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
_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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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