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Show 6 Mr. Clay's speech, however intended for the Abolitionists, contains passages at which every man interested in the removal of slavery must take ofltmce ; and to these my ~em~rks will be confined. The most important part of It, mdecd, has no special bearing on the Abolitionists, but concerns equally all the free States. I refer to that, in which we are told, that slavery is to be perpetual, that we have nothing to hope in this respect from the South. Every other part of the speech sinks into insignificance in comparison with this. Coming from any other man, this document would be less important. But Mr. Clay is no rash talker. His legislative course has been distinguished by nothing so much as by his skill in compromising discordant opinions. l-Iis speech was meant to be a compromise, to exert a healing power. He does not, in a fit of transient, blinding anger, dash to the ground our hopes of relief fi·om the intolerable evils of slavery. He states deliberately tho grand obstacle to emancipation, and it is one which can only be removed by the dying out of the slaves. He takes tho ground, that if the two races are to live together, one must be hopelessly subjugated to the other, so as to prevent collision. Emancipation, he gives us to understand, would be a signal for civil war, to end only in extermination. And as this peril, if real, increases with the increase of the servile class, of consequence every year's continuance of the evil, makes freedom, if possible, more and more impossible. W c lament and abhor this doctrine, but are truly glad that it is brought out distinctly, that the free States may know what they are to expect. A vague hope has floated before many minds, that this immense evil was in some way or other to cease. On this ground, such of us in the free States as have written against slavery, have been rebuked. Our friends as well as foes have said, "Be quiet ; Let the South alone ; it > 7 will find for itself the way of emancipation. You throw back the good work a century." We have all along known better. We have known that long use, the love of property, and the love of power, had bound this evil on the South, with a triple adamantine chain. 'Ve have known, that the increasing culture of cotton wa5> spreading slavery with immense rapidity through new regions, and, by rendering it more gainful, was strengthening the obstinacy with which it is grasped by the owner. We have known, that in consequence of this culture, the northern slave States, whose soil the system had exhausted, have acquired a new interest in it, hy humbling themselves to the condition of slavebreeding and slave-trading communities. We have seen, that the institution, if to be shaken or subverted, was to be stormed from abroad, not by "carnal weapons," not by physical force, but by those moral influences, which, if steadily poured in upon a civilized people, must gradually prevail. It is now seen, that we were right. It is now plain, that the South has deliberately wedded itself to slavery. We are glad to have it known. The speech publishing this doctrine was meant to be a herald of peace, but it is in truth a summons to new conflict. It calls those who regard slavery as a grievous outrage on human nature, to spread their convictions with unremitting energy. I take the ground, that no communities, unless cutting themselves off from the civilized world, can withstand just, enlightened, earnest opinion ; and this power must be brought to bear on slavery more zealously than ever. I observe, in passing, that l\ir. Clay, in giving us no hope for the extinction of slavery but in the extinction of the colored race, puts an end to all expectation of aid in this respect from the Colonization Society, an institution of which he is an ardent friend. and, for aught I know, is now the President; and I trust his frankness will open the eyes of those, who dream .of removing slav- |