Piney Woods planter. (Liberty, Mi. [i.e. Miss.]) 1838-1840, 1839-06-01
WING MACHINERY.
From the Hartford { Conn., Times.
CLAY AND ABOLITION.

/
Every one of the Federal members
Of Congress from this State are Clay
men, t,ty,yet every one of them had
the support ofthe Abolitionists. They
were the Abolition as well as the Fed
eral candidates. 49,
Near the close of the, late sesssion.of
Congress, Henry Clay delivered speech
against the AboIitionlsts.. 1t was a
speech which, coming from any one
else, would be deemed no uncommon
etfort-it was in every point inferior to
the speech ofEly Moore, delivered on
the preceding day on the same subject.
But it was a speech of Henry Clay,
the three times defeated candidate for
the Prcsidency-it was his speech a.
gainst the Abolitionists, when he
thought that to denounce them would
help him more than 10 support them.
Foryears there had been great excite
ment-embittered contests; men had
periled their political prospects; in ma
ny instances sacrificed them, in resist
ing the Abolition mania, and Henry
Clay, with arms folded, had stood aloof
or shrunk from the contest, or, worse
than either. had, at a distance, famed
the flame. But the excitement had
been met, and resisted at the North !;
those who could be deluded and prac-
tised upon, the Wings had secured, or
would secure, by pledges to abolish
slavery, as soon as 1t could be properly
done, in the District of Columbia. and
on no account would another slave
holding State be permitted to enter
the Union, ifthe Wings could help 1t.
Such was the shape of things at the
North.
At tLis Propitious moment, when
something might be gained, and moth
ing lost, to the always anxious, and SO
often defeated Mr.. Clay, there was a
flourish Of trumpets-the eloquent SEN
ator from Kentucky, was suddenly and
Unexpectedly to address the Senate on
the subject of Abolition. His notipe
was patriotism; he uished to allay the
excitement which was distracting the
county. and threatening the Constitu-
ton and the Union. The citizens of
District Of Columbia had taken it into
their heads to memorialize Congress on
the subject of abolishing slavery in the
District, and Mr.. Clay had consented
TO become their organ.
Such were the tones, and such the
flourish, with which the Wing oracles
announced the movement Of the thrice
defeated and always detected political
gamester. Mr.. Clay made his Adolf
ton speech, Unexpectedly called upon
he submitted few remarks on a
''deeply agitated subject" The gal
leries were filled agreeably to order,
and as advertised for in the Intelligent
Ger. The speech was wonderfully ex-
tolled. M. Clay, although age and
debauchery had wasted his energies
and shorn his genius, had, it was said,
some ability remaining, or he could not
so soon have complied with the wishes
ofthe petitioners, and have delivered,
of hand, such a speech.
The knowing ones smiled at the gull
liability and toad-eating propensities of
the small Wings, who have always such
transceGdeht orators and such wonder
full speeches. There was not man in
the Senate who did not know that
Clay had been laboring for days and
weeks at that speech--that though re-
markable for nothing except that it
was an Anti-abolition speech from Hen
ry Clay. yet he had labored, oyerit like
a womanin travail. He had toiled and
toiled to make speech; and after he
had got it completed, he sent 10. Gales,
Mat. l.. Davis, and half a dozen other
pimps, to get names to a memorial,
drawn by himself, in behalf Of the citi-
zens of the District, which memorial
was to be the corner stone Of his speech.
Such is the trickery--that quackery-
the game; the theoretical mountebank-
ism Of the ''orator from Kentucky"
We allude to it at this time in con-
sequence of a letter Of Mr.. Preston
That gentleman has recently become
the FId,is .Achaies Of Mr.. Clay, and in
writing to explain certain remarks of
his on another subject, he thus unwit-
tingly exposes Clay.
'If the anecdote has been thus related
by the Philadelphia paper, they mis-
quote me. / did not state or intimate
that | entertained the slightest doubt