Daily Ohio statesman. [volume] (Columbus, Ohio) 1855-1870, 1864-02-23
SPEECH OF 5r
Hon. Samuel S. Cox,
ON mIsCEGENATION AND SLAVERY:

ON INCORPORATION AND SLAVERY
Delivered In the House of Congress on Weanes
day, February 17tt, 1864.
err f' Z --- II. .. ilt
The Bill, To establish Bureau of Freed
mems Affairs, being under consideration
Mr.. Cox had the floor and proceeded tt
speak. He first discussed some constitu.
tionalpoints that enter into the question
and then continued as follows:
"But," its is urged, something must be
done for the poor blacks. They are perish
ing by thousands. We must look the great
fact of anti-slavery and its millions of en-
franchised victims in the face and legislate
for their relief" Such is the appeal TO our
kindlier natures. Something should be done.
The humanity which so long pitied the
plumage should not forget the dying bird.
But what can be done without violating the
Constitution of the United States, or With
out intrenching upon domainn never grant
ed by the States or the people in their writ
ten charter of powers? What can be done?
oh! ye, honey-tongued humanitarians of
New England, with your Golfers filled from
the rough hand of western toll, the beaded
sweat Of whose industry by the subtle
alchemy of your inventive genius is trans
muted into the jewels of your parvenn and
shoddy plendor, with your dividends rising
higher and higher like waves under this
storm of war; would beseech you to go
into the camps of the contrabands, as the
gentleman described them, who are starv-
ing and pining for their old homes, and lift
them out of the mire into which your i'm
'provident and premature schemes have
In oil ne It,.nr s,,fn
their wounds, and save a few of them at
least from the doom of extirpation. Here
is a fitting and legal opportunity for the ex-
ercise Of a gracious humanity. rejoice
to know that many good men, even from
New England, have embraced it.
But the gentleman urges this legislation,
because If 1t be not passed, the Presidents
proclamation will be made "a living lie."-
He thinks that "neither the considerate
judgment of mankind nor the gracious
favor of God can be invoked upon the Pres
ident's act Of freedom, unless the law shall
protect the freedom which the sword has
declared" Not merely has the Presidents
proclamation been made living lie, but the
thousands of corpses daily hurried out of
the contraband novels and tents along the
Mississippi prove it to have been a deadly
Vie. Neither the judgment of man nor the
favor of God can be invoked without mock
cry upon a fanatical project so fraught
with misery to the weak and wholesale
slaughter 10 its deluded victims!
But we are warned to look the great fact
in the face that millions unfit for freedom
are yet to become free. know, Mr.. Speak
er, that we cannot change the fact by clos
ing our eyes. 1t is true. The revolution
rolls on. No effort on the part of the De-
mocracy to achieve peace through concil-
iation will now be listened to. The spirit
of those in power is the spirit of eXtermi-
nation. The war with its revolutions goes
on, and slavery as political II not as a so
cial institution may fall under its crushing
car. 1t may be that all of the four million
slaves will be thrown, like the one hundred
thousand already freed, upon the frigid
charities of the world. But, sir, if slavery
be doomed, SO, alas! is the slave. Noscheme
like this bill can save him. The Indian re-
serves, treaties, bounties, and agencies did
not and does not save the red man. No
Government farming system, no charitable
black scheme, can wash out the color of the
negro, change his inferior nature, or save
him from his inevitable fate. The irrepres-
sible conflict is not between slavery and
freedom, but between black and white; and,
as De Tocqueville prophesied, the black will
perish.
Do gentlemen on the other side rely upon
the new system. called by the transcendent-
al Abolitionists "Mscegenatiof," to save the
black? This is but another name for ANAL
gamation; but it will not save the negro
True, Wendell Phillips says it is Goods own
method of crushing out the hatred of race
and of civilizing and elevating the world,
and Theodore Tilton, the editor of the In.
dependent "a paper publishing the laws o.
| the United States by authority, holds that
hereafter the ''negro will lose his typical
blackness and be found clad in white meu'E
SKINS" But, sir, no system so repugnant tC
| the nature of our race-and to organize
which doubtless the next Congress of Pro.
gressives, and perhaps the gentleman from
Massachusetts, will practically provide
can save the negro.
Mr.. Elliott have no doubt that my
friend understands all about it.
Mr.. Cox-I understand all about 1t, for
have the doctrines laid down in circulars
pamphlets, and books published by your an
ti-slavery people. But 1t was not my in
tention to discuss it now and upon this bill
Mr.. Price-If all the blacks are crushed
out, how is amalgamation to ruin the coun
TRY?
Mr.. Cox-They will all run, according tt
tIlt utW SOSptl VI dDullblOll. iilbU Lilc WIN
people, on that side Of the House. Laugh
ter. lw -
Mr.. Eliot-Is that what the gentleman 1
afraid of? ~
Mr.. Cox-No, sir; for / do not believe tina
the doctrine of miscegenation, or the ANAL
gamation of the white and black, nov
strenuously urged by the Abolition leaders
will save the negro. 1t will destroy hin
utterly. The Psychologist will tell the gen
tleman that the mulatto does not live
he does not recreate his kind; he is a mon
, lster. I, ,..s.t .7s pi.i s3.s q
Such hybrid races, by law of Prov
dence, scarcely survive beyond one geners
tion. / promise the gentleman at some fu
4 ture and appropriate time, when better pre-
pared to dcvelope that idea of miscegeni
ltion as now heralded by the Abolitionist
who arein thevan Of the Republican NOV
lment- ~
Mr.. Elliott hope that the gentleman wi
go into it.
Mr.. Cox-If such be the desire of IL
lgentleman will attempt II, though r,
liuctantly; for my materials, like the do
Urine, are little "mixed." /
But since am challenged to exhibit th
/, doctrine of the Abolitionists- --called aft
: some Greek --misoegenation--t mi
2 ale and qenerate-I call your attention fir
to circular / hold in my hand. Itw
circulated at the Cooper Institute the 9th
might, when a female who, In the presen