The United States are now mourning the death of Henry
Clay. In Maddison expired the last American statesman of the revolu- tionary era. The departure of Calhoun and Clay have left Web- ster almost the only survivor of the generation which immediately succeeded them. It has been customary to regard this second crop of American political leaders as inferior to the first ; but probably the difference has been more in the circumstances than the men. The war of Independence called into active play qualities for which the commonplace incidents of the present century, in America, have afforded little scope ; and the American people, united in their resistance to Great Britain, were more easily guided to defi- nite results than the same people left by the withdrawal of exter- nal pressure to indulge more freely in local and individual aims and crotchets. But whatever the comparative merits of the first and second generations of American statesmen, there is reason to Leer that the third is far inferior to either of them.
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