Wherever official or social duties demanded an exercise of his power, there was a preëminence which seemed prescriptively his own. In the lofty debate of the senate and the stirring harangues to popular assemblages, he was the orator of the nation and of the people; and the sincerity of purpose and the unity of design evinced in all he said or did, fixed in the public mind a confidence strong and expansive as the affections he had won. Year after year, sir, has Henry Clay been achieving the work of the mission with which he was intrusted; and it was only when the warmest wishes of his warmest friends were disappointed, that he entered on the fruition of a patriot’s highest hopes, and stood in the full enjoyment of that admiration and confidence which nothing but the antagonism of party relations could have divided. How rich that enjoyment must have been it is only for us to imagine. How eminently deserved it was we and the world can attest. The love and the devotion of his political friends were cheering and grateful to his heart, and were acknowledged in all his life――were recognized even to his death. The contest in the senate chamber or the forum were rewarded with success achieved, and the great victor could enjoy the ovation which partial friendship or the gratitude of the benefit prepared. But the triumph of his life was no party achievement. It was not in the applause which admiring friends and defeated antagonists offered to his measureless success, that he found the reward of his labors, and comprehended the extent of his mission. It was only when friends and antagonists paused in their contests appalled at the public difficulties and national dangers which had been accumulating, unseen and unregarded; it was only when the nation itself felt the danger, and acknowledged the inefficacy of party action as a remedy, that Henry Clay calculated the full extent of his powers, and enjoyed the reward of their saving exercise. Then, sir, you saw, and I saw, party designations dropped, and party allegiance disavowed, and anxious patriots, of all localities and name, turn toward the country’s benefactor as the man for the terrible exigencies of the hour; and the sick chamber of Henry Clay became the Delphos whence were given out the oracles that presented the means and the measures of our Union’s safety. There, sir, and not in the high places of the country, were the labors and sacrifices of half a century to be rewarded and closed. With his right yet in that senate which he had entered the youngest, and lingered still the eldest member, he felt that his work was done, and the object of his life accomplished. Every cloud that had dimmed the noonday lustre had been dissipated; and the retiring orb, which sunk from the sight of the nation in fullness and in beauty, will yet pour up the horizon a posthumous glory that shall tell of the splendor and greatness of the luminary that has passed away.