Edgefield advertiser. [volume] (Edgefield, S.C.) 1836-current, 1851-07-31
From the Lau-ensville Herald,
70 Hon1y Clay of Kentucky-Mo.

| aha do u StitcoiiIdii d'iu patty AStiuet W
name has filled no inconsiderable space
in the public view. Already your bio
graphers, emulous of the distinction O.
recording the deeds which have giver
you such an unenviable notoriety, have
entered the arena, and have We'd with
each other in the task of pampering youl
inordinate vanity spreading upon the his,
toric page, gilded letters of your public
acts. In their efforts to make you Presi.
dent, they have given you credit for pa.
triotism, which you never possessed, and
a disintercstedness of purpose of which
you never had any conception. They
have deceived the public, as well as
yourself. You are now old sir, and your
career is drawing to close. The tinsel
with which your partisans have CLOSED
over long public career of selfish ambi-
ton, cannot much longer conceal from a
wronged and indignant people, whose
rights you have violated, the dangerous
and detestable defornities Of your public
character. Soon posterity will demand
more truthful and impartial chroniclers
OF the public life and character of a po-
litician and Cabinet Minister, who, under
the speeious garb of a pretended patriot
ism, has contributed SO much to change
the character of the Government, and to
PROSTATE the Constitution of the country.
When you ahall have disappeared from
the stage of action, those who have min
istered to your ambition and your vanity,
to escape your coarse denunciations, so
derogatory to the American Senate, and
to the rank and character of an American
Senate. the hungry expcctants who have
fawned upon you, with the hope of pro-
fitting by your influence and elevation,
will no longer have motive to praise
you, or to conceal the vices of your pub.
lie character. Justice and truth will then
demand an exposure of the crimes you
have committed against the Constitution
which you have so often sworn to pre-
serve inviolate; and the judgment which
a coming age will pronounce upon you,
will be 60 Yl!hsgiag, could you be con: !.
terry could not sustain you uHusfE me
scathing infiction. Southern man and
a stakeholder, your first act in the State
of your adoption, to whose people you
looked FOR patronage and support, and
among whom you sought retreat from
poverty and obscurity in your native land,
was an incendiary assault upon its slave
institution, and upon the social political
rights o: the South, which you have
since so fatally betrayed, for the purpose
of placing upon your head the Presiden.
tial diadem, as the reward of your treach-
cry. In the arts of the dcmagogue,
which abilities of high order have
enabled you to reduce to science, you
have distanced all competition, in all age
so fruitful in the production Of that dan
gerous aud despicablc character. An
avowcd friend OF the abolition of slavery
"a pretended enthusiast in the cause of
liberty--a distinguished disciple of the
incompatible schools of Mirabcau and
Danton-the consistent emancipationist
of the age-a professcd republican, and u
practical consolidationist, by your un.
equalled skill in the arts of deceit and
dissimulation, like an actor on the stage,
by assuming costume and set of prin.
ciples adapted to the time, circumstance
and place, you have succeeded to an
unprecedented degree in dceeiving a
confding people into the belief that
the fictitious part you played was real,
and that you are patriot and a republi-
can. So well, sir, have you played the
part of political magician, that at the
moment the Constitution is expiring from
the blows you inflicted upon it with your
dagger, you are eloquently pronouncing
eulogiums upon the blessings of freedom,
and at the same moment laying the toun-
dations broad and deep, Of consolida.
ted despotism, upon the ruins of republi.
can liberty. Unscrupulous about the
means of reaching the object of your am.
bition, few statesmen of modern times
have combined in one character, so many
elements calculated to inflict incurable
wounds, upon the institutions ofthe State.
The equal of Cataline in courage, his
superior in expedient and resource, you
have by your countenance and cncour.
agement, aided, with all the influence Of
your example, the incendiaries of the
North, whose leader in the work of cman,
cipation you are, to assassinate the pub.
lie peace, and who only await your bid
ding, to light up the fires of a servile war
And yet your agency in the Internal plot,
by your skill in political legerdemain, is
concealed from public view.
A statesman thus gifted with such ex.
traordinary qualities for strategem and
mischief, whose political code imposes
no restraints upon his excesscs, and who
upon every great question which has agi
tated the public mind during his whole
political life, has been found advocating
with plausible hut untruthful eloquence
first one side and then the other, and whe
has been consistent only in his ambitious
thirst for power, and his ceascless desire
to see the. abolition of our Sorther!
institutions accomplished. could not ial
to achieve for himself an unenviabie dis
tinctioa. Aud sir, Of I'LL your extraor