1 Mr. Clay is Speaking

The look on Major Northcote’s face could not be read with ease. His eyes contracted slightly, and there was a faint twist in the corners of his mouth, but it would not have been fair to say that he was scoffing; perhaps tolerance or good-humoured indifference would have been the better way to put it, and such was my conclusion after studying his strong features. He plucked once or twice in a meditative way at his short gray beard, and then said to me:

“He speaks well for a stripling.”

I did not like his use of the word “stripling,” and there was, too, a shade in his tone which I thought should not have been there.

“He is young,” I said, “but not altogether a stripling. He is older than either Pitt or Fox, when they became famous throughout Europe.”

“True, true,” he said, increasing slightly the contraction of his eye. “I had forgotten them for the moment. But he has just come out of the woods.”

“And may not the woods contain wisdom?”

He made no reply, but drummed idly with his fingers, the one upon the other, while the look upon his face showed high-bred weariness. His manner annoyed me, and I would have said more, something a little stronger, but he was my kinsman, though a distant one; moreover, the music of the speaker’s voice filled my ears, and the logic of his words held my mind.

My feelings, as I listened to the senator, were very different from those which seemed to be Major Northcote’s, though the reasons were good why his point of view should be unlike mine. To me the speaker seemed a hero and a prophet. Nor was I alone in this tribute to his power. No sound was heard in the chamber save his voice. The senators waited in eager silence for every word that was spoken by the youngest and greatest of them all. Hearing him, I was proud that he was a Kentuckian, and that I too was one.

He stood near the window. The heavy crimson curtains were drawn back, and the light, filtering through the squares of coloured glass, fell in softened red and blue and gold upon his face. He looked very young to be a senator, but his youth was only one of his attractions. He was tall, straight, and slender, his face shaven clean, every feature clear cut and full of expression, the whole more Greek than Roman.

The gift of golden speech is given to but few, and, of all whom I have known, to him alone in perfection. He had small use for gestures, a motion of the hand now and then, for the sake of emphasis, and that was all; his voice clear and full, each word uttered distinctly, needed no aid; its melody charmed the senses, and his logic convinced the mind.

“What is the strife of England and Bonaparte, the reckless ambition of each to rule the world, to us?” he asked. “Why should we be dragged into it when we ask for nothing but to be let alone and to build up our nation as we see fit? To France we may owe some debt of gratitude, but not to Bonaparte. To England we owe nothing but dislike and distrust. To what do kindred blood and common laws and language amount, when we have endured nothing from her for half a lifetime but insults and wrongs? In all that time she has pursued us with a malignity to which I know no equal. In her books and newspapers she says we are without truth, honesty, or courage. She has plundered and confiscated our ships on every sea, though there is no war between us. Thousands of our sailors, taken from their own vessels by superior force, are serving on hers. Her war fleets keep watch at the entrance to every port of this country and rob our merchant vessels at their leisure, adding to the wrong every circumstance of arrogance and insult that a strong nation can devise for a weak one.”

He paused for a moment, his eyes flashing and the angry blood rising to his face.

I felt my own blood flowing in a hot torrent through my veins. We of the West and South knew our enemy. We knew who had sharpened the Indian tomahawk against us to fill the border with atrocities whose full story can not be put on paper. If our brethren of the East would submit to their wrongs, we at least could resent them for them and our own too.

“He seems to feel what he says,” said Major Northcote carelessly, “but doubtless he is ill informed. It is easy enough to work one’s self into a passion over things that do not exist.”

“They do not exist only for those who refuse to see them,” I said. “To us every word he speaks is true, and the better part of England has long admitted that it is so.”

“A man who endures one wrong only prepares to endure another,” continued the speaker. “This is not a world of universal humanity and justice; it seems to me that at the present time it is a world of universal aggression by the strong upon the weak. What has our peace policy brought upon us but continued and more violent assaults by England? Have you forgotten the attack upon the Chesapeake and the murder of her sailors by the English, and that we have not received any reparation or even apology for it, though four years have passed since that event? Have you forgotten the murder of Pierce in New York Harbour itself by the English? Have you forgotten that we have an Indian war now in the Northwest, incited and encouraged by the English? We shall never know peace until we make war with the English, and fight it through as best we can.”

I wanted to applaud, to make known to all how much I liked his words and how deeply I felt their truth. The policy of turning the left cheek when the other has been smitten may be good enough for men who are willing to become martyrs and take their glory that way, but it means disgrace and ruin for a nation, at least in our day.

Major Northcote continued to drum with his fingers, and was looking critically at the speaker, as if he would put him through some process of analysis and decide to what part of the animal kingdom he belonged. He did not seem to me to take the attack in a manner becoming a United Empire Loyalist, who should have been full of wrath at these attacks upon his beloved England, more wrathful even than an Englishman, and at that time they arrogated to themselves the exclusive possession of all the virtues; while the Loyalists, being merely stepsons, were compelled to boast their attachment still more loudly.

The speaker had paused again, as if to gather his strength and ideas for another effort, while the words already spoken were making their impression upon the minds of the senators. The faces of some, the greater number, showed appreciation and belief; others shrugged their shoulders or turned their eyes away, as if the orator had violated preconceived opinions. None applauded, nor did any express dissent by word or noisy movement. The chamber was quite still, waiting the will of the speaker, for in those days our Senate considered gravity necessary to its being.

Where we were the talk was all of war; outside we saw nothing but peace. The scrub oaks and alders that covered the marshy ground between the Capitol and the White House nodded in the sharp February breeze. Some negro boys played lazily in the half-made and muddy streets, and the smoke rose from cabins which still defied the advance of the newly decreed Capitol. Two men on a hanging platform were at work on the white sandstone walls of the President’s house. Beyond shone the broad Potomac, but around everything converged the wilderness, almost primeval, creeping up even to the walls of the Capitol and the White House, and thrusting long arms of bushes and dense scrub between the buildings of the Government, isolating and surrounding each, as if threatening to return and reconquer the little ground that we had won with so much use of the axe and spade.

An old man, a senator from New England, took advantage of the pause and rose to question the speaker.

“Suppose we declare war on England, how are we to make it, Mr. Clay?” he asked.

Major Northcote looked at him with a slight increase of interest.

“Really, that is not an impertinent question,” he whispered to me. “There is some disproportion—is there not?—between the armies and navies and military resources of Great Britain and this country. It might be well to inquire into it.”

I knew the disproportion, but I said with some heat:

“It is because of this power, and because she thinks us so weak, that Great Britain has inflicted so many wrongs upon us. This is your great and glorious nation, your leader of civilization, a mere bully!”

He spoke soothingly of my youth and prejudiced sources of information. He thought that when I was older and had seen more of the world I would change my opinions. Then both of us stopped talking and waited to hear whether the speaker would reply to the question of the New England senator.

“It is true,” he said, “that England has an abundance of military resources, and we but few. But we can increase what we have, and justice and the spirit of the people are on our side. And if we do not fight, it is certain that our condition, bad as it is now, will grow worse. At a given point the limit of human endurance is reached, and we have reached it. We have tried protests, embargoes, and every device but the sword, and all have failed. Is it better to submit peacefully to ruin, or to make a fair fight for a place among the nations? I tell you, gentlemen, there is nothing left but the sword, and we must try its edge if we are not to be crushed.”

Borne on by the force of his feelings, he shook a long forefinger in the face of the assembled senators, and his voice rose as he pronounced the last words. More than ever I marked its curiously penetrating quality. It swelled steadily and easily in volume, filling the room and making its own echo once and again in our ears.

I was lifted up by the enthusiasm of his words, and I began to hope that fortune might be induced this once to incline to the side of right, and not of might. The sense of our wrongs grew sharper, and I wished the declaration of war to be made before we left the chamber.

“It is true,” I repeated to Major Northcote; “every word that he says is gospel truth. We must fight to live, and since Britain, who should be our best friend, is our worst enemy, it is she whom we must fight.”

He smiled gently, like a man who would restrain himself under any provocation, saying that a declaration of war by us would at least be rash, and his manner at that moment was irritating, whether or not he intended it so.

The debate continued with increasing heat, though the courtesies were always preserved, the Western and Southern senators desiring war, while those from New England and some of the Middle States were as emphatic for peace. I could not understand the minds of the New England men.

The old New England senator, then speaking, had been eager for armed resistance to all the might of England over a small matter of taxation forty years before, when we were but a fringe of colonies on the seaboard; but now that we were an independent nation, with numbers twice as great, he preached non-resistance and submission, while England armed the Indian tribes against us, impressed our sailors, plundered and confiscated our merchant ships, blockaded all our ports with her fleets, and had even fired into one of our war ships, taking advantage of a condition which rendered her unable to resist. Yet, with no visible sense of shame, this old man stood there and pleaded for the cause which he had made his, alleging our weakness, the lack of an organized army, and the enormous risks we would run, although forty years before he had taken no thought of these things, when the risks were greater.

I looked at the Vice-President to see which side was his choice, but Mr. Clinton gave no sign that he inclined to either. He leaned back in his chair, facing the Senate over which he presided, and his plump red face, with its thick fringe of gray hair, was sunk almost between his shoulders. The coloured lights from the windows played curious pranks with his broad face, now turning his red cheeks to yellow, tipping his nose with blue, and then giving him a wide band of scarlet across the forehead. But he listened as if half asleep to all the talk, while his gavel lay motionless in his hand. Mr. Clay had resumed his seat, and was reading some letters a messenger had brought to him.

“While it is true that we have suffered wrongs,” said the New England senator, “we have every proof now that the peaceful policy is best for us; England has promised to stop the impressment of our seamen and the seizure of our ships.”

“Do you believe that promise?” asked Mr. Clay from his chair.

“Certainly,” said the New-Englander.

“I have just received a letter from New York,” said the Kentuckian, “announcing that a fleet of five ships which sailed from that port three months ago, loaded with grain for the Baltic, has been seized by the English and confiscated under a pretended violation of their Orders in Council, their paper blockade. Does the honourable senator still preach submission?”

Then the debate became hot, the war party increasing in fire, and the resistance of the peace party becoming feebler.

“The nation of which you boast so much is a nation of robbers; you have just heard a fresh proof,” I said to Major Northcote.

“It is a necessity,” he said excusingly and still without anger. “We can not permit any trade that would contribute to the strength of the arch-villain, Bonaparte.”

“The robbers’ plea of necessity added to the robbers’ practice,” I said, wishing to speak plainly.

“I am afraid we can not agree on that point,” replied Major Northcote smilingly; “and since we can not, the debate probably has ceased to be of interest to us. Suppose we go?”

I had come only at his request and in order to bring him, since in virtue of my own office I had privileges in the Capitol not always accorded to the public. But I was willing enough to go, and slipping unnoticed from the chamber we sought the air.

“An unfriendly visitor might take this as a true type of the nation,” said Major Northcote, as he marked the unfinished building, the smoke driven by draughts through the corridors, the loose skylights which dripped water when it rained, and the general air of chill and discomfort.

“You can not expect a nation to come forth finished in a few years, any more than you could expect a building like this to be completed in a few days,” I replied.

I resented his slur, slight though it was, upon our Capitol. To me, despite its incompleteness and discomforts, which would be remedied, it seemed beautiful and grand. He did not reply, and we walked in silence down the new-cut road, which we called Pennsylvania Avenue, between the cabins and clumps of alder bushes toward the White House. The February wind was sharp, and we shivered in our cloaks. The sight of the cabins and the bushes and the mud puddles which gave such point to Major Northcote’s remark depressed me, but I was cheered when I looked back at the Capitol. It rose grand and white in the brilliant sunshine, the unfinished portions hidden by the distance, and in its majesty seemed to me to typify the coming greatness of our nation, which had fought so hard for its place, and still had a good fight to make.

I kept these thoughts to myself, knowing how Major Northcote would receive them, and we picked our way between the mud puddles down the avenue toward the White House.

If one did not see completion, one at least saw effort, for at times we passed brick-kilns and the temporary huts of the labourers. There was, too, a brisk sound of hammering, and of timbers creaking against timbers as they were lifted into place, which was encouraging and told of future results. I thought once of calling my kinsman’s attention to the grandeur of the situation, the swelling hills, the expanse of slope and level, the fine river, but I concluded it would be better not to do so; he would fail to appreciate them, and most likely would reply with some slight sarcasm which would sting all the more because of its faintness.

It had been my purpose to go to my room in the Six Buildings, on the road from the White House to Georgetown, and prepare a letter for the Kentucky mail. We clerks in the departments had been forced to find quarters where we could, and Washington was not a town of homes then; but, profiting by the advice and influence of some friends, I had fared well and secured a cosy place. Major Northcote, I supposed, was going to the building occupied by the British ministry, now without a minister since the departure of the intolerable Jackson, and under the charge of a secretary, but before I could leave him I saw Cyrus Pendleton approaching, the man in whose graces I wished to stand well, though I feared to the contrary just then.

He came with the long, easy stride which marks the man of the West, used in the earlier days to walking vast distances through forests impervious to horsemen. Every line, every movement of his tall and spare figure showed strength and the iron endurance of the borderer, though he was fully sixty years of age, and had passed through more hardships than fall to the lot of the ten-thousandth man.

He greeted me in a manner marked by cold courtesy and constraint. I had been a favourite with him once when I was a boy, and perhaps I would have been yet had I not paid attentions of some warmth to Marian Pendleton, for whom her father had other and more ambitious designs. I was sorry, too, that he saw me at that moment with Major Northcote, whose opinions were unpopular in Washington, and whose companionship might be considered to my prejudice by Cyrus Pendleton, a hater of England, though I might plead the tie of kinship, which is very strong with us of Kentucky.

He gave my kinsman a slight nod, a matter for which I did not care, but I resented a little his cold manner to me, and in a spirit into which perhaps some malice entered I told him of the ships confiscated in the Baltic by the English, and I added that one of those ships was the True Blue, on which I knew he had shipped a valuable lot of furs for the Russian market. He expressed no grief at the loss of his goods, but his eyes blazed with anger at the name of the robber nation, and he said that the sooner we declared war upon England and ran the risk the better it would be for us—a position which he had taken long ago and defended always.

Major Northcote received the attack with his usual calm, and looked at Mr. Pendleton with an air of ironical superiority which could not be other than galling to any man. The two were in strong contrast, each a perfect type of his own: the Westerner thin, big-boned, alert, clean shaven, darkened by weather, an accent peculiar, dress careless, the whole type new and original; the Loyalist ruddier, European to the last touch, his attire elegant and careful, his bearing easy, graceful, and indifferent, the advantage of manners wholly on his side, save in the important particular of sincerity.

“Mr. Pendleton is angry,” he said. “There is nothing like a personal loss to influence one’s political feelings.”

“Perhaps,” said the Westerner with composure; and then to me, “I see, Philip, that you are willing to listen to both sides.”

It was an allusion to my companionship with Major Northcote, a hint that I might not be faithful to the West, and, giving me no chance to reply, he walked on with swift steps, an impatience, due no doubt to his encounter with Major Northcote, showing in his stride. One of his strongest characteristics was his hatred of the English power, which never kept faith with us, and so often fought us with the methods and weapons of savages. Nor was he unlike the other people of the West, as I knew them, who hated the English as the English of Elizabeth’s time hated Philip’s Spaniards, and for reasons similar in nature. The tide of our dislike of Great Britain was rising far higher than in the Revolution, and with even greater justice.

As he walked up the slope leading toward the Capitol I saw a short, broad-backed man, whom I knew to be the French minister Serurier, overtake him. I could guess, too, his object in joining Mr. Pendleton, for the Frenchman, like everybody else in Washington, was aware that the Kentuckian was a man of wealth and influence, and he wished to urge on in him, as in all others, the growing hostility to Britain.

It may seem strange, but I felt a bitter resentment toward the Frenchman, who was merely seeking to push us along the way we wished to go; but it was our business, and not his, and his interference, or that of France, was an impertinence. In fact, we had little cause to like France then—as little as we had to like England. We owed France a debt, but it was in abeyance in those years, and I wished we were strong enough to give England and France a beating at the same time.

The two walked slowly up the steps of the Capitol. The Frenchman had taken the American by the arm, as if they were friends of a lifetime, and was talking to him earnestly. Thus they passed into the building, and bidding Major Northcote good day I resumed my journey to my quarters. I was a clerk in the Treasury Department, one of the two or three that were needed, for we were truly republican in our simplicity then, as I hope we are yet, but my work being finished in the morning, Mr. Gallatin had kindly given me leave of absence until the next morning.

The day was late, the dusk was beginning to show in the east, but in the west the sun was a great blazing ball. The red light fell in broad bands across the river, and its surface shone as if with fire. The Virginia hills and forests on the other shore were edged with red, and tree and slope glowed alike in the shining twilight. The red tints faded into pink, which in turn grew dimmer as the sun sank lower; then the darkness came and hid slopes and hills alike, with only the river gleaming through it, a band of silver.

Around me were the clatter of metal and the chatter of cheerful voices as the workmen on the new buildings put away their tools and started for home. The February wind was rising. It was chill in the night. I shivered, and, walking briskly to keep myself warm, went to my home in the Six Buildings.

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