Independence was reported to Congress by the committee, and in it the
slave trade was characterized as "an execrable commerce," as "a
piratical warfare," as the "opprobrium of infidel powers," and as "a
cruel war against human nature." [Applause.] All agreed on this except
South Carolina and Georgia, and in order to preserve harmony, and from
the necessity of the case, these expressions were omitted. Indeed,
abolition societies existed as far south as Virginia; and it is a
well-known fact that Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Lee, Henry, Mason,
and Pendleton were qualified abolitionists, and much more radical on
that subject than we of the Whig and Democratic parties claim to be
to-day. On March 1, 1784, Virginia ceded to the confederation all its
lands lying northwest of the Ohio River. Jefferson, Chase of Maryland,
and Howell of Rhode Island, as a committee on that and territory
thereafter _to be ceded_, reported that no slavery should exist after
the year 1800. Had this report been adopted, not only the Northwest, but
Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, and Mississippi also would have been free;
but it required the assent of nine States to ratify it. North Carolina
was divided, and thus its vote was lost; and Delaware, Georgia, and New
Jersey refused to vote. In point of fact, as it was, it was assented to
by six States. Three years later, on a square vote to exclude slavery
from the Northwest, only one vote, and that from New York, was against
it. And yet, thirty-seven years later, five thousand citizens of
Illinois out of a voting mass of less than twelve thousand,
deliberately, after a long and heated contest, voted to introduce
slavery in Illinois; and, to-day, a large party in the free State of
Illinois are willing to vote to fasten the shackles of slavery on the
fair domain of Kansas, notwithstanding it received the dowry of freedom
long before its birth as a political community. I repeat, therefore, the
question, Is it not plain in what direction we are tending? [Sensation.]
In the colonial time, Mason, Pendleton, and Jefferson were as hostile to
slavery in Virginia as Otis, Ames, and the Adamses were in
Massachusetts; and Virginia made as earnest an effort to get rid of it
as old Massachusetts did. But circumstances were against them and they
failed; but not that the good-will of its leading men was lacking. Yet
within less than fifty years Virginia changed its tune, and made
negro-breeding for the cotton and sugar States one of its leading
industries. [Laughter and applause.]
In the Constitutional Convention, George Mason of Virginia made a more
violent abolition speech than my friends Lovejoy or Codding would desire
to make here to-day--a speech which could not be safely repeated
anywhere on Southern soil in this enlightened year. But while there were
some differences of opinion on this subject even then, discussion was
allowed; but as you see by the Kansas slave code, which, as you know, is
the Missouri slave code, merely ferried across the river, it is a felony
to even express an opinion hostile to that foul blot in the land of
Washington and the Declaration of Independence. [Sensation.]
In Kentucky--my State--in 1849, on a test vote, the mighty influence of
Henry Clay and many other good men there could not get a symptom of
expression in favour of gradual emancipation on a plain issue of
marching toward the light of civilization with Ohio and Illinois; but
the State of Boone and Hardin and Henry Clay, with a _nigger_ under each
arm, took the black trail toward the deadly swamps of barbarism. Is
there--can there be--any doubt about this thing? And is there any doubt
that we must all lay aside our prejudices and march, shoulder to
shoulder, in the great army of Freedom? [Applause.]
Every Fourth of July our young orators all proclaim this to be "the land
of the _free_ and the home of the brave!" Well, now, when you orators
get that off next year, and, may be, this very year, how would you like
some old grizzled farmer to get up in the grove and deny it? [Laughter.]
How would you like that? But suppose Kansas comes in as a slave State,
and all the "border ruffians" have barbecues about it, and free-State
men come trailing back to the dishonoured North, like whipped dogs with
their tails between their legs, it is--ain't it?--evident that this is
no more the "land of the free;" and if we let it go so, we won't dare to
say "home of the brave" out loud. [Sensation and confusion.]
Can any man doubt that, even in spite of the people's will, slavery will
triumph through violence, unless that will be made manifest and
enforced? Even Governor Reeder claimed at the outset that the contest in
Kansas was to be fair, but he got his eyes open at last; and I believe
that, as a result of this moral and physical violence, Kansas will soon
apply for admission as a slave State. And yet we can't mistake that the
people don't want it so, and that it is a land which is free both by
natural and political law. _No law is free law!_ Such is the
understanding of all Christendom. In the Somerset case, decided nearly a
century ago, the great Lord Mansfield held that slavery was of such a
nature that it must take its rise in _positive_ (as distinguished from
_natural_) law; and that in no country or age could it be traced back to
any other source. Will some one please tell me where is the _positive_
law that establishes slavery in Kansas? [A voice: "The _bogus_ laws."]
Aye, the _bogus_ laws! And, on the same principle, a gang of Missouri
horse-thieves could come into Illinois and declare horse-stealing to be
legal [Laughter], and it would be just as legal as slavery is in Kansas.
But by express statute, in the land of Washington and Jefferson, we may
soon be brought face to face with the discreditable fact of showing to
the world by our acts that we prefer slavery to freedom--darkness to
light! [Sensation.]
It is, I believe, a principle in law that when one party to a contract
violates it so grossly as to chiefly destroy the object for which it is
made, the other party may rescind it. I will ask Browning if that ain't
good law. [Voices: "Yes!"] Well, now if that be right, I go for
rescinding the whole, entire Missouri Compromise and thus turning
Missouri into a free State; and I should like to know the
difference--should like for any one to point out the difference--between
_our_ making a free State of Missouri and _their_ making a slave State
of Kansas. [Great applause.] There ain't one bit of difference, except
that our way would be a great mercy to humanity. But I have never
said--and the Whig party has never said--and those who oppose the
Nebraska bill do not as a body say, that they have any intention of
interfering with slavery in the slave States. Our platform says just the
contrary. We allow slavery to exist in the slave States--not because
slavery is right or good, but from the necessities of our Union. We
grant a fugitive slave law because it is so "nominated in the bond;"
because our fathers so stipulated--had to--and we are bound to carry out
this agreement. But they did not agree to introduce slavery in regions
where it did not previously exist. On the contrary, they said by their
example and teachings that they did not deem it expedient--did not
consider it right--to do so; and it is wise and right to do just as they
did about it [Voices: "Good!"], and that is what we propose--not to
interfere with slavery where it exists (we have never tried to do it),
and to give them a reasonable and efficient fugitive slave law. [A
voice: "No!"] I say YES! [Applause.] It was part of the bargain, and I'm
for living up to it; but I go no further; I'm not bound to do more, and
I won't agree any further. [Great applause.]
We, here in Illinois, should feel especially proud of the provision of
the Missouri Compromise excluding slavery from what is now Kansas; for
an Illinois man, Jesse B. Thomas, was its father. Henry Clay, who is
credited with the authorship of the Compromise in general terms, did not
even vote for that provision, but only advocated the ultimate admission
by a second compromise; and, Thomas was, beyond all controversy, the
real author of the "slavery restriction" branch of the Compromise. To
show the generosity of the Northern members toward the Southern side; on
a test vote to exclude slavery from Missouri, ninety voted not to
exclude, and eighty-seven to exclude, every vote from the slave States
being ranged with the former and fourteen votes from the free States,
of whom seven were from New England alone; while on a vote to exclude
slavery from what is now Kansas, the vote was one hundred and
thirty-four _for_ to forty-two _against_. The scheme, as a whole, was,
of course, a Southern triumph. It is idle to contend otherwise, as is
now being done by the Nebraskaites; it was so shown by the votes and
quite as emphatically by the expressions of representative men. Mr.
Lowndes of South Carolina was never known to commit a political mistake;
his was the great judgment of that section; and he declared that this
measure "would restore tranquillity to the country--a result demanded by
every consideration of discretion, of moderation, of wisdom, and of
virtue." When the measure came before President Monroe for his approval,
he put to each member of his cabinet this question: "Has Congress the
constitutional power to prohibit slavery in a territory?" And John C.
Calhoun and William H. Crawford from the South, equally with John Quincy
Adams, Benjamin Rush, and Smith Thompson from the North, alike answered,
"_Yes!_" without qualification or equivocation; and this measure, of so
great consequence to the South, was passed; and Missouri was, by means
of it, finally enabled to knock at the door of the Republic for an open
passage to its brood of slaves. And, in spite of this, Freedom's share
is about to be taken by violence--by the force of misrepresentative
votes, not called for by the popular will. What name can I, in common
decency, give to this wicked transaction? [Sensation.]
But even then the contest was not over; for when the Missouri
constitution came before Congress for its approval, it forbade any free
negro or mulatto from entering the State. In short, our Illinois "black
laws" were hidden away in their constitution [Laughter], and the
controversy was thus revived. Then it was that Mr. Clay's talents shone
out conspicuously, and the controversy that shook the Union to its
foundation was finally settled to the satisfaction of the conservative
parties on both sides of the line, though not to the extremists on
either, and Missouri was admitted by the small majority of six in the
lower House. How great a majority, do you think, would have been given
had Kansas also been secured for slavery? [A voice: "A majority the
other way."] "A majority the other way," is answered. Do you think it
would have been safe for a Northern man to have confronted his
constituents after having voted to consign both Missouri and Kansas to
hopeless slavery? And yet this man Douglas, who misrepresents his
constituents, and who has exerted his highest talents in that direction,
will be carried in triumph through the State, and hailed with honour
while applauding that act. [Three groans for "_Dug_!"] And this shows
whither we are tending. This thing of slavery is more powerful than its
supporters--even than the high priests that minister at its altar. It
debauches even our greatest men. It gathers strength, like a rolling
snow-ball, by its own infamy. Monstrous crimes are committed in its name
by persons collectively which they would not dare to commit as
individuals. Its aggressions and encroachments almost surpass belief. In
a despotism, one might not wonder to see slavery advance steadily and
remorselessly into new dominions; but is it not wonderful, is it not
even alarming, to see its steady advance in a land dedicated to the
proposition that "all men are created equal"? [Sensation.]
It yields nothing itself; it keeps all it has, and gets all it can
besides. It really came dangerously near securing Illinois in 1824; it
did get Missouri in 1821. The first proposition was to admit what is now
Arkansas _and_ Missouri as one slave State. But the territory was
divided, and Arkansas came in, without serious question, as a slave
State; and afterward Missouri, not as a sort of equality, _free_, but
also as a slave State. Then we had Florida and Texas; and now Kansas is
about to be forced into the dismal procession. [Sensation.] And so it is
wherever you look. We have not forgotten--it is but six years since--how
dangerously near California came to being a slave State. Texas is a
slave State, and four other slave States may be carved from its vast
domain. And yet, in the year 1829, slavery was abolished throughout
that vast region by a royal decree of the then sovereign of Mexico. Will
you please tell me by what _right_ slavery exists in Texas to-day? By
the same right as, and no higher or greater than, slavery is seeking
dominion in Kansas: by political force--peaceful, if that will suffice;
by the torch (as in Kansas) and the bludgeon (as in the Senate chamber),
if required. And so history repeats itself; and even as slavery has kept
its course by craft, intimidation, and violence in the past, so it will
persist, in my judgment, until met and dominated by the will of a people
bent on its restriction.
We have, this very afternoon, heard bitter denunciations of Brooks in
Washington, and Titus, Stringfellow, Atchison, Jones, and Shannon in
Kansas--the battle-ground of slavery. I certainly am not going to
advocate or shield them; but they and their acts are but the necessary
outcome of the Nebraska law. We should reserve our highest censure for
the authors of the mischief, and not for the catspaws which they use. I
believe it was Shakespeare who said, "Where the offence lies, there let
the axe fall;" and, in my opinion, this man Douglas and the Northern men
in Congress who advocate "Nebraska" are more guilty than a thousand
Joneses and Stringfellows, with all their murderous practices, can be.
[Applause.]
We have made a good beginning here to-day. As our Methodist friends
would say, "I feel it is good to be here." While extremists may find
some fault with the moderation of our platform, they should recollect
that "the battle is not always to the strong, nor the race to the
swift." In grave emergencies, moderation is generally safer than
radicalism: and as this struggle is likely to be long and earnest, we
must not, by our action, repel any who are in sympathy with us in the
main, but rather win all that we can to our standard. We must not
belittle nor overlook the facts of our condition--that we are new and
comparatively weak, while our enemies are entrenched and relatively
strong. They have the administration and the political power; and, right
or wrong, at present they have the numbers. Our friends who urge an
appeal to arms with so much force and eloquence, should recollect that
the government is arrayed against us, and that the numbers are now
arrayed against us as well; or, to state it nearer to the truth, they
are not yet expressly and affirmatively for us; and we should repel
friends rather than gain them by anything savouring of revolutionary
methods. As it now stands, we must appeal to the sober sense and
patriotism of the people. We will make converts day by day; we will grow
strong by calmness and moderation; we will grow strong by the violence
and injustice of our adversaries. And, unless truth be a mockery and
justice a hollow lie, we will be in the majority after a while, and then
the revolution which we will accomplish will be none the less radical
from being the result of pacific measures. The battle of freedom is to
be fought out on principle. Slavery is a violation of the eternal right.
We have temporized with it from the necessities of our condition; but
_as sure as God reigns and school children read_, THAT BLACK FOUL LIE
CAN NEVER BE CONSECRATED INTO GOD'S HALLOWED TRUTH! [Immense applause
lasting some time.] One of our greatest difficulties is, that men who
_know_ that slavery is a detestable crime and ruinous to the nation, are
compelled, by our peculiar condition and other circumstances, to
advocate it concretely, though damning it in the raw. Henry Clay was a
brilliant example of this tendency; others of our purest statesmen are
compelled to do so; and thus slavery secures actual support from those
who detest it at heart. Yet Henry Clay perfected and forced through the
Compromise which secured to slavery a great State as well as a political
advantage. Not that he hated slavery less, but that he loved the whole
Union more. As long as slavery profited by his great Compromise, the
hosts of pro-slavery could not sufficiently cover him with praise; but
now that this Compromise stands in their way--
"...they never mention him,
His name is never heard:
Their lips are now forbid to speak
That once familiar word."
They have slaughtered one of his most cherished measures, and his ghost
would arise to rebuke them. [Great applause.]
Now, let us harmonize, my friends, and appeal to the moderation and
patriotism of the people: to the sober second thought; to the awakened
public conscience. The repeal of the sacred Missouri Compromise has
installed the weapons of violence: the bludgeon, the incendiary torch,
the death-dealing rifle, the bristling cannon--the weapons of kingcraft,
of the inquisition, of ignorance, of barbarism, of oppression. We see
its fruits in the dying bed of the heroic Sumner; in the ruins of the
"Free State" hotel; in the smoking embers of the _Herald of Freedom_; in
the free-State Governor of Kansas chained to a stake on freedom's soil
like a horse-thief, for the crime of freedom. [Applause.] We see it in
Christian statesmen, and Christian newspapers, and Christian pulpits,
applauding _the cowardly act of a low bully_, WHO CRAWLED UPON HIS
VICTIM BEHIND HIS BACK AND DEALT THE DEADLY BLOW. [Sensation and
applause.] We note our political demoralization in the catch-words that
are coming into such common use; on the one hand, "freedom-shriekers,"
and sometimes "freedom-screechers" [Laughter]; and, on the other hand,
"border ruffians," and that fully deserved. And the significance of
catch-words cannot pass unheeded, for they constitute a sign of the
times. Everything in this world "jibes" in with everything else, and all
the fruits of this Nebraska bill are like the poisoned source from which
they come. I will not say that we may not sooner or later be compelled
to meet force by force; but the time has not yet come, and if we are
true to ourselves, may never come. Do not mistake that the ballot is
stronger than the bullet. Therefore let the legions of slavery use
bullets; but let us wait patiently till November, and fire ballots at
them in return; and by that peaceful policy, I believe we shall
ultimately win. [Applause.]
It was by that policy that here in Illinois the early fathers fought the
good fight and gained the victory. In 1824 the free men of our State,
led by Governor Coles (who was a native of Maryland and President
Madison's private secretary), determined that those beautiful groves
should never re-echo the dirge of one who has no title to himself. By
their resolute determination, the winds that sweep across our broad
prairies shall never cool the parched brow, nor shall the unfettered
streams that bring joy and gladness to our free soil water the tired
feet, of a _slave_; but so long as those heavenly breezes and sparkling
streams bless the land, or the groves and their fragrance or their
memory remain, the humanity to which they minister SHALL BE FOR EVER
FREE! [Great applause.] Palmer, Yates, Williams, Browning, and some more
in this convention came from Kentucky to Illinois (instead of going to
Missouri), not only to better their conditions, but also to get away
from slavery. They have said so to me, and it is understood among us
Kentuckians that we don't like it one bit. Now, can we, mindful of the
blessings of liberty which the early men of Illinois left to us, refuse
a like privilege to the free men who seek to plant Freedom's banner on
our Western outposts? ["No! No!"] Should we not stand by our neighbours
who seek to better their conditions in Kansas and Nebraska? ["Yes!
Yes!"] Can we as Christian men, and strong and free ourselves, wield the
sledge or hold the iron which is to manacle anew an already oppressed
race? ["No! No!"] "Woe unto them," it is written, "that decree
unrighteous decrees and that write grievousness which they have
prescribed." Can we afford to sin any more deeply against human liberty?
["No! No!"]
One great trouble in the matter is, that slavery is an insidious and
crafty power, and gains equally by open violence of the brutal as well
as by sly management of the peaceful. Even after the ordinance of 1787,
the settlers in Indiana and Illinois (it was all one government then)
tried to get Congress to allow slavery temporarily, and petitions to
that end were sent from Kaskaskia, and General Harrison, the Governor,
urged it from Vincennes the capital. If that had succeeded, good-bye to
liberty here. But John Randolph of Virginia made a vigorous report
against it; and although they persevered so well as to get three
favourable reports for it, yet the United States Senate, with the aid of
some slave States, finally _squelched_ it for good. [Applause.] And that
is why this hall is to-day a temple for free men instead of a negro
livery stable. [Great applause and laughter.] Once let slavery get
planted in a locality, by ever so weak or doubtful a title, and in ever
so small numbers, and it is like the Canada thistle or Bermuda
grass--you can't root it out. You yourself may detest slavery; but your
neighbour has five or six slaves, and he is an excellent neighbour, or
your son has married his daughter, and they beg you to help save their
property, and you vote against your interest and principles to
accommodate a neighbour, hoping that your vote will be on the losing
side. And others do the same; and in those ways slavery gets a sure
foothold. And when that is done the whole mighty Union--the force of the
nation--is committed to its support. And that very process is working in
Kansas to-day. And you must recollect that the slave property is worth a
billion of dollars ($1,000,000,000); while free-State men must work for
sentiment alone. Then there are "blue lodges"--as they call
them--everywhere doing their secret and deadly work.
It is a very strange thing, and not solvable by any moral law that I
know of, that if a man loses his horse, the whole country will turn out
to help hang the thief; but if a man but a shade or two darker than I am
is himself stolen, the same crowd will hang one who aids in restoring
him to liberty. Such are the inconsistencies of slavery, where a horse
is more sacred than a man; and the essence of _squatter_ or popular
sovereignty--I don't care how you call it--is that if one man chooses to
make a slave of another, no third man shall be allowed to object. And if
you can do this in free Kansas, and it is allowed to stand, the next
thing you will see is ship-loads of negroes from Africa at the wharf at
Charleston; for one thing is as truly lawful as the other; and these
are the bastard notions we have got to stamp out, else they will stamp
us out. [Sensation and applause.]
Two years ago, at Springfield, Judge Douglas avowed that Illinois came
into the Union as a slave State, and that slavery was weeded out by the
operation of his great, patent, everlasting principle of "popular
sovereignty." [Laughter.] Well, now, that argument must be answered, for
it has a little grain of truth at the bottom. I do not mean that it is
true in essence, as he would have us believe. It could not be
essentially true if the ordinance of '87 was valid. But, in point of
fact, there were some degraded beings called slaves in Kaskaskia and the
other French settlements when our first State constitution was adopted;
that is a fact, and I don't deny it. Slaves were brought here as early
as 1720, and were kept here in spite of the ordinance of 1787 against
it. But slavery did not thrive here. On the contrary, under the
influence of the ordinance, the number _decreased_ fifty-one from 1810
to 1820; while under the influence of _squatter_ sovereignty, right
across the river in Missouri, they _increased_ seven thousand two
hundred and eleven in the same time; and slavery finally faded out in
Illinois, under the influence of the law of freedom, while it grew
stronger and stronger in Missouri, under the law or practice of "popular
sovereignty." In point of fact there were but one hundred and seventeen
slaves in Illinois one year after its admission, or one to every four
hundred and seventy of its population; or, to state it in another way,
if Illinois was a slave State in 1820, so were New York and New Jersey
much greater slave States from having had greater numbers, slavery
having been established there in very early times. But there is this
vital difference between all these States and the judge's Kansas
experiment: that they sought to disestablish slavery which had been
already established, while the judge seeks, so far as he can, to
disestablish freedom, which had been established there by the Missouri
Compromise. [Voices: "Good!"]