Three years before this was written, Clay in a speech before the Colonization Society said:—
"If I could be instrumental in eradicating this deepest stain upon the character of my country, and removing all cause of reproach on account of it by foreign nations; if I could only be instrumental in ridding of this foul blot that revered State which gave me birth, or that not less beloved State which kindly adopted me as her son, I would not exchange the proud satisfaction which I should enjoy for the honor of all the triumphs ever decreed to the most successful conqueror."
He longed to add the imperial domain of Texas to this country, but feared that it would so strengthen the slave power as to endanger the Union; and when finally he yielded to the inevitable, the Free-Soilers threw their votes to Birney and thus defeated Clay for the Presidency. He deprecated the war with Mexico, yet gave his favorite son as a soldier, who fell at Buena Vista. He stood for the reception of anti-slavery petitions by Congress, against the violent opposition of the leading men of his own section. He continued steadfast to the end, writing in 1849 that if slavery were, as claimed, a blessing, "the principle on which it is maintained would require that one portion of the white race should be reduced to bondage to serve another portion of the same race, when black subjects of slavery could not be obtained." He proposed reasonable schemes for gradual emancipation and deportation, which would, if adopted, have averted the war and settled peaceably the serious problem. He warned the Southerners in 1849 that their demands were unreasonable, and would "lead to the formation of a sectional Northern party, which will sooner or later take permanent and exclusive possession of the Government."
Seeming inconsistencies in Mr. Clay's record on this subject will disappear with a full understanding of the difficulties of his position. Living in a State midway between the North and South, where slavery existed in its mildest and least objectionable form, yet fully alive to its evils, recognizing that the grave problem requiring solution was not alone slavery, but the presence among a free people of a numerous, fecund, servile, alien race; realizing that one section of the country, then relatively too powerful to be ignored, was ready to withdraw from the Union rather than to submit to laws that would endanger slavery; loving the Union with an ardor not excelled by that of any public man in our history; wishing and striving for the emancipation of the slaves, yet too loyal to the Union to follow the more zealous advocates of freedom in their "higher law than the Constitution" crusade,—Mr. Clay in his whole course on this question was consistent and patriotic in the highest degree.
The Compromise of 1850
The crowning triumph of a long life of great achievements was his great compromise measures of 1850. These, with their predecessors of 1821 and 1833, have caused some writers to speak of Clay as a man of compromising nature. The reverse is true. Bold, aggressive, uncompromising, and often dictatorial by nature, he favored compromise when convinced that only by such means could civil war or a disruption of the Union be averted. And he was right. He averted a conflict or separation from the Union when the relative strength of the South was such as to have rendered impossible the preservation of the Union by force. The Constitution was a compromise, without which there would have been no union of States. That the compromise did not long survive him was no fault of Clay's, but chargeable to the agitators of both sections, who cared less for the Union than for their pet theories or selfish interests.
Two years after his death the compromise measures were repealed, and the most destructive civil war of modern times and a long list of resultant evils are the result. Those who knew Henry Clay and had felt his wonderful power as a leader, are firm in the belief that had he been alive and in the possession of his faculties in 1861, the Civil War would have been averted. His name and the memory of his love for the Union restrained his adopted State from joining the South.
The struggle over the passage of the compromise measures, lasting for seven months, was one of the most memorable parliamentary struggles on record. The old hero, Henry Clay, broken in health, with the stamp of death upon him, for six weary months led the fight with much of his old-time fire and ability. Sustained by indomitable will and supreme love of country, "I am here," he said, "expecting soon to go hence, and owing no responsibility but to my own conscience and to God."
In his opening speech, which lasted for two days, he said:—
"I owe it to myself to say that no earthly power could induce me to vote for a specific measure for the introduction of slavery where it had not before existed, either south or north of that line. Sir, while you reproach, and justly too, our British ancestors for the introduction of this institution upon the continent of America, I am for one unwilling that the posterity of the present inhabitants of California and New Mexico shall reproach us for doing just what we reproach Great Britain for doing to us."