5 conspiracy, the purpose of which is to blight the continent with the endless curse of human bondage. I know very well, Mr. Chairman, and I blush to own it, that Virginia and the south are not alone in this great apostacy. My own section had its full share in the original sin of African kidnapping; and fealty to truth compels me to admit, that in nothing is her case more hopeful than that of the south, but in that remission which may be expected to follow the confession and repentance of sin. Still, sir, however much of injustice and cupidity prevailed in that day, both at the north and the south, there was yet an immense balance of justice, humanity, and love of human rights. Bad men and base actions were not then unknown ; but the central force of public opinion was love of freedom and justice ; and this drew our fathers to a union so close and cordial, that the result was the old confederation, the declaration of independence, revolutionary war, and the constitution of the United States. These all, were the sole fruits of the love of liberty and justice, and an intense and unremitting hostility to the existence—much more to the extension of slavery. But there is no end to the proofs, that the spirit of liberty, and not of slavery, was the spirit and bond of union, under the old confederation, and throughout the revolutionary war. Why, sir, under the guidance of that evil sprit of slavery propagandism, which now possesses the sham democracy of the slave and the free states, the war of independence would have been an impossibility. A cargo of African negroes, sir, would have transformed five regiments of these shams into “ cow-boys ” and tories. I will adduce but one proof more of my original proposition, and that shall be the declaration of independence itself. Here it is, 0 ye slavery-extending democrats, and blush that ever you dubbed yourselves followers of Jefferson 1 “ We hold these truths to be self-evident, that 1 all men are created equal; that they are en- ‘ dowed by their Creator with certain unalien- ‘ able rights ; that among these are life, liberty, ‘ and the pursuit of happiness; that, to secure ‘ these rights, governments are instituted among ‘ men, deriving their just powers from the con- ‘ sent of the governed,” &c. I know sir, that a democrat in the other end of the capitol, in the last congress, pronounced this sacred charter of human rights “ a self-evident lie ; ” and that democrat, so far as I know, is still in full communion in the democratic church, and is probably honored the more, for throwing the lie in the faces of those whose blood purchased that freedom which enabled him, on the floor of the American senate, to dishonor their memories and insult those of their posterity, who revere their virtues and cherish their principles. But why marvel at such audacity of language? Alas, sir! it but too well accords with the acts and records of the apostate party of which he was a prominent member. Mr. Chairman, if any human records of the past can be relied on as proof of any event of the past, then the proof, that the bond of our American union, prior to, and during the revolutionary war, the incipient measures, to which they resorted, to rid themselves of the iniquitous and ruinous system of slavery. Simultaneously with this association, formed by the first congres^xNorth Carolina denounced the slave trade and slavery, in language equally bold and truthful. The colony of Georgia did the same in the following year; and, indeed, the united voice of the colonies, during the agitations which immediately preceded the revolutionary war, down to the crowning period of the declaration of independence, was utterly condemnatory of slavery, morally, socially, and POLITICALLY. The gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Lumpkin] has assured us, that if the “ black republicans ” elect their president in the coming contest, the union will be dissolved, inasmuch as no southern man will take office under such an administration. This prediction however, is not original with that gentleman, nor to the section from which he comes, for even the north has. at least, one man simple enough, to back his own pretensions to the presidency by a similar- threat. But, Mr. Chairman, if Mr. Fremont can induce no living southern statesman to accept the appointment, let him select the ghost of some one of their dead sages ; for “ though he be dead, he yet speaketh.” Hear the old Georgians speak from their honored graves! “Colony of Georgia, January 12, ltV5. “ To show the world that we are not influenced ‘ by any contracted or interested motives, but a ‘ general philanthropy for all mankind, of whatever ‘ climate, language, or complexion, we hereby de- ‘ clare our disapprobation and abhorrence of the ‘ unnatural practice of slavery in America—a 1 practice founded in injustice and cruelty, and 1 highly dangerous to our liberties, (as well as 4 lives,) debasing part of our fellow-creatures be- ‘ low men, and corrupting the virtue and morals ‘ of the rest, and is laying the basis of that liberty ‘ we contend for upon a very wrong foundation. ‘ We, therefore, resolve, at all times, to use our ‘ utmost endeavors for the manumission of our f slaves in this colony upon the most safe and ‘ equitable footing for the master and themselves.” In that day, Mr. Chairman, Virginia was not behind her sister colonies in condemnation of slavery. In November, 1774, James City county endorsed the action of that first continental congress in the following language: “ The association entered into by congress be- ‘ ing publicly read, the freeholders and other in- * habitants of the county, that they might testify ‘ to the world their concurrence and hearty ap- ‘ probation of the measures adopted by that re- 1 spectable body, very cordially acceded thereto, ‘ and did bind and oblige themselves, by the ' sacred ties of virtue, honor, and love to their ‘ country, strictly and inviolably to observe and ‘ keep the same in every particular.”—ibid. Woe is the day, Mr. Chairman, that she ever receded from her plighted faith ! Had she kept the faith of her fathers, no note of discord would have ever marred the harmony of that union, then so auspiciously inaugurated. But she has fallen, and her sons are now heading that great
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