Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 9.djvu/91

 CLAY feature in her policy is that which constantly elevates the European and depresses the Ameri- can character. Out of upward of seven hun- dred and fifty viceroys and captains-general, whom she has appointed since the conquest of America, about eighteen only have been from the body of her American population. On all occasions, she seeks to raise and promote her European subjects, and to degrade and humili- ate the Creoles. Wherever in America her sway extends, everything seems to pine and wither beneath its baneful influence. The richest re- gions of the earth, man, his happiness and his education, all the fine faculties of his soul, are regulated and modified and molded to suit the execrable purposes of an inexorable despotism. Such is the brief and imperfect picture of the state of things in Spanish America in 1808, when the famous transactions of Bayonne oc- curred. The king of Spain and the Indies (for Spanish America has always constituted an in- tegral part of the Spanish Empire) abdicated his throne and became a voluntary captive. Even at this day one does not know whether he should most condemn the baseness and perfidy of the one party, or despise the meanness and imbecility of the other. If the obligation of obedience and allegiance existed on the part of the Colonies to the king of Spain, it was founded on the duty of protection which he owed them. By disqualifying himself for the performance of this duty, they became released from that IX-O 81