s memory will endure to the last syllable
of recorded time.

"Henry Clay is dead! He breathed his last on yesterday, at twenty minutes
after eleven, in his chamber at Washington. To those who followed his lead
in public affairs, it more appropriately belongs to pronounce his eulogy
and pay specific honors to the memory of the illustrious dead. But all
Americans may show the grief which his death inspires, for his character
and fame are national property. As on a question of liberty he knew no
North, no South, no East, no West, but only the Union which held them all
in its sacred circle, so now his countrymen will know no grief that is not
as wide-spread as the bounds of the confederacy. The career of Henry Clay
was a public career. From his youth he has been devoted to the public
service, at a period, too, in the world's history justly regarded as a
remarkable era in human affairs. He witnessed in the beginning the throes
of the French Revolution. He saw the rise and fall of Napoleon. He was
called upon to legislate for America and direct her policy when all Europe
was the battlefield of contending dynasties, and when the struggle for
supremacy imperilled the rights of all neutral nations. His voice spoke
war and peace in the contest with Great Britain.

"When Greece rose against the Turks and struck for liberty, his name was
mingled with the battle-cry of freedom. When South America threw off the
thraldom of Spain, his speeches were read at the head of her armies by
Bolivar. His name has been, and will continue to be, hallowed in two
hemispheres, for it is

"'One of the few, the immortal names
That were not born to die!'

"To the ardent patriot and profound statesman he added a quality possessed
by few of the gifted on earth. His eloquence has not been surpassed. In
the effective power to move the heart of man, Clay was without an equal,
and the heaven-born endowment, in the spirit of its origin, has been
most conspicuously exhibited against intestine feud. On at least three
important occasions he has quelled our civil commotions by a power and
influence which belonged to no other statesman of his age and times. And
in our last internal discord, when this Union trembled to its centre, in
old age he left the shades of private life, and gave the death-blow to
fraternal strife, with the vigor of his earlier years, in a series
of senatorial efforts which in themselves would bring immortality by
challenging c