he looked the part of the splendid commander of men, and the inspiring crusader of a cause. No man of his time, among all the great orators of that golden age, could so hold an audience literally spell-bound, Prentiss alone approaching him. In personal intercourse, no politician ever possessed more of the seductive graces. There his magnetism was compelling. When he cared to put forth all his powers of attraction, no one could withstand his charm. Webster was godlike and compelled admiration; Clay was human and commanded love. Calhoun once said of him: “I don’t like Clay. He is a bad man, an impostor, a creature of wicked schemes. I won’t speak to him, but, by God, I love him!” His effect on both men and women has been ascribed to the fact that, masculine and virile though he was, he possessed feminine qualities that led to a sentimental feeling toward him. Men would follow him, knowing him to be wrong; stake their political fortunes on him, though they knew it would mean their own undoing; and women wept over his defeats and idolized him as a god. As a political leader he was an opportunist. He often changed his tack to meet the passing breeze, but with the exception of his Bank reversal nothing could force him to admit it. As we proceed with the story of the party battles of the Jackson Administrations, we shall be impressed at times with his capability for trickery, demagogy, misrepresentation, deliberate misinterpretation, and dogmatic arrogance with his own friends and supporters. He brooked no equals. He accepted no rebuke and few suggestions, and led his party with a high-handedness that would have wrecked a lesser man. His personal habits were not the best, and yet they were not of a nature that greatly shocked his generation. Adams thought him “only half educated” and was disgusted by the looseness of his public and his private morals.[380] But Adams was not in harmony with his times. Clay was an inveterate gambler--but so were a large portion of the public men in the Washington of the Thirties. And while a heavy drinker, he does not appear to have often been noticeably under the influence, as was Webster. But these vices never interfered with his work or diverted him for a moment from the pursuit of his ambition. It was a militant figure that strode down the Avenue to the Capitol to lead the fight, with the stride of an Indian, his well-shaped feet encased in shoes instead of the boots generally worn at the time, and fastidiously attired as was his wont--a Henry Clay, in shining armor, his sword shimmering. II