killed Miss Phelps, but the criminal was a woman of a respectable family, the wife of a respectable man, and never before accused of any fault. Clay's theory was that the deed had been committed in a moment of "temporary delirium," and on that plea the jury, whose judgment had been confused by the extraordinary plea of the advocate, found that the woman was not sane enough to be hanged, but was insane enough to be kept in jail for a short time. This is probably the first instance of "temporary insanity" being used in the criminal courts of the United States to secure the acquittal of an undoubted murderer. In another case, that of one Willis, of Fayette County, accused of a murder of peculiar atrocity, Clay succeeded in dividing the jury so that they could not agree, and the defendant escaped conviction. At the second trial of Willis, Clay argued that his client had once been put in peril for his life and under the constitution of the State could not be placed in jeopardy a second time. This being new doctrine to the Court, Clay was forbidden to proceed on that line of argument, whereupon the young lawyer solemnly gathered up his papers and stalked out of the room, throwing upon the Court in grave tones the responsibility of denying his just rights to a man on trial for his life. The Court, astounded by this unexpected turn of affairs, sent a messenger after Clay, who graciously returned and secured from the jury a verdict of not guilty. Years afterward, the culprit whom Clay had defended so successfully,

met his counsel, being intoxicated, and cried, Here comes Mr. Clay, who saved my life." "Ah, Willis, poor fellow," said Clay, "I fear I have saved too many like you who ought to be hanged."

Clay excelled in sarcasm of finer touch than those who were his compeers in Kentucky were accustomed to employ. On one occasion, when confronted in the House of Representatives by a General Smyth, of Virginia, in a long debate, Smyth, who was noted for his prosy and longdrawn speeches, said to Clay, “You speak for the present generation; I speak for posterity." "Yes," replied Clay, "and you seem resolved to continue speaking until your audience arrives." In one of his speeches, giving a graphic description of the arrival in Washington of a horde of office-seekers on the advent of Andrew Jackson to power, he said: "Recall to your recollection the 4th of March, 1829, when the lank, lean, famished forms from fen and forests and the four quarters of the Union gathered together in the halls of patronage, or, stealing by evening's twi light into the apartment of the President's mansion, cried out, with ghastly faces and in sepulchral tones, 'Give us bread, give us Treasury pap, give us our reward.' England's bard was mistaken. Ghosts will sometimes come, called or uncalled."

Clay's popularity was very great. Even now it is a tradition throughout the Southwest, and living men, tottering on the verge of the grave, recall his eloquence, his delightful and winning

presence, his gracious ways and his great political disappointments, with feelings of mingled grief and enthusiasm. His affluence of phrase, his resonance of language and magnificence of gesture gave him a power over the minds of men that probably has never been equalled by any American of any time. His noble and generous heart, his sympathetic nature, and his exuberant vitality made him everywhere a welcome guest and an idolized friend and political leader. When he was defeated for the Presidency by James K. Polk, in 1844, the grief of his followers was so great that in those portions of the country where his vote was strongest one would have supposed a great national calamity had settled upon the people. Abraham Lincoln was one of those who idolized Clay, and he never forgot the profound sorrow that overwhelmed him when, to their utter amazement, he and his neighbors learned that Henry Clay was defeated for the Presidency.

Such was the turbulence of Clay's political career that those who are old enough to recall even the traditions of his memorable contests invariably remember two grave charges that were freely bandied during his political campaigns. He was held up to public execration, especially in the North, as a duellist and a gambler. His first experience in the duello was provoked by the insulting conduct of Colonel Joseph Hamilton Daviess, one of the magnates of Kentucky, who was then District Attorney of the United States. In the course of a suit in which Clay defended a

(Engraved by D. Nichols, from a miniature in possession of John M. Clay, Esq.)

man who had provoked the wrath of Daviess, Clay was notified by Daviess that he had better desist from his defence. Clay promptly replied that he would permit no one to dictate to him as to the performance of his duty and that he "held himself responsible" after the manner of the code. Daviess sent Clay a challenge, which Clay promptly accepted. The hostile parties had arrived on "the field of honor" when friends interfered and brought about an amicable settlement without bloodshed. A more serious affair was that with Humphrey Marshall, who denounced Clay's first efforts in favor of a protective tariff as the "claptrap of a demagogue." A fierce altercation ensued, challenges were exchanged, and the two men actually did meet on the field of battle and both combatants were slightly wounded before the seconds could interfere to prevent further mischief. But the most famous of Clay's altercations was that which grew out of one of his wordy encounters with Andrew Jackson. One Kremer had printed in a Washington paper a scandalous charge known. as the "corrupt bargain," in which Clay was alleged to have consented to throw his influence for John Quincy Adams, candidate for President, for a consideration. Clay published a card in which he pronounced the author of the story, "whoever he may be, a base and infamous calumniator, a dastard, a liar, and if he dare unveil himself and avow his name I will hold him responsible, as I here admit myself to be, to all the laws which govern and regulate men of