The weekly pioneer and Democrat. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. Territory) 1855-1865, 1860-04-06

senator Seward. ~o
Senator DAVIS of Mississippi, in brief
speech made in the Senate, in reply to Sen.
ator SEWARD, made the following remarks,
as TO the effects OF negro slavery upon the
white laborers Of the South
There is nothing, Mr.. President, which
has led men to greater confusion of ideas
than this term Of "free states" and "slaye
states;" and trusted that the Senator,
with his discriminating and logical mind,
was going to give us something tangible,
instead of dealing in phrase never appli-
cable. He applied another but what was
his phrase? "Capital states" and "labor
states" and where is the state in which no.
body labors The fallacy upon which the
Senator hung adjective after adjective was,
that all the labor of the southern states was
performed by negroes. Did he not know
that the negroes formed but small part of
the people of the southern states? Did he
suppose that nobody labored but negro,
there? nso, he was less informed than l
had previously believed him to be-
Negro slavery exists in the south, and by
the existence Of negro slavery, the white
man is raised to the dignity of freeman and
an equal. Nowhere else will you find every
white man superior to mental service.
Nowhere else will you End every white man
recognized so far as an equal as never to be
excluded from any mans house OF any man s
table. Your own meniel who blacks your
boots, drives your carriage, who wears your
livery, and who is your own in every sense
of the word, is not your equal; and such is
society wherever negro slavery is not the
substratum on which the white race is ele-
waited to its true dignity. We, however,
have no theory to press upon you ; we leave
you to such institutions as you prefer but
when you assail ours, we come to the vindi-
cation of our institutions by showing you
that all your phrases are false; that we are
the freemen.
With US, and with us alone, do l believe,
the white man attains to his true dignity in
the government. So much for the great
fallacy on which the Senator's argument
hangs, that the labor of the South is all me-
gro labor, and that the white man must
there be degraded if he labors or that we
have no laboring white men. I do not
know which is his opinion one of the two.
The Senator has himself resided in South.
ern State, and therefore I say / believed
him to be better informed before he spoke.
l must suppose him to be as ignorant as his
speech would indicate. No man, however,
who has seen any portion of Southern socie-
ty, can entertain any such oppinion as that
which he presents and it is in order that
the statement he has made may not 60 out
to deceive those less informed than himself,
that I offer at this time the correction.
The Senator makes a rather hackneyed
argument, that, in asserting our right to 60
into the territory and enjoy it, we are seek
ing to take exclusive possession of it. I
shall not dwell on that point further than
to say that we have sought to exclude no.
body. We have sought not to usurp the
territory to our exclusive possession we
have sought that governments should be in
stituted in order that every person and
property might be protected that went into
1.-THE white man coming from the North,
| and the white man coming from the South,
both meeting on an equality in the terrific
ry, and each with whatever property he may
hold under the laws of his State and the
Constitution of the United States. Such is
our position. It is to array a prejudice
which does not justly attach to US, to as
sumo that we have ever sought to exclude
any citizen from any State or Territory
from going into any Territory and there
possessing all the rights which we claim to
ourselves.
We have heard time and again this ses-
sion the same point made against the DEM
ocratic party, that they were hedging them
selves behind the decision of the Supreme
Court. If this had been presented in the
beginning, it might have had some fairness /;
but, after years of conflict, and after we
had found it utterly impossible ever to reach
a conclusion satisfactory to both sides-in
other words, to enact law which would
answer the purpose-we then agreed to
postpone question judicial in its character,
and thus agreed to be bound, legislatively
and politically, by the decision which that
judicial question should receive. Now, the
Senator pleads to the Jurisdiction, as though
we had ever asserted that the Supreme
Court could decide political question; but
he was bound in honor, and so were all who
acted with him, to abide by the decision Of
an umpire to which they had themselves re-
ferred the case. We are willing to abide by
it. We but claim for them that to which
We pIcuScQ OuTStlVtS, anu Cudt W WuICu
they were mutually pledged when this posi-
ton was taken by the two houses of Con-
gress.
But the Senator in his zeal depicts the
negro slave of the South as human being
reduced to the condition of mere chattel
Is it possible that the Senator did not know
that the negro slave in every Southern State
is still person, protected by all laws which
punish crime in other persons? Could the
Senator have failed to know that no master
could take the life of or MAIN his slave
without being held responsible under the
criminal laws of any Southern State, and
held to responsibility as rigid as though
that negro had been white man? How,
then, is it asserted that these are not per-
sons? The venerable Senator from Ken>
lucky knows very well that this is not law
in any State of the Union where slaves are
held, but that everywhere they are protect.
ed but the criminal law covers them as
perfectly as it covers the white men.
Mr.. Crittenden. I have not made any
particular examination as to the laws of all
the slave States; but believe they all con.