304 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 



abolitionist — I know the man — I know he hates slavery, 

 but loves his country. A large majority of the slave- 

 holders are men of proud spirit, but true hearts and stout 

 arms and disposition to resist foreign dictation. They 

 are to be conciliated, not despised and their rights tram- 

 pled on and made subservient to the will of men who 

 would illegally wrest their legal possessions from them. 

 That Kentucky would this day have been ripe for eman- 

 cipation, I have no doubt, if she had been conciliated in- 

 stead of cursed by the abolitionists of the North. 



Here is more language of a Kentucky abolitionist. It 

 is from the pen of Cassius M. Clay.^ Compare it with 

 that of the Emancipator, and tell me which is most likely 

 to affect the abolition of slavery. Mr, Clay says : 



"Slavery is a municipal institution. It exists by no 

 other right and tenure than the constitution of Kentucky. 



"I am opposed to depriving slaveholders of their slaves 

 by any other than constitutional and legal means. Of 

 course, then, I have no sympathy for those who would 

 liberate the slaves of Kentucky in other ways. I have no 

 connection with any man, or set of men, who would sanc- 

 tion or undertake the illegal liberation of slaves; and I 

 feel bound, by my allegiance to the State of Kentucky, 

 to resist (by force, if necessary) all such efforts. 



"Whilst I hold that the United States constitution has 

 no power to establish slavery in the District of Columbia, 

 or in the Territories, or in any place of its exclusive 

 supremacy; so I contend, that in the States, once ad- 

 mitted into the Union, and thereby become sovereign and 

 indepetident, Congress has no power or right to interfere 



' Cassius Marcellus Clay, born October 19, 1810, at White Hall, 

 Madison County, Kentucky; died July 22, 1903. State legislator. 

 1835 and 1837 from Madison County, and 1840 from Fayette County. 

 His hatred for slavery became a crusading passion. Began publish- 

 ing the True American, an abolitionist paper, in 1845; was forced 

 to remove to Cincinnati where he continued its publication. Later 

 changing its name to Examiner, he transferred it to Louisville. 

 Soldier during Mexican War. Ambassador to Russia under Lin- 

 coln. See Dictionary of American Biography, 4:169-70. 



