Weekly standard. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1858-1865, 1860-05-16
The ;staqaaro.
SPEECH OF
~ AAoAA VI
HON, STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS,

FfSfeU IN We OcnNte QJ tNe CNlte0 ctute0, Ieo-
Tuary 20, 1860.
CONTINUED FROM ForTH PAGE.
Mr.. Trumbull having replied to Mr.. Douglas he
responded as follows:
| have but few words to say, In reply to my
colleague: and first on the question. %hether Illinois
was slave Territory or not; and Watcher we ever
had slavery ia the State dislike technical denial
conveying an idea contrary to the fact My colleague
well knows, and so do /, that practically, VIC had
slaves there while Iefiitory, and after We became
n State.> have seen him dance to the music Of a
negro slave in Illinois many tine, and have
danced to the same music myself daughter
We have both had the same negro servants to black
our boots and wait npon us, and they were held as
slaves We know, therefore, that slavery did exist
in the State in Fact and slavery did exist in the Ter
rory in fact; and his denial relates exclusively to
the question whether slavery WAS legal Whether
legal or not it existed in fact The master exercised
his dominion over the slave, and those negroes were
held as slaves until 1s47 when we established the
new constitution. There are gentlemen around me
here, who know the tact-gentlemen who were
nursed by slaves in Illinois No man lanllilar with
the history of Illinois will deny the fact. The
bubble is that the territorial laws authorizing the
introduction of slaves were void because the ordi-
nance of 1887 said slavery was prohibited.
Notwithstanding that ordinance, the old French
inhabitants, who had slaves before the ordinance,
paid no attention to it. and held slaves still. Slaves
were held there all the time that Illinois was Ter
rtory and after it became State they were held
till they all died out, and their children became
pmanclpated under the constitution. 1t is a fact;
we all know it. That gentleman has seen many oil
those old French slaves who were held in defiance
of the ordinance Whether they were lawfully held
or not the territorial authorities sustained the rights
of the master Not only were slaves held by the
French before the ordinance but the Territorial
Legislature passed law in substance to this effect;
any citizen might go to Kentucky, or any other
State or Territory, where slaves were held, and
bring slaves into the Territory of Illinois, take them
to county court, and in open court enter into an
indenture by which the slave and his posterity were
to serve him for ninety nine years and in the event
that the slave refused to enter into the ndenture,
the master should have certain time to take him
ont of the Territory and sell him. The Senator now
says that law was not valid. Valid or not, it was
executed; slaves were introduced, and they were
held they were used !; they were worked; and they
died slaves That is the fact have had handed
to me book showing the number of slaves in ILL
nos at the taking of the various censuses, by which
it appears that when the of 1910 was taken,
there were in Illinois 16S slaves; in 1920, 9'7; in
$780, TAI and in 1S40 S3l. In 1850 there were
none for the reason that in 1917, we adopted a
new constitution that prohibited slavery entirely,
and by that time they had nearly all died. The
census shows that at one time there were as many
as nine hundred slaves and at all times the domin-
inion of the master was maintained
The fact is that the people of the Territory of H.
linois when it was Territory, were almost all
from the southern States, particularly from Ken
lucky and Tennessee. The southern end of the
State was the only part at first sctted-that part
called Egypt-because it is the land of letters and
of plenty. Civilization and learning all originated
in ho ri IF fha TAFT yh
the political friends of my colleague now preponder
ate, then in the possession of the Indians, and
so were northern Indiana and northern OhiO and
Yankee could not get to Illinois at ALL unless he
passed down through Virginia and over into Tenn
essee and through Kentucky. The consequence was,
that ninety -nihe out of hundred of the settlers
were from the slave States They carried the old
family servants with them, and kept them. They
were told "Here is an ordinance of Congress passed
against your holding them" They said "What
has Congress to do with our domestic institutions
Congress had better mind its own business, and let
us alone; We know what We want better than Con-
gress;" and hence they passed this law to bring
them in and make them indentured. Under that,
they established slavery and held slaves as long
they wanted them. When they assembled to make
the constitution Of Illinois, in 1873 for admission
into the Union, nearly every delegate to the con-
vention brought his negro along with him to black
care of his room. They had jolly time there they
were dancing people, frolicsome people, people who
enjoyed life; they had the old French habits Slaves
were just as thick there as blackberrles.
But they said "Exrerience proves that it is not
going to be profitable in this climate" There were
no scrupes about it. Every one of them was nurs-
eG by it. His mother and his father held slaves
They had no scruples about its being right, but
they said, 1--WE cannot make any money b. it, and
our State runs way off north up to those eternal
SHOWS, perhaps we shall gain population faster if
we stop slavery and invite in the northern popula
ton; and matter of political policy, State
policy, they prohibited slavery themselves. How
did they prohibit it? Not by emancipating setting
at liberty the slaves then in the State for believe
that has never been done by an legislative body in
America, and doubt whether any one will arrogate
to itself the right to dives property already there
but they provided that all slaves then in the State
should remain slaves for life; that all indentured
persons should fulfill the terms of their ndentures
Nlnety-nine years was about long enough, reckon,
for grown persons at least.
All persons of slave parents, after certain time,
were to be free at certain age and all born after
certain other period, were to be free at their BIRTH
1t was gradual system of emancipation. Hence
now repeat that so long as the ordinance of 1857,
passed by Congress, said Illinois should not have
slavery, she did have it; and the very first day that
our people arrived at that condition that they could
90 as they pleased, to wit when they became a
State, they adopted system of gradual emancipa-
ton; but still slavery continued in the State as the
census OF 1920 the census of 1880, and the census
Of 1910, show, until the new constitution of 1s47
when nearly all those old slaves had died out, and
probably there were not a half dozen alive. That
was the way slavery was introduced and expired in
Illinois. Whatever bubbles there NAV be about
legal construction legal right, these are the facts
Look into the territorial legislation, and you will
find as rigorous code for the protection of slave
property as in any State-a code prescribing the
control of the master, providing that if negro slave
should leave his masters farm without leave, or in
the night time, he should be punished by so many
stripes, and if he committed such an offence he
should receive so many stripes and on; rigorous
code as ever existed in any southern State Of this
Union Not only that, but after the State came in
to the Union, the State of Illinois reenacted that
code, and continued it up to the time that slavery
died out under the operation of the State constitu
ton.
dislike, sir, to have controversy with my col
league about historical facts. suppose the Senate
AEk L. I'll NJ