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The Green Bag.

himself against their attacks, he replied : the Kentucky hearts than " the Sage of "The faithful discharge of my duty to my Ashland," as they still fondly call him. In the cemetery at Lexington, Kentucky, country is my best defense." It has been fitly said that " Adams was the thinker, a lofty monument marks the place where the great " commoner" sleeps. A Virginia Monroe the practical executive, of the ad ministration," and that " the era of good visitor was once being shown about Lexing feeling which they secured for the nation ton and the Bluegrass region of Kentucky. was first realized in the unity and harmony When they came to the grave of Clay, the visitor expressed surprise that Mr. Clay of their deliberations." should have been buried in Kentucky. He sympathized deeply with the temper "And why not, pray?" was the indignant ance cause and supported it by his pen and question asked by the astonished Kentuckhis example. ian. " Where else would you have buried July 26, 179/, he married Louisa Cathe rine Johnson, daughter of Joshua Johnson, Kentucky's greatest son? " " Clay was a Vir American consul at London. For fifty years ginian," said the stranger; but it was very they lived happily together. On the tablet difficult to convince his host that it was true, to her memory in the Unitarian church of and he was only appeased when the visitor Quincy, Massachusetts, is the following reminded him that when Clay was born, Virginia and Kentucky were one and the beautiful inscription : — same State. LOUISA CATHERINE. John Quincy Adams appointed him sec Living, through many .vicissitudes and under retary of state in 1825. When Mr. Clay's many responsibilities, as a daughter, wife and own defeat for President, in 1824, had been mother, she proved equal to all. assured, he was instrumental in the election Dying, she left to her family and her sex the of Mr. Adams, so when he accepted the first blessed remembrance of a woman that feareth place in Mr. Adams's cabinet the cry of the Lord. "bargain and sale" between the President When John Quincy Adams ceased to be and his chief secretary went up all over the secretary and became President, he ap country. Of course, it was not true, and to pointed Henry Clay to be the head of his day is told as a sample of what even the cabinet. Mr. Clay was born in Hanover greatest men have to face when they enter County, Virginia, April 12, 1777, and was political life. Perrin, a Kentucky historian, the son of a Baptist clergyman. His early says : " Four years later, Mr. Clay was by years were spent in poverty and toil, and his far the strongest candidate in his party, but only schooling was that obtained at the old it was the custom, and except in the case of log schoolhousc near his home. When he the elder Adams, had been observed up to was fifteen, he was given a clerkship in the this time, to elect a President to a second clerk's office of the High Court of Chancery, term as ' an endorsement of his administra and there attracted the notice of the great tion, ' and to this questionable custom may Chancellor Wythe, who took a great fancy be attributed the substitution of Mr. Adams to him, and asked Robert Brooke, then at as a candidate in this campaign." torney-general of Virginia, to allow him to One of the most important things which study law in his office. He came to Ken took place while Mr. Clay was secretary, tucky in 1797, and at once entered politics, was the convention held to settle with Great and for over forty years was the idol of the Britain about indemnities. Kentucky people. Even to-day no states The following humorous story was told man, living or dead, is nearer and dearer to me by an old lady, who had so much