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with a kind expression of our good-wishes and our sympathiesand it was rejected!" Go home, if you can; go home, if you dare, to your constituents, and tell them that you voted it down; meet, if you can, the appalling countenances of those who sent you here, and tell them that you shrank from the declaration of your own sentiments; that you can not tell how, but that some unknown dread, some indescribable apprehension, some indefinable danger, drove you from your purpose; that the spectres of cimeters, and crowns, and crescents, gleamed before you and alarmed you; and that you suppressed all the noble feelings prompted by religion, by liberty, by national independence, and by humanity! I can not bring myself to believe, that such will be the feeling of a majority of the committee. But, for myself, though every friend of the cause should desert it, and I be left to stand alone with the gentleman from Massachusetts, I will give to his resolution the poor sanction of my unqualified approbation."

Though this resolution failed, it is pleasant to be able to record the fact, that the United States were the first to recognise the independence of Greece, and that it was consummated by Mr. Clay as secretary of state, under the administration of Mr. J. Q. Adams.

The efforts of Mr. Clay as disclosed in this chapter, lay open a volume of history, which, in the rapid and absorbing career of subsequent events, has for many years slept in repose; but which is in fact one of the most brilliant demonstrations in the character of this American statesman. His position at this epoch of the occidental world, is defined in the letter of Mr. Rush. It was HENRY CLAY that stepped in between the struggling millions of South America and their European oppressors, and spoke to them words of encouragement. It was HENRY CLAY that threw his shield over that wide field of suffering humanity, and gave it breathing time, and hope, and courage. It was HENRY CLAY that "looked at Spain and the Indies, and called a new world into existence," and not MR. CANNING.

It has already been remarked, in substance, that a disappointment which, to a considerable extent, may have been felt, in having witnessed the unsettled state, and frequent revolutions, of the South American republics, since their severance from the parent state, does not detract at all from the virtue of those who sympathized with them in their first efforts for emancipation, nor from the merit of that moral aid which they derived from the gallant labors of Mr. Clay in their behalf. But there are even more substantial and more gratifying reflections arising from that quarter, than the consideration of this effective sympathy which does so much honor to human nature.

In the first place, it is obvious, that all the agitations, revolutions, and calamitous vicissitudes, through which the South American states have passed, since they achieved their independence, are greatly less evils than would have resulted from their resubjugation, if the treatment they had previously received, may be taken as a criterion of that which would have been dealt out to them, in the event of their having been reconquered. They had been sealed up under a religioso-political despotism, unexampled for its severity in the history of the world. It was the deliberate policy of Spain, for fear that colonies so remote might some time assert their just rights, to imprison that immense portion of the human mind in the bands of ignorance and superstition; to cut them off from all intercourse with the rest of the world, and with each other; to send governors to rule with the bayonet, and priests to subdue with the terrors of the inquisition; to keep the people in perpetual and hopeless servitude to the throne and to the church; to draw from them all the fruits of their labor, and all the wealth of their mines; to forbid all pursuits, and all products of labor, that would not enrich the domestic empire; and to maintain a subjection of mind and body, that would never have a spirit to complain-much less courage to rebel. If any state of things could be worse than such a condition of twenty millions of the human family, let a freeman rise, and tell what it is. But a resubjugation would have made that condition as much worse as imagination can conceive. The atrocities committed, in the partial advantages gained by the royal arms during the contest, on men, women, and children, which none but the most diabolical feelings could suggest or authorize, were but foretastes of the rigor and inhumanity destined for all those people, in case of their failure of final success.

Unless it be maintained, that it was right and best, that South America should have remained for ever under Spain, with such designs as history discloses, then clearly, the only better time to assert their rights, must have been an earlier period, instead of a later; for they could never afterward have been so well prepared. Every reasoning man, therefore, will naturally come to the conclusion, that such a people must necessarily pass through a protracted and painful school of experience, in their attempts to establish a free government and free institutions, before they will be likely to accomplish all that is most desirable.

One great thing has been obtained: they have cut loose from the despotisms of the old world-in all probability for ever. It would require much profound thought to appreciate all the advantages of such a step. But they are many and great. They have taken rank in the American family of nations, with somewhat, at least, of the American spirit, as distinctive from that of Europe. Their model of political society has ever been the North American republic. It may be ages before they will gain what they desire, and what they set out for. But they are free-comparatively so. They have chances, aspirations, hopes, energies, resources, capabilities. Every succeeding generation increases in knowledge, and it may be hoped in virtue. If an oppressor rises to-day, he is put down to-morrow. They are increasing in numbers, wealth, and power; opening intercourse with the wide world; and every change through which they pass, though it may seem disastrous for the time being, operates as a fermentation to purify the masses, and as a challenge to call better spirits into the field. If all has not been realized that was hoped for, it is more because those expectations were unreasonable, than that the freedom of states and the rights of man have gained nothing. They have gained much, and a foundation is laid for future and boundless acquisitions.

It was early, indeed, but not without a forecast of coming events -not without a profound consideration of the mighty theme-that Mr. Clay, in the former period of his life, took such ripe views of the destiny of the South American states. He saw that it was best that their political connexion with Europe should be severed, and he was right. He saw that it was natural they should copy after the institutions of the north; and they have aimed to do so. He saw, that the social, political, and commercial connexions between North and South America, were destined to be important to all parties; and they have proved so, and are becoming more and more

SO.

The instructions which he prepared for the representatives from the United States to the Panama congress, noticed in a former chapter, embodied a complete system of policy for all the American states, north and south, itself truly American, as opposed to those European dogmas, which are adverse to American interests, and to American rights. Though the doctrines of that letter are little known, they can not fail to attract the attention of future statesmen, as well in South America as in North, and it need not be surprising, if they should yet be adopted as a common creed among the states of this western hemisphere.

CHAPTER XII.

THE CAUSE OF GREAT EFFECTS.-MR. CLAY ON THE SEMINOLE CAMPAIGN.

THE special interest of this speech arises from the fact of its having been the probable cause of important and momentous events in the history of the United States-a cause which will readily occur to those who are acquainted with the temper-as who is not?-of the eminent individual whose conduct in that campaign is made a subject of animadversion in this parliamentary effort. What other causes might have arisen in the absence of this, to prompt a vindictive and implacable mind to a course of conduct like to that which apparently grew out of this, it is impossible to say; but few will doubt that this must have had its influence.

On the 12th of January, 1819, Mr. Nelson, of Virginia, from the committee on military affairs in the house of representatives, brought in a report to that body, based upon the documents which had been laid before them respecting the events of the campaign of 1818, against the Indians in Florida, under the conduct of Major-General Andrew Jackson, and submitted the following resolution:

"Resolved, That the house of representatives of the United States, disapproves the proceedings in the trial and execution of Alexander Arbuthnot and Robert C. Ambrister."

The seizure and occupation of the Spanish posts by General Jackson, under the circumstances of the case, were also disapproved in the majority report of the committee, and defended by Mr. Johnson, of Kentucky, in a report from a minority, which also vindicated the trial and execution of Arbuthnot and Ambrister. The report of the majority says: "Your committee must here, in justice to their own feelings, express their extreme regret, that it has become their duty to disapprove the conduct of one, who has, on a former occasion, so eminently contributed to the honor and defence of the nation, as has Major-General Jackson; but the more elevated the station, the more exalted the character of the individual, the more necessary is it, by a reasonable, yet temperate expression of public opinion, through the constitutional organs, to prevent the recurrence of incidents at variance with the principles of our government and laws."

As the administration was implicated in these transactions, in having felt obliged, as the least of two evils, though with great reluctance, to sustain General Jackson, all its influence in the house was of course brought to bear against the report of the committee. The executive was placed in an embarrassing position, in being obliged to defend what it really disapproved.

The following are extracts from President Monroe's private correspondence with General Jackson on this subject, since published:

** *

"WASHINGTON, July 19, 1818.

"Your attack of the Spanish posts, and occupancy of them, particularly Pensacola, being an occurrence of the most delicate and interesting nature, &c. In calling you into active service against the Seminoles, and communicating to you the orders which had been given just before to General Gaines, the views and intentions of the government were fully disclosed in respect to the operations in Florida. In transcending the limit prescribed by those orders, you acted on your own responsibility."

In another letter, in answer to a private one from General Jackson, replying to the above of July 19th, dated Washington, October 20th, 1818, Mr. Monroe says:

"I was sorry to find you understood your instructions relative to operations in Florida, different from what we intended. I was satisfied, however, that you had good reason for your conduct, and have acted in all things on that principle."

In a letter of President Monroe, while absent from the seat of government, to Mr. Calhoun, secretary of war, dated Highland, Sept. 9, 1818, he says:

"Our view of his [General Jackson's] powers, is decidedly different from his, on which, too, we acted without entertaining a suspicion that he would misunderstand it. I am inclined to think I had better answer his letter immediately. (The answer is that of October 20th, as above.] He may expect that his conception of his orders should appear by document in the department; and it seems to be proper, that the sense in which they were given, and understood by the department, after what has passed, should be recorded there. A communication between you and him, on this head,

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