste for order, symmetry, and beauty. He detected in a moment every thing out of place or deficient in his room, upon his farm, in his own or the dress of others. He was a skilful judge of the form and qualities of his domestic animals, which he delighted to raise on his farm. I could give you instances of the quickness and minuteness of his keen faculty of observation, which never overlooked any thing. A want of neatness and order was offensive to him. He was particular and neat in his handwriting and his apparel. A slovenly blot or negligence of any sort met his condemnation; while he was so organized that he attended to, and arranged little things to please and gratify his natural love for neatness, order, and beauty, his great intellectual faculties grasped all the subjects of jurisprudence and politics with a facility amounting almost to intuition. As a lawyer, he stood at the head of his profession. As a statesman, his stand at the head of the Republican Whig party for nearly half a century, establishes his title to pre-eminence among his illustrious associates.
"Mr. Clay was deeply versed in all the springs of human action. He had read and studied biography and history. Shortly after I left college, I had occasion to call on him in Frankfort, where he was attending court, and well I remember to have found him with Plutarch's Lives in his hands. No one better than he knew how to avail himself of human motives, and all the circumstances which surrounded a subject, or could present themselves with more force and skill to accomplish the object of an argument.
"Bold and determined as Mr. Clay was in all his actions, he was, nevertheless, conciliating. He did not obstinately adhere to things impracticable. If he could not accomplish the best, he contented himself with the nighest approach to it. He has been the great compromiser of those political agitations and opposing opinions which have, in the belief of thousands, at different times, endangered the perpetuity of our Federal Government and Union.
"Mr. Clay was no less remarkable for his admirable social qualities, than for his intellectual abilities. As a companion, he was the delight of his friends; and no man ever had better or truer. No guest ever thence departed, without feeling happier for his visit."
Mr. Hunter of Virginia (a political antagonist) following, observed: "It may be truly said of Mr. Clay, that he was no exaggerator. He looked at events through neither end of the telescope, but surveyed them with the natural and the naked eye. He had the capacity of seeing things as the people saw them, and of feeling things as the people felt them. He had, sir, beyond any other man whom I have ever seen, the true mesmeric touch of the orator, – the rare art of transferring his impulses to others. Thoughts, feelings, emotions, came from the ready mould of his genius, radiant and glowing, and communicated their own warmth to every heart which received them. His, too, was the power of wielding the higher and intenser forms of passion, with a majesty and an ease, which none but the great masters of the human heart can ever employ."
Mr. Seward of New-York, said: "He was indeed eloquent – all the world knows that. He held the key to the hearts of his countrymen, and he turned the wards within them with a skill attained by no other master.
"But eloquence was nevertheless only an instrument, and one of many, that he used. His conversation, his gestures, his very look, were magisterial, persuasive, seductive, irresistible. And his appliance of all these was courteous, patient, and indefatigable. Defeat only inspired him with new resolution. He divided opposition by the assiduity of address, while he rallied and strengthened his own bands of supporters by the confidence of success, which, feeling himself, he easily inspired among his followers. His affections were high, and pure, and generous; and the chiefest among them was that one which the great Italian poet designated as the charity of native land. In him, that charity was an enduring and overpowering enthusiasm, and it influenced all his sentiments and conduct, rendering him more impartial between conflicting interests and sections, than any other statesman who has lived since the Revolution. Thus, with great versatility of talent, and the most catholic equality of favor, he identified every question, whether of domestic administration or foreign policy, with his own great name, and so became a perpetual Tribune of the People. He needed only to pronounce in favor of a measure or against it, here, and immediately popular enthusiasm, excited as by a magic wand, was felt, overcoming and dissolving all opposition in the Senate Chamber."
In the House, about the same time, Mr. Breckenridge of Kentucky (democrat), spoke as follows:
"The life of Mr. Clay, sir, is a striking example of the abiding fame which surely awaits the direct and candid statesman. The entire absence of equivocation or disguise in all his acts, was his master-key to the popular heart; for while the people will forgive the errors of a bold and open nature, he sins past forgiveness who deliberately deceives them. Hence Mr. Clay, though often defeated in his measures of policy, always secured the respect of his opponents without losing the confidence of his friends. He never paltered in a double sense. The country never was in doubt as to his opinions or his purposes. In all the contests of his time, his position on great public questions was as clear as the sun in the cloudless sky. Sir, standing by the grave of this great man, and considering these things, how contemptible does appear the mere legerdemain of politics! What a reproach is his life on that false policy which would trifle with a great and upright people! If I were to write his epitaph, I would inscribe as the highest eulogy, on the stone which shall mark his resting-place, 'Here lies a man who was in the public service for fifty years, and never attempted to deceive his countrymen.'"
Let me close this too hasty and superficial sketch, with a brief citation from Rev. C.M. Butler, Chaplain of the Senate, who, in his funeral discourse in the Senate Chamber, said:
"A great mind, a great heart, a great orator, a great career, have been consigned to history. She will record his rare gifts of deep insight, keen discrimination, clear statement, rapid combination, plain, direct, and convincing logic. She will love to dwell on that large, generous, magnanimous, open, forgiving heart. She will linger with fond delight on the recorded or traditional stories of an eloquence that was so masterful and stirring, because it was but himself struggling to come forth on the living words – because, though the words were brave and strong, and beautiful and melodious, it was felt that, behind them, there was a soul braver, stronger, more beautiful, and more melodious, than language could express."
Such was the master of Ashland, the man Henry Clay!
After this article was in type, we received from a Western paper the following notice of the sale of the Ashland estate.
"We are glad to learn that Ashland, the home of Henry Clay, which was sold September 20th, at public auction, was purchased by James B. Clay, eldest son of the deceased statesman. The Ashland homestead contained about 337 acres. It lies just without the limits of the city of Lexington. The country immediately surrounding it, is justly regarded as the garden spot of the West, and Ashland, above all others, as the most beautiful place in the world. The associations about it are of the most interesting character. When Kentucky was, in fact, the 'dark and bloody ground,' the country around Lexington was the only oasis – every where else, the tomahawk and the rifle were more potent than laws. How many incidents of these terrible days are garnered in the minds of the descendants of the old families of Kentucky! In those thrilling days, Ashland belonged to Daniel Boone, whose name is connected with many of the daring tragedies enacted in the then Far West. It passed from his hands into those of Nathaniel Hart, who fell, gloriously fighting, in the battle at the River Raisin, where so many Kentuckians offered up their lives in defence of their country. Henry Clay married Lucretia Hart, to whom the demesne of Ashland descended.
"There is so much of the Arab in the habits of the Americans, – there is so much migratoriness, and so little love for old homesteads, – we were afraid the children of Henry Clay would allow classic Ashland to pass into other and alien hands. But our fears are to gladness changed; and Ashland is still the dwelling-place of the Clays.
"Mr. Clay was thoroughly versed in agricultural matters, and was never better contented (as the editor of the Ohio Journal truly remarks), than when surrounded by his neighbors, many of whom knew and loved him when he was quite young and obscure, and afterwards rejoiced at his fame, and followed his fortunes through every phase of a long and eventful career. The residence does not present any imposing appearance, but is of a plain, neat, and rather antique architectural character, and the grounds immediately surrounding it are beautifully adorned, and traversed by walks; not in accordance with the foolish and fastidious taste of the present day, for this, in every thing connected with the place has been neglected, and the only end seems to have been to represent Nature in its proudest and most imposing grandeur. Many of the walks are retired, and are of a serpentine character, with here and there, in some secluded spot along their windings, a rude and unpolished bench upon which to recline. The trees are mostly pines of a large growth, and stand close together, casting a deep and sombre shade on every surrounding object. The reflections of one on visiting Ashland are of the most interesting character. Every object seems invested with an interest, and although the spirit with whose memory they are associated, has fled, one cannot repel the conviction, that while reposing under its silent and sequestered shades, he is still surrounded by something sublime and great. Old memories of the past come back upon him, and a thousand scenes connected with the life and history of Henry Clay, will force themselves upon you. The great monarchs of the forest that now stretch their limbs aloft in proud and peerless majesty, have all, or nearly all been planted by his hand, and are now not unfit emblems of the towering greatness of him who planted them.
"The walks, the flowers, the garden and the groves, all, all are consecrated, and have all been witnesses of his presence and his care. In the groves through which you wander, were nursed the mighty schemes of Statesmanship, which have astonished the world and terrified the tyrant, beat back the evil counsels for his country's ruin, and bound and fettered his countrymen in one common and indissoluble bond of Union."
CALHOUN
In writing the lives of our American Statesmen, we might say of almost any of them, "that he was born in such a year, that he was sent to the common school or to college, that he studied law, that he was chosen, first a member of the State Legislature, and then of the National Congress, that he became successively, a Senator, a foreign Ambassador, a Secretary of State, or a President, and that finally he retired to his paternal acres, to pass a venerable old age, amid the general respect and admiration of the whole country." This would be a true outline in the main, of the practical workings and doings of nine out of ten of them: but in filling in the details of the sketch, in clothing the dry skeleton of facts with the flesh and blood of the living reality, it would be found that this apparent similarity of development had given rise to the utmost diversity and individuality of character, and that scarcely any two of our distinguished men, though born and bred under the same influence, bore even a family resemblance. It is said by the foreign writers, by De Tocqueville especially, that very little originality and independence of mind can be expected in a democracy, where the force of the majority crushes all opinions and characters into a dead and leaden uniformity. But the study of our actual history rather tends to the opposite conclusion, and leads us to believe that the land of Washington, Franklin, Jefferson, Patrick Henry, the Adamses, Clay, Webster and Calhoun, is favorable to the production of distinct, peculiar, and decided natures. At least we may be sure, that our annals are no more wanting than those of other nations, in original, self-formed, and self-dependent men.
Among these, there was no one more peculiar or more unlike any prototype, than John C. Calhoun, of South Carolina. In the structure of his mind, in the singular tenacity of his purposes, in the rare dignity and elevation of his character, and in the remarkable political system to which he adhered, he was wholly sui generis, standing out from the number of his forerunners and contemporaries in bold, positive and angular relief. He could only have been what he was, in the country, and during the times, in which he flourished: he was a natural growth of our American society and institutions: had formed himself by no models ancient or modern; and the great leading principles of his thought faithfully rendered in all his conduct, were as much an individual possession as the figure of his body or the features of his face. In seeing him, in hearing him speak, or in reading his books, no one was ever likely to confound him with any second person.
Mr. Calhoun was born in the Abbeville District of South Carolina, on the 18th of March, 1782. His parents on both sides were of Irish extraction, who had first settled in Pennsylvania, and then in Virginia, whence they were driven by the Indians, at the time of Braddock's defeat, to South Carolina. The father appears to have been a man of the most resolute and energetic character, equally ready to defend his home against the incursions of the savages, and his rights as a citizen against legislative encroachments. On one occasion, he and his neighbors went down to within thirty miles of Charleston, armed, to assert a right of suffrage which was then disputed; and he always steadily opposed the Federal Constitution, because it allowed other people than those of South Carolina to tax the people of South Carolina. "We have heard his son say," writes a friend of the latter, "that among his earliest recollections was one of a conversation when he was nine years of age, in which his father maintained that government to be best, which allowed the largest amount of individual liberty compatible with social order and tranquillity, and insisted that the improvements in political science would be found to consist in throwing off many of the restraints then imposed by law, and deemed necessary to an organized society. It may well be supposed that his son John was an attentive and eager auditor, and such lessons as these must doubtless have served to encourage that free spirit of inquiry, and that intrepid zeal for truth, for which he has been since so distinguished. The mode of thinking which was thus encouraged may, perhaps, have compensated in some degree the want of those early advantages which are generally deemed indispensable to great intellectual progress. Of these he had comparatively few. But this was compensated by those natural gifts which give great minds the mastery over difficulties which the timid regard as insuperable. Indeed, we have here another of those rare instances in which the hardiness of natural genius is seen to defy all obstacles, and developes its flower and matures its fruit under circumstances apparently the most unpropitious.
"The region of the country in which his family resided was then newly settled, and in a rude frontier State. There was not an academy in all the upper part of the State, and none within fifty miles, except one at about that distance in Columbia county, Georgia, which was kept by his brother-in-law, Mr. Waddell, a Presbyterian clergyman. There were but a few scattered schools in the whole of that region, and these were such as are usually found on the frontier, in which reading, writing and arithmetic were imperfectly taught. At the age of thirteen he was placed under the charge of his brother-in-law to receive his education. Shortly after, his father died; this was followed by the death of his sister, Mrs. Waddell, within a few weeks, and the academy was then discontinued, which suspended his education before it had fairly commenced. His brother-in-law, with whom he was still left, was absent the greater part of the time, attending to his clerical duties, and his pupil thus found himself on a secluded plantation, without any white companion during the greater portion of the time. A situation apparently so unfavorable to improvement turned out, in his case, to be the reverse. Fortunately for him, there was a small circulating library in the house, of which his brother-in-law was librarian, and, in the absence of all company and amusements, that attracted his attention. His taste, although undirected, led him to history, to the neglect of novels and other lighter reading; and so deeply was he interested, that in a short time he read the whole of the small stock of historical works, contained in the library, consisting of Rollin's Ancient History, Robertson's Charles V., his South America, and Voltaire's Charles XII. After dispatching these, he turned with like eagerness to Cook's Voyages (the large edition), a small volume of essays by Brown, and Locke on the Understanding, which he read as far as the chapter on Infinity. All this was the work of but fourteen weeks. So intense was his application that his eyes became seriously affected, his countenance pallid, and his frame emaciated. His mother, alarmed at the intelligence of his health, sent for him home, where exercise and amusement soon restored his strength, and he acquired a fondness for hunting, fishing, and other country sports. Four years passed away in these pursuits, and in attention to the business of the farm while his elder brothers were absent, to the entire neglect of his education. But the time was not lost. Exercise and rural sports invigorated his frame, while his labors on the farm gave him a taste for agriculture, which he always retained, and in the pursuit of which he finds delightful occupation for his intervals of leisure from public duties."
It is not our purpose, however, to enter into any detail of the life of Mr Calhoun. Suffice it to say that he was educated, under Dr. Dwight, at Yale College, that he studied law at Litchfield in Connecticut, that he was for two sessions a member of the Legislature, that from 1811 to 1817 during the war with Great Britain, and the most trying times that followed it, he was a member of the lower House of Congress. That he was then appointed Secretary of War, under Madison, when he gave a new, thorough, and complete organization to his department. That he was chosen Vice-President in 1825, and subsequently served his country as Senator of the United States, and Secretary of State, until the year 1850, when he died. During the whole of this long period his exertions were constant, and he took a leading part in all the movements of parties. Acting for the most of the time with the Democratic party, he was still never the slave of party, never guilty of the low arts or petty cunning of the mere politician, always fearless in the discharge of his duties, and though ambitious, ever sacrificing his ambition to his clearly discerned and openly expressed principles. Mr. Webster, who, during nearly the whole of his legislative career, and on nearly all questions of public concern, had been an active opponent, in an obituary address to the Senate, bore this testimony to his genius and his greatness.
"Differing widely on many great questions respecting our institutions and the government of the country, those differences never interrupted our personal and social intercourse. I have been present at most of the distinguished instances of the exhibition of his talents in debate. I have always heard him with pleasure, often with much instruction, not unfrequently with the highest degree of admiration.
"Mr. Calhoun was calculated to be a leader in whatsoever association of political friends he was thrown. He was a man of undoubted genius and of commanding talents. All the country and all the world admit that. His mind was both perceptive and vigorous. It was clear, quick, and strong.
"Sir, the eloquence of Mr. Calhoun, or the manner in which he exhibited his sentiments in public bodies, was part of his intellectual character. It grew out of the qualities of his mind. It was plain, strong, terse, condensed, concise: sometimes impassioned, still always severe. Rejecting ornament, not often seeking far for illustration, his power consisted in the plainness of his propositions, in the closeness of his logic, and in the earnestness and energy of his manner. These are the qualities, as I think, which have enabled him through such a long course of years to speak often, and yet command attention. His demeanor as a Senator is known to us all, is appreciated, venerated, by us all. No man was more respectful to others; no man carried himself with greater decorum, no man with superior dignity. I think there is not one of us, when he last addressed us from his seat in the Senate, his form still erect, with a voice by no means indicating such a degree of physical weakness as did in fact possess him, with clear tones, and an impressive, and, I may say, an imposing manner, who did not feel that he might imagine that we saw before us a Senator of Rome, while Rome survived.