A Biography of Henry Clay, the Senator from Kentucky / Containing Also, a Complete Report of All His Speeches; Selections From His Private Correspondence; Eulogies in the Senate and House; and a Poem, by George D. Prentice, Esq.

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Mr. President, in all subjects of this kind we must deal fairly and honestly by all. We must recollect that there are feelings, and interests, and sympathies on both sides of the question; and no man who has ever brought his mind seriously to the consideration of a suitable measure for the rēcapture of runaway slaves, can fail to admit that the question is surrounded with great difficulties. On the one hand, if the owner of the slave could go into this non-slaveholding state, and seize the negro, put his hands upon him, and the whole world would recognise the truth of his ownership of property, and the fact of the escape of that property, there would be no difficulty then in those states where prejudice against slavery exists in the highest degree. But he goes to a state which does not recognise slavery. Recollect how different the state of fact is now from what it was in 1793, nearly sixty years ago. There were, then, comparatively few free persons of color—few, compared to the numbers which exist at present. By the progress of emancipation in the slaveholding states, and the multiplication of them by natural causes, vast numbers of them have rushed to the free states.—There are in the cities of Philadelphia, New York, and Boston—I have not looked into the precise number—some eight or ten to one in proportion to the number there were in 1793 when the act passed.

In proportion to the number of free blacks, multiplied in the free states, does the difficulty increase of recovering a fugitive from a slaveholding state. Recollect, Mr. President, that the rule of law is reversed in the two classes of states. In the slaveholding states the rule is, that color implies slavery, and the onus probandi of freedom is thrown on the persons claiming it, as every person in the slaveholding states is regarded prima facie as a slave. On the contrary, when you go to the non-slaveholding states, color implies freedom and not slavery. Every man who is seen in the free states, though he be a man of color, is regarded as free. And when a stranger from Virginia or Kentucky goes to remote parts of Pennsylvania, and sees a black person, who perhaps has been living there for years, and claims him to be his slave, the feelings and sympathy of the neighborhood are naturally and necessarily excited in favor of the colored person. We all respect these feelings, where they are honestly entertained. Well, sir, what are you to do in a case of that kind? You will give every satisfaction that can be given that the person whom you propose to arrest is your property, and is a fugitive from your service or labor. That is the extent of one amendment which we propose to offer, but there is also another. The amendment upon which I have been commenting provides for the productionof a record. Now, what is the inconvenience of that? It provides that when the owner of the slave shall arrest his property in a non-slaveholding state, and shall take him before the proper functionary to obtain a certificate to authorize the return of that property to the state from which he fled, and if he declares to that functionary at the time that he is a free man and not a slave, what does the provision require the officer to do? Why, to take a bond from the agent or owner that he will carry the black person back to the county of the state from which he fled; and that at the first court which may sit after his return, he shall be carried there, if he again assert the right to his freedom; the court shall afford and the owner shall afford to him all the facilities which are requisite to enable him to establish his right to freedom. Now, no surety is even required of the master. The committee thought, and in that I believe they all concurred, that it would be wrong to demand of a stranger, hundreds of miles from his home, surety to take back the slave to the state from which he fled. The trial by jury is what is demanded by the non-slaveholding states. Well, we put the party claimed to be a fugitive back to the state from which he fled, and give him trial by jury in that state.

Well, sir, ought we not to make this concession? It is but very little inconvenience. I will tell you, sir, what will be the practical operation of this. It will be this: When a slave has escaped from the master, and taken a refuge in a free state, and that master comes to recapture him and take him back to the state from which he fled, the slave will cry out, ‘I do not know the man; I never saw him in my life; I am a free man.’ He will say any thing and do any thing to preserve to himself that freedom of which is for a moment in possession. He will assert most confidently before the judge that he is a free man. But take him back to the state from which he fled, to his comrades, and he will state the truth, and will relinquish all claim to freedom. The practical operation, therefore, of the amendment which we have proposed, will be attended with not the least earthly inconvenience to the party claiming the fugitive. The case is bond without surety. The bond is transmitted by the officer taking it to the district attorney of the state from which he has fled. That officer sees that the bond is executed, and that the slave is taken before the court. Perhaps, before the slave reaches home, he will acknowledge that he is a slave; there is an end of the bond and an end of the trouble about the master. Is this unreasonable? Is it not a proper and rational concession to the prejudices, if you please, which exist in the non-slaveholding states? Sir, our rights are to be asserted; our rights are to be maintained. They will be asserted and maintained in a manner not to wound unnecessarily the sensibilities of others. And, in requiring such a bond as this amendment proposes to exact from the owner, I do not think there is the slightest inconvenience imposed upon him, of which he ought to complain.

Sir, there is one opinion prevailing—I hope not extensively—insome of the non-slaveholding states, which nothing we can do will conciliate. I allude to that opinion that asserts that there is a higher law—a divine law—a natural law—which entitles a man, under whose roof a runaway has come, to give him assistance, and succor, and hospitality. A divine law, a natural law! and who are they that venture to tell us what is divine and what is natural law? Where are their credentials of prophecy? Why, sir, we are told that the other day, at a meeting of some of these people at New York, Moses and all the prophets were rejected, and that the name even of our blessed Saviour was treated with sacrilege and contempt by these propagators of a divine law, of a natural law which they have discovered above all human laws and constitutions. If Moses and the prophets, and our Saviour and all others, are to be rejected, will they condescend to show us their authority for propagating this new law, this new divine law of which they speak? The law of nature, sir! Look at it as it is promulgated, and even admitted or threatened to be enforced, in some quarters of the world. Well, sir, some of these people have discovered another plausible law of nature. There is a large class who say that if a man has acquired, no matter whether by his own exertions or by inheritance, a vast estate, much more than is necessary for the existence of himself and family, I who am starving, am entitled by a law of Nature to have a portion of these accumulated goods to save me from the death which threatens me. Here are you, with your barns full, with your warehouses full of goods, collected from all quarters of the globe; your kitchens and laundries and pantries all full of that which conduces to the subsistence and comfort of man; and here am I standing by, as Lazarus at the gate of the rich man, perishing from hunger—will not the law of Nature allow me to take enough of your super-abundance to save me a little while from that death which is inevitable without I do it? Why, sir, trace this pretended law of Nature, about which, seriously, none of the philosophers are agreed, and apply it to one of the most interesting and solemn ceremonies of life. Go to a Mahometan country, and the Mahometan will tell you that you are entitled to as many wives as you can get. Come next to a Christian country, and you will be told that you are entitled to but one. Go to our friends the Mormons, and they will tell you that you are entitled to none. But there are persons in this age of enlightenment and progress and civilization, who will rise up in public assemblages, and, denouncing the church and all that is sacred that belongs to it—denouncing the founders of the religion which all profess and revere—will tell you that notwithstanding the solemn oath which they have taken by kissing the book to carry out into full effect all the provisions of the constitution of our country, there is a law of their God—a divine law, which they have found out and nobody else has—superior and paramount to all human law; and that they do not mean to obey this human law, but the divine law, of which, by some inspiration, by some means undisclosed, they have obtained a knowledge. Thatis the class of persons which we do not propose to conciliate by any amendment, by any concession which we can make.

But the committee, in considering this delicate subject, and looking at the feelings and interests on both sides of the question, thought if best to offer these two provisions—that which requires the production of a record in the non-slaveholding states, and that which requires a bond to grant to the real claimant of his freedom a trial by jury, in the place where that trial ought to take place according to the interpretation of the constitution of the United States, if it take place any where. Therefore, in order to obviate the difficulties which have been presented, and to satisfy the prejudices in the non-slaveholding states, we propose to give the fugitive the right of trial by jury in the state from which he fled. The statement in the report of the committee is perfectly true that the greatest facilities are always extended to every man of color in the slaveholding states who sues for freedom. I have never known an instance of a failure on the part of a person thus suing to procure a verdict and judgment in his favor, if there were even slight grounds in support of his claim. And, sir, so far is the sympathy in behalf of a person suing for his freedom carried, that few members of the bar appear against them. I will mention, though in no boastful spirit, that I myself never appeared but once in my life against a person suing for his freedom, but have appeared for them in many instances without charging them a solitary cent. That I believe is the general course of the liberal and eminent portion of the bar throughout the country. One case I made an exception, but it was a case when I appeared for a particular friend. I told him: ‘Sir, I will not appear against your negroes unless I am perfectly satisfied that they have no right to freedom; and even if I shall become, after the progress of the trial, convinced that they are entitled to freedom, I shall abandon your cause.’ I venture to say, then, that in all that relates to tenderness of treatment to that portion of our population, and to the administration of justice to them, and the supply of their wants, nothing can be found in the slaveholding states that is not honorable and creditable to them.

Mr. President, the only measure remaining upon which I shall say a word now, is the abolition of the slave-trade in the district of Columbia. There is, I believe, precious little of it. I believe the first man in my life that I ever heard denounce that trade was a southern man—John Randolph of Roanoke. I believe there has been no time within the last forty years when, if earnestly pressed upon congress, there would not have been found a majority, perhaps a majority from the slaveholding states themselves, in favor of the abolition of the slave-trade in this district. The bill which the committee has reported is founded upon the law of Maryland, as it existed when this district was set apart and ceded to the United States.—Maryland has since very often changed her laws.—What is their exact condition at present, I am not aware. I have heardthat she has made a change at the last session, and I am told that they may again be changed in the course of a year or two. Sir, some years ago, it would have been thought a great concession to the feelings and wishes of the north to abolish this slave-trade. Now, I have seen some of the rabid abolition papers denounce it as amounting to nothing. They do not care for that. And will my friends, some of my friends on the other side of the house, allow me to say a word or two with respect to their course in relation to this measure. At the beginning of this session, as you know, that offensive proviso, called the ‘Wilmot proviso,’ was what was most apprehended, and what all the slaveholding states were most desirous to get rid of. Well, sir, by the operation of causes upon the northern mind friendly to the Union, hopes are inspired, which I trust will not be frustrated in the progress of this measure, that the north, or at least a sufficient portion of the north, are now willing to dispense with the proviso. When, three months ago, I offered certain resolutions, and when to these measures it was objected, by way of reproach, that they were simply carrying out my own plan, my honorable friend from North Carolina at the moment justly pointed out the essential differences between the plan, as contained in the resolutions offered by me, and that now presented by the committee.

At the time I offered those resolutions, knowing what consequences and, as I sometimes feared, fatal consequences, might result from the fact of the north insisting on the proviso, by way of compensation, in one of the resolutions which I offered—the second one—I stated two truths, one of law and one of fact, which I thought ought to satisfy the north that it ought no longer to insist on the Wilmot proviso. Those truths were not incorporated in the bill reported by the committee, but they exist, nevertheless, as truths. I believe them both now as much I did in February last. I know there are others who do not concur with me in opinion. Every senator must decide for himself, as the country will decide for itself, when the question comes to be considered. Well, when our southern friends found they were rid of the proviso, they were highly satisfied, and I shared with them in their satisfaction. If I am not much mistaken, a great majority of them would have said, ‘If, Mr. Clay, you had not put those two obnoxious truths in them, we should have been satisfied with your resolution.’ Well, sir, we have got rid of the Wilmot proviso, we have got rid of the enactment into laws of the two truths to which I refer, but I fear there are some of our southern brethren who are not satisfied. There are some who say that there is yet the Wilmot proviso, under another form, lurking in the mountains of Mexico, in that natural fact to which my honorable friend from Massachusetts adverted, as I myself did when I hinted that the law of nature was adverse to the introduction of slavery there. Now, as you find that just desire is to be obtained, there is something further, there are other difficulties in the way of the adjustment of these unhappy subjectsof difference, and of obtaining that which is most to be desired, the cementing of the bonds of this Union.

Mr. President, I do not despair, I will not despair, that the measure will be carried. And I would almost stake my existence, if I dared, that if these measures which have been reported by the committee of thirteen were submitted to the people of the United States to-morrow, and their votes were taken upon them, there would be nine-tenths of them in favor of the pacification which is embodied in that report.

Mr. President, what have we been looking at?—What are we looking at? The ‘proviso;’ an abstraction always; thrust upon the south by the north against all the necessities of the case, against all the warnings which the north ought to have listened to coming from the south; pressed unnecessarily for any northern object; opposed, I admit, by the south, with a degree of earnestness uncalled for, I think, by the nature of the provision, but with a degree of earnestness natural to the south, and which the north itself perhaps would have displayed if a reversal of the conditions of the two sections of the Union could have taken place. Why do you of the north press it? You say because it is in obedience to certain sentiments in behalf of human freedom and human rights which you entertain. You are likely to accomplish those objects at once by the progress of events, without pressing this obnoxious measure.—You may retort, why is it opposed at the south?—It is opposed at the south because the south feels that, when once legislation on the subject of slavery begins, there is no seeing where it is to end. Begin it in the district of Columbia; begin it in the territories of Utah and New Mexico and California; assert your power there to-day, and in spite of all the protestations—and you are not wanting in making protestations—that you have no purpose of extending it to the southern states, what security can you give them that a new sect will not arise with a new version of the constitution, or with something above or below the constitution, which shall authorize them to carry their notions into the bosoms of the slaveholding states, and endeavor to emancipate from bondage all the slaves there? Sir, the south has felt that her security lies in denying at the threshold your right to touch the subject of slavery. She said, ‘Begin, and who can tell where you will end? Let one generation begin and assert the doctrine for the moment, forbearing as they may be in order to secure their present objects, their successors may arise with new notions, and new principles, and new expositions of the constitution and laws of nature, and carry those notions and new principles into the bosom of the slaveholding states.’ The cases, then, gentlemen of the north and gentlemen of the south, do not stand upon an equal footing. When you, on the one hand, unnecessarily press an offensive and unnecessary measure on the south, the south repels it from the highest of all human motives of action, the security of property and life, and every thing else interesting and valuable in life.

Mr. President, after we have got rid, as I had hoped, of all these troubles—after this Wilmot proviso has disappeared, as I trust it may both in this and the other end of the capitol—after we have been disputing two or three years or more, on the one hand, about a mere abstraction, and on the other, if it were fraught with evil, not so much present as distant and future, when we are arriving at a conclusion, what are the new difficulties that spring up around us? Matters of form. The purest question of form, that was ever presented to the mind of man—whether we shall combine in one united bill three measures, all of which are necessary, or separate them into three distinct bills, passing each in its turn, if it can be done.