CHAPTER XXVI.
THE COMPROMISE OF 1850.
When during the presidential campaign Clay entreated his friends to leave him undisturbed in his retirement, he meant undoubtedly what he said. But after a short rest his interest in public affairs naturally revived to new activity.
The strife about slavery growing constantly more embittered and threatening, some thinking men in the South, who in the general excitement had kept their temper, asked themselves whether slavery was really the economical, moral, and political blessing its hot-blooded devotees represented it to be; and here and there, mainly in the border Slave States, voices in favor of emancipation began to be heard again, some in mere whispers, some in more courageous utterance. Especially in Kentucky, where in the spring of 1849 a convention to revise the state constitution was to be elected, the subject became the theme of public discussion. It was the same cause which fifty years before had called forth young Henry Clay's first efforts; and now the old statesman of seventy-two lifted up his voice for it once more. In January, 1849, he went to New Orleans, and from there he sent a letter on emancipa-
