He entered the Senate at thirty, and died a member of it in his seventy-sixth year.

He began his career in that body during the Presidency of Jefferson in 1806, and closed it under the Presidency of Fillmore in 1852.

Other senators have served a longer time than Mr.Clay, but he alone at periods so widely separated.

Other men have excelled him in specific powers, but in the rare combination of qualities which constitute at once the matchless leader of party and the statesman of consummate ability and inexhaustible resource, he has never been surpassed by any man speaking the English tongue.
[NOTE .-- The Committee of Thirteen, to which reference is made on p.

94, and which attained such extraordinary importance at the time, was originally suggested by Senator Foote of Mississippi.
His first proposition was somewhat novel from its distinct recognition of the sectional character of the issues involved.