lotteries are authorized by more or less of the Southern States. Their
“schemes” are regularly advertised. I remember, when stopping for a
day in one of the southern cities, that some half-official looking
personages came into the hotel, cleared a large space in the public
hall, set down a rotary machine, and proceeded to draw a lottery.
Now, in Massachusetts, and in many of the Northern States, lotteries
are prohibited, under severe penalties. With us, it is highly penal
to advertise a lottery in any form, to placard one at the corners
of the streets, or to exhibit any plan or emblem of one at a shop
window. We act upon the well-known truth, that there is a much less
number of persons who draw any considerable prize in a lottery, than
there are who are killed by lightning; and therefore, whatever chance
a ticket-holder has of drawing any considerable prize, we know that
he has a much greater chance of being killed by lightning. Now, when
a citizen of Virginia and a citizen of Massachusetts go to the new
territories, does the former carry his right to establish and draw a
lottery, or the latter carry his right to prosecute the other for doing
so? Neither; certainly neither. Both have left the local law behind
them. If any state in this Union had adopted polygamy as its peculiar
institution, could an inhabitant of that state take a dozen wives with
him into the new territories, and defend his claim to live with them
there, because he could do so at home? Or, suppose, in pursuance of
the “manifest destiny” principle, we should _re_-annex a part of China
to this Union, could the Chinese, on removing to California, carry
the practice of infanticide with them? Just as well, I answer, and on
precisely the same legal ground that the south can carry slavery into
New Mexico. The reason is that the law of slavery is a _local_ law.
Like lotteries, or polygamy, or infanticide, it can legally exist in
no land where the principles of the common law prevail, until it is
legalized and sanctioned by a special law. Then it is permitted on
the simple ground that so much of the common law as secures liberty
and property, the right of _habeas corpus_ and freedom of speech to
each individual, has been cut out and cast away. The constitution
proceeds upon this doctrine when it provides for the recapture of
fugitive slaves. Why did it not provide for the capture of a fugitive
horse or ox? Why did it not provide that, if a horse or an ox should
escape from a slave state into a free state, it should be delivered
up, or be recoverable by legal process? Because horses and oxen are
_property_, by the common consent of mankind. It needed no law to
make them property. They are property by the law of nations, by the
English common law, by the law of every state in this Union,--_while
men and women are not_. An escaped slave could not be recovered before
the adoption of the constitution. The power to seize upon escaping
slaves was one of the motives for adopting it. These considerations
demonstrate that slaves are not _property_, within the meaning of this
word, when it is affirmed that if the north can carry _its_ property
into the territories, so can the south. As the constitution, in terms,
adopts the common law, it leaves slavery nothing to stand upon but the
local laws of the states where it is established. Freedom is the rule,
slavery is the exception. Judge Berrien’s favorite doctrine of equality
would, therefore, be destroyed, if the exception should prevail over
the rule. For, if slavery can be carried into any of our territories by
force of the constitution, it can into all of them; and if carried into
all of them, the exception becomes the rule, and the rule perishes. Ay,
the rule ceases to be even so much as an exception to that which was
_its_ own exception. It is wholly swallowed up and lost.
I know it is said that the _fact_ of slavery always precedes the _law_
of slavery; that _law_ does not go before the institution and create
it, but comes afterwards to sanction and regulate it. But this is no
more true of slavery than of every other institution or practice among
mankind, whether right or wrong. Homicide existed before law; the
law came in subsequently, and declared that he who took an innocent
man’s life without law, should lose his own by law. The law came in to
regulate homicide; to authorize the taking of human life for crime,
just as we authorize involuntary servitude for crime; and it may just
as well be argued that murder is a natural right because it existed
before law, as that slavery is a natural right because it existed
before law. _This argument appeals to the crime which the law was
enacted to prevent, in order to establish the supremacy of the crime
over the law that forbids it._
There is another fallacy in the arguments which southern gentlemen use
on this subject, which, though not as transparent as the preceding,
is quite as unsound. They speak of the _rights_ of the slaveholder in
the new territories. They speak as though the collective ownership of
the territories by the government, were the ownership of the people in
severalty; as though each citizen could go there and draw a line round
a “placer,” and say _this is mine_; and then, _because it is his_,
introduce his slaves upon it. But nothing is more clear than that there
is no such _individual_ right. The right of the government is, _first_,
a right of sovereignty and jurisdiction; and _second_, the right of
ownership of all lands, navigable waters, &c., which have not been
conveyed away by the preëxisting government. Individuals retain their
citizenship on going there, as they do on going to Great Britain, or
France; but a slave has just as much right to a portion of the public
lands in California, when he gets there, as his master.
Again; if the master carries into California the legal right to hold
slaves, which he possessed at home, does not the slave also retain
his legal rights when he is transferred there? The laws which govern
slaves are as various as the states where they exist. In some states
manumission is comparatively unobstructed. In Delaware, it is a penal
offence even to sell a slave to a notorious slavedealer. In Georgia,
the law forbids, or lately forbade, the importation of slaves for sale.
Now, how can a Georgian import slaves into California from Georgia,
when the very laws of his own state, under which he claims to hold
slaves, and under which laws he claims to carry slaves with him, forbid
their importation?
And further, political franchises or privileges are just as much a
part of a man’s rights as any tangible commodity. In South Carolina,
the ownership of ten slaves constitutes a property qualification
for being a member of the legislature. On removing to California,
will the citizen of South Carolina, who owns ten slaves, carry an
eligibility to the legislature of California with him? Nay, this
political privilege in South Carolina goes further. It is a right in
every owner of ten slaves, that no man who does not own ten slaves,
(or some legal equivalent,) shall be a member of the legislature.
The aspirant for office has a legal right in the limitation of the
number of his competitors, as much as in any thing else. Can he carry
_this_ to California with him? The inference is inevitable, that if
the inhabitants of the fifteen slave states can carry slaves into
California by virtue of the laws of their respective states, then they
must also carry all the incidents of slavery known to their respective
codes. For, how can the incident be separated from the principal? You
might, therefore, have, in a neighborhood of fifteen families, fifteen
slave codes in operation at the same time,--a manifest absurdity.
The conclusion, then, is irresistible, that when you come to the
boundary line between a slave state and a free state, you come to
the boundary line of slavery itself. On one side of the line, down
to the nadir and up to the zenith, the blackness of the slave code
pervades all things; but, on the other side, as high above and as deep
below, is the purity of freedom. Virginia cannot extend her laws one
hair’s breadth over the line into Pennsylvania or into Ohio, because
their soil is beyond her jurisdiction. So neither Virginia, nor all
the fifteen slave states combined, can extend their slave laws one
hair’s breadth into the new territories; and for the same reason,--the
territories are beyond their jurisdiction.
As to the argument that the constitution of the United States
recognizes slavery, and that, upon the cession of new territories, the
constitution, by some magical and incomprehensible elasticity, extends
itself over them, and carries slavery into them, I think I speak with
all due respect when I say it does not come up to the dignity of a
sophism. Where do strict constructionists, or even latitudinarian
constructionists, find any clause, or phrase, or word, which shows that
the constitution is any thing but a compact between _states_? Where do
they find any thing that shows it to be a compact between territories,
or between territories _and_ states conjoined? On its very face,
the constitution meets this pretension with a denial. The preamble
declares, “We the people of the United States,”--not the people of
the territories, nor the people of the states _and_ territories,--“in
order to form a more perfect Union,”--“do ordain and establish this
constitution for _the United States_ of America.” If the constitution
is a compact between the United States _and_ the territories, then
the people of the territories have all the rights under it which the
people of the states have,--the right to choose electors for President
and Vice-President, &c., and to be represented in Congress by a member
who can vote as well as speak. The only way in which the constitution
ever was extended, or ever can be extended over any part of the earth’s
surface outside of the “original thirteen,” is this: The constitution
in express terms authorizes the admission of new states, and therefore,
when a new state is admitted, it becomes one of these “United States of
America.” The constitution does not extend over the territories, but
Congress, being the creature of the constitution, is, when legislating
for the territories, not only invested with constitutional powers, but
is limited by constitutional restrictions.
It would have been a much more plausible pretension, when the purchase
of Louisiana and Florida was made, that the constitution carried
freedom into those territories; because the constitution was built upon
the basis of the common law, and, in terms, adopts the common law for
its legal processes and its rules of judicial interpretation; and every
body knows that there is no principle more dear to the common law than
that all treaties, statutes, and customs shall be construed in favor of
life and in favor of liberty.
Having, as I trust, refuted the argument of the slaveholder, that the
prohibition of slavery in the territories is an act of injustice to
his rights, I will consider his next assertion, that it is an insult
to his feelings. We are told that the exclusion of slavery from the
territories is an affront to the honorable sensibilities of the south;
and that acquiescence in this exclusion would involve their dishonor
and degradation.
There are two answers to this complaint. The first is, that among
gentlemen, no insult is ever offered where none is intended. There may
be heedlessness of conduct, there may be an unintentional wounding of
sensibilities; but there can be no affront where the design to affront
is wanting. He is not a gentleman, but a poltroon and a braggart, who
pretends he is insulted and proceeds to retaliate for the affront,
when all insult and all affront are sincerely disclaimed. Now, it is
infinitely far from the purpose of the north to offer any indignity to
the south by excluding slavery from the territories. Their hostility to
slavery grows out of an honest allegiance to what they believe to be
the highest moral and religious duty; it is fortified by the opinions
of mankind; and is perfectly compatible with the most fraternal
feelings towards the south. They wish to expostulate, in regard to the
wrong, in such a way as to arrest the wrong, and not, by inflaming
the wrongdoer, to increase the evil. However erroneous, then, their
language or their sentiments may be, they are not affrontive nor
contumelious; and, when all such purpose is disavowed, those who aspire
to stand on the footing of gentlemen cannot reiterate the charge.
But there is another consideration,--one which appertains to the party
supposed to be insulted, rather than the party charged with the insult.
In his “Theory of Moral Sentiments,” Adam Smith maintains that it is
the judgment of men,--the opinion of the bystanders,--that gives us
the pleasure of being approved, or the pain of being disapproved, on
account of our conduct. Now, in this contest between the north and the
south, on the subject of extending slavery, who are the bystanders?
They are the civilized nations of the earth. We, the north and the
south, are contending in the arena. All civilized men stand around
us. They are a ring of lookers-on. It is an august spectacle. It is
a larger assemblage than ever witnessed any other struggle in the
history of mankind; and their shouts of approbation or hisses of
scorn are worthy of our heed. And what do these spectators say, in
the alternations of the combat? Do they urge on the south to mightier
efforts, to the wider spread of slavery, and the multiplication of its
victims? Do they shout when she triumphs? When new chains are forged
and riveted, when new realms are subdued by haughty taskmasters, and
overrun by imbruted slaves, do their plaudits greet your ears and rouse
you to more vehement efforts? All the reverse; totally the reverse.
They are now looking on with disgust and abhorrence. They groan, they
mock, they hiss. The brightest pages of their literature portray
you, as covered with badges of dishonor; their orators hold up your
purposes as objects for the execration of mankind; their wits hurl the
lightnings of satire at your leaders; their statute books abound in
laws in which institutions like yours are branded as crimes; their
moralists, from their high and serene seats of justice, arraign and
condemn you; their theologians find your doom of retribution in the
oracles of God. England has abolished slavery. France, in one fervid
moment of liberty, struck the chains from off all her slaves, as
the bonds of Paul and Silas were loosed in the inner prison by the
mighty power of God. Sweden has abolished it. More than twenty years
ago, impotent, half-civilized Mexico did the same. Tunis, a Barbary
state, and, I might add, a barbarous state, has abolished slavery.
Mahometanism precedes Christianity, and sets it an example of virtue.
Liberia, a republic of emancipated slaves, the very brothers and
sisters of those whom you now hold in bondage, has been acknowledged as
an independent sovereignty, and welcomed into the family of nations, by
two of the most powerful governments on the globe. By this act, freedom
secures a new domain on the eastern continent, while you are striving
to give a new domain to bondage on the western. A monarchy hails the
advent of a free nation in Africa, where slavery existed before; a
republic is seeking to create ten thousand absolute despotisms in
America, where freedom existed before.
Now, these are the bystanders and lookers-on in this grand and awful
contestation. They are all agreed, as one man, in their opinions
about it. They are unitedly visiting your course with execration and
anathema. There is not a nation on the globe, that has a printing press
and a people that can read, from which you can extort one token of
approval. I would agree to submit the question now at issue between the
north and the south to the arbitrament of any people on the face of the
earth, not absolutely savage, and to abide its decision. Nay, the wild
tribes of the Caucasus and of Upper India, who have defended themselves
so nobly against aggression, would spurn your claim and deride its
pretexts. And yet you say you are insulted, dishonored, disgraced in
the eyes of mankind, if you are not permitted to bring down upon our
heads, also, the curses they are pouring upon yours. So far is this
from truth, that if you would promptly and cheerfully consecrate the
new territories to freedom, every nation in the world would send their
plaudits of your conduct to the skies.
But gentlemen of the south not only argue the question of right and of
honor; they go further, and they tell us what they will proceed to do
if we do not yield to their demands. A large majority of the southern
legislatures have solemnly “resolved” that if Congress prohibits
slavery in the new territories, they will resist the law “at any and at
every hazard.” And yet they say they do not mean to threaten us. They
desire to abstain from all language of menace, for threats and menaces
are beneath the character of gentlemen. Sir, what is the meaning of
the terms “threats” and “menaces?” Mr. Troup, formerly governor of
Georgia, speaking of us who are upon this floor, and of others who
resist the extension of slavery, calls each of us a “fanatic.” He says
that it is only the dread of death that will stay our hands or stop
our machinations; and then adds, “THAT DREAD YOU MUST PRESENT TO HIM
IN A VISIBLE, PALPABLE FORM.” “If,” he says in another place, “the
abolitionists resolve to force emancipation, or _to force dishonor upon
the southern states by any act of Congress_, then it is my decided
opinion that, with the military preparation here indicated, conjoined
to a good volunteer instead of a militia system, THE STATE SHOULD MARCH
UPON WASHINGTON AND DISSOLVE THE GOVERNMENT.” The gentleman from North
Carolina, [Mr. CLINGMAN,] forewarns us that if certain measures,--and
they are legal and constitutional measures which he indicates,--are
taken in order to carry on the business of legislation in this House,
the House itself shall be the “Lexington” of a new revolution, and
that “such a struggle would not leave a quorum to do business.” I
could occupy my hour in citing passages of a similar character from
the southern press and from southern men. Now, if these are not
threats,--threats most gross, flagrant, and offensive,--I know not the
meaning of the word. Perhaps those who utter such sentiments are only
practising an inversion of language equal to their inversion of ideas
on this subject, and would call them “enticements;” like the sailor,
who said he was enticed to join a mutiny, and being asked what arts had
been used to entice him, said that the ringleader sprang at him with
a handspike, and swore if he did not join it he would knock out his
brains.
And do those gentlemen who make these threats soberly consider how
deeply they are pledging themselves and their constituents by them?
Threats of dissolution, if executed, become rebellion and treason.
The machinery of this government is now moving onward in its majestic
course. Custom-houses, post-offices, land-offices, army, navy, are
fulfilling their prescribed circle of duties. They will continue to
fulfil them until arrested by violence. Should the hand of violence be
laid upon them, then will come that exigency expressly provided for in
the constitution and in the President’s inaugural oath, “TO TAKE CARE
THAT THE LAWS BE FAITHFULLY EXECUTED.” Mr. Chairman, such collision
would be _war_. Such forcible opposition to the government would be
_treason_. Its agents and abettors would be _traitors_. Wherever this
rebellion rears its crest, martial law will be proclaimed; and those
found with hostile arms in their hands must prepare for the felon’s
doom.
Sir, I cannot contemplate this spectacle without a thrill of horror.
If the two sections of this country ever marshal themselves against
each other, and their squadrons rush to the conflict, it will be a war
carried on by such powers of intellect, animated by such vehemence of
passion, and sustained by such an abundance of resources, as the world
has never before witnessed. “Ten foreign wars,” it has been well said,
“are a luxury compared with one civil war.” But I turn from this scene
with a shudder. If, in the retributive providence of God, the volcano
of civil war should ever burst upon us, it will be amid thunderings
above, and earthquakes below, and darkness around; and when that
darkness is lifted up, we shall see this once glorious union,--this
oneness of government, under which we have been prospered and blessed
as Heaven never prospered and blessed any other people,--rifted in
twain from east to west, with a gulf between us wide and profound, save
that this gulf will be filled and heaped high with the slaughtered
bodies of our countrymen; and when we reäwaken to consciousness, we
shall behold the garments and the hands of the survivors red with
fratricidal blood.
And what is the object for which we are willing to make this awful
sacrifice? Is it to redeem a realm to freedom? No! But to subjugate a
realm to slavery. Is it to defend the rights of man? No! But to abolish
the rights of man!
Mr. BOWDON. Does not the gentleman think that such a picture as he has
drawn would induce the north to yield a portion of the new territories
to the institution of slavery?
Mr. MANN. I trust that no pictures _and no realities_ will ever induce
us to extend slavery beyond its present limits. Beyond those limits,
“No more slave territories, no more slave states,” is the doctrine by
which I, for one, shall live and die.
Now, sir, as this event of a dissolution of the Union is so frequently
forced upon our contemplation, I propose to occupy the residue of my
hour in considering some of its more obvious consequences. Southern
papers and southern resolution writers have a favorite phrase, that if
Congress shall pass any law against the extension of slavery, they will
resist it “at any and every hazard.” Let us inquire, soberly, what a
few of these hazards are:--
First, as to the recovery, or non-recovery, of fugitive slaves, which
is one of the alleged provocatives of dissolution. Take a map of the
Southern States and spread it out before you. Although they cover an
area of about nine hundred thousand square miles, yet it is a very
remarkable fact, that only an insignificantly small portion of this
vast extent lies more than two hundred and fifty miles from a free
frontier; and those parts which do lie beyond this distance hold but
few slaves. Those portions of North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia,
Alabama, and Tennessee, where their upper boundaries converge among
the mountains, are a little more than this distance from a free
border; but this territory is relatively insignificant in size, and
sparsely populated with slaves. An outside belt or border region of
the slave states, no part of which shall be more than one hundred
miles from a free frontier, would embrace nearly one half of their
whole area; and, as I suppose, much more than one half of their whole
slave population. What is to prevent the easy escape of slaves living
within these limits? While God sends nights upon the earth, nothing
can prevent it. I venture to predict, that in such a state of things,
slaves will become cheap, and horses will become dear. I am aware of
your laws which forbid slaves to cross bridges or ferries, without a
pass; but you can have no law against seasons of low water. The old
adage says, “riches have wings.” You will find that these riches have
legs. The Mississippi and Ohio Rivers, where they border upon free
states, will be alive as with shoals of porpoises. Remember there is
no constitution of the United States now. That you have broken. The
free states are therefore absolved from all obligation to surrender
fugitives. The law of 1793 is at an end. No action can be maintained
for aiding them to escape, nor for harboring or concealing them. The
distinguished senator from Kentucky, [Mr. CLAY,] said, in his late
speech, that no instance had ever come to his knowledge where an
action for harboring runaways had not been maintained in the courts
of the free states, and damages recovered. But this remedy you will
have annulled. The constitution of the United States, and the law of
1793, being at an end, the law of nature revives. By this law, every
case of an escaping slave is but _the self-recovery of stolen goods_.
When they cross the line into a free state, they are free,--as free as
you or I. The states being separated, I would as soon return my own
brother or sister into bondage, as I would return a fugitive slave.
Before God, and Christ, and all Christian men, they are my brothers
and sisters. As our laws make it piracy to kidnap slaves in Africa, or
to ship them thence, so it shall be a felony, punishable with death,
for any southern master to kidnap a colored man, in a free state, or
transport him from it, on the ground of alleged ownership. You are fond
of quoting Scripture to us, in justification of slavery. We will retort
the Scripture, that “he that stealeth a man, and selleth him, or _if he
be found in his hand_, he shall surely be put to death.”