Juliet signal. [volume] (Juliet [i.e. Joliet], Ill.) 1844-1???, 1862-04-15
Freeing the Slaves.

In late discussion in the United States
Senate, upon the abolition Of slavery in the
District Of Columbia, the Hon. Garrett Davis
said:
Geptlemen who have lived in the slave
States and who know what the free negroes
are in the slave States, who know what the
free negroes are in communities of consid>
cradle numbers Of them, know that they
are the most worthless and vicious and ex-
pensive Of our population to the society in
which they live. Ii is go.
Mr.. President, whenever any power, con
stitutional or unconstitutional, assumes the
responsibility Of libernting slaves where
slaves are numerous, :hey ests blish in
exorable as fate a conflict between the
races that will result in the exile or the ex
termination of ono race or the other. !
know 1t. We have now about two hundred
and twenty five thousand slaves in Ken
lucky. Think you, sir, that we should
ever submit 20 have those slaves mauumit>
ted and left among us? No, sir; no, never;
nor will any white people in the United
States of America, where the slaves are
numerous. II by constitutional legisIa-
ton you should by laws which you shrink
from submitting 10 the tee, Of unconstitu-
tlonality In your courts Of justice. liberate
them without the intervention of the courts
the moment you reorganiZe the white in>
habitants of those States as States of the
Union, they would reduce their slaves
again - state of slavery, or they would
expel them and drive them upon You, or
south of you, or they would hunt them like
wild beasts and exterminste them. They
do r.. - IL
would do it from necessity. 1t will pro-
duce such n conflict between tue races as
will render il inevitable, and there will be
no escape from it.
maintain that it is matter of humau>
ity to negro in this city, and of Justice
20 the white population of this city, that
when you turn three or four thousand ne
groes who are now 10 State Of slavery
free, you should relieve them from the curse
of such a population, from its expense,
from Its burdens upon this community in
every form; you ought to assume the phi
lanthrOpy and the justice--the pbilantbro-
! ny to the negro race and the justice TO the
white race TO remove these people from the
| District. You may refuse to do it, If you
| do few years experience will tell you
what mistake YOU make. / shall speak,
| another occasion. will only say now that
when the negroes are liborsted in the t.
ton States, it is giving up the cotton States
to the negroe race, and it is expelling, in
q very short time, be inevitable necessity,
the white population from that country, or
1t IL introducing war between the two races
that will result in the expulsion Of one or
| the other.
| 1 -hok ko1I
! dent, the loyal people Of the slave States
are as true to this Union as any man in
the Senate Chamber, or in any Of the free
States but never, never will they submit
| by unconstitutional laws to have their
slaves liberated and to remain domiclled
among them ; and the policy that attempts
it will establish La Vandee in the whole
of the slave States, my own included. If
at the time you commenced this war, YOU
had announced as the national policy thai
was to prevail the measures and visionary
schemes and ideas of some gentlemen or
this floor, you would not have had q soil
tsry man from the slaves States to suppsr
you. Whenever you seek TO carry those
measures into operation, you unto the
slave States as one man. They will tell
you that in resisting such schemes they ar,
fighting for the Union and the Consiitu-
ton; and they will tell you SO truly. They
will tell you that your system OF policy il
no less aggressive and destructive upon th,
Union and the Constitution than that of tn,
rebels OF Secession themselves; and the,
will tell you so truly. They will feel it a
incumbent on them as men and as freemeI
to resist your Unconstitutional policy, By
which you will Oyerruu and trample unde
| YOUR feet the principles of the constitution
as they feel ii to be their duty to resist th'
war which the secessionists have made upoI
the Union.