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.
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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
Sir, it may be said that the grave is still new-made which covers the
mortal remains of one of those great men who have been taken from our
midst, and the earth is soon to open to receive another. I know not
whether it can be said to be a matter of lamentation, so far as the
dead are concerned, that the thread of this life has been clipped when
once it had been fully spun. They escape the infirmities of age, and
they leave an imperishable name behind them. The loss, sir, is not
theirs, but ours; and a loss the more to be lamented that we see none
to fill the places thus made vacant on the stage of public affairs. But
it may be well for us, who have much more cause to mourn and to lament
such deaths, to pause amidst the business of life for the purpose of
contemplating the spectacle before us, and of drawing the moral from
the passing event. It is when death seizes for its victims those who
are, by ‘a head and shoulders, taller than all the rest,’ that we feel
most deeply the uncertainty of human affairs, and that ‘the glories of
our mortal state are shadows, not substantial things.’ It is, sir, in
such instances as the present that we can best study by the light of
example the true objects of life, and the wisest ends of human pursuit.
* * * * *
Mr. HALE.――Mr. President: I hope I shall not be considered obtrusive,
if on this occasion, for a brief moment, I mingle my humble voice
with those that, with an ability that I shall neither attempt nor
hope to equal, have sought to do justice to the worth and memory of
the deceased, and at the same time appropriately to minister to the
sympathies and sorrows of a stricken people. Sir, it is the teaching
of inspiration that ‘no man liveth and no man dieth unto himself.’
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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