It is agreed that to Henry Clay, Speaker of the House of
Representatives, more than to any other individual, we owe the war of
1812. When the House hesitated, it was he who, descending from the
chair, spoke so as to reassure it. When President Madison faltered, it
was the stimulus of Clay's resistless presence that put heart into him
again. If the people seemed reluctant, it was Clay's trumpet harangues
that fired their minds. And when the war was declared, it was he, more
than President or Cabinet or War Committee, that carried it along upon
his shoulders. All our wars begin in disaster; it was Clay who
restored the country to confidence when it was disheartened by the
loss of Detroit and its betrayed garrison. It was Clay alone who could
encounter without flinching the acrid sarcasm of John Randolph, and
exhibit the nothingness of his telling arguments. It was he alone who
could adequately deal with Quincy of Massachusetts, who alluded to the
Speaker and his friends as "young politicians, with their pin-feathers
yet unshed, the shell still sticking upon them,--perfectly unfledged,
though they fluttered and cackled on the floor." Clay it was whose
clarion notes rang out over departing regiments, and kindled within
them the martial fire; and it was Clay's speeches which the soldiers
loved to read by the camp-fire. Fiery Jackson read them, and found
them perfectly to his taste. Gentle Harrison read them to his
Tippecanoe heroes. When the war was going all wrong in the first year,
President Madison wished to appoint Clay Commander-in-Chief of the
land forces; but, said Gallatin, "What shall we do without him in the
House of Representatives?"

Henry Clay was not a man of blood. On the contrary, he was eminently
pacific, both in his disposition and in his politics. Yet he believed
in the war of 1812, and his whole heart was in it. The question
occurs, then, Was it right and best for the United States to declare