Page:Life of Henry Clay (Schurz; v. 2).djvu/112

102 superiority of the argument on the side of the opposition was felt so keenly, even by some of the supporters of the resolution, that Ewing of Ohio, speaking of the expungers as the servants of a superior will, “compelled to go onward, against all those feelings and motives which should direct the actions of the legislator and the man,” could add: “Why do I see around me so many pale features and downcast eyes, unless it be that repentance and remorse go hand in hand with the perpetration of the deed?”

Clay's speech was in his loftiest style. As the author of the resolution which was to be treated as unworthy of forming a part of the record, he once more summed up the whole case, and then with irresistible force, he drove home the argument against the assumed power of blotting out any thing from the official journals of the national legislature. He rose to his grandest tone in drawing a picture of Jackson's power, and in pouring out his contempt upon the slavish spirit of the expungers: —

“He is felt from one extremity to the other of this vast Republic,” he exclaimed. “By means of principles which he has introduced, and innovations which he has made in our institutions, alas but too much countenanced by Congress and a confiding people, he exercises uncontrolled the power of the state. In one hand he holds the purse, and in the other he brandishes the sword of the country. Myriads of dependents and partisans, scattered over the land, are ever ready to sing hosannas