Talk:Cassius Marcellus Clay (abolitionist)

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Note: Due to a spelling error in a previous merge, early history for this page can be found at Cassisus Marcellus Clay (abolitionist)--Bookandcoffee 02:33, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Slaveowning

I'm working on the Muhammad Ali page, and in Ali's semiautobiography he writes that CMC was a "White man from Kentucky who owned slaves." Is it known whether Clay himself ever owned slaves? Door 08:52, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Cassius Clay was a gradual abolitionist who renounced slavery freeing his slaves early in his adult years. User:Dinobrya

According to his memoirs, in 1848 he became the legal "owner" of 17 slaves held by his father, Green Clay. He immediately freed all of them and spent several thousand 1848 dollars to "purchase" and free many of their friends and relatives. It is not clear that he was a gradual abolitionist. All of his writing and speeches indicate that he supported immediate abolition. This notion that he was a gradualist was written by some early biographers and repeated without citation over the years. He ran what was for some time the only abolitionist newspaper in the South, fortifying the newspaper with cannon and lining the walls with gunpowder. He was charged with "public mayhem" by the government for making abolitionist speeches at pro-slavery rallies, for which he almost lost his life several times. In that particular case he was defended by his cousin, Henry Clay. He stopped suporting Henry Clay and the wig party after the 1840's, since he felt they were too conservative on slavery. While in Russia he witnessed the czar's edict of 1861 freeing more than 20 million serfs. When he was called back from Russia, by Lincoln, to be appointed a major general in the Union Army, he publicly refused the appointment unless Lincoln would sign a similar delcaration. Lincoln sent him to Kentucky to assess the political support for this. Clay reported that it was fine, and the emancipation proclamation was signed several weeks later. (p.s. I don't know how to do Wikipedia edits, otherwise I'd update with some of this info myself. What I'm writing is from his Memoirs. If people would like detailed citations I can find them.)

[edit] talk: Cassisus Marcellus Clay (abolitionist).

talk: Cassisus Marcellus Clay (abolitionist).

Hopiakuta 20:06, 23 August 2006 (UTC)