Could I have consulted my own feelings on the event which occupies the attention of the house at the present moment, I should even have forborne attendance here, and in the solitude and silence of my chamber have mused upon the terrible lesson which has been administered to the people and the nation. But I represent a constituency who justly pride themselves upon the unwavering attachment they have ever felt and manifested to Henry Clay――a constant, pervading, hereditary love. The son has taken up the father’s affection, and amid all the professions of political attachments to others, whom the accidents of party have made prominent, and the success of party has made powerful, true to his own instincts, and true to the sanctified legacy of his father, he has placed the name of Henry Clay forward and preëminent as the exponent of what is greatest in statesmanship and purest in patriotism. And even, sir, when party fealty caused other attachments to be avowed for party uses, the preference was limited to the occupancy of office, and superiority admitted for Clay in all that is reckoned above party estimation. Nor ought I to forbear to add that, as the senior member of the delegation which represents my commonwealth, I am requested to utter the sentiments of the people of Pennsylvania at large, who yield to no portion of this great Union in their appreciation of the talents, their reverence for the lofty patriotism, their admiration of the statesmanship, and hereafter their love of the memory of Henry Clay. I cannot, therefore, be silent on this occasion without injustice to the affections of my constituency, even though I painfully feel how inadequate to the reverence and love my people have toward that statesman must be all that I have to utter on this mournful occasion. I know not, Mr. Chairman, where now the nation is to find the men she needs in peril; either other calls than those of politics are holding in abeyance the talents which the nation may need, or else a generation is to pass undistinguished by the greatness of our statesmen. Of the noble minds that have swayed the senate, one yet survives in the maturity of powerful intellect, carefully disciplined and nobly exercised. May He who has thus far blessed our nation, spare to her and the world that of which the world must always envy our country the possession! But my business is with the dead.