Page:Life of Henry Clay (Schurz; v. 1).djvu/51

Rh ability Clay himself did not think of it. He was sworn in as a matter of course, and, without the bashful hesitation generally expected of young senators, he plunged at once into the current of proceedings as if he had been there all his life. On the fourth day after he had taken his seat, we find him offering a resolution concerning the circuit courts of the United States; a few days later, another concerning an appropriation of land for the improvement of the Ohio rapids; then another touching Indian depredations; and another proposing an amendment to the federal Constitution concerning the judicial power of the United States. We find the young man on a variety of committees, sometimes as chairman, charged with the consideration of important subjects, and making reports to the Senate. We find him taking part in debate with the utmost freedom, and on one occasion astonishing with a piece of very pungent sarcasm an old Senator, who was accustomed to subdue with lofty assumptions of superior wisdom such younger colleagues as ventured to differ from him.

In one important respect Clay's first beginnings in national legislation were characteristic of the natural bent of his mind and the character of his future statesmanship. His first speech was in advocacy of a bill providing for building a bridge across the Potomac; and the measure to which he mainly devoted himself during his first short term in the Senate was an appropriation of land “toward the opening of the canal proposed to be