But to return to Mr. Clay, whence I digressed. He says,

"It was proper and necessary distinctly to state, that he
understood it constituted no part of the object of this
meeting, to touch or agitate in the slightest degree, a
delicate question, connected with another portion of the
coloured population of our country. It was not proposed to
deliberate upon or consider at all, any question of
emancipation, or that which was connected with the abolition
of slavery. It was upon that condition alone, he was sure,
that many gentlemen from the South and the West, whom he saw
present, had attended, or could be expected to co-operate.
It was on that condition only, that he himself had
attended."

--That is to say, to fix a plan to get those of the coloured people,
who are said to be free, away from among those of our brethren whom
they unjustly hold in bondage, so that they may be enabled to keep
them the more secure in ignorance and wretchedness, to support them
and their children, and consequently they would have the more obedient
slaves. For if the free are allowed to stay among the slaves, they
will have intercourse together, and, of course, the free will learn
the slaves _bad habits_, by teaching them that they are MEN, as
well as other people, and certainly _ought_, and _must_ be FREE.

I presume, that every intelligent man of colour must have some idea of
Mr. Henry Clay, originally of Virginia, but now of Kentucky; they know
too, perhaps, whether he is a friend, or a foe, to the coloured
citizens of this country, and of the world. This gentleman, according