Statesmen . erequipped for the great duties which Henry Clayin his lifetime undertook. His appeared to be amental disposition of intuitions and felt rather than knew; he divined mensthoughts and purposes, and his great eloquencewas always directed to their imaginations, theirprejudices, and their passions, rather than totheir understanding. As a jury lawyer he was always eminentlysuccessful. His eloquence, especially in hisearly life in Kentucky, was regarded as some-thing phenomenal, and it is said of him that nomalefactor who had him for a defender was everconvicted. His presenc
Statesmen . erequipped for the great duties which Henry Clayin his lifetime undertook. His appeared to be amental disposition of intuitions and felt rather than knew; he divined mensthoughts and purposes, and his great eloquencewas always directed to their imaginations, theirprejudices, and their passions, rather than totheir understanding. As a jury lawyer he was always eminentlysuccessful. His eloquence, especially in hisearly life in Kentucky, was regarded as some-thing phenomenal, and it is said of him that nomalefactor who had him for a defender was everconvicted. His presence was commanding, hisfigure tall, graceful, and distinguished. His ges-tures were large and sweeping, and his mannerof address was broad and free. His voice was HENRY CLAY 15 melodious, with a prodigious range, sinking intothe lowest basso-profundo or rising in shrill andalmost feminine notes. The music of his voiceis represented as being something of his early practice was in the criminal , u. r-v The School-house of the Slashes. courts of Kentucky, and the most remarkable ofthese cases was one in which Clay was engagedto defend a Mrs. Phelps, wife of a respectablefarmer, who was accused of the crime of murder,having killed her sister-in-law, Miss Phelps, witha musket, which in a moment of passion sheseized and fired, aiming at her victims head. Itwas impossible to deny that Mrs. Phelps had 16 STATESMEN killed Miss Phelps, but the criminal was a wom-an of a respectable family, the wife of a respect-able man, and never before accused of any theory was that the deed had been com-mitted in a moment of temporary delirium,and on that plea the jury, whose judgment hadbeen confused by the extraordinary plea of theadvocate, found that the woman was not saneenough to be hanged, but was insane enough tobe kept in jail for a short time. This is proba-bly the first instance of temporary insanity being used in the criminal courts of the UnitedStates to secure the
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