Ca 
 
 t^- % 
 
SELECTIONS 
 
 VBOM THE 
 
 LETTERS AND SPEECHES 
 
 OF THE 
 
 HON. JAMES H. HAMMOND, 
 
 OF SOUTH CAROLINA. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 JOHN F. TROW & CO., PRINTERS, 50 GREENE STREET, 
 
 1866. 
 

 Entered aecorJing to Act of Congress in the year 18C6, by 
 
 JOHN F. TROW & CO., 
 
 In the Clerk's 0/1^ ';e of the District Court of the United States, for the Southern 
 District of New York. 
 
O O i^ T E N T S. 
 
 PAOB 
 
 Report at a Meeting op the State Rights and Free Trade 
 Party op Barnwell District, South Carolina, held 
 at Barnwell Court-House, on Monday, July 7th, 
 1834, 5 
 
 Speech on the Justice op Receiving Petitions for the 
 
 Abolition op Slavery in the District op Columbia, . 15 
 
 Message to the Senate and House op Representatives of 
 
 THE State of South Carolina, Nov. 28, 1843, . . 51 
 
 Message to the Senate and House op Representatives op 
 
 THE State of South Carolina, Nov. 26, 1844., . . 79 
 
 Letter to the Free Church of Glasgow, on the Subject 
 
 op Slavery, 105 
 
 Two Letters on the Subject op Slavery in the United 
 
 States, addressed to Thomas Clarkson, Esq., . .114 
 
 An Oration delivered before the Two Societies op the 
 
 South Carolina College, on the 4th op Dec, 1849, . 199 
 
,/ 
 
 IV CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 An Oration on the Life, Character, and Services op John 
 Caldwell Calhoun, delivered on the 21st November, 
 1850, IN Charleston, S. C, at the request of the 
 City Council, 231 
 
 Speech on the Admission of Kansas, Under the Lecompton 
 Constitution, delivered in the Senate of the United 
 States, March 4, 1858, 301 
 
 < Speech delivered at Barnwell C. H,, S. C, October 29, 
 
 1858, • . . 323 
 
 Speech on the Relations of the States, delivered in the 
 
 Senate of the United States, May 21, I860,, . . 3S8 
 
STATE EIGHTS AND FREE TRADE. 
 
 AT A MEETING OP THE STATE RIGHTS AND FREE TRADE PARTY 
 OF BARNWELL, DISTRICT, SOUTH CAROLINA, HELD AT BARN- 
 WELL COURT-HOUSE, ON MONDAY, JULY 7th, 1834, COL. JAMES H. 
 HAMMOND MADE THE 
 
 REPORT. 
 
 TuE Committee, appointed by tlie Meeting of the 
 Citizens of Barnwell on the 4th of June, have reflect- 
 ed maturely on the subject referred to their considera- 
 tion. Few occasions have occurred in the history of 
 our State, requiring more serious deliberation, and 
 dispassionate decision. An honest and independent 
 Judiciary is the safest check upon the accumulation 
 of power in the Legislative and Executive Depart- 
 ments of the Government. Unfortunately, the manner 
 of their appointment, compensation, and promotion, is 
 too apt to lead the Judges, if not directly to sanction, 
 at least to connive at, the usurpations of the coordinate 
 Departments. Whenever, therefore, in the exercise 
 of their acknowledged functions, they throw them- 
 selves in opposition to and arrest the hand of legiti- 
 mate power, it becomes a people, jealous of their 
 rights, and justly prejudiced in favor of too weak 
 rather than too strons; a Government, to sustain them 
 
 1 
 
in tlieir judgment, unless it should be clear that they 
 have been influenced by unworthy motives, or have 
 made an unjust and dangerous decree. Entertaining 
 this view, had the majority of the Court of Appeals, 
 in the present instance, following the safe judicial 
 ]3recedent of adjudging no point not necessarily 
 involved in determining the rights of the parties be- 
 fore the Court, confined themselves to the proper 
 construction of the Constitution of the State, this 
 Committee would, without hesitation, have recommend- 
 ed, as the wisest course, a silent submission to their 
 decision, until the Constitution could be amended by 
 the action of the people, so as to obviate every obsta- 
 cle to their wishes. But, as they have gone further, 
 and, after conclusively settling the rights of parties 
 by deciding the Oath, required by the recent Military 
 Bill, to be against the Constitution of the State, and, 
 therefore, void ; with great candor as men, but doubt- 
 ful discretion as Judges, have unnecessarily discussed, 
 and judicially decided, the great fundamental ques- 
 tion which lies at the bottom of our system, of State 
 and Federal Governments, involving, essentially, all 
 their relations with one another, as well as the politi- 
 cal rights of every individual in America — it becomes 
 the duty of the people, in the opinion of this Com- 
 mittee, to look fully into the matter, and inquire into 
 the reasons of such an important and extraordinary 
 step. Indeed, to permit a question so interesting, so 
 vital to their rights and liberties, which, in some form 
 or other, has agitated this confederacy from its origin 
 to the present day, which they themselves have long 
 discussed with the most intense anxiety, and decided 
 for this State by a majority of two thirds ; in support 
 
of which decisioD, they have actually taken up arms, 
 and pledged life, fortune, and honor : to be finally 
 adjudged and settled against them, Ijy the mere dicta 
 of two men, no matter how great their worth, or how 
 dignified their station, without freely examining their 
 motives and their arguments, would exhibit an in- 
 consistency and apathy too great to be expected or 
 believed: And this examination the Committee pro- 
 poses briefly to make. 
 
 The discussion of this great question has, necessari- 
 ly, divided the State into two parties ; its vital impor- 
 tance of itself, its connection with some of the most 
 interesting measures of the day, and the length, and 
 ardor of the discussion, have produced much exaspera- 
 tion. It is well known that the two Judges, who 
 constitute the majority of the Appeal Court, are mem- 
 bers of that party whicli has opposed the measures of 
 the majority of the people constituting the State. 
 They have been active partisans, taking part, publicly, 
 in the discussion before the people — confidentially 
 consulted, it is suj^posed, on all the movements of the 
 party, and members of the Convention of that party, 
 which, met at the most critical moment of affairs, and 
 resolved not to sustain the State, when it was evident 
 that a contest for its existence was at hand. What- 
 ever may be our respect for the private worth, or our 
 veneration for the public dignity, of these Judges, it 
 is impossible to close our minds to the conviction, that 
 from these facts should be traced the motives whicli 
 induced them to depart from the rules ordinarily 
 observed in their decisions, and to discuss unnecessarily 
 the question constituting the basis of the difference 
 between the two parties of the State ; and (following, 
 
no doubt, the sincere conviction of their minds), to 
 throw the weight of their judicial influence into the 
 scale of the party in the minority. 
 
 The real question put at issue, and determined by 
 the Judges, in that part of their decision which may 
 justly be considered idtra judicial, is, whether, accord- 
 ing to our confederated system, sovereignty, or the 
 last power of decision iu all civil and political ques- 
 tions, from which there can be no appeal, resides in 
 the States, respectively, or in the Federal Govern- 
 ment. The paramount allegiance of the citizen, or 
 obligation to obey without further question, is due of 
 course to that last power or sovereignty. The Oath 
 in the Military Bill required every Oflicer to swear 
 allegiance to the State of South Carolina ; in other 
 words, to acknowledge her his sovereign. Although 
 the Court of Appeals, on other grounds, decided the 
 Oath to be void, yet they have chosen to make a 
 dictum against it on this ground also ; and by a 
 course of reasoning as extraordinary as original. They 
 argue thus : Allegiance, in its feudal origin, meant the 
 duty which a vassal owed his Chief — the su1)ject his 
 King; to follow them in war, and to pay tax and 
 homage to them in peace, for which he was protected 
 in both ; that, in this country, where there are no 
 Kings or Chiefs, but all power resides in the People, 
 this duty is due to them ; that in a state of nature 
 they cannot exact it, nor give what is required in 
 return for it, jproteetion. It is, therefore, due only to 
 their government^ which they regard as the first state 
 of a popular organization. It then means nothing but 
 obedience. But we have two Governments, State and 
 Federal. We now, therefore, owe allegiance, or 
 
obedience, to two powers. Neither has a right to 
 claim it exclusively. Judge O'Neale understands the 
 Oath prescribed by the Legislature, to require ex- 
 clusive allegiance to the State, and, therefore, not to 
 be enforced. Judge Johnson does not so understand 
 it, but concurring in the train of reasoning above 
 stated, puts it beyond doubt, that if such he the true 
 meaning of the Oath (which it clearly is) he must 
 concur in this conclusion also. This is the substance 
 of the argument of the majority of the Aj^peal Court 
 fairly stated, in few words. We admit, on our part, 
 that we have two Governments. We admit, that we 
 owe obedience to both. We admit, that obedience is 
 all that Government can now require of us, and if the 
 highest duty which we owe, is to the Government of 
 the people, we admit the consequence that allegiance 
 and obedience are the same, and the conclusions of the 
 Court correct. But the highest duty which we owe 
 is not to the Government. On this point we take our 
 issue, and draw the dividing line, which, however 
 slight it may appear, at first glance, in the opinion of 
 this committee, separates right and wrong, justice and 
 oppression, liberty and bondage. Upon what ground 
 can Government claim from us this paramount obli- 
 gation ? Because, says the Court, it gives us in return 
 the highest possible equivalent, protection. Protec- 
 tion? How? Can Government, of itself, by virtue 
 of any inherent power it possesses, create men, money, 
 and arms, to protect us against foreign or domestic 
 war ? Can it give spontaneous force and vigor to its 
 laws, to protect our lives, or liberty, or property, from 
 the assaults of our fellow-men ? Nay ; can it, by any 
 elementary vitality, any independent self-action, main- 
 
10 
 
 tain its own existence for a single hour ? If it cannot 
 do these things, and that it cannot is the first principle 
 of Eepublicanism, how can it iwotect us % The argu- 
 ment is not only superficial, but dangerous. The 
 Court, while pretending to discard the idea of alle- 
 giance as foreign in its origin, and anti-republican in 
 its nature, has fallen into the very error which it 
 reprobated, and founded its whole theory npon the 
 exploded doctrines of the old world. It is there 
 taught, that Governments can do everything. It is 
 there that Kings, acting by " divine right," have 
 unlimited control over the destinies of their subjects ; 
 and Governments nniversally punish it as treason to 
 question their possession of sovereign and unlimited 
 power, by virtue of which they bind the conscience, 
 seize the property, sacrifice the lives, and " protect " 
 the rights of the people. Here, we have a power ahove 
 the Government. A power which sustains and " pro- 
 tects" the Government, gives it existence, energy, 
 legality, the command of resources, and the power to 
 exact the " obedience " of the citizen. This transcend- 
 ent power is Sovereignty, and belongs to the peo- 
 ple only. Not to the people in a " state of nature," 
 which is one of those philosoj)hic dreams with which 
 political science has nothing to do ; but to the people 
 in a state of society in which they have been found 
 from the foundation of the world. In other words, it 
 belongs to the true first state of popular organization 
 called the Social Compact. A compact which, from 
 the nature of things, necessarily arises whenever a 
 number of individuals meet and form a distinct com- 
 munity, whether large or small, the principle of whose 
 existence is, that they will adhere together, on their 
 
11 
 
 own soil, agaiust all tlie Avorld ; and tlie first law of 
 which is, that every memljer must submit implicitly 
 to the will of the majority, so long as he continues 
 with them. It is this high and exclusive obligation 
 which we dignify with the name of " allegiance," in 
 return for Avhich, the individual receives the substan- 
 tial }3rotection of the compact, not only from external 
 and internal foes, but from all invasions of his right 
 by Government itself, which it creates, limits, checks, 
 and alters at discretion. The duty which Ave owe that 
 Government, while it exists, in all its various depart- 
 ments, is called " obedience." 
 
 If this view be correct, it follows that the Court of 
 Appeals has entirely mistaken the nature of allegiance, 
 and the authority to which it is due — that there is a 
 clear distinction between allegiance and obedience ; 
 and that since an individual cannot be at the same 
 time a member of two social compacts, his allegiance 
 cannot be divided, though his obedience may be due 
 to any number of coordinate authorities. By apply- 
 ing these conclusions to the question drawn before the 
 Court, it will be perceived, that to determine the true 
 ultimate relations of the American citizen to his two 
 Governments, it is only necessary to ascertain to what 
 Social Compact he belongs. There his allegiance is 
 due, and in all conflicts for power, to that he must ad- 
 here ; or, by abandoning it, deprive himself of all its 
 privileges. Where then does his compact lie ? It is 
 well known, that in every instance of the formation of 
 a Colony in this country, whether by direct emigration 
 from the mother-country, or by separation from other 
 Colonies, a new and distinct community was created, 
 independent of every other in America ; which consti- 
 
12 
 
 tuted a separate Social Compact, and gave rise to a se- 
 parate Government. It is true, eacli Social Compact 
 considered itself a part of the Social Compact, and 
 each Government depended on the Government of 
 England. This anomalous condition is what is termed, 
 among nations, the Colonial state. And it is only ne- 
 cessary to regard it in this point of view, to perceive 
 how intolerable it must be to the free spirit, and how 
 impossible it was, and 'is, to maintain it among the 
 Sons of Liberty on this side of the Atlantic. The Re- 
 volution severed this connection, and each Colony was 
 declared a Sovereign and Independent State. They 
 afterwards formed the present Union, and created a 
 new Government by the Constitution of the United 
 States. Did they dissolve their separate Social Com- 
 pacts, and consolidate them into one, and revive their 
 colonial condition with a change of masters only, by 
 this act ? There is no evidence of the fact in the Con- 
 stitution, nor in the history of the times. There has 
 always been a party in this country, led more by their 
 instinct for power than any force of reason, who have 
 attempted to confuse the relation of the State and 
 Federal Governments, and, practically, to consolidate 
 all power in a Federal Head ; l^ut this clear elementary 
 fact of the amalgamation of the compact, without 
 which all their attempts at reasoning must fall, has not, 
 that we know of, ever been contended for. JSTo such 
 event took place. A new Government was created — 
 not a /State — a new body ^^oUtlc — not social. A new 
 authority was called into existence, empowered to re- 
 quire the " obedience " of the citizen, but not to claim 
 his " allegiance ; " in shor/" ? new agency, not a sover- 
 eignty, arose. The differen. Social Compacts parted 
 
13 
 
 Avitli no portion of their transcendent dominion, but 
 only made a new division of their delegated power be- 
 tween the State and the new Government, retaining, 
 unimpaired, their sovereign right to limit and control 
 the action of both within their geographical bounda- 
 ries. The farthest they did go, was to agree not to 
 alter the Constitution of the Federal Government, 
 without the consent of three fourths of the compacts. 
 But in this they yielded up no real power, since any 
 one of them can secede and throAV off its obli<rations 
 to the whole, whenever it sees fit ; and, consequently, 
 is not necessarily bound to submit finally to the alter- 
 ations which may be made, against its wishes, even by 
 three fourths. Thus it appears to this Committee, that 
 the Social Compacts of each of the States remain per- 
 fect and unimpaired by their connection with the other 
 States, and as the highest known human authority 
 within their respective limits, is entitled to claim the 
 allegiance of every individual, so long as he remains a 
 citizen thereof; and to withhold not only power, but 
 protection from every one who refuses to acknowledge 
 it. In support of this view, and the whole argument, 
 v/e might cite the express reservation in the Constitu- 
 tion of the United States, and the Oaths of exclusive 
 Allegiance required by a large number of the States. 
 We might also add to this mere sketch of the argu- 
 ment, in favor of State Sovereignty, many other views 
 and illustrations to meet those of the Court, and 
 strengthen our position ; but the Committee forbear 
 to urge them on the patience of this meeting, believing 
 they have said enough to place their opinions upon in- 
 contestible grounds. They might also go on to show, 
 that from the principles here laid down, results inevi- 
 
14 
 
 tably tlie rjglit of State interj)osition to clieck tlie iin- 
 coDstitutional acts of tlie Federal Governmeut, with 
 all its salutary consequences ; wliile from those laid 
 down by the Court, follows as certainly the consolida- 
 tion and colonial dependency of the States, with all its 
 train of e\dls, the first of which must be dissolution of 
 the Union. But this would again lead us into discus- 
 sion, foreign to the immediate purpose of the meeting. 
 Upon a calm review of the whole matter, the Com- 
 mittee are of opinion, that the Constitution of the 
 State ought to be amended, in conformity with the 
 Bill introduced at the last session of the Legislature, 
 so as to require an oath of Allegiance from all persons 
 hereafter taking Office under the State of South Caro- 
 lina. As it is evident, from the opinions of a major- 
 ity of the Court of Appeals, that no oath requiring 
 exclusive allegiance to the State will be enforced by 
 that Court, it would be nugatory to amend the Con- 
 stitution, without also remodelling the Court, so as to 
 secure the full and effectual execution of the will of the 
 People. The Committee regard it, therefore, as ab- 
 solutely necessary that that should be done in such 
 manner as to the Legislature may seem best. 
 
 J. H. HAMMOND, Chairman. 
 
SPEECH 
 
 ON" THE JUSTICE OP RECEIVING TETITIONS FOR THE ABOLITION OF 
 SLAVERY IN THE DISTRICT OP COLUMBIA. 
 
 The motion of Mr. Cusliing, of Massachusetts, to 
 receive the petition of sundry inhabitants of Massa- 
 chusetts praying for the abolition of Slavery and the 
 Slave-trade in the District of Columbia beiuo: under 
 consideration : 
 
 Mr. Hammond said, that when he had first demand- 
 ed the preliminary question of reception on the presenta- 
 tion of a similar petition some weeks ago, it was his hope 
 and expectation that it would be decided without de- 
 bate. On every subsequent occasion when he had felt 
 it bis duty to make a similar demand, he had enter- 
 tained the same desire, and had himself refrained from 
 taking any part in the discussions which had arisen. 
 It was obvious, however, that gentlemen presenting 
 these petitions were determined to discuss them ; and 
 after what had occurred on last petition-day, he con- 
 cluded that no petition would be offered to the House 
 hereafter, without a ^preliminary speech as well as mo- 
 tion. As much, therefore, as he felt indisposed to 
 block the proceedings of the House on this important 
 day, he thought ^^erhaps he had as well say at once 
 what he had to say on this subject in its present stage, 
 
16 
 
 and by so doing he might facihtate the business of the 
 House. 
 
 I listened, sir, with much pleasure to the address of 
 the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Gushing) who 
 presented this petition, and I believe I can say that I 
 concur in every principle which he laid down. I am 
 sure that he cannot have a greater regard for the right 
 of petition than I entertain. But, really, I cannot see 
 what the discussion of that right can have to do with 
 the question before the House. 
 
 No one here desires to " puss a law " depriving " the 
 people of the right of peaceably assembling, and peti- 
 tioning for a redress of grievances." They have so as- 
 sembled. They have petitioned for the redress of their 
 imaginary grievances. The petition has been present- 
 ed to the House. Its contents have been stated. If 
 it had been requested, the petition itself might have 
 been read by the Clerk. We are, sir, in full possession 
 of its character and object — the petitioners and their 
 representatives having performed their part without 
 " let or hindrance ; " and it is now our duty to perform 
 that Avhich devolves on us. We may refuse to receive 
 the petition, and record the refusal on our journals ; 
 or we may receive and instantly reject ; or commit, and, 
 on a report, reject the prayer of the petitioners ; or we 
 may grant their prayer. Any of these courses it is 
 fully competent for this House to adopt ; and none of 
 them, in my opinion, impugn in the slightest degree 
 the right of petition which has been so justly denomi- 
 nated "sacred." 
 
 I think, sir, that this House should not receive the 
 petition, and that is the course which I suggest. The 
 gentleman says it is not disrespectful in its terms. I 
 
17 
 
 pass that by, then. But I tliink we slioiild not receive 
 it still, because it asks us to do what we have no con- 
 stitutional power to do ; and what, if we had the 
 power, it would be ruinous to a large portion of this 
 confederacy, and ultimately destructive to all our in- 
 stitutions, for us to do. 
 
 The constitutional power to abolish Slavery and the 
 Slave-trade in this District, is claimed by virtue of the 
 clause which gives to Congress " exclusive legislation " 
 here. I admit at once, that under that clause Con- 
 gress has full power, so far as " legislation " is concern- 
 ed, over this District, except where it is limited by the 
 letter or the spirit of the Constitution in other por- 
 tions of that instrument, or by the contracts made 
 with the States of Virginia and Maryland in the acts 
 of cession by those States. As this point has been 
 ably, and I think satisfactorily, discussed, both in this 
 House and another portion of the Capitol, I will take 
 but a single view of it at this time. All the powers 
 given by the Constitution are trust powers, and should 
 be construed in connection with each other, and in 
 reference to the great objects they were intended to 
 accomplish. Now, T ask, if any member of this House, 
 having before him these clauses of the Constitution 
 forbidding the passage of laws, even by the States, to 
 prevent the arrest of " persons held to labor " in the 
 other States — forbidding " Congress to take private 
 property" even "for public uses without just compen- 
 sation," and recognizing slaves as iwopertif^ entitled to 
 representation only as three fifths, and not as ][)6rsons 
 entitled to full representation, — can say that it will 
 not be a violation of the letter and the whole spirit of 
 the Constitution to assume the power which you are 
 
18 
 
 now called on to exercise — as mncli a violation of it as 
 to pass an ex ijost facto law or bill of attainder here? 
 
 I ask gentlemen if tliey believe this Constitution 
 would ever have received the sanction of a sins-le Slave- 
 State, if it had been suspected for a moment that this 
 power now claimed was given to Congress by it ? 
 
 But, sir, admitting for the sake of argument that 
 the Constitution places no limitation to the power of 
 " legislation " in the District of Columbia : I ask how 
 far that power will, of itself, extend ? What are the 
 great objects of all human legislation ? ^o iwotect life, 
 liberty, and ])roperty. Can we, under this definition, 
 assume the power wantonly to destroy them ? It is 
 true property is sometimes seized as a penalty for mis- 
 demeanors ; and liberty, and even life, are forfeited for 
 crimes. But does this warrant Congress, or any legis- 
 lative body in this country, at its free will and j)leas- 
 ure to confiscate the estate of a peaceful and unoifend- 
 ing citizen, or imprison him or take away his life 
 without offence ? — Sir, monstrous as these propositions 
 are, they are not more monstrous, nor would they be 
 more fatal in their consequences, than that which these 
 petitioners ask us now to adopt. — And here let me say, 
 in answer to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. 
 Cushing), that I can see no difference between the con- 
 stitutional power to abolish tlie internal Slave-trade 
 and the power to abolish Slavery itself If the slave- 
 owner is deprived of the full use of his property, un- 
 less that use impairs the rights of others, you can as 
 well deprive him of the pro23erty itself. The principle 
 in both cases is the same. But for the reasons I have 
 already mentioned, I will not dwell on this branch of 
 the subject. 
 
19 
 
 Mr. SiDeaker, I object to tlie reception of these pe- 
 titions, in the next place, because they are sent here hy 
 persons who are pursuing a systematic plan of 023era- 
 tions, intended to subvert the institutions of the South, 
 and which, if carried into effect, must desolate the 
 fairest portion of America, and dissolve in blood the 
 bonds of this Confederacy. It has been said upon this 
 floor, that the Al^olitionists of the North are very few 
 in number, and of so little influence as to be unworthy 
 of our attention. It has been said here, on the other 
 hand, that they constitute a majority north of Mason 
 and Dixon's line, and that their influence is "tremen- 
 dous." Amid this conflicting testimony, permit me to 
 call the attention of the House to some important facts 
 connected with, the subject. 
 
 It will be recollected that during this session, in 
 consequence of the course which, has been taken in the 
 matter, on but a single day has an opportunity occur- 
 red for a free presentation of petitions of the character 
 of that before us. On that day, althougli it could not 
 have been expected that the occasion would occur, 
 fifty-eight of these petitions were presented — a number 
 considerably larger than the average number presented 
 during the last four sessions. These petitions are sign- 
 ed by between seven and eight thousand persons, male 
 and female ; some of them signing as representatives of 
 large Societies. I have been informed that three hun- 
 dred petitions of this kind have been forwarded to 
 Congress, and I do not doubt the fact. If they are as 
 numerously signed, we shall have the names of some 
 forty thousand persons petitioning Congress at this 
 session to abolish Slavery and the Slave-trade in the 
 
20 
 
 District of Columbia. This, sir, is no slight evidence 
 of the strength of the Abolition party. 
 
 But let us trace the history of the formation of the 
 Societies to which I have alluded. In 1 832, less than 
 four years ago, the 'New England Anti-Slavery Society 
 was formed. This, I believe, was the first noticeal)le 
 Society of this kind created on this side of the Atlan- 
 tic. I remember well the ridicule with which it was 
 covered when it was known that it had been formed 
 by a meeting of eleven persons. Sometime in the year 
 1833 the New York Anti-Slavery Society was formed 
 by a meeting composed of two and twenty men, and 
 two females. I remember, also, the contempt with 
 which this annunciation was greeted; but, sir, they 
 grew in spite of indifference and contumely. 
 
 On the 4th of December, 1833, at a Convention of 
 Abolitionists in the city of Philadelphia, the great 
 American Anti-Slavery Society was formed, and a bold 
 
 " DECLARATION OF THEIR SENTIMENTS " WaS givCU tO the 
 
 world. They announced that "all slaves should in- 
 stantly be set free " " without compensation to their 
 owners ; " " that the paths of preferment, of wealth, and 
 of intelligence, should be as widely opened to them as 
 to persons of a white complexion ; " and that to effect 
 these purposes they pledged themselves " to organize 
 Anti-Slavery Societies everywhere ; " " to send forth 
 agents to remonstrate, warn, and relnike ; to circulate 
 periodicals and tracts ; " " to enlist the pulpit and the 
 press ; " " to purify the Churches of the .; crime of 
 slavery;" "and to encourage the labor of freemen 
 rather than that of slaves, by giving a preference to 
 their productions." 
 
 From this moment the infection spread with uu- 
 
21 
 
 paralleled rapidity. In May following (1834) there 
 were sixty Anti-Slavery Societies. By May, 1835, the 
 number had increased to two hix^deed. By October, 
 1835, it had swollen to three huistdeed. And by a 
 document which I hold in my hand purporting to be a 
 " protest of the American Anti-Slavery Society " against 
 certain sentiments expressed on this subject, by the 
 President of the United States, in his last Annual 
 Message, it appears that there were known to be three 
 hundred and fifty Anti-Slavery Societies in the Uni- 
 ted States on the 25th day of December last. 
 
 Some of these societies contain as many as four 
 thousand members, and none of them, I believe, less 
 than fifty. On a fair calculation it may be presumed 
 that not less than one hundred thousand persons in the 
 non-slaveholding States are united in these societies, 
 and their numbers are increasing daily with a rapidity 
 almost beyond conception — a disciplined corps, who 
 have pledged life and fortune to the great purpose of 
 emancipation. 
 
 That the spirit, means, purposes, and plans of these 
 societies may appear more fully, I will refer to the 
 " Address of the American Anti-Slavery Society," at 
 its last annual meeting, which I have in my hand, and 
 ask permission of the House that the Clerk may read. 
 
 " Address to the Auxiliaries and Friends of the American Anti-Slavery 
 Society. 
 
 " Deae Brethren : At tlie last annual meeting of the American Anti- 
 Slavery Society, it was 'Resolved, That an effort be made to raise 30,000 
 dollars for the use of the Society the present year, and that the Aboli- 
 tionists present pledge themselves to raise such sums as they may respect- 
 ively offer.' 
 
 " Donations and pledges were immediately obtained, amounting to 14,- 
 500 dollars. 
 
 " Additional pledges have since been obtained in Boston, to the amount 
 2 
 
22 
 
 of 4,000 dollars. The sum of 11,500 dollars remains to be raised. As 
 there are known to be more than two hundred Anti-Slavery Societies, on 
 kindred principles with the American, we have no doubt that this sum 
 can speedily be made up. Each Society has only to raise 150 dollars, and 
 the work is done. We believe that those Societies which remain un- 
 pledged will joyfully come forward to do their proportion as soon as 
 
 called on. 
 
 ****** 
 
 "The plan proposed at the annual meeting, and now adopted by the 
 Executive Committee, in the confident belief tliat tlie means will be fur- 
 nished, is this : 
 
 " 1. To increase the number of Agents, by appointing as many able, effi- 
 cient, and thorough-going men as can be obtained. 
 
 "2. To commence the distribution of publications on a new and ex- 
 tended scale. 
 
 "The following publications will be issued monthly, viz. : 
 
 " 1. On the first week of each month, a small folio paper, entitled ' Hu- 
 man Rights,' to be filled with facts and arguments on the subject of 
 Slavery and its remedy, written in a i^lain and familiar style. Of this 
 twenty thousand copies will be printed, to be increased to fifty thousand 
 or more, as soon as arrangements can be made to have them promptly and 
 judiciously distributed among the reading population. 
 
 " 2. On the second week, the ' Anti-Slavery Record,' a small magazine, 
 with cuts, will be printed, to the number of twenty-five thousand copies. 
 
 "3. On the third week, the 'Emancipator' will be printed on a large 
 imperial sheet, of the size of the 'New York Observer,' or the 'New 
 York Evangelist.' Tliis will contain more extended essays and descrip- 
 tions, on points connected with the cause. It is expected that from fif- 
 teen to twenty-five thousand copies will be printed monthly this year. 
 
 "4, On the fourth week will be issued twenty-five thousand copies of 
 the 'Slave's Friend,' a juvenile magazine, with cuts, adapted especially 
 for circulation among children and youth. 
 
 "All these publications will be distributed gratuitously, by the aid of 
 the auxiliaries, to those Avho are not Abolitionists, or will be sold at the 
 office, to friends of the cause, at a very low rate. 
 
 ****** 
 
 " The present is the time for action, 
 jt * * * * * 
 
 "Let Female Societies be formed. Female Societies probably did 
 more for the abolition of slavery in Great Britain than those of the other 
 sex. They scattered anti-slavery tracts, handbills, pamphlets, and books, 
 everywhere. Tbey circulated petitions ; they covered articles of furniture 
 or apparel, such as pincushion?, work-boxes, handkerchiefs, boxes, bas- 
 kets, purses, portfolios, etc., etc., -with devices and mottoes reminding the 
 
23 
 
 nsers of the poor slaves. They made the matter a topic of conversation 
 on almost all occasions. Several societies of ladies in this country have 
 already commenced the same course with good success. Let the female 
 sex, then, throughout the land, emulate the efforts made by their sisters 
 over the ocean, in this work of benevolence. 
 
 "Juvenile Societies, too, may be engaged in the same work. Children 
 
 are all Abolitionists. 
 
 * 4 * * * * 
 
 " We hope Abolitionists will everywhere make it a personal business 
 to distribute the publications ; that they will not let them be thrown 
 away, but put them in the hands, only, of those who will read and 
 think. Let no Abolitionist, at home or abroad, ever be without a sup- 
 ply, and be ready to embrace every favorable opportunity. 
 
 "Petitions to Congress for the abolition of Slavery in the District 
 of Columbia should be put in circulation immediately. The minds of the 
 members of Congress should, if possible, be enlightened as to the real 
 design of the American Anti-Slavery Society, and their prejudices should 
 be removed, as in many it may easily be, by personal interviews with 
 Abolitionists. The way may thus be prepared for a more favorable 
 hearing before the representatives of the people. * * * 
 
 (Signed) "Akthtjr Tappan, 
 
 John Ranxin, 
 Lewis Tappan, 
 Joshua Leavitt, 
 Samuel E. Coenish, 
 Willi A.M Goodell, 
 Abkaham L. Cox, 
 TuEODOEE S. Wright, 
 Simeox S. Jocelyn, 
 Elizar Wright, Jr. 
 Executive Committee of the American Anti-Slavery Society." 
 
 Here, Sir, is a number of the paper entitled " Hu- 
 man Riglits" — a neat, well-printed slieet. Here are 
 several numbers of tlie " Anti-Slavery Record," on the 
 outside of each of which is a picture representing a 
 master flogging naked slaves, and each of which con- 
 tains within pictures equally revolting. Here is a hand- 
 ful of the little primer called the "Slave's Friend." 
 On the covers, and within each of these, are also pic- 
 tures calculated to excite the feelings, and to nurture 
 
24 
 
 the incendiary spark in the tender bosom of the child. 
 And here, Sir, is " The Emancipator," a large and hand- 
 some paper. And that you may understand the spirit 
 and principles which it inculcates, I will read to the 
 House a paragraph from a number dated New York, 
 Nov., 1S35. 
 
 "The Alternative. — William "Wertenbaker, Assistant P. M. and Li- 
 brarian of the University of Virginia, gives notice that be has coinniitted 
 to the flames a copy of ' Human Rights ' we sent liim, and very gravely 
 asks, 'Which of the two do you prefer — a perpeiuity of slavery, or a dis- 
 solution of the Union? '' The latter, we say, by all odds, if we must 
 choose. We are for union, but not with slavery. We will give tlie 
 Union for the abolition of slavery, if nothing else will gain it; but if we 
 cannot gain it at all, then the South is Avelcome to a dissolution — the 
 sooner the better. The slaveholders may as well understand, first cs last, 
 that ' The Union ' may have other uses to them than tliat of a lash to 
 shake over the heads of Northern freemen." 
 
 It speaks for itself. I make no commentary. 
 Here, Sir, is a pamphlet called the " Anti-Slavery Re- 
 porter," published monthly, I believe, by this Society. 
 Here is a " Quarterly Anti-Slavery Magazine," of very 
 respectable size, edited by Elizar Wright, Jr. Here is 
 a pamphlet entitled " Anti-Slavery Hymns," of w^hich 
 there are nineteen. They purport to be for the use of 
 the "Monthly Concerts for the Enslaved" in the city 
 of New York, and the publication of a more copious 
 collection in Boston is announced. Here is a small 
 book entitled "Juvenile Poems." It contains, besides 
 a great number of doggerel articles of the most in- 
 flammatory character, some [nine or ten disgusting 
 prints, all of which are designed " for the use of free 
 American children of every complexion." Here is a 
 pamphlet written by a " Man of Color^'' and here are 
 a quantity of Sermons, Essays, Reports, Letters, <fec., 
 <fec., all intended for the same incendiary purposes. 
 
25 
 
 I hold also in mj hand, that most powerful engine 
 in party warfiire, an " Anti-Slavery Almanac for 1836." 
 From this allow me to read two short extracts. The 
 following will show the political tendency of this abo- 
 lition agitation : " We are rexoarding slaveholders for 
 their usur^yation and injustice^ hij aUoiuing them to 
 send 25 Representatives to Congress to represent their 
 slave property T It has been said that "the petition- 
 ers have no further object than merely to wipe from 
 the national escutcheon the stain affixed to it by per- 
 mitting slavery to exist at the seat of government of 
 the United States." In answer to that allow me to 
 qnote the following passage ; and there is scarcely a 
 publication that I have exhibited here to day in which 
 the same sentiment is not expressed : " Should you 
 abolish slavery in the District of Columbia alone, it 
 would heave the foundation of the system in every 
 State of the TInionT Nor is this work without its 
 pictures, libelling the slaveholders with its vile carica- 
 tures. To illustrate more fully the political tendency 
 of the extraordinary excitement on this subject, al- 
 though I do not intend on this occasion to discuss that 
 branch of the question, I will refer the House to an 
 extract from the " Anti-Slavery Circular," j^rinted at 
 Medina, Ohio, December, 1835, which I hold in my 
 hand, and which I again ask the favor of the House to 
 permit the Clerk to read. 
 
 "There are now about lialf a million that still have tlie liberty of 
 holding slaves ; their slaves now amount to upwards of t\vo millions, and 
 their landed estates are of vast extent; they have entire control over 
 eleven States — the poorer classes of the white people are well trained to 
 subjection, and occupy a grade a little above that of the slaves. Few 
 nobles in Europe can command so great a retinue of servants — and no 
 king on earth possesses more absolute authority. Indeed, such is their 
 
26 
 
 dignity, wealth, and influence, that although but half a million, they are 
 able to control twelve and a half millions, and do in fact govern the 
 Union ; and the plan is now laid to keep up and increase their dignity, 
 "wealth, and power, to future generations. They have managed so wisely 
 as to get the whole Union bound by the Constitution to keep their slaves 
 in subjection, and allow them a representation in the General Govern- 
 ment in proportion to the number of their slaves. The increase of these, 
 already 54,000 a year, will soon give the increase of one Representative 
 every year. By the aid of the rest of the Union, the slaves can be kept 
 in subjection until they shall have become much more numerous than the 
 white people, provided they are prevented from learning to read, and 
 thus kept in total ignorance. And for this purpose, laws are passed with 
 heavy penalties against teaching slaves to read. Now it is obvious, that 
 by those means Slavery might be extended to remote posterity, especially 
 with what assistance the Colonization Society might be able to give them, 
 by carrying off occasionally a little of the surplusage. Every one can 
 easily see that these Southern gentlemen have before them a magnificent 
 prospect of wealth and power, provided the rest of the Union will con- 
 tinue to be their humble servants in enabling them to keep their slaves 
 in subjection. Now the avowed design of the Abolitionists is to abolish 
 Slavery — not indeed by force of arms, but by forming against it public 
 opinion, which will be even more powerful. They have combined together 
 to propagate the doctrine, that ' all men are made of one blood,' and of 
 course are 'treated equal.' Vast sums of money are now pledged to prop- 
 agate the sentiment throughout the whole land. Agents are lecturing, 
 papers are circulating, societies are forming, and thousands continually 
 joining them. It seems as if the world will soon be on fire. What is to 
 be done ? Argument has been tried and exhausted in vain ! Mobs liave 
 been tried with little effect! The heresy spreads like fire in the whirl- 
 wind. The last remedy is now demanded — Extermination entire, — noth- 
 ing less will do ! If matters go on as they are, the result is obvious : — 
 Every man who does not hold slaves will set his face against Slavery — 
 and then, how will half a million of men continue to hold more than 
 two millions in bondage? Mai'k the design! All force is disavowed; 
 but then, the slaveholder must, so soon as the tide of public opinion rolls 
 against him, yield up his slaves: he cannot hold them without aid ; m-ach 
 less can he bear the reproach that will be heaped upon him. 
 
 "It is not to be disguised. Sir, that war has broken ont between the 
 South and the North, not easily to be terminated. Political and com- 
 mercial men, for their own purposes, are industriously striving to restore 
 peace. But the peace which they may accomplish will be superficial 
 and hollow. True and permanent peace can only be restored by remov- 
 ing the cause of the war — that is, slavery. It can never be established 
 on any other terms. The sword now drawn will not be sheathed till 
 
27 
 
 victory, entire victory, is ours or theirs ; not nntil tliat deep and damning 
 stain is washed out from our nation, or tlie chains of Slavery are riveted 
 afresh where they now are, and on our necks also. It is idle, criminal, 
 to speak of peace on any other terms." 
 
 Sir, wliile we are discussing the question of tlie 
 reception of these petitions, movements are making at 
 the north, and societies are springing up like mush- 
 rooms. Here are the proceedings of a meeting held 
 within a few weeks past, at Lowell, Massachusetts, the 
 centre of the tariif interest, at which was formed a 
 "Young Men's Anti-Slavery Society," the preamble 
 of whose constitution I will read : 
 
 " PKE AMBLE. 
 
 "Whereas, unconditional slavery exists to a fearful extent amongst 
 us as a nation, in violation of those principles that moved our fathers to 
 the dreadful struggle of the Revolution — ' that all men are created equal, 
 that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, 
 that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.' 
 
 " Wheeeas, the aristocracy of the South are determined to perpetuate 
 it by means scarcely less dreadful than the tortures of the Inquisition, and 
 tlie [bastard] aristocracy of the Korth are aiding their 'chivalrous' com- 
 peers of the South in their inhuman endeavors by misrepresenting, slan- 
 dering, threatening, and imprisoning those who boldly espouse the cause 
 of universal freedom, and further by circulating publications and making 
 speeches so highly incendiary as to excite mobs, and impel them to their 
 ruthless work of terror and destruction. 
 
 " Whereas, the crisis has arrived at which the descendants of the 
 pilgrims must determine whether they Avill establish the shameful and 
 cowardly precedent of surrendering their most sacred rights at the nod 
 of an arrogant, domineering, and self-constituted aristocracy, or in the 
 spirit of their fathers manfully maintain them. 
 
 AisfD Whereas, if we remain silent and inactive we effectually sur- 
 render those rights, and with them the hopes of the slave, till the predic- 
 tion of Jefferson shall be realized, and the slave, fearless and free, shall 
 till the land of his thraldom enriched with the blood of his master. 
 
 Therefore, Kesolved, under a deep sense of duty to ourselves, to the 
 slave, to our country, and to God, that ' sink or swim, live or die, survive 
 or perish,' we will exercise the right of discussing the subject of slavery ; 
 that we wiU use all coustitutional and peaceful means for its speedy ter- 
 
28 
 
 mination — and to act the more efEcientlv, form ourselves into a society 
 and adopt the following, drc. 
 
 Here is a circular, dated " Pautucket, Ehode Isl- 
 and, Jau. 12, 1836," calling a "Ehode Island Anti- 
 Slavery Convention,'' to meet shortly at Providence. 
 It is signed by eiglit hnndred and forty persons. I 
 will read from it tlie following remarkable passage, 
 from wLicli it may be seen bow deep the roots of this 
 hostility to our institutions have struck into the foun- 
 dations of society. 
 
 " Our country friends, we hope, will attend as numerously as they 
 have signed the circular. The wealth and aristocracy of our cities are 
 against us. They sympathize not with the 'poor and needy,' but with 
 ' the arrogant and him of high look?.' Let our laboring men, then, the 
 mechanics and the farmers, attend the Convention, They can easily ar- 
 range their business so as to make it convenient to be in Providence at 
 that time." 
 
 Here, Sii', is the Prospectus of the sixth volume of 
 the " LiBEEATOE," published at Boston by Isaac Knapp. 
 Prefixed to it is an incendiary picture, and it contains 
 the following j^assage, which exhibits, possibly with 
 some exaggeration, in a strong point of view, the ex- 
 tent of the agitation on this subject throughout the 
 non-slaveholding States. 
 
 "The sixth volume of the ' Liberator ' commences on the first of Jan- 
 uary, 1836. During the term of its existence, it has succeeded, in despite 
 of calumny and a strong opposition, in dispelling the apathy of the na- 
 tion, creating an extraordinary and most auspicious interest for the op- 
 pressed, inducing a rigid investigation of the subject, and securing a host 
 of mortal combatants who are pledged never to retreat from the field. 
 The wrongs of the slaves — the danger of keeping them longer in bond- 
 age — the duty of giving them immediate freedom — are the topics of con- 
 versation or discussion in all debating societies — in lyceums — in stages 
 and steamboats — in pulpits and in periodicals — in the family circle, and 
 between a man and his friend. The current of public sentiment is turn- 
 ing, and soon it will roll a mighty river, sweeping away in its healthful 
 and resistless career all the pollutions of slavery." 
 
29 
 
 This prospectus is accompfinied by an anonymous 
 communication, for Avliicli of course I cannot vouch, 
 •wliicli states tlaat Dr. Clianuiug has softened the asper- 
 ity of liis remarks on Thompson, the foreign Anti- 
 Slavery missionary, in his late work on slavery ; that 
 the work lias, in consequence, been stereotyped by the 
 Abolitionists, and that the demand for it is insatiable. 
 
 As the last evidence which I shall offer of the ex- 
 tent of the excitement at the North upon the Slave 
 question, I will read the following extracts from a let- 
 ter from the western part of the State of New York. 
 It is dated 12th January, 1836. The writer of it is a 
 gentleman who has been a close and shrewd observer 
 of events passing around him. He is a man of talents 
 and of strict integrity, and is one who has done and 
 suffered something for his country. He says : 
 
 " The madness which influences our Northern people on the sul)ject 
 of slavery, is well calculated to fill the stoutest with dismay. The spirit 
 "wliich followed the Utica and Peterboro' Convention of Abolitionists has 
 totally changed the question from that of the emancipation of the slave 
 to that of the continuance of the Union. 
 
 =1: :•: :i! :!: * * * :H 
 
 "The North is now laboring to unite her people against you. The 
 effort is immense and continual. The enclosed anti-slavery pamphlets 
 and some 'Emancipators' were distributed at a Presbyterian prayer meet- 
 ing in my neighborhood the other day, by the president of tlie anti-slavery 
 society of this county, and were handed to me by the Deacon of the church, 
 through the hands of one of the men in my employ. The object is to 
 unite the ISTorthern people in hatred of the people of the South, by false 
 representations of the condition of their slaves, and by charges of cruelty, 
 immorality, and irreligion. I endeavor to convince my neighbors that 
 these pamphlets are false in every particular, and that if they join in the 
 cry of abolition, they must partake of the enormous sin of bringing on a 
 civil war, of destroying our Union, and of causing a renewal of the hor- 
 rors of St. Domingo. And for what do they labor to bring on their 
 country and their fellow-citizens of tlie South these dreadful calamities ? 
 It is for the liberty of the slave ; and in gaining that liberty, or in the at- 
 tempt, they inevitably lose their own. But this view has no weight; the 
 
30 
 
 eifort to free your slaves will be made ; and Confjress will be the ul- 
 timate scene of f.lie struggle, Onr next elections •will mainly turn on this 
 question, uiiless you settle it now and forever; that is, before this session 
 expires. If you adjourn without so settling it, you will have to resort to 
 the bayonet to adjust it." 
 
 [Mr. Granger and Mr. Lee, of New York, demand- 
 ed the name of the anthor. Mr. H. said, I cannot give 
 it. I will vouch for his character. But such is the 
 state of society around him, I fear it would prove 
 dangerous, if not fatal to him, to disclose his name.] 
 
 Mr. Speaker, I believe what I have just read. Sir, 
 there can no longer be a doubt of the deep, pervading, 
 uncontrollable excitement which shakes the anti-slave 
 States on this subject, nor of the energy and power 
 with which the Abolitionists are pressing their mad 
 and fatal schemes. Every mail from the North brings 
 fresh news of agitation, every breeze is tainted with 
 it. It spreads like wild-fire in the prairies, and throws 
 its red glare up to heaven, that all may see while it 
 sweeps with resistless fury everything before it. I call 
 on every slaveholder in this House, and in this coun- 
 try, to mark its fearful progress and prepare to meet 
 it. He who falters here or elsewhere, he who shrinks 
 from taking the highest and the strongest ground at 
 once, is a traitor ! A traitor to his native soil ! A 
 traitor to the memory of those from whom he has in- 
 heritedu his rights ! A traitor to his helpless offspring, 
 who call upon him for protection ! And on his head 
 be the blood which his treachery or cowardice may 
 cause to flow. 
 
 Allow me now, Sir, to examine more closely the 
 real designs of those Abolitionists, the means by which 
 they will attempt to effect them, and the probable 
 es ult. Their designs are very succinctly stated in the 
 
31 
 
 volume whicli I hold in my hand. It is a treatise on 
 this subject entitled " Jay's luquiiy " — written by Wil- 
 liam Jay, a judge, I believe, of the State of New York, 
 and a son of the distinguished John Jay. More tban 
 five thousand copies of this work, I am told, have been 
 sold. He says, " the Society aimed at effecting the fol- 
 loiving objects^ viz. : 
 
 " 1st. The immediate Abolition of Slavery through- 
 out the United States. 
 
 " 2d. As a necessary consequence, the suppression 
 of the American Slave-Trade. 
 
 " 3d. The ultimate elevation of the black pojDula- 
 tion to an equality wdth the white in civil and reli- 
 gious privileges." — p. 141. 
 
 Sir, the abolition of slavery can be expected to be 
 effected in but three ways : through the medium of 
 the slaveholder — or the Government — or the slaves 
 themselves. 
 
 I think I may say that any appeal to the slave- 
 holders will be in vain. In the whole history of the 
 question of Emancipation in Europe or America, I do 
 not remember a dozen instances of masters freeinsf 
 their slaves, at least during their own lifetime, from 
 any qualms of conscience. If they are seized with 
 these qualms, they usually sell their slaves first, and 
 then give in their adhesion to the cause, as has been 
 the case with many whom I could mention. 
 
 The Abolitionist can appeal only to the hopes or 
 fears or interest of the slaveholder to induce him to 
 emancipate his slaves. So far as our hopes are con- 
 cerned, I believe I can say we are perfectly satisfied. 
 We have been born and bred in a slave-country. Our 
 habits ai'e accommodated to them, and so far as we have 
 
32 
 
 been able to observe other states of society abroad, we 
 see notliing to invite us to excliauge our own ; but on 
 the contrary, everything to induce us to prefer it 
 above all others. 
 
 As to our fears, I know it has been said by a dis- 
 tinguished Virginian, and quoted on this floor, " that 
 the fire-bell in Richmond never rings at night, but the 
 mother presses her infant more closely to her breast 
 in dread of servile insurrection." Sir, it is all a flourish. 
 There may be nervous men and timid women, whose 
 imairinations are haunted with unwonted fears amono: 
 us, as there are in all communities on earth, but in no 
 part of the world have men of ordinary firmness, less 
 fear of danger from their operatives than we have. 
 The fires which in a few years have desolated JSTorman- 
 dy and. Aujou, the great machine-burning in the heart 
 of England, the bloody and eternal struggles of the 
 Irish Catholics, and the mobs which for some years 
 past have figured in our Northern States, burning con- 
 vents, tearing down houses, spreading dismay and ruin 
 through their cities, and even taking life, are appro- 
 priate illustrations of the peace and security of a com- 
 munity whose laborers are all called free. On the 
 other hand, during the two hundred years that slavery 
 has existed in this country, there has, I believe, been 
 but one serious insurrection, and that one very limited 
 in its extent. 
 
 The appeal, however, to our interest, is that which 
 might appear to promise much success, for whatever it 
 is the interest of a community to do, that (sooner or 
 later) it will be sure to do. If you will look over the 
 world, you will fi.nd that in all those countries where 
 slavery has been found unprofitable, it has been abol- 
 
38 
 
 islied. In northern latitudes, wliere no great agricul- 
 tural staple is produced, and wliere care, skill, and a 
 close economy enter largely into the elements of pro- 
 duction, free labor has been found, more valuable than 
 that of slaves. You will there find labor usually ex- 
 ercised in small combinations under the immediate eye 
 of a watchful and frugal master. I speak more par- 
 ticularly of those who cultivate the soil; but the large 
 masses of mechanical operatives who are brought 
 together form no exception to the principle. They are 
 classified. There is an accurate division of their labor ; 
 each branch of it requires peculiar art, and in the 
 higher departments a degree of skill must be attained, 
 to produce which, stronger stimulants are necessary 
 than can be ordinarily applied to slaves. 
 
 In such countries the dominant classes have found 
 it to their advantage to permit each individual to ac- 
 cumulate for himself, and to deprive him of a portion 
 of his earnings sufficient for their purposes through 
 the operations of the government. Hence the partial 
 emancipation of the serfs of the continent of Europe. 
 Hence the abandonment of villeinage in England. 
 And hence the emancipation of slaves in the free states 
 of this Union. But in southern latitudes, where great 
 agricultural staples are produced, and where not only 
 a large combination of labor under the direction of 
 one head is required, but it is also necessary that the 
 connection between the operatives and that head should 
 be absolute and indissoluble, domestic shivery is indis- 
 pensable. To such a country it is as natural as the 
 clime itself — as to the birds and beasts to which that 
 climate is cons-enial. The camel loves the desert ; the 
 reindeer seeks the everlasting snows ; the wild fowl 
 
34 
 
 gather to tbe waters ; and the eagle wings his flight 
 above the mountains. It is equally the order of Prov- 
 idence that slavery sliould exist among a planting 
 people, beneath a southern sun. There the laborer 
 must become a fixture of the soil. His task is not from 
 day to day, nor from month to month, but from season 
 to season, and from year to year. He must be there 
 to clear, to break up, to plant, to till, to gather, and 
 to clear again ; and he must be kept there by a never- 
 ceasing, unavoidable, and irresistible force. The system 
 of " strihes " so universally j)ractised in all other kinds 
 of labor would desolate a planting country in a few 
 years. If, in the heat of the crop, when the loss of 
 one or two days even may irreparably ruin it, the 
 laborers were to abandon the fields and demand higher 
 wao^es, the owner would have no other alternative 
 than to say to them, " Work, and take enough to satis- 
 fy yourselves" — which would, of course, be all. Sir, 
 it is not the interest of the planters of the South to 
 emancipate their slaves, and it never can be shown to 
 be so. 
 
 Slavery is said to be an evil ; that it impoverishes 
 the people, and destroys their morals. If it be an 
 evil, it is one to us alone, and we are contented with 
 it — why should others interfere ? But it is no evil. 
 On the contrary, I believe it to be the greatest of all 
 the great blessings which a kind Providence has be- 
 stowed upon our favored region. For without it, our 
 fertile soil and our fructifying climate would have been 
 given to us in vain. As it is, the history of the short 
 period during which we have enjoyed it has rendered 
 our Southern country proverbial for its wealth, its 
 genius, and its manners. 
 
35 
 
 Failing as the Abolitionists must do in every ap- 
 peal to the slaveholder, let us see with what j)robabil- 
 ity of success they can call upon the Government to 
 emancipate our negroes. There are about 2.300,000 
 slaves at this moment in tlie United States, and their 
 annual increase is about 60,000. Sir, even the British 
 Government did not dare to emancipate the slaves of 
 its enslaved West India subjects without some com- 
 pensation. They gave them about 60 per cent, of their 
 value. It could scarcely be expected that this Govern- 
 ment would undertake to free our slaves without pay- 
 ing for them. Their value, at $400 average (and 
 they are now worth more than that), would amount 
 to upwards of nine hundred millions. The value of 
 their annual increase, alone, is twenty-four millions of 
 dollars ; so that to free them in one hundred years, 
 without the expense of taking them from the country, 
 would require an annual appropriation of between 
 thirty-three and thirty -four millions of dollars. The 
 thing is physically impossible. 
 
 But it is impossible for another reason : the mo- 
 ment this House undertakes to legislate upon this sub- 
 ject, it dissolves the Union. Should it be my fortune 
 to have a seat upon this floor, I will abandon it the 
 instant the first decisive step is taken, looking towards 
 legislation on this subject. I will go home to preach, 
 and if I can, to practise disunion, and civil war, if needs 
 be. A revolution must ensue, and. this Republic sink 
 in blood. 
 
 The only remaining chance for the Abolitionists to 
 succeed in their nefarious schemes will be by appealing 
 to the slaves themselves ; and, say what they will, this 
 is the great object at which thev aim. For this are 
 
36 
 
 all their meetings, publications, lectures, and missions ; 
 to excite a servile insurrection, and, in the language of 
 the miscreant Thompson, to " teach the slave to cut his 
 master'' s throaty This will be no easy task. Sir, it is 
 a proverb, that no human being is perfectly contented 
 with his lot, and it may be true that some strolling 
 emissary may extract, occasionally, complaints from 
 Southern slaves and spread them before the world. 
 But such instances are rare. As a class, I say it boldly, 
 there is not a happier, more contented race upon the 
 face of the earth than our slaves. I have been born 
 and brought up in the midst of them, and so far as my 
 knowledge and experience extend, I should say they 
 have every reason to be happy. Lightly tasked, well 
 clothed, well fed — far better than the free laborers of 
 any country in the world, om* own and those perhaps 
 of the other States of this confederacy alone excepted 
 — their lives and persons protected by the law, all 
 their sufferings alleviated by the kindest and most 
 interested care, and their domestic affections cherished 
 and maintained — at least so far as I have known, with 
 conscientious delicacy. 
 
 A gentleman from ^lassachusetts (Mr. Ada3is) has 
 introduced upon this floor the abolition cant of wives 
 and husbands, parents and children, torn from each 
 other's arms, and separated forever. Such scenes but 
 rarely, very rai-ely happen. I do not believe such 
 separations are near so common among slaves, as di- 
 vorces are among white persons where they can be 
 with much facility obtained. I am very sure that 
 children and parents do not so often part, as in the 
 ordinary course of emigration in this country they do 
 among the freest and proudest of our laud. Sir, our 
 
87 
 
 slaves are a peaceful, kind hearted and affectionate 
 race, satisfied with their lot, happy in tlieir comforts, 
 and devoted to their masters. It will not be an easy 
 thing to seduce them from their fidelity. But if Ly an 
 artful and delusive appeal to his excited passions the 
 Abolitionist should succeed in drawing the slave into 
 his fiendish purposes, our never sleeping watchfulness 
 would speedily detect every conspiracy that might be 
 formed. Our habits in this respect have become a 
 second instinct. Our vigilance is as prompt and per- 
 sonal as our courage — as faithful a guardian, and not 
 more troublesome. It does not arise from fear, but 
 from the fact that we ourselves, to a great extent, 
 constitute our own police, and in guarding against 
 minor evils will not fail to discover every danger of 
 great magnitude. Such has been and such will always 
 be the case. Every insurrection which has yet been 
 meditated, — and there have been but very few, — when 
 not discovered by some faithful slave, has been soon 
 discovered by the whites, the unfortunate occurence at 
 Southampton only excepted — if that can be called an 
 insurrection which was the bloody outbreaking of six 
 drunken wretches. I believe that every appeal to the 
 slave to assist, through the horrid process of burning 
 and assassination, in his own emancipation, much as it 
 is (in secret at least) cherished, will be without success. 
 Sir, I feel firmly convinced that, under any 
 circumstances, and by any means, emancipation, grad- 
 ual or immediate, is impossible. We may be distm'bed 
 in our comforts, harassed, injured, perhaps some par- 
 tial sufferings may be the consequences of their mad 
 and savage projects, but slavery can never be abolish- 
 ed. The doom of Ham has been branded on the form 
 3 
 
38 
 
 and features of his African descendants. The hand of 
 fate has united his color and his destiny. Man cannot 
 separate what God hath joined. 
 
 But, Mr. Speaker, admitting for a moment that 
 the Abolitionist could accomplish all his objects. 
 Suppose the bonds of the slave were broken peace- 
 fully, and he was turned loose to choose his life and 
 occupation on the face of the earth, what would prob- 
 ably be his actual state ? Sir, we have some experi- 
 ence on this subject. I hold in my hand a paper con- 
 taining an account of the situation of a colony of free 
 blacks in Brown county, in Ohio, which I ask permis- 
 sion for the Clerk to read. 
 
 ABOLITION. 
 
 From the Cincinnati Gazette. 
 
 " Some forty miles from Cinciunati, to the East, are two settlements 
 of free negroes — probably near a thousand — men, women and children, of 
 the true ebony color ; with a very little mixture of the mahogany or lighter 
 shades. The negroes own the land occupied by them, but without the 
 power to sell. Each family has a small farm. They are emancipated 
 slaves, and these lands were purchased expressly for them, and parcelled 
 out among them about fifteen years ago. 
 
 " Their lands are not of the best quality of Ohio lands ; but, by good 
 management could be made very good — they are particularly well adapted 
 to grass, either meadow or pasture. 
 
 " Having been formerly slaves and compelled to work, one would sup- 
 pose they ought to have industrious habits. They have had every induce- 
 ment to industry and good conduct held out to them. The experiment 
 was to test the merits of the negro race under the most favorable circum- 
 stances for success. 
 
 " Has this experiment succeeded ? No it has not. In all Ohio, can 
 any white settlement be found equally wretched, equally unproductive ? 
 
 " Farms given to them fifteen years ago, instead of being well im- 
 proved, and the timber preserved for farming, have been sadly managed — 
 small, awkward clearings, and those not in grass, but exhausted and worn 
 out in corn crops — the timber greatly destroyed — wretched log houses, 
 with mud floors ; with chimneys of mud and wood — with little timber 
 for further farming. 
 
39 
 
 " Thoy are so excessively lazy and stupid, that the people of George- 
 town (near by their camps) and the neighboring farmers will not employ 
 them as work hands to any extent. They do not raise produce enough 
 on their own lands to feed their families, much less do they have a surplus 
 for sale abroad. They pass most of their time in their little sorry cabins ; 
 too listless even to fiddle and dance. One may ride through the " negro 
 camp," as they are called, passing a dozen straggling cabins with smoke 
 issuing out of the ends, in the middle of clearings, without seeing a soul 
 either at work or play. The fear of starvation makes them work the least 
 possible quantity, while they are much too lazy to play. 
 
 " Why do not the zealous Abolitionists go there and see the experi- 
 ment in all its beauty — the slave changed into a free, but wretched sav- 
 age I "Why not make something of these thousand negroes ? There are 
 not more than two or three families out of the whole who are improved 
 by the change from slavery to freedom. 
 
 " The negro settlements are a dead weight upon Brown county, as to 
 any productive benefit from the negro lands, or from negro labor ; and 
 that space of country might as well, to this day, have remained in posses- 
 sion of the Indians. 
 
 "If Southern wealth can be applied to buy and colonize among us sucli 
 a worthless population, what ftirmor in Ohio is safe ? lias he any guar- 
 antee that a black colony will not be established in his neighborhood. 
 
 " Let any one who wishes to learn the operation of emancipated 
 negroes, visit the Brown county camps. As they sink in laziness, poverty 
 and filth, they increase in numbers — their only produce is children. They 
 want nothing but cowries to make them equal to the negroes of the Niger." 
 
 Such, Sir, are the blessed fruits of Abolition ; and 
 to make such miserable and degraded wretches as these 
 are we called on to give up our happy, industrious, 
 and useful slaves— to strike out of existence nine 
 hundred millions of active and inestimable capital, and 
 impoverish and desolate the fairest region of the 
 globe ? But it is said that this is the dark side of the 
 picture, and that emancipation — " gradual emancipa- 
 tion," would produce far better consequences. Al- 
 though I am perfectly satisfied that no human process 
 can elevate the black man to an equality with the 
 white — admitting that it could be done — are we pre- 
 pared for the consequences which then must follow ? 
 
40 
 
 Are the people of the north prepared to restore to 
 them two-fifths of their rights of voters, and place their 
 political power on an equality with their ov/n 1 Are 
 we prepared to see them mingling in our legislation ? 
 Is any portion of this country prepared to see them 
 enter these halls and take their seats by our sides, in 
 perfect equality with the white representatives of the 
 Anglo-Saxon race — to see them fill that chair — to see 
 them placed at the heads of your Departments ; or to 
 see perhaps some Toussaint, or Boyer, grasp the Pres- 
 idential wreath and wield the destinies of this great 
 Kepublic ? From such a picture I turn with irrepress- 
 ible disgust. 
 
 But, Sir, no such consequences as either of these 
 views exhibit can take place with us. There is no 
 such thing as gradual emancipation, even if we were 
 to consent to it. Those who know the negro character 
 cannot doubt, what the recent experiments in the 
 West Indies fully prove, that the first step you take 
 towards emancipation bursts at once and forever the 
 social ties of the slave. In our country, where the 
 two classes of population are so nearly equal, such a 
 state of things as now exists in Jamaica would not last 
 a day — an hour. Sir, any species of emancipation 
 with us would be followed instantly by chnl war be- 
 tween the whites and the blacks. A bloody, exter- 
 minating war, the result of which could not be doubt- 
 ful, although it would be accompanied with horrors 
 such as history has not recorded. The blacks would 
 be annihilated, or once more subjugated and reduced 
 to slavery. Such a catastrophe would be inevitable. 
 
 Permit me now, Sir, for a moment to look into the 
 causes of this vast and dangerous excitement, for it is 
 
41 
 
 intimately connected with tlie true merits of this im- 
 portant question. I am not disposed to attribute it to 
 any peculiar feelings of hostility entertained by the 
 North against the South, arising from position merely. 
 It is indeed natural that a people not owning slaves 
 should entertain a strong aversion to domestic servi- 
 tude. It is natural that the descendants of the Pm"i- 
 tans, without any deep investigation of the subject, 
 should have an instinctive hostility to slavery in every 
 shape. It is natural that foreigners, with whom the 
 North is crowded — just released themselves from 
 bondage — extravagant in their notions of the freedom 
 of our institutions, and profoundly ignorant of the 
 principles on which society and government are organ- 
 ized — should view with horror the condition of the 
 Southern operatives. And here let me say that these 
 opinions, so natural, so strong, and so distinctly mark- 
 ing the geographical divisions of our country, indicate 
 differences which, if pushed much further, will inevi- 
 tably separate us into two nations ; a separation 
 which I should regard as a calamity to the w^hole 
 human race, and which we of the South will endeavor 
 to avert by every means save the sacrifice of our liber- 
 ties, or the subversion of our domestic institutions. 
 
 But other causes are at work. This excitement 
 belongs to the spirit of the age. Every close observer 
 must perceive that we are approaching, if we have not 
 already reached, a new era in civilization. The man 
 of the nineteenth century is not the man of the seven- 
 teenth, and widely different from him of the eighteenth. 
 Within the last sixty years there have been greater 
 changes — not on the face of the earth, but in the his- 
 tory of civilized man, than had taken place before, 
 
42 
 
 perhaps, since the reign of Charlemagne. The progress 
 and the philosophy of the events which have brought 
 us to this state may be readily perceived and stated. 
 Formerly all learning was confined to the clergy — all 
 political power to the hereditary rulers of the people. 
 The invention of printing dispersed knowledge among 
 the middle classes. The clergy could no longer ab- 
 sorb it all. The first effect of this was the destruction 
 of ecclesiastical despotism, which was consummated by 
 the Reformation. The next, a war of intelligence 
 against political oppression. But the glittering temp- 
 tations of power seduced it from its purposes — allured 
 it to its assistance, and used its energies to rivet more 
 closely their chains upon the people. At length, 
 Government could no longer absorb all the talents and 
 acquirements and ambition of the world. Then the 
 eftects of the contest beo-an to show themselves. The 
 tremendous conflicts for political ascendancy which 
 took place in the British Parliament during the reign 
 of George the Second, were followed by the American 
 Revolution, which was initiated by the great intellects 
 of this country, whom the mother government could 
 neither conciliate to its abuses, nor purchase, nor in- 
 timidate. Next came that terrible tragedy, the French 
 Revolution, which was confessedly l)rought about by 
 the writings of the great philosophers of France. Since 
 that period, man appears no longer to be the being 
 that he was. His moral nature seems to have been 
 changed as by some sudden revelation from the lips 
 of the Almighty ; although the close observer sees that 
 the great cause which had been so long and so silent- 
 ly, but surely working to effect this purpose, was the 
 wide increase of knowledge. Bursting from the tram- 
 
43 
 
 mels of centuries of ignorance and slotli, he has been 
 pressing onward for good and evil, with an energy 
 tremendous and terrific. All nature has felt the im- 
 pulse. The thin air has been converted into a resist- 
 less power. Steam, whose every definition was an 
 useless vapor, has Ijeen made the most tremendous 
 engine which has ever yet been placed in human hanc^s 
 — overcoming in its infancy time, space, and resistance 
 with a celerity and ease just not supernatural. Rail- 
 roads have been thrown over swamps, rivers, lakes and 
 mountains, which, connecting new and distant points, 
 open vast channels for intercourse and commerce. 
 Labor-saving machinery of every kind has been incal- 
 culably improved : much of it perfected. In one word, 
 we have reached a period when physical impossibilities 
 are no longer spoken of What was visionary yester- 
 day, is planned, estimated and resolved upon to-day 
 — to-morrow it is put in execution, and the third day 
 superseded by something more wonderful and more 
 important still. 
 
 During the period of this mighty change, the great 
 struggle between the rulers and the ruled has been 
 carried on with corresponding vigor ; through the thou- 
 sand channels which genius has opened, wealth has 
 flown in to aid it in its contest with the strong arm of 
 power. The two combined, finding themselves still 
 unable to cope with the time-hardened strength of here- 
 ditary government, and eager, impatient, almost frenzied 
 to achieve its conquest, have called in to their assistance 
 another ally — the lyeople. Not the " people " as we 
 have hitherto been accustomed in this country to define 
 that term, but the mob — the sans-cullottes. Pro- 
 claimina: as their watchword that now prostituted sen- 
 
44 
 
 liment "that all men are born free and equal," they 
 have rallied to their standard the isrnorant, uneducated, 
 semi-barbarous mass which swarms and starves upon 
 the face of Europe ! Unnatural and debasing union ! 
 Hereditary institutions are gone. Already have the 
 nobility of France been overthrown. Their days are 
 numbered in the British Empire. Let them go, I 
 am not their advocate. What next? Confiscation 
 has hegun! The result is as obvious as if it were writ- 
 ten on the wall. The hounds of Acteon turned upon 
 their master. Genius and wealth, stimulated by " an 
 ambition that o'erleaps itself," have called these spirits 
 from the vasty deep ; but they will down no more. 
 The spoils of victory are theirs, and they will gorge 
 and batten on them. 
 
 In this country we have no heriditary institutions 
 to attract the first fury of this tempest, which is also 
 brewing here, for the electric fluid has crossed the 
 ocean, and the elements denote that it is expanding 
 over the northern arch of our horizon. The question 
 of Emancipation, which in Europe is only a collateral 
 issue, a mere ramification of the great controversy be- 
 tween hereditary powder and ultimate agrarianism, has 
 become with us the first and most important question ; 
 partly because the levellers here have not yet felt the 
 heavy pressure of political oppression, and partly be- 
 cause they have regarded our institutions of slavery as 
 most assimilated to an aristocracy. In this they are 
 right. I accept the terms. It is a government of the 
 best, combining all the advantages, and possessing but 
 few of the disadvantages of the aristocracy of the old 
 world. Without fostering: to an unwarrantable extent 
 the pride, the exclusiveuess, the selfishness, the thirst 
 
45 
 
 for sway, the contempt for the right of others, wliich 
 distinguish the nobility of Europe — it gives ns tlieir 
 education, their polish, their munificence, their high 
 honor, their undaunted spirit. Slavery does indeed 
 create an aristocracy — an aristocracy of talents, of vir- 
 tue, of generosity and courage. In a slave country 
 every freeman is an aristocrat. Be he rich or poor, if 
 he does not possess a single slave, he has l)een Ijorn to 
 all the natural advantages of the society in which he is 
 placed and all its honors lie open before him, inviting 
 his genius and industry. Sir, I do firmly believe that 
 domestic slavery regulated as ours is produces the 
 highest toned, the purest, best organization of society 
 that has ever existed on the face of the earth. 
 
 Against this institution war has been commenced. 
 A crusade is proclaimed. The banner has been hoisted, 
 and on it is inscribed that visionary and disastrous sen- 
 timent, "Equality to all mankind;" although there is 
 no analogous equality in the moral or physical creation, 
 in earth, air, or water — in this world, or in the world 
 to come, if our religion be not altogether wrong ! The 
 sans-culottes are moving. On the banks of the Hud- 
 son, the Ohio and the Susquehannah — on the hills, and 
 in the vales, and along the " iron-bound coast " of im- 
 maculate New England, they are mustering their hosts 
 and preparing for their ravages. Let them come ! we 
 will be ready. Standing on our institutions, which of 
 themselves give us a strength almost impregnable, and 
 rallying around them as one man, with the help of 
 God I believe we shall be able to roll back the frantic 
 tide to whence it came. But woe unto the men of 
 substance in the North whose infatuation may impel 
 them to join this fatal crusade. The bloodhounds 
 
46 
 
 they are setting upon us, successful or unsuccessful, 
 will in clue time come back from the chase ; and come 
 hack to wring from them the accumulations of their in- 
 dustry, to overturn their altars and desolate their house- 
 hold. 
 
 Mr. Speaker, I have touched on topics to-day which 
 have not heretofore been broached within these walls. 
 In thus departing from the usual silence of the South 
 upon this subject, it may be thought that I have gone 
 too far. But times have changed. They change before 
 our eyes with the rapidity of thought. Painful as it 
 is, the truth should now be told, for shortly it will 
 speak itself, and in a voice of thunder. We cannot, 
 in my judgment, avoid this danger longer, by closing 
 our eyes upon it and lulling our people into a false se- 
 curity. Nor can we justify ourselves before the world 
 for the course which we may be compelled to take in 
 order to maintain our rights, without boldly declaring 
 what those rights are, defining them and showing that 
 they are inestimable. All minor considerations must 
 give way to effect those all important objects. These 
 have been my motives for the course I have taken 
 here. I leave it to the approaching crisis to determine 
 whether I am rig^ht or wronof. 
 
 Sir, if I were asked what it is, under existing cir- 
 cumstances, the South desires the North to do, I should 
 say, " Pass laws in your different States forbidding, by 
 the severest penalties, the publication or circulation of 
 such incendiary pamphlets as I have exhibited here 
 to-day." This your Legislatures are fully competent 
 to do without infringing on freedom of speech, or free- 
 dom of the press. That freedom means well-regulated, 
 legal freedom, and not unrestrained licentiousness. 
 
47 
 
 Have you not laws to punish libel and slander ? If a 
 citizen of the State of New York were to say of another 
 citizen that he was a "land pirate," "a murderer," and 
 a " man-steal er," would he not be liable to an action of 
 slander ? If he were to write these things of him, or 
 caricature him by infamous and disgusting pictorial 
 representations, would he not be indictable for libel ? 
 What violation, then, of social or constitutional right, 
 would it be to extend the benefit of these same laws 
 to us ? 
 
 We ask nothing more than the recognition of a 
 well-known principle of international law, a striking 
 illustration of which has happened within the memory 
 of many who now hear me. It will be recollected 
 that just before the war between France and England, 
 which broke out in 1803, the English presses teemed 
 with abuse of the First ConsuL Bonaparte complained 
 to the English Ministers. They indicted Peltier, tried, 
 and convicted him. The declaration of war only pre- 
 vented him from receiving his punishment. If England, 
 where there have been more battles fought for the 
 liberty of speech, and of the press, than in any portion 
 of the world, felt herself bound to indict a journalist 
 for libelling her greatest enemy, the enemy, as she 
 deemed, of the whole human race, on the very eve of 
 war with him, is it unreasonable to require you to ex- 
 tend the same justice to the grossly slandered and 
 deeply injured people of the South ; brethren as you 
 call us of one great confederacy, devoted to the same 
 great principles of constitutional liberty, and who have 
 so often mingled our blood with yours, on the same 
 glorious battle field? 
 
 Sir, I cannot believe gentlemen are sincere when 
 
48 
 
 tliey urge here tliis slang about the right of petition, 
 and the freedom of speech and of the pi-ess, as though 
 any one here had the remotest desire to curtail them. 
 When Tappan and Garrison, and Gerrit Smith, and 
 such as they are, use this cant, I understand them : 
 they wish to inflame the popular passions by false ap- 
 peals to popular rights. But when such men as the 
 gentlemen from Massachusetts (Messrs. Adams and 
 Gushing), and the gentleman from New York (Mr. 
 Granger), who fevored us the other day with eulogiums 
 on certain Abolitionists, introduce it on this floor, I do 
 not — yes, I do understand them. But I will not press 
 that point, for I wish to connect this question with no 
 political intrigues or discussions. 
 
 I will say frankly that I do not believe we shall be 
 able to obtain the passage of such laws as I have allud- 
 ed to in any non-slaveholding States. Sir, there is not 
 a man of any note, or at least of any political aspiration, 
 who will dare to make such propositions. He would 
 be prostrated, and forever. He would, be covered with 
 a mountain of public odium under which he could 
 never rise again. And I want no stronger evidence of 
 the true state of public sentiment in those States than 
 this single fact. 
 
 What, Sir, does the South ask next ? She asks, and 
 this at least she has a right to demand, that these pe- 
 titions be not received here and recorded on your jour- 
 nals. This House at least ought to be a sanctuary, into 
 which no such topic should be allowed to enter. Eep- 
 resentatives from every section of the Eepublic ought 
 to be permitted to come here faithfully to perform 
 their duties to their constituents and their country, 
 without being subjected to these incendiarv attacks — 
 
their feelinofs insulted, their riahts assaiilteil, and the 
 falsest calumnies of themselves and those they repre- 
 sent thrown on them dailv, and perpetuated to their 
 posterity, and all the world, among the archives of 
 the Union. Is this demanding anything unreasonable, 
 unjust, unkind? Sir, we cannot endure it. If these 
 things are to be permited here you drive us from your 
 councils. Let the consequences rest on you. 
 
 But, Mr. Speaker, even if this House should refuse 
 to receive these petitions, I am not one of those who 
 permits himself to trust that the conflict will be at an 
 end. No, sir, we shall still have to meet it elsewhere. 
 We will meet it. It is our inevitable destiny to meet 
 it in whatever shape it comes, or to whatever extrem- 
 ity it may go. Our State Legislatures will have to 
 pass laws regulating our police with a strict hand. 
 They will have to pass and to enforce laws prohibiting 
 the circulation of incendiary pamphlets through the 
 mail within their limits. We may have to adopt an 
 entire non-intercourse with the free States, and finally. 
 Sir, we may have to dissolve this Union. From none 
 of these measures can we shrink as circumstances may 
 make them necessary. Our last thought will be to 
 give up our Institutions. We were born and bred 
 under them, and will maintain them or die in their 
 defence. And I warn the Abolitionists, ignorant, in- 
 fatuated barbarians as they are, that if chance shall 
 throw any of them into our hands he may expect a 
 felon's death. No human law, no human influence 
 can arrest his tate. The superhuman instinct of self- 
 preservation, the indignant feelings of an outraged 
 people, to whose hearth-stones he is seeking to carry 
 death and desolation, pronounce his doom ; and if we 
 
50 
 
 failed to accord to him ignominious death, we should 
 be unworthy of the forms we wear, unworthy of the 
 beings whom it is our duty to protect, and we should 
 merit and expect the indignation of offended Heaven. 
 
MESSAGE 
 
 TO THE SENATE AND HOUSE OP REPRESENTATIVES OF THE STATE 
 OP SOUTH CAROLINA, NOV. 28, 1843. 
 
 Executive Department, } 
 Columbia, Mv. 28, 1843. ^ 
 
 Gentlemen of the Senate and House of Representatives : 
 
 SnfCE your adjournment the late long continued 
 depression of financial affairs throughout the world 
 has reached and passed what we have much reason to 
 believe was its final crisis. During the last Spring 
 prices of every description fell to the lowest point ever 
 known, but have since continued steadily, though grad- 
 ually, to advance. The revival of business has not 
 been the effect of accidental causes, or speculative ope- 
 rations, or expansion of the paper currency ; nor is it 
 owing to any act of legislation in any part of the 
 world, favorable to trade. It has been the natural 
 result of industry, economy, and time, which have 
 swept off a large proportion of the embarrassments 
 created by the disasters of the past, and accumulated 
 at all the great commercial points, in safe hands, a vast 
 and unexampled amount of sound metallic capital. 
 We have, therefore, good reason to indulge the hope 
 
52 
 
 that it will be permanent, and to felicitate ourselves 
 on the dawn of a new era in trade and finance. 
 
 There is but one serious obstacle, now apparent, 
 that can arrest and roll back, in any short period, the 
 returning tide of our prosperity ; and that is, the nar- 
 row and delusive idea, which still seems to prevail 
 with a majority of those who rule the world, that they 
 can promote the interests of their respective countries, 
 by fettering trade and building up monopolies. Until 
 we seriously approximate to universal Free Trade — to 
 an unrestricted exchange of the surplus production of 
 one country for the surplus of another, by which 
 means, the wants of all will be supplied in the cheapest 
 manner, and commerce, currency, and credit are estab- 
 lished in natural and enduring channels, the periodical 
 recurrence of speculations, fluctuations and disasters 
 that will convulse the world, must be looked for with 
 perfect certainty. 
 
 It is a matter for congratulation, that England, the 
 source and centre, from which have directly or indi- 
 rectly sjDrung nearly all the great improvements of 
 modern times, has given evidence of a serious change 
 on this great question. Her recent legislation has been 
 decidedly directed towards a relaxation of her prohib- 
 itory and protective laws. It is to be regretted, at 
 the same time, that nearly every other important 
 power in Europe, has wdthin a few years past, in its 
 convulsive eiforts to throw off the embarrassments of 
 the time, increased restrictions upon trade. Whilst 
 our own government, recurring to that policy which is 
 every where els6 regarded as one of the most odious 
 features of aristocratic and despotic power, and held 
 in abhorrence by the people, has re-enacted its tariff 
 
53 
 
 laws, and made them more rigorous and oppressive 
 than they have ever been before. That a government 
 like ours, purporting to be based on perfect freedom 
 and equality, should perpetrate such laws ; and that a 
 people so intelligent as ours — so distrustful of their 
 rulers — so ready to resist injustice and oppression — 
 four-fifths of whom are agriculturists, all deeply injured 
 by restrictions upon foreign commerce — should permit 
 such an execrable system to be fastened on them, is 
 one of the most extraordinary events in the history of 
 the age. To the enlightened views so rapidly gaining 
 ground among those who control the English govern- 
 ment — to the progress of true knowledge among the 
 other States of Europe, and to the change of power 
 into other hands which is just about to be realized in 
 our country, I look with confidence for a vast amelio- 
 ration and early abandonment of the whole system of 
 protective duties. 
 
 In the meantime it should be borne constantly in 
 mind, that any departure from the great principles of 
 industry and economy, and a steady faith that with the 
 practice of these two cardinal virtues time will do the 
 rest, 'must be attended with the most serious conse- 
 quences to our future welfare. And perhaps no occa- 
 sion could be more auspicious than the present for 
 you to institute a close and searching examination into 
 the precise condition of our State, in all its depart- 
 ments, and introduce such alterations and reforms as 
 will enable her to take the tide of prosperity to most 
 advantage, and maintain it longest. 
 
 Her financial condition claims, perhaps, at this 
 especial moment, your fii'st attention. The public debt 
 
54 
 
 of the State may be put down in round numbers at 
 three millions and a half of dollars ($3,500,000). 
 
 The foUoioing is a correct Statement of the items ^ viz. : 
 
 Object of the loan. 
 
 Date. 
 
 Amount out- 
 
 Rate of in- 
 
 When relm- 
 
 standing. 
 
 terest. 
 
 bursahle. 
 
 1794-5 
 
 $193,501 85 
 
 3 per cent. 
 
 At will 
 
 1824 
 
 250,000 00 
 
 5 
 
 J anuary 1845 
 
 1826 
 
 300,000 00 
 
 5 
 
 1846 
 
 (I 
 
 10,000 00 
 
 6 
 
 1860 
 
 1838 
 
 141,662 50 
 
 5 
 
 1S58 
 
 " 
 
 1,035.555 55 
 
 5 
 
 1860 
 
 " 
 
 964,444 44 6 
 
 1870 
 
 1839 
 
 200,000 00 6 
 
 1S48 
 
 " 
 
 200,000 00 6 
 
 1850 
 
 " 
 
 200,000 00 6 
 
 1852 
 
 
 $3,495,164 35 
 
 1 
 
 
 Payment of Revolutionary claims. 
 Internal improvements. 
 
 Do. do. 
 
 Benefit of Mrs. Randolph. 
 Subscription to S. Western R. R. Bank. 
 Rebuilding city of Charleston. 
 
 Do. do. do. 
 
 Loans and subs'tion to L. C. &. C. R. R. Co. 
 
 Do. do. do. do. 
 
 Do. do. do. do. 
 
 $1,051,422 00 — Amount of surplus revenue deposited -with the State by the U. S. 
 2,000,000 00— Amount of loan by the L. C. & C. R. R., guaranteed by the State. 
 
 It is highly probable the State will never be called 
 on to refund the surplus revenue, though her liability 
 for it should never be forgotten, in an estimate of her 
 debt. It is to be hoj^ed that her guarantee of the 
 railroad bonds is only nominal, and that in due season 
 they will l)e discharged by the railroad company. I 
 therefore deduct these items in stating the public debt, 
 for which certain and early provision must be made, at 
 three millions and a half 
 
 It will be perceived that the payments of this debt 
 run through a period of twenty -six years, and that the 
 heaviest instalments are the last. Admitting that the 
 State will punctually discharge it as it falls due, with- 
 out creating another, it is yet a serious question whether 
 she should not use every effort in her power to discharge 
 it earlier. A public debt is no longer regarded any- 
 where as a public blessing, and such a mass of it, hang- 
 ing over her for such a period, must press heavily upon 
 the enterprise and resources of the State. 
 
 I feel called on, however, to declare, that I do not 
 believe the debt will be paid even as it falls due, with- 
 
55 
 
 out creating a fresh one in lieu of it, or a large portion 
 of it, unless important changes are made in the financial 
 arrangements of tlie State. And as these changes 
 might, if effected at all, be so made as to discharge it 
 at a much earlier period, it seems to me the wisest 
 policy to relieve the people as speedily as possible of 
 this immense pressure. The debt can be hona fide paid 
 only by levying taxes to the amount of it, or by using 
 the funds of the State already in existence. Although 
 I have not the least doubt that the people would, with- 
 out a murmur, submit to be taxed to any amount, rather 
 than that the slightest imputation should rest upon 
 the good faith of the State ; yet while there exists any 
 other means of meeting her obligations, I presume no 
 one will j)ropose to resort to onerous taxation. The 
 alternative is to use the funds of the State now com- 
 mitted to the management of the bank. 
 
 The idea has been often, and recently gravely, put 
 forth, that the bank would pay the debt as it became 
 due, out of the profits arising from the operations of 
 banking. To show the fallacy of such an idea, it is 
 only necessary to compare the interest on the debt with 
 the profits of the bank. The interest amounts at this 
 time to one hundred and eighty-six thousand, six hun- 
 dred and thirty-one dollars and ninety-six cents 
 ($186,631 96) per annum, exclusive of expenses, which 
 must raise the expenditure for this purpose to at least 
 one hundred and ninety thousand dollars ($190,000) 
 annually. The net profits of the bank, for the fiscal 
 year of 1842, were reported at two hundred and ten 
 thousand, seven hundred and sixty-nine dollars and 
 forty-two cents ($210,769 42), leaving a balance of 
 twenty thousand seven hundred and sixty nine dollars 
 
56 
 
 and forty-two cents ($20,Y69 42). The net profits of 
 the last fiscal year amounted to two hundred and 
 twenty-six thousand, seven hundred and thirty-two 
 dollars and seventeen cents ($226,732 IT), leaving a 
 balance in favor of the bank, of thirty-six thousand, 
 seven hundred and thirty-two dollars and seventeen 
 cents ($36,732 17). It is obvious that an annual 
 accumulation to the amount of the lar2:est of these 
 sums, would not discharge the debt in much less than 
 a century. Nor is there any just ground for anticipat- 
 ing a great increase of profits for the future. The 
 period for immense returns from banking operations 
 has passed away and, it is to be hoped, forever. Such 
 is especially the case with this bank, since the monop- 
 oly which it so long enjoyed in this State has ceased, 
 by the incoi'poration of other banks, and cannot be 
 revived again. 
 
 It is also said that the State has received and still 
 retains equivalents for a large proportion of her debt 
 which can be converted at the proper time for paying 
 it. She possesses eight thousand (8,000) shares of 
 railroad and railroad bank stock, which it is gratifying 
 to state is rising rapidly in value and, it is to be hoped 
 will one day be worth to her the eight hundred thou- 
 sand dollars ($800,000) which it cost. She holds also 
 the obligation of the railroad company for upward of 
 $400,000 more, which is doubtless perfectly secure. 
 But these investments could hardly be made available 
 to meet a crisis and, unless converted very gradually, 
 can only be done at a heavy loss. Nor do the small 
 dividends declared materially assist in paying the 
 interest of the stock issued to make them. For the 
 rest — the sinking fund, the fire loan, and the surplus 
 
57 
 
 revenue — they are all hmiked on^ and, althougb separate 
 accounts are kept of them in the bank books, they are 
 as essentially a part of the bank capital as the com- 
 paratively small portion which is acknowledged to be 
 such. They have been loaned out, and to be used to 
 pay the public debt, must, like other discounts, be 
 collected from the debtors of the bank. In short, 
 what are supposed to be equivalents for the State debt, 
 are securities of no higher value than those in which 
 all the other funds of the State have been invested by 
 the bank, nor are they more readily convertible into 
 money, and the interest on them is now included in the 
 annual return of the bank. 
 
 It is said again, that one million ($1,000,000) of our 
 internal improvement debt has been redeemed, and 
 this is taken as proof of the capacity of the bank to 
 redeem the whole debt. It is true, that one million 
 has been paid, but it has been made the pretext for 
 issuing stock to the amount of one million seven hun- 
 dred and six thousand, one hundred and six dollars, 
 and ninety-four cents ($1,706,106 94), thus actually 
 increasing the public debt seven hundred thousand 
 dollars, instead of diminishing it. 
 
 This can be readily made to appear. In a moment 
 of generous enthusiasm, worthy of the character of 
 the State and her citizens, a bill was passed at an extra 
 session in 1838, almost by universal consent, to borrow 
 two millions of dollars ($2,000,000) for rebuilding the 
 City of Charleston, after the calamitous fire of that 
 year. Of this amount, one million and thirty-five 
 thousand, five hundred and fifty-five dollars and fifty-five 
 cents ($1,035,555 55), was obtained in London, on 5 
 per cent, bonds. This was loaned to the citizens of 
 
58 
 
 Charleston for building purposes, and supplied all their 
 wants. Faith and justice to the people of State re- 
 quired that the balance of the bonds not sold for the 
 purpose for which they were issued, and not wanted 
 for it, should have been destroyed. The bank, how- 
 ever, obtained the Governor's consent to raise thera 
 to 6 per cent, bonds, to the amount of nine hundred 
 and sixty-four thousand, four hundred and forty-four 
 dollars and forty-four cents ($964,444 44), and took pos- 
 session of them as a loan from the State to itself, and 
 merely charged itself debtor to the State in that 
 amount on the books of the bank, though, it still con- 
 tinues to report the whole two millions as the " Fire 
 Loan." The pretext for this, was to pay the instal- 
 ments of the debt of eight hundred thousand dollars 
 ($800,000) which fell due in 1840; and of two hun- 
 dred thousand dollars ($200,000) wliich fell due in 
 1842. And on that ground the Legislature afterward, 
 in 1841, sanctioned the conduct of the bank, by laying 
 on the table a resolution to cancel this remainder of 
 the Fire Loan Bonds. But this was not all. At the 
 regular session, in December, 1838, the Legislature 
 passed an Act confirming the subscription of the Gov- 
 ernor to the Rail Road Bank and authorizing the 
 Comptroller General to pay it by drafts upon the 
 Bank of the State, or by an issue of 5 per cent., in 
 case the President and Directors of the Bank found it 
 embarrassing to advance the funds. Although the 
 Sinking Fund at that time amounted to eight hundred 
 and twenty-four thousand dollars ($824,000), and the 
 Surplus Revenue to nine hundred and fifty-one thou- 
 sand dollars ($951,000), and the large balance of the Fire 
 Loan Bonds before mentioned was absorbed by the 
 
59 
 
 Bank during tlie current fiscal year, the 5 per cent, 
 stock was issued to the amount of two hundred thou- 
 sand dollars ($200,000), though afterwards reduced 
 to one hundred and forty-one thousand, six hundred 
 and sixty-two dollars and fifty cents ($141,662 50). 
 And again, at the Session of 1839, the Legislature 
 transferred to the Sinking Fund, to aid in the liquida- 
 tion of the public debt, six hundred thousand dollars 
 ($600,000) of the Surplus Revenue, which had been 
 pledged to the payment of the subscription of the 
 State to the E-ail Road Company, and issued for that 
 purpose the same amount of 6 per cent, stock. The 
 operation in both these instances was precisely the 
 same as if these stocks had been created to pay the 
 public debt, the appropriate funds in the Bank being 
 withheld on that account. Thus, in the whole, was 
 seventeen hundred thousand dollars borrowed to pay 
 the one million of internal improvement bonds ; and 
 that at a period when the Sinking Fund and Surplus 
 Revenue — funds specially applicable to such a pur- 
 pose exceeded not only the debt paid, but even the 
 enormous sum borrowed, and would have covered both 
 the instalments of the debt and the subscription to 
 the Rail Road Company and Bank, had they been so 
 applied. If the history of the past is to furnish any 
 criterion by which to judge of the future, I fear that 
 whenever an instalment of the public debt becomes 
 due, some scheme will be devised to induce the Legis- 
 lature to issue new stock to redeem it ; and if at every 
 payment the whole, and seventy per cent, more than 
 is paid, is borrowed, it requires no gift of prophecy to 
 foresee that this process of redemption will overwhelm 
 the State in debt. I fear, too, that it may be con- 
 
60 
 
 sidered as certain that the bank will never, unless 
 forced to do it, part witli a dollar of its capital, or of 
 the funds used as capital, to pay any portion of the prin- 
 cipal of the debt. To diminish its funds would be to 
 curtail its power and influence; and though history 
 does record some rare instances of men — excep- 
 tions to the general rule — who have voluntarily re- 
 signed power, I do not remember a single one of a 
 corporation of any kind having done it. 
 
 Being fully assured that the bank can never pay 
 the public debt by the profits arising from its opera- 
 tions, and being equally convinced that it never will, 
 voluntarily, pay any part of it out of its capital, I sug- 
 gest to you the propriety of requiring it, under penalty 
 of forfeiting its charter, to purchase annually, and at 
 some period in each year to cancel, in the presence of 
 the Comptroller General, State Bonds to the amount 
 of five hundred thousand dollars, besides paying the 
 interest on the balance. By such an arrangement the 
 whole debt would be paid in seven, instead of twenty- 
 six years. 
 
 It may be doubted by some, whether the bank will 
 be able to withdraw so large a sum from her debtors 
 annually, without producing great distress in the State. 
 It might be answered, that according to its own report, 
 the bank collected and paid out, during the single fiscal 
 year of 1840, upwards of twelve hundred thousand 
 dollars ; and the pressure on the money market at that 
 time was incomparably heavier than it now is, or is 
 likely soon to be. There could not, in fact, be a more 
 favorable juncture than the present, to commence the 
 operation I suggest. Money is abundant among capi- 
 talists, interest extremely low, and safe investments 
 
61 
 
 scarce ; and a season of prosperity is evidently about to 
 open on us. 
 
 I think, however, it can be made manifest, that 
 these purchases can be effected without serious incon- 
 venience to any class of the bank's debtors. There is 
 now, and is usually due the bank on notes discounted, 
 over two millions of dollars ($2,000,000). The Bonded 
 Debt exceeds six hundred thousand dollars ($600,000). 
 The Suspended Debt, and Debt in Suit, amount to 
 upwards of four hundred thousand dollars ($400,000), 
 and the Fire Loan discounts to above a million of dollars 
 ($1,000,000), making an aggregate amount now due the 
 bank, of more than four millions of dollars ($4,000,000). 
 With its specie and other funds, including its invest- 
 ments in other than State Stocks, and five hundred 
 thousand dollars ($500,000) of these debts, it should be 
 fully able to redeem its circulation and deposits, and 
 pay all other demands upon it at any time — leaving 
 three and a half millions applicable to the public debt. 
 Besides this, the bank owns, or did own on the 30th 
 Sept. last, upwards of four hundred and fifty thousand 
 dollars ($450,000) in stock of this State. This stock, 
 with only fifty thousand dollars invested in the same 
 way, might constitute the redemption of the first year ; 
 and for that period no debtor need be disturbed. It 
 is understood that one million of the amount of Notes 
 Discounted, consists of accommodation paper, at short 
 dates. These accommodations might be curtailed during 
 the second and third years without inconvenience to the 
 customers of the bank, who could readily obtain dis- 
 counts elsewhere in the present redundant condition of 
 the Bank Capital in this State. In the mean time the 
 Fire Loan Discounts would be falling due to a con- 
 
62 
 
 siderable amount, and if, after three years' notice, the 
 debtors on Stationary Discounts and Bonds could not 
 be prepared to liquidate their liabilities at the rate of 
 twenty-five per cent, per annum, a longer indulgence 
 would not only be unsafe, but extremely unwise. 
 
 Whenever it has been heretofore suggested that 
 the bank should curtail its discounts, or call in its debts, 
 the reply has been promptly made that the planters will 
 be distressed, and that this is a planters' bank. When 
 a planter borrows money, it is almost always for specu- 
 lation, or to pay the losses of speculation, or of profli- 
 gate self-indulgence. He never needs a loan to carry 
 on his legitimate planting operations; and when he 
 becomes a borrower, even if it be to hold his produce, 
 or to purchase lands and laborers, he becomes as much 
 a speculator as the merchant or broker, and is entitled 
 to no more indulgence. The only bank which could 
 really benefit the planters would be a Savings Bank, 
 where the cash balances from their crops might be 
 deposited on interest until required. 
 
 It will probably be said that the scheme I have 
 proposed for paying the Public Debt will virtually 
 throw the bank into a state of liquidation. Not so, 
 however. Its present actual capital amounts to four 
 millions of dollars ($4,000,000)— the debt to three 
 millions and a half ($3,500,000), which, if paid, will 
 leave the handsome sum of five hundred thousand 
 dollars ($500,000) for banking purposes. To this 
 might be added the shares of the State in the Rail 
 Road Company and Bank, and also their obligation. 
 This would raise the nominal capital to one million, 
 seven hundred thousand ($1,700,000), and would give 
 it one intrinsically worth considerably more than 
 
63 
 
 its present acknowledged, permanent capital, which, 
 amounts to only eleven hundred and fifty -six thousand, 
 three hundred and forty-eight dollars and forty-eight 
 cents ($1,156,348 48). 
 
 But even if the operation of paying the Public Debt 
 should absorb the Bank entirely, it would, in my 
 opinion, constitute no objection to the scheme. The 
 State would get rid of two evils at once. It is at least 
 a question whether all banks are not evils. That a 
 bank operating like ours exclusively on the funds and 
 credit of the State is, seems to be generally conceded. 
 The best proof of it is, that almost all other banks so 
 framed, save ours, have failed — producing incalulable 
 embarrasment and suffering. An equally clear proof 
 of the opinion of the people of this State, is the unex- 
 ampled unanimity with which they have, for several 
 years past, waged an unremitted warfare against the 
 establishment of a similar, and not more objectionable 
 institution, by the Federal Clovernment. That our 
 bank has neither failed nor produced any great political 
 crisis, is owing to our extreme good fortune, in having 
 always had at its head men of the highest character 
 and uncommon ability. Its other officers and directors^ 
 too, have been, almost without exception, gentlemen of 
 intelligence and strict integrity. The character of the 
 people of our State is also opposed to extensive sj^ecu- 
 lations, and perhaps nowhere in the world is a default 
 in a public trust regarded with such universal and utter 
 abhorrence. All these necessary elements of past 
 success cannot be expected to co-exist forevei-. As 
 men, we may be permitted to indulge the hope that 
 they may ; as Legislators, you would be forgetful of 
 history and human nature to calculate upon it. Was 
 
64 
 
 it now au original question, few voices I apprehend 
 would be found in favor of a bank of the State. 
 Having run a career of thirty years, might it not be 
 wise to apply at this time an active and searching test 
 to its success and soundness ? I have not the slightest 
 reason to doubt its present soundness. But too much 
 depends upon the fact, to admit of much longer delay 
 in ascertaining it beyond all question. Nor is it a 
 matter for less grave consideration, whether the State 
 is to borrow money forever, in order to loan it out at 
 the same, or nearly the same rates of interest, subject 
 to all the expenses, fluctuations and disasters of bank- 
 ing — a business which of all others has proved the most 
 uncertain and ruinous to States and individuals. 
 
 The strongest objection that I see to the plan I 
 have suggested for the speedy payment of the public 
 debt, is the doubt whether the State stock can be 
 purchased at such amounts at par. Within the next 
 seven years, however, nine hundred and sixty thousand 
 dollars ($960,000) of debt will be redeemable, at par. 
 Of the stock now held by the bank, there was, on the 
 30th of September, certainly sixty-four thousand dol- 
 lars ($64,000), perhaps more, not redeemable within 
 that time, but already obtained at par. A million 
 more, redeemable in 1860, is held in Europe, and is 
 there quoted below par ; though it is matter of pride 
 for us to know that it stands higher than the stock of 
 any other State, save one. In the present condition of 
 American credit abroad, this stock might probably be 
 purchased at par. Could so much be obtained, four- 
 sevenths of the debt would be extinguished, and time 
 and circumstances might place the balance within reach. 
 On most of these stocks the State obtained a premium, 
 
65 
 
 and it would not be unfair for her to pay a similar one 
 to redeem them. 
 
 Should the attempt to purchase all the debt, how- 
 ever, fail, the next best that could be done, short of 
 actual payment, would be to shift the balance of it on 
 the other States of the Union, by purchasing the stocks 
 of such as are undoubtedly sound and faithful to their 
 engagements. It is probable that an abundance of 
 such stocks may be obtained at any time, within 
 the next seven years, below or at par. And provision 
 might be made for procuring them instead of our own 
 stock, if jit rises much above par. 
 
 If the scheme I have recommended for paying the 
 debt of the State should not meet your approbation, it 
 seems to me important that you should at least make 
 arrangements for a Sinking Fund, in fact, as well as in 
 name. The fund now distinguished by that name 
 does not differ practically, in the slightest respect, 
 from any portion of the bank capital. It is kept as a 
 separate item in the books of the bank ; the surplus 
 profits are nominally turned over to it, and the interest 
 of the State debt subtracted from it. But to keep up 
 this distinction is all unnecessary labor, since the whole 
 fund is loaned out precisely on the same terms as the 
 other bank funds. The fundamental principle of a 
 real Sinking Fund is compounding interest for a special 
 purpose. It should be set apart, its dividends re- 
 invested as they are declared, and the whole of it 
 sacredly pledged for the redemption of the principal 
 of the debt ; the interest being paid in the mean time 
 from other resources. It is manifest that a Sinking 
 Fund, which is expected to pay both the principal and 
 interest of the debt, must be as large as the debt itself. 
 
66 
 
 or far more profitably invested. Our Sinking Fund 
 amounts at present to little over one-fifth of the State 
 debt, and if you do not think proper to pay the debt 
 as I have proposed, I suggest the expediency of with- 
 drawing that fund from the bank, and with it the two 
 hundred thousand dollars of surplus revenue still on 
 deposit there ; that the whole amount be placed in the 
 hands of commissioners, to be invested, and made to 
 accumulate by compound interest for the discharge of 
 the principal of the public debt, not including any 
 instalments due within the next seven years, unless 
 rendered absolutely necessary from the want of other 
 means ; and that, in the mean time, the bank shall be 
 required to pay the interest on the whole debt, and 
 such instalments of the principal as shall fall due in 
 seven years. To the Sinking Fund thus constituted, 
 all the surplus funds of the State Treasury might be 
 added. These measures would draw from the vortex 
 of the bank such a portion of the resources of the 
 State as would enable it certainly to meet the greater 
 part of the public debt ; and if combined with a judi- 
 cious system of economy, and an unalterable resolution 
 never under any circumstances to issue more stock 
 until the debt was wholly discharged, would furnish 
 safe ground for the hope that there would ultimately 
 be an end to our present burdens. 
 
 The receipts of the State Treasury, during the past 
 fiscal year, have amounted to two hundred and ninety- 
 nine thousand, one hundred and ninety-six dollars and 
 sixteen cents ($299,196 16), and the expenditures, 
 during the same period, amounted to two hundred and 
 seventy -seven thousand, eight hundred and thirty-three 
 dollars and seventy-seven cents ($277,833 77) ; leaving 
 
67 
 
 a balance on the transactions of the year, of twenty- 
 one thousand, three hundred and sixty-two dollars and 
 thirty-nine cents ($21,362 39). This balance, added 
 to the balance accruing during the year 1842, will leave, 
 after due allowance for undrawn appropriations, about 
 forty-eight thousand dollars ($48,000) at the disposal 
 of the Legislature. This amount will be further in- 
 creased by nine thousand dollars, being the unexpended 
 balance of the two contingent funds committed to my 
 hands. Before any extraordinary appropriations are 
 made out of this sum, it should be considered that 
 there will be no further receipts into the Treasury 
 until June next, when the taxes become due, and that 
 it is wholly inadequate to defray the ordinary expenses 
 of the State up to that period. Notwithstanding a 
 similar balance reported to you in 1842, the bank was 
 in advance to the Treasury, to the amount of twenty- 
 four thousand dollars ($24,000) by the first of Decem- 
 ber of the same year, and to the amount of thirty 
 thousand ($30,000) at the same period of the year 
 before, and thereafter it continued to advance all 
 the moneys required by the Treasury until the taxes 
 were paid in. These advances are heavy drafts upon 
 the bank, and it becomes the State to make arrange- 
 ments to dispense with them, either by ordering the 
 taxes to be collected at an earlier period, or by such a 
 system of economy, as will speedily secure a sufficient 
 balance at the close of the fiscal year, to defray expenses 
 until the first of June following. 
 
 Among the undrawn appropriations is the sum of 
 twenty-five hundred dollars ($2,500), which was at 
 your last session, in conformity with the provisions of 
 the Act of 1833, placed in the hands of the Executive, 
 
68 
 
 for the purchase of arms and military equipments. I 
 have had no occasion to use this fund. The arsenals 
 and magazines already contain more munitions of war 
 than the State will probably ever require for service ; 
 and the Federal Government annually furnishes a 
 quota of arms valued at from six to eight thousand 
 dollars. This quota is rated in muskets ; but by a 
 provision in the Act of Congress these may be com- 
 muted, on application of the Executive of the State, for 
 other arms and equipments. A judicious use of this 
 resource will enable the State always to keep up a 
 proper assortment of munitions of war without the 
 expenditure of a dollar. I have this year taken ad- 
 vantage of it to equip the Marion Artillery Company 
 in Charleston, by commuting about a thousand dollars 
 which would otherwise have been expended out of this 
 appropriation. I recommend that the appropriation 
 be withdrawn, and the portion of Act of 1833 author- 
 izing it, repealed. 
 
 In his last annual Message, my immediate predeces- 
 sor urged on you the necessity of a reorganization of 
 the Executive Department of the State. I invite you 
 to a re-perusal of his remarks. In all that he has said 
 I give my entire and cordial concurrence, and earnestly 
 recommend a serious consideration of the subject. I 
 think, too, that a reorganization of all the officers con- 
 nected with the Executive Department is as impera- 
 tively required. The circumstances which led to a 
 division of them between the Seat of Government and 
 the City of Charleston having ceased to exist, the 
 division should cease also. The Rail-Koad has brought 
 them so near together that they might be reunit ed 
 with little inconvenience to any one, and much to the 
 
69 
 
 advantage of the State at lai-ge. There can be no 
 necessity for tv\' o Treasurers within six or eight hours 
 ride of each other. There is very little, if any un- 
 ofranted land in the State, and the Survevor General's 
 office might with propriety be finally closed. It is 
 now chiefly an instrument for perpetrating frauds, and 
 increasing litigation. Such duties of the Surveyor 
 General, as it would be beneficial to the State to have 
 performed, might be confided to a clerk in the Secretary 
 of State's Department. The present incumbent has vol- 
 untarily made to me a Report, which gives a very candid 
 statement of the condition of his office, and I transmit 
 it to you as worthy of your consideration. There might 
 be constitutional difficulties in the way of closing the 
 office during his term, but provision could be made for 
 doing so hereafter. The Comptroller General should 
 be near the Treasurer and the Executive. There are 
 still stronger reasons for reorganizing the office of Sec- 
 retary of State, and locating it entirely at the seat of 
 Government. The whole salary of this office is derived 
 from fees, and no trifling portion of it is paid by the 
 State for small and occasional services. He should at 
 least be put uj^on the footing of a State officer, by having 
 a fixed salary, in lieu of all charges against the State, 
 and for taking care of the records. A large portion 
 of these records are in a wretched condition. Many 
 have entirely gone to decay, and others are fast mould- 
 ering away ; while some important papers are altogether 
 lost. These are the necessary consequences of a di- 
 vided office, and an officer without a salary. The most 
 important duties of the Secretary of State are con- 
 nected with the Executive Department, and he should 
 be fixed near it. The private records in this office 
 5 
 
vo 
 
 mii>:lit be transferred to the Kecfister's office in the Dis- 
 tricts to which they properly belong. It was a Colonial 
 regulation which placed them in the Secretary of 
 State's office, and the reason for it has long ceased. I 
 recommend the appointment of a Commissioner to re- 
 organize all the offices to which I have alluded, and to 
 reunite them at the Seat of Government. It will, 
 however, require a constitutional amendment to effect 
 the latter purpose, and if you approve the recommen- 
 dation it will be necessary to 2:>ass an Act to that effect 
 at your present Session. 
 
 In making this recommendation, I trust I shall not 
 be regarded as aiming a blow at the compromises of 
 the Constitution. On the contrary, I would regard it 
 as one of the greatest calamities which could happen 
 to the State, that the present ascendency of one sec- 
 tion of it in the Senate, and the other in the House of 
 Representatives, should be in the slightest degree dis- 
 turbed. And, impei-atively as I think the intei'est of 
 the State demands that all the chief officers should be 
 assembled at this place, I would not propose it, if I 
 could believe that it would have a tendency to pro- 
 duce such an effect. 
 
 In accordance with a Resolution passed at your last 
 Session, I appointed Commissioners to meet at Lime- 
 stone Springs, to enquire into the expediency of es- 
 tablishing^ a Hiorh School there. I have not vet re- 
 ceived their Report. The first duty of a govern- 
 ment, after providing for the security of its constitu- 
 ents, is to take proj^er measures for their education. 
 The benefits they derive from facilitating commerce, 
 by digging canals, clearing out rivers, constructing 
 roads, and opening new channels of intercourse, are 
 
71 
 
 great ; but they sink into insignificance in comparison 
 with the vast importance of pouring out upon them in 
 every direction copious streams of knowledge — ex- 
 panding their intellects, elevating and purifying their 
 morals, and training them up to a high and noble cast 
 of thought. Under a government like ours, where no 
 aristocracy of birth or wealth is tolerated, or can ever 
 take root, the only hope we can have of the har- 
 monious action or lasting duration of our institutions, 
 is by resting them on the solid foundation of a people 
 imbued with lofty sentiments, and deeply versed in all 
 the lore of learning; who will be capable of compre- 
 hending all the blessings they confer, watchful of dis- 
 tant danger, and prepared to meet and overcome it, 
 not less by power of intellect, than by force of arms. 
 Every dollar which can be spared from the absolute 
 wants of the State, should be first offered to this great 
 cause. Here indeed a li})eral expenditure enriches 
 and adorns, while a narrow economy impoverishes and 
 degrades. It is to be feared that education has been 
 stationary in this State, if it has not retrograded, 
 during the last quarter of a century. The College, 
 founded and sustained by the wise nmnlficence of the 
 State, has done and continues to do more than was 
 expected of it. But the Academies have not kept 
 pace. There are comparatively few in the country, 
 where young men can be well prepared to enter the 
 higher classes of colleges. The consequence is, that 
 many are yet sent abroad to inferior institutions, and 
 return home with educations less complete, and with- 
 out the advantage of that intimate association with 
 the youth of every section of the State, which can 
 only be formed here, and which is of such lasting ad- 
 
72 
 
 vantage to themselves, and to the country. I recom- 
 mend to your serious consideration, the propriety of 
 establishing, at some healthy and central spot in each 
 District, an Academy endowed in the same manner as 
 the College. Tiie sparseness of our population, and 
 the want of concentrated wealth in the country, will 
 postpone, for an indefiuite period, such establishments 
 by the people themselves. And in such a matter, the 
 loss of time is absolutely fatal. If the means of the 
 State will not permit such an expenditure, in addition 
 to that already incurred for purposes of education, I 
 submit to you the expediency of diverting the present 
 Free School Fund to that object. The Free School 
 System has failed. This f\ict has been announced by 
 several of my predecessors, and there is scarcely an 
 intelligent person in the State, who doubts that its 
 benefits are perfectly insignificant in comparison with 
 the expenditure. Its failure is owing to the fact, that 
 it does not suit our people or our government, and it 
 can never be remedied. The paupers, for whose chil- 
 dren it is intended, but slightly appreciate the advan- 
 tages of education ; their pride revolts at the idea of 
 sending their children to school as "jt^oor scliolars^^'' 
 and besides, they need them at home, to work. These 
 sentiments and wants can in the main only be counter- 
 vailed by force. In other countries where similar sys- 
 tems exist, force is liberally applied. It is contrary to 
 the principles of our institutions to apply it here, and 
 the Free School System is a failure. The sum which 
 is annually appropriated for the support of Free 
 Schools, if equally divided for one year among the 
 twenty-eight Districts of the State, giving two portions 
 to Charleston District, will be suflScient to build in 
 
73 
 
 each a good Academy. If, thereafter, one thousand 
 dollars a year were appropi-iated to each Academy, a 
 teacher of the highest qualifications might be secured 
 for every one, and a saving of about eight thousand 
 dollars per annum effected by the State, If, in addi- 
 tion to this salary, the profits of his School were also 
 given to the Teacher, the rates of tuition could be 
 reduced, to the advantage of the tax-payers, and he 
 might be required to instruct, free of charge, such 
 poor scholars as should be sent to him. The details 
 of such a system cannot be dwelt on here. The im- 
 mense advantages of it over the present one, are 
 obvious, at a glance. The oppoi-tunity of giving a 
 thorough academical education to his children would 
 be placed in the hands of every parent of ordinary 
 means, while such of the poor as really desired to edu- 
 cate theirs, might still have it in their power. The 
 common schools would be vastly improved, under the 
 superintendence of those who had passed through these 
 Academies, while the standard of education would be 
 immensely elevated throughout the State, and the 
 College receive a new impulse in the dispensation of 
 its incalculable blessings. Its Professorships could al- 
 ways be readily and ably supplied from among the 
 accomplished teachers the Academies would develop, 
 and its graduates of high attainments, but slender 
 means, would in turn find useful and profitable em- 
 ployment in taking charge of the Academies, instead 
 of crowding, as they now usually do, the other profes- 
 sions. In short, under such a system, it would be 
 scarcely possible for any young man to grow up in our 
 State in ignorance and idleness, or fail in obtaining a 
 respectable settlement at home, if he possessed energy 
 
74 
 
 and wortb. Should it not meet yonr approbation, 
 and tlie Free School System be continued, I renew the 
 recommendation of my immediate predecessor for the 
 appointment of a Superintendent of these Schools. 
 
 In obedience to another of your Resolutions of the 
 last Session, I have made very particular inquiries into 
 the condition of the Catawba Indians. I visited 
 their ueigliborhood myself, during the summer, and 
 conversed with most of their head men. There is 
 quite a misapprehension as to the diminution of their 
 number, since the last treaty. It arose probably from 
 the circumstance, that a considerable portion of them 
 have removed to North Carolina, and taken up their 
 residence, for the present, among the Cherokees of that 
 State. It would undoubtedly be better for them, if all 
 could go there and become absorbed in that well- 
 regulated and flourishing remnant of the Cherokee 
 tribe. But to this the authorities of North Carolina 
 object, and it would be manifestly improper for us to 
 send them into a sister State against her wishes. Un- 
 less they could be prevailed on to allow themselves to 
 be removed beyond the Mississippi, to lands to be pro- 
 cured for them by the State, I know of no better 
 arrangement, for the present, than to continue the ex- 
 periment now going on. A Farm has been purchased 
 for them, on which nearly all now in the State have 
 settled. Your annual appropriation supplies all their 
 necessary wants, and whatever they make by their 
 own labor, is clear gain to them. I transmit herewith 
 two Memorials which have been furnished at my re- 
 quest, giviug an interesting history of this Tribe, from 
 its emigration from Canada in 1860, to the present 
 day, and also detailing the manner in which the present 
 
Y5 
 
 laud owners have derived their titles ; which will serve 
 to correct the general, but unfounded belief, that these 
 lands have been acquired without consideration. There 
 is not a more respectable or more valuable population 
 in any part of the State, than the residents on the 
 Indian Land; nor any more entitled to every reasona- 
 ble indulgence at your hands. 
 
 The Arsenals at Charleston and Columbia have 
 been converted into Military Academies, in conformity 
 with the Act of the Legislature. The change is 
 unquestionably a great improvement on the former 
 system. 
 
 The appointment of State Agricultural Surveyor 
 was accepted by Edmund Ruffin, Esq., a distinguished 
 Agriculturist of Virginia. He has been engaged dur- 
 ing the year, with assiduity and zeal, in the perfor- 
 mance of his duties in various parts of the State, and 
 I have no doubt that his labors will be attended with 
 the most beneficial and important results. I expect to 
 be able to lay his Report before you in a few days. 
 
 The Court of Errors, at its last Term, decided the 
 appeal in the case of the State against the Banks 
 which refused to accept the provisions of the Act of 
 1840 ; and established the important principle, that 
 suspension of specie payments is sufficient cause for 
 the forfeiture of their charters. I can scarcely sup- 
 pose that it was the intention or desire of the State to 
 punish the Banks for past offences by the Act referred 
 to, but simply to provide against future suspensions. 
 Nor can they be thought worthy of punishment for 
 appealing to the Judiciary, as they certainly had the 
 right to do, to decide a question of vital consequence 
 to them and to the country. Having obtained a de. 
 
70 
 
 cisive and iiii|>ortaiit victory, it appears to me that 
 it would not only be magnanimous, but wise, to forgive 
 the past, and look only to the future. I took the 
 responsibility of instructing the Attorney General and 
 the Solicitors not to press the suits against the Banks 
 to trial at the fall term of the Common Pleas, for the 
 purpose of leaving you free to take such a course as 
 von might deem most consistent with the dignity and 
 interest of the State. I suggest to you the propriety 
 of repealing the Act of 1840, and passing a new one, 
 founded on the decision of the Court of Errors, de- 
 claring that any future suspension of specie payments 
 shall cause the forfeiture of the charter of the sus- 
 pending Bank, and requiring the Executive, in all sucli 
 cases, immediately to institute proceedings for that 
 purpose. The Act of 1840 is too indulgent to the 
 Banks, in permitting them to suspend, on payment of 
 a trifling penalty ; and as to the monthly returns 
 which it requires, experience has everywhere proved 
 that they are worse than useless. I have recently re- 
 ceived communications from the Bank of South Caro- 
 lina and the State Bank, notifying me that they would 
 no longer contest the validity of this Act, and asking 
 to be allowed to conform to its provisions. I refer the 
 matter to your consideration. 
 
 I have received, and transmit to you, a communica- 
 tion from Hon. Baylis J. Eaele, resigning his seat 
 upon the Bench, in consequence of ill health. His re- 
 tirement from a station which he has filled with such 
 eminent ability, is a serious public loss, and the cause 
 of it, a source of deep regret. 
 
 I transmit to you Resolutions on various subjects, 
 from a number of our sister States, and also letters 
 
referring to documents received from the Federal Gov- 
 ernment. I need not suggest to you to give thera a 
 respectful consideration. 
 
 It has been rumored, and some remarks of the 
 English Minister for Foreign affiurs in the House of 
 Lords have given countenance to the rumor, that a 
 Treaty is on foot, between Great Britain and Texas, 
 by which the former is to bind herself to guarantee the 
 Independence of Texas, on condition of the abolition 
 of Slavery in that country. Our most vital interests 
 would be involved in such a Treaty. It is scarcely 
 possible that Texas can make a compact so absolutely 
 suicidal. The true interests of Texas, and of this 
 country, demand that she should be annexed to this 
 Union ; and it is to be hoped that ere long this will be 
 done. If it is not, the Federal Government should 
 resist the ratification of any such Treaty with Great 
 Britain, as an aggression upon the United States. 
 Possessed of Canada, and the West Indies, claiming 
 Oregon, seeking to obtain a foothold in Texas, and 
 looking with a covetous eye to Cuba, this great Naval 
 Power is evidently aiming to encircle us in her arms. 
 AVe should not, perhaps, permit ourselves to doubt, at 
 this time, that Texas cannot be so blind to her own 
 welfare as to make a Treaty stipulating for the aboli- 
 tion of Slavery, nor that the Federal Government, in 
 such an event, w^ould fail to assert the rights and dig- 
 nity of the United States. But an expression of your 
 opinion on the annexation of Texas to the Union, 
 might not be improper. 
 
 I have, in the discharge of my duty, given you 
 the best information I possess of the condition of the 
 State, and recommended to your consideration such 
 
78 
 
 measures as I deem necessary and expedient. It re- 
 mains for your better judgment to approve or disap- 
 prove. May the Great Kuler of tlie Universe, who 
 alone is Wise and Perfect, so influence your delibera- 
 tions, that whatever you do ma}^ redound to the wel- 
 fare and honor of our country. 
 
 J. H. HAMMOND. 
 
MESSAGE 
 
 TO, THE SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE STATE 
 OF SOUTH CAROLINA, NOV. 26, 1844. 
 
 The folio-wing Meseage was read by the Executive Secretary, Col. Beaufort T. Watts 
 
 Executive Department 
 Columbia, Nov. 26, 1844 
 
 '\ 
 
 Gentlemen of the Senate and House of Representatives : 
 
 In my last annual Message to your predecessors, I 
 congratulated them on the apparent dawn of a new 
 era in our prosperity, w^hich I hoped might be perma- 
 nent. The currency had reached, and I am happy to 
 say, has continued to maintain a sound condition. 
 Commerce, trade, and manufactures were flourishing, 
 as they yet flourish in most parts of the civilized world ; 
 and it was natural to suppose that agriculture must 
 also revive. But we have been disappointed. Against 
 the pressure of laws everywhere adopted to encourage 
 manufactures, agriculture seems destined to struggle in 
 vain. And as these laws are chiefly directed against 
 the manufacturing supremacy of England, they fall 
 with peculiar weight upon that great agricultural 
 staple on which our prosperity depends. The price 
 of cotton throughout the world is, and must for our 
 time, in all probability, continue to be regulated by 
 
80 
 
 the price in Liverpool Its value in that market 
 deperids npon the condition of the cotton mannfac- 
 turers in England; and the tariff laws of other 
 countries, which check the foreign demand for English 
 cotton goods, must necessarily lower the price of the 
 raw material in Liverpool, while it rises nowhere else ; 
 but, on the contrary, falls everywhere with the foil in 
 that great mart, through which passes two-thirds of 
 the crop of the whole world. No matter, then, where 
 cotton manufactures flourish, nnless they flourish in 
 England, cotton cannot bear a fair price ; and every 
 attempt to Iniild them up artificially elsewhere, is at 
 the immediate cost of the cotton grower. Did they 
 naturally spring up under a system of universal free 
 trade, and in wholesome competition with England, 
 they would indicate an actual increase of consumption, 
 and prove highly beneficial to us. But tariff laws, 
 though they may alter the channels of trade, and in 
 doing so produce, as they invariably do, much mischief, 
 have no power to increase consumption. On the con- 
 trary, by increasing the manufacturers' prices where 
 they are in force, they necessarily diminish it, and 
 thereby depreciate the raw material. Such laws may 
 take from one and bestow upon another, to the injury 
 of the whole, but they cannot ereate wealth. How 
 long the present state of things will continue, and in 
 what it will terminate, cannot be foreseen; but the 
 fact appears to be clearly established, for the first time 
 in the history of the world, that, by the skill of political 
 jugglery, trade, commerce, and manufactures may be 
 made to flourish, and a sound currency exist, while 
 agriculture, the acknowledged mother of them all, and 
 particularly that branch of agriculture which furnishes 
 
81 
 
 them with their life-blood, is sunk to the lowest point 
 of depression. 
 
 The income of the State, from all sources, durins" 
 the past year, amounts to three hundred and six 
 thousand, eight hundred and thirty-one dollars and 
 sixty-three cents ($306,831 03). The expenditures 
 during the same period have reached the sum of three 
 hundred and forty-seven thousand, seven hundred and 
 four dollars and sixty-three cents (|3-47,Y04 63) ; of 
 wdiich, however, fifty-six thousand, four hundred and 
 eighty-threedollarsandseventy-threecents ($56,483 73) 
 have been applied to the I'eduction of the principal of 
 the public debt. The current income has therefore ex- 
 ceeded the ordinary expenses of the State, by tbe sum 
 of fifteen thousand, six hundred and ten dollars and 
 twenty-three cents ($15,610 23). The balance in the 
 Treasury at the close of the year (a portion of it, how- 
 ever, subject to undrawn appropriations) amounted to 
 seventy thousand, five hundi-ed and six dollars and 
 fifty-nine cents ($70,506 59), to which may be added 
 about eight thousand dollars, being the unexpended 
 balance of the contingent funds placed in the hands of 
 the Executive. 
 
 The direct taxes levied and collected for the use of 
 the State, amounted this year to two hundred and 
 seventy-seven thousand, five hundred and sixty-two 
 dollars and forty cents ($277,562 40). And during 
 the same period there has been also collected from the 
 people the additional sum of one hundred and one 
 thousand, four hundred and twenty-eight dollars and 
 ninety-two cents ($101,428 92) ; and during the year 
 1843, one hundred and three thousand, seven hun 
 dred and twenty-nine dollars and ninety-two cents 
 
82 
 
 ($103,729 92), or about an average of thirty-seven 
 per cent, of the State taxes annually, which has been 
 assessed by the Commissioners of the Poor, of Public 
 Buildings, and of Roads and Bridges, in the different 
 Districts. I have had accurate accounts kept of the 
 taxes thus levied and collected for these years, that I 
 mi^-ht apprise you of their great amount, and call 
 your attention to the propriety of providing for a 
 more strict accountaljility for their appropriation than 
 has been hitherto exacted. These Commissioners 
 have been required to report, some of them to the 
 Comptroller General, and some to the Clerks of the 
 Courts, and account with them for the monies received 
 and expended ; but I am not aware that it is regularly 
 done. If it was required of the Commissioners to 
 publish such reports, and circulate them through their 
 respective Districts, so that the people might be in- 
 formed of the purposes to which their money was 
 applied, it would be nothing more than is proper and 
 consistent with the spirit of our institutions. It is the 
 right of every citizen to know for what he is taxed ; to 
 judge of the propriety of it ; and to be assured that 
 the money has been used with discretion and economy. 
 And it is a right which cannot be too jealously 
 watched over. 
 
 I recommended to the last Les^islature to take 
 speedy and effective measures for the payment of the 
 public debt, then amounting to three and a half 
 millions of dollars ($3,500,000), the interest on which, 
 including charges, exceeded one hundred and ninety 
 thousand dollars per annum ($190,000). I proposed 
 that the Bank of the State should be directed to 
 redeem it, at the rate of five hundred thousand dollars 
 
83 
 
 a year. An act was passed requiring tlie Bank to 
 provide for the payment of the instalments of the 
 debt fiilling due on the first of January, 1845 — 6 
 amountino; to five hundred and fiftv thousand dollars 
 ($550,000), and to deliver to the Comptroller General, 
 to be cancelled, the evidences of State debt in its 
 possession, to the amount of four hundred and fifteen 
 thousand, two hundred and seventy dollars ($415,270). 
 Of the evidences of State debt held by the Bank, one 
 hundred and sixty-three thousand, four hundred and 
 sixty-eight dollars ($163,468) fell due in 1845—6, 
 so that the Avhole amount of debt, the liquidation of 
 which was provided for by the act of last session, was 
 eight hundred and one thousand, eight hundred and 
 two dollars ($8C 1,802), or about four hundred thousand 
 dollars per annum for two years. I am happy to say 
 that the Bank surrendered to the Comptroller General, 
 in January last, and that he cancelled, four hundred 
 and seventeen thousand, and eight dollars and twenty- 
 nine cents ($417,008 29) of the public debt, being 
 something more than was required of it ; and I do not 
 doubt that it will provide for the punctual payment 
 of the instalments of 1845 — 6 as they become due. 
 
 I will not repeat to you the reasons which induced 
 me to make to your predecessors the recommendations 
 referred to. They are stated at large in my last 
 annual Message. I feel bound, however, to say, that 
 nothing has occurred since to change the opinions 
 then expressed. As far as regards the Bank, the 
 President of that institution, in a report made to the 
 Legislature near the close of the last session, has 
 painted in such strong coloi's its power, and the evils 
 it might cause, as justly to increase the apprehensions 
 
84 
 
 previously felt upon that subject. Objecting to^ the 
 collection and payment of three and a half millions, 
 with a capital of more than four millions, at regular 
 intervals during seven years, he says that, " so large a 
 creditor going at once into the courts, would alarm all 
 other banks and individual creditors, compel them in 
 a measure to suspend the usual accommodations, draw 
 in tlieir circulation, contract their business, and also 
 sue in every case where they are distrustful of tlieir 
 debts. Their customers, thus checked and pressed, 
 would in turn sue those indebted to them, and an 
 universal state of alarm would pervade the country. 
 The dockets of the courts would be crowded with 
 cases, and the Sheriffs would transfer vast amounts of 
 property at incalculable sacrifices; the value of all 
 other property would be greatly depreciated, and 
 slaves would be run off, or many of them bought up 
 by the people of other States, and would be transferred 
 to improve their condition, leaving heavy taxation to 
 this State, and less property to bear it. Lands 
 abandoned and houses deserted by a ruined and bank- 
 rupted people, would everywhere remain the monu- 
 ments of an erroneous and precipitate legislation." 
 
 If such disastrous consequence would arise from a 
 liquidation not complete, and protracted through a 
 period of seven years, how much depends on the 
 perfect management of the Bank, and to what calami- 
 ties would we be subjected by its failure — a fate from 
 which it has no chartered immunity, and which, 
 involved as it is in the vortex of trade, may overtake 
 it suddenly, when the people least expect, and are 
 worst prepared for a catastrophe so terrible. Is it 
 wise for us to slumber on such a volcano ? Does not 
 
85 
 
 a iust regard for the safety and welfare of the com- 
 muuit}^ require that efficient measures should be taken 
 to remove from it, at the earliest possible period, an 
 enofine so destructive, which fraud, accident, or over- 
 sight might at any moment put in flital operation ? 
 It is at least worthy your consideration, whether we 
 are to incur the risk of it forever ; and if not, as its 
 charter has but twelve years to run, there is little time 
 to be lost, since it cannot be closed up in seven without 
 desolatiuG; the State. 
 
 The Bank of South Carolina, and the State Bank, 
 have accepted the provisions of the act of 1840, and 
 the suits ao-ainst them have been withdrawn. 
 
 O 
 
 It affbrds me great pleasure to inform you that the 
 militia of the State are completely organized, and are, 
 for militia, in excellent training. There are few officers 
 of any grade who are not familiar with, and competent 
 to instruct the men in the different schools of infantry 
 tactics, and in camj:) duties. The artillery on the 
 coast is in fine condition, and the cavalry throughout 
 the State numerous, well mounted, and well drilled in 
 the sword exercise, and the manoeuvres approj^riate to 
 that arm of service. The whole number of the militia 
 amounts to near fifty-five thousand, officers and men. 
 
 There are now in the State arsenals, in order for 
 service, ten thousand five hundred muskets, rifles and 
 carbines ; one hundred and two pieces of artillery ; 
 thirty thousand pounds of powder; and twenty-five 
 thousand pounds of lead, besides a large quantity of 
 balls and cartridges. The other military stores and 
 equipments are in j)roportion. The number of public 
 arms in the hands of the militia cannot easily be ascer- 
 tained, but it is not short of five thousand muskets and 
 6 
 
86 
 
 rifles, and twenty-five cannon, mostly brass. Tlie 
 State may therefore he regarded as prepared to arm, 
 at any moaient, nearly or quite one-lialf of her whole 
 militia force, and to furnish them with ammunition for 
 perhaps a campaign, without incurring any new ex- 
 pense; while the men she can bring into the field are 
 probably better qualified to render efficient service 
 than any citizen soldiery in the world. And it will 
 cost nothing but your firm adherence to the present 
 military system to maintain her in this position for the 
 future. 
 
 In fact, tlie military expenses of the State might, I 
 think, be materially reduced, and the benefits of one 
 valua1)le branch of the present system greatly ex- 
 tended, l)y a change which can be readily effected. 
 There are no good reasons why there should be two 
 Arsenals in the State, or that they should be placed^ 
 at the two most expensive points in it — Charleston 
 and Columbia. A few hundred stands of arms, given 
 in charge to the City Councils of these places, would 
 be all that could be required, if, indeed, they would 
 be necessary for their ])rotectiou in an emergency ; 
 while in such an event the arsenals containinof all our 
 military stores, unprovided as they are with a guard 
 capable of ailbrding the slightest protection to them, 
 must necessarily fall into the hands of any active foe. 
 Prudence, therefore, dictates that the arsenals should 
 be removed from locations where they may be sub- 
 jected to surprises, and established at some spot in the 
 interior, less accessible, and at the same time cheaper 
 and more healthy. Such a spot might be found on 
 one or the other branch of the rail-road, which now 
 affords such facilities for transportation that a position 
 
87 
 
 anywhere upon it would be as convenient for military 
 purposes as at Charleston or Columbia. The sale of 
 the arsenal and magazine Ijuildings and grounds, at 
 these places, would, I have little doubt, furnish ample 
 funds for erecting a brick arsenal and extensive wooden 
 barracks in the country, without requiring a dollar 
 from the Treasury. The consolidation of the two 
 schools would enable you to dispense with one set of 
 Professors and other officers, which, with the cheapness 
 of living, and the number of pay students that might 
 be expected if the situation was known to be perfectly 
 healthy, would in all probability reduce the expendi- 
 ture to one-half the sum now apj^ropriated to their 
 support. That amounts, at present, to about twenty- 
 eight thousand dollars. In suggesting this plan, I by 
 no means desire to be understood as recommending 
 any change as regards the school system. It is a 
 great improvement on that of a hired guard, and the 
 cadets are as efficient protectors of the arsenals as the 
 guards were ; neither being anything more than 
 nominally so. The cadets, united in one body, and 
 increased by an unlimited number of pay students, 
 would affijrd ample protection ; while so line a school, 
 at a healthy location in the country, would induce a 
 large proportion of the rising generation to prepare 
 themselves for future service, both military and civil, 
 by embracing its advantages. The policy heretofore 
 pursued, of repairing damaged arms, is questionable. 
 They are, for the most part, not worth the expense. 
 The appropriation of two thousand dollars per annum, 
 for repairing arms and arsenal purposes, may, I think, 
 in any event, be henceforth judiciously curtailed one- 
 half 
 
88 
 
 I transmit to you a report made to me by our very 
 efficient Adjutant General, whose recommendations are 
 entitled to your serious attention ; and also interesting 
 Keports from the military schools. 
 
 Permit me to renew to you a recommendation which 
 I made to your predecessors, to estal)lish a central 
 academy at some suitable point in every District in 
 the State, with an endowment of a thousand dollars a 
 year to each. If you are unwilling to abandon the 
 free-school system, and appropriate the funds to this 
 object, I see no reason why twenty-eight thousand 
 dollars additional might not be annually devoted to 
 this important purpose. Our expenditure would then 
 be far short of that made by many of the States in 
 this Union, and in none of them is a more liberal one 
 required thau in ours. We have but a few well-con- 
 ducted academies, and these, as soon as they acquire 
 any reputation, are inconveniently crowded ; and de- 
 pending as they do for their success upon the acci- 
 dental circumstance of having a competent Principal, 
 properly appreciated, they seldom dispense their ad- 
 vantages to the same degree, for a length of time. 
 Our common schools are, for the most part, a disgrace 
 to an enlightened people. A system of permanent 
 academies, liberally endowed, one of which w^ould be 
 within the reach of every citizen, conducted by such 
 men as your appropriation, and the tuition funds would 
 attract, and teaching uniformly a course prescribed by 
 the Trustees of the College, would produce a revolu- 
 tion in the education of the State in a few years. The 
 annual expenditure would not equal that now incurred 
 for military purposes. While I am far from censuring 
 that expenditure, and trust that the apathy of a long 
 
89 
 
 peace may not "be allowed to delude ns into false 
 security, still it is certain that, under God, tlie world 
 is now mainly governed by the force of intellect ; and 
 it is the duty of a wise Government to bestow its 
 highest care upon the mental culture of its people. We 
 have expended millions for internal improvements, 
 which have never yielded a dollar of clear revenue to 
 the Treasury, nor perhaps brought a valuable emigrant 
 or preserved a useful citizen to us. The interest of a 
 single half million appropriated to the establishment 
 and support of central academies, will give an impulse 
 to education which in a short time would be felt in 
 every artery of our political, mercantile, and agricul- 
 tural systems. You have liberally and wisely pro- 
 vided for the education of the more wealthy by es- 
 tablishing a College, which has done, and continues to 
 do, more for the State than every other corporation 
 put together, within her limits; and you bestow an- 
 nually a large sum for the mental improvement of the 
 poor, which I wish I could say produced correspond- 
 ing benefits. But for that large and substantial body, 
 constituting here, as it does in all countries, the broad 
 and solid foundation on which rests the frame-work 
 of the political system — that middle class, who may 
 not take advantage of your free schools, and cannot 
 conveniently take advantage of your College — you 
 have done nothing. These central academies would 
 meet their wishes, or at least their wants. The neces- 
 sity of turning your most serious attention to education 
 is pressing ; and it is incalculably important. We are 
 engaged in the experiment of Governments, simple and 
 federative, upon principles as new^ as they are grand ; 
 and propose to solve the great political and moral 
 
90 
 
 problem of how far Freedom and Security are com- 
 patible. Sixty years — which constitute but a brief 
 portion of a nations cycle — have not convinced the 
 world, nor wholly satisfied ourselves. The momen- 
 tous question yet remains, Will our institutions en- 
 dure ? They have passed to three generations — they 
 may fail in the fourth or fifth, or tenth. They cer- 
 tainly will fail, and with them the best hopes of man- 
 kind, unless the most anxious and unremitted care is 
 bestowed on the education of those, on whom it will 
 devolve to sustain them. Ignorance and free institu- 
 tions cannot co-exist. An ignorant people can never 
 long have any other than a despotic government. 
 They are not fit to be free ; and though they may 
 possibly achieve, they cannot maintain their liberty. 
 It is an old and trite saying, that the price of freedom 
 is eternal vigilance. It is, nevertheless, profoundly 
 true. It is usually interj)reted to mean that the people 
 must watch over their rulers. This is important. But 
 in this country, where the people are truly and prac- 
 tically the source of all power, the application must 
 go farther. They must watch themselves. They must 
 guard against their own prejudices and passions ; 
 against local and narrow views ; against party spirit ; 
 against their proverbial love of change ; in short, they 
 must guard against their own ignorance, which is the 
 fruitful parent of all these dangers, and which will 
 otherwise speedily degrade them, from the rank of a 
 people, to that of a j)opulace. 
 
 In obedience to a resolution of the last session, I 
 have had the repairs made in the Secretary of State's 
 ofiice, which were indispensably necessary for the pre- 
 servation of the records. There are still many im- 
 
91 
 
 provements which might be made iu that office, and 
 also in the Surveyor General's, that would be both 
 useful and conv^enient. The expense of them was 
 greater than I felt authorized to incur, without con- 
 sulting the Legislature. T think it highly expedient 
 that a Commission should be appointed to examine 
 the condition of these offices, and report to you in 
 detail upon them. I have heretofore recommended 
 that all the State offices should be consolidated 
 at the Seat of Government; that the Executive De- 
 partment should be properly organized ; that a stated 
 salary should be given to the Secretary of State, 
 in lieu of perquisites, which are now his only compen- 
 sation, and that the Land Office should be closed. 
 The experience of another year has confirmed my 
 opinion of the propriety and importance of these mea- 
 sures, and I suggest them again for your consideration. 
 
 The power of appointing JSTotaries Public has been 
 immemorially exercised by the Executive. I can find 
 no law conferring that power ; nor can I, indeed, find 
 any statute creating such an office. It is recognized in 
 some acts, and its authority is sometimes specially 
 limited ; but none of them prescribe its powers and 
 duties, or fix its term of duration. The office origi- 
 nated ill the Civil Law, was handed down with it to all 
 modern nations, and probably has no other authority 
 here than that derived from usage. As it is held by 
 hundreds in the State, and is more and more sought 
 after, I think you would do well to legalize its exist- 
 ence, and regulate its appointment, powers, and tenure. 
 
 Much inconvenience, and sometimes serious evils, 
 arise from the ignorance of the common Magistrates, 
 and their irregular distribution in the Districts for 
 
92 
 
 which they are commissioned. They are also un- 
 doubtedly too numerous. If one Magistrate, and only 
 one, was appointed in each beat company in the State, 
 the number, I apprehend, would be sufficient, the 
 location more convenient, and the cbances of procuring 
 the most intelligent citizens to fill a station so respon- 
 sible greatly increased. As, however, but few of the 
 Magistrates can be expected to be lawyers, or to liave 
 a law library at their command, I believe it to be indis- 
 pensable to the regular administration of the law 
 within their jurisdiction, that a Manual should be com- 
 piled and published, by the authority of the State, 
 explaining in a clear manner the powers and duties of 
 Magistrates, and prescribing the proper forms of pro- 
 ceedings in their courts ; to Avhich might be added a 
 codification of the common and statute laws, and re- 
 ported decisions, with which it is necessary that they 
 should be familiar. The expense of such a work 
 would bear but a small proportion to its value to the 
 people at large, as well as to the Magistrates. The 
 law strikes many of its severest blows through the 
 agency of the common Magistracy ; and it is but fair 
 that the humblest as well as the hio-hest citizen should 
 be dealt with by the same rule, well defined and 
 thoroughly understood by those who are its ministers. 
 The act of 1839, prescribing the manner of elect- 
 ing District officers, requires some amendment. In 
 case of the death of the Clerk of the Court, the mode 
 of filling the vacancy is not distinctly stated. To pre- 
 vent great and pressing inconvenience and loss, I have 
 been compelled to make an appointment under the 
 act of 18 If), which it was probably the intention of 
 the Legislature of 1839 to supersede. Its requisitions, 
 
93 
 
 as regards tlie commissioning of sheriffs, are extremely 
 incouvenieiit and iiucertain, if not incompatible. 
 
 A title to tbe Mount Dearborn lands lias been at 
 length acquired for the State, and it is recorded in the 
 office of the Secretary of State, and of the Register 
 of Mesne Conveyance in Lancaster District. 
 
 Duplicates of the weights and measures established 
 by the Federal Government have been received, and de- 
 posited with the Collector of the Port of Charleston 
 for safe-keepmg, until you can make some disposition 
 of them. 
 
 I transmit to you the suj)plementary report of Mr. 
 RuFFiN, our late able and in defat livable State A<2:ricul- 
 tural and Geological Surveyor. In consequence of his 
 resignation of that appointment at the close of the 
 year, I offered it to M. Tuomey, Esq., of Virginia, an 
 accomplished Geologist and Botanist, who accepted it. 
 His very valuable and interesting report is herewith 
 submitted. It has been found impossible to traverse 
 every portion of the State within the year. Many 
 important localities remain unexplored, and many re- 
 quire to be visited again to render perfect even a 
 general view of the Geology of the State. I would 
 not recommend a minute and detailed geological survey 
 at the public expense. I do not think it called for at 
 this time, or likely, in the present state of that science, 
 to supersede the necessity of other surveys at no very 
 remote period ; but it is due to science, and the char- 
 acter of the State, that, since the survey has been in- 
 stituted, it should be completed on the scale on which 
 it is commenced. That can probably be done in one 
 year more, and I recommend its continuation for that 
 length of time. 
 
94 
 
 I know of no measure better calculated to im- 
 prove our agriculture than one which lias been here- 
 tofore suggested to the Legislature — the exemption of 
 land from executions for debt, other than that con- 
 tracted for its purchase. If a law was passed to that 
 effect, to go into operation at a given tune hereafter, 
 I can perceive but little injury or inconvenience that 
 would be likely to result from it, while the advantages 
 to be derived are numerous and important. It would 
 enhance the value of land, induce investments in it, and 
 insure substantial and extensive improvements of every 
 kind. It would probably check emigration, diminish 
 speculation, and in many ways conduce to the stability 
 and permanence of all our institutions. The subject is 
 at least worthy of your attention. 
 
 I cannot omit to invite you to an earnest considera- 
 tion of federal affairs, and the peculiar relations of this 
 State to the Federal Government, which have become 
 highly interesting and important. The proceedings of 
 the last session of Congress form an epoch in our his- 
 tory. With the events which preceded, and the cir- 
 cumstances under which the Act of Congress, called 
 the Compromise Act, was passed, you are familiar. 
 That Act was in fact a treaty, made between belligerent 
 parties — with arms in their hands — solemnly ratified 
 by the Federal Government on the one part, and a 
 Convention of the State of South Carolina on the 
 other, and deposited among the archives of our country. 
 No treaty was ever made more important in its char- 
 acter, or more sacredly binding in its obligations. By 
 that treaty South Carolina bound herself to submit 
 for nine years longer to an unconstitutional and most 
 oppressive Tariff, in consideration that its exactions 
 
95 
 
 should be gradually reduced during tliat period, and 
 that after the expiration of it no higher Tariff should 
 again be levied than was necessary to defray the ex- 
 penses of an economical administration of the Gov- 
 ernment; and that the rate of duties should in no 
 event, but the emergency of war, exceed twenty per 
 cent, ad valorem. Our State faithfully adhered to 
 the compact, and patiently bore the heavy burden 
 which had been imposed upon her. In 1842 the 
 period arrived for the Federal Government to fulfil its 
 stipulations, and reduce the Tariff to twenty per cent. 
 ad valorem, or lower, if so much was not requisite for 
 the support of an economical administration. But 
 instead of reducing them, the rate of duties was in- 
 creased—actually increased to a point higher than the 
 Tariff which South Carolina had declared null and 
 void within her limits in 1832 ; which declaration led 
 to the Compromise Act. History furnishes no instance 
 of a grosser, or more insulting breach of faith, while per- 
 haps no law has ever been enacted by the regular 
 government of a civilized country, so subversive of the 
 rights and destructive to the interests of any respecta- 
 ble portion of its people, as the Tariff Act of 1842, 
 considered in all its bearings, is to the rights and in- 
 terests of the Planting States of this Confederacy. It 
 might naturally have been supposed, and probably it 
 was expected, that this State, in conformity with the 
 principles she had so long professed, and on which she 
 had heretofore acted, would immediately nullify this 
 Act ; but she did not. Closely united at the time 
 with the great Democratic party of the Union on the 
 general principles of government, and on certain ques- 
 tions of federal policy of the utmost moment — seeing 
 
96 
 
 that this party had carried the elections to i,he House 
 of Kejireseiatatives by a large majority — Lnd justly 
 regarding it as pledged to free trade, and bound to 
 repeal this exorbitant Tariff, she paused, and deter- 
 mined to await the action of another Congress ; thus 
 furnishing a fresh example of her patriotic forbearance, 
 and sincere devotion to the peace and integrity of the 
 Union. The new Congress met, and has terminated 
 its first session. Propositions were made in both 
 branches to modify the Tariff, and signally defeated. 
 In the House, where the Democratic majority was 
 large, the proposition was disposed of almost without 
 debate, and a majority of the Democrats from the 
 States north of the Potomac actually voted against it ; 
 wliile in the Senate, some of the leaders of that party 
 from the same section did so likewise. There seems, 
 therefore, to be no reasonable, or even plausible ground, 
 on w^hicli to rest a hope that this law, so unconstitu- 
 tional, and so ruinous to us, will ever be repealed, or 
 reduced to the standard of the Compromise. The 
 friends of the Tariff do not appear to entertain the 
 slightest idea of such a thing. They have distinctly 
 proclaimed it to be the settled policy of the Federal 
 Government; and, in foct, they scarcely conceal that 
 they regard our further remonstrances on the subject as 
 intrusive and impertinent. Nor could we, after the utter 
 contempt which they have manifested for their plighted 
 faith, repose with safety upon any concessions which 
 they might, by circumstances, be forced again to make. 
 With what confidence we may rely, on the other 
 hand, upon the Northern section of the Democratic 
 party to carry out the free trade principles which 
 they profess, we are well admonished by the history, 
 
97 
 
 not only of the last session of Congress, bnt of the 
 protective policy itself. The act of 1828, the most 
 stringent of the Tariff acts, save that of 1842, was 
 carried by the votes of the Democratic leaders of the 
 State of New York, given nnder very ji-eculiar cir- 
 cumstances ; and this last act, by the votes of Democra- 
 tic leaders from the same State, and from Pennsylvania, 
 And it may be regarded as certain, that the friends of 
 the protective system will be able, at all times, to com- 
 mand as many votes among the Northern Democrats 
 as may be necessary for their purposes. 
 
 Nor can we, I fear, anticipate any demonstration 
 of such a fixed, determined, and combined resistance 
 to that policy on the part of the South, as will force 
 the North to abandon it entirely. For this apprehen- 
 sion there are many reasons, but one is paramount. 
 Unfortunately, the Electors of President and Vice-Pre- 
 sident are chosen by the people, in all the Southern 
 States except our own. They are, in consequence, at 
 all times almost equally divided about men ; and in- 
 terested politicians spare no pains to impress it on the 
 voters, that the salvation of the country depends upon 
 the elevation of this or that individual to the Presi- 
 dential chair. In this exciting contest, measures and 
 principles become matters of minor consequence ; and 
 though it is well known that no President, whatever 
 may have been his political creed, has yet had firmness 
 to veto a Tariif bill, however monstrous, and that no 
 anointed candidate even, has ever been able fully and 
 consistently to declare himself against the protective 
 policy, they still persist in the pernicious delusion that 
 everytliing will be secured by the triumph of their 
 favorite. While every other question, however vital 
 
98 
 
 to liberty and tlie Constitution, continues to be made 
 subordinate to this, and to be estimated solely by its 
 influence on the Presidential election ; and while that 
 election continues to be made directly by the masses, 
 it is almost vain to expect that the people of any State 
 can be united among themselves, or the States of any 
 section combine, unless under extraordinary impulses, 
 to resist effectually the usurpations of the Federal 
 Government. 
 
 Under these circumstances, it devolves on South 
 Carolina to decide what course she will pursue in 
 reference to the Tariff The period has arrived when 
 she can no longer postpone her final decision. It is 
 due from her. It is expected of her. And if she 
 fails to announce it, her silence will nevertheless be 
 conclusive. Whatever may be the technical validity, 
 or legal force, of the opinions on this important ques- 
 tion which your predecessors have placed upon your 
 records, it appears clear to me that our State is bound by 
 her past history, and the principles she professes ; and 
 owes it to the country and herself, to adopt such mea- 
 sures as will at an early period bring all her moral, con- 
 stitutional, and, if necessary, physical resources, in direct 
 array against a policy, which has never been checked but 
 by her interposition, and which impoverishes our coun- 
 try, revolutionizes our Government, and overthrows our 
 liberties. The expediency, the manner, and the pre- 
 cise time of doing this, are for your grave deliberation. 
 
 The last session of Congress was also signalized by 
 the rejection of a treaty for the annexation of Texas 
 to the United States. The cause assigned for this 
 rejection was, that Mexico not having yet acknow- 
 ledged the independence of Texas, it would be a viola- 
 
99 
 
 tion of our treaty of amity aud peace with that power 
 to receiv^e Texas into the Union. It is at least a ques- 
 tion, whether the United States has not a claim to 
 Texas paramount to any to which Mexico can pretend. 
 It may also be questioned, whether the terms on which 
 Texas united with the Mexican liepublic, and formed 
 a Department of it, did not entitle her of right to 
 withdraw whenever she saw proper. Be that as it 
 may, she has in fact dissolved the connection, and has 
 been recognized as an Independent Power, by the 
 United States, England, France, Belgium, and Hol- 
 land. A jury of nations has pronounced a divorce, 
 and Mexico has abstained for eight years from at. 
 tempting to revive the union by the ordinary means 
 of force of arms. Her claims cannot now be re- 
 garded as anything short of frivolous. That the poli- 
 tical sensibility of the United States should now hang 
 a point of honor on these claims, and thereby throw 
 away an empire, must appear to all the world ex- 
 tremely^ romantic, if not ridiculous. While Bussia is 
 by incessant war extending her overgrown dominion 
 into the rugged step})es of Tartary ; while France 
 sheds torrents of Idood, and spends millions of trea- 
 sure, to conquer a foothold on a sterile coast of Africa, 
 and, stretching across two oceans, opens her batteries 
 on the female sovereign of a petty island at the anti- 
 podes, to establish her supremacy there ; and while 
 England with rapacious hand despoils Eastern princes 
 of province after province, and even condescends to 
 accept a kingdom on the Musquito shore, as a legacy 
 from a barbarian chief; that the United States should, 
 from mere delicacy, refuse a proffered territory of 
 three hundred thousand square miles, embracing the 
 
100 
 
 most fertile soil on the globe, and peopled by her own 
 cliildren, cannot be otherwise regarded than as abso- 
 lutely Quixotic. Europe, while rejoicing at such an 
 unexpected event, is so utterly incapable of appreciat- 
 ino' these sublimated notions of national ftiith, as not to 
 hesitate to ascribe it solely to the influence of party 
 spirit, and note it as a fresh evidence of the instability 
 of our institutioDS. That party spirit may have had 
 some influence in the rejection of this "treaty, is prob- 
 able. But the main, and most powerful reason, un- 
 doubtedly was the deadly animosity of a portion of 
 this Union to our domestic slavery, and the fear of 
 extending and perpetuating it. This reason has been 
 openly avowed by nearly the whole press of the non- 
 slaveholding States ; by their public lecturers, by their 
 most distinguished orators, and by the Legislatures of 
 several States — particularly that of Massachusetts — 
 whose resolutions I transmit to you, in which is 
 strongly intimated the expediency of dissolving the 
 Union of these States, on this very ground, if Texas is 
 annexed. 
 
 Scarcely any circumstance could have furnished so 
 striking a jjroof of the deep-seated hostility of every 
 portion, and almost every individutil, of the North, to 
 our system of Slavery, and their fixed determination 
 to eradicate it, if possible, as the rejection of this treaty, 
 and the arguments by which they justify it. In every 
 point of view, save one, the acquisition of Texas was 
 of more consequence to the North than to the South. 
 To them it gave an increase of commerce ; a fresh 
 market for their manufactures ; another vent for popu- 
 lation ; new subjects on whom to levy tribute. To us, 
 security, only ; and security at an immense sacrifice in 
 
lOL 
 
 the value of our lands and of our staples. But the 
 pride of increased dominion, the thirst of wealth; 
 ambition, and avarice — long supposed to be the two 
 strongest passions of our nature — ^have sunk before 
 their fanatical zeal to uproot an institution with which 
 is linked forever, and inseparably, the welfare, and 
 almost the existence, of five millions of their fellow- 
 citizens. 
 
 Nor is the refusal to ratify this treaty, so vitally 
 important to the South, the only extraordinary proof 
 which the past year has furnished, of the exuberant 
 and rancorous hostility of the North to our domestic 
 slavery. At a meeting in May last, of the General Con- 
 ference of the Methodist denomination — whose ecclesi- 
 astical constitution and government bear, in some re- 
 spects, a striking resemblance to the political Constitu- 
 tion and Government of this Confederacy — a pious Bish- 
 op of the South was virtually deposed from his sacred 
 office, because he was a slaveholder. It was openly 
 and distinctly stated, that the Methodist congregations 
 in the non-slaveholding States, embracing a much 
 larger proportion of the masses than any others, would 
 no longer tolerate a slave-holder in their pulpits ; a 
 fact which has been since exemplified. With becoming 
 spirit, the patriotic Methodists of the South dissolved 
 all connexion with their brethren of the North. And 
 for this they are entitled to lasting honor and gratitude 
 from us. Other instances might be cited, not so strik- 
 ing, but equally decisive of the fact, that the abolition 
 phrenzy is no longer confined to a few restless and dar- 
 ing spirits, but has seized the whole body of the people 
 in the non-slaveholding States, and is rapidly supersed- 
 ing all other excitements, and trampling on all other 
 7 
 
lo-J 
 
 interests. It Las even been thought that the organized 
 Abolition vote might decide the pending Presidential 
 election ; and both parties at the North have been 
 charged with endeavoring to conciliate it for their can- 
 didate. While England, encouraged by these move 
 ments, and exasperated by our Tariff laws, is making 
 avowed war on us, that she may sti'ike a blow at those 
 who rre more onr enemies than hers. 
 
 Though all these eiforts may fail to coerce Congress 
 to pass r.n Act of Emancipation, and can hardly suc- 
 ceed in organizing an extensive insurrection among our 
 slaves, it cannot be disguised that they are doing mis- 
 chief here, and may soon effect irreparable injury. 
 They must be arrested. It is indispensably necessary 
 that they should be arrested in the shortest possible 
 period of time. The question is. How is this to be 
 done ? Argument and remonstrance are clearly useless. 
 All appeals to sympathy, to interest, and to the guar- 
 antees of the Bond of Union, have failed, as yet, and 
 will, I liave no doubt, continue to fail. Seeing, as we 
 of the South do, the naked impossibility of emancipa- 
 tion, without the extermination of one race or the 
 other, through crimes and horrors too shocking to be 
 mentioned — leavms^ a devastated land covered with 
 ashes, tears, and blood — I cannot doubt that you will 
 be justified by God and future generations, in adopting 
 any measures, however startling they may appear, that 
 will place your rights and property exclusively under 
 your own control, and enable you to repel all interfer- 
 ence with them, whatever shape it may assume. And 
 as you incur a danger of no ordinary character — one 
 so subtle and insidious in its approaches that there is 
 no ascertaining how soon it may be too late to resist it 
 
103 
 
 — I believe you will be equally justified in taking 
 these measures as early and decisiv^ely as in your judg- 
 ment you may deem proper. 
 
 The State of South-Carolina has been charged, and 
 sometimes from high quarters, with entertaining a de- 
 sire to dissolve the Union of these States ; and the ex- 
 pression of a sentiment looking that way, by any of 
 her citizens, is widely denounced as treasonable, if not 
 blasphemous. There is no State which has given, in 
 its times of trial, a more ardent or effective support to 
 the Union than our own. There is no State which has 
 less to gain by anarchy and revolution, or that is less 
 disposed to plunge into them wantonly. Neither her 
 fundamental institutions, nor ker legislation, betray a 
 love of change. Her people are steady in their princi- 
 ples, and loyal to their customs, laws, and constitutions. 
 But their devotion is not blind. They are not to be 
 defrauded of their rights under prostituted forms, how- 
 ever sacred in their origin, nor deterred, either by ob- 
 loquy or danger, from maintaining them. They are by 
 no means insensible of the advantages of the Union. 
 They are not wanting in those sentiments whick teach 
 them to venerate the institutions founded, in part, by 
 their own wise and heroic ancestors ; nor in that pride 
 which would lead them to appreciate the glory of con- 
 tinuing members of a republic extending over two mil- 
 lions and a half of square miles, and whick migkt one 
 day number five kundred millions of enligktened citi- 
 zens. But tke Union was a compact for justice, liberty, 
 and security. Wken tkese fail, its living principles are 
 gone. Soutk-Carolina can kave no respect for an empty 
 name— still less for one whick becomes synonymous to 
 her with oppression, vassalage and danger. It is vain 
 
J 04 
 
 to sound it in our ears, and claim for it our allegiance. 
 Our ancestors in tlie old world, waged a successful war 
 against the divine right of Kings ; and our fathers of 
 the Revolution broke the yoke of Lords and Commons. 
 Little has been gained for us, by these two noblest 
 struggles which history records, if we are now to be 
 overawed by the divine right of Union, and steeped in 
 wretchedness under its violated character. The illus- 
 trious man who has been called, by universal consent 
 the Father of our Country, did indeed leave it to us, 
 as his parting admonition, that we should cling to the 
 Union as our ark of safety. But, much as we rever- 
 ence his precept, his example is still dearer to us. 
 Sacred as we hold his last words, we cannot throw 
 them into the scale against the history of his life ; and 
 that teaches us to resist oppression, from whatever 
 quarter it may come, and whatever hazard is incurred. 
 Coming for the first time together, having duties to 
 perform which to some of you are new, and holding in 
 your hands the destinies of South-Carolina, you cannot 
 be too strongly impressed with the necessity of reflect- 
 ing maturely on the important questions that devolve 
 upon you, and of reverentially invoking to your aid 
 that Almighty Power, who searches all hearts, weighs 
 all motives, and metes out to all human efforts a just 
 measure of success. 
 
 J. H. HAMMOND. 
 
LETTER 
 
 TO THE FREE CHURCH OF GLASGOW, ON THE SUBJECT OF SLAVERY. 
 
 Executive Department, 
 South Carolina, 21st June, 1844. 
 
 Sir : — The last post brought me yonr communication, 
 accompanying the memorial of the Presbytery of the 
 Free Church of Glasgow, in behalf of John L. Brown, 
 convicted in this State of aiding a slave in escaping 
 from her master, and sentenced to be hung in April 
 last. It will be gratifying to you, seeing the interest 
 you have taken in the matter, to learn that I have par- 
 doned Brown. In consequence of representations made 
 to me in December last by Judge O'Neall, speaking for 
 himself and the judges of the Court of Appeals, I 
 commuted his punishment to thirty-nine lashes. Facts, 
 not known to the jury, nor to the judges, were after- 
 ward brought to my knowledge, which satisfied me 
 that Brown had no criminal design in what he did ; 
 and in the month of March I transmitted to him a full 
 pardon. I was not at all aware, at that time, of the 
 great interest taken abroad in behalf of one whose case 
 I had never heard mentioned here, except on the occa- 
 sions referred to ; and I was astonished to find myself 
 overwhelmed soon after with voluminous petitions for 
 
106 
 
 his pardon from the non-slaveholding States of this 
 Union ; and to perceive that his sentence was com- 
 mented on, not only by the English newspapers, but 
 in the English House of Lords. The latest, and I trust 
 the last communication to me on the subject, is your 
 memorial. 
 
 The interference of foreigners, or any person 
 bevond our boundaries, in the execution of the munic- 
 ipal laws of a sovereign State, even if in respectful 
 terms, is certainly a violation of all propriety and 
 courtesy ; and if carried to any extent, must become 
 wholly intolerable. I pass that by, however. The 
 law under which Brown was convicted, was enacted 
 during our colonial existence, and is emphatically 
 British law. It is also a good law. I pardoned him, 
 not because I disapproved the law, but because I did 
 not think he violated it. It would be the most absurd 
 thing in the world to recognize by law a system of 
 domestic slavery, and yet allow every one to free, not 
 merely his own slaves, but those of his neighbor, when- 
 ever instigated to do so by his own notions of pro- 
 j^riety, his interest, or his caprice. What sort of 
 security would we have for property held on such 
 terms as these ? You cannot but perceive, that to per- 
 mit others to take our slaves from us at pleasure with 
 impunity, would amount to a total abolition of slavery. 
 There would be no real difference between this, and 
 allowing the slaves to go free themselves. Your Pres- 
 bytery, and all the petitioners for Brown, and agitators 
 of his case, must have seen the matter in this light ; 
 and it is attributing to us but a small share of common 
 sense, to suppose that we would not take the same view 
 of it ourselves. 
 
107 
 
 Whether death should be inflicted for siicli an 
 ofFence is another question. We have modified in a 
 great degree the sanguinary code of law left us by our 
 British ancestors ; but we have not gone the length to 
 which some philosophers, both here and in your coun- 
 try, would have all governments to go — of abolishing 
 the punishment of death. Nor do I believe the suc- 
 cess vour o-overnment has met with in endeavoring to 
 diminish crime by aboHshing this punishment in so 
 many cases, will encourage them to press the matter 
 much farther at this time. Considering the vahie of 
 a slave ; the facility of seducing him from his owner ; 
 the evil influence which frequent seduction might 
 exercise on an institution, the destruction of which 
 must speedily and inevitably strike from the roll of 
 civilized States nearly the whole slaveholding section 
 of this country, as it has already done St. Domingo 
 and Jamaica ; and the enthusiastic and reckless enemies 
 of this institution by whom we are surrounded, it 
 seems to me that if any offence affecting property 
 merits death, this is one. 
 
 Your memorial, like all that have been sent to me, 
 denounces slavery in the severest terms ; as " traversing 
 every law of nature, and violating the most sacred 
 domestic relations, and the primary rights of man." 
 You and your Presbytery are Christians. You profess 
 to believe, and no doubt do believe, that the laws laid 
 down in the Old and New Testaments for the govern- 
 ment of man, in his moral, social and political relations, 
 were all the direct revelation of God himself Does it 
 never occur to you, that in anathematizing slavery, you 
 deny this divine sanction of those laws, and repudiate 
 both Christ and Moses ; or charge God with downright 
 
108 
 
 crime, in regulating and perpetuating slavery in the 
 Old Testament, and the most criminal neglect, in not 
 only not abolishing, but not even reprehending it, in 
 the New ? If these Testaments came from God, it is 
 impossible that slavery can " traverse the laws of 
 nature, or violate the primary rights of man.'" What 
 those laws and rights really are, mankind have not 
 agreed. But they are clear to God ; and it is blas- 
 phemous for any of His creatures to set up their notions 
 of them in opposition to His immediate and acknowl- 
 edged Revelation. Nor does our system of slavery 
 outrage the most sacred domestic relations. Husbands 
 and wives, parents and children, among our slaves, are 
 seldom separated, except from necessity or crime. The 
 same reasons induce much more frequent separations 
 among the white population in this, and, I imagine, in 
 almost every other country. 
 
 But I make bold to say that the Presbytery of the 
 Free Church of Glasgow, and nearly all the abolition- 
 ists in every part of the world, in denouncing our 
 domestic slavery, denounce a thing of which they know 
 absolutely nothing — nay, which does not even exist. 
 You weep over the horrors of the Middle Passage, 
 which have ceased, so far as we are concerned ; and 
 over pictures of chains and lashes here, wdiicli have no 
 existence but in the imagination. Our sympathies are 
 almost equally excited by the accounts published by 
 your Committees of Parliament — and therefore true ; 
 and which have been verified by the personal observa- 
 tion of many of us — of the squalid misery, loathsome 
 disease, and actual starvation, of multitudes of the 
 unhappy laborers — not of Ireland only, but of Eng- 
 land — nay, of Glasgow itself Yet we never presume 
 
109 
 
 to interfere with your social or municipal regulations — 
 your aggregated wealth and congregated misery — nor 
 the crimes attendant on them, nor your pitiless laws 
 for their suppression. And when w^e see 1)y your 
 official returns, that even the best classes of Ens-lish 
 agricultural laborers can obtain for their support but 
 seven pounds of bread and four ounces of meat per 
 week, and when sick or out of employment, must 
 either starve or subsist on charity, we cannot but look 
 with satisfaction to the condition of our slave laborers 
 who usually receive as a weekly allowance, fifteen 
 pounds of bread, and three poumh of bacon — have 
 their children fed without stint, and j^roperly attended 
 to — are all Avell clothed, and have comfortable dwell- 
 ings, where, with their gardens and poultry yards, they 
 can, if the least industrious, more than realize for 
 themselves the vain hope of the great French kino-, 
 that he might see every peasant in France have his 
 fowl upon his table on the Sabbath — who, from the 
 proceeds of their own crop, purchase even luxuries 
 and finery — who labor scarcely more than nine hours 
 a day, on the average of the year — and who, in sick- 
 ness, in declining years, in infancy and decrepitude, are 
 watched over with a tenderness scarcely short of 
 parental. When we contemplate \\\Qhwimi condition 
 of your operatives, of whom, that of your agricultural 
 laborers is perhaps the least wretched, we are not only 
 not ashamed of that of our slaves, but are always ready 
 to challenge a comparison, and should be highly grat- 
 ified to submit to a reciprocal investigation, by en- 
 lightened and impartial judges. 
 
 You are doubtless of opinion that all these advan- 
 tages in favor of the slave, if they exist, are more than 
 
110 
 
 counterbalanced by his being deprived of his freedom. 
 Can you tell me ^Yhvii freedom is — v/ho possesses it, and 
 how much of it is requisite for human happiness ? Is 
 your operative, existing in the physical and moral con- 
 dition which your own official returns depict — de- 
 prived too of every political right, even that of voting 
 at the polls- — who is not cheered by the slightest hope 
 of ever improving his lot or leaving his children to a 
 better, and who actually seeks the four walls of a 
 prison, the hulks, and transportation, as comparative 
 blessings — is he free — siifficAenthj free ? Can you say 
 that this sort of freedom— the liberty to beg or 
 steal — to choose between starvation and a prison ^ — does 
 or ought to make him happier than our slave, situated 
 as I have truly described him, without a single care or 
 gloomy forethought % 
 
 But you will perhaps say, it is not in the Thing, 
 but in the Name, that the magic resides — that there 
 is a vast difference between being called a slave and 
 being made one^ though equally enslaved by law, by 
 social forms, and by immutable necessity. This is an 
 ideal and sentimental distinction which it will be dif- 
 ficult to bring the African race to comprehend. But 
 if it be true, and freedom is a name and idea, rather 
 than reality, how many are there then entitled even 
 to that name, except by courtesy ; and how many are 
 able to enjoy the idea in perfection ? Does your ope- 
 rative regard it as a sufficient compensation for the dif- 
 ference between four ounces and three 2^oimds of 
 bacon ? If he does, he is a rare philosopher. In your 
 powerful kingdom social grade is as thoroughly estab- 
 lished and acknowledged as military rank. Your com- 
 monalty see among themselves a series of ascending 
 
Ill 
 
 classes, and, rising above them all, many more, com- 
 posed of men not a whit superior to themselves in any 
 of the endowments of nature, who yet in name, in 
 idea, and in fact, possess greater worldly privileges. 
 To what one of all these classes does fjeimiine freedom 
 belong ? To the duke, who fawns upon the prince— 
 to the baron, who knuckles to the duke, or to the 
 commoner, who crouches to the baron ? 
 
 Doubtless you all boast of being ideally free ; 
 while the American citizen counts your freedom slavery, 
 and could not brook a state of existence in which he 
 daily encountered fellow mortals, acknowledged and 
 privileged as his superiors, solely by the accident of 
 birth. He, too, in turn, will boast of his freedom, 
 which might be just as little to your taste. I will not 
 pursue this topic farther. But I think you must admit 
 that there is not so much in a name ; and that ideal or 
 imputed freedom is a very uncertain source of happi- 
 ness. 
 
 You must also agree, that it would be a bold thing 
 for you or any one to undertake to solve the great 
 problem of good and evil— happiness and misery, and 
 decide in what worldly condition man enjoys most, and 
 suffers least. Your profession calls on you to teach 
 that his true happiness is seldom found upon the 
 stormy sea of politics, or in the mad race of ambition, 
 in the pursuits of mammon, or the cares of hoarded 
 gain ; that, in short, the wealth and honors of this 
 world are to be despised and shunned. Will you then 
 say, that the slave must be wretched, because he is 
 debarred from them ? or because he does not indulge 
 in the dreams of philosophy, the wrangling of secta- 
 rians, or the soul-disturbing speculations of the skeptic ? 
 
112 
 
 or because, having never tasted of what is called free- 
 dom, he is ignorant of its ideal blessings, and as con- 
 tented with his lot, such as it is, as most men are with 
 theirs ? 
 
 You and your Presbytery doubtless desire, as we 
 all should, to increase the happiness of the human 
 family. But since it is so difficult, if not impossible, 
 to determine in what earthly state man may expect to 
 enjoy most of it, why can you not be content, to leave 
 him in that respect where God has placed him ; to 
 give up the ideal and the doubtful, for the real ; to 
 restrict yourselves to the faithful fulfilment of your 
 great mission of preaching " the glad tidings of salva- 
 tion" to all classes and conditions ; or, at the very least, 
 sacredly abstain from all endeavors to ameliorate the 
 lot of man by revolution, bloodshed, massacre, and 
 desolation, to which all attempts at abolition in this 
 country, in the present, and, so far as I can see, in any 
 future age, must inevitably lead ? 
 
 Be satisfied with the improvement which slavery 
 has made, and which nothing but slavery could have 
 made to the same extent, in the race of Ham. Look 
 at the negro in Africa — a naked savage — almost a 
 cannibal, ruthlessly oppressing and destroying his fel- 
 lows ; idle, treacherous, idolatrous, and such a disgrace 
 to the image of his God, in which you declare him to 
 be made, that some of the wisest philosophers have 
 denied him the possession of a soul. See him here — 
 three millions at least of his rescued race — civilized, 
 contributing immensely to the subsistence of the 
 human family, his passions restrained, his affections 
 cultivated, his bodily wants and infirmities provided 
 for, and the true reliorion of his Maker and Redeemer 
 
118 
 
 taugtt liim. Has slavery been a curse to him ? Can 
 you think God has ordained it for no good purpose ? 
 or, not content with the blessings it has already 
 bestowed, do you desire to increase them still ? Be- 
 fore you act, be sure your heavenly Father has revealed 
 to you the means. Wait for the inspiration which 
 brought the Israelites out of Egypt, which carried 
 salvation to the Gentiles. 
 
 I have written you a longer letter than I intended. 
 But the question of slavery is a much more interesting 
 subject to us, involving, as it does, the fate of all that 
 we hold dear, than anything connected with John L. 
 Brown can be to you ; and I trust you will read my 
 reply with as much consideration as I have read your 
 memorial. 
 
 I have the honor to be, very respectfully. 
 Your obedient servant, 
 
 J. H. HAMMOND. 
 
 To the Rev. Thomas Brown, D.D., Moderator of the Free Church of 
 Glasgow, and to the Presbytery thereof. 
 
TWO LETTERS 
 
 ON THE SUBJECT OF SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES, ADDRESSED TO 
 THOMAS CLARKSON, Esq. 
 
 Silver Bluff, South Caeoi.ixa, 
 January 28, 1845. 
 
 Sir : — I receive'! a short time ago, a letter from the 
 Rev. WiLLOUGHBY M. Dickinson, dated at your resi- 
 dence, '-Playford Hall, near Ipswich, 26th Nov., 1S44," 
 in which was inclosed a copy of your Circular Letter 
 addressed to professing Christians in our Northern 
 States, having no concern with Slavery, and to others 
 there. I presume that Mr. Dickinson's letter was 
 written with your knowledge, and the document in- 
 closed with your consent and approbation. I there- 
 fore feel that there is no impropriety in my addressing 
 my reply directly to yourself, especially as there is 
 nothing in Mr. Dickinson's communication requiring 
 serious notice. Having abundant leisure, it will be a 
 recreation to devote a portion of it to an examination 
 and free discussion of the question of Slavery as it 
 exists in our Southern States; and since you have 
 thrown down the gauntlet to me, I do not hesitate to 
 take it up. 
 
 Familiar as you have been with the discussions of 
 this subject in all its aspects, and under all the excite- 
 
115 
 
 ments it has occasioned for sixty years past, I may not 
 be able to present mucli that v/ill be new to you. 
 Nor ought I to indulge the liope of materially afiectinf'- 
 the opinions you have so long cherished, and so zeal- 
 ously promulgated. Still, time and experience have 
 developed facts, constantly furnishing fresh tests to 
 opinions formed sixty years since, and continually 
 placing this great question in points of view, which 
 could scarcely occur to the most consumate intellect 
 even a quarter of a century ago ; and which may not 
 iiave occurred yet to those whose previous convictions, 
 prejudices and habitt.J of thought have thoroughly and 
 permanently l)iassed them to one fixed way of looking 
 at the matter; while there are peculiaiities in the 
 operation of every social system, and special local as 
 well as moral causes materially affecting it, which no 
 one, placed at the distance you are from us, can fully 
 comprehend or properly appreciate. Besides, it may 
 be possibly, a novelty to you to encounter one who 
 conscientiously believes the Domestic Slavery of these 
 States to be not only an inexorable necessity for the 
 present, but a moi-al and humane institution, produc- 
 tive of the greatest political and social advantages, and 
 who is disposed, as I am, to defend it on these grounds. 
 I do not propose, however, to defend the African 
 Slave Trade. That is no longer a question. Doubt- 
 less great evils arise from it as it has been, and is now 
 conducted : unnecessary wars and cruel kidnappin^^ in 
 Africa ; the most shocking barbarities in the Middle 
 Passage ; and perhaps a less humane system of slavery 
 in countries continually supplied with fresh laborers at a 
 cheap rate. The evils of it, however, it may be fairly 
 presumed, are greatly exaggerated. And if I might 
 
116 
 
 judge of the truth of transactions stated as occurring 
 in this trade, by that of those reported as transpiring 
 among us, I should not hesitate to say, that a large 
 proportion of the stories in circulation are unfounded, 
 and most of the remainder highly colored. 
 
 On the passage of the Act of Parliament pro- 
 hibiting this trade to British subjects rests what you 
 esteem the glory of your life. It required twenty 
 years of arduous agitation, and the intervening ex- 
 traordinary political events, to convince your country- 
 men, and among the rest your pious King, of the 
 expediency of the measure; and it is but just to say, 
 that no one individual rendered more essential service 
 to the cause than you did. In reflecting on the subject, 
 you cannot but often ask yourself: What after all has 
 been accomplished ; how much human suffering has 
 been averted ; how many human beings have been 
 rescued, from transatlantic slavery? And on the 
 answers you can give these questions, must in a great 
 measure, I presume, depend the happiness of your life. 
 In framing them, how frequently must you be re- 
 minded of the remark of Mr. Grosvenor, in one of the 
 early debates upon the subject, which I believe you 
 have yourself recorded, "that he had twenty objec- 
 tions to the abolition of the Slave Trade : the first 
 was, that it was impossible — the rest he need not give." 
 Can you say to yourself, or to the world, that this j^/w^ 
 objection of Mr. Grosvenor has been yet confuted. It 
 was estimated at the commencement of your agitation 
 in 1787, that forty-five thousand Africans were an- 
 nually transported to America and the West Indies. 
 And the mortality of the Middle Passage, computed 
 by some at 5, is now admitted not to have exceeded 9 
 
117 
 
 per cent. Notwithstanding your Act of Parliament, 
 the previous abolition by the United States, and that 
 all the powers in the world have subsequently pro- 
 hibited this trade — some of the greatest of them 
 declaring it piracy, and covering the African seas with 
 armed vessels to prevent it — Sir Thomas Fowel Bux- 
 ton, a coadjutor of yours, declared in 1840, that the 
 number of Africans now annually sold into slavery 
 beyond the sea, amounts, at the very least, to one 
 hundred and fifty thousand souls ; while the mortality 
 of the Middle Passage has increased, in consequence of 
 the measures taken to suppress the trade, to 25 or 30 
 per cent. And of the one hundred and fifty thousand 
 slaves who have been captured and liberated by British 
 men of-war since the passage of your Act, Judge 
 Jay, an American Abolitionist, asserts that one hundred 
 thousand, or two-thirds, have perished between their 
 capture and liberation. Does it not really seem that 
 Mr. Grosvenor was a Prophet? That though nearly 
 all the "impossibilities" of 1787 have vanished, and 
 become as familiar facts as our household customs, 
 under the magic influence of Steam, Cotton and univer- 
 sal peace, yet this wonderful prophecy still stands, 
 defying time and the energy and genius of mankind. 
 Thousands of valuable lives and fifty millions of pounds 
 sterling have been thrown away by your government 
 in fruitless attempts to overturn it. I hope you have 
 not lived too long for your own happiness, though you 
 have been thus spared to see that, in spite of all your 
 toils and those of your fellow laborers, and the accom- 
 plishment of all that human agency could do, the 
 African Slave Trade has increased threefold under 
 your own eyes — more rapidly, perhaps, than any other 
 8 
 
118 
 
 ancient branch of commerce — and that your efforts to 
 suppress it have effected notJiing more than a three- 
 fold increase of its horrors. There is a Grod who rules 
 this world— All powerful— Farseeing : He does not 
 permit His creatures to foil His designs. It is He 
 who, for His allwise, though to us often inscrutable 
 purposes, throws " impossibilities " in the way of our 
 fondest hopes and most strenuous exertions. Can you 
 doubt this ? 
 
 Expei'ieuce having settled the point that this Trade 
 cannot he aholished hy the use offorce^ and that block- 
 ading squadrons serve only to make it more profitable 
 and more cruel, I am surprised that the attempt is per- 
 sisted in, unless it serves as a cloak to other purposes. 
 It would be far better than it now is, for the African, 
 if the trade was free from all restrictions, and left to 
 the mitigation and decay which time and competition 
 would surely bring about. If kidnapping, both secret- 
 ly and by war made for the purpose, could be by any 
 means prevented in Africa, tlie next greatest blessing 
 you could bestow upon that country would be to trans- 
 port its actual slaves in comfortable vessels across the 
 Atlantic. Though they might be perpetual bondsmen, 
 still they would emerge from darkness into light — 
 from barbarism to civilization — from idolatry to Chris- 
 tianity — in short from death to life. 
 
 But let us leave the African slave trade, which has 
 so signally defeated the Philanthropy of the world, 
 and turn to American slavery, to which you have now 
 directed your attention, and against which a crusade 
 has been preached as enthusiastic and ferocious as that 
 of Peter the Hermit — destined, I believe, to be about 
 as successful. And, here let me say, there is a vast dif- 
 
119 
 
 ference between the two, though you may not acknowl- 
 edge it. The wisdom of ages has concurred in the just- 
 ice and expediency of establishing rights by prescrip- 
 tive use, however tortious, in their origin, they may 
 have been. You would deem a man insane, whose keen 
 sense of equity would lead him to denounce your i-ight 
 to the lands you hold, and which perhaps you inherited 
 from a long line of ancestry, because your title was de- 
 rived from a Saxon or Norman conqueror, and your 
 lands were originally wrested by violence from the 
 vanquished Britons. And so would the New England 
 Abolitionist regard any one who would insist that he 
 should restore his farm to the descendants of the 
 slaughtered Red men, to whom God had as clearly 
 given it as he gave life and freedom to the kidnapped 
 African. That time does not consecrate wrong, is a 
 fallacy which all history exposes ; and which the best 
 and wisest men of all ages and professions of relig- 
 ious faith have practically denied. The means, there- 
 fore, whatever they may have been, by which the Afri- 
 can race now in this country have been reduced to 
 slavery, cannot affect us, since they are our property, 
 as your land is yours, by inheritance or purchase and 
 prescriptive right. You will say that man cannot hold 
 property in man. The answer is, that he can and act- 
 ually does hold property in his fellow all the world 
 over, in a variety of forms, and has always done so. 
 I will show presently his authority for doing it. 
 
 If you were to ask me whether I am an advocate 
 of slavery in the abstract, I should probably answer, 
 that I am not, according to my understanding of the 
 question. I do not like to deal in abstractions. It 
 seldom leads to any useful ends. There are few univer- 
 
120 
 
 sal truths. I do not now remember any single moral 
 truth universally acknowledged. We have no assur- 
 ance that it is given to our finite understanding to com- 
 prehend abstract moral truth. Apart from^ Revela- 
 tion and the Inspired Writings, what ideas should we 
 have even of God, Salvation and Immortality ? Let 
 the Heathen answer. Justice itself is impalpable as an 
 abstraction, and abstract liberty the merest phantasy 
 that ever amused the imagination. This world was 
 made for man, and man for the world as it is. We our- 
 selves, our relations with one another and with all 
 matter are real, not ideal. I might say that I am no 
 more in favor of slavery in the abstract, than I am of 
 poverty, disease, deformity, idiocy or any other in- 
 equality in the condition of the human family ; that I 
 love perfection, and think I should enjoy a Millennium 
 such as God has promised. But what would it amount 
 to ? A pledge that I would join you to set about erad- 
 icating those apparently inevitable evils of our nature, 
 in equalizing the condition of all mankind, consummat- 
 ing the perfection of our race, and introducing the 
 Millennium ? By no means. To effect these things, be- 
 longs exclusively to a Higher Power. And it would 
 be well for us to leave the Almighty to perfect His 
 own works and fulfil His own covenants ; especially, 
 as the history of the past shows how entirely futile all 
 human efforts have proved, when made for the purpose 
 of aiding Him in carrying out even his revealed de- 
 signs, and how invariably he has accomplished them 
 by unconscious instruments, and in the face of human 
 expectation. Nay more, that every attempt which has 
 been made by fallible man to extort from the world 
 obedience to his " abstract" notions of right and wrong, 
 
121 
 
 has been invariably attended with calamities, dire and 
 extended, just in proportion to the bi-eadth- and vigor 
 of the movement. On slavery in the abstract, then, it 
 would not b6 amiss to have as little as possible to say. 
 Let us contemplate it as it is. And thus contemplating 
 it, the first question we have to ask ourselves is, wheth- 
 er it is contrar}^ to the Will of God, as revealed to us 
 in His Holy Scriptures — the only certain means given 
 us to ascertain His Will. If it is, then slavery is a sin ; 
 and I admit at once that every man is bound to set 
 his face against it, and to emancipate his slaves should 
 he hold any. 
 
 Let us open these Holy Scriptures. In the twen- 
 tieth chapter of Exodus, seventeenth verse, I find the 
 following words : " Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's 
 house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his 
 man-servant nor his maid-servant, nor his ox, nor his 
 ass, nor anything that is thy neighbor's " — which is the 
 Tenth of those commandments that declare the essen- 
 tial principles of the Great Moral Law delivered to 
 Moses by God Himself. Now, discarding all technical 
 and verbal quibbling as wholly unworthy to be used 
 in interpreting the word of God, what is the y^lain 
 meaning, undoubted intent, and true spirit of this com- 
 mandment ? Does it not emphatically and explicitly 
 forbid you to disturb your neighbor in the enjoyment 
 of his property; and more especially of that which is 
 here specifically mentioned as being lawfully and by 
 this commandment made sacredly his ? Prominent in 
 the catalogue stands his "man-servant and his maid- 
 servant," who are thus distinctly consecrated as liis prop- 
 erty and guaranteed to him for his exclusive benefit 
 in the most solemn manner. You attempt to avert 
 
122 
 
 the otherwise irresistible conclusion, that slavery was 
 thus ordained by God, by declaring that the word 
 "slave" is not used here, and is not to be found in the 
 Bil^le. And I have seen many learned dissertations 
 on this point from Abolition pens. It is well known 
 that both the Hebrew and Greek words translated "ser- 
 vant " in the Scriptures, mean also and most usually 
 " slave." The use of the one word instead of the other 
 was a mere matter of taste with the Translators of the 
 Bible, as it has been with all the commentators and 
 reliofious writers ; the latter of whom have I believe 
 for the most part adopted the term " slave," or used 
 both terms indiscriminately. If, then, these He- 
 brew and Greek words include tbe idea of both sys- 
 tems of servitude, the conditional and unconditional, 
 they should, as the major includes the minor 23roposi- 
 tion, be always translated "slaves," unless the sense of 
 the whole text forbids it. The real question, then, is, 
 what idea is intended to be conveyed by the vi^ords 
 used in the commandment quoted ? And it is clear to 
 my mind that as no limitation is affixed to them, 
 and the express intention was to secure to mankind 
 the peaceful enjoyment of every species of property, 
 the terms " Men servants and Maid servants " in- 
 clude all classes of servants, and establish a lawful, ex- 
 clusive and indefeasible interest equally in the " He'* 
 brew Brother who shall go out in the seventh year " 
 and " the yearly hired servant," and those " purchased 
 from the Heathen round about," and were to be " Bond- 
 men forever," as ilie property of thew fellow man. 
 
 You cannot deny that there were among the He- 
 brews " Bond-men forever." You cannot deny that 
 God especially authorized his chosen people to purchase 
 
123 
 
 " Bond-men forever " from the Heathen, as recorded 
 in the 2bth Glia^. of Leviticus^ and that they are there 
 designated by the very Hebrew word used in the Tenth 
 commandment. Nor can you deny that a " Bo]\T)-man 
 Forevee" is a " Slave ;" yet you endeavor to hang an 
 argument of immortal consequence upon the wretched 
 subterfuge, that the precise word " slave " is not to be 
 found in the translation of the Bible ; as if the Trans- 
 lators were canonical expounders of the Holy Scrip- 
 tures, and flieir loords, not GocPs mmning^ must be re- 
 garded as His Revelation. 
 
 It is vain to look to Christ or any of his Apostles 
 to justify such blasphemous perversions of the word of 
 God. Although slavery in its most revolting form 
 was everywhere visible around them, no visionary no- 
 tions of piety or philanthropy ever tempted them to 
 gainsay the Law, even to mitigate the cruel severity 
 of the existing system. On the contrary, regarding 
 slavery as an estahlished as well as inevitable condition 
 of human society^ they never hinted at such a thing as 
 its termination on earth, any more than that "the poor 
 may cease out of the land," which God affirms to Moses 
 shall never be ; and they exhort " all servants under 
 the yoke " to " count their masters as worthy of all 
 honor ; " " to obey them in all things according to the 
 flesh ; not with eye-service as men-pleasers, but in sin- 
 gleness of heart, fearing God ; " " not only the good and 
 gentle, but also the fro ward ; " " for what glory is it if 
 when ye are buffeted for your faults ye shall take it 
 patiently ? but if when ye do well and suffer for it ye 
 take it patiently, this is acceptable of God." St. Paul 
 actually apprehended a runaway slave and sent him to 
 his master ! Instead of deriving from the Gospel any 
 
124 
 
 sanction for the work you have undertaken, it would 
 be difficult to imagine sentiments and conduct more 
 strikingly in contrast than those of the Apostles and 
 the Abolitionists. 
 
 It is impossible therefore to suppose that slavery is 
 contrary to the Will of God. It is equally absurd to 
 say that American slavery differs in form or principle 
 from that of the chosen People* We accept the Bible 
 terms as the definition of our slavery^ and its precepts 
 as the guide of our conduct. We desire nothing more. 
 Even the right to " buffet," which is esteemed so shock- 
 ing, finds its express license in the Gospel. 1 Peter ii. 
 20. Nay, what is more, God directs the Hebrews to 
 " bore holes in the ears of their brothers" to "inarlc them, 
 when under certain circumstances they become 'perpet- 
 ual slaves. Ex. xxi. 6. 
 
 I think, then, I may safely conclude, and I firmly 
 believe, that American slavery is not only not a sin, 
 but especially commanded by God through Moses, and 
 approved by Christ through His Apostles. And here 
 I might close its defence ; for what God ordains and 
 Christ sanctifies should surely command the respect 
 and toleration of Man. But I fear there has grown 
 up in our time a Transcendental Keligion which is throw- 
 ing even Transcendental Philosophy into the shade — 
 a Religion too pure and elevated for the Bible ; which 
 seeks to erect among men a higher standard of Morals 
 than the Almighty has revealed, or our Saviour preached ; 
 and which is probably destined to do more to impede 
 the extension of God's Kingdom on earth than all the 
 Infidels who have ever lived. Error is error. It is 
 as dangerous to deviate to the right hand as the left. 
 And when men professing to be holy men, and who 
 
125 
 
 are by numbers so regarded, declare those things to be 
 sinful which our Creator has expressly authorized and 
 instituted, they do more to destroy his authority among 
 mankind, than the most wicked can effect by proclaim- 
 ing that to be innocent which he has forbidden. To 
 this self-righteous and self-exalted class belong all the 
 Abolitionists whose writings I have read. With them 
 it is no end of the argument to prove your propositions 
 by the text of the Bible, interpreted according to its 
 plain and palpable meaning, and as understood by all 
 mankind for three thousand years before their time. 
 They are more ingenious at construing and interpolat- 
 ing to accommodate it to their new-fangled and etherial 
 code of morals, than ever were Voltaire <fe Hume in 
 picking it to pieces to free the w^orld from what they 
 considered a delusion. When the Abolitionists pro- 
 claim " man-stealing " to be a sin, and show me that it 
 is so written down by God, I admit them to be right, 
 and shudder at the idea of such a crime. But when I 
 sho^ them that to hold "bond-men forever" is ordained 
 by God, they deny the Bible^ and set up in its place a 
 Lata of their man 'nidkimg. I must then cease to reason 
 with them on this branch of the question. Our reli- 
 gion differs as widely as our manners. The Great 
 Judge in the day of final account must decide between 
 us. 
 
 Turning from the consideration of slave-holding in 
 its relations to man as an accountable beiusr, let us ex- 
 amine it in its influence on his political and social state. 
 Though, being foreigners to us, you are in no wise 
 entitled to interfere with the civil institutions of 
 this country, it has become quite common for your 
 countrymen to decry slavery as an enormous political 
 
126 
 
 evil to us, and even to declare that our Nothern States 
 ought to withdraw from the Confederacy rather than 
 continue to be contaminated by it. The American Abo- 
 litionists appear to concur fully in these sentiments, and 
 a portion at least of them are incessantly threatening to 
 dissolve the Union. Nor should I be at all surprised if 
 they succeed. It would not be difficult, in my opinion, to 
 conjecture which region, the North or South, would 
 suffer most by such an event. For one I should not 
 object, by any means, to cast my lot in a confederacy 
 of States whose citizens might all be slave-holders. 
 
 I endorse without reserve the much-abused senti- 
 ment of Gov. M'Duffie, that "slavery is the corner 
 stone of our Republican edifice ; " while I repudiate, as 
 ridiculously absurd, that much-lauded but nowhere 
 accredited dogma of Mr. Jefferson, that "all men are 
 born equal." No Society has ever yet existed, and I 
 have already incidentally quoted the highest authority 
 to show that none will ever exist, without a natural 
 variety of classes. The most marked of these must, in a 
 country like ours, be the rich and the poor, the educated 
 and the ignorant. It will scarcely be disputed that the 
 very poor have less leisure to prepare themselves for 
 the proper discharge of public duties than the rich ; 
 and that the ignorant are wholly unfit for them at all. 
 In all countries save ours these two classes, or the poor 
 rather, who are presumed to be necessarily ignorant, 
 are by law expressly excluded from all participation 
 in the management of public affairs. In a Republican 
 Government this cannot be done. Universal suffrage, 
 though not essential in theory, seems to be in fact a 
 necessary appendage to a Republican system. Where 
 universal suffrage obtains, it is obvious that the govern- 
 
127 
 
 ment is in the hands of a numerical majority ; and it is 
 hardly necessary to say that in every part of the world 
 more than half the people are ignorant and poor. 
 Though no one can look upon poverty as a crime, and 
 we do not generally here regard it as any objection to 
 a man in his individual capacity, still it must be admit- 
 ted that it is a wretched and insecure government which 
 is administered by its most ignorant citizens, and those 
 who have the least at stake under it. Though intelli- 
 gence and wealth have great influence here as every- 
 where in keeping in check reckless and unenlightened 
 numbers, yet it is evident to close observers, if not to 
 all, that these are rapidly usurping all power in the 
 non-slave-holding States, and threaten a fearful crisis 
 in Republican institutions there at no remote period. 
 In the slave-holding States, however, nearly one-half 
 of the whole population, and those the poorest and most 
 ignorant, have no political influence whatever, because 
 they are slaves. Of the other half a large proportion 
 are both educated and independent in their circum- 
 stances ; while those who unfortunately are not so, being 
 still elevated far above the mass, are higher toned and 
 more deeply interested in preserving a stable and well 
 ordered Government, than the same class in any other 
 country. Hence, slavery is truly the " corner stone " 
 and foundation of every well-designed and durable 
 " Kepublican edifice." 
 
 With us every citizen is concerned in the mainten- 
 ance of order, and in promoting honesty and industry 
 among those of the lowest class who are our slaves ; 
 and our habitual vigilance renders standing armies, 
 whether of soldiers or policemen, entirely unnecessary. 
 Small guards in our cities, and occasional patrols in the 
 
128 
 
 country, ensure us a repose and security known no- 
 where else. You cannot be ignorant tliat, excepting 
 the United States, there is no country in the world 
 whose existing Government would not be overturned 
 in a month, but for its standing armies, maintained at 
 an enormous and destructive cost to those whom they 
 are destined to overawe — so rampant and combative 
 is the spirit of discontent wherever nominal Free labor 
 prevails, with its ostensive privileges and its dismal 
 servitude. Nor will it be long before the " Free States " 
 of this Union will be compelled to introduce the same 
 expensive machinery to preserve order among their 
 " free and equal " citizens. Already has Philadelphia 
 organized a permanent Battalion for this purpose ; New 
 York, Boston and Cincinnati will soon follow her ex- 
 ample ; and then the smaller towns and densely popu- 
 lated counties. The intervention of their militia to re- 
 press violations of the peace is becoming a daily affair. 
 A strong Government, after some of the old fashions — 
 though probably with a new name — sustained by the 
 force of armed mercenaries, is the ultimate destiny of 
 the non-slave-holding section of this confederacy, and 
 one which may not be very distant. 
 
 It is a great mistake to suppose, as is generally done 
 abroad, that in case of war slavery would be a source 
 of weakness. It did not weaken Rome, nor Athens, 
 nor Sparta ; though their slaves were comparatively far 
 more numerous than ours, of the same color for the 
 most part with themselves, and large numbers of them 
 familiar with the use of arms. I have no apprehension 
 that our slaves would seize such an opportunity to revolt. 
 The present generation of them, born among us, would 
 never think of such a thing at any time, unless insti- 
 
129 
 
 gated to it by others. Against such instigations we 
 are always on our guard. In time of war we should 
 be more watchful and better prepared to put down in- 
 surrections than at any other periods. Should any for- 
 eign nation be so lost to every sentiment of civilized 
 humanity as to attempt to erect among us the standard 
 of revolt, or to invade us with Black Troops for the 
 base and barbarous purpose of stirring up servile war, 
 their efforts would be signally rebuked. Our slaves 
 could not be easily seduced, nor would anything de- 
 light them more than to assist in stripping Cuffee of 
 his regimentals to put him in the Cotton-field, which 
 would be the fate of most black invaders, without any 
 very prolix form of " apprenticeship." If, as I am sat- 
 isfied would be the case, our slaves remained peaceful 
 on our plantations, and cultivated them in time of war 
 under the superintendence of a limited number of our 
 citizens, it is obvious that we could put forth more 
 strength in such an emergency, at less sacrifice, than 
 any other people of the same numbers. And thus we 
 should, in every point of view, "out of this nettle dan- 
 ger, pluck the flower safety."" 
 
 How far slavery may be an advantage or disadvan- 
 tage to those not owning slaves, yet united with us in 
 political association, is a question for their sole conside- 
 ration. It is true that our Eepresentation in Congress 
 is increased by it. But so are our Taxes ; and the non- 
 slave-holding States, being the majority, divide among 
 themselves far the greater portion of the amount levied 
 by the Federal Government. And I doubt not that, 
 when it comes to a close calculation, they will not be 
 slow in finding out that the balance of profit arising 
 from the connection is vastly in their favor. 
 
130 
 
 In a social point of view the Abolitionists pronounce 
 slavery to be a monstrous evil. If it was so, it would 
 be our own peculiar concern, and superfluous benevo- 
 lence in tbem to lament over it. Seeing their bitter 
 hostility to us, they might leave us to cope with our 
 own calamities. But they make war upon us out of 
 excess of charity, and attempt to purify by covering 
 us with calumny. You have read and assisted to cir- 
 culate a great deal about affrays, duels and murders oc- 
 curring here, and all attributed to the terrible demor- 
 alization of slavery. Not a single event of this sort 
 takes place among us, but is caught up by the Aboli- 
 tionists and paraded over the world with endless com- 
 ments, variations and exaggerations. You should not 
 take what reaches you as a mere sample, and infer that 
 there is a vast deal more you never hear. You hear 
 all, and more than all the truth. 
 
 It is true that the point of honor is recognized 
 throughout the slave region, and that disputes of cer- 
 tain classes are frequently referred for adjustment to 
 the " trial by combat." It would not be appropiiate 
 for me to enter, in this letter, into a defence of the 
 practice of duelling; nor to maintain at length that it 
 does not tarnish the character of a people to acknowl- 
 edge a standard of honor. Whatever evils may arise 
 from it, however, they cannot be attributed to slavery ; 
 since the same custom prevails both in France and Eng- 
 land. Few of your Prime Ministers, of the last half cen- 
 tury even, have escaped the contagion, I believe. The af- 
 frays, of which so much is said, and in which rifles, bow- 
 ieknives and pistols are so prominent, occur mostly in 
 Frontier States of the South-West. They are naturally 
 incidental to the condition of society as it exists in many 
 
131 
 
 sections of these recently settled countries, and will as 
 naturally cease in due time. Adventurers from the 
 older States and from Europe, as desperate in charac- 
 ter as they are in fortune, congregate in these wild re- 
 gions, jostling one another and often forcing the peace- 
 able and honest into rencontres in self-defence. Sla- 
 very has nothing to do with these things. Stability and 
 peace are the first desires of every slave-holder, and the 
 true tendency of the system. It could not possibly exist 
 amid the eternal anarchy and civil broils of the ancient 
 Spanish dominions in America. And for this very 
 reason domestic slavery has ceased there. So far from 
 encouraging strife, such scenes of riot and bloodshed 
 as have within the last few years disgraced our Nor- 
 thern cities, and as you have lately witnessed in Bir- 
 mingham and Bristol and Wales, not only never have 
 occurred, but I will venture to say never will occur in 
 our slave-holding States. The only thing that can cre- 
 ate a mob (as you might call it) here, is the appearance 
 of an Abolitionist, whom the people assemble to chas- 
 tise. And this is no more of a mob, than a rally of 
 shepherds to chase a wolf out of their pastures would 
 be one. 
 
 But we are swindlers and repudiators ! Pennsyl- 
 vania is not a slave State. A majority of the States 
 which have failed to meet their obligations punctually 
 are nou-slave-holdiug ; and two-thirds of the debt said 
 to be repudiated is owed by these States. Many of 
 the States of this Union are heavily encumbered with 
 debt — none so hopelessly as England. Pennsylvania 
 owes $22 for each inhabitant — England $222, countino- 
 her paupers in. Nor has there been any i-epudiation 
 definite and final, of a lawful debt, that I am aware of. 
 
132 
 
 A few States have failed to pay some instalments of 
 interest. The extraordinary financial difficulties which 
 occurred a few years ago account for it. Time will set 
 all things right again. Every dollar of both principal 
 and interest owed by any State, North our South, will 
 be ultimately paid ; unle-S'S the abolition of slavery over- 
 whelms us ail in one common ruin. But have no 
 other nations failed to pay ? When were the French 
 assifrnats redeemed? How much interest did your 
 National Bank pay on its immense circulation from 
 1797 to 1821, during which period that circulation 
 was inconvertible, and for the time repudiated f How 
 much of your National Debt has been incurred for 
 money borrowed to meet the interest on it ; thus avoid- 
 ing delinquency in detail, by ensuring inevitable bank- 
 ruptcy and repudiation in the end ? And what sort 
 of operation was that by which your present ministry 
 recently expunged a handsome amount of that debt by 
 substituting, through a process just not compulsory, 
 one species of security for another ? I am well aware 
 that the faults of others do not excuse our own ; but 
 when failings are charged to slavery, which are shown 
 to occur to equal extent where it does not exist, surely 
 slavery must be acquitted of the accusation. 
 
 It is roundly asserted, that we are not so well edu- 
 cated nor so religious here as elsewhere. I will not go 
 into tedious statistical statements on these subjects. 
 Nor have I, to tell the truth, much confidence in the 
 details of what are commonly set forth as statistics. 
 As to education, you will probably admit that slave- 
 holders should have more leisure for mental culture 
 than most people. And I believe it is charged against 
 them that they are peculiarly fond of power, and am- 
 
133 
 
 bitious of honors. If this be so, as all the power and 
 honors of this country are won mainly by intellectual 
 superiority it might be fairl}^ presumed that slave- 
 holders would not be neglectful of education. In proof 
 of the accuracy of this presumption I point you to the 
 facts, that our Presidential chair has been occupied for 
 forty-four out of fifty -six years by slave-holders ; that 
 another has been recently elected to fill it for four 
 more, over an opponent wiio was a slave-holder also ; 
 and that in the Federal offices and both Houses of 
 Congress considerably more than a due proportion of 
 those acknowledged to stand in the first rank are from 
 the South. In this arena the intellects of the free and 
 slave States meet in full and fair competition. Nature 
 must have been unusually bountiful to us, or we have 
 been at least reasonably assiduous in the cultivation of 
 such gifts as she has bestowed — unless indeed you 
 refer our superiority to moral qualities, which I am 
 sure you will not. More wealthy we are not ; nor 
 would mere wealth avail in such rivalry. 
 
 The piety of the South is unobtrusive. We think 
 it proves but little, though it is a confident thing for a 
 man to claim that he stands higher in the estimation 
 of his Creator, and is less a sinner than his neisrhbor. 
 If vociferation is to carry the question of religion, the 
 Noi-th and probably the Scotch have it. Our sects 
 are few, harmonious, pretty much united among them- 
 selves, and pursue their avocations in humble peace. 
 In fact, our professors of religion seem to think — 
 whether correctly or not — that it is their duty " to do 
 good in secret " and to carry their holy, comforts to 
 the heart of each individual, without reference to class 
 or color^ for his sjiecial enjoyment, and not with a view 
 9 
 
134 
 
 to exhibit their zeal before the world. So fur as num- 
 bers are concerned, I believe our clergymen, when 
 called on to make a showing, have never had occasion 
 to blush, if comparisons were drawn between the free 
 and slave States. And although our presses do not 
 teem with controversial pamphlets, nor our pulpits 
 shade with excommunicating thunders, the daily walk 
 of our religious communicants furnishes apparently as 
 little food for gossip as is to be found in most other 
 regions. It may be regarded as a mark of our want of 
 excitability — though that is a quality accredited to us 
 in an eminent degree — that few of the remarkable 
 religious i-wis of the present day have taken root 
 amono^ us. We have been so irreverent as to lausrh at 
 Mormonism and Millerism, which have created such 
 commotions farther North ; and modern prophets have 
 no honor in our country. Shakers, Kappists, Dunkers, 
 Socialists, Fourrierists and the like keep themselves 
 afar off. Even Puseyism has not yet moved us. You 
 may attribute this to our Domestic Slavery if you 
 choose. I believe you would do so justly. There is 
 no material here for such characters to oj^erate upon. 
 
 But your grand charge is that licentiousness in in- 
 tercourse between the sexes is a prominent trait of our 
 social system, and that it necessarily arises from 
 slavery. This is a favorite theme with the Abolition- 
 ists, male and female. Folios have been written on it. 
 It is a common observation, that there is no subject on 
 which ladies of eminent virtue so much delight to 
 dwell, and on which, in especial, learned old maids like 
 Miss Martineau linger with such an insatiable relish 
 They expose it in the slave States with the most minute 
 observance and endless iteration. Miss Martineau, with 
 
135 
 
 peculiar gusto, relates a series of scandalous stories 
 which would have made Boccaccio jealous of her pen, 
 but which are so ridiculously false as to leave no 
 doubt that some wicked wag, knowing she would 
 write a book, has furnished her materials — a game too 
 often played on tourists in this country. The con- 
 stant recurrence of the female Abolitionists to this 
 topic, and their bitterness in regard to it, cannot fail to 
 suggest to even the most charitable mind, that 
 
 " Such rage without betrays the fires within." 
 
 Nor are their immaculate coadjutors of the other sex, 
 though perhaps less specific in their charges, less violent 
 in their denunciations. But recently in your island a 
 clergyman has, at a public meeting, stigmatized the 
 whole slave region as a " Brothel." Do these people 
 thus cast stones being " without sin ?" Or do they only 
 
 " Compound for sins tliey are inclined to 
 By damning those they have no mind to." 
 
 Alas that David and Solomon should be allowed to re- 
 pose in peace — that Leo should be almost canonized, 
 and Luther more than sainted — that in our own day 
 courtesans should be formally licensed in Paris, and 
 tenements in London rented for years to women of the 
 town for the benefit of the Church, with the knowledire 
 of the Bishop — and the poor Slave States of America 
 alone pounced upon and offered up as a holocaust on 
 the Altar of Immaculateness to atone for the abuse of 
 natural instinct by all mankind ; and if not actually 
 consumed, at least exposed, anathematized and held up 
 to scorn, by those who 
 
 " write 
 Or with a Rival's or an Eunuch's spite." 
 
136 
 
 But I do not intend to admit that this charge is just 
 or true. Without meaning to profess uncommon mod- 
 esty, I will say that I wish the topic could be avoided. 
 I am of opinion, and I doubt not every right-minded 
 man will concur, that the public exposure and discus- 
 sion of this vice, even to rebuke, invariably does more 
 harm than good ; and if it cannot be checked by instil- 
 ling pure and virtuous sentiments, it is far worse than 
 useless to attempt to do it by exhibiting its deform- 
 ities. I may not, however, pass it over ; nor ought I to 
 feel any delicacy in examining a question to which the 
 Slave-holder is invited and challenged by Clergymen 
 and Virgins. So far from allowing, then, that licen- 
 tiousness pervades this region, I broadly assert, and I 
 refer to the records of our Courts, to the public press, 
 and to the knowledge of all who have ever lived here, 
 that among our white population, there are fewer cases 
 of divorce, separation, crim. con. seduction, rape and 
 bastardy, than among any other five millions of people 
 on the civilized earth. And this fact I believe will be 
 conceded by the Abolitionists of this country them^ 
 selves. I am almost willing to refer it to them and 
 submit to their decision on it. I would not hesitate to 
 do so if I thought them capable of an impartial judg 
 ment on any matter where Slavery is in question. Bu' 
 it is said that the licentiousness consists in the constan 
 intercourse between white males and colored females 
 One of your heavy charges against us has been that w- 
 regard and treat these people as brutes; you nov 
 charge us with habitually taking them to our bosom; 
 I will not comment on the inconsistency of these accuf 
 ations. I will not deny that some intercourse of th 
 sort does take place. Its character and extent, how 
 
137 
 
 ever, are grossly and atrociously exaggerated. No au 
 thority divine or human has yet been found sufficient 
 to arrest all such irregularities among men. But it is 
 a known ftict, that they are perpetrated here, for the 
 most part, in the cities. Very few mulattoes are rear- 
 ed on our plantations. In the cities a large propoi'tion 
 of the inhabitants do not own slaves. A still laro-er 
 proportion are natives of the North or foreigners. 
 They should share, and justly, too, an equal part in this 
 sin with the slave-holders. Facts cannot be ascertain- 
 ed, or I doubt not it would appear that they are the 
 chief offenders. If the truth be otherwise, then persons 
 fi-om abroad have stronger prejudices against the 
 African race than we have. Be this as it may, it is 
 well known that this intercoui'se is regarded in our so- 
 ciety as highly disreputable. If carried on habitually 
 it seriously affects a man's standing, so far as it is 
 known ; and he who takes a colored misti-ess — with 
 rare and extraordinary exceptions — loses caste at once. 
 You will say that one exception should damn our whole 
 country. How much less criminal is it to take a white 
 mistress ? In your eyes it should be at least an ecpal 
 offence. Yet look around you at home, from the cot- 
 tage to the throne, and count how many mistresses are 
 kept in unblushing notoriety, without any loss of caste. 
 Such cases are almost unknown here, and down even 
 to the lowest walks of life it is almost invariably fiital 
 to a man's position and prospects to keep a mistress 
 openly, whether white or black. What Miss Martin- 
 eau relates of a young man's purchasing a colored con- 
 cubine from a lady and avowing his designs, is too ab- 
 surd even for contradiction. No person would dare to 
 allude to such a subject in such a manner to any decent 
 
138 
 
 female in this country. If he did, he would be lynched 
 — doubtless with your approbation. 
 
 After all, however, the number of the mixed breed 
 in proportion to that of the black is infinitely small, 
 and out of the towns next to nothing. And when it is 
 considered that the African race has been among us 
 for two hundred years, and that those of the mixed 
 breed continually intermarry — often rearing large fam- 
 ilies — it is a decided proof of our continence that so 
 few comparatively are to be found. Our misfortunes 
 are twofold. From the prolific propagation of these 
 mongrels among themselves, we are liable to be charg- 
 ed by tourists with delinquencies whei'e none have 
 been committed ; while, where one has been, it cannot 
 be concealed. Color marks indelibly the offence, and 
 reveals it to every eye. Conceive that, even in your 
 virtuous and polished country, if every bastard through 
 all the circles of your social system was thus branded 
 by nature and known to all, what shocking develop- 
 ments micrlit there not be ! How little indiirnation 
 might your saints have to spare for the licentiousness 
 of the slave region. But I have done with this disgust- 
 ing topic. And I think I may justly conclude, after 
 all the scandalous charges which tea-table gossip and 
 long-gowned hypocrisy have brought against the slave- 
 holders, that a peoj)le w^hose men are provei'bially 
 brave, intellectual and hospitable, and whose women 
 are unaffectedly chaste, devoted to domestic life and 
 happy in it, can neither be degraded nor demoralized, 
 whatever their institutions may be. My decided opin- 
 ion is, that our system of Slavery contributes largely 
 to the development and culture of these high and noble 
 qualities. 
 
139 
 
 In an economical point of view — which I will not 
 omit — Slavery presents some difficulties. As a gener- 
 al rule, I asrree, it must be admitted that free labor is 
 cheaper than Slave labor. It is a fidlacy to suppose 
 that ours is unpaidlahor. The slave himself must be 
 paid for, and thus his labor is all purchased at once, 
 and for no trifling sum. His price was in the first 
 place paid mostly to your countrymen^ and assisted in 
 building up some of those colossal English fortunes, 
 since illustrated by patents of nobility and splendid 
 piles of architecture —stained and cemented, if you like 
 the expression, with the blood of kidnapped innocents, 
 but loaded with no heavier curses than Abolition and 
 its begotten fanaticisms have brought upon your land 
 — some of them fulfilled, some yet to be. But, besides 
 the first cost of the slave, he must be fed and clothed — 
 well fed and well clothed — if not for humanity's sake, 
 that he may do good work, retain health and life, and 
 rear a femily to supply his place. When old or sick 
 he a clear expense, and so is the helpless portion of 
 his family. No poor law provides for him when un- 
 able to work, or brings up his children for our service 
 when we need them. These are all heavy charges on 
 slave labor. Hence, in all countries where the dense- 
 ness of the population has reduced it to a matter of jier- 
 fect certainty that labor can be obtained whenever 
 wanted, and the laborer be forced by sheer necessity 
 to hire for the smallest pittance that will keep soul and 
 body together and rags upon his back while in actual 
 employment — dependent at all other times on alms or 
 poor rates — in all such countries it is found cheaper to 
 pay this pittance than to clothe, feed, nurse, support 
 through childhood and pension in old age a race of 
 
140 
 
 slaves. Indeed, the advantage is so gi-eat as speedily 
 to compensate for the loss of the value of the slave. 
 And I have no hesitation in saying that, if I conld cul- 
 tivate my lands on these terms, I would without a word 
 resign my slaves, provided they could be properly dis- 
 posed of But the question is, wdiether free or slave 
 labor is cheapest to ns in this country at this time, sit- 
 uated as we are. And it is decided at once by the fact 
 that we cannot avail ourselves of any other than slave 
 labor. We neither have nor can we procure other la- 
 bor to any extent, or on anything like the terms men- 
 tioned. We must therefore content ourselves with our 
 dear labor, under the consoling reflection that what is 
 lost to us, is gained to humanity ; and that inasmuch as 
 our slave costs us more than your free man costs you, 
 by so much is he better off. You will promptly say, 
 emancipate your slaves, and then you will have free la- 
 bor on suitable terms. That might be if there were 
 five hundred where there now is one, and the continent, 
 from the Atlantic to the Pacific, was as densely popula- 
 ted as your island. But until that comes to pass, no 
 labor can be procured in America on the terms you 
 have it. 
 
 While I thus fi-eely admit that to the individual pro- 
 prietor slave labor is dearer than free, I do not mean 
 to admit as equally clear that it is dearer to the com- 
 munity and to the State. Though it is certain that 
 the slave is a far greater consumer than your laborer 
 the year round, yet your pauper system is costly and 
 wasteful. Supported by your community at large, it 
 is not administered by your hired agents with that in- 
 terested care and economy — not to speak of humanity — 
 which mark the management of ours by each pi-oprie- 
 
141 
 
 tor for bis own non-effectives ; and it is botli more ex- 
 pensive to those who pay, and less beneficial to those 
 who receive its bounties. Besides this, Slavery is rapid- 
 ly filling up our country with a hardy and healthy race, 
 peculiarly adapted to our climate and productions, and 
 conferring signal political and social advantages on iis 
 as a people to which I have already referred. 
 
 I have yet to reply to the main ground on which 
 you and your coadjutors rely for the overthrow of our 
 system of slavery. Failing in all your attempts to 
 prove that it is sinful in its nature, immoral in its effects, 
 a political evil, and profitless to those who maintain it, 
 you appeal to the sympathies of mankind, and attempt 
 to arouse the world against us by the most shocking 
 charges of tyranny and cruelty. You begin by a vehe- 
 ment denunciation of " the irresponsible power of one 
 man over his fellow men." The question of the re- 
 sponsibility of power is a vast one. It is the great po- 
 litical question of modern times. Whole nations divide 
 off upon it and establish different fundamental systems 
 of government. That ''responsibility," which to one 
 set of millions seems amply sufficient to check the gov- 
 ernment, to the support of which they devote their lives 
 and fortunes, appears to another set of millions a mere 
 mockery of restraint. And accordingly as the opinions 
 of these millions differ, they honor each other with the 
 epithets of " Serfs " or "x\narchists." It is ridiculous to 
 '•itroduce such an idea as this into the discussion of a 
 mere Domestic Institution. But since you have intro- 
 duced it, I deny that the power of the slave-holder in 
 America is " irresponsible.'' He is responsible to God. 
 He is responsiljle to the world — a responsibility which 
 Abolitionists do not intend to allow him to evade — and 
 
142 
 
 in acknowledgment of whicli I write you this letter. 
 He is responsible to the community in which he lives, 
 and to the laws under which he enjoys his civil rights. 
 Those laws do not permit him to kill, to maim, or to 
 punish beyond certain limits, or to overtask, or to re- 
 fuse to feed and clothe his slave. In short, they forbid 
 him to be tyrannical or cruel. If any of these laws 
 have grown obsolete, it is because they are so seldom 
 violated that they are forgotten. You have disinter- 
 red one of them from a compilation by some Judge 
 Stroud of Philadelj^hia, to stigmatize its inadequate 
 penalties for killing, maiming, &c. Your object ap- 
 l^ears to be — you can have no other — to produce the 
 impression that it must be often violated on account of 
 its insufficiency. You say as much, and that it marks 
 our estimate of the slave. You forget to state that 
 this law was enacted by Engli-s-hmen^ and only indi- 
 cates their oj^inion of the reparation due for these of- 
 fences. Ours is proved by the fact, though perhaps 
 unknown to Judge Stroud or yourself, that we have 
 essentially altered this law ; and the murder of a slave 
 has for many years been punishable with death in this 
 State. And so it is, I believe, in most or all the slave 
 States. You seem well aware, however, that laws have 
 been recently parsed in all these States making it pe- 
 nal to teach slaves to read. Do you know what occa- 
 sioned their passage, and renders their stringent en- 
 forcement necessary? I can tell you. It was the Aboli- 
 tion agitation. If the slave is not allowed to read his 
 Bible, the sin rests upon the Abolitionists ; for they 
 stand prepared to furnish him with a Key to it, which 
 would make it, not a Book of hope and love and peace, 
 but of despair, hatred and blood; which would convert 
 
143 
 
 the reader, not into a Christian, but a Demon. To pre- 
 serve liim from such a liorrid destiny, it is a sacred 
 iuty wliicli we owe to our slaves, not less than to our- 
 selves, to interpose the most decisive means. If the 
 Catholics deem it wrons; to trust the Bible to the hands 
 of ignorance, shall we be excommunicated because we 
 will not give it, and with it the corrupt and fatal com- 
 mentaries of the Abolitionists, to our slaves ? Allow 
 our slaves to read your writings, stimulating them to 
 cut our throats ! Can you believe us to be such un- 
 speakable fools ? 
 
 I do not know that I can subscribe in full to the 
 sentiment so often quoted by the x\bolitionists, and by 
 Mr. Dickinson in his letter to me : ^' Homo sum, himiani 
 nil a me alienum j)uto,'''' as translated and practically 
 illustrated by them. Such a doctrine "SN'ould give wide 
 authority to every one for the most dangerous inter- 
 meddling with the atfairs of others. It will do in 
 poetry — perhaps in some sorts of Philosophy — but the 
 attempt to make it a household maxim, and introduce 
 it into the daily walks of life, has caused many a 
 " Homo " a broken crown ; and probably will continue 
 to do it. Still, though a slave-holder, I freely acknowl- 
 edge my obligations as a man ; and that I am bound to 
 treat humanely the fellow creatures whom God has 
 entrusted to my charge. I feel therefore somewhat 
 sensitive under the accusation of cruelty, and disposed 
 to defend myself and fellow slave-holders against it. 
 It is certainly the interest of all, and I am convinced 
 that it is also the desire of every one of us, to treat 
 our slaves with proper kindness. It is necessary to our 
 deriving the greatest amount of profit from them. Of 
 this we are all satisfied. And you snatch from us the 
 
144 
 
 only consolation we Americans could derive from the 
 opprobrious imputation of being wholly devoted to 
 making money, which your disinterested and gold-de- 
 spising countiymen delight to cast upon us, when you 
 nevertheless declare that we are ready to sacrifice it 
 for the pleasure of being inhuman. You remember 
 that Mr. Pitt could never get over the idea that self- 
 interest would insure kind treatment to slaves, until you 
 told him your woful stories of the Middle Passage. 
 Mr. Pitt was right in the first instance, and erred, 
 under your tuition, in not perceiving the difference 
 between a temporary and permanent ownership of 
 them. Slave-holders are no more perfect than other 
 men. They have passions. Some of them, as you 
 may suppose, do not at all times restrain them. Neither 
 ,do husbands, parents and friends. And in each of 
 these relations as serious suffering as frequently arises 
 from uncontrolled passions as ever does in that of 
 Master and Slave, and wilh as little chance of indem- 
 nity. Yet you would not on that account break them 
 up. I have no hesitation in saying that our slave- 
 holdei's are as kind masters, as men usually are kind 
 husbands, parents and friends — as a general rule, 
 kinder. A bad master — he who overworks his slaves, 
 provides ill for them, or treats them with undue sever- 
 ity — loses the esteem and respect of his fellow citizens 
 to as great an extent as he would for the violation of 
 any of his social and most of his moral obliofations. 
 Vv hat the most perfect plan of management would be 
 is a problem hard to solve. From the commencement 
 of Slavery in this country, this subject has occupied 
 the minds of all slave-holders, as much as the improve- 
 ment of the general condition of mankind has those 
 
145 
 
 of the most ardent philanthropists ; and the greatest 
 progressive amelioration of the system has been effected. 
 You yourself acknowledge that in the early part of 
 your career you were exceedingly anxious for the 
 immediate abolition of the Slave Trade, lest those 
 engaged in it should so mitigate its evils as to destroy 
 the force of your arguments and facts. The improve- 
 ment you then dreaded has gone on steadily here, and 
 would doubtless have taken place in the Slave Trade 
 but for the measures adopted to suppress it. 
 
 Of late years we have been not only annoyed, but 
 greatly embarrassed in this matter, by the Abolition- 
 ists. We have been compelled to curtail some 
 privileges ; we have been debarred from granting new 
 ones. In the face of discussions which aim at loosen- 
 ing all ties between master and slave, we have in some 
 measure to abandon our efforts to attach them to us 
 and control them through their affections and pride. 
 We have to rely more and more on the power of fear. 
 We must in all our intercourse with them assert and 
 maintain strict mastery, and impress it on them that 
 they are Slaves. This is painful to us, and certainly 
 no present advantage to them. But it is the direct 
 consequence of the Abolition agitation. We are deter- 
 mined to continue Masters, and to do so we have to draw 
 the rein tighter and tighter day by day to be assured 
 that we hold them in complete check. How far this 
 process will go on depends wholly and solely on the 
 Abolitionists. When they desist we can relax. We 
 may not before. I do not mean by all this to say that 
 we are in a state of actual alarm and fear of our slaves ; 
 but under existing* circumstances we should be ineffablv 
 stupid not to increase our vigilance and strengthen our 
 
146 
 
 Lands. You see some of the fruits of your labors. I 
 speak freely and candidly — not as a colonist who, 
 thouf»-h a slave-holder has a master; but as a free white 
 man, holding, under God, and resolved to hold, my 
 fate in my own hands; and I assure j^ou that my senti- 
 ments and feelings and determinations are those of 
 every slave-holder in this country. 
 
 The research and ingenuity of the Abolitionists, 
 aided l)y the invention of runaway slaves — in which 
 faculty, so far as improvising falsehood goes, the 
 African race is without a rival — have succeeded in 
 shocking the world with a small number of pretended 
 instances of our barbarity. The only wonder is that, 
 considering the extent of our countr}^, the variety of 
 our population, its fluctuating character, and the publi- 
 city of all our transactions, the number of cases col- 
 lected is so small. It speaks well for us. Yet of these 
 many are false, all highly colored, some occurring half 
 a century, most of them many years, ago ; and no 
 doubt a large proportion of them perpetrated by 
 foreigners. With a few rare exceptions the emigrant 
 Scotch and English are the worst masters among us, 
 and next to them our Northern fellow-citizens. Slave- 
 holders born and bred here are always more liumane 
 to slaves, and those who have grown up to a large 
 inheritance of them, the most so of any — showing 
 clearly that the effect of the system is to foster kindly 
 feelings. I do not mean so much to impute innate in- 
 humanity to foreigners, as to show that they come here 
 with false notions of the treatment usual and necessary 
 for slaves, and that newly acquired power here, as 
 everywhere else, is apt to be abused. I cannot enter 
 into a detailed examination of the cases stated by the 
 
14T 
 
 Abolitionists. It would be disgusting and of little 
 avail. I know nothing of tbem. I have seen nothing 
 like tbem, though born and bred here, and have rarely 
 beard of anything at all to be compared with them. 
 Permit me to say that I think most of your fjicts must 
 have been drawn from the West Indies, where un- 
 doubtedly slaves were treated much more harshly than 
 with us. This was owing to a variety of causes, which 
 might, if necessary, be stated. One was that they had 
 at first to deal more extensively with barbarians fresh 
 from the wilds of Africa ; another, and a leadins: one, 
 the absenteeism of Proprietors. Agents are always 
 more unfeeling than owners, whether placed over 
 West Indian or American slaves, or Irish tenantry. 
 We feel this evil greatly even here. You describe 
 the use of thumh screws as one mode of punishment 
 among us. I doubt if a thumb screw can be found in 
 America. I never saw or heard of one in this country. 
 Stocks are rarely used by private individuals, and con- 
 finement still more seldom ; though both are common 
 punishments for whites, all the world over. I think 
 they should be more frequently resorted to with slaves, 
 as substitutes for flogging, which I consider the most 
 injurious and least efficacious mode of punishing them 
 for serious offences. It is not desfradins^ and, unless 
 excessive, occasions little pain. You may be a little 
 astonished, after all the flourishes that have been made 
 about " cart whips," &c., when I say flogging is not the 
 most degrading punishment in the world. It may be 
 so to a white man in most countries, but how is it to 
 the white boy? That necessary coadjutor of the 
 scliool- master the " birch " is never thouirht to have 
 rendered infamous the unfortunate victim of pedagogue 
 
148 
 
 ire ; nor did Solomon in his wisdom dream that he was 
 counselling parents to debase their offspring, when he 
 exhorted them not spoil the child by sparing the rod. 
 Pardon me foi' recurring to the now exploded ethics of 
 the Bible. Custom, which, you will perhaps agree, 
 makes most things in this world good or evil, has re- 
 moved all infamy from the punishment of the lash to 
 the slave. Your blood boils at the recital of stripes 
 inflicted on a man ; and 3^ou think you should be fren- 
 zied to see your own child flogged. Yet see how com- 
 pletely this is ideal, arising from the fashions of society. 
 You doubtless submitted to the rod yourself, in other 
 years, when the smart was perhaps as severe as it -would 
 be now ; and you have never been guilty of the folly 
 of revenging yourself on the preceptor who in the plen- 
 itude of his " irresponsible power " thought proper to 
 chastise your son. So it is with the negro, and the 
 negro father. 
 
 As to chains and irons, they are rarely used ; never, 
 I believe, except in cases of running away. You will 
 admit that if we pretend to own slaves they must not 
 be permitted to abscond whenever they see fit ; and 
 that if nothing else w^ill prevent it these means must 
 be resorted to. See the inhumanity necessarily arising 
 from slavery, you will exclaim. Are such restraints 
 imposed on no other class of people given no more of- 
 fence ? Look to your army and navy. If your seamen, 
 impressed from their peaceful occupations, and your 
 soldiei-s, recruited at the gin shops — both of them as 
 much kidnapped as the most unsuspecting victim of the 
 Slave Trade, and doomed to a far more wretched fate 
 — if these men manifest a propensity to desert, the 
 heaviest manacles are their mildest punishment: it is 
 
149 
 
 most commonly deatb, after summary trial. But armies 
 and navies you say are indispensable, and must be kept 
 up at every saci'ifice. I answer that they are no more 
 indispensable, than slavery is tons — and to yow, for 
 you have enough of it in your country, though the form 
 and name differ from ours. 
 
 Depend upon it that many things, and in regard to 
 our slaves most things, which appear revolting at a 
 distance, and to slight reflection, would on a nearer 
 view and impartial comparison with the customs and 
 conduct of the rest of mankind strike you in a very 
 different light. Kemember that on our estates we dis- 
 pense with the whole machinery of public police and 
 public Courts of Justice. Thus we try, decide and ex- 
 ecute the sentences, in thousands of cases, which in 
 other countries would go into the Courts. Hence, most 
 of the acts of our alleged cruelty, which have any foun- 
 dation in truth. Whether our P-atriarchal mode of 
 administering justice is less humane than the Assizes 
 can only be determined by careful inquiry and com- 
 parison. But this is never done by the Abolitionists. 
 All our punishments are the outrages of " irresponsible 
 power." If a man steals a pig in England he is trans- 
 ported — torn from wife, children, parents and sent to 
 the Antipodes, infamous and an outcast forever, though 
 probably he took from the superabundance of his 
 neighbor to save the lives of his famishing little ones. 
 If one of our well-fed negroes, merely for the sake of 
 fresh meat, steals a pig, he gets perhaps forty stripes. 
 If one of your Cottagers breaks into another's house, 
 he is hung for burglary. If a slave does the same here, 
 a few lashes, or it may be a few hours in the stocks, 
 settles the matter. Are our Courts or yours the most hu- 
 10 
 
150 
 
 mane ? If slavery were not in question you would doubt- 
 less say ours is mistaken lenity. Perhaps it often is ; 
 and slaves too lightly dealt with sometimes grow daring. 
 Occasionally, tliough rarely, and almost always in con- 
 sequence of excessive indulgence, an individual rebels. 
 This is the highest crime he can commit. It is treason. 
 It strikes at the root of our whole system. His life is 
 justly forfeited, though it is never intentionally taken, 
 unless after trial in our public Courts. Sometimes, 
 however, in capturing, or in self defence, he is unfortu- 
 nately killed. A legal investigation always follows. 
 But, terminate as it may, the Abolitionists raise a hue 
 and cry, and another " shocking case " is held up to the 
 indignation of the world by tender-hearted male and 
 female Philanthropists, who would have thought all 
 right had the master's throat been cut, and would have 
 triumphed in it. 
 
 I cannot go into a detailed comparison between the 
 penalties inflicted on a slave in our Patriarchal Courts, 
 and those of the Courts of Sessions to which freemen 
 are sentenced in all civilized nations ; but I know well 
 that if there is any fault in our criminal code, it is that 
 of excessive mildness. 
 
 Perhaps a few general facts will best illustrate the 
 treatment this race receives at our hands. It is ac- 
 knowledged that it increases at least as rapidly as the 
 white, I believe it is an established law, that popu- 
 lation thrives in proportion to its comforts. But when 
 it is considered that these people are not recruited by 
 immigration from abroad as the whites are, and that 
 they are usually settled on our richest and least healthy 
 lands, the fact of their equal comparative increase and 
 greater longevity, outweighs a thousand Abolition false- 
 
 *•, 
 
151 
 
 hoods, in favor of the leniency and providence of our 
 management of them. It is also admitted that there 
 are incomparably fewer cases of insanity and suicide 
 among them than among the whites. The fact is, that 
 among the slaves of the African race these things are 
 almost wholly unknown. However frequent suicide 
 may have been among those brought from Africa, I can 
 say that in my time I cannot remember to have known 
 or heard of a single instance of deliberate self-destruc- 
 tion, and but one of suicide at all. As to insanity, I 
 have seen but one permanent case of it, and that twenty 
 years ago. It cannot be doubted that among three 
 millions of people there must be some insane and some 
 suicides ; but I will venture to say that more cases of 
 both occur annually among every hundred thousand 
 of the population of Great Britain than among all our 
 slaves. Can it be possible, then, that they exist in that 
 state of abject misery, goaded by constant injuries, out- 
 raged in their affections and worn down with hard- 
 ships, which the Abolitionists depict, and so many ig- 
 norant and thoughtless persons religiously believe ? 
 
 With regard to the separation of husbands and 
 wives, parents and children, nothing can be more un- 
 true than the inferences drawn from what is so con- 
 stantly harped on by Abolitionists. Some painful in- 
 stances perhaps may occur. Very few that can be pre- 
 vented. It is and it always has been an object of prime 
 consideration with our slaveholders to keep families 
 together. Negroes are themselves both perverse and 
 comparatively indifferent about this matter. It is a 
 singular trait, that they almost invariably prefer form- 
 ing connections with slaves belonging to other masters, 
 and at some distance. It is therefore impossible to 
 
152 
 
 prevent separations sometimes, by the removal of one 
 owner. Lis deatb, or failure, and dispersion of his prop- 
 erty. In all such cases, however, every reasonable 
 effort is made to keep the parties together, if they de- 
 sire it. And the negroes forming these connections, 
 knowing the chances of their premature dissolution, 
 rarely complain more than we all do of the inevitable 
 strokes of fate. Sometimes it happens that a negro 
 prefers to give up his family rather than separate from 
 his master. I have known such instances. As to wil- 
 fully selling oif a husband or wife or child, I believe it 
 is rarely, very rarely done, except when some offence 
 has been committed demanding " transportation." At 
 sales of estates, and even at Sheriffs' sales, they are 
 always, if possible, sold in families. On the whole, not- 
 withstanding the migratory character of our population, 
 I believe there are more families among our slaves who 
 have lived and died together without losing a single 
 member from their circle, except by the process of 
 nature, and in the enjoyment of constant, uninterrupted 
 communion, than have flourished in the same space of 
 time and among the same number of civilized people 
 in modern times. And to sum up all, if pleasure is 
 correctly defined to be in the absence of pain — which, 
 so far as the great body of mankind is concerned, is 
 undoubtedly its true definition — I believe our slaves 
 are the happiest three millions of human beings on 
 whom the sun shines. Into their Eden is coming Satan 
 in the guise of an Abolitionist. 
 
 As regards their religious condition, it is well 
 known that a majority of the communicants of the 
 Methodist and Baptist churches of the South are col- 
 ored. Almost everywhere they have precisely the same 
 
153 
 
 opportunities of attending worship that the whites 
 have, and besides, special occasions for themselves 
 exclusively, which they prefer. In many places not 
 so accessible to clergymen in ordinary, missionaries 
 are sent, and mainly supported by their masters, for 
 the particular benefit of the slaves. There are none, I 
 imagine, who may not, if they like, hear the Gospel 
 preached at least once a month — most of them twice a 
 month and very many every week. In our thinly set- 
 tled countr}?^ the whites fare no better. But in addition 
 to this, on ^plantations of any size the slaves who have 
 joined the church are formed into a class, at the head 
 of which is placed one of their number, acting as dea- 
 con or leader, who is also sometimes a licensed preacher. 
 This class assembles for I'eligious exercises weekly, 
 semi-weekly, or oftener, if the members choose. In 
 some parts, also, Sunday schools for blacks are estab- 
 lished, and Bible classes are orally instructed by dis- 
 creet and j)ious persons. Now where will you find a 
 laboring j^opulation possessed of greater religious ad- 
 vantages than these ? Not in London, I am sure, 
 where it is known that your churches, chapels, and 
 religious meeting houses of all sorts, cannot contain 
 one-half of the inhabitants. 
 
 I have admitted, without hesitation, what it would 
 be untrue and profitless to deny, that slaveholders 
 are responsible to the world for the humane treat- 
 ment of the fellow-beings whom God has placed in 
 their hands. I think it would be only fair for you to 
 admit, what is equally undeniable, that every man in 
 independent circumstances, all the world over, and 
 every Government, is to the same extent responsible to 
 the whole human family for the condition of the poor 
 
154 
 
 aud laboring classes in their own country and around 
 them, wherever they may be placed, to whom God 
 has denied the advantages he has given themselves. If 
 80, it would naturally seem the duty of true humanity 
 and rational philanthropy to devote their time and 
 labor, their thoughts, writings, and charity, first to the 
 objects placed as it were under their own immediate 
 charge. And it must be regarded as a clear evasion 
 and sinful neglect of this cardinal duty, to pass from 
 those whose destitute situation they can plainly see, 
 minutely examine, and efficiently relieve, to inquire 
 after the condition of others in no way entrusted to 
 their care, to exaggerate evils of which they cannot be 
 cognizant, to expend all their sympathies and exhaust 
 all their energies on these remote objects of their un- 
 natural, not to say dangerous benevolence, and, finally, 
 to calumniate, denounce, and endeavor to excite the 
 indignation of the world against their unoffending fel- 
 low-creatures for not hastening under their dictation 
 to redress wrongs which are stoutly and truthfully 
 denied, while they themselves go but little farther in 
 alleviating those chargeable on them than openly and 
 unblushingly to acknowledge them. There may be 
 indeed a sort of merit in doing so much as to make 
 such an acknowledgment, but it must be very modest 
 if it expects appreciation. 
 
 Now I affirm that in Great Britain the poor and 
 laboring classes of your own race and color, not only 
 your fellow-beings, but your fellow-citizens^ are more 
 miserable and degraded, morally and physically, than 
 our slaves ; to be elevated to the actual condition of 
 whom, would be to these your fellow-citizens a most 
 glorious act of emancipatio7i. And I also affirm that 
 
155 
 
 the poor and laboring classes of our older Free States 
 would not be in a mucli more enviable condition but 
 for our slavery. One of their own Senators has de- 
 clared in the United States Senate " that the repeal of 
 the Tariff would reduce New England to a howling 
 wilderness." And the American Tariff is neither more 
 nor less than a system by which the slave States are 
 plundered to benefit those States which do not tolerate 
 slavery. 
 
 To prove what I say of Great Britain to be true, I 
 make the following extracts from the Reports of Com- 
 missioners appointed by Parliament, and published by 
 order of the House of Commons. I can make but few 
 and short ones. But similar quotations might be made 
 to any extent, and I defy you to deny that these speci- 
 mens exhibit the real condition of your operatives in 
 every branch of your industry. There is of course a 
 variety in their sufferings. But the same incredible 
 amount of toil, frightful destitution, and utter want of 
 morals, characterize the lot of every class of them. 
 
 Collieries. " I wish to call the attention of the Board 
 to the pits about Brampton. The seams are so thin 
 that several of them have only two feet head-way to all 
 the working. They are worked altogether by boys 
 from 8 to 12 years of age, on all-fours, with a dog belt 
 and chain ; the passages being neither ironed nor 
 wooded, and often an inch or two thick with mud. 
 In Mr. Barnes' pit these poor boys have to drag the 
 barrows with one cwt. of coal or slack 60 times a day 
 60 yards, and the empty barrows back, without once 
 straightening their backs, unless they choose to stand 
 under the shaft and run the risk of havino;- their heads 
 broken by a falling coal." — Rep. on Mines, 1842,^. 71. 
 
156 
 
 " In Shropshire the seams are no more than 18 or 20 
 inches." — Ihid^ p. 67- "At the Booth pit," says Mr. Scri- 
 ven, " I walked, rode and crept 1,800 yards to one of 
 the nearest faces." — Ihid. " ' Choke-damp,' ' Fire-damp,' 
 * Wild-fire,' 'Sulphur' and 'Water' at all times men- 
 ace instant death to the laborers in these mines." 
 '"^JRohert JSForth^ aged sixteen : Went into the pit at T 
 years of age, to fill up skips. I drew about 12 months. 
 When I drew by the girdle and chain my skin was bro- 
 ken, and the blood ran down. I durst not say any- 
 thing. If we said anything, the butty, and the reeve, 
 who works under him, would take a stick and beat 
 us." — Ihid. "The usual punishment for theft is to 
 place the culprit's head between the legs of one of the 
 biggest boys, and each boy in the pit — sometimes there 
 are 20 — inflicts 12 lashes on the back and rump with 
 a cat." — Ihid. " Instances occur in which children are 
 taken into these mines to work as early as 4 years of 
 age, sometimes at 5, not uufrequently at 6 and 'T, while 
 from 8 to 9 is the ordinary age at which these employ- 
 ments commence." — Ihid. The wages paid at these 
 mines is from $2,50 to $7,50 per month for laborers, 
 according to age and ability, and out of this they must 
 support themselves. They work 12 hours a dav. — 
 Ihid. 
 
 In Calico printing. "It is by no means uncommon 
 in all the districts for children 5 or 6 years old to be 
 kept at work 14 to 16 hours consecutively." — Iiep>. on 
 Children, 1842, p. 59. 
 
 I could furnish extracts similar to these in regard to 
 every branch of your Manufactures, but I will not mul- 
 tiply them. Everybody knows that your operatives 
 habitually labor from 12 to 16 hours, men, women and 
 
157 
 
 cliildren, and the men occasionally 20 liours per day. 
 In lace making, says tlie last quoted Keport, cliildren 
 sometimes commence work at 2 years of age. 
 
 Destitution. — It is stated by your Commissioners 
 that 40,000 persons in Liverpool, and 15,000 in Man- 
 chester, live in cellars ; while 22,000 in England pass 
 the night in barns, tents, or the open air. " There have 
 been found such occurrences as .7, 8 and 10 persons in 
 one cottage, I cannot say for one day, but for whole 
 days, without a morsel of food. They have remained 
 on their beds of straw for two successive days, under 
 the impression that in a recumbent posture the pangs 
 of hunger were less felt." — Lord BrongliarrHs speech^ 
 Xlth July^ 1842. A volume of frightful scenes might 
 be quoted to corroborate the inferences to be necessa- 
 rily drawn from the facts here stated. I will not add 
 more, but pass on to the important inquiry as to 
 
 Morals and Education. — " EUzahetli Barrett., aged 
 14:1 always work without stockings, shoes or trow- 
 sers. I wear nothing but a shift. I have to go up to 
 the headings with the men. They are all naked there. 
 I am got used to that." — Report on Mines. " As to illicit 
 sexual intercourse it seems to prevail universally and 
 from an early period of life." "The evidence might 
 have been doubled which attests the early commence- 
 ment of sexual and promiscuous intercourse among 
 boys and girls." " A lower condition of morals, in the 
 fullest sense of the term, could not I think be 
 found. I do not mean by this that there are many 
 more prominent vices among them, but that moral 
 feelings and sentiments do not exist. They have 
 no morals.^'' "Their appearance, manners and moral 
 atures — so far as the word moral can be applied to 
 
158 
 
 them — are in accordance with their half-civilized con- 
 dition" — Rep. on Children. " More than half a dozen 
 instances occurred in Manchester, where a man, his 
 wife, and his wife's grown up sister, habitually occupied 
 the same bed." — Rep. on Sanitary Condition. Robert 
 CrucJiilow^ aged 16 : "I don't know anything of Moses 
 — never heard of France. T don't know what America 
 is. Never heard of Scotland or Ireland. Can't tell 
 how many weeks there are in a year. There are 12 
 pence in a shilling, and 20 shillings in a pound. There 
 are eight pints in a gallon of ale." — Re2y. on Mines. 
 Ann Eggly^ aged 18 : "I walk about and get fresh air 
 on Sundays. I never go to Church or Chapel. I 
 never heard of Christ at all." — Ihid. Others: "The 
 Lord sent Adam and Eve on earth to save sinners." 
 " I don't know who made the world, I never heard 
 about God." " I don't know Jesus Christ — I never 
 saw him — but I have seen Foster who prays about 
 him." Employer : " You have expressed surprise at 
 Thomas Mitchel's not hearing of God. I judge there 
 are few colliers hereabout that have." — Ibid. I will 
 quote no more. It is shocking beyond endurance to 
 turn over your Records in which the condition of your 
 laboring classes is but too faithfully depicted. Could 
 our slaves but see it, they would join us in lynching 
 Abolitionists, which, by the by, they would not now 
 be loth to do. We never think of im]30sing on them 
 such labor, either in amount or kind. We never put 
 them to any worh under ten, more generally at twelve 
 years of age, and then the very lightest. Destitution 
 is absolutely unknown — never did a slave starve in 
 America ; while in moral sentiments and feelings, in 
 religious information, and even in general intelligence, 
 
159 
 
 they are infinitely the superiors of your operatives. 
 When you look around you how dare you talk to us 
 before the world of slavery? For tlie condition of 
 your wretched laborers, you, and every Briton who is 
 not one of them, are responsible before God and Man. 
 If you are really humane, philanthropic and charitable, 
 here are objects for you. Relieve them. Emancipate 
 them. Raise them from the condition of brutes, to 
 the level of human beings — of American slaves, at 
 least. Do not for an instant suppose that the name of 
 being freemen is the slightest comfort to them, 
 situated as they are,. or that the bombastic boast that 
 " whoever touches British soil stands redeemed, regene- 
 rated and disenthralled," can meet with anything but 
 the ridicule and contempt of mankind, while that soil 
 swarms, both on and under its surface, with the most 
 abject and degraded wretches that ever bowed beneath 
 the oppressor's yoke. 
 
 I have said that slavery is an established and in- 
 evitable condition to liuman society. I do not speak 
 of the name^ but the fact. The Marquis of Normanby 
 has lately declared your operatives to be "m effect 
 davesT Can it be denied? Probably, for such Phi- 
 lanthropists as your Abolitionists care nothing for facts. 
 They deal in terms and fictions. It is the tvord "sla- 
 ery " whicb shocks their tender sensibilities ; and their 
 imaginations associate it with "hydras and chimeras 
 dire." The thing itself, in its most hideous reality, 
 passes daily under their view unheeded — a familiar face, 
 touching no chord of shame, sympathy or indignation. 
 Yet so brutalizing is your iron bondage that the 
 English operative is a byword through the world. 
 When favoring fortune enables him to escape his prison- 
 
160 
 
 house, botli in Europe and America lie is shunned. 
 With all the skill which 14 hours of daily labor from 
 the tenderest age has ground into him, his discontent, 
 which habit has made second nature, and his depraved 
 propensities, running riot when freed from his wonted 
 fetters, prevent his employment whenever it is not a 
 matter of necessity. If we derived no other benefit 
 from African slavery in the Southern States than that 
 it deterred jowv freedmen from coming hither, I should 
 regard it as an inestimable blessing. 
 
 And how unaccountable is that philanthropy 
 which closes its eyes upon such a state of things as 
 you have at home, and turns its blurred vision to 
 our affiiirs beyond the Atlantic, meddling with matters 
 which no way concern them — presiding, as you have 
 lately done, at meetings to denounce the " iniquity of 
 our laws" and "the atrocity of our practices," and to 
 sympathize with infamous wretches imprisoned here 
 for violating decrees promulgated both by God and 
 man ! Is this doing the work of " your Father which 
 is in Heaven," or is it seeking only " that you may have 
 glory of man ? " Do you remember the denunciation 
 of our Saviour, " Woe unto you, Scribes and Phari- 
 sees ; Hypocrites ! for ye make clean the outside of 
 the cup and platter, but within they are full of extor- 
 tion and excess ? " 
 
 But after all, supposing that everything you say 
 of slavery be true, and its abolition a matter of the 
 last necessity, how do you expect to effect emancipa- 
 tion, and what do you calculate will be the result of 
 its accomplishment ? As to the means to be used, the 
 Abolitionists, I believe, affect to differ, a large propor- 
 tion of them pretending that their sole purpose is to 
 
161 
 
 upply " moral suasion" to the slaveholders them- 
 selves. As a matter of curiosity, I should like to 
 know what their idea of this "moral suasion" is. 
 Their discourses — yours is no exception — are all tirades, 
 the exordium, argument, and peroration turning on the 
 epithets " tyrants " " thieves," " murderers," addressed 
 to us. They revile us as " atrocious monsters," " viola- 
 tors of the laws of nature, God and man," our homes 
 the abode of every iniquity, our land a "brothel." 
 We retort, that they are " incendiaries " and " assassins." 
 Delightful argument ! Sweet, potent " moral suasion ! " 
 What slave has it freed — what proselyte can it ever 
 make ? But if your course was wholly different — if 
 you distilled nectar from your lips, and discoursed 
 sweetest music, could you reasonably indulge the hope 
 of accomplishing your object by such means? Nay, 
 supposing that we were all convinced, and thought of 
 slavery precisely as you do, at what era of " moral 
 suasion " do you imagine you could prevail on us to 
 give up a thousand millions of dollars in the value of 
 our slaves, and a thousand millions of dollars more in 
 the depreciation of our lands, in consequence of the 
 want of laborers to cultivate them ? Consider : were 
 ever any people, civilized or savage, persuaded by any 
 argument, human or divine, to surrender voluntarily 
 two thousand millions of dollars ? Would you think 
 of asking five millions of Englishmen to contribute 
 either at once or gradually four hundred and fifty 
 millions of pounds sterling to the cause of Philanthropy, 
 even if the purpose to be accomplished was not of 
 doubtful goodness ? If you are prepared to undertake 
 such a scheme, try it at home. Collect your fund — 
 return us the money for our slaves, and do with them 
 
162 
 
 as you like. Be all the glory yours, fairly and hon- 
 estly won. But you see the absurdity of such an idea. 
 Away, then, with your pretended " moral suasion." 
 You know it is mere nonsense. The Abolitionists 
 have no faith in it themselves. Those who expect to 
 accomplish anything count on means altogether differ- 
 ent. They aim first to alarm us : that failing, to com- 
 pel us by force to emancipate our slaves, at our own 
 risk and cost. To these purposes they obviously direct 
 all their energies. Our Northern Liberty men have 
 endeavored to disseminate their destructive doctrines 
 among our slaves, and excite them to insurrection. 
 But we have put an end to that, and stricken terror 
 into them. They dare not show their faces here. 
 Then they declared they would dissolve the Union. 
 Let them do it. The North would repent it far more 
 than the South. We are not alarmed at the idea. 
 We are well content to give up the Union sooner than 
 sacrifice two thousand millions of dollars, and with 
 them all the rights we prize. You may take it for 
 granted that it is impossible to persuade or alarm us 
 into emancipation, or to making the first step towards 
 it. Nothing, then, is left to try, but sheer force. If 
 the Abolitionists are prepared to expend their own 
 treasure and shed their own blood as freely as they 
 ask us to do ours, let them come. We do not court 
 the conflict; but we will not and we cannot shrink 
 from it. If they are not ready to go so far ; if, as I 
 expect, their philanthropy recoils from it ; if they are 
 looking only for cheap glory, let them turn their 
 thoughts elsewhere and leave us in peace. Be the 
 sin, the danger and the evils of slavery all our own. 
 We compel, we ask none to share them with us. 
 
165 
 
 I am well aware that a notable scheme has been set 
 on foot to achieve abolition by making what is by 
 courtesy called " free " labor so much cheaper than 
 slave labor as to force the abandonment of the latter. 
 Though we are beginning to inaiinfacture with slaves^ 
 I do not think you will attempt to pinch your opera- 
 tives closer in Great Britain. You cannot curtail the 
 rags with which they vainly attempt to cover their na- 
 kedness, nor reduce the porridge which barely, and not 
 always, keeps those who have employment from per- 
 ishing of famine. When you can do this, we will con- 
 sider whether our slaves may not dispense with a pound 
 or two of bacon per week, or a few garments annually. 
 Your aim, however, is to cheapen labor in the tropics. 
 The idea of doing this by exporting your " bold yeo- 
 manry " is, I presume, given up. Cromwell tried it when 
 he sold the captured followers of Charles into West In- 
 dian slavery^ where they speedily found graves. JSTor 
 have your recent experiments on British and even 
 Dutch constitutions succeeded better. Have you still 
 faith in carrying thither your Coolies from Hindostan ? 
 Doubtless that once wild robber race, whose hiofhest 
 eulogium was that they did not murder merely for the 
 love of blood, have been tamed down, and are perhaps 
 " keen for immigration," for since your civilization has 
 reached it, plunder has grown scarce in Guzerat. But 
 what is the result of the experiment thus far ? Have 
 the Coolies, ceasing to handle arms, learned to handle 
 spades, and proved hardy and profitable laborers ? On 
 the contrary, broken in spirit and stricken with disease 
 at home, the wretched victims whom you have hither- 
 to kidnapped for a bounty, confined in depots, put un- 
 der hatches and carried across the ocean — forced into 
 
164 
 
 " voluntary immigration," have done little but lie down 
 and die on tlie pseudo soil of freedom. At tlie end of 
 five years, two-thirds, in some colonies a larger propor- 
 tion, are no more ! Humane and pious contrivance ! 
 To alleviate the fancied sufferings of the accursed pos- 
 terity of Ham, you sacrifice by a cruel death two-thirds 
 of the children of the blessed Shem — and demand the 
 applause of Christians — the blessing of Heaven ! If this 
 " experiment " is to go on, in God's name try your hand 
 upon the Thugs. That other species of " Immigration " 
 to which 3^ou are resorting I will consider presently. 
 
 But what do you calculate will be the result of 
 emancipation, by whatever means accomplished ? You 
 will probably point me, byway of answer, to the West 
 Indies — doubtless to Antigua, the great boast of aboli- 
 tion. Admitting that it has succeeded there — which I 
 will do for the sake of the argument — do you know 
 the reason of it ? The true and only causes of what- 
 ever success has attended it in Antigua are, that the 
 population was before crowded, and all or nearly all 
 the arable land in cultivation. The emancipated ne- 
 groes could not, many of them, get away if they desir- 
 ed ; and knew not where to go, in case they did. 
 They had practically no alternative but to remain on 
 the spot ; and remaining, they must work on the terms 
 of the Proprietors, or perish — the strong arm of the 
 mother country forbidding all hope of seizing the 
 land for themselves. The Proprietors, well knowing 
 that they could thus command labor for the merest ne- 
 cessities of life, which was much cheaper than main- 
 taining the non-effective as well as effective slaves 
 in a style which decency and interest, if not humanity, 
 required, willingly accepted half their value, and at 
 
J 65 
 
 once realized far more than the interest on the other 
 half in the diminntion of their expenses, and the redu- 
 ced, comforts of the frce7nen. One of your most illus- 
 trious Judges, Avho was also a profound and philoso- 
 phical Historian, has said " that Villeinage was not ab- 
 olished, but went into decay in England." This was 
 the process. This has been the process wherever (the 
 name of) Villeinage or Slavery has been successfully 
 abandoned. Slavery in fact " went into decay" in An- 
 tigua. I have admitted that under similiar circumstan- 
 ces it miglit profitably cease here — that is, profitably 
 to the individual Proprietors. Give me half the value 
 of my Slaves, and compel them to remain and labor on 
 my plantation at 10 to 11 cents a day, as they do in 
 Antigua, supj^orting themselves and families, and you 
 shall have tliem to-morrow, and, if you like, dub them 
 "free." Not to stickle, I would surrender them with- 
 out price. No — I recall my words: My humanity re- 
 volts at the idea. I am attached to my Slaves, and 
 would not have art or part in reducing them to such a 
 condition. I deny, however, that Antigua, as a com- 
 munity, is or ever will be as prosperous, under present 
 circumstances, as she was before abolition, though fully 
 ripe for it. The fact is well known. The reason is 
 that the African, if not a distinct, is an inferior Race, 
 and never will effect, as it never has effected, as mucli 
 in any other condition as in that of Slavery. 
 
 I know of no Slave-lwlder who has visited the West 
 Indies since Slavery was abolished, and published his 
 views of it. All our facts and opinions come through 
 the friends of the experiment, or at least those not op- 
 posed to it. Taking these, even without allowance, to 
 be true as stated, I do not see where the Abolitionists 
 11 
 
16G 
 
 find cause for exultation. The tables of exports, vvhich 
 are the best evidences of the condition of a people, 
 exhibit a wofal falling off — excused, it is true, by un- 
 precedented droughts and hurricanes, to which their 
 free labor seems unaccountably more subject than 
 slave labor used to be. I will not go into detail. It 
 is well known that a large proportion of British Legis- 
 lation and expenditure, and that proportion still con- 
 stantly increasing, is most anxiously devoted to repair- 
 ing the monstrous error of emancipation. You are 
 actually galvanizing your expiring Colonies. The 
 truth, deduced from all the facts, was thus pithily stated 
 by the London Quarterly Review, as Ions: ago as 1840: 
 " None of the benefits anticipated by mistaken good in- 
 tentions have been realized ; while every evil wished for 
 by knaves and foreseen by the wise has been painfully 
 verified. The wild rashness of fanaticism has made the 
 emancipation of the Slaves equivalent to the loss of one 
 half of the West Indies, and yet put back the chance 
 of Negro civilization." (^Art. Ld. Dudlef/s Letters.) 
 Such are the i^eal fruits of your never-to-be-too-much- 
 glorified abolition, and the valuable dividend of your 
 twenty millions of pounds sterling invested therein. 
 
 If any further proof was wanted of the utter and 
 well known though not yet openly avowed failure of 
 West Indian emancipation, it would be furnished by 
 the startlinsf fiict, that the Afeican Slave trade has 
 
 BEEN ACTUALLY EEVIVED UNDER THE AUSPICES AND 
 
 PROTECTION OF THE British GOVERNMENT. Under the 
 specious guise of " Immigration" they are replenishing 
 those Islands with Slaves from the Coast of Africa. 
 Your colony of Sierra Leone, founded on that coast to 
 prevent the Slave Trade, and peopled, by the bye, iu 
 
167 
 
 the first instance by negroes stolen from these States 
 dur.ng the Revolutionary War, is tlie Depot to whicli 
 captives taken from Slavers by your armed vessels are 
 transported. I might say returned, since nearly lialf 
 the Africans carried across the Atlantic are understood 
 to be embarked in this vicinity. The wretched sur- 
 vivors, who are there set at liberty, are immediately 
 seduced to "immigrate" to the West Indies. The 
 business is systematically carried on by Black "Dele- 
 gates," sent expressly from the West Indies, where on 
 arrival the "immigrants" are -sold into Slavery for 
 twenty-one years, under conditions ridiculously trivial 
 and wickedly void, since few or none will ever be able 
 to derive any advantage from them. The whole prime 
 of life thus passed in bondage, it is contemplated, and 
 doubtless it will be carried into effect, to turn them 
 out in their old age to shift for themselves, and to sup- 
 ply their places with fresh and vigorous " Immigrants." 
 Was ever a system of Slavery so barbarous devised 
 before ? Can you think of comparing it with ours ? 
 Even your own Religious Missionaries at Sierra Leone 
 denounce it, " as worse than the Slave state in Africa." 
 And your Black Delegates, fearful of the influence of 
 these Missionaries, as well as on account of the fnade- 
 quate supply of Captives, are now preparing to pro- 
 cure the able bodied and comparatively industrious 
 Kroomeu of the interior, by j^urchaslng from their 
 Headmen the privilege of inveigling them to the West 
 India market! So ends the magnificent farce — ^per- 
 haps I should say tragedy, of West India Abolition ! 
 I will not harrow your feelings by asking you to re- 
 view the labors of your life and tell me what you and 
 your brother Enthusiasts have accomplished for "in- 
 
168 
 
 jured Africa ; " but, while agreeing with Lord Stowell 
 that " Villeinage decayed," and admitting that Slavery 
 might do so also, I think I am fully justified by passed 
 and passing events in saying as Mr. Grosvenor said of 
 the Slave Trade, that its abolition is " impossible." 
 
 You are greatly mistaken, however, if you think 
 that the consequences of emancipation here, would be 
 similar and no more injurious than those which fol- 
 lowed from it in your little sea-girt West India Islands, 
 where nearly all were blacks. The system of slavery 
 is not in " decay" with us. It flourishes in full and 
 growing vigor. Our country is boundless in extent. 
 Dotted here and there with villages and fields, it is 
 for the most part covered with immense forests and 
 swamps of almost unknown size. In such a country, 
 with a people so restless as ours, communicating of 
 course some of that spirit to their domestics, can you 
 conceive that anything short of the power of the 
 master over the slave, could confine the African race, 
 notoriously idle and improvident, to labor on our 
 plantations ? Break this bond, but for a day, and these 
 plantations will be solitudes. The negro loves change, 
 novelty and sensual excitements of all kinds, when 
 awake. " Reason and order," of which Mr. Wilber- 
 FORCE said " liberty was the child," do not character- 
 ize him. Released from his present obligations his 
 first impulse would be to go somewhere. And here 
 no natural boundaries would restrain him. At first they 
 would all seek the towns, and rapidly accumulate in 
 squalid groups upon their outskirts. Driven thence 
 by the "armed police" which would immediately 
 «pring into existence, they would scatter in all direc- 
 tions. Some bodies of them might wander towards 
 
169 
 
 the " free" States, or to the western wilderness, mak- 
 ing their tracks by their depredations and their corpses. 
 Many would roam wild in our "Big woods." Many 
 more would seek the recesses of our swamps for secure 
 covert. Few, very few of them could be prevailed on 
 to do a stroke of work, none to labor continuously, 
 while a head of cattle, sheep or swine could be found 
 in our ranges, or an ear of corn nodded in our aban- 
 doned fields. These exhausted, our folds and poultry 
 yards, barns and store-houses would become their prey. 
 Finally, our scattered dwellings would be plundered, 
 perhaps fired and the inmates murdered. How long 
 do you suppose that we could bear these things ? How 
 long would it be before we should sleep with rifles at 
 our bedside, and never move without one in our hands? 
 This work once begun, let the story of our British 
 ancestors and the aborigines of this country tell the 
 sequel. Far more rapid however, would be the catas- 
 trophe. "Ere many moons went by," the African 
 race would be exterminated, or reduced again to sla- 
 very, their ranks recruited, after your example, by 
 fresh " Emigrants" from their father land. 
 
 Is timely preparation and gradual emancipation 
 suggested to avert these horrible consequences ? I 
 thought your experience in the West Indies had at 
 least done so much as to explode that idea. If it 
 failed there, much more would it fail here, where the 
 two races, approximating to equality in numbers, are 
 daily and hourly in the closest contact. Give room 
 for but a single spark of real jealousy to be kindled 
 between them, and the explosion would be instanta- 
 neous and universal. It is the most fatal of all fal- 
 lacies to suppose that these two races can exist to- 
 
170 
 
 gether, after any leiigth of time or any i:)roeess of pre- 
 paration, on terms at all approaching to equality. Of 
 this, both of them ai'e finally and fixedly convinced. 
 They differ essentially, in all the leading traits which 
 characterize the varieties of the human species, and 
 color draws an indelible and insuperable line of separa- 
 tion between them. Every scheme founded upon the 
 idea that tliey can remain together on the same soil, 
 beyond the briefest period, in any other relation than 
 precisely that which now subsists between them, is 
 not only preposterous, but fi-aught with de3p3st dan- 
 ger. If there was no alternate but to try the "experi- 
 ment" here, reason and humanity dictate that the 
 sufi:erings of "gradualism" should be saved and the 
 catastrophe of " immediate abolition" enacted as 
 rapidly as possible. Are you impatient for the per- 
 formance to commence ? Do you long to gloat over 
 the scenes I have susfo-ested, but could not hold the 
 pen to portray ? In your long life many such have 
 passed under your review. You know^ that tJiey are not 
 ^'■impoS''^ihley Can they be to your taste? Do you 
 believe that in laborinsr to brinsc them about the 
 Abolitionists are doinsr the will of God ? No ! God is 
 not tliere. It is the work of Satan. The arch-fiend, 
 under specious guises, has found his way into their 
 souls, and, with false appeals to philanthropy, and foul 
 insinuations to ambition, instigates them to rush head- 
 long to the accomj)lishment of his diabolical designs. 
 
 We live in a wonderful me. The events of the last 
 three quarters of a century appear to have revolution- 
 ized the human mind. Enterprise and ambition are 
 only limited in their purposes by the horizon of the 
 imagination. It is the transcendental era. In philos- 
 
171 
 
 opliy, religion, government, science, arts, cominei'ce, 
 nothing that has been is to he allowed to be. Conser- 
 vatism in any form is scoffed at. The slightest taint 
 of it is fatal. Where will all this end ? If yon can 
 tolerate one ancient maxim let it be that the be4 cri- 
 terion of the fntnre is the past. That, if anything, will 
 give a clue. And, looking back only through your 
 time, what w;^.s the earliest feat of this same Transcen- 
 dentalism? 'Ihe rays of the new Moral Drnmmond 
 Light were first concentrated to a focus at Paris, to 
 illuminate the Universe. In a twinklinsr it consumed 
 the political, religious, and social systems of Fi'ance. 
 It could not be extinguished there initil literally 
 drowned in blood. And then from its ashes rose that 
 supernatural man, who for twenty years kept affrighted 
 Europe in convulsions. Since that time its scattered 
 beams, refracted by broader surfaces, have nevertlieless 
 continued to scathe wherever they have fallen. What 
 political structure, what religious creed, but has felt 
 the galvanic shock, and even now trembles to its foun- 
 dations ? Mankind, still horror-stricken by the catas- 
 trophe of France, have shrunk from rash experiments 
 upon social systems. But they have been practicing 
 in the East, around the Mediterranean, and through 
 the West India Islands. And growing confident, a 
 portion of them seem desperately bent on kindling 
 the all-devouring flame in the bosom of our land. Let 
 it once again blaze up to heaven and another cycle of 
 blood and devastation will dawn upon the world. Eor 
 our own sake, and for the sake of those infatuated men 
 who are madly driving on the conflagration ; for the 
 sake of human nature, we are called on to strain every 
 nerve to arrest it. And be assured our efforts will be 
 
m 
 
 bounded only witli our being. Nor do I doubt that 
 five millions of people, brave, intelligent, united, and 
 prepared to hazard everything, will, in such a cause, 
 with the blessing of God, sustain themselves. At all 
 events, come what may, it is ours to meet it. 
 
 "We are all well aware of the light estimation in 
 which the Abolitionists, and those who are taught by 
 them, profess to hold us. We have seen the attempt of 
 a portion of the Free Church of Scotland to reject our 
 alms, on the ground that we are " Slave-Drivers," after 
 sending missionaries to solicit them. And we have seen 
 Mr. O'Connell, the " irresponsible master" of millions of 
 ragged serfs, from whom, poverty stricken as they are, 
 he contrives to wring a splendid privy purse, throw 
 back with contumely the " tribute " of his own coun- 
 trymen from this land of " miscreants." These people 
 may exhaust their slang and make black-guards of 
 themselves, but they cannot defile us. And as for the 
 suggestion to exclude slaveholders from your London 
 clubs, we scout it. Many of us indeed do go to London, 
 and we have seen, your breed of gawky Lords, both 
 there and here; but it never entered into our concep- 
 tions to look on them as better than ourselves. The 
 American slave-holders, collectively or individually, 
 ask no favors of any man or race who tread the earth. 
 In none of the attributes of men, mental or physical, 
 do they acknowledge or fear superiority elsewhere. 
 They stand in the broadest light of the knowledge^ 
 civilization and improvement of the age — as much 
 favored of Heaven as any of the sous of Adam. Ex- 
 acting nothing undue, they yield nothing but justice 
 and courtesy, even to royal blood. They cannot be 
 flattered, duped, nor bullied out of their rights or 
 
173 
 
 their propriety. They smile with contempt at scur- 
 rility and vaporing beyond the seas, and they turn 
 their backs upon it where it is "irresponsible;" but 
 insolence that ventures to look them in the face, will 
 never fail to be chastised. 
 
 I think I may trust you will not regard this letter 
 as intrusive. I should never have entertained an idea 
 of writing it, had you not opened the correspondence. 
 If you think anything in it harsh, review your own — 
 which I re2:ret that I lost soon after it was received — 
 and you will probably find that you have taken your 
 revenge beforehand. If you have not, transfer an 
 equitable share of what you deem severe to the ac- 
 count of the Abolitionists at large. They have accu- 
 mulated ao-ainst the slaveholders a balance of invec- 
 tive which, with all our efforts, we shall not be able 
 to liquidate much short of the era in which your 
 National debt will be paid. At all events, I have no 
 desire to offend you personally, and, with the best 
 wishes for your continued health, I have the honor 
 to be, 
 
 Your obedient servant, 
 
 J. H. HAMMOND. 
 
 Thos. Clarksox, Esq. 
 
 Silver Bluff, S. C, March 24, 1845. 
 
 Sir: — In my letter to you of the 28th of Jannary 
 — which I trust you have received ere this — I men- 
 tioned that I had lost your circular letter soon after it 
 had come to hand. It was, I am glad to say, only 
 mislaid, and has within a few days been recovered. 
 
174 
 
 A second ppnisal of it induces me to resume my pen. 
 Unwilling to trust my recollection from a single read- 
 ing, I did not in my last communication attempt to 
 follow tlie course of your argument, and meet directly 
 the }U)ints made and the terms used. I thought it 
 better to take a general view of the suT>ject which 
 could not fail to traverse your most material cliartres. 
 I am well aware however that, for fear of being 
 tedious, I omitted manj' interesting to])ics altogether, 
 and abstained from a complete discussion of some of 
 those introduced. I do not propose now to cdclicmst 
 the subject; which it would recpiire volumes to do; 
 but without waiting' to learn — which I mav never do 
 — your opinion of what I have already said, I sit down 
 to supply some of the deficiencies of my letter of 
 .January, and, with your circular before me, to reply 
 to such parts of it as have not been fully answered. 
 
 It is, I perceive, addressed among others to "such 
 as have nev^er visited the Southern States" of this 
 confederacy, and professes to enlighten their ignorance 
 of the actual "condition of the poor slave in their 
 own country." I cannot help thinking you would have 
 displayed prudence in confining the circulation of your 
 letter altogether to such persons. You might then 
 have indulged with impunity in giving, as you have 
 done, a pictui-e of slavery drawn from your own ex- 
 cited imagination, or from those impure fountains, the 
 Martineaus, Marryatts, Trollopes and Dickenses, who 
 have profited by catering, at our expense, to the jea- 
 lous sensibilities and debauched tastes of your coun- 
 trymen. Admitting that you are fiimiliar Avith the 
 history of slavery and the past discussions of it, as 
 I did, I now think rather broadly, in my former 
 
175 
 
 letter, what can you hww of the true conditim of the 
 " poor sLive " here ? I am not aware tliat you have 
 ever visited this country, or even the West Indies. 
 Can you suppose that because you have devoted your 
 life to the investigation of the subject — commencing 
 it nnder the influence of an enthusiasm so melancholy 
 at first and so volcanic afterwards as to be nothing 
 short of hallucination — pursuing it as men of one idea 
 do everything, with the single purpose of establishing 
 your own view of it — gathering your information from 
 discharged seamen, disappointed speculators, factious 
 politicians, visionary reformers and scurrilous tourists 
 — opening your ears to every species of complaint, exag- 
 geration and falsehood that interested ingenuity could 
 invent, and never for a moment questioning the truth 
 of anything that could make for yonr cause — -can you 
 suppose that all this has qualified you, living the while 
 in England, to form or approximate towards the for- 
 mation of a correct opinion of the condition of slaves 
 among us? I know the power of self-delusion. I 
 have not the least doubt that you think yourself the 
 very best informed man alive on this subject, and that 
 many think so likewise. So far as facts go, even after 
 deducting from your list a great deal that is not fact, I 
 will not deny that probably your collection is the 
 most extensive in existence. But as to the tru.tli in 
 regard to slavery, there is not an adult in this region 
 but knows more of it than you do. Tnitli and fact 
 are, you are aware, by no means synonimous terms. 
 Ninety-nine facts may constitute a falsehood : the hun- 
 dredth, added or alone, gives the truth. With all 
 your knowledge of facts, I undertake to say that you 
 are entirely and grossly ignorant of the real condition 
 
1T6 
 
 of our slaves. And from all that I can see, yon are 
 eqnally ignorant of the essential principles of human 
 association I'evealed in history, both sacred and pro- 
 fane, on which slavery rests, and which will perpetuate 
 it forever in some form or other. However you may 
 declaim against it ; however powerfully you may array 
 atrocious incidents; whatever appeals j^ou may make 
 to the heated imaginations and tender sensibilities 
 of mankind, believe me, your total blindness to 
 the tvliole truth^ which alone constitutes the truths 
 incapacitates you from ever making an impression 
 on the sober reason and sound common sense of the 
 world. You may seduce thousands — you can con- 
 vince no one. Whenever and wherever you or the 
 advocates of your cause can arouse the passions of the 
 weakminded and the ignorant, and, bringing to bear 
 with them the interests of the vicious and unprincipled, 
 overwhelm common sense and reason — as God some- 
 times permits to be done — you may triumph. Such a 
 triumph we have witnessed in Great Britain, But I 
 trust it is far distant here : Nor can it from its nature 
 be extensive or enduring:. Othei* classes of Reform- 
 ers, animated by the same spirit as the Abolitionists, 
 attack the institution of marriage, and even the estab- 
 lished relations of Parent and Child. And they col- 
 lect instances of barbarous cruelty and shocking 
 degradation which rival, if they do not throw into the 
 fehade, your slavery statistics. But the rights of mar- 
 riage and parental authority rest upon truths as ob- 
 vious as they are unchangeable — coming home to 
 every human being — self-impressed forever on the 
 individual mind, and cannot be shaken until the whole 
 man is corrupted, nor subverted until civilized society 
 
Ill 
 
 becomes a putrid mass. Domestic slavery is not so 
 universally understood, nor can it make such a direct 
 appeal to individuals or society beyond its pale. Here, 
 prejudice and passion have room to sport at the ex- 
 pense of others. They may be excited and urged to 
 dangerous action, remote from the victims they mark 
 out. They may, as they have done, effect great mis- 
 chief; but they cannot be made to maintain, in the 
 long run, dominion over reason and common sense, nor 
 ultimately put down what God has ordained. 
 
 You deny, however, that slavery is sanctioned by 
 God, and your chief argument is that when he gave to 
 Adam dominion over the fruits of the earth and the 
 animal creation he stopped there. " He never gave 
 him any further right over his fellow men." You 
 restrict the descendants of Adam to a very short list 
 of rights and powers, duties and responsibilities, if 
 you limit them solely to those conferred and enjoined 
 in the first chapter of Genesis. It is very obvious 
 tliat in tbis narrative of the creation Moses did not 
 have it in view to record any pai-t of the Law in- 
 tended for the government of man in his social or 
 political state. Eve was not yet created ; the expul- 
 sion had not taken place ; Cain was unborn ; and no 
 allusion whatever is made to the manifold decrees of 
 God to which these events gave rise. The only serious 
 answer this argument deserves, to say what is so mani- 
 festly true, that God's not expressly giving to Adam 
 "any right over his fellow men" by no means ex- 
 cluded Hira from conferring that i-ight on his descend- 
 ants; which he in fact did. We know that Abraham, 
 the chosen one of God, exercised it and held property 
 in his fellow man, and even anterior to the period 
 
178 
 
 when property in laud was acknowledged. We might 
 infer that God had authorised it. But we are not 
 reduced to inference or conjecture. At the hazard of 
 fatiguing you by repetition, I will again refer you to 
 the ordinances of the Scriptures. Innumerable in- 
 stances might be quoted where God has given and 
 commanded men to assume dominion over their fellow 
 men. But one will suffice. In the twenty-fifth chap- 
 ter of Leviticus you will find Domestic Slavery^pre- 
 ci'Sely such as is maintained at tliis day in these States 
 ■ — ordained and established by God., in language which 
 I defy you to ])ervert so as to leave a doubt on any 
 honest mind that this institution tvas founded by Him, 
 and decreed to be ^perpetual. I quote the words : 
 
 Leviticus, xxv. 44 : "Both thy Bondmen, and thy 
 Bondmaids, which thou shalt have, shall be of the 
 Heathen [Africans] that are round about you ; of them 
 ye shall buy Bondmen and Bondmaids^ 
 
 45 : " Moreover of the children of the strangers 
 that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, and 
 of their families that are with you which they begat in 
 your land ; [descendants of Africans?] and they shall 
 be your possession." 
 
 46 : " And ye shall take them as an inheritance for 
 your cldldren after you., to inherit them for a ])OSsession. 
 They shall be your Bondmen forever." 
 
 What human Le2:islature could make a decree 
 more full and explicit than this ? What Court of Law 
 or Chaucery could defeat a title to a slave couched in 
 terms so clear and complete as these ? And this is the 
 LaiD of God., whom you pretend to worship, while you 
 denounce and traduce us for respectiug it. 
 
 It seems scarcely credible, but the fact is so, that 
 
179 
 
 you deny tliis Law so plainly written, and, in the face 
 of it, liavc the hardiliood to declare that "though 
 slavery is not specijically^ yet it is virtually forbidden 
 in the Scriptures, because all the crimes which neces- 
 sarily arise out of slavery, and which can arise from no 
 other source, are reprobated there and threatened 
 with divine vengeance.'' Such an unworthy subter- 
 fuge is scarcely entitled to consideration. But its 
 gross absurdity may be exposed in few words. I do 
 not know what crimes you particularly allude to as 
 arising from slavery. Buh you will perha])s admit — 
 not because they are denounced in the decalogue, 
 which the Abolitionists respect only so far as they 
 choose, but because it is the immediate interest of most 
 men to admit — that disobedience to parents, adultery, 
 and stealing: are crimes. Yet these crimes " neces- 
 sarily arise from" the relations of parent and child, 
 marriage, and the possession of private 2:)roperty; at 
 least they "can arise from no other sources." Then, 
 according to your argument, it is " virtually forbidden " 
 to mari-y, to beget children, and to hold private pro- 
 perty ! Nay, it is forbidden to live, since murder can 
 only be perpetrated on living subjects. You add that 
 " in the same way the gladiatorial shows of old, and 
 other barl)arous customs, Avere not specifically for- 
 bidden in the New Testament, and yet Christianity 
 was the sole means of their suppi'ession." This is very 
 true. But these shows and barbarous customs thus 
 suppressed, were not authorized hy God. They were 
 not ordained and commanded by God for the benefit 
 of His chosen people and mankind, as the purchase 
 and holding of Bondmen and Bondmaids were. Had 
 they been, the}' would never have been "suppressed 
 
180 
 
 by Christianity," any more than slavery can be by 
 your party. Although Christ came "not to destroy 
 but fulfil the Law," he nevertheless did formally 
 abrogate some of the ordinances promulgated by 
 Moses, and all such as were at war with his mission of 
 " peace and good will on earth." He " specifically " 
 annuls, for instance, one " barbarous custom " sanc- 
 tioned by those ordinances, where he says: "ye have 
 beard that it hath been said, an eye for an eye and a 
 tooth for a tooth ; but I say unto you that ye resist 
 not evil, but whosoever shall smite thee on the right 
 cheek turn him the other, also." Now, in the time of 
 Christ, it was usual for masters to put their slaves to 
 death on the slightest provocation. They even killed 
 and cut them up to feed their fishes. He was un- 
 doubtedly aware of these things, as well as of the 
 Law and Commandment I have quoted. He could 
 only have been restrained from denouncing them, as 
 he did the " lex tcdionis^'' because he knew that, in 
 despite of these barbarities, the institution of slavery 
 was at the bottom a sound and wholesome as well as 
 lawful one. Certain it is, that in His wisdom and 
 purity he did not see proper to interfere with it. In 
 your wisdom, however, you make the sacrilegious at- 
 tempt to overthrow it. 
 
 You quote the denunciation of Tyre and Sidon, 
 and say that " the chief reason given by the Prophet 
 Joel for their destruction, was, that they were notori- 
 ous beyond all others for carrying on the Slave Trade." 
 I am afraid you think we have no Bibles in the slave 
 States, or that we are unable to read them. I cannot 
 otherwise account for your making this reference, un- 
 less indeed your own reading is confined to an expur- 
 
181 
 
 gated edition, prepared for the use of the Abolition- 
 ists, in which everything relating to slavery that mili- 
 tates against their view of it is left out. The Prophet 
 Joel denounces the Tyrians and Sidonians because " The 
 children also of Judali and the children of Jerusalem 
 have ye sold unto the Grecians." And what is the 
 divine vengeance for this " notorious slave trading ? " 
 Hear it. " And I will sell your sons and daughters 
 into the hands of the children of Judah, and they 
 shall sell them to the Sabeans, to a people far oif : for 
 the Lord hath spoken it." Do you call this a condem- 
 nation of slave-trading ? The Prophet makes God 
 Himself a participator in the crime, if that be one. 
 " The Lord hath spoken it," he says, that the Tyrians 
 and Sidonians shall be sold into slavery to strangers. 
 Their real offence was in enslaving the Chosen People ; 
 and their sentence was a repetition of the old Com- 
 mand, to make slaves of the " Heathen round about." 
 I have dwelt upon your scriptural argument be- 
 cause you profess to believe the Bible ; because a large 
 proportion of the Abolitionists profess to do the same, 
 and to act under its sanction ; because your Circular is 
 addressed in part to "professing Christians;" and 
 because it is from that class mainly that you expect to 
 seduce converts to your anti-christian, I may say, infidel 
 doctrines. It would be wholly unnecessary to answer 
 you to any one who reads the Scriptures for himself, 
 and construes them according to any other formula 
 than that which the Abolitionists are wickedly en- 
 deavoring to impose upon the world. The scriptural 
 sanction of slavery is in fact so palpable, and so strong, 
 that both wings of your party are beginning to ac- 
 knowledge it. The more sensible and moderate admit, 
 12 
 
182 
 
 as the organ of the Free Church of Scotland, the 
 North British Review, has lately done, that they " are 
 precluded hy the statements and conduct of the Apos- 
 tles from regarding mere slave-holding as essentially 
 siiful ; " while the desjDerate and reckless, who are bent 
 on keeping up the agitation at every hazard, declare, 
 as has been done in the Anti-Slavery Record, " If our 
 inquiry turns out in favor of slavery, it is the Bible 
 
 THAT MUST FALL, AND NOT THE RIGHTS OF HUMAN NA- 
 
 TUEE." You cannot, I am satisfied, much longer main- 
 tain before the world, the Christian platform from 
 which to wage war upon our Institutions. Driven 
 from it, you must abandon the contest, or, repudiating 
 Revelation, rush into the horrors of Natural Reli- 
 gion. 
 
 You next complain that our slaves are kept in 
 bondage by the " Law of force." In what country or 
 condition of mankind do you see human affairs regu- 
 lated merely by the law of love ? Unless I am greatly 
 mistaken you will, if you look over the world, find 
 nearly all certain and permanent rights, civil, social, 
 and I may even add religious, resting on and ultimately 
 secured by the " law of force." The power of major- 
 ities — of aristocracies — of Kings — nay of priests, for 
 the most part, and of property, resolves itself at last 
 into "force," and could not otherwise be long main- 
 tained. Thus, in every turn of your argument against 
 our system of slavery, you advance, whether con- 
 scious of it or not, radical and revolutionary doctrines 
 calculated to change the whole face of the world, to 
 overthrow all governments, disorganize society, and 
 reduce man to a state of nature — red with blood, and 
 shrouded once more in barbaric ignorance. But you 
 
183 
 
 greatly err, if you suppose, because we rely on force 
 in tlie last resort to maintain our supremacy over our 
 slaves, that ours is a stern and unfeeling domination at 
 all to be compared in hard-hearted severity to that 
 exercised, not over the mere laborer only, but by the 
 higher over each lower order, wherever the British 
 sway is acknowledged. You say that if those you 
 address were " to spend one day in the South they 
 would return home with impressions against slavery 
 never to be erased." But the fact is universally the 
 the reverse. I have known numerous instances ; and I 
 never knew a single one, where there was no other 
 cause of offence and no object to promote by false- 
 hood, that individuals from the non-slave-holdino; 
 States did not, after residing among us long enough to 
 understand the subject, "return home" to defend our 
 slavery. It is matter of regret, that you have never 
 tried the experiment yourself. I do not doubt you 
 would have been converted, for I give you credit for 
 an honest though ]3erverted mind. You would have 
 seen how weak and futile is all abstract reasonino- 
 
 o 
 
 about this matter ; and that, as a building may not be 
 less elegant in its proportions, or tasteful in its orna- 
 ments, or virtuous in its uses, for being based upon 
 granite ; so a system of human government, though 
 founded on force, may develope and cultivate the ten- 
 derest and j)urest sentiments of the human heart. And 
 our patriarchal scheme of domestic servitude is indeed 
 well calculated to awaken the higher and finer feelings 
 of our nature. It is not wanting in its enthusiasm and 
 its poetry. The relations of the most beloved and 
 honored chief, and the most faithful and admirino: sub- 
 jects, which from the time of Homer have been the 
 
IS4 
 
 tWiuo i^f 5j!C^i5i\ aiv tVigul mul imMt Ov^i«|vwyii with 
 ihv>!«i^ oxfetittjr Khxxxvu tUo «K^u>r j^nvl his ^1h vvv;* ~\\ ho 
 ^^^rvwl hi$ t?4Thor, aiul iwkovi his oravlU\ or have Ihv4\ 
 K^n\ in hfe hvnis^^hoM^ mul Wk i\>rwAi\l to sorw^ hb 
 duUlrvib^^— \\ ho h.^\x* Kvu throujih li^^ tho pt\>}^s of his 
 fv>rt«iu\ aikI tho objtvt of his onn^ — who havo ^virtakou 
 of his griotk i4»ui kvko\l to him t\>r ovMufx^rt in thoir 
 own — whv>si^ siokuoss ho h^^s sv> ftvv|uei\tly wntohovl 
 o\xvr jiud rolioxxxl — whoso l\oUvla\~s ho has so otVoii 
 tti.^do jovoiis by hfe Ivuutios auvl his jmvsouoo — ^>r 
 whv^si^ \voltki\^ whou al^si^nt his anxivnis Sv^ioitxulo uovor 
 co.HSi^ H^nd whvv*o hoiurty and atftvtiouato grootiugs 
 i*o\>^r ifiiil to w^^lvvmo him hvMuo, In thfe ov>Ki oidoiv 
 h4tiug\ amlntivHis v^wrUl of ours^ thorv^ are few ties 
 mv^rv hoarttVxlt, or of mv>ro 1\ : iurtuoiuw thai\ 
 
 |hv>^^ which mutually biuvi ti«v . . >,vT and tho slavo. 
 uudor our auoioiit s\^unu, hj»i\dovl down frvnu tho 
 Fathor of Isi^ol Tlio uuholy purpose* of tho AKdi« 
 tkvuists is K> do^txvw by dotiUugit: to iut\iso inK> it 
 V : '^. and '---<-: " ' w> j^ thoir own 
 
 u\l Kv . V ^ .;ds of tho ma^tOT 
 
 aud tho sorv^Qt; turn K^vo to hati>eii arrav*" r<>AV' 
 wo^wW n*i\v^ and 
 
 You think it a eroat ** crimte^'^ that w^ do not pay our 
 s.la\x>s "xii-a^^s," ar.d on this acvvunt pronvMmoo us 
 " rv^bK r^" In u^y tonnor lottor I s^howoii that tho 
 laK>r ot vHJr slavos \>-a$ not without irroat ov^st to ns, 
 whI that iu tact thoy thomsohx^ ivooi\*o nK>ro in r^ 
 tunt ivMT it than your hirolings do ^vr thoirss For what 
 pur^v\?o do nnni lalvr. but to supjx>rt thomsolvos and 
 
inr, 
 
 i]\f'\v niinilI(!H In wli-'it c'tini'ort ihcy nrc uhV;? 'Hie 
 ciYoriA of uu'.vc pliyhical ]jJ)or H<;Morri siifTif/; to j'>rovifle 
 rrion; tli?i,ri u livcJihof^fl. Aii'l it in a well krK>vvn and 
 Hlior;kInf( i'uci, Uiat whiht f'lW OjKjrativoH in (irv-,at 
 Hritain Hiicc(j(;d in Hocurin^^ a cornfortahlo living, th^j 
 grf;af<;r [mrf; draf.; out a miH<',rn\>](; cxiHt^jnco, and nink 
 at JjJHt undfjr ahnolutc want. Of wliat avail is it that 
 yon u<> t}iron;.'Ti tlio for-rn of payinf.; tlKiin a pittaricf; of 
 wli.'it, yon call "wages," wlicn you do not, in rf;liirn for 
 tln^ir HcrviccH, allow tli'irn wliat alono thoy ask — and 
 fiavc a jnst riglit to df^rnand — finongli to foofl, olotlio 
 and lodge tli(!rri,iri lioaltli and sickness, witli reasonable 
 comfort. 'J'liongli we do not give " wages" in rn/mei/^ 
 we, do tliis for oi//r ^h/ve-^, aru] they are therefu-e h';tter 
 rewardefl Ihan j/our-^. It is the, prevailing vice and 
 error of tin; age, and one from wliich the Al>olitlonists, 
 with all tlieir saintly pretensions, are far from being 
 i'vct'^ to hring everything tf) the standard of money. 
 Yon make gold anfl silver the gi'eat test of ha[)piness, 
 T'he American slave must be wrefclied irjde,f;fl, h(;cause 
 lie is not compensated for his services in ca-'fh. It is 
 altogether praiseworthy to pay the labf^rer a sliilling 
 a day and let him stfirve on it. To snpfjly all his 
 w;i.nts abundantly, and at all times, yet withhold i'v'>m 
 him 'money ^ is among "the most reprobaterl ci'imes." 
 Tlie fact cannot be denied, that the mere lal^orer is 
 now, Mild ,'ilways h;i,s heeri, eveiy where tliat barbarism 
 has ceased, enslavefl. Among tlie innovations of 
 modern times following "the decay of villeinage," has 
 been the creation of a new system of slavery. The primi- 
 tive and p;di'iar(;li!i,I, whicfi may al-o be called the 
 sacred and. natural system, in which the laborer is 
 undei' the p(;rsonal control of a fellow-being, endowed 
 
186 
 
 with the sentiments and sympathies of humanity, 
 exists among us. It has been ahnost everywhere else 
 superseded by the modern artificial money-^jower sys- 
 tem^ in which man — his thews and sinews, his hopes 
 and affections, his very being, are all subjected to the 
 dominion of Capital — a monster without a heart — 
 cold, stern, arithmetical — sticking to the bond — taking 
 ever " the pound of flesh" — working up human life 
 with Engines, and retailing it out by weight and 
 measure. His name of old was " Mammon, the least 
 erected spirit that fell from Heaven." And it is to 
 extend his Em2)ire, that you and your deluded coadju- 
 tors dedicate your lives. You are stirring up mankind 
 to overthrow our Heaven-ordained system of servi- 
 tude, surrounded by innumerable checks, designed and 
 planted deep in the human heart by God and nature, 
 to substitute the absolute rule of this " Spirit Repro- 
 bate," whose proj)er place was Hell. 
 
 You charge us with looking on our slaves "as 
 chattels or brutes," and enter into a somewhat elabo- 
 rate argument to prove that they have " human forms," 
 "talk," and even "think." Now the fact is that, 
 however you may indulge in this strain for effect, it is 
 the Abolitionists, and not the Slave-holders, who prac- 
 tically, and in the most important point of view, regard 
 our slaves as " chatties or brutes." In your calculations 
 of the consequences of emancipation you pass over 
 entirely those which must prove most serious, and 
 which arise from the fact of their \><smg persons. You 
 appear to think that we might abstain from the use 
 of them as readily as if they were machines to be laid 
 aside, or cattle that might be turned out to find pas- 
 turage for themselves. I have heretofore glanced at 
 
187 
 
 some of the results that would follow from breaking 
 the bonds of so many liuman heings now peacefully 
 and happily linked into our social system. The tragic 
 horrors, the decay and ruin that would for years, per- 
 haps for ages, brood over our land, if it could be 
 accomplished, I will not attempt to portray. But do 
 you fancy the blight would, in such au event, come to 
 ns alone ? The diminution of the sugar crop of the 
 West Indies affected Great Britain only, and there 
 chiefly the poor. It was a matter of no moment to 
 Capital, that Labor should have one comfort less. Yet 
 it has forced a reduction of the British duty on sugar. 
 Who can estimate the consequences that must follow 
 the annihilation of the cotton crop of the slave-holding 
 States ? I do not undervalue the importance of other 
 articles of commerce, but no calamity could befall the 
 world at all comparable to the sudden loss of two 
 millions of bales of cotton annually. From the deserts 
 of Africa to the Siberian wilds — from Greenland to 
 the Chinese Wall, there is not a spot of earth but 
 would feel the sensation. The Factories of Europe 
 would fall with a concussion that would shake down 
 castles, palaces and even thrones; while the ''purse- 
 proud, elbowing insolence" of our Northern monopo- 
 list would disappear forever under the smooth speech 
 of the peddler, scouring our frontiers for a livelihood, 
 or the bluff vulgarity of the South Sea whaler, fol- 
 lowing the harpoon amid storms and shoals. Doubt- 
 less the Abolitionists think we could grow cotton 
 without slaves, or that at worst the reduction of the 
 crop would be moderate and temporary. Such gross 
 delusions show how profoundly ignorant they are of 
 our condition here. 
 
188 
 
 You declare that " the character of the people of 
 the South has long been that of liavdened Infidels^ 
 who fear not God, and have no regard for religion." 
 I will not repeat what I said in my former letter on 
 this point. I only notice it to ask you how you could 
 possibly reconcile it to your profession of a Christian 
 spirit, to make such a malicious charge — to defile your 
 soul with such a calumny against an unoftending 
 people ? 
 
 " You are old ; 
 Nature in you stands on the very verge 
 Of her confines. You should be ruled and led 
 By some discretion." — 
 
 May God forgive you. 
 
 Akin to this is the wanton and furious assault 
 made on us by Mr. Macaulay in his late speech on 
 the Sugar duties, in the House of Commons, which 
 has just reached me. His denunciations are wholly 
 without measure, and among other things he asserts 
 " that Slavery in the United States wears its worst 
 form ; that, boasting of our civilization and freedom, 
 and frequenting Christian Churches, we breed up 
 slaves, nay, beget children for slaves, and sell them at 
 so much a head." Mr. Macaulay is a Reviewer, and 
 he knows that he is " nothing if not critical." The 
 practice of his trade has given him the command of all 
 the slashing and vituperative phrases of our language, 
 and the turn of his mind leads him to the habitual use 
 of them. He is an author, and as no copy-right law 
 secures for him from this country a consideration for 
 his writings, he is not only independent of us, but 
 naturally hates everything American. He is the Re- 
 presentative of Edinbui-gh ; it is his cue to decry our 
 
189 
 
 slavery, and in doing so he may safely indulge the 
 malignity of his temper, his indignation against us, and 
 his caj)acity for railing. He has suffered once for 
 l)eii]g in advance of his time in favor of Abolition, 
 and he does not intend that it shall be forgotten, or 
 his claim j>assed over to any crumb which may now 
 be thrown to the vociferators in the cause. If he does 
 not know that the statements he has made respecting 
 the slaveholders of this country are vile and atrocious 
 falsehoods, it is because he does not think it worth his 
 while to he sure he speaks the truth, so that he speaks 
 to his own purpose. 
 
 " nic niger est, hunc tn, Romane caveto." 
 
 Such exhibitions as he has made may draw the 
 applause of a British House of Commons, but among 
 the sound and high-minded thinkers of the world they 
 can only excite contempt and disgust. 
 
 But you are not content with depriving us of all 
 religious feelings. You assert that our slavery has 
 also " demoralized the Northern States," and charge 
 upon it not only every common violation of good 
 order there, but the " Mormon murders," the " Phila- 
 delphia riots," and all " the exterminating wars against 
 the Indians." I wonder that you did not increase the 
 list by adding that it had caused the recent inundation 
 of the Mississippi, and the hurricane in the West 
 Indies — perhaps the insurrection of Rebecca, and the 
 war in Scinde. You refer to the law prohiljiting the 
 transmission of Abolition publications through the 
 mail as proof of general corruption ! You could not 
 do so, however, without noticing the late detected es- 
 pionage over the British Post Office by a Minister of 
 
190 
 
 State. It is true, as you say, it " occasioned a general 
 outburst of National feeling" — from the opposition ; 
 and a " Parliamentary inquiry was instituted " — that 
 is moved, but treated quite cavalierly. At all events, 
 tliougli the fact was admitted. Sir James Graham yet 
 retains tlie Home Department. For one, I do not 
 undertake to condemn him. Such thinofs are not 
 against the laws and usages of your country. I do 
 not know fully what reasons of State may have in- 
 fluenced him and justified his conduct. But I do know 
 that there is a vast difference, in point of " national 
 morality," between the discretionary power residing in 
 your Government to open any letter in the public 
 post office, and a well-defined and limited law to pre- 
 vent the circulation of certain specified incendiary 
 writings by means of the United States Mail. 
 
 Having now referred to everything like argument 
 on the subject of Slavery that is worthy of notice in 
 your letter, permit me to remark on its tone and style, 
 and very extraordinary bearing upon other Institu- 
 tions of this country. You commence by addressing 
 certain classes of our people as belonging to " a nation 
 whose character is now so low in the estimation of the 
 civilized world ; " and throughout you maintain this 
 tone. Did the Americans who were " under your roof 
 last summer " inform you that such language would be 
 gratifying to their fellow-citizens " ha\dng no practical 
 concern with slaveholdino^ ? " Or do the infamous libels 
 on America, which you read in our Abolition papers, 
 induce you to believe that all that class of people are, 
 like the Abolitionists themselves, totally destitute of 
 patriotism or pride of country % Let me tell you that 
 you are grossly deceived. And although your stock 
 
191 
 
 brokers and other speculators, who have been bitten 
 in American ventures, may have raised a stunning 
 " cry " against us in Enghmd, there is a vast body of 
 people here besides slave-holders, who justly 
 
 " Deem their own land of every land the pride, 
 Beloved by Heaven o'er all the world beside." 
 
 And who hiiow that at this moment we rank anions: 
 the First Powers of the world — a position which we 
 not only claim, but are always ready and able to main- 
 tain. 
 
 The style you assume in addressing your Northern 
 friends is in perfect keeping with your apj)arent esti- 
 mation of them. Though I should be the last, per- 
 haps, to criticise mere style, I could not but be struck 
 with the extremely simple manner of your letter. 
 You seem to have thought you were writing a Tract 
 for benighted Heathen, and telling wonders never 
 before suggested to their imagination, and so far above 
 their untutored comprehension as to require to be 
 related in the primitive language of " the child's own 
 book." This is sufficiently amusing; and would be 
 more so but for the coarse and bitter epithets you con- 
 tinually apply to the poor slave-holders — epithets 
 which appear to be stereotyped for the use of Aboli- 
 tionists, and which form a large and material part of 
 all their arguments. 
 
 But perhaps the most extraordinary part of your let- 
 ter is your bold denunciation of " tlie shameful compro- 
 mises'''' of our Constitution, and your earnest recom- 
 mendation to those you address to overthrow or revolu- 
 tionize it. In so many words you say to them, " you must 
 eitlier se])arate yourselves from all political connexion 
 
192 
 
 with the South, aud make your own laws ; or, if you do not 
 choose such a separation, you must break up the 2)olitical 
 ascendancy lohicli the Southern have had for so long a 
 time over the Northern States^'' The italics in this as 
 in all other quotations are your own. It is well for 
 those who circulate your letter here, that the Constitu- 
 tion you denounce requires an overt act to constitute 
 Treason. It may be tolerated for an American, by 
 birth, to use on his own soil the freedom of speaking 
 and writing which is guaranteed to him, and abuse 
 our Constitution, our Union, and our people. But 
 that a Foreigner should use such seditious language, 
 in a Circular Letter addressed to a portion of the 
 American people, is a presumption well calculated to 
 excite the indignation of all. The party known in 
 this country as the Abolition Party has long since 
 avowed the sentiments you express, and adopted the 
 policy you enjoin. At the recent Presidential election 
 they gave over 62,000 votes for their own Candidate, 
 and held the balance of power in two of the largest 
 States — wanting but little of doing it in several othei's. 
 In the last four years their vote has quadrupled. 
 Should the infatuation continue, and their vote increase 
 in the same ratio, for the next four years, it will be as 
 large as the vote of the actual slave-holders of the Union. 
 Such a prospect is doubtless extremely gratifying to 
 you. It gives hope of a contest on such terms as may 
 insure the downfall of Slavery or our Constitution. 
 The South venerates the Constitution, and is prepared 
 to stand by it forever, such as it came from the hands 
 of our fathers ; to risk everything to defend and 
 maintain it iu its integrity. But the South is under 
 no such delusion as to believe that it derives any 
 
193 
 
 peculiar protection from the Union. On the contrary, 
 it is well known we incur ijecidiar danger^ and that 
 we bear far more than our proportion of the burdens. 
 The apprehension is also fast fading away that any of 
 the dreadful consequences commonly predicted will 
 necessarily result from a separation of the States. 
 And, come loliat may^ we are firmly resolved that our 
 SYSTEjr OF Domestic Slavery shall stand. The fate 
 of the Union then — but thank God not of Republican 
 Government — rests mainly in the hands of the people 
 to whom your letter is addressed — the "j)rofessing 
 Christians of the Northern States having no concern 
 with slaveholding," and whom with incendiary zeal you 
 are endeavoring to stir up to strife — without which 
 fanaticism can neither live, move, nor have any being. 
 We have often been taunted for our sensitiveness 
 in regard to the discussion of Slavery. Do not sup- 
 pose it is because we have any doubts of our rights, 
 or scruples about asserting them. There was a time 
 when such doubts and scruples were entertained. Our 
 ancestors opposed the introduction of Slaves into this 
 country, and a feeling adverse to it was handed down 
 from them. The enthusiastic love of liberty fostered 
 by our Revolution strengthened this feeling. And 
 before the commencement of the Abolition amtation 
 here, it was the common sentiment that it was desira- 
 ble to get rid of Slavery. Many thought it our duty 
 to do so. When that agitation arose, we were driven 
 to a close examination of the subject in all its bear- 
 ings, and the result has been an universal conviction 
 that in holding Slaves we violate no law of God — 
 inflict no injustice on any of his creatures — while the 
 terrible consequences of emancipation to all parties 
 
194 
 
 and the world at large, clearly revealed to us, make U3 
 shudder at the bare thought of it. The slaveholders 
 are therefore indebted to the Abolitionists for perfect 
 ease of conscience, and the satisfaction of a settled 
 and unanimous determination in reference to this 
 matter. And could their agitation cease now, I be- 
 lieve, after all, the good would preponderate over the 
 evil of it in this country. On the contrary, however, 
 it is ui'ged on with frantic violence, and the Abolition- 
 ists, reasoning in the abstract — as if it were a mere 
 moral or metaphysical speculation, or a minor question 
 in politics — profess to be surprised at our exasperation. 
 In their ignorance and recklessness they seem to be 
 unable to comprehend our feelings or position. The 
 subversion of our rights, the destruction of our pro- 
 perty, the disturbance of our peace and the peace of 
 the world, are matters which do not appear to arrest 
 their consideration. When Revolutionary France pro- 
 claimed " Hatred to Kings and unity to the Repub- 
 lic," and inscribed on her banners " France risen 
 against Tyrants," she professed to be only worshiping 
 " Abstract Rights." And, if there can be such things, 
 jDcrhaps she was. Yet all Europe rose to put her 
 sublime theories down. They declared her an enemy 
 to the common peace ; that her doctrines alone violated 
 the " Law of Neighborhood," and, as Mr. Burke said, 
 justly entitled them to anticipate the "damnum nondum 
 factum" of the civil law. Dantou, Barrere and the 
 rest were apparently astonished that umbrage should 
 be taken. The parallel between them and the Aboli- 
 tionists holds good in all respects. 
 
 The rise and progress of this Fanaticism is one of 
 the phenomena of the age in which we live. I do 
 
195 
 
 not intend to repeat what I have already said, or to 
 trace its career more minutely at present. But the 
 Legislation of Great Britain will make it historical ; 
 and, doubtless, you must feel some curiosity to know 
 how it will figure on the page of the Annalist. I 
 think I can tell you. Tliough I have accorded and do 
 accord to you and your party great influence in bring- 
 ing about the Parliamentary action of your country, 
 you must not expect to go down to posterity as the 
 only cause of it. Though you trace the progenitors of 
 Abolition from 1516, through a long stream with divers 
 branches, down to the period of its triumph in your 
 country ; it has not escaped contemporaries, and will 
 not escape posterity, that England, without much 
 effort, sustained the storm of its scoffs and threats until 
 the moment arrived when she thought her colonies 
 fully su2:)plied with Africans ; and declared against the 
 Slave Trade only when she deemed it unnecessary to 
 her, and when her colonies full of Slaves would have 
 great advantages over others not so well provided. 
 Nor did she agree to West India emancipation until, 
 discovering the error of her previous calculation, it be- 
 came an object to have slaves free throughout the 
 Westei-n world, and, on the ruins of the Sugar and 
 Cotton growers of America and the Islands, to build 
 up her great Slave Empire in the East; while her 
 indefatigable exertions, still continued, to engraft the 
 Right of Search upon the Law of Nations, on the plea 
 of putting an end to the forever increasiug Slave 
 Trade, are well understood to have chiefly in view the 
 complete establishment of her supremacy at sea.* 
 
 * On these points let me recommend you to consult a very able Essay 
 on the Slave Trade and Eight of Search by M. Jollivet, recently pub- 
 
196 
 
 Nor must you flatter yourself that your party will 
 derive historic dignity from the names of the illus- 
 trious British statesmen who have acted with it. Their 
 country's ends Avere theirs. They have stooped to use 
 you, as the most illustrious men will sometimes use the 
 vilest instruments, to accomplish their own purposes. 
 A few philanthrojoic common places and rhetorical 
 flourishes, " in the abstract," have secured them your 
 "sweet voices," and your influence over the tribe 
 of mawkish sentimentalists. Wilberforce may have 
 been yours, but what was he besides, but a wealthy 
 county member ? You must therefore expect to stand 
 on your own merits alone before posterity, or rather 
 that portion of it that may be curious to trace the 
 history of the Delusions which from time to time pass 
 over the surface of human affairs, and who may trouble 
 themselves to look through the ramifications of Trans- 
 cendentalism in this era of extrava2:ances. And how 
 do you expect to appear in their eyes ? As Christians, 
 piously endeavoring to enforce the will of God and 
 carry out the principles of Christianity? Certainly 
 not, since you deny or pervert the Scriptures in the 
 doctrines you advance ; and in your conduct furnish 
 a glaring contrast to the examples of Christ and the 
 Apostles. As Philanthropists, devoting yourselves to 
 the cause of humanity, relieving the needy, comforting 
 the afflicted, creating peace and gladness and plenty 
 round about you ? Certainly not, since you turn from 
 
 lished; and as you say, since writing your Circular Letter, that you 
 " burn to try your Land on another little Essay if a subject could be found," 
 I propose to you to " try " to answer this question, put by M. Jollivet 
 to England : '■'Pourquoi sa philanthropie rCa pas daigne^ jusqu' a present, 
 douhler le cap de Bonne-Esperance ?" 
 
19T 
 
 the needy, the afflicted; from strife, sorrow and star- 
 vation wbicli surround you ; close your eyes and hands 
 upon them ; shut out from your thoughts and feelings 
 the human misery which is real, tangible, and within 
 your reach, to indulge your morbid imagination in 
 conjuring up woes and wants among a strange people 
 in distant lands, and offering them succor in the shape 
 of costless denunciations of their best friends, or by 
 scattering among them " firebrands, arrows, and death." 
 Such folly and madness — such wild mockery and base 
 imposture, can never win for you, in the sober judgment 
 of future times, the name of Philanthropists. Will 
 you even be regarded as worthy citizens ? Scarcely, 
 when the purposes you have in view can only be 
 achieved by revolutionizing governments and over- 
 turning social systems, and when you do not hesitate 
 zealously and earnestly to recommend such measures. 
 Be assured, then, that posterity will not regard the 
 Abolitionists as Christians, Philanthropists, or virtuous 
 citizens. It will, I have no doubt, look upon the mass 
 of the party as silly enthusiasts, led away by design- 
 ing characters, as is the case with all parties that 
 break from the great, acknowledged ties that bind 
 civilized man in fellowship. The leaders themselves 
 will be regarded as mere ambitious men / not taking 
 rank with those whose ambition is " ea£:le-win<red and 
 sky-aspiring," but belonging to that mean and selfish 
 class who are instigated by " rival-hating envy," and 
 whose base thirst is for Notoriety ; who cloak their 
 designs under vile and impious hypocrisies, and, un- 
 able to shine in higher spheres, devote themselves to 
 Fanaticism as a trade. And it will be perceived that, 
 even in that, they shunned the highest walk. Ke- 
 13 
 
198 
 
 ligious Fanaticism was an old established vocation, in 
 whicli something brilliant was required to attract at- 
 tention. They could not be George Foxes, nor 
 Joanna Southcotes, nor even Joe Smiths. But the 
 dullest pretender could discourse a jumble of pious 
 bigotry, natural rights, and drivelling philanthropy. 
 And, addressing himself to aged folly and youthful 
 vanity, to ancient women, to ill-gotten wealth, to the 
 reckless of all classes who love excitement and change, 
 offer each the cheapest and the safest glory in the 
 market. Hence, their numbers; and, from number 
 and clamor, what impression they have on the world. 
 
 Such I am persuaded is the light in which the 
 Abolitionists will be viewed by the posterity their 
 history may reach. Unless, indeed — which God for- 
 bid — circumstances should so favor as to enable them 
 to produce a convulsion which may elevate them higher 
 on the " bad eminence " where they have placed them- 
 selves. 
 
 I have the honor to be 
 
 Your obedient servant, 
 
 J. H. HAMMOND. 
 
 TnoMAB Clareson, Esq. 
 
AN ORATION 
 
 DELIVERED BEFORE THE TWO SOCIETIES OF THE SOUTH CAROLINA 
 COLLEGE ON THE FOURTH OF DECEMBER, 1849. 
 
 We are accustomed to regard tlie age in wliicli we 
 live not only as the most enlightened which the world 
 has known, but one of unprecedented progress. The 
 rapidity with which ideas and events disseminated by 
 the press, fly on the wings of steam and electricity 
 around the globe, leads us to suppose that the sum 
 total of human knowledge is far greater than it ever 
 has been ; and the discoveries in art and science, which 
 are continually announced, induce the belief that hu- 
 man improvement is advancing at a pace beyond all 
 former example. These two conclusions, so univer- 
 sally prevalent, are fast conducting us to others of 
 much higher import, and of much more doubtful 
 truth. "We," said Bentham, repeating an aphorism 
 of Lord Bacon, " we are the ancients," and the whole 
 school of Utilitarians— by far the most numerous of 
 our day — declare that there was little wisdom in the 
 past, and that nothing is venerable in antiquity. The 
 present then and the future, we are taught, are alone 
 worthy of our thoughts and cares. 
 
200 
 
 Indeed a calm ol)sorvor of mankind in our era 
 might be led to think that the UtiUtarians and most 
 of the enthnsiastie admirers of modern progress, be- 
 lieve that the seeds of it spontaneously germinated 
 and could never fail ; that discoveries and invent it)ns 
 are lucky accidents that will constantly recur; that tlie 
 great events which influence the higher destinies of 
 our species are the results of chance ; and that the 
 only task for man is to make the best use, each for 
 himself, of whatever good fortune may throw in his 
 way. But such absurd opinions no one will o]>enly 
 acknowledge that he entertains. All admit, when 
 forced to reason, that there must be causes for eilects. 
 And, in general, the improvements of our age are 
 attributed to the advance of physical and experimen- 
 tal philosophy, of which Lord Bacon is referred to as 
 the founder. 
 
 The (^pinion that modern progress dates from the 
 era of Bacon, and rests upon the philosophy with 
 vrhich his name is now most associated, has of late 
 been so widely diffused, and so strenuously inculcated, 
 that it is becoming, even among tlie most intelligent, a 
 fixed belief; and, to look further back than to him 
 and his doctrines, is deemed unnecessary for any use- 
 ful purpose of the present day — all beyond being 
 matters of curious inquiry and fit studies for elegant 
 leisure, but of little value to the earnest and practical 
 man of our enlightened age. And in the same spirit 
 we are taught to pass lightly by all moral theories, and 
 to treat with contempt all metaphysical discussion. 
 
 But the causes thus assigned for the progress of 
 mankind, during the last two centuries, are wholly 
 inadequate, and to a very great degree untrue. Who- 
 
201 
 
 ever limi'te his vi<iws to the consideration of these 
 causes only, cannot possibly compi-ehend the civilizar 
 tion he enjoys, and is, of coui-se, not capable of per- 
 forming thoroughly his o\ati part in the impoitant 
 affairs of life — ^much less of promoting the welfare of 
 those who are to come after us. 
 
 It is well known that the Novum Organ um of 
 Bacon was a sealed book to his contemporaries. Even 
 Hobbes, his amanuensis, was not his disciple. The 
 greatest admirei*s of this tJ'uly great man — ^to whom 
 was vouchsafed the utmost intellectual capacity with 
 which man can, so far as we know, be endoM'ed — 
 admit that this work has been more read >A'ithin the 
 present century than duiing the two previous — more 
 since than before the time when Newton discovered 
 the true theory^ of motion, when Lavoisier erected 
 chemistry into a science, and Watt applied steam to 
 iiseful purposes ; while there is no reason to suppose 
 that any of these illustrious men had been students of 
 the new philosophy of Bacon. We owe a very large 
 proporti<^n of the discoveries and inventions of modern 
 times to Italy, where this philosophy has not yet 
 penetrated. 
 
 But Bacon himself lived in an age when progress 
 had already made vast and rapid strides ; when the 
 grandest discoveiies had been already effected in phy- 
 sics and A'eriJ&ed by experiment ; and when the founda- 
 tions had been laid for nearly all tlie improvements 
 which have been developed to the present day. 
 Paper, Gunpowder, the Mariner's Compass, and the 
 art of Printing had long been in use. The Gopernicffln 
 system, thoug^h pro>>ably unknown to Bacon, had l>een 
 announced, and Galileo had made a Tele6co]>e and 
 
202 
 
 demonstrated the truth of it. Harvey had discovered 
 the circulation of the blood ; Paracelsus had, at least, 
 rescued chemistry from the magicians ; Agricola had 
 commenced mineralogy ; Leonardo had suggested the 
 very theory of Geology now most in vogue ; Colum- 
 bus and De Gama had revealed two new worlds to 
 astonished Europe, and Sir Francis Drake had sailed 
 round the globe. 
 
 But the actual discoveries of Bacon were of little 
 consequence ; it is to his system of logic and his 
 method of investigation that we owe, it is said, so 
 much — to his Induction and " experimentum crucisP 
 If Bacon was the first author and expounder of In- 
 ductive reasoning, and first suggested that nature 
 should be put to the torture to disclose her facts, and 
 modern improvements are due to these processes, to 
 what do we owe the important discoveries before 
 Bacon's time ? Can it be that they were all accidents, 
 and that there was no questioning of nature — no 
 induction ? Certainly not. Tubal Cain himself, if he 
 discovered as well as wrought in metals, must have 
 experimented in physics, and must have reasoned by 
 strict induction on the results. Aristotle minutely 
 examined and characterized almost every thing in 
 animated nature, and, a century or more before the 
 Novum Organum, Leonardo declared, in almost the 
 same words, that the phenomena of nature were to be 
 solved not by theories, but a rigid investigation of the 
 facts. 
 
 It is not true then that Physical Philosophy 
 and Inductive reasoning began with Bacon. He pro- 
 pounded a system and collected facts; but it was 
 not until recently — not until men's minds had been 
 
203 
 
 illumined by the light shed abroad by actual improve- 
 ment — that his facts were appreciated and his system 
 comprehended — a system not wholly new in theory, 
 and in some parts ancient in practice. The truth is 
 that discovery has done more for Bacon than he has 
 done as yet for it, since it is only now that we begin 
 to look with astonishment and admiration at the vast 
 range and wonderful foreshadowing of his mighty 
 intellect. That he was himself, in some respects, over- 
 taken and outrun by the progress of his own age is suf 
 ficiently illustrated by the melancholy fact that he was 
 the first English judge tried and sentenced for receiv- 
 ing bribes — a practice which had been universal, and, 
 until his case, notoriously tolerated. 
 
 The close inquirer will often be amazed to find 
 how true it is, that, after all, there is little new under 
 the sun ; to perceive from what remote sources and 
 for what a period, the greatest ideas, unreahzed, 
 unsystematized, almost unheeded, have floated down 
 the mighty stream of time — now far out in the cur- 
 rent, now driven near the shore, and finally thrown 
 on some propitious headland where tbey found a 
 genial soil and bear the most precious fruit. Thales 
 attributed the formation of the earth to the action of 
 water, and gave a hint of electricity. Pythagoras said 
 the sun, and not the earth, was the centre of the 
 universe, and that the planets moved round it in 
 elliptical orbits. The Eoman bakers stamped their 
 bread. Aristotle believed that the explosive power 
 of steam was sufficient to produce earthquakes. And 
 Hero of Alexandria actually applied steam power to 
 a toy machine, two centuries before the Christian Era. 
 So, long ago, were laid the foundations for discoveries, 
 
204 
 
 whicli have, in some instances, been fully developed 
 only in our age. 
 
 But if Physical and Experimental Philosophy is of 
 much older origin than the seventeenth century, it is 
 not less certain that it would have been utterly 
 inadequate to j^roduce the civilization we enjoy. The 
 steam engine and power loom, printing, and the 
 mariner's compass, have undoubtedly made vast addi- 
 tions to the comforts, conveniences and enjoyments of 
 the whole human family ; and it is common to say of 
 them, and of other kindred inventions, that they have 
 been great civilizers. But this is the language of 
 metaphor — a language much too generally used, and 
 too literally interpreted in our times. They have, 
 indeed, been powerful instruments of civilization, and, 
 in the hands of genius and enterprise, of men of 
 refined and cultivated intellects, of pure and noble 
 sentiments, they have been of incalculable service in 
 improving and elevating the condition of mankind. 
 But what service could even such mighty instruments 
 have rendered, if there had not been hands strong 
 enough and wise enough to wield them ? What would 
 a steam engine avail a Sioux? To what purpose 
 would a Ghilanese apply a printing press? For un- 
 numbered ages, nature, in her grandest aspects, has 
 been familiar to those wild children of the sons of 
 Noah. They have little else to study. Yet they have 
 penetrated but few of her secrets — have appropriated 
 but few of her blessings. What is it that has en- 
 abled the descendants of Japheth to conquer so many 
 of her mysteries and to control, for tlieir own ends, so 
 many of their powers ? To answer this question we 
 must look back, and traverse a wide surface. We 
 
205 
 
 may, for the most part, readily tell who made this 
 discovery, who was the author of that invention ; but 
 when we are asked what has brought the mind of 
 the Caucasian race to its present high condition — what 
 will keep it where it is — what will advance it still 
 further in its glorious career; when these searching 
 and necessary questions, on whose answers depend the 
 whole solution of the great problem of human pro- 
 gress, are propounded, we cannot but see how puerile 
 and absurd it would be to say, it is Physical and 
 Experimental Philosophy — a philosophy essentially 
 inert and dead itself, as matter, until life has been 
 breathed into it by the cultivated intellect and refined 
 imagination. 
 
 If we should say that it has taken all the past to 
 make the present, we should state but the simple 
 truth, and fall short of the whole truth if we said any 
 thing less. It has required every event of the past, 
 every teaching of philosophy in all its forms — every 
 discovery of science, every work of art — every exper- 
 iment whether in physics or morals, in politics or re- 
 ligion, on individuals or societies — to bring our race 
 to its present improved and enlightened condition. 
 Whatever men have done or spoken in the whole tide 
 of time has produced effects, great or small, good or 
 evil, which have contributed to bring about the exist- 
 ing state of things, in the midst of which it has been 
 our fortune to be placed. 
 
 In looking back over the vast field through which 
 the human family have made their long and moment- 
 ous pilgrimage, it would be impossible to say that 
 any incident of it could have happened otherwise than 
 it did, without affecting us. If the route had been 
 
206 
 
 varied, if more or fewer obstacles had impeded the 
 march of those who have gone before us, we could not 
 now occupy the precise position that we do. The 
 most successful culture of a single art or science would 
 be utterly insufficient to account for any but the low- 
 est grade of civilization. Nor could any combination 
 of kindred arts and sciences, carried to the highest 
 perfection, aj^proximate to the production of the grand 
 and infinitely varied results by which we find ourselves 
 surrounded. 
 
 To know then where we are — to have any thing 
 like a proper conception of the position that we really 
 occupy, it is necessary for us to learn whence and how 
 we came here, and to trace the mighty wanderings of 
 our forefathers from the period when an offended 
 Deity thrust our first parents from the gates of Eden 
 — a task, beset with difficulties, from which utilitarian- 
 ism shrinks. The voyager upon the shoreless ocean, 
 and the traveller in the trackless desert, ascertain their 
 situation by observation of the fixed and everlasting 
 stars. But no such bright and steady lights shine out 
 upon the boisterous sea of human aftairs, or guide the 
 adventurer through the wide waste of time. Truth, 
 the only safe and certain guide, does not glitter from 
 the heights, but casts up a feeble, though unerring 
 ray, from the very depths of nature ; and we must pass 
 the prime of life in toilsome search for that, before 
 we can read aright the dim traditions, and mutilated 
 and discolored records which portray the wonderful 
 career of man. 
 
 But it is only when we have conquered, sacked, and 
 seized possession of the past, and all the past, that we 
 have real knowledge, and may then, so far as we are 
 
20T 
 
 permitted to do so, comprehend ourselves — our civili- 
 zation and our mission. Yet, to fulfil that mission, we 
 must not only know the past, but we must judge it. 
 We must mark its errors and its follies, its crimes and 
 wickedness. We must note where philosophy has 
 gone astray ; where superstition has betrayed its vota- 
 ries ; where ambition, bigotry, and ignorance have shed 
 their blights ; where that wholesome restraint, without 
 which genuine liberty cannot exist, has been perverted 
 into oppression, and where that just resistance to 
 wrongs, which is the inherent right of all, has degen- 
 erated into factious warfare and ended in anarchy and 
 ruin. And we must also ascertain what pursuits have 
 most promoted the enlightened happiness and welfare 
 of mankind. 
 
 Having thus armed ourselves with genuine knowl- 
 edge, and learned these great and all important les- 
 sons from the past, we may be prepared to determine 
 what our real state of progress is, and what shall be 
 done to carry onward the mighty cause of civilization. 
 And we cannot fail to perceive at once, and to denounce 
 the shallow falsehood of those vulgar and narrow, but 
 too common notions of utility, which, overlooking the 
 great essential truths that man has passions as well as 
 wants — sentiments and reason as well as appetites and 
 muscles — attribute our present civilization to physical 
 and experimental philosophy and inductive reasoning 
 on their results, and teach that the highest objects of 
 life, the most important duties to posterity are fulfilled 
 by constructing steam engines, and railroads, and elec- 
 tric telegraphs. If, indeed, we are constrained to ad- 
 mit induction and experimental philosophy to be of 
 paramount importance, it will be as applied on a high- 
 
208 
 
 er, broader, and nobler scale, to the events of time — 
 to the motives and actions of mankind. This, indeed, 
 was the essential feature in Bacon's system, and that 
 on which I'eally rests all his usefulness and all his 
 glory. He himself denounced experiments made for 
 " productive rather than enlightening "' purposes. He 
 declared that " the duties of life were more than life 
 itself" — that " tlie Georgics of the mind " were worthy 
 of being celebrated in heroic verse ; and, embodying 
 profound truth in a striking metaphor, he said that 
 " knowledges are as pyramids, whereof history is the 
 basis." 
 
 It is perhaps given to no individual thoroughly to 
 know himself; to bear in mind at all times the history 
 of his own life, however obscure and short it may be ; 
 to comprehend precisely the exact position which he 
 himself occupies in the drama of the world, or to an- 
 ticipate all the consequences of his own acts, however 
 well considered. Much less probable is it, therefore, 
 that any single person shall be able to sift and to di- 
 gest the whole history of the past, to understand all 
 the relations of the men and nations who compose the 
 existing generations of his race, or to look forward to 
 their future destinies with, any absolute certainty. 
 The great Creator and Ruler of the universe alone 
 knows all that has happened, all that is doing, all that 
 shall come to pass. Sucli perfect knowledge He re- 
 serves for Himself, and holds fate in his mighty grasp. 
 But he condescends to use His creatures as the instru- 
 ments of his great works, and has not left them wholly 
 blind. The genius of mankind has perhaps been 
 equal, in all ages, and in all there have doubtless been 
 wise men. The difference between our as:e and the 
 
209 
 
 ages which have preceded it is, that, while probably 
 no individual may have greater capacity and knowl- 
 edge than many of his predecessors, more minds are 
 actively engaged in penetrating all the mysteries of 
 creation, and i-ansacking all the archives of the past ; 
 while the facilities for disseminating knowledge which 
 have never existed to any thing like the same extent 
 before, and which we owe to various discoveries in 
 the useful arts, spread it with unparalleled rapidity 
 throughout the world. It strikes everywhere almost 
 at the same time. Its effects are visible at once. 'No 
 longer the night-blooming plant, which produces its 
 blossom but once an age — knowledge now vegetates 
 like the orange in its genial climes, to which spring- 
 time and autumn, flowers and fruits are ever present 
 together. Thus action and re-action are almost instant- 
 aneous. Only two centuries ago, it required a thirty 
 years' war to settle the religious and territorial dis- 
 putes of a single empire. But we have ourselves just 
 seen all Europe rise in arms ; every govei-nment men- 
 aced, many shaken to the centre, some overthrown ; 
 and peace and order again apparently established 
 within the space of twenty months. So swift has 
 been the communication of intelligence that the peo- 
 ple of two bemispheres have been actual spectators of 
 the fields of conflict, and the public opinion of both 
 has been heard and felt amid the storm of battle. 
 And the combatants themselves on every side, not 
 only thus influenced, but guided by the light of all 
 the experience of other days, have promptly decided 
 where to concede and how far to resist. How lono: 
 this storm, which rose with bodings as terrific as any 
 that has ever broken on the repose of man, is destined 
 
210 
 
 to subside, is known to none ; but can be best conjec- 
 tured, not by those who transmit facts, nor even those 
 who govern trade and finance, but by those who have 
 made themselves most familiar with the true state of 
 human progress, and are accustomed to read the future 
 in the past. 
 
 I have said that it is scarcely possible that any 
 single individual can master all the past and thereby 
 make liimself completely conversant with all the pres- 
 ent. Indeed it is impossible. Much that is valuable 
 in history is lost to us forever — buried by the inscru- 
 table dispensations of Providence in the impenetrable 
 mist of time. The eager inquirers of the day have 
 rescued somethinor from oblivion — enou2:h to excite the 
 keenest curiosity, but scarcely any thing to satisfy it. 
 The arch hitherto supposed to be a modern invention, 
 has been recently exhumed from the mounds of Mm- 
 rod, which were once the palaces of the Assyrian 
 Monarchs — where structures, which for unnumbered 
 centuries have disappeared beneath their own dust, 
 are found to have been reared on others, that had met 
 the same fate before them. And hopes are entertained 
 that if the arrow-headed characters still found on slabs, 
 amid these ruins, can ever be deciphered, we shall re- 
 cover glimpses of a thousand years, which have been 
 hardly reckoned in chronology ; and may learn some- 
 thing certain of that mighty Empire, which once over- 
 shadowed, according to tradition, all the East, and 
 whose civilization we have now discovered to have 
 been far higher than had ever been believed. The 
 new world, as well as the old, has its mysteries too. 
 We have as yet no clue to the builders of Palenque, 
 nor to the hands that raised the extensive and well 
 
211 
 
 planned fortifications of the Scioto valley, both of 
 which mark a degree of progress, to which the red 
 man has never yet attained. 
 
 But still the diligent student will find more in the 
 authentic annals of mankind than a single life can 
 compass. And if we desire to continue to go forward 
 in the career of improvement — if we even desire to 
 remain stationary where we are — nay, if we do not 
 desire to retrograde, the whole intellect of our time 
 should be earnestly directed and incessantly stimulated 
 to study the present and the future in the past; and 
 to search through all its broad fields after knowledge, 
 as after hidden treasure. 
 
 What is most desired by man is power. " I am 
 famished," said Jason of Pherse, "for want of empire." 
 Such, no doubt, has been the secret feeling of every 
 human heart — certainly, of every elevated soul. This 
 it is that drives us onward in our various pursuits. But 
 men for the most part follow shadows. The only real 
 and substantial power, is the power of knowledge. 
 He who famishes for empire — let him grasp at that. 
 And if he would build for himself a pyramid for fu- 
 ture ages to behold, he must be sure to lay its foun- 
 dations upon history — history in the broad sense of 
 Bacon. 
 
 I have already indicated that even the useful arts 
 have a history, reaching back far beyond the era of 
 this great philosopher, under the shadow of whose 
 perverted reputation drivelling utilitarianism seeks a 
 refuge. But whoever would analyze the framework 
 of modern society, and the political and religious ele- 
 ments which are its pillars, must study the history of 
 events — of the acts and institutions of our ancestors. 
 
212 
 
 If he cannot trace the long wanderings of the grim 
 Teuton, from his Bactrian cradle, through the deep 
 forests and shaking morasses of the North, to the mo- 
 ment when he burst from darkness upon astonished 
 Europe, he may, at least, take him up from the time 
 when Alaric led him to the sack of Rome, overturned 
 the decayed civilization of antiquity and rescued 
 Christianity from a race, which, having failed to de- 
 stroy it by persecution, would have entombed it with 
 itself. Here commences modern history and Teutonic 
 ascendency, though four dark and agonizing centuries 
 elapsed before their birth can be said to have been 
 fully accomplished ; centuries of incessant action and 
 experiment, in which a grand and terrible philosophy 
 was at work — whose crucibles were heated by human 
 passions, whose universal solvent was human blood, 
 and whose mortua ca^ntes were the wreck of thrones 
 and dynasties. If little that was great or lasting was 
 established in this period, much was tried, and the re- 
 sults, both good and evil, contributed invaluable expe- 
 rience. The broader and milder light of the civiliza- 
 tion to which he gave consistency, shines upon the 
 era of the gigantic Charlemagne ; and we clearly per- 
 ceive that, when his powerful arm was withdrawn 
 from it, the great experiment of Teutonic Monarchy 
 failed in the hands of his successors, overwhelmed by 
 the Feudal s]:)irit of our ancestors. That spirit had 
 yet to accomplish its mission of consecrating the he- 
 reditary principle, on the basis of indefeasible fealty, 
 and compensating protection, from generation to gen- 
 eration, of the rulers and the ruled ; and to foster still 
 further, a lofty sense of personal dignity and honor, 
 while it promoted patriotism, social sympathy, learn- 
 
213 
 
 inof and relisrion. It is an invaluable lesson to us — a 
 lesson which even to this day has not been fully 
 learned in Europe — that this same Feudal system — 
 slowly and naturally as it had been builded up, rich 
 as were its fruits, indestructible as seemed the well 
 wrought chain, which, stretching from prince to peas- 
 ant, and penetrating all intermediate ranks, bound the 
 whole structure of society in links of solid iron — fell 
 beneath the bloodless blows of a despised Bourgeoisie. 
 Two centuries of fanatical crusading had loosened 
 many rivets, by sweeping off the flower of its chiv- 
 alry ; while the new and vast channels of commerce 
 which those crusades opened and put in motion, and 
 the golden flood of inestimable learning which poured 
 in through them from the wise, old, superannuated 
 East, awakened the middle classes to a knowledge of 
 their rights, and gave them strength to strike these 
 blows. And then commenced afresh the struggle and 
 the movement, into which new and potent elements 
 were introduced. The strife of knowledge was min- 
 gled with the strife of arms, and commerce and art 
 unfurled their standards in the field. Schools, col- 
 leges and universities soon flourished, and broad and 
 stable monarchies were founded. Philosophy and let- 
 ters, inventions and discoveries, manufactures and 
 trade, sound governments and the refining arts, all ad- 
 vanced, side by side, in the great march of progress, 
 lieligion lagged behind. The illustrious foster-mother 
 saw all her glorious children pass before her, till Lu- 
 ther rose and broke the fetters that impeded her. The 
 clogging abuses of the Old Church were in a measure 
 reformed, and a New Church sprang into existence, 
 which has proved the prolific parent of a hundred 
 14 
 
214 
 
 more. And here opens a chapter, which, perhaps 
 above all others, requires the attention of those who 
 who would fully understand our present condition. 
 Relio-ion has exercised more influence over the tempo- 
 ral affairs of man than all other causes combined, and, 
 since the foundation of Christianity, no event has had 
 greater influence on civilization than the Reformation. 
 For more than a century after it broke out, religious 
 wars and controversies assaulted every tradition and 
 opinion, and shook every institution of the times. 
 And from these wars and controversies, sprung mod- 
 ern civil liberty ; all sides contributing in turn to its 
 development. Suarez boldly announced the JefFerso- 
 nian creed, that all men were born equal, and that all 
 political power was derived from the people. Bu- 
 chanan, anticipating Locke, declared that government 
 was founded on a voluntary compact ; and honest John 
 Bodin, as far in advance of Priestly and Beutham as 
 he was elevated above the whole utilitarian school, 
 proclaimed that the object of political association was 
 the greatest good of the whole. These doctrines, pro- 
 mulgated before Bacon's era, first took deepest root in 
 England, and soon bred that terrible conflict, in which, 
 for a time, the people trod rough shod upon kings and 
 nobles; and finally ended in making Great Britain 
 what she is to our day, a Republic, governed under 
 Monarchical forms. Our American forefathers left 
 the old world in the very heat of this great struggle, 
 and brought with them those religious and political 
 principles, which have contributed much, very much 
 more than any physical philosophy, or utilitarian code, 
 to make us what we are. 
 
 But the earnest inquirer into our present state of 
 
215 
 
 civilization, its causes and its prospects, would fall far 
 short if he limited himself to filling out, however fully, 
 the outline I have sketched. If Galileo was led to the 
 study of astronomy by reading Ariosto, as he confessed 
 he was, how much may we not, and do we not owe to 
 Dante and Petrarch, to Shakspeare and Milton? If 
 the inventor of the electric telegraph, and Fulton and 
 Leonardo were painters, what inspiration may not 
 have been derived from the immortal works of Raf- 
 faelle, and Michael Angelo ? Whatever stirs the heart, 
 or stimulates the imagination, will arouse the intellect 
 and quicken it to action ; and whoever fails to exam- 
 ine and estimate everything that influences to any ex- 
 tent the conceptions and emotions of mankind, must 
 fail to comprehend the problem of their progress. 
 
 It is, as I have already said, the fashion of a large 
 and prominent modern school to decry " the wisdom 
 of the ancients," and account it folly to investigate 
 antiquity. But, as thoroughly as the civilization of 
 ancient times has been destroyed, and as essentiall}^ as 
 it differed from our own, the debt we owe it is im- 
 mense ; and it would be impossible to trace to their 
 sources, and fully understand, ideas and institutions 
 familiar to our daily life, and deeply affecting our 
 feelings and our interests, if we should close our vista 
 of the past with Alaric and his barbaric followers. 
 The revival of letters was due in a great measure to 
 the renewed study of the classics. From their pages 
 our immediate ancestors learned to love liberty, and 
 we, ourselves, and our posterity in all future time, may 
 still gather from them deepest wisdom. 
 
 Hume said, a century ago, that no portion of modern 
 history was perhaps wholly new ; and T>r. Arnold has 
 
216 
 
 recently remarked that ancieut history affords political 
 lessons more applicable to our times, than any part of 
 modern history previous to the eighteenth century. 
 These observations are profoundly true. So long as 
 republics exist, the tragic story of the fall of Athens, 
 as recited by the vigorous and eloquent Thucydides, 
 will be looked to as the most pathetic and instructive 
 example of the folly and insanity of faction; of the 
 evils of ill regulated ambition; of the inevitable fete 
 of every people who put their trust in demagogues. 
 So long as empires shall survive, mankind may learn 
 from Tacitus ; may see with their own eyes, on his 
 unfading canvass, the servility, the profligacy, the 
 amazing treachery and appalling wickedness which 
 surround despotic thrones, and crush the intellect and 
 energy of the bravest and the best. So long as con- 
 spiracies shall flourish, the record of the keen and 
 scrutinizing Sallust will expose their arts and crimes, 
 and warn them of their end. So long as any govern- 
 ment whatever shall be maintained, we must look to 
 Aristotle for the principles on which to erect it, and 
 the maxims by which it is to be conducted. That 
 great philosopher, having examined and analyzed the 
 constitutions of more than a hundred and fifty com- 
 monwealths, drew, from this treasury of experiments, 
 results which enabled him to erect politics into a 
 science. From his immortal work the whole host of 
 modern writers on government, from Macchiavelli to 
 Paley and those of the present day, have borrowed 
 largely ; and no one can pretend to real statesman- 
 ship who have not mastered it. The student of Aris- 
 totle will be surprised to find how few fundamental 
 improvements have been effected in the science and 
 
217 
 
 practice of government, since liis time. Even tlie 
 compromise between wealth and population, so lately 
 and so happily introduced into the Constitution of this 
 State, and never, I believe, adopted any where before, 
 was suggested and discussed by him. 
 
 In poetry, ancient genius exhausted every type of 
 the ideal. It is impossible that Homer ever can be 
 equalled, or that Horace can ever be surpassed. The 
 Iliad, following Orpheus— perhaps, mounting higher 
 — ^fixed the religion, and in a great measure formed 
 the manners of the Greeks, and of the Romans, after 
 them ; and its influence is felt to this day. Demos- 
 thenes and Cicero are still the unrivalled masters of 
 eloquence, whom we strive in vain to imitate. No 
 second Venus or Apollo has ever been produced, and 
 these yet stand the admiration and the models of the 
 world of art. Few ambitious piles have been reared 
 in modern times, that have not copied from the Pan- 
 theon or the Parthenon. Even our own State House, 
 though so unlike it in materials and exterior orna- 
 ments, exhibits the precise dimensions of the latter. 
 
 It has been well and truly said, and generally 
 admitted, that history is but an illustration of philoso- 
 phy. Action is, in the main, the result of thought ; 
 and, to comprehend it thoroughly, we must penetrate 
 the minds of men, and analyse their workings. To 
 trace and understand our civilization, then, we must 
 not only have the knowledge of the events of time, 
 and of deeds, institutions, and experiments of man- 
 kind, and their ideal conceptions in poetry, and art, 
 and oratory— but we must study the history of 
 Thought. Metaphysical and moral philosoj^hy have 
 in all enlightened ages embodied the most important 
 
218 
 
 ideas of the present and the past, and developed the 
 tendencies of men's minds in their varying but unre- 
 mitted efforts to penetrate the future. But here, as in 
 common history, we find, aj^art from revelation, but 
 little new in modern times. The philosophers of 
 antiquity made the first charts of the human mind, 
 and so complete were they, that all inquirers since 
 have been mainly guided by them. The great Sen- 
 sual school, which has prevailed so extensively for 
 the last century and a half, and of which Locke 
 is called the founder, may be referred directly to 
 Aristotle, who first boldly taught that all our know- 
 ledge comes through the senses. All other schools 
 that deserve the name, are based on. one portion or 
 another of the ideal philosophy of Plato. All philo- 
 sophic theories, even the wildest and most delusive 
 broodings of the imagination, if made by subtle 
 reasoning to assume a consistent shape, are replete 
 with interest and instruction, since they teach the 
 illusions of the ages and the races, and exhibit to us 
 the weakness and blindness of our nature, and the 
 absurdities to which we are forever prone. But the 
 two great schools of the Lyceum and Academy were 
 founded on imperishable elements in human nature ; 
 and, until the second advent shall shed perfect light, 
 they will — after all the wheat is separated from the 
 chaff — after the momentous truths of Revelation and 
 the mighty facts which time developes, shall have been 
 recorded over the acknowledged errors of philosophy — 
 still, as they have so long done, divide between them 
 a vast, unknown, and deeply interesting realm, through 
 which all must travel, as all have travelled, to whom 
 have been given reason, feeling, and imagination. 
 
219 
 
 Whoever believes that all our ideas are derived from 
 external sources through the senses, and all real know- 
 ledge from experiment — that God has given man the 
 peculiar faculty of reason, as the only safe guide 
 through the perilous paths of life ; and that to do the 
 right thing in the right place, "To EY xcu KAAQ^'' 
 is the highest human wisdom^he is a follower of Aris- 
 totle. Whoever, on the other hand, yields himself to 
 a belief in innate ideas; whoever confides in the exalt- 
 ing faith that there is " a Divinity that stirs within 
 us," and that, despite "this muddy vesture of decay 
 that hems us in," the Author of our being holds direct 
 communion with our souls, regulating our impulses, 
 guiding our instincts, and infusing into us that " long- 
 ing after immortality " which sustains the struggling 
 spirit through the great ^'' ISIaj/tj Aihtvaro;'''' of the 
 universe — he is a disciple of Plato the Divine. 
 
 The truly wise, the genuine christian, will perhaps 
 endeavor in his practice to unite the virtues of both 
 systems; and, in conformity with the Apostolic injunc- 
 tion, perfect his faith by works, and thus consummate 
 the civilization of mankind. 
 
 After all that can be said for the progress of the 
 last ten centuries — their brilliant epochs, their illus- 
 trious characters — it cannot be denied that we must 
 still look to antiquity for the noblest deeds and grand- 
 est thoughts that illustrate the race of man. There 
 were not only full-grown men, but giants in those 
 days. And however the study of them may be de- 
 cried, whosoever would become a statesman or philo- 
 sopher, a poet, an artist, an orator, or a divine ; 
 whoever would understand the human character, its 
 capacity and weakness, its failures and its triumphs, to 
 
220 
 
 what it has attained and what it may accomplish yet 
 — must drink deep, and drink often, of the precious 
 waters of those virgin fountains which were unlocked 
 in Nature's first-known cycle. The solitary student, 
 who seeks knowledore for the love of knowleda^e, and 
 luxuriates in the rare felicity of a conscious expansion 
 of the mind and elevation of the soul, will wander 
 among them day and night, and make the converse of 
 his life with those mighty spirits who yet hover 
 around the Hill of Mars, and linger in the deep shad- 
 ows of the Egerian Grove. 
 
 Our civilization is the civilization of Christianity. 
 And Christianity, alone, made all the difference between 
 the ancient and the modern mind and manners. The 
 questions of the deepest and most abiding interest to 
 man in every age have been — Whence came he ? why 
 is he here ? whither is he going ? who is the author 
 of creation ? and what is its design ? To these ques- 
 tions ancient philosophy could give no satisfactory 
 answer. And the great men, whose immortal ideas 
 and achievements have come down to us, disgusted 
 with the shallow mythology of the popular super- 
 stition, either wrought in ignorant and stern indiffer- 
 ence to an accountability beyond the grave, or devoted 
 their genius, in its prime of strength, to unavailing 
 efforts to solve those mysteries of Being, which God in 
 his providence still kept concealed. But when He 
 came who brought life and immortality to light ; the 
 real " yioyog " whom Socrates and Plato sought so ar- 
 dently to comprehend, all was changed : Not suddenly, 
 but gradually ; so gradually that we are yet in the 
 very midst of the change, and it requires incessant 
 study and consummate knowledge to know preXiisely 
 
221 
 
 where we are, and wliat it is that each and all of us 
 should do to fulfil the purposes of our existence. 
 While the utilitarian values the christian dispensation 
 chiefly because it fosters peace, and has taught us to 
 regard as honorable and cultivate assiduously those 
 pacific arts which promote our temporal happiness — 
 the truly wise, the genuine friend of progress takes a 
 more exalted view, and reads, in the momentous Reve- 
 lation of a Soul to ]\Iau, a Divine Command that all 
 his earthly pursuits and aims, his social and political 
 organizations, shall tend to the high and glorious end 
 of Soul-development. The ancients endeavored to 
 develope the soul without a Revelation and without a 
 command. If they failed, the efibrt was a grand one, 
 the means employed were noble, and the examples 
 they have set are worthy of our study, our admiration, 
 and, often of our imitation. 
 
 I have attempted to sttt)w that we do not owe our 
 progress in improvement exclusively to the successful 
 cultivation of physical and experimental philosophy, 
 as is too generally believed ; and that other causes 
 infinitely numerous, infinitely varied, and vastly influ- 
 ential, have contributed, in just proportions, to the 
 great results of which we are now enjoying the bene- 
 fit. I have glanced in a hasty and imperfect manner 
 at some of these causes, with a view to make it mani- 
 fest that whoever would comprehend our civilization, 
 and so comprehend it as to be able for any wise pur- 
 pose to command the present, and, so far as permitted, 
 shape the future, must sweep the whole circle of the 
 past, and take, as Bacon himself did, " all learning for 
 his province." And I may add, that, if like that great 
 genius, he fails to accomplish all — as fail he must, since 
 
222 
 
 universal empire is impossible — he may, like Lira, ac- 
 complisli much, and leave a name inwrought with flow- 
 ers and fruits upon that peaceful ensign of the nations, 
 under which we are taught that all shall one day lie 
 down together in safety. 
 
 In looking around us upon the acting drama of 
 life, we cannot but j)erceive how utterly contrasted 
 these conclusions are with those by which a vast ma- 
 jority of the existing generations seem to be governed 
 in their conduct. Action, not Learning, appears to be 
 the watchword of this excited age, and its beau ideal 
 is the Practical Man. Wealth and Office are the only 
 sources of power that are generally acknowledged ; 
 and we are strenuously taught, by precept and exam- 
 ple, from our cradle up, to clutch at gold and cater for 
 popularity. The spirit of the age prescribes these 
 means of improvement, of renown and happiness ; and 
 the strongest intellects, too** rarely able to break from 
 the bondage of custom and opinion, fall into the rou- 
 tine and succumb beneath it. The individual of high 
 endowments — capable of what is great — who listens 
 to such shallow and delusive counsels, and surrenders 
 himself to such vulgar uses, must inevitably run a ca- 
 reer of the sorest trials and bitterest disappointments. 
 The people who erect no higher standards, must surely 
 — no matter what for a time may be appearances — go 
 backwards from the goal of progress. 
 
 Action is indeed the foundation of all greatness; 
 but it must be action, curbed, and regulated, and di- 
 rected, by profound knowledge and consummate judg- 
 ment. Incessant and impulsive action is fatal to man 
 and to society. Anarchy, exhaustion and premature 
 decay, are its legitimate and necessary consequences. 
 
223 
 
 It is no paradox to say that permanence — that perma- 
 nence which is created by a just, and wholesome and 
 somewhat stringent restraint of action — is the starting 
 point of genuine progress, national and individual, and 
 marks every footprint in the true line of march. That 
 too restless spirit, which, in our day, sends almost half 
 mankind roving to and fro upon the earth, and is 
 breeding rash and rapid change through all its bor 
 ders, can scarcely be the Spirit of Progress. If God, 
 in his providence, intends it to prevail, it would rather 
 seem that He means it as the instrument for l)reaking 
 up the superstructure of our present civilization, as 
 He did that of antiquity, to establish a broader and 
 purer system in His own good time. 
 
 The practical man — who is, on the other hand, 
 v/ith no uncommon inconsistency, held up to admira- 
 tion — IS the type not merely of permanence, but of 
 absolute fixidity. The truly practical man is undoubt- 
 edly the greatest of all men. To thorough knowledge 
 he adds well directed enterprise ; and works earnestly, 
 manfully, and hopefully, for high and noble ends, with 
 little thought of consequences to himself. He seeks 
 no selfish reward, and immediate and personal success 
 are no necessities to him. Socrates was a practical 
 man, though he failed in his time to crush the Soph- 
 ists, and forfeited his life by his attempt to overthrow 
 the popular superstitions of Athens. Archimedes was 
 a practical man, though he could not save Syracuse, 
 and was slain while solving a problem amid the sack 
 of the city. Galileo was a practical man, though im- 
 prisoned and persecuted for his discoveries, and com- 
 pelled to renounce them. Bacon, too, was a practical 
 man, thouo-h he fell from his hio-li office and threw 
 
224 
 
 away his life in a trivial experiment. Yet all tliese 
 men were regarded by most of their contemporaries 
 as visionaries, as enthusiasts and dreamers; and so 
 they would doubtless be regarded now, if they be- 
 longed to our era. What is generally meant by a 
 practical man in these days — perhaps it w^as so in all 
 days — is a successful man. But life is short ; and truth 
 and virtue bear fruits so slowly, that great immediate 
 results are rarely achieved without a violation of their 
 precepts. Intrigue, corruption, and force are the usual 
 means by which practical men on a large scale advance 
 themselves at the expense of others, and too often 
 athwart the line of progress. The practical man of 
 the more common and vulgar stamp — the geliuine util- 
 itarian — succeeds by dint of energetic selfishness. Dis- 
 trustful, unfeeling and narrow, he cautiously and vig- 
 orously pursues his own ends, regardless of those of 
 the rest of the world. He risks nothing in a cause 
 not directly his own. While others less prudent, or 
 more generous and brave, seek to make discoveries, to 
 introduce improvements, and carry on the great war- 
 fare against ignorance, and prejudice, and vice — he but 
 follows the camps ; and, when a battle is fought, keeps 
 aloof from the danger, and plunders the field. A 
 thousand generations of such men would leave the 
 world exactly where they found it. 
 
 But the accumulation of wealth, it is thought, is 
 unquestionable progress, and a source of real power 
 as well as happiness to individuals and nations. Of 
 mere riches these things are by no means true. The 
 treasures of India have always been proverbial, yet 
 the civilization of India has been stationary from the 
 dawn of history. She has again and again fallen a 
 
225 
 
 prey to conquest, and is at length perisliing miserably 
 under a foreign yoke. China lias been for ages ab- 
 sorbing the precious metals of the world in exchange 
 for luxuries that have been consumed ; is the most 
 populous now, and was once the most advanced nation 
 of the earth. But China has been conquered too, is 
 now insulted and trampled on within her own borders 
 by invaders from the antipodes, and has made little or 
 no progress for thousands of years. For its individ- 
 ual possessor wealth will secure comfort, will com- 
 mand the limited service of others, may win admira- 
 tion from the weak, and may purchase the homage of 
 parasites and flatterers. But all this confers no real 
 power and little happiness, since it scarcely compen- 
 sates for the cares and anxieties which riches impose, 
 and the envy and hostility which they provoke. 
 Wealth, as an instrument in the grasp of genius, learn- 
 ing and enterprise, may be made the means of accom- 
 plishing wonders. It may give vast power, and be- 
 come a most effective agent in promoting the welfare 
 and improvement of mankind. But then all that is 
 achieved by it, must be referred directly to the wis- 
 dom which controls and designates its uses. In this 
 the actual power resides, and no rational happiness 
 can bo derived from any other than a wise employ- 
 ment of wealth. 
 
 Bacon said that " men in great places were thrice 
 servants : servants of the State, servants of fame, and 
 servants of the people," and moreover that " the ri- 
 sing into place is laborious, the standing slij)pery, and 
 the downfall a regress, or an eclipse at least." These 
 are truths familiar to observers in all times, and per- 
 haps more frequently exemplified in our own than any 
 
226 
 
 other. Yet men still continue anxious seekers after 
 office. The noblest intellects and purest characters 
 are still seduced by the idea that office confers power 
 in proportion to its importance, and that by this 
 means, " the servant of fame " may take a great and 
 glorious part in promoting the welfare of his race. 
 This has indeed happened, and may sometimes, though 
 rarely, happen yet. But, wherever our civilization 
 has shed its full light, 23ublic station, even if heredi- 
 tary, and the possessor can be divested of it only by a 
 revolution, enables him under ordinary circumstances, 
 to exercise but a small portion of real power. Most 
 of the Kings of Europe are now-a-days the merest 
 cyphers ; and hereditary legislators have become the 
 foot-balls of the commons. And whoever holds office 
 by the suffrage, and at the sufferance of that com- 
 mons, has usually undergone such drudgery, and in- 
 curred such obligations, in rising into place, that he 
 has neither strength, nor time, nor means to do more 
 than prevent his own " downfall and eclipse," and may 
 be esteemed most fortunate if he succeeds in that. In 
 fact it is scarcely ever possible for him to sustain him- 
 self in office for any length of time against the storms 
 which envious adversaries, self-seeking demagogues, 
 and his own inevitable errors will surely raise against 
 him, unless he seeks refuge in some faction, sinks the 
 statesman in the partisan, and, instead of controlling 
 and leading the people to a higher state of civiliza- 
 tion, prostitutes himself to their caprices. But were 
 it possible for an individual to attain high office with- 
 out corruption or deception, and hold it without con- 
 cessions — could he, like Macchiavelli's model patriot, 
 consolidate all authority in his own hands — the power 
 
227 
 
 lie could wield, the blessings lie could confer on man- 
 kind and their posterity, and the renown he might 
 achieve for himself beyond embalming his name in 
 the catalogue of Kings, or Presidents, or Ministers, 
 would dejDend entirely upon the greatness of his ge- 
 nius, and the knowledge and the wisdom he had ac- 
 quired by its assiduous cultivation. 
 
 Thus, if we should pass in review all the pursuits 
 of mankind, and all the ends they aim at, under the 
 instigation of their appetites and passions, or at the 
 dictation of shallow utilitarian philosophy, we shall 
 find that they pursue shadows and worship idols, and 
 that whatever there is that is good and great and cath- 
 olic in their deeds and purposes, depends for its ac- 
 complishment upon the intellect, and is accomplished 
 just in proportion as that intellect is stored with know- 
 ledge. And, whether we examine the present or the 
 past, we shall fiud that Knowledge alone is real power 
 — " more powerful," says Bacon, " than the Will, com- 
 manding: the reason, understandinsr, and belief," and 
 " setting up a Throne in the spirits and souls of men." 
 We shall find that the progress of knowledge is the 
 only true and permanent progress of our race, and 
 that, however inventions, discoveries, and events which 
 change the face of human affairs, may appear to be 
 the results of contemporary efforts or providential ac- 
 cidents, it is in fact the Men of Learning who lead 
 with noiseless step the vanguard of civilization, that 
 mark out the road over which — opened sooner or later 
 — posterity marches ; and fi'om the abundance of their 
 precious stores sow seed by the wayside, which spring 
 up in due season, and produce an hundred fold — cast- 
 ing bread upon the waters which is gathered after 
 
228 
 
 many days. The age whicli gives birtli to the lar- 
 gest number of such men is always the most enlight- 
 ened, and the age in which the highest reverence and 
 most intelligent obedience is accorded to them, al- 
 ways advances most rapidly in the career of improve- 
 ment. 
 
 And let not the ambitious aspirant to enrol himself 
 with this illustrious band, to fill the throne which 
 learning " setteth up in the spirits and souls of men," 
 and wield its absolute power, be checked, however 
 humble he msij be, however unlikely to attain wealth 
 or office, or secure homage as a practical man or man 
 of action, by any fear that true knowledge can be sti- 
 fled, overshadowed, or compelled to involuntary bar- 
 renness. Whenever or wherever men meet to delib- 
 erate or act, the trained intellect will always master. 
 But for the most sensitive and modest, who seek re- 
 tirement, there is another and a greater resource. The 
 public press, accessible to all, will enable him, from 
 the depths of solitude, to speak trumpet-tongued to 
 the four corners of the earth. No matter how he 
 may be situated — if he has facts that will bear scru- 
 tiny, if he has thoughts that burn, if he is sure he has 
 a call to teach — the press is a tripod from which he 
 may give utterance to his oracles, and if there be 
 truth in them, the world and future ages will accept 
 it. It is not Commerce that is King, nor Manufac- 
 tures, nor Cotton, nor any single Art or Science, any 
 more than those who wear the baubles-crowns. Know- 
 ledge is Sovereign, and the Press is the royal seat on 
 which she sits, a sceptred Monarch. From this she 
 rules public opinion, and finally gives laws alike to 
 prince and people — laws framed by men of letters ; 
 
229 
 
 by tlie wandering bard ; by tlie philosopher in his 
 grove or portico, his tower or laboratory; by the pale 
 student in his closet. We contemplate with awe the 
 mighty movements of the last eighty years, and we 
 'held our breath while we gazed upon the heaving hu- 
 man mass so lately struggling like huge Leviathan, 
 over the broad face of Europe. What has thus stirred 
 the world ? The press. The press, which has scat- 
 tered far and wide the sparks of genius, kindling as 
 they fly. Books, Journals, Pamphlets, these are the 
 paixhan balls — moulded often by the obscure and 
 humble, but loaded with fiery thoughts — which have 
 burst in the sides of every structure, political, so- 
 cial and religious, and shattered too often, alike the 
 rotten and the sound. For, in kuowledsre as in 
 everything else, the two great principles of Good 
 and Evil maintain their eternal warfare " O aycov 
 avTi Tvavrcov aycovcov''' — a war amid and above all 
 other wars. 
 
 But, in the strife of knowledge, unlike other con- 
 tests — victory never fails to abide with truth. The 
 wise and virtuous who find and use this mighty weap- 
 on, are sure of their reward. It may rot come soon. 
 Years, ages, centuries may pass away, and the grave- 
 stone may have crumbled above the head that should 
 have worn the wreath. But to the eye of faith, the 
 vision of the imperishable and inevitable halo that 
 shall enshrine the memory is forever present, cheer- 
 ing and sweetening toil, and compensating for priva- 
 tion. And it often happens that the great and heroic 
 mind, unnoticed by the world, buried apparently in 
 profoundest darkness, sustained by faith, works out 
 the grandest problems of human progress — working 
 15 
 
230 
 
 under broad rays of brightest liglit — light furnished 
 by that inward and immortal lamp, which, when its 
 mission upon earth has closed, is trimmed anew by 
 angel's hands, and placed among the stars of heaven, j 
 
AN OKATION 
 
 ON THE LIFE, CHARACTER AND SERVICES OF JOHN CALDWELL CAL- 
 HOUN, DELIVERED ON THE 21sT NOVEMBER, 1850, IK CHARLESTON, S. 
 C, AT THE REQUEST OF THE CITY COUNCIL. 
 
 Faith is an iiistluct of the human heart. Its 
 strongest, its purest and its noblest instinct — the pa- 
 rent of love and of hope. In all ages and every- 
 where, mankind have acknowledged, adored, and put 
 their trust in the great Creator and Ruler of the Uni- 
 verse. And, descending from the invisible and infi- 
 nite, to the visible and finite, they have entertained 
 the same sentiments, differing only in degree, for those 
 of their own species, who have received fi'om heaven 
 an extraordinary endowment of intellect and virtue. 
 The Ancient Heathen deified them. By the early 
 Christians they were enrolled among the Saints. It 
 is a shallow and a base philosophy which can see su- 
 perstition only, in such customs, and fiiils to recognize 
 the workings of a profound veneration for the attri- 
 butes of God, as manifested through His favorite Cre- 
 ations. A better knowledge of the bounds which 
 separate the natural from the supernatural, has taught 
 us in our day to limit our homage ; but still it is a 
 deep and pure wisdom which counsels us to submit 
 
232 
 
 ourselves, in no grudging spirit, to the guidance of 
 those great Minds that have been appointed to shed 
 light and truth upon the world. 
 
 To the honor and praise of South Carolina it may 
 be said that she has thus far recognized her prophets, 
 and believed their ins23iration. She has aided and 
 sustained them in the perfoi-mance of their missions, 
 with a warm and steady confidence, and she lias been 
 faithful to their memory. Her loyal reverence for 
 real greatness has ever been a deep — I might say a 
 religious sentiment — untinged with superstition, but 
 as profound as it is magnanimous and just. 
 
 For no one of her many noble sons has Providence 
 permitted her to evince for so long a period her ad- 
 miration, her affection and her confidence ; for no one 
 has she herself endured such trials ; no one has she 
 ever consigned to his last resting place in her bereaved 
 bosom, amid such deep and universal grief, as him 
 whose life and services we have assembled this day to 
 commemorate. For more than forty years the name 
 of Calhoun has never been pronounced in South Car- 
 olina without awakening a sensation. For nearly the 
 same period it has been equally familiar and fraught 
 with as deep an interest to every citizen of this wide- 
 spread Union. Few of us here present can remem- 
 be the era when we heard it first. We have grown 
 up from childhood under its mighty influence, and we 
 feel that a spell was broken, a tie of life was sundered 
 forever, when it ceased to be a living sound. 
 
 The Man is now no more. He has closed his ca- 
 reer with us, to begin another in a better world. But 
 what he did, and what he said, while here, still live, 
 and will live forever in their consequences — as immor- 
 
233 
 
 tal as the Spirit which has returned to God. How he 
 performed his part on earth it is ours now to consider. 
 And di'ying our unavailing tears, and burying, for the 
 moment, in the deepest recesses of our bosoms, the 
 love and reverence we bore him, it is our duty to ana- 
 lyze his life with the strict impartiality of a distant 
 posterity; and to bring the thoughts and actions he 
 left behind him to the great standard of eternal Truth, 
 that we may render complete justice to him, and 
 gather for ourselves and our children the full measure 
 of the lessons which he tauQ-ht. The livini!: Man 
 scorned fidsome adulation ; and his living Spirit, if 
 permitted to hover over us now, and to hear our voices 
 and perceive the pulsations of our hearts, will accept 
 no offering that cannot bear the scrutiny of Time and 
 the severest test of Truth. 
 
 Mr. Calhoun was born in the backwoods of South 
 Carolina, near the close of the Revolutionary War. 
 His early nurture was in the wilderness, and during 
 the hei'oic age of the Republic. In youth he imbibed 
 but a scant portion of the lore of books, but his con- 
 verse with the volume of Nature was unlimited; and 
 in the field and forest, by the stream and by the fire- 
 side, he was in constant intercourse with those rouirh 
 but high-strung men, who had challenged oppression 
 at its first step, and were fresh from the battles in 
 which they had won their liberties with their swords. 
 His father, too, was a wise and strong man. For 
 thirty years in the councils of the State, he was as 
 familiar with the strifes of politics, as of arms. In his 
 rude way he penetrated to fundamentals — discovered 
 that the true foundation of government is the welfare 
 of the governed ; denounced its excessive action ; and 
 
234 
 
 opposed the Constitution of the Union because it 
 placed the j^ower of hiyiug taxes in the hands of those 
 who did not pay them. Amid such men and such 
 scenes, thei'e was little opportunity for what is com- 
 moul}^ called education for the young Calhoun. But 
 it may be doubted whether, having acquired the use 
 of letters and figures, and been thus furnished with 
 the two gi-eat keys of knowledge, there could have 
 been a much better training for the future Statesman. 
 Pericles and Alexander were, perhaps, taught but lit- 
 tle more ])y Anaxagoras and Aristotle, than Calhoun 
 learned from his few books, from nature and such 
 men. In this School he learned to think, which is a 
 vast achievement. And he was furnished with high 
 and noble themes for thought, by those whose partial 
 knowledge of facts led them to discuss chiefly essen- 
 tial principles, to unfold fundamental truths, and to 
 build on them those lofty theories to which the exi- 
 gencies of the times gave birth. He was thus taught, 
 not only the sum and substance of elementary educa- 
 tion, but was imbued with that practical philosophy, 
 according to which human affairs are in the main con- 
 ducted. It is true that thousands have received the 
 same lessons and profited nothing. But we know that 
 seed sown by the wayside and among stones and 
 thorns, is gathered by the birds or is withered or 
 choked up ; and it is only when it falls on good 
 ground that it springs up and produces fifty and a 
 hundred fold. It is idle to deny the natural diversity 
 of human intellects. It w^as due, after all, to the rich 
 soil of Calhoun's mind that these noble seeds took 
 root, and bore abundantly such precious fruits. 
 
 It was not uutil he had passed his eighteenth year 
 
235 
 
 that he sei'iously embarked in the pursuit of Scholas- 
 tic learning; and the event proved — as possibly it 
 would in most cases — that no time had been really 
 lost. Perhaps it seldom happens that the bud of the 
 mind is sufficiently matui'ed before this age, to expand 
 naturally and absorb with benefit the direct rays of 
 knowledge, so bright, so piercing and so stimulating. 
 The tender petals eagerly opened at too early a pe- 
 riod, often wither and die under the overpowering 
 light. At eighteen years of age Mi*. Calhoun went to 
 the Academy ; at twenty to College ; at twenty-two 
 he graduated at Yale ; at twenty-five he was admitted 
 to the Bar; at twenty-six he was elected to the Legis- 
 lature ; at twenty-eight to Congress. Thus, though 
 apparently starting late, he nevertheless arrived at 
 the goal far in advance of most of those who reach it. 
 But when he went to the Academy he did not dream 
 over books, any more than he did afterwards over the 
 affairs of life. He had learned already what many 
 never learn — to think ; and to think closely — to the 
 pui'pose — searching for the 2:)rinciple. Having ac- 
 quired this mighty power — for it is a powei-, and the 
 greatest of all — when he did start in his careei*, he 
 strode onward like a conqueror. Difficulties were 
 mere exercises. Valleys rose in his path and moun- 
 tains sunk down to a level. First at School ; first at 
 Colles^e ; he rose at once to the front rank at the Bar 
 and in the Legislature ; and was assigned a most dis- 
 tinguished position the moment he took his seat in 
 Congress. His course was a stream of light. Men 
 of all classes recognized its brilliancy, and hailed him, 
 not as a meteor, but as a new star risen in the heavens, 
 which had floated without effort into its appointed 
 
236 
 
 orbit, and promised loDg to shed the brightest and 
 most beneficent beams upon the world. 
 
 What, we may properly ask, was the secret of this 
 rapid and wonderful success? How was it that this 
 young man, coming but a few years before from the 
 wilderness, late in youth, without knowledge of books, 
 unknown himself, and destitute of powerful friends, 
 should, in so short a time, not only win his way into 
 the Great Council of the Confederacy, but be at once 
 conceded a place among the first, and draw to himself 
 the admiration and the hopes of a people ? 
 
 "What should it be tbat thus their faith could bind? 
 The power of Thought — the magic of tlieMiud!" 
 
 Mr. Calhoun first took his seat in Congress at the 
 commencement of the Session of 1811. From that 
 period may be dated his career as a Statesman. That 
 career may be properly divided into several epochs, 
 each of which is memorable in the history of our 
 country, and was made memorable in no small degree 
 by the parts which he perform'ed. The first embraces 
 his services in the House of Representatives. The 
 great question of the Session of 1811-12, was that of 
 war with England. All Europe was then, and had 
 been for twenty years, in arms, and that mighty con- 
 flict which terminated not long after in the overthrow 
 of Napoleon, and the establishment of the Holy Alli- 
 ance, was at its height. France and England Avere 
 the two leadhig belligerents, and both of them, in 
 utter disi-egard of neutral rights, had perpetrated unex- 
 ampled outrages upon us. We had in vain resorted to 
 embargoes and non-importation acts, and at length it 
 became indispensably necessary to our maintaining any 
 
237 
 
 position among nations, that we should declare war 
 against one or both of these powers. The direct 
 pecuniary interests of the South had been but slightly 
 affected by these outrages. She had but little com- 
 merce to be plundered — few seamen to be impressed. 
 Her only great interest involved — and that she felt in 
 every fibre — was the honor of our common country. 
 To vindicate that she went for war, and went for it 
 almost unanimously. South Carolina took the lead. 
 Her illustrious Representatives Lowndes, Cheves, Wil- 
 liams and Calhouu, were the leaders of all those im- 
 portant Committees, whose province it is to j)ropose 
 war, and marshal the resources for carrying it on. 
 And nobly and gloriously did they all perform their 
 duty. Mr. Calhoun, placed second on the Committee 
 of Foreign Relations, soon became its head by the 
 retirement of the chairman, and, before the close of 
 his first Session, he reported and carried through the 
 House, a bill declaring war against Great Britain ; and, 
 throughout the momentous conflict, undaunted in 
 courage and infinite in resources, he stood forward the 
 leading champion of every measure for its vigorous 
 prosecution. Young as he was, he shrunk from no 
 opponent in that Congress, never before or since 
 equalled for its assemblage of talent. He surrendered 
 nothing and shunned no responsibility. In the darkest 
 and most perilous hour of the war, when Napoleon 
 had fallen, and England was free to turn the whole of 
 her armament on us ; when the Eastern States, not 
 content with denouncing the war through their 2:)resses, 
 and from their platforms and their pulpits, had assailed 
 in every form the credit of the Government — had 
 paralyzed all the financial operations of the country. 
 
238 
 
 and caused a general suspension of the Southern Banks — 
 had given valuable " aid and comfort to the enemy " by 
 loans of specie, and were conspiring to withdraw from 
 the Confederacy and make peace for themselves — in 
 that desponding hour, when all seemed lost, he did 
 not falter for an instant. "The great cause" he said 
 "will never be yielded — no, never! never! I hear 
 the future audibly announced in the past — in the splen- 
 did victories over the Guerriere, the Java, and the 
 Macedonian. Opinion is power. The charm of British 
 naval invincibility is gone," 
 
 Mr. Calhoun's course throughout the war can 
 never fail of the admiration and applause of future 
 times ; and that war was a turning point in the history 
 of the world. It established a competitor with Eng- 
 land for the trident of the ocean, whose triumph is 
 inevitable. And, just and necessary as it was and 
 glorious as its result, it gave rise in the end to ques- 
 tions in this country, which no human sagacity could 
 have anticipated — whose solution, yet in the womb of 
 time, may be of far greater import than the dominion 
 of the seas. 
 
 Mr. Calhoun entered Congress as a member of the 
 Republican Party, as distinguished from the Federal, 
 and throughout his service in the House, acted with it 
 in the main. But he gave many and early proofs that 
 his was a temperament which could never " give up to 
 party what was meant for mankind." Following his 
 illustrious Colleague* — who yet survives to our love 
 and veneration, with his powerful intellect unimpaired, 
 and his devotion to his native soil more ardent and 
 self-sacrificing, if possible, than ever — he warmly advo- 
 
 * Hon. Langdon Chever. 
 
239 
 
 cated a large addition to the navy, at an early ]^eriod 
 of warlike preparations, and, ever after, consistently 
 and earnestly sustained this most important arm of 
 defence and support of the State. The Republican 
 Party, under Mr. Jefferson, had, with a narrow policy, 
 condemned the navy. But amphibious man never 
 attains half his national greatness, until his domain on 
 the water equals that upon the land — until the terror 
 of his prowess makes his home upon the deep as 
 secure as on the mountains, and the products of hig 
 industry float undisturbed on every tide. 
 
 At this early period, also, Mr. Calhoun took his 
 stand against the Restrictive System, which had been 
 so great a favorite with Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Madi- 
 son, as a substitute for war. He denounced it as 
 unsound in policy, and wholly unsuited to the genius 
 of our people ; and he opposed it vigorously, until it 
 fell beneath his blows. But it may well be questioned, 
 whether, at that time, his opposition w^as at all en- 
 lightened by those great principles of Free Trade, 
 then so little known, which it was the glory of his 
 later life to develop and sustain under such trying 
 circumstances. He then opposed the Restrictiv^e Sys- 
 tem as a war measure, and demonstrated that it was 
 not only inefficient, but injurious. Neither then, nor 
 when the import duties were re-adjusted at the close 
 of the war, did he appear to have perceived the 
 dangers which lurked under the protection which this 
 system gave to manufacturers, nor those which fol- 
 lowed such protection when specifically given by the 
 direct action of the Government. For, in the debate 
 in IS 14, while Mr. Webster, now the great champion 
 of protection, declared " he was an enemy to rearing 
 
240 
 
 manufactures, or any other interest in a hot bed, and 
 never wished to see a Sheffield or a Birmingham in 
 this country," Mr. Calhoun said, " as to the manufac- 
 turing interest, in regard to which some fear has been 
 expressed, the resolution, voted by the House yester- 
 day, was a strong pledge that it would not suifer 
 manufactures to be unprotected in case of a repeal 
 of the Restrictive System. He hoped that, at all 
 times, and under every policy, they would be pro- 
 tected with due care." And, again in 1816, he advo- 
 cated, without any note or caution, the bill introduced by 
 another distinguished Carolinian,* long since snatched 
 from us by a premature death, but whose genius and 
 virtues — whose lofty character and inestimable services 
 can never be forgotten — a bill which distinctly recog- 
 nized the protective principle, and introduced perhaps 
 its most oppressive feature. The truth is, that at that 
 day, political economy was in its infancy. Free Trade 
 was most commonly understood to mean merely the 
 freedom of the seas. The most sasracious intellects 
 of our country — Mr. Webster perhaps excepted — had, 
 apparently no apprehensions of the evils of the false 
 theory of protection as applied to us ; and that abom- 
 inable system, since called " the American," it had 
 entered into no man's imagination to conceive. Mr. 
 Calhoun, at a later period, so far in advance of his 
 age, was, at that epoch, the embodiment of the spirit 
 of the times, and among its most able and effective 
 expounders. 
 
 At the crisis of the war, when the credit of the 
 Government was prostrate, an United States Bank was 
 proposed by the administration, and supported by the 
 * Hon. William Lowndes. 
 
241 
 
 Republican Party. This Mr. Calhoun opposed and 
 defeated ; though in a modified form, it would finally 
 have passed the House, but for the casting vote of Mr. 
 Cheves. It was, hoAvever, on account of the extraor- 
 dinary character of the proposed Bank, that Mr. Cal- 
 houn resisted it, and not apparently from any doubt 
 of the policy or constitutionality of a Bank chartered 
 by Congress. In fact, he had himself previously pro- 
 posed a Bank to be established in the District of Co- 
 lumbia, with the express view of getting rid of cer- 
 tain constitutional scruples felt by others; and he was 
 the responsible author of the Bank of 1816, whose 
 powerful efforts to prolong its own existence, so fiercely 
 agitated the whole Union twenty years later, and ended 
 in consequences so disastrous not only to its own stock- 
 holders, but to the country. From Mr. Calhoun's sub- 
 sequent declarations, it is certain that, in his maturer 
 years, he regarded the whole Banking system, as at 
 present organized, as a stupendous evil; and he emphat- 
 ically declared, that its power, "if not diminished, 
 must terminate in its own destruction, or an entire revo- 
 lution in our social and political system." And that 
 of all Banks, he regarded a mere Government Bank as 
 the most dangerous, may be safely inferred from the 
 fact, that neither the ties of i>arty, nor the entreaties 
 of the administration, nor the exigencies of the most 
 critical period of the war, could prevent him from 
 vigorously opposing such an Institution, though not 
 then hostile to an United States Bank. He advocated 
 the Bank of 1816, as indispensably necessary for the 
 restoration of the currency, and, to the last, he believed 
 that no other expedient could have effected that great 
 object. He avoided the constitutional question, by 
 
242 
 
 assuming tliat so long as tlie Government received 
 Bank notes at all as money, it was bonnd to " regulate 
 their value," and for that purpose a Bank was " ne<je3- 
 sary and proper." He said, however, even then, that 
 " as a question de novo, he would be decidedly against 
 a Bank;" and when in 1837, he thought it could be 
 done with safety, he took an active and efficient part 
 in excluding all Bank notes from the Treasury of the 
 United States. 
 
 During the Session of 1816, arose another of those 
 great questions, which may be said to have had their 
 origin in the war, and which have since so divided and 
 agitated our country. Mr. Jefferson had recognized 
 the power of Congress to appropriate money for Inter- 
 nal Improvements in the case of the Cumberland Road, 
 and, in 1808, Mr. Gallatin, his Secretary of war, had 
 made a report, recommending a stupendous system. 
 It was not until after the war, the expenses of which 
 had been enormously increased by the cost of trans- 
 portation, that the subject attracted the serious atten- 
 tion of the whole country. Mr. Calhoun brought 
 forward and carried, in 1816, a bill appropriating the 
 bonus and dividends of the United Stiites Bank to 
 Internal Improvements. This bill was vetoed as un- 
 constitutional by Mr. Madison, to the surprise of all, 
 and most especially of its author, who believed he was 
 carrying out the views entertained by Madison, and 
 suggested in his annual Message. In 1818, Mr. Cal- 
 houn, as Secretary of War, made a Report on Roads 
 and Canals, embracino; views and recommendino: meas- 
 ures fully as extensive as those of Mr. Gallatin. On 
 none of these occasions did he express his opinion as 
 to the constitutional power of the Federal Govern- 
 
243 
 
 merit to carry on Internal Improvements. But, if Lis 
 opinions may be inferred from those of liis most intim- 
 ate and confidential friends — from the celebrated 
 Message of Mr. Monroe in 1823, and the equally 
 celebrated speech of Mr. McDuffie shortly after — it 
 must be conceded that, at that time, he believed the 
 power of the Government to lay taxes, and appropri- 
 ate the proceeds, was limited only by the injunction 
 that they should be applied to the " common defence 
 and general welfare." This doctrine, in every way so 
 fatal in our political system, has since receiv^ed its 
 severest blows from his hands; and, in 1838, he 
 declared that one of the most essential steps to be 
 taken, in order to restore our Government to its original 
 purity — then the great and sole object of his political 
 life — was to "put a final stop to Internal Improve- 
 ments by Congress." 
 
 With the Session of 1816-17 closed Mr. Calhoun's 
 services in the House of Representatives. Here also 
 terminated an epoch in his career as a Statesman. He 
 had more than fulfilled the high expectations enter- 
 tained of him when he entered Congress. His re2:)u- 
 tation for talent had increased with every intellectual 
 effort he had made. And his ability — now universally 
 admitted to be of the very highest order — his well- 
 tried patriotism, his unflinching moral courage, the 
 loftiness and liberality of all his views and sentiments, 
 and the immaculate purity of his life, gave him a 
 position in the public councils and in the opinion of 
 the country, second to no one of that illustrious band 
 whom the greatest crisis in affairs since the revolution 
 — "the second war of Independence" — had brought 
 upon the stage. 
 
244 
 
 In reviewing Mr. Calhoun's political course up to 
 this period, if, with the sternness of the historian, we 
 brush aside the splendid halo that surrounds it, and 
 call to our aid the subsequent experience of a third of 
 a century of rapid progress — above all, if we examine 
 it by the effulgent light which he, himself, more than 
 all other men, has since shed upon the Federal Con- 
 stitution, and judge it by those rigid and severe tests 
 which he has taught us, we cannot fail to perceive that 
 brilliant, useful, and glorious, as it was, to his country 
 and himself, his views, in many most important par- 
 ticulars, were essentially erroneous ; and that he as- 
 sisted powerfully in giving currency to opinions, and 
 building up systems, that have proved seriously in- 
 jurious to the South, and probably to the stability of 
 the existing Union. These I have not hesitated to 
 point out. It was due to truth, to history, and to him. 
 
 It has been customary to apologize for these errors, 
 by saying that they were the errors of youth. But 
 Mr. Calhoun had no youth, to our knowledge. He 
 sprung into the arena like Minerva from the head of 
 Jove, fully grown and clothed in armor : a man every 
 inch himself, and able to contend with any other man. 
 A severe moralist would point to them as conspicuous 
 proofs of the fallibility of our nature, since the deep- 
 est devotion both to the Union and his native section, 
 and the most perfect purity of purpose, combined with 
 the subtlest intellectual acumen and the profoundest 
 generalization, could not save him from them. There 
 may be much truth and wisdom in this view. But 
 there are reasons why Mr. Calhoun should have fallen 
 at that time into the opinions that he held, which, 
 properly considered, would remove every shadow of 
 
245 
 
 suspicion from his motives, if any has ever been 
 seriously entertained, and almost wholly excuse the 
 most sagacious of men who laid no claim to inspira- 
 tion. 
 
 Although there were, from the commencement of 
 the Government, two parties, one of whom contended 
 for a strict and the other for a latitudinarian construc- 
 tion of the Constitution, a review of the practical 
 questions which arose between them would show that 
 few or none of them were of a sectional bearing. The 
 Alien and Sedition Laws, which produced the greatest 
 excitement of any internal question, had no such 
 tendency. The Funding of the Domestic Debt might 
 have been so accidentally ; but no question, necessarily 
 and permanently sectional, attracted serious notice until 
 after the second war. In fact, under the administra- 
 tions of the earlier Presidents, all those sectional 
 jealousies which had displayed themselves so con- 
 spicuously during the Confederation, and which are 
 so prominent in the debates of the Convention that 
 framed the Constitution, had been lulled to sleep, and 
 a large proportion of the ablest Southern men were 
 Federalists. The great questions which did agitate 
 the country, on which elections turned, and parties 
 really, though not altogether nominally, divided off, 
 were external, not internal questions. Our Colo- 
 nial habits still predominated, and we looked abroad 
 for our dangers, for our enemies and our friends. 
 English, French and Spanish negotiations: Jay's 
 Treaty : the squabble with the Du'ectory : the acqui- 
 sition of Louisiana : the terrible wars of Europe : 
 the aggressions on our neutral rights : and finally the 
 embargo, non-importation, non-intercourse laws, and 
 16 
 
246 
 
 war with England : — these were the great and deeply 
 interesting subjects which absorbed men's minds and 
 colored all their political opinions. The Constitution 
 was overlooked and violated by both parties ; and I 
 believe it may be said that on no question of a con- 
 stitutional character were party lines stringently drawn, 
 after the election of Mr. Jefferson. Mr. Monroe de- 
 clared, on his accession, that we were " all Federalists 
 — all Republicans." 
 
 It was under these circumstances, and at a period 
 when, above all others, an ardent and patriotic mind 
 would be least disposed to contemplate sectional inter- 
 ests, or stickle about constitutional scruples, that Mr. 
 Calhoun entered Congress. It was then, indeed, the 
 imperative duty of the patriot to discard all mere sec- 
 tional considerations ; and, perhaps, to give the most 
 liberal construction to the Constitution, to enable the 
 ship of State to meet and ride out the storms which 
 threatened to engulph it. The difficulties were im- 
 mense. Mr. Calhoun, placed at once in a high and 
 responsible position, and taking, as was said at the 
 time, " the war upon his shoulders," was absorbed 
 during his first three sessions, in devising measures to 
 meet its pressing exigencies; and, during the last 
 three, in endeavoring to dissipate its injurious effects 
 upon the currency, commerce and industry of the 
 country. And, considering the history of the past : 
 the conduct of parties on internal constitutional ques- 
 tions : the habitual disregard of strict construction by 
 the Republican leaders : the acquiescence of older and 
 very able men of all sections in the constitutionality 
 of the Bank, the Tariff and Internal Improvements, it 
 is not at all to be wondered at, nor to be severely con- 
 
247 
 
 demned, that in the universal confusion, and the burn- 
 ing glow of his broad patriotism, so ftinned by current 
 events, he should fail to look at the sectional bearing 
 of propositions, or even of constitutional constructions. 
 No man — not one in our wide confederacy — North or 
 South — foresaw what was coming out of the convul- 
 sions of the war, and the measures adopted to ease 
 down the country to a state of peace, and prepare her 
 for a prosperous career, under circumstances so greatly 
 different as were those of 1815-17 from any she had 
 yet encountered. Carpiugs and croakings there were, 
 of course, and prophecies of evil in abundance. But 
 the results baffled all predictions : or at least verified 
 so little of what any had foretold, as to place the 
 wisest seer on no higher tripod than that of a lucky 
 fortune-teller. Mr. Calhoun never croaked or carped. 
 And if he erred in straying from the narrow, but only 
 true path of rigid constitutional construction, he may 
 well be forgiven for following precedents that were 
 almost consecrated — the examples of nearly all with 
 whom he acted — and the impulses of a generous, con- 
 fiding, and wide-extended love of country. 
 
 Soon after Mr. Monroe's accession to the Presidency, 
 Mr. Calhoun received the appointment of Secretary 
 of War, and took his seat in the Cabinet in December, 
 1817, where he remained until March, 1825. This 
 period embraced the second epoch of his career. The 
 future biographer will find in it much that will be 
 interesting to relate, but, on an occasion like this, it 
 may be passed over without any minute examination. 
 From the commencement of the war it had been 
 discovered that the internal organization of the War 
 Department was so defective, that it was impossible to 
 
248 
 
 conduct its affairs with due efficiency. It was in vain 
 that three different Secretaries were in succession at 
 its head during the war, and a fourth appointed at its 
 close. When Mr. Calhoun took charge of it, nearly 
 three years after, he found unsettled accounts to the 
 amount of forty millions, and the greatest confusion in 
 every branch. In a remarkably short period he in- 
 troduced a perfect organization, in which all the details 
 were so thoroughly and judiciously systematized, that 
 no material changes have been made to this day. He 
 reduced the unsettled accounts to a few millions, which 
 were not susceptible of liquidation, and, against inces- 
 sant and powerful opposition, curtailed the discre- 
 tionary expenses nearly one half, while, at the same 
 time, the efficiency of the army was greatly increased, 
 and his own popularity in it grew with every reform, 
 and to the last day of his administration. 
 
 Many of Mr. Calhoun's best friends had advised 
 him not to accept this appointment. They knew 
 the apparently insuperable difficulties of reorganizing 
 that Department, which had baffled so many able men. 
 They thought that his mind was of a cast too abstract 
 and metaphysical to cope with the practical details of 
 the Military System, and were apprehensive lest his 
 brilliant reputation might be clouded. They did not 
 remember that if real genius is not universal, both war 
 and politics are but the concretes of Philosophy — that, 
 in ancient times, these pursuits were almost invariably 
 united ; that the greatest of metaphysicians was the 
 founder of the science of Politics, and trained the 
 greatest warrior of antiquity ; that Bacon presided in 
 the House of Lords ; that Carnot " organized victory ; " 
 that, in short, though politicians and soldiers may 
 
249 
 
 spring up every day, and strut their hour upon the 
 staire, no one can be a statesman or a s^enei-al who has 
 not analyzed the structure of the human mind, and 
 learned to touch the remotest springs of human action. 
 
 High as Mr. Calhoun's legislative talent had been 
 rated, he had not been long in the War Department 
 before his administrative talent was regarded as quite 
 equal, if not superior ; and he rose so rapidly in the 
 estimation of his countrymen, that, early in Mr. Mon- 
 roe's second term, when he was only forty years of 
 age, and had been but little more than ten years in the 
 Federal Councils, he was nominated for the Presidency 
 by the large and influential State of Pennsylvania. 
 He subsequently consented to have his name with- 
 drawn in favor of Gen. Jackson. He w^as then nomi- 
 nated for the Vice-Presidency — was elected by a large 
 majority, and took his seat as President of the Senate 
 in 1825. 
 
 In regard to his direct connection with that body 
 as its presiding officer, it is, perhaps, sufficient to say that 
 on all occasions he fully sustained his reputation. No 
 incident of lasting importance occurred to elicit any 
 extraordinary display of peculiar qualities of mind or 
 temperament, until near the close of his first term. 
 But the period of that term constitutes a most im 
 portant era in the annals of our country, and also in 
 the life of Mr. Calhoun. And hence may be dated the 
 third and last epoch in his career. 
 
 I have already adverted to the fact, that the Re- 
 publican party had long strayed from the straight and 
 narrow path of constitutional construction in which it 
 first set out. The events of the w^ar had so utterly 
 prostrated and disgraced the Federal Party, that at 
 
250 
 
 its close, that party was dissolved, and the very name 
 of Federalist almost universally repudiated. The check 
 of opposition removed, the Republican party — ^with 
 but few exceptions — fell headlong into the very slough 
 in which their adversaries had foundered. They had 
 everything in their own hands, and "feeling jDower 
 they forgot right." A new party in the mean time 
 grew up, which afterwards assumed the name of 
 " National Republican," and more recently of " Whig," 
 absorbing most of the old Federalists, and a portion 
 of the old Republicans. Of this party was Mr. Adams 
 — a converted Federalist — who was elected President 
 in 1824, by the House of Representatives, through the 
 instrumentality of Mr. Clay, who became his Secretary 
 of State. The manner of Mr. Adams' election ; the 
 extreme Federal doctrines of his first Message ; and, 
 above all, perhaps, the exigencies of 02:)position, 
 awakened the genuine Republicans to some conscious- 
 ness of their great and long cherished errors. They 
 united on General Jackson as their candidate for the 
 Presidency. Their manifestoes breathed the true 
 spirit of the Republicanism of '98 ; and the Constitution 
 became ajjpareutly the favoi'ite study of those who 
 had come into public life subsequently to that period. 
 Mr. Calhoun, it is said, avowed that, until this time, 
 he had never fully analyzed and understood the Con- 
 stitution. This may be readily believed, without re- 
 ferring to the instances already mentioned, in which 
 he had departed from it. He had always been, up to 
 that period, in the majority. Majorities do not rely 
 on Constitutions. Their reliance is on numbers and 
 the strong arm. It is not to be expected of them 
 lo study, and it seems to be almost impossible for them 
 
251 
 
 to comprehend Constitution?, the express purpose of 
 which is to limit their power, and hedge in their pri\d- 
 leges. It is minorities who look closely into Con:jtitu- 
 tions, for they are their shield and tov\'er of safety. 
 Mr. Calhoun had, doubtless, read the Constitution 
 attentively, and mastered its general principles. But 
 there were parts he had not scrutinized, and a deep 
 and vital spirit running through the whole, which he 
 had never yet imbibed, nor had any of the younger 
 men up to that period. In foct, a new kind of con- 
 stitutional questions now arose — or rather the progress 
 of events had developed new and deeply important 
 bearings in old questions. It now became manifest, 
 for the first time since the Constitution had gone into 
 operation, that it might be so construed as to oppress 
 and ruin one section, for the benefit of another. And 
 it was also clearly seen that the South was the doomed 
 section, and that the chief instrument of destruction 
 was a Protective Tarii£ 
 
 It was well known that Mr. Hamilton, as early as 
 1791, had with great power advocated the protection 
 of manufactures, and that duties had been imposed 
 with that view ; but they were so extremely moderate 
 as to be of little benefit to that interest, and caused no 
 alarm in others. The duties had been increased under 
 every subsequent administration, for the sake of rev- 
 enue, and had been doubled during the war. When, 
 in 1816, it became necessary to reduce the war duties, 
 the question arose to what extent they were to be 
 retained for the protection of manufactures, and some 
 of them were adjusted, for that purpose, at a high 
 comparative rate, as I have already stated. These 
 duties were increased in 1820; and. in 1824. the 
 
252 
 
 manufacturers again came forward witli exorbitant 
 demands, wLicli were acceded to. Then, for tlie first 
 time in thirty years, and by but a few voices, the con- 
 stitutional power to protect manufactures was ques- 
 tioned in Cono-ress. It was now obvious that the 
 protected interest had " an appetite which grew from 
 what it fed on ; " and that, in this country, in every 
 period of about four years, for reasons which it is 
 unnecessary to dwell on here, it required new and 
 enormous impositions. 
 
 Mr. Adams had warmly recommended the Protec- 
 tive Tariff, and Mr. Clay, giving it the ad captandmn 
 title of the " American System," claimed to be its first 
 champion, and made it the leading question in the 
 Presidential canvass, from 1825 to 1829. The South 
 had opposed it with great vigor and much unanimity 
 in 1824 ; because, on the principle of communism, it 
 taxed the agricultural interest to support the manufac- 
 turing; and, inasmuch as we furnished two-thirds of 
 the exports that paid for the imports on which the 
 duties were levied, it was fully believed, and pretty 
 clearly demonstrated, that our least joopulous section 
 paid nearly two-thirds of the revenue of the Govern- 
 ment, besides paying the manufacturers an enhanced 
 price on the protected articles we consumed. Some of 
 the Eastern States opposed it also, because it injured 
 commerce and navigation, but they ultimately came in 
 to its support. The Western and Middle States were 
 decidedly for it. To secure their support, and yet 
 retain that of the South, General Jackson gave the 
 equivocal pledge that he would sustain a " Judicious 
 Tariff," which in the South was construed to mean a 
 
253 
 
 constitutional Revenue Tariff; and elsewhere, to mean 
 a Protective Tariff. 
 
 In 1828, at the end of four years, as was usual, a 
 new tariff bill was brought forward in Congress. It 
 was blotclied and bloated with the corrupt bids of a 
 majority of the Jackson party, itself, for manufacturers' 
 votes, to be paid in gold wrung from the already over- 
 burdened South. And so extravagant were these bids 
 that the protective interests hesitated to accept a bribe 
 so monstrous, lest they should over-shoot the mark and 
 fall under public odium. It was thought, at one time, 
 that the vote in the Senate would be a tie, and the 
 fate of the bill would depend on the casting vote of 
 the presiding officer. Mr. Calhoun was then Vice- 
 President, and a candidate for reelection on the same 
 ticket with Gen. Jackson, whose success depended en- 
 tirely on the support of Mr. Calhoun's friends. It was 
 confidently believed that, save Gen. Jackson, there was 
 no one so popular throughout the Union as Mr. Cal- 
 houn ; and his accession to the Presidency, on the 
 retirement of Gen. Jackson, was considered almost 
 certain. It was known that he was opposed to this 
 bill, and he was now appealed to as the supporter of 
 Gen. Jackson, and candidate of the Republican Party 
 for the Vice-Presidency, and out of regard to his own 
 future prospects, not to give his casting vote against it, 
 but to leave the chair, as was not at all unusual, and 
 allow the bill to take the chances of the Senate. Mr. 
 Calhoun knew the full import of his reply to this 
 appeal. If he not only refused to pledge himself to a 
 " Judicious Tariff," but openly and unequivocally took 
 his stand against the v/hole protective system, now 
 overwhelmingly popular, he surrendered, in all human 
 
254 
 
 probability, every prospect of tlie Presidency, and 
 must pass tlie remainder of liis life in combating in a 
 small and almost hopeless minority, not for power, not 
 for glory, but for justice, and, in a measure, for the 
 existence of the Soutb. He was thus, in a critical 
 moment, called on to make at once and forev^er, a 
 decision which was to shape his destiny, and perhaps 
 the destiny of a whole people. He did not hesitate. 
 He had now mastered the Constitution ; he also now 
 saw clearly the fatal tendency of the prominent 
 measures brought forward at the close of the war ; 
 and castiuii" behind him all the o^lorious labors of the 
 past, and all the brilliant prospects of the future — 
 holding in one hand the Constitution, and in the other 
 truth, justice, and the violated rights of his native 
 land, he took his post with his little band, waged in 
 the breach a truceless war of two and twenty years, 
 and perished there. 
 
 Neither ancient nor modern annals furnish a noisier 
 example of heroic sacrifice of self. Peel yielded to 
 popular demands, and exchanged party for public grat- 
 itude and influence. Burke gave up friends, but 
 power smiled upon him. Self-banished Aristides 
 already had satiated his ambition. Cato and Brutus 
 perished in the shock. But, in the early prime of life, 
 midway his yet unchecked career — with the greatest 
 of ambition's prizes but one bound ahead, Mr. Calhoun 
 stopped and turned aside, to lift from the dust the 
 Constitution of his country, tramjiled, soiled and rent ; 
 and bearing it aloft, consecrated himself, his life, his 
 talents, and his hopes, to the arduous, but sacred task 
 of handing it down to other ages as pure as it was 
 when received from the Fathers of the Eevolution. 
 
255 
 
 Glorious and not bootless struggle. The Constitution 
 has not been purified. It never will be ; but its 
 principles have been made immortal, and will survive 
 and flourish, though it shall, itself, be torn to atoms 
 and given to the winds. 
 
 The magnitude of Mr. Calhoun's sacrifice may be 
 more readily appreciated than the diflaculties of his 
 undertaking. The diseases of the body politic had not 
 only become deeply seated, but were complicated and 
 peculiar. At the bottom was the now established 
 doctrine that the majority had the unquestionable and 
 the indefeasible right to place its own construction on 
 the Constitution. On this arose not only the Tarifi^, 
 but the Internal Improvement System, which had 
 completely trium])hed. Immense sums, the proceeds 
 of high duties, were annually appropriated for the 
 benefit of the Tarift" States ; while the United States 
 Bank, by its control over the government funds, con- 
 centrated the exchanges at the North, and made the 
 protected section the heart of the financial system of 
 the Union. Thus was formed a combination of sec- 
 tional interests, sustained by a sectional majority under 
 a corrupted Constitution, all bearing with fatal and 
 relentless aim on the devoted South, while behind 
 them another question, purely sectional, and having 
 nearly the same geographical lines, was easily to be 
 discerned, rearing its monstrous crest, and portending 
 dangers in comparison with which all others sunk to 
 insignificance. Among a homogeneous people, majori- 
 ties and minorities frequently change places. Indeed, 
 it is natural, and, where discussion and free action are 
 allowed, it is inevitable that they should. But, where 
 they are sectional, even more than where they are 
 
256 
 
 founded on classes, vital and antagonistic interests 
 make the change a Revolution, such as rarely happens 
 without bloodshed. A sectional majority remote, 
 arrogant, and fatally bent on maintaining its suprem- 
 acy and promoting its peculiar interests, never 
 listens to warning or to reason ; and the minority, if 
 it has not the courage or the strength to tender an 
 issue of force, is soon corrupted, divided, and neces- 
 sarily enslaved. Mr. Calhoun could not have failed 
 to perceive all these difficulties, and in abandoning, 
 under such circumstances, his high position in the 
 majority, to unite his fortunes irrevocably with the 
 weaker section, he exhibited an example, almost with- 
 out parallel, of disinterested patriotism and lion-hearted 
 courage, and of that " unshaken confidence in the 
 Providence of God," which, in his latest moments, he 
 declared to be his consolation and support. 
 
 Henceforth he is no lousier to be viewed as the fa- 
 vorite child of genius and of fortune. His path is no 
 longer strewed with garlands and his footsteps greeted 
 with applause. Toiling in the deepest anxiety, yet, 
 happily for himself, with the unfailing hopefulness of 
 his nature, to accomplish his Herculean task, he en- 
 counters at every step the deadliest hostility. He is 
 assailed on all sides and from every section — even from 
 his own. Envy and malice shoot their long poisoned 
 arrows, and ignorance and corruption shower every 
 missile on him ; and yet it remains to be decided, and 
 depends in no small degree upon the issue of the great 
 struggle now ai)proaching its crisis, whether he shall 
 go down to posterity portrayed in the colors of the 
 Gracchi of the Patricians, or the Gracchi of the People. 
 
 The Tariff Bill of 1828 passed the Senate by a ma- 
 
257 
 
 jority of one vote, and became a law. So exorbitant 
 were its exactions, that out of an import of $64,000,000 
 it carried $32,000,000 into the Treasury. Mr. Cal- 
 houn, who had announced his intention to vote against 
 it, was loud in his denunciations of it and of the protec- 
 tive system ; and at the next succeeding Session of our 
 State Legislature, an exposition was presented by the 
 Committee of Federal Relations, drawn up by him, 
 in which the whole subject was elaborately discussed. 
 It was then that he suggested as the ultimate remedy, 
 a resort to the State Veto — 'Or d unification, as it is 
 commonly called. It was not, however, Mr. Calhoun's 
 opinion that the remedy should be immediately ap- 
 plied. It was certain that Gen. Jackson and himself 
 would be elected President and Vice-President in a 
 few months, for, as yet, war had not been openly de- 
 clared against him — his support being essential to the 
 success of the Jackson party. He thought it prudent 
 to await a full explanation of Gen. Jackson's " Judi- 
 cious Tariff;" and was not without hope that, through 
 his influence, the protective system might be broken 
 down. Besides, the period was near at hand when the 
 Public Debt would be discharged, and no shadow of 
 reason would remain for imj^osing high duties for rev- 
 enue purposes. But the first Message of Gen. Jackson 
 removed every doubt as to his policy, and showed 
 clearly that he meant to sustain the Tariff interest. 
 He also produced a breach between himself and Mr. 
 Calhoun as soon as the prominent Executive appoint- 
 ments were confirmed, by revi^dng an old controversy 
 supposed to have been settled many years before. It 
 was evident that Mr. Calhoun had been doomed from 
 the moment he had definitely taken ground against the 
 
258 
 
 Protective System, and war was now made upon him 
 without disguise. 
 
 Gen. Jackson did indeed denounce the Bank ; and, 
 early in his first term, he vetoed the Maysville Bill, 
 and proposed a limit to appropriations for Internal Im- 
 provements — a limit, however, that was uncertain and 
 discretionary with the President, and soon abandoned 
 by himself. At the same time, he suggested a mon- 
 strous scheme for the permanent distribution among 
 the States of the surplus revenue arising from the im- 
 posts ; thus clearly showing that he would uphold Pro- 
 tection, even after the payment of the Public Debt, 
 and per2:)etuate the system forever by corrupting the 
 States. 
 
 Seeing, then, that there was no hope of any change 
 in the action of the Federal Government, in regard to 
 the Tariff, and its most objectionable cognate measures, 
 the question as to what remedy a State could apply 
 was seriously agitated in South Carolina. Mr. Calhoun 
 proposed Nullification, and a considerable majority de- 
 clared for it almost at once. But it required a vote of 
 two-thirds in the Legislature to call a convention to 
 enact a Nullifying ordinance. A warm and even bit- 
 ter contest on this question was waged among the peo- 
 ple of this State, until the October election in 1832, 
 when the requisite majority was obtained. Gov. Ham- 
 ilton immediately summoned the Legislature to as- 
 semble — a Convention was called, and in November of 
 that year, all the Acts of Congress imposing duties, and 
 especially the Acts of 1828 and 1832, were nullified 
 and declared void and of no effect in the State of South 
 Carolina. The Tariff Act of 1 832 was named, because, 
 as was customary every four years, the duties had 
 
259 
 
 been revised that year, and shortly before. 1 hey had 
 been revised with special reference to the payment of 
 the Public Debt, which was then virtually accomplish- 
 ed. The odious scheme of permanantly distributing 
 the surplus revenue had not been carried, though there 
 was every prospect that it would be ultimatel}^ ; but 
 while the amount of revenue, and average of duties 
 were very slightly reduced, by a large increase of the 
 free list — comprising articles most useful to the manu- 
 facturers — their particular interest was, in fact, much 
 advanced, and the Tariff rendered more unequal and 
 more oppressive than by the Act of 1828. Yet it was 
 announced, authoritatively, that this was a final and 
 permanent adjustment of the protective system, and 
 that the South could never expect any amelioration 
 of it. 
 
 Mr. Calhoun was still Vice-President of the United 
 States, but Gen. Hayne having been recalled from the 
 Senate and placed in the Executive Chair at this crisis, 
 Mr. Calhoun was chosen in December to fill his place. 
 Resigning his oflice, he took his seat in the Senate. 
 Gen. Jackson had, immediately after the j)assage of the 
 Ordinance, issued his famous proclamation, denouncing 
 the proceedings of South Carolina as treasonable, nul- 
 lification as unconstitutional and revolutionary, and 
 even denying, for the first time, I believe, in the his- 
 tory of the country, the right of a State to secede. 
 In fact, his doctrines went the full lens^th of nes^ativ- 
 ing all State Rights, and consolidating despotic power 
 in the hands of the Federal Government. And this 
 was followed by a message to Congress, demanding to 
 be clothed with almost unlimited power to carry his 
 views into effect by force of arms. The crisis was peril- 
 
260 
 
 lous. We were, apparently, on the verge of civil war, 
 for Soutli Carolina, on tliese hostile demonstrations, flew 
 to arms. It was expected generally that Mr. Calhoun 
 and most of the South Carolina Delegation would be 
 arrested at Washington. But this was not done. A 
 debate, however, arose in the Senate on the Bill em- 
 bracino- the recommendations of the President — com- 
 monly called the Force Bill — •which will go down to 
 future times, and live, an imperishable monument of 
 the patriotism and courage, the wisdom and foresight, 
 the genius and eloquence of Mr. Calhoun. His speech 
 is not surpassed by any recorded in modern or in an- 
 cient times, not even by that of the great Athenian on 
 the Crown. 
 
 This debate can never be read without its being 
 seen, and felt, that Mr. Webster, his only opponent 
 worthy to be named, gifted, as he is universally ac- 
 knowledged to be, with talents of the highest ordei*, 
 and remarkable even more for his power of i-easoning 
 than for his brilliant declamation, was, on this memo- 
 rable occasion, a dwarf in a giant's grasp. He was 
 prostrated on every ground that he assumed. And if 
 logic, building on undoubted facts, can demonstrate 
 any moral proposition, then Mr. Calhoun made as clear 
 as mathemathical solution, his theory of our Govern- 
 ment and the right of each State to judge of infrac- 
 tions of the Constitution, and to determine the mode 
 and measure of redress When the dust of asres shall 
 have covered alike the men, the passions, and the 
 interests of that day, this speech of Mr. Calhoun will 
 remain to posterity, not merely a triumphant vindica- 
 tion of the State of South Carolina, but a tower-li^^ht 
 to shed the brightest, purest, and truest rays upon the 
 
261 
 
 path of every Confederacy of Free States that sliall 
 arise upon tlie earth. 
 
 It is not probable that State Interposition will ever 
 again be resorted to while this Union continues. More 
 decisive measures will be preferred. But if the Fed- 
 eral Government was created by a Constitutional com- 
 pact between Sovereign States, binding between those 
 only that ratified it in Conventions : if only certain 
 enumerated or defined powers were entrusted to it in 
 its various departments, and all powers not granted to 
 it, explicitly reserved to the States entering into the 
 compact: and if that compact appointed no special 
 tribunal to decide when the Government thus created 
 transcended the powers granted to it, and trenched on 
 those reserved by the States, it follows irresistibly that 
 the States themselves must decide such questions : for 
 if the Federal Government, by any or all of its Depart- 
 ments, assumes as an exclusive right this transcendant 
 power, then is that Government sovereign over those 
 by whom it was created — the Conventions of the peo- 
 ple of the States ; the limits to its powers, supj^osed 
 to have been fixed in the most sacred and bindins: 
 form, were only suggestions addressed to its discretion, 
 and the whole mass of rights supposed to have been 
 reversed absolutely to the States, have no existence 
 save from its grace and will. If, however, the States 
 have by virtue of their Sovereignty — and if it be 
 historically true that at the time of the compact, each 
 State was separately sovereign and remains so still — 
 then if each State having the right to judge, in Con- 
 vention, of infraction of the Constitution, it follows, 
 with equal certainty, that each State must determine 
 for itself the mode and measure of resistance to be 
 17 
 
262 
 
 applied to such infraction, or tlie right itself is a 
 nullity. Two modes only of resistance are to be found. 
 The one, to withdraw altogether from the violated 
 compact ; the other to nullify the unconstitutional act 
 and compel the Federal Government to repeal it, or 
 obtain a new grant of power from another Convention 
 of the States. The Federal Government, or two-thirds 
 of the States, may call a Convention for that purpose. 
 A single State cannot. It must, therefore, surrender, 
 not only its reserved rights, but its entire Sovereignty, 
 or, resist if need be, singly and independently, as 
 South Carolina did. 
 
 In recommending Nullification to the State of 
 South Carolina in preference to Secession, which, at 
 that time, it was almost universally agreed that a State 
 had a clear right to resort to, Mr. Calhoun was mainly 
 influenced by that deep, long cherished, and I might 
 almost say superstitious attachment to the Union, 
 which marked every act of his career from its com- 
 mencement to its very close. For if there is one fea- 
 ture most prominent in Nullification as a remedial 
 measure, it is that it is conservative of the Union — 
 of that Constitutional Union, which is the only Union 
 a patriot can desire to preserve. It was also recom- 
 mended by the authority of the leaders and founders 
 of the great Republican Party, Mr. Jefferson and Mr. 
 Madison, who had proposed this identical measure to 
 Virginia and Kentucky in the memorable crisis of lYOS. 
 
 The Force Bill was passed, but was immediately 
 nullified by South Carolina, and remains a dead letter 
 in our State. In the mean time, however, both the 
 Administration and Opposition in Congress, had be- 
 come alarmed, and introduced bills for reducing the 
 
263 
 
 Tariff, notwithstanding the loud declar? ion of finality 
 l3y both, at the j^receding Session. Ultimately, the 
 famous Compromise Bill was proposed by Mr. Clay, 
 the great leader of the Protectionists, and was ac- 
 cepted by Mr. Calhoun and his colleagues from South 
 Carolina. It became a law and settled this 2:)erilous 
 controversy. By this act, in consideration of nine 
 years being allowed for a gradual reduction of the 
 duties, the principle of Protection was forever sur- 
 rendered, and it was provided that, at the end of that 
 period, no more revenue should ever be collected than 
 was necessary for the wants of an economical Gov- 
 ernment. 
 
 No pains have been spared by the majority to 
 detract from the merit of the signal triumph achieved 
 by South Carolina and Mr. Calhoun in his arduous 
 and memorable contest. More, undoubtedly, might 
 have been gained. The term of the reduction was a 
 long one : the final enforcement of the Compromise 
 was not, as was afterwards joroven, sufficiently secured : 
 and the Force Bill was passed — a monument of the 
 subserviency and degradation of an American Con- 
 gress. The triumph might have been more complete ; 
 but, shared with many, far less glorious, had South 
 Carolina been sustained by her sister States of the 
 South. Most of these had denounced the Protective 
 System as unconstitutional and oppressive, and pledged 
 themselves to resist it with as much show of indigna- 
 tion as South Carolina. But when the hour of actual 
 conflict came, they shrunk from her side, and repudi 
 ated the remedy. She took her station in the breach 
 alone, and, single-handed, won a victory whose renown 
 can never fade, when she extorted from an over 
 
264 
 
 whelming and arrogant majority — in the teeth of de- 
 clarations but a few months old — a full surrender of a 
 formal and peculiarly solemn act of Congress. 
 
 Mr. Calhoun had now wholly devoted himself to 
 the reformation of the Federal Government, and its 
 first great step accomplished — although the struggle 
 had so completely isolated him, that, out of the South 
 Carolina delegation, he had scarcely a supporter in 
 either House of Congress — he moved onward in his 
 course, unbent and undismayed. His personal fortunes 
 were apparently forever shipwrecked, 
 
 "But he beat tlie surges under him, 
 
 And rode upon their backs." 
 
 His broad vision swept the whole circle of the politi- 
 cal system, and he noted every plague-spot of corrup- 
 tion on it. He made a powerful attack on Executive 
 patronage in a Report to the Senate, of which an 
 immense number of copies were printed by that body. 
 He struck a fatal blow at Executive usurpation, by 
 demonstrating that all the discretionary powers are 
 vested in Congress, and that the other Departments 
 can do nothing " necessary and proper to carry out " 
 their constitutional powers, without the previous sanc- 
 tion of the law. He kept a steady eye on the Surplus 
 Revenue, which, from various causes, accumulated be- 
 yond all expectation, notwithstanding the reduction of 
 duties under the Compromise Act. As this Surplus 
 must now be temporary, he thought it better to divide 
 it among the States, than to keep it as a permanent 
 fund, or to waste it in profligate and corrupting expen- 
 ditures. It was a cordial maxim with him to keep 
 the Government poor. History shows that the most 
 
265 
 
 fatal vices of all Governments originate in the com- 
 mand of too mucli money. To lessen the necessary 
 amount of revenue by curtailing expenditures, was an 
 essential feature of Mr. Calhoun's great scheme of 
 reform. He did not fail to oppose every improper 
 apj)ropriatiou, and defeated many ; and, finally, suc- 
 ceeded in carrying his proposition to relieve the dan- 
 gerous plethora of the Treasury, by depositing the 
 Surplus with the States — not to sustain tariffs as Jack- 
 son's recommendation of a similar substitution was 
 intended, and to be permanently maintained, but to 
 arrest the general waste of money, until the Compro- 
 mise Act materially reduced the revenue. 
 
 Some of the diseases of the Government Mr. Cal- 
 houn thought it would be dangerous to heal too sud- 
 denly. One of these was the United States Bank, 
 whose charter expired in 1836. Gen. Jackson had, in 
 1832, vetoed a recharter of it ; and in October, 1833, 
 he removed the Government funds from its coffers, and 
 deposited them in the State Banks without any autho- 
 rity from Congress. 
 
 Mr. Calhoun condemned this high-handed and un- 
 constitutional measure, and, believing that the Bank 
 could not be closed immediately, without producing a 
 financial convulsion — so completely had it brought 
 the whole financial and mercantile system under its 
 power — proposed to give it twelve years more to wind 
 up its affairs. But he did not let the occasion pass, 
 without clearly indicating his views of the Banking 
 system. He said that the Government ought, at a 
 proper time, to be entirely divorced from all connec- 
 tion with Banks. " I have great doubts," he said, " if 
 doubts they may be called, of the soundness and 
 
266 
 
 tendency of the whole system, in all its modifications. 
 I have ereat fears that all will be found hostile to 
 liberty, and the advance of civilization — fatally hostile 
 to liberty in our country, where the system exists in 
 its worst and most dangerous form." His proposition 
 fixiled, however, and the Bank fell headlong into ruin, 
 dragging thousands of victims after it, and spreading 
 deep gloom over the whole country. It is but just, 
 however, to say, that this disastrous catastrophe, which 
 did not occur until some years later, was due more to 
 its own violent and reckless efforts to extend its in- 
 fluence and operations, to maintain its existence, and to 
 revenge its defeat, than to the measures of the Gov- 
 ernment, unfair as they had been. 
 
 Early in 1837, shortly after Mr. VanBuren's eleva- 
 tion to the Presidency, the financial crisis which Mr. 
 Calhoun had long predicted, came. In the crash, the 
 Banks suspended payments almost everywhere, and 
 among them, the deposit Banks. By a joint resolution, 
 introduced by Mr. Calhoun in 1816, the notes of sus- 
 pended Banks could not be received into the Treasury, 
 and by a clause in the recent Deposit Act, such Banks 
 could not be used as fiscal agents. Thus, suddenly, 
 and in a most unexpected manner, the divorce between 
 the Government and Banks was fully effected ; and be- 
 lieving that no injury could now result from keeping 
 them separate forever, Mr. Calhoun cordially and 
 powerfully supported Mr. Van Buren's recommenda- 
 tion, at the extra session of 1837, to reorganize the 
 Treasury Department on the Sub-Treasury plan. To 
 the Bill introduced, Mr. Calhoun moved an amend- 
 ment, that specie only should be received in public 
 dues, and made this the sine qua non of his support. 
 
267 
 
 After many defeats and great difficulties in a contest 
 that lasted six or seven years, this Sub-Treasury sys- 
 tem, with, the specie feature, finally prevailed, and lias 
 been found to work admirably. It has put an end to 
 every prospect of the recharter of the United States 
 Bank, and that once alarming source of danger to our 
 Institutions, may be said to be extinct. 
 
 For the part which Mr. Calhoun took on this occa- 
 sion, he was subjected to a new and tremendous tor- 
 rent of abuse and calumny. His course, since 1833, 
 had led him to act mostly with the Opposition, who 
 were endeavorino; to check the march of Executive 
 usurjDation. This Opposition was composed chiefly of 
 the sur\dving Federalists, and the recruits they had 
 made from time to time, and now assumed the name of 
 the Whig party, and on this very question received a 
 large accession of State Rights men, and even Nullifi- 
 ers, whose attachments and hostilities to men, and to 
 subordinate measures, blinded them apparently to 
 principles. With all these, Mr. Calhoun parted, when 
 he took his ground in favor of the Sub-Treasury. He 
 was charged with deserting his Party, though he had 
 refused openly in the Senate to be called a Whig, and 
 had, again and again, declared that he did not belong 
 to either of the leading parties, but would act indif- 
 ferently with whichever might be promoting his views 
 of the Constitution and true policy of the Country. 
 The charge of inconsistency, now so warmly urged 
 against him, had been incessantly reiterated from 1828, 
 and was continued, more or less, to the hour of his 
 death. It is surprising, that, in an enlightened age like 
 this, such narrow notions of consistency should so ex- 
 tensively prevail. The situation of public affairs is 
 
268 
 
 ever sliifting, and tlie wise and patriotic Statesman 
 must necessarily vary liis own course to conform to, 
 or oppose every altered state of circumstances. New 
 truths are daily developed, not only in tlie scientific 
 world, but in tlie workings of political systems, and 
 especially in our own. Those only who are ignorant 
 of these discoveries, can remain without change in their 
 opinions ; and to change opinions, and not avow and 
 act upon them, is to be basely and dangerously false. 
 Cicero, when accused of inconsistency in having sided 
 with almost every party to which the convulsions of his 
 times had given birth, fully admitted the fact that he 
 had done so, but nobly vindicated himself by showing, 
 that, in every change, he had in view one consistent 
 object — the good of Eome. Thus Cato, after years of 
 warm hostility to Pomj^ey, advised his countrymen to 
 put all power in his hands. Thus Aristides volunteered 
 to serve under Themistocles ; thus Solon became the 
 counsellor of Pisistratus, who had overthrown his Con- 
 stitution. Mr. Calhoun himself, as long ago as his speech 
 on the repeal of the Embargo, had very properly de- 
 fined inconsistency to be " a change of conduct without 
 a change of circumstances to justify it." Tried l^y this 
 standard, he was never liable to any imputation of 
 inconsistency. He never moved, in any direction, with- 
 out giving such cogent reasons -for it, as must satisfy 
 every impartial mind, if not of the propriety, at least 
 of the reality of his convictions. Influenced by the 
 highest and most patriotic considerations, and scorning 
 the false and vulgar cry of inconsistency, he did not 
 hesitate a moment in magnanimously extending the 
 thorough and efifective support of his powerful intellect, 
 in the hour of their greatest need, to the man who had 
 
269 
 
 been, lie believed, his most zealous enemy, and to the 
 party which had excluded him from its ranks with the 
 most violent anathemas. 
 
 He was now gladly welcomed back ; and, in the high 
 and commanding position in the Republican Party, 
 which, through the severest trials, he had a second 
 time won for himself, it is difficult to over-estimate 
 what he might have achieved, had that party been 
 able to sustain itself in power at that time. But, the 
 name of Mr. Van Buren was not associated in the 
 minds of the people, with any brilliant talents or illus- 
 trious services. Magician, as he was said to be among 
 his partisans, he could cast no spell upon the masses, 
 excited by the wide-spread financial troubles of the 
 times, all of which were naturally attributed l)y the ig- 
 norant, and not without much justice, to the errors and 
 corruj^tions of the party then in j)ower. He was over- 
 thrown in the election of 1840, and the Whigs came 
 into the Presidency with a majority in both Houses of 
 Congress. An extra Session was immediately called 
 and held in the spring of 1841, but before it met, Gen. 
 Harrison died, and the Vice-President, Mr. Tyler, who, 
 fortunately for the country, though a Whig, had been 
 bred a State Rights Republican, succeeded to the 
 vacant Chair. 
 
 Tlie Whigs, elated with victory, rushed to Wash- 
 ington, resolved to secure all its fruits without delay. 
 Banks, Tariffs, Distributions of Revenue, the most 
 prodigal expenditures for individual and sectional bene- 
 fit, and Bankrupt Laws to wipe off the embarrassment 
 of past extravagance and speculation, swam in delight- 
 ful confusion before their excited vision. Measures 
 were jiromptly brought forward, and pressed on the 
 
270 
 
 minority witli unequalled energy and arrogance. Mr. 
 Calhoun was the leader of the Republican Party in 
 the Senate. He penetrated every design, and met 
 every movement of the Whigs. To all the measures 
 that could not be defeated, conditions were proposed 
 and sustained with such unanswerable arguments, that 
 the reaction of public opinion compelled the majority 
 to pause, to waver, and finally to give way — and the 
 close of that Session, which had been called by the 
 Whigs to consolidate their power, found them not 
 only a dispirited, but virtually a defeated Party ; re- 
 sults which were due in great measure, to the activity 
 and firmness, the powerful logic and profound States- 
 manshij3 of Mr. Calhoun. 
 
 In that Session, however, and the two succeeding, 
 during which the Whigs remained in power, several 
 unconstitutional and dangerous measures were forced 
 through. The Bankrupt Law, which was soon repealed. 
 The distribution of Revenue, arising from sale of pub- 
 lic lands, which expired under the condition imposed on 
 it. The recharter of the Bank, which was vetoed by 
 Mr. Tyler. The Tariff Act of 1842, which was equally 
 stringent with that of 1828. This Act, which was 
 passed in open violation of the Compromise Act of 1833 
 — a violation which should forever put an end to all 
 faith in Legislative Compromises by Congress, was jus- 
 tified on the ground that a larger revenue was indis- 
 pensable to the Government. A justification delibe- 
 rately prepared before-hand by the unconstitutional 
 distribution of a portion of the Revenue, and the pro- 
 digal expenditures which so many corrupt interests had 
 fastened on the Government. 
 
 A resort to State action to resist this oppressive act. 
 
271 
 
 was again proposed by some in South Carolina. But 
 Mr, Calhoun resisted it, because he believed that the 
 next Congressional Elections would bring the Kepuljli- 
 cans into power, and that they would repeal the law. 
 They obtained majorities, but did not repeal; aud in 
 1844, a more strenuous effort was made to excite State 
 interposition. But Mr. Calhoun resisted still. There 
 was one hope left. The approaching election for Presi- 
 dent would give the Republicans complete control of 
 the Federal Government, and he desired to await that 
 event. The fact was, that after the experience of 1833, 
 — the consolidation principles then avowed by all par- 
 ties and the growing alienations of the different sections 
 since — he believed the Union could not survive the 
 decisive resistance of a State on points of vital interest, 
 and his attachment to it was so deep that he was averse 
 to putting it to hazard, while any reasonable hope was, 
 left of redress by other means. A Republican Presi- 
 dent was elected, and in 1846, the Tariff of 1842 was 
 so materially modified as to forbid extreme resistance. 
 But, after all the struggles of more than a quarter of 
 a century, the Protective System, though somewhat 
 weakened in opinion and narrowed in action, still 
 flourishes in violation of every principle of free and 
 equal Government — a gross infraction of the Constitu- 
 tion, and a deadly injury to the South. 
 
 During the Session of 1843, Mr. Calhoun again 
 strikingly displayed his devotion to his country, and 
 the impossibility of surrendering his serious convic- 
 tions and his patriotic sense of duty to party consid- 
 erations, by strenuously aud successfully opposing, in 
 common with the Whigs, a proposition from the Re- 
 publican ranks to take possession of the whole of Ore- 
 
272 
 
 gon, without necessity, under doubtful title, and at 
 imminent hazard of a war with England. At the close 
 of that Session he resigned his seat in the Senate, and 
 retired from public life. 
 
 His health, which, although his constitution had 
 been considered diseased and ultimately proved to be 
 so, had been almost perfect throughout his long ser- 
 vice, began now to exhibit some symptoms of decay. 
 And well it might — and well might he be wearied out. 
 For ten — ^in fact for fourteen successive years, he had 
 been engaged in a contest that taxed to their uttermost 
 all his physical and mental powers. Body and spirit, 
 he had devoted himself without a moment's respite to 
 the arduous and perilous task of restoring a violated 
 Constitution and a corrupted Government. It had 
 been one long, raging storm, with scarce a single inter- 
 mission. A storm such as none but the most hopeful 
 and the bravest would have dared to defy, and in which 
 none but the most prudent, the most hardy, the most 
 skilful — endowed with the rarest intellect, strengthened 
 by every resource upon which genius can make a re- 
 quisition, and held to the encounter by an unconquer- 
 able will — could have outrode a second blast. But he 
 stood in the centre of the vortex, unblenched, im- 
 moveable 
 
 " As a tower, that firmly set, 
 
 Shakes not its top for any wind that blows." 
 
 For the first time a clear expanse was now visible 
 above the political horizon. The Federalists, tracked 
 through all their disguises, were again beaten to the 
 ground. They lay prostrate, and the Repubhcans, 
 after the salutary experience of a great reverse and 
 many yeai-s of desperate warfare, all brought on by 
 
273 
 
 their owu departure from the Constitution, were about 
 to resume, in full, the reins of power, made wiser not 
 only by the events of the past, but by the brilliant 
 light which his clear and profound intellect had shed 
 and concentrated around the principles of Constitu- 
 tional Government ; and Mr. Calhoun, with the en- 
 tire approbation of his friends, seized this apparently 
 propitious moment to retire and recruit after his long 
 and arduous labors. 
 
 The State of South Carolina in May, 1843, nomina- 
 ted Mr. Calhoun for the Presidency. But in Decem- 
 ber following, he withdrew his name, when it became 
 apparent that the Convention, to be held at Baltimore 
 to nominate the candidate of the whole Republican 
 Party, was not to be constituted on principles analo- 
 gous to the Constitution. He could not, with his views, 
 accept a nomination, if tendered, by a Convention 
 formed in any other manner, and he did not wish to 
 embarrass the Party from mere personal considerations. 
 
 He was not permitted, however, to enjoy his repose 
 for any length of time. In the spring of 1844, he was 
 nominated as Secretary of State, by Mr. Tyler, without 
 his previous knowledge ; and the nomination being 
 instantly and unanimously confirmed, he could not do 
 otherwise than obey the call. Two critical and emi- 
 nently important negotiations were then on foot. One 
 to adjust the Oregon question with England; the 
 other to secure the annexation of Texas. In the latter, 
 his success was complete, and to him, perhaps, more 
 than to any other, we owe that important and invalu- 
 able acquisition. The Oregon negotiation was not 
 closed when Mr. Polk came into office. He did not 
 tender to Mr. Calhoun the reappointment as Secre- 
 
274 
 
 tary, but offered and urged on liim an Embassy to 
 England, to continue that negotiation. But believing 
 bis post of duty was, if anywhere, on this side of the 
 Atlantic, he declined the Embassy, and returned once 
 more to his Plantation. 
 
 In the hands of Mr. Calhoun's successor, the Oregon 
 negotiations completely failed. The President was 
 pledged by his party to claim the whole of the Terri- 
 tory, and the fulfilment of that pledge was now de- 
 manded. Should Congress sustain the claim, war was 
 inevitable, and, as the Eepublican Party had majorities 
 in both Houses, there seemed to be no escape. The 
 whole country became alarmed. In this exciting crisis, 
 the eyes of all parties, all interests, all classes, were 
 turned instinctively to Mr. Calhoun — the pilot who 
 had weathered so many storms — the sagacious and pa- 
 triotic Statesman who had been found equal to every 
 emergency. His return to the Federal Councils was 
 called for from every quarter, and his successor in the 
 Senate, Judge Huger, with a rare magnanimity, offered 
 to give way for him. There was no resisting such ap- 
 peals, and Mr. Calhoun returned to Washington late 
 in December, 1846. When he took his seat, it was so 
 fully understood that the Executive, backed by a ma- 
 jority in Congress, was resolved to assert our right to 
 the whole of Oregon, and to attempt to take immedi- 
 ate possession of it, that the Opposition was paralyzed 
 in de,spair. He did not lose a moment in taking a 
 clear, decided, and open stand against the Administra- 
 tion he had contributed so largely to bring into power. 
 He rallied the dispirited Opposition, composed chiefly 
 of AA^higs, with whom he had lately been so violently 
 contending. He appealed to the country against the 
 
275 
 
 Republican Party. The sound common sense of tlie 
 people sustained him : and the tide of public opinion 
 set in so strongly in favor of a compromise with Eng- 
 land, that negotiations were resumed with fresh vigor, 
 and in a few months the whole question was adjusted 
 to the entire satisfaction of the great body of every 
 party in the two countries. In his whole public career, 
 Mr. Calhoun had never rendered a more conspicuous 
 — perhaps never a more substantial — service to his 
 country ; and it was appreciated and acknowledged 
 throughout the Union. To him, and almost to him 
 alone, was justly and universally accredited the dis- 
 tinguished merit of having saved the United States 
 from a war with the most powerful nation in the 
 world, about a matter so insignificant as to be almost 
 frivolous, and in which neither the honor nor the in- 
 terests of either were seriously involved. Thousands 
 of such wars disfigure the pages of history, and have 
 often been the most bloody and disastrous. 
 
 But this aftair had hardly been placed in a sure 
 train of settlement before another difiiculty arose, in 
 appearance far less formidable, but in its results likely 
 to prove much the most important in our annals, since 
 the Revolution. A sudden, and to the great body of 
 our people, most unexpected war broke out with Mexi- 
 co. Pending negotiations with that Republic concern- 
 ing the western boundary of Texas, a portion of our 
 Army had been, contrary to the usual courtesy of na- 
 tions, marched into the disputed Territory. The Mexi- 
 cans attacked it. Battles ensued, and a flame was 
 kindled, which spread instantaneously over both coun- 
 tries. Congress was called on to declare, or rather to 
 recognize the existence of war, and to make the most 
 
276 
 
 extensive provisions for its vigorous prosecution. Mr. 
 Calhoun did not hesitate to take his stand against the 
 war. He condemned the invasion of disputed terri- 
 tory ; but as it had been done and battles fought, he 
 was for voting such supplies as would enable our army 
 to maintain its position, and without recognizing a state 
 of war, to renew negotiations. But he stood alone — 
 literally alone — abandoned by all parties in the Sen- 
 ate. Yet he did not waver. He knew that peace was 
 the fundamental policy of our country. That war was 
 disastrous to all its real interests, and was only to be 
 waored to maintain that most vital of all interests— its 
 honor. And that could never be involved in a contest 
 with so weak a power as Mexico. He saw, too, that 
 all his hopes of reforming the Government and resus- 
 citating the Constitution must vanish when the sword 
 was draAvn. Other fatal consequences were also ajipar- 
 ent to his keen vision. But he could not see all. No 
 human sagacity could penetrate them then, or can pen- 
 etrate them now. Mr. Calhoun declared that though 
 he foresaw much evil, for the first time in his whole 
 public life, he could not foi'm a rational conjecture of 
 the end — that an impenetrable curtain had fallen be- 
 twixt him and the future. For the first time, too, he 
 was sunk in gloom. And that great heart, which had 
 never before felt fear, was stricken with terror — almost 
 with despair. Hostilities were carried on with vigor. 
 Victory crowned every effort of our arms ; and an im- 
 perishable wreath of military glory was won for our 
 flag — South Carolina contributing some of the bright- 
 est and most unfoding flowers. Mr. Calhoun steadily 
 interposed, on every opportune occasion, to arrest the 
 progress of the war, brilliant as it was ; and hailed 
 
2'7T 
 
 •with delight the Treaty of Peace, which was ratified 
 early in 1848. 
 
 The first important consequence of the war was an 
 immense expenditure — far exceeding the ordinary 
 revenues, and entailing on the country a heavy debt, 
 which has put an end to all prospect of an early 
 reduction of the Protective Duties. The next was the 
 overthrow of the political party which conducted it, 
 by the elevation of one of its successful Generals to 
 the Presidency; an event not due so much to the 
 errors committed by the one, or the wisdom and pat- 
 riotism displayed by the other party, as to the disgust 
 felt by a large portion of the people for both, and 
 their desire to establish for once an administration that 
 would not be governed by party considerations — a 
 desire which has been altogether disappointed. The 
 third great consequence of the war has been the 
 unparalleled excitement occasioned by the attempt 
 and failure to make a fair division between the Slave- 
 holding and non-Slaveholding sections of this con- 
 federacy, of the immense territory acquired from 
 Mexico — an excitement in the midst of which we now 
 are, and the result of which it is not given us to 
 foresee. 
 
 I have omitted thus far to do more than incidentally 
 allude to a question of the highest and most vital 
 interest, which has long and deeply agitated our coun- 
 try, in the conduct of which Mr. Calhoun has acted 
 throughout a conspicuous and leading part. At the 
 period of the Declaration of Independence, African 
 Slavery was established in every Colony, and, as late 
 as the formation of the Constitution, slaves were still 
 held in every State. But it was a decaying institution 
 18 
 
278 
 
 everywhere save in the Plantation States, and great 
 apprehensions existed among the Southern members of 
 the Convention that the other States would combine to 
 emancipate all the Slaves immediately, or gradually. 
 They therefore refused absolutely to enter into any 
 union with them without a distinct agreement on this 
 essential matter. One great object in so constructing 
 the Federal Government that it should have no powers 
 not clearly conferred upon it, reserving all others to 
 the States, was to prevent legislation on this subject. 
 But beyond this the Southern Delegates required a 
 Constitutional obligation from all the other States, to 
 assist them in maintaining their authority over their 
 slaves in case of necessity, by restoring fugitives and 
 aiding to put down insurrections. They also demanded 
 a recognition of slaves as a permanent element of 
 political power and a fixed caste, by assigning them a 
 representation, though a restricted one, in Congress. 
 From the adoption of the Constitution up to 1819, the 
 harmony between the North and South was never for 
 a moment seriously disturbed by the Slave question. 
 At that period, when Missouri applied for admission 
 into the Union, the North, where African Slavery w^as 
 now almost wholly extinct, opposed her application, on 
 the ground that Slaveholding was permitted by her 
 Constitution. A deeply exciting controversy immedi- 
 ately arose, which was finally adjusted by the conces- 
 sion from the South that, thereafter, no Slaveholding 
 State should be admitted into the Union North of 
 36° 30' N. latitude. 
 
 For many years after this contest there was no 
 open agitation of this exciting topic, and public men 
 in every section generally concurred in frowning upon 
 
2Y9 
 
 all attempts to bring it forward. It was not until 1834- 
 '35, that it again made its appearance on the political 
 stage, when petitions were poured in upon Congress to 
 legislate upon it. It was then discovered that, without 
 attracting much attention, a great many Abolition 
 Societies had been formed in the Northern States, who 
 had set up presses and printed books, pamj^hlets, 
 newspapers and engravings in immense numbers, and 
 disseminated them North and South for the purpose of 
 arousing the people to what were termed the horrors 
 of African Slavery. Public lecturers were also em- 
 ployed and sent everywhere. The excitement in- 
 creased rapidly. The people of the non-Slaveholding 
 States seemed ripe for it. But lately they had been 
 apparently baffled in their attempt to make us the 
 overseers of our slaves for their benefit. No longer 
 having it in prospect to reap the harvest of our fields 
 and gather into their own granaries, by virtue of their 
 legislation, one half of the net produce of the labor 
 of the slaves, they were eager, in their rage and dis- 
 appointment, to deprive us of the slaves themselves, 
 and blast our prosperity forever. Both branches of 
 Congress were soon flooded with petitions, full of the 
 vilest abuse and slander of the South, and praying for 
 the Abolition of Slavery and the Slave Trade in the 
 District of Columbia. Others followed asking the 
 Abolition of Slavery in the Territories, Forts, Dock- 
 yards, <fec., and of the trade between the States. Some 
 demanded the Abolition of Slavery in the States ; and 
 finally it was petitioned that the Union should be dis- 
 solved to save the North from the sin of slaveholding. 
 Warm and, at length, the most angry debates in Con- 
 gress were brought about by these petitions. At first. 
 
280 
 
 few or none professed to be in favor of them, yet the 
 non-Slaveholding majority never would permit the 
 South to adopt any decisive measure to exclude them 
 from the Halls of Congress. In no long while, how- 
 ever there was a complete change. The Abolitionists 
 were soon strong enough to enter fully into the politi- 
 cal field. They nominated candidates for President 
 and Vice-President, and exhibited the startling fact, 
 that, in that election, they held the balance of power 
 between the parties in several of the largest States. 
 From that moment they were courted, openly or se- 
 cretly, by nearly every aspiring politician in the non- 
 Slaveholding States. They soon sent members to Con- 
 gress as their especial Representatives, and struck 
 down every public man in the North who dared to 
 defend the institutions of the South. 
 
 Against this violent crusade on the South, Mr. Cal- 
 houn took his stand at the very first, and combated it 
 with all his powers, at every step, and to the latest 
 moment of his life. He succeeded in arresting the 
 circulation of Abolition publications through the mail, 
 and, for a long time, he kept their petitions at the 
 threshold of the Houses of Congress. In fact, Aboli- 
 tion petitions were formally received in the Senate for 
 the first time, on the last day that he appeared there. 
 From the beginning he predicted the progress of this 
 agitation through all its stages, and declared that it 
 must inevitably bring about a dissolution of the Union, 
 if not put down early and forever. 
 
 While the Abolitionists have directed their attacks 
 against specific parts of the Slave system, they have 
 never made any secret of what indeed was perfectly 
 apparent, that, from the first, their object was the 
 
281 
 
 entire emancipation of all the African race in the 
 United States, without removal and without compen* 
 sation to their owners, since removal or compensation 
 are known to be utterly impossible. They proclaimed 
 that by the laws of nature all men are free and equal ; 
 and that African Slavery is a social and political evil, 
 and a deadly sin against God. Mr. Calhoun con- 
 tended that, if our Slavery was a social evil and sin, 
 we alone would be the sufferers and should be allowed 
 to deal with it ourselves. Politically he claimed for 
 it only the fulfilment of the solemn guaranties of the 
 Constitution. But he thought it could not be a sin, 
 since God had expressly ordained it ; nor an evil, since 
 both the white and black races had improved in 
 every point of view under the system. He scouted the 
 idea of natural freedom and equality. Men were born 
 helpless, and owed life, liberty and everything to 
 those who nurtured them. A state of complete natu- 
 ral liberty was inconceivable. Even the wildest sav- 
 ages placed severe restraints upon it. And so far 
 from men being created equal, no two men, and in 
 fact no two things, were ever yet created precisely 
 equal. Inequality is the fundamental law of nature, 
 and hence alone the harmony of the universe. But 
 it was useless to attempt to reason with enthusiastic 
 Abolitionists, or with the masses of the non-Slave- 
 holders, equally bigoted in their abstract notions of 
 morality, freedom and equality. It was still more 
 useless to attempt to reason with politicians who ex- 
 isted only in the breath of such a people. A majority 
 influenced by such ideas, and led on, some by a fanat- 
 ical zeal to enforce what they believed to be ti'uth, 
 others by the love of power, and all by the hope of 
 
282 
 
 spoil, has never yet been effectually checked except 
 by force. 
 
 It has not, however, yet become the plan of the 
 Abolitionists to carry their purposes by a direct and 
 decisive exertion of the political power they possess. 
 They wish first to acquire a more overwhelming 
 power, both political and physical. And, to effect 
 this, they have aimed steadily to enlarge their own 
 domain and to narrow down that of the Slaveholders, 
 while they have endeavored to divide the South by 
 appeals to the consciences of all, and to the supposed 
 interests of the non-Slaveholders among us. And the 
 two great political parties of the North have skilfully 
 aided them in dividing and lulling the South for the 
 purpose of keeping up their own connections with 
 their respective allies here. They have united in 
 denouncing, and have taught many to denounce as 
 ultraists, disunionists and traitors, all those who have 
 attempted to awaken the Southern people to a sense 
 of the dangers that environed them. And more 
 did they denounce than all the rest Mr. Calhoun, 
 whose sagacity could not be deluded — whose vii'tue 
 was incorruptible, and whose constant exposure of 
 their designs, and effective opposition to them, was 
 apparently the greatest obstacle to their success. 
 Listening to no compromises, and snapping instantly 
 every party tie where this transcendent question was 
 involved, he waged mortal combat on every issue, 
 open or concealed. The great difl&culty with the 
 Abolitionists was to identify their cause with some of 
 the great practical political questions of the country. 
 The pretended infringement of the much abused right 
 of petition could not be made to serve them materially, 
 
283 
 
 for it was too absurd to contend that Congress was 
 bound to receive and treat respectfully all sorts of 
 petitions — petitions frivolous, unconstitutional and de- 
 structive of law, order and society. When the an- 
 nexation of Texas was brought forward, they fastened 
 upon that measure, and opposed it with great zeal and 
 much effect, upon the ground that it extended the 
 area of Slavery. But there were too many interests, 
 even in the North, in favor of annexation, and Mr. 
 Calhoun was enabled to defeat them signally. But 
 when the Mexican war was declared, a new and vast 
 field was opened to them. It was certain that a large 
 territory would be gained by that war : and it was 
 scarcely begun before it was moved in Congress and 
 carried in the House, and almost carried in the Senate, 
 to prohibit Slavery in the domain that might be 
 acquired. 
 
 The alarm was immediately sounded, and the South 
 appeared for once to be fully roused. A number of 
 Southern States declared, through their Legislatures, 
 that if this Prohibition was enacted they would not 
 submit to it. While, on the other hand, a still larger 
 number of Northern States made Legislative declara- 
 tions in favor of it, and instructed their Senators to 
 support it. Thus, at length, the Abolition question, 
 always purely sectional, became again, as in the case of 
 Missouri, but under far more ominous circumstances, 
 the chief element in the most important practical po- 
 litical issue of the day. From 1846 up to near the 
 close of the late memorable Session of Congress, this 
 contest was carried on in various forms with deepen- 
 ing import, until at length it entirely absorbed the 
 public mind, and occupied the Federal Government to 
 
284 
 
 the almost total exclusion of all other business. Early 
 in the last Session it came up on the proposition to 
 admit California into the Union. A band of adven- 
 turers having assembled in that distant region in un- 
 known numbers, and, to a great extent, of unknown 
 origin — scarcely any with legal titles to lands, and still 
 fewer with fixed residences — after calling a Conven- 
 tion without proper authority, formed a government 
 and demanded admission, as a Sovereign State, into 
 the Union, with boundaries embracing the whole Paci- 
 fic Coast to Oregon, and a Constitution, which, for the 
 express purpose of securing the support of the non- 
 Slaveholding majority, prohibited Slavery. 
 
 Mr. Calhoun's health, which had been failing 
 rapidly for a few years past, had at length become so 
 feeble that it was evident to his friends he could not 
 long survive ; and during the previous summer it was 
 considered scarcely possible that he could return again 
 to Washington. To almost any other man it would 
 have been impossible. But when he saw the great 
 battle which he had so long led had reached, as he 
 believed, its final crisis ; and that the fate of his coun- 
 try hung on the momentous movement which was 
 about to be made, he discarded all thoughts of self- 
 preservation, and hastened to the field, resolved to 
 spend his last breath in striking one more blow for the 
 great cause of the South — the cause of Justice and of 
 the Constitution. 
 
 Arrived at Washington, his health was so feeble 
 that he was soon compelled to remain most of his 
 time at his lodgings, and went only occasionally to the 
 Senate. In the mean while the conflict went fiercely 
 on; and numerous plans for adjusting it were set 
 
285 
 
 afloat. Mr. Calhoun committed his views to paper, 
 and on the 4th of March, after a long interval, ap- 
 peared with it in the Senate. But he was not able 
 even to read it, and transferred the task to his friend, 
 Mr. Mason, a Senator from Virginia. In that speech 
 he traced the territorial history of the United States, 
 showing that the non-Slaveholding States, who ori- 
 ginally owned but one fourth of the territory of the 
 Union, were about to succeed, by the action of the 
 Government and the concessions of the South, in get- 
 ting possession of nearly three-fourths of it : that, by 
 the system of revenue and expenditure which had been 
 adopted, much the larger portion of the taxes were 
 paid by the South, while the disbursements were made 
 chiefly at the North : and that while these measures 
 destroyed the equilibrium between the two sections 
 the Federal Government had concentrated all power 
 in itself, and interpreted the Constitution and ruled 
 the country according to the will of a majority, re- 
 sponsible only to the Northern section, by which it is 
 elected. The result of all, he said, was that " what 
 was once a Constitutional Federal Republic, is now 
 converted, in reality, into one as absolute as that of 
 the Autocrat of Russia, and as despotic in its tenden- 
 cies as any absolute Government that ever existed." 
 He showed that the California adventurers had no 
 right to attempt to form a State without previous per- 
 mission from Congress, and that what they had done 
 was "revolutionary and rebellious in its character, 
 anarchical in its tendency, and calculated to lead to 
 the most dangerous consequences." He gave a succinct 
 history of Abolition from its origin ; showed how it 
 had gained strength year by year, and declared that. 
 
286 
 
 " if sometliing decisive was not now done to arrest it 
 the Soutli would be forced to choose between Eman- 
 cipation and Secession." He denounced the childish 
 idea of preserving the Union by continually crying 
 " Union ! Union ! the glorious Union ! " and expressed 
 his conviction that there was no other way to save it, 
 but by an amendment to the Constitution, " which 
 would restore to the South in substance the power she 
 l^ssessed of protecting herself, before the equilibrium 
 between the two sections was destroyed by the action 
 of the Government." 
 
 No speech ever pronounced in Congress produced a 
 more profound sensation there and in the country than 
 this did. The deep and incalculable importance of the 
 questions in issue ; and the fact that this was generally 
 regarded as the last effort of an illustrious statesman, 
 who had, for almost half a century, led in the councils 
 of the Confederacy, scarcely heightened the intensity 
 of the interest created by the novel and startling, yet 
 sound and prophetic views which had been developed 
 with a force and clearness rarely equalled. Mr. Cal- 
 houn, himself, intended it rather as a preliminary 
 speech. He still hoped that he could, by his iron will, 
 baffle and repel the advances of disease, and that God 
 would spare him to consummate this last task. He 
 had only laid down his groundwork, and reserved am- 
 ple materials for reply, after 'all had exhibited their 
 positions, and his had been sufficiently attacked. He 
 did not even announce what amendments to the Con- 
 stitution he intended to propose. Whatever they 
 were — for he afterwards said that several were neces- 
 sary — the suggestion of them manifested his undimin- 
 ished anxiety for the preservation of a Constitutional 
 
287 
 
 Union ; and the latest oifering of his life was laid upon 
 that altar at which he had so long worshipped. It is 
 scarcely to be regretted that he did not specify them, 
 for nothing is more certain than that no amendments 
 to the Constitution can ever be carried that will give 
 the South the express power of self-protection. They 
 would not receive a single vote from that Northern 
 majority, which will ere long be large enough to amend 
 the Constitution without the South, if it shall choose 
 to regard forms in perpetrating its oppressions. But 
 such amendments, if passed, would not avail the South, 
 for her action under them would scon be denounced as 
 revolutionary, as the clearly Constitutional right of 
 Secession is now denounced. 
 
 In fact, neither this Union nor any Union or Gov- 
 ernment can exist long by virtue of mere paper stipu- 
 lations. " Written Constitutions," said Anacharsis to 
 Solon, " are but spiders' webs, which hold only the poor 
 and weak, while the rich and powerful easily break 
 through." Solon thought otherwise, but lived to see 
 the Government he established completely overthrown. 
 Lycurgus, more wise, forbade written laws. His prin- 
 ciples were durably impressed, by training from child- 
 hood, on the minds and manners of his j)eople, and 
 interwoven with the whole social fabric. And they 
 governed the Spartans for six centuries or more. In 
 modern France no enacted Constitution has survived 
 five years ; while the Constitution of England, resting 
 on traditions and occasional Acts and Charters, appears 
 to bid defiance to time and progress. Those Govern- 
 ments only can endure which spring naturally from 
 the social system, and are habitually sustained by it. 
 And written — artificial Constitutions are, indeed, but 
 
288 
 
 " spiders' webs," if they do not continually draw their 
 vital breath from the same living source. For more 
 than twenty years the Federal Constitution has been a 
 dead letter, or a snare to the minority. It has, for 
 that length of time, had no material influence in main- 
 taining the Union of these States. They have been 
 held together by habit ; by the recollections of the past, 
 and a common reverence for the patriots and heroes of 
 the Eevolution ; by the ties of political parties, of re- 
 ligious sects, and business intercourse. But the events 
 of these twenty years, and mainly the developments of 
 Abolitionism, have clearly revealed to us that we have 
 at least two separate, distinct, and in some essential 
 points, antagonistic social systems, whose differences 
 can never be reconciled and subjected to one equal and 
 just Government, unless our respective industrial inter- 
 ests are left free from every shackle, and the fell spirit 
 of Abolitionism crushed and entirely eradicated. Many 
 of the cords which once bound these two systems to- 
 gether have been, as Mr. Calhoun pointed out in his 
 last speech, already snapped asunder. The religious 
 bonds have been nearly all ruptured ; party ties are 
 going fast ; those of business are seriously endangered. 
 It is vain to hope to preserve the Union by any com- 
 mon sentiment of reverence for the past, or even by 
 amending the Constitution, unless these severed chains 
 can be relinked together, and that brotherly love which 
 mingled the blood of our fathers in the battle fields of 
 the Eevolution can be restored, by providential inter- 
 position, to its ancient fervor. It is, however, the prov- 
 ince and the sacred duty of the statesman, whatever 
 may be the ultimate result, to point out the diseases of 
 the Constitution and the Government, and to propose 
 
289 
 
 the best remedies he can. This was the great object of 
 Mr. Calhoun for the last two and twenty years of his 
 career. For this he lived : and to this his last efforts 
 and his latest thoughts were consecrated. 
 
 Consecrated in vain ! for already the disease has 
 passed a fatal crisis, and there is no longer a remedy 
 that can save. California has been admitted, and the 
 equilibrium of this Government has been destroyed 
 forever. The edict has gone forth that no new Slave- 
 holding State shall ever enter the Union : and the 
 South, deprived at last, and finally, of her equality in 
 the Senate, the only safe hold she ever had in this Con- 
 federacy, and from which she has so long and so nobly 
 battled for her rights, is now condemned to a minority 
 that can know no change, in every department of the 
 Federal Government. The Slaveholding States have 
 become emphatically the Provinces of a great Empire, 
 ruled by a permanent sectional majority, unrelentingly 
 hostile to them, and daring, as it is despotic. If they 
 submit to continue thus, their history is already written 
 — in the chronicles of Poland, of Hungary, and of Ire- 
 land — ^perhaps of St. Domingo and Jamaica. 
 
 After the 4th of March, Mr. Calhoun went but two 
 or three times to the Senate Chamber. His last ap- 
 pearance there was on the 13th of that month ; and as 
 if the political storms which had pursued him so long 
 were fated to pursue him to the last, he had, on that 
 day, a warm debate, in which he was compelled to 
 maintain the expediency of his proposition to amend 
 the Constitution ; and to defend himself from the charge 
 of aiming to dissolve the Union. He retired exhausted, 
 and returned no more. But still his thoughts were 
 there, and his anxious interest for his distracted coun- 
 
290 
 
 try lent its excitement to every pulsation of his heart. 
 " If I could have," he said, as his end drew near, " If I 
 could have one hour more to speak in the Senate, I 
 could do more good than on any past occasion of my 
 
 life." 
 
 He expired tranquilly on the morning of the 31st 
 
 of March. 
 
 The deep and poignant grief which pervaded our 
 State on the announcement of this event, although it 
 was not unexpected, I will not attempt to depict. 
 Your own hearts retain and cherish a recollection of 
 it more vivid and more durable than could be re- 
 called, or impressed by any words of mine. The same 
 feelings seemed to penetrate almost every portion of 
 the Union. Since the death of Washington, no similar 
 event it is generally agreed, has produced a sensation 
 so profound and universal. Envy and malice, sectional 
 hostility and party persecution, seemed to be instantly 
 extinguished. His real greatness was at once fully 
 acknowledged, and all united in paying the highest 
 honors to his memory. 
 
 Mr. Calhoun's moral character, as exhibited to the 
 public, was of the Roman stamp. Lofty in his senti- 
 ments, stern in his bearing, inflexible in his opinions, 
 there was no sacrifice he would not have made with- 
 out a moment's hesitation, and few that he did not 
 make, to his sense of duty and his love of country. As 
 a Consul, he would have been a Publicola, — as a 
 Censor, Cato — as a Tribune, Gracchus. He was often 
 denounced for his ambition, but his integrity was never 
 questioned. "Ambition is," as Mr. Burke justly 
 said, " the malady of every extensive genius." Mr. 
 Calhoun's enemies believed that it infected him to an 
 
291 
 
 extraordinary and dangerous degree. But tlie enemies 
 of every distinguislied man have said tlie same. He 
 undoubtedly desired power. But there is no evidence 
 to be found, either in his conduct or in his words, that 
 he ever stooped to any mean compliance to obtain it, 
 or that, when obtained, he ever used it but in the 
 purest manner and for the welfare of his whole coun- 
 try. The nature of his ambition was well tested. 
 Eight years Vice-President; for as long a period a 
 Minister of State ; six years in the House of Bepre- 
 sentatives, and fifteen in the Senate of the United 
 States, he enjoyed all the power of the highest offices 
 of our Government, save the very highest, and that 
 he would in all human probability have attained, but 
 that his aspirations were subordinate to his principles, 
 and these led him to repudiate his party, and throw 
 himself into opposition to its corruptions when it was 
 at the zenith of its power. 
 
 That he did not reach the Presidency, and that no 
 other statesman of the first rank has had the slightest 
 prospect of reaching it for the last five and twenty 
 years, are among the most striking proofs of the down- 
 ward tendency of our Federal Institutions. 
 
 In private life Mr. Calhoun was remarkably acces- 
 sible. Open, unsuspicious, mild in his manners and 
 uniformly warm, cheerful, and hopeful, he was interest- 
 ing, instructive and agreeable to all who had the hap- 
 piness to know him. While in every domestic relation 
 his conduct approached as near perfection as we can 
 suppose human nature capable of doing. 
 
 The intellect of Mr. Calhoun was cast in the Gre- 
 cian mould : intuitive, profound, original — descending 
 to the minutest details of practical affairs ; and soaring 
 
292 
 
 aloft, with balanced wing, into tlie highest heavens of 
 invention. He appreciated wit and humor, the flights 
 of fancy and the keen shafts of sarcasm ; but he either 
 did not possess, or entirely failed to cultivate the 
 faculties which lead to distinction in these lines. He 
 admired and valued high-toned declamation on appro- 
 priate occasions; and sometimes, though rarely, at- 
 tempted it himself, and not without success. The force 
 of his imagination, his command of language, his no- 
 bility of sentiment, and his enthusiastic temperament 
 eminently qualified him for declamation of the highest 
 order, and his themes were as well adapted to it as 
 those of Demosthenes himself. But the audience to 
 which he commonly addressed himself could not hear 
 his voice or see his action, or decide his cause under 
 the spell of eloquence. It covered millions of square 
 miles, and reached far down the stream of time. And 
 his keen judgment and deep earnestness would not 
 qften permit him to use weapons that could strike 
 effectively those only who were near at hand. The 
 intellectual power of Mr. Calhoun was due mainly to 
 the facility and accuracy with which he resolved prop- 
 ositions into their elementary principles, and the 
 astonishing rapidity with which he deduced from these 
 principles all their just and necessary consequences. 
 The moment a sophism was presented to him he 
 pierced it through and through, and plunging into the 
 labyrinth, brought truth from the remote recesses 
 where she delights to dwell, and placed her, in her 
 native simplicity, before the eyes of men. It was in 
 these preeminent faculties that Mr. Calhoun's mind 
 resembled the antique and particularly the genuine 
 Greek mind, which recoiled from plausibilities and 
 
293 
 
 looked with ineffable disgust on that mere grouping of 
 associated ideas which so generally passes for reason- 
 ing. It was in conformity with these great intellectual 
 endowments that he created all his speeches and State 
 papers. It was commonly said of his productions that 
 they were characterized by extraordinary conden- 
 sation. But Mr. Calhoun was often careless in his 
 diction, and habitually so in the construction of his 
 sentences. He sought only the words that most 
 clearly expressed his meaning, and left their arrange- 
 ment apparently to chance. What he did do was to 
 go straight to the bottom of his subject, following the 
 slender plummet line of truth until he reached it. 
 Then he built up in a manner equally direct, discard- 
 ing all extraneous materials ; and erected a structure, 
 simple, uniform and consistent, decorated with no 
 ornament for the sake of ornament, and occupying no 
 more space than was necessary for the purposes in 
 view. 
 
 The faculty of Invention — which is the highest 
 characteristic of genius — is the necessary result of 
 rapid and correct analysis and synthesis. To the 
 possession of these powers, then, is also due the 
 aknowledged originality of Mr. Calhoun, which gave 
 such a j^eculiar charm to every one of his productions, 
 as led the public invariably to pronounce his latest to 
 be the best. The common mind never looks beneath 
 the surface, and draws its conclusions from the facts 
 and arguments that float around it. Even rather 
 uncommon minds seldom penetrate very deep or very 
 quickly. From whatever subject, therefore, upon 
 which such extraordinary powers of analysis and 
 generalization were brought to bear, they would ne- 
 19 
 
294 
 
 cessarily extract ideas lying far beyond the range of 
 others, and so new and startling as to overwhelm ordi- 
 nary intellects and obliterate their confused remem- 
 brances of past ^productions, in which he had carried 
 them delighted through equally unaccustomed regions- 
 
 Hence, also, arose and was received the charge, 
 worn thread-bare by reiteration, that Mr. Calhoun's 
 mind was too metaphysical and speculative for con- 
 ducting the affairs of Government. A charge which, 
 if it was not absurd in itself, was signally refuted by 
 his conduct of the War, by his organization of the 
 War Department, by his negociations as Secretary of 
 State, by his frequent, minute, and accurate, and 
 powerful elucidations of all the financial, commercial, 
 manufacturing and agricultural operations of the coun- 
 try — in short, by the whole course of his labour, from 
 the commencement to the close of his career. It 
 was the remarkable characteristic of the Greek mind, 
 now too little appreciated, to be at once practical and 
 speculative, as in fact it ever has been of all really 
 great minds. In the palmiest days of Greece her 
 Philosophers were Statesmen, her Poets and Historians 
 were Warriors. The Astronomer who first predicted 
 an eclipse made a fortune by dealing in olives. To a 
 successful Usurper we owe the collection of the scat- 
 tered songs of Homer. The mere practitioner is, 
 necessarily, a quack in medicine, a pettifogger in law, 
 and a charlatan in politics. 
 
 The colloquial powers of Mr. Calhoun have been 
 highly lauded. In this there is a mistake. Strictly 
 speaking he had no uncommon endowment of this 
 sort. It is true that he entered readily and easily into 
 any conversation, and there were few subjects on which 
 
295 
 
 he did not tlirow new liglit, or at least dissipate some 
 of the darkness that might surround them. But he 
 exhibited no sparkling wit, no keen retort, none of that 
 liveliness of fancy which so delightfully season and refine 
 familiar conversation. Nor was he anything of a racon- 
 teur. All these things he occasionally enjoyed with 
 much zest, but rarely attempted them himself. The 
 conversation in which he really shone was but a modi- 
 fied species of Senatorial debate. And, in that, no one 
 approached to an equality with him. In the Senate, 
 where time is given for preparation, and the conflict of 
 intellect is conducted, for the most part, like a can- 
 nonade, by heavy discharges at considerable intervals, 
 his opponents might make a show of vigorous combat 
 with him. But, in the close encounter of informal 
 discussion, there was no one who could stand before 
 him. The astonishing rapidity of his intellectual 
 operations enabled him to anticipate every proposition 
 before it was half stated, to resolve it into all its parts, 
 and not only to answer his opponent without an instant's 
 hesitation, but to take up his whole train of argument, 
 run throuQ^h it in advance of him, and so turn all his 
 points as to convince, or at least, to silence him. At 
 these times there was a fascination about him which 
 none could resist. It was not merely his warmth, 
 his earnestness, his deep sincerity that charmed, 
 but his reasoning — commencing so far back, and dis- 
 entangling the first elements, the facts and principles — 
 moved forward with such simplicity and ease, such 
 clearness and connection, with a sweep so "graceful, 
 yet so broad and powerful, that you felt as though you 
 were listening rather to a narrative than to an ai'gu- 
 ment. There were rarely any tropes or figures, or 
 
296 
 
 learned illustrations, but your very passions were en- 
 listed by the ardor and intenseness of his logic, and 
 you were carried unresistingly along, as well by the 
 force of your imagination as by the convictions of 
 your judgment. The power which he thus exercised 
 was so transcendant that, could he have seen and con- 
 versed with every individual in the Union, he would 
 have reigned supreme over public opinion. 
 
 The fame of Mr. Calhoun will rest chiefly on his 
 character as a Statesman. Posterity, with a knowledge 
 of events yet concealed from us, will analj^se it closely. 
 It is believed that it will stand the most rigid 
 scrutiny. 
 
 So many qualifications are necessary to the forma- 
 tion of Statesmen, and so rare a combination of all the 
 highest moral and mental qualities is requisite to con- 
 stitute one of the first order, that they are usually 
 rated rather by degrees of ability, than by the pecu- 
 liarities of talent. Such peculiarities, however, do 
 exist, and so color their current opinions, that they are 
 in all countries classed, at least temporarily, according 
 to the domestic parties whose views they favor for the 
 time. In this country, where every thing is so new 
 and variable ; where not only our political institutions 
 are experimental, but our civilization has not attained 
 a permanent standard, there is great difficulty in 
 appropriating distinctive names to our Statesmen — a 
 difficulty enhanced by the fact that nearly or quite all 
 of our eminent men have, in the course of their 
 careers, radically changed some of their opinions; 
 changes which, indeed, few of the great Statesmen of 
 any country, in the last eighty eventful years, have 
 escaped. 
 
297 
 
 Coming into the public councils at a period when 
 twenty years of successful experiment had, it was 
 thought, fully tested our Federal Constitution, and 
 established the permanence of the Federal Govern- 
 ment — when a vigorous effort to convert it into a cen- 
 tral despotism had been signally defeated, and all sec- 
 tional jealousies and apprehensions had been lulled, 
 Mr. Calhoun devoted himself wholly, and enthusiasti- 
 cally, to the grand purpose of developing all the 
 mighty resources of his country, and raising her to 
 the highest pitch of prosperity and greatness. His 
 views were large — far reaching — noble. And his mea- 
 sures were in full accordance with them. Whenever 
 in war or in peace, an exigency occurred, his active 
 and inventive genius promptly suggested a provision 
 for it, always ample, and usually the best that could 
 be adopted. Whenever favoring circumstances in- 
 vited a forward movement, or a wider exertion of 
 energy, he was ever ready with plans, thoroughly 
 digested, and fully adapted to accomplish all the ends 
 in view. While close in his calculations, and careful 
 of details, there was nothing low or narrow in any 
 thing he ever proposed. He had an ineffiible scorn 
 for whatever was mean or contracted in legislation ; 
 and having an abiding confidence, not only in truth 
 and justice, but in the power of reason, and the capa- 
 city of the people to appreciate what was right and 
 comprehend the arguments in favor of it, he never for 
 a moment yielded to the current popular opinion, when 
 it differed from his own. He expected to restrain it 
 by his logic, and ultimately reverse it by the benefits 
 his measures would confer. As a progressive States- 
 man, leading ardently, during the first part of his 
 
298 
 
 career the very van of Progress, Mr. Calhoun may be 
 considered a perfect model. 
 
 When, however, a few years of peace had devel- 
 oped in this new and rapidly growing country— what 
 it has taken thirty centuries to make manifest in older 
 and more closely cemented social fabrics — that Gov- 
 ernments and Constitutions are more severely tried by 
 the conflicts of domestic than of foreign interests, and 
 ambition; and it became evident that our Govern- 
 ment was to be perverted and our Constitution set 
 aside, to enable one section of this Confederacy to 
 desj^oil another — then Mr. Calhoun became a Conser- 
 vative Statesman. He saw that, in common with the 
 founders of the Republic, he had been deceived in his 
 belief that the Constitution had been consecrated by a 
 quarter of a century of successful operation, and that 
 all danger of a central despotism had passed by. He 
 saw, what many in all countries have been too slow 
 in seeing, that there is a Progress which, like " vault- 
 ing ambition, overleaps itself.'' He recoiled from the 
 operation of machinery he had himself helped to put 
 in motion ; and he now ardently devoted all his talents 
 and all liis energy to arrest the march of usurpation 
 and corruption, and to preserve the liberties and in- 
 stitutions inherited from our fathers. 
 
 But merely negative and stolid conservatism did 
 not at all suit the genius of Mr. Calhoun, which was 
 essentially active and ever looking forward to the 
 improvement of mankind. He sought, therefore, ear- 
 nestly, to discover the principles and theory of Move- 
 ment that might be onward and unfailing — yet regular 
 and safe. In accomplishing this task, he sounded anew 
 the depths of human nature ; he reviewed the whole 
 
299 
 
 science of politics ; lie analysed the Constitution word 
 by word — its letter and its spirit; and he studied 
 thoroughly the workings of our Government. The 
 result was that he lifted himself above all parties, and 
 became a Philosophical Statesman — the only true and 
 real Statesman. And it was in the wide and exhaust- 
 less field now opened to him, that he gathered those 
 immortal laurels, whose verdure shall delight, whose 
 blossoms shall refresh, whose fruit shall be the food of 
 the latest posterity. 
 
 The example of his noble efforts to reform the 
 Government and to restore the Constitution of his 
 country, distinguished by the display of the vastest 
 resources and the most masterly powers of intellect — 
 though like Agis, and Couon and the younger Brutus, 
 he failed in his glorious designs — will live forever. 
 But his speeches and writings will constitute a new 
 epoch in the science of Politics. Our Federal Con- 
 stitution, he often said, was in advance of the wisdom 
 of those who framed it ; and he it was who first thor- 
 oughly explored, comprehended, and expounded it. 
 He found in it nearly all that was requisite to estab- 
 lish, on the firmest foundations, a free and popular 
 Government, which was his beau ideal of Govern- 
 ment ; and which, though it has had many friends and 
 many martyrs, and has been illustrated by patriots and 
 heroes, has scarcely before had a genuine Apostle. 
 He laid down, for the first time, its true principles and 
 marked out its true limits; and has shown how it 
 might, and unless vigilantly watched, eventually would 
 depart from those principles and limits, and produce 
 all those evils which have so long made it odious to the 
 best and wisest men. He has shown on the other 
 
300 
 
 haud liow capable it is of luilimited expansion, to 
 meet all the exigencies and reap all the benefits of 
 real progress — if its power is confided to the proper 
 majorities and their suffrages collected in the proper 
 manner; and how its harmony may be kept undis- 
 turbed and its duration made perpetual, by securing 
 to the minorities the sacred and all-important right of 
 self-protection. In short, he has so thoroughly ehici- 
 dated all the checks and balances of Free Constitu- 
 tions — simple and confederated — that henceforth, in 
 the long tide of time, no Republic will be erected or 
 reformed on a durable foundation, without a constant 
 recurrence to the theories he has discussed, and the 
 measures he has proposed ; and a profound observance 
 of the precepts he has taught. 
 
 I have endeavored to ]ioint out the most prom- 
 inent events in the life of Mr. Calhoun : the parts he 
 took in public affairs; the services he rendered his 
 country ; the policy and views by which he was at 
 various periods influenced. I have also endeavored to 
 ponrtray the most striking features of his moral and 
 intellectual character ; and have briefly reviewed his 
 Statesmanship. My task is executed, however feebly 
 and imperfectly. It would be vain to attempt to 
 fathom the Divine Will, and seek to learn why, in 
 this most eventful period of our history, our Great 
 Leader has been snatched away, leaving no one behind 
 who can fill his place. What we do know is, that 
 high and sacred duties have devolved on us; and 
 imitating his illustrious example, we should go for- 
 ward in the performance of them with "unshaken 
 confidence in the Providence of God." 
 
SPEECH 
 
 ON THE ADMISSION OF KANSAS, UNDER THE LECOMPTON CONSTITU- 
 TION. DELIVERED IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, MARCH 
 
 4, 1858. 
 
 The Senate, as in Committee of the Whole, having 
 under consideration the bill for the admission of the 
 State of Kansas in the Union — Mr. Hammond said : 
 
 Mr. President : In the debate which occurred in 
 the early part of the last month, I understood the 
 Senator from Illinois (Mr. Douglas) to say that the 
 question of the reception of the Lecompton Constitu- 
 tion was narrowed down to a single point. Tliat point 
 was, whether that constitution embodied the will of 
 the people of Kansas. Am I correct ? 
 
 Mr. Douglas. The Senator is correct, with this 
 qualification : I could waive the irregularity and agree 
 to the reception of Kansas into the Union under the 
 Lecompton Constitution, provided I was satisfied that 
 it was the act and deed of that people, and embodied 
 their will. There are other objections; but the others 
 I could overcome, if this point were disposed of 
 
 Mr. Hammond. I so understood the Senator. I 
 understood that if he could be satisfied that this Con- 
 stitution embodied the will of the people of Kansas, 
 
302 
 
 all otlier defects and irregularities could "be cured by 
 tlie act of Congress, and that lie himself would be 
 willing to permit sucli an act to be passed. 
 
 Now, sir, the only question is, how is that will to 
 be ascertained, and upon that point, and that only, 
 shall we differ. In my opinion the will of the people 
 of Kansas is to be sought in the net of her lawful con- 
 vention elected to form a Constitution, and no where 
 else ; and that it is unconstitutional and dangerous to 
 seek it elsewhere. I think that the Senator fell into 
 a fundamental error in his report dissenting from the 
 rej^ort of the majority of the territorial committee, 
 when he said that the convention which framed this 
 Constitution was " the creature of the Territorial 
 Legislature ; " and from that one error has probably 
 arisen all his subsequent errors on this subject. 
 
 How can it be possible that a convention should 
 be the creature of a Territorial Legislature ? The 
 convention was an assembly of the people in their 
 highest sovereign capacity, about to perform their 
 highest possible act of sovereignty. The Territorial 
 Legislature is a mere provisional government ; a petty 
 corporation, appointed and paid by the Congress of 
 the United States, without a particle of sovereign 
 power. Shall such a body interefere with a sov- 
 ereignty — inchoate, but still a sovereignty ? Why, 
 Congress cannot interfere ; Congress cannot con- 
 fer on the Territorial Legislature the power to inter- 
 fere. Congress itself is not sovereign. Congress has 
 sovereign powers, but no sovereignty. Congress has 
 no power to act outside of the limitations of the Con- 
 stitution ; no right to carry into effect the Supreme 
 Will of any people, and, therefore, Congress is not 
 
303 
 
 sovereign. Nor does Congress liold the sovereignty 
 of Kansas. The sovereignty of Kansas resides, if it 
 resides anywhere, with the sovereign States of this 
 Union. They have conferred upon Congress, among 
 other powers, that to administer such sovereignty to 
 their satisfaction. They have given Congress the 
 power to make needful rules and regulations regarding 
 the Territories, and they have given it power to ad- 
 mit a State — " admit^'' not create. Under these tAvo 
 powers, Congress may first establish a provisional 
 territorial government merely for municipal purposes ; 
 and when a State has grown into rightful sovereignty, 
 when that sovereignty which has been kept in abey- 
 ance demands recognition, when a community is 
 formed there, a social compact established, a sov- 
 ereignty born as it were on the soil, then to Congress is 
 granted the power to acknowledge it, and the Legis- 
 lature, only by mere usage, sometimes neglected, assists 
 at the birth of it by passing a precedent resolution 
 assembling a convention. 
 
 But when that convention assembles to form a 
 Constitution, it assembles in the highest known capaci- 
 ty of a j^eople, and has no superior in this Government 
 but a State sovereignty; or rather only the State 
 sovereignties of all the States, acting by their estab- 
 lished Constitutional agent the General Government, 
 can do anything with the act of that convention. 
 Then if that convention was lawful, if there is no 
 objection to the convention itself, there can be no 
 objection to the action of the convention ; and there 
 is no power on earth that has a right to inquire, out- 
 side of its acts, whether the convention represented 
 the will of the people of Kansas or not, for a couveu- 
 
504 
 
 tion of the people is, according to the theory of our 
 Government, for all the purposes for which the people 
 elected it, the people, hona fide, being the only way in 
 wdiicli all the people can assemble and act together. 
 I do not doubt that there might l^e some cases of such 
 gross and paljjable frauds committed in ihe formation 
 of a convention, as might authorize Congress to investi- 
 gate them, but I can scarcely conceive of any. And 
 when a State knocks at the door for admission. Con- 
 gress can with propriety do little more than inquire if 
 her Constitution is republican. That it embodies the 
 will of her j)eople must necessarily be taken for 
 granted, if it is their lawful act. I am assuming, of 
 course, that her boundaries are settled, and her pop- 
 ulation sufficient. 
 
 If what I have said be correct, then the will of 
 the people of Kansas is to be found in the action 
 of her constitutional convention. It is immaterial 
 whether it is the will of a majority of the people of 
 Kansas now^ or not. The convention was, or might 
 have been, elected by a majority of the people of 
 Kansas. A convention, elected in June, might well 
 frame a Constitution that would not be aorreeable to a 
 
 O 
 
 majority of the people of a new State, rapidly filling 
 up, in the succeeding January ; and if Legislatures are 
 to be allowed to put to vote the acts of a convention, 
 and have them annulled by a subsequent influx of 
 immigrants, there is no finality. If you were to send 
 back the Lecompton Constitution, and another was to 
 be framed, in the slow way in which we do public 
 business in this country, before it would reach Con- 
 gress and be accepted, perhaps the majority Avould T)e 
 turned the other way. Whenever you go outside of 
 
305 
 
 the regular forras of law and constitutions to seek for 
 the will of the peoj^le you are wandering in a wilder- 
 ness — a wilderness of thorns. 
 
 If this was a minority constitution I do not know 
 that that would be an objection to it. Constitutions 
 are made for minorities. Perhaps minorities ought to 
 have the right to make constitutions, for they are ad- 
 ministered by majorities. The Constitution of this 
 Government was made l)y a minority, and as late as 
 1840 a minority had it in their hands, and could have 
 altered or abolished it; for, in 1840, six out of the 
 twenty-six States of the Union held the numerical 
 majority. 
 
 The Senator from Illinois has, upon his view of the 
 Lecompton Constitution and the present situation of 
 aftairs in Kansas, raised a cry of " popular sovereignty." 
 The Senator from New York (Mr. Seward) jesterday 
 made himself facetious about it, and called it, "squatter 
 sovereignty." There is a popular sovereignty which 
 is the basis of our Government, and I am unwilling 
 that the Senator should have the advantai^e of con- 
 founding it with " squatter sovereignty." In all coun- 
 tries and in all time, it is well understood that the 
 numerical majority of the people could, if they chose, 
 exercise the sovereignty of the country ; but for want 
 of intelligence, and for want of leaders, they have 
 never yet been able successfully to combine and form 
 a stable, popular government. They have often 
 attempted it, but it has always turned out, instead of 
 a popular sovereignty, a ])opulace sovereignty; and 
 demagogues, placing themselves upon the movement, 
 have invariably led them into military despotism. 
 
 I think that the popular sovereignty which the 
 
306 
 
 Senator from Illinois would derive from tlie acts of 
 Lis Territorial Legislature, and from tlie information 
 received from 2)artisans and partisan presses, would 
 lead us directly into j)opulace, and not popular sov-- 
 ereio'nty. Genuine poj^ular sovereignty never existed 
 on a firm basis except in this country. The first gun 
 of the Eevolution announced a new organization of it 
 which was embodied in the Declaration of Indepen- 
 dence, developed, elaborated, and inaugurated forever 
 in the Constitution of the United States. The two 
 pillars of it were Representation and the Ballot-box. 
 In distributing their sovereign powers among various 
 Dej^artments of the Government, the people retained 
 for themselves the single power of the ballot-box ; and 
 a great power it was. Through that they were able 
 to control all the Departments of the Government. 
 It was not for the people to exercise political power 
 in detail ; it was not for them to be annoyed with the 
 cares of Government ; but, from time to time, through 
 the ballot-box, it was for them^ — enough — to exert their 
 sovereign power and control the whole organization. 
 This is popular sovereignty, the popular sovereignty 
 of a legal constitutional ballot-l30x ; and when spoken 
 through that box, the " voice of the people," which 
 for all political purposes, " is the voice of God ; " but 
 when it is heard outside of that, it is the voice of a 
 demon, the tocsin of a reign of terror. 
 
 In passing I omitted to answer a question that the 
 Senator from Illinois has, I believe, repeatedly asked ; 
 and that is, what were the legal powers of the Terri- 
 torial Legislature after the formation and adoption of 
 the Lecompton Constitution ? The Kansas Conven- 
 tion had nothing to do with the Territorial Legisla- 
 
307 
 
 ture, which was a provisional government almost 
 without power, appointed and paid by this Govern- 
 ment. The Lecompton Constituton was the act of a 
 people, and the sovereign act of a people legally as- 
 sembled in convention. The two bodies moved in 
 different spheres and on different planes, and could 
 not come in contact at all without usurpation on the 
 one part or the other. It was not competent for the 
 Lecompton Constitution to overturn the territorial 
 government and set up a government in place of it, 
 because that Constitution, until acknowledged by Con- 
 gress, was nothing ; it was not in force anywhere. It 
 could well require the peoj)le of Kansas to pass upon 
 it or any portion of it ; it could do whatever was 
 necessary to perfect that Constitution, but nothing 
 beyond that, until Congress had agreed to accept it. 
 In the mean time the territorial government, always a 
 government ad interim^ was entitled to exercise all the 
 sway over the Territory that it ever had been entitled 
 to. The error of assuming, as the Senator did, that 
 the convention was the creature of the territorial fov- 
 ernment, has led him into the difficulty and confusion 
 resulting from connecting these two governments 
 together. There was no power to govern in the con- 
 vention until after the adoption by Congress of its 
 Constitution, and then it was of course defunct. 
 
 As the Senator from Illinois, whom I regard as the 
 Ajax Telamon of this debate, does not press the ques- 
 tion of frauds, I shall have little or nothing to say 
 about them. The whole history of Kansas is a dis- 
 gusting one, from the beginning to the end. I have 
 avoided reading it as much^as I could. Had I been a 
 Senator before, I should have felt it my duty, perhaps, 
 
308 
 
 to have done so ; but not expecting to be one, I am 
 ignorant, fortunately, in a great measure, of details ; 
 and I was glad to liear the acknowledgement of the 
 Senator from Illinois, since it excuses me from the duty 
 of examining them. 
 
 I hear, on the other side of the Chamber, a great 
 deal said about " gigantic and stupendous frauds ; " 
 and the Senator from New York, in portraying the 
 character of his party and the opposite one, laid the 
 whole of those frauds upon the pro-slavery party. To 
 listen to him, you would have supposed that the regi- 
 ments of immigrants recruited in the purlieus of the 
 great cities of the North, and sent out, armed and 
 equipped with Sharpens rifles and bowie knives and re- 
 volvers, to conquer freedom for Kansas, stood by, meek 
 saints, innocent as doves, and harmless as lambs brought 
 up to the sacrifice. General Lane's lambs ! They re- 
 mind one of the famous " lamhs " of Colonel Kirke, to 
 whom they have a strong family resemblance. I pre- 
 sume that there were frauds ; and that if there were 
 frauds, they were equally great on all sides ; and that 
 any investigation into them on this floor, or by a com- 
 mission, would end in nothing but disgrace to the 
 United States. 
 
 But, sir, the true object of the discussion on the 
 other side of the Chamber, is to agitate the question of 
 slavery. I have very great doubts whether the lead- 
 ers on the other side really wish to defeat this bill. I 
 think they would consider it a vastly greater victory 
 to crush out the Democratic party in the North, and 
 destroy the authors of the Kansas-Nebraska bill ; and 
 I am not sure that they have not brought about this 
 imbroglio for the very purpose. They tell us that year 
 
309 
 
 after year the majority in Kansas was beaten at tlie 
 polls ! They have always had a majority, but they al- 
 ways get beaten ! How could that be ? It does seem, 
 from the most reliable sources of information, that they 
 have a majority, and have had a majority for some 
 time. Why has not this majority come forward and 
 taken possession of the government, and made a free- 
 State constitution and brought it here ? We should all 
 have voted for its admission cheerfully. There can be 
 but one reason : if they had brought, as was generally 
 supposed at the time the Kansas-Nebraska act was 
 passed would be the case, a free-State constitution here, 
 there would have been no difficulty among the north- 
 ern Democrats ; they would have been sustained by 
 their people. The statement made by some of them, 
 as I understood, that that act was a good free-State 
 act, would have been verified, and the northern Demo- 
 cratic party would have been sustained. But Kansas 
 coming here a slave State, it is hoped Avill kill that 
 party, and that is the reason they have refrained from 
 going to the polls ; that is the reason they have re- 
 frained from making it a free State when they had the 
 power. They intend to make it a free State as soon 
 as they have effected their purpose of destroying 
 by it the Democratic party at the North, and now 
 their chief object here is, to agitate slavery. For 
 one, I am not disposed to discuss that question here 
 in any abstract form. I think the time has gone by 
 for that. Our minds are all made up. I may be 
 willing to discuss it — and that is the way it should be 
 and must be discussed — as a ])raGtical tiling^ as a 
 thing that is-, and is to he ; and to discuss its effect 
 upon our political institutions, and ascertain how lono- 
 20 
 
310 
 
 those institutions will hold together with slavery ine- 
 radicable. 
 
 The Senator from New York entered very fairly 
 into this field yesterday. I was surprised, the other 
 day, when he so openly said " the battle had been 
 fought and won." Althougli I knew, and had long 
 known it to be true, I was surprised to hear him say so. 
 I thought that he had been entrapped into a hasty ex- 
 pression by the sharp rebukes of the Senator from New 
 Hampshire ; and I was glad to learn yesterday that his 
 words had been well considered — that they meant all 
 that I thought they meant ; that they meant that the 
 South is a conquered province, and that the North in- 
 tends to rule it. He said that it was their intention 
 " to take this Government from unjust and unfaithful 
 hands, and place it in just and faithful hands ;" that it 
 was their intention to consecrate all the Territories of 
 the Union to free labor ; end that, to eifect their pur- 
 poses, they intended to reconstruct the Supreme Court. 
 
 'Ihe Senator said, suppose we admit Kansas with 
 the Lecoiripton constitution — what guarantees are there 
 that Congress will not again interfere with the affairs 
 of Kansas ? meaning, I suppose, that if she abolished 
 slavery, what guarantee there w^as that Congress would 
 not force it upon her again. So far as we of the South 
 are concerned, you have, at least, the guarantee of good 
 faith that never has been violated. But what guaran- 
 tee have we, when you have this Government in your 
 possession, in all its departments, even if we submit 
 quietly to what the Senator exhorts us to submit to — 
 the limitation of slavery to its present territory, and 
 even to the reconstruction of the Supreme Court — that 
 you will not plunder us with tariffs ; that you will not 
 
311 
 
 bankrupt us with internal improvements and bounties 
 on your exports ; that you will not cramp us with navi- 
 gation laws, and other laws impeding the facilities of 
 transportation to southern produce? What guar- 
 antee have we that you will not create a new bank, 
 and concentrate all the finances of this country at the 
 North, where already, for the want of direct trade and 
 a proper system of banking in the South, they are 
 ruinously concentrated ? Nay, what guarantee have 
 we that you will not emancipate our slaves, or, at least, 
 make the attempt? We cannot rely on your faith when 
 you have the power. It has been always broken when- 
 ever pledged. 
 
 As I am disposed to see this question settled as 
 soon as possible, and am perfectly willing to have a 
 final and conclusive settlement noiv^ after what the Sena- 
 tor from New York ha? said, I think it not improper 
 that I should attempt to bring the North and South 
 face to face, and see what resources each of us mio-ht 
 have in the contingency of separate organizations. 
 
 If we never acquire another foot of territory for the 
 South, look at her. Eight hundred and fifty thousand 
 square miles. As large as Great Britian, France, Aus- 
 tria, Prussia and Spain. Is not that territory enouo-h. 
 to make an empire that shall rule the world ? With 
 the finest soil, the most delightful climate, whose staple 
 productions none of those great countries can grow, we 
 have three thousand miles of continental sea-shore line 
 so indented with bays and crowded with islands, that, 
 when their shore lines are added, we have twelve thou- 
 sand miles. Through the heart of our country runs 
 the great Mississippi, the fiither of waters, into whose 
 bosom are poured thirty-six thousand miles of tribu- 
 
312 
 
 tary rivers ; and beyond we have the desert prairie 
 wastes to protect ns in onr rear. Can you hem in such 
 a territory as that ? You talk of putting up a wall of 
 fire around eight hundred and fifty thousand square 
 miles so situated ! How absurd. 
 
 But, in this territory lies the great valley of the 
 Mississippi, now the real, and soon to be the acknowl- 
 edged seat of the empire of the world. The sway of 
 that valley will be as great as ever the Nde knew in 
 the earlier ages of mankind. We own the most of it. 
 The most valuable part of it belongs to us now ; and 
 although those who have settled above us are now op- 
 Dosed to us, another generation will tell a different tale. 
 They are ours by all the laws of nature ; slave-labor 
 will go over every foot of this great valley where it 
 wdll be found profitable to use it, and some of those 
 who may not use it are soon to be united with us by 
 such ties as will make us one and inseparable. The 
 iron horse will soon be clattering over the sunny plains 
 of the South to bear the products of its upper tributa- 
 ries of the valley to our Atlantic ports, as it now does 
 through the ice-bound North. And there is the great 
 Mississippi, a bond of union made by Nature herself. 
 She will maintain it forever. 
 
 On this fine territory we have a population four 
 times as large as that with which these colonies sepa- 
 rated from the mother country, and a hundred, I might 
 say a thousand fold stronger. Our population is now 
 sixty per cent, greater than that of the whole United 
 States when we entered into the second war of inde- 
 pendence. It is as large as the whole population of the 
 United States was ten years after the conclusion of 
 that war, and our own exports are three times as great 
 
813 
 
 as those of the whole United States then. Upon our 
 muster-rolls we have a million of men. In a defensive 
 war, upon an emergency, every one of them would be 
 av^ailable. At any time, the South can raise, equip, and 
 maintain in the field, a larger army than any Power of 
 the earth can send against her, and an army of soldiers 
 —men brought up on horseback, with guns in their hands. 
 
 It' we take the North, even when the two large 
 States of Kansas and Minnesota shall be admitted, her 
 territory will be one hundred thousand square miles 
 less than ours. I do not speak of California and Ore- 
 gon ; there is no antagonism between the South and 
 those countries, and never will be. The population of 
 the North is fifty per cent, greater than ours. I have 
 nothing to say in disparagement either of the soil of 
 the North, or the people of the North, who are a brave 
 and energetic race, full of intellect. But they produce 
 no great staple that the South does not produce ; while 
 we produce two or three, and these the very greatest, 
 that she can never produce. As to her men, I may be 
 allowed to say, they have never proved themselves to 
 be superior to those of the South, either in the field or 
 in the Senate. 
 
 But the strength of a nation depends in a great 
 measure upon its wealth, and the w^ealth of a nation, 
 like that of a man, is to be estimated by its surj^lus 
 production. You may go to your trashy census books, 
 full of falsehood and nonsense — they tell you, for ex- 
 ample, that in the State of Tennessee, the whole num- 
 ])er of house-servants is not equal to that of those in 
 my own house, and such things as that. You may es- 
 timate what is made throughout the country from these 
 census books, but it is no matter how much is made if 
 
314 
 
 it is all consumed. If a man possess millioDS of dollars 
 and consumes his income, is lie rich ? Is he competent 
 to embark in any new enterprise ? Can he long build 
 ships or railroads? And could a people in that condi- 
 tion build ships and roads or go to war without a fatal 
 strain on capital ? All the enterprises of peace and war 
 depend upon the surplus productions of a people. They 
 may be happy, they may be comfortable, they may 
 enjoy themselves in consuming what they make ; but 
 they are not rich, they are not strong. It appears, by 
 going to the reports of the Secretary of the Treasury, 
 which are authentic, that last year the United States 
 exported in round numbers $279,000,000 worth of do- 
 mestic produce, excluding gold and foreign merchan- 
 dise re-exported. Of this amount |1 58,000,000 worth 
 is the clear produce of the South ; articles that are not 
 and cannot be made at the North. There are then 
 $80,000,000 worth of exports of products of the forest, 
 provisions and breadstuffs. If we assume that the 
 South made but one third of these, and I think that 
 is a low calculation, our exports were $185,000,000, 
 leaving to the North less than $95,000,000. 
 
 In addition to this, we sent to the North $30,000,000 
 worth of cotton, which is not counted in the exports. 
 We sent to her $7 or $8,000,000 worth of tobacco, 
 which is not counted in the exports. We sent naval 
 stores, lumber, rice, and many other minor articles. 
 There is no doubt that we sent to the North $40,000,000 
 in addition ; but suppose the amount to be $35,000,000, 
 it will give us a surplus production of $220,000,000. 
 But the recorded exports of the South now are greater 
 than the whole exports of the United States in any 
 year before 185G. They are greater than the whole 
 
315 
 
 average exports of the United States for the last 
 twelve years, includiDg the two extraordinary years 
 of 1856 and 1857. They are nearly double the 
 amount of the average exports of the twelve preced- 
 ing years. If I am right in my calculations as to 
 $220,000,000 of surplus produce, there is not a nation 
 on ^the face of the earth, with any numerous popula- 
 tion, that can compete with us in produce per caiyita. 
 It amounts to $1^ 66 per head, supposing that we 
 have twelve millions of people. England with all her 
 accumulated wealth, with her concentrated and edu- 
 cated energy, makes but sixteen and a half dollars of 
 surplus production per head. I have not made a cal- 
 culation as to the Noi-th, with her $95,000,000 surplus ; 
 admitting that she exports as much as we do, with 
 her eighteen millions of population it would be but 
 little over twelve dollars a head. But she cannot 
 export to us and abroad exceeding ten dollars a head 
 against our sixteen dollars. I know well enough that 
 the North sends to the South a vast amount of the 
 productions of her industry. I take it foi- granted that 
 she, at least, pays us in that way for the thirty or forty 
 million dollars worth of cotton and other articles we 
 send her. I am wilHng to admit that she sends us 
 considerably more ; but to bring her up to our amount 
 of surplus pi'oduction — to bring her up to $220,000,000 
 a year, the South must take from her $125,000,000 ; 
 and this, in addition to our shai'e of the consumption 
 of the $333,000,000 worth inti'oduced into the counti-y 
 from abroad, and paid for chiefly by our own exports. 
 The thing is absurd ; it is impossible ; it can never 
 appear anywhere but in a book of statistics, oi' a Con- 
 gress speech. 
 
316 
 
 With an expoi-t of $220,000,000 under the present 
 tariff, the South organized separately would have 
 $40,000,000 of revenue. With one-fourth the present 
 tariff, she would have a revenue with the present 
 tariff adequate to all her wants, for the South would 
 never go to war ; she would never need an army or a 
 navy, beyond a few garrisons on the frontiers and a 
 few revenue cutters. It is commerce that breeds war. 
 It is manufiictures that require to be hawked about 
 the world, and that give rise to navies and commerce. 
 But we have nothing to do but to take off restrictions 
 on foreign merchandise and open our ports, and the 
 whole world will come to us to trade. They will be 
 too glad to bring and cai-ry us, and we never shall 
 dream of a war. Why the South has never yet 
 had a just cause of war except with the North. 
 Every time she has drawn her sword it has been on 
 the point of honor, and that point of honor has been 
 mainly loyalty to her sister colonies and sister States, 
 who have ever since plundered and calumniated her. 
 
 But if there were no other reason why we should 
 never have war, would any sane nation make war on 
 cottonl^ Without firing a gun, without drawing a 
 sword, should they make war on us we could bring 
 the whole world to our feet. The South is perfectly 
 competent to go on, one, two, or three years without 
 planting a seed of cotton. I believe that if she was 
 to plant but half her cotton, for three years to come, 
 it would be an immense advanta^ce to her. I am not 
 so sure but that after three years' entire abstinence she 
 would come out stronger than ever she was before, and 
 better prepared to enter afi-esh upon her great career 
 of enterprise. What would happen if no cotton was 
 
317 
 
 furnished for three years ? I will not stop to depict 
 what every one can imagine, but this is certain: Eng- 
 land w^ould topple headlong and carry the whole 
 civilized world with hei', save the South. No, you 
 dare not make war on cotton. No power on earthy 
 dares to make war npon it. Cotton is king. Until 
 lately the Bank of England was king ; but she tried to 
 put her screws as usual, the ftxll before the last, upon 
 the cotton crop, and was uttei'ly vanquished. The 
 last power has been conquered. Who can doubt, that 
 has looked at recent events, that cotton is supreme? 
 When the abuse of credit had destroyed credit and 
 annihilated confidence ; when thousands of the strong- 
 est commercial houses in the world were coming down, 
 and hundreds of millions of dollars of supposed prop- 
 erty evaporating in thin air ; when you came to a dead 
 lock, and revolutions were threatened, w^hat brought you 
 up ? Fortunately for you it was the commencement of 
 the cotton season, and we have poured in upon you one 
 million six hundred thousand bales of cotton just at the 
 crisis to save you from destruction. That cotton, but for 
 the bursting of your speculative bubVdes in the North, 
 which produced the whole of this convulsion, would 
 have brought us |100,000,000. We have sold it for 
 $65,000,000, and saved you. Thirty-five million dollars 
 we, the slaveholders of the South, have put into the 
 charity box for your magnificent financiers, your " cot- 
 ton lords," your " merchant princes." 
 
 But, sir, the greatest strength of the South arises 
 from the harmony of her political and social institu- 
 tions. This harmony gives her a frame of society, the 
 best in the world, and an extent of political freedom, 
 combined with entire security, such as no other people 
 
318 
 
 ever enjoyed upon tlie face of the earth. Society 
 precedes government ; creates it, and ought to control 
 it ; but as far as we can look back in historic times 
 we find the case different; for government is no sooner 
 created than it becomes too strong for society, and 
 shapes and moulds, as well as controls it. In later 
 centuries the progress of civilization and of intelli- 
 gence has made the divergence so great as to produce 
 civil wars and revolutions; and it is nothing now but 
 the want of harmony between governments and soci- 
 eties which occasions all the uneasiness and trouble 
 and teri'or that we see abroad. It was this that 
 brou2:ht on the American Revolution. AVe threw off 
 a Government not adapted to our social system, and 
 made one for ourselves. The question is, how far have 
 we succeeded ? The South, so fiir as that is concerned, 
 is satisfied, harmonious, and prosperous, but demands 
 to be let alone. 
 
 In all social systems there must be a class to do 
 the menial duties, tO' perform the drudgery of life. 
 That is, a class requiring but a low order of intellect 
 and but little skill. Its requisites are vigoi", docility, 
 fidelity. Such a class you must have, or you would 
 not have that other class which leads progress, civiliza- 
 tion, and refinement. It constitutes the very mud-sill 
 of society and of political government; and you might 
 as well attempt to build a house in the air, as to build 
 either the one or the other, except on this mud-sill. 
 Fortunately for the South, she found a race adapted 
 to that purpose to her hand. A race inferior to her 
 own, but eminently qualified in temper, in vigor, in 
 docility, in capacity to stand the climate, to answer all 
 her purposes We use them for our pui-pose, and call 
 
319 
 
 them slaves. We found them slaves by the common 
 " consent of mankind," which, according to Cicero, " lex 
 naturcB est^ The highest proof of what is Nature's 
 law. We are old-fashioned at the South yet ; slave is 
 a word discarded now by "ears polite;" I will not 
 characterize that class at the North by that term ; but 
 you have it ; it is there ; it is everywhere ; it is eternal. 
 The Senator from New York said yesterday that 
 the whole world had abolished slavery. Aye, the 
 name^ but not the tiling ; all the powers of the earth 
 cannot abolish that. God only can do it when he 
 repeals \\\q fiat^ "the poor ye always have with you ;" 
 for the man who lives by daily labor, and scarcely 
 lives at that, and who has to put out his labor in the 
 market, and take the best he can get for it ; in short, 
 your whole hireling class of manual laborers and "ope^ 
 ratives," as you call them, are essentially slaves. The 
 difference between us is, that our slaves are hired for 
 life and w^ell compensated ; there is no starvation, no 
 begging, no want of employment among oui' people, 
 and not too much employment either. Youi*s are hired 
 by the day, not cared for, and scantily compensated, 
 which may be proved in the most painful manner, at 
 any hour in any street in any of your large towns. 
 Why, you meet more beggars in one day, in any 
 single street of the city of New York, than you would 
 meet in a lifetime in the whole South. We do not 
 aink that whites should be slaves either by law or 
 necessity. Our slaves are black, of another and in- 
 ferior race. The status in which we have placed them 
 is an elevation. They are elevated from the condition 
 in which God first created them, by being made our 
 slaves. None of that race on the whole face of the 
 
320 
 
 globe can be compared with the slaves of the South. 
 They are happy, content, unaspiring, and utterly in- 
 capable, from intellectual weakness, ever to give us 
 any trouble by their aspirations. Yours are white, of 
 your own race ; you are brothers of one blood. They 
 are your equals in natural endowment of intellect, 
 and they feel galled by their degradation. Our slaves 
 do not vote. We give them no political power. 
 Yours do vote, and, being the majority, they are the 
 depositaries of all your political power. If they knew 
 the tremendous secret, that the ballot-box is stronger 
 than " an army with banners," and could combine, 
 where would you be ? Your society would be recon- 
 structed, your government overthrown, your property 
 divided, not as they have mistakenly attempted to 
 initiate such proceedings by meeting in parks, with 
 arms in their hands, but by the quiet process of the 
 ballot-box. You have been making war upon us to 
 our very hearthstones. How would you like for us to 
 send lecturers and agitators North, to teach these 
 people this, to aid in combining, and to lead them ? 
 
 Mr. Wilson and others. Send them along. 
 
 Mr. Hammond. You say send them along. There 
 is no need of that. Your people are awaking. They 
 are coming here. They are thundering at our doors 
 for homesteads, one hundred and sixty acres of land 
 for nothing, and Southern Senators are supporting 
 them. Nay, they are assembling, as I have said, with 
 arras in their hands, and demanding work at $1,000 
 a year for six hours a day. Have you heard that the 
 ghosts of Mendoza and Torquemada are stalking in 
 the streets of your great cities ? That the inquisition 
 is at hand ? There is afloat a fearful rumor that there 
 
321 
 
 have been consultations for Vigilance Committees. 
 You know what that means. 
 
 Transient and temporary causes have thus far been 
 your preservation. The great West has been open to 
 your surplus population, and your hordes of semi- 
 barbarian immigrants, who are crowding in year by 
 year. They make a great movement, and yon call it 
 progress. Whither ? It is progress ; but it is pro- 
 gress towards Vigilance Committees. The South have 
 sustained you in a great measure. You are our factors. 
 You fetch and carry for us. One hundred and fifty 
 million dollars of our money passes annually through 
 your hands. Much of it sticks ; all of it assists to keep 
 your machinery together and in motion. Suppose we 
 were to discharge you ; suppose we were to take our 
 business out of your hands ; — we should consign you 
 to anarchy and poverty. You complain of the rule 
 of the South ; that has been another cause that has 
 preserved you. We have kept the Government con- 
 servative to the great purposes of the Constitution. 
 We have placed it, and kept it, upon the Constitution ; 
 and that has been the cause of your peace and pros- 
 perity. The Senator from New York says that that 
 is about to be at an end ; that you intend to take the 
 Government from us; that it will pass from our hands 
 into yours. Perhaps what he says is true; it may be ; 
 but do not forget — it can never be forgotten — it is 
 written on the brightest page of human history — that 
 we, the slaveholders of the South, took our country in 
 her infancy, and, after ruling her for sixty out of the 
 seventy years of her existence, we surrendered her to 
 you without a stain upon her honor, boundless in 
 
322 
 
 prosperity, incalculable in her strenglh, the wonder 
 and the admiration of the world. Time will show what 
 yon will make of her; but no time can diminish our 
 glory or your responsibility. 
 
SPEECPI 
 
 DELIVERED AT BARNWELL C. II., S. C, OCTOBER 29, 1858. 
 
 I thank you very sincerely for tliis kind and cor- 
 dial reception. To stand here and speak to the people 
 of Barnwell reminds me of times long gone by. I have 
 addressed you, I believe, but once in more than twenty 
 years. But those were stirring times, when, a quarter 
 of a century ago, I so often spoke to you here of the 
 Constitution and the Union — of your rights an 1 wrongs 
 in this Confederacy. No, not you, but yoar fathers. 
 I am, indeed, happy to recognize in this assemblage 
 many who were actors in those scenes ; but many, many 
 more, have been summoned hence, while you, my young 
 friends, have grown up to supply their places. The 
 galhint spirits who then surrounded me here, and whose 
 kindling eyes and heaving bosoms animated and re- 
 sponded to my speech, have for the most part passed 
 away, but the theme is still the same ; and it is my part 
 to-day, adhering with unchanged conviction and una- 
 bated zeal to every principle I then maintained, to dis- 
 course upon the same great topics. Our battle then was 
 for the Constitution and our rights, in the Union, if 
 possible — out of it, if need be. And this is our battle 
 now. 
 
324 
 
 The lapse of thirty years has brought much expe- 
 rience to the survivors of those who enlisted for this 
 great cause in Soutli Carolina. The veil of what was 
 then the future — a future covered with angry clouds 
 and doubts and darkness — has been removed, and look- 
 ing back, we now see the events of long years which 
 were then unknown to us. The hard-fought fields; 
 our chequered fortunes ; our victories, our defeats ; 
 the dead ; the living — all then deep buried in the womb 
 of time, are now all clear and palpable. And to those 
 of us who have been spared to make this retrospect, it is 
 a proud satisfaction to know that time and events have 
 proved that our principles were true and our cause 
 just; to recognize the unflinching courage and wonder- 
 ful ability with which they have been so long main- 
 tained, and to feel renewed assurance that they must 
 finally and fully triumph. 
 
 Your fathers confided in me from the fi.rst moment 
 that we met upon this spot. 1 hey took me in their 
 arms and lifted me into all the high places that were 
 within their reach ; and I have had many proofs that 
 they taught you to confide in me as they had done. 
 For this great and generous and abiding confidence and 
 trust, I never knew but one reason, and that was that 
 I always told them the truth, according to my best 
 knowledge and belief And as I dealt with them, I 
 shall deal with you. 
 
 The last Legislature of the State conferred on me 
 the high honor of a seat in the Senate of the United 
 States; and during the late stormy session of Congress, 
 I in part represented you there. You will expect me 
 to give you some account of the proceedings there, and 
 most especially of those which occupied four-fifths of 
 
325 
 
 time of the session, and produced such great excitement 
 throughout the country — ^I allude to the Kansas ques- 
 tion. And as no exception has been taken, so far as 1 
 know, to any act of mine, save my course on that, I 
 will take this occasion to give my views in full upon it. 
 
 When, four years ago, the Kansas and Nebraska act 
 was passed, giving governments to those Territories, I 
 was, like most of you, a private citizen. I was earnestly 
 eng-aored in renovating; old lands, and creatine^ new out 
 of morasses hitherto impenetrable, and I had as little 
 desire or expectation of ever again taking a part in 
 public affairs, as the least ambitious of you here present. 
 I made up my mind that this bill was fraught with de- 
 lusion and trouble to the South, and so expressed my- 
 self on all suitable occasions. 
 
 The bill had two leading features in it. It enacted 
 that every Territory, in forming its constitution for 
 the purpose of applying for admission into the Union, 
 should have the right to establish its own organic or 
 constitutional laws, and come in with its own institu- 
 tions, wdth the single condition that they should be re- 
 publican. Why, unless our constitution is mere waste 
 paper, all our institutions shams, and our theory of self- 
 government a fallacy, this principle and privilege is 
 their essence — lies at the bottom of the whole, and 
 constitutes the corner-stone. It is the very right for 
 which our fathers fought and made a revolution. I 
 might not have refused to reaffirm it, but it was super- 
 erogatory ; it might well weaken the whole structure 
 of the Government to dig up, for the mere purpose of 
 verification, its foundation. 
 
 The other feature of the bill was the repeal of the 
 Missouri Compromise line. That was already repealed ; 
 21 
 
326 
 
 it had long fulfilled its mission ; it had calmed the 
 troubled waters for a time ; it was obsolete until the 
 annexation of Texas, when we acceded to the demand 
 to extend it through the northern deserts of that State. 
 But when California came — California that should have 
 been and may yet be a slave State — and we demanded 
 to extend that line to the Pacific and thus secure for 
 the South a portion of the magnificent territory pur- 
 chased in great part by her blood and treasure, it was 
 refused. Then that line was blotted out everywhere 
 and forever. To repeal it was a mere formality. The 
 Supreme Court has recently pronounced it unconstitu- 
 tional, and so the repeal was in no respect of any im- 
 portance. 
 
 But this bill, with these two features, neither of them 
 of any practical importance, magnified and exagger- 
 ated by orators and newspapers into a great Southern 
 victory, led the South into the delusion that Kansas 
 might be made a slave State, and induced it to join in 
 a false and useless issue, which has kept the whole 
 country in turmoil for the last four years, and gave 
 fresh life and vigor to the Abolition party. 
 
 Through the most disgusting as well as tragic scenes 
 of fraud and force, the Territory of Kansas at length 
 came before Congress for admission as a State, with 
 what is known as the Lecompton Constitution, em- 
 bodying slavery among its provisions. But at the same 
 time the Convention, by an ordinance, demanded of 
 the United States some twenty-three millions of acres 
 of laud, instead of the four millions usually allowed 
 to new States containing public lands. It was almost 
 certain that a majority of the people of Kansas were 
 opposed to this constitution, but would not vote on it ; 
 
327 
 
 and this additional nineteen millions (which, if allowed, 
 would probably have kept them again from the recent 
 polls) was what the South was expected to pay for 
 that worthless slavery clause, which would have been 
 annulled as soon as Kansas was admitted. I confess 
 my opinion was that the South herself should kick that 
 Constitution out of Cons^ress. But the South thous^ht 
 otherwise. When the bill for its adoption was framed, 
 with what is called the Green Proviso^ I sti'enuously 
 objected to it, and felt very much disposed to vote 
 against the whole, but again gave way to the South, 
 which accepted it by acclamation. If that proviso 
 meant nothing, (and so I finally interpreted it,) it was 
 nonsense, and had no business there, being without 
 precedent. If it could be made to mean anything, it 
 must have been something wrong and dangerous. But, 
 as I said, the South, f;ir and wide, took that bill. The 
 House rejected it. They passed then the Crittenden 
 substitute, which proposed to submit the Lecom23ton 
 Constitution to a vote of the people of Kansas, and to 
 accept it, if ratified by them. The Senate had pre- 
 viously refused that substitute, and did so a second 
 time. It then asked a committee of conference. That 
 committee reported what is called the "English Bill." 
 By that bill Congress accepted the Lecompton Consti- 
 tution, pure and simple, without proviso. The land 
 ordinance of the Lecompton Constitution (which was 
 in no wise a part of the constitution, but a separate 
 measure) demanded, as I have said, a donation of some 
 twenty-three millions of acres of land, being nineteen 
 millions more than had been given to any other land 
 State. The "English Bill" cut this down to the usual 
 amount of four millions of acres, and required that the 
 
328 
 
 people of Kansas should ratify this modification, and 
 surrender all claim to the remainder of the lands, as 
 the condition of her final admission. Such a requisi- 
 tion has been made on every new State, carved out of 
 the public lands, that has been admitted into this Union 
 — sometimes in the enabling act, and, where there was 
 none, always after accepting the constitution. Go to 
 the statutes of Congress, and you will find it in every 
 one of them. It is the custom — it is necessary— and 
 this feature in the " English Bill " w^as in accordance 
 vrith strict precedent. The only difl:erence is this : that, 
 usually, the Legislature of the State has been required 
 to accept this compact by an irrevocable act, but in 
 this case it was referred to the people of Kansas di- 
 rectly. In this there was no sacrifice of principle what- 
 ever, nor was it without precedent altogether ; for in 
 the case of the State last before admitted, (Iowa,) this 
 question had been submitted to the Legislature or the 
 people, as Iowa might prefer. This is the whole sum 
 and substance of this " English Bill," except that it 
 further declared that unless the people of Kansas ac- 
 cepted this modified ordinance, they should not be ad- 
 mitted as a State until they had a population that would 
 entitle them to one Eepresentative under the Federal 
 apportionment. I voted for this bill ; I voted proper- 
 ly; I voted no compromise ; I sacrificed no particle of 
 principle or Southern interest. It is true, its phrase- 
 ology is halting and bungling ; it was drawn up hastily 
 and in great excitement. I objected to the wording 
 of it in several passages, but I assured myself that 
 nothing sinister was designed, and I voted for it, leaving 
 its authors responsible for its diction on the statute 
 book. I thought it preferable to the first bill the 
 
329 
 
 Senate passed, and voted for it more willingly. It is 
 true, some Northern Democrats who voted against the 
 Senate bill voted for this, and thus it was carried. But 
 was that a reason why I should not vote for it ? Does 
 that prove that I sacrificed any principle ? They found 
 themselves wrong, and perhaps wanted some excuse 
 to retrace their steps. I was happy to assist in giving 
 it to them without cost to ourselves. I was particularly 
 pleased to get rid of the mysterious proviso of the first 
 bill, and to require a solemn compact in regard to the 
 public lands, which had not been properly provided 
 for in that bill. 
 
 The only principle involved in this whole Kansas 
 affair — if an affair so rotten, from beginning to end, can 
 have a principle at all — was this : Would Congress 
 admit a slave State into the Union ? The Senate 
 said yes. The House, by adojDting the Crittenden sub- 
 stitute, said yes, if we are assured that a majority of 
 the people of the State are in favor of it. For this 
 substitute all the opposition voted in both Houses, so 
 that every member of Congress, of all parties, first and 
 last, committed themselves to the principle and policy 
 that a State should be admitted into the Union, with 
 or without slavery, according to the will of its own 
 people — thus re enacting one feature of the Kansas and 
 Nebraska bill. I should myself have been willing to 
 rest there, and let Kansas rest also. Whatever there 
 was of principle or honor in the matter was secured 
 by the votes already given. The English bill, how- 
 ever, came up in due course, and I voted for it cheer- 
 fully, believing that it was better calculated than any 
 that had been offered to close up this miserable 
 
330 
 
 business, whicli has furnished much the most dis- 
 graceful chapter, so far, in our history. 
 
 But it is said that in submitting this land ordinance 
 to a vote of the people of Kansas, Congress submitted 
 also the Lecompton Constitution with its pro-slavery 
 clause. If so, the passage in which it was done can 
 surely be pointed out. Badly drawn up as the bill is, 
 I should like to see the clause or the words that will 
 justify such an assertion. If there was such a clause, 
 why did not Judge Douglas and his friends vote for it ? 
 Why did not the black republicans and all who voted 
 for the Crittenden substitute w^hich also submitted the 
 constitution, vote for this bill ? It was the very point 
 they made, yet to a man they voted against it. That, 
 I think, should be conclusive. 
 
 But, then, it is said it was a virtual submission of 
 the constitution to the people, because, if they refused 
 to ratify the modified land ordinance, the admission 
 of Kansas under the Lecompton Constitution was de- 
 feated. Well, the facts are so ; I cannot and do not 
 deny them. But I should like to know how that could 
 by any possibility have been avoided or remedied. 
 Suppose Congress had admitted Kansas without modi- 
 fying anything, yielding even to her enormous "land 
 grab," which embraced many more acres than there 
 are in all South Carolina, I should like to know if the 
 Lecompton Constitution would not still have been sub- 
 mitted to the people as virtually as it was by the Eng- 
 lish bill ; that is, not submitted at all, but left with 
 them— an inevitable necessity. Congress could do no 
 more, no less, no other w^ay. The constitution belonged 
 to the people of Kansas. Congress could not withhold 
 it from them a moment, nor could it make them organ- 
 
331 
 
 ize under it, assemble their Legislature, assume the 
 position of a State, and send Senators and Representa- 
 tives to Congress against their own will. Can Congress 
 coerce a State into the Union ? Then Conojress can 
 coerce a State to remain in the Union, or drive a State 
 out of it. Congress is omnipotent. But where are, 
 then, the rights of the States ? Fortunately for us, 
 the Constitution of every State and of every Territory 
 asking to be a State, is not only virtually but actually 
 in the hands of its people at all times and under 
 all circumstances, and they cannot be divested of that 
 control without the utter destruction of the Federal 
 Constitution and an entire revolution. The whole 
 power of Congress in the premises is exhausted when 
 it accepts the Constitution without condition. 
 
 There are some who go still further, and assert that, 
 although there might be no way to avoid a submission 
 of the Lecompton Constitution to the control of the 
 people of Kansas, yet that the conference bill was a 
 compromise of prii^ciple, inasmuch as it specifically re- 
 quired them to act, and it made for them the definite 
 opportunity to defeat the constitution as well as the 
 ordinance. Now this is true as a fact, yet the inference 
 is absurd upon its very fiice. If Congress could not 
 take the Lecompton Constitution out of the hands of 
 the people of Kansas, what difference did it make 
 whether they voted on the ordinance in August, under 
 the direction of Congress, or any other time, whether 
 fixed by Congress or themselves ? August was agreed 
 upon, because it was very well to set a time and let 
 things end. But from August to August, again and 
 forever, this constitution was in the hands of the people 
 of Kansas, and they could do with it what they pleased. 
 
332 
 
 True, Congress might have avoided that specific occa- 
 sion and August vote by swallowing the land ordinance 
 and all, and asking no security for the remainder of 
 the public lands ; but Kansas could still have refused 
 to organize as a State, and no power under our Consti- 
 tution could have interfered. It is all words, and 
 nothing more. Congress was charged with bribing 
 Kansas to become a slave State. But the bribe was 
 by the conference bill, four millions of acres of land 
 instead of twenty-three millions. If we had given her 
 the whole twenty-three millions for her useless slavery 
 clause, there might have been some ground for the 
 charge. Yet it would have been of no avail, for Kansas 
 could, under no bribe or coercion known to our Govern- 
 ment, have been compelled to accept the constitution 
 or ordinance, or become a State against her own will 
 at any period whatever. I will not presume that any 
 one is less proficient in Constitutional lore, or is less 
 conversant with the history of Congressional proceed- 
 ings in the admission of new States than myself. But 
 I will say that I am incapable of comprehending them 
 at all if in this conference bill there was any " compro- 
 mise" of southern principle or interests, any concession 
 whatever by the South, any departure from the strict- 
 est construction of the Constitution, or any material 
 deviation from the usual practice of the Government. 
 
 The people of Kansas have, by an overwhelming 
 majority, rejected the land ordinance as modified by 
 Congress, and refused to come into the Union on such 
 terms. Be it so. It is what I expected — what 
 I rather desired. It sorts precisely with what I felt 
 when I saw Kansas thrust herself into Congress and 
 demand — reeking with blood and fraud — to be enrolled 
 
333 
 
 among the States. Let her stay out. I am opposed 
 to her coming in before she has the requisite popula- 
 tion ; not because she will be a free State, but because 
 r fully approved of the prohibitory clause of the con- 
 ference bill, and for that reason voted against the 
 admission of Oregon. Unless in exceptional cases, 
 such as that of Kansas was last winter, I do not think 
 that a State should be admitted with less population 
 than would entitle her to a member of the House. It 
 is not just to the other States, and is not consonant 
 with the theory of our government. 
 
 But I will not detain you longer with what belongs 
 to the past. The present and the future are what con- 
 cerns us most. You desire to know my opinion of the 
 course the South should pursue under existing circum- 
 stances. I will give you frankly and fully the results 
 of my observation and reflection on this all-important 
 point. 
 
 The first question is, do the people of the South 
 consider the present union of these States as an evil 
 in itself, and a thing that it is desirable we should get 
 rid of under all circumstances? There are some, I 
 know, who do. But I am satisfied that an overwhelm- 
 ing majority of the South would, if assured that this 
 government was hereafter to be conducted on the true 
 principles and construction of the Constitution, de- 
 cidedly prefer to remain in the Union, rather than 
 iacur the unknown costs and hazards of setting up a 
 separate government. I think I state what is true 
 when I say that, after all the bitterness that has char- 
 acterized our long warfare, the great body of the 
 southern people do not seek disunion, and will not 
 seek it as a primary object, however promptly they 
 
334 
 
 may accept it as an alternative, rather than submit to 
 unconstitutional abridgments of their rights. I con- 
 fess that, for many years of my life, I believed that 
 our only safety was the dissolution of the Union, and 
 I openly avowed it. I should entertain, and without 
 hesitation express the same sentiments now, but that 
 the victories we have achieved and those that I think 
 we are about to achieve, have inspired me with the 
 hope, I may say the belief, that we can fully sustain 
 ourselves in the Union and control its action in all 
 great affairs. It may well be asked how I can enter- 
 tain such views and expectations, when within these 
 few years the South has lost her equality in the Senate, 
 and the free States have at length a decided majority 
 in both Houses of Congress, while this unfortunate 
 Kansas contest has swept into their political graves so 
 many of our ancient friends in those States, that it 
 may be doubted whether they have at this moment, 
 after the recent elections — the finale of the disastrous 
 Kansas abortion — a majority in a single one of them; 
 and there seems to be at present no prospect of our 
 extending the area of slavery in any quarter. 
 
 These facts are true, and if you will bear with me 
 T will place them all in the strongest light I can before 
 you — for it is of the utmost importance that we 
 should at least see clearly how we stand, and what 
 are our resources, in order to form an idea of what we 
 can do, and how to avoid wasting our strength on 
 what cannot be accomplished. The equality of the 
 free and slave States has long been lost in the House ; 
 by the admission of California it was lost in the Senate. 
 Since then another free State has been admitted, and 
 another yet has passed the Senate, and in a few years 
 
335 
 
 more we shall have Kansas, Nebraska, Washington, 
 New Mexico, and perhaps others, on onr roll. The 
 emigration from Europe to the North, is sufficient to 
 form one or more new States every year. To the 
 South there is literally no emigration. We have, 
 since the closing of the slave trade, added to our 
 population mainly by the natural increase of onr 
 people, and we have no surplus population, white or 
 black, to colonize new States. We lost Kansas partly 
 by our inability to colonize it, and we are perhaps yet 
 to have a struggle for a portion of Texas. The idea 
 then of recovering the equality of the two sections, 
 even in the Senate, seems remote indeed. We have it 
 proposed to re-open the African slave trade, and bring 
 in hordes of slaves from that prolific region to restore 
 the balance. I once entertained that idea myself, but 
 on further investigation I abandoned it. I will not 
 now go into the discussion of it, further than to say 
 that the South is itself divided on that policy, and, 
 from appearances, opposed to it by a vast majority, 
 while the North is unanimously against it. It would 
 be impossible to get Congress to i-e-open the trade. 
 If it could be done then it would be unnecessary, for 
 that result could only be brought about by such an 
 entire abandonment by the North and the world of all 
 opposition to our slave system, that we might safely 
 cease to erect any defences for it. 
 
 But if we could introduce slaves, where could we 
 find suitable ten-itory for new slave States? The 
 Indian Reserve, west of Arkansas, might make one. 
 But we have solemnly guaranteed that to the rem- 
 nants of the red race. Everywhere else, I believe, 
 the borders of our States have reached the great 
 
336 
 
 desert which separates the Atlantic from the Pacific 
 States of this confederacy. No where is African 
 slavery likely to flourish in the little oases of that 
 Sahara of America. It is much more likely, I think, 
 to go to the Pacific slope, and to the north in the 
 great valley, than anywhere else outside of its present 
 limits. Shall we, as some suggest, take Mexico and 
 Central America to make slave States ? African sla- 
 very appears to have failed there. Perhaps, and most 
 probably, it will never succeed in those regions. If it 
 might, what are we to do with the seven or eight mil- 
 lions of hardly semi-civilized Indians, and the two or 
 three millions of Creole Spaniards and mongrels who 
 now hold these countries ? We would not enslave 
 the Indians. Experience has proven that they are 
 incapable of steady labor, and are therefore unfit for 
 slavery. We would not exterminate them, even if 
 that inhuman achievement would not cost asres of 
 murder and incalculable sums of money. We could 
 hardly think of attempting to plant the black race 
 there, superior for labor as it is, though inferior per- 
 haps in intellect, and expect to maintain a permanent 
 and peaceful industry, such as slave labor must be, to 
 be profitable, amid those idle, restless, demoralized 
 children of Montezuma, scarcely more civilized, per- 
 haps more sunk in superstition than in his age, and 
 now trained to civil war by half a century of inces- 
 sant revolution. What, I say, could we do with these 
 people or these countries to add to Southern strength ? 
 Nothing. Could we degrade ourselves so far as to 
 annex them on equal terms, they would be sure to 
 come into this Union free States all. To touch them 
 in any way is to be contaminated. England and 
 
337 
 
 France, I have no doubt, would gladly see us take this 
 burthen on our back, if we would secure for them 
 their debts and a neutral route across the Isthmus. 
 Such a route we must have for ourselves, and that is 
 all we have to do with them. If we cannot get it by 
 negotiation or purchase, we must seize and hold it by 
 force of arms. The law of nations would justify it, 
 and it is absolutely necessary for our Pacific relations. 
 The present condition of those unhappy States is 
 certainly deplorable, but the good God holds them in 
 the hollow of his hand, and will work out their proper 
 destinies. 
 
 We might expand the area of slavery by acquiring 
 Cuba, where African slavery is already established. 
 Mr. Calhoun, however, from whose matured opinions, 
 whether on constitutional principles or southern policy, 
 it will rarely be found safe to depart, said that Cuba 
 was " forbidden fruit " to us, unless plucked in an 
 exigency of war. There is no reasonable ground to 
 suppose that we can acquire it in any other way ; and 
 the war that will open to us such an occasion will be 
 great and general, and bi'ing about results that the 
 keenest intellect cannot now anticipate. But if we 
 had Cuba, we could not make more than two or three 
 slave States there, which would not restore the equili- 
 brium of the North and South ; while, with the African 
 slave trade closed, and her only resort for slaves to 
 this continent, she would, besides crushing out our 
 whole sugar culture by her competition, afford in a 
 few years a market for all the slaves in Missouri, 
 Kentucky and Maryland. She is, notwithstanding the 
 exorbitant taxes imposed on her, capable now of ab- 
 sorbing the annual increase of all the slaves on this 
 
338 
 
 continent, and consumes, it is said, twenty to thirty 
 thousand a year by her system of labor. Slaves 
 decrease there largely. In time, under the system 
 practiced, every slave iu America might be extermi- 
 nated in Cuba, as were the Indians. However the 
 idle African may procreate in the tropics, it yet re- 
 mains to be proven, and the fticts are against the con- 
 clusion that he can, in those regions, work and thrive. 
 It is said Cuba is to be "Africanized" rather than the 
 United States should take her. That threat, which, 
 at one time was somewhat alarming, is no longer any 
 cause of disquietude to the South. What have we 
 lost by that ? I think we reaped some benefit ; and, 
 if the slaves of Cuba were turned loose, a great sugar 
 culture would grow up in Louisiana and Texas, rival- 
 ling that of cotton, and diverting from it so much 
 labor that cotton would rarely fall below its present 
 price. 
 
 You must not suppose, for a moment, that I am 
 opposed to " the expansion of the area of African 
 slavei'y." On the contrary, I believe that God created 
 negroes for no other purpose than to be the " hewers 
 of wood and drawers of water " — that is, to be the 
 slaves of the white race ; and I wish to see them in 
 that capacity on every spot on the surface of the globe 
 where their labor is necessary or beneficial. Nor do I 
 doubt that such will be the final j-esult. Much less 
 would I oppose the acquisition of territory that would 
 place the slave States on a numerical equality, and 
 more, with the free States in the Union. But this 
 review and scrutiny of the resources of the South 
 shows, I think, pretty conclusive!}^, that we have not 
 now the surplus population, nor suitable territory. 
 
339 
 
 within our present reach, to create any number of 
 slave States ; that to attempt it by costly, yet imprac- 
 ticable and abortive, enterprises, will be to waste our 
 strength to no purpose ; and that the idea of recover- 
 ing the equality in voting of the slave and free States, 
 vrhether on the floors of Congress or elsewhere, is 
 visouary. We had better, then, I think, at once 
 make up our minds, according to the i^acts, and giving 
 up all bootless efforts, look every consequence of our 
 position full in the face. For one, I can do so without 
 dismay — without the slightest trepidation. Why, the 
 South, numbering twelve millions of people, possesses 
 already an imperial domain that can well support an 
 hundred millions more. What does she need to seek 
 beyond her borders, or what has she to fear ? With 
 such a sea-coast and harbors ; such rivers, mountains and 
 plains ; so full of all the precious metals, so fertile in 
 soil, so genial in climate, pi'oducing in such unparalleled 
 abundance the most valuable agricultural staples of 
 tbe world ; capable of manufacturing to any extent ; 
 and possessing the best social and industrial systems 
 that have ever yet been organized — she might have 
 sunk into sloth from excess of prosperity had she not 
 been kept on the alert by the fierce assaults of an 
 envious world. Assaults which, at one time alarmins", 
 it lias been in fact scarcely more than wholesome exer- 
 cise to repel ; an exercise which has made us the most 
 virtuous and one of the most enlightened and most 
 powerful people who now flourish on the globe. The 
 South has long been undervaluing and doing great 
 injustice to herself. She has been lamenting her weak- 
 ness, and croaking about the dangers that beset her, 
 when she might glory in her strength and hurl defiance 
 to her enemies. 
 
340 
 
 But it is said tliat witli a fixed and overwhelming 
 free State majority against us in this Union, we must, 
 in spite of all our natural advantages, dissolve the 
 connection to insure our present safety and accomplish 
 our proper destiny. Perhaps so. But permit me to 
 suggest, not yet. The dissolution of the Union is an 
 alternative that we have always at command, and for 
 which we should be ever ready ; but a peaceful, pros- 
 perous and powerful people- may not challenge Fate a 
 day too soon. The question still remains, can the free 
 States be brought to concur permanently in any line 
 of policy that will subvert the Constitution, and 
 seriously damage the South in this confederacy ? I do 
 not believe that they can. Reckless as is political 
 ambition, and insane as fanaticism ever is, I have no 
 idea that the free States can be consolidated on the 
 wild project of ruling the slaveholders by mere brute 
 numl)ers, either through the ballot-box or by force of 
 arms ; whether to emancipate our slaves, or strip us of 
 the fi'uits of their labor; or to govern us with the 
 mildness and paternal care due to inferiors. The ner- 
 vous in the South, and the abolition demagogues of 
 the North, may believe it. But when it comes to the 
 actual test, if neither sober sense nor patriotism should 
 prevail, the sense of danger and the love of cotton and 
 tobacco would, with our northern brethren, in every 
 crisis over-ride their love of nesrroes. On this I think 
 you may depend, despite the insolent boasts of the 
 abolitionists of what they will do when they get the 
 government in their hands. The North has only to 
 be made clearly sensible how far she can go, and what 
 the South will not submit to. She will not trespass 
 beyond that, but will content herself with the glory 
 
341 
 
 of carrying the alternate biennial elections, as slie has 
 just done — always leaving it to the democracy to carry 
 that which makes the President. 
 
 But I am making mere assertions. Allow me, 
 then, to refer to facts to show the past power of the 
 South in this Union, and the present state of the 
 great questions in which she is most deeply interested. 
 When, thirty years ago, we began this arduous conflict 
 for the constitutional reform of this government and 
 the security of the South, the South herself was 
 thoroughly divided. The tariff, the bank, the internal 
 improvement system, nay, even abolition itself, all had 
 the sanction of a large number of our most prominent 
 Southern men. If they did not all originate, they 
 were all resuscitated, in that era of infatuation, when 
 a southern President proclaimed that w^e were "all 
 federalists, all republicans;" when Southern Statesmen 
 sneered at State rights, and the Constitution became 
 for the time a dead letter. 
 
 The tariff of 1828 levied average duties of more 
 than forty per cent, on all of our imports. By the 
 tariff of 1857 the average of duties was reduced below 
 twenty per cent. We have accomplished that much ; 
 and, besides, the principle of free trade is pretty 
 generally conceded now throughout the Union. It 
 cannot be denied that this is a great success. I think 
 the duties should be reduced still lower ; and parti- 
 cularly that the discriminations against the agricultural 
 interests should be abolished. But it is supposed that 
 there will be a demand for their increase at the next 
 session. If so, it will of course be resisted, and I trust 
 successfully. Free trade is the test, the touchstone of 
 free government, as monopoly is of despotism. I have 
 
 99, 
 
342 
 
 no hesitation in saying that the plantation States should 
 discard any government that made a protective tariff 
 its policy. They should not submit to pay tribute 
 for the support of any other industrial system than 
 their own, much less to make good the bubble specula- 
 tions of another section of the Union. Unequal taxa- 
 tion is, after all, what we have most to fear in this 
 Union, and against that we must be always ready to 
 adopt the most decisive measures. 
 
 The internal improvement system was in full 
 vigor in 1828. Inaugurated also by southern men, it 
 absorbed all the surplus of the treasury, and being in 
 its nature unlimited, it was capable of absorbing all 
 the revenue that could be extorted by the highest 
 possible tariff. That too, if not destroyed, has been 
 checked and crippled by southern action. It is true 
 that it still appears annually in Congress — but the 
 once haughty brigand is now little more than a sturdy 
 beggar. 
 
 We had then, also, in full operation, a Bank of 
 the United States, with branches in all our principal 
 cities. It received and speculated on all the revenues 
 of the government, and controlled and concentrated in 
 the North all the exchanges, thus levying a per cent- 
 age upon every commercial transaction of the South. 
 That has been annihilated. It sleeps the sleep that 
 knows no waking. But let me say that the system 
 which it established still exists. Despite of its destruc- 
 tion by the Federal Government and the collection of 
 the revenue in specie, our exchanges still centre in the 
 North, and our otherwise stable industry is still com- 
 pelled to participate more or less in all the reckless 
 speculations of that fanatical section — more fanatical 
 
343 
 
 in its love of money than even in its devotion to 
 negroes. But this is a self-imposed vassalage. Through 
 the privileges which our southern legislatures have 
 granted to our innumerable banks, we are made tribu- 
 tary to New York, which is itself tributary to London, 
 the great world centre of exchanges in our age. Thus, 
 by our own acts, we j^ay double tribute, though nearly 
 all the trade of the United States with England is 
 based on southern products. 
 
 Thus has the South, by her energy and ability, 
 disposed of the capital grievances against which she 
 protested — with almost half her public men against 
 her — in 1828. During this time our opponents have 
 twice wrested the government from us, and inflicted 
 other injuries, but they were soon stripped of their 
 power and their acts repealed. Only four times since 
 the organization of this government has the North had 
 possession of it, and in each case only for one term. 
 The North has never united long on any policy. The 
 injuries inflicted on the South have been mainly in- 
 flicted by her own ambitious, factious and divided 
 public men, and our history proves that no man and no 
 measure has yet been strong enough to stand against 
 the South when united. I believe none ever will. 
 
 But it is thought that the abolitionists will inevita- 
 bly get the power of this government permanently 
 into their hands, and, backed by the o^^inion of the 
 world, use it for our destruction. Let us consider the 
 facts. From the time that the wise and good Las 
 Casas first introduced into America the institution of 
 African slavery — I say institution, because it is the 
 oldest that exists, and will, I believe, survive all others 
 
 that flourish — it has had its enemies. For a lono* 
 
 o 
 
344 
 
 while they were chiefly men of peculicar and eccentric 
 religious notions. Their first practical and political 
 success arose from the convulsions of the French Kev- 
 olution, which lost to that empire its best colony. 
 Next came the prohibition of the slave trade — the 
 excitement of the Missouri Compromise in this coun- 
 try, and the then deliberate emancipation of the slaves 
 in their colonies by the British government in 1833-4. 
 About the time of the passage of that act, the abolition 
 agitation was revived again in this country, and aboli- 
 tion societies were formed. I remember the time well, 
 and some of you do also. And Avhat then was the 
 state of opinion in the South? Washington had 
 emancipated his slaves. Jefferson had bitterly de- 
 nounced the system, and had done all he could to 
 destroy it. Our Clays, Marshalls, Crawfords, and 
 many other prominent southern men, had led off in 
 the colonization scheme. The inevitable effect in the 
 South was, that she believed slaveiy to be an evil — 
 weakness — disgraceful — nay, a sin. She shrank from 
 the discussion of it. She cowered under every threat. 
 She attempted to apologiz3, to excuse herself, under 
 the plea — which was true — that England had forced 
 it on her ; and in fear and trembling she awaited a 
 doom that she deemed inevitable. 
 
 But a few bold sj^irits took the question up ; 
 they compelled the South to investigate it anew and 
 thoroughly, and what is the result ? Why, it would 
 be difficult now to find a southern man who feels the 
 system to be the slightest burthen on his conscience ; 
 who does not, in fact, regard it as an equal advantage 
 to the master and the slave, elevating both ; as wealth, 
 strength and power ; and as one of the main pillars 
 
345 
 
 and controlling influences of modern civiliz ition ; and 
 who is not now prepared to maintain it at every 
 hazard. Such have been for us the happy results of 
 this abolition discussion. So far, our gain has been 
 immense from this contest, savage and malignant as it 
 has been. Nay, we have solved ali'eady the question 
 of emancipation by this re-examination and explosion 
 of the false theories of religion, philanthropy and 
 political economy which embarrassed our fathers in 
 their day. With our convictions and our strength, 
 emancipation here is simply an impossibility to man, 
 whether by persuasion, purchase or coercion. The 
 rock of Gibraltar does not stand so firm on its base as 
 our slave system. For a quarter of a century it has 
 borne the brunt of a hurricane as fierce and pitiless as 
 ever raged. At the North and in Europe they cried 
 " havoc," and let loose upon us all the dogs of war. 
 And how stands it now ? Why, in this identical 
 quarter of a century our slaves have doubled in num- 
 bers, and each slave has more than doubled in value. 
 The very negro who, as a prime laborer, would have 
 brought four hundred dollars in 1828, would now, 
 with thirty more years upon him, sell for eight hun- 
 dred dollars. What does all this mean? Why, that 
 for ourselves we have settled this question of emancipa- 
 tion against all the world, in theory and practice, and 
 the world must accept our solution. The only inquiry 
 is, how long this new found superstition will survive, 
 and how far it pjay carry its votaries elsewhere? 
 What changes in production, in commerce, society or 
 government, it may effect ? For production, commerce, 
 society and government, must yield and change 
 whenever they come in contact with the great funda- 
 
346 
 
 mental principle of the subordination of the inferior 
 to the superior man — as made by God ; and especially 
 of the colored to the white races. It is, I say, only 
 througli the evils that this superstition may bring 
 upon other peoples, and especially on those of the 
 North and of Europe, with whom we are so closely 
 connected, that the South can be materially damaged 
 by it, standing as she now does, firm, assured, united. 
 How, then, is it with others ? 
 
 Permit me to say that, in my opinion, the tide of 
 abolition fanaticism has begun to ebb everywhere, and 
 will never rise again. When the English freed the 
 negroes in their colonies, it was not wholly a senti- 
 mental movement, dictated by political radicals and 
 the saints of Exeter Hall. Her statesmen, in their 
 ignorance, thought that what was called free labor — 
 that is, " wages slavery " — would succeed in tropical 
 culture as well or better than slave labor. In their 
 arrogance they believed also that all the world must 
 follow their exam})le in this silly scheme of abolition ; 
 and that from her o^reat wealth and world-encirclinof 
 colonies, the monopoly of cotton and sugar culture 
 would fall into the hands of England, Nature, and 
 the indomitable spirit and intellect of the South, have 
 disappointed all their calculations. The South still 
 flourishes, and cotton and sugar, and coffee and rice 
 and tobacco, are still the heritage of the slaveholders. 
 
 Galled by their utter dependence upon us for cot- 
 ton, without the free use of which they would both 
 tumble into ruin in a day, England, and France, who, 
 in her frequent frenzies, at length destroyed all her 
 colonies by emancipation, have ransacked the universe 
 to find climes and soils adapted to the cheap growth 
 
347 
 
 of this great staple. They have failed everywhere. It 
 is not that the soils and climates do not exist; but 
 that this and the other great agricultural staples, sugar, 
 rice, tobacco, coffee, can never be produced as articles 
 of wide extended commerce, except by slave labor. 
 This they at length found out. But such labor they 
 had repudiated everywhere. No, not everywhere. 
 Not in France nor in Great Britain, where they still 
 hold as sacred splendid thrones and palmy aristocracies 
 amid starving laborers. Only for outside barbarians 
 they ordained freedom and equality. But failing in 
 all their schemes, and finding that, with all their costly 
 expenditures and high sounding manifestoes, they had 
 simply ruined their own colonies, and made themselves 
 the vassals of the slaveholders, what have they done ? 
 Why, renewed the slave trade. Not in name. Oh, 
 no ! Exeter Hall and the Parliament Houses still 
 thunder execrations against that ; while the colonists, 
 under governmental protection, and with English 
 money, wrung by taxation from her " wages slaves," 
 are importing by hundreds of thousands Chinese and 
 Hindoo Coolies, under conditions compared with which 
 the Algerine slavery of the last century was merciful. 
 They do not hold and support them as we do our 
 slaves, for better, for worse, in sickness and health, in 
 childhood and old age. No ; in their prime of life 
 they seduce them from their homes, transport them to 
 distant and unwholesome climes ; for the merest pit- 
 tance of wages, consume their best years in the severest 
 labors, and then turn them out to die — the direst 
 slavery that brutal man has ever instituted. France, 
 less sensitive — haviuo^ no Exeter Hall — embracins: the 
 same scheme, resorts to Africa, and openly makes pur. 
 
348 
 
 chases, for so they may be called, from slave catchers ; 
 nay, she buys from the President of Liberia, the far- 
 famed settlement of our own Colonization Society; 
 buys the colonists, our own emancipated slaves, who, 
 sick of freedom, prefer any form of slavery, and in 
 their desperation do not hesitate to make their pious 
 patrons in this country the laughing-stock of the whole 
 world. 
 
 Thus these two nations — France and England, 
 whose adoption of this abolition crotchet alone made 
 it respectable and influential — have thoroughly re- 
 nounced it, practically, and almost in theory. The 
 press of England, j^erhaps the greatest power of the 
 world, sustains these movements ; while in France the 
 newspapers are openly discussing the question of 
 importing negro slaves, by name, in Algeria. I think 
 it may be fairly said that in Europe abolition has run 
 its course. Brougham, Palmerstcn, Russell, and all 
 the old political agitators, are hanging their harps 
 upon the willows. Even the son of Wilberforce, the 
 Fanatic, approves of coolie slavery, which we abhor. 
 But recently the British government openly surren- 
 dered its claim to the right of search — a claim set up 
 mainly to put down the African slave trade, and with- 
 out which all attempts to do it by force will probably 
 be idle. And there is nothing to surprise us in all 
 this, if we are correct in our views of African slavery. 
 If it be sustained by the religion of the Bible; if 
 neither humanity nor sound philosophy oppose it ; if, 
 as we are convinced, it is a social, political, and econo- 
 mical benefit to the world, then it was inevitable that, 
 sooner or later, the abolition crusade must die out — 
 and why not now ? 
 
349 
 
 If there is truth in what I have stated to you — ^if 
 the abolition fever has neai'ly or quite exhausted itself 
 in Europe — if time and facts have proved there, that 
 it is an absurdity — it seems to me we should not doubt 
 that its career is about to close here. Such is my 
 opinion, however differently those may think who 
 judge only by appearances, or take their cues from 
 agitating politicians. I ask any one to tell me upon 
 what measure or upon what man the abolitionists of 
 this country can ever again muster their legions as 
 they did in 1856 ? Kansas is squeezed dry. It stinks 
 in the nostrils of all people. They can do no more 
 there. Will they attempt a " cry " against the Supreme 
 Court for the Dred Scott decision ? What is there in 
 that to inflame popular sentiment ? It is always uphill 
 business to agitate against a judiciary, but especially 
 against the Supreme Court of the United States, which 
 the northern people have been taught to revere as the 
 bulwark of their liberties. Will they demand the 
 abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia ? They 
 have never been able to do much with that, though 
 they have often tried. That issue is a little too practi- 
 cal and too dangerous. Not many are bold enough 
 to embark in it. They might as well make the 
 question of disunion nakedly. Will they take up the 
 abstract, and, probably, never again to be other than 
 abstract, proposition of "no more slave States? *"' They 
 have done that. They have already split upon it. 
 The northwest will not take it, and the free States, at 
 bottom, all want Cuba. They love molasses, and 
 hanker after free trade with that rich island. Where, 
 then, are they to go ? I cannot see. They do not 
 appear to see themselves. Will any one state the 
 
350 
 
 practical question, if we offer them none, — and we 
 have none to offer, — on which they are next to rally 
 for the conquest of the South ? The measure or the 
 man ? It does seem to me that this great fire is dying 
 out from want of fuel. That this crusade, as many 
 crusades before, has exhausted itself, and that thei'e is 
 no argument or leader that can keep it alive. They 
 have had their Peter Hermits, but their Godfreys, 
 their Baldwins, their lion-hearted Richards, where are 
 they ? It seems that they will scarcely agree even on 
 their Louis IX., who shall lead their last pious cam- 
 paign and enjoy martyrdom. 
 
 And let me say that if the abolitionists cannot 
 unite the free States as a purely anti-slavery party in 
 the presidential election of 1860, and fail again in 
 1864, we shall never hear more of them as a political 
 party ; and it is only as a political party that they are 
 worthy of our notice. There always will be aboli- 
 tionists — for fools, enthusiasts, men of morbid imagi- 
 nations, bent on mischief or ambitious of notoriety, 
 always will exist. But the abolition party in the free 
 States is now almost wholly political. Da you sup- 
 pose that the Se wards. Hales, Wades, Wilsons, Chases, 
 and their associates, care anything for African slavery, 
 or are really hostile to our system of labor, any more 
 than is the President, Dickinson, Bright, Pugh, or 
 Douglas ? I do not. Their object is political power. 
 They have placed themselves on this spring-tide of 
 fanaticism to obtain it. If it fails them — if, at the 
 next presidential election, assuredly if at the two next 
 — we beat them, all this party machinery will fall to 
 the ground, and the Smiths, Tappans, Garrisons, and 
 Parkei-s, will be left alone to their glory. 
 
351 
 
 But if I am all wrong — if my facts and reasonings 
 are false, and my hopes delusive — if, in 1860, they 
 beat us — what then ? These are questions that may 
 well be asked. And the answer is obvious. We 
 must be prepared ; and the very efforts we must make 
 to j^revent such results will better prepare us than any 
 course we can pursue that I can see. We must be 
 prepared, I say, to take care of ourselves, whatever 
 may come. It is clear that the slaveholding States of 
 this confederacy, whatever hazards they may choose 
 to incur by remaining in alliance with a majority of 
 non-slaveholders now so inflamed against them, must 
 ever and at all times hold, under God, their destinies 
 in their own hands. They can never permit any 
 foreign or hostile power to legislate in reference to 
 their peculiar industrial system, whether to abolish or 
 modify, or impose undue burdens on it. Such legisla- 
 tion must be resisted with all our means, and without 
 regard to any consequences. If it should so happen 
 that the free States of this Union, being now, and 
 always to be, in a majority, do establish a political 
 line between the two sections, and the two systems of 
 labor, legislate upon it and maintain it, then they will 
 constitute a power as foreign to us as any nation in the 
 world, and we cannot submit to it. Whatever the 
 weak and defenceless colonies of other countries may 
 have submitted to, before these southern States will 
 be placed in the condition of St. Domingo or Jamaica, 
 or one at all approximating to it, they will rend this 
 Union into fragments and plunge the world in ruin. 
 It is in their power to do both, for the world cannot 
 get on without them ; and, if ruthless fanaticism and 
 brute force combine, under whatever names, and with 
 
352 
 
 whatever authority, to ride them clown, they will 
 carry with them the pillars of the temple of civiliza- 
 tion, and force a common fute on all mankind. 
 
 There are many who believe that some such catas- 
 trophe is inevitable. It caimot be denied that from 
 appearances here and elsewhere, that it is entirely pos- 
 sible, and it may not be unwise for all of us to suppose 
 it probable. Although I think that the ranks of our 
 enemies are broken and the moral victory won, I am 
 far from proclaiming that the battle is over, and that 
 we have now only to gather the fruits of our success. 
 Many a battle has been won and lost again, by over- 
 weening confidence, by reckless pursuit, or by turning 
 aside for the sake of spoil. Let us fall into none of 
 these errors, for we are still in the very heat and 
 turmoil of this great conflict, and all may yet be lost. 
 What I wish to impress upon you is that there is hope 
 for effort — triumph for union, energy and persever- 
 ance. 
 
 It has fallen upon the slaveholders of the South to 
 conduct this question of African slavery to its final 
 conclusion. Such is our fate. It is inevitable. Let 
 us cheerfully accept and manfully perform our des- 
 tined parts, and do it with no distrust of God ; with 
 no misgivings of our cause or of ourselves ; with no 
 panic ; no foolish attempt to fly from dangers wdiich 
 cannot be avoided, which have not been proven to be 
 insurmountable, and which I for one believe tbat we 
 can conquer. After what has been achieved by a 
 divided South, now that it is almost thoroughly united 
 — now that we have a President and his Cabinet — a 
 majority in both Houses of Congress — a Supreme 
 Court of the United States, and still hosts of allies in 
 
353 
 
 tlie free States, all substantially concuring with ns in 
 our construction of the Constitution, and under its 
 obligations earnestly battling with us for the main- 
 tenance of our rights and interests ; we owe it to our 
 country, to ourselves, to the world and to posterity, 
 to cast aside all weak fears — all petty or impracticable 
 issues — all mere wrangling and vituperation, personal 
 and sectional, and move forward wdth the dignity of 
 conscious strength and the calmness of undoubted 
 courage, to the overthrow of every false theory of 
 government, and every sentimental scheme for organiz- 
 ing labor; carrying with us the Constitution of our 
 fathers, and if we can, their Union. 
 
 But the slave States constituting, and as I think 
 forever to constitute, a numerical minority, can how- 
 ever accomplish nothing in this Union, without the 
 aid of faithful allies in the free States. It has been of 
 late too much the habit in the South to mistrust all 
 such allies — to disparage, to denounce, and drive them 
 from us. Nothing could be more unwise or more 
 unjust. It is distrusting the truth and justice of our 
 own cause, or calumniating human nature, to doubt 
 that there are in the free States thousands of sound- 
 thinking, true-hearted and gallant men, who concur 
 essentially in our views, and are ready to make com- 
 mon cause with us. Nay, it is falsifying history and 
 fact. During the late session I saw men acting cor- 
 dially and vigorously with us against the positive 
 instructions of their excited constituents, at the hazard 
 of political martyrdom ; and in two instances, that 
 martyrdom was consummated before the adjournment. 
 Shall we do no honor to such men ? Shall we pay no 
 tribute to such heroic devotion to truth, to justice, and 
 
354 
 
 tbe Constitution ? Shall we revile them in common 
 with all northern men, because many revile and some 
 have betrayed us ? To be truly great, we must be 
 not only just, but generous and forbearing wdth all 
 mankind. Let us place ourselves in the situation of 
 northern public men in this great contest, consider 
 their dangers and responsibilities, and making every 
 allowance for human weakness, do homage to the 
 brave and faithful. 
 
 And this leads me to say that, having never been 
 a mere party politician, intriguing and wire-pulling to 
 advance myself or others, I am not learned in the 
 rubric of the thousand slang, unmeaning, and usually 
 false party names to which our age gives birth. But 
 I have been given to understand that there are to be 
 two parties in the South, called " National " and 
 " State Rio-hts Democrats." The word " national " hav- 
 ing been carefully excluded from the Constitution by 
 those who framed it, I never supposed it applicable to 
 any principle or policy of our government, and having 
 been surrendered to the almost exclusive use, in this 
 country, of the federal consolidationists, I have ever 
 myself repudiated it. But if a southern " National 
 Democrat" means one who is ready to welcome into 
 our ranks with open arms, and cordially embrace and 
 promote according to his merits every honest free 
 State man who reads the Constitution as we do, and 
 will cooperate with us in its maintenance, then I 
 belong to that party, call it as you may, and I should 
 grieve to find a southern man who did not. 
 
 But, on the other hand, having been all my life, 
 and being still, an ardent " State rights " man — be- 
 lieving "State rights" to be an essential, nay, the 
 
355 
 
 essential element of tLe Constitution, and that no one 
 who thinks otherwise can stand on the same constitu- 
 tional platform that I do, it seems to me that I am, 
 and all those with whom I act habitually, are, if de- 
 mocrats at all, true " State rights democrats." Nothing 
 in public affairs so perplexes and annoys me as these 
 absurd party names, and I never could be interested 
 in them. I could easily comprehend two great par- 
 ties, standing on the two great antagonistic principles 
 which ai'e inherent in all things human : the right and 
 the wrong, the good and the evil, according to the 
 peculiar views of each individual, and was never at a 
 loss to find my side, as now, in what are known as the 
 democratic and republican parties of this country. 
 But the minor distinctions have, for the most part, 
 seemed to me to be factitious and factious, gotten up 
 by cunning men for selfish purposes, to which the true 
 patriot and honest man should be slow to lend himself 
 For myself, and for you while I represent you, I shall 
 go for the Constitution strictly construed and faithfully 
 carried out. I will make my fight, such as it may be, 
 by the side of any man, whether from the North 
 South, East, or West, who will do the same, and I w^ill 
 do homage to his virtue, his ability, his courage, and — 
 so far as I can — make just compensation for his toils 
 and hazards, and sacrifices. As to the precise mode 
 and manner of conducting this contest, that must ne- 
 cessarily, to a great extent, depend upon the exigencies 
 that arise; but of course I could be compelled, by no 
 exigency, by no party ties or arrangements, to give up 
 my priiiciples, or the least of those principles which 
 constitute our great cause. 
 
 K the South has any desire to remain in the 
 
356 
 
 Union, and control it, as her safety requires that she 
 should, in some essential particulars, if she does remain 
 in it, she must conciliate her northern allies. She 
 must be just, kind and true to all who are true to 
 truth and to her. But if she determines, and when- 
 ever she determines, to throw off her northern friends 
 and dissolve this Union, I need scarcely say that I 
 shall, without hesitation, go with her fully and faith- 
 fully. I do not for a moment doubt that, in or out of 
 this TTnion, she can sustain herself among the foremost 
 nations of the earth. All that she requires is the 
 union of her own people, and happily they never were 
 at any former period so united and harmonious as now. 
 A homogeneous people, with our social and industrial 
 institutions the same everywhere, and all our great 
 interests identical, we should always have been united 
 in our moral and political opinions and policy. The 
 ambitious dissensions of the host of brilliant men 
 whose names adorn our annals, have heretofore kept 
 us apart. The abolitionists have, at length, forced 
 upon us a knowledge of our true position, and com- 
 pelled us into union — an union not for aggression, but 
 for defence ; purely conservative of the Constitution 
 and the constitutional rights of every section and of 
 every man. The union of these States, from the 
 Canadas to the Eio Grande, and from shore to shore 
 of the two great oceans of the globe, whatever splendor 
 may encircle it, is but a policy and not a principle. 
 It is subordinate to rights and interests. But the 
 union of the slaveholders of the South is a principle 
 involving all our rights and all our interests. Let that 
 union be perfect and perpetual. It constitutes our 
 strength, our safety and prosperity. Let us frown 
 
357 
 
 down every proposition tliat miglit seriously divide 
 us, and present to our assailants from every quarter a 
 solid and impregnable phalanx. Let us also give to 
 the winds every thought of fear, every feeling of des- 
 pondency, and fully comprehending, and temperately 
 but resolutely asserting our great power in this confed- 
 eracy and throughout the world, let us develop and 
 consolidate our resources, and devote ourselves man- 
 fully and hopefully to the accomplishment of the 
 magnificent future that is within our reach. 
 
SPEECH 
 
 ON THE RELATIONS OF THE STATES, DELIVERED IN ,THE SENATE ;OF 
 THE UNITED STATES, MAY 21, 1860. 
 
 The Senate having under consideration the resolu- 
 tions submitted by Mr. Davis on the 1st of March, rel- 
 ative to the relations of the States, and the rights of 
 persons and property in the Territories, and the duty 
 of protecting slave property in the Territories, when a 
 necessity for so doing shall exist— Mr. Hammond said : 
 
 Mk. President : I feel reluctant to trespass on the 
 time of the Senate, and to follow up with a dry con- 
 stitutional ai'gument the able, eloquent, and stirring 
 speech of the Senator from Georgia ; but I have a few 
 words to say, and may as well go on this afternoon. 
 
 If I understand it aright, the precise question be- 
 fore the Senate is simply this: Have the territorial 
 governments established by Congress, the power to 
 define and declare what shall be and what shall not 
 be property within the territorial boundaries ? Those 
 who advocate the resolution offered by the Senator 
 from Mississippi, deny that the Territories have such 
 power. Those who oppose the resolutions maintain 
 that they have. Both parties will agree, of course, that 
 the power to define and declare what is property is su- 
 
359 
 
 preme, and uncontrollable ; in short, what Ave call sove- 
 reign. Certainly no other power can do it; since, in 
 that case, the really supreme power could at once re- 
 verse any such declaration, and without a proper defin- 
 ition of property agreed upon by the controlling power 
 of a Government, there could be no civil Government 
 at all ; for civilized government, however far it may 
 reach, is organized property, and never has existed, 
 and never can exist long without defining by law or 
 established usage what is property. 
 
 We have no history of the origin of human associ- 
 ation and political govei'nment that affords us any full 
 or clear account. The Bible and other ancient books 
 give us hints, which suggest thoughts, that enable us 
 to form such conceptions of these matters, which are, 
 perhaps, suflicient for all our practical purposes. A 
 roving family, grown into a tribe, finding pleasant 
 waters, fine soil, and sweet air, that have not been ap- 
 propriated, arrests its wanderings, drives down its 
 stakes, claims this delightful region as its own, consti- 
 tutes it property, and, dividing it out, organizes a gov- 
 ernment, and, by the right of eminent domain, of usage, 
 and its physical power, establishes a sovereignty. That 
 sovereignty is good so long as it can be maintained 
 against all assaults. If it sustains itself, in time it 
 grows great ; it becomes over-populous ; it sends out 
 emissaries to discover other similarly-endowed lands ; 
 it obtains them by first discovery, by purchase, or 
 by conquest ; it colonizes them with its surplus pop- 
 ulation, but, holding the eminent domain, it holds its 
 colonies in strict subordination to its own will, and 
 maintains sovereignty over them. The colonies also 
 grow. In time they demand sovereignty for themselves. 
 
360 
 
 It is wisely conceded, or by a successful rebellion, it is 
 conquered by the colonies, and each becomes sove- 
 reio-n. Sucli, I take it, lias been the almost unvarying 
 history of the origin and progress of human association 
 and political organization. 
 
 Thus the thirteen colonies, which became the United 
 States of America in 1Y87, were planted long previ- 
 ously by Great Britain. In 1776, they severally pro- 
 claimed themselves to be sovereign and independent 
 States. Great Britain refused to concede to their de- 
 mands ; but after a long and bloody war, they achieved 
 their independence, and were acknowledged as sove- 
 reign States. 
 
 When the present constitutional Union was estab- 
 lished, many States were entitled, by charters and 
 grants from the former mother country, to large areas 
 of territory still wild and unpeo|)led. These they all 
 surrendered to the new General Government, for the 
 purpose, mainly, of creating a fund to pay off the war 
 debt of the Revolution. Subsequently we have ac- 
 quired by purchase, Louisiana and Florida ; by annexa- 
 tion, Texas ; and by conquest and purchase our Pacific 
 coast. To every one of these large acquisitions, every 
 iuch of which, Texas excepted, became the common 
 property of each and all of the States — of whom the 
 General Government was the trustee — large numbers 
 of our citizens flocked, seeking to better their fortunes, 
 not only unrestrained, but very rightly encoui'aged, 
 by this Government. By the Constitution of the 
 United States, Congress was empowered " to dispose 
 of and make all needful rules and regulations respect- 
 ing the territory and other property of the United 
 States." This was a very vague and indefinite grant 
 
361 
 
 of power ; but it was, by unanimous consent, construed 
 to mean that Congress might establish a suitable pro- 
 visional government for each Territory as soon as the 
 number of inhabitants required that law and order 
 should be enforced, and the property of the United 
 States, as well as peace and justice, preserved there, 
 by the intervention of the Federal Government. It 
 was considered a "needful regulation," and nothing 
 more. 
 
 Yet these adventurers, few or more, squatting on 
 land they do not own, but which belongs to all the 
 States, and of which they do not squat on more than a 
 small portion within the limits assigned them, are those 
 into whose hands the opponents of these resolutions 
 demand that sovereignty throughout their whole bor- 
 der shall be surrendered. Why, they are but volun- 
 tary exiles who have been allowed to seek homes in a 
 wilderness not discovered, purchased, or conquered by 
 them, but still the property of the States, whereon 
 these tenants by sufferance, in their yet unfinished term 
 of social infancy and political pupilage, the great agent 
 of the States has kindly undertaken to protect ; giving 
 them judges, Governors, and a sort of Legislature — 
 all subject, however, to be withdrawn at any moment 
 — and the whole system supported from the Treasury 
 of the States. Yet it is said that such Territories are 
 sovereignties, and such people sovereigns, and that 
 such an organization can assume the high and sove- 
 reign function of defining and declaring what is and 
 what is not property, and thereby forbid a large pro- 
 portion of the citizens of the States, who really own 
 the lands, from entering such Territories with their 
 rightful property. 
 
362 
 
 It is said here, by tliose who advocate this extra- 
 ordinary doctrine, that adventurers going, for instance, 
 to Pike's Peak, Nevada, or Arizona, and organizing 
 for themselves provisional 'governments, without recog- 
 nition from this government, would not be entitled to 
 the rights of sovereigns. To this the Senator from 
 Mississippi (Mr. Davis) very pointedly and justly an- 
 swered, that perhaps they were the very people who, 
 from the absolute necessity of the case, would be justi- 
 fied in exercising, for a time, sovereign power. And I 
 will add, that if they could sustain themselves in their 
 organization against all attacks, they would become 
 permanently and rightfully sovereign. But that gangs 
 of adventurers, intruding into a domain that belongs 
 to others, squatting on its choicest lands, and when 
 increased to such numbers that they can no longer 
 keep the peace among themselves, petitioning then to 
 the agent of the true owners of the soil, and receiving, 
 at the owners' charge and cost, ample protection, should 
 immediately thereafter proceed to exercise the high 
 and supreme sovereign light of deciding what is and 
 what is not property on that domain, and exercise it in 
 a way to exclude the people of nearly half the States 
 from their own Territory, is as monstrous as it is absurd. 
 It is a proposition not merely anomalous in every fea- 
 ture, not only unknown to history, but utterly opposed 
 to truth, to reason, to justice, to honor, and to common 
 honesty. It is called " squatter sovereignty." The name 
 describes it. It can never achieve a more respectable 
 designation. 
 
 I have endeavored to show, rather by statement 
 than by argument, that our territorial organizations — 
 called governments by courtesy, but which really are 
 
363 
 
 only corporations, that may be dissolved at the will 
 of the Federal Government — cannot declare what is 
 property in the Territories, and are not sovereign. It 
 is said, nevertheless, that they are sovereign, because 
 of a certain natural and inherent right of anj popula- 
 tion organized under any form of government to regu- 
 late their own affairs. Nothing could be more vague, 
 uncertain, metaphysical, and shadowy, than such a 
 proposition as this. If any man has any natural or 
 inherent rights — which I deny — regarding all the 
 rights to which a being born so helpless as man, 
 may attain, to be purely conventional, and such as 
 other men allow him — I should suppose that those 
 rights belong to him as an individual, rather than as a 
 member of any social or political system. It seems to 
 me clear that we must be born with whatever is natu- 
 ral or inherent to us, and that we can receive no acces- 
 sion of rights of that character from any social or polit- 
 ical organization ; but that, on the contrary, such 
 rights, whatever they may be, must be in no small de- 
 gree restrained and diminished by any organization 
 formed for the good of the whole. Such, in fact, is 
 the case. Individual rights — no individual pretensions, 
 passions, and desires, mistaken for rights — are just 
 what governments are instituted to control and regu- 
 late. But if any such natural or inherent rights could 
 possibly exist, they are conceded when the settler on 
 the public domain, asking the protection of this Gov- 
 ernment, agrees to be governed by such an organic law 
 as Congress may offer him — which he does for the sub- 
 stantial consideration of protection. If he, hj himself, 
 or in conjunction with his fellow-settlers, had any such 
 rights, they are entirely surrendered when they come 
 
364 
 
 under the Constitution and the laws of this Confedera- 
 tion. Their immediate local governments have no 
 other foundation than the vague power of Congress to 
 make " needful rules and regulations ; " that such a pop- 
 ulation should set itself up as a sovereign people and 
 such a corporation claim to exercise any sovereign 
 power, especially the great central sovereign power of 
 declaring wdiat is property, is, I repeat it, with due 
 deference, simply absurd, and would, I think, be agreed 
 to by no human being of ordinary intelligence who 
 was not misled by his passions, prejudices, or interests. 
 Why, the Federal Government itself, save in one or 
 two instances where the power has been specifically 
 conferred on it, cannot declare what is or what is not 
 property. That is a power reserved by the sovereign 
 States, and by them alone can it be exercised ; and it 
 is by this reservation that they prove their sovereignty. 
 What each State declares to be property, the General 
 Government is bound, in all its dej^artments, to regard 
 as property, and protect as property ; and so under the 
 Constitution, every other State is bound to regard and 
 protect it; and each and every State has a right to de- 
 mand that, whatever it has, by its sovereign fiat, de- 
 clared to be property, shall most fully be recognized 
 and protected as such on the Territorial soil of which 
 it is part owner. 
 
 But another great powder has been granted to Con- 
 gress which bears directly on this question. Though 
 it can only make " needful rules and regulations for 
 the territory," <fec., — you will note that the word is 
 "territory," not territories — showing that the whole 
 scope of the grant of power was to regulate property 
 only — yet this Government, not sovereign itself, can, 
 
365 
 
 as it were, create a sovereign, by the expressly and 
 constitutionally recorded will of the sovereign States. 
 It is autliorized to " admit new States." All " States " 
 are sovereign. They can. define and establish property, 
 and your Territories, when they are admitted as States, 
 may do it also. In this we all agree. And it seems to 
 me very strange that the Territories, when a few short 
 years will enable them to attain the high position of 
 sovereign States in this Confederation, should wish to 
 snatch at sovereignty before their time. It was not so 
 of old. It can only be explained by referring to the 
 progress of demagogueism in these degenerate days 
 of the Republic, and to the insane desire to destroy 
 one section of this Union. But this is beside the ar- 
 gument. 
 
 If the fraraers of the Constitution had supposed 
 that in granting the power to the General Govern- 
 ment "to dispose of, and make needful rules and 
 regulations, resj^ectiug the territory and other proj^erty 
 of the United States," they conferred the power to 
 establish in such Territory political governments, en- 
 dowed with the sovereign power to define what is and 
 what is not property, then they would have stultified 
 themselves by the additional grant of power to " admit 
 new States." The Territories would be States at once, 
 and with, perhaps, great advantage over the other 
 States. The power " to make needful rules," <fec., has 
 from the first been stretched so far as to authorize 
 each Territory to send a Delegate to the House of 
 Representatives. What obstacle is there then, but 
 the mere will of Congress, to a Territory sending one 
 also to the Senate — nay, two — and to the House as 
 many as the different political and other interests of 
 
366 
 
 the different sections of tlie Territory might be sup- 
 posed to require ? Thus it would have ample oppor- 
 tunity to attend to all its wants here, and share in all 
 the honors of the Government except the very highest, 
 while its government, in all its branches, would be 
 carried on at the cost of the General Government, and 
 its people would be protected by the arms of the 
 United States. More than this: as the Federal Con- 
 stitution does not authorize Congress to define property, 
 if the definition given to it by each sovereign State is 
 not to prevail in the Territories, then, if they can 
 exclude or confiscate one kind of property, they can 
 exclude or confiscate any kind of property. Thus the 
 coal and iron of Pennsylvania, the cotton and woolen 
 manufactures of New England, the grain and provisions 
 of the Northwest, in short, the staples and manuftic- 
 tures, and even shipping of every section, might be 
 declared not to be property in a Territory, and as the 
 major includes the minor proposition, might be con- 
 fiscated or heavily taxed. And if it be agreed that 
 the Territories shall not be bound to consider as 
 property what the sovereign States, or any one of them, 
 declares to be propei'ty, then much less will the States 
 themselves be bound to respect it ; and that agreed 
 on, this "more perfect Union" of these States will 
 subside into a condition not at all better than that of 
 the old Confederacy, if, in fact, half so good. 
 
 I will not pursue the subject farther. The Senate 
 is weary of it, the country is weary of it, and I, myself, 
 am so weary of it that I have not listened or read, 
 when it was the topic, for months. I have presented 
 it now briefly, and in only one point of view; and 
 even that I do not fully carry out. I have said enough. 
 
367 
 
 and probably nothing not familiar to every one who 
 has heard all that has been said here, which I have 
 not. In every aspect of this new doctrine — and there 
 are many I have not touched — it has appeared to me 
 an illegitimate and dangerous excrescence on our re- 
 publican system — the offspring of an unsound, morbid, 
 and licentious spirit of mobocracy, well calculated, in 
 fact, if successfully persisted in, sure — to destroy the 
 genuine spirit of our political institutions — nay, to 
 destroy the confederacy. 
 
 It was not my intention to have intruded upon the 
 Senate any remarks upon the subject ; but the Senator 
 from Illinois, in his speech the other day, made some 
 allusion to my State which I thought should be cor- 
 rected. He asked not to be interrupted, and after- 
 wards promised to make the correction in the report 
 of his speech. I do not doubt that he has done so; 
 but what he said has gone forth from the reporters, 
 and cannot be fully corrected by any omission from 
 his speech. On this account I felt bound to make the 
 corrections myself; and could not refrain from saying 
 somethinsfmore. 
 
 When South Carolina voted for General Cass, in 
 1848, after his celebrated letter to Judge Nicholson, 
 she put upon that letter the interpretation then uni- 
 versal in the South ; she assumed him to mean, in 
 what he said, that a Territory, when it came to frame 
 a constitution, and ask admission as a State, might 
 declare what should be property within its limits. 
 South Carolina did not intend by her vote to sustain 
 squatter sovereignty. 
 
 The compromise measures of ITGO, which the 
 Senator says contained this doctrine, had not a friend, 
 
368 ''"'." ifZ 
 
 ^^ 
 so f^ir as I know, in South Carolina. The proposition 
 
 was that the State should secede in consequence of 
 these very measures. The issue only made was 
 whether the State shouhl secede alone, or refuse to 
 do so without the cooperation of one or more other 
 States. Mr. Khett, who took his seat in the Senate 
 some months after the passage of those measures, led 
 the party in fiivor of a separate secession of the State. 
 He was defeated. Not by those in favor of the com- 
 promise act or of squatter sovereignty, which never 
 had the slightest foothold in South Carolina, but by 
 the cooperatiouists, who would not go out of the 
 Union without some other State approving and sus- 
 taining. 
 
 The Kansas and Nebraska act, of which the Senator 
 claims to be the author, and I believe was, met the 
 approbation of South Carolina ; but it was interpreted 
 in the same way with the Nicholson letter. So far, 
 therefore, as South Carolina has acted, she has not 
 done the least thing to support these new doctrines in 
 regard to sovereignty ; and I think I can assure the 
 Senator from Illinois she never will.