I did not know him, Mr. President, as you did, in the freshness of his prime, or in the full maturity of his manhood. I did not hear him, sir, as you have heard him, when his voice roused the spirit of his countrymen for war――when he cheered the drooping, when he rallied the doubting through all the vicissitudes of a long and doubtful contest. I have never seen him, sir, when, from the height of the chair, he ruled the House of Representatives by the energy of his will, or when upon the level of the floor he exercised a control almost as absolute, by the mastery of his intellect. When I first knew him, his sun had a little passed its zenith. The effacing hand of time had just begun to touch the lineaments of his manhood. But yet, sir, I saw enough of him to be able to realize what he might have been in the prime of his strength, and in the full vigor of his maturity. I saw him, sir, as you did, when he led the ‘opposition’ during the administration of Mr. Van Buren. I had daily opportunities of witnessing the exhibition of his powers during the extra session under Mr. Tyler’s administration. And I saw, as we all saw, in a recent contest, the exhibition of power on his part, which was most marvellous in one of his years. Mr. President, he may not have had as much of analytic skill as some others, in dissecting a subject. It may be, perhaps, that he did not seek to look quite so far ahead as some who have been most distinguished for political forecast. But it may be truly said of Mr. Clay, that he was no exaggerator. He looked at events through neither end of the telescope, but surveyed them with the natural and the naked eye. He had the capacity of seeing things as the people saw them, and of feeling things as the people felt them. He had, sir, beyond any other man whom I have ever seen, the true mesmeric touch of the orator――the rare art of transferring his impulses to others. Thoughts, feelings, emotions, came from the ready mould of his genius, radiant and glowing, and communicated their own warmth to every heart which received them. His, too, was the power of wielding the higher and intenser forms of passion with a majesty and an ease, which none but the great masters of the human heart can ever employ. It was his rare good fortune to have been one of those who form, as it were, a sensible link, a living tradition which connects one age with another, and through which one generation speaks its thoughts and feelings, and appeals to another. And, unfortunate is it for a country, when it ceases to possess such men, for it is to them that we chiefly owe the capacity to maintain the unity of the great Epos of human history, and preserve the consistency of political action.