Page:Life of Henry Clay (Schurz; v. 1).djvu/198

186 she expunge from her Constitution the provision discriminating against free persons of color, was taken up for consideration. It was voted down by 146 yeas to 6 nays. When the vote had been announced, there was a pause in the proceedings. The deadlock seemed complete. A feeling of helplessness appeared to pervade the House. It was then that Clay, who had arrived a week before, took the matter in hand. Breaking the silence which prevailed, he rose and said that, if no other gentleman made any motion on the subject, “he should on the day after to-morrow move to go into committee of the whole to take into consideration the resolution from the Senate on the subject of Missouri.”

He did so on January 29. He declared himself ready to vote for the senate resolution even with the proviso it contained, although he did not deem that proviso necessary. The speeches he delivered on this occasion were again left unreported, but their arguments appear in the replies they called forth. Admitting that the clause in the Missouri Constitution respecting free persons of color was incompatible with the Constitution of the United States, this circumstance could not, he argued, be an objection to the admission of Missouri as a state of the Union, because the legislators of Missouri would be bound by their oaths to support the federal Constitution, and would, therefore, never make any law obnoxious to it. The weakness of this argument did not escape the attention of his