Volume 6 — THE BARBARISM OF SLAVERY. (continued 2)

“is the consequence only of uncontrolled authority over the body.… The power of the master must be absolute, to render the submission of the slave perfect. I most freely confess my sense of the harshness of this proposition. I feel it as deeply as any man can. And, as a principle of moral right, every person in his retirement must repudiate it. But in the actual condition of things it must be so. There is no remedy. This discipline belongs to the state of Slavery.… It is inherent in the relation of master and slave.”[65]

This same license is 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, and 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 excessive.”[66]

Can Barbarism further go? Here is irresponsible power, rendered more irresponsible still by the seclusion of the plantation, and absolutely fortified by supplementary law excluding the testimony of slaves. That under its shelter enormities should occur, stranger than fiction, too terrible for imagination, and surpassing any attested experience, is simply according to the course of Nature and the course of history. Antiquity has illustrations which are most painful. From Ovid we learn how the porter was chained at his master’s gate;[67] by Plautus we are introduced to the various instruments of punishment, in fearful catalogue;[68] and in the pages of the philosopher Seneca we are saddened by the cruelties of which the slave was victim.[69] A later writer, the great teacher of medicine, Galen, describes men knocking out the teeth of slaves with the fist, falling upon them not only with fist, but with the heels, and gouging the eyes with a pen, if at hand, as did the Emperor Adrian on one occasion;[70] while Tacitus shows how four hundred slaves in the house of an assassinated master were handed over to vindictive death.[71] St. Chrysostom portrays a mistress dragging a slave-girl by the hair, and herself applying the whip, until the cries of her bruised victim filled the whole house and penetrated the street.[72]

All this is ancient Barbarism, according to the evidence; but the analogies of life show that such things must be, where Slavery prevails. The visitation of the abbeys in England disclosed vice and disorder in startling forms, cloaked by the irresponsible 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 prerogatives 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 reported to have been taken from a single fish-pond near a nunnery, to the dismay of Pope Gregory.[73] 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. This is a single glimpse only. Slavery, in its recesses, is another Bastile, whose horrors will never be known until it shall be 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 horrors of Slavery are 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 examples of history and lessons of political wisdom are alike delusive, its unrecorded horrors must assume a form of more fearful dimensions. Baffling all attempts at description, they sink into that chapter of Sir Thomas Browne entitled “Of some Relations whose Truth we fear,” and among kindred things whereof, according to this eloquent philosopher, “there remains no register but that of Hell.”

If this picture of the relations of Slave-Masters with their slaves could receive any darker coloring, it would be by introducing figures of the congenial agents through which the Barbarism is maintained,—the Slave-Overseer, the Slave-Breeder, and the Slave-Hunter, each without a peer except in the brothers, and the whole constituting a triumvirate of Slavery, in whom its essential brutality, vulgarity, and crime are all embodied. There is the Slave-Overseer, with bloody lash,—fitly described, in his Life of Patrick Henry, by Mr. Wirt, who, born in a Slave State, knew the class, as “last and lowest, most abject, degraded, unprincipled,”[74]—and his hands wield at will the irresponsible power, being proper successor to “the devil,” described by the English dramatist, who appeared

There is next the Slave-Breeder, who assumes a higher character, even entering legislative halls, where, in unconscious insensibility, he shocks civilization by denying, like Mr. Gholson, of Virginia, any alleged distinction 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 “vigintial” crop of human flesh consists much of the wealth of his State,—while another Virginian, not yet hardened to this debasing trade, whose annual sacrifice reaches twenty-five thousand 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.” Verily the question may be asked, Have we a Guinea among us? And, lastly, there is the Slave-Hunter, with the bloodhound as his brutal symbol, who pursues slaves as the hunter pursues game, and does not hesitate in the public prints to advertise his Barbarism thus:—

“BLOODHOUNDS.—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. I live four miles southwest of Bolivar, on the road leading from Bolivar to Whitesville. I am ready at all times to catch runaway negroes.

“David Turner.

“March 2, 1853.”[76]

The bloodhound was known in early Scottish history; it was once vindictively put upon the trail of Robert Bruce, and in barbarous days, by cruel license of war, was directed against the marauders of the Scottish border. Walter Scott makes one of his heroes “cheer the dark blood-hound on his way”; but more than a century has passed since the last survivor of the race was seen in Ettrick Forest.[77] The bloodhound was employed by Spain against the natives 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 kindred brutality of the scalping-knife, adopted as an instrument of war by a nation professing civilization. Tardily introduced into this Republic some time after the Missouri Compromise, when Slavery became a political passion and Slave-Masters began to throw aside all disguise, the bloodhound has become the representative of our Barbarism, when engaged in the pursuit of a fellow-man asserting his inborn title to himself; and this brute becomes 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-Masters 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 Character of Slave-Masters, as displayed in the general relations of life. Here again 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 discussion, and in direct reply to the assumptions on this floor, especially by the Senator from Virginia [Mr. Mason], I proceed. If I touch Slavery to the quick, and make Slave-Masters 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 we are permitted to behold a passage of transcendent virtue sculptured in “visible speech” on the long gallery leading to the Heavenly Gate. The poet felt the inspiration of the scene, and placed it on the wayside, where it could charm and encourage. This was natural. Nobody can look upon virtue and justice, if only in images and pictures, without feeling a kindred sentiment. Nobody can be surrounded by vice and wrong, by violence and brutality, if 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 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, open indecencies, as in the criminal pretensions of Slavery,—while the lash plays and the blood spurts,—while women are whipped and children are sold,—while marriage is polluted and annulled,—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 God himself is defied in the pretension that man can have property in his fellow-man,—if all these things are “visible,” not merely in images and pictures, but in reality, the influence on character must be incalculably deplorable.

According to irresistible law men are fashioned by what is about them, whether climate, scenery, life, or institutions. Like produces like, and this ancient proverb is verified always. Look at the miner, delving low down in darkness, and the mountaineer, 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 atmosphere which each has breathed,—and how much more in the institutions under which each is reared! If institutions generous and just ripen souls also generous and just, then other institutions must exhibit their influence also. Violence, brutality, injustice, barbarism, must be reproduced in the lives of all living within their fatal sphere. The meat eaten by man enters into and becomes part of his body; the madder eaten by the dog changes his bones to red; and the Slavery on which men live, in all its fivefold foulness, must become part of themselves, discoloring the very soul, blotting the character, 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. It may be that there is a moral Mithridates, who can swallow without bane the poison of Slavery.

Instead of “ennobling” the master, nothing is clearer than that the slave drags his master down; and this process, beginning in childhood, is continued through life. Living much in association with his slave, the master finds nothing to remind him of his own deficiencies, to prompt his ambition or excite his shame. He is only a little better than his predecessor in ancient Germany, as described by Tacitus, who was distinguishable from his slave by none of the charms of education, while the two burrowed among the same flocks and in the same ground.[78] Without provocation to virtue, or elevating example, he naturally shares the Barbarism of the society he keeps. Thus the very inferiority which the Slave-Master attributes to the African explains the melancholy condition of the communities in which his degradation is declared by law.

A single false principle or vicious thought may debase a character otherwise blameless; and this is practically true of the Slave-Master. Accustomed to regard men as property, the sensibilities are blunted and the moral sense is obscured. He consents to acts from which Civilization recoils. The early Church sacrificed its property, and even its sacred vessels, for the redemption of captives. On a memorable occasion this was done by St. Ambrose,[79] and successive canons confirmed the example. But in the Slave States all is reversed. Slaves there are hawked as property of the Church[80]; and an instance is related of a slave sold in South Carolina to buy plate for the communion-table. Who can estimate the effect of such an example?

Surrounded by pernicious influences of all kinds, 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 childhood, youth, and manhood, even unto age,—unable, while at home, to escape these influences, overshadowed constantly by the portentous Barbarism about him, the Slave-Master naturally adopts the bludgeon, the revolver, and the bowie-knife. Through these he governs his plantation, and secretly armed with these enters the world. These are his congenial companions. To wear these is his pride; to use them becomes a passion, almost a necessity. Nothing contributes to violence so much as wearing the instruments of violence, thus having them always at hand to obey a lawless instinct. A barbarous standard is established; the duel is not dishonorable; 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. In kindred spirit, the Count of Eisenburg, presenting to Erasmus a handsome dagger, called it “the pen with which he used to combat saucy fellows.”[81] How weak that dagger against the pen of Erasmus! I wish to keep within bounds; but unanswerable facts, accumulating in fearful quantities, attest that the social system so much vaunted by honorable Senators, which we are now asked to sanction and 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 five of the adult white population of native birth is unable to read and write.

There are exceptions, which we all gladly recognize; but it is this spirit which predominates and gives the social law. Again we see the lordlings of France, as pictured by Camille Desmoulins, “ordinarily very feeble in arguments, since from the cradle they are accustomed to use their will as right hand and their reason as left hand.”[82] Violence ensues. And here mark an important difference. Elsewhere violence 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 Governors of Slave States in messages to their respective Legislatures.

Said the Governor of Kentucky, in 1837:—

“We long to see the day 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 re-christened, in 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 of Alabama:—

“We hear of homicides in different parts of the State continually, and yet have few convictions, and still fewer executions. 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 official language. It was natural that contemporary newspapers should repeat what found utterance in high places. Here is the confession of a newspaper in Mississippi:—

“The moral atmosphere in our State appears to be in a deleterious and sanguinary condition. Almost every exchange paper which reaches us contains some inhuman and revolting case of murder or death by violence.”[83]

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 administered, that this frightful deluge of human blood flows through our streets and our places of public resort.”[84]

And here is testimony of a different character:—

“As I left my native State on account of Slavery, and deserted the home of my fathers to escape the sound of the lash and the shrieks of tortured victims, I would gladly bury in oblivion the recollection of those scenes with which I have been familiar; but this may not, cannot be.”[85]

These are the words of a Southern lady, daughter of the accomplished Judge Grimké, of South Carolina.

A catalogue of affrays between politicians, commonly known as “street fights,”—I use the phrase furnished by the land of Slavery,—would show that these authorities are not mistaken. That famous Dutch picture, admired particularly from successful engraving, and called The Knife-Fighters,[86] presents a scene less revolting 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 its shameful story, and cries out against the social system tolerating such Barbarism. A catalogue of duels would testify again to the reckless disregard of life where Slavery exists, while it exhibited Violence flaunting in the garb of Honor, and prating of a barbarous code disowned equally by reason and religion. But you have already surfeited with horrors, and I hasten on.

Ancient Civilization did not condemn assassination. Statues were raised to Harmodius and Aristogeiton, who slew Hipparchus. Brutus and Cassius were glorified. Modern Civilization judges otherwise; but Slavery, not content with the Duel, which was unknown to Antiquity, rejoices in assassinations also,—rejoices in both.

Pardon me, if I stop for one moment to expose and denounce the Duel. I do it only because it belongs to the brood of Slavery. Long ago an enlightened Civilization rejected this relic of Barbarism, and never was one part of the argument against it put more sententiously 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 without a jury, and undertakes himself to be the executioner.”[87] To these emphatic words I add two brief propositions, which, if practically adopted, make the Duel impossible: first, that the acknowledgment of wrong, with apology or explanation, can never be otherwise than honorable; and, secondly, that, in the absence of such acknowledgment, no wrong can be repaired by gladiatorial contest, where brute force, or skill, or chance must decide 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, disregarding its irrational character, insensible to its folly, heedless of its impiety, and unconscious of its Barbarism, openly adopt the Duel as regulator of manners and conduct. Two voices from South Carolina have been raised against it, and I mention them with gladness as testimony from that land of Slavery. The first was Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, who, in the early days of the Republic, after asking if there were “no way of abolishing throughout the Union this absurd and barbarous custom,” invoked the clergy of his State, “as a particular favor, at some convenient early day, to preach a sermon on the sin and folly of duelling.”[88] 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.”[89] Generous words, for which many errors will be pardoned. But these voices condemn the social system of which the Duel is a natural product.

Looking at the broad surface of society where Slavery exists, we find its spirit actively manifest against all freedom of speech and the press, especially with regard to this wrong. Nobody in the Slave States can speak or print plainly about Slavery, except at peril of life or liberty; and a curious instance shows how this same spirit is carried by our Slave-Masters into foreign lands. As early as 1789, and in Paris, a poor play,[90] where Slavery was painted truthfully, excited the hostility of what Baron Grimm, who reports the incident, calls “an American cabal,” so that its failure was attributed by some to this influence, being the early prototype of that so strong among us. 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 metropolis; but no man can be heard against Slavery in Charleston or Mobile. We condemn the Inquisition, which subjects all within its influence to censorship and secret judgment; but this tyranny is repeated in American Slave-Masters. Truths as simple as the great discovery of Galileo are openly denied, and all who declare them are driven to recant. We condemn the “Index Expurgatorius” of the Roman Church; but American Slave-Masters have an Index where are inscribed all the generous books of the age. One book, the marvel of recent literature, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” is treated thus by the Church as by Slave-Masters, being honored by the same suppression at the Vatican as at Charleston.

Not to dwell on these instances, there is one which has a most instructive ridiculousness. A religious discourse of the late Dr. Channing on West India Emancipation—the last effort of his beautiful life—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 afterward, the same agent received for sale a work by Dickens, “American Notes,” freshly published; but, determined not to expose himself again to the tyrannical Inquisition, he gave notice through the newspapers that the book would “be submitted 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.”[91]

Listen also to another recent instance, as recounted 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 vociferator may receive the same treatment throughout the South. And if the Pharisaical author should ever show himself in these parts, we trust that a stout cord may speedily find its way around his eloquent throat. He has proved himself a dirty, low-bred slanderer, and ought to be treated accordingly.”

Very recently we had the opportunity of reading in the journals, that the trustees of a college in Alabama resolved against Dr. Wayland’s admirable work on Moral Science, as containing “Abolition doctrine of the deepest dye,” and proceeded to denounce “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 “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 delivered in the Senate are stopped at the Post-Office; booksellers receiving them have been mobbed; and on at least one occasion the speeches were solemnly proceeded against by a Grand Jury.[92]

All this is natural, for tyranny is condemned to be consistent with itself. Proclaim Slavery a permanent institution, instead of a temporary Barbarism, soon to pass away, and then, by the unhesitating logic of self-preservation, all things must yield to its support. The safety of Slavery becomes the supreme law. And since Slavery is endangered by Liberty in any form, therefore all Liberty must be restrained. Such is the philosophy of this seeming paradox in a Republic. And our Slave-Masters show themselves apt. Violence and brutality are their ready instruments, quickened always by the wakefulness of suspicion, and perhaps often by the restlessness of uneasy conscience. The Lion’s Mouth of Venice is open everywhere in the Slave States; nor are wanting the gloomy cells and the Bridge of Sighs.

This spirit has recently shown itself with such intensity and activity as to constitute what is properly termed a Reign of Terror. Northern men, unless recognized as delegates to a Democratic Convention, are exposed in their travels, whether for business or health. They are watched and dogged, as in a land of Despotism,—are treated with the meanness of disgusting tyranny,—and live in peril always of personal indignity, often of life and limb. Complaint is sometimes made of wrongs to American citizens in Mexico; but the last year witnessed outrages on American citizens perpetrated in the Slave States exceeding those in Mexico. Here, again, I have no time for details, already presented in other quarters. Instances are from all conditions of life and in various quarters. In Missouri, a Methodist clergyman, suspected of being an Abolitionist, was taken to prison, amidst threats of tar and feathers. In Arkansas, 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! Hang him!” In Virginia, a Shaker, from New York, peddling garden-seeds, was forcibly expelled from the State. In Georgia, a merchant’s clerk, Irish by birth, who simply asked the settlement of a just debt, was cast into prison, robbed of his pocket-book containing nearly one hundred dollars, and barely escaped with life. In South Carolina, a stone-cutter, also an Irishman, 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 the lacerated flesh. These atrocities, calculated, according to the words of a great poet, to “make a holiday in Hell,” were all ordained by Vigilance Committees, or that swiftest magistrate, Judge Lynch, inspired by the demon of Slavery.

In perfect shamelessness, and as if to blazon this fiendish spirit, we have this winter had an article in a leading newspaper of Virginia, offering twenty-five dollars each for the heads of citizens, mostly Members of Congress, known to be against Slavery, with fifty thousand dollars for the head of William H. Seward. In still another paper of Virginia we find a proposition to raise ten thousand dollars for the kidnapping, and delivery at Richmond, of a venerable citizen, Joshua R. Giddings, “or five thousand dollars for the production of his head.” These are fresh instances, but not alone. At a meeting of Slave-Masters in Georgia, in 1836, the Governor was recommended to issue a proclamation offering five thousand dollars as a reward for the apprehension of either of ten persons named in the resolution, citizens of New York and Massachusetts, and one a subject of Great Britain,—neither of whom was it pretended had ever set foot on the soil of Georgia. The Milledgeville “Federal Union,” a newspaper of Georgia, in 1836, contained an offer of ten thousand dollars for kidnapping a clergyman residing in the city of New York. A Committee of Vigilance in Louisiana, in 1835, offered, in the “Louisiana Journal,” fifty thousand dollars to any person who would deliver into their hands Arthur Tappan, a liberty-loving merchant 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 fifty thousand dollars for the apprehension of the same Arthur Tappan, and of La Roy Sunderland, a clergyman of the Methodist Church in New York.

These manifestations are not without example in the history of the Antislavery cause elsewhere. From the beginning, Slave-Masters have encountered argument by brutality and violence. St. Jerome had before him their type, when he described certain persons “whose words are in their fists and syllogisms in their heels.”[94] If we go back to the earliest of Abolitionists, the wonderful Portuguese preacher, Vieyra, we find that his matchless eloquence and unquestioned piety did not save him from indignity. The good man 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?”[95] He was of the Catholic Church. But the spirit of Slavery is the same in all churches. A renowned Quaker minister of the last century, Thomas Chalkley, while on a visit at Barbadoes, 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 afterward, on the highway, in open day, was shot at by one of the exasperated planters, with a fowling-piece “loaded with small shot, ten of which made marks, and several drew blood.”[96] In England, while the Slave-Trade was under discussion, the same spirit raged. Wilberforce, 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 return to Liverpool 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 the traffic, armed with knives and bludgeons, the distinctive arguments and companions of the partisans of Slavery.

Even in the Free States, these same partisans from the beginning acted under the inspiration of violence. The demon of Slavery entered into them, and through 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, an early and most devoted Abolitionist was dragged through the streets with a halter about his neck; and in Illinois, another, while defending his press, was ferociously murdered. The former yet lives to speak for himself, while the latter lives in his eloquent brother, a Representative from Illinois in the other House.[97] Thus does Slavery show its natural character even at a distance.

Nor in the Slave States is this spirit confined to outbreaks of mere lawlessness. Too strong for restraint, it finds no limitations except in its own barbarous will. The Government becomes its tool, and in official acts does its bidding. Here again the instances are numerous. I might dwell on the degradation of the Post-Office, when its official head consented that for the sake of Slavery the mails themselves 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 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 to two illustrative transactions, which a son of Massachusetts can never 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 Freedom, William Lloyd Garrison. Born in Massachusetts, bred to the same profession with Benjamin 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 the earliest reward. Afterward, January 1st, 1831, he published the first number of “The Liberator,” inscribing for his motto an utterance of Christian philanthropy, “Our country is the world, our countrymen are mankind,” and declaring, in the face of surrounding apathy: “I am in earnest,—I will not equivocate,—I will not excuse,—I will not retreat a single inch,—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 bond-men themselves. Such was his simple and thoroughly constitutional position, when, before the expiration of the first year, the Legislature of Georgia, by solemn act, a copy of which I have before me, “approved” by Wilson Lumpkin, Governor, appropriated five thousand dollars “to be paid to any person or persons 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, published in the town of Boston and State of Massachusetts.”[98] This infamous statute, touching a citizen absolutely beyond the jurisdiction 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 justice and decency Slave-Masters inaugurated the system of violence by which they have sought to crush every voice raised against Slavery.

2. Here is another illustration, of a different character. Free persons of color, citizens of Massachusetts, and, according to the institutions of this Commonwealth, entitled to equal privileges with other citizens, being in service as mariners, and touching at the port of Charleston, in South Carolina, have been seized, and, with no allegation against them, except of entering this port in the discharge of their rightful business, have been cast into prison, and there detained during the stay of the vessel. This is by virtue of a statute of South Carolina, passed in 1822, which further declares, that, in the failure of the captain to pay the expenses, these freemen “shall be deemed 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,[99]—this statute, which is an obvious injury to Northern ship-owners, as it is an outrage to the mariners whom it seizes, has been upheld to this day by South Carolina.

Massachusetts, anxious to obtain for her people 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 as her agent for this purpose, and in her behalf to bring suits in the Circuit Court of the United States to try the constitutionality of this pretension. Owing to the sensitiveness of the people in that State, the agent declined to render this simple service. Massachusetts next selected one of her own sons, a venerable citizen, who had already served with honor in the other House of Congress, and was of admitted eminence as a lawyer, the Hon. Samuel Hoar, of Concord, to visit Charleston, and there do what the agent first appointed shrank from doing. This excellent gentleman, beloved by all who knew him, gentle in manners as he was firm in character, 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”[100]; but in South Carolina it is fever that they catch. The Governor at the time, who was none other than one of her present Senators [Mr. Hammond], made his arrival the subject of special message to the Legislature, which I have before me; the Legislature all caught the fever, and swiftly adopted resolutions calling upon his Excellency the Governor “to expel from our territory the said agent, after due notice to depart,” and promising to “sustain the Executive authority in any measures it may adopt for the purpose aforesaid.”

Meanwhile the fever raged in Charleston. The agent of Massachusetts was first accosted in the streets by a person unknown to him, who, flourishing a bludgeon in his hand,—the bludgeon always shows itself where Slavery is in question,—cried out: “You had better be travelling, and the sooner the better for you, I can tell you; if you stay here until to-morrow morning, you will feel something you will not like, I’m thinking.” Next came threats of attack during the following night on the hotel where he was lodged; then a request from the landlord that he should quit, in order to preserve the hotel from the impending danger of an infuriate mob; then a committee of Slave-Masters, who politely proposed to conduct him to the boat. Thus arrested in his simple errand of good-will, this venerable public servant, whose appearance alone, like that of the “grave and pious man” mentioned by Virgil, would have softened any mob not inspired by Slavery, yielded to the ejectment proposed, precisely as the prisoner yields to the officers of the law, and left Charleston, while a person in the crowd was heard to declare that he “had offered himself as a leader of a tar-and-feather gang, to have been 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 a 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 unlimited imprisonment, prohibiting any person, “on his own behalf, or under color or in virtue of any commission or authority from any State or public authority of any State in this Union, or of any foreign power,” to come into South Carolina for this purpose; and then, to complete its work, by still another statute took away the writ of Habeas Corpus from all such mariners.[101]

Such is a simple narrative, founded on authentic documents. I do not adduce it for present 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 Slavery 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,” was openly vindicated in all its details, from beginning to end, by both the Senators from that State, while one of them [Mr. Hammond], in the same breath, bore testimony from personal knowledge to the character of the public agent thus maltreated, saying, “He was a pleasant, kind old gentleman, well informed, and I had a sort of friendship for him during the short time that I sat near him in Congress.”[102]

Thus, Sir, whether we look at individuals or at the community where Slavery exists, at lawless outbreaks or at official conduct, Slave-Masters are always the same. Enough, you will say, has been told. Yes, enough to expose 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 representative reflects the character as well as the political opinions of the constituents whose will it is his boast to obey. It follows that the passions and habits of Slave-Masters are naturally represented in Congress,—chastened to a certain extent, perhaps, by the requirements of Parliamentary Law, but breaking out in fearful examples. And here, again, facts speak as nothing else can.

In proceeding with this duty, to which, as you will perceive, I am impelled by the positive requirements of this debate, I crave 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 became paramount, have taken their place in our national history. Clarendon has mildly pictured successive Congresses, when, recounting what preceded the Civil War in England, he says: “It is not to be denied that there were in all those Parliaments … several passages and distempered speeches of particular persons, not fit for the dignity and honor of those places.”[103] But Congress, under the rule of Slavery, has been worse than any Parliament.

Here is an instance. On the 13th of February, 1837, R. M. Whitney was arraigned before the House of Representatives for contempt, in refusing to attend, when required, before a committee investigating the administration of the Executive office. His excuse was, that “he could not attend without exposing himself thereby to outrage and violence” in the committee-room; and on examination at the bar of the House, Mr. Fairfield, a member of the Committee, afterward 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, I will take his life upon the spot!” Mr. Wise, another Slave-Master, from Virginia, Chairman of the Committee, and latterly Governor of Virginia, then intervened, saying, “Yes, this damned insolence is insufferable.” The witness, thereupon rising, claimed the protection of the Committee; on which Mr. Peyton exclaimed: “God damn you, you shan’t speak; you shan’t say a word while you are in this room; if you do, I will put you to death!” 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 admission that he was armed with deadly weapons, saying: “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 determination.”

All this will be found in the thirteenth volume of the “Congressional Debates,” with the evidence in detail, and the discussion thereupon.

Here is another instance, of similar character, which did not occur in a committee-room, but during debate in the Senate Chamber. While the Compromise Measures were under discussion, on the 17th of April, 1850, Mr. Foote, a Slave-Master from Mississippi, in the course of remarks, commenced personal allusion to Mr. Benton. This was aggravated by the circumstance that only a few days previously he had made this distinguished gentleman the mark for most bitter and vindictive personalities. Mr. Benton rose at once from his seat, and, with angry countenance, but without weapon of any kind in his hand, or, as appeared afterward before the Committee, on his person, advanced in the direction of Mr. Foote, when the latter, gliding backward, drew from his pocket a five-chambered revolver, full-loaded, which he cocked. Meanwhile Mr. Benton, at the suggestion of friends, was already returning to his seat, when he perceived the pistol. Excited greatly by this deadly menace, he exclaimed: “I 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 pistol in hand, cocked. “Soon after,” says the Report of the Committee appointed to investigate this occurrence, “both Senators resumed their seats, and order was restored.”

This will be found at length in the twenty-first volume of the “Congressional Globe.”[104]

I cite yet another instance from the same authentic record. Mr. Arnold, of Tennessee, had proclaimed himself as “belonging to the Peace party,” when Mr. Dawson, of Louisiana, coming to his seat, called him “a damned coward,” “a damned blackguard,” and then said, that, if Mr. Arnold did not behave better, “he would cut his throat from ear to ear.”[105]

The Duel, which at home in the Slave States is “twin” with the “street fight,” is also “twin” with these instances. It is constantly adopted or attempted by Slave-Masters in Congress. But I shall not enter upon this catalogue. I content myself with showing the openness with which it has been menaced in debate, and without any call to order.

Mr. Foote, the same Slave-Master already mentioned, in debate in the Senate, the 26th of March, 1850, thus sought to provoke Mr. Benton. I take his words from the “Congressional Globe,” Vol. XXI. p. 603.

“There are incidents in his [Mr. Benton’s] history, of somewhat recent occurrence, which might well relieve any man of honor from the obligation to recognize him as a fitting antagonist; yet is it, notwithstanding, 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, now or formerly, he shall, on demanding it, have full redress accorded 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 known his desire in the premises. At present he is shielded by his age, his open disavowal of the obligatory force of the laws of honor, and his Senatorial privileges.”

With such bitter taunts and reiterated provocations to the Duel was Mr. Benton pursued; but there was no call to order, nor any action of the Senate on this outrage.

I give another instance. In debate in the Senate on the 27th February, 1852, Mr. Clemens, 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.”[106] There was no call to order.

Here is still another. In the debate on the Bill for the Improvement of Rivers and Harbors, 29th July, 1854, the Senator from Louisiana [Mr. Benjamin], who is still a member of this body, ardent for Slavery, while professing to avoid personal altercation in the Senate, especially “with a gentleman who professes the principles of non-resistance, as he understood 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 quarter, it would not be upon this floor that I should answer it.”[107]

During the present session, the Senator from Mississippi [Mr. Jefferson Davis], who speaks so often for Slavery, in a colloquy on this floor with the Senator from Vermont [Mr. Collamer], maintained the Duel as a mode of settling personal differences, and vindicating what is called personal honor,—as if personal honor did not depend absolutely upon what a man does, and not on what is done to him. After certain refinements on the imagined relations between an insult and the obligation to answer for it, the Senator declared, in reply to the Senator from Vermont, that, in case of insult, taking another out and shooting him might be “satisfaction.”[108]

I do not dwell on this instance, nor on any of these instances, except to make a single comment. 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. Here, in the District of Columbia, all duels are prohibited by solemn Act of Congress.[109] 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, receivers, or bearers, are declared guilty of high crime and misdemeanor, also to be punished by hard labor in the penitentiary. Of course, every menace of duel in Congress sets this law at defiance. And yet Senators, who thus openly disregard a law sanctioned by the Constitution and commended by morality, presume to complain on this floor because other Senators disregard the Fugitive Slave Bill, a statute which, according to the profound convictions of large numbers, is as unconstitutional as it is offensive to the moral sense. Let Senators, whose watchword is “the enforcement of laws,” begin by enforcing the statute which declares the Duel to be felony. At least, let the statute cease to be a dead letter in this Chamber, where the watchword is so often heard. But this is too much to expect while Slavery prevails here; for the Duel is part of that System of Violence which has its origin in Slavery.

It is when aroused by the Slave Question in Congress that Slave-Masters have most truly shown themselves; and here again I shall speak only of what has already passed into history. Slavery is a perpetual fever-and-ague, under which Congress has shaken with alternate heats and chills. 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 power to discourage every species of traffic in the persons of our fellow-men,”[110] the Slave-Masters became angry, indulged in sneers at “the men in the gallery” being Quakers and Abolitionists, and, according to the faithful historian, Hildreth,[111] poured out “torrents of abuse,” while one of them began the charge so often since directed against all Antislavery men, by declaring his astonishment that Dr. Franklin had “given countenance” to “an application 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. The great man was soon summoned away by death, but not until he had fastened upon this debate an undying condemnation, by portraying, with matchless pen, a scene in the Divan at Algiers, where a Corsair Slave-Dealer, insisting upon the enslavement of White Christians, is made to repeat the Congressional speech of an American Slave-Master.[112]

These displays of Violence naturally increase with the intensity of the discussion. Impelled to be severe, but with little appreciation of debate in its finer forms, they cannot 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 transcending the rules of debate becomes disgusting as the utterance of a Yahoo, and harms him only who degrades himself to be its mouthpiece. Of course, on such occasions, amidst all seeming triumphs, the cause of Slavery loses, and Truth gains. If men cannot afford to be decent, they ought to suspect the justice of their cause, or at least the motives with which they sustain it; but our Slave-Masters, not seeing the indecency of their conduct, know not their losses. There is waste as well as economy of character; but the latter is found only in the cultivation of those principles which make Slavery impossible.

Against John Quincy Adams 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 ability and integrity now admitted even by enemies, and which impartial history can never forget. Having been President of the United States, he entered the House of Representatives at the period when the Slave Question, in its revival, first began to occupy public attention. In all the completeness of his nature, he became the representative of Human Freedom. The first struggle occurred on the Right of Petition, which Slave-Masters, with characteristic tyranny, sought to suppress. This was resisted 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,” according to a famous phrase of Demosthenes. Slave-Masters, “foaming out their shame,” became conspicuous, not less for the avowal of sentiments at which Civilization blushed than for an effrontery of manner where the accidental legislator was lost in the natural overseer, and the lash of the plantation resounded in the voice.

In an address to his constituents, September 17, 1842, Mr. Adams thus frankly describes the treatment he experienced:—

“I never can take part in any debate upon an important subject, be it only upon a mere abstraction, but a pack opens upon me of personal invective in return. Language has no word of reproach and railing that is not hurled at me.”

And in the same speech he shows us Slave-Masters:—

“Where the South cannot effect her object by browbeating, she wheedles.”

On another occasion, he announced, with accustomed power:—

“Insult, bullying, and threat characterize the Slaveholders in Congress; talk, timidity, and submission, the Representatives from the Free States.”

Nor were the Slave-Masters content with violence of words, or with ejaculation of personalities by which debate became a perpetual syringe of liquid foulness, and every one seemed to vie with Squirt the apothecary, according to the verse admired by Pope,—

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, justify an immediate resort to force 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, 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 Quincy Adams! [Nine cheers.]”

A Slave-Master from South Carolina, Mr. Waddy Thompson, in debate in the House of Representatives, threatened the venerable patriot with the “penitentiary”; and another Slave-Master, Mr. Marshall, of Kentucky, insisted that he should be “silenced.” Ominous word! full of incentive to the bludgeon-bearers of Slavery. But the great representative of Freedom stood firm. Meanwhile Slavery assumed more and more the port of Giant Maul in “Pilgrim’s Progress,” who continued with his club breaking skulls, until he was slain by Mr. Great-Heart, soon to join the congenial pilgrims, Mr. Honest, Mr. Valiant-for-Truth, and Mr. Standfast.

Next to John Quincy Adams, no person in Congress has been more conspicuous for long-continued and patriotic services against Slavery than Joshua R. Giddings, of Ohio; nor have any such services received in higher degree that homage found in the personal and most vindictive assaults of Slave-Masters. For more than twenty years he sat in the House of Representatives, bearing his testimony austerely, and never shrinking, though exposed to the grossest brutality. In a recent address at New York he has recounted some of these instances.

On his presentation 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 caught the South Carolina fever. A proposition of censure was introduced by Slave-Masters, and under the previous question pressed to a vote, without giving him a moment for explanation or reply. This glaring outrage upon freedom of debate was redressed by the constituency of Mr. Giddings, who without delay returned him to his seat. From that time the rage of the Slave-Masters against him was constant. 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 afterward speaking with regard to a certain transaction in which negroes were concerned in Georgia, when Mr. Black, of Georgia, raising his bludgeon, and standing in front of my seat, said to me, ‘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 cocking the pistol, so that all around me could hear it click.”

Listening to these horrors, ancient stories of Barbarism are all outdone; and the “viper broth,” which was a favorite decoction in a barbarous age, seems to be the daily drink of American Slave-Masters. The blaspheming madness of the witches in “Macbeth” is renewed, and they dance again round the caldron, dropping into it “sweltered venom sleeping got,” with every other “charm of powerful trouble.” Men are transformed into wolves, as according to early Greek superstition, and a new lycanthropy has its day. But Mr. Giddings, strong in consciousness of right, knew the dignity of his position. He knew that it is always honorable to serve the cause of Liberty, and that it is a privilege to suffer for this cause. Reproach, contumely, violence even unto death, are rewards, not punishments; and clearly the indignities 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 are exposed, when undertaking to speak for Freedom. And truth compels me to add, that it would be easy to show how these are grossly aggravated towards individuals who notoriously reject the Duel; for then they can be offered with personal impunity.

Here is an instance. In 1848, Mr. Hale, the Senator from New Hampshire, who still continues 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, when, in the debate that ensued, Mr. Foote, a Slave-Master from Mississippi, thus menaced him:—

“I invite the Senator to the good 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 tallest 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.”[114]

That this bloody threat may not seem to stand alone, I add two others.

In 1836, Mr. Hammond, of South Carolina, now a Senator, is reported as saying in the House of Representatives:—

“I warn the Abolitionists, ignorant, infatuated barbarians as they are, that, if chance shall throw any of them into our hands, he may expect a felon’s death!”[115]

In 1841, Mr. Payne, a Slave-Master from Alabama, in the course of debate in the House of Representatives, alluding to the Abolitionists, 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 hang them like dogs.”[116]

And these words were applied to men who simply expressed the recorded sentiments of Washington, Jefferson, and Franklin.

Even during the present session of Congress, I find in the “Congressional Globe” the following interruptions of the eloquent and faithful Representative from Illinois, Mr. Lovejoy, when speaking on Slavery. I do not characterize them, but simply cite the language.

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):—

“The man is crazy.”

By Mr. Barksdale, of Mississippi, again:—

“No, Sir, you stand there to-day an infamous, perjured villain.”

By Mr. Ashmore, of South Carolina:—

“Yes, he is a perjured villain; and he perjures himself every hour he occupies a seat on 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 perjured negro-thief.”

By Mr. Singleton, of Mississippi, again:—

“No, Sir! any gentleman shall have time, but not such a mean, despicable wretch as that!”

By Mr. Martin, of Virginia:—

“And if you come among us, we will do with you as we did with John Brown,—hang you up as high as Haman. I say that as a Virginian.”[117]

But enough,—enough; and I now turn from this branch of the great subject with a single remark. 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 ancient story of the colloquy between Jupiter and a simple countryman. They talked with ease and freedom until they differed, when the angry god at once menaced his honest opponent with a thunderbolt. “Ah! ah!” said the clown, with perfect composure, “now, Jupiter, 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 revolver, or the bludgeon, 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 debate. And then how impotent! Truth, like the sunbeam, cannot be soiled by outward touch, while the best testimony to its might is found in the active passions it provokes. There are occasions when enmity is a panegyric.

(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 unconsciousness of its fatal influence 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 seriously declare Slavery “ennobling,” at least to the master, and “the black marble keystone of our national arch,” would excite wonder, if it were not explained by examples of history. There are men who, in the spirit of paradox, make themselves 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 under its influence; nor is there any end to these exaggerations. According to Thucydides, piracy in the early ages of Greece was alike wide-spread and honorable; and so much was this the case, that Telemachus and Mentor, on landing at Pylos, were asked by Nestor if they were “pirates,”[118]—precisely as in South Carolina the stranger might be asked if he were a Slave-Master. Kidnapping, too, a kindred indulgence, was openly avowed, and I doubt not held to be “ennobling.” Next to the unconsciousness of childhood is the unconsciousness of Barbarism. The real Barbarian is unconscious as an infant; and the Slave-Master shows much of the same character. No New-Zealander exults in his tattoo, no savage of the Northwest Coast exults in his flat head, more than the Slave-Master of these latter days—always, of course, with honorable exceptions—exults in his unfortunate condition. The Slave-Master hugs his disgusting practice as the Carib of the Gulf hugged Cannibalism, and as Brigham Young now hugs Polygamy. The delusion of the Goitre is repeated. This prodigious swelling of the neck, nothing less than a loathsome wallet of flesh pendulous upon the breast, and sometimes so enormous, that the victim, unable to support the burden, crawls along the ground, is common to the population on the slopes of the Alps;[119] but, accustomed to this deformity, the sufferer comes to regard it with pride,—as Slave-Masters with us, unable to support their burden, and crawling along the ground, regard Slavery,—and it is said that those who have no swelling are laughed at and called “goose-necked.”[120]

With knowledge comes distrust and the modest consciousness of imperfection; but the pride of Barbarism has no such limitation. It dilates in the thin air of ignorance, and makes boasts. Surely, if the illustrations which I have presented to-day are not entirely inapplicable, then must we find in the boasts of Slave-Masters new occasion to regret that baleful influence under which even love of country is lost in love of Slavery, and the great motto of Franklin is reversed, so as to read, Ubi Servitudo, ibi Patria.

It is this same influence which renders Slave-Masters insensible to those characters which are among the true glories of the Republic,—which makes them forget that Jefferson, who wrote the Declaration of Independence, and Washington, who commanded our armies, were Abolitionists,—which renders them indifferent to the inspiring words of the one and the commanding example of the other. Of these great men it is the praise, well deserving perpetual mention, and grudged only by malign influence, that, reared amidst Slavery, they did not hesitate to condemn it. Jefferson, in repeated utterances, alive with the fire of genius and truth, has contributed the most important testimony to 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 Slave-Master, who entered into the presence of his Maker only as Emancipator of his slaves. The difference between 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; the second look up to Slavery. The first, recognizing its wrong, were at once liberated from its insidious influence; while the latter, upholding it as right and “ennobling,” must naturally 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, surrender blindly to its barbarous tendencies, and, verifying the words of the poet,—

Mr. President, it is time to close this branch of the argument. The Barbarism of Slavery has been 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 tie, the exclusion from knowledge, 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 economical results, illustrated by contrast between the Free States and the Slave States, sustained by official figures. From this exposure I proceeded to consider the influence 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 slaves, maintained by three inhuman instruments,—then, in their intercourse 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, practising violence, and pushing it everywhere, in street-fight and duel; especially raging against all who question the pretensions of Slavery, entering even into the Free States,—but not in lawless outbreaks only, also in official acts, as of Georgia and of South Carolina regarding two Massachusetts citizens,—and then, ascending in audacity, entering the Halls of Congress, where they have turned, as at home, against all who oppose their assumptions; while the whole gloomy array of unquestionable facts is closed by the melancholy unconsciousness which constitutes one of the distinctive 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 assumption of Constitutional Law, which forms the second branch of this discussion, I add testimony to the influence of Slavery on Slave-Masters in other countries, which is too important to be neglected, and may properly find place here.

Among those who have done most to press forward in Russia that sublime act of emancipation by which the present Emperor is winning 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, exposed it with rare ability and courage. Thus he speaks of its influence on Slave-Masters:—

“But if Slavery degrades the slave, it degrades the master more. This is an old adage, and long observation has 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 not learned to respect either the rights or the dignity of his fellow-man? What control can the moral and religious sentiments have over a person who sees himself invested with a power so eminently contrary to morality and religion? The continual exercise of an unjust claim, even when moderated, ends in corrupting the character of the man, and perverting his judgment.… The possession of a slave being the result of injustice, the relations of the master with the slave cannot be otherwise than a succession of wrongs. Among good masters (and it is agreed so to call those who do not abuse their power as much as they might) these relations are invested with forms less repugnant than among other masters; but here the difference ends. Who can remain always pure, when, induced by disposition, excited by temper, influenced by caprice, he may with impunity oppress, insult, humiliate his fellow-men? And be it remarked, that enlightenment, civilization, do not avail here. The enlightened man, the civilized man, is nevertheless a man; that he may not oppress, it is necessary that it should be impossible for him to oppress. All men cannot, like Louis the Fourteenth, throw the cane out of the window, when they feel an inclination to strike.”[122]

Another authority, unimpeachable at all points, whose fortune it has been, from extensive travels, to see Slavery in the most various forms, and Slave-Masters under the most various conditions,—I refer to the great African traveller, Dr. Livingstone,—thus touches the character of Slave-Masters:—

“I can never cease to be most unfeignedly thankful that I was not born in a land of slaves. No one can understand the effect of the unutterable 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 ourselves. Fraud becomes as natural to them as ‘paying one’s way’ is to the rest of mankind.”[123]

And so does the experience of Slavery in other countries confirm the sad experience among us.

Second Assumption of Slave-Masters.

Discarding now all presumptuous boasts for Slavery, and bearing in mind its essential Barbarism, I come to consider that second assumption of Senators on the other side, which is, of course, inspired by the first, even if not its immediate consequence, that, 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 acquired, by purchase or by war, as of Mexico on the South or Canada on the North.

Here I begin with the remark, that, as the assumption of Constitutional Law is inspired by the assumption of fact with regard to the “ennobling” character of Slavery, so it must lose much, if not all of its force, when the latter assumption 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. Only because people have been insensible to its true character have they tolerated for a moment its exorbitant pretensions. Therefore this long exposition, where Slavery stands forth in fivefold 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 attempt to Africanize the Constitution, by introducing into it the barbarous Law of Slavery, originally derived, as we have seen, from barbarous Africa,—and then, through such Africanization of the Constitution, to Africanize the Territories, and Africanize the National Government. In using this language to express the obvious effect of this assumption, I borrow a suggestive term, first employed by a Portuguese writer at the beginning of this century, when protesting against the spread of Slavery in Brazil.[124] Analyze the assumption, and it is found to stand on two pretensions, either of which failing, the assumption fails also. These two are, first, the peculiar African pretension of property in man,—and, secondly, the pretension that such property is recognized in the Constitution.

With regard to the first of these pretensions, I might simply refer to what has been said at an earlier stage of this argument. But I should do injustice to the part it plays in this controversy, if I did not again notice it. Then I sought particularly to show its Barbarism; now I shall show something 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 cannot be a thing. And the law itself, when it adopts the phrase, “relation of master and slave,” confesses its reluctance to sanction the claim of property. It shrinks from the pretension of Senators, and satisfies itself with a formula which does not openly degrade human nature.

If this property does exist, out of what title is it derived? Under what ordinance of Nature 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 persons to a degree which becomes outrage to other persons? God is the Father of the Human Family, and we all are 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 humiliating; but it is clear there can be but one response. There is no sanction for such pretension, no ordinance for it, no 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, “No, not until you show a Bill of Sale from the Almighty.” Nothing 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 is 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 arguments by which it is maintained. These are twofold, and both were put forth in recent debate by the Senator from Mississippi [Mr. Jefferson Davis].

The first is the alleged inferiority of the African race,—an argument instructive to the Slave-Master. The law of life is labor. Slavery is a perpetual effort to evade this law by compelling the labor of others; and such an attempt at evasion is naturally supported by the pretension, that, because the African is inferior, therefore he may be enslaved. But this pretension, while surrendering to Slavery a whole race, leaves it uncertain whether the same principle may not be applied to other races, as to the polished Japanese who are now the guests of the nation,[125] and even to persons of obvious inferiority among the white race. Indeed, the latter pretension is openly set up in other quarters. The “Richmond Enquirer,” a leading journal of Slave-Masters, declares, “The principle of Slavery is in itself right, and does not depend on difference of complexion.” 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.” In the same vein, a Democratic paper of South Carolina has said, “Slavery is the natural and normal condition of the laboring man, black or white.”

These more extravagant pretensions reveal still further the feebleness of the pretension put forth by the Senator, while instances, accumulating constantly, attest the difficulty of discriminating between the two races. Mr. Paxton, of Virginia, tells us that “the best blood in Virginia flows in the veins of the slaves”; and more than one fugitive has been advertised latterly as possessing “a round face,” “blue 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 religion, history, and science. Sure I am that they who understand it best will be least disposed to the pretension which, on an assumed ground of inferiority, would condemn one race to be the property of another. If the African race be inferior, as is alleged, then unquestionably a Christian Civilization must lift it from degradation, not by the lash and the chain, not by this barbarous pretension of ownership, but by a generous charity, which shall be measured precisely by the extent of 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 throughout 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 Senator is Chairman of the Committee on Military Affairs, where he is doubtless experienced. He may, perhaps, set a squadron in the field; but, evidently, he has 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 aristocracy, this same argument was adopted as excuse for holding white serfs in bondage, precisely as it is now put forward by the Senator, and that even to this day the angry Polish noble addresses his white peasant as “Son 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, he 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 belongs to the posterity of Canaan,—an ethnological assumption absurdly difficult to establish; fourthly, that each of the descendants of Shem and Japheth has a right to hold an Afric-American fellow-man as a “chattel,”—a proposition which finds no semblance of support; and, fifthly, that every Slave-Master is truly descended from Shem or Japheth,—a pedigree which no anxiety can establish. This plain analysis, which may fitly excite a smile, shows the fivefold absurdity of an attempt to found this pretension on any

From the character of these two arguments for property in man, I am brought 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 declarations 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 apparent than when Slave-Masters deceive themselves so far as to find in the Constitution a pretension which exists only in their own minds.

Looking for one moment juridically at this question, we are brought to the conclusion, 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 Slavery,” said Lord Mansfield, pronouncing judgment in the great case of Somerset, “is of such a nature that it is incapable of being introduced 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 itself to the enlightened reason, is adopted 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,—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 phrase. 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 Bench by the voice of the most finished magistrate in English history, was as well known in our country as any principle of the Common Law; especially was it known to the eminent lawyers in the 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, by the lips of Chief-Justice Marshall, promulgated this same rule, in words stronger even than those of Lord Mansfield, saying: “Where rights are infringed, where fundamental 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 justice to suppose a design to effect such objects.”[127] It is well known, however, that these two declarations 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 cruel who does not favor Liberty,”[128]—and as expressed by Blackstone, “The law is always ready to catch at anything in favor of Liberty.”[129]

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 Missouri Territory, and all the precedents, legislative and judicial, for the exercise of this power, admitted from the beginning until now, are overturned. 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 Somerset, in which this great rule was declared, is impeached on this floor, as the Declaration of Independence is also impeached. And here the Senator from Louisiana [Mr. Benjamin] takes the lead, with the assertion, that in the history of English law there are earlier cases, where a contrary principle was declared. Permit me to say that no such cases, even if hunted up 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 brought into activity by the demands of advancing Civilization, and which, once recognized, can never be denied. Pardon me, if I remind him 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 Constitution, 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 flagrant, when we read the Constitution in the light of great national acts and of contemporaneous authorities. First comes the Declaration of Independence, the illuminated initial letter of our history, which in familiar words announces “that all 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; that to secure these rights governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” Nor does this Declaration, binding the consciences of all who enjoy the privileges it secured, 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 States, grandly announced: “Let it be remembered that it has ever been the pride and boast of America, that the rights for which she contended were the Rights of Human Nature. By the blessing of the Author of these rights on the means exerted for their defence, they have prevailed against all opposition, and form the Basis of thirteen independent States.”[130] Now, whatever may be the privileges 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, inconsistent 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 Constitution, and enter into and diffuse itself through all the national legislation. Such are commanding authorities which make “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness,” and, in more general words, “the Rights of Human Nature,” as the basis of our national institutions, without distinction of race, or absurd recognition of the curse of Ham.

In strict harmony with these are the many utterances in the Convention which framed the Constitution: of Gouverneur Morris, of Pennsylvania, who announced that “he never would concur in upholding Domestic Slavery; it was a nefarious institution”;[131] of Elbridge Gerry, of Massachusetts, who said that “we had nothing to do with the conduct of the States as to slaves, but ought to be careful not to give any sanction to it”;[132] of Roger Sherman and Oliver Ellsworth, of Connecticut, and Mr. Gorham, of Massachusetts, who all concurred with Mr. Gerry;[133] and especially of Mr. Madison, of Virginia, who, in a phrase which cannot be quoted too often, “thought it wrong to admit in the Constitution the idea that there could be property in men.”[134] And, lastly, as if to complete the elaborate work of Freedom, and to embody all these utterances, the word “servitude,” which had been allowed in the clause on the apportionment of Representatives, was struck out, and the word “service” substituted. This final and total exclusion from the Constitution of the idea of property in man was on the motion of Mr. Randolph, of Virginia; and the reason assigned for the substitution, according to Mr. Madison, in his authentic report of the debate, was, that “the former was thought to express the condition of slaves, and the latter the obligations of free persons.”[135] Thus, at every point, by great national declarations, by frank utterances in the Convention, and by 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 conducts. If the Barbarism of Slavery, in all its fivefold wrong, is really embodied in the Constitution, so as to be beyond reach of prohibition, either Congressional or local, in the Territories, then, for the same reason, it must be beyond reach of prohibition, even by local authority, in the States themselves, and, just so long as the Constitution continues unchanged, Territories and States alike must be exposed to all its blasting influences. Do we not witness this result in open attempts now made by Slave-Masters to travel with their slaves in the Free States? Calling the slave-roll in the shadow of Bunker Hill, according to well-known menace, will be the triumph of this consummation. And yet this pretension, which in natural consequences overturns State Rights, is announced by Senators who profess to be special guardians of State Rights.

Nor does this pretension derive any support from the much debated clause in the Constitution for the rendition of fugitives from “service or labor,” on which so much stress is constantly put. I do not occupy your time now on this head for two reasons: first, because, having on a former occasion exhibited with great fulness the character of 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 admitting, also, what is often denied, that, in defiance of commanding rules of interpretation, the equivocal words there employed have that “irresistible clearness” which is necessary in taking away Human Rights,—yet nothing can be clearer than that the fugitives, whosoever they 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 Men, 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 slaves into the National Territories, under solemn safeguard of the Constitution. This argument comes back to the first pretension, that slaves are recognized as “property” in the Constitution. To that pretension, already amply exposed, we are always brought, nor can any sounding allegation 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 Constitution, then under the provision known as “the three-fifths rule,” which founds representation 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 representation of Slave States is founded, first, on “persons,” and, secondly, on a large part of their pretended property, while the representation 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 pretension becomes manifest. Assuming the pretension of property in man under the Constitution, you upset 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 upset the whole pretension of property in man under the Constitution.

Nor will I deign to dwell on one other argument, which, in the name of Popular Sovereignty, undertakes to secure for the people in the Territories the wicked power—sometimes, by confusion of terms, called “right”—to enslave their fellow-men: as if this pretension was not crushed at once by the Declaration of Independence, when it announced that all governments “derive their just powers from the consent of the governed”; and as if anywhere within the jurisdiction of the Constitution, which contains 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 citizen, such pretension could exist. Whatever it may be elsewhere, Popular Sovereignty within the sphere of the Constitution has its limitations. Claiming for all the largest liberty of a true Civilization, it compresses all within the constraints of Justice; nor does it allow any man to assert a right to do what he pleases, except when he pleases to do right. As well within the Territories attempt to make a king as attempt to make a slave. Beyond all doubt, no majority can be permitted to pass on the question, whether fellow-men shall be bought and sold like cattle. There are rights which cannot be “voted up” or “voted down,” according to phrases of the Senator from Illinois [Mr. Douglas], for they are above all votes. The very act of voting upon the question of reducing men to bondage is a heinous wrong, for it assumes that we may do unto others what we would not have them do unto us. But this pretension,—rejected alike by every Slave-Master and by every lover of Freedom,—