Cotton is King, and Pro-Slavery Arguments / Comprising the Writings of Hammond, Harper, Christy, Stringfellow, Hodge, Bledsoe, and Cartrwright on this Important Subject

by Unknown

We select the speech of Mr. Sumner for examination, because it is generally considered the more powerful of the two. It is, indeed, the most elaborate speech ever made in the Senate of the United States, or elsewhere, on the subject of the Fugitive Slave Law. Even Mr. Weller found it "so handsomely embellished with poetry, both Latin and English, so full of classical allusions and rhetorical flourishes," as to make it more palatable than he supposed an abolition speech could possibly be made. As to the abolitionists themselves, they seem to know no bounds in their enthusiastic admiration of this sublime effort of their champion. We should not wonder, indeed, if many a female reformer had gone into hysterics over an oration which has received such violent bursts of applause from grave and dignified Senators. "By this effort," says Mr. Hale, he has placed "himself side by side with the first orators of antiquity, and as far ahead of any living American orator as freedom is ahead of slavery. I believe that he has formed to-day a new era in the history of the politics and of the eloquence of the country; and that in future generations the young men of this nation will be stimulated to effort by the record of what an American Senator has this day done," etc.

We have no doubt that young men may attempt to imitate the speech in question; but, as they grow older, it is to be hoped that their taste will improve. The speech in question will make a "new era" in the tactics of abolitionism, and that is all. We shall see this when we come to examine this wonderful oration, which so completely ravished three Senators, and called forth such wild shouts of applause from the whole empire of abolitionism.

Mr. Chase seems almost equally delighted with this marvellous effort. "I avow my conviction, now and here," says he, "that, logically and historically, his argument is impregnable—entirely impregnable." . . . . . . "In my judgment," he continues, "the speech of my friend from Massachusetts will make a new era in American history." Indeed, Mr. Sumner himself does not seem altogether dissatisfied with this effort, if we may judge from the manner in which it is referred to in his other speeches. We do not blame him for this. We can see no reason why he should be the only abolitionist in the universe who is not enraptured with his oration. But when he so "fearlessly asserts" that his speech "has never been answered," we beg leave to assure him that it may be refuted with the most perfect ease. For, indeed, its history is half fiction, and its logic wholly false: the first containing just enough of truth to deceive, and the last just enough of plansibility to convince those who are waiting, and watching, and longing to be convinced.

The first thing which strikes the mind, on reading the speech of Mr. Sumner, is the strange logical incoherency of its structure. Its parts are so loosely hung together, and appear so distressingly disjointed, that one is frequently at a loss to perceive the design of the oration. Its avowed object is to procure a repeal of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850; but no one would ever imagine or suspect such a thing from the title of the speech, which is as follows: "Freedom, national; Slavery, sectional." It is difficult, at first view, to perceive what logical connection this title, or proposition, has with the repeal of the Fugitive Slave Law. But if there be little or no logical connection between these things, we shall soon see how the choice of such a title and topic of discourse opens the way for the rhetorician to make a most powerful appeal to the passions and to the prejudices of his readers. We say, of his readers, because it is evident that the speech was made for Buncombe, and not for the Senate of the United States.

Mr. Sumner deems it necessary to refute the position that slavery is a national institution, in order to set the world right with respect to the relations of the Federal Government to slavery. "The relations of the Government of the United States," says he,—"I speak of the National Government—to slavery, though plain and obvious, are constantly misunderstood." Indeed, nothing in history seems more remarkable than the amount of ignorance and stupidity which prevailed in the world before the appearance of the abolitionists, except the wonderful illuminations which accompanied their advent. "A popular belief at this moment," continues Mr. Sumner, "makes slavery a national institution, and, of course, renders its support a national duty. The extravagance of this error can hardly be surpassed." In truth, it is so exceedingly extravagant, that we doubt if it really exists. It is certain, that we have no acquaintance, either historically or personally, with those who have fallen into so wild an absurdity.

It is true, there is "a popular belief"—nay, there is a deep-rooted national conviction—that the Government of the United States is bound to protect the institution of slavery, in so far as this may be done by the passage of a Fugitive Slave Law. This national conviction has spoken out in the laws of Congress; it has been ratified and confirmed by the judicial opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States, as well as by the decisions of the Supreme Courts of the three great non-slaveholding States of Massachusetts, New York, and Pennsylvania. But no one, so far as we know, has ever deduced this obligation to protect slavery, in this respect, from the absurd notion that "it is a national institution." No such deduction is to be found in any of the arguments of counsel before the courts above-mentioned, nor in the opinions of the courts themselves. We shrewdly suspect that it is to be found nowhere except in the fertile imagination of Mr. Sumner.

We concede that slavery is not "a national institution." In combating this position, Mr. Sumner is merely beating the air. We know that slavery is not national; it is local, being confined to certain States, and exclusively established by local or State laws. Hence, Mr. Sumner may fire off as much splendid rhetoric as he pleases at his men of straw. "Slavery national!" he indignantly exclaims: "Sir, this is all a mistake and absurdity, fit to take a place in some new collection of 'Vulgar Errors' by some other Sir Thomas Browne, with the ancient but exploded stories that the toad has a stone in its head and that ostriches digest iron." These may be very fine embellishments; they certainly have nothing to do with the point in controversy. The question is not whether slavery is a national institution, but whether the National Government does not recognize slavery as a local institution, and is not pledged to protect the master's right to reclaim the fugitive from his service. This is the question, and by its relevancy to this question the rhetoric of Mr. Sumner must be tried.

We do not say it has no such relevancy. Mr. Sumner beats the air, it is true, but he does not beat the air in vain. His declamation may have no logical bearing on the point in dispute, but, if you watch it closely, you will always find that it is most skillfully adapted to bring the prejudices and passions of the reader to bear on that point. Though he may not be much of a logician, yet, it must be admitted, he is "skillful of fence." We should do him great injustice as an antagonist, at least before the tribunal of human passion, if we should suppose that it is merely for the abstract glory of setting up a man of straw, and then knocking it down, that he has mustered all the powers of his logic and unfurled all the splendors of his rhetoric. He has a design in all this, which we shall now proceed to expose.

Here are two distinct questions. First, Is slavery a national institution? Secondly, Has Congress the power to pass a Fugitive Slave Law? These two questions are, we repeat, perfectly distinct; and hence, if Mr. Sumner wished to discuss them fairly and honestly, he should have argued each one by itself. We agree with him in regard to the first; we dissent toto cœlo from him in regard to the last. But he has not chosen to keep them separate, or to discuss each one by itself. On the contrary, he has, as we have seen, connected them together as premiss and conclusion, and he keeps them together through the first portion of his speech. Most assuredly Mr. Sumner knows that one of the very best ways in the world to cause a truth or proposition to be rejected is to bind it up with a manifest error or absurdity. Yet the proposition for which we contend—that Congress has the power to support slavery by the passage of a Fugitive Slave Law—is bound up by him with the monstrous absurdity that "slavery is a national institution;" and both are denounced together as if both were equally absurd. One instance, out of many, of this unfair mode of proceeding, we shall now lay before our readers.

"The Constitution contains no power," says he, "to make a king or to support kingly rule. With similar reason it may be said that it contains no power to make a slave, or to support a system of slavery. The absence of all such power is hardly more clear in one case than in the other. But, if there be no such power, all national legislation upholding slavery must be unconstitutional and void."