He was now himself a leader; the men who had been at the head of the Republican Party from the time of Washington, were passing from supremacy. The war had developed new necessities and new views of political subjects, and new men were taking hold of public service. What had been denounced in 1810 became the policy of 1816; the Federal party passed away, for its leaders had offended the nation, and the new Republicans had adopted their principal measures. We now find Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun still hand in hand, with Daniel Webster the Union-lover and John Randolph the Union-hater in opposition, and the President still holding the old traditions. The conditions of affairs in South America was the occasion of a bill for more strict enforcing of neutrality. Mr. Clay dissented from the measure. The ignorance and superstition imputed to the people of the Spanish provinces, he insisted, was due to the tyranny and oppression, hierarchic and political, under which they groaned. Their independence was the first step toward improving their condition. “Let them have free government if they are capable of enjoying it,” said he; “but let them, at all events, have independence. I may be accused of an imprudent utterance of my feelings on this occasion. I care not. When the independence, the happiness, the liberty of a whole people is at stake, and that people our neighbors, occupy a portion of the same continent, imitating our example and participating of the same sympathies with ourselves, I will boldly avow my feelings and my wishes in their behalf, even at the hazard of such an imputation.” He had exulted at the victory of New Orleans by a Western General in a Western State. But when General Jackson in the Seminole War, enlisted volunteers again without civil authority, invaded Florida, decoyed Indian Chiefs into his camp by a flag of truce and put them to death, besides executing two British subjects, Mr. Clay denounced his acts as a disregard of every principle of honor, humanity and justice. He was, however, again in advance of popular sentiment. The proposed admission of Missouri to the Union as a Slave State became an issue for several years. It was a question whether there should continue as before an equal number of Free and Slave States, so as to assure the latter a safeguard in the Senate. It was interest on one side and sentiment on the other. The excitement was so intense as to threaten the Union itself. Dissolution was actually considered. The matter was finally determined by a vote to admit Missouri but to exclude slavery from all the region west of it and north of its southern boundary line. In this controversy Mr. Clay acted with the Southern Congressmen, and by his sagacity as Speaker, the measure was made sure: the conflict, however, to be again renewed a third of a century later, transforming the politics of a Nation.