9 on his part, that it is no crime to persuade or to entice a negro slave to run away from his master. Is that the opinion of the Senator from New York? Mr. SEWARD. There is no Senator for whom I have more respect than the honorable Senator from North Carolina, but I have a rule—which is, to adhere to my own line of argument. I am defending my vote, on a bill before the Senate. I shall go into the discussion of no collateral question, further than it is necessarily involved in the argument which the occasion requires. I call your attention to another of these enactments : “ If any person shall entice, decoy, or carry away out of this Territory, any slave belonging to another, with intent to deprive the owner thereof of the services of such slave, or with intent to effect or procure the freedom of such slave, he shall be adjudged guilty of grand larceny, and, on conviction thereof, shall suffer death, or be imprisoned at hard labor for not less than ten years.''’ . There is no larceny of property, of any kind, which in my judgment demands punishment by death. Certainly, I shall not agree to a law which shall inflict that extreme punishment for constructive larceny, in a case where it is at least a disputed point in ethics, whether the offence is malum in se. Here is another chapter : “ If any slave shall commit petit larceny, or shall steal any neat cattle, sheep, or hog, or be guilty of any misdemeanor, or other offence punishable under the provisions of this act only by fine or imprisonment in a county jail, or by both such fine and inwrisonment, he shall, instead of such punishment, be punished, if a male, by stripes on his bare back not exceeding thirty-nine, or if a female, by imprisonment in a county jail not exceeding twenty-one days, or by stripes not exceeding twenty-one, at the discretion of the justice.” With repentance and atonement, Mr. President, I may hope to be forgiven for inflicting blows upon the person of a fellow-man, equal in strength and vigor to myself. I should have no hope to be forgiven, much less to retain my own self- respect, if, on any occasion, under any circumstances, or upon any pretext, I should ever consent to apply, or authorize another to apply, a lash to the naked back of a weak, defenceless, helpless woman. Sir, call these provisions which I have recited by what name you will—edicts, ordinances, or statutes—they are the laws which the House of Representatives says shall not be enforced in Kansas by the army of the United States. I give my thanks to the House of Representatives, sincere and hearty thanks. I salute the House of Representatives with the jiomage of my profound respect. It has vindicated the Constitution of my country; it has vindicated the cause of Freedom ; it has vindicated the cause of humanity. Even though it shall tamely rescind this vindication to-morrow, when it shall come into conflict with the Senate of the United States, yet I shall nevertheless regard this proviso, standing in that case only for a single day, as an omen of more earnest and firm legislation in that great forum. When, hereafter, one shall be looking through the pages of statute laws affecting the African race, for a period of more than a quarter of a century, he will regard this ephemeral recognition of the equality of men with the affection and hope which the traveller feels when approaching a green spot in the deserts of Arabia. It must be other Senators, not I, who shall consent to blast this oasis, and disappoint all the hopes that already are bursting the bud upon it. Mr. President, although the fact is clear, that the pretended laws in Kansas can only be executed by armed force, and therefore are obnoxious to a presumption that they are founded in injustice; and although those laws, upon searching examination, are found to be subversive of the Constitution, and in conflict with all the sentiments of humanity, the whole case of the House of Representatives has nevertheless not yet been stated. The proceedings which have hitherto taken place in executing those laws have been unconstitutional in their character, and attended with grinding Oppression and cruel severity. The Senator from Virginia has asked me, whether such laws do not exist in Missouri. Mr. MASON. The Senator from Virginia asked you whether a law on which you were commenting was not a law of the State of Missouri, copied by the Territory of Kansas. Mr. SEWARD. Take the question in the shape in which the honorable Senator repeats it. I suppose such laws exist in that State, and in other States. I have this to say for those States, and for the United States—that a Federal standing army has never been employed in executing such laws in those States. And how have these atrocious laws been executed in Kansas ? The marshal of the Territory, an officer dependent on the President of the United States, has enrolled as a volunteer militia, at the expense of the Federal Treasury, an armed band of confessed propagandists of Slavery from other States; and this so-called militia, but really unconstitutional regular force, has been converted into a posse comitatus to execute these atrocious statutes by intimidation, or by force, as the na-
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