Excerpt from Crowned Masterpieces of Eloquence, Vol. 4: Representing the Advance of Civilization, as Collected in the World's Best Orations, From the Earliest Period to the Present Time The issue between two theories so antagonistic is not likely soon to be decided, but it must be understood before Clay's place in Amer ican history can be determined. From the time of the first Missouri Compromise, of which he has been called the chief designer, to the compromise tariff of 1833, and again up to the Compromise of 1850 and his death, Clay strove always to impress on the country his own governing idea that Americans of all sections were bound to tolerate each other in their mutual sins of ignorance, of lack of development, and of slowness to improve. Webster held with him, but in New England Webster was finally denounced as a renegade, and only a short time before the death of Clay, Mr. Jefferson Davis, listening to his pleas 'for the postponement of'the crisis, concluded that it was cowardly for one generation to unload its responsibilities on the next, instead of meeting them at once. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.