Why do the
Abolitionists oppose colonization? To keep and amalgamate
together the two races, in violation of God's will, and to
keep the blacks here, that they may interfere with, degrade,
and debase the laboring whites. Show that the British nation
is co-operating with the Abolitionists, for the purpose of
dissolving the Union, etc."
This is so very absurd, that, if we did not know it to express Mr.
Clay's habitual feeling at that time, we should be compelled to see in
it, not Henry Clay, but the candidate for the Presidency.
He really thought so in 1843. He was perfectly convinced that the
white race and the black could not exist together on equal terms. One
of his last acts was to propose emancipation in Kentucky; but it was
an essential feature of his plan to transport the emancipated blacks
to Africa. When we look over Mr. Clay's letters and speeches of those
years, we meet with so much that is short-sighted and grossly
erroneous, that we are obliged to confess that this man, gifted as he
was, and dear as his memory is to us, shared the judicial blindness of
his order.
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