Note 22 — Chapter IV · 1825–1826.

This allusion to Mr. Everett requires some explanation. On the 9th of March, 1826, he made a speech on the proposed Constitutional Amendment, in the course of which he said:

“I am not one of those citizens of the North who think it immoral and irreligious to join in putting down a servile insurrection at the South. I am no soldier, my habits and education are very un-military; but there is no cause in which I would sooner buckle a knapsack to my back, and put a musket on my shoulder, than that. I would cede the whole continent to any one who would take it—to England, to France, to Spain; I would see it sunk in the bottom of the ocean, before I would see any part of this fair America converted into a Continental Hayti, by that awful process of bloodshed and desolation, by which alone such a catastrophe could be brought on. The great relation of servitude, in some form or other, with greater or less departures from the theoretic equality of man, is inseparable from our nature. I know no way by which the form of this servitude shall be fixed, but by political institution. Domestic slavery, though, I confess, not that form of servitude which seems to be most beneficial to the master—certainly not that which is most beneficial to the servant—is not, in my judgment, to be set down as an immoral and irreligious relation. I cannot admit that Religion has but one voice to the slave, and that this voice is, ‘Rise against your master.’ No, Sir, the New Testament says, ‘Slaves obey your masters,’ and though I know full well that, in the benignant operations of Christianity, which gathered master and slave around the same communion table, this unfortunate institution disappeared in Europe, yet I cannot admit that, while it subsists, and where it subsists, its duties are not pre-supposed and sanctioned by religion. I certainly am not called upon to meet the charges brought against this institution, yet truth obliges me to say a word more on the subject. I know the condition of the working classes in other countries, and I have no hesitation in saying that I believe the slaves of this country are better clothed and fed, and less hardly worked, than the peasantry of some of the most prosperous States of the continent of Europe.”