In his intercourse with
foreign ministers, Mr. Clay had an opportunity to display all the
charms of an unequalled courtesy: they remained his friends long after
he had retired. His Wednesday dinners and his pleasant evening
receptions were remembered for many years. How far he sympathized with
Mr. Adams's extravagant dreams of a system of national works that
should rival the magnificent structures of ancient Rome, or with the
extreme opinions of his colleague, Mr. Rush, as to the power and
importance of government, we do not know. He worked twelve hours a day
in his office, he tells us, and was content therewith. He was the last
high officer of the government to fight a duel. That bloodless contest
between the Secretary of State and John Randolph was as romantic and
absurd as a duel could well be. Colonel Benton's narrative of it is at
once the most amusing and the most affecting piece of gossip which our
political annals contain. Randolph, as the most unmanageable of
members of Congress, had been for fifteen years a thorn in Mr. Clay's
side, and Clay's later politics had been most exasperating to Mr.
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