Part 128 (1/2)

It is common to regard the nation as const.i.tuting one of the parties--Virginia and Maryland another, and the only other. But in point of fact, there is a third party. Of what does it consist? Of horses, oxen, and other brutes? Then we need not be greatly concerned about it--since its rights in that case, would be obviously subordinate to those of the other parties. Again, if such be the composition of this third party, we are not to be greatly troubled, that President Wayland and thousands of others entirely overlook its rights and interests; though they ought to be somewhat mindful even of brutes. But, this third party is composed, not of brutes--but of men--of the seven thousand men in the District, who have fallen under the iron hoofs of slavery--and who, because they are men, have rights equal to, and as sacred as the rights of any other men--rights, moreover, which cannot be innocently encroached on, even to the breadth of one hair, whether under the plea of ”state necessity”--of the perils of emanc.i.p.ation--or under any other plea, which conscience-smitten and cowardly tyranny can suggest.

If these lines shall ever be so favored, as to fall under the eye of the venerable and beloved John Quincy Adams, I beg, that, when he shall have read them, he will solemnly inquire of his heart, whether, if he should ever be left to vote against the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, and thus stab deeply the cause of civil liberty, of humanity, and of G.o.d; the guilty act would not result from overlooking the rights and interests, and even the existence itself, of a third party in the case--and from considering the claims of the nation and those of Virginia and Maryland, as the only claims on which he was called to pa.s.s, because they were the claims of the only parties, of which he was aware.

You admit that ”the first duty of Congress in relation to the District, of Columbia, is to render it available, comfortable, and convenient as a seat of the government of the whole Union.” I thank you for an admission, which can be used, with great effect, against the many, who maintain, that Congress is as much bound to consult the interests and wishes of the inhabitants of the District, and be governed by them, as a State Legislature is to study and serve the interests and wishes of its const.i.tuents. The inhabitants of the District have taken up their residence in it, aware, that the paramount object of Congressional legislation is not their, but the nation's advantage. They judge, that their disfranchis.e.m.e.nt and the other disadvantages attending their residence are more than balanced by their favorable position for partic.i.p.ating in Governmental patronage and other benefits. They know, that they have no better right to complain, that the legislation of Congress is not dictated by a primary regard to their interests, than has the Colonization Society, of which you are President, to complain, that the Capitol, in which it holds its annual meetings, is not constructed and fitted up in the best possible manner for such occasions. They know, that to sacrifice the design and main object of that building to its occasional and incidental uses, would be an absurdity no greater than would Congress be guilty of in shaping its legislation to the views of the thirty thousand white inhabitants of the District of Columbia, at the expense of neglecting the will and interests of the nation.

You feel, that there is no hazard in your admission, that the paramount object in relation to the District of Columbia, is its suitableness for a seat of Government, since you accompany that admission with the denial, that the presence of slavery interferes with such suitableness.

But is it not a matter of deep regret, that the place, in which our national laws are made--that the place from which the sentiment and fas.h.i.+on of the whole country derive so much of their tone and direction--should cherish a system, which you have often admitted, is at war with the first principles of our religion and civil polity;[A] and the influences of which are no less pervading and controlling than corrupting? Is it not a matter of deep regret, that they, whom other governments send to our own, and to whom, on account of their superior intellect and influence, it is our desire, as it is our duty, to commend our free inst.i.tutions, should be obliged to learn their lessons of practical republicanism amidst the monuments and abominations of slavery? Is it no objection to the District of Columbia, as the seat of our Government, that slavery, which concerns the political and moral interests of the nation, more than any other subject coming within the range of legislation, is not allowed to be discussed there--either within or without the Halls of Congress? It is one of the doctrines of slavery, that slavery shall not be discussed. Some of its advocates are frank enough to avow, as the reason for this prohibition, that slavery cannot bear to be discussed. In your speech before the American Colonization Society in 1835, to which I have referred, you distinctly take the ground, that slavery is a subject not open to general discussion. Very far am I from believing, that you would employ, or intentionally countenance violence, to prevent such discussion.

Nevertheless, it is to this doctrine of non-discussion, which you and others put forth, that the North is indebted for her pro-slavery mobs, and the South for her pro-slavery Lynchings. The declarations of such men as Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun, that slavery is a question not to be discussed, are a license to mobs to burn up halls and break up abolition meetings, and destroy abolition presses, and murder abolition editors. Had such men held the opposite doctrine, and admitted, yea, and insisted, as it was their duty to do, that every question in morals and politics is a legitimate subject of free discussion--the District of Columbia would be far less objectionable, as the seat of our Government.

In that case the lamented Dr. Crandall would not have been seized in the city of Was.h.i.+ngton on the suspicion of being an abolitionist, and thrown into prison, and subjected to distresses of mind and body, which resulted in his premature death. Had there been no slavery in the District, this outrage would not have been committed; and the murders, chargeable on the bloodiest of all b.l.o.o.d.y inst.i.tutions, would have been one less than they now are. Talk of the slaveholding District of Columbia being a suitable locality for the seat of our Government! Why, Sir, a distinguished member of Congress was threatened there with an indictment for the _crime_ of presenting, or rather of proposing to present, a pet.i.tion to the body with which he was connected! Indeed the occasion of the speech, on which I am now commenting, was the _impudent_ protest of inhabitants of that District against the right of the American people to pet.i.tion their own Congress, in relation to matters of vital importance to the seat of their own Government! I take occasion here to admit, that I have seen but references to this protest--not the protest itself. I presume, that it is not dissimilar, in its spirit, to the pet.i.tion presented about the same time by Mr. Moore in the other House of Congress--his speech on which, he complains was ungenerously antic.i.p.ated by yours on the pet.i.tion presented by yourself. As the pet.i.tion presented by Mr. Moore is short, I will copy it, that I may say to you with the more effect--how unfit is the spirit of a slaveholding people, as ill.u.s.trated in this pet.i.tion, to be the spirit of the people at the seat of a free Government!

[Footnote A: ”It (slavery) is a sin and a curse both to the master and the slave:”--_Henry Clay_.]

”_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:

The pet.i.tion of the undersigned, citizens of the District of Columbia represents--That they have witnessed with deep regret the attempts which are making _to disturb the integrity_ of the Union by a BAND OF FANATICS, embracing men, women, and children, who cease not day and night to crowd the tables of your halls with SEDITIOUS MEMORIALS--and solicit your honorable bodies that you will, in your wisdom, henceforth give neither support nor countenance to such UNHALLOWED ATTEMPTS, but that you will, in the most emphatic manner, set the seal of your disapprobation upon all such FOUL AND UNNATURAL EFFORTS, by refusing not only to READ and REFER, but also to RECEIVE any papers which either directly or indirectly, or by implication, aim at any interference with the rights of your pet.i.tioners, or of those of any citizen of any of the States or Territories of the United States, or of this District of which we are inhabitants.”

A Legislature should be imbued with a free, independent, fearless spirit. But it cannot be, where discussion is overawed and interdicted, or its boundaries at all contracted. Wherever slavery reigns, the freedom of discussion is not tolerated: and whenever slavery exists, there slavery reigns;--reigns too with that exclusive spirit of Turkish despotism, that, ”bears no brother near the throne.”

You agree with President Wayland, that it is as improper for Congress to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, as to create it in some place in the free States, over which it has jurisdiction. As improper, in the judgment of an eminent statesman, and of a no less eminent divine, to destroy what they both admit to be a system of unrighteousness, as to establish it! As improper to restrain as to practice, a violation of G.o.d's law! What will other countries and coming ages think of the politics of our statesmen and the ethics of our divines?

But, besides its immorality, Congress has no Const.i.tutional right to create slavery. You have not yet presumed to deny positively, that Congress has the right to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia; and, notwithstanding the intimation in your speech, you will not presume to affirm, that Congress has the Const.i.tutional right to enact laws reducing to, or holding in slavery, the inhabitants of West Point, or any other locality in the free States, over which it has exclusive jurisdiction. I would here remark, that the law of Congress, which revived the operation of the laws of Virginia and Maryland in the District of Columbia, being, so far as it respects the slave laws of those States, a violation of the Federal Const.i.tution, should be held of no avail towards legalizing slavery in the District--and the subjects of that slavery, should, consequently, be declared by our Courts unconditionally free.

You will admit that slavery is a system of surpa.s.sing injustice:--but an avowed object of the Const.i.tution is to ”establish justice.” You will admit that it utterly annihilates the liberty of its victims:--but another of the avowed objects of the Const.i.tution is to ”secure the blessings of liberty.” You will admit, that slavery does, and necessarily must, regard its victims as _chattels_. The Const.i.tution, on the contrary, speaks of them as nothing short of _persons_. Roger Sherman, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, a framer of the Federal Const.i.tution, and a member of the first Congress under it, denied that this instrument considers slaves ”as a species of property.”

Mr. Madison, in the 54th No. of the Federalist admits, that the Const.i.tution ”regards them as inhabitants.” Many cases might be cited, in which Congress has, in consonance with the Const.i.tution, refused to recognize slaves as property. It was the expectation, as well as the desire of the framers of the Const.i.tution, that slavery should soon cease to exist is our country; and, but for the laws, which both Congress and the slave States, have, in flagrant violation of the letter and spirit and obvious policy of the Const.i.tution, enacted in behalf of slavery, that vice would, ere this, have disappeared from our land.

Look, for instance, at the laws enacted in the fact of the clause: ”The citizens of each State shall be ent.i.tled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States”--laws too, which the States that enacted them, will not consent to repeal, until they consent to abandon slavery. It is by these laws, that they shut out the colored people of the North, the presence of a single individual of whom so alarms them with the prospect of a servile insurrection, that they immediately imprison him. Such was the view of the Federal Const.i.tution taken by James Wilson one of its framers, that, without, as I presume, claiming for Congress any direct power over slavery in the slave States, he declared that it possessed ”power to exterminate slavery from within our borders.” It was probably under a like view, that Benjamin Franklin, another of its framers, and Benjamin Rush, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, and other men of glorious and blessed memory, pet.i.tioned the first Congress under the Const.i.tution to ”countenance the restoration to liberty of those unhappy men,” (the slaves of our country). And in what light that same Congress viewed the Const.i.tution may be inferred from the fact, that, by a special act, it ratified the celebrated Ordinance, by the terms of which slavery was forbidden for ever in the North West Territory. It is worthy of note, that the avowed object of the Ordinance harmonizes with that of the Const.i.tution: and that the Ordinance was pa.s.sed the same year that the Const.i.tution was drafted, is a fact, on which we can strongly rely to justify a reference to the spirit of the one instrument for ill.u.s.trating the spirit of the other. What the spirit of the Ordinance is, and in what light they who pa.s.sed it, regarded ”republics, their laws and const.i.tutions,” may be inferred from the following declaration in the Ordinance of its grand object: ”For extending the fundamental principles of civil and religious liberty, which form the basis wherever these Republics, their laws and const.i.tutions are erected; to fix and establish those principles as the basis of all laws, const.i.tutions, and governments, which forever hereafter shall be formed in the said territory, &c.; it is hereby ordained and declared that the following articles, &c.” One of these articles is that, which has been referred to, and which declares that ”there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said Territory.”

You will perhaps make light of my reference to James Wilson and Benjamin Franklin, for I recollect you say, that, ”When the Const.i.tution was about going into operation, its powers were not well understood by the community at large, and remained to be accurately interpreted and defined.” Nevertheless, I think it wise to repose more confidence in the views, which the framers of the Const.i.tution took of the spirit and principles of that instrument, than in the definitions and interpretations of the pro-slavery generation, which has succeeded them.

It should be regarded as no inconsiderable evidence of the anti-slavery genius and policy of the Const.i.tution, that Congress promptly interdicted slavery in the first portion of territory, and that, too, a territory of vast extent, over which it acquired jurisdiction. And is it not a perfectly reasonable supposition, that the seat of our Government would not have been polluted by the presence of slavery, had Congress acted on that subject by itself, instead of losing sight of it in the wholesale legislation, by which the laws of Virginia and Maryland were revived in the District?

If the Federal Const.i.tution be not anti-slavery in its general scope and character; if it be not impregnated with the principles of universal liberty; why was it necessary, in order to restrain Congress, for a limited period, from acting against the slave trade, which is but a branch or incident of slavery, to have a clause to that end in the Const.i.tution? The fact that the framers of the Const.i.tution refused to blot its pages with the word ”slave” or ”slavery;” and that, by periphrase and the subst.i.tution of ”persons” for ”slaves,” they sought to conceal from posterity and the world the mortifying fact, that slavery existed under a government based on the principle, that governments derive ”their just powers from the consent of the governed,”

contains volumes of proof, that they looked upon American slavery as a decaying inst.i.tution; and that they would naturally shape the Const.i.tution to the abridgment and the extinction, rather than the extension and perpetuity of the giant vice of the country.

It is not to be denied, that the Const.i.tution tolerates a limited measure of slavery: but it tolerates this measure only as the exception to its rule of impartial and universal liberty. Were it otherwise, the principles of that instrument could be pleaded to justify the holding of men as property, in cases, other than those specifically provided for in it. Were it otherwise, these principles might be appealed to, as well to sanction the enslavement of men, as the capture of wild beasts. Were it otherwise, the American people might be Const.i.tutionally realizing the prophet's declaration: ”they all lie in wait for blood: they hunt every man his brother with a net.” But mere principles, whether in or out of the Const.i.tution, do not avail to justify and uphold slavery. Says Lord Mansfield in the famous Somerset case: ”The state of slavery is of such a nature, that it is incapable of being now introduced by courts of justice upon mere reasoning or inferences from any principles, natural or political; it must take its rise from _positive law_; the origin of it can in no country or age be traced back to any other source. A case so odious as the condition of slaves, must be taken strictly.” Grotius says, that ”slavery places man in an unnatural relation to man--a relation which nothing but positive law can sustain.” All are aware, that, by the common law, man cannot have property in man; and that wherever that law is not counteracted on this point by positive law, ”slaves cannot breathe,” and their ”shackles fall.” I scarcely need add, that the Federal Const.i.tution does, in the main, accord with the common law. In the words of a very able writer: ”The common law is the grand element of the United States Const.i.tution. All its fundamental provisions are instinct with its spirit; and its existence, principles, and paramount authority, are presupposed and a.s.sumed throughout the whole.”

To argue the anti-slavery character of the Federal Const.i.tution, it is not necessary to take the high ground of some, that whatever in the Const.i.tution favors slavery is void, because opposed to the principles and general tenor of that instrument. Much less is it necessary to take the still higher ground, that every law in favor of slavery, in whatever code or connection it may be found, is utterly invalid because of its plain contravention of the law of nature. To maintain my position, that the Const.i.tution is anti-slavery in its general character, and that const.i.tutional slavery is, at the most, but an exception to that general character, it was not necessary to take either of these grounds; though, had I been disposed to take even the higher of them, I should not have lacked the countenance of the most weighty authorities. ”The law of nature,” says Blackstone, ”being coeval with mankind, and dictated by G.o.d himself, is of course superior in obligation to any other. It is binding over all the globe, in all countries, and at all times: no human laws are of any validity if contrary to this.” The same writer says, that ”The law of nature requires, that man should pursue his own true and substantial happiness.” But that slavery allows this pursuit to its victims, no one will pretend. ”There is a law,” says Henry Brougham, ”above all the enactments of human codes. It is the law written by the finger of G.o.d on the heart of man; and by that law, unchangeable and eternal, while men despise fraud, and loathe rapine, and abhor blood, they shall reject with indignation the wild and guilty phantasy, that man can hold property in man.”

I add no more to what I have said on the subject of slavery in the District of Columbia, than to ask, as I have done in relation to the inter-state slave trade and the annexation of slave states, whether pet.i.tions for its abolition argue so great a contempt of the Const.i.tution, and so entire a recklessness of propriety, as to merit the treatment which they receive at the hands of Congress. Admitting that Congress has not the const.i.tutional power to abolish slavery in the District--admitting that it has not the const.i.tutional power to destroy what itself has established--admitting, too, that if it has the power, it ought not to exercise it;--nevertheless, is the case so perfectly clear, that the pet.i.tioners for the measure deserve all the abuse and odium which their representatives in Congress heap upon them? In a word, do not the three cla.s.ses of pet.i.tions to which you refer, merit, at the hands of those representatives, the candid and patient consideration which, until I read your acknowledgment, that, in relation to these pet.i.tions, ”there is no substantial difference between” yourself and those, who are in favor of thrusting them aside undebated, unconsidered, and even unread, I always supposed you were willing to have bestowed on them?

I pa.s.s to the examination of your charges against the abolitionists.

_They contemn the ”rights of property.”_

This charge you prefer against the abolitionists, not because they believe that a Legislature has the right to abolish slavery, nor because they deny that slaves are legally property; for this obvious truth they do not deny. But you prefer it, because they believe that man cannot rightfully be a subject of property.

Abolitionists believe, to use words, which I have already quoted, that it is ”a wild and guilty phantasy, that man can hold property in man.”

They believe, that to claim property in the exalted being, whom G.o.d has made in His own image, and but ”a little lower than the angels,” is scarcely less absurd than to claim it in the Creator himself. You take the position, that human laws can rightfully reduce a race of men to property; and that the outrage, to use your own language, is ”sanctioned and sanctified” by ”two hundred years” continuance of it. Abolitionists, on the contrary, trace back man's inalienable self-owners.h.i.+p to enactments of the Divine Legislator, and to the bright morning of time, when he came forth from the hand of his Maker, ”crowned with glory and honor,” invested with self-control, and with dominion over the brute and inanimate creation. You soothe the conscience of the slaveholder, by reminding him, that the relation, which he has a.s.sumed towards his down-trodden fellow-man, is lawful. The abolitionist protests, that the wickedness of the relation is none the less, because it is legalized. In charging abolitionists with condemning ”the rights of property,” you mistake the innocent for the guilty party. Were you to be so unhappy as to fall into the hands of a kidnapper, and be reduced to a slave, and were I to remonstrate, though in vain, with your oppressor, who would you think was the despiser of ”the rights of property”--myself, or the oppressor? As you would judge in that case, so judges every slave in his similar case.

The man-stealer's complaint, that his ”rights of property” in his stolen fellow men are not adequately respected by the abolitionist, recalls to my mind a very similar, and but little more ludicrous case of conscientious regard for the ”rights of property.” A traveler was plundered of the whole of his large sum of money. He pleaded successfully with the robber for a little of it to enable him to reach his home. But, putting his hand rather deeper into the bag of stolen coins than comported with the views of the robber, he was arrested with the cry, ”Why, man, have you no conscience?” You will perhaps inquire, whether abolitionists regard all the slaves of the South as stolen--as well those born at the South, as those, who were confessedly stolen from Africa? I answer, that we do--that every helpless new-born infant, on which the chivalry of the South pounces, is, in our judgment, the owner of itself--that we consider, that the crime of man-stealing which is so terribly denounced in the Bible, does not consist, as is alleged, in stealing a slave from a third person, but in stealing him from himself--in depriving him of self control, and subjecting him, as property, to the absolute control of another. Joseph's declaration, that he ”was stolen,” favors this definition of man-stealing. Jewish Commentators authorise it. Money, as it does not own itself, cannot be stolen from itself But when we reflect, that man is the owner of himself, it does not surprise us, that wresting away his inalienable rights--his very manhood--should have been called man-stealing.

Whilst on this subject of ”the rights of property,” I am reminded of your ”third impediment to abolition.” This ”impediment” consists in the fact of the great value of the southern slaves--which, according to your estimation, is not less than ”twelve hundred millions of dollars.” I will adopt your estimate, and thus spare myself from going into the abhorrent calculation of the worth in dollars and cents of immortal man--of the worth of ”the image of G.o.d.” I thank you for your virtual admission, that this wealth is grasped with a tenacity proportioned to its vast amount. Many of the wisest and best men of the North have been led into the belief that the slaveholders of the South are too humane and generous to hold their slaves fur the sake of gain. Even Dr.