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Gerrit Smith Broadside and Pamphlet Collection

No slavery in Nebraska : no slavery in the nation : slavery an outlaw /...

Smith, Gerrit, 1797-1874.

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This digitization project was supported by Regional Bibliographic Databases and Interlibrary Resources Sharing Program funds, awarded by the New York State Library.

Call number: Smith 487

SPEECH

of

GERRIT SMITH,

ON

THE NEBRASKA BILL.

IN CONGRESS, APRIL 6, 1854.

So, Mr. CHAIRMAN, the slavery question is up again! - up again, even in Congress!! It will not keep down. At no bidding, however authoritative, will it keep down. The President of the United States commands it to keep down. Indeed, he has, hitherto, seemed to make the keeping down of this question the great end of his great office. Members of Congress have so far humbled themselves, as to pledge themselves on this floor to keep it down. National political conventions promise to discountenance, and even to resist, the agitation of slavery, both in and out of Congress. Commerce and politics are as afraid of this agitation, as Macbeth was of the ghost of Banquo; and many titled divines, taking their cue from commerce and politics, and being no less servile than merchants and demagogues, do what they can to keep the slavery question out of sight. But all is of no avail. The saucy slavery question will not mind them. To repress it in one quarter, is only to have it burst forth more prominently in another quarter. If you hold it back here, it will break loose there, and rush forward with an accumulated force, that shall amply revenge for all its detention. And this is not strange, when we consider how great is the power of truth. It were madness for man to bid the grass not to grow, the waters not to run, the winds not to blow. It were madness for him to assume the mastery of the elements of the physical world. But more emphatically were it madness for him to attempt to hold in his puny fist the forces of the moral world. Canute's folly, in setting bounds to the sea, was wisdom itself, compared with the so much greater folly of attempting to subjugate the moral forces. Now, the power which is, ever and anon, throwing up the slavery question into our unwilling and affrighted faces, is truth. The passion-blinded and the infatuated may not discern this mighty agent. Nevertheless, Truth lives and reigns forever; and she will be, continually, unsettled questions. We must bear in mind, too, that every question, which has not been disposed of in conformity with her requirements, and which has not been laid to repose on her own blesses bosom, is an unsettled question.

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Hence, slavery is an unsettled question; and must continue such, until it shall have fled forever from the presence of liberty. It must be an entirely unsettled question, because, not only is it not in harmony with truth, but there is not one particle of truth in it. Slavery is the baldest and biggest lie on earth. In reducing man to a chattel, it denies that man is man ; and, in denying, that man is man, it denies, that God is God - for, in His own image, made He man - the black man and the red man, as well as the white man. Distorted as are our minds by prejudice, and shrivelled as are our souls by the spirit of caste, this essential equality of the varieties of the human family may not be apparent to us all. Were we delivered from this prejudice, and this spirit, much of the darkness, which now obscures our vision, would be scattered. In proportion as we obey the truth, are we able to discern the truth. And if all, that is wrong within us, were made. And not only would our darkness give place to a cloudless light, but, like the angel of the Apocalypse, we should stand in the sun.

But to my argument. I am opposed to the bill for organizing the Territories of Nebraska and Kansas, which has come to us from the Senate, because, in the first place, it insults colored men, and the Maker of all men, by limiting suffrage to white men. I am opposed, to it, because, in the second place, it limits suffrage to persons, who have acquired citizenship. The man, who comes to us from a foreign land, and declares his intention to make his home among us, and acts in harmony with such declaration, is well entitled to vote with us. He has given one great evidence of possessing an American heart, which our native could not give. For, whilst our native became an American by the accident of birth, the emigrant became one by choice. For, whilst our native may be an American, not from any preference for America, the emigrant has proved, that he prefers our country to every other.

I am opposed to the bill, in the third place, because, it is so drawn, as to convey the deceptive idea, (I do not say intentionally deceptive,) that the bill recognizes the doctrine of non-intervention. I call it deceptive idea: for, in point of

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fact, the bill does not recognize the doctrine o non-intervention. It dictates to the territories the form of their government, and denies to them the appointing of their principal officers: The bill is, itself, therefore, the most emphatic intervention. One-hundredth as much intervention on the part of the Federal Government with a State Government, would be condemned as outrageous and intolerable intervention.

But I must be frank, and admit, that, if the bill did really recognize the doctrine of non-intervention, I should still be opposed to it - ay, and for that, very reason. This whole doctrine of Congressional non-intervention with our territories I regard as perfectly absurd. Congressional intervention with them is an imperative and unavoidable duty. The reasoning to this end is simple and irresistible. The people of the United States acquire a territory. Being theirs, they are responsible for its conduct and character: - and, being thus responsible, they not only have the right, but are absolutely bound, to govern the territory. So long as the territory is theirs, they can no more abdicate sovereignty over it than a State can abdicate sovereignty over one of its counties. But the people of the United States govern through Congress; and, hence, in respect to what is the people's, there must be Congressional intervention. In the nature of the case, this must be so. But the Constitution also shows, that it must be so. The Constitution declares the fact of the government of the Nation by itself; and it also recognizes the fact of the government of a State by itself. But, nowhere, does it so much, as hint at the government of a territory by itself, On the contrary, it expressly subjects the regulation or government of territories, to Congress, or, in other words, to the whole people of the United States.

I add, incidentally, that, in the light of the fact of the American people's responsibility for the conduct and character of their territories, it is absurd to claim, that New Mexico and Utah are to be exempt from slavery, because the Mexican Government had abolished slavery. Whether there can be legal slavery in those territories turns solely on the character of the Constitution - turns solely on the question, whether that paper is anti-slavery or pro-slavery. Again, in the light of this same fact, we see how absurd it is to claim, that there could, under the continued force of the French or Spanish laws, be slavery in the territory of Louisiana, after we had acquired it. If, after such acquisition, there was, or could be, legal slavery in the territory, it was solely because the Constitution - the only law, which then attached to the territory - authorized it. What, if when we had acquired the territory, there had been in it, among the creatures of French, or Spanish, or other law, the suttee, or cannibalism, would it not have been held, that these abominations were repugnant to the Constitution, and, therefore, without legal existence? Certainly.

I spoke of the Constitution, as the only law, which attaches to our territories. I was justified in this, because it is the only law of the people of the United States, when they are taken as a whole, or a unit. When regarded in sections,

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they have other laws also. The people of a State have the laws of their State, as well as the laws of their Nation. But, I repeat it, the people of the United States, when viewed as one, have no other law than the Constitution. Their Congress and judiciary can know no other law. The statutes of the one and the decisions of the other trust be but applications and interpretations of this one organic law.

Another incidental remark, is, that it is wrong to charge the opponents of this bill with denying and dishonoring the doctrine of "popular cover sovereignty." Holding, as we do, that to the people the whole people - of the United States belong both the lands and the sovereignty of their territories, we insist, that to shut them out from governing their territories, would be to deny and dishonor the doctrine of "popular sovereignty." It is the friends of the bill, who, provided it is, as they claim, a bill for non-intervention, that are to be charged with violating the doctrine of "popular sovereignty," and the principles and genius of democracy. I close, under this head, with saying, that should real non-intervention obtain in regard to these territories, it would be a very great and very astonishing change from our present policy. The inhabitants of a territory have no vote in Congress. Nevertheless, real non-intervention would vest them with the exclusive disposal of important affairs, which are, now, at the exclusive disposal of Congress. It would compensate them for their present political disabilities with an amount of political power greatly exceeding that enjoyed by an equal handful of the people of a State.

To prevent misapprehension of my views, I add, that I am not opposed to making inhabitants of the territory officers of the territory. As far as practicable, I would have none others for its officers. But, whilst the territory is the nation's, all its officers should be acknowledged to be officers and servants of. the nation.

I proceed to say, that I am opposed to this bill, in the fourth place, because it looks to the existence of slavery in these territories, and provides safeguards for it. In other words, Congress does, by the terms of the bill, open the door for slavery to enter these territories. The right of Congress to do so I deny. I deny it, however, not because the compromise of 1820 denies it. Believing that compromise to be invalid, I cannot honestly claim anything under it. I disclaim all rights under it, for the simple reason, that a compromise conceived in sin and brought forth in iniquity, can impart no rights - for the simple reason, that a compromise, which annihilates rights, cannot create rights. I admit, that the compromise of 1820 concedes the indestructibleness of manhood north of the line of 36 30', excepting in Missouri. But, on the other hand, it atones for this concession to truth and justice by impliedly leaving men south of that line, and in Missouri, to be classed with brutes and things. I admit, too, that they, who are enjoying the sham of slavery under this compromises, and who, now, that freedom was about to enter into the enjoyment of her share under it - I admit, I say at they are estopped from joining me in pronouncing

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the Missouri compromise invalid. They must first surrender their share under the compromise - they must first make restitution to Freedom - ere they can, with clean hands and unblushing faces, ask her to forego the enjoyment of her share. "But this condition is impracticable!" will some of my hearers say. Oh no! nothing is impracticable, that is right. Exclude slavery from Missouri and Arkansas for thirty-four years; and then freedom and slavery will be on an equal footing, and they can make a new bargain. [Laughter.]

Nor do I deny the right of Congress to open the door for slavery into these territories, because the compromise of 1850 virtually denies it. I say that compromise virtually denies it, because it distinctly and approvingly recognizes the compromise of 1820. The compromise of 1850 is as rotten as the compromise of 1820; and as incapable of imparting rights. And here let me say, that I rejoice to see the pro-slavery party pouring express contempt on the compromise of 1820, and virtual contempt on the compromise of 1850. And why should not all men pour contempt upon these compromises, and upon all other compromises, which aim "to split the difference" between God and the devil? [Great laughter.] By the way, we have striking proof, in the instance of this bill, that, in the case of such compromises, God's share and all are, in the end, very like to be claimed for the devil. [Renewed laughter.]

I have said on what grounds it is not, that I deny the right of Congress to open the door for slavery into these territories. I will now say on what ground it is. I deny it on the ground, that the Constitution, the only law of the territories, is not in favor of slavery, and that slavery cannot be set up under it. If there can be lawful slavery in the States, nevertheless there cannot be in the territories.

In the fifth and last place, I am opposed to the bill, because it allows, that there may be slavery in the States, which shall be formed from these territories.

Hitherto, when the slavery question has been brought up in Congress, it has been alleged, (I say not how truly or untruly,) that the antislavery party has brought it up, and for the purpose of checking slavery. But, now, it is, confessedly on all hands, brought up by the pro-slavery party,and for the purpose of extending slavery. In this instance, the pro-slavery party is, manifestly, the instrument, which truth has wielded to subserve her purpose of re-awakening the public mind to the demands and enormities of slavery. Most sincerely do I rejoice, that the pro-slavery party is responsible for the present agitation.

A MEMBER. I do not admit, that it is.

Mr. SMITH. Strange! Here is a movement for the immense extension of slavery. Of course, it is not the work of the anti-slavery party. And if the honorable member, who has just interrupted me, is authorized to speak for the pro-slavery party, it is not the work of that party either. I took it for granted, that the pro-slavery party did it. But, it seems it did not. It puts on the innocent air of a Macbeth, and looks me in the

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face, and exclaims: "Thou canst not say I did it!" [Laughter.] Well, if neither the antislavery party, nor the pro-slavery party, did it, who was it, then, that did it? It follows, necessarily, that it must be the work of the Lord, or the devil. [Laughter.] But, it cannot be the work of the Lord - for the good book tells us "Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty" - liberty, not slavery. So, this Nebraska business must be the work of the devil. [Great laughter.] But logical as is this conclusion, I am, evertheless, too polite to press it. I prefer to repudiate the alternative, that puts the responsibility on the Lord or the devil; and to return to my original assertion, that the pro-slavery party, and not the anti-slavery party, is responsible for the present agitation. - Do not understand, that I would not have the anti-slavery party agitate. I would have it agitate, and agitate, and agitate forever. I believe, that the agitation of the elements of the moral world is as essential to moral health, as is the agitation of the elements of the physical world to physical health. I believe in the beautiful motto: "The agitation of thought is the beginning of truth." I was very happy to hear the honorable gentleman of Pennsylvania, [Mr. WRIGHT,] express his faith and pleasure in agitation. Not less happy was I to hear the honorable gentleman of North Carolina, [Mr. CLINGMAN,] approve of the discussion of Slavery. Such good abolition doctrine from such surprising sources was very grateful to me. Perhaps, these gentlemen will continue to move forward in that blessed upward way, on which they have happily entered; and, perhaps, ere the session shall close, they will have reached that table-land of abolition, on which it is my privilege to stand. Let me assure them, for the purpose of cheering them onward, that, when they shall arrive there, they shall not lack my warm greetings and the cordial grasp of my hand. [Great laughter.] Sir, you must permit me to indulge some hope of the conversion of these gentlemen. Indeed, when I heard the honorable gentleman of North Carolina speak of himself as "an independent" - as a party of one - as in that lone condition, in which he had so recently heard me say, that I find myself - was I not at liberty to imagine, that he was throwing out a sly, delicate hint to my ear, that he would like to "join teams" with me, and so make up a party of two?

[Repeated roars of laughter.] I do not forget, that, at the close of his speech, he said some very hard things against us naughty abolitionists. But how could I be sure, that he did not say these hard things for no other purpose than to blind all around him, save, of course, my own apprehensive, because kindred and sympathizing, spirit, to that fraternal union with me, which have supposed his heart was then meditating?

I said, a little while ago, that I rejoice, that the pro-slavery party is responsible for the present agitation. I add, that I am half reconciled to this attempt to extend the dominion of slavery, because it affords us so inviting an opportunity to inquire into the title of slavery. If my neighbor tries to rob me of my farm, he, at least, affords me an occasion for inquiring into the

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tenure, by which he holds his own farm. Freedom having been driven by slavery, until she has surrendered to her pursuer nine new States; and until slavery claims, as we see in the present Bill, equal right with herself to overspread all the unorganized territory of the nation; it is, in my judgment, high time for her, to stop, and to turn about, and to look slavery in the face, and to push back the war - ay, and to drive the aggressor to the wall, provided she shall find, that slavery, in all its progress, and history, is nothing but an aggression upon liberty and law, and upon human and divine rights; and that, in truth, it has no title to any existence whatever, on any terms whatever, anywhere whatever. This is a proper stage of my argument for saying, that we all know enough of freedom and slavery to know, that they cannot live together permanently. One must conquer the other. American slavery lacks but two things to make sure of her victory over American liberty: and, from present indications, she is determined to lack them no longer. One of these two things is its conceded right to overspread all our unorganized territory; and the other is its conceded right to carry slaves through the free States. Let slavery succeed in these two respects: - let the bill, we are now considering, become a statute; and let the final decision in the Lemmon case* sustain the claim to carry slaves through the free States - ay, and even to drive coffles of slaves through them, whip-in-hand; thus breaking. down the public sentiment of those States against slavery; and debauching and wasting it by familiarizing it with the demands and, exhibitions of slavery; - and then, I admit, the way, will be clear for slavery to make a quick and easy conquest of liberty.

I, again, acknowledge my partial reconcilement to this attempt of slavery to get more - to this bold push for all, that is left, so far as unorganized territory is concerned. We have now the best of opportunities for trying the title of slavery, not only to more - but, also, to what it already had.

And, now, if slavery shall come off as badly as the dog, who, in opening his mouth to seize another piece of meat, lost, in the deceitful and shadow-casting stream, the piece he already had, it will have no one to blame for its folly, but its own voracious self. It should have been content with the big share - the lion's share - which it already had.

But to return from this digression. I said, that I am opposed to the bill, because it allows, that there may be slavery, in the States, which shall be formed from these territories. Why, however, should I be, therefore, opposed to it? I will, without delay, come to the reason or my opposition. My time being so precious, because so limited, I will waste none of it in, apologies, circumlocutions, or skirmishes. But I will, at

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once, "take the bull by the horns," and declare, that I deny the right of Congress to look to the existence of slavery in the States, that shall be formed within these territories, because I deny, that there can be Constitutional slavery in any of the States of the American Union - future States, or present States - new or old. I hold, that the Constitution, not only authorizes no slavery, but permits no slavery; not only creates no slavery in any part of the land, but abolishes slavery in every part of the land. In other words, I hold, that there is no law for American slavery.

I had not intended a moment's further delay in entering upon my argument to prove, that the Constitution calls for the suppression of all American slavery. But I must, before entering upon it, beseech the Committee to hold no other member of Congress responsible for it. Let the reproach of this argument - of this foolish argument, if you please - nay, of this insane argument, if you prefer that epithet - fall on myself only. Blame no other member of Congress for it. I stand alone. I am the first, and, perhaps, I shall be the fast, to declare within these walls,that there is no law for slavery. I say, that I stand alone. And, yet, I am not alone. Truth is with me. I feel her inspirations. She glows in my soul: and I stand in her strength.

THERE IS NO LAW FOR AMERICAN SLAVERY.

Mansfield's decision in the Somerset case established the fact, that there was no law for slavery in England in 1772: - and if none in England, then none in America. For, by the terms of their charters, the Colonies could have no laws repugnant to the laws of England. Alas, that this decision was not followed up by the assertion of the right of every American slave to liberty! Had it been, then would our land, this day, be bright and blessed with liberty, instead of dark and cursed with slavery. Alas, that the earlier decision than Mansfield's was not thus followed up! This earlier decision was of the Superior Court of Massachusetts, and was oŁ the same character with Mansfield's. - [James vs. Lachmere, Washburn, 202.] We are not at liberty to regard this decision of the Court of Massachusetts as wrong, because Massachusetts slavery was not abolished in consequence of it. It is no more wrong, because of that fact, than is Mansfield's, because of the like fact. Slavery in England survived Mansfield's decision. Even seven years after it, and advertisements, such as this, could be found in English newspapers:

"To be sold by auction at George Dunbar's 'office, on Thursday next, the 20th instant, at 1 'o'clock, a black boy, about fourteen years of age &c. Liverpool, Oct. 15, 1779."

There was no law for American slavery, after the Declaration of Independence was adopted. Had there been any before, this paper swept it all away. Chief Justice Shaw suggests, that it was this paper, which abolished slavery in Massachusetts - [Commonwealth vs. Thomas Aves.] No less fatal was it, however, to the legality of slavery in other parts of the nation. The Declaration of Independence is the highest human authority in American politics. It is customary

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to trace back the origin of our national existence and our American Union to the Federal Constitution, or to the Articles of Confederation. But our national existence and our American Union had their birth in the Declaration of Independence. The putting forth of this paper was the first sovereign act of the American people - their first national and authoritative utterance. The Declaration of Independence was the declaration of the fact of the American Union: and to that paper pre-eminently are we to look for the causes and character and objects of the American Union. It was for a, present, and not for a prospective, Union - for a Union already decided on, and not a contingent Union - that our Fathers went through a seven years war. It is noteworthy, that the Object of the Constitution, as set forth by itself, is not to originate a Union, but "to form a more perfect Union" - that is, to improve on an already existing Union. The Articles of Confederation and the Federal Constitution were but expedients for promoting the perpetuity, and multiplying and securing the happy fruits, of this Union. Not only is it not true, that the Articles of Confederation and the Federal Constitution are paramount to the Declaration of Independence, but it is true, that the Congress of the Confederation and the Convention, which framed the Constitution, derived all their legitimacy and authority from the Declaration of Independence. You might as well talk, of supplanting the Bible with the farthing Tract written to expound it, as talk of supplanting the Declaration of Independence with any subsequent paper. Truly, did one of the eminent statesmen [Gen. ROOT] of my State say: "That the Declaration of Independence is the 'fundamental law of the land in all those States, 'which claimed or admitted, that that instrument was 'framed by their agents;" and truly did another of them [Joax C. SPENCER] say, that it is "the corner-stone of our Confederacy, and is above all Constitutions and all Laws." Yes, the Declaration of Independence is the very soul of every legitimate American Constitution - the Constitution of Constitutions - the Law of Laws.

I repeat it - if there was legal slavery in this land before the Declaration of Independence was adopted, there, nevertheless, could be none after. The great truth of this paper is, that all men are created equal, and have inalienable rights. Does this paper speak of Civil Government as necessary? It does so, because this great truth makes it necessary. It does so, because it is necessary to preserve these rights. Does this paper claim the right to alter or abolish the Government? It claims it, for the sake of this great truth. It claims it, in order to provide better security for these rights.

I do not forget, that the Declaration of Independence has fallen into disrepute among the degenerate sons of the men, who adopted it. They ridicule it, and call it "a fanfaronade of nonsense." It will be ridiculed, in proportion as American slavery increases. It will be respected, in proportion as American slavery declines. Even members of Congress charge it with saying, that men are born with equal strength, equal beauty, and equal brains. For my own part, I can im-

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pute no such folly to THOMAS JEFFERSON and hi fellow-laborers. I understand the Declaration of Independence to say, that men are born with an equal right to use what is respectively theirs. To illustrate its meaning, at this point: - if I am born with but one foot, and one eye, and an organization capable of receiving but one idea, I have a right to use my one foot,and one eye, and one idea, equal with the right of my neighbor to use his two feet, and two eyes, and two thousand ideas.

The enunciation of this great centre truth of the Declaration of Independence, would have justified every American slave, at the time of that enunciation, in claiming his liberty. Suppose that, after the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, an American patriot had been seized by a British force, and put on trial for rebellion against the King, would not that paper have justified him in calling on his countrymen to deliver him? Certainly; for that paper asserts the right to break away from his allegiance to the King, and pledges the "lives, fortunes, and sacred honor" of his countrymen to maintain that right. But suppose, that, after the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, an American slave had asserted his right to liberty, might he not,as well as the patriot referred to, have called on his countrymen to acknowledge and defend his right? Certainly; and a thousand fold more emphatically. For the right of the patriot to dissolve his allegiance to the Crown is but a deduction from the great centre truth of the paper, that all men are created equal, and have inalienable rights. But the title of the slave to his liberty - that is, to one of these inalienable rights - is this great centre truth itself. The title of the slave to his liberty is the great fountain-head right. But the title of the patriot to be rescued from his peril is only a derivation from that fountain-head right.

We add, as a reason, why this great centre truth of human equality and inalienable right to liberty is entitled to supremacy in all the shaping and interpretation of American politics, that, but for it, and for the place it occupies in the Declaration of Independence, there would have been no American Constitution, and no American nation, and no American liberty. But for the commanding principle and mighty inspiration of this great centre truth, the colonists could not have been aroused to their glorious achievement. It was in hoc signo - it was by this sign - that our fathers conquered. Again: but for this commanding principle, and this mighty inspiration, the aid - the indispensable aid - that came to us from foreign shores, would not have come. Said LAFAYETTE to THOMAS CLARKSON : "Iwould never have drawn my sword in the cause of America, if I could have conceived, that thereby I was founding a land of slavery." And there was Kosciusko, at whose fall "Freedom shrieked," and who provided by the will, written by himself, that his property in America should be used by his anti-slavery friend, THOMAS JEFFERSON, in liberating and educating African slaves. Surely, he would not, with his eyes open, have fought to create a power, that should be wielded in behalf of African slavery! Oh, how cruel and mean a

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fraud on those, who fought for American liberty, to use that liberty for establishing and extending American slavery!

But we pass on from the Declaration of Independence to the Federal Constitution, and suppose, for the sake of the argument, that slavery survived the Declaration of Independence. Now, our first question is not what is the character of the Constitution, in respect to slavery, but what, from the circumstances of the case, might we reasonably expect to find its character, in this respect. Its reasonably expected character maybe thought by many to shed light upon its actual character. Looking at the circumstances of the case, are we to expect to find the Constitution pro-slavery or anti-slavery? - made to uphold slavery, or to leave it an unprotected outlaw?

It is argued, that the Constitution must be on the side of slavery, for the reason, that it did not specifically demand the instant death of slavery. There is, however, no force in this argument, if we reflect, that American slavery was, at that time, a dying slavery; and that, therefore, even those of our statesmen, who were most opposed to it, were generally willing to leave it to die a natural death, rather than to force it out of existence. Were a man condemned to be hung - nevertheless, if, when the day for hanging him had arived, he were on his death-bed; you would not hang him, but you would leave him to die on his bed - to die a natural, instead of a violent, death. That our fathers did not anticipate the long continuance of slavery, is manifest from, their purpose disclosed in the Preamble of the Constitution and elsewhere, to set up a government, which should maintain justice and liberty. They knew, that no government could prove itself capable of this, if under the influence, especially the overshadowing influence, of slavery.

It is further argued, that the Constitution must be on the side of slavery, because were it not on that side, the slaveholders would not have consented to its adoption. But they, who argue, thus; confound the slaveholders of that day with the slaveholders of this. They forget, that the slaveholders of that day breathed the spirit of the Declaration of Independence, and were captivated by the doctrine of the human brotherhood. They forget, that the slaveholders of that day were impatient to emancipate their slaves, and that in Virginia, where the number of slaves was so much less than now, they were emancipated, at that period, at the rate of a thousand a year. They forget, that there were Abolition Societies in slave States, both before and after the year 1800. They forget, that Washington and Jefferson were practical emancipationists. They forget, that, whilst the slaveholders of this generation are, intent on perpetuating and extending slavery, the slaveholders of that generation, studied how to abolish it, and rejoiced in the prospect of its speedy abolition. They, forget, that, whilst the slaveholders of this day are eager to overspread our whole national territory with slavery, all the slaveholders of that day joined with all other Americans in denying it new territory, and excluding it from every foot of the national territory. They forget, that all the States, at that time, with

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the exception of South Carolina and Georgia, advocated the anti-slavery policy; and that even these two States could hardly be said to have opposed it. And what, more than everything else, they should not forget, is that, over the whole length and breadth of the land, slavery was, at that day, a confessed sin - a sin it is, true, that all involved in it had not the integrity to put away immediately - but a sin, nevertheless, which all of them purposed to put away, in no very distant future. How striking the contrast, in this respect, between the circumstances of the slaveholder of that time and the slaveholder of this! Now, the Bible, both at the North and at the South, is claimed to be for slavery; and now the church and church-ministry, at the South, do nearly all go for slavery; and at the North, do nearly all apologize for it. Now, slavery is right, and the abolition of it wrong. Now, the slaveholder is the saint, and the abolitionist the sinner. To illustrate, in still another way, the absurdity of inferring what slaveholders desired and did, sixty or seventy years ago, from what they desire and do now: - the pecuniary motive of the slaveholder to uphold slavery is now very strong. Then, it was very weak. American cane-sugar, now wet with the tears and sweat and blood of tens of thousands of slaves, was then scarcely known. American cotton, which now fills the markets of the world, was then in none of the markets of the world. Then it was not among the interests of our country. Now, it is its dominant interest. It sways church and state and commerce, and compels all of them to go for slavery. Then the price of the slave, that now sells for, a thousand or fifteen hundred dollars, was but two hundred dollars.

I need. say no more to show how liable we are to misinterpret the desires and designs of our fathers, in regard to the Constitution, if we look through the medium of the pro-slavery spirit and interests of our own day, instead of the medium of the anti-slavery spirit and interests of their day. To judge what character they would be like to give to the Constitution, in respect to slavery, we must take our stand-point amidst the anti-slavery scenes and influences of that period, and not amidst the pro-slavery scenes and influences, which illustrate and reign over the present.

I readily admit, that the slaveholders of the present day would not consent to the making of any other than a pro-slavery Constitution. I even admit, that, had the making of the Constitution been delayed no more than a dozen years, it would, (could it then have been made at all,) have been pro-slavery. I make this admission, because I remember, that, during those dozen years, Whitney's cotton gin, (but for which invention slavery would, long ago, have disappear,) came into operation, and fastened slavery, in our country.

In the light of what I have said, how improbable it is, that the slaveholders were intent on having the Constitution made to uphold slavery. But, in the light of what I shall now say, how improbable it is, that such a Constitution was made. Mr. Madison was among the most influential members of the Convention, that framed the

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Constitution; and when he declared, in the Convention, that he "thought it wrong to admit in the Constitution the idea, that there could be property in man," not one person objected to the declaration. Indeed, the framers of the Constitution, not only kept it clear of the words "slave" and "slavery" and of all words of similar import, but they obviously determined, that, if after ages should make the humiliating discovery, that there had been slavery in this land, there, nevertheless, should be nothing in the pages of the Constitution to help them to such discovery. For instance, the word "service" occurs repeatedly in the Constitution. But only four days before the Convention closed its labors, the word "servitude" was struck out of the Constitution, and the word "service" unanimously adopted in its place, for the avowed reason, that the former expresses the condition of slaves, and the latter the obligations of free persons. I add the incidental remark, that if the Constitution is responsible for slavery, it is so, because of the knavery, or ignorance, of its framers. If on the one hand, notwithstanding their, avowed reason for the substitution of "service" for "servitude," they still intended to have the Constitution thus responsible, then they were knaves: - and if, on the other, they honestly intended to keep the Constitution clear of this guilty responsibility, and yet failed to do so, then does such failure betray their gross ignorance - their gross ignorance of the true meaning, and fit use of words. Happily, for those, who give an anti-slavery construction to the Constitution, they are under no necessity and no temptation to interpret the motives and conduct of its framers in the light of so odious an alternative. The proslavery party alone are compelled so to interpret, them now, even were it true, that the framers of the Constitution, and all of them, too, sought to smuggle slavery into it - to get it into it, without its being seen to be got into it - nevertheless, how could they accomplish this object, which, by the restrictions they had imposed on themselves, they had rendered impracticable? To work slavery into the Constitution, and yet preserve for the Constitution, that anti-slavery appearance, which, from the first, they had determined it should wear, and which they knew it must wear, or be promptly rejected by the people, was as impossible, as to build up a fire in the sea.

But we will remain no longer outside of the Constitution. Indeed, there is nothing, and there can be nothing, outside of it, which can determine, or in any wise affect, its character on the subject of slavery. Nothing in the history of the framing, or adoption, or operation, of the Constitution, can be legitimately cited to prove, that it is pro-slavery or anti-slavery. The point is to be decided by the naked letter of the instrument, and by that only. If the letter is certainly for slavery, then the Constitution is for slavery - otherwise not. I say, if it is certainly for slavery - I say so, because slavery realizes the highest possible conception of radical injustice; and because there is no more reasonable rule of interpretation than that, which denies, that a law is to be construed in favor of such injustice, when the law does not in clear and express terms, embody and

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sanction it. The Supreme Court of the United States have adopted this rule in these words: "Where rights are infringed, where fundamental 'principles are overthrown, where the general 'system of the laws is departed from, the 'legislative intention must be expressed with irresistible 'clearness to induce a court of justice to suppose 'a design to effect such objects.'' - 2 Cranch, 390. The same enlightened and righteous policy, which led Mansfield to say, that "slavery is so odious, 'that nothing can be suffered to support it but 'positive law," obviously demands, that no law shall be cited for slavery, which is not expressly and clearly for slavery.

Much stress is laid on the intentions of the framers of the Constitution. But we are to make little more account of their intentions than of the intentions of the scrivener, who is employed to write the deed of the land. It is the intentions of the adopters of the Constitution, that we are to inquire after; and these we are to gather from the words of the Constitution, and not from the words of its framers - for it is the text of the Constitution, and not the talk of the Convention, that the people adopted. It was the Constitution itself, and not any of the interpretations of it, nor any of the talks or writings about it, that the people adopted.

Suppose, that the bill, now under discussion, should, unhappily, become a statute - would it be necessary, in order to understand it, to know what the honorable gentleman of Kentucky, [Mr. PRESTON,] who preceded me, said of it, or what I am saying of it? Certainly not. If I mean what I say, nevertheless, my words could have no legitimate bearing on the interpretation of the statute. But my speech may be insincere. I may, as, doubtless, many a legislator has done, be practicing on Talleyrand's definition : "Language is the art of concealing the thoughts:" and pray, what help, in that case, to the just interpretation of the statute, could my speech afford?

I said, that the Constitution is what its adopters understood it to be - not what the distinguished few among them - but what the masses understood it to be: and what that was, the abolition petition, headed with the name of BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, and presented to the first Congress under the Constitution, strikingly indicated. That it was not successful is another evidence, that the views of the people often differ from the views of office-holders. Or, the failure was, perhaps, more properly to be regarded, as an evidence of the understanding, which, doubtless, did exist among, at least, some of the statesmen of that day, that slavery was not to be killed by the immediate application of the powers of the Constitution, but was to be allowed to linger through that age. Whilst, I deny, that there is a word in the Constitution to authorize the continuance of slavery, I, nevertheless, admit that there was, outside of the Constitution, the understanding to which I have referred - an understanding confined, however, to a few, and for which the masses were not responsible. A sad mistake, as it turns out, was this suffering of slavery to drag out its death-struck and feeble

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existence through that generation, in which the Constitution was adopted! - for, it was in that very generation, that, in consequence of the invention already spoken of, slavery became strong, and began to demand prolonged life and vast! powers as a right - an absolute and permanent's right. The slut, in La Fontaine's fable, on the eve of becoming a mother, implored the brief loan of a kennel. But having once got possession of it, she found excuse for continuing the possession, until her young dogs were grown up. With this reinforcement, it is not strange, that she should be inspired by the maxim, "might makes right," and should claim, as absolutely her own, that which had only been lent to her - and lent to her, too, so generously and confidingly. This fable illustrates, but too well, the successive feebleness, and growth, and usurpation of slavery.

We begin with the Preamble of the Constitution. This, at least, is anti-slavery: and this tells us, that the Constitution is anti-slavery - for it tells us, that one thing, for which the Constitution was made, was "to secure the blessings of liberty" - not to inflict, or sustain, the curse of slavery - but "to secure the blessings of liberty." I admit, that the Preamble is not the Constitution. I admit, that it is but the porch of the temple. Nevertheless, if, instead of the Demon of Slavery coiled up in that porch, we see the, Goddess of Liberty standing proudly there, then we may infer, that the temple itself, instead of being polluted with Slavery, is consecrated to Liberty. And we are not mistaken in this inference. As we walk through the temple, we find, that it corresponds with the entrance. The Constitution is in harmony with the Preamble.

The first reference, in the Constitution, to slavery, is in the apportionment clause. There is, however, no reference to it here, if the language is interpreted, according to its legal sense, or if the framers of the Constitution were intelligent and honest. It must be remarked, that it was from this clause, that they struck out the word "servitude," for the avowed purpose of saving it from being a pro-slavery clause. But, in point, of fact, if this clause does refer to slavery, it is, evertheless, a clause not to encourage, but to discourage, slavery. The clause diminishes the power of a State in the national councils in proportion to the extent of its slavery. This clause is, in truth, a bounty on emancipation. Had its provided, that drunkards should each count but three-fifths of a man, it, surely, would not be called a clause to encourage drunkenness. Or, had it provided, that they, who can neither read nor write, should each count but three-fifths of a man, it, surely, would not be called a clause to encourage illiterateness. In the one case, it would be a bounty on sobriety, and, in the other, on education.

The next clause of the Constitution, which we will examine, is that, which, confessedly, empowers Congress to abolish the foreign slave-trade. I, of course, mean the clause, which empowers Congress to regulate commerce with foreign nations. Yes, the slave States confessedly conceded to Congress the power to abolish that trade; and Congress did actually abolish it. But, it is

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said, that the provision, respecting "migration of importation," suspended the exercise of this power for twenty years. Under no legal and proper sense of it, however, does this provision refer to slaves. But, for the sake of the argument, we will admit, that it does, and that it had the effect to suspend, for twenty years, the exercise of the power in question. What then? The suspension could not destroy, nor, to any degree, impair, the essential anti-slavery character of the clause under consideration. On the contrary, the suspension itself shows, that the clause was regarded, by the makers of the Constitution, as potentially anti-slavery - as one, that was capable of being wielded, and that, probably, would be wielded, to suppress the slave-trade. I would add, that this brief suspension goes to justify the position, that American slavery was looked upon, in that day, as a rapidly expiring practice - as a vice, that would die out, in a few years. There is much historical evidence, that the abolition of the slave-trade was looked to by many, if not, indeed, by most, at that time, either as equivalent to, or as sure to result in, the abolition of slavery. The power given to Congress to abolish the slave-trade, Mr. DAWES, in the Massachusetts Convention, that adopted the Constitution, declared to be "the mortal wound" of slavery.

Manifestly, the clause of the Constitution, which imparts power to abolish the slave-trade, and not that, which briefly suspends the exercise of this power, gives character to the Constitution. It my neighbor deeds me his farm, only reserving to himself the possession of it for a month, (and a week in the life of an individual is longer than twenty years in the life of a nation,) it would, certainly, be very absurd to call it a transaction for continuing him in the owner ship and possession of the farm. r, if the bargain, which I make with my neighbor, is, that, after a week's delay, he shall come into my service for life, it is certainly not this little delay, that is to stamp the essential and important character of the bargain.

I have referred to only a part of the clause, which gives power to Congress to abolish the slave-trade; to only that part, which respects the foreign slave-trade. I, now, add, that this clause gives equal power to abolish the inter State slave-trade. And if it does, how idle must it be to say, that a Constitution, which empowers Congress to abolish, not only the foreign, but the domestic slave-trade, is a Constitution for slavery to abolish the domestic slave-trade is to cut the very jugular of slavery.

But it is said, that the power "to regulate commerce among the several States" is not a power to abolish the slave-trade between them. But, if it is not, then the power "to regulate commerce with foreign nation" is not a power to abolish the African slave-trade. Nevertheless, Congress held, that it was; and, in that day, when slavery was not in the ascendant, everybody agreed with Congress.

It is further said, that the Constitution knows human beings only as persons; and that, hence, the inter-State traffic in slaves, being, in its eye, but migration or travel, Congress has no power

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to suppress it. Then, what right had Congress to abolish the African slave-trade? The subjects of that traffic, no less than the subjects of the inter-State traffic, are persons. Another reply, which we make to the position, that all human beings are persons in the eye of the Constitution, is that it cannot lie in the mouth of those, who carry on the traffic in slaves, to ignore the true character of that traffic, and to shelter its chattel-subjects under the name of persons. And another reply, which we make to this position is, that it is true; and that, hence, the traffic in slaves, every slave being a person, is unconstitutional. If the Constitution grants power to Congress over commerce, it necessarily defines the subjects of the commerce. Such definition is involved in such grant. But slaves cannot come within such definition - for slaves are persons, and persons cannot be the subjects of commerce. And still another reply, that we have to make to those, who would exempt the inter-State traffic in human beings from the control of Congress, on the ground, that Congress can know no human being as a chattel, or as other than a person, is that they are driven by logical consistency and logical necessity to the conclusion, that the Constitution has power to sweep away the whole of American slavery. The Constitution extends its shield over every person in the United States; and every person in the United States has rights specified in the Constitution, that are entirely incompatible with his subjection to slavery.

Ere leaving this topic, I would notice an objection, which is frequently heard from the lips of earnest anti-slavery men. It is, that the Constitution omits to command Congress, in terms, to abolish the African slave-trade, even at the end of the twenty years. But why do they fail to see, that this very omission marks the anti-slavery character of the Constitution and of the day, when it was written? Doomed slavery then needed an express stipulation for its respite. But to enjoin anti-slavery action upon those, who could be held back from it only by such express stipulation, was, of course, deemed superfluous. The sentence of the court is, that the mother shall not kiss her infant for twenty days. The court need not enjoin, that she shall kiss it, after the twenty days are expired. Her love for her infant makes such injunction quite superfluous. So was it unnecessary to enjoin upon the antislavery zeal of our fathers the abolition of the slavetrade, at the expiration of the twenty years. Scarcely had the twenty years expired, before that zeal forbade, under the heaviest penalties, the continuance of that accursed trade. An ancient nation regarded parricide as too unnatural and monstrous a crime to need the interdiction of law. And our fathers regarded the African slave-trade as a crime so unnatural and monstrous, as to make their injunctions on Congress to abolish it altogether superfluous.

We have, now, disposed of two of the three clauses of the Constitution, which are assumed to be pro-slavery, viz : the apportionment clause, and the migration and importation clause. The third refers to fugitive servants, but certainly not to fugitive slaves. Whether we look at the letter

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or history of this clause, it can have no reference to slaves. No one pretends, that slaves are expressly and clearly defined in it; and, hence, according to the rule of the Supreme Court, which I have quoted, slaves are not referred to in it. Again, none deny, that the terms of the clause make it applicable to apprentices, minor children, and others. All admit, that, in the most natural use of language, it is capable of innocent applications.

The clause, under consideration, speaks of a "person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof." Now, unless these laws are for slavery, the "service or labor" cannot be slavery: - and if they are for slavery, then they cannot hold any person to slavery, unless they are valid laws. But they are not valid laws, unless they are in harmony with the Constitution. If the Constitution is against slavery, then pro-slavery laws are but nominal laws. It will be more timely, at the close of my argument than now, to say, whether the Constitution is against, or for, slavery. In the next place, the clause speaks of a person. But, as we shall more fully see, there are rights claimed for persons by the Constitution itself, which must all be trodden under foot, before persons can be reduced to slavery. Another reason, why the fugitives referred to in this clause are not slaves, is, that "service or labor" is "due" to their employer from these fugitives. But slaves, by every American definition of slaves, are as incapable of owing, as are horses, or even horse-blocks. So too, by every English definition of slaves. Says Justice Best, in case of Forbes vs. Cochran: "A slave is incapable of compact." And another reason, why this clause cannot refer to slaves, is, that the fugitives in it are held by the laws to labor. But slaves, no more than oxen, are held by the laws to labor. The laws no more interpose to compel labor in the one case than in the other. And still another reason, why this clause is not to be taken as referring to slaves, is the absurdity of supposing, that our fathers consented to treat as slaves whatever persons, white or black, high or low, virtuous or vicious, any future laws of any State might declare to be slaves. Shall we of the North be bound to acquiesce in the slavery of our children, who may emigrate to the South, provided the laws of the South shall declare Northern emigrants to be slaves? Nay, more, shall we be bound to replunge those children into slavery, if they escape from it? But all this we shall be bound to do, if the pro-slavery interpretation of the clause in question is the true interpretation. Ay, and in that case, we shall be bound to justify even our own slavery, should we be caught at the South, and legislated into slavery. This intimation, that slavery may yet take a much wider range in supplying itself with victims, is, by no means, extravagant and unauthorized. The Supreme Court of the United States opened a wide door to this end, in the case of Strader and others against Gorham, some three years ago. In that case, the court claimed, that a State "has an undoubted right to determine the status, or domestic and social condition, of the persons domiciled within its terri-

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tory." By the way, this doctrine of the Supreme Court, that there are no natural rights; and that all rights stand but in the concessions and uncertainties of human legislation, is a legitimate outgrowth of slavery. For slavery's a war upon nature, and is the devourer of the rights of nature; and claims, that all rights, and all interests, natural and conventional, shall accommodate themselves to its demands.

We need spend no more time on the letter of this clause. We will, now, look at its history. It is a well-nigh universal impression, that this clause is one of the compromises of the Constitution. But there is not the slightest foundation in truth for this impression. In none of the numerous plans of a Constitution, submitted to its framers, was the subject-matter of this clause mentioned. Indeed, it was not mentioned at all, until twenty days before the close of the Convention. This clause', when its insertion was first moved, contained the word "slave." But, with that word in it, it met with such strenuous opposition, as to compel the immediate withdrawal of the motion. The next day, however, it was offered again, but with the word "slave" struck out. In this amended and harmless form, it was adopted immediately, without debate, and unanimously. I add, by the way, that no one believes, that a clause providing, in express terms, for the surrender of the whole American soil to the chasing down and enslaving of men, women, and children, could ever have gained the vote of the Convention; or that, if it had, the Constitution, with such a disgusting blot upon it, could ever have been adopted.

Another reason for not claiming this clause to be pro-slavery is, that the American people did, in all probability, regard the word "service" as expressing the condition of freemen. So, as we have seen, the members of the Constitutional Convention, regarded it: and, inasmuch as they came together from all parts of the country, and represented all classes and sections of the American people, is it not a fair inference, that they used language in the sense approved by the American people?

We have, now, examined those parts of the Constitution, which are relied on to give it a pro-slavery character; and we find, that they are not entitled to give it this character. We proceed to glance at some, and at only some, of those parts of the Constitution, which clearly prove its anti-slavery character ; which are utterly incompatible with slavery; and w which, therefore, demand its abolition.

1st. "Congress has power to provide for the common defence and general welfare of the United States."

But Congress has not this power, if the obstacles of slavery may be put in the way of its exercise. A man cannot be said to have law for driving his carriage through the streets, if another man has law for blocking its wheels. If the States may establish the most atrocious wrongs within their borders, and thus create an atmosphere, in which the Federal Government cannot "live and move and have its being;" then, within those borders, the Federal Government may be reduced to a nullity. The power

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referred to in this clause Congress will never have faithfully exercised, so long as it leaves millions of foes in the bosom of our country. By enrolling the slaves in the militia, and yielding to their Constitutional right "to keep and bear arms " - which is, in effect, to abolish slavery-Congress would convert those foes into friends. The power in question, Patrick Henry, who was then the orator of America, held to be sufficient for abolishing slavery. In the Virginia Convention, which passed upon the Federal Constitution, Mr. Henry said: "May Congress not

'say, that every black man must fight? Did we 'not see a little of this, the last war? We were 'not so hard pushed as to make emancipation 'general. But acts of Assembly passed, that 'every slave, who would go to the army, should 'be free. Another thing will contribute to bring 'this event about. Slavery is detested. We feel 'its fatal effects. We deplore it with all the pity 'of humanity. Let all these considerations, at 'some future period, press with full force on the 'minds of Congress. They will read that pa'per, (the Constitution,) and see if they have 'power of manumission. And have they not, 'sir? Have they not power to provide for the general defence and welfare? May they not 'think, that they call for the abolition of slavery? 'May they not pronounce all slaves free? - and 'will they not be warranted by that power? 'There is no ambiguous implication or logical 'deduction. The paper speaks to the point. They 'have the power in clear and unequivocal terms; 'and will clearly and certainly exercise it."

2d. "Congress has power to impose a capitation tax."

Manifestly, Congress can pay no respect in this case to the distinction of bond and free. It can look for the payment of the tax to none other than the subjects of the tax. But if any of them do not own themselves, they cannot owe the tax. This clause implies, therefore, the self-ownership of men, and not their ownership by others.

3d. "Congress shall have power to establish a uniform rule of naturalization."

But this power, if faithfully exercised, is fatal to slavery. For, if our three millions and a half of slaves are not already citizens, Congress can, under this power, make them such, at any time. It can confer on them, as easily as on foreigners, the rights of citizenship. I add, that, had the slaveholders wished, (as however they did not,) to perpetuate slavery, they would, if they could, have qualified this absolute and unlimited power of naturalization, which the Constitution confers on Congress.

4th. "The Congress shall have power to promote the progress of science and useful arts by securing for limited tinges to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries."

This clause clearly authorizes Congress to encourage and reward the genius, as well of him, who is called a slave, as of any other person. One person, as much as another, is entitled to a copy-right of his book and to a patent for his meritorious invention. Not so, however, if there may be slavery. For the victim of slavery has no rights; and the productions of his mind, no

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less than the productions of his hands, belong to his master.

5th. "Congress shall have power to declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal - to raise and support armies - to provide and maintain a navy."

It necessarily follows, from the unconditional power of Congress to carry on war, that it can contract with whom it pleases - white or black, employer or employed - to fight its battles; and can secure to each his wages, pension, or prize money. But utterly inconsistent with this absolute power of Congress is the claim of the slaveholder to the time, the earnings, the will, the all, of the sailor, or soldier, whom he calls his slave.

6th. "The United States shall guaranty to every State in this Union a republican form of government."

It is a common opinion, that the General Government should not concern itself with the internal policy and arrangements of a State. But this opinion is not justified by the Constitution. The case may occur, where the neglect thus to concern itself would involve its own ruin, as well as the greatest wrong and distress to the people of a State. How could the General Government be maintained, if in one State suffrage were universal, and in another conditioned on the possession of land, and in another on the possession of money, and in another on the possession of slaves, and in another on the possession of literary or scientific attainments, and in another on the possession of a prescribed religious creed, and if in others it were conditioned on still other possessions and attainments? How little resemblance and sympathy there would be, in that case, between the Congressional representatives of the different States! How great would be the discord in our National Councils! How speedy the ruin to our National and subordinate interests! In such circumstances, the General Government would be clearly bound to insist on an essential uniformity in the State Governments. But what would be due from the General Government then, is emphatically due from it now. Our nation is already brought into great peril by the slavocratic element in its councils; and in not a few of the States, the white, as well as the black, masses are crushed by that political element. Surely the nation is entitled to liberation from this peril; and, surely, these masses have a perfectly Constitutional, as well as most urgent, claim on the nation for deliverance from the worst of despotisms, and for the enjoyment of a "republican form of government."

7th. "No State shall pass any bill of attainder."

But what is so emphatic, and causeless, and merciless a bill of attainder, as that, which attaints a woman with all her posterity for no other reason than that there is African blood in her veins?

8th. "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."

Blackstone pronounces this writ "the most celebrated writ of England and the chief bulwark of the Constitution." One of his editors, Mr. Christian, says, that "it is this writ, which makes slavery impossible in England." Equally impossible, in theory, does it make slavery in

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America. And in both countries the impossibility springs from the fact, that the writ is entirely incompatible with the claim of property in man. In the presence of such a claim, if valid, this writ is impotent, for if property can be plead in the prisoner, (and possession is proof of ownership,) the writ is defeated.

Slavery cannot be. legalized short of suspending the writ of habeas corpus, in the case of the slaves, But, inasmuch as the Constitution provides for no such suspension, there is no legal slavery in the nation.

I add, that the Federal Government should see to it, that, in every part of the nation, where there are slaves, if need be, in every county, or even town, there are Judges who will faithfully use this writ for their deliverance.

9th. "No person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law."

Let this provision have free course, and it puts an end to American slavery. It is claimed, however, that, inasmuch as the slave is held by law, (which, in point of fact, he is not,) and, therefore, "by due process of law," nothing can be gained for him from this provision. But, inasmuch, as this provision is an organic and fundamental law, it is not subject to any other law, but is paramount to every other law. Moreover, it is a great mistake to confound the laws, so called, by which persons are held in slavery, with "due process of law."

Justice Bronson says [Hill's Reports, IV, 146] of this part of the Constitution:

The meaning of the section then seems to be, that no member of the State shall be disfranchised, or 'deprived of any of his rights or privileges, unless 'the matter shall be adjudged against hire, upon trial 'had, according to the course of the common law."

He adds:

"The words 'due process of law,' in this place cannot mean less than a prosecution or suit, 'instituted and conducted, according to the pre'scribed forms and solemnities for ascertaining "' guilt, or determining the title to property."

Lord Coke explains "due process of law" to be, "by indictment or presentment of good and 'lawful men, where such deeds be done in due manner, of by suit original of the common 'law."

The defenders of the Constitutionality of State slavery are driven to the position, that such specific denials of the definition and violation of rights, as I have just quoted from one of the amendments of the Constitution, are limitations upon the power of the Federal Government only. They say, that it is to be inferred, that the limitations are on Federal power, when the Constitution does not point out whether they are on Federal or State power. Whence, however, is this inference justified? From the fact, it is answered, that the Federal power is the subject-matter of the Constitution - is that, of which it treats is that, which it constitutes. But the Constitution is a paper, not merely for establishing the Federal Government, and prescribing its character and limits. It is, also, a paper for determining the boundaries of State authority. And the latter purpose is no less important, or necessary,

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than the former. Happily, however, the original Constitution left nothing to inference in this matter. It does not need a more frequent recurrence of the word "Congress" in them, to make it entirely plain, that the eighth and ninth sections of the first article of the Constitution are devoted to an enumeration of the powers and disabilities of Congress. Nor is it less plain, that the tenth section of this article is taken up with the enumeration of the disabilities of the States. I have seen an old copy of the Constitution, printed in Virginia, in which "Powers of Congress" is at the head of the eighth section, and "Restrictions upon Congress " is at the head of the ninth section, and "Restrictions upon respective States" is at the head of the tenth section. The repetition of the word "State," in the tenth section, would have been as unnecessary as the repetition of the word "Congress" in the ninth section, had the denial of State powers been preceded by the enumeration of State powers, as is the denial of Federal powers by the enumeration of Federal powers.

So far, then, as these sections are concerned, it is not left to the looseness of inference to determine whether the Constitution is applicable to a State, or to the Nation. One of the sections contains limitations on the Federal Government. The next contains limitations on another Government - another Government, since the latter limitations are, to some extent, identical with the former, and would, of course, not be repeated, were but one Government in view. What, however, but a State Government, could this other Government be? And yet, to avoid all necessity of inference, the word "State" is repeated several times in connection with these latter limitations. And, now, we ask where in the original Constitution, either before or after the three sections, which we have referred to, is it left to be inferred, whether the powers granted are National or State powers? Nowhere is there such uncertainty.

We will now take up the amendments of the Constitution. It is in them, that we find those specific denials of the deprivation and violation of rights, which forbid slavery - such denials, for instance, as that "No person shall be deprived of 'life, or liberty, or property, without due process 'of law."

Twelve articles of amendment were proposed by the first Congress. The first three and the last two do, in terms, apply to the Federal Government, and to that only. In the case of most of the remaining seven, their application is a matter of inference. Whilst, however, it would be a gross violation of the laws of inference to say, that they apply to the Federal Government only, it would be in perfect accordance with these laws to say, that, inasmuch as a part of the amendments refer expressly to that Government only, the remainder refer to both the Federal and State Governments, or to State Governments only.

Because the first one of the adopted amendments refers expressly to the Federal Government, and to that only, there are, probably, many persons, who take it for granted, that the other

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amendments follow this lead of the first, and have the same reference as the first. They would not take this for granted, however, did they know, that this first of the adopted amendments was the third of the proposed amendments; and that it came to be numbered the first, only because the preceding two were rejected. It is entitled, therefore, to give no lead and no complexion to the amendments, which follow it. And this conclusion is not weakened, but strengthened, by the fact, that these two amendments both expressly referred to the Federal Government. I would here add, what may not be known to all, that the eleventh and twelfth of the adopted amendments were proposed by Congress after the other ten were adopted.

In addition to the reason we have given, why a part of the amendments of the Constitution refer either to the State Governments exclusively, or to both the Federal and State Governments, is that, which arises from the fact, that they are, in their nature and meaning, as applicable to a State Government, as to the Federal Government. To say, that such amendments, as the second, third, and fourth, were not intended to apply to the whole nation, and were intended to apply only to the little handful of persons under the exclusive jurisdiction of the Federal Government, is to say what cannot be defended. Again, if there be only a reasonable doubt, that the fifth amendment refers exclusively to the Federal Government, it should be construed, as referring to State Governments also; for human liberty is entitled to the benefit of every reasonable doubt; and this is a case in which human liberty is most emphatically concerned.

We have no right to go out of the Constitution for the purpose of learning whether the amendments in question are, or are not, limitations on State Governments. It is enough, that they are in their terms, nature, and meaning, as suitably, limitations on the Government of a State, as on the National Government. Being such limitations, we are bound to believe, that the people, when adopting these amendments by their Legislatures, interpreted them, as having the two-fold application, which we claim for them. Being such limitations, we must insist, whether our fathers did, or did not, on this two-fold application. Being prohibitions on the Government of a State, as well as on the National Government, we must, in the name of religion and reason, of God and man, protest against limiting the prohibition to the National Government for the exceedingly wicked purpose of continuing the bondage of millions of our fellow-men.

Had we the right, by reason of any obscurity in the teachings of the Constitution on the point under consideration, or from any other cause, to go into collateral evidences of the character of these teachings, we should find our interpretation not weakened, but confirmed.

Nearly all the amendments of the Constitution, and, indeed, all of them, which concern our present argument, were taken from the Bill of Rights, which the Virginia Convention proposed to have incorporated with the Federal Constitution. But, inasmuch as this Bill of Rights speaks

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neither of Congress, nor the Federal Government, its language is to be construed as no less applicable to a State than to the Nation, as providing security no less against the abuse of State power than Federal power.

Again: in the Congress, which submitted the amendments, Mr. MADISON was the first person to move in the matter. He proposed two series of amendments, one of them affecting Federal, and the other State powers. His proposition provided to have them interwoven in the original Constitution. For instance, the negations of Federal Power were to be included in the ninth section of the first article; and the negations of State power in the tenth section of that article. And, what is more, several of the amendments, which he proposed to include in this tenth section, are, not only in substance, but almost precisely in letter, identical with amendments, which became a part of the Constitution. It was in the following words, that Mr. MADISON justified his proposition to restrain the States "I think there is more danger of these powers 'being abused by the State Governments than 'by the Government of the United States." "It 'must be admitted on all hands, that the State 'Governments are as liable to attack these inval'unable privileges, as the General Government is, 'and therefore ought to be as cautiously guarded against." "I should, therefore, wish to extend 'this interdiction, and add, that no State shall 'violate," &c. If there was any reason to restrain the Government of the United States from infringing upon these essential rights, it was equally necessary that they should be secured against the State Governments. He thought, that if they provided against the one, it was as necessary to provide against the other, and was satisfied, that it would be equally grateful to the people.

The House of Representatives did not adopt Mr. MADISON'S plan of distributing the amendments through the original Constitution, and thus expressly applying one to the Federal and another to a State Government. On the contrary, it made them a supplement to the original Constitution, and left a part of them couched in terms, that render them equally applicable either to one Government or the other. It must not be forgotten, that Mr. MADISON'S plan was embodied in the report of a committee, and was kept before the House, for a long time. Nor must it be forgotten, that whatever may have been said by this or that speaker, in respect to the application of this or that amendment, no vote was taken declaring, that all, or, indeed, any of the amendments apply to the General Government. What, however, is still more memorable is, that there was a vote taken, which shows, that the House did not mean to have all the amendments apply to the General Government only. The vote was on the following proposed amendment: "No per'son shall be subject, in case of impeachment, to 'more than one trial, or one punishment for the 'same offence, nor shall be compelled to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, 'liberty, or property, without due process of 'law," &c. Mr. Partridge, of Massachusetts,

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moved to insert after "same offence" the words: "by any law of the United States." His motion failed: and its failure proved, that the House would restrain a State, as well as the Nation, from such oppression.

As the Senate sat with closed doors, we know nothing of its proceedings in respect to the amendments, except that it concurred with the House in recommending them.

I will say no more in regard to the meaning of the amendments. Is it claimed, that if the original Constitution is pro-slavery and the amendments anti-slavery, the original Constitution shall prevail against the amendments? As well might it be claimed to reverse the rule in the case of a will and to have its repugnant language prevail against the codicil. The amendments of the Constitution, are the codicils of the Constitution; and if anywhere they conflict with it, the Constitution must yield.

I have, now, done, not only with the amendments, but with the entire Constitution. Within the compass of a single speech, I could, of course, comprise but an outline of my argument. I commend to my hearers the arguments of William Goodell and Lysander Spooner on this subject. It must be very difficult for an intelligent person to rise from the candid reading of Mr. Spooner's book, entitled "The Unconstitutionality of Slavery," without being convinced, by its unsurpassed logic, that American slavery finds no protection in the Constitution.

I said, that I have, now, done with the Constitution. I believe, I am warranted in adding, that I have reached the conclusion, that there is power in the Constitution to abolish every part of American slavery. Is it said, that this conclusion, notwithstanding the manifest logical necessity for arriving at it, is, nevertheless, not sound? One of the objections to its soundness - viz: that the slaveholders could never have consented to adopt a Constitution of push anti-slavery powers - I have already replied to, by saying, that the slaveholders of that day, being against the continuance of slavery, and the slaveholders of this day for it, the former cannot be judged of in the light of the character of the latter. To this I add, that whatever were the slaveholders of that day, and whatever were their motives in adopting an anti-slavery Constitution, they, nevertheless, did adopt it, just as it is anti-slavery as it is. The other principal objection to the soundness of my conclusion is, that neither slaveholders nor non-slaveholders would have consented to adopt a Constitution, which annihilates State sovereignty. My answer to the latter objection is, that the States are not sovereign, and were not intended by the Constitution to be sovereign. The simple truth is, that our fathers refused to repeat the experiment of a Confederacy of States; and that, instead of it, they devised for themselves and their posterity a Government, which is, altogether, too broad and binding to consist with State sovereignty. The Constitution prescribes limits to the State quite too narrow for the play of sovereignty. It denies the State many specific powers, each of which is vital to sovereignty. For instance, it

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restrains it from entering into a treaty; and from coining money; and, if the power to deprive "of life, liberty, or property," is vital to sovereignty, then, as we have seen, the State is not sovereign, because it has not this power. Our fathers would not consent, that any section of their fellow-men, with whom they had come under a common Government, should outrage essential human rights. Our fathers would not fraternize with the people of Massachusetts, and yet allow them to plunder each other of property. They would not consent to be one people with murderers, and, therefore, they would not allow room for the Pennsylvanians to turn Thugs. And slavery, being worse than murder, (for what intelligent parent would not rather have his children dispatched by the murderer, than chained by the slaveholder?) - slavery being, indeed, the greatest wrong to man, of which we can conceive - our fathers would not come under the same Government with Virginians, if Virginians were to be allowed to enslave and buy and sell men. Does the Constitution require us to remain bound up with Pennsylvania, even though her policy is to shoot all her adult subjects, whose stature falls below five feet ? Does it require us to continue in the same political brotherhood with Virginia, even though she shall enslave all her light-haired subjects, (or, what is the same in principle,) all her dark skinned subjects? So far from it, there is power in that Constitution to hold back Pennsylvania and Virginia from the commission of these crimes.

Every person remembers one part of the tenth amendment of the Constitution; and every person seems to have forgotten the other. Every day do we hear, that powers are reserved by the Constitution to the States; but, no day, do we hear, that powers are "prohibited by it to the States." Now, among those prohibited, powers, is that of classing men with horses and hogs.

Let it not be implied from what I said, a minute ago, that I would admit the competence of a State Government to enslave its subjects, provided the Federal Constitution had not curtailed its sovereignty. No human Government, however unlimited its sovereignty, has authority to reduce man to a chattel - to transform immortality into merchandise. And cannot I add with truth, and without irreverence, that such authority comes not within the limits even of the Divine Government?

Nor let it be implied, that I am indifferent to State rights. I am strenuous for their maintenance: and I would go to the extreme verge of the Constitution to swell their number. But there I stop. The province of the State shall not, with my consent, encroach upon The province of the Nation; nor upon ground denied to both by the law of God and the limits of civil government.

It is, sometimes, said, that the amendment, on which I have spoken so extensively, refers to criminal prosecutions only. But what if this were so? It would, nevertheless, cover the case of the slave. You, surely, would not have a man stripped of his liberty, ay, and of his manhood

too, who is not charged with crime. The Gov-

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ernment, which says, that it will make him, who is not a criminal, a slave, confesses itself to be unutterably unjust and base.

The Constitution, as has been seen in the course of my argument, forbids slavery. Its pro-slavery character has been assumed. What is there, indeed, that will make for itself, that slavery does not assume? No wonder! It is itself but a mere assumption - and the most monstrous assumption. The only wonder is - and the sorrow is. as great as the wonder - that the American people should be in the miserable, servile habit of yielding to all these bare-faced assumptions of slavery. The speakers on both sides of this bill have taken it for granted, that the Constitution is pro-slavery: - and when the honorable gentleman of North Carolina [Mr. CLINGMAN] coolly said: "Every single provision in that instrument, '(the Constitution,) is pro-slavery - that is, for 'the protection and defence and increase of sla'very," no one seemed to doubt the truth of what he was saying, any more than if he had been reading Christ's Sermon on the Mount. And, yet, the instrument, of which the honorable gentleman affirmed all this, refused to pollute its pages with the word "slavery," or even with a word, (servitude,) which might, possibly, be construed into slavery! Moreover, the instrument avows, that "to secure the blessings of liberty," is among its objects. Though administered to uphold the curse of slavery, the Constitution was, nevertheless, made "to secure the blessings of liberty." Hence, the declaration, in the former part of my Speech, that THERE IS NO LAW FOR AMERICAN SLAVERY, IS TRUE. But I must not stop here. It would be disingenuous to do so. My stopping here would imply, that, if I found slavery in the Constitution, I would admit its legality. But I would not just as I would not admit the legality of murder, even though it were embodied in all the organic laws of all the nations. I proceed, therefore, to declare, and to argue the justice of the declaration, that

THERE NOT ONLY IS NO LAW FOR AMERICAN SLAVERY, BUT THAT THERE CAN BE NO LAW EITHER FOR AMERICAN, OR ANY OTHER, SLAVERY.

1st. Law is, simply, the rule or demand of natural justice. Justice is its very soul: and it is, therefore, never to be identified with naked and confessed injustice. Law is for the protection - not for the destruction - of rights. Well does the Declaration of Independence say, that "to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among men." They are instituted, not to destroy, but to secure, these rights. It is pertinent to the case in hand, to see what are "these rights," which the Declaration specifies : They are "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." These it declares to be "inalienable." These are not conventional rights, which, in its wisdom, Government may give, or take away, at pleasure. But these are natural, inherent, essential rights, which Government has nothing to do with, but to protect. I am not saying, that men cannot forfeit these rights. But I do say, that they can lose them, only by forfeiting them. I admit, that a man may forfeit liberty by his crimes; and that it will be the duty of Government to pre-

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vent his re-enjoyment of it. I remark, incidentally, that, though a man may forfeit liberty, this is quite another thing from his deserving slavery. Slavery unmans: and the worst man, no more than the best man, deserves to be unmanned. But to return from this digression to my declaration, that law is for the protection of rights - I proceed to say, that slavery annihilates all the rights of its victim. For, in striking down the right of self-ownership, it strikes down that great centre-right, to which all other rights are tied; by which all other rights are sustained; and, in the fall of which, all other rights fall. Murder itself cannot be a more sweeping destroyer of rights than is slavery - for murder itself is but one of the elements in the infernal compound of slavery.

Slavery being such, as I have described it, there, of necessity, can be no law for it. To give to it one of the mildest of its proper and characteristic names, it is a conspiracy - a conspiracy of the strong against the weak. How, all are aware, that there is law to put down a conspiracy - but who ever heard of law to uphold a conspiracy? Said William Pitt, when speaking in the British Parliament, of the African slavetrade: "Any contract for the promotion of this 'trade must, in his opinion, have been void from 'the beginning, being an outrage upon justice, 'and only another name for fraud, roberry, and 'murder." But the slave-trade is all one with slavery: - nothing more and nothing less than slavery. aid Granville Sharp, when speaking of slavery and the slave-trade: "No authority 'on earth can ever render such enormous iniquities legal." Says Henry Brougham: "Tell me 'not of rights; talk not of the property of the 'planter in his slaves. I deny the right. I acknowledge not the property. The principles, 'the feelings, of our common nature, rise in rebellion against it. Be the appeal made to the 'understanding, or the heart, the sentence is the 'same, that rejects it. In vain, you tell me of 'laws, that sanction such a crime! There is a 'law above all the enactments of human codes the same throughout the world - the same in 'all times - such as it was before the daring 'genius of Columbus pierced the night of ages, and opened to one world the sources of power, ' wealth, and knowledge; to another, all unutterable woes, such as it is at this day. It is the 'law written by the finger of God on the heart 'of man, and by that law, unchangeable and 'eternal, while men despise fraud, and loathe 'rapine, and abhor blood, they will reject with indignation the wild and guilty fantasy, that 'man can hold property in man!"

To hold that slavery, which is the crime of crimes and abomination of abominations, is capable of legalization, is, a pre-eminent confounding of injustice with justice, and anti-law with law. Knowingly to admit into the theory and definition of law even a single element of wrong, is virtually to say, that there is no law. It is virtually to say, that earth is without rule, and heaven is without rule, and that the light, order, and harmony of the Universe may give place to darkness, disorder, and chaos. But if such is the effect of alloying

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law with only one wrong, how emphatically must it be the effect of regarding as law that, which is nothing but wrong!

I am advancing no new doctrine, when I say, that essential wrongs cannot be legalized. This was the doctrine, until supplanted by the absurd and atheistic maxim, that "Parliament is omnipotent." Even Blackstone, with all his cowardice in the presence of that maxim, repeatedly confesses, that human legislation is void, if it conflicts with Divine legislation. And if we go back to the times of Lord Coke, we find him quoting 'many cases, in which it was held, that the common law, or, in other words, common sense, or common justice, can nullify an act of Parliament. He says : "It appeareth in our books, that in many cases the common law shall control acts 'of Parliament, and sometimes shall adjudge 'them to be utterly void: for when an Act of Parliament is against common right and reason, 'or repugnant, or impossible to be performed, the 'common law shall control this, and adjudge such act to be void." - [Dr. Bonham's Case in Life of Lord Bacon.]

I would add, in this connexion, that the province of a human legislature does not extend even to all lawful and innocent things. That it is commensurate with the whole field of human interests and, obligations, is a very great, though a very common mistake. It covers but a small portion of that field. Not only are crimes incapable of being legalized, but there are numberless relations and duties, which are ever to be held sacred from the invasion and control of the human legislature. or instance, what we shall eat and wear is a subject foreign to human legislation. That shall be the character of the intercourse between parent and child is no less so. But if there is a natural, lawful, and innocent relation, for which the human legislature may not prescribe, how much less is it authorized to create the unnatural, monstrous, and supremely guilty relations of slavery!

2d. Law is not an absurdity, but is one with reason. Hence, in point of fact, a legislature cannot make law. It can declare what is law. It can legislate in behalf of that only, which is already law. Legislation for liberty may be law, because liberty itself is law. But legislation for slavery cannot possibly be law, because slavery is not law. That cannot be law, the subject matter of which is not law. The great fundamental and controlling law in the case human is, that he is a man. The great fundamental and controlling law in the case of a horse is, that he is a horse. The great fundamental and controlling law in the case of a stone is, that it is a stone. All legislation, therefore, which proceeds on the assumption, that a stone is wood, is absurd and void. So, too, all legislation, that proceeds on the assumption, that a horse is a hog, is absurd and void. And, so too, and far more emphatically, all legislation, which proceeds on the assumption, that a man is a thing - an immortal God-like being a commodity - is absurd and void. But such is the legislation in behalf of slavery. The statutes of our Slave States, which, with infinite blasphemy, as

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well as with infinite cruelty, authorize the enslaving of men, say, that "the slave shall be deemed, 'held, taken, to be a chattel to all intents, 'constructions, and purposes whatsoever:" that "the 'slave is entirely subject to the will of his master:" and that "he can possess nothing, but what must belong to his master."

We are amazed at the madness of the Roman ruler, who claimed for his favorite horse the respect, which is due to the dignity of manhood. But the madness of the American ruler, who sinks the man into the horse, is certainly no less than that of the Roman ruler, who exalted the horse into the man.

There can be no law against the law of nature. But a law to repeal the law of gravitation would be no greater absurdity than a law to repeal any part of the everlasting moral code. The distinction of higher and lower law is utterly untenable, and of most pernicious influence. There is but one law for time and eternity - but one law for earth and heaven.

I must not, then, know, as law, or, in other words, as wisdom and reason - but I must reject, as anti-law, and nonsense, and madness - that, which calls on me to regard a stone as a stump, a horse as a hog, a man as a thing. I must not undertake to conform myself to such ideal and impossible transformations. But I must accord to every being, animate or inanimate, the nature given to it by its Great Maker. I must deny, that the being made in the image of God can, any more than God Himself, be turned into a slave. I must deny, that it is possible for human enactments to transmute men into chattels, and to annihilate the essential and everlasting distinction between immortality and property. I must deny, that there is truth in HENRY CLAY'S famous declaration, that "that is property, which the law (meaning human legislation) makes property." I must deny, that slavery can any more furnish the elements of law, than darkness can be changed into light, or Hell into Heaven. I must deny, that the fact of a slave is philosophically and really, a possible fact. I must deny, that man can lose his nature, either in time or eternity. Let slavery and slave-legislation do their worst upon him; let them do their utmost to unman him; he is still a man. Nor, is it whilst he is in the flesh only, that his manhood is indestructible. It is no less so, after he has "shuffled off this mortal coil." When "the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat; the earth also, and the works, that are therein," and all that is, or can be, property, "shall be burnt up," the deathless spirit of man, unchanged and unchangeable, may stand upon the ashes and exclaim: "I am still a man - I have lost nothing of my manhood."

I have in other parts, as well as in this part of my speech, carried the idea, that slavery, in its theory, is the conversion of men into things. It was right for me to do so. Such conversion is the sole essence of slavery. This, and this alone, distinguishes it from every other servitude. In point of fact, slavery is, not necessarily, and, indeed, is not at all, by any just definition of the word, servitude. Let the life of the slave be all

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idleness; and let him be "clothed in purple and fine linen, and fare sumptuously every day;" and he is still as absolutely a slave, as if he were in the hardest lot of a slave. Whatever his privileges, if he have no rights - however indulgent his treatment, if he is owned by another, instead of himself - he is still a slave, and but a slave. I wish it to be borne in mind, that I arraign slavery, not because it withholds wages, and marriage, and parental control of children, and the Bible and Heaven, from its victims. I do not arraign it for denying these, or any other rights, to a mere chattel. Such denial is perfectly consistent. A chattel is entitled to no rights - can have no rights. hat I arraign slavery for, is for its making a man a chattel. I do not arraign slavery for the terrible enactments, which, for its security, it puts into the statute book; nor for the terrible advertisements which it puts into the newspapers. These enactments are the natural and necessary outgrowth of the blasphemous assumption, that man, with all his great attributes and destiny, is capable of being reduced to a thing. These advertisements, some of which are offers of large bounties for the recovery of fugitive slaves, or for the production of their dissevered heads; some of which contain revolting descriptions of their slavery - scarred and mangled persons; and some of which contain offers of trained bloodhounds to hunt them - these advertisements are, in no wise, to be wondered at. Slavery itself - not its fruits and incidents - is the wonder. That man should be found so perverted and depraved, as to sink his equal brother into slavery - it is this, and nothing incidental to it, or resulting from it, that should fill us with astonishment. In reducing a man to a thing, we have not only committed the highest crime against him, but we have committed all crimes against him; for we have thrown open the door - the door never again to be shut - to the commission of all crimes against him.

Perhaps, such language, as I have just been using, will occasion the remark, that I am prejudiced against the South. But I know, that I am not. I love the South equally well with the North. My heart goes out as strongly to Southern, as to Northern men, on this floor. Far am I from attributing to Southern men a peculiarly severe nature. I had rather attribute to them a peculiarly generous nature. I believe, that there is not another people on the earth, in whose hands the system of slavery would work more kindly - with less of cruelty and horror. Nowhere can it work well - for there is nothing in it to work well. Nowhere can it be unattended with the most frightful and deplorable abuses for it is itself the most stupendous abuse.

3d. My argument, in the third and last place, to prove, that THERE CAN BE NO LAW, EITHER FOR AMERICAN, OR ANY OTHER SLAVERY, is that, that is not law, and is never, never, to be acknowledged as law, which men cannot regard as law, and use as law, without being dishonest. Both heaven and earth forbid that, which cannot be, but at the expense of integrity. Now, in the conscience of universal man, slavery cannot be law - cannot be invested with the claims and sacredness of

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law. Hence, to regard it as law, and use it as law, is to be dishonest. There may be little, or no, consciousness of the dishonesty. Nevertheless, the dishonesty is there. I said, that the consciousness, that slavery cannot be legalized, is universal. Let me not be misunderstood in what I said. I did not mean, that there are none, who believe, that the slavery of others can be legalized. I admit, that thousands believe it. At the same time, however, I affirm, that not one of them all would believe slavery to be a thing of law, and entitled to the respect of law, were it brought to war against himself. The presence of an enactment for slavery would inspire with no sense of the sacred obligations of law - with no sense of the honor and obedience due to law - him, who should be claimed under it. Now, how such a person is to be regarded - whether as believing the laws for slavery to be valid or void, real and true laws, or nominal and no laws - is to be decided, not according to his view of them, when applied to others, but according to his sense of them, when brought home to himself. Self-application is the testing crucible in all such cases.

If an American gentleman is so unfortunate, as to be brought under the yoke of slavery in one of the Barbary States; and if, notwithstanding, the slavery is decreed by the supreme power of the State, he breaks away from it, and thus pours contempt upon the decree and the source of it; then, obviously, on his return to America, he cannot acknowledge slavery to be law, and yet be honest. If it is true, that what is, law we are no more at liberty to break in a foreign country than in our own country, so also is it true, that what is too abominable and wicked to be law in one part of the world is too abominable and wicked I to be law in any other part of the world. Should this gentleman be elected to Congress, he will be dishonest, if he legislates for slavery. Should he take his seat upon the bench, he will be dishonest, if he administers a statute for slavery. And no less dishonest will he be, if, as a juror, or marshal, or as President of the United States, he shall contribute to the enforcement of such statute. But every American gentleman would, like this one, break away from slavery if he could; and, hence, every American gentleman, who recognises slavery as law, does therein stigmatize and condemn himself. Possibly, however, there may be some American gentleman, who is inspired with such a sense of the fitness and beauty of slavery, as to welcome its chains about his own person. If there is such a one, "let him speak - for him have I offended."

That no one can honestly recognize a law for slavery, is on the same principle, that no one can honestly recognize a law for murder. But there are innumerable things, which all men hold cannot be legalized. I venture the remark, that, among all the Judges of this land, who, ever and anon, are dooming their fellow-men to the pit of slavery, there is not one, who could be honest in administering even a sumptuary law - for there is not one of them, who, in his own person, would obey such a law. How gross is their hypocrisy! They affect to believe, that Government has power

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to legalize slavery - to turn men into things: - and yet deny, that Government may go so far, as to prescribe what men shall wear! Government may do what it will with the bodies and souls of men: - but to meddle with their clothes - oh, that is unendurable usurpation!!

If, then, I am right in saying, that men cannot honestly recognize legislation for slavery, as law: cannot do so, without palpably violating that great law of honesty, which requires us to do unto others, as we would have others do unto us: if, then, I am right in declaring, that, in strict truth, there is not, in all the broad earth, one pro-slavery man: but that every man, when called to make his bed in the hell of slavery, betrays, in the agonies of his soul and the quaking of his limbs, the fact, that he is a thorough abolitionist: - if, I say, I am right in all this, then does it irresistibly follow, that I am also right, in my position, THAT THERE CAN BE NO LAW, EITHER FOR AMERICAN, OR ANY OTHER SLAVERY. I am right in this position, because, that, by no reasonable theory, or definition, of law, can that be called law, which is incapable of being administered honestly. The fact, that men must necessarily be dishonest in carrying it out, is, of itself, the most conclusive and triumphant argument, that it is not law. To take the opposite ground, and to claim, that to be law, which every man, when properly tested, denies is law, is to insult all true law, and Hill, who is the source of all true law. I conclude, under this head, with the remark, that, the question, whether slavery is, or is not to be known as law, resolves itself into a question of simple honesty.

I must say a few words to protect what I have said from the misapprehension, that I counsel trampling on all wrong legislation. I am very far from giving such counsel. No wrong legislation, that is at all endurable, would I resist. And, I add, that I would be patient with almost every degree of wrong legislation, provided it is legislation in behalf of what is lawful, and of what it is competent to legislate upon. Imprisonment for debt is wrong legislation - very wrong and very cruel legislation. But, inasmuch as the relation of debtor and creditor comes within the cognizance of the legislature, I will not treat such legislation as void. The legislature has a right end in view. It is to help the creditor get justice. Its error consists in selecting wrong means to this end; and in putting a wrong remedy into the hands of the creditor. I am to treat this action of the legislature as a mistake - and a mistake, which I am not to go beyond the limits of persuasion to seek to correct. The paying of one's debts is justice - is law. Enactments to enforce this justice and this law may, some of them, be improper - such as compelling payment by the terrors of imprisonment. But, as they are enactments to enforce justice and what is itself law, I must be very slow to denounce them, as no law. So, too, if my Government declare war against a nation - I am not to treat the Government, nor the declaration, however unjust it may be, with contempt. I must remember, that Government has jurisdiction of national controversies, and that the redress of national wrongs is justice - is law, Government may err in its modes

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of redress. It may resort to the sword, when it should confine itself to the exertion of moral influence. The cause, nevertheless, which it is prosecuting, may be one of unmingled justice. Like every good cause, it may itself be law; and, therefore, Government would not be chargeable with impertinence and usurpation for taking it in hand. But, how different from all this is it, when Government sets up slavery! In that case, the subject matter of its action is, most emphatically, not law. In that case, most emphatically, it has gone beyond its province. To Government belongs the adjustment of the relations between creditor and debtor; and it is for Government to dispose of national controversies. But, when Government undertakes the crime and absurdity of turning men into things - of chattellizing, instead of protecting, a portion of its subjects - it is, then, as far out of its place, as it can be. To such an outrage, no submission is due. It is to be resisted, at every hazard. To trample upon such lawlessness is to be law-abiding, instead of law-breaking. To rebel against such a Government is not to be revolutionary and mobocratic. The Government itself is the revolutionary and mobocratic party If the decree should go forth from our Government, that our Irish population be murdered, the decree would, of course, be trodden under foot. But who denies, that it should be as promptly and indignantly trodden under foot, were it a decree for their enslavement?

My argument to show, THAT THERE NOT ONLY IS NO LAW FOR AMERICAN SLAVERY, BUT THAT THERE CAN BE NO LAW, EITHER FOR AMERICAN, OR ANY OTHER SLAVERY, IS ENDED. It is in place, however, to say, that the recognition by the American people of slavery as law, is, of itself, sufficient to account for their loss of reverence for law. This reverence is, necessarily, destroyed by the habit of confounding sham law with true law by the habit, of accepting, as law, the mere forms of law, where justice, truth, reason, and every element, which goes to make up the soul of law, is lacking. This reverence must soon die out of the heart of the people, who treat, as law, that, which they know, is not law, who, in the holy and commanding name of law, buy and sell, or sanction the buying and selling, of their fellow-men; and who, in all their life, live out the debasing lie, that so monstrous and diabolical a thing, as slavery, is entitled to the shelter and honor of law. This reverence is little felt by those, who yield to the absurdity, that law and nature are opposite to each other; and that, whilst, by nature, a man is an immortal, by law he may be but a thing. It is little felt by those, who regard law as a mere conventionalism, which may be one tiling in one place, and another in another; one thing at one period, and another at another. They, and they only, have adequate and adoring conceptions of law, who believe, that it is one with nature, and that it is the same in every part of the earth, in every period of time, and "eternal in the heavens." They, and they only, have such conceptions, who, instead oŁ regarding law as synonymous with all the enactments of foolish and wicked men, identify it with unchangeable and everlasting right.

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How, for instance, can the American people perceive the beauty and preciousness of law, whilst recognizing, as law, the fugitive slave act? - and whilst stigmatizing, and persecuting the handful of men, who have the integrity and the bravery to resist it? Why should not that handful fly as swift to the rescue of their brother, who is in peril of being reduced to slavery, as to the rescue of their brother, who cries: "Murder?" Ten thousand enactments for murder would not hinder them in the latter case. Ten thousand enactments for slavery should not hinder them, in the former. In each case, the rescue would be not by a mob; but from a mob.

It has, now, been shown, that the American Government has authority, both inside and outside of the Constitution - as well in natural and universal law, as in conventional and national law - to sweep away the whole of American slavery. Will it avail itself of this authority to do this work? I ask not whether Government will show pity to the slave - for I look not to Government to be pitiful to the slave, or to any other man. I look to Government for sterner qualities than pity. My idea of a true Government is realized, only in proportion, as the Government is characterized by wisdom, integrity, strength. To hold even the scales of justice among all its subjects, and between them and all other men; and to strike down the hand, that would make them uneven - this, and this only, is the appropriate work of Government.

I asked, whether the American Government will abolish slavery. I confess, that my hope, that it will, is not strong The slave-owners have the control of this nation, and I fear, that they will keep it. It is true, that they are a comparative handful in the vast American population and that, numbering only three hundred thousand, their calling themselves "the South" is an affectation as absurd and ridiculous, as it would be for the manufacturers of the North to call themselves "the North," or the rumsellers of the North to call themselves "the North." It is true, that their interests are alien, as well from the interests of the South, as from the interests of the North; and that slavery is the deadly foe, as well of the white population of the South, as of its black population. Nevertheless, in the present corrupt state of the public sentiment, the slave owners are able to control the nation. They are mighty by their oneness. Divided - the may be in everything else - but they are undivided in their support of slavery. The State and the Church are both in their hands. A bastard democracy, accommodated to the demands of slavery, and tolerating the traffic in human flesh, is our national democracy: and a bastard christianity, which endorses this bastard democracy, is the current christianity of our nation. The fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man ideas, so prominent in a true democracy and a true christianity - are quite foreign to our sham democracy and our sham christianity. American religion is a huge hypocrisy. Whilst to the immeasurable sinfulness of that system, which forbids marriage, and the reading of the Bible, and which markets men as beasts, it is blind as a bat,

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it, nevertheless, draws down its stupid face, and pronounces the shuffling of the feet to music to be a great sin. The different States of Christendom, as they advance in civilization and the knowledge of human rights, are, one after another, putting away slavery. Even the Bey of Tunis puts away this most foul and guilty thing: and says, that he does so "for the glory of mankind, and to distinguish them from the brute creation." But America, poor slavery-ridden and slavery cursed America, retrogrades. Whilst other nations grow in regard for human rights, she grows in contempt for them. Whilst other nations rise in the sunlight of civilization, she sinks in the night of barbarism. Her Congress sets up slavery in her very Capital. Her Congress regulates and protects the coastwise trade in slaves. Her Congress wages unprovoked and plundering wars for the extension of slavery. Her Congress decrees, that slaveholders shall have the range of all America, in which to reduce men, women, and children, to slavery. And her President, who calls slavery an "admitted right," was shameless enough to say, in his Inaugural, that the Fugitive Slave Act, which his predecessor was shameless enough to sign, should be "cheerfully" enforced. In short, the Federal Government is now, and long has been, at work, more to uphold slavery than to do anything else, or even all things else. The great slave-catcher! the great watch-dog of slavery! - these are its most fitting names, in its present employment and degradation. And, yet, notwithstanding all this devotion of the Federal Government to slavery, and the iron determination of the slave-owners, that the power of the whole nation shall be exerted to uphold it; there, nevertheless, can be no remonstrance from the North against slavery, which is not immediately followed by the truthless and impudent reply, that the North has nothing to do with slavery! That the American people and American Government have fallen to what they are, is not to be wondered at. It is but the natural and necessary result of their having fostered and fed, for more than half a century, the monster slavery. Time was, when we might have crushed this monster. But, now, it has crushed us. It has corrupted us to such an extent, that there is scarcely a sound spot left in us, at which to begin to rally opposition to it. On no cheaper condition than this can slavery be clung to. If we will be slave-holders - and such are the Northern as well as the Southern people - for if the slave-owners are at the South, the people of the North are, nevertheless, more emphatically, because more efficiently, the slaveholders, than are the people of the South - if, I say, we will be slaveholders, we must take the evil consequences upon our own understandings and hearts, and not be surprised at them. Men cannot bind the degrading chain of slavery around their brothers without at the same time binding and degrading themselves with it.

How melancholy upon our country, and, through her, upon the world, has been the influence of American slavery! In the beginning of our national existence, we were the moral and political light-house of the world. The nations, "which sat in darkness, saw the great light,"

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and rejoiced. Sad to say, we were ourselves the first to dim that light! The principles, which we then enunciated, electrified the nations. Sad to say, we were ourselves the first to dishonor those principles! Nothing, so much as American slavery, has gathered darkness upon that light. Nothing, so much as American slavery, has brought disgrace upon those principles. All other causes combined have not stood so effectually in the way of the progress of republicanism, as the glaring inconsistency of our deeds with our professions. In the house of her friends, Liberty has received her deepest stabs. All our boasts and falsehoods to the contrary notwithstanding, there is no Government on the face of the earth so quick as our own, to dread, and to oppose, popular movements in behalf of liberty and republicanism. On our Government, more than on all other causes put together, rests the responsibility of the stopping of the Revolution in the Spanish American States. We are wont to say, that the people of those States were incompetent to perfect that Revolution. This is a piece of our hypocrisy. The instructions of our Government and the discussions in our National Legislature, in regard to the Congress of Panama; our threat of war against Colombia and Mexico, if those States persevered in carrying forward the Revolution; and, above all, our base supplication to Russia and Spain to join us in stopping the wheels of that Revolution; prove conclusively, that though our lying lips were for liberty, our hearts, all the time, were concerned but for the protection of slavery. And, in the case of Hayti - how deadly, from first to last, has been the enmity of our Government to the cause of liberty and republicanism! To learn the extent of that enmity, we must not confine our eye to the haughty and persevering refusal of our Government to recognize the independence of Hayti. We must look at other things also - and especially at the servile compliance of our Government with the impudent and arrogant demand of Napoleon to carry out his plan of starving the Haytiens into submission.

Our Government made a display of sympathy with the European Revolutions of 1848. But who is so stupid, as to accord sincerity to that display, when he recollects, that the very first fruit of the very first of these Revolutions was the unqualified abolition of all French slavery - and a part of that slavery in the neighborhood of our own? So eager was our Government to appear to be on the side of Hungary, that it sent out a ship for Kossuth. But, long ere he had reached our shores; and, especially, whilst he was making big speeches in England in behalf of the equal rights of all men; our Government found out, that it had got more than it contracted for. Kossuth's principles were too radical. Their scope was quite too sweeping. They no more spared slavery than any other form of oppression. Yet, Government could not stop Kossuth on his way. Having started for America, he must be suffered to come to America. But how great his disappointment, on his arrival! "He came unto his own, and his own received him not." The poor man was willing to compromise matters. A thousand pities, that he was. He was willing to ignore slavery,

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and to go through the whole length and breadth of the land, seeing, in every man he met, nothing else than a glorious freeman. Alas, what a mistake! The policy of the Government "to give him the cold shoulder" was fixed; and no concessions or humiliations on his part could suffice to repeal it. Kossuth left America - and he left it, no less abundantly than painfully convinced, that America is one thing in the Declaration of Independence, and another in what has succeeded it; one thing in her professions, and another in her practice. Will Mazzini need to come to America to learn this lesson? And, if he comes, will he stoop to repeat Kossuth's mistakes? Thank God! Mazzini has already identified himself with the American abolitionists. May he find himself rewarded by their cordial identification of themselves with the oppressed of Europe!

I confessed, that my hope is not strong, that the American Government will abolish American slavery. Far otherwise would it be, however, did none, but slave-owners, justify slavery. They would soon be converted, were it not, that the mass of the American people fall in with them, and flatter them, and cry peace, when there is no peace. This is our great discouragement in the case. The advocates of total abstinence are not discouraged. They would be, however, if they found the mass of the sober justifying drunkards, and telling them, that drunkenness is right.

I said, at an early stage of my remarks, that the present attempt of slavery to clutch all the unorganized territory of the nation affords a favorable opportunity to freedom to push back the war into the realm of slavery. I, however, did not add, that the opportunity would be improved. Nor do I add it now: - for I am far from certain, that it will be. For many years, I have had scarcely any better hope for American slavery, than that it would come to a violent and miserable end. Their habit of courting and worshipping the slave-power, and of acquiescing in its demands, has corrupted and paralyzed the American people to such a degree, as to leave little room to hope, that they will bring slavery to a peaceful and happy termination. I confess, some little hope of such termination has been kindled in me by this new, surprising, and enormous demand of the slave-power. I confess, that I have thought it possible, that this demand might arouse a spirit, which could be appeased by nothing short of the overthrow of the whole system of slavery. Should, however, such a spirit be aroused, I fear it will not pervade the masses, but will be confined to a few. It is true, that meetings are held, all over the free States, to protest against the passage of this Bill; and that the press of those States is almost universally against it. But neither in the meetings, nor in the press, do I see repentance. They abound in indignation toward perfidy: - but they reveal no sorrow of the North for the crimes of the North against liberty. On the contrary, the meetings and the press do well nigh universally justify the Compromise of 1830, and, in the great majority of instances, the Compromise of 1850, "Fugitive Slave Act," and all. Even in sermons, preached against the Nebraska Bill, I have seen the Fugitive Slave Act,

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justified. Now, the idea, that they, who can approve of either of these Compromises, and especially that they, who can, possibly, acquiesce in the chasing down of men, women, and children, for the purpose of casting them into the pit of slavery - the idea, I say, that such persons will perseveringly and effectively resist slavery, and do faithful battle for its overthrow, is to my mind simply absurd. They, and they only, are to be relied on for such service, who so loathe slavery, that they would rather perish than do any of its biddings, come those biddings from Congress, or from Courts, or from any other sources.

Am I bid to strengthen my hope by looking at the rapidly multiplying abolitionists? I do look at them: and this cheering sight is all, that, under God, keeps my hope alive. But I fear, that they are too late. I fear, that the disease is past cure. And I fear, too, that, even if we are yet in time to kill the Demon of Slavery, our false and pro-slavery education makes us so hesitating and timid in his terrific presence, that we shall not wage direct, deep, and fatal war upon him, but shall waste our energies and our only and swiftly passing away opportunity in ineffectual skirmishes and disgraceful dodgings. A few abolitionists are consistent: and, were they not so few, they would be formidable. They know no law for any fraud; and, therefore, they will not know it for the most stupendous fraud. They know no law for any oppression; and, therefore, they will know none for the most sweeping oppression. Such abolitionists are Garrison and Phillips, Goodell and Douglass. But most abolitionists, impliedly if not directly, tacitly if not openly, acknowledge, that slavery can have, and actually has, rights and they are as respectful to these supposed rights, as if the subject of them were one of the greatest earthly blessings, instead of one of the greatsst earthly curses.

It is true, that there is a political party in our country, organized against slavery; and that it numbers some two hundred thousand voters, among whom are some of the noblest men in the land. And, yet, I look with well nigh as much sorrow, as hope, to this party. For so long as it recognizes slavery as law, I fear, that notwithstanding its high and holy purposes, it will do scarcely less to sanction and uphold slavery than to reproach and cast it down. Again, so long as this party is swayed by such words of folly and delusion, as "SLAVERY SECTIONAL: FREEDOM NATIONAL," its admissions in favor of slavery cannot fail to go far to outweigh all its endeavors against slavery.

A law for slavery! What confessed madness would it be to claim a law for technical piracy, or a law for murder! But what piracy is there so sweeping and desolating as slavery? And, as to murder - who would not rather have his dearest friend in the grave - ay, in the grave of the murdered - than under the yoke of slavery?

"SLAVERY SECTIONAL: FREEDOM NATIONAL!"And, therefore, according to the friends of this motto, the nation, as such, must not concern itself with the great mass of slavery, because that great mass, instead of being spread over the whole nation, exists but in sections of it. Not less foolish

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would it be to neglect the smallpox, because it is only in sections of the city that it prevails. Indeed, it would not be less mad to leave the fire unextinguished, because, as yet, it rages but in sections of the city. Slavery, if not extinguished, is as certain to spread, as is the fire, if not extinguished. The past attests this; and the present exhibits very glaring proof of it. If we would

save the city, we must put out the fire. If we would save the nation, we must put out slavery ay, put it out in all the nation. I said, that slavery is, now, spreading. It may not go literally into Nebraska and Kansas, either now or ever. Nevertheless, slavery will be spreading itself over our country, at least in its influence and power, so long as the nation forbears to uproot it.

"SLAVERY SECTIONAL: FREEDOM NATIONAL!" A poor flag would "Murder sectional: Anti-Murder national!" be to go forth with against murder. But not less poor is the other to go forth with against slavery. Very little inspiration could be caught from either. Nay, would not their limited toleration of the crimes neutralize their influence against the extension of the crimes? How unlike to these poor words would be "No MURDER ANYWHERE!" "No SLAVERY ANYWHERE! "Under such earnest and honest words, men could do battle with all their hearts. But, under the other, they are laughed at by the enemy; and should be laughed at by themselves.

There is a political party at the North, called the Liberty Party. It aims to go for every political truth; and to realize the idea of an every way righteous civil Government. It is a little party. Its handful of members are scarcely more numerous than were the primitive disciples, who were gathered in the upper room, at Jerusalem. That little party will not disown what I have said on this occasion. Every other party will. That little party has, already, lived some fifteen years. It will continue to live. Perhaps, it will not grow. Perhaps it will. The "little cloud, like a man's hand," may yet spread itself over the whole heavens. Of this much, at least, do I feel certain, that no party of essentially lower or other principles than those of the Liberty Party will suffice to bring down American slavery. Happy country this - happy North - happy South - if the present aggressive movement of the slave-power shall result in bringing triumphant accessions to the Liberty Party !

My fear, that the American Governments, State or National, will not abolish slavery, is, in no degree, abated by the fact, that several European Governments have, in the present generation, abolished it. It must be remembered, that those Governments were exterior to, and independent of, the slave-power; and that they were not trammelled by slaveholding constituencies. It is true, that slavery in Mexico was abolished by the Government in Mexico; and that slavery in South American States was abolished by the Governments in those States. But it is also true, that all this was done to promote the success of their Revolution and their deliverance from the Government of Spain. I doubt not, that even we, closely as we cling to slavery, would, nevertheless, abolish it, if urged to do so by the exigencies of war.

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To hope, that, because the English Government abolished slavery, our Governments will also, is unwise, in another point of view. Comparatively disentangled with slavery as was England, slavery, nevertheless, exerted well nigh enough power over her Government to prevent its successful action against slavery. The party in the interest of slavery was barely defeated.

Let me not be misunderstood. Let me not be supposed to fear, that American slavery will not come to an end. My fear is, that it will not be brought to an end by Government. I have no fear, that it will not be abolished. It will be abolished - and at no distant day. If the Governments fail to abolish it, it will abolish itself. The colored people of this nation, bond and free, number four millions, and are multiplying rapidly. They are all victims of slavery - for if the free are not in the umbra, they are, nevertheless, in the penumbra, of slavery. Hence, then, as well as by identity of race, they are bound together by the strongest sympathy. Moreover, if not carried along, as rapidly as others, nevertheless they are carried along, in the general progressive knowledge of human rights. Such being the case, it is not to be supposed, that they can be held in their present condition, for ages longer. They will deliver themselves, if they are not delivered. He must be blind to history, to philosophy, to the nature of man, who can suppose, that such a system, as American slavery, can have a long life, even in circumstances most favorable to its continuance. In the most benighted portions of the earth, the victims of such a system would, in process of time, come to such a sense of their wrongs, and their power also, as to rise up and throw off the system. But that, here, such a system must be hurried to its end, is certain. For, here, it is entirely out of harmony with all the institutions around it, and with all the professions of those, who uphold it. Here it is continually pressed upon by ten thousand influences adverse to its existence. Nothing, so much as American slavery, stands in the way of the progress of the age. A littletime longer, and it must yield to this progress, and be numbered with the things, that were. The only question is, whether it shall die a peaceful, or a violent, death - whether it shall quietly recede before advancing truth, or resist unto blood.

God forbid, that American slavery should come to a violent end. I hold, with O'Connell, that no revolution is worth the shedding of blood. A violent end to American slavery would constitute one of the bloodiest chapters in all the book of time. It would be such a reckoning for deep and damning wrongs - such an outbursting of smothered and pent-up revenge, as living man has never seen. Can this catastrophe be averted? Perhaps, it cannot. Perhaps, God will not let off this superlatively wicked nation on any easier terms than a servile war-a war, we must remember, that will be very like to bring within its wide sweep the whole black population of this continent and. the neighboring islands - a population already numbering some ten or twelve millions Perhaps, since we would be a nation of oppressors, He will let the oppressed smite the

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oppressors. Perhaps, since we would be a bloody nation, He will give us "blood, even unto the horse-bridles." There will be no such catastrophe, however, if the North and the South, equal sinners in the matter of slavery, shall hasten to mingle the tears of their penitence; to say from the heart: "We are verily guilty concerning our brother;" and to join their hands in putting away their joint and unsurpassed sin.

I shall be blamed for having treated my subject in the light of so severe a morality. It will be said, that economical views of it would have been more suitable and statesmanlike; and that I should have dwelt upon the gains to the slaveholder, and the gains to the country, from the abolition of slavery. I confess, that, had horses and oxen been the subject of my speech, the field of economy would have been wide enough for the range of my thoughts, and the course of my argument. But I have been speaking of men - of millions of immortals: and I have been claiming, that Government should lift them up out of their chattelhood and their association with brutes and I could not so disparage the dignity, and so sully the glory, of their manhood, as to claim the performance of this high and holy duty, in the name of money. When I see my fellow-man reduced to a slave, I demand his deliverance, simply because he is a man. I cannot so wrong his exalted nature and my own, and the Great One, who made us in His own image, as to argue, that money can be made by such deliverance. I would as soon think of making a calculation of pecuniary gains my argument in dissuading from the crime of murder.

In saying, that I would not suffer the duty of delivering the slave to turn upon the question of pecuniary gains and economical advantages, I utter no peculiar doctrine. Who would suffer it thus to turn, in any case, where he regards such victims as men? But, with me, all men are men. Are the skin and the mind of my fellow-man dark? "A man's a man for a that!" I still recognize him, as a man. He is my brother: and I still have a brother's heart for him. Suppose the Government of Pennsylvania had, the last week, reduced all the white people of Pennsylvania, who have light hair, to slavery. Would Congress let the present week expire, without seeking their release ? No! Would Congress stoop to ply that Government with arguments drawn from political economy, and to coax it with prospects of gain? No! no! - a thousand times no! It would demand their release: and it would demand it, too, not in virtue of feeble arguments and humble authority; - but, Ethan Allen-like, in the name of God Almighty and the Congress.

I shall be blamed for not having brought out a plan for getting rid of slavery. I confess, that I have no other plan for getting rid of it but its abolition - its unconditional, entire, and immediate abolition. The slave is robbed of his manhood, of himself, and, consequently, of all his rights. There is no justice then - there is no God then - if the restoration of his rights and his restoration to himself can be innocently conditioned on anything, or innocently postponed.

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I shall be, especially, blamed for not having proposed compensation. I do not repudiate - I never have repudiated - the doctrine of compensation. Compensation for his services and sufferings would be due from the slaveholder to the slave; but, clearly, no compensation for his restored liberty would be due from the slave to the slaveholder. I admit, however, that a great debt would be due, from the American people, both to the slaveholder and the slave. The American people are responsible for American slavery. It is the American people, who, in the face of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, as well as of religion and reason, God and humanity, have made them selves the responsible enslavers of millions. Departed generations of slaves have gone to the bar of Heaven with this accusation upon their lips; and nothing short of the repentance of the American people can prevent its being carried there by the present generation of American slaves. There is, then, a great debt due from the American people to the American slaves. But they owe one to the slaveholders also. Men become slaveholders, and continue slaveholders, and extend their investments in human flesh, on the faith of the professions, legislation, and policy of the American people, and, I may add, on the faith of - the Constitution and religion of the American people, as that people do themselves interpret their Constitution and religion. Again, non-slaveholders, as well as slaveholders, feed and clothe themselves upon the cheap - (cheap, because extorted and unpaid for) - products of slave labor. They enrich their commerce with these products; and, in a word, they unite in making slavery the cherished and overshadowing interest of the nation. Now, for the American people, in these circumstances, to abolish slavery, and refuse to pay damages to the slaveholders, would be a surprise upon the slaveholders full of bad faith. For the American people to share with the slaveholders in the policy and profits of slaveholding, and then terminate it, and devolve the whole loss of its termination on the slaveholders, would be well nigh unparalleled injustice and meanness. If I have encouraged and drawn men into wickedness, I am, it is true, not to stand by them in their wickedness - for of that both they and I are to repent: - but I am to stand by them in their loss, and to share it with them. The English people gave to the masters of light hundred thousand slaves a hundred millions of dollars. I would, that the American people, after they shall have abolished American slavery, might give to the masters of four times that number of slaves four times the hundred millions of dollars; and far more, would I, that they should provide liberally for the humbler and cheaper, but infinitely more sacred, needs of the emancipated. "Then" my now dark and guilty country! "shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thine health spring forth speedily; and thy righteousness shall go before thee: the glory of the Lord shall be thy rereward."

I am well aware, that, in reply to my admission, that the American people should thus burden themselves, it will be said, that slavery is a

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State, and not a National concern; and that it is for the State Governments, and not for the National Government, to dispose of it. I, certainly, do not deny, that, if slavery can be legalized in our country, it must be under the State Governments only. Nevertheless, I hold, that every part of American slavery is the concern of every part of the American people, because the whole American people and the American Government have, though in defiance of the Constitution, made it such. And, as they have made it such, the denationalizing of slavery, (as the phrase is with the Independent or Free Democrats,) is not the whole duty, to which we are called. We will not have done our whole duty, when we shall have abolished all the slavery, which exists within the exclusive jurisdiction of Congress. For slavery, under the State Governments also, has been fostered and established by the whole American people and the American Government: - and I add, by the way, that, had it not been so fostered and established, there would, at this day, have been no slavery in the land.

If John Smith has built a distillery; and if he has, also, encouraged his neighbors to build half a dozen more; and, especially, if he has patronized and profited by the half dozen distilleries; then, this work of repentance is not all done, when he has broken up his distillery: - and, none the more is it all done, because it was contrary to law, that he had a part in getting up and sustaining the half dozen distilleries. The de-Smithing of all this distillation, and of all the drunkenness, that has resulted from it, obviously fails to cover the whole ground of his duty, unless, indeed, as is proper, the de-Smithing is interpreted to mean the breaking up of all these distilleries and their resulting drunkenness. So, too, the denationalizing of slavery, unless it be thus broadly and justly interpreted, falls short of the measure of the duty of the nation. The nation, whether constitutionally or unconstitutionally, has built up slavery: and, therefore, the nation should end it, and pay to end it.

I said, that I shall be blamed for speaking unwisely on the subject of slavery. I add, that I shall be blamed for speaking on it, at all. To speak against slavery in any manner, and, espepecially, in the national councils, is construed into hostility to the Union: - and hostility to the Union is, in the eye of American patriotism, the most odious of all offences - the most heinous of all crimes.

I prize the Union, because I prize the wisdom, courage, philanthropy, and piety, of which it was begotten. I prize it, because I prize the signal sufferings which it cost our fathers. I prize it, because I prize its objects - those great and glorious objects, that prompted to the Declaration of Independence; that were cherished through a seven years' war; and that were then recited in the Preamble of the Constitution, as the objects of the Constitution. I prize it, for the great power it has to honor God and bless man. I prize it, because I believe the day will come, when this power shall be exerted to this end.

Now, surely, opposition to slavery cannot be hostility to such a Union. Such a Union is not

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assailed, and cannot be endangered, by opposition, however strenuous, to slavery, or to any other form of oppression, or to any other system of iniquity. To attack what is good, is to be hostile to such a Union. To attack what is evil, is to befriend it.

Nevertheless, the position is persisted in, that to attack slavery is to attack the Union. How are we to account for this persistence in this absurd position? It is easily accounted for. The position is not absurd. There are two Unions. There is the Union of early times - that, which our fathers formed, and the most authentic record of the formation of which, and of the spirit and objects of which, is to be found in the Declaration of Independence and the Federal Constitution. This is the Union openly based on the doctrine of the equal rights of all men. This is the Union, the avowed purpose of which is "to establish justice and secure the blessings of liberty." Then, there is the other Union - the Union of later times - of our times-manufactured, on the one hand, by Southern slaveholders, and, on the other, by Northern merchants and Northern politicians. The professed aims of this new Union are, of course, patriotic and beautiful. Its real, and but thinly disguised, aims are extended and perpetual slavery, on the one hand, and political and commercial gains, on the other. The bad character of this new Union is not more apparent in its aims, than in its fruits, which prove these aims. Among these fruits are Union Safety Committee Resolutions; Baltimore platforms; pro-slavery pledges of members of Congress ; Resolutions of servile Legislatures; contemptible Inaugurals, in which, now a Governor, and now a President, go all lengths for slavery; and, above all, or rather below all, Union-saving and slave-catching sermons of devil-deluded and devil-driven Doctors of Divinity. To this list is, now, to be added the stupendous breach of faith, proposed in the Bill before us. This Bill, which lays open all our unorganized territory to slavery, is a legitimate fruit of the new Union. The consecration of all the national territory to freedom, sixty-five years ago, was the legitimate fruit of the old Union. Which is the better Union? By their fruits ye shall know them.

Now, the matter is not explained by saying, that this new Union is but a misinterpretation of the old. Misinterpretation cannot go so far, as to change the whole nature of its subject. Oh no, it is not a misinterpretation. But it is distinctly and entirely another Union, with which fits manufacturers are endeavoring to supplant the Union given to us by our fathers: - and this supplanting Union is as unlike the precious gift, as darkness is unlike light, as falsehood is unlike truth.

When, then, we, who are laboring for the overthrow of slavery, and for the practical acknowledgment of the equal rights of all men, are charged with hostility to the Union, it is, indeed, pretended by those, who make the charge, and for the sake of effect, that we are hostile to the original and true Union. Our hostility, nevertheless, is but to the conjured-up and spurious Union. Our only offence is, that we withstand

24 NO SLAVERY IN NEBRASKA

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the base appeals and seductive influences of the day. The only cause, for the abundant reproach, which has befallen us, is, that, in our honesty and patriotism, we still stand by that good old Union, which is a Union for justice and liberty; and that we bravely oppose ourselves to those artful and wicked men, who would substitute for it a Union for slavery, and place, and gain; and who are even impudent enough, to claim, that this trumped-up Union is identical with that good old Union. Yes, wicked, artful, impudent, indeed, must they be, who can claim, that this, dirty work of their own dirty hands is that, veritable work of our fathers, which is the glory of our fathers.

I have done. Methinks, were I a wise and, good man, and could have the whole American people for my audience, I should like to spear to them, in the fitting phrase, which such a man commands, the words of truth and soberness, remonstrance and righteousness. And, yet, why should I? - for, in all probability, such words would be of little present avail. The American. people are, as yet, in no state "to hear with their ears, and understand with their heart" - for "their heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing." Yet, awhile, and he, who should speak to them such words, would, like Lot; "seem as one, that mocked." This is a nation of oppressors - from the North to the South - from the East to the West - and, what is more, of strong and successful oppressors; - and, hence, there is but little room to hope, that she will listen and repent. This nation holds, in the iron and crushing grasp of slavery, between three and four millions, whose poor hearts writhe and agonize no less than would ours, were their fate our fate. And, yet, she is not content even with these wide desolations of human rights and human happiness. On the contrary, she is continually seeking to extend the horrid realm of slavery. It is not enough, that she purchased Louisiana, and gavuup, by far, the most valuable part of it to slavery: nor, that she purchased Florida, and gave up all of it to slavery: nor is it enough, that there is so much reason to fear, that the mighty and sleepless efforts to overspread with slavery the whole territory; of which she plundered Mexico, will prove extensively, if not, indeed, entirely successful. Nor, is it enough, that there is imminent danger, that Nebraska and Kansas will be wrested from freedom, and added to the domain of slavery and sorrow. All this is not enough to satisfy the desire of this nation to extend the reign of slavery. Her glosling and covetous eyes are constantly upon the remainder of Mexico; upon Cuba; St. Domingo; and other "'islands of the sea."All these she is impatient to scourge with that most terrible of all forms of I oppression - American slavery.

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Said I not truly, then, that there is but little ground to hope for the repentance of this nation? Must she not be well nigh dead to every conceivable attempt to bring her to repentance? But she will not be so always. The voices of truthful, tender, faithful admonition, now unheard or despised by her, will yet reach her heart. She may; - it is true, (Heaven spare her from the need of such discipline!) have, first, to pass through foreign wars, and servile wars, and still other horrors. But the day of her redemption - or, in other words, of her broken-hearted sorrow for her crimes - (for such sorrow is redemption, whether in the case of an individual or a nation) will, sooner or later, come. And when that day shall come, the moral soil of America, watered with the tears of penitence, shall bring forth fruits to the glory of God and the welfare of man, rivalling in abundance, and infinitely surpassing in preciousness, the rich harvests of her literal soil. In that day, our nation shall be worthy of all, that God and good men have done for her. Her material wealth, surpassing that of any other nation, shall be no greater than her moral wealth, and her gigantic and unmatched power shall be only a power to bless.

What I have just said is, indeed, but prophecy- a q, the prophecy, too, of an ignorant and short-sighted man: - and it may, therefore, never be fulfilled. My anticipations of a beautiful and blessed renovation for my beloved country may never be realized. She may be left to perish, and to perish forever. What then? Must I cease my efforts for her salvation? Happily, I am not dependent on prophecy for the interpretation of my duty, nor to sustain my fidelity, nor to encourage the opening of my lips. I am cast upon no such uncertainty. I am to continue to plead for my country; and to feel assured, that I do not plead in vain. If prophecy is all uncertain-nevertheless, there are certainties, gracious certainties, on which it is my privilege to rely. I know, that in the Divine Economy, no honest discharge of the conscience, and no faithful testimony of the heart, shall be suffered to go unrewarded. I know, that, in this perfect and blessed Economy, no sincere words in behalf of the right are lost. Time and truth will save them from falling ineffectual. To time and truth, therefore, do I cordially commit all, that I have said on this occasion; and patiently will I wait to see what uses time and truth shall make of it.