Now, in all sincerity, and in all kindness, I ask our southern brethren what there is to them so valuable and desirable in retaining slavery here, as to be a compensation for all the pain and evil which its existence inflicts upon the north? Surely its abandonment here would be a small thing to them, while its continuance is a great thing to us. It is a great thing to us, because we are held responsible for it by the whole civilized world. This District is the common possession of the nation. Congress has power of exclusive legislation over it. Congress, therefore, is responsible for its institutions, as a man is responsible for the condition of his house, and the customs of his family. The general government is not responsible for the local institutions of Massachusetts or of Mississippi. Each of them has supreme control over its own domestic concerns. They may honorably discharge their debts or repudiate them; they may build up institutions of charity, of learning, and of religion; or they may suffer inhumanity and violence, ignorance and paganism, to prevail; and we, here, cannot help it, and therefore are not responsible for it. But it is wholly otherwise with regard to the institutions that prevail in this District; their honor, or their infamy, attaches to us. We are judged by them the world round. We of the Northern States feel it at home; we are made to feel it still more deeply abroad. Throughout every nation in Europe, it is the common language and the common sentiment, that an institution which exists in one half of the states of this Union is in flagrant contrast and contradiction to the theory of our government. When we are reminded of this,—whether in a kindly and expostulatory manner by our friends, or in an offensive and taunting one by our enemies,—we of the north can say, at least, that we are not responsible for it. We can explain why we are no more amenable for the local laws of Arkansas or Missouri than we are for the Catholic religion in Mexico, or for the revolutions in the South American republics. This is our answer. But they still retort upon us, and say, There is one spot for which you are responsible,—the District of Columbia. You could abolish slavery there if you would; you do not; and therefore the sin of its continuance is yours, as much as if it existed in New York or Massachusetts. Now I ask southern gentlemen how it is consistent with magnanimity and honor, with a fraternal feeling towards the north, for them to force the odium of this inconsistency upon us? Surely they gain no credit, no character by it; we lose both credit and character. The existence of slavery here is no benefit to them; it is of unspeakable injury to us. They would lose nothing by surrendering it; we suffer every thing by its continuance. A change would work them no injury; it would be invaluable to us. I ask them, on principles of common fairness and good neighborhood, that they should courteously and voluntarily yield us this point, which would allay so much bitterness and heart-burning at the north, and which, according to their view of the matter, would fill the south with the sweet savor of a generous deed.
I know, sir, that some southern gentleman profess to see a principle in such a course that debars them from adopting it. They say that if slavery in this District should be surrendered, it would only be giving the adversary a vantage ground, on which he could plant himself to attack slavery in the states. I dissent from this view entirely. Has not the gentleman from Ohio, [Mr. Giddings,] who is supposed to represent the extreme anti-slavery views which exist in this House,—has he not declared here, a hundred times over, that he disclaims all right, that he renounces all legal authority and pretext, under the constitution, to lay the hands of this government, for the purpose of freeing him, on a single slave in the slave states? But clearly the principle is different in regard to slaves in this District, where we possess the power of “exclusive legislation.” But if gentlemen at the south see a principle which debars them from surrendering slavery in this District, we at the north see a principle which prompts us, and will prompt us, until the work is accomplished, to renewed exertions. On the same ground on which slavery in this District has been defended for the last fifty years, it can be defended for the next fifty, or the next five hundred years; it can be defended forever. This idea of perpetual slavery in the very household of a republic of freemen is not to be tolerated, and cannot be tolerated. But I will not dwell on this topic further. I close this branch of my argument with a proposition which seems to me but fair and equitable. The south has held this metropolis as a slave capital for fifty years. Let it now be held as a free capital for fifty years; and if, at the end of this period, adequate reasons can be shown, before any nation, civilized or uncivilized, upon the face of the earth, for restoring it to slavery again, I, for one, should have no fears of entering into an engagement upon such a condition, that it should again become “a land of Egypt and a house of bondage.”
Notwithstanding I have dwelt so long upon the social and moral aspects of this subject, I am still tempted not to forego that which was my principal object in rising, namely, to submit an argument on the question of the legality or constitutionality of slavery in this District. I have bestowed much careful attention upon this subject, with the sincerest desire of arriving at true, legal, and constitutional results. I submit my views with deference, because I know they are in conflict with the views of others, for whose knowledge and abilities I have a profound respect.
The legality of slavery in the District of Columbia has been assumed, and practically acquiesced in, for fifty years. Had the question of its validity been raised, and argued on the principles of the constitution, immediately after the creation of the District, I believe this territory would have been declared free soil. In my conscientious opinion, slavery exists in this District only by original usurpation and subsequent acquiescence. If so, Congress cannot be too speedily invoked to abdicate the power it has usurped.
1. The first position I take is this: That slavery has no legal existence any where, unless by force of positive law.
If any man claims authority over the body, mind, and soul of one of his fellow-men, and claims this authority not only for the whole life of his victim, but a like authority over all his descendants, there is no part of the civilized world where he will not be required to show some positive law, authorizing the power and the bondage. If the claimant says, “I am stronger, or I am wiser than he;” or, “I have an Anglo-Saxon brain, while he has only an African brain;” or, “my skin is white, and his skin is not white;” or, “I descended from Shem, and he from Ham; and, therefore, he is my slave,”—there is not a court in Christendom, which, though it may admit the fact, will ratify the inference. If the claimant affirms that it is morally right for him to seize his fellow-man and reduce him to slavery; if he brings the Bible into court as his law book, and cites Abraham and Isaac, and Jacob and Paul, as his authorities; still, I say, there is not a court in Christendom that will not deny the validity of the title, and rebuke the arrogance of the demand.[6] Positive law, then, is the only foundation of slavery. The authorities are numerous, if not numberless, to establish this position. I shall not encumber this argument by citing many of them. The few which I shall cite will contain a reference to the rest.
The grand reason against slavery given by Lord Mansfield, in Somerset’s case, was, “that it is so intrinsically wrong that it is incapable of being introduced into any country, on any reasons moral or political, and can only stand on positive law.” 20 State Trials, 1.
Chief Justice Marshall says, “That it [slavery] is contrary to the law of nature, will scarcely be denied. That every man has a natural right to the fruits of his own labor, is generally admitted; and that no other person can rightfully deprive him of those fruits and appropriate them against his will, seems to be the necessary result of this admission.” Antelope, 10 Wheat., 120.
“The first objection,” says Mr. Justice Best, in the case of Forbes and Cochrane, “which occurs to me, in this case, is that it does not appear, in the special case, that the right to slaves exists in East Florida. That right is not a general but a local right; it ought, therefore, to have been shown that it existed in Florida, and that the defendants knew of its existence. Assuming, however, that those facts did appear, still, under the circumstances of this case, this action could not be maintained.