B

Valedictory.

By HENRY CLAY, of Kentucky.

(Born 1777, died 1852.)

UT, sir, if I have a difficulty in giving utterance to an expression of the feelings of gratitude which fill my heart toward my friends, dispersed throughout this continent, what shall I say what can I say at all commensurate with my feelings of gratitude toward that State whose humble servitor I am? I migrated to the State of Kentucky nearly forty-five years ago. I went there as an orphan, who had not yet attained his majority who had never recognized a father's smile-poor, penniless, without the favor of the great with an imperfect and inadequate education, limited to the means applicable to such a boy but scarcely had I set foot upon that generous soil, before I was caressed with parental fondness patronized with bountiful munificence- and I may add to this, that her choicest honors, often unsolicited, have been freely showered upon me; and when I stood, as it were, in the darkest moments of human existence — abandoned by the world, calumniated by a large portion of my own countrymen, she threw around me her impenetrable shield, and bore me aloft, and repelled the attacks of malignity and calumny, by which I was assailed. Sir, it is to me an unspeakable pleasure that I am shortly to return to her friendly limits; and that I shall finally deposit (and it will not be long before that day arrives) my last remains under her generous soil, with the remains of her gallant and patriotic sons who have preceded me. * * *

Yet, sir, during this long period, I have not escaped the fate of other public men, in this and other countries. I have been often, Mr. President, the object of bitter and unmeasured detraction and calumny. I have borne it, I will not say always with composure, but I have borne it without creating any disturbance. I have borne it waiting in unshaken and undoubting confidence, that the triumphs of truth and justice would ultimately prevail; and that time would settle all things as they ought to be settled. I have borne them under the conviction, of which no injustice, no wrong, no injury could deprive me, that I did not deserve them, and that he to whom we are all to be finally and ultimately responsible, would acquit me whatever injustice I might experience at the hands of my fellow men.

* * *

Mr. President, a recent epithet (I do not know whether for the purpose of honor or of degradation) has been applied to me; and I have been held up to the country as a dictator! Dictator! The idea of dictatorship is drawn from Roman institutions; and there, when it was created, the person who was invested with this tremendous authority, concentrated in his own person the whole power of the State. He exercised unlimited control over the property and lives of the citizens of the commonwealth. He had the power of raising armies, and of raising revenue by taxing the people. If I have been a dictator, what have been the powers with which I have been clothed? Have I possessed an army, a navy, revenue? Have I had the distribution of the patronage of the Government? Have I, in short, possessed any power whatever? Sir, if I have been a dictator, I think those who apply the epithet to me must at least admit two things in the first place, that my dictatorship has been distinguished by no cruel executions, stained by no deeds of blood, soiled by no act of dishonor. And they must no less acknowledge, in the second place (though I do not know when its commencement bears date, but I suppose, however, that it is intended to be averred, from the commencement of the extra session), that if I have been invested with, or have usurped the dictatorship, I have at least voluntarily surrendered the power within a shorter period than was assigned by the Roman laws for its continuance.

(From the farewell address delivered in the United States Senate in 1842.)

General Jackson's Fine.

By SILAS WRIGHT, of New York.

(Born 1795, died 1847.)

HAT would be the fair inferences from the passage of the measure in its present form? That his every act upon that momentous occasion was within the strict letter and rule of the law? No, sir, no. Do the political friends of General Jackson ask you to say that? Not at all; and I believe in my heart that every member of the Senate will be his friend as to the passage of this bill, and will cheerfully say all which the bill calls upon them to say, if they will divest themselves of political prejudices, and look at the proposition as it is. It is conceded by all that General Jackson, upon the occasion referred to, acted precisely as, under the circumstances which surrounded him, he should have acted - precisely as the protection of the city of New Orleans and that important portion of the Union required he should act; and that he deserves, for his conduct in that memorable defense, the thanks and gratitude and approbation of his country. This concession is all the expression called for by the bill, by the friends of General Jackson, or by the General himself.

Yet, we are told that this is not the mode in which the approbation of the country should be manifested toward this distinguished officer, for his unexampled firmness and gallantry and success upon this great and glorious occasion; that we should pass a resolution presenting to him our thanks! Thanks, sir? The thanks of Congress were presented to him by the warm and cheerful hearts of those who occupied our places when his unparalleled services were better esteemed than they seem to be now- of those who were contemporaneous with the transactions, and upon whom was reflected the sweeping and resistless torrent of a nation's gratitude and admiration. Thanks from us? They would come cold and dead, after the manifestations of feeling which the defense of New Orleans drew fresh and warm from every heart in the country, as the news of the glorious victory of the 8th of January, 1815, spread itself over our broad land.

Is it desired to do justice to the fame of General Jackson, as to the penalty imposed upon him by Judge Hall? Pass a resolution, says the honorable Senator from Louisiana (Mr. Conrad), directing a painting to represent the scene the judge in his robes, and the victorious general bowing himself before the majesty of the law, and submitting, without resistance, to the penalty and punishment inflicted upon him for having taken the measure of precaution and security necessary to enable him to win the laurels which adorned the elevated prisoner. Hang that picture in a niche of the rotunda of the Capitol, and thus make the General and his acts immortal.

Sir, such a picture would be a proud one for the country, and especially for that distinguished general; and I should rejoice to see it gracing the Capitol of the nation. But will you write beneath it, "We gained a thousand dollars to the public treasury by this operation, which has paid for this picture?" Will you hang the proud national emblem aloft in this marble palace, and invoke toward it the attention and admiration of all succeeding ages; and, in the very moment when you do so, make up a record upon your journal here, which must either disgrace the General, whose gallant services and patriotic forbearance gave the sketch for the painting, or must disgrace the country he so faithfully and disinterestedly served? The General, by his wisdom and valor, defended, with a handful of undisciplined militia, one of your proudest cities against a veteran enemy of many times his numbers. In doing so, he had, in the opinion of a judge and a lawyer, committed a technical breach of the law, and been guilty of a technical contempt of court. He was arraigned by the precise judge for his offense, and within the very bounds of his military camp, in the hour of his proud victory, and in the presence of his gallant companions in arms, and of thousands of his indignant countrymen, he unresistingly permitted himself to be led to the bar of the court as a criminal, and there received the sentence of the law, and paid this one thousand dollars as the penalty of the offense charged against him; not a human being then, as since, questioning the purity of his intentions, or the wisdom of his acts. This is the event, it is said, we should commemorate by a national painting; and yet we are urged to refuse to refund the penalty thus incurred in our service; or, if we do refund it, to say, as part of the act, that it was worthily imposed. Will we, can we, do this? No, sir, no. The heart of every man who occupies a seat here will tell him that he cannot do it; that he cannot vote for such a memorial to national honor and private merit, and place his vote at the foot of such a record.

Of what use would be such a painting? The transactions alluded to are painted upon the heart of every American citizen, in living colors, with a pencil more true, in figures more full and animated, and by impressions more indelible,