“What has been done will be followed by a great moral revolution of feeling and thinking in reference to the domestic institutions of the South. Already the discussion has effected a great change among ourselves. There were many, very many, in the slave-holding states, who, at the commencement of the controversy, believed that slavery was an evil to be tolerated, because we could not escape from it, but not to be defended. That has passed away. We now believe that it has been a great blessing to both of the races — the European and African — which, by a mysterious Providence, have been brought together in the southern section of this Union. I heard the Senator from Kentucky with pleasure. His speech will have a happy effect, and will do much to consummate what had already been so happily begun and successfully carried on to a completion.”
How would the proud and fiery spirit of Clay have blazed forth at this haughty assumption of superiority and leadership, had he not been a candidate for the presidency! But the candidate for the presidency, having said what he did not feel to win the favor of the slave-holders, bore his humiliation in silence. Calhoun assigned to him a place in his church on the bench of the penitents, and the candidate for the presidency took the insult without wincing.
Not long after these occurrences Senator Preston of South Carolina, with whom Clay had consulted before delivering his speech against the abolitionists, addressed a Whig meeting in Philadelphia, and said in the course of an eloquent eulogy on Clay: “On one occasion Mr. Clay did me the
