Page:Life of Henry Clay (Schurz; v. 1).djvu/103

Rh question, and that the United States would never have gone to war on that account alone.

Then Clay, the foremost of the young politicians whose “pin-feathers were not yet grown,” took up the gauntlet. Quincy and his followers had made a mistake not unusually made under such circumstances. They had overshot the mark. The most serious danger of an opposition in time of war is to expose themselves to the suspicion of a lack of patriotism. This danger they did not avoid.

The report we have of Clay's speech, delivered on January 8 and 9, 1813, although not perfect, is sufficient to stamp this as one of his greatest performances. He did not find it difficult to defend Jefferson and Madison — who, indeed, had toiled enough to maintain peaceable relations with every body — against the charge of having wantonly provoked a war with England. It was, he said, the interest, as well as the duty, of the administration to preserve peace. Nothing was left untried to that end. The defensive measures — non-importation and embargo — adopted to protect our maritime trade, were “sacrificed on the altar of conciliation.” Any “indication of a return to the public law and the path of justice on the part of either belligerent was seized upon with avidity by the administration;” so the friendly disposition shown by Erskine. But — here the orator skillfully passed to the offensive — what was the conduct of the opposition meanwhile? When peaceful experiments were undergoing a trial, the opposition was “the