The Union exists in absolute integrity, and the republican system is in complete and triumphant development. Without having relinquished any part of their individuality, the states have more than doubled already, and are increasing in numbers and political strength and expansion more rapidly than ever before. Without having absorbed any state, or having even encroached on any state, the Confederation has opened itself so as to embrace all the new members who have come, and now, with capacity for further and indefinite enlargements, has become fixed, enduring, and perpetual. Although it was doubted only half a century ago whether our political system could be maintained at all, and whether, if maintained, it could guarantee the peace and happiness of society, it stands now confessed by the world the form of government not only most adapted to Empire, but also most congenial with the constitution of Human Nature. When we consider that the nation has been conducted to this haven, not only through stormy seas, but altogether, also, without a course and without a star; and when we consider, moreover, the sum of happiness that has already been enjoyed by the American people, and still more the influence which the great achievement is exerting for the advancement and melioration of the condition of mankind, we see at once that it might have satisfied the highest ambition to have been, no matter how humbly, concerned in so great transaction. Certainly, sir, no one will assert that Henry Clay in that transaction performed an obscure or even a common part. On the contrary, from the day on which he entered the public service until that on which he passed the gates of death, he was never a follower, but always a leader; and he marshalled either the party which sustained or that which resisted every great measure, equally in the senate and among the people. He led where duty seemed to him to indicate, reckless whether he encountered one president or twenty presidents, whether he was opposed by factions or even by the whole people. Hence it has happened, that although that people are not yet agreed among themselves on the wisdom of all, or perhaps of even any of his great measures, yet they are nevertheless unanimous in acknowledging that he was at once the greatest, the most faithful, and the most reliable of their statesmen. Here the effort at discriminating praise of Henry Clay, in regard to his public policy, must stop in this place, even on this sad occasion which awakens the ardent liberality of his generous survivors. But his personal qualities may be discussed without apprehension. What were the elements of the success of that extraordinary man? You, sir, knew him longer and better than I, and I would prefer to hear you speak of them. He was indeed eloquent――all the world knows that. He held the keys to the hearts of his countrymen, and he turned the wards within them with a skill attained by no other master.