Slavery & States’ Rights

Henry Clay… On Slavery

henry clay headshot

“There is a moral fitness in the idea of returning to Africa her children, whose ancestors have been torn from her by the ruthless hand of fraud and violence. Transplanted to a foreign land, they will carry back to their native soil the rich fruits of religion, civilization, law and liberty. May it not be one of the great designs of the Ruler of the universe (whose ways are often inscrutable by short-sighted mortals), thus to transform an original crime, into a signal blessing to that most unfortunate portion of the globe?”

~ Henry Clay (Sec. of State) speech to the American Colonization Society, January 20, 1827