Wisconsin herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1846-1849, 1848-09-02
FREE SOIL vs.. SLAVERY.
Mr.. Corwin's Great speech against the
Compromise Bill,
Delivered IN the U. S. Senate, july "a, '4s.
Reported expressly for the ~ Y. Tribune.
(Conclu

1t was law in the Colonies about 1776,
that Kings had a right to govern us. Geo.
Guelph then said ''partus sequ,tur pGtrent"
My son is born TO be your ruler. And ut
the very time when Virginia lifted up her
hand and appealed TO the God of Justice
the common Father of all men---to deliver
her from that accursed maxim and its con-
sequences that one man was born--as Jeffer-
son said-booted and spurred to ride anoth
err, it seems that by the Hon. Senator's ac-
count of it, she adhered TO another maxim,
to witt that another man should he born to
serve Virginia. think this maxim of Kings
being born TO rule, and others being born
only to serve, are both of the same family,
and ought to have gone down to the same
place whence, | imagine they came, long
ago, together do not think that your par
tus sequitur Uentrem had much quarter
shown it at Yorktown on certain day you
may remember. | think that when the Lion
of England crawled in the dust, beneath the
talons of your Eagles, and CORVALLIS sur
rendered to George Washington, that max
i'm, that a man is born to rule, went down,
not to be seen among us any more forever,
and think that partus seguitur uentren,, in
the estimation of all sensible men, disap
peared along with it. So the men of that
the consideration of the proper interpreta-
ton of that language of those men which
has been somewhat criticised Ivy the Senator
from South Carolina What did they mean
when they said in the Declaration of hide
pendence, that all men are born equally free?
They had been contending that, if we on
this side of the water were to he taxed by
the Imperial Parliament of England, we
had right to say who should represent US
in that Parliament. | need not refer gen.
tlemen to the arguments then advanced. |
need not refer the Senator from Virginia to
| his own local history, which informs him
that, throughout the whole Revolutionary
period, the people IN all their sblres and
towns were meeting and passing resolutions,
as that book of American Archives that
you have authorized to be perpetuated, will
show you, complaining to the Crown of
| England of the importation of slaves into
this country. And why did they complain?
Let their own documents tell their own sto-
ry. These men, of that generation in Vir
gina, i'm Connecticut--as the Senator before
me will see by referring to that book in MSS.
everywhere throughout the Colonies, said
sc While we are contending for the COM
mon rights of Humanity. against the Crown
of England, it does not become us TO pur-
chase men and hold them in slavery. y
! They objected to the introduction of slaves
into this country through the intervention of
the slave trade, because it was a wrong per-
lpetuated- upon the slave himself, and espe-
cially because it prevented the settlement of
the country by artisans, mechanics, and la
boring husbandmen. | venture the asser-
ton that not three Counties in the State of
Virginia can be named in which resolutions
hat .naro In
not far from this Capitol, where we are now
engaged in talking about the transfer of the
slave trade to the shores of the Pacific Gee
an, there was meeting in Fairfax at which
one George Washington, Esq. presided
Some young gentlemen may know some
thing of him. He was a tobacco-planter,
sir, at Mount Vernon. The resolutions
passed on that occasion declared the lnten-
ton of the meeting to refrain from purcha-
lsing any slaves, and their determination to
have nothing to do with the slave trade
because the introduction of slaves into this
Icountry prevented its settlement by free
whites. This, then, was the opinion in
Virginia at that time; and it was the opin-
ion in Georgia too. A convocation of men
from every county in that State assembled
as find by this book-assembled at Darien,
and resolved the very same things, giving
the same reasons. The men of that gener-
alton understood the work of founding a
new country. They knew what was best
for an infant people just struggling into ex-
istence. If their opinions are worth any
thing--if the opinions OF the venerated men
are to be considered as authority ask
Southern gentlemen what they mean when
they ask me to extend to the distant shores
of the Pacific Ocean the slave trade between
Maryland and Virginia and that almost un-
known country. ] am considering the pro-
priety of doing this thing if the question
were now for the first time presented TO US.
ask any Southern man, if there were not
a slave on this Continent, would you send
your ships to Africa and bring them heres
Suppose this Confederation of ours had been
formed before q slave existed in it, and sup
pose here in the year OF grace you had ac-
Guired California and New Mexico and you
were told that there existed modified svs-
TEN of slavery there, and that they wanted
laborers there, would a Senator rise in his
place and say we will authorize the African
slave trade in order 20 Introduce laborers
into our infanl Colonies! If you would not
bring them from the shores of Africa-buy-
ing them with pGrtls sequttur ueztreB brand
ed on them sonew here, how can you prove
to me that il would be right TO transfer them
from Maryland, If slavery were a curse
to you in the beginning, but struck its roots
so deep into your social and municipal sys-
tern, as was then said, that il could not be
eradicated entirely, how is il that you call
upon me, as a matter of conscience and du-
q, TO transfer this curse TO an area Of square
miles greatly exceeding that Of the thirteen
States when the Confederation was formed,
If il is 50, that it Is an eyil-and so all your
Statesmen have pronounced il, and 50 all
YOUR eminent men, with the exception Of "A
.,,,,ga-r .s-,,e- have ra~,rdaH hoe