He had the faculty of making friends and holding them through life by ties which no circumstances or conditions could sever. When Clay passed away there was no one whose Unionism embraced all sections, who could stand between the over-zealous advocates of abolition of slavery on the one side and the fiery defenders of the "divine institution" on the other. Sectionalism ran riot, and civil war was the result. During the many years when the North and South were divided on the question of slavery, and sectional feeling ran high, Henry Clay was the only man in public life whose broad nationalism and intense love for the Union embraced all sections, with no trace of sectional bias. He can well be called "The Great American." [Signature: John R. Procter] PUBLIC SPIRIT IN POLITICS From a Speech at Buffalo, July 17th, 1839 Are we not then called upon by the highest duties to our country, to its free institutions, to posterity, and to the world, to rise above all local prejudices and personal partialities, to discard all collateral questions, to disregard every subordinate point, and in a genuine spirit of compromise and concession, uniting heart and hand to preserve for ourselves the blessings of a free government, wisely, honestly, and faithfully administered, and as we received them from our fathers, to transmit them to our children? Should we not justly subject ourselves to eternal reproach, if we permitted our differences about mere men to bring defeat and disaster upon our cause? Our principles are imperishable, but men have but a fleeting existence, and are themselves liable to change and corruption during its brief continuance. ON THE GREEK STRUGGLE FOR INDEPENDENCE From a Speech in 1824 Are we so mean, so base, so despicable, that we may not attempt to express our horror, utter our indignation, at the most brutal and atrocious war that ever stained earth or shocked high Heaven? at the ferocious deeds of a savage and infuriated soldiery, stimulated and urged on by the clergy of a fanatical and inimical religion, and rioting in all the excesses of blood and butchery, at the mere details of which the heart sickens and recoils?