in that way from whom he was to hear in later years; but, on the whole, his popularity weathered the storm. Without opposition, he was elected to represent his faithful Lexington district in the House of Representatives of the eighteenth Congress, which met on the first Monday in December, 1823. During his absence from the House there had been contest enough about the speakership. But as soon as he appeared again, an overwhelming majority of the members gathered around him, and he was elected Speaker by 139 to 42, the minority voting for Philip P. Barbour of Virginia, who had been Speaker during the seventeenth Congress.
This was the session preceding the presidential election of 1824, and Clay was a confessed candidate for the succession to Monroe. His friends in Kentucky — or, as many would have it, the people of Kentucky — were warm and loud in their advocacy of his “claims.” His achievement as “the great pacificator” had much increased his popularity in other states. His conduct in the House was likely to have some effect upon his chances, and to be observed with extraordinary interest. The first thing he did was to take the unpopular side of a question appealing in an unusual degree to patriotic emotion and human sympathy. He opposed a bill granting a pension to the mother of Commodore Perry, the hero of Lake Erie. The death of her illustrious son had left the old matron in needy circumstances. The debate ran largely
