Chapter VII: Front Matter (7)

In 1841, Mr. Payne, a Slave-Master from Alabama, in the course of debate in the House of Representatives, alluding to the Abolitionists, among whom he insisted the Postmaster-General ought to be included, declared that

“He would put the brand of Cain upon them,--yes, the mark of
Hell; and if they came to the South, he would _hang them like
dogs_.”[116]

And these words were applied to men who simply expressed the recorded sentiments of Washington, Jefferson, and Franklin.

Even during the present session of Congress, I find in the “Congressional Globe” the following interruptions of the eloquent and faithful Representative from Illinois, Mr. Lovejoy, when speaking on Slavery. I do not characterize them, but simply cite the language.

By Mr. Barksdale, of Mississippi:--

“Order that black-hearted scoundrel and nigger-stealing thief
to take his seat.”

By Mr. Boyce, of South Carolina, addressing Mr. Lovejoy:--

“Then behave yourself.”

By Mr. Gartrell, of Georgia (in his seat):--

“The man is crazy.”

By Mr. Barksdale, of Mississippi, again:--

“No, Sir, you stand there to-day an infamous, perjured villain.”

By Mr. Ashmore, of South Carolina:--

“Yes, he is a perjured villain; and he perjures himself every
hour he occupies a seat on this floor.”

By Mr. Singleton, of Mississippi:--

“And a negro-thief into the bargain.”

By Mr. Barksdale, of Mississippi, again:--

“I hope my colleague will hold no parley with that perjured
negro-thief.”

By Mr. Singleton, of Mississippi, again:--

“No, Sir! any gentleman shall have time, but not such a mean,
despicable wretch as that!”

By Mr. Martin, of Virginia:--

“And if you come among us, we will do with you as we did with
John Brown,--hang you up as high as Haman. I say that as a
Virginian.”[117]

But enough,--enough; and I now turn from this branch of the great subject with a single remark. While exhibiting the Character of Slave-Masters, these numerous instances--and they might be multiplied indefinitely--attest the weakness of their cause. It requires no special talent to estimate the insignificance of an argument that can be supported only by violence. The scholar will not forget the ancient story of the colloquy between Jupiter and a simple countryman. They talked with ease and freedom until they differed, when the angry god at once menaced his honest opponent with a thunderbolt. “Ah! ah!” said the clown, with perfect composure, “now, Jupiter, I know you are wrong. You are always wrong, when you appeal to your thunder.” And permit me to say, that every appeal, whether to the Duel, the revolver, or the bludgeon, every menace of personal violence and every outrage of language, besides disclosing a hideous Barbarism, also discloses the fevered nervousness of a cause already humbled in debate. And then how impotent! Truth, like the sunbeam, cannot be soiled by outward touch, while the best testimony to its might is found in the active passions it provokes. There are occasions when enmity is a panegyric.

* * * * *

(4.) Much as has been said to exhibit the Character of Slave-Masters, the work would be incomplete, if I failed to point out that _unconsciousness_ of its fatal influence which completes the evidence of the Barbarism under which they live. Nor am I at liberty to decline this topic; but I shall be brief.

That Senators should seriously declare Slavery “ennobling,” at least to the master, and “the black marble keystone of our national arch,” would excite wonder, if it were not explained by examples of history. There are men who, in the spirit of paradox, make themselves partisans of a bad cause, as Jerome Cardan wrote an Encomium on Nero. But where there is no disposition to paradox, it is natural that a cherished practice should blind those under its influence; nor is there any end to these exaggerations. According to Thucydides, piracy in the early ages of Greece was alike wide-spread and honorable; and so much was this the case, that Telemachus and Mentor, on landing at Pylos, were asked by Nestor if they were “pirates,”[118]--precisely as in South Carolina the stranger might be asked if he were a Slave-Master. Kidnapping, too, a kindred indulgence, was openly avowed, and I doubt not held to be “ennobling.” Next to the unconsciousness of childhood is the unconsciousness of Barbarism. The real Barbarian is unconscious as an infant; and the Slave-Master shows much of the same character. No New-Zealander exults in his tattoo, no savage of the Northwest Coast exults in his flat head, more than the Slave-Master of these latter days--always, of course, with honorable exceptions--exults in his unfortunate condition. The Slave-Master hugs his disgusting practice as the Carib of the Gulf hugged Cannibalism, and as Brigham Young now hugs Polygamy. The delusion of the Goitre is repeated. This prodigious swelling of the neck, nothing less than a loathsome wallet of flesh pendulous upon the breast, and sometimes so enormous, that the victim, unable to support the burden, crawls along the ground, is common to the population on the slopes of the Alps;[119] but, accustomed to this deformity, the sufferer comes to regard it with pride,--as Slave-Masters with us, unable to support their burden, and crawling along the ground, regard Slavery,--and it is said that those who have no swelling are laughed at and called “goose-necked.”[120]

With knowledge comes distrust and the modest consciousness of imperfection; but the pride of Barbarism has no such limitation. It dilates in the thin air of ignorance, and makes boasts. Surely, if the illustrations which I have presented to-day are not entirely inapplicable, then must we find in the boasts of Slave-Masters new occasion to regret that baleful influence under which even love of country is lost in love of Slavery, and the great motto of Franklin is reversed, so as to read, _Ubi Servitudo, ibi Patria_.

It is this same influence which renders Slave-Masters insensible to those characters which are among the true glories of the Republic,--which makes them forget that Jefferson, who wrote the Declaration of Independence, and Washington, who commanded our armies, were Abolitionists,--which renders them indifferent to the inspiring words of the one and the commanding example of the other. Of these great men it is the praise, well deserving perpetual mention, and grudged only by malign influence, that, reared amidst Slavery, they did not hesitate to condemn it. Jefferson, in repeated utterances, alive with the fire of genius and truth, has contributed the most important testimony to Freedom ever pronounced in this hemisphere, in words equal to the cause; and Washington, often quoted as a Slave-Master, in the solemn dispositions of his last will and testament, has contributed an example which is beyond even the words of Jefferson. Do not, Sir, call him Slave-Master, who entered into the presence of his Maker only as Emancipator of his slaves. The difference between such men and the Slave-Masters whom I expose to-day is so precise that it cannot be mistaken. The first _looked down_ upon Slavery; the second _look up_ to Slavery. The first, recognizing its wrong, were at once liberated from its insidious influence; while the latter, upholding it as right and “ennobling,” must naturally draw from it motives of conduct. The first, conscious of the character of Slavery, were not misled by it; the second, dwelling in unconsciousness of its true character, surrender blindly to its barbarous tendencies, and, verifying the words of the poet,--

“So perfect is their misery,
Not once perceive their foul disfigurement,
But boast themselves more comely than before.”[121]

Mr. President, it is time to close this branch of the argument. The Barbarism of Slavery has been exposed, first, in the Law of Slavery, with its five pretensions, founded on the assertion of property in man, the denial of the conjugal relation, the infraction of the parental tie, the exclusion from knowledge, and the robbery of the fruits of another’s labor, all these having the single object of _compelling men to work without wages_, while its Barbarism was still further attested by tracing the law in its origin to barbarous Africa; and, secondly, it has been exposed in a careful examination of economical results, illustrated by contrast between the Free States and the Slave States, sustained by official figures. From this exposure I proceeded to consider the influence on Slave-Masters, whose true character stands confessed,--first, in the Law of Slavery, which is their work,--next, in the relations between them and their slaves, maintained by three inhuman instruments,--then, in their intercourse with each other and with society: and here we have seen them at home, under the immediate influence of Slavery, also in the communities of which they are a part, practising violence, and pushing it everywhere, in street-fight and duel; especially raging against all who question the pretensions of Slavery, entering even into the Free States,--but not in lawless outbreaks only, also in official acts, as of Georgia and of South Carolina regarding two Massachusetts citizens,--and then, ascending in audacity, entering the Halls of Congress, where they have turned, as at home, against all who oppose their assumptions; while the whole gloomy array of unquestionable facts is closed by the melancholy unconsciousness which constitutes one of the distinctive features of this Barbarism.

* * * * *

Such is my answer to the assumption of fact in behalf of Slavery by Senators on the other side. But before passing to that other assumption of Constitutional Law, which forms the second branch of this discussion, I add testimony to the influence of Slavery on Slave-Masters in other countries, which is too important to be neglected, and may properly find place here.

Among those who have done most to press forward in Russia that sublime act of emancipation by which the present Emperor is winning lustre, not only for his own country, but for our age, is M. Tourgueneff. Originally a Slave-Master himself, with numerous slaves, and residing where Slavery prevailed, he saw, with the instincts of a noble character, the essential Barbarism of this relation, and in an elaborate work on Russia, which is now before me, exposed it with rare ability and courage. Thus he speaks of its influence on Slave-Masters:--

“But if Slavery degrades the slave, it degrades the master
more. This is an old adage, and long observation has proved to
me that this adage is not a paradox. In fact, how can that man
respect his own dignity, his own rights, who has not learned
to respect either the rights or the dignity of his fellow-man?
What control can the moral and religious sentiments have over
a person who sees himself invested with a power so eminently
contrary to morality and religion? The continual exercise
of an unjust claim, even when moderated, ends in corrupting
the character of the man, and perverting his judgment.… The
possession of a slave being the result of injustice, the
relations of the master with the slave cannot be otherwise than
a succession of wrongs. Among good masters (and it is agreed
so to call those who do not abuse their power as much as they
might) these relations are invested with forms less repugnant
than among other masters; but here the difference ends. Who can
remain always pure, when, induced by disposition, excited by
temper, influenced by caprice, he may with impunity oppress,
insult, humiliate his fellow-men? And be it remarked, that
enlightenment, civilization, do not avail here. The enlightened
man, the civilized man, is nevertheless a man; that he may not
oppress, it is necessary that it should be impossible for him
to oppress. All men cannot, like Louis the Fourteenth, throw
the cane out of the window, when they feel an inclination to
strike.”[122]

Another authority, unimpeachable at all points, whose fortune it has been, from extensive travels, to see Slavery in the most various forms, and Slave-Masters under the most various conditions,--I refer to the great African traveller, Dr. Livingstone,--thus touches the character of Slave-Masters:--

“I can never cease to be most unfeignedly thankful that I was
not born in a land of slaves. No one can understand the effect
of the unutterable meanness of the slave system on the minds
of those who, _but for the strange obliquity which prevents
them from feeling the degradation of not being gentlemen enough
to pay for services rendered_, would be equal in virtue to
ourselves. Fraud becomes as natural to them as ‘paying one’s
way’ is to the rest of mankind.”[123]

And so does the experience of Slavery in other countries confirm the sad experience among us.

SECOND ASSUMPTION OF SLAVE-MASTERS.

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.

Mr. Hammond, of South Carolina, said:--

“I hope he will do it.”

* * * * *

The first pamphlet edition of this speech contained a note which is preserved here.

“The following letter, from a venerable citizen, an ornament
of our legislative halls at the beginning of the century, and
now the oldest survivor of all who have ever been members
of Congress, is too valuable in testimony and counsel to be
omitted in this place.

“‘BOSTON, June 5, 1860.

“‘Dear Sir,--I have read a few abstracts from your noble
speech, but must wait for it in a pamphlet form, that I may
read it in such type as eyes in the eighty-ninth year of
their age will permit. But I have read enough to approve,
and rejoice that you have been permitted thus truly, fully,
and faithfully to expose the ‘Barbarism’ of Slavery on
that very floor on which you were so cruelly and brutally
stricken down by the spirit of that Barbarism.

“‘I only hope that in an Appendix you will preserve the
_vera effigies_ of that insect that attempted to sting you.
Remember that the value of amber is increased by the insect
it preserves.

“‘Yours, very truly,

“‘JOSIAH QUINCY.’”