The southern press. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1850-1852, 1851-03-26

We commented. souae time sires, on the new
born zeal exhibited in behalf Of MIR. CLAY, by
some of the less impatient" Of the Abolition
lists. The following glowing eulogium from the
New York Tribune is very significant 1t will
be seen that plea for his patience" on the sub
ject is set up at the same tune.
Ma. Clay AND HUMAN FRExDoM.-The Com
monUsalM BOSTON, csvils at our recent glance
ut the public career of Henry Clay, observing
that we praise him as the champion OF liberty in
other lands, but not in our own, and asserting
that he has been the deadest and most effective
enemy of emancipation here, the author of the
Fugitive slave law, &C.. &c. These assertions
are contrary to our understanding of the truth.
In the first place, the Fugitive slave act was not
devised nor introduced by Mr.. Clay but by Mr.
Mason OF Virginia, gentleman who has all his
life opposed Dir. Clay, and who has many more
points of agreement with the Commonwealth
than with the great Kentuckian Mr.. Clay sim
ply adopted Mr.. Mason's bill, already before the
Senate, as an offset to the bill aboshing the
District slave trade, and az such supported it.
The Commonwealth should be more careful, aud
no: let its blind hatred of every thing Wing run
away with it.
When Mr.. Clay was young man, hardly
more than twenty .one, the Territory or District
of Kentucky formed her first State constitution.
Mr.. Clay then exerted himself before the people
as an advocate of emancipation, which he wished
and strove to engraft on that constitution He
was overruled, but that was not his fault. He
was then utterly unknown to fame, had never
been in office, and had no reason to expect that
his opinions or acts would ever be canvassed in
New York and Boston. Who can doubt that
he acted as he felt!
But again, after an interval of half century,
Kentucky resolved to form new constitution.
Again Mr.. Clay came forward as q public advo-
cate Of emancipation, not only urging that it
should he accomplished, but pointing out the
means of doing it without injury or peril 1t
seems to US that all the circumstances attending
this demonstration also prove that Mr.. Clay was
impelled by noble motives, and that the measures
he proposed, though not up to the measure of
our convictions, were in advance of those of
Kentucky or any other slave State. So, too, of
his declaration last year, in the face of the
strenuous efforts to legalize slavery in Califor-
MIA, that he would never be instrumental in plant
ing slavery on free soil.
We do not gorify Mr.. Clay as champion of
liberty in this country, nor rs one whose idea
on this subject accord fully with our own. We
appreciate the difference of latitude betueen
Jamestown and Plymouth Rock, and make ailoc-
ance therefor. But that Mr.. Clay has been
deadly enemy of emancipation through life, is
not true--is very far from true. His convic-
tons on the subject are evidently unlike those
of the Commonwealth, but that does not justify
the latter in disappearing them. He has Of
ten, as the representative of a community of
shareholders, spoken and acted rather as the or
gan of their sentiments than of his own, but the
fundamental principles by which he has been
guided, have been identical throughout, and
they have been deeply imbued with an instinc-
tive aspiration for universal freedom.