The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1858-06-10

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or a stranger? You take the one aud his earn
ings, because you can why not the other, aad
his earnings, If you can? You were long IN
the habit of stimulating African chiefs to hunt
men and women for your benefit; and some Of
you are now trying to revive the work. Also,
l see it seriously proposed in yonder State to
enslave some thousands of her people, and al
ready is their property seized by discrimina
ting tax. Your Federal Judiciary, against all
law and against all decency, have paved the
way by denying them the necessary result OF
birth and residence; making them permanent
strangers and aliens; and you have only to
follow the invited result of barbarous edict by
making them slaves.
If the idea is once admitted, that force, and
not the law OF nature, makes property, then
any man, or any mans earnings, may be seized,
and subjected to another's dominion. 1t is not
question of birth; it is not question Of race
nor is it SO regarded by the propaganda. The
amalgamation tendencies of Slavery are con-
stsnty bleaching ont the African. have, since
q member here, contributed to purchase for re.
demp.ion white Virginisns, and to prevent their
forced denizenship of the brothel. The more
honest. advocates of Slavery have already re-
pudiated the idea that it should be the sole con.
dition of any race, and many of them would
impose it upon all hand laborers. In the Senate
and in the House, during this and other SEES
sions, leaders of the great Slavery party have
boldly proclaimed the condition of the laborer
that of substantial Slavery, and that the North.
ern free laborer was far worse off than the bought
and sold chattel of the slave plantation. A
Senator from South Carolina says that the
man who lives by daily labor, your whole class
of manual laborers, are essentially slaves" In
harmony with the tone of the propaganda
press, the Charleston Standard says that "Sla.
very is the natural and normal condition of the
laboring man, whether black or white;" and
the Richmond Examiner, whose editor now is,
sues semioficial thunder in the Washington
Union, truly says, that "the South III. & the
Slavery partly now maintains that Slavery is
right, natural. aud necessary, and does not de.
pend apon differences of complexion. The
laws of the slave States justify the holding Of
s WHITE MEN in bondage"
The condemnation Louisiana, Mr.. TAYLOR,
who never speaks what he has not we'll con.
sidered, in his remarks of the 29th of March,
deliberately defends, as / understood him, or
predicts, the enslavement Of the Asiatic upon
the Pacific coast; and all who justify Slavery
from the Old and New Testament, and early
Christian teachings, thus only can Justify white,
and not black Slavery. The miserable Undue
ton of the gentleman from South Carolina,
Mr.. KEITT,] if it prove anything, can only
prove that the dusky races of the Mediterra.
mean may rightfnly enslave the light-haired Ger.
man and Britcn, for such was the " Apostolic
Slavery" he defends.
Except in America, slaves are not even gen.
orally of the negro race. 1t is but quite recent
ly that the ideas of modern civilization have
made any progress, have gained any foothold,
upon the southern and eastern shores of the
Mediterranean; and, within our own memory,
the slave trade was as brisk along its ports as
between the slave marts of the United States.
The captives are, indifferently, Africans, Euro
peans, and Asiatics. White Englishmen and
white Americans were there lawfully held and
worked, sold, and scourged, as slaves, as lawful.
ly as any slave is held in Virginia; and our first
maritime war was to overthrow, to destroy, these
property rights. Ard these rights in white
Americans and Europeans were held sacred
through all the Turkish States until they yielded
to the principles of natural law-to the genius
of universal emancipation. No man can defend
American Slavery on principle without defend.
ing Turkish; especially as the latter was much
mllder and more Christian than the former.
But gentlemen here claim that the property
idea of man in man applies equally to the ap.
prentice and child as to the slave; and thus,
by the common law, man may hold property
in man. This was the only reply of the gentle.
denial of my colleague, Mr.. BINGHAM Ac-
cordipg to Webster, an apprentice is " one who
is bound by covenant to serve mechanic or
other person, for a certain time, with view
to learn his art, mystery, or occupation, in
which bis master is bound to instruct him."
Now, which is property, the master or appren.
tice? The rights are mutual; the obligation
is mutual the interest is mutual; and the
whole is created by contract. The apprentice
is property, is he? Can he be bought and sold,
descend to heirs or creditors be denied the
legal relations of husband and wife, parent and
child, the right to hold property and acquire
knowledge, his whole being subjected to the
will and for the sole benefit of another Hear
Judge Rufiu on this point, while Diminishing a
complaint for an assault upon slave by shoot
ing. he says:
"This has been assimilated at the bar to the
other domestic relations; and arguments
drawn from the well. established principles
which confer and restrain the authority of the
parent over the child, the tutor over the pu.
pill, the master over the apprentice, have been
pressed on US. The court does not recognise
their application. There is mo likeness be-
t,ceen the cases. They are in opposition to
{ each other, and there is an impossible gulf
between them. The difference is that which
exists between Freedom and Slavery; and a
greater cannot be imagined. In the one, the
{ end in view is the happiness of the youth,
born to equal rights with the governor, on
whom the duty devolves of training the young
to usefulness, in station he is afterwards to
assume among freemen. With slaves, it is
far otherwise. The end is the profit of the
orr M l.o faty a.
the eubiect, one doomed in his own person
and in his posterity, to live without knowledge,
and without the capacity to make anything
his own, and toll that another may reap the
fruits."-St0te vs.. Mann Devereur, North
Carolina Reports, 263. II
l will not blaspheme the holy relation of
parent and child, by dwelling upon the idea
that the child is the chattel, the merchandise,
of the father. In some barbarous countries,
where the law of the strong hand has not yet
been supplanted blythe Christian idea, such is the
fact; and blush to say that, in some of the
American States, a class of Legitimate children
may lawfully be, and sometimes are, sold like
cattle by their own fathers, or half brothers
and sisters. EF
True, there is, in one sense, a property in an
apprentice and hired servant, as in all contract
rights. The people have property in our ser.
wees; the parent has property in the in
structor of his children; the ward in his guard
ian the hirer of chattel in the thing hired
But are we, is the instructor, or the guardian
or the chattel, the property of him who has an
interest concerning them or itf The grand
base idea of the relations are antipodes. The
one is founded On contract, on free will, with
mutual rights; the other, as applied to man,
on naked force, with no rights; the one is an
obligations temporary use; the other an alb
solute subjection--a subsection that can only
be enforced upon things, never upon man.
have spoken of the fact that the property
idea of the ancient States was not based upor
natural law, as given US in the books of Moses