The daily union. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1845-1857, 1857-01-29
CONGRESSIONAL.
SPEECH OF HON, LAWRENCE M. KEITT.

SPEECH OF HON, LAWRENCE M. KEITT,
OF SOUTH CAROLINA,
On slavery and the resources Of the South delivered in
the Horsc Of Representatives, January is, 1857.
The House being in the Committee of the Whole ON the
state of the Union tteh
Mr. KEITT said The tendency of political movements
In the United States is to the formation of geographical
parties Even the trainers of the constitution oreold this
and prophesied Its dissolvng influence upon the federal
en social Rystems and the Illicit operations of the
ment stimulated this lurking anagonism and the events
OF the last few years have given 1t swift and cminous
ur 1t meets us at every point of the political compass
and is not to be bound by treacherous compromises
quieied by sentimental nyoca0ns Pous conservatives
may exhaust their aehIynoss appeals and needy aema
but they will find that coming issues to be met and
shaped by other men than they, who have wasted the
prestige aud huctered OF the gories Of the Union like
corrupt shos-leatheF. ,+t5s
Old who learn nothing, and young men who dream
oreold the advent of political millennium at
the election Of Mr. Buchanan Is the halcyon period
dawning upon us2 Why sir the agitation of the slavery
question is already renewed with increased bitterness and
pernacity This controlling element of dscord, instead
Deliberate camness and dspassonate judgment grave
y preparing-it may be unconsciously issues and
| achievements Of a new condition of things
glance at the rise and progress of abolitionism
mean black republicanism, ree-soism, Wimotproyiso-
ism, &c for they practically the same) will illus
trate its future and show the danger which threatens
The Union. Within twenty years it has assumed
party organization and moving with the unity and
Identity OF antique fate 1t now controls the authorities
of ten States occupies every to the public mind
and makes the lectureroom the press and the pulpit rb
uta to its savage propagandism There are organized
abolition societies in Great Britain and organized alb
o0u societies In the United States in open and active
cooperation with each other These foreign societies have
their agents and orators to the United States and they
been in correspondence with members of Congress
of Great Britain has declared its counte
of its abolition societies in manner offensive
TO this government and the of Of the
free States filled with laws practically annuing pro-
;t,tsn
have been wooed into the federal compact The first
treaty of annexation with Texas defeated by abolition
and its in the South for have been
sgatng to insurrection and With It's malignant
intent thus displayed appealing to every ow passion and
entrenched behind the authorities of ten States what has
the South expect If she submits to this vulgar yran
NY her soiled will be filed with scathed and blackened
ruins and the government will be established upon the
usupaon of her rights the insecurity Of her social peace
and the insignifcance of her people
As the dispute between the North and the South
centraed upon the question of slavery, shall offer
general reflections upon the subject Of slavery and as it
also tends to the dissolution of the Union shall examne
the Of the South and her ability TO aintain
separate and independent government.
First upon the question Of slavery The study of several
years. devoted to the earliest traditions of races the writ
ten records of societies. and the comparative gsaons of
antiquity has convinced my mind that slavery is prmor
dial fact rooted in tho origin Of things As coroary
to this may safely be deduced that the existence of
bors and mechanics in organized societies the result
OF the partial and progressive emancipation Of slaves
MoGeln ~. Mno nave s MADE tnels study % IN
classes have done without clear special and
data They have overlooked through careessness or g-
norance their connexon with the past
them up in their present condition without heed to their
former state, and ha avoided to inquire whether they
in the past what they in the present They
applied key to open their historical precedens and
plain their social significance They around them in
species of Popilan circle In the vain attempt grasp
hsD o o as the
whence they came and hence they know not whittier they
i tend.
l r . 4 u
tory rather they have in the general existence of
ciety proper and distinct destiny the evoutions of which
constitute special history, and teach under what
dons and at what periods those classes appeared gath
together and spread along the highways Of civilized
mankind.
twofod reason seems to have hitherto delayed the full
transcript of that history The former s that modern
cees have just reached that point of social revolutions in
which the working classes have acquired sufficient deve
opment and Importance enforce the attention of govern
mens and solicit the inquiries Of statesmen The second
is that history is shaking off the trappngs Of fable and e
gend in which antiquity has wrapped its raditionsa
don in which IT was left by the chronicles Of the middle
ages until the philosophical analysis of later days bent it
self to sunder the fctons of its poetry from the logic Of M
events Therefore, side governments have come to
suspect that beyond the difficulties inherent to all human
Devices there is obstacle in their mechanism which
periodically brings its wheels to stop; while historians
have entered upon the discovery that stand in
of an immense social fact which they forgotten
note in the books which they misca histories and which
overlooking the million masses, almost exclusively filled
with of battles and the of captains states
the present moment and with stubborn energy are knock
ing the portals Of learning and the doors Of
asking the former for their original records and the latter
| for their daily bread. e4H
When that history is faithfully written it will show that
these classes freely and progressively formed like other
elements of society that through the varied vcisstudes
life their condition. like that of other elements Of society
has gone improving from century to cenury that their
position in antiquity incomparaby inferior to that al
oted to them in the middle ages which foelaid the way
for the superior estate of the working classes of the
time and lastly that the condition of the operative is
consistent moral, and legitimate conditions condition
which has up In the harmony of things without
violence and constrana condition evolved through the
sequel of me according to laws peculiar to ITSELF and in
i volvng neither hardship cruelty, nor tyrannya cond
ton which rises up into origin and DURATION in the est
monies OF its present and the indications of its future
essential portion of the general system of human soce
ties and harmonic in the great concert Of the wants
4 the sorrows the pleasures and the destnies Of all
This condition, Q speak Of it historically however
CALLING II may be to human pride reveal its origin
traces Its primal universal and absolute to former
e,nancpdons of slaves History tells u.s. ALSO that when
the working classes stepped out of the condition of bond
age by process Of emancipation they branched into
four recurring subdivisions 1.-The hireng the begga the
thief and the prostutewhich have general existence
in slave countries unless there have been commencement
i of emancipation. The necessity of raimeDt and food
i which the main wants of animal life being the motive
which leads the hircng to work. the pauper to beg the
thief to plumber and the prostitute TO degrade herself II s
general thing should not exist under the system of slave
ry in which all have the necessares of lethe master
blythe fact that he the master the slave by that he
is slave There mercenaries nor beggara, MOI
thieves, prostitutes, among the Arabs of the deser
tribes because the slavery which reigned in the days o
Abraham stands in its almost primitive integrity
The scope Of my argument will not allow to examine
and afa ntuitb