After the settlement of the Missouri question, although a portion of the
American people have differed with Mr. Clay, and a majority even appear
generally to have been opposed to him on questions of ordinary
administration, he seems constantly to have been regarded by all as the
man for the crisis. Accordingly, in the days of nullification, and more
recently in the reappearance of the slavery question connected with our
territory newly acquired of Mexico, the task of devising a mode of
adjustment seems to have been cast upon Mr. Clay by common consent--and
his performance of the task in each case was little else than a literal
fulfilment of the public expectation.

Mr. Clay's efforts in behalf of the South Americans, and afterward in
behalf of the Greeks, in the times of their respective struggles for
civil liberty, are among the finest on record, upon the noblest of all
themes, and bear ample corroboration of what I have said was his ruling
passion--a love of liberty and right, unselfishly, and for their own
sakes.

Having been led to allude to domestic slavery so frequently already, I am
unwilling to close without referring more particularly to Mr. Clay's
views and conduct in regard to it. He ever was on principle and in
feeling opposed to slavery. The very earliest, and one of the latest,
public efforts of his life, separated by a period of more than fifty
years, were both made in favor of gradual emancipation. He did not
perceive that on a question of human right the negroes were to be
excepted from the human race. And yet Mr. Clay was the owner of slaves.
Cast into life when slavery was already widely spread and deeply seated,
he did not perceive, as I think no wise man has perceived, how it could
be at once eradicated without producing a greater evil even to the cause