groups to discuss in low tones what had happened. Neither did the victorious Democrats indulge in the usual demonstrations of triumph. There was a feeling as if a great wrong had been done. The Whigs were fairly stunned by their defeat. Many despaired of the republic, sincerely believing that the experiment of popular government had failed forever. Almost all agreed that the great statesmen of the country would thenceforth always remain excluded from the presidency, and that the highest office would be the prize only of second-rate politicians.

During the autumn and early part of the winter of 1844-5 Clay remained at Ashland, receiving and answering a flood of letters from all parts of the United States, and even from Europe, which conveyed to him expressions of condolence and sympathy. Private cares had meanwhile gathered, in addition to his public disappointments. He had for some time been laboring under great pecuniary embarrassment, owing partly to the drafts which are always made upon the purse of a prominent public man, partly to the business failure of one of his sons. Aside from other pressing debts, there was a heavy mortgage resting on Ashland, and, as an old man of sixty-seven, Clay found himself forced to consider whether, in order to satisfy his creditors, it would not be necessary to part with his beloved home. Relief came to him suddenly, and in an unexpected form. When offering a payment to the bank at Lexington, the president informed him that sums of money had arrived from different parts of the country to pay off Henry Clay's debts, and that all the notes and the mortgage were canceled. Clay was deeply moved. Who did this?" he asked the banker. All the answer he received was that the givers were unknown, but they were presumably "not his enemies." Clay doubted whether he should accept the gift, and consulted some of his friends. They reminded him of the many persons of historic renown who had not refused tokens of admiration and gratitude from their countrymen; and added that, as he could not discover the unknown givers, he could not return the gift; and, as the gift appeared in the shape of a discharged obligation, he could not force the renewal of the debt. At last he consented to accept, and thus was Ashland saved to him.

THE COMPROMISE OF 1850.

The last and greatest public work of Clay's life was the famous Compromise of 1850, which, as has often been said, postponed for ten years the great Civil War. In 1849 he was unanimously elected United States Senator by the Kentucky Legislature, in spite of the well-known fact that his views on the slavery question were distasteful to a large number of his constituents. The truth is that they saw that a storm was gathering, and relied on Clay's wisdom and patriotism to meet the emergency. The sentiment against slavery was increasing. The free States were outstripping the slave States in wealth and popula

tion. It was evident that slavery must have more territory or die. Shut out of the Northwest by the Missouri Compromise, it was supposed that a great field for its extension had been gained in Texas and the territory acquired from Mexico. But now California, a part of this territory which had been counted upon for slavery, was populated by a sudden rush of Northern immigration, attracted by the discovery of gold; and a State government was organized, with a constitution excluding slavery. Thus, instead of adding to the area of slavery, the Mexican territory seemed likely to increase the strength of freedom. The South was both alarmed and exasperated. Threats of disunion were freely made. It was evident that prompt measures must be taken to allay the prevail

ing excitement, if disruption were to be avoided. In such an emergency it was natural that all eyes should turn to the "great pacificator," Henry Clay.

When, at the session of 1849-'50, he appeared in the Senate, to assist, if possible, in removing the slavery question from politics, Clay was an infirm and serious, but not sad, old man of seventy-two. He never lost his cheerfulness or faith, but he felt deeply for his distracted country. During that memorable session of Congress he spoke seventy times. Often extremely sick and feeble, scarcely able, with the assistance of a friend's arm, to climb the steps of the Capitol, he was never absent on the days when the Compromise was to be debated. On the morning on which he began his great speech, he was accom

panied by a clerical friend, to whom he said, on reaching the long flight of steps leading to the Capitol, "Will you lend me your arm, my friend? for I find my. self quite weak and exhausted this morning." Every few steps he was obliged to stop and take breath. "Had you not better defer your speech?" asked the clergyman. My dear friend," said the dying orator, "I consider our country in danger; and if I can be the means, in any measure, of averting that danger, my health or life is of little consequence." When he rose to speak, it was but too evident that he was unfit for the task he had undertaken. But as he kindled with his subject, his cough left him, and his bent form resumed all its wonted erectness and majesty. He may, in the prime of his strength, have spoken with more energy, but never with so much pathos or grandeur. His speech lasted two days; and though he lived two years longer, he never recovered from the effects of the effort. The thermometer in the Senate chamber marked nearly 100°. Toward the close of the second day, his friends repeatedly proposed an adjournment; but he would not desist until he had given complete utterance to his feelings. He said afterward that he was not sure, if he gave way to an adjournment, that he should ever be able to resume.

Never was Clay's devotion to the Union displayed in such thrilling and pathetic forms as in the course of this long debate. On one occasion allusion was made to a South Carolina hot-head, who had publicly proposed to raise the flag of disunion. When Clay retorted by saying, that, if Mr. Rhett had really meant that proposition, and should follow it up by corresponding acts, he would be a traitor, and added, "and I hope he will meet a traitor's fate," thunders of applause broke from the crowded galleries. When the chairman succeeded in restoring silence, Mr. Clay made that celebrated declaration which was so frequently quoted in 1861: "If Kentucky to-morrow shall unfurl the banner of resistance unjustly, I will never fight under that banner. I owe paramount allegiance to the whole Union, a subordinate one to my own State." Again: "The Senator speaks of Virginia being my country. This Union, sir, is my country ; the thirty States are my country; Kentucky is my country, and Virginia, no more than any State in the Union." And yet again: "There are those who think that the Union must be preserved by an exclusive reliance upon love and reason. That is not my opinion. I have some confidence in this instrumentality; but, depend upon it, no human government can exist without the power of applying force, and the actual application of it in extreme cases.'

"Who can estimate," says Parton, "the influence of these clear and emphatic utterances ten years after? The crowded galleries, the numberless newspaper reports, the quickly succeeding death of the great orator, all aided to give them currency and effect. We shall never know how many wavering minds they aided to decide in 1861. Not that Mr. Clay really believed the conflict would occur: he was mercifully permitted to die in the conviction that the

Compromise of 1850 had removed all immediate danger, and greatly lessened that of the future. Far indeed was he from foreseeing that the ambition of Stephen A. Douglas, a man born in New England, calling himself a disciple of Andrew Jackson, would within five years destroy all compromises, and render all future compromise impossible, by procuring the repeal of the first,-the Missouri Compromise of 1821?"

"Whatever Clay's weaknesses of character and errors in statesmanship may have been," says Schurz, "almost everything he said or did was illumined by a grand conception of the destinies of his country, a glowing national spirit, a lofty patriotism. Whether 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; whether what he advocated was wise or unwise, right or wrong, 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, and with it the greatness and glory of the American people, be put in jeopardy. It was a just judgment which he pronounced upon himself when he wrote: "If any one desires to know the leading and paramount object of my public life, the preservation of the Union will furnish him the key."