Page:Life of Henry Clay (Schurz; v. 1).djvu/217

Rh upon the great services rendered to the country by Commodore Perry in the days of great public danger and distress; and, by way of contrast, on the sorrows and cares of the bereft mother. The eloquence expended upon these points had been formidable, threatening with the contempt of the American people those who dared to “go back to their constituents” to tell them “that they had turned from their door, in the evening of a long life, the aged and venerable mother of the gallant Perry, and doomed her to the charity of the world.” It looked like a serious matter for any presidential candidate who naturally desired to be popular with people of tender sensibilities and patriotic feelings, and who had also to look after the soldier and sailor vote. Of this aspect of the case, however, Clay did not seem to think. He calmly argued that this case, however great the sympathy it deserved, did not fall within the principles of the pension laws, since Commodore Perry had not died of injuries received in the service; that the principle of the law had already been overstepped in granting a pension to his widow and children; that there must be a limit to gratitude at the public expense for military and naval service; that he saw no reason why the services of the warrior should be held in so much higher esteem than the sometimes even more valuable services of the civil officer of the Republic, and so on. His apprehension concerning the superiority in popular favor of military glory over civil merit, he was to find strikingly confirmed by