12 and is wearing away. Upon that issue, I will meet you ; it is a fair one. If it is right, extend it; if it is wrong, let it die the death, as alb error and falsehood must die. I hardly know how to meet this issue in argument; for I have been in the habit of believing, with the fathers of the Constitution, that liberty is the gift of God to every human being. With them, I have supposed it is self-evident, and incapable of illustration by argument. I would appeal from all your casuistry to the promptings of the human heart. Who within the sound of my voice would not say, with the immortal Henry, “ Give me liberty, or give me death ? ” If there be any, let him speak. Who had not rather infinitely follow a friend or relation to the grave, than into the shambles of eternal slavery ? Not a man. Human nature revolts at it. I know it is said that the African is an inferior race, incapable of defending his own rights. My ethics teach me, if it be so, that this fact, so far from giving me a right to enslave him, requires that I shall be more scrupulous of his rights ; but I know that, whether he be equal to me or not, he is still a.human being; negroes are still men. Senators will bear me witness that there are thousands now in bondage who are much more white than black— yea, tens of thousands of such; but, whether white or black, I say again, they are still human ; they are animated by the same hopes, they are afflicted with the same sorrows, they are actuated by the same motives, that we are. Like us, they may be deprived of every right; they may be treated like brutes; their souls may be ignored ; you may whip, scourge, and trample them in the dust; but they will rise from your utmost degradation, and stand forth in the image of God, the conscious candidates of immortal life. This gives them a full assurance of their manhood, and stands as an eternal prophecy that they are not always to be slaves. It is part and parcel of human nature. It is implanted in every human soul, by the finger of God. You cannot eradicate it; and yet, while it remains, your institution cannot be secure. There are other reasons enough to show that it is not the normal condition of man. Whence this tremulous perturbation of the whole South on this subject? Why this fear that their institution will be overturned by every breath ? Why is it that you withhold from these men and women the knowledge of reading and writing ? What mean your nightly patrols, that I see your laws provide for ? What means this persecution of Northern men who go among you ? What is the fear you have of this Helper book, that we have heard so much of ? What means this robbery of the mails and censorship of the press through all the South ? If slavery is the normal condition, do you fear that the handiwork of God will be overturned by these frivolous means ? No. sir; never. It falsifies the pretence that it is a normal condition of mankind. Society in the North needs no such artificial props as these to sustain it. You may come-up there; you may attack our institutions ; we will invite you, wherever you please to com.e, to preach the glories of slavery as the normal condition of man, and our institutions will stand firmer than ever by the conflict. We fear no such thing. Why? Because, although the Senator from Virginia [Mr. Hunter] said that slavery was the normal condition, and, if I understood him, that freedom was an experiment yet, and likely to come out second best, nevertheless everything around you shows the security of the North. The perfect contentedness of the North shows which is the normal and which the other condition. Look to the great Northwest, to which I belong. There is a white population to-day, northwest of the river Ohio, as great as that of all your slave States, so secure, so impassive, so conscious of their own strength, that they are an empire in themselves. I am here day after day, and my constituents ask. nothing of me but to be let alone. Here we hear this clamor from the South about Southern rights, day after day, year after year, disturbing elements in our political progress constantly ; and yet you hear nothing from the security of freedom and free labor in those regions. All this goes to show that slavery is not the normal condition of man — that it is an institution which has survived the exigencies of the times which permitted it to be established, and now lives on the bare sufferance of mankind. I have nothing to say of slavery in the States. I do not wish to say, and would not say, a word about it, because I am candid enough to confess that I do not know what you can do with it there. I want no finger with it in your own States. I leave it to yourselves. It is bad enough, to be sure, that four millions of unpaid labor now is operating there, in competition with the free labor of the North; but I have nothing to say of that. Within your own boundaries, conduct it in your own way ; but it is wrong. Your new philosophy cannot stand the scrutiny of the present age. It is a departure from the views and principles of your fathers; yea, it is founded in the selfishness and cupidity of man, and not in the justice of God. There-is the difficulty with your institution. There is what makes.you fear that it may, sooner or later, be overturned ; but, sir, I shall do nothing to overturn it. If I could do it with the wave of my hand in your States, I should not know how to do it, or what you should do. AH I say is, that, in the vast Territories of this nation, I will allow no such curse to have a foothold. If I am right, and slavery stands branded and condemned by the God of nature, then, for Heaven’s sake, go with me to limit it, and not propagate this curse. I am candid enough to admit that you gentlemen on the
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTM4ODY=