I do not possess, a boldness to which I dare not aspire, a valor which I can not covet. I can not lay myself down in the way of the welfare and happiness of my country. That I can not, I have not the courage to do. I can not interpose the power with which I may be invested-a power conferred, not for my personal benefit, nor for my aggrandizement, but for my country's good-to check her onward march to greatness and glory. I have not courage enough, I am too cowardly for that. I would not, I dare not, in the exercise of such a trust, lie down, and place my body across the path that leads my country to prosperity and happiness. This is a sort of courage widely different from that which a man may display in his private conduct and personal relations. Personal or private courage is totally distinct from that higher and nobler courage which prompts the patriot to offer himself a voluntary sacrifice to his country's good.

"Nor did 1 say, as the senator represents, that the president should have resigned. I intimated no personal wish or desire that he should resign. I referred to the fact of a memorable resignation in his public life. And what I did say was, that there were other alternatives before him besides vetoing the bill; and that it was worthy of his consideration, whether consistency did not require that the example which he had set when he had a constituency of one state, should not be followed when he had a constituency commensurate with the whole Union. Another alternative was, to suffer the bill, without his signature, to pass into a law under the provisions of the constitution. And I must confess, I see, in this, no such escaping by the back door, no such jumping out of the window, as the senator talks about. Apprehensions of the imputation of the want of firmness sometimes impel us to perform rash and inconsiderate acts. It is the greatest courage to be able to bear the imputation of the want of courage. But pride, vanity, egotism, so unamiable and offensive in private life, are vices which partake of the character of crimes in the conduct of public affairs. The unfortunate victim of these passions can not see beyond the little, petty, contemptible circle of his own personal interests. All his thoughts are withdrawn from his country, and concentrated on his consistency, his firmness, himself. The high, the exalted, the sublime emotions of a patriotism, which, soaring toward heaven, rises far above all mean, low, or selfish things, and is absorbed by one soul-transporting thought of the good and the glory of one's country, are never felt in his impenetrable bosom. That patriotism which, catching its inspirations from the immortal God, and leaving at an immeasurable distance below all lesser, grovelling, personal interests and feelings, animates and prompts to deeds of self-sacrifice, of valor, of devotion, and of death itself—that is public virtue; that is the noblest, the sublimest of all public virtues !

"I said nothing of any obligation on the part of the president to conform his judgment to the opinions of the senate and house of representatives, although the senator argued as if I had, and persevered in so arguing, after repeated corrections. I said no such thing. I know and respect the perfect independence of each department, acting within its proper sphere, of other departments. But I referred to the majorities in the two houses of Congress as further and strong evidence of the opinion of the people of the United States in favor of the establishment of a bank of the United States. And I contended that, according to the doctrine of instructions which prevailed in Virginia, and of which the president is a disciple, and, in pursuance of the example already cited, he ought not to have rejected the bill.

"I have heard that, on his arrival at the seat of the general government, to enter upon the duties of the office of vice-president, in March last, when interrogated how far he meant to conform, in his new station, to certain peculiar opinions which were held in Virginia, he made this patriotic and noble reply: 'I am vice-president of the United States, and not of the state of Virginia; and I shall be governed by the wishes and opinions of my constituents.' When I heard of this encouraging and satisfactory reply, believing, as I most religiously do, that a large majority of the people of the United States are in favor of a national bank (and gentlemen may shut their eyes to the fact, deny, or dispute, or reason it away as they please, but it is my conscientious conviction that two thirds, if not more, of the people of the United States desire such an institution), I thought I beheld a sure and certain guaranty for the fulfilment of the wishes of the people of the United States. I thought it impossible, that the wants and wishes of a great people, who had bestowed such unbounded and generous confidence, and conferred on him such exalted honors, should be disregarded and disappointed. It did not enter into my imagination to conceive, that one, who had shown so much deference and respect to the presumed sentiments of a single state, should display less toward the sentiments of the whole nation.

"I hope, Mr. President, that, in performing the painful duty which had devolved on me, I have not transcended the limits of legitimate debate. I repeat, in all truth and sincerity, the assurance to the senate and to the country, that nothing but a stern, reluctant, and indispensable sense of honor and of duty could have forced from me the response which I have made to the president's objections. But, instead of yielding without restraint to the feelings of disappointment and mortification excited by the perusal of his message, I have anxiously endeavored to temper the notice of it, which I have been compelled to take, by the respect due to the office of chief magistrate, and by the personal regard and esteem which J have ever entertained for its present incumbent."

None can fail to perceive, that these remarks are not of an ordinary character, even for Mr. Clay. But the calm dignity of their aspect from the pages where they lie recorded, in an imperfect report, can afford but a very faint idea of the manner, voice, intonations, pauses, bursts, thunders, low yet audible whispers, and all other attributes ascribed to this orator, on such occasions, in chapter iv., of the first volume. Many were startled from their seats, in admiration and ecstacy, and then sat down, as they afterward declared, because they could not stand. The senate immediately adjourned, as if conscious of the overpowering solemnity of the occasion, and a troop of friends-among whom were some political opponents-involuntarily surrounded Mr. Clay, offering him wine and water, while he wiped the floods of passion from his brows.

Not more than once since this occasion-probably it will never occur again-has Mr. Clay burst forth with all his astonishing powers, as a public orator. That was in May, 1843, as described in the chapter of this work above alluded to, when he addressed his fellow-citizens of Kentucky, at Lexington, in defence of himself, and of the twenty-seventh Congress. He was then strongly moved by two unlike emotions-pain that his friends had expressed some regret for the appointment he had made, and a virtuous indignation for the base calumnies that had been propagated against him; and these sentiments set in motion every other of which man is susceptible, and raised them to the highest pitch. From the first word he spoke, to the end, he was everything of which he was capable, as an orator, and the effect was prodigious. In the same manner, in this reply to Mr. Rives, powerful emotions roused every passion of his soul. The state of the country, the disappointment occasioned by the conduct of the acting president, the fact that one senator on that floor could rise in vindication of such conduct, and the manner of his doing it, with a thousand thoughts rushing out from the past, and looking into the future, as allied to the momentous interests of the republic, for the preservation and success of which he had labored so long and with so much concern and rising as he did from a sudden impulse, imparted by a friend-all combined to stir up his soul to one of those mighty efforts, which, in the course of his life, have now and then excited so much amazement, and produced such marvellous effects.

CHAPTER XV.

MR. CLAY AND THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS.

What gained and What lost.-Perfidy of the Acting President.—Mr. Clay's Position. His Plan of National Policy and Reform, submitted in the Form of Resolutions.-Statement and Consideration of this Plan.-Objects aimed at in 1840.-Doom of the then existing Administration.-Could not reform.-Must therefore forge Chains.-Project for a Standing Army of 200,000.—The SubTreasury.-Disclosures of Extravagance and Corruption made by the TwentySeventh Congress.-Their Fidelity.

THE great measure of the twenty-seventh Congress was the tariff of 1842, which rescued the country, and was sufficient to secure its prosperity, under many disadvantages. Nearly all the other great measures of national policy, contemplated by the party which came into power with such an unprecedented and overwhelming majority-among which as most prominent, were the reestablishment of a national currency, and the distribution of the proceeds of the public lands among the states-were defeated by the political defection and faithless conduct of the acting chief magistrate.

Nothing of material consequence was effected for the relief of the country, at the extra session of the twenty-seventh Congress, except the repeal of the sub-treasury, and the rescue of the debtor portion of the community by the passage of a bankrupt law—a most undesirable necessity, created by the wide-spread disasters of misrule, and a measure, which is always sure to make as many more enemies than friends, as the number of creditors exceeds that of the debtors relieved, and therefore demanding eminent moral courage and patriotic resolution to put it in operation. It was the beginning of the misfortunes of the party raised to power, that the only new and great measure which the perversity of the acting chief magistrate, in the use of the regal power of the constitution, would allow them to pass at this session, was an obnoxious one That very power, for ever subverting the public will.

as expressed by its representative organs, which Mr. Clay had been fighting against so long, had started up, with new and hydra heads, at the moment when it was supposed to be crushed, and in the very agent, who was appointed to suppress it! And it appeared again to disappoint the nation of the object of its great and agonizing effort for relief.

Nevertheless, even in these discouraging circumstances, Mr. Clay was still at his post; and his plan of public policy, which he thought it his duty to submit to this Congress, before he retired for ever from that field of labor where he had toiled, with little interruption, nearly forty years, was propounded to the senate in the resolutions he there offered on the first of March, 1842, and explained and advocated in his speech made on the same occasion. He begins as follows:

"Mr. President, the resolutions which have just been read, and which are to form the subject of the present discussion, are of the greatest importance, involving interests of the highest character, and a system of policy which, in my opinion, lies at the bottom of any restoration of the prosperity of the country. In discussing them, I would address myself to you in the language of plainness, of soberness, and truth. I did not come here as if I were entering a garden full of flowers, and of the richest shrubbery, to cull the tea-roses, the japonicas, the jasmines, and woodbines, and weave them into a garland of the gayest colors, that, by the beauty of their assortment, and by their fragrance, I may gratify fair ladies. Nor is it my wish-it is far, far from my wish-to revive any subjects of a party character, or which might be calculated to renew the animosities which unhappily have hitherto prevailed between the two great political parties of the country. My course is far different from this; it is to speak to you of the sad condition of our country; to point out, not the remote and original, but the proximate, the immediate causes which have produced, and are Îikely to continue our distresses, and to suggest a remedy. If any one, in or out of the senate, has imagined it to be my intention, on this occasion, to indulge in any ambitious display of language, to attempt any rhetorical flights, or to deal in any other figures than figures of arithmetic, he will find himself greatly disappointed. The farmer, if he is a judicious man, does not begin to plough till he has first laid off his land, and marked it off at proper distances, by planting stakes, by which his ploughmen are to be guided in their movements; and the ploughman, accordingly, fixes his eye upon the stake opposite to the end of the destined furrow, and then endeavors to reach it by a straight and direct line. These resolu. tions are my stakes."