[The occasion of this speech was a barbecue given to Mr. Clay, by his personal and olitical friends, on the 9th of June, 1842, near Lexington, Ky. He had shortly before esigned his scat in the U.: S. Senate, with the intention of retiring, in his advanced age, to The peaceful shades of his beloved Ashland. It is placed first in order, because it contains, in his own words, a short history of his Life.]

MR. PRESIDENT, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN :

It was given to our countryman, Franklin, to bring down the lightning from heaven. To enable me to be heard by this immense multitude, I should have to invoke to my aid, and to throw into my voice, its loudest thunders. As I cannot do that, I hope I shall be excused for such a use of my lungs as is practicable, and not inconsistent with the preservation of my health. And I feel that it is our first duty to express our obligations to a kind and bountiful Providence, for the copious and genial showers with which he has just blessed our land-a refreshment of which it stood much in need. For one, I offer to Him my humble and dutiful thanks. The inconvenience to us, on this festive occasion, is very slight, while the sum of good which these timely rains will produce, is very great and encouraging.

Fellow citizens, I find myself now in a situation somewhat like one in which I was placed a few years ago, when traveling through the State of Indiana, from which my friend (Mr. Rariden) near me comes. I stopped at a village containing some four or five hundred inhabitants, and I had scarcely alighted before I found myself surrounded in the bar-room, by every adult male resident of the place. After awhile, I observed a group consulting together in one corner of the room, and shortly after, I was diffidently ap proached by one of them, a tall, lank, lean, but sedate and sober looking person, with a long face, and high cheek bones, who, addressing me, said he was commissioned by his neighbors, to request that I would say a few words to them. Why my good friend, said I, I should be very happy to do anything gratifying to yourself and your neighbors, but I am very much fatigued, and hungry, and thirsty, and I do not think the occasion is exactly suitable for a (35)

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speech, and I wish you would excuse me to your friends. Well, says he, Mr Clay, I confess I thought so myself, especially as we have no wine to offer you to drink?

Now, if the worthy citizen of Indiana was right in supposing that a glass of wine was a necessary preliminary, and a precedent condition to the delivery of a speech, you have no just right to expect one from me at this time; for during the sumptuous repast from which we have just risen, you offered me nothing to drink but cold water-excellent water, it is true, from the classic fountain of our lamented friend, Mr. Maxwell, which has so often regaled us on celebrations of our great anniversary.

I protest against any inference of my being inimical to the Temperance cause. On the contrary, I think it an admirable cause, that has done great good, and will continue to do good, as long as legal coercion is not employed, and it rests exclusively upon persuasion, and its own intrinsic merits.

I have a great and growing repugnance to speaking in the open air to a large assemblage. But while the faculty of speech remains to me, I can never feel that repugnance, never feel other than grateful sensations, in making my acknowledgments under such circumstances as those which have brought us together. Not that I am so presumptuous as to believe that I have been the occasion solely of collecting this vast multitude. Among the inducements, I cannot help thinking that the fat white virgin Durham heifer of my friend, Mr. Berryman, that cost $600, which has been just served and the other good things which have been so liberally spread before us, exerted some influence in swelling this unprecedentedly large meeting. [Great laughter.]

up,

I cannot but feel, Mr. President, in offering my respectful acknowledg ments for the honor done me, in the eloquent address which you have just delivered, and in the sentiment with which you concluded it, that your warm partiality, and the fervent friendship which has so long existed between us, and the kindness of my neighbors and friends around me, have prompted an exaggerated description, in too glowing colors, of my public services, and my poor abilities.

I seize the opportunity to present my heartfelt thanks to the whole people of Kentucky, for all the high honors and distinguished favors which I have received, during a long residence with them, at their hands; for the liberal patronage which I received from them in my professional pursuit; for the eminent places in which they have put me, or enabled me to reach; for the generous and unbounded confidence which they have bestowed upon me, at all times; for the gallant and unswerving confidence, fidelity, and attachment with which they stood by me throughout all the trials and vicissitudes of an eventful and arduous life; and, above all, for the scornful indignation with which they repelled an infamous calumny directed against my name and fame at a momentous period of my public career. In recalling to our memory the circumstances of that period, one cannot but be filled with astonishment at the indefatigability with which the calumny was propagated, and the zealous martisan use to which it was applied, not only without evidence, but in the face

of a full and complete refutation. Under whatever deception, delusion, or ignorance it was received elsewhere, with you, my friends and neighbors, and with the good people of Kentucky, it received no countenance; but in proportion to the venom and the malevolence of its circulation, was the vigor and the magnanimity with which I was generously supported. Upheld by a consciousness of the injustice of the charge, I should have borne myself with becoming fortitude, if I had been abandoned by you, as I was by so large a portion of my countrymen; but to have been sustained and vindicated as I was, by the people of my own State, by you who knew me best, and whom I had so many reasons to love and esteem, greatly cheered and encouraged me in my onward progress. Eternal gratitude and thanks are due

from me.

I thank you, my friends and fellow citizens, for your distinguished and enthusiastic reception of me this day, and for the excellence and abundance of the barbecue that has been provided for our entertainment. And I thank, from the bottom of my heart, my fair countrywomen for honoring and gracing and adding brilliancy to this occasion, by their numerous attendance. If the delicacy and refinement of their sex will not allow them to mix in the rougher scenes of human life, we may be sure that whenever, by their presence, their smiles and approbation are bestowed, it is no ordinary occurrence. presence is always an absolute guarantee of order, decorum, and respect. I take the greatest pleasure in bearing testimony to their value and their virtue. I have ever found in them true and steadfast friends, generously sympathizing in distress, and, by their courageous fortitude, in bearing it themselves, encouraging us to imitate their example. And we all know and remember how, as in 1840, they can powerfully aid a great and good cause, without any departure from the propriety or dignity of their sex.

In looking back upon my origin and progress through life, I have great reason to be thankful. My father died in 1781, leaving me an infant of too tender years to retain any recollection of his smiles or endearments. My surviving parent removed to this State in 1792, leaving me, a boy of fifteen years of age, in the office of the High Court of Chancery, in the city of Richmond, without guardian, without pecuniary means of support, to steer my course as I might or could. A neglected education was improved by my own irregular exertions, without the benefit of systematic instruction. I studied law principally in the office of a lamented friend, the late Governor Brooke, then Attorney-General of Virginia, and also under the auspices of the lamented Chancellor Wythe, for whom I had acted as an amanuensis. I obtained a license to practice the profession from the Judges of the Court of Appeals of Virginis, and established myself in Lexington in 1797, without patrons, without the favor or countenance of the great or opulent, without the means of paying my weekly board, and in the midst of a bar uncommonly distinguished by eminent members. I remember how comfortable I thought I should be, if I could make £100, Virginia money, per year, and with what delight I received the first fifteen shilling fee. My hopes were more than realized. I immediately rushed into a successful and lucrative practice.

In 1803 or '4, when I was absent from the county of Fayette, at the Olympian Springs, without any knowledge or previous consent, I was brought forward as a candidate, and elected to the General Assembly of this State. I served in that body several years, and was then transferred to the Senate, and afterward to the House of Representatives of the United States. I will not now dwell on the subsequent events of my political life, or enumerate the offices which I have filled. During my public career, I have had bitter, implacable, reckless enemies. But if I have been the object of misrepresentation and unmerited calumny, no man has been beloved or honored by more devoted, faithful, and enthusiastic friends. I have no reproaches-none-to make toward my country, which has distinguished and elevated me far beyond what I had any right to expect. I forgive my enemies, and hope they may live to obtain the forgiveness of their own hearts.

It would neither be fitting, nor is it my purpose, to pass judgment on all the acts of my public life; but I hope I shall be excused for one or two observations, which the occasion appears to me to authorize. I never but once changed my opinion on any great measure of national policy, or on any great principle of construction of the National Constitution. In early life, on deliberate consideration, I adopted the principles of interpreting the Federal Constitution, which has been so ably developed and enforced by Mr. Madison, in his memorable report to the Virginia Legislature, and to them, as I understood them, I have constantly adhered. Upon the question coming up in the Senate of the United States, to re-charter the first Bank of the United States, thirty years ago, I opposed the re-charter, upon convictions which I honestly entertained. The experience of the War, which shortly followed, the condition into which the currency of the country was thrown, without a Bank, and, I may add, later and more disastrous experience, convinced me I was wrong. I publicly stated to my constituents, in a speech in Lexington (that which I had made in the House of Representatives of the United States not having been reported), my reasons for that change, and they are preserved in the archives of the country. I appeal to that record; and I am willing to be judged now and hereafter by their validity.

I do not advert to the fact of this solitary instance of change of opinion, as implying any personal merit, but because it is a fact. I will, however, say that I think it very perilous to the utility of any public man to make frequent changes of opinion, or any change but upon grounds so sufficient and palpable, that the public can clearly see and approve them. If we could look through a window into the human breast, and there discover the causes which led to changes of opinion, they might be made without hazard. But as it is impossible to penetrate the human heart, and distinguish between the sinister and honest motives which prompt it, any public man that changes his opinion, once deliberately formed and promulgated, under other circumstances than those which I have stated, draws around him distrust, impairs the public confidence, and lessens his capacity to serve his country.

I will take this occasion now to say, that I am, and long have been satisfied, that it would have been wiser and more politic in me to have declined acceptng the office of Secretary of State in 1825. Not that my motives were not