children affected him to swooning. His personal friends were devoted to the last degree. A large sum was raised among them, to lift off the incumbrances from his estate, and with the greatest delicacy transferred to his account.

No public man, since Washington, has received, in this country, such testimonials of esteem, or has drawn out so much the love of the people. He excited, wherever he went in his travels, an enthusiasm such as a prince or an emperor might hopelessly envy. The fascination of his manners and conversation was almost equal to that of his eloquence; and this is not the testimony of his partial and unostentatious countrymen only, but of titled and courtly foreigners. Lord Morpeth, in his "Travels in America," says, "I heard Mr. CLAY in the Senate once, but every one told me that he was laboring under feebleness and exhaustion, so that I could only perceive the great charm in the tones of his voice. I think this most attractive quality was still more perceivable in private intercourse, as I certainly never met any public man, either in his country or in mine, always excepting Mr. Canning, who exercised such evident fascination over the minds and affections of his friends and followers as HENRY CLAY. I thought his society most attractive, easy, simple, and genial with great natural dignity. If his countrymen made better men Presidents, I should applaud their virtue in resisting the spell of his eloquence and attractions."

But the sagacious statesman, the captivating orator, and the chivalrous man exists now, so far as we are concerned, only in his deeds and in history. He has bequeathed to us his fame, and in return we can talk only of columns and statues to his memory. Vain oblation! in respect to which one of Kentucky's sons,* unsurpassed by any other in eloquence, utters these impassioned sentiments :—

66 The friends of Mr. CLAY meditate the construction of a monument, to mark the spot where repose the remains of that frail tenement, which once held in his fiery soul. It will be honorable to them, and will form a graceful ornament to the green

*Thomas F. Marshall.

woods which surround the city of which he had himself been so long the living ornament; but it will be useless to him or his fame. He trusted neither himself nor fame to mechanical hands or perishable materials. Exegit monumentum perennius aere.' They may lay their pedestals of granite-they may rear their polished columns till they pierce and flout the skies-they may cover their marble pillars all over with the blazonry of his deeds, the trophies of his triumphant genius, and surmount them with images of his form wrought by the cunningest hands-it matters not he is not there. The prisoned eagle has burst the bars, and soared away from strife, and conflict, and calumny. He is not dead-he lives. I mean not the life eternal in yon other world of which religion teaches, but here on earth he lives, the life which men call fame, that life the hope of which forms the solace of high ambition, which cheers and sustains the brave and wise and good, the champions of truth and humankind, through all their labors-that life is his beyond all chance or change, growing, expansive, quenchless as time and human memory. He needs no statue-he desired none. It was the image of his soul he wished to perpetuate, and he has stamped it himself in lines of flame upon the souls of his countrymen. Not all the marbles of Carrara, fashioned by the chisel of Angelo into the mimicry of breathing life, could convey to the senses a likeness so perfect of himself as that which he has left upon the minds of men. He carved his own statue, he built his own monument. In youth he laid the base broad as his whole country, that it might well sustain the mighty structure he had designed. He labored heroically through life on the colossal shaft. In 1850, the last year of the first half of the nineteenth century, he prepared the healing measures which bear his name, as the capital well proportioned and in perfect keeping with the now finished column, crowned his work, saw that it was good and durable, sprang to its lofty and commanding summit, and gazing from that lone height upon a horizon which embraced all coming time, with eternity for his background, and the eyes of the whole world riveted upon his solitary figure, consented there and thus to die."

SPEECHES, ETC.

ON DOMESTIC MANUFACTURES.

IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, APRIL 6, 1810.

MR. CLAY was first elected to the United States Senate, to fill a vacancy for a single session, in 1806. During the year 1807, he delivered an able speech on Internal Improvement, which has not been preserved. In 1809, the Legislature of Kentucky again elected him United States Senator, and in the following remarks, he declared himself in favor of the policy of encouraging Domestic Manufactures, by the adoption of a suitable Protective Tariff. His name, thus early, became identified, by his first two speeches in Congress, with these two branches of national policy, which he afterward called the "AMERICAN SYSTEM." This is the first of Mr. CLAY'S speeches on record, during his Congressional career.

MR. PRESIDENT:

The local interest of the quarter of the country, which I have the honor to represent, will apologize for the trouble I may give you on this occasion. My colleague has proposed an amendment to the bill before you, instructing the Secretary of the Navy, to provide supplies of cordage, sail-cloth, hemp, etc., and to give a preference to those of American growth and manufacture. It has been moved by the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Lloyd) to strike out this part of the amendment; and, in the course of the discussion which has arisen, remarks have been made on the general policy of promoting manufactures. The propriety of this policy is, perhaps, not very intimately connected with the subject before us; but it is, nevertheless, within the

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legitimate and admissible scope of debate. Under this impression I offer my sentiments.

In inculcating the advantages of domestic manufactures, it never entered the head, I presume, of any one, to change the habits of the nation from an agricultural to a manufacturing community. No one, I am persuaded, ever thought of converting the plowshare and the sickle into the spindle and the shuttle. And yet this is the delusive and erroneous view too often taken of the subject. The opponents of the manufacturing system transport themselves to the establishments of Manchester and Birmingham, and, dwelling on the indigence, vice, and wretchedness prevailing there, by pushing it to an extreme, argue that its introduction into this country will necessarily be attended by the same mischievous and dreadful consequences. But what is the fact? That England is the manufacturer of a great part of the world; and that, even there, the numbers thus employed bear an inconsiderable proportion to the whole mass of population. Were we to become the manufacturers of other nations, effects of the same kind might result. But if we limit our efforts, by our own wants, the evils apprehended would be found to be chimerical. The invention and improvement of machinery, for which the present age is so remarkable, dispensing in a great degree with manual labor; and the employment of those persons, who, if we were engaged in the pursuit of agriculture alone, would be either unproductive, or exposed to indolence and immorality; will enable us to supply our wants without withdrawing our attention from agriculture-that first and greatest source of national wealth and happiness. A judicious American farmer, in the household way, manufactures whatever is requisite for his family. He squanders but little in the gewgaws of Europe. He presents in epitome, what the nation ought to be in extenso. Their manufactories should bear the same proportion, and effect the same object in relation to the whole community, which the part of his household employed in domestic manufacturing, bears to the whole family. It is certainly desirable, that the exports of the country should continue to be the surplus production of tillage, and not become those of manufacturing establishments.

But it is important to diminish our imports; to furnish ourselves with clothing, made by our own industry; and to cease to be dependent, for the very coats we wear, upon a foreign and perhaps inimical country. The nation that imports its clothing from abroad is but little less dependent than if it imported its bread.

The fallacious course of reasoning urged against domestic manufactures, namely, the distress and servitude produced by those of England, would equally indicate the propriety of abandoning agriculture itself. Were you to cast your eyes upon the miserable peasantry of Poland, and revert to the days of feudal vassalage, you might thence draw numerous arguments, of the kind now under consideration, against the pursuits of the husbandman! What would become of commerce, the favorite theme of some gentlemen, if assailed with this sort of weapon? The fraud, perjury, cupidity and corruption, with which it is unhappily too often attended, would at once produce its overthrow. In short, sir, take the black side of the picture, and every human occupation will be found pregnant with fatal objections.

The opposition to manufacturing institutions recalls to my recollection the case of a gentleman, of whom I have heard. He had been in the habit of supplying his table from a neighboring cook, and confectioner's shop, and proposed to his wife a reform, in this particular. She revolted at the idea. The sight of a scullion was dreadful, and her delicate nerves could not bear the clattering of kitchen furniture. The gentleman persisted in his design; his table was thenceforth cheaper and better supplied, and his neighbor, the confectioner, lost one of his best customers. In like manner dame Commerce will oppose domestic manufactures. She is a flirting, flippant, noisy jade, and if we are governed by her fantasies, we shall never put off the muslins of India and the cloths of Europe. But I trust that the yeomanry of the country, the true and genuine landlords of this tenement, called the United States, disregarding her freaks, will persevere in reform, until the whole national family is furnished by itself with the clothing necessary for its own use.

It is a subject no less of curiosity than of interest, to trace the