all those years, the clock of eternity never counted out a minute that
did not witness the cruel death, by treachery or violence, of some son
or daughter, some father or mother, of Africa. The three millions of
slaves that now darken our southern horizon are the progeny of these
progenitors,--a doomed race, fated and suffering from sire to son. But
the enormities of the mother country did not pass without remonstrance.
Many of the colonies expostulated against, and rebuked them. The
New England colonies, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia, presented
to the throne the most humble and suppliant petitions, praying for
the abolition of the trade. The colonial legislatures passed laws
against it. But their petitions were spurned from the throne. Their
laws were vetoed by the governors. In informal negotiations attempted
with the ministers of the crown, the friends of the slave were made
to understand that royalty turned an adder’s ear to their prayers.
The profoundest feelings of lamentation and abhorrence were kindled
in the bosoms of his western subjects by this flagitious conduct of
the king. In that dark catalogue of crimes, which led our fathers to
forswear allegiance to the British throne, its refusal to prohibit
the slave trade to the colonies is made one of the most prominent of
those political offences which are said to “define a tyrant.” In the
original draught of the Declaration of Independence, as prepared by
Mr. Jefferson, this crime of King George the Third is set forth in the
following words:--
“He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its
most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant
people who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into
slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur a miserable death in their
transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of
infidel powers, is the warfare of the CHRISTIAN King of Great Britain.
Determined to keep a market where MEN should be bought and sold, he
has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt
to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce.”
Now, if the King of Great Britain prostituted his negative that slavery
might not be restricted, what, in after times, shall be said of those
who prostitute their affirmative that it may be extended? Yet it is
now proposed, in some of the state legislatures, and in this Capitol,
to do precisely the same thing, in regard to the Territory of Oregon,
which was done by Great Britain to her transatlantic possessions; not
merely to legalize slavery there, but to prohibit its inhabitants from
prohibiting _it_. Though three thousand miles west of Great Britain,
she had certain constitutional rights over us, and could affect our
destiny. Though the inhabitants of Oregon are three thousand miles west
of us, yet we have certain constitutional rights over them, and can
affect their destiny. Great Britain annulled our laws for prohibiting
slavery; we propose to annul an existing law of Oregon prohibiting
slavery. If the execrations of mankind are yet too feeble and too
few to punish Great Britain for her wickedness, what scope, what
fulness, what eternity of execration and anathema will be a sufficient
retribution upon us, if we volunteer to copy her example? It was in
the eighteenth century when the mother country thus made merchandise
of human beings,--a time when liberty was a forbidden word in the
languages of Europe. It is in the nineteenth century that we propose to
reënact, and on an ampler scale, the same execrable villany,--a time
when liberty is the rallying cry of all Christendom. So great has been
the progress of liberal ideas within the last century, that what was
venial at its beginning is unpardonable at its close. To drive coffles
of slaves from here to Oregon, in the middle of the nineteenth century,
is more infamous than it was to bring cargoes of slaves from Africa
here, in the middle of the eighteenth. Yet such is the period that men
would select to perpetuate and increase the horrors of this traffic.
Sir, how often, on this floor, have indignant remonstrances been
addressed to the north, for agitating the subject of slavery? How often
have we at the north been told that we were inciting insurrection,
fomenting a servile war, putting the black man’s knife to the white
man’s throat. The air of this hall has been filled, its walls have
been, as it were, sculptured, by southern eloquence, with images of
devastated towns, of murdered men and ravished women; and, as a defence
against the iniquities of the institution, they have universally put
in the plea that the calamity was entailed upon them by the mother
country, that it made a part of the world they were born into, and
therefore they could not help it. I have always been disposed to
allow its full weight to this palliation. But if they now insist upon
perpetrating against the whole western world, which happens at present
to be under our control, the same wrongs which, in darker days, Great
Britain perpetrated against them, they will forfeit every claim to
sympathy. Sir, here is a test. Let not southern men, who would now
force slavery upon new regions, ever deny that their slavery at home is
a chosen, voluntary, beloved crime.
But let us look, sir, at the moral character of slavery. It is proposed
not merely to continue this institution where it now exists, but to
extend it to the Pacific Ocean,--to spread it over the vast slopes
of the Rocky Mountains. Sir, the conduct of governments, like the
conduct of individuals, is subject to the laws and the retributions of
Providence. If, therefore, there is any ingredient of wrong in this
institution, we ought not to adopt it, or to permit it, even though
it should pour wealth in golden showers over the whole surface of the
land. In speaking of the moral character of slavery, sir, I mean to
utter no word for the purpose of wounding the feelings of any man. On
the other hand, I mean not to wound the cause of truth by abstaining
from the utterance of any word which I ought to speak.
The institution of slavery is against natural right. Jurists, from the
time of Justinian; orators, from the time of Cicero; poets, from the
time of Homer, declare it to be wrong. The writers on moral or ethical
science,--the expounders of the law of nations and of God,--denounce
slavery as an invasion of the rights of man. They find no warrant
for it in the eternal principles of justice and equity; and in that
great division which they set forth between right and wrong, they
arrange slavery in the catalogue of crime. All the noblest instincts
of human nature rebel against it. Whatever has been taught by sage,
or sung by poet, in favor of freedom, is a virtual condemnation of
slavery. Whenever we applaud the great champions of liberty, who, by
the sacrifice of life in the cause of freedom, have won the homage
of the world and an immortality of fame, we record the testimony of
our hearts against slavery. Wherever patriotism and philanthropy have
glowed brightest; wherever piety and a devout religious sentiment have
burned most fervently, there has been the most decided recognition of
the universal rights of man.
Sir, let us analyze this subject, and see if slavery be not the most
compact, and concentrated, and condensed system of wrong which the
depravity of man has ever invented. Slavery is said to have had its
origin in war. It is claimed that the captor had a right to take the
life of his captive; and that if he spared that life he made it his
own, and thus acquired a right to control it. I deny the right of
the captor to the life of his captive; and even if this right were
conceded, I deny his right to the life of the captive’s offspring. But
this relation between captor and captive precludes the idea of peace;
for no peace can be made where there is no free agency. Peace being
precluded, it follows inevitably that the state of war continues.
Hence, the state of slavery is a state of war; and though active
hostilities may have ceased, they are liable to break out, and may
rightfully break out, at any moment. How long must our fellow-citizens,
who were enslaved in Algiers, have continued in slavery, before they
would have lost the right of escape or of resistance?
The gentleman from Virginia, [Mr. BOCOCK,] in his speech this morning,
put the right of the slaveholder upon a somewhat different ground.
He said a man might acquire property in a horse before the existence
of civil society, by catching a wild one. And so, he added, one man
might acquire property in another man, by subduing him to his will.
The superior force gave the right, whether to the horse or to the man.
Now, if this be so, and if at any time the superior force should change
sides, then it follows inevitably that the relation of the parties
might be rightfully changed by a new appeal to force.
The same gentleman claims Bible authority for slavery. He says, “I
see slavery there tolerated, I had almost said inculcated. I see such
language as this: ‘Both thy bondmen and thy bondmaids shall be of
the heathen that are round about you; of them shall you buy bondmen
and bondmaids; and ye shall take them as an inheritance for your
children after you, to inherit them for a possession,’” &c. Does not
the gentleman know that, by the same authority, the Israelitish slaves
were commanded to despoil their Egyptian masters, and to escape from
bondage? Surely the latter is as good an authority as the former. If
the gentleman’s argument is sound, he is bound to advocate a repeal of
the act of 1793. If the gentleman’s argument is sound, the free states,
instead of surrendering fugitive slaves to their masters, are bound
to give those masters a Red Sea reception and embrace; and the escape
of the children of Israel into Canaan is a direct precedent for the
underground railroad to Canada.
Both the gentleman from Kentucky, [Mr. FRENCH,] yesterday, and the
gentleman from Virginia, to-day, spoke repeatedly, and without the
slightest discrimination, of “a slave and a horse,” “a slave and a
mule,” &c. What should we think, sir, of a teacher for our children, or
even of a tender of our cattle, who did not recognize the difference
between men and mules,--between humanity and horse-flesh? What should
we think, if, on opening a work, claiming to be a scientific treatise
on zoölogy, we should find the author to be ignorant of the difference
between biped and quadruped, or between men and birds, or men and
fishes? Yet such errors would be trifling compared with those which
have been made through all this debate. They would be simple errors
in natural history, perhaps harmless; but these are errors,--fatal
errors,--in humanity and Christian ethics. No, sir; all the legislation
of the slave states proves that they do not treat, and cannot treat,
a human being as an animal. I will show that they are ever trying to
degrade him into an animal, although they can never succeed.
This conscious idea that the state of slavery is a state of war,--a
state in which superior force keeps inferior force down,--develops and
manifests itself perpetually. It exhibits itself in the statute books
of the slave states, prohibiting the education of slaves, making it
highly penal to teach them so much as the alphabet; dispersing and
punishing all meetings where they come together in quest of knowledge.
Look into the statute books of the free states, and you will find law
after law, encouragement after encouragement, to secure the diffusion
of knowledge. Look into the statute books of the slave states, and you
find law after law, penalty after penalty, to secure the extinction of
knowledge. Who has not read with delight those books which have been
written, both in England and in this country, entitled “The Pursuit of
Knowledge under Difficulties,” giving the biographies of illustrious
men, who, by an undaunted and indomitable spirit, had risen from
poverty and obscurity to the heights of eminence, and blessed the world
with their achievements in literature, in science, and in morals? Yet
here, in what we call republican America, are fifteen great states,
vying with each other to see which will bring the blackest and most
impervious pall of ignorance over three millions of human beings; nay,
which can do most to stretch this pall across the continent, from the
Atlantic to the Pacific.
Is not knowledge a good? Is it not one of the most precious bounties
which the all-bountiful Giver has bestowed upon the human race? Sir
John Herschel, possessed of ample wealth, his capacious mind stored
with the treasures of knowledge, surrounded by the most learned society
in the most cultivated metropolis in the world, says, “If I were to
pray for a taste which should stand me in stead, under every variety
of circumstances, and be a source of happiness and cheerfulness to me
through life, and a shield against its ills, however things might go
amiss, and the world frown upon me, it would be a taste for reading.”
Yet it is now proposed to colonize the broad regions of the west with
millions of our fellow-beings, who shall never be able to read a book,
or write a word; to whom knowledge shall bring no delight in childhood,
no relief in the weary hours of sickness or convalescence, no solace in
the decrepitude of age; who shall perceive nothing of the beauties of
art, who shall know nothing of the wonders of science, who shall never
reach any lofty, intellectual conception of the attributes of their
great Creator;--deaf to all the hosannas of praise which nature sings
to her Maker; blind in this magnificent temple which God has builded.
Sir, it is one of the noblest attributes of man that he can derive
knowledge from his predecessors. We possess the accumulated learning
of ages. From ten thousand confluent streams, the river of truth,
widened and deepened, has come down to us; and it is among our choicest
delights, that if we can add to its volume, as it rolls on, it will
bear a richer freight of blessings to our successors. But it is
here proposed to annul this beneficent law of nature; to repel this
proffered bounty of Heaven. It is proposed to create a race of men,
to whom all the lights of experience shall be extinguished; whose
hundredth generation shall be as ignorant and as barbarous as its first.
Sir, I hold all voluntary ignorance to be a crime; I hold all enforced
ignorance to be a greater crime. Knowledge is essential to all rational
enjoyment; it is essential to the full and adequate performance of
every duty. Whoever intercepts knowledge, therefore, on its passage to
a human soul; whoever strikes down the hand that is outstretched to
grasp it, is guilty of one of the most heinous of offences. Add to your
virtue knowledge, says the apostle; but here the command is, Be-cloud
and be-little by ignorance whatever virtue you may possess.
Sir, let me justify the earnestness of these expressions by describing
the transition of feeling through which I have lately passed. I
come from a community where knowledge ranks next to virtue in the
classification of blessings. On the tenth day of April last, the day
before I left home for this place, I attended the dedication of a
schoolhouse in Boston which had cost $70,000. The mayor presided,
and much of the intelligence and worth of the city was present on
the occasion. I see by a paper which I have this day received, that
another schoolhouse, in the same city, was dedicated on Monday of
the present week. It was there stated by the mayor that the cost of
the city schoolhouses which had been completed within the last three
months was $200,000. On Tuesday of this week, a new high schoolhouse
in the city of Cambridge was dedicated. Mr. Everett, the president of
Harvard College, was present, and addressed the assembly in a long,
and, I need not add, a most beautiful speech. That schoolhouse, with
two others to be dedicated within a week, will have cost $25,000. Last
week, in the neighboring city of Charlestown, a new high schoolhouse,
of a most splendid and costly character, was dedicated by the mayor
and city government, by clergy and laity. But it is not mayors of
cities and presidents of colleges alone that engage in the work of
consecrating temples of education to the service of the young. Since
I have been here, the governor of the commonwealth, Mr. Briggs, went
to Newburyport, a distance of forty miles, to attend the dedication
of a schoolhouse which cost $25,000. On a late occasion, when the
same excellent chief magistrate travelled forty miles to attend the
dedication of a schoolhouse in the country, some speaker congratulated
the audience because the governor of the commonwealth had come down
from the executive chair to honor the occasion. “No,” said he, “I have
come up to the occasion to be honored by it.” Within the last year,
$200,000 have been given by individuals to Harvard College. Within a
little longer time than this, the other two colleges in the state have
received, together, a still larger endowment from individuals or the
state.
These measures are part of a great system which we are carrying on for
the elevation of the race. Last year, the voters of Massachusetts, in
their respective towns, voluntarily taxed themselves about a million
of dollars for the support of Common Schools. We have an old law on
the statute book, requiring towns to tax themselves for the support
of public schools; but the people have long since lost sight of this
law in the munificence of their contributions. Massachusetts is now
erecting a reform school for vagrant and exposed children,--so many
of whom come to us from abroad,--which will cost the state more than
a hundred thousand dollars. An unknown individual has given twenty
thousand dollars towards it. We educate all our deaf and dumb and
blind. An appropriation was made by the last legislature to establish
a school for idiots, in imitation of those beautiful institutions
in Paris, in Switzerland, and in Berlin, where the most revolting
and malicious of this deplorable class are tamed into docility, made
lovers of order and neatness, and capable of performing many valuable
services. The future teacher of this school is now abroad, preparing
himself for his work. A few years ago, Mr. Everett, the present
president of Harvard College, then governor of the commonwealth,
spoke the deep _convictions_ of Massachusetts people, when, in a
public address on education, he exhorted the fathers and mothers
of Massachusetts in the following words: “Save,” said he, “save,
spare, scrape, stint, starve, do any thing but steal,” to educate
your children. And Doctor Howe, the noble-hearted director of the
Institution for the Blind, lately uttered the deepest _sentiments_ of
our citizens, when, in speaking of our duties to the blind, the deaf
and dumb, and the idiotic, he said, “The sight of any human being left
to brutish ignorance is always demoralizing to the beholders. There
floats not upon the stream of life a wreck of humanity so utterly
shattered and crippled, but that its signals of distress should
challenge attention and command assistance.”
Sir, it was all glowing and fervid with sentiments like these, that,
a few weeks ago, I entered this House,--sentiments transfused into my
soul from without, even if I had no vital spark of nobleness to kindle
them within. Imagine, then, my strong revulsion of feeling, when the
first set, elaborate speech which I heard, was that of the gentleman
from Virginia, proposing to extend ignorance to the uttermost bounds
of this republic,--to legalize it, to enforce it, to necessitate it,
and make it eternal. Since him, many others have advocated the same
abhorrent doctrine. Not satisfied with dooming a whole race of our
fellow-beings to mental darkness, impervious and everlasting,--not
satisfied with drawing this black curtain of ignorance between man
and nature, between the human soul and its God, from the Atlantic to
the Rio Grande, across half the continent,--they desire to increase
this race ten, twenty millions more, and to unfold and spread out this
black curtain across the other half of the continent. When, sir, in the
halls of legislation, men advocate measures like this, it is no figure
of speech to say that their words are the clankings of multitudinous
fetters; each gesture of their arms tears human flesh with ten thousand
whips; each exhalation of their breath spreads clouds of moral darkness
from horizon to horizon.
Twenty years ago, a sharp sensation ran through the nerves of the
civilized world, at the story of a young man named Caspar Hauser,
found in the city of Nuremberg, in Bavaria. Though sixteen or
seventeen years of age, he could not walk nor talk. He heard without
understanding; he saw without perceiving; he moved without definite
purpose. It was the soul of an infant in the body of an adult. After he
had learned to speak, he related that, from his earliest recollection,
he had always been kept in a hole so small, that he could not stretch
out his limbs, where he saw no light, heard no sound, nor even
witnessed the face of the attendant who brought him his scanty food.
For many years conjecture was rife concerning his history, and all
Germany was searched to discover his origin. After a long period of
fruitless inquiry and speculation, public opinion settled down into
the belief that he was the victim of some great unnatural crime; that
he was the heir to some throne, and had been sequestered by ambition;
or the inheritor of vast wealth, and had been hidden away by cupidity;
or the offspring of criminal indulgence, and had been buried alive to
avoid exposure and shame. A German, Von Feuerbach, published an account
of Caspar, entitled “The Example of a Crime on the Life of the Soul.”
But why go to Europe to be thrilled with the pathos of a human being
shrouded from the light of nature, and cut off from a knowledge of duty
and of God? To-day, in this boasted land of light and liberty, there
are three million Caspar Hausers; and, as if this were not enough,
it is proposed to multiply their number tenfold, and to fill up all
the western world with these proofs of human avarice and guilt. It is
proposed that we ourselves should create and should publish to the
world, not one, but untold millions of “Examples of _a Crime on the
Life of the Soul_.” It is proposed that the self-styled freemen, the
self-styled Christians, of fifteen great states in this American Union,
shall engage in the work of procreating, rearing, and _selling_ Caspar
Hausers, often from their own loins; and if any further development
of soul or of body is allowed to the American victims than was
permitted to the Bavarian child, it is only because such development
will increase their market value at the barracoons. It is not from
any difference of motive, but only the better to insure that motive’s
indulgence. The slave child must be allowed to use his limbs, or how
could he drudge out his life in the service of his master? The slave
infant must be taught to walk, or how, _under the shadow of this
thrice-glorious Capitol_, could he join a coffle for New Orleans?
I know, sir, that it has been said, within a short time past, that
Caspar Hauser was an impostor, and his story a fiction. Would to God
that this could ever be said of his fellow-victims in America!