The first public expression of Mr. Clay’s feelings in relation to South American independence, was made in connection with a proposition to reduce the direct taxes of the United States, which he thought too high for a state of peace. The aspect of our foreign relations at that time was peculiarly amicable, although, from a report that the Spanish minister had made an informal demand for a portion of Florida, seemed to indicate that a rupture with Spain was by no means improbable, and he expressed himself in favor of husbanding our means as much as practicable, in anticipation of such an event. At the same time, he hinted the propriety of assisting her colonial dependents in their endeavors to establish a free government. His remarks caused Mr. Randolph to express his sentiments concerning the same subject, which among other things charged Mr. Clay with entertaining a desire for conquest, indeed as being influenced by unworthy motives. He said he was not ‘going a tilting for the liberties of South America.’ She came not to our aid; let us mind our own business, and not tax our people for the liberties of the people of Spanish America. He declared that her inhabitants were incapable of appreciating or enjoying liberty. He thought Mr. Clay had imbibed the war-spirit of Europe. ‘The honorable gentleman has been sent on a late occasion to Europe; he had been near the field of Waterloo, and he was apprehensive had snuffed the carnage and caught the infection.’ He intimated that Mr. Clay advocated an increase of the army for the purpose of marching them to the scene of action. ‘What! increase our standing army in time of peace on the suggestion that we are to go on a crusade to South America?’ Mr. Claydenied having made the most remote suggestions to that effect,—that his remarks were incapable of being so construed. ‘Do I not understand the gentleman?’—‘I am sorry I do not. I labor under two great misfortunes—I can never understand the honorable speaker, and he can never understand me.’ Such being the case, Mr. Randolph remarked, he should be under the necessity of abandoning the argument with him, since it would be impossible to proceed.
Mr. Clay again alluded to the same subject a few days after, in a most feeling manner. A bill was brought forward to prohibit ‘our citizens from selling vessels of war to subjects of a foreign power,’ which he vigorously opposed because of its evident bearing upon the belligerent state of South America. He said it was impossible to conceal the true character of that bill. ‘Bestow upon it what denomination you will, disguise it as you may, it will be understood by the world as a law to discountenance any aid being given to the South American patriots, now in a state of revolution against the parent country. With respect to the nature of that struggle, I have not now for the first time to express my opinion and wishes. I wish them independence. It is the first step towards improving their condition. Let them have a free government, if they are capable of enjoying it. At any rate let them have independence. Yes, from the inmost recesses of my soul I wish them independence. In this I may be accused of imprudence in the utterance of my feelings on this occasion. I care not, when the independence, the happiness, the liberty of a whole people is at stake, and that people our neighbors, our brethren occupying a portion of the same continent, imitating our example, and participating of the same sympathies with ourselves.’
During the following month an attempt was made to appropriate and pledge the bonus paid by the United States bank into the public treasury, as a permanent fund to be employed in constructing works of internal improvement. Mr. Clay gave his hearty concurrence to this measure, declaring his belief that ‘there were no two subjects which could engage the attention of the national legislature, more worthy of its deliberate consideration, than those of internal improvements and domestic manufactures.’ A bill was passed constituting such fund, but the president vetoed it on alleged constitutional grounds.
Mr. Clay’s remarks caused great interest to be felt in behalf of South American liberty, and during the summer following, the president appointed three commissioners, Messrs. Rodney, Graham, and Bland, to proceed to South America, and examine her political, civil and social condition as preliminary to rendering them any assistance. Mr. Clay regarded the appointment as impolitic, and when a bill came before the house in March 1818, providing for the support of government, objected to having itembrace a clause appropriating thirty thousand dollars for their compensation, for constitutional reasons. For it he proposed to substitute an amendment, appropriating eighteen thousand dollars as the outfit and one year’s salary of a minister from the United States to the Independent Provinces of the river La Plata in South America. He accompanied the presentation of the amendment with a speech of great power, evincing great geographical and historical knowledge, and setting forth clearly the condition of the people. The amendment, however, was not adopted.
Many members of prominence differed with Mr. Clay, for whose opinions he expressed his respect, and regretted that his own convictions of expediency and duty led him to take a different view of the subject. He directly avowed that considerations of liberty and humanity had no little weight with him in advocating their cause, but at the same time his belief, that the adoption of the measure under consideration, while it would add to the renown of the republic, would render material assistance to those who were greatly in need of it. He vindicated himself from the charge which had been made, that he was desirous of fomenting a war between the states and Spain. He indulged in animating anticipations of the number and importance of the governments which might be formed in those vast, fertile, and beautiful provinces. To attempts at proving the movements of the colonists as rebellious, opposing the lawful government of Spain, he replied by clearly showing that if that power had possessed a legal claim to their allegiance, she had forfeited it by withholding that protection requisite to entitle her to it, and that consequently the people of Spanish America were contending for nothing more than their legal and natural rights. ‘But’ said Mr. Clay, ‘I take a broader, bolder position. I maintain that an oppressed people are authorized, whenever they can, to rise and break their fetters. This was the great principle of the English revolution. It was the great principle of our own. We must therefore pass sentence of condemnation upon the founders of our liberty, say that they were rebels and traitors, and that we are at this moment legislating without competent powers, before we can condemn the course of Spanish America.’ He contended that if we were justified in our attempts at independence, much more was she, who had writhed beneath the scourge of oppression so long, so much longer than we; that if they were worthy of success, if they were entitled to succeed from the justness of their cause, then surely we ought to wish it, especially when we consider the barbarous character of the war. He maintained that we were deeply interested, in recognizing their independence. Even then our commerce with those provinces was considerable, and would greatly increase after they should become permanently settled as free and independent nations. Theact would attach them to us, nay, it would bind them to us by relations as intimate as those of kindred; they would become our powerful allies. Mr. Clay said he took this ground, not because he desired to force our principles where they were not wished, but simply from feelings of sympathy. We knew by experience how sweet it was to receive that when we were in circumstances that tried men’s souls. There could be no danger, nor objection to stretch out towards their people the hand of friendly sympathy, to present to those abused and oppressed communities an expression of our good will, to make them a tender of those great principles which we have adopted as the basis of our institutions. Their ignorance and inability had been brought forward, by those opposing the measure, as completely incapacitating them for self-government. These, he contended, had been greatly magnified, but admitting them to be as unqualifying as they had been represented to be, the fact ought rather to increase our pity for them, and to urge us to seek the more earnestly, by all reasonable and just means within our reach, their liberation from that detestable system which chained them to such a servile state. He ridiculed the idea that recognition could be made a just pretext for war. ‘Recognition’ said he, ‘without aid is no just cause of war; with aid, it is not because of the recognition, but because of the aid, as aid without recognition is cause of war.’ Mr. Clay’s efforts were not successful at this time; no minister was despatched to South America; the friendly mission was deferred until 1821, when he submitted, on the tenth of February, a resolution to the house, ‘declaring that the house of representatives participated with the people of the United States in the deep interest which they felt for the success of the Spanish provinces of South America, which were struggling to establish their liberty and independence, and that it would give its constitutional support to the president of the United States, whenever he might deem it expedient to recognize the sovereignty and independence of those provinces.’
On this resolution, a warm and protracted debate ensued, which was finally adopted, by a vote of eighty-seven to sixty-eight, and Mr. Clay was appointed chairman of a committee to communicate to the president the action of the house.
On the eighth day of March, 1822, the president transmitted to the house of representatives a message recommending the recognition, which Mr. Clay had so long struggled for. On the twenty-eighth the vote of recognition was taken, when it appeared that there was but one dissenting voice.
Thus at last were the noble and generous efforts of the patriot statesman crowned with success as complete as they had been persevering. Years had elapsed between their commencement and glorious consummation; years of toil, anxiety, and hope, butnow the harvest time had come. The president and congress, from vehemently opposing his views in relation to their independence, by his persuasive arguments were brought over to them, who officially stretched out the hand of the nation, to clasp with friendly pressure those of the infant republics of the south. As a matter of course, the act was denounced as one of folly and fraught with danger, by the personal and political enemies of Mr. Clay, but the truly philanthropic, throughout the land, regarded it with approbation, and described it as just what the greatest free nation on the globe should do towards those who were worthy of it. It was applauded throughout the world, but particularly by those towards whom it was directed, with enthusiastic expressions of gratitude. The supreme congress of Mexico voted him the thanks of the nation, for his zeal and efficient labors in their behalf.
During the struggle, his speeches were frequently read at the head of the patriot army, and the effect was always to increase their intrepidity and valor. The name of Clay became associated with every thing dear and valuable in freedom, and was pronounced by both officer and soldier with reverence; and many were the epistolary notices which he received, of the high estimation in which his services were held, by that suffering, but successfully struggling people. The following is a specimen.
BOGOTA, 21st November, 1827.