The Yazoo City Whig And Political Register

True Whig Sentiments.

"With respect to the station which that portion of our population engaged in mechanical pursuits ought to occupy in the United States, I think that ALL citizens, Native and NATURALIZED, without any regard to their respective vocations, should enjoy such consideration in society as is due to their virtue and intelligence, their industry, sobriety and general deportment." HENRY CLAY.

In the recent letter of Mr. Clay to the editors of the "Tennessee State Agriculturist," which we copied into our last paper, the above paragraph could not fail to attract attention, and we republish it, in order that the liberal and catholic views of its enlightened author may be the more generally known.

Than HENRY CLAY, there is no man in this country who more cordially despises those distinctions in society, which would-be aristocrats sometimes attempt to create, but which all men of enlarged and comprehensive views repudiate as the offspring of little minds--the bantlings of grovelling spirits, who, conscious of their own want of intellectual calibre, would have others defer to them, because of their possession of wealth, or because of their occupying, by inheritance, a rank in society which they never could have reached by their own personal exertions.

It has ever been one of the brightest traits in the character of Mr. Clay, that he has estimated human character by its intrinsic, and not by its adventitious worth. By him all men, be their calling what it may, are esteemed according to their respective merits; and whether the visiter at Ashland be a professional man—a man of wealth—a mechanic, or a laborer, each is treated with the same courtesy and kindness. So cordial, so unostentatious, so warm-hearted and sincere are the welcome of all, that it is impossible to be there five minutes before each feels himself perfectly disembarrassed and at home; for where the host evinces, by the urbanity of his manners—by his unfeigned attentions to all, that distinctions, not founded upon superior virtue, are repulsive to his nature, those who partake of his hospitality forget for the time their own prejudices, if they have any, and hail those around his generous board as equals and brethren. This deportment of Mr. Clay is not assumed for effect, but results from the native impulses of his heart; he has been from his childhood up to the present hour the same being, warm in his attachments, open, free and social in his habits—those who were the companions and friends of his youth retain the same relations now as then; neither circumstances nor fortune having made the least difference in his deportment to those who had claims upon his early friendship.
We have thus endeavored to give a brief sketch of HENRY CLAY as he is, and has been from early life, and we would ask the disinterested patriot, if such a man, qualified by the highest mental attainments, by ripe experience in the nation's affairs, is not worthy of the highest place within the gift of freemen. American (Balto.) Whig.