The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus

by American Anti-Slavery Society

The Senator condemns the abolitionists for desiring that slavery should not exist in the Territories, even in Florida. He insists that, by the treaty, the inhabitants of that country have the right to remove their EFFECTS when they please; and that, by this condition, they have the right to retain their slaves as effects, independently of the power of Congress. I am no diplomatist, sir, but I venture to deny the conclusion of the Senator's argument. In all our intercourse with foreign nations, in all our treaties in which the words "goods, effects," &c. are used, slaves have never been considered as included. In all cases in which slaves are the subject matter of controversy, they are specially named by the word "slaves; and, if I remember rightly, it has been decided in Congress, that slaves are not property for which a compensation shall be made when taken for public use, (or rather, slaves cannot be considered as taken for public use,) or as property by the enemy, when they are in the service of the United States. If I am correct, as I believe I am, in the positions I have assumed, the gentleman can say nothing, by this part of his argument, against abolitionists, for asking that slavery shall not exist in Florida."

The gentleman contends that the power to remove slaves from one State to another, for sale, is found in that part of the Constitution which gives Congress the power to regulate commerce within the States, &c. This argument is non sequiter, unless the honorable Senator can first prove that slaves are proper articles for commerce. We say that Congress have power over slaves only as persons. The United States can protect persons, but cannot make them property, and they have full power in regulating commerce, and can, in such regulations, prohibit from its operations every thing but property; property made so by the laws of nature, and not by any municipal regulations. The dominion of man over things, as property, was settled by his Creator when man was first placed upon the earth. He was to subdue the earth, and have dominion over the fish of the sea, the fowls of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth; every herb bearing seed, and the fruit of a tree yielding seed, was given for his use. This is the foundation of all right in property of every description. It is for the use of man the grant is made, and of course man cannot be included in the grant. Every municipal regulation, then, of any State, or any of its peculiar institutions, which makes man property, is a violation of this great law of nature, and is founded in usurpation and tyranny, and is accomplished by force, fraud, or an abuse of power. It is a violation of the principles of truth and justice, in subjecting the weaker to the stronger man. In a Christian nation such property can form no just ground for commercial regulations, but ought to be strictly prohibited. I therefore believe it is the duty of Congress, by virtue of this power, to regulate commerce, to prohibit, at once, slaves being used as articles of trade.

The gentleman says, the Constitution left the subject of slavery entirely to the States. To this position I assent; and, as the States cannot regulate their own commerce, but the same being the right of Congress, that body cannot make slaves an article of commerce, because slavery is left entirely to the States in which it exists; and slaves within those States, according to the gentleman, are excluded from the power of Congress. Can Congress, in regulating commerce among the several States, authorize the transportation of articles from one State, and their sale in another, which they have not power so to authorize in any State? I cannot believe in such doctrine; and I now solemnly protest against the power of Congress to authorize the transportation to, and the sale in, Ohio, of any negro slave whatever, or for any possible purpose under the sun. Who is there in Ohio, or elsewhere, that will dare deny this position? If Ohio contains such a recreant to her constitution and policy, I hope he may have the boldness to stand forth and avow it. If the States in which slavery exists love it as a household god, let them keep it there, and not call upon us in the free States to offer incense to their idol. We do not seek to touch it with unhallowed hands, but with pure hands, upraised in the cause of truth and suffering humanity.

The gentleman admits that, at the formation of our Government, it was feared that slavery might eventually divide or distract our country; and, as the BALLOT BOX seems continually to haunt his imagination, he says there is real danger of dissolution of the Union if abolitionists, as is evident they do, will carry their principles into the BALLOT BOX. If not disunion in fact, at least in feeling, in the country, which is always the precursor to the clash of arms. And the gentleman further says we are taught by holy writ, "that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong." The moral of the gentleman's argument is, that truth and righteousness will prevail, though opposed by power and influence; that abolitionists, though few in number, are greatly to be feared; one, as I have said, may chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight; and, as their weapons of warfare are not "carnal, but mighty to the pulling down of strong holds," even slavery itself; and as the ballot box is the great moral lever in political action, the gentleman would exclude abolitionists entirely from its use, and for opinion's sake, deny them this high privilege of every American citizen. Permit me, sir, to remind the gentleman of another text of holy writ. "The wicked flee when no man pursueth, but the righteous are bold as a lion." The Senator says that those who have slaves, are sometimes supposed to be under too much alarm. Does this prove the application of the text I have just quoted: "Conscience sometimes makes cowards of us all." The Senator appeals to abolitionists, and beseeches them to cease their efforts on the subject of slavery, if they wish, says he, "to exercise their benevolence." What! Abolitionists benevolent! He hopes they will select some object not so terrible. Oh, sir, he is willing they should pay tithes of "mint and rue," but the weighter matters of the law, judgment and mercy, he would have them entirely overlook. I ought to thank the Senator for introducing holy writ into this debate, and inform him his arguments are not the sentiments of Him, who, when on earth, went about doing good.

The Senator further entreats the clergy to desist from their efforts in behalf of abolitionism. Who authorized the Senator, as a politician, to use his influence to point out to the clergy what they should preach, or for what they should pray? Would the Senator dare exert his power here to bind the consciences of men? By what rule of ethics, then, does he undertake to use his influence, from this high place of power, in order to gain the same object, I am at a loss to determine. Sir, this movement of the Senator is far more censurable and dangerous, as an attempt to unite Church and State, than were the petitions against Sunday mails, the report in opposition to which gained for you, Mr. President, so much applause in the country. I, sir, also appeal to the clergy to maintain their rights of conscience; and if they believe slavery to be a sin, we ought to honor and respect them for their open denunciation of it, rather than call on them to desist, for between their conscience and their God, we have no power to interfere; we do not wish to make them political agents for any purpose.

But the Senator is not content to entreat the clergy alone to desist; he calls on his countrywomen to warn them, also, to cease their efforts, and reminds them that the ink shed from the pen held in their fair fingers when writing their names to abolition petitions, may be the cause of shedding much human blood! Sir, the language towards this class of petitioners is very much changed of late; they formerly were pronounced idlers, fanatics, old women and school misses, unworthy of respect from intelligent and respectable men. I warned gentlemen then that they would change their language; the blows they aimed fell harmless at the feet of those against whom they were intended to injure. In this movement of my countrywomen I thought was plainly to be discovered the operations of Providence, and a sure sign of the final triumph of universal emancipation. All history, both sacred and profane, both ancient and modern, bears testimony to the efficacy of female influence and power in the cause of human liberty. From the time of the preservation, by the hands of women, of the great Jewish law-giver, in his infantile hours, and who was preserved for the purpose of freeing his countrymen from Egyptian bondage, has woman been made a powerful agent in breaking to pieces the rod of the oppressor. With a pure and uncontaminated mind, her actions spring from the deepest recesses of the human heart. Denounce her as you will, you cannot deter her from her duty. Pain, sickness, want, poverty and even death itself form no obstacles in her onward march. Even the tender Virgin would dress, as a martyr for the stake, as for her bridal hour, rather than make sacrifice of her purity and duty. The eloquence of the Senate, and clash of arms, are alike powerful when brought in opposition to the influence of pure and virtuous woman. The liberty of the slave seems now to be committed to her charge, and who can doubt her final triumph? I do not.—You cannot fight against her and hope for success; and well does the Senator know this; hence this appeal to her feelings to terrify her from that which she believes to be her duty. It is a vain attempt.

The Senator says that it was the principles of the Constitution which carried us through the Revolution. Surely it was; and to use the language of another Senator from a slave State, on a former occasion, these are the very principles on which the abolitionists plant themselves. It was the principle that all men are born FREE AND EQUAL, that nerved the arm of our fathers in their contest for independence. It was for the natural and inherent rights of man they contended. It is a libel upon the Constitution to say that its object was not liberty, but slavery, for millions of the human race.

The Senator, well fearing that all his eloquence and his arguments thus far are but chaff, when weighed in the balance against truth and justice, seems to find consolation in the idea, and says that which opposes the ulterior object of abolitionists, is that the general government has no power to act on the subject of slavery, and that the Constitution or the Union would not last an hour if the power claimed was exercised by Congress. It is slavery, then, and not liberty, that makes us one people. To dissolve slavery, is to dissolve the Union. Why require of us to support the Constitution by oath, if the Constitution itself is subject to the power of slavery, and not the moral power of the country? Change the form of the oath which you administer to Senators on taking seats here, swear them to support slavery, and according to the logic of the gentleman, the Constitution and the Union will both be safe. We hear almost daily threats of dissolving the Union, and from whence do they come? From citizens of the free States? No! From the slave States only. Why wish to dissolve it? The reason is plain, that a new government may be formed, by which we, as a nation, may be made a slaveholding people. No impartial observer of passing events, can, in my humble judgment, doubt the truth of this. The Senator thinks the abolitionists in error, if they wish the slaveholder to free his slave. He asks, why denounce him? I cannot admit the truth of the question; but I might well ask the gentleman, and the slaveholders generally, "why are you angry at me, because I tell you the truth?" It is the light of truth which the slaveholder cannot endure; a plain unvarnished tale of what slavery is, he considers a libel upon himself. The fact is, the slaveholder feels the leprosy of slavery upon him. He is anxious to hide the odious disease from the public eye, and the ballot box and the right of petition, when used against him, he feels as sharp reproof; and being unwilling to renounce his errors, he tries to escape from their consequences, by making the world believe that HE is the persecuted, and not the persecutor. Slaveholders have said here, during this very session, "the fact is, slavery will not bear examination." It is the Senator who denounces abolitionists for the exercise of their most unquestionable rights, while abolitionists condemn that only which the Senator himself will acknowledge to be wrong at all times and under all circumstances. Because he admits that if it was an original question whether slaves should be introduced among us, but few citizens would be found to agree to it, and none more opposed to it than himself. The argument is, that the evil of slavery is incurable; that the attempt to eradicate it would commence a struggle which would exterminate one race or the other. What a lamentable picture of our government, so often pronounced the best upon earth! The seeds of disease, which were interwoven into its first existence, have now become so incorporated into its frame, that they cannot be extracted without dissolving the whole fabric; that we must endure the evil without hope and without complaint. Our very natures must be changed before we can be brought tamely to submit to this doctrine. The evil will be remedied: and to use the language of Jefferson again, "this people will yet be free." The Senator finds consolation, however in the midst of this existing evil, in color and caste. The black race (says he) is the strong ground of slavery in our country. Yes, it is color, not right and justice, that is to continue forever slavery in our country. It is prejudice against color, which is the strong ground of the slaveholder's hope. Is that prejudice founded in nature, or is it the effect of base and sordid interest? Let the mixed race which we see here, from black to almost perfect white, springing from white fathers, answer the question. Slavery has no just foundation in color: it rests exclusively upon usurpation, tyranny, oppressive fraud, and force. These were its parents in every age and country of the world.

The Senator says, the next or greatest difficulty to emancipation is, the amount of property it would take from the owners. All ideas of right and wrong are confounded in these words: emancipate property, emancipate a horse, or an ox, would not only be unmeaning, but a ludicrous expression. To emancipate is to set free from slavery. To emancipate, is to set free a man, not property. The Senator estimates the number of slaves—men now held in bondage—at three millions in the United States. Is this statement made here by the same voice which was heard in this Capitol in favor of the liberties of Greece, and for the emancipation of our South American brethren from political thralldom? It is; and has all its fervor in favor of liberty been exhausted upon foreign countries, so as not to leave a single whisper in favor of three millions of men in our own country, now groaning under the most galling oppression the world ever saw? No, sir. Sordid interest rules the hour. Men are made property, and paper is made money, and the Senator, no doubt, sees in these two peculiar institutions a power which, if united, will be able to accomplish all his wishes. He informs us that some have computed the slaves to be worth the average amount of five hundred dollars each. He will estimate within bounds at four hundred dollars each. Making the amount twelve hundred millions of dollars' worth of slave property. I heard this statement, Mr. President, with emotions of the deepest feeling. By what rule of political or commercial arithmetic does the Senator calculate the amount of property in human beings? Can it be fancy or fact, that I hear such calculation, that the people of the United States own twelve hundred millions' (double the amount of all the specie in the world) worth of property in human flesh! And this property is owned, the gentleman informs us, by all classes of society, forming part of all our contracts within our own country and in Europe. I should have been glad, sir, to have been spared the hearing of a declaration of this kind, especially from the high source and the place from which it emanated. But the assertion has gone forth that we have twelve hundred millions of slave property at the South; and can any man so close his understanding here as not plainly to perceive that the power of this vast amount of property at the South is now uniting itself to the banking power of the North, in order to govern the destinies of this country. Six hundred millions of banking capital is to be brought into this coalition, and the slave power and the bank power are thus to unite in order to break down the present administration. There can be no mistake, as I believe, in this matter. The aristocracy of the North, who, by the power of a corrupt banking system, and the aristocracy of the South, by the power of the slave system, both fattening upon the labor of others, are now about to unite in order to make the reign of each perpetual. Is there an independent American to be found, who will become the recreant slave to such an unholy combination? Is this another compromise to barter the liberties of the country for personal aggrandisement? "Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God."

The Senator further insists, "that what the law makes property is property." This is the predicate of the gentleman; he has neither facts nor reason to prove it; yet upon this alone does he rest the whole case that negroes are property. I deny the predicate and the argument. Suppose the Legislature of the Senator's own State should pass a law declaring his wife, his children, his friends, indeed, any white citizen of Kentucky, property, and should they be sold and transferred as such, would the gentleman fold his arms and say, "Yes, they are property, for the law has made them such?" No, sir; he would denounce such law with more vehemence than he now denounces abolitionists, and would deny the authority of human legislation to accomplish an object so clearly beyond its power.