supposed to be more so; but party ties are more influential, unless they are regarded as a modification of imaginary interest. Under their sway, we have seen, not only individuals, but whole communities abandon their longcherished interests and principles, and turn round and oppose them with violence.

Did not the rebellion in Rhode Island find for its support a precedent established by the majority in Congress, in the irregular admission of Territories, as States, into the Union, to which I have heretofore alluded? Is there not reason to fear that the example which Congress had previously presented, encouraged the Rhode Island rebellion?

It has been attempted to defend that rebellion, upon the doctrines of the American Declaration of Independence; but no countenance to it can be fairly derived from them. That declaration asserts, it is true, that whenever a government becomes destructive of the ends of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, for the security of which it was instituted, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and institute a new government ; and so undoubtedly it is. But this is a right only to be exercised in grave and extreme cases. "Prudence indeed will dictate," says that venerated instrument, "that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes." "But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, their duty, to throw off such government."

Will it be pretended that the actual government of Rhode Island is destructive of life, liberty, or the pursuit of happiness? That it has perpetrated a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing the same invariable object, to reduce the people under absolute despotism? Or that any other cause of complaint existed, but such as might be peacefully remedied, without violence and without blood? Such as, in point of fact, the legitimate government had regularly summoned a convention to redress, but for the results of whose deliberations the restless spirit of disorder and rebellion had not patience to wait? Why, fellow-citizens, little Rhody (God bless and preserve her) is one of the most prosperous, enterprising, and enlightened States in this whole Union. Nowhere are life, liberty, and property more perfectly secure.

How is this right of the people to abolish an existing government, and to set up a new one, to be practically exercised? Our revolutionary ancestors did not tell us by words, but they proclaimed it by gallant and noble deeds. Who are the people that are to tear up the whole fabric of human society, whenever and as often as caprice or passion may prompt them? When all the arrangements and ordinances of existing organized society are prostrated and subverted, as must be supposed in such a lawless and irregular movement as that in Rhode Island, the established privileges and distinctions between the sexes, between the colors, between the ages, between natives and foreigners, between the sane and the insane, and between the

innocent and the guilty convict, all the offspring of positive institutions, are cast down and abolished, and society is thrown into one heterogeneous and unregulated mass. And is it contended that the major part of this Babel congregation is invested with the right to build up, at its pleasure, a new government? That as often, and whenever society can be drummed up and thrown into such a shapeless mass, the major part of it may establish another, and another new government, in endless succession? Why, this would overturn all social organization, make revolutions-the extreme and last resort of an oppressed people-the commonest occurrences of human life, and the standing-order of the day. How such a principle would operate, in a certain section of this Union, with a peculiar population, you will readily conceive. No community could endure such an intolerable state of things anywhere, and all would, sooner or later, take refuge from such ceaseless agitation, in the calm repose of absolute despotism.

I know of no mode by which an existing government can be overthrown and put aside, and a new one erected in its place, but by the consent or authority of that government, express or implied, or by forcible resistance, that is, revolution.

Fellow-citizens, I have enumerated these examples of a dangerous spirit of disorganization and disregard of law, with no purpose of giving offense, or exciting bitter and unkind feelings, here or elsewhere, but to illustrate the principles, character, and tendency of the two great parties into which this country is divided. In all of these examples, the democratic party, as it calls itself (a denomination to which I respectfully think it has not the least just pretension), or large portions of that party, extending to whole States, united with apparent cordiality. To all of them the whig party was constantly and firmly opposed. And now let me ask you, in all candor and sincerity, to say truly and impartially to which of these two parties can the interests, the happiness, and the destinies of this great people be most safely confided? I appeal especially, and with perfect confidence, to the candor of the real, the ancient, and long-tried democracy-that old republican party with whom I stood, side by side, during some of the darkest days of the republic, in seasons of both war and peace.

Fellow-citizens of all parties! The present situation of our country is one of unexampled distress and difficulty; but there is no occasion for any despondency. A kind and bountiful Providence has never deserted us; punished us he perhaps has, for our neglect of his blessings and our misdeeds. We have a varied and fertile soil, a genial climate and free institutions. Our whole land is covered, in profusion, with the means of subsistence and the comforts of life. Our gallant ship, it is unfortunately true, lies helpless, tossed on a tempestuous sea, amid the conflicting billows of contending parties, without a rudder and without a faithful pilot. But that ship is our country, embodying all our past glory, all our future hopes. Its crew is our whole people, by whatever political denomination they are

known. If she goes down, we all go down together. Let us remember the dying words of the gallant and lamented Lawrence. Don't give up the ship. The glorious banner of our country, with its unstained stars and stripes, still proudly floats at its mast-head. With stout hearts and strong arms we can surmount all our difficulties. Let us all, all, rally round that banner, and finally resolve to perpetuate our liberties and regain our lost prosperity.

Whigs! Arouse from the ignoble supineness which encompasses you; awake from the lethargy in which you lie bound; cast from you that unworthy apathy which seems to make you indifferent to the fate of your country. Arouse! awake! shake off the dew-drops that glitter on your garments, and once more march to battle and to victory. You have been disappointed, deceived, betrayed; shamefully deceived and betrayed. But will you therefore also prove false and faithless to your country, or obey the impulses of a just and patriotic indignation? As for Captain Tyler, he is a mere snap, a flash in the pan; pick your whig flints and try your rifles again.

[The conclusion of the speech was followed with general and tremendous cheering; and the largest, and one of the most respectable multitudes ever assembled in Kentucky, dispersed without a solitary instance of disorder or indecorum occurring.]

REPLY TO MR. MENDENHALL.

RICHMOND, INDIANA, OCTOBER 1, 1842.

[WHATEVER may be the merits of Mr. Mendenhall, he has certainly found a place in history. While Mr. Clay was on a visit to Indiana, in the autumn of 1842, the occasion was embraced by some of his political opponents to encourage and put forward the above-named individual, a member of the Society of Friends, in violation of the rights of hospitality, publicly to present a petition to Mr. Clay to liberate his slaves; and the following remarks are Mr. Clay's answer.]

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, 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 fulfillment 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-aye, 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,