"V*^\^^^ '^°^^^-'*/ V'^^-'v*^' '°^ *'' ^..0^ '- •^oV^ .^ '-^.0^ /. ^*^°<. P A* -^^^ o N?^ A 0* « * 0_ * O^. *.. V %.«* ■ .'i5»i". X.^^'' .'SK: %.** .*'^ '<*'^^ ^^ .0-'* '^o «5°^ ^"-^^^ SPEECH ■^■' CHARLES BROWN, OF PENNSYLVANIA. ABOLITION AND SLAVERY: DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, FEBRUARY 3 AND 7, 1849. WASHINGTON : PRINTED AT THE CONGRESSIONAL GLOBE OFFICE. 1849. ABOLITION AND SLAVERY. In reply to Mr. Thompson, of Indiana, on Aboli- tion and Slavery. Mr. BROWN said: Mr. Chairman: Ever since I have been in active political life, beginning twenty years back, before the people of Pennsylvania, in her halls of legisla- tion, and in the convention that amended her con- stitution, have I spoken as I speak this day, against this whole abolition agitation, here or in the free States. Since I have had the honor of a seat in this House, I have given silent votes against every proposition that has been brought into it in any way calculated to interfere with the subject of slavery, here or in the slave States, knowing that its agitation could do no goqij, and was doing much harm. And I would have continued the same quiet course for the brief space of time I have yet to remain here — looking to the future to approve my course, as my constituents have heretofore ap- proved all that 1 have said and done upon the sub- ject — but for the remarkable speech of the gentle- man from Indiana [Mr. Thompson] — a speech which struck me, as I think it must have struck this House, with surprise and astonishment. The gentleman told us, that upon this subject he belonged to the great conservative party of the Union — the party opposed to the abolition of sla- very in the District of Columbia, or in the States, or its agitation in any place where it might have the tendency to disturb the peace and harmony of the country, or endanger the perpetuity of our Union. He not only asserted his own»conservatism, but vouched for the conservatism of the people of the State which he in part represents; and, still further, vouched for and boasted of the conservatism of the late venei-able gentleman from Massachusetts, [Mr. J. Q,. Adams,] who, but a few months ^ince, fell among us. Now, I ask, were not these start- ling assertions .' To me they were. I remember well when I met^that gentleman [Mr. Thompson] on this floor some seven years ago ; he was then tru ly conservative on this question. I had doubts then as to the propriety of the twenty-first rule, and my colleague [Mr. C. J. Ingersoll] and myself attempted for days to have it modified, that what- ever was objectionable in it might be struck out, and all its conservative character retained. After two or three weeks' trial, we failed to attain our. end. We could not amend it, and we voted for it; and from that time to this I have sustained that rule, and opposed the introduction of the subject of slavery in any shape. Then the gentleman was with us, in laying upon the table all abolition ques- tions. Then he was a conservative, and rebuked the agitating spirit of abolitionism here. But when I again met him on this floor at the commencement of the present Congress, how stood the matter? There is the record. Upon every question of the introduction of petitions, during the last session of Congress, relative to slavery in the District of Columbia, the gentleman who, in his speech, so sternly rebukes these movements as calculated to l.i\olitical, with the white man? This is demaiulcd by the fanatical abolitioni.?ts; and such was the object of the bill introduced the other d.ay by tTie gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Giddings.J 9 Such, no doubt, is the aim and objeftt of these agi- tations.^ To me the consequences of such a consumma- tion are fearful — now or any time which I can see in the future; for I can see but a short way — fear- ful to the white race, and still more fearful to the black. And why should we thus rush on madly to carry out an idea, regardless of consequences? Has slavery in reality been such a curse to the slaves? or has emancipation proved so great a bless- ing to the free negroes? Compare the condition of the three millions Of slaves now in the United States with the condition of any three millions of negroes in any part of the world, but particularly in those countries in Africa from which they came, and say which is superior. ! I care not in what the comparison is made — in the development of their mental or .bodily faculties. Show me, upon the map, where the three millions | dwell who know their God and their Saviour as ] they know them? Show me the three millions j who can and do worship that God as they can and do ? Where, in the countries from which they came, are the three millions with minds and intel- lects so improved and expanded — who know the hundredth or thousandth part of the great work- ings of the human system as they do? Nor is it in all this only they excel. In the development of physical powers, and the enjoyment of physical comforts, they are no less in advance of their race. Go to any district in the southern States, from the Delaware to the Rio Grande — take the most seclu- ded district, or where the slaves are the hardest worked, worst fed, and most abused, in all that distance, and then go to the land whence they sprung, and take an equal number there from any condition of life, and place them face to face, or hand to hand, in intellectual or personal conflict or comparison, and the superiority of the former would place them as much above the latter as the white race here is above them. But I am told that slavery is in violation of the laws of God — that it is a great evil, and ought therefore to be immediately extirpated. What the laws of God are upon this subject I do not pretend to know, I am only dealing with fads. .And will any man tell me where and what is the condition of life that is without its evils? I do not say sla- very is a good; I only say it has produced upon the negro race some good, if to improve and chris- tianize so large a mass of mankind be a good. The Abolitionists rarely or never take so ex- tended a view of this subject as I am doing, but con- fine themselves to portraying the degradation and the wrongs of the negro slaves, taking always the worst cases — the exceptions to the rule — and paint- ing them in the blackest colors their imaginations can find, and these they contrast with the highest condition of free negro life in the United States or elsewhere, forgetting that even this improved con- dition of the free negro has itself mainly grown out of slavery. It has been my lot to live a part of some years in the midst of a dense slave popu- lation. I speak, therefore, what I know when I say, as a whole, I do not believe out of our own country there is a less worked, better fedj and more affectionately cared for or happier class of labor- ers in the World. I am sure they do not, on an average, do half as much work in a year as is done in the same period by an equal number of laborers in the northern States. The misery that intem- perance and|Want inflict upon the laboring popula- tion of many parts of the world, and upon none more than the free negroes in some parts of our own country, is unknown among them. If the la- boring population of Europe, aye, even of the best parts of it, had the food and clothing, the dwellings and comforts of home as have ninty-nine hundredths or more of the slaves of our southern States, they would be far better off than they now are. We of the North do great injustice to our south- ern brethren on this subject. Much as we may be opposed to slavery, and disposed to eradicate it from among them, let us, at least, do them justice. Condemn slavery as we will, and depict its wrongs as we may, let us neither deny nor conceal what all know, who know the truth — that the great mass of the slaveholders are good masters, and treat their slaves with humanity and kindness. I am no advocate for slavery, in any shape or place; and no man regrets its existence among us more than I do, or would more sincerely rejoice at its removal, without the infliction of a greater wrong, and with it the entire negro race from our whole land. As it is, it has evils which might and ought to be removed, and of which I intend to speak, as soon as I can get an opportunity, in the .language of truth, but in the spirit of kindness, to those who alone have the right and whose duty it is to cure them. At present, my object is briefly to show to those whose disturbing influences are alike injurious to master and slave, their error and their wrong. Slavery may be an evil — an evil to produce good ; for it has pleased God in his wisdom frequently to place nations, as well as individuals, in servitude and bondage, that they may ultimately be redeemed with a greater salvation. When the bondage of the negroes is to end, or what is" to be their future pestiny. He alone knows, or can accomplish. One thing we do know — that the emancipation, thus far, of individuals among us, or bodies elsewhere, has not been as successful as its philanthropic pro- moters anticipated. Many individuals of high and pure character when slaves, have become low and vile when freed; and wherever they have estab- lished themselves in bodies, they have not im- proved, but rather deteriorated. For a century or more, there have been schools for their education at the North. Some twenty years ago, the public schools were opened for the negroes in Philadel- phia, with which you, Mr. Chairman, are well acquainted; and although we have a number of well educated and highly respectable negroes among us, yet taken in the mass the negro population is no better now than it was theen. Where have the f\t& negroes who weie educated with the son of the gentleman from Massachusetts, [Mr. Pal- fret,] gone out into the world and exhibited su- perior talents, or done anything to elevate their race? Roberts, who is now the Governor of Li- beria, and Frederick Douglas, the lion of the Abo- litionists — were they not born and raised as slaves? Who is that eloquent divine who i.s now thrilling the hearts of negroes in Liberia, and whose first sermon was to one of the most enlightened audi- • ences in Alabama? ^Ilis was born and raised a slave — was a slave when. he was received into the ministry, anJ when he was a proficient in the Greek, Hebrew, and Latin languages. Slavery, if it be an evil, has not been so great an evil to the negro race, so far as we can judge from results, 10 as to the white race, and to the country in which it exists; and if any one deserves our sympathy, it is the whites. While they are held as a degraded caste among us, emancipation does not add to their happiness any more than to their mental or moral improve- ment. 1 know, in the South, the slaves are more contented in their position and happier than are the free negroes of the North. Few of the slaves ever dream they are equal to their masters; they aspire to no such equality. They are as happy in the best condition of their lot as are the highest and proudest of earth's rulers in the best condition of theirs; nay, more — for they are free from the anxieties and cares that often make the latter mis- erable. Whilst the free negroes, through the visionary fanaticism of those who believe, or would make them believe, they are equal to the whites, feel their degradation as a wrong inflicted upon them, and made to believe, as they are, that they are entitled to political and social equality, the want of it gives them a thousand times more poignancy of feeling than any slave ever fel^ for the want of his personal freedom. The history of the world — nay, the history of the last year- shows what men will suffer and do for political equality. It has nothing equal, to prove their long- ing for mere personal liberty. Why cannot we leave this whole question of slavery to the care of an overruling Providence, and the people of the States where it exists? To the latter it is left by the Constitution, to regulate or abolish it, as they think best. In one-half of the slave States, if not in three-fourths of them, the majority of the voters, in whose hands this question rests, are not slaveholders. In Delaware, Maryland, Virgi;iia, Missouri, Kentucky, and Tennessee, the number of non-slaveholding voters over slaveholding is very great; and in most of the States, they hold the political power. Why, then, can we not leave this whole slavery question to them? They have no pecuniary interest in it, and know all about it — know its evils, and can best foresee the effects of its abolition. .Think you they have not as much of the milk of human kindness as we who live in the North? The abo- litionists themselves say the interest of non-slave- holders in the slave States is opposed to the con- tinuation of slavery. Certain it is, if slavery were as great an evil as it is represented, and its aboli- tion so easy, these non-slaveholding voters would soon remove it from among them. For one, 1 am willing to leave it to them and their fellow-citizens to take care of. Theirs it is to manage as they please, and witli them it is our duty to leave it. Shall we do this, or shall we go on to encourage these fanatical crusaders, who go forth, as of old, under the peaceful banner of the Cross, and with the specious object of doing God service, to deso- late and destroy a nation, and perish themselves amid the scenes of strife and bloodshed their own unholy zeal had kindled? Continued February 7. Mr. Chaiuman: Having been obliged, by the briefness of the time allowed me, when consider- ing the condition of the negroes the other day, to pass over it more rapidly than I desired, I return to It now, for a few moments, to present it more fully to the view of the committee and the country. In an estimate of the capacity of the negroes for self-government, as individuals or communities, many overlook the fact, that even their free, im- proved condition, such as it is anywhere, has mainly grovi'n out of their previous servitude. I have already alluded to them in relation to indi- viduals and bodies of them in the United States, and now refer to them in, the West Indies, South America, and Liberia, as further illustration of the fact. In Hayti, though they have had the gov- ernment of the island in their own hands more than fifty years, they have not only not improved their condition in any respect, but have been warring upon each other, on account of their differ- ent shades of color, until their best friends fear they will not much longer be able to govern them- selves, but must fall under the dominion of the whites again — conquered by adventurers, or by some other nation. They have no men among them now equal to Toussaint L'Ouvertureand his fellow slaves, who achieved its independence. Thus far, the slaves emancipated in the British West Indies have not improved. Many of them have gone back almost into their original African barbarism; and generally they have become indo- lent, improvident, and vicious; and unless they shall change their course, if will not be many years until the fair islands they inhabit will be as unpro- ductive as they were before the arrival of Colum- bus, or as any part of Africa. Of all places on earth where the negroes now dwell, around Liberia the fondest hopes of the friends of the race are gathered. There they have not yet gone back — they are advancing. It is a bright spot in the dark history of tha^ dark people. What it may prove to be in the future, no man knows; but for its success all good men should pray. But while all eyes are turned to it in hope, let none forget that now, with all its intelligence and progress, it is yet only a colony of liberaUd slaves from these United States. I do not say the negro race is incapable of govern- ing themselves as other civilized nations; but thus far the experiments have not proved very successful. It may be they will yet succeed, or it may be these attempts have been premature; that they have not been through a sufficient number of generations connected with the white race to have that pupillary training required to raise so low and barbarous a race to the proper degree of civilization to enable them to carry on and out that further and continued progress necessary to ultimate success; .and this, I think, is the true reason of much of their retro- gradation. No one can deny that they are, through climate, physical conformation, or long degrada- tion, an inferior race; not only inferior to the white, but inferior to the American Indians and other races. As such, it may be doubted whether they ever can attain to a sufficiently high standard of civilization to associate with the whites as equals, or as nations to maintain their independence, if left to their own free action. They may lack many of the elements of character necessary to such an attainment. This, however, is what their Maker alone can know — we can only guess at it, from the limited knowledge we possess. One thing is certain, that no two unequal races can keep distinct, and live together and harmonize as equals. The history of the world is against it. Look at our own history. Two hundred years ago, the whites began to settle this country. 11 Then, all this vast Union v/as peopled by a race | evidently superior to the negi-oes. They were free. ; Everything that religion and philanthropy could devise or do to civilize and christianize this race i was done, and yet what has been the result? Mil- lions and millions have been destroyed by us, until the whole race has nearly passed away; and how few have we either christianized or civilized! About the same time we began to civilize and christianize the free Indians, we began to import negroes into this country as slaves. The climate was certainly more favorable to the natives than to the negrctes. These negro slaves have not only increased and multiplied beyond all other people, but in civilization and Christianity have risen faster and higher than any and all other barbarous people during the same period. I submit this simple statement of facts to the serious consideration of the fanatical abolitionist, as well as the true phi- lanthropist and Christian. It is full of admoni- tion. To me it proves ciearly that an inferior race, or degraded caste, cannot thrive in connection with a superior, unless under its care and control; the former must be made equal to the latter, or be €nslaved or destroyed by it. I do not suppose that complete equality (which can only be brought about by a perfect unity or amalgamation of the races) can be desired by any sane member of the European branch of the Ameitcan family. It is too monstrous to think of, and would lead to such a degeneracy of the whole people of this country as, in a brief period, to cause them to fall before some invading, superior, and purer northern na- tion or people, in the same way the Indians have fallen, and the mixed breeds south of us must certainly hereafter fall before us. If the friends of the negroes — fanatical or reason- able — would do the race a real good, they would cease to desire or urge their political or social con- nection with us, (which, in my estimation, never can, will, or ought to take place,) and direct their €fforts to their improvement and removal south- ward in America or to Africa. The course now being pursued by both fanatical abolitionists and free-soilers, if persevered in, and the more if they shall succeed, will lead, sooner or later, combined with other causes to which I shall shortly allude, and particularly the competition of labor, to a war of races, that must end in the extermination of the weaker. While the people of the South have rights that should be respected, defended, and protected by the North, and which, for one, I have ever done and intend to do, they have dulics to perform, alike required of them by the progressive institutions of freedom and enlightenment in this our own coun- try, by the spirit of the age in which we live, and by their God. As they shall give an account of their stewardship at the great day, they are bound to improve the negroes intrusted to their care, and elevate them to the highest degree of civilization and Christianity their situation and condition will admit. They are an inferior race, it is true; but they are not a bad one. They have many valua- ble and good characteristics, and are endowed with feelings and a soul; and it is due to them, as well as to the white people of the South, that nothing should b^left undone that will develop their good qualities and eradicate their bad. Marriage among them ought to be made and re- garded with as much solemnity and obligation as among whites. They should only marry by con- sent of their masters, and then never be separated; nor should they be separated from their children while young. I know that these ties of marriage and nature are fully respected by all good masters now, and that their violation is as much condemned by the community generally in the South as in the North. But they should never be violated — they should be made the law of the land as unalterable as those of the Medes and Persians. I am aware, and have already testified to the care and human- ity of the masters generally throughout the South; but I know, and we all know, there are bad men among slaveholders as in other conditions of life, and it is to protect the slave from wrong when owned bysuch men, that every law should be enact- ed necessary for his improvement and protection. Many good laws are already in existence for the latter purpose, and as I know, are rigidly enforced, far more than the people of the North generally have any idea of. Indeed, the great ignorance of the latter on the whole subject of slavery, is the main cause of all the agitation that has been and IS now disturbing the peace of the country. They should all be educated — taught to read at least — and all good books placed in their hands. I know this was being done to a great extent throughout the southern States before the fanat- ics began to send their incendiary tracts among them, causing laws to be passed prohibiting ed- ucation. Those incendiaries ought to be treated as pirates — enemies to all mankind — and effect- ually put down. Whether they are or not, still I think those laws are wrong. 1 do not believe education would make them any more likely to be misled by these fanatics than they are without it. Through secret channels and open discussions, one way or another, they are made acquainted with all the doings and designs of these fanatics now, and through ignorance may believe they are for their good; thus creating secret dissatisfaction that cannot be openly met and removed. If they could read, they would know the true condition of their race, and be less likely to be misled. All that I have seen or heard of the effects of education among the slaves has convinced me that it makes them more contented, and more reliable, and more valuable. Indeed, even now, so sensible are many of this fact, that in despite of the laws against it, they deem it their duty to teach their slaves to read. No objections I have ever yet heard, ijx the eyes of mankind or of God, will be taken as a sufficient reason or excuse for allowing the minds of so large a mass of mankind to remain in compar- ative darkness forever. Independently of the high moral tone all this will confer upon the slaves, and the consequent bene- ficial results to the masters, it will take from the opponents of the institution their most powerful arguments against it. The anathemas of the fa- natical abolitionists would be hushed in the appro- bation of all the rest of mankind. To cultivate and to christianize so many millions of slaves is an achievement within the power of the South, and will return a hundred fold of good on those who do it. Let the world see these millions of slaves advancing in intelligence and virtue, un- der the care of their masters, and at the same time all the rest of the race remaining in barbarism, or disturbed and destroyed by their own want of ca- pacity to govern themselves, and slavery will cease 12 to. be the theme for agitation, any wliere anJ every- where. Besides the loss sustained for tlie want of useful mental cultivation, I know that the people of the South generally suffer much from the want of the proper cultivation of .other faculties of their slaves. There is no reason why slaves cannot do as much and as varied work, and as well, as any others, only that they are not trained to the best modes of doing it, and have not placed in their hands the best instruments used in its performance. As a ■whole, for these reasons they do not perform more than half as much as they mij^ht do, with equal ease and more satisfaction to themselves, if they had this physical and mental cultiva'ion. Nor is that half work more than half done, which is a double loss to their masters and to tlie community. There is no reason why the whole South does not improve in all that embellishes its soil, or ren- ders it more productive, but that its labor is not directed by the intelligence, tasle, and energy ne- cessary. The South has all the means requisite to make it the most prosperous and highly beauti- fied portion of the earth, if it would but properly and efficiently develop and direct its means. I think it is the duty of the South to allow gradual manumission, if not to encourage it. In connection with this, or indeed anterior to it, the South ought to take more effectual steps to improve the free negroes among them. As it is, they are a curse to the whites, to the slaves, and to themselves. They might be made a useful and respectable class, and manumission v/ould ihen be beneficial to the negro and the whole community, and thus prepare the way for the freedom of the race, without violence or wrong, if Providence ever intends therti to be free and remain among us. I come now to speak of the proposed territorial restriction; that is, to confine slavery within its present limits. Should it be understood at the South that this decree is to be irrevocable, and they sulimit to it, each of the southern Stales, looking to its own future prosperity, if not .its existence, will do what has been frequently at- tempted to be done by the fanatics through Con- gress — stop all immigration of slaves from one State into another. Thus far the slaves have been gradually immigrating southward. At the decla- ration of our independence, every State in the Union held slaves. New England liad as many as Georgia, and so had New York. Even in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, together, the slaves outnumbered those of Georgia. Since then, in the short period of a little over seventy years, all the slaves from the seven old northern Slates have gone southward into the old southern Slates, and, with their progeny and the progeny of others of the southern States, have gone and are going On in the same direction, into Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Florida, Louisiana, Mis- souri, Arkansas, and Texas. Slavery was not abolished in ihe nortliern Slates so much from feelings hf philanthropy as from interest. It was found, as foreign white ininjigration increased, to be less profiialde to work slaves than to sell them to the South and employ white labor. The same causes are steadily and increa.'singly at work now to banish slavery from Delaware, Maryland, Mis- souri, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Virginia; a con- siderable portion of each of these Slates now em- ploy while labor, and have conijiaratively few slaves. As foreign emigration increases, (and in- crease it will to liiillions a year,) this reifloval of the slaves will be continued with a correa|)onding increased celerity, until slavery, and, to a great extent, the whole negro race in this country, will be confined to the range of country stretching from the Chesapeake all around the coast of tlie Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico, ahd inwards to within a few miles of the lower falls of the rivers. This is the great cotton, rice, and sugar-growing country, where negroes can do field work and live and thrive, and where white men cannot work in the fields and retain health and life long. If we do not stop this operation of the wise laws of Provi- dence, the two races will go on to find and enjoy those portions of the earth best suited to each. The negroes, either free or as slaves, will be the laborers to produce cotton, rice, sugar, and other field productions of the South; and the whiles who labw will occupy the higher and more healthy portions of the country, and be the producers of breadstuffs, and carry on all or most of the manu- facturing and mechanic arts. Should we, how- ever, restrict the slaves and negroes to where they now are, and the more southern slave States pro- hibit them from coming from the more northern,- they will begin in the latter, from which they are now disappearing, to increase in numbers, (unless means are provided to take them out of the coun- try, or they shall be driven into the sea,) and will go on increasing, until they soon drive out all the while laborers, mechanics, and workmen from these States, and throw them back on the northern free States. One-fourth of the people of Delaware, Kentucky, and Tennessee, and nearly one-third of those of Maryland, and two-fifths of those of Virginia, are negroes. Plas any man in the North contemplated what must be the effect on the St.ates north of these States of penning the negroes all up where they are.' They are a rapidly-increasing race; and should our humanity remain superior to our interest, and we continue to allow them to come among us, they will, instead of sending the surplus South, as they now do, roll back year after year upon us, the worst part of both slave and free, until they drive all the white laborers out of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and north- ward. This will not be submitted to patienlly by the white laborers of the North; and, before they yield to them, many and bloody will be the contests that must inevitably take place. If ever the two races shall become engaged in bloody strife for any object, and most of all for bread, it will have biit one end — the extirpation of the negroes. We of Philadelphia have had some experience of such a conflict of races; and we of Pennsylvania will be the sootiest and most overrun by these re- turning hordes of negroes. To the more northern States, this viiew of the subject will present little or no danger. Their cli- mate is too cold to induce many neffrocstogo there, and consequently they know very little practically about them — little aS free, and less as slaves. But suppose our interest shall prove stronger than our humanity, and we follow the^example of Ohio,, Indiana, and IlliiKjis, who impose penalties on all negroes coming into them, and by the last State ihey are kept out entirely by consiiuuional prohib- ition — su|ipose we do this, what liien will be the consequences on the North.' As the negroes increase, the white operatives in 13 these 'States will diminish, until the former will [and are constantly going there, all of whom find have taken the place of the latter in all the Indus- i: profitable and respectable employment, trial pursuits. The advocates of the free white j! If we take into consideration, m addition to the . laborers of the North forset that there are hun- : freemen of the North ^ho thus find employment dreds of thousands of the free white mechanics of; in the slave territory, the vast number of them who the North now living and prospering in the south- [ find it at home, in providing for the wants of the ern States. -Every town and city is filled with | slave States, I question if the extension of slave them. In many of them they hold the political power. Besides the mechanics that are there, others are going there continually. Those that are there must go away, or at least no others need go there, if this restrictive system shall be established, for their places will be filled by negroes. As soon as the negroes increase to over supply the demands for their usual out-door pursuits, their owners will of necessity find employment for them in-doors; first in the ruder mechanic and manufacturing arl^, and then the more refined, until they w-ill absorb them all. Still they will go on to increase, and when they have filled all the known avenues of labor, then they will begin to seek new ones; and instead of being, as they now are, the gre^t consumers of the products of the mechanics and manufacturers of the North, they will become their rivals, and then supersede them in the markets of the world. Ma- ryland, Virginia, and indeed nearly all the south- ern States, have within them rich mineral deposites of coal and iron, and other metals; and their rivers have most magnificent sites for water power open all the year. Inferior as the negroes are, they are nevertheless well qualified for operatives in manu- factories. Already in Virginia, and in other south- ern States, many cotton manufactories are in suc- cessful operation, worked by slaves. Still they will increase, and cannot go out; and as they increase in number, the wages of their labor will decrease, and thus will ice cause to grow up in our midst a body of worse than pauper laborers, against whom no tariff or other laws can afford protection. If this slavery-restriction system shall ue fully carried into effect, as^the Free-soil party contemplate, before one hundred years, or it may be fifty, the manufactories of New England and Pennsylvania, and her iron works too, will be su- perseded by those on the mountains and rivers between the Chesapeake and the Rio Grande, as certain as the sun sliall continue to shine. Take a more limited view of the effect this re- strictive system will have on the trade between the two sections — a trade that has gone on increas- ing with every expansion of territory to the South until it far exceeds all the rest of the trade of the country. Go to the wharves of Philadelphia, New York, Boston, and other seaports of the North, and look at the cargoes of the hundred ships and other vessels there daily, and almost hourly, sail- ing for some southern port, with all the products of the skill and labor of our workmen. Look, too, at the rich and valuable cargoes of rice, cotton, and sugar they bring us back in return, or take to other countries and bring in return for them to us the products or the merchandise of those countries. All this natural and useful trade and intercourse must be broken up, and those whose bread and comfortable existence depends upon it in the North be driven to unknown parts or pursuits. There is a great deception in the cry raised for "free soil for free men." 1 have already said, large numbers of mechanics, artisans, and others of the freemen of the North are now in the South, territory has not done more for the free workmen of the North than has a like extension of free ter- ritory in this or any other country. I think it is a great mistake to suppose, that to extend the area of slavery is to increase the num- ber of slaves. This is not true while all foreign importation is prohibited. I do not think negroes multiply any faster when scattered over a large surface. The idea that is frequently expressed by. some of the most visionary of the fanatics, that their increase is promoted through cupidity, is, to my mind, too absurd to need refutation. The migra- tion of the slaves southward, and their retention in field labor has been a great blessing to them. They are far better off now in the new States of the South, than they would be if they had been confined to the old ones. Think you, if the three millions were confined now^within the six old slave States, their condition or the condition of the whites, north or south, would be better than it isr Yet such would be the state of things, if the ideas of those who are opposed to the enlargement of the area of slavery had been adopted fifty years ago; and something like it, or worse, it will be fifty years hence, if they are adopted now, as I have attempted to show. If such will be some of the effects of this restrictive system upon the North, what will be those upon the South? It is a fearful thought. The very idea of building such a wall around any people to shut them in where they are, and out of all other parts of the earth, is to my mind, in any aspect of the case, most unnatural and horrible. What if the white people of Ireland, or England, or even New England had been thus shut in, can any one im- agine what would have been their present condi- tion.' And yet we would shut in these three mil- lions and upwards of negroes, with less than double that number of whites, and with the cer- tainty that they would soon be further closed within narrower limits, and with less than an equal num- ber of whites. I will not attempt to foreshadow what will eventually be the consequence and the end of such a measure to them all. History affords no example to judge from. The world has never yet witnessed so stupendous an act of despotic power and wrong committed by one portion of the people of a coun- try on another as we are, step by step, inflictirg on the South, in prohibiting slaves from going south by act of Congress, and then prohibiting all free negroes from going north by acts of the Slates. True, though the negro may not go out either bond or free, the white man may; but before he is en- tirely banished from his home, and the home of his fathers, fearful indeed will be the conflict and the suffering to him, and still more fearful to the negroes who must still remain behind him. What should we do, then, with this great ques- tion.' for great it is, and of absorbing interest to the philanthropist and the statesman. I cannct say, with my colleague, [Mr. Wilmot,] that " I have no sympathy for the negro," for 1 have a deep and abiding sympathy for him, and would 14 do all that can be done consistent with what is due to our own race for his welfare and eleva- tion. I would, looking to his good, recommend no general system of emaiicipation until he shall have proved himself, beyond all doubt, fit to be free. I would wait till it i^s seen what his free- dom will do for him in this country, in the West Indies, and in Africa. If ever he is to rise in th.e scale of humanity, it must be in that clime where he is physically best fitted to live in. He never can rise in northern countries, for there, sooner or later, unless renewed from the south, his whole race must become extinct. Let all wait, then, till he shows what freedom will do for him in the West Indies and Africa before we disrupt society here, and desolate our whole land merely that he may be free. In the mean time, let us pass no laws to fix the race in any one place, but let them continue their migration southward until they go through the United States, if they will, into Mex- ico and further south , where already they seem to be amalgamating with the other races. And while they are going, we of the North should let them alone. We cannot mend their destiny; we can only mar it. They are in the South, and of the South. The five or six millions of our white brothers there are more intimately connected with them, and more deeply interested in them, than we are. Let us, I repeat, leave them to those among whom they dwell, trusting to their patriotism, their humanity, their wisdom, their Christianity, to deal kindly and justly with them, until the common Father of us all shall work out his own great and good pur- poses with us and with them. We have already seen the utter inutility of laws fixing the bounds of slavery. This country was agitated far and wide on the introduction of Mis- souri into the Union. The attempt was then made to prescribe the limits of slavery; and fanatics looked upon the reception of that State into the Union with slavery as aiding the extension of that institution. Yet what are the facts in relation to Missouri now .' Why, if white laborers continue to flow into her as they have been doing recently, it will not be many years before slavery will cease to exist there, as it already has, by these same natural laws, quietly and peaceably ceased in all the old northern States. I mention the case of Missouri, to show that natural laws are more pow- erful than Congressional ones. The ordinance of 1787, much as it is respected by anti-slavery advo- cates, to my mind wasof very little importance, and of the same little consequence do I consider the Missouri compromise. If slaves had been allowed to go into the Northwestern Territory, or north of 3C° 30' in that of Louisiana, by law, Cew would ever have been taken there; and those who formed the State Governments would have excluded them, or if they had not, they would soon have gone out from the same causes that have taken them out of the old northern Slates. The impossibility of fix- ing slavery by law upon any part of this country whose climate is such that white labor can be readily obtained and successfully brought into competition with it, has been shown, north and west, to be an absurdity. Why has it disappeared from the more northern States, or why is it de- creasing, positively or comparatively, in Delaware, Mniylanil, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Virginia? Becausethis law of God — theirciimate — is more powerful than the laws of man. Even in the higher and more healthy parts of the southern States, the number of slaves is small, compared with the lower, warmer, and more unhealthy parts of them. When the superior race have the advan- tage of climate, the inferior race, if not forced to remain by human laws, will disappear. On the other hand, were we to ena^t a thousand laws to drive or keep the negroes out of those parts of the southern States to which I havealluded as the cotton, rice, and sugar-growing portions, whose climate is death to any white man from the North who attempts to labor on its fields, they would not induce the white laborers of the North to go there. He would be their worst enemy who would attempt it. They would but go to their graves. Some years since, a large number of Irishmen were taken to New Orleans to dig a canal near that city; the consequence was, that they nearly all died, and that very soon. A number of Grerman laborers were induced to go to the southern part of Texas. I am told by a gentleman on this floor that, after suffering with diseases the most painful, they have nearly all died. We all know how destructive of life the whole South is to northern men, everr when not exposed to the sun. What would it be if they were obliged to labor day after day under its scorching beams ? No laws could impel them to do it; and if we had prohibited slavery in Lou- isiana, Mississippi, or Alabama before they were States, and enough white men had gone there to form a State, they would either have become depopu- lated, or, from the law of necessity, have adopted slavery afterwards. Does any man doubt this? Then why should we agitate this whole country time and again, and alienate one portion of its people from another, to accomplish what is im- practicable and pernicious. If slaves were to be carried to California, or the higher part of New Mexico, the pressure of the whites would soon drive them out of it. But no man, north or soutli, that I have ever con- versed with, believes they will ever be carried there. The certainty that slaves will be prohib- ited by them when formed into States, will pre- vent any one from taking slaves there, if so dis- posed. Then, I am asked, why not prohibit them by law? For a very good reason — it is obnoxious to a large number of our brethren; it places them, our equals under our Constitution, in the position of our inferiors; and, for one, I am not willing to fix upon them this mark of degradation. We are told by high authority, that " when one member suflTers all the members suffer with it," and that " if one member be honored all the members rejoice with it." Let us, then, rejoice in doing justice and honor to all the members of this great Union of ours, rather than in dishonoring any of them. I am opposed to it, moreover, because, though it can do no good, it may do much harm, by depriving one-half of the people of the States of their equal rights with the other — of an equal par- ticipation in the common property of the Union, won equally by their services, sufferings, and bra- very, consecrated equally with their blood, and to be paid for equally by them from their com- mon treasury. 1 am opposed to it, because it makes invidious distinctions among equals, by attempting to fix a stigma upon the institutions of one-half of the State.^, which, at the formation of our Union, were common to them all. But above all, I am opposed to it, because it is in violation 15 of the spirit, if not of the letter of the Constitution, which spreads its protecting regis over the property of the citizens of all the States alike when beyond the jurisdiction of the State — alike over the slaves of the South, as over the ships of the North when wrecked on a foreign shore, and which should make no distinctions in its protection of these same" ships or slaves when found in the waters or on the land of the common territory of all the States, until those who inhabit that territory shall provide a government and laws for their own protection. But it is said by some,- the people of the South would never oppose the prohibition, if only the mere abstract right were involved. Whoever rea- • sons thus, must tMnk they are. degenerate sons of their sires of the Revolution, or must have for- gotten that those sires pledged their "lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor" for an abstract right, and nobly redeemed the pledge on many a battle-field. We of the North, and particularly they of Massachusetts, should remember, too, that it was more for wrongs inflicted on the North than the South that they fought and bled. If the people of the South asked any special legislation for their benefit, I should be as much opposed to it as I am to special legislation against them. All the rights they have under the Consti- tution, every man in the Union ought to allow them to enjoy in peace and safety; and these are all they demand. They do not ask us to establish slavery anywhere. They do not propose to ex- clude any free man, woman, or child, in the north- ern States, or in any other part of the world, from going into these Territories, and taking with them all they possess, and, when there, being secured in its full enjoyment. They have not asked to be allowed to take their slaves there — they have asked nothing for their slaves, or for slavery, at any time, in this District, in the States, or in the Territories. They ask nothing but to be let alone. They do not want the word "slaves," or "slavery," to be heard in the debates of this Hall, or to be found upon your statute-books. Surely it is hard, very hard, they cannot enjoy this small privilege — nay, this sacred right — the right of our brotherhood, the right of the Constitution — in peace. Thus far I have voted for every proposition to settle this vexed question, and to enable the people of those territories to form governments, confident that if we leave them unrestricted, they will do what is best. My object, in all that I have said or done on this subject, has been to allay this sectional war, . which has already done much to alienate the affec- tions of one part of our country from another, and to restore a better' feeling; and while I shall remain here, I intend to pursue the same course to the end. :M 146 ' I 1'-. "*--o<' .'i'^- ^ "^ v^^ ^ •"" A° ^ '"