it unadvisable to take part in the discussion, and contented himself with giving his vote against the motion before the senate. The majority were opposed to him, and the suspension of the law was voted with great unanimity. Fortunately, however, the bill was lost in the lower house. The opposition that was made to it by the minority in the senate, did not result from any sympathy or respect for Aaron Burr, the depravity of whose character was now generally acknowledged, but from a patriotic regard for the supremacy of the laws. The law of habeas corpus is the ark of American liberty, and violent hands ought not to be laid upon it, in every slight or imaginary emergency. Though it may sometimes afford a temporary shelter to the guilty, we ought not, on that account, to endanger the rights of the innocent, to whom it is a constant protection. We rejoice that the law in question has never been suspended in the whole history of the government. Its operations have been two or three times resisted by military chieftains, who fancied that measures thus arbitrary were demanded by the peculiar exigencies in which they were placed; but their conduct has already been the subject of protracted public discussions, and we would add nothing to what has been said of it.

In the summer of 1807, Mr. Clay's term of service in the United States Senate having expired, he was again placed before the citizens of Fayette, as a candidate for the Kentucky legislature. Under ordinary circumstances, no aspirant would have dared to enter the lists with him; but the fact of his having been the attorney of Colonel Burr, gave courage to the federalists, and emboldened them to bring out a candidate in opposition to him. Their whole hope of success depended on exciting against Mr. Clay a portion of the indignation that existed against Burr. The attempt was worse than futile. The shame

less calumny, fell crumbling from his name, like filth thrown by the hands of a savage against the pillars of a magnificent edifice. When the electors had assembled, he stood proudly up among them, and addressed them on the subject of his intercourse with Burr. His election was carried by a majority, which even he himself had never before received. After the delivery of his address, it would have been dangerous for any man to reiterate the lying charge against him. The people would not have endured it. As soon would they have suffered their favourite "Commoner" to be charged with the crimes of all the individuals whom, in the course of his practice, he had consented to defend.

In the course of the next session of the general assembly, Mr. Clay was chosen speaker, by a large majority, over a very popular rival. The duties of this office he discharged with the same fidelity and skill for which he was afterwards distinguished, while holding a similar office in the Congress of the United States. Occasionally, too, he came down from his place, and took part in the fierce grapple of mind with mind. It was his good fortune, in the course of the session, to prevent the whole system of the common law from being annihilated in the courts of Kentucky. A motion was made to prohibit the reading in court of any British decision, or elementary work on law. This motion was strongly supported by argument; and more than four fifths of the members of the house evinced a determination to vote in favour of it. Aside from other objections against the common law, it was argued, that the Americans, as an independent people, ought not to suffer themselves to be governed, in the administration of justice, by the legal decisions of a foreign power. To obviate this consideration, Mr. Clay moved to amend the resolution before the house, by limit

ing the exclusion of British decisions from Kentucky, to those only which have taken place since the fourth of July, 1776, the date of American independence, and suffering all, which preceded that period, to remain still in force. His reasons for this amendment were conclusive. Previous to the declaration of our independence, the British and Americans were the same nation; and the laws of the one people were those of the other. After a long and spirited contest, Mr. Clay prevailed. Notwithstanding the original popularity of the resolution which he opposed, it was lost, and his amendment adopted by a vote almost unanimous; and, consequently, the binding authority of the great body of the common law still continued to be acknowledged. This effort of Mr. Clay has justly been considered by himself and his friends as one of the greatest intellectual achievements of his life. The prejudices of the multitude against the common law are almost universal; and, at the time of which we have spoken, they existed in the Kentucky legislature in all their strength. The common people have heard, that this law, consisting, as it does, of all the reported decisions of the British courts, fills hundreds of volumes, and they do not readily comprehend how the men of the present day can become acquainted with it, and, much less, give it a practical application in this country. They are apt to look upon it as a mere shapeless mass of incongruities and absurdities, that has been accumulating for years and centuries. They imagine that it is half made up of frivolous precepts, and ludicrous distinctions, which have no better effect than to set common sense and common justice at nought, by the conviction of the innocent, and the discharge of the guilty. They are not aware that the common law is the embodied wisdom of ages, and that, although it may appear irregular at first view, it will be

seen, when viewed in 'the light of a few plain principles, to be a system of unrivalled symmetry, beauty, and mag nificence. They do not know, that its fundamental rules are so simple and well established, that the most unlettered can readily learn them, but suppose, that the whole system, ancient and mighty as it is, might advantageously give place to a few hasty statutes devised by the discordant spirits of a state legislature. It was against such prejudices and such misapprehensions, that Mr. Clay was obliged to contend, and he did it with a power of argument and eloquence, that almost surprised himself. He did not "check his strength in mid volley"—the whole was put forth, for the time demanded it. In portraying that spirit of vandalism, which mocks at the wisdom of the "world's gray fathers," and would wantonly make wreck of a system fraught with the intellectual wealth of centuries, and whelm its last fragment beneath the wave, Mr. C. was great beyond expression. A gentleman, who was in the lobby of the house, and who has since risen to distinction, has averred, that all his subsequent ideas of perfect eloquence have been formed upon that one model. It surpassed any thing which he has since heard or had before conceived. Every muscle of the orator's face was at work, his whole body seemed agitated, as if each part were instinct with a separate life, and his small white hand, with its blue veins apparently distended almost to bursting, moved gracefully, but with all the energy of rapid and vehement gesture. The appearance of the speaker seemed that of a pure intellect wrought up to its mightiest energies, and brightly glowing through the thin and transparent veil of flesh that enrobed it. Our informant represents himself as having gazed upon the orator, and listened to his moving and impetuous eloquence, till he half lost his sense of individual existence, and, on the first

return of perfect consciousness, he found that tears, in spite of his manhood, were streaming down his cheeks. Ashamed of his weakness, and unaware that nearly the whole audience was in the same situation with himself, he dried his tears, and, with feelings partially indurated by resolution, again gave his attention to the speaker. In a few moments, he found that the waters of emotion had gushed out anew from their fountain, and he now suffered them to flow uncontrolled, for he saw that he wept not alone. This great effort of Mr. Clay was materially dif ferent from those of more modern date. It was probably accompanied by a degree of physical exertion, which, in his recent condition of bodily debility, he would have been unable to endure even for a short period of time.

In the year 1808, Humphrey Marshall, a gentleman of whom we have already made mention, became a member of the legislature of Kentucky. He was, at that time, a man of strong mind and extensive information, but a bitter federalist, and an unwerried opponent of Mr. Clay. Mr. Marshall had repeatedly assailed Mr. C. and his friends in the newspapers, and, as a natural consequence, their political hostility was turned to personal hatred. Both now being members of the legislature, there appeared to be a willingness on the part of the other members, to bring them into direct collision. To this end, several gentlemen declined voting for Mr. C.'s reappointment to the office of speaker, knowing that, if he were in the speaker's chair, he would not have an opportunity of meeting his antagonist without 'restraint. During the first weeks of the session, Clay and Marshall frequently met each other in debate, and the former was uniformly victorious, being, in fact, incomparably superior, in all respects, to his antagonist. At length, Mr. C. brought a resolution before the house, that each member, for the purpose of en