Weekly national intelligencer. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1841-1869, 1852-07-03

men who have been taken from midst and the earth
Is soon TO open to receive another know not, sir,
whether 1t can be said matter Of amentation,
far the dead concerned that the thread Of this life
has been clipped when once it had been fuysPun They
escape he inrmes Of age and they leave an imperish
able name behind them The loss sir is not theirs but
ours, and loss the to be amented that
to NIL the places thus made vacant the stage Of public
AFFAIRS. Bat 1t may be well for us, who have much
more cause to and lament such Deaths pause
amidst the business of life for the purpose Of
plating the spectacle before and Of drawing the moral
from the passing event 1t is when death sezes for its
victims those who by head and shoulders taller
than all the rest that feel most deeply the uncer
tainy Of human affairs and that the gores Of NOR
tai state shadows not substantial things" 1t is, sir
in such instances the present that best study by
the light Of example the object of life and the wses
ends Of human pursuit
Mr.. SEWARD, Of New York. rose and said Fifty years
ago. Henry Clay of Virginia, already adopted by Ken
lucky then youthful himself entered the service of
his country representative in the unpretendng Legis
lature OF that rising State and having henceforward
pursued With ardor and constancy the gradual paths Of
an aspiring change through Halls of Congress, foreign
courts, AID Executive councils he has now, with the
cheernintss OF patriot and the serenity Of christian,
fifty closed his long and arduous career here in the SEN
ate, in the full Of the Republic looking down
upon the scene with anxiety and alarm not merely
Senator like of who in The Senate house.
but filing that character which, though It had autho
rty Of Law and was assigned without suffrage Augustus
II
peras, Pms inter ustres-the Prince Of tho Senate.
Genesals are tried, Mr.. President by examining the
campaigns they have lost or won, and statesmen by re-
viewing the transactions in which they have been engaged
Hamilton would have been unknown to had there been
constitution to be created Bruus would have died
in obscurity had there been no Caesar to be slain.
Csonization revolution and OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES great
acts in the drama of national progresshad already
passed when the Western Patriot appeared the public
stage He entered in that next division of the majestic
scenes which was marked by inevitable reaction Of
barrassments in foreign relations This transition
stage is always perous than any other in
of nations and especially iu the of republics 1t
proved fatal to the Commonwealth in England Scarcely
Of the Spanish American States has yet emerged from
it; and it has than been sadly signalized by
The ruin of the republican cause in France.
The continuous Administration Of Washington and John
Adams had closed under cloud which had thrown
broad dark shadow the future the nation was deeply
Indebted at home and abroad, and its credit pros
rate. The revolutionary factions had given place two
inyeterate parties, divided by gulf which had been
by the conflict in which the Constitution adopted,
and made broader and deeper by of prejudces
corning the merits Of the begerents in the great Euro
pean struggle that then convulsed the civilized world.
Our extraordinary political system little than
an ingenious theory not yet practically established The
Union of the States yet only Of compact for
the political social and commercial necessities to which
was so marveously adapted and which, clustering
thcky upon it. render it indssouble had not then
broadly disclosed had the habits of acquiescence
and the sentiments Of loyalty, always slow Of growth,
fully npened. The bark that had gone sea, thus
furnished and untred seemed quite certain founder by
reason of its own inherent aty if it should escape
unframed in the great conflict of nations which acknow
lodged claims Of justice and tolerated pretensons
of neutrality Moreover the territory possessed by the
nation inadequate to commercial exigencies and in
dispensabe social expansion and yet provision had
been made for enlargement for extending the polt
cal system distant regions, inhabited otherwise,
which must inevitably be acquired Nor could any such
acquisition be made without disturbing the carefullyad
used balance OF powers among the members Of the Con-
federacy
These difficulties, Mr.. President, although they grew
less with time and by slow degrees continued throughout
the whole life of the whose obseques we are
celebrating Be it known, then, and that his
tory will confirm the instruction, that Conservatism
the interest Of the nation and the responsibility Of its
rulers during the period in which he ourshed He
ardent bold generous and ambitious and yet with
profound conviction of the exigencies of the
Try. IKE Alexander Hamilton ne disciplined himself and
the rigorous practice Of that often humiating
sm which its welfare and security in that peculiar crisis
80 imperiousy demanded
1t could not have happened sir to any citizen have
acted alone to have acted always the most
spcuous part in trying period long proracted Henry
Clay therefore shared the responsibilities of Government
with not only his proper contemporaries but also
vivors OF the Revolution well also many who will
now succeed himself Delicacy forbds my naming those
who retain their places here but may without impro
priety recall among his compeers Senator of
sources and nfexibe resolve, whs has recently with
drawn from this chamber but trust altogether from
public life MR. BENTON y and another Who surprising
all his contemporaries within his country, and even
throughout the world, in the proper eloquence Of the
forum, now in autumnal years. for second time dgnfes
and adorns the highest seat in the Executive council r
WEBSTER Passing by these eminent and noble men,
the shades Of Calhoun, John Quincy Adams, Jackson
Monroe, Madison, and Jefferson rise up before usstates
whose living and local fame has ripened already into
historical and worldwide renown
Among genuses SO lofty as these, Henry Clay bore
part in regulating the constitutional freedom of political
debates establishing that contested and impor-
ant line which divides the sovereignty Of the several
States from that Of the States confederaed asserting the
right OF Neutrality, and indicating it by against
Great Britain, when that Just but extreme measure be-
came necessary adjusting the terms which that peril
yet honorable contest brought peaceful close
perfectng the army and the navy and national fortfca
TONS settling the fiscal and financial policy of the Gov
eminent in more than crisis of apparently threat
ened revolutions asserting and calling into exercise the
powers Of the Government for making and improving in
ternal communications between the States arousng and
encouraging tho Spanish American Colonies this Con-
nent to throw off the foreign yoke and organize Gov
ernments on principles congenia to own, and thus
creating external buwarks for national defence
establishing equal and impartial peace and amty with all
existing maritime Powers and extending the consttu-
tonal organization Of Government the regions
all secured in his lifetime by purchase by conquest
whereby the pillars Of the Republic have been removed
from the banks of the ST. Marys to the borders Of the
Rio Grande and from the margin Of the Mississippi to
the Pacific coast. We may not yet discuss the wisdom
Of the several which have thus passed in review
before Of the positions which the deceased
man assumed in regard to them but may without Of
fence dwell upon the comprehensive results Of them all
The Union exists in absolute integrity, and the Repub
lie in complete and triumphant development. Without
having renquished any part of their individuality the
States have mbre than doubled already and increas
ing numbers and growing in political strength and ex