the event of disunion not one could be
demanded. Mr. Clay said he had often been asked when he would consent to
a dissolution of the Union. He answered _Never_, because he could
conceive of no possible contingency that would make it for the interest
and happiness of the people to break up this glorious confederacy. He
would yield to it, if Congress were to usurp a power, which he was sure,
it never would, of abolishing slavery within the States, for in the
contingency of such a usurpation we should be in a better condition as
to slavery out of the Union than in it. He believed that the time would
come, at some very distant day, when the density of the population of
the United States would be so great that free labor would be cheaper
than slave labor, and that then the slaves would be set free; and that
Africa would be competent to receive, by colonization from America, all
the descendants of its own race. If the agitation of this subject should
be continued, it must lead to the formation of two parties--one for the
Union and the other against it. If such a division should become
necessary, he announced himself a member of the Union party what ever
might be its elements. He would go further. "I have had," said he,
"great hopes and confidence in the principles of the Whig party, as
being most likely to conduce to the honor, to the prosperity, and the
glory of my country. But if it is to be merged into a contemptible
abolition party, and if abolitionism is to be engrafted on the Whig
creed, from that moment I renounce the party, and cease to be a Whig. I
go yet a step further: if I am alive, I will give my humble support for
the Presidency to that man, to whatever party he may belong, who is
uncontaminated by fanaticism, rather than to one who, crying out all the
time and aloud that he is a Whig, maintains doctrines utterly subversive
of the Constitution and the Union." Mr. Clay said that the events of the
last few months had thrown together men of opposite parties, and he
could say with truth and pleasure that during the late session he was in
conference quite as often, if not oftener, with Democrats than Whigs;
and he "found in the Democratic party quite as much patriotism, devotion
to the Union, honor, and probity as in the other party."

Gen. JAMES HAMILTON has recently addressed a somewhat remarkable letter
to the people of South Carolina upon the state of public affairs and the
course which he desires his own State t