Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1849-07-21
To Hon. HENRr CLAY, Lexington, Ky.
MONTICELLO, August 25, 1914.


Dear Sir. Your favor of July 3lst, was
duly received and was read with peculiar
pleasure. The sentiments breathed through
the whole do honor to both the head and
heart OF the writer. Mine on the subject Of
the slavery of negroes have long since been in
possession of the public, and time has only
served TO give them stronger root.
The love of justice and The love of country
plead equally the cause of these people, and
it is a moral reproach to US that they should
have pleaded it SO long in vain, and should
have produced not a single effort, nay, ! fear
not much serious willingness 10 relieve them
and ourselves from our present condition OF
moral and political Reproduction. From those
of the former generation who were in the full
ness of age when | came into public life,
which was while our controversy with Eng
land was on paper only, | soon saw that moth
ing was 10 be hoped. Nursed and educated
in The daily habit of seeing the degraded con.
dilion, both bodily and mental, OF those Tn
fortunate beings, not rejecting that that de-
graduation was very much the work of them
selves and their fathers, few minds had yet
doubted but that they were as Legitimate sub
jects OF property as their horses or cattle
The quiet and monotonous course of colonial
life has been disturbed by no alarm and little
reflection on the value OF liberty. And when
alarm was taken aisn encrcachment on their
own, it was not easy - carry them the whole
length of the principles which they invoked
for themselves. In the first or second session
Of the Legislature after | became a member,
| drew to this subject the attention of Col.
Bland, one of the oldest, ablest and most re-
spected members, and he undertook to move
for certain moderate extensions Of the protec-
iion of the laws 10 these people. ] seconded
his motion, and, as a younger member, was
more spared in the debate but he was de-
nounced as an enemy to his country, and was
treated with The greatest indecorum.
From an early stage Of our revolution Other
and more distant duties were assigned me, SO
that from that time ill my return from Eu'
rope in 1889, and | may say till | returned &c
reside at home in 1909, | had little opportu'
nifty of knowing the progress of public senlI'
ment here on this subject. l had always no.
ped that the younger generation, receiving
their early impressions alter the fame of lib
eriy had been kindled in every breast; anC
had become as it were the vital spirit of eve
~ American, that the generous Temperament
of youth, analogous to the motion Of thel
, blood, and above the suggestions of avaTice
would have sympathised with Oppression
f wherever found, and proved their love OF lib
erty beyond their own share OF it. But my
intercourse with them, since my return, hal
t not been sufficient 10 ascertain that they hal
: made towards this point the progress ! hat
; hoped. Your solitary but welcome voice /
the first which has brought this sound TO m.
3 ear: and have considered the general 81
, lence which prevails on this subject as ind
T eating an apathy unfayorable to our hopes
/ Yet The hour of emancipation is advancing il
the march of time. 1t will come; and wheth
e er brought on by The generous energy of on
e own minds, or by the bloody process OF s.
e Domingo, excited and conducted by the pow
S er of our present enemy, If once s%tatione
I permanently within our country, offering asJ
T lum and arms to the oppressed, is a leaf
our history not yet turned over.
a As TO the method by which this difiicu
work is to be effected, if permitted to be don
I by ourselves, | have seen no proposition s
o expedient on the whole, as that OF emanciPi
ton Of those born after a giveE day, and
d their education and expatriation al a props
S sge. This would give time for a graduate