The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-03-27
Henry Clay.
From the World,

From the World.
On the 18th of April, the ninetieth anniver-
sary of Henry Clay's birthday is to be marked
at Louisville by the Inauguration of statue.
Robert C. Winthrop is to deliver the address,
and ex-President Fillmore and Alexander II.
Stephens are expected to be present.
The Tribune cannot let slip the occasion of
making filings at these three gentlemen, and
affects to regard it as an incongruous thing
that they should be assigned the leading part
in honors to the memory of Mr.. Clay. 1t
seems to think these duties should have been
discharged by men who abetted the Republi-
can party in the late civil war, and approved
of its being converted into an engine of aboli-
ton. 1t would puzzle the Tribune to make a
filter selection. There is no man in the coun-
try whose culture, eloquence, and historical
turn of mind better qualify him to make a
graceful address on this commemorative occa-
sion than Mr.. Winthrop. He was always a
warm admirer of Mr.. Clay, and he served as
Speaker of the House of Representatives when
Mr.. Clay was the leader of the Wing party
and while Mr.. Clay's favorite measures were
most strenuously debated.
Mr.. Fillmore was Chairman of the WAYS
and Means Committee that prepared the tariff
of 1912, and, by his ability on that occasion,
won Mr.. Clay's lasting friendship and esteem.
Fillmore as the Whig candidate for the Vice
Presidency; and in 1852 he expressed vgo-
rous preference for him as the Wing candi-
date for the Presidency over Mr.. Webster and
General Scott. With regard to Mr.. Stephens,
it was proper that some distinguished South
ern Clayman should be invited to take a
leading part in dedcating a statue to a South
ern statesman in a Southern State and we are
at a loss to know whom the Tribune would
select in preference to Mr.. Stephens, the ablest
Southern Whig in the House in the fsod-tide
of the Wing policy.
1t is not, however, on personal, but on poll
teal grounds that the Tribune demurs. 1t
tries to make it appear that Mr. Clay's prin-
ciples had he lived, would have led him
straight into the present Republican party,
while Messrs. Winthrop, Fillmore, and Ste
phens are arrant COpperheads, or worse. But
the Tribune seems to forget that the "parting
of the wave'' between the Wings of its stripe
and Mr.. Clay began previous to 1850; that Mr..
Clay was the chief architect and advocate of
the Compromise of that year, which included
the Fugitive Slave law, for whose execution
Mr.. Fillmore was so bitterly denounced; and
that his preference of Mr.. Fillmore for the
Presidency two years afterwards, and the con-
tempt for Mr.. Seward expressed in his private
correspondence, make it improbable that he
would have co-Cperated with Seward and the
Tribune in building up the Republican party.
His principles were as opposite to theirs as
light is to darkness.
The Tribune classes Mr.. Clay as an Aboli-
zionist, inasmuch as he favored emancipation III
Kentucky. The abolition of slavery in state
by the voluntary action of its own people ana
authorities, is quite different thing from
breaking down the State Governments and
forcing negro equality upon the people at the
point of the bayonet. Mr.. Clay neither held
these high notions of Federal prerOgative, nor
desired the sudden abolition of slavery. lie
expressed his disapprobation publicly in the
Senate and privately in his correspondence, Oh
General JacksOn's notification proclamation
''As to the proclamation" he SAID, " "although
there We're some good things in 1t, espe-
cialy what relates to the Judiciary, there
are some entirely too ultra for me, and when
] cannot stomach Mr.. Clay again and
again declared his steady appreciation OF ana
adherence to the doctrines of the famous Vlr-
ginia resolutions, which are cried down py
the Tribune as the seTpent's egg out OF Whlch
secession was Matched. Here Is ms creeo aS
expressed in 1881 in a private letter TO
friend: 81 need not say to you that my CON
stitutional doctrines are those OF the epoch OF
l7gs. | am against all power not delegated,
or not necessary and proper TO execute What
is delegated. hold to the principles OF Mr.
Madison as promulgated through the Virginia
Taoislature | was with Mr.. Madison then; /
am with him now" As to the proper treat
mept Of States in revolt, Mr.. Clay differed
quite as pointedly from the Republican doc
trines of the present day. He thought Gene
raj Jackson too harsh in his mode of dealing
! with South Carolina, and under his lead, the
! tariff was softened to conciliate her. "Sir,
repeat that | think that South Carolina has
| been rash, incorporate, and greatly in the
wrong; but do not want to disgrace her, nor
anv other member of this Union" And in
another speech he said: ''If this unhappy
contest is to continue, sincerely hope that
the future conduct of the Administration may
he governed by wise and cautious counsels
and a paternal forbearance." For Mr.. Clay's
views of slavery and the relations of the
Federal Government to it, we refer the Tribune
to his scathiug reply to Mr.. Mendenhall, in
which 'the political AbolitiOnists," 4" as Mr.
Clay called them, who waged war ON Southern