Daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, Va. [W. Va.]) 1859-1865, 1860-08-14
From the Cincinnati Gazette.l
Henry Clay and Daniel Webster on
the Extension of Slavery.


To show that the position now occupied
ny the Republican party is the same rs
that OF those renowned Wing leaders.
Webster and Clay. we suhjoin the Opin-
ions of both, 0t different periods of their
lives. i'll regard to the extension of slavery.
The following is an extract from speech
made by Henry Clay in 1927:
ave are rtproMrhcd with doing mischief
by the agitation of this question TSln-
very. Collateral consequences we arc
not responsible for. 1t is not this society
lColonizatiOn which has produced the
great moral revolution which the age ex-
hiblta. What would they. ho thus re-
pronrh us. have done? II they would re-
press MI tendencies toward liberty. and
ultimate" emancipation. ,Lc,, must do ,.....
ilmn put down the benevolent efforts Of
this Society. They mast go back to the
era nf our liberty and Independence, and
muZZ!r the cannon which thumders its an
nu"l joyous return. They must revive
the Sliv" Trade with all its train of afro
cities. They must blow out the moral
lights around which America presents to
Il bcmiGhicd world. pointing the way to
their rights. their liberties and their hap
pncss. And when they have achieved all
i these purposes, their work will yet be m-
complete They must penetrate the hu-
man sUul, and eradicate the light of rc;.-
son end love of liberty. Then, and not
/ till then. when universal darkness and
despair prevail. can you perpetuaIc Sia-
very. aud rcprcSs all symputhies, and all
humane and benevolent Efforts among
frermen, in behalf of the unhappy pur-
tion of our race doomed to b0ndnge"-
(Colton's Life, vol l, pngc 1881
In 1929, in Al similar speech, Henry Clay
asked:
"Is there no remedy! Must wc cudure
perpctually all the undouhted miSrhirfs
Ofn state of Slavery, as it affects both the
free aud the bond portions of these StateS?"
/ His later ntteranves were in the same
! direction. He appealed to Kentucky to
( insert in its new Constitution clause for
the gradual extinction of Slavery in that
| State. And in thehGat of the Compromise
debates of 1850, when in his intense anxf-
ETY. for peace he went AS far us his con-
! science would permit in concession TO
Slavery, he declared again and again that
he would never vote to eXtcud it over ter
ritory now free. He said:
LAS long as God allows the vital cur
rent to flow through my veins, will never,
never, never, by word or thought, by mind
or will, aid in admitting 10 one rood OF
Free Territory the Everlasting Curse ot
Human Bondage"
Daniel Webster, in his famous speech Of
the 7tL of March, 1850, when he was
charged with having receded from his
formerpositions on this question, said:
''Sir, wherever there is Il particular good
to be done, ,chcrcver there is a foot of lana
to be stayed from, becoming Sldvc Territory,
am ready to assert the principle Of tie crctu
sion ofSIavrry. l am pledged to it from
the year 1897; ] have been pledged to i,
again and again; and will perform those
| pledges
In his Narshfeld speech, in l84s, Mr..
Webster said:
''If, my friends the term tFrcesoiT party,
OrtFrecsoil man is meant to designate Que
who has been fixed day,
yesterday and for some days past-in op-
position to slavery extension, then l may
claim to be, and hold myself as good a
FreesoiP man as any member of tue Buff
alo Convention"
In speech in the United States Senate,
the same year, he had occasion to discuss
this same question of property in slaves
in its application to the territories:
"The real meaning, then, of Southern
gentlemen in making this complaint, is,
/ that they cannot go iuto the Territories OF
the United States. carrying with them
their own peculiar local law, law which
creates property in persons. & Ii
will not be contended that this sort OF
personal slavery exists by general law. Il
cx,sts only by local EGs0 & i And
wherever that local law does not extend
property in person does not exist. Well
SIR what ia now the demand on the part
of our Southern friends? They say, ave
will carry our local laws with us wherever
We go. we insist that Congress does us
injustice unless it establishes i'll the terri
tories in which we wish to go. our own To-
cal law" THIS demand, Itor one resist, ana