Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1845-09-26
ANSWER OF c. NJ. CLAY.


To a committee appointed By a meeting q tie
citizens Of Cincinnati held on the 25h Tug.
LEXINGTON, Ky. Sept. 4, 1915.
Gentlcmen:-I have just received your let
ter of the 9th ult. enclosing the proceedings
of the citizens of Cincinnati, and their resU-
lutions in public meeting.
Their words of kindness and generous APP
probation and noble and dignifed ay5wal,
have moved me more than all the studied
c~rueltics and wrongs of my enemies, though
| was unnelved by disease, and threatened
for long days and nights, with a horrible
death.
thank you that you have not allowed the
calumnious manifesto of the revolutionists of
the 18th of August, to weaken your conf
dcnce in my loyalty to the constitution and
laws. ] thank you that you have seen moth
ing in the past to cause you to lose confidence
in the future, that my measures and means
will be safe, practicable, and peaceahle. |
thank you that you deem my work 'high and
holv,' and for the reverent and soul-sustain-
ing invocation of Divine protection on me
1 and it.
You, gentlemen, have taken me on trust.
The time for my defence will come with my
re-established health, when, | venture to say,
your sentence will not be revoked, by ken
lucky and the world
| shall allude, now to only one charge go
ing the rounds Of the papers-that there was
a compromise between me and the rebels of
the 18th, and that | agreed to discontinue the
publication of the True American, provided
they would spare the press. 1t is unneces-
sary for me to say to you, who have seen my
letter addressed to the meeting. as well as
my previous handbills addressed to the peo-
pie, That this story is cllumri)Us, and moral
ly impossible. 1t is enough that the COM
mittee of sixty have authorized the LeXing-
ton Observer and Reporter to state that no
such proposition came from me or my friends.
This attempt, therefore, on the part Of those
who failed to destroy me, is of a piece with
this whole outrage of cruelty and wrong, as |
shall be able to show, as soon as my health
will allow.
l hope | shall also be able to show that |
am neither a ''madman;' nor a ''fdnatic."
They who sent back from Thermopylae
the sublime message |'Go tell it at Lacede-
mon that we died here in obedience to her
laws"-the Roman who returned to captiyi-
ty and to death that his country might be sa-
ved-Sydncy, IIampden, Russell,-Emmet,
who uttered the mighty instincts of a great
soul, "the man dies, but his memory %lives,''
Adams, who exclaimed, ''Survive or per-
ISL, | am for the declaration, Henry; who
cried, "Give me liberty, or give me DEATH
were all, in the eyes Of those men, mad.
mem and fanatics
1t was necessary that some one should
bear the standard of liberty into the enemies
camp, and by so doing, whether he stood Of
fell, arouse this great nation from the lethar.
gy and death which have come over the
spirit Of a once free people. 1t has been the
policy Of wise statesmen in all ages, tC
clothe the humblcst citizen with the concen.
tratcd power and inviolability of the whole
empire. 1t was enough for one amidst the
widest barbarians to say II am a Roman
citizen" and he was safe. No country in
Europe is so careful of individual and ma
tional glory as France, the first nation Of
Europe, and England, but a few years age
was ready to peril her thirty million of lives
on the rescue Of a single subject. 1t cannot
therefore be less than madness in the Ameri
can people if they expect to live long as g
nation, and not to fall an easy sacrifice &c
foreign aggression, or internal anarchy and
despotism, to look coolly on, when even the
humblest of those contending for %cunstitu.
tional liberty and national honor are over
borne and trampled down in the battle
Surely that nation cannot live long, far les.
be free, that sees, time after time, whateve.
of spirit and manly independence may any.
where exhibit itself, crushed, and utterly ex
} tinguished.
| thank you then, and the people of Gin
%cinnati, my fellow-citizens, men gathered
under the same national constitution to whicl
| owe allegiance, and which owes me pro
lection, brothers of the same blood inherit
ing the same proud recollections of the past
and looking in the future to the same insepa
rable destiny, that you have not covered be
fore the ~slave-power; but that you have slooc
by the friendless, the powerless, the fallen
and dared to speak out for constitutional re
publicanism and eternal Justice, which hav
been violated in my person. Above all an
3 | deeply affected by the fact, that YOU assem-
bled in mass meeting, without distinction c
b, party; and as both parties here were lost i
overwhelming subservienGe to slavery, s
Q you of the free states begin to unite in tn
defence Of your own rights, and in the caus
) of natural liberty.
; If the Wings, and Democrats, and Libel
= 1y men, shall become really what they as
sumo, then is half my work accomplished
and the republic safe-for though my stat
: should sink into irrecoverable despotism
there will be left somewhere on this wild
continent, a home for the exile and oppressed
With regard to the Press, ] would brief