guments, the bank was unconstitutional in 1811, but was constitutional in 1816, owing to a change of circumstances. The conflict was long and exceedingly acrimonious. Before it terminated, Clay was involved in a bitter contest with Andrew Jackson and with his successor to the Presidency, Martin Van Buren. With characteristic self-possession, Clay proposed a radical change in the payment of members of Congress. Their compensation was $6 a day for each day's services. He introduced a bill to change it to $1,500 a year, the law to apply to the Congress then in session, which of course would involve back pay to members then in commission. This proposition provoked a storm of criticism, and Clay for a time suffered a temporary eclipse of his popularity. He was forced to take the stump in Kentucky and advocate, as was the custom of the times, his own re-election. In the canvass of that year (1816) Clay met in his district an old and once ardent political friend, a Kentucky hunter, who expressed his dissatisfaction with Clay's vote on the compensation bill.

"Have you a good rifle, my friend?" asked Mr. Clay.

"Yes."

"Did it ever flash?"

"It did once."

“And did you throw it away?"

"No; I picked the flint, tried it again and it was true."

"Have I ever flashed except this once you complain of?"

"No."

"And will you throw me away?"

"No, no," said the hunter with much emotion, grasping Clay's hand, "never; I will pick the flint and try it again."

Returned to Congress and again chosen Speaker, Clay speedily found himself in an embarrassing position. He had been a candidate for the Presidential election in the preceding November. It turned out that Jackson had ninety-nine electoral votes, Adams eighty-four, Crawford forty-one, and Clay thirty-seven. No one having received a clear majority of all the votes cast, the election was thrown into the House of Representatives, of which Clay was Speaker. This was Clay's first great disappointment. He had hoped to be one of the three higher candidates on the list, which would have made him eligible to receive the vote of the House in the canvass now about to open. Being the fourth in the list, he was ruled out; and now he was regarded as the President-maker. His impulsive temperament naturally felt the keenness of this great disappointment; and he did not sustain his defeat with much composure or fortitude. The friends of each of the three leading candidates courted and flattered Clay, who was supposed to hold the balance of power. His predilections were early in favor of John Quincy Adams. It is now a matter of record, although then unknown, that he had expressed his intention to throw his influence for Adams long before any advances were made to him by Jackson's friends. This, how

ever, was not revealed to the friends of the other candidates. As soon as Clay's intentions became manifest, Jackson's friends charged upon Clay that he was a party to a corrupt bargain. This was the foundation of the celebrated "Bargain and Corruption" scandal which agitated the country for months and years thereafter. The assertion of the Jackson men was that Clay had agreed to support the candidacy of Adams on condition that he, Clay, should be made Secretary of State in the event of Adams's election. In those days the Secretary of State was usually regarded as the legitimate successor of the President, in whose Cabinet he was first minister. Adams was elected and Clay became his Secretary of State, but in that place he was exceedingly uncomfortable, and although his motives in accepting the portfolio of the State Department were absolutely pure, his temperament did not fit him for the routine duties of the office and he pined for the turbulence and excitement of the House of Representatives, in which he had achieved his greatest triumphs as a statesman and politician. Returning speedily to the House, he threw himself with great enthusiasm and spirit into the discussion of burning questions then animating Congress. Of the more important matters that engaged his attention then and previously we should recall his defence of the Spanish-American republics, his so-called American system of a protective tariff, internal improvements (to which he was sincerely and uncompromisingly devoted), and finally, slavery

and the compromise measures growing out of agitation of the slavery question during his long service in Congress. He was identified with many measures intended to compromise with the extreme and radical views of statesmen of both parties. Indeed, in his later years his best efforts were always directed to the adjustment of differences which seemed wellnigh impossible of settlement. He was the father of the Missouri Compromise, by which the extension of slavery north of the northern parallel of 36° 30′ was prohibited, and also of the compromise of 1850, the support of which was so fatal to the political fortunes of more than one Northern statesman. This disposition to compromise gave him the title of "The Great Pacificator."

Through all this strenuous and exciting epoch in his public life, Clay never forgot the distressed and the oppressed of other lands. His sympathies went out not only to the SpanishAmerican republics, but to Greece in her struggle for independence, to Hungary, and even to the enslaved Africans of our own country. He was well called “a Southern man with Northern principles." When reproached in a Northern State with being a slaveholder, he instantly offered to free his slaves if those who reproached him would undertake their maintenance, and through all his life he was a consistent although possibly mistaken supporter of the project of colonizing free and emancipated colored persons in Africa. Up to the date of his death he was an ardent supporter of the

American Colonization Society, and perpetually referred to it and its machinery as the most hopeful means for redeeming our country from the curse of slavery.

The great disappointment of his life was his defeat in the Presidential election of 1844. There was reason to suppose that he would have carried the State of New York by a small majority, which would have given him the election, but the Liberty party, representing the abolition sentiment of the State, had now become sufficiently strong to assert itself and to divide the vote so that the State cast a majority of five thousand and eighty votes for James K. Polk. Clay was deeply mortified at his defeat and complained that his friends had cruelły deceived him. His prestige suffered, and his personal feelings were painfully wounded. There was no recovery from an overthrow so overwhelming as this, and his later years were doubtless clouded by gloomy views of the sincerity of human affection, the fallacy of human hopes, and the gratitude of the republic. He had said on one occasion that he had "rather be right than be President." Doubtless, he felt that he was right, and still he failed to reach the Presidency. Later, and while he was still smarting under the sting of what he believed to be undeserved disgrace, he spoke at Lexington, Ky., in favor of gradual emancipation. Among his audience was Abraham Lincoln, who had journeyed thither from Springfield to hear the great Whig leader whom he loved so well.