ers on the West Indies," of which the great
argument is, that emancipation has been followed by great prosperity to
the planters, and attended with abundant blessings, temporal and
spiritual, to the other classes, and that the same course would
necessarily be followed by the same results in the United States. He has
accumulated proof upon proof of his conclusions supplied by personal and
extensive investigation in the British Colonies. But Henry Clay shews no
sign of conviction. Yet though he made to us the absurd remark, already
quoted, on Joseph John Gurney's work, I have too high an opinion of his
understanding to think him the victim of his own sophistry. He is a
lawyer and a statesman. He is accustomed to weigh evidence, and to
discriminate facts. I have little doubt that all my valued friend would
have taught him, he knew already. He could not be ignorant of the
contrast presented by his own State of Kentucky, and the adjoining State
of Ohio, and that the difference is solely owing to slavery. If J.J.
Gurney could have shewn that abolition would soon be the high road to
the President's chair, it is not improbable that he would have made an
illustrious convert to anti-slavery principles. Henry Clay's celebrated
speech before alluded to, was delivered in the character of a candidate
for the Presidency just before the last election--it was prepared with
great care, and rehearsed beforehand to a select number of his political
friends. The whig party being the strongest, and he being the foremost
man of that party, he might be looked upon as President-elect, if he
could but conciliate the south, by wiping off the cloud of abolitionism
that faintly obscured his reputation. He succeeded to his heart's desire
in his immediate object, but eventually, by this very speech, completely
destroyed his sole chance of success, and was ultimately withdrawn from
the contest. Thus does ambition overleap itself.[A]

[Footnote A: As a practical commentary on Henry Clay's professions of a
regard for the cause of human liberty, I append the following
advertisement, which, about two years ago, was circulated in Ohio:

"THREE HUNDRED DOLLAR'S REWARD.

"_Run away_ from James Kendall, in Bourbon County, Ky., to whom
he was hired the present year, on Saturday night last, the 14th
instant, a negro man, named Somerset, about twenty-six years of
age, five feet, seven or eight inches high, of a dark copper
color, having