Campaign Lives of him can be collected by the score; and the Rev.
Calvin Colton wrote three volumes purporting to be the Life of Henry
Clay. Mr. Colton was a very honest gentleman, and not wanting in
ability; but writing, as he did, in Mr. Clay's own house, he became,
as it were, enchanted by his subject. He was enamored of Mr. Clay to
such a degree that his pen ran into eulogy by an impulse which was
irresistible, and which he never attempted to resist. In point of
arrangement, too, his work is chaos come again. A proper biography of
Mr. Clay would be one of the most entertaining and instructive of
works. It would embrace the ever-memorable rise and first triumphs of
the Democratic party; the wild and picturesque life of the early
settlers of Kentucky; the war of 1812; Congress from 1806 to 1852; the
fury and corruption of Jackson's reign; and the three great
compromises which postponed the Rebellion. All the leading men and all
the striking events of our history would contribute something to the
interest and value of the work. Why go to antiquity or to the Old
World for subjects, when such a subject as this remains unwritten?
[Footnote 1: Mill's Principles of Political Economy, Book V.
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