‘His soul, enlarged from its vile bonds, has goneTo thatREFULGENTworld, where it shall swimIn liquid light, and float on seas of bliss.’But the memory of his virtues and of his services will be gratefullyembalmed in the hearts of his countrymen, and generations yet unborn will be taught to lisp with reverence and enthusiasm the name of Henry Clay.Mr.PARKER, of Indiana, said:Mr.Speaker, This is a solemn—a consecrated hour. And I would not detain the members of the house from indulging in the silence of their own feelings, so grateful to hearts chastened as ours. But I cannot restrain an expression from a bosom pained with its fullness.When my young thoughts first took cognizance of the fact that I have a country, my eye was attracted by the magnificent proportions of Henry Clay. The idea absorbed me then, that he was, above all other men, the embodiment of my country’s genius.I have watched him; I have studied him; I have admired him—and, God forgive me! for he was but a man, ‘of like passions with us’—I fear I haveidolizedhim, until this hour. But he has gone from among men; and it is forUSnow to awake and apply ourselves, with renewed fervor and increased fidelity, to the welfare of the countryHEloved so well and served so truly and so long—the glorious country yet saved to us! Yes, Henry Clay has fallen, at last!—as the ripe oak falls, in the stillness of the forest. But the verdant and gorgeous richness of his glories will only fade and wither from the earth, when his country’s history shall have been forgotten. ‘One generation passeth away and another generation cometh.’ Thus it has been from the beginning, and thus it will be, until time shall be no longer.Yesterday morning, at eleven o’clock, the spirit of Henry Clay—so long the pride and glory of his own country, and the admiration of all the world—was yet with us, though struggling to be free. Ere ‘high noon’ came, it had passed over ‘the dark river,’ through the gate, into the celestial city, inhabited by all the ‘just men made perfect.’ May not our rapt vision contemplate him there, this day, in sweet communion with the dear friends that have gone before him?—with Madison, and Jefferson, and Washington, and Henry, and Franklin—with the eloquent Tully, with the ‘divine Plato,’ with Aaron the Levite, who could ‘speak well’—with all the great and good, since and before the flood! His princely tread has graced these aisles for the last time. These halls will wake no more to the magic music of his voice. Did that tall spirit, in its etherial form, enter the courts of the upper sanctuary, bearing itself comparably with the spirits there, as was his walk among men? Did the mellifluous tones of his greeting there enrapture the hosts of heaven, comparably with his strains ‘to stir men’s blood’ on earth? Then, may we not fancy, when it was announced to the inhabitants of that better country, ‘He comes! he comes!’ there was a rustling of angel-wings—a thrilling joy—up there, only to be witnessed once in an earthly age? Adieu!—a last adieu to thee, Henry Clay! The hearts of all thy countrymen are melted, on this day, because of the thought thatthou art gone. Could we have held the hand of the ‘insatiate archer,’ thou hadst not died; but thou wouldst have tarried with us, in the full grandeur of thy greatness, until we had no longer need of a country. But we thank our Heavenly Father that thou wast given to us; and that thou didst survive so long. We would cherish thy memory while we live, as our country’sJEWEL—than which none is richer. And we will teach our children the lessons of matchless patriotism thou hast taught us; with the fond hope that ourLIBERTYand ourUNIONmay only expire with ‘the last of earth.’Mr.GENTRYsaid:Mr.Speaker, I do not rise to pronounce an eulogy on the life and character and public services of the illustrious orator and statesman whose death this nation deplores. Suitably to perform that task, a higher eloquence than I possess might essay in vain. The gushing tears of the nation, the deep grief which oppresses the hearts of more than twenty millions of people, constitute a more eloquent eulogium upon the life and character and patriot services of Henry Clay, than the power of language can express. In no part of our country is that character more admired, or those public services more appreciated, than in the state which I have the honor, in part, to represent. I claim for the people of that state a full participation in the general woe which the sad announcement of to-day will every where inspire.Mr.BOWIEsaid:Mr.Speaker, I rise not to utter the measured phrases of premeditated woe, but to speak as my constituency would, if they stood around the grave now opening to receive the mortal remains, not of a statesman only, but of a beloved friend. If there is a state in this Union, other than Kentucky, which sends up a wail of more bitter and sincere sorrow than another, that state is Maryland.In her midst, the departed statesman was a frequent and a welcome guest. At many a board, and many a fireside, his noble form was the light of the eyes, the idol of the heart. Throughout her borders, in cottage, hamlet, and city, his name is a household word, his thoughts are familiar sentences. Though not permitted to be the first at his cradle, Maryland would be the last at his tomb.Through all the phases of political fortune, amid all the storms which darkened his career, Maryland cherished him in her inmost heart, as the most gifted, patriotic, and eloquent of men. To this hour, prayers ascend from many domestic altars, evening and morning, for his temporal comfort and eternal welfare. In the language of inspiration, Maryland would exclaim, ‘There is a prince and a great man fallen, this day, in Israel.’ Daughters of America! weep for him ‘who hath clothed you in scarlet and fine linen.’—The husbandman at his plough, the artisan at the anvil, and the seaman on the mast, will pause and drop a tear when he hears Clay is no more.The advocate of freedom in both hemispheres, he will be lamented alike on the shores of the Hellespont and the banks of the Mississippiand Orinoco. The freed men of Liberia, learning and practising the art of self-government, and civilizing Africa, have lost in him a patron and protector, a father and a friend. America mourns the eclipse of a luminary, which enlightened and illuminated the continent; the United States, a counsellor of deepest wisdom and purest purpose; mankind, the advocate of human rights and constitutional liberty.Mr.WALSHsaid:Mr.Speaker, The illustrious man whose death we this day mourn, was so long my political leader—so long almost the object of my personal idolatry—that I cannot allow that he shall go down to the grave, without a word at least of affectionate remembrance—without a tribute to a memory which will exact tribute as long as a heart shall be found to beat within the bosom of civilized man, and human agency shall be adequate in anyformto give them an expression; and even, sir, if I had no heartfelt sigh to pour out here—if I had no tear for that coffin’s lid, I should do injustice to those whose representative in part I am, if I did not in thispresence, and at this time, raise the voice to swell the accents of the profoundest public sorrow.The state of Maryland has always vied with Kentucky in love and adoration of his name. Her people have gathered around him with all the fervour of a first affection, and with more than itsduration. Troops of friends have ever clustered about his pathway with a personal devotion which each man of them regarded as the highest individual honor—friends, sir, to whose firesides the tidings of his death will go with all the withering influences which are felt when household ties are severed.I wish, sir, I could offer now a proper memorial for such a subject and such an affection. But as I strive to utter it, I feel the disheartening influence of the well-known truth, that in view of death all minds sink into triteness. It would seem, indeed, sir, that the great leveller of our race would vindicate histitleto be so considered, by making all men think alike in regard to his visitation—‘the thousand thoughts that begin and end in one’—thedesolationhere—the eternal hopehereafter—are influences felt alike by the lowest intellect and the loftiest genius.Mr.Speaker, a statesman for more than fifty years in the councils of his country, whose peculiar charge it was to see that the republic suffered no detriment—a patriot for all times, all circumstances, and all emergencies—has passed away from the trials and triumphs of the world, and gone to his reward. Sad as are the emotions which such an event would ordinarily excite, their intensity is heightened by the matters so fresh within the memories of us all:‘Oh! think how to his latest day,When Death, just hovering, claimed his prey,With Palinurus’ unalter’d mood,Firm at his dangerous post he stood;Each call for needful rest repell’d,With dying hand the rudder held;Then while on Freedom’s thousand plains,One unpolluted church remains,Whose peaceful bells ne’er sent aroundThe bloody tocsin’s maddening sound,But still, upon the hallow’d day,Convoke the swains to praise and pray,While peace and civil peace are dear,Greet his cold marble with a tear—He who preservedthem—CLAYlies here.’In a character,Mr.Speaker, so illustrious and beautiful, it is difficult to select any point for particular notice, from those which go to make up its noble proportions; but we may now, around his honored grave, call to grateful recollection that invincible spirit which no personal sorrow could sully, and no disaster could overcome. Be assured, sir, that he has in this regard left a legacy to the young men of the republic, almost as sacred and as dear as that liberty of which his life was a blessed illustration.We can all remember, sir, when adverse political results disheartened his friends, and made them feel even as men without hope, that his own clarion voice was still heard in the purpose and the pursuit of right, as bold and as eloquent as when it first proclaimed the freedom of the seas, and its talismanic tones struck off the badges of bondage from the lands of the Incas, and the plains of Marathon.Mr.Speaker, in the exultation of the statesman he did not forget the duties of the man. He was an affectionate adviser on all points wherein inexperienced youth might require counsel. He was a disinterested sympathizer in personal sorrows that called for consolation. He was ever upright and honorable in all the duties incident to his relations in life.To an existence so lovely, Heaven in its mercy granted a fitting and appropriate close. It was the prayer,Mr.Speaker, of a distinguished citizen, who died some years since in the metropolis, even while his spirit was fluttering for its final flight, that he might depart gracefully. It may not be presumptuous to say, that what was in that instance the aspiration of a chivalricgentleman, was in this the realization of the dyingChristian, in which was blended all that human dignity could require, with all that divine grace had conferred; in which the firmness of the man was only transcended by the fervor of the penitent.A short period before his death he remarked to one by his bedside, ‘that he was fearful he was becoming selfish, as his thoughts were entirely withdrawn from the world and centred upon eternity.’ This, sir, was but the purification of his noble spirit from all the dross of earth—a happy illustration of what the religious muse has so sweetly sung:‘No sin to stain—no lure to stayThe soul, as home she springs;Thy sunshine on her joyful way,Thy freedom in her wings.’Mr.Speaker, the solemnities of this hour may soon be forgotten. We may come back from the new-made grave only still to show that we consider ‘eternity the bubble, life and time the enduring substance.’ We may not pause long enough by the brink to ask which of us revelers of to-day shall next be at rest. But be assured, sir, that upon the records of mortality will never be inscribed a name more illustrious than that of the statesman, patriot, and friend whom the nation mourns.The question was then put on the adoption of the resolutions proposed byMr.Breckenridge, and they were unanimously adopted.
‘His soul, enlarged from its vile bonds, has goneTo thatREFULGENTworld, where it shall swimIn liquid light, and float on seas of bliss.’
‘His soul, enlarged from its vile bonds, has goneTo thatREFULGENTworld, where it shall swimIn liquid light, and float on seas of bliss.’
‘His soul, enlarged from its vile bonds, has gone
To thatREFULGENTworld, where it shall swim
In liquid light, and float on seas of bliss.’
But the memory of his virtues and of his services will be gratefullyembalmed in the hearts of his countrymen, and generations yet unborn will be taught to lisp with reverence and enthusiasm the name of Henry Clay.
Mr.PARKER, of Indiana, said:Mr.Speaker, This is a solemn—a consecrated hour. And I would not detain the members of the house from indulging in the silence of their own feelings, so grateful to hearts chastened as ours. But I cannot restrain an expression from a bosom pained with its fullness.
When my young thoughts first took cognizance of the fact that I have a country, my eye was attracted by the magnificent proportions of Henry Clay. The idea absorbed me then, that he was, above all other men, the embodiment of my country’s genius.
I have watched him; I have studied him; I have admired him—and, God forgive me! for he was but a man, ‘of like passions with us’—I fear I haveidolizedhim, until this hour. But he has gone from among men; and it is forUSnow to awake and apply ourselves, with renewed fervor and increased fidelity, to the welfare of the countryHEloved so well and served so truly and so long—the glorious country yet saved to us! Yes, Henry Clay has fallen, at last!—as the ripe oak falls, in the stillness of the forest. But the verdant and gorgeous richness of his glories will only fade and wither from the earth, when his country’s history shall have been forgotten. ‘One generation passeth away and another generation cometh.’ Thus it has been from the beginning, and thus it will be, until time shall be no longer.
Yesterday morning, at eleven o’clock, the spirit of Henry Clay—so long the pride and glory of his own country, and the admiration of all the world—was yet with us, though struggling to be free. Ere ‘high noon’ came, it had passed over ‘the dark river,’ through the gate, into the celestial city, inhabited by all the ‘just men made perfect.’ May not our rapt vision contemplate him there, this day, in sweet communion with the dear friends that have gone before him?—with Madison, and Jefferson, and Washington, and Henry, and Franklin—with the eloquent Tully, with the ‘divine Plato,’ with Aaron the Levite, who could ‘speak well’—with all the great and good, since and before the flood! His princely tread has graced these aisles for the last time. These halls will wake no more to the magic music of his voice. Did that tall spirit, in its etherial form, enter the courts of the upper sanctuary, bearing itself comparably with the spirits there, as was his walk among men? Did the mellifluous tones of his greeting there enrapture the hosts of heaven, comparably with his strains ‘to stir men’s blood’ on earth? Then, may we not fancy, when it was announced to the inhabitants of that better country, ‘He comes! he comes!’ there was a rustling of angel-wings—a thrilling joy—up there, only to be witnessed once in an earthly age? Adieu!—a last adieu to thee, Henry Clay! The hearts of all thy countrymen are melted, on this day, because of the thought thatthou art gone. Could we have held the hand of the ‘insatiate archer,’ thou hadst not died; but thou wouldst have tarried with us, in the full grandeur of thy greatness, until we had no longer need of a country. But we thank our Heavenly Father that thou wast given to us; and that thou didst survive so long. We would cherish thy memory while we live, as our country’sJEWEL—than which none is richer. And we will teach our children the lessons of matchless patriotism thou hast taught us; with the fond hope that ourLIBERTYand ourUNIONmay only expire with ‘the last of earth.’
Mr.GENTRYsaid:Mr.Speaker, I do not rise to pronounce an eulogy on the life and character and public services of the illustrious orator and statesman whose death this nation deplores. Suitably to perform that task, a higher eloquence than I possess might essay in vain. The gushing tears of the nation, the deep grief which oppresses the hearts of more than twenty millions of people, constitute a more eloquent eulogium upon the life and character and patriot services of Henry Clay, than the power of language can express. In no part of our country is that character more admired, or those public services more appreciated, than in the state which I have the honor, in part, to represent. I claim for the people of that state a full participation in the general woe which the sad announcement of to-day will every where inspire.
Mr.BOWIEsaid:Mr.Speaker, I rise not to utter the measured phrases of premeditated woe, but to speak as my constituency would, if they stood around the grave now opening to receive the mortal remains, not of a statesman only, but of a beloved friend. If there is a state in this Union, other than Kentucky, which sends up a wail of more bitter and sincere sorrow than another, that state is Maryland.
In her midst, the departed statesman was a frequent and a welcome guest. At many a board, and many a fireside, his noble form was the light of the eyes, the idol of the heart. Throughout her borders, in cottage, hamlet, and city, his name is a household word, his thoughts are familiar sentences. Though not permitted to be the first at his cradle, Maryland would be the last at his tomb.
Through all the phases of political fortune, amid all the storms which darkened his career, Maryland cherished him in her inmost heart, as the most gifted, patriotic, and eloquent of men. To this hour, prayers ascend from many domestic altars, evening and morning, for his temporal comfort and eternal welfare. In the language of inspiration, Maryland would exclaim, ‘There is a prince and a great man fallen, this day, in Israel.’ Daughters of America! weep for him ‘who hath clothed you in scarlet and fine linen.’—The husbandman at his plough, the artisan at the anvil, and the seaman on the mast, will pause and drop a tear when he hears Clay is no more.
The advocate of freedom in both hemispheres, he will be lamented alike on the shores of the Hellespont and the banks of the Mississippiand Orinoco. The freed men of Liberia, learning and practising the art of self-government, and civilizing Africa, have lost in him a patron and protector, a father and a friend. America mourns the eclipse of a luminary, which enlightened and illuminated the continent; the United States, a counsellor of deepest wisdom and purest purpose; mankind, the advocate of human rights and constitutional liberty.
Mr.WALSHsaid:Mr.Speaker, The illustrious man whose death we this day mourn, was so long my political leader—so long almost the object of my personal idolatry—that I cannot allow that he shall go down to the grave, without a word at least of affectionate remembrance—without a tribute to a memory which will exact tribute as long as a heart shall be found to beat within the bosom of civilized man, and human agency shall be adequate in anyformto give them an expression; and even, sir, if I had no heartfelt sigh to pour out here—if I had no tear for that coffin’s lid, I should do injustice to those whose representative in part I am, if I did not in thispresence, and at this time, raise the voice to swell the accents of the profoundest public sorrow.
The state of Maryland has always vied with Kentucky in love and adoration of his name. Her people have gathered around him with all the fervour of a first affection, and with more than itsduration. Troops of friends have ever clustered about his pathway with a personal devotion which each man of them regarded as the highest individual honor—friends, sir, to whose firesides the tidings of his death will go with all the withering influences which are felt when household ties are severed.
I wish, sir, I could offer now a proper memorial for such a subject and such an affection. But as I strive to utter it, I feel the disheartening influence of the well-known truth, that in view of death all minds sink into triteness. It would seem, indeed, sir, that the great leveller of our race would vindicate histitleto be so considered, by making all men think alike in regard to his visitation—‘the thousand thoughts that begin and end in one’—thedesolationhere—the eternal hopehereafter—are influences felt alike by the lowest intellect and the loftiest genius.
Mr.Speaker, a statesman for more than fifty years in the councils of his country, whose peculiar charge it was to see that the republic suffered no detriment—a patriot for all times, all circumstances, and all emergencies—has passed away from the trials and triumphs of the world, and gone to his reward. Sad as are the emotions which such an event would ordinarily excite, their intensity is heightened by the matters so fresh within the memories of us all:
‘Oh! think how to his latest day,When Death, just hovering, claimed his prey,With Palinurus’ unalter’d mood,Firm at his dangerous post he stood;Each call for needful rest repell’d,With dying hand the rudder held;Then while on Freedom’s thousand plains,One unpolluted church remains,Whose peaceful bells ne’er sent aroundThe bloody tocsin’s maddening sound,But still, upon the hallow’d day,Convoke the swains to praise and pray,While peace and civil peace are dear,Greet his cold marble with a tear—He who preservedthem—CLAYlies here.’
‘Oh! think how to his latest day,When Death, just hovering, claimed his prey,With Palinurus’ unalter’d mood,Firm at his dangerous post he stood;Each call for needful rest repell’d,With dying hand the rudder held;Then while on Freedom’s thousand plains,One unpolluted church remains,Whose peaceful bells ne’er sent aroundThe bloody tocsin’s maddening sound,But still, upon the hallow’d day,Convoke the swains to praise and pray,While peace and civil peace are dear,Greet his cold marble with a tear—He who preservedthem—CLAYlies here.’
‘Oh! think how to his latest day,
When Death, just hovering, claimed his prey,
With Palinurus’ unalter’d mood,
Firm at his dangerous post he stood;
Each call for needful rest repell’d,
With dying hand the rudder held;
Then while on Freedom’s thousand plains,
One unpolluted church remains,
Whose peaceful bells ne’er sent around
The bloody tocsin’s maddening sound,
But still, upon the hallow’d day,
Convoke the swains to praise and pray,
While peace and civil peace are dear,
Greet his cold marble with a tear—
He who preservedthem—CLAYlies here.’
In a character,Mr.Speaker, so illustrious and beautiful, it is difficult to select any point for particular notice, from those which go to make up its noble proportions; but we may now, around his honored grave, call to grateful recollection that invincible spirit which no personal sorrow could sully, and no disaster could overcome. Be assured, sir, that he has in this regard left a legacy to the young men of the republic, almost as sacred and as dear as that liberty of which his life was a blessed illustration.
We can all remember, sir, when adverse political results disheartened his friends, and made them feel even as men without hope, that his own clarion voice was still heard in the purpose and the pursuit of right, as bold and as eloquent as when it first proclaimed the freedom of the seas, and its talismanic tones struck off the badges of bondage from the lands of the Incas, and the plains of Marathon.
Mr.Speaker, in the exultation of the statesman he did not forget the duties of the man. He was an affectionate adviser on all points wherein inexperienced youth might require counsel. He was a disinterested sympathizer in personal sorrows that called for consolation. He was ever upright and honorable in all the duties incident to his relations in life.
To an existence so lovely, Heaven in its mercy granted a fitting and appropriate close. It was the prayer,Mr.Speaker, of a distinguished citizen, who died some years since in the metropolis, even while his spirit was fluttering for its final flight, that he might depart gracefully. It may not be presumptuous to say, that what was in that instance the aspiration of a chivalricgentleman, was in this the realization of the dyingChristian, in which was blended all that human dignity could require, with all that divine grace had conferred; in which the firmness of the man was only transcended by the fervor of the penitent.
A short period before his death he remarked to one by his bedside, ‘that he was fearful he was becoming selfish, as his thoughts were entirely withdrawn from the world and centred upon eternity.’ This, sir, was but the purification of his noble spirit from all the dross of earth—a happy illustration of what the religious muse has so sweetly sung:
‘No sin to stain—no lure to stayThe soul, as home she springs;Thy sunshine on her joyful way,Thy freedom in her wings.’
‘No sin to stain—no lure to stayThe soul, as home she springs;Thy sunshine on her joyful way,Thy freedom in her wings.’
‘No sin to stain—no lure to stay
The soul, as home she springs;
Thy sunshine on her joyful way,
Thy freedom in her wings.’
Mr.Speaker, the solemnities of this hour may soon be forgotten. We may come back from the new-made grave only still to show that we consider ‘eternity the bubble, life and time the enduring substance.’ We may not pause long enough by the brink to ask which of us revelers of to-day shall next be at rest. But be assured, sir, that upon the records of mortality will never be inscribed a name more illustrious than that of the statesman, patriot, and friend whom the nation mourns.
The question was then put on the adoption of the resolutions proposed byMr.Breckenridge, and they were unanimously adopted.