Page:Life of Henry Clay (Schurz; v. 1).djvu/39



first participation in politics was highly honorable to him. The people of Kentucky were dissatisfied with those clauses in their Constitution which provided for the election of the governor and of the state senators through the medium of electors. They voted that a convention be called to revise the fundamental law. This convention was to meet in 1799. Some public-spirited men thought this a favorable opportunity for an attempt to rid the state of slavery. An amendment to the Constitution was prepared providing for general emancipation, and among its advocates in the popular discussions which preceded the meeting of the convention, Clay was one of the most ardent. It was to this cause that he devoted his first essays as a writer for the press, and his first political speeches in popular assemblies. But the support which that cause found among the farmers and traders of Kentucky was discouragingly slender.

The philosophical anti-slavery movement which accompanied the American Revolution had by this time very nearly spent its force. In fact, its prac-