To the studious attention of those vandals who contend that the above provision requires the rendition of fugitive _slaves_, we respectfully commend the following resolution, which, it will be observed, was _unanimously_ adopted:-- "On motion of Mr. Randolph, the word '_servitude_' was struck out, and '_service_' unanimously inserted--the former being thought to express the condition of slaves, and the latter the obligation of _free_ persons."--_Madison Papers, vol. III., p. 1569._ Well done for the Randolphs! THE VOICE OF CLAY. Henry Clay, whom everybody loved, and at the mention of whose name the American heart always throbs with emotions of grateful remembrance, said, in an address before the Kentucky Colonization Society, in 1829:-- "It is believed that nowhere in the _farming_ portion of the United States would slave-labor be generally employed, if the proprietor were not tempted to raise slaves by the high price of the Southern market, which keeps it up in his own." In the United States Senate, in 1850, he used the following memorable words:-- "I am extremely sorry to hear the Senator from Mississippi say that he requires, first the extension of the Missouri Compromise line to the Pacific, and also that he is not satisfied with that, but requires, if I understand him correctly, a positive provision for the admission of slavery South of that line. And now, Sir, coming from a slave State, as I do, I owe it to myself, I owe it to truth, I owe it to the subject to say that no earthly power could induce me to vote for a specific measure for the introduction of slavery where it had not before existed, either South or North of that line. Coming as I do from a slave State, it is my solemn, deliberate and well-matured determination that no power, no earthly power, shall compel me to vote for the positive introduction of slavery either South or North of that line. Sir, while you reproach, and justly too, our British ancestors for the introduction of this institution upon the continent of America I am, for one, unwilling that the posterity of the present inhabitants of California and of New Mexico, shall reproach us for doing just what we reproach Great Britain for doing to us. If the citizens of those territories choose to establish slavery, and if they come here with Constitutions establishing slavery, I am for admitting them with such provisions in their Constitutions; but then it will be their own work, and not ours, and their posterity will have to reproach them, and not us, for forming Constitutions allowing the institution of slavery to exist among them. These are my views, Sir, and I choose to express them; and I care not how extensively or universally they are known." Hear him further; he says:--