Page:Life of Henry Clay (Schurz; v. 1).djvu/313

Rh to agree to a stipulation for the surrender of fugitive slaves.”

The negotiation presents a melancholy spectacle: a republic offering to surrender deserters from the army or navy of a monarchical power, if that power would agree to surrender slaves escaped from their owners in that republic! And this happened under the administration of John Quincy Adams; the instructions were signed by Henry Clay, and the proposition was laid before the British government by Albert Gallatin! It is true that in Clay's despatches on this subject we find nothing of his accustomed strength of statement and fervor of reasoning. Neither did there appear anything like zeal in Gallatin's presentation of the matter. It was a mere perfunctory “going through the motions,” as if in expectation of a not unwelcome failure. But even as such, it is a sorry page of history which we should gladly miss. Slavery was a hard taskmaster to the government of this proud American Republic.

It would not be just to assume that a man who had grown up in the anti-slavery school of the revolutionary period, and whose first effort on the political field was made in behalf of emancipation, would lend himself without reluctance to such transactions, unless his conscience had become completely debauched or his opinions thoroughly changed. Clay had remained essentially different, in his ways of thinking and feeling, from the ordinary pro-slavery man. That nervous, sleepless,