Mr. Hartley.—I have the honor to be one of the committee on the memorials, and will, with the leave of this committee, mention some particulars which took place in the course of the investigation of the business. He premised that he was sorry that the question of right had been brought forward yesterday—and was not a little surprised to hear the cause of slavery advocated in that House, and language held towards the petitioners which his experience had never shown to be Parliamentary—he read some memorandums taken in committee, and had particular reference to a law passed in Grenada, which he applauded for its humanity, and truly benevolent spirit. He reprobated the illiberal treatment which the memorialists had received, and asserted that they were friends to the constitution, and that on the present occasion they came forward from the most laudable motives, from a wish to promote the happiness of mankind; that their conduct, so far from meriting censure, deserved, and would receive, the applause of the civilized world.
Mr. Brown, in a considerable speech, advocated the motion of Mr. White. He enlarged on the pernicious consequences that may be expected to flow from the interference of Congress; he pointed out the effects which had resulted from the interposition of the Quakers, by which the prospects of the Southern States in slaves had been rendered very precarious—and if Congress should adopt the report as it stands, the consequences would be pernicious in the highest degree. The negro property will be annihilated. The emancipation of slaves will be effected in time, it ought to be a gradual business; but he hoped that Congress would not, to gratify people who never had been friendly to the independence of America, precipitate the business to the great injury of the Southern States.
Mr. Burke entered into a very extensive consideration of the subject. He gave an account of the humane treatment which the slaves of the Southern States received, their habitations, families, children, privileges, &c. He then showed that their emancipation would tend to make them wretched in the highest degree. He animadverted with great freedom on the past and present conduct of the Quakers. He denied that they were the friends of freedom; he said, that during the late war, they were for bringing this country under a foreign yoke; they descended to the character of spies; they supplied the enemy with provisions; they were guides and conductors to their armies; and whenever the American army came into their neighborhood, they found themselves in an enemy's country. Mr. Burke was proceeding in this strain, when he was interrupted by being called to order. A warm altercation ensued, and in the midst of it, a motion was made that the committee rise. This motion was negatived, and Mr. Burke added a few more observations on the injustice of the measure of interference, as it respected the property of the Southern States.
Mr. Smith (of South Carolina) said he lamented much that this subject had been brought before the House; that he had deprecated it from the beginning, because he foresaw that it would produce a very unpleasant discussion; that it was a subject of a nature to excite the alarms of the Southern members, who could not view, without anxiety, any interference in it on the part of Congress. He remarked, that as they were resolved into a Committee of the Whole on the powers of Congress respecting slavery and the slave trade, in consequence of certain memorials from the people called Quakers and the Pennsylvania Society for the abolition of slavery, the whole subject, as well as the contents of these memorials, was under consideration. He should therefore enter into the business at large, and offer some comments on the contents of the memorial.
The memorial from the Quakers contained, in his opinion, a very indecent attack on the character of those States which possess slaves. It reprobates slavery as bringing down reproach on the Southern States, and expatiates on the detestation due to the licentious wickedness of the African trade, and the inhuman tyranny and bloodguiltiness inseparable from it. He could not but consider it as calculated to fix a stigma of the blackest nature on the State he had the honor to represent, and to hold its citizens up to public view as men divested of every principle of honor and humanity. Considering it in that light, he felt it incumbent on him not only to refute those atrocious calumnies, but to resent the improper language made use of by the memorialists. Before he entered into the discussion, he begged to observe, that when any class of men deviated from their own religious principles, and officiously came forward in a business with which they had no concern, and attempted to dictate to Congress, he could not ascribe their conduct to any other cause but to an intolerant spirit of persecution. This application came with the worst grace possible from the Quakers, who professed never to intermeddle in politics, but to submit quietly to the laws of the country.
He had met with a publication which came out in the year 1775, (at a period when the affairs of America were in a very desponding situation,) entitled "The ancient Testimony and Principles of the Quakers." It set forth that their religious principles restrained them from having any hand or connivance in setting up and putting down kings and governments; that this was God's peculiar prerogative for causes best known to himself; that it was not their business to be busybodies above their stations, but only to pray for the King and safety of their nation, that they might live a quiet and peaceable life, under the Government which God was pleased to set over them. If these were really their sentiments, why did they not abide by them? Why did they not leave that, which they call God's work, to be managed by himself? Those principles should instruct them to wait with patience and humility for the event of all public measures, and to receive that event as the Divine will. Their conduct on this occasion proved that they did not believe what they professed, or that they had not virtue enough to practise what they believed. Did they mean to rob the Almighty of what they call his prerogative? And were they not partial ministers of their own acknowledged principles? It was difficult to credit their pretended scruples; because, while they were exclaiming against the Mammon of this world, they are hunting after it with a step steady as time, and an appetite keen as the grave.
The memorial from the Pennsylvania Society applied, in express terms, for an emancipation of slaves, and the report of the committee appeared to hold out the idea that Congress might exercise the power of emancipating after the year 1808; for it is said that Congress could not emancipate slaves prior to that period. He remarked, that either the power of manumission still remained with the several States, or it was exclusively vested in Congress; for no one would contend that such a power would be concurrent in the several States and the United States. He then showed that the State Governments clearly retained all the rights of sovereignty which they had before the establishment of the constitution, unless they were exclusively delegated to the United States; and this could only exist where the Constitution granted, in express terms, an exclusive authority to the Union, or where it granted in one instance an authority to the Union, and in another prohibited the States from exercising the like authority, or where it granted an authority to the Union, to which a similar authority in the States would be repugnant.
He applied these principles to the case in question; and asked, whether the constitution had, in express terms, vested the Congress with the power of manumission? Or whether it restrained the States from exercising that power? Or whether there was any authority given to the Union, with which the exercise of this right by any State would be inconsistent? If these questions were answered in the negative, it followed that Congress had not an exclusive right to the power of manumission. Had it a concurrent right with the States? No gentleman would assert it, because the absurdity was obvious. For a State regulation on the subject might differ from a Federal regulation; in which case one or the other must give way. As the laws of the United States were paramount to those of the individual States, the Federal regulations would abrogate those of the States, consequently the States would thus be divested of a power which it was evident they now had, and might exercise whenever they thought proper. But admitting that Congress had authority to manumit the slaves in America, and were disposed to exercise it, would the Southern States acquiesce in such a measure without a struggle? Would the citizens of that country tamely suffer their property to be torn from them? Would even the citizens of the other States, which did not possess this property, desire to have all the slaves let loose upon them? Would not such a step be injurious even to the slaves themselves? It was well known that they were an indolent people, improvident, averse to labor: when emancipated, they would either starve or plunder. Nothing was a stronger proof of the absurdity of emancipation than the fanciful schemes which the friends to the measure had suggested; one was, to ship them out of the country, and colonize them in some foreign region. This plan admitted that it would be dangerous to retain them within the United States after they were manumitted: but surely it would be inconsistent with humanity to banish these people to a remote country, and to expel them from their native soil, and from places to which they had a local attachment. It would be no less repugnant to the principles of freedom, not to allow them to remain here, if they desired it. How could they be called freemen, if they were, against their consent, to be expelled from the country? Thus did the advocates for emancipation acknowledge that the blacks, when liberated, ought not to remain here to stain the blood of the whites by a mixture of the races.
Another plan was to liberate all those who should be born after a certain limited period. Such a scheme would produce this very extraordinary phenomenon, that the mother would be a slave and her child would be free. These young emancipated negroes, by associating with their enslaved parents, would participate in all the debasements which slavery is said to occasion. But allowing that a practicable scheme of general emancipation could be devised, there can be no doubt that the two races would still remain distinct. It is known, from experience, that the whites had such an idea of their superiority over the blacks, that they never even associated with them; even the warmest friends to the blacks kept them at a distance, and rejected all intercourse with them. Could any instance be quoted of their intermarrying; the Quakers asserted that nature made all men equal, and that the difference of color should not place negroes on a worse footing in society than the whites; but had any of them ever married a negro, or would any of them suffer their children to mix their blood with that of a black? They would view with abhorrence such an alliance.
Mr. S. then read some extracts from Mr. Jefferson's Notes on Virginia, proving that negroes were by nature an inferior race of beings; and that the whites would always feel a repugnance at mixing their blood with that of the blacks. Thus, he proceeded, that respectable author, who was desirous of countenancing emancipation, was, on a consideration of the subject, induced candidly to avow that the difficulties appeared insurmountable. The friends to manumission had said, that by prohibiting the further importation of slaves, and by liberating those born after a certain period, a gradual emancipation might take place, and that in process of time the very color would be extinct, and there would be none but whites. He was at a loss to learn how that consequence would result. If the blacks did not intermarry with the whites, they would remain black to the end of time; for it was not contended that liberating them would whitewash them; if they would intermarry with the whites, then the white race would be extinct, and the American people would be all of the mulatto breed. In whatever light, therefore, the subject was viewed, the folly of emancipation was manifest. He trusted these considerations would prevent any further application to Congress on this point, and would so far have weight with the committee as to reject the clause altogether, or at least to declare, in plain terms, that Congress has no right whatever to manumit the slaves of this country.