SLAVERY: 
 
 LETTERS AND SPEECHES, 
 
 BY 
 
 HORACE MANN, 
 \* 
 
 THE FIRST SECRETARY OF THE MASSACHUSETTS BOARD OF 
 EDUCATION. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 
 PUBLISHED BY B. B. MUSSEY & CO. 
 1851. 
 

 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1851, by 
 
 HORACE MANN, 
 In the Clerk s Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 
 
 STEREOTYPED AT THE 
 BOSTON STEREOTYPE FOUNDRY. 
 
TO 
 
 THE YOUNG MEN 
 
 OF 
 
 MASSACHUSETTS 
 
 THIS VOLUME IS AFFECTIONATELY 
 
 BY 
 
 THE AUTHOR. 
 
 THIS work comes from one in whose mind present Memories are 
 taking the place of early Hopes. It is specially addressed to those 
 in whose minds future Memories will soon take the place of present 
 Hopes. Hence a fitting occasion presents itself for the statement 
 of a few principles, by whose unerring guidance the exulting 
 Hopes of Youth may always be transformed into the happy Mem 
 ories of Age. 
 
 The Youth of all climes and times have a common attribute. 
 The desire of happiness is a universal desire. God fixes this ele 
 ment in the core of life. Far back in our moral organization, before 
 human conduct can come in to control or modify, this longing for 
 happiness, this hope of future welfare, is radicated in the soul ; so 
 that it seems to have been the first attribute which was taken for the 
 constitution of our nature, and around which the other attributes 
 were gathered, rather to have been added to the rest as a secondary 
 or incident. The desire of some form of happiness being secured, 
 as a motive power, it seems to have been left very much to the 
 option of each individual to select his own objects of enjoyment, 
 
IV 
 
 whether noblo or ignoble, and to devise h;s own means for obtaining" 
 them, whether righteous or unrighteous. 
 
 The emulous and aspiring youth of a Free People will always 
 find much of their private, and most of their public welfare, indis- 
 solubly connected with the institutions and laws of their country. 
 In these, therefore, their interest is both public and personal ; it 
 pertains to the citizen as well as to the man. All great moral 
 questions, though touching them but lightly at first, will come closer 
 and closer home, as long as they live ; growing into greater 
 importance for their posthumous memory than for their living 
 fame, and affecting the fortunes of their posterity even more than 
 their own. 
 
 Though all Young Men are substantially alike in their desire of 
 well being, yet, in regard to the guiding principles by which the 
 objects of hope are pursued, in order to obtain happiness, three 
 marked distinctions, or classes, exist among them. 
 
 1. There are those who adopt with implicit and unquestioning faith 
 the views of their parents, or of the circle, or caste, into which they 
 were thrown by the accident of birth. They never venture to ex 
 plore or wander outside of the ideas and opinions among which 
 they were born and bred. For them, an hereditary boundary en 
 closes thought, belief, hope. Whether the opinions amid which 
 they live are insular in their narrowness, or continental in their 
 breadth ; whether they belong to the earth, came up from the 
 dark regions below, or descended from the realms of purity above, 
 they are taken into the receptive soul, as unfledged birds take what 
 ever food is offered them, from friend or foe, with closed eye and 
 opened mouth. Even if practically right, therefore, they are never 
 rationally right, for they have never discerned between good and ill ; 
 and all their convictions, whether true or untrue, rest upon the 
 foundation of bigotry alone. 
 
 2. The second class look eagerly beyond family or caste. They 
 anxiously inquire what views, what dogmas, are in the ascendant 
 
DEDICATION. V 
 
 among men, what party predominates or outvotes, what avowals 
 or professions will most readily open avenues to wealth, propi 
 tiate power, win patronage, insure advancement. Finding where 
 the preponderance of forces lies, they attach themselves to the 
 stronger. No matter whether the tide ebbs or flows, they drift 
 with the current. If popular views change, they change, " like a 
 wave driven with the wind and tossed ; " like a chameleon, chan 
 ging its color with every contact. 
 
 Some of this class, more sagacious, though not less false to prin 
 ciple, than the rest, ascend an eminence, whence they can survey 
 the direction of forces, mark the future point and period of their 
 union, and then they strike at once for the spot % whither those forces 
 are converging They, not less than their fellows, warp eternal 
 principles to suit the vice of the hour, only it is an hour somewhat 
 future, instead of the present one. 
 
 3. But there is a third class of Young Men who are true to the 
 sacred instincts of virtue, and devoutly reverent of duty. They 
 seek, not for the time-hallowed, but for the truth-hallowed. They 
 have learnt that, in the divine classification, there are but two 
 great objects in the universe, God and Mankind. These are the 
 only existences recognized in those two supreme laws, which, by 
 divine prerogative, hold all other laws in their embrace. Hence the 
 two resulting and all-comprehending duties, love to God and love 
 to Man. The convictions and sentiments which belong to the 
 Brotherhood of the one, stand upon the same basis of authority as 
 those which belong to the Fatherhood of the other. Hence all 
 other entities and possibilities, opulence, power, fame, genius, 
 things present, or things to come, are, and forever must be, sec 
 ondary and subordinate to these primary and everlasting laws. No 
 names so lofty, no multitude so large, that they can abolish these 
 truths, or abstract one jot or tittle from their binding force, in this 
 life, or in any life. They are coeternal with their Author ; unchange 
 able as He, and moral life and moral death wait upon their award. 
 
VI DEDICATION. 
 
 When the Young Man of this class looks within himself, he finds 
 the constitution of his own moral nature to be such, that annihila 
 tion with truth is better than the most favored existence with error. 
 And when he looks without himself, he sees there is a God en 
 throned above, mightier than every " god of this world," and that 
 there is a divine law higher than any laws of fallible men. Hence 
 he knows that Right and Truth will assuredly triumph, and that all 
 who oppose them will be scattered as the whirlwind scatters the 
 chaff. The patriarchs sold Joseph into Egypt; yet God was 
 with him, and raised him to honor, and at last put the lives of his 
 treacherous brethren into his hands. 
 
 Whatever may be the peculiar madness of the hour, in what 
 ever direction the gauds of wealth may beckon, or the prizes of am 
 bition call, let the Young Man remember, tliat only can be honor 
 able which is just, that only can be safe which is right. Hence, 
 though the perfumed breezes of flattery may entice him on one side, 
 and a storm of maledictions beat fiercely against him on the other, 
 let him consecrate himself to Justice and Truth, and be inspired 
 with the faith that, though the earth should quake or the heavens 
 fall, an omniscient eye will over- watch, and an omniscient arm will 
 protect him. 
 
 Among the wiles of the sorceress that beguile the young to their 
 ruin there is no more seductive, yet fallacious temptation, than the 
 value which seems to belong to the passing hour, and to the pleas 
 ures it may bring. How infinitely small a part of existence is the 
 present day, or year ! How insignificant its point compared with 
 the ages to come ! What are its huzzas, its ostentation, and its 
 pride, when placed in the balance against the eternity of rewards 
 that crown allegiance to duty ? O, how insane and fatuous to 
 barter the undecaying honors of the future for the transitory joys 
 of the present ! In the future, lies the wealth of every man ; the 
 present is only an opportunity to make its title secure. The tempo 
 rizer must snatch from hour to hour at some new expedient, which, 
 
DEDICATION. Vll 
 
 if he fails to seize, he sinks to perdition. The virtuous man binds 
 himself to a principle, and soars securely through all worlds. 
 
 Nothing stands upon a more adamantine basis of truth than the 
 principles which decide between Human Freedom and Human 
 Slavery. These eternal principles happen now, in a peculiar degree, 
 to be implicated in the shifting and uncertain current of politics ; 
 and political storms may seem for a time to overwhelm them. But 
 the cloud which obscures the sun does not annihilate it ; and these 
 principles are sure to emerge and shine unclouded in their native 
 splendor forever. Every act, whether of individuals or of govern 
 ments, whether committed in past days or in our day, which compro 
 mises the sacred principles of Human Freedom, or postpones its inter 
 ests to other interests, is set down, in the calendar of fate, for ultimate 
 and universal execration. This is just as certain as it is that the great 
 crimes of the race committed in past ages, the persecutions of the 
 early Christians, the tortures of the Inquisition, or the atrocities of 
 the African Slave trade, are now condemned by the awful verdict 
 of history and the ever-sounding reprobation of mankind. In the 
 spread of Christianity, in the advance of civilization, in the moral 
 development of the people, a tribunal is now preparing, which will 
 pronounce sentence of condemnation against the abetters of slavery, 
 to be promulgated as from Sinai, and preserved in the archives of 
 eternity. The Progress of the Age bears us on, not only to a for 
 ward, but to an upward point ; and what we now say against the 
 apostates to duty and the traitors of mankind, in past ages, however 
 much they may have been honored, caressed, and rewarded in their 
 day, will soon be said of every one amongst ourselves who leads or 
 joins the band of conspirators against the Rights of Man. 
 
 Every Young Man, however obscure or powerless he may seem, 
 can do something for the cause of freedom. Whatever disadvan 
 tages the youth may labor under, they have one all-compensating 
 advantage. A longer period of life is before them, and deeds 
 which can only be accomplished through years of labor, they can 
 
Vlll DEDICATION. 
 
 achieve. But our success depends infinitely less upon our strength 
 than upon our motive. When we supply the virtuous will, God 
 supplies the power ; so that the result corresponds, not to our weak 
 ness, but to his omnipotence. We are thus made able 
 
 " to join 
 
 Our partial movements with the master wheel 
 Of the great world, and serve that sacred end, 
 Which He, the unerring Reason, keeps in view." 
 
 Those Young Men of Massachusetts, then, of the noble lineage 
 of the Pilgrims, who have been nursed amid the influences of sanctuary 
 and school, in whose bosoms is the sacred depository of future and 
 boundless hopes, but who are now counselled to abandon their in 
 tegrity, who are brought into peril of being corrupted by the lures 
 of wealth, or fascinated by the dazzling of worldly honors, or swept 
 away by the pressure of the multitude that do evil, I adjure to stand 
 fast and immovable on those sacred and eternal principles of Hu 
 man Liberty which came down to us through the fires of oppression 
 and the agony and blood of martyrs, but came from God; 
 principles that can never suffer the decays of time, which kings nor 
 senates of kings can ever abolish, and which, however much the 
 passions of men may seek to taint or defile them, are ever beautiful 
 and fair, as the names of all their disciples shall hereafter be. I call 
 upon Young Men to throw themselves forward in imagination into 
 middle life, or old age, and there behold how these mighty questions 
 will look in the retrospect of time, when the brilliant robes which 
 now gild the tempter are gone, and only the ghastly fiend remains ; 
 when the passion that prompted the crime is dead, and only the 
 remorse survives. Think not of luxury, or wealth, or ignoble ease, 
 but only of an heroic conflict, careless of the present strength of the 
 foe. Take no bribe from the hand of power, in whatever disguise 
 of beauty it may come, but spurn it and its author alike. Let your 
 future manhood realize the generous aspirations of your youth ; and, 
 amid the seductions of the present hour, prize only the jubilant 
 
DEDICATION. IX 
 
 memories you can lay up for old age. It may grieve you to break 
 friendships, but truth and duty are your nearest friends. It may be 
 painful to live amongst those who upbraid and condemn you; but be 
 a coward when virtue is in peril, and your own accusing conscience 
 you must live with forever. Study those exemplars of excellence who 
 came purified and resplendent out of fiery trials. It is said of Francis 
 the First, that when he read the valorous exploits of Gaston de Foix, 
 he wept tears of emulation. Rejoice, then, though marshalled in the 
 fore front of battle when the Rights of Humanity are in danger, 
 and you shall rejoice again and forever in their triumph. Read and 
 ponder what was so nobly said by. one of the heathen of the old 
 world, and be ashamed, yea, weep for your country and your kind, 
 if the Christianity of America has fallen below the paganism of 
 Rome. Seneca says, 
 
 Virtue covets danger; and whatever may be her aim, she never stops to 
 consider how much she may suffer, since her sufferings are a part of her 
 i^lory. Military men glory in their scars. With exultation they point us to 
 their blood flowing in an honorable cause. Though they who return un- 
 harmed from the field of battle may have done as many and as noble deeds, 
 yet it is the wounded soldier who receives double honors. God provides for 
 those whom he would make most honorable, by furnishing them with oppor 
 tunities for achieving valiant and noble deeds. Hence he strews difficulties 
 along their path. It is in the storm you see who is worthy to be a pilot 5 and 
 in battle, who is the soldier How can I know with what con 
 stancy and endurance one will bear up against reproach and obloquy and pop 
 ular odium, if he has grown old amidst the applauses of the world, if he has 
 never encountered misfortune, and has been followed by the indiscriminating 
 favor of men ? . . . . Be not affrighted, I beseech you, at the dangers which 
 were intended by the immortal gods only as stimulants to exertion. The season 
 of calamity is virtue s opportunity. Tfiey, rather, are to be esteemed wretched, 
 who lie torpid in luxurious ease, whom a sluggish calm detains on the great 
 voyage, like vessels that lie weltering on a sea without a gale. Whom God 
 approves and loves, he exercises, and tries them again and again, and thus in 
 ures them to hardship ; but those whom he designs to enervate, he spares and 
 
 indulges and saves them from impending ills The bravest of the 
 
 army are they whom the commander selects for the most perilous service. The 
 
X DEDICATION. 
 
 general details his choicest men to send on secret expeditions by night, or to 
 explore an unknown way, or to dislodge a garrison from their entrenchments. 
 No man chosen for such an enterprise is ever heard to say, My commander 
 has wronged and dishonored me, but rather, He has known well whom to 
 choose. Such, too, is the language of those who are required to suffer what 
 would make the timid and the ignoble weep. We stand honored in the divine 
 regards when the great experiment, how much human nature can endure for a 
 
 virtuous cause, is tried in ourselves As teachers deal with their 
 
 scholars, so God deals with good men. He demands most of those in whom 
 he has most confidence." * 
 
 WEST NEWTON, October, 1851. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 LETTER ACCEPTING THE NOMINATION FOR THE THIRTIETH 
 
 CONGRESS, 1 
 
 SPEECH, DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
 
 OF THE UNITED STATES, JUNE 30, 1848, 10 
 
 SKETCH OF THE OPENING ARGUMENT IN THE CASE OF THE 
 
 UNITED STATES VS. DANIEL DRAYTON, . . . . 84 
 
 LETTER ACCEPTING THE NOMINATION FOR THE THIRTY- 
 FIRST CONGRESS, 119 
 
 SPEECH, DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
 
 OF THE UNITED STATES, FEB. 23, 1849, . ... 121 
 
 SPEECH, DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
 
 OF THE UNITED STATES, FEB. 15, 1850, 180 
 
 TWO LETTERS ON THE EXTENSION OF SLAVERY, AND ON 
 THE RIGHT OF AN ALLEGED FUGITIVE SLAVE TO A 
 TRIAL BY JURY, 
 
 LETTER: THE ORDINANCE OF 1787, 
 
Xll CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 LETTEE ACCEPTING THE NOMINATION FOR THE THIRTY- 
 SECOND CONGRESS 340 
 
 SPEECH, DELIVERED AT DEDHAM, NOV. 6, 1850, ... 357 
 
 SPEECH, DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
 
 OF THE UNITED STATES, FEB. 28, 1851, 390 
 
 SPEECH, DELIVERED AT LANCASTER, MAY 19, 1851, ... 473 
 
 SPEECH, DELIVERED IN BOSTON, APRIL 8, 1851, .... 523 
 
 SPEECH, DELIVERED AT WORCESTER, SEPT. 16, 1851, . . 536 
 
LETTER 
 
 ACCEPTING THE NOMINATION FOR THE THIRTIETH CONGRESS, 
 MADE BY THE WlIIG CONVENTION OF DISTRICT No. 8, 
 MARCH, 1848. 
 
 GENTLEMEN ; 
 
 YOUR communication of the 16th inst., being directed 
 to \owton, (instead of West Newton, where I reside,) 
 did not reach me until this morning. I thank you 
 cordially for the kind expressions of personal regard 
 with which you have been pleased to accompany it. 
 You inform me that at a convention of delegates 
 assembled in Dedham, on Wednesday, the 15th inst., 
 I was nominated as a candidate to fill the vacancy in 
 Congress occasioned by the death of the great and 
 good man whose irreparable loss we, his constituents, 
 with a nation for our fellow-mourners, deplore. 
 
 At first thought, the idea of being the immediate 
 successor of John Quincy Adams in the councils of 
 the nation might well cause any man to shrink back 
 from the inevitable contrast. But it is obvious^ on a 
 moment s reflection, that the difference is so trivial 
 between all the men whom he has left, compared with 
 the disparity between them and him, as to render it of 
 little consequence, in this respect, who shall succeed 
 him ; and the people in the Eighth District, in their de 
 scent from Mr. Adams to any successor, must break and 
 bear the shock of the fall, as best they can. 
 
 I most heartily concur with you in that estimate of 
 tne services, and veneration for the character, of our 
 late representative, which your resolutions so elo 
 quently express. To be fired by his example, to imi- 
 1 
 
tate his diligence and fidelity in the discharge of every 
 trust, to emulate his moral intrepidity, which always 
 preferred to stand alone by the right, rather than to 
 join the retinue and receive the plaudits of millions, as 
 a champion of the wrong, this would be, in the beau 
 tiful language of the Roman historian, " to ascend to 
 glory by the path of virtue." 
 
 One of the resolutions adopted by your convention 
 declares the three following things : 
 
 1. That the successor of Mr. Adams, on the floor 
 of Congress, should be a man " whose principles shall 
 be in consonance with those of his predecessor." 
 
 2. That his fidelity to the great principles of human 
 freedom shall be unwavering. And, 
 
 3. That his " voice and vote shall on all occasions 
 be exercised in extending and securing liberty to the 
 human race." 
 
 Permit me to reaffirm these sentiments with my 
 whole heart. Should the responsibilities of that suc- 
 cessorship ever be devolved upon me, I shall endeavor 
 so to fulfil them, that these dead words should become 
 a living soul. I should deem it not only an object of 
 duty, but of the highest ambition, to contend for the 
 noble principles you have here expressed, as Mr. Adams 
 contended for them ; though, unhappily, it would be 
 only as a David in Saul s armor. Bear with me for a 
 moment while I enlarge upon these sentiments. 
 
 1. " In consonance ivith his principles." I believe 
 it was the sovereign rule of Mr. Adams s life to act in 
 obedience to his convictions of duty. Truth was his 
 guide. His conscience was non-elastic. He did not 
 strain at a gnat before company, on account of its size, 
 and then, privately, swallow a camel. His patriotism 
 was coextensive with his country ; it could not be 
 crushed and squeezed in between party lines. Though 
 liable to err, and what human being is not ? yet 
 his principles were believed by him to be in accordance 
 
with the great moral laws of the universe. They 
 were thought out from duty and religion, and not 
 carved out of expediency. When invested with pat 
 ronage, he never dismissed a man from office because 
 he was a political opponent, and never appointed one 
 to office merely because he was a political friend. 
 Hence he drew from Mr. Holmes, of South Carolina, 
 this noble eulogium, a eulogium, considering the 
 part of the country from which it came, as honorable 
 to its author as to its object, that "he crushed no 
 heart beneath the rude grasp of proscription ; he left 
 no heritage of widows cries or orphans tears." Could 
 all the honors which Mr. Adams ever won from offices 
 held under the first five Presidents of the United 
 States, and from a public service, which, commencing 
 more than fifty years ago, continued to the day of his 
 death, be concentrated in one effulgent blaze, they 
 would be less far-shining and inextinguishable than the 
 honor of sacrificing his election for a second presidential 
 term, because he would riot, in order to obtain it, prosti 
 tute the patronage and power which the constitution 
 had placed in his hands. I regard this as the sublimest 
 spectacle in his long and varied career. He stood 
 within reach of an object of ambition doubtless dearer 
 to him than life. He could have laid his hands upon 
 it. The " still, small voice " said, No ! Without a 
 murmur, he saw it taken and borne away in triumph 
 by another. Compared with this, the block of many 
 a martyr has been an easy resting-place. 
 
 2. " Unwavering fidelity to the great principles of 
 human freedom" The Declaration of American 
 Independence, in 1776, was the first complete assertion 
 of human rights, on an extensive scale, ever made by 
 mankind. Less than three quarters of a century have 
 elapsed, and already the greatest portion of the civil 
 ized world has felt the influence of that Declaration. 
 France, for years, has had a constitutional monarchy ; 
 
perhaps, to-day, her government is republican. Holland 
 and Belgium are comparatively free. Almost all the 
 states of the Germanic Confederation have a written 
 constitution, and a legislature with a popular branch. 
 Prussia has lately commenced a representative system. 
 The iron rule of Austria is relaxed under the fer 
 vent heat which liberty reflects from surrounding na 
 tions. Naples and Sicily have just burst the bonds of 
 tyranny. In Rome and the States of the Church, 
 where, under the influence of religious and political 
 despotism, the heart of Freedom was supposed to be 
 petrified into insoluble hardness, that heart is now be 
 ginning to pulsate with a new life, and to throb with 
 sympathy for humanity. Great Britain and Denmark 
 have emancipated their slaves in the West Indies. 
 Measures are now in progress to ameliorate the condi 
 tion of Russian serfs. Even half-barbarous, Mahom 
 etan Tunis has yielded to the tide of free principles. 
 To what bar of judgment will our own posterity bring 
 us, what doom of infamy will history pronounce upon 
 us, if the United States shall hereafter be found the 
 only portion of Christendom where the principles of 
 our own Declaration of Independence are violated in 
 the persons of millions of our people ? 
 
 3. " The exercise, on all occasions, of voice and vote, 
 in extending and securing liberty to the human race." 
 There is a crisis in our affairs. A territory, in extent 
 far exceeding that of the thirteen original states, when 
 they repelled the power of Great Britain, has lately 
 been added, or is, doubtless, about to be added, to our 
 national domain. The expanse of this territory is so 
 vast, that it may be divided into a dozen sections, and 
 these sections may be erected into separate states, each 
 one of which shall be so large that Massachusetts 
 would seem but an inconsiderable court-yard, if placed 
 in front of it. Parts of this territory are fertile and 
 salubrious. It is capable of supporting millions and 
 
millions of human beings, of the same generation. 
 The numbers of the successive generations, which in 
 the providence of God are to inhabit it, will be as the 
 leaves of the forest, or the sands on the sea-shore. 
 Each one of these is to be a living soul, with its 
 joys and sorrows, its hopes and fears, its susceptibilities 
 of exaltation or of abasement. Each one will be ca 
 pable of being formed into the image of God, or of 
 being deformed into the image of all that is anti- 
 godlike. 
 
 These countless millions are to be our kindred ; 
 many of them, perhaps, our own descendants ; at any 
 rate, our brethren of the human family ; for has not 
 God " made of one blood all nations of men to dwell 
 upon all the face of the earth " ? In rights, in char 
 acter, in happiness ; in freedom or in vassalage ; in the 
 glorious immunities and prerogatives of knowledge, or 
 in the debasement and superstitions of ignorance ; in 
 their upward-looking aspiration and love of moral ex 
 cellence, or in their downward-looking, prone-rushing, 
 and brutish appetites and passions, what shall these mil 
 lions of our fellow-creatures be ? I put it as a practical 
 question, What shall these millions of our fellow-crea 
 tures be ? for it is more than probable that this very 
 generation, nay, that the actors in public affairs, be 
 fore the sands of the present year shall have run out, 
 will prescribe and foreordain their doom. That doom 
 will be what our present conduct predestines. 
 
 If we enact laws and establish institutions, under 
 whose benign influences that vast tract of territory 
 shall at length teem with myriads of human beings, 
 each one a free-born man ; each one enjoying the in 
 alienable right of " life, liberty, and the pursuit of hap 
 piness ; " each one free for the cultivation of his capaci 
 ties, and free in the choice and in the rewards of his 
 labor ; if we do this, although the grand results may 
 not manifest themselves for a thousand years, yet when 
 1* 
 
6 
 
 the fulness of time shall come, the equity and the 
 honor of framing those laws and institutions will 
 belong to us, as much as though the glorious consum 
 mation could be realized to-morrow. On the other 
 hand, if we so shape the mould in which their fortunes 
 are to be cast, that, for them or for any portion of them, 
 there shall be servitude instead of liberty, ignorance 
 instead of education, debasement instead of dignity, 
 the indulgence of bestial appetites instead of the sanc 
 tities and securities of domestic life, then, until the 
 mountains shall crumble away by age, until the arches 
 of the skies shall fall in rottenness, these mountains 
 and these arches will never cease to echo back the ex 
 ecrations upon our memory of all the great and good 
 men of the world. And this retribution, I believe, will 
 come suddenly, as well as last forever. 
 
 In one of the South-western States a vast subterra 
 nean cave has been discovered, deep down in whose 
 chambers there is a pool of water, on which no beam 
 of sunlight ever shines. A sightless fish is said to in 
 habit this rayless pool. In this animal, indeed, the 
 rudiments of a visual organ are supposed to be dimly 
 discernible ; but of an orb to refract the rays of light, 
 or of a retina to receive them, there is no trace. Nat 
 uralists suppose that the progenitors of these animals. 
 in ages long gone by, possessed the power of vision : 
 but that, being buried in these depths by some convul 
 sion of nature, long disuse at first impaired, at length 
 extinguished, and has at last .obliterated the visual 
 organ itself. The animal has sunk in the scale of 
 being, until its senses are accommodated to the black 
 ness of darkness in which it dwells. Were this 
 account wholly fabulous, it has the strongest veri 
 similitude, and doubtless describes what would actually 
 occur under the circumstances supposed. 
 
 Thus will it be with faculties above the surface of 
 the earth, as well as below it. Thus will it be with 
 
human beings, as well as with the lower orders of 
 creation. Thus will it be with our own brethren or 
 children, should we shut up from them the book of 
 knowledge, or seal their senses so that they could not 
 read it. Thus will it be with all our God-given facul 
 ties, just so far as they are debarred from legitimate 
 exercise upon their appropriate objects. The love of 
 knowledge will die out, when it ceases to be stimulated 
 by the means of knowledge. Self-respect will die out, 
 under the ever-present sense of inferiority. The sen 
 timents of truth and duty will die out, when cunning 
 and falsehood can obtain more gratifications than 
 frankness and honesty. The noblest impulses of the 
 human soul, the most sacred affections of the human 
 heart, will die out, when every sphere is closed against 
 their exercise. When such a dreadful work is doing, 
 or threatens to be done, can any one stand listlessly by, 
 see it perpetrated, and then expect to excuse himself, 
 under the false, impious pretext of Cain, " Am I my 
 brother s keeper ? " 
 
 Fully, then, do I agree with you and the delegates 
 of the convention you represent, in saying that the 
 successor of Mr. Adams should be one " whose voice 
 and vote shall, on all occasions, be exercised in extend- 
 .ing and securing liberty to the human race." Of course 
 I do not understand you to imply any violation of the 
 constitution of the United States, which every repre 
 sentative swears to support. 
 
 Permit me to say a word personal to myself. For 
 eleven years, I have been estranged from all political 
 excitements. During this whole period, I have attend 
 ed no political meeting of any kind whatever. I have 
 contented myself with the right of private judgment 
 and the right of voting, though it has usually so hap 
 pened that my official duties have demanded my 
 absence from home at the time of the fall elections. I 
 have deemed this abstinence from actively mingling in 
 political contests both a matter of duty towards oppos- 
 
8 
 
 ing political parties, and a proper means of subserving 
 the best interests of the cause in which I had em 
 barked. I hoped too, by so doing, to assist in rearing 
 men even better than those now belonging to any party. 
 
 The nature of my duties also, and all my intercourse 
 and associations, have attracted me towards whatever 
 is worthy and beneficent in all parties, rather than 
 towards what is peculiar to any one. Not believing 
 in political pledges, I should have had the honor to 
 decline giving any to you, had you not had the first 
 and greater honor of asking none from me. After 
 what I have said above in favor of liberty for all man 
 kind, it would be a strange contradiction did I consent 
 to be myself a slave of party. The hands which you 
 raised in behalf of yourselves and your constituents, 
 when you voted for the noble sentiments contained in 
 the resolution I have quoted, could never degrade 
 themselves by forging a fetter for the free mind of 
 another, or fastening one upon it ; and the hand with 
 which I have penned my hearty response to those 
 sentiments can never stretch itself out to take a fetter 
 on. Should your nomination, therefore, be accepted 
 and be successful, it must be with the explicit under 
 standing between us that I shall always be open to 
 receive the advice of my constituents, shall always, 
 welcome their counsel, always be most grateful for 
 their suggestions, but that, in the last resort, my own 
 sense of duty must be the only arbiter. Should dif 
 ferences arise, the law opens an honorable escape for both 
 parties, decimation on my part, substitution on yours. 
 
 I must add, in closing, that so far as personal prefer 
 ences are concerned, I infinitely prefer remaining in 
 my present position, with all its labor and its thank- 
 lessness, to any oifice in the gift of the people. I had 
 hoped and intended, cither in a public or private 
 capacity, to spend my life in advancing the great cause 
 of the people s education. Two considerations alone 
 could tempt me to abandon this purpose. The first is 
 
important. The enactment of laws which shall cover 
 waste territory, to be applied to the myriads of human 
 beings who are hereafter to occupy that territory, is a 
 work which seems to precede and outrank even edu 
 cation itself. Whether a wide expanse of country 
 shall be filled with beings to whom education is per 
 mitted, or with those to whom it is denied, with 
 those whom humanity and the law make it a duty to 
 teach, or with those whom inhumanity and the law 
 make it a legal duty not to teach, seems preliminary 
 to all questions respecting the best systems and methods 
 for rendering education effective. 
 
 The other consideration is comparatively unim 
 portant ; though, for the time being, it has embarrassed 
 me greatly. I now learn that expectations were excit 
 ed at your convention, that if a nomination were 
 tendered me, it would not be declined. Had I antici 
 pated the favorable regards of the convention, or fore 
 seen that such expectations would be raised, I should 
 not have hearkened to the proposition for a moment ; 
 and I may be permitted to add, that when I saw my 
 name announced in the papers, my first act was to pre 
 pare a letter of declination. It was only when I went 
 to deliver the letter that I learnt what had been 
 done, and that, in the opinion of persons whose 
 judgment I am bound to respect, I had been so far 
 committed by my too partial friends, as that no option 
 remained. 
 
 Yielding to these considerations, I submit myself to 
 the decision of my fellow-citizens. 
 
 With sentiments of high personal regard, 
 I am, gentlemen, 
 
 Your friend and servant, 
 
 HORACE MANN. 
 
 Hon. THOMAS FRENCH, President ; SAMUEL C. MANN, JOHN K. 
 CORBETT, EDWARD CRKIIORE, Esqs., Secretaries. 
 
 WEST NEWTON, March 21, 1848. 
 
id 
 
 SPEECH 
 
 DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE 
 UNITED STATES, JUNE 30, 1848, ON THE RIGHT OF CON 
 GRESS TO LEGISLATE FOR THE TERRITORIES OF THE 
 
 UNITED STATES, AND ITS DUTY TO EXCLUDE SLAVERY 
 THEREFROM. 
 
 MR. CHAIRMAN ; 
 
 I have listened with interest, both yesterday and to 
 day, to speeches on what is called the " Presidential 
 Question." I propose to discuss a question of far 
 greater magnitude, the question of the age, one 
 whose consequences Avill not end with the ensuing four 
 years, but will reach forward to the setting of the sun 
 of time. 
 
 Sir, our position is this : The United States finds 
 itself the owner of a vast region of country at the 
 west, now almost vacant of inhabitants. Parts of this 
 region are salubrious and fertile. We have reason to 
 suppose, that, in addition to the treasures of wealth 
 which industry may gather from its surface, there are 
 mineral treasures beneath it. riches garnered up of 
 old in subterranean chambers, and only awaiting the 
 application of intelligence and skill to be converted 
 into the means of human improvement and happiness. 
 These regions, it is true, lie remote from our place of 
 residence. Their shores are washed by another sea, 
 and it is no figure of speech to say that another sky 
 bends over them. So remote are they, that their hours 
 are not as our hours, nor their day as our day ; and 
 yet, such are the wonderful improvements in art, in 
 modern times, as to make it no rash anticipation, that, 
 
11 
 
 before this century shall have closed, the inhabitants 
 on the Atlantic shores will be able to visit their breth 
 ren on the Pacific in ten days ; and that intelligence 
 will be transmitted and returned between the eastern 
 and the western oceans in ten minutes. That country, 
 therefore, will be rapidly filled, and we shall be brought 
 into intimate relations with it, and, notwithstanding 
 its distance, into proximity to it. 
 
 Now, in the providence of God, it has fallen to our 
 lot to legislate for this unoccupied, or but partially oc 
 cupied, expanse. Its great future hangs upon our 
 decision. Not only degrees of latitude and longitude, 
 but vast tracts of time, ages and centuries, seem at 
 our disposal. As are the institutions which we form 
 and establish there, so will be the men whom these 
 institutions, in their turn, will form. Nature works by 
 fixed laws ; but we can bring this or that combination 
 of circumstances under the operation of her laws, and 
 thus determine results. Here springs up our responsibil 
 ity. One class of institutions will gather there one 
 class of men, who will develop one set of characteris 
 tics ; another class of institutions will gather there 
 another class of men, who will develop other charac 
 teristics. Hence their futurity is to depend upon our 
 present action. Hence the acts we are to perform 
 seem to partake of the nature of creation, rather than 
 of legislation. Standing upon the elevation which we 
 now occupy, and looking over into that empty world, 
 " yet void," if not " without form," but soon to be 
 filled with multitudinous life, and reflecting upon our 
 power to give form and character to that life, and 
 almost to foreordain what it shall be, I feel as though 
 it would be no irreverence to compare our condition to 
 that of the Creator before he fashioned the " lord " of 
 this lower world ; for we, like Him, can ingraft one 
 set of attributes, or another set of attributes, upon a 
 whole race of men. In approaching this subject, there- 
 
12 
 
 fore, I feel a sense of responsibility corresponding to 
 the infinite, I speak literally, the infinite interests 
 which it embraces. 
 
 As far as the time allowed me will permit, I propose 
 to discuss two questions. The first is, " Whether 
 Congress can lawfully legislate on the subject of sla- 
 very in the territories." 
 
 On this question a new and most extraordinary doc 
 trine has lately been broached. A new reading of the 
 constitution has been discovered. It is averred that 
 the 3d section of the 4th article, giving Congress pow 
 er "to dispose of, and make all needful rules and reg 
 ulations respecting the territory or other property belong 
 ing to the United States," only gives power to legislate 
 for the land as land. It is admitted that Congress may 
 legislate for the land as land, geologically or botan- 
 ically considered, perhaps for the beasts that roam 
 upon its surface, or the fishes that swim in its waters ; 
 but it is denied that Congress possesses any power to 
 determine the laws and the institutions of those who 
 shall inhabit that "land." 
 
 But compare this with any other object of purchase 
 or possession. When Texas was admitted into the 
 Union, it transferred its " navy " to the United States ; 
 in other words, the United States bought, and of course 
 owned, the navy of Texas. What power had Con 
 gress over this navy, after the purchase ? According 
 to the new doctrine, it could pass laws for the hull, 
 the masts, and the sails of the Texan ships, but would 
 have no power to navigate them by officers and men. 
 It might govern the ships as so much wood, iron, and 
 cordage, but would have no authority over commanders 
 or crews. 
 
 But we are challenged to show any clause in the 
 constitution which confers an express power to legis 
 late over the territories we possess. I challenge our 
 opponents to show any clause which confers express 
 
13 
 
 
 
 power to acquire those territories themselves. If, then, 
 the power to acquire exists, it exists by implication and 
 inference ; and if the power to acquire be an implied 
 one, the power to govern what is acquired must be im 
 plied also. For, for what purpose does any man 
 acquire property but to govern and control it ? What 
 does a buyer pay for, if it be not the right to " dispose 
 of" ? Such is the doctrine of the Supreme Court of 
 the United States : " The right to govern," says Chief 
 Justice Marshall, " may be the inevitable consequence 
 of the right to acquire." Amer. Ins. Co. vs. Canter, 
 1 Peters. 542. See also McCidlough vs. Maryland, 4 
 Wheat. 422. The Cherokee Nation vs. Georgia, 5 
 Peters, 44. United States vs. Gratiot, 14 Peters, 
 537. . 
 
 But I refer to the express words of the constitution, 
 as ample and effective in conferring all the power that 
 is claimed. " Congress may dispose of, and make all 
 needful rules and regulations, "&c. If Congress may 
 " dispose of" this land, then it may sell it. Insepara 
 ble from the right to sell is the right to define the 
 terms of sale. The seller may affix such conditions 
 and limitations as he pleases to the thing sold. If this 
 be not so, then the buyer may dictate his terms to the 
 seller. Answer these simple questions : Supposing 
 the United States to own land in fee simple, then, is 
 the government under guardianship, or disabled by 
 minority ? Is it non compos mentis ? If no such disabil 
 ity applies to it, then it may sell. It may sell the fee 
 simple, or it may carve out a lesser estate, and sell 
 that. It may incorporate such terms and conditions 
 as it pleases into its deed or patent of sale. It may 
 make an outright quitclaim, or it may reserve the 
 minerals for its own use, or the navigable streams for 
 public highways, as it did in regard to the territory 
 north-west of the river Ohio. It may insert the con 
 ditions and limitations in each deed or patent ; or, 
 2 
 
14 
 
 
 
 where the grantees are numerous, it may make general 
 " rules and regulations," which are understood to be a 
 part of each contract, and are therefore binding upon 
 each purchaser. No man is compelled to buy ; but if any 
 one does buy, he buys subject to the " rules and regu 
 lations " expressed in the grant ; and neither he, nor 
 his grantees, nor his or their heirs after them, can com 
 plain. I want, therefore, no better foundation for 
 legislating over the territories than the fact of owner 
 ship in the United States. Grant this, and all is grant 
 ed. If I own a farm, or a shop, I may, as owner, pre 
 scribe the conditions of its transfer to another. If he 
 does not like my conditions, then let him abandon the 
 negotiation ; if he accedes to the conditions, then let 
 him abide by them, and hold his peace. 
 
 Sir, in the state to which I belong, we hold temper 
 ance to be a great blessing, as well as a great virtue ; 
 and intemperance to be a great curse, as well as a 
 great sin. I know of incorporated companies there, 
 who have purchased large tracts of land for manufac 
 turing purposes. They well know how essential is the 
 sobriety of workmen to the profitableness of their 
 work ; they know, too, how wasteful and destructive 
 is inebriety. In disposing of their land, therefore, to 
 the men whom they would gather about them and 
 employ, they incorporate the provision, as a funda 
 mental article in the deed of grant, that ardent spirits 
 shall never be sold upon the premises ; and thus they 
 shut up, at once, one of the most densely-thronged 
 gateways of hell. Have they not a right to do so, 
 from the mere fact of ownership ? Would any judge 
 or lawyer doubt the validity of such a condition ; or 
 would any sensible man ever doubt its wisdom or 
 humanity ? Pecuniarily and morally, this comes under 
 the head of "needful rules and regulations." If tip 
 plers do not like them, let them stagger away, and 
 seek their residence elsewhere. 
 
15 
 
 But the United States is not merely a land owner j 
 it is a sovereignty. As such, it exercises all constitu 
 tional jurisdiction over all its territories. Whence, but 
 from this right of sovereignty, does the government 
 obtain its power of saying that no man shall purchase 
 land of the natives, or aborigines; and that, if you 
 wish to buy land in the territories, you shall come to 
 the government for it ? Is there any express power in 
 the constitution authorizing Congress to say to all the 
 citizens of the United States, " If you wish to buy 
 nngranted land in the territories, you must come to us, 
 for no one else can sell, or shall sell " ? This right, 
 sustained by all our legislation and adjudications, covers 
 the whole ground. Lessee of Johnson ct aL vs. 
 Mclntos/i,8 Wheaton,5^3] 5 Cond. Rep. 515. 
 
 . But, leaving the constitution, it is denied that there 
 are precedents. The honorable gentlemen from Vir 
 ginia [Mr. Bayly] has not only contested the power 
 of Congress to legislate on the subject of slavery in 
 the territories, but he has denied the existence of prece 
 dents to sustain this power. Sir, it would have been 
 an assertion far less bold, to deny the existence of 
 precedents for the election of a President of the United 
 States ; for the instances of the latter have been far 
 less frequent than of the former. Congress has legis 
 lated on the subject of slavery in the territories all the 
 way up from the adoption of the constitution to the 
 present time ; and this legislation has been sustained 
 by the judiciary of both the general and state govern 
 ments, and carried into execution by the executive 
 power of both. See Menard vs. Aspasia, 5 Peters, 
 505; Phebe et al. vs. Jay, Breese s Rep. 210 ; Hogg 
 vs. The Zanesville Canal Co., 5 Ohio Rep. 410 ; Mar 
 tin s Louisiana Rep. N. S. 699; Spooncr vs. McCon- 
 nell, 1 McLean 1 s Rep. 341 ; Harvey vs. Decker, 
 
 Walker s Mississippi Rep. 36 ; Rachael vs. Walker, 4 
 Missouri Rep. 350. 
 
16 
 
 So far as the uniform practice of sixty years can 
 settle a doubtful, or confirm an admitted right, this 
 power of legislating over the territories has been taken 
 from the region of doubt, and established upon the 
 basis of acknowledged authority. In legislating for 
 all that is now Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, 
 Michigan. Iowa, Missouri, Arkansas, Mississippi, Louis 
 iana, and Florida, we have legislated on the subject 
 of slavery in the territories. Sixty years of legislation 
 on one side, and not a denial of the right on the other. 
 
 But the gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Bayly] says, 
 that the action of Congress in regard to the territories 
 has been rather that of constitution-making than of 
 law-making. Suppose this to be true ; does not the 
 greater include the less ? If Congress could make a 
 constitution for all the territories, an organic, funda 
 mental law, a law of laws, could it not, had it so 
 pleased, make the law itself? A constitution prescribes 
 to the legislature what it shall do, and what it shall 
 not do ; it commands, prohibits, and binds men by 
 oaths to support itself. It says, " Hitherto SHALT thou 
 come, and no farther." And if Congress can do this, 
 can it not make the local law itself? Can aught be 
 more preposterous ? As if we could command others 
 to do what we have no right to do ourselves, and pro 
 hibit others from doing what lies beyond our own 
 jurisdiction ! Surely, to decree on what subjects a 
 community shall legislate, and on what they shall 
 not legislate, is the exercise of the highest power. 
 
 But Congress has not stopped with the exercise of 
 the constitution-making power. In various forms, and 
 at all times, it has legislated for the territories, in the 
 strictest sense of the word legislation. It has legislat 
 ed again and again, and ten times again, on this very 
 subject of slavery. See the act of 1794, prohibiting 
 the slave trade from "any port or place" in the United 
 States. Could any citizen of the United States, under 
 
17 
 
 this act, have gone into one of our territories and there 
 have lilted out vessels for the slave trade ? Surely he 
 could, if Congress had no right to legislate over terri 
 tories only as so much land and water. 
 
 By statute 1798, chapter 28, 7, slaves were forbid 
 den to be brought into the Mississippi Territory from 
 without the United States, and all slaves so brought in 
 were made free. 
 
 So the act of 1800, chapter 51, in further prohibi 
 tion of the slave trade, applied to all citizens of the 
 United States, whether living in territories or in or 
 ganized states. Did not this legislation cover the 
 territories ? 
 
 By statute 1804, chapter 38, $ 10, three classes of 
 slaves were forbidden to be introduced into the Orleans 
 Territory. 
 
 Statute 1807, chapter 22, prohibiting the importation 
 of slaves after January 1, 1808, prohibited their im 
 portation into the territories in express terms. 
 
 Statute 1818, chapter 91, statute 1819, chapter 101, 
 and statute 1820, chapter 113, prohibiting the slave 
 trade, and making it piracy, expressly included all the 
 territories of the United States. 
 
 Statute 1819, chapter 21, authorized the President 
 to provide for the safe-keeping of slaves imported from 
 Africa, and for their removal to their home in that land. 
 Under this law, the President might have established 
 a depot for slaves within the limits of our territories, 
 on the gulf, or on the Mississippi. 
 
 By statute 1820, chapter 22, <> 8, Congress estab 
 lished what has been called the Missouri compromise 
 line, thereby expressly legislating on the subject of 
 slavery. So of Texas. See Jo. Res. March 1, 1851. 
 
 By statute 1819, chapter 93, statute 1821, chapter 
 39, 2, and statute 1822, chapter 13, 9, Congress 
 legislated on the subject of slavery in the Territory of 
 Florida. 
 
 2* 
 
18 
 
 Does it not seem almost incredible that a defender 
 and champion of slavery should deny the power of 
 Congress to legislate on the subject of slavery in the 
 territories ? If Congress has no such power, by what 
 right can a master recapture a fugitive slave escaping 
 into a territory ? The constitution says, " No person 
 held to service, or labor, in one state, escaping into 
 another," that is, another state, "shall be dis 
 charged from such service, or labor," &c. The act of 
 1793, chapter 7, 3, provides that when a person held 
 to labor," &c., " shall escape into any other of the said 
 states, or territory" he may be taken. By what other 
 law than this can a runaway slave be retaken in a 
 territory 1 If Congress has no power to legislate on 
 the subject of slavery in any territory, then, surely, it 
 cannot legislate for the capture of a fugitive slave in a 
 territory. The argument cuts both ways. The knife 
 wounds him who would use it to wound his fellow. 
 
 Further than this. If slavery is claimed to be one 
 of the common subjects of legislation, then any legis 
 lation by Congress for the territories, on any of the 
 common subjects of legislation, is a precedent, going 
 to prove its right to legislate on slavery itself. If 
 Congress may legislate on one subject belonging to a 
 class, then it may legislate on any other subject be 
 longing to the same class. Now, Congress has legis 
 lated for the territories on almost the whole circle of 
 subjects belonging to common legislation. It has legis 
 lated on the elective franchise, on the pecuniary qual 
 ifications and residence of candidates for office, on the 
 militia, on oaths, oti the per diem and mileage of 
 members, &c., &c. By statute 1811, chapter 21, <> 3, 
 authorizing the Territory of Orleans to form a constitu 
 tion, it was provided that all legislative proceedings 
 and judicial records should be kept and promulgated in 
 the English language. Cannot Congress make provis 
 ion for the rights of the people, as well as for the 
 
19 
 
 language in which the laws and records defining those 
 rights shall be expressed ? Any language is sweet to 
 the ears of man which gives him the right of trial by 
 jury, of habeas corpus, of religious freedom, and of 
 life, limb, and liberty ; but accursed is that language, 
 and fit only for the realms below, which deprives an 
 immortal being of the rights of intelligence and of 
 freedom ; of the right to himself, and the dearer rights 
 of family. 
 
 But all this is by no means the strongest part of the 
 evidence with which our statutes and judicial decisions 
 abound, showing the power of Congress to legislate 
 over territories. From the beginning, Congress has 
 not only legislated over the territories, but it has ap 
 pointed and controlled the agents of legislation. 
 
 The general structure of the legislature in sev 
 eral of the earlier territorial governments was this : It 
 consisted of a governor and of two houses, an upper 
 and a lower. Without an exception, where a governor 
 has been appointed, Congress has always reserved 
 his appointment to itself, or to the President. The 
 governor so appointed has always had a veto power 
 over the two houses ; and Congress has always re 
 served to itself, or to the President, a veto power, not 
 only over him, but over him and both the houses be 
 sides. Congress has often interfered also with the 
 appointment of the upper house, leaving only the 
 lower house to be chosen exclusively by the people of 
 the territory ; and it has determined even for the lower 
 house the qualifications both of electors and of elected. 
 Further still : the power of removing the governor, at 
 pleasure, has always been reserved to Congress, or to 
 the President. 
 
 Look at this : Congress determines for the territory 
 the qualifications of electors and elected, at least in 
 the first instance. No law of the territorial legisla 
 ture is valid until approved by the governor. Though 
 
20 
 
 approved by the governor, it may be annulled by Con 
 gress, or by the President ; and the governor is ap 
 pointed, arid may be removed at pleasure, by Congress 
 or by the President. 
 
 To be more specific, I give the following outline of 
 some of the territorial governments : 
 
 Ohio Territory, statute 1789, chapter 8. A gov 
 ernor for four years, nominated by the President, ap 
 proved by the Senate, with power to appoint all sub 
 ordinate civil and military officers. 
 
 A secretary for four years, appointed in the same 
 way. 
 
 Three judges, to hold office during good behavior. 
 Governor and judges the sole legislature, until the dis 
 trict shall contain five thousand free male inhabitants. 
 Then, 
 
 A House of Assembly, chosen by qualified electors, 
 for two years. 
 
 A legislative council of five, to hold office for five 
 years. The House of Assembly to choose ten men, 
 five of whom are to be selected by the President and 
 approved by the Senate. These five to be the " Legis 
 lative Council." 
 
 A governor, as before, with an unconditional veto, 
 and a right to convene, prorogue, and dissolve the 
 Assembly. 
 
 Power given to the President to revoke the commis 
 sions of governor and secretary. 
 
 Indiana Territory, statute 1800, chapter 41. Sim 
 ilar to that of Ohio. At first, the lower house to con 
 sist of not more than nine, nor less than seven. 
 
 Mississippi Territory, statute 1800, chapter 50. 
 Similar to that of Indiana. 
 
 Michigan Territory, statute 1805, chapter 5. Sim 
 ilar to that of Indiana. 
 
 Illinois Territory, statute 1809, chapter 13. Sim 
 ilar to that of Indiana. 
 
21 
 
 Alabama Territory, statute 1817, chapter 59. 
 
 Similar to that of Indiana. 
 
 \Yincuutiin- Territory, statute 1836, chapter 54. 
 Governor for three years, appointed as above, and re 
 movable by the President, with power to appoint offi 
 cers and grant pardons. Unconditional veto. 
 
 Secretary for four years, removable by the President. 
 In the absence, or during the inability, of the gov 
 ernor, to perform his duties. 
 
 Legislative Assembly to consist of a Council and a 
 House of Representatives, to be chosen for two years. 
 Congress to have an unconditional veto, to "be exer 
 cised on laws approved by the governor. 
 
 Louisiana Territory, statute 1803, chapter 1. 
 Sole dictatorial power given to the President of the 
 United States ; and the army and navy of the United 
 States placed at his command to govern the territorial 
 inhabitants. (This was under Mr. Jefferson, a strict 
 construetionist.) 
 
 Territory of Orleans, statute 1804, chapter 38. 
 Governor nominated by the President, approved by the 
 Senate, tenure of office three years. Removable by 
 the President. Secretary for four years, to be gov 
 ernor in case, &c. 
 
 Legislative Council of thirteen, to be annually ap 
 pointed by the President. 
 
 Governor and Council, of course, a reciprocal negative 
 on each other. Congress an unconditional veto on 
 both. 
 
 District of Louisiana, statute 1804, chapter 38. 
 To be governed by the governor and judges of the 
 Territory of Indiana. 
 
 Congress an unconditional veto on all their laws. 
 
 Missouri Territory, statute 1812, chapter 95. A 
 governor, appointable and removable as above. 
 
 Secretary, the same. 
 
 A Legislative Council of nine. Eighteen persons 
 
22 
 
 to be nominated by the House of Representatives 
 for the territory ; nine of these to be selected and 
 appointed by the President and Senate. A House of 
 Representatives, to be chosen by the people. 
 
 Arkansas Territory, statute 1819, chapter 49. A 
 governor and secretary, appointable and removable as 
 above. 
 
 All legislative power vested in the governor and in 
 the judges of the superior court. 
 
 When a majority of the freeholders should elect, 
 then they might adopt the form of government of 
 Missouri.* 
 
 East and West Florida, statute 1819, chapter 93. 
 Statute 1821, chapter 29. Statute 1822, chapter 13. 
 From March 3, 1819, to March 30, 1822, the govern 
 ment vested solely in the President of the United 
 States, and to be exercised by such officers as he 
 should appoint. 
 
 After March 30, 1822, a governor and secretary, ap 
 pointable and removable as above. 
 
 All legislative power vested in the governor, and in 
 thirteen persons, called a legislative council, to be ap 
 pointed annually by the President. 
 
 Yet, sir, notwithstanding all this legislation of Con 
 gress for the territories, on the subject of slavery itself ; 
 notwithstanding its legislation on a great class of sub 
 jects of which slavery is acknowledged to be one ; 
 notwithstanding its appointment, in some cases, of the 
 legislative power of the territory, making its own 
 agent, the governor, removable at pleasure, giving 
 him a veto, in the first place, and reserving to itself a 
 veto when he has approved ; notwithstanding the ex 
 ercise, in other cases, of full, absolute sovereignty over 
 the inhabitants of the territories, and all their interests ; 
 and, notwithstanding such has been the practice of the 
 government for sixty years, under Jefferson, Madison, 
 Monroe, Jackson, and others, it is now denied that 
 
Congress has any right to legislate on the subject of 
 slavery in the territories. Sir, with a class of politicians 
 in this country, it has come to this, that slavery is the 
 only sacred thing in existence. It is self-existent, like 
 a god, and human power cannot prevent it. From 
 year to year, it goes on conquering and to conquer, and 
 human power cannot dethrone it. 
 
 Sir, I will present another argument on this subject, 
 and I do not see how any jurist or statesman can in 
 validate it. 
 
 Government is one, but its functions are several. 
 They are legislative, judicial, executive. These func 
 tions are coordinate ; each supposes the other two. 
 There must be a legislature lo enact laws ; there must 
 be a judiciary to expound the laws enacted, and point 
 out the individuals against whom they are to be en 
 forced ; there must be an executive arm to enforce the 
 decisions of the courts. In every theory of govern 
 ment, where one of these exist, the others exist. 
 Under our constitution they are divided into three 
 parts, and apportioned among three coordinate bodies. 
 Whoever denies one of these must deny them all. 
 
 If the government of the United States, therefore, 
 has no right to legislate for the territories, it has no 
 right to adjudicate for the territories ; if it has no right 
 to adjudicate, then it has no right to enforce the decis 
 ions of the judicial tribunals. These rights must 
 stand or fall together. He who takes from this gov 
 ernment the law-making power, in regard to territories, 
 strikes, also the balances of justice from the hands of 
 the judge, and the mace of authority from those of 
 the executive. There is no escape from this conclu 
 sion. The constitution gives no more authority to 
 adjudge suits in the territories, or to execute the decis 
 ions of the territorial courts, than it does to legislate. 
 If Congress has no power over territory, only as land, 
 then what does this land want of judges and marshals ? 
 
24 
 
 Is it not obvious, then, that this new reading of the 
 constitution sets aside the whole legislative, judicial, 
 and executive administration of this government over 
 territories, since the adoption of the constitution ? It 
 makes the whole of it invalid. The Presidents, all 
 members of Congress, all judges upon the bench, have 
 been in a dream for the last sixty years, and are now 
 waked up and recalled to their senses by the charm of 
 a newly-discovered reading of the constitution. 
 
 Hitherto, sir, I have not directed my remarks to the 
 actual legislation by Congress on the subject of slavery 
 in the North-western Territory, so called. That terri 
 tory was consecrated to freedom by the ordinance of 
 1787. It has been said that the Confederation had no 
 power to pass such an ordinance. But whether this 
 be so or not, is immaterial, for Congress has ratified 
 the ordinance again and again. The first Congress at 
 its first session passed an act whose preamble is as fol 
 lows : " Whereas, in order that the ordinance of the 
 United States, in Congress assembled, for the govern 
 ment of the territory north-west of the river Ohio, may 
 continue to have full effect," &c. It then proceeds to 
 modify some parts of the ordinance, and to adopt all 
 the rest.* 
 
 In the second section of the act of 1800, chaper 41, 
 establishing the Indiana Territory, it is expressly pro 
 vided that its government shall be " in all respects sim 
 ilar to that provided by the ordinance of 1787." 
 
 In the act of 1802, chapter 40, section 5, author 
 izing Ohio to form a constitution and state government, 
 this ordinance of 1787 is three times referred to as a 
 valid and existing engagement, arid it has always been 
 held to be so by the courts of Ohio. 
 
 So in the act of 1816, chapter 57, section 4, author- 
 
 * Mr. Madison thought the original ordinance to be clearly invalid. 
 See Federalist, No. 38. It is just as clear that he thought the consti 
 tution gave validity to it. See Federalist, No. 43. 
 
25 
 
 izing the erection of Indiana into a state, the ordinance 
 is again recognized, and is made a part of the funda 
 mental law of the state. 
 
 So in the act of 1818, chapter 67, section 4, author 
 izing Illinois to become a state. 
 
 So in the act of 1805, chapter 5, section 2, estab 
 lishing the Territory of Michigan. 
 
 So of Wisconsin. See act of 1847, chapter 53, in 
 connection with the constitution of Wisconsin. 
 
 But all this is tedious and superfluous. I have gone 
 into this detail, because I understand the gentleman 
 from Virginia [Mr. BAYLY] to have denied this adop 
 tion and these recognitions of the ordinance. I hazard 
 nothing in saying that the ordinance of 1787 has been 
 expressly referred to as valid, or expressly or impliedly 
 reenacted, a dozen times, by the Congress of the United 
 States ; and, in the state courts of Ohio, Illinois, Lou 
 isiana, Mississippi, arid Missouri, it has been adjudged 
 to be constitutional. How, then, is it possible for any 
 mind, amenable to legal rules for the decision of legal 
 questions, to say that Congress cannot legislate, or has 
 not legislated, (except once or twice inadvertently,) on 
 the subject of slavery in the territories ? 
 On this part of the argument, I have only a con 
 cluding remark to submit. The position I am contest 
 ing affirms generally that Congress cannot legislate 
 upon the subject of slavery in the territories. The 
 inexpediency of so legislating is further advocated on 
 the ground that it is repugnant to democratical princi 
 ples to debar the inhabitants of the territories from 
 governing themselves. Must the free men of the ter 
 ritories, it is asked, have laws made for them by oth 
 ers ? No ! It is anti-democratic, monarchical, intol 
 erable. All men have the right of self-government ; 
 and this principle holds true with regard to the inhab 
 itants of territories, as well as the inhabitants of 
 states. 
 
 3 
 
26 
 
 Now, if these declarations were a sincere and honest 
 affirmation of human rights, I should respect them and 
 honor their authors. Did this doctrine grow out of a. 
 jealousy for the rights of man, a fear of usurpation, an 
 assertion of the principle of self-government, I should 
 sympathize with it, while I denied its legality. But, 
 sir, it is the most painful aspect of this whole case, 
 that the very object and purpose of claiming these 
 ample and sovereign rights for the inhabitants of the 
 territories is, that they may deny all rights to a por 
 tion of their fellow-beings within them. Enlarge, 
 aggrandize, the rights of the territorial settlers ! And 
 why ? Because, by so doing, you enable them to abol 
 ish all rights for a whole class of human beings. This 
 claim, then, is not made for the purpose of making 
 freemen more free, but for making slaves more en 
 slaved. The reason for denying to Congress the power 
 to legislate for the territories, is the fear that Congress 
 will prevent slavery in them. The reason for claim 
 ing the supreme right of legislation for the territorial 
 inhabitants, is the hope that they will establish slavery 
 within their borders. Must not that democracy be 
 false which begets slavery as its natural offspring? 
 
 If it has now been demonstrated that Congress has 
 uniformly legislated, and can legislate, on the subject 
 of slavery in the territories, I proceed to consider the 
 next question. Is it expedient to exclude slavery from 
 them ? 
 
 Here, on the threshold, we are confronted with the 
 claim that the gates shall be thrown wide open to the 
 admission of slavery into the broad western world ; 
 because, otherwise, the southern or slave states would 
 be debarred from enjoying their share of the common 
 property of the Union. 
 
 I meet this claim with a counter-claim. If, on the 
 one hand, the consecration of this soil to freedom will 
 
27 
 
 exclude the slaveholders of the south, it is just as true, 
 on the other hand, that the desecration of it to slavery 
 will exclude the freemen of the north. We, at the 
 north, know too well the foundations of worldly pros 
 perity and happiness ; we know too well the sources 
 of social and moral welfare, ever voluntarily to blend 
 our fortunes with those of a community where slavery 
 is tolerated. If our demand for free territory, then, 
 excludes them, their demand for slave territory ex 
 cludes us. Not one in five hundred of the freemen 
 of the north could ever be induced to take his family 
 and domicile himself in a territory where slavery exists. 
 They know that the institution would impoverish their 
 estate, demoralize their children, and harrow their own 
 consciences with an ever-present sense of guilt, until 
 those consciences, by force of habit and induration, 
 should pass into that callous and more deplorable state, 
 where continuous crime could be committed without 
 the feeling of remorse. 
 
 Sir, let me read a passage from Dr. Channing, writ 
 ten in 1798, fifty years ago, when, at the early 
 age of nineteen, he lived for some time in Richmond, 
 Virginia, as a tutor in a private family. While there, 
 he wrote a letter, of which the following is an ex 
 tract : 
 
 " There is one object here which always depresses me. It 
 is slavery. This alone would prevent me from ever settling 
 in Virginia. Language cannot express my detestation of it._ 
 Master and slave ! Nature never made such a distinction, or 
 established such a relation. Man, when forced to substitute 
 the will of another for his own, ceases to be a moral agent ; 
 his title to the name of man is extinguished ; he becomes a 
 mere machine in the hands of his oppressor. No empire is 
 so valuable as the empire of one s self. No right is so insep 
 arable from humanity, and so necessary to the improvement 
 of our species, as the right of exerting the powers which 
 nature has given us in the pursuit of any and of every good 
 which we can obtain without doing injury to others. Should 
 
28 
 
 you desire it, I will give you some idea of the situation and 
 character of the negroes in Virginia. It is a subject so de 
 grading to humanity, that I cannot dwell on it with pleasure. 
 I should be obliged to show you every vice,, heightened by 
 every meanness, and added to every misery. The influence 
 of slavery on the whites is almost as fatal as on the blacks 
 themselves." 
 
 This was written fifty years ago, by a young man 
 from New England, only nineteen years old. I know- 
 that, on all subjects of philanthropy and ethics, Dr. 
 Channing was half a century in advance of his age. 
 But the sentiments he expressed on this subject, at the 
 close of the last century, are now the prevalent, deep- 
 seated feelings of northern men, excepting, perhaps, a 
 few cases where these feelings have been corrupted by 
 interest. 
 
 I repeat, then, that the north cannot shut out the 
 south from the new territories by a law for excluding 
 slavery, more effectually than the south will shut out 
 the north by the fact of introducing slavery. Even 
 admitting, then, that the law is equal for both north 
 and south, I will show that all the equity is on the 
 side of the north. 
 
 Sir, from the establishment of our independence by 
 the treaty of 1783 to the time of the adoption of the 
 constitution, and for years afterwards, no trace is to 
 be found of an intention to enlarge the bounds of our 
 republic ; and it is well known that the treaty of 1803, 
 for acquiring Louisiana, was acknowledged by Mr. 
 Jefferson, who made it, to be unconstitutional. In 
 1787, the Magna Charta of perpetual freedom was se 
 cured to the North-west Territory. But the article ex 
 cluding slavery from it had an earlier date than 1787. 
 On the 1st of March, 1784, Congress voted to accept 
 a session from the state of Virginia of her claim to 
 the territory north-west of the Ohio river. The sub 
 ject of providing a government for this and other ter- 
 
29 
 
 ritory was referred to a committee consisting of Mr. 
 Jefferson, Mr. Chase of Maryland, and Mr. Ho well of 
 Rhode Island. On the 19th of April, 1784, their re 
 port was considered. That report contained the 
 following ever-memorable clause : 
 
 " That after tho year 1800, of the Christian era, there shall 
 be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in any of the 
 said states, [they were spoken of as states, because it was 
 always contemplated to erect the territories into states,] other 
 wise than in punishment of crimes whereof the party shall 
 have been convicted to have been personally guilty." 
 
 Sir, we hear much said in our day of the Wilmot 
 proviso against slavery. In former years, great credit 
 has been given to Mr. Nathan Dane, of Massachusetts, 
 for originating the sixth article, (against slavery), in the 
 ordinance of 1787. Sir, it is a misnomer to call this 
 restrictive clause the " Wilmot proviso." It is the 
 Jefferson proviso, and Mr. Jefferson should have the 
 honor of it; and would to Heaven that our southern 
 friends, who kneel so devoutly at his shrine, could be 
 animated by that lofty spirit of freedom, that love for 
 the rights of man, which alone can make their acts of 
 devotion sacred. 
 
 But what is most material to be observed here is, 
 that the plan of government reported by Mr. Jefferson, 
 and acted upon by the Congress at that time, embraced 
 all the " western territory." It embraced all the "terri 
 tory ceded, or to be ceded, by individual states to the 
 United States." See Journals of Congress, April %3, 
 1784. If, then, we leave out Kentucky and Tennes 
 see, as being parts of Virginia and North Carolina, all 
 the residue of the territory north or south of the Ohio 
 river, within the treaty limits of the United States, was 
 intended, by the "Jefferson proviso," to be rescued 
 from the doom of slavery. For that proviso there 
 were sixteen votes, and only seven against it. Yet so 
 singularly were these seven votes distributed, and so 
 3* 
 
30 
 
 large a majority of the states did it require to pass 
 an act, that it was lost. The whole of the rep 
 resentation from seven states voted for it unani 
 mously. Only two states voted unanimously against 
 it. Had but one of Mr. Jefferson s colleagues voted 
 with him, and had Mr. Spaight, of North Carolina, 
 voted for it, the restrictive clause in the report would 
 have stood. But a minority of seven from the slave- 
 holding states controlled a majority of sixteen from the 
 free states, ominous even at that early day of a fate 
 that has now relentlessly pursued us for sixty years. 
 
 That vote was certainly no more than a fair repre 
 sentation of the feeling of the country against slavery 
 at that time. It was with such a feeling that the 
 " compromises of the constitution," as they are called, 
 were entered into. Nobody dreaded or dreamed of 
 the extension of slavery beyond its then existing lim 
 its. Yet, behold its aggressive march ! Besides Ken 
 tucky and Tennessee, which I omit, for reasons before 
 intimated, seven new slave states have been added to 
 the Union, Mississippi, Alabama, Missouri, Arkansas, 
 Louisiana, Florida, and Texas, the last five out of 
 territory not belonging to us at the adoption of the 
 constitution ; while only one free state, Iowa, has been 
 added during all this time, out of such newly-acquired 
 territory.* 
 
 * Here Mr. HILLIA.RD, of Alabama, rose to ask if the south, by the 
 Missouri compromise, had not surrendered its right to carry slavery 
 north of the compromise line ? His question \yas not understood. If 
 it had been, it would have been replied, that the existence of slavery 
 at New Orleans, and a few other places in Louisiana, at the time of 
 the treaty with France, by no means established the right to carry it 
 to the Pacific Ocean, if the treaty extended so far. Slavery being 
 against natural right, can only exist by virtue of positive law, backed 
 by force sufficient to protect it. It could not lawfully exist, therefore, 
 in any part of Louisiana, which had not been laid out, organized, and 
 subjected to the civil jurisdiction of the government. Such was not 
 the case with any part of the territory north of the compromise line, 
 and therefore nothing was surrendered. On the other hand, in the 
 formation of the territorial governments of Orleans, Missouri, Arkau- 
 
31 
 
 But there is another fact, which shows that the 
 slaveholders have already had their full share of terri 
 tory, however wide the boundaries of this country may 
 hereafter become. 
 
 I have seen the number of actual slaveholders va 
 riously estimated ; but the highest estimate I have 
 ever seen is three hundred thousand. Allowing six 
 persons to a family, this number would represent a white 
 population of eighteen hundred thousand. 
 
 Mr. GAYLE, of Alabama, interrupted and said : If the 
 gentleman from Massachusetts has been informed that 
 the number of slaveholders is only 300,000, then I 
 will tell him his information is utterly false. 
 
 Mr. MANN. Will the gentleman tell me how many 
 th^ere are ? 
 
 Mr. GAYLE. Ten times as many. 
 
 Mr. MANN. Ten times as many ! Ten times 
 300,000 is 3,000,000 ; and allowing six persons to each 
 family, this would give a population of 18,000,000 
 directly connected with slaveholding ; while the whole 
 free population of the south, in 1840, was considerably 
 less than five millions ! 
 
 Mr. MEADE, of Virginia, here interposed and said, 
 that where the father or mother owned slaves, they were 
 considered the joint property of the family. I think, 
 if you include the grown and the young, there are 
 about three millions interested in slave property. 
 
 Mr. MANN resumed. My data lead me to believe that 
 the number does not now exceed two millions ; but, at 
 the time of the adoption of the constitution, the num 
 ber directly connected with slaveholding must have 
 been less than one million. Yet this one million have 
 
 sas, and Florida, a vast extent of country was surrendered to slavery. 
 And this is independent of the question whether Congress, by the 
 constitution, has any more right to establish slavery any where than it 
 has to establish an inquisition, create an order of nobility, or anoint a 
 king. 
 
32 
 
 already managed to acquire the broad States of Mis 
 souri, Arkansas, Louisiana, Florida, and Texas, beyond 
 the limits of the treaty of 1783 ; when, at the time 
 the " compromises of the constitution " were entered 
 into, not one of the parties supposed that we should 
 ever acquire territory beyond those limits. And this 
 has been done for the benefit, (if it be a benefit,) 
 of that one million of slaveholders, against what is now 
 a free population of fifteen millions. And, in addition 
 to this, it is to be considered that the non-slaveholding 
 population of the slave states have as direct and deep 
 an interest as any part of the country, adverse to the 
 extension of slavery. If all our new territory be 
 doomed to slavery, where can the non-slaveholders of 
 the slaveholding states emigrate to ? Are they not to 
 be considered ? Has one half the population of the 
 slaveholding states rights, which are paramount, not 
 only to the rights of the other half, but to the rights 
 of all the free states besides ? for such is the claim. 
 No, sir. I say that, if slavery were no moral or politi 
 cal evil, yet, according to all principles of justice and 
 equity, the slaveholders have already obtained their 
 full share of territory, though all the residue of this 
 continent were to be annexed to the Union, and we 
 were to become, in the insane language of the day, 
 u an ocean-bound republic." 
 
 I now proceed to consider the nature and effects of 
 slavery, as a reason why new-born communities should 
 be exempted from it. First, let me treat of its eco 
 nomical or financial, and, secondly, of its moral 
 aspects. 
 
 Though slaves are said to be property, they are the 
 preventers, the wasters, the antagonists of property. 
 So far from facilitating the increase of individual or 
 national wealth, slavery retards both. It blasts worldly 
 prosperity. Other things being equal, a free people 
 will thrive and prosper, in a mere worldly sense, more 
 
33 
 
 than a people divided into masters and slaves. Were 
 we so constituted as to care for nothing, to aspire to 
 nothing, beyond mere temporal well being, this well 
 being would counsel us to abolish slavery wherever it 
 exists, and to repel its approach wherever it threatens. 
 
 Enslave a man, and you destroy his ambition, his 
 enterprise, his capacity. In the constitution of human 
 nature, the desire of bettering one s condition is the 
 mainspring of effort. The first touch of slavery snaps 
 this spring. The slave does not participate in the 
 value of the wealth he creates. All he earns another 
 seizes. A free man labors, not only to improve his 
 own condition, but to better the condition of his 
 children. The mighty impulse of parental affection 
 repays for diligence, and makes exertion sweet. The 
 slave s heart never beats with this high emotion. 
 However industrious and frugal he may be, he has 
 nothing to bequeath to his children, or nothing save 
 the sad bonds he himself has worn. Fear may make 
 him work, but hope never. When he moves his 
 tardy limbs, it is because of the suffering that goads him 
 from behind, and not from the bright prospects that 
 beckon him forward in the race. 
 
 What would a slave owner at the south think, should 
 he come to Massachusetts, and there see a farmer seize 
 upon his hired man, call in a surgeon, and cut off all 
 the flexor muscles of his arms and legs ? I do not ask 
 what he would think of his humanity, but what would 
 he think of his sanity? Yet the planter does more 
 tli an this when he makes a man a slave. He cuts 
 deeper than the muscles ; he destroys the spirit that 
 moves the muscles. 
 
 In all ages of the world, among all nations, wherever 
 the earnings of the laborer have been stolen from 
 him, his energies have gone with his earnings. Under 
 the villeinage system of England, the villeins were a 
 low, idle, spiritless race ; dead to responsibility ; grov- 
 
34 
 
 elling in their desires j resistant of labor ; without en 
 terprise ; without foresight. This principle is now 
 exemplified in the landlord and tenant system of 
 Ireland. If a tenant is to be no better off for the im 
 provements he makes on an estate, he will not make 
 the improvements. Look at the seigniories of New 
 York, the anti-rent districts as they are now called ; 
 every man acquainted with the subject knows that 
 both people and husbandry are half a century behind 
 the condition of contiguous fee-simple proprietorships. 
 All history illustrates the principle, that when property 
 is insecure, it will not be earned. If a despot can 
 seize and confiscate the property of his subject at 
 pleasure, the subject will not acquire property, and 
 thereby give to himself the conspicuousness that in 
 vites the plunder. And if this be so when property is 
 merely insecure, what must be the effect when a man 
 has no property whatever in his earnings ? Who does 
 not know that a slave, who can rationally hope to pur 
 chase his freedom, will do all the work he ever did 
 before, and earn his freedom-money besides ? Slavery, 
 therefore, though claiming to be a kind of property, is 
 the bane of property ; and the more slaves there are 
 found in the inventory of a nation s wealth, the less in 
 value will the aggregate of that inventory be. 
 
 This is one of the reasons why slave labor is so 
 much less efficient than free labor. The former can 
 never compete with the latter ; and while the greater 
 service is performed with cheerfulness, the smaller is 
 extorted by fear. Just as certain as that the locomo 
 tive can outrun the horse, and the lightning outspeed 
 the locomotive, just so certain is it that he who is ani 
 mated by the hopes and the rewards of freedom will 
 outstrip the disheartened and fear-driven slave. 
 
 The intelligent freeman can afford to live well, dress 
 decently, and occupy a comfortable tenement. A 
 scanty subsistence, a squalid garb, a mean and dilapi- 
 
35 
 
 dated hovel, proclaim the degradation of the slave. 
 The slave states gain millions of dollars every year 
 from the privations, the mean food, clothing, and shelter 
 to which the slaves are subjected ; and yet they grow 
 rich less rapidly than states where millions of dollars 
 are annually expended for the comforts and conven 
 iences of the laborer. More is lost in production than 
 is gained by privation. 
 
 A universal concomitant of slavery is, that it makes 
 white labor disreputable. Being disreputable, it is 
 shunned. The pecuniary loss resulting from this is 
 incalculable. Dry up the myriad headsprings of the 
 Mississippi, and where would be the mighty volume 
 of waters which now bear navies on their bosom, and 
 lift the ocean itself above its level, by their outpouring 
 Hood ? Abolish those sources of wealth, which consist 
 in the personal industry of every man, and of each 
 member of every man s family, arid that wide-spread 
 thrift, and competence, and elegance, which are both 
 the reward and the stimulus of labor, will be abolished 
 ^with them. Forego the means, and you forfeit the 
 end. You must use the instrument if you would have 
 the product. Nothing but the feeling of independence, 
 the conscious security of working for one s self and 
 one s family, will, in the present state of the world, 
 make labor profitable. 
 
 I know it has been recently said in this capital, ami 
 by high authority, that, with the exception of menial 
 services, it is not disreputable at the south for a white 
 man to labor. There are two ways, each independent 
 of the other, to disprove this assertion. One of them 
 consists in the testimony of a host of intelligent wit 
 nesses acquainted with the condition of things at the 
 south. I might quote page after page from various 
 sources ; but, as the assertion comes from a gentleman 
 belonging to South Carolina, [Mr. CALHOUN, of the 
 Senate,] I will meet it with the statement of another 
 
36 
 
 gentleman belonging to the same state. I refer to Mr. 
 William Gregg, of Charleston, a gentleman who is ex 
 tensively acquainted with the social condition of men, 
 both north and south. 
 
 In that state, according to the last census, there 
 were about 150,000 free whites over twelve years of 
 age. " Of this class," says Mr. Gregg, " fifty thou 
 sand are non-producers."* I suppose South Carolina 
 to be as thrifty a slave state as there is, perhaps ex 
 cepting Georgia; yet here is one third part of the pop 
 ulation, old enough to work and able to work, who are 
 idle, and of course vicious, non-producers, but the 
 worst kind of consumers. 
 
 Another answer to the above assertion is, that if 
 white labor were reputable at the south, and white 
 men were industrious, the whole country would be a 
 garden, a terrestrial paradise, so far as neatness, 
 abundance, and beauty are concerned. Where are the 
 RESULTS of this respected and honored white labor 1 
 In a country where few expenses are necessary to 
 ward off the rigors of winter ; where the richest sta 
 ples of the world are produced ; where cattle and 
 flocks need but little shelter, and sometimes none ; if 
 man superadded his industry to the bounties of nature, 
 want would be wholly unknown, competence would 
 give place to opulence, and the highest decorations of 
 art would mingle with the glowing beauties of nature. 
 
 But hear Mr. Gregg : 
 
 " My recent visit to the northern states has fully satisfied 
 me that the true secret of our difficulties lies in the want of 
 energy on the part of our capitalists, and ignorance and lazi 
 ness on the part of those who ought to labor. We need 
 never look for thrift while we permit our immense timber for 
 ests, granite quarries, and mines to lie idle, and supply our 
 selves with hewn granite, pine boards, laths, shingles, &c., 
 
 * Essays on Domestic Industry, or an Inquiry into the Expediency 
 of establishing Cotton Manufactories in South Carolina, 1845. 
 
37 
 
 furnished by the lazy dogs of the north. Ah ! worse than 
 this ; we see our back-country farmers, many of whom 
 are too lazy to mend a broken gate, or repair the fences to 
 protect their crops from the neighboring stock, actually sup 
 plied with their axe, hoe, and broom handles, pitchforks, 
 rakes, &c., by the indolent mountaineers of New Hampshire 
 and Massachusetts. The time was, when every old woman 
 had her gourd, from which the country gardens were supplied 
 with seed. We now find it more convenient to permit this 
 duty to devolve on our careful friends, the Yankees. Even 
 our boat oars, and handspikes for rolling logs, arc furnished, 
 ready-made, to our hand," &c. " Need I add, to further ex 
 emplify our excessive indolence, that the Charleston market 
 is supplied with fish and wild game by northern men, who 
 come out here as regularly as the winter comes, for this pur 
 pose, and from our own waters and forests often realize, in 
 the course of one winter, a sufficiency to purchase a small 
 farm in New England." Essays, page 8. 
 
 Again : 
 
 " It is only necessary to travel over the sterile mountains of 
 Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont, and New Hampshire, to 
 learn the true secret of our difficulties," " to learn the differ 
 ence between indolence and industry, extravagance and econo 
 my. We there see the scenery which would take the place of 
 our unpainted mansions, dilapidated cabins, with mud chimneys, 
 and no windows, broken-down rail fences, fields overgrown 
 with weeds, and thrown away half exhausted, to be taken up by 
 pine thickets ; beef cattle unprotected from the inclemency of 
 winter, and so poor as barely to preserve life." .Essays, page 7. 
 
 And again : 
 
 " Shall we pass unnoticed the thousands of poor, ignorant, 
 degraded white people among us, who, in this land of plenty, 
 live in comparative nakedness and starvation ? Many a one 
 is reared in proud South Carolina, from birth to manhood, 
 who has never passed a month in which he has not, some 
 part of the time, been stinted for meat. Many a mother is 
 there who will tell you that her children are but scantily sup 
 plied with bread, and much more scantily with meat, and if 
 4 
 
38 
 
 they be clad with comfortable raiment, it is at the expense 
 of these scanty allowances of food. These may be startling 
 statements, but they are nevertheless true ; and if not believed 
 in Charleston, the members of our legislature, who have trav 
 ersed the state in electioneering campaigns, can attest their 
 truth." Essays, page 22. 
 
 After such statements as these ; after the testimony 
 of hundreds and hundreds of eye-witnesses ; after the 
 proofs furnished by the aggregates of products, pub 
 lished in our Patent Office Reports, it is drawing a lit 
 tle too heavily on our credulity to say that the white 
 man at the south is industrious. Industry manifests 
 itself by its results, as the sun manifests itself by 
 shining. 
 
 But slavery is hostile to the pecuniary advancement 
 of the community in another way. The slave must 
 be kept in ignorance. He must not be educated, lest 
 with education should come a knowledge of his natu 
 ral rights, and the means of escape or the power of 
 vengeance. To secure the abolition of his freedom, 
 the growth of his mind must be abolished. His edu 
 cation, therefore, is prohibited by statute under terrible 
 penalties. 
 
 Now, a man is weak in his muscles ; he is strong 
 only in his faculties. In physical strength how much 
 superior is an ox or a horse to a man ; in fleetness, the 
 dromedary or the eagle. It is through mental strength 
 only that man becomes the superior and governor of 
 all animals. 
 
 It was not the design of Providence that the work 
 of the world should be performed by muscular strength. 
 God has filled the earth and imbued the elements with 
 energies of greater power than that of all the inhab 
 itants of a thousand planets like ours. Whence come 
 our necessaries and our luxuries ? those comforts and 
 appliances that make the difference between a house 
 less, wandering tribe of Indians in the far west, and a 
 
39 
 
 New England village. They do not come wholly or 
 principally from the original, unassisted strength of 
 the human arm, but from the employment, through in 
 telligence and skill, of those great natural forces with 
 which the bountiful Creator has filled every part of the 
 material universe. Caloric, gravitation, expansibility, 
 compressibility, electricity, chemical affinities and re 
 pulsions, spontaneous velocities, these are the mighty 
 agents which the intellect of man harnesses to the car 
 of improvement. The application of water, and wind, 
 and steam, to the propulsion of machinery, and to the 
 transportation of men and merchandise from place to 
 place, has added ten thousand fold to the actual prod 
 ucts of human industry. How small the wheel which 
 the stoutest laborer can turn, and how soon will he be 
 weary! Compare this with awheel driving a thou 
 sand spindles or looms, which a stream of water can 
 turn, and never tire. A locomotive will take five hun 
 dred men, and bear them on their journey hundreds 
 of miles in a day. Look at these same five hundred 
 men, starting from the same point, and attempting the 
 same distance, with all the pedestrian s or the equestri 
 an s toil and tardiness. The cotton mills of Massa 
 chusetts will turn out more cloth, in one day, than 
 could have been manufactured by all the inhabitants 
 of the eastern continent during the tenth century. 
 On an element which, in ancient times, was supposed 
 to be exclusively within the control of the gods, and 
 where it was deemed impious for human power to in 
 trude, even there the gigantic forces of nature, which 
 human science and skill have enlisted in their service, 
 confront and overcome the raging of the elements, 
 breasting tempests and tides, escaping reefs and lee 
 shores, and careering triumphant around the globe. 
 The velocity of winds, the weight of waters, and the 
 rage of steam, are powers, each one of which is infi 
 nitely stronger than all the strength of all the nations 
 
40 
 
 and races of mankind, were it all gathered into a sin 
 gle arm. And all these energies are given us on one 
 condition, the condition of intelligence, that is, of 
 education. 
 
 Had God intended that the work of the world 
 should be done by human bones and sinews, he would 
 have given us an arm as solid and strong as the shaft 
 of a steam engine ; and enabled us to stand, day and 
 night, and turn the crank of a steamship while sailing 
 to Liverpool or Calcutta. Had God designed the hu 
 man muscles to do the work of the world, then, in 
 stead of the ingredients of gunpowder or gun cotton, 
 and the expansive force of heat, he would have given 
 us hands which could take a granite quarry and break 
 its solid acres into suitable and symmetrical blocks, as 
 easily as we now open an orange. Had he intended 
 us for bearing burdens, he would have given us Atlan- 
 tean shoulders, by which we could carry the vast 
 freights of rail-car and steamship, as a porter carries 
 his pack. He would have given us lungs by which 
 we could blow fleets before us, and wings to sweep 
 over ocean wastes. But, instead of iron arms, and 
 Atlantean shoulders, and the lungs of Boreas, he 
 has given us a mind, a soul, a capacity of acquiring 
 knowledge, and thus of appropriating all these ener 
 gies of nature to our own use. Instead of a telescopic 
 and microscopic eye, he has given us power to invent 
 the telescope and the microscope. Instead of ten thou 
 sand fingers, he has given us genius inventive of the 
 power loom and the printing press. Without a culti 
 vated intellect, man is among the weakest of all the 
 dynamical forces of nature; with a cultivated intellect, 
 he commands them all. 
 
 And now, what does the slave maker do ? He abol 
 ishes this mighty power of the intellect, and uses only 
 the weak, degraded, and half-animated forces of the 
 human limbs. A thousand slaves may stand by a river, 
 
41 
 
 and to them it is only an object of fear or of supersti 
 tion. An educated man surpasses the ancient idea of 
 a river god ; he stands by the Penobscot, the Kenne- 
 bec, the Merrimack, or the Connecticut ; he com 
 mands each of them to do more work than could be 
 performed by a hundred thousand men, to saw tim 
 ber, to make cloth, to grind corn, and they obey. 
 Ignorant slaves stand upon a coal mine, and to them 
 it is only a worthless part of the inanimate earth. An 
 educated man uses the same mine to print a million of 
 books. Slaves will seek to obtain the same crop from 
 the same field, year after year, though the pabulum 
 of that crop is exhausted ; the educated man, with his 
 chemist s eye, sees not only the minutest atoms of 
 earth, but the imponderable gases that permeate it, and 
 he is rewarded with an unbroken succession of luxu 
 riant harvests. 
 
 Nor are these advantages confined to those depart 
 ments of nature where her mightiest forces are brought 
 into requisition. In accomplishing whatever requires 
 delicacy and precision, nature is as much more perfect 
 than man as she is more powerful in whatever requires 
 strength. Whether in great or in small operations, all 
 the improvements in the mechanical and the useful 
 arts come as directly from intelligence as a bird comes 
 out of a shell, or the beautiful colors of a flower out 
 of sunshine. The slave worker is forever prying at 
 the short end of Nature s lever, and using the back 
 instead of the edge of her finest instruments. 
 
 Sir, the most abundant proof exists, derived from all 
 departments of human industry, that uneducated labor 
 is comparatively unprofitable labor. I have before me 
 the statements of a number of the most intelligent 
 gentlemen of Massachusetts, affirming this fact as the 
 result of an experience extending over many years. 
 In Massachusetts we have no native-born child wholly 
 without school instruction ; but the degrees of attain- 
 4* 
 
42 
 
 mentj of mental development, are various. Half a 
 dozen years ago, the Secretary of the Massachusetts 
 Board of Education obtained statements from large 
 numbers of our master manufacturers, authenticated 
 from the books of their. respective establishments, and 
 covering a series of years, the result of which was, 
 that increased wages were found in connection with 
 increased intelligence, just as certainly as increased 
 heat raises the mercury in the thermometer. Foreign 
 ers, and those coming from other states, who made 
 their marks when they receipted their bills, earned the 
 least ; those who had a moderate or limited education 
 occupied a middle ground on the pay-roll ; while the 
 intelligent young women who worked in the mills in 
 winter, and taught schools in summer, crowned the 
 list. The larger capital, in the form of intelligence, 
 yielded the larger interest in the form of wages. This 
 inquiry was not confined to manufactures, but was ex 
 tended to other departments of business, where the 
 results of labor could be made the subject of exact 
 measurement. 
 
 This is universally so. The mechanic sees it, when 
 he compares the work of a stupid with that of an 
 awakened mind. The traveller sees it, when he 
 passes from an educated into an uneducated nation. 
 Sir, I have seen countries in Europe, lying side by side, 
 where, without compass or chart, without bound or 
 landmark, I could run the line of demarcation between 
 the two, by the broad, legible characters which igno 
 rance has written on roads, fields, houses, and the per 
 sons of men, women, and children, on one side, and 
 which knowledge has inscribed on the other. 
 
 This difference is most striking in the mechanic 
 arts, but it is clearly visible also in husbandry. Not 
 the most fertile soil, not mines of silver and gold, can 
 make a nation rich, without intelligence. Who ever 
 had a more fertile soil than the Egyptians ? Who 
 
43 
 
 have handled more silver and gold than the Span 
 iards ? The universal cultivation of the mind and 
 heart is the only true source of opulence; the culti 
 vation of the mind, by which to lay hold on the treas 
 ures of nature; the cultivation of the heart, by which 
 to devote those treasures to beneficent uses. Where 
 this cultivation exists, no matter how barren the soil 
 or ungenial the clime, there comfort and competence 
 will abound; for it is the intellectual and moral condi 
 tion of the cultivator that impoverishes the soil or 
 makes it teem with abundance. He who disobeys the 
 law of God in regard to the culture of the intellectual 
 and spiritual nature, may live in the valley of the 
 Nile, but he can rear only the " lean kine " of Pharaoh ; 
 but he who obeys the highest law may dwell in the 
 cold and inhospitable regions of Scotland or of New 
 England, and " well-formed and fat-fleshed kine " shall 
 feed on all his meadows. If Pharaoh will be a task 
 master, and will not let the bondmen go free, the corn 
 in his field shall be the " seven thin ears blasted by 
 the east wind ; " but if he will obey the command 
 ments of the Lord, then behold there shall be " seven 
 ears of corn upon one stalk, all rank and good." Sir, 
 the sweat of a slave poisons the soil upon which it 
 falls ; his breath is mildew to every green thing ; his 
 tear withers the verdure it drops upon. 
 
 But slavery makes the general education of the 
 whites impossible. You cannot have general educa 
 tion without Common Schools. Common Schools can 
 not exist where the population is sparse. Where 
 slaves till the soil, or do the principal part of whatever 
 work is done, the free population must be sparse. 
 Slavery, then, by an inexorable law, denies general 
 education to the whites. The providence of God is 
 just and retributive. Create a serf caste, and debar 
 them from education, and you necessarily debar a 
 great portion of the privileged class from education 
 
44 
 
 also. It is impossible, in the present state of things, 
 or in any state of things which can be foreseen, to 
 have free and universal education in a slave state. 
 The difficulty is insurmountable. For a well-organ 
 ized system of Common Schools, there should be two 
 hundred children, at least, living in such proximity to 
 each other that the oldest of them can come together 
 to a central school. It is not enough to gather from 
 within a circle of half a dozen miles diameter fifty 
 or sixty children for a single school. This brings all 
 ages and all studies into the same room. A good sys 
 tem requires a separation of school children into four, 
 or at least into three, classes, according to ages and at 
 tainments. Without this gradation, a school is bereft 
 of more than half its efficiency. Now, this can never 
 be done in an agricultural community where there are 
 two classes of men one to do all the work, and the 
 other to seize all the profits. With New England 
 habits of industry, and with that diversified labor 
 which would be sure to spring from intelligence, the 
 State of Virginia, which skirts us here on the south, 
 would support all the population of the New England 
 states, and fill them with abundance. 
 
 Mr. BAYLY. We have as great a population as New 
 England now. 
 
 Mr. MANN. As great a population as New England ! ! 
 
 Mr. BAYLY. We send fifteen representatives. 
 
 [A voice. And how many of them represent 
 slaves ?] 
 
 Mr. MANN. Massachusetts alone sends ten repre 
 sentatives. 
 
 [A voice. And the rest of New England twenty- 
 one more. | 
 
 Mr. MANN. I say, sir, the single State of Virginia 
 could support in abundance the whole population of 
 New England. With such a free population, the 
 school children would be so numerous that public 
 
45 
 
 schools might be opened within three or four miles of 
 each other all over its territory, the light of each 
 of which, blending with its neighboring lights, would 
 illumine the whole land. They would be schools, 
 too, in point of cheapness, within every man s means. 
 The degrading idea of pauper schools would be dis 
 carded forever. But what is the condition of Virginia 
 now ? One quarter part of all its adult free white 
 population are unable to read or write, arid were pro 
 claimed to be so by a late governor, in his annual mes 
 sage, without producing any reform. Their remedy 
 is to choose a governor who will not proclaim such a 
 fact. When has Virginia, in any state or national 
 election, given a majority equal to the number of its 
 voters unable to read or write ? A republican govern 
 ment supported by the two pillars of Slavery and Ig 
 norance ! 
 
 In South Carolina there is also a fund for the sup 
 port of pauper schools ; but this had become so useless, 
 and was so disdained by its objects, that a late governor 
 of the state, in his annual message, recommended that 
 it should be withdrawn from them altogether. 
 
 Yet in many of the slave states there are beautiful 
 paper systems of Common Schools, dead laws in the 
 statute books, and the census tells us how profitless 
 they have been. In 1840, in the fifteen slave states 
 and territories, there were only 201,085 scholars at the 
 primary schools. In the same class of schools in the 
 free states, there were 1,626,028, eight times as 
 many. New York alone had 502,367, or two and a 
 half times as many. The scholars in the primary 
 schools of Ohio alone, outnumbered all those in the fif 
 teen slave states and territories by more than 17,000. 
 In the slave states, almost one tenth part of the free 
 white population over twenty years of age are unable 
 to read and write. In the free states, less than one in 
 one hundred and fifty ; and at least four fifths of these 
 
46 
 
 are foreigners, who ought not to be included in the 
 computation. Many of the slave states, too, have 
 munificent school funds. Kentucky has one of more 
 than a million of dollars ; Tennessee, of two millions; 
 yet, in 1837, Governor Clarke, of Kentucky, declared, 
 in his message to the legislature, that " one third of 
 the adult population were unable to write their names ; " 
 and in the State of Tennessee, according to the last 
 census, there were 58,531 of the same description of 
 persons. Surely it would take more than five of these 
 to make three freemen ; for the more a state has of 
 them, the less of intelligent freedom will there be in it. 
 And if the schools in the slave states are compared with 
 the schools in the free states, the deficiency in quality 
 will be found as great as the deficiency in number. 
 
 Sir, during the last ten years I have had a most ex 
 tensive correspondence with the intelligent friends of 
 education in the slave states. They yearn for progress, 
 but they cannot obtain it. They procure laws to be 
 passed, but there is no one to execute them. They 
 set forth the benefits and the blessings of education ; 
 but they speak in a vacuum, and no one hears the ap 
 peal. If a parent wishes to educate his children, he 
 must send them from home, and thus suffer a sort of 
 bereavement, even while they live ; or he must employ 
 a tutor or governess in his family, which few are able 
 to do. The rich may do it, but what becomes of the 
 children of the poor ? In cities the obstacles are less ; 
 but the number of persons resident in cities is rela 
 tively small. All this is the inevitable consequence of 
 slavery ; and it is as impossible for free, thorough, 
 universal education to coexist with slavery as for two 
 bodies to occupy the same space at the same time. 
 Slavery would abolish education, if it should invade a 
 free state ; education would abolish slavery, if it could 
 invade a slave state. 
 
 Destroying common education, slavery destroys the 
 
47 
 
 fruits of common education, the inventive mind, 
 practical talent, the power of adapting means to ends 
 in the business of life. Whence have come all those 
 mechanical and scientific improvements and inven 
 tions which have enriched the world with so many 
 comforts, and adorned it with so many beauties ; which 
 to-day give enjoyments and luxuries to a common 
 family in a New England village, that neither Queen 
 Elizabeth of England nor any of her proud court ever 
 dreamed of, but a little more than two centuries ago? 
 Among whom have these improvements originated? 
 All history and experience affirm that they have come, 
 and must come, from people among whom education is 
 most generous and unconfined. Increase the constit 
 uency, if I may so speak, of developed intellect, and 
 you increase in an equal ratio the chances of inventive, 
 creative genius. From what part of our own country 
 has come the application of steam to the propulsion 
 of boats for commercial purposes, or of wheels for 
 manufacturing purposes ? Where have the various and 
 almost infinite improvements been made which have 
 resulted in the present perfection of cotton and wool 
 len machinery ? Whence came the invention of the 
 cotton-gin, and the great improvements in railroads ? 
 Where was born the mighty genius who invented the 
 first lightning rod, which sends the electric fluid harm 
 less into the earth ; or that other genius, not less benef 
 icent, who invented the second lightning rod, which 
 sends the same fluid from city to city on messages of 
 business or of affection ? Sir, these are results which 
 you can no more have without common education, 
 without imbuing the public mind with the elements of 
 knowledge, than you can have corn without planting, 
 or harvests without sunshine. 
 
 Look into the Patent Office reports, and see in what 
 sections of country mechanical improvements and the 
 application of science to the useful arts have originated. 
 
48 
 
 Out of jive hundred and seventy-two patents issued in 
 1847, only sixty-six went to the slave states. The 
 patents annually issued, it is true, are a mingled heap 
 of chaff and wheat, but some of it is wheat worthy of 
 Olympus. I think the Patent Office reports show that 
 at least six or eight times as many patents have been 
 taken out for the north as for the south. What 
 improvements will a slave ever make in agricultural 
 implements ; in the manufacture of metals ; in pre 
 paring wool, cotton, silk, fur, or paper ; in chemical 
 processes; in the application of stearn : in philosoph 
 ical, nautical, or optical instruments ; in civil engineer 
 ing, architecture, the construction of roads, canals, 
 wharves, bridges, docks, piers, &c. ; in hydraulics or 
 pneumatics ; in the application of the mechanical 
 powers ; in household furniture, or wearing apparel ; 
 in printing, binding, engraving, &c., &c. ? This ques 
 tion, when put in reference to slaves, appears ridicu 
 lous ; and yet it is no more absurd, when asked in ref 
 erence to an ignorant slave, than when asked in 
 reference to an uneducated white man. The fact that 
 the latter is a voter makes no difference, notwithstand 
 ing the common opinion, in certain latitudes, that it 
 does. All such improvements come from minds which 
 have had an early awakening, and been put on scien 
 tific trains of thought in their childhood and youth, 
 a thing utterly impossible for the people at large, with 
 out Common Schools. 
 
 These are causes ; now look at effects. In the 
 New England states, the iron manufacture is twenty 
 times as much, according to the population, as it is in 
 Virginia ; and yet Virginia has far more of the ore than 
 they. In cotton, we can hardly find a fraction low 
 enough to express the difference. The ship-building 
 in Maine and Massachusetts is thirty-five times as much 
 as in Virginia. The north comes to the south, cuts 
 their timber, carries it home, manufactures it, and then 
 
49 
 
 brings it back, wrought into a hundred different forms, 
 to be sold to those who would see it rot before their 
 eyes. 
 
 Can any mnn give a reason why Norfolk should not 
 have grown like New York, other than the difference 
 in the institutions of the people ? Jamestown was 
 settled before Plymouth, and had natural advantages 
 superior to it. Plymouth now has a population of be 
 tween seven and eight thousand, is worth two millions 
 of dollars, and taxed itself last year, for schools and 
 schoolhouses, more than seven thousand dollars. I 
 ouulit rather to say, that it invested more than seven 
 thousand dollars in a kind of stock that yields a hun 
 dred per cent, income. How many bats there may be 
 in the ruins of Jamestown, the last census does not in 
 form us. 
 
 The books printed at the south I suppose not to 
 be equal to one fiftieth part of the number printed 
 at the north. In maps, charts, engravings, and so forth, 
 the elements of comparison exist only on one side. 
 
 Out of universal education come genius, skill, and 
 enterprise, and the desire of bettering one s condition. 
 Industry and frugality are their concomitants. Diver 
 sified labor secures a home market. Diligence earns 
 much, but the absence of the vices of indolence saves 
 more. Hence comforts abound, while capital accumu 
 lates. After the home consumption is supplied, there 
 is a surplus for export. The balance of trade is favor 
 able. All the higher institutions of learning and reli 
 gion can be liberally supported. These institutions 
 impart an elevated and moral tone to society. Hence 
 efforts for all kinds of social ameliorations. Temper 
 ance societies spring up. Societies for preventing 
 crime ; for saving from pauperism ; for the reform of 
 prisons and the reformation of prisoners ; for peace ; 
 for sending missionaries to the heathen ; for diffusing 
 the gospel, all these, where a sound education is 
 5 
 
50 
 
 given, grow up, in the order of Providence, as an oak 
 grows out of an acorn. 
 
 In one thing the south has excelled, in training 
 statesmen. The primary and the ultimate effects of 
 slavery upon this fact are so well set forth in a late 
 sermon by Dr. Bushriell, of Hartford, Connecticut, that 
 I will read a passage from it : 
 
 " And here, since this institution of slavery, entering into 
 the fortunes of our history, complicates in so many ways the 
 disorders we suffer, I must pause a few moments to sketch its 
 characteristics. Slavery, it is not to be denied, is an essen 
 tially barbarous institution. It gives us, too, that sign which is the 
 perpetual distinction of barbarism, that it has no law of prog 
 ress. The highest level it reaches is the level at which it 
 begins. Indeed, we need not scruple to allow that it has 
 yielded us one considerable advantage, in virtue of the fact 
 that it produces its best condition first. For while the north 
 ern people were generally delving in labor, for many genera 
 tions, to create a condition of comfort, slavery set the masters 
 at once on a footing of ease, gave them leisure for elegant in 
 tercourse, for unprofessional studies, and seasoned their char 
 acter thus with that kind of cultivation which distinguishes 
 men of society. A class of statesmen were thus raised up, 
 who were prepared to figure as leaders in scenes of public 
 life, where so much depends on manners and social address. 
 But now the scale is changing. Free labor is rising, at length, 
 into a state of wealth and comfort, to take the lead of Amer 
 ican society. Meanwhile, the foster-sons of slavery, the 
 high families, the statesmen, gradually receding in charac 
 ter, as they must under this vicious institution, are receding 
 also in power and influence, and have been ever since the 
 revolution. Slavery is a condition against nature ; the curse 
 of nature, therefore, is on it, and it bows to its doom by a law 
 as irresistible as gravity. It produces a condition of ease 
 which is not the reward of labor, and a state of degradation 
 which is not the curse of idleness. Therefore, the ease it 
 enjoys cannot but end in a curse, and the degradation it suf 
 fers cannot rise into a blessing. It nourishes imperious and 
 violent passions. It makes the masters solitary sheiks on their 
 estates, forbidding thus the possibility of public schools, and 
 
51 
 
 preventing also that condensed form of society which is ne 
 cessary to the vigorous maintenance of churches. Education 
 and religion thus displaced, the dinner table only remains, and 
 on this hangs, in great part, the keeping of the social state. But 
 however highly we may estimate the humanizing power of 
 hospitality, it cannot be regarded as any sufficient spring of 
 character. It is neither a school nor a gospel. And when it 
 comes of self-indulgence, or only seeks relief for the tedium 
 of an idle life, scarcely docs it bring with it the blessings of a 
 virtue. The accomplishments it yields are of a mock quality, 
 rather than of a real, having about the same relation to a sub 
 stantial and finished culture that honor has to character. This 
 kind of currency will pass no longer; for, it is not expense 
 without comfort, or splendor set in disorder, as diamonds in 
 pewter; it is not air in place of elegance, or assurance sub 
 stituted for ease ; neither is it to be master of a fluent speech, 
 or to garnish the same with stale quotations from the classics ; 
 much less is it to live in the Don Juan vein, accepting bar 
 barism by poetic inspiration, the same by which a late noble 
 poet, drawing out of Turks and pirates, became the chosen 
 laureate of slavery, not any or all of these can make up 
 such a style of man, or of life, as we in this age demand. 
 We have come up now to a point where we look for true in 
 tellectual refinement, and a ripe state of personal culture. 
 But how clearly is it seen to be a violation of its own laws, for 
 slavery to produce a genuine scholar, or a man who, in any 
 department of excellence, unless it be in politics, is not a full 
 century behind his time ? And if we ask for what is dearer 
 and better still, for a pure Christian morality, the youth of 
 slavery are trained in no such habits as are most congenial to 
 virtue. The point of honor is the only principle many of 
 them know. Violence and dissipation bring down every suc 
 ceeding generation to a state continually lower ; so that now, 
 after a hundred and fifty years are passed, the slaveholding 
 territory may be described as a vast missionary ground, and 
 one so uncomfortable to the faithful ministry of Christ, by 
 reason of its jealous tempers, and the known repugnance it 
 has to many of the first maxims of the gospel, that scarcely 
 a missionary can be found to enter it. Connected with this 
 moral decay, the resources of nature also are exhausted, and 
 her fertile territories changed to a desert, by the uncreating 
 
52 
 
 power of a spendthrift institution. And then, having made a 
 waste where God had made a garden, slavery gathers up the 
 relics of bankruptcy, and the baser relics still of virtue and 
 all manly enterprise, and goes forth to renew, on a virgin 
 soil, its dismal and forlorn history. Thus, at length, has been 
 produced what may be called the bowie-knife style of civili 
 zation, and the new west of the south is overrun by it, a 
 spirit of blood which defies all laws of God and man ; hon 
 orable, but not honest ; prompt to resent an injury, slack to 
 discharge a debt ; educated to ease, and readier, of course, 
 when the means of living fail, to find them at the gambling 
 table or the race-ground, than in any work of industry, 
 probably squandering the means of living there, to relieve 
 the tedium of ease itself." 
 
 The free schools of the north lead to the common 
 diffusion of knowledge, and the equalization of society. 
 The private schools of the south divide men into pa 
 tricians and plebeians ; so that, in the latter, a nuisance 
 grows out of education itself. In the public schools 
 of New York there are libraries now amounting to 
 more than a million of volumes. In the schools of 
 Massachusetts the number of volumes is relatively 
 less, but the quality is greatly superior. In each of 
 these states, within half an hour s walk of the poorest 
 farm-house or mechanic s shop, there is a library, free 
 and open to every child, containing works of history, 
 biography, travels, ethics, natural science, &c., &c., 
 which will supply him with the noblest capital of in 
 telligence, wherewith to commence the business of 
 making himself a useful and intelligent citizen. With 
 the exception of New Orleans, (whose free schools 
 were commenced and have been presided over by a 
 Massachusetts man,] and three or four other cities, all 
 the libraries in the public schools of the slave states 
 could be carried in a schoolboy s satchel. The libra 
 ries of all the universities and colleges of the south 
 contain 223,416 volumes ; those of the north, 593,897 
 volumes. The libraries of southern theological schools, 
 22,800 ; those of northern, 102,080. 
 
53 
 
 Look into Silliman s Journal, or the volumes of the 
 American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and inquire 
 whence the communications came. Where live the 
 historians of the country, Sparks, Prescott, Bancroft ; 
 the poets, Whittier, Bryant, Longfellow, Lowell ; the 
 jurists, Story, Kent, Wheaton ; the classic models of 
 writing, Channing, Everett, Irving ; the female writers, 
 Miss Sedgwick, Mrs. Sigourney, and Mrs. Child ? 
 All this proceeds from no superiority of natural endow 
 ment on the one side, or inferiority on the other. The 
 Southern States are all within what may be called 
 " the latitudes of genius ; " for there is a small belt 
 around the globe, comprising but a few degrees of lat 
 itude, which has produced all the distinguished men 
 who have ever lived. I say this difference results 
 from no difference in natural endowment. The men 
 tal endowments at the south are equal to those in any 
 part of the world. But it comes because, in one quar 
 ter, the common atmosphere is vivified with knowl 
 edge, electric with ideas, while slavery gathers its 
 Boeotian fogs over the other. What West Point has 
 been to our armies in Mexico, that, and more than that, 
 good schools would be to the intelligence and indus 
 trial prosperity of our country. 
 
 It may seem a little out of place, but I cannot for 
 bear here adverting to one point, which, as a lover of 
 children and as a parent, touches me more deeply than 
 any other. To whom are intrusted, at the south, the 
 early care and nurture of children ? It has been 
 thought by many educators and metaphysicians, that 
 children learn as much before the age of seven years 
 as ever afterwards. Who, at the south, administers 
 this early knowledge, these ideas, these views, that 
 have such sovereign efficacy in the formation of adult 
 character? Who has the custody of children during 
 this ductile, forming, receptive period of life, a pe 
 riod when the mind absorbs whatever is brought into 
 5* 
 
54 
 
 contact with it ? Sir, the children of the south, more 
 or less, and generally more, are tended and nurtured 
 by slaves. Ignorance, superstition, vulgarity, passion, 
 and perhaps impurity, are the breasts at which they 
 nurse. Whatever afflictions God may soe fit to bring 
 upon me, whatever other mercies He may withhold, 
 may He give me none but persons of intelligence, of 
 refinement, and of moral excellence, to walk with my 
 children during the imitative years of their existence, 
 and to lead them in the paths of knowledge, and 
 breathe into their hearts the breath of a moral and re 
 ligious life. 
 
 Before considering the moral character of slavery, I 
 wish to advert fora moment to the position which we 
 occupy as one of the nations of the earth, in this ad 
 vancing period of the world s civilization. Nations, like 
 individuals, have a character. The date of the latter is 
 counted by years ; that of the former, by centuries. 
 No man can have any self-respect, who is not solicitous 
 about his posthumous reputation. No man can be a 
 patriot who feels neither joy nor shame at the idea of 
 the honor or the infamy which his age and his country 
 shall leave behind them. Nations, like individuals, 
 have characteristic objects of ambition. Greece cov 
 eted the arts ; Rome gloried in war ; but liberty has 
 been the goddess of our idolatry. Amid the storms 
 of freedom were we cradled ; in the struggles of free 
 dom have our joints been knit ; on the rich aliment 
 of freedom have we grown to our present stature. 
 With a somewhat too boastful spirit, perhaps, have we 
 challenged the admiration of the world for our devo 
 tion to liberty ; but an enthusiasm for the rights of 
 man is so holy a passion, that even its excesses are not 
 devoid of the beautiful. We have not only won free 
 dom for ourselves, but we have taught its sacred les 
 sons to others. The shout of " Death to tyrants, and 
 freedom for man ! " which pealed through this country 
 
55 
 
 seventy years ago, has at length reached across the 
 Atlantic : and whoever has given an attentive ear to 
 the sounds which have come back to us, within the 
 last few months, from the European world, cannot have 
 failed to perceive that they were only the far-travelled 
 echoes of the American Declaration of Independence. 
 But in the divine face of our liberty there has been 
 one foul, demoniac feature. Whenever her votaries 
 would approach her to worship, they have been fain to 
 draw a veil over one part of her visage, to conceal its 
 hideousness. Whence came this deformity on her 
 otherwise fair and celestial countenance ? Sad is the 
 story, but it must be told. Her mother was a vam 
 pire. As the daughter lay helpless in her arms, the 
 beldam tore open her living flesh, and feasted upon 
 her lifeblood. Hence this unsightly wound, that 
 affrights whoever beholds it. But, sir, I must leave 
 dallying with these ambiguous metaphors. One wants 
 the plain, sinewy, Saxon tongue to tell of deeds that 
 should have shamed devils. Great Britain was the 
 mother. Her American colonies were the daughter. 
 The mother lusted for gold. To get it, she made part 
 nership with robbery and death. Shackles, chains, 
 and weapons for human butchery, were her outfit 
 in trade. She made Africa her hunting-ground. She 
 made its people her prey, and the unwilling colonies 
 her market-place. She broke into the Ethiop s home, 
 as a wolf into a sheepfold at midnight. She set the 
 continent a-flame, that she might seize the affrighted 
 inhabitants as they ran shrieking from their blazing 
 hamlets. The aged and the infant she left for the 
 vultures ; but the strong men and the strong women 
 she drove, scourged and bleeding, to the shore. Packed 
 and stowed like merchandise between unventilated 
 decks, so close that the tempest without could not 
 ruffle the pestilential air within, the voyage was begun. 
 Once a day the hatches were opened, to receive food 
 
56 
 
 and to disgorge the dead. Thousands and thousands 
 of corpses, which she plunged into the ocean from the 
 decks of her slave ships, she counted only as the tare 
 of commerce. The blue monsters of the deep became 
 familiar with her pathway, and, not more remorseless 
 than she, they shared her plunder. At length the ac 
 cursed vessel reached the foreign shore. And there, 
 monsters of the land, fiercer and feller than any that 
 roam the watery plains, rewarded the robber by pur 
 chasing his spoils. 
 
 For more than a century did the madness of this 
 traffic rage. During all those years, the clock of eter 
 nity never counted out a minute that did not witness 
 the cruel death, by treachery or violence, of some son 
 or daughter, some father or mother, of Africa. The 
 three millions of slaves that now darken our southern 
 horizon are the progeny of these progenitors, a 
 doomed race, fated and suffering from sire to son. But 
 the enormities of the mother country did not pass 
 without remonstrance. Many of the colonies expos 
 tulated against, and rebuked them. The New Eng 
 land colonies, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia, pre 
 sented to the throne the most humble and suppliant 
 petitions, praying for the abolition of the trade. The 
 colonial legislatures passed laws against it. But their 
 petitions were spurned from the throne. Their laws 
 were vetoed by the governors. In informal negotia 
 tions attempted with the ministers of the crown, the 
 friends of the slave were made to understand that roy 
 alty turned an adder s ear to their prayers. The pro- 
 foundest feelings of lamentation and abhorrence were 
 kindled in the bosoms of his western subjects by this 
 flagitious conduct of the king. In that dark catalogue 
 of crimes, which led our fathers to forswear allegiance 
 to the British throne, its refusal to prohibit the slave 
 trade to the colonies is made one of the most promi 
 nent of those political offences which are said to " de- 
 
fine a tyrant/ In the original draught of the Decla 
 ration of Independence, as prepared by Mr. Jefferson, 
 tli is crime of King George the Third is set forth in the 
 following words : 
 
 " He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, vio 
 lating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons 
 of a distant people who never offended him, captivating and 
 carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur 
 a miserable death in their transportation thither. This pirati 
 cal warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare 
 of the CHRISTIAN King of Great Britain. Determined to 
 keep a market where MEN should be bought and sold, he 
 has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative 
 attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce." 
 
 Now. if the King of Great Britain prostituted his 
 negative that slavery might not be restricted, what, in 
 after times, shall be said of those who prostitute their 
 affirmative that it may be extended ? Yet it is now- 
 proposed, in some of the state legislatures, and in this 
 Capitol, to do precisely the same thing, in regard to the 
 Territory of Oregon, which was done by Great Brit 
 ain to her transatlantic possessions : not merely to legal 
 ize slavery there, but to prohibit its inhabitants from 
 prohibiting it. Though three thousand miles west of 
 Great Britain, she had certain constitutional rights o vei 
 ns, and could affect our destiny. Though the inhab 
 itants of Oregon are three thousand miles west of us, 
 yet we have certain constitutional rights over them, 
 and can affect their destiny. Great Britain annulled 
 our laws for prohibiting slavery ; we propose to an 
 nul an existing law of Oregon prohibiting slavery. 
 If the execrations of mankind are yet too feeble and 
 too few to punish Great Britain for her wickedness, 
 what scope, what fulness, what eternity of execration 
 and anathema will be a sufficient retribution upon us, 
 if we volunteer to copy her example? It was in the 
 eighteenth century when the mother country thus 
 
58 
 
 made merchandise of human beings, a time when 
 liberty was a forbidden word in the languages of Eu 
 rope. It is in the nineteenth century that we propose 
 to reenact, and on an ampler scale, the same execrable 
 villany. a time when liberty is the rallying cry of 
 all Christendom. So great has been the progress of 
 liberal ideas within the last century, that what was 
 venial at its beginning is unpardonable at its close. 
 To drive coffles of slaves from here to Oregon, in the 
 middle of the nineteenth century, is more infamous 
 than it was to bring cargoes of slaves from Africa here, 
 in the middle of the eighteenth. Yet such is the pe 
 riod that men would select to perpetuate and increase 
 the horrors of this traffic. 
 
 Sir, how often, on this floor, have indignant remon 
 strances been addressed to the north, for agitating the 
 subject of slavery ? How often have we at the north 
 been told that we were inciting insurrection, foment 
 ing a servile war, putting the black man s knife to the 
 white man s throat. The air of this hall has been 
 filled, its walls have been, as it were, sculptured, by 
 southern eloquence, with images of devastated towns, 
 of murdered men and ravished women ; and, as a de 
 fence against the iniquities of the institution, they 
 have universally put in the plea that the calamity was 
 entailed upon them by the mother country, that it 
 made a part of the world they were born into, and 
 therefore they could not help it. I have always been 
 disposed to allow its full weight to this palliation. 
 But if they now insist upon perpetrating against the 
 whole western world, which happens at present to be 
 under our control, the same wrongs which, in darker 
 days, Great Britain perpetrated against them, they will 
 forfeit every claim to sympathy. Sir, here is a test. 
 Let not southern men, who would now force slavery 
 upon new regions, ever deny that their slavery at home 
 is a chosen, voluntary, beloved crime. 
 
09 
 
 But let us look, sir, at the moral character of slavery. 
 It is proposed not merely to continue this institution 
 where it now exists, but to extend it to the Pacific 
 Ocean, to spread it over the vast slopes of the Rocky 
 Mountains. Sir, the conduct of governments, like the 
 conduct of individuals, is subject to the laws and the 
 retributions of Providence. If, therefore, there is any 
 ingredient of wrong in this institution, we ought not 
 to adopt it, or to permit it, even though it should pour 
 wealth in golden showers over the whole surface of 
 the land. In speaking of the moral character of sla 
 very, sir, I mean to utter no word for the purpose of 
 wounding the feelings of any man. On the other 
 hand, 1 mean not to wound the cause of truth by ab 
 staining from the utterance of any word which I ought 
 to speak. 
 
 The institution of slavery is against natural right. 
 Jurists, from the time of Justinian ; orators, from the 
 time of Cicero ; poets, from the time of Homer, de 
 clare it to be wrong. The writers on moral or ethical 
 science, the expounders of the law of nations and 
 of God, denounce slavery as an invasion of the 
 rights of man. They find no warrant for it in the 
 eternal principles of justice and equity ; and in that, 
 great division which they set forth between right and 
 wrong, they arrange slavery in the catalogue of crime. 
 All the noblest instincts of human nature rebel against 
 it. Whatever has been taught by sage, or sung by 
 poet, in favor of freedom, is a virtual condemnation of 
 slavery. Whenever we applaud the great champions 
 of liberty, who, by the sacrifice of life in the cause of 
 freedom, have won the homage of the world arid an 
 immortality of fame, we record the testimony of our 
 hearts against slavery. Wherever patriotism and phi 
 lanthropy have glowed brightest ; wherever piety and 
 a devout religious sentiment have burned most fer 
 vently, there has been the most decided recognition of 
 the universal rights of man. 
 
60 
 
 Sir, let us analyze this subject, and see if slavery be 
 not the most compact, and concentrated, and con 
 densed system of wrong which the depravity of man 
 has ever invented. Slavery is said to have had its ori 
 gin in war. It is claimed that the captor had a right 
 to take the life of his captive ; and thnt if he spared 
 that life he made it his own, and thus acquired a right 
 to control it. I deny the right of the captor to the 
 life of his captive ; and even if this right were con 
 ceded, I deny his right to the life of the captive s 
 offspring. But this relation between captor and cap 
 tive precludes the idea of peace ; for no peace can be 
 made where there is no free agency. Peace being 
 precluded, it follows inevitably that the state of war 
 continues. Hence, the state of slavery is a slate of 
 war ; and though active hostilities may have ceased, 
 they are liable to break out, and may rightfully break 
 out, at any moment. How long must our fellow-citi 
 zens, who were enslaved in Algiers, have continued in 
 slavery, before they would have lost the right of es 
 cape or of resistance ? 
 
 The gentleman from Virginia, [Mr. BOCOCK,] in his 
 speech this morning, put the right of the slaveholder 
 upon a somewhat different ground. He said a man 
 might acquire property in a horse before the existence 
 of civil society, by catching a wild one. And sft, he 
 added, one man might acquire property in another 
 man, by subduing him to his will. The superior force 
 gave the right, whether to the horse or to the man. 
 Now, if this be so, and if at any time the superior 
 force should change sides, then it follows inevitably 
 that the relation of the parties might be rightfully 
 changed by a new appeal to force. 
 
 The same gentleman claims Bible authority for sla 
 very. He says, " I see slavery there tolerated, I had 
 almost said inculcated. I see such language as this : 
 1 Both thy bondmen and thy bondmaids shall be of the 
 
61 
 
 heathen that are round about you ; of them shall you 
 buy bondmen and bondmaids ; and ye shall take them 
 as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit 
 them for a possession, " &c. Does not the gentleman 
 know that, by the same authority, the Israelitish slaves 
 were commanded to despoil their Egyptian masters, 
 and to escape from bondage ? Surely the latter is as 
 good an authority as the former. If the gentleman s 
 argument is sound, he is bound to advocate a repeal 
 of the act of 1793. If the gentleman s argument is 
 sound, the free states, instead of surrendering fugitive 
 slaves to their masters, are bound to give those masters 
 a Red Sea reception and embrace ; and the escape of 
 the children of Israel into Canaan is a direct precedent 
 for the underground railroad to Canada. 
 
 Both the gentleman from Kentucky, [Mr. FRENCH,] 
 yesterday, and the gentleman from Virginia, to-day, 
 spoke repeatedly, and without the slightest discrimina 
 tion, of "a slave and a horse," "a slave and a mule," 
 &c. What should we think, sir, of a teacher for our 
 children, or even of a tender of our cattle, who did not 
 recognize the difference between men and mules, 
 between humanity and horse-flesh ? What should we 
 think, if, on opening a work, claiming to be a scien 
 tific treatise on zoology, we should find the author to 
 be ignorant of the difference between biped and quad 
 ruped, or between men and birds, or men and fishes ? 
 Yet such errors would be trifling compared with those 
 which have been made through all this debate. They 
 would be simple errors in natural history, perhaps 
 harmless; but these are errors, fatal errors, in hu 
 manity and Christian ethics. No, sir ; all the legisla 
 tion of the slave states proves that they do not treat, 
 and cannot treat, a human being as an animal. I will 
 show that they are ever trying to degrade him into an 
 animal, although they can never succeed. 
 
 This conscious idea that the state of slavery is a 
 6 
 
62 
 
 state of war, a state in which superior force keeps 
 inferior force down, develops and manifests itself 
 perpetually. It exhibits itself in the statute books of 
 the slave states, prohibiting the education of slaves, 
 making it highly penal to teach them so much as the 
 alphabet ; dispersing and punishing all meetings where 
 they come together in quest of knowledge. Look 
 into the statute books of the free states, and you will 
 mid law after law, encouragement after encouragement, 
 to secure the diffusion of knowledge. Look into the 
 statute books of the slave states, and you find law 
 after law, penalty after penalty, to secure the extinc 
 tion of knowledge. Who has not read with delight 
 those books which have been written, both in England 
 and in this country, entitled " The Pursuit of Knowl 
 edge under Difficulties," giving the biographies of 
 illustrious men, who, by an undaunted and indomita 
 ble spirit, had risen from poverty and obscurity to the 
 heights of eminence, and blessed the world with their 
 achievements in literature, in science, and in morals ? 
 Yet here, in what we call republican America, are fif 
 teen great states, vying with each other to see which 
 will bring the blackest and most impervious pall of 
 ignorance over three millions of human beings ; nay, 
 which can do most to stretch this pall across the con 
 tinent, from the Atlantic to the Pacific. 
 
 Is not knowledge a good ? Is it not one of the most 
 precious bounties which the all-bountiful Giver has 
 bestowed upon the human race? Sir John Herschel, 
 possessed of ample wealth, his capacious mind stored 
 with the treasures of knowledge, surrounded by the 
 most learned society in the most cultivated metropolis 
 in the world, says, " If I were to pray for a taste 
 which should stand me in stead, under every variety of 
 circumstances, and be a source of happiness and cheer 
 fulness to me through life, and a shield against its ills, 
 however things might go amiss, and the world frown 
 
63 
 
 upon me, it would be a taste for reading." Yet it is 
 now proposed to colonize the broad regions of the 
 west with millions of our fellow-beings, who shall 
 never be able to read a book, or write a word ; to 
 whom knowledge shall bring no delight in childhood, 
 no relief in the weary hours of sickness or convales 
 cence, no solace in the decrepitude of age ; who shall 
 perceive nothing of the beauties of art, who shall know 
 nothing of the wonders of science, who shall never 
 reach any lofty, intellectual conception of the attri 
 butes of their great Creator; deaf to all the hosan- 
 nas of praise which nature sings to her Maker ; blind 
 in this magnificent temple which God has builded. 
 
 Sir, it is one of the noblest attributes of man that 
 he can derive knowledge from his predecessors. We 
 possess the accumulated learning of ages. From 
 ten thousand confluent streams, the river of truth, 
 widened and deepened, has come down to us ; and it 
 is among our choicest delights, that if we can add to 
 its volume, as it rolls on, it will bear a richer freight 
 of blessings to our successors. But it is here proposed 
 to annul this beneficent law of nature ; to repel this 
 proffered bounty of Heaven. It is proposed to create 
 a race of men, to whom all the lights of experience 
 shall be extinguished; whose hundredth generation 
 shall be as ignorant and as barbarous as its first. 
 
 Sir, I hold all voluntary ignorance to be a crime ; I 
 hold all enforced ignorance to be a greater crime. 
 Knowledge is essential to all rational enjoyment ; it is 
 essential to the full and adequate performance of every 
 duty. Whoever intercepts knowledge, therefore, on 
 its passage to a human soul ; whoever strikes down 
 the hand that is outstretched to grasp it, is guilty of 
 one of the most heinous of offences. Add to your 
 virtue knowledge, says the apostle ; but here the com 
 mand is, Be-cloud and be-little by ignorance whatever 
 virtue you may possess. 
 
tu 
 
 Sir, let me justify the earnestness of these expres 
 sions by describing the transition of feeling through 
 which I have lately passed. I come from a commu 
 nity where knowledge ranks next to virtue in the clas 
 sification of blessings. On the tenth day of April last, 
 the day before I left home for this place, I attended 
 the dedication of a schoolhouse in Boston which had 
 cost $70,000. The mayor presided, and much of the 
 intelligence and worth of the city was present on the 
 occasion. I see by a paper which I have this day re 
 ceived, that another schoolhouse, in the same city, was 
 dedicated on Monday of the present week. It was 
 there stated by the mayor that the cost of the city 
 schoolhouses which had been completed within the 
 last three months was $200.000. On Tuesday of 
 this week, a new high schoolhouse in the city of Cam 
 bridge was dedicated. Mr. Everett, the president of 
 Harvard College, was present, and addressed the as 
 sembly in a long, and, I need not add, a most beauti 
 ful speech. That schoolhouse, with two others to be 
 dedicated within a week, will have cost $25,000. 
 Last week, in the neighboring city of CharJestown, a 
 new high schoolhouse, of a most splendid and costly 
 character, was dedicated by the mayor and city gov 
 ernment, by clergy arid laity. But it is not mayors 
 of cities and presidents of colleges alone that engage 
 in the work of consecrating temples of education to 
 the service of the young. Since I have been here, 
 the governor of the commonwealth, Mr. Briggs, went 
 to Newburyport, a distance of forty miles, to attend 
 the dedication of a schoolhouse which cost $25,000. 
 On a late occasion, when the same excellent chief 
 magistrate travelled forty miles to attend the dedi 
 cation of a schoolhouse in the country, some speaker 
 congratulated the audience because the governor of 
 the commonwealth had come down from the executive 
 chair to honor the occasion. " No," said he, "I have 
 
65 
 
 come up to the occasion to be honored by it." Within 
 the last year, $200,000 have been given by individu 
 als to Harvard College. Within a little longer time 
 than this, the other two colleges in the state have re 
 ceived, together, a still larger endowment from indi 
 viduals or the state. 
 
 These measures are part of a great system which 
 we are carrying on for the elevation of the race. Last 
 year, the voters of Massachusetts, in their respective 
 towns, voluntarily taxed themselves about a million 
 of dollars for the support of Common Schools. W^e 
 have an old law on the statute book, requiring towns 
 to tax themselves for the support of public schools; 
 but the people have long since lost sight of this 
 law in the munificence of their contributions. Mas 
 sachusetts is now erecting a reform school for vagrant 
 and exposed children, so many of whom come to 
 us from abroad, which will cost the state more than 
 a hundred thousand dollars. An unknown individual 
 has given twenty thousand dollars towards it. We 
 educate all our deaf and dumb and blind. An appro 
 priation was made by the last legislature to establish a 
 school for idiots, in imitation of those beautiful insti 
 tutions in Paris, in Switzerland, and in Berlin, where 
 the most revolting and malicious of this deplorable 
 class are tamed into docility, made lovers of order and 
 neatness, and capable of performing many valuable 
 services. The future teacher of this school is now 
 abroad, preparing himself for his work. A few years 
 ago, Mr. Everett, the present president of Harvard 
 College, then governor of the commonwealth, spoke 
 the deep cotivictions of Massachusetts people, when, in 
 a public address on education, he exhorted the fathers 
 and mothers of Massachusetts in the following words : 
 " Save," said he, " save, spare, scrape, stint, starve, do 
 any thing but steal," to educate your children. And 
 Doctor Howe, the noble-hearted director of the Insti- 
 6* 
 
66 
 
 tution for the Blind, lately uttered the deepest senti 
 ments of our citizens, when, in speaking of our duties 
 to the blind, the .deaf and dumb, and the idiotic, he 
 said, " The sight of any human being left to brutish 
 ignorance is always demoralizing to the beholders. 
 There floats not upon the stream of life a wreck of 
 humanity so utterly shattered and crippled, but that 
 its signals of distress should challenge attention and 
 command assistance." 
 
 Sir, it was all glowing and fervid with sentiments 
 like these, that, a few weeks ago, I entered this House, 
 sentiments transfused into my soul from without, 
 even if I had no vital spark of nobleness to kindle 
 them within. Imagine, then, my strong revulsion of 
 feeling, when the first set, elaborate speech which 1 
 heard, was that of the gentleman from Virginia, pro 
 posing to extend ignorance to the uttermost bounds of 
 this republic, to legalize it. to enforce it, to necessi 
 tate it, and make it eternal. Since him, many others 
 have advocated the same abhorrent doctrine. Not sat 
 isfied with dooming a whole race of our fellow- beings 
 to mental darkness, impervious and everlasting, not 
 satisfied with drawing this black curtain of ignorance 
 between man and nature, between the human soul and 
 its God, from the Atlantic to the Rio Grande, across 
 half the continent, they desire to increase this race 
 ten. twenty millions more, and to unfold and spread 
 out this black curtain across the other half of the con 
 tinent. When, sir, in the halls of legislation, men 
 advocate measures like this, it is no figure of speech 
 to say that their words are the clankings of multitudi 
 nous fetters ; each gesture of their arms tears human 
 flesh with ten thousand whips ; each exhalation of 
 their breath spreads clouds of moral darkness from 
 horizon to horizon. 
 
 Twenty years ago, a sharp sensation ran through the 
 nerves of the civilized world, at the story of a young 
 
67 
 
 man named Caspar Mauser, found in the city of Nurem 
 berg, in Bavaria. Though sixteen or seventeen years 
 of age, he could not walk nor talk. He heard without 
 understanding ; he saw without perceiving; he moved 
 without definite purpose. It was the soul of an infant 
 in (he body of "an adult. After he had learned to 
 speak, he related that, from his earliest recollection, 
 he had always been kept in a hole so small, that he 
 could not stretch out his limbs, where he saw no 
 light, heard no sound, nor even witnessed the face of 
 the attendant who brought him his scanty food. For 
 many years conjecture was rife concerning his history, 
 and all Germany was searched to discover his origin. 
 After a long period of fruitless inquiry and specula 
 tion, public opinion settled down into the belief that 
 he was the victim of some great unnatural crime ; 
 that he was the heir to some throne, and had been 
 sequestered by ambition ; or the inheritor of vast 
 wealth, and had been hidden away by cupidity ; or 
 the offspring of criminal indulgence, and had been 
 buried alive to avoid exposure and shame. A German, 
 Von Feuerbach, published an account of Caspar, en 
 titled "The Example of a Crime on the Life of the 
 Soul." But why go to Europe to be thrilled with the 
 pathos of a human being shrouded from the light of 
 nature, and cut off from a knowledge of duty and of 
 God?. To-day, in this boasted land of light and lib 
 erty, there are three million Caspar Hausers ; and, as 
 if this were not enough, it is proposed to multiply 
 their number tenfold, and to fill up all the western 
 world with these proofs of human avarice and guilt. 
 it is proposed that we ourselves should create and 
 should publish to the world, not one, but untold mil 
 lions of "Examples of a Crime on the Life of the 
 Soul" It is proposed that the self-styled freemen, the 
 self-styled Christians, of fifteen great states in this 
 American Union, shall engage in the work of procre- 
 
68 
 
 ating, rearing, and selling Caspar Hausers, often from 
 their own loins ; and if any further development of 
 soul or of body is allowed to the American victims 
 than was permitted to the Bavarian child, it is only 
 because such development will increase their market 
 value at the barracoons. It is not from any difference 
 of motive, but only the better to insure that motive s 
 indulgence. The slave child must be allowed to use 
 his limbs, or how could he drudge out his life in the 
 service of his master? The slave infant must be 
 taught to walk, or how, under the shadow of this 
 thrice-glorious Capitol, could he join a coffle for New 
 Orleans ? 
 
 I know, sir, that it has been said, within a short time 
 past, that Caspar Hauser was an impostor, and his story 
 a fiction. Would to God that this could ever be said 
 of his fellow-victims in America ! 
 
 For another reason slavery is an unspeakable wrong. 
 The slave is debarred from testifying against a white 
 man. The courts will not hear him as a witness. By 
 the principles of the common law, if any man suffers 
 violence at the hands of another, he can prefer his 
 complaint to magistrates, or to the grand juries of the 
 courts, who are bound to give him redress. Hence 
 the law is said to hold up its shield before every man 
 for his protection. It surrounds him in the crowded 
 street and in the solitary place. It guards his treas 
 ures with greater vigilance than locks or iron safes ; 
 and against meditated aggressions upon himself, his 
 wife, or his children, it fastens his doors every night 
 more securely than triple bolts of brass. But all these 
 sacred protections are denied to the slave. While sub 
 jected to the law of force, he is shut out from the law 
 of right. To suffer injury is his, but never to obtain 
 redress. For personal cruelties, for stripes that shiver 
 his flesh, and blows that break his bones, for robbery 
 or for murder, neither he nor his friends can have pre- 
 
69 
 
 ventive, remedy, or recompense. The father, who is 
 a slave, may see son or daughter scored, mangled, mu 
 tilated, or ravished before his eyes, and he must be 
 dumb as a sheep before its shearers. The wife may 
 be dishonored in the presence of the husband, and, if 
 he remonstrates or rebels, the miscreant who could burn 
 with the lust will burn not less fiercely with a ven 
 geance to be glutted upon his foiler. 
 
 Suppose, suddenly, by some disastrous change in 
 the order of nature, an entire kingdom or community 
 were to be enveloped in total darkness, to have no 
 day, no dawn, but midnight evermore ! Into what 
 infinite forms of violence and wrong would the de 
 praved passions of the human heart spring up, when 
 no longer restrained by the light of day, and the dan 
 gers of exposure ! So far as legal rights against his 
 oppressors are concerned, the slave lives in such a 
 world of darkness. A hundred of his fellows may 
 stand around him and witness the wrongs he suffers, 
 but not one of them can appeal to jury, magistrate, or 
 judge, for punishment or redress. The wickedest 
 white man, in a company of slaves, bears a charmed 
 life. There is not one of the fell passions that rages 
 in his bosom which he cannot indulge with wanton 
 ness and to satiety, and the court has no ears to hear 
 the complaint of the victim. How dearly does every 
 honorable man prize character ! The law denies the 
 slave a character ; for, however traduced, legal vindi 
 cation is impossible. 
 
 And yet, infinitely flagrant as the anomaly is, the 
 slave is amenable to the laws of the land for all of 
 fences which he may commit against others, though 
 he is powerless to protect himself by the same law 
 from offences which others may commit against him. 
 He may suffer all wrong, and the courts will not 
 hearken to his testimony; but for the first wrong he 
 does, the same courts inflict their severest punishments 
 
TO 
 
 upon him. This is the reciprocity of slave la\\ r , to 
 be forever liable to be proved guilty, but never able to 
 prove himself innocent ; to be subject to all punish 
 ments, but, through his own oath, to no protection. 
 Hear what is said by the highest judicial tribunal 
 of South Carolina : " Although slaves are held to be 
 the absolute property of their owners, yet they have 
 the power of committing crimes." 2d Nott and 
 McCord s Rep., p. 179. A negro is so far amenable 
 to the common law, that he may be one of three to 
 constitute the number necessary to make a riot. 1st 
 Bay s Rep., 358. By the laws of the same state, a 
 negro may be himself stolen, and he has no redress ; 
 but if he steals a negro from another, he shall be hung. 
 2d Nott and McCord s Rep., 179. [An example 
 of this penalty suffered by a slave.] This is the way 
 that slave legislatures and slave judicatories construe 
 the command of Christ, " Whatsoever ye would that 
 men should do unto you, do ye also the same unto 
 them." Nay, by the laws of some of the slave states, 
 where master and slave are engaged in a joint act, the 
 slave is indictable, while the master is not. 
 
 What rights are more sacred or more dear to us than 
 the conjugal and the parental ? No savage nation, 
 however far removed from the frontiers of civilization, 
 has ever yet been discovered, where these rights were 
 unknown or un honored. The beasts of the forest feel 
 and respect them. It is only in the land of slaves that 
 they are blotted out and annihilated. 
 
 Slavery is an unspeakable wrong to the conscience. 
 The word "conscience " conveys a complex idea. It 
 includes conscientiousness j that is, the sentiment or 
 instinct of right and wrong ; and also intelligence, 
 which is the guide of this sentiment. Conscience, 
 then, implies both the desire or impulse to do right, and 
 also a knowledge of what is right. Nature endows us 
 with the sentiment, but the knowledge we must ac- 
 
71 
 
 quire. Hence we speak of an " enlightened con 
 science," meaning thereby not only the moral sense, but 
 that knowledge of circumstances, relations, tendencies 
 and results, which is necessary in order to guide the 
 moral sense to just conclusions. Each of these elements 
 is equally necessary to enable a man to feel rightly and 
 to act rightly. Mere knowledge, without the moral 
 sense, can take no cognizance of the everlasting dis 
 tinctions between right and wrong ; and so the blind 
 instinct, unguided by knowledge, will be forever at 
 fault in its conclusions. The two were made to coexist 
 and operate together by Him who made the human 
 soul. But the impious hand of man divorces these 
 twin capacities, wherever it denies knowledge. If one 
 of these coordinate powers in the mental realm be an 
 nulled by the legislature, it may be called law ; but it 
 is repugnant to every law and attribute of God. 
 
 But, not satisfied with having invaded the human 
 soul, and annihilated one of its most sacred attributes, 
 in the persons of three millions of our fellow-men ; not 
 satisfied with having killed the conscience, as far as it 
 can be killed by human device, and human force, in 
 an entire race ; we are now invoked to multiply that 
 race, to extend it over regions yet unscathed by its ex 
 istence, and there to call into being other millions of 
 men, upon whose souls, and upon the souls of whose 
 posterity, the same unholy spoliation shall be commit 
 ted forever. 
 
 Slavery is an unspeakable wrong to the religious 
 nature of man. The dearest and most precious of all 
 human rights is the right of private judgment in mat 
 ters of religion. I am interested in nothing else so 
 much as in the attributes of my Creator, and in the 
 relations which he has established between me and 
 himself, for time and for eternity. To investigate 
 for myself these relations, and their momentous conse 
 quences ; to " search the Scriptures ; " to explore the 
 
72 
 
 works of God in the outward and visible universe ; to 
 ask counsel of the sages and divines of the ages gone 
 by, these are rights which it would be sacrilege in 
 me to surrender ; which it is a worse sacrilege in any 
 human being or human government to usurp. Yet, by 
 denying education to the slave, you destroy not merely 
 the right, but the power, of personal examination in 
 regard to all that most nearly concerns the soul s inter 
 ests. Who so base as not to reverence the .mighty 
 champions of religious freedom, in days when the 
 dungeon, the rack, and the fagot were the arguments 
 of a government theology ? Who does not reverence, 
 I say, Wickliffe, Huss, Luther, and the whole army of 
 martyrs whose blood reddened the axe of English in 
 tolerance ? Yet it was only for this right of private 
 judgment, for this independence of another man s 
 control in religious concernments, that the godlike 
 champions of religious liberty perilled themselves and 
 perished. Yet it is this very religious despotism over 
 millions of men which it is now proposed, not to 
 destroy, but to create. It is proposed not to break old 
 fetters and cast them away, but to forge new ones and 
 rivet them on. Sir, on the continent of Europe, and 
 in the Tower of London, I have seen the axes, the 
 chains, and other horrid implements of death, by which 
 the great defenders of freedom for the soul were 
 brought to their final doom, by which political and 
 religious liberty was cloven down ; but fairer arid 
 lovelier to the view were axe and chain, and all the 
 ghastly implements of death ever invented by religious 
 bigotry or civil despotism to wring and torture freedom 
 out of the soul of man ; fairer and lovelier were they 
 all than the parchment roll of this House on which 
 shall be inscribed a law for profaning one additional 
 foot of American soil with the curse of slavery. 
 
73 
 
 After the above speech was delivered, I was referred 
 to a Tract, written by a Virginian, on the subject of 
 slavery ; and, by the politeness of its author, I have 
 since obtained a copy of it. It is entitled, " Address 
 to the People of West Virginia ; showing that Slavery 
 is injurious to the public welfare, and that it may be 
 gradually abolished, without detriment to the rights 
 and interests of Slaveholders. BY A SLAVEHOLDER OF 
 WEST VIRGINIA. Lexington : R. 0. Noel. 1847. This 
 Address was written by the Rev. Henry RufTner, D. D., 
 president of Lexington College, Lexington, Va. Some 
 of the passages of this Address are so striking ; it is 
 throughout so corroborative of one of the arguments 
 contained in the speech ; and coming, as it does, from 
 a Virginian, an eye-witness of the effects of slavery, 
 and a holder of slaves, that I have thought it would be 
 useful to append them. The extracts, of course, are not, 
 as here, consecutive. 
 
 Nowhere, since time began, have the two systems of 
 slave labor and free labor been subjected to so fair and so de 
 cisive a trial of their effects on public prosperity as in these 
 United States. Here the two systems have worked side by 
 side for ages, under such equal circumstances, both political 
 and physical, and with such ample time and opportunity for 
 each to work out its proper effects, that all must admit the ex 
 periment to be now complete, and the result decisive. No 
 man of common sense, who has observed this result, can 
 doubt for a moment that the system of free labor promotes 
 the growth and prosperity of states in a much higher degree 
 than the system of slave labor. In the first settlement of a 
 country, when labor is scarce and dear, slavery may give a 
 temporary impulse to improvement ; but even this is not the 
 case, except in warm climates, and where free men are scarce 
 and either sickly or lazy ; and when we have said this, we 
 7 
 
74 
 
 have said all that experience in the United States warrants us 
 to say, in favor of the policy of employing slave labor. 
 
 It is the common remark of all who have travelled through 
 the United States, that the free states and the slave states 
 exhibit a striking contrast in their appearance. In the older 
 free states are seen all the tokens of prosperity ; a dense 
 and increasing population ; thriving villages, towns, and cities ; 
 a neat and productive agriculture, growing manufactures, and 
 active commerce. 
 
 In the older parts of the slave states, with a few local 
 exceptions, are seen, on the contrary, too evident signs of 
 stagnation, or of positive decay ; a sparse population, a 
 slovenly cultivation spread over vast fields that are wearing out, 
 among others already worn out and desolate ; villages and towns, 
 14 few and far between," rarely growing, often decaying, some 
 times mere remnants of what they were, sometimes deserted 
 ruins, haunted only by owls ; generally no manufactures, nor 
 even trades, except the indispensable few ; commerce and 
 navigation abandoned, as far as possible, to the people of the 
 free states ; and generally, instead of the stir and bustle of 
 industry, a dull and dreamy stillness, broken, if broke at all, 
 only by the wordy brawl of politics. 
 
 New England and the middle states of New York, New 
 Jersey, and Pennsylvania contained, in 1790, 1,968,000 in 
 habitants, and in 1840, 6,760,000; having gained, in this pe 
 riod, 243 per cent. 
 
 The four old slave states had, in 1790, a population of 
 1,473,000, and in 1840, of 3,279,000 ; having gained, in the 
 same period, 122 per cent., just about half as much, in pro 
 portion, as the free states. They ought to have gained about 
 twice as much ; for they had at first only seven inhabitants to 
 the square mile, when the free states not only had upwards of 
 twelve, but, on the whole, much inferior advantages of soil and 
 climate. Even cold, barren New England, though more than 
 twice as thickly peopled, grew in population at a faster rate 
 than these old slave states. 
 
 About half the territory of these old slave states is new 
 country, and has comparatively few slaves. On this part the 
 increase of population has chiefly taken place. On the old 
 slave-labored lowlands, a singular phenomena has appeared ; 
 
75 
 
 there, within the bounds of these rapidly growing United 
 States, yes, there, population has been long at a stand ; 
 yes, over wide regions, especially in Virginia, it has de 
 clined, and a new wilderness is gaining upon the cultivated 
 land ! What has done this work of desolation ? Not war, 
 nor pestilence ; not oppression of rulers, civil or ecclesiasti 
 cal ; but slavery, a curse more destructive in its effects than 
 any of them. It were hard to find, in old king-ridden, priest- 
 ridden, overtaxed Europe, so large a country, where, within 
 twenty years past, such a growing poverty and desolation have 
 appeared. 
 
 It is in the last period of ten years, from 1830 to 1840, that 
 this consuming plague of slavery has shown its worst effects 
 in the old Southern States. Including the increase in their 
 newly-settled and western counties, they gained in population 
 only 7 per cent. ; while cold, barren, thickly peopled New 
 England gained 15, and the old Middle States 26 per cent. 
 East Virginia actually fell off 26,000 in population ; and, 
 with the exception of Richmond and one or two other towns, 
 her population continues to decline. Old Virginia was the 
 first to sow this land of ours with slavery ; she is also the first 
 to reap the full harvest of destruction. Her lowland neigh 
 bors of Maryland and the Carolinas were not far behind at 
 the seeding ; nor are they far behind at the ingathering of 
 desolation. 
 
 Let us take the rich and beautiful State of Kentucky, com 
 pared with her free neighbor Ohio. The slaves of Kentucky 
 have composed less than a fourth part of her population. But 
 mark their effect upon the comparative growth of the state. 
 In the year 1800, Kentucky contained 221,000 inhabitants, 
 and Ohio, 45,000. In forty years, the population of Kentucky 
 had risen to 780,000 ; that of Ohio to 1,519,000. This won 
 derful difference could not be owing to any natural superiority 
 of the Ohio country. Kentucky is nearly as large, nearly as 
 fertile, and quite equal, in other gifts of nature. She had 
 greatly the advantage, too, in the outset of this forty years 1 
 race of population. She started with 5 inhabitants to the 
 square mile, and came out with 20 : Ohio started with one in 
 habitant to the square mile, and came out with 38. Kentucky 
 had full possession of her territory at the beginning. Much 
 of Ohio was then, and for a long time afterwards, in posses- 
 
76 
 
 sion of the Indians. Ohio is by this time considerably more 
 than twice as thickly peopled as Kentucky ; yet she still gains, 
 both by natural increase and by the influx of emigrants ; 
 while Kentucky has for twenty years been receiving much 
 fewer emigrants than Ohio, and multitudes of her citizens have 
 been yearly moving off to newer and yet newer countries. 
 
 Compare this natural increase with the census returns, and 
 it appears that, in the ten years from 1830 to 1840, Virginia 
 lost by emigration no fewer than 375,000 of her people, of 
 whom East Virginia lost 304,000, and West Virginia 71,000. 
 At this rate Virginia supplies the west every ten years with a 
 population equal in number to the population of the State of 
 Mississippi in 1840 ! 
 
 Some Virginia politicians, proudly, yes, proudly, fellow- 
 citizens, call our old commonwealth The Mother of States ! 
 These enlightened patriots might pay her a still higher com 
 pliment, by calling her The Grandmother of States. For our 
 part, we are grieved and mortified to think of the lean and 
 haggard condition of our venerable mother. Her black chil 
 dren have sucked her so dry, that now, for a long time past, 
 she has not milk enough for her offspring, either black or 
 white. 
 
 She has sent, or we should rather say, she has driven, 
 from her soil at least one third of all the emigrants who have 
 gone from the old states to the new. More than another third 
 have gone from the other old slave states. Many of these 
 multitudes, who have left the slave states, have shunned the 
 regions of slavery, and settled in the free countries of the 
 west. These were generally industrious and enterprising 
 white men, who found, by sad experience, that a country of 
 slaves was not the country for them. It is a truth, a certain 
 truth, that slavery drives free laborers, farmers, mechanics, 
 and all, and some of the best of them too, out of the coun 
 try, and Jills their places with negroes. 
 
 It is admitted on all hands, that slave labor is better adapted 
 to agriculture than to any other branch of industry ; and that, 
 if not good for agriculture, it is really good for nothing. 
 
 Therefore, since in agriculture slave labor is proved to be 
 far less productive than free labor, slavery is demonstrated 
 to be not only unprofitable, but deeply injurious to the public 
 prosperity. 
 
77 
 
 We do not mean that slave labor can never earn any thing 
 for him that employs it. The question is between free labor 
 ;unl slave labor. He that chooses to employ a sort of labor 
 that yields only half as much to the hand as another sort 
 would yield, makes a choice that is not only unprofitable, but 
 deeply injurious to his interest. 
 
 Agriculture in the slave states may be characterized in 
 general by two epithets, extensive, exhaustive, which in all 
 agricultural countries forebode two things, impoverishment, 
 depopulation. The general system of slaveholding farmers 
 and planters, in all times and places, has been, and now is, 
 and ever will be, to cultivate much land, badly, for present 
 gain, in short, to kill the goose that lays the golden egg. 
 They cannot do otherwise with laborers who work by compul 
 sion, for the benefit only of their masters, and whose sole in 
 terest in the matter is to do as little and to consume as much 
 as possible. 
 
 This ruinous system of large farms cultivated by slaves 
 showed its effects in Italy, eighteen hundred years ago, when 
 the Roman empire was at the height of its grandeur. 
 
 Pliny, a writer of that age, in his Natural History, (Book 
 18, c. 1-7,) tells us, that while the small farms of former 
 times were cultivated by freemen, and even great command 
 ers did not disdain to labor with their own hands, agriculture 
 flourished, and provisions were abundant ; but that afterwards, 
 when the lands were engrossed by a few great proprietors, 
 and cultivated by fettered and branded slaves, the country 
 was ruined, and corn had to be imported. The same system 
 was spreading ruin over the provinces, and thus the prosperity 
 of the empire was undermined. Pliny denounces, as the 
 worst of all, the system of having large estates in the country 
 cultivated by slaves, or indeed, says he, " to have any thing 
 done by men who labor without hope of reward" 
 
 So Livy, the great Roman historian, observed, some years 
 before Pliny, (Book 6, c. 12,) that u innumerable multitudes 
 of men formerly inhabited those parts of Italy, where, in his 
 time, none but slaves redeemed the country from desertion ;" 
 that is, a dense population of free laborers had been suc 
 ceeded by a sparse population of slaves. 
 
 Even the common mechanical trades do not flourish in a 
 slave state. Some mechanical operations must, indeed, be 
 7* 
 
performed in every civilized country ; but the gener.il rule in 
 the south is, to import from abroad every fabricated thing that 
 can be carried in ships, such as household furniture, boats, 
 boards, laths, carts, ploughs, axes, and axehelves, besides in 
 numerable other things, which free communities are accus 
 tomed to make for themselves. What is most wonderful is, 
 that the forests and iron mines of the south supply, in great 
 part, the materials out of which these things ore made. The 
 northern freemen come with their ships, carry home the tim 
 ber and pig iron, work them up, supply their own wants with 
 a part, and then sell the rest at a good profit in the southern 
 markets. Now, although mechanics, by setting up their shops 
 in the south, could save all these freights and profits, yet so 
 it is, that northern mechanics will not settle in the south, and 
 the southern mechanics are undersold by their northern com 
 petitors. 
 
 Now connect with these wonderful facts another fact, and 
 the mystery is solved. The number of mechanics, in differ 
 ent parts of the south, is in the inverse ratio of the number 
 of slaves ; or in other words, where the slaves form the largest 
 proportion of the inhabitants, there the mechanics and manu 
 facturers form the least. In those parts only where the slaves 
 are comparatively few, are many mechanics and artificers to 
 be found ; but even in these parts they do not flourish as the 
 same useful class of men flourish in the free states. Even 
 in our Valley of Virginia, remote from the sea, many of our 
 mechanics can hardly stand against northern competition. 
 This can be attributed only to slavery, which paralyzes our 
 energies, disperses our population, and keeps us few and poor, 
 in spite of the bountiful gifts of nature with which a benign 
 Providence has endowed our country. 
 
 Of all the states in this Union, not one has on the whole 
 such various and abundant resources for manufacturing as 
 our own Virginia, both East and West. Only think of her 
 vast forests of timber, her mountains of iron, her regions of 
 stone coal, her valleys of limestone and marble, her fountains 
 of salt, her immense sheep-walks for wool, her vicinity to the 
 cotton fields, her innumerable waterfalls, her bays, harbors, 
 and rivers for circulating products on every side ; in short, 
 every material and every convenience necessary for manufac 
 turing industry. 
 
79 
 
 Above all, think of Richmond, nature s chosen site for the 
 greatest manufacturing city in America, her beds of coal 
 ami iron, just at hand, her incomparable water power, her 
 tide-water navigation, conducting sea vessels from the foot of 
 her falls, and above them her fine canal to the mountains, 
 through which lie the shortest routes from the eastern tides to 
 the great rivers of the west and the south-west. Think, also, 
 that this Richmond, in old Virginia, " the mother of states," 
 has enjoyed these unparalleled advantages ever since the 
 United States became a nation ; and then think again, that 
 this same Richmond, the metropolis of all Virginia, has fewer 
 manufactures than a third-rate New England town; fewer, 
 not than the new city of Lowell, which is beyond all compar 
 ison, but fewer than the obscure place called Fall River, 
 among the barren hills of Massachusetts; and then, fellow- 
 citizens, what will you think, what must you think, of the 
 cause of this strange phenomenon ? Or, to enlarge the scope 
 of the question : What must you think has caused Virginians in 
 general to neglect their superlative advantages for manufac 
 turing industry? to disregard the evident suggestions of 
 nature, pointing out to them this fruitful source of population, 
 wealth, and comfort ? 
 
 Say not that this state of things is chargeable to the apathy 
 of Virginians. That is nothing to the purpose, for it does not 
 go to the bottom of the subject. What causes the apathy ? 
 That is the question. 
 
 The last census gave also the cost of constructing new 
 buildings in each state, exclusive of the value of the materials. 
 The amount of this is a good test of the increase of wealth 
 in a country. To compare different states in this particular, 
 we must divide the total cost of building by the number of 
 inhabitants, and see what the average will be for each inhab 
 itant. We find that it is in Massachusetts, $3*60 ; in Con 
 necticut, $3-50 ; in New York, $3*00 ; in New Jersey, $2-70 ; 
 in Pennsylvania, $3-10; in Maryland, $2 30 ; and in Vir 
 ginia, $1 10. 
 
 No state has greater conveniences for ship navigation and 
 ship building than Virginia. Yet on all her fine tide waters 
 she has little shipping ; and what she has is composed almost 
 wholly of small bay craft and a few coasting schooners. 
 
 We do not blame our southern people for abstaining from 
 
80 
 
 all employments of this kind. What could they do? Set 
 their negroes to building ships ? Who ever imagined such 
 an absurdity ? But could they not hire white men to do such 
 things ? No ; for, in the first place, southern white men have 
 no skill in such matters ; and, in the second place, northern 
 workmen cannot be hired in the south, without receiving a 
 heavy premium for working in a slave state. 
 
 The boast of our West Virginia is the good city of Wheel 
 ing. Would that she was six times as large, that she might 
 equal Pittsburg, and that she grew five times as fast, that she 
 might keep up with her ! 
 
 We glory in Wheeling, because she only, in Virginia, de 
 serves to be called a manufacturing town. For this her citi 
 zens deserve to be crowned, not with laurel, but with the 
 solid gold of prosperity. But how came it that W T heelirig, 
 and next to her, Wellsburg, of all the towns in Virginia, 
 should become manufacturing towns ? Answer : They 
 breathe the atmosphere of free states, almost touching them 
 on both sides. But again ; seeing that Wheeling, as a seat 
 for manufactures, is equal to Pittsburg, and inferior to no town 
 in America, except Richmond ; and that, moreover, she has 
 almost no slaves ; why is Wheeling so far behind Pittsburg, 
 and comparatively so slow in her growth ? Answer : She is 
 in a country in which slavery is established by law. 
 
 We shall explain, by examples, how a few slaves in a coun 
 try may do its citizens more immediate injury than a large 
 number. 
 
 When a white family own fifty or one hundred slaves, they 
 can, so long as their land produces well, afford to be indolent 
 and expensive in their habits ; for though each yields only a 
 small profit, yet each member of the family has ten or fifteen 
 of these black work-animals to toil for his support. It is not 
 until the fields grow old, and the crops grow short, and the 
 negroes and the overseer take nearly all, that the day of ruin 
 can be no longer postponed. If the family be not very indo 
 lent and I ery expensive, this inevitable day may not come be 
 fore the third generation. But the ruin of small slaveholders 
 is often accomplished in a single lifetime. 
 
 When a white family own five or ten slaves, they cannot 
 afford to be indolent and expensive in their habits ; for one 
 black drudge cannot support one white gentleman or lady. 
 
Yet, because they arc slaveholders, this family will feel some 
 aspirations for a life of easy gentility; and because field work 
 and kitchen work arc negroes work, the young gentlemen 
 will dislike to go with the negroes to dirty field work, and the 
 young ladies will dislike to join the black sluts in any sort of 
 household labor. Such unthrifty sentiments are the natural 
 consequence of introducing slaves among the families of a 
 country, especially negro slaves. They infallibly grow and 
 spread, creating among the white families a distaste for all 
 servile labor, and a desire to procure slaves who may take all 
 drudgery off their hands. Thus general industry gives way 
 by degrees to indolent relaxation, false notions of dignity and 
 refinement, and a taste for fashionable luxuries. Then debts 
 slyly accumulate. The result is, that many families are com 
 pelled by their embarrassments to sell off and leave the 
 country. Many who are unable to buy slaves leave it also, . 
 because they feel degraded, and cannot prosper, where sla- 
 verv exists. Citizens of the valley ! is it not so ? Is not this 
 the chief reason why your beautiful country does not prosper 
 like the northern valleys ? 
 
 We have examined the census of counties for the last 
 thirty or forty years, in Maryland, Virginia, and North Caro 
 lina, with the view to discover the law of population in the 
 northern slave states. The following are among the general 
 results : 
 
 When a county had at first comparatively few slaves, the 
 slave population, except near the free borders, gained upon 
 the whites, and most rapidly in the older parts of the 
 country. 
 
 The population, as a whole, increased so long as the slaves 
 were fewer than the whites, but more slowly as the numbers 
 approached to equality. In our valley, a smaller proportion 
 of slaves had the effect of a larger one in East Virginia, to 
 retard the increase of population. 
 
 When the slaves became as numerous as the whites in the 
 eastern and older parts of the country, population came to a 
 stand ; when they outnumbered the whites, it declined. Con 
 sequently, the slave population has tended to diffuse itself 
 equally over the country, rising more rapidly as it was fur 
 ther below the white population, and going down when it had 
 risen above them. 
 
82 
 
 The price of cotton has regulated the price of negroes in 
 Virginia ; and so it must continue to do ; hccause slave labor 
 is unprofitable here, and nothing keeps up the price of slaves 
 but their value as a marketable commodity in the south. 
 Eastern negroes and western cattle are alike in this, that, if 
 the market abroad go down or be closed, both sorts of ani 
 mals, the horned and the woolly-headed, become a worthless 
 drug at home. The fact is, that our eastern brethren must 
 send off, on any terms, the increase of their slaves, because 
 their impoverished country cannot sustain even its present 
 stock of negroes. We join not the English and American 
 abolition cry about " slave-breeding" in East Virginia, as if it 
 were a chosen occupation, and therefore a reproachful one. 
 It is no such thing, but a case of dire necessity, and many a 
 heartache does it cost the good people there. But behold in 
 the east the doleful consequences of letting slavery grow up 
 to an oppressive and heart-sickening burden upon a commu 
 nity ! Cast it off, West Virginians, whilst yet you have the 
 power ; for if you let it descend unbroken to your children, 
 it will have grown to a mountain of misery upon their heads. 
 
 Good policy will require the Southern States, ere long, lo 
 close their markets against northern negroes. When the 
 southern slave market is closed, or when, by the reduced prof 
 its of slave labor in the south, it becomes glutted, then the 
 stream of Virginia negroes, heretofore pouring down upon 
 the south, will be thrown back upon the state, and, like a 
 river dammed up, must spread itself over the whole territory 
 of the commonwealth. The head spring in East Virginia 
 cannot contain itself; it must find vent; it will shed its black 
 streams through every gap of the Blue Ridge and pour over 
 the Alleghany, till it is checked by abolitionism on the bor 
 ders. But even abolitionism cannot finally stop it. Aboli 
 tionism itself will tolerate slavery, when slaveholders grow 
 sick and tired of it. 
 
 In plain terms, fellow-citizens, eastern slaveholders will 
 come with their multitudes of slaves to settle upon the fresh 
 lands of West Virginia. Eastern slaves will be sent by thou 
 sands for a market in West Virginia. Every valley will 
 echo with the cry, " Negroes ! Negroes for sale ! Dog 
 cheap ! Dog cheap ! " And because they are dog cheap, 
 many of our people will buy them. We have shown how 
 
83 
 
 slavery has prepared the people for this ; how a little slavery 
 makes way for more, and how the law of slave increase op- 
 rrntes to fill up every part of the country to the same level 
 with slaves. 
 
 And then, fellow-citizens, when you have suffered your 
 country to be filled with negro slaves instead of white free 
 men ; when its population shall be as motley as Joseph s coat 
 of many colors ; as ring-streaked and speckled as father 
 Jacob s flock was in Padan Aram, what will the white basis 
 of representation avail you, if you obtain it? Whether you 
 obtain it or not, East Virginia will have triumphed ; or, rather, 
 slavery will have triumphed, and all Virginia will have be 
 come a land of darkness and of the shadow of death. 
 
 Then, by a forbearance which has no merit, and a supine- 
 ness which has no excuse, you will have given to your chil 
 dren, for their inheritance, this lovely land blackened with a 
 negro population, the offscourings of Eastern Virginia, 
 the fag-end of slavery, the loathsome dregs of that cup of 
 abomination which has already sickened to death the eastern 
 half of our commonwealth. 
 
 Delay, not, then, we beseech you, to raise a barrier against 
 this Stygian inundation, to stand at the Blue Ridge, and 
 with sovereign energy say to this Black Sea of misery, 
 " Hitherto shalt thou come, and no farther." 
 
84 
 
 SKETCH 
 
 OF THE OPENING ARGUMENT IN THE CASE OF THE UNITED 
 STATES vs. DANIEL DRAYTON, INDICTED, (IN FORTY-ONE SEV 
 ERAL BILLS OF INDICTMENT,) FOR STEALING AND CARRYING 
 
 AWAY, IN THE SCHOONER PEARL, A CARGO OF SLAVES FROM 
 
 WASHINGTON, IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, ON THE NIGHT 
 
 OF THE 15TH OF APRIL, 1848 ; TRIED BEFORE THOMAS H. 
 
 CRAWFORD, JUDGE OF THE CRIMINAL COURT OF THE DIS 
 TRICT OF COLUMBIA. P. B. KEY, DISTRICT ATTORNEY ; HOR 
 ACE MANN AND JAMES M. CARLISLE, COUNSEL FOR THE PRIS 
 ONER. 
 
 GENTLEMEN OF THE JURY ; 
 
 I rise before you under circumstances rarely ex 
 ceeded in embarrassment. I am an utter stranger to 
 his honor, the judge, and to all of you, gentlemen, 
 who compose the jury. Among all the eager faces in 
 this crowded hall, there is not one with which I am 
 familiar. I suppose there is not one man in this vast 
 assembly who has any sympathy for my client or 
 for me. 
 
 The case before us is acknowledged, on all sides, 
 to be one of great moment. It directly affects human 
 interests, large pecuniary interests, and these are 
 among the most active and powerful of human impulses. 
 It is a case which has given birth to great excitement. 
 It has been narrated with formidable exaggerations in 
 the public papers ; it has been angrily discussed in both 
 houses of Congress, and bruited over the land. From 
 what has transpired in and about this court room, since 
 the trial commenced, I perceive that each individual 
 seems not only to be convinced that the prisoner at the 
 bar has committed a great offence, but, like a light 
 
85 
 
 reflected from a multiplying glass, he sees that offence 
 multiplied a thousand fold in the opinions and feelings 
 of those around him. I cannot forbear to add, that it 
 is a case, also, which, in some of its aspects, touches 
 the deepest and tenderest sympathies of the human 
 heart ; for this prosecution not only deals with human 
 beings as offenders, but with human beings and human 
 rights, as the subject matters of the offence. 
 
 We have been called to trial, too, at an untimely 
 hour. I have not had time for the preparation and 
 investigation which so important a case demands. 
 Added to this, my colleague, [Mr. CARLISLE,] was taken 
 ill on the day he was retained, and, until the even 
 ing immediately preceding the commencement of the 
 trial, I had no opportunity for a single interview with 
 him, and then but for an hour, in his sick chamber. 
 During all this time, too, as some of you may know, 
 my attention has been called away by official duties 
 elsewhere. 
 
 Gentlemen, let me come a little closer to my rela 
 tions to this case and to yourselves. I stand here, on 
 this side of the table ; you sit there, on the other side. 
 Our persons are near to each other : but should I not 
 greatly deceive myself, were I to suppose that our 
 opinions were as near together as our persons ? We 
 are within shaking-hands distance of each other ; still, 
 our convictions and sentiments on certain subjects 
 may be wide asunder as the poles. On a subject of 
 vast importance and gravity, a subject reflected from 
 every feature of this case, I was born, and from my 
 birth have been trained up, in one set of ideas ; and I 
 mean no discourtesy when I say that you have been 
 born and trained in another set of ideas. Hence it is nat 
 ural, yes, it is inevitable, is it not ? that we should 
 approach this subject with widely different views, and, 
 as it were, from opposite points of the moral compass. 
 I am admonished, then, in the outset, that your pre- 
 8 
 
86 
 
 possessions are against me. The frame of your minds 
 must be adverse to the reception of my views. We 
 are in a position where the hearer, consciously or un 
 consciously, braces himself against the pressure of 
 the speaker s arguments. And of all difficult positions 
 in which advocate or orator was ever placed, the most 
 difficult is that of encountering the honest antipathies 
 of his hearers. The heart, secure in its own convic 
 tions, closes itself against the argument that would 
 overthrow them, as a fond parent bars his doors against 
 the foe that would carry away his children. 
 
 But, gentlemen, amid all these adverse circum 
 stances, and amid these conflicts of hostile and perhaps 
 irreconcilable feelings, is there not some common 
 ground on which you and I can stand together, and 
 greet each other as brethren ? Is there not one spot 
 where we can stand side by side, as friends, sympa 
 thize with each other, and act together in harmony ? 
 Yes, gentlemen, there is one such spot. It is the 
 ground of DUTY. In this case, I have certain duties 
 to perform ; you, too, have certain duties to perform ; 
 and the feeling of a common duty is always creative 
 of the feeling of brotherhood. We are called to these 
 duties as by the voice of God ; we are to perform 
 them as under the eye of the Omniscient. Here we 
 are embarked in a common cause. From this moment, 
 then, let all feelings of alienation or repugnance be 
 banished from between us. 
 
 Gentlemen, this prisoner has requested me to be his 
 counsel ; and I, perhaps unwisely, have acceded to his 
 request. I have taken an oath to be true to him. 
 This has imposed certain responsibilities upon me, 
 which, before Heaven, I may not escape. In this I 
 find my strength. With the fierce excitement, which 
 blazed forth in this District when the prisoners of the 
 " Pearl" were first arrested, still hot around me ; with 
 the generally adverse feelings which I suppose you 
 
87 . 
 
 entertain towards the side of the cause which 1 have 
 espoused, and therefore against its advocate ; with 
 these thronged spectators, who show, at every turn 
 and incident of the trial, what their feelings are towards 
 the prisoner and his defenders, I should not be able 
 to stand here one moment, were it not for the support 
 ing, uplifting sentiment, glowing through every fibre 
 of my frame, that I am here in the performance of a 
 high and holy duty. In all else I may be weak; in 
 this I am strong.* 
 
 So you, gentlemen, sit there to perform a duty. 
 Swearing upon the Holy Evangelists, you have invoked 
 the vengeance of Heaven upon your souls, if, con 
 sciously and wittingly, you swerve a hair s breadth from 
 the line of rectitude; if you allow any partiality in 
 favor of a cherished institution, or any prejudice against 
 the prisoner, to close your eyes or blind your minds to 
 any fact of evidence or rule of law which may be ad 
 duced in his behalf. 
 
 I might even add a consideration of a lighter nature 
 leading to the same result. Your fortune and mine, 
 for some days to come, I suppose to be settled. I 
 know not how protracted this trial may be, but, gen 
 tlemen, we are in it, for longer or shorter, for better or 
 worse ; and while we are in it, we shall be obliged to 
 Come together from day today, and live in each other s 
 presence and company. Now, I trust you have too 
 much philosophy about you to make bad worse. And 
 so of myself. Were we fellow-travellers in the same 
 stage-coach or steamboat, and were doomed to be so 
 for a week or a fortnight, it would be most unwise to 
 add to our inevitable discomforts that of striving to 
 annoy each other ; so, when packed together in this 
 room, which seems to have been constructed for 
 
 * In attendance upon the trial, and stationing themselves as near 
 as practicable to the counsel for the defence, were men who cocked 
 pistols and drew dirks upon Drayton, in the mob that pursued him. 
 
88 
 
 creatures that do not breathe, and with the thermom 
 eter above ninety degrees, I trust any icy feelings we 
 may have had towards each other will speedily melt 
 away. In a word, I heartily concur, and I trust you 
 will do the same, in the opinion of the old man who 
 declared, according to the anecdote, that after the ex 
 perience of a long life, he had found it best to submit 
 to what he could not possibly help. 
 
 What, then, is the business before us ? Daniel Dray- 
 ton is set here at the bar charged with a grave offence, 
 and you are impanelled to try him. And who is 
 Daniel Drayton ? We shall prove to you that he is a 
 man of sober and industrious life, against whose char 
 acter, as a just, upright, exemplary citizen, no charge 
 was ever before preferred. Whatever may have been 
 his errors in regard to the transaction which has brought 
 him before you, he has, in consequence of it, passed 
 through scenes which must move your sympathy. 
 He has been torn from his family and immured in a 
 loathsome cell. From feeling that sense of security 
 from lawless violence, which every man, whether guilty 
 or innocent, is entitled to feel, he has been in imminent 
 danger of being torn in pieces by an infuriated mob. 
 Yes, gentlemen, on Tuesday, the eighteenth day of 
 April last, this man, this fellow-citizen of ours, in this 
 capital of the nation, within sight of Congress, and of" 
 the President s house, and within hearing of them, too, 
 was pursued by a mob, from near the river s side on 
 the south of us to the very doors of the jail on the 
 north, a mob estimated to consist of from four to 
 six thousand people, many of them armed with 
 deadly weapons ; the thrusts of a dirk knife, which 
 was drawn upon him, coming within an inch of his 
 body ; amid wrathful cries of " Hang him ! " " Lynch 
 him ! " accompanied by all the profanities and abomina 
 tions of speech which usually issue from the foul throat 
 of that hideous monster A MOB. Arrived at the 
 
89 
 
 jail, the mob besieged him there. When afterwards, 
 and while under examination before magistrates of the 
 city, a distinguished gentleman and member of Con 
 gress. [the Hon. Joshua II. Giddings, of Ohio,] appeared 
 at his request and in his defence, the mob snr- 
 munded the gates of the jail, demanding the imme 
 diate expulsion of the counsel ; and the jailer, to save 
 bloodshed, insisted upon his departure. The storm 
 swept beyond the prison and the prisoner. It assailed 
 all who were supposed to sympathize with him. The 
 office of a newspaper in this city, (the National Era,) 
 was threatened with demolition. At a mob meeting, 
 votes were passed, without any great scrutiny, I 
 presume, into the qualifications of the voters, that 
 the paper should be discontinued. Its editor was wait 
 ed upon at night, or at midnight, by a mob-elected 
 committee, and a peremptory demand was made upon 
 him to remove his establishment beyond the District, 
 or to abandon it. 
 
 But I will not dwell longer upon these details, so dis 
 graceful to the capital of a republic that calls itself 
 //TC, and so abhorrent to the feelings of every right- 
 minded man. Were I to enumerate all the perils, the 
 indignities, and the privations to which my client 
 has been subjected, the day would be too short for the 
 narration. 
 
 After Drayton s examination, he was held to bail. 
 And what, think you, was the amount of the bail de 
 manded ? Seventy-six thousand dollars ! and seventy-six 
 thousand dollars also for each of the other prisoners, 
 for the seventy-six alleged slaves, when the 
 
 common market value of such slaves in this neighbor 
 hood would not, I suppose, be more than three or four 
 hundred dollars apie.ce ; and though all of them, too, 
 had been returned, and were in possession of their claim 
 ants at the time. Has the fact never yet come to the 
 knowledge of the magistrates of the District of Co- 
 8* 
 
90 
 
 lumbia, that the constitution of the United States 
 declares that " excessive bail shall not be required " ? 
 
 But. gentlemen, these are not the only hardships and 
 oppressions to which my client has been subjected. 
 How many, at the most, are the offences against the 
 laws of this District which he has committed? He 
 came here on the 13th of April, in the schooner Pearl. 
 He departed on the loth. On the 17th, he was arrest 
 ed near the mouth of the Potomac, with a company of 
 alleged slaves on board his vessel. Was not this 
 all one transaction ? Can it be divided and separated 
 into a multitude of distinct offences? Can this one 
 deed be made an offence against different laws? If riot, 
 then there is another clause in the constitution set at 
 nought, that clause which declares that no person 
 shall be " subject for the same offence to be twice put 
 in jeopardy of life or limb." 
 
 And yet, gentlemen, what do we find on the records 
 of this court? One hundred and fifteen indictments 
 against this prisoner for this one act ; and one hundred 
 and fifteen indictments also against each of the other 
 prisoners for engaging in the same. Three hundred 
 and forty-five indictments ! Reams of indictments for 
 a single deed ! Nor is this the only injustice. Each 
 of the prisoners is indicted for having violated, by this 
 one act, separate and distinct laws. There is an old law 
 of Maryland against stealing slaves, and another law 
 against transporting them out of the jurisdiction ; and 
 these laws are claimed, by virtue of an act of Congress, 
 to be in force in this District. Now, if the prisoner 
 stole the slaves, he is not. guilty of the separate offence 
 of transporting. If he is guilty of transporting, he 
 is not guilty of stealing. That the two offences should 
 have been committed by one and the same act, is a 
 legal impossibility. If the grand jury first found the 
 prisoner guilty of the offence of stealing the slaves, 
 they thereby declared that he was not guilty of the 
 
91 
 
 different offence of transporting. Or, if they first 
 found him guilty of the offence of transporting, they 
 thereby declared that lie was not guilty of the separate 
 offence of stealing. To proceed, therefore, after a find 
 ing for one oifence, to charge the prisoner with the 
 other, was not only a legal absurdity, but a grievous 
 injustice. 
 
 Besides, if these slaves were stolen, as is alleged, 
 from forty-one different masters, the whole might have 
 been charged in different counts in the same indict 
 ment, and the prisoner might be found guilty upon as 
 many of the counts as law and evidence would warrant. 
 
 So there was but one act of transportation. Even, 
 therefore, if it were just to charge the prisoner with 
 the breach of two different laws for the same act, 
 still, as the transportation of the whole was but one, 
 it should have been charged only in one indictment. 
 
 See how fatal to any man must such a course of 
 proceeding be. If the stealing were charged in one 
 indictment, it would be tried by one jury ; and the 
 evidence being to a great degree the same, the whole 
 trial might be brought within a limited period of time. 
 But with forty-one indictments, there must be forty- 
 one trials, before forty-one different juries ; for neither 
 government nor prisoner would consent that a jury, 
 who had given an adverse verdict, should try another 
 of the cases. Now, gentlemen, I care not for the enor 
 mous expense of such a proceeding, ten dollars on 
 each indictment, enuring to the benefit of the district 
 attorney, 
 
 Here Mr. KEY, the district attorney, interrupted and 
 said : If Mr. Mann thinks I am to have ten dollars on 
 each of these indictments, he is mistaken ; and in my 
 argument to the jury I shall deny it. 
 
 Mr. CARLISLE. Mr. Mann is not mistaken in the 
 general statement, that the district attorney receives 
 ten dollars on each indictment. He receives ten dol- 
 
92 
 
 lars on each, until the income of his office amounts to 
 six thousand dollars a year. It is only when the 
 emoluments of the office reach that sum that he ceases 
 to draw his ten dollars on each indictment. 
 
 Mr. MANN. I was saying, gentlemen, that I care 
 comparatively nothing for the amount of expense in 
 curred in consequence of these three hundred and 
 forty-five indictments. Far graver consequences than 
 the mere expenditure of money are involved. Who 
 can maintain or survive a contest against such a host 
 of indictments, sustained by all the power and resour 
 ces of the government ? Were a man rich as Croe- 
 sus, it would exhaust his means. Were he brave as a 
 martyr, it would outweary his endurance. Were he 
 innocent as a child unborn, still, on the mere doctrine 
 of chances, he might fail in some one qase, out of such 
 a multitude. Were he in the prime of life, its setting 
 sun might go down in darkness and sorrow before the 
 final verdict of acquittal could be pronounced in his 
 favor. Under such a practice with regard to indict 
 ments, coupled with such a practice in regard to bail, 
 an accusation would be as fatal as crime itself, how 
 ever innocent the accused might be. The law provides 
 a statute of limitations as to offences. Could it have 
 foreseen such an abuse as this, it would have provided 
 a statute of limitations against the number of prosecu 
 tions for a single offence ; for the government might as 
 well try a man, on a separate indictment, for each hair 
 of a horse he had stolen, and hold him, on each of 
 them, to separate bail. The English courts, gentle 
 men, have provided a remedy for the beginnings of 
 this injustice. They have decided, again and again, 
 that when even two indictments are found against a 
 man for the same offence, they will compel the prose 
 cutor to make his election between them, to proceed 
 upon one and abandon the other. 2 Leach s Or. Gas., 
 608, Rex vs. Doran. 3 Carr. & P. 412, Rex vs. Smith. 
 
03 
 
 Ib. Rex vs. Flower, 413. 3 T. R. Young vs. The 
 A7//-, (in error,) 106. See, also, in support of the 
 same principle, New York Revised Statutes, vol. 
 2, part 4, ch. 2, <> 42, where provision is made that 
 " if there be at any time pending against the same 
 defendant two or more indictments for the same 
 offence, or two indictments for the same matter, 
 although charged as different offences, the indictment 
 first found shall be deemed to be superseded by such 
 second indictment, and shall be quashed." 
 
 But, gentlemen, there is another aspect of this case, 
 which presents, in a manner still more glaring, the 
 enormity of the proceeding to which we are subjected. 
 Under each of the forty-one indictments against this 
 prisoner for stealing, he is liable, if convicted, to be 
 sentenced to twenty years imprisonment, which would 
 make an aggregate imprisonment of more than eight 
 hundred years. Methuselah himself must have been 
 caught young, in order to survive such a sentence. 
 The very shortest time which the court, in its discre 
 tion, could imprison, after a conviction on all these in 
 dictments, would be two hundred and eighty-seven 
 years ! Did the law ever contemplate so cruel and re 
 vengeful a proceeding ? Did the law ever suppose that 
 the court, after having sentenced a man to eight hun 
 dred years imprisonment, or even to two hundred and 
 eighty years imprisonment, should go on, and sentence 
 him to twenty years, or even to seven years more ? 
 when the court must know that it would be imposing 
 sentences to be executed centuries after the prisoner 
 would be dead, and after he would have left his prison, 
 not to return to this world, but to go to another. 
 
 But even this is not all. Behind these forty-one 
 indictments for stealing stand drawn up, in battle array, 
 against this same prisoner, seventy-four other indict 
 ments for transporting the very slaves whom he is 
 charged to have stolen. The penalty for each of these 
 
94 
 
 offences is a fine of two hundred dollars, with impris 
 onment till paid. The aggregate of these fines would 
 be $14,800. But a penalty not inflicted by the statute, 
 but superadded by this unwarrantable proceeding of 
 the government, is the defence of seventy-four succes 
 sive cases, under which the wealthiest, the strongest, 
 and the most innocent man must break down, and be 
 swept to ruin. 
 
 Corresponding with the oppressive character of all 
 these preliminaries was the manner of the prosecutor, 
 in his opening argument. He has seen fit to use 
 language against the prisoner the most vehement and 
 denunciatory. He has imputed to him every base 
 motive that can actuate a depraved heart, and showered 
 upon him the coarsest epithets that can describe a 
 villain. Now if it shall turn out that my client is in 
 nocent, then all these criminations are unjust and 
 cruel ; and even should it be proved that he is guilty, 
 it is no part of his punishment to be compelled to sit 
 here in enforced silence, hour after hour, and hear 
 himself denounced and vilified in language as unfitted 
 to his character as to the sobriety of judicial proceedings. 
 
 Gentlemen, the representative of the government, 
 like the government itself, should be dispassionate and 
 calm. Majesty is one of the attributes of sovereignty, 
 and serenity is inseparable from majesty. The gov 
 ernment is not a being of wrath, of ferocity, of vin- 
 dictiveness ; and the exhibition of such passions is as 
 unsuitable to the representative of the government as 
 to the government itself. Though the image of jus 
 tice may be represented as holding the sword of power 
 in one hand, yet she is also represented as holding the 
 balance of equity in the other ; but when the govern 
 ment assumes the guilt of the prisoner, before it has 
 been found, and denounces him in bitterest epithets as 
 criminal, while as yet the law presumes him to be in 
 nocent, the only proper emblem of such a govern- 
 
95 
 
 merit is an image which, a few years ago, might have 
 been seen surmounting the dome of the court house in 
 Taunton, in the county of Somersetshire, in England, 
 to which the artist had originally given both the bal 
 ance and the sword ; but a storm, careering through 
 the sky, had swept the balance away, so that nothing 
 but the avenging sword was left ; and there the hate 
 ful figure stood aloft, an image of wrath untempered 
 by equity. 
 
 But, gentlemen, let me trust that the prisoner has at 
 length escaped from the turbulent and perilous scenes 
 which have hitherto destroyed his peace and. threatened 
 his life. Let me trust that the fell spirits which 
 prompted the proposal, made by one of his captors 
 while he was yet on board the steamboat, and pre 
 vious to his return to this city, that he should be 
 brought up and hung at the yard-arm, as was testi 
 fied to by the government s witnesses, is at length 
 exorcised ; let me trust that the demoniac cry of ven 
 geance which was shouted by the mob, and the thirst 
 for blood which their conduct betokened, while the 
 prisoner, bound and defenceless, was conducted from 
 the river to the jail, has found no welcoming response 
 in your bosoms. Let me trust, also, that the violence 
 of manner and the bitterness of language which have 
 been so freely employed in the opening of this case, 
 have not disturbed the balance of your minds, or so 
 ruffled their serenity that the images of truth shall be 
 distorted as they are reflected from them. 
 
 Gentlemen, the spot on which a jury are seated 
 should be a place separate and apart from the rest of 
 the world ; sacred, and inaccessible to the passions and 
 prejudices that move the community without. It 
 should be a place consecrated to the inquiry, " What 
 is truth ? " and to the application of its conclusions to 
 the conduct of men. When you took your seats in 
 that place, you were severally asked by the court 
 
96 
 
 whether you had formed any opinion respecting the 
 guilt or innocence of the prisoner, and you severally 
 answered in the negative. The final opinion, then, 
 Avhich shall be expressed in your verdict, must be 
 an opinion which you have formed since that time, 
 and from the law and testimony here introduced. 
 Into that opinion, no other element must be allowed 
 to enter. The prejudged guilt of the prisoner, as man 
 ifested by repeated attempts to take his life ; the de 
 mand which may exist, and which I suppose does 
 exist, out of doors, that he shall be convicted, inno 
 cent or guilty j the anticipation that you are to meet an 
 angry community, if you acquit him ; all these con 
 siderations, if they obtrude upon your minds, must be 
 sternly rebuked and banished. The record of your 
 verdict will survive these temporary excitements. It 
 should be a verdict, therefore, which you can look 
 upon, at the close of life, with conscientious satisfac 
 tion. It must be one which your children can look at 
 with a filial and honorable regard for their fathers up 
 rightness. In a case which has excited so much atten 
 tion, both here and throughout the country, you, too, 
 must expect to be put on trial ; your verdict will go 
 into the great record of history, to be passed upon- by 
 your country and by posterity. 
 
 Once, gentlemen, in the state to which I belong, a 
 case arose in which the deepest and holiest feelings of 
 the community were intensely excited. One of the 
 preludes to the great drama of the American revolu 
 tion was the slaughtering, in the year 1770, of five 
 American citizens, in the streets of Boston, by the 
 British soldiery. The supposed offenders were brought 
 to trial for the homicide. They were defended by 
 John Adams and Josiah Q,uincy, illustrious names ! 
 The public breast throbbed with excitement. The 
 sight of butchered countrymen made the blood seethe 
 in the hearts of their fellow-citizens. If there ever 
 
97 
 
 could be a case where the law might be wrested to 
 meet the popular outcry for redress ; if there ever 
 could be a case where the evidence might he strained 
 and distorted to bring the facts within strained and 
 distorted law, so as to visit a high outrage with a 
 moral, if not a legal penalty, the " Boston Massacre " 
 of 1770 supplied all its conditions. That cause was 
 tried, and the prisoners were acquitted. The storm 
 of popular disaffection soon cleared away, and now 
 twelve purer and fairer names are not inscribed 
 on the roll of fame than the names of those twelve 
 jurymen, who dared to brave public opinion, and to 
 perform an act of arduous, if not of perilous justice. 
 \oble and illustrious bravery of the soul, which, when 
 the yelling fiends of popular passion and prejudice 
 beset the ascending pathway of virtue, can look to 
 conscience, to posterity, and to God, and defy them all ! 
 Follow their example, gentlemen, and, whatever fierce 
 sounds of public condemnation may be now rung in 
 your ears, you will have the same glorious reward, and 
 your children, and all the good men of your country, 
 will honor your memories. 
 
 Gentlemen, in the vehement appeals which were 
 made to you by the government s counsel, for the con 
 demnation of the prisoner, you were told that he had 
 " invaded this District, and ruthlessly carried away 
 more than a hundred thousand dollars worth of its 
 property ; " and you were warned that, if you let such 
 a man escape, you might as well abandon at once all 
 property in slaves. But it so happens, gentlemen, that 
 you are sworn to try this prisoner for stealing John and 
 Sam, two slaves of one Andrew Hoover, of the alleged 
 value of fourteen hundred dollars only. Is each of 
 these forty-one cases against the prisoner to be inflamed 
 and exasperated by charging him with plundering the 
 District to the amount of more than a hundred thou 
 sand dollars ? A pretty strong effort of fancy, is it not ? 
 9 
 
98 
 
 to work up the fourteen hundred dollars of the indict 
 ment into more than four millions in the argument ! 
 Is this to be another of the oppressive consequences 
 of multiplying the one alleged offence of the prisoner 
 into forty-one separate offences? Is the government s 
 counsel to botch up any sort of nefarious charge 
 against the prisoner, and then call upon you to find him 
 guilty on these strained and overwrought exaggera 
 tions of his conduct? No, gentlemen! This would 
 be to suppose that you sit there to administer the worst 
 kind of Lynch law, a kind that has all its injustice, 
 while screening itself from the odium of its violence. 
 The object of civil society is to protect rights and to 
 redress wrongs. For these great purposes laws are en 
 acted, courts are established, juries are instituted, and 
 rules of evidence are framed. Without civil society, 
 each man would have a right to preserve his own 
 rights and to redress his own wrongs. Civil society 
 takes away something from a man s rights, but it adds 
 immensely to his powers ; it makes him stronger than 
 any individual oppressor, and, on the whole, it protects 
 its members far better than they could protect them 
 selves. But civil society, like every thing human, is 
 imperfect. Once out of ten times, or once out. of 
 twenty times, it may fail to accomplish the end for 
 which it was established. The very instruments it 
 has framed may sometimes be the cause of its failure. 
 What then ? We do but fail in each tenth, or each 
 twentieth case, when, without the social organization, 
 failure might have been the general rule. And, there 
 fore, even if a guilty person does sometimes escape, all 
 we can say is that civil society has not done its work 
 infallibly. It has done well, though it has not done all. 
 But suppose this very civil society, wielding as it does 
 the combined and terrible strength of the whole com 
 munity, should turn its collected force against an inno 
 cent man, and crush him, then in what an utter and 
 
99 
 
 hopeless ruin is lie overwhelmed ! How much better 
 for him had its powerful machinery never existed, than 
 that he should be ground to powder beneath its wheels ! 
 Now, such might be the case with every prisoner, if 
 juries were to act without strict obedience to law, and 
 a strict observance of the forms of law. Any appeals, 
 therefore, made to you, that because this prisoner may 
 have committed some offence against law, you are, 
 therefore, to discard all scruples and find him guilty of 
 this offence, I regard as treason against justice, as a 
 monstrous perversion of judicial proceedings ; yes. as 
 a thousand times worse than any guilt of the prisoner, 
 even supposing the distorted features of the picture, 
 drawn by the government s counsel, to be genuine. It 
 would be nothing less than Lynch law, perpetrated by 
 twelve picked and sworn men, instead of a mob. 
 
 Gentlemen, the district attorney in his opening has 
 not deigned to tell us on what law he proceeds. He 
 has accused the prisoner of stealing often enough, but 
 has read no statute, and referred to no decision, 
 which creates or describes any such offence. Hence a 
 task which clearly belonged to him is devolved upon 
 me. 
 
 After the District of Columbia was ceded to the 
 United States, Congress passed a general law, adopting 
 the laws of Maryland, for that part of the District 
 which had been ceded by Maryland. This trial, there 
 fore, must proceed upon laws originally passed by 
 Maryland. By the act of 1737, ch. 2, $ 4, it is pro 
 vided that any person " who shall steal any negro or 
 other slave," " or who shall counsel, hire, aid, abet, or 
 command any person or persons " to do so, shall suffer 
 death as a felon. The punishment has since been 
 changed to imprisonment in the United States prison, 
 for a term of not less than seven, nor more than 
 twenty years. [Here comments were made at length on 
 the preamble of the statute, and the class of cases to 
 which the law was intended to apply.] 
 
100 
 
 This act was designed to prevent slaves from being 
 stolen. But a man might lose a slave without his being 
 stolen. The slave might he enticed or persuaded to 
 run away. Experience, doubtless, made the masters 
 aware of this. Hence, fourteen years afterwards, by 
 the act of 1751, ch. 14, <> 10, it. was provided that " if 
 any person shall entice and persuade any slave within 
 this province to run away, and who shall actually run 
 away from the master," &c., he shall be punished, &c. 
 
 But there was still another way of depriving a 
 master of the service of his slave. Hence the act of 
 1796, ch. 67, <> 19, made it a separate and distinct of 
 fence for any person to be guilty of " the transporting 
 of any slave or person, held, to service," from the 
 state. 
 
 Now, here, gentlemen, are four distinct legal provis 
 ions, all designed to protect slave property. By these 
 provisions, four distinct legal offences are created. 
 The law, by creating and defining these offences, has 
 authoritatively declared that one of them is not either 
 of the others of them. " Stealing " is one thing. 
 " Counselling, hiring," &c., a man to steal, is not 
 stealing itself. " Enticing and persuading " a slave to 
 run away from his master is not stealing. " Trans 
 porting " a slave out of the jurisdiction is not stealing. 
 The inquiry for you, therefore, is whether the prisoner 
 is guilty of any of these offences, and if of any, then, 
 of which. 
 
 Now, gentlemen, let me take advantage of a map 
 which is lying here accidentally before me, to illustrate 
 this case. Four states, Pennsylvania, Maryland, 
 Virginia, and North Carolina, are here represented. The 
 boundaries between them are distinctly marked. Penn 
 sylvania is not Maryland, nor either of the others. 
 Maryland is not Virginia, nor either of the others; and 
 so of the rest. Just so it is with the offences created 
 by these statutes. Any one of them is not either of 
 
101 
 
 the others. It is as plain that the offence of " trans 
 porting " a slave out of the jurisdiction is as different 
 from the offence of stealing a slave, as this geographical 
 shape of Maryland is different from this geographical 
 shape of Pennsylvania. As, therefore, if the geo 
 graphical metes and bounds of the State of Maryland 
 were shown to yon, you could not say, upon your 
 oaths, that it was a description of the State of Pennsyl 
 vania ; so, if the offence of " transporting " be proved 
 to you, you cannot say, on your oaths, that it is the 
 offence of stealing. 
 
 Or take an illustration from other things. The ob 
 ject of a sun-dial, a watch, a clock, and a chronom 
 eter is the same. All are made for the measurement of 
 time, as all these laws were made for the protection of 
 slave property. But could you, therefore, on your 
 oaths, convict a man of stealing a chronometer, when 
 he had only taken a clock or a watch ? No, you could 
 find him guilty only of the thing proved to have been 
 done. 
 
 Or, again, suppose a law should be made to protect a 
 man s property in his books ; and the stealing of books, 
 generally, should be punishable by five years confine 
 ment in the penitentiary. Such a general law would 
 include all books. Suppose a subsequent law should 
 inflict a lighter penalty for stealing an octavo volume, 
 and a still lighter one for a duodecimo. Then it would 
 be necessary, in an indictment, to set out the kind of 
 book stolen, and no man could be lawfully punished 
 for the weightier offence who had only committed the 
 lighter. So here, the first law punished " stealing," 
 the next "enticing," and the next " transporting." 
 
 Now, gentlemen, I maintain that, at most, nothing 
 but the offence of " transporting " has been proved 
 against this prisoner. But he is arraigned for stealing. 
 What then, let us inquire, are the ingredients which 
 constitute the offence of stealing, which are indis- 
 9* 
 
102 
 
 pensable to its perpetration ? They are, 1. That the 
 property shall be taken by the thief from the possession 
 of the owner. 2. That it shall be taken into the 
 possession of the thief, that is, that the taker shall 
 exercise some act of control or ownership over it. 
 And, 3. That this taking by the thief, from the posses 
 sion of the owner, and into his own possession, shall be 
 for the felonious purpose of converting the said prop 
 erty to his own use. 
 
 Now, I think it is not too much to say, that neither 
 one of these three indispensable ingredients of larceny 
 has been proved in this case. 
 
 1. It is not proved that the prisoner took the two 
 slaves mentioned in the indictment /row the possession 
 of Andrew Hoover. Could not some other person be 
 sides the prisoner have put it into the heads of these 
 slaves to leave their master ? There are white men in 
 this city hostile to the institution of slavery, and de 
 siring the freedom of all slaves. Could they not have 
 said to Hoover s slaves, " Here is a schooner at the 
 wharf ; it is to sail at such a time ; be there, and you 
 may escape to a free state"? Here, too, are thousands 
 of free negroes, or celored persons, in this District, 
 with whom the slaves are in daily and open communica 
 tion. Could they not have infused into the mind of 
 these slaves the idea of liberty ? Is it not a thousand 
 times more probable that it was done by some citizen 
 in the District, or by some colored acquaintance or 
 friend of theirs, enjoying the means of constant com 
 munication with them, than that it was done by an 
 entire stranger to them, as the prisoner was ? Can 
 aught be conceived more absurd or preposterous than 
 that the prisoner should go round the streets of Wash 
 ington, picking up a slave here and there, to complete 
 his cargo, as the driver of a stage-coach goes round 
 picking up passengers ? Should he accost a colored 
 man in the streets, and ask him if he were a slave, the 
 
103 
 
 chances are three to one that the person addressed 
 would turn out to be a freeman ; for 1 >s<j the 
 
 proportion, in this District, of the free <;of rrsons 
 
 to the slaves to be as great as thr it" the fourth 
 man or woman he might meet shoi ; ;ove to be a 
 slave, how could he know but what lie might be ad 
 dressing one so attached to the place, to his home and 
 relatives, and to his master, that even the sweets of 
 freedom would not tempt him to leave ; and that the 
 consequence would be an immediate reporting of the 
 interview, and sudden detection and punishment ? But 
 a person on the spot would know who were slaves, 
 and what slaves were discontented with their condition ; 
 he could select the occasion when a slave had been 
 punished by his master, when his body was smarting, 
 and his mind was fired with indignation against him, 
 and then sow the seeds of discontent and the hopes 
 of escape in a fruitful soil. If, then, the slaves were, 
 in fact, instigated to leave their master s possession, 
 the probabilities are a thousand to one that they were 
 so instigated by some other person or persons resident 
 here, and not by the prisoner. If this were so, and 
 they came on board the prisoner s schooner, after having 
 absconded from their master, then he did not take them 
 from Hoover s possession, and so is not guilty of the first 
 ingredient in the crime of larceny. 
 
 But is there not still another way in which slaves 
 may be induced to leave the possession of their mas 
 ter ? Though we may call men slaves, yet are they 
 not human beings ? degraded from the natural dignity 
 of manhood, it is true, and dwarfed in their mental 
 stature, but still human beings ; subject to the passions 
 of our common nature, animated by its hopes, inflamed 
 by its resentments, and shrinking and flying through 
 fear from the uplifted rod. As human beings, could 
 not the desire of escape from their master s possession 
 have originated with themselves ? prompted by the 
 
104 
 
 inward and instinctive longings for liberty, which 
 spring perennial in the human breast. 
 . The attorney for the government, in his opening, 
 dwelt long and earnestly on the value of this species 
 of property. He described it as the most valuable 
 kind of property known in the District, and therefore 
 most vigilantly to be guarded. Doubtless it has a 
 certain pecuniary value ; and, as it increases in intelli 
 gence, activity, and skill, its value is greatly enhanced. 
 Bat with this enhanced value comes a per contra. 
 With increased intelligence and mental development, 
 the desires natural to manhood spring up; the long 
 ing for liberty, and for the possession of free agency ; 
 the desire of selecting one s own field of labor, and 
 means of enjoyment ; the desire of commanding the 
 rewards of one s own toil. So that, as the value of a 
 slave increases, the strength of the tenure by which he 
 is held l>ecoines less secure. It is a weight of gold 
 suspended by a cord. The master wishes to increase 
 the mass. He adds little by little, until the weight 
 snaps the cord, and he loses the whole. 
 
 Hoover says he had been offered $1400 for the 
 two slaves mentioned in the indictment, and had refused 
 the offer. Their services were probably worth to him 
 a dollar a day each. One of them was employed in 
 driving a cart about the city. As he saw a handful 
 of money paid to his master every week, or every 
 month, for his own earnings, think you he never asked 
 himself, why that money could not be his ? When 
 three oat of every four colored men whom he met, 
 from day to day, were receiving their own earnings, 
 and making those earnings minister to their comforts 
 and their pleasures, might not Hoover s slaves have 
 said, " Why are not our earnings our own ? and, if we 
 cannot possess them here, why should we riot go to a 
 country where the laborer is deemed, in the language 
 of Scripture, to be worthy of his hire ? " and so have 
 
lor. 
 
 lied of their own accord ? for. though we are prone to 
 apply the precepts of the gospel to others rather than. 
 to ourselves, yet this is a passage which they would be 
 likely to take home. 
 
 But this is not all, gentlemen. In this capital of a 
 nation so boastful of its freedom, the common air is 
 vocal with the accents of liberty. Many of the colored 
 people can read. Who knows but some of them have 
 read the Declaration of American Independence : and, 
 in their blindness and simplicity of mind, applied its 
 immortal truths to themselves ? " All men are created 
 equal ! " and among their "inalienable rights" " are 
 life. LIBERTY, and the pursuit of happiness !" Who 
 knows but that they may have seen these doctrines, 
 with a constellation of names subscribed to them 
 as glorious as any that ever shone in history s firma 
 ment ? If such ideas once got possession of a man s 
 mind, do you think that fire or water could ever burn 
 them or drown them out ? Those who cannot read, 
 can hear ; and if you are to keep from them the per 
 petually recurring sights and sounds which must 
 awaken the quick instincts of liberty, you must extin 
 guish their eyes, and seal up their ears in everlasting 
 silence. The last spring was one of peculiar "refresh 
 ing " to the ardent lovers of liberty. The recent events 
 of Europe were the theme of every tongue. Not 
 only in the market-place, in the street, and in after- 
 dinner conversations, was the emancipation of Europe 
 the subject of discussion, but stormy eloquence rushed 
 forth from the capital of the nation, like winds from 
 the cave of jEolus, and roared and raved till all but 
 the dead must have heard it. Nay, more, gentlemen, 
 one of the witnesses identified the day when the de 
 fendant s schooner, the Pearl, came to anchor in the 
 waters of this city, because he remembered it as the 
 day of the " torchlight procession." And what was 
 the " torchlight procession " ? You all know ; 
 
106 
 
 drums beating, music playing, bonfires blazing, the 
 house of the President and of high official dignitaries 
 illuminated, the trees of the avenue fancifully lighted 
 up with many-colored lanterns ; men, women, chil 
 dren, and slaves, all out, and all agog to see and to hear 
 of the wonderful things which " liberty " had done, 
 or had not done, on the other side of the Atlantic. 
 There, too, moved in long procession men who were 
 elected for the occasion, from among the nation s elect, 
 heads of departments, senators, and representa 
 tives, men distended almost to bursting with elo 
 quence for regenerated Europe, who must speak or die ! 
 They marched to an open space on Pennsylvania Av 
 enue, where, on an extempore rostrum, they eased 
 themselves of their repletion of patriotism ; while peo 
 ple of all kinds, conditions, and colors stood below, 
 empty and agape, to receive what the upper divinities 
 might send down. And now let me read to you, gen 
 tlemen of the jury, some of the precious things that 
 were said on that memorable evening, only two 
 nights before the escape of the slaves in the schooner 
 Pearl, and see, after you have tasted of the yeast, 
 if you can wonder at the fermentation : 
 
 " Events which hold out to the wlwlc, family of man 
 
 so bright a promise of the universal establishment of CIVIL 
 and religious liberty, and the general destruction of monarchi 
 cal power throughout the world." 
 
 "New and endearing ties " " between the people of lib 
 erated France, and the twenty millions of freemen who dwell, 
 in all the plenitude of social and political happiness, between 
 the great seas which water the eastern and western shores of 
 this vast continent." 
 
 l I feel authorized to declare that there is not one in this 
 vast multitude whose sympathies are not deeply enkindled in 
 behalf of France and Frenchmen." 
 
 " Such has been the extraordinary course of events in 
 
 France, and in Europe, within the last two months, that the 
 more deliberately we survey the scene which has been spread 
 
ior 
 
 out before us, and the more rigidly we scrutinize the conduct 
 of its actors, the more confident does our conviction become 
 that the glorious work which has been so well begun cannot 
 possibly fail of complete accomplishment ; that the age of 
 TYRANTS AND SLAVERY is rapidly drawing to a close ; and that 
 the happy period to be signalized by the universal emancipa 
 tion of man from the fetters of civil oppression, and the recog 
 nition in all countries of the great principles of popular sover 
 eignty, equality, and BROTHERHOOD, is, at this moment, visibly 
 commencing." 
 
 [Here Judge CRAWPORD broke in, witli great sharpness, and said, 
 " Mr. MANN, such inflammatory language cannot be allowed in this 
 court. We have institutions that may be endangered by it. The 
 court thinks it its duty to interfere. The counsel cannot be allowed 
 to proceed with such inflammatory language." 
 
 Mr. CARLISLE here rose, and, for the space of ten or fifteen minutes, 
 with the crowded audience hushed to a grave-like silence, he inter 
 spersed resistless logic with noble sentiments, in a strain of eloquence 
 rarely, if ever, surpassed. He vindicated every word his colleague 
 had said, both as to matter and manner, and obtested Heaven to pre 
 serve American tribunals of justice from following the examples of 
 the worst times of English judicial tyranny, when the basest minions 
 of the crown were elevated to the bench, that they might overawe 
 and abash counsel in their defence of prisoners whom the king had 
 foredoomed to punishment. 
 
 Judgg CRAWFORD. (Trembling with emotion.) Mr. MANN S course 
 of argument was perfectly legitimate. It was the inflammatory lan 
 guage that I objected to. It was the language, and not the argument, 
 that was objectionable.] 
 
 Mr. MANN. Gentlemen of the jury, as the interdict 
 against the line of argument I was pursuing, now 
 acknowledged to be just and proper, has been with 
 drawn, I take it up where I left it, and proceed. 
 
 Mr. KEY, district attorney. I demand to know 
 from what paper the gentleman reads. 
 
 Mr. MANN. (Holding up the paper and pointing to 
 its heading.) From Mr. Ritchie s Washington Union, 
 of April 20th. Isn t that good authority on this 
 subject ? 
 
 Mr. KEY. From whose speech does the gentleman 
 read? 
 
 Mr. MANN. From the speech of the Hon. Henry 
 
108 
 
 S. Foote, a senator in Congress from the State of 
 Mississippi. 
 
 Mr. KEY. The gentleman cannot read a paper to 
 the jury, unless he expects to prove it. 
 
 Mr. MANN. I deny that as a principle ; but, if re 
 quired, will call Mr. Foote to swear to his speech. 
 
 Judge CRAWFORD. Mr. Mann knows Mr. Foote did 
 not mean his language for our slaves. (A suppressed 
 laugh around the bar.) 
 
 Mr. MANN. May it please your honor, while noth 
 ing, on the one hand, will ever deter me from doing 
 my duty to a client, yet, on the other hand, I am 
 moved to say that I have been trained from my youth 
 to such respect for a court of justice, that I would say 
 nothing to it or before it which should not be fitting 
 and appropriate, as apples of gold in pictures of silver. 
 Let me then restate my argument, that we may see 
 whether, and by whom, this rule has been departed 
 from. I reiterate, then, if slaves are property, they are 
 a peculiar kind of property. They are instinct with 
 the common desires of humanity, and among them one 
 of the deepest and strongest is the love of fiberty. 
 And just in proportion as their value is increased by 
 intelligence and development, just in that proportion 
 is the bond weakened by which they are held. In all 
 places slaves hear something, but in this place they 
 hear much, of what is said in behalf of human liberty 
 and of human rights. If they hear this, and are above 
 the condition of brutes, they will apply it to them 
 selves. Every Fourth of July oration, if understood, 
 is a torch to light up another St. Domingo. If 
 they hear the word " slave" used in reference to those 
 Avho have been deprived of their natural rights in other 
 countries, they will apply that word to their own con 
 dition in this. If they hear the word " tyrants" used in 
 reference to one who deprives others of their rights, 
 for "tyrants" they will read "masters;" and no 
 
109 
 
 mortal power, or law, or art, can help it, but by blotting 
 out all that is human within them. The slaves in this 
 city are constantly hearing what must remind them 
 that they are slaves: and therefore they are constantly 
 incited to escape from their bondage. The torchlight 
 procession, with its speeches and parade, was one among 
 ten thousand of these incitements. The slaves, there 
 fore, who went on board the Pearl, might have ob 
 tained the idea of escape from some other person than 
 from the prisoner, from some orator who lays down 
 rules for the meridian of Europe, which do not quite 
 suit the meridian of America. Hence they might 
 have gone and applied to the prisoner for a passage. 
 To this he might have assented. And if so, then his 
 offence can be nothing beyond the offence of " trans 
 porting," and is not the offence of stealing, as charged 
 in this indictment. 
 
 And, as to the inflammatory language which the 
 court charges me with having used : every word 
 which was uttered by me, and which the court char 
 acterizes and denounces as " inflammatory," and thinks 
 not proper to be spoken in this court room, because it 
 may endanger the institutions of this city, was the 
 exact language of the Hon. Mr. Foote, senator in Con 
 gress from the State of Mississippi, uttered by him 
 from the rostrum, on Pennsylvania Avenue, the most 
 public place in this city, on the evening of the 13th 
 of April last, to thousands of people there assembled, 
 men, women, children, negroes and all. 
 
 I had marked, may it please the court, several other 
 passages, for this purpose most pungent and piercing, 
 in the speeches of that evening, to be read on this 
 occasion ; but as I think both court and jury are al 
 ready pretty well apprised of the pertinency and force 
 of my argument under this head, I shall content 
 myself with reading one passage more. It is from 
 the speech of the Hon. Frederick P. Staunton, repre- 
 10 
 
110 
 
 sentative in Congress from Tennessee, delivered on the 
 same occasion, and printed in the same paper : 
 
 " It has been truly said here this evening, that our example 
 has been of essential service to France. Who can doubt it ? 
 How different would have been the struggle for liberty to be 
 secured by republicanism, if there had been no example of 
 a stable republican government to which the patriot could 
 point, for the encouragement of his people! It is said we 
 are propagandists. We do not, indeed, propagate our princi 
 ples with the sword of power ; but there is one sense in which 
 we are propagandists. We cannot help being so. Our ex 
 ample is contagious. In the section of this great country 
 where I live, on the banks of the mighty Mississippi river, 
 we have the true emblem of the tree of liberty. There you 
 may see the giant cottonwood spreading his branches widely 
 to the winds of heaven. Sometimes the current lays bare his 
 roots, and you behold them extending far around and pene 
 trating to an immense depth in the soil. When the season 
 of maturity comes, the air is filled with a cotton-like sub 
 stance, which floats in every direction, bearing, on its light 
 wings, the living seeds of the mighty tree. They lodge upon 
 every bank of sand which emerges from the bosom of the 
 receding tide, and soon a young forest is seen to lift its head 
 from the surface of the barren waste. Thus the seeds of 
 freedom have emanated from the tree of our liberties. They 
 fill the air. They are wafted to every part of the habitable 
 globe. And even in the barren sands of tyranny they are 
 destined to take root. The tree of liberty will spring up 
 every where, and nations shall recline in its shade." 
 
 And thus, gentlemen of the jury, I say that while 
 some of the seeds of liberty which we scatter are 
 wafted to a foreign realm, and fall upon a foreign soil, 
 others will drop upon the hearts of bondmen and 
 bondwomen at home, and will there fructify arid ma 
 ture into their appropriate harvest. 
 
 Such, gentlemen, are the considerations that lead 
 me to believe that the slaves found on board the 
 schooner Pearl left the possession of their masters of 
 their own accord, or at the private suggestion of some 
 
Ill 
 
 friend, and not at that ot the prisoner ; or because they 
 were publicly incited thereto by that boastful spirit 
 amongst us which is forever shouting the praises of 
 liberty, while restricting the application of its princi 
 ples. I therefore infer that the prisoner has not com 
 mitted the act which forms the first ingredient in the 
 offence of larceny, the taking of property from the 
 possession of the owner. 
 
 2. To constitute the offence of larceny, the prisoner 
 must have taken the slaves into his own possession. 
 Now, of this there is not a particle of evidence. For 
 aught that appears, the slaves might have been passen 
 gers, on board his schooner, for a fare. They them 
 selves might have paid this fare, or others might have 
 paid it for them. In either case, they were no more 
 in possession of the prisoner than you or I are in pos 
 session of a railroad corporation, when we travel in its 
 cars. 
 
 3. The third question is, whether, even if the pris 
 oner did take the slaves named in this indictment from 
 the possession of Andrew Hoover, and into his own 
 possession, he did so for the felonious purpose of con 
 verting them to his own use. 
 
 The act of stealing, gentlemen, springs from the im 
 pulse to acquire property, as a means of gratification. 
 This impulse or desire to obtain the means of enjoy 
 ment is universal. The law denounces its penalties 
 against stealing, in order to repress the excesses of this 
 propensity, and to confine it to honest acquisitions. 
 Hence one man may interfere with the property of 
 another in a thousand ways, without being guilty of 
 stealing. It is not the mere taking of another man s 
 property, therefore, which constitutes stealing, but the 
 taking of it in order to convert it to the use of the taker, 
 and so to save himself the labor of earning it. Hence 
 I may take a man s plough from his field, or his wagon 
 from his barn, and use them temporarily ; but if I 
 
112 
 
 return them again to the owner, it is not stealing, but 
 only a trespass. So, according to the books, I may 
 take a man s horse from his stable, ride him thirty 
 miles, in order to flee from justice, and then, if I aban 
 don the horse, it is not stealing. It is only a trespass. 
 
 The doctrine, gentlemen, which I wish to enforce 
 upon your minds, is, that every act of taking another 
 man s property is not stealing. When a wag, riding 
 with a clergyman to church, took his sermon from his 
 pocket, for the purpose of enjoying his embarrassment 
 when he should get into the pulpit, and find himself 
 in the presence of the enemy without any ammunition, 
 such taking was not stealing j for doubtless the rogue 
 had no intention of appropriating either the sermon or 
 its morals to his own use. 
 
 So it is related of Sir Walter Scott, that, when he 
 was a boy at school, he got within one of the head of 
 his class. But the boy at the head never made a mis 
 take, and so he stood there, as perseveringly as the 
 letter A stands at the head of the alphabet. But Sir 
 Walter observed that, when his classmate was reciting, 
 his fingers always fumbled with a button on his jacket, 
 and, watching his opportunity at their next romping 
 on the playground, he cut off the button from his 
 rival s jacket ; and, at the very next lesson, the boy. 
 being disconcerted at not finding the button, missed 
 his answer, and Sir Walter rose to the head. But 
 surely this was not stealing. 
 
 The reason why, in each of these cases, one would 
 not be guilty of stealing, is, that he does not mean to 
 make the article taken his own. He gets a temporary 
 advantage from it, but does no act that proves a design 
 of permanent or unlimited ownership. Hence there 
 is the broadest and most striking difference between 
 stealing and malicious mischief. If one man takes the 
 property of another, merely to destroy or annihilate it, 
 out of ill will or revenge towards the owner, this is 
 
113 
 
 malicious mischief only, and not stealing. It is not 
 punished as stealing. Morally, it may be as wrong, 
 perhaps worse than stealing itself. But this impulse 
 which prompts to the destruction of another man s 
 property is vastly weaker than that which leads to its 
 appropriation. The latter is gratified a thousand times 
 where the former is once, and therefore the law visits 
 the former with the milder penalty. If taking property 
 from its owner from revenge, and for the malicious pur 
 pose of destroying it, be not stealing, but only malicious 
 mischief, then surely taking the property for the be 
 nevolent purpose of doing a kindness to the property 
 itself, as to a slave, is not stealing. 
 
 Take an illustration. Wild animals are the property 
 of no one. The undomesticated hares that run over 
 my fields, the pigeons that fly over my house, or the 
 fishes that swim in my streams, are not rny property so 
 that they can be the subjects of larceny. If a man 
 takes them, he is liable in trespass for entering my 
 grounds, and that is all. But if I confine hares in a 
 warren, or pigeons in a cote, or fishes in a seine, then 
 they are my property, and are the subjects of larceny, 
 because I have reduced them to possession. Under 
 such circumstances, if a man shoots or catches them 
 for his table, that is, to convert them to his own 
 use, he steals them; but if a man merely releases 
 them from their confinement, breaks open their en 
 closures to let them go free, he is at most only guilty 
 of malicious mischief. The English nobility send to 
 France for foxes. These are caught in the Pyrenees 
 or other mountains, brought across the English chan 
 nel, and placed in the parks of noblemen preparatory 
 to the barbarous amusement of a fox-hunt. Now, if 
 one lord should take a fox from the park of another 
 lord, for the pleasure of hunting him down, on his own 
 premises, this would be stealing ; but if he should only 
 assist a fox to escape out of the park, for the benevolent 
 10* 
 
114 
 
 purpose of restoring him to his natural liberty, this 
 would not be stealing, but only a trespass. In such a 
 case, the man who enlarges the fox does not do it in 
 order to save himself the labor or expense of catching 
 a fox ; that is, he does not convert the fox to his own 
 use. 
 
 Let me give you another illustration, which I select 
 for the beauty of the language in which it is conveyed, 
 arid for the nobleness of the sentiments that accompany 
 it. In the " Sentimental Journey " of Sterne, the fol 
 lowing incident is related : 
 
 " I was interrupted, in" the heyday of this soliloquy, with a 
 voice which I took to be of a child, which complained, it 
 could not get out. I looked up and down the passage, and 
 seeing neither man, woman, nor child, I went out without 
 further attention. 
 
 " In my return back through the passage, I heard the same 
 words repeated twice over, and looking up, I saw it was a 
 starling, hung in a little cage. I can t get out, I can t get out, 
 said the starling. 
 
 " I stood looking at the bird, and to every person who came 
 through the passage, it ran fluttering to the side which they 
 approached, with the same lamentation of its captivity, I 
 can t get out, said the starling. God help thee ! said I, but 
 I ll let thee out, cost what it will ; so I turned about the cage 
 to get at the door. It was twisted and double twisted so fast 
 with wire, there was no getting it open without pulling the 
 cage to pieces. I took both hands to it. 
 
 " The bird flew to the place where I was attempting his de 
 liverance, and, thrusting his head through the trellis, pressed 
 his breast against it as if impatient. I fear, poor creature, 
 said I, I cannot set thee at liberty. No, said the starling, 
 * I can t get out. I can t get out, said the starling. 
 
 " I vow I never had my affections more tenderly awakened." 
 
 And then he bursts out into that apostrophe to 
 Slavery, which has thrilled the hearts of all his readers 
 in times past, and will continue to thrill the heart of 
 every reader in all time to come : 
 
115 
 
 " Disguise thyself as thou wilt, still, Slavery, still thou art a 
 bitter draught ! and, though thousands in all ages have heen 
 made to drink of thee, thou art no less bitter on that account. 
 Tis thou, thrice sweet and gracious goddess, LIBERTY, whom 
 all in public or in private worship, whose taste is grateful, and 
 ever will be so till Nature herself shall change. No tint of 
 words can spot thy snowy mantle, or chemic power turn thy 
 sceptre into iron. With thee to smile upon him as he eats his 
 crust, the swain is happier than his monarch, from whose court 
 thou art exiled. Gracious Heaven ! grant me but health, 
 thou great Bestower of it, and give me but this fair goddess as 
 rny companion, and shower down thy mitres, if it seems good 
 unto thy divine providence, upon those heads which are 
 aching for them." 
 
 Had Sterne released that bird, and sent it abroad to 
 rejoice in its native fields of air, would his myriads of 
 readers, who have been delighted at the story, have 
 convicted him of stealing ? 
 
 Now for the application. These slaves, by the law 
 of nature, were as free as you or I. By the law and 
 force of man, they have been subjected to bondage. 
 If the prisoner took them, and took them either to sell 
 them or to use them himself, then he took them, in the 
 language of the law, for the felonious purpose of con 
 verting them to his own use ; and such taking would 
 be larceny according to the law. But if he took them 
 for the purpose of carrying them to a free state, and of 
 thus restoring them to their natural liberty, then he did 
 not intend to convert them to his own use, and is not 
 guilty of stealing. 
 
 There is another view of this case. The harshest 
 doctrines in favor of slavery only claim, that a master 
 has a right to the services of his slave. He has not a 
 right to his flesh and bones, so that he can cut up the 
 former for dog s meat, and grind the latter for compost. 
 To constitute larceny, then, of this kind of property, the 
 prisoner must have deprived the master of the services 
 of his slaves, with the intent, with the felonious intent, 
 
116 
 
 to use those services himself, of to sell them to another, 
 which would be the most effective act of use. But no 
 evidence of any such intent has been adduced in this 
 case. I therefore maintain, that neither of the three 
 ingredients necessary to constitute the offence of larceny 
 has been proved by the government. 
 
 And now, gentlemen, in closing, I will narrate to you 
 the worst of the prisoner s case. I will make confession 
 for him of the length and breadth of his offence. There 
 resides in this city a man named Daniel Bell, who was 
 once held as a slave, but who purchased his own free 
 dom. He had a family, consisting of his wife and eight 
 or ten children. These were manumitted by their 
 master, when he was brought to that most searching 
 of all earthly tribunals, the deathbed. After the 
 master s decease, his heirs attempted to reclaim the 
 property ; for the living and the dying have very dif 
 ferent views on the subject of slavery. Their ground 
 of claim was, that the master was not of sound and dis 
 posing mind when he made the deed of manumission. 
 But the magistrate who prepared the deed, and before 
 whom it was executed and acknowledged, set that pre 
 tence aside by his own knowledge of the grantor s 
 sanity ; and so the family of Bell passed as free, and 
 were treated as free, for years. At length this magis 
 trate died, and immediately the attempt to reduce the 
 family to bondage was renewed. A trial was had, and 
 through default of the now deceased magistrate s testi 
 mony, a verdict against them was obtained. But new 
 evidence was discovered, anoT one of the most respect 
 able counsellors of this court, Joseph H. Bradley, Esq., 
 made oath as to his belief in the sufficiency of that evi 
 dence, and moved for a new trial. It was while these 
 proceedings were pending, in behalf of the wife and 
 children, that they became alarmed lest they should be 
 clandestinely sent to the south, and there be plunged 
 into irredeemable slavery. Believing themselves free, 
 
117 
 
 and fearing bondage, they did send to Philadelphia for 
 assistance, (I tell yon the worst of it,) in being rescued 
 from such a fate. This defendant, Drayton, being led 
 also to believe that they were free, did come to assist 
 them. Drayton might have said to himself, " Men go to 
 assist Poles and Hungarians, and even Texans, and get 
 glory for it ; and why should I not assist free women 
 and children in imminent danger of bondage ? " He ar- 
 
 D O 
 
 rived here on Thursday evening, the 13th of April, and, 
 having no other special business, prepared to sail from 
 here, and did so sail, on Saturday evening, the 15th. 
 Hell s family knew the place where the defendant s 
 vessel was anchored, and the time fixed for its departure. 
 Drayton, expecting to meet them there at the time ap 
 pointed, was not at his vessel during the whole evening. 
 But one thing happened which he did not expect, and 
 had not provided against. Hell s family had a few 
 friends whom they thought they could take with them. 
 They did not propose any spoiling of the Egyptians, 
 but thought the escape of a few Israelites lawful. Hut 
 these friends had their friends, and they still another 
 circle ; and so, while the defendant was absent from 
 his vessel on Saturday evening, and without his knowl 
 edge or consent, they flocked down and stowed them 
 selves in the hold; so that, and I say now, gentle 
 men, what I religiously believe to be true, when 
 these slaves were ordered to come on deck after the 
 capture, the prisoner was as much astonished as any 
 body at the number of fishes that had got into his net. 
 These, gentlemen, are the facts, and, as I believe, 
 all the important facts pertaining to this case ; and on 
 these facts we claim that you must acquit the prisoner 
 of the offence of larceny. 
 
 NOTE. This case and one or two others were tried, and, in conse 
 quence of a series of most extraordinary rulings by the court, a verdict 
 of "guilty" was rendered. 
 
 Every lawyer knows that in the course of a trial, when counsel can 
 
118 
 
 have no time for examination or reflection, they take exceptions, 
 wherever an objection to the decision of the judge seems probably, or 
 even plausibly good. A clew, therefore, will be given to the course 
 which the court pursued throughout these trials, when the fact is 
 stated, that, on appeal to the Superior Court, seventeen out of twenty- 
 four of the rulings of the judge to which exception had been taken 
 were set aside. 
 
 The cases for larceny were remanded to be tried anew, when a ver 
 dict of " not guilty" was rendered in them all. 
 
 Drayton, the captain, and Sayres, his mate, were afterwards con 
 victed of " transporting " the slaves, and were fined. 
 
 English, the "boy," though indicted in one hundred and fifteen 
 indictments, was discharged without a trial. 
 
 Part of Bell s free family were ransomed ; the rest were sold and 
 sent to the South. 
 
 Although the facts pertaining to the mob, the repeated attempts 
 upon Drayton s life, the besieging of the jail, and the expulsion of 
 Drayton s counsel from it when engaged in his defence, all came out 
 before the grand jury that found these scores and hundreds of indict 
 ments, and though it was notorious who some of the ringleaders of 
 the mob were, yet no bill of indictment was ever found against any 
 of them. 
 
119 
 
 LETTER 
 
 To THE WHIG CONVENTION, (AND ALSO TO THE FREE SOIL 
 CONVENTION, mutatis mutandis,) ACCEPTING THEIR RESPEC 
 TIVE NOMINATIONS FOR THE THIRTY-FIRST CONGRESS. 
 
 [One paragraph of this Letter is omitted, as referring to a subject uncon 
 nected with the object of the present volume.] 
 
 WEST NEWTON, Sept. 23, 1848. 
 GENTLEMEN ;. 
 
 I HAVE received with lively emotions of gratitude a 
 copy of the resolutions passed at a district convention, 
 held at Dedham, on the inst. ; from one of which it 
 appears that I was unanimously nominated by the 
 convention, as their candidate for the Thirty-first Con 
 gress of the United States. 
 
 The convention you have the honor to represent 
 was pleased to refer to my views respecting the insti 
 tution of slavery. Some of these views were partly 
 expressed in the remarks made by me in the House of 
 Representatives, on the 30th of June last ; in the letter 
 to my constituents before referred to ; and in my argu 
 ments before the Criminal Court of the District of 
 Columbia, in the " Pearl " cases. These, and kindred 
 views, I shall improve all fitting opportunities that I 
 may ever enjoy to enlarge upon and enforce ; and had 
 I the tongue of an angel, or the pen of inspiration, I 
 believe I could use them on no holier theme than in 
 kindling abhorrence at the wrongs suffered by the 
 slave, and in melting the universal heart of humanity 
 into pity for his lot ; for I hold it to be impossible for 
 the soul of a slave, benighted, strangled, and buried 
 
120 
 
 alive as it is, ever fully to know and feel the joys 
 of that spiritual liberty wherewith Christ maketh his 
 disciples free. 
 
 Be pleased, gentlemen, to accept my thanks for the 
 very kind manner in which you have made known to 
 me the decision of the convention you represent, and 
 believe me, 
 
 Very truly and sincerely, yours, &c., &c., 
 
 HORACE MANN. 
 
121 
 
 SPEECH 
 
 DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE or REPRESENTATIVES OF THE UNIT 
 ED STATES, FEBRUARY 23, 1849, ON SLAVERY AND THE 
 SLAVE TRADE IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA. 
 
 MIL CHAIRMAN; 
 
 There is a bill upon the speaker s table which pro 
 vides for abolishing the slave trade in the District of 
 Columbia. For three successive days we have tried in 
 vain to reach it, in the order of business. Its oppo 
 nents have baffled our efforts. Our difficulty is not in 
 carrying the bill, but in reaching it. I am not without 
 apprehension that the last sands of this Congress will 
 run out, without any action upon the subject. Even 
 should the bill be taken up, it is probable that all de 
 bate upon it will be suppressed by that sovereign si 
 lencer, the previous question. Hence I avail myself 
 of the present opportunity, as it is probably the only 
 one I shall have, during the present session, to sub 
 mit my views upon it. 
 
 I frankly avow, in the outset, that the bill provides 
 for one part only of an evil, whose remedy, as it seems 
 to me, is not only the object of a reasonable desire, but 
 of a righteous and legal demand. The bill proposes the 
 abolition, not of slavery, but only of the slave trade, in 
 the District of Columbia. My argument will go to 
 show, that, within the limits of this District, slavery 
 ought not to exist in fact, and does not exist in law. 
 
 Sir, in the first place, let us inquire what is the state 
 of things in this District on this subject. The gentle 
 man from Indiana, [Mr. R. W. THOMPSON,] who ad 
 dressed us a few days since, used the following 
 language : 
 
 11 
 
122 
 
 " What is the slave trade in the District of Columbia ? I 
 have heard a great deal said about slave pens, 1 about 
 slaves sold at auction, and about stripping the mother from 
 the child, and the husband from the wife. These things may 
 exist here, but I do not know of them. Since I have been in 
 the habit of visiting the District, which is from my boy 
 hood, I have never seen a negro sold here, I have never 
 seen a band of negroes taken off by the slave trader. I do 
 not remember that I have ever seen the slave trader himself. 
 I know nothing of the slave pen that is so much talked 
 about. It may be here, however, and these things may hap 
 pen every day before the eyes of gentlemen who choose to 
 hunt them up ; but for myself, I have no taste for such 
 things." 
 
 Now, sir, if the gentleman means to say that he has 
 no personal knowledge of " slave pens " and of the 
 slave traffic in this District, that is one thing ; bat if 
 he means to deny or call in question the existence of 
 the traffic itself, or of the dens where its concentrated 
 iniquities make up the daily employment of men, that 
 is quite another thing. Sir, from the western front of 
 this Capitol, from the piazza that opens out from your 
 congressional library, as you cast your eye along the 
 horizon and over the conspicuous objects of the land 
 scape, the President s Mansion, the Smithsonian In 
 stitution, and the site of the Washington Monument, 
 you cannot fail to see the horrid and black receptacles 
 where human beings are penned like cattle, and kept 
 like cattle, that they may be sold like cattle, as 
 strictly and literally so as oxen and swine are kept and 
 sold at the Smithfield shambles in London, or at the 
 cattle fair in Brighton. In a communication made 
 during the last session, by the mayor of this city, to 
 an honorable member of this House, he acknowledges 
 the existence of slave pens here. Up and down the 
 beautiful river that sweeps along the western margin 
 of the District, slavers come and go, bearing their 
 freight of human souls to be vended in this market- 
 
123 
 
 place ; and after they have changed hands, according 
 to the forms of commerce, they are retransported, 
 the father of a family to go, perhaps, to the rice fields 
 of South Carolina, the mother to the cotton fields of 
 Alabama, and the children to be scattered over the 
 sugar plantations of Louisiana or Texas. 
 
 Sir, it is notorious that the slave traders of this 
 District advertise for slaves in the newspapers of the 
 neighboring counties of Maryland, to be delivered in 
 any numbers at their slave pens in this city ; and that 
 they have agents, in the city and out of it, who are 
 engaged in supplying victims for their shambles. Since 
 the gentleman from Indiana was elected to this Con 
 gress, and, I believe, since he took his seat in this 
 Congress, one coffle of about sixty slaves came, chained 
 and driven, into this city ; and at about the same time 
 another coffle of a hundred. Here they were lodged 
 for a short period, were then sold, and went on their 
 returnless way to the ingulfing south. 
 
 Sir, all this is done here under our own eyes, and 
 within hearing of our own ears. All this is done now, 
 and it has been done for fifty years, ever since the 
 seat of the national government was established in 
 this place, and ever since Congress, in accordance with 
 the constitution, has exercised " exclusive legislation " 
 over it. But the gentleman from Indiana, though ac 
 customed to visit this District from his boyhood, has 
 " never seen a negro sold here ; " he has " never 
 seen a band of negroes taken off by the slave tra 
 der ; " he does not remember " to have seen the slave 
 trader himself; " he knows " nothing of the slave pen 
 that is so much talked about." Sir, the eye sees, not 
 less from the inner than from the outer light. The 
 eye sees what the mind is disposed to recognize. The 
 image upon the retina is nothing, if there be not an 
 inward sense to discern it. The artist sees beauty ; 
 the philosopher sees relations of cause and effect j the 
 
124 
 
 benevolent man catches the slightest tone of sorrow ; 
 but the insensate heart can wade through tears and see 
 no weeping, and can live amidst groans of anguish, 
 and the air will be a non-conductor of the sound. I 
 know a true anecdote of an American gentleman who 
 walked through the streets of London with a British 
 nobleman ; and being beset at every step of the way 
 by squalid mendicants, the American, at the end of 
 the excursion, adverted to their having run a gantlet 
 between beggars. " What beggars ? " said his lordship ; 
 " / have seen none." 
 
 But the gentleman from Indiana says, " But for my 
 self, I have no taste for such things." His taste ex 
 plains his vision. Suppose Wilberforce and Clarkson 
 to have had no " taste " for quelling the horrors of the 
 African slave trade. Suppose Howard and Mrs. Fry 
 to have had no " taste " for laying open the abomina 
 tions of the prison-house, and for giving relief to the 
 prisoner. Suppose Miss Dix to have had no " taste " 
 for carrying solace and comfort and restoration to the 
 insane. Suppose the Abbe L Epee to have had no 
 "taste" for teaching deaf mutes; or the Abbe Hauy 
 for educating the blind ; or M. Seguin and others for 
 training idiots, and for educing docility and decency, 
 and a love of order from those almost imperceptible 
 germs of reason and sense, that barely distinguish them 
 from the brutes ! Suppose these things, and in what 
 a different condition would the charities and the suffer 
 ings of the world have been ! Herod had no " taste " 
 for sparing the lives of the children of Bethlehem, and 
 of all the coasts thereof; and doubtless he could have 
 said, with entire truth, that he never heard the voice, 
 in Rama, of lamentation and weeping and great mourn 
 ing ; nor saw, among all the mothers of Syria, any 
 Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be 
 comforted, because they were not. But, sir, just in 
 proportion as the light of civilization and Christianity 
 
125 
 
 dawns upon the world, will men be found who have a 
 " taste " for succoring the afflicted and for righting the 
 wronged. It was the clearest proof of the Groat 
 Teacher s mission, that he had "a taste " for going 
 about doing good. 
 
 During the last fifty years, and especially during the 
 last half of these fifty years, the world has made great 
 advances in the principles of liberty. Human rights 
 have been recognized, and their practical enjoyment, to 
 some extent, secured. There is not a government in 
 Europe, even the most iron and despotical of them all, 
 that has not participated in the ameliorations which 
 characterize the present age. A noble catalogue of 
 rights has been wrested by the British commons from 
 the British nohility. France and Italy have been rev 
 olutionized. Even the Pope of Rome, whose power 
 seemed as eternal as the hills on which he was seated, 
 has sunk under the shock. Prussia, and all the Ger 
 manic powers, with the exception of Austria, have 
 been half revolutionized ; and even the icy despotisms 
 of Austria and Russia are forced to relent under those 
 central fires of liberty which burn forever in the 
 human heart, as the central fires of the earth burn 
 forever at its core. Great Britain has abolished African 
 slavery throughout all her realms. Prance has de 
 clared that any one who shall voluntarily become the 
 owner of a slave, or shall voluntarily continue to be 
 the owner of a slave cast upon him hy bequest or in 
 heritance, shall cease to be a citizen of Prance. Den 
 mark has abolished slavery wherever it existed in her 
 possessions. The Bey of Tunis, acting under the 
 light of the Mahometan religion, has abolished it. The 
 priests of Persia declare the sentiment to have come by 
 tradition from Mahomet himself, " that the worst of 
 men is the seller of men." Not only all civilized na 
 tions, but the half civilized, the semi-barbarous, are 
 acting under the guidance of the clearer light and the 
 11* 
 
126 
 
 higher motives of our day. But there is one conspic 
 uous exception ; there is one government which closes 
 its eyes to this increasing light ; which resists the per 
 suasion of these ennobling motives ; which, on the 
 grand subject of human liberty and human rights, is 
 stationary and even retrogrades, while the whole world 
 around is advancing ; sleeps while all others are 
 awaking ; loves its darkness while all others are aspir 
 ing and ascending to a purer air and a brighter sky. 
 This government, too, is the one which is most boast 
 ful and vain-glorious of its freedom; and if the humil 
 iating truth must be spoken, this government is our 
 own. In regard to slavery and the slave trade in this 
 District, where we possess the power of exclusive legis 
 lation, we stand where we stood fifty years ago. Not 
 a single ameliorating law has been passed. In practice, 
 we are where we were then ; in spirit, there are proofs 
 that we have gone backward. 
 
 There are now on the surface of the globe two con 
 spicuous places, places which are attracting the gaze 
 of the whole civilized world, whither men and women 
 are brought from great distances to be sold, and whence 
 they are carried to great distances to suffer the heaviest 
 wrongs that human nature can bear. One of these 
 places is the coast of Africa, which is among the most 
 pagan and benighted regions of the earth ; the other is 
 the District of Columbia, the capital and seat of gov 
 ernment of the United States. 
 
 As far back as 1808, Congress did what it could to 
 abolish the slave trade on the coast of Africa. In 1820 
 it declared the foreign slave trade to be piracy ; but on 
 the 31st of January, 1849, a bill was introduced into 
 this House to abolish the domestic slave trade in this 
 District, here, in the centre and heart of the nation, 
 and seventy-two representatives voted against it, 
 voted to lay it on the table, where, as we all know, it 
 would sleep a dreamless sleep. This was in the House 
 
127 
 
 of Representatives. It is well known that the Senate 
 is still more resistant of progress than the House ; and 
 it is the opinion of many that, even if a hill should 
 pass both House and Senate, it would receive the Ex- 
 ivutive veto. By authority of Congress, the city of 
 Washington is the Congo of America. 
 
 But, still more degrading than this, there is another 
 contrast which we present to the whole civilized 
 world. The very slaves upon whom we have trodden 
 have risen above us, and their moral superiority makes 
 our conduct ignominious. Not Europeans only, not 
 only Arabians and Turks, are emerging from the inhu 
 manity and the enormities of the slave traffic ; but even 
 our own slaves, transplanted to the land of their fathers, 
 are raising barriers against the spread of this execrable 
 commerce. On the shores of Africa, a republic is 
 springing up, whose inhabitants were transplanted from 
 this Egypt of bondage. And now, look at the govern 
 ment which these slaves and descendants of slaves 
 have established, and contrast it with our own. They 
 discard the institution of slavery, while we cherish it. 
 A far greater proportion of their children than of the 
 white children of the slave states of this Union are at 
 school. In the metropolis of their nation, their flag 
 does not protect the slave traffic, nor wave over the 
 slave mart. Would to God that the very opposite of 
 this were not true of our own ! Their laws punish 
 the merchandise of human beings ; our laws sanction 
 and encourage it. They have erected, and are erect 
 ing, fortifications and military posts along the shores of 
 the Atlantic, for seven hundred miles, to prevent pirates 
 from invading the domain of their neighbors, and kid 
 napping people who, to them, are foreign nations. We 
 open market-places here, at the centre of the nation, 
 where, from seven hundred miles of coast, the sellers 
 may come to sell, and where buyers may come to buy, 
 and whence slaves are carried almost as far from their 
 
128 
 
 birthplace as Africa is from America. The governor 
 of Liberia has lately made a voyage to England arid 
 France, and entered into treaties of amity and com 
 merce with them ; and he has obtained naval forces 
 from them, to abolish this traffic in human beings. At 
 the same time, we are affording guaranties to the same 
 traffic. Virginia and Maryland are to the slave trade 
 what the interior of Africa once was. The Potomac 
 and the Chesapeake are the American Niger and Bight 
 of Benin ; while this District is the great government 
 barracoon, whence coffles are driven across the country 
 to Alabama or Texas, as slave ships once bore their 
 dreadful cargoes of agony and woe across the Atlantic. 
 The very race, then, which were first stolen, brought 
 to this country, despoiled of all the rights which God 
 had given them, and kept in bondage for generations, 
 at last, after redeeming themselves, or being restored 
 to their natural liberty in some other way, have crossed 
 the ocean, established a government for themselves, 
 and are now setting us an example which should cause 
 our cheeks to blister with shame. 
 
 Sir, there is an idea often introduced here and else 
 where, and made to bear against any restriction of sla 
 very, or any amelioration of the condition of the slave, 
 which I wish to consider. It was brought, odiously 
 and prominently forward the other day, by the gentle 
 man from Pennsylvania, [Mr. CHARLES BROWN.] The 
 idea is, that the slaves are in a better condition in this 
 country than they would have been at home. It is 
 affirmed that they are brought under some degree of 
 civilizing and humanizing influences amongst us, which 
 they would not have felt in the land of their fathers. 
 
 Let us look, first, at the philosophy of this notion, 
 and then at its morality. All those who use this argu 
 ment as a defence or a mitigation of the evils of sla 
 very, or as a final cause for its existence, assume that 
 if the present three million slaves, who now darken 
 
L20 
 
 our southern horizon, and fill the air with tlioir groans, 
 had not been hero in their present state of bondage, 
 they would have been in Africa, in a state of pagan 
 ism. Now, the slightest reflection shows that this as 
 sumption has no basis of truth. Not one of them all 
 would now have been in existence, if their ancestors 
 had not been brought to this country. And, according 
 to the laws of population operative among barbarous 
 nations, there are now just as many inhabitants, 
 pagans, cannibals, or what you please, in Africa, as 
 there would have been if the spoiler had never entered 
 their home, and ravished and borne them into bondage. 
 Among savage nations, or nomadic tribes, the popula 
 tion equals the means of subsistence. Take away 
 two, three, or four per cent, of the consumers, and 
 the vacuum is immediately filled. The population 
 keeps up to the level of the production. Among such 
 people, there is always a tendency to increase faster 
 than the means of living increase. Take away a part 
 of them, and this tendency to increase takes effect by 
 its own vigor, it executes itself. It is like a bow 
 that unbends, or a spring that uncoils, as soon as an 
 external pressure is removed. Dam up a fountain, and 
 the weight of the accumulating strata will eventually 
 check the outflow from the spring. So it is of a savage 
 population. Of them, the Malthusian theory is true. 
 
 And how infinitely absurd and ridiculous is the plea 
 that the slaves are better off here " than THEY would 
 have been in Africa "/ Go out into the streets of this 
 city, and take the first one you meet, perhaps he is 
 a mulatto. But for being here, he would have been a 
 mulatto in the middle of Africa, would he ? Take 
 them all. mulatto, mestizo, zambo, and all " the vast 
 variety of man," so far as color is concerned, and if 
 they had not their existence here, they would have had 
 it in Africa ! This is the doctrine. Would they have 
 had the same American names also ? Would they 
 
have spoken the same language, and worn cotton 
 grown on the same fields ? The last is just as certain 
 as the first. It is all more silly than the repinings of 
 the silly girls who grieved because their mother had 
 not married a certain rich suitor, whose addresses in 
 early life she had rejected ; for then, said they, how 
 rich we should have been ! No, not one of these three 
 millions of men. women, and children, would have 
 been in existence in Africa. All the crime of their 
 kidnapping ; all the horrors of the middle passage ; all 
 their sufferings for two centuries, or six generations ; 
 and all the calamities that are yet to grow out of their 
 condition, all these crimes and agonies are gratuitous 
 crimes and agonies. There is no recompense or palli 
 ation for them. They have been added unnecessarily 
 and remorselessly to the amount of human guilt and 
 suffering for which the white race must answer in the 
 day of account. The idea, then, of sending the slaves 
 back to their country is an egregious fallacy. If they 
 were to be sent back whence they came, it would not 
 be to Africa, but to nonentity. 
 
 If the ancestors of the present three millions of 
 slaves had never been brought here, if their descend 
 ants had never been propagated here, for the supposed 
 value of their services, their places would have been 
 supplied by white laborers, by men of the Cauca 
 sian race, by freemen. Instead of the three million 
 slaves, of all colors, we should doubtless now have at 
 least three million white, freeborn citizens, adding to 
 the real prosperity of the country, and to the power 
 of the Republic. If the south had not had slaves to 
 do their work for them, they would have become in 
 genious and inventive like the north, and would have 
 enlisted the vast forces of nature in their service, 
 wind, and fire, and water, and steam, and lightning, the 
 mighty energies of gravitation and the subtle forces of 
 chemistry. The country might not have had so gaudy 
 
131 
 
 and ostentatious a civilization as at present, but it 
 would have had one infinitely more pure and sound. 
 
 But admit the alleged statement, absurd and false as it 
 is ; admit that these three millions of slaves would have 
 belonged to Africa if they had not belonged to America, 
 
 that they would have been born of the same fathers 
 and mothers there as here, so that those of them who 
 are American mulattoes would have been Ethiopian 
 mulattoes ; and admit, further, that their present con 
 dition is better than the alternat ive condition alleged, 
 
 and what then ? Is your duty done ? Is it enough 
 if you have made the condition of a man or of a race a 
 little better, or any better, if you have not made it as 
 much better as you can ? What standard of morals do 
 gentlemen propose to themselves ? If a fellow-being is 
 suffering under a hundred diseases, and we can relieve 
 him from them all, what kind of benevolence is that 
 which boasts of relieving him from one, and permits 
 him to suffer under the other ninety and nine ? By 
 the law of nature and of God, the slave, like every 
 other man, is entitled " to life, liberty, and the pursuit 
 of happiness ; " he is entitled to his earnings, to the 
 enjoyment of his social affections, to the develop 
 ment of his intellectual and moral faculties, to that 
 cultivation of his religious nature which shall lit him, 
 not merely to feel, but reason of righteousness, tem 
 perance, and a judgment to come ; he is entitled to 
 all these rights, of which he has been cruelly despoiled ; 
 and when he catches some feeble glimmering of some 
 of them, we withhold the rest, and defend ourselves 
 and pride ourselves that he is better off than he would 
 have been in some other country or in some other con 
 dition. Suppose the Samaritan had bound up a single 
 wound, or relieved a single pang of the bleeding way 
 farer who had fallen among thieves, and then had gone 
 to the next inn and boasted of his benevolence. He 
 would only have shown the difference between a 
 
132 
 
 "good Samaritan" and a u bigot Samaritan." The 
 thieves themselves might have done as much. 
 
 But there is another inquiry which the champions 
 of slavery have got to answer before the world and 
 before Heaven. If American slaves are better off than 
 native Africans, who is to be thanked for it ? Has their 
 improved condition resulted from any purposed plan, 
 any well-digested, systematized measure, carefully 
 thought out, and reasoned out, and intended for their 
 benefit ? Not at all. In all the southern statute books, 
 and legislative records, there is no trace of any such 
 scheme. Laws, judicial decisions, the writing of po 
 litical economists, all treat the slave as a thing to 
 make money with. Agricultural societies give rewards 
 for the best crops. Horse-jockey societies improve the 
 fleetness of the breed for the sports of the turf. Even 
 the dogs have professional trainers. But not one thing 
 is done to bring out the qualities of manhood that lie 
 buried in a slave. Look through the southern statute 
 books, and see what Draconian penalties are inflicted 
 for teaching a slave to read. see how he is lashed for 
 attending a meeting to hear the Word of God. On 
 every highroad patrols lie in wait to scourge him back 
 if he attempts to visit father, mother, wife, child, or 
 friend, on a neighboring plantation. By day and by 
 night, at all times and every where, he is the victim of 
 an energetic and comprehensive system of measures, 
 which blot out his senses, paralyze his mind, degrade 
 and brutify his nature, and suppress the instinctive 
 workings of truth, generosity, and manhood in his 
 breast. All the good that reaches him, reaches him in 
 defiance of these privations and disabilities. If any 
 light penetrates to his soul, it is because human art 
 cannot weave a cloud dense and dark enough to be 
 wholly impervious to it. There are some blessings 
 which the goodness of God will bestow in spite of hu 
 man efforts to intercept them. It is these only which 
 
133 
 
 reach the slave. And after having built up all barriers 
 to forbid the access of improvement ; after having 
 sealed his senses by ignorance, and more than half ob 
 literated his faculties by neglect and perversion, the 
 oppressor turns round, and because there are some 
 scanty, incidental benefits growing out of the very de- 
 plorableness of his condition, he justifies himself before 
 the world, and claims the approval of Heaven, because 
 the slave is better off here than he would be in Africa. 
 Sir, such an argument as this is an offence to Heaven. 
 I consider it to be as much worse than atheism as 
 Christianity is better. And when such an argument 
 comes from a gentleman belonging to a free state ; 
 when it comes from the gentleman from Pennsylvania, 
 [Mr. BROWN,] from a representative of the city of 
 William Penn ; when he, without motive, without in 
 ducement, offers such a gratuity to the devil, I can ac 
 count for it only on the principle of the man who, 
 having a keen relish for the flesh of swine, said he 
 wished he were a Jew, that he might have the pleasure 
 of eating pork and committing a sin at the same time. 
 But the subject presents a still more painful aspect. 
 How are slaves made better, and from what motives 
 are they made better, in this country ? It is no secret 
 that I am about to tell. There are certain virtues and 
 sanctities which increase the pecuniary value of certain 
 slaves : and there are certain vices and debasements 
 which increase the market price of others. If a master 
 wishes to repose personal confidence in his slave, he 
 desires to have him honest and faithful to truth. But 
 if he desires to make use of him to deceive and cajole 
 and defraud, then he wishes to make him cunning and 
 tricky and false. If the master trains the slave to take 
 care of his own children, or of his favorite animals, 
 then he wishes to have him kind ; but if he trains him 
 for a tasker or a field overseer, then he wishes to have 
 him severe. Now, it is in this way that some of the 
 12 
 
134 
 
 Christian attributes of character, being directly con 
 vertible into money or money s worth, enhance the 
 value of a slave. Hence, it is said in advertisements 
 that a slave is pious, and, at the auction block, the 
 hardened and heartless seller dwells upon the Christian 
 graces and religious character of s^ne slaves with the 
 unction of an apostle. The purchaser sympathizes, 
 and only desires to know whether the article be a real 
 or a sham Christian. If mere bones and muscles com 
 pacted into human shape be worth five hundred dollars, 
 then, if the auctioneer can warrant the subject to have 
 the meekness of Moses and the patience of Job, the 
 same article may be worth seven hundred. If the 
 slave will forgive injuries, not merely seventy times 
 seven, but injuries inflicted all his life long, then an 
 additional hundred may be bid for him. If he pos 
 sesses all the attributes of religion and piety, the en 
 durance of a hero, the constancy of a saint, the firm 
 ness of a martyr, the trustingness of a disciple, all 
 except those which go to make him feel like a man, 
 and believe himself a man, then that which as mere 
 bone and muscle was worth five hundred dollars, is 
 now worth a thousand. Sir, is not this selling the 
 Holy Spirit? Is not this making merchandise of the 
 Savior ? Is not this the case of Judas selling his Master 
 over again, with the important exception of the remorse 
 that made the original culprit go and hang himself? 
 But suppose the case to be that of a woman ; suppose 
 her ability to work and capacity for production to be 
 worth five hundred dollars ; suppose, in addition to 
 this, she is young and sprightly and voluptuous ; sup 
 pose the repeated infusion of Saxon blood has almost 
 washed the darkness from her skin ; and suppose she 
 is not unwilling to submit herself to the libertine s em 
 brace ; then, too, that which before was worth but five 
 hundred dollars, will now bring two thousand. And 
 thus infernal as well as celestial qualities are coined 
 
J35 
 
 into money, according to the demands of the market 
 and the uses of the purchaser. 
 
 Now. it is only in some such incidental way, and 
 with regard to some individuals, that it can be said, 
 that their condition is hetter here than it would he in 
 Africa. And this Improvement, where it exists, is not 
 the result of any system of measures designed for their 
 benefit, but is the product of selfish motives, turning 
 godliness into gain ; and where more gain or more 
 gratification can be obtained by the debasement, the 
 irreligion, the pollution of the slave, there the instincts 
 of chastity, the sanctity of the marriage relation, the 
 holiness of maternal love are all profaned to give secu 
 rity and zest to the guilty pleasures of the sensualist 
 and debauchee. There are individual exceptions to 
 what I have said, exceptions which, amid surround 
 ing iniquity, shine "like a jewel in an Ethiop s ear," 
 but they are exceptions. Laws, institutions, and the 
 prevailing public sentiment are as I have described. 
 
 I regard the argument, therefore, of the gentleman 
 from Pennsylvania, [Mr. BROWN.] not only as utterly 
 unsound and false in its premises, but as blasphemous 
 in its conclusions. Common blasphemy seldom reaches 
 beyond exclamation. It is some fiery outburst of 
 impious passion, that flashes and expires. But the gen 
 tleman reasons it out coolly. His is argumentative 
 blasphemy, borrowing the forms of logic that it may 
 appear to have its force, and transferring it from the 
 passions to the intellect, to give it permanency. 
 
 But the gentleman from Pennsylvania retorts upon 
 Massachusetts, and refers to certain things in her his 
 tory which he regards as disreputable to her. In this 
 he has been followed by the gentleman from Virginia, 
 [Mr. BEDINGER,] who has poured out a torrent of abuse 
 upon my native state, and who has attempted to fortify 
 his own intemperate accusations from a pro-slavery 
 pamphlet which has been profusely scattered about this 
 
136 
 
 House within a few days past, and which is not merely 
 full of falsehoods, but is composed of falsehoods ; so 
 that if one were to take the false assertions and the false 
 arguments out of it, there would be nothing but the 
 covers left.* Sir, I am very far from arrogating for 
 Massachusetts all the merits and the virtues which she 
 ought to possess. I mourn over her errors, and would 
 die to reform, rather than spend one breath to defend 
 them. The recital of her offences can fall more sadly 
 upon no ear than upon my own. But it is as true of a 
 state as of an individual, that repentance is the first 
 step towards reformation. Massachusetts has commit 
 ted errors ; but when they were seen to be errors, she 
 discarded them. She once held slaves ; but when she 
 saw that slavery was contrary to the rights of man and 
 the law of God, she emancipated them. She was the 
 first government in the civilized world, in the whole 
 world, ancient or modern, to abolish slavery, wher 
 ever she had power to do so. This is an honor that 
 no rival can ever snatch from her brow. Once, I 
 say it with humiliation, she was engaged in the slave 
 trade. But all the gold that could be earned by the 
 accursed traffic, though spent in the splendors of luxury 
 arid the seductions of hospitality, could not save the 
 trader himself from infamy and scorn ; and I am sure I 
 am right in saying that the slave trade ceased to be 
 conducted by Massachusetts merchants, and to be car 
 ried on in Massachusetts ships, from Massachusetts 
 ports, before it was abandoned by the merchants and 
 discontinued in the ships and from the ports of any 
 other commercial state or nation in the world. This, 
 too, is an honor, which it will be hers, through all the 
 immortality of the ages, alone to wear. But Massa- 
 
 * Lecture on the North and South. Delivered in College Hall, 
 January 16, 1849, before the Young Men s Mercantile Library Asso 
 ciation of Cincinnati. By Elhvood Fisher. 
 
137 
 
 cliusetts, it is still said, has her idolaters of Mammon in 
 other forms. It is charged upon her that many of her 
 children still wallow in the sty of intemperance ; that 
 her spiritualism runs wild in religious vagaries ; and 
 that something of the old leaven of persecution still 
 clings to her heart. In vindicating what is right, I 
 will not defend what is wrong. I cannot deny, 
 would to God that I could, that we still have vices 
 and vicious men amongst us. There are those there, 
 as elsewhere, who, if they were to hear for the first 
 time of the River of Life flowing fast by the throne 
 of God, would instinctively ask whether there were 
 any good mill sites on it. There are those there, as 
 elsewhere, whose highest aspirations for heaven and 
 for happiness, whether for this life or for another, are 
 a distillery and a sugar-house, with steam machinery 
 to mix the products. There, as elsewhere, there are 
 religionists who are quick to imitate the Savior when 
 he strikes, but despise his example when he heals. 
 
 But, sir, let me say this for Massachusetts, that what 
 ever sins she may have committed in former times, 
 whatever dissenters she may have persecuted, or 
 witches she may have hanged, or Africans she may 
 have stolen and sold, she has long since abandoned 
 these offences, and is bringing forth fruits meet for re 
 pentance. And is a state to have no benefit from a 
 statute of limitations? Is a crime committed by an 
 cestors to be forever imputed to their posterity ? This 
 is worse than non-forgiveness ; it is making punishment 
 hereditary. Sir, of these offences, Massachusetts has 
 repented and reformed ; and she is giving that noblest 
 of atonements or expiations, which consists in repair 
 ing the wrong that has been done ; and where the victim 
 of the wrong has himself passed away, and is beyond 
 relief, then in paying, with large interest, the debt to 
 humanity which the special creditor is no longer pres 
 ent to receive, by seeking out the objects of want and 
 12* 
 
138 
 
 suffering wherever they may be found. Sir, our ac 
 cusers unconsciously do us the highest honor, when, in 
 their zeal to malign us, they seek for historical re 
 proaches. If they could find present offences where 
 with to upbraid us, they would not exhume the past. 
 But they condemn themselves, for they show that even 
 the resuscitation of the errors of the dead gives them 
 more pleasure than a contemplation of the virtues of 
 the living. One thing is certain : the moment the other 
 states shall imitate our present example, they will cease 
 to condemn us for our past offences. The sympathy 
 of a common desire for improvement will destroy the 
 pleasure of crimination. 
 
 And where, I ask, on the surface of the earth, is 
 there a population of only eight hundred thousand, 
 who are striving so earnestly, and doing so much, to 
 advance the cause of humanity and civilization, as is 
 doing by the people of Massachusetts ? Where else, 
 where universal suffrage is allowed, is a million of dol 
 lars voted every year, by the very men who have to 
 pay it, for the public, free education of every child in 
 the state ? 
 
 Where else, by such a limited population, is another 
 million of dollars voluntarily voted and paid each year 
 for the salaries of clergymen alone ? Where else, 
 where the population is so small, and natural resources 
 so few and scanty, is still another million of dollars an 
 nually given in charity ? the greater portion of which 
 is sent beyond their own borders, flows into every 
 state in the Union, and leaves not a nation on the 
 globe, nor an island in the sea, un watered by its fertil 
 izing streams. Look into the statute book of Massa 
 chusetts, for the last twenty years, and you will see 
 how the whole current of her legislation has set in the 
 direction of human improvement, for succoring dis 
 ease or restoration from it, for supplying the privations 
 of nature, for reclaiming the vicious, for elevating all, 
 
139 
 
 a comprehensiveness of scope that takes in every 
 human heing, and an energy of action that follows 
 every individual with a blessing to his home. When 
 others will abandon their offences, then let the remem 
 brance of them be blotted out. 
 
 But, sir, I think it proper to advert to the fact that 
 I have had other proofs, during the present, session of 
 Congress, of the same spirit of crimination and oblo 
 quy which was so fully developed in the speeches of 
 the gentleman from Pennsylvania, [Mr. BROWN,] and 
 the gentleman from Virginia, [Mr. BEDINGER.] Through 
 the post-office of the House of Representatives, I have 
 been in the regular receipt of anonymous tetters, made 
 up mainly of small slips cut from newspapers printed 
 at the north, describing some case of murder, suicide, 
 robbery, or other offence. These have been arranged 
 under the heads of different states, Ohio, Pennsyl 
 vania, New York, Connecticut, &c., and accompanied, 
 in the margin, with rude drawings of a school-book or 
 a schoolhouse, and all referred to Common Schools, as 
 to their source. Two only, of the whole number thus 
 collected, originated in Massachusetts, and one of these 
 was a case of suicide committed by a man who had 
 become insane from the loss of his wife. Which of 
 these events, in the opinion of my anonymous corre 
 spondent, constituted the crime, whether the bereave 
 ment that caused the insanity, or the suicide commit 
 ted in one of its paroxysms, I am unable to say. 
 Now, what satisfaction even a bad man could have in 
 referring offences against law and morality to the insti 
 tution of public schools, when he must have known 
 that the very existence of the offences only proves that 
 education has not yet done its perfect work, I cannot 
 conceive. And what spite, either against an educa 
 tional office which I once held, or against an institution 
 which is worthy of all honor, could be so mean and 
 paltry as to derive gratification from referring me to 
 
140 
 
 long lists of offences, only one of which was commit 
 ted in my native state, I must leave for others to con 
 jecture. Surely the author of these letters must have 
 known little of Common Schools, and profited by them 
 as little as he has known. Had he referred to any 
 considerable number of crimes perpetrated in Massa 
 chusetts, I would take his letters home and carry them 
 into our public schools, and make them the text for a 
 sermon, in which I would warn the children to beware 
 of all crimes, and especially of the meanness and the 
 wickedness which feels a complacency in the crimes 
 of others, or can give a false paternity to them. And, 
 sir, I should be sure of a response ; for out of those 
 schools there is going forth a nobler band of young 
 men and women than ever before conferred intelli 
 gence, virtue, refinement, and renown upon any peo 
 ple or community on the face of the globe. 
 
 But whatever may be said in mitigation or in con 
 demnation of slavery elsewhere, there are special 
 reasons why it should be discontinued in this District. 
 This District is the common property of the nation. 
 Having power of exclusive legislation over it, we are 
 all responsible for the institutions in it. While slaves 
 exist in it, therefore, it can be charged upon the north 
 that they uphold slavery. This is unjust to us, be 
 cause it places us before the world in the attitude of 
 sustaining what we condemn. It wounds our moral 
 and religious sensibilities, because we believe the in 
 stitution to be cruel towards men, and sinful in the 
 sight of Heaven; and yet we are made apparently to 
 sanction it. It is like that species of injustice where 
 a man is compelled by a tax to support a religion which 
 he disbelieves, and to pay a hierarchy whom his con 
 science compels him to denounce. But the existence 
 of slavery here is not necessary to the faith or the 
 practice of our southern brethren. If they believe it 
 to be a useful and justifiable institution, then they 
 
141 
 
 evince the sincerity of that belief by sustaining and 
 perpetuating it at home. For this purpose, there is no 
 necessity of a crusade to propagate it, or sustain it 
 elsewhere. 
 
 Look at the relation which we bear to it, in another 
 respect. I have been taught from my earliest child 
 hood that "all men are created equal." This has be 
 come in me not merely a conviction of the under 
 standing, but a sentiment of the heart. This maxim 
 is my principle of action, whenever I am called upon 
 to act ; and it rises spontaneously to my contempla 
 tions when I speculate upon human duty. It is the 
 plainest corollary from the doctrine of the natural 
 equality of man, that when I see a man, or a class of 
 men, who are not equal to myself in opportunities, in 
 gifts, in means of improvement, or in motives and in 
 citements to an elevated character and an exemplary 
 lit! , I say, it is the plainest corollary that I should 
 desire to elevate those men to an equality with myself. 
 However far my own life may fall below the standard 
 of Christianity and gentlernanliness, yet I hold it to be 
 clear, that no man is a Christian or a gentleman, who 
 does not carry about an habitual frame of mind which 
 prompts him, as far as he has the means to do it, to in 
 struct all the ignorance, to relieve all the privations, to 
 minister to all the pains, and to supply all the deficien 
 cies of those with whom he meets in the daily walks 
 of life ; and, so far as he is a man who wields influ 
 ence, possesses authority, or exercises legislative power, 
 he is bound to exert his gifts and his prerogatives for 
 the amelioration and the improvement of his fellow- 
 men. This is the lowest standard of duty that any 
 one who aspires to be a Christian or a gentleman can 
 set up for his guidance. Now take the case of a man 
 from the north, who has incorporated these views, or 
 any similitude of these views, into his character, and 
 who has occasion to visit this District. Suppose him 
 
142 
 
 to be elected and sent here as a member of Congress, 
 or to be appointed to a post in some of the depart 
 ments, or to visit this city on public business, or to 
 come here from motives of curiosity ; what is the sight 
 which is inflicted upon him when he first sets his foot 
 within this common property of the nation, when 
 he first enters this household, where the head of the 
 nation resides and directs ? Sir, when he first alights 
 from the cars that bring him within your limits and 
 your jurisdiction, he beholds a degraded caste, a 
 race of men whom God endowed with the faculties of 
 intelligence, but whom man has despoiled of the power 
 of improving those faculties, squalid in their garb, be 
 traying ignorance in every word they utter, unculti 
 vated in their manners and their tastes, fawning for a 
 favor, instead of standing erect like men who are con 
 scious of rights ; or, if they have outgrown servile 
 and sycophantic habits, then erring on the side of im 
 pudence and insolence as much as they erred before 
 on that of cringing and servility. He repairs to his 
 lodgings, and there, too, all his moral sensibilities 
 are shocked and outraged, by seeing a class of men 
 and women hopelessly degraded, cut off by law and 
 custom from all opportunity of emerging from their 
 debasement ; whom no talent, taste, or virtue can ever 
 redeem to the pleasures and the rights of social inter 
 course. He sees men and women who are not de 
 graded on account of the services they perform, for 
 "honor and shame from no condition rise," but de 
 graded by the motive and spirit from which the services 
 are performed ; men and women who have no induce 
 ments to industry and frugality, for their earnings will 
 all be seized by another ; who have no incentives to 
 self-respect, for they can never emerge from their me 
 nial condition ; who are bereaved of all the wonders 
 and glories of knowledge, lest under its expansions 
 their natures should burst the thraldom that enslaves 
 
143 
 
 them ; and all whose manly qualities, all whose higher 
 faculties, therefore, are irredeemably and hopelessly 
 crushed, extinguished, obliterated, so that nothing but 
 the animal, which the master can use for his selfish 
 purposes, remains. 
 
 Mr. BRODHEAD, [of Pennsylvania.] Would you ad 
 vance the slaves to an equal social and political condi 
 tion with the white race ? 
 
 Mr. MANN. I would give to every human being the 
 best opportunity I could to develop and cultivate the 
 faculties which God has bestowed upon him, and 
 which, therefore, he holds under a divine charter. [ 
 would take from his neck the heel that has trodden him 
 down; I would dispel from his mind the cloud that 
 has shrouded him in moral night ; I would remove the 
 obstructions that have forbidden his soul to aspire ; and 
 having done this, I would leave him, as I would leave 
 every other man, to find his level, to occupy the po 
 sition to which he should be entitled by his intelligence 
 and his virtues. I entertain no fears on the much 
 dreaded subject of amalgamation. Legal amalgama 
 tion between the races will never take place, unless, in 
 the changed condition of society, reasons shall exist to 
 warrant and sanction it ; and, in that case, it will carry 
 its own justification with it. But one thing I could 
 never understand, why those who are so horror- 
 stricken at the idea of theoretic amalgamation, should 
 exhibit to the world, in all their cities, on all their 
 plantations, and in all their households, such number 
 less proofs of practical amalgamation. I never could 
 see why those who arraign and condemn us at the 
 north so vehemently, because, as they say, we ob 
 trude our prying eyes into what they call a " domes 
 tic " or " fireside " institution, should have no hesita 
 tion in exhibiting to the world, through all their bor 
 ders, ten thousand, and ten times ten thousand, living 
 witnesses, that they make it a bedside institution. 
 
144 
 
 Multitudes of the slaves of the south bear about upon 
 their persons a brand as indelible as that of Cain ; but 
 the mark has been fastened upon them, not for their 
 own crimes, but for the crimes of their fathers. In 
 the complexion of the slave, we read the horrid history 
 of the guilt of the enslavers. They demonstrate that 
 the one race has been to the other, not the object of 
 benevolence, but the victim of licentiousness. 
 
 But to resume. When the visitor to this city from 
 the north leaves his lodgings, and goes into the public 
 streets, half the people whom he meets there are of 
 the same degraded class. Their tattered dress and 
 unseemly manners denote congenital debasement. 
 Their language proclaims their^ignbrance. If you 
 have occasion to send them on an errand, they cannot 
 read the direction of a note, or a sign on a shopboard. 
 Their ideas are limited within the narrowest range. 
 They speak the natural language of servility, and they 
 Avear the livery of an inferior condition. The convic 
 tion of their deplorable state is perpetually forced upon 
 the mind. You do not need their color to remind 
 you of their degradation. Color, sir ! They are often 
 times almost as white as ourselves. Sir, there is not 
 a member of Congress who has not frequently seen 
 some of his fellow-members, in the spring of the 
 year, with a jaundiced skin more sallow and more 
 yellow than that of many a slave who is bought and 
 sold and owned in this city. I have seen members of 
 this House to whom I have been disposed to give a 
 friendly caution to keep their " free papers " about 
 their persons, lest suddenly, on the presumption from 
 color, they should be seized and sold for runaway 
 slaves. A yellow complexion here is so common a 
 badge of slavery, that one whose skin is colored by 
 disease is by no means out of danger. To enjoy 
 security, a man must do more than take care of his 
 life ; he must take care of his health. It is not enough 
 
145 
 
 to take heed to the meditations of his heart ; he must 
 see also to the secretions of his liver. 
 
 But, sir, the stranger from the north visits the courts 
 of justice in this city; he goes into halls set apart and 
 consecrated, even in the dark and half-heathenish 
 periods of English history, to the investigation of 
 truth and the administration of justice ; but if he sees 
 any specimens of the colored race there, he sees them 
 only as menials. They cannot go there as witnesses. 
 However atrocious the wrongs they may suffer in their 
 own person and character, or in the person and char 
 acter of wife or children, they cannot appeal to the 
 courts to avenge or redress them. If introduced there 
 at all, it is as a bale of goods is introduced, or as an 
 ox or a horse is brought within their purlieus, for the 
 purpose of trying some disputed question of identity 
 or ownership. They go not as suitors, but as sacri 
 fices. In the courts of law ; in the temples with 
 which all our ideas of justice, of right between man 
 and man, are associated ; where truth goes to be vin 
 dicated, where innocence flies to be avenged, in 
 these courts, an entire portion of the human race are 
 known, not as men, but as chattels, as cattle. Where, 
 for them, is the Magna Charta that the old barons 
 wrested from King John ? Is a whole race to be 
 forever doomed to this outlawry ? Are they forever 
 to wear a " wolfs head," which every white man may 
 cut off when he pleases ? Sir, it cannot be that this 
 state of things will last forever. If all the rights of 
 the black race are thus withheld from them, it is just 
 as certain as the progress of time that they, too, will 
 have their Runnymede, their Declaration of Inde 
 pendence, their Bunker Hill, and their Yorktown. 
 
 Such, sir, are the sights that molest us when we 
 
 come here from the north, that molest us in the 
 
 hotels, that molest us in the streets, that molest us in 
 
 the courts, that molest us every where. But the week 
 
 13 
 
146 
 
 passes away, and the Sabbath comes, the day of 
 rest from worldly toils, the day set apart for social 
 worship, when men come together, and, by their mu 
 tual presence and assistance, lift up the hearts of each 
 other in gratitude to God. But where now are the 
 colored population, that seemed to be so numerous 
 every where else ? Have they no God ? Have they 
 no interest in the Savior s example and precepts? 
 Have they no need of consolation, of faith in the 
 Unseen, to help them bear up under the burdens and 
 anxieties of life ? Is their futurity so uncertain or so 
 worthless that they need no guide to a better country, 
 or that they can be turned off with a guide as ignorant 
 and blind as themselves ? 
 
 We go from the courts and the churches to the 
 schools. But no child in whose skin there is a shadow 
 of a shade of African complexion is to be found there. 
 The channels are so cut that all the sacred and heal 
 ing waters of knowledge flow, not to him, but by 
 him. Sir, of all the remorseless and wanton cruelties 
 ever committed in this world of wickedness and 
 woe, I hold that to be the most remorseless and wan 
 ton which shuts out from all the means of instruction 
 a being whom God has endued with the capacities of 
 knowledge, and inspired with the divine desire to 
 know. Strike blossom and beauty from the vernal 
 season of the year, and leave it sombre and cheerless ; 
 annihilate the harmonies with which the birds of 
 spring make vocal the field and the forest, and let 
 exulting Nature become silent and desolate ; dry up 
 even those fountains of joy and gladsomeness that 
 flow unbidden from the heart of childhood, and let 
 the radiant countenance of youth become dull and 
 stony like that of age ; do all this, if you will, but 
 withhold your profane hand from those creative sources 
 of knowledge which shall give ever-renewing and 
 ever-increasing delight through all the cycles of im- 
 
147 
 
 mortality, and which have the power to assimilate the 
 liiiito creature more and more nearly to the infinite 
 Creator. Sir, he who denies to children the acquisi 
 tion of knowledge works devilish miracles. If a man 
 destroys rny power of hearing, it is precisely the same 
 to me as though, leaving my faculty of hearing un 
 touched, he had annihilated all the melodies and har 
 monies of the universe. If a man obliterates my power 
 of vision, it is precisely the same to rne as though he 
 had hlotted out the light of the sun, and flung a pall of 
 darkness over all the beauties of the earth and the glories 
 of the firmament. So, if a usurper of human rights 
 takes away from a child the faculties of knowledge, or 
 the means and opportunities to know, it is precisely 
 the same to that child as though all the beauties and 
 the wonders, all the magnificence and the glory, of the 
 universe itself had been destroyed. To one who is 
 permitted to know nothing of the charms and sublim 
 ities of science, all science is non-existent. To one 
 who is permitted to know nothing of the historical 
 past, all the past generations of men are a nonentity. 
 To one whose mind is not made capacious of the 
 future, and opened to receive it, all the great interests 
 of futurity have less of reality than a dream. I say, 
 therefore, in strict, literal, philosophical truth, that 
 whoever denies knowledge to children works devilish 
 miracles. Just so far as he disables and incapacitates 
 them from knowing, he annihilates the objects of 
 knowledge ; he obliterates history ; he destroys the 
 countless materials in the natural world that might, 
 through the medium of the useful arts, be converted 
 into human comforts and blessings ; he suspends the 
 sublime order and progression of Nature, and blots out 
 those wonderful relations of cause and effect that 
 belong to her unchangeable laws. Nay, there is a 
 sense in whicii such an impious destroyer of knowl 
 edge may be said to annihilate the attributes of the 
 
148 
 
 Creator himself, for he does annihilate the capacity of 
 forming a conception of that Creator, and thus pre 
 vents a soul that was created in the image of God 
 from ever receiving the image it was created to 
 reflect. Such a destroyer of knowledge dims the 
 highest moral splendor of the universe. God is more 
 to me than a grand and solitary Being, though reful 
 gent with infinite perfections. Contemplated as en 
 throned in the midst of his works, his spiritual off 
 spring in all the grand circuit of the worlds he has 
 formed become a multiplying glass, reflecting back 
 the Original in the profusion and countlessness of 
 infinity. But when the wickedness of man cuts off 
 entire generations and whole races from the capacity 
 of reflecting back this radiant image of the Creator, 
 then all that part of the universe where they dwell 
 becomes black and revolting, and all that portion of 
 the Mirror of Souls which was designed to reproduce 
 and rekindle the glories of the Eternal absorbs and 
 quenches the rays which it should have caught and 
 flamed with anew, and multiplied and returned. And 
 still further, sir, I affirm, in words as true and literal 
 as any that belong to geometry, that the man Avho 
 withholds knowledge from a child not only works 
 diabolical miracles for the destruction of good, but for 
 the creation of evil also. He who shuts out truth, by 
 the same act opens the door to all the error that sup 
 plies its place. Ignorance breeds monsters to fill up 
 all the vacuities of the soul that are unoccupied by the 
 verities of knowledge. He who dethrones the idea 
 of law, bids chaos welcome in its stead. Superstition 
 is the mathematical complement of religious truth ; 
 and just so much less as the life of a human being is 
 reclaimed to good, just so much more is it delivered 
 over to evil. The man or the institution, therefore, 
 that withholds knowledge from a child, or from a race 
 of children, exercises the awful power of changing the 
 
149 
 
 world in which they are to live, just as much as 
 though he should annihilate all that is most lovely and 
 grand in this planet of ours, or transport the victim of 
 his cruelty to some dark and frigid zone of the uni 
 verse, where the sweets of knowledge are unknown, 
 and the terrors of ignorance hold their undisputed 
 and remorseless reign. Sir, the laws recorded in the 
 statute books of the free states, providing the means 
 of education, and wooing the children to receive the 
 blessedness of true knowledge, are worthy to be in 
 scribed as emblems and hieroglyphics upon the golden 
 gates of heaven ; but those laws which deform the 
 statute books of the slave states of this Union, making 
 it a penal offence to educate human beings, and doom 
 ing immortal souls to perpetual ignorance, would make 
 the most appropriate adornment wherewith to embel 
 lish with inscription and bas-relief the pillars of the 
 council hall of Pandemonium. 
 
 Sir, if there is any thing for which I would go back 
 to childhood, and live this weary life over again, it is 
 for the burning, exalting, transporting thrill and ec 
 stasy with which the young faculties hold their earliest 
 communion with knowledge. When the panting and 
 thirsting soul first drinks the delicious waters of truth ; 
 when the moral and intellectual tastes and desires first 
 seize the fragrant fruits that flourish in the garden of 
 knowledge ; then does the child catch a glimpse and 
 foretaste of heaven. He regales himself upon the 
 nectar and ambrosia of the gods. Late in life, this 
 zest is rarely if ever felt so keenly as at the beginning. 
 Such ought not to be the fact ; but our bodies are so 
 systematically abused by transgressions of the laws of 
 health and diet, that the sympathizing soul loses the 
 keenness of its early relish. Even then, however, age 
 has its compensations. The old may experience the 
 delights of learning, anew, in the reflex pleasure of 
 seeing children learn. But these lofty and enduring 
 13* 
 
150 
 
 satisfactions, this pleasure, it is no extravagance to 
 say, this bliss of knowledge, both for parent and child, 
 is withheld, cruelly, remorselessly withheld, from the 
 slave. We know all this ; we see its imbruting con 
 sequences ; and we are compelled to see them, be 
 cause the government will uphold slavery here. 
 
 Such, sir, is the spectacle which is presented to all 
 northern men, whenever for duty, for business, or for 
 pleasure, they visit this metropolis. Wherever we go, 
 wherever we are, the odious, abhorred concomitants 
 of this institution are forced upon our observation, and 
 become a perpetual bitterness in the cup of life. The 
 whole system, with all its adjuncts, is irreconcilably 
 repugnant to our ideas of justice. We believe it to be 
 a denial of the rights of man ; we believe it to be 
 contrary to the law of God. Whether these feelings 
 wear away by the lapse of time, and the indurating 
 power of custom, I know not ; but, for one, I hope 
 never to become hardened and callous to the sight ; 
 for it is a case where I could experience no mitigation 
 of my pains, without a corresponding debasement of 
 my nature. 
 
 Now, in all sincerity, and in all kindness, I ask our 
 southern brethren what there is to them so valuable 
 and desirable in retaining slavery here, as to be a com 
 pensation for all the pain and evil which its existence 
 inflicts upon the north ? Surely its abandonment here 
 would be a small thing to them, while its continuance 
 is a great thing to us. It is a great thing to us, be 
 cause we are held responsible for it by the whole civil 
 ized world. This District is the common possession 
 of the nation. Congress has power of exclusive legis 
 lation over it. Congress, therefore, is responsible for 
 its institutions, as a man is responsible for the condi 
 tion of his house, and the customs of his family. The 
 general government is not responsible for the local 
 institutions of Massachusetts or of Mississippi. Each 
 
151 
 
 of them has supreme control over its own domestic 
 concerns. They may honorably discharge their debts 
 or repudiate them ; they may build up institutions of 
 charity, of learning, and of religion ; or they may 
 suffer inhumanity and violence, ignorance and pagan 
 ism, to prevail ; and we, here, cannot help it, and 
 therefore are not responsible for it. But it is wholly 
 otherwise with regard to the institutions that prevail 
 in this District ; their honor, or their infamy, attaches 
 to us. We are judged by them the world round. We 
 of the Northern States feel it at home ; we are made to 
 feel it still more deeply abroad. Throughout every 
 nation in Europe, it is the common language and the 
 common sentiment, that an institution which exists in 
 one half of the states of this Union is in flagrant con 
 trast and contradiction to the theory of our govern 
 ment. When we are reminded of this, whether in 
 a kindly and expostulatory manner by our friends, or 
 in an offensive and taunting one by our enemies, 
 we of the north can say, at least, that we are not 
 responsible for it. We can explain why we are no 
 more amenable for the local laws of Arkansas or Mis 
 souri than we are for the Catholic religion in Mexico, 
 or for the revolutions in the South American republics. 
 This is our answer. But they still retort upon us, and 
 say, There is one spot for which you are responsible, 
 the District of Columbia. You could abolish sla 
 very there if you would ; you do not ; and therefore 
 the sin of its continuance is yours, as much as if it 
 existed in New York or Massachusetts. Now I ask 
 southern gentlemen how it is consistent with magna 
 nimity and honor, with a fraternal feeling towards the 
 north, for them to force the odium of this inconsist 
 ency upon us ? Surely they gain no credit, no char 
 acter by it ; we lose both credit and character. The 
 existence of slavery here is no benefit to them ; it is 
 of unspeakable injury to us. They would lose noth- 
 
152 
 
 ing by surrendering it ; we suffer every thing by its 
 continuance. A change would work them no injury ; 
 it would be invaluable to us. I ask them, on principles 
 of common fairness and good neighborhood, that they 
 should courteously and voluntarily yield us this point, 
 which would allay so much bitterness and heart-burn 
 ing at the north, and which, according to their view 
 of the matter, would fill the south with the sweet 
 savor of a generous deed. 
 
 I know, sir, that some southern gentleman profess 
 to see a principle in such a course that debars them 
 from adopting it. They say that if slavery in this 
 District should be surrendered, it would only be giving 
 the adversary a vantage ground, on which he could 
 plant himself to attack slavery in the states. I dissent 
 from this view entirely. Has not the gentleman from 
 Ohio, [Mr. GIDDINGS,] who is supposed to represent 
 the extreme anti-slavery views which exist in this 
 House, has he not declared here, a hundred times 
 over, that he disclaims all right, that he renounces all 
 legal authority and pretext, under the constitution, to 
 lay the hands of this government, for the purpose of 
 freeing him, on a single slave in the slave states ? But 
 clearly the principle is different in regard to slaves in 
 this District, where we possess the power of "exclusive 
 legislation." But if gentlemen at the south see a 
 principle which debars them from surrendering slavery 
 in this District, we at the north see a principle which 
 prompts us, and will prompt us, until the work is 
 accomplished, to renewed exertions. On the same 
 ground on which slavery in this District has been 
 defended for the last fifty years, it can be defended for 
 the next fifty, or the next five hundred years ; it can 
 be defended forever. This idea of perpetual slavery 
 in the very household of a republic of freemen is not 
 to be tolerated, and cannot be tolerated. But I will 
 not dwell on this topic further. I close this branch 
 
153 
 
 of my argument with a proposition which seems to 
 me but fair and equitable. The south has held this 
 metropolis as a slave capital for fifty years. Let it now 
 be held as a free capital for fifty years ; and if, at the 
 end of this period, adequate reasons can be shown, be 
 fore any nation, civilized or uncivilized, upon the face 
 of the earth, for restoring it to slavery again, I, for one, 
 should have no fears of entering into an engagement 
 upon such a condition, that it should again become "a 
 land of Egypt and a house of bondage." 
 
 Notwithstanding I have dwelt so long upon the so 
 cial and moral aspects of this subject, I am still tempted 
 not to forego that which was my principal object in 
 using, namely, to submit an argument on the question 
 of the legality or constitutionality of slavery in this 
 District. I have bestowed much careful attention upon 
 this subject, with the sincerest desire of arriving at 
 true, legal, and constitutional results. I submit my 
 views with deference, because I know they are in con 
 flict with the views of others, for whose knowledge 
 and abilities I have a profound respect. 
 
 The legality of slavery in the District of Columbia 
 has been assumed, and practically acquiesced in, for 
 fifty years. Had the question of its validity been 
 raised, and argued on the principles of the constitu 
 tion, immediately after the creation of the District, I 
 believe this territory would have been declared free 
 soil. In my conscientious opinion, slavery exists in 
 this District only by original usurpation and subse 
 quent acquiescence. If so, Congress cannot be too 
 speedily invoked to abdicate the power it has usurped. 
 
 1. The first position I take is this : That slavery has 
 no legal existence any where, unless by force of positive 
 law. 
 
 If any man claims authority over the body, mind, 
 and soul of one of his fellow-men, and claims this 
 
154 
 
 authority not only for the whole life of his victim, but a 
 like authority over all his descendants, there is no part 
 of the civilized world where he will not be required to 
 show some positive law, authorizing the power and the 
 bondage. If the claimant says, " I am stronger, or I 
 am wiser than he ; " or, " I have an Anglo-Saxon brain, 
 while he has only an African brain ; " or, my skin is 
 white, and his skin is not white ; " or, " I descended 
 from Shem, and he from Ham ; and, therefore, he is my 
 slave," -there is not a court in Christendom, which, 
 though it may admit the fact, will ratify the inference. 
 If the claimant affirms that it is morally right for him 
 to seize his fellow-man and reduce him to slavery ; if 
 he brings the Bible into court as his law book, and cites 
 Abraham and Isaac, and Jacob and Paul, as his author 
 ities ; still, I say, there is not a court in Christendom 
 that will not deny the validity of the title, and rebuke 
 the arrogance of the demand.* Positive law, then, is 
 the only foundation of slavery. The authorities are 
 numerous, if not numberless, to establish this position. 
 I shall not encumber this argument by citing many of 
 them. The few which I shall cite will contain a refer 
 ence to the rest. 
 
 The grand reason against slavery given by Lord 
 Mansfield, in Somerset s case, was, " that it is so in 
 trinsically wrong that it is incapable of being introduced 
 
 * An anecdote, which I have on the best authority, is not inappro 
 priate. A few years ago, a citizen of the State of Connecticut ab 
 sconded, leaving a wiie behind him. He went to the State of Missis 
 sippi, where he took a colored woman as his concubine, had children 
 by her, acquired property, and died. The wife and heirs in Connec 
 ticut claimed the property acquired in Mississippi. The claim was 
 contested. The honorable HENRY S. POOTE, now a senator from that 
 state, conducted the defence. He denied the title of the wife in Con 
 necticut, affirmed that of the concubine and her children in Missis 
 sippi, and cited the case of Abraham and Sarah and Hagar, to prove 
 the legality and the propriety of the concubinage, and the divine au 
 thority for it. And surely, if the Bible argument in favor of slavery 
 is sound, Mr. FOOTE S argument in favor of concubinage is equally so. 
 
155 
 
 into any country, on any reasons moral or political, and 
 can only stand on positive law. 20 State Trials, 1. 
 
 Chief Justice Marshall says, " That it [slavery] is con 
 trary to the law of nature, will scarcely be denied. 
 That every man has a natural right to the fruits of his 
 own labor, is generally admitted ; and that no other 
 person can rightfully deprive him of those fruits and 
 appropriate them against his will, seems to be the 
 necessary result of this admission." Antelope, 10 
 Wheat., 120. 
 
 " The first objection," says Mr. Justice Best, in the 
 case of Forbes and Cochrane, " which occurs to me, in 
 this case, is that it does not appear, in the special case, 
 that the right to slaves exists in East Florida. That 
 right is not a general but a local right ; it ought, there 
 fore, to have been shown that it existed in Florida, and 
 that the defendants knew of its existence. Assuming, 
 however, that those facts did appear, still, under the 
 circumstances of this case, this action could not be 
 maintained. 
 
 " The question is, Were these persons slaves at the 
 time when Sir G. Cockburn refused to do the act which 
 he was desired to do? I am decidedly of opinion that 
 they were no longer slaves. The moment they put 
 their feet on board of a British man-of-war, not lying 
 within the waters of East Florida, (where undoubtedly 
 the laws of that country would prevail,) those persons 
 
 who had before been slaves were free 
 
 Slavery is a local law, and, therefore, if a man wishes 
 to preserve his slaves, let him attach them to him by 
 affection, or make fast the bars of their prison, or rivet 
 well their chains ; for the instant they get beyond the 
 limits where slavery is recognized by the local law, 
 they have broken their chains, they have escaped from 
 their prison, and are free" 2 Barn. & Ores. 466-7; 
 Forbes vs. Cochrane, S. C., 3 Dowl. & Ryland, 679. 
 
 "I am of opinion," says Holroyd, J., in the same 
 
156 
 
 case, " that according to the principles of the English 
 law the right to slaves, even in a country where such 
 rights are recognized by law, must be considered as 
 founded, not upon the law of nature, but upon the 
 particular law of that country." 
 
 " The law of slavery is a law in invitum ; and when 
 a party gets out of the territory where it prevails, and 
 out of the power of his master, and gets under the pro 
 tection of another power, without any wrongful act 
 done by the party giving that protection, the right of 
 the master, which is founded on the municipal law of 
 the particular place only, does not continue, and there 
 is no right of action against a party who merely re 
 ceives the slave in that country, without doing any 
 wrongful act." 
 
 The definition of slavery given by the Roman law- 
 implies that it is local : Servitus est constitutio juris 
 gentium, qua quis dominio alieno, CONTRA NATURAM, 
 subjicitur. Commonwealth vs. Aves, 18 Pick. Rep.. 
 193 ; Lunsford vs. Coquillon, 14 Martin s Rep. 402. 
 " The relation of owner and slave is a creation of the 
 municipal law." Rankin vs. Lydia, 3 Marshall, 470, 
 Ky. ; Butler vs. Hopper, 1 Wash. C. C. Rep. 499 ; 
 Ex parts Simmons, 4 Wash. C. C. 296 ; Marie Louise 
 vs. Marot et al., 9 Curry s Louisiana Rep. 473. 
 
 This point may be presented in another light. By 
 the law of nature all men are free. But in some gov 
 ernments the law of the state, upheld by the power of 
 the state, overrides the law of nature, and enslaves a 
 portion of the people. The law of nature recedes be 
 fore this legalized violence ; but it recedes no farther 
 than the legalized violence drives it back. Within the 
 jurisdictional limits of such states, then, slavery is made 
 legal, though it is not made right. But if a slave 
 passes out of the jurisdiction where violence overpowers 
 right, into a jurisdiction where right is superior to vio 
 lence, he is then free ; not because there is any change 
 
157 
 
 in the man, but because there is a change in the laws 
 to which the man is subject. 
 
 There may, however, be some further positive law 
 which, though it does not authorize the buying or sell 
 ing of a slave, still does provide that an escaped or es 
 caping slave may be recaptured and redelivered into 
 bondage. Such is the third paragraph of the second 
 section of the fourth article of the constitution of the 
 United States. Such, too, is the act of Congress of 
 February 12, 1793, providing for the recapture of fugi 
 tive slaves. This, however, would not be without 
 positive law. 
 
 The debates in all the conventions for adopting the 
 constitution of the United States, proceed upon the 
 ground that slavery depends upon positive law for its 
 existence. If it did not, if a man who has a legal 
 right to a slave in Virginia, has a legal right to him any 
 where, then the provision in the constitution, and the 
 act of 1793 for recapturing fugitive slaves, would have 
 been unnecessary. 
 
 On the south side of a boundary line, then, slavery 
 may exist by force of positive law ; while, on the north 
 side, in the absence of any such law, slavery is unlaw 
 ful. A slave passing out of a jurisdiction where slavery 
 is legalized, into a jurisdiction where it is not, becomes 
 free. It is as though a man should migrate from one 
 of those South Sea islands, where cannibalism is legal 
 ized, and where the public authorities, according to the 
 reports of travellers, not only condemn and execute a 
 criminal, but dine on him, after he is executed, it is, 
 I say, as though the subject of such a government 
 should migrate into one where cannibalism is not law 
 ful, and where, therefore, though he should be con 
 demned and executed for crime, it would be no part of 
 the sentence or the ceremony that he should be eaten 
 by his judges. He is out of cannibal jurisdiction. 
 
 The right of freedom is a natural right. It is a pos- 
 14 
 
158 
 
 itive existence. It is a moral entity. Like the right 
 to life, it pertains, by the law of nature and of God, to 
 every human being. This moral right continues to 
 exist until it is abolished. Some act abolishing this 
 freedom, then, must be proved ; it must be proved af 
 firmatively, or else the fact of freedom remains. This 
 is the solid and indestructible ground of the maxim, 
 that slavery can exist only by positive law j that it is a 
 local, institution ; that the right of freedom must first 
 be abolished before slavery can exist. 
 
 2. My second position is this : That a man s legal 
 condition may be changed by a change in the govern 
 ment over him, while he remains in the same place, 
 just as effectually as it can be changed by his removal 
 to another place, and putting himself under another 
 government. The inhabitants of the North American 
 colonies did not change their place of residence when 
 they passed from under the government of Great Brit 
 ain, and came under the government of the confede 
 ration. The Mexicans, inhabiting the then states of 
 California and New Mexico, did not change their place 
 of residence, when, on the thirtieth day of May last, 
 they ceased to be citizens of the Mexican republic, and 
 became citizens, or quasi citizens of the United States. 
 Their political relations were changed, not by their 
 removal from under the canopy of one government and 
 placing themselves under the canopy of another govern 
 ment, but by the withdrawal of one government from 
 over them, and by the extension to them of certain po 
 litical rights and capacities under another government. 
 Before this thirtieth day of May, they could have com 
 mitted treason against Mexico, but not after it. Before 
 it, they could not commit treason against the United 
 States ; but when they shall be citizens of the Union, 
 they can. These vital changes in their relations are 
 without any change in their residence. Within my 
 recollection, an old gentleman died in Massachusetts, 
 
i.V.) 
 
 who had lived in five different towns, but still remained 
 where he was born, like one of the old oak trees on 
 the homestead. The part of the original town where 
 he was born had been set off and incorporated into a 
 new town ; and that part of the second town where he 
 lived, into a third ; and so on, until he died in the fifth 
 town without any change of domicile. Now, this man 
 lived under the jurisdiction and by-laws of five towns, 
 as they were successively incorporated over him, just 
 as much as though he had struck his tent five times, 
 and placed himself, by successive migrations, under five 
 different municipal jurisdictions. 
 
 A similar thing must have happened to thousands of 
 our fellow-citizens of the Union. Some of them at 
 first lived under a foreign government ; then under one 
 territorial government ; then under another; and at last 
 have become citizens of a state, without any change 
 of domicile. Indeed, it would seem that nothing can 
 be clearer than the proposition, whether regarded as a 
 legal or a political one, that the laws and the juris 
 diction may be changed over a man who continues 
 to reside in the same place, just as effectually and as 
 completely as a man may change the laws and juris 
 diction over himself by removing to a different place. 
 In many cases, the former works a more thorough 
 change than the latter. The laws of Great Britain do 
 not acknowledge the right of self-expatriation ; while, 
 at the same time, it is held, that the inhabitants of a 
 foreign province, incorporated into the kingdom, change 
 their allegiance without changing their residence. 
 
 3. My third proposition is this: That the jurisdic 
 tion under which the inhabitants of what is now the 
 District of Columbia lived, prior to the cession of the 
 District by Maryland to the United States, was utterly 
 and totally changed, at the moment of the cession, 
 at the moment when, according to the provisions of the 
 constitution, they ceased to be citizens of the state of 
 
160 
 
 Maryland, and became citizens of the District of 
 Columbia. 
 
 By the 17th paragraph, (Mickey s Constitution,) of 
 the 8th section of the 1st article, it is provided that 
 Congress shall have power " to exercise exclusive legis 
 lation in all cases whatsoever over such District, (not 
 exceeding ten miles square,) as may, by cession of par 
 ticular states, and the acceptance of Congress, become 
 the seat of the government of the United States." 
 
 Congress, then, has the power of sole arid exclusive 
 legislation, " in all cases whatsoever," in regard to the 
 District of Columbia. What is the meaning of the 
 word " exclusive " in this connection ? It cannot 
 mean absolute and uncontrolled ; for, if it did, it would 
 make Congress as sovereign as the Russian autocrat. 
 It means that no other government, no other body of 
 men whatever, shall have concurrent power of legis 
 lation over the District ; nor, indeed, any subordinate 
 power, except what may be derived from Congress. 
 Over every man who is a citizen of one of the United 
 States, there are two jurisdictions, the jurisdiction 
 of the general government, and the jurisdiction of 
 the state government. There are two governments 
 that have the power to legislate for him ; but there is 
 only one power, the Congress of the United States, 
 that can legislate for a citizen of the District of 
 Columbia. 
 
 In Kendall vs. The United States, 12 Peters, 524, it 
 is said, " There is in the District of Columbia no 
 division of powers between the general and state gov 
 ernments. Congress has the entire control over the 
 District, for every purpose of government." 
 
 So it has been held that a justice of the peace in 
 the District of Columbia is an officer of the govern 
 ment of the United States, and is therefore exempt 
 from militia duty. Wise vs. Withers, 3 Cranch, 331 ; 
 1 Cond. Rep. 552. 
 
161 
 
 A citizen of the District of Columbia is not a citizen 
 of any one of the United States. Hebpurn ct al. vs. 
 EUcry, 2 Crunch, 445 ; WcslcotVs Lessee vs. Inhabit- 
 ants , Peters, C. C. R. 45. 
 
 Up to the time of the cession, the inhabitants of this 
 District were under two jurisdictions that of Mary 
 land and that of Congress ; but after the cession, un 
 der that of Congress alone. Now, when the inhabit 
 ants of this District passed out of the jurisdiction of 
 Maryland, and came under the exclusive jurisdiction 
 of Congress, let us see what was the effect of such 
 change of jurisdiction upon them. 
 
 In the act of Congress of 1790, c. 28, sect. 1, which 
 was an act for establishing the seat of government of 
 the United States, there is the following clause : " Pro 
 vided, nevertheless, That the operation of the laws of 
 the state [of Maryland] within such District shall not 
 be affected by this acceptance, until the time fixed for 
 the removal of the government thereto, and until Con 
 gress shall otherwise by law provide." 
 
 Here, then, Congress expressly provided and con 
 tracted with the state of Maryland, that the laws of 
 Maryland in this District should not be interfered with 
 until the removal of the seat of government to this 
 place ; and Congress likewise impliedly provided and 
 contracted, that when the seat of government should 
 be removed to this place, it would discharge the duty 
 imposed upon it by the constitution of the United 
 States, and would assume and exercise the " exclusive 
 legislation" provided for in that instrument. This 
 act of Congress was approved on the 16th of July, 
 1790. 
 
 By the Maryland laws of 1791, c. 45, sect. 2, that 
 state ceded to the United States the territory which 
 now constitutes the District of Columbia, and the 
 words of the cession are these : " In full and absolute 
 right, as well of soil as of person, residing or to reside 
 14* 
 
162 
 
 thereon," &c. . . . provided that the jurisdiction 
 of the laws of Maryland "shall riot cease or determine 
 until Congress shall by law provide for the govern 
 ment thereof" 
 
 The state of the case, then, was simply this : 1. The 
 constitution gave Congress power of " exclusive legis 
 lation " over such district as might be ceded for the 
 seat of government. 2. Congress, by the act of 1790, 
 above referred to, proposed to the state of Maryland to 
 accept a portion of her territory for this purpose, but 
 engaged not to interfere with her laws until after it 
 had taken actual possession of the ceded territory. 
 3. Maryland accepted the proposition, rehearsing the 
 condition in these words; namely, that "the laws of 
 Maryland shall not cease or determine until Congress 
 shall by law provide for the government thereof." 
 
 By the 6th section of the act of 1790, c. 28, Con 
 gress provided that it would remove to this District, 
 and make this the seat of government, on the first 
 Monday of December, 1800. It did so ; and now its 
 express duty under the constitution, and its implied 
 promise to the state of Maryland, were to be fulfilled, 
 by exercising "exclusive legislation" over this Dis 
 trict. 
 
 In fulfilment of this duty and promise, Congress, on 
 the 27th of February, 1801, by the act of 1801, c. 15, 
 proceeded to legislate for the District of Columbia ; 
 and, in the first section of that act, it provided as fol 
 lows : 
 
 " Be it enacted, (J-c., That the laws of the state of Virginia, 
 as they now exist, shall be and continue in force in that part 
 of the District of Columbia which was ceded by the said 
 state to the United States, and by them accepted for the per 
 manent seat of government ; and that the laws of the state 
 of Maryland, as they now exist, shall be and continue in 
 force in that part of the said District which was ceded by that 
 state to the United States, and by them accepted, as afore 
 said." 
 
163 
 
 By this act, then, Congress assumed to exercise, and 
 did exercise, that exclusive legislation over the District 
 of Columbia which had been provided for by the con 
 stitution. 
 
 That portion of the District which was ceded to 
 Congress by Virginia, having been receded to that state 
 by the act of Congress of July 9, 1846, (stat. 1846, 
 c. 35,) all that relates to it may, for the purposes of 
 this argument, be laid out of the question. 
 
 On the 27th day of February, 1801, then, the laws 
 of Maryland, as such, were abrogated in this District. 
 The legislative power of Congress was de facto exclu 
 sive. All legislative power previously possessed by 
 Maryland over it. then ceased. The connection of Mary 
 land with this District, as a part of its former territory, 
 and occupied by its former citizens, was dissolved. It 
 had no longer any more legislative power over the Dis 
 trict than Maine or Georgia had. Historically, we may 
 talk about the laws of Maryland, as they once existed 
 here ; but practically, and as a matter of strict law and 
 fact, her laws were no longer known within the Dis 
 trict. The laws which governed the people of this 
 District after the 27th day of February; 1801, were the 
 laws of Congress, and not the laws of Maryland. 
 
 To show that this part of the District passed out 
 from under the government of Maryland, and came 
 under the government of the United States, I refer to 
 Reilly, appellant, vs. Lamar ct al., 2 Cranch, 344 ; 1 
 Cond. Rep. 322, where it is said, " By the separation 
 of the District of Columbia from the State of Mary 
 land, the residents in that part of Maryland which 
 became a part of the District, ceased to be citizens of 
 the state." It was held, in that case, that a citizen of 
 the District of Columbia could not be discharged by 
 the insolvent law of Maryland. 
 
 A citizen of the District of Columbia cannot main 
 tain an action in the circuit court of the United States 
 
164 
 
 out of the District, he not being a citizen of the state 
 within the meaning of the provision of the law of the 
 United States regulating the jurisdiction of the courts 
 of the United States. Hepburn et al. vs. Ellzey, 2 
 Cranch, 445 ; 1 Cond. Rep. 444. See also Lough- 
 borough vs. Blake, 5 Wheat. 317, and Levy Court of 
 Washington vs. Ringgold, 5 Peters, 451. 
 
 4. The next point of inquiry is, What is the legal 
 force and effect, upon the subject of slavery, of the act 
 of Congress of 1801, before cited 1 Its words are, 
 " That the laws of the state of Maryland, as they 
 now exist, shall be continued in force in that part of 
 said District which was ceded by that state to the 
 United States," &c. And here, I acknowledge that 
 the operation of this clause is precisely the same as 
 though Congress had transcribed all the Maryland 
 laws, word for word, and letter for letter, into its own 
 statute book, with the clause prefixed, " Be it enacted 
 by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
 United States of America in Congress assembled," and 
 the President of the United States had affixed his sig 
 nature thereto. I acknowledge further, that the laws 
 of Maryland had legalized slavery within the state of 
 Maryland, and had defined what classes of persons 
 might be held as slaves therein. 
 
 But it by no means follows, because Congress pro 
 posed to reenact, in terms, for this District, all the laws 
 of Maryland, that, therefore, it did reenact them. It 
 does not follow, that because two legislatures use the 
 same words, that the words must necessarily have 
 the same effect. It makes all the difference in the 
 world, whether words are used by one possessed of 
 power, or by one devoid of power. Congress might 
 pass a law in precisely the same words as those used 
 by the Parliament of Great Britain, and yet the law 
 of Congress be invalid and inoperative, while the act 
 of Parliament would be valid and binding. We have 
 
165 
 
 a written constitution ; Great Britain has no written 
 constitution. The British Parliament, on many sub 
 jects, has an ampler jurisdiction than the American 
 Congress. The law of Congress might be unconsti 
 tutional and void, while that of the British Parliament, 
 framed in precisely the same language, might be con 
 stitutional and binding. 
 
 So the law of Maryland might be valid under the 
 constitution of Maryland, and, therefore, binding upon 
 the citizens of Maryland ; while the law of Congress, 
 though framed in precisely the same words, would be 
 repugnant to the constitution of the United States, 
 and therefore have no validity. 
 
 Now this is precisely the case before us. Congress, 
 in attempting to reenact the Maryland laws, to uphold 
 slavery in this District, transcended the limits of its 
 constitutional power. It acted unconstitutionally. It 
 acted in plain contravention of some of the plainest 
 and most obvious principles consecrated by the consti 
 tution. If so, no one will dispute that its act is void. 
 I do not deny, then, that Congress used words of suf 
 ficient amplitude to cover slavery ; but what I deny is, 
 that it had any power to give legal force to those 
 words. 
 
 5. My next proposition, therefore, is this : That as 
 Congress can do nothing excepting what it is empowered 
 to do by the constitution, and as the constitution does 
 not empower it to establish slavery here, it cannot es 
 tablish slavery here, nor continue it. 
 
 Where is there any express power given to Congress 
 by the constitution to establish slavery ? Where is the 
 article, section, or clause ? I demand to have the title 
 shown. Thousands of human beings are not to be 
 robbed of all their dearest rights, and they and their 
 children, forever, by strained constitutions, or apocry 
 phal authority, doomed to bondage. Will those who 
 say that Congress cannot establish a banking institu- 
 
166 
 
 tion by construction, nor aid internal improvements, 
 nor enact a tariff, will they say that Congress can 
 make a man a slave, and all his posterity slaves, by 
 construction ? 
 
 Nor can any power to establish slavery be deduced 
 from the 18th clause of the 8th section of the 1st arti 
 cle of the constitution, which gives Congress power 
 " to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper 
 for carrying into execution " the powers that are 
 granted. 
 
 What power is granted to Congress, for the exercise 
 of which the establishment of slavery in this District 
 is a necessary means or a preliminary ? Congress has 
 power to lay and collect taxes ; to borrow money ; to 
 regulate commerce ; to establish uniform rules of nat 
 uralization to coin money ; to punish counterfeiters ; 
 to establish post offices and post roads ; to promote the 
 progress of science and the arts ; to establish courts ; 
 to define and punish piracies on the high seas ; to de 
 clare war ; to raise and support armies ; to provide and 
 maintain a navy ; to organize and maintain a militia ; 
 and so forth, and so forth. But to what one of all these 
 powers is the power to establish slavery in the Dis 
 trict of Columbia a necessary incident ? If slavery in 
 the District of Columbia were to cease to-day, could 
 not the government continue to exercise every function 
 which it has heretofore exercised ? If so, then the 
 existence of slavery in this District is not " necessary " 
 to the exercise of any of the expressly granted powers. 
 I call upon any gentleman to name any one power of 
 this government which cannot be exercised, which 
 must necessarily cease, if slavery should cease to be, in 
 this District of Columbia? " I pause for a reply." 
 
 Well, then, if a power to establish slavery in this 
 District is not among the granted powers, and if it is 
 not necessary for the exercise of any one of the granted 
 powers, then it is no where ; it does not exist at 
 
167 
 
 all. No power of Congress, then, exists, either for the 
 creation or for the continuance of slavery in this Dis 
 trict ; and all the legislation of Congress upon this 
 subject is beyond or against the constitution. 
 
 Let me illustrate this in another way. Suppose 
 there had been a religious establishment in Maryland 
 at the time of the cession ; suppose, under the auspices 
 of Lord Baltimore, the Catholic religion had been es 
 tablished as the religion of the state ; and that, in 
 order to punish heresy and secure conformity to the 
 religion of the state, an inquisition had been founded, 
 and that the seat of that inquisition had been within 
 the limits of the District of Columbia, at the time of 
 the cession ; could Congress, in the absence of all ex 
 press or implied authority on the subject of establish 
 ing a state religion, have upheld the Catholic religion 
 here, and appointed the officers of the inquisition to 
 administer it ? The idea is abhorrent to the whole 
 spirit of the constitution. But Congress had as much 
 power to establish a national religion here, in the ab 
 sence of all express or implied authority to do so, as to 
 establish slavery here. 
 
 Congress, then, does not and cannot legalize slavery 
 in this District. It found slavery in existence in the 
 states ; and it does not abolish it, or interfere with it, 
 because it has no power of u exclusive legislation " in 
 them. But Congress has as much right to go into any 
 state and abolish slavery there, as any state, even Vir 
 ginia or Maryland, has to come into this District with 
 its laws and establish slavery here. I suppose that no 
 jurist will contend that Congress could have passed the 
 act of 1793, for the recapture of fugitive slaves, had it 
 not been for the third clause in the second section of 
 the fourth article of the constitution, which provides 
 for the redelivery of a fugitive slave, on the claim of 
 his master. By this article in the constitution, the case 
 of fugitive slaves only is provided for. If a master 
 
168 
 
 voluntarily carries his slave into a free state, and the 
 slave departs from his possession, he cannot reclaim 
 him. Why not ? Why cannot Congress pass a law, 
 that if a man takes a dozen slaves to Boston, and they 
 there see fit to strike for wages, and to leave his pos 
 session because their terms are not complied with, 
 why is it, I ask, that Congress cannot pass a law au 
 thorizing their seizure and delivery into the master s 
 hands? The reason is, that the constitution has con 
 ferred upon Congress no such express power, nor is any 
 such power implied as being necessary to the exercise 
 of any power that is expressed. And if Congress can 
 not so much as restore a slave to a master, who has 
 voluntarily carried him into a free state, how can it 
 continue slavery in this District, after Maryland has 
 ceded it to this government, whose fundamental, 
 organic law gives it no power to create or continue 
 slavery here ? 
 
 Suppose Maryland had ceded her share of the Dis 
 trict to Massachusetts, would not every slave in it have 
 been instantaneously free by the constitution of Mas 
 sachusetts ? They would have been transferred to a 
 free jurisdiction, just as much as an individual own 
 er of a slave transfers him to a free jurisdiction, when 
 he voluntarily takes him to the north. The legal ex 
 istence of slavery was annulled in this District when 
 Congress exercised its " exclusive " power over it, just 
 as much as the debtor s right to be discharged under the 
 Maryland bankrupt law was annulled. 
 
 But I go further than this ; and I say that the con 
 stitution not only does not empower Congress to estab 
 lish or continue slavery in this District, but again and 
 again, by the strongest implications possible, it prohib 
 its the exercise of such a power. 
 
 In regard to this whole matter of slavery, the con 
 stitution touches the subject with an averted face. 
 The abhorred word " slave " is nowhere mentioned in 
 
169 
 
 it. The constitution is ashamed to utter such a name. 
 The country, coming fresh from that baptism of fire, 
 the American Revolution, would not profane its 
 lips with this unhallowed word. Hence, circumlocu 
 tion is resorted to. It seeks to escape a guilty confes 
 sion. Like a culprit, in whom some love of character 
 still survives, it speaks of its offence without calling it 
 by name. It uses the reputable and honorable word 
 " persons," instead of the accursed word "slaves." As 
 the Tyrian queen, about to perpetrate a deed which 
 would consign her character to infamy, called it by the 
 sacred name of " marriage," and committed it, 
 
 " Hoc pratexit nomine culpam ; " 
 
 so the constitution, about to recognize the most guilty 
 and cruel of all relations between man and man, sought 
 to avert its eyes from the act, and to pacify the remon 
 strances of conscience against every participation in 
 the crime, by hiding the deed under a reputable 
 word. 
 
 But let us look to the prohibitions of the constitu 
 tion ; for I maintain that there is not only no power, 
 express or implied, in the constitution authorizing 
 Congress to create or continue slavery in this District, 
 but that it is debarred and prohibited from doing so, 
 again and again. 
 
 I suppose no one will deny that the positive pro 
 hibitions, against the exercise of certain enumerated 
 powers, apply to Congress, when legislating for this 
 District, just as much as when legislating for the 
 union at large. This doctrine has recently been 
 strongly asserted by Mr. Calhoun in the Senate of the 
 United States ; and, as I would gladly produce convic 
 tion in southern minds, I make use of this southern 
 authority. He affirms that Congress, in legislating for 
 the territories, " is subject to many and important re 
 strictions and conditions, of which some are expressed 
 15 
 
170 
 
 and others implied. Among the former may be 
 classed all the general and absolute prohibitions of the 
 constitution ; that is, all those which prohibit the ex 
 ercise of certain powers under any circumstances. In 
 this class is included the prohibition of granting titles 
 of nobility ; passing ex post facto laws and bills of 
 attainder ; the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus, 
 except in certain cases ; making laws respecting the 
 establishment of religion, or its free exercise, and every 
 other of like description." 
 
 Will any man say that Congress can pass an ex post 
 facto law for this District, arid defend itself by refer 
 ring to its power of " exclusive legislation " over it ? 
 Can Congress pass a bill of attainder corrupting the blood 
 of an inhabitant of this District, or repeal or suspend 
 at any time his right to a writ of habeas corpus, or 
 establish a religion here, or interdict the free exercise 
 thereof? No jurist, no statesman, will pretend it. 
 
 But there is another prohibition in the constitution 
 every whit as full and explicit as any of these. The 
 fifth article of amendment declares that " no person 
 shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without 
 due process of law." 
 
 Here the constitution uses the word . " person," 
 the most comprehensive word it could find. " No 
 PERSON shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, 
 without due process of law." Now, what does this 
 word "person" mean? Or who, under the constitu 
 tion, is such a " person " as cannot be deprived of life, 
 liberty, or property, by virtue of an act of Congress, 
 without due process of law? Let us take our defini 
 tion of the word " person" from the constitution 
 itself. " No person shall be a representative, who shall 
 not have attained the age of twenty-five years," &c., 
 (see 2d clause of the 2d section of the 1st article.) 
 " Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned 
 among the several states which maybe included within 
 
171 
 
 this union, according to their respective numbers, 
 which shall be determined by adding to the whole 
 number of free persons, including those bound to ser 
 vice for a term of years, and excluding Indians not 
 taxed, three fifths of all other persons." (3d clause of 
 the same section.) "No person shall be a senator 
 who shall not have attained the age of thirty years," 
 &c. (1st art., 3d section, 3d clause.) " No person 
 shall be convicted [of an impeachable offence, by the 
 Senate] without the concurrence of two thirds." (1st 
 art., 3d section, 6th clause.) "No person holding any 
 office under the United States, shall be a member of 
 either House, during his continuance in office." (1st 
 art., 6th section, 2d clause.) " The migration or im 
 portation of such persons as any of the states now ex 
 isting shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohib 
 ited," " but a tax, or duty, may be imposed on such 
 importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each person" 
 &c. (1st art., 9th section, 1st clause.) " No person 
 holding any office of profit or trust," " shall accept any 
 present," &c. (1st art., 9th section, 8th clause.) " No 
 person holding an office of trust or profit under the 
 United States, shall be appointed an elector." (2d art., 
 1st section, 2d clause.) " The electors shall meet in 
 their respective states and vote by ballot for two per 
 sons^ &c. " The person having the greatest number 
 of votes shall be the President," &c. "If no person 
 have a majority," &,c. " In every case, after the choice 
 of the President, the person having the greatest num 
 ber of votes of the electors, shall be Vice President." 
 (2d art., 1st section, 2d clause.*) " No person except a 
 natural born citizen, "&c., "shall be eligible to the office 
 of President ; neither shall any person be eligible to 
 that office, who shall not have attained the age of 
 
 * This clause in the constitution is annulled ; but for all purposes 
 of determining the true interpretation of words, it is as good as 
 
172 
 
 thirty-five years," &c. " No person shall be convict 
 ed of treason, unless on the testimony of two witness 
 es," &c. (3d art., 3d sect., 3d clause.) " A person 
 charged in any state with treason," &c. (4th art., 2d 
 section, 2d clause.) " No person held to service or 
 labor," &c. (4th art., 2d section, 3d clause.) 
 
 Now, it will be seen from all this, that the word 
 "person " is used in the constitution in the most com 
 prehensive sense. It embraces Indians, if taxed ; it 
 embraces natives of Africa ; it embraces apprentices 
 and slaves, or those held to service or labor ; and it 
 embraces every citizen, from the humblest to the high 
 est, from the most true to the most treasonable. It 
 embraces all, from the slave to the President of the 
 United States. And after having used the word to 
 embrace all these classes and descriptions of men, it 
 proceeds to say, in an amendment, that " no PERSON 
 shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without 
 due process of law" (Amendment, Article 5.) 
 
 The law of Maryland ceded this District to Con 
 gress, "in full and absolute right, as well of soil as of 
 person, residing, or to reside therein." 
 
 Now Congress, in attempting to legalize slavery in 
 the District of Columbia, has provided in terms, by its 
 adoption of the Maryland laws, that one man may hold 
 another man in bondage in this District, " WITHOUT 
 DUE PROCESS OF LAW," and indeed without any process 
 of law; may hold him in bondage from his birth; 
 may beget him, and still hold him and his posterity in 
 bondage. " Process of law " means legal proceedings 
 and a jury trial. It is a phrase that does not pertain to 
 the legislature, but to the courts. It means the insti 
 tution of a suit in civil matters ; the finding of an in 
 dictment, or an information in criminal ones ; the issu 
 ing of subpoenas for witnesses, &c., in both. (See 
 Art. 6 of Amendments to the Constitution.] 
 
 Now, a slave is a person deprived of his liberty and 
 
173 
 
 property, without any process of law. There has 
 been no " due " process of law to reduce him to this 
 miserable condition ; there has been no process of law 
 at all. A slave, therefore, in this District, is deprived 
 of his liberty and property, in pursuance of the laws 
 of Congress, without any legal process whatever, and 
 therefore in flagrant contradiction of the fifth article 
 of the Amendments to the Constitution of the United 
 States. Hence, the act of Congress, purporting to 
 continue the Maryland laws respecting slavery in this 
 District, was, and is, and forever must be. until the 
 constitution is altered, null and void. 
 
 There is a striking historical fact in regard to the 
 phraseology of this fifth article of amendment. Its 
 substance was proposed by several states. Virginia pro 
 posed it in the following words : " No freeman ought 
 to be taken, imprisoned, or disseized of his freehold 
 liberties, privileges, or franchises, or outlawed or ex 
 iled, or in any manner destroyed or deprived of his 
 life, liberty, or property, but by the law of the land." 
 (See 3 Elliot s Debates, 593 Proceedings of June 
 27, 1788. Also, 4 Elliot s Debates, 216, for the same 
 amendment, as proposed by the State of New York. ) 
 
 The Virginia amendment used the word "freeman." 
 It proposed that no " freeman " should be deprived, 
 &c. The New York amendment used the word 
 "person" And the amendment was adopted and rat 
 ified, almost in the words of the New York phrase 
 ology. The word person was chosen, and therefore 
 Congress has no constitutional power to deprive of 
 life, liberty, or property, without due process of law, 
 any being embraced in the definition of that word. 
 By its own selection of words it is debarred not 
 merely from depriving a "freeman" but from depriving 
 a "person " of this right. 
 
 When Congress attempted to legalize and perpetuate 
 slavery in this District, it violated the fourth article of 
 15* 
 
174 
 
 the Amendments, which declares " the right of the 
 people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, 
 and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures." 
 If Congress cannot authorize domiciliary searches and 
 seizures against a single individual, can it degrade a 
 whole race of men to the condition of slaves, and then 
 say that because they are slaves, they shall not be 
 " secure ; " but shall be at the mercy of any alleged 
 master, in regard to their persons, to be commanded 
 and restrained, to be bought and sold ? If Congress 
 cannot authorize searches and seizures of houses, pa 
 pers, and effects, can it get round the constitution, by 
 saying we will create a class of persons who shall have 
 no power of owning any houses, papers, or effects, to 
 be searched or seized ? 
 
 Again; Congress shall pass "no bill of attainder." 
 "What is a bill of attainder ? It is a bill that works 
 corruption of blood. It disfranchises its object. It 
 takes away from him the common privileges of a citi 
 zen. It makes a man incapable of acquiring, inherit 
 ing, or transmitting property ; incapable of holding 
 office, or acting as attorney for others and it shuts the 
 door of the courts against him. These disabling con 
 sequences may descend to a man s children after him, 
 though this is not necessary. Now, to pass such a bill 
 is a thing which Congress cannot do. But when Con 
 gress undertook to legalize slavery in this District, it 
 undertook to do all this, and worse than all this. It 
 attainted, not individuals merely, but a whole race. A 
 slave is an outlaw ; that is, he cannot make a contract ; 
 he cannot prosecute and defend in court ; property 
 cannot be acquired by him, or devised to him, or trans 
 mitted through him. A white man may give his testi 
 mony against him, but he cannot give his testimony 
 against a white man. He is despoiled of his liber am 
 legem, his birthright. He cannot own the food or 
 clothes he has earned. What is his. is his master s. 
 
175 
 
 And this corruption of blood, which the law of slavery 
 works, does not stop with the first, nor with the sec 
 ond generation, not with the tenth nor the ten thou 
 sandth ; but by the theory of the law, goes on forever. 
 Bills of attainder, during the history of the worst periods 
 of the world, have applied to individuals only, or at most 
 to a family. But here, Congress, in defiance of the con 
 stitution, has undertaken to establish a degraded caste 
 in society, and to perpetuate it through all generations. 
 Now, can any reasonable man for a moment suppose 
 that the constitution meant to debar Congress from 
 passing acts of attainder against individuals, but to 
 permit it to pass wholesale, sweeping laws, working 
 enfranchisement of an entire race, and entailing degra 
 dation forever ? 
 
 Let us look at another general prohibition of the 
 constitution : " No title of nobility shall be granted by 
 the United States." (art. 1, $ 9, clause 8.) " The dis 
 tinction of rank and honors," says Blackstone, " is 
 necessary in every well-governed state, in order to re 
 ward such as are eminent for their services to the 
 public." But the framers of the constitution did not 
 think so ; the people of the United States did not 
 think so ; and therefore they incorporated a provision 
 into their organic law that " no title of nobility should 
 be granted." But it matters not whether the favored 
 individual is called "Marquess" or "Master." If he 
 is invested by the government with a monopoly of 
 rights and privileges, in virtue of his title and its legal 
 incidents, without any corresponding civil duties, he 
 belongs to an order of nobility, he is a nobleman. 
 Mr. McDuffie defends the institution of slavery, on the 
 ground that it establishes the highest of all ranks and 
 the broadest of all distinctions between men. He says 
 no nation has yet existed which has not in some form 
 created the distinction of classes, such as patrician 
 and plebeian, or citizen and helot, or lord and com- 
 
176 
 
 moner, and that the institution of slavery stands 
 here instead of these orders, and supersedes them all, 
 by being equivalent to them all. Now, is it not incon 
 ceivable that the constitution should interdict the be- 
 stovvment of special favors to distinguished individu 
 als for meritorious services, and yet should authorize 
 Congress to confer the highest of all earthly preroga 
 tives, the prerogative over property, liberty, and vo 
 lition itself, upon one class of men over another class 
 of men ? Yet if Congress can create or legalize sla 
 very, it can establish the worst order of nobility that 
 ever existed. It can give to one class of men the 
 power to own and to control, to punish arid to despoi. 
 another class ; to sell father, mother, wife, and children, 
 into bondage. To prohibit Congress from doing one of 
 these things, and to permit it to do the other, is strain 
 ing at a gnat and swallowing a camel, a whole 
 caravan of camels ! 
 
 But the same clause in the constitution which gives 
 Congress the power of exclusive legislation over this 
 District, also empowers it " to exercise like authority 
 over all places purchased by the consent of the legis 
 lature of the state, in which the same shall be, for the 
 erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dock-yards, and 
 other needful buildings." If, then, Congress has any 
 constitutional power to legalize slavery in this District, 
 it has the same power to legalize it, (that is, to create 
 it,) in all places in the state of Massachusetts, or New 
 York, or any other, where it may have obtained terri 
 tory from a state for a fort, magazine, arsenal, dock 
 yard, or other needful building. Where it has obtained 
 land in the middle of a city, Philadelphia, New 
 York, Boston, or Chicago, for a custom-house, it 
 may create slavery there. The power to do this is 
 conferred in precisely the same words as the power by 
 which it has been held that slavery can be established 
 in the District of Columbia. 
 
177 
 
 And now I will occupy the few minutes that are 
 left me, in considering what seems to me the only 
 plausible argument that can be urged in favor of the 
 constitutionality of slavery in this District. 
 
 It may be said, that when a territory is obtained by 
 one nation from another, whether by conquest or by 
 treaty, the laws which governed the inhabitants at the 
 time of the conquest or cession, remain in force until 
 they are abrogated by the laws of the conquering or 
 purchasing power. For this principle, the authority 
 of Lord Mansfield, in the case of Campbell v. Hall, 
 1 Cowper, 208, may be cited. The decision of our 
 own courts are to the same effect. (See United States, 
 appellant, vs. Juan Percheman, 2 Gallison s Reports, 
 501 ; Johnson vs. Mdntosh, 7 Peters, 51 ; 8 Wheat. 
 543.) I do not dispute the authority of this case. But 
 it does not touch the question I am arguing ; or, so far 
 as it bears upon it at all, it confirms the views I would 
 enforce. The principle is, that the existing laws re 
 main in force until they are abrogated. I agree to 
 this. But in the case of the District of Columbia, 
 there was a special agreement between Maryland and 
 the United States, that as soon as the United States 
 should legislate for the District, the laws of Maryland, 
 us such, should cease to be operative here. On the 
 27th day of February, 1801, therefore, all the rights 
 which the citizens of this District possessed, they pos 
 sessed under the law of Congress, and not under the 
 law of Maryland. On the day preceding, a citizen 
 could have voted for governor or other state officers 
 of Maryland ; but on the day following, he could no 
 longer vote for any such officer. On the day pre 
 ceding, he could have voted for electors of President 
 and Vice President of the United States ; but on the 
 day following, he was bereft of all such right of the elec 
 tive franchise, and must accept such officers and legis 
 lators as the rest of the country might choose to elect 
 
178 
 
 for him. On the day preceding, he might, in the char 
 acter of an insolvent debtor, have been discharged un 
 der the insolvent laws of Maryland ; but on the day fol 
 lowing, he could no longer be so discharged. On the 
 day preceding, he might have been required, though a 
 justice of the peace of the State of Maryland, to per 
 form militia duty ; but on the day following, if com 
 missioned as a justice of the peace of the District of 
 Columbia, he could not be compelled to perform rnilitia 
 duty, because he would, in such case, be an officer of 
 the United States. On the day preceding, he might 
 have sued in the circuit court of the United States, as 
 being a citizen of Maryland but, on the day follow 
 ing, he could not so sue, because he had ceased to be 
 a citizen of a state. Thus the change of jurisdiction 
 over him deprived him of some privileges, and relieved 
 him from some burdens. It deprived him of these 
 privileges, and relieved him from these burdens, not 
 withstanding the act of Congress had said, in unam 
 biguous words, " the laws of the State of Maryland, AS 
 THEY NOW EXIST, shall be and continue in force in that 
 part of the said District which was ceded by that state 
 to the United States." But the most momentous 
 change which was wrought by the transfer of the cit 
 izen from the jurisdiction of Maryland to the jurisdic 
 tion of the United States, was that which made it im 
 possible for him any longer to hold a slave. Under 
 the laws of Maryland, he might have held his slave, 
 for her statutes had legalized slavery : but under the 
 constitution of the United States, he could riot hold a 
 slave ; for that constitution had given Congress no 
 power to legalize slavery in this District, and had gone 
 so far as to make prohibitions against it. His right to 
 hold slaves then expired, or fell, like his right to vote 
 for United States officers, or for state officers, or his 
 right to be discharged under the Maryland insolvent 
 law, or his right to sue in certain courts, &c., &c. 
 
One point more, sir, and I have done. Why, says 
 my opponent, did not the right to hold slaves continue 
 after the change of jurisdiction, as well as the right to 
 hold horses ? For the plainest of all reasons, I answer : 
 for the reason that a horse is property by the universal 
 consent of mankind, by the recognition of every civ 
 ilized court in Christendom, without any positive law 
 declaring it to be the subject of ownership. But a 
 man is not property, without positive law ; without a 
 law declaring him to be the subject of ownership. 
 There was such a positive law in Maryland ; but Con 
 gress, for want of constitutional authority, could not 
 enact, revive, or continue it. And such I verily believe 
 would have been the decision of the Supreme Court 
 of the United States, had the question been carried 
 before them immediately subsequent to the act of 
 1801. But now, as slavery has existed practically in 
 this District for half a century, it is proper to pass a 
 law abolishing it. It is better, under the present cir 
 cumstances, that slavery should be abolished here by 
 a law of Congress, than by the decision of a court ; 
 because Congress can provide an indemnity for the 
 owners, and let the slaves go free. But should it be 
 abolished by a legal adjudication, every slave would 
 be hurried away to the south, and sold, he and his de 
 scendants, into perpetual bondage. 
 
 In justice, then, to the north, which ought not to 
 bear the opprobrium of slavery in this capital of the 
 nation ; in justice to the slaves who are here held in 
 bondage against legal, as well as natural right ; and, in 
 more than justice to the masters, whose alleged claims 
 I am willing, under all the circumstances, to satisfy, 
 let a law be forthwith passed for ascertaining and pay 
 ing the market value of the slaves, and for repealing all 
 laws which uphold slavery in this District. 
 
180 
 
 SPEECH 
 
 DELIVERED IN THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTA 
 TIVES, FEBRUARY 15, 1850, ON THE SUBJECT OF SLAVERY IN 
 THE TERRITORIES, AND THE CONSEQUENCES OF A DISSOLUTION 
 OF THE UNION. 
 
 MR. CHAIRMAN ; 
 
 Ever since the organization of this House, before 
 its organization, and even in a preliminary caucus that 
 preceded the commencement of the session, southern 
 gentlemen have pressed the cause, not only of human 
 slavery, but of slavery extension, upon us. From 
 motives of forbearance, and not from any question as 
 to our rights, we of the north have maintained an 
 unbroken silence. The time has surely come when 
 the voice of freedom should find an utterance. Would 
 to God that on the present occasion it might find an 
 abler defender than myself, although if my ability to 
 defend it were equal to the love I bear it, it could ask 
 no stronger champion. 
 
 I wish to premise a few words respecting the pro 
 priety and true significance of some of the epithets by 
 which the parties to this discussion are characterized. 
 The term " Free Soiler " is perpetually used upon 
 this floor as a term of ignominy and reproach ; yet I 
 maintain that in its original and legitimate sense, as 
 denoting an advocate of the doctrine that all our terri 
 torial possessions should be consecrated to freedom, 
 there is no language that can supply a more honorable 
 appellation. It expresses a determination on the part 
 of its disciples to keep free the territory that is now 
 free ; to stand upon its frontiers as the cherubim stood 
 
181 
 
 at the gates of Paradise, with a flaming sword to turn 
 every way, to keep the sin of slavery from crossing 
 its borders. If. in any instance, the original advocates 
 of Free Soil have abandoned their integrity, and have 
 courted allies who had no sympathy with their princi 
 ples, but were only eager to join them in a struggle 
 for mere political ascendency, then, in my judgment, 
 they have lost infinitely more in moral power than they 
 have gained in numbers. They have ceased to be 
 genuine and single-hearted Free Soilers, whom I love, 
 and have become partisans, whom I condemn. For 
 myself, I will engage in any honorable measure most 
 likely to secure freedom to the new territories. I will 
 resist any and every measure that proposes to abandon 
 them to slavery. The epithet "Free Soiler," therefore, 
 when rightly understood and correctly applied, implies 
 both political and moral worth ; and I covet the honor 
 of its application to myself. But what does its oppo 
 site mean ? What does the term " Slave Soiler " sig 
 nify ? It signifies one who desires and designs that 
 all soil should be made to bear slaves. Its dreadful 
 significancy is, that, after Magna Charta and the Peti 
 tion of Right, in Great Britain, and after the Declara 
 tion of Independence, in this country, we should cast 
 aside with scorn, not only the teachings of Christian 
 ity, but the clearest principles of natural religion and 
 of natural law, and should retrograde from our boasted 
 civilization, into the Dark Ages, ay, into periods 
 that the dark ages might have called dark. It means 
 that this Republic, as we call it, formed to establish 
 freedom, should enlist in a crusade against freedom. 
 
 And again ; those of us at the north who resist 
 slavery extension, who mean to withstand its spread 
 beyond the limits where it now exists, are denounced 
 as Abolitionists. This epithet is applied to us as a 
 term of reproach and obloquy ; as a brand and stigma 
 upon our characters and principles. No distinction is 
 16 
 
182 
 
 made between those few individuals among us who 
 desire to abolish the constitution of the United States, 
 and that great body of the people, who, while their 
 allegiance to this constitution is unshaken, mean also 
 to maintain their allegiance to truth and to duty, in 
 withstanding the hitherto onward march of slavery. 
 Among the latter class, Mr. Collamer, the postmaster- 
 general, is called an Abolitionist. Mr. John Quincy 
 Adams was denounced as an arch-Abolitionist. Every 
 man who advocates the Jefferson proviso, against the 
 spread of slavery, is so called ; and if an unspeakable 
 abhorrence of this institution, and the belief that it is 
 the second greatest enormity which the oppressor, in 
 his power, ever committed against the oppressed, in his 
 weakness, being inferior only to that ecclesiastical 
 domination which has trampled upon the religious 
 freedom of man, I say, if this abhorrence of slavery, 
 and this belief in its criminality, entitle a man to be 
 denominated an Abolitionist, then I rejoice in my 
 unquestionable right to the name. 
 
 In my apprehension, sir, before we can decide upon 
 the honor or the infamy of the term " Abolitionist," 
 we must know what things they are which he pro 
 poses to abolish. We of the north, you say, are Aboli 
 tionists ; but abolitionists of what ? Are we aboli 
 tionists of the inalienable, indefeasible, indestructible 
 rights of man ? Are we abolitionists of knowledge, 
 abolitionists of virtue, of education, and of human 
 culture ? Do we seek to abolish the glorious moral 
 and intellectual attributes which God has given to his 
 children, and thus, as far as it lies in our power, make 
 the facts of slavery conform to the law of slavery, by 
 obliterating the distinction between a man and a beast ? 
 
 Do our laws and our institutions seek to blot out 
 and abolish the image of God in the human soul ? 
 Do we abolish the marriage covenant ; and instead of 
 saying, with the apostle, that wives shall submit 
 
i83 
 
 themselves to their husbands, command them to sub 
 mit themselves to any body, and to their master as 
 husband over all ? Do we ruthlessly tear asunder the 
 sacred ties of affection by which God has bound the pa 
 rent to the child and the child to the parent ? Do we 
 seek to abolish all those noble instincts of the human 
 soul, by which it yearns for improvement and prog 
 ress ; and do we quench its sublime aspirations after 
 knowledge and virtue ? A stranger would suppose, 
 from hearing the epithets of contumely that are heaped 
 upon us, that we were abolitionists of all truth, purity, 
 knowledge, improvement, civilization, happiness, and 
 holiness. On this subject, perversion of language and 
 of idea has t een reduced to a system, and the false 
 hoods of our calumniators exclude truth with the 
 exactness of a science. 
 
 But if the word "Abolitionist" is to be used in a 
 reproachful and contumelious sense, does it not more 
 properly belong to those who would extend a system 
 which in its very nature abolishes freedom, justice, 
 equity, and a sense of human brotherhood ? Does it 
 not belong to those who would abolish not only all 
 social and political, but all natural rights ; who would 
 abolish "liberty and the pursuit of happiness ; " who 
 would close up all the avenues to knowledge ; who 
 would render freedom of thought and liberty of con 
 science impossible, by crushing out the faculties by 
 which alone we can think and decide ; who would 
 rob a fellow-man of his parental rights, and innocent 
 children of the tenderness and joys of a filial love ; 
 who would introduce a foul concubinage in place of 
 the institution of marriage, and who would remorse 
 lessly trample upon all the tenderest and holiest affec 
 tions which the human soul is capable of feeling ? 
 After Mr. Jefferson, in the Declaration of Independ 
 ence, had enumerated a few oppressive deeds of the 
 British king towards his American colonists, he de- 
 
184 
 
 nominated him "a prince whose character was marked 
 by every act that could define a tyrant." There are 
 now as many slaves in this country as there were col 
 onists in 1776. Compare the condition of these three 
 million slaves with the condition of the three million 
 colonists. The conduct of that sovereign who was 
 denounced before earth and heaven as having com 
 mitted all the atrocities that could " define a tyrant," 
 was mercy and loving-kindness compared with the 
 wrongs and privations of three millions of our fellow- 
 beings, now existing among us. If the word " Aboli 
 tionist," then, is to be used in a reproachful sense, let 
 it be applied to those who, in the middle of the nine 
 teenth century, and in defiance of all the^lights of the 
 age, would extend the horrors of an institution which, 
 by one all-comprehending crime towards a helpless 
 race, makes it impossible to commit any new crime 
 against them, unless it be to enlarge the area of 
 their bondage, and to multiply the number of their 
 victims. 
 
 If we are abolitionists, then, we are abolitionists of 
 human bondage ; while those who oppose us are 
 abolitionists of human liberty. We would prevent 
 the extension of one of the greatest wrongs that man 
 ever suffered upon earth ; they would carry bodily 
 chains and mental chains, chains in a literal and 
 chains in a figurative sense. into realms where even 
 the half-civilized descendants of the Spaniard and the 
 Indian have silenced their clanking. We would avert 
 the impending night of ignorance and superstition ; 
 they would abolish the glorious liberty wherewith 
 God maketh his children free. In using this word, 
 therefore, to calumniate us, they put darkness for light, 
 and light for darkness ; good for evil, and evil for good. 
 
 The constitutional right of Congress to legislate for 
 the territories is still debated. Having presented my 
 views on this subject before, I shall now treat it with 
 
185 
 
 brevity. In a speech, by General Cass, which has 
 lately been published, that distinguished senator, in 
 order to prove that Congress has no power to legislate 
 on the subject of slavery in the territories, has at 
 tempted to prove that it has no right to legislate for the 
 territories at all. I refer to the senator from Michigan, 
 because he now stands before the country in the two 
 fold character of being the head of the Democratic 
 party, which goes for the " largest liberty" and also 
 of the extreme pro-slavery party, which goes for the 
 /(if cst bondage. He would sever all diplomatic rela 
 tions between this country and Austria, because she 
 has robbed the Hungarians of a part of their liberties, 
 while he is drawing closer the political ties which bind 
 him to the south, which has despoiled three millions 
 of the African race of all their liberties, and is now 
 intent on propagating other millions for new despolia 
 tions. He claims, as the great bequest of the barons 
 of Runnymede, that the inhabitants of the territories, 
 under all circumstances of infancy, or poverty, or 
 weakness, shall have the sole and exclusive right of 
 governing themselves, when the practical result of this 
 doctrine, so nicely timed, would be, that one part of 
 those inhabitants would be crowned with power like 
 so many King Johns, to lord it over their vassals. 
 Under the name of liberty, he enters a path that ter 
 minates in bondage. Southern gentlemen had all 
 admitted the power of Congress to legislate for the 
 territories, though they denied the special inference, 
 deducible from the general power, that they could 
 legislate to prohibit slavery in them. But, seeing that 
 the right to legislate on the subject of slavery flows 
 irresistibly from the right to legislate on all other sub 
 jects, because no rule of interpretation, which concedes 
 the power to make laws respecting political franchises, 
 courts, crimes, officers, and the militia, can stop short 
 at the subject of slavery; seeing all this. General 
 16* 
 
186 
 
 Cass denies both inference and premises, and places 
 the general government in the relation of a foreign 
 power to the territories which it owns, and of which it 
 possesses the acknowledged sovereignty. He reminds 
 one of the man who denied the existence of future 
 punishment, and, when pressed with arguments drawn 
 from the deserts of men, and from the justice of God, 
 he suddenly arrested his antagonist by denying the 
 existence of a God ! 
 
 When some immensely long speech made in the 
 British House of Commons, was spoken of before 
 Sheridan as being luminous, he expressed both a nega 
 tive and an affirmative opinion respecting it, in a single 
 word, by replying that it was vo-luminous. General 
 Cass, in a speech that fills more than nineteen columns 
 in the Washington Union, has reviewed the decisions 
 of all the judges of the Supreme Court who have ever 
 expressed any opinion on the subject of congressional 
 power over territorial legislation ; he has commented 
 upon the views of all the jurists who have written 
 upon it, and of most of the speakers in both Houses of 
 Congress who have discussed it ; he has surveyed the 
 course of administration of all the Presidents we have 
 ever had ; and has come to the clear conclusion that 
 all of them, judges, jurists, legislators, and presi 
 dents, have systematically violated the constitution 
 of the United States, or commended its violation, on 
 every practicable occasion for the last sixty years. 
 
 Omitting the hundred ways in which the absurdity 
 of this conclusion can be exposed, let me subject it to 
 one practical test. We have acquired territory from 
 Mexico. General Cass voted to ratify the treaty of 
 cession. Measures have been instituted for the forma 
 tion of three separate governments in this Territory, 
 those of California, Deseret, [Utah,] and New Mexico. 
 The boundaries marked out by California and Deseret 
 overlay each other to the amount of thousands of square 
 
1ST 
 
 miles. If they have the exclusive right of self- 
 government, as General Cass declares, and Congress 
 none, then they must settle this question of boundary 
 themselves. They may declare war against each 
 other, make alliances with foreign powers, equip 
 armies, build fleets ; while Congress can do nothing 
 within their limits but sell land. 
 
 But what renders the argument of General Cass still 
 more extraordinary is the fact, that, according to his own 
 doctrine, he has spent the greater part of his political 
 life in violating the constitution, while constantly re 
 peating his oath to support it. As marshal of Ohio, as 
 governor of Michigan, as Indian agent, he has ap 
 pointed officers and magistrates, and executed laws, 
 when, according to Jiis own showing, he was a mere 
 interloper and usurper ; he has met territorial legisla 
 tures, which had no more right to assemble than a 
 mob ; he has doubtless imprisoned, if not executed 
 many alleged offenders, who had as good a legal right 
 to execute or to imprison him ; and he has received sala 
 ries for more than twenty years, to which the khan of 
 Tartary was as much entitled as he. Now, if he will 
 refund the salaries he has unconstitutionally received ; 
 make reparation for the penalties or forfeitures he has 
 wrongfully extorted ; show some signs of contrition 
 for the men whom he has unlawfully imprisoned or 
 hung, it will remove the suspicions of many minds, in 
 regard to the sincerity, if not the soundness, of his 
 argument. 
 
 I mention these facts from no personal feelings in 
 regard to the senator from Michigan ; but only to 
 show to what desperate extremities men are driven in 
 order to defend the right of spreading slavery from the 
 Atlantic to the Pacific ocean ; and because this is the 
 last reading of the constitution which has been in 
 vented for the purpose. 
 
 Since the last session of Congress, the condition of 
 
188 
 
 a part of this territory has greatly changed. The un 
 exampled velocity with which a living stream of men 
 has poured into it within the last twelve months, lias 
 reversed its condition and decided its destiny. In 
 other countries, individuals seek their fortunes by 
 changing their residence. Under the vehement action 
 of our enterprise, cities migrate. The new residents 
 of California have framed a constitution, have applied 
 for admission into this Union, and their application is 
 now pending before us. Of their own accord, they 
 have excluded slavery from their borders by their fun 
 damental law. Until the discovery of gold in that 
 country, and until all incredulity in regard to that 
 remarkable fact had been overcome, it was confidently 
 anticipated at the south, and intensely feared at the 
 north, that the whole region would be overrun with 
 slaveholders and with slaves. As far back as 1842, 
 Mr. Wise, of Virginia, the administration leader in the 
 House of Representatives, boldly declared that " sla 
 very should pour itself abroad without restraint, and 
 find no limit but the Southern Ocean" The war 
 with Mexico was waged for the twofold purpose of 
 robbing that republic of its territory, and then rob 
 bing that territory of its freedom. Congressional ora 
 tors and the southern press avowed that the object of 
 acquiring territory was to extend the " divine institu 
 tion." I could quote pages in proof of this assertion. 
 The north had no hope, the south had no fear, if the 
 territories were left without control, but that they 
 would first be filled with slaveholders, and would then 
 incorporate slavery into their organic law. While 
 these prospects continued, the south insisted that the 
 territories should be left untrammelled. Distinguished 
 men in this House, Mr. Calhoun and other senators, 
 the government organ, which was supposed to express 
 the views of President Polk and his cabinet, all pro 
 claimed that the territories should be left free to 
 
189 
 
 institute such government as they might choose.* But 
 since California has formed a free constitution, what, a 
 sudden change has taken place in the convictions of 
 
 * In February, 1847, Mr. Calhoun offered a scries of resolutions 
 in the Senate of the United States, among which was the follow 
 ing : 
 
 " Resolved, That it is a fundamental principle in our political creed, 
 that a people, in forming a constitution, have the unconditional right 
 to form and adopt the government which they may think best calcu 
 lated to secure their liberty, prosperity and happiness ; and, in con 
 formity thereto, no other condition is imposed by the Federal Consti 
 tution on a state, in order to be admitted into this Union, except that 
 its constitution shall be "republican;" and that the imposition of 
 any other by Congress would not only be in violation of the consti 
 tution, but in direct conflict with the principle on which our political 
 system rests." 
 
 In sustaining these resolutions, he said, 
 
 " Sir, I hold it to be a fundamental principle of our political system 
 that the people have a right to establish what government they may 
 think proper for themselves ; that every state ABOUT to become a 
 member of this Union has a right to FOUM ITS owx GOVERNMENT AS 
 IT PLEASES ; and that, in order to be admitted, there is but one quali 
 fication, and that is, that the government shall be republican. There 
 is no express provision to that effect, but it results from that impor 
 tant section which guaranties to every state in this Union a republi 
 can form of government." 
 
 Mr. Senator Downs, of Louisiana, offered the following resolu 
 tion : 
 
 Resolved, That it is competent and expedient, and not inconsistent 
 with the practice of the government in some cases, to admit Califor 
 nia, or such portion of it as Congress may deem proper, immediately 
 into the Union, on an equal footing with the other states ; and that 
 the committee on be instructed to report a bill for that pur 
 pose, for that portion of California which lies west of the summit of 
 the Sierra Neveda mountains." 
 
 The doctrine of these resolutions was fully indorsed by the Wash 
 ington Union, speaking, doubtless, (for it never spoke any thing else,) 
 the sentiments of the then administration. 
 
 "The south denies that Congress has any jurisdiction over the 
 subject of slavery, and contends that the people of tfa territories alone, 
 when they frame a constitution, preparatory to admission into the 
 Union, have a right to speak and be heard on that matter. This fact 
 being settled, it really seems to us that this exciting question might be, 
 speedily adjusted, if calm counsels prevail. The south contends for her 
 honor, and for the great principles of non-intervention and state 
 
190 
 
 men ! Within the present week we have had three most 
 elaborate speeches in this House, in which the admis 
 sion of California, with her free constitution, is vehe 
 mently opposed on constitutional grounds. Yes, sir, 
 did you know it ? the constitution of the United 
 States has just been altered; or, what is intended to 
 produce the same effect, without the trouble of an 
 alteration in the manner prescribed by itself, its inter 
 pretation has been altered. While California promised 
 to be a slave state, all interference was unconstitu 
 tional. Now, as she desires to be a free state, it has 
 become constitutional to interfere and repel her. Not 
 only so, but, according to the gentleman from Alabama. 
 (Mr. INGE,) in swearing to support the constitution 
 we have sworn to perpetuate, and not only to per 
 petuate, but to extend slavery. " To those," he says, 
 " who are disposed to resist my views, I commend a 
 more attentive reading of that instrument. They 
 will find that it not only guranties slavery, but pro 
 vides for its extension." Or, as he says. in another 
 place, it makes provision " to extend the institution 
 indefinitely." And, therefore, when a territory asks to 
 be admitted as a free state, it is to be repulsed, and 
 virtually told, " If you will incorporate slavery into 
 your constitution, you shall be admitted ; if not, not." 
 Had the man who first uttered the adage that " cir 
 cumstances alter cases," foreseen our times, he would 
 have said, " circumstances alter principles. 7 
 
 The same gentleman defends slavery by an appeal 
 to the Bible. But if the Bible be authority for the 
 principal, is it not authority for the incidents also ? If 
 
 equality. Why, then, cannot all unite, and permit California to come 
 into the Union as soon as she can frame a constitution ? Then, accord 
 ing to the doctrines which prevail on both sides of Mason s and 
 Dixon s line, she may constitutionally establish her domestic institu 
 tions on any basis consistent with republican principles. The south 
 could lose nothing by adopting this course. On the contrary, she would 
 save all for which she contends." 
 
191 
 
 an authority for the cruelties of bondage, is it not an 
 equal authority for its mitigations ? Is not the com 
 mand to " hallow the fiftieth year," as a year of ju 
 bilee, and to " proclaim liberty throughout all the land 
 unto all the inhabitants thereof," contained in the 
 same code, and in the same chapter of the same code, 
 with that oft-cited authority to buy bondmen and 
 bondmaids of the heathen ? If the Bible is your com 
 mission, why do you not follow the terms of the com 
 mission, observing its limitations as well as its powers? 
 This is the fiftieth year of the century, the very 
 year of jubilee itself; and yet, instead of "returning 
 every man unto his possession, and every man unto 
 his family," this is the chosen year for subjugating 
 new realms to bondage. It is not to be " hallowed," 
 as a year of jubilee, but to be profaned as a year of 
 captivity and mourning. 
 
 Sir, I must express the most energetic dissent from 
 those who would justify modern slavery from the Le- 
 vitical law. My reason and conscience revolt from 
 those interpretations which 
 
 " Torture the hallowed pages of the Bible, 
 
 To sanction crime, and robbery, and blood, 
 And, in oppression s hateful service, libel 
 Both man and God." 
 
 Priests appealed to the Bible in Galileo s time, to 
 refute the truths of astronomy. For more than two 
 hundred years, the same class of men appealed to the 
 same authority to disprove the science of geology. 
 And now, this authority is cited, not to disprove a law 
 of physical nature merely, but to deny a great law of 
 the human soul, a law of human consciousness, 
 a law of God, written upon the tablet of every man s 
 heart, authenticating and attesting his title to freedom. 
 Sir, let those who reverence the Bible beware how 
 they suborn it to commit this treason and perjury 
 against the sacred rights of man and the holy law of 
 
192 
 
 God. Whatever they gain for the support of their 
 doctrine, will be so much subtracted from the authority 
 of the Scriptures. If the Bible has crossed the Atlantic 
 to spread slavery over a continent where it was un 
 known before, then the Bible is a book of death, and 
 not a book of life. 
 
 It is further objected to the admission of California, 
 that its dimensions are too large for a single state. The 
 force of this objection is somewhat abated when we re 
 flect that it comes from men who were most strenuous 
 for the admission of Texas. However, I shall not ob 
 ject very earnestly to the reduction of its limits. I will 
 say, in frankness, that the southern portion of Califor 
 nia is understood to be even more attached to freedom 
 than the northern. The result may, therefore, be, if 
 this objection is persisted in and a division made, that 
 we shall soon have two free states instead of one. It 
 was said by the last administration, that Mexico was 
 to be dismembered, in order " to extend the area of 
 freedom." The most just retribution for that diaboli 
 cal irony is, to carry out the declaration literally. 
 
 But I now come to a more substantial part of this 
 great question. The south rests its claims to the new 
 territory upon the great doctrine of equality. There 
 are fifteen slave states ; there are only fifteen free states. 
 The south contributed men and money for the con 
 quest, not less than the north ; hence, equal ownership 
 and equal rights of enjoyment. This is the argument. 
 In a long and most elaborate speech, delivered in the 
 Senate this week by one of the most eminent jurists in 
 the Southern States, (Judge BERRIEN,) he founds the 
 whole claim of the south on this doctrine of equality. 
 
 Now, I admit this principle in its fullest extent, and 
 without hesitation. That country is equally free to all 
 the people of the United States. The government can 
 sell the lands not already covered by valid titles ; and 
 any citizen who will comply with its terms can buy 
 
193 
 
 them. The people of each of the United States can go 
 there and establish their domicile. The laws of Con 
 gress make no discrimination between them. The con 
 stitution makes no such discrimination. The law of 
 nature and of nations makes none. The north has no 
 privilege over the south, and the south has none over 
 the north. If the north has any greater right there 
 than the south, the equality is destroyed. If the south 
 has any greater right there than the north, the equality 
 is equally destroyed. 
 
 And now, practically, what right has the north, or 
 what right is claimed by the north, which the south has 
 not to an equal extent ? What article of property can 
 a citizen of Massachusetts carry there which a citizen 
 of Georgia can not carry there ? Can we carry any of 
 our local laws there even though all the inhabitants 
 of the state should remove thither in a body ? Cer 
 tainly not. When we leave our state, we leave our 
 local laws behind us. A citizen of Boston has a right 
 to educate his children at school, at the public expense. 
 In the Boston public schools, he can prepare his son to 
 enter any college in this country, even though he is too 
 poor to pay a cent for taxes, and never has paid a cent 
 for taxes. Has he any such right on arriving at San 
 Francisco ? If the city of Boston debars him of this 
 right of educating his son at the public charge, he can 
 institute a suit against it and recover full damages. 
 Can he do the same thing at San Francisco or San 
 Jose ? Certainly not. He has left the laws and insti 
 tutions of Massachusetts behind him. But, it is said, 
 we can carry our property there, and you cannot carry 
 your property there. I think those who use this argu 
 ment, like the old Roman augurs, must smile at each 
 other askance, for the credulity or simplicity of those 
 they beguile by it. Will not every man, even of the 
 feeblest discernment, see the fallacy which is here cov 
 ered up under the word " property ? " What is meant 
 17 
 
194 
 
 t ,?" If vou mean sil- 
 
 s 
 
 call a human 
 
 -= 
 
 SedTn under the "*^g^g$&, if a ig8 
 Respectable village m the c lm off upon his 
 01 mountebank were to attempt to P ^^ be 
 
 audTeuce so flimsy a ^^S-to k ds f P r ,T 
 
 chine, and proceeded to draw States , lotte- 
 
 sachnsetts, and in many of J * ^ w u 
 
195 
 
 act upon the well-known truth, that there is a much 
 less number of persons who draw any considerable 
 prize in a lottery, than there are who are killed by 
 lightning; and therefore, whatever chance a ticket- 
 holder has of drawing any considerable prize, we know 
 that he has a much greater chance of being killed by 
 lightning. Now, when a citizen of Virginia and a cit 
 izen of Massachusetts go to the new territories, does 
 the former carry his right to establish and draw a lot 
 tery, or the latter carry his right to prosecute the other 
 for doing so? Neither; certainly neither. Both have 
 left the local law behind them. If any state in this 
 Union had adopted polygamy as its peculiar institution, 
 could an inhabitant of that state take a dozen wives 
 with him into the new territories, and defend his claim 
 to live with them there, because he could do so at 
 home? Or, suppose, in pursuance of the "manifest 
 destiny " principle, we should re-annex a part of China 
 to this Union, could the Chinese, on removing to Cali 
 fornia, carry the practice of infanticide with them ? 
 Just as well, 1 answer, and on precisely the same legal 
 ground that the south can carry slavery into New 
 Mexico. The reason is that the law of slavery is a 
 local law. Like lotteries, or polygamy, or infanticide, 
 it can legally exist in no land where the principles of 
 the common law prevail, until it is legalized and sanc 
 tioned by a special law. Then it is permitted on the 
 simple ground that so much of the common law as se 
 cures liberty and property, the right of habeas corpus 
 and freedom of speech to each individual, has been cut 
 out and cast away. The constitution proceeds upon 
 this doctrine when it provides for the recapture of fu 
 gitive slaves. Why did it not provide for the capture 
 of a fugitive horse or ox ? Why did it not provide that, 
 if a horse or an ox should escape from a slave state into 
 a free state, it should be delivered up, or be recoverable 
 by legal process ? Because horses and oxen are prop- 
 
196 
 
 crty, by the common consent of mankind. It needed 
 no law to make them property. They are property by 
 the law of nations, by the English common law, by the 
 law of every state in this Union, while men and 
 women are not. An escaped slave could not be recov 
 ered before the adoption of the constitution. The 
 power to seize upon escaping slaves was one of the 
 motives for adopting it. These considerations demon 
 strate that slaves are not property, within the meaning 
 of this word, when it is affirmed that if the north can 
 carry its property into the territories, so can the south. 
 As the constitution, in terms, adopts the common law, 
 it leaves slavery nothing to stand upon but the local 
 laws of the states where it is established. Freedom is 
 the rule, slavery is the exception. Judge Berrien s 
 favorite doctrine of equality would, therefore, be de 
 stroyed, if the exception should prevail over the rule. 
 For, if slavery can be carried into any of our territories 
 by force of the constitution, it can into all of them ; 
 and if carried into all of them, the exception becomes 
 the rule, and the rule perishes. Ay, the rule ceases to 
 be even so much as an exception to that which was its 
 own exception. It is wholly swallowed up and lost. 
 
 I know it is said that the fact of slavery always 
 precedes the law of slavery ; that law does not go be 
 fore the institution and create it, but comes afterwards 
 to sanction and regulate it. But this is no more true 
 of slavery than of every other institution or practice 
 among mankind, whether right or wrong. Homicide 
 existed before law ; the law came in subsequently, and 
 declared that he who took an innocent man s life 
 without law, should lose his own by law. The law 
 came in to regulate homicide ; to authorize the taking 
 of human life for crime, just as we authorize involun 
 tary servitude for crime ; and it may just as well be 
 argued that murder is a natural right because it existed 
 before law, as that slavery is a natural right because it 
 
197 
 
 existed before law. This argument appeals to the 
 crime which the law was enacted to prevent, in order 
 to establish (lie supremacy of the crime over the law 
 t It (it forbids it. 
 
 There is another fallacy in the arguments which 
 southern gentlemen use on this subject, which, though 
 not as transparent as the preceding, is quite as unsound. 
 They speak of the rights of the slaveholder in the new 
 territories. They speak as though the collective own 
 ership of the territories by the government, were the 
 ownership of the people in severally ; as though each 
 citizen could go there and draw a line round a 
 " placer," and say this is mine ; and then, because it 
 is his, introduce his slaves upon it. But nothing is 
 more clear than that there is no such individual right. 
 The right of the government is,jirst, a right of sover 
 eignty and jurisdiction ; and second, the right of own 
 ership of all lands, navigable waters. &c., which have 
 not been conveyed away by the preexisting government. 
 Individuals retain their citizenship on going there, as 
 they do on going to Great Britain, or France ; but a 
 slave has just as much right to a portion of the public 
 lands in California, when he gets there, as his master. 
 
 Again ; if the master carries into California the legal 
 right to hold slaves, which he possessed at home, does 
 not the slave also retain his legal rights when he is 
 transferred there ? The laws which govern slaves are 
 as various as the states where they exist. In some 
 states manumission is comparatively unobstructed. In 
 Delaware, it is a penal offence even to sell a slave to a 
 notorious slavedealer. In Georgia, the law forbids, or 
 lately forbade, the importation of slaves for sale. Now, 
 how can a Georgian import slaves into California from 
 Georgia, when the very laws of his own state, under 
 which he claims to hold slaves, and under which laws 
 he claims to carry slaves with him, forbid their im 
 portation ? 
 
 17* 
 
198 
 
 And further, political franchises or privileges are 
 just as much a part of a man s rights as any tangible 
 commodity. In South Carolina, the ownership of ten 
 slaves constitutes a property qualification for being a 
 member of the legislature. On removing to Califor 
 nia, will the citizen of South Carolina, who owns ten 
 slaves, carry an eligibility to the legislature of Cali 
 fornia with him ? Nay, this political privilege in 
 South Carolina goes further. It is a right in every 
 owner of ten slaves, that no man who does not own 
 ten slaves, (or some legal equivalent,) shall be a mem 
 ber of the legislature. The aspirant for office has a 
 legal right in the limitation of the number of his com 
 petitors, as much as in any thing else. Can he carry 
 this to California with him? The inference is inevi 
 table, that if the inhabitants of the fifteen slave states 
 can carry slaves into California by virtue of the laws 
 of their respective states, then they must also carry all 
 the incidents of slavery known to their respective 
 codes. For, how can the incident be separated from 
 the principal ? You might, therefore, have, in a neigh 
 borhood of fifteen families, fifteen slave codes in oper 
 ation at the same time, a manifest absurdity. 
 
 The conclusion, then, is irresistible, that when you 
 come to the boundary line between a slave state and a 
 free state, you come to the boundary line of slavery 
 itself. On one side of the line, down to the nadir and 
 up to the zenith, the blackness of the slave code per 
 vades all things ; but, on the other side, as high above 
 and as deep below, is the purity of freedom. Virginia 
 cannot extend her laws one hair s breadth over the line 
 into Pennsylvania or into Ohio, because their soil is 
 beyond her jurisdiction. So neither Virginia, nor all 
 the fifteen slave states combined, can extend their 
 slave laws one hair s breadth into the new territories ; 
 and for the same reason, the territories are beyond 
 their jurisdiction. 
 
199 
 
 As to the argument that the constitution of the 
 United States recognizes slavery, and that, upon the 
 cession of new territories, the constitution, by some 
 magical and incomprehensible elasticity, extends itself 
 over them, and carries slavery into them, I think I 
 speak with all due respect when I say it does not come 
 up to the dignity of a sophism. Where do strict con- 
 structionists, or even latitudinarian constructionists, 
 find any clause, or phrase, or word, which shows that 
 the constitution is any thing but a compact between 
 states ? Where do they find any thing that shows it 
 to be a compact between territories, or between terri 
 tories and states conjoined? On its very face, the 
 constitution meets this pretension with a denial. The 
 preamble declares, " We the people of the United 
 States," not the people of the territories, nor the 
 people of the states and territories, " in order to form 
 a more perfect Union," " do ordain and establish 
 this constitution for the United States of America." 
 If the constitution is a compact between the United 
 States and the territories, then the people of the terri 
 tories have all the rights under it which the people of 
 the states have, the right to choose electors for Pres 
 ident and Vice-President, &c., and to be represented 
 in Congress by a member who can vote as well as 
 speak. The only way in which the constitution ever 
 was extended, or ever can be extended over any part 
 of the earth s surface outside of the " original thirteen," 
 is this : The constitution in express terms authorizes 
 the admission of new states, and therefore, when a 
 new state is admitted, it becomes one of these " United 
 States of America." The constitution does not ex 
 tend over the territories, but Congress, being the crea 
 ture of the constitution, is, when legislating for the 
 territories, not only invested with constitutional pow 
 ers, but is limited by constitutional restrictions. 
 
 It would have been a much more plausible preten- 
 
200 
 
 sion, when the purchase of Louisiana and Florida was 
 made, that the constitution carried freedom into those 
 territories ; because the constitution was built upon the 
 basis of the common law, and, in terms, adopts the 
 common law for its legal processes and its rules of ju 
 dicial interpretation ; and every body knows that there 
 is no principle more dear to the common law than that 
 all treaties, statutes, and customs shall be construed in 
 favor of life and in favor of liberty. 
 
 Having, as I trust, refuted the argument of the 
 slaveholder, that the prohibition of slavery in the ter 
 ritories is an act of injustice to his rights, I will con 
 sider his next assertion, that it is an insult to his feel 
 ings. We are told that the exclusion of slavery from 
 the territories is an affront to the honorable sensi 
 bilities of the south ; and that acquiescence in this 
 exclusion would involve their dishonor and degrada 
 tion. 
 
 There are two answers to this complaint. The 
 first is, that among gentlemen, no insult is ever offered 
 where none is intended. There may be heedlessness 
 of conduct, there may be an unintentional wounding 
 of sensibilities ; but there can be no affront where the 
 design to affront is wanting. He is not a gentleman, 
 but a poltroon and a braggart, who pretends he is in 
 sulted and proceeds to retaliate for the affront, when 
 all insult and all affront are sincerely disclaimed. Now, 
 it is infinitely far from the purpose of the north to 
 offer any indignity to the south by excluding slavery 
 from the territories. Their hostility to slavery grows 
 out of an honest allegiance to what they believe to be 
 the highest moral and religious duty ; it is fortified by 
 the opinions of mankind ; and is perfectly compatible 
 with the most fraternal feelings towards the south. 
 They wish to expostulate, in regard to the wrong, in 
 such a way as to arrest the wrong, and not, by inflam 
 ing the wrongdoer, to increase the evil. However 
 
20 1 
 
 erroneous, then, their language or their sentiments may 
 be, they are not affrontive nor contumelious ; and, when 
 all such purpose is disavowed, those who aspire to 
 stand on the footing of gentlemen cannot reiterate the 
 charge. 
 
 But there is another consideration, one which ap 
 pertains to the party supposed to be insulted, rather 
 than the party charged with the insult. In his " The 
 ory of Moral Sentiments," Adam Smith maintains that 
 it is the judgment of men, the opinion of the by 
 standers, that gives us the pleasure of being ap 
 proved, or the pain of being disapproved, on account 
 of our conduct. Now, in this contest between the 
 north and the south, on the subject of extending 
 slavery, who are the bystanders ? They are the civil 
 ized nations of the earth. We, the north and the south, 
 are contending in the arena. All civilized men stand 
 around us. They are a ring of lookers-on. It is an 
 august spectacle. It is a larger assemblage than ever 
 witnessed any other struggle in the history of mankind ; 
 and their shouts of approbation or hisses of scorn are 
 worthy of our heed. And what do these spectators 
 say, in the alternations of the combat ? Do they urge 
 on the south to mightier efforts, to the wider spread of 
 slavery, and the multiplication of its victims? Do 
 they shout when she triumphs? When new chains 
 are forged and riveted, when new realms are subdued 
 by haughty taskmasters, and overrun by imbruted 
 slaves, do their plaudits greet your ears and rouse you 
 to more vehement efforts? All the reverse; totally 
 the reverse. They are now looking on with disgust 
 and abhorrence. They groan, they mock, they hiss. 
 The brightest pages of their literature portray you, as 
 covered with badges of dishonor ; their orators hold 
 up your purposes as objects for the execration of man 
 kind ; their wits hurl the lightnings of satire at your 
 leaders; their statute books abound in laws in which 
 
202 
 
 ? ike yours are branded as crimes; their 
 moralists, iicin their high and serene seats of justice, 
 arraign and condemn yon ; their theologians find your 
 doom ot iv,:ribntion in the oracles of God. England 
 has abolished slavery. France, in one fervid moment of 
 liberty, struck the chains from oft all her slaves, as the 
 bonds of Paul and Silas were loosed in the inner prison 
 by the mighty power of God. Sweden has abolished 
 it. More than twenty years ago, impotent, half-civil 
 ized Mexico did the same. Tunis, a Barbary state, 
 and, I might add, a barbarous state, has abolished 
 slavery. Mahometanism precedes Christianity, and sets 
 it an example of virtue. Liberia, a republic of eman 
 cipated slaves, the very brothers and sisters of those 
 whom you now hold in bondage, has been acknowl 
 edged as an independent sovereignty, and welcomed 
 into the family of nations, by two of the most power 
 ful governments on the globe. By this act, freedom 
 secures a new domain on the eastern continent, while 
 you are striving to give a new domain to bondage on 
 the western. A monarchy hails the advent of a free 
 nation in Africa, where slavery existed before ; a re 
 public is seeking to create ten thousand absolute des 
 potisms in America, where freedom existed before. 
 
 Now, these are the bystanders and lookers-on in this 
 grand and awful contestation. They are all agreed, as 
 one man, in their opinions about it. They are uni 
 tedly visiting your course with execration and anath 
 ema. There is not a nation on the globe, that has a 
 printing press and a people that can read, from which 
 you can extort one token of approval. I would agree 
 to submit the question now at issue between the north 
 and the south to the arbitrament of any people on 
 the face of the earth, not absolutely savage, and to 
 abide its decision. Nay, the wild tribes of the Cau 
 casus and of Upper India, who have defended them 
 selves so nobly against aggression, would spurn your 
 
203 
 
 claim and deride its pretexts. And yet you say you 
 are insulted, dishonored, disgraced in the eyes of man 
 kind, if you are not permitted to bring down upon our 
 heads, also, the curses they are pouring upon yours. 
 So far is this from truth, that if you would promptly 
 and cheerfully consecrate the new territories to free 
 dom, every nation in the world would send their plau 
 dits of your conduct to the skies. 
 
 But gentlemen of the south not only argue the ques 
 tion of right and of honor ; they go further, and they 
 tell us what they will proceed to do if we do not yield 
 to their demands. A large majority of the southern 
 legislatures have solemnly " resolved " that if Congress 
 prohibits slavery in the new territories, they will resist 
 the law "at any and at every hazard." And yet they 
 say they do not mean to threaten us. They desire to 
 abstain from all language of menace, for threats and 
 menaces are beneath the character of gentlemen. Sir, 
 what is the meaning of the terms " threats " and 
 "menaces? " Mr. Troup, formerly governor of Geor 
 gia, speaking of us who are upon this floor, and of oth 
 ers who resist the extension of slavery, calls each of us a 
 "fanatic." He says that it is only the dread of death 
 that will stay our hands or stop our machinations ; and 
 then adds, " THAT DREAD YOU MUST PRESENT TO HIM 
 IN A VISIBLE, PALPABLE FORM." " If," he says in an- 
 other place, " the abolitionists resolve to force emanci 
 pation, or to force dishonor upon the southern states by 
 any act of Congress, then it is my decided opinion 
 that, with the military preparation here indicated, con 
 joined to a good volunteer instead of a militia system, 
 
 THE STATE SHOULD MARCH UPON WASHINGTON AND DIS 
 SOLVE THE GOVERNMENT." The gentleman from North 
 Carolina, [Mr. CLINGMAN,] forewarns us that if certain 
 measures, and they are legal and constitutional meas 
 ures which he indicates, are taken in order to carry 
 on the business of legislation in this House ? the House 
 
204 
 
 itself shall be the " Lexington " of a new revolution, 
 and that " such a struggle would not leave a quorum 
 to do business." I could occupy my hour in citing 
 passages of a similar character from the southern press 
 and from southern men. Now, if these are not threats, 
 threats most gross, flagrant, and offensive, I know 
 not the meaning of the word. Perhaps those who 
 utter such sentiments are only practising an inversion 
 of language equal to their inversion of ideas on this 
 subject, and would call them "enticements ; " like the 
 sailor, who said he was enticed to join a mutiny, and 
 being asked what arts had been used to entice him, 
 said that the ringleader sprang at him with a handspike, 
 and swore if he did not join it he would knock out 
 his brains. 
 
 And do those gentlemen who make these threats 
 soberly consider how deeply they are pledging them 
 selves and their constituents by them? Threats of 
 dissolution, if executed, become rebellion and treason. 
 The machinery of this government is now moving 
 onward in its majestic course. Custom-houses, post- 
 offices, land-offices, army, navy, are fulfilling their 
 prescribed circle of duties. They will continue to 
 fulfil them until arrested by violence. Should the 
 hand of violence be laid upon them, then will come 
 that exigency expressly provided for in the constitution 
 and in the President s inaugural oath, " TO TAKE CARE 
 
 THAT THE LAWS BE FAITHFULLY EXECUTED." Mr. 
 
 Chairman, such collision would be war. Such forcible 
 opposition to the government would be treason. Its 
 agents and abettors would be traitors. Wherever this 
 rebellion rears its crest, martial law will be proclaimed; 
 and those found with hostile arms in their hands must 
 prepare for the felon s doom. 
 
 Sir, I cannot contemplate this spectacle without a 
 thrill of horror. If the two sections of this country 
 ever marshal themselves against each other, and their 
 
205 
 
 squadrons rush to the conflict, it will be a war carried 
 on by such powers o intellect, animated by such ve 
 hemence of passion, and sustained by such an abun 
 dance of resources, as the world has never before wit 
 nessed. " Ten foreign wars," it has been well said, 
 "are a luxury compared with one civil war." But I 
 turn from this scene with a shudder. If, in the retrib 
 utive providence of God, the volcano of civil war 
 should ever burst upon us, it will be amid thunderings 
 above, and earthquakes below, and darkness around ; 
 and when that darkness is lifted up, we shall see this 
 once glorious union, this oneness of government, 
 under which we have been prospered and blessed as 
 Heaven never prospered and blessed any other people, 
 rifted in twain from east to west, with a gulf be 
 tween us wide and profound, save that this gulf will 
 be filled and heaped high with the slaughtered bodies 
 of our countrymen ; and when we reawaken to con 
 sciousness, we shall behold the garments and the hands 
 of the survivors red with fratricidal blood. 
 
 And what is the object for which we are willing to 
 make this awful sacrifice ? Is it to redeem a realm to 
 freedom? No ! But to subjugate a realm to slavery. 
 Is it to defend the rights of man ? No ! But to abolish 
 the rights of man ! 
 
 Mr. BOWDON. Does not the gentleman think that 
 such a picture as he has drawn would induce the north 
 to yield a portion of the new territories to the institu 
 tion of slavery ? 
 
 Mr. MANN. I trust that no pictures and no realities 
 will ever induce us to extend slavery beyond its pres 
 ent limits. Beyond those limits, " No more slave ter 
 ritories, no more slave states," is the doctrine by which 
 I, for one, shall live and die. 
 
 Now, sir, as this event of a dissolution of the Union 
 is so frequently forced upon our contemplation, I pro 
 pose to occupy the residue of my hour in considering 
 18 
 
206 
 
 some of its more obvious consequences. Southern 
 papers and southern resolution writers have a favorite 
 phrase, that if Congress shall pass any law against the 
 extension of slavery, they will resist it " at any arid 
 every hazard." Let us inquire, soberly, what a few 
 of these hazards are : 
 
 First, as to the recovery, or non-recovery, of fugi 
 tive slaves, which is one of the alleged provocatives 
 of dissolution. Take a map of the Southern States 
 and spread it out before you. Although they cover 
 an area of about nine hundred thousand square miles, 
 yet it is a very remarkable fact, that only an insignifi 
 cantly small portion of this vast extent lies more than 
 two hundred and fifty miles from a free frontier ; and 
 those parts which do lie beyond this distance hold but 
 few slaves. Those portions of North Carolina, South 
 Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Tennessee, where 
 their upper boundaries converge among the mountains, 
 are a little more than this distance from a free border ; 
 but this territory is relatively insignificant in size, arid 
 sparsely populated with slaves. An outside belt or 
 border region of the slave states, no part of which 
 shall be more than one hundred miles from a free 
 frontier, would embrace nearly one half of their whole 
 area ; and, as I suppose, much more than one half of 
 their whole slave population. What is to prevent the 
 easy escape of slaves living within these limits ? While 
 God sends nights upon the earth, nothing can prevent it. 
 I venture to predict, that in such a state of things, slaves 
 will become cheap, and horses will become dear. I 
 am aware of your laws which forbid slaves to cross 
 bridges or ferries, without a pass ; but you can have 
 no law against seasons of low water. The old adage 
 says, "riches have wings." You will find that these 
 riches have legs. The Mississippi and Ohio Rivers, 
 where they border upon free states, will be alive as with 
 shoals of porpoises. Remember there is no constitution 
 
301 
 
 of the United States now. That you have broken, 
 The free states are therefore absolved from all ob 
 ligation to surrender fugitives. The law of 1793 is 
 at an end. No action can be maintained for aiding 
 them to escape, nor for harboring or concealing them. 
 The distinguished senator from Kentucky, [Mr. CLAY,] 
 said, in his late speech, that no instance had ever come 
 to his knowledge where an action for harboring run 
 aways had not been maintained in the courts of the 
 free states, and damages recovered. But this remedy 
 you will have annulled. The constitution of the 
 United States, and the law of 1793, being at an end, 
 the law of nature revives. By this law, every case 
 of an escaping slave is but the self-recovery of stolen 
 goods. When they cross the line into a free state, 
 they are free, as free as you or I. The states being 
 separated, I would as soon return my own brother or 
 sister into bondage, as I would return a fugitive slave. 
 Before God, and Christ, and all Christian men, they 
 are my brothers and sisters. As our laws make it pi 
 racy to kidnap slaves in Africa, or to ship them thence, 
 so it shall be a felony, punishable with death, for any 
 southern master to kidnap a colored man, in a free 
 state, or transport him from it, on the ground of alleged 
 ownership. Yon are fond of quoting Scripture to us, 
 in justification of slavery. We will retort the Scrip 
 ture, that " he that stealeth a man, and selleth him, or 
 if he be found in his hand, he shall surely be put to 
 death." 
 
 Here, then, is a free land frontier of about two 
 thousand miles, and a free ocean frontier of about 
 twenty-five hundred miles : and more than one half 
 of all your slaves are within two days run of it. 
 More than one quarter of them are within one night s 
 run of it. Thousands and tens of thousands can 
 escape, even while you are dining. Canada, now so 
 distant, is brought five hundred miles nearer. The 
 
208 
 
 under-ground railroad will be abandoned, and its stock 
 so invested as to yield quicker returns. What facilities 
 for escape, too, will the ocean present. Fleets of ves 
 sels are constantly passing and repassing within a few 
 hours sail of the coast. The day for the power and the 
 triumph of those whom you hate as abolitionists will 
 have arrived. Steamboats could lie out of sight of 
 land in the day time, run in at night, and be out of 
 sight again before the rising of the sun. To guard 
 twenty-five hundred miles of coast is impossible. If 
 you declare war in order to avenge your losses, then 
 that war makes your coast lawfully accessible both by 
 day and by night, and multiplies a hundred fold the 
 opportunities and facilities for this self-recovery of 
 stolen goods. 
 
 I know it is said that some of the Northern States 
 are averse to the reception of blacks. Let us ana 
 lyze this idea. There are now by estimation three 
 millions of slaves. Say one half of these are either 
 too old or too young to have the strength or the intel 
 ligence to escape. A million and a half are left ; five 
 hundred thousand of these will have attachments to 
 their own parents or children, or to their masters, too 
 strong to be broken ; or they may be so degraded as to 
 be contented with bondage ; for their contentment is 
 always one of the measures of their degradation. This 
 would leave a million for fugitives, consisting wholly 
 of the most able bodied and intelligent. The Northern 
 States comprise a territory of five hundred thousand 
 square miles. A million of escaped slaves would give 
 but two to a square mile, and this surely would not be 
 a formidable number, even where col or phobia is 
 strongest. Suppose the case of a family of fourteen 
 slaves, two grandparents, too decrepit for labor, six 
 athletic sons or daughters, and six grand children. What 
 but affection should prevent the able-bodied and the 
 profitable from escaping, and leaving the aged and the 
 
209 
 
 young on their masters hands. Affection, indeed, 
 would bind the parents to their children, but they 
 know too well how often this bond is remorselessly 
 broken by the master; and, besides, an enlightened 
 affection would look to future children and their pos 
 terity forever, as well as to those they already have. 
 
 Will you make your laws horribly penal, in order to 
 deter slaves from escaping by fear? Will you mutilate 
 them, or scourge them till within a minute of death ? 
 Do so. All such punishments not only nourish the 
 love of freedom, but breed the purpose of revenge ; 
 and it is a kind of lesson which a brutalized nature is 
 always prone to retaliate with improvements. Will 
 you make the act of escape a capital offence in a slave, 
 and destroy the victim you cannot restrain ? Do so. 
 Though you may inflict death in a paroxysm of wrath, 
 yet of all your penal dispensations it is the most mer 
 ciful. It not only releases the slave himself, but is a 
 prospective and perpetual amnesty, a true act of ob 
 livion. for all his descendants. But this extremity 
 of punishment is not likely to be resorted to. In look 
 ing over the criminal codes of the slave states, I think 
 I have noted cases where the slave is not punished 
 with death for an offence for which a white man is. 
 The value moderates the vengeance. There are not 
 many who, like Cleopatra, can afford to dissolve a pearl 
 in the cup of revenge, and swallow it at a draught, 
 when that pearl will command five hundred or a thou 
 sand dollars in the market-place. 
 
 Southern gentlemen, when they threaten disunion, 
 cannot surely be so much at fault as to forget that sla 
 very exists here as it never existed before in the world. 
 In Greece there were slaves; in some cases, highly 
 intelligent and accomplished slaves. They could have 
 escaped if they would ; but where should they escape 
 to? All coterminous nations, the whole circle 
 round, were barbarians. These slaves, therefore, 
 18* 
 
210 
 
 had no place to flee to, where better institutions and 
 juster laws prevailed. So it was with Rome. Whith 
 er could her slaves fly but to barbarous Spain, or more 
 barbarous Gaul, or to some nation whose language they 
 did not understand. Ignorance of language is a more 
 insuperable barrier than mountains or oceans. It is 
 just the reverse here. The English language is 
 spoken on all sides ; and our slave land is encircled by 
 free land or free ocean, Jamaica, the Bermudas, and 
 two thousand miles of northern frontier. And I have 
 lately seen an estimate from a credible source, that if 
 an inter-oceanic canal should be opened across the Isth 
 mus of Darien, twelve hundred ships would annually 
 pass through it ; and, as they sail to and fro. they will 
 skirt the whole of your gulf coast, and the whole of 
 your Atlantic coast, a great part of the voyage being 
 within sight, or within a day s sail, of your shores. 
 Now, the ignorant slave knows but little of geography, 
 but he would know of these avenues to freedom, and 
 nothing but death could extinguish such knowledge 
 and the hopes it would inspire. I say, sir, under such 
 circumstances, slavery would melt away upon your 
 borders like an iceberg in the tropics. The particles, 
 that is, the individuals of the exposed surface, would 
 disappear ; and you might as well attempt to stop solar 
 evaporation by statutory laws, as to prevent their es 
 cape. Perhaps a dissolution of the Union is the means 
 foreordained by God for the extinction of slavery ; and 
 did I not foresee its doom before any very long period 
 shall have elapsed, without the unspeakable horrors of 
 a civil and a servile war, I cannot say to what con 
 clusion the above considerations would lead my own 
 mind. 
 
 Having shown how the " redress " of disunion will 
 operate upon one of the grievances alleged as its mo 
 tive and excuse., let us look at another of those " haz 
 ards," whose list, of indefinite length, the south is so 
 
211 
 
 willing to brave. In case of rebellion or secession, to 
 whom will the territories belong? It is the rule of 
 political as well as of municipal law, that whoever re- 
 tiros from a community, leaves its common property 
 behind him. I have a direct interest and proprietor 
 ship in the church in my parish, in the ac hoot house 
 in my town, and in the state-house and other public 
 property belonging to my state. But if I expatriate 
 myself, I leave all that interest and proprietorship be 
 hind me. If the county of Brooke, in Virginia, should 
 secede from the State of Virginia, and should annex 
 itself to Ohio or Pennsylvania, no one doubts that it 
 would forfeit all its rights to whatever public property 
 the Slate of Virginia possesses. In like manner, if the 
 "United States South" as the new confederacy has 
 already been named by the "Richmond Enquirer," 
 should secede, they would, by the very act of seces 
 sion, surrender and abandon all right, title, and interest 
 in the new territories. By such secession-, all their 
 citizens become foreigners. They have no rights un 
 der the treaty with Mexico. The new Spanish citi 
 zen, whose allegiance was transferred by the treaty 
 with Mexico, and whose citizenship is not yet two 
 years old, would have a right to expel them. The 
 " United States South," it is true, may declare war, 
 and attempt the conquest of the territories by force ; 
 but in such a contest, the army and navy and military 
 stores of the government, which, also, they have lost 
 by secession, will be turned against them. But, I 
 venture to prophesy, that if the slave states shall pass 
 through one war, single-handed, they will afterwards 
 be the most peaceable nation the world ever saw. To 
 every frontier country and to every naval power, they 
 have given three millions of hostages for their good 
 behavior. 
 
 Let us look at a third grievance they mean to re 
 dress, and a third " hazard " they are ready to enconn- 
 
212 
 
 ter. They complain of northern agitation on the sub 
 ject of slavery, and northern instigation of the slaves 
 themselves. On the subject of " agitation," I deny- 
 that the north has ever overstepped the limits of their 
 constitutional rights. They have never agitated the 
 question of slavery in the states. It has been only in 
 regard to slavery in this District, or the annexation of 
 Texas, or the acquisition of territory for the extension 
 of slavery, or the imprisonment of her own citizens in 
 southern ports, or a denial of the inviolable right of 
 petition ; it has been only on such subjects that the 
 north has lifted up the voice of expostulation and re 
 monstrance. Even these constitutional rights she has 
 used forbearing! y. She has never exerted force, nor 
 threatened force, either to maintain the right of peti 
 tion or to liberate her own citizens imprisoned in south 
 ern jails. 
 
 In regard to instigating slaves to escape, I acknowl 
 edge there have been some instances of it ; but they 
 have been few. The perpetrators have been tried and 
 severely punished, and the north has acquiesced : for 
 they acknowledge that, if a man will go into a slave 
 state and violate its laws, he must be judged by them. 
 But I have never known of a single case, I believe 
 there is no well-authenticated case on record, where 
 a northern man has instigated the slaves to rise in 
 rebellion, and to retaliate upon their masters for the 
 wrongs which they, and their race have suffered. As 
 I dread indiscriminate massacre and conflagration, I 
 should abhor the perpetrator of such a crime. But 
 will separation bring relief or security ? No, sir ; it 
 will enhance the danger a myriad fold. Thousands 
 will start up, who will think it as much a duty and an 
 honor to assist the slaves in any contest with their 
 masters, as to assist Greeks, or Poles, or Hungarians, 
 in resisting their tyrants. Two things exist at the 
 north which the south does not duly appreciate, the 
 
213 
 
 depth and intensity of our abhorrence of slavery, and 
 that reverence for the law which keeps it in check. 
 The latter counterpoises the former. We are a law- 
 abiding people. But release us from our obligations, 
 tear olF from the bond with your own hands the signa 
 tures which bind our consciences and repress our feel 
 ings, destroy those compensations which the world and 
 which posterity would derive from a continuance of 
 this Union, and well may you tremble for the result. 
 I have seen fugitive slaves at the north, and heard from 
 their own lips the dreadful recital of their wrongs: 
 and if I am any judge of the natural language of men ; 
 if I can divine from the outward expression what pas 
 sions are burning within, each one of them had a hun 
 dred conflagrations and a hundred massacres in his 
 bosom. They felt as you and I should feel if we had 
 been subjected to Algerine bondage. And do you 
 doubt, sir, does any southern gentleman on this floor 
 doubt, for one moment, that if he were seized by a 
 Barbary corsair and sold into Algerine bondage, and 
 carried a hundred miles into the interior, that he would 
 improve the first opportunity to escape, though at every 
 step in his flight he should crush out a human life, and 
 should leave an ever- widening expanse of conflagration 
 behind him ? If agitation and instigation are evils 
 now, woe to those who would seek to mitigate or to 
 repress them by the remedies of disunion and civil 
 war. Let men who live in a powder-mill beware how 
 they madden pyrotechnists. 
 
 But it is said that if dissolution occurs, the " United 
 States South " can form an alliance with Great Britain. 
 And are there no instigators and abolitionists in Eng 
 land ? Yes, sir, ten in England where there is one at 
 the north. Frederick Douglass has just returned from 
 England, where he has enjoyed the honors of an 
 ovation. William Wells Brown, another fugitive 
 slave, is now travelling in England. His journeys 
 
214 
 
 from place to place are like the " progresses " of one 
 of the magnates of that land, passing wherever he 
 will with free tickets, and enjoying the hospitalities 
 of the most refined and educated men. The very last 
 steamer brought out an account of his public reception 
 at Newcastle. An entertainment was given him which 
 was attended by four hundred ladies and gentlemen. 
 Men of high distinction and character adorned it by 
 their presence. The ladies made up a purse of twenty 
 sovereigns, which they gave him. It was presented in 
 a beautiful purse that one of their number, the suc 
 cessful competitor for the honor, had wrought with 
 her own hands. All their generosity and kindness 
 they considered as repaid by hearing from his own lips 
 the pathetic story of his captivity and the heroism of 
 his escape. Sir, every man who has travelled in 
 England knows that there are large, wealthy, and re 
 fined circles there, no member of which would allow 
 a slaveholder to sit at his table or enter his doors. 
 Not only churches, but moral and religious men, the 
 world over, have begun to read slaveholders out of 
 their communion and companionship. If the south 
 expects to rid itself of agitation and abolitionism by 
 rupturing its bonds with the north and substituting an 
 alliance with Great Britain for our present constitution, 
 they may envy the wisdom of the geese who invited 
 the fox to stand sentinel over them while they slept. 
 Northern interference will increase a hundred fold ; 
 and the whole power and wealth of British abolition 
 ism, not only founded on moral principle but nursed 
 by national pride, will be brought to bear directly upon 
 them. 
 
 I said that the slave does not know much of geog 
 raphy ; but he understands enough of it to know 
 where lies the free frontier. The slave does not know 
 much of astronomy ; but there is one star in the firma 
 ment which is dearer to him than all the heavenly 
 
215 
 
 host were to the Chaldeans. He worships the north 
 star with more than Persian idolatry. But let the 
 south form commercial alliances with Great Britain ; 
 let the carrying trade be carried on in British vessels ; 
 and the slave will find a star in the east as beautiful 
 to his eye, and as inspiring to his hopes, as the star in 
 the north. 
 
 Is the case of the Amistad forgotten, where a few 
 ignorant, degraded wretches, fresh from the jungles of 
 benighted Africa herself, seized upon the vessel in 
 which they were transported, and compelled the mas 
 ter, under peril of his life, to steer for the north star, 
 that light which God kindled in the heavens, and 
 which he will as sotm extinguish as he will extinguish 
 the love of liberty which he has kindled in every 
 human breast ? 
 
 And will a slave, escaping to Great Britain, or to 
 any of her colonial possessions, be reclaimable ? Ex 
 amine Somerset s case for an answer. No, sir. Neither 
 the third clause of the second section of the fourth 
 article of the constitution, nor the law of 1793, will 
 ever be extended over the Three Kingdoms or their 
 dependencies. 
 
 It surely is not beneath the dignity of the place or 
 the occasion to look at another of those " hazards " 
 which the south are invoking. They are proud of 
 their past history, and I doubt not their reflecting and 
 patriotic men are at least reasonably solicitous of their 
 future fame. When they meet in august council to 
 inaugurate the great event of establishing an inde 
 pendent confederacy of slave states, and of dissolving 
 the political bands which now unite them with us, 
 " a decent respect to the opinions of mankind " will 
 u require them to declare the causes which had impelled 
 them to the separation." And will they find a model 
 for their manifesto in that glorious Declaration of 
 American Independence which their own immortal 
 
216 
 
 Jefferson prepared, and to which many of the greatest 
 of all their historic names are subscribed ? Alas, they 
 will have to read that Declaration, as the devil reads 
 Scripture, backwards! I know not what may be the 
 rhetorical terms and phrases of the new Declaration, 
 but I do know that its historic form and substance 
 cannot be widely different from this : 
 
 " We hold these truths to be self-evident, that men 
 are not created equal ; that they are not endowed by 
 their Creator with inalienable rights ; that white men, 
 of the Anglo-Saxon race, were born to rob, and tyr 
 annize, and enjoy, and black men, of the African 
 race, to labor, and suffer, and obey ; that a man, with 
 a drop of African blood in his veins, has no political 
 rights, and therefore shall never vote ; that he has no 
 pecuniary rights, and therefore whatever he may earn 
 or receive, belongs to his master ; that he has no judi 
 cial rights, and therefore he shall never be heard as a 
 witness to redress wrong, or violence, or robbery, com 
 mitted by white men upon him ; that he has no pa 
 rental rights, and therefore his children may be torn 
 from his bosom, at the pleasure or caprice of his owner; 
 that he has no marital rights, and therefore his wife 
 may be lawfully sold away into distant bondage, or 
 violated before his eyes ; that he has no rights of mind 
 or of conscience, and therefore he shall never be al 
 lowed to read or to think, and all his aspirations for 
 improvement shall be extinguished ; that he has no re 
 ligious rights, and therefore he shall never read the 
 Bible ; that he has no heaven-descended, God-given 
 rights of freedom, and therefore he and his posterity 
 shall be slaves forever. We hold that governments 
 were instituted among men to secure and fortify this 
 ascendency of one race over another ; that this as 
 cendency has its foundation in force ratified by law, 
 and in ignorance and debasement inflicted by intelli 
 gence and superiority ; and when any people, with 
 
whom we are politically associated, would debar us 
 from propagating our doctrines or extending our domi 
 nation into new realms and over free territories, it be 
 comes our duty to separate from them, and to hold 
 them, as we hold the rest of mankind, friends when 
 they make slaves, enemies when they make freemen." 
 
 I say, sir, of whatever words and phrases the south 
 ern " Magna Charta " may consist, this, or something 
 like this, must be its substance and reality. 
 
 So the preamble to their constitution must run in 
 this wise : " We, the people of the < United States 
 South, in order to form a more perfect conspiracy 
 against the rights of the African race, establish injus 
 tice, insure domestic slavery, provide for holding three 
 millions of our fellow-beings, with all the countless 
 millions of their posterity, in bondage, and to secure 
 to ourselves and our posterity the enjoyment of power, 
 and luxury, and sloth, do ordain and establish this con 
 stitution for the < United States South/ " 
 
 Sir, should a civil war ensue between the north and 
 the south, (which may God in his mercy avert,) in 
 consequence of an attempt to dissolve this Union, and 
 the certain resistance which would be made to such an 
 attempt, it would be difficult to exaggerate the imme 
 diate evils which would befall the interests of New 
 England and some other parts of the north. Our man 
 ufactures and our commerce would suffer at least a 
 temporary derangement. But we have boundless re 
 sources in our enterprise and our intelligence. Knowl 
 edge and industry are recuperative energies that can 
 never long be balked in their quest of prosperity. The 
 people that bore the embargo of 1807, and the war of 
 1812, when all their capital was embarked in com 
 merce, can survive any change that does not stop the 
 revolution of the seasons or suspend the great laws of 
 nature. And, when the day of peace again returns, 
 business will again return to its old channels. The 
 19 
 
218 
 
 south, notwithstanding any personal hostility, will be 
 as ready to take northern gold as though it had come 
 from the English mint ; and they will employ those 
 first, who will do their manufacturing or their commer 
 cial labor cheapest and best. Gold is a great pacifica 
 tor between nations ; and, in this money-loving age, 
 mutual interests will, in the end, subdue mutual hostil 
 ities. Our share, therefore, of the calamities of a civil 
 war, will be mainly of a pecuniary nature. They 
 will not be intolerable. They will invade none of the 
 securities of home ; they will not associate poison with 
 our daily food, nor murder and conflagration with our 
 nightly repose; nor black violation with the sanctities 
 of our daughters and our wives. 
 
 Even in a pecuniary point of view, a dissolution of 
 our political ties would cause less immediate and in 
 tense suffering at the north than at the south. Our laws 
 and institutions are all framed so as to encourage the 
 poor man, and, by education, to elevate his children 
 above the condition of their parents ; but their laws 
 and institutions all tend to aggrandize the rich, and to 
 perpetuate power in their hands. Were it not for the 
 visions of horror and of bloodshed which southern 
 threats have so intimately associated with this contro 
 versy, one remarkable feature, which has hitherto been 
 eclipsed, would have been most conspicuous. 
 
 With every philanthropic northern man, a collateral 
 motive for keeping the new territories free is, that 
 they may be a land of hope and of promise to the poor 
 man, to whichever of all our states he may belong ; 
 where he may go and find a home and a home 
 stead and abundance. But the south, in attempt 
 ing to open these territories to the slaveholders, 
 would give them to the rich alone, would give them 
 to less than three hundred thousand persons out of a 
 population of six millions. The interests of the 
 poorer classes at the south all demand free territory, 
 
219 
 
 where they can go and rise at once to an equality with 
 their fellow-citizens, which they never can do at home. 
 They are natural abolitionists, and unless blinded by 
 ignorance, or overawed by their social superiors, they 
 will so declare themselves. Every intelligent and 
 virtue-loving wife or mother, at the south, when she 
 thinks of her husband and her sons, is forced to be an 
 abolitionist. The attempt, therefore, to subject the 
 new territories to the law of slavery is not made in 
 the name of one half of the people of the United 
 States ; it is not made for the six millions, more or 
 less, who inhabit the slave states ; but it is made for 
 less than three hundred thousand slaveholders among 
 more than twenty millions of people. 
 
 There is one other " hazard," sir, which the south 
 invokes and defies, which to her high-minded and 
 honor-loving sons, should be more formidable than all 
 the rest. She is defying the Spirit of the Age. She is 
 not only defying the judgment of contemporaries, but 
 invoking upon herself the execrations of posterity. 
 Mark the progress in the public sentiment of Christen 
 dom, within the last few centuries, on the subject of 
 slavery and the rights of man. After the discovery of 
 this continent by Columbus, the ecclesiastics of Spain 
 held councils to discuss the question, whether the 
 aborigines of this country had or had not souls to be 
 saved. They left this question undecided ; but they 
 said, as it was possible that the nations of the new 
 world might have an immortal spirit, they would send 
 them the gospel, so as to be on the safe side ; and the 
 mission of Las Casas was the result. In the time of 
 Lord Coke, only a little more than two centuries ago, 
 the doctrine was openly avowed and held, in West 
 minster Hall, that the heathen had no rights; and 
 therefore that it was lawful for Christians to drive 
 them out of their inheritance, arid to despoil them, as 
 the Jews despoiled the Egyptians and drove out the 
 
220 
 
 Canaan ites. During the seventeenth century, all the 
 commercial nations of Europe engaged in the African 
 slave trade, without compunction or reproach. In the 
 last, or eighteenth century, the horrors of that trade were 
 aggravated and blackened by such demoniacal atroci 
 ties, as. were it not for some redeeming attributes 
 among men, would have made the human race im 
 mortally hateful. Even when our own constitution 
 was formed, in 1787, this dreadful traffic was not only 
 sanctioned, but a solemn compact was entered into, by 
 which all prohibition of it was prohibited for twenty 
 years. Yet, in the year 1820, after the lapse of only 
 thirty-three years, this very trade was declared to be 
 piracy, the highest offence known to the law, and 
 the felon s death was denounced against all principals 
 and abettors. We are often reminded by gentlemen 
 of the south, that, at the time of the adoption of that 
 constitution, slavery existed in almost every state in 
 the Union ; and that some northern merchants, by a 
 devilish alchemy, transmuted gold from its tears and 
 blood. But can they read no lesson as to the progress 
 of the age from the fact that all those states have since 
 abjured slavery of their own free will ; and that, at the 
 present day, it would be more tolerable for any north 
 ern merchant, rather than to be reasonably suspected 
 of the guilt of this traffic, to be cast into the fiery 
 furnace of Nebuchadnezzar, seven times heated ? In 
 Europe, the tide of liberty, though meeting with ob 
 structions from firm-seated dynasties and time-strength 
 ened prerogative, still rises, and sweeps onward with 
 unebbing flow. In France, revolutions follow each 
 other in quicker and quicker succession. These revo 
 lutions are only gigantic struggles of the popular will 
 to escape from oppression ; and, at each struggle, the 
 giant snaps a chain. 
 
 Great Britain, which in former times sent more ves 
 sels to the coast of Africa to kidnap and to transport its 
 
natives, than all the other nations of the earth together, 
 now maintains a fleet upon the same coast to suppress 
 the trade she so lately encouraged. Three times, dur 
 ing the present century, has that government escaped 
 civil commotion by making large concessions to popu 
 lar rights. Since the year 1814, written constitutions 
 have been extorted by the people from more than 
 three fourths of all the sovereigns of Europe. What 
 a tempest now beats upon Austria, from all points of 
 the compass, because, during the last season, she at 
 tempted only to half enslave the Hungarians, be 
 cause she attempted to do what, during the last cen 
 tury, she might have done without a remonstrance ! 
 The rights of individuals, not less than the rights of 
 communities, have emerged from oblivion into recog 
 nition, and have become law. Penal codes have been 
 ameliorated, and barbarous customs abolished. There 
 are now but two places on the globe where a woman 
 can be publicly whipped, in Hungary and in the 
 Southern States ! And the universal scorn and hissing 
 with which the rulers of the former country have been 
 visited for their women-whipping, and their execution 
 of those whose sole crime was their love of freedom, 
 only foretoken that fiercer scorn and louder hissing 
 with which, from all sides of the civilized world, the 
 latter will soon be visited. Let the high-toned and 
 chivalrous sons of the south, those " who feel a stain 
 upon their honor like a wound," think of all this, as 
 one in the long catalogue of " hazards" upon which 
 they are rushing. 
 
 Sir, the leading minds in a community are mainly 
 responsible for the fortunes of that community. Un 
 der God, the men of education, of talent, and of at 
 tainment, turn the tides of human affairs. Where 
 great social distinctions exist, the intelligence and the 
 wealth of a few stimulate or suppress the volition of 
 the masses. They are the sensorium of the body 
 19* 
 
222 
 
 politic, and their social inferiors are the mighty limbs, 
 which, for good or for evil, they wield. Such is the 
 relation in which the three hundred thousand, or less 
 than three hundred thousand slave owners of the south, 
 hold to their fellow-citizens. They can light the torch 
 of civil war, or they can quench it. But if civil war 
 once blazes forth, it is not given to mortal wisdom to 
 extinguish or control it. It comes under other and 
 mightier laws, under other and mightier agencies. 
 Human passions feed the combustion : and the flame 
 which the breath of man has kindled, the passions of 
 the multitude, stronger than the breath of the hur 
 ricane, will spread. Among these passions, one of 
 the strongest and boldest is the love of liberty, which 
 dwells in every bosom. In the educated and civilized, 
 this love of liberty is a regulated but paramount de 
 sire ; in the ignorant and debased, it is a wild, vehe 
 ment instinct. It is an indestructible part of the na 
 ture of man. Weakened it may be, but it cannot be 
 destroyed. It is a thread of asbestos in the web of the 
 soul, which all the fires of oppression cannot consume. 
 With the creation of every human being, God creates 
 this love of liberty anew. The slave shares it with his 
 master, and it has descended into his bosom from the 
 same high source. Whether dormant or wakeful, it 
 only awaits an opportunity to become the mastering 
 impulse of the soul. Civil war is that opportunity. 
 Under oppression it bides its time. Civil war is the 
 fulness of time. It is literal truth that the south fos 
 ters within its homes three millions of latent rebellions. 
 Imbedded in a material spontaneously combustible, it 
 laughs at fire. Has it any barriers to keep the spirit of 
 liberty, which has electrified the Old World, from cross 
 ing its own borders, and quickening its bondmen into 
 mutinous life? not all of them, but one in ten thou 
 sand, one in a hundred thousand of them. If there is 
 no Spartacus among them, with his lofty heroism and 
 
223 
 
 his masterly skill for attack and defence, is the race of 
 Nat Turners extinct, who, in their religions musings, 
 and their dnmh melancholy, take the impulses of their 
 own passions for the inspiration of God, and, after 
 prayer and the eucharist, proceed to massacre and con 
 flagration ? In ignorant and imbruted minds, a thou 
 sand motives work which we cannot divine. A 
 thousand excitements madden them, which we cannot 
 control. It may be a text of Scripture, it may be the 
 contents of a wine vault ; but the result will be the 
 same, havoc wherever there is wealth, murder 
 wherever there is life, violation wherever there is 
 chastity. Let this wildfire of a servile insurrection 
 break out in but one place in a state ; nay, in but ten 
 places, or in five places in all the fifteen states; and 
 then, in all their length and breadth, there will be no 
 more quiet sleep. Not Macbeth, but the angel of retri 
 bution, will " murder sleep." The mother will clasp 
 her infant to her breast, and, while she clasps it, die a 
 double death. But, where will the slaves find arms ? 
 11 Furor anna mi/tistrat." Rage will supply their 
 weapons. Read the history of those slaves who have 
 escaped from bondage ; mark their endurance and their 
 contrivance, and let incredulity cease forever. They 
 have hid themselves under coverts; dug holes and bur 
 rowed in the earth for concealment ; sunk themselves 
 in ponds, and sustained life by breathing through a 
 reed, until their pursuers had passed by; wandered 
 in "Dismal Swamps," far away from the habitations of 
 men ; almost fasting for forty days and forty nights, 
 like Christ in the wilderness : crushed themselves into 
 boxes, but of half a coffin s dimensions, to be nailed 
 np and transported hundreds of miles, as merchan 
 dise ; and, in this horrible condition, have endured 
 hunger and thirst, and, standing upon the head, with 
 out a groan or a sigh; and, will men, who devise 
 such things, and endure such things, be balked in their 
 purposes of hope and of revenge, when the angel of 
 
224 
 
 destruction, in the form of the angel of liberty, de 
 scends into their breasts ? 
 
 The state of slavery is always a state of war. In 
 its deepest tranquillity, it is but a truce. Active hostil 
 ities are liable at any hour to be resumed. Civil war 
 between the north and the south, any thing that 
 brings the quickening idea of freedom home to the 
 mind of the slave ; that supplies him with facilities of 
 escape, or immunities for revenge, will unleash the 
 bloodhounds of insurrection. Can you muster armies 
 in secret, and march them in secret, so that the slave 
 shall not know that they are mustered and marched to 
 perpetuate his bondage, and to extend the bondage of 
 his race ? Was not Major Dade s whole command 
 supposed to be massacred through the treachery of a 
 slave ? A foray within your borders places you in 
 such a relation to the slave that you are helpless with 
 out him, and in danger of assassination with him. He 
 that defends slavery by war, wars against the eternal 
 laws of God, and rushes upon the thick bosses of 
 Jehovah s buckler. Such are some of the " hazards " 
 which the leaders of public opinion at the south, the 
 legislators and guides of men in this dark and perilous 
 hour, are invoking upon themselves and their fellows ; 
 not for the interests of the whole, but for the fancied 
 interests of the slaveholders alone, and against the real 
 interest of a vast majority of the people. May God 
 give that wisdom to the followers which he seems not 
 yet to have imparted to the leaders. 
 
 Sir, in these remarks, I have studiously abstained 
 from every thing that seemed to me like retaliation or 
 unkindness. I certainly have suffered no purposed 
 word of crimination to pass my lips. If I have ut 
 tered severe truths, I have not sought for severe lan 
 guage in which to clothe them. What I have said, I 
 have said as to a brother sleeping on the brink of a 
 precipice, where one motion of his troubled sleeping, 
 
225 
 
 or of his bewildered awaking, might plunge him into 
 remediless ruin. 
 
 In conclusion, I have only to add, that such is my 
 solemn raid abiding conviction of the character of 
 slavery, that under a full sense of my responsibility to 
 my country and my God, I deliberately say, better 
 disunion, better a civil or a servile war, better any 
 tiling that God in his providence shall send, than an 
 extension of the bounds of slavery. 
 
 Upon the close of Mr. Mann s remarks, 
 
 Mu. BURT, of South Carolina, rose and said that he 
 had not interrupted the gentleman from Massachusetts 
 during his speech, but he presumed he did not wish to 
 have any error go forth under the sanction of his 
 name ; and he therefore called upon him to retract 
 what he had said in regard to slaves ever being ex 
 empted from capital punishment for crimes for which 
 the whites were executed. He called upon him also 
 to withdraw the imputation that the pecuniary value 
 of the slave was a motive for any such difference in 
 the laws respecting them. He remarked that, by the 
 laws of the Southern States, such a distinction is not 
 made. I know, said he. no instance in which it 
 exists. On the contrary, slaves are punished capitally 
 for offences that are not so punished when committed 
 by white men. In South Carolina, slaves have never 
 been admitted to the benefit of clergy for offences at 
 common law ; and thus a slave is punished capitally 
 for maiming or grievously beating a white man. Mr. 
 Burt was also understood to say that there were " six 
 or eight," or " eight or ten," offences in South Caro 
 lina for which slaves were punished capitally, but for 
 which white men were not. 
 
 MR. MAXX replied that he had stated what he be 
 lieved to be true ; but if he had fallen into any mis 
 take, he should be most happy to be corrected. He 
 was assured also by the gentleman from Georgia, on 
 
226 
 
 his left, [Mr. TOOMBS,] that no such distinction existed 
 as he had supposed ; and it was but reasonable to 
 believe that those gentlemen were more conversant 
 with the southern laws than himself. 
 
 MR. MANN added that he, (Mr. Mann,) could riot be 
 expected to have the statute books of the Southern 
 States before him. at that time, to meet so unexpected 
 a denial. Neither could he be expected by any honor 
 able gentleman to make a retraction until he had time 
 to see whether the ground he had taken were tenable. 
 
 NOTE BY MR. MANN. On repairing to the Law library to ascertain 
 which party was right in regard to the above difference of opinion, the 
 second book I opened contained at least three cases, where the courts 
 were authorized to sentence a slave to be transported for the commis 
 sion of an offence, for which a white man must be unconditionally 
 hung. See North Carolina Rev. Stat. vol. i. chap. 3, 36, 37, 39. 
 Of course, the reason of this difference is the pecuniary value of the 
 slave. Hung, he would be worthless ; transported to Cuba, he might 
 bring five hundred dollars. 
 
 The law was formerly so in Mr. Burt s own state. 
 
 In the seventh volume of the Statutes at Large of South Carolina, 
 No. 344, 5,1 find the following : " And whereas, it has been found 
 by experience that the execution of several negroes for felonies of a 
 smaller nature, by which they have been condemned to die, has been 
 of great charge and expense to the public, and will continue, (if some 
 remedy be not found,) to be very chargeable and burdensome to this 
 province ; Be it therefore enacted, by the authority aforesaid, that all 
 negroes or other slaves who shall be convicted and found guilty of 
 any capital crime, (murder excepted,) for which they used to receive 
 the sentence of death, as the law directs, shall be transported from 
 this province, by the public receiver for the time being, to any other 
 of his majesty s plantations, or other foreign part, where he shall 
 think fitting to send them, for the use of the public" 
 
 The slave condemned to transportation was to be appraised, and 
 his master paid out of the public treasury, and this amount was, of 
 course, to be reimbursed by what should be received from the foreign 
 sale. From the statement of Mr. Burt, that no such law now exists 
 in South Carolina, I suppose the above enactment must have been 
 repealed. 
 
 The fact stated in the speech is therefore proved, although the 
 instances may be fewer than I had supposed. As to the motive 
 attributed, there can be no doubt. The cases are most numerous in 
 the Southern States, where white men are merely imprisoned for 
 offences for which slaves are whipped, branded, and cropped, or 
 otherwise corporally punished. The slave s time is too valuable to 
 
227 
 
 be lost in a prison, but the white man s is not ; the white man s akin 
 is too sacred to be flayed or branded, but the slave s is not. 
 
 But laws which punish "six or eight," or "eight or ten," or any 
 other number of offences with death, when committed by slaves, 
 while the same offences receive a milder penalty when committed by 
 whites ; or laws denying the benefit of clergy, (where that relic of 
 barbarism still prevails,) to a slave, while it is granted to a white 
 man, are surely among the greatest atrocities recorded in the history 
 of the race. Ponder for a moment upon the accursed fact. A free 
 man acting under all the motives to self-respect ; moved by all the 
 incentives to good conduct ; enjoying all the means of education ; 
 inspired by all the influences of the gospel ; and capable of compre 
 hending all the powerful restraints and the sublime rewards connected 
 with a hereafter, exonerated from the punishment of death ; while 
 death, in all the horrors with which ignorance and superstition can 
 invest it, is inflicted upon men who are subjected to bondage ; de 
 prived of all motive for honorable conduct ; debarred from every 
 avenue to knowledge by cruel penalties ; blinded to the light of the 
 gospel ; and, in a land of boasted Clmstianity, left in the darkness 
 of heathenism ! These are not the customs of a lawless banditti, of 
 outcasts or renegades, but solemn enactments of state legislatures, 
 devised by talent and eminence, enforced and preserved by the oli 
 garchical few, by the virtual nobility and flower of populous commu 
 nities. Such laws demand a return of five talents, under penalty of 
 death, where only one talent had been confided ; they absolve him 
 who had received five talents, though he brings none of them back. 
 Such laws make the Scriptures read, that the servant who knoweth 
 his lord s will, but doeth it not, shall be beaten with but few stripes ; 
 but the servant who did not know it, whom his very master debarred 
 from knowing it, shall be beaten with many stripes ; for unto whom 
 soever much is given, but little shall be required ; but to whom men 
 have committed much, of him little shall be asked. What shall be 
 thought of a system, AXD OF EXTENDING A SYSTEM, which so perverts 
 the hearts of men, otherwise clear-headed, high-minded, and gener 
 ous ! 
 
 What more fitting theme could be conceived, were the arch-enemy 
 of mankind to compose a burlesque, in ridicule of Republics, to be 
 represented in that Theatre which is all " Pit " ? 
 
 It is not, however, the existence of slavery, but its extension, we 
 now intend to avert. 
 
 The last paragraph in the foregoing speech gave rise to 
 the following correspondence, which was published in the 
 National Intelligencer : 
 
228 
 
 LETTER FROM MR. MANN. 
 
 MESSRS. EDITORS ; Your paper of this morning contains a portion of 
 a speech of the Hon. Mr. BADGER, of North Carolina, delivered 
 in the Senate on the 19th instant, in which he comments upon some 
 remarks lately made by me in the House of Representatives. The 
 respect which, (without any personal acquaintance,) I have long enter 
 tained for this distinguished senator, would deter me from noticing 
 any such miscontructions of my remarks as a candid mind might inad 
 vertently commit ; but the misrepresentations which the senator has 
 made are so gratuitous and gross, that I am constrained to notice them. 
 I therefore ask the favor of a place in your paper, where he can answer 
 me, if he pleases, though he chose a place for his animadversions where 
 he knew I could not answer him. 
 
 The following is a passage in his speech : 
 
 " Nor, Mr. President, must I forget that, in considering the effect which 
 this proviso is likely to have upon the condition of the "southern mind, we 
 must look to what has been said by northern gentlemen iu connection with 
 this subject. Permit me to call the attention of the Senate to a very brief ex 
 tract from a speech delivered in the other end of the capitol : 
 
 " In conclusion, I have only to add, that such is my solemn and abiding 
 conviction of the character of slavery, that, under a full sense of my respon 
 sibility to my country and my God, I deliberately say, better disunion, better 
 a civil or a servile war, better any thing that God in his providence shall send, 
 than an extension of the bounds of slavery. 
 
 " Several SENATORS. Whose speech is that ? 
 
 "ASKNATcm. Mr. Mann s. 
 
 " Mr. BADGER. We have heard much, Mr. President, of the violence of 
 southern declamation. I have most carefully avoided reading the speeches of 
 southern gentlemen who were supposed to be liable to ihat charge. I hap 
 pened, however, in the early part of this session, and before the other House 
 was organized, to be in that body when there were some bursts of feeling and 
 denunciation from southern gentlemen, which I heard with pain, mortifica 
 tion, almost with anguish of mind. But, sir, these were bursts of feeling ; these 
 were passionate and excited declarations 5 these had every thing to plead for 
 them as being spontaneous and fiery ebullitions of men burning at the moment 
 under a sense of wrong. And where, among these, will you find any thing 
 equal to the cool, calm, deliberate announcement of the philosophic mind 
 that delivered in the other House the passage which I have read : Better dis 
 union, better a civil or a servile war, better any thing that God in hia provi 
 dence shall send, than an extension of the bounds of slavery. 
 
 " In other words, it is the deliberate, settled, fixed opinion oP the honorable 
 gentleman who made that speech, that rather than the extension of slavery 
 one foot, yes sir, there is no qualification, one foot, he would prefer a 
 disunion of these states ; he would prefer all the horrors of civil war, all the 
 
229 
 
 monstrous, untold, and almost inconceivable atrocities of a servile war ; ho 
 would pile the earth with dead; he would light up heaven with midnight con 
 flagrations ; all this, yea, and more, all the vials of wrath which Ciod in his 
 providence might see fit to pour down upon us, he would suffer, rather than 
 permit, not one man who is now free to be made a slave, that would be 
 extravagant enough, but rather than permit one man who now .stands upon 
 the soil of North Carolina a slave, to stand a slave upon the soil of I\ew 
 Mexico : 
 
 " Yes, sir, here is a sacrifice of life and happiness, and of all that is dear to 
 the black and white races together, to a mere idealism, a sacrifice proposed 
 by a gentleman who claims to be a philosopher, and to speak the language of 
 calm deliberation, a sacrifice of our glorious Union proposed by a patriot, 
 not rather than freemen should bo made slaves, not rather than the con 
 dition of even one hum.in being should be made worse than it now is. but 
 rather than one man shall remove from one spot of the earth to another without 
 an improvement of his condition, without passing from slavery to freedom. 
 Sir. alter that announcement, thus made, which 1 beg to say, sir, 1 did not 
 seek, for the speech I have never read ; the extract I found in one of the 
 newspapers of the day, alter that announcement, talk not of southern vio 
 lence, talk not of southern egotism, talk not of our disposition to sacrifice to 
 our pec.uliur notions and our peculiar relations, the peace and happiness, the 
 growing prosperity, and the mutual concord of this great l. nion. ISow, sir, if 
 that announcement goes abroad into the southern country, attended by the 
 wanton application of this U ilmot proviso, an irritating commentary upon that 
 patriotic announcement, what can be expected ? What but the deepest emo 
 tions of indignation in the bosoms of those born and brought up where 
 slavery exists, and taking totally different views of the institution from those 
 winch" are taken by the honorable gentleman who has placed himself upon 
 this cool and deliberate, humane and philosophical position." 
 
 By his own confession, Mr. Badger had not read my speech. He 
 takes up a single sentence, therefore, for comment, without the justice 
 of looking at the context. He is like the man who should declare 
 that the Scriptures say " there is no God," when it is the fool, and not 
 the Bible, that makes the declaration. My speech discussed the ques 
 tion of extending slavery over our territories and the proposed south 
 ern remedy for prohibiting that extension, namely, the disunion of the 
 states. The conclusion to which I came was, that the north had bet 
 ter submit to the application of the southern remedy, than to surren 
 der the new territories to all the horrors of bondage. Beyond our 
 present limits "no more slave territories and no more slave states," 
 was the exact ground I took. But Mr. Badger represents me as saying 
 that I would "prefer a disunion of these states," and all the other 
 evils in his long and labored catalogue, " rather than the extension of 
 slavery one foot ; " yes," he repeats with emphasis, "one foot." Now, 
 I never made such a declaration as this. I never said any thing to give 
 countenance or color to such a declaration. Many persons, seeing the 
 statement of the honorable senator, and relying upon his character 
 for fairness and veracity, have believed that I did But he has led 
 them into the error. My argument and conclusion had reference to 
 new slave territories, or to a new slave territory. Mr. Badger con 
 strues, or rather misconstrues this to mean "one foot." If my speech 
 is fairly susceptible of this construction, I wish so far to retract it. He 
 shall have my consent to a " one foot " territory, and to as many slaves 
 as he can hold on it under the local laic. 
 
 20 
 
230 
 
 Mr. Badger further charges me with invoking all the calamities he 
 enumerates, rather than permit one man who now stands upon the 
 soil of North Carolina a slave, to stand a slave upon the soil of New 
 Mexico." This statement is not merely forced, but fabricated. Surely 
 I said no such thing. I intimated nor hinted at, nor thought of such 
 a thing. There may be little choice whether any one man who now 
 " stands a slave," shall " stand a slave" in one place or in another, if 
 that be all. In a national point of view, and looking at the subject 
 as a statesman, the sentiment imputed to me is simply ridiculous. 
 But this wrongful imputation of such a sentiment, without substance 
 or semblance to justify it, is far worse than ridiculous ; it becomes 
 unjust and ungenerous ; and is none the less so for being made in a 
 place where he knew I could not repel it. The whole scope and stress 
 of my argument went against yielding any such portion of our new 
 acquisitions to slavery as would form either a state or a territory. 
 The eight or ten southern legislatures, the eight or ten governors of 
 southern states, the southern Senators and Representatives in Con 
 gress, and the confederates in getting up the Nashville Convention, 
 have never, to my knowledge, proposed a compromise on the platform 
 of a " one foot" territory, or expressed their readiness to spare the 
 "Union if " one man who stands a slave in North Carolina," is permit 
 ted to "stand a slave in New Mexico." When such an issue is 
 brought forward seriously, it will be met seriously. But the real 
 issue on this point is, (and the senator must know it,) whether the 
 victims of slavery shall be indefinitely multiplied by the addition to 
 its domain of regions now free. That the creation of a new slave ter 
 ritory will increase the victims of slavery, is a proposition too plain 
 to be argued. To deny this, is to assert that if slavery had been 
 confined to the State of Virginia, or to the settlement at Jamestown, 
 where the first cargo of slaves was landed, the present number of 
 slaves in this country would be no less than it now is ; or, in other 
 words, there would now be three millions of slaves within the limits 
 of Virginia, or within the limits of Jamestown. 
 
 I have made this reply to the honorable senator from North Caro 
 lina with great reluctance, and from no motive of personal unkind- 
 ness. I have long been accustomed to regard his character with 
 respect, and his opinions with deference ; and I am happy in an op 
 portunity to express a feeling of personal gratitude for his former 
 endeavors to avert from the councils of the nation the subject-matter 
 of this most lamentable contention. 
 
 Very truly, yours, &c., HORACE MANN. 
 
 WASHINGTON, March 28, 1850. 
 
 P. S. Another point in the honorable senator s speech, in w r hich 
 he attempts to vindicate the penal slave code of North Carolina and 
 of the other Southern States from the taint of cupidity, may be safely 
 left without comment to intelligent men. Every student of the crim 
 inal legislation of the Southern States in regard to slaves, knows that 
 their laws are replete with proofs where the sensibilities of a man are 
 sacrificed to the spirit of gain. 
 
231 
 
 MR. BADGER S REPLY. 
 
 To THE Enrrons OF THE NATIONAL INTELLIGENCER ; 
 
 A communication in your paper of yesterday, from the Hon. 
 HOR.U :i: M.VNV, of the House of Representatives, seems to require a 
 brief notice from me. 
 
 The honorable gentleman accuses me of having treated him \vith 
 gross injustice in a recent speech, in which I referred to the closing 
 paragraph of a speech of his, and made some comments thereupon. 
 
 Now, in what consists the injustice ? I quoted that paragraph 
 from his speech, and he does not deny th at it was quoted truly. 
 There is not a word or syllable attributed to him, not a word or syl 
 lable alleged or insinuated to have been spoken by him, except that 
 paragraph, and that he admits was spoken and printed by him just 
 as 1 quoted it. Then, in the statement of his language, I have done 
 him no injustice. 
 
 In my comments, I gave " in other words," in my own words, 
 what I deemed a true interpretation of his ; and, as I attributed to 
 him no language which he did not use ; as every thing to which ho 
 objects is, and upon the face of my remarks plainly purports to be, 
 merely my own commentary upon the single quotation correctly taken 
 from the gentleman s speech, it is very obvious that I have " fabri 
 cated" nothing. Whether the interpretation given to the honorable 
 gentleman s language be correct or incorrect, a just carrying of it out 
 to its true results, or an unfair exaggeration, intelligent men will be 
 able to decide from the reading of my speech, which presents to 
 gether both the text and the commentary, and to them I am willing 
 to leave it. 
 
 lint the gentleman says that in his speech he " discussed the ques 
 tion of extending slavery over our territories, and that " no moi C 
 slave territories and no more slave states was the exact ground" he 
 took. And what has that to do with the matter of his complaint 
 against me ? I referred not to his discussion, or the grounds taken 
 in it. I was not considering the course or validity of his reasoning, 
 but the conclusion at which he arrived. That was set down in his 
 speech in these words : 
 
 "In conclusion, I have only to add, that such is my solemn and abiding 
 conviction of the character of slavery, that, under a full sense of my respon 
 sibility to my country and my God, I deliberately say, better disunion, better 
 a civil or a servile war, bettor any thing that God in his providence shall 
 send, than an extension of the bound* of slavery." 
 
 Here is no reference to any particular degree, kind, or manner of 
 extending slavery. He speaks not of the " proposed or desired ex 
 tension," of "extension into our territories," or even of "the cxten- 
 
232 
 
 sion," but he speaks of " an extension of the bounds of slavery, 
 without a reference to any thing in the speech or elsewhere by which 
 the generality of his language might be modified or explained. To 
 refer, therefore, to the speech in order to understand the import of 
 this general conclusion, is idle. If the reasoning in the speech be 
 particular, and the deduction general, there would be the logical de 
 fect of a conclusion too large for the premises, but the meanings of 
 the conclusion would remain, and the want of reasoning to support 
 it would not abate aught of its unmitigated and sweeping generality. 
 
 It is evident, then, that, whether supported by any reasoning, par 
 ticular or general, the gentleman s conclusion remains, that disunion, 
 civil war, servile war, with certain undefined judgments of Heaven 
 besides, are preferable to " an extension of the bounds of slavery ; " 
 but the indefinite article " an" is here exactly equivalent to " any," 
 and therefore whatever amounts to " any extension," however small, 
 a square mile, or acre, or foot, is strictly within the meaning of 
 the language which he has thought proper deliberately to retain in 
 his printed speech. 
 
 But I accept willingly the explanation now given of his meaning, 
 and only regret that, when writing out his speech, he did not then 
 give the explanation which converts his general into a particular 
 proposition. By this explanation I learn that, in his conclusion, he 
 meant to speak not of any extension, however small, but of an ex 
 tension of slavery in our territories. 
 
 Then the gentleman s conclusion, as modified by himself, will be 
 thus : " Better disunion," [the dissolution of our government and 
 destruction of the Union formed by our fathers ;] " better a civil or 
 a servile war," [the most disastrous, ferocious, and cruel of all wars ;] 
 " better any thing that God in his providence shall send," [for exam 
 ple, pestilence and famine ;] " than an extension of the bounds of 
 slavery" over our territories! 
 
 I cheerfully submit to all " intelligent men," if they are at the same 
 time humane and patriotic, to pass upon such a sentiment. To his 
 own intelligent, patriotic, and humane constituents, I submit it, with 
 entire confidence that it will not meet their approval ; but, on the 
 contrary, that they will regard the honorable gentleman as having 
 been betrayed by the pervading excitement on the slavery question, 
 into an extravagant, I will not say fanatical, declaration, which 
 he is not able to defend, or willing, as yet, to retract or qualify. 
 
 I had believed that the honorable gentleman had, under the ex 
 citing influence of discussion, unconsciously done injustice to my 
 own state, but a remark added to his communication would perhaps 
 justify me, if inclined to judge unkindly, in svipposing that the 
 wrong was wilful. But I am not so inclined, and draw no such con 
 clusion. I infer, rather, that the bewildering excitement under which 
 the speech was made has not yet passed away, but still continues to 
 influence unfavorably the otherwise clear understanding and fair and 
 upright purposes of the honorable gentleman. 
 
 GEO. E. BADGER. 
 
 WASHINGTON, March 30, 1850. 
 
233 
 
 MR. MANN S REJOINDER. 
 
 MKSSKS. EDITORS ; Your paper of this morning contains a com 
 munication from the Hon. Mr. BADGKR, in reply to mine of the 
 29th ultimo. I ask your indulgence while I briefly answer him. 
 
 My complaint was, that he had taken half a dozen lines from my 
 speech, and had attributed a meaning to them, in some respects odious, 
 in other respects ridiculous, and in all respects unwarrantable. By 
 his own admission, too, he had done this without reading the speech 
 itself; when, had he accorded to me the justice of hearing me before 
 he condemned me, he would have found that both subject-matter and 
 context confuted his interpretation. 
 
 His first reply is, that he did not " attribute" to me " a word " nor 
 "a syllable" which I did not use; and, repeating himself, he adds, 
 that he did not " allege " or " insinuate " a " word" nor " a syllable " 
 that I now deny. In view of this he asks, with an air of triumph, 
 " In what consists the injustice r " 
 
 I answer, as before ; the injustice consists in giving a false meaning 
 to true " words " and " syllables," a meaning which both the sub 
 ject-matter and context of my speech repudiate. I do not see that it is 
 less unjustifiable to attach false meanings to words correctly quoted, 
 than to forge quotations. Surely, the honorable senator is too good a 
 lawyer to be ignorant of the maxim, " qui lucrct in litera" &c. ; and 
 too good a theologian not to have read that "the letter killeth " if di 
 vorced from the spirit. When Beaumont and Fletcher were closeted 
 together to devise the plan of one of their joint plays, in which a 
 king was to be killed, they were severally overheard to say, "I will 
 kill the king," and "I will kill the king; " whereupon they were ar 
 rested, transported to London, and arraigned for conspiring the death 
 of the reigning sovereign. Suppose them to have been convicted of 
 >ii and gibbeted ; could riot the perjured informer, with a charm 
 ing and childlike simplicity, have used the exact language of Mr. 
 BADOER, and said, I testified to the exact " words " and " syllables." 
 " In what consists the injustice ? " 
 
 But the honorable senator goes on to say, that he had no concern 
 with my speech, but only with my conclusion. His language is, < I 
 A\ as not considering the course or validity of his reasoning, but the 
 conclusion at which he arrived." He then repeats the quotation, and 
 adds, "To refer, therefore, to the speech in order to understand the 
 import of this conclusion, is idle." 
 
 With all deference to the senator, and mine is unfeignedly great,, 
 I submit that this is false logic and worse ethics. As well may 
 one declare the judgment of a court to be legal or illegal, merciful or 
 tyrannous, without looking back to the allegations and proofs on 
 which it is founded. As well may one affirm or deny the " Q. E. D." 
 
 20* 
 
234 
 
 of the geometer, without reference to the problem or demonstration 
 to which it is subjoined. When a discussion exists respecting "an exten 
 sion of the bounds of slavery" (and these were my words,) and I say 
 that I would prefer certain enumerated evils rather than the extension 
 in controversy, it surely becomes all-important to know whether that 
 extension is to embrace the whole earth and to extend through all 
 time, or whether it is only the addition of one atom or granule to ex 
 isting slave territory, or of one respiration, or one heart-beat of an 
 existing slave, on territory now free. I affirm, then, that a kno wledge 
 of the premises is indispensable to a judgment on the conclusion. 
 
 But he accepts my explanation, and then appeals from me to what 
 he is pleased to call, (and I thank him for the justice that prompted 
 the well-deserved compliment.) my " intelligent, patriotic, and humane 
 constituents," " with entire confidence that it will not meet their 
 approval." I gladly join in this appeal. As "intelligent " men, my 
 constituents foresee that the extension of slavery over our territories 
 will not only be an unspeakable crime in itself, but will be converted 
 into the means of future unspeakable crimes in further extensions. 
 As "patriotic" men, they prefer to bear any calamity that may 
 come upon themselves, rather than to devolve accumulated calamities, 
 growing out of their own dereliction from duty, upon their posterity. 
 As " humane " men, they would deprecate and forefend that great 
 est of inhumanities, the dooming of increased thousands and millions 
 of their fellow-men to the dreadful inheritance of bondage. And as 
 religious men, as men who " tremble when they reflect that God is 
 just, and that his justice will not sleep forever," they mean to use 
 all constitutional means to arrest the slave -creating and slave-extend 
 ing policy of this government, let the two or three hundred thousand 
 slaveholders among our twenty millions of people do what they 
 will. 
 
 That the bearings of the subject may be rightly understood, it 
 should be remembered that my speech was made on the loth of Feb 
 ruary, after ten weeks of threatened disunion on certain specified and 
 not improbable contingencies. " My conclusion," therefore, was not 
 aggressive, but submissive. I only declared which branch of their 
 proffered alternative I should prefer. 
 
 The closing paragraph of the respected senator s communication al 
 ludes to the motives of those wide and painful differences which are 
 made between the whites and the slaves in the criminal legislation of 
 the Southern States. Nothing could be more edifying, as to the de 
 moralizing nature of slavery and its effects upon men, who, like the 
 senator, are otherwise honorable and generous, than a comparison of 
 the two codes of law and the two systems of jurisprudence which the 
 rulers have respectively established for themselves and for their bond 
 men. The laws or customs known to civilized men and to barbarians 
 are not more diverse. It would be rash and reckless in me to en 
 counter the distinguished senator on any other subject ; but on this I 
 would say, as was said by a knight in an old tournament, that he had 
 such confidence in the justness of his cause that he would give his 
 adversary the advantage of sun and wind. 
 
 HORACE MANN. 
 
 WASHINGTON, April 1, 1850. 
 
235 
 
 LETTERS 
 
 ON THE EXTENSION OF SLAVERY INTO CALIFORNIA AND NEW 
 Ml.MCO; AND ON THE DUTY OF CONGRESS TO PROVIDE THE 
 TRIAL BY JURY FOR ALLEGED FUGITIVE SLAVES. 
 
 HON. HOIIACK MANN ; 
 
 Dear Sir, Having learned that you are spending a few days at home, 
 and approving the course yon have pursued in Congress, in maintaining 
 so ably the sentiments and convictions which we maintain and cherish 
 on the great national questions of the day, we respectfully request 
 you, before returning to Washington, to give your constituents an op 
 portunity of hearing somewhat more at length than the hour rule 
 would allow, your views and opinions upon the question of the im 
 mediate admission of California, and other questions now before Con 
 gress, arising out of the acquisition of territory by the treaty with 
 Mexico. 
 
 Should you comply with our request, please name some day which 
 will be convenient for you, that we may give seasonable notice through 
 your district. 
 
 Dedham. 
 JAMES RICHARDSON, I. CLEVELAND, JOHN GARDNER. 
 
 DAVID A. SIMMONS, 
 G. R. RUSSELL, 
 JOSEPH H. BILLINGS, 
 I.. M. SARGENT, 
 
 CHARLES WILD, 
 MARSHALL STEARNS, 
 
 E. SHARPS, 
 Brighton, J. BRECK. 
 Foxbcro t A. HODGES. 
 ]\ alpole, A. BIGELOW, 
 
 E. C. DYER, 
 April 23d, 1850. 
 
 Roxbury. 
 
 JOHN J. CLARKE, 
 Jos. N. BREWER, 
 WM. A. CRAFTS, 
 WM. CAPEN, 
 
 Brookline. 
 WM. DEARBORN, 
 G. GRIGGS, 
 
 Dorchester, 
 N. F. SAFFORD, 
 
 FRANCIS HILLIARD, 
 DANIEL JACKSON, 
 J. B. KETTELL. 
 
 DAVID WILDER, Jr., 
 G. F. HOMER. 
 
 J. G. NAZRO. 
 
 Randolph, J. WALF.S. Stoughton, J. SMITH. 
 Quincy, L. RICHARDS. Milton, J. REED. 
 Franklin, L. HARDING. Cohasset, GEO. BEAL. 
 
 Newton. 
 R. E. PATTERSON, W. S. WHITWELL. 
 
 H ing ham. 
 C. W. CUSHING. 
 
236 
 
 LETTER I. 
 
 WEST NEWTON, May 3, 1850. 
 
 To the Hon. James Richardson, I. Cleveland, and John Gardner, of 
 Dedham ; Hon. D. A. Simmons, John J. Clarke, Francis Hilliard, 
 and George R. Russell, of Roxbury, &c., &c. 
 
 GENTLEMEN ; 
 
 Having been called home on account of sickness 
 in my family, I have just received, at this place, your 
 kind invitation to meet and address my constituents 
 of the 8th Congressional District, and to give them 
 my " views and opinions upon the question of the 
 immediate admission of California, and other questions 
 now before Congress, arising out of the acquisition of 
 territory by the treaty with Mexico" 
 
 A request from so high a source has almost the force 
 of a command. Yet I dare not promise to comply. I 
 am liable at any moment to be recalled, and, instead 
 of speaking here, to vote there, upon the questions to 
 which you refer. I might be summoned to return on 
 the day appointed for us to meet. The only alterna 
 tive, therefore, which is left me, is to address you by 
 letter. This I will do, if I can find time. I shall thus 
 comply with your request, in substance, if not in form. 
 
 On many accounts, I have the extremest reluctance 
 to appear before the public on the present occasion. 
 My views, on some vital questions, differ most materially 
 from those of gentlemen for whom I have felt the 
 profoundest respect ; and for some of whom I cherish 
 the strongest personal attachment. But I feel, on the 
 other hand, that my constituents, having intrusted to 
 me some of their most precious interests, are entitled 
 
237 
 
 to know my " views and opinions " respecting the 
 hopes and the dangers that encompass them. I shall 
 not, therefore, take the responsibility of declining. 
 
 I will premise further, that my relations to political 
 parties, for many years past, have left me as free from 
 all partisan bias " as the lot of humanity will admit." 
 For twelve years I held an office whose duties required 
 me to abstain from all active cooperation in political 
 conflicts; and that duty was so religiously fulfilled, 
 that, to my knowledge, I was never charged with its 
 violation. During the Presidential contest of 1848, 
 those obligations of neutrality still rested upon me. 
 For a year afterwards, I was not called upon to do any 
 official act displeasing to any party amongst us. This 
 interval I employed in forming the best opinion I could 
 of public men and measures, and their influence upon 
 the moral and industrial interests of the country. I 
 had long entertained most decided convictions in favor 
 of protecting American labor, in favor of cheap postage, 
 and of security to the lives and property of our fellow- 
 citizens engaged in commerce. But a new question 
 had arisen, the great question of freedom or slavery 
 in our recently acquired territories, and this question 
 I deemed, for the time being, to be, though not exclu 
 sive of others, yet paramount to them. Or rather, I 
 saw that nothing could be so favorable to all the last- 
 named interests, as the proper adjustment of the first. 
 He who would provide for the welfare of mankind, 
 must first provide for their liberty. 
 
 Sympathizing, then, on different points with differ 
 ent parties, but exclusively bound to none, I stood, in 
 reference to the great question of territorial freedom or 
 slavery, in the position of the true mother in the liti 
 gation before Solomon, preferring that the object of 
 my love should be spared in the hands of any one, 
 rather than perish in my own. 
 
 Our present difficulties, which, as you well know, 
 
238 
 
 have arrested the gaze of the nation, and almost sus 
 pended the legislative functions of Congress, pertain to 
 the destiny of freedom or of slavery, to which our new 
 territories are to be devoted. After the acquisition of 
 Louisiana, and Florida, and Texas, for the aggrandize 
 ment and security of the Slave-power ; after the abo 
 riginal occupants of the soil of the Southern States have 
 been slaughtered, or driven from their homes, at an ex 
 pense of not less than a hundred millions of dollars, 
 and at the infinite expense of our national reputation 
 for justice and humanity ; and after the area of the 
 slave states has been made almost double that of the 
 free states, while the population of the free is about 
 double that of the slave ; the reasons seem so strong 
 that they can hardly be made stronger, why the career 
 of our government, as a slavery-extending power, should 
 be arrested. On the other hand, the oligarchy who 
 rule the south, seeing that, notwithstanding their rich 
 and almost illimitable domain, they are rapidly falling 
 behind the north in all the distinctive elements of civ 
 ilization and well being, industry, temperance, edu 
 cation, wealth, not only defend the Upas that blasts 
 their soil, as though it were the tree of life, but seek to 
 transplant it to other lands. With but about three 
 slaves to a square mile, three millions of slaves to 
 nearly a million of square miles, they say they are 
 too crowded ; that they feel a sense of suffocation, and 
 must have more room, when all their weakness and 
 pain proceed, not from the limited quantity, but from 
 the malignant quality of the atmosphere they breathe. 
 Hence the war with Mexico, commenced and prose 
 cuted to add slave territory and slave states to the 
 southern section. Hence the refusal to accept propo 
 sitions of peace, unless territory south of latitude 
 36 30, (the Missouri compromise line, so called,) 
 should be ceded to us. Hence, when the Mexican ne 
 gotiators proposed to insert a prohibition of slavery in. 
 
239 
 
 the treaty of cession, and declared that the inquisition 
 would not be more odious to the American people than 
 the reinstitution of slavery to them, our minister, Mr. 
 Trist, told them he would not consent to such a pro 
 hibition though they would cover the soil a foot deep 
 with gold. And hence, also, the determination of a 
 portion of the southern members of Congress to stop 
 the whole machinery of the government, to sacrifice all 
 the great interests of the country, and assail even the 
 Union itself, unless slavery shall be permitted to cross 
 the Rio Grande and enter the vast regions of the west, 
 as it heretofore, in its aggressive march, crossed the 
 Mississippi and the Sabine. 
 
 Even in 1846, when the war against Mexico was 
 declared, all men of sagacity foresaw the present con 
 flict. Could that question have been decided on its 
 merits, or could the institutions to be planted upon the 
 territory we might acquire have been determined by 
 the unbiased suffrages of the American people, no war 
 would have been declared, and no territory acquired. 
 But the great political leaders of the south expected to 
 make up both for their numerical weakness and for the 
 injustice of their cause, by connecting the question of 
 slavery extension with that of future presidential elec 
 tions and with the strife of parties. They promised 
 themselves that they could draw over leading northern 
 men to their support, by offering them the Tantalus cup 
 of presidential honors; and then, by the force of party 
 cohesion and discipline, insure the support of the vast 
 descending scale of office expectants. Early in the 
 present session of Congress, it was distinctly declared 
 from a high southern source, that the south must do 
 most for those northern men who would do most for 
 them. A few words will make it apparent how faith 
 fully this plan has been adhered to, and how successful 
 it may become. 
 
 No northern Democrat, opposed to slavery extension, 
 
240 
 
 could expect the support of the southern democracy. 
 Hence, General Cass stepped promptly forward, and de 
 clared, in his Nicholson letter, that Congress had no 
 power to exclude slavery from the territories. This 
 has been technically called his "bid," or his "first 
 bid." It was deemed satisfactory by the south ; for, 
 according to their philosophy, the relation of master 
 and slave is the natural or normal relation of mankind ; 
 and therefore, where no prohibition of it exists, slavery 
 flows into free territory as water runs down hill. This 
 avowal of General Cass was rendered more signal and 
 valuable to the south, because, for the greater part of his 
 political life, he had taken oaths, held offices, and ad 
 ministered laws, in undeniable contradiction to the 
 declaration then made. The ordinance of 1787 was 
 expressly recognized by the first Congress held under the 
 constitution, [see ch. 8.] It was modified in part, and 
 confirmed as to the rest ; and in holding offices under 
 this, General Cass had laid the foundation of his honors 
 and his fortune. His declaration, therefore, against all 
 interdiction of slavery, made under circumstances so 
 extraordinary and in contradiction to the whole tenor 
 of his past life, was hailed with acclamation by the 
 south, and he was unanimously declared, at Baltimore, 
 to be the accepted candidate of the democracy, for the 
 office of President. The common notion is. that a man 
 shows his love for a cause by the amount of sacrifice 
 he will make for it ; and as consistency, honor, and 
 truth, are the most precious elements in character, 
 he showed his devotion to the south by sacrificing 
 them all. 
 
 To the honor of the Whig party be it said, there 
 was riot a northern man to be found, who, to gain the 
 support of the south, would espouse its pro-slavery 
 doctrines, or invent any new reading of the constitution 
 to give them a semblance of law. Hence, at the Phil 
 adelphia Convention, no northern Whig received even 
 
241 
 
 so much as a complimentary vote. The judicial emi 
 nence of .1 1 iite McLean, the military eminence of Gen 
 eral Scott, were passed contemptuously by ; and Mr. 
 Webster, acknowledged to be the greatest statesman of 
 the uire, received but fourteen votes out of almost three 
 hundred ; and twelve of these were from Massachu 
 setts. Mr. Webster had spoken more eloquent words 
 for liberty than any other living man, and this distin 
 guished neglect was doubtless intended to teach him 
 the lesson, that the path to presidential honors did not 
 lie through an advocacy of the rights of man. General 
 Taylor was nominated and chosen. He was under 
 stood to take neutral ground. Discountenancing the 
 veto power, if the House of Representatives, who 
 are chosen directly from and by the people, and the 
 Senate, who are chosen by the states, will pass a ter 
 ritorial bill, either with or without a prohibition of 
 slavery, he will approve it. This is the common opin 
 ion, and I have no doubt of its correctness. 
 
 Under these circumstances, a most desperate effort 
 was made at the close of the last Congress to provide 
 a government for the territories with no prohibition of 
 slavery. Had General Cass been elected, no such effort 
 would have been necessary, for he was pledged to veto 
 a prohibition. General Taylor was supposed to be 
 pledged to an opposite coarse ; and hence the struggle. 
 The facts must be so fresh in the recollection of all, 
 that they hardly need to be recounted. The House 
 performed its duty to the country and to freedom, by 
 sending territorial bills to the Senate containing the 
 prohibitory clause. The Senate, equalling the north 
 ern by its southern votes, and far outnumbering the 
 Whigs by its Democrats, left those bills to sleep the 
 sleep of death upon its table. But during the closing 
 hours of the session, it foisted a provision for the gov 
 ernment of the territories into the general appropria 
 tion bill ; and held out the menace that this bill should 
 21 
 
242 
 
 not pass at all, unless the territorial clause should pass 
 with it. The flagitiousness of this proceeding it is 
 difficult to comprehend and impossible to describe. 
 The appropriation bill is one on which the working, 
 aud even the continuance of the government, depend. 
 Without it, the machinery of the state must cease to 
 move. Contracts by the government to pay money 
 must be violated. Officers cannot obtain their salaries. 
 Families must be left without subsistence. If long 
 continued, all judges would resign, and courts be broken 
 up ; and when justice should cease to be administered, 
 violence, robbery, and every form of crime would run 
 riot through the land. 
 
 Besides, an appropriation bill and a bill for the gov 
 ernment of territories have no congruity with each 
 other. They are not relevant. Neither is germane to 
 the other. Every one knows it to be a common par 
 liamentary rule that when a proposition is submitted 
 which is susceptible of a division, any one member has 
 a right to demand it. All bills, too, for raising rev 
 enue, must, by the constitution, originate in the House ; 
 and the House has as much right to interfere to prevent 
 the Senate from ratifying a treaty, as the Senate has to 
 obstruct the passage of a revenue bill by adding to it 
 extraneous provisions. It was this effort on the part 
 of the Senate to incorporate into the appropriation bill 
 a provision most unrighteous in itself and most odious 
 to the free sentiments of the north, which led to the 
 protracted session on the night of the 3d of March, 
 1849. The course of the pro-slavery leaders, on that 
 occasion, resembled that of a madman who should 
 seize a torch and stand over the magazine of a ship, 
 and proclaim that he would send men and vessel to 
 destruction, unless they would steer for his port. A 
 portion of the House confederated with the majority of 
 the Senate in this unprincipled machination ; but the 
 larger number stood undaunted, and after perils, such 
 
243 
 
 as so precious an interest never before encountered, 
 the pro-slavery amendment was stricken out, and its 
 champions wore foiled. Through that memorable 
 night the friends of freedom wrestled like Jacob with 
 the angel of God. and though the session did not close 
 until the sun of a Sabbath morning shone full into the 
 windows of the capitol, yet a holier work never Avas 
 done on that holy day. 
 
 It was with a joy such as no words can ever ex 
 press, that I saw the territories rescued from the clutch 
 of slavery by the expiration of the Thirtieth Congress. 
 1 frit confident that when the Thirty-first Congress 
 should assemble, it would ho under better auspices, and 
 with a stronger phalanx on the side of freedom. In 
 regard to California, those hopes have been fulfilled ; 
 but I proceed to state how they have been nearly 
 extinguished in regard to the residue of the territory. 
 
 Our first disaster was the election of a most adroit, 
 talented, and zealous pro-slavery speaker. A. better 
 organ for the accomplishment of their purposes the 
 friends of slavery could not have found ; nor the 
 friends of freedom a more formidable opponent. Whilst 
 the pro-slavery champions of the south, almost without 
 distinction of party, exulted over this triumph, it has 
 been the occasion of most lamentable criminations and 
 recriminations at the north. Southern men abandon 
 all distinctions of Whig or Democrat for the cause of 
 slavery. Would to God we could do as much for the 
 cause of freedom. 
 
 The choice of a pro-slavery speaker was immediate 
 ly followed by the appointment of most ultra pro- 
 slavery committees. Some Free-Soil members, it is 
 true, were placed upon these committees ; but in this, 
 the speaker only carried out more fully his own pur 
 poses and those of his party, by putting, what they 
 considered as insane men, into close custody, instead of 
 letting them run at large. He showed, however, either 
 
244 
 
 a want of courage in himself, or of confidence in his 
 chosen guards ; for, on the District of Columbia com 
 mittee he detailed a file of five, on the judiciary com 
 mittee a file of four, and on the territorial committee a 
 file of six strong pro-slavery men, for the safe keeping 
 of one Free-Soiler. 
 
 Within an hour after the House was organized, Mr. 
 Root, of Ohio, submitted a resolution, instructing the 
 committee on territories to report territorial bills pro 
 hibiting slavery. Many true friends to freedom be 
 lieved this movement to be ill timed and unfortunate ; 
 and though the House then refused, by a handsome 
 vote, to lay the resolution on the table, yet when it 
 came up for consideration again, the first decision was 
 reversed by about the same majority. There is abun 
 dant proof that the latter vote did not express the true 
 sentiment of the House. Not a few voted against the 
 resolution avowedly because of its paternity, thus 
 spiting a noble son on account of its obnoxious father. 
 Others repented of their votes as soon as they came to 
 reflect that the record would go where their explana 
 tion could not accompany it. 
 
 But unfortunately it was too late. There stands 
 the record, to survive through all time and to be read 
 of all men. The champions of slavery seized upon 
 this vote as a propitious omen. They derided and 
 scouted the proviso with a fierceness unknown before. 
 They shouted their threats of disunion with a more 
 defiant tone, should any attempt at what they called 
 its resurrection, be made. A speech was delivered by 
 Mr. Clingman, of North Carolina, in which a massacre 
 of a majority of the House was distinctly shadowed 
 forth, so that not " a quorum should be left to do busi 
 ness." The effect of that vote was almost as bad as 
 though it meant what it said. 
 
 At a later day, when a bill for the admission of Cali 
 fornia was presented, the tactics of delay were resorted 
 
245 
 
 to, and midnight found us calling the yeas and nays, 
 for more than the thirtieth time, on questions whose 
 frivolousncss and vexatiousncss cannot be indicated by 
 numbers. 
 
 The proceedings in the Senate, however, are those 
 Vi-hich now threaten the most disastrous consequences. 
 Early in the session, in order to bring his northern 
 friends up to the doctrine that it is unconstitutional to 
 legislate against slavery in the territories, General Cass 
 made a speech, in which he denies that Congress has 
 any power, under any circumstances, to pass any law 
 respecting their inhabitants. According to that speech, 
 the United States stands in the relation of a foreign 
 government to the people of its own territories; and 
 if they set up a king or establish a religion, we cannot 
 help it ; for we have no more power or right to control 
 them than we have the subjects of Great Britain or 
 the citizens of France. It has been said that the doc 
 trine of General Cass and that of General Taylor, on 
 this subject, are identical ; but there is this all-im 
 portant difference between them: General Taylor 
 maintains the right of Congress to legislate for the ter 
 ritories, and will doubtless approve any bill for the 
 prohibition of slavery in them ; but General Cass, de 
 nying this right in Congress, would, if President, veto 
 such a bill. He, therefore, would leave the territories 
 open to be invaded and possessed by slavery ; and in 
 southern law and practice possession is more than 
 nine points. 
 
 Next came Mr. Clay s compromise resolutions, so 
 called. By these, California was to be admitted as a 
 state ; the territories organized without any restriction 
 upon slavery ; the south-western boundary of Texas to 
 be extended to the Rio Grande : a part of her ten or 
 twelve million debt to be paid by the United States, 
 on condition of her abandoning her claim to a part of 
 New Mexico lying east of the Rio Grande ; the aboli- 
 21* 
 
246 
 
 tion of the slave trade in the District of Columbia, and 
 the inviolability of slavery in the District daring the 
 good pleasure of Maryland and of the inhabitants of 
 the District; more effectual provision for the restitution 
 of fugitive slaves, and free traffic in slaves forever be 
 tween the states, unless forbidden by themselves. 
 
 A compromise is a settlement of difficulties by mu 
 tual concessions. Let us examine the mutuality of the 
 concessions which Mr. Clay s resolutions propose. 
 
 In the first place, California is to be permitted to 
 remain free if the territories of New Mexico and Utah may 
 be opened to slavery. But California is free already ; 
 free by her own act ; free without any concession of 
 theirs, and without any grace but the grace of God. 
 It is mainly occupied by a northern population, who 
 do their own work with their own hands, or their own 
 brains. Fifty hardy gold diggers from the north will 
 never stand all day knee deep in water, shovel earth, 
 rock washers, &c., under a broiling sun, and see a man 
 with his fifty slaves standing under the shade of a tree, 
 or having an umbrella held over his head, with whip 
 in hand, and without wetting his dainty glove, or soil 
 ing his japanned boot, pocket as much at night as the 
 whole of them together. Or, rather, they will never 
 suffer institutions to exist which tolerate such unright 
 eousness. California, therefore, is free ; as free as 
 Massachusetts ; and Mr. Clay might as well have said 
 in terms, that whereas Massachusetts is free, therefore 
 New Mexico and Utah shall be slave, or run the hazard 
 of being so. 
 
 The next point of Mr. Clay s compromise is, that 
 Texas shall extend her south-western boundary from 
 or near the Nueces to the Rio Grande, and shall receive, 
 probably, some six or eight millions of dollars for 
 withdrawing her claim to that part of New Mexico 
 which lies east of the last-named river. Now, Texas 
 has no rightful or plausible claim to a foot of all this 
 
247 
 
 territory. But suppose it to be a subject of doubt, and 
 therefore of compromise. The mutuality, then, con 
 sists in dividing the whole territory claimed by Texas, 
 and then giving her a valid title to one portion of it, 
 and paying her for all the rest. Texas, or, what, in this 
 connection is the same thing, slavery surrenders ab 
 solutely nothing, gets a good title to some seventy 
 thousand square miles of territory, and pay for as 
 much more ! 
 
 But what renders it almost incredible that any man 
 could soberly submit such a proposition and dare to 
 call it a compromise, is this : All that part of New 
 Mexico which Texas claims, and which lies between 
 the parallels of 36 30 and 42, is, by the resolutions of 
 annexation, to be forever free. I shall consider the 
 constitutionality of these resolutions by and by ; 1 now 
 treat them as valid. Now the compromise proposes to 
 buy this territory, so secured to freedom, and annex it 
 to New Mexico, which is to be left open to slavery. 
 We are to peril all the broad region between 36 30 
 and 42, and pay Texas some six or eight millions of 
 dollars for the privilege of doing so ! Mr. Clay is not 
 less eminent for his statesmanship than for his waggery. 
 Were he to succeed in playing off this practical joke upon 
 the north, and were it not for the horrible consequences 
 which it would involve, a roar of laughter, like a feu 
 dc joie, would run down the course of the ages. As 
 it is, the laughter will be "elsewhere." 
 
 The next point pertains to the abolition of the slave 
 trade, and the perpetuity of slavery, in the District of 
 Columbia. This District has an area of about, fifty 
 square miles ; and Mr. Clay proposes, in consideration 
 of transferring its slave marts to Alexandria, on the 
 Virginia side, or to some convenient place in Mont 
 gomery or Prince George s county, on the Maryland 
 side, to divest Congress forever of its right of " exclu 
 sive legislation "over it. Should this plan prevail, the 
 
248 
 
 perpetuity of slavery in the District will be defended 
 by more unassailable and impregnable barriers than 
 any other institution in Christendom. The President 
 has a veto upon Congress ; but two thirds of both 
 Houses may still pass any Jaw, notwithstanding his 
 dissent. Mr. Clay proposes to give, both to Maryland 
 and to the citizens of the District, a veto on this sub 
 ject ; an absolute veto, not a qualified one, like that 
 of the President of the United States, but one that 
 will control, not majorities merely, but an absolute 
 unanimity in both branches of Congress. By his plan, 
 therefore, three separate, independent powers are to 
 have a veto upon the abolition of slavery in the Dis 
 trict of Columbia. And not only so, but while it will 
 require their joint or concurrent action to abolish the 
 institution, any one of them can preserve it. The laws 
 of the Medes and Persians had no such guaranties for 
 perpetuity as this. 
 
 Mr. Clay s last point is really too facetious. So 
 solemn a subject does not permit such long-continued 
 levity, however it may be masked by sobriety of coun 
 tenance. It is, that Congress shall make more effectual 
 provision for the capture and delivery of fugitive 
 slaves ; and, as an equivalent for this, it shall bind 
 itself never to interfere with the inter-state traffic in 
 slaves. We are to catch the slaves of the South, and, as 
 though this were a grateful privilege to us, we are to 
 allow them free commerce in slaves, coast wise or inland. 
 By this means, slaves can be transported to the mouth 
 of the Rio Grande, and some hundreds of miles up that 
 river, towards New Mexico, instead of being driven in 
 coffles across the country. The compromise is, that 
 for every slave we catch, we are to facilitate the pas 
 sage of a hundred into New Mexico. 
 
 Such is the mutuality of Mr. Clay s compromises. 
 They are such compromises as the wolf offers to the 
 lamb, or the vulture to the dove. They make the 
 
rightful admission of California into the Union, with 
 JUT free constitution, contingent upon openinir the new 
 territories to slavery : they ratify one part of the pred- 
 ainry claim nf Texas, and propose to irive he:- mil 
 lions for the other part ; they give an unconditional 
 veto to the slate of Maryland and to the citizens of 
 thi.; District of Columbia, over a unanimous vote of 
 both Houses of Congress, even when approved by the 
 President ; in connection with Mr. Butler s bill and 
 Mr. Mason s amendments, they expose our white citi 
 zens to grievous penalties and imprisonments for not 
 (L)ing what the Supreme Court of the United States 
 h::s decided we are not bound to do, in relation to 
 fugitive slaves, and they offer our colored Citizens to 
 l--e kidnapped and spirited away into bondage ; and 
 they foreclose, in favor of the south, the disputed 
 question of the inter-state commerce in slaves. In 
 one particular only do they appear to concede any 
 thing to northern rights, or northern convictions, or 
 northern feelings. They propose to transfer the Dis 
 trict of Columbia slave trade across an ideal line into 
 Virginia or into Maryland, so that the slave planter or 
 slave trader, when he comes to our American Congo 
 to replenish his stock of human cattle, shall be obliged 
 to go a mile or two, to the slave marts, instead of 
 walking down Pennsylvania Avenue. I deem this to 
 be no concession. If it is honorable to produce com 
 and cotton, it is honorable to buy and sell them, 
 and if it is honorable to hold beings created in God s 
 image in slavery, it is honorable to stand between the 
 producer and consumer, and to make merchandise of 
 the bodies and the souls of men. Let this Light of the 
 Age be set upon a hill, that all nations may behold it. 
 I will refer to Mr. Bell s resolutions no further than 
 to say, that they propose the formation of three slave 
 states out of what is now claimed by Texas, one of 
 which is to be admitted into the Union forthwith as 
 an offset to California. 
 
250 
 
 Mr. Buchanan has not regarded the movements of 
 his rival, General Cass, with indifference. He has 
 spent a considerable portion of the winter in Wash 
 ington, and it is understood that he holds out the Mis 
 souri compromise line, from the western boundary of 
 Missouri to the Pacific Ocean, as his lure to the south, 
 for their favorable regards in the ensuing presidential 
 contest. 
 
 In a chronological order, I must now consider some 
 vitally important views, which have been submitted 
 by some members in the House, and by Mr. Webster 
 and others in the Senate. In mentioning the name 
 of this great statesman, and in avowing that I am one 
 among the many whom his recently expressed opin 
 ions have failed to convince, it is due to myself, how 
 ever indifferent it may be to him or to his friends, that 
 I should express my admiration of his powers, my 
 gratitude for his past services, and the diffidence with 
 which I dissented, at first, from his views. But I 
 have pondered upon them long, and the longer I have 
 pondered the more questionable they appear. I shall 
 therefore venture upon the perilous task of inquiring 
 into their correctness ; and while I do it with the def 
 erence and respect which belong to his character, I 
 shall do it also with that fidelity to conscience and to 
 judgment that belong to mine. He is great, but truth 
 is greater than us all. 
 
 I shall confine myself mainly, and perhaps wholly, 
 to Mr. Webster s views, because he has argued the 
 cause of the south with vastly more ability than it has 
 been argued by any one among themselves. If his 
 conclusions, then, be not tenable, their case is lost.* 
 
 Mr. Webster casts away the " Proviso " altogether. 
 
 * All my quotations from Mr. Webster are taken from the edition 
 of his speech which he dedicated to the " PEOPLE or MASSACHUSETTS," 
 March 18, 18oO. Among the numerous readings which have ap 
 peared, I suppose this to be the most authentic. 
 
251 
 
 He says, " If a resolution or a law wore now before 
 us to provide a territorial government for New Mexico, 
 1 ironlil not vote to put any prohibition into it wliat- 
 ever. n (p. 44.) The reason given is, that slavery is 
 ahvady excluded from "California and New Mexico" 
 " by the law of nature, of physical geography, the law 
 of the formation of the earth." (p. 42.) "California 
 and New Mexico are Asiatic in their formation and 
 scenery. They are composed of vast ridges of moun 
 tains of enormous height, with broken ridges and 
 deep valleys." (p. 43.) 
 
 Now, this is drawing moral conclusions from phys 
 ical premises. It is arguing from physics to meta 
 physics. It is determining the law of the spirit by 
 geographical phenomena. It is undertaking to settle 
 by mountains and rivers, and not by the Ten Com 
 mandments, a great question of human duty. It 
 abandons the second commandment of Christ and all 
 bills of rights enacted in conformity thereto, and 
 leaves our obligations to our "neighbor" to be deter 
 mined by the accidents of earth and water and air. 
 To ascertain whether a people will obey the Divine 
 command, and do to others as they would be done by, 
 it looks at the thermometer. What a problem would 
 this be : "Required the height above the level of the 
 sea at which the oppressor will undo the heavy bur 
 dens and let the oppressed go free, and break every 
 yoke, to be determined barometrically." Alas! 
 this cannot be done. Slavery depends, not upon cli 
 mate, but upon conscience. Wherever the wicked 
 passions of the human heart can go, there slavery can 
 go. Slavery is an effect. Avarice, sloth, pride, and 
 the love of domination, are its cause. In ascending 
 mountain sides, at what altitude do men leave these 
 passions behind them ? Different vegetable growths 
 are to be found at different heights, depending also 
 upon the zone. This I can understand. There is the 
 
altitude of the palm, the altitude of the oak, the alti 
 tude of the pine, and, far above them all, the line of 
 perpetual snow. But, in regard to innocence and 
 guilt, where is the white line? How high up can a 
 slaveholder go and not lose his free agency ? At what 
 elevation will the whip fall from the hand of the mas 
 ter, and the fetter from the limbs of the slave? There 
 is no such point. Freedom and slave/y on the one 
 hand, and climate and geology on the other, are in 
 commensurable quantities. We might as well attempt 
 to determine a question in theology by the cube root, 
 or a question in ethics by the black art. Slavery, 
 being a crime founded upon human passions, can go 
 wherever those passions are unrestrained. It has ex 
 isted in Asia from the earliest ages, notwithstanding 
 its "formation and scenery." It labors and groans on 
 the flanks of the Ural mountains now. There are 
 to-day forty-eight millions of slaves in Russia, not 
 one rood of which comes down so low as the northern 
 boundary of California and New Mexico. 
 
 Had Mr. Webster s philosophy been correct, then 
 California was at superfluous pains when she incorpo 
 rated the ordinance of 1787 into her constitution. 
 Instead of saying that "slavery and involuntary servi 
 tude, (except for crime,) shall be forever prohibited," 
 she should have said, " Whereas, by a law of nature, 
 of physical geography, the law of the formation of the 
 earth," "slavery cannot exist in California," therefore 
 we will not " reaffirm an ordinance of nature, nor re- 
 enact the will of God" 
 
 Should it be said that slavery will not go into the 
 new territories, because it is unprofitable ; I ask, Where 
 is it profitable ? Where is ignorance so profitable as 
 knowledge ? Where is ungodliness gain, even for the 
 things of this life ? How little is the hand worth at 
 one end of an arm, if there is not a brain at the other ! 
 Do not Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, and other 
 
253 
 
 states, furnish witnesses by thousands and tens of 
 thousands that slavery impoverishes ? Yet with what 
 enthusiasm they cherish it ! Generally, ignorance is a 
 necessary concomitant of slavery. Of white persons, 
 over twenty years of age, unable to read and write, 
 there were, according to the last census, 58,787 in 
 Virginia, 56,009 in North Carolina, 58,513 in Ten 
 nessee, and so forth. I have a letter before me, re 
 ceived this morning, dated in Indiana, in which the 
 writer says, he removed from North Carolina in 1802, 
 when he was fourteen years old, and at that time he 
 had never seen a newspaper in his life. Can there be 
 genius, the inventive talent, or profitable labor, where 
 ignorance is so dense ? Can the oppression that tram 
 ples out voluntary industry, enterprise, intelligence, and 
 the desire of independence, conduce to riches ? Yet this 
 is done wherever slavery exists, and is part and parcel 
 of its working. Is any other form of robbery profitable ? 
 Yet individuals and communities have practised it and 
 lived by it, and we may as well rely upon a " law of 
 physical geography " to arrest the one as the other. 
 It is not poetry, but literal truth, that the breath of the 
 slave blasts vegetation, his tears poison the earth, and 
 his groans strike it with sterility. It would be easy 
 to show why the master does not abandon slavery, 
 even amid the desolation with which it has surrounded 
 him. There is a combination of poverty and pride, 
 which slavery produces, on the doctrine of natural 
 appetence, and which, therefore, it exactly fits. The 
 helplessness of the master in regard to all personal 
 wants seems to necessitate the slavery that has begot 
 ten it. All moral and religious principles are lowered 
 till they conform to the daily practice. Custom blinds 
 conscience, until, without any attempt to emancipate 
 or ameliorate their victims, men can preach and pray 
 and hold slaves, as Hamlet s grave digger jests and 
 sings while he turns up skulls. 
 22 
 
254 
 
 But slavery cannot go into California or New Mex 
 ico, because their staple productions are not " tobacco, 
 corn, cotton, or rice." (p. 44.) These are agricultural 
 products. But is slave labor confined to agriculture ? 
 Suppose that predial slavery will not become com 
 mon in the new territories. Cannot menial ? If 
 slaves cannot do field work, cannot they do house 
 work ? There is an opening for a hundred thousand 
 slaves to-day in the new territories, for purposes of 
 domestic labor. And beyond this, let me ask, who 
 possesses any such geologic vision that, at a distance 
 of a thousand miles, he can penetrate the valleys and 
 gorges of New Mexico, and say that gold will not yet 
 be found there as it is in California, not in sand and 
 gravel only, but in forty-eight-pounders and fifty-sixes? 
 This is the very kind of labor on which slaves, in all 
 time, have been so extensively employed, the very 
 labor on which a million of slaves in Hispaniola lost 
 their lives, within a few years after its discovery by 
 Columbus. Gold deposits are now worked within 
 twenty-five miles of Santa Fe. The last account 
 which I have seen, of a company of emigrants passing 
 from Santa Fe to California by the River Gila, an 
 nounces rich discoveries of gold upon that river. A 
 fellow-citizen of mine has just returned home, who 
 says he saw a slave sold at the mines in California, in 
 September last. As yet, the distant regions of the 
 Gila and the Colorado cannot be worked, because of 
 the Apaches, the Utahs, and other tribes of Indians. 
 But admit slavery there, and the power of the govern 
 ment will be invoked to exterminate these Indians, as 
 it was before to exterminate the Cherokees and Semi- 
 noles, not to drive them beyond the Mississippi, but 
 beyond the Styx. A few days since a letter was pub 
 lished in the papers, dated on board a steamer descend 
 ing the Mississippi, which stated that a considerable 
 number of slaves were on board, bound for California, 
 
under an agreement \vitli their masters that they should 
 !><> (Yeo after serving two years at the mines. We 
 know, too. that the reason assigned for incorporating a 
 provision in the constitution of California, authorizing 
 its legislature to pass laws for the exclusion of free 
 blacks from the state, was, that slaves would be brought 
 there under this very form of agreement, and by and 
 by the country would be overspread by people of 
 color who had bought their freedom. The sagacious 
 men who framed the California constitution came from 
 all parts of the territory, and, being collected on the 
 spot, having surveyed all its mountains, having breathed 
 its air at all temperatures, and turned up its golden 
 soil, these men had never discovered any " law 
 of physical geography " which the fell spirit of slavery 
 could not transgress. Slaves were carried into Oregon, 
 ten degrees of latitude higher up. Its colonists reen- 
 acted the ordinance of 1787 before Congress gave them 
 a territorial government. In the territorial govern 
 ment that was given them, the prohibition was insert 
 ed ; and President Polk signed the bill, with an ex 
 press protest, that he ratified this exclusion of slavery 
 only hecause the country lay north of the Missouri 
 compromise line j but declared that, had it embraced the 
 very region in question, he would have vetoed the bill. 
 General Cass never took the ground that slavery 
 could not exist in the new territories ; and no inconsid 
 erable part of the opposition made to him in Massachu 
 setts and in other free states, was placed expressly upon 
 the ground that he would not prohibit it. Mr. Web 
 ster, in his Marshfield speech, September 1, 1848, op 
 posed the election of General Cass, because, through 
 his recreancy to northern principles, slavery would 
 invade the territories. This was expressed with his 
 usual clearness and force, as follows : 
 
 " He, [General CASS,] will surely have the Senate ; and with 
 the patronage of the government, with every interest that he, 
 
256 
 
 as a northern man, can bring to bear, cooperating with every 
 interest that the south can bring to bear, we cry safety before 
 we are out of the woods, if we feel that there is no danger as 
 to these new territories" 
 
 Yet Mr. Webster now says, that to support the 
 "Proviso," would "do disgrace to his own under 
 standing." (p. 46.) 
 
 During the same campaign, also, the Hon. Rufus 
 Choate, one of the most eloquent men in New England, 
 and known to be the personal friend of Mr. Webster, 
 delivered a speech at Salem, in which the following 
 passage occurs : 
 
 " Tt is the passage of a law to say that California and New 
 Mexico shall remain forever free. That is, fellow-citizens, 
 undoubtedly an object of great and transcendent importance: 
 for there is none who will deny that we should go up to the 
 very limits of the constitution itself, and with the wisdom of 
 the wisest, and zeal of the most zealous, should unite to ac 
 complish this great object, and to defeat the always detested, 
 and forever to be detested object of the dark ambition of 
 that candidate of the Baltimore convention, (General CASS,) 
 who has ventured to pledge himself in advance that he will 
 veto the future law of freedom ; arid may God avert the mad 
 ness of all those who hate slavery and love freedom, that 
 would unite in putting him in the place where his thrice 
 accursed pledge may be redeemed ! .... Is .there a 
 Whig upon this floor who doubts that the strength of the Whig 
 party next March will insure freedom to California and New 
 Mexico, if by the constitution they are entitled to freedom at 
 all ? Is there a member of Congress that would not vote for 
 freedom ? You know there is not one. Did not every Whig 
 member of Congress from the free states vote at the last ses 
 sion for freedom ? You know that every man of them re 
 turned home covered with the thanks of his constituents for 
 that vote. Is there a single W r hig constituency, in any free 
 state in this country, that would return any man that would 
 not vote for freedom 1 Do you believe that Daniel Webster 
 himself could he returned if there was the least doubt upon 
 the question 1 " 
 
257 
 
 Mr. Choate then adds : " Upon this question alone, 
 
 we always differ from those Whigs of the south ; and 
 
 on that one, we propose simply (o vote them ilmrti.^ 
 
 Webster now says he will not join in voting them 
 
 i ndiT such circumstances, is it frivolous or captious 
 to ask for something more than a dogmatic assertion 
 that slavery cannot impregnate these new regions, and 
 cause them to breed monsters forever? On a subject 
 of such infinite importance I cannot be satisfied with a 
 dictum : I want a demonstration. I cannot accept the 
 prophecy without inquiring what spirit inspired the 
 prophet. As a revelation from Heaven, it would be most 
 delightful ; but, as it conflicts with all human experi 
 ence, it requires at least one undoubted miracle to at 
 test the divinity of its origin. 
 
 According to the last census, there were more than 
 eight thousand persons of African blood in Massachu 
 setts. Abolish the moral and religious convictions of 
 our people, let slavery appear to be in their sight not 
 only lawful and creditable, but desirable as a badge of 
 aristocratic distinction, and as a " political, social, moral, 
 and religious blessing," and what obstacle would pre 
 vent these eight thousand persons from being turned 
 into slaves, on any day, by the easy, cheap, and short 
 hand kidnapping of a legislative act ? Africans can 
 exist here, for the best of all reasons, they do exist 
 here. A state of slavery would not stop their respira 
 tion, nor cause them to vanish " into thin air." Think, 
 for a moment, of the complaints we constantly hear in 
 certain circles, of the difficulty arid vexatiousness of com 
 manding domestic service. If no moral or religious 
 objection existed against holding slaves, would not 
 many of those respectable and opulent gentlemen who 
 signed tiie letter of thanks to Mr. Webster, and hun 
 dreds of others indeed, instead of applying to intelli 
 gence offices, or visiting emigrant ships for " domes- 
 22* 
 
258 
 
 tics," as we call them, go at once to the auction room 
 and buy a man or a woman with as little hesitancy or 
 compunction as they now send to Brighton for beeves, 
 or go to TattersalPs for a horse ? If the cold of the 
 higher latitudes checks the flow of African blood, or 
 benumbs African limbs, the slaveholder knows very 
 well that a trifling extra expense for whips will make 
 up for the difference. 
 
 But suppose a doubt could be reasonably entertained 
 about the invasion of the new territories by slavery. 
 Even suppose the chances to preponderate against it. 
 What then ? Are AVC to submit a question of human 
 liberty over vast regions and for an indefinite extent of 
 time, to the determination of chance ? With all my 
 faculties I say, No ! Let me ask any man, let me re 
 spectfully ask Mr. Webster himself, if it were his own 
 father and mother, and brothers and sisters, and sons 
 and daughters, who were in peril of such a fate, 
 whether he would abandon them to chance, even to 
 a favorable chance. Would he suffer their fate to be 
 determined by dice or divination, when positive pro 
 hibition was in his power? And by what rule of 
 Christian morality, or even of enlightened heathen 
 morality, can we deal differently with the kindred of 
 others from what we would with our own ? He is not 
 a Christian whose humanity is bounded by the legal 
 degrees of blood, or by general types of feature. 
 
 But Mr. Webster would not " taunt " the south. 
 Neither would I. I would not taunt any honorable man, 
 much less a criminal. Still, when the most precious in 
 terests of humanity are in peril, I would not be timid. I 
 would not stop too long to cull lovers phrases. Standing 
 under the eye of God, in the forum of the world and 
 before the august tribunal of posterity, when the liti 
 gants are freedom and tyranny, and human happiness 
 and human misery the prize they contest, it should 
 happen to the sworn advocate of liberty, as Q,uintilian 
 
259 
 
 says it did to Demosthenes, " not to speak and to 
 plead, but to thunder and to lighten." Mr. Webster 
 would not taunt the south ; and yet I say the south 
 were never so insulted before as he has insulted them. 
 Common scoffs, jeers, vilifications, are flattery and 
 sycophancy compared with the indignities he heaped 
 upon them. Look at the facts. The south waged 
 war with .Mexico from one, and only one, motive ; for 
 one, and only one, object, the extension of slavery. 
 They refused peace unless it surrendered territory. 
 That territory must be south of the abhorred line of 
 36 30 . The same President who abandoned the 
 broad belt of country on our northern frontier, from 
 49 to 54 40 , to which we had, in his own words, 
 " an unquestionable title," would allow no prohibition 
 of slavery to be imposed upon the territory which 
 Mexico ceded, though she would bury it a foot deep 
 in gold. The Proviso had been resisted in all forms, 
 from the beginning. Southern Whigs voted against 
 the ratification of the treaty, foreseeing the struggle 
 that was to follow. Desperate efforts had been made, 
 at the close of the last session of Congress, to smuggle 
 in an unrestricted territorial government, against all 
 parliamentary rule and all constitutional implication. 
 The whole south, as one man, claimed it as a " de- 
 scribable, weighable, estimable, tangible," and most 
 valuable " right " to carry slaves there. Calhoun, Ber- 
 rien, Badger, Mason, Davis, the whole southern 
 phalanx, Whig and Democrat, pleaded for it, argued for 
 it, and most of them declared themselves ready to fight 
 for it ; and yet Mr. Webster rises in his place, and tells 
 them they are all moonstruck, hallucinated, fatuous ; 
 because " an ordinance of nature and the will of God " 
 had settled this question against them from the begin 
 ning of the world. Mr. Calhoun said, immediately 
 after this speech. " Give us free scope and time enough, 
 and we will take care of the rest." 
 
260 
 
 Mr. MASON said, 
 
 " We have heard here from various quarters, and from 
 high quarters, and repeated on all hands, repeated here 
 again to-day by the honorable senator from Illinois, [Mr. 
 SHIELDS,] that there is a law of nature which excludes the 
 southern people from every portion of the state of California. 
 I know of no such law of nature, none whatever ; but I 
 do know the contrary, that if California had been organized 
 with a territorial form of government only, and for which, at 
 the last two sessions of Congress, she has obtained the entire 
 southern vote, the people of the Southern States would have 
 gone there freely, and have taken their slaves there in great 
 numbers. They would have done so, because the value of the 
 labor of that class would have been augmented to them many 
 hundred fold. Why, in the debates which took place in the 
 convention in California which formed the constitution, and 
 which any senator can now read for himself, after the pro 
 vision excluding slavery was agreed upon, it was proposed to 
 prohibit the African race altogether, free as well as bond. A 
 debate arose upon it, and the ground was distinctly taken, as 
 shown in those debates, that if the entire African race was 
 not excluded, their labor would be found so valuable that the 
 owners of slaves would bring them there, even though slavery 
 were prohibited, under a contract to manumit them in two or 
 three years. And it required very little reasoning, on the 
 part of those opposed to this class of population, to show that 
 the productiveness of their labor would be such as to cause 
 that result. An estimate was gone into with reference to the 
 value of the labor of this class of people, showing that it 
 would be increased to such an extent in the mines of Cali 
 fornia, that they could not be kept out. It was agreed that 
 the labor of a slave in any one of the states from which they 
 would be taken, was not worth more than one hundred or one 
 hundred and fifty dollars a year, and that in California it 
 would be worth from four to six thousand dollars. They 
 would work themselves free in one or two years, and thus the 
 country would be filled by a class of free blacks, and their 
 former owners have an excellent bargain in taking them 
 there." 
 
 Yet Mr. Webster stands up before all this array, and 
 
261 
 
 says, "Gentlemen, you are beside yourselves. You 
 have eaten of the insane root. You would look 
 more in character should you put on the cap and 
 hells. In sober sense, in seeing his object clearly and 
 in pursuing it directly, Don Quixote was Doctor 
 Franklin, compared with you. The dog in the fable, 
 who dropped his meat to snap at his shadow, is no al 
 legory in your case. I see two classes around me, 
 wise men and fools ; you do not belong to the former. 
 The chancellor, who keeps the king s idiots, should 
 have custody of you." Such is a faithful abstract of 
 what Mr. Webster said to southern senators, and, 
 through them, to all the south. 
 
 Here certainly was a reflection upon the understand 
 ing and intelligence of the south, such as never was 
 cast upon them before. But the balm went with the 
 sting. They bore the aifront to their judgments, be 
 cause it was so grateful to their politics and pockets. 
 I think it no injustice to those senators to say, that they 
 would have nearly torn Mr. Webster in pieces for such 
 a collective insult, had it not promised to add, what 
 Mr. Mason called u many hundred fold," to their indi 
 vidual property, and to secure and perpetuate their po 
 litical ascendency. 
 
 To help our conceptions in regard to Mr. Webster s 
 course on this subject, let us imagine a parallel case, 
 or, rather, an approximate one, for there can be no par 
 allel. Suppose a contest between the north and the 
 south, on the subject of the tariff, to have been raging 
 for years. The sober blood of the north is heated to 
 the fever point. The newspapers treat of nothing else. 
 Public meetings and private conversations discuss no 
 other theme. Hundreds of delegates wait upon Con 
 gress to add, if it be but a feather s weight, to the 
 scale which holds their interests. Petitions flow in, 
 in thousands and tens of thousands. It is announced 
 that Mr. Calhoun will pour out his great mind on the 
 
262 
 
 subject. Expectation is on tiptoe. All eyes, from all 
 sides of the country, are turned towards Washington, 
 as the Moslem s to Mecca. The senate chamber is 
 packed, arid the illustrious senator rises. After an his 
 toric sketch of existing difficulties, after reading from 
 the speeches which he made in 1832 and in 1846, he 
 proceeds to say that he withdraws all opposition to a 
 tariff, to any tariff ! He will not offend the delicate 
 nerves of northern manufacturers by further hostility. 
 Were a bill then before him, he would not oppose it. 
 " Take the schedules," says he, scornfully, to northern 
 senators, " and fill up the blanks from A to Z with 
 what per centages you please. For ad valorem rates, 
 put in minimums and rnaximurns at your pleasure. I 
 will taunt you no longer. I am for peace and the 
 glorious Union. I have discovered an irrepealable and 
 irreversible law of nature, which overrules all the de 
 vices of men. You cannot make one yard of woollens 
 or cottons in New England. There, water has no 
 gravity, steam has no force, and wheels will not re 
 volve. In Vermont and New York, wool will not 
 grow on sheep s backs. I have penetrated the geology 
 of Pennsylvania, and through all its stratifications 
 there is not a thimble full of coal, nor an ounce of iron 
 ore ; and, if there were, combustion would not help to 
 forge it ; for oxygen and carbon are divorced. As 
 Massachusetts contributed one third of the men and 
 one third of the money to carry on the revolutionary 
 war, I am willing to compensate her for her lost blood 
 and treasure to the amount of hundreds of millions 
 of dollars, with which she may fertilize the barrenness 
 of her genius, and indulge her insane love for churches 
 and schools." Had the great southern senator spoken 
 thus, I think that even idolatrous, man-worshipping 
 South Carolina, a state which Mr. Calhoun has 
 ruled and moved for the last twenty-five years, as a 
 puppet showman plays Punch and Judy, would 
 
263 
 
 have sent forth, through all her organs, a voice of unan 
 imous dissent. 
 
 As much as freedom is higher than tariff, so much 
 stronger than (heir dissent should be ours. 
 
 Mr. \Vebstor s averment that he would not " reaffirm 
 an ordinance of nature, nor reenact the will of God," 
 (p. 44,) has been commented on more pungently than I 
 am able or willing to do. It has been well said that all 
 law and all volition must be in harmony with the will 
 of the Good Spirit, or with that of the evil one ; and 
 if we will not reenact the will of the former, then, 
 either all legislation ceases, or we must register the de 
 crees of the latter. But one important and pertinent 
 consideration belongs to this subject, which I have no 
 where seen developed. It is this : Endless doubts and 
 contradictions exist among men, as to what is the will 
 of God; and on no subject is there a wider diversity 
 of opinion than on this very subject of slavery. 
 Whose law was reenacted by the ordinance of 1787 ? 
 whose, when the African slave trade was prohibited ? 
 whose, when it was declared piracy? True, it is use 
 less to put upon our statute books an astronomical law, 
 regulating sunrise, or high tides ; but that is physical 
 .and beyond the jurisdiction of man, while slavery be 
 longs to morals, and is within the jurisdiction of man. 
 Cease to transcribe upon the statute book what our 
 wisest and best men believe to be the will of God in 
 regard to our worldly affairs, and the passions which 
 we think appropriate to devils will soon take possession 
 of society. In regard to slavery, piracy, and so forth, 
 there are multitudes of men whose fear of the penal 
 sanctions of another life is very much aided by a little 
 salutary fine and imprisonment in this. Look at that 
 noble array of principles which is contained in the 
 Declaration of Rights in the constitution of Massachu 
 setts. Is it not a most grand and beautiful exposition 
 of " the will of God," a transcript, as it were, from 
 
264 
 
 the Book of Life ? So of the amendments to the 
 constitution of the United States. Yet our fathers 
 thought it no tampering with holy things to enact 
 them ; and, in times of struggle and peril, they have 
 been to many a tempted man as an anchor to the soul, 
 sure and steadfast. 
 
 I approach Mr. Webster s treatment of the Texas 
 question with no ordinary anxiety. Having been ac 
 customed from my very boyhood to regard him as the 
 almost infallible expounder of constitutional law, it is 
 impossible to describe the struggle, the revulsion of 
 mind, with which I have passed from an instructed 
 and joyous acquiescence in his former opinions to un 
 hesitating dissent from his present ones. 
 
 I must premise that I cannot see any necessary or 
 beneficial connection between the subject of new 
 Texan states and the admission of California and the 
 government of the territories. The former refers to 
 some indefinite future, when, from its fruitful womb 
 of slavery, Texas shall seek to cast forth an untimely 
 birth. In this excited state of the country, at this 
 critical juncture of our affairs, when there is sober talk 
 of massacring a majority of the House of Representa 
 tives on their own floor, and a senator, instead of 
 merely threatening to hang a brother senator on the 
 highest tree, provided he could catch him in his own 
 state, now draws a revolver of six barrels on another 
 brother senator, on the floor of the Senate, in mid-ses 
 sion ; at such a time, I say, when, however few Abels 
 there may be at work in the political field, there are 
 Cains more than enough, would it not have been well 
 to have acted upon the precept, " Sufficient unto the 
 day is the evil thereof" ? 
 
 As the basis of his argument, Mr. Webster quotes 
 the following resolution for the admission of Texas, 
 passed March 1, 1845 : 
 
 " New states of convenient size, not exceeding four in 
 
266 
 
 number, in addition to said State of Texas, and having suffi 
 cient population, may hereafter, by the consent of the said 
 state, be formed out of the territory thereof, which shall be 
 entitled to admission under the provisions of the federal con 
 stitution. And such states as may be formed out of that por 
 tion of said territory lying south of 36 30 north latitude, 
 commonly known as the Missouri compromise line, shall be 
 admitted into the Union with or without slavery, as the people 
 of each state asking admission may desire ; and in such state 
 or states as shall be formed out of said territory north of said 
 Missouri compromise line, slavery or involuntary servitude, 
 (except for crime,) shall be prohibited." 
 
 Note here, first, that only "four " states are to be 
 admitted in "addition to said state of Texas:" and 
 second, that "such state or states," (in the plural,) as 
 shall be formed from territory north of 36 30 , shall 
 be free. If tico, or only one free state is to exist on 
 the north side of the line, then how many will be left 
 for the south side ? I should expose myself to ridicule 
 were I to set it down arithmetically, four minus one, 
 equal to three. Yet Mr. Webster says, " The guaranty 
 is, that new states shall be made out of it, [the Texan 
 territory.] and that such states as are formed out of 
 that portion of Texas lying south of 36 30 , may 
 come in as slave states, to the number of FOUR, in ad 
 dition to the state then in existence, and admitted at 
 that time by these resolutions." (p. 29.) 
 
 Here Mr. Webster gives outright to the south and to 
 slavery, one more state than was contracted for, as 
 suming the contract to be valid. He makes a donation, 
 a gratuity, of an entire slave state, larger than many 
 a European principality. He transfers a whole state, 
 with all its beating hearts, present and future; with all 
 its infinite susceptibilities of weal and woe. from the 
 side of freedom to that of slavery, in the leger book 
 of humanity. What a bridal gift for the harlot of 
 bondage ! 
 
 Was not the bargain hard enough, according to its 
 23 
 
266 
 
 terms ? Must we fulfil it, and go beyond it ? Is a 
 slave state, which dooms our brethren of the human 
 race, perhaps interminably, to the vassal s fate, so insig 
 nificant a trifle, that it may be flung in, as small change 
 on the settlement of an account ? Has the south been 
 so generous a copartner as to deserve this distinguished 
 token of our gratitude ? 
 
 Why, by parity of reasoning, could he not have 
 claimed all the four states, " in addition to said state 
 of Texas," as free states ? The resolutions divide the 
 territory into two parts, one north and one south of 
 the line of 36 30 . Could not Mr. Webster have 
 claimed the four states for freedom, with as sound logic 
 and with far better humanity than he surrendered them 
 all to slavery ? When Texas and the south have got 
 their slave states " to the number of four " into the 
 Union, whence are we to obtain our one or more free 
 states? The contract will have been executed, and 
 the consent of Texas for another state will be with 
 held. 
 
 Notwithstanding all this, Mr. Webster affirms the 
 right of slavery to four more states, in the following 
 words : " I know no form of legislation which can 
 strengthen this. I know no mode of recognition that 
 can add a tittle of weight to it." Catching the tone 
 of his asseveration, I respond that I know no form of 
 statement, nor process of reasoning, which can make 
 it more clear, that this is an absolute and wanton sur 
 render of the rights of the north and the rights of 
 humanity. 
 
 But I hold the Texan resolutions to have been ut 
 terly void ; and proceed to give the reasons for my 
 opinion. 
 
 I begin by quoting Mr. Webster against himself. In 
 an address to the people of the United States, emanating 
 from the Massachusetts Anti-Texas state convention, 
 held January 29th, 1845, the subjoined passage, which is 
 
267 
 
 understood, or rather, I may say, is now well known, 
 to have been dictated by Mr. Webster himself, may be 
 found : 
 
 " But we desire not to be misunderstood. According to 
 our convictions, there is no power in any branch of the gov 
 ernment, or all its branches, to annex foreign territory to this 
 I nioii. \Ve have made the foregoing remarks only to show, 
 that, if any fair construction could show such a power to ex 
 ist any where, or to he exercised in any form, yet the manner 
 of its exercise now proposed is destitute of all decent semblance 
 of constitutional propriety." 
 
 Thus cancelling the authority of Mr. Webster in 
 1850 by the authority of Mr. Webster in 1845, I pro 
 ceed with the argument. 
 
 Though the annexation of Texas was in pursuance 
 of a void stipulation, yet it is a clear principle of law, 
 that when a contract void between the parties, has 
 been executed by them, it cannot then be annulled. If 
 executed, it becomes valid, not by virtue of the con 
 tract but by virtue of the execution. I bow to this 
 legal principle, and would fulfil it. But any indepen 
 dent stipulation which remains unexecuted, remains 
 invalid. Such is that part of the annexation resolu 
 tions which provides for the admission of a brood of 
 Texan states. The resolutions themselves say, in ex 
 press terms, that the new states are to be admitted 
 "under the provisions of the federal constitution;" 
 and the federal constitution says, " New states may be 
 admitted by the Congress into this Union." By what 
 Congress? Plainly, by the Congress in session at the 
 time when application for admission is made ; and by 
 no other. The fourth Texan state may not be ready 
 for admission for fifty years to come ; and could the 
 Congress of 1845 bind the Congress of 1900 ? The 
 Congress of 1900, and all future Congresses, will de 
 rive their authority from the constitution of the United 
 States, and not from any preceding Congress. Put the 
 
268 
 
 case in a negative form. Could the Congress of 1845 
 bind all future Congresses not to admit new states, and 
 thus, pro tanto, annul the constitution ? Positive or 
 negative, the result is the same. No previous Con 
 gress, on such a subject, can enlarge or limit the power 
 of a subsequent one. Whenever, therefore, the ques 
 tion of a new Texan state comes up for consider 
 ation, the Congress then in being must decide it on its 
 own merits, untrammelled by any thing their predeces 
 sors have done ; and, especially, free from a law which, 
 while similar in spirit, is a thousand times more odious 
 in principle than statutes of mortmain. 
 
 Admitting that a future Congress, on such a subject, 
 might be bound by a treaty, I answer that there was 
 no treaty ; while the fact that a treaty clause was 
 introduced into the resolutions, in the Senate, for the 
 sake of obtaining certain votes that would never other 
 wise have been given in their favor, and under an ex 
 press pledge from the Executive that the method by 
 treaty should be adopted, which pledge was forthwith 
 iniquitously broken by the President, leaves no element 
 of baseness and fraud by which this proceeding was 
 not contaminated. In the name of the constitution, 
 then, and of justice, let every honest man denounce 
 those resolutions as void alike in the forum of law and 
 in the forum of conscience ; and, admitting Texas 
 herself to be in the Union, yet, when application is 
 made for any new state from that territory, let the 
 question be decided upon the merits it may then 
 possess. 
 
 And was not Mr. Webster of the same opinion, when, 
 in Faneuil Hall, in November, 1845, after the resolu 
 tions of annexation had passed, he made the following 
 emphatic, but unprophetic, declaration : 
 
 " It is thought, it is an idea I do not say how well founded, 
 that there may yet be a hope for resistance to the consumma 
 tion of the act of annexation. I can only say for one, that 
 
269 
 
 if it should fall to my lot tt> have a vote on such a question, 
 AND I VOTE FOR THE ADMISSION INTO THIS UNION OF ANY 
 STATE WITH A CONSTITUTION WHICH PROHIBITS EVEN THE 
 LEGISLATURE FROM EVER SETTING THE BONDMEN FREE, I 
 SHALL NEVER SHOW MY HEAD AGAIN, DEPEND 
 UPON IT, IN FANEUIL HALL." 
 
 There is another objection to any future claim of 
 Texas to be divided into states, which grows out of 
 her own neglect to fulfil the terms and spirit of the 
 agreement. In the " territory north of the Missouri 
 compromise line, slavery or involuntary servitude, (ex 
 cept for crime,) shall be prohibited." So reads the 
 bond. But if Texas suffer slavery to be extended 
 over that part of her territory, then, when it becomes 
 populous enough for admission, and is overspread with 
 slavery, a new state may present a free constitution, be 
 admitted by Congress, and before the slaves have time 
 to escape, or to carry the question of freedom before the 
 judicial tribunals, presto ! this free constitution will 
 be changed into a slave constitution, under the alleged 
 right of a state to decide upon its own domestic insti 
 tutions ; and thus the word of promise, which was 
 kept to the ear, will be broken to the hope. If Texas 
 meant to abide by the resolutions of annexation, and 
 to claim any thing under them, it was her clear and im 
 perative duty forthwith to pass a law, securing freedom 
 to every inhabitant north of the compromise line. In 
 this way only can the resolutions be executed in their 
 true spirit. That territory is now in the condition 
 of an egg. It is undergoing incubation. From it a 
 state is hereafter to be hatched ; but before promising 
 to accept the chick, it would be agreeable to know 
 whether a viper had impregnated the egg. 
 
 There is a still further objection, of whose sound 
 ness I have no doubt ; but should I be in error in re 
 gard to it, the mistake will not invalidate any other 
 argument. The parties to that agreement stipulated 
 23* 
 
270 
 
 on the ground of mutuality, without which all con 
 tracts are void. Some states were to be admitted to 
 strengthen the hands of slavery, and some of freedom. 
 A line of demarcation was drawn. Now, on inves 
 tigation, I believe it will most conclusively appear that 
 there is not an inch of Texan territory north of the 
 stipulated line. It all belongs to New Mexico, as much 
 as Nantucket or Berkshire belongs to Massachusetts. 
 It was a mistake on the part of the contracting parties ; 
 if, on the part of Texas, it was not something worse 
 than a mistake. The mutuality, then, fails. The 
 contract is niidum pactum. Texas can give nothing 
 for what she was to receive ; and is, therefore, entitled 
 to receive nothing but what she has got. 
 
 In regard to " the business of seeing that fugitives 
 are delivered up," Mr. Webster says, " My friend at 
 the head of the judiciary committee, [Mr. BUTLER, 
 of South Carolina,] has a bill on the subject now before 
 the Senate, with some amendments to it, which I pro 
 pose to support, with all its provisions, to the fullest 
 extent." 
 
 Here is Mr. Butler s bill, with Mr. Mason s amend 
 ments : 
 
 A BILL 
 
 To provide for the more effectual execution of the 3d clause of the 2d sec 
 tion of the &th article of the Constitution of the United States. 
 
 Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United 
 States of America in Congress assembled, That when a person held to 
 service or labor in any state or territory of the United States, under 
 the laws of such state or territory, shall escape into any other of the 
 said states or territories, the person to whom such service or labor 
 may be due, his or her agent or attorney, is hereby empowered to 
 seize or arrest such fugitive from service or labor, and take him or 
 her before any judge of the circuit or district courts of the United 
 States, or before any commissioner, or clerk of suc-h courts, or mar 
 shal thereof, or any postmaster of the United States, or collector of 
 the customs of the United States, residing or ben> ^ >vithin such state 
 wherein such sei/ure or arrest shall be made, and upon proof to the 
 satisfaction of such judge, commissioner, clerk, marshal, postmaster, 
 or collector, as the case may be, either by oral testimony or affidavit 
 
271 
 
 taken before and certified by any person authorized to administer an 
 oath under the laws of the United States, or of any state, that the 
 person so seized or arrested, under the laws of the state or territory 
 i rom which he or she fled, owe - service or labor to the person claiming 
 him or her, it shall be the duty of such judge, commissioner, clerk, 
 marshal, po>tma>ter, or collector, to give a certilicate thereof to such 
 claimant, his or her agent or attorney, which ccrtilieate shall be a 
 sufficient warrant for taking and removing such fugitive from service 
 or labor to the state or territory from which he or she fled. 
 
 SEC. 2. And be it further enacted, That when a person held to ser 
 vice or labor, as mentioned in the first section of this act, shall escape 
 from such service or labor, as therein mentioned, the person to Avhom 
 such service or labor may be due, his or her agent or attorney, may 
 apply to any one of the officers of the United States named in said 
 section, other than a marshal of the United States, for a warrant to 
 seize and arrest such fugitive, and upon affidavit being made before 
 such officer, (each of whom for the purposes of this act is hereby 
 authorized to administer an oath or affirmation,) by such claimant, his 
 or her agent, that such person does, under the laws of the state or 
 territory from which he or she ficd, owe service or labor to such 
 claimant, it shall be, and is hereby made, the duty of such officer, to 
 and before whom such application and affidavit is made, to issue his 
 warrant to any marshal of any of the courts of the United States to 
 seize and arrest such alleged "fugitive, and to bring him or her forth 
 with, or on a day to be named in such warrant, before the officer is 
 suing such warrant, or either of the officers mentioned in said first 
 section, except the marshal to whom the said warrant is directed, 
 which said warrant or authority the said marshal is hereby authorized 
 and directed in all things to obey. 
 
 SECT. 3. And be it further enacted, That upon affidavit made as 
 aforesaid by the claimant of such fugitive, his agent or attorney, after 
 such certificate has been issued, that he has reason to apprehend that such 
 fugitive will be rescued by force from his or their possession, before he 
 can be taken beyond the limits of the state in which the arrest is 
 made, it shall be the duty of the officer making the arrest to retain 
 such fugitive in his custody, and to remove him to the state whence 
 he fled, and there to deliver him to said claimant, his agent or attor 
 ney. And to this end, the officer aforesaid is hereby authorized and 
 required to employ so many persons as he may deem necessary to 
 overcome such force, and to retain them in his service so long as cir 
 cumstances may require. The said officer and his assistants, while so 
 employed, to receive the same compensation and to be allowed the 
 same expenses as are now allowed by law for transportation of crimi 
 nals, to be certified by the judge of the district within which the ar 
 rest is made, and paid out of the treasury of the United States : Pro- 
 , That, before such charges are incurred, the claimant, his agent 
 or attorney, shall secure to said officer payment of the same, and in 
 case no actual force be opposed, then they shall be paid by such 
 claimant, his agent or attorney. 
 
 SEC. 4. Ami be it further enacted, When a warrant shall have been 
 issued by any of the officers under the second section of this act, and 
 
272 
 
 there shall be no marshal or deputy marshal within ten miles of the 
 place where such warrant is issued, it shall be the duty of the officer 
 issuing the same, at the request of the claimant, his agent or attorney, 
 to appoint some tit and discreet person, who shall be willing to act as 
 marshal, for the purpose of executing said warrant ; and such person 
 so appointed shall, to the extent of executing said warrant, and de 
 taining and transporting the fugitive named therein, have all the 
 power and authority, and be, with his assistants, entitled to the same 
 compensation and expenses provided in this act in cases where the 
 services arc performed by the marshals of the courts. 
 
 SEC. 5. Andbe it further enacted, That any person who shall knowingly 
 and willingly obstruct or hinder such claimant, his agent or attorney, 
 or any person or persons assisting him, her, or them, in so serving or 
 arresting such fugitive from service or labor, or shall rescue such 
 fugitive from such claimant, his agent or attorney, when so arrested, 
 pursuant to the authority herein given or declared, or shall aid, abet, 
 or assist such person so owing service or labor to escape from such 
 claimant, his agent or attorney, or shall harbor or conceal such per 
 son, after notice that he or she was a fugitive from labor, as aforesaid, 
 shall, for either of the said offences, forfeit and pay the sum of one 
 thousand dollars, which penalty may be recovered by and for the 
 benefit of such claimant, by action of debt in. any court proper to 
 try the same, saving, moreover, to the person claiming such labor or 
 service, his right of action for, or on account of, the said injuries, or 
 either of them. 
 
 SEC. 6. And be it further enacted, That when said person is seized or 
 arrested, under and by virtue of the said warrant, by such marshal, 
 and is brought before either of the officers aforesaid, other than the 
 said marshal, it shall be the duty of such officer to proceed in the case 
 of such person, in the same way as he is directed and authorized to 
 do when such person is seized and arrested by the person claiming 
 him, or by his or her agent or attorney, and is brought before such 
 officer under the provisions of the first section of this act. 
 
 AMENDMENTS 
 
 Intended to be proposed by Mr. Mason to the bill (Senate, 23) to provide 
 for the more effectual execution of the third clause of the second 
 section of the fourth article of the Constitution of the United 
 States. 
 
 At the end of section 5, add : 
 
 And any person or persons offending against the provisions of this 
 section, to be moreover deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, or of ob 
 structing the due execution of the laws of the United States, and upon 
 conviction thereof shall be fined in the sum of one thousand dollars, 
 one half whereof shall be to the use of the informer ; and shall also 
 be imprisoned for the term of twelve months. 
 
 At the end of section 6, add : 
 
 And in no trial or hearing under this act shall the testimony of such 
 fugitive be admitted in evidence. 
 
It will be observed that the first section of the bill, 
 after constituting the judges of the courts, the seven 
 teen thousand postmasters, the collectors, &c., tribu 
 nals, without appeal, for the delivery of any body, 
 who is sworn by any body, any where, to be a fugitive 
 slave, refers to the before-mentioned officers in the 
 words " residing or being within such state where such 
 seizure or arrest is made." That is, the judge, post 
 master, collector, &c., need not be an inhabitant of the 
 state, or hold his office in the state where the seizure is 
 made ; but it is sufficient if he is such officer any where 
 within the United States. Mr. Butler or Mr. Mason, 
 therefore, may send the postmaster of his own city or 
 village into Massachusetts, with an agent or attorney, 
 who brings his affidavit from South Carolina or Vir 
 ginia, in his pocket ; the agent or attorney may arrest 
 any body, at any time, carry him before his accomplice, 
 go through with the judicial forms, and hurry him to 
 the south ; the officer, after his judicial functions are 
 discharged, turning bailiff, protecting the prey and 
 speeding the flight ! 
 
 Still further ; this bill derides the trial by jury, se 
 cured by the constitution. A man may not lose a horse 
 without a right to this trial ; but he may his freedom. 
 Mr. Webster spoke for the south and for slavery ; not 
 for the north and for freedom, when he abandoned this 
 right. Such an abandonment, it would be impossible 
 to believe of one who has earned such fame as defender 
 of the constitution ; it would be more reasonable to 
 suppose the existence of some strange misapprehension, 
 had not Mr. Webster, with that precision and strength 
 which are so peculiarly his own, declared his deter 
 mination to support this hideous bill, " with all its 
 provisions to the fullest extent," when, at the same 
 moment, another bill, of which he took no notice, was 
 pending before the Senate, introduced by Mr. Seward, 
 of New York, securing the invaluable privilege of a 
 jury trial. 
 
274 
 
 I disdain to avail myself, in a sober argument, of the 
 popular sensitiveness on this subject ; and I acknowl 
 edge my obligations to the constitution while it is suf 
 fered to last. But still I say, that the man who can 
 read this bill without having his blood boil in his 
 veins, has a power of refrigeration that would cool the 
 tropics. 
 
 I cannot doubt that Mr. Webster will yet see the 
 necessity of reconsidering his position on this whole 
 question. 
 
 Mr. Webster says, " It is my firm opinion, this day, 
 that within the last twenty years as much money has 
 been collected and paid to the abolition societies, abo 
 lition presses, and abolition lecturers, as would pur 
 chase the freedom of every slave, man, woman, and 
 child, in the State of Maryland, and send them all to 
 Liberia." 
 
 The total number of slaves in Maryland, according 
 to the last census, amounted to 89,405. At $250 
 apiece, which is but about half the value commonly 
 assigned to southern slaves by southern men, this 
 would be $22,373,750. Allowing $30 each for trans 
 portation to Liberia, without any provision for them 
 after their arrival there, the whole sum would be 
 $25,058,600, in round numbers, twenty-five millions 
 of dollars ! more than a million and a quarter in each 
 year, and about thirty-five hundred dollars per day. I 
 had not supposed the abolitionists had such resources 
 at their command ! 
 
 I have dwelt thus long upon Mr. Webster s speech, 
 because in connection with his two votes in favor of 
 Mr. Foote s committee of compromise, which votes, 
 had they been the other way, would have utterly de 
 feated the committee, it is considered to have done 
 more to jeopard the great cause of freedom in the ter 
 ritories, than any other event of this disastrous session. 
 I have spoken of Mr. Webster by name, and, I trust, in 
 
275 
 
 none but respectful terms. I might have introduced 
 other names, or examined his positions without men 
 tioning him. I have taken what seemed to me the 
 more manly course ; and if these views should ever by 
 chance fall under his eye, I believe he has magnanim 
 ity enough to respect me the more for the frankness I 
 have used. If I am wrong, I will not add to an error 
 of judgment the meanness of a clandestine attack. If 
 I am right, no one can complain ; for we must all bow 
 before the majesty of truth. 
 
 I have now noticed the principal events which have 
 taken place in Congress, and which have led to what 
 military men would call the "demoralization" of 
 many of the rank and file of its members. Some re 
 cent movements have brought vividly to mind certain 
 historical recollections in regard to the African slave 
 trade, now execrated by all civilized nations. When 
 the immortal Wilberforce exposed to public gaze the 
 secrets of that horrid traffic, his biographer says, " The 
 first burst of generous indignation promised nothing less 
 than the instant abolition of the trade, but mercantile 
 jealousy had taken the alarm, and the defenders of the 
 West India system found themselves strengthened by 
 the independent alliance of commercial men. " Life of 
 Wilberforce, vol. i. p. 291. 
 
 Again; opposition to Wilberforce s motion " arose 
 amongst the Guinea merchants ," " reenforced, how 
 ever, before long by the great body of West India 
 planters." Ibid. 
 
 The corporation of Liverpool spent, first and last, 
 upwards of 10.000 in defence of a traffic which even 
 the gravity and calmness of judicial decisions have 
 since pronounced "infernal." 
 
 " Besides printing works in defence of the slave trade 
 and remunerating their authors; paying the expenses 
 of delegates to attend in London and watch Mr. Wil 
 berforce s proceedings, they pensioned the widows of 
 
270 
 
 Norris and Green, and voted plate to Mr. Penny, for 
 their exertions in this cause." Ibid. p. 345. 
 
 It is said, that the corporation of Liverpool, at this 
 time, " believed firmly that the very existence of the 
 city depended upon the continuance of the traffic." 
 Look at Liverpool now, and reflect what greater re 
 wards, even of a temporal nature, God reserves for men 
 that abjure dishonesty and crime. 
 
 All collateral motives were brought to bear upon the 
 subject, just as they are at the present time. The 
 Guinea trade was defended "as a nursery for seamen." 
 Ibid. p. 293. 
 
 Even as Sate as 1816, the same class of men, in the 
 same country, opposed the abolition of " white slavery " 
 in Algiers, from the same base motives of interest. It 
 was thought that the danger of navigating the Mediter 
 ranean, caused by the Barbary corsairs, was advan 
 tageous to British commerce ; because it might deter 
 the merchant ships of other nations from visiting it. 
 After Lord Exmouth had compelled the Algerines to 
 liberate their European slaves, he proceeded against 
 Tunis and Tripoli. In giving an account of what he 
 had done, he defends his conduct " upon general prin 
 ciples," but adds, " as applying to our own country, 
 [Great Britain,] it may not be borne out, the old mer 
 cantile interest being against it." Osier s Life of 
 Exmouth, p. 303. 
 
 So after Admiral Blake, in the time of Cromwell, 
 had attacked Tunis, he says, in his despatch to Secre 
 tary Thurloe, " And now seeing it hath pleased God 
 soe signally to justify us herein, I hope his highness 
 will not be offended at it. nor any who regard duly the 
 honor of the nation, although I expect to have the 
 clamors of INTERESTED MEN." Thurloe s State Pa 
 pers, vol. ii. p. 390. 
 
 And is commerce, the daughter of freedom, thus for 
 ever to lift her parricidal hand against the parent that 
 
bore her? Are rich men forever to use their " thirty 
 pieces of silver," or their "ten thousand pounds ster 
 ling," or their hundreds of thousands of dollars, to re 
 ward the Judases for betraying their Savior ? Viewed 
 by the light of our increased knowledge, and by our 
 more elevated standard of duty, the extension of 
 slavery into California or New Mexico, at the present 
 time, or even the sufferance of it there, is a vastly 
 greater crime than was the African slave trade itself, in 
 the last century ; and I would rather meet the doom 
 of posterity, or of heaven, for being engaged in the 
 truliic then, than for being accessory to its propagation 
 now. 
 
 Let those who aid, abet, or connive at slavery ex 
 tension now, as they read the damning sentence which 
 history has awarded against the actors, abettors, and 
 cannivers of the African trade, but change the names, 
 and they will be reading of themselves. Should our 
 new territories be hereafter filled with groaning bond 
 men, should they become an American Egypt, tyran 
 nized over by ten thousand Pharaohs, it will be no 
 defence for those who permitted it. to say, " We hoped, 
 we supposed, we trusted, that slavery could not go 
 there ; " Nemesis, as she plies "her scorpion lash, will 
 reply, " You might have made it certain" 
 
 On this great question of freedom or slavery, I have 
 observed with grief, nay, with anguish, that we, at the 
 north, break up into hostile parties, hurl criminations 
 and recriminations to and fro, and expend that strength 
 for the ruin of each other, which should be directed 
 against the enemies of liberty ; while, at the south, 
 whenever slavery is in jeopardy, all party lines are 
 obliterated, dissensions are healed, enemies become 
 friends, and all are found in a solid column, with an 
 unbroken front. Are the children of darkness to be 
 forever so much wiser than the children of light ? In 
 the recent choice of delegates for the Nashville con- 
 24 
 
278 
 
 vention, I have not seen a single instance where Whig 
 and Democrat have not been chosen as though they 
 were Siamese twins, and must go together. But here 
 it often happens, that as soon as one party is known to 
 be in favor of one man, this preference alone is deemed 
 a sufficient reason why another party should oppose him. 
 Why can we not combine for the sacred cause of free 
 dom, as they combine for slavery? No thought or de 
 sire is further from my mind than that of interfering 
 with any man s right of suffrage ; but if, (which is by 
 no means impossible, nor perhaps improbable,) the fate 
 of New Mexico should be decided by one vote, and my 
 vote should have been the cause of a vacancy in any 
 Congressional district that might have sent a friend to 
 freedom, I should say, with Cain, " My punishment is 
 greater than I can bear." 
 
 On the subject of the present alienation and discord 
 between the north and the south, I wish to say that I 
 have as strong a desire for reconciliation and amity as 
 any one can have. There is no pecuniary sacrifice 
 within the limits of the constitution, which I would 
 not willingly make for so desirable an object. Public 
 revenues I would appropriate, private taxation I would 
 endure, to relieve this otherwise thrice-glorious repub 
 lic from the calamity and the wrong of slavery. I 
 would not only resist the devil, but if he will flee from 
 me, I will build a bridge of gold to facilitate his escape. 
 I mention this to prove that it is not the value, in, 
 money, of territorial freedom, for which I contend, but 
 its value in character, in justice, in human happiness. 
 While I utterly deny the claim set up by the south, 
 yet I would gladly consent that my southern fellow- 
 citizens should go to the territories and carry there 
 every kind of property which I can carry ; I would 
 then give to the Southern States their full share 
 of all the income ever to be derived from the sales of 
 the public lands, or the leasing of the public mines ; 
 
279 
 
 and whatever, after this deduction, was left in the pub 
 lic treasury, should he appropriated for the whole na 
 tion, as has been the practice heretofore. That is, in 
 consideration of excluding slavery from the territories, 
 I would give the south a double share, or even a three 
 fold share, of all the income that may ever be derived 
 from them. Pecuniary surrenders I would gladly make 
 for the sake of peace, but not for peace itself would I 
 surrender liberty. 
 
 It would be to suppose our merchants and manufac 
 turers void of common foresight, could they believe 
 that conc\vSfjin now will bring security hereafter. By 
 yielding trie moral question, they jeopard their pecu 
 niary interests. Should the south succeed in their 
 present attempt upon the territories, they will impa 
 tiently await the retirement of General Taylor from the 
 executive chair, to add the " State of Cuba," with its 
 500,000 slaves, its ignorance and its demoralization, to 
 their roll of triumph. California will be a free-trade 
 state, by the most certain of all biases. They will 
 have nothing to sell but gold ; they will have every 
 thing to buy, cradles and coffins, and all between. 
 If New Mexico is slave, it will also be free trade ; and 
 Cuba as certainly as either, though in that island fa 
 cilities for smuggling will reduce the difference between 
 tariff and free trade to nothing. A surrender, therefore, 
 by our northern business men, will be most disastrous 
 to the very business that tempts them to surrender. 
 Will they take no warning from the fact that their 
 apathy in regard to Texas repealed the tariff of 1842 ? 
 This is a low motive, I admit ; but it may be set as a 
 back-fire to the motive by which some of them appear 
 to be influenced. There was no need, not a shadow 
 of need, of perilling any principle, nor any interest. 
 Had the north stood firm, had they been true to the 
 great principles they have so often and so solemnly 
 proclaimed, the waves of southern violence would have 
 
280 
 
 struck harmless at their feet. He is not learned in the 
 weather who does not know that storms from the south, 
 though violent, are short. We are assailed now be 
 cause we have yielded before. The compromise of 
 1820 begat the nullification of 1832 ; the compromise 
 of 1832 inspired the mad exploit of compassing Texas, 
 which our greater madness made sane. The moral 
 paralysis which failed to oppose the Mexican war, has 
 given us the territories. If the territories are now sur 
 rendered, we shall have Cuba, and an indefinite career 
 of conquest and of slavery will be opened on our south 
 western border. Every new concess CUL transfers 
 strength from our side to the side of our opponents ; 
 and if we cannot arrest our own course when we are 
 just entering the rapids, how can we arrest it when we 
 come near the verge of the cataract ? The south may 
 rule the Union, but they cannot divide it. Their 
 whole Atlantic seaboard is open to attack, and power 
 less for defence ; and the Mississippi River may as easily 
 be divided physically as politically into independent 
 portions. With these advantages, let us never aggress 
 upon their rights, but let us maintain our own. 
 
 Fellow-citizens, I would gladly relieve the darkness 
 of this picture by some gleams of light. There are 
 two hopes which, as yet, are not wholly extinguished 
 in my mind. Beyond all question, a compromise bill 
 will be reported by the committee of thirteen, in which 
 free California will be made to carry as great a burden 
 of slavery as she can bear. It is still possible that the 
 House will treat, as it deserves, this adulterous union. 
 A single vote may turn the scale, and Massachusetts 
 may give that vote. Not improbably, too, the fate of 
 the bill may depend upon the earnestness and decision 
 with which northern constituencies make their senti 
 ments known to their representatives, whether by pe 
 titions, by private letters, or by public resolutions. Let 
 every lover of freedom do his best and his most. 
 
28 1 
 
 Should the north fail, I have still one hope more. 
 It is, that New Mexico will do for herself what we 
 shall have basely failed to do for her. If both these 
 hopes fail, our country is doomed to run its unobstruct 
 ed career of conquest, of despotism, and of infamy. 
 
 I have now, my fellow-citizens, given you my 
 "Views and Opinions" on the present crisis in our 
 public affairs. Had I regarded my own feelings, I 
 should have spoken less at length ; but the subject has 
 commanded me. I trust I have spoken respectfully 
 towards those from whom I dissent, while speaking 
 my own sentiments justly and truly. I have used no 
 asperity ; for all my emotions have been of grief, and not 
 of anger. My words have been cool as the telegraphic 
 wires, while my feelings have been like the lightning 
 that runs through them. The idea that Massachusetts 
 should contribute or consent to the extension of human 
 slavery ! is it not enough, not merely to arouse the 
 living from their torpor, but the dead from their graves ! 
 Were I to help this, nay, did I not oppose it with all 
 the powers and faculties which God has given me, I 
 should see myriads of agonized faces glaring out upon 
 me from the future, more terrible than Duncan s at 
 Macbeth; arid I would rather feel an assassin s poniard 
 in my breast than forever hereafter to see " the air- 
 drawn dagger" of a guilty memory. In Massachu 
 setts, the great drama of the revolution began. Some 
 of its heroes yet survive amongst us. At Lexington, 
 at Concord, and on Bunker Hill, the grass still grows 
 greener where the soil was fattened with the blood of 
 our fathers. If, in the providence of God, we must 
 be vanquished in this contest, let it be by force of the 
 overmastering and inscrutable powers above us, and 
 not by our own base desertion. 
 
 I am, gentlemen, your much honored, obliged, and 
 obedient servant, 
 
 HORACE MANN. 
 
 24 * 
 
282 
 
 LETTER II. 
 
 To THE EDITORS OF THE BOSTON ATLAS ; 
 
 GENTLEMEN ; Your semi-weekly of the 1st instant 
 contains a letter of the Hon. Daniel Webster, to certain 
 citizens of New bury port, in which he has been pleased 
 to refer to me, and particularly to a passage in the let 
 ter which I addressed to a portion of my constituents, 
 on the 3d of May last, [the preceding Letter.] His 
 reference to me is of so extraordinary a character, both 
 as to manner and matter, that I wish to reply. To 
 prevent all chance of mistake, I quote the following 
 passages : 
 
 " But, at the same time, nothing is more false than that 
 such jury trial is demanded in cases of this kind by the con 
 stitution, either in its letter or in its spirit. The constitution 
 declares that in all criminal prosecutions there shall be a 
 trial by jury. The claiming of a fugitive slave is not a crim 
 inal prosecution. 
 
 " The constitution also declares that in suits at common law 
 the trial by jury shall be preserved ; the reclaiming of a fugi 
 tive slave is not a suit at the common law ; and there is no 
 other clause or sentence in the constitution having the least 
 bearing on the subject. 
 
 " I have seen a publication by Mr. Horace Mann, a mem 
 ber of Congress from Massachusetts, in which I find this sen 
 tence. Speaking of the hill before the Senate, he says: 
 4 This bill derides the trial by jury. secured by the constitution. 
 A man may not lose his horse without a right to this trial, but 
 he may lose his freedom. Mr. Webster speaks for the south 
 and for slavery, not for the north and. for freedom, when he 
 abandons this right. 1 This personal vituperation does not 
 
283 
 
 annoy me, but I lament to see a public man of Massachusetts 
 so crude; and confused in his le^al apprehensions, and so little 
 acquainted with the constitution of his country, as these opin 
 ions evince Mr. Mann to be. His citation of a supposed 
 case, as in point, if it have any analogy to the matter, would 
 prove that, if Mr. Mann s horse stray into his neighbor s field, 
 lie cannot, lead him back without a previous trial by jury to 
 ascertain the ri^lit. Truly, if what Mr. Mann says of the 
 provisions of the constitution in this publication be a test of 
 liis accuracy in the understanding of that instrument, he would 
 do well not to seek to protect his peculiar notions under its 
 sanction, but to appeal at once, as others do, to that higher 
 authority which sits enthroned above the constitution and 
 above the law." 
 
 I must deny this charge of " personal vitupera 
 tion " nothing was further from my thoughts ; and 
 I regret that Mr. Webster, while disclaiming " an 
 noyance " at what I said, should hetray it. I believe 
 every part of my "Letter" to be within the bounds 
 of courteous and respectful discussion. There is noth 
 ing in it which might not pass between gentlemen, 
 without interrupting relations of civility or friendship. 
 Though full of regret at his novel position, and of dis 
 sent from his unwonted doctrines, yet it abounds in 
 proofs of deference to himself. I must now, however, 
 be permitted to add that the highest eminence becomes 
 unenviable when it breeds intolerance of dissent, or 
 bars out the humblest man from a free expression of 
 opinion. 
 
 Mr. Webster " laments to see a public man of Mas 
 sachusetts so crude and confused in his legal apprehen 
 sions, and so little acquainted with the constitution of 
 his country, as these opinions evince Mr. Mann to be." 
 Yet he points out no error of opinion. He specifies 
 nothing as unsound. Judgment and condemnation alone 
 appear. He seems to have taken it for granted that he 
 had only to say I was guilty, and then proceed to punish. 
 I protest against and impugn this method of proceeding, 
 
284 
 
 by any man, however high, against any man, however 
 humble. 
 
 When Mr. Webster penned his " lamentations " over 
 my crudeness, confusion, and ignorance, he doubtless 
 meant to deal me a mortal blow. The blow was cer 
 tainly heavy : but the question still remains, whether 
 it hit. Polyphemus struck hard blows, but his blind 
 ness left the objects of his passions unharmed. 
 
 But wherein do those erroneous " opinions " consist, 
 which Mr. Webster does not deign to specify, but as 
 sumes to condemn ? Fortunately, in writing the sen 
 tence which he quotes for animadversion, I followed 
 the precise meaning of Judge Story, as laid down in 
 his Commentaries ; and in regard to the only point 
 which is open to a question, / took the exact words of 
 that great jurist. He speaks of " the right of a trial 
 by jury, in civil cases," as an existing right before the 
 seventh article of amendment to the constitution, 
 which preserves this right "in suits at common law," 
 had been adopted. (3 Comm., 628.) Instead of tran 
 scribing Judge Story s words. " in civil cases," which 
 present no distinct image to common minds, I supposed 
 the every-day case of litigation respecting a horse, 
 which is a " civil case ; " and this difference of form 
 is the only difference between my language and that 
 of the learned judge. I can wish Mr. Webster no 
 more fitting retribution, after reposing from this ill- 
 ternpered attack upon me, than to awake and find that 
 it was Judge Story whom he had been maligning. 
 
 Does not the authority of Judge Blackstone also 
 support my position ? He says, 
 
 " Recapture or reprisal is another species of remedy, by 
 the mere act of the party injured. . . . But as the pub 
 lic peace is a superior consideration to any one man s private 
 property ; and as, if individuals were once allowed to use 
 private force as a remedy for private injuries, all social jus 
 tice must cease, the strong would give law to the weak, and 
 
every man would revert to a state of nature ; for these rea 
 sons, it is provided that this natural right of recaption shull 
 never be exerted, where such exertion must occasion strife 
 and bodily contention, or endanger the peace of society. If, 
 for instance, my horse is taken away, and I find him in a 
 common, a fair, or a public inn, I may lawfully seize him to 
 my own use ; but I cannot justify breaking open a private 
 stable, or entering on the grounds of a third person, to take 
 him, should he be feloniously stolen; but must, have recourse 
 to an action at law" Co mm. 4, 5. 
 
 But the opinion expressed by me on this point does 
 not need the authority of any name to support it ; and 
 the illustration which I gave is not only intelligible to 
 every sensible man, but is also apposite. I said " a m;m 
 may not lose his horse, [i. e. his property in a horse,] 
 without a right to this trial." Mr. Webster s comment 
 is, that this case, " if it have any analogy to the mat 
 ter." means, that if a man s horse " stray into his neigh 
 bor s field, he cannot lead him back without a previous 
 trial by jury to ascertain the right." Was ever the 
 plain meaning of a sentence more exactly changed 
 about, end for end ? Mr. Webster may pitch somer 
 sets with his own doctrines, but he has no right to 
 pitch them with mine. I said a man may not lose his 
 horse, or his property in a horse, without a right to the 
 trial by jury. He says I said, a man cannot find or 
 retake a lost horse, without a previous trial ! Dulce 
 est desipere in loco. Or, it is pleasant to see a grave 
 senator play upon words; though there should be 
 some wit to redeem it from puerility. 
 
 But the childishness of this criticism is not its worst 
 feature. What is the great truth which Mr. Webster 
 and his apologists attempt here to ridicule ? It is 
 this : While every man amongst us, in regard to any 
 piece of property worth more than twenty dollars, of 
 which violence or fraud may attempt to despoil him, 
 has a right to a trial by jury ; yet a man s freedom, 
 
286 
 
 and that of his posterity forever, may be wrested from 
 him, as our law now stands, without such a trial. 
 Does not this hold a man s freedom to be of less value 
 than twenty dollars ? If two adverse claimants con 
 test title to an alleged slave, whose market value is 
 more than this sum, each is entitled to a jury to try 
 the fact of ownership. But if the alleged slave de 
 clares, here, in Massachusetts, that he owns himself, he 
 is debarred from this right. And this truth, or a com 
 mon illustration of it, Mr. Webster and his apologists 
 think a suitable topic for sneers or pleasantry ! A 
 French proverb says, that for a man to kill his mother 
 is not in good taste. I trust the moral and religious 
 people of Massachusetts have too much good taste to 
 relish jokes on such a theme. 
 
 Again ; I said that Mr. Butler s bill " derides " the 
 trial by jury. By that bill every commissioner and 
 clerk of a United States court, every marshal and col 
 lector of the customs, and the seventeen thousand 
 postmasters of the United States, are severally invested 
 with jurisdiction and authority in all parts of the 
 United States, to deliver any man, woman, or child 
 in the United States, into custody, as a slave, on the 
 strength of an ex partc affidavit, made any where in 
 the United States. This affidavit may have been 
 made a thousand miles off, by no one knows whom, 
 and certified to by a person who never saw or heard 
 of the individual named in it. A forged affidavit, or 
 a fictitious affidavit, would often answer the purpose as 
 well ; for how difficult, and in many cases, how impossi 
 ble, to prove its spuriousness. Did oppression ever before 
 conceive such a tribunal, so countless in numbers, so 
 ample in jurisdiction, so terrible in power? Had a 
 bill similar to this been proposed in the British Parlia 
 ment, from 1763 to 1776, what would oar fathers have 
 said of it ? Yet this bill, with some kindred amend 
 ments, heightening its features of atrocity, Mr. Webster 
 
287 
 
 promised " to support, with all its provisions, to the 
 fullest extent." 
 
 What aggravates the wrong, is, that the cruelties of 
 the measure will fall upon the poor, the helpless, the 
 ignorant, the unfriended. The hill would have heen 
 far less disgraceful, had its provisions borne upon the 
 men who should pass it ; because, in such case, there 
 would have been a touch of equality. Now, if this 
 bill does not "deride" all guaranties for the protection 
 of human liberty, it is only because my word of 
 reprobation is too weak. It is only because one needs 
 "to tear a leaf from the curse-book of Pandemonium " 
 in order to describe it by fitting epithets. 
 
 Another remarkable feature of Mr. Butler s bill is, 
 that it provides no penally whatever for any one who 
 shall abuse, or fraudulently use, the dangerous author 
 ity which it gives. It furnishes endless temptations 
 and facilities for committing wrong : it imposes no 
 restraints ; it warns by no threats of retribution. 
 
 Mr. Webster calls me to account for some unspecified 
 erroneous " opinion," expressed in relation to this bill. 
 Can any opinion be so false to the constitution, as this 
 bill to humanity ? I deprecate error of all sorts ; but 
 hold it to be more venial to err in judgment than in 
 heart. 
 
 I said that in promising to support Mr. Butler s bill, 
 " with all its provisions, to the fullest extent," Mr. 
 Webster ".abandoned " the right to a trial by jury. I 
 spoke of him as a senator, as one who, with his co- 
 legislators, was bound, in fulfilment of his constitution 
 al duty, to secure this form of trial to the alleged slave, 
 or to a known freeman seized as a slave. Mr. Se ward s 
 bill, providing for the trial by jury, in such cases, was 
 before him. He took no notice of it. He passed by 
 " on the other side," while he bestowed his best enco 
 mium on Mr. Butler s bill, by promising to support it. 
 W r as not this an " abandonment," under any of the 
 synonymes given in the dictionary ? 
 
288 
 
 Mr. Webster advises me, in a certain contingency, 
 " to appeal to that higher authority which sits en 
 throned above the constitution and above the law." I 
 take no exception to this counsel, because of its offi- 
 ciousness, but would thank him for it. My ideas of 
 duty require me to seek anxiously for the true inter 
 pretation of the constitution, and then to abide by it, 
 unswayed by hopes or fears. If the constitution 
 requires me to do any thing which my sense of duty 
 forbids, I shall save my conscience by resigning my 
 office. I am free, however, to say, that if, in the dis 
 charge of my political duties, I should transfer my 
 allegiance to any other power, I should adopt Mr. 
 Webster s ironical advice, and go to the power " which 
 sits enthroned above," rather than descend to that 
 opposite realm, whence the bill he so cordially prom 
 ised to support must have emerged. 
 
 I wish, however, to remark, that though I acknowl 
 edge the constitution to be my guide while under oath 
 to support it, yet I do not relish this fling either at the 
 powers above us, or at those who reverence them. I 
 hold it to be not only proper, but proof of sound moral 
 and religious feeling, to look to the perfect law of God 
 for light to enable us more justly to interpret the 
 imperfect laws of man. Especially, when we are 
 proposing to make or amend a law, ought we to take 
 our gauge of purpose and of action from the highest 
 standard. 
 
 Noy, that Solomon of the law, thought it not im 
 proper to say, " The inferior law must give place to 
 the superior; man s laws to God s laws." Maxims, 
 pp. 6, 7. 
 
 " The law of Nature," says Blackstone, u being co 
 eval with mankind, and dictated by God himself, is, 
 of course, superior in obligation to any other. It is 
 binding all over the globe ; in all countries, at all times. 
 No human laws have any validity, if contrary to this; 
 
289 
 
 and such of them as are valid, derive all their force 
 and all their authority, mediately or immediately, from 
 this original." 1 Com. 41. 
 
 Fortescue, the Chancellor of Henry VI., in his De 
 Laudibus Leguin Anglice, cap. 42, has the following 
 passage, the consideration of which, in requital for 
 Mr. Webster s advice to me, I respectfully commend 
 to him : 
 
 " That must necessarily be adjudged a cruel law, which 
 augments slavery, and diminishes liberty. For human 
 nature implores, without ceasing, for liberty. Slavery is 
 introduced by man, and through his vice. But liberty is the 
 gift of God to man. Wherefore, when torn from a man, it 
 ever yearns to return ; and it is the same with every thing 
 when deprived of its natural liberty. On this account, that 
 man is to be adjudged cruel, who does not favor liberty. By 
 these considerations the laws of England, in every case, 
 give favor to liberty." 
 
 Having defended rny own propositions, I shall now 
 take the liberty to examine some of Mr. Webster s ; 
 and, in so doing, I shall examine the constitutional 
 provisions for trial by jury, and fortify my opinion by 
 historical references. I shall consider, 
 
 I. Where Congress has power to provide for such 
 trial. 
 
 II. Where it is the duty of Congress to do so. 
 
 Mr. Webster says "the constitution declares, that 
 in all criminal prosecutions, there shall be a trial by 
 jury ; " and that " in suits at common law the trial 
 by jury shall be preserved." He then adds, " There 
 is no other clause or sentence in the constitution hav 
 ing the least bearing upon the subject." Mark his 
 words : " There is no other clause or sentence in the 
 constitution, having the least bearing" on the subject." 
 This I deny. 
 
 Here Mr. Webster virtually declares that, but for the 
 above-named two provisions, the right of the trial by 
 25 
 
290 
 
 jury would not have been secured to us by the consti 
 tution in any case. Of course, in the absence of these 
 provisions, Congress would have been under no obli 
 gation, nor would it, indeed, have had any power, to 
 provide by law for such trials. 
 
 Were I to say that this assertion borders on the 
 incredible, one might well ask, Which side of the line 
 does it lie ? 
 
 The provision for a trial by jury, in criminal prose 
 cutions, is in the third clause of the second section of 
 the third article, and is repeated, and somewhat en 
 larged, in the fifth and sixth articles of amendment. 
 
 But the provision for trial by jury, in suits at com 
 mon law, is in the seventh article of amendment j and 
 neither this provision, nor any semblance of it, is to 
 be found, in express words, in any part of the consti 
 tution as it came from the hands of its framers, and 
 was adopted by the states. 
 
 According to Mr. Webster, then, Congress was under 
 no obligation, and had no power, to make a law provid 
 ing for trial by jury, except in criminal prosecutions, 
 until after the seventh article of amendment had been 
 ratified ; for if they had any such power, or were un 
 der any such obligation, it must be by virtue of some 
 clause or sentence in the constitution, having a " bear 
 ing upon the subject" 
 
 Now, the first session of Congress commenced 
 March 4th, 1789, but this seventh article of amend 
 ment was not ratified, and did not become a part of 
 the constitution, according to Hickey, (Rickey s Const, 
 p. 36,) until December 15, 1791. 
 
 Until this time, therefore, according to Mr. Webster, 
 the constitution had secured no right to a trial by jury, 
 except in the case of criminal prosecutions ; because, 
 until this time, there was no clause or sentence in it 
 " having the least bearing on the subject " of jury trials 
 in any but criminal cases. 
 
291 
 
 Yet, on the 24th of September, 1789, and more than 
 two years previous to the adoption of the seventh 
 amendment, (l>y which alone, according to Mr. Web 
 ster, they had any power to act in the premises,) 
 Congress did pass the judiciary act; by the ninth, 
 twelfth, and thirteenth sections of which it is provided, 
 that the trial of issues in fact, in the district courts, in 
 the circuit courts, and in the supreme court, shall, 
 with certain exceptions, be by jury. 
 
 The act also empowers the courts to grant new 
 trials " for reasons for which new trials have usually 
 been granted in the courts of law." In what courts of 
 law? Did it not mean the courts in Westminster Hall, 
 and those in this country formed after that ancestral 
 model ? And does not this show beyond question or 
 cavil, that the principle of the jury trial, in civil cases, was 
 incorporated into the constitution of the United States, 
 originally; and that it was universally understood to 
 be so by its framers, and by their contemporaries, the 
 members of the first Congress ? 
 
 From the constitution alone, then, and not from any 
 power above it, or outside of it, did Congress derive 
 its power, on the 24th of September, 1789, and more 
 than two years before the seventh amendment was 
 adopted, to pass the judiciary act, and to fill it full of the 
 fact and the doctrine of jury trials in civil cases. And 
 if Congress, at that time, had legislated on the subject 
 of fugitive slaves, would it not have had the same power 
 to provide the trial by jury, to determine the question, 
 slave or free, as it had to provide for this mode of trial 
 in other cases ? 
 
 All the state conventions for adopting the constitu 
 tion, whose debates are preserved, and all the leading 
 men who figured in them, held, contrary to Mr. 
 Webster, 4hat the third article in the constitution, 
 providing for courts, carried jury trials in civil cases 
 with it. Mr. Marshall, afterwards Chief Justice Marshall, 
 
292 
 
 said in the Virginia convention, " Does the word 
 court, [in the constitution,] only mean the judges? 
 Does not the determination of a jury necessarily lead 
 to the judgment of the court ? Is there any thing 
 which gives the judges exclusive jurisdiction of mat 
 ters of fact ? What is the object of a jury trial ? To 
 inform the court of the facts. When a court has cog 
 nizance of facts, does it not follow that they can make 
 inquiry by a jury? It is impossible to be otherwise." 
 3 Elliotts Debates, 506. 
 
 The third article in the Virginia bill of rights was 
 as follows : 
 
 " In controversies respecting property, and in suits between 
 man and man, the ancient trial by jury is preferable to any 
 other, and ought to be held sacred." 
 
 This article being read in the convention, Judge 
 Marshall said the trial by jury was as well secured by 
 the United States constitution, as by the Virginia bill 
 of rights. Ib. 524. He said this in reference to 
 civil cases. 
 
 In the Massachusetts convention, it was said, with 
 out a doubt s being expressed from any quarter, that 
 " the word court does not, either by popular or tech 
 nical construction, exclude the use of a jury to try facts. 
 When people in common language talk of a trial at 
 the court of common pleas, or the supreme judicial 
 court, do they not include all the branches and mem 
 bers of such courts, the jurors as well as the judges? 
 They certainly do, whether they mention the jurors 
 expressly or not. Our state legislators have construed 
 the word court in the same way." 2 Elliott s De 
 bates, 127. 
 
 Such was the doctrine maintained by the leading 
 minds of the state conventions ; by Christopher Gore, 
 in Massachusetts ; by Judge Wilson, and Chief Justice 
 McKean, in Pennsylvania ; by Chief Justice Marshall, 
 
293 
 
 Judge Pendleton, and Mr. Madison, in Virginia; by 
 Judge Iredell, in North Carolina, and many other dis 
 tinguished names. 
 
 In the Virginia convention, objection was made to 
 the constitution because it did not expressly secure to 
 the accused the privilege of challenging or excepting 
 to jurors in criminal cases. But Mr. Pendleton, 
 the President of the convention, and for so many years 
 afterwards the highest judicial officer in the state, re 
 plied : " When the constitution says that the trial shall 
 be by jury, does it not say that every incident will go 
 along with it ? " 3 Elliott s Debates, 497. 
 
 So when the constitution provided for " courts," and 
 defined their jurisdiction, it clearly contemplated the 
 trial by jury, in regard to all such rights of the citizen 
 as had been usually, theretofore, tried by a jury. Con 
 gress, indeed, might fail to perform its duty ; but in 
 such case, no provisions of the constitution, however 
 express and peremptory, would secure the rights of the 
 people. 
 
 It is perfectly well known to every student of the 
 constitution, that the only reason why that instrument 
 did not make express provision for the trial by jury, in 
 civil cases, was the difficulty of running the dividing 
 line between the many cases that should be so tried, 
 and the few that should not. All were agreed that 
 ninety-nine per cent, of all civil cases should be tried 
 by jury ; but they could not agree upon the classes of 
 cases from which the remaining one per cent, should 
 be taken. 
 
 In this connection, it is worth while to notice the 
 heading or preamble of the joint resolutions for sub 
 mitting certain proposed amendments of the constitu 
 tion to the states, among which was the seventh. It 
 is as follows : 
 
 " The conventions of a number of the states having at 
 the time of their adopting the constitution expressed a desire, 
 25* 
 
294 
 
 in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, 
 that further declaratory or restrictive clauses should be added ; 
 and as the extending the ground of public- confidence in the 
 government will best insure the beneficent ends of its institu 
 tion, RESOLVED," &c. 
 
 From this it appears that the first Congress only pro 
 posed to submit certain "further declaratory and re 
 strictive clauses" which were " to prevent miscon 
 struction or abuse of its powers." This heading or 
 title, of course, does not enlarge or limit the meaning 
 of the amendments ; but it shows the view which their 
 authors had of their scope and intendment. And what 
 is the seventh amendment but a :< declaratory and 
 restrictive clause," securing the trial by jury, in cases 
 at common law, " where the value in controversy shall 
 exceed twenty dollars," and abandoning it where the 
 value is less ? 
 
 The phraseology of the amendment is full of sig 
 nificance : " The right of trial by jury shall be pre 
 served." Not created, but preserved. Not instituted 
 de novo, but continued. Will Mr. Webster tell me, 
 how a right can be preserved, which does not already 
 exist ? 
 
 In speaking of the trial by jury, in criminal cases, 
 Judge Story uses the same word. He says it was 
 " preserved." In neither class of cases, civil or criminal, 
 was it ever abandoned or lost, through the fault of the 
 constitution. If not always enjoyed by the citizen, it 
 has been through the dereliction of Congress in not 
 passing the requisite laws. 
 
 The great men who submitted this seventh amend 
 ment to the states, treated the trial by jury, in civil cases, 
 as a then subsisting constitutional right. They passed a 
 law to put the practical enjoyment of this right into the 
 hands of the people, well knowing that there is scarcely 
 a right which we hold under the constitution which we 
 can beneficially possess or use, without the intervention 
 of some law, as its channel or medium. 
 
295 
 
 Suppose this seventh amendment had never been 
 adopted, on what ground would the trial by jnry, in 
 civil cases, have rested up to the present day ? Could 
 it have been taken from us all, in all cases except crim 
 inal ones, by any corrupt Congress? 
 
 In asserting, therefore, that, besides the references 
 he has made, there is not another " clause or sentence 
 in the constitution, having the least bearing on the 
 subject " of jury trials, Mr. Webster is contradicted by 
 the members of the general convention, by the state 
 conventions, by the senators and representatives, who 
 passed the judiciary act, by President Washington who 
 signed it, and by all the judges who administered that 
 act until the seventh amendment was adopted. 
 
 II. Where it is the duty of Congress to provide for 
 trial by jury. 
 
 But another of Mr. Webster s assertions is still more 
 extraordinary. He says " nothing is more false than 
 that such jury trial, [a trial by jury for an alleged 
 slave, or for a freeman claimed as a slave,] is demanded 
 by the constitution, either in its letter or in its spirit." 
 
 I make a preliminary remark upon the grossness 
 of the error embodied in the form of this proposition. 
 
 " Nothing is more false ; " that is, if I, or any one, 
 had affirmed that our constitution forbids trial by jury, 
 in all cases, under penalty of death ; or that it creates 
 an hereditary despotism ; or that it establishes the 
 Catholic religion, with the accompaniment of an inqui 
 sition for each state ; or that it does all these things to 
 gether ; it would not be more " false " to the " spirit " 
 of the constitution, than to say that it demands the 
 trial by jury, when a man who is seized as a slave, but 
 who asserts that he is free, invokes its protection. 
 
 But this pertains to the form only of his assertion, 
 and is immaterial to the argument. I proceed to in 
 quire whether its substance be not as indefensible as 
 its form. 
 
296 
 
 In another part of Mr. Webster s letter, he says, that 
 he sees " no objection to the provisions of the law " 
 of 1793. Of course ; for he sees no objection to Mr. 
 Butler s bill, and its amendments ; but prefers them to 
 Mr. Seward s. And he now says, there is nothing in 
 the letter or in the " spirit " of the constitution, 
 which demands the jury trial for an alleged slave, or 
 for a freeman captured and about to be carried away 
 as a slave. 
 
 Feeble and humble as I am, great and formidable as 
 he is, I join issue with him on this momentous ques 
 tion, and put myself upon the country. 
 
 Our constitution, as the present generation has al 
 ways been taught, yearns towards liberty and the 
 rights of man. The trial by jury, in the important 
 cases of life, liberty, and property, is essential to these 
 rights. The two, therefore, have such close affinity 
 for each other, as to render it highly probable, if not 
 morally certain, that the framers of the former would 
 make provision for the latter; that 1 they would lay 
 hold of it, as by a law of instinct, to carry out their 
 beneficent purposes. The trial by jury was necessary 
 to the vitality of the constitution ; and, I think, it 
 would not be too strong an expression to say that the 
 constitution, as it came from the hands of its founders, 
 necessitated the trial by jury. 
 
 The object for which the constitution was framed, 
 as set forth in its preamble, namely, to " establish 
 justice," "promote the general welfare," and "secure 
 the blessings of liberty," to the people, could never 
 be accomplished without the trial by jury. The pre 
 amble is not appealed to as a source of power ; but it 
 touches, as by the finger, the objects which it contem 
 plated j it suggests the means by which its beneficent 
 purposes were to be fulfilled, and it indicates the rules 
 of interpretation by which all its provisions are to be 
 expounded. 
 
297 
 
 And not only the objects for which the constitution 
 professes to exist, but historical facts from the time of 
 Magna Charta, and before that time ; the practice of 
 the English and of our Colonial and Provincial courts 
 before the revolution and during the confederacy ; 
 in fine, all analogies and tendencies of constitutional 
 law, and whatever belongs to ideas of freedom, con 
 spire to force the expectation upon us, that, in a matter 
 of such vast concernment as the life-long liberty or 
 bondage of a man and his offspring, it has not left us 
 without the right of trial by jury. 
 
 The very first law " for the general good of the 
 colony of New Plymouth," (1623,) was, " that all 
 criminal acts, and also all matters of trespasses and 
 DEBTS, between man and man, should be tried by the 
 verdict of twelve honest men." 
 
 In that fearful array of crimes which the Declara 
 tion of Independence charges home upon the king of 
 Great Britain, that sublime instrument enumerates the 
 following as among the most flagitious : " For depriving 
 us, in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury," 
 and " for protecting his troops, by a mock trial, from 
 punishment for any murders which they should com 
 mit on the inhabitants of these states." 
 
 According to Blackstone, the right to a trial by jury 
 had been held, "time out of mind," to be the birth 
 right of Englishmen. The 29th chapter of the Great 
 Charter guarantied this right, not only in cases of lib 
 erty, life, and limb, but in cases of property, real and 
 personal. 
 
 In England, it has become a traditional saying, and 
 drops from the common tongue, that the great object 
 of king, lords, and commons, is to get twelve men 
 into the jury box. 
 
 Judge Story says, " When our more immediate an 
 cestors removed to America, they brought this great 
 privilege with them, as their birthright and inheritance. 
 
298 
 
 as a part of that admirable common law which had 
 fenced round, and interposed barriers on every side, 
 against the approaches of arbitrary power. It is now 
 incorporated into all our state constitutions, as a funda 
 mental right ; and the constitution of the United States 
 would have been justly obnoxious to the most conclu 
 sive objection, if it had not recognized and confirmed 
 it in the most solemn terms." 3 Com. 652. 3. 
 
 Is it conceivable, then, that the heroes and sages of 
 the revolution, who rose in resistance to the most for 
 midable power on earth ; so many of whom rose 
 against their own kindred in the mother country, be 
 cause they loved liberty better than father or mother, 
 or brother or sister, and who endured the privations and 
 horrors of a seven years war ; is it conceivable, I 
 say, that, when they had achieved their independence, 
 and there was no longer any earthly power to control 
 them, they should have framed a fundamental law, and 
 should not have imbued that law with the "spirit" of 
 the trial by jury, as its breath of life ? As British sub 
 jects, they were entitled to this trial. As Americans, 
 did they renounce it ? Did they wage war for seven 
 years in order to place themselves in a worse condition 
 than they had been placed in by their " tyrant " ? Mr. 
 Webster says they did. He charges this infinite folly 
 and blindness upon them, singly and collectively, one 
 and all. 
 
 I will now fortify this historical view, by a reference 
 to some decisions of the supreme court which explain 
 and define the meaning of the seventh amendment.* 
 
 What is the true meaning of those descriptive words, 
 " suits at common law " ? Has not Mr. Webster, re 
 lying on his high reputation, disposed of this matter a 
 little too summarily ? He says, " The constitution 
 
 * This argument may be found repeated and enlarged upon in a 
 subsequent part of the present volume, p. 409, et seq. It is retained 
 here only to preserve the logical and legal symmetry of the letter. 
 
299 
 
 declares that in suits at common law, the trial by jury 
 shall be preserved ; " but he adds, " The reclaiming of 
 a fugitive slave is not a suit at common law." 
 
 But the supreme court of the United States has 
 furnished us with an authoritative interpretation of the 
 words of the constitution bearing on this subject. In 
 the case of Cohens vs. Virginia, 6 Wheaton, R. 407, 
 they define what is meant by a " suit." These are 
 their words : 
 
 " What is a suit ? We understand it to be the prosecution, 
 or pursuit, of some claim, demand, or request. In law lan 
 guage, it is the prosecution of some demand in a court of 
 justice. The remedy for every species of wrong is, says 
 Judge Blackstone, v the being put in possession of that right 
 whereof the party injured is deprived. The instruments 
 \vhi-reby this remedy is obtained are a diversity of suits and 
 actions, which are defined by the Mirror to be c the lawful de 
 mand of one s right ; or, as Bracton and Fleta express it in 
 the words of Justinian, i jus proscquendi in judicio quod 
 alicui debetur, * (the form of prosecuting in trial, or judg 
 ment, which is due to any one.) Blackstone then proceeds to 
 describe every species of remedy by suit ; and they are all 
 cases where the party suing claims to obtain something to 
 which he has a right. 
 
 "To commence a suit is to demand something by the insti 
 tution of process in a court of justice ; and to prosecute the 
 suit is, according to the common acceptation of language, to 
 continue that demand." 
 
 According to the supreme court, then, a suit is the 
 prosecution of some claim, demand, or request. Now, 
 the proceedings for a fugitive slave, according to the 
 very letter of the constitution, are instituted to prose 
 cute a claim. The person held to service or labor is 
 to be delivered up, "on claim of the party to whom 
 such service or labor may be due." 
 
 Still further, in a decision bearing directly on the 
 right to a trial by jury, the supreme court have defined 
 the term " common law " in special reference to its 
 
300 
 
 meaning in the amendment to the constitution, which 
 secures this right "in suits at common law." These 
 are their words : 
 
 " It. is well known that in civil causes, in courts of equity 
 and admiralty, juries do not intervene; and that courts of 
 equity use the trial by jury only in extraordinary cases, to in 
 form the conscience of the court. When, therefore, we find 
 that the [7th] amendment requires that the right of trial by 
 jury shall be preserved, in suits at common law, the natural 
 conclusion is, that this distinction was present to the minds of 
 the frame rs of the amendment. By common law they meant 
 what the constitution denominated in the third article l law ; 
 not merely suits which the common law recognized among its 
 old and settled proceedings ; but suits in which legal rights 
 were to be ascertained and determined, in contradistinction to 
 those in which equitable rights alone were recognized, and 
 equitable remedies were administered, or in which, as in the 
 admiralty, a mixture of public law, and of maritime law and 
 equity, was often found in the same suit. Probably there 
 were few, if any, states in the Union, in which some new le 
 gal remedies, differing from the old common law forms, were 
 not in use ; but in which, however, the trial by jury intervened, 
 and the general regulations in other respects were according 
 to the course of the common law. Proceedings in cases of 
 partition, and of foreign and domestic attachment, might be 
 cited as examples variously adopted and modified. In a just 
 sense, the amendment, then, may well be construed to embrace- 
 all suits, which are not of equity or admiralty jurisdiction, 
 
 WHATEVER MAY BE THE PECULIAR FORM WHICH THEY MAY 
 
 ASSUME TO SETTLE LEGAL RIGHTS." Parsons vs. Bedford, 3 
 Petcrs s Rep. 456, 7. 
 
 The last sentence I have underscored. In this sen 
 tence, the supreme court plainly say. that, if the 
 subject matter of the litigation, or the object of the 
 proceeding, be to determine a "legal right " which was 
 formerly determined by a " suit at common law," then 
 such proceeding is embraced in the seventh amend 
 ment, arid either party in interest has a right to the 
 trial by jury. Now, is it not clear that any proceeding 
 
no i 
 
 which determines whether a man owns himself, or is 
 owned by another man, and which delivers one man 
 into the custody of another, as his slave, or refuses so 
 to deliver him, is, " whatever peculiar form it may as 
 sume," a proceeding "to settle a legal right," the 
 highest legal right? It is not a right in equity, in ad- 
 mirajty, or under the maritime law; but strictly and 
 exclusively a legal right, and nothing else. According 
 to the doctrine of the supreme court, then, in the above- 
 cited case, the parties to such a proceeding have a 
 right, under the seventh amendment, to a trial by jury. 
 At least, is not such the " spirit " of the amendment ? 
 
 But there is another well-known fact, which gives 
 pertinence arid stringency to the above view. At com 
 mon law. the writ etc ho mine replegiando, the writ 
 of personal replevin, or for replevying a man, was 
 an original writ ; a writ which the party could sue out 
 of right ; one to be granted on motion, without show 
 ing cause, and which the court of chancery could not 
 supersede, [t was. according to the very language of 
 our supreme court, recognized by the common law 
 " among its old and settled proceedings." The form 
 of it is found in that great arsenal of common law 
 writs, the Registrum Breviutn. A man, says Comyn, 
 may have a homitie rcplegiando for a negro ; or for an 
 Indian brought by him into England and detained from 
 him ; or it may be brought by an infant against his 
 testamentary guardian : or by a villein against his lord. 
 (Dig., Title Imprisonment, L. 4.) 
 
 If it could be brought by a villein against his lord, 
 then it was the very writ for an alleged slave against 
 an alleging owner. It was the mode provided by the 
 common law for the determination of the legal right 
 asserted in a human being. I have always understood 
 that, before the revolution, and before the framing of 
 our constitution, Comyn s Digest was a work of the 
 highest authority. It must have been well known to 
 26 
 
302 
 
 all the lawyers in the convention. Did they expect, 
 then, that when an alleged slave, or a known free 
 man, should be seized, that he should be hurried into 
 bondage without any right to this ancient muniment 
 of the subject s liberties ? 
 
 But " the reclaiming of a fugitive slave," says Mr. 
 Webster, " is not a suit at the common law." .The 
 proceedings provided for by the statute of 1793, to 
 which he " sees no objection," have no analogy to the 
 writ de homine replegiando. But can you destroy the 
 right to a jury trial by changing the process ? A sand- 
 hiller from Georgia or North Carolina cannot come to 
 Massachusetts and eject Mr. Webster from his Marsh- 
 field farm without being compelled to submit the 
 question of title to a jury. But suppose Congress 
 should say, in effect, that any one of the seventeen 
 thousand postmasters in the United States might be 
 brought into Massachusetts, (and, among so numerous 
 a body, it is no libel to say there are some reckless 
 men,) and that the said sand-hiller might go before the 
 said imported postmaster, and after proof " to his sat 
 isfaction," " either by oral testimony or by affidavit," 
 an affidavit, be it remembered, taken any where in 
 the United States, then the claimant shall be put 
 into immediate possession of the said farm, with a 
 right to recover costs ; and suppose Mr. Webster should 
 spurn the authority of this illegitimate court, and de 
 mand an observance of the ancient forms of law, and 
 a trial by jury under the seventh amendment; then 
 the claimant has only to borrow Mr. Webster s own 
 words, and say, " This is not a suit at the common 
 law : " suppose all this, I say, and I would then ask 
 if such a proceeding would be satisfactory to the last- 
 named gentleman ? The common sense of mankind 
 is authority good enough to answer such a question ; 
 but we have high legal authority in addition. 
 
 In Baker vs. Riddle, Mr. Justice Baldwin, one of 
 
tlic judges of the supreme court of (lie United States, 
 hold that it was not in the power of Congress to take 
 away the right of trial hy jury, secured by the seventh 
 amendment, either, " 1. By an organization of the 
 courts in such a manner as not to secure it to suitors ; " 
 or, "2. By Authorizing the courts to exercise, or 
 their assumption of, equity or admiralty jurisdiction 
 over cases at law." * This amendment," says he, 
 " preserves the right of jury trial against any infringe 
 ment by any department of the government." Bald 
 win s Rep. 404. 
 
 Now, what was Mr. Butler s bill but "a new organ 
 ization of the courts," or, rather, a new creation of some 
 twenty thousand courts, " in such a manner as not to 
 secure [the right of trial by jury] to suitors ? " It was, 
 indeed, a violation of both of the principles laid down 
 by Judge Baldwin. It was the creation of tribunals 
 unknown to the common law. and authorizing those 
 tribunals to decide upon rights not belonging to either 
 "equity or admiralty jurisdiction." 
 
 In this connection, I will refer to the case of Lee vs. 
 Lee. 8 Petcrs s Rep. 44. 
 
 By act of Congress of April 2. 1816, it was declared 
 that no cause should be removed from the circuit court 
 of the District of Columbia to the supreme court by 
 appeal or writ of error, " unless the matter in dispute 
 shall be of the value of one thousand dollars or up 
 wards." The plaintiffs in error were claimed as slaves. 
 Their petition for freedom in the court below had been 
 decided against them ; and from this decision they ap 
 pealed. The defendant in error took the objection 
 that they, their bodies and souls, were not worth 
 one thousand dollars, and therefore that they had no 
 right to appeal. But the court said, 
 
 " The matter in dispute, in this case, is the freedom of the 
 petitioners. The judgment of the court below is against their 
 claims to freedom ; the matter in dispute is, therefore, to the 
 
304 
 
 plaintiffs in error, the value of their freedom, and this is not 
 susceptible of a pecuniary valuation. Had the judgment been 
 in favor of the petitioners, and the writ of error brought by 
 the party claiming to be the owner, the value of the slaves as 
 property would have been the matter in dispute, and affidavits 
 might be admitted to ascertain such value. m But affidavits es 
 timating the value of freedom are entirely inadmissible ; and 
 no doubt is entertained of the jurisdiction of the court." 
 
 Now, if the supreme court of the United States, in 
 construing a law, felt constrained by their oaths to hold 
 the freedom of a man, of any man, though he might 
 be a drivelling idiot, or stretched upon his death bed, 
 with only another hour to breathe, to be worth more 
 than a thousand dollars, how can a senator of the 
 United States say, that in passing a law, under which 
 human liberty may be retained or lost, he is not bound 
 at least by the " spirit " of the constitution, if not by 
 its letter, to hold that human liberty to be of greater 
 value than twenty dollars, and therefore to provide the 
 trial by jury for its protection ? What can prove more 
 strikingly that Mr. Webster violates the whole " spirit " 
 of the constitution, when the frame rs and ratifiers of 
 this amendment covenanted for and decreed the trial 
 by jury, for such a paltry sum of money ; and when 
 the judges of the supreme court held human liberty to 
 be worth more than any nameable sum of money, while 
 he regards it as a thing to be disposed of by any corrupt 
 postmaster, which any corrupt administration may cor 
 ruptly appoint. Yet he says, " Nothing can be more 
 false than that a jury trial is demanded in cases of this 
 kind by the constitution, either in its letter, or in its 
 spirit." 
 
 I wish I could find, or felt at liberty to coin some 
 milder word ; but for want of a better, I must say 
 that Mr. Webster seems to me, throughout this whole 
 matter, to dogmatize. He makes strong assertions 
 without offering even weak reasons. Of this character 
 
305 
 
 was his annunciation of the discovery of a new law, 
 
 "the law of physical geography," which was to 
 suspend moral agency, and take from man his power 
 to commit crime against his brother ; as though in as 
 cending hill-sides, freedom and slavery lie in different 
 atmospherical strata, and are bounded by each other im 
 passably ; as though there were any mountain so " ex 
 ceeding high," to whose top even Jesus Christ could 
 go, that Satan could not go there to* tempt him. This 
 does not strike the common mind like a true discovery ; 
 
 like the law of gravitation, for instance, discovered 
 by Newton, or the existence of the planet Neptune, by 
 Leverrier. It is rather like that earliest pretended dis 
 covery on record, which was designed to seduce, and 
 did seduce, the first parents of us all. Ye may eat of 
 the forbidden tree, for ye shall NOT surely die. So Mr. 
 Webster says, Let slaves be driven in coffles, or car 
 ried in ships holds to the new territories ; they cannot 
 live there. Will not the results of the two experi 
 ments bear a lively analogy to each other, and be 
 likely to reflect similar credit upon their authors? 
 
 So, too, when he tore some of the brightest pages 
 from the New Testament, by proclaiming that " there 
 is to be found no injunction against that relation [of 
 slavery] between man and man, in the teachings of the 
 gospel of Jesus Christ, or of any of his apostles"! 
 Upon how many Christian hearts did this sentiment 
 fall like an anathema against all truth. He does not 
 say any express injunction, but "no injunction; " 
 none of any kind. No positive injunction against 
 slavery in the New Testament! a book designed to 
 regulate our life and condition for two worlds ; yet, 
 altogether, not so large as many a congressional report ; 
 less voluminous than the ordinances of many of our 
 city governments : a book, therefore, which, from 
 the necessity of the case, must deal with great and 
 immortal principles, and could not descend into 
 26* 
 
306 
 
 specification and detail ; and because such a book as 
 this contains no express injunction against slavery, 
 therefore slavery is not forbidden by it, but has the 
 implied approval of its silence ! Surely, never was 
 there a more sinister, unsound, unchristian argument 
 uttered by infidel or pagan. Is there any express in 
 junction " in the teachings of the gospel of Jesus 
 Christ, or of any of his apostles," commanding us to 
 declare the African slave trade piracy ? Is there any 
 express injunction "in the teachings of the gospel of 
 Jesus Christ, or of any of his apostles," against can 
 nibalism ? Do they any where say, " Ye shall not eat 
 one another ? " Yet what enormity and flagitiousness 
 would it be to infer, that, therefore, men and women 
 may turn ogres and ogresses, and eat human flesh as 
 they do mutton and sirloin. The inference in the 
 latter case is every whit as warrantable and as sound, 
 as in the former. Yet I consider that this theological 
 argument does not violate the " spirit " of the gospel, 
 any more than his constitutional argument violates the 
 " spirit " of the constitution. John Wesley, who had 
 lived amid slavery, denominates it the " sum of all 
 villanies," and if Christ came into this world and left 
 it, without permeating and saturating all his teachings 
 with injunctions against the injustice, cruelty, pride, 
 avarice, lust, love of domination, and love of adulation, 
 which are the inseparable accompaniments of slavery, 
 then I think the Christian world will cry out, that so 
 far as this life is concerned, his mission was substan 
 tially fruitless. 
 
 " O, star-eyed Science ! hast thou wandered there, 
 To bring us back these tidings of despair ? " 
 
 So, if the constitution of the United States contains 
 not even any implied security for the liberty of all the 
 colored population in the free states and territories, and 
 for the trial by jury as the only adequate means of 
 
307 
 
 securing that liberty, then would it not be more credit 
 able to its framers never to have put their signatures 
 to it? 
 
 Let me here compare the relative value of life or 
 property on the one side, with liberty on the other, and 
 see what inference must be drawn in favor of affording 
 as great a protection to the latter as to the former. 
 
 The fifth article of amendment declares that " no 
 person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or prop 
 erty, without due process of law." The commenta 
 tors say that these words, " due process of law," are 
 the equivalent of the phrase " the law of the land," in 
 the 2 l .)tli chapter of Magna Charta ; and hence that 
 this clause in effect affirms the right of trial accord 
 ing to the process and proceedings of the common 
 law;" that is, by jury. (See Story s Comm. 661 ; 2 
 lust. 50, 51; 2 Kent s Comm. 10; 1 Tucker s Black. 
 App. 304.) 
 
 Now, consider that the general right of trial by 
 jury, in cases of life, was expressly secured by the 
 constitution as originally adopted ; that, somewhat 
 more than three years afterwards, the same right- was 
 expressly secured for property, in suits at common law, 
 whenever the value in controversy should exceed 
 twenty dollars ; and then say whether there is not the 
 strongest implication in favor of the same right, in 
 cases of human liberty, which is so much more pre 
 cious than life and property combined. I do not here 
 say it is an implication that binds the courts in admin 
 istering a law. That is not the point under discussion. 
 But is it not an implication that binds the legislator, so 
 that when legislating on the subject, he cannot con 
 sciously and wilfully abandon it without infidelity to 
 his oath ? I do not believe that many men from the 
 free states will ever be found in Congress who will not 
 take this view of the subject. Indeed, not a few of 
 the best lawvers and jurists have held that the 
 
308 
 
 implication binds the courts ; and therefore that the 
 statute of 1793 is unconstitutional.* 
 
 Mr. Webster treats the two cases, of fugitives from 
 justice and fugitives from service, alike ; although one 
 can almost adopt his own language, and say that 
 " nothing is more false " than that they are alike. In 
 regard to the first class, the constitution says, a person 
 11 charged " with treason, &c. ; but in regard to the 
 second class, it says no person " held" &c. 
 
 According to the obvious intent of this language, 
 the alleged fugitive must be proved to be held, bound, 
 obligated. It is not enough that he be charged to be 
 " held " to service, though it is enough that a man be 
 " charged " with crime. To bring the first case within 
 the legal category of the second, its terms should be, 
 " a person guilty of treason," &c., shall be delivered 
 np. Were such the phraseology, would any one doubt 
 that proof of guilt should precede delivery, and that 
 there could be no other foundation for it ? 
 
 Mr. Webster says, "perhaps the only insuperable 
 difficulty" to a trial by a jury, "has been created by 
 the states themselves." Suppose this to be so, I would 
 ask whose duty is it to act first, that of Congress to 
 provide the trial, or that of the states to remove the 
 impediment? Shall the states repeal their laws first, 
 and leave the liberty of the citizens in jeopardy ; or 
 shall not Congress legislate first, and secure that lib 
 erty ? Which is of the greater importance, that the 
 owner should recover his slave, or that the citizen 
 should retain his freedom? I answer according to the 
 language which the criminal law uses respecting guilt 
 and innocence, that it is better that nine hundred and 
 ninety-nine, that is, an indefinite number of slaves 
 should escape, than that one free man should be deliv 
 ered into bondage. 
 
 * See an elaborate opinion of Chancellor Walworth, 14 Wend. 507, 
 Jack vs. Martin. 
 
309 
 
 Besides, I think no state legislated on the subject for 
 the protection of its own citizens, until 1842. This 
 was after Congress had neglected, for more than fifty 
 years, to do its duty. Why, then, should Mr. Webster 
 cast the blame upon the states which forbore for more 
 than fifty years to act protectively for themselves, when 
 Congress, of which he had been a leading member for 
 nearly forty years, had endangered, instead of securing, 
 the liberty of their citizens? When he said that 
 " every member of every northern legislature is bound 
 by oath to support the constitution of the United 
 States," why did not the retort suddenly rise to his 
 mind that he was bound by oath not less than they; 
 and that his oath embraced the men that owned free 
 dom, not less than the men that owned slaves ? Be 
 sides, he charges only a part of the free states with 
 being guilty of unjust legislation. Shall the innocent 
 states suffer because of the others offence ? Rather 
 shall not Congress first supply the means of protection 
 to the citizens of all ? 
 
 It seems to me, too, that the fourth amendment has 
 an important " bearing upon the subject" because it 
 shows that the master-thought of our fathers, in form 
 ing the constitution, was to secure the liberties of the 
 citizen. It provides against " unreasonable seizures " 
 of " persons." I suppose the main idea of this amend 
 ment was to secure the citizen against " unreasonable 
 seizure," even in cases where he should afterwards, 
 and at some time, be brought to trial according to the 
 forms of the common law. But what " seizure " can 
 be more u unreasonable," than one whose object is, 
 not an ultimate trial, but bondage forever, without 
 trial ? Can mortal imagination conceive of any seiz 
 ure less entitled than this to be called " reasonable ? " 
 With what indignation did our fathers frown because 
 they were transported beyond seas to be tried ; yet, by 
 our present law, and by the law which Mr. Webster 
 
310 
 
 promises to support, a free man may be transported, if 
 not beyond seas, at least beyond lands, and beyond 
 states, not to be tried, but to be held in slavery forever 
 without trial. If a free citizen of Massachusetts 
 should be seized and plunged into a Massachusetts 
 prison, to be kept there for life ; and his children, as a 
 consequence of his fate, were put into the same, or 
 into other prisons, as fast as they were born, to be also 
 kept for life ; and such was the original object and 
 avowed purpose of the seizure, would not this conflict 
 a little with the " spirit " of the fourth amendment? 
 And does this proceeding conflict with this "spirit" 
 any the less, because the prison is a southern rice 
 swamp, or cotton field, where the nearest door or out 
 let of escape is more than a hundred miles from the 
 spot of confinement ? In common law actions, trover, 
 detinue, replevin, &c., &c., the trial is to be in the 
 vicinage, except there is some overpowering reason for 
 changing the venue, or place of trial. But here is a 
 transfer of the party, not for a trial, but for evading a 
 trial. 
 
 I submit, then, to the public, that here are three 
 provisions of the constitution, each one of which does 
 have "a bearing on the subject" Each strengthens 
 the other. They form a triple implication, if not a 
 trinoda necessitas, which no man, however powerful 
 he may be, can break. 
 
 The argument which the lawyers call ab inconveni- 
 enti, the argument from inconvenience, has been 
 pressed into the service of the slaveholder to endanger 
 the liberties of the citizen. I answer, there are two sides 
 to this argument ; nor was it wise in the slaveholder, or 
 his northern friends, to suggest it. It seems to me quite 
 as inconvenient fora free man to lose his liberty, as for 
 a slaveholder to lose his slave. If a southern man 
 sues a northern one for the value of a bale of cotton 
 or a barrel of rice, must not the plaintiff await the 
 
311 
 
 next term of the court before he can enter his action, 
 abide by the rules of the court respecting continu 
 ances, and submit to the order of business in taking 
 his turn before a jury ? To obviate this inconven 
 ience, has any legislature or any court ever proposed 
 to set aside or annul, at once, all the securities by 
 which we hold property arid life ? And how stands 
 the question respecting evidence or proof? If difficult 
 for a slave claimant, from Texas, to prove title to his 
 slave in Massachusetts, how infinitely more difficult 
 for a citizen of Massachusetts to prove title to himself 
 in Texas. But Mr. Webster says there are indepen 
 dent courts at the south, "always open and ready to 
 receive and decide upon petitions or applications for 
 freedom." Suppose this to be true ; how is a man or 
 a woman, whose master knows that he or she is free, 
 to get to the courts ? Mr. Webster seems to think 
 that as soon as a kidnapping slave dealer shall trans 
 port his human prey to the south, he will at once take 
 him to, or allow him to go before a court of justice, or 
 will sell him to some brother Samaritan who will 
 do so. Does not every body know that any man, who 
 is capable of the enormous guilt of seizing or buying 
 a freeman, will make it impossible for that freeman to 
 regain his birthright ? 
 
 Mr. Webster says, persuasively, that the alleged 
 slave " is only remitted, for inquiry into his rights, to 
 the state from Avhich he fled." But suppose he had 
 never "fled," but was demeaning himself as a peace 
 able citizen, under the solemnly pledged protection of 
 the government, on the soil where he was born ! This 
 is the false idea that underlies the whole of Mr. Web 
 ster s seductive letter, that under such a bill as Mr. 
 Butler s, nobody but a slave would ever be arrested. 
 
 I have no doubt that what Mr. Webster says about 
 southern courts being " fair and upright," is very gen 
 erally and extensively true : but I have had a little 
 
312 
 
 personal knowledge of southern courts, arid I have no 
 hesitation in saying that there has been one, at least, 
 before which, if a slave were suing for his freedom, 
 and any popular clamor against him should exist, he 
 would have no more hope of obtaining his liberty 
 through the "fairness" of the court, than, if thrown 
 overboard in the middle of the Atlantic ocean, lie 
 would have of saving his life by swimming ashore. 
 
 Mr. Webster holds Massachusetts up to the ridicule 
 of the world, because, as he says, she " grows fervid 
 on Pennsylvania wrongs ; " and he has deemed it his 
 duty to inquire how many seizures of fugitive slaves 
 have occurred in New England within our time. Is 
 this the Christian standard by which to estimate the 
 evil of encroachments upon the most sacred rights of 
 men ? If I repose in contentment and indifference, 
 because my own section, or state, or county, is as yet 
 but a partial sufferer, why should I not continue con 
 tented and indifferent while I myself am safe ? In 
 providing for the liberties of the citizen, under a com 
 mon government, I think Massachusetts worthy of all 
 honor and not of ridicule, because she does " grow 
 fervid on Pennsylvania wrongs," and on the wrongs 
 of an entire race, whether in Pennsylvania or Califor 
 nia, or any where within the boundaries of our own 
 country. I see no reason why my sympathies as a 
 man, or the obligations of my oath as an officer, in re 
 gard to the nearer or the remoter states, should be in 
 versely as the squares of the distances. Even with 
 regard to foreign countries, did Mr. Webster think so, 
 in those better days, when his eloquent appeal for op 
 pressed and bleeding Greece roused the nation, like the 
 voice of a clarion. Did Mr. Webster deem it neces 
 sary to make inquisitions through all the New England 
 States, to learn how many Hungarian patriots they had 
 seen shot at the tap of drum, or how many noble Hun 
 garian women had been stripped and whipped in their 
 
313 
 
 market places, before he thrilled the heart of the na 
 tion at the wrongs of Kossuth and his compatriots, 
 and invoked the execrations of the world upon the 
 Austrian and Russian despots ? I see no difference 
 between these cases, which is not in favor of our home 
 interests, of our own domestic rights, except the differ 
 ence of their bearings upon partisan politics and pres 
 idential rivalries. Mr. Webster quotes and commends 
 Mr. Hissell, who said that those southern states which 
 had suffered the least from loss of slaves, made the 
 greatest clamor. That statement of a fact was well 
 put by Mr. Bissell ; but was it well applied by Mr. 
 Webster ? In the statement, it was a question as to 
 the loss of property. In the application, it is a ques 
 tion as to the loss of liberty. The latter is not, there 
 fore, the " counterpart " of the former. Blindness to 
 the distinction between the value and the principle of 
 property, and the value and the principle of liberty, 
 could alone have permitted the comparison. 
 
 But I have extended this communication greatly be 
 yond my original purpose. Several other topics con 
 tained in Mr. Webster s speech, or growing out of what 
 has since happened in relation to it, and hardly less 
 important than those already considered, must await 
 another opportunity for discussion ; unless, indeed, 
 some disposal of -the question shall render further dis 
 cussion unnecessary. 
 
 I am not unmindful of the position in which I stand. 
 I am not unaware that circumstances have placed me 
 in an antagonist relation to a man whose vast powers 
 of intellect the world has long so vividly enjoyed and 
 so profoundly admired. I well know that a personal 
 contest between us seems unequal, far more than did 
 the impending combat between the Hebrew stripling 
 and that champion of the Philistines who had a hel 
 met of brass upon his head, and greaves of brass upon 
 his legs, and the staff of whose spear was like a weav- 
 27 
 
314 
 
 er s beam. But the contest is not between us. It is 
 between truth and error ; and just so certain as the 
 spirit of Good will prevail over the spirit of Evil, just 
 so certain will Truth ultimately triumph. In such a 
 case as this, there is one point of view in which Mr. 
 Webster is a desirable antagonist ; for the thick and 
 far-beaming points of light which he has left all along 
 his former course of life, cannot fail to expose, to all 
 eyes but his own, the devious path into which he has 
 now wandered. 
 
 HORACE MANN. 
 WASHINGTON, June 6, 1850. 
 
 Several editions of the preceding Letters having been 
 exhausted, another was printed, under date of July 8, 1850, 
 with Notes. 
 
315 
 
 NOTES 
 
 TO THE PRECEDING LETTERS. 
 
 I HAD hoped not to be required to say more on the subject 
 discussed in the above Letters ; but, during the last week, 
 Mr. Webster has issued, in a pamphlet form, a speech made 
 by him in the Senate on the 17th ult., accompanied by his 
 letter, dated on the same day, to some gentlemen on the 
 Kennebec River. In this letter, Mr. Webster has referred to 
 me again ; and I regret exceedingly to say, that he seems to 
 have given himself full license to depart from all the rules of 
 courtesy belonging to a gentleman, and to disobey the obliga 
 tions of truth belonging to a man. 
 
 That I may not be supposed to make any over-statement 
 respecting the character of Mr. Webster s language towards 
 me, as expressed in this letter, I quote a specimen or two 
 from it. 
 
 " A pamphlet has been put into circulation," says he, referring to 
 the first of the above two letters, " in which it is said that my remark 
 is undertaking to settle by mountains and rivers, and not by the Ten 
 Commandments, the question of human duty. Cease to transcribe, 
 it adds, upon the statute book what our wisest and best men believed 
 to be the will of God, in regard to our wordly affairs, and the pas 
 sions which we think appropriate to devils will soon take possession 
 of society. " He then adds, " One hardly knows which most to 
 contemn, the nonsense or the dishonesty of such commentaries on 
 another s words. I know no passion more appropriate to devils than 
 the passion for gross misrepresentation and libel," &c., &c. 
 
 The angry and reproachful language, in which Mr. Web 
 ster has here indulged himself, releases me from all further 
 obligation to treat him with personal regard. Yet I do not 
 mean to avail myself of this release. Under our present 
 relations, however, I do feel at liberty to use considerable 
 plainness of speech. 
 
 1. Let me first refer to a misrepresentation by Mr. Web 
 ster of a plain matter of fact. In professing to quote, from 
 
316 
 
 his 7th of March speech, a passage on which I had made a 
 criticism, he alters the passage so as to evade the criticism, 
 and then condemns me for making it. The original passage 
 in his speech read as follows : " I would not take pains to 
 reaffirm an ordinance of Nature, nor to reenact the will of 
 God." This was the sentiment I criticized. It appears in 
 these words in the National Intelligencer, in the Washington 
 Union, in the Republic, in the Globe, and in the pamphlet 
 edition of his speech, which he dedicated to the people of 
 Massachusetts. But in the Kennebec letter, in order to elude 
 the point of my criticism, he has interpolated a word into the 
 sentence, which changes its whole meaning. Affirming that 
 he quotes himself, he says, "I would not take pains USE 
 LESSLY to reaffirm an ordinance of Nature, or to reenact the 
 will of God." By foisting in the word which I have under 
 scored, he changes the entire character of the sentiment ad 
 vanced. As now stated, nobody can dissent from it ; for who 
 would announce, in a distinct proposition, that he would use 
 lessly do any thing ? But, as originally stated, nobody can 
 assent to it. This alteration of his language, after my criti 
 cism upon it was made, is not only unjust towards me, but it 
 contains a latent confession that he knew he was wrong, but 
 thought this surreptitious changing of his doctrine to be a less 
 evil than a frank acknowledgment of his error. Had he 
 truly quoted the original false sentiment, the world would 
 have seen that I was right ; but, in his dilemma, he falsely 
 interpolated a true sentiment, not only to evade the force 
 of my criticism upon him, but to make occasion for an un 
 founded imputation against me. 
 
 I shall not undertake to define or describe a proceeding like 
 this in words of my own. But I may be permitted, without 
 discourtesy, to use a sentiment advanced by himself, and 
 leave its application to be made by its author. It is in the 
 same connection that Mr. Webster makes the following re 
 mark : " I know no passion more appropriate to devils than 
 the passion for gross misrepresentation and libel." Can any 
 mortal specify a grosser instance of " gross misrepresentation 
 and libel" than when one of the parties to a public discussion 
 has uttered an obnoxious sentiment, and when this sentiment 
 has met with very general reprobation, and when, in the 
 progress of the discussion, the guilty party professes to re- 
 
317 
 
 state the case, that he should then expunge the false sentiment 
 he originally advanced, foist a trite and common-place one in 
 its stead, then apply the criticism made on the suppressed 
 sentiment to the forged one, and proceed to condemn his 
 critic for " nonsense " or " dishonesty " 1 Is it not as palpa 
 ble a case of alteration, as to change the date of a note of 
 hand in order to take it out of the statute of limitations, or to 
 obliterate the description of the premises in a deed, and put a 
 more valuable estate in its place ? This proceeding is worse, 
 if possible, than the former " misrepresentation and libel " of 
 my argument and myself, contained in the Newburyport 
 letter. But the subject is painful, and I leave it. 
 
 2. Following up his attack upon me, Mr. Webster proceeds 
 to say : 
 
 " In classical times, there was a set of small but rapacious critics, 
 denominated captatores verborum, who snatched and caught at partic 
 ular expressions ; expended their strength on the disjecta membra of 
 language ; birds of rapine which preyed on words and syllables, and 
 gorged themselves with feeding on the garbage of phrases, chopped, 
 dislocated, and torn asunder by themselves, as flesh and limbs are by 
 the claws of unclean birds." 
 
 May I most respectfully ask Mr. Webster on what au 
 thority he says there was, " in classical times," any such 
 44 set " of " small but rapacious critics," as he here speaks of 
 or exemplifies? In my ignorance, I have always sup 
 posed the " captator " of classical times, to be a kind of 
 "genius" the very opposite of what Mr. Webster describes. 
 Horace, Juvenal, and Livy represent him as a selfish, syco 
 phantic gift-seeker, or fortune-hunter ; not a twister, torturer, 
 or interpolator, even, of words and phrases. If captator 
 meant a cavilling, cynical critic, then captatrix should mean 
 a scold, a vixen, or virago ; but its true meaning was 4< a 
 fawning gossip," or " mean flatterer." 
 
 No mistake could well be greater than that the old capta 
 tores " expended their strength on the disjecta membra of 
 language," or " gorged themselves with the garbage of 
 phrases, chopped, dislocated, and torn asunder, by them 
 selves." On the contraiy, they were " gentle as a sucking 
 dove." The accompanying words descriptive of the " cap 
 tator " were not torvc, ringi, and so forth ; but collide, blande, 
 or Wandicule. There was nothing like the harpy about them, 
 27* 
 
318 
 
 as Mr. Webster seems to suppose, in this remarkable descrip 
 tion of his, which is as rhetorically unsavory as it is classi 
 cally untrue. 
 
 So far from there being any "set" of critics, in classic 
 times, denominated and known as captatores verborum, I 
 doubt whether even the abstract noun " captatio " occurs 
 half a dozen times, in all the classics, in connection with the 
 genitive of his pretended appellation. He could hardly have 
 made a greater or more ludicrous mistake. It is exceedingly 
 to be regretted, after the numerous instances we have lately 
 had of Mr. Webster s bad logic, and bad humanity, and bad 
 discoveries of natural law, that he should now offend the 
 classical taste of the country, and bring discredit upon the 
 New England colleges, by his bad Latin. This whole anti- 
 classical paragraph about " disjecta membra" and " chop 
 ping," and " gorging," and " uncleanness," is an unclean 
 conception of his own ; not a pure but an impure invention, 
 and seems more epigastric than intellectual in its origin.* 
 
 3. I will now give a specimen or two of Mr. Webster s 
 errors in geography, and of his false citation of authorities. 
 It will then be seen that his geographical statements are 
 worthy to be placed side by side with his classical. In the 
 same letter, he says the extent of New Mexico, north and 
 south, on the line of the Rio Grande, " can hardly be less 
 than a thousand miles." This makes a little more than 
 fourteen degrees of latitude. Now, as its northern boundary 
 is in 42, its southern must be as low as 28. This is four 
 degrees below El Paso del Norte. Yet Mr. Webster, on the 
 
 * The above criticism on Mr. Webster s latinity aroused many 
 self-supposed scholars, or at least fair proficients in the Latin gram 
 mar, to take up the pen in his defence. But unluckily, the quills 
 they seized were plucked, not from the Roman eagle, but from the 
 wings of some of those " unclean birds," to which Mr. Webster had 
 introduced them. Among the most conspicuous of these defenders of 
 Mr. Webster s ludicrous blunder, was Professor Felton, of Harvard 
 College. If any person wishes to see one of the most neat, elegant, 
 and at the same time thorough cases of deplumation, any where to be 
 found in literary history, in which an individual who strutted on to 
 the stage as a peacock, was soon obliged to leave it as a daw, he has 
 only to read Dr. Beck s articles in " The Literary World," in which 
 the fabricated quotation of Mr. Webster, and Professor Felton s de 
 fence of it, are shown to be exceedingly bad as Latin, and much worse 
 us logic. 
 
319 
 
 13th of June last, declared himself in favor of fixing the 
 northern boundary of Texas at or near El Paso, and more 
 than four degrees of latitude north of what he here says is 
 the southern boundary of New Mexico. He also supported 
 that part of the compromise bill which proposes to give Texas, 
 not only these four degrees of latitude, but millions of money 
 also, for taking what, as he now says, belongs to New Mexico 
 and the United States. How can these views stand together ? 
 
 In his 7th of March speech, Mr. Webster declared it to be 
 a natural impossibility that African slavery could ever exist 
 " in California or New Mexico." (p. 42.) He now defines 
 the southern boundary of New Mexico. It can hardly be less, 
 says he, than " a thousand miles " from the forty-second de 
 gree of north latitude. This places it four degrees south of 
 El Paso. He is in favor of that part of the bill which gives 
 these four degrees to Texas. According to him, therefore, 
 should Texas get possession of these four degrees of what 
 is now New Mexican territory, slavery will exist, as far up 
 as the old southern boundary line of New Mexico, by vir 
 tue of the laws of Texas, but beyond this line, although within 
 the bounds of Texas, it will not exist, because forbidden by 
 the " will of God." Hence the extraordinary spectacle will 
 be exhibited, of the existence of slavery coming plump up to 
 the south side of an imaginary line, by the laws of Texas, 
 while on the north side of the said imaginary line, its existence 
 will be cut square off by the " will of God," although both 
 sides are within the same political jurisdiction. This will be 
 a miracle, compared with which the supposed miraculous 
 preservation of the Jewish feature and complexion, for two 
 thousand years, will be unworthy to be mentioned. It re 
 mains to be seen, however, whether this miracle will be vouch 
 safed to Mr. Webster, as a proof of the divine favor. 
 
 On the 5th of June, Mr. Webster voted against incorporat 
 ing the " Proviso" into the governments for New Mexico and 
 Utah, because slavery was already prohibited there by 
 " Asiatic scenery " and the law of " physical geography/ 
 On the next day, too, he voted against the following amend 
 ment, offered by Mr. Walker : " And that peon servitude is 
 forever abolished and prohibited." Whether he so voted be 
 cause this species of slavery, (which is an existing institution 
 at the present time,) was prohibited by " scenery " and 
 " geography," does not appear. 
 
320 
 
 But on the 17th of June, Mr. Webster, in the Senate, sug 
 gested a qualification of his doctrine as laid down on the 7th 
 of March, viz., that " every foot of territory of the United 
 States has a fixed character for slavery." An uncertainty as 
 to the boundary line between New Mexico and Texas, gave 
 rise to this qualification. u Let me say to gentlemen," said 
 Mr. Webster, " that if any portion which they or I do not be 
 lieve to be Texas, should be considered to become Texas, 
 then, so far, that qualification of my remark is applicable." 
 (Cong. Globe, 31st Cong., 1st session, p. 1239.) That is, if 
 the compromise bill should so establish the boundary line be 
 tween New Mexico and Texas, as that " any portion [of New 
 Mexico] which they or I [other gentlemen or Mr. Webster,] 
 do not believe to be Texas, should be considered to become 
 Texas," then as Texan territory, it might lose its " fixed 
 character," and become slave territory, notwithstanding the 
 " ordinance of Nature " and the " will of God," to the con 
 trary. But, strange to say, on this same 17th of June, the 
 Kennebec letter was written, which carries the southern 
 boundary of Mexico, on the east side of the Rio Grande, four 
 degrees below El Paso, and, of course, includes all that re 
 gion within New Mexico, and therefore within the "ordinance 
 of Nature " and the " will of God ! " So that, after all, he 
 acknowledges that the " ordinance of Nature " and the " will 
 of God," as he expounds them, may be overridden by the 
 laws of Texas ; in which view he is undoubtedly right. 
 
 But his citation of authorities is among the most surprising 
 of all his aberrations from fact. Fie first quotes Major 
 Gaines, who, as he says, " traversed a part of this country 
 during the Mexican war." By " this country," I suppose he 
 means New Mexico. If he does not mean New Mexico, then 
 the citation has no relation to the subject. If he does mean 
 New Mexico, then he asserts what is untrue. Major Gaines 
 did not go within four or five hundred miles of New Mexico 
 during the war ; and if the quotation from him was designed 
 to create the belief that, in what Major Gaines said, he was 
 speaking of New Mexico, it was as gross an imposition as 
 could well be made. 
 
 The next citation is from Colonel Hardin. Two sentences 
 are taken. I transcribe the first with Mr. Webster s italics. 
 
321 
 
 " The whole country is miserably watered; large districts have no water 
 at all. The streams are small, and at great distances apart. One day 
 we marched on the road from Monclova to Parras, thirty-five miles, 
 without icater ; a pretty severe day s march for infantry." 
 
 And what country does this describe ? 
 
 " From Monclova to Parras, thirty-five miles " ! says 
 Colonel Hardin. And where is Monclova ? Away down 
 south, in Coahuila, hundreds of miles from any part of New 
 Mexico. 
 
 I submit the following notes, one from the colonel of the 
 regiment in which Mr. Gaines was a major ; and the other 
 from a major in the regiment of which Mr. Hardin was colonel. 
 Both letters are from gentlemen who are now members of 
 Congress. 
 
 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, June 27, 1850. 
 
 SIR ; In reply to your note of this date, I state that Major Gaines 
 did not, during the Mexican war, travel though any part of New 
 Mexico. Major Gaines entered Mexico at Camargo, on the Rio 
 Grande ; was engaged near Saltillo, until he was captured and taken 
 to the city of Mexico ; and thence he returned to the United States 
 by the way of Vera Cruz. 
 I am, sir, very respectfully, &c., HUMPHREY MARSHALL. 
 
 P. S. In reply to your verbal inquiry, whether Colonel Hardin was 
 in New Mexico, I state, that Colonel Hardin was attached to General 
 Wool s command, and passed from San Antonio de Bexar, by the 
 Presidio de Rio Grande, Monclova, and Parras, to Saltillo ; so that he 
 did not enter New Mexico. H. M. 
 
 Hon. H. MANN. 
 
 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, June 23, 1850. 
 
 HON. H. MANN. SIR; In reply to your note of this date, I have 
 the honor to say, that I was an officer of the first regiment, Illinois 
 volunteers, commanded by Colonel J. J. Hardin, during the Mexican 
 war, and that during the time Colonel Hardin was in command of the 
 regiment he was not in New Mexico. His nearest point to New 
 Mexico was Monclova or Parras, which was several hundred miles 
 distant. In my opinion, Colonel Hardin was never in New Mexico ; 
 he certainly was not in that country during the Mexican war. 
 
 Respectfully, W. A. RICHARDSON. 
 
 Now what possible excuse can be offered for these mis 
 leading citations ? What information would be given of the 
 soil of the Genesee valley of New York, by proving the con 
 dition of the sands of Cape Cod ? 
 
 Mr. Webster next quotes, for the second time, the letter of 
 Hugh N. Smith, Esq. This letter, if taken by itself, would 
 render it improbable, in Mr. Smith s opinion, that slavery 
 
322 
 
 would go into Now Mexico ; but it by no means proves the 
 physical impossibility of its existence there. But what differ 
 ent language has Mr. Smith since held in his address to his 
 constituents in New Mexico itself? I will quote a few pas 
 sages from this address to show its general drift and intent. 
 
 " Your state, [New Mexico,] is threatened with dismemberment, and 
 what is yet more fatal, the introduction of slavery into its bosom." (p. 1.) 
 
 " The most formidable part of this combination against you is that 
 which originates in the slave interest. It not only rallies against you 
 the whole slaveholding south, but all the influence of selfish, venal, 
 and ambitious men in the north, looking to speculations in discredited 
 bonds and land jobbing, or to the political honors which the combined vote 
 of the south may promise." (p. 2.) 
 
 " The doctrine of the slaveholding states, in regard to their domes 
 tic institutions, is non-intervention ; but with regard to yours, it is 
 instant intervention, to set at nought the prohibition of slavery, which 
 you brought with you into the Union," &c. Ib. 
 
 " I am myself a native of the section, [Mr. Smith is a Kentxickian,] 
 whose fate I deplore, and if my duty did not require, I would be the 
 
 last to advert to the malady that preys upon its life The 
 
 schemes of those who would bind you to the destiny of the slave 
 states, render it necessary that your representative should be excluded 
 from the halls of Congress." (p. 3.) 
 
 " You are left prostrate, that Texas may dismember and divide New 
 Mexico, and subject her to southern influence ; that negro slavery may be in 
 troduced into the remnant of territory that may not be appropriated to 
 Texas ; and, finally, that the region thus secured to southern policy may 
 become the stock on which to graft new conquests from Mexico" (p. 4.) 
 [These are Mr. Smith s italics.] 
 
 " The first step in this process is to supplant the fundamental mu 
 nicipal institutions brought by New Mexico with her into the TJnion, 
 by a territorial government, which, by omitting the inhibition against 
 slavery in the Congressional act, failing to reserve that contained in 
 the Mexican code, and preventing the people of the territory from 
 legislating upon the subject of slavery, and from reenacting the pro 
 hibitory clause, will unquestionably abolish all protections against 
 that institution ; and, indeed, more effectual legislation for the exten 
 sion of slavery into New Mexico could not be enacted." (p. 5.) 
 
 "The whole body of southern influence, now that mining is a 
 mania, would combine to pour an immense colony of slaves into New 
 Mexico. The consequence of this would be to level the whole popu 
 lation of New Mexico with the new caste brought into competition ; 
 and you, my Mexican fellow-citi/.ens, who till your own soil with your 
 own hands, would be compelled to fly your country, or be degraded 
 from your equality of freemen, forfeiting your hopes of rising to the 
 new elevation promised by your alliance with the great North Amer 
 ican republic, and living only to witness the ruin of all that renders 
 Hfe desirable." (p. 0.) 
 
323 
 
 This is what Mr. Smith says, when ho writes home to his 
 own people, who know all about their own country, and its 
 danger of being invaded by slavery. 
 
 Now, let the reader suppose himself to have read from Mr. 
 Smith s address, as much more of the same kind as the above, 
 and then say how far his evidence goes to sustain Mr. Web 
 ster s discovery, that slavery can never go into New Mexico. 
 Mr. Smith s address has been published for two months ; it 
 has been on the tables of members, published, and quoted 
 from in the newspapers, and yet Mr. Webster continues to 
 cite Mr. Smith as a witness in his favor. What influences 
 were used to induce Mr. Smith to withhold, in the letter to 
 Mr. Webster, the facts and views which he has so clearly 
 brought out in the letter to his constituents ? 
 
 The next and last citation is from an officer at Santa Fe. 
 No name is given. We are informed neither of the character 
 of the author nor of his means of information ; and if this 
 authority is as fallacious and deceptive as the preceding, it is 
 a great deal worse than nothing. It would be like the testi 
 mony sometimes offered in court, which ruins the cause and 
 dishonors the counsel. 
 
 4. In his Kennebec letter, Mr. Webster says, " I have 
 studied the geography of New Mexico diligently, having read 
 all that I could find in print, and inquired of many intelligent 
 persons, who have been in the country, traversed it, and be 
 come familiar with it." He sets forth his knowledge in this 
 confident tone, so that his impressions in favor of the natural 
 prohibition of slavery may be more readily received. Ac 
 cording to this statement, he must have read the letters of 
 Mr. James S. Calhoun, Indian agent at Santa Fe. communica 
 ted to Congress by the President, on the 23d of January last. 
 Speaking of the Navajoes, a tribe of 7,000 Indians, within the 
 limits of what it is proposed to include in New Mexico, Mr. 
 Calhoun says, that it is " not a rare instance for one individual 
 to possess 5,000 to 10,000 sheep, and 400 to 500 head of 
 other stock," (p. 184 ;) and that their country " is rich in its 
 valleys, rich in its fields of grain, and rich in its vegetables 
 and peach orchards." (p. 199.) " We encamped," says he, 
 " near extensive cornfields, belonging to the Navajoes." 
 (p. 197.) Their " soil is easy of cultivation, and capable of 
 sustaining nearly as many millions of inhabitants as they have 
 
thousands." (p. 202.) Look at this : A country owned by one 
 tribe capable, according to Mr. Calhoun, of sustaining nearly 
 7,000,000 inhabitants, and yet, as Mr. Webster avers, in 
 accessible to slavery, on account of its barrenness ! 
 
 Speaking of the Indians, (Pueblos,) on the Rio Grande, Mr. 
 Calhoun says, " These people can raise immense quantities 
 of corn and wheat, and have large herds of sheep and goats. 
 The grazing for cattle generally is superior." (p. 206.) Of 
 the more western Pueblos, he says, they have " an extent of 
 country nearly four hundred miles square " ; more than 
 twenty times as large as Massachusetts ; " they have rich 
 valleys to cultivate, grow quantities of corn and wheat, and 
 raise vast herds of horses, mules, sheep, and goats, all of 
 which may be immensely increased by properly stimulating 
 their industry, and instructing them in the agricultural arts." 
 (p. 215.) 
 
 I might cite much more from the same authority, to the 
 same effect ; but I do not refer to Mr. Calhoun so much for 
 the purpose of showing the agricultural capabilities of New 
 Mexico, as of asking why Mr. Webster did not quote from 
 this recent official work, which has been lying on the tables 
 of members for months, instead of quoting descriptions from 
 military officers respecting a country which he well knew 
 they had never seen ? 
 
 There is good reason to believe that there are wide tracts of 
 fertile land lying between the Sierra de los Mimbres and the 
 Sierra Nevada, on the east and west, and the 32d and 35th 
 degrees of latitude. The waters at the mouth of a river give 
 no doubtful indication respecting the country from which they 
 flow. If the volume be large, we know it must drain an ex 
 tensive region ; for the waters of a great river cannot be sup 
 plied from a narrow surface. So if the water be muddy, as 
 is said to be the case with that of the Colorado, it is proof 
 that it courses through a diluvial country. But however this 
 may be, all accounts concur in representing New Mexico to 
 be rich in mines ; and mines are the favorite sphere for 
 slavery, as the ocean is for commerce. 
 
 In his late speech in the Senate, Mr. Davis, of Massachu 
 setts, said, that however it might be with regard to employing 
 slaves in New Mexico for raising crops of corn or cotton, 
 there was still one purpose to which they might be applied, 
 
325 
 
 the most odious of all purposes, to raising crops from them 
 selves. From this " Southern Hive," the markets of Texas 
 and Louisiana might be supplied with " vigintial " crops of 
 human beings. It will be incumbent on Mr. \\ ebster to invent 
 some new " physical " law to meet this astute suggestion of 
 his colleague. " Asiatic scenery " will hardly answer his 
 purpose here. 
 
 Within the limits of the proposed territory of New Mexico, 
 it is said, on the authority of Humboldt, that that powerful and 
 comparatively civilized people, the Aztecs, once resided. Can 
 any person for a moment believe that the Aztecs ever grew 
 to opulence and power, in any such sterile and desolate region, 
 as Mr. Webster s " diligent reading 1 portrays? 
 
 But what must satisfy every man whose blindness is not of 
 the soul rather than of the senses, is the fact that the people 
 of New Mexico, in the constitution which they have just 
 framed, have embodied a prohibition of slavery in their fun 
 damental law. Had slavery been forbidden there by any 
 " Asiatic scenery," or by any " law of physical geography," 
 who should know it better than they ? They have had 
 slavery amongst them heretofore, and therefore they know it 
 can invade them again, and therefore they forbid it ; and in 
 the choice of senators to Congress under the new organiza 
 tion, should any candidate put forward the vagary, the phan 
 tasm, the fatuity, that slavery cannot exist among them, they 
 would doubtless deem him a less fit subject for the Senate of 
 the United States than for sanitary treatment. 
 
 How stands the evidence, then, on the question, whether 
 " California and New Mexico," from their geology, their ge 
 ography, or their Asiatic scenery, are inaccessible or not, to 
 the invasion of slavery ? It is well known that the war with 
 Mexico was provoked, and violently precipitated upon the 
 country, in order to extend the domain and the power of 
 slavery. In negotiating for the cession of California and New 
 Mexico, the Mexican commissioners strove to introduce a pro 
 hibition against slavery into the treaty. This demonstrates 
 that they thought slavery could exist there. Our minister de 
 clared that he would assent to no such stipulation, though they 
 would cover all the land a foot thick with gold. This shows 
 the tenacity with which Mr. Folk s administration, and all its 
 southern friends, adhered to their original purpose of obtain- 
 28 
 
326 
 
 ing new territory for slavery. In view of this, the House of 
 Representatives again and again voted to apply the proviso to 
 whatever territory should be obtained. When the treaty was 
 ratified, many of the leading senators voted against the clause 
 for acquisition, foreseeing the present controversy, and hoping 
 to avert it. Even after the treaty was ratified, leading 
 southern Whigs in the House voted against paying the first 
 instalment under it, still clinging to the hope that the territory 
 might be restored to Mexico, and this cause of dissension 
 withdrawn. During all this period, fourteen of the northern 
 legislatures, many of them again and again, voted that the 
 proviso should be applied. The present six months 1 contest, 
 in the Senate and House, between the north and the south, is 
 conducted solely on the conviction that slavery may exist in 
 the territories ; and that it will or will not exist there, accord 
 ing as the law allows or forbids it. Otherwise it would be the 
 most nonsensical and nugatory discussion ever engaged in out 
 of a lunatic asylum. Once make it as clear as any law of 
 physical nature, that slavery can never transgress the bounds 
 of the new territories, and there is not a man so demented 
 that he would any longer contend either for the proviso, or 
 against it. Mr. Webster was always of the same opinion, and 
 has declared it a hundred times. In his Marshfield speech, 
 September 1, 1848, he said, "He [General Cass] will surely 
 have the Senate, and with the patronage of the government, 
 with every interest that he, as a northern man, can bring to 
 bear, cooperating with every interest that the south can bring 
 to bear, we cry safety before we are out of the woods, if we 
 feel that there is no danger [of slavery] as to these new territo 
 ries." Up to the 7th of March, 1850, then, when he abandoned 
 all the doctrines and sentiments he had ever before advocated 
 on this subject, and when he incurred the public, hearty ap 
 proval and encomiums of Mr. Calhoun, by his moral agility in 
 springing, at one leap, from Massachusetts to South Carolina ; 
 until this time, Mr. Webster had always held, that slavery 
 would invade the new territories if not barred out of them by 
 positive law. And what would be still more remarkable, if 
 the doctrines of the 7th of March speech had the least shad 
 ow of soundness in them, is, that they have now been before 
 the public for more than four months, and, so far as I know, 
 not a single southern man has been converted by them. Are 
 
327 
 
 not Mr. Bcnton, Mr. Mason, Colonel Davis, and thousands of 
 others, individually, as good judges, or as good witnesses, as 
 he is ? Since the speech, the people of New Mexico have 
 prohibited slavery in their constitution, because they knew it 
 to be possible among them. Before the speech, California 
 did the same, and for the same reason. The Nashville con 
 vention has just resolved, " That California is peculiarly 
 adapted for slave labor, and that if the tenure of slave prop 
 erty was by recognition of this kind secured in that part of 
 the country south of 36 30 , it would in a short time form 
 one or more slaveholding states, to swell the number and 
 power of those already in existence." Even those who seek 
 to apologize for Mr. Webster, avow, at the same time, their 
 disbelief in his doctrine. Such is the evidence, on the one 
 side and on the other, as to the possibility or impossibility of 
 slavery in the territories. Mr. Webster is against the whole 
 world, and the whole world is against him, and this, too, on a 
 question already settled by history and experience. He is 
 just as much to be believed, as a man who looks up into the 
 clear midnight sky, and denies the existence of the heavenly 
 host, while all the stars of the firmament are shining down 
 into his eyes. 
 
 To increase the overwhelming proof against Mr. Webster, 
 I add the following : 
 
 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, June 1, 1850. 
 HON. S. R. THURSTON, Delegate from Oregon. 
 
 DEAR SIR ; In a speech delivered by you, in the House of Repre 
 sentatives, in March last, I understood you to say that you had been 
 in the valley of the Great Salt Lake, and that you were acquainted, 
 from personal observation, with a large part of the territory of Cali 
 fornia. "Will you be so good as to give me your opinion, and the 
 reasons for entertaining it, of the probability or improbability of the 
 introduction of slave labor into any part of the territory recently 
 acquired by the United States from Mexico ; provided such introduc 
 tion be not prohibited by law. 
 
 I wish to obtain your opinion in regard to other kinds of labor, as 
 well as agricultural ; because, as it seems to me, a most unwarranta 
 ble, if not a most disingenuous attempt has been made, to lead the 
 public to believe that no form of slave labor will ever be introduced 
 there, because, possibly, or probably, it may not be introduced for 
 agricultural purposes. 
 
 A reply at your earliest convenience will much oblige 
 Yours, very truly, 
 
 HORACE MANN. 
 
328 
 
 WASHINGTON, June 10, 1850. 
 HON. HORACE MANN ; 
 
 I received a note from you some days ago, making certain inqui 
 ries, but which, up to this time, I have been unable to answer. I 
 desire to take no part in the question now dividing the country ; but 
 as you have asked my judgment upon a matter which appears to be 
 a disputed point, I cannot, consistently with the law of courtesy, 
 refuse you an answer. That answer will be in conformity with what 
 I have frequently said, heretofore, in private conversation with gen 
 tlemen on this subject. 
 
 The point of inquiry seems to be, whether slave labor could be 
 profitably employed in Oregon, California, Utah, and New Mexico. 
 If the nature of the climate and resources of these countries are 
 such as to furnish a profitable market for slave labor, it appears to be 
 conceded, on all sides, that it would be introduced, if left free to seek 
 profitable investment, like other capital. The whole point at issue, 
 then, is dependent, as it is conceived, upon the determination of the 
 first point of inquiry. Hence, to that point, only, it is necessary for 
 me to confine my answer. 
 
 I need not remind you of the law regulating the investment of 
 capital. It will always go where, under all circumstances, it will 
 yield the greatest return to the owner. Upon this principle I am 
 very clear, that slave labor, if unrestricted, could be employed in 
 Oregon, with at least double the profit to the owner of the slave that 
 it now yields in any state of the Union. I am uninformed as to the 
 usual price of slave labor in the states, but the price paid to Indians 
 in Oregon during the past year, for labor, has ranged from two to 
 three dollars per day. Domestic negro servants, whether male or 
 female, who understand the business of housework, would command, 
 readily, five or six hundred dollars a year. I recollect well that there 
 was a mulatto man on board the vessel in which I took passage from 
 Oregon to San Francisco, who was paid one hundred and eighty dollars 
 per month for his services as cook. I will not stop to particularize 
 further, in regard to the inducements Oregon would offer to unre 
 stricted slave labor, but will simply add, that a very large number of 
 slaves might now be employed in Oregon at annual wages sufficiently 
 large to purchase their freedom. I think, therefore, that the point is 
 settled so far as Oregon is concerned, and that slave labor, if it had 
 been left free to seek profitable employment, would readily find its 
 way to that territory. 
 
 As to California, I am equally clear. California will always be a 
 mining country, and wages will range high. At present, slave labor 
 in California would be more profitable than in Oregon. And I have 
 always been of the opinion, that wherever there is a mining country, 
 if not in a climate uncongenial to slave labor, that species of labor 
 would be profitable. That it would be in the California mines, is 
 evident. A good able-bodied slave would have commanded, in Cali 
 fornia, during the past year, from eight to ten hundred dollars per 
 annum. When it is recollected that one hundred dollars per annum, 
 upon an average, is considered a good compensation for their labor in 
 the Southern States, it is idle, in my judgment, to contend that slaves 
 would not be carried to the California market, if protected by law. 
 
Tie greatest impediment which white labor has to encounter in the 
 mines, is the intensity of the heat, and the prevalence of bilious dis 
 ease-. The one is almost insufferable, while the other is pestilential. 
 Against both of these the negro is almost proof. Now, while white 
 labor is so high, it is evident that no one can hire a white" laborer, 
 except at a rate that would consume his profit. Not so with negro 
 labor. That species of labor might be obtained for half the amount 
 which you would have to pay for white labor. The result would be 
 a profit alike to the hirer and seller of slave labor. There is no 
 doubt, in my judgment, that almost any number of slaves might be 
 hired out in California, were the Avhites willing to allow it, at from 
 eight to ten hundred dollars a year. This is pay so much above what 
 their services command in the states, as to satisfy any one, that could 
 this species of service be protected in California, it would rush to the 
 Pacific in almost any quantity. 
 
 Let us next turn our attention to Utah and New Mexico. I : 
 no doubt, from what knowledge I have of those countries, t 
 will turn out to be filled with the richest mines. I clip th 
 ing from a recent paper, containing the news from Texas ;. 
 huah.ua : 
 
 Mr. James was informed, by Major Neighbours and Mr. Lee Vining, 
 th.it they had been shown by Major Stein, some gold washed out by his 
 troops, on the Gila River, in a short excursion to that stream. 
 
 " It is repoited, that, at the copper mines above El Paso, there are 
 about one hundred tons of pure copper lying upon the ground. This had 
 been got out by Mexicans, and abandoned when attacked by Indians. 
 
 There are at El Paso, in the hands of different persons, several lar^e 
 amounts of silver ore, taken from the mines in that neighborhood. With 
 guaranties of titles to lands, and protection from Indians, only a short 
 time would elapse before all these mines would be well worked, and we 
 would have large quantities of metal seeking a market through this place." 
 
 And if you consult Fremont s map, printed by order of the Senate 
 in 1848, you will find, near the source of one of the branches of the 
 (jila llivcr, "copper and gold mines" laid down. And if I am not 
 greatly mistaken, it will turn out that the Mormons are in possession 
 of the richest kind of mines, east of the Sierra Nevada. It is known, 
 too, that silver and copper mines have, for many years, been worked 
 iii New Mexico ; and I am informed by Hugh N. Smith, Esq., that 
 there are, in that territory, gold, silver, copper, lead, and zinc mines 
 of the richest quality, and that the reason why they have not latterly 
 been worked more extensively is, that it is prevented by the incursions 
 of the Indians. He is of the opinion, and he is borne out by what his 
 tory we can get on the subject, that when these mines shall come to be 
 explored, their wealth will turn out to be enormous. When you have 
 once cast your eye over the country lying west of the llocky Moun 
 tains, and east of the Sierra Nevada, and are informed of the pecul 
 iarity of the gold bearing region, you at once become convinced that 
 the United States is in possession of mineral wealth so vast, that ages 
 will not be able to measure its extent. And when these mines shall 
 begin to be developed, and their unquestionable richness known, 
 population will set that way, attended with the usual consequence ;, 
 
 28* 
 
330 
 
 high prices, and a demand for labor. If slave labor is like other cap 
 ital, if it will go where it is best paid, then we have a right to say it 
 will seek these mines, and become a part of the producing capital of 
 the country where those mines are located. That these whole regions 
 are filled with rich mines, is little less than certain, and that they can 
 be profitably worked by slave labor is sure. Hence, were I a south 
 ern man, and my property invested in slaves, I should consider the 
 markets of New Mexico, Utah, and California, for slave labor, worthy 
 of an honorable contest to secure. 
 
 I am, sir, with due consideration, yours, truly, 
 
 SAMUEL K. THURSTOX. 
 
 5. The Kennebec letter has another most extraordinary and 
 discreditable passage. It is near the close. Mr. Webster 
 quotes from a speech delivered by him in the Senate, March 
 23, 1848, says it was published in newspapers and circulated 
 in pamphlet form, and that that speech contained the same 
 doctrines in regard to the " legal construction and effect of the 
 resolutions" for admitting Texas, as are contained in the 
 speech of the 7th of March. He says nobody complained 
 then, and he wonders that any body should complain now. 
 
 It is very remarkable that such a man as Mr. Webster 
 should furnish, in the very quotation which he offers, the 
 means of utterly confuting the assertion which he makes. I 
 suppose this can be accounted for only on the ground, that he 
 now occupies a position so antagonistic to that which he has 
 abandoned that he can hardly refer to his former views with 
 out self-impeachment and self-conviction. Let passages from 
 the two speeches be placed side by side, to show, not their 
 identity, but their utter irreconcilability. 
 
 MARCH 23, 1848. MARCH 7, 1850. 
 
 [A passage quoted by himself.] " I wish it to be distinctly un- 
 
 " It shall be in the power of derstood, to-day, that, according 
 
 Congress hereafter to make four to my view of the matter, this 
 
 other new states out of Texan government is solemnly pledged by 
 
 territory." laio and contract to create new 
 
 states out of Texas," &c. (p. 42.) 
 
 The first quotation only asserts a " power" in Congress to 
 create new states ; the last affirms an obligation, " by law 
 and contract," to do so. How could Mr. Webster have ex 
 pected that this broad distinction between power and duty^ 
 between option and obligation, could escape the attention of 
 his readers ? 
 
331 
 
 But there is another discrepancy or contradiction still more 
 remarkable : 
 
 MARCH 23, 1848. MARCH 7, 1850. 
 
 "It shall be in the power of the guaranty is, that 
 
 Congress hereafter to make four new states shall be made out of 
 other new states out of Texan it, and that such states as are 
 territory." formed out of that portion of 
 
 Texas lying south of 36 30 , may 
 come in as slave states to the 
 
 number of four, in addition to the 
 state then in existence." (p. 29.) 
 
 The first speech speaks of the power of Congress, but the 
 last of the obligation of Congress, to admit new states out of 
 Texan territory. The first speaks of " four other new states ; " 
 but the last of the " guaranty " to admit " SLAVE states to the 
 number of four." Yet the first speech is cited, to men who 
 can read and write, as identical " in legal construction and 
 effect " with the last. The motto under which Danton at 
 tempted to carry himself through his bloody career, was : 
 " L audace, Paudace, toujours Paudace." " Audacity, au 
 dacity, always audacity." 
 
 But what else did Mr. Webster say, in his speech of the 
 23d of March, 1848 ? Referring to the debate which took 
 place in December, 1845, on the final act for admitting Texas, 
 Mr. Webster said : " And I added, that while I held, with as 
 much faithfulness as any citizen of the country, to all the 
 original arrangements and compromises of the constitution 
 under which we live, I never could, and I never should, bring 
 myself to be in favor of the admission of any states into the 
 Union as slaveholding states." * This is what Mr. Webster 
 reports himself to have said when the final vote on the ad 
 mission of Texas was immediately to be taken, and when he 
 commenced his speech by saying, " I am quite aware, Mr. 
 President, that the resolution will pass," meaning the reso 
 lution for the admission of Texas. Mr. Webster s " never 
 could and never should " covered the exact case of the then 
 contemplated future slaveholding states to be formed out of 
 Texas. While in the broadness of its terms it embraced all 
 slaveholding states, whensoever, or whencesoever they might 
 come, it had special and pointed application to any slave state 
 to be thereafter formed out of Texan territory. 
 
 * CoTig. Globe, 1st session 30th Congress, p. 533. 
 
332 
 
 In the same speech of December 22, 1845, Mr. Webster 
 spoke as follows : 
 
 It may be said that according to the provisions of the constitution, 
 new states are to be admitted on the same footing as the old states. 
 It may be so ; but it does not follow at all from that provision that 
 every territory or portion of country may at pleasure establish slavery, 
 and then say we will become a portion of the Union ; and will bring 
 with us the principles which we may have thus adopted, and must be 
 received on the same footing as the old states. It will always be a 
 question whether the old states have not a right, (and I think they 
 have the clearest right,) to require that the state coining into the 
 Union should come in upon an equality; and, if the existence of 
 slavery be an impediment to coming in on an equality, then the state 
 proposing to come in should be required to remove that inequality by 
 abolishing slavery, or take the alternative of being excluded." 
 
 He also said, in the same speech, " I agree with the unan 
 imous opinion of the legislature of Massachusetts." 
 
 And what was this " unanimous opinion of the legislature 
 of Massachusetts " ? Among many other things equally de 
 cisive, the Massachusetts legislature, on the 26th of March, 
 1845, and, of course, long after the annexation resolutions 
 had been passed, declared as follows : 
 
 " And whereas the consent of the executive and legislative depart 
 ments of the government of the United States has been given, by a 
 resolution passed on the 27th of February last, to the adoption of pre 
 liminary measures to accomplish this nefarious project, [the admission 
 of Texas, with the stipulation to admit four more states out of its 
 territory ;] therefore, be it 
 
 " Resolved, That Massachusetts hereby refuses to acknowledge the 
 act of the government of the United States, authorizing the admis 
 sion of Texas, as a legal act, in any way binding her from using her 
 utmost exertions, in cooperation with other states, by every lawful 
 and constitutional measure, to annul its conditions, and defeat its 
 accomplishment. 
 
 " Resolved, That no territory hereafter applying to be admitted to 
 the Union, as a state, should be admitted without a condition that 
 domestic slavery should be utterly extinguished within its borders, 
 and Massachusetts denies the validity of any compromise whatsoever, 
 that may have been, or that may hereafter be, entered into by persons 
 in the government of the Union, intended to preclude the future ap 
 plication of such a condition by the people, acting through their 
 representatives in the Congress of the United States." 
 
 Such were the opinions which Mr. Webster then openly 
 expressed, and such the resolutions of the legislature of 
 Massachusetts, which he fully indorsed. Yet he now pro- 
 
333 
 
 >nder that any body can see any difference 
 between the doctrine of those speeches and resolutions, and 
 those of his speech delivered on the 7th of March.* 
 
 6. A reference to a few other misstatements of facts will 
 close my remarks on this subject. 
 
 Mr. Webster says that, previous to writing his Newburyport 
 letter, he made " diligent inquiry," of members of Congress 
 from New England, to ascertain how many arrests of fugitive 
 slaves had been made in their time ; and he adds, " the result 
 
 * Professor Stuart, in a pamphlet entitled " Conscience and the 
 Constitution," pp. 78, 9, steps in to defend Mr. Webster s position that 
 wo are bound, by contract with Texas, to admit from her territory, 
 " slave states to the number of four ; " and he incidentally refers 
 to and combats my views on this subject. 
 
 I respectfully submit to the revercned and learned professor a 
 single consideration, -which I trust will convince him that I am not in 
 error. 
 
 For argument s sake, admit the contract with Texas to be unim 
 peachable ; although, if it be so, I see not why any one Congress may 
 not absorb and exhaust all the power to admit new states, which the 
 constitution contains, by making contracts for centuries to come, for 
 all the new states that shall be admitted ; and for all the applications 
 for admission that shall be rejected. But, admitting the validity of 
 the Texan contract, what does it purport ? That " new states," " not 
 exceeding four," " may be formed out of the territory thereof." Those 
 south of 36 30 , may be slave ; that, or those, north of 36 
 30 , shall be free ; the whole " not exceeding four." Here, 
 then, is an executory and mutual contract. It is executory ; because 
 it is not to be executed at the time of making, but in fiituro. It is 
 mutual, because, for the State of Texas, and for the one or more 
 slave states, south of 36 30 , there are to be one or more free states 
 north of it. 
 
 Xow, the principle is so clear that I think no one will for a moment 
 dispute it, that when an executory and mutual contract is to be ex 
 ecuted, say at four different times, each preceding act of execution 
 must be such as to allow of the ultimate execution of the whole. 
 Neither the first, second, nor third act of execution, must be so exe 
 cuted as to render the fourth impossible. Neither the first, second, nor 
 third act, must be so executed in favor of either of the parties, as to 
 render the execution of the fourth, in favor of the other party, im 
 possible. But if Texas can have "slave states to the number of 
 four" formed in succession out of her territory, then, as the whole 
 number to be formed is not to exceed " four," there can be no free 
 state formed, under the alleged contract. 
 
 It is not within my knowledge that such an interpretation of this 
 supposed contract was ever suggested by any Texan citizen, or by any 
 southern man. I suppose it to have been advanced, first, by a north 
 ern senator ; and seconded, first, by a northern divine. 
 
334 
 
 of all I can learn is this : No seizure of an alleged slave has 
 ever been made in Maine." 
 
 Now, two such cases have happened in the State of Maine. 
 One took place in the eastern part of the state, about 1835 or 
 36. The other happened at or near Thomaston, a little later. 
 In this latter case, the fugitive came to Maine in a Thomaston 
 vessel, whose master was afterwards demanded as a fugitive 
 from justice. This demand gave rise to a prolonged corre 
 spondence, I think, with no less than three governors of Maine. 
 This correspondence was extensively circulated through the 
 newspapers, or referred to by them, and it would seem hardly 
 possible that Mr. Webster should not have seen it. Since the 
 Newburyport letter was published, this misstatement of fact 
 has been noticed in the Maine newspapers, yet no retraction is 
 made. The misstatement is allowed to be spread over the 
 \vhole country, uncorrected by its author. Mr. Webster then 
 adds," No seizure of an alleged fugitive slave has ever been 
 made in Vermont." Tradition, and, as I believe, authentic 
 history, contradict Mr. Webster here. It is said by " members 
 of Congress" from Vermont, that an alleged fugitive was 
 carried before Judge Harrington of Vermont, in 1807, and on 
 his being asked what evidence would satisfy him that the per 
 son was a slave, he replied, " A bill of sale from Almighty 
 God." 
 
 But even if these statements of Mr. Webster, with regard 
 to the New England States, were all true, it would avail him 
 nothing; for, in the eye of patriotism, it matters not where 
 such seizures are made. I refer to it only to show that Mr. 
 Webster is not to be relied upon in these matters, either for 
 the accuracy of his original positions, or for a retraction of 
 them, when their error is pointed out by the public press. I 
 wish not to be understood, on this particular point, as imput 
 ing to Mr. Webster an intentional misstatement ; because he 
 accompanied his original statement with a salvo. He con 
 fessed, and he is entitled to the full benefit of the confes 
 sion, that his information might not be " entirely accurate," 
 though he supposed it not to be " materially erroneous." It 
 is " materially erroneous ;" and though one error has been 
 exposed in the Maine papers, he does not rectify it. Possibly 
 he does not know it. 
 
 While holding Massachusetts up to reproach for " growing 
 
335 
 
 fervid on Pennsylvania wrongs," Mr. Webster draws succor 
 and encouragement from the Society of Friends, and especially 
 from the Friends of Pennsylvania. He says that they remain 
 " of sound and disposing minds and memories ; " and he con 
 trasts their wisdom and composure with the " vehement and 
 empty declarations, the wild and fantastic conduct of both 
 men and women which have so long disturbed and so much 
 disgraced the commonwealth 11 of Massachusetts. He then 
 adds, " I am misled by authority which ought not to mislead, 
 if it be not true, that that great body, [of Friends,] approves 
 the sentiments to which I gave utterance "on the floor of the 
 Senate." I will now show that this alleged approval by the 
 Friends, though worthy of any price but truth, was too dearly 
 bought. 
 
 It is well known that the Friends are divided into two great 
 denominations. Each has its periodical, one now in its eighth, 
 the other in its fourth year. In the numbers published since 
 the appearance of the Newburyport letter, both these period 
 icals do not " approve," but repudiate and denounce the sen 
 timents to which Mr. Webster gave utterance " on the floor 
 of the Senate." 
 
 The FriencTs Intelligencer deals at length with Mr. Web 
 ster s u sentiments" on the " Fugitive Slave Bill;" on the 
 legislation of the north for the protection of its own citizens ; 
 on his pseudo discoveries in u physical geography; " and on 
 the u legal construction and effect " of the Texas resolutions ; 
 and it condemns them all. 
 
 The FrienfVs Revieiv dissents not less positively from Mr. 
 Webster s positions ; and both call him severely to account 
 for the defamation of themselves, which his letter implies. 
 
 On his u sentiments " respecting fugitive slaves, the " Re- 
 r ieic " observes that they have yet to learn " that that part of 
 his speech was approved by any member or professor of the 
 society." 
 
 I wish I had space to quote from these able articles, but 
 must forbear. 
 
 John G. Whittier, Esq., speaking for the Quakers of New 
 England, gives "a peremptory denial" to Mr. Webster^ 
 statement. I quote the following paragraph from him : 
 
 44 Xow, we undertake to say that there is not a member of the So 
 ciety of .Friends, in free or slave states, who, whether acting as a 
 
336 
 
 magistrate or as citizen, could carry out the provisions of this most 
 atrocious bill, without rendering himself liable to immediate expul 
 sion from a society whose character would be disgraced, and whose 
 discipline would be violated, by such action. It has been, in times 
 past, the misfortune of the Society of Friends to be villified, carica 
 tured, and misrepresented ; but we remember nothing, even in the 
 old days of persecution, so hard to bear as the compliments of the 
 Massachusetts senator. Whatever his authority may have been, we 
 do not hesitate to pronounce it unqualifiedly false to the last 
 degree." 
 
 Now what shall be thought of a cause that requires such a 
 series of fabricatioris as Mr. Webster is here proved to have 
 made, or of the man that can make it ! 
 
 There are many other points presented by Mr. Webster s 
 speech of the 7th of March, or by what he has since said and 
 written to defend it, which seem to me as unwarrantable in fact, 
 and as reprehensible in principle, as any above enumerated. I 
 shall close these notes, however, with one comment more ; 
 reserving others, though sincerely hoping never to have 
 occasion to use them. 
 
 Among the excoriations with which Mr. Webster amused 
 himself and his southern new-born pro-slavery admirers, on 
 the 7th of March last, he flayed nobody half so deeply or so 
 complacently, as he did his old fellow-senators, Messrs. Dix, 
 of New York, and Niles, of Connecticut. He scored them to 
 the living flesh, and then soothed their smarting wounds by 
 vitriol and caustic, as though he loved them. Their agency 
 in the Texas swindle, he made odiously conspicuous. He 
 taunted them with heart-piercing innuendo for their compulsory 
 retirement from public life. And then he portrayed them as 
 occupying their enforced vacation in attempting to rouse the 
 people to save those regions from the curse of slavery, which, 
 but for their sins, never would have been exposed to it. He 
 worked up the scene so graphically, that every one mocked 
 at their contemptible plight, and at the ridiculous contrast be 
 tween the swiftness of their offence and the lameness of their 
 expiation. The effect was dramatic. The pro-slavery part 
 of the gallery and the floor responded with a shout of laughter. 
 Yet devoted and long-tried friends of Mr. Webster were there, 
 whom no darkness of blindness could prevent from seeing that 
 his bitter sarcasm against the ex-senators, though calculated 
 to make the u unskilful laugh," must make the "judicious 
 
337 
 
 grieve." They could not fail to see that he, Mr. Webster 
 himself, at that very moment, was occupying precisely the same 
 pro-slavery ground, which Messrs. Dix and Niles had occupied, 
 when they brought in Texas and " reanncxed " California and 
 New Mexico. He was exerting all his great talents to do an 
 act of precisely the same character which Messrs. Dix and 
 Niles had done ; that is, to open new territory to slavery. 
 And doubtless the first thought which arose in many a mind 
 was the same melancholy one which spontaneously arose in 
 my own, that should he succeed in arguing down, or laughing 
 down the " Wilmot" as he twice scornfully called the great 
 proviso of freedom ; and should he then betake himself to 
 penitence and prayer, and by years of effort, strive to stay 
 back from slavery the regions he had doomed to it, he would 
 only have elevated himself to the very u platform " on which 
 Messrs. Dix and Niles stood when he made them the objects of 
 his taunts and ridicule ! 
 29 
 
338 
 
 LETTER 
 
 ANSWERING AN INVITATION TO CELEBRATE THE ANNIVERSARY 
 OF THE ORDINANCE OF 1787, AT CLEVELAND, OHIO. 
 
 WEST NEWTON, July 9, 1849. 
 GENTLEMEN ; 
 
 I have received your kind invitation to be present at 
 Cleveland, on the 13th inst., to celebrate the anniver 
 sary of the great " Ordinance " which excluded slavery 
 forever from, and secured freedom forever to the North 
 western Territory. If I could tell you how deeply I sym 
 pathize with you in this movement, and how much my 
 soul desires, not merely to celebrate, but to hallow the 
 event, you would then believe me when I say, that I 
 have had a sharp struggle not to forego all considera 
 tions of business and of health, for the purpose of join 
 ing in your festival. I regard the Ordinance which 
 redeemed a territory of more than two hundred and 
 sixty thousand square miles, from the unspeakable sin 
 and curse of slavery, and consecrated it to freedom, as 
 one of the grandest moral events in the annals of 
 mankind. 
 
 Without that Ordinance, the Declaration of Inde 
 pendence itself, in its application to that vast and fertile 
 region, would have been deprived of its power to con 
 fer blessing and prosperity upon it ; and it is a fact 
 never to be forgotten, that the original Declaration and 
 the original Ordinance were both drawn up by the 
 same great champion of human rights, whose hatred 
 of slavery grew strong and deep by his personal 
 knowledge of its wrongs and its calamities. 
 
 Without the Ordinance, the Revolution itself, in its 
 application to that territory, and the treaty of 1783, by 
 
339 
 
 which its ample domain was secured to the Union, 
 would have been shorn of their glory, and robbed of 
 their value. 
 
 Without the Ordinance, the discovery of this West 
 ern continent, so far as that territory constitutes a part 
 of it, would have given us no occasion to remember 
 the name of Columbus with gratitude. 
 
 Without the Ordinance, it would have been better, 
 at the creation of the world, that all that part of it 
 which now constitutes your five beautiful and flourish 
 ing states, with a residuum of space large enough for still 
 another, had been left as a " Dead Sea," whose bitter 
 and poisonous waters would not have allowed a live 
 thing to swim beneath its surface, nor to fly above it, 
 nor a green thing to grow by its shores. 
 
 And without the Ordinance, it is no irreverence to 
 say, that even the omnipotent Spirit of God, working 
 through natural laws, for human progress and human 
 blessedness, would have met with bafflings and threat- 
 enings in its operations and influences for the redemption 
 of the race. 
 
 Accept, gentlemen, the assurance of my sympathy 
 and regard. 
 
 HORACE MANN. 
 
340 
 
 LETTER 
 
 ACCEPTING THE NOMINATION OF THE FREE SOIL CONVENTION 
 FOR REPRESENTATIVE TO THE THIRTY-SECOND CONGRESS. 
 
 WEST NEWTON, Oct. 24, 1850. 
 HON. C. F. ADAMS ; 
 
 Dear Sir, Your favor of the 21st inst., is this 
 day received. It informs me that at a convention, 
 (over which you had the honor to preside,) held at 
 Dedham, on the 16th inst., I was unanimously nomi 
 nated as a candidate for Representative to the thirty- 
 second Congress of the United States. For the kind 
 terms in which your communication is expressed, be 
 pleased to accept my thanks. 
 
 This nomination places me in no new relation to the 
 friends of freedom and humanity, wherever they may 
 be found. I believe my name was first suggested to 
 the voters of this district, (now nearly three years ago,) 
 on the ground of my supposed devotion to the rights of 
 men. The resolutions passed at all the conventions by 
 which I have been nominated, and especially those 
 passed so repeatedly and unanimously by our state 
 legislature, have been in the nature of instructions ; or, 
 at least, of urgent advice and solicitation, in regard to 
 my course on the great questions which have since 
 agitated the country. My own convictions of duty so 
 fully and entirely corresponding with the injunctions 
 thus laid upon me, it has been easy for me to act in full 
 conformity to the wishes of the great majority of my 
 constituents and of the state, as those wishes have been 
 repeatedly expressed. This renders any detailed expo 
 sition of expectations on your part, or of assurances on 
 mine, unnecessary. I know that the leading and most 
 
341 
 
 valued article in your creed is the sacredness and secu 
 rity of human freedom. You know that I embrace 
 this same article of faith with my whole heart. Other 
 matters may be very important, but still are subordi 
 nate. Peculiar forms of organization are comparatively 
 non-essentials. They are but means to ends ; and, in 
 regard to them, a large allowance is to be made for 
 honest differences of opinion. But the natural right 
 of every human being to the liberty which God has 
 given him, until forfeited by crime of his own ; the 
 duty of our government to save every part of this 
 earth over which it has jurisdiction from the direst of 
 all earthly curses and the greatest of all social crimes, 
 the curse and the crime of slavery ; these are 
 among the first of the dread accountabilities that at 
 tach to rational and immortal creatures. 
 
 I believe it also to be the duty of government to 
 provide for the economical or pecuniary welfare of the 
 people ; to encourage industry by securing the rewards 
 of labor to the laborer, and to discourage the competi 
 tions into which those who rule and control the im 
 poverished, degraded, and almost brutified laborers of 
 other countries, are striving to enter with our own 
 people, competitions, which, if not prevented, will, 
 to a great extent, reduce our laborers to the wretched 
 ness and privation of theirs. I believe that the money, 
 and the comforts purchasable with it, which such com 
 petitions take from the workman here, do not go to 
 improve the condition of the workman there, but are 
 intercepted and appropriated by others. I make this 
 statement of my views all the more readily, because I 
 do not wish to receive an unintelligent vote from any 
 man, and I therefore abjure all disguises and reserves. 
 From my past votes and speeches in Congress my con 
 stituents know upon what principles and to what ends 
 I have acted. To them I refer, and deem it unneces 
 sary to say more. 
 
 29* 
 
342 
 
 Those who have taken the trouble to read what I 
 have said on the floor of the House, must have seen 
 that, though I have endeavored to express some stern 
 truths, on vital subjects, in unambiguous language, yet 
 that I have never uttered a word designed to inflict un 
 necessary pain upon our political brethren of the south ; 
 or to wound feelings which men may erroneously call 
 honorable. I desire to pursue the same course at all 
 times and with all men. The cause of liberty is one 
 in which the true object of ambition is to make great 
 principles most clear, and not to use harsh expressions 
 respecting the conduct or opinion of others. It is as 
 necessary that the man whom I would convince should 
 be in a calm state of mind, as that I should be in such 
 a state myself. Exasperation paralyzes judgment. 
 The great points on which men and parties so vehe 
 mently differ, can only be permanently settled at the 
 tribunal of reason and conscience. 
 
 Several laws were passed at the last session of Con 
 gress, on which I desired and designed to speak, in the 
 name and on behalf of my constituents. But I was 
 obliged to act upon them, under the silence enforced by 
 the previous question. One of them, in particular, was 
 so hostile to all the principles which history and 
 reason had ever taught me, and so wounding to all the 
 sentiments which I had ever imbibed from benevolence 
 arid religion, that I resolved to seize the first opportu 
 nity that should be offered to portray some of its 
 features. I refer to the Fugitive Slave act, so called ; 
 and I trust this will not be deemed an unfitting occa 
 sion to lay bare a portion of its enormities. I will re 
 mark, that I had prepared an amendment for the secu 
 rity of our free colored seamen in southern ports, but 
 was shut out from all chance of offering it. It struck 
 me that if new and oppressive measures were to be 
 taken to carry back alleged slaves to bondage, some 
 thing should also be done to restore freemen to liberty. 
 
343 
 
 While the south were seeking new guaranties for men 
 who claim to own other men, it was a time for the 
 north to demand new guaranties for men who own 
 themselves. But all debate was suppressed ; property 
 vanquished liberty ; and a pure pro-slavery law was 
 enacted, unadulterated by any alloy of freedom. 
 
 In regard to this Fugitive Slave act, is it not astonish 
 ing that men should ever ask the question, Does the 
 constitution demand the trial by jury? instead of the 
 question, Will the constitution allow it ? The first is 
 the tyrant s question, granting no more than he is com 
 pelled to give. The last is the republican s question, 
 volunteering all that he can grant. In a free govern 
 ment, where the trial by jury is held to be the surest 
 safeguard of personal liberty, the inquiry ought never 
 to be, whether the constitution secures or necessitates 
 this form of trial ; for it is enough, if the constitution 
 will permit or tolerate it. Instead of seeking evasions, 
 and close constructions, and hunting among the musty 
 precedents of darker times, in order to shut out the 
 jury trial in cases of personal liberty, the true lover of 
 freedom would ask only for an interpretation that would 
 warrant it. It would not be among his last thoughts ; 
 he would not wait until a stern necessity forced such a 
 construction upon him ; but his first desire arid effort 
 would be to find some legitimate reason for conferring 
 it. He would not ask, in how few cases he must, but 
 in how many he might, admit it. Yet this matter has 
 been discussed, and is still discussed, on one side, as 
 though we were bound to avoid the jury trial if we 
 could ; not as though we were bound to grant it, if by 
 fair interpretation we might. It has been discussed as 
 though the jury trial, to protect a man s right to him 
 self, were an evil ; and as though the sudden seizure, 
 " summary " adjudication, arid speedy consignment of 
 a fellow-being to bondage, were too precious a blessing 
 to be put in jeopardy, by submission to twelve good 
 
344 
 
 and lawful men. Not how much may we do for free 
 dom, but how much can we do for slavery, has been 
 the tacit assumption of the argument. But I pass by 
 this for graver objections. 
 
 The Fugitive Slave act purports to confer judicial 
 power upon persons who are not judges. It provides 
 for the creation of scores and hundreds of officers 
 called "commissioners," and upon these, it is said on 
 high authority, to confer original and final jurisdic 
 tion on questions of human liberty. The constitution 
 declares in whom " the judicial power of the United 
 States shall be vested." It shall be vested in "one 
 supreme court, and in such inferior courts as Congress, 
 may from time to time establish." No commissioner, 
 nor any number of commissioners, constitute one of 
 these courts. " The judges, both of the supreme and 
 inferior courts, shall hold their offices during good 
 behavior." A commissioner can be made and un 
 made on any day. These judges are to " receive for 
 their services a compensation, which shall not be 
 diminished during their continuance in office." The 
 commissioners are compensated by chance fees, and 
 not by a fixed salary. The President nominates and 
 the Senate confirms judges of the supreme and infe 
 rior courts. Commissioners are only the " inferior 
 officers " who may be appointed by " the courts of 
 law." 
 
 I need not enforce the position, that the power 
 which this act purports to confer upon commissioners 
 is judicial. It has all the attributes of judicial power. 
 It is original, final, and exclusive. They are "to 
 hear and determine." The fourth section says they 
 "shall have concurrent jurisdiction with the judges 
 of the circuit and district courts of the United States." 
 The attorney-general of the United States, in a writ 
 ten opinion, given by command of the President of 
 the United States, says as follows : " These officers, 
 
345 
 
 [the commissioners,] and each of them, have judicial 
 power, and jurisdiction to hear, examine, and decide 
 the case." " The certificate to be granted to the 
 owner is to be regarded as the act and judgment 
 of a judicial tribunal having competent jurisdiction." 
 " Congress has constituted a tribunal with exclusive 
 jurisdiction to determine summarily, and without ap 
 peal, who are fugitives from service." " The judg 
 ment of the tribunal created by this act is conclusive 
 upon all tribunals." The power of a commissioner, 
 therefore, is judicial in the highest sense, in the 
 sense of the constitution. His decision cannot be 
 reheard or reexamined by any judge, or by any court, 
 of any state, or of the United States. In no other 
 case can a commissioner perform any judicial act, or 
 issue any executive order, whose validity may not be 
 reexamined in the court for which he acts, or in some 
 other. He cannot strike a blow, nor fine a dollar, nor 
 punish by imprisonment for an hour. By appeal, by 
 injunction, by mandamus or certiorari. the proceedings 
 of inferior courts or magistrates can be reached, and 
 their legality or constitutionality tested. But here a 
 multitude of tribunals are established, over whose pro 
 ceedings, not the supreme court of any state, no, not 
 even the supreme court of the United States, has 
 supervision. And what do these commissioners decide? 
 That a man has no right to himself; that his body, 
 limbs, faculties, are the property of another ; that he 
 owes service. Suppose the question were, whether the 
 respondent owed the claimant a dollar. Could the 
 commissioner give judgment and issue execution for 
 it ? Certainly not. But yet he is here authorized to 
 decide questions infinitely more important than any 
 amount of money. He is to decide that a man owes 
 life-long service from himself, and from all the chil 
 dren of his loins. 
 
 But the surrender of an alleged fugitive from service 
 
346 
 
 has been compared with the surrender of a fugitive 
 from justice ; and because the supreme executive of a 
 state is required by the law of 1793 to surrender fugi 
 tives from justice, it is claimed that any commissioner 
 may surrender fugitives from service, without liability 
 to question or r examination by any human authority. 
 But there is a world- wide difference between the cases. 
 When the fugitive from justice is delivered up, he is 
 delivered into the custody of the law. Legal process 
 must have been commenced against him in the state 
 from which he fled. He is returned, that the proceed 
 ings thus commenced may be consummated. He is 
 never intrusted to private hands. The shield of the 
 law is continued over him. After arrest, he is merely 
 transferred from the hands of the law in one state to 
 the hands of the law in another state. He is trans 
 ferred, not to evade trial, but to have one. But the 
 alleged slave is delivered up, not into the custody of 
 the law, where his rights might be adjudicated upon, 
 but into private hands ; not into the hands of a neutral 
 or indifferent person, but into the hands of a party 
 interested to deprive him of all his rights; if he be 
 not a slave, then into the hands of a man-stealer. Mr. 
 Clay saw this, and his plan provided that the alleged 
 fugitive should be sent home to be tried. But the 
 south grew bolder and bolder, until a law was passed, 
 by which one class of men have less security for their 
 freedom than another class have for their cattle. 
 
 It is nugatory to say, that when an alleged fugitive 
 has reached his claimant s domicile, he may there peti 
 tion for freedom. Should he do so, it would be an 
 independent and original proceeding, instituted under 
 another government. Not only would the jurisdiction 
 be different, but the character of the litigants would 
 be changed, plaintiff for defendant, and defendant for 
 plaintiff. The old case is not to be reheard, but a new 
 one tried. Indeed, a very intelligent writer on this 
 
34? 
 
 subject has queried whether the certificate of the 
 commissioner may not be pleaded as an estoppel. I 
 say, then, that, in effect, the commissioner, by this 
 act, has original, Jitial, and exclusive jurisdiction of a 
 "case" "in law," "arising under the constitution and 
 laws of the United States." This is the very func 
 tion of judges and courts. This is the identical 
 power which the constitution of the United States 
 vests in judges who are to be nominated by the Presi 
 dent, confirmed by the Senate, to hold office during 
 good behavior, and to be compensated by fixed salaries. 
 
 Again, the act consigns a man to bondage, without 
 crime, on evidence which he has had no opportunity 
 to controvert. The claimant must prove three facts 
 before the commissioner, 1st, That the person named 
 in the warrant owes the claimant service ; 2d, That 
 he has escaped ; 3d, Identity. 
 
 Now, according to the act, the first two points, 
 the facts of owing service and of escaping, may be 
 proved behind the respondent s back. This proof 
 may be procured against the alleged fugitive without 
 any notice to him, actual or constructive ; without the 
 possibility of his encountering it, or disproving it, 
 however false it may be. If this be not depriving a 
 person of his " liberty " " without due process of law," 
 what can be ? Why not make the whole case prov 
 able behind the man s back. in another state, a 
 thousand miles off, and spurn the forms of justice, 
 after having spurned its substance ? This binding of 
 a man by evidence obtained without his knowledge, 
 is unknown to the common law, and abhorrent to it. 
 It is never permitted, not even to deprive the worst 
 man of the humblest right. Our laws save the rights 
 of all parties under disability. Who is under so great 
 a disability as he who knows nothing, and can know 
 nothing, of what is going on against him ? Notwith 
 standing the constitution declares that "full faith and 
 
348 
 
 credit shall be given in each state to the public acts, 
 records, and judicial proceedings of every other state," 
 yet it has been held that a judgment obtained in 
 another state, without notice, shall not prejudice the 
 party against whom it was rendered. Such an act vio 
 lates the first principles of justice. All securities for 
 the life, liberty and property of us all, are swept away 
 if such principles can be established. 
 
 Once more : The act says the certificate " shall be 
 conclusive of the right of the person or persons in 
 whose favor granted, to remove such fugitive to the 
 state or territory from which he escaped, and shall pre 
 vent all molestation of such person or persons, by any 
 process issued by any court, judge, magistrate, or any 
 other person \vhomsoever. * According to this, the 
 certificate is a talisman which protects its holder 
 against all law, all evidence, and all judicial power. A 
 kidnapper may seize a free man in Boston, buy evidence 
 that he owes this mysterious debt of service, obtain the 
 requisite certificate against his victim, and then neither 
 the mother who bore him, nor the elder brothers and 
 sisters who grew up with him, nor the neighbors who 
 have known him from his cradle, nor the minister who 
 baptized him, can testify that he is free ; nor can all 
 the judges and courts in the commonwealth stop the 
 man who is bearing away one of their fellow-citizens 
 to a bondage worse than death, to inquire into his title. 
 He is in a charmed circle that neither law nor justice 
 can enter. Do you ask where is that old, time-honored 
 writ of habeas corpus, for which martyrs have died and 
 rivers of blood have flowed, and which the constitution 
 declares SHALL NOT be suspended " unless when in 
 cases of rebellion or invasion, the public safety may 
 require it " ? The answer is, that the writ of habeas 
 corpus is nothing but a " process issued " by a court, 
 and the act declares that the holder of the certificate 
 shall be exempt from all " molestation," " by any pro- 
 
349 
 
 cess issued by any court." In one word, the law con 
 tains a provision that its own constitutionality shall not 
 be brought into question ; at least, until its victim 
 reaches the place of his bondage, and is beyond the 
 reach of rescuing hands. 
 
 Now, even if this act does not commit such gross 
 infractions of the constitution that the courts will set 
 it aside, yet it would seem as though no sane man 
 could help seeing that it wars upon all our ideas of 
 justice ; that it repudiates and scorns all the great se 
 curities for freedom which wise arid good men, for 
 centuries past, have given their labors, and their lives, 
 to establish ; and that it converts the vast machinery 
 of the social state, not into the means of protecting, 
 but of assailing, the liberties of the citizen. As to the 
 appointment of commissioners, it gives us none of the 
 constitutional securities that improper men will not 
 be invested with these high prerogatives against our 
 dearest rights ; and as to the manner in which evidence 
 may be procured, it resembles the missives which the 
 inquisition, in olden times, sent forth against heretics, 
 to seize without law, to try without defence, and to 
 punish without mercy or hope. It resembles the 
 lettres de cachet, which, before the great revolution, the 
 despots of France gave, in blank, to villain courtiers, 
 and villain courtesans, to be filled up with the names 
 of those persons whose perdition they would compass. 
 
 There are other points in this bill whose enormity 
 only needs to be stated to be seen and abhorred. One 
 of them is so unspeakably mean and contemptible, 
 that all northern men must feel the insult more keenly 
 than the wrong. It provides that if a commissioner 
 will doom a man to bondage, his fee shall be twice as 
 much as though he restores him to liberty. Now, 
 every body knows that claimants will rarely, if ever, 
 appear before commissioners without a prima facie 
 case. If there be no defence, the proceedings will be 
 30 
 
350 
 
 brief. But a case of discharge presupposes a defence 
 and a trial. A case of discharge, therefore, will prob 
 ably occupy as much time as half a dozen cases of 
 surrender. Yet for this greater labor, the commis 
 sioner is to have but half price. In assailing all we 
 love of liberty, could not the framers and supporters of 
 this measure have forborne to wound us in all we feel 
 of honor ! 
 
 The cases are to be "heard and determined," as 
 they were under Robespierre, " in a summary man- 
 ner" Shakspeare enumerates the "law s delay" 
 among the causes of suicide. Under this act, real 
 suicides will doubtless be occasioned by the law s 
 despatch* This " summary manner " contains the 
 sum of wrong. Does not every lawyer and every 
 client know that when an action is brought for the 
 unfaithful execution of a contract, in building a house 
 or a ship, or for the balance of an account, or for flow 
 ing lands, or for defamation or libel, the defendant 
 needs weeks and often months to make ready for his 
 defence. His witnesses may be in another state, or 
 abroad ; it may be necessary to examine ancient titles 
 in registries of deeds or of wills, to make surveys of 
 premises, or investigations into character and conduct. 
 It often happens that when process is first served upon 
 a man, he does not know the grounds of his own de 
 fence. They may consist of facts which he has for 
 gotten, or of law of which he is ignorant. Our courts, 
 acting upon this well-known truth, have established a 
 rule that a party, even after he has had fourteen days 
 notice, shall be entitled to a continuance as a matter 
 of right, unless under special circumstances ; and he 
 may always have it on cause shown. I ask any de 
 fendant who was ever forced into court to resist a 
 
 * Since writing the above, I see that a man in New Jersey was so 
 overcome with flight at the rumor that slave-catchers were in town, 
 that paralysis and death speedily ensued. 
 
351 
 
 claim of any magnitude or difficulty, whether he was 
 ready to do so, on the instant when process was served 
 upon him ? Yet this is what the respondent must do 
 under the Fugitive Slave act. On the 26th day of last 
 September, James Hamlet was peacefully pursuing a 
 lawful occupation in Water Street, New York, and 
 earning an honest support for his wife and children. 
 In three hours, hand-cuifed, in irons, and surrounded by 
 armed men, he was on his way to the house of bondage. 
 No time was given him for procuring the aid of coun 
 sel. He declared he was free, that his mother was a 
 free woman, and he a free man. But by another pro 
 vision in the act, it is declared that " in no trial or 
 hearing under this act, shall the testimony of such al 
 leged fugitive be admitted in evidence." In all other 
 cases, within the broad compass of the common or 
 statute law of Great Britain or of this country, a party 
 litigant may give evidence pertaining to the suit. In 
 some cases, he may give evidence on the merits ; in 
 all cases, he may make affidavit on interlocutory mat 
 ters. A man who has been in the state prison, a felon 
 scarred with crime, may still make affidavit, in his own 
 case, under certain circumstances, though he can testify 
 neither for nor against any other person. But an alleged 
 fugitive can make oath to no fact, and under no cir 
 cumstances, for delay or other cause. It would con 
 flict with that " summary manner " in which it is 
 deemed expedient to dispose of human liberty. 
 
 Look at this provision under the light of a few 
 facts. In the case of Mahoney vs. Ashton, (4 Harris 
 & McHenry s Maryland Reports,) the petitioner for 
 freedom claimed that a maternal ancestor, four genera- 
 lions back, who had been brought over by Lord Balti 
 more, in the early days of the colony, was free ; and, 
 by an extraordinary chain of evidence, he traced his 
 descent from that free source. It was a claim which 
 any court in Massachusetts would have sustained 
 without hesitation. 
 
352 
 
 Now how much evidence of history, of record, of 
 parol, does the bare mention of such a case suggest ? 
 Who could have been prepared to try it in three hours ; 
 ay, as soon as he could be seized and hurried to a 
 lawyer s office ? 
 
 Among the alleged fugitives in the " Pearl cases," 
 so called, which I assisted in trying in Washington, 
 in the years 1848 and 49, was the family of Daniel 
 Bell, consisting of his wife and eight or ten chil 
 dren. The mother and children had been freed many 
 years before by deed of manumission, executed by 
 their master in his last sickness, and they had been 
 reputed free ever afterwards. Soon after the grantor s 
 death, the device was started of proving him to be of 
 "unsound mind," and thus reclaiming the family to 
 bondage. But the magistrate who prepared the deed, 
 witnessed its execution, and took the acknowledgment, 
 declared that he stood ready to testify to the compe 
 tency of the grantor, and the validity of the instru 
 ment. Years passed away and he died. Immediately 
 the heirs claimed the family as slaves ; and, after the 
 loss of the deceased magistrate s testimony, proved the 
 grantor of " unsound mind," and so set aside the deed 
 and were adjudged owners of the chattels. On the 
 ground of newly-discovered evidence, application for a 
 new trial was made ; but the family becoming alarmed 
 lest they should be secretly seized and sent to the 
 south, attempted to make their escape on board the 
 " Pearl," on the night of the 15th of April. Now, sup 
 pose that they had succeeded, and that, after arriving 
 in a free state, they had been seized and carried before 
 a commissioner, to be tried in this " summary manner," 
 without even waiting for a crier to open the court, and 
 debarred from making affidavit that, in the city of 
 Washington, there existed evidence of their freedom. 
 I will not waste words to point out the impossibility 
 of their defence, and the certainty of their doom ! He 
 
353 
 
 that hath ears to hear the cry of the oppressed, let him 
 hear ! 
 
 A few days before the close of the last session of 
 Congress, I was inquired of by a resident in Washing 
 ton, as to the condition of a family held as slaves in 
 that city. I found they were free by the laws of the 
 District, but they did not know it. 
 
 Sir, throughout the Southern States, there are thou 
 sands and thousands of reputed slaves, who, legally, 
 and by the laws of those states, too, in which they arc 
 held, are as free as the governor of Massachusetts, or 
 the chief justice ; but, in their enforced and brutish ig 
 norance, the victims do not know it ; and should they 
 come to a free state, and be there hunted, and seized, 
 and carried before a commissioner, they would be de 
 barred from taking an oath as to facts which would 
 furnish grounds for a continuance so that their right 
 to freedom might be established. But, under such ob 
 structions and embarrassments, liberty could not be 
 extinguished in a sufficiently " summary manner." 
 
 According to the constitution of the United States, 
 all criminals, from the least to the greatest, are to be 
 informed of the nature and cause of their accusation ; 
 to be confronted with the witnesses against them ; to 
 have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in 
 their favor ; and to have the assistance of counsel in 
 their defence. Yet here, always in the case of an 
 innocent man, oftentimes in the case of a free man, there 
 is to be no previous notice, no process for obtaining 
 witnesses, and no provision for counsel ; and while the 
 court is forbidden to allow delay, without good cause 
 shown, the party whose liberty is at stake cannot make 
 out that cause by his oath ; but, with the full knowl 
 edge in his own breast that he is free, he must stand 
 dumb before the minister of the law that puts on his 
 fetters. 
 
 I will not dwell at any length upon those portions 
 30* 
 
354 
 
 of the act which affect marshals and deputy marshals. 
 If any man chooses not to hold office under such a 
 law, he can decline to accept it, or resign it. It is, 
 however, clear proof of wicked legislation, when hu 
 mane and conscientious men cannot hold the offices it 
 creates. But the fifth section contains a provision 
 which is atrocious. It makes the marshal or his dep 
 uty liable for an escape, whether made " with or with 
 out his assent," that is, at all events. Though the 
 alleged fugitive should disable him, though the enemies 
 of the country should capture him, though the act of 
 God should strike him down, though an armed mob 
 should commit a rescue, yet he is still liable. 
 
 All civilized governments have statutes of limita 
 tions. Human welfare requires that claims which have 
 long been voluntarily acquiesced in, should not be re 
 vived. Hence our laws bar a right of action, other 
 wise incontrovertible, after that tacit abandonment of 
 which the mere lapse of time is proof. Personal rights 
 are most generally abandoned by a six years neglect 
 to enforce them. Even real estate may be held, by 
 twenty years quiet possession, without other title. 
 Crimes partake of this exemption. With the single 
 exception of murder, all crimes are barred in Massa 
 chusetts by a six years delay to prosecute. But the 
 Fugitive Slave act knows no mercy or compassion of 
 this kind. Unrelentingly it fastens its clutch upon all 
 cases. While life lasts, its fangs strike into the flesh. 
 The alleged slave may have been amongst us for fifty 
 years ; he may have earned property, be married, and 
 surrounded by children. It is all the same. The in 
 exorable certificate of a commissioner remands him to 
 bondage and despair. 
 
 The act not only remands him to bondage, but, 
 under circumstances to which there will be few ex 
 ceptions, it orders that he be sent home at the public 
 expense. The constitution says, he shall be " delivered 
 
355 
 
 up. " There the obligation of that instrument ceases. 
 It is only the law that adds, he shall be carried 
 back. You and I, sir, must help pay the costs of 
 sending a fellow-being into bondage ; when we are 
 under no more constitutional obligation to do so, than 
 to pay the expenses of a slave dealer who ships his 
 cargoes direct from Africa. 
 
 But the bill has become a law, and the practical 
 question now is, how can the country be exculpated 
 from the crime, and the dishonor. For myself, I do 
 not adopt the doctrine of forcible nullification. I trust 
 I shall never join a mob to resist a law, until I am 
 ready for revolution. The only true and enduring 
 remedy is repeal. Those who would forcibly resist 
 the law, lose half their motive and impulse for repeal ; 
 for if we abolish it without repealing it, it will be 
 likely to remain upon the statute book an eternal mon 
 ument of the nation s disgrace. Let effort never cease, 
 until the jury trial be obtained. 
 
 But this view of civil duty applies only to the citi 
 zen. It does not touch the fugitive. One liberty the 
 slave always has, whenever he deems it expedient, 
 he may re-clothe himself in the rights which God and 
 nature gave him, and \vhich, though they may be 
 ravished from him, can never be destroyed. 
 
 Until repeal, however, there is one opening for hope. 
 If, as is said by Mr. Crittenden, in the opinion already 
 cited, " Congress has constituted a tribunal with exclu 
 sive jurisdiction, to determine summarily, and without 
 appeal ; " and if, as he further says, " the judgment of 
 every tribunal of exclusive jurisdiction, where no ap 
 peal lies, is of necessity conclusive upon every oilier 
 tribunal, AND THEREFORE THE JUDGMENT OB THE 
 
 TRIBUNAL CREATED BY THIS ACT IS CONCLUSIVE UPON 
 
 ALL TRIBUNALS ; " then the whole case in all its bearings 
 and relations, its sources and its issues, comes before 
 the commissioner ; not even the supreme court of the 
 
356 
 
 United States can interfere with him ; and the first 
 question for him to " hear and determine " is, whether 
 in truth there be any such law, whether the whole 
 disgraceful enactment be not unconstitutional and void ; 
 and, therefore, whether his first and only duty be not 
 to dismiss the proceedings, and to " let the captive go 
 free." I am not without hope that such will be the 
 result ; and thus, that many conscientious and law- 
 abiding men will be relieved from the moral anxiety 
 and conflict which now oppresses their minds. 
 Very truly, your .obedient servant, 
 
 HORACE MANN. 
 
357 
 
 SPEECH 
 
 DELIVERED AT DEDHAM, NOVEMBER 6, 1850, BY SPECIAL RE 
 QUEST OF A CONVENTION OF WHIG VOTERS OF THE EIGHTH 
 CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT. 
 
 GENTLEMEN AND FELLOW-CITIZENS ; 
 
 Having been specially invited to appear before this 
 meeting, and address it, my friend Mr. Russell has 
 introduced me to you with many kind words ; and he 
 has emphatically announced me as "your old friend." 
 By so doing, gentlemen, he has touched a living chord 
 in my heart ; for, as I look around me, I see many 
 familiar and dear faces, and am reminded that, in this 
 town, I spent some of the happiest years of my life. 
 The sight of every object around me awakens remem 
 brances of home. Right opposite to us is the court 
 house, in whose forum my feeble voice was first 
 raised, and where, I thank God, it was never raised in 
 behalf of the oppressor, nor on the side of any cause 
 which I believed to be wrong. Around this church 
 in which we are assembled are the streets where I 
 used to walk, there is the pew where I used to sit, and 
 all around me are persons whom, for years, I saw daily 
 and knew intimately, and knew them only to respect. 
 I feel assured that I do meet "old friends," true 
 men, who carry their hearts in their hands, and whose 
 lives are anchored to their convictions of duty. 
 
 Gentlemen, it is not without embarrassment that I 
 address you. Yet I might plead a high example for 
 my course, if I were worthy, in any respect, to mention 
 myself in connection with my venerated predecessor, 
 
358 
 
 who has made the past history of his country so lumi 
 nous with his wisdom and purity, and the name of 
 this district which he represented so honored and 
 memorable. Would to God I could carry you to some 
 Pisgah height, and show you, under one view, the 
 past, the present, and the future, as he was wont to 
 do, when, as was his custom, he used to address you 
 on those great topics which employed his energies, 
 on the principles by which you ought to be guided, 
 and on the dangers to which you were exposed. 
 
 We have" fallen, gentleman, on momentous times. 
 Great events have occurred, in rapid succession, both 
 in this and in the other hemisphere. There seems to 
 have been a grand upheaving of the elements of soci 
 ety from its deep foundations. We have been so often 
 astonished and amazed, by shock after shock, and con 
 vulsion after convulsion, that I fear we are beginning 
 to lose our moral sensibility to political catastrophes, 
 however grand or fatal they may be. 
 
 You know there is a spot near the Mississippi River 
 famous for the frequency of its earthquakes. A gen 
 tleman who visited there some years ago, told me that 
 soon after entering a hotel, at a place called New 
 Madrid, his attention was suddenly arrested by the 
 rattling of the crockery, the jarring of the household 
 furniture, and the shaking of the chair in which he 
 sat. Starting up in trepidation, he sprang for the 
 door. " O," said his landlord, " don t be alarmed. It 
 is nothing but an earthquake." These phenomena, 
 it seems, had become so common as to have lost their 
 power of exciting alarm. So, I fear, it is in regard 
 to the late commotions in Europe ; and especially in 
 regard to some of the marvellous doings of Congress 
 in our own country. From their astounding character, 
 and their rapid succession, I fear we are becoming 
 insensible to their importance, like the inhabitants 
 who dwell at the base of Mount Etna, whom neither 
 
the rumbling of the mountain, nor the lava rivers 
 which pour down its side, can awake from their stu 
 por, until, like Pompeii or Herculaneum, they are 
 buried in the ruins. 
 
 In the old world, things seem already to be settling 
 back into their former condition, and hopes are dark 
 ening into fears. In this country, I still trust that we 
 shall redeem something of the past, and secure the 
 future. Yet the events of the last few months are 
 of a disheartening character, if any thing could ever 
 dishearten a true lover of his country. It has been 
 my fortune and duty to be in the midst of these 
 events. I have watched the tide of battle with sleep 
 less eye ; and when Liberty at last was stricken down, 
 my heart bled with hers. 
 
 I believe I understand, gentlemen, what you wish 
 me to do on this occasion ; and therefore I shall en 
 deavor to lay before you, briefly but impartially, the 
 humble part which I, as your representative, have 
 taken in those events which have filled the hearts of 
 good men with alarm. 
 
 I would, however, premise a few words, in order to 
 show how we have come, step by step, to the fearful 
 position we now occupy. 
 
 Very early in our history, as a republic established 
 to maintain the rights of man, an extent of territory 
 was acquired equal to all we possessed before ; and this 
 addition accrued to the special advantage of those who 
 maintain, as the first great article in their creed, the 
 wrongs of man. The same European wars which 
 enabled Mr. Jefferson s administration to purchase 
 Louisiana with fifteen millions of dollars, a sum 
 mostly paid by the north, brought the commercial 
 interests of the north also within the destructive sweep 
 of those contests, and the non-intercourse act and the 
 embargo were the consequence. These carne upon 
 New England at a time when commerce was her only 
 
360 
 
 resource. They brought as great a calamity upon the 
 New England states as it would now be to the south 
 if their whole cotton crop, or to the west if their 
 whole grain crop, were to fail for a series of years. 
 They palsied our industry ; and, without industry, 
 men, any where out of Paradise, will be poor. Upon 
 the back of this calamity came the war of 1812, 
 which we bore as well as we could, and performed our 
 full share in carrying the country through it, though 
 it cut off our very means of living. That war re 
 vealed a lamentable condition of things. It revealed 
 the fact that, notwithstanding our political independ 
 ence, we were, in a commercial sense, most deplorably 
 dependent. It pointed to a new policy. It put the 
 country upon achieving its second independence, 
 its independence, at least for the necessaries of life, of 
 foreign mechanics, manufacturers, and artisans, as it 
 had already achieved its political independence of for 
 eign kings, aristocracies, and ecclesiastics. It gave 
 birth to the American system, in which Calhoun, 
 Lowndes, Cheves, and Clay, all from the slave 
 states, took the lead. I mention the first three 
 names, particularly, because they were from the state 
 of South Carolina. So heartily did they enter into 
 the new policy that they took their seats in Congress 
 clad in homespun. They said they would exemplify 
 their principles by their garments, and wear them out 
 side as well as inside of their bodies. I am sorry 
 their principles lasted but little longer than their 
 clothes, one suit worn out, and all, both without 
 and within, clean gone. Even Mr. Madison boasted 
 that his coat was woven in an American loom. The 
 south led off in this policy, and New England, whose 
 capital had been wrecked on the ocean, was reluctantly 
 compelled to follow their lead. This was the origin 
 of the protective tariff, the child of South Carolina, 
 though, at a later period, adopted by Massachusetts. 
 
361 
 
 It was not, however, until 1824, that New England, 
 and Massachusetts particularly, gave in her adhesion 
 to the protective policy. Then our people engaged 
 in manufactures. The streams were dammed, and 
 the mighty powers of nature were set to spinning 
 and weaving, to dyeing and printing, under the guid 
 ance of that genius which had been kindled and nur 
 tured in our schoolhouses. Those establishments were 
 founded which have produced so marvellous a change 
 in our household condition, surrounding all with so 
 many comforts, and filling our dwellings with so vast 
 a variety of the refinements and luxuries of life. 
 Those of you who have arrived at my age, and are 
 therefore acquainted with the condition of things 
 throughout our country towns thirty years ago, know 
 that the change is almost magical. Though opposed 
 in its inception by the cities and the merchants, yet it 
 has promoted their prosperity not less than that of 
 the people. 
 
 In the year 1820, a national question of a great 
 moral character arose. The south, whose policy had 
 before secured a territory as large as that of the original 
 thirteen, sought to extend slavery over its whole sur 
 face. Missouri applied to be admitted into the Union as 
 a slave state. The morality and religion of the north 
 thought the time had come to arrest the strides of 
 slavery, and they opposed the application. Earnest 
 resistance was made. The battle was obstinately 
 fought ; but at last, the north, or rather enough recre 
 ants of the north yielded, and the day was lost. The 
 south bought or bullied a sufficient number of the 
 invertebrate creatures whom we send to Congress, and 
 triumphed over us. This was the first great surrender 
 of principle on the part of the north, and a fatal sur 
 render it was. We, and humanity, and all that is 
 dearest to the heart and thoughts of man, might have 
 achieved the victory but for a few cases of foul 
 31 
 
362 
 
 treachery to the cause of freedom. O, that the retri 
 butions for that treason had been so terrible, that the 
 coward motive of fear, if not the angel impulse of hu 
 manity, might have deterred all men in after times 
 from ever daring to repeat it. 
 
 The next great struggle was in 1833, when nullifi 
 cation first reared its hideous head. At that epoch, 
 the south, and especially South Carolina, observing 
 that our capital had been too deeply invested in manu 
 factures to be withdrawn, changed their policy, and 
 sought to reap a double harvest, both of the manu 
 facturing system they had introduced, and of the free 
 trade system they had abandoned. She therefore set 
 about to strangle that offspring of protection to which 
 she had given birth. Even in Virginia, Mr. Madison s 
 coat had become an unconstitutional coat, and the idea 
 of American woollens so wrought upon Mr. John 
 Randolph s gentle affections, that he said he would go 
 a mile out of his way to kick a sheep. The South 
 Carolina resistance was beginning to assume a military 
 form. Then occurred a most admirable opportunity 
 to test the strength of our government, to learn and 
 know whether the pillars of this Union are made of 
 granite or of pipe-stems. We had a clear case of right. 
 In the chair of state was a man of Roman will, who 
 would have rejoiced in the opportunity to see that the 
 republic received no detriment. He contemned the 
 nonsense as much as he despised the fraud, of the cry 
 that the Union was in danger. If it was in any dan 
 ger, he would have saved it in such a way that it 
 would not need saving again every twelvemonth. But 
 the chance was lost. A compromise was brought for 
 ward, by which South Carolina consented to a sort of 
 armed truce, on her part, provided the tariff, though 
 not given up, should be tapered down almost to nothing. 
 Though, on many accounts, I have a high respect for 
 the author of that compromise, yet I regard it as the 
 
363 
 
 most unfortunate act ever done, the most fatal pre 
 cedent ever set by this government. It taught the 
 south the efficacy of clamoring ; it taught them that 
 there are cases where a Bombastes Furioso is as pow 
 erful as a Julius Csesar ; and it taught them also, not 
 withstanding all appearances of solidity and firmness, 
 of what a delicate nervous tissue a money-bag consists. 
 
 When that compromise law had had time to reach 
 its legitimate issues, you all know the result. A whirl 
 wind of bankruptcy swept over the land. Its ravages 
 reached even the humblest portions of society. The 
 laborer suffered even more than the capitalist. The 
 latter suffered in his gains, but the former in his bread. 
 All classes perceived the cause ; and they rallied, al 
 most as one man, to that tremendous effort to change 
 the policy of the country, which resulted in the elec 
 tion to the presidency of General Harrison. Though, 
 but a few days after his inauguration, the reins of gov 
 ernment fell from his lifeless hands, yet the tariff of 
 1842 was the consequence of his election. This re 
 stored the drooping fortunes of New England. Then 
 it was, while we were immersed in our business and 
 our money making, that southern politicians addressed 
 themselves to that great scheme of pro-slavery aggran 
 dizement, the annexation of Texas. You are all 
 familiar with the details of this transaction, and it is 
 painful to revert to them. The kid was seethed in its 
 mother s milk. Northern Democrats cast the votes 
 which gave Texas to the south, and destroyed our own 
 prosperity. Texas was admitted just in season to re 
 peal, by her votes in the Senate, the tariff of 1842, by 
 that of 1846. This again put in jeopardy all our 
 means embarked in manufactures. Would to Heaven 
 that nothing more dear than pecuniary interests had 
 been sacrificed by that measure. 
 
 I do not blame the south for seeking an equilibrium 
 with the north ; but they do not seek the true equi- 
 
364 
 
 librium. If they would sustain themselves in a com 
 petition with us in economical affairs, they must en 
 courage labor and render it honorable. They must, 
 all of them, labor as we do, in one way or another, 
 with the hand or with the head ; or, which is the 
 only true way, with both together. They must 
 build schoolhouses to develop the minds of their chil 
 dren, and churches to cultivate their morals. If they 
 would only do this, and not attempt to carry every 
 thing by slave-begotten votes, and by adding new 
 states to beget more slave votes, they would soon sur 
 pass us ; for nature has done vastly more for them, in 
 soil and climate and in all the means of earthly pros 
 perity, than for us. A superiority obtained in this 
 way, we, as lovers of human happiness, should not 
 repine at, but rejoice in. 
 
 The next struggle in which they engaged for politi 
 cal aggrandizement, was the Mexican war. It could, 
 indeed, hardly be called a struggle, the north so 
 readily and ignorniniously yielded. They wanted 
 more territory. Texas, already gravid with future 
 slave states, was not sufficient. And though it was 
 yet somewhat uncertain whether Congress would 
 not interdict the extension of slavery over that coun 
 try, even should they conquer it ; still, as they had 
 always triumphed in their contests with us, they as 
 sumed the risk, and trusted to their future prowess and 
 skill to monopolize the plunder. The territory was 
 conquered ; and then, perhaps, the most important ques 
 tion arose which has ever come before this country 
 since the Declaration of Independence. The most 
 momentous consequences were suspended on the de 
 cision of this question. We had, as it were, a creative 
 power put into our hands. We had the shaping of the 
 destinies of half a continent intrusted to our keeping. 
 Our authority once exercised, the act would be irrevo 
 cable, and the doom of all that region would be fixed, 
 
365 
 
 as by a decree of Omnipotence. When God gives to 
 the world a generation of children, and they are ruined 
 through parental neglect, he gives another generation, 
 chat another trial may be made. But if we once admit 
 slavery into those immense regions, comprising all the 
 unsettled residue of this continent, God will give us no 
 new continent on which the error may be retrieved. 
 
 Now, on this great question, what has been done ? 
 1 grieve to say that I fear the battle has been lost. If 
 not lost, nothing can save it but a vigor and an energy 
 on the part of the north, such as they have not lately 
 put forth. So far as legislation is concerned, the 
 whole battle field is in possession of the enemy. Let 
 me read a passage from one of the acts of the last ses 
 sion of Congress, which settles this fact. By the law 
 for creating the territorial government of New Mexico, 
 it is expressly provided, 
 
 " That when admitted as a state, the said territory, or any 
 portion of the same, shall be received into the Union, WITH 
 OR WITHOUT SLAVERY, as their constitution may prescribe at 
 the time of their admission." 
 
 The act providing a territorial government for Utah 
 contains a provision precisely similar. In regard to 
 Texas, we have gratuitously given her a right to form 
 one more slave state than she was authorized to do by 
 the resolution of annexation. By the third article of 
 the second section of that resolution, Texas was au 
 thorized to form new states, not exceeding four, of 
 which those south of 36 30 should be admitted, with 
 or without slavery, as their people should elect, while 
 in the state or states, (and there must, therefore, be at 
 least one.) which should be formed north of 36 30 , 
 there should be no slavery or involuntary servitude 
 except for crime. But by the act of the last session, 
 for establishing the boundary of Texas, though the 
 United States buys up the claim of Texas to all the 
 31* 
 
366 
 
 territory north of 36 30 , yet it authorizes Texas to 
 form as many slave states out of the residue of her ter 
 ritory, as she could have formed by the resolution of 
 annexation, both of slave and free. This is manifest, 
 by the following provision : 
 
 " Provided, that nothing herein contained shall be construed 
 to impair or qualify any thing contained in the third article 
 of the second section of the joint resolution for annexing Texas 
 to the United States, approved March 1, 1845, either as re 
 gards the number of states that may hereafter be formed out 
 of the State of Texas, or otherwise" 
 
 Here, then, instead of three states, four are provided 
 for, with full consent that they shall all be slave states. 
 Now, 1 ask, if this gift of a slave state is a trifle to be 
 thrown in like the value of a small coin in the settle 
 ment of an account ? In some of the pro-slavery pa 
 pers of the north, which have professed to publish this 
 act for the information of their readers, I have observed 
 that this clause has been left out ! They did not dare 
 to trust their readers during the present political cam 
 paign with a knowledge of it. 
 
 I know it is said, by here and there an individual, 
 that slavery cannot go into those territories. But it is 
 to be remembered that all the south, almost as one 
 man, dissent from this proposition. They say it can 
 and shall ; and is not their opinion, on such a subject, 
 of greater weight than that of any northern man ? 
 They threaten to dissolve the Union if slavery be pro 
 hibited from going there. Are they such lunatics as to 
 dissolve the Union, because we assume to prohibit what 
 nature has already made impossible ? Slave states bor 
 der on those territories, and should there be any rush 
 of emigration towards them, as } by the discovery of 
 mines or other causes there may be, a cloud of slaves 
 would immediately overspread them. If it be said 
 that the local law of the territories prohibits slavery, I 
 reply, so it did in Texas. Slavery had been abolished 
 
367 
 
 throughout Mexico, of which Texas was a province. 
 But though slavery was uo longer legal there, peonage 
 was. Hence the southern planters, at least some of them, 
 when about to remove to Texas, indented their own 
 slaves to themselves, as peons, so that they might hold 
 them by the Mexican law of peonage, until they 
 should become strong enough to pass a law for slavery. 
 It will be no more difficult to introduce slavery into 
 New Mexico and Utah than it was into Texas. 
 
 I will not now go back to the questions which agi 
 tated the country and the Whig party at the time when 
 General Taylor was nominated for the presidency. 
 Whatever I may have thought of him, and of the pro 
 priety of nominating him, it is but justice to say that I 
 now believe that he was a true man, and an anti-slavery 
 man. He intended honestly to carry out the will of 
 Congress, and execute the laws of his country, regard 
 less of slaveholding dictation. He would have crushed 
 the first movement for disunion ; or rather, a knowl 
 edge of what he would do. would have prevented any 
 such movement. With his own lips, in his own house, 
 he told me that in case any state should attempt to 
 nullify an act of Congress, he should immediately 
 order a naval force to blockade its coast ; he would al 
 low nothing to pass into, or to come out of, the rebel 
 lious state ; and in six months, said he, it would give 
 up its resistance without the shedding of blood. It 
 was President Taylor s plan, as you well know, to leave 
 the adjustment of the slavery question to the territo 
 ries themselves ; not that he was not prepared to have 
 it settled by Congress, and a prohibition imposed, but 
 because he saw that while a prohibitory act might be 
 passed by the House, it would certainly be rejected by 
 the Senate. He therefore threw himself forward to 
 what he knew the condition of things must be, after 
 all the ineffectual attempts at legislation on the subject 
 had been made ; and he adopted that future condition 
 
368 
 
 and result of things as his present plan of action. 
 Should the northern members of the House prove true 
 to their constituencies and their pledges, they would 
 never allow the territories to be organized without the 
 proviso ; and the fear of such a prohibition would ex 
 clude slavery from the territories, as certainly as the 
 prohibition itself. Slaveholders would not venture 
 to carry slaves into a country, where, at any moment 
 an act of Congress might emancipate them. And if 
 slavery could only be kept out of the territories while 
 they remained territories, it would, of course, be pro 
 hibited by the state itself, when the condition of terri 
 torial pupilage should be succeeded by that of state 
 independence. A boy trained up to virtuous resolves 
 until the day he is twenty-one, will not adopt all the 
 vices the day after. 
 
 The recent act has given Texas more than fifty 
 thousand square miles of free New Mexican territory, 
 and the promise of ten millions of dollars in fourteen 
 years, with interest at five per cent, up to that time ; 
 which, at compound interest, makes a prospective grant 
 of twenty millions of dollars. This is done on pre 
 tence of discharging debts which she owed at the 
 time of her annexation. But those debts, at the high 
 est estimate, do not exceed seven millions, so that 
 a clear gratuity is left to her of at least three millions 
 in addition to the grant of another slave state. The 
 interest of these three millions will support her govern 
 ment, and keep her supplied with the means of fighting 
 the battles of slavery. 
 
 There is something most extraordinary in the claim 
 of Texas to the territory for which she has obtained 
 so extravagant a price. Her title was not by conquest, 
 nor by purchase, but by an act of her own legislature. 
 She claimed the territory merely because she had ex 
 tended her legislation over it, when she had no more 
 right to legislate for it than for Canada. I have 
 
369 
 
 brought with me for your inspection, if any of you 
 desire to see them, a series of maps which illustrate 
 the growth of Texas. By Humboldt s map, of 1804, 
 Texas contained 71,752 square miles. By Tanner s 
 map, of 1826, it contained 108,097 square miles. By 
 Austin s map, of 1839, it had grown to 179,567 square 
 miles. The late claim of its legislature was the enor 
 mous quantity of 325,000 square miles, which the act 
 of Congress cuts down only to 237,321 ! By its own 
 legislative assumptions it grew from 70,000 to 325,000 
 square miles. By good husbandry, in this part of the 
 country, we are able to make greater crops grow on the 
 same land, but in Texas they make the land itself 
 grow. 1 think Humboldt himself would have been 
 astonished at any such geological theory of the up 
 rising of the earth as would enlarge an area of 70,000 
 square miles, in an inland country, into more than 
 300,000, in less than fifty years. 
 
 But, fellow-citizens, slavery is already in the territo 
 ries, whether prohibited by God and nature, or not ! 
 The line of 36 30 crosses the territory appropriated 
 to the Indians, which is already full of slaves. When 
 ever the Indian title is extinguished, slavery will be 
 found there in possession of the soil. Utah has slaves 
 to-day, and I was informed by a gentleman chosen as 
 a delegate from that territory to Congress, that the 
 Mormon religion prescribes nothing on the subject. 
 
 I need not now dwell on another act of the last 
 session, the Fugitive Slave Law, because, as yet, 
 I believe no voice in Massachusetts has been raised in 
 its defence or palliation. It is an act which might turn 
 all of us here, at this moment, into slave hunters ; 
 which might break up this meeting at the present time, 
 should an officer, clothed with the authority of the 
 United States, appear at that door and command us 
 to chase an alleged fugitive, perhaps a native-born 
 freeman, over the graves of our Pilgrim fathers. 
 
Standing here, then, before yon, my constituents, to 
 give account of my stewardship, I have to say, that 
 with voice and vote, by expostulation and by remon 
 strance, by all means in my power, 1 have, to the full 
 extent of my ability, resisted the passage of all these 
 laws. Why have I done so ? Because, in the first 
 place, I felt myself a moral and accountable being ; 
 and, as such, I could not do otherwise. I have done 
 so, in the second place, because I was your representa 
 tive, and believed myself to be acting in conformity with 
 your wishes, with the wishes of the Whig party of 
 Massachusetts, and of my constituents generally. Have 
 I been mistaken ? [A volley of noes.] 
 
 To ascertain what were the wishes of the Whig 
 party, and of those who put me in nomination, I 
 shall refer you to a series of the resolutions of con 
 ventions, and of the declarations of the best accredited 
 authorities of that party, on this subject, for years past. 
 The following are among the resolutions of the Whig 
 convention which assembled in this town, March. 1848, 
 to nominate a successor to the Hon. John duincy 
 Adams. They were unanimously adopted : 
 
 " Resolved, That the members of this convention, met to 
 gether for the purpose of nominating a candidate to supply 
 the vacancy existing in the eighth congressional district, mourn, 
 in common with the state and the nation, the event which 
 has deprived them of the services of that eminent son of Mas 
 sachusetts, whose voice was ever raised in the cause of free 
 dom, whose vast and varied powers, more than those of any 
 other statesman of his time, were devoted to the service of 
 his country, shedding light upon her institutions, and leading 
 her on in the path of duty, prosperity, and glory. 
 
 " Resolved, That the loss of his services in the hails of 
 Congress, at this time, is the more deeply to be deplored, when 
 his great weight of character, his influence, his talents, his 
 wisdom, his zeal, and indomitable energy would have been so 
 benignly felt upon the great questions of freedom and slavery, 
 which are to be discussed and settled for our newly-acquired 
 
371 
 
 domain, stretching from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific 
 Ocean. 
 
 4 Resolved, That it behooves us to unite upon a candidate 
 to represent this district upon the floor of Congress, whose 
 principles shall be in consonance with those of his predecessor, 
 whose fidelity to the great principles of human freedom shall 
 be unwavering, whose voice and vote shall on all occasions be 
 exercised in extending and securing liberty to the human 
 
 In September, 1848, the Whig state convention of 
 Massachusetts met at Worcester, when the following 
 resolution, among others, reported by the Hon. Joseph 
 Bell, of Boston, since then president of the Massachusetts 
 Senate, was unanimously adopted : 
 
 " Resolved, That being impressed with a profound sense 
 of our responsibility, as the representatives of the Whigs of 
 Massachusetts, that responsibility which attaches to our words, 
 acts, and votes, we cannot fail, on this occasion, as we have 
 never failed on any other general assemblage of the Whigs 
 of Massachusetts, to record, in the most solemn and deliber 
 ate manner, our unqualified opposition to any extension of the 
 institution of slavery into our territory, or any acquisitions of 
 territory, for the purpose of such extension. On this question, 
 the voice of the Whigs of Massachusetts has been unwaver 
 ing and uniform, and never has that voice spoken with higher 
 eloquence and power than when our distinguished senator in 
 Congress, speaking for himself, and for the whole people of 
 the commonwealth, said, 4 1 consent to no further extension 
 of the area of slavery in the United States, or to the further 
 increase of slavery representation in the House of Represen 
 tatives. 1 " 
 
 In September of the same year, another Whig con 
 vention assembled at this place, to nominate a candi 
 date for the Thirty-first Congress. My views, as re 
 corded by my votes on all the questions of slavery, and 
 as expressed in my speech, delivered on the 30th of 
 the preceding June ; were then before the people. That 
 
372 
 
 convention, among other resolutions, passed the follow 
 ing, by acclamation : 
 
 " Resolved, That we cordially approve of the course of 
 the Hon. Horace Mann, and that his position in regard \ofree 
 principles, free labor, and free speech, sustained with such 
 signal ability, was but a satisfactory fulfilment of the expec 
 tations that we had when we nominated him to succeed the il 
 lustrious Adams. Regarding the past as the best and only 
 honorable pledge of the future, this convention unanimously 
 present his name to the people of this district for reelection." 
 
 At the Whig state convention, held at Springfield, 
 September 29th, 1847, Mr. Webster said he would con 
 sent to no extension of slavery. Are not the laws 
 which I have just read a consent? full consent? 
 He claimed the Wilmot proviso as his " thunder," and 
 said it had been stolen from him. Whether stolen 
 from him, or not. I do not decide. He certainly seems 
 to have lost possession of it ; for we now find him thun 
 dering on the other side ; yes, from the high Olympus 
 to which the votes of Massachusetts had elevated him, he 
 has hurled his bolts against the dearest interests of his 
 benefactors. But it is said we have registered these 
 acts of pro-slavery legislation, at the dictation of the 
 south, in order to save the Union. When Governor 
 Davis was once asked to surrender the rights of hu 
 manity to save the Union, he retorted with the ques 
 tion, " How many times have we got to save the 
 Union ? " If we yield to every threat of disunion, we 
 shall have to save the Union whenever any factious 
 and unprincipled member of it shall threaten resistance 
 to the laws. Look at the present threat which has 
 been made by Texas. What resources has she where 
 with to oppose the general government ? She has no 
 funds except a school fund of $34,000, which her 
 governor, in one of his late messages, declared to be 
 inviolably devoted to education. To be sure, since 
 this cry of rebellion has been raised, he has said that 
 
373 
 
 this fund, which could be diverted for no useful pur 
 pose, might be appropriated to the treasonable one of 
 resistance. But look at the amount of this fund, 
 $34,000. Military men tell me it would not support a 
 single regiment of mounted rangers more than a month; 
 and all the more settled parts of Texas are at least one 
 month s marching distance from Santa Fe, which is 
 the nearest point of attack. There was never any 
 thing more ridiculous than the threats of Texas, that 
 she will take armed possession of the eastern side of 
 the Rio Grande, if it be not surrendered to her. She 
 cannot even protect herself against the Indian tribes 
 that roam through the regions lying between her and 
 the people she threatens to subjugate. Will the dis 
 affected states of the south help her by munitions, 
 money, or men ? The only states on which she could 
 place any reliance are Mississippi and South Carolina. 
 Could a military force be organized, and then inarched 
 nearly a thousand, or nearly fifteen hundred miles, 
 across the country, to uphold the Texan banner on the 
 borders of the Rio Grande ? Were expeditions to be 
 sent by sea, could not the mouth of the Mississippi, 
 the harbor of Charleston, and that gateway of the 
 Gulf of Mexico, which lies between the capes of Flori 
 da and the West India Islands ; ay, the whole Texan 
 coast itself, be blockaded and guarded, so as to make a 
 hostile irruption into New Mexico impossible ? Talk 
 about Texan resistance to the government of these Uni 
 ted States, my fellow-citizens ; it is so ridiculous that 
 nothing can be conceived which is not less ridiculous, 
 and which would, therefore, by the very comparison, re 
 lieve the supposition of a portion of its nonsense. This 
 surrendering to the threat of disunion, is like the fool 
 ish mother who gave her boy a sugar-plum to stop 
 swearing. Presently he belched out a stream of pro 
 fanity ; and when the mother asked him why he did 
 so, he said, "I want more sugar-plums." General 
 32 
 
374 
 
 Taylor embraced the whole subject in a short sentence 
 when he said he was more afraid of Texan bonds than 
 of Texan bayonets. Their bonds have been ten thou 
 sand times more powerful than their bayonets in con 
 summating this disastrous compromise. 
 
 But it is not only in conventions of the Whig party 
 that sentiments have been expressed wholly incompat 
 ible with the great surrenders we have made. Such 
 sentiments have emanated from more authoritative 
 sources. They are the voice of our commonwealth, 
 the repeated voice, reiterated again and again, through 
 a series of years. Let me select a few from among 
 the many resolves of the Massachusetts legislature, 
 covering the time, and preceding the time, that I 
 have been in Congress. The following was passed 
 in 1847: 
 
 "Resolved, unanimously, That the legislature of Massachu 
 setts views the existence of human slavery within the limits 
 of the United States as a great calamity, an immense moral 
 and political evil, which ought to be abolished, as soon as that 
 end can be properly and constitutionally attained, and that its 
 extension should be uniformly opposed by all good and patri 
 otic men throughout the Union." 
 
 Again, in 1849, the legislature of Massachusetts 
 
 "Resolved, That when Congress furnishes governments 
 for the territories of California and New Mexico, it will be its 
 duty to establish therein the fundamental principles of the 
 ordinance of seventeen hundred and eighty-seven, upon the 
 subject of slavery, to the end that the institution may be 
 perpetually excluded therefrom beyond every chance and 
 uncertainty." 
 
 And again, during this present year, and not six 
 months ago, the same general court passed the follow 
 ing resolve. I might read from the printed volume 
 of the " Acts and Resolves of 1850 ; " but I choose 
 to read from this official circular which I hold in my 
 
375 
 
 hand, which is attested by the secretary of state, and 
 was sent to me at Washington, as to all the other 
 members of Congress from Massachusetts, so that we 
 might be informed of the views of the state govern 
 ment, as well as of our respective constituencies, on 
 this important subject : 
 
 "Resolved, That the people of Massachusetts earnestly 
 insist upon the application by Congress of the ordinance of 
 1787, with all possible sanctions and solemnities of law, to 
 the territorial possessions of the Union in all parts of the 
 continent, and for all coming time. 
 
 "Resolved, That the people of Massachusetts, in the main 
 tenance of these their well known and invincible principles, 
 expect that all their officers and representatives will adhere 
 to them at all times, on all occasions, and under all circum 
 stances." 
 
 And yet, in six months, we are called upon to sup 
 port these laws. Is this "all coming time"? Are 
 these "invincible principles" of the Massachusetts 
 Whig legislature to melt, like wax, when touched by 
 the breath of party ? They notified me, under their 
 seal and sign-manual, that they expected " all their 
 officers and representatives to adhere to them, at all 
 times, on all occasions, and under all circumstances." 
 And yet, before six months have elapsed, some of the 
 very men who voted to give me such instructions, or 
 injunctions, or whatever you please to call them, having 
 discarded their own solemn asseverations of principle, 
 now upbraid me because I, too, will not be recreant to 
 them. Is this what you are to expect from men whom 
 you have elected by your votes, and to whom the 
 momentous interests of millions, and the honor of the 
 country, have been confided, that their vows should 
 be like those of perfidious lovers, who swear " eternal 
 fidelity" during the honey moon? We cannot 
 plead the excuse, in regard to these resolves, which a 
 certain hearer of Whitfield did, for appearing unmoved 
 
376 
 
 at one of his pathetic discourses, while all others were 
 melted to tears. Wheti asked why he, too, did not 
 weep, he replied that " he did not belong to that par 
 ish." We do belong to this parish. These are the 
 " acts and resolves " of our own state, fresh and 
 unsullied from the mint. We cannot deny their gen 
 uineness. If we impute fraud any where, it must be 
 to the motives of those who passed them. Hear, too, 
 what Governor Briggs says on this same subject, in his 
 last inaugural address : 
 
 " Entertaining no doubt of the constitutional power of Con 
 gress to exclude slavery from its own territories, and believing 
 that such exclusion is demanded by the highest principles of 
 morality and justice, she never can consent to its extension 
 over one foot of territory where it now is not. If the other 
 free states concur with her in this resolution, the thing will be 
 done, and consequences left to themselves." 
 
 Thus have the Whig party in this state, arid its 
 executive, pledged themselves not to extend slavery 
 " one foot." How many feet in the six hundred 
 thousand square miles, into which the legislation of 
 the last Congress permits slavery to enter? which 
 legislation the Whig party is now called upon to in 
 dorse, that is, how many myriad pledges do they 
 require us to break ? 
 
 Let me now quote from another high Whig author 
 ity, General James Wilson, of New Hamphire. For 
 many years, probably no man has been considered 
 a more authoritative expounder of Whig sentiment. 
 He has been employed by the party, or the organs 
 of the party, to traverse the country for the advocacy 
 of Whig principles, and has been every where listened 
 to with great acceptance. In Congress, he spoke as 
 follows : 
 
 " I hold that Congress is bound to take care of the territo 
 ries, and so execute the trust as will best promote the interests 
 of those who may hereafter be entitled to the beneficial use. 
 
377 
 
 As a member of this Congress, I feel that I sustain a part of 
 that responsibility, and it is my desire to acquit myself wor 
 thily in meeting it. I desire so to acquit myself that my own 
 conscience will not upbraid me, and that when I shall pass 
 away, no reproach shall fall upon me, or my children after 
 me, for my acts here upon this momentous question. I have, 
 sir, an only son, now a little fellow, whom some of this com 
 mittee may have seen here. Think you that when I am 
 gone, and he shall grow up to manhood, and shall come for 
 ward to act his part among the citizens of the country, I will 
 leave it to be cast in his teeth, as a reproach, that his father 
 voted to send slavery into those territories ? No ! O, no ! I 
 look reverently up to the Father of us all, and fervently 
 implore him to spare that child that reproach. May God 
 forbid it ! 
 
 " I have said that it is characteristic of the slave power to 
 accomplish all of its political purposes in this government. I 
 must now say that the power and influence of slavery over 
 the action of Congress is impaired, if not entirely gone. 
 [What an infinite mistake !] I make this declaration, not 
 because I have any confidence in the politicians of the day. 
 No, sir, I have none whatever. The politicians are just as 
 ready now to betray their constituents as they ever have 
 been. I am sorry to say there is evidence enough of this. 
 My confidence is in the people. They have taken the matter 
 into their own hands ; they have brought -themselves into 
 order of battle and line, without the word of command from 
 any political leader. Here they stand, with front rank, and 
 rear rank, and rank of file-closers in position, with bayonets 
 at a charge. They have spoken to their representatives 
 in a voice of thunder, and warned them against abandoning 
 their interests. They have bid them do it at their peril. 
 The constituents have challenged their representatives to 
 betray their trusts, and skulk and retreat upon them, if they 
 dared. 
 
 " And, sir, the constituencies have spoken upon honor. 
 They are determined, and will execute their purposes. There 
 was a time, when, if the slave power had any special work 
 to be done, and wanted a northern man to do it, they hunted 
 him up from New Hampshire. Little, unfortunate New 
 32* 
 
378 
 
 Hampshire was called upon to furnish the scavenger to do 
 the dirty work. That day, thank God, has gone by, and it 
 will not come again very soon. [Wait a short year, Mr. 
 Wilson, and see who the Hazael will be.] 
 
 " The north are not disposed to trespass or interfere with 
 the rights of the south. Where slavery exists within the 
 states, the northern people claim no right to interfere with it 
 by any political action of this government. The people ask 
 no action by Congress on the subject of slavery within the 
 states. But gentleman need not ask me for my vote to 
 extend the institution of slavery one single inch beyond its 
 present boundaries. Did I say an inch, Mr. Chairman ? 
 Ay, I would not extend it one sixteen-thousandth part of a 
 hair s breadth. I would not extend it, because it would be 
 doing an irretrievable wrong to my fellow-man ; because it 
 would be doing irreparable wrong to those territories for 
 which we are now to legislate ; because it would be doing 
 violence to nature and to nature s God ; and because it would 
 be a wicked and wanton betrayal of the trust confided to me 
 by the free, intelligent constituency which has done me the 
 honor to send me here. 
 
 " It shall not be in the power of any man to shake a men 
 acing finger at me, and look me in the face with a jibe of con 
 tempt, and say to me, in the insulting language of a former 
 representative from Virginia, [Mr. RANDOLPH,] 4 we have 
 conquered you, and we will conquer you again ; we have 
 not conquered you by the black slaves of the south, but by 
 the white slaves of the north. No, sir, that remark shall 
 never apply to me. Gentlemen need not talk to me, or 
 attempt to frighten me, by threats of dissolution of the Union. 
 Sir, I do not permit myself to talk, or even think of the dis 
 solution of the Union ; very few northern men do. We all 
 look upon such a thing as impossible. But, sir, sir, if the 
 alternative should be presented to me of the extension of 
 slavery, or the dissolution of the Union, I would say, rather 
 than extend slavery, let the Union, ay, the Universe itself be 
 dissolved ! Never, never will I raise rny hand or my voice 
 to give a vote by which it can or may be extended. As God 
 is my judge, I cannot, I will not be moved from the purpose 
 I have now announced." 
 
379 
 
 And yet this same General Wilson did vote for 
 every one of these laws, excepting, perhaps, the last, 
 which passed in the night, fit darkness for so dark 
 a deed, and the next morning he was off for Cali 
 fornia. How can such a man stop this side of Botany 
 Hay ? Now, fellow-citizens, did you want me to dis 
 grace myself, and you, and human nature, too, by such 
 an act of flagrant apostasy ? [A crash of noes.] Yet 
 if these measures are adopted and sustained by the 
 Whig party, and if those men who committed these 
 nefarious deeds are justified and upheld by you, then 
 how are you less guilty than General Wilson ?* 
 
 Let me quote a passage or two from a speech deliv 
 ered by one of my colleagues in Congress, the Hon. 
 George Ashmun, who has, I believe, usually been 
 considered pretty good Whig authority. In a speech 
 made by him on the 27th of last March, referring to 
 the subjects of slavery in the territories and the recap 
 tion of alleged fugitive slaves, he said, 
 
 " But I am bound to say, however, if the south persist in 
 uniting to demand the entrance of slavery into our free terri 
 tories, I, for one, must conform to what are, at the same time, 
 the views of my constituents and the convictions of my own 
 judgment ; and if I am driven to the alternative, I shall not 
 hesitate to vote for the proviso." App. to Cong. Globe, 1st. 
 Sess. 3lst Congress, p. 401. 
 
 " While I desire to do every thing which may protect 
 the rights of property which -are guarantied to citizens of 
 the slave states, I cannot consent to sacrifice the rights of 
 liberty which belong to the citizens of the free states. To 
 secure both these ends, I see no other mode than to have 
 those rights settled before legal tribunals, by the verdicts 
 
 of juries and the judgments of courts When a 
 
 colored man is seized in Massachusetts upon a claim that he 
 is the property of a citizen of a slave state, and he claims to 
 be a citizen of Massachusetts, and invokes the protection 
 
 * Mr. Wilson has since been rewarded by the administration with 
 a lucrative office in California. 
 
380 
 
 of the laws of Massachusetts, is it to be said he may be 
 summarily sent away by the decree of any one magistrate 
 without the privilege of vindicating his title to his citizenship 
 before a jury of the country ? Why, sir, it could not be 
 done in the case of a horse escaped from one state to another, 
 and found in the possession of a citizen. It could not be 
 taken by strong hand, by force. The claimant must resort 
 to process of law. He must sue out his writ of replevin, and 
 the title of the defendant must be tried where he lives. That 
 defendant may be a negro ; and surely, if without a trial by 
 jury you may not take that which he claims to be his prop 
 erty, you can hardly claim to seize the man himself, and 
 carry him away, before his title to freedom has been tested by 
 a tribunal, as respectable, at least, and as safe, as that which 
 settles a title to his horse." Ib. p. 399. 
 
 Arid another of my colleagues, [Mr. DUNCAN,] even 
 as late as the 7th of June last, emphatically declared, 
 in the House of Representatives, as follows : 
 
 " If territorial bills are presented for the government of 
 New Mexico and Utah, I shall vote for the exclusion of 
 slavery from those territories." 
 
 Let me fortify these citations by another from one 
 of the acknowledged leaders of the Whig party, 
 the Hon. Rufus Choate : 
 
 " On all the great questions of the day, but just slavery ; 
 on executive power, on internal improvement, on the protec 
 tion of labor, on peace, and the constitution, we mean to 
 remain the same party of Whigs, one and indivisible, from 
 Maine to Louisiana, one vast incorporation of consentaneous 
 feeling throughout the land ; and upon this question alone we 
 always differ from the Whigs of the south ; and on that one 
 we propose sirnply to vote them down." * 
 
 I will quote a passage also from a recent letter of 
 the Hon. Zeno Scudder, late a Whig president of the 
 Massachusetts Senate, arid now a candidate of the 
 Whig party for Congress, in District No. 10 : 
 
 * See, also, ante, p. 256. 
 
381 
 
 " I was at the Springfield convention when Mr. Webster 
 said, * Not another inch of slave territory ; no, not. one inch ! 
 By the aid of his remarks on that occasion, I was confirmed 
 in the views which I had before entertained, and have as yet 
 seen no reason to change them. 
 
 " In 1847, I had the honor and pleasure of recording my 
 1 yea in favor of the resolves i concerning the existence and 
 extension of slavery within the jurisdiction of the United 
 States, and concerning the Mexican war arid the institution 
 of slavery, which passed the legislature of last year ; and had 
 I been a member of that body at its last session, I should hav<> 
 given my support to the resolve concerning slavery, which 
 was then passed. 
 
 " When I recorded my 4 yea, and advocated the resolves 
 of 1847, I did not suppose them to be idle words, written out 
 to be bandied about and declaimed upon in Massachusetts, 
 and be laid snugly tnrny, if ever I should depart the jurisdic 
 tion. I supposed them to involve great principles of human 
 freedom, which were to be applied throughout the length and 
 breadth of our country, whenever and wherever the time and 
 place might present legitimate opportunities therefor." 
 
 At the Whig state convention held at Springfield in 
 1847, a resolution was submitted by Dr. Palfrey, " that 
 the Whigs of Massachusetts will support no men for 
 the offices of president and vice-president, but such as 
 are known by their acts, or declared opinions, to be 
 opposed to the extension of slavery ; " and Mr. William 
 Dwight. then of Springfield, is reported to have said, 
 " You cannot vote for a candidate not known to be 
 opposed to slavery extension ; it would be guilt." 
 
 But, fellow-citizens, I might go on citing authorities 
 of this kind until sunset; nay, until sunlight should 
 come round again, and still leave the greater part of my 
 resources untouched. I will refer you but to one 
 more, a resolution passed at the late Whig state con 
 vention, only a few days ago, which was as follows : 
 
 " Resolved, That Massachusetts avows her unalterable de 
 termination to maintain all the principles and purposes she 
 
382 
 
 has in times past affirmed, and reaffirmed, in relation to the 
 extension of slavery ; and the measure of success which has 
 attended her exertions is a new incentive to continue and 
 persevere in all constitutional efforts, till the great and good 
 work shall be accomplished and perfected." 
 
 And now, gentlemen, let me ask you whether my 
 action has been in accordance with these sentiments, 
 as expressed by the highest acts of the party and the 
 most solemn resolutions of the state ? [An acclamation 
 of yeas.] 
 
 Here, fellow-citizens, I come to the test question : 
 Did we, as true Whigs, and as honorable men, make all 
 these declarations in sincerity, meaning to stand by 
 them to the end ; or was it done, from time to time, to 
 beguile a portion of our fellow-citizens of their votes, 
 on the vile doctrine that "all is fair in .politics"? 
 Were we frank and in earnest, or were we hollow and 
 fraudulent ? 
 
 I know very well what influences have been brought 
 to bear upon us. I know we are a people intent on 
 thriving, and on worldly prosperity. Every young 
 man amongst us sets out in life determined to better 
 his condition. This, to me, is no cause of regret, but 
 of rejoicing. If the spirit of thrift does not transgress 
 the limits of honor and duty, it is not only right but 
 laudable. The animal wants of man must be sup 
 plied before he will develop his intellectual or moral 
 powers. Yon may find individuals who will be vir 
 tuous amid want and privation, heroes in virtue ; 
 but a virtuous community in rags and hunger, you will 
 never find. We must, put society in a condition of 
 physical comfort, before it will rise to mental excellence. 
 I am an ardent advocate, therefore, of all measures tend 
 ing to increase the wealth of the country ; but on this 
 ever-present and everlasting condition, that it is done 
 without a sacrifice of principles. Any enlargement of 
 business, any increase of profits, any augmentation of 
 
383 
 
 wealth, gained by a community through a dereliction 
 from principle, is as insecure and as ignominious as the 
 gains of an individual through fraud, embezzlement, or 
 peculation. 
 
 For the purpose of rewarding our native labor, there 
 fore, I arn for a protective tariff. Perhaps some per 
 sons may be here present who dissent from this opinion ; 
 but I came here to avow, and not to conceal my senti 
 ments and acts. It has always seemed to me that we 
 must protect our labor against foreign labor, or our 
 laborers at home will fall to the condition of the pauper 
 laborers abroad. In Manchester in England, and Glas 
 gow in Scotland, and many other manufacturing towns 
 in Great Britain, there are thousands of wretched, de 
 graded female operatives, who earn scarcely a shilling 
 a day. After their day s work is done, they visit the 
 dram-shops, roam the streets till midnight, and if not 
 invited away by vicious men, they huddle by scores 
 into filthy lodging-houses, where they sleep, men and 
 women promiscuously, till morning summons them back 
 to their tasks. Now where labor is so scantily paid, 
 fabrics can be produced more cheaply ; and if these 
 fabrics can be sent into this country, free of duty, they 
 will undersell ours, until the prices of our labor and the 
 condition of our laborers are reduced to theirs. Nothing 
 is left to protect our industry but the cheaper freight 
 of the materials, and that is too trifling a compensation 
 to be of any account. This is the whole philosophy 
 of the matter, alid to me it has always seemed unas 
 sailable. 
 
 It has been thought and said that if we would yield 
 to the south on the slavery question, they would yield 
 to us on the tariff question. We have surrendered the 
 slavery question. Have we got the tariff? Have we 
 got any thing but disgrace in the eyes of the civilized 
 world ? To me, it seems that our chance for a tariff is 
 greatly diminished. For the majority which is neces- 
 
384 
 
 sary to enable us to pass a tariff law, we must depend 
 on our opponents. By our yielding to the south, their 
 party discipline has been immensely strengthened, and 
 it is now more difficult than ever to obtain their votes 
 for any measure conducive to northern interests. Be 
 sides, they now say they will retain the tariff question 
 as an open one, in order to keep us on our good behav 
 ior. What have those now to say for themselves, 
 who beguiled a portion of our people into the delusion, 
 that they might safely barter human rights for pecu 
 niary advantages, and have left to their dupes both the 
 loss of the advantages, and the disgrace of abandoning 
 their principles ! 
 
 But an appeal is made to us to ratify this surrender 
 to the slave power, because of our love for the Union. 
 And is our love for the Union always to be converted, 
 or rather perverted, into a pro-slavery motive of action ? 
 I join you all most cordially, I join any one, in avow 
 ing my regard for the Union, and my resolution to 
 stand by it. But the Union ought to be so used as to 
 extend, and not to abridge human welfare. If, in or 
 der to maintain the Union, we must sacrifice all the 
 great objects for which the Union was formed, the 
 establishment of justice, the promotion of the general 
 welfare, and the securing of the blessings of liberty to 
 ourselves and our posterity, then the Union no longer 
 represents a beneficent divinity but a foul Dagon, and 
 is worthy to be broken in pieces. A Union which 
 must be secured by such sacrifices as have been lately 
 made in New York, in behalf of the so called " Union 
 Meeting," abolishes the benefits it was designed to se 
 cure. Eight thousand signatures were obtained for 
 calling that meeting ; but to procure them, whole 
 streets were scoured, and men were threatened with the 
 publication of their names, and the consequent loss of 
 southern custom, if they refused to join in the call. 
 Many were obliged to pay hush money to prevent ex- 
 
385 
 
 posure. The New York idea is slavery and free trade. 
 Here, it is slavery and tariff. Both cities cannot get the 
 price of their surrender of principle. 
 
 No, fellow-citizens, the more we yield to the de 
 mands of the south in order to save the Union, the 
 more we may and must. Their longing eyes are al 
 ready fixed on Cuba. There is more probability and 
 more danger to-day that Cuba will be annexed to this 
 government within five years, than there was of Texan 
 annexation five years before that event took place. I 
 lately said to a Louisianian, " You will soon be for 
 making a slave state of Cuba." " No," said he, li we 
 mean to make two of that." 
 
 Gentlemen, I have already occupied your attention 
 too long. But I am constrained to make a few brief 
 remarks on a subject I would gladly avoid. The oc 
 casion of your present meeting is known to all. Two 
 years ago, I was nominated by the Whigs of this dis 
 trict as their candidate for the seat in Congress which 
 I now hold. By the favor of my fellow-citizens of all 
 parties, I received more than eleven thousand out of 
 about thirteen thousand votes cast at that election. I 
 felt assured at that time, that I agreed in all essential 
 articles of political faith with those who gave me their 
 support, otherwise I should not have accepted the office 
 at their hands. I have endeavored faithfully, and ac 
 cording to the best of my ability, to carry out the 
 wishes which they then expressed, and which they 
 well knew that I held. Yet, during the last week, a 
 Whig convention, (so called,) assembled in this place 
 to nominate a candidate for the thirty-second Congress; 
 and, after some close voting, they nominated as my 
 successor, the Hon. Samuel H. Walley, a gentleman, 
 I am happy to say, towards whom I have always sus 
 tained relations of personal kindness. In the language 
 of the day, that convention threw me overboard. Now 
 it is known to my whole circle of private friends, that, 
 33 
 
386 
 
 as soon as Congress passed these pro-slavery measures 
 to which I have adverted, my determination was formed 
 not to be a candidate for reelection. I resolved to re 
 turn to the people, and labor at home instead of at 
 Washington, in the cause of human freedom. But it 
 was soon given out, in certain influential quarters, that 
 I should not be returned to Congress again, and that I 
 should be stigmatized by a rejection. Unsurpassed 
 efforts, as you all know, have been made to carry out 
 this threat ; even the Secretary of State of the United 
 States has made it the occasion for a practical contra 
 diction of all he had ever said against bringing the in 
 fluence of the government to bear upon the freedom 
 of elections ; and the proceedings of the last week s 
 convention were the first instalment of the penalty 
 which I am to suffer for defending human rights and 
 unmasking their betrayers. It is said that the con 
 vention of last week was a packed convention ; that it 
 did not represent the wishes of the people. Decorum 
 forbids me to make any such charge, even though it 
 were probably true. In a few days, this point will be 
 settled by the sovereign of us all, at the ballot-box.* 
 
 But two or three points, to which I wish to call your 
 attention, are contained in the address put forth by the 
 meeting I have referred to. Let me premise, howev 
 er, that I take no exception to the fact that my acts 
 arid opinions should be made the subject of examina 
 tion and criticism by any body of men, or by any man. 
 It is better that animadversion should be wrong than 
 that it should not be free. Like Aristides, I would 
 write the vote that should banish me, rather than to 
 fetter or control the voter s will. And now, having 
 laid down these principles in favor of free speech for 
 others, I proceed to exemplify them for myself. 
 
 * The people settled the question by electing Mr. Mann by a ma 
 jority over all other candidates Publishers. 
 
387 
 
 The first charge preferred against me, in the ad 
 dress, is, that I said, in a letter dated on the 3d of May 
 last, and addressed to a portion of my constituents,* 
 that I "sympathized on different points with different 
 parties, but was exclusively bound to none." Upon 
 this, the address remarks, " If we understand his mean 
 ing, it is that he cannot be our champion and 
 
 defend our cause, as our true representative should, 
 whenever and wherever called upon." No, I reply 
 t<> this, I will not promise beforehand to be any man s 
 "champion," nor to defend any man s "cause," 
 whenever and wherever called upon." This would 
 be to proffer championship and allegiance to men and 
 measures whether they were right or wrong. If any 
 man offers to vote for me on such conditions, I deny 
 him my assistance and disdain his support. Perhaps I 
 do not know what I was made for ; but one thing I 
 certainly never was made for, and that is, to put prin 
 ciples on and off, at the dictation of a party, as a lackey 
 changes his livery at his master s command. 
 
 Another remark in the address is, that the compro 
 mise measures, so called, excepting the fugitive slave 
 law, were " wise, and that they gave to the free states 
 all they could reasonably ask." What a stultification, 
 my friends, is this, of ourselves, of our party, and of 
 every department of our state government, for the last 
 ten years. What have you been doing, but resolving, 
 contending, and placing your words and deeds upon 
 the historical records of the state and the nation, against 
 the identical measures now declared to be " wise," and 
 all for which the free states " could reasonably ask " ? 
 I leave this point with a single remark. The address 
 excepts the fugitive slave law from the measures it 
 commends. Before another year is past, will not that 
 most execrable act in modern legislation be palliated 
 or adopted by those who voted for this address ? 
 
 * See ante, p. 237. 
 
388 
 
 A third objection to my position is, that I regard the 
 question of the extension of slavery into our territories 
 as paramount to those questions of a pecuniary charac 
 ter, on which we desire to obtain the favorable action 
 of the government. Let this objection against me 
 have its full force. I admit it, in all its length and 
 breadth. I do regard the question of human freedom 
 for our wide-extended territories, with all the public 
 and private consequences dependent upon it, both now 
 and in all futurity, as first, foremost, chiefest among 
 all the questions that have been before the govern 
 ment, or are likely to be before it. When temporary 
 and commercial interests are put in competition with 
 the enduring and unspeakably precious interests of 
 freedom for a whole race, of liberty for a whole coun 
 try, and of obedience to the will of the Creator, my 
 answer is, " Seek ye first the kingdom of God and 
 his righteousness, and all these things shall be added 
 unto you." 
 
 In an address delivered by Mr. Choate, in 1848, he 
 declared the slavery question to be of "transcendent 
 importance ; " and for this sentiment he was univer 
 sally applauded. Wherein does "paramount impor 
 tance" so differ from "transcendent importance," that 
 the one is to be applauded while the other is con 
 demned ? 
 
 Let me call your attention to one other remark in 
 the address, and I will leave it. It suggests that my 
 course in Congress on the slavery questions has been 
 unacceptable to the south, and that we ought to send 
 a representative who will conciliate them and obtain 
 their good will. Fellow-citizens, do you suppose that 
 any man can be true to the memory of the Pilgrim 
 fathers, and to the love of liberty they bequeathed us, 
 and at the same time true to the spirit of the Cavaliers, 
 and to the wishes of their slave-owning posterity ? 
 Eighteen hundred years ago, it was said that no man 
 
389 
 
 can serve two masters ; but the cupidity of modern 
 times proposes the solution of a problem which Christ 
 declared to be impossible. My opinion is, that the 
 cause of all our present calamity, and of the enduring 
 dishonor of the late measures, is this very desire to 
 conciliate southern favor, instead of giving a manful 
 defence to northern rights. 
 
 Finally, fellow-citizens, it is our fortune to live dur 
 ing a great historic crisis in the affairs of the world. 
 This is the age of the useful arts ; of discoveries and 
 inventions, which are filling with wealth the garners 
 and the coffers of men. It is the age of commerce, of 
 profit, of finance. One part of our nature is intensely 
 stimulated. Let us beware of the effect of this stimu 
 lus upon that nobler portion of our being, which no 
 splendor of opulence nor profusion of luxuries can ever 
 satisfy ; which demands allegiance to God, and justice 
 and humanity towards our fellow-men ; and which 
 must have them, or die the second death. We may 
 be poor ; but let us deprecate and fore fend the most 
 calamitous of all poverties, a poverty of spirit. We 
 may be subjected to great sacrifices ; but let us sacri 
 fice every thing else, nay, life itself, before we sacrifice 
 our principles. I commend to you the language of the 
 good Bishop Watson, who, when tempted to stifle the 
 expression of his convictions through the hope of king 
 ly patronage, replied, that it was " Better to seek a for 
 tuitous sustenance from the drippings of the most bar 
 ren rock in Switzerland, with freedom for his friend, 
 than to batten as a slave at the most luxurious table 
 of the greatest despot in the world." 
 33* 
 
390 
 
 SPEECH 
 
 DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE 
 UNITED STATES,. IN COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE ON THE 
 STATE OF THE UNION, FEBRUARY 28, 1851, ON THE FU 
 GITIVE SLAVE LAW. 
 
 MR. CHAIRMAN ; 
 
 Some time ago, I prepared a few comments upon 
 those prominent measures of the last session, which 
 have since arrested the attention of all the lovers of 
 constitutional liberty, and of moral and religious men, 
 throughout the civilized world. I am unwilling to 
 suffer the present session to close without expressing 
 the reflections I have formed; because I deem it but a 
 reasonable desire that my opinions should be placed 
 upon the records of the very Congress to whose 
 measures they refer. 
 
 Does any one ask what benefit I anticipate from a 
 discussion of this subject at the present moment ? I 
 answer, this benefit at least : that of entering a solemn 
 protest against a grievous wrong, and of placing upon 
 the tablets of my country s history, what I believe to 
 be the views of a vast majority of my constituents, in 
 common with the vast majority of the people of 
 Massachusetts. 
 
 Some of those compromise measures are destined to 
 be of great historic importance. They will be drawn 
 into precedent. When, in evil days, further encroach 
 ments are meditated against human rights, these old 
 measures will be cited as a sanction for new aggres 
 sions ; and, in my view, they will always be found 
 broad enough, and bad enough, to cover almost any 
 
391 
 
 nameable assault upon human liberty. When bad 
 men want authority for bad deeds, they will only have 
 to go back to the legislation of Congress, in 1850, to 
 find an armory full of the weapons of injustice. 
 
 Sir, legislative precedents are formidable things. If 
 created without opposition, and especially if acquiesced 
 in without complaint, they become still more formida 
 ble. Now, if there were no other reasons for reviv 
 ing this subject at the present session of Congress, 
 this alone would be an ample justification, it fore - 
 fends the argument from acquiescence. 
 
 When several of these measures were passed, and par 
 ticularly when one of the most obnoxious and criminal 
 of them all was passed, I mean the Fugitive Slave 
 bill, this House was not a deliberative body. Delibera 
 tion was silenced. Those who knew they could not meet 
 our arguments, choked their utterance. The previous 
 question, which was originally devised to curb the 
 abuse of too much debate, was perverted to stop all 
 debate. The floor was assigned to a known friend of 
 the bill, who after a brief speech in palliation of its 
 enormities, moved the previous question ; and thus we 
 were silenced by force, instead of being overcome by 
 argument. For, sir, I aver, without fear of contradic 
 tion, that the bill never could have become a law, had 
 its opponents been allowed to debate it, or to propose 
 amendments to it. For the honor of the country, 
 therefore, at the present time, arid for the cause of 
 truth hereafter, it is important that the hideous features 
 of that bill, which were then masked, should be now 
 unmasked. The arguments which I then desired and 
 designed to offer against it, I mean to offer now. Those 
 arguments have lost nothing of their weight by this 
 enforced delay, and I have lost nothing of my right to 
 present them. 
 
 Mr. Chairman, I feel none the less inclined to discuss 
 this question, because an order has gone forth that it 
 
392 
 
 shall not be discussed. Discussion has been denounced 
 as agitation, and then it has been dictatorially pro 
 claimed that "agitation must be put down." Sir, 
 humble as I am, I submit to no such dictation, come 
 from what quarter or from what numbers it may. If 
 such a prohibition is intended to be laid upon me per 
 sonally, I repel it. If intended to silence me as the 
 representative of the convictions and feelings of my 
 constituents, I repel it all the more vehemently. In 
 this government, it is not tolerable for any man, how 
 ever high, or for any body of men, however large, to 
 prescribe what subjects may be agitated, and what may 
 not be agitated. Such prescription is at best but a 
 species of lynch law against free speech. It is as 
 hateful as any other form of that execrable code ; and 
 I do but express the common sentiment of all generous 
 minds, when I say that for one, I am all the more dis 
 posed to use my privilege of speech, when imperious 
 men, and the sycophants of imperious men, attempt to 
 ban or constrain me. In Italy, the pope decides what 
 books may be read ; in Austria, the emperor decides 
 what books may be written ; but we are more degrad 
 ed than the subject of pontiff or Ca3sar, if we are to 
 be told what topics we may discuss. If the subjects of 
 a despotic government are bound to be jealous even of 
 the poor privileges which they possess, how sensitive, 
 how " tremblingly alive all o er " ought we to be at 
 these threatened encroachments upon freedom of speech 
 and freedom of thought. I think that those who say 
 so much about recalling us to a sense of our constitu 
 tional obligations, would do well to remember, that the 
 very first article of the amendments to the constitu 
 tion secures the freedom of speech and the freedom of 
 the press. By the common consent of this country, 
 manifested iti all forms for more than half a century, 
 the old alien and sedition law has been condemned. 
 Has that law been condemned for fifty years in order 
 
393 
 
 to make our shame more conspicuous by its revival 
 under circumstances of intolerable aggravation ? Sir, 
 I hold treason against this government to be an enor 
 mous crime ; but great as it is, I hold treason against 
 free speech and free thought to be a crime incompara 
 bly greater. 
 
 If it be just and heroic to rebel against all arbitrary 
 invasions of free thought and free expression, then is 
 it not proportionably base and dastardly to utter men 
 aces, or threaten social or political disabilities for the 
 unconstrained exercise of these birthrights of freemen ? 
 On the face of it, it must be a bad cause which will not 
 bear discussion. Truth seeks light instead of shun 
 ning it. He convicts himself of wrong who refuses 
 to hear the arguments of his opponent. It was well 
 said by Montesquieu, that " the enjoyment of liberty, 
 and even its support and preservation, consists in every 
 man s being allowed to speak his thoughts and lay 
 open his sentiments." Wherefore, then, in a country 
 hitherto reputed to be free, are we told that discussion 
 must be stopped, and agitation must be put down ? It 
 seems as if, when a freeman debases his soul by lend 
 ing himself to the defence of slavery, God punishes 
 him on the spot by demoralizing his own nature with 
 that spirit of tyranny which belongs to slavery. 
 Wherein consists the advantage of a republican gov 
 ernment over a despotism, if the freedom of speech and 
 of the press, which can be strangled in the one by ar 
 bitrary command, can be stifled in the other by obloquy 
 and denunciation ? 
 
 It is remarkable, too, that of all the " agitators " in 
 the country, there are none more violent than those 
 who are agitating against agitation. Throughout the 
 north, that portion of the public press which volun 
 teers its influence to extend the domain of slavery, and 
 to maintain it by extra-constitutional laws, is constantly 
 provoking the agitation it denounces. What are these 
 
394 
 
 so-called Union meetings in northern cities but an ex 
 tensive apparatus of agitation, a piece of machinery 
 to manufacture and send abroad the very articles which 
 its managers declare to be contraband ? Through 
 public assemblies, through the public press, and by 
 correspondence designed for the public eye, they are 
 shaking the common air to keep it calm ; they are ag 
 onizing and in convulsions for repose ; they are vocif 
 erating to maintain silence. In the most clamorous 
 days of anti-slavery, there never was half so much 
 said and written against the institution as is now said 
 and written for it. Sir, is the right of agitation to be 
 monopolized by those who denounce it ? Is free 
 speech to be only on one side ; and is it one of the of 
 fices of free speech to silence the sentiments it dislikes ? 
 I think this is the second time in the history of this 
 country, that an attempt has been boldly and un- 
 blushingly made to stifle free discussion ; and I do 
 not believe the fate of those who are now laboring to 
 accomplish so nefarious a purpose will be historically 
 more enviable than that of their prototypes, who 
 passed the far-famed law against seditious speeches 
 and writings. 
 
 Is it not extraordinary, too, that this interdict on 
 discussion should be applied to a subject which touches 
 the highest interests of man, and calls into fervid 
 action all the noblest faculties of his nature; which, 
 more than any thing else, tests the question whether a 
 man is man ? We may discuss the question of bank 
 or sub-treasury, of tariff or free trade ; but the only 
 subject too sacred to be approached, is slavery and its 
 aggrandizements. This is a free country, except when 
 a man wishes to vindicate the claims of freedom. All 
 other parts of the temple may be entered, but slavery 
 is the ark of the covenant, and whoso lays his profane 
 hands thereon must perish. 
 
 Sir, how comes it to pass that an institution which 
 
396 
 
 even the enlightened heathen of old pronounced to be 
 iniquitous, and which eighteen added centuries of 
 Christian illumination have proved to be the sum of of 
 fences against God and man, should now be protected, 
 not merely by constitutions and laws ; but that a gen 
 eral warfare should be waged against all those who 
 would restrain it within its present limits, and keep it 
 from arming itself with new weapons of oppression ? 
 How comes it to pass that this should be done, not in 
 the despotisms of Austria and of Russia, but in repub 
 lican America? Sir, it is not to be done, and cannot 
 be done. Almighty God has so constituted the human 
 soul, that while wrong exists upon the face of the 
 earth, all the noblest impulses of that soul will war 
 against it. The order of nature will war against it. 
 " The stars in their courses " will war against it. Dis 
 cussion, or agitation, if you so please to call it, is one of 
 the Heaven-appointed means by which truth is to be 
 spread until it covers the face of the earth, as the 
 waters cover the sea. It was by discussion and by 
 agitation, in synagogue and in temple, in distant cities 
 and in different empires, that Christianity was carried 
 from its cradle in Jerusalem to the ends of the earth. 
 Did not the disciples of Jesus Christ go " agitating " 
 from city to city, from Palestine to Greece, and from 
 Greece to Rome, notwithstanding they were impris 
 oned and scourged, flayed alive, and burnt, and perse 
 cuted as incendiaries and fanatics, by scribe, and Phar 
 isee, and high priest? The very accusation brought 
 against the Savior was, " He stirreth up the people, 
 teaching throughout all Jewry, beginning from Galilee 
 to this place." The subject on which anti-slavery 
 men now "agitate" is inferior only in importance to 
 that on which Christ and his disciples "agitated." 
 Nay, the only cause why Christianity has not prospered 
 as it ought during the last eighteen centuries, and 
 why it has not already overspread the whole earth with 
 
396 
 
 its blessings, is, that LIBERTY has not been given it as 
 a sphere to work in. It is because SLAVERY has existed 
 among men ; and Christianity never will and never 
 can pervade the earth until the barriers of slavery are 
 first overthrown. It was by discussion and agitation 
 that the prevailing religion of this country, the 
 Protestant religion, broke through the double pha 
 lanx of civil and sacerdotal power, and triumphed 
 throughout the leading nations of Europe, under the in 
 domitable energy of that old hero of Wittemburg, 
 who did riot heed nor fear that prince of the slave 
 power, the incarnate devil himself. It was by discus 
 sion and agitation that the first glowing sparks of lib 
 erty in the bosom of the Adamses, of Hancock, and 
 of Franklin, of Thomas Jefferson and of Patrick 
 Henry, were fanned into a flame that consumed the 
 hosts of the tyrant, that tyrant who sought to put 
 down this dreadful agitation by means not a whit more 
 reprehensible in his day, than those by which certain 
 leading men are striving to silence it now. Where was 
 there ever written or published a more incendiary and 
 fanatical document than the Declaration of Independ 
 ence ? a torch to set the world on fire. In the 
 present century, what but discussion and agitation, 
 through all the realms of Great Britain and in this 
 country, could have sufficed to extinguish the slave 
 trade, that foulest blot upon modern civilization ? 
 No, sir ; agitation is a part of the sublime order of 
 nature. In thunder, it shakes the stagnant air, which 
 would otherwise breed pestilence. In tempests, it 
 purifies the deep, which would otherwise exhale mias 
 ma and death. And in the immortal thoughts of 
 duty, of humanity, and of liberty, it so rouses the 
 hearts of men that they think themselves inspired of 
 God ; and not the mercenary clamor of the market 
 place, nor the outcries of politicians, clutching at the 
 prizes of ambition, can suppress the utterances which 
 
397 
 
 true men believe themselves Heaven-commissioned to 
 declare. 
 
 The President s message tells us that the compro 
 mise measures of the last session are "FINAL." I take 
 the liberty to say of that declaration in the message, 
 with all due respect to the high source from which it 
 comes, that I adopt the sentiment, that those measures 
 are final, in one sense only. Their substance and ob 
 ject were, in an extreme degree, pro-slavery and anti- 
 liberty. They marked the passage of this government 
 through another long stage in the gloomy highway of 
 oppression. They furnished another argument for 
 those who despair of human nature ; and they supply 
 the misanthrope with a plausible reason for hating 
 mankind. They affixed another stain upon the coun 
 try, and set in deeper shade the contrast between the 
 theory of our government and its practice. They be 
 lied still another time the gospel of love and human 
 brotherhood. Once again they defied the vengeance 
 of God, who is no respecter of persons, and who will 
 bring the sinner to judgment. If such measures are to 
 be "final," in this sense only do I accept the proposi 
 tion, that they are to be the last of their kind; that 
 here, at this point, the career of this iniquity is to be 
 stayed ; that here, the confederated powers of ambition 
 and of wealth, of those who aspire to office and 
 those who lust for gold, have won their last victory. 
 In this sense only do I accept the President s declara 
 tion, that the action of the last Congress on this subject 
 is to be deemed /?*a/; that, in all future conflicts, the 
 right shall not be trampled under foot, but the victims 
 of oppression shall triumph. Base as human nature 
 often proves itself to be, it sometimes manifests a di 
 vine resilience by which it springs with recuperative 
 energy from its guilty fall. 
 
 I draw no augury of despair from the calamity that 
 has befallen us. It teaches whatever there is of virtue 
 34 
 
398 
 
 and of principle in mankind, the task which has been 
 set them to do, and whose accomplishment God will 
 require at their hands. 
 
 It has been said by the Secretary of State, in a late 
 speech, that if this subject be reopened in Congress, 
 the friends of freedom will be found in a " lean and 
 miserable minority." What cares my conscience, sir, 
 whether I am in a minority or a majority, if I am 
 right ? Has any great and glorious cause ever been 
 started upon earth, that did not find itself, at the out 
 set, in a minority ? Did Clarkson and Wilberforce 
 open their twenty years contest with a majority ? or 
 were not all the office-seekers and mammon-worship 
 pers opposed to them ? Did the resistance of the revo 
 lutionary patriots to the government of Great Britain 
 start with a majority on its side? Did the Pilgrim 
 fathers resist conformity to ecclesiastical oppression 
 because they were a majority of the people ? Did the 
 glorious band of reformers count on majorities, when 
 they defied the racks and the flames of Rome ? What 
 would now be our condition if the prophets and heroes 
 of olden days, if the warriors for truth and the martyrs 
 of liberty, all over the earth, had yielded to so base an 
 argument as this, and had followed the multitude to do 
 evil, instead of battling for the truth, though it were 
 solitary and alone? I can conceive of but one effect 
 which such a sentiment must produce upon all noble 
 and truth-loving men. It is to make them labor for 
 the right with a zeal commensurate with the infinite 
 baseness of the appeal by which they are urged to 
 abandon it. 
 
 But I come now, Mr. Chairman, to the main topic 
 of my remarks, which is a consideration of the charac 
 ter of the Fugitive 1 Slave law, passed on the 18th day 
 of September last. 
 
 The objections most generally urged against this 
 law are of two kinds : 
 
399 
 
 1st. That it is unconstitutional ; and 
 
 2d. That, even if the framers of the constitution 
 did leave an unguarded opening, through which such 
 a law could be introduced without a breach in the 
 structure of that instrument, still, that it is a cruel law, 
 that it discards all those principles of evidence and 
 forms of proceeding which have been devised by the 
 wisdom of ages for the protection of innocence against 
 power, and that in its whole scope and spirit it is in 
 conflict with our fundamental ideas of human liberty. 
 
 It will be seen by this statement, that I here accept 
 the constitution according to its commonly-received 
 interpretation. There is a class of defenders of this 
 law whom I wish to meet on their own ground. I do 
 not, therefore, object here to the constitution as they 
 understand it, but to the law. However much a man 
 may reverence the constitution, though he may make 
 it an idol and worship it, yet I mean to show him that 
 this law is an unholy thing in its presence. I object, 
 then, to the law as a departure from the constitution, 
 not a departure towards despotism merely, but into 
 despotism. Admitting, what many deny, that when 
 the constitution speaks of " persons held to service or 
 labor," it means slaves, and admitting that it provides 
 for their reclamation when it says they " shall be de 
 livered up on claim," I still impeach the Fugitive Slave 
 law for high crimes and misdemeanors against the 
 spirit and the letter of that instrument. 
 
 On the question of the constitutionality of this law, 
 the legal minds of the country are divided. It may 
 not be easy to distribute opinions correctly, on this 
 point, into their proper classes, and to decide upon 
 their relative preponderance. If we include slave own 
 ers and those whose pecuniary interests connect them 
 directly with slavery, and especially if to those we add 
 a strong party who, from political associations and 
 hopes, have surrendered themselves to a pro-slavery 
 
400 
 
 policy, probably the number, if not the weight, of 
 opinion, is in favor of the constitutionality of the law. 
 But if we gather the opinions of disinterested and un 
 biased men ; of those who have no money to make or 
 office to hope for through the triumph of the law, then 
 I think the preponderance of opinion is decidedly the 
 other way. I know it has been said by one prominent 
 individual, that he has heard of no man, whose opinion 
 was worth regarding, who denied the constitutionality 
 of the law. Now, as it is a fact universally known, 
 that gentlemen who have occupied and adorned the 
 highest judicial stations in their respective states, to 
 gether with many of the ablest lawyers in the whole 
 country, have expressed opinions against the constitu 
 tionality of this law, I have but one single word of 
 reply to a declaration so arrogant and insolent as this. 
 That reply is, that on a great moral and political, as 
 well as legal question, a question that connects itself 
 with ethics, as well as with partisan politics, and the 
 success of old parties or the formation of new ones. 
 integrity is as necessary to the formation of a sound 
 opinion as intelligence. 
 
 I think, however, that one further remark should in 
 candor be made, in regard to the difference of opinions 
 held by honest men on this subject. The constitu 
 tionality or unconstitutionality of the Fugitive Slave law 
 is not a question to be determined solely by any single 
 and simple provision of the fundamental law. Nu 
 merous clauses in the constitution have a bearing upon 
 it. It connects itself with contemporaneous history. 
 It presents a case where commentators and expounders 
 must appeal to precedents and analogies, and to general 
 principles respecting the nature of government and the 
 object of all law. It is therefore a question of con 
 struction and interpretation. And, what is a more im 
 portant consideration still, it belongs emphatically to 
 that class of cases where men, who have been trained 
 
401 
 
 under one class of institutions, and whose minds have 
 been moulded and shaped by the universal prevalence 
 of one set of opinions and one course of practice, ma y 
 honestly come to one conclusion, while those who 
 have grown up under adverse opinions and an adverse 
 practice, or rather, into whose minds adverse opin 
 ions and adverse practices have grown, until they have 
 become a part of the very substance of those minds, 
 may honestly come to an opposite conclusion. We 
 know, too, that in addition to the powerful influences 
 of education and training, the general cast and struc 
 ture of men s minds predispose them to take one side 
 or the other of great political and religious questions. 
 Natural biases operate like a law of gravitation to sway 
 different minds in different directions. When, there 
 fore, a southern gentleman, into whose perceptions and 
 reasonings and moral sentiments, the facts and the creed 
 of slavery have been incorporating themselves ever 
 since he was born, tells me that he believes even such 
 a law as this to be constitutional, I can still concede 
 the fulness of his integrity, however strongly I may 
 dissent from the soundness of his opinion. It is a law 
 that might be held constitutional by a bench of slave 
 holders, while it would be held unconstitutional by all 
 the inhabitants of a free land. It is a law that might 
 be held valid by the courts of Austria, while it would 
 be held invalid by those of England. It is a law 
 which the judges of Westminster Hall might have 
 held valid in the time of the Stuarts, which they might 
 and probably would have held invalid in the eighteenth 
 century ; and, in the nineteenth century, would cer 
 tainly have reprobated and annulled. 
 
 My own opinion is, in view of the great principles 
 of civil liberty out of which the constitution grew, 
 and which it was designed to secure, that this law can 
 not be fairly and legitimately supported on constitu 
 tional grounds. I express this opinion because, after 
 34* 
 
402 
 
 having formed it with careful deliberation, I am now 
 bound to speak from it, and to act from it. I have 
 read every argument, and every article in defence of 
 the law, that I could find, from whatever source ema 
 nating. Nay, I have been more anxious to read the 
 arguments made in its favor than the arguments against 
 it ; and I think I have seen a sound legal answer to all 
 the former. As for any arrogant or supercilious dic 
 tum, either that the law is constitutional or that it is 
 not constitutional, unaccompanied by any reason or 
 any reference, all reflecting men must regard it as sheer 
 insolence, come from what quarter it may. 
 
 Even should the supreme court of the United States 
 declare the law to be constitutional, then, though we 
 must acknowledge their decision, as to the -point de 
 cided, to be the law of the land, until it is set aside, 
 yet, without any disrespect to that tribunal, we may 
 still adhere to our former opinion. We know how 
 that court is constituted. A majority of its members 
 are from slaveholding states. Independent, too, of all 
 other considerations, they will feel a strong desire to 
 maintain a former opinion, which was also given when 
 a majority of its judges were from the south. We 
 may, therefore, place our dissent on grounds which, 
 two years ago, when the " Clayton compromise," so 
 called, was under discussion, were so well stated by a 
 distinguished senator from Ohio, [Mr. CORWIN,] 
 grounds perfectly respectful on our part, and not de 
 rogatory to the court. He said, 
 
 "It is a sad commentary upon the perfection of human rea 
 son, that, with but few exceptions, gentlemen coming from a 
 
 slave state all eminent lawyers on this floor, from that 
 
 section of the country, have agreed that you have no right to 
 prohibit the introduction of slavery into Oregon, California, 
 and New Mexico ; while, on the other hand, there is not a 
 man, with few exceptions, (and some highly respectable,) in 
 the free states, learned and unlearned, clerical or lay, who has 
 
403 
 
 any pretensions to legal knowledge, but believes in his con 
 science that you have a right to prohibit slavery How 
 
 is this ? Can I have confidence in the supreme court of the 
 United States, when my confidence fails in senators around 
 mo here ? Do I expect that the members of that body will be 
 more careful than the senators from Georgia and South Caro 
 lina to form their opinions without any regard to seJJis/i con 
 siderations 1 " 
 
 Besides, the supreme court have already, as I will 
 show, decided certain points in such a way that, if 
 they maintain the Fugitive Slave law, they will be 
 obliged to overrule those points ; and it is more credita 
 ble to them to suppose they will overrule their decision 
 in Prigg s case, than to suppose they will overrule other 
 decisions in other cases. 
 
 In the first place, I believe the constitution not only 
 authorizes but requires a trial by jury, in the case of 
 alleged fugitive slaves, when claimed in free states. 
 
 The constitution declares, " The right of the people 
 to be secure in their persons," "against unreasonable" 
 " seizures, shall not be violated ; and no warrant shall 
 issue but upon probable cause, supported by oath or 
 affirmation, and particularly describing" " the persons 
 or things to be seized." Amend., Art. IV. 
 
 It also declares, that, " In suits at common law, 
 where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty 
 dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved." 
 Amend., Art. VII. 
 
 And it also says, "No person shall be deprived of 
 life, liberty, or property, without due process of law." 
 Amend., Art. V. And it is most important to observe 
 that these words, "due process of law," are held by 
 all the authorities to include the trial by jury. 3 
 Story s Com. 661 ; 2 Inst. 50, 51 ; 2 Kent s Com. 10 ; 
 1 Tucker s Black. App. 304-5. 
 
 That there may be no doubt about the meaning and 
 force of these words, I quote the following passage 
 from Chancellor Kent : 
 
404 
 
 " It may be received as a self-evident proposition, univer 
 sally understood and acknowledged throughout the country, 
 that no person can be taken or imprisoned, or disseized from 
 his freehold, or liberties, or estate, or exiled, or condemned, 
 or deprived of life, liberty, or property, unless by the law of 
 the land, or the judgment of his peers. The words, l by the 
 law of the land, as used by the Magna Charta, in reference 
 to this subject, are understood to mean due process of law. 
 That is, by indictment or presentment of good and lawful 
 2 Com. 13. 
 
 Now, in most of the cases which will arise under 
 the Fugitive Slave law, there will be a "seizure " un 
 der a warrant ; and in all the cases, the questions both 
 of property and of liberty will necessarily be involved. 
 In every case, the claimant will aver property in the 
 respondent, and will seek to deprive him of his liberty. 
 The respondent will deny the claim of property, and 
 will seek to retain his liberty. 
 
 Now, suppose a man to have lived in Boston or 
 New York for twenty years ; to have contracted mar 
 riage ; to have bought and sold ; to have hired himself 
 out to others, and to have hired others to serve him ; 
 to have pleaded and been impleaded in the courts ; to 
 have voted at elections, and to be, in all respects, as 
 free by the constitutions of Massachusetts and New 
 York as the governors of those states themselves ; and 
 suppose further, that this man is suddenly seized and 
 taken before a commissioner, is adjudged the property 
 of another man like himself, with no chance of revis 
 ing the decision, or of having a new trial, is placed in 
 duress, and then transported by force, and against his 
 will, to a distant state, under a claim that he is a slave, 
 and an adjudication that such claim is true, suppose 
 all this, I say, and then answer me this simple question, 
 Has, or has not, such a man been " deprived of his 
 liberty " ? In other words, does such a man retain 
 his liberty ? As he is borne away by force, and against 
 
405 
 
 prayers, and tears, and struggles, does lie remain free ? 
 Can a man be adjudged a slave ; held, coerced, beaten 
 as a slave ; with all his powers and faculties of body 
 and mind subdued and controlled as a slave s, and yet 
 possess or retain liberty? If such a proceeding does 
 not deprive a man of his freedom, by what means can 
 he be deprived of it ? What more, or what other tiling 
 would you do to deprive him of it? Would binding 
 him. out to serve for life deprive him of it ? This de 
 clares that he owes service for life. Would imprison 
 ment deprive him of it ? This imprisons him, and 
 makes the man his keeper who is interested to make 
 that imprisonment perpetual in himself, and descend 
 ible to his children, and his children s children forever. 
 
 Is not perpetual imprisonment of the nature and sub 
 stance of punishment, of the severest punishment? 
 The constitution has provided that " cruel and unusual 
 punishments shall not be inflicted," even for the perpe 
 tration of the worst of crimes ; yet here is a case where 
 the most cruel of punishments, or of privations, may 
 he inflicted without even a charge of crime. And the 
 argument is, that this form of punishment may consti 
 tutionally be inflicted, because it was so inconceivably 
 atrocious and diabolical that the constitution did not 
 prohibit it, because the constitution only prohibited 
 cruel and unusual punishments" for crimes, and not 
 for having a dark skin. 
 
 Does any one say that a victim of this law has not 
 been "deprived" of his liberty because he may sue for 
 it, and possibly recover it, in the courts of the state to 
 which he is carried ? I reply, that it would be just as 
 good an answer to say, that he may possibly recover 
 his liberty by escape, or possibly his master may eman 
 cipate him, or possibly a St. Domingo insurrection may 
 break out, or possibly the walls of his prison-house 
 may be shaken down by an earthquake, and he may 
 go forth like Paul and Silas ; and therefore he is not 
 
406 
 
 deprived of his liberty by being enslaved. Neither of 
 these events would have the slightest legal relation to 
 the proceedings which did enslave him. Neither of 
 them would be retroactive, undoing or annulling the 
 past. Enslavement and liberty being incompatible, 
 when he suffers the first, though but for an hour, he is 
 deprived of the last. The moment he should arrive 
 within the limits of a slave state, that moment he would 
 be in the same condition as three million other fellow- 
 bondmen ; and it would be just as rational to say that 
 they have never been deprived of liberty as that he has 
 not. When our government made war upon Algiers, 
 ransoming American captives from their horrible bond 
 age and restoring them to their homes, did it annihi 
 late the preexisting fact that they had been enslaved ? 
 Did it enable or authorize the historian to say that 
 they had never been deprived of their liberty 1 Had 
 Algiers been " reiinnexed " as one of the states of this 
 Union, could she have said, " We have not broken the 
 constitution because these men are free again"? I affirm, 
 then, that when a man in Massachusetts, who by the 
 constitution of Massachusetts is free, is adjudged to be 
 a slave, is transported as a slave, and held as a slave, in 
 a southern state, though it be but for a single day, he is 
 deprived of his liberty. That very thing is done to him 
 which the constitution says shall not be done but by a 
 jury of his peers. 
 
 But a question of PROPERTY is involved as well as a 
 question of liberty. " In suits at common law," says 
 the constitution, " where the value in controversy shall 
 exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall 
 be preserved." 
 
 Now, sir, in regard to this important clause in the 
 fundamental law, I propose to demonstrate the three 
 following propositions : 
 
 First; the claim, made before a competent magis 
 trate, for a " person held to service or labor," is, in view 
 of this constitutional provision, a " suit." 
 
407 
 
 Second; it is a "suit at common law." 
 
 Third ; it is a suit at common law " where the value 
 in controversy exceeds twenty dollars." 
 
 As a law term, the lexicographers define the word 
 "suit" to mean "an action or process for the recovery 
 of a right or claim ; legal application to a court for jus 
 tice ; prosecution of right before any tribunal ; as a 
 civil suit, a criminal suit, a suit in chancery." 
 
 Blackstone says, " in England, the several suits, or 
 remedial instruments of justice, are distinguished into 
 three heads, actions, personal, real, and mixed." 
 
 " Suit " comes from " secta" and secta from sequor ; 
 and the phrase "to bring suit," denoted anciently, to 
 bring secta, followers, or witnesses, to prove the 
 plaintiff s demand. The scope of the word is now 
 enlarged, so that it embraces the written forms by 
 which an action is instituted, as well as the proof 
 which sustains it. 
 
 We are not, however, confined to the authority of 
 the dictionary. The supreme court, in the case of 
 Cohens vs. Virginia, 6 Wheat. 407, where this very 
 word "suit," as it occurs in the constitution, was the 
 subject of consideration, defined it as follows : 
 
 " What is a suit ? We understand it to be the prosecution, 
 or pursuit, of some claim, demand, or request. In law lan 
 guage, it is the prosecution of some demand, in a court of 
 justice. The remedy for every species of wrong is, 1 says 
 Judge Blackstone, the being put in possession of that right 
 whereof the party injured is deprived. The instruments 
 whereby this remedy is obtained, are a diversity of suits and 
 actions, which are defined by the Mirror to be ; the lawful 
 demand of one s right ; or, as Bracton and Fleta express it, 
 in the words of Justinian, jus prosequendi in judicio quod 
 alicui debeturS (the form of prosecuting in trial, or judg 
 ment, what is due to any one.) Blackstone then proceeds to 
 describe every species of remedy by suit; and they are all 
 cases where the party suing claims to obtain something to 
 which it has a right. 
 
408 
 
 " To commence a suit, is to demand something by the in 
 stitution of process in a court of justice ; and to prosecute the 
 suit, is, according to the common acceptation of language, to 
 continue that demand." 
 
 Now let me take the different clauses of this defini 
 tion, and see if every one of them does not necessarily 
 include the .demand made by a slave claimant against 
 the alleged slave. 
 
 " We understand a suit," say the court, " to be the 
 prosecution or pursuit of some claim, demand, or re 
 quest." Here, then, according to the supreme court, 
 a suit is the prosecution of some claim ; and, accord 
 ing to the very letter of the constitution, the fugitive 
 slave is to be delivered up, on claim. The slave, then, 
 can be constitutionally and legally " delivered up " in 
 no other way than " on claim," by "suit." 
 
 Again, say the court: "In law language, it [a suit] 
 is the prosecution of some demand in a court of jus 
 tice." When legal process is instituted for the recov 
 ery of a slave, is it not the prosecution of a demand ? 
 And will any one be rash enough to say that a man 
 ostensibly free, free according to all legal presump 
 tion, can be "delivered" over to bondage for life, 
 without the intervention of "a court of justice "? 
 
 To proceed with the opinion of the court : " The 
 Mirror defines a suit to be the lawful demand of one s 
 right ; or, as Bracton and Fleta express it, in the words 
 of Justinian, it is the form of prosecuting in trial, or 
 judgment, what is due to any one." Here service is 
 alleged to be due ; and the one who is said to owe that 
 service is " prosecuted by trial and judgment," that he 
 may render the service claimed. 
 
 " To commence a suit is to demand something by 
 the institution of process in a court of justice ; and to 
 prosecute the suit is, according to the common accepta 
 tion of language, to continue that demand." In the 
 appeal to a court for the possession of an alleged fugi- 
 
409 
 
 tive, is not something " demanded " ? And what is the 
 warrant that is issued for his arrest but the " institu 
 tion of process " ? 
 
 If any one, then, will show that a " claim " for an 
 alleged fugitive, by process of law, to be followed up 
 by proof in support of the claim, and to be consum 
 mated by judgment, is not a "suit," he must show 
 that it is not " the prosecution or support of a claim ; " 
 he must show that it is not "the prosecution of some 
 demand in a court of justice;" he must show that it is 
 not " the lawful demand of one s right ; " nor " the 
 form of prosecuting in trial or judgment;" and finally, 
 he must show that it is not " to demand something by 
 the institution of process in a court of justice," and then 
 "to continue that demand" until judgment is rendered 
 for or against him. 
 
 But should the claimant of a fugitive slave show any 
 one of these four things, he would show himself the 
 way out of court. 
 
 And this brings me to the second proposition, 
 namely, 
 
 The claim for a person "held to service or labor" 
 is. in view of the constitution, a " suit at common 
 law." 
 
 In a decision bearing directly on the right to a trial 
 by jury, the supreme court has defined the phrase 
 "suits at common law," in special reference to its 
 meaning in the seventh amendment to the constitu 
 tion, where the right to such trial, " in suits at common 
 law," is secured. These are their words: 
 
 " It is well known that in civil causes, in courts of equity 
 and admiralty, juries do not intervene ; and that courts of 
 equity use the trial by jury only in extraordinary cases, to in 
 form the conscience of the court. When, therefore, we find 
 that the [seventh], amendment requires that the right of trial 
 by jury shall be preserved in suits at common law, the natural 
 conclusion is, that this distinction was present to the minds 
 35 
 
410 
 
 of the framers of the amendment. By common law they 
 meant, what the constitution denominated in the third article, 
 4 law ; not merely suits, which the common law recognized 
 among its old and settled proceedings ; but suits, in which 
 legal rights were to be ascertained and determined, in contra 
 distinction to those in which equitable rights alone were recog 
 nized, and equitable remedies were administered, or in which, 
 as in the admiralty, a mixture of public law, and of maritime 
 law and equity, was often found in the same suit. Probably 
 there were few, if any states in the Union, in which some new 
 legal remedies, differing from the old common law forms, 
 were not in use ; but in which, however, the trial by jury in 
 tervened, and the general regulations, in other respects, were 
 according to the course of the common law. Proceedings in 
 cases of partition, and of foreign and domestic attachment, 
 might be cited, as examples, variously adopted and modified. 
 In a just sense, the amendment, then, may well be construed to 
 embrace all suits, which are not of equity or admiralty juris 
 diction, WHATEVER MAY BE THE PECULIAR FORM WHICH THEY 
 MAY ASSUME TO SETTLE LEGAL RIGHTS." ParSOHS VS. Bed 
 ford, 3 Peters s Rep. 456-57. 
 
 Here the court say, that the term, "common law," 
 in the seventh amendment, meant what the constitu 
 tion denominated in the third article, " law." The 
 word "law " which is here referred to, as contained in 
 the third article, occurs in the following sentence : 
 " The judicial power shall extend to all cases, in law 
 and equity, arising under this constitution, the laws of 
 the United States," &c. And the court declare that 
 the constitutional right to a jury trial embraces " not 
 merely suits, which the common law recognized among 
 its old and settled proceedings, but suits in which legal 
 rights were to be ascertained and determined," in con 
 tradistinction from equity and admiralty cases. 
 
 And in the last sentence of the decision quoted, the 
 court expressly say, that the seventh amendment em 
 braces " all suits which are not of equity or admiralty 
 jurisdiction^ WHATEVER MAY BE THE PECULIAR FORM 
 
411 
 
 WHICH THEY MAY ASSUME TO SETTLE LEGAL RIGHTS." 
 
 The court say " ALL." After excepting cases of 
 equity and admiralty jurisdiction, they declare that 
 the phrase. " suits at common law," embraces all the 
 rest. They recognize no hybrid class, not included 
 under one or another of these heads. 
 
 Now it has been proved above, that a warrant for 
 the arrest of an alleged fugitive, together with the 
 allegations and proofs under it, constitute a " suit." 
 And can any thing be more clear, than that a proceed 
 ing which decides the issue, whether a man " owes " 
 or does not "owe;" which decides the issue, whether 
 a man has " escaped," or has not " escaped ; " and 
 which, as the legal consequence of these decisions, de 
 livers one man into the custody of another as his slave, 
 or enlarges one man from the custody of another be 
 cause he is not his slave, is, " whatever peculiar form 
 it may assume," a proceeding " to settle a legal right," 
 one of the highest and most important legal rights 
 that appertain to a man ? It is not, in legal language, 
 aright "of equity or admiralty jurisdiction," but ex 
 clusively and purely a legal right, and nothing else. 
 
 The court declare this to be so, whatever peculiar 
 form, the process may assume. But what gives pecu 
 liar pertinency and stringency to this decision of the 
 court is. that at common law there was an original 
 writ, called the writ de homine rcplcgiando, the writ 
 of personal replevin, or for replevying a man, by which 
 the question of property in a man might be determined. 
 It was a writ which the party could sue out of right ; 
 one to be granted on motion, without showing cause, 
 and which the court of chancery could not supersede. 
 In the very language of the supreme court, it was a 
 writ recognized by the common law, and is to be found 
 "among its old and settled proceedings." The form 
 of it is contained in that great arsenal of common law 
 writs, the Rcgistrum Brevium. 
 
412 
 
 "A man," says Comyn, " may have a homine reple- 
 giando for a negro, or for an Indian brought by him 
 into England and detained from him ; or it may be 
 brought by an infant against his testamentary guardian ; 
 or by a villein against his lord" (Dig., title Impris 
 onment, L. 4.) 
 
 If this writ could be brought " for a negro," or " for 
 an Indian," by a man who had introduced him into 
 England, and from whom he had been detained ; and 
 if, on the other hand, it could be brought by the 
 negro, or by the Indian to gain his freedom, as was 
 clearly the case, then it follows that the question of a 
 right to a man, as well as that of human freedom, was 
 a question familiar to the ancient common law, and 
 for the trial of which a well-known process existed 
 " among its old and settled proceedings." But this 
 ancient writ, de homine replegiando, carries with it, as 
 every body knows, the trial by jury, as much as an 
 action of assault and battery, or of assumpsit on a 
 promissory note. 
 
 I have always understood, that before the revolution, 
 and before the framing of our constitution, Cornyn s 
 Digest, from which the above citation is made, was a 
 work of the highest authority. It must have been well 
 known to all the lawyers in the convention. Could 
 they have intended that the mere fact of claiming a 
 man as a slave, which claim might be made against 
 a freeman as well as against a slave, should be suf 
 ficient to deprive him of this ancient muniment of the 
 subject s liberty ? It seems impossible ! 
 
 But we are not left to the broad and general asser 
 tion, contained in the case of Parsons vs. Bedford, 
 that the seventh article of amendment embraces "all 
 suits " not of equity or admiralty jurisdiction, what 
 ever the peculiar form which they may assume to settle 
 legal rights. Authority exists still more pointed and 
 direct. In Baker vs. Riddle, Mr. Justice Baldwin, 
 
413 
 
 one of the judges of the supreme court of the United 
 States, held that it was not in the power of Congress 
 to take away the right of trial by jury, as secured by 
 tlio seventh amendment ; neither, 
 
 " 1. By an organization of the courts in such a man 
 ner as not to secure it to suitors ; nor, 
 
 "2. By authorizing the courts to exercise, or their 
 assumption of, equity or admiralty jurisdiction over 
 cases at law." 
 
 " This amendment," says he, " preserves the right 
 of jury trial against any infringement by any depart 
 ment of the government." Baldwin s Rep. 404. 
 
 Now, what are the tribunals created by the Fugitive 
 Slave law but a new " organization of the courts " ? 
 or rather, the creation of new courts, " in such a man 
 ner as not to secure, [the right of trial by jury,] to 
 suitors ? " By it, Congress creates tribunals unknown 
 to the common law, and purports to give them power 
 over common law rights. 
 
 Having now proved, from the nature of the claim 
 in controversy. namely, the claim of one man to the 
 personal services and the liberty of another man, and the 
 counter claim of personal liberty and of self-ownership, 
 that the right in dispute between the claimant of 
 an alleged fugitive, and the person claimed, is a com 
 mon law right ; and that any legal process to deter 
 mine this right, " whatever form it may assume," is a 
 "suit at common law," it only remains, under this 
 head, to establish my third point, namely ; 
 
 A claim to any person, as one " held to service or 
 labor," always and necessarily presumes that " the 
 value in controversy exceeds twenty dollars." 
 
 On this point, direct authority may be found in the 
 case of Lee vs. Lee, 8 Peters s Rep. 44. This was 
 an appealed case, where by law no appeal could be tak 
 en unless " the value in controversy " should be " one 
 thousand dollars or upwards." It was objected that 
 35* 
 
414 
 
 the apellants, the petitioners for freedom, were 
 not worth a thousand dollars. But the court said, 
 
 " The matter in dispute, in this case, is the freedom of the 
 petitioners. The judgment of the court below is against their 
 claim to freedom ; the matter in dispute is, therefore, to the 
 plaintiffs in error, the value of their freedom, and this is not 
 susceptible of a pecuniary valuation. Had the judgment 
 been in favor of the petitioners, and the writ of error brought 
 by the party claiming to be the owner, the value of the slaves 
 as property would have been the matter in dispute, and affi 
 davits might be admitted to ascertain such value. But affida 
 vits estimating the value of freedom are entirely inadmissible, 
 and no doubt is entertained of the jurisdiction of the court." 
 
 Suppose there are two claimants for the same alleged 
 fugitive ? If his market value exceeds twenty dollars, 
 both of them have a clear right to the trial by jury. 
 And can it be that a man s right to his own freedom can 
 not be tried by a jury, when, if two men dispute about 
 his value, each may claim the jury trial, and cannot be 
 denied ? 
 
 On the three points, then, 1. What constitutes a 
 common law or " legal right ; " 2. What constitutes 
 "a suit at common law," and 3. What constitutes 
 "a value which exceeds twenty dollars," namely; 
 the personal liberty of any human being, though he be 
 an infant just born, or a drivelling idiot, or he be 
 stretched upon his death bed with only another hour 
 to breathe, I trust I have made out a case which 
 entitles a party to trial by jury under the constitution 
 of the United States. 
 
 I might here rest the argument, feeling that, from 
 authority and from reason, from the old and time-hon 
 ored principles of the common law, as well as from 
 those interpretations of the constitution which have 
 been given by the supreme court, my conclusions are 
 impregnable. But I proceed to notice some of the 
 points taken on the other side j and if I shall occa- 
 
415 
 
 sionally advert to positions that are obviously too 
 shallow and fallacious for discussion, it is only because 
 I wish to omit nothing which any one may think of 
 importance. 
 
 It is alleged that the whole force of the above 
 argument, otherwise conclusive, is annulled, because a 
 slave is no party to the constitution, is not under its 
 protecting shield any more than a horse or an ox, and 
 therefore, any provisions, however strong, securing the 
 jury trial, are inapplicable to him. A slave, it is said, 
 is not one of the " people " by whom and for whom the 
 constitution was formed. He is an outlaw, and an 
 outcast. He has no inherent or inalienable rights 
 as a man. What he has, he has ex gratia, by the 
 good will of those who own him, body and soul, and 
 who are graciously pleased to forego some of their 
 legal rights from generosity in themselves, and not from 
 justice to him. 
 
 Now, as it seems to me, a most obvious principle 
 confutes this argument utterly. By the laws of the 
 free states, we know no such being as a slave. Our 
 courts, in their functions as state courts, do not under 
 stand the meaning of the word slave. To talk to 
 them in that capacity about a slave or slavery, is 
 talking to them in an unknown tongue. In the eye of 
 the legislators of the free states, and in the eye of the 
 courts of the free states, so far as their domestic polity 
 is concerned, there can be no such creature as a slave. 
 The constitution of every free state in this Union 
 must be first altered, before any such being as a slave, 
 or any such condition as slavery, can be recognized 
 under them, as state authorities. 
 
 So the constitution of the United States creates no 
 slaves, and can create none. Nor has it power to 
 establish the condition of slavery any where. And I 
 hold further, that if the government of the United 
 
416 
 
 States, by escheat, by purchase, by execution against 
 a debtor, or in any other way, should become possessed 
 of a slave, that moment he would be free. The gov 
 ernment of the United States can neither hold a slave, 
 nor make valid title to a slave by sale. It is a govern 
 ment whose powers consist of the grants that have 
 been made to it ; and nowhere, by no competent party, 
 has any such grant ever been made. 
 
 The relation of the government of the United 
 States to slavery consists in this, and in this alone : 
 that when this government was created, slavery existed 
 in a portion of the states; and by certain provisions in 
 the constitution, the existence of this slavery was 
 recognized, and certain rights and duties in relation to 
 it were respectively acknowledged and assumed. But 
 the government of the United States has no more 
 power to turn a freemen in a free state into a slave 
 than it has to turn a slave in a slave state into a 
 freeman. 
 
 The officers of the state government being sworn to 
 support the constitution of the United States, the 
 governments of the free states are implicated indirectly 
 in the matter of slavery, as the government of the 
 United States is directly, and not otherwise. 
 
 Both by the constitution of the United States, then, 
 and by the constitutions of all the free states, every 
 man found within the limits of a free state is prima 
 facie FREE. No matter what complexion he may wear, 
 or what language he may speak, he is a free man UNTIL 
 some other civil condition is proved upon him, or until 
 he forfeits his freedom by crime. Every man, there 
 fore, in any one of the free states of this Union, has a 
 right to stand upon this legal presumption, and to claim 
 all the privileges and immunities that grow out of it un 
 til his presumed freedom is wrested from him by legal 
 proof. It is the most cruel of sophisms to say, that 
 because a man is claimed as a slave, he is not under 
 
417 
 
 the protection of the constitution, and then to prescribe 
 a base mode of trial for him, bij which he can be proved 
 the thing he is claimed for. On the subject of freedom 
 or slavery, we of the free states know of but one class 
 of men living among us. That class is free. There 
 is no such class as slaves known to our laws. Nor is 
 there any intermediate class, who may be presumed to 
 be slaves on account of their color, or who may be 
 proved to be slaves by less evidence, or by an inferior 
 kind of evidence, because of color. 
 
 No axiom is more universal or indisputable, than 
 that the right to freedom in a free state, and the right 
 to be held and treated by the courts as a freeman, has 
 no relation to complexion. If, then, these rights have 
 no relation to complexion, all white men may be ar 
 bitrarily presumed to be slaves, and be deprived of the 
 form of trial, secured to them by the constitution, just 
 as well as any colored man can be. The former may 
 just as well be proved to be slaves, on dangerous, or on 
 inferior, or on insufficient evidence, as the latter. No; 
 the liberty to which every man, of whatever color, in 
 a free state, is prima facie entitled, invests him with 
 its protection, and this investiture cannot be stripped 
 from him but by the judgment of his peers or the law 
 of the land, which, as we have before seen, means 
 trial by jury. 
 
 Any other interpretation assumes this as a postulate, 
 namely, that there is a higher or surer kind of trial 
 applicable to freemen, and a lower or inferior mode of 
 proceeding applicable to slaves. And the inhuman in 
 ference from this assumption is, that any man against 
 whom a ten-dollar commissioner may issue a warrant 
 as a possible slave, shall forthwith be subjected to the 
 slave s mode of trial, and be utterly deprived of the 
 freeman s mode of trial ; or, at the best, that he shall 
 be sent away a thousand miles, into another jurisdic 
 tion, there only to have the slave s mode of trial. Ac- 
 
418 
 
 cording to this form of proceeding, the first thing 
 which the commissioner says to his victim is, "Being 
 a slave, you must be tried in a summary manner." 
 " But I am not a slave," asseverates the respondent, 
 " and I claim to be tried by my peers under the guar 
 anties of the constitution." " You are no party to the 
 constitution," rejoins the commissioner, " and, there 
 fore, not entitled to its shelter. The constitution was 
 made by the people, and for the people, and you are 
 not of them." Then says the victim, "If I could 
 have the trial due to a freeman, I could prove myself 
 a freeman ; but under the form of trial awarded to a 
 slave, I may be adjudged a slave ; so that my fate is 
 made to depend not upon my rights, but upon your 
 form of proceeding." " Even if so," retorts the mer 
 cenary minister of the law, " it is but an imperfection 
 incident to human institutions. Is not one man s 
 property sometimes taken to pay another man s debts ? 
 and is not one man sometimes executed for another 
 man s murder ? Why, then, should the courts of 
 justice be arraigned, if a freeman, instead of a slave, is 
 sometimes consigned to bondage ? " 
 
 Sir, the unmistakable distinction lies here ; that if 
 there be any difference between the kind or degree of 
 proof applicable to a freeman and that applicable to a 
 slave, then, in a free state, you must first prove a man to 
 be a slave by freeman s proof. If cast on such proof, 
 then, and not till then, does he become the subject of 
 slave proof. Any thing else under the form of justice 
 is a mockery of justice. No man will say that the 
 " claim " imposes any disability upon the person 
 claimed, or takes away from him any rights. A man 
 who has a presumptive right to his liberty, has a per 
 fect right to all the means to prove it. The " claim " 
 imposes no obligation to deliver up, but the proof 
 under the claim ; and this proof in a case of " life, 
 liberty, or property," is to be judged of by a jury. 
 
410 
 
 The real question is, who is to be delivered up, a slave 
 or a freeman ? If the person arrested is prejudged to 
 be a slave, then there is no need of a trial at all. If 
 he is pritna facie a freeman, then he is entitled to the 
 most perfect mode of trial. 
 
 By the theory, I believe, of all the slave states but 
 one, every person of maternal African descent is pre 
 sumed to be a slave. As such, his civil condition is 
 fixed, special tribunals are constituted to try him, and 
 he is subjected to rules of evidence unknown to the 
 common law and never applied to freemen. Now it 
 would be but the same kind of legal absurdity and 
 preposterousness, for the presumptive slave in a slave 
 state, to demand the form of trial, the tribunal, and the 
 evidence, which there appertain to a freeman, as it is 
 to subject the presumptive freeman in a free state, to 
 the form of trial, the tribunal, and the evidence, which 
 appertain to a slave. 
 
 The iniquity of the law is, that it enables a per 
 jured or fictitious slave owner, on proofs most easily 
 fabricated, to seize any individual in a free state, and 
 to prejudge him to be a slave, by the very form of 
 trial which this law authorizes. On the contrary, 
 nothing can be more clear, than that the civil condition 
 or status of every man found in a free state is that 
 of a free man. His living under a free constitution, 
 without any thing more, invests him prima facie with 
 this character. Until divested of this character, he 
 continues presumptively a free man. While such, he 
 is entitled to every security which the constitution 
 gives to a free man. How then can he be subjected 
 to a trial which reverses the whole law of presumption 
 in favor of freedom, and which presumes that he is 
 a slave to begin with ? This is not only anticipating 
 the judgment at the commencement of the proceed 
 ings, but it is anticipating the worst judgment that 
 can be passed ; and, by anticipating, procuring it ; as 
 prophecies often procure their own fulfilment. 
 
420 
 
 I put this case, and I challenge an answer that shall 
 refute or admit my conclusion : If any one man in a 
 free state can be seized and suddenly transported into 
 bondage under this law. then every other man also 
 can be ; and there is not a single person left in any 
 free state who has a right to a trial by jury to save 
 him from slavery. I am not now speaking of the 
 special danger to each particular individual, but of the 
 principle that embraces us all. Under the most op 
 pressive of tyrannies there are persons who are not in 
 danger. But under such a law as this, who can tell 
 what may happen to men arrested away from home, 
 to unprotected women, and to helpless children ? Do 
 you say that a public sentiment and a public watchful 
 ness exist, which would protect the whites, the female, 
 and the child ? I reply, that we possess our right to 
 protection under the constitution and laws, and are 
 not to be turned over to public sentiment or public 
 watchfulness in order to enjoy it. 
 
 Suppose an analogous law to be passed respecting 
 debtor and creditor. Suppose a law to provide some 
 new mode of proceeding by which the indebtedness 
 of a defendant should be so far presumed as to subject 
 him to an inferior kind of defence, or to transfer his 
 case to another kind of tribunal, as from jurors to 
 arbitrators, to be selected by the plaintiff himself. 
 Who is there, though through all his life he had ful 
 filled the apostolic injunction to "owe no man any 
 thing," that might not be cast in an action that would 
 strip him of all his fortune ? 
 
 The law punishes murder by death. Could it know 
 with omniscient certainty, beforehand, who is a mur 
 derer, it might take from him the trial by jury without 
 offence to the eternal principles of justice. It is be 
 cause the law cannot know with infallible certainty, 
 beforehand, who is a murderer, that it provides the 
 trial by jury to determine the question. Just so, 
 
421 
 
 because human tribunals cannot know with certainty 
 who is a slave and who is free, the constitution gives 
 the trial by jury, before any man in a free state shall 
 be deprived of his freedom. And the argument, that 
 if a man be wrongfully consigned to bondage he may 
 be afterwards restored to freedom, is as audacious and 
 as tyrannical as to say that an innocent man may be 
 hanged and sent into another world as a felon, because 
 sometimes the dead have been restored to life. 
 
 It is no answer to this view of the case, to say that 
 all processes, whether civil or criminal, are initiated 
 on the supposition that a pecuniary liability exists, or 
 that a wrong has been done. Every body knows that 
 no presumption of this kind follows the plaintiff, or 
 the government, into court. When there, in the pres 
 ence of the law, the plaintiff must establish his claim 
 affirmatively. The possible debtor is no longer a 
 debtor. So the government must prove the guilt of 
 the man it has arraigned. The possible criminal is 
 no longer a criminal. In the eye of the law, he is as 
 innocent as the unborn child. When they claim the 
 trial by jury, neither plaintiff nor prosecutor can say, 
 You are not entitled to this form of trial, because 
 you arc presumptively a debtor, or presumptively 
 an offender. Yet this is precisely, and in totidetn 
 verbis, what the pro-slavery argument says to the 
 respondent when he is brought before the commis 
 sioner and put in peril of his freedom. In both the 
 cases supposed, such a doctrine would take away a 
 man s rights in the most odious manner, by taking 
 away the legitimate and constitutional means of de 
 fending them. 
 
 For the purpose of determining by suit or by pros 
 ecution whether a man is a debtor or is an offender, a 
 suit or a prosecution may be commenced against him, 
 but never for the purpose of raising a presumption that 
 he is either the one or the other, or to deprive him of 
 36 
 
422 
 
 any evidence to which an unindebted or an innocent 
 man is entitled, or to change the tribunal which is to 
 try the question of indebtedness or of guilt. If at 
 tachment on mesne process, if even indictment by the 
 grand inquest for the county, does not deprive a man 
 of his right to a trial by jury, how can so great a nat 
 ural wrong be constitutionally inflicted by the warrant 
 of a commissioner ? 
 
 The presumption that a colored man is a free man 
 in the free states, is just as strong as that a man of 
 pure, unmixed, Anglo-Saxon blood is a free man in the 
 slave states ; and would they tolerate the doctrine for 
 a moment that any perfectly pure-blooded white person 
 could be transformed into a slave, and as such sent 
 from his own state into another, under this law? Nay 
 more ; would any slave claimant at the south be 
 allowed to go .into a slave state, and seize upon a 
 pretended fugitive whom another man might claim to 
 own, under such a process as is now sufficient, in a 
 free stale, to authorize the taking and carrying away 
 of the same individual ? 
 
 But to the argument, that the constitution and the 
 law of 1850 apply only to slaves, and that because 
 slaves are not parlies to the constitution they are not 
 under its protection, and so not included in the pro 
 vision for jury trial, there is another answer perfectly 
 fatal. It is this : the constitution does not enumerate 
 the various classes of criminals who shall be entitled 
 to trial by jury ; but with the exception of cases of 
 impeachment, and cases in the military and naval ser 
 vice, it expressly declares as follows : " The trial of 
 all crimes shall be by jury." And also, "In all crim 
 inal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to 
 a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury," &c. 
 The right, therefore, is not made to depend upon the 
 classes of persons on trial, but upon the nature of the 
 charge brought against them. The constitution does 
 
not say that freemen shall be tried in one way and 
 slaves in another ; but its language is, " all crimes," 
 and " all criminal prosecutions ; " so that it embraces 
 every person who is prosecuted, whether free or slave, 
 citizen or foreigner, Jew or Gentile. If an Englishman 
 or a Frenchman were to be tried here for murder, how 
 would the whole world deride the suggestion that he 
 should not have a jury trial because he is a foreigner, 
 because he is not one of the "people," and so not 
 a party to the constitution ! 
 
 So the constitution does not say, in suits between 
 merchant and merchant, or between landlord and ten 
 ant, and so forth, " the right of trial by jury shall be 
 preserved ; " but it says, " In suits at common law, 
 where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty 
 dollars." The right is not determined by the charac 
 ter of the litigants, but by the nature of the action. 
 The constitution does not care who the parties are, 
 man, woman, bond or free, it is all the same. As 
 soon as parties appear upon the record, the right to 
 trial by jury attaches. The suit, and not the civil 
 condition of the litigants who instituted or who defend 
 it, tests and determines the jury question. 
 
 In the case of Lee vs. Lee, before cited, the law 
 allowed an appeal only in case the sum in controversy 
 should amount to one thousand dollars. The appellant 
 was of African descent, and therefore, within that 
 jurisdiction, presumptively a slave ; not presumptively 
 a freeman, as every man is in a free state ; and, if a 
 slave, then he could own no property ; for, by the cruel 
 law of slavery, every master may rob his slave legally 
 of all that he earns, or finds, or otherwise receives. 
 Yet the supreme court sustained the appeal. Why 
 was not so astute an exception as this then taken ? 
 an exception which, if they have a bar in Pandemo 
 nium, would have done honor to one of its counsellors. 
 Why was it not said that a slave was no party to the 
 
424 
 
 law, and therefore not entitled to its benefits ? No 
 reason can be assigned why a slave is not as much 
 under the protection of a constitution made for the 
 " people," as under the protection of a law made for 
 the u people." Yet here, even in the case of a pre 
 sumptive slave, a right was acknowledged, which 
 some freemen, in free states, deny to presumptive 
 freemen. 
 
 I have here been combating the argument, that 
 because the Fugitive Slave law is aimed at slaves, no 
 freeman has any ground of complaint against it, even 
 though he should be converted into a chattel under it. 
 He must console himself under the doom of intermi 
 nable bondage, with the patriotic and pious reflection 
 that he is only suffering, as an exception, to prove the 
 general excellence of the law ; and he must leave this 
 consolation also to his enslaved children. For, in his 
 case, it is said that eternal slavery is only one of those 
 exceptions in the working of the law which proves 
 the rule of its general excellence. This argument I 
 hold to be eminently sophistical and cruelly oppressive. 
 But if any one believes it to be a sound argument, 
 then I hold him to all fair deductions resulting from 
 it, of which the following is clearly one : 
 
 On the same ground on which Congress passes a 
 law for escaped slaves, let every free state pass a law 
 for resident freemen. The presumption in every free 
 state being, that all men within its borders are free, 
 let every such state give the trial by jury, in all cases 
 in which personal liberty is involved, to every one 
 who shall ask for it, and who has not once had it in a 
 litigation with the same party, on the same subject- 
 matter. According to the argument I have been con 
 sidering, no slaveholder can complain of such a law ; 
 for, by its very terms, it applies only to freemen. The 
 law of Congress applying only to slaves, and the sup 
 posed state law applying only to freemen, there is no 
 
425 
 
 conflict between them. And if, by accident or mis 
 take, any real slave should take shelter under such a 
 state law, and should escape a life of horrible bondage, 
 it will be only one of those mistakes which may arise 
 under the purest administration of justice. It will 
 answer quite as well as its counterpart case, to stand 
 as one of those exceptions in the working of a rule 
 which prove its general excellence. If the occasional 
 subjection of a freeman instead of a slave, to all the 
 horrors of bondage, constitutes no valid objection to 
 the United States law, then, surely, the occasional 
 enfranchisement of a slave from a bondage that was 
 always unjust and cruel, should constitute no objection 
 to the law of the free state. If this Fugitive Slave 
 law continues for a single year, I hope every free 
 state will pass a law inflicting condign punishment 
 upon every man who directly or indirectly assists in 
 sending any man into southern bondage, unless he can 
 prove before a jury that the man so sent was a slave. 
 
 So far, I have considered the question, whether a 
 fair interpretation of the constitution does not secure 
 the jury trial in every free state, to an alleged fugitive, 
 and empower him to demand it as a matter of right. 
 
 But this is a strange question to discuss in a re 
 publican government. The proper question is, not 
 whether the constitution expressly demands the jury 
 trial, but whether it will, by any fair implication, allow 
 it. The only point which a republican judge or citi 
 zen can, with decency, make on this subject is, Does 
 the constitution forbid, prohibit, deny, such trial ? 
 for, if it does not, then the jury should be granted of 
 course. In a free country, under a free government, 
 where the idea has become traditional, where the doc 
 trine has become a household doctrine, that the trial 
 by jury is the palladium of our civil and religious lib 
 erties, is it not amazing that we should find men who 
 seem eager to avoid this form of trial, rather than 
 36* 
 
426 
 
 zealous to grasp it ? It is the saddest of spectacles ; 
 it argues the most mournful degeneracy, to see the 
 children at this early day, from grovelling notions of 
 ambition and of wealth, abandoning those noble prin 
 ciples of freedom for which their fathers so lately 
 shed their blood. Wherever the constitution allows 
 the trial by jury, in a matter of human liberty, in 
 Heaven s name let us have it. Let Russia and Austria 
 curtail and deny this privilege of freemen ; let the 
 tyrant, arid the tyrant s minions among ourselves, 
 explore the musty records of darker times, to find 
 precedents against it ; let them strive, by their shallow 
 sophistries and plausibilities, to gloss over this ravish 
 ing of liberty and life from beings created in the 
 image of God ; but let every true republican, when 
 ever, in the disposal of these momentous interests, the 
 constitution will, by fair construction, sanction it, cling 
 to the trial by jury, as to the only plank that will save 
 hi mj ay, the only one that will save the human 
 race, from being again ingulfed in the vortex of 
 despotism. The enemy of the trial by jury, wherever 
 human liberty is concerned, is the enemy of human 
 liberty and of the human race. The friends of a 
 repeal of this law, then, need not discuss the question 
 whether the constitution does expressly confer the 
 right of trial by jury upon the alleged fugitive, for it is 
 enough for them if the constitution does not take it 
 away. 
 
 It is worthy of remark, that in both of the bankrupt 
 laws passed by the United States, it was expressly 
 provided, that when the commissioners should declare 
 any person to be a bankrupt, he should have the right 
 to a trial by jury to annul their decision. Thus, when 
 the law proposed, not to appropriate a man s property, 
 but merely to enable his creditors to receive it in pay 
 ment of their debts, the jury trial was secured to him ; 
 but here, where the direct purpose is to strip a man 
 
427 
 
 of his liberty, and of his property in himself, the jury 
 trial is denied. 
 
 This seems an appropriate place to consider the fur 
 ther irrelevant suggestion, sometimes obtruded, namely, 
 that an alleged fugitive is not deprived of a trial by 
 jury, because he may have it in the state to which he 
 is carried. 
 
 Here the pro-slavery advocate admits, at least for ar 
 gument s sake, that the alleged fugitive has a right, at 
 some time, and some where, to the jury trial. If so, 
 then there are numerous and powerful reasons why 
 this trial should be had in the state in which he is 
 found, rather than in that to which he may be trans 
 ported. I will advert to a few of these reasons. 
 
 1. Slaves are held to be personal property. Trover 
 lies for their value where they have been unlawfully 
 converted. Trespass is the remedy for an injury done 
 to them. According to the laws of all the slave states, 
 they are the subject of larceny. Suits to recover them, 
 or to recover damages for an injury done to them, are 
 personal actions; and in personal actions it is required, 
 by all the precedents and all the analogies of the com 
 mon law, that the action should be tried in the juris 
 diction where the writ is served. By the common law, 
 personal actions are transitory. They are to be brought 
 where the defendant resides ; or, at least, where the 
 property which is claimed lies. In the case of an 
 alleged slave, both the defendant and the property are 
 where he is found. According to the usages and prin 
 ciples of the common law, therefore, the trial should 
 be there. 
 
 2. Before trial and judgment, the parties are like 
 any other parties before the court, or they should be 
 so. The claimant stands upon the merits of his claim 
 the respondent upon those of his defence.. It may be 
 inconvenient for a Texan claimant to prove his right 
 to an alleged fugitive in Massachusetts ; but it will be 
 
428 
 
 indefinitely more inconvenient for a citizen of Massa 
 chusetts to prove his freedom in Texas. If the trial is 
 in Massachusetts, and the plaintiff prevails, he takes 
 immediate possession of his slave, and is invested at 
 once with all the rights which the rigors of the slave 
 law so abundantly give. But if the trial is in Texas, 
 whither the defendant has been forcibly exiled, and 
 there he prevails, who is to reimburse or recompense 
 him for his intermediate bondage ; for being dragged 
 from his home ; torn from wife, children, and friends ; 
 for being plunged, perhaps for years, into the hell of 
 slavery itself, with all the untold agonies of an appre 
 hended slavery for life ? 
 
 What Judge Story says respecting the right of all 
 persons who are accused of crime to be tried by a 
 " jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall 
 have been committed," applies witfi full force to a 
 trial for liberty. " The object of this clause, "says he, 
 " is to secure the party accused from being dragged to 
 trial in some distant state, away from his friends, and 
 witnesses, and neighborhood." u Besides this," he 
 continues, " a trial in a distant state or territory might 
 subject the party to the most oppressive expenses, or 
 perhaps even to the inability of. procuring the proper 
 witnesses to establish his innocence." (3 Com. 654.) 
 For " innocence " read liberty, and the argument in 
 behalf of the alleged criminal becomes applicable to 
 the alleged fugitive. And why should the alleged 
 fugitive be treated less mercifully than the alleged 
 felon? The law is unspeakably rigorous in the case 
 of an alleged fugitive, but softens into mercy over an 
 alleged pirate or murderer. 
 
 If the trial, then, is where all the practice and prin 
 ciples of the common law indicate that it should be, 
 no great or irreparable injury is done ; no inconvenience 
 even is suffered beyond that which is always suffered 
 in enforcing a claim in a foreign and distant jurisdic- 
 
420 
 
 tion. But if a freemen is carried away, a grievous and 
 intolerable wrong is done ; a wound is inflicted which 
 mortal medicaments cannot heal, nor the longest con 
 tinued punishment of the malefactor ever expiate. 
 
 3. By transferring the trial to the place of the claim 
 ant s domicile, an effective, and, as it seems to rne, a 
 most iniquitous advantage is given him, in regard to 
 evidence, while the respondent is subjected to cruel 
 disabilities. By the laws of all but one or two of the 
 slave states, persons of African descent, whether slave 
 or free, are declared incompetent witnesses against 
 white men. The freeman, then, by being removed as 
 a fugitive into a slave state, may lose his evidence, 
 which, under such circumstances, is the loss of his 
 liberty. This violation, therefore, of the principles of 
 the common law, in regard to the place of trial, is, to 
 him, of the most momentous consequence. It is not 
 true, then, in any just sense, that the trial by jury is 
 still " preserved" to the alleged fugitive, notwithstand 
 ing his removal to a slave state. The common law 
 trial, as inclusive of the right to adduce common law 
 evidence, is not " preserved." 
 
 4. But not only is the evidence different, but, in 
 some of the slave states, the law itself is different; so 
 that one man may carry another by force into a juris 
 diction where the law will account him a slave, when, 
 had he been tried where he was found, the law would 
 declare him free, the facts in both cases being the 
 same. 
 
 Take the law of Kentucky, for instance, and I 
 refer to this state because its slave code is of a milder 
 type than that of most of the Southern States, its 
 dreadful rigors being mitigated by an infusion of more 
 humanity. 
 
 By the laws of Kentucky, a master may carry a slave 
 in iransilu, through a free state, or he may allow his 
 slave to go temporarily into a free state, without a 
 
430 
 
 forfeiture of the legal right to hold him. Graham vs. 
 Strader fy Gorman, 5 Ben. Mimroe, 173, (1844;) 
 Davis vs. Tingle et al, 8 Ben. Mimroe, 545, (1848;) 
 Collins vs. America, 9 Ben. Munroe, 565, (1849;) 
 Bushe s Reps. vs. White, 3 Munroe, 104 ; Rankin vs. 
 Lydia, 2 A. K. Marshall, 468, (1820.) 
 
 In Massachusetts certainly, and I suppose in most of 
 the Northern States, all such cases would be decided 
 in favor of the respondent.* 
 
 Now, what greater outrage can be inflicted upon a 
 man than to seize, and bind, and carry him into a for 
 eign jurisdiction, where not only is the evidence dif 
 ferent, by which his rights may be proved, but where 
 the law also is different, by which his rights are to 
 be adjudicated. In Holland, the killing of a stork 
 once was, if it be not now, punishable with death ; 
 because this bird devours the animals that would 
 otherwise bore through and undermine its ocean- 
 barring dikes. In a neighboring country, the killing 
 of a stork may not be merely blameless, but praise 
 worthy. What an atrocity it would be to seize a 
 man in the latter country, and carry him to Holland 
 to be tried and executed for doing an act which, ac 
 cording to the law of the place where he had a right 
 to be tried, may have been not only innocent, but 
 laudable ! I leave you, sir, to make the application. 
 
 5. But what must shock every man who possesses 
 any just appreciation of the value of human liberty, 
 or has any just perception of the principles on which 
 it is founded, is, that under the Fugitive Slave law, 
 the plaintiff gets possession and control not only of the 
 chattel or article of property claimed, but of the de 
 fendant himself. He gets command, not only of the 
 thing in litigation, but of the body and soul of the 
 litigant. A Boston or New York merchant would con- 
 
 * Such, also is the law in Louisiana. See Louis vs. Marot, 9 Louis. 
 Hep. 473 ; Smith vs. Smith, 13 Louis. Rep. 441. 
 
431 
 
 sider it a grievous hardship, if a southern adventurer 
 could go there and seize upon all his property, trans 
 port it to Mobile, or New Orleans, and compel the 
 owner to follow it and try title to it, in the place of 
 the captor s domicile. Still more grievous would the 
 hardship become, if, under the new jurisdiction, the 
 defendant might be deprived of the evidence which, 
 at home, would be decisive of his rights, or find him 
 self controlled by adverse laws which he never had 
 helped to frame. But what an extreme of barbarous 
 tyranny would it be, if, beyond all these enormities, 
 the southern plaintiff could seize him too, the de- 
 ; iiilant himself, the alleged debtor, and grasp 
 him in his own iron hand, obtaining supreme control 
 <>vor his body by force, and over his mind by fear; 
 could command his powers of locomotion, so that he 
 could go only where the will of his master would per 
 mit : could control his speech and his vision, so that he 
 could consult with no counsel, and could see no friend 
 hut such as were in his master s pay; and, to enforce 
 his authority, could imprison him, and starve him, and 
 scourge him, and mutilate him, if he but so much as 
 uttered a whisper that he had a right to have a trial by 
 his country, or opened his lips in prayer to God to 
 break the fetters of his iniquitous bondage ! 
 
 To tamper with the witnesses of the adverse party, 
 or endeavor to suborn his counsel to violate their duty 
 to their client, is not only an act of the grossest base 
 ness, but would subject the offender to penal retribu 
 tion. Yet what need would there ever be of corrupt 
 ing witnesses or suborning counsel, if a party could 
 get bodily possession and absolute control of his antag 
 onist himself? 
 
 Does not every one see that, in ninety-nine cases in 
 a hundred, a control over the defendant s person and 
 will would be a control over his case ? His rights 
 would be lost in his enforced disability to defend them. 
 
432 
 
 You might as well put out a man s eyes, and then talk 
 of his right in the common sunlight. In Baltimore, 
 or Louisville, a kidnapped freeman might find an op 
 portunity of self-redemption ; but such a captive will 
 never be carried to Baltimore or Louisville. He will 
 be sent to some interior region, perhaps fifty miles from 
 any court, or the residence of any counsel, where he 
 may never have an opportunity to speak to a white 
 man unless it be to a taskmaster, who is paid to guard 
 and to silence him. 
 
 The authors of the Federalist deemed the principle 
 of excluding an interested party from all power of 
 deciding his own cause to be so important, that they 
 laid down the following doctrine : " No man ought 
 certainly to be a judge in his own cause, or in any 
 cause, in respect to which he has the least interest or 
 bias." (No. 80.) Yet the only chance which the 
 Fugitive Slave law allows to a freeman, when carried 
 into bondage, is that which he may exercise while 
 under the absolute control of his robber master. 
 
 But more than this : the law imposes no obligation 
 upon the claimant to carry his victim to the state he 
 is charged to have escaped from. A man charged to 
 have escaped from Texas may be carried to Florida. 
 Nay, he may not be carried to any state in this Union ; 
 but may be sent to Cuba or Brazil ; beyond hope, and 
 into the outer darkness of despair. 
 
 All the arguments which I have ever heard, or seen, 
 on this point, gratuitously assume, that the persons 
 reclaimed and transported will have an honest master, 
 be surrounded by kind friends, and have a lawyer at 
 hand whom they can consult with every day, and money 
 in their pockets to fee him. Would such be the case of 
 a kidnapped freeman ? Would a wretch, vile enough 
 to rob a man of his liberty, carry him five hundred or 
 a thousand miles, and then go to a shire town during 
 a session of the court, and give his pretended slave a 
 
433 
 
 purse of money with which to fee a lawyer for inves 
 tigating his right to freedom ? No ! the man who 
 knows, or suspects, that he has seized a freeman, or 
 that his victim even believes himself to be a freeman, 
 and will put the claimant to the trouble and expense 
 of a trial, will plunge that freeman into the abyss of 
 bondage, where no ray of hope may ever reach him, 
 and where his voice will be hushed as in the silence 
 of death. 
 
 Another objection to the Fugitive Slave law is, that 
 it confers judicial power upon persons who are not 
 judges. Here we are not left to inference or construc 
 tion, but can stand on the plain words of the consti 
 tution. The third article declares, 
 
 " The judicial power of the United States shall be vested 
 in one supreme court, and in such inferior courts as the Con 
 gress may from time to time ordain and establish. The judges 
 both of the supreme and inferior courts shall hold their offices 
 during good behavior, and shall at stated times receive for 
 their services a compensation which shall not be diminished 
 during their continuance in office." Art. III. 1. 
 
 Here I hold it to be clear beyond dispute, that the 
 "judges" mentioned in the second sentence of the 
 above section are the members of the " supreme court " 
 and " inferior courts " mentioned in the first section, 
 and no other. If so, then there can be no doubt about 
 the tenure of their office, and the mode of their ap 
 pointment, compensation, and removal. 
 
 By sec. 2, of Art. II., the President "shall nominate, 
 and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate 
 shall appoint," "judges of the supreme court, and all 
 other officers of the United States, whose appoint 
 ments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which 
 shall be established by law." 
 
 The appointment of no judge of any court is " other 
 wise provided for in the constitution ; " and therefore 
 37 
 
434 
 
 the appointment of all the judges in whom " the ju 
 dicial power of the United States is vested," belongs 
 by the constitution to the President and Seriate; and 
 this "judicial power" cannot be delegated to, nor ex 
 ercised by, any persons not so appointed. 
 
 The courts may appoint "inferior officers," such as 
 clerks, criers, or masters in chancery ; but these are riot 
 judges ; " nor would any one of them singly, nor any 
 number of them associated together, constitute a 
 "court," within the meaning of the first section of 
 the third article. Were such the case, then they might 
 have power to appoint " inferior officers," and so on, 
 by sub-delegation, indefinitely. 
 
 The constitution also defines what it means by "ju 
 dicial power." It says, "The judicial power shall 
 extend to all cases in law and equity arising under this 
 constitution, the la\vs of the United States," &c. 
 
 Now, my objection is, that the Fugitive Slave law 
 requires the creation of a large body of officers who 
 are not "judges," but whom it purports to invest with 
 "judicial powers." 
 
 They are not "judges," because they are not nomi 
 nated by the President and confirmed by the Senate, 
 as all "judges " must be. 
 
 They are not "judges " again, because, if they were, 
 they must hold their offices " during good behavior." 
 But the commissioners may be unmade on the day 
 they are made. "Judges" can be removed only 
 by conviction, on impeachment. Commissioners may 
 be removed by the court that appointed them. Not 
 the President, nor the Senate, nor both together, can 
 remove a judge, unless by the initiatory and concurrent 
 action of the House of Representatives. An " inferior 
 court " can eject a commissioner without notice. 
 
 Even if Congress had declared, by express words, 
 that the commissioners appointed by the circuit and 
 district courts should be taken and held to be " judges," 
 
435 
 
 it would not make them so ; for Congress cannot del 
 egate any power to judges to appoint judges, nor 
 to courts to make courts. If Congress could not do 
 this by express enactment, how can it do so by impli 
 cation ? 
 
 Commissioners are not "judges," also, because no 
 person can be a "judge" who is not entitled, "at 
 stated times, to receive for his services a compensation 
 which shall not be diminished during his continuance 
 in office." 
 
 This provision necessitates the conclusion that all 
 "judges" must be entitled to salaries payable periodi 
 cally. These salaries are in no case to depend upon 
 the amount or the quality of their labors, far less, if 
 possible, upon their deciding the cases that are brought 
 before them for the plaintiff or for the defendant. One 
 "judge" may have an enviable reputation for talent 
 and integrity, and thus attract suitors to his court. 
 Another may be as corrupt as Lord Jeffries, and repel 
 all honest litigants from him. But, in either case, he 
 has a right to a compensation which shall not be di 
 minished during his continuance in office. Each year 
 gives him a definite, unchanged sum of money. 
 
 But the commissioner is paid by fees, and the amount 
 of his fees depends partly upon the number of cases he 
 decides, and partly also upon the party in whose favor 
 he decides. If he decides that a man is free, he re 
 ceives five dollars. If he decides that he is a slave, he 
 receives ten. If the commissioner is acceptable to 
 slave hunters, suitors multiply. If obnoxious to them, 
 his docket is bare of a case. He is entitled to his 
 compensation, not " at stated times," but on the deter 
 mination of each case. His compensation may be 
 diminished, or it may cease altogether, during his con 
 tinuance in office. Each year does not give him any 
 definite, unchanged sum of money. 
 
 The "judge " must be paid by the government, and 
 
436 
 
 is independent of all the parties before his court. 
 The commissioner is never to be paid by the gov 
 ernment, but is wholly dependent for his fees upon 
 the claimant whose case he tries. The government 
 guaranties the payment of the "judge," but it can 
 never inquire or know whether the commissioner be 
 paid or not. 
 
 By the sixth article of the constitution, all "judicial 
 officers " must make oath or affirmation that they will 
 support the constitution. But there is no law requir 
 ing these commissioners to take an oath ; and as a 
 matter of practice, in some parts of the country at least, 
 it is known that they take no such oath. 
 
 Now, by the act, a portion of the "judicial power" 
 of the United States, the whole of which is, by the 
 constitution, vested in one "supreme court," and in 
 " inferior courts," is given to the commissioners. The 
 fourth section says they "shall have concurrent juris 
 diction with the judges of the circuit and district courts 
 of the United States." If the power of these courts, 
 in the premises, is judicial, then the power of the com 
 missioners, being the same, is judicial. 
 
 The attorney-general of the United States, in a writ 
 ten opinion, given by command of the President, de 
 clares that this power, so given to the commissioners, 
 is judicial. The following are his words : 
 
 " These officers, [the commissioners,] and each of them, 
 have judicial power, and jurisdiction to hear, examine, and de 
 cide the case." 
 
 " The certificate to be granted to the owner is to be regard 
 ed as the act and judgment of a judicial tribunal having com 
 petent jurisdiction." 
 
 " Congress has constituted a tribunal with exclusive juris 
 diction to determine summarily, and without appeal, who are 
 fugitives from service. The judgment of the tribunal created 
 by this act is conclusive upon all tribunals." 
 
 Such is the opinion of the attorney-general of the 
 
437 
 
 United States, given upon the precise point, by order 
 of the President of the United States. 
 
 I Jut the point needed no authority to sustain it. It 
 results inevitably from the very nature of the power 
 conferred by the law. The decision of the commis 
 sioner is to be final and conclusive, and the subject- 
 matter of the decision is liberty and property. The 
 case cannot be reheard or reexamined by any judge, 
 or by any court, of any state, or of the United States. 
 The decision acts in rein and in pcrsonam. It deliv 
 ers the property to the claimant, and puts the body of 
 the defendant into his custody. From that moment, 
 if the law has any validity, the defendant is the slave 
 of the plaintiff, by force of a "judicial " decision. The 
 plaintiff, thenceforth, may control his actions, his 
 words, his food, his sleep. If he chooses to exercise 
 his authority in such a way, he can order his victim 
 to carry him home on his back, and make him bear 
 the loathsome burden of his person as well as of his 
 will. Now, to say that the power which effects these 
 results is not a judicial power, is to do violence to lan 
 guage, and to commit a fraud upon the inherent nature 
 of ideas. In no case known to the common law, or 
 indeed to any other law, is a plaintiff invested with 
 full rights, except after final judgment. 
 
 If, then, this power is a " judicial power," the con 
 stitution peremptorily forbids that it should be vested 
 anywhere but in a "court," whose "judges" are 
 nominated, confirmed, sworn, hold office, are paid, and 
 are removable, according to its requirements. Look at 
 the constitutional distribution of powers. By the first 
 article, all legislative power " shall be vested in a Con 
 gress." By the second article, the "executive power 
 shall be vested in a President." And by the third arti 
 cle, " the. judicial power shall be vested " in the courts. 
 And it was just as competent for Congress to in 
 vest "commissioners" with supreme "executive" or 
 37* 
 
438 
 
 " legislative" power, as to vest them with "judicial" 
 power. 
 
 If, by good fortune, or by miraculous interposition, 
 a captured freeman should afterwards obtain a hearing 
 in a court of the state to which he had been carried, 
 such hearing would, in no sense, be in the nature of a 
 review of the former case, either by appeal, writ of er 
 ror, mandamus, or certiorari. It would be by the insti 
 tution of another suit, under another government. The 
 relation of the parties would be reversed. The respond 
 ent who was kidnapped must be plaintiff, the plaintiff 
 kidnapper, or some one claiming under him, must be 
 defendant. Were the various possessory writs known 
 to the English common law any the less " suits at 
 common law"? or were the courts that tried them any 
 the less judicial tribunals, because a writ of right could 
 be afterwards brought, in which the previous judg 
 ments could not be pleaded in bar, and would be 
 neither estoppel nor proof of title ? 
 
 But to avoid the force of this, it has been said, that 
 the proceedings before the commissioner do not consti 
 tute a -case," within the meaning of the second sec 
 tion of the third article, which extends the "judicial 
 power " of the United States to all " cases " in law and 
 equity. Instead of being a " case," it is said to be only 
 a summary inquiry, designed to operate as a condition 
 for executive action, in order to accomplish a special 
 and limited object; like the inquiry, who are rightful 
 claimants of money held by the government, under a 
 treaty, and how much belongs to each one. It is also 
 said, that if a construction so literal is to be put upon 
 the words - judicial power," then no master in chan 
 cery could act in behalf of the courts in equity cases ; 
 no commissioner of bankruptcy could be appointed 
 under a bankrupt law, &c. 
 
 In answer to the first position, that the proceedings 
 for the reclamation of fugitive slaves do not constitute 
 
439 
 
 " a case," we have the most explicit declaration of the 
 supreme court in more cases than one. In Prigg s 
 case, 16 Peters, 616, the court say, 
 
 ". It is plain, then, that while a claim is made by the owner, 
 out of possession, for the delivery of a slave, it must be made, 
 if ut all, against some other person ; and inasmuch as the right 
 is a right of property capable of being recognized, and assert 
 ed by proceedings before a court of justice, between parties 
 adverse to each other, ifbonstitutes, in the strictest sense, a 
 controversy between the parties, and a CASE, arising under 
 the constitution of the United States, within the express dele 
 gation of JUDICIAL POWER given by that instrument." 
 
 44 A CASE in law or equity consists of the right of the one 
 party as well as of the other, and may truly be said to arise 
 under the constitution, or a law of the United States, when 
 ever its correct decision depends ON THE CONSTRUCTION OF 
 EITHER." Cohens vs. Virginia, 6 Wheat. 379, (5 Cond. 
 Rep. 101.) 
 
 Indeed, almost every page of the opinion of the 
 court, in Cohens vs. Virginia, may be referred to, to 
 show that they used the word "case " in a sense that 
 embraces the proceedings for the reclamation of a fugi 
 tive slave. If so, then any tribunal, having jurisdiction 
 over such a "case," is vested with a part of the "judi 
 cial " power of the United States. 
 
 In defining the word " case," as it occurs in this 
 article, Judge Story says, 
 
 "It is clear that the judicial department is authorized to ex 
 ercise jurisdiction to the full extent of the constitution, laws, 
 and treaties of the United States, whenever any question re 
 specting them shall assume such a form that, the judicial power 
 \n capable of acting upon it. When it has assumed such a 
 form, it then becomes a case" 3 Comm. 507. 
 
 " A case, then, in the sense of this clause of the constitu 
 tion, arises, when some subject touching the constitution, laws, 
 or treaties of the United States, is submitted to the courts by 
 a party who asserts his rights in the form prescribed by law." 
 Ibid. 
 
440 
 
 And, as if these definitions were not clear enough, 
 the learned judge adds, 
 
 " Cases arising under the laws of the United States are 
 such as grow out of the legislation of Congress, within the 
 scope of their constitutional authority, whether they constitute 
 the right, or privilege, or claim, or protection, or defence of 
 the party, in whole or in part, by whom they are asserted." 
 3 Comm. 508. 
 
 It seems clear, then, that the proceedings authorized 
 by the Fugitive Slave law cannot be taken out of the 
 meaning of the word cases," (cases in law and equi 
 ty,) in the third article. 
 
 There is another clause in the third article, which 
 embraces these proceedings with equal clearness and 
 certainty. " The judicial power shall extend to con 
 troversies " " between a state and citizens of another 
 state." I suppose it will not be denied that a slave 
 state may itself own slaves. They may escheat to it, 
 be taken in execution for debt, &c. Now, a -free citi 
 zen of Massachusetts may enter the port of Charleston 
 as a mariner, be seized, imprisoned, and then sold into 
 slavery for non-payment of jail fees. The State of 
 South Carolina may purchase him. He may escape 
 and return to Massachusetts. South Carolina may 
 then claim him under this Fugitive Slave law. 
 
 In such a condition of things, a "controversy " will 
 exist between "a state and a citizen of another state." 
 The commissioner can take jurisdiction of that case as 
 well as of any other. And who will be bold enough 
 to say that a trial and judgment by him, delivering up 
 the respondent to bondage, would not be the exercise 
 of " judicial power" in a controversy between "a state 
 and a citizen of another state " ? 
 
 The argument, that if the commissioner under the 
 Fugitive Slave law exercises "judicial power," then 
 masters in chancery, commissioners of bankruptcy, 
 &c., exercise it, is answered by a word. 
 
\ ii 
 
 Masters in chancery assist (he court in preparing 
 questions for decision, but they decide nothing. Every 
 act of theirs may be reheard and reexamined by the 
 court at the pleasure of either party. They enter up 
 no judgment ; they issue no execution. They may 
 express the opinion that the plaintiff or defendant is 
 entitled to recover a certain sum of money, or to hold 
 the chattel in dispute ; but neither of them can touch 
 it. They are "judges " in no legitimate sense. They 
 exercise no part of the "judicial power." The court 
 may call upon them to state an account between par 
 ties, as it calls upon a clerk to make up the record, or 
 a servitor to bring a law book, or asks a friend to cast 
 up the interest on a promissory note. Such are the 
 functions of a master in chancery, whose acts have no 
 legal validity until assented to by the parties or sanc 
 tioned by the court. 
 
 So with regard to commissioners of bankruptcy. 
 Every act they were ever authorized to perform de 
 rived all its legal force from the consent of the parties, 
 or from the verdict of a jury, before whom it had been 
 contested, or from the judgment of the court, as 
 may be seen at a glance, by reference to the acts cre 
 ating them. 
 
 As to the supposed "judicial power" exercised by 
 commissioners, under a treaty to determine who are 
 rightful claimants, and to how much each one is enti 
 tled, it is almost too obvious to remark, that as no 
 citizen can bring "suit" against the government, the 
 "judicial power" does not "extend" to such a case, 
 and the suggestion is puerile. 
 
 A word more will close my remarks on this topic. 
 We have seen that a decision of the commissioner ad 
 verse to the respondent delivers him over into abso 
 lute, unconditional slavery. But the prevalent opinion 
 is, that a decision in the respondent s favor is no bar 
 to a subsequent trial of the same person on a new 
 
442 
 
 " claim." It was actually held in Long s case, in New 
 York, where the claimant apprehended that the de 
 cision of the first commissioner would be against him, 
 that he might abandon proceedings before that tribunal 
 and resort to another. He did so, and prevailed. That 
 is, the claimant may select, from among an indefinite 
 number of irresponsible magistrates, the one whose 
 ignorance or whose turpitude may promise the best 
 chances of success. But if, from any cause, he should 
 apprehend defeat, then, and before the final judgment 
 is pronounced, he can withdraw his suit and com 
 mence anew before another magistrate, and so throw 
 the dice of the law again and again, until, by the very 
 doctrine of chances, he shall ultimately succeed. Such 
 want of equity between the parties stamps this law as 
 infamous, for inequity is iniquity. 
 
 An argument in favor of the surrender of alleged 
 fugitives from service under this law has been derived 
 from the provision for the surrender of fugitives from 
 justice. But the difference between the cases is world 
 wide. In regard to slaves, the constitution says, 
 "No person HELD to service," &c. ; but in regard to 
 criminals, its language is, " A person CHARGED," &c. 
 
 Now, who can avoid perceiving the difference be 
 tween the legal force of the words " held " and 
 "charged"? The obligor in a bond is "HELD and 
 firmly bound." The grantor conveys an estate " to 
 have and to HOLD " to the grantee and his heirs and 
 assigns forever. So a lessee is to " HOLD " for the 
 term specified. A man is HELD to answer a charge, 
 &c., &c. In all these cases the word " hold " implies 
 a perfect obligation or certain liability. But a man is 
 " CHARGED " with an offence when a grand jury has 
 found an indictment against him, or when a competent 
 person has made the requisite oath. It is not enough 
 that a man be charged to be held to service. He must 
 be proved to be held, or he remains free ; the court 
 
443 
 
 must know that he is so /ir-ltl before they are author 
 ized to surrender him. And how, under our constitu 
 tion, can the court know such facts as convert a pre 
 sumptive freeman into a slave without a trial by jury? 
 
 Had the constitution said a fugitive guilty of mur 
 der, &c., shall be delivered up, could a man be deliv 
 ered up until proved guilty of murder ? Yet the word 
 guilty is no stronger in reference to a fugitive from jus 
 tice than is the word held in reference to a fugitive 
 from service. 
 
 Another distinction between the cases is not less 
 marked than the preceding. When the fugitive from 
 justice is claimed, he is claimed by a state for having 
 violated its law, and when he is delivered up he is de 
 livered into the custody of the law. Legal process 
 must have been commenced against him in the state 
 from which he fled. He is returned, that the prosecu 
 tion thus commenced may be completed. He is de 
 livered from an officer of the law in one state to the 
 officer of the law in another state. He is transferred, 
 not to avoid a trial, but to have one. The original in 
 dictment or charge, the arrest in a foreign state, and 
 the delivery and transportation to the place of trial, are 
 but separate parts of one legal proceeding. The shield 
 of the law is continued over him. All the time and all 
 the way, he has the solemn pledge of the government, 
 that if not found guilty on the prosecution then pend 
 ing, he shall be discharged. 
 
 But the alleged slave is claimed not by a state, but 
 by an individual, and he is delivered up, not into the 
 custody of the law, where his right might be adjudi 
 cated upon, but into private hands ; not into the hands 
 of a neutral or indifferent person even, but into the 
 hands of a party interested to deprive him of all his 
 rights, and who himself claims to be judge, jury, and 
 all the witnesses, in determining what those rights are. 
 If he be not a slave, then he is delivered into the 
 
444 
 
 hands of a man-stealer. The shield of the law is not 
 continued over him; nay, the Fugitive Slave act ex 
 pressly provides that, whatever his rights may be, yet, 
 while in transit u t the law shall not recognize them. 
 The certificate given by the commissioner to the claim 
 ant is to prevent "all molestation of him by any pro 
 cess issued by the court, judge, magistrate, or other 
 person whomsoever." Under this practical interpreta 
 tion of our constitution, which, as its own preamble 
 declares, was formed to " establish justice, and secure 
 the blessings of liberty," it takes better care of felons 
 than of freemen. 
 
 But there are other provisions of the constitution 
 respecting the trial of criminals, which would control 
 this provision respecting the delivery of fugitives from 
 justice, even if there should be any doubts about its 
 true construction. By the constitution as orginally 
 adopted, and by the fifth amendment, all crimes, (ex 
 cept in cases of impeachment, or in the land and naval 
 forces,) are to be tried in the state and district where 
 committed. This makes it impossible to try a fugitive 
 from justice in the state to which he has fled. It is an 
 express prohibition against trying him there. But no 
 such prohibition exists, no analogous provision exists, 
 respecting the trial of " suits at common law," or the 
 trial of " cases " or " co ntroversies," in which a man 
 may be deprived of " life, liberty, or property." 
 These cases, therefore, not being taken out of the 
 general provisipns of the constitution for securing the 
 rights of the citizen, are left within it, and hence must 
 be tried by a jury in the place where the claim is made. 
 
 My next objection to this law is, that it attempts to 
 suspend the writ of habeas corpus. 
 
 The constitution says, " The privilege of the writ of 
 habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when, in 
 cases of rebellion or invasion, the public safety may 
 require it." The Fugitive Slave law declares that the 
 
" certificate " given to the claimant, his agent or attor 
 ney, " shall prevent all molestation of said person or 
 persons by any process issued by any court, judge, 
 magistrate, or other person whomsoever." Now, as a 
 writ of habeas corpus is a " process issued by a court 
 or judge," it follows, that, according to the terms of the 
 Fugitive Slave law, the slave owner is not to be " mo 
 lested" by that process. What, then, will constitute a 
 11 molestation " of him under this law ? Would the 
 service of a writ of habeas corpus upon him, and, in 
 case of his refusal voluntarily to obey it, the seizure 
 of his person, and the carrying of him bodily before 
 the court, perhaps a hundred miles out of his way ; 
 would the moral necessity of employing counsel, and 
 being otherwise subjected to great expense, both of 
 money and time ; would any or all of these impedi 
 ments and privations amount to what this law denom 
 inates " molestation " ? If they would, then the slave 
 owner is exempted from them. And if so exempted 
 from them, is not the privilege of the writ of habeas 
 corpus "suspended," as to his pretended slave? W r hat 
 jelse can a " suspension " of it mean ? 
 
 But take the other alternative. Suppose the writ 
 of habeas corpus to be issued, and a return of all the 
 facts by which the supposed slave is held to be made. 
 The very return brings the Fugitive Slave act before the 
 court ; and if the act is before the court, then, surely, 
 the question is also before the court, whether it is con 
 stitutional or not. For, if unconstitutional, it is no 
 law, and no justification of the restraint. Suppose the 
 court to decide the act to be unconstitutional, and to 
 discharge the prisoner. This surely would be a "mo 
 lestation " of him, in the strongest sense of the word. 
 To say the least of it, then, the law contains an inso 
 lent and audacious provision, forbidding the " courts, 
 judges, magistrates, and all other persons whomso 
 ever," to do what it may be their sworn constitutional 
 38 
 
446 
 
 duty to do, that is, to inquire into the constitution 
 ality of the law, and, if found to be unconstitutional, 
 to disregard it. 
 
 I am aware of the astute reasoning of the present 
 able attorney-general of the United States. He says, 
 first, that, the act does not suspend the writ of habeas 
 corpus, because such suspension would be " a plain 
 and palpable violation of the constitution, and no in 
 tention to commit such a violation of the constitution 
 ought to be imputed" to Congress ; and second, that if 
 the certificate of the commissioner is shown " upon the 
 application of the fugitive for a writ of habeas corpus, 
 it prevents the issuing of the writ ; if upon the return, 
 it discharges the writ, and restores or maintains the 
 custody." 
 
 The first reason might be more briefly stated thus : 
 it don t because it don t ; or it don t because it can t. 
 
 The second is as little satisfactory as the first. If the 
 facts are shown, it says, upon the fugitive s applica 
 tion for a writ, no writ will issue ; if shown upon the 
 return of the writ, it will be abated. Is it not most 
 clear that this assumes the very question in dispute, 
 whether the law on which the certificate is founded be 
 constitutional or not ? The statement may be all very 
 true, if the law be constitutional ; but suppose the law 
 to be unconstitutional, would not the statement be su 
 perlatively absurd ? Yet whether the law be constitu 
 tional or not, is the very question to be determined. 
 
 Let me test the soundness of this logic by a supposed 
 case. There is, at the present time, a set of politicians 
 amongst us, who are so alarmed at agitation that each 
 one of them is a kind of Peter the Hermit, getting up 
 a crusade to prevent it. Now, suppose Congress, " as 
 a peace measure," should pass a law authorizing the 
 secretary of state to issue his warrant for the arrest and 
 imprisonment, until the 4th day of March, 1853, or at 
 least until after the next presidential nominations are 
 
44? 
 
 made, of any person who shall be guilty of agitating 
 on the wrong- side of said peace measure, and sin mid 
 further declare that any jailer having such warrant from 
 said secretary should be free from " all molestation by 
 any process issued by any court, magistrate, or other 
 person whomsoever." Would it be a sound, judicial, 
 and lawyer-like argument, in such a case, to say that 
 Congress could not, and could not have intended to, 
 violate the constitution, and therefore they had not 
 violated it ; and that if the warrant for commitment 
 should appear upon the prisoner s application for a writ 
 of habeas corpus, it would prevent its issuing ; if, upon 
 its return, it would discharge it ? 
 
 I think it impossible for any one to show that if the 
 argument be good in the first case, it would not be 
 good in the second; and good, indeed, in any case, 
 however outrageously violating the constitution. 
 
 Again : suppose the 18th of September last, when 
 the Fugitive Slave bill was approved, to have been a 
 time " of rebellion or invasion," when the public safety 
 required the suspension of this writ, would not such 
 words as end the sixth section of the act be sufficient 
 in law to suspend it ? The attorney-general seems to 
 rely upon the fact that the Fugitive Slave law does not 
 mention the habeas corpus. He cannot surely mean 
 to say that the privilege of this writ could not be sus 
 pended, unless by name. Even slavery is not men 
 tioned in the constitution by name. Suppose Congress, 
 in a time of rebellion or invasion, to say, in regard to 
 any class of cases which it might choose to specify, 
 that if one person shall hold another under executive 
 warrant, such warrant " shall prevent all molestation 
 of said person or persons by any process issued by any 
 court, judge, magistrate, or other person whomsoever ; " 
 could any man deny that such words would have ample 
 force to suspend the privilege of this sacred and time- 
 hallowed writ ? 
 
448 
 
 No! Heaven, and not the thirty-first Congress, be 
 praised for it ! Though this infamous Fugitive law 
 could not suspend the habeas corpus, yet its words are 
 adequate to do so. They purport to put the profes 
 sional slave-hunter, as it regards the privilege from arrest, 
 or " molestation," on the footing of a member of Con 
 gress ; and it would not have gone one iota further, in 
 point of principle, had they made his person inviolable 
 while going to seize his prey, and when returning 
 with it. 
 
 If the argument of the attorney-general be sound, 
 then the whole "privilege of the writ of habeas cor 
 pus" under any corrupt law that any corrupt Congress 
 may pass, will consist in the privilege of applying to a 
 court for the writ, and being refused ; or in suing out 
 the writ, and having it quashed. 
 
 By the principles of the English law, the privilege 
 of the habeas corpus attaches to all, whether bond or 
 free. The words liber homo, says Lord Coke, extend 
 to every one of the king s subjects, " be he ecclesias 
 tical or temporal, free or bond, man or woman, old or 
 young, or be he outlawed, excommunicated, or any 
 other, without exception." 2 Inst. 55. 
 
 I now proceed to lay open for the abhorrence of 
 mankind other deformities of this most odious law. In 
 opposing a law, a distinction is to be made between 
 the courts and the people ; between the bench and the 
 ballot-box. The courts can hear but one objection to 
 a law. It may be impolitic, unrighteous, atrocious ; 
 but if it be constitutional they must sustain it. But 
 before the tribunal of the people, a law may be im 
 peached for any attribute of cruelty, oppression, or 
 meanness. I denounce the Fugitive Slave law for all 
 these qualities. In its scornful rejection of all those 
 common-law principles of evidence which have been 
 ratified by the wisdom of ages ; in the " summary " 
 and piratical haste of its proceedings, and in the indel- 
 
449 
 
 ible blood with which its judgments are recorded, I 
 believe it has not a parallel in the modern code of any 
 civilized people. 
 
 Should the courts, hampered by previous decisions, 
 and habituated to the spectacle and the support of a 
 cruel institution, pronounce this law to be constitu 
 tional, such a judgment would give new force to every 
 reason why the people should demand its modification 
 or repeal. It is not enough that it should be declared 
 void by the courts as against the fundamental law of 
 the land ; it deserves to be branded by the people as 
 abhorrent to humanity, to civilization, and to the gos 
 pel of Jesus Christ. 
 
 Look at its provisions in regard to evidence. The 
 proof of three facts dooms the victim : first, that the 
 person named in the warrant owes the claimant service ; 
 second, that he has escaped ; and, third, identity. 
 
 Now, according to the law, all these facts may be 
 proved in the absence of the party to be ruined by 
 them. The whole case may be established by evi 
 dence taken behind the victim s back, without notice 
 to him, without knowledge, or possibility of knowledge, 
 on his part. A freeman may be suddenly arrested, and 
 dragged into court, and on certain papers being read 
 against him, which he never saw nor heard of before, 
 he may be ordered into the custody of officers, and 
 hurried to a returnless distance from wife, children, and 
 friends, reduced to the direst form of bondage the world 
 ever knew, and at the expense of the very government 
 which he has been taxed to support, and which in turn 
 was bound to protect him. I will prove by a reference 
 to the act itself that these atrocities are among its con 
 spicuous features. 
 
 By the sixth section it is made the duty of the 
 
 " court, judge, or commissioner," " upon satisfactory 
 
 proof being made by deposition or affidavit, in writing," 
 
 " or by other satisfactory testimony," " and with proof, 
 
 38* 
 
450 
 
 also by affidavit, of the identity of the person whose 
 service or labor is claimed," "to make out and deliver 
 to such claimant a certificate," &c. 
 
 And the tenth section of the act declares that the 
 transcript of a record " taken in any state or territory, 
 or in the District of Columbia," and " produced in any 
 other state, territory, or district," and being there 
 " exhibited to any judge, commissioner, or other officer 
 authorized to cause persons escaping from service or 
 labor to be delivered up, shall be held and taken to be 
 full and conclusive evidence of the fact of escape, and 
 that the service or labor of the person escaping is due 
 to the party in said record mentioned." " And upon 
 the production of other and further evidence, if neces 
 sary, either oral or by affidavit, of the identity of the 
 person escaping, he or she shall be delivered up to the 
 claimant." 
 
 Here, then, is a provision unknown to the common 
 law of England, or to any colony, or people, or tribe 
 that ever claimed the common law of England as their 
 inheritance ; unknown even to the star chamber, or 
 high commission court ; unknown in the bloodiest, 
 reigns of the bloodiest tyrants that ever sat upon the 
 English throne : unknown to those judicial villains 
 whom Lord Campbell calls "ruffians in ermine 1 1 in 
 corporated into the code of a republican government. 
 Evidence, which may consign to slavery a man who is 
 ostensibly and presumptively free, free by the laws 
 of the state where he is, and free every where by the 
 law of God and humanity, may be prepared in his 
 absence, without any notice to him, and by any means 
 of perjury or subornation of perjury to which guilt may 
 resort, and this evidence is made legally sufficient to 
 doom a fellow-being to relentless bondage. Notwith 
 standing those remarkable clauses in the constitution 
 which provide that " in all criminal prosecutions the 
 accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public 
 
451 
 
 trial," " be informed of the nature and cause of the 
 accusation," " be confronted with the witnesses against 
 him," " have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses 
 in his favor," "and have the assistance of counsel 
 for his defence;" yet Judge Story comments upon 
 them in a spirit of dissatisfaction and sorrow; "for," 
 says he, " unless the whole system [of the common 
 law] is incorporated, and especially the law of evideii< t>, 
 a corrupt legislature, or a debased and servile people, 
 may render the whole little more than a solemn 
 pageantry." (3 Com. 602.) In speaking of a " cor 
 rupt legislature," he seems to describe what this Con 
 gress has done in enacting the Fugitive Slave law at 
 its last session ; and, in speaking of a " debased and 
 servile people," he speaks of just such a people as the 
 advocates and champions of this law are now striving 
 to make the people of the United States become ! 
 
 The right of cross examining witnesses is a common- 
 law right, appertaining to all kinds of trials. It is a 
 right without which all trials are but mockery. It is 
 oftentimes a hardship to be confronted with witnesses 
 of whom one knows nothing ; but to be debarred from 
 all opportunity of getting, by cross questioning, at the 
 knowledge that is in them ; to be debarred from the 
 right of showing that they are incompetent even to 
 folly, or corrupt even to wilful perjury, this is a bar 
 barity unknown to any code in the civilized world, 
 save to the code of the United States of America. It 
 is what even barbarians might be ashamed of. It is 
 offering bounties and premiums on villany, and turning 
 the courts into brokers offices for perjury. Under 
 such a law, is there a single colored person at the north 
 who can rise to his labor in the morning, or lie down 
 to his repose at night, with any feeling of security that 
 avarice and false swearing may not then be at work 
 for his destruction ? Who can wonder, if he is tor 
 mented in his nightly dreams by images of the man- 
 
452 
 
 stealer, in far off regions, plotting for his ruin ? Who 
 can wonder if, in his city residence, he starts as he 
 turns the corner of every street ; or, in his rural home, 
 if he shudders at the rustle of every leaf, lest some 
 kidnapper should spring from his ambush to seize 
 him ? That sense of personal security which every 
 honest man is entitled to feel, this law abolishes. The 
 virtuous man cannot rely upon his government, nor the 
 pious man upon his God, for earthly protection. For 
 him the Prince of Darkness has obtained, the ascendency 
 in the affairs of men, and offers impunity to guilt, 
 while protection is withdrawn from innocence. The 
 life of such a man is a perpetual agony of alarm for 
 himself and for his family. A cloud charged with 
 lightning is forever suspended over his head, and no 
 genius can devise the means to turn aside its bolts. 
 
 Sir, before God, I believe that, in the judgment of an 
 impartial posterity, this method of taking evidence, by 
 the cruellest of means and for the wickedest of pur 
 poses, will be held as atrocious and as execrable as that 
 horrid method of extracting evidence by torture, which 
 once prevailed, but which now even half-civilized na 
 tions have abolished. A brave heart could withhold a 
 false confession, even upon the rack. With the 
 images of wife and children before the eyes, martyr 
 dom for their protection has been sweet. But there is 
 no man whom God ever made who will not tremble, 
 and stand aghast with consternation, with the con 
 scious knowledge in his mind that he, his wife and 
 children, and all that he holds dear upon earth, are at 
 the mercy of every pirate-hearted villain between the 
 Atlantic and the Rio Grande ; nay, that the govern 
 ment offers inducement to foreign assassins to come 
 here, where, with less risk, they can make more money 
 by false swearing and judicial kidnapping than they 
 could at home by murder and robbery. Better, a 
 thousand times better, had the constitution allowed the 
 
[53 
 
 citizen " to be compelled to be a witness against him 
 self," and laid its prohibitions upon the fabrication of 
 testimony against him in his absence. 
 
 The tenth section of the act. declares that this evi 
 dence, thus obtained under a foreign jurisdiction and 
 in the absence of the party, shall be " conclusive." 
 Now, the legal force and meaning of this provision is, 
 that no amount or weight of evidence, no array of the 
 most unimpeachable witnesses, not even the personal 
 knowledge of the commissioner himself, who tries the 
 case, though given under the sanction of an oath, 
 which the law does not require him, as a commissioner, 
 to take, shall he admissible to rebut this "conclusive " 
 testimony. It is not made prima facie evidence merely 
 iuainst the respondent ; it does not merely shift the 
 burden of proof, so that the presumptive freeman be- 
 rumes presumptively a slave, and must himself estab 
 lish the freedom he would possess; but the law mag- 
 nines it into a species of proof that is " conclusive," 
 that is, unquestionable, irrefragable, omnipotent, like 
 u miracle of God, not to be disputed. And this great 
 est of legal force is given to the worst kind of evidence. 
 I say that a law so worthy of abhorrence, so truculent, 
 ,so fiendish, is not to be found upon the statute book 
 of any other civilized nation on the globe. 
 
 Such, too, has been the practical construction given 
 to the law. I see by the papers that, in a late case 
 which occurred at Detroit, the respondent declared 
 himself a free man, and prayed for a continuance, to 
 allow him to send to Cincinnati for his free papers. 
 But the commissioner refused the delay, saying that, 
 under this law, even free papers from the very man 
 that claimed him would be of no avail ; for where 
 tiie law made the evidence conclusive, nothing could 
 rebut it. Any counter evidence must always be ad 
 mitted, on the hypothesis that the evidence already 
 received may be controlled by it. But what an infi- 
 
454 
 
 nite absurdity to suppose that one mass or body of 
 proof can be conclusive, over another which is conclu 
 sive. The law might just as well have made color 
 conclusive, not only that the respondent was a slave, 
 but that he ran away from the man who claims him. 
 The law, as it stands, is as much a slave-making as it 
 is a slave-catching law. 
 
 It declares that the proceedings shall be " summary ; " 
 and it provides a different rate of compensation, ac 
 cording as the decision is for freedom or against it. On 
 what principle is this difference of compensation 
 founded ? Every body can see at a glance that when 
 a claimant can prepare his evidence beforehand and in 
 secret, he would be a fool not to make out a prima 
 facie case. If the respondent adduces no proof, the 
 case goes by default, and judgment, without delay, is 
 entered against him. But if the claim is contested, 
 then witnesses are to be examined, arguments are to 
 be heard, evidence is to be weighed, legal questions to 
 be investigated, and such a decision made as the com 
 missioner is willing to pronounce before the world. It 
 is only in the last class of cases, the contested class, 
 that the respondent will be discharged. The cases, 
 therefore, that result in freedom will ordinarily occu 
 py sixfold or tenfold more time, besides requiring the 
 exercise of more legal knowledge and ability, than 
 those which terminate fatally to the respondent. Yet 
 for decreeing the freedom of a man, the fee is but 
 half as much as when a sentence of bondage is 
 awarded against him. This surpasses the bribery of 
 Judas by the high priests. They had not diabolical 
 wit enough to present a contrast between right and 
 wrong, as a special stimulus for committing iniquity. 
 
 The " summary manner ? of trial provided for by 
 this law, when considered in reference to rights so 
 momentous, shocks every Anglo-Saxon mind. One s 
 blood must all be corrupted in his veins, before he can 
 
455 
 
 hear of it without indignation. It is the noblest attri 
 bute of our race, that we hold civil and religious liberty 
 to be more sacred and more precious than life itself. 
 Yet by what safeguards of constitution, of law, and 
 of forms of practice, is life protected amongst us? 
 There must be a presentment, by at least twelve sworn 
 men, before a man can be held to answer to a charge 
 by which it can be forfeited. Then come the trav 
 erse jury, the right of peremptory challenge, the 
 assignment of counsel, the right to see the indictment 
 beforehand, and to know the names of witnesses who 
 are to be called against the accused, and compulsory 
 process to insure the attendance of witnesses in his 
 favor ! What noble barriers are these against the 
 oppression of a powerful government, and the malig 
 nant passions of powerful men ! The probable culprit, 
 
 the man laboring under the most violent suspicion, 
 
 though caught with the blood-red dagger in his 
 hand over the prostrate body of the victim, is guarded 
 by all that human ingenuity has been able to devise ; 
 by all the knowledge that we can command this side 
 of the omniscience, and by all the power this side of 
 the omnipotence of God. Yet in the very commu 
 nity where these rights are reverenced and upheld, a 
 man may be seized without notice, hurried to a tribu 
 nal without an hour for preparation, and then be borne 
 away a thousand miles, where all that life has of hope 
 and of enjoyment is taken away, and all that it knows 
 of misery and of terror is realized. 
 
 Let me ask any man who ever had a case in court 
 that was worth defending, whether he was prepared to 
 meet it the first hour he had notice of its existence ? 
 A respondent s witnesses may be resident in different 
 states, and distances of hundreds of miles may inter 
 vene between him and them. His proof may consist 
 of deeds, or wills, or records, which cannot be found 
 or authenticated without delay. His defence may 
 
456 
 
 consist of matters of law, which the ablest counsel 
 may require time and the examination of books to in 
 vestigate. All these obstacles to instantaneous readi 
 ness may exist together, and yet the inexorable man 
 date of the law scorns his appeal for that delay on 
 which his highest interests are suspended, and dooms 
 him to bondage because he cannot achieve impossibil 
 ities. Under such a law, not one man in ten who will 
 be arrested, even though he should be free, will be 
 prepared to establish his freedom. A great portion of 
 these outcasts from human justice, I doubt not, are 
 better prepared for the summons of instantaneous 
 death than for this summons of instantaneous trial. 
 
 Then the cruel haste in executing judgment ! The 
 murderer is allowed a season of respite between the 
 hour of sentence and the hour of death ; the debtor 
 may turn out goods to satisfy a creditor s demands ; 
 but the alleged fugitive has no reprieve. He has no 
 opportunity to solicit money to redeem himself, or to 
 negotiate for the ransom of body and soul. Swift and 
 sure as an arrow to its mark, he is speeded on his way 
 to the abodes of toil and despair. The witnesses who 
 swore away his liberty may have been perjured, but he 
 cannot stop to convict them. The court may have 
 been corrupt, but he cannot remain to impeach it. 
 However honestly rendered, the judgment may be re 
 versible for error in law, but he cannot stay to set it 
 aside. 
 
 Now, every one must see that where there is so little 
 caution before trial, there should be a liberal opportu 
 nity for revision after it. But here is infinite exposure 
 to error with no chance for rectification. Overstep 
 ping the acts of the common tyrant, there is an inflic 
 tion of the most heinous wrong, with a premeditated 
 purpose that it shall not be repaired. The great and 
 free republic of North America has transferred the 
 unwritten law of Judge Lynch to its statute book. 
 
457 
 
 However clear the constitutional obligation of Con 
 gress to enact a law for the reclamation of fugitive 
 slaves may be supposed by any one to be, there cer 
 tainly are limitations to this obligation, which all the 
 principles of our government forbid the law-maker to 
 transcend. 
 
 In the first place, this constitutional obligation must 
 be strictly construed. The main and primary ob 
 ject of the constitution was to protect natural rights ; 
 but the object of the Fugitive Slave clause was to 
 protect a legal right in conflict with natural right. All 
 judges of an honorable name, all courts in all civilized 
 communities, have recognized a broad distinction in 
 the principles of interpreting law. They have held 
 that provisions against life and liberty should be strictly 
 construed, while those in favor of life and liberty 
 should be liberally construed, the one so construed 
 as to inflict as little of pain and privation as possible ; 
 the other, to give as much of freedom and immunity 
 as possible. These have become maxims, or axioms, 
 of legal interpretation ; and in their long and unbroken 
 recognition, it is not too strong an expression to say, 
 they impetrate and command a strict construction of 
 that clause in the constitution under which fugitives 
 may be claimed. And the same legal maxims, in 
 regard to all subjects touching life and liberty, bind 
 Congress in legislating under the constitution, as bind 
 the judicial tribunals in administering the law. 
 
 Yet the Fugitive Slave law contains provisions 
 which there can be no pretence nor shadow of a pre 
 tence that the constitution requires. By the constitu 
 tion, " No person held to service or labor in one state, 
 escaping into another, shall be discharged." Into 
 another what ? Indisputably, into another state. It 
 must mean state, and can mean nothing else ; for the 
 laws of language admit no other construction. The 
 expression, " No person held in one state, escaping 
 39 
 
458 
 
 into another TERRITORY," would be not merely un- 
 grammatical and un-English, but nonsensical. No 
 man of common intelligence ever so construed a sen 
 tence. Yet the sixth section of the act provides not 
 only for the case of slaves escaping from one state into 
 another state, but for their escape from a state into a 
 territory, and for an escape from a territory into a 
 state, and for an escape from one territory into another 
 territory. Four classes of cases are provided for by 
 the law, while but one of them finds any warrant in 
 the constitution. 
 
 Now let any one take a map of the United States, 
 and see over what a vast area the law extends, over 
 which the provision in the constitution does not ex 
 tend. The region is continental over which the law un 
 constitutionally extends, and this corresponds with the 
 vast inhumanity of the principle which so extends it. 
 
 Mark another particular in which the provisions of 
 the law go beyond the requirements of the constitu 
 tion. The constitution says the fugitive shall be 
 11 delivered up." The law makes provision for trans 
 porting him to the claimant s home. Is there any 
 similar provision respecting any other species of prop 
 erty ? If a northern merchant recovers a debt from 
 his southern customer, does the government assume 
 the responsibility of seeing that it is paid to the cred 
 itor at his own home ? If a northern man is robbed, 
 and the stolen goods are found in another state, does 
 the government transport them back and pay freight ? 
 Then, why should government interpose in this case 
 to bear costs and risks, unless slavery is so meritorious 
 an institution as to deserve the benefactions as well as 
 the benedictions of freemen ? 
 
 Then observe how artfully the law is worded, to 
 make the assistance rendered to the claimant go be 
 yond any supposed necessity in the case. " If," it 
 says, " upon affidavit made by the claimant, 
 
459 
 
 his agent or attorney, that he has reason to 
 
 apprehend that such fugitive will be rescued by force, 
 
 before he can take him beyond the limits of 
 
 the state in which the arrest is made, it shall be the 
 
 duty of the officer to remove him to the state 
 
 whence he fled." Thus, if danger is apprehended, 
 iril /tiit the first ten miles, the government shall see 
 the slave safely home, at its own expense, though it 
 be a thousand miles. 
 
 But besides the unheard-of principle of saddling 
 the government with the expense of prosecuting the 
 private claims of its citizens within its own jurisdic 
 tion, 1 should like to know what provision the consti 
 tution contains, which, though interpreted by the most 
 latitudinarian constructionist, confers any right upon 
 Congress thus to take the money of one citizen to pay 
 the private expenses of another. There is no clause, 
 or phrase, or word in that instrument which favors the 
 idea that the Northern States should bear the expense, 
 as well as the disgrace, of thus remanding our fellow- 
 men into bondage. 
 
 Besides, if the limits of the constitution were to be 
 transcended in order to deliver an alleged fugitive to 
 his master, would not the slightest element of equity, 
 or decency, even, require that when a freeman is con 
 demned to bondage under the law, his expenses, 
 incurred in returning to the place where he was plun 
 dered of himself, should be reimbursed to him by the 
 government which had failed in its duty to protect 
 him ? If the claimant of James Hamlet could be 
 supplied with a force, at the government s expense, to 
 carry him into slavery, why should not the expense 
 of coming back into a land of freedom be reimbursed 
 by the government to Adam Gibson, after one of its 
 venal and villanous instruments had wrested that 
 freedom from him ? 
 
 The law also provides for another thing which the 
 
460 
 
 supreme court has expressly declared to be unconstitu 
 tional, or beyond the power of Congress to enact. It 
 provides that any state court of record, or judge 
 thereof, in vacation, may take and certify evidence 
 which shall be " conclusive " in regard to two of the 
 three points which are made sufficient by the law to 
 prove a man a slave. Thus, the two facts of slavery 
 and of escape may be "conclusively" proved by the 
 certificate of a judge of a state court, so that the 
 judge before whom the alleged fugitive is brought 
 shall, in regard to these facts, exercise only a mere 
 ministerial function. Now, he who has power to take 
 and authenticate evidence, which it is predetermined 
 shall be "conclusive " in the case, has power to decide 
 the case. This, in its nature and essence, is a judicial 
 power ; yet this power is given by the act to any state 
 court of record, and to any judge thereof in vacation. 
 Contrary to this, however, the supreme court has said, 
 " Congress cannot vest any portion of the judicial 
 power of the United States except in courts ordained 
 and established by itself." Martin vs. Hunter s 
 Lessee, I Wheat. 330. "The whole judicial power 
 of the United States should be, at all times, vested in 
 some courts created under its authority." Ib. 331. 
 " The jurisdiction over such cases, [cases arising under 
 the constitution, laws, and treaties of the United 
 States,] could not exist in the state courts previous 
 to the adoption of the constitution, and it could not 
 afterwards be directly conferred on them ; for the 
 constitution expressly requires the judicial power to 
 be vested in courts ordained and established by the 
 United States." Ib. 335. 
 
 Yet, though it is expressly declared that Congress 
 cannot vest any part of the judicial power of the 
 United States in a state court, the state courts are 
 empowered by this law to take and certify evidence, 
 which is made "conclusive " in the case. 
 
461 
 
 Look at the subject in another of its aspects. Here 
 are some half million of free colored persons in the 
 free states. They are unquestionably free. They 
 possess, as fully as you or I, those prerogatives of 
 freedom without which life ceases to be a blessing. 
 Their freedom is guarantied to them by the constitu 
 tion of the United States, and by the constitutions and 
 laws of the states respectively in which they dwell. 
 They certainly are a part of the people. In some of 
 the states, as in Massachusetts for instance, the law 
 knows no iota of distinction, in any respect, between 
 a black man and a white man ; between one of Euro 
 pean and one of African descent. It is the noble 
 privilege of a Massachusetts man to say, that, as all 
 men are equal before the divine law, so are all men 
 equal within our borders, before the human law. 
 
 Now, scattered among this half million, more or 
 less, of free colored people in the free states, there are 
 a few hundreds, or a few thousands if you please, of 
 " fugitives from service or labor," as the constitution 
 cunningly and evasively phrases it ; which, being 
 interpreted, means, as the whole world knows, fugi 
 tives from toil, and fetters, and stripes, and agony ; 
 fugitives from ignorance and the thick darkness of the 
 intellect ; fugitives from moral debasement, and from 
 that enforced pollution of body and soul that spares 
 neither wife, nor mother, nor a daughter s innocence ; 
 fugitives from the disruption of family ties, and from 
 the laceration of all human affections ; fugitives, in 
 fine, from a heathenism of superstition and religious 
 blindness into the glorious light of the gospel of Jesus 
 Christ. 
 
 Now this free class and this fugitive class belong 
 ethnologically to the same race. They speak the same 
 language, and wear the same distinctive characteristics 
 of feature and of form. All the unspeakable privi 
 leges, all the sacred titles and immunities of the one 
 39* 
 
462 
 
 class are enshrined in the same complexion and in the 
 same contour of person that attend the debasement 
 and privation of the other. The vessels of honor and 
 of glory are moulded into the same shape with the 
 vessels of dishonor and of shame. 
 
 Now, after this debased class has been created by a 
 wicked system of human laws, and after it is mingled 
 with the free class, another law steps in and decrees 
 that the former shall be remanded to their bondage. 
 An awful decree ! second in terribleness only to that 
 which shall divide between the blessed and the ac 
 cursed before the judgment-seat of God. Within the 
 compass of human action, there never was an occasion 
 that demanded more unerring justice and wisdom, that 
 invoked more foresight and solicitude, that appealed 
 more touchingly to every sentiment and instinct con 
 genial to liberty, with which God has endowed and 
 ennobled the soul of man, so to devise the law, if law 
 there must be, as not to involve the free in the horrible 
 doom of the enslaved. If, in the administration of 
 penal laws, a knowledge of human fallibility has 
 forced the maxim into existence and into practice, 
 that it is better that ninety-nine guilty persons should 
 escape than that one innocent man should suffer, ought 
 not the same benign rule to be adopted in our legis 
 lation whenever there is a possibility of exposing the 
 free to the fearful fate of the enslaved ? But instead 
 of this jealousy and circumspection, what have we ? 
 A law whose first utterance abjures the distinction 
 between freedom and bondage ; a law which brings 
 the whole free colored population of the United States 
 within the outer circles of the whirlpool of slavery, 
 that they may be ingulfed in its vortex : a law which 
 empowers every villain in the country, by fabricating 
 false testimony at his own leisure and convenience, to 
 use his own freedom in order to rob other people of 
 theirs ! I aver, that before any moral tribunal, where 
 
463 
 
 right and wrong are weighed in the balances of the 
 sanctuary, there is not a felony described in the whole 
 statute book that is more felonious than such a law. 
 
 It has become an axiom in the administration of 
 justice, an axiom slowly evolved by the wisdom of 
 ages, but now firmly established and incorporated into 
 the jurisprudence of every civilized community, 
 that the ethical policy of the law will tolerate no rule 
 of action that opens the door to fraud or crime, but 
 will even vacate solemn contracts between parties 
 otherwise competent, in its jealousy and apprehension 
 of wrong. Hence the law applicable to common car 
 riers, which will not allow a man to exonerate himself 
 from liability even by express notice, lest opportunity 
 should be given for collusion and fraud. Hence, too, 
 the principle of law which forbids an insolvent debtor 
 to pay, or even to contract to pay, a bona fide creditor 
 in anticipation of bankruptcy. Now, this principle 
 applies with tenfold force to legislators, withholding 
 and repelling them from passing any law which may 
 involve the innocent in the fate of the guilty, or the 
 free in the bondage of the enslaved. 
 
 But the law violates a still deeper principle than 
 these. I do not recollect the instance of a single 
 northern man or northern press, utterly false to free 
 dom, and venal as so many of them have been, that 
 has expressed entire satisfaction with the law. They 
 palliate it, they strive, by seductive party and pecu 
 niary appeals, to beguile men into its support. They 
 look outside of it for pretexts to hide its inherent base 
 ness ; but not one of them, so far as I know, has had 
 the effrontery to justify it on its intrinsic merits. Even 
 those northern men who voted for it have sought ref 
 uge from the storm of righteous indignation that burst 
 upon them, by alleging that it was an essential ingre 
 dient in a system of measures, and entered, as a 
 necessary element, into a desirable compromise. 
 
464 
 
 When this language is translated, what does it 
 mean ? Simply this, and no more. California was 
 admitted, and thereby certain political and commercial 
 advantages were gained. This, in legal language, was 
 the consideration. The Fugitive Slave law was passed, 
 and thereby the rights of freemen, the property of 
 men in themselves, all the household sanctities, all the 
 domestic endearments of half a million of men, were 
 put in peril. This was the equivalent given ! A mere 
 barter of the holiest interests for wordly advantages ! 
 And these interests were given away by men who did 
 not own them, and therefore had no right to transfer 
 them. The whites, north and south, played a game, 
 and made the black people their stakes. Who author-^ 
 ized the law-makers to derive a benefit to themselves 
 from doing this infinite wrong to others ? Who gave 
 them the terrible prerogative of making others suffer 
 for their pleasure. I say it with reverence, but I still 
 say it with emphasis, that we cannot conceive of God 
 himself as having power to inflict vicarious suffering 
 without the free consent of the sufferer ! Yet the 
 atrocities of this law are defended by those who made 
 it, on the ground that they and other white men have 
 secured benefits to themselves by sacrificing the lib 
 erty, happiness and peace of half a million of their 
 fellow-beings of a different color. Cause and coun 
 sellor are alike ; for the defence is as profligate as the 
 act it defends. 
 
 I say, sir, it is the population of African descent 
 in the free states which is specially put in peril by 
 this law. Occasionally, indeed, persons of unmixed 
 white blood are seized and enslaved under it. These 
 cases, however, are comparatively rare. But suppose 
 the reverse. Suppose circumstances to be such that 
 the whole body of the white population should be as 
 much endangered by it as the colored people now are. 
 Suppose that not only the white voters themselves, 
 
465 
 
 but their Avives and their children, were as liable to 
 be "Ingrahamed" as the blacks ; suppose this, I say, 
 and would the existence of the law be tolerated for 
 an hour? Would there not be an uprising of the 
 people, simultaneous and universal against it, and such 
 a yell of execration as never before burst from mortal 
 lips ? The name of every man who had voted for it, 
 or who should defend it, would be entered upon that 
 apostate list at whose head stands the name of Judas. 
 Christian and Infidel, Jew and Gentile, would execrate 
 it alike. Why, then, if they would do this to avert 
 such peril from themselves and their families, do they 
 not do it when their sable brethren are in jeopardy ? 
 Alas ! there is but one answer ! From selfish consid 
 erations, from the love of wealth, or the love of 
 power, they have discarded that heaven-descended 
 maxim, " Whatever ye would that men should do unto 
 you, do ye the same unto them." 
 
 And it is this very class of men who have thus 
 abjured the precepts of Jesus Christ, who have tram 
 pled upon the divine doctrines of liberty and love, 
 that now so clamorously summon us to an obedience 
 to law. 
 
 In answer to this call, let me say, that true obedi 
 ence to law is necessarily accompanied and preceded 
 by a reverence for those great principles of justice and 
 humanity without which all law is despotism. How 
 can a man pretend to any honest regard for the princi 
 ple of obedience to law when he is willing, as in the 
 case of this fugitive act, to transcend our constitu 
 tional law, and to invade the divine law ? It is but 
 an appeal to the lower rule of action to justify a vio 
 lation of the higher. Under the pretext of rendering 
 unto Caesar the things that are Cassar s it denies to 
 God the things that are God s. 
 
 Arid again, a true reverence for law is a general 
 principle, and not an isolated, fact. It applies to all 
 
466 
 
 laws collectively, and not to any one law in particu 
 lar. It bestows its greatest homage upon those laws 
 that embrace and confer the most of human welfare ; 
 for, were all the laws of a community, or the great 
 majority of them, unrighteous, then disloyalty to law 
 would be the virtue. Can the class of men who de 
 mand our allegiance to the Fugitive Slave law stand 
 this test ? We have usury laws, which not only carry 
 the legal force of statutes, but the moral power of the 
 greatest names in legislation and in statesmanship. 
 Are the men in New York, in Philadelphia, and Bos 
 ton, who are most vehement in support of the Fugitive 
 Slave law, signalized for their regard to the statutes 
 against usury ? 
 
 Is not money lent in all those cities on the same 
 principle that wreckers send a rope s end to a drown 
 ing man, for as much as they can extort? It is 
 notorious that among the great body of merchants and 
 capitalists in those cities, interest is regulated by the 
 pressure upon the money market, and that no more 
 idea of law mingles with their contracts than in Cali 
 fornia, where there is no law on the subject. 
 
 We have laws restricting the sale of intoxicating 
 liquors, and designed to promote the glorious object 
 of temperance. For which practice have our cities 
 been conspicuous, for their obedience to these laws 
 or for their violation of them ? A few years ago, when 
 a question of the constitutionality of a law of Massa 
 chusetts for the restraint of intemperance arose, did not 
 its two distinguished senators appear in the supreme 
 court of the United States, and make the most stren 
 uous exertions to annul the law of their own state, 
 and to open anew the flood-gates for overwhelming 
 their own constituents in misery and ruin, the self 
 same gentlemen who are now so intolerant even of 
 discussion ? 
 
 Look at the complaints which corne to us every day 
 
ir.; 
 
 from the friends of a protective tariff. They tell us 
 that our revenue laws are fraudulently and systemat 
 ically evaded j and they number the violations of these 
 laws by thousands and tens of thousands. Who are 
 the violators ? Not men living in the country ; not the 
 fanners and mechanics and laborers, the substratum 
 of our strength and the origin of our power ; but 
 they are the city merchants, the getters-up of " Union 
 meetings," and the members of " safety and vigilance 
 committees," who are so earnest in inculcating those 
 lessons of obedience by their precepts, which they have 
 done so little to recommend by their example. 
 
 The Southern States are loud in their calls upon us 
 to execute the Fugitive Slave law. But what exam 
 ples have they set us on the subject of obedience to 
 law ? I think I may be pardoned for mentioning a 
 few cases, to show how their preaching and practice 
 tally. 
 
 In 1831, the legislature of Georgia offered a bribe of 
 jive thousand dollars to any one who would arrest, 
 and bring to trial and conviction, in Georgia, a citizen 
 of Massachusetts, named William Lloyd Garrison. 
 This law was "approved" by William Lumpkin, gov 
 ernor, on the 26th December, 1831. Mr. Garrison had 
 never stepped foot within the limits of Georgia, and 
 therefore it was not a reward for his trial and convic 
 tion, but for his abduction and murder. 
 
 At a meeting of slaveholders, held at Sterling, in the 
 same state, September 4, 1835, it was formally recom 
 mended to the governor, to offer, by proclamation, the 
 five thousand dollars appropriated by the act of 1831, 
 for the apprehension of either of ten persons, citizens, 
 with one exception, of New York, or Massachusetts, 
 whose names were given ; not one of whom, it was 
 riot even pretended, had ever been within the limits of 
 Georgia. 
 
 The Milledgeville, Georgia, " Federal Union," of 
 
468 
 
 February 1, 1836, contained an offer of $10,000 for 
 kidnapping A. A. Phelps, a clergyman of the city of 
 New York. 
 
 The committee of vigilance, (another " committee 
 of vigilance,") of the parish of East Feliciana, offered, 
 in the Louisville Journal, of October 15, 1835, $50,000 
 to any person who would deliver into their hands 
 Arthur Tappan, a merchant of New York. 
 
 At a public meeting of the citizens of Mount Meigs, 
 Alabama, August 13, 1836, the honorable Bedford 
 Ginress in the chair, a reward of $50,000 was offered 
 for the apprehension of the same Arthur Tappan, or 
 of Le Roy Sunderland, a Methodist clergyman of New 
 York. 
 
 Repeated instances have occurred in which the gov 
 ernors of slave states, Virginia, Georgia, Kentucky, 
 Alabama, &c., have made requisitions upon the gov 
 ernors of free states, under the second section of the 
 fourth article of the constitution, for the surrender of 
 free citizens, as fugitives from justice, when it was 
 well known that the citizens so demanded were not 
 within the limits of the slave states at the time when 
 the alleged offence was committed, and, in some in 
 stances, had never been there in their lives, high 
 executive perversions of the constitution of the United 
 States, by chief magistrates who had sworn to sup 
 port it ! 
 
 For nearly twenty years past the post-office laws of 
 the United States have been systematically violated in 
 slave states, the mail bags rifled, and their contents 
 seized and publicly burned; and, in some instances, 
 these violations have been enjoined, under heavy pen 
 alties, by a law of the states. There are several of the 
 slave states on whose statute books these laws, com 
 manding a violation of the post-office, stand to-day. 
 
 During Mr. Adams s administration, a man by the 
 name of Tassels, in Georgia, was adjudged to be hanged, 
 
469 
 
 under a law of the state, as clearly unconstitutional as 
 was ever passed. A writ of error was sued out from 
 the supreme court of the United States, in order to 
 bring the case before that tribunal for revision. Hut 
 the state of Georgia anticipated the service of the writ, 
 and made sure of its victim by hanging him extempo 
 raneously. 
 
 Within a few weeks past, the accounts having but 
 just now reached us, an aged and most respectable in 
 dividual of the name of Harris, a citizen of New Hamp 
 shire, has been tried by a mob in South Carolina, and 
 tarred and feathered, because he happened to have in 
 his trunk a sermon which had been sent to him by one 
 of his acquaintances, a clergyman at the north ; though 
 he had never showed the sermon to a single individual, 
 nor whispered a word of its contents. Another man, a 
 Dr. Coles, belonging to Boston, who had been lecturing 
 on the subject of physiology, was, within a few days, 
 seized and carried before a magistrate, in the same 
 state, his trunks rifled, the private letters sent to him by 
 his wife and family publicly read, with the most inde 
 cent comments, and all without any shadow of reason 
 able suspicion against him. 
 
 The unconstitutional imprisonment of northern sea 
 men in southern ports is an occurrence so frequent, and 
 so universally known, that I need not spend time to 
 enumerate or to describe the cases. 
 
 The President of the United States has made procla 
 mation, and proffered the military and naval force of 
 the United States, to aid any southern slave owner in 
 reducing his fugitive slave to a new bondage ; but I 
 have not heard that he has made any similar proclama 
 tion, or manifested any anxiety for the support of that 
 part of the constitution which says that " the citizens 
 of each state shall be entitled to all the privileges and 
 immunities of citizens in the several states." 
 
 Now, with a few exceptions, it is these very classes 
 40 
 
470 
 
 of men who violate the laws against extortion and 
 usury ; who break down the barriers against the deso 
 lations of intemperance ; who, almost alone of all our 
 citizens, are implicated in the breach of the revenue 
 laws ; who annul the post-office laws of the United 
 States ; who offer rewards for free northern citizens, 
 that they may get them in their clutch to lynch and 
 murder them ; who demand free citizens as fugitives 
 from justice, in states where they have never been, and 
 who imprison free citizens and sell them into slavery ; 
 it is these classes of men who are now so suddenly 
 smitten with a new sense of the sacredness of law, and 
 of the duty of obedience to law, not of the laws of 
 God, not even of the laws of man, in general, but of this 
 most abominable of all enactments, the Fugitive Slave 
 law in particular. 
 
 I do not cite the above cases from among a thousand 
 similar ones, as any justification or apology for forcible 
 and organized resistance to law by those who even 
 constructively can be said to have given it their con 
 sent. But the words of a preacher do not " come 
 mended from his tongue," when his name is a scandal 
 among men for his violation of all the precepts he 
 enjoins. 
 
 And now, sir, when I am called upon to support 
 such a law as this, or to desist from opposing it in all 
 constitutional ways, while it lasts, my response is, re 
 peal the law, that I may no longer be called upon to 
 support it. In the name of my constituents, and by 
 the memory of that " old man eloquent," in whose 
 place it is rny fortune to stand, I demand its repeal. I 
 demand it, 
 
 Because it is a law which wars against the funda 
 mental principles of human liberty. 
 
 Because it is a law which conflicts with the consti 
 tution of the country, and with all the judicial interpre 
 tations of that constitution, wherever they have been 
 applied to the white race. 
 
471 
 
 Because it is a law which introduces a fatal principle 
 into the code of evidence, and into judicial practice, 
 a principle, before which no man s liberties and no 
 man s rights of any kind can stand. 
 
 Because it is a law which is abhorrent to the moral 
 and religious sentiments of a vast majority of the com 
 munity that is called upon to enforce it. 
 
 Because the life and character of so many of its 
 apologists and supporters are themselves potent argu 
 ments against whatever they may advocate. 
 
 Because it is a law which, if executed in the free 
 states, divests them of the character of free states, and 
 makes them voluntary participators in the guilt of 
 slaveholding. 
 
 Because it is a law which disgraces our country in 
 the eyes of the whole civilized world, and gives plau 
 sible occasion to the votaries of despotic power to decry 
 republican institutions. 
 
 Because it is a law which forbids us to do unto 
 others as we would have them do to us, and which 
 makes it a crime to feed the hungry, to clothe the 
 naked, and to visit and succor the sick and the im 
 prisoned. 
 
 Because it is a law which renders the precepts of the 
 gospel and the teachings of Jesus Christ seditious ; 
 and, were the Savior and his band of disciples now 
 upon earth, there is but one of them who would escape 
 its penalties by pretending " to conquer his prejudices." 
 And, finally, 
 
 Because the advocates and defenders of this law 
 have been compelled to place its defence upon the ex 
 press ground that the commandments of men are of 
 higher authority than the ordinances of God. 
 
 In Hooker s sublime description of law, when under 
 stood in its generic sense, he says, 
 
 lt Of law there can be no less acknowledged than 
 that her seat is the bosom of God, her voice the har- 
 
472 
 
 mony of the world ; all things in heaven and earth do 
 her homage, the very least as feeling her care, and the 
 greatest as not exempted from her power ; both angels, 
 and men, and creatures, of what condition soever, 
 though each in different sort and manner, yet all with 
 uniform consent, admiring her as the mother of their 
 peace and joy." 
 
 Now, sir, with these glorious attributes of " law," I 
 say the Fugitive Slave law of the last session possesses 
 not one quality in common, nor in similitude. To say 
 that the seat of such a law is in the " bosom of God," 
 is the intensest blasphemy. To say that it is " the har 
 mony of the world," is to declare that the world is a 
 sphere of ubiquitous and omnipotent wrong, uncheck- 
 ered by any thought of justice, and devoid of any emo 
 tion of love. To say that " all things in heaven do 
 homage " to such a law, is to affirm of the realms of 
 light what is true only of the realms of darkness. The 
 "least" do not "feel its care," but tremble and wail 
 beneath its cruelty ; while the " greatest " and the 
 strongest arc " exempt from its power ; " for they made 
 it not for themselves but for others. To no class of 
 "creatures," rational or irrational, human or divine, 
 can it prove to be the " mother of peace and joy ; " 
 but wherever it extends, and as long as it exists, it will 
 continue to be an overflowing Marah of bitterness and 
 strife. 
 
 As the great name of Hooker has been profanely 
 cited in behalf of this law, I will close by quoting his 
 distinction between those laws of human governments 
 which ought to be obeyed, and those which ought 
 not : 
 
 " which laws," says he, " we must obey, unless 
 
 there be reason showed which may necessarily enforce 
 
 that THE LAW OF REASON OR OF GoD DOTH ENJOIN THE 
 CONTRARY." 
 
473 
 
 SPEECH 
 
 ON THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW, DELIVERED AT LANCASTER, 
 MASSACHUSETTS, MAY 19, 1851, PENDING THE CANVASS FOR 
 A MEMBER OF CONGRESS FOR THE FOURTH CONGRESSIONAL 
 DISTRICT. 
 
 FELLOW-CITIZENS ; 
 
 We are assembled on a great occasion and for a great 
 purpose. The election of a member of Congress, in 
 deed, is not an extraordinary event ; but it is extraor 
 dinary that principles of the most vital importance to 
 the honor of Massachusetts, and to the cause of human 
 liberty throughout the world, should be involved in a 
 local election. Such, however, is now the fact. 
 
 Gentlemen, the assertion and the recognition of the 
 rights of man have made great progress among the 
 nations of Europe within the recollection of many 
 who are now before me. Notwithstanding the parti 
 tion of Poland by allied robbers, and the obliteration 
 of that kingdom from the map of Europe ; notwith 
 standing Hungarian subjugation to Austrian despotism, 
 and many other atrocious crimes against humanity, 
 such as nations only can commit ; for they are too vast 
 and monstrous to be perpetrated by any individual, 
 I say, notwithstanding these facts, the great fabric of 
 human liberty has been rising in Europe, while the 
 solid structures of despotism have been disintegrating 
 and making ready for their fall. 
 
 But truth compels me to acknowledge that, during 
 
 the last three quarters of a century, our course, in this 
 
 country, has been downward. While among the 
 
 other nations of Christendom the altar-fires of liberty 
 
 40* 
 
474 
 
 have been kindling and burning with a brighter flame, 
 ours have been waning. At the foundation of our 
 government an institution existed amongst us utterly 
 irreconcilable with the fundamental principles of the 
 government itself. But it was then limited in its 
 extent, and its spirit nowhere existed in great in 
 tensity. Even those who cherished it most were 
 ashamed of it ; and in those provisions of the consti 
 tution which were designed for its temporary protec 
 tion, a common regard for decency forbade the men 
 tion of its name. Fatally to our own peace and honor, 
 that which was then regarded as temporary and local, 
 now threatens to be abiding and universal. From 
 speaking of slavery with hushed breath, its bold abet 
 tors now shout forth its praises. From providing for 
 the extermination of the African slave trade, they have 
 converted the slave states into another Africa, this 
 side the tropics ; and by the successful robbery of a 
 neighboring republic, they seek to create a new Ameri 
 ca, so that the slave trade, once abolished and de 
 clared piracy, may be revived and legalized. The 
 Middle Passage is to be transferred from the ocean to 
 the land. Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, &c., are to 
 be the Gold Coast, Benin, and the Galinas ; the place 
 of supply, the place of demand, and the highways of 
 commerce between them are to be within our own 
 borders and protected by the American flag ; and that 
 horrid traffic which all the leading nations of Christen 
 dom united in declaring to be a felony punishable with 
 death, is rio\v to be maintained and deiended amongst 
 ourselves, under penalty of death and a dissolution of 
 the Union. 
 
 Nor does it suffice that the tide of slavery should 
 rise and overflow the vast and uninhabited regions of 
 the west. It surges up against the free states them 
 selves, and all the dikes and barriers of that constitu 
 tional law which we have been enacting for seventy- 
 
475 
 
 five years, cannot stay its flood. We thought that 
 Massachusetts was the impregnable citadel of freedom ; 
 but unconstitutional and inhuman laws, dictated hy 
 slaveholders, are now enforced amongst us, and at our 
 very doors; and our services are commanded for their 
 execution. 
 
 Thank God, there is a part of our people who, 
 while they suffer, resist. Only a portion amongst us 
 have reached that lowest depth of degradation, where 
 they surrender, not their limbs only, but their wills, to 
 the hateful service of their masters. Slavery has done 
 its perfect work only when the sonl is enslaved. I 
 rejoice to believe that we have not only seven thou 
 sand in this our Massachusetts Israel, who have not 
 bowed the knee to Baal, but seven hundred thousand; 
 and recent events foretell not only an increasing num 
 ber, but a more determined opposition. 
 
 Why is it, fellow-citizens, that Massachusetts stands 
 first, or among the first, in 1851, in her hostility to the 
 Fugitive Slave law ? I answer, for the very reason 
 that she stood first in her hostility to the encroach 
 ments of the British crown in 1776. And in less 
 than seventy-five years from this time, those who op 
 pose and those who defend this inhuman law, will 
 stand, historically, as wide asunder, and will share as 
 high an honor or suffer as deep an ignominy, as is now 
 awarded to the lovers of freedom and the minions of 
 power who lived at the era of the revolution. Let 
 all young men beware not to be seduced by any temp 
 tations of immediate profit or mistaken honor, to lift a 
 hand in defence of this law. If they do, then, before 
 they have lived out half their lives, they will be as 
 ready as old Cranmer to thrust the offending member 
 into the flames, and to say with him, " This hand, this 
 wicked hand, has offended." 
 
 Gentlemen, we in Massachusetts are a Union-loving, 
 and law-abiding people. Mr. Webster and his " retain- 
 
476 
 
 ers " may spare their breath in exhorting us to abide 
 by the Union. Such a work, in this commonwealth, is 
 a work of supererogation. He knows, and they know, 
 that the number of disunionists in this state can be 
 counted on a man s fingers and toes. Whatever influ 
 ence they exert must flow from their zeal, their talents, 
 and their private character ; for they derive none from 
 numerical force. Were they all to settle in one of our 
 small towns, they would be out-voted by its inhabit 
 ants. I regard these ever-repeated appeals made to 
 Massachusetts rnen and to New England men to stand 
 by the Union, as not merely obtrusive, but as aflront- 
 ive and insulting. Besides, when a man undertakes 
 the mission of going round the country, preaching 
 honesty, or temperance, or chastity, he provokes the 
 inquiry whether he is more honest, temperate, or con 
 tinent than those whom he exhorts. If the union of 
 these states now is, or has ever been verging towards 
 a point of danger, it is solely and only because ambi 
 tious men and mercenary men at the north have given 
 it that direction by recognizing southern threats and 
 bravadoes as realities, and thus encouraging them. 
 Let the greatest coward see that his threats are ac 
 knowledged as verities, and he will adopt the cheap 
 mode of threatening instead of the hazardous one of 
 acting. Could the Chinese have frightened away the 
 British fleet by their battery of wooden cannon, having 
 the middle of the ends painted black for a muzzle, 
 they would have been fools to incur the expense of 
 brass or iron. But John Bull did not care whether the 
 cannon were of wood or of metal, and at his first fire 
 the Celestials scampered. But here, when a few men 
 in a few states pointed their wooden guns at us, Mr. 
 Webster, General Cass. and others, for their own am 
 bitious purposes, cried out that the Union was in dan 
 ger. I say, then, if the union of these states ever 
 has been in any proximity to danger, it was not from 
 
477 
 
 menaces uttered by the south, but from northern in 
 dorsement of them. If northern leaders had dishon 
 ored instead of indorsing this spurious paper, it never 
 would have got into circulation. 
 
 \\V are not only Union-loving men, but, as I said 
 before, we are law-abiding men. Had this not been 
 so, not all the fleets and armies in the world could have 
 carried Thomas Sims into bondage. So intimately 
 blended is the reverence for law with the very soul of 
 our people, that if you could convince them that a 
 statute has legal force and is binding upon the con 
 science, I verily believe our juries would give a verdict 
 in favor of Shylock, though the pound of flesh which 
 he claimed were to be carved from their own bosoms. 
 Tliis side of a just cause for revolution, they will yield 
 submission to all laws enacted by the government, 
 with one single exception. The exception I mean, 
 embraces those laws of men which are clearly con 
 trary to the law of God. And I trust the time is not 
 now, and never will be, when the children of the 
 Puritans will obey any commandment of human origin 
 if it conflicts with a divine command, though they 
 have to lie down in lions dens or walk through fur 
 nace fires, as the penalty of disobedience. 
 
 But with this sentiment of reverence for law is 
 another sentiment, which is its proper attendant and 
 brother, I mean a desire and a determination to 
 know what that is which is called law ; what it is that 
 claims this prerogative of controlling the will and 
 challenging the conscience. It is in this spirit that 
 they have discussed and mean to discuss the Fugitive 
 Slave law, and to bring it, Protestant fashion, to the 
 test of individual judgment and conscience. 
 
 I have no need to repeat to you the general pro 
 visions of this inhuman enactment. No lover of lib 
 erty can read them without having their atrocious 
 character burned into his mind ineffaceably. You 
 
478 
 
 know that it assumes to dispose of the highest inter 
 ests of human liberty^ the liberty of soul as well as 
 the liberty of person ; and you know that it also 
 assumes to dispose of the most precious interests of 
 property, the property that a man has in himself and 
 in all his capacities of physical enjoyment and suffer 
 ing as well as his property in his money or his goods ; 
 without a single one of those safeguards and pro 
 tections which the constitution of the country builds 
 up like a rampart of defence around us all. This en 
 actment, too, is no theoretic affair; it is no dead letter 
 on the statute book. It is a living monster, uncaged 
 and turned loose amongst us, to rob arid devour at its 
 will. 
 
 Now, I have two objections to this law, which ab 
 solve me from all obligations to execute it, or, in any 
 way or manner, to assist in executing it. First, I be 
 lieve it to be contrary to the law of God, which, God 
 helping me, shall be the rule of my conduct, though I 
 should scatter political treasons as the autumn wind 
 scatters leaves. In his dread description of the judg 
 ment day, Jesus Christ makes the distinction between 
 saints and sinners to turn upon the fact, whether they 
 have fed the hungry, clothed the naked, and visited 
 those who were sick and in prison. And who so 
 hungry as those who do not own, and cannot own a 
 morsel of bread ? Who so naked as those who do not 
 own, and cannot own a shred of a garment to protect 
 them from cold, or from the lascivious eye ? And what 
 confinement was ever so hopeless as southern slavery, 
 what prison was ever so deep as that prison-house 
 which holds three millions of our fellow-beings within 
 its melancholy walls. them and their posterity forever? 
 He that refuses the common acts of hospitality to these 
 victims, when fleeing from their bondage, denies his 
 Lord and Master. He that refuses them, disobeys 
 every precept of the Savior, and has no more right to 
 
479 
 
 call himself a Christian, than has the Fejee islander, 
 when he rises from his cannibal banquet. He is the 
 Levite who passes by on the other side. 
 
 And next, I hold this law to be contrary to the con 
 stitution of the United States, and therefore of no 
 binding force upon my conscience or my conduct. I 
 do not mean to say by this that I shall make forcible 
 opposition to it. I take the Quaker ground upon this 
 subject ; I will not assist to execute it, though I shall 
 suffer it to execute itself on me. 
 
 The constitutionality of this law has been exten 
 sively discussed. But there is this broad difference 
 between the arguments of those who affirm and those 
 who deny that it is constitutional. Those who deny 
 it, argue the question upon its merits, upon principle, 
 upon those legal relations and analogies that so nobly 
 characterize the English law on the subject of human 
 liberty. But those who affirm the constitutionality 
 of the law, base their argument upon technicalities 
 and upon precedents, and they cannot sustain them 
 selves for a moment on any other ground. They 
 found themselves, in the first place, upon the statutory 
 precedent of 1793, which was an act passed with very 
 little deliberation, as its history shows, and passed, too, 
 when it was expected on all hands that slavery would 
 soon die out. In the next place, they rely upon the 
 judicial precedent of Prigg s case, which was made by 
 a bench of slaveholding judges, and some of the points 
 which the court professed to decide did not arise in 
 the case. 
 
 Now the statutory precedent covers only a part of 
 the case ; for some of the most hateful features of the 
 law of 1850 are not to be found in the law of 1793 ; 
 and the supreme court has never passed upon the law 
 of 1850 at all. So two points are clear in the outset, 
 that the champions of the law cannot get along with- 
 
480 
 
 out the precedents, and the precedents, in several most 
 important particulars, fail them altogether.* 
 
 This question has lately been discussed in our own 
 vicinity. The liberty of a resident of Massachusetts, 
 a man every way entitled to a jury trial by our con 
 stitution and laws, as much as you or I, has been 
 sacrificed by a United States commissioner in the city 
 of Boston. f He has decided in favor of the law. 
 You would naturally suppose that, in order to shelter 
 himself from the odium of such a decision, he would 
 put all personal and all collateral resources into requi 
 sition to make the case as plausible as ingenuity can 
 make it. It is said, too, that Mr. Webster and Mr. 
 Webster s friends, and the commissioner s friends have 
 contributed of their strength to help the debility of 
 the case. While the cause was pending before him, 
 one of the points involved in it was brought before 
 the supreme court of Massachusetts, and also before 
 the circuit court of the United States. The commis 
 sioner adjourned the case over after all the arguments 
 of counsel were in. He thereby gave himself an op 
 portunity for preparation and for consultation. I am 
 
 =* It is substantially conceded by the supreme court of Massachu 
 setts, in delivering their opinion on the application of Sims for a writ 
 of habeas corpus^ that the Fugitive Slave law stands upon precedent 
 alone, and is disowned by principle. Chief Justice Shaw says, 
 
 " At the same time it may be proper to say, that if this argument, 
 drawn from the constitution of the United States, were now first ap 
 plied to the law of 1793, deriving no sanction from contemporaneous 
 construction, judicial precedent, and the acquiescence of the general 
 and state governments, the argument from the limitation of judicial 
 power would be entitled to very grave consideration." 
 
 I submit that the precedents, on this subject, both legislative and 
 judicial, are substantially divested of all their force, by the fewness 
 of the cases that have ever arisen under the law, by the general ob 
 soleteness into which it fell, and, more than all, by that uniform in 
 difference and neglect, and I may add inhumanity, with which colored 
 people and the rights of colored people, have been almost universally 
 regarded in the different states of the Union. 
 
 f Mr. George T. Curtis. 
 
481 
 
 taking no exception to all this. I am glad it was 
 done. I suppose we now have the breadth and length 
 and strength of what can be alleged in favor of the 
 law. I never feel so confident of my conclusions as 
 when strong men have taken the opposite side, and 
 have failed to sustain it. 
 
 Now, to this decision of the commissioner, made under 
 such incitements, and with such opportunities, I pro 
 pose to invite your attention. The discussion may be 
 dry, but it will not be uninteresting ; for it involves 
 matters as important as the liberty of the body and the 
 liberty of the will, and the liberty and life of the 
 human soul. 
 
 It may be said that these are legal and constitutional 
 questions, and, therefore, that unprofessional men can 
 not understand them. But most, if not all the points 
 which I shall bring to your attention, are matters of 
 intuition ; questions wholly within the jurisdiction of 
 plain common sense, and such, therefore, as can be 
 decided by you as well as by lawyers or judges. And 
 if I can convince you of the inconclusiveness of some 
 parts of this decision, of the legal Jesuitism of other 
 parts, and of the self-contradiction that pervades the 
 whole, you will not hesitate to set it aside, not as null 
 and void merely, but as discreditable to the profession 
 of the law, and dishonorable to the State of Massa 
 chusetts. 
 
 The first point which the commissioner discusses is, 
 whether in seizing, by his warrant, a man actually 
 free, in deciding, by his judgment, the exact question, 
 whether that man were a slave, and in sending him, by 
 his certificate, where the lash and the law of slavery 
 apply to his body and his spirit, he were exercising 
 "judicial power " as conferred by the constitution of 
 the United States upon such courts as Congress should 
 establish. He at first decides that he does not exercise 
 such power. This was well ; for he knows that he 
 41 
 
482 
 
 was never appointed, nor commissioned, nor sworn, 
 nor is paid, nor removable from office for mal-conduct, 
 as is prescribed by the constitution in the case of 
 judges. Badly heroic as he was, in fact, in exercising 
 jurisdiction over a human being, and delivering him 
 over into hopeless and irremediable bondage, he was 
 not mad enough to arrogate, in terms, the prerogative 
 of "judicial power" 
 
 But what says his superior, the attorney-general of 
 the United States ? In an elaborate opinion, given by 
 order of the President of the United States, an opin 
 ion which, as I suppose, passed under the supervision 
 of the whole cabinet, and therefore may be presumed 
 to have the authority of Mr. Webster and the other 
 constitutional advisers of the President, and which 
 certainly had the sanction of the President himself, for 
 he acted upon it, in this opinion the attorney-gen 
 eral says, 
 
 " These officers, [the commissioners,] and each of them, 
 have judicial power, and jurisdiction to hear, examine, and 
 decide the case." 
 
 " The certificate to be granted to the owner is to be regarded 
 as the act and judgment of a judicial tribunal, having com 
 petent jurisdiction. 1 
 
 " Congress has constituted a tribunal, with exclusive juris 
 diction to determine summarily, and without appeal, who are 
 fugitives from service." 
 
 " The judgment of the tribunal, created by this act, is con 
 clusive upon all tribunals" 
 
 Now, which is right, the attorney-general, with the 
 President and his cabinet as indorsers, or Mr. Com 
 missioner Curtis? I submit to you that the former 
 were clearly right, so far as this, that when the con 
 stitution declares that " no person shall be deprived of 
 life, liberty, or property, without due process of law," 
 (which imports a trial by jury.) then neither Adam 
 Gibson, nor Thomas Sims, nor any other alleged 
 
483 
 
 fugitive can be so deprived, without trial by jury, and 
 the judgment or sentence of the "judicial power " 
 tlHTcupon. The following position has never been an 
 swered, and I think never can be, namely, that if a 
 resident of Massachusetts can be deprived of his " lib 
 erty and property," without a trial by jury and a judg 
 ment of a court, then he may be deprived of his life 
 also ; for " life, liberty, and property " are secured in 
 the same section, in the same sentence, and by the 
 same safeguard. 
 
 The attorney-general held that, as the power exer 
 cised by the commissioner was a " judicial power," it 
 deprived the party of all benefit from the habeas cor 
 pus. And there was some plausibility in this, though, 
 I think, no soundness. But our defenders of the law 
 hold that this sending of a man into bondage is not a 
 part of the "judicial power," and yet that it deprives 
 him of all benefit of the habeas corpus. That is, they 
 hold that a man may be deprived of his liberty and 
 property, (and of course of his life.) by a ministerial 
 proceeding, not having its origin in any court, and not 
 to be prosecuted to final judgment in any court, and 
 yet that all the courts in the land, competent to furnish 
 relief in any other case, can afford none in this. If 
 this be true, if a proceeding, held and acknowledged 
 by the officer who initiates and conducts it to be a 
 ministerial proceeding, not originated by a court, and 
 never to be carried before a court, does thus take away 
 the trial by jury, and the security of having one s lib 
 erty and property adjudicated upon by a " court," and 
 renders the writ of habeas corpus an empty form, then, 
 indeed, we may bid " farewell, a long farewell " to all 
 (jur liberties. An unprincipled majority of Congress 
 has only to pass a law that any man may be im 
 prisoned or hanged on an executive warrant, and that 
 the hireling marshal or commissioner shall suffer no 
 " molestation by any process issued by any court, 
 
484 
 
 judge, magistrate, or other person whomsoever," and 
 despotic power will be enthroned here as effectually as 
 it ever was in England in the bloody days of the Stu 
 art s. Jeffries was at least a judge, though he acted 
 like a commissioner. 
 
 Who could have imagined, eight months ago, that 
 a ministerial proceeding could put a citizen beyond 
 remedy or reach of our courts ? 
 
 I now come to a position in the commissioner s ar 
 gument which is not only transparently fallacious, but 
 is contradicted by himself, in the same opinion, again 
 and again. I shall offer a series of objections to it. 
 
 The point was pressed upon him by counsel that he 
 was exercising - judicial power." To maintain this, a 
 passage was quoted from Prigg s case, in which the 
 court say, " A claim made by the owner out of posses 
 sion for the delivery of a slave constitutes, in 
 
 the strictest sense, a controversy between the parties, 
 and a case arising under the constitution of the United 
 States, within the express delegation of judicial power, 
 given by that instrument." Can any thing be more 
 explicit arid conclusive, to prove that the commissioner 
 was then presuming to exercise a part of the "judicial 
 power " conferred by Congress exclusively upon 
 courts ? And how does he answer it ? In this way, 
 and in this way only. He says the court decide two 
 points : 
 
 First, That a claim for a fugitive slave is a case 
 arising under the constitution of the United States, and 
 so within the grant of "judicial power" as given by 
 the constitution ; and 
 
 Second, "That being such a case, belonging to 
 the judicial power of the Union, it was for Congress to 
 regulate and prescribe the remedy, the form of proceed 
 ings, and the mode arid extent in which the judicial 
 power of the Union should be called into activity." 
 
 He then declares his full admission of both these 
 
485 
 
 propositions. And how does he answer the first one, 
 which, at a blow, unseats him from his usurped bench? 
 He says, " The counsel for the prisoner have insisted 
 most strenuously on the first of these positions, but 
 have said nothing with regard to the second." And 
 what need had the counsel to say any thing about the 
 second, the first being admitted 1 The supreme court 
 had said, and he acknowledged it, that every case like 
 the one then before him was a " case arising under the 
 constitution of the United States, within the express 
 delegation of judicial power given by that instrument." 
 This was equivalent to saying that it was a case which 
 could not be adjudicated upon by a commissioner, be 
 cause a commissioner is not a judge, is no court nor 
 part of a court. The plain statement of the commis 
 sioner s language is this : The supreme court declare 
 that I have no jurisdiction in this case ; but because 
 the counsel said nothing about another point to be 
 found in the opinion of the court, therefore I will take 
 jurisdiction. 
 
 But again ; this reply of the commissioner, that the 
 counsel said nothing about the second point, (when he 
 had acknowledged the validity of the first, which was 
 fatal,) is not merely an evasion ; it is founded upon a 
 false meaning attributed by him to the second point. 
 He says the court held that it was " for Congress to 
 regulate and prescribe the remedy, the form of pro 
 ceedings, and the mode and extent in which the judi 
 cial power of the Union should be called into activity." 
 Suppose it was for Congress to do this. Might they 
 not transcend their power when doing it ? and does 
 not his admission of the first point prove that they 
 have transcended their power ? the very point then 
 in question. The two things cannot stand together. 
 If the trial of the issue, "fugitive slave or not," be, "in 
 the strictest sense," " within the express delegation of 
 judicial power given" by the constitution, then this 
 41* 
 
486 
 
 ministerial commissioner cannot exercise it, and Con 
 gress cannot empower him to exercise it. Besides, the 
 decision of the court was made in 1842. The law, 
 whose constitutionality they had then under discus 
 sion, was passed in 1850. Did the court in 42 de 
 clare, or could they declare, that any law thereafter 
 passed by Congress on this subject should be held con 
 stitutional ? Did their decision act prospectively, and 
 adjudge a law to be constitutional, which was to be 
 passed eight years afterwards? So far from this, the 
 points then under discussion, namely, the power of 
 a commissioner to adjudge a case more important than 
 life or death, and the obligation of a commissioner to 
 hear ex parte evidence, and to be concluded by it when 
 heard, these questions did not come before the su 
 preme court in 42, and have never been before the 
 supreme court at all. But because that court had said, 
 years before, that it belongs to Congress to prescribe 
 the mode of recovering fugitive slaves, therefore, says 
 the commissioner, if Congress should vest this power 
 in commissioners, (and in slave traders or pirates just 
 as well,) it would be valid. And because the counsel 
 did not answer this point, the commissioner decides 
 an admitted point, conclusive in their favor, against 
 them. 
 
 But this is not all. After declaring, in t-he first part 
 of the opinion, his full conviction that the delivery of 
 an alleged fugitive comes within " the express delega 
 tion of judicial power," he uses, farther on, the follow 
 ing language: "It would seem," says he, "that it only 
 remains to inquire whether the act of 1850 authorizes 
 or requires any thing more than a summary ministerial 
 proceeding in aid of the right secured by the constitu 
 tion, namely, the right of removal." And he holds 
 that it does not. The act which, in the first part of 
 the opinion, was acknowledged to belong, " in the 
 strictest sense," to the "judicial power," has now 
 
487 
 
 ceased to be " any thing more than a summary minis 
 terial proceeding." 
 
 And again lie says, "I have endeavored, in the fore 
 going discussion, to show that this is a summary min 
 isterial proceeding," &c. " If this be so, and I can 
 entertain no doubt that it is," &c. This sudden trans 
 migration from a judge to an executioner, from one 
 who acknowledged that the delivery of an alleged 
 fugitive is an act of "judicial power," to one who 
 holds that it is NOT "any thing more than a summary 
 ministerial proceeding," may suit a disciple of Pythag 
 oras, or the priests of the Hindoo religion, but it ill 
 becomes an expounder of American jurisprudence. 
 
 I proceed to another point in the commissioner s 
 decision, namely, the nature and authority of "judi 
 cial power ; " and when I have discussed it, I shall 
 submit to your good sense whether I do him any in 
 justice in saying that it is most perspicuously fallacious 
 and lucidly absurd. 
 
 " In all governments formed upon the English 
 model," says he, "there is a certain class of inquiries, 
 [powers?] judicial in their nature, but which are con 
 fided to officers not constituting a part of the judiciary, 
 strictly so called." (I do not like this substitution of 
 the word "inquiries" for "powers." If any thing 
 tinder heaven should be called a power, the prerogative 
 of sending a human being, presumptively free, into 
 bondage, is surely one.) He then instances certain 
 officers in Great Britain, who, though not judges, per-, 
 form, as he says, certain judicial functions. A brief 
 remark will suffice for this. Great Britain^ having no 
 written constitution, the current of its legislative enact 
 ments and its judicial decisions makes its constitution. 
 If, then, it has been the prevailing practice of that gov 
 ernment to confer any given description of powers upon 
 any given class of officers, then that is what the British 
 constitution allows and approves. 
 
488 
 
 But we have a written constitution, and therefore 
 are not to tolerate a law, (as in the case of this Fugi 
 tive Slave law,) which is repugnant to its fundamental 
 provisions. By this constitution, all legislative pow 
 ers therein granted are vested in Congress; executive- 
 power in a President, and judicial power in the courts. 
 The constitution of Massachusetts is equally explicit. 
 It says, "In the government of this commonwealth the 
 legislative department shall never exercise the execu 
 tive and judicial powers, or either of them ; the execu 
 tive shall never exercise the legislative and judicial 
 powers, or either of them ; the judicial shall never ex 
 ercise the legislative and executive powers, or either 
 of them ; to the end it may be a government of laws, 
 and not of men." 
 
 In both these constitutions, the three functions of 
 government, namely, to legislate, to adjudicate, and to 
 execute, are expressly recognized ; and the whole of 
 their distinctive powers are lodged in separate depart 
 ments. No mention is made of any hybrid or mongrel 
 class, half judicial and half executive, or half ministe 
 rial and half judicial, or compounded of aliquot parts 
 of each. Such an officer, under either constitution, 
 would be a monster ; he would hold the same relation 
 to their legitimate functionaries that Caliban does to 
 the human race ; and, if created for executing the Fu 
 gitive Slave law, that half devil and half beast would 
 be the fitting prototype. 
 
 The commissioner professes to have found a class 
 of cases, both under our state and national constitu 
 tions, where powers, "judicial in their nature, and 
 special in their purpose, may be confided to the deter 
 mination of officers who are not judges." On this 
 point he has expended himself. Here lay the pressure 
 and travail of his case. Seeing that, in deciding the 
 great issue before him, "slave or free," he was exer 
 cising judicial power, and in ordering an armed force 
 
489 
 
 to convoy the victim to his house of bondage he was 
 exercising ministerial or executive power, (thus blend 
 ing the functions which both constitutions have sepa 
 rated,) the commissioner felt that he must find some 
 analogy or some precedent to cover up this obvious 
 violation of all principle, or his argument was in ruins. 
 It is in ruins ; for he has found no such precedent, and 
 cannot find any. 
 
 The instances he cites from Massachusetts are, 
 1. Sheriffs, who may preside over juries when assessing 
 damages for laying out highways, and may decide such 
 questions of law as arise on the trial ; 2. Auditors, 
 who may examine vouchers and state accounts be 
 tween parties, and make report thereof to the court ; 
 3. Commissioners of insolvency, appointed to dis 
 tribute insolvent estates ; and, 4. County commission 
 ers, who lay out highways. 
 
 Now, nothing can be clearer than that, in no one of 
 these cases does the officer named exercise "judicial 
 power." Indisputably, universally, and necessarily, by 
 force of the phrase itself, the term "judicial power" 
 embraces the idea of a power whose decision can be 
 enforced in invitum ; tfiat is, against an unwilling, 
 contesting, resisting party. The sublime power of a 
 court becomes nothingness, and is ridiculous, if its de 
 crees cannot be executed to the very death of the party 
 against whom they are made. For this purpose, they 
 are backed by all the civil power of the state ; and 
 should this prove insufficient, they are backed by all 
 the military power of the state ; and, even beyond 
 this, by the whole military and naval power of the 
 United States. Without this, judges are but puppets, 
 or no better than "men in buckram." "Judicial pow 
 er" does not consist in a sheriff s presiding over a jury, 
 nor in an auditor s casting up accounts, nor in a com 
 missioner s ciphering out the dividends of an insol 
 vent s estate, nor in county commissioners laying out 
 
490 
 
 roads ; but it consists in entering up a judgment which 
 has the armories at Springfield and Harper s Ferry, 
 which has the standing army and militia of the United 
 States, which has fifty line-of-battle ships, which has 
 the treasury of the nation, to back it, and to visit with 
 death one man, a thousand men, or a hundred thou 
 sand men, if need be, who shall confront it with re 
 sistance. 
 
 Look, fellow-citizens, at this wretched sophistry. 
 The sheriff must make return of the verdict of the 
 jury to the court of common pleas, which is a 
 COURT, and if either party suggests good grounds of 
 dissatisfaction, the whole proceeding is a nullity, and 
 the investigation must be made again ; and again and 
 again, and ten times again, until every act and letter 
 of it become unexceptionable. The auditor must 
 make his report to the court that appointed him, and 
 if the court see cause, they set aside both it and him. 
 The acts of the commissioners of insolvency derive 
 all their validity from the consent of the parties, or 
 from the judgment of a court, which substitutes the 
 force of law for consent. And no act of the county 
 commissioners, in taking a man s land, is worth the 
 paper it is written on, until the verdict of the jury is 
 returned to the court of common pleas, and there for 
 mally accepted and recorded. Nay, every intelligent 
 farmer in the country knows the fact, that though the 
 commissioners have laid out a new road, or ordered an 
 old one to be shut up, still, if a party, feeling himself 
 aggrieved, demands a jury, the former cannot be worked, 
 nor the latter closed, until the court of common pleas 
 shall have passed upon the proceeding and ratified it.* 
 
 * I object to Mr. Curtis s calling the county commissioners " the 
 court of county commissioners." They are nowhere so called in the 
 act creating them, or in the act defining their duties. On the contra 
 ry, they are expressly contradistinguished from the " court of common 
 picas," which is a court. This may have been an inadvertence, but 
 it shows how he mistook the nature of their powers. 
 
491 
 
 If, however, in all the above cases, the parties in in 
 terest consent to the acts of sheriff, auditor, or commis 
 sioner, then those acts become binding, by virtue of 
 such consent. The party consenting is afterwards 
 estopped from questioning them. But they derive no 
 authority from any "judicial power" vested in the 
 officers performing them. We have a case more ex 
 actly in point, and better illustrating the principle, in 
 the fourth section of the ninety-seventh chapter of our 
 Revised Statutes, where it is provided, that " in actions 
 upon promissory notes and other contracts, where the 
 amount due appears to be undisputed, the debt or darn- 
 ages may be assessed and ascertained by the clerk, 
 either under a general order of the court, or by a special 
 reference of the case to him ; and the judgment, in 
 either case, shall be entered in the same form as if it 
 had been awarded by the court, on an assessment or 
 computation made by themselves." Yet who will 
 pretend that this act of the clerk, which is performed 
 only where there is no dispute between the parties, 
 emanates from any "judicial power" in that officer? 
 
 The instances cited under the United States consti 
 tution have, if possible, still less plausibility. The 
 commissioners appointed by the courts can initiate 
 certain proceedings, by holding parties to trial, &c., but 
 this function is no more judicial than that of the grand 
 jury in finding an indictment. It is a preliminary to 
 a judicial act, but not such an act. The commission 
 ers are not even required to be sworn, and, in many 
 instances, it is known they are not sworn. 
 
 So of the case of which so much is attempted to be 
 made, that of the commissioner of patents. Any 
 party feeling himself aggrieved by any of his decisions 
 can appeal directly to the courts of the United States 
 for redress. 
 
 Compare all this with analogous instances in the 
 legislative department of government. The legisla- 
 
492 
 
 tures of most of the states have created commissions to 
 revise their codes of statute law. Massachusetts has 
 had several such. Our revised statutes are a monu 
 ment of the labor of one of these commissions. But 
 were they legislators ? Was their proposed code of any 
 validity until enacted by the Senate and House of 
 Representatives ? Just as much as the acts of sheriff, 
 auditor, or commissioners of the different kinds, were 
 acts of judicial power, and no more. Are the select 
 men of our towns legislators, because they decide, in 
 the first instance, who are elected as members of our 
 House of Representatives ? Are our governor and 
 council legislators, in both the state and national gov 
 ernments, because, on an examination of votes trans 
 mitted to them by the selectmen, they issue certificates 
 of election to our state senators and to the members of 
 Congress elect ? Do they exercise any part of that 
 power which makes " each house the judge of the 
 elections, returns, and qualification of its own mem 
 bers " ? Just as much, I reply, as sheriff, auditor, 
 commissioner, or clerk, does of "judicial power." 
 They perform acts preliminary or antecedent to legis 
 lation, but no legislative act ; just as the above-named 
 classes of officers perform acts preliminary or antece 
 dent to judicial decisions, but never, in any case, the 
 authoritative and compulsory judicial act itself. 
 
 The strength, or rather, the weakness, of the com 
 missioner s argument, on this point, consists in the 
 obtrusive, projecting, self-shouting fallacy of using 
 the exact, technical, constitutional phrase, "judicial 
 power," as synonymous with the popular expression, 
 " a judicious act" or " the exercise of judgment" 
 Officers of all kinds exercise "judicial power," in this 
 broad and popular sense of the phrase ; that is, they 
 perform acts requiring good judgment. Umpires, arbi 
 trators, and referees perform acts precisely like those 
 of judges, but they cannot put the whole physical 
 
strength of the government in motion to enforce tliem. 
 So sheriffs decide upon the identity of the party named 
 in their precepts ; postmasters, to whom they shall de 
 liver letters, and what postage they shall demand ; cus 
 tom-house officers, upon the nature and value of dutia 
 ble goods ; assessors, in levying taxes ; parents and 
 teachers, on matters of discipline, &,c., &c. In a pop 
 ular sense, they may all be said to exercise judicial 
 power ; but no particle of that power which, by the 
 fundamental law of our government, is vested in the 
 " courts." Their acts are all examinable by the courts. 
 They cannot set the arm of the government in motion 
 to execute their judgments. Indeed, the whole argu 
 ment of the commissioner on this point is but a play 
 upon words. It is only a trick of verbal legerdemain. 
 The premises he starts with are unknown to the con 
 stitution, and the conclusion he comes to is abhorrent 
 to humanity. 
 
 Does not every body see that, in order to make the 
 cases parallel, in order to obtain any legitimate ground 
 of comparison between them, Sims should have had 
 the same power of appealing from the commissioner s 
 decision, to a court, which power of appeal belongs 
 of right to a party who feels aggrieved by the act of 
 sheriff, auditor, or commissioner ; and that the certifi 
 cate should bind him only by his voluntary assent? 
 
 But there is another point in the commissioner s 
 opinion which is worthy to be companion to this. I 
 proceed to consider it. 
 
 He repeats, and keeps repeating, that his decision, 
 dooming Sims to all the horrors of bondage, and put 
 ting him under the control of a man who claims title 
 to his body and his soul, to be carried into a juris 
 diction where such titles are acknowledged, is not 
 " FINAL." It is not final, he says, because if Sims be 
 free, he may extort that freedom from the laws of 
 Georgia which has been denied to him by the laws of 
 42 
 
494 
 
 Massachusetts : that is, if the judgment which the 
 commissioner is giving against a free man, in a free 
 state, is a false judgment, he may go to a slave state 
 to obtain redress, which is ten thousand times worse 
 than if a jury, in a capital case, should say, We may find 
 this prisoner guilty; for if he be wrongfully hanged, 
 God. will make him amends. 
 
 Besides the inhumanity of this position, it contains 
 a fallacy which is twin-brother to the one just consid 
 ered. The judicial word, " final j" has a legal, tech 
 nical, and certain meaning. In the courts, arid in the 
 law books, it means the last judgment in a judicial 
 proceeding. It means that judgment from which a 
 party cannot appeal, though he may ever so much de 
 sire it ; or it means that judgment, after which, how 
 ever dissatisfied the party may be, he cannot have his 
 cause retried or reheard by a court, but is compelled to 
 submit. 
 
 " Final judgments," says Blackstone, " are such as 
 at once put an end to the action." This is a precise 
 description of the judgment rendered by the commis 
 sioner against Sims. That victim resisted by prayers 
 and tears, by the subduing eloquence of his counsel, 
 and by their irresistible logic, which the commissioner 
 has never yet begun to answer. But the self-consti 
 tuted judge was inexorable. Though he knew that, 
 according to the terms of the Fugitive Law, there was 
 no escape from his decision ; though he knew that his 
 certificate was to protect the man-hunter from all "mol 
 estation by any process issued by any court, judge, 
 magistrate, or other person whomsoever," yet, like 
 Pilate, he washes his hands and says, " I am innocent 
 of this man s blood, see ye to it : " for my decision is 
 not " final." And why ? Because, in another juris 
 diction, in another suit, where the plaintiff is to be 
 defendant, and the defendant plaintiff, or perhaps 
 against another party ; in a place, too, where all the 
 
495 
 
 common-law presumptions in favor of freedom are re 
 versed ; where the law is different, and the rules of 
 evidence are different : and where the respondent him 
 self is reduced to the condition of a chattel and a brute, 
 a decision, at some indefinite future period, may be had 
 that the man, whom the commissioner now declares to 
 be a slave, is free, and has always been so. Because 
 of this future and contingent event, because of this al 
 most impossible possibility, the commissioner s decision 
 is not final. I deny this. The decision is final, be 
 cause, as Blackstone says, it " at once puts an end to 
 the action." But let us test the question, not only by 
 its legal definition, but by its actual effects. It decides 
 that Sims is a slave. It decides that he owes service 
 to James Potter. It decides that Potter and his heirs 
 and assigns forever are the lawful owners of Sims and 
 the heirs of his bondage forever j and when Sims and 
 his posterity shall be scourged, torn, flayed, mutilated, 
 starved, the only consolation which the commissioner 
 has for him and them is, Shall the clay say to the 
 Potter that fashioneth it, What makest thou ? It not 
 only decides that Sims is a slave, and that he shall be 
 sent to Georgia, but it sends familiars, like those which 
 once disgraced even the purlieus of the Inquisition, to 
 see that the devilish deed is done. 
 
 The whole argument of the commissioner, that this 
 act of his is not final, is founded on a quibble, on 
 the use of the legal word " final," as though it were 
 synonymous with the popular word eternal or perpetual. 
 The slavery of Sims may not be eternal or perpetual ; 
 because, by some miracle of God, or otherwise, he may 
 escape. But in a technical and juridical sense the de 
 cision of the commissioner is final ; and he might as 
 well doom a man to be hurled from the Tarpeian rock, 
 and say that the act is not final, because he only com 
 mits the victim to the laws of gravitation, as he has 
 committed Sims to the laws of Georgia. 
 
496 
 
 If by any possibility this doctrine, that the decision 
 is not final, could be for a moment sustained, then I 
 will submit a case with which to compare it. 
 
 The constitution says, " No state shall pass any law 
 impairing the obligation of contracts." Here we have 
 a constitutional basis, the same as for the reclama 
 tion of fugitive slaves. Some states have passed laws 
 impairing the obligation of contracts, as the stop-laws 
 of Kentucky, and so forth. Suppose a Massachusetts 
 creditor to claim to have a Kentucky debtor, whose 
 contract has been so impaired. Could Congress, in 
 order to give efficacy to this constitutional provision, 
 authorize this pretended creditor to go to Kentucky, 
 seize enough of the alleged debtor s property to satisfy 
 the alleged debt, and carry it home, or have it ordered 
 home by a magistrate, under some " summary " pro 
 cess, which, on its face, excludes the trial by jury ; 
 and thereby debar the supposed defendant of all right 
 under that provision of the constitution which gives a 
 jury trial when the value in controversy exceeds 
 twenty dollars ? And could the Kentucky magistrate, 
 in the supposed case, deny the jury trial on the ground 
 that the proceeding before him was not " final," be 
 cause the defendant might follow the plaintiff to Mas 
 sachusetts, and there institute an action of replevin, 
 trespass, or trover, to try, before a jury of the country, 
 the right of the former plaintiff to the property he had 
 seized ? 
 
 The commissioner says much in different places, 
 with the apparent hope of showing that the proceeding 
 before him was only for what he calls a " limited and 
 special purpose," namely, " removal." 
 
 I confess myself unable to understand why the cer 
 tificate of the commissioner is any more restricted to a 
 limited and special purpose than any judicial act, sen 
 tence, or execution, of any court whatever. The com 
 missioner declares a prima facie freeman to be a slave. 
 
497 
 
 He declares that James Potter owns Thomas Sims, 
 and the posterity in his loins forever; or that Thomas 
 Sims and his posterity forever, owe service to James 
 Potter and his heirs and assigns forever. Does this 
 " forever" limit the meaning of the certificate, as to 
 time ? If so, then a general or unlimited award or 
 execution, against Sims, as contradistinguished from 
 this limited and special one, must extend and run into 
 the next world. When our courts decide that one 
 man owes another man money, they award execution 
 against his property, with certain humane exemptions 
 as to clothes, furniture, provisions, school books, Bible, 
 &c. But when this commissioner decided that Sims 
 owed Potter service, he awarded a certificate against 
 the adjudged debtor, which made no exemption what 
 ever ; but included property, clothes, books, skin, 
 flesh, heart, brain, soul, and all that was in him, or of 
 him, with all appurtenances and appendages, present 
 emblements, and future increase. Yet, according to 
 the commissioner, the first judgment is a common or 
 general one ; the last " special and limited." Under 
 our old laws, (and under the laws of some states yet,) 
 courts could sentence offenders to the barbarous pun 
 ishment of flogging. But they were and are bound 
 to specify the number of lashes. This is general. 
 The commissioner delivers over a slave to be flogged 
 by his master, ad libitum, and in perpetuum, to be 
 flogged in his own person, and to be flogged in the 
 persons of his children, and their posterity, in secMla 
 seculorum. The defined flogging of thirty-nine, or 
 such other number of lashes as can be computed, the 
 commissioner calls general or indefinite. But the 
 incomputable number of lashes ; the vast, unknown, 
 algebraic quantity ; the infinite series ; that which 
 Newton with all his mathematics could not compass, 
 nor Rosse with his telescope see the end of, that is 
 " special and limited." The taking of a limited 
 42* 
 
498 
 
 amount of a man s property, carefully set down in 
 dollars and cents, both in the text and in the margin 
 of the execution, the commissioner calls a general 
 purpose. But the robbing of a man, not only of all 
 he has earned, but of all his capabilities of earning as 
 long as he breathes, with full authority to do the same 
 thing to his posterity to the latest generation, this is 
 "special and limited." To sentence a man to be 
 hanged by the neck till he be dead, though with 
 privilege of priest, prayer book, and Bible, this, too, 
 is general and proper ; though in Massachusetts it can 
 be done only by a majority of the judges of the 
 supreme court. But to send a man to be worked to 
 death in five years on a sugar plantation, where his 
 being taught to read the gospel of Jesus Christ is a 
 felony, this is "special and limited," and so may be 
 done by any hireling commissioner who will do what 
 Judas did for one third part of his silver pieces. 
 
 Fellow-citizens, I submit to any man, clerical, legal, 
 or lay, who is capable of appreciating moral distinc 
 tions, whether this whole doctrine, about delivering a 
 man up as a slave, and putting him bodily into the 
 hands of the claimant, and thrusting him into slave 
 jurisdiction, under the pretext that it is done only for 
 the special and limited purpose of removal, be not 
 atrocious. It is more like a forgery than an argument. 
 Assumed learning and logic never practised a greater 
 imposition upon themselves, nor attempted a greater 
 one upon others, than when they fabricated this no 
 tion, that adjudging a man to be a slave, stripping him 
 of his liberam legem, that is, of all his rights and 
 immunities as a citizen, and delivering him into actual 
 bondage, is " for a special and limited purpose of 
 removal," only to give him a voyage, or a pleasure 
 excursion of a few hundred miles, out, but not 
 back. When the successor of St. Peter, claiming to 
 hold the keys of heaven, and to have death and hell 
 
499 
 
 for his ministers, excommunicated whole sects and 
 peoples, and delivered them over to the great soul- 
 hunter, and sent his familiars with them to see that 
 the "claimant" suffered no "molestation" while con 
 veying them to the bottomless pit, he might as well 
 have said that he did it only for a " special and limited 
 purpose." It was not damnation, it was only "re 
 moval." And do you suppose the devil, could he 
 have got possession of those outcast souls, would have 
 cared any more under what pretence the great pontiff 
 commissioner made the delivery, than does the south 
 ern slaveholder, when he gets possession of a man of 
 whom he can make a slave ? 
 
 This fallacy about the "special and limited purpose 
 of removal " did not originate with Mr. Commissioner 
 Curtis. I exculpate him from that guilt. He only 
 adopted it and gave it a " bad eminence " by making 
 it, in part, the basis of his decision. But henceforth 
 let the people brand it. Let them classify it and de 
 nounce it, and detest it, as belonging to that impious 
 and blasphemous kind of arguments by which our first 
 parents were beguiled, when Satan told them that, 
 though they sinned against God, they should not 
 die ; or by which Mr. Webster cajoled and cozened 
 so many honest men, when he assured them, that 
 though they should violate the moral law, by opening 
 all the territories to slavery, yet some physical law of 
 geography or the weather would avert the penalties. 
 
 In the absence of all decent materials for an argument, 
 the commissioner resorts to that ten times exploded po 
 sition, that there is an analogy between fugitives from 
 justice and fugitives from service. Where could he 
 find a bandage of prejudice thick enough to blind him 
 to the distinction, that the condition of delivering up 
 the former is that he be charged with crime, while the 
 condition of delivering up the latter is that he be held 
 to labor, and that he owes service ? How can it be 
 
500 
 
 said that a man owes service, until the fact of the 
 indebtedness be proved ? Such reasonable suspicion 
 of guilt as justifies a grand jury in finding a bill of 
 indictment is sufficient in the one case, but such posi 
 tive proof as would require the court to enter up judg 
 ment and award execution is absolutely necessary in 
 the other. The government demanding a fugitive 
 from justice seeks possession of him for a trial, before 
 a court and jury, of the question of criminality ; but 
 the claimant of an alleged fugitive from service seeks 
 possession of him to avoid a trial, before a court and 
 jnry, of the question of freedom. The constitution 
 requires that every person accused of crime shall be 
 tried in the state and district where the crime shall 
 be charged to have been committed ; but it makes no 
 such provision in regard to the alleged fugitive from 
 service ; and this injunction in the one case, and 
 omission in the other, create the irresistible inference, 
 that there is a difference between them, and that the 
 alleged fugitive from service, according to all the analo 
 gies of the common law, is to be tried where he is found. 
 
 But there is one distinction which is broad enough 
 and luminous enough to make a blind man see it. An 
 alleged fugitive from justice is not adjudged to be a 
 criminal previous to delivery, nor is he made a crim 
 inal, in the eye of the law, by the act of delivery. 
 But the alleged fugitive from service is adjudged a 
 slave, and made a slave by the certificate of the com 
 missioner. The state receiving a fugitive from justice 
 does not proceed forthwith to punish him. But the 
 receiver of an alleged fugitive from service owns him, 
 and may proceed to control him, and beat him, and rob 
 him, and starve him, on the very instant that the 
 commissioner puts the certificate into his hands. If 
 any one cannot see this distinction, no act of the 
 moral oculist can give him sight. 
 
 The/ papers inform us that when Sims was landed 
 
601 
 
 in Savannah, he was taken to jail and received the 
 "usual reprimand" which, as every body knows, is 
 M tlayed and blood-streaming back. By whose certifi 
 cate was the nine-thonged cat laid on ? Had he been 
 a murderer or a pirate, would excoriation have been 
 the first act of welcome on his arrival ? No ! Mur 
 derers and pirates would have had a jury. The law 
 is beneficent to them ; it saves its terrors for the slave. 
 A man who will not see such a distinction as this, 
 would excite no pity should he be made to feel it. 
 
 In treating this topic, the commissioner makes one 
 assertion that seems insane. He says that, to authorize 
 the delivery of a fugitive from justice, in order to his 
 removal, "it must be proved that he has committed a 
 crime." Such a declaration was never made before, 
 and I do not believe it will be ever made again. You 
 could not find a lawyer south of Mason and Dixon s 
 line who would venture to say this. Every body 
 knows that the supposed criminal needs only to be 
 charged with crime. It is the alleged slave who must 
 be proved to be held to service before he can be consti 
 tutionally surrendered. But as though this was not 
 absurd enough, the commissioner goes on to say, that 
 though the alleged fugitive from justice must be 
 proved, in the place where he is taken, " to have 
 committed a crime," yet, after his removal, he must 
 be proved again to have committed it. How can a 
 man be proved, in any legal way, to have committed 
 a crime, without being confronted with the witnesses 
 against him ? Why, after having been so proved, is 
 he put upon trial again ? 
 
 As to all the commissioner says in denial of the 
 right of trial by jury, I shall make but one or two 
 remarks. I have argued that question elsewhere : 
 and, until I see some answer to that argument, I have 
 no occasion for repetition or corroboration of it. After 
 using the word "person" some twenty times, to sig- 
 
502 
 
 nify the President of the United States, electors, sen 
 ators, representatives, United States officers, Indians, 
 Africans, &c., the constitution declares that "no per 
 son shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, 
 without due process of law ; " this "due process of 
 law " meaning trial by jury. This is one fact. Adam 
 Gibson, Henry Long, Thomas Sims, and many others, 
 some of them now acknowledged on all hands to have 
 been free, have been sent into slavery without this 
 trial. This is another fact. Now put these two facts 
 together. No man shall be deprived of liberty or 
 property, except by the jury trial. These men have 
 been deprived of liberty and property without the 
 jury trial. These are the two ends. Now fill up the 
 space between them with what you please, and call it 
 argument, law, gospel, or what you will, every body 
 must see that it is nothing, and can be nothing but 
 Mephistophiles jugglery. I dismiss this point with a 
 single proposition : In Massachusetts, we know no 
 legal distinction founded on color. Through all the 
 gradations, from the person who has the preternatural 
 whiteness of an Albino to one whom you can see in the 
 darkest midnight, because he is so solid black, all, 
 all, under our constitution and laws, are alike freemen, 
 or alike slaves. Notwithstanding the commissioner s 
 decision makes us all slaves, yet I maintain that, in 
 the eye of the law, we are all free. How then can 
 any one of us freemen be robbed of liberty and prop 
 erty, and turned into a slave, but by freeman s proof, 
 -that is, trial by jury? I acknowledge that after 
 we have been proved to be slaves by freeman s proof, 
 then all the unutterable consequences of slavery fol 
 low, of course ; just as when a man has been proved 
 to be a murderer, the consequences of murder follow. 
 But UNTIL, mark this, UNTIL a man has been proved 
 to be a slave by freeman s proof, he remains legally 
 free. And a magistrate who takes jurisdiction of a 
 
503 
 
 proceeding by which a man may be deprived of liberty 
 or property, without freeman s proof, prejudges his vic 
 tim, when he allows the first witness to be called, or the 
 first paper to be read ; and he might just as well do 
 it, in a case of " life," as in a case of "liberty and 
 property." 
 
 The next position of the commissioner which I 
 shall notice relates to the right of Congress to make 
 use of state courts to execute United States laws. 
 
 Now we have the express authority of the supreme 
 court of the United States for saying that "Congress 
 cannot vest any portion of the judicial power of the 
 United States, except in courts ordained and estab 
 lished by itself." Martin vs. Hunter s Lessee, 1 
 Wheaton, 330. " The whole judicial power of the 
 United States should be, at all times, vested in some 
 courts created under its authority." Ib. 331. "The 
 jurisdiction over such cases, [cases arising under tho 
 constitution, laws, and treaties of the United States,] 
 could not exist in the state courts previous to the 
 adoption of the constitution, and it could not after 
 wards be directly conferred on them ; for the consti 
 tution expressly requires the judicial power to be 
 vested in courts ordained and established by the United 
 States." Ib. 335. But the commissioner refers to a 
 passage in Prigg s case, in which it is said that " while 
 
 a difference of opinion exists whether state 
 
 magistrates are bound to act under it, [a law of Con 
 gress,] none is entertained by the court, that state 
 magistrates may, if they choose, exercise the authority, 
 unless prohibited by state legislation." 
 
 Waiving all exceptions to this doctrine, the utmost 
 that can be made of it is this : that state magistrates 
 may execute a law of Congress, unless forbidden by a 
 law of their state ; but when so forbidden, they can 
 not ; and Congress can neither compel them to do so, 
 nor annul a prohibitory law of the state, by giving 
 
504 
 
 validity to the act of the magistrate, performed in 
 violation of the state law. Now mark the non sc- 
 quitur of the commissioner s logic. See how his 
 premises belong to one subject, and his conclusion to 
 another. Because a Massachusetts magistrate may 
 execute a law of Congress, unless the Massachusetts 
 legislature forbid him, but if so forbidden he can no 
 longer do it, therefore, when the Massachusetts legisla 
 ture has so forbidden him, Congress may send the 
 magistrates of Georgia, or of any other state, into Mas 
 sachusetts, to do what our own state had forbidden our 
 own magistrates to do. I say " send the magistrates 
 of Georgia here ; " because Congress may just as well, 
 and even better for us, authorize the magistrates of 
 any state in the Union to come here, set up courts, 
 and pass sentences which shall convey our citizens 
 into bondage, as to stay at home and make records, 
 which, when brought here, shall have the same effect. 
 This, then, is the law-logic of the commissioner : Be 
 cause a Massachusetts magistrate may aid in reclaim 
 ing an alleged fugitive on Massachusetts ground, 
 unless forbidden by his state, yet, if so forbidden, then 
 the legislatures of fifteen slave states may send their 
 magistrates, or the acts of their magistrates here, to do 
 the same thing. The state might prevent its own 
 magistrates from aiding in this nefarious work, but 
 this would be of no avail, for any one, or all, of fif 
 teen sets of slave state magistrates may come and do 
 the forbidden act. 
 
 Pierpont Edwards once said of a clergyman, that if 
 his text had a contagious disease, the sermon would 
 not catch it j and a blind man, being asked to describe 
 his conception of color, compared it to a clap of thun 
 der. But all their ideas were coherent and homoge 
 neous compared with those premises and conclusions 
 of the commissioner, by which the State Rights doc 
 trine is expounded to mean, the right of one state to 
 
505 
 
 send its magistrates into another state, to do what the 
 latter has lawfully prohibited its own magistrates from 
 doing. South Carolina never claimed so much as this. 
 
 Under the first head, where it had been urged by 
 counsel, that a freeman might have no opportunity to 
 prove his freedom in the state from which he was al 
 leged to have fled, because the claimant was under no 
 obligation to carry him to that state, but might send 
 him to the Cuban or Brazilian market, the commissioner 
 shuts his eyes to these very probable consequences, 
 and refuses to consider them ; but under the fifth head, 
 where an argument in favor of the slaveholder could 
 be derived from consequences, he not only argues elab 
 orately from them, but bases his judgment upon them. 
 
 There are two remarks thrown out in the course of 
 the commissioner s opinion so shocking to every feel 
 ing of humanity, that any one, in commenting upon 
 them, may well be excused for passing from the lan 
 guage of argument to that of emotion. 
 
 If there be any one right known to the common law 
 more important and sacred than all others, it is the 
 right of confronting and cross-examining the witnesses 
 who are brought to testify against us. Without this 
 right, there is no fraud that cannot be practised upon 
 the most honest man, and no guilt that cannot be 
 proved against the most innocent one. Doubtless this 
 right of cross-examination is sometimes abused ; but 
 there are few spectacles more exciting or more gratify 
 ing than to see the demons of falsehood driven out, 
 one after another, from a perjured villain, until the 
 truth, at last, is wrenched from his heart, notwithstand 
 ing the double boltings and barrings with which he 
 had locked it there. The fear of this cross-examina 
 tion " casting its shadows before, "has prevented thou 
 sands and tens of thousands from swearing falsely. 
 Next to honesty, this fear is the greatest protection to 
 property, liberty, arid life. 
 43 
 
506 
 
 Now the testimony which doomed Sims to slavery, 
 and which may doom any of us with our wives and 
 children to slavery, when men grow, not more wicked, 
 but only a little more bold in their wickedness than 
 they are now, was wholly ex parte testimony ; ta 
 ken, not merely behind the victim s back, but a thou 
 sand miles behind his back; of which he had no 
 knowledge, and, unless he were omniscient, like God, 
 could have no knowledge. Arid when the counsel of 
 Sims urged upon the commissioner the enormity of 
 this outrage against all principle, what was his reply ? 
 It was this, and it makes a man s blood run cold to 
 read it : Sims s absence from Georgia, " so that he 
 could not be served with notice, if he was entitled to 
 it, was in his own wrong, and he cannot now com 
 plain that he had no opportunity to cross-examine the 
 witnesses." 
 
 I appeal to all history to prove, that no judge who 
 ever sat upon a bench where the common law was 
 recognized and administered, however corrupt he may 
 have been, ever advanced a more atrocious doctrine. 
 Why, gentlemen, if a debtor absconds for the very 
 purpose of defrauding his creditors, he must have no 
 tice before he can be proceeded against for the recov 
 ery of a debt. If he flees from the state, lurks and 
 hides himself, he must have the best notice the court 
 can contrive to give him. If the plaintiff recovers and 
 takes out execution, he must file a bond conditioned to 
 make restoration ; and years afterwards, if the defend 
 ant shall come back and show cause, he shall be en 
 titled to a review to annul the whole proceedings 
 against him. Ay, when a criminal, a robber, a mur 
 derer, an incendiary, is brought to trial, even he must 
 be "confronted with the witnesses against him, have 
 compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, 
 and the assistance of counsel in his defence." And 
 yet the commissioner makes proof out of nothing, that 
 
507 
 
 Sims escaped from slavery, and then, because of this 
 nothing-made proof, he inculpates him with being ab 
 sent " in his own wrong." 
 
 The other point referred to arose from certain testi 
 mony, (if it Ccin be called testimony,) that the mother 
 of Sims begged the witness, " whether her son was in 
 a free state or in a slave state, for God s sake, to bring 
 him back again." " This," says the commissioner, 
 "certainly disarms the case of any unpleasant fea 
 tures" ! Why, even the kine of the barn-yard, when 
 the butcher cuts the throat of her young, will weep 
 and low, and bellow, for days and days, and say, as 
 well as in her inarticulate meanings she can say, " For 
 God s sake, let it be brought back again; " though the 
 only consequence of its return would be to have its 
 throat cut by the butcher again. And are we to ex 
 pect that the brutalized, chattelized " cattle " of the 
 south will have less of that natural yearning and long 
 ing of the soul, at the loss of their offspring, than the 
 animals of the farmer s yard ? Can we suppose that 
 God has not planted the instinct of a mother s love 
 too deep to be destroyed but by the destruction of the 
 being herself in whom it was planted ? No ! debase 
 the mother as you will, by ignorance, vice, superstition, 
 lust, concubinage, incest, and this wealth of affection 
 will still glow at the bottom of her heart, "rich as the 
 oozy bottom of the deep in sunken wrack and sumless 
 treasures." And because this mother s love had not 
 been all extinguished, the commissioner says that his 
 sending a human being into the abyss of bondage, on 
 evidence that an intelligent barbarian would reject, 
 "certainly disarms the case of any unpleasant fea 
 tures." But I shall not expostulate with the commis 
 sioner. A man must have a heart before he can feel, 
 as he must have eyes before he can see. 
 
 " 0, who can paint a siinbeam to the blind, 
 Or make him feel a shadow with his mind ? " 
 
508 
 
 Fellow-citizens, I might occupy your attention much 
 longer upon this unprecedented opinion of the com 
 missioner ; but there are two or three other topics to 
 which I wish to call your attention, and I therefore 
 forbear. In saying what I have said, I disclaim all 
 personal ill will or discourtesy towards that magistrate. 
 Even should I appear not to have succeeded in sup 
 pressing my own feelings, I certainly cannot wound 
 his more than he has wounded mine, and those I be 
 lieve of nine tenths of all who have ever read his 
 opinion ; not by a thousand fold as much as he has 
 wounded the law, whose servant he is, or the fair fame 
 of Massachusetts, of which he is a citizen ; not so much 
 as his decision will wound the hearts of an intelligent 
 posterity, who shall look back upon it as a partisan and 
 an ignoble act, not to be remembered without a sigh. 
 
 If the legal relations of slavery did not sustain the 
 moral ones, as the root sustains the branches and nour 
 ishes the fruit, those moral relations would seem to de 
 mand all our attention. I know but comparatively 
 little, and no man living at the north can know but 
 comparatively little, of the various and ever-repeated 
 wickednesses of this institution. It has been my lot, 
 however, to live for about half the time, during the 
 last four years, in the midst of a milder form of sla 
 very. And besides this, I was once engaged for about 
 six weeks in the trial of causes growing directly out 
 of slavery ; and that experience gave me some insight 
 into its dreadful mysteries. For a moment, the wind 
 blew the smoke and flame aside, and I looked into its 
 hell. I saw, then, as I had never seen before, what a 
 vital and inextinguishable interest every human being 
 has in this subject; not the slaves alone, but the 
 free men ; not voters only, but all who can be affected 
 by votes ; not men only, but especially women. 
 
 For this reason, I am glad to see so many ladies in 
 
509 
 
 this audience. It becomes them to be here. If any 
 mortal should cultivate an abhorrence of slavery, the 
 female sex should do it. Whatever any one may hold 
 to be the social relation between free women and slave 
 women, yet before God and Christ, and all the holy 
 angels, they belong to the same sisterhood of the 
 human race. They are your sisters. And what is the 
 condition of these your sisters, in regard to everything 
 that a virtuous and noble woman holds most sacred 
 and dear ? 
 
 Ladies, there are now in this land of pretended free 
 dom and pretended gospel a million arid a half of 
 women who have no practical knowledge of what a 
 woman s higher life should be, or what a woman s 
 most precious rights are. Since the Declaration of 
 Independence, the number of slaves in this country 
 has increased from less than five hundred thousand to 
 more than three millions ; and before the close of this 
 century, their descendants will increase to more than 
 thrice three millions. And yet, neither as to the living 
 nor as to the dead, has there ever been a lawful mar 
 riage among them all. There has never been a man 
 slave who could say, " This is my wife, heart of 
 my heart, and life of my life, and no mortal power 
 shall pluck her from my side." There has never been 
 a woman slave who could say, "This is my lawful, 
 wedded husband, whom I promise to love and cherish, 
 and to whom I vow inviolable constancy." " For 
 this cause," says Christ, "shall a man leave father and 
 mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they twain 
 shall be one flesh." But the "twain " of slaves are 
 never one. And even when any sham ceremony is 
 observed, to distinguish this holy relation of husband 
 and wife from the cohabitations of beasts, and he who 
 officiates comes to those other words of Christ, " What, 
 therefore, God has joined together, let not man put 
 asunder," he stops ; for he knows, and they all know, 
 43* 
 
510 
 
 that a few dollars, at any time, will bring oereavemenl 
 upon both, a double bereavement, he a widower and 
 she a widow, both still surviving. Their life, at 
 best, is but a life of concubinage; not even that 
 concubinage, which, though not founded upon a law 
 ful contract, has still something like conjugal fidelity 
 in it, and therefore a semblance of virtue ; but a various 
 and vagrant concubinage, traversing the circle of over 
 seer, master, master s guests, and master s sons. The 
 fate of the children born to the slave mother you all 
 know. Those objects upon which all maternal affec 
 tions meet and glow as in a focus, are torn from her 
 bosom, like lambs from the flock when the shambles 
 are empty. 
 
 And as to those females who are young, sprightly, 
 and handsome : 
 
 Charge me not with indelicacy in touching upon 
 this theme. Honi soit qui mal y pense. I speak not 
 to fastidious ears, but to the pure in heart, to whom all 
 things are pure. I speak of eternal verities, before 
 whose massive force the heart trembles and bows 
 itself, as reeds before the tempest. It is the grossest 
 and most shameless of all indelicacies to patronize and 
 multiply vice, through pusillanimity in exposing it, 
 
 As to those females, I say, who are young, sprightly, 
 and handsome, whom God has damned with beauty 
 of form and beauty of face, because they only attract 
 the gloating eye of passion, who can describe the loath 
 someness of their life ? They are ripened for the New 
 Orleans, or for some other market, whence southern 
 harems are supplied ; as, under the Mahometan religion, 
 white Caucasian beauties are sent to the slave marts of 
 the darker-skinned Turk. 
 
 In that company of seventy-six persons who at 
 tempted, in 1848, to escape from the Distnct of Colum 
 bia in the schooner Pearl, and whose officers I assisted 
 in defending, there were several young and healthy 
 
511 
 
 girls who had those peculiar attractions of form, of fea 
 ture, and of complexion, which southern connoisseurs 
 in sensualism so highly prize. Elizabeth Russell was 
 one of them. She fell immediately into the slave- 
 traders fangs, and was doomed for the New Orleans 
 market. The hearts of those Avho saw her and fore 
 saw her fate were touched with pity. They offered 
 eighteen hundred dollars to redeem her, and some 
 there were who offered to give, who would not have 
 had much left after the gift. But the fiend of a slave 
 trader was inexorable. He knew how he could trans 
 mute her charms into gold through the fires of sin. 
 He demanded twenty-one hundred dollars, (though for 
 menial services she would not have been worth more 
 than four or five,) and would take nothing less. She 
 was despatched to New Orleans, but when about half 
 way there, God had mercy upon her and smote her 
 with death. Perhaps, foreseeing her fate, she practised 
 what, under such circumstances, we might call the 
 virtue of suicide. There were two girls named Ed- 
 mundson in the same company. When about to be 
 sent to the same market, an older sister went to the 
 shambles to plead with the wretch who owned them, 
 for the love of God, to spare his victims. He bantered 
 her, telling her what fine dresses and fine furniture 
 they would have. " Yes," said she, " that may do 
 well in this life, but what will become of them in the 
 next ? " They, too, were sent to New Orleans, but 
 they were afterwards redeemed at an enormous ransom, 
 and brought back. There was one girl, who, after her 
 recapture in the Pearl, was sold six times in seven 
 weeks, in Maryland and Virginia, for her beauty s sake. 
 But she proved heroically and sublimely intractable. 
 Like Rebecca, the Jewess, she would have flung her 
 self from the loftiest battlement, rather than yield her 
 person to a villain. Notwithstanding her masters pre 
 tence that they had bought her with their money, and 
 
512 
 
 owned her soul, yet she had wealth, which, though all 
 the earth were "one entire and perfect chrysolite," it 
 could not buy. It was not difficult, therefore, to pur 
 chase her, and she was redeemed and came to New 
 York ; and I have been informed in the most authentic 
 manner from the lady of the very respectable family of 
 which she became an inmate, that, on an examination 
 of her person, after the healing-time of the journey had 
 passed, her body was found scarred and waled with 
 whip marks, which the villains inflicted upon her be 
 cause she would not come to their bed. 
 
 Now, suppose a sister or daughter of yours, of this 
 heroic soul and spotless purity, should find herself on 
 the way to New Orleans; suppose, by almost super 
 human power and adroitness, she should escape, and 
 should thread her solitary and darksome path, for hun 
 dreds of miles, towards the north star ; should lie down 
 in caverns, with poisonous reptiles by day, and pursue 
 her lonely journey by night, finding the beasts of the 
 forests to be less terrible than man ; should swim riv 
 ers, and keep off famine by roots and insects, until at 
 last, thanks be to God, she sets her mangled and bleed 
 ing feet upon the soil of freedom. Perhaps some echo 
 of the fame of the Pilgrim mothers has reached her 
 ears. She has heard of Boston and its noble women 
 of old, and she hies hither as to a city of refuge, as 
 to a sanctuary where virtue has an altar, and where 
 she can lay down her hunted and weary body, and be 
 at rest. Fallacious hope ! The lecher pursues his 
 prey, and he is here. He goes to some Glossin lawyer 
 who sues out a warrant ; and to some Jack Ketch who 
 serves it. The victim is seized at midnight, under 
 some lying charge, and she is carried before a commis 
 sioner, whose conduct, were he a quasi judge, as he 
 pretends to be, would be enough to make every hair 
 of the judicial ermine forever detestable. Here a pro 
 cess is gone through which she does not understand, 
 
513 
 
 and some papers are read of which she never heard, 
 and then a judgment is pronounced that her "labor" 
 is "due" to her pursuer, (and such labor!) that she 
 "owes service " to him, (and such service !) and then 
 the commissioner delivers her into his arms, and pock 
 ets a fee which common pimps would be ashamed to 
 work for. 
 
 And, my friends, the keenest pang in the grief of all 
 this is, that there is no fiction or romance about it. A 
 commissioner who could bring himself down to send a 
 man to a Georgia cotton-field under this law, the first 
 time trying, could send a virtuous and spotless woman 
 into enforced harlotry the second time ; and the prince 
 of darkness only knows what he could not set him to 
 do afterwards. The clergymen who could defend the 
 enslavers of Sims because he "owed" the "service" 
 of one sex, could defend the enslavers of a woman be 
 cause she " owed " the " service " of the other sex ; 
 the clergymen of the rich parishes I mean; for it 
 happens, with the constancy of a law of nature, that it 
 is only the clergymen of the rich parishes who do this. 
 Do they not know how to serve and reverence their 
 Lord and Master, that is, their Landlord and Pay 
 master ! 
 
 But, fellow-citizens, as our feelings are stimulated 
 to the keenest sensibility, in looking at the infinite of 
 wrong which slavery commits; as we see the millions 
 and millions of human beings dimly emerging into 
 view, and crowding down the vista of futurity to blast 
 our eyes with the vision of their woe, a potent voice 
 rings in our ears, exclaiming, " Conquer your preju 
 dices" "CONQUER YOUR PREJUDICES." And this exe 
 crable counsel is uttered in reference to the infinite 
 crime and disgrace of sending into slavery, without a 
 trial, those who are free under our laws, the men to 
 stripes and death, arid the women to the body s shame 
 and the soul s perdition. Fouler, baser, more ungodly 
 
514 
 
 counsel was never uttered, since it was said to our first 
 parents in the garden of Eden, " On the day them eatest 
 thereof thou shalt not surely die." 
 
 And what is it that this long-honored eulogist of 
 liberty, but now its great apostate, blasphemes with the 
 name of "prejudice"? If there be one sentiment 
 more deeply rooted in the public heart of Massachu 
 setts than any other, more intertwined and grown 
 together with all the fibres of its being, it is the sen 
 timent of liberty. We have drunk it in with our 
 mothers milk j we have imbibed it from all the lessons 
 of the school-room and the teachings of the sanctuary ; 
 we have inspired it with the atmosphere we breathe, 
 and our organs have been attuned to it from our birth, 
 by the anthems of the mountain s wind and the ocean s 
 roar. It was from the love of liberty that our earlier 
 fathers plucked themselves up by the roots from that 
 natal soil into which they had been fastening for cen 
 turies. For this they wandered abroad upon the ocean, 
 deeming its ingulfing surges to he more tolerable than 
 a tyrant s power. For this they transplanted them 
 selves to this land, at that time more distant and more 
 formidable to them than any part of the habitable globe 
 could now be to us. For this they performed the 
 double task of enduring all privations and dangers, and 
 at the same time of laying the foundations of all our 
 free and glorious institutions ; and as the sires were 
 stricken down by toil and death, the sons took up the 
 work and bore it on, generation after generation. 
 
 For this noble sentiment of liberty our later fathers 
 encountered the perils and deaths of a seven years 
 war, and amid poverty and destitution, amid hunger 
 and cold and nakedness, without any of the protections 
 and defences of battle which the wealth of their foe 
 could command, they bared their noble breasts to the 
 shock of the mailed legions of the British crown. And 
 when the struggle was ended and the triumph won, 
 
515 
 
 they achieved labors of peace not less magnanimous and 
 wonderful than their labors of war. 
 
 They were the pattern men of the world ; not 
 aggressive, not submissive ; not hostile, not servile : 
 doing right, demanding right ; they were the men who 
 would never wield the oppressor s rod, and would go 
 mad at the touch of his heel. 
 
 Now, there is not one of all those glorious deeds, 
 from the embarkation at Delfthaven to the signing of 
 the peace of 1783, or the inauguration of the federal 
 government in 1789, which was not begotten by the 
 love of liberty, or would have been performed without 
 its creative energy. And yet, the arch-apostate, stand 
 ing in the city of Boston, the home of old Samuel 
 Adams and John Hancock, within a stone s throw of 
 the spot where Benjamin Franklin was born, in sight 
 of Bunker Hill, and with Lexington and Concord, as 
 it were, just hiding themselves behind the hills for 
 shame, calls all this a " prejudice," and commands us to 
 cast it from us as an unclean thing. Was it not enough 
 to make the stones in the streets, and every block in 
 that eternal shaft which marks the spot where Warren 
 fell, cry out " with most miraculous organ " to rebuke 
 him ? 
 
 We have another, and it is a kindred " prejudice." 
 We have a " prejudice " of sixty years standing in fa 
 vor of the principle of the ordinance of 1787. That 
 ordinance has been cherished in our memories, it has 
 been taught to our children, and we have displayed it 
 before the world both as the pledge and the promise of 
 our devotion to liberty. Five states, now numbering 
 five millions of men, were the battalions whom that 
 ordinance wheeled from the ranks of Belial to the 
 Lord s side. Hundreds of times have the Whig party 
 and the Democratic party resolved that the principle 
 of that ordinance should be maintained inviolate. Mr. 
 Webster claimed the application of it to the new 
 
516 
 
 territories, as his thunder, and swaggered as he rattled it. 
 Now he calls the great achievement of Thomas Jeffer 
 son and Nathan Dane a "prejudice" and dishonors 
 their graves by his scoffs. He abandons the vast re 
 gions of Utah and New Mexico to the slaveholder ; he 
 gives more than fifty thousand square miles of free 
 territory to Texas ; he gives ten millions of dollars in 
 money, (more than, with all our devotion and self- 
 sacrifice, we have been able to appropriate to public 
 education in Massachusetts for the last ten years;) 
 and worse than this, he gives permission that she may 
 carve out of her territory a slave state additional to 
 what had been unconstitutionally contracted for when 
 she came into the Union. 
 
 And for what does he flout us, by stigmatizing all 
 these sacred convictions and sentiments and instincts 
 as "prejudices " ? Only to feed the famine of his am 
 bition. He began to see, what every body else has so 
 long seen, that his vices were bringing upon him the 
 retribution of premature old age and decrepitude ; and 
 that, unless he could enter the White House the next 
 term, he must wait, at least until the great Julian pe 
 riod should bring the world round again. He parleyed 
 with southern tempters, and fell. 
 
 Nor did he outrage our feelings only. He sacrificed 
 our pecuniary interests, our very means of subsistence. 
 Massachusetts would be prospering under an improved 
 system of protection for our domestic industry to-day, 
 but for Mr. Webster s apostasy, which stripped us of 
 all our power and of all our unity, and inflamed the 
 spirit of southern aggrandizement to demand every 
 thing and yield nothing. Could the issue be now 
 formed, and the case tried, whether Daniel Webster s 
 course in 1850 did not deprive the working-men of 
 the country of a tariff for the protection of their labor, 
 not an intelligent and impartial jury could be found 
 that would not bring him in guilty. This result 
 
r>ir 
 
 every unbiased man at Washington saw, last summer ; 
 while he was cajoling the men of the north with the 
 delusion that, if they would surrender liberty, they 
 should have their reward in a tariff. I speak of this 
 with confidence, because there are hundreds of my 
 constituents and acquaintances who will bear me wit 
 ness that, in personal interviews, and by correspond 
 ence, they were warned, that if they followed Mr. 
 Webster in his recreancy to principles, he would leave 
 them without relief in the matter of property. 
 
 Fellow-citizens, I will trespass upon your attention 
 but for a moment longer. I wish to advance one idea 
 for the consideration of all sober, moral, and religious 
 men ; and when this idea is duly considered, I trust to 
 its working a revolution in public sentiment. In se 
 lecting men to be our political leaders, we have some 
 times committed the gravest moral error. We have 
 assumed the falsity of a distinction between a man s 
 public and his private life. We have supposed that 
 the same individual might be a bad man and a good 
 citizen ; might be a patriot and an inebriate, a faithful 
 officer and a debauchee, at the same time ; might serve 
 his country during " office hours," and the powers of 
 darkness the rest of the twenty-four. But 1 say, as 
 of old, no man can serve God and mammon. 
 
 We have been too prone to judge of men by their 
 professions and by their connections. We seem to 
 have forgotten that the tree is to be known by its fruit, 
 and a man by his life. If we are to take the Pharisee s 
 rule, and determine a man s piety by his creed, and by 
 the number and length of his prayers, then piety will 
 be the cheapest thing in the market, and as worthless 
 as it is cheap. 
 
 In choosing teachers to be the guides and exemplars 
 of our children, we demand high moral worth ; and 
 we would as soon thrust our youth into the centre of 
 44 
 
518 
 
 pestilence, as amid the contagion of vicious and profli 
 gate men. 
 
 In selecting our religious guides, we feel almost jus 
 tified in being captiously and morbidly critical ; we 
 hardly admit that we can be strict to a fault ; and the 
 man who fails to carry personal purity and exemplari- 
 ness into the pastoral life, is driven from* it with 
 indignation and contempt. 
 
 I admit too, rejoicingly, that, in Massachusetts, this 
 preventive and praiseworthy discipline has been more 
 extensively applied to political men than in any other 
 state in the Union. Our highest state offices have 
 been filled for years, saving very rare exceptions, with 
 men of distinguished probity and a spotless life. And 
 why, in this department, should we ever grant dispen 
 sations and absolutions ; or, like the old popes, sell 
 indulgences to sin ? 
 
 Now, let this doctrine be applied ; for I hold it to be 
 no unwarrantable invasion of private character to apply 
 these principles to public men. When public men openly 
 and notoriously practise vice, they make the vice public, 
 and bring it within public jurisdiction. If it is public 
 for example, it is public for criticism ; and. under such 
 circumstances, the moral and religious guides of the 
 community* are as solemnly bound "truly to find, and 
 due presentment make," of these offences, as the grand 
 jury is in the case of crimes against the laws of the 
 land. I say, therefore, let us apply this doctrine. 
 
 How long have all good citizens in Massachusetts 
 labored in the glorious cause of temperance ! They 
 have devoted time, expended talent, lavished money, 
 incurred obloquy ; but, as their reward, they have 
 plucked the guilty from perdition ; rescued the young, 
 just losing their balance over the precipice of ruin ; 
 saved the widow and the fatherless from unutterable 
 woe, and driven demons of discord from domestic 
 
519 
 
 Edens. Now why, after all our toils and sacrifices to 
 uphold and carry forward the cause of temperance, 
 and to make its name as honorable as it is blessed ; 
 why should we demolish all our work by elevating 
 a man to a high political station, or by upholding him 
 when in it, who. in the face of the nation and of the 
 world, will become so drunken that he cannot articu 
 late his mother tongue ? Is this an example you desire 
 to set before the ingenuous and aspiring youth of the 
 land ; ay, before your own children ? 
 
 We have had men in the presidential chair not 
 without faults and blemishes of character ; but hitherto 
 we may proudly say, that we never have had one 
 there who drowned his reason in his cups. God grant 
 that we never may. Think of this magnificent ship 
 of state freighted with twenty-three millions of souls, 
 and laden to the scuppers with the wealth of the 
 world s hopes, with a pilot at the helm drunk! 
 
 We are an industrious and a frugal people. The 
 aptitude is born with us. A true Massachusetts boy 
 seems to take to ingenious labor and to labor-saving 
 contrivances from his birth, like a duck almost im 
 patient to be hatched, that it may get into the water. 
 We prize and honor the home-bred virtues of diligence 
 and thrift ; for they bestow upon us all our comforts, 
 the means of educating our children, and leave us a 
 magnificent surplus for godlike charities to be scattered 
 over the world. 
 
 Dr. Franklin has stamped a family likeness upon us 
 all. His economical wisdom is domesticated among 
 us. Take a sound and pure specimen of a Massa 
 chusetts farmer or mechanic, and analyze him, and 
 you will find tfiat, of his whole composition, from six 
 to ten ounces in the pound is made up of Dr. Franklin. 
 Now, why should we root out this luxuriant, fruit- 
 bearing virtue ? Why welcome and court and feed 
 the prodigalities and sensualities of the old world, to 
 
520 
 
 corrupt the pristine virtues of the new ? Can he be a 
 republican after the severe simplicity and grandeur of 
 the old Roman type ; can he be an exemplary citizen, 
 who must have his thirty, forty, or even fifty thousand 
 dollars a year, to squander upon what I must not call, 
 " to ears polite," his vices and passions, but, more gen 
 teelly, " his tastes and feelings," while millions of 
 honest laborers thank God if by incessant toil they can 
 earn their daily bread for their families, and the bread 
 of knowledge for their children ? Can they be good 
 citizens, or, at least, are they not grievously deluded, 
 who will give such purses to such a man for being the 
 advocate and agent of their special interests, while 
 there are hundreds of suffering men and women, and 
 more suffering children, at their own doors ? Do you 
 want your children to grow up inflamed by such ex 
 amples of excess and wantonness ? I know that all 
 this is defended on the ground that something must be 
 done for a great man s family. Ay, that family! 
 The progeny and costliness of the vices, what Cali- 
 fornias shall be able to support ? I know, too, that it 
 is also said we must have great talents in the public 
 councils, at whatever price. Well, if this be your 
 philosophy, don t do the work by halves, but import 
 Lucifer at once ! 
 
 Now, fellow-citizens, you know that all the men 
 who are guilty of these great derelictions from civil 
 and social duty are the men who uphold the Fugitive 
 Slave law. 
 
 I might touch upon more holy relations in life ; 
 upon virtues without which there is no home and no 
 domestic sanctuary ; without which there may be 
 children, but the sacred institution of the family is 
 gone. But I forbear. I only desire to awaken your 
 attention to the great duty of extending the domain 
 of conscience over politics; of holding public men 
 answerable for those vices which it is a great misno- 
 
521 
 
 mer to call private when they are committed in the 
 face of the world. "The pulpit is false to its trust" 
 if it does not follow and rebuke them, under whatever 
 robes of official dignity they may hold their revels. 
 
 Three great stages of development belong to the 
 world. First, there was the period of physical devel 
 opment, when the tallest man was crowned king, 
 when the strongest muscles enacted the laws, when 
 brute force was " His Royal Majesty," and claimed and 
 received the homage of mankind. That age has 
 passed ; and how contemptible does all its greatness 
 now appear ! Then came the age when the mind 
 towered above the body, when a nation s power no 
 longer consisted in the millions of its men, but in the 
 treasuries of its knowledge ; when the intellect took 
 up the vastest concentrations of animal strength, which 
 seemed omnipotent before, lifted them off their ful 
 crum, and they, became like a feather, in the breath 
 of its power. That age is the present. The moral 
 age is yet to be ushered in. In this age, the intellect 
 ual forces shall still retain all their dominion and su 
 premacy over the physical world, but the moral shall 
 preside over the intellectual, and move them as God 
 moves the stars, bringing them out of chaos, and 
 wheeling them in circuits of unimaginable grandeur, 
 and for purposes of beneficence yet inconceivable. In 
 that day, the lawgivers of the land shall be no longer 
 " compromisers " between duty and mammon, and the 
 judges shall judge in righteousness. In that day, the 
 merchant, for the lucre of trade, shall not pay tribute 
 in human beings, and send his flesh-tax across the free 
 waters. In that day, the gospel of human brotherhood, 
 of doing as we would be done by, and of loving our 
 neighbors as ourselves, shall no longer be doled out to us 
 by priests of the broad phylactery sort, in homoeopathic 
 doses, reduced to the five hundredth dilution. But in 
 that glorious day, the men who sit in the Areopagus 
 44* 
 
522 
 
 of the nation, clothed with the ermine of the law, 
 shall be, as the heathen of old figured the emblem of 
 Justice, blind in the outward eye ; and all they know 
 of color shall be to give no color to the law. In that 
 day the successors of St. Paul shall preach what he 
 preached, when standing " in the midst of Mars Hill," 
 a God of equity, of righteousness, of justice, of 
 benevolence ; the God who made " of one blood all 
 nations of men," who, alas ! to so many in our day is 
 " the UNKNOWN GOD." 
 
 In that day, when a whole people are aroused to 
 ponder, with unwonted intensity, upon the great prin 
 ciples for which Sidney and Vane bled ; for which 
 Hampden smote the tyrant of his day ; for which the 
 heroes of the revolution pledged fortune, life, and 
 sacred honor ; no voice shall strive to seduce them 
 from their sacred work by its Belial cry, " CONQUER 
 
 YOUR PREJUDICES ! " 
 
 Fellow-citizens, if you wish to cooperate in bring 
 ing on this glorious era, your first step is to vote for 
 that noble man who ransomed his own slaves, JOHN 
 G. PALFREY. 
 
523 
 
 SPEECH 
 
 DELIVERED, ON TAKING THE CHAIR, AS PRESIDENT OF THE 
 GREAT MASS CONVENTION, CALLED, WITHOUT DISTINCTION 
 OF PARTY, IN OPPOSITION TO THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW, 
 
 AND HELD AT THE TREMONT TEMPLE IN BOSTON, APRIL 8, 
 1851.* 
 
 GENTLEMEN OF THE CONVENTION; 
 
 I thank you cordially for the honor of being called 
 to this place ; though I could have wished that your 
 choice had fallen upon some one of the many more 
 meritorious men whom I see all around me. 
 
 Gentlemen, I have come here to-day to add my fee 
 ble voice to the thunder tones of execration against the 
 Fugitive Slave law, with which every free state in this 
 Union, and every free community upon the earth, are 
 now echoing and reechoing. 
 
 I do not propose to occupy your attention long. 
 Where so many things are to be said, and so many 
 persons, far better qualified than I am, are present to 
 say them, I shall consult at once your advantage and 
 my duty, by being brief. 
 
 We have come together with especial reference to 
 the Fugitive Slave law ; but that execrable statute 
 connects itself so directly with almost every other 
 prominent measure of the government, and with the 
 
 * This meeting was held pending the trial, before Mr. Commission 
 er Curtis, of Thomas Sims, an alleged fugitive slave from Georgia. 
 During the trial, the Boston court house was surrounded by a large 
 police force, and was enclosed in chains, beneath which the judges 
 of the supreme court of Massachusetts bowed as they entered and 
 retired. 
 
524 
 
 leading acts of our public men, during the past year, 
 that it opens the whole subject of human liberty, and 
 our duty, as freemen, in regard to human rights. Es 
 pecially does it behoove us to inquire, by what means, 
 by whose instrumentality, the country has been insti 
 gated to this treason against the rights of men, and 
 when we may expect their machinations will be 
 brought to an end. 
 
 Some of our official dignitaries are giving us law 
 lectures on the subject of high treason against the gov 
 ernment. I hope they will not object, if we recipro 
 cate the favor, by giving them a lecture on the higher 
 treason against God and humanity, of which they are 
 guilty. 
 
 Gentlemen, it is with unspeakable humiliation and 
 regret that I look back and see where Massachusetts 
 stood twelve or thirteen months ago, and where so 
 many of her citizens stand now. Up to that ever- 
 accursed day, the 7th of March, 1850, there was not a 
 Massachusetts man, in the councils of the state or na 
 tion ; nay, so far as I know, there was riot a single 
 Massachusetts man any where, of any standing or re 
 spectability, who did not assert and proclaim his hos 
 tility to the extension of slavery ; his purpose to main 
 tain at all times the principle of the ordinance of 1787 ; 
 and his "resolute and fixed determination," (to use 
 Mr. Webster s language,) "to make no further conces 
 sions to slavery and the slave power." The public 
 men of the state, the press of the state, the legislature 
 of the state, avowed these sentiments ; and the politi 
 cal conventions of the state rang with these declara 
 tions from side to side. 
 
 But on that ever-memorable day a senator of the 
 United States, from Massachusetts, saw fit to trample 
 under foot every thing that he had ever said in behalf 
 of human freedom and against human bondage. He 
 saw fit to curl his lip and to intonate his voice in scon 2 
 
of the principle of the ordinance of 1787, and to dis 
 honor the memory of Nathan Dane, whom, a few 
 years before, on the same spot, he had eulogized. He 
 saw lit to contemn what he knew to be the honest 
 sentiments of Massachusetts. He went far, far out of 
 his way, to fortify and extend the institution of sla 
 very. He offered to add new states to its power, and 
 to take two hundred millions of dollars from the treas 
 ury of the United States, to be expended for its extra- 
 constitutional security and defence. 
 
 I shall not dwell upon the perfidious nature of that 
 deed, nor upon the obvious motive that prompted it. 
 I will rather advert to the measures which have since 
 been taken to corrupt the public sentiment of Massa 
 chusetts, and of the whole north, and to bring over 
 the people, some to a palliation and others to a full in 
 dorsement of it. 
 
 As soon as the stunning effect of that treacherous 
 blow upon all the moral and religious sensibilities of 
 the state, and upon its traditional and inwrought love 
 of liberty, had begun to subside, a systematic effort 
 was commenced to debauch the patriotism and human 
 ity of the people, by an appeal to their cupidity. Our 
 manufacturing and commercial interests were suffering. 
 A majority of the slave states were the antagonists of 
 these interests. Political ambition and mercantile cu 
 pidity associated these two facts together, and the fla 
 gitious idea was engendered .that by surrendering our 
 liberty we might have a tariff. The poison of this 
 idea was first openly and directly infused into the pub 
 lic mind by Mr. Webster, in his speech at the Revere 
 House, April 29th, 1850, when he said, " Neither you 
 nor I shall see the legislation of the country proceed in 
 the old harmonious way until the discussions in Congress 
 and out of Congress upon the subject to which you 
 have alluded, [slavery,] shall be in some way sup 
 pressed. Take this truth home with you, and take it 
 
526 
 
 as truth. Until something can be done to allay the 
 feeling now separating different men and different sec 
 tions, there can be NO USEFUL AND SATISFACTORY legis 
 lation in the two houses of Congress." 
 
 Of this declaration there can be but one interpreta 
 tion. It was perfectly understood by those to whom 
 it was addressed. It says, without enigma or riddle, 
 surrender the territories to the incursions of the slave 
 states, pacify the slave power, give up blood-bought 
 rights for this life, and Savior-bought hopes for anoth 
 er, and you can have your pay in a cent a yard on 
 calico, arid a cent a pound on iron. And, as a means 
 of accomplishing this object, it says the discussion of 
 the slavery question must be "suppressed" 
 
 From that time until the close of the last session 
 of Congress, in every form in which so intrinsically 
 wicked an idea could be set forth without shocking 
 not only all principle, but all decency, this idea was 
 inculcated upon the public mind of the north, espe 
 cially upon the cities. In unofficial speeches and 
 letters, Mr. Webster urged this seduction more and 
 more pointedly and earnestly, until, on the 17th of 
 July, 1850, in the last speech which he ever made in 
 Congress, he appealed to the senators of the north, 
 and to the people of the north, in language as explicit 
 as he could make it, to adopt the compromise meas 
 ures, to take even the abhorred Fugitive Slave bill 
 itself, for the sake of the money to be made out of 
 them. Throughout that speech he held out the apple 
 of temptation before their eyes, he jingled the thirty 
 pieces of silver in their ears, to seduce them into the 
 surrender of liberty for pelf. 
 
 I appeal to the common knowledge of the citizens 
 of Boston, if, during the last summer, it was not an 
 expression as familiar to their lips as the salutations 
 of the day, that they had Mr. Webster s authority for 
 saying, that if they would surrender the great ques- 
 
527 
 
 tions involved in the compromise, they could have a 
 tariff. 
 
 Now, on this state of facts, I have two observations 
 to make, 
 
 1st. That a proposition to barter or to jeopard the 
 liberty of our fellow-beings for any amount of money, 
 however great, was intrinsically inhuman and wicked. 
 
 2d. That every new concession we made to the 
 south on the subject of slavery, for the sake of getting 
 protection for our manufactures and other industrial 
 interests, only impaired and postponed our chance of 
 getting that protection. 
 
 For the correctness of the first of these propositions, 
 I appeal to every man who has a conscience, or even 
 any elementary ideas of right or wrong, which are 
 not smothered by his interests or his passions. And 
 for the second, I appeal to the case of Texas which 
 defeated the tariff of 42, and to the fact that, though 
 we did consent to all the detestable provisions of the 
 compromise, slave territories, slave states, ten mil 
 lions of dollars for Texas, Fugitive Slave bill, and all, 
 yet we get no tariff, and have now no rational pros 
 pect of one. 
 
 That the surrender of all our glorious patrimony of 
 free principles should help to make some northern 
 man President, I can readily understand. That is 
 intelligible. Before the 7th of March speech, it was 
 announced, from high southern sources, that they 
 would take the northern man for the next presidential 
 term who would do the most for slavery ; and since 
 that time, the same declaration has been reiterated. 
 [See, among others, Mr. Toombs s speech before the 
 Georgia Union meeting.] But I state it as a fact 
 within my own personal knowledge, that there was 
 not an intelligent man in Congress who was not impli 
 cated, on the one side, in the manufacture of goods, 
 or, on the other, in the manufacture of presidents, 
 
528 
 
 who did not then foresee and predict that every for 
 ward step we took towards the compromise was a 
 step backwards from protection. And we now have 
 this stubborn fact to show for the soundness of that 
 opinion, the event has ratified it. They have not ob 
 tained the tariff they were promised, though they have 
 given for it the price of blood. 
 
 Now I wish to ask the manufacturers and commer 
 cial men of the north, whether, if they had seen, as 
 it was seen by every unbiased man at the seat of 
 government, that upholding the compromise would 
 put down protection, they would have consented to 
 the compromise ? And a further question which I 
 wish to put to all Massachusetts and all New England 
 is, if, during the last year, we had had the tariff of 
 1842 in full operation, and if the current of prosperity 
 had filled the deepest channels that enterprise and 
 industry had cut for it, whether then Massachusetts 
 citizens would have unsaid and retracted all the noble 
 things they have been saying in favor of liberty for 
 the last ten years ; whether then the Massachusetts 
 press, or so large a portion of it, would be found 
 openly advocating doctrines which they have always 
 heretofore professed to hold in utter detestation and 
 abhorrence ? No man will pretend it. If we had had. 
 the tariff of 42 last year, the compromise measures 
 never could have passed, and it would have been 
 impossible for any presidential aspirant, or all of them 
 together, to have subdued the northern mind to their 
 acceptance. 
 
 The commercial and manufacturing interests of the 
 north, then, have been deceived, grossly deceived and 
 imposed upon. When their real interests were all on 
 the side of freedom, they have been made to believe 
 that it would promote those interests to unsay all they 
 had ever said, and undo all they had ever done adverse 
 to slavery. Their chance for a tariff lay in standing 
 
529 
 
 to their principles like men, and not in abandoning 
 them like cowards. President-making has been the 
 agency, and Cotton has been the instrument, of this 
 deception. It has been said that the Press is the 
 fourth estate in the realm ; but I say Cotton is the 
 fourth estate, for Cotton subdues the Press. The eyes 
 and ears and nose and mouth of a portion of our 
 people have been so filled with cotton, that they have 
 come to consider cotton not only as their daily bread, 
 but their bread of life. 
 
 Gentlemen, whatever convictions or doubts there 
 may be on the subject of Animal Magnetism, I am a 
 firm believer in Cotton Magnetism. The southern 
 planter seems to possess some wizard art, unknown 
 to the demonology of former times, by which he im 
 pregnates his bales of cotton with a spirit of inhu 
 manity, with a contempt for all the dearest, tenderest, 
 holiest ties that bind man to man and heart to heart ; 
 he fills them with this spirit as an electrician fills a 
 Leyden jar, and then he sends them here ; and if the 
 man who comes within the circle of their influence is 
 not himself filled with the strong, counteracting, dis 
 infecting magnetism of duty and truth, of love to God 
 and love to man, he is overcome and subdued by the 
 infernal spell; he is brought into "communication" 
 with the southern sorcerer, and into subjection to his 
 will ; and then he seems bereft of reason and con 
 science, he belies his Pilgrim parentage, talks gibber 
 ish about the dissolution of the Union, kneels, lies 
 down, eats dirt, and says to his southern master, as Ba 
 laam s beast said to him, " Am I not thine ass upon 
 which thou hast ridden ever since I was thine?" 
 
 Still worse is it, when this cotton, so diabolically 
 impregnated, gets beneath the rich velvet seats and 
 embossed cushions of the pulpit ; unless, indeed, a 
 double measure of the spirit of the Lord shall descend 
 upon the preacher and exorcise both him and it, of the 
 45 
 
530 
 
 evil spirit it contains. When the soul of the clergy 
 man is struck with this cotton magnetism, he grows 
 delirious over his Bible, ignores the new dispensation, 
 seeks out all the pro-slavery parts of the old, discards 
 Jesus Christ as his example, arid the precepts of Jesus 
 Christ as the law of his ministrations, and proves 
 himself a pagan, discoursing paganism in a Christian 
 pulpit. 
 
 God grant that this kind of cotton may never stuff 
 the cushions of our judges ! I fear we are not wholly 
 out of danger of so unspeakable a calamity. Give us 
 the old English woolsack for them, within whose 
 magic presence the chains of the slave drop from his 
 limbs, and he is gloriously transfigured into a man. 
 
 Compare the newspapers of our cities now with 
 what they were only one short twelvemonth ago, and 
 see what demoralization cotton can work when it gets 
 into editorial chairs. 
 
 As for those slave-catching commissioners who as 
 sume to exercise the functions of judges, to abolish 
 human liberty, and to find property in the bodies and 
 souls of men, but are no more a judge than an image 
 "made after supper of a cheese-paring" is a man, 
 as for them, I say, they seem to have this virus the 
 natural way ; and if all moral diagnosis does not fail, 
 it would be found, on an anatomical dissection of their 
 hearts, that their right and left auricle and their right 
 and left ventricle were only four cotton bolls. 
 
 But I believe that the reign of Cotton is to be 
 short-lived. Improvements in the arts give confident 
 promise that some new textile substance will soon be 
 discovered which will supersede this slave-made and 
 slave-making material. Even should this hope fail, 
 every body sees what an unnatural attitude of power 
 and strength the cotton-producing states now occupy. 
 Extending over only a small area of territory, which 
 you can cover on the map with your hand, they raise 
 
531 
 
 a staple which clothes, more or less, a great part of 
 the world ; while there are Brazil, Egypt, India, and 
 regions of unknown vastness in Africa, to all of which, 
 or nearly all of which, the plant is indigenous. Either 
 then by the progress of the arts, or by an extension 
 of cultivation, the majesty of Cotton will soon be de 
 throned ; and then, then, how will these men appear, 
 historically, who are now willing to trample upon 
 human rights, and to send men, women, and children 
 into all the horrors of southern bondage for the tem 
 porary profits which cotton can bestow ? 
 
 I rejoice that this reference to the demoralizing 
 power of interest gives me an opportunity to bestow 
 well-deserved honor and praise upon a class of men 
 who have nobly withstood its temptations. Not every 
 man engaged in manufactures or in commerce has 
 yielded to the seductions of this tempter. There are 
 many noble exceptions. I have in my mind one of my 
 own constituents largely interested in manufactures, 
 who told me last summer that half his spindles were 
 lying idle, and property that should have yielded 
 income was incurring cost ; " but," said he, " do you 
 see them all stop, and the mills decay and go down 
 stream, before you vote for that compromise." Another 
 of my constituents told me he was largely interested 
 in three ships, then at sea ; but declared he would see 
 them all sink to its bottom before he would disgrace 
 the country by passing the Fugitive Slave bill. These 
 are but specimens of that noble spirit which was 
 expressed with such Spartan terseness and vigor by 
 Bowen & McNamee, of New York, when the foul 
 panders to southern slavery threatened them with a 
 loss of custom. Said they, " Our goods, and not our 
 principles, are in the market." 
 
 O, how these declarations contrast with what a 
 manufacturer in a neighboring county is reported to 
 have said, that if he could work his mills any 
 
532 
 
 cheaper with slave labor than with free, he would 
 employ slaves ! And what, also, as I am credibly 
 informed, another has said, " The south want slaves 
 to raise cotton to sell ; we want slaves to raise cotton 
 to manufacture ; therefore, we must unite with the 
 south to uphold slavery." Now, I believe these things 
 to have been said ; but it is of no consequence 
 whether they were said or not ; we know they have 
 been acted. Every man who upholds this Fugitive 
 Slave law acts them, whatever his language may be. 
 
 The compromise was forced through Congress partly 
 by government interference, and partly by the delusive 
 hope of a tariff. An appeal is now made, in behalf of 
 the Fugitive Slave law, to the same mercenary mo 
 tives. It is said, if opposition be made to this law, 
 however legal or constitutional such opposition may 
 be, we shall lose southern custom. Base and infamous 
 appeal ! Such men are made of the stuff of the tories 
 of the revolution. Even if this appeal were true, it 
 would be one that no honorable man could hear with 
 out indignation. But it is not true. The south must 
 have their goods from somewhere, and our industrious 
 artisans will make them, whoever the go-betweens 
 may be. Will the south go bare-headed and bare 
 footed and unkilted, because they cannot have a law 
 to catch freemen and slaves promiscuously ? But it is 
 said the south will abandon their slothful habits, be 
 come industrious, and manufacture for themselves. I 
 wish they would. It would be most fortunate for us. 
 They would then have the means of buying more 
 from the north, and paying us better for what they 
 do buy. Instead of spending only the money which 
 their slaves earn, they would then have money to 
 spend earned by the whites, and would become better 
 customers for those ever new forms of commodities 
 which our industry and inventive skill, while we keep 
 our schoolhouses in operation, will always be able to 
 supply. 
 
533 
 
 Now, fellow-citizens, I have gone into these consid 
 erations for the purpose of ascertaining and of meas 
 uring the extent and the efficacy of the motives 
 brought hy onr opponents to bear against ns. You 
 see they are mercenary, almost exclusively so. As for 
 that bugbear of a dissolution of the Union, I say, with 
 out fear of contradiction, that no practical man has 
 ever believed in it for a day. United States stocks at a 
 hundred and sixteen, v on the eve of a dissolution of the 
 Union ! The whole South Carolina, and Mississippi, 
 and Texas delegations in Congress contending for 
 every local advantage, for the establishment of new 
 United States courts, for the increase of salaries, for 
 appointments at home and abroad, as though the Union 
 had been just insured for a thousand years ! Show 
 me one intelligent man in the whole country who has 
 sold his stocks or his farm, or changed his residence, or 
 altered his course of life in any respect, through fear 
 that the Union was about to be dissolved. I think 
 some persons may have left South Carolina, to get rid 
 of the clamor about dissolving it. Why, what would 
 the English national debt be worth under any well- 
 founded apprehension that the British monarchy was 
 crumbling to pieces ? There would not be a pound 
 of government securities that could not be bought for 
 a penny. Confidence in the stability of our Union 
 has not only pervaded this country, but other countries. 
 The great bankers abroad who deal in our stocks have 
 never changed their terms one mill in a million of 
 dollars, through any such idle fear. They are the men 
 whose barometers presage political storms. With such 
 facts before us, to say that the Union has been in 
 danger is as absurd as to say that a whirlwind is 
 raging when the leaf of the aspen is pendulous, and 
 cannot be seen to move. If the south wishes to dis 
 solve the Union, let them do it, and at the end of 
 thirty years there will be no slave in all their borders. 
 45* 
 
534 
 
 The slaves will have made a new Jamaica or a new 
 St. Domingo of it, as the masters shall behave them 
 selves. No, this is nothing but a clumsy trick of the 
 politicians ; and if any one of them could be nomi 
 nated for the presidency, we should hear nothing more 
 from him about any deluge which threatens to sub 
 merge the Union. They profess peculiar love for the 
 Union. Their clamorous notes bring to mind what 
 Dr. Franklin remarked of self-righteous people. He 
 said they always reminded him of scarcity of provis 
 ions ; those who had enough said nothing about it ; 
 it was the destitute who made all the clamor. 
 
 I say, then, the only remaining motive with which 
 our adversaries can work is the loss of southern trade. 
 This interests but few of our people. The farmers 
 are not interested in it. The mechanics and artisans 
 are not. The operatives in our mills are not. All 
 our substantial, industrious classes are above this temp 
 tation, and would spurn it if they were not above it. 
 The Fugitive Sla-ve law champions, then, can make 
 no more converts among them. Let us, then, continue 
 to oppose this law in all constitutional modes. Let us 
 explain its religious and moral bearings to the Christian. 
 Let us tell the patriot of the disgrace it brings upon 
 our country. Let us show to the working-man that 
 those who are ready to make slaves of his fellow-beings 
 for lucre will be equally ready to make a slave of him 
 whenever interest shall supply the temptation. 
 
 Fellow-citizens, it has been asked why we are as 
 sembled here to-day, and not in the Hall consecrated to 
 liberty. It is because the doors of that hall have been 
 closed to Liberty knocking for admission. But there is 
 a melancholy propriety in this. When the court house 
 is in chains, Faneuil Hall may well be dumb. Those 
 chains which girt the courts of justice are but typical 
 of the chains which tyrannous men are striving to put 
 upon our lips. This is not the first temple that has 
 
535 
 
 been unrighteously invaded and taken possession of by 
 money changers and those who sold doves, doves ! 
 doves!! No, not doves, but men, women, and 
 children. But I trust the time is not far distant when 
 a better spirit shall enter their doors, and shall scourge 
 out their invaders with cords, smaller or larger, as the 
 exigencies of the case may require. 
 
536 
 
 SPEECH 
 
 DELIVERED AT WORCESTER, SEPTEMBER 16, 1851, ON TAKING 
 THE CHAIR AS PRESIDENT OF THE FREE SOIL STATE CON 
 VENTION. 
 
 GENTLEMEN OF THE CONVENTION ; 
 
 Accept my thanks. It would be an honor at any 
 time to stand in this position before a body of men so 
 large in their number and so influential by their re 
 spectability. But, gentlemen, at this hour of trial, at 
 this time of peril to great principles, when the lights 
 upon earth seem to be going out around us, and we 
 must look for guidance to the lights above, at this 
 hour, I say, of trial and of peril, it is an especial 
 honor to be called to a post of duty. The position 
 of the friends of freedom at the present time reminds 
 me of a beautiful sentiment expressed by one of the 
 noblest of the old Roman philosophers, who said that 
 those who were called to fill stations of danger and 
 self-sacrifice should thank God for the honor of being 
 deemed worthy of such a trust.* 
 
 Gentlemen, it was not until this morning, and 
 since sunrise, that I was waited upon by a delegation 
 from your state committee, requesting my presence on 
 this occasion. They knew, and you all know, how 
 strongly my heart throbs, even at the mention of the 
 great principles for which you contend. They knew, 
 as you all know, how happy I should be if I could do 
 any thing to deepen or to diffuse a feeling of devotion 
 to human freedom. 
 
 * Seneca. [The passage is quoted in the Dedication, pp. ix., x.] 
 
537 
 
 But, gentlemen, there were certain circumstances 
 connected with my position which seemed to make 
 it necessary for me to say to your delegation, that, if I 
 should appear here to-day, it should be with an entire 
 privilege to speak out my mind fully on any political 
 subject, and to say in what relation I stand to the present 
 condition of public affairs, both state and national. 
 
 I say, then, gentlemen, that I stand where I have 
 always stood, holding the principles of human freedom 
 first and foremost in my regards, and, after these, our 
 pecuniary, or merely worldly interests ; holding, ac 
 cording to the order in which they are mentioned in 
 the constitution of the United States, " life and liber 
 ty " to be before "property." I stand where I stood 
 in 1848, when I was first elected to Congress ; arid 
 where my recorded votes and speeches show me to 
 have stood through all the struggles of 1849 and 50. 
 I stand on the same principles yet. If other men 
 have seen fit to go off to the right hand or to the left, 
 I remain where I was. And if any individual of any 
 party, Whig, Democrat, or by whatever other appel 
 lation he may be known, shall ever return from his 
 wanderings to the good old homestead of Massachusetts 
 principles, Free Soil, Free Speech, and Free Men, 
 there, in that immortal birthplace of human liberty, 
 he will find me, early in the morning and late at night, 
 hard at work, to maintain the honor of the Pilgrims 
 and the principles of our revolutionary sires. 
 
 Gentlemen, the perusal of the address and resolu 
 tions put forth by the Whig State Convention at Spring 
 field, last week, brought me here. It seems to me that 
 no true lover of human freedom can read that address 
 and those resolutions intelligently, and understand their 
 full scope and bearing, without being struck down by 
 conviction, as suddenly as was St. Paul, though the 
 light and the voice come from an opposite quarter. 
 Whatever the design of those papers may have been, 
 
538 
 
 their whole argument and office are to wheel the Whig 
 party into line, to fight the battles of slavery. 
 
 Under these circumstances, I do not ask with a 
 certain distinguished individual, on the prospective 
 breaking up of parties, "Where am I to go?" I 
 believe I do but echo the sentiments of thousands of 
 as good and true Whigs as can be found in this com 
 monwealth, (and there are none better any where,) 
 when I say that, let others go where they will, here, 
 here, on the old Whig platform of opposition to the 
 extension of slavery, either into New Mexico or into 
 New England ; of freedom for the District of Colum 
 bia ; and in favor of the old guaranties of habeas cor 
 pus and trial by jury, here / remain. 
 
 Gentlemen, the Free Soil party, as the name im 
 ports, is the party of freedom. The cardinal principle 
 of their creed is, that " all men are created free and 
 equal," and that they have an inalienable right to 
 "life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness." 
 Their faith consists in the assurance that, in the good 
 providence of God, the day will yet come when the 
 blessedness of their creed will be realized among men ; 
 and by their works they seek to hasten the advent of 
 that glorious day. 
 
 A party of Freedom has existed in all ages of the 
 world, but a mightier party of oppression has been 
 arrayed against it. And though the lovers of human 
 liberty have consisted of the greatest and best men 
 who have ever lived, yet they have been overborne 
 by violence, crushed and trampled upon by power, 
 buried in dungeons, gibbeted on scaffolds, burnt at 
 the stake ! God, like the householder who sent ser 
 vants to his vineyard from a far country, has, from 
 age to age, sent great and mighty souls into the world 
 to redeem it from oppression ; but the oppressor has 
 seized and mutilated and martyred them, with every 
 form of ignominy towards the messengers themselves, 
 
539 
 
 and of impiety towards the Lord who sent them. The 
 possessors of power and wealth seek to perpetuate 
 these advantages in their families, their clan, or their 
 caste ; and over almost all the earth they have estab 
 lished dynasties for governments, landed or moneyed 
 feudalisms for lords, and entails for individual families. 
 
 That we may see how fearful a thing this spirit of 
 oppression is, not only for its cruelties, hut for the 
 tenacity of its malignant life, let it be remembered 
 that the world had existed almost six thousand years 
 before the principles of human liberty, civil and eccle 
 siastical, were clearly and fully set forth even on 
 paper. This was first done by Mr. Jefferson, in 1776, 
 in the Declaration of American Independence ; and 
 every body knows how intensely the same partisans 
 who are now summoning their forces against the party 
 of Freedom have hated him for his glorious efforts in 
 favor of the freedom of man ; how they pursued him 
 with maledictions to his grave, and still break through 
 the sanctity of the tomb to blacken his memory. 
 
 The immortal principles of the Declaration of Inde 
 pendence were partially embodied in the constitution 
 of the United States. But, as the preexisting meta 
 physics and mythology of the heathen nations min 
 gled with the pure spirit of Christianity, and corrupted 
 it, so the preexisting laws and usages of oppression 
 deformed to some extent the doctrines of the Declara 
 tion of Independence, and stamped some hideous fea 
 tures upon the otherwise fair face of the federal con 
 stitution. But such a preponderance of good did that 
 instrument contain, that it was adopted by all the 
 states. It was adopted, however, with the universal 
 understanding that the healing influence of time would 
 purge a\vay the virus of the disease ; and with no 
 apprehension of the now undeniable fact, that the 
 disease would be allowed to spread, like a gangrene, 
 over the healthy parts. Had our fathers foreseen that 
 
540 
 
 the pro -slavery clauses in the constitution would prove 
 a curse to whole classes and races of men entitled to 
 protection under it, that they would be a shame to its 
 administrators, and an opprobrium, throughout the civ 
 ilized world, to the name of Republic. it would be 
 impious towards their memories to say they would 
 ever have ratified it. But instead of the sounder 
 parts diffusing healthful influences, and gradually erad 
 icating the disease, the diseased parts have shot their 
 infection through all the veins and organs of the body 
 politic, until, from the heart to the extremities, there 
 is not now to be found an uncon laminated spot. 
 
 Or to leave metaphor for literal speech : The consti 
 tution of the United States gave the most comprehen 
 sive and fundamental guaranties in favor of freedom, 
 with here and there only an exception in behalf of 
 slavery. It allowed " persons " who were held to 
 service or labor and who should escape into other 
 states to be retaken, but it also secured the trial by 
 jury to every " person " who should claim it on any 
 question of life or liberty, and on all questions of 
 property even down to the paltry sum of twenty dol 
 lars. Yet there is not now, in the United States, a 
 single spot, from ocean to ocean, where a free man is 
 free from danger of being kidnapped and carried into 
 horrible bondage for himself and his posterity forever; 
 or, what is as keenly torturing to every mind pene 
 trated by the spirit and amenable to the precepts of 
 the gospel, of being called upon, under penalty of 
 fines and fetters, to surrender his soul to this accursed 
 work. 
 
 Now, as a true disciple of Christ ought to feel if he 
 saw the imbruting dogmas and Moloch rites of hea 
 thenism returning to invade Christendom and to extin 
 guish the lights of the gospel, so should every lover of 
 liberty feel when he sees the fell spirit of slavery re 
 gaining its lost empire over the institutions of freedom. 
 
541 
 
 The analogy between the present condition of this 
 country and that of Europe is too striking not to at 
 tract attention. In 1848, there was a great uprising 
 of the friends of liberty in both hemispheres. Thou 
 sands and tens of thousands sought to redress the 
 wrongs of humanity, by the cartridge box there, and 
 by the ballot box here. The phalanx of tyranny and of 
 mammon was unprepared for so sudden an onset, and 
 for a moment their ranks were broken by the violence 
 of the shock. But despotism and wealth have almost 
 inconceivable advantages in a contest with the honest 
 and toiling millions. In Europe, they have the mili 
 tary force, a soulless machine, always ready to be 
 turned against the people who are made to maintain it. 
 They have also the whole ecclesiastical power, which 
 leans upon the government for support, and fights 
 with spiritual weapons for the masters whose plunder 
 it shares. 
 
 In this country, owing to our different institu 
 tions, the means of quelling the spirit of liberty have 
 been different. The administration have an immense 
 amount of patronage at their disposal. They give 
 contracts to the amount of millions, and select the 
 contractors. Directly, or indirectly, they appoint some 
 thirty thousand office-holders ; and. by a lamentable 
 reduplication of the powers of evil, they control twice 
 or four times that number who are aspirants for office. 
 Their influence bought over the slave power, by sur 
 rendering all our new territories to the invasion of 
 slavery, and by giving fifty thousand square miles of 
 free New Mexican territory to be turned into Texan 
 slave territory, thus adding to the already enormous 
 size of that slave-begotten state. Ten millions of dol 
 lars of almost worthless Texan stock were raised to par 
 value by the signature of Millard Fillmore. During 
 the whole pendency of the compromise measures, 
 agents and brokers, reputed to be interested in this 
 46 
 
542 
 
 stock, hovered about the purlieus of the national Capi 
 tol. The stock was transferred from hand to hand, 
 without record and without daylight, so that, besides 
 the accomplices, Heaven and Satan only know into 
 whose possession it came. And, as though the means 
 of patronage and seducement on so magnificent a scale 
 were not sufficient, a private purse, almost up to the 
 figure of fifty thousand dollars, was presented to the 
 " foremost man of all this world " in his apostasy to 
 the principles of human liberty. These, fellow-citi 
 zens, were among the agencies and seductions which 
 caused the discomfiture of the friends of freedom in the 
 national contest of 1850. The tyrants of Europe had 
 no vacant lands, or Texas stocks, wherewith to put 
 down humanity, and so they used gunpowder and bay 
 onets. Our slave power and its northern allies, being 
 debarred by the principles of our government from 
 bullets and bayonets, accomplished their work by 
 the Judas articles of scrip and u dotation." To 
 carry out these purposes, the generals Haynau and 
 Radetsky were found there ; the senators, Webster 
 and Cass. here. 
 
 The origin and the present necessity of the Free Soil 
 party may be briefly stated. Some years previous to 
 the annexation of Texas, an apprehension existed that 
 that great breach of the constitution and outrage upon 
 northern principles and feelings were meditated. Mr. 
 John Q,uincy Adams sounded the alarm ; but men 
 were so engrossed by their business, and by their 
 pultry local and temporary political strifes, that even 
 his voice, potent and prophetic as it was, passed by 
 unheeded. Some respect, however, was due, at least 
 from policy if not from principle, to the many humble 
 but earnest opponents of so flagrant a wrong. Before 
 the consummation of that iniquity, the Massachusetts 
 legislature passed strong resolutions against it. The 
 question was taken by yeas and nays, and all the 
 
543 
 
 Whigs and almost all the Democrats in the general 
 court recorded their names on the side of the constitu 
 tion and liberty. But the slave power then had pos 
 session of all the departments of the national govern 
 ment, and under the auspices of a slaveholding Presi 
 dent, a breach was made in the walls of the constitution 
 wide enough to let in a foreign government, with all 
 its burden of slavery on its back. Yet, notwithstand 
 ing this perfidy to all the principles of a true democracy, 
 such was the external pressure brought to bear upon 
 the members of the Democratic party, that but few of 
 them abandoned its ranks. They "acquiesced" as 
 the modern phrase is, when any thing specially iniqui 
 tous is to be sanctioned. They were told, as the 
 Whigs are now told in regard to the compromise and 
 the Fugitive Slave law, that the act was done and 
 irrevocable. The merchants were told, as the Whig 
 merchants now are, that the crime of extending slavery 
 would at least be attended by increased profits of trade. 
 The manufacturers were told, as the Whig manufac 
 turers now are, that if the number of slaves were in 
 creased at the south, it must create an increased de 
 mand for whips and negro cloths. And the mere 
 blind political partisans were told, as the same class of 
 Whigs are now, that if God designed to stop the 
 heaven-defying enormity of spreading slavery over this 
 continent, he must do it in some way consistent with 
 the integrity of the Democratic party. Precisely the 
 arguments which were then used to seduce and corrupt 
 the Democratic party into "acquiescence " are used by 
 leading Whigs and Whig presses now for the same 
 unhallowed purpose. They are alike, except that in 
 the one case there was the crime of originality, and in 
 the other, the meanness of plagiarism. 
 
 But from the fatal day of the annexation of Texas, 
 thousands and thousands of honest and intelligent 
 Democrats, though still remaining true to what they 
 
544 
 
 believed to be the principles of the party, became alien 
 ated from its leaders. From that day, the claims of 
 the party lay lightly, but the sins of the party heavily, 
 upon their souls ; and some there were who, like Daniel 
 of old, went into their chambers three times every day, 
 and, throwing open the windows which looked towards 
 the Jerusalem of liberty, prayed aloud to the true God, 
 although within hearing of the wild beasts which had 
 been prepared to devour them. 
 
 The Whig party at the north, and particularly in 
 Massachusetts, flourished under the reaction of the 
 Texas fraud. Some of its leaders, it is true, shouted a 
 welcome to Texas, though yet afar oif ; and, even while 
 she stood outside of the Union, they threw their arms 
 around her blood-besmeared form, hideous as Milton s 
 picture of Sin, with all her hell-hound progeny of future 
 slave states howling in her womb, and gave her a fra 
 ternal embrace ; and when the time came, they were 
 also ready to vote men and money, human blood 
 and human souls, for the robber atrocities of the 
 Mexican war, which a majority of the House of Rep 
 resentatives in Congress, on motion of Mr. Ashmun, 
 of Massachusetts, declared to be " unnecessarily and 
 unconstitutionally commenced." My friends, in your 
 observations of men, you will find there are some 
 moral nonentities, political availabilities though they 
 may be, who can listen most sanctimoniously to the 
 Saint Stephens, when they prophesy, arid then hold 
 the clothes of the Lyrichers who stone them to death. 
 
 During all this period, however, the managers and 
 the presses of the Whig party discoursed and printed 
 very edifying anti-slavery homilies. As the harvest 
 months came on, an anti-slavery zeal became an 
 epidemic among them ; and sporadic cases happened 
 at other times, depending upon the days and places 
 appointed by the governor and council for special elec 
 tions. Every body remembers how the Boston Atlas 
 
545 
 
 used to stir up the pure minds of the Democratic party 
 by way of remembrance, by publishing, periodically, 
 as they say, and sometimes oftener, the names of 
 those Democratic senators or representatives in our 
 general court who had voted for freedom and against 
 Texas, in order to show their flagrant inconsistency 
 in still adhering to a party that had been false to liberty. 
 That paper has done some good service to our cause, 
 especially in holding up for a long time the Fugitive 
 Slave act to reprobation, while the other Whig presses 
 in the city were daily striving to hide its atrocities from 
 public view, and to defend what they could not hide. 
 I trust the reluctant and struggling editors of that paper 
 are not to be overcome by the mammon of slavery, 
 whatever disguises it may assume or compulsion it may 
 use. I trust the slave power will never be able to use 
 towards them the language which hell s portress ad 
 dressed to Satan : 
 
 " At first they called me Sin, and for a sign 
 Portentous held me ; but, familiar grown, 
 I pleased, and \vith attractive graces won 
 T/ic most averse ; thee chiefly" 
 
 Those prosperous days of the Massachusetts Whigs 
 continued until 1848. They thrived in basket and in 
 store, until, like Jeshtirun, they waxed fat, and, at 
 least in the fourth and fifth congressional districts, they 
 performed some very hard kicking. Then came the 
 nomination of General Taylor. General Taylor was a 
 Louisiana slaveholder. He had been the hero of the 
 Florida war, as great an outrage against a race as 
 ever Rome or Russia committed. He had been a 
 prominent, and, as many believed, a willing instrument 
 in spilling the innocent blood of a sister republic. 
 Even should the executive divest him of military com 
 mand, or he should grow too old for service, it was 
 universally known that there was a full black battalion 
 46* 
 
546 
 
 on his own plantation which he would always com 
 mand. The south demanded his nomination abso 
 lutely. They would hear no terms, and would offer 
 no terms. In the northern canvass it was strongly as 
 serted that he had written a letter, saying in so many 
 words that he would not veto the Wilmot proviso; but 
 that letter was so warily kept in a certain unmention 
 able part of a Whig merchant s wardrobe, that neither 
 Mesmerizers nor spiritual rappers could read it aloud to 
 the people. 
 
 Hence all omens foreboded evil. Those which we 
 looked for on the earth augured ill to our earthly inter 
 ests ; and those which we looked for above were in the 
 wrong quarter of the heavens. The character of many 
 of General Taylor s friends brought distrust upon him 
 self. He owed his election far more to the repulsion 
 which good men felt towards his opponent, [General 
 Cass,] than to any attraction they had towards him. 
 
 It was an occasion that tried the sagacity and the 
 discretion of honest men, and I have always felt great 
 charity both for his advocates and his opponents ; 
 each being able to make out so plausible a case. The 
 course which the Connecticut clergyman took on that 
 occasion always commended itself to me. He voted 
 the Taylor electoral ticket, but indorsed a prayer on 
 the back of his ballot, saying that he was painfully 
 uncertain as to the course of duty, and imploring 
 that his vote might 1 be sanctified for the good of the 
 country. 
 
 But I am happy to avail myself of this, and of all 
 opportunities, to do justice to the name of General 
 Taylor. He turned out a very different man from 
 what his friends or his foes supposed him to be. I be 
 lieve he desired freedom for all the territories; and, 
 could he have been permitted to carry out his own 
 plans, he would have secured not only the freedom of 
 the territories, but would also have consummated all 
 
the great national measures of the party that brought 
 him into power. JMr. Clay threw the first stumbling- 
 block in his way, by his compromise scheme. This, 
 alone, might have been surmounted. But Mr. Web 
 ster s apostasy, on the seventh of March, turned the 
 tide of battle. It broke up General Taylor s phalanx, 
 botb north and south. It roused the drooping and 
 just yielding spirits of the slave power to frantic exer 
 tion. An enemy on the field General Taylor was al 
 ways ready to meet ; but he was not prepared for 
 treachery in his own camp. Still, he maintained his 
 ground resolutely, until struck down by the power that 
 conquers the conquerors. There are many who be 
 lieve it was Mr. Webster s perfidy, with the nameless 
 labors and anxieties that came in its train, which 
 caused General Taylor s death. It remains to be seen 
 whether the political Macbeth shall succeed to the 
 IVinquo he spirited away, though all the "weird" 
 brethren of the slave mart and of the " Union and 
 Safety Committees" still tempt him onward by their 
 incantations. 
 
 But it was under the circumstances of General Tay 
 lor s nomination, and not of his death, that a portion 
 of the Free Soilers parted company with the Whigs; 
 as another portion did with the Democrats, because of 
 General Cass s avowed subserviency to the south, and 
 the conduct of all men is to be judged by the circum 
 stances contemporary with their acts, and not subse 
 quent to them. 
 
 If. however, there are those who judge of motives 
 by results, this certainly can be said in vindication of 
 the Free Soil party, that the now acting President of the 
 United States, who came in on General Taylor s ticket, 
 and is now completing his presidential term, has done 
 more for slavery than the Free Soil party ever pre 
 dicted or feared would or could be done by the candi 
 dates whom they opposed. Even now, when the third 
 
548 
 
 year of the presidential term is but half spent, the 
 Whig administration, aided by many leaders in the 
 Whig party, is carrying out, with a relentless hand, and 
 a more relentless heart, worse pro-slavery measures 
 than the Free Soil party ever charged upon them 
 during the canvass, or ever believed or conceived they 
 could commit. 
 
 Such was the position of affairs in Massachusetts in 
 1848, when, almost for the first time within the mem 
 ory of man, the Whigs failed, at the polls, to elect 
 electors of President and Vice President. 
 
 Let us dwell for a moment on that crisis. It was 
 during the canvass of 1848 that the Whigs became so 
 amorous towards the rank and file of the Free Soil 
 party. No knight-errant ever protested more fidelity, 
 or vowed to do more valorous deeds in his mistress 
 cause. Than some of them, no dove ever cooed with 
 a sweeter gurgle. Than others, no stag ever offended 
 with a ranker breath. They wooed them by daylight, 
 by moonlight, and by torchlight. They swore belief 
 not only in all the Free Soil scriptures, but in the tra 
 ditions of its rabbins. The Ordinance of 87 they 
 loved ; the Wilmot proviso they loved better ; and 
 would the coy damsel of Free Soilism but consent to 
 the affiance, the abolition of slavery in the District of 
 Columbia should gladden the espousals. Every Whig 
 rally, from ward and school district meetings to mon 
 ster mass meetings, resounded with Mr. Webster s slogan, 
 or war-cry, " No more slave states ! No more slave rep 
 resentation in the Congress of the United States ! " 
 The Boston Daily Advertiser, the Courier, and the 
 Journal, which are now south of South Carolina, in 
 the impiety of the grounds on which they defend the 
 wrongs and the aggressions of slavery, and shout on 
 slave hunts over Pilgrim burial grounds, all gave 
 back the cry, with three times three, " No more slave 
 states ! No more slave representation in the Congress 
 
M9 
 
 of the United States ! " At all their conventions, the 
 Whigs " resolved and re-resolved," and but I hope \ve 
 may not be compelled to finish the line. You were 
 told there was no more need of a Free Soil party in 
 Massachusetts than of two suns in the heavens. The 
 Whigs were the true Free Soilers ; they held Free 
 Soilism as a hereditament, or as an heir-loom long 
 possessed by the ancient family of the Whigs. Even 
 Mr. Webster, who had very much withdrawn from 
 public gaze after the Philadelphia convention, and who, 
 like Achilles, sat "sulking in his tent" and musing 
 over the lost Briseis of a nomination, was at last 
 tempted, by a succession of brilliant retaining fees, to 
 come forth and reason with these recusant and contu 
 macious Free Soilers face to face. And what did he 
 say ? Addressing himself distinctively to Free Soilers, 
 he said, " If, my friends, the term Free Soil party, 
 or Free Soil men, is meant to designate one who has 
 been fixed, unalterable, to-day, yesterday, and for some 
 time past, in opposition to slavery extension, then I 
 may claim to be, and may hold myself, as good a Free 
 Soil man as any member of that Buffalo convention. 
 I pray to know where is their soil freer than that on 
 which I have stood ? I pray to know what words 
 they can use, or can dictate to me, freer than those 
 which have dwelt upon my lips. I pray to know with 
 what feelings they can inspire my breast more resolute 
 and firm in resisting slavery EXTENSION OR ENCROACH 
 MENT than have inhabited my bosom since the first 
 time I opened my mouth in public life." 
 
 These, gentlemen, were his words, spoken at Marsh- 
 field, on the first day of September, 1848. If he 
 were here to-day to address you, could he speak any 
 words more grateful to your ears ? If only truth and 
 a heart were in that language, could he speak any thing 
 better ? 
 
 It was by such false pretences as these that thou- 
 
550 
 
 sands, and I doubt not tens of thousands, of men 
 wholly penetrated and imbued with Free Soil princi 
 ples, were kept in the Whig ranks. I was one of them. 
 I had faith in men ; and I have it still, with im 
 portant exceptions however. The needle points to 
 the pole ; but if you bring a huge black mass of pig 
 iron and place by its side, it trembles, yet deviates, 
 like a man struggling to be virtuous before overwhelm 
 ing temptations. Remove the disturbing force, and it 
 returns to its fidelity. So, when the next presidential 
 election is over, I believe the great body of the rank and 
 file of the Whig" party in Massachusetts will return to 
 their duty ; for I venture to say, that if the Whigs of 
 Massachusetts, in November, 1848, could have foreseen 
 the present position of their party, and the demorali 
 zation which its leaders have been able to work in it, 
 not one third of them, no, not one quarter of them, 
 could have been induced to vote the ticket that elected 
 Mr. Fillmore, brought in the present cabinet, and 
 brought on the present disastrous policy. 
 
 But, gentlemen, I am occupying too much of your 
 time. I will add but a few more words. I said the 
 address and resolutions of the Whig State Convention, 
 held at Springfield, last week, brought me here. I have 
 read them with profound sorrow. It was the first Whig 
 convention that ever met in Massachusetts that did 
 not at least put forth some noble doctrines in favor of 
 freedom, whether they meant to stand by them or not. 
 Yes, even the convention of 1850, only one year 
 ago, passed the following : 
 
 "Resolved, That Massachusetts avows her unalterable de 
 termination to maintain all the principles and purposes she has 
 in times past affirmed and reaffirmed, in relation to the ex 
 tension of slavery." 
 
 And yet the late convention, the first one that has 
 met since the resolution which I have just read was 
 
551 
 
 adopted, has endorsed the present administration, which 
 has done more to corrupt and deaden public sentiment 
 at the north, as to the wrongs of slavery to the en 
 slaved, and its injury to the free, and to aggrandize the 
 pro-slavery south, and foster and encourage, ay, and 
 reward its aggressions; has done more, I say, than 
 any other administration that ever existed under this 
 government. History will bear me out in this state 
 ment. Yet, at this crisis in human affairs, the one 
 idea, the master purpose of the address and resolutions 
 of that convention, seems to have been, to disparage 
 and depreciate the great, eternal principles of freedom, 
 and to bring odium and contempt upon the only party 
 now organized for their support. 
 
 Gentlemen, the Whig leaders, in this respect, and in 
 regard to this most important and paramount attribute 
 of the Whig party, have lurched and lurched round, 
 until they have got into the very trough of the pro- 
 slavery sea. Its members, I admit, are free to follow 
 them to their ruin, if they will ; but free, too, I thank 
 God. to go on in their old course, steering for the haven 
 of honor and liberty. I give the great majority even 
 of the Whig leaders the credit of having yielded to 
 this pressure reluctantly, and under what they deemed 
 a sort of political duress; for, gentlemen, a new and 
 most alarming fact in the history of the Whig party of 
 this country has been developed within the last two 
 years. It is this: formerly, and universally, the Whig 
 administration was supposed to be chosen to carry out 
 the views of the Whig party ; but the present admin 
 istration, having abandoned the grounds on which it 
 obtained power, and having, for its own purposes, 
 taken new grounds, now demands of the Whig party 
 to carry out, not the old policy of the Whigs, but 
 the new policy of the administration. 
 
 Fellow-citizens, could Mr. Fillmore by any possi 
 bility have been elected, in 1848 ; could he have 
 
552 
 
 got so many as ten thousand votes among all the 
 Whigs of the Northern States, had his present attitude 
 on the subject of slavery been foreseen ? 
 
 Was there ever an hour when Mr. Webster could 
 have obtained one tenth part, one fiftieth part, of 
 the votes of the Massachusetts legislature for the office 
 of senator, had the curtain of the future been lifted 
 up, and his present position been revealed ? You 
 know there never was. But, during the year 1850, 
 without any initial change, or symptom of a change, on 
 the part of northern Whigs, the administration, prompt 
 ed by its own purposes, or yielding from its own weak 
 ness, faced square about ; and ever since that time it 
 has been striving, by all the lures of patronage and 
 the terrors of denunciation, to force the Whigs of the 
 north on to a kind of political turn-table, like those 
 railroad turn-tables you see at a car-house, so that the 
 whole party, too, should be faced square about, made 
 to retrace their course, by going backward among the 
 same people who had seen them go forward, shouting 
 down all they had shouted up, and forswearing all the 
 glorious doctrines of liberty to which the whole world 
 had heard them swear. Gentlemen, if, in this stress 
 of circumstances, any body asks me, " Where shall I 
 go ? " my reply is, Don t get on to that political turn 
 table which the administration has prepared for the 
 Whig party, and not the Whig party for the adminis 
 tration ; for it will carry your country to ruin, and 
 yourself to dishonor. 
 
 During the canvass last autumn for a member of 
 Congress for the eighth district, when, as you all know, 
 there were such "godlike " exertions made against my 
 election, I was asked, as a test question, by numbers 
 of most respectable members of the Whig party, 
 what I thought of the Free Soil party, and their pro 
 posed coalition at that time. I replied to them in the 
 following words, and my answer is now on record in 
 
553 
 
 the hands of my constituents : " I say, as I have 
 often said, that, if the Whigs will live up to their pro 
 fessions a hundred times made, I see no reason or 
 warrant for separate organizations or coalitions. But 
 if the great body of the Whigs mean to belie all their 
 professions, and to persecute and punish all who remain 
 faithful to the lessons which the Whig party itself has 
 been teaching so strenuously for so many years, then 
 what true Whig can blame any man for attempting to 
 carry out what the Whigs themselves have promised to 
 do, but have abandoned ? " 
 
 But the Massachusetts Whig State Convention at that 
 time passed the most pointed and emphatic resolution, 
 affirming anew what they avowed themselves to have 
 affirmed and reaffirmed so often before, on the subject 
 of slavery. I reposed trust in their honesty ; I be 
 lieved in their veracity ; and, as a consequence of my 
 faith, I voted the entire Whig state ticket. Having 
 read their last address and resolutions, I must now say, 
 that if they desire any more votes of mine, they must 
 revive my faith by some new evidence of their good 
 works. 
 
 Let me advert to a few of the more salient points in 
 that address. It labors to sustain a charge of coalition 
 against the Free Soil party. Well, before I either 
 approve or condemn a " coalition," I must know by 
 whom, and for what purpose, it was formed. A coali 
 tion, I suppose, like other acts, must be right or wrong 
 according to the motive that prompts it. 
 
 But it is said the Free Soil party formed an alliance 
 with those who, on some important points, had no 
 sympathy with it. And where is this said ? Why, 
 in a land where our revolutionary fathers, fighting for 
 freedom and for a republic, formed an alliance or coa 
 lition with monarchical and despotic France, and with 
 monarchical and despotic Spain. What were the 
 points of resemblance or unison between the American 
 47 
 
554 
 
 Confederation on the one side, and France or Spain 
 on the other ? In government, in policy, in manners, 
 in education, in religion, nothing could have been more 
 different. In what did they agree ? In hostility to 
 Great Britain alone ; but not in a single one of the rea 
 sons for that hostility, nor in but one of the objects to 
 be accomplished by it, the humiliation of a haughty 
 and overbearing power. 
 
 At the same time, Great Britain formed coalitions 
 with the North American savages, to extinguish the 
 rising dawn of freedom. And in this they have been 
 too faithfully imitated by the old hunkers of both par 
 ties ; imitated, I say, not only in the object and 
 spirit of the coalition, but in the weapons with which 
 the warfare is waged. Yes, fellow-citizens ; for there 
 is an attempt, and that attempt is to be followed up, 
 to overwhelm the Free Soil party by obloquy and de 
 nunciation. There is to be a cry of "bargain and 
 corruption " to put down the Free Soil party, just as 
 the administration of Mr. John Q,uincy Adams was put 
 down by the same cry. Who now believes any thing 
 about the charge of " bargain and corruption " against 
 Mr. Adams, except that it was a villanous charge ? 
 I believe the same charge against the Free Soil party 
 will have come, twenty years hence, to the same re 
 sult, that of conferring honor upon its object, and 
 infamy upon its authors. 
 
 But it is said the Free Soil party have seized the 
 offices and emoluments of the state. I was absent 
 last January at the time of the organization of the 
 state government ; but I have heard that those who 
 were distinctively called Free Soilers received only 
 the office of secretary of state, and president of the 
 senate, and two or three out of the nine councillors ; 
 all of them nearly or quite without patronage. I sup 
 pose all their emoluments combined would not equal 
 what is received by the Boston postmaster, or the col- 
 
555 
 
 lector of the Boston port. Vast " ways and means " 
 these for the corruption of the people ! The whole of 
 them would not suffice a cabinet officer for a bonne 
 bouche or a tidbit. 
 
 And now I suggest a further point. Was there 
 a single Free Soiler who received an office last winter, 
 on what is called the division of the spoils, which the 
 people, when they voted for him at the polls, did not 
 desire and mean that he should receive ? 
 
 Now, I need not say that when men conspire or 
 coalesce for a selfish purpose, whether that purpose be 
 office, or emolument, or the profits of trade, or the 
 increase of dividends, and especially if they sacrifice 
 great principles of public utility, or morality, or re 
 ligion, for. the selfish end, I condemn the deed with 
 my whole heart. So when representatives, or agents 
 of any kind, are elected or appointed for special pur 
 poses, and by votes or influences without which they 
 could not have obtained their posts, and then, for their 
 own ambitious or mercenary objects, they coalesce to 
 defeat the will of their constituents, any severity of 
 language, in holding up their conduct to reprobation, 
 may be used with my full consent. Precisely of this 
 nature was the coalition between Mr. Webster and 
 General Cass, to carry through the compromise meas 
 ures and the Fugitive Slave bill. Both were agents, 
 both betrayed and violated the will of their principals. 
 Could Mr. Eliot, of Boston, have been elected to Con 
 gress, had he avowed his intention to vote for the Fu 
 gitive Slave bill ? Every body knows he could not. 
 Yet he coalesced with the secessionists, Messrs. Cl ing- 
 man and Venable, of North Carolina, and with the 
 whole South Carolina disunion delegation, in voting 
 for the Fugitive Slave bill. For Massachusetts, it was 
 said that the passage of that bill would raise the price 
 of manufacturing stocks ; as, for North Carolina, it 
 would increase the profits of negro-breeding. Here, 
 
556 
 
 then, are cases of coalition between persons mutually 
 hostile on other points ; and all the northern members 
 engaged in it, not to carry out, but to defeat, the will 
 of their constituents. 
 
 But the coalition entered into by the Free Soil party 
 in this state, last year, was a coalition planned, formed, 
 sanctioned, and executed, as far as they could execute 
 it, by the people themselves, acting in their original, 
 sovereign capacity, at their primary meetings, and at 
 the ballot box. It was not originated by representa 
 tives against the wishes of their constituents ; but the 
 representatives carried out what the people who chose 
 them willed. What conclusively proves this to be so 
 is, that the people who elected these representatives 
 were satisfied with what they did ; and, since the work 
 has been done, have shown their approval of it in every 
 practicable way. 
 
 There may be wrong motives prompting to the most 
 useful and beneficent acts, as good motives sometimes 
 lead to the most pernicious conduct ; but I am speak 
 ing of these acts of alleged coalition which were insti 
 tuted by the people themselves, discussed in their 
 hearing at all the primary meetings and all the con 
 ventions, and afterwards ratified by their votes ; and 
 I say, to compare such a coalition with that which took 
 place between Whigs and Democrats in the Senate of 
 the United States, and between unionists and disunion- 
 ists, slave-breeders and manufacturers, in the House, to 
 carry through the compromise bills and the Fugitive 
 Slave bill, seems to me illogical, preposterous, and ab 
 surd. But it is said that the bargain in the one case 
 was open and public ; and that its terms were reduced 
 to writing, like a bond or covenant between indi 
 viduals. Is it any the worse for that? Had you not 
 as lief have an open bargain that you can see, as secret 
 ones, like the Texas stock bargains, that you cannot 
 see ? I suppose that coalitions can be implied and 
 
557 
 
 understood, as well as contracts. Why, have you not 
 seen such an implied coalition carried out in Faneuil 
 Hal! \v i thin a year, when the Hon. Benjamin F. Hal- 
 lett led on his cohorts, and the Hon. Rufus Choate 
 advanced his forces to join them ; when Mr. Benjamin 
 R. Curtis joined hands with Mr. David Henshuw, \vlu> 
 was present by letter, if not in person, honorable 
 men all, and formed one of the most loving and 
 harmonious coalitions out of as heterogeneous and 
 repulsive elements as ever chaos jumbled together, 
 a coalition not to lift the bleeding form of liberty up, 
 but to crush it down. 
 
 The coalition entered into by the Free Soilers cer 
 tainly did one thing which would atone for many 
 errors. They elected Mr. Charles Sumner to the 
 Senate of the United States. And I cannot believe 
 there is a man to be found in any party so shameless 
 and depraved as to charge Mr. Sumner with any dis 
 honorable coalescing, or with being tainted, in a hair 
 of his head or in a filament of his garments, with 
 bargain and corruption." Mr. Sumner was not 
 elected on any principle of availability, but on the 
 principle of "Detur digniori" "Let it be given to 
 the most worthy." His lofty pedestal is too firm to be 
 shaken by any such accusation. His character is not. 
 to be affected by any office which he shall hold, but 
 only by what he does, whether in office or out of it. 
 
 While defending, in this way, the principle of coa 
 litions, when formed by the people themselves, no 
 one, of course, could be understood as pledging him 
 self to vote for all their measures. This would be 
 the old and wicked partisan principle of standing by 
 our party, right or wrong. I am also free to say that 
 there is, in my opinion, aprimafacie objection against 
 coalitions ; but I cannot doubt the existence of cases 
 where they are not only justifiable, but laudable. I lay 
 down this great principle : I think the Free Soil party 
 47* 
 
558 
 
 should act at any time, on any point, with any party 
 through whom they can help the cause of freedom. 
 
 The Whig address remarks as follows : " We arc 
 DOW able to say, after the experience of nearly a 
 twelvemonth, that it, [the administration,] has fully 
 earned the confidence which we awarded to it in 
 advance. The great interests of the country have 
 been faithfully cared for ! " I ask, What great inter 
 ests of the country have been faithfully cared for ? 
 What interest of the Whig party, assuming to be the 
 country, has been faithfully cared for ? Have we got 
 a tariff? Mr. Webster dissipated all chance of that 
 for the present, and I fear for years to come, when he 
 taught the south to threaten and prevail. Have we 
 any river and harbor appropriations ? Alas ! northern 
 capital and northern lives still go to the bottom on 
 our western waters. Is the financial policy of the 
 country changed ? Let the condition of the money 
 market for the last few months, and also its prospective 
 condition, grinding the middle classes of tradesmen 
 and manufacturers as between the upper and nether 
 millstone, answer this question. A reform in all these 
 particulars would doubtless have been affected but for 
 Mr. Webster s apostasy ; but where are these reforms 
 now ? If they exist at all, they exist in some indefi 
 nite future. What interest of the country, then, has 
 been faithfully cared for or secured ? Not one ! 
 Not one ! The most prominent member of the ad 
 ministration has been engaged in carrying out the 
 policy of the south, in visiting southern cities to 
 pander to the slave power, and northern cities to 
 stifle the spirit of freedom. Two armed expeditions 
 have been fitted out in our own ports against the 
 territory of a government with which we are at peace, 
 resulting in the loss of hundreds of lives, while the 
 President and his first secretary have been spending 
 their time gayly at watering-places. When some of 
 
559 
 
 our citizens, a few years ago, afforded some assistance 
 to the " Liberals " of Canada, in favor of a movement 
 which Canadians themselves had already set on foot, 
 the government promptly and energetically interfered. 
 But Canada and Cuba are wider apart politically than 
 they are geographically. Slavery makes the difference 
 between them. 
 
 The only valorous exploit of this administration 
 was the issuing of a proclamation, when one southern 
 slave, from among three millions, escaped from the 
 house of bondage, and found that protection under 
 the British ensign which was denied to him by the 
 American flag, and that right to a trial by jury under 
 a monarchy which was denied to him by a republic. 
 Or, if any other act should be added to the preceding, 
 it was the President s letter to Dr. Collins, of Georgia, 
 offering the use of the army and navy of the United 
 States to catch one poor white woman, Ellen Crafts, 
 and her husband, and return them to bondage. 
 
 In another passage of the Whig address all disguise 
 is cast off, and it is openly declared, that the giving 
 of an extra slave state to Texas, with territory enough 
 for half a dozen more as large as Massachusetts, and 
 ten millions of dollars in addition to that, and the 
 statutory permission that slavery may go into New 
 Mexico and Utah, and even that abhorred enactment, 
 the Fugitive Slave law, are only " factitious and im 
 aginary " grounds of complaint. The Free Soil party 
 is condemned because it takes any notice of such 
 "factitious and imaginary" causes. A three-penny 
 tax on tea was a real grievance, one fit to be resisted 
 unto blood, to be historically recorded, and to which 
 we are not ashamed to refer when descanting upon 
 the honor of our fathers. But such largesses to slavery 
 as kings could not afford to give, and the robbery of 
 an entire race of all its rights, yes. and with au 
 thority, too, to make us help commit the robbery, 
 
560 
 
 these are "factitious and imaginary" causes of dissat 
 isfaction. Men of Massachusetts ! moral and religious 
 men ! lovers of freedom and of your country, were 
 you prepared for this ? 
 
 But the address goes still further. It goes into an 
 elaborate palliation of the Fugitive Slave law itself. 
 It first attempts to shift the question by asking the 
 Free Soilers what they would do with regard to the 
 constitutional provision respecting escaped slaves. The 
 views of the Free Soil party on this point, and their 
 purpose of fidelity to the constitution, have been set 
 forth a hundred times. In further answer, therefore, 
 to this question, I trust it is only necessary to remark, 
 that the Free Soil party will do what they say, and 
 not pass ten long years in asserting, and protesting, 
 and resolving, and calling Earth and Heaven to witness 
 their devotion to Freedom, and then disavow all they 
 had ever avowed, and forswear their oaths. 
 
 Let me read to you the disparaging and contemptu 
 ous remark of the address on that great palladium of 
 human liberty, the trial by jury. "Is nothing meant," 
 it gravely asks, "but the substitution of the verdict 
 of a jury for the decision of a judge." Nothing but 
 what? "The verdict of a jury for the decision 
 of a judge," that is, of a commissioner! And are the 
 persons who prepared that address so nearly stone 
 blind as not to recognize the infinite difference be 
 tween the verdict of a jury and the decisions of such 
 commissioners as Messrs. Ingraham, Smith, and Nel 
 son ? Ingraham, of Philadelphia, sent a man into 
 bondage whom the alleged claimant refused to receive 
 as soon as he saw him, knowing that all his family, 
 and all his slaves, and all his neighbors would see that 
 he had no right to him. Smith, of Buffalo, gave a 
 certificate to carry Daniel into slavery, when not a 
 single item, or particle, or tittle of legal and admissi 
 ble evidence was before him as proof, as was after- 
 
561 
 
 wards shown by Judge Conkling, of the United States 
 court. Nelson, of New York, forced the facts in 
 Bold ing s case to bring them within the law which 
 he himself had laid down, as much as ever a fraudu 
 lent book-keeper forced balances to cover an embezzle 
 ment. Sims, instead of having common-law notice 
 and time to send for evidence, was seized at night on 
 a false and trumped-up charge of stealing. Daniel 
 was knocked down by the claimant s agent with a 
 club, tumbled and tortured upon a hot stove, his scalp 
 torn open, and then compelled to go to trial, while, as 
 described by an eye witness, " he sat dozing, unable 
 to talk with his counsel, with the blood slowly oozing 
 out of his mouth and nostrils." Hamlet, Long, and 
 Bolding were sprung upon as remorselessly as a tiger 
 springs upon a lamb, and carried to trial without being 
 allowed to go to their respective homes to bid faqfwell 
 to their families. An alleged slave has lately been 
 taken from Pennsylvania who was seized in the night, 
 tried in the night, and carried away on the same 
 night, without any opportunity for preparation, for 
 counsel, or for defence. The kidnapper, Alberti, now 
 lies in a Pennsylvania prison for carrying away a 
 mother and her child ; but the mother and the child 
 are now groaning under the lash of a southern task 
 master. Had this villain, Alberti, and his accomplices 
 been detected while the victims were still in their 
 hands, I suppose he would have carried them before 
 Mr. Commissioner Ingraham, and had the wrong le 
 gally rectified, the blackness of the crime judicially 
 washed white. These are but specimens of what the 
 Fugitive Slave law has already done, before the public 
 mind has become familiarized with its brutalities, and 
 while there is yet some sensibility to the claims of 
 justice and mercy left among us. And yet the writer 
 of this address and the committee that offered it, ask 
 us whether all we mean is the substitution of the ver- 
 
562 
 
 diet of a jury for the decision of a commissioner. I 
 answer, that this difference which they so be-little and 
 disparage will often be all the difference between free 
 dom and bondage, between life and death, between 
 honor and infamy, between happiness and perdition. 
 
 And now, fellow-citizens, if, in addition to having 
 our northern freemen kidnapped in southern ports, and 
 imprisoned and sold into bondage ; if, in addition to 
 fighting for foreign territory to be added to the domain 
 of slavery ; if, in addition to being taxed, in sums of 
 millions and tens of millions, to fortify the slave 
 power; if, in addition to all this, we are to be de 
 prived and defrauded of that noble and venerable insti 
 tution, the trial by jury, an institution sanctified by 
 the blood of martyrs, hallowed by the prayers of 
 sainted patriots, held sacred by all good men, and 
 taught to their children like the living oracles of God ; 
 if this attempt is to be made, as the late Whig address 
 foreshadows, then I say, a more flagrant case of apos 
 tasy is nowhere to be found on the records of any his 
 tory, sacred or profane, since Satan broke into paradise 
 and Websterized our first parents. 
 
 I shall advert to but one more point in the address. 
 It speaks of the " pitiable humbug of ballot envelopes." 
 Now, gentlemen, I may be all wrong on this subject. 
 My instincts, reason, judgment, conscience, may all 
 mislead ; but from the first time, now years ago, 
 when I heard this subject broached, my instincts, rea 
 son, judgment, conscience, have all been in its favor. 
 Why, fellow-citizens, the ballot is worse than useless, 
 if it be not FREE ! Better be debarred from the privi 
 lege of voting at all, than to be mocked with the form, 
 while cheated of the substance. A southern slave 
 stands higher, politically, than a northern laborer, if the 
 latter must vote as his employer dictates. It may be 
 very well for an opulent man, one of vast fortune, who 
 is dependent on nobody, and so cares for nobody, who 
 
563 
 
 goes quarterly and takes his thonsands of dollars for 
 rents or dividends ; it may be very well for him to 
 laugh at the secret ballot, and call it a " humbug ; " but 
 let us look at the other end of the scale. Let ns look 
 in the thousands of day-laborers, of workmen on cor 
 poration grounds, of dependent clerks, of subordinates 
 at custom-houses and other public offices, and so forth, 
 who have no capital but their industry, no resources 
 but their daily earnings, who have an aged mother or 
 dependent sisters to support, or a family of children to 
 be fed, clothed, and educated ; who may be turned out 
 even of the humble tenements where they live, as 
 winter is coming on ; who may be refused promotion 
 or advancement in their work and in their wages ; and 
 in regard to some of whom the wolf of hunger sits 
 growling at the door ; let us look at these, I say, and 
 then answer the question, whether they ought not to 
 be protected in voting according to their judgment and 
 conscience. The liberty of voting includes all other 
 liberties. The man of independent circumstances has 
 this liberty ; and no man s circumstances, not even the 
 poorest and the humblest, should be so dependent as to 
 take it away. 
 
 I do not desire this secret ballot law for myself. I 
 like to lay my ballot in the box, face upwards, looking 
 heavenward ; looking the Paul Prys who hover round, 
 full in the eye ; but I am willing and glad to put that 
 ballot in an envelope, in order to protect my poor neigh 
 bor, the bread of whose mouth, the shelter of whose 
 family, and the education of whose children, may de 
 pend upon the vote he gives. Ay, I go further. I 
 should think that any high-minded man, any man hav 
 ing proper sensibilities respecting his relations to his 
 social inferiors, would rejoice in such a law as this ; 
 because it would take away all ground of accusation 
 or imputation that he would do so unrighteous and 
 
564 
 
 dastardly a deed as to invade a dependant s right of 
 voting as it might seem to him good. 
 
 Gentlemen, it is said, in one of the Springfield reso 
 lutions, that the last legislature cost the state an extra 
 fifty thousand dollars. Whether it did or not is riot 
 of any very vast importance ; though I confess I have 
 a great respect for Poor Richard s economy, and 
 would save all that I could. But does not the very 
 mention of this sum of fifty thousand remind one of 
 another sum, almost precisely the same, which was 
 spent last year on one of Mr. Sumner s predecessors in 
 the senatorial office ? And if it cost fifty thousand 
 dollars for a ticket to pass Mr. Webster out of the Sen 
 ate, it was surely worth as much for a ticket to pass 
 Mr. Sumner in. 
 
 Gentlemen, I close by remarking that it is in view 
 of these great questions of human freedom, in view 
 of the solemn responsibility in which we stand to our 
 country and to posterity, that we have assembled here 
 to-day. May this meeting prove to be a concentration 
 of rays of scattered light and wisdom, meeting and 
 burning in a focus, and then sending back illumination 
 and cheering to all the parts of our beloved common 
 wealth. If, in my humble way, I can do any thing to 
 promote so glorious an object, my services are at your 
 disposal. 
 
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