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GREAT MEN'S BODIES
settling in Lexington, Kentucky, where his attractive home, "Ashland," still stands; saving many a murderer's neck; entering the United States Senate before he was thirty; declining the position of Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court; the most famous Speaker the House of Representatives ever had. "His leaving Congress in 1842," wrote Crittenden, "was something like the soul's quitting the body." Secretary of State; fought two duels; five times tried to be President, but said he would sooner be right than President.
Carl Schurz says: "He was without question the greatest parliamentary orator, and one of the greatest popular speakers, America has ever had. Webster excelled him in breadth of knowledge, in keenness of reasoning, in weight of argument, and in purity of diction. But Clay possessed, in a far higher degree, the true oratorical temperament; that force of nervous exaltation which makes the orator feel himself, and appear to others a superior being; and almost irresistibly transfers his thoughts, his passions, and his will into the mind and heart of the listener. Webster would instruct and convince and elevate; but Clay would overcome his audience. In the elements, too, which make a man a leader, Clay was greatly the superior of Webster; as well as of all other contemporaries, excepting Andrew Jackson. He had not only, in rare development, the faculty of winning the affectionate devotion of men; but his personality imposed itself without an effort so forcibly upon others that they involuntarily looked to him for direction; waited for his decisive word before making up their minds; and not seldom yielded their better judgment to his willpower. While this made him a very strong leader, he was not a safe guide. The rare brightness of his intellect and his fertile fancy served, indeed, to make himself and others forget his lack of accurate knowledge and studious thought; but these brilliant qualities could not compensate for his deficiency in that prudence and forecast which are required for the successful direction of political forces. His impulses were vehement, and his mind not well fitted for the patient analysis of complicated problems, and of difficult political situations. His imagination frequently ran away with his understanding. He disliked advice which differed from his preconceived opinions; and with his imperious temper and radiant combativeness, he was apt, as in the struggle about the United States Bank, to put himself, and to hurry his party, into positions341
