ON SLAVERY AND ABOLITION.

AT RICHMOND, INDIANA, OCTOBER 1, 1842.

[IN the autumn of 1842, Mr. Clay being on a visit to the state of Indiana, the occasion of his meeting a large concourse of people, was seized upon, for the purpose of presenting him with a petition, signed by many of his political opponents, praying him to emancipate his slaves, in Kentucky. Instead of treating the matter with indignation, as was perhaps expected by some, Mr. Clay replied with good humor to Mr. Mendenhall, who had been selected to present him with the address, in the following words.]

I HOPE that Mr. Mendenhall may be treated with the greatest forbearance and respect. I assure my fellow-citizens here collected, that the presentation of the petition has not occasioned the slightest pain, nor excited one solitary disagreeable emotion. If it were to be presented to me, I prefer that it should be done in the face of this vast assemblage. I think I can give it such an answer as becomes me and the subject of which it treats. At all events, I entreat and beseech my fellow-citizens, for their sake, for my country's sake, for my sake, to offer no disrespect, no indignity, no violence, in word or deed, to Mr. Mendenhall.

I will now, sir, make to you and to this petition such a response as becomes me. Allow me to say that I think you have not conformed to the independent character of an American citizen in presenting a petition to me. I am, like yourself, but a private citizen. A petition, as the term implies, generally proceeds from an inferior in power or station to a superior; but between us there is entire equality. And what are the circumstances under which you have chosen to offer it? I am a total stranger, passing through your state, on my way to its capital, in consequence of an invitation with which I have been honored to visit it, to exchange friendly salutations with such of my fellow citizens of Indiana as think proper to meet me, and to accept of their hospitality. Anxious as I am to see them, and to view parts of this state which I had never seen, I came here with hesitation and reluctance, because I apprehended that the motives of my journey might be misconceived and perverted. But when the fulfilment of an old promise to visit Indianapolis was insisted upon, I yielded to the solicitations of friends, and have presented myself among you.

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Such is the occasion which has been deliberately selected for tendering this petition to me. I am advanced in years, and neither myself nor the place of my residence is altogether unknown to the world. You might at any time within these last twenty-five or thirty years, have presented your petition to me at Ashland. If you had gone there for that purpose, you should have been received and treated with perfect respect and liberal hospitality.

Now, Mr. Mendenhall, let us reverse conditions, and suppose that you had been invited to Kentucky to partake of its hospitality; and that, previous to your arrival, I had employed such means as I understand have been used to get up this petition, to obtain the signatures of citizens of that state to a petition to present to you to relinquish your farm or other property, what would you have thought of such a proceeding? Would you have deemed it courteous and according to the rites of hospitality?

I know well, that you and those who think with you, controvert the legitimacy of slavery, and deny the right of property in slaves. But the law of my state and other states has otherwise ordained. The law may be wrong in your opinion, and ought to be repealed; but then you and your associates are not the law-makers for us, and unless you can show some authority to nullify our laws, we must continue to respect them. Until the law is repealed, we must be excused for asserting the rights-ay, the property in slaves — which it sanctions, authorizes, and vindicates.

And who are the petitioners whose organ you assume to be? I have no doubt that many of them are worthy, amiable, and humane persons, who, by erroneous representations, have been induced inconsiderately to affix their signatures to this petition, and that they will deeply regret it. Others, and not a few, I am told, are free blacks, men, women, and children, who have been artfully deceived and imposed upon. credibly informed, are the political opponents of the party to which A very large portion, I have been I belong-democrats, as they most undeservedly call themselves, who have eagerly seized this opportunity to wound, as they imag ine, my feelings, and to aid the cause to which they are attached. In other quarters of the union, democrats claim to be the exclusive champions of southern interests, the only safe defenders of the rights in slave property, and unjustly accuse us Whigs with abolition designs wholly incompatible with its security. What ought those distant democrats to think of the course of their friends here, who have united in this petition?

And what is the foundation of this appeal to me in Indiana, to liberate the slaves under my care, in Kentucky? It is a general declaration in the act announcing to the world the independence of the thirteen American colonies, that all men are created equal. Now, as an abstract principle, there is no doubt of the truth of that declaration; and it is desirable, in the original construction of society,

and in organized societies, to keep it in view as a great fundamental principle. But, then, I apprehend that in no society that ever did exist, or ever shall be formed, was or can the equality asserted among the members of the human race, be practically enforced and carried out. There are portions of it, large portions, women, minors, insane, culprits, transient sojourners, that will always probably remain subject to the government of another portion of the community.

That declaration, whatever may be the extent of its import, was made by the delegations of the thirteen states. In most of them slavery existed, and had long existed, and was established by law. It was introduced and forced upon the colonies by the paramount law of England. Do you believe that, in making that declaration, the states that concurred in it intended that it should be tortured into a virtual emancipation of all the slaves within their respective limits? Would Virginia and the other southern states have ever united in a declaration which was to be interpreted into an abolition of slavery among them? Did any one of the thirteen states entertain such a design or expectation? To impute such a secret and unavowed purpose would be to charge a political fraud upon the noblest band of patriots that ever assembled in council; a fraud upon the confederacy of the revolution; a fraud upon the union of those states, whose constitution not only recognized the lawfulness of slavery, but permitted the importation of slaves from Africa, until the year 1808. And I am bold to say, that, if the doctrines of ultra political abolitionists had been seriously promulgated at the epoch of our revolution, our glorious independence would never have been achieved - never, never.

I know the predominant sentiment in the free states is adverse to slavery; but, happy in their own exemption from whatever evils may attend it, the great mass of our fellow-citizens there do not seek to violate the constitution, or to disturb the harmony of these states. I desire no concealment of my opinions in regard to the institution of slavery. I look upon it as a great evil, and deeply lament that we have derived it from the parental government, and from our ancestors. I wish every slave in the United States was in the country of his ancestors. But here they are, and the question is how they can be best dealt with? If a state of nature existed, and we were about to lay the foundations of society, no man would be more strongly opposed than I should be, to incorporate the institution of slavery among its elements. But there is an incalculable difference between the original formation of society and a long existing organized society, with its ancient laws, institutions, and establishments. Now, great as I acknowledge, in my opinion, the evils of slavery are, they are nothing, absolutely nothing, in comparison with the far greater evils which would inevitably flow from a sudden, general, and indiscriminate emancipation. In some of

the states the number of slaves approximates towards an equality with that of the whites; in one or two they surpass them. What would be the condition of the two races in those states, upon the supposition of an immediate emancipation? Does any man suppose that they would become blended into one homogeneous mass? Does any man recommend amalgamation that revolting admixture, alike offensive to God and man; for those whom He, by their physical properties, has made unlike and put asunder, we may, without presumptuousness, suppose were never intended to be joined together in one of the holiest rites. And let me tell you, sir, if you do not already know it, that such are the feelingsprejudice, if you please, (and what man, claiming to be a statesman, will overlook or disregard the deep-seated and unconquerable prejudices of the people,)-in the slave states, that no human law would enforce a union between the two races.

What then would certainly happen? A struggle for political ascendancy; the blacks seeking to acquire, and the whites to maintain possession of the government. Upon the supposition of a general immediate emancipation in those states where the blacks outnumber the whites, they would have nothing to do but to insist upon another part of the same declaration of independence, as Dorr and his deluded democratic followers recently did in Rhode Island; according to which, an undefined majority have the right, at their pleasure, to subvert an existing government, and institute a new one in its place, and then the whites would be brought in complete subjection to the blacks! A contest would inevitably ensue between the two races - civil war, carnage, pillage, conflagration, devastation, and the ultimate extermination or expulsion of the blacks. Nothing is more certain. And are not these evils far greater than the mild and continually improving state of slavery which exists in this country? I say continually improving; for if this gratifying progress in the amelioration of the condition of the slaves has been checked in some of the states, the responsibility must attach to the unfortunate agitation of the subject of abolition. In consequence of it, increased rigor in the police, and further restraints have been imposed; and I do believe that gradual emancipation, (the only method of liberation that has ever been thought safe or wise by any body in any of the slave states,) has been postponed half a century.

Without any knowledge of the relation in which I stand to my slaves, or their individual condition, you, Mr. Mendenhall, and your associates, who have been active in getting up this petition, call upon me forthwith to liberate the whole of them. Now let me tell you, that some half a dozen of them, from age, decrepitude, or infirmity, are wholly unable to gain a livelihood for themselves, and are a heavy charge upon me. Do you think that I should conform to the dictates of humanity by ridding myself of

that charge, and sending them forth into the world, with the boon of liberty, to end a wretched existence in starvation? Another class is composed of helpless infants, with or without improvident mothers. Do you believe, as a christian, that I should perform my duty towards them by abandoning them to their fate? Then there is another class who would not accept their freedom if I would give it to them. I have for many years owned a slave that I wished would leave me, but he will not. What shall I do with that class?

What my treatment of my slaves is you may learn from Charles, who accompanies me on this journey, and who has travelled with me over the greater part of the United States, and in both the Canadas, and has had a thousand opportunities, if he had chosen to embrace them, to leave me. Excuse me, Mr. Mendenhall, for saying that my slaves are as well fed and clad, look as sleek and hearty, and are quite as civil and respectful in their demeanor, and as little disposed to wound the feelings of any one, as you are.

Let me recommend you, sir, to imitate the benevolent example of the society of Friends, in the midst of which you reside. Meek, gentle, imbued with the genuine spirit of our benign religion, while in principle they are firmly opposed to slavery, they do not seek to accomplish its extinction by foul epithets, coarse and vulgar abuse, and gross calumny. Their ways do not lead through blood, revolution, and disunion. Their broad and comprehensive philanthropy embraces, as they believe, the good and the happiness of the white as well as the black race; giving to one their commiseration, to the other their kindest sympathy. Their instruments are not those of detraction and of war, but of peace, persuasion, and earnest appeals to the charities of the human heart. Unambitious, they have no political objects or purposes to subserve. My intercourse with them throughout life has been considerable, interesting, and agreeable; and I venture to say, nothing could have induced them as a society, whatever a few individuals might have been tempted to do, to seize the occasion of my casual passage through this state to offer me a personal indignity.

I respect the motives of rational abolitionists, who are actuated by a sentiment of devotion to human liberty, although I deplore and deprecate the consequences of the agitation of the question. I have even many friends among them. But they are not monomaniacs, who, surrendering themselves to a single idea, look altogether to the black side of human life. They do not believe that the sum total of all our efforts and all our solicitude should be abolition. They believe that there are duties to perform towards the white man as well as the black. They want good government, good administration, and the general prosperity of their country.

I shall, Mr. Mendenhall, take your petition into respectful and deliberate consideration; but before I come to a final decision, I