mains to me of showing the beneficial consequences which would attend the execution of the scheme, is comparatively easy.

Of the utility of a total separation of the two incongruous portions of our population, supposing it to be practicable, none have ever doubted. The mode of accomplishing that most desirable object, has alone divided public opinion. Colonization in Hayti, for a time, had its partisans. Without throwing any impediments in the way of executing that scheme, the American Colonization Society has steadily adhered to its own. The Haytien project has passed away. Colonization beyond the Stony Mountains has sometimes been proposed; but it would be attended with an expense and difficulties far surpassing the African project, while it would not unite the same animating motives. There is a moral fitness in the idea of returning to Africa her children, whose ancestors have been torn from her by the ruthless hand of fraud and violence. Transplanted in a foreign land, they will carry back to their soil the rich fruits of religion, civilization, law, and liberty. May it not be one of the great designs of the Ruler of the universe (whose ways are often inscrutable by short-sighted mortals) thus to transform an original crime into a signal blessing, to that most unfortunate portion of the globe. Of all classes of our population, the most vicious is that of the free colored. It is the inevitable result of their moral, political, and civil degradation. Contaminated themselves, they extend their vices to all around them, to the slaves and to the whites. If the principle of colonization should be confined to them; if a colony can be firmly established and successfully continued in Africa which should draw off annually an amount of that portion of our population equal to its annual increase, much good will be done. If the principle be adopted and applied by the States, whose laws sanction the existence of slavery, to an extent equal to the annual increase of slaves, still greater good will be done. This good will be felt by the Africans who go, and by the Africans who remain, by the white population of our country, by Africa, and by America. It is a project which recommends itself to favor in all the aspects in which it can be contemplated. It will do good in every and any extent in which it may be executed. It is a circle of philanthropy, every segment of which tells and testifies to the beneficence of the whole.

Every emigrant to Africa is a missionary carrying with him credentials in the holy cause of civilization, religion, and free institutions. Why is it that the degree of success of missionary exertions is so limited, and so discouraging to those whose piety and benevolence prompt them? Is it not because the missionary is generally an alien and a stranger, perhaps of a different color, and from a different tribe? There is a sort of instinctive feeling of jealousy and distrust toward foreigners which repels and rejects them in all countries; and this feeling is in proportion to the degree of ignorance and barbarism which prevail. But the African colonists, whom we send to convert the heathen, are of the same color, the same family,

the same physical constitution. When the purposes of the colony shall be fully understood, they will be received as long-lost brethren restored to the embraces of their friends and their kindred by the dispensations of a wise Providence.

The Society is reproached for agitating this question. It should be recollected that the existence of free people of color is not limited to the States only which tolerate slavery. The evil extends itself to all the States, and some of those which do not allow of slavery (their cities especially), experience the evil in an extent even greater than it exists in slave States. A common evil confers a right to consider and apply a common remedy. Nor is it a valid objection that this remedy is partial in its operation or distant in its efficacy. A patient, writhing under the tor tures of excruciating disease, asks of his physician to cure him if he can, and, if he can not, to mitigate his sufferings. But the remedy proposed, if generally adopted and perseveringly applied, for a sufficient length of time, should it not entirely eradicate the disease, will enable the body politic to bear it without danger and without suffering.

We are reproached with doing mischief by the agitation of this question. The Society goes into no household to disturb its domestic tranquillity; it addresses itself to no slaves to weaken their obligation of obedience. It seeks to affect no man's property. It neither has the power nor the will to affect the property of any one contrary to his consent. The execution of its scheme would augment instead of diminishing the value of the property left behind. The Society, composed of free men, concerns itself only with the free. Collateral consequences we are not responsible for. It is not this Society which has produced the great moral revolution which the age exhibits. What would they, who thus reproach us, have done? If they would repress all tendencies toward liberty and ultimate emancipation, they must do more than put down the benevolent efforts of this Society. They must go back to the era of our liberty and independence, and muzzle the cannon which thunder its annual joyous return. They must revive the slave-trade, with all its train of atrocities. They must suppress the workings of British philanthropy, seeking to meliorate the condition of the unfortunate West Indian slaves. They must arrest the career of South American deliverance from thralldom. They must blow out the moral lights around us, and extinguish that greatest torch of all which America presents to a benighted world, pointing the way to their rights, their liberties, and their happiness. And when they have achieved all these vurposes, their work will be yet incomplete. They must penetrate the human soul, and eradicate the light of reason and the love of liberty. Then, and not till then, when universal darkness and despair prevail, can you perpetuate slavery, and repress all sympathies, and all humane and benevolent efforts among freemen, in behalf of the unhappy portion of our race doomed to bondage.

Our friends, who are cursed with this greatest of buman evils, deserve

the kindest attention and consideration. Their property and their safety are both involved. But the liberal and candid among them will not, can not, expect that every project to deliver our country from it is to be crushed because of a possible and ideal danger. Animated by the encouragement of the past, let us proceed under the cheering prospects which lie before us. Let us continue to appeal to the pious, the liberal, and the wise. Let us bear in mind the condition of our forefathers, when, collected on the beach in England, they embarked, amid the scoffings and the false predictions of the assembled multitude, for this distant land; and here, in spite of all the perils of forest and ocean, which they encountered, successfully laid the foundation of this glorious republic. Undismayed by the prophecies of the presumptuous, let us supplieate the aid of the American representatives of the people, and redoubling our labors, and invoking the blessings of an all-wise Providence, I boldly and confidently anticipate success. I hope the resolution which I offer will be unanimously adopted.

BARGAIN AND CORRUPTION

LEXINGTON, JULY 12, 1827.

[THE following is one of the most spirited speeches which Mr. Clay ever made, and he was justly provoked to it. If any one would understand the wickedness of General Jackson, in his attempts to injure Mr. Clay, and his determination to make his way to the presidency at the expense of truth and fairness, he must read this document; and if he can find any satisfaction in seeing such iniquity exposed in the most fervid style of eloquence, and by the closest reasoning, he will find it here. In this great and complicated conspiracy, there was always the most studied avoidance of a fair hearing. The great object was to keep it before the public in such forms as to injure Mr. Clay, and help General Jackson to the presidency. When the charge was first brought by Kremer, a member of the House of Representatives from Pennsylvania, Mr. Clay instantly demanded an investigation by a special committee of that body. But investigation and the truth were not the things wanted, and it was therefore evaded by artifice. Agitation, by false statements circulated among the people, was the grand device; and after keeping these false statements afloat for two years, General Jackson comes out, over his own name, with a hypothetical charge, indeed, and yet such as would seem to be direct and explicit, and which would be received as such. It was left to Mr. Clay, in the following speech, to expose its atrocious character. But the charge, like every lie, would travel over the Continent, while Truth was putting its boots on. General Jackson's letter would be universally read, and regarded by most people as plausible, while Mr. Clay's exposure of its falsehood would have a comparatively limited circulation. The exceedingly wicked character and purpose of the letter can only be appreciated by a perusal of the following discourse. It was called forth by a toast, at a dinner given to Mr. Clay at Lexington, as follows:

"Our distinguished guest, HENRY CLAY: the furnace of persecution may be heated seven times hotter, and seventy times more he will come out unscathed by the fire of malignity, brighter to all and dearer to his friends; while his enemies shall sink with the dross of their own vile materials."]

MR. PRESIDENT, FRIENDS, AND FELLOW-CITIZENS-I beg permission to offer my hearty thanks, and to make my respectful acknowledgments, for the affectionate reception which has been given me during my present visit to my old congressional district, and for this hospitable and honorable testimony of your esteem and confidence. And I thank you especially for the friendly sentiments and feelings expressed in the toast which you have just done me the honor to drink. I always had the happiness of knowing that I enjoyed, in a high degree, the attachment of that portion of my fellowcitizens whom I formerly represented; but I should never have been sensible of the strength and ardor of their affection, except for the extraordinary character of the times. For nearly two years and a half I have been assailed with a rancor and bitterness which have few examples. I have found myself the particular object of concerted and concentrated abuse; and others, thrusting themselves between you and me, have dared to arraign me for treachery to your interests. But my former constituents, unaffected by the calumnies which have been so perseveringly circulated to my prejudice, have stood by me with a generous confidence and a noble magnanimity. The measure of their regard and confidence has risen with and even surpassed, that of the malevolence, great as it is, of my personal and political foes. I thank you, gentlemen, who are a large portion of my late constituents. I thank you, and every one of them, with all my heart, for the manly support which I have uniformly received. It has cheered, and consoled me, amid all my severe trials; and may I not add, that it is honorable to the generous hearts and enlightened heads who have resolved to protect the character of an old friend and faithful servant?

The numerous manifestations of your confidence and attachment will be among the latest and most treasured recollections of my life. They impose upon me obligations which can never be weakened or canceled. One of these obligations is, that I should embrace every fair opportunity to vindicate that character which you have so generously sustained, and to evince to you and to the world, that you have not yielded to the impulses of a blind and enthusiastic sentiment. I feel that I am, on all fit occasions, especially bound to vindicate myself to my former constituents. It was as their representative, it was in fulfillment of a high trust which they confided to me, that I have been accused of violating the most sacred of duties of treating their wishes with contempt, and their interests with treachery. Nor is this obligation, in my conception of its import, at all weakened by the dissolution of the relations which heretofore existed between us. I would instantly resign the place I hold in the councils of the nation, and directly appeal to the suffrages of my late constituents, as a