Single
gestures, attitudes, tones, have come down to us through two or three
memories, and still please the curious guest at Kentucky firesides.
But when we turn to the cold records of this part of his life, we find
little to justify his traditional celebrity. It appears that the
principal use to which his talents were applied during the first years
of his practice at the bar was in defending murderers. He seems to
have shared the feeling which then prevailed in the Western country,
that to defend a prisoner at the bar is a nobler thing than to assist
in defending the public against his further depredations; and he threw
all his force into the defence of some men who would have been "none
the worse for a hanging." One day, in the streets of Lexington, a
drunken fellow whom he had rescued from the murderer's doom cried out,
"Here comes Mr. Clay, who saved my life." "Ah! my poor fellow,"
replied the advocate, "I fear I have saved too many like you, who
ought to be hanged." The anecdotes printed of his exploits in cheating
the gallows of its due are of a quality which shows that the power of
this man over a jury lay much in his manner.
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