first appearance in the House gave him, at once, national standing. His master in political doctrine and his partisan chief, Thomas Jefferson, was gone from the scene; and Clay could now be a planet instead of a satellite. Restive as he had been under the arrogant aggressions of England, he had schooled himself to patient waiting, aided by Jefferson's benign sentiments and great example. But his voice was now for war; and such was the temper of the public in those months, that the eloquence of Henry Clay, seconded by the power of the Speaker, rendered the war unavoidable. It is agreed that to Henry Clay, Speaker of the House of Representatives, more than to any other individual, we owe the war of 1812. When the House hesitated, it was he who, descending from the chair, spoke so as to reassure it. When President Madison faltered, it was the stimulus of Clay's resistless presence that put heart into him again. If the people seemed reluctant, it was Clay's trumpet harangues that fired their minds. And when the war was declared, it was he, more than President ́or Cabinet or War Committee, that carried it along upon his shoulders. All our wars begin in disaster; it was Clay who restored the country to confidence when it was disheartened by the loss of Detroit and its betrayed garrison. It was Clay alone who could encounter without flinching the acrid sarcasm of John Randolph, and exhibit the nothingness of his telling arguments. It was he alone who could adequately deal with Quincy of Massachusetts, who alluded to the Speaker and his friends as "young politicians, with their pin-feathers yet unshed, the shell still sticking upon them, — perfectly unfledged, though they fluttered and cackled on the floor." Clay it was whose clarion notes rang out over departing regiments, and kindled within them the martial fire; and it was Clay's speeches which the soldiers loved to read by the camp-fire. Fiery Jackson read them, and found them perfectly to his taste. Gentle Harrison read them to his Tippecanoe heroes. When the war was going all wrong in the first year, President Madison wished to appoint Clay Commander-in-Chief of the land forces; but, said Gallatin, "What shall we do without him in the House of Representatives?" Henry Clay was not a man of blood. On the contrary, he was eminently pacific, both in his disposition and in his politics. Yet he believed in the war of 1812, and his whole heart was in it. The question occurs, then, Was it right and best for the United States to declare war against Great Britain in 1812? The proper answer to this question depends upon another: What ought we to think of Napoleon Bonaparte? If Napoleon was, what English Tories and American Federalists said he was, the enemy of mankind, — and if England, in warring upon him, was fighting the battle of mankind, then the injuries received by neutral nations might have been borne without dishonor. When those giant belligerents were hurling continents at one another, the damage done to bystanders from the flying off of fragments was a thing to be expected, and submitted to as their share of the general ruin, — to be compensated by the final suppression of the common foe. To have endured this, and even to have submitted, for a time, to the searching of ships, so that not one Englishman should be allowed to skulk from such a fight, had not been pusillanimity, but magnanimity. But if, as English Whigs and American Democrats contended, Napoleon Bonaparte was the armed soldier of democracy, the rightful heir of the Revolution, the sole alternative to anarchy, the legitimate ruler of France; if the responsibility of those enormous desolating wars does not lie at his door, but belongs to George III. and the Tory party of England; if it is a fact that Napoleon always stood ready to make a just peace, which George III. and William Pitt refused, not in the interest of mankind and civilization, but in that of the Tory party and the allied dynasties, then America was right in resenting the searching and seizure of her ships, and right, after exhausting every peaceful expedient, in declaring war. - That this was really the point in dispute between our two parties is shown in the debates, newspapers, and pamphlets of the time. The Federalists, as Mr. Clay observed in one of his speeches, compared Napoleon to "every monster and beast, from that mentioned in the Revelation down to the most insignificant quadruped." The Republicans, on the contrary, spoke of him always with moderation and decency, sometimes with commenda tion, and occasionally he was toasted at their public dinners with enthusiasm. Mr. Clay himself, while lamenting his enormous power and the suspension of ancient nationalities, always had a lurking sympathy with him. "Bonaparte," said he in his great war speech of 1813, "has been called the scourge of mankind, the destroyer of Europe, the great robber, the infidel, the modern Attila, and Heaven knows by what other names. Really, gentlemen remind me of an obscure lady, in a city not very far off, who also took it into her head, in conversation with an accomplished French gentleman, to talk of the affairs of Europe. She, too, spoke of the destruction of the balance of power; stormed and raged about the insatiable ambition of the Emperor; called him the curse of mankind, the destroyer of Europe. The Frenchman listened to her with perfect patience, and when she had ceased said to her, with ineffable politeness, Madam, it would give my master, the Emperor, infinite pain if he knew how hard 6 ly you thought of him.'" This brief passage suffices to show the prevailing tone of the two parties when Napoleon was the theme of discourse. It is, of course, impossible for us to enter into this question of Napoleon's moral position. Intelligent opinion, ever since the means of forming an opinion were accessible, has been constantly judging Napoleon more leniently, and the Tory party more severely. We can only say, that, in our opinion, the war of 1812 was just and necessary; and that Henry Clay, both in supporting Mr. Jefferson's policy of non-intercourse and in supporting President Madison's policy of war, deserved well of his country. Postponed that war might have been. But, human nature being what it is, and the English government being what it was, we do not believe that the United States could ever have been distinctly recognized as one of the powers of the earth without another fight for it. The war being ended and the Federal party extinct, upon the young Republicans, who had carried on the war, devolved the task of "reconstruction." Before they had made much progress in it, they came within an ace of being consigned to private life, Clay himself having as narrow an escape as any of them. And here we may note one point of superiority of the American government over others. In other countries it can sometimes be the interest of politicians to foment and declare war. A war strengthens a tottering dynasty, an imperial parvenu, an odious tyrant, a feeble ministry; and the glory won in battle on land and sea redounds to the credit of government, without raising up competitors for its high places. But let American politicians take note. It is never their interest to bring on a war; because a war is certain to generate a host of popular heroes to outshine them and push them from their places. It may sometimes be their duty to advocate war, but it is never their interest. At this moment we see both parties striving which shall present to the people the most attractive list of military candidates; and when a busy ward politician seeks his reward in custom-house or department, he finds a dozen lame soldiers competing for the place; one of whom gets it, as he ought. What city has presented Mr. Stanton with a house, or Mr. Welles with fifty thousand dollars' worth of government bonds? Calhoun precipitated the country into a war with Mexico; but what did he gain by it but new bitterness of disappointment, while the winner of three little battles was elected President? Henry Clay was the animating soul of the war of 1812, and we honor him for it; but while Jackson, Brown, Scott, Perry, and Decatur came out of that war the idols of the nation, Clay was promptly notified that his footing in the public councils, his hold of the public favor, was by no means stable. His offence was that he voted for the compensation bill of 1816, which merely changed the pay of members of Congress from the pittance of six dollars a day to the pittance of fifteen hundred dollars a year. He who before was lord paramount in Kentucky saved his seat only by prodigious efforts on the stump, and by exerting all the magic of his presence in the canvass. No one ever bore cutting disappointment with an airier grace than this high-spirited thorough-bred; but he evidently felt this apparent injustice. Some years later, when it was proposed in Congress to pension Commodore Perry's mother, Mr. Clay, in a speech of five minutes, totally extinguished the proposition. Pointing to the vast rewards bestowed upon such successful soldiers as Marlborough, Napoleon, and Wellington, he said, with thrilling effect: "How different is the fate of the statesman! In his quiet and less brilliant career, after having advanced, by the wisdom of his measures, the national prosperity to the highest point of elevation, and after having sacrificed his fortune, his time, and perhaps his health, in the public service, what, too often, are the rewards that await him? Who thinks of his family, impoverished by the devotion of his attention to his country, instead of their advancement? Who proposes to pension him, — much less his mother?" He spoke the more feelingly, because he, who could have earned more than the President's income by the practice of his profession, was often pinched for money, and was once obliged to leave Congress for the sole purpose of taking care of his shattered fortune. He felt the importance of this subject in a national point of view. He wrote in 1817 to a friend: "Short as has been my service in the public councils, I have seen some of the most valuable mer rs quitting the body from their inability to sustain the of these sacrifices. And in process of time, I apprehe. this mischief will be more and more felt. Even now there are few, if any, instances of members dedicating their lives to the duties of legislation. Members stay a year or two; curiosity is satisfied; the novelty wears off; expensive habits are brought or acquired; their affairs at home are neglected; their fortunes are wasting away; and they are compelled to retire." W The eight years of Mr. Monroe's administration to 1825 reer. were the most brilliant period of Henry Clay's caHis position as Speaker of the House of Representatives would naturally have excluded him from leadership; but the House was as fond of hearing him speak as he could be of speaking, and opportunities were continually furnished him by going into Committee of the Whole. In a certain sense he was in opposition to the administration. When one party has so frequently and decidedly beaten the party opposed to it, that the defeated |