Nashville daily patriot. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1855-1857, 1856-12-09
Hon. Thos. F. marshaII on Henry clay.

Hon. Thas. f. Marshall on Henry Clay.
From the Frankfort Commonwealth
At tbs earnest solicitation of many personal
friends, the Hon. Thomas +. Marshall has at last
consented to the publication of his beautiful eulo-
gy on Mr.. Clay in bis great speech at Covngton,
delivered during the recent canvass. We are graf
fled beyond measure that he has done SO for even
his wide spread reputation for oratory and classic
dicton will receive new lustre from this sample OF
bis peerless genius and unsurpassed powers of rhes
toric. 1t is bold, yet chaste-subime and lofty,
yet soft and touching. The sculptor has done Jas
tice TO his glorious subject. But il is not our in
tention to pass any criticism upon the work which
the artisg presents to our intellectual view 1t is
enough that Mr. Marshall was the speaker, aud
Kentucky's idol the subject:
EVERY one knows that the various objects Of
the Texas boundary, the admission of California
the territorial organization Of Utah aud New Mex'
leo, the recovery Of fugitive slaves Wto had eseap
from their into the territory Estates whose
constitutions did not allow slavery, and the abo.
ton of the slave trade in the District of Columbia,
were sought by Mr. Clay to be united in a single
bill, and passed as one measure. In this form the
''emnibus" bill, as it termed, failed. But in
the shape of several each separate subject,
the principles contended for by Mr. Clay, were a.
dopted and became part OF the legislation Of that
year. Why the bill reported by himself was
defeated and dismembered, yet in the shape OF
with his wishes, it is not for me to inquire. If it
were designed, on the part of some Senators. to
deprive the dying leader of the honors of his last
battle, it a vain hope. In the public mind,
and in common on parlaDce they are still
ciated. In history they will be known as Mr..
Ciay's Compromise. They are grouped and termed
the Compromise of 1850 in the Democratic plat
form; even the Kansas and Nebraska acts adopt
the common nomenclature, and, instead Of reciting
the several acts dy their titles, call them the Com
promise.
The friends of Mr. Clay mediate the construc.
ton of monument TO mark the spot where repose
the remains of that fra tenement which once held
in his fiery soul. 1t will be honorable to them,
aud will form graceful ornament to the green
woods which surround the city of which he had
himself been SO long the living ornament, but 1t
will be useless to him or to his fame He trusted
neither himself nor his fame to mechanical hands
| or perishabe materials "Eregit Ha0naBeRtanl
perennius are" They may lay their pedestals OF
graDite-they may rear their polished columns till
| they pierce and fout the skies-they may cover
their marble pillars alover with the bazonry OF his
| deeds and trophies of his triumphant genius, and
surmount them with images OF bis form wrought
by the cunningest hands-it matters not-he is
not there The prisoned eagle has burst the bars
and scared away from strife and conflict, and Ca
! lumny.
He is not dead-he lives. | mean not the life
eternal in yon other world of which religion teach,
es, but here on earth he lives the life which men
| call fame, that life the hope of which forms the
solace of high ambition, which cheers and sustains
the brave and wise and good, the champions Of
truth and human kind, through all their labOrs-
that life is his beyond all chance change, grow
! ing, expansive, quenchless time and human
memory. He needs no statue-he desired none.
1t was the image Of his soul he wished to perpet
uste, and he has stamped it himself in lines of fame
| upon the souls Of his countrymen.
| Not all the marbles of Carrara, fashioned by
! the chse of Angelo into the mimicry of breathing
| life, could convey to the senses likeness so per
feet of himself as that which he has left upon the
minds of men. He carved his own statue, he
! built his own monument. In youth he laid the
base broad as his whole country, that it might
well sustain the mighty structure he had designed.
He labored herOically through life the colossal
| shaft
| In 1850, the last year of the first half Of the
18th century, he prepared the healing measures
| which bear his name, as the capital, well proper
toned and in perfect keeping with the now finish
| ed column, crowned his work. saw that it good
and durable, sprang to its lofty and commanding
summit, and gazing from that lone height upon a
horizon which embraced all coming time, win eter-
nifty for his background, and the eyes of the
whole world rivetted upon his solitary figure con.
scented there and thus to die.