The Express.
London, England, 1852-07-13 00:00:00

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LONDON, TUESDAY, JULY 13.

'fills mail from the United States brings the news
that HENRY CLAY is dead. Long ere this the im-
reeds e funeral 'service—perhaps the most imposing,
if soot the most affecting in the world—has been per-
formed iu the l'apitoL The coffin has been borne
into the House of Representatives, followed by the
whole executive and legislature. The President of
the Senate and the Speaker of the Representatives'
base occupied the chair. the l'resident has sat
before the coffin, and the members of the congress,
each with the crape round his arm, have listened to
the voice of religion, telling them how the
quiet sleep of death must succeed to the
must vehement conflicts how the
inhaler of death niust drown the most
aitinieving and the most persuasive of the voices that
have veer rung through those echoing hulls. The
leisson could never be more impressive than when the
cellist of Ilemtv CLAY was the text of exhortation.
mind that ever uttered itself there was more cer-
tain to animate to enterprise; no voice more irre-
sistibly persuasive ever won the sensibilities of friend
and kw. Less was known of him as an orator, and
even as a statesman, in foreign countries, titan of
other orators and statesmen of the last half century,
because his attributes were such as could not
be conveyed in portraits and newspapers. In-
cessant attempts to take his portrait all
failed to produce one which could be re-
cognised by those who knew him much or
('tuna-N'S singular head, and countenance
painfully lull of life, and Welisrtat's massive brow
awl eve e mous eles c mid he made familiar through-
out whik Welty Ctsv's portraits could
neither be recognised by those who knew him, nor
seine nbereel for tire minutes by those who did not.
It is the same with their oratory. I'vi.uors's sin-
gular theories, beginning in ingenuity, and ending
in monomania, can never be supposed to he uttered '
by any other man ; and the sonic may he paid of
111,11:teS best performanees,—his eine constitu-
tional arernmentv, such as they were in his best
days. lIINRY (.1.%V.S reported speeches partake of
the ut utralitv of which he evtr boasted in the Com-
p rapist,* which were the principle of his states-
niatehip. It needed to see the moistened
se, the quivering lip, the tremulous hands,
playing with the spectacles, and the movements of
the tall lithe figure ; it needed to hear the
wonderful variety of his tones, and to have thrilled
to the exquisite pathos of his voice, to understand
the power which he exercised over the whole mind
of those who listened to him in a silence which
seemed as if it could never be broken. The silence
bas changed sides now. It is he who is mute, while
every other voice is busy in discussing his powers
and his deeds.

The powers and the deeds of HENRY CLAY are a
subject which, for its importance, may be discussed
in other countries than his own ; for no American
statesman of the present century used his faculty
and his position fur objects so largely affecting the '
interests of the world. Ile had become old; and his
influence had waned as a policy of Compromise
receded before the positive needs of the age; and
thus, if he had lived to the extremest term of human
existence. and had died at last in his senatorial
chair, he would not have produced, probably, any
additional effect on the coming destinies of nations, '
or even classes ; but his days of effective statesman-
ship
should not therefore be allowed to pass into ob- '
livion, nor the phase of public life which ho presented
be lust because it has. for some years, slid back '
among the things which were, and which cannot be
again.
If it is true in any case that nothing but good
should be spoken of the dead, it can never be true of
statesmen. No true statesman could desire it ; and
the weakest aspirant who enters into political life
must be aware that in choosing his career, he waives
his claim to the privilege,—if privilege it be,—of
partial appreciation after death. In the present
case. the truth must be spoken, for the sake of those
whom it affects; and if there be pain in it, there is
the least pain to those who spoke it openly while the
man was yet alive, and able to prove by his acts
whether the judgment was harsh or just. HENRY
CLAY avowed through his whole political course
that WA,IIINGTON was his model, and he claimed
for his policy of Compromise the praise accorded by
the world to NVAsIIINGTON'S principle, temper, and
career of moderation. It will never be forgotten by
those who heard him how gloriously heenlogised, while
looking up to the great man's portrait in the Senate,
Wasiiistaolv's wisdom, shown in his crowning
grace of moderation. Nothing could he finer than
the eulogy ; but, when the idea and the sentiment
were translated by himself into action, they came out
in the miserable form of Compromise, which had no
principle for its basis, and no conservative virtue in its
action. lloth were Virginians by birth. Bothlad th,
temperament of whichl'irginians are proud—impul-
sive, irascible, haughty, warm in domestic affections,
strong in self-will, sensitive in honour, open-hearted
in hospitality, devoted in friendship. How, in
WssiitsGrox's case, the finer tendencies became sub-
limed, and the more selfish ones transmuted into
virtues, there is no need to tell. How, in the other
case, the faults degraded the virtues, the acts of a
long life but too plainly show. Let the acts
speak for themselves. It is necessary only to
point out, in answer to the probable inquiry, how
men of this temperament should have their names
associated with moderation and compromise, the dif-
ference of the way in which the result was brought
about in each. V. ASWINGTON found himself, against
his wish, raised to the post of umpire and ruler
amidst the factions and conflicts of a nascent nation ;
and, in • solemn conscientiousness, he disciplined
himself to the sublimest moderation that the world
ever saw. CLAY, ambitious of • pre-eminence which
he never fully attained, put • strong restraint on his
damaging impetuosity of nature, and finding his
faculty of adaptation the only means by. which he
could secure the leadership of a promising party
developed it into the rarest genie. for Com-,
promise that the world, perhaps, ever saw. His
genius carried him a long way. It carried him
into an intoxicating temporary paradise of thanks
and praise.; it carried him almost through the
surging* of parties into the presidential chairt—
almost,tut not quite. The retribution came a little
too quickly. Withering airs of distrust found their
way into his paradise : the forces of convenience
failed before he had cleared the throng of factions ;
he was let drop in the mdst of the struggle ; and he
sank, disappointed and mortified,—affording the
pathetic spectacle to others of baffled ambition, and
himself witnessing the tremendous spectacle of his
nation about to reap the whirlwind from the wind
that he had sown.

His name first interested Europe, and England in
particular, from his being one of the commissioners
who concluded the Treaty of Ghent, in December,
1414. The commissioners, British and American,
sent home word that they had " Compromised their
difficuWes ;" the treaty was signed on the 24th of
December ; and the useless and melancholy battle of
New Orleans was fought in January, from the news
not being known in America. This " Compromise of
difficulties" was, like all Mr. CLAY'S other Compro-
mises. a mere postponement of the solution which
must one day be found, and an agreement to a pro-
visional course meanwhile. The ostensible objects of
the war were left on one side; and the all-important
matter of the boundaries, since so difficult to deal
with, was to be negotiated, some time or other, b
future commissioners. HENRY CLAY was, though
the youngest of his party, manager and head; and
should have, therefore, the chief share of the adverse
judgment on the transaction ;—a judgment which
was unfavourable on both sides the Atlantic, and
which would have been more so if England had not
been in huts to declare herself at peace with all the
world, and the American government eager to close,
on almost on any terms, a war which every citizen
hated, and no one could understand. Next, Mr.
CLAY effected the Compromise of which, of all his
feats in that direction, ho was the most proud,—
except, perhaps, one. In 1820 there was an applica-

tioa from the territory of Missouri to be admitted es
a state into the Union. Missouri had sieve institn-
tions, which were by this time abollaherin all the
northern states. Missouri, mparated only by • river
' from free Illinois, might and ought to base been ad-
monished and encouraged at this eenjunctire to it),
aside slavery ; and deeply has that state since mourned
that this was not done. The northern states were
strong enough to have insisted on this as a condition of
admission into the Union ; but the persuasive voice
of HENRY CLAY beguiled them into • " Compromise"
the celebrated Missouri Compromise—by which the
north gained nothing and the south gained a solemn
sanction and an indefinite prolongation of slavery.
Mr. CLAY drew the lino north of which slavery was
not to exist ; and he pointed out how Maine would
thus be admitted, with her northern freedom, into
the Union as en equivalent for Missouri with her
slaves. But the interdiction of slavery north of the
proposed lino was a warrant for it south
of that line; and the admission of Arkansas
and Florida, as slave states, soon followed of course.
Mr. CLAY, who had before this so Compromised mat-
ters in his own adopted state of Kentucky, as to
prevent the abolition of slavery, which would have
been effected but for him, foresaw the admission of
Arkansas end Florida. The politicians of the north
were either blind to this result, or hoped that no
mischief would came of it. They were afraid of
present clamour, and of any question about the
Union. Having got the troublesome wind shut up,
they hoped that something would prevent its burst-
ing forth as the whirlwind. Its approaching roar,
however, reached the cars of the two great leaders
as they were on their death beds. CALHOUN, who
had said, from the day that he first stood up to speak
till he could stand no more, that American slavery
was as immortal as any other decree of I'rovidencc,
announced, before lie breathed his last, that the
days of slavery were numbered ; and CLAY, after a
final effort to lay the hurricane by one more
desperate Compromise, saw, through the films which
gathered on his dying eyes, the flights of vic..iins
from the iniquities of his fugitive slave law—the
murders of kidnappers—the chains drawn round the
courts of justice—and the marshalling of the strong
and pure-hearted to defy his policy, and establish a
"higher law" than his. On his dying ear fell the
tramp of this host which he had supposed to be a
little band of helpless remonstrants ; and, with this,
came the more appalling sound—the rumble which
warned him of the approaching explosion of his
Compromises, leaving only the fearful question,
whether the Union itself would not be broken up
with:them.
For volcanoes abroad ho had a great admiration.
The recognition by his country of the independence
of the South American republics was his doing. In
this, he was unquestionably sincere, earnest, and full
of generous sympathy. And so be was with regard
to the Greeks, whose cause ho embraced with great
ardour. If, in both cases, he exaggerated the merits,
and painted too fair the prospects of his clients, this
was an error on the right aide, where human sagacity
must be expected to fail; and it was one in which he
had for comrades the best men in all free countries.
Perhaps the fairest aspect of his life is that in which
we see him the advocate and protector of South
American and Greek liberties.