The Athens post. [volume] (Athens, Tenn.) 1848-1917, 1852-08-20
A JUST REBUKE.

The following just rebuke will be properly
appreciated by every right thinking man:
1--WE do not much like, Mt time when all
parties without distinction are pouring forth
Their tears, their lamentations, and their eulo-
gles over the grave ofSHenry Clay, to remind
the Democracy ofthe horrible calamities, with
which, for more than quarter of century,
they increasingly pursued the great patriot,
yet there Is such striking justice in the sub
Joined extract from the New York Courier
and Enquirer that we feel impelled to trans
| fer it to our columns:" at
an looking over our exchanges from all
parts of the country, we are struck most
pleasurably by the perfect concord of their
panegyries of Henry Clay. The most glow
ing language is used by them all in describing
his noble qualities as man and rs q status
man: Journals of every variety OF political
opinion and association vie with each other in
their tributes Of admiring homage and CRATE
full love To his memory. His eoquence, his
patriotism, his enthusiasm in the right, his
| scorn of base deeds, his courage and his con-
stancy, his Openness and his sincerity, his sa-
gacity and his wisdom, are dwelt upon with
apparently the most heartfelt earnestness
and in terms whose only fault is that they
are too unqualified.
"But this universal concurrence in extolling
the character and services of Henry Clay,
gratifying as it is in itself, is not free from
painful associations. This same patriot who,
dead, is the theme of almost uncxampled
euIogy, living, was the object of the most
relentless calumny. There was truth burn
ing, crushing truth-in what the patriarch
statesman said before his old friends and
neighbors in his great Lexington speech: Il
feel like an old stag which has been long
coursed by the hunters and the hounds,
through brakes and briars, and DER distant
plains, and has at last returned himself to his
ancient lair to lay him down and die. And
yet vile ours of party are barking at my heels,
and the blood-hounds of personal malignity
are aiming at my throat" And now that
the same old monarch of the woods has closed
his eyes in death, and gone where love or
hate can reach him never more, all haste to
drop tear upon his lifeless form and shout
his praise to heaven. Alas, alas, for the hu-
man nature that can do these things! Why
this change! What mean these paans now
whence curses were so lately heard! What
is it that death, cold, insensate death, can do
for man that life, feeling, thinking, acting
struggling, heroic, god-like life, should not do
for him? In the supersttious belief of the
ancients, the lightning stroke consecrated its
object; have we religion which holds no
earthly thing sacred until it has been smitten
by the Destroyer! There is no merit in in
voluntary dying; what personal merit then
can death bcstow? Henry Clay is this day
judged as living man, and not as a coffined
clod. With calm, clear eyes, men now look
back upon his glorious public career Of ngarly
half century, and the view of it fills their
bosoms with admiration. None are so base
now as to refuse him their praise and their
reverence. There is no need now of asking
for Justice to Henry Clay;' it comes from eve
ry quarter free and full as the winds Of
Heaven But why was it not given when it
was valued and was craved! Nay, why in
stead of it, were hurled without cessation for
ten, twenty, thirty live long years, falsehood,
calumny, and wrong! There is there can be
no possible answer to this question that will
not humiliate those who were once enemies
of Henry Clay to the very dust"