The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1858-04-29

very 1nuo-SUt OF society anu Oh pohuCai CIV
eminent and You might as we'll attempt TO
build house in the air, as TO build either the
one or the other. except on this mud-sil.
Fortunately for the South, she found race
adapted to that purpose to her hand-s race
inferior to her own, but eminently qualified
in temper, in vigor, in dccility, in capacity,
to stand the climate, to answer all her pur.
poses. We use them for our purpose, and
call them slaves. We are old
fashioned at the South yet it is a word dis
carded now by ears polite will not char
acterize that class at the North with that term
but you have it; it is there, it is everywhere,
il is eternal"
"The Senator from New York said yester.
8 day, that the whole world had abolished Sls-
very. Aye, the name, but not the thing-all
the powers of the earth cannot abolish that.
God only can do it. when he repeats the fat,
the poor ye have always with you 7 for the
: man who lives by daily labor, and scarcely
lives at that, and who has to put out his labor
in the market, and take the best he can get
for tin short, your whole class of manual
hireling laborers and operatives as you call
them, are essentially slaves The difference
between us is, that our slaves are hired for
life, and are well compensated; there is no
starvation, no begging, no want of employ
ment, among our people, and not too much
employment either. Yours are hired by the
day, not cared for, and scantily compensated.
Our slaves are black, of another
and inferior race. The status in which we
have placed them is an elevation.
They are happy, content, unaspiring, and ut
terly incapable, from intellectual weakness,
ever to give trouble by their aspiration. Yours
are white, Of your own race. You are broth
ers of one blood. They are your equals in
natural endowment of intellect, and they feel
CALLED by their degradation. Our slaves do
not vote. We give them no political power.
Yours do vote, and, being the majority, they
are the depositaries of all your political power.
If they knew the tremendous secret, that the
ballot-box is stronger than an army with
banners and could combine, where would
you be? Your society would be reconstructed,
your Government overthrow, your property
divided, 4 by the quiet process of the
ballot-box. You have been making war upon
rs to our very hearth stones How would
you like for US to send lecturers and agitators
North, to teach these people this, to aid in
combining and to lead them?"
These sentiments, Mr.. President, are not orig
inal with the Senator from South Carolina At
home and within these walls the statesmen from
South Carolina have avowed with sublime au.
dacity these sentiments of the slave perpetual
lists. Mr.. Calhoun pronounced "Slsvery the
most safe and stable basis for free institutions
in the world" Mr.. McDufie declared Slavery
to be "the cornerstone of the republican edi-
fce!' Sir, when these avowals were made by
these champions of the South Carolina school,
they were disavowed by the leading men at the
South, and by men of all parties in the North
Their reproduction now by the Senator from
South Carolina derives importance from the
fact that South Carolina has impressed her
ideas and imposed her policy upon the South,
upon the Administration, and upon the Lee
compton Democracy. South Carolina bears
the flag and leads the column of slave per.
petuahsts and slave propsgandists. The Sena-
tor utters her sentiments-the sentiments she
has imposed upon the Democracy she now
leads. hold this Administration, hold the
LecomPton Democracy, responsible for these
oracular utterances.
South Carolina has ever led the van in SUP.
port of the system of human Slavery in Amer.
lea. The iilustrious statesmen of the first Con-
gress, IN IVA, declared that God never in
tended part of the human race to hold
property in and have unbounded power over
others;' and they agreed they "would not
import slaves, or buy slaves imported by 9th.
ers.' They formed federative Union. and
by the second article of that bond of Union the
slave trade was prohibited. South Carolina
accepted those articles of Confederation, and
she was the first to break her plighted faith.
and 10 reopen that accused traffic in tie bodies
OF men. In complacence to South Carolina
and Georgia to use the words of Jefferson
me iIlustrIous signers of the Declaration of In.
dependence erased from the draft these words
Of arraisnment of the British King:
He has waged cruel war against human
nature ltSalt. Vlnlafinr tie m osl ,o,..oJ
OF iie aud liberty, in the persons OF distant
people, who have never offended him, capti.
vasing and carrying them into Slavery in
another hemisphere, or to incur miserable
oealn In their transportation thither. This
Plranca' warfare, the opprobrium of infidel
Powers, IS the warfare of the Christian King
OF Great Britain. Determined to keep mar.
ket where men should be bought and sold. he
has at length prosttuted his negative for sun.
pressing any legislative attempt to prohibit
and restrain this execrable commerce."
Actuated by that policy, which reopeued the
slave trade, and erased the noble words of Jef
terson from the Declaration of Independence,
south Carolina went into the Convention to
form the Constitution of the United States, her
Rutiedges, her Buffers, and her Pinckneys.
ready to peril the unity of the States unless
they could wiring from Washington, Franklin.
illustrious compeers, the right to continue the
lnhuman and polluted traffic in the muscles
of men.
, Mr.. MASON. Will the Senator allow me to
interrupt him O moment?
Mr.. WILSON. Most cheerfnlly.
Mr.. MASON. Is not the Senator aware that
the proposition to allow the States to continue
The slave trade for twenty years was carried
by The union of the men Of the extreme North
and the extreme South, and that Virginia re-
sisted liz?
MIR. WILSON. am aware that Northern
men yielded to the demands of South Carolina
Mr.. PUGH. A Massachusetts, man shaped
the form of the propositionl
Mr.. WILSON,. Northern men then, as now.
too often yielded to the demands of Slavery
we DO not applaud the errors of the fathers. /
nope we never will cease to censure the greater
erro,s Oh the men of our time, who sin against
the lights of experience.
III Tue nrst Congress under the Constitution,
'ne humanity OF the country attempted to re.
strain the slave trade in foreion vessels Int
the voice of South Carolina. in fsrv and va.
hement language, threatened 10 dissolve the
Union, and the timid men of the North sbranl,
from such contest From the opening of the
hrst Congress under the Constitution to the
utterance OF this speech to which am now
Replying, she has led the van in assaults on
Freedom-in defence of Slavery. She led. un.
der the Senator, then a member of the Honse.
in denouncing the noble men and women Who
invoked Congress to abolish Slavery and the
slave trade in the national capital, as !" igno.
rant, infatuated barbarians," who I" NAV expect
q telon's death" if chance shall throw any Of
them into our hands," She led, under Mr..
Waddy Thompson, in assaults upon the free
dom of speech in these halls, by threatening
John Quincy Adams-the hero of the Right Of
Petition and the Freedom of Speechewith
Expulsion from Congress- and Il Indictment