In all his public life Mr. CLAY has evinced a firm reliance upon great and enduring principles; and in this, perhaps, may be found one chief secret of his power and foresight. A fundamental truth is always stronger than any man; and by building faith and firm reliance upon it the man shall receive a portion of its strength, and see, through the mists of the hour, the future to which it leads. The confidence of Mr. CLAY in the leading political principles which have formed the rule of all his long public life, has sprung from a firm faith in their permanent truth, and not from that blind devotion to a rule, merely because it is abstract, which belongs, sometimes, to men who have something of greatness in them, but who lack the essential wisdom to profit by experience. Though firm in maintaining the rights of each portion of the State, he never allows a passionate and blind defence of them to plunge the whole into disaster and ruin. He feels that the principles on which our government is based, have a high worth-not only of themselves, but for the sake of the superstructure of happiness and glory we have erected upon them; and the safety of this he is not willing to peril in their fruitless defence. He has none of the zeal of that ignorant worshiper who dug beneath the ruins of the Ephesian temple for the fuel on which it rested, to feed the flame upon its altars.. Though he has ever proved himself a zealous defender of the rights of man, in all countries and conditions, he never seeks the destruction of established order, regardless of the happiness of those most nearly concerned; nor even in the assertion of Right would he deem it well to trample, with ruthless violence, upon all the institutions which might stand in his way, and rush headlong to the end, like the cannon ball, " 'Shattering that it may reach, and shattering what it reaches." His democratic principles, therefore, ardent and spontaneous as they are, are tempered by a deep reverence for the permanent reason of the State, and a profound regard for the well-being of his fellows. All his aspirations are to build up, not to tear down-to create, not to destroy. All the safeguards, then, which the sound wisdom of the people, triumphing and establishing a law over that of transient impulse, has thrown about individual rights, he reverences, and, so long as they seem to be needed, seeks to preserve. Like SCHILLER'S Wallenstein, while he knows that the flight of destruction is straight and swift, he feels that, -"the road the human being travels, That on which BLESSING comes and goes, both follow Mr. CLAY has always been the proud champion of that political party which maintains the true purpose of civil government to be, not merely the prevention of Wrong, but the establishment of Right,-not merely to define and punish offences, but to confer blessings and secure the highest good to those who live beneath its benignant sway. His public life has been consecrated to the development of this great principle; and if his efforts seem not yet to have been attended with full success, they have been oftentimes of saving service to the country; and the eye of Hope sees in them the germ of a power which shall yet work itself free from all crushing calamity, and accomplish the great end for which it was first put forth. He is one of those great men whose influence, even COLERIDGE's Translation. when unseen and despised, is potent and controlling. The spirit of his life has wrought even more than his active efforts; and, far more than any other statesman among us, he has thus given strength to those principles of public policy which alone conduct nations to the height of prosperity. The value of his public services can only be worthily set forth when candor shall have made a faithful record of his life and his acts and just in proportion as that record is incomplete, will this great friend of mankind be defrauded of honor. It were rash and unwise to ask that his own age should rightly esteem and fully reward them. But, as in the old religion the lightning made sacred the object upon which it fell, so even now does Death hallow the victim whom he strikes. Future generations will not lose sight of his worth: those words of wisdom which, uttered by his living voice, fall too unheeded upon our hearts, shall come from his tomb with power as from a holy place for "such is the power of dispensing blessings, which Providence has attached to the truly great and good, that they cannot even die without advantage to their fellow creatures; for death consecrates their example ; and the wisdom, which might have been slighted at the council-table, becomes oracular from the shrine." END OF THE MEMOIR OF HENRY CLAY. SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY ON THE LINE OF THE PERDIDO. IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, DECEMBER 25, 1810. [THE region known as FLORIDA, though discovered by Sebastian Cabot, an Eng lish navigator, was first formally taken possession of by Ponce de Leon, a Spaniard, in behalf of the Spanish crown, and was thence deemed a possession of that crown A colony of French Protestants, who settled it in 1562, were overpowered and murdered by a Spanish force in 1565, in which year a Spanish colony was planted at St. Augustine. By the Treaty of Ryswick, in 1763, Florida was ceded to England, but restored to Spain by the Treaty of Paris, in 1783. It remained a Spanish possession down to its cession to the United States, for $5,000,000. in 1819. LOUISIANA, on the other hand-that is, the River Mississippi-was first discovered by the French, in 1688, and a settlement made by them in 1699. It was ceded to Spain in 1763, restored to France in 1800, and purchased of Bonaparte, by the United States, in 1803, for the sum of $15,000,000. And now a serious question soon arose as to the Boundary between the two Territories-Spain claiming that Florida extended to the Mississippi, embracing all the then wilderness which now forms the States of Alabama and Mississippi; while our Government claimed that Louisiana extended east to the Perdido, a small river running South into the Gulf of Mexico, about 50 miles east of Mobile, 150 east of New-Orleans and 20 west of Pensacola. President MADISON solved the dispute in 1810 by taking possession of Baton Rouge and Mobile, and extending the jurisdiction of the United States to the Perdido This act was assailed in Congress by the Federal Members, especially by OUTERBRIDGE HORSEY, an eminent Senator from Delaware, who regarded it as an unjusti fiable and offensive demonstration against Spain, then putting forth all her energies in resistance to the treacherous usurpation and overwhelming force of Bonaparte. Mr. CLAY replied in defence of Mr. Madison's course in the following Speech, demonstrating that the Perdido was the true boundary between the tw Territories, and accordingly it has since remained the western limit of Florida.] It would have gratified me if some other gentleman had undertaken to reply to the ingenious argument which you have just heard. (Speech of Mr. Horsey.) But not perceiving any one disposed to do so, a sense of duty obliges me, though very unwell, to claim your indulgence, whilst I offer my sentiments on this subject, sa interesting to the Union at large, but especially to the Western portion of it. Allow me, sir, to express my admiration at the more than Aristidean justice, which in a question of Territorial title, between the United States and a foreign nation, induces certain gentlemen to espouse the pretensions of the foreign nation. Doubtless, in any future negotiations, she will have too much magnanimity to avail herself of these spontaneous concessions in her favor, made on the floor of the Senate of the United States. It was to be expected that in a question like the present, gentlemen, even on the same side, would have different views, and although arriving at a common conclusion, would do so by various arguments. And hence the honorable gentleman from Vermont entertains doubt with regard to our title against Spain, whilst he feels entirely satisfied of it against France. Believing, as I do, that our title against both powers is indisputable, under the treaty of St. Ildefonso, between Spain and France, and the treaty between the French Republic and the United States, I shall not inquire into the treachery, by which the king of Spain is alledged to have lost his crown; nor shall I stop to discuss the question involved in the overthrow of the Spanish monarchy, and how far the power of Spain ought to be considered as merged in that of France. I shall leave the honorable gentleman from Delaware to mourn over the fortunes of the fallen Charles. I have no commiseration for princes. My sympathies are reserved for the great mass of mankind, and I own that the people of Spain have them most sincerely. I will adopt the course suggested by the nature of the subject, and pursued by other gentlemen, of examining into our title to the country lying between the Mississippi and the Rio Perdido, (which, to avoid circumlocution, I will call West Florida, although it is not the whole of it,) and the propriety of the recent measures taken for the occupation of that territory. Our title, then, depends, first, upon the limits of the province, or colony of Louisiana, and secondly, upon a just exposition of the treaties before mentioned. |