Coachteam Leadership & Coaching historical books

AMERICAN LEADERS.

BY JOHN LORD

AUTHOR OF "THE OLD ROMAN WORLD," "MODERN EUROPE,"
ETC., ETC.

(First published as part of the LORD'S LECTURES in BEACON LIGHTS OF HISTORY, VOLUME XII)

 

Click here to read part 2

 

PUBLISHERS' PREFACE.

The remarks made in the preface to the volume on "American Founders" are
applicable also to this volume on "American Leaders." The lecture on
Daniel Webster has been taken from its original position in "Warriors
and Statesmen" (a volume the lectures of which are now distributed for
the new edition in more appropriate groupings), and finds its natural
neighborhood in this volume with the paper on Clay and Calhoun.

Since the intense era of the Civil War has passed away, and Northerners
and Southerners are becoming more and more able to take dispassionate
views of the controversies of that time, finding honorable reasons for
the differences of opinion and of resultant conduct on both sides, it
has been thought well to include among "American Leaders" a man who
stands before all Americans as the chief embodiment of the "cause" for
which so many gallant soldiers died--Robert E. Lee. His personal
character was so lofty, his military genius so eminent, that North and
South alike looked up to him while living and mourned him dead. His
career is depicted by one who has given it careful study, and who,
himself a wounded veteran officer of the Union army, and regarding the
Southern cause as one well "lost," as to its chief aims of Secession and
protection to Slavery, in the interest of civilization and of the South
itself, yet holds a high appreciation of the noble man who is its chief
representative. The paper on "Robert E. Lee: The Southern Confederacy,"
is from the pen of Dr. E. Benjamin Andrews, Chancellor of the University
of Nebraska.

NEW YORK, September, 1902.

 

CONTENTS.

_ANDREW JACKSON_.

PERSONAL POLITICS.

Early life of Jackson
Studies law
Popularity and personal traits
Sent to Congress
A judge in Tennessee
Major-general of militia
Indian fighter and duellist
The Creek war
Tecumseh
Massacre at Fort Mims
Jackson made major-general of the regular army
The Creek war
At Pensacola
At Mobile
At New Orleans
The battle of New Orleans
Effect of his successes
The Seminole war
Jackson as governor of Florida
Senator in Congress
President James Monroe
President John Quincy Adams
Election of Jackson as president
Jackson's speeches
Cabinet
The "Kitchen Cabinet"
System of appointments
The "Spoils System"
Hostile giants in the Senate
Jackson's opposition to tariffs
Financial policy
The democracy hostile to a money power
War on the United States Bank
Nicholas Biddle
Isaac Hill and Secretary Ingham
Opposition to the re-charter of the bank
The President's veto
Removal of deposits
Jackson's high-handed measures
The mania for speculation
"Pet Banks"
Commercial distress
Nullification
Sale of public lands
John C. Calhoun
The president's proclamation against the nullifiers
Compromise tariff
Morgan and anti-masonry
Private life of Jackson
His public career
Eventful administration

_HENRY CLAY_.

COMPROMISE LEGISLATION.

Birth and education
Studies law
Favorite in society
Settles in Lexington, Ky.
Absorbed in politics
Marriage; personal appearance
Member of Congress
Speaker of the House
Advocates war with Great Britain
His speeches
Comparison with Webster
Peace commissioner at Ghent
Returns to Lexington
Re-elected speaker
The tariff question
The tariff of 1816
The charter of the United States Bank
Beginning of slavery agitation
Beecher in England, on cotton as affecting slavery
The Missouri question
Clay as a pacificator
Internal improvements
Greek struggle for liberty
Tariff of 1824
The "American system"
The cotton lords
Clay's aspirations for the presidency
His competitors
Clay secretary of state for Adams
Jackson's administration
Clay as orator
His hatred of Jackson
The tariff of 1832
The compromise tariff of 1833
Clay again candidate for the presidency
Political disappointments
Bursting of the money bubble
Harrison's administration
Repeal of the Sub-Treasury Act
Slavery agitation
Annexation of Texas under Polk
Clay as pacificator of slavery agitation
John C. Calhoun
Anti-slavery leaders
Passage of Clay's compromise bill of 1850
Fugitive-slave law
Clay's declining health
Death
Services
Character

_DANIEL WEBSTER_.

THE AMERICAN UNION.

General character and position of Webster
Birth and early life
Begins law-practice; enters Congress
His legal career
His oratory
Congressional services; finance
Industrial questions
Defender of the Constitution
Reply to Hayne of South Carolina
Webster's ambition
His political relations to the South
The antislavery agitation
Webster's 7th of March Speech
His loyalty to the Constitution and the Union
His political errors
Greatness and worth of his career
His death
His defects of character
His counterbalancing virtues
Permanence of his ideas and his fame

_JOHN C. CALHOUN_.

THE SLAVERY QUESTION.

Rapid Rise of Calhoun
Education; lawyer; member of Congress
Early speeches
His enlightened mind
Secretary of war
Condition of the South
Calhoun's dislike of Jackson
The tariff question
Bears heavily on the South
Calhoun a defender of Southern interests
Nullification
The tariff of 1832
Clay's compromise bill
Jackson's war on the bank
Calhoun in the Senate
His detestation of politics as a game
Lofty private life
Early speeches
The original abolitionists
Radicalism
Northern lecturers
Calhoun's foresight
Calhoun as logician
Southern view of slavery
Anti-slavery agitation
Slavery in the District of Columbia
John Quincy Adams and anti-slavery petitions
Southern opposition to them
Clay on petitions
Violence of the abolitionists
Misery of the slaves
Admission of Michigan and Arkansas into the Union
Triumphs of the South
Growth of the abolitionists
"Dough-Faces"
Texan independence
Annexation of Texas
The Mexican war
The war of ideas
Prophetic utterances of Calhoun
His obstinacy and arrogance
Admission of California into the Union
Clay's concessions
Calhoun dying
Compromise bill
Calhoun's career
His want of patriotism in later life
Nullification doctrines
Calhoun contrasted with Clay
His character

_ABRAHAM LINCOLN_.

CIVIL WAR AND PRESERVATION OF THE UNION.

Lincoln's parentage
Rail splitter; country merchant
In the Black Hawk war
Postmaster
His aspirations and passion for politics
Stump speaker
Surveyor
Elected to the legislature
Lincoln as politician
Admitted to the bar
Elected member of Congress
His marriage
Lincoln as lawyer
Orator
On the slavery question
Anti-slavery agitation
The compromise of 1850
Stephen A. Douglas
Repeal of the Missouri Compromise
Charles Sumner
Dred Scott decision
Lincoln's antagonism to Douglas
His commitment to anti-slavery cause
Rise of the Republican party
Lincoln's debates with Douglas
Speaks in New York
Lincoln as statesman
Nomination for the presidency
His election
Inauguration
Lincoln's cabinet; Jefferson Davis
Fort Sumter
War
Lincoln as president
Bull Run
Concentration of troops in Washington
General McClellan
His dilatory measures
Gloomy times
Retirement of McClellan
General Pope
McClellan restored, fights the battle of Antietam
Inaction and final retirement of McClellan
Burnside and the battle of Fredericksburg
Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation
General Hooker
Lee's raid in Pennsylvania
General Meade and the battle of Gettysburg
Lincoln overworked
Siege of Vicksburg
General Grant
Battle of Chattanooga
Grant made general-in-chief
March of Grant on Richmond
Military sacrifices
Siege of Petersburg
Surrender of Lee
Results of the war
Strained relations between Chase and Lincoln
Chase chief-justice
Lincoln's second inaugural
His profound wisdom
His assassination
Great services
Position in history

_ROBERT E. LEE_.

THE SOUTHERN CONFEDERACY.

BY E. BENJAMIN ANDREWS, LL.D.

Birth, lineage, personal appearance, and early career.

A Virginian, he joins his State and the South in secession.

His seven days' fighting against McClellan; forces the latter to raise
the siege of Richmond.

"Stonewall" Jackson and his efficient fighting machine.

Wins at Antietam and Fredericksburg.

Outmanoeuvres Hooker at Chancellorsville.

Successes at Gettysburg and at the second battle of Bull Run.

Grant changes the fortune of war for the North.

Confederate dearth of necessaries and "dear money".

Lee's retreat and capitulation at Appomattox.

His personal characteristics.

Skill shown in his military career.

His manoeuvring tactics and masterful strategy.

High name among the great captains of history.

Gains of his leadership, in spite of "a lost cause".

Latter days, and presidency of Washington College, Lexington, Va.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

VOLUME XII

Sherman's March to the Sea
_After the painting by F.O.C. Darley_.

James Monroe
_After the painting by Gilbert Stuart, City Hall, New York_.

Andrew Jackson
_After a photograph from life_.

Henry Clay
_From a daguerreotype_.

Martin Van Buren
_From a daguerreotype_.

Daniel Webster
_After a drawing from a daguerreotype_.

John C. Calhoun
_From a daguerreotype_.

James K. Polk
_From a daguerreotype_.

Abraham Lincoln
_After an unretouched negative from life, found in 1870_.

General George B. McClellan
_After a photograph from life in the possession of the War Department,
Washington, D.C._

Ulysses S. Grant
_After the painting by Chappel_.

Assassination of President Lincoln
_After the drawing by Fr. Roeber_.

Robert E. Lee
_From a photograph_.

 

BEACON LIGHTS OF HISTORY.

ANDREW JACKSON.

1767-1845.

PERSONAL POLITICS.

It is very seldom that a man arises from an obscure and humble position
to an exalted pre-eminence, without peculiar fitness for the work on
which his fame rests, and which probably no one else could have done so
well. He may not be learned, or cultured; he may be even unlettered and
rough; he may be stained by vulgar defects and vices which are fatal to
all dignity of character; but there must be something about him which
calls out the respect and admiration of those with whom he is
surrounded, so as to give him a start, and open a way for success in the
business or enterprise where his genius lies.

Such a man was Andrew Jackson. Whether as a youth, or as a man pursuing
his career of village lawyer in the backwoods of a frontier settlement,
he was about the last person of whom one would predict that he should
arise to a great position and unbounded national popularity. His birth
was plebeian and obscure. His father, of Scotch-Irish descent, lived in
a miserable hamlet in North Carolina, near the South Carolina line,
without owning a single acre of land,--one of the poorest of the poor
whites. The boy Andrew, born shortly after his father's death in 1767,
was reared in poverty and almost without education, learning at school
only to "read, write, and cipher;" nor did he have any marked desire for
knowledge, and never could spell correctly. At the age of thirteen he
was driven from his native village by its devastation at the hands of
the English soldiers, during the Revolutionary War. His mother, a worthy
and most self-reliant woman, was an ardent patriot, and all her
boys--Hugh, Robert, and Andrew--enlisted in the local home-guard. The
elder two died, Hugh of exposure and Robert of prison small-pox, while
Andrew, who had also been captured and sick of the disease, survived
this early training in the scenes of war for further usefulness. The
mother made her way on foot to Charleston, S.C., to nurse the sick
patriots in the prison-ships, and there died of the prison fever, in
1781. The physical endurance and force of character of this mother
constituted evidently the chief legacy that Andrew inherited, and it
served him well through a long and arduous life.

At fifteen the boy was "a homeless orphan, a sick and sorrowful orphan,"
working for a saddler in Charleston a few hours of the day, as his
health would permit. With returning strength he got possession of a
horse; but his army associates had led him into evil ways, and he became
indebted to his landlord for board. This he managed to pay only by
staking his horse in a game of dice against $200, which he fortunately
won; and this squared him with the world and enabled him to start
afresh, on a better way.

Poor and obscure as he was, and imperfectly educated, he aspired to be a
lawyer; and at eighteen years of age he became a law-student in the
office of Mr. Spruce McCay in Salisbury, North Carolina. Two years
later, in 1787, he was admitted to the bar. Not making much headway in
Salisbury, he wandered to that part of the State which is now Tennessee,
then an almost unbroken wilderness, exposed to Indian massacres and
depredations; and finally he located himself at Nashville, where there
was a small settlement,--chiefly of adventurers, who led lives of
license and idleness.

It seems that Jackson, who was appointed district-attorney, had a
considerable practice in his profession of a rough sort, in that
frontier region where the slightest legal knowledge was sufficient for
success. He was in no sense a student, like Jefferson and Madison in the
early part of their careers in Virginia as village lawyers, although he
was engaged in as many cases, and had perhaps as large an income as
they. But what was he doing all this while, when he was not in his
log-office and in the log-court-room, sixteen feet square? Was he
pondering the principles or precedents of law, and storing his mind with
the knowledge gained from books? Not at all. He was attending
horse-races and cock-fightings and all the sports which marked the
Southern people one hundred years ago; and his associates were not the
most cultivated and wealthy of them either, but ignorant, rough,
drinking, swearing, gambling, fighting rowdies, whose society was
repulsive to people of taste, intelligence, and virtue.

The young lawyer became a favorite with these men, and with their wives
and sisters and daughters. He could ride a horse better than any of his
neighbors; he entered into their quarrels with zeal and devotion; he was
bold, rash, and adventurous, ever ready to hunt a hostile Indian, or
fight a duel, or defend an innocent man who had suffered injury and
injustice. He showed himself capable of the warmest and most devoted
friendship as well as the bitterest and most unrelenting hatred. He was
quick to join a dangerous enterprise, and ever showing ability to lead
it,--the first on the spot to put out a fire; the first to expose
himself in a common danger; commanding respect for his honesty,
sincerity, and integrity; exciting fear from his fierce wrath when
insulted,--a man terribly in earnest; always as courteous and chivalric
to women as he was hard and savage to treacherous men. Above all, he was
now a man of commanding stature, graceful manners, dignified deportment,
and a naturally distinguished air; so that he was looked up to by men
and admired by women. What did those violent, quarrelsome, adventurous
settlers on the western confines of American civilization care whether
their favorite was learned or ignorant, so long as he was manifestly
superior to them in their chosen pursuits and pleasures, was capable of
leading them in any enterprise, and sympathized with them in all their
ideas and prejudices,--a born democrat, as well as a born leader. His
claim upon them, however, was not without its worthy elements. He was
perfectly fearless in enforcing the law, laughing at intimidation. He
often had to ride hundreds of miles to professional duties on circuit,
through forests infested by Indians, and towns cowed by ruffians; and he
and his rifle were held in great respect. He was renowned as the
foremost Indian fighter in that country, and as a prosecuting attorney
whom no danger and no temptation could swerve from his duty. He was
feared, trusted, and boundlessly popular.

The people therefore rallied about this man. When in 1796 a convention
was called for framing a State constitution, Jackson was one of their
influential delegates; and in December of that year he was sent to
Congress as their most popular representative. Of course he was totally
unfitted for legislative business, in which he never could have made any
mark. On his return in 1797, a vacancy occurring in the United States
Senate, he was elected senator, on the strength of his popularity as
representative. But he remained only a year at Philadelphia, finding his
calling dull, and probably conscious that he had no fitness for
legislation, while the opportunity for professional and pecuniary
success in Tennessee was very apparent to him.

Next we read of his being made chief-justice of the Superior Court of
Tennessee, with no more fitness for administering the law than he had
for making it, or interest in it. Mr. Parton tells an anecdote of
Jackson at this time which, whether true or not, illustrates his
character as well as the rude conditions amid which he made himself
felt. He was holding court in a little village in Tennessee, when a
great, hulking fellow, armed with a pistol and bowie-knife, paraded
before the little court-house, and cursed judge, jury, and all
assembled. Jackson ordered the sheriff to arrest him, but that
functionary failed to do it, either alone or with a posse. Whereupon
Jackson caused the sheriff to summon _him_ as posse, adjourned court
for ten minutes, walked out and told the fellow to yield or be shot.

In telling why he surrendered to one man, when he had defied a crowd,
the ruffian afterwards said: "When he came up I looked him in the eye,
and I saw _shoot_. There wasn't _shoot_ in nary other eye in the crowd.
I said to myself, it is about time to sing small; and so I did."

It was by such bold, fearless conduct that Jackson won admiration,--not
by his law, of which he knew but little, and never could have learned
much. The law, moreover, was uncongenial to this man of action, and he
resigned his judgeship and went for a short time into business,--trading
land, selling horses, groceries, and dry-goods,--when he was appointed
major-general of militia. This was just what he wanted. He had now found
his place and was equal to it. His habits, enterprises, dangers, and
bloody encounters, all alike fitted him for it. Henceforth his duty and
his pleasure ran together in the same line. His personal peculiarities
had made him popular; this popularity had made him prominent and secured
to him offices for which he had no talent, seeing which he dropped them;
but when a situation was offered for which he was fitted, he soon gained
distinction, and his true career began.

It was as an Indian fighter that he laid the foundation of his fame.
His popularity with rough people was succeeded by a series of heroic
actions which brought him before the eyes of the nation. There was no
sham in these victories. He fairly earned his laurels, and they so
wrought on the imagination of the people that he quickly became famous.

But before his military exploits brought him a national reputation he
had become notorious in his neighborhood as a duellist. He was always
ready to fight when he deemed himself insulted. His numerous duels were
very severely commented on when he became a candidate for the
presidency, especially in New England. But duelling was a peculiar
Southern institution; most Southern people settled their difficulties
with pistols. Some of Jackson's duels were desperate and ferocious. He
was the best shot in Tennessee, and, it is said, could lodge two
successive balls in the same hole. As early as 1795 he fought with a
fellow lawyer by the name of Avery. In 1806 he killed in a duel Charles
Dickinson, who had spoken disparagingly of his wife, whom he had lately
married, a divorced woman, but to whom he was tenderly attached as long
as she lived. Still later he fought with Thomas H. Benton, and received
a wound from which he never fully recovered.

Such was the life of Jackson until he was forty-five years of age,--that
of a violent, passionate, arbitrary man, beloved as a friend, and feared
as an enemy. It was the Creek war and the war with England which
developed his extraordinary energies. When the war of 1812 broke out he
was major-general of Tennessee militia, and at once offered his services
to the government, which were eagerly accepted, and he was authorized to
raise a body of volunteers in Tennessee and to report with them at New
Orleans. He found no difficulty in collecting about sixteen hundred men,
and in January, 1813, took them down the Cumberland, the Ohio, and
Mississippi to Natchez, in such flat-bottomed boats as he could collect;
another body of mounted men crossed the country five hundred miles to
the rendezvous, and went into camp at Natchez, Feb. 15, 1813.

The Southern Department was under the command of General James
Wilkinson, with headquarters at New Orleans,--a disagreeable and
contentious man, who did not like Jackson. Through his influence the
Tennessee detachment, after two months' delay in Natchez, was ordered by
the authorities at Washington to be dismissed,--without pay, five
hundred miles from home. Jackson promptly decided not to obey the
command, but to keep his forces together, provide at his own expense for
their food and transportation, and take them back to Tennessee in good
order. He accomplished this, putting sick men on his own three horses,
and himself marching on foot with the men, who, enthusiastic over his
elastic toughness, dubbed him "Old Hickory,"--a title of affection that
is familiar to this day. The government afterwards reimbursed him for
his outlay in this matter, but his generosity, self-denial, energy, and
masterly force added immensely to his popularity.

Jackson's disobedience of orders attracted but little attention at
Washington, in that time of greater events, while his own patriotism and
fighting zeal were not abated by his failure to get at the enemy. And
very soon his desires were to be granted.

In 1811, before the war with England was declared, a general
confederation of Indians had been made under the influence of the
celebrated Tecumseh, a chief of the Shawanoc tribe. He was a man of
magnificent figure, stately and noble as a Greek warrior, and withal
eloquent. With his twin brother, the Prophet, Tecumseh travelled from
the Great Lakes in the North to the Gulf of Mexico, inducing tribe after
tribe to unite against the rapacious and advancing whites. But he did
not accomplish much until the war with England broke out in 1812, when
he saw a possibility of realizing his grand idea; and by the summer of
1813 he had the Creek nation, including a number of tribes, organized
for war. How far he was aided by English intrigues is not fully known,
but he doubtless received encouragement from English agents. From the
British and the Spaniards, the Indians received arms and ammunition.

The first attack of these Indians was on August 13, 1813, at Fort Mims,
in Alabama, where there were nearly two hundred American troops, and
where five hundred people were collected for safety. The Indians,
chiefly Creeks, were led by Red Eagle, who utterly annihilated the
defenders of the fort under Major Beasley, and scalped the women and
children. When reports of this unexpected and atrocious massacre reached
Tennessee the whole population was aroused to vengeance, and General
Jackson, his arm still in a sling from his duel with Benton, set out to
punish the savage foes. But he was impeded by lack of provisions, and
quarrels among his subordinates, and general insubordination. In
surmounting his difficulties he showed extraordinary tact and energy.
His measures were most vigorous. He did not hesitate to shoot, whether
legally or illegally, those who were insubordinate, thus restoring
military discipline, the first and last necessity in war. Soldiers soon
learn to appreciate the worth of such decision, and follow such a leader
with determination almost equal to his own. Jackson's troops did
splendid marching and fighting.

So rapid and relentless were his movements against the enemy that the
campaign lasted but seven months, and the Indians were nearly all
killed or dispersed. I need not enumerate his engagements, which were
regarded as brilliant. His early dangers and adventures, and his
acquaintance with Indian warfare ever since he could handle a rifle, now
stood him in good stead. On the 21st of April, 1814, the militia under
his command returned home victorious, and Jackson for his heroism and
ability was made a major-general in the regular army, he then being
forty-seven years of age. It was in this war that we first hear of the
famous frontiersman Davy Crockett, and of Sam Houston, afterwards so
unique a figure in the war for Texan independence. In this war, too,
General Harrison gained his success at Tippecanoe, which was never
forgotten; but his military genius was far inferior to that of Jackson.
It is probable that had Jackson been sent to the North by the Secretary
of War, he would have driven the British troops out of Canada. There is
no question about his military ability, although his reputation was
sullied by high-handed and arbitrary measures. What he saw fit to do, he
did, without scruples or regard to consequences. In war everything is
tested by success; and in view of that, if sufficiently brilliant,
everything else is forgotten.

The successful and rapid conquest of the Creeks opened the way for
Jackson's Southern campaign against the English. As major-general he was
sent to conclude a treaty with the Indians, which he soon arranged, and
was then put in command of the Southern Division of the army, with
headquarters at Mobile. The English made the neutral Spanish territory
of Florida a basis of operations along the shores of the Gulf of Mexico,
thus putting in peril both Mobile and New Orleans. They virtually
possessed Pensacola, the Spanish force being too feeble to hold it, and
made it the rendezvous of their fleets. The Spanish authorities made a
show, indeed, of friendship with the United States, but the English flag
floated over the forts of the city, and the governor was in sympathy
with England. Such was the state of affairs when Jackson arrived at
Mobile at the head of parts of three regiments of regulars, with a
thousand miles of coast to defend, and without a fort adequately armed
or garrisoned. He applied to the Secretary of War for permission to take
Pensacola; but the government hesitated to attack a friendly power
without further knowledge of their unfriendly acts, and the delayed
response, ordering caution and waiting, did not reach him. Thrown upon
his own resources, asking for orders and getting none, he was obliged to
act without instructions, in face of vastly superior forces. And for
this he can scarcely be blamed, since his situation demanded vigorous
and rapid measures, before they could be indorsed by the Secretary of
War. Pensacola, at the end of a beautiful bay, ten miles from the sea,
with a fine harbor, was defended by Fort Barrancas, six miles from the
town. Before it lay eight English men-of-war at anchor, the source of
military supplies for the fort, on which floated the flags of both
England and Spain. The fleet was in command of Captain Lord Percy, whose
flagship was the "Hermes," while Colonel Nichols commanded the troops.
This latter boastful and imprudent officer was foolish enough to issue a
proclamation to the inhabitants of Louisiana and Kentucky to take up
arms against their country. A body of Indians were also drilled in the
service of the British, so far as Indians can be drilled to
regular warfare.

As soon as the true intentions of the English were known to General
Jackson, who had made up his mind to take possession of Pensacola, he
wrote to the Spanish governor,--a pompous, inefficient old grandee,--and
demanded the surrender of certain hostile Creek chieftains, who had
taken refuge in the town.

The demand was haughtily rejected. Jackson waited until three thousand
Tennessee militia, for whom he had urgently sent, arrived at Mobile,
under the command of General Coffee, one of his efficient coadjutors in
the Creek War, and Colonel Butler, and then promptly and successfully
stormed Pensacola, driving out the British, who blew up Fort Barrancas
and escaped to their ships. After which he retired to Mobile to defend
that important town against the British forces, who threatened
an attack.

The city of Mobile could be defended by fortifications on Mobile Point,
thirty miles distant, at the mouth of the bay, since opposite it was a
narrow channel through which alone vessels of any considerable size
could enter the bay. At this point was Fort Bowyer, in a state of
dilapidation, mounting but a few pieces of cannon. Into this fort
Jackson at once threw a garrison of one hundred and sixty regular
infantry under Major Lawrence, a most gallant officer. These troops were
of course unacquainted with the use of artillery, but they put the fort
in the best condition they could, and on the 12th of September the enemy
appeared, the fleet under Captain Percy, and a body of marines and
Indians under Colonel Nichols. Jackson, then at Mobile, apprised of the
appearance of the British, hastily reinforced the fort, about to be
attacked by a large force confident of success. On the 15th of September
the attack began; the English battered down the ramparts of the
fortifications, and anchored their ships within gun-shot of the fort;
but so gallant was the defence that the ships were disabled, and the
enemy retreated, with a loss of about one hundred men. This victory
saved Mobile; and more, it gave confidence to the small army on whom
the defence of the coast of the Gulf of Mexico depended.

Jackson forthwith issued his bulletins or proclamations in a truly
Napoleonic style to the inhabitants of Louisiana, to rally to the
defence of New Orleans, which he saw would probably be the next object
of attack on the part of the British. On the 2d of December he
personally reached that city and made preparations for the expected
assault, and, ably assisted by Edward Livingston, the most prominent
lawyer of the city, enlisted for the defence the French creoles, the
American residents, and a few Spaniards.

New Orleans was a prize which the English coveted, and to possess it
that government had willingly expended a million of pounds sterling. The
city not only controlled the commerce of the Mississippi, but in it were
stored one hundred and fifty thousand bales of cotton, and eight hundred
and ten thousand hogsheads of sugar, all of which the English government
expected to seize. It contained at that time about twenty thousand
people,--less than half of whom were whites, and these chiefly French
creoles,--besides a floating population of sailors and traders.

New Orleans is built on a bend in the Mississippi, in the shape of a
horse-shoe, about one hundred miles from where by a sinuous
southeasterly course the river empties into the Gulf of Mexico. At the
city the river was about a mile wide, with a current of four miles an
hour, and back of the town was a swamp, draining to the north into Lake
Ponchartrain, and to the east into Lake Borgne, which opens out into the
Gulf east of the city. It was difficult for sailing-vessels at that time
to ascend the river one hundred miles against the current, if forts and
batteries were erected on its banks; and a sort of back entrance was
afforded to the city for small vessels through lakes and lagoons at a
comparatively short distance. On one of these lakes, Lake Borgne, a
flotilla of light gunboats was placed for defence, under the command of
Lieutenant Jones, but on December 14th an overpowering force of small
British vessels dispersed the American squadron, and on the
twenty-second about fifteen hundred regulars, the picked men of the
British army, fresh from European victories under Wellington, contrived
to find their way unperceived through the swamps and lagoons to the belt
of plantations between the river and the swamps, about nine miles below
New Orleans.

When the news arrived of the loss of the gunboats, which made the enemy
the masters of Lake Borgne, a panic spread over the city, for the forces
of the enemy were greatly exaggerated. But Jackson was equal to the
emergency, though having but just arrived. He coolly adopted the most
vigorous measures, and restored confidence. Times of confusion,
difficulty, and danger were always his best opportunities. He proclaimed
martial law; he sent in all directions for reinforcements; he called
upon the people to organize for defence; he released and enlisted the
convicts, and accepted the proffered services of Jean Lafitte, the
ex-"pirate"--or, rather, smuggler--of the Gulf, with two companies of
his ex-buccaneers; he appealed to "the noble-hearted, generous, free men
of color" to enlist, and the whole town was instantly transformed into a
military camp. Within a fortnight he had five thousand men, one-fifth
regulars and the rest militia. General Jackson's address to his soldiers
was spirited but inflated, encouraging and boastful, with a great
patriotic ring, and, of course effective. The population of the city was
united in resolving to make a sturdy defence.

Had the British marched as soon as they landed, they probably would have
taken the city, in the existing consternation. But they waited for
larger forces from their ships, which carried six thousand troops, and
in their turn exaggerated the number of the defenders, which at the
first were only about two thousand badly frightened men. The delay was a
godsend to the Americans, who now learned the strength of the enemy.

On the 23d--as always, eager to be at his enemy, and moving with his
characteristic energy--Jackson sent a small force down to make a night
attack on the British camp; also a schooner, heavily armed with cannon,
to co-operate from the river. It was a wild and inconsequent fight; but
it checked the advance of the British, who now were still more impressed
with the need of reinforcements; it aroused the confidence and fighting
spirit of the Americans, and it enabled Jackson to take up a defensive
line behind an old canal, extending across the plain from river to
swamp, and gave him time to fortify it. At once he raised a formidable
barricade of mud and timber, and strengthened it with cotton-bales from
the neighboring plantations. The cotton, however, proved rather a
nuisance than a help, as it took fire under the attack, and smoked,
annoying the men. The "fortifications of cotton-bales" were only a
romance of the war.

On the 25th arrived Sir Edward Pakenham, brother-in-law of Wellington
and an able soldier, to take command, and on the 28th the British
attacked the extemporized but strong breastworks, confident of success.
But the sharp-shooters from the backwoods of Tennessee under Carroll,
and from Kentucky under Coffee, who fought with every advantage,
protected by their mud defences, were equally confident. The slaughter
of the British troops, utterly unprotected though brave and gallant, was
terrible, and they were repulsed. Preparations were now made for a
still more vigorous, systematic, and general assault, and a force was
sent across the river to menace the city from that side.

On the 8th of January the decisive battle was fought which extinguished
forever all dreams of the conquest of America, on the part of the
British. General Pakenham, who commanded the advancing columns in
person, was killed, and their authorities state their loss to have been
two thousand killed, wounded, and missing. The American loss was eight
killed and thirteen wounded. It was a rash presumption for the British
to attack a fortified entrenchment ten feet high in some places, and ten
feet thick, with detached redoubts to flank it and three thousand men
behind it. The conflict was not strictly a battle,--not like an
encounter in the open field, where the raw troops under Jackson, most of
them militia, would have stood no chance with the veterans whom
Wellington had led to victory and glory.

Jackson's brilliant defence at New Orleans was admirably planned and
energetically executed. It had no effect on the war, for the treaty of
peace, although not yet heard of, had been signed weeks before; but it
enabled America to close the conflict with a splendid success, which
offset the disasters and mistakes of the Northern campaigns. Naturally,
it was magnified into a great military exploit, and raised the fame of
Jackson to such a height, all over the country, that nothing could ever
afterwards weaken his popularity, no matter what he did, lawful or
unlawful. He was a victor over the Indians and over the English, and all
his arbitrary acts were condoned by an admiring people who had but few
military heroes to boast of.

His successes had a bad effect on Jackson himself. He came to feel that
he had a right to ride over precedents and law when it seemed to him
expedient. He set up his will against constituted authorities, and
everybody who did not endorse his measures he regarded as a personal
enemy, to be crushed if possible. It was never said of him that he was
unpatriotic in his intentions, only that he was wilful, vindictive, and
ignorant. From the 8th of January, 1815, to the day of his death he was
the most popular man that this country ever saw,--excepting, perhaps,
Washington and Lincoln,--the central figure in American politics, with
prodigious influence even after he had finally retired from public life.
Immediately after the defence of New Orleans the legislatures of
different States, and Congress itself, passed grateful resolutions for
his military services, and the nation heaped all the honor on the hero
that was in its power to give,--medals, swords, and rewards, and
Congress remitted a fine which had been imposed by Judge Hall, in New
Orleans, for contempt of court. Jackson's severity in executing six
militia-men for mutiny was approved generally as a wholesome exercise of
military discipline, and all his acts were glorified. Wherever he went
there was a round of festivities. He began to be talked about, as soon
as the war was closed, as a candidate for the presidency, although when
the idea was first proposed to him he repelled it with genuine
indignation.

Scarcely had the British troops been withdrawn from the Gulf of Mexico
to fight more successfully at Waterloo, when Jackson was called to put
an end to the Seminole war in Florida, which Spanish territory he
occupied on the ground of self-defence. The Indians--Seminoles and
Creeks--with many runaway negroes, had been pillaging the border of
Georgia. Jackson drove them off, seized the Spanish fort on Appalachee
Bay, and again took possession of Pensacola on the plea that the Spanish
officials were aiding the Indians. It required all the skill of the
government at Washington to defend his despotic acts, for he was as
complete an autocrat in his limited sphere as Caesar or Napoleon. The
only limits he regarded were the limits to his power. But in whatever he
did, he had a firm conviction that he was right. Even John Quincy Adams
justified his acts in Florida, when his enemies were loud in their
complaints of his needless executions, especially of two British
traders, Arbuthnot and Ambruter, whom he had court-martialled and shot
as abettors of the Indians. He had invaded the territory of a neutral
power and driven off its representatives; but everything was condoned.
And when, shortly after, Florida became United States territory by
purchase from Spain, he was made its first governor,--a new field for
him, but an appointment which President Monroe felt it necessary
to make.

In April, 1821, having resigned his commission in the army, Jackson left
Nashville with his family to take up his residence in Pensacola,
enchanted with its climate and fruits and flowers, its refreshing
sea-breezes, and its beautiful situation, in spite of hot weather. As
governor of Florida he was invested with extraordinary powers. Indeed,
there was scarcely any limit to them, except that he had no power to
levy and collect taxes, and seize the property of the mixed races who
dwelt in the land of oranges and flowers. It would appear that, aside
from arbitrary acts, he did all he could for the good of the territory,
under the influence of his wife, a Christian woman, whom he indulged in
all things, especially in shutting up grog-shops, putting a stop to
play-going, and securing an outward respect for the Sabbath. His term of
office, however, was brief, and as his health was poor, for he was never
vigorous, in November of the same year he gladly returned to Nashville,
and about this time built his well-known residence, the "Hermitage." As
a farmer he was unusually successful, making agriculture lucrative even
with slave-labor.

Jackson had now become a prominent candidate for the presidency, and as
a part of the political plan, he was, in 1823, made senator from
Tennessee in Congress, where he served parts of two terms, without,
however, distinguishing himself as a legislator. He made but few
speeches, and these were short, but cast his vote on occasions of
importance, voting against a reduction of duty on iron and woollen and
cotton goods, against imprisonment for debt, and favoring some internal
improvements. In 1824 he wrote a letter advocating a "careful tariff,"
so far as it should afford revenues for the national defence, and to pay
off the national debt, and "give a proper distribution of our labor;"
but a tariff to enrich capitalists at the expense of the laboring
classes, he always abhorred.

The administration of James Monroe, in two full terms, from 1817 to
1825, had not been marked by any great events or popular movements of
especial historical interest. It was "the era of good feeling." The
times were placid, and party animosities had nearly subsided. The
opening of the slavery discussions resulted in the Missouri Compromise
of 1820, and the irritations of that great topic were allayed for the
time. Like all his predecessors after Washington, Monroe had been
successively a diplomatist and Secretary of State, and the presidency
seemed to fall to him as a matter of course. He was a most respectable
man, although not of commanding abilities, and discharged his duties
creditably in the absence of exciting questions. The only event of his
administration which had a marked influence on the destinies of the
United States was the announcement that the future colonization of the
country by any European State would not be permitted. This is called the
"Monroe doctrine," and had the warm support of Webster and other leading
statesmen. It not only proclaimed the idea of complete American
independence of all foreign powers, but opposed all interference of
European States in American affairs. The ultimate influence of the
application of this doctrine cannot be exaggerated in importance,
whether it originated with the President or not. Monroe was educated for
the bar, but was neither a good speaker nor a ready writer. Nor was he a
man of extensive culture or attainments. The one great idea attributed
to him was: "America for the Americans." He was succeeded, however, by a
man of fine attainments and large experience, who had passed through the
great offices of State with distinguished credit.

In February, 1824, Jackson was almost unanimously nominated for the
presidency by the Democratic party, through the convention in
Harrisburg, and John C. Calhoun was nominated for the vice-presidency.
Jackson's main rivals in the election which followed were John Quincy
Adams and Henry Clay, both of whom had rendered great civil services,
and were better fitted for the post. But Jackson was the most popular,
and he obtained ninety-nine electoral votes, Adams eighty-four, and Clay
thirty-seven. No one having a majority, the election was thrown into the
House of Representatives. Clay, who never liked nor trusted Jackson,
threw his influence in favor of Adams, and Adams was elected by the vote
of thirteen States. Jackson and his friends always maintained that he
was cheated out of the election,--that Adams and Clay made a bargain
between themselves,--which seemed to be confirmed by the fact that Clay
was made Secretary of State in Adams's cabinet; although this was a
natural enough sequence of Clay's throwing his political strength to
make Adams president. Jackson returned, wrathful and disappointed, to
his farm, but amid boisterous demonstrations of respect wherever he
went. If he had not cared much about the presidency before, he was now
determined to achieve it, and to crush his opponents, whom he promptly
regarded as enemies.

John Quincy Adams entered upon office in 1825, free from "personal
obligations" and "partisan entanglements," but with an unfriendly
Congress. This, however, was not of much consequence, since no great
subjects were before Congress for discussion. It was a period of great
tranquillity, fitted for the development of the peaceful arts, and of
internal improvements in the land, rather than of genius in the
presidential chair. Not one public event of great importance occurred,
although many commercial treaties were signed, and some internal
improvements were made. Mr. Adams lived in friendly relations with his
cabinet, composed of able men, and he was generally respected for the
simplicity of his life, and the conscientious discharge of his routine
duties. He was industrious and painstaking, rising early in the morning
and retiring early in the evening. He was not popular, being cold and
austere in manner, but he had a lofty self-respect, disdaining to
conciliate foes or reward friends,--a New England Puritan of the
severest type, sternly incorruptible, learned without genius, eloquent
without rhetoric, experienced without wisdom, religious without
orthodoxy, and liberal-minded with strong prejudices.

Perhaps the most marked thing in the political history of that
administration was the strife for the next presidency, and the beginning
of that angry and bitter conflict between politicians which had no
cessation until the Civil War. The sessions of Congress were occupied
in the manufacture of political capital; for a cloud had arisen in the
political heavens, portending storms and animosities, and the discussion
of important subjects of national scope, such as had not agitated the
country before,--pertaining to finances, to tariffs, to constitutional
limitations, to retrenchments, and innovations. There arose new
political parties, or rather a great movement, extending to every town
and hamlet, to give a new impetus to the Democratic sway. The leaders in
this movement were the great antagonists of Clay and Webster,--a new
class of politicians, like Benton, Amos Kendall, Martin Van Buren, Duff
Green, W.B. Lewis, and others. A new era of "politics" was inaugurated,
with all the then novel but now customary machinery of local clubs,
partisan "campaign newspapers," and the organized use of pledges and
promises of appointments to office to reward "workers." This system had
been efficiently perfected in New York State under Mr. Van Buren and
other leaders, but now it was brought into Federal politics, and the
whole country was stirred into a fever heat of party strife.

In a political storm, therefore, Jackson was elected, and commenced his
memorable reign in 1829,--John Quincy Adams retiring to his farm in
disgust and wrath. The new president was carried into office on an
avalanche of Democratic voters, receiving two hundred and sixty-one
electoral votes, while Adams had only eighty-three, notwithstanding his
long public services and his acknowledged worth. This was too great a
disappointment for the retiring statesman to bear complacently, or even
philosophically. He gave vent to his irritated feelings in unbecoming
language, exaggerating the ignorance of Jackson and his general
unfitness for the high office,--in this, however, betraying an estimate
of the incoming President which was common among educated and
conservative men. I well remember at college the contempt which the
president and all the professors had for the Western warrior. It was
generally believed by literary men that "Old Hickory" could scarcely
write his name.

But the speeches of Jackson were always to the point, if not studied and
elaborate, while his messages were certainly respectable, though rather
too long. It is generally supposed that he furnished the rough drafts to
his few intimate friends, who recast and polished them, while some think
that William Lewis, Amos Kendall, and others wrote the whole of them, as
well as all his public papers. In reading the early letters of Jackson,
however, it is clear that they are anything but illiterate, whatever
mistakes in spelling and grammatical errors there may be. His ideas were
distinct, his sentiments unmistakable; and although he was fond of a
kind of spread-eagle eloquence, his views on public questions were
generally just and vigorously expressed. A Tennessee general, brought up
with horse-jockeys, gamblers, and cock-fighters, and who never had even
a fair common-school education, could not be expected to be very
accomplished in the arts of composition, whatever talents and good sense
he naturally may have had. Certain it is that Jackson's mind was clear
and his convictions were strong upon the national policy to be pursued
by him; and if he opposed banks and tariffs it was because he believed
that their influence was hostile to the true interests of the country.
He doubtless well understood the issues of great public questions; only,
his view of them was contrary to the views of moneyed men and bankers
and the educated classes of his day generally. It is to be remarked,
however, that the views he took on questions of political economy are
now endorsed by many able college professors and some American
manufacturers who are leading public opinion in opposition to tariffs
for protection and in the direction of free trade.

The first thing for Jackson to do after his inauguration was to select
his cabinet. It was not a strong one. He wanted clerks, not advisers. He
was all-sufficient to himself. He rarely held a cabinet meeting. In a
very short time this cabinet was dissolved by a scandal. General Eaton,
Secretary of War, had married the daughter of a tavern-keeper, who was
remarkable for her wit and social brilliancy. The aristocratic wives of
the cabinet ministers would not associate with her, and the President
took the side of the neglected woman, in accordance with his chivalric
nature. His error was in attempting to force his cabinet to accord to
her a social position,--a matter which naturally belonged to women to
settle. So bitter was the quarrel, and so persistent was the President
in attempting to produce harmony in his cabinet on a mere social
question that the ministers resigned rather than fight so obstinate and
irascible a man as Jackson in a matter which was outside his proper
sphere of action.

The new cabinet was both more able and more subservient. Edward
Livingston of Louisiana, who wrote most of Jackson's documents when he
commanded in New Orleans, was made Secretary of State, Louis McLane of
Delaware, Secretary of the Treasury; Lewis Cass, governor for
nineteen years of Michigan, Secretary of War; Levi Woodbury of New
Hampshire, Secretary of the Navy; Roger B. Taney of Maryland,
Attorney-General,--all distinguished for abilities. But even these able
men were seldom summoned to a cabinet meeting. The confidential advisers
of the President were Amos Kendall, afterwards Postmaster-General; Duff
Green, a Democratic editor; Isaac Hill, a violent partisan, who edited a
paper in Concord, New Hampshire, and was made second auditor of the
treasury; and William B. Lewis, an old friend of the general in
Tennessee,--all able men, but unscrupulous politicians, who enjoyed
power rather than the display of it. These advisers became known in the
party contests of the time as the president's "Kitchen Cabinet."

Jackson had not been long inaugurated before the influence of the
"Kitchen Cabinet" was seen and felt; for it was probably through the
influence of these men that the President brought about a marked change
in the policy of the government; and it is this change which made
Jackson's administration so memorable. It was the intrusion of
personality, instead of public policy, into the management of party
politics. Madison did not depart from the general policy of Jefferson,
nor did Monroe. "The Virginia dynasty" kept up the traditions of the
government as originally constituted. But Jackson cut loose from all
traditions and precedents, especially in the matter of assuming
responsibilities, and attempted to carry on the government independently
of Congress in many important respects. It is the duty of the President
to execute the laws as he finds them, until repealed or altered by the
national Legislature; but it was the disposition of Jackson to
disregard those laws which he disapproved,--an encroachment hard to be
distinguished from usurpation. And this is the most serious charge
against him as President; not his ignorance, but his despotic temper,
and his self-conceit in supposing himself wiser than the collected
wisdom and experience of the representatives of the nation,--a notion
which neither Washington nor Jefferson nor Madison ever entertained.

Again, Jackson's system of appointments to office--the removal of men
already satisfactorily doing the work of the government, in order to
make places for his personal and political supporters--was a great
innovation, against all the experience of governments, whether despotic
or constitutional. It led to the reign of demagogues, and gave rewards,
not to those who deserved promotion from their able and conscientious
discharge of duty in public trusts, but to those who most unscrupulously
and zealously advocated or advanced the interests of the party in power.
It led to perpetual rotations in office without reasonable cause, and
made the election of party chiefs of more importance than the support of
right principles. The imperfect civil service reforms which have been
secured during the last few years with so much difficulty show the
political mischief for which Jackson is responsible, and which has
disgraced every succeeding administration,--an evil so gigantic that no
president has been strong enough to overcome it; not only injurious to
the welfare of the nation by depriving it of the services of experienced
men, but inflicting an onerous load on the President himself which he
finds it impossible to shake off,--the great obstacle to the proper
discharge of his own public duties, and the bar to all private
enjoyment. What is more perplexing and irritating to an incoming
president than the persistent and unreasonable demands of
office-seekers, nine out of ten of whom are doomed to disappointment,
and who consequently become enemies rather than friends of the
administration?

This "spoils system" which Jackson inaugurated has proved fatal to all
dignity of office, and all honesty in elections. It has divested
politics of all attraction to superior men, and put government largely
into the hands of the most venal and unblushing of demagogues. It has
proved as great and fatal a mistake as has the establishment of
universal suffrage which Jefferson encouraged,--a mistake at least in
the great cities of the country,--an evil which can never be remedied
except by revolution. Doubtless it was a generous impulse on the part of
Jackson to reward his friends with the spoils of office, as it was a
logical sequence of the doctrine of political equality to give every man
a vote, whether virtuous or wicked, intelligent or ignorant. Until
Jackson was intrusted with the reins of government, no president of the
United States, however inclined to reward political friends, dared to
establish such a principle as rotation in office or removal without
sufficient cause. Not one there was who would not have shrunk from such
a dangerous precedent, a policy certain to produce an inferior class of
public servants, and take away from political life all that is lofty and
ennobling, except in positions entirely independent of presidential
control, such as the national legislature.

The Senate, especially during Jackson's administration, was composed of
remarkably gifted men, the most distinguished of whom opposed and
detested the measures and policy he pursued, with such unbending
obstinacy that he was filled with bitterness and wrath. This feeling was
especially manifested towards Clay, Webster, and Calhoun, the great
lights of the Senate Chamber,--although Jackson's party had the majority
of both Houses much of the time, and thus, while often hindered, he was
in the end unchecked in his innovations and hostilities. But these three
giants he had to fight during most of his presidential career, which
kept him in a state of perpetual irritation. Their opposition was to him
a bitter pill. They were beyond his power, as independent as he. Until
then, in his military and gubernatorial capacity, his will had been
supreme. He had no opponents whom he could not crush. He was accustomed
to rule despotically. As president he could be defied and restrained by
Congress. His measures had to be of the nature of recommendation, except
in the power of veto which he did not hesitate to use unsparingly; but
the Senate could refuse to ratify his appointments, and often did
refuse, which drove him beyond the verge of swearing. Again, in the
great questions which came up for discussion, especially those in the
domain of political economy, there would be honest differences of
opinion; for political economy has settled very little, and is not,
therefore, strictly a science, any more than medicine is. It is a system
of theories based on imperfect inductions. There can be no science
except what is based on _indisputable_ facts, or accepted principles.
There are no incontrovertible doctrines pertaining to tariffs or
financial operations, which are modified by circumstances.

The three great things which most signally marked the administration of
Jackson were the debates on the tariffs, the quarrel with the United
States Bank, and the Nullification theories of Calhoun. It would seem
that Jackson, when inaugurated, was in favor of a moderate tariff to aid
military operations and to raise the necessary revenue for federal
expenses, but was opposed to high protective duties. Even in 1831 he
waived many of his scruples as to internal improvements in deference to
public opinion, and signed the bills which made appropriations for the
improvement of harbors and rivers, for the continuation of the
Cumberland road, for the encouragement of the culture of the vine and
olive, and for granting an extended copyright to authors. It was only
during his second term that his hostility to tariffs became a
passion,--not from any well-defined views of political economy, for
which he had no adequate intellectual training, but because "protection"
was unpopular in the southwestern States, and because he instinctively
felt that it favored monopolists at the expense of the people. What he
hated most intensely were capitalists and moneyed institutions; like
Jefferson, he feared their influence on elections. As he was probably
conscious of his inability to grasp the complex questions of political
economy, he was not bitter in his opposition to tariffs, except on
political grounds. Hence, generally speaking, he left Congress to
discuss that theme. We shall have occasion to look into it in the
lecture on Henry Clay, and here only mention the great debates of
Jackson's time on the subject,--a subject on which Congress has been
debating for fifty years, and will probably be debating for fifty years
to come, since the whole matter depends practically on changing
circumstances, whatever may be the abstract theories of doctrinaires.

While Jackson, then, on the whole, left tariffs to Congress, he was not
so discreet in matters of finance. His war with the United States Bank
was an important episode in his life, and the chief cause of the enmity
with which the moneyed and conservative classes pursued him to the end
of his days. Had he let the Bank alone he would have been freed from
most of the vexations and turmoils which marked his administration. He
would have left a brighter name. He would not have given occasion for
those assaults which met him on every hand, and which history justifies.
He might even have been forgiven for his spoils system and unprecedented
removals from office. In attacking the Bank he laid a profane touch upon
a sacred ark and handled untempered mortar. He stopped the balance-wheel
which regulated the finances of the country, and introduced no end of
commercial disorders, ending in dire disasters. Like the tariff,
finances were a question with which he was not competent to deal. His
fault was something more than the veto on the recharter of the Bank by
Congress, which he had a constitutional right to make; it was a
vindictive assault on an important institution before its charter had
expired, even in his first message to Congress. In this warfare we see
unscrupulous violence,--prompted, not alone by his firm hostility to
everything which looked like a monopoly and a moneyed power, but by the
influence of advisers who hated everything like inequality of position,
especially when not usable for their own purposes. They stimulated his
jealousy and resentments. They played on his passions and prejudices.
They flattered him as if he were the monarch of the universe, incapable
of a wrong judgment.

Hostility to the money-power, however, is older than the public life of
Jackson. It existed among the American democracy as early as the time of
Alexander Hamilton. When he founded the first Bank of the United States
he met with great opposition from the followers of Jefferson, who were
jealous of the power it was supposed to wield in politics. When in 1810
the question came up of renewing the charter of the first United States
Bank, the Democratic-Republicans were bitter in their opposition; and so
effective was the outcry that the bank went into liquidation, its place
being taken by local banks. These issued notes so extravagantly that the
currency of the country, as stated by Professor Sumner, was depreciated
twenty-five per cent. So great was the universal financial distress
which followed the unsound system of banking operations that in 1816 a
new bank was chartered, on the principles which Hamilton had laid down.

This Bank was to run for twenty years, and its capital was thirty-five
millions of dollars, seven of which were taken by the United States;
many of its stockholders were widows, charitable institutions, and
people of small means. Its directors were chosen by the stockholders
with the exception of five appointed by the President of the United
States and confirmed by the Senate. The public money was deposited in
this Bank; it could be removed by the Secretary of the Treasury, but by
him only on giving his reasons to Congress. The Bank was located in
Philadelphia, then the money-centre of the country, but it had
twenty-five branches in different cities, from Portsmouth, N.H., to New
Orleans. The main institution could issue notes, not under five dollars,
but the branches could not. Langdon Cleves, of South Carolina, was the
first president, succeeded in 1823 by Nicholas Biddle, of
Philadelphia,--a man of society, of culture, and of leisure,--a young
man of thirty-seven, who could talk and write, perhaps, better than he
could manage a great business.

The affairs of the Bank went on smoothly for ten or twelve years, and
the financial condition of the country was never better than when
controlled by this great central institution. Nicholas Biddle of course
was magnified into a great financier of uncommon genius,--the first
business man in the whole country, a great financial autocrat, the idol
of Philadelphia. But he was hated by Democratic politicians as a man
who was intrusted with too much power, which might be perverted to
political purposes, and which they asserted was used to help his
aristocratic friends in difficulty. Moreover, they looked with envy on
the many positions its offices afforded, which, as it was a "government
institution," they thought should be controlled by the governing party.

Among Biddle's especial enemies were the members of the "Kitchen
Cabinet," who with sycophantic adroitness used Jackson as a tool.

Isaac Hill, of New Hampshire, was one of the most envenomed of these
politicians, who hated not only Biddle but those who adhered to the old
Federalist party, and rich men generally. He had sufficient plausibility
and influence to enlist Levi Woodbury, Senator from New Hampshire, to
forward his schemes.

In consequence, Woodbury, on June 27, 1829, wrote to Ingham, Secretary
of the Treasury, making complaints against the president of the branch
bank in Portsmouth for roughness of manner, partiality in loans, and
severity in collections. The accused official was no less a man than
Jeremiah Mason, probably the greatest lawyer in New England, if not of
the whole country, the peer as well as the friend of Webster. Ingham
sent Woodbury's letter to Biddle, intimating that it was political
partiality that was complained of. Then ensued a correspondence between
Biddle and Ingham,--the former defending Mason and claiming complete
independence for the Bank as to its management, so long as it could not
be shown to be involved in political movements; and the latter accusing,
threatening to remove deposits, attempting to take away the pension
agency from the Portsmouth branch, _et cetera_. It was a stormy summer
for the Bank.

Thus things stood until November, when a letter appeared in the New York
"Courier and Inquirer," stating that President Jackson, in his
forthcoming first annual message to Congress, would come out strongly
against the Bank itself. And sure enough, the President, in his message,
astonished the whole country by a paragraph attacking the Bank, and
opposing its recharter. The part of the message about the Bank was
referred to both Houses of Congress. The committees reported in favor of
the Bank, as nothing could be said against its management. Again, in the
message of the President in 1830, he attacked the Bank, and Benton, one
of the chief supporters of Jackson in spite of their early duel,
declared in the Senate that the charter of the Bank ought not to be
renewed. Here the matter dropped for a while, as Jackson and his friends
were engrossed in electioneering schemes for the next presidential
contest, and the troubles of the cabinet on account of the Eaton scandal
had to be attended to. As already noted, they ended in its dissolution,
followed by a new and stronger cabinet, in which Ingham was succeeded as
Secretary of the Treasury by Louis McLane.

It was not till 1832,--the great session of Jackson's
administrations,--that the contest was taken up again. The Bank aimed to
have its charter renewed, although that would not expire for five years
yet; and as the Senate was partly hostile to the President, it seemed a
propitious time for the effort. Jackson, on the other hand, fearing that
the Bank would succeed in getting its charter renewed with a friendly
Congress, redoubled his energies to defeat it. The more hostile the
President showed himself, the more eager were the friends of the Bank
for immediate action. It was, with them, now or never. If the matter
were delayed, and Jackson were re-elected, it would be impossible to
secure a renewal of the charter, while it was hoped that Jackson would
not dare to veto the charter on the eve of a presidential election, and
thus lose, perhaps, the vote of the great State of Pennsylvania. So it
was resolved by the friends of the Bank to press the measure.

Five months were consumed in the discussion of this important matter, in
which the leading members of the Senate, except Benton, supported the
Bank. The bill to renew the charter passed the Senate on the 11th of
June, by a vote of twenty-eight to twenty, and the House on the 3d of
July by a majority of thirty-three. It was immediately vetoed by the
President, on the ground that the Bank was an odious monopoly, with
nearly a third of its stock held by foreigners, and not only odious, but
dangerous as a money-power to bribe Congress and influence elections.
The message accompanying the veto was able, and was supposed to be
written by Edward Livingston or Amos Kendall. Biddle remained calm and
confident. Like Clay, he never dreamed that Jackson would dare to
persist in a hostility against the enlightened public sentiment of the
country. But Jackson was the idol of the Democracy, who would support
all his measures and condone all his faults, and the Democracy
ruled,--as it always will rule, except in great public dangers, when
power naturally falls into the hands of men of genius, honesty, and
experience, almost independently of their political associations.

The veto aroused a thunder of debate, Webster and Clay leading the
assault upon it, and Benton, with other Jacksonians, defending it. The
attempt to pass the re-charter bill over the veto failed of the
necessary two-thirds majority, and the President was triumphant.

Jackson had no idea of yielding his opinions or his will to anybody,
least of all to his political enemies. The war with the Bank must go on;
but its charter had three or four years still to run. All he could do
legally was to cripple it by removing the deposits. His animosity,
inflamed by the denunciations of Benton, Kendall, Blair, Hill, and
others, became ungovernable.

McLane was now succeeded in the Treasury department by Mr. Duane of
Philadelphia, the firmest and most incorruptible of men, for whom the
President felt the greatest respect, but whom he expected to bend to his
purposes as he had Ingham. Only the Secretary of the Treasury could
remove the deposits, and this Mr. Duane unexpectedly but persistently
refused to do. Jackson brought to bear upon him all his powers of
persuasion and friendship; Duane still stood firm. Then the President
resorted to threats, all to no purpose; at length Duane was dismissed
from his office, and Roger B. Taney became Secretary of the Treasury,
23d of September, 1833. Three days afterwards, Taney directed collectors
to deposit the public money in certain banks which he designated. It
seems singular that the man who two years later was appointed Chief
Justice of the Supreme Court, and who discharged the duties of that
office so ably and uprightly, should so readily have complied with the
President's desire; but this must be accounted for by the facts that in
regard to the Bank Taney's views were in harmony with those of Jackson,
and that the removal of the deposits, however arbitrary, was not
unconstitutional.

The removal of more than nine millions from the Bank within the period
of nine months caused it necessarily to curtail its discounts, and a
financial panic was the result, which again led to acrimonious debates
in Congress, in which Clay took the lead. His opposition exasperated the
President in the highest degree. Calhoun equalled Clay in the vehemence
of his denunciation, for his hatred of Jackson was greater than his
hostility to moneyed corporations. Webster was less irritating, but
equally strong in his disapproval. Jackson, in his message of December,
1833, reiterated his charge against the Bank as "a permanent
electioneering engine," attempting "to control public opinion through
the distresses of some, and the fears of others." The Senate passed
resolutions denouncing the high-handed measures of the government,
which, however, were afterwards expunged when the Senate had become
Democratic. One of the most eloquent passages that Clay ever uttered was
his famous apostrophe to Vice President Van Buren when presiding over
the Senate, in reference to the financial distress which existed
throughout the country, and which, of course, he traced to the removal
of the deposits. Deputations of great respectability poured in upon the
President from every quarter to induce him to change his policy,--all of
which he summarily and rudely dismissed. All that these deputations
could get out of him was, "Go to Nicholas Biddle; he has all the money."
In 1834, during the second term of Jackson's office, there were
committees sent to investigate the affairs of the Bank, who were very
cavalierly treated by Biddle, so that their mission failed, amid much
derision. He was not dethroned from his financial power until the United
States Bank of Pennsylvania--the style under which the United States
Bank accepted a State charter in 1836, when its original national
charter expired--succumbed to the general crash in 1837.

It is now generally admitted that Jackson's war on the Bank was violent
and reckless, although it would be difficult to point out wherein his
hostility exceeded constitutional limits. The consequences were most
disastrous to the immediate interests of the country, but probably not
to its ultimate interests. The substitution of "pet banks" for
government deposits led to a great inflation of paper money, followed by
a general mania for speculation. When the bubble burst these banks were
unable to redeem their notes in gold and silver, and suspended their
payments. Then the stringency of the money market equalled the previous
inflation. In consequence there were innumerable failures and everything
fell in value,--lands, houses, and goods. Such was the general
depression and scarcity of money that in many States it was difficult
to raise money even to pay necessary taxes. I have somewhere read that
in one of the Western States the sheriffs sold at auction a good
four-horse wagon for five dollars and fifty cents, two horses for four
dollars, and two cows for two dollars. The Western farmers were driven
to despair. Such was the general depression that President Van Buren was
compelled in 1837 to call an extra session of Congress; nor were the
difficulties removed until the celebrated Bankrupt Law was passed in
1840, chiefly through the efforts of Daniel Webster, which virtually
wiped out all debts of those who chose to avail themselves of the
privilege. What a contrast was the financial state of the country at
that time, to what it was when Jackson entered upon his administration!

It is not just to attribute all the commercial disasters which followed
the winding up of the old United States Bank to General Jackson, and to
the financial schemes of Van Buren. It was the spirit of speculation,
fostered by the inflation of paper money by irresponsible banks when the
great balance-wheel was stopped, which was the direct cause. The
indirect causes of commercial disaster, however, may be attributed to
Jackson's war on the Bank. The long fight in Congress to secure a
recharter of the Bank, though unsuccessful, was dignified and
statesmanlike; but the ungoverned passions displayed by the removal of
deposits resulted in nothing, and could have resulted in nothing of
advantage to any theory of the Bank's management; and it would be
difficult to say who were most to blame for the foolish and undignified
crimination and recrimination which followed,--the President, or the
hostile Senate. It was, at any rate, a fight in which Jackson won, but
which, from the animosities it kindled, brought down his gray hairs in
sorrow to the grave. It gave him a doubtful place in the history of
the nation.

If Jackson's hostility to the United States Bank was inexpedient and
violent, and resulted in financial disasters, his vigorous efforts to
put down Nullification were patriotic, and called forth the approval and
gratitude of the nation. This was a real service of immense value, and
it is probable that no other public man then on the stage could have
done this important work so well. Like all Jackson's measures, it was
summary and decided.

Nullification grew out of the tariffs which Congress had imposed. The
South wanted no protective duties at all; indeed, it wanted absolute
free trade, so that planters might obtain the articles which they needed
at the smallest possible cost, and sell as much cotton and tobacco as
they could with the least delay and embarrassment. Professor Sumner
argues that Southern industries either supported the Federal
government, or paid tribute to the Northern manufacturers, and that
consequently the grievances of the Southern States were natural and
just,--that their interests were sacrificed to national interests, as
the New England interests had been sacrificed to the national interests
at the time of the Embargo. Undoubtedly, the South had cause of
complaint, and we cannot wonder at its irritation and opposition to the
taxes imposed on all for the protection of American manufactures. On the
other hand, it was a grave question whether the interests of the nation
at large should be sacrificed to build up the interests of the
South,--to say nothing of the great moral issues which underlie all
material questions. In other words, in matters of national importance,
which should rule? Should the majority yield to the minority, or the
minority to the majority? In accordance with the democratic principles
on which this government is founded, there is only one reply to the
question: The majority must rule. This is the basal stone of all
constitutional government, whose disruption would produce revolution and
anarchy. It is a bitter and humiliating necessity which compels the
intellect, the wealth, the rank, and the fashion of England to yield to
the small majority in the House of Commons, in the matter of Irish Home
Rule, but an Irishman's vote is as good as that of the son of an
English peer. The rule of the majority is the price of political
liberty, for which enlightened nations are willing to pay.

Henry Clay deserves great praise and glory for his persistent efforts at
conciliation,--not only in matters pertaining to the tariff, but in the
question of slavery to harmonize conflicting interests. But Calhoun--the
greatest man whom the South has produced--would listen to no
concessions, foreseeing that the slightest would endanger the
institution with which the interests and pride of the Southern States
were identified. At this crisis the country needed a man at the helm
whose will was known to be inflexible.

In the session of 1830, on a question concerning the sales of public
(U.S.) lands in the several States, arose the great debate between
Colonel R.Y. Hayne, of South Carolina, and Daniel Webster on the
limitations of Federal power; and Hayne's declaration of the right of a
State to nullify a Federal law that was prejudicial to its interests
gained him great applause throughout the South. John C. Calhoun, United
States Senator from South Carolina, was at the head of the extreme State
Sovereignty party, and at a banquet celebrating the birthday of
Jefferson, January 13, 1830, he proffered the toast "The Union: next to
Liberty, the most dear; may we all remember that it can only be
preserved by respecting the rights of the States, and distributing
equally the benefit and burden of the Union." Jackson, as President, and
practical chief of the Democracy, was of course present at this
political banquet. His profound patriotism and keen political instinct
scented danger, and with his usual impulse to go well forward to meet an
enemy, he gave, "The Federal Union: it must be preserved." This simple
declaration was worth more than all the wordy messages and proclamations
he ever issued; it not only served notice upon the seceders of his time
that they had a great principle to deal with, but it echoed after him,
and was the call to which the nation victoriously rallied in its supreme
struggle with treason, thirty years later.

Notwithstanding the evident stand taken by the President, the Calhoun
party continued their opposition on State lines to the Federal
authority. And when Congress passed the tariff of July, 1832, the South
Carolina legislature in the autumn called a convention, which pronounced
that Act and the Tariff Act of 1828 unconstitutional,--"null and void,
and no law;" called on the State legislature to pass laws to prevent the
execution of the Federal revenue acts; and declared that any attempt at
coercion on the part of the Federal authorities would be regarded as
absolving South Carolina and all its people from all further obligation
to retain their union with the other States, and that they should then
forthwith proceed to organize a separate government, as a sovereign and
independent State.

If such a man as Buchanan had then been in the presidential chair there
probably would have been a Southern Confederacy; and in 1832 it might
have been successful. But Jackson was a man of different mould. Democrat
and Southern sympathizer as he was, he instantly took the most vigorous
measures to suppress such a thing in the bud, before there was time to
concert measures of disunion among the other Southern States. He sent
General Scott to Charleston, with a body of troops stationed not far
away. He ordered two war-vessels to the harbor of the misguided and
rebellious city. On December 4 in his annual message he called the
attention of Congress to the opposition to the revenue laws and
intimated that he should enforce them. On December 11 he issued a
proclamation to the inhabitants of South Carolina, written by
Livingston, moderate in tone, in which it was set forth that the power
of one State to annul a law of the United States was incompatible with
the existence of the Union, and inconsistent with the spirit of the
constitution. Governor Hayne issued a counter-proclamation, while
Calhoun resigned the vice-presidency in order to represent South
Carolina on the floor of the Senate. In January the President sent
another message to Congress asking for authority to suppress rebellion.

Congress rallied around the Executive and a bill was passed providing
for the enforcement of the collection of the customs at Charleston, and
arming the President with extraordinary powers to see that the dangers
were averted. Most of the States passed resolutions against
Nullification, and there was general approval of the vigorous measures
to be enforced if necessary. The Nullifiers, unprepared to resist the
whole military power of the country, yielded, but with ill grace, to the
threatened force. Henry Clay in February introduced a compromise tariff,
and on the 27th of that month it was completed, together with an
Enforcement Act. On March 3 it became a law, and on March 11 the South
Carolina Nullifiers held an adjourned meeting of their convention and
nullified their previous nullification. The triumph of Jackson was
complete, and his popularity reached its apex.

It is not to be supposed that the collection of duties in Southern parts
was the only cause of Nullification. The deeper cause was not at first
avowed. It was the question of slavery, which is too large a topic to be
discussed in this connection. It will be treated more fully in a
subsequent lecture.

An important event took place during the administration of Jackson,
which demands our notice, although it can in no way be traced to his
influence; and this was the Anti-Masonic movement, ending in the
formation of a new political party.

The beginning of this party was obscure enough. One Morgan in Western
New York was abducted and murdered for revealing the alleged secrets of
Freemasonry. These were in reality of small importance, but Morgan had
mortally offended a great secret society of which he was a member, by
bringing it into public contempt. His punishment was greater than his
crime, which had been not against morality, but against a powerful body
of men who never did any harm, but rather much good in the way of
charities. The outrage aroused public indignation,--that a man should be
murdered for making innocent revelations of mere ceremonies and
pretensions of small moment; and as the Masons would make no apologies,
and no efforts to bring the offenders to justice, it was inferred by the
credulous public that Masons were not fit to be entrusted with political
office. The outrage was seized upon by cunning politicians to make
political capital. Jackson was a Mason. Hence the new party of
Anti-Masons made war against him. As they had been his supporters, the
Democratic party of the State of New York was divided.

The leading Democratic leaders had endeavored to suppress this schism;
but it daily increased, founded on popular ignorance and prejudice,
until it became formidable. In 1830, four years after the murder, the
Anti-Masons had held conventions and framed a political platform of
principles, the chief of which was hostility to all secret societies.
The party, against all reason, rapidly spread through New York,
Pennsylvania, and New England,--its stronghold being among the farmers
of Vermont. Ambitious politicians soon perceived that a union with this
party would favor their interests, and men of high position became its
leaders. In 1831 the party was strong enough to assemble a convention in
Baltimore to nominate candidates for the presidency, and William Wirt,
the great Maryland lawyer, was nominated, not with any hope of election,
but with the view of dividing the ranks of the Democratic party, and of
strengthening the opposition headed by Clay,--the National Republican
party, which in the next campaign absorbed all the old Federalist
remnants, and became the Whig party.

All opposition to Jackson, however, was to no purpose. He was elected
for his second term, beginning in 1833. The Anti-Masonic movement
subsided as rapidly as it was created, having no well-defined principles
to stand upon. It has already passed into oblivion.

I have now presented the principal subjects which made the
administrations of Jackson memorable. There are others of minor
importance which could be mentioned, like the removal of the Indians to
remote hunting-grounds in the West, the West India trade, the successful
settlement of the Spoliation Claims against France, which threatened to
involve the country in war,--prevented by the arbitration of England;
similar settlements with Denmark, Spain, and Naples; treaties of
commerce with Russia and Turkey; and other matters in which Jackson's
decided character appeared to advantage. But it is not my purpose to
write a complete history of Jackson or of his administrations. Those who
want fuller information should read Parton's long biography, in which
almost every subject under the sun is alluded to, and yet which, in
spite of its inartistic and unclassical execution, is the best thesaurus
I know of for Jacksonian materials. More recent histories are
dissertations in disguise, on disputed points.

Here, then, I bring this lecture to a close with a brief allusion to
those things which made up the character of a very remarkable man, who
did both good and evil in his public career. His private life is
unusually interesting, by no means a model for others to imitate, yet
showing great energy, a wonderful power of will, and undoubted honesty
of purpose. His faults were those which may be traced to an imperfect
education, excessive prejudices, a violent temper, and the incense of
flatterers,--which turned his head and of which he was inordinately
fond. We fail to see in him the modesty which marked Washington and most
of the succeeding presidents. As a young man he fought duels without
sufficient provocation. He put himself in his military career above the
law, and in his presidential career above precedents and customs, which
subjected him to grave animadversion. As a general he hanged two
respectable foreigners as spies, without sufficient evidence. He
inflicted unnecessary cruelties in order to maintain military
discipline,--wholesome, doubtless, but such as less arbitrary commanders
would have hesitated to do. He invaded the territory of a neutral state
on the plea of self-defence. In his conversation he used expletives not
considered in good taste, and which might be called swearing, without
meaning any irreverence to the Deity, although in later life he seldom
used any other oath than "By the Eternal!"

Personally, Jackson's habits were irreproachable. In regard to the
pleasures of the table he was temperate, almost abstemious. He was
always religiously inclined and joined the Church before he
died,--perhaps, however, out of loyalty to his wife, whom he adored,
rather than from theological convictions. But whatever he deemed his
duty, he made every sacrifice to perform. Although fond of power, he
was easily accessible, and he was frank and genial among his intimate
friends. With great ideas of personal dignity, he was unconventional in
all his habits, and detested useless ceremonies and the etiquette of
courts. He put a great value on personal friendships, and never broke
them except under necessity. For his enemies he cherished a vindictive
wrath, as unforgiving as Nemesis.

In the White House Jackson was remarkably hospitable, and he returned to
his beloved Hermitage poorer than when he left it. He cared little for
money, although an excellent manager of his farm. He was high-minded and
just in the discharge of debts, and, although arbitrary, he was
indulgent to his servants.

He loved frankness in his dealings with advisers, although he was easily
imposed upon. While he leaned on the counsels of his "Kitchen Cabinet"
he rarely summoned a council of constitutional advisers. He parted with
one of the ablest and best of his cabinet who acted from a sense of duty
in a matter where he was plainly right. Toward Nicholas Biddle and Henry
Clay he cherished the most inexorable animosity for crossing his path.

When we remember his lack of political knowledge, his "spoils system,"
his indifference to internal improvements, his war on the United States
Bank, and his arbitrary conduct in general, we feel that Jackson's
elevation to the presidency was a mistake and a national misfortune,
however popular he was with the masses. Yet he was in accord with his
generation.

It is singular that this man did nothing to attract national notice
until he was forty-five years of age. The fortune of war placed him on a
throne, where he reigned as a dictator, so far as his powers would
allow. Happily, in his eventful administration he was impeded by hostile
and cynical senators; but this wholesale restraint embittered his life.
His great personal popularity continued to the end of his life in 1845,
but his influence is felt to this day, both for good and for evil. His
patriotism and his prejudices, his sturdy friendships and his relentless
hatreds, his fearless discharge of duty and his obstinacy of self-will,
his splendid public services and the vast public ills he inaugurated,
will ever make this picturesque old hero a puzzle to moralists. His life
was turbulent, and he was glad, when the time came, to lay down his
burden and prepare himself for that dread Tribunal before which all
mortals will be finally summoned,--the one tribunal in which he
believed, and the only one which he was prompt to acknowledge.

AUTHORITIES.

The works written on Jackson are very numerous. Probably the best is the
biography written by Parton, defective as it is. Professor W.E. Sumner's
work, in the series of "American Statesmen," is full of interesting and
important facts, especially in the matters of tariff and finance. See
also Benton's Thirty Years in the United States Senate; Cobbett's Life
of Jackson; Curtis's Life of Webster; Colton's Life and Times of Henry
Clay, as well as Carl Schurz on the same subject; Von Holst, Life of
Calhoun; Memoir of John Quincy Adams; Tyler's Life of Taney; Sargent's
Public Men; the Speeches of Webster, Clay, and Calhoun.

 

HENRY CLAY.

1777-1852.

COMPROMISE LEGISLATION.

All the presidents of the United States, with the exception of three or
four, must yield in influence to Henry Clay, so far as concerns
directing the policy, and shaping the institutions of this country. Only
two other American statesmen--Hamilton and Webster--can be compared to
him in genius, power, and services. These two great characters will be
found treated elsewhere.

In regard to what is called "birth," Clay was not a patrician, like
Washington, nor had he so humble an origin as Andrew Jackson or Abraham
Lincoln. Like most other great men, he was the architect of of his own
fortunes, doomed to drudgeries in the early part of his career, and
climbing into notice by energy and force of character.

He was born, 1777, in a little Virginian hamlet called the "Slashes,"
in Hanover County, the son of a Baptist minister, who preached to poor
people, and who died when Henry was four years old, leaving six other
children and a widow, with very scanty means of support. The little
country school taught him "the rudiments," and his small earnings as
plough-boy and mill-boy meantime helped his mother. The mother was
marked by sterling traits of character, and married for her second
husband a Captain Watkins, of Richmond. This worthy man treated his
step-son kindly, and put him into a retail store at the age of fourteen,
no better educated than most country lads,--too poor to go to college,
but with aspirations, which all bright and ambitious boys are apt to
have, especially if they have no fitness for selling the common things
of life, and are fond of reading. Henry's step-father, having an
influential friend, secured for the disgusted and discontented youth a
position in the office of the Clerk of the High Court of Chancery, of
which the eminent jurist, George Wythe, was chancellor. The judge and
the young copyist thus naturally became acquainted, and acquaintance
ripened into friendship, for the youth was bright and useful, and made
an excellent amanuensis to the learned old lawyer, in whose office both
Thomas Jefferson and John Marshall had been students of law.

After serving four years, Clay resolved to become a lawyer, entered the
office of the Attorney-General of the State, and one year after was
admitted to the bar, having in all probability acquired much legal
knowledge from the communicative Chancellor, whom everybody loved and
honored,--one of the earliest in Virginia to emancipate his slaves, and
provide for their support. The young fellow's reading, also, had been
guided by his learned friend, in the direction of history, English
grammar, and the beginnings of law.

The young lawyer, with his pleasing manners, quick intelligence, and
real kindness of heart soon became a favorite in Richmond society. He
was neither handsome, nor elegant, nor aristocratic, but he had personal
geniality, wit, brilliancy in conversation, irreproachable morals, and
was prominent in the debating society,--a school where young men learn
the art of public speaking, like Gladstone at Oxford. It is thought
probable that Clay's native oratorical ability, which he assiduously
cultivated,--the gift which, as Schurz says, "enabled him to make little
tell for much, and to outshine men of vastly greater learning,"--misled
him as to the necessity for systematic and thorough study. Lack of
thoroughness and of solid information was his especial weakness through
life, in spite of the charm and power of his personal oratory.

It is always up-hill work for a young lawyer to succeed in a
fashionable city, where there is more intellect than business, and when
he himself has neither family, nor money, nor mercantile friends. So
Henry Clay, at twenty-one, turned his eyes to the West,--the land of
promise, which was especially attractive to impecunious lawyers, needy
farmers, spendthrift gentlemen, merchants without capital, and vigorous
men of enterprise,--where everybody trusts and is trusted, and where
talents and character are of more value than money. He had not much
legal knowledge, nor did he need much in the frontier settlements on the
Ohio and its valleys; the people generally were rough and illiterate,
and attached more importance to common-sense and industry than to legal
technicalities and the subtle distinctions of Coke and Blackstone. If an
advocate could grasp a principle which appealed to consciousness, and
enforce it with native eloquence, he was more likely to succeed than one
versed in learned precedents without energy or plausible utterances.

The locality which Clay selected was Lexington in Kentucky,--then a
small village in the midst of beautiful groves without underbrush, where
the soil was of virgin richness, and the landscape painted with almost
perpetual verdure; one of the most attractive spots by nature on the
face of the earth,--a great contrast to the flat prairies of Illinois,
or the tangled forests of Michigan, or the alluvial deposits of the
Mississippi. It was a paradise of hills and vales, easily converted into
lawns and gardens, such as the primitive settlers of New England would
have looked upon with blended envy and astonishment.

Lexington in 1797, the year that Clay settled in it as a lawyer, was
called "the intellectual centre of the Far West," as the Ohio valley was
then regarded. In reality it was a border-post, the inhabitants of which
were devoted to horse-racing, hunting, and whiskey-drinking, with a
sprinkling of educated people, among whom the young lawyer soon
distinguished himself,--a born orator, logical as well as rhetorical.

Clay's law practice at first was chiefly directed to the defence of
criminals, and it is said that no murderer whom he defended was ever
hanged; but he soon was equally successful in civil cases, gradually
acquiring a lucrative practice, without taking a high rank as a jurist.
He was never a close student, being too much absorbed in politics,
society, and pleasure, except on rare occasions, for which he "crammed."
His reading was desultory, and his favorite works were political
speeches, many of which he committed to memory and then declaimed, to
the delight of all who heard him. His progress at the bar must have been
remarkably rapid, since within two years he could afford to purchase six
hundred acres of land, near Lexington, and take unto himself a
wife,--domestic, thrifty, painstaking, who attended to all the details
of the farm, which he called "Ashland." As he grew in wealth, his
popularity also increased, until in all Kentucky no one was so generally
beloved as he. Yet he would not now be called opulent, and he never
became rich, since his hospitalities were disproportionate to his means,
and his living was more like that of a Virginia country gentleman than
of a hard-working lawyer.

At this time Clay was tall, erect, commanding, with long arms, small
hands, a large mouth, blue, electrical eyes, high forehead, a sanguine
temperament, excitable, easy in his manners, self-possessed, courteous,
deferential, with a voice penetrating and musical, with great command of
language, and so earnest that he impressed everybody with his blended
sincerity and kindness of heart.

The true field for such a man was politics, which Clay loved, so that
his duties and pleasures went hand in hand,--an essential thing for
great success. His first efforts were in connection with a
constitutional convention in Kentucky, when he earnestly advocated a
system of gradual emancipation of slaves,--unpopular as that idea was
among his fellow-citizens. It did not seem, however, to hurt his
political prospects, for in 1803 he was solicited to become a member of
the State legislature, and was easily elected, being a member of the
Democratic-Republican party as led by Jefferson. He made his mark at
once as an orator, and so brilliant and rapid was his legislative career
that he was elected in 1806 to the United States Senate to fill the
unexpired term, of John Adair,--being only twenty-nine years old, the
youngest man that ever sat in that body of legislators. All that could
then be said of him was that he made a good impression in the debates
and on the committees, and was a man of great promise, a favorite in
society, attending all parties of pleasure, and never at home in the
evening. On his return to Kentucky he was again elected as a member of
the lower House in the State legislature, and chosen Speaker,--an
excellent training for the larger place he was to fill. In the winter of
1809-10 he was a second time sent to the United States Senate, for two
years, to fill the unexpired term of Buckner Thurston, where he made
speeches in favor of encouraging American manufacturing industries, not
to the extent of exportation,--which he thought should be confined to
surplus farm-produce,--but enough to supply the people with clothing and
to make them independent of foreign countries for many things
unnecessarily imported. He also made himself felt on many other
important topics, and was recognized as a rising man.

When his term had expired in the Senate, he was chosen a member of the
House of Representatives at Washington,--a more agreeable field to him
than the Senate, as giving him greater scope for his peculiar eloquence.
He was promptly elected Speaker, which position, however, did not
interfere with his speech-making whenever the House went into Committee
of the Whole. It was as Speaker of the House of Representatives that
Clay drew upon himself the eyes of the nation; and his truly great
congressional career began in 1811, on the eve of the war with Great
Britain in Madison's administration.

Clay was now the most influential, and certainly the most popular man in
public life, in the whole country, which was very remarkable,
considering that he was only thirty-seven years of age. Daniel Webster
was then practising law in Portsmouth, N.H., two years before his
election to Congress, and John C. Calhoun had not yet entered the
Senate, but was chairman of the Committee of Foreign Relations in the
House of Representatives, and a warm friend of the Speaker.

The absorbing subject of national interest at that time was the
threatened war with England, which Clay did his best to bring about, and
Webster to prevent. It was Webster's Fourth-of-July Oration at
Portsmouth, in 1812, which led to his election to Congress as a
Federalist, in which oration he deprecated war. The West generally was
in favor of it, having not much to lose or to fear from a contest which
chiefly affected commerce, and which would jeopardize only New England
interests and the safety of maritime towns. Clay, who had from his first
appearance at Washington made himself a champion of American interests,
American honor, and American ideas generally, represented the popular
party, and gave his voice for war, into which the government had drifted
under pressure of the outrages inflicted by British cruisers, the
impressment of our seamen, and the contempt with which the United States
were held and spoken of on all occasions by England,--the latter an
element more offensive to none than to the independent and bellicose
settlers in Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee.

Clay is generally credited with having turned the scales in favor of the
war with Great Britain, when the United States comprised less than eight
millions of people, when the country had no navy of any account, and a
very small army without experienced officers, while Great Britain was
mistress of the seas, with an enormous army, and the leader of the
allied Powers that withstood Napoleon in Spain and Portugal. To the eyes
of the Federalists, the contest was rash, inexpedient, and doubtful in
its issues; and their views were justified by the disasters that ensued
in Canada, the incompetency of Hull, the successive defeats of American
generals with the exception of Jackson, and the final treaty of peace
without allusion to the main causes which had led to the war. But the
Republicans claimed that the war, if disastrous on the land, had been
glorious on the water; that the national honor had been vindicated; that
a navy had been created; that the impressment of American seamen was
practically ended forever; and that England had learned to treat the
great republic with outward respect as an independent, powerful, and
constantly increasing empire.

As the champion of the war, and for the brilliancy and patriotism of his
speeches, all appealing to the national heart and to national pride,
Clay stood out as the most eminent statesman of his day, with unbounded
popularity, especially in Kentucky, where to the last he retained his
hold on popular admiration and affection. His speeches on the war are
more marked for pungency of satire and bitterness of invective against
England than for moral wisdom. They are appeals to passions rather than
to reason, of great force in their day, but of not much value to
posterity. They are not read and quoted like Webster's masterpieces.
They will not compare, except in popular eloquence, with Clay's own
subsequent efforts in the Senate, when he had more maturity of
knowledge, and more insight into the principles of political economy.
But they had great influence at the time, and added to his fame as
an orator.

In the summer of 1814 Clay resigned his speakership of the House of
Representatives to accept a diplomatic mission as Peace Commissioner to
confer with commissioners from Great Britain. He had as associates John
Quincy Adams, James A. Bayard, Jonathan Russell, and Albert
Gallatin--the ablest financier in the country after the death of
Hamilton. The Commissioners met at Ghent, and spent five tedious months
in that dull city. The English commissioners at once took very high
ground, and made imperious demands,--that the territory now occupied by
the States of Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana, and a part of Ohio
should be set apart for the Indians under an English protectorate; that
the United States should relinquish the right of keeping armed vessels
on the great Lakes; that a part of Maine should be ceded to Great
Britain to make a road from Halifax to Quebec, and that all questions
relating to the right of search, blockades, and impressment of seamen
should remain undiscussed as before the war. At these preposterous
demands Clay was especially indignant. In fact, he was opposed to any
treaty at all which should not place the United States and Great Britain
on an equality, and would not have been grieved if the war had lasted
three years longer. Adams and Gallatin had their hands full to keep the
Western lion from breaking loose and returning home in disgust, while
they desired to get the best treaty they could, rather than no treaty at
all. Gradually the British commissioners abated their demands, and gave
up all territorial and fishery claims, and on December 14, 1814,
concluded the negotiations on the basis of things before the war,--the
_status quo ante bellum_. Clay was deeply chagrined. He signed the
document with great reluctance, and always spoke of it as "a damned bad
treaty," since it made no allusion to the grievance which provoked the
war which he had so eloquently advocated.

Gallatin and Clay spent some time in Paris, and most of the ensuing
summer in London on further negotiations of details. But Clay had no
sooner returned to Lexington than he was re-elected to the national
legislature, where he was again chosen Speaker, December 4, 1815, having
declined the Russian mission, and the more tempting post of the
Secretary of War. He justly felt that his arena was the House of
Representatives, which, as well as the Senate, had a Republican
majority. It was his mission to make speeches and pull political wires,
and not perplex himself with the details of office, which required more
executive ability and better business habits than he possessed, and
which would seriously interfere with his social life. How could he play
cards all night if he was obliged to be at his office at ten o'clock in
the morning, day after day, superintending clerks, and doing work which
to him was drudgery? Much more pleasant to him was it to preside over
stormy debates, appoint important committees, write letters to friends,
and occasionally address the House in Committee of the Whole, when his
voice would sway the passions of his intelligent listeners; for he had
the power "to move to pity, and excite to rage."

Besides all this, there were questions to be discussed and settled by
Congress, important to the public, and very interesting to politicians.
The war had bequeathed a debt. To provide for its payment, taxes must be
imposed. But all taxation is unpopular. The problem was, to make taxes
as easy as possible. Should they be direct or indirect? Should they be
imposed for a revenue only, or to stimulate and protect infant
manufactures? The country was expanding; should there be national
provision for internal improvements,--roads, canals, etc.? There were
questions about the currency, about commerce, about the Indians, about
education, about foreign relations, about the territories, which
demanded the attention of Congress. The most important of these were
those connected with revenues and tariffs.

It was this latter question, connected with internal improvements and
the sales of public lands, in which Clay was most interested, and which,
more than any other, brought out and developed his genius. He is
generally quoted as "the father of the protective policy," to develop
American manufactures. The genius of Hamilton had been directed to the
best way to raise a revenue for a new and impoverished country; that of
Clay sought to secure independence of those foreign products which go so
far to enrich nations.

Webster, when reproached for his change of views respecting tariffs, is
said to have coolly remarked that when he advocated the shipping
interest he represented a great commercial city; and when he afterwards
advocated tariffs, he spoke as the representative of a manufacturing
State,--a sophistical reply which showed that he was more desirous of
popularity with his constituents than of being the advocate of
abstract truth.

Calhoun advocated the new tariff as a means to advance the cotton
interests of the South, and the defence of the country in time of war.
Thus neither of the great political leaders had in view national
interests, but only sectional, except Clay, whose policy was more
far-reaching. And here began his great career as a statesman. Before
this he was rather a politician, greedy of popularity, and desirous to
make friends.

The war of 1812 had, by shutting out foreign products, stimulated
certain manufactures difficult to import, but necessary for military
operations, like cheap clothing for soldiers, blankets, gunpowder, and
certain other articles for general use, especially such as are made of
iron. When the war closed and the ports opened, the country received a
great inflow of British products. Hence the tariff of 1816, the earliest
for protection, imposed a tax of about thirty-five per cent on articles
for which the home industry was unable to supply the demand, and twenty
per cent on coarse fabrics of cotton and wool, distilled spirits, and
iron; while those industries which were in small demand were admitted
free or paid a mere revenue tax. This tariff, substantially proposed by
George M. Dallas, Secretary of the Treasury, was ably supported by Clay.
But his mind was not yet fully opened to the magnitude and consequences
of this measure,--his chief arguments being based on the safety of the
country in time of war. In this movement he joined hands with Calhoun,
one of his warmest friends, and one from whose greater logical genius he
perhaps drew his conclusions.

At that time party lines were not distinctly drawn. The old Federalists
had lost their prestige and power. The Republicans were in a great
majority; even John Quincy Adams and his friends swelled their ranks
Jefferson had lost much of his interest in politics, and was cultivating
his estates and building up the University of Virginia. Madison was
anticipating the pleasures of private life, and Monroe, a plain,
noncommittal man, the last of "the Virginia dynasty," thought only of
following the footsteps of his illustrious predecessors, and living in
peace with all men.

The next important movement in Congress was in reference to the charter
of the newly proposed second United States Bank, and in this the great
influence of Clay was felt. He was in favor of it, as a necessity, in
view of the miserable state of the finances, the suspension of specie
payments, and the multiplication of State banks. In the earlier part of
his career, in 1811, he had opposed a recharter of Hamilton's National
Bank as a dangerous money-corporation, and withal unconstitutional on
the ground that the general government had no power to charter
companies. All this was in accordance with Western democracy, ever
jealous of the money-power, and the theorizing proclivities of
Jefferson, who pretended to hate everything which was supported in the
old country. But with advancing light and the experience of depreciated
currency from the multiplication of State banks, Clay had changed his
views, exposing himself to the charge of inconsistency; which, however,
he met with engaging candor, claiming rather credit for his ability and
willingness to see the change of public needs. He now therefore
supported the bill of Calhoun, which created a national bank with a
capital of thirty-five million dollars, substantially such as was
proposed by Hamilton. The charter was finally given in April, 1816, to
run for twenty years.

Doubtless such a great money-corporation--great for those times--did
wield a political influence, and it might have been better if the Bank
had been chartered with a smaller capital. It would have created fewer
enemies, and might have escaped the future wrath of General Jackson.
Webster at first opposed the bill of Calhoun; but when it was afterwards
seen that the Bank as created as an advantage to the country, he became
one of its strongest supporters. Webster was strongly conservative by
nature; but when anything was established, like Lord Thurlow he ceased
all opposition, especially if it worked well.

In 1816 James Monroe was elected President, and Clay expected to be made
Secretary of State, as a step to the presidency, which he now ardently
desired. But he was disappointed, John Quincy Adams being chosen by
Monroe as Secretary of State. Monroe offered to Clay the mission to
England and the Department of War, both of which he declined, preferring
the speakership, to which he was almost unanimously re-elected. Here
Clay brought his influence to bear, in opposition to the views of the
administration, to promote internal improvements to which some objected
on constitutional grounds, but which he defended both as a statesman and
a Western man. The result was a debate, ending in a resolution "that
Congress has power under the Constitution to appropriate money for the
construction of post roads, military and other roads, and of canals for
the improvement of water-courses."

Meanwhile a subject of far greater interest called out the best energies
of Mr. Clay,--the beginning of a memorable struggle, even the agitation
of the Slavery question, which was not to end until all the slaves in
the United States were emancipated by a single stroke of Abraham
Lincoln's pen. So long as the products of slave labor were unprofitable,
through the exhaustion of the tobacco-fields, there was a sort of
sentimental philanthropy among disinterested Southern men tending to a
partial emancipation; but when the cotton gin (invented in 1793) had
trebled the value of slaves, and the breeding of them became a
profitable industry, the philanthropy of the planters vanished. The
English demand for American cotton grew rapidly, and in 1813 Francis C.
Lowell established cotton manufactures in New England, so that cotton
leaped into great importance. Thus the South had now become jealous of
interference with its "favorite institution."

In an address in Manchester, England, October, 1863,--the first of that
tremendous series of mob-controlling speeches with which Henry Ward
Beecher put a check on the English government by convincing the English
people of the righteousness of the Federal cause during our Civil
War,--that "minister-plenipotentiary," as Oliver Wendell Holmes called
him, gave a witty summary of this change. After showing that the great
Fathers of Revolutionary times, and notably the great Southerners, were
antislavery men; that the first abolition society was formed in the
Middle and Border States, and not in the Northeast; and that
emancipation was enacted by the Eastern and Middle States as a natural
consequence of the growth of that sentiment, the orator said:--

"What was it, then, when the country had advanced so far towards
universal emancipation in the period of our national formation, that
stopped this onward tide? First, the wonderful demand for cotton
throughout the world, precisely when, from the invention of the cotton
gin, it became easy to turn it to service. Slaves that before had been
worth from three to four hundred dollars began to be worth six hundred
dollars. That knocked away one third of adherence to the moral law. Then
they became worth seven hundred dollars, and half the law went; then,
eight or nine hundred dollars, and there was no such thing as moral law;
then, one thousand or twelve hundred dollars,--and slavery became one of
the Beatitudes."

Therefore, when in 1818 the territory of Missouri applied for admission
to the Union as a State, the South was greatly excited by the
proposition from Mr. Tallmadge, of New York, that its admission should
be conditioned upon the prohibition of slavery within its limits. It was
a revelation to the people of the North that so bitter a feeling should
be aroused by opposition to the extension of an acknowledged evil, which
had been abolished in all their own States. The Southern leaders, on
their side, maintained that Congress could not, under the Constitution,
legislate on such a subject,--that it was a matter for the States alone
to decide; and that slavery was essential to the prosperity of the
Southern States, as white men could not labor in the cotton and rice
fields. The Northern orators maintained that not only had the right of
Congress to exclude slavery from the Territories been generally
admitted, but that it was a demoralizing institution and more injurious
to the whites even than to the blacks. The Southern leaders became
furiously agitated, and threatened to secede from the Union rather than
submit to Northern dictation; while at the North the State legislatures
demanded the exclusion of slaves from Missouri.

Carl Schurz, in his admirable life of Clay, makes a pertinent summary:
"The slaveholders watched with apprehension the steady growth of the
Free States in population, wealth, and power.... As the slaveholders
had no longer the ultimate extinction, but now the perpetuation, of
slavery in view, the question of sectional power became one of first
importance to them, and with it the necessity of having more slave
States for the purpose of maintaining the political equilibrium, at
least in the Senate. A struggle for more slave States was to them a
struggle for life."

Thus the two elements of commercial profit and political power were
involved in the struggle of the South for the maintenance and extension
of slavery.

The House of Representatives in 1819 adopted the Missouri bill with the
amendment restricting slavery, but the Senate did not concur; and
Alabama was admitted as a Territory without slavery restriction. In the
next Congress Missouri was again introduced, but the antislavery
amendment was voted down. In 1820 Mr. Thomas, a senator from Illinois,
proposed, as a mutual concession, that Missouri should be admitted
without restriction, but that in all that part of the territory outside
that State ceded by France to the United States, north of the latitude
of 36 deg. 30' (the southern boundary of Missouri), slaves should
thereafter be excluded; and this bill was finally passed March 2,1820.
Mr. Clay is credited with being the father of this compromise, but,
according to Mr. Schurz, he did not deserve the honor. He adopted it,
however, and advocated it with so much eloquence and power that it
owed its success largely to his efforts, and therefore it is still
generally ascribed to him.

At that time no statesmen, North or South, had fully grasped the slavery
question. Even Mr. Calhoun once seemed to have no doubt as to the
authority of Congress to exclude slavery from the Territories, but he
was decided enough in his opposition when he saw that it involved an
irreconcilable conflict of interests,--that slavery and freedom are
antagonistic ideas, concerning which there can be no genuine compromise.
"There may be compromises," says Von Holst, "with regard to measures,
but never between principles." And slavery, when the Missouri Compromise
was started, was looked upon as a measure rather than as a principle,
concerning which few statesmen had thought deeply. As the agitation
increased, measures were lost sight of in principles.

The compromise by which Missouri was admitted as a slave State, while
slavery should be excluded from all territory outside of it north of
36 deg. 30', was a temporary measure of expediency, and at that period
was probably a wise one; since, if slavery had been excluded from
Missouri, there might have been a dissolution of the Union. The
preservation of the Union was the dearest object to the heart of Clay,
who was genuinely and thoroughly patriotic. Herein he doubtless
rendered a great public service, and proved himself to be a broad-minded
statesman. To effect this compromise Clay had put forth all his
energies, not only in eloquent speeches and tireless labors in
committees and a series of parliamentary devices for harmonizing the
strife, but in innumerable interviews with individuals.

In 1820, Clay retired to private life in order to retrieve his fortunes
by practice at the bar. Few men without either a professional or a
private income can afford a long-continued public service. Although the
members of Congress were paid, the pay was not large enough,--only eight
dollars a day at that time. But Clay's interval of rest was soon cut
short. In three years he was again elected to the House of
Representatives, and in December, 1823, was promptly chosen Speaker by a
large majority. He had now recovered his popularity, and was generally
spoken of as "the great pacificator."

In Congress his voice was heard again in defence of internal
improvements,--the making of roads and canals,--President Monroe having
vetoed a bill favoring them on the ground that it was unconstitutional
for Congress to vote money for them. Clay, however, succeeded in
inducing Congress to make an appropriation for a survey of such roads as
might be deemed of national importance, which Mr. Monroe did not
oppose. It was ever of vital necessity, in the eyes of Mr. Clay, to open
up the West to settlers from the East, and he gloried in the prospect of
the indefinite expanse of the country even to the Pacific ocean. "Sir,"
said he, in the debate on this question, "it is a subject of peculiar
delight to me to look forward to the proud and happy period, distant as
it may be, when circulation and association between the Atlantic and the
Pacific and the Mexican Gulf shall be as free and perfect as they are at
this moment in England, the most highly improved country on the globe.
Sir, a new world has come into being since the Constitution was
adopted.... Are we to neglect and refuse the redemption of that vast
wilderness which once stretched unbroken beyond the Alleghany?" In these
views he proved himself one of the most far-sighted statesmen that had
as yet appeared in Congress,--a typical Western man of enthusiasm and
boundless hope.

Not less enthusiastic was he in his open expressions of sympathy with
the Greek struggle for liberty; as was the case also with Daniel
Webster,--both advocating relief to the Greeks, not merely from
sentiment, but to strike a blow at the "Holy Alliance" of European
kingdoms, then bent on extinguishing liberty in every country in Europe.
Clay's noble speech in defence of the Greeks was not, however, received
with unanimous admiration, since many members of Congress were fearful
of entangling the United States in European disputes and wars; and the
movement came to naught.

Then followed the great debates which led to the famous tariff of 1824,
in which Mr. Clay, although Speaker of the House, took a prominent part
in Committee of the Whole, advocating an increase of duties for the
protection of American manufactures of iron, hemp, glass, lead, wool,
woollen and cotton goods, while duties on importations which did not
interfere with American manufactures were to be left on a mere revenue
basis. This tariff had become necessary, as he thought, in view of the
prevailing distress produced by dependence on foreign markets. He would
provide a home consumption for American manufactures, and thus develop
home industries, which could be done only by imposing import taxes that
should "protect" them against foreign competition. His speech on what he
called the "American System" was one of the most elaborate he ever made,
and Mr. Carl Schurz says of it that "his skill of statement, his
ingenuity in the grouping of facts and principles, his plausibility of
reasoning, his brilliant imagination, the fervor of his diction, the
warm patriotic tone of his appeals" presented "the arguments which were
current among high-tariff men then and which remain so still;" while,
on the other hand, "his superficial research, his habit of satisfying
himself with half-knowledge, and his disinclination to reason out
propositions logically in all their consequences" gave incompleteness to
his otherwise brilliant effort. It made a great impression in spite of
its weak points, and called out in opposition the extraordinary
abilities of Daniel Webster, through whose massive sentences appeared
his "superiority in keenness of analysis, in logical reasoning, in
extent and accuracy of knowledge, in reach of thought and mastery of
fundamental principles," over all the other speakers of the day. And
this speech of. Mr. Webster's stands unanswered, notwithstanding the
opposite views he himself maintained four years afterwards, when he
spoke again on the tariff, but representing manufacturing interests
rather than those of shipping and commerce, advocating expediency rather
than abstract principles the truth of which cannot be gainsaid. The bill
as supported by Mr. Clay passed by a small majority, the members from
the South generally voting against it.

After the tariff of 1824 the New England States went extensively into
manufacturing, and the Middle States also. The protective idea had
become popular in the North, and, under strong protests from the
agricultural South, in 1828 a new tariff bill was enacted, largely on
the principle of giving more protection to every interest that asked
for it. This, called by its opponents "the tariff of abominations," was
passed while Clay was Secretary of State; the discontent under it was to
give rise to Southern Nullification, and to afford Clay another
opportunity to act as "pacificator." All this tariff war is set forth in
clear detail in Professor Sumner's "Life of Jackson."

This question of tariffs has, for seventy years now, been the great
issue, next to slavery, between the North and South. More debates have
taken place on this question than on any other in our Congressional
history, and it still remains unsettled, like most other questions of
political economy. The warfare has been constant and uninterrupted
between those who argue subjects from abstract truths and those who look
at local interests, and maintain that all political questions should be
determined by circumstances. When it seemed to be the interest of Great
Britain to advocate protection for her varied products, protection was
the policy of the government; when it became evidently for her interest
to defend free trade, then free trade became the law of Parliament.

On abstract grounds there is little dispute on the question: if all the
world acted on the principles of free trade, protection would be
indefensible. Practically, it is a matter of local interest: it is the
interest of New England to secure protection for its varied industries
and to secure free raw materials for manufacture; it is the interest of
agricultural States to buy wares in the cheapest market and to seek
foreign markets for their surplus breadstuffs. The question, however, on
broad grounds is whether protection is or is not for the interest of the
whole country; and on that point there are differences of opinion among
both politicians and statesmen. Formerly, few discussed the subject on
abstract principles except college professors and doctrinaires; but it
is a most momentous subject from a material point of view, and the great
scale on which protection has been tried in America since the Civil War
has produced a multiplicity of consequences--industrial and
economic--which have set up wide-spread discussions of both principles
and practical applications. How it will be finally settled, no one can
predict; perhaps through a series of compromises, with ever lessening
restriction, until the millennial dream of universal free trade shall
become practicable. Protection has good points and bad ones. While it
stimulates manufactures, it also creates monopolies and widens the
distinctions between the rich and the poor. Disproportionate fortunes
were one of the principal causes of the fall of the Roman Empire, and
are a grave danger to our modern civilization.

But then it is difficult to point out any period in the history of
civilization when disproportionate fortunes did not exist, except in
primitive agricultural States in the enjoyment of personal liberty, like
Switzerland and New England one hundred years ago. They certainly
existed in feudal Europe as they do in England to-day. The great cotton
lords are feudal barons under another name. Where money is worshipped
there will be money-aristocrats, who in vulgar pride and power rival the
worst specimens of an hereditary nobility. There is really little that
is new in human organizations,--little that Solomon and Aristotle had
not learned. When we go to the foundation of society it is the same
story, in all ages and countries. Most that is new is superficial and
transitory. The permanent is eternally based on the certitudes of life,
which are moral and intellectual rather than mechanical and material.
Whatever promotes these certitudes is the highest political wisdom.

We now turn to contemplate the beginnings of Mr. Clay's aspirations to
the presidency, which from this time never left him until he had one
foot in the grave. As a successful, popular, and ambitious man who had
already rendered important services, we cannot wonder that he sought the
envied prize. Who in the nation was more eminent than he? But such a
consummation of ambition is not attained by merit alone. He had enemies,
and he had powerful rivals.

In 1824 John Quincy Adams, as Monroe's Secretary of State, was in the
line of promotion,--a statesman of experience and abilities, the
superior of Clay in learning, who had spent his life in the public
service, and in honorable positions, especially as a foreign minister.
He belonged to the reigning party and was the choice of New England.
Moreover he had the prestige of a great name. He was, it is true, far
from popular, was cold and severe in manners, and irritable in
temperament; but he was public-spirited, patriotic, incorruptible, lofty
in sentiment, and unstained by vices.

Andrew Jackson was also a formidable competitor,--a military hero, the
idol of the West, and a man of extraordinary force of character, with
undoubted executive abilities, but without much experience in civil
affairs, self-willed, despotic in temper, and unscrupulous. Crawford, of
Georgia, Secretary of the Treasury, with great Southern prestige, and an
adroit politician, was also a candidate. Superior to all these
candidates in political genius was Calhoun of South Carolina, not yet so
prominent as he afterwards became.

The popular choice in 1824 lay between Jackson and Adams, and as no
candidate obtained a majority of the electoral votes, the election
reverted to the House of Representatives, and Adams was chosen, much to
the chagrin of Jackson, who had the largest number of popular votes, and
the disappointment of Clay, who did not attempt to conceal it. When the
latter saw that his own chances were small, however, he had thrown his
influence in favor of Adams, securing his election, and became his
Secretary of State. Jackson was indignant, as he felt he had been robbed
of the prize by a secret bargain, or coalition, between Clay and Adams.
In retiring from the speakership of the House, which he had held so
long, Clay received the formal and hearty thanks of that body for his
undeniably distinguished services as presiding officer. In knowledge of
parliamentary law and tactics, in prompt decisions,--never once
overruled in all his long career,--in fairness, courtesy, self-command,
and control of the House at the stormiest times, he certainly never had
a superior. Friends and enemies alike recognized and cordially expressed
their sense of his masterly abilities.

The administration of Adams was not eventful, but to his credit he made
only four removals from office during his term of service, and these for
good cause; he followed out the policy of his predecessors, even under
pressure from his cabinet refusing to recognize either friends or
enemies as such, but simply holding public officers to their duty. So,
too, in his foreign policy, which was conservative and prudent, and free
from entangling alliances, at a time when the struggle for independence
among the South American republics presented an occasion for
interference, and when the debates on the Panama mission--a proposed
council of South and Central American republics at Panama, to which the
United States were invited to send representatives--were embarrassing to
the Executive.

The services of Mr. Clay as Secretary of State were not distinguished.
He made a number of satisfactory treaties with foreign powers, and
exhibited great catholicity of mind; but he was embroiled in quarrels
and disputes anything but glorious, and he further found his situation
irksome. His field was the legislature; as an executive officer he was
out of place. It may be doubted whether he would have made as good a
President as many inferior politicians. He detested office labor, and
was sensitive to hostile criticism. His acceptance of the office of
Secretary of State was probably a blunder, as his appointment was
(though unjustly) thought by many to be in fulfilment of a bargain, and
it did not advance his popularity. He was subject to slanders and
misrepresentations. The secretaryship, instead of being a step to the
presidency, was thus rather an impediment in his way. It was not even a
position of as much power as the speakership. It gave him no excitement,
and did not keep him before the eyes of the people. His health failed.
He even thought of resignation.

The supporters of the Adams administration, those who more and more
came to rank themselves as promoters of tariffs and internal
improvements, with liberal views as to the constitutional powers of the
national government, gradually consolidated in opposition to the party
headed by Jackson. The former called themselves National Republicans,
and the latter, Democratic Republicans. During the Jacksonian
administrations they became known more simply as Whigs and Democrats.

On the accession of General Jackson to the presidency in 1829, Mr. Clay
retired to his farm at Ashland; but while he amused himself by raising
fine cattle and horses, and straightening out his embarrassed finances,
he was still the recognized leader of the National Republican party. He
was then fifty-two years of age, at his very best and strongest period.
He took more interest in politics than in agriculture or in literary
matters. He was not a learned man, nor a great reader, but a close
observer of men and of all political movements. He was a great favorite,
and received perpetual ovations whenever he travelled, always ready to
make speeches at public meetings, which were undoubtedly eloquent and
instructive, but not masterpieces like those of Webster at Plymouth and
Bunker Hill. They were not rich in fundamental principles of government
and political science, and far from being elaborate, but were earnest,
patriotic, and impassioned. Clay was fearless, ingenuous, and chivalric,
and won the hearts of the people, which Webster failed to do. Both were
great debaters, the one appealing to the understanding, and the other to
popular sentiments. Webster was cold, massive, logical, although
occasionally illuminating his argument with a grand glow of
eloquence,--the admiration of lawyers and clergymen. Clay was the
delight of the common people,--impulsive, electrical, brilliant, calling
out the sympathies of his hearers, and captivating them by his obvious
sincerity and frankness,--not so much convincing them as moving them and
stimulating them to action. Webster rarely lost his temper, but he could
be terribly sarcastic, harsh, and even fierce. Clay was passionate and
irritable, but forgiving and generous, loath to lose a friend and eager
for popularity; Webster seemed indifferent to applause, and even to
ordinary friendship, proud, and self-sustained. Clay was vain and
susceptible to flattery. No stranger could approach Webster, but Clay
was as accessible as a primitive bishop. New England was proud of
Webster, but the West loved Clay. Kentucky would follow her favorite to
the last, whatever mistakes he might make, but Massachusetts deserted
Webster when he failed to respond to her popular convictions. Both men
were disappointed in the prize they sought: one because he was not
loved by the people, colossal as they admitted him to be,--a frowning
Jupiter Tonans absorbed in his own majesty; the other because he had
incurred the hatred of Jackson and other party chiefs who were envious
of his popularity, and fearful of his ascendency.

The hatred which Clay and Jackson had for each other was inexorable. It
steeped them both in bitterness and uncompromising opposition. They were
rivals,--the heads of their respective parties. Clay regarded Jackson as
an ignorant, despotic, unscrupulous military chieftain, who had been
raised to power by the blind adoration of military success; while
Jackson looked upon Clay as an intriguing politician, without honesty,
industry, or consistency, gifted only in speech-making. Their quarrels
and mutual abuse formed no small part of the political history of the
country during Jackson's administration, and have received from
historians more attention than they deserved. Mr. Colton takes up about
one half of his first volume of the "Life of Clay" in dismal documents
which few care about, relating to what he calls the "Great Conspiracy,"
that is, the intrigues of politicians to rob Clay of his rights,--the
miserable party warfare which raged so furiously and blindly from 1825
to 1836. I need not here dwell on the contentions and slanders and
hatreds which were so prominent at the time the two great national
parties were formed, and which divided the country until the Civil War.

The most notable portion of Henry Clay's life was his great career as
Senator in Congress, which he entered in December, 1831, two years after
the inauguration of President Jackson. The first subject of national
importance to which he gave his attention was the one with which his
name and fame are mostly identified,--the tariff, to a moderate form of
which the President in 1829 had announced himself to be favorable, but
which he afterwards more and more opposed, on the ground that the
revenues already produced were in excess of the needs of the government.
The subject was ably discussed,--first, in a resolution introduced by
Senator Clay declarative of principles involving some reduction of
duties on articles that did not compete with American industries, but
maintaining generally the "American System" successfully introduced by
him in the tariff of 1824; and then, in a bill framed in accordance with
the resolution,--both of which were passed in 1832.

Clay's speeches on this tariff of 1832 were among the strongest and
ablest he ever delivered. Indeed, he apparently exhausted his subject.
Little has been added by political economists to the arguments for
protection since his day. His main points were: that it was beneficial
to all parts of the Union, and absolutely necessary to much the largest
portion; that the price of cotton and of other agricultural products had
been sustained and a decline averted, by the protective system; that
even if the foreign demand for cotton had been diminished by the
operation of this system (the plea of the Southern leaders), the
diminution had been more than compensated in the additional demand
created at home; that the competition produced by the system reduces the
price of manufactured articles,--for which he adduced his facts; and
finally that the policy of free trade, without benefiting any section of
the Union, would, by subjecting us to foreign legislation, regulated by
foreign interests, lead to the prostration and ruin of our
manufactories.

It must be remembered that this speech was made in 1832, before our
manufactures--really "infant industries"--could compete successfully
with foreigners in anything. At the present time there are many
interests which need no protection at all, and the protection of these
interests, as a matter of course, fosters monopolies. And hence, the
progress which is continually being made in manufactures, enabling this
country to be independent of foreign industries, makes protective duties
on many articles undesirable now which were expedient and even necessary
sixty years ago,--an illustration of the fallacy of tariffs founded on
immutable principles, when they are simply matters of expediency
according to the changing interests of nations.

We have already, in the lecture on Jackson, described the Nullification
episode, with the threatening protests against the tariff of 1828 and
its amendments of 1832; Jackson's prompt action; and Clay's patriotic
and earnest efforts resulting in the Compromise Tariff of March, 1833.
By this bill duties were to be gradually reduced from 25 per cent _ad
valorem_ to 20 per cent. Mr. Webster was not altogether satisfied, nor
were the extreme tariff men, who would have run the risks of the
threatened nullification by South Carolina. It proved, however, a
popular measure, and did much to tranquillize the nation; yet it did not
wholly satisfy the South, nor any extreme partisans, as compromises
seldom do, and Clay lost many friends in consequence, a result which he
anticipated and manfully met. It led to one of his finest bursts of
eloquence.

"I have," said he, "been accused of ambition in presenting this measure.
Ambition! inordinate ambition! Low, grovelling souls who are utterly
incapable of elevating themselves to the higher and nobler duties of
pure patriotism--beings who, forever keeping their own selfish aims in
view, decide all public measures by their presumed influence on their
own aggrandizement--judge me by the venal rule which they prescribe for
themselves. I am no candidate for any office in the gift of these
States, united or separated. I never wish, never expect to be. Pass this
bill, tranquillize the country, restore confidence and affection for
the Union, and I am willing to go to Ashland and renounce public service
forever. Yes, I have ambition, but it is the ambition of being the
humble instrument in the hands of Providence to reconcile a divided
people, once more to revive concord and harmony in a distracted
land,--the pleasing ambition of contemplating the glorious spectacle of
a free, united, prosperous, and fraternal people."

The policy which Mr. Clay advocated with so much ability during the
whole of his congressional life was that manufactures, as well as the
culture of rice, tobacco, and cotton, would enrich this country, and
therefore ought to be fostered and protected by Congress, whatever Mr.
Hayne or Mr. Calhoun should say to the contrary, or even General Jackson
himself, whose sympathies were with the South, and consequently with
slavery. Therefore Clay is called the father of the American System,--he
was the advocate, not of any local interests, but the interests of the
country as a whole, thus establishing his claim to be a statesman rather
than a politician who never looks beyond local and transient interests,
and is especially subservient to party dictation. The Southern
politicians may not have wished to root out manufacturing altogether,
but it was their policy to keep the agricultural interests in the
ascendent.

Soon after the close of the session of the Twenty-Second Congress, Mr.
Clay, on his return to Ashland, put into execution a project he had long
contemplated of visiting the Eastern cities. At that period even an
excursion of one thousand miles was a serious affair, and attended with
great discomfort. Wherever Mr. Clay went he was received with
enthusiasm. Receptions, public dinners, and fetes succeeded each other
in all the principal cities. In Baltimore, in Wilmington, and in
Philadelphia, he was entertained at balls and banquets. In New York he
was the guest of the city and was visited by thousands eager to shake
his hand. The company controlling the line between New York and Boston
tendered to him the use of one of their fine steamers to Rhode Island,
where every social honor was publicly given him. In Boston he was
welcomed by a committee of forty, in behalf of the young men, headed by
Mr. Winthrop, and was received by a committee of old men, when he was
eloquently addressed by Mr. William Sullivan, and was subsequently
waited upon by the mayor and aldermen of the city. Deputations from
Portland and Portsmouth besought the honor of a visit. At Charlestown,
on Bunker Hill Edward Everett welcomed him in behalf of the city, and
pronounced one of his felicitous speeches. At Faneuil Hall a delegation
of young men presented him with a pair of silver pitchers. He was even
dragged to lyceum lectures during the two weeks he remained in Boston.
He thence proceeded amid public demonstrations to Worcester,
Springfield, Hartford, Northampton, Pittsfield, Troy, Albany, and back
again to New York. The carriage-makers of Newark begged his acceptance
of one of their most costly carriages for the use of his wife. No one
except Washington, Lafayette, and General Grant ever received more
enthusiastic ovations in New England,--all in recognition of his
services as a statesman, without his having reached any higher position
than that of Senator or Secretary of State.

In such a rapid review of the career of Mr. Clay as we are obliged to
make, it is impossible to enter upon the details of political movements
and the shifting grounds of party organizations and warfare. We must
not, however, lose sight of that most characteristic element of Clay's
public life,--his perennial candidature for the presidency. We have
already seen him in 1824, when his failure was evident, throwing his
influence into the scale for John Quincy Adams. In 1828, as Adams'
Secretary of State, he could not be a rival to his chief, and so escaped
the whelming overthrow with which Jackson defeated their party. In 1832
he was an intensely popular candidate of the National Republicans,
especially the merchants and manufacturers of the North and East and the
friends of the United States Bank; but Southern hostility to his tariff
principles and the rally of "the people" in support of Jackson's war on
moneyed institutions threw him out again in notable defeat. In 1836 and
again in 1840, Clay was prominent before the Conventions of the Whig or
National Republican party, but other interests subordinated his claims
to nomination, and the election of Van Buren by the Democrats in 1836,
and of Harrison by the Whigs in 1840, kept him still in abeyance. In
1844 Clay was again the Whig candidate, the chief issue being the
admission of Texas, but he was defeated by Polk and the Democrats; and
after that the paramount slavery question pushed him aside, and he
dropped out of the race.

The bitter war which Clay made on the administration of General Jackson,
especially in reference to the United States Bank question, has already
been noticed, and although it is an important passage in his history, I
must pass it by to avoid repetition, which is always tedious. All I
would say in this connection is that Clay was foremost among the
supporters of the Bank, and opposed not only the removal of deposits but
also the sub-treasury scheme of Mr. Van Buren that followed the failure
to maintain the Bank. Some of his ablest oratory was expended in the
unsuccessful opposition to these Democratic measures.

In 1837, came the bursting of the money-bubble, which had turned
everybody's head and led to the most extravagant speculations, high
prices, high rents, and lofty expectations in all parts of the country.
This was followed of course by the commercial crisis, the general
distress, and all the evils which Clay and Webster had predicted, but to
which the government of Van Buren seemed to be indifferent while
enforcing its pet schemes, against all the settled laws of trade and the
experiences of the past. But the country was elastic after all, and a
great reaction set in. New political combinations were made to express
the general indignation against the responsible party in power, and the
Whig party arose, joined by many leading Democrats like Rives of
Virginia and Tallmadge of New York, while Calhoun went over to Van
Buren, and dissolved his alliance with Clay, which in reality for
several years had been hollow. In the presidential election of 1840 Mr.
Van Buren was defeated by an overwhelming majority, and the Whigs came
into power under the presidency of General Harrison, chosen not for
talents or services, but for his availability.

The best that can be said of Harrison is that he was an honest man. He
was a small farmer in Ohio with no definite political principles, but
had gained some military _eclat_ in the War of 1812. The presidential
campaign of 1840 is well described by Carl Schurz as "a popular frolic,"
with its "monster mass-meetings," with log-cabins, raccoons, hard
cider, with "huge picnics," and ridiculous "doggerel about 'Tippecanoe
and Tyler too.'" The reason why it called out so great enthusiasm was
frivolous enough in itself, but it expressed the popular reaction
against the misrule of Jackson and Van Buren, which had plunged the
country into financial distress, notwithstanding the general prosperity
which existed when Jackson was raised to power,--a lesson to all future
presidents who set up their own will against the collected experience
and wisdom of the leading intellects of the country.

President Harrison offered to the great chieftain of the Whig party the
first place in his cabinet, which he declined, preferring his senatorial
dignity and power. Besides, he had been Secretary of State under John
Quincy Adams and found the office irksome. He knew full well that his
true arena was the Senate Chamber,--which also was most favorable to his
presidential aspirations. But Webster was induced to take the office
declined by Clay, having for his associates in the cabinet such able men
as Ewing, Badger, Bell, Crittenden, and Granger.

Mr. Clay had lost no time, when Congress assembled in December, 1840, in
offering a resolution for the repeal of the sub-treasury act; but as the
Democrats had still a majority in the Senate the resolution failed.
When the next Congress assembled, General Harrison having lived only one
month after his inauguration and the Vice-president, John Tyler, having
succeeded him, the sub-treasury act was repealed; but the President
refused to give his signature to the bill for the re-charter of the
United States Bank, to the dismay of the Whigs, and the deep
disappointment of Clay, who at once severed his alliance with Tyler, and
became his bitter opponent, carrying with him the cabinet, which
resigned, with the exception of Webster, who was engaged in important
negotiations in reference to the northeastern boundary. The new cabinet
was made up of Tyler's personal friends, who had been Jackson Democrats,
and the fruits of the great Whig victory were therefore in a measure
lost. The Democratic party gradually regained its ascendency, which it
retained with a brief interval till the election of Abraham Lincoln.

A question greater than banks and tariffs, if moral questions are
greater than material ones, now began again to be discussed in Congress,
ending only in civil war. This was the slavery question. I have already
spoken of the Missouri Compromise of 1820, which Mr. Clay has the chief
credit of effecting, but the time now came for him to meet the question
on other grounds. The abolitionists, through the constant growth of the
antislavery sentiment throughout the North, had become a power, and
demanded that slavery should be abolished in the District of Columbia.

And here again I feel it best to defer what I have to say on antislavery
agitation to the next lecture, especially as Clay was mixed up in it
only by his attempt to pour oil on the troubled waters. He himself was a
Southerner, and was not supposed to take a leading part in the conflict,
although opposed to slavery on philanthropic grounds. Without being an
abolitionist, he dreaded the extension of the slave-power; yet as he
wished to be President he was afraid of losing votes, and did not wish
to alienate either the North or the South. But for his inordinate desire
for the presidential office he might have been a leader in the
antislavery movement. All his sympathies were with freedom. He took the
deepest interest in colonization, and was president of the Colonization
Society, which had for its aim the sending of manumitted negroes
to Liberia.

The question of the annexation of Texas, forced to the front in the
interest of the slaveholding States, united the Democrats and elected
James K. Polk President in 1844; while Clay and the Whig Party, who
confidently expected success, lost the election by reason of the growth
of the Antislavery or Liberty party which cast a large vote in New
York,--the pivotal State, without whose support in the Electoral College
the carrying of the other Northern States went for nought. The Mexican
War followed; and in 1846 David Wilmot of Pennsylvania moved an
amendment to a bill appropriating $2,000,000 for final negotiations,
providing that in all territories acquired from Mexico slavery should be
prohibited. The Wilmot Proviso was lost, but arose during the next four
years, again and again, in different forms, but always as the standard
of the antislavery Northerners.

When the antislavery agitation had reached an alarming extent, and
threatened to drive the South into secession from the Union, Clay
appeared once again in his great role as a pacificator. To preserve the
Union was the dearest object of his public life. He would by a timely
concession avert the catastrophe which the Southern leaders threatened,
and he probably warded off the inevitable combat when, in 1850, he made
his great speech, in favor of sacrificing the Wilmot Proviso, and
enacting a more stringent fugitive-slave law.

In 1848, embittered by having been set aside as the nominee of the Whig
party for the presidency in favor of General Taylor, one of the
successful military chieftains in the Mexican War,--who as a Southern
man, with no political principles or enemies, was thought to be more
"available,"--Clay had retired from the Senate, and for a year had
remained at Ashland, nominally and avowedly "out of politics," but
intensely interested, and writing letters about the new slavery
complications. In December, 1849, he was returned to the Senate, and
inevitably became again one of the foremost in all the debates.

When the conflict had grown hot and fierce, in January, 1850, Clay
introduced a bill for harmonizing all interests. As to the disputed
question of slavery in the new territory, he would pacify the North by
admitting California as a free State, and abolishing slavery and the
slave-trade in the District of Columbia; while the South was to be
placated by leaving Utah and New Mexico unrestricted as to slavery, and
by a more efficient law for the pursuit and capture of fugitive slaves.
His speech occupied two days, delivered in great physical exhaustion,
and was "an appeal to the North for concession and to the South for
peace." Like Webster, who followed with his renowned "Seventh-of-March
speech" and who alienated Massachusetts because he did not go far enough
for freedom, Clay showed that there could be no peaceable secession,
that secession meant war, and that it would be war to propagate a wrong,
in which the sympathy of all mankind would be against us.

Calhoun followed, defending the interests of slavery, which he called
"the rights of the South," though too weak to deliver his speech, which
was read for him. He clearly saw the issue,--that slavery was doomed if
the Union were preserved,--and therefore welcomed war before the North
should be prepared for it. It was the South Carolinian's last great
effort in the Senate, for the hand of death was upon him. He realized
that if the South did not resist and put down agitation on the slavery
question, the cause would be lost. It was already virtually lost, since
the conflict between freedom and slavery was manifestly irrepressible,
and would come in spite of concessions, which only put off the evil day.

On the 11th of March Seward, of New York, now becoming prominent in the
Senate, spoke, deprecating all compromise on a matter of principle, and
declaring that there was a "higher law than the Constitution itself." He
therefore would at least prevent the extension of slavery by any means
in the power of Congress, on the ground of moral right, not of political
expediency, undismayed by all the threats of secession. Two weeks
afterward Chase of Ohio took the same ground as Seward. From that time
Seward and Chase supplanted Webster and Clay in the confidence of the
North, on all antislavery questions.

After seven months of acrimonious debate in both houses of Congress and
during a session of extraordinary length, the compromise measures of
Clay were substantially passed,--a truce rather than a peace, which put
off the dreadful issue for eleven years longer. It was the best thing
to do, for the South was in deadly earnest, exceedingly exasperated, and
blinded. A war in 1851 would have had uncertain issues, with such a man
as Fillmore in the presidential chair, to which he had succeeded on the
death of Taylor. He was a most respectable man and of fair abilities,
but not of sufficient force and character to guide the nation. It was
better to submit for a while to the Fugitive Slave Law than drive the
South out of the Union, with the logical consequences of the separation.
But the abolitionists had no idea of submitting to a law which was
inhuman, even to pacify the South, and the law was resisted in Boston,
which again kindled the smothered flames, to the great disappointment
and alarm of Clay, for he thought that his compromise bill had settled
the existing difficulties.

In the meantime the health of the great pacificator began to decline. He
was forced by a threatening and distressing cough to seek the air of
Cuba, which did him no good. He was obliged to decline an invitation of
the citizens of New York to address them on the affairs of the nation,
but wrote a long letter instead, addressed more to the South than to the
North, for he more than any other man, saw the impending dangers.
Although there was a large majority at the South in favor of Union, yet
the minority had become furious, and comprised the ablest leaders,
concerning whose intention such men as Seward and Chase and John P.
Hale were sceptical. In the ferment of excited passions it is not safe
to calculate on men's acting according to reason. It is wiser to predict
that they will act against reason. Here Clay was wiser in his anxiety
than the Northern statesmen generally, who thought there would be peace
because it was reasonable.

Clay did not live to see all compromises thrown to the winds. He died
June 29, 1852, in the seventy-sixth year of his age, at the National
Hotel in Washington. Imposing funeral ceremonies took place amid general
lamentation, and the whole country responded with glowing eulogies.

I have omitted allusion to other speeches which the great statesman made
in his long public career, and have presented only the salient points of
his life, in which his parliamentary eloquence blazed with the greatest
heat; for he was the greatest orator, in general estimation, that this
country has produced, although inferior to Webster in massive power, in
purity of style, in weight of argument, and breadth of knowledge. To my
mind his speeches are diffuse and exaggerated, and wanting in
simplicity. But what reads the best is not always the most effective in
debate. Certainly no American orator approached him in electrical power.
No one had more devoted friends. No one was more generally beloved. No
one had greater experience, or rendered more valuable public services.

And yet he failed to reach the presidency, to which for thirty years he
had aspired, and which at times seemed within his grasp. He had made
powerful enemies, especially in Jackson and his partisans, and
politicians dreaded his ascendency, and feared that as President he
would be dictatorial, though not perhaps arbitrary like Jackson. He
would have been a happier man if he had not so eagerly coveted a prize
which it seems is unattainable by mere force of intellect, and is often
conferred apparently by accidental circumstances. It is too high an
office to be sought, either by genius or services, except in the
military line; but even General Scott, the real hero of the Mexican war,
failed in his ambitious aspirations, as well as Webster, Clay, Calhoun,
Benton, Seward, Chase, and Douglas, while less prominent men were
selected, and probably ever will be. This may be looked at as a rebuke
to political ambition, which ought to be satisfied with the fame
conferred by genius rather than that of place, which never yet made a
man really great. The presidency would have added nothing to the glory
which Clay won in the Congress of the United States. It certainly added
nothing to the fame of Grant, which was won on the battlefield, and it
detracted from that of Jackson. And yet Clay felt keenly the
disappointment, that with all his talents and services, weaker men were
preferred to him.

Aside from the weakness of Clay in attempting to grasp a phantom, his
character stands out in an interesting light on the whole. He had his
faults and failings which did not interfere with his ambition, and great
and noble traits which more than balanced them, the most marked of which
was the patriotism whose fire never went out. If any man ever loved his
country, and devoted all the energies of his mind and soul to promote
its welfare and secure its lasting union, that man was the illustrious
Senator from Kentucky, whose eloquent pleadings were household words for
nearly half a century throughout the length and breadth of the land.
With him there was no East, no West, no North, and no South, to be
especially favored or served, but the whole country, one and indivisible
for ages to come. And no other man in high position had a more glowing
conviction of its ever-increasing power and glory than he.

"Whether," says his best biographer, "he thundered against British
tyranny on the seas, or urged the recognition of the South American
sister republics, or attacked the high-handed conduct of the military
chieftain in the Florida war, or advocated protection and internal
improvements, or assailed the one-man power and spoils politics in the
person of Andrew Jackson, or entreated for compromise and conciliation
regarding the tariff or slavery,--there was always ringing through his
words a fervid plea for his country, a zealous appeal in behalf of the
honor and the future greatness and glory of the republic, or an anxious
warning lest the Union be put in jeopardy."

One thing is certain, that no man in the country exercised so great an
influence, for a generation, in shaping the policy of national
legislation as Henry Clay, a policy which, on the whole, has proved
enlightened, benignant, and useful. And hence his name and memory will
not only be honorably mentioned by historians, but will be fondly
cherished so long as American institutions shall endure. He is one of
the greater lights in the galaxy of American stars, as he was the
advocate of principles which have proved conducive to national
prosperity in the first century of the nation's history. It is a great
thing to give shape to the beneficent institutions of a country, and
especially to be a source of patriotic inspiration to its people. It is
greater glory than to be enrolled in the list of presidents, especially
if they are mentioned only as the fortunate occupants of a great office
to which they were blindly elected. Of the long succession of the
occupants of the Papal Chair, the most august of worldly dignities, not
one in twenty has left a mark, or is of any historical importance,
while hundreds of churchmen and theologians in comparatively humble
positions have left an immortal fame. The glory of Clay is not dimmed
because he failed in reaching a worthy object of ambition. It is enough
to be embalmed in the hearts of the people as a national benefactor, and
to shine as a star of the first magnitude in the political firmament.

AUTHORITIES.

Carl Schurz's Life of Henry Clay is far the ablest and most interesting
that I have read. The Life of Clay by Colton is fuller and more
pretentious, but is diffuse. Benton's Thirty Years in Congress should be
consulted; also the various Lives of Webster and Calhoun. See also
Wilson's Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America. The writings of
the political economists, like Sumner, Walker, Carey, and others, should
be consulted in reference to tariffs. The Life of Andrew Jackson sheds
light on Clay's hostility to the hero of New Orleans.

 

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