PRESIDENTIAL TESTIMONIES.
George Washington.—“I never mean, unless some particular circumstance should compel me to it, to possess another slave by purchase: it being among my first wishes to see some plan adopted by which slavery in this country may be abolished by law.”—Letter to John F. Mercer.
“There is not a man living, who wishes more sincerely than I do, to see a plan adopted for the abolition of it (Slavery); but there is only one proper and effectual mode by which it can be accomplished, and that is, by the legislative authority; and this, as far as my suffrage will go, will not be wanting.”—Letter to Robert Morris.
John Adams.—“Great is truth—great is liberty—great is humanity; and they must and will prevail.”
Thomas Jefferson.—“The rightful power of all legislation is to declare and enforce only our NATURAL RIGHTS AND DUTIES, and take none of them from us. No man has a natural right to commit aggressions on the equal rights of another, and this is ALL from which the law ought to restrain him. Every man is under a natural duty of contributing to the necessities of society, and this is all the law should enforce upon him. When the laws have declared and enforced all this, they have fulfilled their functions.”—“The idea is quite unfounded, that on entering into society, we give up any natural right.”
“The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions; the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other. * * And with what execration should the statesman be loaded, who, permitting one-half the citizens thus to trample on the rights of the others, transforms those into despots, and these into enemies, destroys the morals of the one part, and the love of country of the other. For, if a slave can have a country in this world, it must be any other in preference to that in which he is born to live and labor for another. * * And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people, that these liberties are the gift of God; that they are not to be violated but with his wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; and that his justice cannot sleep forever. * * When the measure of the slaves’ tears shall be full; when their tears shall have involved heaven itself in darkness; doubtless a God of justice will awaken to their distress, and by diffusing light and liberality among their oppressors, or, at length by his exterminating thunder, manifest his attention to things of the world, and that they are not left to the guidance of blind fatality.”—Notes on Virginia.
James Madison.—“It seemed now to be pretty well understood, that the real difference of interests lay, not between the large and small, but between the Northern and Southern States. The institution of slavery, and its consequences, formed the line of discrimination.”—Speech in the Convention for the formation of the Federal Constitution.
James Monroe.—“We have found that this evil (slavery) has preyed upon the very vitals of the Union; and has been prejudicial to all the States in which it has existed.”—Speech in the Virginia Convention.
John Q. Adams.—“Nay, I may go further, and insist that that (the slave) representation has ever been, in fact, the ruling power of this government. The history of the Union has afforded a continual proof that this representation of property, which they enjoy, has secured to the slaveholding States the control of the national policy, and, almost without exception, the possession of the highest executive office of the Union.”—Speech in Congress, Feb. 4, 1833.
“Fellow citizens: The numbers of freemen constituting your nation are much greater than those of the slaveholding States, bond and free. You have at least three-fifths of the whole population of the Union. Your influence on the legislation and the administration of the government ought to be in proportion of three to two. But how stands the fact? * * * By means of the double representation, the minority command the whole, and a knot of slaveholders give the law and prescribe the policy of the country.”—Speech at North Bridgewater, Nov. 6, 1844.
James K. Polk.—On the 12th of May, 1841, a resolution was introduced in Congress, to the effect, “That the President of the United States be requested to renew, and to prosecute, from time to time, such negotiations with the several maritime powers of Europe and America, as he may deem expedient for the effectual abolition of the African Slave Trade, and its ultimate denunciation as piracy under the law of nations, by the consent of the civilized world.” The vote on this resolution was 118 ayes and 32 nays; James K. Polk voting in the negative. (Cong. Deb. vol. 7., p. 850). Mr. Polk, since occupying the presidency, has pardoned two individuals, convicted in the courts of having been engaged in this trade.