The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1857-02-05

| DCiSj NnlCH SHhll Ot ueJerlnlneu Dy auulHR u
the whole number of free persons, including
those bound to service for term of years, and
excluding Indians not taxed, tlree.ffhs Of all
other persons"
1t is manifest that Congress cannot, without
violating the rights of the people reserved by
their Constitution grant any favor privilege
or advantage to the slaveholding class, or even
ordain or permit Slavery to exist within the ex-
elusive sphere of the Federal jurisdiction
The spirit of the Declaration of independence
and OF the Constitution of the United States,
thus fagrantly hostile to classes, and especially
| to the slaveholding class, entered largely into
| the contemporaneous Constitutions and laws of
most of the States. All of them established re-
publican forms of Government. Most of them
asserted the political equality of men. All of
them prohibited orders of nobility and ecclesi-
astical classes, estates in mortmain, and estates
by primogeniture. Seven States Immediately or
speedily prohibited Slavery and all of the 9TH
| ers earnestly debated the same great and benign
reform. Finally, though unable thus early to
abolish Slavery in six of the States where it al
| ready existed, the people in the Revolutionary
| Congress eIiectualy provided for excluding it
| forever iii that part of the national domain
| which laid northwest of the Ohio, and in the
| States which were thereafter to be established
| there.
| think, fellow citizens, that l have shown to
your abundant satisfaction that such direction
| OF the Administration to the establishment and
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT of the slaveholdng class, as
| have charged, if it indeed exists is perversion
of the Constitution of the United States
Seventy years of national history have
been fulfilled Fix your attention for a moment
now on the slaveholding class, as it now exists
Although it has been abolished by State legisla-
ton in seven of the first thirteen States and al
though nine free States which exclude it have
been since admitted into the Union, vet the
sayeholding class nevertheless stands erect and
firm in fifteen of the present thirty-one States,
numbering 347 900 persons" on the basis of
3,2O4 900 other "persons" held TO labor or SER
| vice by the laws thereof, valued at twelve hun
dred millions of dollars, combined practically
with all the real estates in those States This
class spreads itself on the one bank of the Mis-
sissppl to the Kansas river, and on the other to
the Ohio, and along the Atlantic coast from the
banks Of the Delaware to those of the Rio Grande
In the States where this class exists, it is not
merely secure-it is permanent and completely
dominant, to the exclusion not merely of all civil
rights on the part Of the "persons who are held
to labor or service" by it, but to the inhibition
of voluntary emancipation by the owners of
slaves, to the practical exclusion of free labor
from the State, and with it freedom of speech,
freedom of the press, freedom of the ballot-box
freedom of education, freedom of literature, and
freedom OF popular assemblies. Thus establish
ed by municipal institutions, the slaveholding
class has become the governing power in each of
the slaveholding States, and it practically chooses
thirty of the sixty-two members of the Senate,
ninety of the two hundred and thirty three
members Of the House of Representatives and
one hundred and five of the two hundred and
ninetyliyc electors OF President and Vice Pres-
dent of the United States
Let us now repair to the Federal Capital. You
see, that although it is sadly wanting in the ele-
MOI of InH str nd oh,
guish the hundred cities of the free States vet
1t IL a respectable metropolis, rich in costly ma
uonal structures, monuments, and gardens. This
elegant and tasteful edifce is the palace of the
| President of the United States. Its incumbent
| you know him right well, (for he has acquired
a painful nOtoricty,) is confessed apologist of
the slave-property class, ibeler of freemen and
| free States which resist the aggresSions of that
class, an abetter of the extension of Slavery and
| Of the enlargement of the domain of that class.
by the violation of time-honored compacts by
| armed usurpation, conquest, and judicial corrup-
| ton. You remember his history. He had been
equally obscure among civilians and generals
but he Was deemed reliable by the slave-propertv
class to suppress debate on its high prcten-
sions, and he therefore advanced to the Chief
Magistracy, to the exclusion of the most heroic
magnannous, and successful military chief the
country has produced.
This broad highway is PENNSYLVANIA avenue
it leads between stately store-houses and dwell
ings, occupied by Shareholders with their slaves
| TO the Capitol. We ascend the terrace through
groves embellshed with statues and fountains
| and enter the Senate Chamber. The Senate is
| before US. II is an august assembly of ambas sa-
doris deputed by thirty lone equal States. 1t is
august 10y reason of its functions 1t is an Exec
utiye Council, and exercises negative voice on
| all appointments to all places of trust honor or
profit, IN the Republic, and negative also on all
treaties OF the Republic with foreign nations. AS
"A Court OF lmpeachments it tries all political
| crimes committed 10y public agents, and as a
legislative body its concurrence is necessary to the
| passage of all the laws of the Union The age,
experience, aud dignity, of its members, together
with the facility Tor tranSacting business which
| 1t derives from the smallneSs of its numbers has
enabled it TO become the dominating political
power in the Republic. The chair belongs to the
Vice President of the United States He who
was last advanced to that Office is now dead
on remember him. lie was chosen from a
| slave State. The Senate elected in his place
| David Il. Atchison, You know him we'll He
| - chief statesman and captain in the usurpation
| and conquest recently effected by the slavehold-
| ing class in Kansas. When his duties in that
| relation called him away from the Capital his
place there was assigned to Jesse d. Bright, of
! Indiana. You know him also. lie is accepta-
| Bile and approved by the slave-property class,
and he has deserved to be. -
At the feet of the presiding officer you see
| three Secretaries, while his chair is surrounded
by printers sergcants-at-arms, door-keepers and
pages. Each of them is either an active or pas
| sive advocate of the policy OF the slaveholding
| class.
| The business Of the day opens with n debate
| on the relations of the country towards Great
Britain and Central America theme involving
| not merely immediate peace or war; but uti-
| Gately the continental ascendency OF the Re-
public. The debate is instituted on the motion
! of the Committee on Foreign Relations The
| chairman of that committee is Mr. James NJ
| Mason Of Virginia, author OF the last and most
| notorious OF the fugitive slave laws The other
members are, Mr.. Stephen A. Douglas the found
| er of that curious and cvanescent system of
| Territorial Government, whiom known by the
name of Popular Sovereignty, but now recog-
| missed rs Executive Usurpation Mr. John A.
| SiiGell, OF louisiana the same who has proposed
| withdrawal of the naval squadron employed
| in suppreSsing the slave trade on the coast Of
| Africa; Mr.. John NJ. Clayton, Of Delaware, who
pronounces the prohibition of Slavery forever
contained in the Missouri Compromise uncon-
| stitutional Mr.. John H. Weller of California,
| who upholds the Executive Usurpation and con-
quest in Kansas and with these gentlemen is
| associated one opponent of the slavehoiding
| class, namely, my honorable and excellent col
league, Mr.. Hamilton Fish, of New York
The debate has ended while we have been can
wasting the committee 10y which it was institu-
ted. And now the question has changed to one
OF hardly less grave importance-namely, wheth-
er the President of the United States shall be
inhibited from employing the army as police
to enforce the tyrannical laws of the slavehold-
ing conquerOrs of Kansas. This proposition of
the House of Representatives is opposed by the
I Committee on Finance. That committee has
for its chairman Mr.. Robert NJ. T. Hunter, also
1 . Asprrs, Al