ELEVENTH THOUSAND.

THE

LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES

OF

HENRY CLAY,

DOWN TO 1848;

BY EPES SARGENT.

EDITED AND COMPLETED AT MR. CLAY'S DEATH,

BY HORACE GREELEY.

NEW YORK AND AUBURN:

MILLER, ORTON & MULLIGAN.

NEW YORK: 25 PARK ROW.-AUBURN: 107 GENESEE-ST.

1855.

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 18

BY H. GREELEY & T. McELRATH,

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, in and District of New York.

INTRODUCTION.

SEVERAL sketches, more or less elaborate, of the Character and Career of HENRY CLAY, appeared during his life-time, oftener prefixed to collections of his Speeches; though one independent Memoir, of decided merit, was written more than twenty years since by GEORGE D. PRENTICE, Editor of the Louisville Journal, and then widely disseminated. That, however, has long been out of print, while the more eventful and memorable half of Mr. Clay's biography was yet in the future when Mr. Pren tice wrote. And I have reason to believe that Mr. Clay himself gave the preference, among all the narratives of his life which had fallen under his notice, to that of EPES SARGENT, first issued in 1842, and republished, with its author's revisions and additions, in the summer of 1848.

The aim of Mr. Sargent was not so much to impart his own conception of Mr. Clay's views and motives as to enable every reader to infer them directly from the Statesman's own words, or those of his illustrious cotemporaries-whether compatriots or rivals. His work, therefore, is rather a collection of authentic materials for the future biographer than an original and exhaustive essay. For the time had not arrived-nay, has not yet arrived

for a final and authoritative analysis of Mr. Clay's character, nor for a conclusive estimate of the nature, value, tendencies,

and results of his public measures. We Americans of 1852nearly all of us who read or think, with many who do neithe ―are the heated partisans or embittered opponents of Mr. Clay — with him or against him, idolizing or detesting nim, we have struggled through all the past decades of our manhood. He has been our demigod or demon through the last quarter of a century, while many of us date our admiration or our hostility from the year 1812. If, then, we can but preserve and intelligibly present the facts essential to a just estimate of Mr. Clay's character, we may very properly remit to the next generation the duty of analyzing those facts, and determining what manner of man was the Orator of Ashland whose voice enchained and wielded listening Senates, and whose weaponless hand was mightier than the truncheon of generals, or the scepter of monarchs. It is at least the duty of his surviving friends to take care that he be not misrepresented to and undervalued by posterity because the facts essential to his true appreciation were not seasonably collected and fitly set forth.

This, then, is the aim and end of the work here with submitted —a candid presentation of the facts essential to a just estimate of Mr Clay's Life and Public Services, from the point of view whence they were regarded by his devoted, unselfish compatriots and friends. If he has been over-estimated, if the system of Public Policy which he so long and ably advocated be mistaken and unsound, time will so determine. Should the ultimate verdict be as I think it can not-adverse to his eminence as a Statesman, it need not therefore blast his reputation as a Man. That he was a sincere and ardent Patriot, an earnest though unpretending Philanthropist, a beloved Husband and Father, a kind and just Neighbor, a chivalrous Adversary, and an unfailing Friend-these are no longer doubtful. So much, at least, is secure from the venom of calumny and the accidents of fortune. Let some future Plutarch or Thucydides fix and declare the world's ultimate verdict on the American System and its Father; but we, who knew and loved him well, may more truly and vividly, even though awkwardly and feebly, depict how looked and felt, how spoke and acted, how lived and loved, the man Henry Clay.