the prisoner’s case. I will make confession for him of the length and
breadth of his offence. There resides in this city a man named Daniel
Bell, who was once held as a slave, but who purchased his own freedom.
He had a family, consisting of his wife and eight or ten children.
These were manumitted by their master, when he was brought to that
most searching of all earthly tribunals,--the death bed. After the
master’s decease, his heirs attempted to reclaim the property; for
the living and the dying have very different views on the subject
of slavery. Their ground of claim was, that the master was not of
sound and disposing mind when he made the deed of manumission. But
the magistrate who prepared the deed, and before whom it was executed
and acknowledged, set that pretence aside by his own knowledge of
the grantor’s sanity; and so the family of Bell passed as free, and
were treated as free, for years. At length this magistrate died, and
immediately the attempt to reduce the family to bondage was renewed.
A trial was had, and through default of the now deceased magistrate’s
testimony, a verdict against them was obtained. But new evidence was
discovered, and one of the most respectable counsellors of this court,
Joseph H. Bradley, Esq., made oath as to his belief in the sufficiency
of that evidence, and moved for a new trial. It was while these
proceedings were pending, in behalf of the wife and children, that they
became alarmed lest they should be clandestinely sent to the south, and
there be plunged into irredeemable slavery. Believing themselves free,
and fearing bondage, they did send to Philadelphia for assistance, (I
tell you the worst of it,) in being rescued from such a fate. This
defendant, Drayton, being led also to believe that they were free, did
come to assist them. Drayton might have said to himself, “Men go to
assist Poles and Hungarians, and even Texans, and get glory for it; and
why should I not assist free women and children in imminent danger of
bondage?” He arrived here on Thursday evening, the 13th of April, and,
having no other special business, prepared to sail from here, and did
so sail, on Saturday evening, the 15th. Bell’s family knew the place
where the defendant’s vessel was anchored, and the time fixed for its
departure. Drayton, expecting to meet them there at the time appointed,
was not at his vessel during the whole evening. But one thing happened
which he did not expect, and had not provided against. Bell’s family
had a few friends whom they thought they could take with them. They
did not propose any spoiling of the Egyptians, but thought the escape
of a few Israelites lawful. But these friends had _their_ friends, and
they still another circle; and so, while the defendant was absent from
his vessel on Saturday evening, and without his knowledge or consent,
they flocked down and stowed themselves in the hold; so that,--and I
say now, gentlemen, what I religiously believe to be true,--when these
slaves were ordered to come on deck after the capture, the prisoner was
as much astonished as any body at the number of fishes that had got
into his net.
These, gentlemen, are the facts, and, as I believe, all the important
facts pertaining to this case; and on these facts we claim that you
must acquit the prisoner of the offence of larceny.
NOTE. This case and one or two others were tried, and, in consequence
of a series of most extraordinary rulings by the court, a verdict of
“_guilty_” was rendered.
Every lawyer knows that in the course of a trial, when counsel can
have no time for examination or reflection, they take exceptions,
wherever an objection to the decision of the judge seems probably, or
even plausibly good. A clew, therefore, will be given to the course
which the court pursued throughout these trials, when the fact is
stated, that, on appeal to the Superior Court, _seventeen_ out of
_twenty-four_ of the rulings of the judge to which exception had been
taken were set aside.
The cases for larceny were remanded to be tried anew, when a verdict
of “not guilty” was rendered in them all.
Drayton, the captain, and Sayres, his mate, were afterwards convicted
of “transporting” the slaves, and were fined.
English, the “boy,” though indicted in one hundred and fifteen
indictments, was discharged without a trial.
Part of Bell’s free family were ransomed; the rest were sold and sent
to the South.
Although the facts pertaining to the mob, the repeated attempts
upon Drayton’s life, the besieging of the jail, and the expulsion
of Drayton’s counsel from it when engaged in his defence, all came
out before the grand jury that found these scores and hundreds of
indictments, and though it was notorious who some of the ringleaders
of the mob were, yet no bill of indictment was ever found against any
of them.
FOOTNOTES:
[4] In attendance upon the trial, and stationing themselves as near as
practicable to the counsel for the defence, were men who cocked pistols
and drew dirks upon Drayton, in the mob that pursued him.
LETTER
TO THE WHIG CONVENTION, (AND ALSO TO THE FREE SOIL CONVENTION,
_mutatis mutandis_,) ACCEPTING THEIR RESPECTIVE NOMINATIONS FOR THE
THIRTY-FIRST CONGRESS.
[_One paragraph of this Letter is omitted, as referring to a subject
unconnected with the object of the present volume._]
WEST NEWTON, Sept. 23, 1848.
GENTLEMEN;
I have received with lively emotions of gratitude a copy of the
resolutions passed at a district convention, held at Dedham, on the --
inst.; from one of which it appears that I was unanimously nominated by
the convention, as their candidate for the Thirty-first Congress of the
United States.
* * * * *
The convention you have the honor to represent was pleased to refer
to my views respecting the institution of slavery. Some of these
views were partly expressed in the remarks made by me in the House
of Representatives, on the 30th of June last; in the letter to my
constituents before referred to; and in my arguments before the
_Criminal_ Court of the District of Columbia, in the “Pearl” cases.
These, and kindred views, I shall improve all fitting opportunities
that I may ever enjoy to enlarge upon and enforce; and had I the tongue
of an angel, or the pen of inspiration, I believe I could use them on
no holier theme than in kindling abhorrence at the wrongs suffered
by the slave, and in melting the universal heart of humanity into
pity for his lot; for I hold it to be impossible for the soul of a
slave,--benighted, strangled, and buried alive as it is,--ever fully
to know and feel the joys of that spiritual liberty wherewith Christ
maketh his disciples free.
Be pleased, gentlemen, to accept my thanks for the very kind manner
in which you have made known to me the decision of the convention you
represent, and believe me,
Very truly and sincerely, yours, &c., &c.,
HORACE MANN.
SPEECH
DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE UNITED STATES,
FEBRUARY 23, 1849, ON SLAVERY AND THE SLAVE TRADE IN THE DISTRICT OF
COLUMBIA.
MR. CHAIRMAN;
There is a bill upon the speaker’s table which provides for abolishing
the slave trade in the District of Columbia. For three successive
days we have tried in vain to reach it, in the order of business. Its
opponents have baffled our efforts. Our difficulty is not in carrying
the bill, but in reaching it. I am not without apprehension that the
last sands of this Congress will run out, without any action upon the
subject. Even should the bill be taken up, it is probable that all
debate upon it will be suppressed by that sovereign silencer,--the
previous question. Hence I avail myself of the present opportunity, as
it is probably the only one I shall have, during the present session,
to submit my views upon it.
I frankly avow, in the outset, that the bill provides for one part only
of an evil, whose remedy, as it seems to me, is not only the object
of a reasonable desire, but of a righteous and legal demand. The bill
proposes the abolition, not of slavery, but only of the slave trade, in
the District of Columbia. My argument will go to show, that, within the
limits of this District, slavery ought not to exist in fact, and does
not exist in law.
Sir, in the first place, let us inquire what is the state of things
in this District on this subject. The gentleman from Indiana, [Mr. R.
W. THOMPSON,] who addressed us a few days since, used the following
language:--
“What is the slave trade in the District of Columbia? I have
heard a great deal said about ‘slave pens,’--about slaves sold
at auction,--and about stripping the mother from the child, and
the husband from the wife. These things may exist here, but I do
not know of them. Since I have been in the habit of visiting the
District,--which is from my boyhood,--I have never seen a negro sold
here,--I have never seen a band of negroes taken off by the slave
trader. I do not remember that I have ever seen the slave trader
himself. I know nothing of the ‘slave pen’ that is so much talked
about. It may be here, however, and these things may happen every
day before the eyes of gentlemen who choose to hunt them up; but for
myself, I have no taste for such things.”
Now, sir, if the gentleman means to say that he has no personal
knowledge of “slave pens” and of the slave traffic in this District,
that is one thing; but if he means to deny or call in question the
existence of the traffic itself, or of the dens where its concentrated
iniquities make up the daily employment of men, that is quite
another thing. Sir, from the western front of this Capitol, from the
piazza that opens out from your congressional library, as you cast
your eye along the horizon and over the conspicuous objects of the
landscape,--the President’s Mansion, the Smithsonian Institution,
and the site of the Washington Monument, you cannot fail to see the
horrid and black receptacles where human beings are penned like
cattle, and kept like cattle, that they may be sold like cattle,--as
strictly and literally so as oxen and swine are kept and sold at the
Smithfield shambles in London, or at the cattle fair in Brighton. In a
communication made during the last session, by the mayor of this city,
to an honorable member of this House, _he_ acknowledges the existence
of slave pens here. Up and down the beautiful river that sweeps along
the western margin of the District, slavers come and go, bearing
their freight of human souls to be vended in this market-place; and
after they have changed hands, according to the forms of commerce,
they are retransported,--the father of a family to go, perhaps, to
the rice fields of South Carolina, the mother to the cotton fields of
Alabama, and the children to be scattered over the sugar plantations of
Louisiana or Texas.
Sir, it is notorious that the slave traders of this District advertise
for slaves in the newspapers of the neighboring counties of Maryland,
to be delivered in any numbers at their slave pens in this city; and
that they have agents, in the city and out of it, who are engaged in
supplying victims for their shambles. Since the gentleman from Indiana
was elected to this Congress, and, I believe, since he took his seat
in this Congress, one coffle of about sixty slaves came, chained and
driven, into this city; and at about the same time another coffle of a
hundred. Here they were lodged for a short period, were then sold, and
went on their returnless way to the ingulfing south.
Sir, all this is done here under our own eyes, and within hearing of
our own ears. All this is done now, and it has been done for fifty
years,--ever since the seat of the national government was established
in this place, and ever since Congress, in accordance with the
constitution, has exercised “_exclusive_ legislation” over it. But
the gentleman from Indiana, though accustomed to visit this District
from his boyhood, has “never seen a negro sold here;”--he has “never
seen a band of negroes taken off by the slave trader;” he does not
remember “to have seen the slave trader himself;” he knows “nothing of
the ‘slave pen’ that is so much talked about.” Sir, the eye sees, not
less from the inner than from the outer light. The eye sees what the
mind is disposed to recognize. The image upon the retina is nothing,
if there be not an inward sense to discern it. The artist sees beauty;
the philosopher sees relations of cause and effect; the benevolent
man catches the slightest tone of sorrow; but the insensate heart can
wade through tears and see no weeping, and can live amidst groans of
anguish, and the air will be a non-conductor of the sound. I know a
true anecdote of an American gentleman who walked through the streets
of London with a British nobleman; and being beset at every step of the
way by squalid mendicants, the American, at the end of the excursion,
adverted to their having run a gantlet between beggars. “What beggars?”
said his lordship; “_I have seen none_.”
But the gentleman from Indiana says, “But for myself, I have no taste
for such things.” His taste explains his vision. Suppose Wilberforce
and Clarkson to have had no “taste” for quelling the horrors of the
African slave trade. Suppose Howard and Mrs. Fry to have had no “taste”
for laying open the abominations of the prison-house, and for giving
relief to the prisoner. Suppose Miss Dix to have had no “taste” for
carrying solace and comfort and restoration to the insane. Suppose the
Abbé L’Epée to have had no “taste” for teaching deaf mutes; or the Abbé
Hauy for educating the blind; or M. Seguin and others for training
idiots, and for educing docility and decency, and a love of order from
those almost imperceptible germs of reason and sense, that barely
distinguish them from the brutes! Suppose these things, and in what a
different condition would the charities and the sufferings of the world
have been! Herod had no “taste” for sparing the lives of the children
of Bethlehem, and of all the coasts thereof; and doubtless he could
have said, with entire truth, that he never heard the voice, in Rama,
of lamentation and weeping and great mourning; nor saw, among all the
mothers of Syria, any Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to
be comforted, because they were not. But, sir, just in proportion as
the light of civilization and Christianity dawns upon the world, will
men be found who have a “taste” for succoring the afflicted and for
righting the wronged. It was the clearest proof of the Great Teacher’s
mission, that he had “a taste” for going about doing good.
During the last fifty years, and especially during the last half of
these fifty years, the world has made great advances in the principles
of liberty. Human rights have been recognized, and their practical
enjoyment, to some extent, secured. There is not a government in
Europe, even the most iron and despotical of them all, that has not
participated in the ameliorations which characterize the present age. A
noble catalogue of rights has been wrested by the British commons from
the British nobility. France and Italy have been revolutionized. Even
the Pope of Rome, whose power seemed as eternal as the hills on which
he was seated, has sunk under the shock. Prussia, and all the Germanic
powers, with the exception of Austria, have been half revolutionized;
and even the icy despotisms of Austria and Russia are forced to relent
under those central fires of liberty which burn forever in the human
heart, as the central fires of the earth burn forever at its core.
Great Britain has abolished African slavery throughout all her realms.
France has declared that any one who shall voluntarily become the owner
of a slave, or shall voluntarily continue to be the owner of a slave
cast upon him by bequest or inheritance, shall cease to be a citizen
of France. Denmark has abolished slavery wherever it existed in her
possessions. The Bey of Tunis, acting under the light of the Mahometan
religion, has abolished it. The priests of Persia declare the sentiment
to have come by tradition from Mahomet himself, “that the worst of
men is the seller of men.” Not only all civilized nations, but the
half civilized, the semi-barbarous, are acting under the guidance of
the clearer light and the higher motives of our day. But there is
one conspicuous exception; there is one government which closes its
eyes to this increasing light; which resists the persuasion of these
ennobling motives; which, on the grand subject of human liberty and
human rights, is stationary and even retrogrades, while the whole world
around is advancing; sleeps while all others are awaking; loves its
darkness while all others are aspiring and ascending to a purer air and
a brighter sky. This government, too, is the one which is most boastful
and vain-glorious of its freedom; and if the humiliating truth must
be spoken, this government is our own. In regard to slavery and the
slave trade in this District, where we possess the power of exclusive
legislation, we stand where we stood fifty years ago. Not a single
ameliorating law has been passed. In practice, we are where we were
then; in spirit, there are proofs that we have gone backward.
There are now on the surface of the globe two conspicuous
places,--places which are attracting the gaze of the whole civilized
world,--whither men and women are brought from great distances to be
sold, and whence they are carried to great distances to suffer the
heaviest wrongs that human nature can bear. One of these places is the
coast of Africa, which is among the most pagan and benighted regions of
the earth; the other is the District of Columbia, the capital and seat
of government of the United States.
As far back as 1808, Congress did what it could to abolish the slave
trade on the coast of Africa. In 1820 it declared the foreign slave
trade to be piracy; but on the 31st of January, 1849, a bill was
introduced into this House to abolish the domestic slave trade in
this District,--here, in the centre and heart of the nation,--and
seventy-two representatives voted against it,--voted to lay it on the
table, where, as we all know, it would sleep a dreamless sleep. This
was in the House of Representatives. It is well known that the Senate
is still more resistant of progress than the House; and it is the
opinion of many that, even if a bill should pass both House and Senate,
it would receive the Executive veto. By authority of Congress, the city
of Washington is the Congo of America.
But, still more degrading than this, there is another contrast which
we present to the whole civilized world. The very slaves upon whom we
have trodden have risen above us, and their moral superiority makes
our conduct ignominious. Not Europeans only, not only Arabians and
Turks, are emerging from the inhumanity and the enormities of the slave
traffic; but even our own slaves, transplanted to the land of their
fathers, are raising barriers against the spread of this execrable
commerce. On the shores of Africa, a republic is springing up, whose
inhabitants were transplanted from this Egypt of bondage. And now,
look at the government which these slaves and descendants of slaves
have established, and contrast it with our own. They discard the
institution of slavery, while we cherish it. A far greater proportion
of their children than of the white children of the slave states of
this Union are at school. In the metropolis of their nation, their
flag does not protect the slave traffic, nor wave over the slave mart.
Would to God that the very opposite of this were not true of our own!
Their laws punish the merchandise of human beings; our laws sanction
and encourage it. They have erected, and are erecting, fortifications
and military posts along the shores of the Atlantic, for seven hundred
miles, to prevent pirates from invading the domain of their neighbors,
and kidnapping people who, to them, are foreign nations. We open
market-places here, at the centre of the nation, where, from seven
hundred miles of coast, the sellers may come to sell, and where buyers
may come to buy, and whence slaves are carried almost as far from
their birthplace as Africa is from America. The governor of Liberia
has lately made a voyage to England and France, and entered into
treaties of amity and commerce with them; and he has obtained naval
forces from them, to abolish this traffic in human beings. At the same
time, we are affording guaranties to the same traffic. Virginia and
Maryland are to the slave trade what the interior of Africa once was.
The Potomac and the Chesapeake are the American Niger and Bight of
Benin; while this District is the great government barracoon, whence
coffles are driven across the country to Alabama or Texas, as slave
ships once bore their dreadful cargoes of agony and woe across the
Atlantic. The very race, then, which were first stolen, brought to this
country, despoiled of all the rights which God had given them, and kept
in bondage for generations, at last, after redeeming themselves, or
being restored to their natural liberty in some other way, have crossed
the ocean, established a government for themselves, and are now setting
us an example which should cause our cheeks to blister with shame.
Sir, there is an idea often introduced here and elsewhere, and made
to bear against any restriction of slavery, or any amelioration of
the condition of the slave, which I wish to consider. It was brought
odiously and prominently forward the other day, by the gentleman from
Pennsylvania, [Mr. CHARLES BROWN.] The idea is, that the slaves are in
a better condition in this country than they would have been at home.
It is affirmed that they are brought under some degree of civilizing
and humanizing influences amongst us, which they would not have felt in
the land of their fathers.
Let us look, first, at the philosophy of this notion, and then at its
morality. All those who use this argument as a defence or a mitigation
of the evils of slavery, or as a _final cause_ for its existence,
_assume_ that if the present three million slaves, who now darken
our southern horizon, and fill the air with their groans, had not
been here in their present state of bondage, they would have been in
Africa, in a state of paganism. Now, the slightest reflection shows
that this assumption has no basis of truth. Not one of them all would
now have been in existence, if their ancestors had not been brought to
this country. And, according to the laws of population operative among
barbarous nations, there are now just as many inhabitants,--pagans,
cannibals, or what you please,--in Africa, as there would have been if
the spoiler had never entered their home, and ravished and borne them
into bondage. Among savage nations, or nomadic tribes, the population
equals the means of subsistence. Take away two, three, or four per
cent. of the consumers, and the vacuum is immediately filled. The
population keeps up to the level of the production. Among such people,
there is always a tendency to increase faster than the means of living
increase. Take away a part of them, and this tendency to increase takes
effect by its own vigor,--it executes itself. It is like a bow that
unbends, or a spring that uncoils, as soon as an external pressure is
removed. Dam up a fountain, and the weight of the accumulating strata
will eventually check the outflow from the spring. So it is of a savage
population. Of them, the Malthusian theory is true.
And how infinitely absurd and ridiculous is the plea that the slaves
are better off here “_than_ THEY _would have been in Africa_”!
Go out into the streets of this city, and take the first one you
meet,--perhaps he is a mulatto. But for being here, he would have been
a mulatto in the middle of Africa, would he? Take them all,--mulatto,
mestizo, zambo, and all “the vast variety of man,” so far as color is
concerned,--and if they had not their existence here, they would have
had it in Africa! This is the doctrine. Would they have had the same
American names also? Would they have spoken the same language, and
worn cotton grown on the same fields? The last is just as certain as
the first. It is all more silly than the repinings of the silly girls
who grieved because their mother had not married a certain rich suitor,
whose addresses in early life she had rejected; for then, said they,
how rich _we_ should have been! No, not one of these three millions of
men, women, and children, would have been in existence in Africa. All
the crime of their kidnapping; all the horrors of the middle passage;
all their sufferings for two centuries, or six generations; and all
the calamities that are yet to grow out of their condition,--all these
crimes and agonies are gratuitous crimes and agonies. There is no
recompense or palliation for them. They have been added unnecessarily
and remorselessly to the amount of human guilt and suffering for which
the white race must answer in the day of account. The idea, then, of
sending the slaves back to _their_ country is an egregious fallacy.
If they were to be sent _back_ whence they came, it would not be to
Africa, but to nonentity.
If the ancestors of the present three millions of slaves had never been
brought here,--if their descendants had never been propagated here,
for the supposed value of their services, their places would have been
supplied by white laborers,--by men of the Caucasian race,--by freemen.
Instead of the three million slaves, of all colors, we should doubtless
now have at least three million white, freeborn citizens, adding to the
real prosperity of the country, and to the power of the Republic. If
the south had not had slaves to do their work for them, they would have
become ingenious and inventive like the north, and would have enlisted
the vast forces of nature in their service,--wind, and fire, and water,
and steam, and lightning, the mighty energies of gravitation and the
subtle forces of chemistry. The country might not have had so gaudy
and ostentatious a civilization as at present, but it would have had
one infinitely more pure and sound.