The Hillsborough Recorder

MR. CLAY AND MR. CALHOUN.

During the debate which recently occurred in the Senate between Mr. Clay and Mr. Calhoun, Mr. Clay said:

Mr. President there is one remark of the Senator (Mr. Calhoun) which I cannot allow to pass without notice. That Senator has again alluded to the subject of abolition—a portion of the public press and among others, a paper in this place supposed to be the organ of the Senator has made a charge upon me which every Senator on this floor knows to be false. They have charged me with being an abolitionist—I, an abolitionist! I, an abolitionist!! I, sir, who represent slave-holders, and who am as ready as any man on this floor or elsewhere, when a case occurs of real danger to that or any other right secured by the Constitution, to defend it to the utmost. I have seen no such danger—much as I have seen to regret and to condemn in the conduct of the abolitionists; I have seen no such indications of danger of interference with our rights by the action of the States or of this Government, to justify a resort to those desperate measures which will endanger our glorious and happy institutions—nor have I seen any thing to satisfy me that the harsh epithets and violent denunciations of the gentleman can have any other than the most injurious effects—and I say, here in my place that the course of the Senator has made more abolitionists in the last two years, than all the powers of the abolitionists themselves ever would have made;—and, I say further, sir, that there are those who agitate this delicate and dangerous subject, from motives of selfish and personal ambition. I understand the game sir: it is intended to unite the South on this and other kindred topics; and when that section is consolidated into a dense and excited mass, some other topic will be started, to consolidate the necessary support in some other section. I believe this, sir, nothing the less because gentlemen are eternally asseverating that they do not expect or desire office: and affect with the loftiest scorn, to trample the highest honors of the republic under their feet.

Sir, I will not countenance such unholy schemes; nor will I hesitate to denounce them wheresoever and by whomsoever started: I go for the Union, the whole Union, as we received it from our fathers;—I go for no sectional interests, or parties—no Southern party, no Western no Northern, no Eastern party. But I desire to see the Government administered in a spirit of broad, expansive, equal justice; on such principles alone can it be preserved, or is it worth preserving.

Sir, my destiny has been cast among a slave-holding people, and whenever a conflict shall come in defence of our rights to our slaves, (which God avert!) here or elsewhere, I shall be found in front of that Senator.