The voice of freedom. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1839-1848, 1845-09-25
Fion the Cincinnati Gazette.
Letter from Casslus nj. Clay.

LEXINGTON LAY. sept. 4tn, lo43.
BENZ. Urncr, James S. Gkascoe. Jacot
Ernst, Oiirer LoreK Geo. ". Phillips
r. G. MilcheN and James CoIhou",
GENTLEMEN: Ihave Just received
your letter of the 9th ult. enclosing the
proceedings Of the citizens of Cincjuna-
ii and their resolutions in public meet
ing.
Their words of kindness and gener-
Gus appreciation and noble and digni-
fed svowal, have moved me more than
all the studied cruelties and wrongs OF
my enemies, though 1 was unnerved
BY disease and threatened long days and
nights, with u horrible death.
hank you, that you have not allow.
ed the calumnious manifesto of the rev.
olutionists the 9Th Of August to weak
en- your confidence in my loyalty 10 the
Constitution and laws. | thank you,
that you have seen nothing in the past
10 cause you to lose confidence in the
future, that my measures and means
will be safe, practical and peacable. >
THANK you, that you deem my work
high and holy and for the reveren
and soul sustaining invocation of Divine
protection on me and on it.
You, gentlemen, have taken mo upon
trust; the time for my defence will come
with my reestablished health, when, |
venture to say, your sentence will not be
revoked by Kentucky and the world
shall allude to only one charge 60
ing the rounds of the papers that there
was a compromise between mo and the
Rebels Of the 18Th and that agreed to
discontinue the publication Of the True
American provided they would spare the
press. II is unnecessary for me 10 say
TO you, who have seen my letter address
cd TO the meeting, as well MS my pre-
vious handhiils addressed TO the people.
that this story is calumnious and moral
" impossible. Il is enough that the
Committee OF Sixty have authorized the
Lexington Observer and Reporter to
state that no such proposition came from
me or any Of my friends. This attempt
therefore, to degrade me, on the part
Of those who failed to destroy me, is of
a piece with this whole outrage Of cruel
~ and wrong, as shall be able to
show as soon as my health will allow.
hope shall be able TO show that |
am neither smadman' nor 'lunatic.'
They who sent back from Thermo2y-
1ne the sublime message, GO tell it at
Lacedemon that we died here in ODE
dience to her laws the Roman who
returned to captivity and TO death that
his country might be saved Sydney,
Hampden and Russell + Emmett, who
uttered the mighty instincts Of n great
soul 'the man dies but his memory lives
Adams, who exclaimed Survive or
perish, | am for the Standardization.
~, who cried Give me liberty or give
me death were all, IN the eyes oGthese
men, >madmen' and fanatics
1t was necessary that some one should
bear the standard Of Liberty into the
enemy's camp, and by so doing, wheth>
or he stood or fell arouse this great
nation from the le!hargy and death, which
have come over the spirit of once free
people. II has been the policy Of wise
statesmen in oil ages, to clothe the hum
blest citizen with the concentrated pow
or and inviolability Of the whole empire.
was cnOugH OH0 dIUiuSt tn0 WIG
est barbarians 10 say, Il am Roman
citizen and he was safe. No country
in Europe is so careful of individual
and national glory as Fl ance, the first
nation of Europe, land England, but few
years ago, was ready to pei her thirty
millions Of lives on the rescue of a single |
subject. It cannot, therefore, be less than
madness 10 the American people ifthey
expect long TO live as nation, and not
10 fall an easy sacrifice to foreign az
gression, or internal anarchy and des>
pot ISM, to look coo!ly on, when even The
humblest ofthose contending for consti
eutlonal liberty and national honor are
overcome and trampled down in the
ba.ttle Surely that nation cannot live
long, far less be free, that sees time af
ter lime, whatever of spirit and manly
may anywhere exhibit it.
self, crushed and utterly extinguished,
thank you then and the people Of
my fellow citizens, men gath