been one of all those who have been the subjects of this enormous ante-humous eulogization that has not, most evidently, been spoiled by it and puffed up into a preposterous over-estimate of his own merits, powers, and prospects.

That generation of (temporarily) great men has very nearly passed away. Let it be hoped that those who are, or may be, succeeding to their places will avoid, if possible, the manifest errors common to the whole group,-learning therefrom how little solid or permanent value these exaggerated public compliments really have. And it is also to be hoped that the rising and risen generation of the people may be induced to be more sparing of a commendation which has now become so cheap and vulgar, and such a matter of mere form, as to render both giver and receiver objects of suspicion, if not of contempt. A people so given to exaggerated praise are in some danger of being thought quite deficient in proper selfrespect, and miserably faulty in judgment. The proper regulation of public affairs in this country, and the right administration of the Federal and State Governments, do not require any very high order of genius, or great brilliancy of talent. Thoroughly honest men of good quiet common sense, sound judgment, and steady industry, wholly under the influence of a conscientious regard for duty-are the great want of this people and their government. For fluent orators and voluminous writers, there can be no great demand now, and for a long time to come.

But, a single instance of a public man elevated to high station, and honored with the applause of the nation, without betraying great vanity, this age has not seen in this country. That place remains open to a future President of the United States.

The author of the book before us-after a very protracted and laboriously minute account of Mr. Clay's long funeral, and the various public performances of many insignificant men, who sought to give themselves importance thereby,-finishes his work with a "Resume of the life and character of Henry Clay," in which, of course, he demonstrates, to his own satisfaction, that Mr. Clay was always in the right, and that if he ever had been in the wrong, it would have been perfectly proper for him to be so. He notices nothing wrong in Mr. Clay's entering the United States Senate, and taking the oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States, which he violated in the very act of taking his seat before he was thirty years of age. According to Mr. Clay's own account, he was not thirty years old until thirty-nine days after the expiration of the period of his first Senatorial service. No apology or pal

liation can be offered for this wholly indefensible act; and yet the book has not one word in condemnation or censure of it. Mr. Clay urged President Madison and Congress into the war of 1812, and afterwards helped to make a treaty of peace that did not secure one of the objects of the war. He made a speech against the chartering of a United States Bank, in 1811, and made a speech in favor of the same thing in 1816. He was opposed to a Navy in Mr. Jefferson's time, and was actively in favor of building a Navy after he had urged the country without one into a war with a power that was then without a rival on the seas. He advocated the recognition of the Independence of the South American republics and of Greece, which was done in due time; and he deserves credit for the effort, though neither of those countries has ever enjoyed one day of good government or true liberty since. A baser kingdom and people than the Greek, the whole world knows not. Their merciless intolerance and almost universal brigandage show now that they need a sterner master than the Turk.

Mr. Clay was one of the founders and nearly the first and last advocate of the American Colonization Society, whose scheme of benefiting America and Africa, after forty years of vast expenditure of money and life, has resulted in no good to either country, and no improvement in the condition of either race. And this was Mr. Clay's great scheme for the immediate removal of the evils of slavery.

So in 1816, Mr. Clay effectively advocated a high protective Tariff; and in 1820 and 1824 urged the passage of one still more protective. In 1832, after his defeat at the Presidential election of that year, he introduced the bill which by his exertions and influence became the Tariff Compromise Act, by which the protective system was abolished and the duties gradually brought down to the free-trade standard of 20 per centum ad valorem, yielding to the Federal Treasury a revenue of less than $10,000,000 per annum. Those various operations are all given in evidence of wise statesmanship.

Mr. Clay's acceptance of the appointment of Secretary of State from President John Quincy Adams, though morally right, was grossly impolitic,-and was destructive of all the immediate personal interests of both. Mr. Clay's term of service in the Department of State brought him no accession of distinction and fame. He should have refused the office, even if the imputations upon Mr. Adams and himself had never been invented by James Buchanan, whose baseness in that affair now stands exposed, not only by those whom he slandered, but by Jackson himself. Had he refused it, the lie would have been stifled in the slanderer's throat.

Then there was Mr. Clay's studiously prepared anti-abolition speech in the Senate, (made under the advice of those judicious Northern friends who were generally his chosen counselors,) which just exactly lost him the nomination at Harrisburg, in December, 1839.

And besides these, there were the blunders upon blunders of all his later life, which we have already made subject of

comment.

The character and history thus presented, cannot be justly styled that of a true statesman or sagacious politician. It is not pretended that he was a scholar or a philosopher in any sense or degree. He was neither wise nor prudent, nor learned, nor witty. He was a bold brave man, of noble impulses and laudable ambition, desiring to elevate himself by honorable means. He was a great orator, an eloquent declaimer, a powerful reasoner, though not a finished logician. Over the feelings and affections of others he exercised a wonderful and potent sway over his own passions and weaknesses he manifested great want of restraining judgment. But with all his defects, mental and moral, without craft or demagogical trick or fawning, or falsehood, he made himself the most beloved and honored and lamented of all the best men of his age and clime.

He inspired in the hearts of millions such zeal in his cause, such affection to his person, such devotion to him in life and death, as were never the joy and glory of any other man in America. His fame is almost the greatest marvel of our time. To posterity it will seem the greatest of all. His commanding preeminence above his coevals (among whom were so many that were above him in judgment, in taste, in knowledge of books and men, and his superiors even in eloquence) was the irresisti ble and unpurposed effect of qualities of his nature instinctively perceived and appreciated by multitudes of those who were the hardest to excite by such influences, and who are now, as they were then, unable to explain how he so wrought upon their sympathies, conquered their prejudices, and kindled in them such fiery enthusiasm in his behalf.

That he was passionately and purely a patriot, no one doubts or denies. That he ever sought, or would have ever consented to obtain or enjoy any honor, to the injury of his country, or by the sacrifice of what he believed to be truth or duty,—no one suspects or imagines. Unquestionably, he always desired to be right. Nothing could ever have frightened him from being or doing right. Undoubtedly, he sincerely had RATHER BE RIGHT THAN BE PRESIDENT. It was a great misfortune to be neither, after trying so long and so hard to be both.

Then, let none emulate his fame or seek to follow in his devious though so often upward footsteps, without superior power over the common weaknesses of human nature, and without a sure and singular exemption from the faults which are almost uniformly associated with the qualities that win such strong admiration and personal attachment, such deep and lasting devotion. Notwithstanding his uniform ill success in his personal aims and patriotic enterprises, he has "made his mark on his time," and has imprinted much of his impassioned, hopefully patriotic spirit on the characters of the best of his countrymen in the generation now following.

The very name of HENRY CLAY will long possess that magic and spirit-kindling influence which (as we know by his own sin. cere confession) was a wonder even to himself. Its vindictive energy is working at this moment, unnoticed by heedless and heartless politicians, to accomplish the defeat and disgrace of the meanest of his many cowardly slanderers.

Gone though he is to his dread account, he "has left behind powers that will work for him." For many yet live and labor who said to him, when they believed that his political course was finished,

"The monumental marble will be cold in its testimonials of your greatness and renown; but our glowing spirits and burning words shall bear you better, warmer witness. The granite shall sooner moulder than these living memorials shall fail; for the hearts in which our blood will beat, shall swell and thrill in other ages at the utterance of your name, with emotions of gratitude and affection derived with life from us, and continued while any remain-worthy of America and liberty."

ART. VI.-RECENT ASPECTS OF INTERNATIONAL LAW.

Treaty of Paris, signed March 30, 1856.

Mr. Marcy's Letters to Mr. Seibels and Count de Sartiges. Published in the National Intelligencer, September 16, 1855.

THE peace of Paris, concluded in March last, between the leading powers of Europe, not only put an end to a very serious and threatening war, but was made also the occasion for settling-as far as the parties to the peace were concerned-some important principles in international law. To this newest aspect of the law of nations, and if our limits will permit, to some other of the more recent evidences of progress in this science, we invite our readers' attention for a few moments.

In the body of the treaty we find a stipulation in regard to the use of the Danube for the purposes of navigation, which calls for a few remarks.

It would seem clear, according to natural justice, that if the mouth of a navigable river lies in one state, and its upper waters in another, the latter nation ought to have the right of free passage to the sea. The importance of human intercourse to the improvement of the whole world is so great, that it is pointed out in divine providence as a part of God's economy for mankind. A nation may indeed decide to live within itself, and make no exchanges with foreigners; but to cut off a nation from such intercourse, when it is ready to give all proper guarantees not to disturb the quiet or safety of another state in its transit, and to pay all fair expenses, seems contrary not only to the law of benevolence, but to the law of justice. And these principles are eminently applicable in the case of rivers, which are made and filled by no mortal hands, which are God's canals, not merely to drain the more elevated country, but to bear merchandise between these inland districts and the ocean.

But international law has not hitherto conceded the full right of using such streams to nations living on their upper waters. There has been an imperfect right, it is said, in the case; that is, benevolence demands that it should be conceded; but the right cannot be enforced, nor is its refusal just ground for war.