The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1852-04-01

t NO"o VI hio BSNPi'' 1baO -
breeding of men and women for market.
But the Compromise embraces also the slave
trade upon our Southern coast All are aware
that by the ninth section of the act of 1907,
slave dealers are authorized to carry (under
certain regulations slaves from one port of the
United States to another, under the flag of our
Union Men, women, and children are pur-
chased in this District, and in the Northern
slave States, and placed on board these slave
ships and carried to the torture and premature
deaths, which, it is well known, await them
upon the cotton and sugar plantations. There
they are murdered under a slow torture by the
lash of inhuman Overseers 1t is estimated
that twenty thousand human victims are thus
annually sacrificed to Southern barbarity. The
blood of those victims rests upon the members
of this body. We have the power to stop this
food of human gore. But while these victims
toll in chains, and sigh and weep under the
tortures to which our law consigns them, MEM
bers here refuse to examine tins subject refuse
TO permit the introduction of bill to repeal
this law; but they stand here and exert their
utmost powers to revive, to galvanize into life,
the old party issues on which they have here
toiore contended. They endeayOr to close their
ewes to notorious facts and soOthe their con-
sciences by occupying their own attention, and
that Of Others, upon the miserable party CON
fiicts which have no higher motive or aim than
to secure the spoils of Office to one or the other
political party. Judge not for others, but so
far as | am myself concerned | should feel far
less guilt were to strike a stletto to the heart
of q single victim, than should to exert my in
san sustain that slave trade, or than
sf ssl ., sire to SIT here in silence and permit
that infamous traffic to continue without my
solemn protest against it. 1t is frequently the
case that men and women, apparently doomed
to the tortures Of the far South by this trade,
commit suicide rather than meet its horrors.
All will recoect the story of the father, moth
er, and children confined in a slave prison in
a neghbOring State, destined to the Southern
market The parents having deliberated upon
their situation, and that of their children, took
the lives of their own ohspriBgs and then
sought death by their own hands. Do not we
who sit in this Hall, and by our silence and in
action continue this slave trade, share in the
guilt of those dark and damning niquities!
Does not the blood of those victims stain our
garments And, when we appear at the bar
of final retrlbutlon, shall we plead this Compro-
mise as justification for crimes which would
strike terror to a savage heart | am aware
that some of my colleagues have pledged them
selves to sustain these Compromise measures,
thereby upholding this slave trade. Now, sir,
wish to inquire of those gentlemen whether
they are willing to rise on this floor, and say
frankly to the people of our State, that they
are in favor Of supporting this slave trade? |
desire IA full and fair understanding on this
subject wish to understand the position of
the Wing party Of my own State. Will they
sustain this coast-wse slave trade. or will they
not? or are they to play dark and keep silent?
mean no disrespect to my colleagues of either
party | am solicitOus that the people of Ohio
should understand how each of their represent
atives stands on these questions.
The people of the North have been deceived
long enough by politicians, who proclaim their
intention to sustain the Compromise, without
descending to particulars and explaining what
hey mean by such support. Indeed gentle
men dare not avow their intention to sustain !
he slave trade in this District, upon our South
,rn coast, and in our Territories, and to main
ain the infamous fugitive slave law 1t was
ruism uttered by my Lord Coke, when he said,
fraud lurketh in generalites." This general |
Expression IN favor of sustaining the COmpro-
mise embraces all these iniquities; and when n |
man, either here or elsewhere avows himself |
m favor OF the Compromise measures he in !
substance and fact ayows himself in favor Of /
breeding men and women for market in this |
District and in our Territories and of prOsti-
tutng our flag to the protection OF commerce
in human flesh would be AZ willing to trat- |
fc in Gods image rs | would to sustain the |
owner of yonder slave prison in his accursed
vocation, by upholding the law which author
ICES him to pursue it. ! would as soon vote for
Williams the slave dealer and owner of yonder
barracoon, to the Office of President, ms | would
for any man who sustains him in his execrabe
commerce Yet, sir, strange AZ it may seem,
your Presidential candidates of the Democratic
party appear to think they will have no chance
of success unless they patrOnize those worse
than savage practices, while the Wing candi-
date is to keep silence in regard to them.
But the Compromise was intended also to-
and if observed, must, forever, close all hope
of excluding slavery or the slave trade from
our Territories. On this point there is no
longer uncertainty. The official returns from
Utah show that slavery exists there Servilc
politicians can no longer deny the fact. The
honorable Secretary of State, think, will not
repeat that gigantic falsehood which he put
forth in the Senate on the 9TH of March, 1850,
when he asserted that slavery was excluded
from that country by the laws of Cod In
deed, at the time when that attempt to deceive
the people of the North was made, it was
known here and throughout the country that
slavery existed in Utah The fact had been
published some two months previously in most
of our leading newspapers; and if the author
of that declaration was ignorant of the fact,
think he was the only member of Congress
on that point. Slavery also exists
in New Mexico, as we have seen by the public
press Indeed if we can rely upon the public
press Judge of New Mexico was lately en-
gagged in purchasing slaves in this city to work
the silver mines of that country, from which
the Secretary of State asserted that slavery
was excluded by Gods law.
Now, if the Compromise be sustained then
are these Territories to be delivered over to the
curse of slavery The soil which, under Mcxi-
can law, had been consecrated to freedom, s
now, under American law, to be cursed with
the most degrading oppression that exists upon
earth and slave markets are to be established,
and men bought and sold, and women made
the subjects of purchase and sale, on territory
conquered by our arms. To sustain the Com
promise, is to sustain slavery and the slave
trade in those Territories. To vote for Presi-
dental candidates who uphold the Compromise,
~ to vote for slavery. for the slave trade, with
Its attendant crimes, to continue in those Ter
ritOries.
Mr. Chairman, when | hear members ON
this floor rise and proclaim their intention to
support the Compromise, understand them to
say emphatically, that they have made up
their minds to support slavery in this District
and in the Territories and to maintain the
slave trade, with all its crimes and frightful
amount of guilt here, and in the Territories,
and ON our Southern coast IL gentlemen
mean anything by their declarations, they
mean this, When they say the slave question
Is settled, they intend to be understood by
Southern men as giving their influence in favor
OF maintaining slavery and the slave trade,
wherever they now exist under the laws of the