The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1871-04-13
SPIRIT or THE PRESS.
EDITORIAL OPINIONS OF THE LEADING JOURNALS
UPON CURRENT ToPIos-CoMPILED EVERY
DAY FOR THE EVENING TELEGRAPH.
HENRY CLAY.
From the NJ Y. TLibstne.

born to poor Baptist preacher, living not
far from Richmond, Virginia, a son since
known to his country and the world as Henry
Clay. Five years later his mother was left
an INDECENT widow with seven children, of
whom Henry was the fifth. This boy received
his scanty education in log school-house,
wherein teachers barely less llliterate than
their pupils from time to time earned mere
subsistence by imparting a knowledge OF let
ters to the children of the poor, for whom no
public provision was made by the chivalry
who then ruled Virginia. their own sons and
daughters receiving instruction in private
seminaries. When fourteen years of age
Henry obtained employment in small retail
store in Richmond which he soon exchanged
for clerkship in the Office of Peter Tinsley,
Clerk of the Court of Chancery, whence, after
four years service, he was taken into the law
Office of Robert Brooke, then Attorney
General, afterwards Governor of the State.
In November, 1897, when not yet of legal
age, he was licensed to practise law, and mi
grated at once to Lexington, the first settle
ment and then largest village in the embryo
State of Kentucky, where he speedily acquired
a large and profitable practice at the bar.
The formation of a State Constitution and
government being then imminent, and slavery
having been planted in Kentucky while she
was q part of Virginia, young Clay took the
stump as an advocate of its gradual, peaceful
extinction by constitutional restriction. He
was overborne by wealth and numbers aud
did not maintain fruitless warfare, but his
convictions were neither changed nor dis
guised, and in addressing, in 1929, the Ken
lucky Colonization Society, made up of the
slaveholding aristocracy when slavery ruled
the Union as we'll as the State, and he was
about te be for the second time candidate
for President, he said:-
more than thirty years ago, an attempt was made
IN this Commonwealth to adopt system Of gradual
emancipation, similar to that introduced in Penn
sylvania in 1850. And among the acts of my life to
which look back with the greatest satisfaction is
that of having co-operated with jealous and nelli-
gent friends TO procure the establishment of that
system in this State. We believed that the sum of
good which would be attained by the State of Ken
far transcend the aggregate OF mischief
that would result to herself and the
and their dispersion and residence in the United
States. We were oyerpowered by numbers, and
submitted to the decision OF the majority with
ever yield to such decision. l have nevertheless
never ceased, and never shall cease, to regret de-
cison the effects OF which have been to place us in
the rear OF our neghbors, who are exempt from
slavery in the state OF agriculture the progress OF
manufactures, the advance OF improvement, and the
general prosperity OF society,""
Again in 1S49, when Kentucky had decided
to revise her Constitution, Mr.. Clay, in a
public letter, urged her to adopt policy of
gradual emancipation, and was again over
ruled by vote which was nearly unanimous.
This persistency in advocating q change so
vital yet SO unpopular, by one who never dis
guised his aspiration to rise and rule through
the favor and confidence of his fellow-citi-
zens, stamps him one of the few whose vision
is eagle eyed-who discern the end from the
begipning-who can look through present
convenience and ease to the ultimate conse-
quences of system essentially fallacious and
unjust.
-Mr Clays unpopular early championship
of emancipation was soon forgotten by his
fellow-citizens in their admiration of the
ardor and eloquence with which he advocated
the doctrines and measures of the Republican
party and its leader Jefferson in opposition
to the rule of John Adams with his Alien
and Sedition laws. In 1903, he was chosen a
representative of his county in the State
Legislature, repeatedly reelected, and in
1906 selected by his fellow-members to fill
vacancy in the United States Senate caused
by the resignation of Gen. John Adair. And,
though successor was at that ses-
sion chosen to supersede him after his
first session, he had already made his
mark in advocacy of internal improvements
by the authority and at the cost of the Union
he having introduced and carried a resolve
which clearly affirms their constitutionslity
and expediency. Returning to Kentucky, he
was rechosen to the Assembly, which made
him it's Speaker and in 1909 he was again
sent to the United States Senate, to fill an
unexpired term for the two years ensuing. At
the next Congress he appeared as Repre-
sentative, and was elected Speaker of the
House on the first day of his appearance
therein-a distinction attaiued by no other
man since the meeting of the first Federal
Congress.
Thenceforth, Mr.. Clay's career as Repre-
sentative, Speaker, negotiator of the Treaty
of Client, Senator, Secretary of State, leader
of great party, and repeatedly It's candidate
for President, down to his death in 1852, at
the ripe age of seventy-fve is part of our ma
tional history. The eloquent promoter and
inspirer of our second war with Great Britain,
he was ever afterward the Jealous and inhu.
ential advocate of peace; the master-spirit OF
repeated compromises whereby the 'irrepres
sible conflict" between freedom and slavery
was prevented, while he lived, from involving
his countrymen in bloody collision; and the
foremost champion of protection to home in
dustry, of the systematic improvement at ma
tional cost of rivers, harbors, and artiticia
means of intercommunication between di
verse sections and States; in short, of tina
American system which tended in every as
pect to free us from dependence on foreign
nations, and render us an intelligent power
full, populous, and happy people.
Henry Clay is no longer with us, but hi
principles remain, and the consideration
whereby he upheld them, though no longe
enforced by his glorious eloquence, are stIl
weighty, and both principles and argument
are still cherished by admiring millions
Never dispenser OF Federal patronage, MI
Clay's power over his countrymsn was that O
rare gift of magnetic oratory, the outflow G
genial nature and a magnanimous SOU
Many yothers have nobly and worthily achieve
4 q