His offence was that he voted for the compensation bill of 1816, which merely changed the pay of members of Congress from the pittance of six dollars a day to the pittance of fifteen hundred dollars a year.  He who before was lord paramount in Kentucky saved his seat only by prodigious efforts on the stump, and by exerting all the magic of his presence in the canvass.

No one ever bore cutting disappointment with an airier grace than this high-spirited thorough-bred; but he evidently felt this apparent injustice.  Some years later, when it was proposed in Congress to pension Commodore Perry’s mother, Mr. Clay, in a speech of five minutes, totally extinguished the proposition.  Pointing to the vast rewards bestowed upon such successful soldiers as Marlborough, Napoleon, and Wellington, he said, with thrilling effect: 

“How different is the fate of the statesman!  In his quiet and less brilliant career, after having advanced, by the wisdom of his measures, the national prosperity to the highest point of elevation, and after having sacrificed his fortune, his time, and perhaps his health, in the public service, what, too often, are the rewards that await him?  Who thinks of his family, impoverished by the devotion of his attention to his country, instead of their advancement?  Who proposes to pension him,—­much less his mother?”

He spoke the more feelingly, because he, who could have earned more than the President’s income by the practice of his profession, was often pinched for money, and was once obliged to leave Congress for the sole purpose of taking care of his shattered fortune.  He felt the importance of this subject in a national point of view.  He wrote in 1817 to a friend: 

“Short as has been my service in the public councils, I have seen some of the most valuable members quitting the body from their inability to sustain the weight of these sacrifices.  And in process of time, I apprehend, this mischief will be more and more felt.  Even now there are few, if any, instances of members dedicating their lives to the duties of legislation.  Members stay a year or two; curiosity is satisfied; the novelty wears off; expensive habits are brought or acquired; their affairs at home are neglected; their fortunes are wasting away; and they are compelled to retire.”

The eight years of Mr. Monroe’s administration—­from 1817 to 1825—­were the most brilliant period of Henry Clay’s career.  His position as Speaker of the House of Representatives would naturally have excluded him from leadership; but the House was as fond of hearing him speak as he could be of speaking, and opportunities were continually furnished him by going into Committee of the Whole.  In a certain sense he was in opposition to the administration.  When one party has so frequently and decidedly beaten the party opposed to it, that the defeated party goes out of existence, the conquering party soon divides.