countrymen. Never was there a more captivating presence. We remember
hearing Horace Greeley say that, if a man only saw Henry Clay's back,
he would know that it was the back of a distinguished man. How his
presence filled a drawing-room! With what an easy sway he held captive
ten acres of mass-meeting! And, in the Senate, how skilfully he showed
himself respectfully conscious of the galleries, without appearing to
address them! Take him for all in all, we must regard him as the first
of American orators; but posterity will not assign him that rank,
because posterity will not hear that matchless voice, will not see
those large gestures, those striking attitudes, that grand manner,
which gave to second-rate composition first-rate effect. He could not
have been a great statesman, if he had been ever so greatly endowed.
While slavery existed no statesmanship was possible, except that which
was temporary and temporizing. The thorn, we repeat, was in the flesh;
and the doctors were all pledged to try and cure the patient without
extracting it. They could do nothing but dress the wound, put on this
salve and that, give the sufferer a little respite from anguish, and,
after a brief interval, repeat the operation. Of all these physicians
Henry Clay was the most skilful and effective. He both handled the
sore place with consummate dexterity, and kept up the constitution of
the patient by stimulants, which enabled him, at last, to live through
the appalling operation which removed the cause of his agony.

Henry Clay was a man of honor and a gentleman. He kept his word. He
was true to his friends, his party, and his convictions. He paid his
debts and his son's debts. The instinct of solvency was very strong in
him. He had a religion, of which the main component parts were
self-respect and love of country. These were supremely authoritative
with him; he would not do anything which he felt to be beneath Henry
Clay, or which he thought would be injurious to the United States.