Discarding now all presumptuous boasts for Slavery, and bearing in mind
its essential Barbarism, I come to consider that second assumption of
Senators on the other side, which is, of course, inspired by the first,
even if not its immediate consequence, that, under the Constitution,
Slave-Masters may take their slaves into the National Territories, and
there continue to hold them, as at home in the Slave States,--and that
this would be the case in any territory newly acquired, by purchase or
by war, as of Mexico on the South or Canada on the North.
Here I begin with the remark, that, as the assumption of Constitutional
Law is inspired by the assumption of fact with regard to the
“ennobling” character of Slavery, so it must lose much, if not all of
its force, when the latter assumption is shown to be false, as has been
done to-day.
When Slavery is seen to be the Barbarism which it is, there are few
who would not cover it from sight, rather than insist upon sending it
abroad with the flag of the Republic. Only because people have been
insensible to its true character have they tolerated for a moment
its exorbitant pretensions. Therefore this long exposition, where
Slavery stands forth in fivefold Barbarism, with the single object of
compelling men to work without wages, naturally prepares the way to
consider the assumption of Constitutional Law.
This assumption may be described as an attempt to _Africanize_ the
Constitution, by introducing into it the barbarous Law of Slavery,
originally derived, as we have seen, from barbarous Africa,--and then,
through such _Africanization_ of the Constitution, to _Africanize_ the
Territories, and _Africanize_ the National Government. In using this
language to express the obvious effect of this assumption, I borrow a
suggestive term, first employed by a Portuguese writer at the beginning
of this century, when protesting against the spread of Slavery in
Brazil.[124] Analyze the assumption, and it is found to stand on two
pretensions, either of which failing, the assumption fails also.
These two are, first, the peculiar African pretension of property in
man,--and, secondly, the pretension that such property is recognized in
the Constitution.
With regard to the first of these pretensions, I might simply refer to
what has been said at an earlier stage of this argument. But I should
do injustice to the part it plays in this controversy, if I did not
again notice it. Then I sought particularly to show its Barbarism; now
I shall show something more.
Property implies an owner and a thing owned. On the one side is a human
being, and on the other side a thing. But the very idea of a human
being necessarily excludes the idea of property in that being, just
as the very idea of a thing necessarily excludes the idea of a human
being. It is clear that a thing cannot be a human being, and it is
equally clear that a human being cannot be a thing. And the law itself,
when it adopts the phrase, “relation of master and slave,” confesses
its reluctance to sanction the claim of property. It shrinks from the
pretension of Senators, and satisfies itself with a formula which does
not openly degrade human nature.
If this property does exist, out of what title is it derived? Under
what ordinance of Nature or of Nature’s God is one human being stamped
an owner and another stamped a thing? God is no respecter of persons.
Where is the sanction for this respect of certain persons to a degree
which becomes outrage to other persons? God is the Father of the Human
Family, and we all are his children. Where, then, is the sanction of
this pretension by which a brother lays violent hands upon a brother?
To ask these questions is humiliating; but it is clear there can be but
one response. There is no sanction for such pretension, no ordinance
for it, no title. On all grounds of reason, and waiving all questions
of “positive” statute, the Vermont Judge was nobly right, when,
rejecting the claim of a Slave-Master, he said, “No, not until you show
a Bill of Sale from the Almighty.” Nothing short of this impossible
link in the chain of title would do. I know something of the great
judgments by which the jurisprudence of our country is illustrated; but
I doubt if there is anything in the wisdom of Marshall, the learning of
Story, or the completeness of Kent, which will brighten with time like
this honest decree.
The intrinsic feebleness of this pretension is apparent in the
intrinsic feebleness of the arguments by which it is maintained. These
are twofold, and both were put forth in recent debate by the Senator
from Mississippi [Mr. JEFFERSON DAVIS].
* * * * *
The first is the alleged inferiority of the African race,--an argument
instructive to the Slave-Master. The law of life is labor. Slavery
is a perpetual effort to evade this law by compelling the labor of
others; and such an attempt at evasion is naturally supported by the
pretension, that, because the African is inferior, therefore he may be
enslaved. But this pretension, while surrendering to Slavery a whole
race, leaves it uncertain whether the same principle may not be applied
to other races, as to the polished Japanese who are now the guests of
the nation,[125] and even to persons of obvious inferiority among the
white race. Indeed, the latter pretension is openly set up in other
quarters. The “Richmond Enquirer,” a leading journal of Slave-Masters,
declares, “The principle of Slavery is in itself right, and _does
not depend on difference of complexion_.” And a leading writer among
Slave-Masters, George Fitzhugh, of Virginia, in his “Sociology for the
South,” declares, “Slavery, _black or white_, is right and necessary.
Nature has made the weak in mind or body for slaves.” In the same vein,
a Democratic paper of South Carolina has said, “Slavery is the natural
and normal condition of the laboring man, _black or white_.”
These more extravagant pretensions reveal still further the feebleness
of the pretension put forth by the Senator, while instances,
accumulating constantly, attest the difficulty of discriminating
between the two races. Mr. Paxton, of Virginia, tells us that “the best
blood in Virginia flows in the veins of the slaves”; and more than one
fugitive has been advertised latterly as possessing “a round face,”
“blue eyes,” “flaxen hair,” and as “escaping under the pretence of
being a white man.”
This is not the time to enter upon the great question of race, in
the various lights of religion, history, and science. Sure I am that
they who understand it best will be least disposed to the pretension
which, on an assumed ground of inferiority, would condemn one race to
be the property of another. If the African race be inferior, as is
alleged, then unquestionably a Christian Civilization must lift it
from degradation, not by the lash and the chain, not by this barbarous
pretension of ownership, but by a generous charity, which shall be
measured precisely by the extent of inferiority.
* * * * *
The second argument put forward for this pretension, and twice repeated
by the Senator from Mississippi, is, that the Africans are the
posterity of Ham, the son of Noah, through Canaan, who was cursed by
Noah, to be the “servant”--that is the word employed--of his brethren,
and that this malediction has fallen upon all his descendants, who
are accordingly devoted by God to perpetual bondage, not only in the
third and fourth generations, but throughout all succeeding time.
Surely, when the Senator quoted Scripture to enforce the claim of
Slave-Masters, he did not intend a jest. And yet it is hard to suppose
him in earnest. The Senator is Chairman of the Committee on Military
Affairs, where he is doubtless experienced. He may, perhaps, set a
squadron in the field; but, evidently, he has considered very little
the text of Scripture on which he relies. The Senator assumes that it
has fixed the doom of the colored race, leaving untouched the white
race. Perhaps he does not know, that, in the worst days of the Polish
aristocracy, this same argument was adopted as excuse for holding white
serfs in bondage, precisely as it is now put forward by the Senator,
and that even to this day the angry Polish noble addresses his white
peasant as “Son of Ham.”
It hardly comports with the gravity of this debate to dwell on
such an argument; and yet I cannot go wrong, if, for the sake of
a much injured race, I brush it away. To justify the Senator in
his application of this ancient curse, he must maintain at least
five different propositions, as essential links in the chain of
the Afric-American slave: _first_, that by this malediction Canaan
himself was actually changed into a “chattel,”--whereas he is simply
made the “servant” of his brethren; _secondly_, that not merely
Canaan, but all his posterity, to the remotest generation, was so
changed,--whereas the language has no such extent; _thirdly_, that
the Afric-American actually belongs to the posterity of Canaan,--an
ethnological assumption absurdly difficult to establish; _fourthly_,
that each of the descendants of Shem and Japheth has a right to hold an
Afric-American fellow-man as a “chattel,”--a proposition which finds
no semblance of support; and, _fifthly_, that every Slave-Master is
truly descended from Shem or Japheth,--a pedigree which no anxiety can
establish. This plain analysis, which may fitly excite a smile, shows
the fivefold absurdity of an attempt to found this pretension on any
“successive title, long and dark,
Drawn from the mouldy rolls of Noah’s ark.”[126]
From the character of these two arguments for property in man, I am
brought to its denial.
* * * * *
It is natural that Senators who pretend, that, by the Law of Nature,
man may hold property in man, should find this pretension in the
Constitution. But the pretension is as much without foundation in the
Constitution as it is without foundation in Nature. It is not too
much to say that there is not one sentence, phrase, or word, not a
single suggestion, hint, or equivocation, even, out of which any such
pretension can be implied,--while great national acts and important
contemporaneous declarations in the Convention which framed the
Constitution, in different forms of language, and also controlling
rules of interpretation, render this pretension impossible. Partisans,
taking counsel of their desires, find in the Constitution, as in the
Scriptures, what they incline to find; and never was this more apparent
than when Slave-Masters deceive themselves so far as to find in the
Constitution a pretension which exists only in their own minds.
Looking for one moment juridically at this question, we are brought
to the conclusion, according to the admission of courts and jurists,
first in Europe, and then in our own country, that Slavery can be
derived from no doubtful word or mere pretension, but only from clear
and special recognition. “The state of Slavery,” said Lord Mansfield,
pronouncing judgment in the great case of Somerset, “is of such a
nature that it is incapable of being introduced on any reasons, moral
or political, but only by _positive law_. It is so odious that nothing
can be suffered to support it but POSITIVE LAW,”--that is, express
words of a written text; and this principle, which commends itself
to the enlightened reason, is adopted by several courts in the Slave
States. Of course every leaning must be against Slavery. A pretension
so peculiar and offensive, so hostile to reason, so repugnant to the
Laws of Nature and the inborn Rights of Man, which, in all its fivefold
wrong, has no other object than to compel fellow-men to work without
wages,--such a pretension, so tyrannical, so unjust, so mean, so
barbarous, can find no place in any system of Government, unless by
virtue of _positive sanction_. It can spring from no doubtful phrase.
It must be declared by unambiguous words, incapable of a double sense.
At the adoption of the Constitution, this rule, promulgated in the
Court of King’s Bench by the voice of the most finished magistrate in
English history, was as well known in our country as any principle
of the Common Law; especially was it known to the eminent lawyers in
the Convention; nor is it too much to say that the Constitution was
framed with this rule on Slavery as a guide. And the Supreme Court
of the United States, at a later day, by the lips of Chief-Justice
Marshall, promulgated this same rule, in words stronger even than
those of Lord Mansfield, saying: “Where rights are infringed, where
fundamental principles are overthrown, where the general system of the
laws is departed from, the legislative intention must be expressed with
_irresistible clearness_, to induce a court of justice to suppose a
design to effect such objects.”[127] It is well known, however, that
these two declarations are little more than new forms for the ancient
rule of the Common Law, as expressed by Fortescue: _Impius et crudelis
judicandus est qui Libertati non favet_: “He is to be adjudged impious
and cruel who does not favor Liberty,”[128]--and as expressed by
Blackstone, “The law is always ready to catch at anything in favor of
Liberty.”[129]
But, as no prescription runs against the King, so no prescription
is allowed to run against Slavery, while all the early victories of
Freedom are set aside by the Slave-Masters of to-day. The prohibition
of Slavery in the Missouri Territory, and all the precedents,
legislative and judicial, for the exercise of this power, admitted
from the beginning until now, are overturned. At last, bolder grown,
Slave-Masters do not hesitate to assail that principle of jurisprudence
which makes Slavery the creature of “positive law” alone, to be upheld
only by words of “irresistible clearness.” The case of Somerset, in
which this great rule was declared, is impeached on this floor, as the
Declaration of Independence is also impeached. And here the Senator
from Louisiana [Mr. BENJAMIN] takes the lead, with the assertion,
that in the history of English law there are earlier cases, where a
contrary principle was declared. Permit me to say that no such cases,
even if hunted up in authentic reports, can impair the influence of
this well-considered authority. The Senator knows well that an old and
barbarous case is a poor answer to a principle brought into activity
by the demands of advancing Civilization, and which, once recognized,
can never be denied. Pardon me, if I remind him that Jurisprudence is
not a dark-lantern, shining in a narrow circle, and never changing,
but a gladsome light, which, slowly emerging from original darkness,
grows and spreads with human improvement, until at last it becomes
as broad and general as the Light of Day. When the Senator, in this
age, leaguing all his forces, undertakes to drag down that immortal
principle which made Slavery impossible in England, as, thank God! it
makes Slavery impossible under the Constitution, he vainly tugs to drag
down a luminary from the sky.
The enormity of the pretension that Slavery is sanctioned by the
Constitution becomes still more flagrant, when we read the Constitution
in the light of great national acts and of contemporaneous authorities.
First comes the Declaration of Independence, the illuminated initial
letter of our history, which in familiar words announces “that all
men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with
certain unalienable 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 from the consent of
the governed.” Nor does this Declaration, binding the consciences of
all who enjoy the privileges it secured, stand alone. There is another
national act, less known, but in itself a key to the first, when, at
the successful close of the Revolution, the Continental Congress, in a
solemn Address to the States, grandly announced: “Let it be remembered
that it has ever been the pride and boast of America, _that the
rights for which she contended were the Rights of Human Nature_. By
the blessing of the Author of _these rights_ on the means exerted for
their defence, they have prevailed against all opposition, and form
THE BASIS of thirteen independent States.”[130] Now, whatever may be
the privileges of States in their individual capacities, within their
several local jurisdictions, no power can be attributed to the nation,
in the absence of positive, unequivocal grant, inconsistent with these
two national declarations. Here is the national heart, the national
soul, the national will, the national voice, which must inspire our
interpretation of the Constitution, and enter into and diffuse itself
through all the national legislation. Such are commanding authorities
which make “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness,” and, in
more general words, “the Rights of Human Nature,” as the basis of
our national institutions, without distinction of race, or absurd
recognition of the curse of Ham.
In strict harmony with these are the many utterances in the Convention
which framed the Constitution: of Gouverneur Morris, of Pennsylvania,
who announced that “_he never would concur in upholding Domestic
Slavery_; it was a nefarious institution”;[131] of Elbridge Gerry, of
Massachusetts, who said that “we had nothing to do with the conduct
of the States as to slaves, _but ought to be careful not to give any
sanction to it_”;[132] of Roger Sherman and Oliver Ellsworth, of
Connecticut, and Mr. Gorham, of Massachusetts, who all concurred with
Mr. Gerry;[133] and especially of Mr. Madison, of Virginia, who, in a
phrase which cannot be quoted too often, “THOUGHT IT WRONG TO ADMIT IN
THE CONSTITUTION THE IDEA THAT THERE COULD BE PROPERTY IN MEN.”[134]
And, lastly, as if to complete the elaborate work of Freedom, and to
embody all these utterances, the word “servitude,” which had been
allowed in the clause on the apportionment of Representatives, was
struck out, and the word “service” substituted. This final and total
exclusion from the Constitution of the idea of property in man was on
the motion of Mr. Randolph, of Virginia; and the reason assigned for
the substitution, according to Mr. Madison, in his authentic report of
the debate, was, that “the former was thought to express the condition
of slaves, and the latter _the obligations of free persons_.”[135]
Thus, at every point, by great national declarations, by frank
utterances in the Convention, and by positive act in adjusting the text
of the Constitution, was the idea of property in man unequivocally
rejected.
This pretension, which may be dismissed as utterly baseless,
becomes absurd, when it is considered to what result it necessarily
conducts. If the Barbarism of Slavery, in all its fivefold wrong,
is really embodied in the Constitution, so as to be beyond reach of
prohibition, either Congressional or local, in the Territories, then,
for the same reason, it must be beyond reach of prohibition, even by
local authority, in the States themselves, and, just so long as the
Constitution continues unchanged, Territories and States alike must be
exposed to all its blasting influences. Do we not witness this result
in open attempts now made by Slave-Masters to travel with their slaves
in the Free States? Calling the slave-roll in the shadow of Bunker
Hill, according to well-known menace, will be the triumph of this
consummation. And yet this pretension, which in natural consequences
overturns State Rights, is announced by Senators who profess to be
special guardians of State Rights.
Nor does this pretension derive any support from the much debated
clause in the Constitution for the rendition of fugitives from “service
or labor,” on which so much stress is constantly put. I do not occupy
your time now on this head for two reasons: first, because, having on
a former occasion exhibited with great fulness the character of that
clause, I am unwilling now thus incidentally to open the question upon
it; and, secondly, because, whatever may be its character,--admitting
that it confers power upon Congress,--and admitting, also, what is
often denied, that, in defiance of commanding rules of interpretation,
the equivocal words there employed have that “irresistible clearness”
which is necessary in taking away Human Rights,--yet nothing can be
clearer than that the fugitives, whosoever they be, are regarded under
the Constitution as _persons_, and not as _property_.
I disdain to dwell on that other argument, brought forward by Senators,
who, denying the Equality of Men, speciously assert the Equality of the
States, and from this principle, true in many respects, jump to the
conclusion, that Slave-Masters are entitled, in the name of Equality,
to take slaves into the National Territories, under solemn safeguard
of the Constitution. This argument comes back to the first pretension,
that slaves are recognized as “property” in the Constitution. To that
pretension, already amply exposed, we are always brought, nor can any
sounding allegation of State Equality avoid it. And yet this very
argument betrays the inconsistency of its authors. If persons held
to service in the Slave States are “property” under the Constitution,
then under the provision known as “the three-fifths rule,” which
founds representation in the other House on such persons, there is a
_property representation_ from the Slave States, with voice and vote,
while there is no such _property representation_ from the Free States.
With glaring inequality, the representation of Slave States is founded,
first, on “persons,” and, secondly, on a large part of their pretended
property, while the representation of the Free States is founded
simply on “persons,” leaving all their boundless millions of property
unrepresented. Thus, whichever way we approach it, the absurdity of
this pretension becomes manifest. Assuming the pretension of property
in man under the Constitution, you upset the whole theory of State
Equality, for you disclose a gigantic inequality between the Slave
States and the Free States; and assuming the Equality of States, in the
House of Representatives as elsewhere, you upset the whole pretension
of property in man under the Constitution.
Nor will I deign to dwell on one other argument, which, in the name
of Popular Sovereignty, undertakes to secure for the people in the
Territories the wicked power--sometimes, by confusion of terms,
called “right”--to enslave their fellow-men: as if this pretension
was not crushed at once by the Declaration of Independence, when it
announced that all governments “derive their just powers from the
consent of the governed”; and as if anywhere within the jurisdiction
of the Constitution, which contains no sentence, phrase, or word
sanctioning this outrage, and which carefully excludes the idea of
property in man, while it surrounds all persons with the highest
safeguards of a citizen, such pretension could exist. Whatever it may
be elsewhere, Popular Sovereignty within the sphere of the Constitution
has its limitations. Claiming for all the largest liberty of a true
Civilization, it compresses all within the constraints of Justice; nor
does it allow any man to assert a right to do what he pleases, except
when he pleases to do right. As well within the Territories attempt to
make a king as attempt to make a slave. Beyond all doubt, no majority
can be permitted to pass on the question, whether fellow-men shall be
bought and sold like cattle. There are rights which cannot be “voted
up” or “voted down,” according to phrases of the Senator from Illinois
[Mr. DOUGLAS], for they are above all votes. The very act of voting
upon the question of reducing men to bondage is a heinous wrong, for it
assumes that we may do unto others what we would not have them do unto
us. But this pretension,--rejected alike by every Slave-Master and by
every lover of Freedom,--
“Where I behold a factious band agree
To call it Freedom, when themselves are free,”[136]--
proceeding originally from vain effort to avoid the impending question
between Freedom and Slavery,--assuming a delusive phrase of Freedom
as a cloak for Slavery,--speaking with the voice of Jacob, while its
hands are the hands of Esau,--and, by plausible nickname, enabling
politicians sometimes to deceive the public, and sometimes even to
deceive themselves,--may be dismissed with other kindred pretensions
for Slavery; while the Senator from Illinois [Mr. DOUGLAS], who, if not
inventor, has been its boldest defender, will learn that Slave-Masters,
for whom he has done so much, cannot afford to be generous,--that
their gratitude is founded on what they expect, and not on what they
receive,--and that, having its root in desire rather than in fruition,
it necessarily withers and dies with the power to serve them. The
Senator, revolving these things, may confess the difficulty of his
position, and perhaps
“remember Milo’s end,
Wedged in that timber which he strove to rend.”[137]
The pretension that in the Territories Slavery may be “voted up”
or “voted down,” as the few people there see fit, is a novelty,
and its partisans, besides a general oblivion of great principles,
most strangely forget the power of Congress “to regulate commerce
with foreign nations and among the several States,” limited only by
temporary exception in favor of “the migration or importation of such
persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit”
until 1808. These express words, solemnly accepted as part of the
Constitution, attest the power of Congress to prevent “the migration”
of slaves into the Territories. The migration or importation of slaves
into any State existing at the adoption of the Constitution was
tolerated until 1808; but from that date the power of Congress became
plenary to prohibit their “importation” from abroad or “migration”
among existing States, while from the beginning this power was plenary
to prevent their “migration” into the Territories. And as early as 1804
Congress exercised this power, by providing that no slave should be
introduced into the Territory of Orleans, except by a citizen of the
United States removing thither for actual settlement, and at the time
_bonâ fide_ owner of such slave; and every slave imported or brought
into the Territory, contrary to this provision, is declared free.[138]
In this unquestioned exercise of a beneficent power, at a time when
the authors of the Constitution were still on the stage, and the
temporary exception in favor of existing States was in force, we have a
precedent of unanswerable authority, establishing the power of Congress
to exclude Slavery from the Territories, even if it be assumed, that,
under the Constitution, this five-headed Barbarism can find place
anywhere within the exclusive jurisdiction of the Nation.
* * * * *
Here I close this branch of the argument, which I have treated less
fully than the first, partly because time and strength fail me, but
chiefly because the Barbarism of Slavery, when fully established,
supersedes all other inquiry. Enough is done on this head. At the
risk of repetition, I gather it together. The assumption, that
Slave-Masters, under the Constitution, may take their slaves into
Territories and continue to hold them as in States, stands on two
pretensions,--first, that man may hold property in man, and, secondly,
that this property is recognized in the Constitution. But we have
seen that the pretended property in man stands on no reason, while
the two special arguments by which it is asserted--first, an alleged
inferiority of race, and, secondly, the ancient curse of Ham--are
grossly insufficient to uphold such pretension. And we have next seen
that this pretension has as little support in the Constitution as in
reason; that Slavery is of such an offensive character, that it can
find support only in “positive” sanction, and words of “irresistible
clearness”; that this benign rule, questioned in the Senate, is
consistent with the principles of an advanced Civilization; that no
such “positive” sanction, in words of “irresistible clearness,” can
be found in the Constitution, while, in harmony with the Declaration
of Independence, and the Address of the Continental Congress, the
contemporaneous declarations in the Convention, and especially the
act of the Convention substituting “service” for “servitude,” on the
ground that the latter expressed “the condition of slaves,” all attest
that the pretension that man can hold property in man was carefully,
scrupulously, and completely excluded from the Constitution, so that
it has no semblance of support in that sacred text; nor is this
pretension, which is unsupported in the Constitution, helped by the two
arguments, one in the name of State Equality, and the other in the name
of Popular Sovereignty, both of which are properly put aside.
* * * * *
Sir, the true principle, which, reversing all assumptions of
Slave-Masters, makes Freedom _national_ and Slavery _sectional_,
while every just claim of the Slave States is harmonized with the
irresistible predominance of Freedom under the Constitution, was
declared at Chicago.[139] Not questioning the right of each State,
whether South Carolina or Turkey, Virginia or Russia, to order and
control its domestic institutions according to its own judgment
exclusively, the Convention there assembled has explicitly announced
Freedom to be “the normal condition of all the territory of the
United States,” and has explicitly denied “the authority of Congress,
of a Territorial Legislature, or of any individuals, to give legal
existence to Slavery in any Territory of the United States.” Such
is the triumphant response by the aroused millions of the North to
the assumption of Slave-Masters, that the Constitution, of its own
force, carries Slavery into the Territories, and also to the device
of politicians, that the people of the Territories, in the exercise
of a dishonest Popular Sovereignty, may plant Slavery there. This
response is complete at all points, whether the Constitution acts upon
the Territories before their organization, or only afterward; for, in
the absence of a Territorial Government, there can be no “positive”
law in words of “irresistible clearness” for Slavery, as there can be
no such law, when a Territorial Government is organized, under the
Constitution. Thus the normal condition of the Territories is confirmed
by the Constitution, which, when extended over them, renders Slavery
impossible, while it writes upon the soil and engraves upon the rock
everywhere the law of impartial Freedom, without distinction of color
or race.
* * * * *
Mr. President, this argument is now closed. Pardon me for the time
I have occupied. It is long since I made any such claim upon your
attention. Pardon me, also, if I have said anything I ought not to
have said. I have spoken frankly and from the heart,--if severely,
yet only with the severity of a sorrowful candor, calling things by
their right names, and letting historic facts tell their unimpeachable
story. I have spoken in patriotic hope of contributing to the welfare
of my country, and also in assured conviction that this utterance
to-day will find response in generous souls. I believe that I have said
nothing which is not sustained by well-founded argument or well-founded
testimony, nothing which can be controverted without direct assault
upon reason or upon truth.
The two assumptions of Slave-Masters are answered. But this is not
enough. Let the answer become a legislative act, by the admission of
Kansas as a Free State. Then will the Barbarism of Slavery be repelled,
and the pretension of property in man be rebuked. Such an act, closing
this long struggle by assurance of peace to the Territory, if not of
tranquillity to the whole country, will be more grateful still as
herald of that better day, near at hand, when Freedom will find a home
everywhere under the National Government, when the National Flag,
wherever it floats, on sea or land, within the national jurisdiction,
will cover none but freemen, and the Declaration of Independence, now
reviled in the name of Slavery, will be reverenced as the American
Magna Charta of Human Rights. Nor is this all. Such an act will be
the first stage in those triumphs by which the Republic, lifted in
character so as to become an example to mankind, will enter at last
upon its noble “prerogative of teaching the nations how to live.”
Thus, Sir, speaking for Freedom in Kansas, I have spoken for Freedom
everywhere, and for Civilization; and as the less is contained in the
greater, so are all arts, all sciences, all economies, all refinements,
all charities, all delights of life, embodied in this cause. You may
reject it, but it will be only for to-day. The sacred animosity of
Freedom and Slavery can end only with the triumph of Freedom. The same
question will be carried soon before that high tribunal, supreme over
Senate and Court, where the judges are counted by millions, and the
judgment rendered will be the solemn charge of an awakened people,
instructing a new President, in the name of Freedom, to see that
Civilization receives no detriment.
When Mr. Sumner resumed his seat, Mr. Chesnut, of South
Carolina, spoke as follows.
“Mr. President, after the extraordinary, though
characteristic, speech just uttered in the Senate, it is
proper that I assign the reason for the position we are now
inclined to assume. After ranging over Europe, crawling
through the back doors to whine at the feet of British
aristocracy, craving pity, and reaping a rich harvest of
contempt, the slanderer of States and men reappears in the
Senate. We had hoped to be relieved from the outpourings
of such vulgar malice. We had hoped that one who had felt,
though ignominiously he failed to meet, the consequences of
a former insolence would have become wiser, if not better,
by experience. In this I am disappointed, and I regret
it. Mr. President, in the heroic ages of the world men
were deified for the possession and the exercise of some
virtues,--wisdom, truth, justice, magnanimity, courage. In
Egypt, also, we know they deified beasts and reptiles; but
even that bestial people worshipped their idols on account
of some supposed virtue. It has been left for this day, for
this country, for the Abolitionists of Massachusetts, _to
deify the incarnation of malice, mendacity, and cowardice_.
Sir, we do not intend to be guilty of aiding in the
apotheosis of pusillanimity and meanness. We do not intend
to contribute, by any conduct on our part, to increase the
devotees at the shrine of this new idol. We know what is
expected and what is desired. _We are not inclined again to
send forth the recipient of_ PUNISHMENT _howling through
the world, yelping fresh cries of slander and malice. These
are the reasons_, which I feel it due to myself and others
to give to the Senate and the country, why we have quietly
listened to what has been said, and why we can take no
other notice of the matter.”
In these words Mr. Chesnut refers to the assault upon Mr.
Sumner, with a bludgeon, on the floor of the Senate, by a
Representative from South Carolina, since dead, aided by
another Representative from that same State, and also a
Representative from Virginia, on account of which Mr. Sumner
had been compelled to leave his seat vacant, and seek the
restoration of his health by travel. As Mr. Chesnut spoke,
he was surrounded by the Slave-Masters of the Senate, who
seemed to approve what he said. There was no call to order by
the Chair, which was occupied at the time by Mr. Bigler, of
Pennsylvania. Mr. Sumner obtained the floor with difficulty,
while a motion was pending for the postponement of the
question, and said:--
Mr. President, before this question passes away, I think I ought to
make answer to the Senator from South Carolina,--though perhaps there
is no occasion for it. [_“No!” from several Senators._] Only one word.
I exposed to-day the _Barbarism of Slavery_. What the Senator has said
in reply I may well print as an additional illustration. That is all.