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.

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. A very large portion, I have been credibly informed, are the political opponents of the party to which I belong—democrats, as they most undeservedly call themselves, who have eagerly seized this opportunity to wound, as they imagine, 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.