The Litchfield County post., 1828-01-24

N
 proprrty. that is property; and what h de-
 rlares lo be nOt property, tha, is HOi property.
 There a DO other distinciion.--l say that
 slaves aur made property ny the law,and you
 cannot unmake them 90. any more than you
 csn alter tue British drht. or tho tithes, or a. nv thing which you ch00se to consider an a- 1 huec tn any foreign county. When gentle
 men fell me, that the constitution is tO protect
 us in that species of property, answer, it is ! like the protection of the wolf to the lamb.
 We scorn it. We deny it. It is created prop ,rty by uur law, and our own State Govern mrnts are ahI" io carry that law into execu- ton.
 The gentleman alluded in one part of his speech to the Missouri question. Sir, the Missouri question never has been settled. Sir, let me ask the House whether, under the laws of old Rome, man who was slave was any the less property, because, fOrsOOth, he was person! We were told something about humanity and religion. Sir, that has nothing to do with the question. We are not to depend on individual views of humanity & religion. It is upon the compact--ItG ler script0 est--that is what we have to depend upon. You may cant to the end of the chap Ter about whether your religion is that of the Jew or the Gentle. Your religion cannot in- terfere in the question.
 Sir. humanity and religion are very good things in their proper places; but we have no right to make our humanity and our religion the rule for other mems actions within the sphere of neither. will put a case. will suppose my own state, the state of Virginia, had made the abuse of slaves not punishable at all, and slaves were daily and cruelty and inhumanly murdered by their masters, what would be the remedy? Would it be found in this house Can yOu punish murder commit ted on the other side of the Potomac! Your jurirdiction is confined to your own territory, district, forts, and dock yards. You may cry your eyes out with humanity, but you cannet touch this matter. The thing is in its proper place: it is under the jurisdiction of men of as much learning and talent, and as much hu manity and religion, as can any where be found, who. knowing the disease. know the remedy, and do not choose to suffer quacks to '' step in where Angels fear to tread" A. gain, Sir, we have been told that the repre- sentation of this description of persons in the Constitution of l787,was a compromise. No, sir, it was none. There was no compromise about it, further than the whole Constitution was a compromise. We wanted a represen- tation fer our whole population; but we were weak enough to agree. that one half of that population should be represented by only S5 of that half.
 Permit me again to ask, before sit down, that no man will deign ever to discuss this question. This is not "the accepted time." If ever that time does arrive, our business. sir, will not be here; but at home. Our business A, ,lxoo ENr House will then be to us the den of Cactus. And let me, on the other hand, remind those gentlemen who differ from me on this ques. tion. that it was just ten years from the first stirring of the question of the right of Great Britain to tax her Colonies, until the spirit had gone up which ended in a separation. It took ten years of goading to bring us to that point. Sir, the relation of the States to the General Government resembles, in some respects, another sort of unlon, more tender and more sacred in its character yet even that will not bear continual provocatiOn--e- ven that near and strong relation, may be torn assunder. He is not a man of observa- ton and experience, who does not see that a temper has been excited, and is exciting now on this subject, which it is not less the duty than the interest of every member of this House, in every possible mode to allay. I cannot agYee with the gentleman from New York, that the slaves are an unhappy race. They, no doubt, al c causes of unhappiness to their owners, sometimes, and no doubt they are unhappy sometimes, themselves: for who is exempt from unhappiness
 MT. Storrs of N. Y. replied in temperate and judcious argument, in which admitting that the United States had no business to in- terfere with the relation of master and slave. he advised the rejection of the claim, on the ground that the officer who had impressed the slave was merely trespasser, and might be sued like any other.
 MT. Drayton, of s. c. rose and said if the discussion of this question is to be brought on, that hall would be emptied of all those residing in the Slave States, and the Union would be dissolved: because, constitutional law, the rights of States and individuals, would all be violated. When he heard the gentle man from N. York propound aquestion big, with the fate of the Southern independent States--when he heard him propagate doc trines which were calculated to produce blood shed and cruel war; he was astonished after wards to hear him appeal to humanity and religion. What was the consequence of this proposition That the right of ownership in the property of the slave being merely mat ter of compromise, the government had right to impress slaves into their service. The United States, according to his doctrine, can take slaves at pleasure and refuse any conpen- sation. What then is the tenor by which slaves are held What security has the hold