In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Wade Hall 135 Henry Clay “Reply to John Randolph” Kentucky’s most famous citizen before the Civil War was undoubtedly Henry Clay, a master lawyer and a master politician who offered himself in vain three times for the presidency. He was born in Virginia in 1777, moved to Lexington to practice law at twenty, and then became a Kentucky congressman and senator. His political oratory in Congress was unmatched. During an 1824 debate with Senator John Randolph of Virginia, he responded to Randolph’s attack on him in words that would have crushed even a worthy opponent. h Sir, I am growing old. I have had some little measure of experience in public life, and the result of that experience has brought me to this conclusion, that when business, of whatever nature, is to be transacted in a deliberative assembly , or in private life, courtesy, forebearance, and moderation, are best calculated to bring it to a successful conclusion. Sir, my age admonishes me to abstain from involving myself in personal difficulties; would to God that I could say, I am also restrained by higher motives. I certainly never sought any collision with the gentleman from Virginia. My situation at this time is peculiar, if it be nothing else, and might, I should think, dissuade, at least, a generous heart from any wish to draw me into circumstances of personal altercation. I have experienced this magnanimity from some quarters of the house. But I regret, that from others it appears to have no such consideration . The gentleman from Virginia was pleased to say that in one point at least he coincided with me—in an humble estimate of my grammatical and philological acquirements. I know my deficiencies. I was born to no proud patrimonial estate; from my father I inherited only infancy, ignorance, and indigence. I feel my defects; but, so far as my situation in early life is concerned , I may, without presumption, say they are more my misfortune than my fault. But, however I regret my want of ability to furnish to the gentleman a better specimen of powers of verbal criticism, I will venture to say, it is not greater than the disappointment of this committee as to the strength of his argument. 135 136 The Kentucky Anthology “Address to Lafayette” On December 10, 1824, during a triumphal tour of the nation he had helped to birth some fifty years earlier, the aged Marquis de Lafayette was welcomed to the House of Representatives by Speaker Clay, who pulled out all the stops with the following grand oration. h General, The house of representatives of the United States, impelled alike by its own feelings, and by those of the whole American people, could not have assigned to me a more gratifying duty than that of presenting to you cordial congratulations upon the occasion of your recent arrival in the United States, in compliance with the wishes of Congress, and to assure you of the very high satisfaction which your presence affords on this early theatre of your glory and renown. Although but few of the members who compose this body shared with you in the war of our revolution, all have, from impartial history, or from faithful tradition, a knowledge of the perils, the sufferings, and the sacrifices, which you voluntarily encountered, and the signal services , in America and in Europe, which you performed for an infant, a distant , and an alien people; and all feel and own the very great extent of the obligations under which you have placed our country. But the relations in which you have ever stood to the United States, interesting and important as they have been, do not constitute the only motive of the respect and admiration which the house of representatives entertain for you. Your consistency of character, your uniform devotion to regulated liberty, in all the vicissitudes of a long and arduous life, also commands its admiration. During all the recent convulsions of Europe, amidst, as after the dispersion of, every political storm, the people of the United States have beheld you, true to your old principles, firm and erect, cheering and animating with your well-known voice, the votaries of liberty, its faithful and fearless champion, ready to shed the last drop of that blood which here you so freely and nobly spilt, in the same holy cause. The vain wish has been sometimes indulged, that Providence would allow the patriot, after death, to return to his country, and to...

Share