LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 011 899 040 7 Conservation Resources Lig-Free® Type 1 Ph 8.5, Buffered E 449 .C618 Copy 1 LETTERS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. ^ SLAVERY : THE EVIL-THE REMEDY. To the Editor of the Tribune : " And can the liberties of a nation be tliought secure, when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God ? * * * _ Indeed, 1 tremble for my coimtry, when I reflect that God is just: that His justice cannot sleep forever: that, con- sidering numbers, nature, and natural means only, a revolution of the wheel of fortune, an exchange of situation, is amon? possible events : that it may become probable by supernatural interference ! The Almighty has no attribute which can take side with us in such a contest." i Jefferson' s J^otes on Virsinia. Thomas Jefferson never tliought of the absur- dity of debating the question whether Slavery be an evil, nor was he indulgent to the delusive idea that it would be perpetual. He reduced the sub- ject to its certain elements : the master must lib. erate the slave, or the slave will exterminate the master. This conclusion is not weakened by the history of the past. The same color in the an- cient Republics enabled the State to use emanci- pation as a safety. valve ; yet notwithstanding the thorough amalgamation of the freed man with the free born, servile wars nearly extinguished by violence the noblest nations of antiquity : while no man dare say that Slavery was not the secret cause of their ultimate ruin. But if " His jus- tice" should " sleep for ever," and the tragedy so awfully predicted should never occur, still must we regard Slavery as the greatest evil that ever cursed a nation. Slavery is an evil to the slave, by depriving nearly three millions of men of the best gift of God to man — liberty. I stop here — this is enough of itself to give us a full anticipation of the long catalogue of human wo, and physical and intel- lectual and moral abasement which follows in the wake of Slavery. Slavery is an evil to the master. It is utterlj subservient of the Christian religion. It violates the great law upon which that religion is based, and on account of which it vaunts its preemi- nence. It corrupts our offspring by necessary associa- tion with an abandoned and degraded race, en- grafting in the young raind and heeirt all the vices and none of the virtues. It is the source of indolence and destructive of all industry, which in limes past among the wiss has ever been regarded as the first friend of reli- gion, morality and happiness. The poor despise labor, because Slavery makes it degrading. Th© mass of slaveholders are idlers. It is the mother of ignorance. The system of Common Schools has not succeeded in a singTe Slave State. Slavery and Education are natural enemies. In the Free States, 1 in 53 over tweaa. 03" For lale at the office of the TRIBUNE. Price 81 23 per hundred, or $10 per thousand. Orders must be addressed to GREELEY &. McELRATH. Tribune BuUdmgs, New-YorJt Letters of Cassius M. Clay. ty-one years is unable to lead and write : in the Slave States, 1 in 13.3 is unable to write and read ! It is opposed to literature even in the educated classes. Noble aspirations and true glory depend upon virtue and good to man. The conscious injustice of Slavery hangs as a mill-stone about the necks of the sons of genius, and will not let them up I It is destructive of all mechanical excellence. The Free States build ships and steam-cars for the nations of the world — the Slave States import the handles for their axes — these primitive tools of the architect. The educated population avIH not work at all — theune«ucated must work with- out science and of course without tkill. If there be a given amount of mechanical genius among a people, it is of necessity deveit ped in proportion as a whole or part of the population are educated. In the Slave States the small portion educated is inert. It is antagrnlstic to the Fine Arts. Crsations of beauty and sublimity are the embodiments of the soul's imaginings; the fountain must surely be pure and placid whence these glorious and immortal and lovely images are reflected. Lib- erty has ever been the mother of the Arts. It retards population and wealth. Compare New- York and Virginia, Tennessee and Ohio — States of equal natural advantages and equal ages. The wealth of the Free States is in a much greater ratio even superior to that of the Slave States, than the population of the Free is greater than that of the Slave States. The ma- nufactures of the Slave as compared to those of the Free States are as 1 to 4 nearly, as is shown by statistics. I consider the accumulation of wealth in a less ratio. It impoverishes the soil and defaces the love- liest features of Nature. Washmgton advises a friend to remove from Pennsylvania to Virginia — Baying that cheap lands in Virginia were as good as the dear lands in Pennsylvania, and, anticipa- ting the abolition of Slavery, would be more pro- ductive. His anticipations have perished — Slavery still exists — the wild briar and the red fox are now there the field-growth and the inhab. itants ! It induces national poverty. Slaves consume more and produce less than Freemen. Hence illusive wealth, prodigality and bankruptcy, with- out the capability of bearing adversity or recov- ering from its influence : tlien come despair, dis- honor and crime. It is an evil to the free laborer, by forcing him by the laws of competition — supply and demand — to work for the wages of the slave, food and shelter. The poor, in the Slave States, arc the | most destitute native population in the United States. It sustains the public sentiment in favor of the deadly affray and the duel — these relics of a bar- barous age. It is the mother and the nurse of Lynch law, which I regard as the most horrid of all crimes, not even excepting parricide, which ancient legis- lators thought too impossible to be ever supposed in the legal code. If all the blood thus shed in the South could be gathered together, the horrid image which Emmett drew of the cruelty of his judges would grow pale in view of this greater terror. Where all these evils exist, how can Liberty, Constitutional Liberty, live ? No, indeed, it can not, and has not existed in conjunction with Slavery. We are but nominal Freemen, for though born to all the privileges known to the Constitution and the laws, written and prescrip. tive, wc have seen struck down with the leaden hand of Slavery, the most glorious banner that Freedom ever bore in the face of men — " Trial by Jurj' — Liberty of Speech and of the Press." — The North may be liable to censure in Congress for freedom of speech — may lose the privileges of the Post Office and the Right of Petition, and perhaps yet be free ; but we of the land of Slavery are ourselves slaves! Alas for the hypocritical cry of liberality and equality which demagogues sound for ever in our ears ! The Declaration of Independence comes back from all nations, not in notes of triumph and self-elation, but thunder- ing in our ears the everlasting lie — making us Infidels in the great world of Freedom — raising up to ourselves idols of wood and stone, inscribed with the name of Deity, where the one invisible and true God can never dwell. The blood of the heroes of '76 has been shed in vain. The just expectations of Hamilton, and Franklin, and Sherman, and Morris, and Adams, of the North, are betrayed by the continuance of Slaver}'. The fond anticipations of Washington, and Jefferson, and Madison, and Mason, of the South, have not been realized. The great experiment of Republi- can Government has not been fairly tested. If the Union should not be perpetual, nor the Amer- ican name be synonymous with that of Liberty in all coming time. Slavery is at once the cause, the crime and the avenger ! Are we indeed of that vaunted Saxon blood, which no dangers can appal, no obstacles ob- struct, and shall we sit with shivering limbs and dewy feet by the running stream, with inane fea- tures and stolid gaze, expecting this flood of evils to flow past, leaving the channel dry ? We who can conquer all things else, shall we be here only subdued, ingloriously whispering with white lips, There is no remedy ? Are the fowls free in the Slavery : The Evil — The Remedy. \ wide heavens — the fishes secure in the depths of -^the ocean — the beasts untrammeled in the forest ^ wilds ; and shall Man only — Man, formed in the ^ image of Deity, the heir of immortality — be r* doomed to hopeless servitude ? Yes, there is a remedy. There is one of four consequences to which Slavery inevitably leads ; — A continuance of tlie present relative position of the master and the slave, both as to numbers, intelligence, and physi- cal power ; Or an extermination of the blacks ; Or an extermination of the whites ; Or emanci- pation and removal, or emancipation and a com- munity of interests between tlie races. The present relative position between the blacks and whites (even if undisturbed by exter- nal influences, which we cannot hope,) cannot long continue. Statistics of numbers show that in the whole Slave States the black increases on the white population. The dullest eye can also see that the African, by association with the white race, has improved in intellect, and, by being transferred to a temperate clime, and forced to labor and to throw off the indolence of his native land, he is increasing in physical pow- er; while the white, by the same reversed laws, is retrograding in the same respects. Slavery then cannot remain for ever as it is. That the black race will be exterminated seems hardly probable from the above reflections, and because the great mass of human passions will be in favor of the increase of the slaves ad interim. Pride, love of power, blind avarice, and many other pas- sions are for it, and against it only fear in the op- posite scale. We are forced, therefore, to the <;occlusion that the slave population must increase till there is no' retreat but in extermination of the whites. Athens, Sparta, Sicily, and Rome near- ly, Hayti in modern times, did fall by servile wars. I have shown elsewhere that the slavery •of the blacks in the modern, is more dangerous than the slavery of the whites in the ancient sys- tem : then the intelligent slave was incorporated into the high caste of quondam masters, an eter- nal safety valve, which yet did not save from ex- plosions eminently disastrous. The negative of the second proposition, then, establishes the third, unless we avail ourselves of the last — emancipation. If my reasoning and facts be correct, there is not a sane mind in all the South who would not agree with me, that if we can be saved from the first named evils, by all means emancipate. Emancipation is entirely safe. Sparta and Athens turned the slaves by thousands into freedom with safety, who fought bravely for their common country. During the Revolution many emancipated slaves did good service in the cause of Liberty. We learn from Mr. Gurney, and other sources to be relied upon that British West India emancipation has been entirely successful, and productive of none of those evils which were so jjcrtinaciously foretold by interested pro-slavery men. The British have regiments of black men who m^ke fine soldiers — protectors, not enemies of theem[)ire. But above all, I rely not upon sound a priori reasoning only, but rather upon actual expeiionce. There arc in the United States, by the last census, 38G,2C5 free blacks; 170,758 of whom are in the Free, the remainder in the Slave States. There are also 2,485,145 slaves — so that in fact about one. sixth of the wJiole black race in America are al- ready free I No danger or evil consequence has ensued from the residence of these 386,2t)5 freed, men among us. Who then will be so absurd as to contend that the liberation of the other five- sixths will endanger the safety or happiness of the whites? / repeat, then, that emancipation is entirely safe. Emancipation must either be by the voluntary consent of the masters, or by force of law. I re- gard voluntary emancipation as the most proba- ble, the most desirable, and the most practicable. For the slave-holding land-holder would not be less rich in consequence — the enhancement of the value of land would compensate for the loss in slaves. A comparison of the price of lands of equal quality in the Free and Slave States will prove this conclusively. If, however, by force of law — the law having once sanctioned slaves as property — the great principle which is recognized by all civilized Governments, that private property cannot be taken for public use without just compensation — dictates that slaves should not be liberated without the consent of the masters, or without paying an equivalent to the owners. Under the sanction of law, one man invests the proceeds of his labor in slaves, another in land ; in the course of time it becomes neces- sHry to the common weal to buy up the lands for redistribution or culture in conmion — how should the tax be laid ? Of course upon lands, slaves, and personal property — in a word, upon tlie whole property of the whole people. If, on the other hand, it should nearly concern the safety and happiness of society, both the slaveholder and the non-slaveholder, that slaves should be taken and emancipated, then by the same legitimate course of reasoning the whole property of the State should be taxed for the purpose. If emancipation shall take place by force of law, shall it be by the laws of the States or by the law of Congress ? — Let Congress abolish Slavery wherever she has jurisdiction — in the military places, in the Terri. tories, and on the high seas — and in the District of Columbia, if the contracts of cession with Vir- ginia and Maryland allow. I lay down the broad rule that Congress should 4 Letters of Cassius M. Clay. do no more for the perpetuation of Slavery than she is specially bound to do. The debates in the Federal Convention prove that the Free States did not intend to assume the responsibilities of Slavery. In the language of Roger Sherman and others, they could not acknowledge the right of ''' property in men." There is then no moral ob- ligation in the Union to sustain the rights of the South in slaves, except only they are morally bound to regard the contract with the South, and in the construction of that compact the presump- tion in all cases of doubt is in favor of Liberty. — On the contrary, the United States are morally bound, by all means consistent with the Consti tution, to extinguish Slavery. The word slave is not used in the Constitution, because the pro- mises of all the Southern Members of the Con- vention led to final emancipation, and a noble ^ame on all hands induced the expulsion of the word from the charter of Human Liberty. I can not agree that there is any law superior to that of tlie Federal Constitution. It is the part of Chris- tians to model human laws after the Divine code, but the law in the present state of light from on High, must be paramount to the Bible itself. If any other practice should prevail, the confusion of religious interpretations of the Divine Will would be endless and insufferable. In a country where Jews, and Christians, and Infidels, and Deists, and Catholics, and Protestants, and Fou- sierists, and Mormonites, and Millerites, and Sha- kers, all are concentrated into one nation, it would be subversive of all governmental action that each sect should set up a Divine code as each " under, stands it," superior to the Constitution itself. If a case ever arises where conscience dictates a dif- ferent doctrine — that the penalty of the law is ra- ther to be borne than its prescriptions obeyed — then also there arises at the same time a case where the sufferer must look to God only for ap" probation and sustainment — he has passed from all appeal to mankind. I dissent, then, from the ultra anti-slavery and the ultra pro-slavery men. I cannot join the North in the violation of the Constitution — I can- not stand by the South in asking the moral sanc- tion of the North ; nor do I regard it as a breach of the Constitutional compact that she should seek a higher grade of civilization by using all legal means for the entire expulsion of Slavery in the United States. Congress having no power over Slavery in the States, the States, each one for itself, where its Constitution does not forbid, certainly has and should exercise the power of purchase and emancipation. In Kentucky, the Constitution forbids the Legislature to act upon the subject. We must therefore look to a Con- vention, or that which I most hope, to voluntary emancipation. Enlightened self-interest, human- ity and religion are moving on with slow yet irre- sistible force to that final result. Let the whole North in mass, in conjunction with the patriotic of the South, withdraw the moral sanction and legal power of the Union from the sustainment of Slavery ; then our existence as a People with un- divided interests may yet be consummated. May the Ruler of all nations, the common Father of all men, who is no respecter of persons, and whose laws are not violated with impunity by individu- als nor by States, move us to be just, happy and free ! May that spirit which has eternally conse- crated in the admiration of men Salamis and Ma- rathon, and Bunker's Hill and Yorktown, inspire our hearts, till the glorious principles of '76 shall be fully vindicated, and throughout the land shall be established " Liberty and Uaion, one and in- separable, now and for ever." Lexington, Ky. JVod. 1843. C. M. CLAY. EMANCIPATION-ITS EFFECTS. Is CassiiDS M. Clay an Abolitionist ! The following is an extract from a noble Speech delivered by Mr. Clay, in reply to Richard M. John- son and others, at a meeting held at the White Sulphnr Springs, Scott Co. (Ky.) Dec. 3()th, to favor the Annexation of Texas to the Union. Col. Johnson having been called to preside, and resolutions affirming the policy of uniting Texas to the Union having been proposed and advocated by the Chairman and others, Mr. C M. Clay offered a substitute of opposite tenor, which he advocated in a glorious Speech. We do not care to publish so much of it as relates to the main question, for the Annexation of Texas, with Slavery existing therein, to this Union is as impossible as the fulling of the sky. There was a time when this was possible, but now there appears to be no considerable party or section in favor of it, and we have no room to waste in opposition to a frustrated, by-gone mischief. But there is a portion of Mr. Clay's remarks, taken in consideration with his position and the genera' aspects of the Slavery question, which deserves attention. Among the leading axioms of those (including the 'Liberty' candidate for President,) who advocate the Abolition of Slavery at so much per month, are these — 1. That every slaveholder is to be regarded as an enemy of Human Rights, and proscribed, so far as possible, from all public station; 2. That nobody who belongs to either of the great Political parties can be favorable to Emancipation, but every Whig is, of necessity, 'Pro-Slavery,' and an enemy to Lib- erty for all; 3. That no man can be heard in opposition to Slavery in the Slave States, either orally or through the journals. Now, in refutation of these assumptions, we cite the case of Cassius M. Clay, at this moment an ardent Whig and (at the time of making tliis speech) an extensive slaveholder, who has re- peatedly spoken, both in the Kentucky Legislature and before the People, in earnest, powerful opposition to Slavery, and whose Speech is published in full in the leading journal of Kentucky, embodying such sen- timents as the foUowinff : " To say that I atn an Abolitionist, In the sense I in which the enemies of all moral progress would I have you believe — that I would sanction insurrec- tion and massacre — my wife, children, mother, brothers and sisters, and relations and friends, are all hostages for my sincerity, when, restrain- ing myself to the use of courteous terms, I repel the unjust and dishonoring imputation. That I am an Abolitionist in the sense that I would take away, without just compensation, the rights of property in slaves, which the laws secure to me and to some thirty or forty thousand citizens of Kentucky, my letter to the Tribune, which is be- fore the world, disproves. " Still, sir, I am an Abolitionist. Such an Abolitionist as I have been from my boyhood. — Such an Abolitionist as I was in 1S36, when I declared in my place in the House of Represent- atives, to which I was just then eligible, that if the Constitution did not give us power to protect ourselves against the infernal slave-trade, that I renounced it, and would appeal to a Convention for a new one. Such an Abolitionist as I was in 1840, when I declared in the same House of Re- presentatives that I wished to place the State of Kentucky in such a position, by sustaining the law of 1833, that she could move at any time she thought it conducive to her highest interest to free herself from Slavery. Such an Abolitionist as I have ever avowed myself in public speeches and writings to the People of this District, that if Kentucky was wise enough to free herself from the counsels of Pro-Slavery men. Slavery would perish of itself by voluntary action of masters and the irresistible force of circumstances which would convince the People to the use of free instead of slave labor, as every way most advantageous. — Such an Abolitionist as were the band of immor- tal men who formed the Federal Constitution, who would not have the word ' slave ' in that sa- cred instrument, am I. Such an Abolitionist as was Washington — who, so far from lending coun- tenance to the propagation of Slavery, as you are now doing, declared that on all proper occasions his influence and his vote should be cast for the extinguishment of Slavery among men — am I also. Such an Abolitionist as was Jefferson, the great father of Democracy, whom you all profess to follow — who foretold, what has since partially come to pass, that Slavery, if not destroyed, would jeopardize and finally extinguish the liberties of the whites themselves ; who foresaw, with an un- erring glance, that the Slavery of the black race if not remedied by the whites, would at last rem Letters of Cassivs M. Clay. edy itself — such an Abolitionist am I also. And being such, I take issue with the opinion which has been here to-day, as it has been often else- where, most dogmatically advanced, that the question is " whether the whites shall rule the blacks, or the blacks shall rule the whites-" — Such an issue is false in theory, false in practice, and as proven to be false by all experience. It is derogatory to human nature, and blasphemy against God himself. " All America, except Brazil and the United States, have freed their slaves ; and are the whites slaves in consequence ? At the Revolution, on the day of the Declaration of Independence, all the States held slaves, not excepting Massachu- setts. Now there are thirteen non-slaveholding States: are those ten millions of Northerners slaves? Great Britain, in conjunction with all Europe, except the miserable anarchies of Spain and Portugal, have long since emancipated many slaves ; and now, in the year 1813, to her honor be it spoken, having liberated 30,000,000 of her East India serfs, in all her wide domains, which touch on every sea, and embrace every clime un- der the whole heavens, there is not, nor indeed can be, a single slave : and is she enslaved ? No, she has sense enough to know, and heart enough to feel, that it is justice, honor and glory which se- cure the liberties of a People, and make them in- vincible and immortal. " Do gentlemen take the absurd position that •one hundred and eighty thousand freed men could enslave Kentucky ? West India emancipation proves that the great majority of freed men could be employed economically in the same offices at small wages, which they now fill, with perhaps more case and safety than now exist. But should they prove turbulent, for which there would be no cause — and which no man in his senses believes would happen — and were I disposed to indulge in that vaunting spirit, which to-day has so power- fully infected us, Vv'ith five thousand such troops as these I have the honor to command, to whom gentlemen have been pleased to allude in a man- ner so complimentary at my expense, I would un- dertake to drive from the State the assembled one hundred and eighty thousand in arms. They fur- ther tell us, with most reverential gravity, that ' God lias designed some men for slaves, and man need not attempt to reverse the decree ; it is bet- ter that the blacks should be slaves than the whites.' This proposition, which I denounce as utterly false, passes away before the glance of rea- son, as the dew before a summer's sun. " I shall admit, merely for the sake of argu- ■mont, that some men always have, and possibly will perform menial offices for the more fortunate. Let the law of Nature or of God have its undis. turbed action — let the performance of those offices be voluntary on the part of servants, and that beautiful harmony by which the highest intellect is united, by successive inferior links, to the low- est mind, will never be disturbed. The sensitive and highly organized and intellectual will gradu- ally rise from service to command : the stolid, the profligate, the insensible and coarsely organized will sink into their places : the law of God and enlightened Freedom will still be preserved, and the greatest good to the greatest number be secu- red for ever. But when by municipal law, and not by the law of fitness, which is the law of Na- ture, not regarding the distinctions of morals, mind or body, whole classes are doomed to servi- tude, when the intellectual, the sensitive, the fool- ish, the rude, the good, the bad, the refined, the degraded, are all depressed to one level, never more to rise for ever, then comes evil — nothing but evil — like as from dammed up waters or pent up streams, floods and explosions come slowly, but come at last — so Nature mocks with tempo- rary desolation at the obstacles man would oppose to her progress, and at length moves on once more in all the untrammeled vigor and unfading lovehness which, from eternity, was decreed. " That the black is inferior to the white, I rea- dily allow; but that Vice may depress the one, and Virtue by successive generations elevate the other, till the two races meet on one common level, I am also firmly convinced. Modern sci- ence, in the breeding and culture of other animals than man, has most fully proved this fact, which the ablest observers of man himself all allow, that mental and moral and physical development trans- mit their several properties to the descendants — corroborating by experience the Divine decree that the virtues and the vices of the father shall be visited on the children to the third and fourth generation. In the capitals of Europe, blacks have attained to the highest places of social and literary eminence. That they are capable of a high degree of civilization, Hayti daily illustrates. There we have lately seen a revolution, conduct, ed in a manner that would do honor to the first People on earth, one of the avowed grounds of which was that President Boyer neglected to se- cure General Education to the People — a consid- eration that should make some vaunted States blush in comparison. After the expulsion of the tyrant, they set about forming a more Republican Constitution, admitting the whites, who had par- ticipiated in their dangers and success, to all the rights of citizenship. On the Presidency. "If history be true, we owe to the Egyptians, said to be of the modern Moorish race, the arts and sciences, and our early seeds of civilization. How many centuries did it take to bring them to perfection ! When we reflect how little time the negro race has been under the influences of other civilized nations, and the rapid progress they have made in an upward direction, we have no reason to treat them with that absurd contempt which in both the eye of reason and religion stands equally condemned. Why then, I am tauntingly asked, by both Pro-Slavery and Anti-Slavery men, do I hold slaves ? Uninfluenced by the opinions of the world, I intend, in my own good time, to act, or not to act, as to me seems best in view of all the premises.* Yet, I thus far pledge myself, that whenever Kentucky will join mc in freeing ourselves from this curse, which weighs us down even unto death, the slaves I own she shall dispose of as to her seems best. I shall ask nothing in return, but the enhanced value of my land, which must ensue gradually from the day that we become indeed a free and independent State. I will go yet further — give me free labor, and I will not only give up my slaves, but I will agree to be taxed to buy the remainder from those who are unwilling or unable consistently, with a regard to pecuniary interest, to present them to the State; and then I shall deem myself and my posterity richer in dollars and cents even than we were before." 3Ir. Clay has since emancipated his slaves. ON THE PRESIDENCY. Communicated for the N. Y. Tribune. Lexington, Ky. March 20, 1844. VV. J. McKiN.NEY, Esq. Mayor of Daijton, Ohio. Dear Sir; — Your letter of February 15th last was in due time received, and I have waited thus long with the intention of not aHswering it at all, because, as I am a private citizen, not seeking office at the hands of the People, it might seem to place me in the presumptuous attitude of at- tempting to influence, by mere weight of opinion, the votes of my countrymen in their choice of President — when neither my age, experience nor fame warranted the assumption. But since the reception of your letter, I have received many of similar import from Liberty men and Anti-Slave- ry Whigs in most of the Northern States, pressing upon me an expression of opinion, in such a man- ner that I should prove false to that spirit of can- dor which I proudly cherish as characteristic of the principles which I advocate, did I, through any affectation of humility, remain longer silent. You ask me, " Will you, if you live and are able to vote at the approaching Presidential Election, vote for Henry Clay for President ? If the Third Party, or Liberty men, should have an Electoral Ticket in your State, would you vote that ticket in preference? Were you a citizen of Ohio, which of these tickets would you vote?" The last two questions are such as would require va- rious other suppositions to be made, before I could give a suitable answer in justice to myself and all the parties concerned, which would be too voluminous for the space of a single letter ; and, for all practical purposes, they will be suffi- ciently answered in my reply to the first question, that It is 7ny most decided determination " to vote for Henry Clay for President." Men never have and never will, in all cases, think alike : all Government is necessarily a sacrifice, to some extent, of individual will : that is the best Government to each individual which fosters or allows the mostof what that individual believes to be conducive to his best interests. The ques. tion then is not, ' Can I find some man to vote for among seventeen millions, who thinks in all respects as myself ? ' but, ' Who is the man, all things present and remote considered, that will most probably be able by success to give efl^ectu- ation to those great measures which I deem con- ducive to my welfare and the welfare of my whole Country ? ' This question every voter in the Re- public must determine for himself. For myself, after looking calmly upon all the surrounding cir- cumstances. Conscience, Patriotism, and (if oth- ers prefer the term) enlightened Self-interest con. strain me to vote for Henry Clay. The Tariff, the Currency, the Lands, Economy, Executive and Ministerial Responsibility, and many other Letters of Cassius M. Clay interests, all depend, in my humble judgment, on Mr. Clay's election for beneficial determination. And if he is elected, the decision of 1840, passed by the People, will be confirmed, and the policy of the Country settled. Then, and (such is the anarchy of the public mind) not till then, shall we have time to look about us, and project that other great reform — the reduction of American Slavery to its constitutional limits, and to con- centrate the united condemnation of the civilized world to its final and utter extinction. Mr. Clay is indeed a slaveholder. I wish he were not. Yet it does not become mc, who have so lately ceased to be a slaveholder myself, to con- demn him. It is not my province to defend Mr. Clay : this he is abundantly able to do himself. — It remains with posterity to determine how much shall be due him for the glorious impulse his fer- vent spirit has given to Liberty throughout tlie world ; and with them also to say how much shall be subtracted from this appreciation, for his having only failed to do all that could be done in this holy cause. Cyrus, Thcmistocles, Plato, Cato, Aristides, Demosthenes, Cincinnatus and Cicero sacrificed to base heathen gods; yet no man, because they knew not the true God, will say that they were not religious, great, good and patriotic men. T. B. Macaulay, one of the most acute and enlightened men of this or any era, in his review of the life of Francis Bacon, justly 011 899 040 7 says : " We should think it unjust to call St. Louis a wicked man because, in an age in whicii tolera- tion was generally regarded as a sin, he persecu- ted heretics. We should think it unjust to call Cowper's friend, John Newton, a hypocrite and a monster, because, at a time when the slave-trade was commonly considered by the most respecta- ble people as an innocent and beneficial traffic, he went, largely provided with hymn-books and hand-cufFs, on a Guinea voyage. An immoral action, being in a particular society generally considered as innocent, is a good plea for an indi- vidual who, being one of that society, and having adopted the notions which prevail among his neighbors, commits that action." I cannot, then, because Mr. Clay is a slave- holder, in a community where the whole Chris tian Church of all denominations — the only pro- fessed teachers of morals among the People — are also slaveholders, proscribe him, for that single thing of difference between us. In saying thus much in justification of my course in voting for Mr. Clay, I should be false to my own reputation, ungrateful to that large portion of Anti-Slavery men who have symp-i- thized with mc in my feeble efforts in the cause of Universal Liberty, and recreant to that glori- ous cause itself, if I did not avow my belief that ^J^!^.^^l °^ CONGRESS the time is near ; will not, ought n( holder guiltless, declare, in the na our Republican I.. the {)rincip!e of ' the greatest good to the greatest number,' that no man, after the next Prtsidential Election, when so much light shall have been shed upon this subject, should be deemed fit to rule over a Republican, Christian People, who shall violate, by holding slaves, the ordy two prin- ciples upon Vvhich either Christianity or Repuhll. canism can stand the test of philosophical scru- tiny for a single moment, In conclusion, in refutation of the slanders of the Washington Globe — which are ever harmless where that print is known — injustice to Mr. Clay, and in vindication of my own self-respect, you will allow me to say that my opinions and my action upon the subject of Slavery are all my own ; that however much I may esteem Mr. Clay as a man, a Statesman, and a friend — though I may regard him as one of the most frank, noble, practical, wise, eloquent and patriotic of those who, in this or any other age, have assumed to govern a great Nation — the Editor of the Globe but makes exhibition of his own ignoble spirit, when he insinuates that Henry Clay would play a double part to deceive the American People, by dictating tome; or that I, humble as I may be in the estimation of my countiy, would be used by him, or any other man, or set of men, for any dis- honorable purpose, or be treated with upon any other terms than those of absolute equality. Trusting that your wishes, as well as the pur- poses of those persons who have done me the ho- nor to address me by letter upon this subject, will be best subserved by making this answer pubhc, I send it at once to the press. Respectfully, your obedient servant, C. M. CLAY. P. S. — Reform, in Jeremy Bentham's day, was termed "innovation;" this owl-faced age has improved in this respect — now "fanaticism" is the word — a strong word — yet, when will Ameri- cans learn it ! there is a still stronger word than this—" Truth." If there be really in all this wide Union a single man of the McDuffie school, of good sense, cool, calculating, quick in the dis- ccrnmcnt of the " pith o' things," and above all no "enthusiast," let him read Thomas Carlyle's " Sphinx " in the " Past and Present," and then tell us whether there be a " Sphinx " also in America ; and solve us the riddle ! The descrip- tion covers four pages — will not "the land of tracts" look to it? C. M. C. 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