the executive, in consequence of his apostacy, did not fulfil his obligations, it was no fault of the twenty-seventh Congress. They were faithful to the public vows of 1840.

Mr. Clay was accused of being "a dictator" in that Congress. That he had some influence there is quite probable; it will hardly be denied that he was entitled to it; and so long as he used it, in conjunction with his fellow-laborers of that body, in bringing down the annual expenditures of government ten millions or more, it will not be brought in charge against him as a crime. His project of reform, which he submitted on the 1st of March, 1842, has already been considered. The average annual expenditures of the preceding administration had been upward of thirty-five millions; he proposed to reduce them to twenty-two millions, and showed how it could be done.

Mr. Woodbury, secretary of the treasury, had notified Congress, in his annual report of 1840, that the public revenue thereafter, from existing sources, "would not probably exceed ten or eleven millions of dollars." Thus was the government of the country, already involved in debt, without credit, spending at the rate of thirty-five millions a year, with nearly thirty millions of outstanding appropriations, and a prospective income not exceeding one third of the demand of its prodigal habits, transferred to the new administration of 1841, imposing on the twenty-seventh Congress the task of managing, as best they could, this appalling condition of the public finances. They, in the first place, reduced the expenditures; next, they funded the public debt; they immediately passed the revenue bill of 1841, imposing duties on free articles, which was an essential relief; and they enacted the tariff of 1842, which revived public credit, relieved the treasury, has paid off the public debt, and placed both the government and people of the country n an easy condition, in regard to public and private finances.

CHAPTER XVI.

MR. CLAY'S RESIGNATION AND VALEDICTORY ADDRESS.

"WASHINGTON, SENATE CHAmber,

"February 16, 1842.

"To the honorable, the General Assembly of Kentucky:

"When I last had the honor of an appointment as one of the United States senators from Kentucky, I intimated, in my letter of acceptance, the probability of my not serving out the whole term of six years. In consequence of there having been two extra sessions of Congress, I have already attended, since that appointment, as many sessions of Congress as ordinarily happen during a senatorial term, without estimating my services at the present session.

"I have for several years desired to retire to private life, but have been hitherto prevented from executing my wish from considerations of public duty. I should have resigned my seat in the senate at the commencement of the present session, but for several reasons, one of which was, that the general assembly did not meet until near a month after Congress, during which time the state would not have been fully represented, or my successor would have had only the uncertain title of an executive appointment.

"The time has now arrived, when I think that, without any just reproach, I may quit the public service, and bestow some attention on my private affairs, which have suffered much by the occupation of the largest portion of my life in the public councils. If the Roman veteran had title to discharge after thirty years' service, I, who have served a much longer period, may justly claim mine.

"I beg leave, therefore, to tender to the general assembly, and do now hereby tender, my resignation of the office which I hold, of senator in the senate of the United States, from the state of Kentucky, to take effect on the 31st of March, 1842; and I request that the general assembly will appoint my successor to take his seat on that day. I have fixed that day to allow me an opportunity of assisting in the completion of some measures, which have been originated by me.

"I embrace this opportunity to offer to the general assembly my most profound and grateful acknowledgments for the numerous and

distinguished proofs, by which I have been honored, of its warm attachment and generous confidence during a long series of years. "I have the honor to be, &c.,

"H. CLAY."

Simple and unimpassioned as is the character of this document, it can not for that reason easily repress the thoughts and emotions which the occasion naturally awakens. It was now thirty-six years since Mr. Clay first took his seat in the senate of the United States, nor was that the beginning of his public life. From 1806 to 1842, with only two short intervals-one to repair his private fortune by professional labors, and the other for a little repose after his four years' labors as secretary of state-he had been uninterruptedly engaged in the service of his country, in connexion with the general government, first as United States senator; next, as speaker of the house of representatives, in all about thirteen years; as one of the commissioners at Ghent in 1814, to negotiate peace with Great Britain, returning to reoccupy the speaker's chair in Congress, which was resigned in 1825 to take charge of the state department; and last, as United States senator again, from 1831 to 1842. His assiduous, untiring, laborious, and eminently influential services in these various positions, have been considered in these volumes. The document above recorded severed this longprotracted connexion with the public, and opened the door to his retirement. It was his leave-taking, as a public officer, with his adopted commonwealth; and it remains only to notice his farewell to the senate of the nation, of which the following are extracts:—

"And now [said Mr. Clay], allow me to announce, formally and officially, my retireinent from the senate of the United States, and to present the last motion I shall ever make in this body. But, before I make that motion, I trust I shall be pardoned, if I avail myself, with the permission and indulgence of the senate, of this last occasion of addressing to it a few more observations.

"I entered the senate of the United States in December, 1806. I regarded that body then, and still consider it, as one which may compare, without disadvantage, with any legislative assembly, either in ancient or modern times, whether I look to its dignity, the extent and importance of its powers, the ability by which its individual members have been distinguished, or its organic constitution. If compared in any of these respects with the senates either of France or of England, that of the United States will sustain no derogation.

"Full of attraction, however, as a seat in the senate is, sufficient as it is to satisfy the aspirations of the most ambitious heart, I have

long determined to relinquish it, and to seek that repose which can be enjoyed only in the shades of private life, in the circle of one's own family, and in the tranquil enjoyments included in one enchanting word—HOME.

"It was my purpose to terminate my connexion with this body in November, 1840, after the memorable and glorious political struggle which distinguished that year; but I learned, soon after, what indeed I had for some time anticipated from the result of my own reflections, that an extra session of Congress would be called; and I felt desirous to co-operate with my political and personal friends in restoring, if it could be effected, the prosperity of the country, by the best measures which their united counsels might be able to devise; and I therefore attended the extra session. It was called, as all know, by the lamented Harrison; but his death, and the consequent accession of his successor, produced an entirely new aspect of public affairs. Had he lived, I have not one particle of doubt that every important measure to which the country had looked with so confident an expectation would have been consummated, by the co-operation of the executive with the legislative branch of the government. And here allow me to say, only, in regard to that so-much-reproached extra session of Congress, that I believe, if any of those, who, through the influence of party spirit, or the bias of political prejudice, have loudly censured the measures then adopted, would look at them in a spirit of candor and of justice, their conclusion, and that of the country generally, would be, that if there exist any just ground of complaint, it is to be found not in what was done, but in what was not done, but left unfinished.

"Had President Harrison lived, and the measures devised at that session been fully carried out, it was my intention then to have resigned my seat. But the hope (I feared it might prove vain) that, at the regular session, the measures which we had left undone might even then be perfected, or the same object attained in an equivalent form, induced me to postpone the determination; and events which arose after the extra session, resulting from the failure of those measures which had been proposed at that session, and which seemed for the moment to subject our political friends to the semblance of defeat, confirmed me in the resolution to attend the present session also, and whether in prosperity or adversity, to share the fortune of my friends. But I resolved, at the same time, to retire as soon as I could do so with propriety and decency.

"From 1806, the period of my entrance upon this noble theatre, with short intervals, to the present time, I have been engaged in the public councils, at home or abroad. Of the services rendered during that long and arduous period of my life it does not become me to speak; history, if she deign to notice me, and posterity, if the recollection of my humble actions shall be transmitted to pos

terity, are the best, the truest, and the most impartial judges. When death shall have closed the scene, their sentence will be pronounced, and to that I commit myself. My public conduct is a fair subject for the criticism and judgment of my fellow-men; but the motives by which I have been prompted are known only to the great Searcher of the human heart and to myself; and I trust I may be pardoned for repeating a declaration made some thirteen years ago, that, whatever errors, and doubtless there have been many, may be discovered in a review of my public service, I can with unshaken confidence appeal to that Divine Arbiter for the truth of the declaration, that I have been influenced by no impure purpose, no personal motive; have sought no personal aggrandizement; but that, in all my public acts, I have had a single eye directed, and a warm and devoted heart dedicated, to what, in my best judgment, I believed the true interests, the honor, the union, and the happiness of my country required.

"During that long period, however, I have not escaped the fate of other public men, nor failed to incur censure and detraction of the bitterest, most unrelenting, and most malignant character; and though not always insensible to the pain it was meant to inflict, I have borne it in general with composure, and without disturbance here [pointing to his breast], waiting as I have done, in perfect and undoubting confidence, for the ultimate triumph of justice and of truth, and in the entire persuasion that time would settle all things as they should be, and that whatever wrong or injustice I might experience at the hands of man, He, to whom all hearts are open and fully known, would, by the inscrutable dispensations of his providence, rectify all error, redress all wrong, and cause ample justice to be done.

"But I have not meanwhile been unsustained. Everywhere throughout the extent of this great continent I have had cordial, warm-hearted, faithful, and devoted friends, who have known me, loved me, and appreciated my motives. To them, if language were capable of fully expressing my acknowledgments, I would now offer all the return I have the power to make for their genuine, disinterested, and persevering fidelity and devoted attachment, the feelings and sentiments of a heart overflowing with neverceasing gratitude. If, however, I fail in suitable language to express my gratitude to them for all the kindness they have shown me, what shall I say, what can I say at all commensurate with those feelings of gratitude with which I have been inspired by the state whose humble representative and servant I have been in this chamber? [Here Mr. Clay's feelings overpowered him, and he proceeded with deep sensibility and difficult utterance.]

"I emigrated from Virginia to the state of Kentucky now nearly forty-five years ago; I went as an orphan boy who had not yet attained the age of majority-who had never recognised a