it was by a vote rejected, and,
as all seemed to think, finally. A sullen gloom hung over the nation. All
felt that the rejection of Missouri was equivalent to a dissolution of the
Union, because those States which already had what Missouri was rejected
for refusing to relinquish would go with Missouri. All deprecated and
deplored this, but none saw how to avert it. For the judgment of members
to be convinced of the necessity of yielding was not the whole difficulty;
each had a constituency to meet and to answer to. Mr. Clay, though worn
down and exhausted, was appealed to by members to renew his efforts at
compromise. He did so, and by some judicious modifications of his plan,
coupled with laborious efforts with individual members and his own
overmastering eloquence upon that floor, he finally secured the admission
of the State. Brightly and captivating as it had previously shown, it was
now perceived that his great eloquence was a mere embellishment, or at
most but a helping hand to his inventive genius and his devotion to his
country in the day of her extreme peril.

After the settlement of the Missouri question, although a portion of the
American people have differed with Mr. Clay, and a majority even
appear generally to have been opposed to him on questions of ordinary
administration, he seems constantly to have been regarded by all as the
man for the crisis. Accordingly, in the days of nullification, and more
recently in the reappearance of the slavery question connected with
our territory newly acquired of Mexico, the task of devising a mode of
adjustment seems to have been cast upon Mr. Clay by common consent--and
his performance of the task in each case was little else than a literal
fulfilment of the public expectation.

Mr. Clay's efforts in behalf of the South Americans, and afterward in
behalf of the Greeks, in the times of their respective struggles for civil
liberty, are among the finest on record, upon the noblest of all themes,
and bear ample corroboration of what I have said was his ruling passion--a
love of liberty and right, unselfishly, and for their own sakes.

Having been led to allude to domestic slavery so frequently already, I am
unwilling to close without referring more particularly to Mr. Clay's
views and conduct in regard to it. He ever was on principle and in feeling
opposed to slavery. The very earliest, and one of the latest, public
efforts of his life, separated by a period of more than