CHAPTER III.

MR. CLAY'S modest opinion of himself-His competitors in KentuckyThe debating club-Kentucky people-Alien and Sedition Laws-Mr. CLAY's success in law-His marriage-His election to the LegislatureTo the Senate of the United States-Aaron Burr-Legislature of Kentucky again-Duel with Humphrey Marshall-His abilities in the State Legislature.

IN one of his discriminating essays, Hazlitt has discussed the question: "Whether genius is conscious of its powers?" "No really great man," he asserts, "ever thought himself so. The idea of greatness in the mind answers but ill to our knowledge, or to our ignorance of ourselves. No man is truly himself, but in the idea which others entertain of him. The mind, as well as the eye, 'sees not itself but by reflection from some other thing.'"

The opinion which HENRY CLAY entertained, concerning his own abilities and probable success, seems to corroborate the assertion of Hazlitt. In the course of a speech, at a banquet given him by his friends, June, 1842, upon occasion of his retirement to private life, he says:

"I obtained a license to practice the profession of law, from the judges of the Court of Appeals of Virginia, and established myself in Lexington, in 1797, without patrons, without the favor or countenance of the great or opulent, without the means of paying my weekly board, and in the midst of a bar uncommonly distinguished by eminent members.

"I remember how comfortable I thought I should be, if I could make one hundred pounds, Virginia money, per year, and with what delight I received the first fifteen shillings fee. My hopes were more than realized. I immediately rushed into a successful and lucrative practice."

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This brief allusion, by HENRY CLAY himself, to his "start in life," serves the purpose of a complete and graphic picture. He has left the Old Dominion behind, with its stirring and classic memories. He has left the polished society of Richmond, in which remembrance of his early struggles with poverty might have imposed upon him an irksome constraint. He has left the learned bar, toward which, as having furnished him with his patrons and instructors, he might have looked with a deference too great for his future independence of character and mind. He has turned his steps, like so many of more aspiring ambition since that day, to the Great West. Whatever his dreams of success, they are yet too dim to be told to others, to be whispered even to himself. He has not yet felt within the kindling of that inspiration, which is to fascinate and subdue the hearts of his countrymen. He has not yet waked up to the consciousness, that he is possessed of any unusual power. He feels himself to be only plain HENRY CLAY, but just now deputy clerk, amanuensis, and law student. A bare support, in his new home, is the hight of his expectations.

His modesty seems even to have kept him from asking for admission to the Fayette bar, until he had given several months' additional attention to his legal studies. Though he had left the refinements of Virginia, he found that he was by no means beyond the pale of civilization, and that his opponents were to be something more than backwoodsmen. It is doubtful whether the bar of Fayette county was ever more ably represented. Lexington had appropriated to itself all that was most choice and vigorous in the talent of the State. Breckenridge, and Nicholas, and Brown, and Hughes, and Murray, were men from whom the palm of superiority could be wrested by no competitor, without a struggle.

They were also established in business and reputation, when the new and diffident candidate for wealth and honor entered the lists against them. But self-distrust still held him back. He could not persuade himself yet, to measure his strength with theirs. What he was reluctant to do, was, however, at last forced upon him, as it were, by accident. He had become a member

of a debating club, but had never ventured to speak upon any question. One night, it is related, as the debate was about to close, he whispered to a neighbor, that something more, he thought, might be said upon the subject. The remark was eagerly caught at, as affording an opportunity for calling out the young stranger, and ascertaining what "stuff he was made of." The president delayed to put the question, and from every side the call was made for "CLAY." Half surprised into the discussion, and yet half eager for it, the young orator arose, blushing and confused. The first words which he stammered out were, "Gentlemen of the jury." This unpropitious beginning deepened his embarrassment. Again he exclaimed, "Gentlemen of the jury!" But his hearers were considerate. Their courtesy restored his composure. His ideas quickly became clear and well expressed. His enthusiasm became roused. An ingenuous pride, to thoroughly redeem his opening effort from the appearance of failure, which it first assumed, quickened his intellect and fired his emotions. Whatever credit, for abilities, his silent good sense might have acquired for him before, his success now took his audience by storm. Their surprise, delight and applause were unbounded. That was an auspicious evening to him. Thenceforward, he might regard his fortune as made. The expectations of the community were to be allies upon his side, and he himself had awaked to a consciousness of his power. The days when "fifteen shillings fees" were a source of delight, will now rush away to give place to a successful and lucrative practice.

To every class of mind, the gay and grave, the learned and the ignorant, there is something fascinating in the eloquence of highly wrought feeling. It arises, in part, from a love of excitement, natural to every human breast, and, in part, from admiration of a high display of power; that power seeming especially wonderful, which can, at will, alternately excite and subdue the varied feelings of a large assembly.

But perhaps none give themselves up so entirely to its fascination, as do the unlearned and uncritical. Unaccustomed to dissemble their emotions, impulsiveness becomes their ruling

habit; and, with something of the simplicity of children, they yield themselves to the power of the orator. Eloquence is regarded by them, with more enthusiasm, perhaps, than even military exploits, by which, notoriously, they are dazzled; and the orator who can sway them at his will, is more applauded than the successful general.

Such minds demand fervor, and even vehemence, in their speakers; and can, more easily, forgive a little infelicity of reasoning than tameness in sentiment or manner.

Among such people, most fortunately, HENRY CLAY found himself when the consciousness of his power, as an orator, first flashed upon him. In the town of his residence, many of the citizens were highly intelligent and refined; but "the country people," as they were termed,-those who constituted the mass of the population,-were distinguished by the characteristics of pioneer life; a resolute independence; thorough practical common sense; the utmost frankness of feeling and manners, and an unbounded admiration for rousing oratory.

A better field, for the development of young CLAY'S peculiar eloquence, can not be imagined. By his early life, he had been taught better how to sympathize with, and to approach, his sturdy auditors, than he could have been by any instruction of the schools. His style of eloquence could not admit of being cramped. Its very success was dependent upon its hearty boldness. An audience of learned critics would have frozen the fountains of his inspiration. A careful regard to the nice structure of every sentence, and a perpetual dread lest, by some unlucky expression, he should offend "ears polite," would have effectually sealed the lips of one, like him, sensitively conscious of early disadvantages.

But the honest yeomanry and hardy hunters, who were to constitute the mass of his hearers, cared little about the nice balance of sentences, if so be those sentences conveyed sentiments which they could relish, in language which they could not mistake, and by tones and gestures which struck home to their hearts.

Occasions, likewise, favored the budding reputation of the

young orator. Demagogism was from the first abhorrent to his soul. However much he might seek to work upon the sympathies of his susceptible audiences, he never prostituted his powers to artifice, nor appealed to local and unworthy prejudices. He delighted in expatiating upon those cherished principles of freedom, for which our country had but just triumphantly fought. In such themes, he could indulge his loftiest declamation, without offense to his high sense of honor.

The promulgation of the "Alien and Sedition Laws," gave him his chosen opportunity. Those laws had their origin in a panic, which had seized upon many, lest our institutions should be overthrown by foreign emissaries, and the authority of our officers weakened, or destroyed, by the unbounded license of the press. They gave to the President authority to send into exile any person, whom he might deem dangerous to the well being of the Government, and guarded from assault, by special statute, the private and public character of those intrusted with responsible offices.

In endeavoring to correct, what was undoubtedly an evil, the Government was betrayed into an offense still more unpardonable. Freedom of personal movements and liberty of the press, are matters too sacred for governmental interference, except in cases of the most unusual and unquestionable necessity. The people considered their rights outraged. The disturbances of the Old World, the revolutionary proceedings of France, the turbulence of agents from abroad, the scurrility of the writers of pamphlets and newspapers, did not, in their opinion, constitute a necessity sufficient to warrant a scrutiny, like that of the Inquisition, and edicts which savored of despotism.

The laws met with vehement opposition. They could be popular in no part of a country, which was enjoying its first exultant consciousness of freedom. In Kentucky, they were especially odious. The habits of a pioneer people are abhorrent to every thing like constraint, whether in movements or in speech. They grow up in the enjoyment of almost unbounded license in respect to both. The people of Fayette called out their orators, to give utterance to their indignation.