The part of duty assigned to Mr. Clay in the negotiations of Ghent, and the manner of its discharge, has already been noticed. On his return to the United States, and to Lexington, after the peace, his fellow-citizens gave him a public dinner, where the following sentiment, among others, was read: "OUR ABLE NEGOTIATORS AT GHENT: Their talents and diplomacy have kept pace with the valor of our arms, in demonstrating to the enemy that these states will be free.".

To which Mr. Clay replied:

"I feel myself called on, by the sentiment just expressed, to return my thanks, in behalf of my colleagues and myself. I do not, and am quite sure they do not, feel, that, in the service alluded to, they are at all entitled to the compliment which has been paid them. We could not do otherwise than reject the demand made by the other party; and if our labors finally terminated in an honorable peace, it was owing to causes on this side of the Atlantic, and not to any exertion of ours. Whatever diversity of opinion may have existed as to the declaration of the war, there are some points on which all may look back with proud satisfaction, The first relates to the time of the conclusion of the peace. Had it been made immediately after the treaty of Paris, we should have retired humiliated from the contest, believing that we had escaped the severe chastisement with which we were threatened, and that we owed to the generosity and magnanimity of the enemy, what we were incapable of commanding by our arms. That magnanimity would have been the theme of every tongue, and of every press, abroad and at home. We should have retired, unconscious of our own strength, and unconscious of the utter inability of the enemy, with his whole undivided force, to make any serious impression upon us. Our military character, then in the lowest state of degradation, would have been unretrieved. Fortunately for us, Great Britain chose to try the issue of the last campaign. And that has demonstrated, in the repulse before Baltimore, the retreat from Plattsburgh, the hard-fought action on the Niagara frontier, and in that most glorious day, the eighth of January, that we have always possessed the finest elements of military composition, and that a proper use of them, only, was necessary, to insure for the army and militia a fame as imperishable as that which the navy had previously acquired.

"Another point, which appears to me to afford the highest consolation, is, that we fought the most powerful nation, perhaps, in existence, singlehanded and alone, without any sort of alliance. More than thirty years had Great Britain been maturing her physical means, which she had rendered as efficacious as possible, by skill, by discipline, and by actual service. Proudly boasting of

the conquest of Europe, she vainly flattered herself with the easy conquest of America also. Her veterans were put to flight or defeated, while all Europe-I mean the governments of Europewas gazing with cold indifference, or sentiments of positive hatred of us, upon the arduous contest. Hereafter no monarch can assert claims of gratitude upon us, for assistance rendered in the hour of danger.

"There is another view of which the subject of the war is fairly susceptible. From the moment that Great Britain came forward at Ghent with her extravagant demands, the war totally changed its character. It became, as it were, a new war. It was no longer an American war, prosecuted for redress of British aggressions upon American rights, but became a British war, prosecuted for objects of British ambition, to be accompanied by American sacrifices. And what were those demands? Here, in the immediate neighborhood of a sister state and territories, which were to be made in part the victims, they must have been felt, and their enormity justly appreciated. They consisted of the erection of a barrier between Canada and the United States, to be formed by cutting off from Ohio and some of the territories a country more extensive than Great Britain, containing thousands of freemen, who were to be abandoned to their fate, and creating a new power, totally unknown upon the continent of America; of the dismantling of our fortresses, and naval power on the lakes, with the surrender of the military occupation of those waters to the enemy, and of an arrondissement for two British provinces. These demands, boldly asserted, and one of them declared to be a sine qua non, were finally relinquished. Taking this view of the subject, if there be loss of reputation by either party, in the terms of peace, who has sustained it?

"The effects of the war are highly satisfactory. Abroad, our character, which at the time of its declaration was in the lowest state of degradation, is raised to the highest point of elevation. It is impossible for any American to visit Europe, without being sensible of this agreeable change, in the personal attentions which he receives, in the praises which are bestowed on our past exertions, and the predictions which are made as to our future prospects. At home, a government, which, at its formation, was apprehended by its best friends, and pronounced by its enemies, to be incapable of standing the shock, is found to answer all the purposes of its institution. In spite of the errors which have been committed (and errors have undoubtedly been committed), aided by the spirit and patriotism of the people, it is demonstrated to be as competent to the objects of effective war, as it has been before proved to be to the concerns of a season of peace. Government has thus acquired strength and confidence. Our prospects for the future, are of the brightest kind. With every reason to count on the permanence

of peace, it remains only for the government to determine upon military and naval establishments adapted to the growth and extension of our country and its rising importance, keeping in view a gradual, but not burdensome, increase of the navy; to provide for the payment of the interest, and the redemption of the public debt, and for the current expenses of government. For all these objects, the existing sources of the revenue promise not only to be abundantly sufficient, but will probably leave ample scope to the exercise of the judgment of Congress, in selecting for repeal, modification, or abolition, those which may be found most oppressive, inconvenient, or unproductive."

It is not easy to estimate the importance of the public functions discharged by Mr. Clay in that period of American history comprehended in the war of 1812, and in bringing about an honorable and lasting peace. He was then only a young man, but pre-eminent in influence-an influence earned by toil, and justly awarded to talent. Devotion to country, worthy of a better age, seems to have been the mainspring of his exertions. None can deny that he was equal to every exigency that arose in the domestic condition of the United States, and in the foreign relations of the government. He enjoyed a pre-eminent share of the confidence of Congress, of the executive branch of the government, and of the whole country; nor has the bitterest of his enemies ever presumed to say, that he abused it. Mr. Clay was never a man to abuse faith, public or private; but, when forced, in the discharge of his duties, to avail himself of it, he has used it most charily. With all the boldness of character that has sometimes been ascribed to him, personal diffidence has always tempered his conduct, and circumscribed the energy of his intellectual and moral powers within the limits of a cautious prudence. For intrepidity of enterprise, no man, naturally, ever exceeded him; and for discretion, few have ever rivalled him.

CHAPTER X.

MR. CLAY ON DOMESTIC SLAVERY.

It will be incumbent on those who would correctly view and rightly represent Mr. Clay, on domestic slavery, to distinguish between his feelings as a MAN, and his principles as a STATESMAN. It is elsewhere remarked in these pages, that, with Mr. Clay, acting in the capacity of a statesman, the LAW is the GOSPEL. He has doubtless ever been aware-as sensible men must be that all human institutions are imperfect; as with sensible men, it may be presumed to have been a maxim with him, that human institutions, such as they are, should generally be used, to improve themselves, and to make better. Not that revolution is in no case justifiable; for the United States owe their existence, as an independent nation, to an act of this kind; but, that revolution, in itself considered, is not only undesirable, but perilous, and should be resorted to only in extremities, as in the case of the declaration of American independence. The CONSTITUTION and the LAWS are usually the only safe guide of a patriotic statesman. In the United States, it is safe to say, they are absolutely and unqualifiedly so. They may be, they are doubtless, imperfect; but they have cost too much, and are too valuable, too important, to be lightly dealt with; and they contain the elements, provisions, for their own emendation and improvement, indefinitely, without a shaking, or disturbance, of the fabric.

It is believed, that Mr. Clay is not misrepresented, by the assumption, that with him, as a statesman, the fundamental law of the land is not less supreme in its importance, than in its authority; that it should be HELD supreme, however profoundly, and even painfully, its imperfections may be felt, in certain applications and directions, and over certain classes; and that its maintenance is necessary for the removal of such imperfections, by its own legitimate action. It is believed, that Mr. Clay can not be understood, either on the subject of slavery, or any other great political

question, agitating the general mind, without a distinct recognition of this great principle. Bred in the school of statesmen, and most of the action of his life having been in that field, that high moral sense ascribed to him in another part of this work, has been developed in nothing more eminently, than in his conscientious regard for fundamental law. Believing in it, as the best that could have been formed in the circumstances of its date, the best that civilization has yet produced, and the best to harmonize the diverse interests and feelings of the Union, and the best in its practical operation hitherto, it may be supposed he has ever felt it worthy of great respect, on account of its inherent and positive excellence, independent of the sacred character of the instrument, which would bind such a conscience, as that of Mr. Clay, on a fit occasion, to the stake of martyrdom, for its defence. In this view, Mr. Clay has very justly realized the confidence of a great portion of the people of all parts of the Union, as an advocate and defender of the constitution, in respect to slavery, though, to some extent, that confidence, by misrepresentation, has been wrongfully impaired.

Nevertheless, Mr. Clay has never suffered his respect for the constitution-supreme as it has ever been, in its binding force upon him, in the discharge of his functions as a STATESMAN-to obliterate, or even to modify, his feelings as a MAN. In common with many eminent patriots of the slaveholding states-such as Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Marshall, Mercer, and a host of othersMr. Clay has ever regarded slavery in the United States, not less as a social wrong, than a great political evil-as a sore on the body politic-demanding the gravest consideration of the wise and good, for the discovery and application of a constitutional remedy. His entrance on the theatre of public life, in Kentucky, was as an emancipationist, in 1798, the year after he removed to that state, where he appeared first, in a series of articles, published at Lexington, in the Kentucky Gazette, over the signature of SCEVOLA; and soon afterward, he took the field more openly, and headed a party of emancipationists, during the agitation of remodelling the state constitution, proposing and advocating the introduction of an article for the gradual and ultimate abolition of slavery in the commonwealth. Though he and his coadjutors failed of their object, they nevertheless made an earnest and bold push, leaving a lasting impression on the public mind. Notwithstanding it exposed him to obloquy, and from that period has been politically injurious to him, in the state of his adoption, he has never retreated from the