But, Mr. President, of all his faculties, that of making friends and attaching them to him was the most remarkable and extraordinary. In this respect, he seemed to possess a sort of fascination, by which all who came into his presence were attracted towards, and bound to him by ties which neither time nor circumstances had power to dissolve or weaken. In the admiration of his friends was the recognition of the divinity of intellect; in their attachment to him a confession of his generous personal qualities and social virtues.
Of the public services of Mr. Clay, the present occasion affords no room for a sketch more extended than that which his respected colleague [Mr. Underwood] has presented. It is, however, sufficient to say, that for more forty years he has been a prominent actor in the drama of American affairs. During the late war with England, his voice was more potent than any other in awakening the spirit of the country, infusing confidence into the people, and rendering available the resources for carrying on the contest. In our domestic controversies, threatening the peace of the country and the integrity of the Union, he has always been first to note danger, as well as to suggest the means of averting it. When the waters of the great political deep were upheaved by the tempest of discord, and the ark of the Union, freighted with the hopes and destinies of freedom, tossing about on the raging billows, and drifting every moment nearer to the vortex which threatened to swallow it up, it was his clarion voice, rising above the storm, that admonished the crew of impending peril, and counselled the way to safety.
But, Mr. President, devotedly as he loved his country, his aspirations were not limited to its welfare alone. Wherever freedom had a votary, that votary had a friend in Henry Clay; and in the struggle of the Spanish colonies for independence he uttered words of encouragement which have become the mottoes on the banners of freedom in every land. But neither the services which he has rendered his own country, nor his wishes for the welfare of others, nor his genius, nor the affection of friends, could turn aside the destroyer. No price could purchase exemption from the common lot of humanity. Henry Clay, the wise, the great, the gifted, had to die; and his history is summed up in the biography which the Russian poet has prepared for all, kings and serfs: