Delaware gazette. [volume] (Delaware, Ohio) 1855-1886, 1859-10-07
Henry Clay on the Irrepressib!e Con-
Hic1.

The Democratic speakers and presses have
all at one discovered that Henry Clay was a
great man, and are laVishing their fusome and
disgusting praises upou him, in the hope of in
ducing some Of his admirers to vote the Dem
ocratic ticket. They even have the audacity
and brazen irapudence TO claim that Henry
Clay advocated the measures that their party
now do, and are busily engaged in garbling OK
tracts from his speeches, TO give seeming
semblance Of truth TO their assertions.
When it is known that Henry Clay was the
greater part of his life a member Of the Colo
nization Society that it was ouc Of the dear
est objects of his life to procure the gradual
emancipation of Slavery in Kentucky that
he actually devised a plan for that purpose,
which only failed by few votes that it was
through his means that the Missouri Compro-
mise was adopted, prohibiting slavery north of
Sc dec 80 min.; that he effected the abolish
ment of the slave trade in the District Of Co
umbia, and would have abolished slavery it
self there, if ii could have been done that he
stated in his great speech in the United States
Senate on the Compromise measures of 1850
that no earthly object could induce him to vote
for extending Slavery over one more foot Of
territory we say, when all this is known,
does it not thow great deal Of impudence in
these slave-exteuding speakers and presses, to
claim that if Clay was now alive he lCol(d uOte
the Democratic ticket? Out upon such pusil-
luminous knavery and hypocraey.
If Henry Clay was alive to-day, he would
be a Republican, for the doctrines advocated
by that party, are in substance those advoca-
ted all life long by him, especially that in regard
to slavery, which is, p" That Slavery is wrong,
morally, socially, and politically, but that the
Free States have 10 right to nleddle with it,
in The Slave State, where it exists by virtue of
local law but that Congress has the right to
prohibit its cxtenson and that it is its duty
to do So
They also claim the right 10 speak of the
evils of Slavery, not only of its evils to the
slave himself but also to the white laboring
man, and the numerical and dishonest strength
it gives the South in the popular branch of
Congress, and in electing President and
Vice President Of the United State. And il
by agitation, the Slave states can he made to
voluntarily emancipate and colonize their
slaves themselves, the Republican party will
have accomplished all it contemplates or de
sires That is what IL eury Clay wished to do
as our readers can see by the following eN-
tract taken from speech of his made before
the American Colonization Society, some years
pocvious to his death
1--WE are reproached ~ith doing mischief by
the agitation of this question. The c'e;y
goes into no housch old to disturb its domestic
, tranquility; it addresses itself to no slaves, to
weaken their obligations of obedience. 1t
seeks to effect no mans property. 1t neither
has the power nor tho will tv aiiec the property
of any one, contrary TO his consent. The eXecu-
ton of its scheme would augment, instead of di-
minishing the value of the property left behind
| The society, composed of free men, concerns it
self only with the free. Collateral consequences
we are not responsible for. 1t is not this so