_Resolved_, That the members of the senate, from a sincere desire of showing every mark of respect to the memory of the deceased, will go into mourning for one month by the usual mode of wearing crape on the left arm.
_Resolved_, As a further mark of respect entertained by the senate for the memory of Henry Clay, and his long and distinguished services to his country, that his remains, in pursuance of the known wishes of his family, be removed to the place of sepulture selected by himself at Lexington, in Kentucky, in charge of the sergeant at arms, and attended by a committee of six senators, to be appointed by the president of the senate, who shall have full power to carry this resolution into effect.
Mr. CASS.――Mr. President: Again has an impressive warning come to teach us, that in the midst of life we are in death. The ordinary labors of this hall are suspended, and its contentions hushed, before the power of Him, who says to the storm of human passion, as He said of old to the waves of Galilee, PEACE, BE STILL. The lessons of His providence, severe as they may be, often become merciful dispensations, like that which is now spreading sorrow through the land, and which is reminding us that we have higher duties to fulfil, and graver responsibilities to encounter, than those that meet us here, when we lay our hand upon His holy word, and invoke His holy name, promising to be faithful to that Constitution, which He gave us in His mercy, and will withdraw only in the hour of our blindness and disobedience, and of His own wrath.
Another great man has fallen in our land, ripe indeed in years and in honors, but never dearer to the American people than when called from the theatre of his services and renown to that final bar where the lofty and the lowly must all meet at last.
I do not rise, upon this mournful occasion, to indulge in the language of panegyric. My regard for the memory of the dead, and for the obligations of the living, would equally rebuke such a course. The severity of truth is, at once, our proper duty and our best consolation. Born during the revolutionary struggle, our deceased associate was one of the few remaining public men who connect the present generation with the actors in the trying scenes of that eventful period, and whose names and deeds will soon be known only in the history of their country. He was another illustration, and a noble one, too, of the glorious equality of our institutions, which freely offer all their rewards to all who justly seek them; for he was the architect of his own fortune, having made his way in life by self-exertion; and he was an early adventurer in the great forest of the West, then a world of primitive vegetation, but now the abode of intelligence and religion, of prosperity and civilization. But he possessed that intellectual superiority which overcomes surrounding obstacles, and which local seclusion cannot long withhold from general knowledge and appreciation.