and that, in such case, taking a slave there operates his freedom. That is
good book-law, but it is not the rule of actual practice. Wherever slavery
is it has been first introduced without law. The oldest laws we find
concerning it are not laws introducing it, but regulating it as an already
existing thing. A white man takes his slave to Nebraska now. Who will
inform the negro that he is free? Who will take him before court to test
the question of his freedom? In ignorance of his legal emancipation he is
kept chopping, splitting, and plowing. Others are brought, and move on in
the same track. At last, if ever the time for voting comes on the question
of slavery the institution already, in fact, exists in the country, and
cannot well be removed. The fact of its presence, and the difficulty of
its removal, will carry the vote in its favor. Keep it out until a vote is
taken, and a vote in favor of it cannot be got in any population of forty
thousand on earth, who have been drawn together by the ordinary motives of
emigration and settlement. To get slaves into the Territory simultaneously
with the whites in the incipient stages of settlement is the precise stake
played for and won in this Nebraska measure.
The question is asked us: "If slaves will go in notwithstanding the
general principle of law liberates them, why would they not equally go in
against positive statute law--go in, even if the Missouri restriction were
maintained!" I answer, because it takes a much bolder man to venture
in with his property in the latter case than in the former; because the
positive Congressional enactment is known to and respected by all, or
nearly all, whereas the negative principle that no law is free law is not
much known except among lawyers. We have some experience of this practical
difference. In spite of the Ordinance of '87, a few negroes were brought
into Illinois, and held in a state of quasi-slavery, not enough, however,
to carry a vote of the people in favor of the institution when they came
to form a constitution. But into the adjoining Missouri country, where
there was no Ordinance of '87,--was no restriction,--they were carried
ten times, nay, a hundred times, as fast, and actually made a slave State.
This is fact-naked fact.
Another lullaby argument is that taking slaves to new countries does not
increase their number, does not make any one slave who would otherwise
be free. There is some truth in this, and I am glad of it; but it is not
wholly true. The African slave trade is not yet effectually suppressed;
and, if we make a reasonable deduction for the white people among us who
are foreigners and the descendants of foreigners arriving here since 1808,
we shall find the increase of the black population outrunning that of the
white to an extent unaccountable, except by supposing that some of them,
too, have been coming from Africa. If this be so, the opening of new
countries to the institution increases the demand for and augments the
price of slaves, and so does, in fact, make slaves of freemen, by causing
them to be brought from Africa and sold into bondage.
But however this may be, we know the opening of new countries to slavery
tends to the perpetuation of the institution, and so does keep men in
slavery who would otherwise be free. This result we do not feel like
favoring, and we are under no legal obligation to suppress our feelings in
this respect.
Equal justice to the South, it is said, requires us to consent to the
extension of slavery to new countries. That is to say, inasmuch as you do
not object to my taking my hog to Nebraska, therefore I must not object
to your taking your slave. Now, I admit that this is perfectly logical
if there is no difference between hogs and negroes. But while you thus
require me to deny the humanity of the negro, I wish to ask whether you of
the South, yourselves, have ever been willing to do as much? It is kindly
provided that of all those who come into the world only a small percentage
are natural tyrants. That percentage is no larger in the slave States
than in the free. The great majority South, as well as North, have human
sympathies, of which they can no more divest themselves than they can of
their sensibility to physical pain. These sympathies in the bosoms of
the Southern people manifest, in many ways, their sense of the wrong of
slavery, and their consciousness that, after all, there is humanity in the
negro. If they deny this, let me address them a few plain questions. In
1820 you (the South) joined the North, almost unanimously, in declaring
the African slave trade piracy, and in annexing to it the punishment of
death. Why did you do this? If you did not feel that it was wrong, why did
you join in providing that men should be hung for it? The practice was no
more than bringing wild negroes from Africa to such as would buy them.
But you never thought of hanging men for catching and selling wild horses,
wild buffaloes, or wild bears.
Again, you have among you a sneaking individual of the class of native
tyrants known as the "slavedealer." He watches your necessities, and
crawls up to buy your slave, at a speculating price. If you cannot help
it, you sell to him; but if you can help it, you drive him from your door.
You despise him utterly. You do not recognize him as a friend, or even
as an honest man. Your children must not play with his; they may rollick
freely with the little negroes, but not with the slave-dealer's children.
If you are obliged to deal with him, you try to get through the job
without so much as touching him. It is common with you to join hands
with the men you meet, but with the slave-dealer you avoid the
ceremony--instinctively shrinking from the snaky contact. If he grows rich
and retires from business, you still remember him, and still keep up the
ban of non-intercourse upon him and his family. Now, why is this? You do
not so treat the man who deals in corn, cotton, or tobacco.
And yet again: There are in the United States and Territories, including
the District of Columbia, 433,643 free blacks. At five hundred dollars per
head they are worth over two hundred millions of dollars. How comes this
vast amount of property to be running about without owners? We do not see
free horses or free cattle running at large. How is this? All these free
blacks are the descendants of slaves, or have been slaves themselves; and
they would be slaves now but for something which has operated on their
white owners, inducing them at vast pecuniary sacrifice to liberate them.
What is that something? Is there any mistaking it? In all these cases it
is your sense of justice and human sympathy continually telling you that
the poor negro has some natural right to himself--that those who deny it
and make mere merchandise of him deserve kickings, contempt, and death.
And now why will you ask us to deny the humanity of the slave, and
estimate him as only the equal of the hog? Why ask us to do what you will
not do yourselves? Why ask us to do for nothing what two hundred millions
of dollars could not induce you to do?
But one great argument in support of the repeal of the Missouri Compromise
is still to come. That argument is "the sacred right of self-government."
It seems our distinguished Senator has found great difficulty in getting
his antagonists, even in the Senate, to meet him fairly on this argument.
Some poet has said:
"Fools rush in where angels fear to tread."
At the hazard of being thought one of the fools of this quotation, I
meet that argument--I rush in--I take that bull by the horns. I trust I
understand and truly estimate the right of self-government. My faith in
the proposition that each man should do precisely as he pleases with
all which is exclusively his own lies at the foundation of the sense of
justice there is in me. I extend the principle to communities of men as
well as to individuals. I so extend it because it is politically wise, as
well as naturally just; politically wise in saving us from broils about
matters which do not concern us. Here, or at Washington, I would not
trouble myself with the oyster laws of Virginia, or the cranberry laws
of Indiana. The doctrine of self-government is right,--absolutely and
eternally right,--but it has no just application as here attempted. Or
perhaps I should rather say that whether it has such application depends
upon whether a negro is or is not a man. If he is not a man, in that case
he who is a man may as a matter of self-government do just what he pleases
with him. But if the negro is a man, is it not to that extent a total
destruction of self-government to say that he too shall not govern
himself? When the white man governs himself, that is self-government; but
when he governs himself and also governs another man, that is more than
self-government--that is despotism. If the negro is a man, why, then, my
ancient faith teaches me that "all men are created equal," and that there
can be no moral right in connection with one man's making a slave of
another.
Judge Douglas frequently, with bitter irony and sarcasm, paraphrases
our argument by saying: "The white people of Nebraska are good enough to
govern themselves, but they are not good enough to govern a few miserable
negroes!"
Well, I doubt not that the people of Nebraska are and will continue to
be as good as the average of people elsewhere. I do not say the contrary.
What I do say is that no man is good enough to govern another man
without that other's consent. I say this is the leading principle, the
sheet-anchor of American republicanism. Our Declaration of Independence
says:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men are created equal;
that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights;
that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That to
secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, DERIVING THEIR
JUST POWERS PROM THE CONSENT OF THE GOVERNED."
I have quoted so much at this time merely to show that, according to our
ancient faith, the just powers of government are derived from the consent
of the governed. Now the relation of master and slave is pro tanto a total
violation of this principle. The master not only governs the slave without
his consent, but he governs him by a set of rules altogether different
from those which he prescribes for himself. Allow all the governed
an equal voice in the government, and that, and that only, is
self-government.
Let it not be said that I am contending for the establishment of political
and social equality between the whites and blacks. I have already said the
contrary. I am not combating the argument of necessity, arising from the
fact that the blacks are already among us; but I am combating what is set
up as moral argument for allowing them to be taken where they have never
yet been--arguing against the extension of a bad thing, which, where it
already exists, we must of necessity manage as we best can.
In support of his application of the doctrine of self-government, Senator
Douglas has sought to bring to his aid the opinions and examples of our
Revolutionary fathers. I am glad he has done this. I love the sentiments
of those old-time men, and shall be most happy to abide by their opinions.
He shows us that when it was in contemplation for the colonies to break
off from Great Britain, and set up a new government for themselves,
several of the States instructed their delegates to go for the measure,
provided each State should be allowed to regulate its domestic concerns in
its own way. I do not quote; but this in substance. This was right; I see
nothing objectionable in it. I also think it probable that it had some
reference to the existence of slavery among them. I will not deny that
it had. But had it any reference to the carrying of slavery into new
countries? That is the question, and we will let the fathers themselves
answer it.
This same generation of men, and mostly the same individuals of the
generation who declared this principle, who declared independence,
who fought the war of the Revolution through, who afterward made the
Constitution under which we still live--these same men passed the
Ordinance of '87, declaring that slavery should never go to the Northwest
Territory.
I have no doubt Judge Douglas thinks they were very inconsistent in this.
It is a question of discrimination between them and him. But there is
not an inch of ground left for his claiming that their opinions, their
example, their authority, are on his side in the controversy.
Again, is not Nebraska, while a Territory, a part of us? Do we not own the
country? And if we surrender the control of it, do we not surrender the
right of self-government? It is part of ourselves. If you say we shall not
control it, because it is only part, the same is true of every other part;
and when all the parts are gone, what has become of the whole? What
is then left of us? What use for the General Government, when there is
nothing left for it to govern?
But you say this question should be left to the people of Nebraska,
because they are more particularly interested. If this be the rule, you
must leave it to each individual to say for himself whether he will have
slaves. What better moral right have thirty-one citizens of Nebraska to
say that the thirty-second shall not hold slaves than the people of
the thirty-one States have to say that slavery shall not go into the
thirty-second State at all?
But if it is a sacred right for the people of Nebraska to take and hold
slaves there, it is equally their sacred right to buy them where they can
buy them cheapest; and that, undoubtedly, will be on the coast of Africa,
provided you will consent not to hang them for going there to buy
them. You must remove this restriction, too, from the sacred right of
self-government. I am aware you say that taking slaves from the States to
Nebraska does not make slaves of freemen; but the African slave-trader can
say just as much. He does not catch free negroes and bring them here.
He finds them already slaves in the hands of their black captors, and he
honestly buys them at the rate of a red cotton handkerchief a head.
This is very cheap, and it is a great abridgment of the sacred right of
self-government to hang men for engaging in this profitable trade.
Another important objection to this application of the right of
self-government is that it enables the first few to deprive the succeeding
many of a free exercise of the right of self-government. The first few
may get slavery in, and the subsequent many cannot easily get it out. How
common is the remark now in the slave States, "If we were only clear
of our slaves, how much better it would be for us." They are actually
deprived of the privilege of governing themselves as they would, by the
action of a very few in the beginning. The same thing was true of the
whole nation at the time our Constitution was formed.
Whether slavery shall go into Nebraska, or other new Territories, is not
a matter of exclusive concern to the people who may go there. The whole
nation is interested that the best use shall be made of these Territories.
We want them for homes of free white people. This they cannot be, to any
considerable extent, if slavery shall be planted within them. Slave States
are places for poor white people to remove from, not to remove to. New
free States are the places for poor people to go to, and better their
condition. For this use the nation needs these Territories.
Still further: there are constitutional relations between the slave
and free States which are degrading to the latter. We are under legal
obligations to catch and return their runaway slaves to them: a sort
of dirty, disagreeable job, which, I believe, as a general rule, the
slaveholders will not perform for one another. Then again, in the control
of the government--the management of the partnership affairs--they have
greatly the advantage of us. By the Constitution each State has two
senators, each has a number of representatives in proportion to the number
of its people, and each has a number of Presidential electors equal to
the whole number of its senators and representatives together. But in
ascertaining the number of the people for this purpose, five slaves are
counted as being equal to three whites. The slaves do not vote; they are
only counted and so used as to swell the influence of the white people's
votes. The practical effect of this is more aptly shown by a comparison
of the States of South Carolina and Maine. South Carolina has six
representatives, and so has Maine; South Carolina has eight Presidential
electors, and so has Maine. This is precise equality so far; and of course
they are equal in senators, each having two. Thus in the control of the
government the two States are equals precisely. But how are they in the
number of their white people? Maine has 581,813, while South Carolina has
274,567; Maine has twice as many as South Carolina, and 32,679 over. Thus,
each white man in South Carolina is more than the double of any man in
Maine. This is all because South Carolina, besides her free people, has
384,984 slaves. The South Carolinian has precisely the same advantage over
the white man in every other free State as well as in Maine. He is more
than the double of any one of us in this crowd. The same advantage, but
not to the same extent, is held by all the citizens of the slave States
over those of the free; and it is an absolute truth, without an exception,
that there is no voter in any slave State but who has more legal power in
the government than any voter in any free State. There is no instance
of exact equality; and the disadvantage is against us the whole chapter
through. This principle, in the aggregate, gives the slave States in the
present Congress twenty additional representatives, being seven more than
the whole majority by which they passed the Nebraska Bill.
Now all this is manifestly unfair; yet I do not mention it to complain of
it, in so far as it is already settled. It is in the Constitution, and I
do not for that cause, or any other cause, propose to destroy, or alter,
or disregard the Constitution. I stand to it, fairly, fully, and firmly.
But when I am told I must leave it altogether to other people to say
whether new partners are to be bred up and brought into the firm, on
the same degrading terms against me, I respectfully demur. I insist that
whether I shall be a whole man or only the half of one, in comparison with
others is a question in which I am somewhat concerned, and one which no
other man can have a sacred right of deciding for me. If I am wrong in
this, if it really be a sacred right of self-government in the man who
shall go to Nebraska to decide whether he will be the equal of me or the
double of me, then, after he shall have exercised that right, and thereby
shall have reduced me to a still smaller fraction of a man than I already
am, I should like for some gentleman, deeply skilled in the mysteries of
sacred rights, to provide himself with a microscope, and peep about, and
find out, if he can, what has become of my sacred rights. They will surely
be too small for detection with the naked eye.
Finally, I insist that if there is anything which it is the duty of the
whole people to never intrust to any hands but their own, that thing is
the preservation and perpetuity of their own liberties and institutions.
And if they shall think as I do, that the extension of slavery endangers
them more than any or all other causes, how recreant to themselves if
they submit The question, and with it the fate of their country, to a mere
handful of men bent only on seif-interest. If this question of slavery
extension were an insignificant one, one having no power to do harm--it
might be shuffled aside in this way; and being, as it is, the great
Behemoth of danger, shall the strong grip of the nation be loosened upon
him, to intrust him to the hands of such feeble keepers?
I have done with this mighty argument of self-government. Go, sacred
thing! Go in peace.
But Nebraska is urged as a great Union-saving measure. Well, I too go for
saving the Union. Much as I hate slavery, I would consent to the extension
of it rather than see the Union dissolved, just as I would consent to any
great evil to avoid a greater one. But when I go to Union-saving, I must
believe, at least, that the means I employ have some adaptation to the
end. To my mind, Nebraska has no such adaptation.
"It hath no relish of salvation in it."
It is an aggravation, rather, of the only one thing which ever endangers
the Union. When it came upon us, all was peace and quiet. The nation was
looking to the forming of new bends of union, and a long course of peace
and prosperity seemed to lie before us. In the whole range of possibility,
there scarcely appears to me to have been anything out of which the
slavery agitation could have been revived, except the very project of
repealing the Missouri Compromise. Every inch of territory we owned
already had a definite settlement of the slavery question, by which all
parties were pledged to abide. Indeed, there was no uninhabited country on
the continent which we could acquire, if we except some extreme northern
regions which are wholly out of the question.
In this state of affairs the Genius of Discord himself could scarcely have
invented a way of again setting us by the ears but by turning back and
destroying the peace measures of the past. The counsels of that Genius
seem to have prevailed. The Missouri Compromise was repealed; and here
we are in the midst of a new slavery agitation, such, I think, as we have
never seen before. Who is responsible for this? Is it those who resist
the measure, or those who causelessly brought it forward, and pressed it
through, having reason to know, and in fact knowing, it must and would be
so resisted? It could not but be expected by its author that it would be
looked upon as a measure for the extension of slavery, aggravated by a
gross breach of faith.
Argue as you will and long as you will, this is the naked front and aspect
of the measure. And in this aspect it could not but produce agitation.
Slavery is founded in the selfishness of man's nature--opposition to it in
his love of justice. These principles are at eternal antagonism, and
when brought into collision so fiercely as slavery extension brings them,
shocks and throes and convulsions must ceaselessly follow. Repeal the
Missouri Compromise, repeal all compromises, repeal the Declaration of
Independence, repeal all past history, you still cannot repeal human
nature. It still will be the abundance of man's heart that slavery
extension is wrong, and out of the abundance of his heart his mouth will
continue to speak.
The structure, too, of the Nebraska Bill is very peculiar. The people are
to decide the question of slavery for themselves; but when they are to
decide, or how they are to decide, or whether, when the question is
once decided, it is to remain so or is to be subject to an indefinite
succession of new trials, the law does not say. Is it to be decided by the
first dozen settlers who arrive there, or is it to await the arrival of
a hundred? Is it to be decided by a vote of the people or a vote of the
Legislature, or, indeed, by a vote of any sort? To these questions the law
gives no answer. There is a mystery about this; for when a member proposed
to give the Legislature express authority to exclude slavery, it was
hooted down by the friends of the bill. This fact is worth remembering.
Some Yankees in the East are sending emigrants to Nebraska to exclude
slavery from it; and, so far as I can judge, they expect the question to
be decided by voting in some way or other. But the Missourians are awake,
too. They are within a stone's-throw of the contested ground. They hold
meetings and pass resolutions, in which not the slightest allusion to
voting is made. They resolve that slavery already exists in the Territory;
that more shall go there; that they, remaining in Missouri, will protect
it, and that abolitionists shall be hung or driven away. Through all this
bowie knives and six-shooters are seen plainly enough, but never a glimpse
of the ballot-box.