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mer, had been placed under a strict regimen, and subjected to a long course of medicine. In spite of all remedies, he felt a gradual decline, and looked forward to a speedy dissolution. In November he was to start for Washington, and fully anticipated, that after reaching that city, if he reached it at all, he should be obliged to hasten to the south as a last resort. He procured a small travelling carriage and a saddle-horse-threw aside all the prescriptions of the physician, and commenced his journey. Daily he walked on foot, drove in his carriage, and rode on horseback. He arrived at Washington quite well, was elected speaker and went through more labor than he ever performed in any other session, excepting, perhaps, the extra session of 1841.

The condition of the country,'in 1824, was far from prosperous. The amount of our exports had diminished to an alarming degree, while our imports of foreign goods had greatly increased. The country was thus drained of its currency; and its commerce was crippled. Nor was there any home-market for the staple productions of our soil. Both cotton-planters and wool-growers shared in the general prostration; and even the farmer had to sell his produce at a loss, or keep it on hand till it was ruined. Labor could with difficulty find employment; and its wages were hardly sufficient to supply the bare necessities of life. Money could only be procured at enormous sacrifices. Distress and bankruptcy pervaded every class of the community.

In January, 1824, a tariff bill was reported by the committee on manufactures of the house; and in March following, Mr. Clay made his great and ever-memorable speech in the house, in support of American industry. Many of our readers will vividly remember the deplorable state of the country at that time. It is impressively portrayed in his exordium on this occasion.

The CAUSE of the wide-spread distress which existed, he maintained, was to be found in the fact that, during almost the whole existence of this government, we had shaped our industry, our navigation, and our commerce, in reference to an extraordinary market in Europe, and to foreign markets, which no longer existed; in the fact that we had depended too much upon foreign sources of supply, and excited too little the native.

On this occasion, Mr. Webster, whose views upon the subject

afterward underwent an entire change, opposed the bill with the whole powerful weight of his talents and legal profundity. Mr. Clay took up, one by one, the objections of the opposition, laboriously examined and confuted them. For specimens of pure and strongly-linked argument, the annals of Congress exhibit no speech superior to that of March, 1824. In amplitude and variety of facts, in force and earnestness of language, and cogency of appeal to the reason and patriotism of Congress and the people, it has rarely been equalled. It would have been surprising indeed, if, notwithstanding the strongly-arrayed opposition, such a speech had failed in overcoming it. Experience has amply proved the validity and justice of its arguments. Its prophecies have been all fulfilled..

The tariff bill finally passed the house, the 16th of April, 1824, by a vote of 107 to 102. It soon afterward became a law.

We will leave it to Mr. Clay himself to describe the results of his policy, eight years after it had been adopted as the policy of the country. After recalling the gloomy picture he had presented in 1824, he said:

"I have now to perform the more pleasing task of exhibiting an imperfect sketch of the existing state—of the unparalleled prosperity of the country. On a general survey, we behold cultivation extending, the arts flourishing, the face of the country improved, our people fully and profitably employed, and the public countenances exhibiting tranquillity, contentment, and happiness. And, if we descend into particulars, we have the agreeable contemplation of a people out of debt; land rising slowly in value, but in a secure and salutary degree; a ready, though not extravagant market, for all the surplus productions of our industry; innumerable flocks and herds browsing and gamboling on ten thousand hills and plains, covered with rich and verdant grasses; our cities expanded, and whole villages springing up, as it were, by enchantment; our exports and imports increased and increasing; our tonnage, foreign and coastwise, swelling and fully occupied ; the rivers of our interior animated by the thunder and lightning of countless steamboats; the currency sound and abundant; the public debt of two wars nearly redeemed; and, to crown all, the public treasury overflowing, embarrassing Congress, not to find subjects of taxation, but to select the objects which shall be relieved from the impost. If the term of seven years were to be selected of the greatest prosperity which this people have en joyed since the establishment of their present constitution, it would be xactly that period of seven years which immediately followed the passage of the tariff of 1824."

Such were the consequences of the benign legislation introluced and carried into operation by Henry Clay. And thougn he reverse of the picture was soon presented to us, through the

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violent executive measures of General Jackson, inflating and then prostrating the currency, and the course afterward pursued, we have the satisfaction of knowing that Mr. Clay has never wavered in his course; and that, had his warnings been regarded, and his counsels taken, a far different state of things would, in all probability, have existed.

The unanimous voice of the country has accorded to Mr. Clay the merit of having been the father of the system, which has been justly called the American system. To his personal history belong the testimonials of the various state legislatures and conventions, and of the innumerable public meetings, in all parts of the country, which awarded him the praise, and tendered him the grateful acknowledgments of the community. To his individual exertions, the manufacturing industry of the United States is indebted to a degree which it is now difficult to realize. By the magic power of his eloquence, the country was raised from a state of prostration and distress; cities were called into existence, and the wilderness was truly made to blossom like the rose.

Mr. Clay's zealous and laborious efforts in behalf of the tariff, can only be appreciated by a reference to the journal of the house of that period. It seems as if he had been called upon to battle for every item of the bill, inch by inch. The whole power of a large and able opposition was arrayed against him; and every weapon that argument, rhetoric, and ridicule, could supply, was employed. John Randolph was, as on former occasions, an active and bitter antagonist. Once or twice, he provoked Mr. Clay into replying to his personal taunts.

"Sir," said Mr. C., on one occasion, "the gentleman from Virginia was pleased to say, that in one point, at least, he coincided with me-in an humble estimate of my grammatical and philological acquirements. I know my deficiencies. I was born to no proud patrimonial estate; from my father I inherited only infancy, ignorance, and indigence. I feel my defects; but, so far as my situation in early life is concerned, I may, without presumption, say they are more my misfortune than my fault. But, however I deplore my want of ability to furnish to the gentleman a better specimen of powers of verbal criticism, I will venture to say, my regret is not greater than the disappointment of this committee, as to the strength of his argument."

The following is in a different vein. After the passage of the tariff bill, on the 16th of April, 1824, when the house had adjourned, and the speaker was stepping down from his seat, a

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gentleman who had voted with the majority, said to him, "We have done pretty well to-day."-"Yes," returned Mr. Clay, made a good stand, considering we lost both our Feet”—alluding to Mr. Foot of Connecticut, and Mr. Foote of New York, who both voted against the bill, though it was thought, some time before, that they would give it their support.

VII.

MISSOURI--GREECE-LAFAYETTE.

DURING the session of 1820-21, the " distracting question," as it was termed, of admitting Missouri into the Union, which had been the subject of many angry and tedious debates, was discussed in both branches of Congress. The controverted point was, whether she should be admitted as a slave state.

Slavery had been expressly excluded from Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, by acts of Congress, on their admission into the Union. But that restriction was by virtue of an ordinance of the former Congress, under the confederation, prohibiting the introduction of slavery into the northwest territory, out of which these states were formed. Missouri was part of the Louisiana territory, purchased of France, in 1803. And in various parts of that extensive territory, slavery then existed, and had long been established.

Louisiana had been admitted into the Union without restriction of the kind proposed for Missouri. The states of Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, and Alabama, had also been admitted as separate states previous to this period; and, as they were taken from states in which slavery existed, they had been made subject to no such restriction. It was contended that, on the same prin ciple, Missouri should also be received, without requiring, as a condition of admission, the exclusion of slavery. And it was also insisted that it would be interfering with the independent character of a state, to enforce any such restriction, which was manifestly a subject of regulation by the state authority.

On the contrary, it was urged that in the old states the subject

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was expressly settled by the constitution, and Congress could not justly interfere in those states; but that it was otherwise with new states received into the Union; in which case Congress had the right to impose such restrictions and conditions as it might choose; that it was evidently the intention of the old Congress not to extend slavery, having prohibited its introduction or existence in new states to be formed out of the northwest territory; and that slavery was so great an evil, and so abhorrent to the principles of a free government, that it should be abolished or prohibited wherever it could be constitutionally affected.

The discussion went on from month to month, and from session to session, increasing in fierceness, and diverging farther and farther from the prospect of an amicable settlement. Among the prominent advocates for excluding slavery from Missouri, were Rufus King from New York, Otis of Massachusetts, Dana of Connecticut, Sergeant and Hemphill of Pennsylvania. Of those opposed to restriction, were Holmes of Massachusetts, Vandyke and M'Lane of Delaware, Pinckney of Maryland, Randolph and Barbour of Virginia, Lowndes of South Carolina, Clay and Johnson of Kentucky.

A bill for the admission of Missouri had been defeated during the session of 1818-'19; and the inflammatory subject had, during the vacation of Congress, given rise to incessant contention. The press entered warmly into the controversy. The most violent pamphlets were published on both sides. Public meetings thundered forth their resolutions; and the Union seemed to be fearfully shaken to its centre. It may be imagined, then, with what interest the next session of Congress was looked to by the people.

Many eloquent speeches were made in the house upon the question. Mr. Clay spoke, at one time, nearly four hours against the restriction; but there remains no published sketch of his remarks. The vote in the house of representatives was several times given for excluding slavery; but the senate disagreed, and would not yield to the house.

In 1820, the people of the territory of Missouri, proceeded to ordain and establish a constitution of government for the contemplated state. Among other provisions, it was ordained, in the