MR. CLAY'S VALEDICTORY TO THE SENATE.

IN SENATE, MARCH 31, 1842.

[TRULY, Mr. Clay's was an eventful life. Here we find him bidding farewell to the Senate forever-as was then supposedthirty-six years after he first took his seat as a member of that body, nearly all of which time had been spent in the public service, chiefly in Congress, filling his country and the world with his fame as an extraordinary man. Ever in the eye of the public, filling it more largely as time advanced, it was his destiny to be the observed of all observers. Who would not be tired, after such a term of public service, and of such service? He had come now, apparently, to the expiration of his period, and was taking leave forever of his co-laborers, all of whom hung upon his lips, as he gave these parting words, full of respect, forgiving all his faults, impressed with a sense of his superiority over ordinary men, and ready to say, God bless you! It was a rare scene in a public assembly of this description. They who had rivaled each other in debate, and often spoken hot words, who had faced this very man in stern controversy, and sometimes with hard feelings, fully appreciated his generous character, and kindly reciprocated the kindness manifested by him on this occasion. They felt that they were parting with a rare man, and never expected to meet him again in that field; nor did he expect ever to meet them on the same floor. So little do the wisest men sometimes see into the future. And it is well they should not. Events are not always foreshadowed. A single peep into the future would have destroyed the interest of this occasion. Its seeming was a reality; and yet the future since disclosed, and not less real, was a sort of mockery of the past, and seemed to undo history. For, after the lapse of seven years, Mr. Clay appears again in the Senate of the United States, to enact a part which made him more prominent and more influential than at any former period of his eventful history. He appeared, not as a party man, but as a GREAT PACIFICATOR, to do his last work of conciliation, and then to die.]

MR. CLAY rose, with deep and solemn emotion, and said, that, before proceeding to make the motion for which he had risen, he begged leave to submit, on the only occasion remaining to him, an observation or two on a different subject. It would be remembered that he had offered, on a former day, some resolutions proposing certain amendments in the Constitution of the United States; they had undergone some discussion, and he had been desirous of replying to the able arguments which had been urged in opposition to them, and of obtaining an expression of the sense of the Senate; but owing to the infirm state of his health, to the pressure of business in the Senate, and especially to the absence, at this moment, of several of his friends, he had concluded that this was unnecessary. He regretted the want of an opportunity to present what he thought would be a satisfactory answer to those arguments. He should commit the subject, therefore, to the hands of the Senate, to be disposed of as their judgment should dictate; concluding what he had to say in relation to them with the remark, that the convictions he had before entertained in regard to the several amendments, he still deliberately held, after all that he had heard upon the subject; and that he firmly believed the true and permanent security of the just checks and balances of the Constitution required their adoption.

And now, said Mr. Clay, allow me to announce, formally and officially, my retirement from the Senate of the United States, and to present the last motion I shall ever make in this body. But, before I make that motion, I trust I shall be pardoned if I avail myself, with the permission and indulgence of the Senate, of this last occasion of addressing to it a few more observations.

I entered the Senate of the United States in December, 1806. I regarded that body then, and still consider it, as one which may compare, without disadvantage, with any legislative assembly, either in ancient or modern times, whether I look to its dignity, the extent and importance of its powers, the ability by which its individual members have been distinguished, or its organic constitution. If compared in any of these respects with the Senates either of France or of England, that of the United States will sustain no derogation. With respect to the mode of constituting those bodies, I may observe, that, in the House of Peers in England, with the exceptions of Ireland, and of Scotland-and in that of France with no exception whatever the members hold their places in their individual rights under no delegated authority, not even from the order to which they belong, but derive them from the grant of the crown, transmit ted by descent, or created in new patents of nobility; while here we have the proud and more noble title of representatives of sovereign States, of distinct and independent commonwealths.

If we look again at the powers exercised by the Senates of France and England, and by the Senate of the United States, we shall find that the aggregate of power is much greater here. In all, the respective bodies

possess the legislative power. In the foreign Senates, as in this, the judicial power is invested, although there it exists in a larger degree than here. But, on the other hand, that vast, undefined, and undefinable power involved in the right to co-operate with the executive in the formation and ratification of treaties, is enjoyed in all its magnitude and consequence by this body, while it is possessed by neither of theirs; beside which, there is another function of very great practical importance-that of sharing with the executive branch in distributing the immense patronage of this government. In both these latter respects we stand on grounds different from the House of Peers either of England or France. And then, as to the dignity and decorum of its proceedings, and ordinarily, as to the ability of its members, I may, with great truth, declare that, during the whole long period of my knowledge of this Senate, it can, without arrogance or presumption, stand an advantageous comparison with any deliberative body that ever existed in ancient or modern times.

Full of attraction, however, as a seat in the Senate is, sufficient as it is to satisfy the aspirations of the most ambitious heart, I have long determined to relinquish it, and to seek that repose which can be enjoyed only in the shades of private life, in the circle of one's own family, and in the tranquil enjoyments included in one enchanting word-Home.

It was my purpose to terminate my connection with this body in November, 1840, after the memorable and glorious political struggle which distinguished that year: but I learned, soon after, what indeed I had for some time anticipated from the result of my own reflections, that an extra session of Congress would be called; and I felt desirous to co-operate with my political and personal friends in restoring, if it could be effected, the prosperity of the country, by the best measures which their united counsels might be able to devise; and I therefore attended the extra session. It was called, as all know, by the lamented Harrison; but his death, and the consequent accession of his successor, produced an entirely new aspect of public affairs. Had he lived, I have not one particle of doubt that every important measure to which the country had looked with so confident an expectation would have been consummated, by the co-operation of the executive with the legislative branch of the government. And here allow me to say, only, in regard to that so-much-reproached extra session of Congress, that I believe if any of those, who, through the influence of party spirit, or the bias of political prejudice, have loudly censured the measures then adopted, would look at them in a spirit of candor and of justice, their conclusion, and that of the country generally, would be, that if there exists any just ground of complaint, it is to be found not in what was done, but in what was not done, but left unfinished.

Had President Harrison lived, and the measures devised at that session been fully carried out, it was my intention then to have resigned my seat. But the hope (I feared it might prove vain) that, at the regular session, the measures which we had left undone might even then be perfected, or the

same object attained in an equivalent form, induced me to postpone the determination; and events which arose after the extra session, resulting from the failure of those measures which had been proposed at that session, and which seemed for the moment to subject our political friends to the semblance of defeat, confirmed me in the resolution to attend the present session also, and, whether in prosperity or adversity, to share the fortune of my friends. But I resolved, at the same time, to retire as soon as I could do so with propriety and decency.

From 1806, the period of my entrance upon this noble theater, with short intervals, to the present time, I have been engaged in the public councils, at home or abroad. Of the services rendered during that long and arduous period of my life it does not become me to speak; history, if she deign to notice me, and posterity, if the recollection of my humble actions shall be transmitted to posterity, are the best, the truest, and the most impartial judges. When death has closed the scene, their sentence will be pronounced, and to that I commit myself. My public conduct is a fair subject for the criticism and judgment of my fellow-men; but the motives by which I have been prompted are known only to the great Searcher of the human heart and to myself; and I trust I may be pardoned for repeating a declaration made some thirteen years ago, that, whatever errors, and doubtless there have been many, may be discovered in a review of my public service, I can with unshaken confidence appeal to that divine arbiter for the truth of the declaration, that I have been influenced by no impure purpose, no personal motive; have sought no personal aggrandizement; but that in all my public acts, I have had a single eye directed, and a warm and devoted heart dedicated, to what, in my best judgment, I believed, the true interests, the honor, the union, and the happiness of my country required.

During that long period, however, I have not escaped the fate of other public men, nor failed to incur censure and detraction of the bitterest, most unrelenting, and most malignant character; and though not always insensible to the pain it was meant to inflict, I have borne it in general with composure, and without disturbance here [pointing to his breast], waiting as I have done, in perfect and undoubting confidence, for the ultimate triumph of justice and of truth, and in the entire persuasion that time would settle all things as they should be, and that whatever wrong or injustice I might experience at the hands of man, He to whom all hearts are open and fully known, would, by the inscrutable dispensations of his providence, rectify all error, redress all wrong, and cause ample justice to

be done.

But I have not meanwhile been unsustained. Everywhere throughout the extent of this great continent I have had cordial, warm-hearted, faithful, and devoted friends, who have known me, loved me, and appreciated my motives. To them, if language were capable of fully expressing my acknowledgments, I would now offer all the return I have the power to

make for their genuine, disinterested, and persevering fidelity and devoted attachment, the feelings and sentiments of a heart overflowing with neverceasing gratitude. If, however, I fail in suitable language to express my gratitude to them for all the kindness they have shown me, what shall I say, what can I say at all commensurate with those feelings of gratitude with which I have been inspired by the State whose humble representative and servant I have been in this chamber? [Here Mr. Clay's feelings overpowered him, and he proceeded with deep sensibility and difficult utterance.]

I emigrated from Virginia to the State of Kentucky now nearly fortyfive years ago; I went as an orphan boy who had not yet attained the age of majority; who had never recognized a father's smile, nor felt his warm caresses; poor, penniless, without the favor of the great, with an imperfect and neglected education, hardly sufficient for the ordinary business and common pursuits of life; but scarce had I set my foot upon her generous soil when I was embraced with parental fondness, caressed as though I had been a favorite child, and patronized with liberal and unbounded munificence. From that period the highest honors of the State have been freely bestowed upon me; and when, in the darkest hour of calumny and detraction, I seemed to be assailed by all the rest of the world, she interposed her broad and impenetrable shield, repelled the poisoned shafts that were aimed for my destruction, and vindicated my good name from every malignant and unfounded aspersion. I return with indescribable pleasure to linger a while longer, and mingle with the warm-hearted and wholesouled people of that State; and, when the last scene shall forever close upon me, I hope that my earthly remains will be laid under her green sod with those of her gallant and patriotic sons.

But the ingenuity of my assailants is never exhausted. It seems I have subjected myself to a new epithet; which I do not know whether to take in honor or derogation: I am held up to the country as a "dictator." A dictator! The idea of a dictatorship is drawn from Roman institutions; and at the time the office was created, the person who wielded the tremendous weight of authority it conferred, concentrated in his own person an absolute power over the lives and property of all his fellow-citizens; he could levy armies; he could build and man navies; he could raise any amount of revenue he might choose to demand; and life and death rested on his fiat. If I were a dictator, as I am said to be, where is the power with which I am clothed? Have I any army? any navy? any revenue? any patronage? in a word, any power whatever? If I had been a dictator, I think that even those who have the most freely applied to me the appellation must be compelled to make two admissions: first, that my dictatorship has been distinguished by no cruel executions, stained by no blood, sullied by no act of dishonor; and I think they must also own (though I do not exactly know what date my commission of dictator bears; I suppose, however, it must have commenced with the extra session) that if I did usurp the power of a dictator, I at least voluntarily surrendered it