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MR. MADISON THOUGHT IT WRONG TO ADMIT IN THE CONSTITUTION THE IDEA
OP PROPERTY IN MEN.— Debates in the Federal Convention, 25th Avgust, 1787.
SPEECH
OF
HON. CHARLES SUMNER
ON THE
Bill for the Admission ef Kansas as a Free State.
In the United States Senate, June 4, 1860.
WASHINGTON, D. C.
PUBLISHED BY THADDEUS HYATT
1SG0.
J
THE CLERGY EDITION OF 40,000
•O
Forty Thousand Copies of Charles Sumner's Great Speech. —
The undersigned has determined to supply the Clergy of the coun-
try, each man of them, with a copy of this, the great speech of the
century. One thousand dollars is required for this purpose. Such
friends of Freedom as desire to share with me the pleasure of this
undertaking, may enclose their subscriptions to my friend, the Hon.
Samuel E. Sewall, No. 46 Washington street, Boston.
THABDEUS HYATT.
Washington Jail, June 13, 1860.
f f§lnyea*y(
MR. MADISON THOUGHT IT WRONG TO ADMIT IN THE CONSTITUTION THE IDEA
OF PROPERTY IN MEN.— Debates in the Federal Convention, 2 5th. August, 1T87.
SPEECH
OF
HON. CHARLES SUMNER,
ON THE
Bill for the Admission of Kansas as a Free State.
In the United States Senate, June 4, 1S60.
Mr. President: Undertaking now, after a I into this chamber. I have no personal wrongs
silence of more than four years, to address I to avenge ; only a barbarous nature could at
the Senate on this important subject, I should
suppress the emotions natural to such an
occasion, if I did not declare on the thresh-
old my gratitude to that Supreme Being,
through whose benign care I am enabled, after
much suffering and many changes, once again
to resume my duties here, and to speak for
the cause which is so near my heart. To the
honored Commonwealth whose representative
I am, and also to my immediate associates in
this body, with whom I enjoy the fellowship
which is found in thinking alike concerning the
Republic, I owe thanks which I seize this mo-
ment to express for the indulgence shown me
throughout the protracted seclusion enjoined
by medical skill ; and I trust that it will not
be thought unbecoming in me to put on rec-
ord here, as an apology for leaving my seat so
long vacant, without making way, by resigna-
tion, for a successor, that I acted under the
illusion of an invalid, whose hopes for restora-
tion to his natural health constantly triumphed
over his disappointments.
When last I entered into this debate, it became
my duty to expose the Crime against Kansas, and
to insist upon the immediate admission of that
Territory as a State of this Union, with a Con-
stitution forbidding Slavery. Time has passed ;
but the question remains. Resuming the dis-
cussion precisely where I left it, I am happy to
avow that rule of moderation, which, it is said,
may venture even to fix the boundaries of wis-
dom itself. I have no personal griefs to utter ;
only a barbarous egotism could intrude these
tempt to wield that vengeance which belongs
to the Lord. The years that have intervened
and the tombs that have been opened since
I spoke have their voices too, which I cannot
fail to hear. Besides, what am I — what is any
man among the living or among the dead,
compared with the Question before us ? It is
this alone which I shall discuss, and I open the
argument with that easy victory which is found
in charity.
The Crime against Kansas stands forth in
painful light. Search history, and you cannot
find its parallel. The slave-trade is bad; but
even this enormity is petty, compared with that
elaborate contrivance by which, in a Christian
age and within the limits of a Republic, all
forms of constitutional liberty were perverted ;
by which all the rights of human nature were vi-
olated, and the whole country was held trembling
on the edge of civil war ; while all this large
exuberance of wickedness, detestable in itself,
becomes tenfold more detestable when its ori-
gin is traced to the madness for Slavery. The
fatal partition between Freedom and Slavery,
known as the Missouri Compromise; the sub-
sequent overthrow or' this partition, and the
seizure of all by Slavery; the violation of
plighted faith ; the conspiracy to force Slavery
at all hazards into Kansas ; the successive in-
vasions by which all security there was de~
stroyed, and the electoral franchise itself was.
trodden down ; the sacrilegious seizure of the:
very polls, and, through pretended forms of
lav/, the imposition of a foreign legislature upon
% lis Territory ; the acts of this legislature,
fortifying the Usurpation, and, among other
things, establishing test-oaths, calculated to
disfranchise actual settlers, friendly to Free-
dom, and securing the privileges of the citizen
to actual strangers friendly to Slavery; the whole
crowned by a statute — " the be-all and the end-
all" of the whole Usurpation — through which
Slavery was not only recognised on this beau-
tiful soil, but made to bristle with a Code of
Death such as the world has rarely seen ; all
these I have fully exposed on a former occa-
sion. And yet the most important part of the
argument was at that time left untouched ; I
mean that which is found ia the Character of
Slavery. This natural sequel, with the permis-
sion of the Senate, I propose now to supply.
Motive is to Crime as soul to body ; and it is
only when we comprehend the motive that we
can truly comprehend the Crime. Here, the
motive is found in Slavery and the rage for its
extension. Therefore, by logical necessity, must
Slavery be discussed; not indirectly, timidly,
and sparingly, but directly, openly, and thor-
oughly. It must be exhibited as it is ; alike
in its influence and in its animating character,
so that not only its outside but its inside may
be seen.
This is no time for soft words or excuses.
All such are out of place. They may turn
away wrath ; but what is the wrath of man ?
This is no time to abandon any advantage in the
argument. Senators sometimes announce that
they resist Slavery on political grounds only,
and remind us that they say nothing of the
moral question. This is wrong. Slavery must
be resisted not only on political grounds ; but
on all other grounds, whether social, economi-
, cal, or moral. Ours is no holiday contest;
nor i* it any strife of rival factions ; of White
and Red Roses; of theatric Neri and Bianchi;
but it is a solemn battle between Right and
Wrong; between Good and Evil. Such a bat-
tle cannot be fought with excuses or with rose-
water. There is austere work to be done, and
Freedom cannot consent to fling away any of
lie*- weapons.
If I were disposed to shrink from this discus-
sion, the boundless assumptions now made by
Scators on the other side would not allow
me. The whole character of Slavery as a
pretended form of civilization is put directly
in issue, with a pertinacity and a hardihood
which banish all reserve on this side. In these
assumptions, Senators from South Carolina
naturally take the lead. Following Mr. Cal-
houn, who pronounced y Slavery the most safe
and stable basis for free institutions in the
world," and Mr. McDuffie, who did not shrink
from calling it "the corner-stone of the repub-
lican edifice," the Senator from South Carolina
[iMr. Hammond] insists that " its forn-is of so-
ciety are the best in the world;" and his col-
league [Mr. Chesnut] takes up the strain.
One Senator from Mississippi [Mr. Davis]
adds, that Slavery " is but a form of civil gov-
ernment for those who are not fit to govern
themselves ; " and his colleague [Mr. Brown]
openly vaunts that it " is a great moral, social,
and political blessing — a blessing to the slave
and a blessing to the master." One Senator
from Virginia, [Mr. Hunter,] in a studied vin-
dication of what he is pleased to call " the so-
cial system of the slaveholding States," exalts
Slavery as "the normal condition of human
society ; " " beneficial to the non-slave-owner
as it is to the slave-owuer " — " best for the hap-
piness of both races ;" and, in enthusiastic ad-
vocacy, declares, "that the very keystone of
the mighty arch, which by its concentrated
strength is able to sustain our social super-
structure, consists in the black marble block of
African slavery. Knock that out," he says,
"and the mighty fabric, with all that it up-
holds, topples and tumbles to its fall." These
were his very words, uttered in debate here.
And his colleague, [Mr. Mason,] who has never
hesitated where blavery was in question, has
proclaimed that it is " ennobling to both master
and slave" — a word which, so far as the slave
was concerned, he changed, on a subsequent
day, to "elevating," assuming still that it is
" ennobling " to the master — which is simply a
new version of an old assumption, by Mr. Mc-
Duffie, of South Carolina, that "Slavery super-
sedes the necessity of an order of nobility."
Thus, by various voices, is the claim made
for Slavery, which is put forward defiantly
as a form of civilization — as if its existence
were not plainly inconsistent with the first
principles of anything that can be called
Civilization — except by that figure of speech
in classical literature, •fthere a thing takes
its name from something which it has not,
as the dreadful Fates were called merci-
ful because they were without mercy. And
pardon the allusion, if I add, that, listening to
these sounding words for Slavery, I am re-
minded of the kindred extravagance related
by that remarkable traveller in China, the late
Abbe1 Hue, of a gloomy hole in which he was
lodged, pestered by mosquitoes and exhaling
noisome vapors, where light and air entered
only by a single narrow aperture, but styled by
Chinese pride the Hotel of the Beatitudes.
It is natural that Senators thus insensible to
the true character of Slavery, should evince an
equal insensibility to the true character of the
Constitution. This is shown in the claim now
made, and pressed with unprecedented energy,
degrading the work of our fathers, that by
virtue of the Constitution, the pretended prop-
erty in man is placed beyond the reach of
Congressional prohibition even within Congres-
sional jurisdiction, so that the Slave-master
may at all times enter the broad outlying Ter-
ritories of the Union with the victims of his op-
pression, and there continue to hold them by
lash and chain.
Such are the two assumptions, the Jirsi an
assumption of fact, and the second an assump-
tion of constitutional law, which are now made
without apology or hesitation. I meet them
both. To the first I oppose the essential Bar-
barism of Slavery, in all its influences, whether
hijjh or low, as Satan is Satan still, whether
towering in the sky or squatting in the toad.
To the second I oppose the unanswerable, irre-
sistible truth, that the Constitution of the Uni-
ted States nowhere recognises property in man.
These two assumptions naturally go together.
They are " twins " suckled by the same wolf.
They are the "couple" in the present slave
hunt. And the latter cannot be answered with-
out exposing the former. It is only when Sla-
very is exhibited in its truly hateful character,
that we can fully appreciate the absurdity of
the assumption, which, in defiance of the ex-
press letter of the Constitution, and without a
single sentence, phrase, or word, upholding
human bondage, yet foists into this blameless
text the barbarous idea that man can hold
property in man.
On former occasions, I have discussed Sla-
very only incidentally ; as, in unfolding the
principle that Slavery is Sectional and Freedom
National ; in exposing the unconstitutionality
of the Fugitive Slave Bill ; in vindicating the
Prohibition of Slavery in the Missouri Territo-
ry; in exhibiting the imbecility throughout the
Revolution of the Slave States, and especially
of South Carolina ; and lastlv, in unmasking
the Crime against Kansas. On all these occa-
sions, where I have spoken at length, I have
said too little of the character of Slavery, partly
because other topics were presented, and partly
from a disinclination which I have always felt
to press the argument against those whom I
knew to have all the sensitiveness of a sick
man. But, God be praised, this time has
passed, and the debate is now lifted from de-
tails to principles. Grander debate has not
occurred in our history ; rarely in any history ;
nor can this debate close or subside except
with the triumph of Freedom.
First Assumption. — Of course I begin with
the assumption of fact.
It was the often-quoted remark of John
Wesley, who knew well how to use words, as
also how to touch hearts, that Slavery was "the
sum of all villainies." The phrase is pungent ;
but it would be rash in any of us to criticize
the testimony of that illustrious founder of
Methodism, whose ample experience of Slavery
in Georgia and the Caroliuas seems to have
been all condensed in this sententious j udgment.
Language is feeble to express all the enormity
of this institution, which is now vaunted as in
itself a form of civilization, "ennobling" at
least to the master, if not to the slave. Look
at it in whatever light you will, and it is always
the scab, the canker, the " bare-bones," and
the shame of the country ; wrong, not merely
in the abstract, as is often admitted by its apol-
ogists, but wrong in the concrete also, and pos-
sessing no single element of right. Look at it in
the light of principles, and it is nothing less than
a huge insurrection against the eternal law
of God, involving in its pretensions the denial
of all human rights, and also the denial of that
Divine Law in which God himself is manifest,
thus being practically the grossest lie and the
grossest Atheism. Founded in violence, sus-
tained only by violence, such a wrong must by
a sure law of compensation blast the master
as well as the slave ; blast the lands on which
they live ; blast the community of which they
are a part; blast the Government which does
not forbid the outrage ; and the longer it exisU
and the more completely it prevails, must it*
blasting influences penetrate the whole social
system. Barbarous in origin ; barbarous io
its law ; barbarous in al! its pretensions ; bar*
barous in the instruments it employs ; bar-
barous in consequences ; barbarous in spirit j
barbarous wherever it shows itself, Slavery
must breed Barbarians, while it develops every-
where, alike in the individual and in the so-
ciety to which he belongs, the essential ele-
ments of Barbarism. In this character it is
now conspicuous before the world.
In undertaking now to expose the Barbar-
ism op Slavery, the whole broad field is open
before me. There is nothing in its character,
its manifold wrong, its wretched results, and
especially in its influence on the class who
claim to be " ennobled " by it, that will not fall
naturally under consideration.
I know well the difficulty of this discussion
involved in the humiliating Truth with which
I begin. Senators on former occasions, re-
vealing their sensibility, have even protested
against any comparison between what wero
called the "two civilizations," meaning the two
social systems produced respectively by Free-
dom and by Slavery. The sensibility and the
protest are not unnatural, though mistaken.
" Two civilizations ! " Sir, in this nineteenth
century of Christian light, there can be but one
Civilization, and this is where Freedom prevails.
Between Slavery and Civilization there is au
essential incompatibility. If you are for the
one, you cannot be for the other; and just in
proportion to the embrace of Slavery is the di-
vorce from Civilization. That Slave-masters
should be disturbed when this is exposed, might
be expected. But the assumptions now so
boastfully made, while they may not prevent
the sensibility, yet surely exclude all ground of
protest when these assumptions are exposed.
Nor is this the ouly difficulty. Slavery is
a bloody Touch-me-not, and everywhere in
sight now blooms the bloody flower. It is ou
the way side as we approach the national
capital ; it is on the marble steps which we
mount.: it flaunts on this floor. I staud now
in the house of its friends. About me while I
speak are its most sensitive guardians, who
have shown in the past how much they ar^
y^ady either to do or not to do where Slavery
is in question. Menaces to deter me have not
been spared. But I should ill deserve this
high post of duty here, with which I have been
honored by a generons and enlightened people,
if I could hesitate. Idolatry has been often ex-
posed in the presence of idolaters, and hypocri-
sy has been chastised in the presence of Scribes
and Pharisees. Such examples may give en-
couragement to a Senator who undertakes in
this presence to expose Slavery ; nor can any lan-
guage, directly responsive to the assumptions
now made for this Barbarism, be open to ques-
tion. Slavery can only be painted in the
sternest colors ; but I cannot forget that na-
ture's sternest painter has been called the best.
The Barbarism of Slavery appears ; first
in the character of Slavery, and secondly in
the character of Slave-masters. Under the first
head we shall naturally consider (1) the Law
of Slavery and its Origin, and (2) the practical
results of Slavery as shown in a comparison be-
\ween the Free States and the Slave States,
Under the second head we shall naturally con-
sider (1) Slave-masters as shown in the Law of
Slavery; (2) Slave-masters in their relations
with slaves, here glancing at their three brutal
instruments ; and (3) Slave-masters in their re-
lations with each other, with society, and with
Government ; and (4) Slave-masters in their
unconsciousness.
The way will then be prepared for the con-
sideration of the assumption of constitutional
I. In presenting the Character op Slave-
ry, there is little for me to do, except to allow
Slavery to paint itself. When this is done, the
picture will need no explanatory words.
(1.) I begin with the Law of Slavery and its
Origin, and here this Barbarism paints itself in
its own chosen definition. It is simply this: Man,
created in the image of God, is divested of his
human character, and declared to be a " chat-
ty l1' — i hat is, a beast, a thing or article of prop-
( rty. That this statement may not seem to be
put forward without precise authority, I quote
She statutes of three different States, beginning
with South Carolina, whose voice for Slavery
always has an unerring distinctiveness. Here
hi the definition supplied by this State :
'c Slaves shall be deemed, held, taken, reputed, and ad-
judged in law, to be ckatteh personal in the hands of their
owners and possessors and their executors, administra-
tors, and assign >, to all intents, constructions, and pur-
poses whatsoever."— 2 Erev, Dig., 229,
And here is the definition supplied by the
Ciwil Code of Louisiana ;
'*• A slave is one who is in the power of a master to
wliwiin he belongs. The master may sell him, dispose of
nis person, his industry, and his labor He can do noth-
ing, possess nothing, nor acquire anything, but what must
belong to his master."— Civil Code, art. 35. ^
In similar spirit, the law of Maryland thus
indirectly defines a slave as an article :
" In case the personal property of a ward shall consist
ofspecific articles, such as slaves* working beasts, animals
of any kind, the court, if it deem it advantageous for the
ward, may at any ime pass an. order for the sale there-
of.'— Statutes of Maryland.
Not to occupy time unnecessarily, I present
a summary of the pretended law defining Sla-
very in all the Slave States, as made by a care-
ful writer, Judge Stroud, in a work of juridical
as well as philanthropic merit :
"The cardinal principle of Slavery— that the slave is
potto be ranked among s ntient beings, but among things —
is an article of property — a chattel personal— ootairs as
undoubted law in all of these [Slave] States."— Stroud's
Law of Slavery, p 22.
Out of this definition, as from a solitary germ,
which in its pettiness might be crushed by the
hand, towers our Upas Tree and all its gi-
gantic poison. Study it, and you will compre-
hend the whole monstrous growth.
Sir, look at its plain import, and see the rela-
tion which it establishes. The slave is held sim-
ply for the use of his master, to whose behests,
his life, liberty, and happiness, are devoted, and
by whom he may be bartered, leased, mortgaged,
bequeathed, invoiced, shipped as cargo, stored
as goods, sold on execution, knocked of? at
public auction, and even staked at the gaming
table on the hazard of a card or a die ; all ac-
cording to law. Nor is there anything, within
the limit of life, inflicted on a beast which may
not be inflicted on the slave. He may be
marked like a hog, branded like a mule, yoked
like an ox, hobbled like a horse, driven like an
ass, sheared like a sheep, maimed like a cur, and
constantly beaten like a brute ; all according
to law. And should life itself he taken, what
is the remedy ? The Law of Slavery, hnitati rig
that rule of evidence which, in barbarous days
and barbarous countries, prevented a Christian
from testifying against a Mahomedan, openly
pronounces the incompetency of the whole Afri-
can race — whether bond or free — to testify in
any case against a white man, and. thus having
already surrendered the slave to all possible
outrage, crowns its tyranny, by excluding the
very testimony through which the bloody cru-
elty of the Slave-master might be exposed.
Thus in its Law does Slavery paint itself; but
it is only when we look at details, and detect
its essential elements — five in number— all in-
spired by a single motive, that its character be-
comes completely manifest.
Foremost, of course, in these elements, is the
impossible pretension, where Barbarism is lost
in impiety, by which man claims property in
man. Against such arrogance the argument is
brief. According to the law of nature, written by
the same hand that placed the planets in their
orbits, and like them, constituting a part of the
eternal system of the Universe, every human
being has a complete title to himself direct
from the Almighty. Naked he is born ; but
this birthright ia inseparable from the human
form. A man may be poor in this world's
goods ; but he owns himself. No war or rob-
bery, ancient or recent ; no capture ; no mid*
die passage ; no change of clime ; no purchase
money; no transmission from hand to hand,
no matter how many times, and no matter at
what price, can defeat this indefeasible God-
given franchise. And a Divine mandate,
strong as that which guards Life, guards Lib-
erty also. Even at the very morning of Cre
ation, when God said, let there be Light —
earlier than the malediction against murder —
He set an everlasting difference between man
and a chattel, giving to man dominion over the
fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air,
and over every living thing that moveth upon
the earth :
that right we hold
By His donation ; but man over men
He made not lord, such title to Himself
Reserving, human left from human free.
Flavery tyrannically assumes a power which
Heaven denied, while, under its barbarous
necromancy, borrowed from the Source of
Evil, a man is changed into a chattel — a per-
son is withered into a thing — a soul is shrunk
into merchandise. Say, sir, in your madness,
that you own the sun, the stars, the moon;
but do not say that you own a man, endowed
with a soul that shall live immortal, when sun
and moon and stars have passed away.
Secondly. Slavery paints itself again in its
complete abrogation of marriage, recognised
as a sacrament by the chureh, and recog-
nised as a contract wherever civilization
prevails. Under the law of Slavery, nlo such
sacrament is respected, and no such contract
can exist. The ties that may be formed be-
tween slaves are all subject to the selfish in-
terests or more selfish lust of the master, whose
license knows no check. Natural affections
which have come together are rudely torn
asunder ; nor is this all. Stripped of every
defence, the chastity of a whole race is exposed
to violence, while the result is recorded in the
tell-tale faces of children, glowing with their
master's blood, but doomed for their moth-
er's skin to Slavery, through all descending
generations. The Senator from Mississippi
[Mr. Brown] is galled by the comparison be-
tween Slavery and Polygamy, and winces. I
hail this sensibility as the sign of virtue. Let
him reflect, and he will confess, that there are
many disgusting elements in Slavery, which
are not present in Polygamy, while the single
disgusting element of Polygamy is more than
present in Slavery. By the license of Polyga-
my, one man may have many wives, all bound
to him by the marriage tie, and in other re-
spects protected by law. By the license of
Slavery, a whole race is delivered over to pros-
titution and concubinage, without the protec-
tion of any law. Sir, is not Slavery barba-
rous ?
Thirdly. Slavery paints itself again in its
complete abrogation of the parental relation,
which God in his benevolence has provided
for the nurture and education of the human
family, and which constitutes an essential part
of Civilization itself. And yet, by the law of Sla
very — happily beginning to be modified in
some places — this relation is set at naught,
and in its place is substituted the arbitrary
control of the master, at whose mere command
little children, such as the Saviour called unto
him, though clasped by a mother's arms, may be
swept under the hammer of the auctioneer. I
do not dwell on this exhibition. Sir, is not
Slavery barbarous ? -
Fourthly. Slavery paints itself again in clo-
sing the gates of knowledge, which are also the
shining gates of civilization. Under its plain
unequivocal law, the bondman may, at the unre-
strained will of his master, be shut out from all
instruction, while in many places, incredible to
relate ! the law itself, by cumulative provisions,
positively forbids that he shall be taught to
read. Of course, the slave cannot be allowed
to read, for his soul would then expand in
larger air, while he saw the glory of the North
Star, and also the helping truth, that God, who
made iron, never made a slave ; for he would
then become familiar with the Scriptures, with
the Decalogue still speaking in the thunders
of Sinai ; with that ancient text, " He that
stealeth a man and selleth him, or if he be
found in his hands, he shall surely be put to
death ; " with that other text, " Masters, give
unto your servants that which is just and
equal ; " with that great story of redemption,
when the Lord raised the slave-born Moses to
deliver his chosen people from the house of
bondage ; and with that sublimer story, where
the Saviour died a cruel death, that all men,
without distinction of race, might be saved —
leaving to mankind commandments, which,
even without his example, make Slavery im-
possible. Thus, in order to fasten your man-
acles upon the slave, you fasten other ma*nacles
upon his soul. Sir, is not Slavery barbarous ?
Fifthly. Slavery paints itself again in the
appropriation of alt the toil of its victims, ex-
cluding them from that property in their own
earnings, which the law of nature allows, and
civilization secures. The painful injustice of
this pretension is lost in its meanness. It is
robbery and petty larceny under the garb of
law. And even its meanness is lost in the ab-
surdity of its associate pretension, that the
African, thus despoiled of all his earnings, is
saved from poverty, and that for his own good
he must work for his master, and not for him-
self. Alas ! by such a fallacy, is a whole race
pauperized ! And yet this transaction is not
without illustrative example. A solemn poet,
whose verse has found wide favor, pictures a
creature who,
— With one hand put
A penny in the urn of poverty,
And with the other toojf a shilling out.
PolloWs '■ Course of Time;'1 Book VI LI, 632.
And a celebrated traveller through Russia,
more than a generation ago, describes a kin-
dred spirit, who, while on his knees before an
altar of the Greek Church, devoutly told hid
6
beads with one hand, and with the other delib-
erately picked the pocket of a fellow-sinner by
his side. Not admiring these instances, I can-
not cease to deplore a system which has much
of both, while, under an affectation of charity,
it sordidly takes from the slave all the fruits of
his bitter sweat, and thus takes from him the
mainspring to exertion. Tell me, sir, is not
Slavery barbarous ?
Such is Slavery in its five special elements
of Barbarism, as recognised by law ; first, as-
suming that man can hold property in man ;
secondly, abrogating the relation of husband
and wife ; thirdly, abrogating the parental tie ;
fourthly, closing the gates of knowledge ; and
fifthly, appropriating the unpaid labor of an-
other. Take away these elements, sometimes
called " abuses," and Slavery will cease to ex-
ist, for it is these very " abuses " which consti-
tute Slavery. Take away any one of them, and
the abolition of Slavery begins. And when I
present Slavery for judgment, I mean no slight
evil, with regard to which there may be a rea-
sonable difference of opinion, but I mean this
five-fold embodiment of " abuse " — this ghastly
quincunx of Barbarism — each particular of
which, if considered separately, must be de-
nounced at once with all the ardor of an hon-
est soul, while the whole five-fold combination
must awake a five-fold denunciation.
But this five-fold combination becomes still
more hateful when its single motive is consid-
ered. The Senator from Mississippi [Mr. Da-
vis] says that it is " but a form of civil govern-
ment for those who are not fit to govern them-
selves." The Senator is mistaken. It is an
outrage where five different pretensions all con-
cur in one single object, looking only to the
profit of the master, and constituting its ever-
present motive power, which is simply to com-
pel the labor of fellow-men without wages !
If the offence of Slavery were less extended ;
if it were confined to some narrow region ; if it
had less of grandeur in its proportions ; if its
victims were counted by tens and hundreds,
instead of millions, the five-headed enormity
would find little indulgence. All would rise
against it, while religion and civilization would
lavish their choicest efforts in the general war-
fare. But what is wrong when done to one
man cannot be right when done to many. If
it is wrong thus to degrade a single soul — if it
is wrong thus to degrade you, Mr. President —
it cannot be right to degrade a whole race.
And yet this is denied by the barbarous logic
of Slavery, which, taking advantage of its own
wrong, claims immunity because its Usurpation
has assumed a front of audacity that cannot be
safely attacked. Unhappily, there is Barbar-
ism elsewhere in |he world; but American
Slavery, as defined by existing law, stands
forth as the greatest organized Barbarism on
which the sun now shines. It is without a sin-
gle peer. Its author, after making it, broke
the die.
If curiosity carries us to the origin of this
law — and here I approach a topic often con-
sidered in this Chamber — we shall confess
again its Barbarism. It is not derived from
the common law, that fountain of Liberty;
for this law, while unhappily recognising a
system of servitude, known as villeinage, se-
cured to the bondman privileges unknown to
the American slave; protected his person
against mayhem ; protected his wife against
rape ; gave to his marriage equal validity with
the marriage of his master, and surrounded his
offspring with generous presumptions of Free-
dom, unlike that rule of yours by which the
servitude of the mother is necessarily stamped
upon the child. It is not derived from the Ro-
man law, that fountain of tyranny, for two rea-
sons— first, because this law, in its better days,
when its early rigors were spent— like the com-
mon law itself — secured to the bondman privi-
leges unknown to the American slave — in cer-
tain cases of cruelty rescued him from his mas-
ter— prevented the separation of parents and
children, also of brothers and sisters — and even
protected him in the marriage relation ; and
secondly, because the Thirteen Colonies were
not derived from any ©f those countries which
recognised the Roman law, while this law even
before the discovery of this continent had lost
all living efficacy. It is not derived from the
Mahomedan law; for under the mild injunc-
tions of the Koran, a benignant servitude, un-
like yours, has prevailed — where the lash is not
allowed to lacerate the back of a female ; where
no knife or branding-iron is employed upon
any human being to mark him as the property
of his fellow-man ; where the master is expressly
enjoined to listen to the desires of his slave for
emancipation ; and where the blood of the
master, mingling with his bond-woman, takes
from her the transferable character of a chat-
tel, and confers complete freedom upon their
offspring. It is not derived from the Spanish
law; for this law contains humane elements,
unknown to your system, borrowed, perhaps,
from the Mahomedan Moors who so long occu-
pied Spain ; and, besides, our Thirteen Colonies
had no umbilical connection with Spain. Nor
is it derived from English statutes or American
statutes ; for we have the positive and repeated
averment of the Senator from Virginia [Mr.
Mason] and also of other Senators that in not
a single State of the Union can any such stat-
utes establishing Slavery be found. "From none
of these does it come.
No, sir ; not from any land of civilization is
this Barbarism derived. It comes from Africa;
ancient nurse of monsters ; from Guinea, Da-
homey, and Congo. There is its origin and
fountain. This benighted region, we are told
by Chief Justice Marshall in a memorable
judgment, [The Antelope, 10 Wheaton R., 66,)
still asserts a right, discarded by Christendom,
to enslave captives taken in war ; and this Af-
rican Barbarism is the beginning of American
Slavery. And the Supreme Court of Georgia,
a Slave State, has not shrunk from this con-
clusion. "Licensed to hold slave property,"
says the Court, " the Georgia planter held the
slave as a chattel; either directly from the
slave-trader, or from those who held under him,
and he from the slave-captor in Africa. The
property of the planter in the slave became,
thus, the property of the original captor."
(Nealv. Farmer, 9 Georgia Reports, p. 555.)
It is natural that a right, thus derived in
defiance of Christendom, and openly founded
on the most vulgar Paganism, should be ex-
ercised without any mitigating influence from
Christianity ; that the master's authority over
the person of his slave — over his conjugal re-
lations— over his parental relations — over the
employment of his time — over all his acquisi-
tions, should be recognised, while no generous
presumption inclines to Freedom, and the womb
of the bond-woman can deliver only a slave.
From its home in Africa, where it is sus-
tained by immemorial usage, this Barbarism,
thus derived and thus developed, traversed the
ocean to American soil. It entered on board
that fatal slave-ship " built in the eclipse, and
rigged with curses dark," which in 1620 land-
ed its cruel cargo at Jamestown, in Virginia,
and it has boldly taken its place in every suc-
ceeding slave-ship from that early day till now —
helping to pack the human freight, regardless
of human agony ; surviving the torments of the
middle passage ; surviving its countless vic-
tims plunged beneath the waves-, and it has
left the slave-ship only to travel inseparable
from the slave in his various doom, sanction-
ing by its barbarous code every outrage,
whether of mayhem or robbery, of lash or lust,
and fastening itself upon his offspring to the re-
motest generation. Thus are the barbarous pre-
rogatives of barbarous half-naked African chiefs
perpetuated in American Slave-masters, while
the Senator from Virginia, [Mr. Mason,] perhaps
unconscious of their origin — perhaps desirous
to secure for them the appearance of a less
barbarous pedigree — tricks them out with a
phrase of the Roman law, discarded by the
common law, partus sequitur ventrem, which
simply renders into ancient Latin an existing
rule of African Barbarism, recognised as an
existing rule of American Slavery.
Such is the plain juridical origin of the
American slave code, which is now vaunted as
a badge of Civilization. But all law, what-
ever may be its juridical origin, whether Eng-
lish or Mahomedan, Roman or African, may
be traced to other and ampler influences in
nature, sometimes of Right, and sometimes of
Wrong. Surely the law which blasted the
slave-trade as piracy punishable with death
had a different inspiration from that other law,
which secured immunity for the slave-trade
throughout an immense territory, and invested
its supporters with political power. As there
is a higher law aoove, so there is a lower law
below, and each is felt in human affairs.
Thus far, we have seen Slavery only in its
pretended law, and in the ©rigin of that law.
And here I might stop, without proceeding
in this argument; for, on the letter of the
law alone Slavery must be condemned. But
the tree is known J)y its fruits, and these I now
shall exhibit ; and this brings me to the sec-
ond stage of the argument.
(2.) In considering the practical results of
Slavery, the materials are so obvious and
diversified, that my chief care will be to
abridge and reject; and here I shall put the
Slave States and Free States face to face, show-
ing at each point the blasting influence of Sla-
very.
The States where this Barbarism now exists
excel the Free States in all natural advantages.
Their territory is more extensive, stretching
over 851,448 square miles, while the Free States,
including California, embrace only 612,597
square miles. Here is a difference of more
than 238,000 square miles in favor of the Slave
States, showing that Freedom starts in this great
controversy, with a field more than a quarter
less than that of Slavery. In happiness of cli-
mate, adapted to productions of special value;
in exhaustless motive power distributed through-
out its space; in natural highways, by more
than fifty navigable rivers, never closed by the
rigors of winter, and in a stretch of coast along
ocean and gulf, indented by hospitable har-
bors— the whole presenting incomparable ad-
vantages for that true civilization where agri-
culture, manufactures, and commerce, both do-
mestic and foreign, blend — in all these respects
the Slave States excel the Free States, whose
climate is often churlish, whose motive power
is less various, whose navigable rivers are fewer
and often sealed by ice, and whose coast, while
less in extent and with fewer harbors, is often
perilous from storm and cold.
But Slavery plays the part of a Harpy, and
defiles the choicest banquet See what it does
with this territory, thus spacious and fair.
An important indication of prosperity is to
be found in the growth of 'population. In this
respect the two regions started equal. In
1790, at the first census under the Constitu-
tion, the population of the present Slave States
was 1,961,372, of the present Free States
1,968,455, showing a difference of only 7,083
in favor of the Free States. This difference, at
first merely nominal, has been constantly in-
creasing since, showing itself more strongly in
each decennial census, until, in 1850, the pop-
ulation of the Slave States, swollen by the an-
nexation of three foreign Territories, Louis-
iana, Florida, and Texas, was only 9,612,769,
whjle that of the Free States, without any
such annexations, reached 13,434,922, show-
ing a difference of 3,822,153 in favor of Free-
8
doin. But this difference becomes still more
remarkable, if we confine our inquiries to the
white population, which, at this period, was
only 6,184,477 in the Slave States, while it was
13,238,670 in the Free States, showing a differ-
ence of more than 7,054,193 in favor of Free-
dom, and showing that the white population of
the Free States had not only doubled but com-
menced to triple that of the Slave States, al-
though occupying a smaller territory. The
comparative sparseness of the two populations
furnishes another illustration. In the Slave
States the average number of inhabitants to a
square mile was 11.28, while in the Free States
it was 21.93, or almost two to one in favor of
Freedom.
These results are general ; but if we take
any particular Slave State, and compare it with
a Free State, we shall find the same constant
evidence for Freedom. Take Virginia, with a
territory of 61,352 miles, and New York, with
a territory of 47,000, or over 14,000 square
miles less than her sister State. New York
has one sea-port, Virginia some three or four ;
New York has one noble river, Virginia has
several; New York for 400 miles runs along
the frozen line of Canada ; Virginia basks in a
climate of constant felicity. But Freedom is
better than climate, rivers, or sea-port !
In 1790 the population of Virginia was
748,308, and in 1850 it was 1,421,661. In 1790,
the population of New York was 340,120, and
in 1850 it was 3,097,394 ; that of Virginia had
not doubled in sixty years, while that of New
York had multiplied more than nine-fold. A
similar comparison may be made between Ken-
tucky, with 37,680 square miles, admitted into
the Union as long ago as 1790, and Ohio, with
39,964 square miles, admitted into the Union
in 1802. In 1850, the Slave State had a popu-
lation of only 982,405, while Ohio had a popu-
lation of 1,980,329, showing a difference of
nearly a million in favor of Freedom.
As in population, so also in the value of
property, real, and personal, do the Free States
excel the Slave States. According to the cen-
sus of 1850, the value of property in the Free
States was $4,107,162,198, while in the Slave
States it was $2,936,090,737 ; or, if we deduct
the asserted property in human flesh, only
$1,655.945,137 — showing an enormous differ-
ence of billions in favor of Freedom. In the
Free States the valuation per acre was $10.47,
in the Slave States only $3.04. , This dispro-
portion was still greater in 1855, according to
the report of the Secretary of the Treasury,
when the valuation of the Free States was
$5,770,194,680; or $14.72 per acre; and of
the Slave States, $3,977,353,946, or, if we de-
duct the asserted property in human flesh,
$2,505,186,346, or $4.59 per acre. Thus, in
five years from 1850, the valuation of property
in the Free States received an increase of more
than the whole accumulated valuation of the
Slave States at that time.
Looking at details, we find the same dispro-
portions. Arkansas and Michigan, equal in
territory, were admitted into the Union in the
same year ; and yet, in 1855, the whole valua-
tion of Arkansas, including its asserted proper-
ty in human flesh, was only $64,240,726, while
that of Michigan, without a single slave, was
$116,593,580. The whole accumulated valua-
tion of all the Slave States, deducting the as-
serted property in human flesh, in 1850,- was
only $1,655,945,137 ; but the valuation of New
York alone, in 1855, reached the nearly equal
sum of $1,401,285,279. The valuation of Vir-
ginia, North and South Carolina, Georgia, Flor-
ida, and Texas, all together, in 1850, deducting
human flesh, was $573,332,860, or simply $1.81
per acre — being less than that of Massachusetts
alone, which was $573,342,286, or $114.85 per
acre. '
The Slave States boast of agriculture ; but
here again, notwithstanding their superior nat-
ural advantages, they must yield to the free
States at every point, in the number of farms
and plantations, in the number of acres of im-
proved lands, in the cash value of farms, in the
average value per acre, and in the value of
farming implements and machinery. Here is
a short table :
Free States. — Number of farms, 877,736;
acres of improved land, 57,688,040; cash value
of farms, $2,143,344,437 ; average value per
acre, $19.83; value of farming implements,
$85,736,658.
Slave States. — Number of farms, 564,203 ;
acres of improved land, 54,970,427; cash value
of farms, $1,117,649,649; average value per
acre, $6.18 ; value of farming implements,
$65,345,625. •
Such is the mighty contrast. But it does not
stop here. Careful tables place the agricul-
tural products of the Free States, for the year
ending Juue, 1850, at $858,634,334, while those
of the Slave States were $631,277,417 ; the prod-
uct per acre in the Free States at $7.94, and the
product per acre in the Slave States at $3.49 ;
and the average product of each agriculturist
in the Free States at $342, and in the Slave
States at $171. Thus the Free States, with a
smaller population engaged in agriculture than
the Slave States, with smaller territory, show
an annual sum total of agricultural products
surpassing those of the Slave States by two hun-
dred and twenty-seven millions of dollars, while
twice as much is produced on an acre, and more
than twice as much is produced by each agri-
culturist. The monopoly of cotton, rice, and
cane sugar, with a climate granting two and
sometimes three crops in a year, are thus
impotent in the competition with Freedom.
In manufactures, the failure of the Slave
States is greater still. It appears at all points,
in the capital employed, in the value of the raw
material, in the annual wages, and in the an-
nual product. A short table will show the con-
trast ;
«
9
Free States. — Capital, $430,240,051; value
of raw material, $465,844,092 ; annual wages,
$195,976,453; annual product, $842,586,058.
Slave States. — Capital, #95,029,879 ; value
of raw material, $86,190,639; annual wages,
$33,257,360; annual product, $165,413,027.
This might be illustrated by details with
regard to different manufactures — whether of
skoes, cotton, woollen, pig iron, wrought iron,
and iron castings — all showing the contrast.
It might also be illustrated by a comparison
between different States ; showing, for in-
stance, that the manufactures of Massachu-
setts, during the last year, exceeded those of all
the Slave States combined.
In commerce, the failure of the Slave States
is on yet a larger scale. Under this head, the
census does not supply proper statistics, and
we are left, therefore, to approximations from
other quarters ; but these are enough for our
purpose. It appear^ that, of the products which
enter into commerce, the Free States had an
amount valued at $1,377,199,968; the Slave
States an amount valued only at $410,754,992 ;
that of the persons engaged in trade, the Free
States had 136,856, and the Slave States 52,622 ;
and that of the tonnage employed, the Free
States had 2,790,195 tons, and the Slave States
only 726,285. This was in 1850. But in 1855
the disproportion was still greater, the Free
States having 4,252,615 tons, and the Slave
States 855,517 tons, being a difference of five
to one ; and the tonnage of Massachusetts alone
being 970,727 tons, an amount larger than
that of all the Slave States. The tonnage built
during this year by the Free States was 528,844
tons ; by the Slave States, 52,959 tons. Maine
alone built 215,905 tons, or more than four
times the whole built in the Slave States.
The foreign commerce, as indicated by the
exports and imports in 1855, of the Free
States, was $404,368,503 ; of the Slave States,
$132,067,216. The exports of the Free States
were $167,520,693 ; of the Slave States, inclu-
ding the vaunted cotton crop, $132,007,216.
The imports ofthe Free States were$236,847,810;
of the Slave States, $24,586,528. The foreign
commerce of New York alone was more than
twice as large as that of all the Slave States ; her
imports were larger, and her exports were lar-
ger also. Add to this testimony of figures the
testimony of a Virginian, Mr. Loudon, in a let-
ter written just before the sitting of a Southern
Commercial Convention. Thus he complains
and testifies :
" There are not half a dozen vessols engaged in our own
trade that are owned in Virginia; and I have been unable to
find a vessel at Liverpool loading for Virginia within three
years, during the height of our busy season."
Railroads and canals are the avenues of
commerce ; and here again the Free States
excel. Of railroads in operation in 1854, there
were 13,105 miles in the Free States, and 4,212
in the Slave States. Of canals there were
3,682 miles in the Free States, and 1,116 in
the Slave States.
The Post Office, which is not only the agent
of commerce, but of civilization, joins in the
uniform testimony. According to the tables
for 1859, the postage collected in the Free
States was $5,532,999, and the expense of car-
rying the mails $6,748,189, leaving a deficit of
$1,215,189. In the Slave States the amount
collected was only $1,988,050, and the expense
of carrying the mails $6,016,612, leaving the
enormous deficit of $4,028,568; the difference
between the two deficits being $2,813,372. The
Slave States did not pay one-third of the ex-
pense of transporting their mails ; and not a
single Slave State paid for the transportation
of its mails ; not even the small State of Dela-
ware. Massachusetts, besides paying for hers,
had a surplus larger than the whole amount
collected in South Carolina.
According to the census of 1850, the value
of churches in the Free States was $67,773,477 ;
in the Slave States, $21,674,581.
The voluntary charity contributed in 1855,
for certain leading purposes of Christian be-
nevolence, was, in the Free States, $953,813 ;
for the same purposes, in the Slave States,
$194,784. For the Bible cause, the Free States
contributed $319,667; the Slave States, $68,125.
For the missionary cause, the first contributed
$319,667 ; and the second, $101,934. For the
Tract Society, the first contributed $131,972 ;
and the second, $24,725. The amount con-
tributed in Massachusetts for the support of
missions was greater than that contributed by
all the Slave States, and more than eight times
that contributed by South Carolina.
Nor have the Free States been backward
in charity, when the Slave States have been
smitten. The records of Massachusetts show
that as long ago as 1781, at the beginning of
the Government, there was an extensive contri-
bution throughout the Commonwealth, under
the particular direction of that eminent patriot,
Samuel Adams, for the relief of inhabitants of
South Carolina and Georgia. In 1855 we were
saddened by the prevalence of yellow fever in
Portsmouth, Virginia ; and now, from a report
of the relief committee of that place, we learn
that the amount of charity contributed by the
Slave States, exclusive of Virginia, the afflicted
State, was $12,182 ; and, including Virginia, it
was $33,398 ; while $42,547 were contributed
by the Free States.
In all this array we see the fatal influence of
Slavery, but its Barbarism is yet more conspicu-
ous when we consider its Educational Estab-
lishments, and the unhappy results, which
naturally ensue from their imperfect character.
Of colleges, in 1856, the Free States had 61,
and the Slave States 59 ; but the comparative
efficacy of the institutions which assume this
name may be measured by certain facts. The
number of graduates in the Free States was
47,752, in the Slave States 19,648; the number
of ministers educated in Slave colleges was 747,
in the Free colleges 10,702 ; and the number of
10
volumes in the libraries of Slave colleges
308,011; in the libraries of the Free colleges
667,227. If the materials were at hand for a
comparison between these colleges, in buildings,
cabinets, and scientific apparatus, or in the
standard of scholarship, the difference would be
still more apparent.
Of professional schools, teaching law, medi-
cine, and theology, the Free States had 65, with
269 professors, 4,426 students, and 175,951
volumes in their libraries, while the Slave States
had only 32 professional schools, with 122 pro-
fessors, 1,807 students, and 30,796 volumes in
their libraries. The whole number educated at
these institutions in the Free States was 23,513,
in the Slave States 3,812. Of these, the largest
number in the Slave States study law, next
medicine, and lastly theology. According to
the census, there are only 808 in the Slave
theological schools, and 747 studying for the
ministry in the Slave colleges ; and this is all
the record we have of the educatiou of the Slave
clergy.
Of academies and private schools, in 1850,
the Free States, notwithstanding their multitu-
dinous public schools, had 3,197, with 7,175
teachers, 154,893 pupils, and an annual income
of $2,457,372 ; the Slave States had 2,797
academies and private schools, with 4,913
teachers, 104,976 pupils, and an annual in-
come of $2,079,724. In the absence of public
schools, to a large extent, where Slavery exists,
the dependence must be chiefly upon private
schools; and yet even in these the Slave States
fall below the Free States, whether we consider
the number of pupils, the number of teachers,
or the amount paid for their support.
In public schools, open to all, alike the poor
and the rich, the ominence of the Free States is
complete. Here the figures show a difference as
wide as that between Freedom and Slavery.
Their number in the Free States is 62,433, with
72,621 teachers, and with 2,769,901 pupils, sup-
ported by an annual expense of $6,780,337.
Their number in the Slave States is 18,507, with
19,307 teachers, and with 581,861 pupils, sup-
ported by an annual expense of $2,719,534.
This difference may be illustrated by details.
Virginia, an old State, and more than a third
larger than Ohio, has 67,353 pupils in her pub-
lic schools, while the latter State has 484,153.
Arkansas, equal in age and size with Michi-
gan, has only 8,493 pupils at her public schools,
while the latter State has 110,455. South
Carolina, three times as large as Massachu-
setts, has 17,838 pupils at public school,
while the latter State has 176,475. South
Carolina spends for this purpose, annually,
$200,600-, Massachusetts, $1,006,795. Balti-
more, with a population of 169,012, on the
northern verge of Slavery, has school buildings
valued at $105,729 ; those of Boston are valued
at $729,502. Boston,, with a population smaller
than that of Baltimore, has 203 public schools,
with 353 teachers, and 21,678 pupils, supported
at an annual expense of $237,000 ; Baltimore
has only 36 public schools, with 138 teachers,
and 8,011 pupils, supported at an annual ex-
pense of $32,423. But even these figures do
not disclose the whole difference ; for there
exist in the Free States teachers' institutes,
normal schools, lyceums, and public courses of
lectures, which are unknown in the region of
Slavery. These advantages are enjoyed also
by the children of colored persons ; and here
is a comparison which shows the degrada-
tion of the Slave States. It is their habit
particularly to deride free colored persons.
See, now, with what cause. The number of
colored persons in the Free States is 196,016,
of whom 22,043, or more than one-ninth, at-
tend school, which is a larger proportion than
is supplied by the whites of the Slave States.
In Massachusetts there are 9,064 colored per-
sons, of whom 1,439, or nearly one sixth, at-
tend school, which is a much larger proportion
than is supplied by the whites of South Carolina.
Among educational establishments are pub-
lic libraries; and here, again, the Free States
have their customary eminence, whether we
consider libraries strictly called public, or li-
braries of the common school, of the Sunday
school, of the college, and of the church.
Here the disclosures are startling. The num-
ber of libraries in the Free States is 14,911, and
the sum total of volumes is 3,888,234; the
number of libraries in the Slave States is
695, and the sum total of volumes is 649,577 ;
showing an excess for Freedom of more than
fourteen thousand libraries, and more than
three millions of volumes. In the Free States
the common school libraries are 11,881, and
contain 1,589,683 volumes ; in the Slave States
they are 186, and contain 57,721 volumes. In
the Free States the Sunday school libraries are
1,713, and contain 478,858 volumes; in the
Slave States they are 275, and contain 63,463
volumes. In the Free States the college libra-
ries are 132, and contain 660,573 volumes ;
in the Slave States they are 79, and contain
249,248 volumes. In the Free States the
church libraries are 109, and contain 52,723
volumes ; in the Slave States they are 21, and
contain 5,627 volumes. In the Free States the
libraries strictly called public, and not inclu-
ded under the heads already enumerated, are
1,058, and contain 1,108,397 volumes; those of
the Slave States are 152, and contain 273,518
volumes.
Turn these figures over, look at them in any
light, and the conclusion will be irresistible for
Freedom. The college libraries alone of the
Free States are greater than all the libraries of
slavery. So, also, are the libraries of Massa-
chusetts alone greater than all the libraries
of Slavery ; and the common school libraries
alone of New York are more than twice as
large as all the libraries of Slavery. Michigan
has 107,943 volumes in her libraries ,$ Arkan-
sas has 420.
11
Among educational establishments, one of
the most efficient is the Press ; and here again
all things testify for Freedom. The Free States
excel in the number of newspapers and period-
icals published, whether daily, semi-weekly,
weekly, semi-monthly, monthly, or quarterly ;
and whatever their character, whether literary,
neutral, political, religious, or scientific. The
whole aggregate circulation in the Free States
is 334,146,281 ; in the Slave States, 81,038,693.
In Free Michigan, 3,247,736 ; in Slave Arkan-
sas, 377,000. In Free Ohio, 30,473,407 ; in
Stave Kentucky, 6,582,838. In Slave South
Carolina, 7,145,930 ; in Free Massachusetts,
64,820,564 — a larger number than in the ten
•Slave States, Maryland, Virginia, North Caro-
lina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mis-
sissippi, Florida, Louisiana, and Texas, com-
bined. This enormous disproportion in the
aggregate is also preserved in the details. In
the Slave States, political newspapers find more
favor than any others ; but even of these they
publish only 47,243,209 copies, while the Free
States publish 163,583,668. Of neutral news-
papers, the Slave States publish 8,812,620 ; the
Free States, 79,156,738. Of religious newspa-
pers, the Slave States publish 4,364,832 ; the
Free States, 29,280,652. Of literary journals,
the Slave States publish 20,245,360 ; the Free
States, 57,478,768. And of scientific journals,
the Slave States publish 372,672; the Free
States, 4,521,260. Of these latter, the number
of copies published in Massachusetts alone is
2,033,260 — more than five times the number in
the whole land of Slavery. Thus, in contribu-
tions to science, literature, religion, and even
politics, as attested by the activity of the peri-
odical press, do the Slave States miserably fail,
while darkness gathers over them. And this
seems to be increasing with time. According
to the census of 1810, the disproportion in this
respect between the two regions was only as
two to one. It is now more than five to one,
and is still going on.
The same disproportion appears with regard
to persons connected with the Press. In the
Free States, the number of printers was 11,822,
of whom 1,229 were in Massachusetts; in the
slave States there were 2,895, of whom South
Carolina had only 141. In the Free States, the
number of publishers was 331; in the Slave
States, 24. Of these, Massachusetts had 59,
or more than twice as many as all the Slave
States ; while South Carolina had none. In
the Free States, the authors were 73; in the
Slave States, 9 — of whom Massachusetts had
17, and South Carolina 2, These suggestive
illustrations are all derived from the last official
census. But if we go to other sources, the
contrast is still the same. Of the authors
mentioned in Duyckink's Cyclopedia of Amer-
ican Literature, 403 are of the Free States,
and only 87 of the Slave States. Of the poets
mentioned in Griswold's Poets and Poetry of
America^ 123 are of the Free States, and only
17 of the Slave States. Of the poets, whose
place of birth appears in Reed's Female Poets
of America, 73 are of the Free States, and
only 11 of the Slave States. And if we try
authors by weight or quality, it is the same as
when we try them by numbers. Out of the
Free States have come all whose works have
taken a place in the permanent literature of
the country — Irving, Prescott, Sparks, Ban-
croft, Emerson, Motley, Hildreth, and Haw-
thorne ; also, Bryant, Longfellow, Dana, Hal
leek, Whittier, and Lowell — and I might add
indefinitely to the list. But what name from
the Slave States could find a place there ?
A similar disproportion appears in the nnm
ber of Patents, attesting the inventive industry
of the contrasted regions, issued during the
last three years, 1857, 1858, and 1859. In the
Free States there were 9,560 ; in the Slave
States, 1,449 — making a difference of 8,111 in
favor of Freedom. The number in Free Mas-
sachusetts was 972 ; in Slave South Carolina,
39. The number in Free Connecticut, small in
territory and population, was 628 ; in Slave
Virginia, large in territory and population, 184.
From all these things we might infer the
ignorance prevalent in the Slave States; but
this shows itself in specific results of a deplora-
ble character, authenticated by the official
census. It appears that in the Slave States
there were 493,026 native white persons over
twenty years of age who cannot read and write,
while in the Free States, with double the white
population, there were but 248,725 native whites
over twenty years of age in this unhappy pre-
dicament, in the Slave States the proportion
was 1 to 12 ; in the Free States it was 1 to 53.
The number in Free Massachusetts, with a pop-
ulation of nearly a million, was 1,005, or 1 in
517 ; the number in Slave South Carolina, with
a population under three hundred thousand,
was 15,580, or 1 in 7. The number in Free
Connecticut was 1 in 277 ; in Slave Virginia, 1
in 5 ; in free New Hampshire 1 in 201, and
in Slave North Carolina, 1 in 3.
Before closing this picture of Slavery, where
the dismal colors all come from official figures,
there are two other aspects in which for a mo-
ment it may be regarded :
1. The first is the influence which it has on
emigration. It is stated in the official com-
pendium of the census, (page 115,) that those
persons living in Slave States who are natives
of Free States are more numerous than those
living in Free States who are natives of Slave
States. This is an egregious error. Just the
contrary is true. The census of 1850 found
609,371 in the Free States who were born in the
Slave States, while only 206,638 born in the
Free States were in the Slave States. And since
the white population of the Free States is double
that of the Slave States, it appears that the pro-
portion of whites moving from Slavery is six
times greater than that of whites moving into
slavery. In this simple fact is disclosed some-
12
thing of the aversion to Slavery which is aroused
even in the Slave States.
2. The second aspect is furnished by the
character of the region on the border line be-
tween Freedom and Slavery. In general, the
value of lands in Slave States adjoining Free-
dom is advanced, while the value of corres-
ponding lands in Free States is diminished.
The effects of Freedom and Slavery are recipro-
cal. Slavery is a bad neighbor. Freedom is
a good neighbor. In Virginia, lands naturally
poor are, by their nearness to Freedom, worth
$12.98 an acre, while richer lands in other
parts of the State are worth only $8.42. In
Illinois, lands bordering upon Slavery are worth
only $4.54 an acre, while other lands in Illinois
are worth $8.05. As in the value of lands so
in all other influences is Slavery felt for evil,
and Freedom felt for good ; and thus is it clearly
shown to be for the interest of the Slave States
to be surrounded by a circle of Free States.
Thus, at every point is the character of Slave-
ry more and more manifest, rising and dilating
into an overshadowing Barbarism, darkening
the whole land. Through its influence, popu-
lation, values of all kinds, manufactures, com-
merce, railroads, canals, charities, the post of-
fice, colleges, professional schools, academies,
public schools, newspapers, periodicals, books,
authorship, inventions, are all stunted, and,
under a Government which professes to be
founded on the intelligence of the people, one
in twelve of the white adults in the region of
Slavery is officially reported as unable to read
and write. Never was the saying of Montes-
quieu more triumphantly verified, that coun-
tries are not cultivated by reason of their fer-
tility, but by reason of their liberty. To this
truth the Slave States constantly testify by every
possible voice. Liberty is the powerful agent
which drives the plow, the spindle, and the keel ;
^hich opens avenues of all kinds ; which in-
spires charity ; which awakens a love of knowl-
edge, and supplies the means of gratifying it.
Liberty is the first of schoolmasters. .
Unerring and passionless figures thus far
have been our witnesses. But their testimony
will be enhanced by a final glance at the geo-
graphical character of the Slave States ; and
here there is a singular and instructive par-
allel.
Jefferson described Virginia as fast sinking to
be " the Barbary of the Union " — meaning, of
course, the Barbary of his day, which had not
yet turned against Slavery. In this allusion he
was wiser than he knew. Though on different
sides of the Atlantic and on different continents,
our Slave . States and the original Barbary
States occupy nearly the same parallels of lati-
tude 5 occupy nearly the same extent of longi-
tude ; embrace nearly the same number of
square miles; enjoy kindred advantages of cli-
mate, being equally removed from the cold of the
North and the burning heat of the tropics ; and
also enjoy kindred boundaries of land and water,
with kindred advantages of ocean and sea, witB
this difference, that the boundaries of the two
regions are precisely reversed, so that where
is land in one case is water in the other,
while in both cases there is the same extent of
ocean and the same extent of sea. Nor is this
all. Algiers, for a long time the most obnoxious
place in the Barbary States of Africa, once
branded by an indignant chronicler as " the
wall of the barbarian world," is situated near
the parallel of 36° 30/ north latitude, being the
line of the Missouri compromise, which once
marked the " wall " of Slavery in our country
west of the Mississippi, while Morocco, the
chief present seat of Slavery in the African Bar-
bary, is on the parallel of Charleston. There
are no two spaces on the surface of the globe,
equal in extent, (and an examination of the
map will verify what I am about to state,)
which present so many distinctive features of
resemblance ; whether we consider the common
parallels of latitude on which they lie, the com-
mon nature of their boundaries, their common
productions, their common climate, or the com-*
mon Barbarism which sought shelter in both.
I do not stop to inquire why Slavery — banished at
last from Europe, banished also from that part
of this hemisphere which corresponds in lati-
tude to Europe—should have entrenched itself
in both hemispheres between the same paral-
lels of latitude, so that Virginia, Carolina, Mis-
sissippi, and Missouri, should be the American
complement to Morocco, Algiers, Tripoli, and
Tunis. But there is one important point in the
parallel which remains to be fulfilled. The
barbarous Emperor of Morocco, in the words
of a Treaty, has expressed his desire that Sla-
very might pass from the memory of men, while
Algiers, Tripoli, and Tunis, after cherishing
Slavery with a tenacity equalled only1 by the
tenacity of South Carolina, have successively
renounced it and delivered it over to the indig-
nation of mankind. In following this example
the parallel will be complete, and our Barbary
will become the complement in Freedom to the
African Barbary, as it has already been its
complement in Slavery, and is unquestionably
its complement in geographical character.
II. From the consideration of Slavery in
its practical results, illustrated by the con-
trast between the Free States and Slave States,
I pass now to another stage of the argument,
and proceed to exhibit Slavery in its influence
on the Character of Slave-masters. Nothing
could I undertake more painful, and yet there is
nothing which is more essential to the discus-
sion, especially in response to the pretensions
of Senators on this floor, nor is there any point
on which the evidence is more complete.
It is in the Character of Slavery itself that
we are to find the Character of Slave-masters ;
but I need not go back to the golden lips of
Chrysostom to learn that H Slavery is the fruit
of covetousness, of extravagance, of insatiable
13
greediness}" for we have already seen that
this five-fold enormity is inspired by the single
idea of compelling men to work without wages.
This spirit must naturally appear in the Slave-
master. But the eloquent Christian Saint did
not disclose the whole truth. Slavery is found-
ed on violence, as we have already too clearly
seen ; of course it can be sustained only by
kindred violence, sometimes against the de-
fenceless slave, sometimes against the freeman
whose indignation is aroused at the outrage.
It is founded on brutal and vulgar pretensions,
as we have already too clearly seen ; of course
it can be sustained only by kindred brutality
and vulgarity. The denial of all rights in the
slave can be sustained only by a disregard of
other rights, common to the whole community,
whether of the person, of the press, or of speech.
Where this exists there can be but one supreme
law, to which all other laws, legislative or so-
cial, are subordinate, and this is the pretended
law of Slavery. All these things must be
manifest in Slave-masters, and yet, unconscious
of their true condition, they make boasts which
reveal still farther the unhappy influence.
Barbarous standards of conduct are unblush-
ingly avowed. The swagger of a bully is called
chivalry ; a swiftness to quarrel is called cour-
age 5 the bludgeon is adopted as the substitute
for argument ; and assassination is lifted to be
one of the Fine Arts. Long ago it was fixed
certain that the day which made man a slave
" took half his worth away " — words from the
ancient harp of Homer, resounding through
long generations. Nothing here is said of the
human being at the other end of the chain.
To aver that on this same day all his worth is
taken away might seem inconsistent with ex-
ceptions which we gladly recognise ; but alas !
it is too clear, both from reason and from evi-
dence, that, bad as Slavery is for the Slave, it is
worse for the Master. -•
In making this exposure I am fortified, at
the outset, by two classes of authorities, whose
testimony it will be difficult to question ; the
first is American, and founded on personal
experience ; the second is philosophical, and
founded on everlasting truth.
First, American Authority ; and here I ad-
duce words often quoted, which dropped from
the lips of Slave-masters in those better days
when, seeing the wrong of Slavery, they es-
caped from its injurious influence. Of these,
none expressed themselves with more vigor
than Colonel Mason, a Slave-master from Vir-
ginia, in debate on the adoption of the Nation-
al Constitution. These are his words :
14 Slavery discourages arts and manufactures. The
poor despise labor when performed by slaves. They
lire vent the emigration of whites, who really enrich and
strengthen a country. They -produce the most pernicious
effect on manners. Every Master of Slaves is born a
petty tyrant. They bring the judgment of Heaven on a
country."
Thus, with a few touches, does this Slave-
master portray his class, putting them in that
hateful list, which, according to every principle
of liberty, must be resisted so long as we obey
God. And this same testimony also found ex-
pression from the fiery^oul of Jefferson. Here
are some of his words :
" There must be an unhappy influence on the manners
of our people, produced Dy the existence of Slavery
among us. The whole commerce between master and
slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous pas-
sions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part,
and degrading submissions on the other ; our children see
this, and learn to imitate it. * * * The man must be a
prodigy who can retain his manners and morals undepraved
by such circumstances. And with what execration should
the statesman be loaded, who, permitting one half the
citizens thus to trample on the rights of the other, trans-
forms those into despots, and these into enemies, destroys
the morals of the one part, and the amor patriae of the
other ! * * * With the morals of the people, their in-
dustry also is destroyed "
Next comes the Philosophic Authority ; and
here the language which I quote may be less fa-
miliar, but it is hardly less commanding. Among
names of such weight, I shall not discriminate,
but shall simply follow the order of time in
which they appeared. First is John Locke,
the great author of the English System of In-
tellectual Philosophy, who, though once unhap-
pily conceding indulgence to American Slave-
ry, in another place describes it, in words*
which every Slave-master should know, as —
"The state of war continued between a lawful con-
queror and his captive. * * * So opposite to the gen-
erous temper and courage of our nation, that His hardly
t) be conceived that an Englishman, much less a gentle-
man, should plead for iV
Then comes Adam Smith, the founder of the
science of Political Economy, who, in his work
on Morals, thus utters himself:
" There is not a negro from the coast of Africa who does
not possess a degree of magnanimity wbieh the soul of
his sordid master is too often scarce capable of conceiv-
ing. Fortune never exerted more cruelly her empire over
mankind, than when she subjected these nations of he-
roes to the refuse of gaols of Europe, to wretches who
possess the virtues neither of the countries which they
come from, nor of those which they go to, and whose levity*
brutality, and baseness, so justly expose them to thecontempt
of the vanquished." — Theory of Moral Sentiments, Fart V,
chapter 2.
This judgment, pronounced just a century
ago, was repelled by the Slave-masters of Vir-
ginia, in a feeble publication which attests at
least their own consciousness that they were
the criminals arraigned by the distinguished
philosopher. This was soon followed by the
testimony of the great English moralist, Dr.
Johnson, who, in a letter to a friend, thus shows
his opinion of Slave-masters :
" To omit for a year, or for a day, the most efficacious
method of advancing Christianity, in compliance with
any purposes, that terminate on this side of the grave, is a
crime of which I know not that Ihe world has had an ex-
ample, except in the practice of the planters cf America,
a race of mortals whom, 1 suppose, no other man luishes to
resemble?''— rLetter to William l)rummond,13th August, 17CG.
(BosweWs Life of Johnson, by Croker.)
With such authorities, American and Philo-
sophic, I need not hesitate in this ungracious
task ; but Truth, which is mightier than Mason
and Jefferson, than John Locke, Adam Smith,
and Samuel Johnson, marshals the evidence in
unbroken succession.
Proceeding with this argument, which broad-
ens as we advance, we shall see Slave-masteis
14
(1) in the Law of Slavery, (2) in their relations
with Slaves, (3) in their relations with each
other and with Society, and (4) in that uncon-
ciousness which renders them insensible to
their true character.
(1.) As in considering the Character of Sla-
very, so in considering the Character of Slave-
masters, we must begin with the Law of Sla-
very, which, as their work, testifies against
them. In the face of such an unutterable
abomination, where impiety, cruelty, brutality,
and robbery, all strive for mastery, it is in vain
to assert the humanity or refinement of its
authors. Full well I know that the conscience
which speaks so powerfully to the solitary soul,
is often silent in the corporate body, and that,
in all ages and countries, numbers, when gath-
ered in communities and States, have sanction-
ed acts from which the individual revolts. And
yet I know no surer way of judging a people
than by its laws, especially where those laws
have been long continued and openly main-
tained.
* Whatever may be the eminence of individual
virtue — and I would not so far disparage hu-
manity as to suppose that the offences which
may be general where Slavery exists are uni-
versal— it is not reasonable or logical to infer
that the masses of Slave-masters are better than
the Law of Slavery. And since the Law itself
degrades the slave to be a chattel, and submits
him to their irresponsible control, with power
to bind and to scourge; to usurp the fruits
of another's labor; to pollute the body; and
to outrage all ties of family, making mar-
riage impossible — we must conclude that such
enormities are sanctioned by Slave-masters,
while the exclusion of testimony, and prohibi-
tion of instruction — by supplementary law —
complete the evidence of their complicity. And
this conclusion must stand unquestioned just
so long as the Law of Slavery exists unrepealed.
Cease, then, to blazon the humanity of Slave-
masters. Tell me not of the lenity with which
this cruel Code is tempered to its unhappy sub-
jects. Tell me not of the sympathy which
overflows from the mansion of the master to the
cabin of the slave. In vain you assert such
" happy accidents." In vain you show that there
are individuals who do not exert the wicked-
ness of the law. The Barbarism still endures,
solemnly, legislatively, judicially attested in the
very Slave Code, and proclaims constantly the
character of its authors. And this is the first
article in the evidence against Slave-masters.
(2.) I am next brought to Slave-masters in
their relations with Slaves ; and here the argu-
ment is founded upon facts, and upon presump-
tions irresistible as facts. Only lately has in-
quiry burst into that gloomy world of bondage,
and disclosed its secrets. But enough is already
known to arouse the indignant condemnation
of mankind. For instance, here is a simple ad-
vertisement—one of thousands-— from the Geor-
gia Messenger:
" Run Away — My man Fountain ; has holes in his cars, a
scar on the right side of his forehead ; has heen shot in the
hind parts of his legs ; is markod on his back with the whip.
Apply to Robert Beasley, Macon, Ga."
Holes in the ears ; scar on the forehead ;
shot in the legs, and marks of the lash on the
back ! Such are the tokens by which a Slave-
master proposes to identify his slave.
And here is another advertisement, revealing
Slave-masters in a different light. It is from
the National Intelligencer, published at the
Capital ; and I confess the pain with which I
cite such an indecency in a journal of such
respectability. Of course, it appeared without
the knowledge of the editors ; but it is none
the less an illustrative example :
" For Sale. — An accomplished and handsome lady's maid.
She is just sixteen years of age; was raised in a genteel fam-
ily in Maryland; and is now proposed to be sold, not for any
fault, but simply because the owner has no farther use for
her. A note directed to C. D., Gadsby's Hotel, will receive
prompt attention."
A sated libertine, in a land where vice is le-
galized, could not expose his victim with apter
words.
These two instances will illustrate a class.
In the recent work of Mr. Olmstead, a close
observer and traveller in the Slave States
which abounds in pictures of Slavery, expressed
with caution, and evident regard to truth, will
be found still another, where a Slave-master
thus frankly confesses his experience :
" I can tell you how you can break a nigger of running
away, certain," said the Siave-master. ''"'.There was an
old fellow I used to know in Georgia, that always cured
his so. If a nigger ran away, when he caught him, lie
wou!d bind his knee over a log, and fasen him so he
couldn't stir ; then he'd take a pair of pincers, and pull
one of his toe-nails out by the roots; and tell him that if
he ever run away again, he would pull out two. of them;
arid if he run away again after that, he told him hi'd pull
out four of them, and so on, doubling each time. He
never had to do it more tlian twice; it always cured
ihem." — Olmstead's Texas Journey, 105.
Like this story, which is from the lips of a
Slave-master, is another, where the master,
angry because his slave had sought to regain
his God-given liberty, deliberately cut the tea-
dons of his heel, thus horribly maiming him for
life !
It is in vain that these instances are denied.
Their accumulating number, authenticated in
every possible manner, by the press, by a cloud
of witnesses, and by the confession of Slave-
masters, stares us constantly in the face.
And here we are brought again to the slave
code, under the shelter of which these and
worse things may be done, with complete im-
punity. Listen to the remarkable words of
Chief Justice Ruffin, of North Carolina, who,
in a solemn decision, thus portrays, affirms,
and deplores, this terrible latitude :
"The obedience of the slave," he says, "is the conee-
quence only of uncontrolled authority over the body. * * *
The power of the master, mutt be absolute to render the sub-
mission of the s ave perfect, f must freely confess my sense
of the harshness of ibis proposition. I feel it as deeply
as any man ca <. And, as a principle of moral riaht,
every person in his retirement must repudiate it. But, in
the actual condition of things, it must be so. There is no
15
remedy. This discipline behngs to the state of Slavery.
It is inherent in xke relation of master and slave." — The
State v. Mann, 2 Devereaux R, 292.
And this same terrible latitude has been
thus expounded in a recent judicial decision
of Virginia :
"It is the policy of the law in respect to the relation of
master ;and slave, a'd for the sake of securing proper
subordination and obedience on the part of the slave, to
protect the master from prosecution, even if the whipping
and punishment be malicious, cruel, and eaJC&sstue." — San-
ther v. Cwelt, 7 Grattan, 673.
Can Barbarism farther go? Here is an ir-
responsible power, rendered more irresponsible
still by the seclusion of the plantation, and ab-
solutely fortified by the supplementary law ex-
cluding the testimony of slaves. That under
its shelter enormities should occur, stranger
than fiction, too terrible for imagination, and
surpassing any individual experience, is simply
according to the course of nature and the
course of history. The visitation of the ab-
beys in England disclosed vice and disorder
in startling forms, cloaked by the irrespon-
sible privacy of monastic life. A similar
visitation of plantations, would disclose more
fearful results, cloaked by the irresponsible
privacy of Slavery. Every Slave- master on
his plantation is a Bashaw, with all the pre-
rogatives of a Turk. According to Hobbes, he
is " a petty king." This is true ; and every
plantation is of itself a petty kingdom, with
more than the immunities of an 'abbey. Six
thousand skulls of infants are said to have been
taken from a single fish-pond near a nunnery,
to the dismay of Pope Gregory. Under the
law of Slavery, infants the offspring of masters
" who dream of Freedom in a slave's embrace,"
are not thrown into a fish-pond, but something
worse is done. They are sold. But this is only
a single glimpse. Slavery, in its recesses, is
another Bastile, whose horrors will never be
known until it all is razed to the ground ; it is
the dismal castle of Giant Despair, which,
when captured by the Pilgrims, excited their
wonder, as they saw " the dead bodies that lay
here and there in the castle-yard, and how full
of dead men's bones the dungeon was." The
recorded korrors of Slavery seem to. be infinite,
and each day, by the escape of its victims,
they are still further attested, while the door of
the vast prison-house is left ajar. But, alas !
unless the examples of history and the lessons
of political wisdom are alike delusive, its unre-
corded horrors must assume a form of yet more
fearful dimensions, as we try to contemplate
them. Banking all attempts at description,
they sink into that chapter of Sir Thomas
Browne, entitled, Of some Relations whose
Truth ice fear ; and among kindred things
whereof, according to this eloquent philoso-
pher, there remains no register but that of
hell.
If this picture of the relations of Slave-mas-
ters with their slaves could receive any further
darkness, it would be by introducing the fig-
ures of the congenial agents through which
the Barbarism is maintained ; the Slave-over-
seer, the Slave breeder, and the Slave-hunter >
each without a peer except in his brother, and
the whole constituting the triumvirate of Sla-
very, in whom its essential brutality, vulgarity,
and grossness, are all embodied. There is the
Slave-overseer, with his bloody lash, fitly de-
scribed in his Life of Patrick Henry by Mr.
Wirt, who, born in Virginia, knew the class, as
" last and lowest, most abject, degraded, un>
principled," and his hands wield at will the
irresponsible power. There is the Slave-breed*
er, who assumes a higher character, and even
enters legislative halls, where, in unconscious
insensibility, he shocks civilization by denying,
like Mr. Gholson, of Virginia, any alleged dis-
tinction between the "female slave" and "the
brood mare," by openly asserting the necessary
respite from work during the gestation of* the
female slave as the ground of property in her
offspring, and by proclaiming that in this " vi-
gintial " crop of human flesh consists much of
the wealth of his State, while another Virgin-
ian, not yet hardened to this debasing trade,
whose annual sacrifice reaches 25,000 human
souls, confesses the indignation and shame with
which he beholds his State " converted into one
grand menagerie, where men are reared for the
market, like oxen for the shambles." And
lastly there is the Slave-hunter, with the blood-
hound as his brutal symbol, who pursues slaves,
as the hunter pursues game, and does not hes-
tate in the public prints to advertise his Bar-
barism thus :
" BLOOD-HOUNDS.— I have TWO of the FINEST
DOGS for CATCHING NEGROES in the Southwest.
They can take the trail TWELVE HOURS after the
NEGRO HAS PASSED, and catch him with ease. Hive
four miles southwest of Bolivar, on the road leading from
Bolivar to Whitesville. I am ready at all urn^s to catch
runaway negroes. DAVID TURNER.
" March 2, 1853."— West Tennessee Democrat.
The blood-hound was known in early Scottish
history ; it was once vindictively put upon the
trail of Robert Bruce, and in barbarous days,
by a cruel license of war, it was directed against
the marauders of the Scottish border; but
more than a century has passed since the last
survivor of the race, kept as a curiosity, was
fed on meal in Ettrick Forest."- The blood-
hound was employed by Spain, against the na-
tives of this continent, and the eloquence of
Chatham never touched a truer chord than when,
gathering force from the condemnation of this
brutality, he poured his thunder upon the kin-
dred brutality of the scalping-knife, adopted
as an instrument of war by a nation profess-
ing civilization. Tardily introduced into our
Republic, some time after the Missouri Compro-
mise, when Slavery became a political passion
and Slave-masters began to throw aside all dis-
guise, the blood-hound has become the repre-
sentative of our Barbarism in one of its worst
forms, when engaged in the pursuit of a fellow-
man who is asserting his inborn title to himself;
Scott's Lay of the Last Minstrel— Notes, Canto V.
16
and this brute is, indeed, typical of the whole
brutal leash of Slave-hunters, who, whether at
home on Slave-soil, under the name of Slave-
catchers, and kidnappers, or at a distance,
under politer names, insult Human Nature by
the enforcement of this Barbarism.
(3.) From this dreary picture of Slave-mas-
ters with their slaves and their triumvirate of
vulgar instruments, I pass to another more
dreary still, and more completely exposing the
influence of Slavery ; I mean the relations of
Slave-masters with each other, also with Society
and Government, or, in other words, the Char-
acter of Slave-masters, as displayed in the gen-
eral relations of life. And here I need your
indulgence. Not in triumph or in taunt do I
approach this branch of the subject. Yielding
only to the irresistible exigency of the discus-
sion and in direct response to the assumptions
on this floor, especially by the Senator from
Virginia, [Mr. Mason,] I shall proceed. If I
touch Slavery to the quick, and enable Slave-
masters to see themselves as others see them, I
shall do nothing beyond the strictest line of
duty in this debate.
One of the choicest passages of the master
Italian poet, Dante, is where a scene of tran-
scendent virtue is described as sculptured in
" visible speech" on the long gallery which led
to the Heavenly Gate. The poet felt the in-
spiration of the scene, and placed it on the
way side, where it could charm and encour-
age. This was natural. Nobody can look upon
virtue and justice, if it be only in images
and pictures, without feeling a kindred senti-
ment. Nobody can be surrounded by vice
and wrong, by violence and brutality, if it be
only in images and pictures, without coming
under their degrading influence. Nobody can
live with the one without advantage • nobody
can live with the other without loss. Who
could pass his life in the secret chamber where
are gathered the impure relics of Pompeii,
without becoming indifferent to loathsome
things ? But if these loathsome things are not
merely sculptured and painted, if they exist in
living reality — if they enact their hideous capers
in life, as in the criminal pretensions of Sla-
very— while the lash plays and the blood
spirts — while women are whipped and children
are sold — while marriage is polluted and an-
nulled— while the parental tie is rudely torn —
while honest gains are filched or robbed — while
the soul itself is shut down in all the darkness
of ignorance, and while God himself is defied
in the pretension that man can have property
in his fellow-man ; if all these things .are pres-
ent, not merely in images and pictures, but in
reality, their influence on character must be
incalculable.
It is according to irresistible law that men
are fashioned by what is about them, wheth-
er climate, scenery, life, or institutions. Like
produces like, and this ancient proverb is
verified always. Look at the miner, delv-
ing low down in darkness, and the moun-
taineer, ranging on airy heights, and you
will see a contrast in character, and even in
personal form. The difference between a
coward and a hero may be traced in the at-
mosphere which each has breathed ; and how
much more in the institutions under which
each has been reared. If institutions generous
and just ripen souls also generous and just,
then other institutions must exhibit their influ-
ence also. Violence, brutality, injustice, bar-
barism, must be reproduced in the lives of all
who live within their fatal sphere. The meat
that is eaten by man enters into and become
a part of his body ; the madder which is eaten
by a dog changes his bones to red • and the
Slavery on which men live, in all its five-fold
foulness, must become a part of themselves,
discoloring their very souls, blotting their char-
acters, and breaking forth in moral leprosy.
This language is strong; but the evidence is
even stronger. Some there may be of happy
natures — like honorable Senators — who can
thus feed and not be harmed. Mithridates fed
on poison, and lived ; and it may be that there
is a moral Mithridates, who can swallow with-
out bane the poison of Slavery.
Instead of "ennobling" the master, nothing
can be clearer than that the slave drags h s
master down, and this process begins in child-
hood, and is continued through life. Living
much in association with bis slave, the master
finds nothing to remind him of his own defi-
ciencies, to prompt his ambition or excite his
shame. Without these provocations to virtue,
and without an elevating example, he naturaliy
shares the Barbarism of the society which he
keeps. Thus the very inferiority which the
Slave-master attributes to the African race ex-
plains the melancholy condition of the commu-
nities in which his degradation is declared by
law.
A single false principle or vicious thought
may degrade a character otherwise blameless;
and this is practically true of the Slave-master.
Accustomed to regard men as property, his
sensibilities are blunted and his moral sense is
obscured. He consents to acts from which
Civilization recoils. The early Church sold its
property, and even its sacred vessels, for the
redemption of captives. This was done on a
remarkable occasion by St. Ambrose, and suc-
cessive canons confirmed the example. But
in the Slave States this is all reversed. Slaves
there are often sold as the property of the
Church, and an instance is related of a slave
sold in South Carolina in order to buy plate
for the communion table. Who can calculate
the effect of such an example?
Surrounded by pernicious influences of all
kinds, both positive and negative, the first
making him do that which he ought not to do,
and the second making him leave undone that"
which he ought to have done — through child*
17
hood, youth, and manhood, even unto age — un-
able while at home to escape these influences,
overshadowed constantly by the portentous Bar-
barism about him, the Slave-master natural-
ly adopts the bludgeon, the revolver, and the
bowie-knife. Through these he governs his
plantation, and secretly armed with these he
enters the world. These are his congenial com-
panions. To wear these is his pride; to use
them becomes a passion, almost a necessity.
Nothing contributes to violence so much as the
wearing of the instruments of violence, thus
having them always at hand to obey the law-
less instincts of the individual. A barbarous
standard is established ; a duel is not dishonor-
able ; a contest peculiar to our Slave-masters,
known as a "street fight," is not shameful;
and modern imitators of Cain have a mark set
upon them, not for reproach and condemnation,
but for compliment and approval. I wish to
keep within bounds ; but unanswerable facts,
accumulating in fearful quantities, attest that
the social system, so much vaunted by honora-
ble Senators, and which we are now asked to
sanction and to extend, takes its character from
this spirit, and with professions of Christianity
on the lips, becomes Cain like. And this is
aggravated by the prevailing ignorance in the
Slave States, where one in twelve of the adult
white population is unable to read and write.
Tho boldest they who least partake the light,
As game cocks in the dark are trained to fight.
Of course there are exceptions, which we all
gladly recognise, but it is this spirit which pre-
dominates and gives the social law. And here
mark an important difference. Elsewhere vio-
lence shows itself in spite of law, whether social
or statute ; in the Slave States it is because of
law both social and statute. Elsewhere it is
pursued and condemned ; in the Slave States it
is adopted and honored. Elsewhere it is hunted
as a crime; in the Slave States it takes its
place among the honorable graces of society.
Let not these harsh statements stand on my
authority. Listen to the testimony of two Gov-
ernors of Slave States in their messages to the
Legislatures :
" We long to see the day," said the Governor of Kentucky
in 1837, " when the law will assert its majesty, and stop the
wanton destruction of life which almost daily occurs within
the jurisdiction of the Commonwealth. Men slaughter each
other with almost perfect impunity. A species of common law
has grown up in Kentucky, which, were it written down,
would, in all civilized countries, cause it to be rechristened,
iu derision, the land of blood."
Such was the official confession of a Slave-
master Governor of Kentucky. And here is
the official confession made the same year by
the Slave-master Governor or Alabama :
" We hear of homicides in different parts of the State con-
tinually, and yet have few convictions, and still fewer exe-
cutious ! Why do we hear of stabbings and shootings almost
daily in some part or other of our State ? "
A land of blood ! Stabbings and shootings
almost daily ! Such is the official language. It
was natural that contemporary newspapers
should repeat what thus found utterance in
high places. Here is a confession by a news-
paper in Mississippi :
"The moral atmosphere in our State appears to be in a
deleterious and sanguinary conditvm. Almost every exchange
paper which reaches us, contains some inhuman and revolt-
ing case of murder or death by violence." — Grand Gulf Adver
tiser, 21th June, 1837.
Here is another confession by a newspaper
in New Orleans :
" In view of the crimes which are daily committed, we
are led to inquire whether it is owing to the inefficiency of
our laws, or to the manner in which these laws are admin-
istered, that this frightful deluge of human blood flows through
our streets and our places of public resort." — New Orleans Bee,
23d May, 1838.
And here is testimony of a different charac-
ter:
" No one who has not been an integral part of a slave-
holding community can have any idea of its abominations.
It is a whited sepulchre, full of dead men's bones and allun-
cleanness."
These are the words of a Southern lady, the
daughter of the accomplished Judge^ Grimke
'of South Carolina.
A catalogue of affrays between politicians,
commonly known as "street fights" — I use the
phrase which comes from the land of Slavery —
would show that these authorities were not mis-
taken. That famous Dutch picture, admired
particularly by a successful engraving, and
called the Knife-fight, presents a scene less re-
volting than one of these. Two or more men,
armed to the teeth, meet in the streets, at a
court-house or a tavern, shoot at each other with
revolvers, then gash each other with knives,
close, and roll upon the ground, covered with dirt
and blood, struggling and stabbing till death,
prostration, or surrender, puts an end to the
conflict. Each instance tells a shameful story,
and cries out against the social system which
can tolerate such Barbarism. A catalogue of
duels in our country would testify again to the
reckless disregard of life where Slavery exists,
and would exhibit Violence flaunting in the
garb of Honor, and prating of a barbarous
code disowned equally by reason and religion.
But you have already supped too full of horrors^
and I hasten on.
Pardon me if I stop for one moment to ex-
hibit and denounce the Duel. I do it only be-
cause it belongs to the brood of Slavery. An
enlightened Civilization has long ago rejected
this relic of Barbarism, and never has one part
of the argument against it been put more sen-
tentiously than by Franklin : " A duel decides
nothing," said this patriot philosopher, " and
the person appealing to it makes himself judge
in his own cause, condemns the offender with-
out a jury, and undertakes himself to be the
executioner." To these emphatic words I
would add two brief propositions, which, if
practically adopted, make the Duel impossi-
ble— first, that the acknowledgment of wrong
with apology or explanation can never be other-
wise than honorable ; arid, secondly, that, in the
absence of all such acknowledgment, no wrong
can ever be repaired by a gladiatorial contest,
where brute force, or skill, or chance, must de-
18
cide the day. Iron and adamant are not
stronger than these arguments; nor can any
one attempt an answer without exposing his
feebleness. And yet Slave-masters, disregard-
ing its irrational character — insensible to its
folly — heedless of its impiety — and unconscious
of its Barbarism, openly adopt the Duel as a
regulator of manners and conduct. Two voices
from South Carolina have been raised against
it, and I mention them with gladness as testi-
mony even in that land of Slavery. The first
was Charles Cotesworm Pinckney, who in the
early days of the Republic openly declared his
" abhorrence of the practice," and invoked the
the clergy of his State " as a particular favor
at some convenient early day to preach a ser-
mon on the sin and folly of duelling." The
other was Mr. Rhett, who on this floor openly
declared as his reason for declining the Duel,
" that he feared God more than man." Gen-
erous words, for which many errors can be par-
doned. But these voices condemn the social
system of which the Duel is a natural product.
Looking now at the broad surface of society
where Slavery exists, we shall find its spirit
actively manifest in the suppression of all free-
dom of speech or of the press, especially with
regard to this wrong. Nobody in the Slave
States can speak or print against Slavery, ex-
cept at the peril of life or liberty. St. Paul
could call upon the people of Athens to- give
up the worship of unknown gods;, he could
live in his own hired house at Rome, and
preach Christianity in this Heathen metropo-
lis ; but no man can be heard against Slavery
in Charleston or Mobile. We condemn the
Inquisition, which subjects all within its influ-
ence to censorship and secret judgment ; but
this tyranny is repeated in American Slave-
masters. Truths as simple as the great dis-
covery of Galileo are openly denied, and ail
who declare them are driven to recant. We
condemn the Index Expurgatorius of the
Roman Church ; but American Slave-masters
have an Index on which are inscribed all the
generous books of the age. There is one book,
the marvel of recent literature, Uncle Tom's
Cabin, which has been thus treated both by the
Church and by the Slave-masters, so that it is
honored by the same suppression at the Vati-
can and at Charleston.
Not to dweM on these instances, there is one
which has a most instructive ridiculousness.
A religious discourse of the late Dr. Channing
on Yfest India Emancipation — the last effort
of his beautiful career — was offered for sale by
a book agent at Charleston. A prosecution by
the South Carolina Association ensued, and
the agent was held to bail in the sum of one
thousand dollars. Shortly afterwards, the same
agent received for sale a work by Dickens,
freshly published, " American Notes;" but,
determined not to expose himself again to the
tyrannical Inquisition, he gave notice through
the newspapers that the book " would be sub-
mitted to highly intelligent members 'of the
South Carolina Association for inspection, and
if the sale is approved by them, it will be for
sale — if not, not."
Listen also to another recent instance, as re-
counted in the Montgomery Mail, a newspaper
of Alabama :
" Last Saturday we devoted to the flames a large number
of copies of Spurgeon's Sermons, and the pile was graced at
the top with a copy of" Graves's Great Iron Wheel," which
a Baptist friend presented for the purpose. We trust that
the works of the greasy cockney vociferatormay receive the
same treatment throughout the South. And if the Pharisai-
cal author should ever show himself in these parts, wo trust
that a stout cord may speedily find its way around his elo-
quent throat. He has proved himself a dirty, low-bred
slanderer, and ought to be treated accordingly."
And very recently we have read in the jour-
nals, that the trustees of a College in Alabama
have resolved that Dr. Wayland's admirable
work on Moral Science " contains abolition
doctrine of the deepest dye;" and they pro-
ceeded to denounce u the said book, and forbid
its further use in the Institute."
The speeches of Wilberforce in the British
Parliament, and especially those magnificent
efforts of Brougham, where he exposed li the
wild and guilty fantasy that man can hold
property in man," were insanely denounced by
the British planters in the West Indies ; but
our Slave-masters go further. Speeches 'de-
livered in the Senate have been stopped at the
Post-ofiice ; booksellers who had received them
have been mobbed, and on at least one occa-
sion the speeches have been solemnly pro
ceeded against by a Grand Jury.
All this is natural? for tyranny is condemned
to be consequent with itself. Proclaim Slavery
to be a permanent institution, instead of a
temporary Barbarism, soon to pass away, and
then, by the unhesitating logic of self-preserva-
tion, all things must yield to its support. Xhfl
safety of Slavery becomes the supreme law
And since Slavery is endangered by liberty ia
any form, therefore all liberty must be restrain
ed. Such is the philosophy of this seeming
paradox in a Republic. And our Slave-masters
show themselves apt in this work. Violence
and brutality are their ready instruments,
quickened always by the wakefulness of sua
picion, and perhaps often by the restlessness o*
uneasy conscience. Everywhere in the Slave
States the Lion's Mouth of Venice, where citi-
zens were anonymously denounced, is open;
nor are the gloomy prisons and the Bridge ot
Sighs wanting.
This spirit has recently shown itself with
such intensity and activ ty as to constitute
what has been properly termed a reign of ter-
ror. Northern men, unless they happen to be
delegates to a Democratic Convention, are ex-
posed in thejr travels, whether of business or
health, to the operation of this system. They
are watched and dogged, as if in a land of Des-
potism ; they are treated with the meanness of
a disgusting tyranny, and live in peril always
of personal indignity, and often of life and
19
limb. Complaint has sometimes been made of
the wrongs to American citizens in Mexico ;
but during the last year, more outrages on
American citizens have been perpetrated in
the Slave States than in Mexico. Here, again,
I have no time for details, which have been
already presented in other quarters. But the
instances are from all conditions of life. In
Missouri, a Methodist clergyman, suspected of
being an Abolitionist, was taken to prison,
amidst threats of tar and feathers. In Arkan-
sas, a schoolmaster was driven from the State.
In Kentucky, a plain citizen from Indiana, on
a visit to his friends, was threatened with death
by the rope. In Alabama, a simple person
from Connecticut, peddling books, was thrust
into prison, amidst cries of " Shoot him I hang
him I ■ In Virginia, a Shaker, from New York,
peddling garden seeds, was forcibly expelled
from the State. In Georgia, a merchant's
clerk, Irishman by birth, who simply asked
the settlement of a just debt, was cast into
prison, robbed of his pocket-book, containing
nearly $100, and barely escaped with his life.
In South Carolina, a stone-cutter, Irishman by
birth, was stripped naked, and then, amidst
cries of " Brand him ! " " Burn him ! " " Spike
him to death ! " scourged so that blood came
at every stroke, while tar was poured upon his
lacerated flesh. These atrocities, calculated,
according to the words of a poet of subtle
beauty, to " make a holiday in hell," were all
ordained, by Vigilance Committees, or by that
busiest magistrate, Judge Lynch, inspired by
the demon of Slavery.
M He let them loose, and cried, Halloo !
How shall we yield him honor due? "
In perfect shamelessness, and as if to blazon
this fiendish spirit, we have had, this winter, in
a leading newspaper of Virginia, an article,
proposing to give twenty-five dollars each for
the heads of citizens, mostly members of Con-
gress, known to be against Slavery, and
$60,000 for the head of William H. Seward.
And in still another paper of Virginia, we find
a proposition to raise $10,000 to be given for
the kidnapping and delivery of a venerable cit-
izen, Joshua R. Giddings, at Richmond, "or
$5,000 for the production of his head." These
are fresh instances, but they are not alone. At
a meeting of Slave-masters in Georgia, in 1835,
the Governor was recommended to issue a
proclamation, offering $5,000 as a reward for
the apprehension of either often persons named
in the resolution, citizens of New York and
Massachusetts, and one a subject of Great
Britain — not one of whom it was pretended
had ever set foot on the soil of Georgia. The
Milledgeville Federal Union, a newspaper of
Georgia, in 1836, contained an offer of $10,000
for kidnapping a clergyman residing in the
oity of New York. A Committee of Vigilance
of Louisiana, in 1835, offered, in the Louisiana
Journal, $50,000 to any person who would de-
liver into their hands Arthur Tappan, a mer-
chant of New York ; and, during the same year,
a public meeting in Alabama, with a person
entitled " Honorable " in the chair, offered a
similar reward of $50,000 for the apprehension
of the same Arthur Tappan, and of La Roy
Sunderland, a clergyman of the Methodist
church at New York.
These manifestations are not without proto-
type in the history of the Anti-Slavery cause in
other countries. From the beginning, Slave-
masters have encountered argument by brutal-
ity and violence. If we go back to the earliest
of Abolitionists, the wonderful Portuguese
preacher, Vieyra, we shall find that his match-
less eloquence and unquestioned piety did not
save him from indignity. After a sermon ex-
posing Slavery in Brazil, he was seized and
imprisoned, while one of the principal Slave-
masters asked him, in mockery, where were all
his learning and all his genius now, if they
could not deliver him in this extremity? He
was of the Catholic church. But the spirit of
Slavery is the same in all churches. A re-
nowned Quaker minister of the last centu-
ry, Thomas Chalkley, while on a visit at Bar-
bados, having simply recommended charity to
the slaves, without presuming to breathe a
word against Slavery itself, was first met by
disturbance in the meeting, and afterwards, on
the highway, and in open day, was fired at by
one of the exasperated planters, with " a fowl-
ing-piece loaded with small shot, ten of which
made marks, and several drew blood." Even
in England, while the slave trade was under
discussion, the same spirit appeared. Wilber-
force, who represented the cause of Abolition
in Parliament, was threatened with personal
violence ; Clarkson, who represented the same
cause before the people, was assaulted by the
infuriate Slave- traders, and narrowly escaped
being hustled into the dock ; and Roscoe, the
accomplished historian, on his return to Liver-
pool from his seat in Parliament, where he had
signalized himself as an opponent of the slave
trade, was met at the entrance of the town by
a savage mob, composed of persons interested
in this traffic, armed with knives and bludgeons,
the distinctive arguments and companions of
Pro Slavery partisans.
And even in the Free States the partisans of
Slavery have from the beginning acted under
the inspiration of violence. The demon of
Slavery has entered into them, and under its
influence they have behaved like Slave-masters.
Public meetings for the discussion of Slavery
have been interrupted ; public halls dedicated
to its discussion have been destroyed or burned
to the ground. In all our populous cities the
great rights of speech and of the press have
been assailed precisely as in the Slave States.
In Boston, Garrison, pleading for the Slave, was
dragged through the streets with a halter about
his neck, and in Illinois Lovejoy, also plead-
ing for the Slave, was ferociously murdered.
The former yet lives to speak for himself, while
the latter lives in his eloquent brother, the
Representative from Illinois in the other House.
Thus does Slavery show its natural influence
even at a distance.
Nor in the Slave States is this spirit confined
to the outbreaks of mere lawlessness. Too
strong for restraint, it finds no limitations ex-
cept in its own barbarous will. The Govern-
ment becomes its tool, and in official acts does
its bidding. Here again the instances are nu-
merous. I might dwell on the degradation of
the Post Office, when its official head consented
that, for the sake of Slavery, the mails them-
selves should be rifled. I might dwell also on
the cruel persecution of Free Persons of color
who in the Slave States generally, and even
here in the District of Columbia, are not allowed
to testify where a white man is in question, and
who now in several States are menaced by
legislative act with the alternative of expulsion
from their homes or of reduction to Slavery.
But I pass at once to two illustrative transac-
tions, which, as a son of Massachusetts, I can-
not forget.
1. The first relates to a citizen, of purest life
and perfect integrity, whose name is destined
to fill a conspicuous place in the history of Free-
dom, William Lloyd Garrison. Born in Massa-
chusetts, bred to the same profession with Ben-
jamin Franklin, and like his great predecessor
becoming an editor, he saw with instinctive
clearness the wrong of Slavery, and at a period
when the ardors of the Missouri Question had
given way to indifference throughout the North,
he stepped forward to denounce it. The jail at
Baltimore, where he then resided, was his earliest
reward, Afterwards, January 1st, 1831, hevpub-
lished the first number of the Liberator, inscri-
bing for his motto an utterance of Christian phi-
lanthropy, " My country is the world, my coun-
trymen are all mankind," and declaring in the
face of surrounding apathy, u I am in earnest. I
will not equivocate, I will not retreat a single in ch,
and I will be heard." In this sublime spirit he
commenced his labors for the Slave, proposing
no intervention by Congress in the States, and
on well-considered principle avoiding all appeals
to the bondmen themselves. Such was his sim-
ple and thoroughly constitutional position, when,
before the expiration of the first year, the Legis-
lature of Georgia, by solemn act, a copy of which
I have now before me, "approved" by Wil-
son Lumpkin, Governor, appropriated $5,000
" to be paid to any person who shall arrest,
bring to trial, and prosecute to conviction under
the laws of this State, the editor or publisher
of a certain paper called the Liberator, pub-
lished at the town of Boston and State of Mas-
sachusetts." This infamous legislative act
touching a person absolutely beyond the juris-
diction of Georgia, and in no way amenable
to its laws, constituted a plain bribe to the
gangs of kidnappers engendered by Slavery.
With this barefaced defiance of j ustice and de-
cency Slave-masters inaugurated the system of
violence by which they have sought to crush
every voice that has been raised against Sla-
very.
2. Here is another illustration of a different
character. Free persons of color, citizens of
Massachusetts, and, according to the institu-
tions of this Commonwealth, entitled to equal
privileges with other citizens, being in service
as mariners, and touching at the port of Charles-
ton, in South Carolina, have been seized, and
with no allegation against them, except of en-
tering this port in the discharge of their right-
ful business, have been cast into prison, and
there detained during the delay of the vessel.
This is by virtue of a statute of South Carolina,
passed in 1823, which further declares, that in
the failure of the captain to pay the expenses,
these freemen u shall be seized and taken as
absolute slaves," one moiety of the proceeds of
their sale to belong to the Sheriff. Against all
remonstrance — against the official opinion of
Mr. Wirt, as Attorney General of the United
States, declaring it unconstitutional — against
the solemn judgment of Mr. Justice Johnson,
of the Supreme Court of the United States,
himself a Slave-master and citizen of South
Carolina, also pronouncing it unconstitutional —
this statute, which is an obvious injury to North-
ern ship-owners, as it is an outrage to the
mariners whom it seizes, has been upheld to
this day by South Carolina.
But this is not all. Massachusetts, in order
to obtain for her citizens that protection which
was denied, and especially to save them from
the dread penalty of being sold into Slavery,
appointed a citizen of South Carolina to act as
her agent for this purpose, and to bring suit?
in the Circuit Court of the United States in
order to try the constitutionality of this preten-
sion. Owing to the sensibility of the people ir
that State, this agent declined to render this
simple service. Massachusetts next selected
one of her own sons, a venerable citizen, whc
had already served with honor in the othei
House of Congress, and who was of admitted
eminence as a lawyer, the Hon. Samuel Hoar,
of Concord, to visit Charleston, and to do what
the agent first appointed had shrunk from doing.
This excellent gentleman, beloved by all who
knew him, gentle in manners as he was firm in
character, and with a countenance that was in
itself a letter of recommendation, arrived at
Charleston, accompanied only by his daughter.
Straightway all South Carolina was convulsed.
According to a story in Boswell's Johnson, all
the inhabitants at St. Kilda, a remote island of
the Hebrides, on the approach of a stranger,
" catch cold ; " but in South Carolina it is a
fever that they " catch." The Governor at
the time, who was none other than one of her
present Senators, [Mr. Hammond,] made his ar-
rival the subject of a special message to the
Legislature, which I now have before me ; the
Legislature all " caught" the fever, and swiftly
adopted resolutions calling upon "his Excel*
21
Iency the Governor to expel from its territory
the said agent, after due notice to depart," and
promising " to sustain the Executive authority
in any measures it may adopt for the purposes
aforesaid."
Meanwhile the fever raged in Charleston.
The agent of Massachusetts was first accosted
in the street by a person unknown to him, who,
flourishing a bludgeon in his hand — the blud-
geon always shows itself where Slavery is in
question — cried-out, "you had better be travel-
ling, and the sooner the better for you, I can
tell you ; if you stay here until to-morrow morn-
ing, you will feel something you will not like,
I'm thinking." Next came threats of an attack
during the following night on the Hotel in
which he was lodged ; then a request from the
landlord that he should quit, in order to pre-
serve the Hotel itself from the impending dan-
ger of an infuriate mob ; then a committee of
Slave-masters, who politely proposed to con-
duct him to the boat. Thus arrested in his
simple errand of good will, this venerable pub-
lic servant, whose appearance alone — like that
of the " grave and pious man " mentioned by
Virgil — would have softened any mob not in-
spired by Slavery, yielded to the ejectment pro-
posed— precisely as the prisoner yields to the
officers of the law — and left Charleston, while
a person in the crowd was heard to offer him-
self as " the leader of a tar-and-feather gang
to be called into the service of the city on the
occasion." Nor is this all? The Legislature a
second time " caught " the fever, and, yielding to
its influence, passed another statute, forbidding
under severe penalties any person within the
State from accepting a commission to befriend
these colored mariners, and under penalties
severer still, extending even to imprisonment
for life, prohibiting any person " on his own
behalf or by virtue of any authority from any
State " to come within South Carolina for this
purpose ; and then, to complete its work, the
Legislature took away the writ of habeas corpus
from all such mariners.
Such is a simple narrative founded on au-
thentic documents. I do not adduce it now
for criticism, but simply to enroll it in all its
stages — beginning with the earliest pretension
of South Carolina, continuing in violence, and
ending in yet other pretensions — among the
special instances where the Barbarism of Slave-
ry stands confessed even in official conduct.
And yet this transaction, which may well give to
South Carolina the character of a shore " where
shipwrecked mariners dread to land," has been
openly vindicated in all its details from begin-
ning to end by both the Senators from that
State, while one of them, [Mr. Hammond,] in
the same breath, has borne his testimony from
personal knowledge to the character of the
public agent thus maltreated, saying, " he was a
pleasant, kind, old gentleman, and I had a sort
of friendship for him during the short time I
sat near him in Congress."
Thus, sir, whether we look at individuals or
at the community where Slavery exists, at law-
less outbreaks or at official conduct, Slave-
masters are always the same. Enough, you
will say, has been said. Yes ; enough to ex-
pose Slavery, but not enough for Truth. The
most instructive and most grievous part still
remains. It is the exhibition of Slave-masters
in Congressional history. Of course, the repre-
sentative reflects the character as well as Uie po-
litical opinions of the constituents whose will it is
his boast to obey. It follows that the passions
and habits of Slave-masters are naturally rep-
resented in Congress — chastened to a certain
extent, perhaps, by the requirements of Par-
liamentary Law, but breaking out in fearful
examples. And here, again, facts shall speak,
as nothing else can.
In proceeding with this duty, to which, as
you will perceive, I am impelled by the posi-
tive requirements of this debate, I crave the
indulgence of the Senate, while, avoiding all
allusions to private life or private character,
and touching simply what is of record, and
already " enrolled in the Capitol," I present a
few only of many instances, which, especially
during these latter days, since Slavery has
become paramount, have taken their place in
our national history.
Here is an instance. On the 15th February,
1837, R. M. Whitney was arraigned before the
House of Representatives for contempt, in re-
fusing to attend, when required, before a Com-
mittee of investigation into the administration
of the Executive office. His excuse was, that
he could not attend without exposing himself
thereby to outrage and violence in the commit-
tee room ; and on examination at the bar of
the House, Mr. Fairfield, a member of the
Committee, afterwards a member of this body,
and Governor of Maine, testified to the actual
facts. It appeared that Mr. Peyton, a Slave-
master from Tennessee, and a member of the
Committee, regarding a certain answer in
writing by Mr. Whitney to an interrogatory
propounded by him as offensive, broke out
in these words : " Mr. Chairman, I wish you to
inform this witness, that he is not to insult me
in his answers ; if he does, God damn him 1 I
will take his life on the spotl " The witness,
rising, claimed the protection of the Commit-
tee; on which Mr. Peyton exclaimed: "God
damn you, you shan't speak ; you shan't say
one word while you are in this room ; if you
do, I will put you to death." Mr. Wise, an-
other Slave-master from Virginia, Chairman
of the Committee, and latterly Governor of
Virginia, then intervened, saying, " Yes, this
damned insolence is insufferable." Soon after,
Mr. Peyton, observing that the witness was
looking at him, cried out, " Damn him, his
eyes are on me — God damn him, he is looking
at me — he shan't do it — damn him, he shan't
look at me."
These things, and much more, disclosed by
Mr. Fairfield in reply to interrogatories in the
House, were confirmed by other witnesses, and
Mr. Wise himself in a speech made the admis-
sion that he was armed with deadly weapons,
saying-, w I watched the motion of that right
arm, [of the witness,] the elbow of which could
be seen by me, and had it moved one inch, he
had died on the spot. That was my determi-
nation."
All this will be found in the 13th volume of
the Congressional Debates, with the evidence
in detail, and the discussion thereupon.
Here is another instance of similar charac-
ter, which did not occur in a Committee-room,
but during debate in the Senate Chamber.
While the Compromise measures were under
discussion in 1850, on the 17th of April, 1850,
Mr. Foote, a Slave-master from Mississippi, in
the course of his remarks, commenced a per-
sonal allusion to Mr. Benton. This was aggra-
vated by the circumstance that only a few days
previously he had made this distinguished gen-
tleman the mark for most bitter and vindictive
personalities. Mr. Benton rose at once from
his seat, and, with an angry countenance, but
without weapons of any kind in his hand, or, as
it appeared afterward before the Committee,
on his person, advanced in the direction of Mr.
Foote, when the latter, gliding backwards,
drew from his pocket a five-chambered revolver,
full loaded, which he cocked. Meanwhile Mr.
Benton, at the suggestion of friends, was al-
ready returning to his seat, when he perceived
the pistol. Excited greatly by this deadly
menace, he exclaimed, " 1 am not armed.
I have no pistols. I disdain to carry arms.
Stand out of the way, and let the assassin fire."
Mr. Foote remained standing in the position
he had taken, with his pistol in his hand, cocked.
" Soon after," says the report of the Committee
appointed to investigate this occurrence, " both
Senators resumed their seats, and order was
restored."
All this will be found at length in the 21st
volume of the Congressional Globe.
Another instance, which belongs to the same
class, is given by the Hon. William Jay, a
writer of singular accuracy, and of the truest
principle, who has done much to illustrate the
history of our country. It is this : Mr. Daw-
son, a Slave-master from Louisiana, and a
member of the House of Representatives, went
up to another member on the floor of the
House, and addressed to him these words : " If
you attempt to speak, or rise from your seat,
sir, by G — d, I'll cut your throat."
The duel, which at home in the Slave States
"twin" with the "street fight," is also
is
" twin " with these instances. It is constantly
adopted or attempted by Slave-masters in Con-
gress. But I shall not enter upon this cata-
logue. I content myself with showing the
openness with which in debate it has been
menaced, and without any call to order.
Mr. Foote, the same Slave-master already
mentioned, in debate in the Senate, 26th of
March, 1850, thus sought to provoke Mr. Benton.
I take his words from the Congressional Globe.
vol. 21, p. 603:
" There are instances in the history of the Senator which
might well relieve a man of honor from the obligation
to recognise him as a fitting antagonist • yet it is notwith
standing true, that, if the Senator from Missouri will deign
to acknowledge himself responsible to the laws of honor, he
shall have a very early opportunity of proving his prowess
in contest with one over whom I hold perfect control ; or, if
he feels in the least degree aggrieved at anything which has
fallen from me, he shall, on demanding it, have full redress
accorded to him,, according to the said laws of honor. I do
not denounce him as a coward ; such language is unfitted for
this audience ; but if he wishes to patch up his reputation
for courage, now greatly on the wane, he will certainly have
an opportunity of doing so whenever he makes his desire known
in Vie premises. At present he is shielded by his age, Ids
open disavowal of the obligatory laws of honor, and hia Sena-
torial privileges."
With such bitter taunts and reiterated provo-
cations to the duel was Mr. Benton pursued ;
but there was no call to order, nor any action
of the Senate on this outrage.
Here is another instance. In debate in tha
Senate on the 27th February, 1852, Mr. Clem-
ens, a Slave-master of Alabama, thus directly
attacked Mr. Rhett for undertaking to settle
their differences by argument in the Senate,
rather than by the duel. "No man," said he,
" with the feeling of a man in his bosom, would
have sought redress here. He would have
looked for it elsewhere. He now comes here
not to ask redress in the only way he should
have sought it."
There was no call to order.
Here is still another. In the debate of the
bill for the improvement of Rivers and Har-
bors, 29th July, 1854, (Congressional Globe,
vol. 29, appendix, page 1163,) the Senator from
Louisiana, [Mr. Benjamin,] who is still a mem-
ber of this body, ardent for Slavery, while pro-
fessing to avoid personal altercation in the
Senate, especially " with a gentleman who pro-
fesses the principles of non-resistance, as he un-
derstood the Senator from New York does,"
proceeded most earnestly to repel an imagined
imputation on him by Mr. Seward, and wound
up by saying : " If it came from another quar-
ter, it would not be upon thisfioor that 1 should
answer it."
And then, during the present session, the
Senator from Mississippi, [Mr. Davis,] who
speaks so often for Slavery, in a colloquy on
this floor with the Senator from Vermont, [Mr*
Collamer,] has maintained the Duel as a
mode of settling personal differences and vin-
dicating what is called personal honor ; as if
personal honor did not depend absolutely upon
what a man does, and not what is done to him.
"A gentleman," says the Senator, "has tite
right to give an insult, if he feels himself bound
to answer for it;" and in reply to the Senator
from Vermont, he declared, that in case of in
suit, taking another out and shooting him
might be " satisfaction."
1 do not dwell on this instance, nor on any
of these instances, except to make a single com
23
ment These declarations have all been made
in open Senate, without any check from the
Chair. Of course, they are clear violations of
the first principles of Parliamentary Law, and
tend directly to provoke a violation of the law
of the land. All duels are prohibited by solemn
act of Congress. (See Statutes at Large, vol.
5, page 318, February 20, 1839.) In case of
death, the surviving parties are declared guilty
of felony, to be punished by hard labor in the
penitentiary ; and, even where nothing has
occurred beyond the challenge, all the parties
to it, whether givers or receivers, are declared
guilty of high crime and misdemeanor, also to
be punished by hard labor in the penitentiary.
Of course, every menace of a duel in Congress
sets this law at defiance. And yet the Sena-
tors, who thus openly disregard a law sanc-
tioned by the Constitution and commended by
morality, presume to complain on this floor be-
cause other Senators disregard the Fugitive
Slave Bill, a statute which, according1 to the
profound convictions of large numbers, is as
unconstitutional as it is offensive to the moral
sense. Let Senators who are so clamorous for
-,' the enforcement of laws," begin by enforcing
the statute which declares the Duel to be a
felony. At least, let the statute cease to be a
dead letter in this Chamber. But this is too
much to expect while Slavery prevails here,
for the Duel is a part of that System of Vio-
lence which has its origin in Slavery.
But it is when aroused by the Slave Ques-
tion in Congress that Slave-masters have most
truly shown themselves ; and here again I shall
speak only of what has already passed into his-
tory* Even in that earliest debate, in the First
Congress after the Constitution, on the memorial
of Dr* Franklin, simply calling upon Congress
" to step to the verge of its powers to discourage
every species of traffic in our fellow-men," the
Slave-masters became angry, indulged in sneers
at " the men in the gallery," being Quakers
and Abolitionists, and, according to the faith-
ful historian, Hildreth, poured out " torrents
of abuse," while one of them began the charge
so often since directed against all Anti-Slavery
men, by declaring his astonishment that Dr.
Franklin had "given countenance to an appli-
cation which called upon Congress, in explicit
terms, to break a solemn compact to which he
had himself been a party," when it was obvious
that Dr. Franklin had done no such thing.
This great man was soon summoned away by
death, but not until he had fastened upon this
debate an undying condemnation, by portray-
ing, with hi€ matchless pen, a scene in the Di-
van at Algiers, where a corsair Slave-dealer,
insisting upon the enslavement of White Chris-
tians, is made to repeat the Congressional
speech of an American Slave-master.
But these displays of Violence have natural-
ly increased with the intensity of the discus-
sion. Impelled to be severe, but with little
appreciation of the finer forms of debate, they
could not be severe except by violating the
rules of debate ; not knowing that there is a
serener power than any found in personalities,
and that all severity which transcends the rules
of debate, becomes disgusting as the talk of
Yahoos, and harms him only who degrades
himself to be its mouth-piece. Of course, on
Such occasions, the cause of Slavery, amidst
all seeming triumphs, has lost, and Truth has
gained.
It was against John Quincy Adams that this
violence was first directed in full force. To a
character spotless as snow, and to universal
attainments as a scholar, this illustrious citizen
added experience in all the eminent posts of
the Republic, which he had filled with an abili-
ty and integrity, now admitted even by his
enemies, and which impartial history cannot
forget. Having been President of the United
States, he entered the House of Representa-
tives at the period when the Slave Question in
its revival first began to occupy the public atten-
tion. In all the completeness of his nature, he
became the representative of Human Freedom.
The first struggle occurred on the right of pe-
tition, which Slave-masters, with characteristic
tyranny, sought to suppress. This was resist-
ed by the venerable patriot, and what he did
was always done with his* whole heart. Then
was poured upon him abuse as from a cart.
Slave-masters, " foaming out their shame," be-
came conspicuous, not less for an avowal of
sentiments at which Civilization blushed, than
for an effrontery of manner where the acci-
dental legislator was lost in the natural over-
seer, and the lash of the plantation resounded
in the voice.
In an address to his constituents, 17th Sep-
tember, 1842, Mr. Adams thus frankly de-
scribes the treatment he had experienced :
" I never can take part in any debate upon an important
subject, bo it only upon a mere abstraction, but a pack
opeus upon me of personal invective in return. Language
Las no word of reproaeh and railing that is not burled at
me."
And in the same speech he gives a glimpse
of Slave- masters :
" Whore the South cannot effect her object by brow-beat-
ing, she wheedles."
On another occasion he said, with his ac-
customed power :
" Insult, bullying, and threat, characterize the Slavehold-
ers in Congress ; talk, timidity, and submission, tho Repre-
sentatives from tho Free States.'*
Nor were the Slave-masters contented with
the violence of words. True to the instincts of
Slavery, they threatened personal indignity of
every kind, and even assassination. And here
South Carolina naturally took the lead.
The Charleston Mercury, which always speaks
the true voice of Slavery, said in 1837 :
" Public opinion in the South would now, we are sure, just-
ify an immediate resort to lbrce by the Southern delegation,
even on the floor of Congress, were they forthwith to seize and
drag from the Hall any man who dared to insult them, as
that eccentric old showman, John Quincy Adams, has dared
to do."
And at a public dinner at Walterborough,
24
in South Carolina, on the 4th of July, 1842, the
following toast, afterwards preserved by Mr.
Adams in one of his speeches, was drunk with
unbounded applause :
" May we never want a Democrat to trip up the heels of
a. Federalist, or a hangman to prepare a halter for John
Quiccy Adams I [Nine cheers.] "
A Slave-master from South Carolina, Mr.
Waddy Thompson, in debate in the House of
Representatives, threatened the venerable pa-
triot with the " penitentiary ; " and another
Slave master, Mr. Marshall of Kentucky, in-
sisted that he should be " silenced." Ominous
word ! full of suggestion to the bludgeon-bearers
of Slavery. But the great representative of Free-
dom stood firm. Meanwhile Slavery assumed
more and more the port of the giant Maul in
the Pilgrim's Progress, who continued with his
club breaking the skulls of pilgrims, until he
was slain by Mr. Great Heart, making way for
the other pilgrims, Mr. Valiant for Truth, Mr.
Standfast, and Mr. Honest.
Next to John Quincy Adams, no person in
Congress has been more conspicuous for long-
continued and patriotic services against Slave-
ry, than Joshua R. Giddings, of Ohio ; nor
have any such services received in higher de-
gree that homage which is found in the per-
sonal and most vindictive assaults of Slave-
masters. For nearly twenty years he sat in the
House of Representatives, bearing his testi-
mony always loftily, and never shrinking,
though exposed to the grossest brutality. In
a recent public address at New York, he has
himself recounted some of these instances.
On the presentation by him of resolutions
affirming that Slavery was a local institution,
and could not exist outside of the Slave States,
and applying this principle to the case of the
Creole, the House u caught " the South Caro-
lina fever. A proposition censuring him was
introduced by Slave-masters, and pressed to a
vote under the operation of the previous ques-
tion without giving him a moment for explana-
tion, or reply. This glaring outrage upon free-
dom of debate was redressed at once by the
constituency of Mr. Giddings, who returned
him again to his seat. From that time the
rage of the Slave-masters against him was con-
stant. Here is his own brief account :
" I will not speak of the time when Dawson, of Louisiana,
drew a bowie-knife for my assassination. I was afterwards
speaking with regard to a certain transaction in which ne-
groes were concerned in Georgia, when Mr. Black, of Geor-
gia, raising his bludgeon, and standing in front of my seat,
said to me, l If you repeat that language again, I will knock
you down.' It was a solemn moment for me. I had never
been knocked down, and having some curiosity upon that
subject, I repeated the language. Then Mr. Dawson, of
Louisiana, the same who had drawn the bowie-knife, placed
his hand in his pocket and said, with an oath which I will
not repeat, that he would shoot me, at the same time cock-
ing the pistol, so that all around me could hear it click."
Listening to these horrors, ancient stories of
Barbarism seem all outdone ; and the " viper-
broth," which was a favorite decoction in a bar-
barous age, seems to have become the daily
drink of American Slave-masters. The blas-
pheming madness of the witches in Mac-
beth, dancing round the cauldron, and drop-
ping into it " sweltered venom sleeping got,"
and every other " charm of powerful trouble,"
was all renewed. But Mr. Giddings, strong in
the consciousness of right, knew the dignity of
his position. He knew that it is honorable
always to serve the cause of Liberty, and that
it is a privilege to suffer for this cause. Re-
proach, contumely, violence even unto death,
are rewards, not punishments ; and clearly the
indignities which you offer can excite no shame
except for their authors.
Besides these eminent instances, others may
be mentioned, showing the personalities to
which Senators and Representatives have been
exposed, when undertaking to speak for Free-
dom. And truth compels me to add, that there
is too much evidence that these have been ag-
gravated by the circumstance that, where per-
sons notoriously rejected an appeal to the Duel,
such insults could be offered with impunity.
Here is an instance. In 1848, Mr. Hale, the
Senator from New Hampshire, who still contin-
ues an honor to this body, introduced into the
Senate a bill for the protection of property in
the District of Columbia, especially against
mob-violence. In the course of the debate that
ensued, Mr. Foote, a Slave-master from Missis-
sippi, thus menaced him :
" I invite the Senator to the State of Mississippi, and will
tell him beforehand, in all honesty, that he could not go ten
miles into the interior before he would grace one of the tall-
est trees of the forest with a rope around his neck, with the
approbation of every virtuous and patriotic citizen , and that,
if necessary, I should myself assist in the operation."
That this bloody threat may not seem to
stand alone, I add two others.
Mr. Hammond, of South Carolina, now a Sen-
ator, is reported as saying in the House oi
Representatives :
" I warn the abolitionists, ignorant, infatuated barbarians
as they are, that if chance shall throw any of them into our
hands, they may expect a felon's death!"
And in 1841, Mr. Payne, a Slave-master from
Alabama, in the course of debate in the House
of Representatives, alluding to the Abolition-
ists, among whom he insisted the Postmaster
General ought to be included, declared that —
" He would put the brand of Cain upon them — yes, the
mark of hell — and if they came to the South, he would liarq
them like dogs l"
And these words were applied to men who
simply expressed the recorded sentiments ol
Washington, Jefferson, and Franklin.
Even during the present session of Congress,
I find, in the Congressional Globe, the fol low-
ing interruptions of Mr. Lovejoy, when speak-
ing on Slavery. I do not characterize them :
but simply cite them :
By Mr. Barksdale, of Mississippi:
" Order that black-hearted scoundrel and nigger -stealing
thief to take his seat."
By Mr. Boyce, of South Carolina, addressing
Mr. Lovejoy :
" Then behave yourself."
By Mr. Gartrell, of Georgia, (in his seat:)
25
" The man is crazy."
By Mr. Barksdale, of Mississippi, again :
"No, sir, you stand there to-day an infamous, perjured
fillain."
By Mr. Ashmore, of South Carolina :
"Yes ; he is a perjured villain, and he perjures himself
very hour he occupies a seat ou this floor.' '
By Mr. Singleton, of Mississippi :
" And a negro-thief into the bargain."
By Mr. Barksdale, of Mississippi, again :
" I hope my colleague will hold no parley with that per-
iured negro-thief."
By Mr. Singleton, of Mississippi, again :
" No, sir ; any gentleman shall have time, but not such a
mean, despicable wretch as that I "
By Mr. Martin, of Virginia :
" And if you come among us, we will do with you as we
did with John Brown — hang you as high as Haman. I say
that as a Virginian.."
But enough — enough ; and I now turn from
this branch of the argument with a single re-
mark. While exhibiting the Character of
Slave-masters, these numerous instances — and
they might be multiplied indefinitely — attest
the weakness of their cause. It requires no
special talent to estimate the insignificance of
an argument that can be supported only by
violence. The scholar will not forget the story
told by Lucian of the colloquy between Jupi-
ter and a simple countryman. They talked
with ease and freedom until they differed, when
the angry god at once menaced his honest op-
ponent with a thunder-bolt. " Ah, ah 1 " said
the clown, with perfect composure, ll now, Ju-
piter, I know you are wrong. You are always
wrong when you appeal to your thunder."
And permit me to say, that every appeal,
whether to the Duel, the bludgeon, or the re-
volver— every menace of personal violence, and
every outrage of language, besides disclosing
a hideous Barbarism, also discloses the fevered
nervousness of a cause already humbled in de-
bate.
(4.) Much as has been said to exhibit the
Character of Slave-masters, the work would be
incomplete if I failed to point out that uncon-
sciousness of the fatal influence of Slavery,
which completes the evidence of the Barbarism
under which they live. Nor am I at liberty to
decline this topic ; but I shall be brief.
That Senators should openly declare Slavery
" ennobling," at least to the master, and also
"the black marble key-stone of our national
arch," would excite wonder if it were not ex-
plained by the examples of history. There are
men who, in the spirit of paradox, make them-
selves the partisans of a bad cause, as Jerome
Cardan wrote an Encomium on Nero. But
where there is no disposition to paradox, it is
natural that a cherished practice should blind
those who are under its influence ; nor is there
any end to these exaggerations. According to
Thucydides, piracy in the early ages of Greece
was alike widespread and honorable ; so much
so, that Telemachus and Mentor, on landing
at Pylos, were asked by Nestor if they were
" pirates " — precisely as a stranger in South
Carolina might be asked if he were a Slave-
master. Kidnapping, too, which was a kindred
indulgence, was openly avowed, and I doubt
not held to be " ennobling." Next to the un-
consciousness which is noticed in childhood, is
the unconsciousness of Barbarism. The real
Barbarian is as unconscious as an infant; and
the Slave-master shows much of the same char-
acter. No New Zealander exults in his tattoo,
no savage of the Northwest coast exults in his
flat head, more than the Slave-master in these
latter days — and always, of course, with honor-
able exceptions — exults in his unfortunate
condition. The Slave-master hugs his dis-
gusting practice as the Carib of the Gulf hug-
ged Cannibalism, and as Brigham Young now
hugs Polygamy. The delusion of the " Goitre "
is repeated. This prodigious swelling of the
neck, constituting " a hideous wallet of flesh "
pendulous upon the breast, is common to the
population on the slopes of the Alps ; but, ac-
customed to this deformity, the sufferer comes
to regard it with pride, as Slave-masters with
us regard Slavery, and it is said that those who
have no swelling are laughed at and called
" goose-necked."
With knowledge comes distrust and the mod-
est consciousness of imperfection ; but the pride
of Barbarism has no such limitations. It di-
lates in the thin air of ignorance, and makes
boasts. Surely, if these illustrations are not
entirely inapplicable, then must we find in the
boasts of Slave-masters new occasion to re-
gret the influence of Slavery.
It is this same influence which renders
Slave-masters insensible to those characters
which are among the true glories of the Re-
public ; which makes them forget that Jeffer-
son, who wrote the Declaration of Independ-
ence, and Washington, who commanded its
armies, were Abolitionists ; which renders
them insensible to the inspiring words of the
one, and to the commanding example of the
other. Of these great men, it is the praise,
well deserving perpetual mention, and only
grudged by a malign influence, that reared
amidst Slavery, they did not hesitate to con-
demn it. To the present debate, Jefferson, in
repeated utterances, alive with the fire of genius
and truth, has contributed the most important
testimony for Freedom ever pronounced in this
hemisphere, in words equal to the "cause, and
Washington, often quoted as a Slave-master,
in the solemn dispositions of his last Will and
Testament, has contributed an example which
is beyond even the words of Jefferson. Do
not, sir, call him a Slave-master, who entered
into the presence of his Maker only as the
Emancipator of his slaves. The difference be-
tween such men and the Slave-masters whom
I expose to-day is so precise that it cannot be
mistaken. The first looked down upon Slavery j
the second look up to Slavery. The first, rec-
26
ognising its wrong, -were at onco liberated from
its ^pernicious influences, while the latter, up-
holding it as right and " ennobling," must nat-
urally draw from it motives of conduct. The
first, conscious of the character of Slavery,
were not misled by it; the second, dwelling in
unconsciousness of its true character, surren-
der blindly to its barbarous tendencies, and,
verifying the words of the poet,
" So perfect is their misery,
Not once perceive their foul disfigurement,
But boast themselves more comely than before."
Mr. President, it is time to close this branch
of the argument. The Barbarism of Slavery
has been now exposed, first, in the Law of
Slavery, with its five pretensions, founded on
the assertion of property in man, the denial of
the conjugal relation, the infraction of the
parental relation, the exclusion from knowl-
edge, and the robbery of the fruits of another's
labor, all these having the single object of
compelling men to work without wages, while
its Barbarism was still further attested by
tracing the law in its origin to barbarous Africa ;
and secondly, it has been exposed in a careful
examination of the economical results of Slave-
ry, illustrated by a contrast between the Free
States and the Slave States, sustained by offi-
cial figures. From this exposure of Slavery,
I proceeded to consider its influences on Slave-
masters ; whose true character stands confessed,
first, in the Law of Slavery which is their work ;
next, in the relations between them and their
sfaves, maintained by three inhuman instru-
ments ; next, in their relations with each other,
and with society, and here we have seen them at
home under the immediate influence of Slavery—
also in the communities of which they are a
part — practicing violence, and pushing it every-
where, in street fight and duel; espt^ially ra-
ging against all who question the pretensions
of Slavery ; entering even into the Free States ;
but not in lawless outbreaks only ; also in offi-
cial acts, as of Georgia and of South Car-
olina, with regard to two Massachusetts cit-
izens ; and then, ascending in audacity, enter-
ing the Halls of Congress, where they have
raged as at home, against all who set them-
selves against their assumptions, while the
v. hole gloomy array of unquestionable facts has
fofcen closed by portraying the melancholy un-
fconsciousnes which constitutes one of the dis-
tinctive features of this Barbarism.
Such is my answer to the assumption of fact
in behalf of Slavery by Senators on the other
side. But before passing to that other as-
sumption of constitutional law, which consti-
tutes the second branch of this discussion, I add
testimony to the influence of Slavery on Slave
masters in other countries, which is too import-
ant to be neglected, and may properly find a
place here.
Among those who have done most to press
forward in Russia that sublime act of emanci-
pation by which the present Emperor is win-
ning lustre, not only for his own country, but
for our age, is M. Tourgueneff. Originally a
Slave-master himself, with numerous slaves,
and residing where Slavery prevailed, he saw,
with the instincts of a noble character, the
essential Barbarism of this relation, and in an
elaborate work on Russia, which is now before
me, he exposed it with rare ability and courage.
Thus he speaks of its influence on Slave-
masters :
" But if Slavery degrades the slave, it degrades more the
master. This is an old adage, and long observations have
proved to me that this adage is not a paradox. In fact, how
can that man respect his own dignity, his own rights, who
has learned not to respect either the rights or the dignity of
his fellow-man? What control can the moral and religious
sentiments have over a man who sees himself invested with
a power so eminently contrary to morals and religion ? The
continual exercise of an unjust claim, even when it is mod-
erated, finishes by corrupting the character of the man, and
spoiling his judgment. * * * The possession of a slave
being the result of injustice, the relations of tho master with
the slave cannot be otherwise than a succession of injustices.
Among good masters, (and it is agreed to call so those who
do not abuse their power as much as they might,) these re-
lations are clothed with forms less repugnant than among
others; but here the difference stops. Who could remain
always pure, when carried away by his disposition, excited
by his temper, drawn by caprice, he can with impunity
oppress, insult, humiliate his fellows. And, let it be carefully
remarked, that intelligence, civilization, do not avail. The
enlightened man, the civilized man, is none the less a man ;
that he should not oppress, it is necessary that it should be
impossible for him to oppress. All men cannot, like Louis
XIV, throw their stick from the window, when they feel a
desire to strike." — La Russie et Les Musses, vol. II, vages
157-'8.
Another authority, unimpeachable at all
points, whose fortune it has been, from exten-
sive travels, to see Slavery in the most various
forms, and Slave-masters under the most vari-
ous conditions — I refer to the great African
traveller, Dr. Livingstone — thus touches the
character of Slave-masters :
" I can never cease to be unfeignedly tbankfuTthat I was
not born in a land of slaves. No one can understand the un-
utterable meanness of the slave system on the minds of
those who, but for the strange obliquity which prevents them
from feeling the degradation of not being gentlemen enough to
pay for services rendered, would be equal in virtue to our-
selves. Fraud becomes as natural to them ' as paying one's
way ' is to the rest of mankind." — Livingstone's Travels, chap.
II, page 33.
Thus does the experience of Slavery in
other countries confirm the sad experience
among us.
Second Assumption. — Discarding now all
the presumptuous boasts for Slavery, and bear-
ing in mind its essential Barbarism, I come
to consider that second assumption of Sen-
ators on the other side, which is, of course,
inspired by the first, even if not its immediate
consequence, tfi at, under the Constitution, Slave-
masters may take their slaves into the national
Territories, and there continue to hold them, as
at home in the Slave States ; and that this
would be the case in any territory newly ac-
quired, by purchase or by war, as if Mexico
on the South or Canada on the North.
And here I begin by the remark, that as the
assumption of constitutional law is inspired by
the assumption of fact with regard to the " ea*
27
nobli ng" character of Slavery, so it must lose
much if not all of its force when the latter as-
sumption is shown to be false, as has been done
to-day.
When Slavery is seen to be the Barbarism
which it is, there are few who would not cover
it from sight, rather than insist upon sending
it abroad with the flag of the Republic. It is
only because people have been insensible to
its true character that they have tolerated for a
moment its exorbitant pretensions. Therefore
this long exposition, where Slavery has been
made to stand forth in its five-fold Barbarism,
with the single object of compelling men to
work without wages, naturally prepares the way
to consider the assumption of constitutional
law.
This assumption may be described as an at-
tempt to Africanize the Constitution, by intro-
ducing into it the barbarous Law of Slavery,
derived as we have seen originally from bar-
barous Africa ; and then, through such Afri-
canization of the Constitution, to Africanize
the Territories, and to Africanize the National
Government. In using this language to ex-
press the obvious effect of this assumption, I
borrow a suggestive term, first employed by a
Portuguese writer at the beginning of this cen-
tury, when protesting against the spread of
Slavery in Brazil. (See Rosters Travels in Bra-
zil, vol. ii, p. 248.) Analyze the assumption,
and it will be found to stand. on two pretensions,
either of which failing, the assumption fails also.
These two are — -first, the African pretension of
property in man ; and, secondly, the pretension
that such property is recognised in the Consti-
tution.
With regard to the first of these pretensions,
I might simply refer to what I have already
said at an earlier stage of this argument. But
I should do injustice to the part it has been
made {p play in this controversy, if I did not
again expose it. Then I sought particularly to
show its Barbarism ; now I shall show some-
thing more.
Property implies an owner and a thing owned.
On the one side is a human being, and on the
other side a thing. But the very idea of a human
being necessarily excludes the idea of property
in that being, just as the very idea of a thing
necessarily excludes the idea of a human being.
It is clear that a thing cannot be a human being,
and it is equally clear that a human being can-
not be a thing. And the law itself, when it
adopts the phrase, u relation of master and
slave," confesses its reluctance to sanction the
claim of property. It shrintks from the preten-
sion of Senators, and satisfies itself with a for-
mula, which does not openly degrade human
nature.
If this property does exist, out of what title
is it derived ? " Under what ordinance of Na-
ture or of Nature's God is one human being
stamped an owner and another stamped a
thing ? God is no respecter of persons. Where
is the sanction for this respect of certain per-
sons to a degree which becomes outrage to
other persons ? God is the Father of the Hu-
man Family, and we are all his children.
Where then is the sanction of this pretension
by which a brother lays violent hands upon a
brother? To ask these questions is humil-
iating ; but it is clear there can be but one re-
sponse. There is no sanction for such preten-
sion ; no ordinance for it, or title. On all
grounds of reason, and waiving all questions
of "positive" statute, the Vermont Judge was
nobly right, when, rejecting the claim of a
Slave-master, he said : u No ; not until you
show a Bill of Sale from the Almighty." Noth-
ing short of this impossible link in the chain of
title would do. I know something of the great
judgments by which the jurisprudence of our
country has been illustrated ; but I doubt if
there is anything in the wisdom of Marshall,
the learning of Story, or the completeness of
Kent, which will brighten with time like this
honest decree.
The intrinsic feebleness of this pretension is
apparent in the intrinsic feebleness of the ar-
guments by which it is maintained. These
are two-fold, and both have been put forth in
recent debate by the Senator from Mississippi,
[Mr. Davis.]
The first is the alleged inferiority of the Afri-
can race; an argument which, while surrender-
ing to Slavery a whole race, leaves it uncertain
whether the same principle may not be applied
to other races, as to t}ie polished Japanese,
who are now the guests of the nation, and even
to persons of obvious inferiority in the white
race. Indeed, the latter pretension i3 openly
made in other quarters. The Richmond En-
quirer, a leading journal of Slave-masters,
declares, " The principle of Slavery is in itself
right, and does not depend on difference of com-
plexion" And a leading writer among Slave-
masters, George Fitzhugh, of Virginia, in his
Sociology for the South, declares, " Slavery,
black or white, is right and necessary. Nature
has made the weak in mind or body for slaves."
And in the same vein, a Democratic paper of
South Carolina has said, " Slavery is the natu-
ral and normal condition of the laboring man,
white or black."
These more extravagant pretensions reveal
still further the feebleness of the pretension
put forth by the Senator ; while instances, ac-
cumulating constantly, attest the difficulty of
discriminating between the two races. Mr.
Paxton, of Virginia, tells us, that ,l the best
blood in Virginia flows in the veins of the
slaves ; " and fugitive slaves have been latterly
advertised as possessing "a round face," ublue
eyes," " flaxen hair," and as " escaping under
the pretence of being a white man."
This is not the time to enter upon the great
question of race, in the various lights of re-
ligion, history, and science. Sure I am that
they who understand it best, will be least dia-
28
posed to the pretension, which on the assumed
ground of inferiority would condemn one race
to be the property of another. If the African
race be inferior, as is alleged, then is it the un-
questionable duty of a Christian Civilization to
life it from its degradation, not by the bludgeon
and the chain, not by this barbarous pretension
of ownership ; but by a generous charity, which
shall be measured precisely by the extent of its
inferiority.
The second argument put forward for this
pretension, and twice repeated by the Senator
from Mississippi, is, that the Africans are the
posterity of Ham, the son of Noah, through
Canaan, who was cursed by Noah, to be the
" servant " — that is the word employed — of his
brethren, and that this malediction has fallen
upon all his descendants, who are accordingly
devoted by God to perpetual bondage, not only
in the third and fourth generations, but through-
out all succeeding time. Surely, when the
Senator quoted Scripture to enforce the claim
of Slave-masters, he did not intend a jest.
And yet it is hard to suppose him in earnest.
The b'enator is Chairman of the Committee on
Military Affairs, in which he is doubtless expe-
rienced. He may, perhaps, set a squadron in
the field, but he has evidently considered very
little the text of Scripture on which he relies.
The Senator assumes, that it has fixed the
doom of the colored race, leaving untouched
the white race. Perhaps he does not know
that, in the worst days of the Polish aristocra-
cy, this same argument was adopted as the
excuse for holding white serfs in bondage, pre-
cisely as it is now put forward by the Senator,
and that even to this day the angry Polish
noble addresses his white peasant as the " sou
of Ham."
It hardly comports with the gravity of this
debate to dwell on such an argument, and yet
I cannot go wrong if, for the sake of a much-
injured race, I brush it away. To justify the
Senator in his application of this ancient
curse, be must maintain at least five different
propositions, as essential links in the chain of
the Afric-American slave : first, that, by this
malediction, Canaan himself was actually
changed into a "chattel," whereas he is simply
made the "servant" of his brethren ; secondly,
that not merely Canaan, but all his posterity,
to the remotest generation, was so changed,
whereas the language has no such extent ;
thirdly, that the Afric-American actually be-
longs to the posterity of Canaan — an ethno-
logical assumption absurdly difficult to estab-
lish 5 fourthly, that each of the descendants of
Shem and Japheth has a right to hold an Afric-
American fellow-man as a "chattel" — a propo-
sition which finds no semblance of support ;
and fifthly, that every Slave-master is truly
desceuded from Shem or Japheth — a pedigree
which no anxiety can establish 1 This plain
analysis, which may fitly excite a smile, shows
the five-fold absurdity of an attempt to found
this pretension on
" Any successive title, long and dark,
Drawn from the mouldy rolls of Noah's ark."
From the character of these two arguments
for property in man, I am brought again to its
denial.
It is natural that Senators who pretend that,
by the law of nature, man may hold property
in man, should find this pretension in the
Constitution. But the pretension is as much
without foundation in the Constitution as it is
without foundation in nature. It is not too
much to say that there is not one sentence,
phrase, or word — not a single suggestion, hint,
or equivocation, even — out of which any such
pretension can be implied ; while great national
acts and important contemporaneous declara-
tions in the Convention which framed the
Constitution, in different forms of language,'
and also controlling rules of interpretation,
render this pretension impossible. Partisans,
taking counsel of their desires, find in the
Constitution, as in the Scriptures, what they
incline to find ; and never was this more ap-
parent than when Slave-masters deceive them-
selves so far as to find in the Constitution a
pretension which exists only in their own souls.
Looking juridically for one moment at this
question, we shall be brought to the conclu-
sion, according to the admission of courts and
jurists, first in Europe, and then in our own
country, that Slavery can be derived from no
doubtful word or mere pretension, but only from
clear and special recognition. " The state of Sla-
very," said Lord Mansfield, pronouncing judg-
ment in the great case of Somersett, " is of such
a nature that it is incapable of being introdu-
ced on any reasons, moral or political, but only
by positive law. It is so odious, that nothing
can be suffered to support it but positive
law" — that is, express words of a written
text ; and this principle, which commends it-
self to the enlightened reason, has been adopt-
ed by several courts in the Slave States. Of
course, every leaning must be against Slavery.
A pretension so peculiar and offensive—so
hostile to reason — so repugnant to the laws of
nature and the inborn Rights of Man ; which,
in all its fivefold wrong, has no other object
than to compel fellow-men to work without
wages 5 such a pretension, so tyrannical, so
unjust, so mean, so barbarous, can find no
place in any system of Government, unless by
virtue of positive sanction. It can spring from
no doubtful phrases. It must be declared by
unambiguous words, incapable of a double
sense.
At the adoption of the Constitution, this rule,
promulgated in the Court of King's Beneb, by
the voice of the most finished magistrate iu
English history, was as well known in our coun-
try as any principle of the common law ; es-
pecially was it known to the eminent lawyer*
29
fa tlie Convention ; nor is it too much to say-
that the Constitution was framed with this rule
on Slavery as a guide. And the Supreme
Court of the United States at a later day, in
the case of United States v. Fisher, 2 Cranch,
390, by the voice of Chief Justice Marshall, pro-
mulgated this same rule, in words stronger
even than those of Lord Mansfield, saying:
" Where rights are infringed, where funda-
mental principles are overthrown, where the
general system of the laws is departed from,
the legislative intention must be expressed with
irresistible clearness, to induce a court of jus-
tice to suppose a design to effect such object."
It is well known, however, that these two dec-
larations are little more than new forms for
the ancient rule of the common law, as
expressed by Fortescue : Impius et crudelis
judicandus est qui Libertati non favet ; He is
to be adjudged impious and crael who does
not favor Liberty ; and, as expressed by Black-
stone, " The law is always ready to catch at
anything in favor of Liberty."
But, as no prescription runs against the
King, so no prescription is allowed to run
against Slavery, while all the early victories of
Freedom are set aside by the Slave-masters of
to-day. The prohibition of Slavery in the Mis-
souri Territory, and all the precedents, legis-
lative and judicial, for the exercise of this
power, admitted from the beginning until
now, have been overturned ; but at last, bolder
grown Slave-masters do not hesitate to assail
that principle of jurisprudence which makes
Slavery the creature of " positive law " alone,
to be upheld only by words of "irresistible
clearness." The case of Somersett, in which
this great rule was declared, has been im-
peached on this floor, as the Declaration of
Independence has been impeached also. And
here the Senator from Louisiana [Mr. Benja-
min] has taken the lead. He has dwelt on the
assertion that, in the history of English law,
there were earlier cases, where a contrary prin-
ciple was declared. But permit me to say that
no such cases, even if they exist in authentic
reports, can impair the influence of this well-
considered authority. The Senator knows well
that an old and barbarous case is a poor
answer to a principle, which is brought into
activity by the demands of an advancing Civil-
ization, and which once recognised can never
be denied ; that jurisprudence is not a dark
lantern, shining in a narrow circle, and never
changing, but a gladsome light, which, slowly
emerging from original darkness, grows and
spreads with human improvement, until at last
it becomes as broad and general as the Light
of Day. When the Senator, in this age- -
leaguing all his forces — undertakes to drag
down that immortal principle, which made
Slavery impossible in England, as, thank God !
it makes Slavery impossible under the Consti-
tution, he vainly tugs to drag down a luminary
from the sky.
The enormity of the pretension that Slavery
is sanctioned by the Constitution becomes still
more apparent, when we read the Constitution
in the light of great national acts and of con-
teraporanous declarations. First comes the
Declaration of Independence, the illuminated
initial letter of our history, which in familiar
words announces that "aH men are created
equal ; that they are endowed by their Creator
with certain unalienable rights; that among
these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of
Happiness 5 that to secure these rights govern-
ments are instituted among men, deriving their
just powers from the consent of the governed."
Nor does this Declaration, binding the con-
sciences of all who enjoy the privileges it se-
cured, stand alone. There is another national
act, less known, but in itself a key to the first,
when, at the successful close of the Revolution,
the Continental Congress, in a solemn address
to the people, loftily announced : " Let it be
remembered, that it has ever been the pride
and the boast of America, that the rights for
which she has contended were the rights of hu-
man nature. By the blessing of the Author of
these rights, they have prevailed over all opposi-
tion, and form the Basis of thirteen independ-
ent States." Now, whatever may be the priv-
ileges of States in their individual capacities,
within their several local jurisdictions, no
power can be attributed to the nation, in the
absence of positive unequivocal grant, incon-
sistent with these two national declarations.
Here is the national heart, the national soul,
the national will, the national voice, which
must inspire our interpretation of the Consti-
tution, and enter into and diffuse itself through
all the national legislation. Such are the com-
manding authorities which constitute u Life,
Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness," and
in more general words, " the Rights of Human
Nature," without distinction of race, or recog-
nition of the curse of Ham, as the basis of our
national institutions. They need no additional
support.
But, in strict harmony with these are the
many utterances in the Convention which
framed the Constitution : of Gouverneur Mor-
ris, of Pennsylvania, who- announced that '* he
would never concur in upholding domestic Sla-
very ; it was a nefarious institution ; " of El-
bridge Gerry, of Massachusetts, who said " that
we had nothing to do with the conduct of the
States as to Slavery* but we ought to be careful
not to give any sanction to it ; " of Roger Sher-
man and Oliver Ellsworth, of Connecticut, and
Mr. Gorham, of Massachusetts, who all con-
curred with Mr. Gerry ; and especially of Mr.
Madison, of Virginia, who, in mild juridical
phrase, " thought it wrong to admit in the
Constitution the idea that there could be
property in man." And lastly, as if to com-
plete the elaborate work of* Freedom, and to
give expression to all these utterances, the
word " servitude," which had been allowed in
k
30
the clause on the apportionment of Represent-
atives, was struck out, and the word "service "
substituted instead. This final exclusion from
the Constitution of the idea of property in man
was on; the motion of Mr. Randolph, of Vir-
ginia ; and the reason assigned for the substi-
tution, according to Mr. Madison, in his au-
thentic report of the debate, was, that " the
former was thought to express the condition
of slaves, and the latter the obligations of free
persons" Thus, at every point, by great na-
tional declarations, by frank utterances in the
Convention, and by a positive act in adjusting
the text of the Constitution, was the idea of
property in man unequivocally rejected.
This pretension, which may be dismissed as
utterly baseless, becomes absurd when it is
considered to what result it necessarily con-
ducts. If the Barbarism of Slavery, in all its
five-fold wrong, is really embodied in the Con-
stitution, so as to be beyond the reach of pro-
hibition, either Congressional or local, in the
Territories, then, for the same reason, it must
be beyond the reach of prohibition or abolition,
even by local authority in the States themselves,
and, just so long as the Constitution continues
unchanged, Territories, and States alike must
be open to all its blasting influences. And
yet this pretension, which, in its natural conse-
quences, overturns State Rights, is put forward
by Senators, who profess to be the special
guardians of State Rights.
Nor does this pretension derive any support
from the much-debated clause in the Constitu-
tion for the rendition of fugitives from " service
or labor," on which so much stress is constant-
ly put. But I do not occupy your time now on
this head, for two reasons — first, because, hav-
ing already on a former occasion exhibited
with great fullness the character ol that clause,
I am unwilling now thus incidentally to open
the question upon it; and secondly, because,
whatever may be its character — admitting that
it confers power upon Congress — and admit-
ting also, what is often denied, that, in defi-
ance of commanding rules of interpretation, the
equivocal wOrds there employed have that " ir-
resistible clearness" which is necessary in ta-
king away Human Rights — yet nothing can be
clearer than that the fugitives, whosoever they
may be, are regarded under the Constitution as
persons, and not as property.
I disdain to dwell on that other argument,
brought forward by Senators, who, denying the
Equality of Man, speciously assert the Equality
of the States ; and from this principle, true in
many respects, jump to the conclusion, that
Slave-masters are entitled, in the name of
Equality, to take their slaves into the National
Territories, under the solemn safeguards of the
Constitution. But this argument comes back
to the first pretension, that slaves are recog-
nised as "property" in the Constitution. To
that pretension, already amply exposed, we are
always brought, nor can any sounding allega-
tions of State Equality avoid it. And yet, this
very argument betrays the inconsistency of its
authors. If persons held to service in the
Slave States are " property " under the Consti-
tution, then, under the provision — known as
the " three-fifths " rule —which founds repre-
sentation in the other House on such persons,
there is a property representation from the
Slave States, with voice and vote, while there
is no such property representation from the
Free States. With glaring inequality, the rep-
resentation of Slave States is founded first on
" persons," and secondly on a large part of
their pretended property; wHle the represent-
ation of the Free States is founded simply on
" persons," leaving all their boundless millions
of property unrepresented. Thus, whichever
way we approach it, the absurdity of this pre-
tension becomes manifest. Assuming the pre-
tension of property in man under the Consti-
tution, you slap in the face the whole theory
of State Equality, for you disclose a gigantic
inequality between the Slave States and the
Free States ; and assuming the Equality of
States, in the House of Representatives as
elsewhere, you slap in the face the whole pre-
tension of property in man under the Constitu-
tion.
I disdain to dwell also on that other argu-
ment, which, in the name of Popular Sov-
ereignty, undertakes to secure to the people in
the Territories the wicked power — sometimes
called, by confusion of terms, right — to enslave
their fellow-men ; as if this pretension was not
blasted at once by the Declaration of Inde-
pendence, when it announced that "all govern-
ments derive their just powers from the con-
sent of the governed," and as if anywhere within
the jurisdiction of the Constitution, which con-
tains no sentence, phrase, or word, sanctioning
this outrage, and which carefully excludes the
idea of property in man, while it surrounds all
persons with the highest safeguards of a citi-
zen, such pretension could exist. Whatever it
may be elsewhere, Popular Sovereignty with-
in the sphere of the Constitution has its limit-
ations. Claiming fo * all the largest liberty of
a true Civilization, it compresses ail within the
constraints of Justice ; nor does it allow any
man to assert a right to do what he pleases, ex-
cept when he pleases to do right. As well
within the Territories attempt to make a King
as attempt to make a slave. But this preten-
sion— rejected alike by every Slave-master and
by every lover of Freedom —
Where I behold a factious band agree
To call it freedom when themselves are free,
proceeding originally from a vain effort to avoid
the impending question between Freedom and
Slavery — -assuming a delusive phrase of Free-
dom as a cloak for Slavery — speaking with the
voice of Jacob while its hands are the hands ot
Esau — and, by its plausible nick-name, ena-
bling politicians sometimes to deceive the
public and sometimes even to deceive them-
31
selves — may be dismissed with the other kin-
dred pretensions for Slavery, while the Senator
from Illinois, [Mr. Douglas,] who, if not its in-
ventor, has been its boldest defender, will learn
that Slave-masters for whom he has done so
much cannot afford to be generous ; that their
gratitude is founded on what they expect, and
not on what they have received ; and, that hav-
ing its root in desire rather than in fruition, it
necessarily withers and dies with the power to
serve them. The Senator, revolving these
things in his mind, may confess the difficulty
of his position, and, perhaps,
— i remember Milo's end,
Wedged in that Timber which he strove to rend.
And here I close this branch of the argu-
ment, which I have treated less fully than the
first, partly because time and strength fail me,
but chiefly because the Barbarism of Slavery,
when fully established, supersedes all other in-
quiry. But enough has been done on this head.
At the risk of repetition, I now gather it to-
gether. The assumption that Slave-masters,
under the Constitution, may take their slaves
into the Territories, and continue to hold them
as in the States, stands on two pretensions — first
that man may hold property in man, and sec-
ondly that this property is recognised in the
Constitution. But we have seen that the pre-
tended property in man stands on no reason,
while the two special arguments by which it
has been asserted, first an alleged inferiority of
race, and secondly the ancient curse of Ham,
are grossly insufficient to uphold such a preten-
sion. And we have next seen that this pre-
tension has as little support in the Constitution
as in reason ; that Slavery is of such an offen-
sive character, that it can find support only in
" positive" sanction, and words of " irresistible
clearness ; " that this benign rule, questioned
in the Senate, is consistent with the principles
of an advanced civilization ; that no such " posi-
tive " sanction, in words of " irresistible clear-
ness," can be found in the Constitution, while,
in harmony with the Declaration of Independ-
ence, ilpLd the Address of the Continental Con-
gress, the contemporaneous declarations in the
Convention, and especially the act of the Con-
vention in substituting "service" for "servi-
tude," on the ground that the latter expressed
" the condition of slaves," all attest that the
pretension that man can hold property in man
was carefully, scrupulously, and completely ex-
cluded from the Constitution, so that it has no
semblance of support in that sacred text ; nor
is this pretension, which is unsupported in the
Constitution, helped by the two arguments, one
in the name of State Equality, and the other
in the name of Popular Sovereignty, both of
which are properly put aside.
Sir, the true principle, which, reversing the
assumptions of slave-masters, makes Freedom
national and Slavery sectional, while every
just claim of the Slave States is harmonized
with the irresistible predominance of Freedom
under the Constitution, has been declared at
Chicago. Not questioning the right of each
State, whether South Carolina or Turkey, Vir-
ginia or Russia, to order and control its own
domestic institutions according to its own judg-
ment exclusively, the Convention there assem-
bled has explicitly announced Freedom to be
" the normal condition of all the Territory of
the United States," and has explicitly denied
"the authority of Congress, of a Territorial
Legislature, or of any individuals, to give legal
existence to Slavery in any Territory of the
United States." Such is the triumphant re-
sponse, by the aroused millions of the North,
alike to the assumption of Slave-masters that
the Constitution, of its own force, carries Slave-
ry into the Territories, and also to the device of
politicians, that the people of the Territories,
in the exercise of a dishonest Popular Sov-
ereignty, may plant Slavery there. This re-
sponse is complete at all points, whether the
Constitution acts upon the Territories before
their organization, or only afterward ; for, in
the absence of a Territorial Government, there
can be no " positive " law in words of " irre-
sistible clearness " for Slavery, as there can
be no such law, when a Territorial Gov-
ernment is organized, under the Constitution.
Thus the normal condition of the Territories is
confirmed by the Constitution, which, when ex-
tended over them, renders Slavery impossible,
while it writes upon the soil and engraves upon
the rock everywhere the law of impartial Free-
dom, without distinction of color ox race.
Mr. President, this argument is now closed.
Pardon me for the time I have occupied. It
is long since I have made any such claim
upon your attention. Pardon me, also, if I
have said anything which I ought not to have
said. I have spoken frankly, and from the
heart ; if severely, yet only with the severity of
a sorrowful candor, calling things by their
right names, and letting historic facts tell their
unimpeachable story. I have spoken in the
patriotic hope of contributing to the welfare
of my country, and also in the assured convic-
tion that what I have said will find a re-
sponse in generous souls. I believe that I
have said nothing which is not sustained by
well-founded argument or well-fonnded testi-
mony, nothing which can be controverted with-
out a direct assault upon reason or upon
truth.
The two assumptions of Slave-masters have
been answered. But this is not enough. Let
the answer become a legislative act, by the
admission of Kansas as a Free State. Then
will the Barbarism of Slavery be repelled, and
the pretension of property in man be rebuked.
Such an ct, closing this long struggle by the
assurance of peace to the Territory, if not of
tranquillity to the whole country, will be more
grateful still as the herald of that better day,
near at hand, when Freedom shall be installed
k
32
everywhere under the National Government;
when the National Flag, wherever it floats, on
sea or land, within the national jurisdiction,
will not cover a single slave 5 and when the
Declaration of Independence, now reviled in
the name of Slavery, will once again be rever-
enced as the American Magna Charta of Hu-
man Rights. Nor is this all. Such an act will
be the first stage in those triumphs by which
the Republic — lifted in character so as to be-
come an example to mankind — will enter at
last upon its noble " prerogative of teaching
the nations how to live."
Thus, sir, speaking for Freedom in Kan-
sas, I have spoken for Freedom everywhere,
and for Civilization 5 and, as the less is con-
tained in the greater, so are all arts, all sciences,
all economies, all refinements, all charities, all
delights of life, embodied in this cause. You
may reject it; but it will be only for to-day.
The sacred animosity between Freedom and
Slavery can end only with the triumph of Free-
dom. This same Question will be soon carried
before that high tribunal, supreme over Senate
and Court, where the judges will be counted
by millions, and where the j udgment rendered
will be the solemn charge of an aroused people,
instructing a new President, in the name of
Freedom, to see that Civilization receives no
detriment.
APPENDIX.
When Mr. Sumner resumed his Beat, Mr. CHESNUT, of
South Carolina, spoke as follows :
Mr. President, after the extraordinary though character-
istic speech just uttered in the Senate, it is proper that I as-
sign the reason for the position we are now inclined to as-
sume. After ranging over Europe, crawling through the
back doors to whine at the feet of British aristocracy, cra-
ving pity, and reaping a rich harvest of contempt, the slan-
derer of States and men reappears in the Senate. We had
hoped to be relieved from the outpourings of such vulgar
malice. We had hoped that one who had felt, though igno-
miniously he failed to meet, the consequences of a former
insolence, would have become wiser, if not better, by expe-
rience. In this I am disappointed, and I regret it. Mr.
President, in the heroic ages of the world, men were deified
for the possession and the exercise of some virtues — wisdom,
truth, justice, magnanimity, courage. In Egypt, also, we
know they deified beasts and reptiles; but even that bestial
people worshipped their idols on account of some supposed
virtue. It has been left for this day, for this country, for
the Abolitionists of Massachusetts, to deify the incarnation of
malice, mendacity, and cowardice. Sir, we do not intend to
be guilty of aiding in the apotheosis of pusillanimity and
meanness. We do not intend to contribute, by any conduct
on our part, to increase the devotees at the shrine of this
new idol. We know what is expected and what is desired.
We arenot inclined again to send forth the recipient of PUN-
ISHMENT howling through the world, yelping fresh cries of
slander and malice. These are the reasons, which I feel it due
to myself and others to give to the Senate and the country,
why we have quietly listened to what has been said, and
why we can take no other notice of the matter.
In these words, Mr. Chesnut refers to the assault upon
Mr. Sumner with a bludgeon on the floor of the Senate, by a
Representative from South Carolina, since dead, aided by
another Representative from that same State, and also a
Representative from Virginia, on account of which Mr. Sum-
nee had been compelled to leave his seat vacant, and seek
the restoration of his health by travel. As Mr. CnnsNfi
spoke, he was surrounded by the Slave-masters of the Sen-
ate, who seemed to approve what he said. There was no
call to order by the Chair, which was occupied at the time
by Mr. Eigler, of Pennsylvania. Mr. SUMNER obtained the
floor with difficulty, while a motion was pending for the
postponement of the question, and said :
Mr. President, before this question passes away, I think I
ought to make (though perhaps there is no occasion for it)
a response to the Senator from South Carolina. ["No!"
from several Senators.] Only one word. I exposed to-day
the Barbarism of Slavery. What the Senator has said hi
reply to me, I may well print in an Appendix to my speech
as an additional illustration. That is all.
Mr. HAMMOND, of South Carolina, said :
I hope he will do it.
The following letter, from a venerable citizen, an ornament
of our legislative halls at the beginning of the century, and
now the oldest survivor of all who have ever been members
of Congress, is too valuable, in its testimony and its counsel,
to be omitted in this place :
Boston, June 5, 1860.
Dear Sir : I have read a few abstracts from your noble
speech, but must wait for it in a pamphlet form, that I may
read it in such type as eyes, in the eighty-ninth year of their
age, will permit. But I have read enough to approve, and
rejoice that you have been permitted, thus truly, fully, and
faithfully, to expose the "Barbarism" of Slavery on that
very floor, on which you were so cruelly and brutally strick-
en down by the spirit of that Barbarism.
I only hope that in an Appendix you will preserve the vera
effigies of that insect that attempted to sting you. Remember
that the value of amber is increased by the insect it pre-
serves. Yours, very truly,
JOSIAH QUINCY.
WASHINGTON, D. C.
BUELL & BLANCHARD, PRINTERS.
1860.
Republished by the Congressional Republican Committee, Price $2 per hundred.