New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1851-03-10
Henry Clay.

We have al some times been graclOuslY
admitted into and at others abruptly ex-
Guided from the little coterie in this City
which assumes to be The Clay men of
New Y ork,' and deems all political wis
dom and patriotic virtue EMBODIED within
its narrow precints. AS the latest Shib.
boleth of this coterie is devotion to the Flu
gitive Slave Law, whereof our admiration
is rather minus quantity, we presume we
are just now outside the pale of Clay or
thodoxy according to the NewYork plat
form, and that our absence will be more
welcome than our presence at the Grand
Clay Ball at Niblo's tonight. At all events,
having an engagement for this evening two
hundred miles away, we shall not be likely
to annoy any one by attending.
Yet we cannot permit the occasion to
fit without a passing tribute to the Won
derful man to whose honor this festival is
dedicated. There are those who, because
they differ from Mr.. Clay on some vital
question, seem determined not to recognize
his genius as a statesman nor even his
worth as a man. Because he was ripened
under Southern sun and inherits to some
extent the sentiments and feelings of his
race and cline, they would degrade him
almost to a level with the rabble of office
hunting demagogues who strut their brief
hour in the halls of Congress and then sink
into their congenial nothingness. These
are even more Just to the great Kentuck-
ian than the servile crowd who suppose no
one can truly honor Mr.. Clay who does not
regard him as inspired and implicitly adopt
all his opinions as though they were reve-
lations. In opposition to these last, we
hold that no one can fully appreciate Mr..
c. who has not some spice of his own in
dependent and self-relying spirit.
Mr.. Clay is now all but seventy-fve
years old-an age at which few men re-
tain their faculties unimpaired, their spirits
unbroken nor the aptitude for severe and
protracted labor. Yet, intrinsically regard
ed, there is hardly younger member OF
the American Senate. Adversely does rot
depress nor unexpected peril perPlex him.
The egotism and the garrulity of Age are
never evinced in his speeches nor his con-
versation. In the frankness and grace OF
his manner, in the buoyancy and frequent
gayety of his spirits, in the alacrity to do
and dare wherewith he breasts every labor
and courts every responsibility, are evlnced
the courage and energy Of unvanquished
youth. Though forty-6ve years have
elapsed since he first entered the Senate,
and every one of those who were the com
patriots of his first service in that body
have long since gone the way OF all the
EARTH yet he is to day as alert and vigor-
Gus as many a man twenty years younger
Far distant be still the day which shall
consign him to the house appointed for all
the living
If there be any who deem the ascen-
dancy of Mr.. Clay's genius fortuitOus, or
explainable on any hypothesis which does
not accord to him the rarest qualities not
only ofthe head but Of the heart, we ask
them to consider the circumstances under
which that ascendassy has been proved
We will not speak of the earlier portion of
his career when, the most effective orator
and parliamentary leader of the popular
party, he was so many times chosen Speak
er of the House, and exerted therein an in
fluence never welded by another even for
single session. With fortune favOring,
and an enthusiastic majority supporting it
need not be very difficult to rule. But after
| the great defeat Of 1923. Mr.. Clay was