The physician and the legislator feel also, each in their separate departments, that since it is their province to relieve suffering and restore to health, they will be wanting in their duty, unless, by some heroic remedy, they remove the visible, undeniable evidences of distress. So that, looking more to present relief than to permanent benefit; yielding themselves rather to the impulse of their feelings than to the calm conviction of their judgments, they often institute measures, in all sincerity, which afterward none would regret more than themselves.

The United States Bank, we conceive to have been such a measure; yet, at the same time, we believe that CLAY, and Calhoun, and Madison, and the host of others who approved of it, acted under the firmest conviction, that thus they were best promoting the interests of their country, and meriting the approval of patriots. Nor need we wonder that this should be so, for political science, though capable of being reduced to rigid rules and to a simple system, is yet but one of the youngest of the sciences; and it labors, moreover, under the disadvantage that disorders in the body politic can often be corrected only by years of patient waiting, extending, not unfrequently, beyond the lives of the existing generation. But, as we have indicated, it is not in the nature of man to wait so long in hope. Something must be done at once, and if the regular physician, if the true legislator will not do it, resort will be had to some medical or political quack, according as the case may be, who will promise most largely, and administer his remedies most heroically. It is difficult, also, when not enlightened by experience, to keep accurately in the mind relations of cause and effect, which are separated by so wide an interval.

If we are wiser to-day than the statesmen of forty years ago, it is not because we have clearer heads, or sounder judgments, or larger patriotism, but because the science of legislation has advanced, and that, too, by their very instrumentality; because they, by going over the ground before us, have guarded us from error, by even their very blunders, and have bequeathed to us the accumulated treasures of their experience.

Soon after the passage of the bill establishing the United States Bank, Mr. CLAY made himself somewhat unpopular by voting for what was called the Compensation bill. The pay of members of Congress had been six dollars per diem. A bill was introduced to substitute a salary of fifteen hundred dollars for the session, in place of the per diem allowance.

CLAY found it necessary to canvass his own State, in opposition to his former colleague, to secure his seat. His popularity was, however, proof against even this undemocratic measure, as it was thought, and he was returned again to Congress. At the next session the obnoxious bill was repealed, and a per diem allowance of eight dollars substituted in place of the salary.

During the course of the ensuing session, a subject came before the House which excited the enthusiasm of many of the members, and of none so much as that of CLAY. It was in regard to South America, in her struggles for independence. We can not be expected to understand the feelings inspired at the time, by the events to which we refer. We have seen how "lame and impotent" the "conclusion" of that, which promised so fairly. We have been led to regard, with something of pity and contempt, the republics which have been formed from the fragments of the dismembered colonies of Spain. We have seen them ever in a ferment; never enjoying "the bliss of calm;" never reaching the true end of Government. We have seen their beautiful theory of liberty give way in practice, sometimes to anarchy, and sometimes to military despotism. We have seen them set forth in the career of self-government, with sounding manifestoes and every semblance of energy, only to relapse into hopeless supineness, and to become mere ciphers in the political interests of the world.

But when they began their struggles, only the brilliance of what they attempted was seen; the inauspicious ending was hidden in the future. The ardent and impulsive saw, in their declaration and struggle for liberty, a case parallel to our own. For a time it was fondly believed that the whole western hemisphere would become the home of liberty.

The temperament and feelings of CLAY were of just the nature to be fired by such a spectacle. The theme was admirably adapted to his style of eloquence. Of Liberty in its largest and broadest sense, he was a devout worshiper; upon it, he might expend any measure of enthusiasm; without restriction, he might indulge in his loftiest declamation. He was untiring in his efforts to secure, from our Government, a recognition of South American independence. His speeches were translated into Spanish, and read at the head of the republican armies. He was regarded by the struggling colonies, as their champion in the American Congress. They voted him thanks, and corresponded with him through their generals. Yet the object at which he aimed was not immediately attained. Two or three years still elapsed, before the independence of the South American republics was recognized by our Government.

CHAPTER VI.

MR. CLAY is offered the post of Minister to Russia-Also, a place in the Cabinet-Advocates internal improvements-Mr. CLAY the father of a policy and a party-The character and services of the Whig party— Seminole war-The conduct of Jackson.

MR. MADISON acknowledged the merit and abilities of Mr. CLAY, by offering him, upon his return from Europe, after the treaty of peace, the situation of Minister to Russia, and again, upon the occurrence of a vacancy in his Cabinet, the Secretaryship of War. Thus honors poured in upon the rising statesman, from every quarter. Success had smiled upon him from the first. By none of the artifices of the demagogue; by no special solicitation of any kind, he had risen to such estimation, that honors, instead of being sought by him, might almost be said to have come to him soliciting acceptance.

He declined the flattering offers of Mr. Madison, believing that he could serve his country best in her halls of legislation. He had occasion soon to advocate, what was ever with him, a favorite measure. It had been proposed to expend the bonus of the United States Bank, upon Internal Improvements. A bill to that effect was passed by Congress, but to the surprise of Mr. CLAY, was vetoed by President Madison.

Upon the next

But he, it was

This was upon the third of March, 1817. day James Monroe was inaugurated President. understood, would follow, in respect to this matter, in the footsteps of his predecessors. A resolution was, notwithstanding, offered in the House of Representatives, to the effect that Congress possessed the constitutional power to construct military roads, post roads and canals.

Upon this resolution CLAY, March thirteenth, made one of his most powerful and effective speeches. Political sentiment, from the day on which the Constitution was adopted until the present hour, has been divided as to the right which that instrument confers, to carry on systems of improvement within the different States, at the expense, and under the direction of the Federal Government.

The prosecution of such improvements, the advocates of State Rights have regarded an unwarrantable assumption of power, and an interference with the domestic polity of the different sovereignties which constitute the Republic. To yield the point, they have felt would be to advance far toward that consolidation of power, which they have ever earnestly deprecated.

Mr. CLAY expended the principal force of his argument against that class of objectors. He undertook to show that, if the power to carry on internal improvements was not expressly conferred by the Constitution, it was most unquestionably implied. The power to establish post roads, which was granted by the Constitution, was, he contended, the power to construct them.

The Government, he also argued, since it had the power to make war, had also, by implication, the power "to employ the whole physical means of the nation to render the war, whatever may be its character, successful and glorious." There was, therefore, "a direct and intimate relation between the power to make war and military roads and canals."

Some of his opponents might, perhaps, in view of his ingenuity, quote against him the story which, in earlier days, he brought forward against those who sought a warrant in the Constitution for a national bank. They might remind him of the Virginia justice, who represented "to the man, whose turkey had been stolen, that his books of precedents furnished no form for his case, but then he would grant him a precept to search for a cow, and, when looking for that, he might possibly find his turkey." They might charge him with being recreant to his early principles and possessed of an unequaled facility, both in changing his opinions, and confuting his own arguments.