Statesmen . ulent,without the means of paying my weekly board,and in the midst of a bar uncommonly distin-guished by eminent members. I remember howcomfortable I thought I should be if I couldmake one hundred pounds, Virginia money, peryear, and with what delight I received the firstfifteen shillings fee. My hopes were more thanrealized. I immediately rushed into a success-ful and lucrative practice. What were the achievements of this poor MillBoy of the Slashes ? He was elected to the Gen-eral Assembly of the Kentucky Legislature in-1803, appointed to the United States Senate tofill a vacancy
Statesmen . ulent,without the means of paying my weekly board,and in the midst of a bar uncommonly distin-guished by eminent members. I remember howcomfortable I thought I should be if I couldmake one hundred pounds, Virginia money, peryear, and with what delight I received the firstfifteen shillings fee. My hopes were more thanrealized. I immediately rushed into a success-ful and lucrative practice. What were the achievements of this poor MillBoy of the Slashes ? He was elected to the Gen-eral Assembly of the Kentucky Legislature in-1803, appointed to the United States Senate tofill a vacancy in that same year; again elected 12 STATESMEN to the Assembly and chosen Speaker of theHouse in 1807 ; again sent to the United StatesSenate to fill an unexpired term in 1809; electedto the House of Representatives of the UnitedStates in 1811, and five times chosen Speaker ofthe House; United States Peace Commissionerto Ghent in 1814; re-elected to Congress thenext year; retired from public life for a brief. The House in which Henry Clay was Born. period to retrieve his fortunes; returned to theSenate in 1823; Secretary of State under JohnQuincy Adams; again in the Senate in 1831 ; re-elected to the Senate in 1836 ; resigned his seatin 1842; nominated for the Presidency in 1839and 1844, and re-elected to the Senate in theyear 1849. This was the career that opened be-fore the lad who rode to mill from the Slashesand acquired the elements of a common-schooleducation in a log school-house near his birth-place. His mother married a second time, and his HENRY CLAY 13 stepfather, Captain Henry Watkins, a residentof Richmond, started him in life in a retail storein the city of Richmond, but within a year hisbookish habits, his divine thirst for knowledge,and his astonishing facility for acquiring almostevery variety of information so aroused theadmiration of the stepfather that the lad wasfound a place in the office of the clerk of theHigh Court of Chancery. Here was where hemade his
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