“This terrible Mexican war now raging, I fear, is to result in consequences disastrous to our Government.  That we shall drive Mexico to the wall there cannot be a doubt.  We will avail ourselves of the conqueror’s right in demanding indemnity for the expenses of the war.  She has nothing to pay with, but territory.  We shall dispossess her of at least a third, perhaps the half of her domain; this will open the question of slavery again, and how it is to be settled God only knows.  For myself, I see no peaceful solution of the question.  The North and the South are equally fanatical upon the subject, and the difficulties of adjustment augmenting every day.  You will agree with me that the institution violates the sentiment of the civilized world.  It is unnatural, and must yield to the united hostility of the world.  But what is to be done with the negro?  You cannot make a citizen of him, and clothe him with political power.  This would lead rapidly to a war of races; and of consequence to the extinction of the negro.  He will not labor without compulsion; and very soon the country would be filled with brigands; the penitentiaries would not hold the convicts; and the public security would ultimately demand that they should be sent from the country.

“To remove such a number, even to the West Indies, would involve an expense beyond the resources of the Government; to force them into Mexico would make her a more dangerous and disagreeable neighbor than she is; besides, this would only be postponing the evil, for I apprehend we shall want to annex all of Mexico before many years.  As I remarked, I can see no peaceful solution of this great social evil; but fear it is fraught with fatal consequences to our Government.”

John Randolph, soon after the election of Mr. Adams, was sent to the United States Senate by Virginia.  His enmity to Mr. Clay had received a new whetting through the events of the year or two just past; and the natural acerbity of his nature was soured into bitter malignity.  He believed every word of the story of Creemer, and harped upon it with the pertinacity of the Venetian upon the daughter of Shylock.  He was scarcely ever upon the floor that some offensive allusion was not made to this subject.  It was immaterial to him what the subject-matter was under discussion:  he found a means to have a throw at the Administration, and of consequence, at Clay; and bargain and corruption slid from his tongue with the concentration of venom of the rattlesnake.  The very thought of Clay seemed to inspire his genius for vituperation; his eye would gleam, his meagre and attenuated form would writhe and contort as if under the enchantment of a demon; his long, bony fingers would be extended, as if pointing at an imaginary Clay, air-drawn as the dagger of Macbeth, as he would writhe the muscles of his beardless, sallow, and wrinkled face, pouring out the gall of his soul upon his hated enemy.  It was in one of these hallucinations that he uttered