A Biography of Henry Clay, the Senator from Kentucky: Containing Also, a Complete Report of All His Speeches; Selections From His Private Correspondence; Eulogies in the Senate and House; and a Poem, by George D. Prentice, Esq.
History
A Biography of Henry Clay, the Senator from Kentucky: Containing Also, a Complete Report of All His Speeches; Selections From His Private Correspondence; Eulogies in the Senate and House; and a Poem, by George D. Prentice, Esq.
Clay, Henry, 1777-1852; Speeches, addresses, etc., American
“As near the Potomac’s broad stream, t’other day,
Fair _Liberty_ strolled in solicitous mood,
Deep-pondering the future, unheeding her way,
She met goddess _Nature_ beside a green wood.
‘Good mother,’ she cried, ‘deign to help me at need!
I must make for my guardians a _Speaker_ to-day;
The first in the world I would give them.’ ‘Indeed!
When I made the first speaker, I made him of _Clay_.’”
Mr. Clay accepted the appointment in a brief but pertinent speech, in
which he gave a succinct view of the duties of the chair, and presented
the house his thanks for placing him in it.
In the course of the session, the subject of the Greek revolution
came before congress. Mr. Webster, of Massachusetts, on the fifth of
December, introduced it to the house, in a resolution ‘providing by law
for defraying the expenses incident to the appointment of an agent or
commissioner to Greece, whenever the president shall deem it expedient
to make such appointment.’ This he sustained by a speech of great
power. Mr. Clay brought to its support the same feelings, the same
warm sympathies, and the same strength of argument that he had arrayed
round the subject of South American independence. They both fought
hard to procure the adoption of this resolution, but it was lost. The
struggling Greek, however, Mr. Clay never lost sight of, and when he
became secretary of state, succeeded in accomplishing that for them,
in which he was defeated now.
While the question of recognition was before the house, Mr. Clay was
violently assailed by a member from New Hampshire, recently arrived. It
was thought his motive in doing this was to bring himself into notice,
by attacking the most distinguished man in the house. He received
such a rebuke from Mr. Clay, administered with mingled feelings of
indignation and pity, as almost to wither his energies during the
remainder of the session.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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