The Cass County Republican. [volume] (Dowagiac, Mich.) 18??-1880, 1859-10-13
THE CASS COUNTY REPUBLICAN
Henry Clay VS.. stephen A. Douglas.


Henry Clay VS.. stephen A. Douglas.
But yet every old Wing who stands
to-day where Clay stood in 1850, and
at the time of his death, asserting the
doctrines of non-intervention and pop
ular sovereignty, and acting with those
who stand firm by that doctrine. is
abused by the Republican party as a
turn-coat and a traitor. To all men
who make that charge against the old
Wings, | will remind them OF the last
speech of Henry Clay before the Leg
islature of Kentucky, in, which be told
them if the day ever came, as he APP
pretended it must soon, when. the
WING party would be reduced to
miserable abolition. faction, that he
would join the Democracy and uphold
the Constitution. Clay to the last,
stood forth as the embodiment of I'm
ion principles, Union measures, oon-
servative views, which would keep
united, as bands of brothers, all the
States of this Uuion, and make the re-
public perpetual.
From the above extract from the
speech of Mr.. Douglas, delivered in
Cincinnati, during the late Campaign in
Ohio, will beseen thathe is evidently at
tempting to make up the losses he must
sustainfrom the hostility of the Admins
tration from the Old line, or Henry Clay
Wings. With this view he tries to
show that the ground he occupies now
is that so long maintained by the Wing
party, and especially by its great leader
Henry Clay. Mr.. Douglas having
been all his life reviler of Henry Clay
and the Wing party, rather than an
adnirer and defender of either may be
excused for slight mistakes in his prem
Uses, If he is not aware of the fact, it
is time he learned that the Wing party
never pretended to be unit upon the
slavery question. 1t is as well known
as any other fact in political history,
that Wing Conventions in Northern
States passed Wilmot Proviso resolu-
tons, and generally acted accordingly,
but that in Southern States no such
resolutions were proposed or could
have been passed. As long as there
was an agreement upon other issues
ther before the country, and before the
aggressions of the propagandists had
become intolerable, there was no diff
Guilty in going together. 1t is only
since Mr.. Douglas prompted the South
to push its demands, that the sepera-
ton Of paroles upon geographical lines
has taken place. If things could be
set back as they were before Douglas
renew the slavery agitation by therepeal
Missouri Compromise, for the purpose
of getting ahead of his competitors for
the Presidency, there would be no OBJ
stacle to the cooperation of men of the
same party at the North and the South.
Let him never charge upon Henry Clay
STAKEHOLDER though he was, any share
in the responsibility of the present ag-
itation. There was no truer or ADLER
friend of the Missouri Compromise than
Henry Clay, and it is little short of in
famous for the author of its repeal to
invoke the influence of his great name to
aid his unchastened ambition. Had
Henry Clay been in the Senate, the
Douglas repeal bill would never have
been carried. He would have de-
nounced it and its author with his burn
ing eloquence until the whole country
would have been under an indignant
excitement.
But Douglas goes beyond making
an incautious remark slight mistake
He conjures up the ghost of an cold
Wing" represents him. as being grossly
abused and insulted with such epithets
as "turn-coat and traitor" in order to
show how CALAMITY he.can defend him.
But it is due to truth to state frankly
that Mr.. Douglas knew he was uttering
an absolute untruth. No cold Wing"
has ever been thus accused and insalted
by the Republican party" for "asser-
ting the doctrines of non-intervention
and popular sovereignty" AS we have
before remarked, the Wing party never
avowed any such doctrines, and of
course never could have been accused
of being 'sturn-coats and traitors" for
not opposing them. Mr.. Douglas was
long enough in Congress while the
Wing party was in existence to know
that upon the slavery question, North
ern Wings and Southern Wings voted
upon oppsite.sides, without even calling
forth the charges he now falsely asserts
to have been made. Equally unfortu-
nate is Mr.. Douglas in his attempt to
use the name of Henry Clay for his
personal benefit. And he is one of the
last men who ought to be allowed thus
to use it. Mr. Clay lived all his life in
a Slave State, and was during the great