Works of Henry Clay: Speeches, ed. by Calvin Colton

PREFACE TO VOLUME V

THIS volume is the fifth of the series comprising the Life, Correspondence, and Speeches of Henry Clay, the first three being devoted to the Life, the fourth to the Correspondence, and the fifth and sixth to the Speeches. The author of the first three volumes, containing the Life of Mr. Clay, becomes an editor in the last three, which contain the Correspondence and Speeches.

The author of the Life, who is the editor of the Correspondence and Speeches, thinks it proper, in this edition of the Speeches, to say, that his objects have been, first, to give Mr. Clay's speeches down to the end of his life. They had never before been collected later than 1844. Those delivered by him in the Thirty-first Congress in 1849, 1850, and 1851, comprehending about one fourth of all that have been preserved, are among the most interesting and most important of his lifemore especially those which were delivered on the Compromises of 1850.

The next object of the editor has been, to give a historical introduction to each of the speeches, showing the position which each of them occupied in the history of the country. These introductions are rarely analytical; but they generally relate to

matters outside of the speeches, though connected with them in their historical relations; and they furnish opportunities, as will be seen, to say things which could not with propriety be said in the Life of Mr. Clay.

The author of the Life and editor of the Correspondence and Speeches of Mr. Clay, has endeavored to bring together, in these six volumes, the entire history of his subject; and he is not aware that any thing of importance has been omitted. The work is intended to represent the place which Mr. Clay occupied in the social and political history of the country.

C. COLTON.