2 this Territory; the acts of this legislature, fortifying the Usurpation, and, among other things, establishing test-oaths, calculated to disfranchise actual settlers, friendly to Freedom, and securing the privileges of the citizen to actual strangers friendly to Slavery; the whole crowned by a statute—“ the be-all and the end- all” of the whole Usurpation—through which Slavery was not only recognised on this beautiful soil, but made to bristle with a Code of Death such as the world has rarely seen; all these I have fully exposed on a former occasion. And yet the most important part of the argument was at that time left untouched ; I mean that which is found in the Character of Slavery. This natural sequel, with the permission of the Senate, I propose now to supply. Motive is to Crime as soul to body ; and it is only when we comprehend the motive that we can truly comprehend the Crime. Here, the motive is found in Slavery and the rage for its extension. Therefore, by logical necessity, must Slavery be discussed; not indirectly, timidly, and sparingly, but directly, openly, and thoroughly. It must be exhibited as it is; alike in its influence and in its animating character, so that not only its outside but its inside may be seen. This is no time for soft words or excuses. All such are out of place. They may turn away wrath; but what is the wrath of man ? This is no time to abandon any advantage in the argument. Senators sometimes announce that they resist Slavery on political grounds only, and. remind us that they say nothing of the moral question. This is wrong. Slavery must be resisted not only on political grounds ; but on all other grounds, whether social, economical, or moral. Ours is no holiday contest; nor is it any strife of rival factions; of White and Red Roses; of theatric Neri and Bianchi; but it is a solemn battle between Right and Wrong; between Good and Evil. Such a battle cannot be fought with excuses or with rosewater. There is austere work to be done, and Freedom cannot consent to fling away any of her weapons. If I were disposed to shrink from this discussion, the boundless assumptions now made by Senators on the other side would not allow me. The whole character of Slavery as a pretended form of civilization is put directly in issue, with a pertinacity and a hardihood which banish all reserve on this side. In these assumptions, Senators from South Carolina naturally take the lead. Following Mr. Calhoun, who pronounced “ Slavery the most safe and stable basis for free institutions in the world,” and Mr. McDuffie, who did not shrink from calling it “ the corner-stone of the republican edifice,” the Senator from South Carolina [Mr. Hammond] insists that “its forms of society are the best in the world;” and his colleague [Mr. Chesnut] takes up the strain. One Senator from Mississippi [Mr. Davis] adds, that Slavery “ is but a form of civil government for those who are not fit to govern themselves;” and bis colleague [Mr. Brown] openly vaunts that it “ is a great moral, social, and political blessing—a blessing to the slave and a blessing to the master.” One Senator from Virginia, [Mr. Hunter,] in a studied vindication of what he is pleased to call “ the social system of the slaveholding States,” exalts Slavery as “the normal condition of human society; ” “ beneficial to the non-slave-owner as it is to the slave-owner ”—“ best for the happiness of both races; ” and, in enthusiastic advocacy, declares, “ that the very keystone of the mighty arch, which by its concentrated strength is able to sustain our social superstructure, consists in the black marble block of African slavery. Knock that out,” he says, “ and the mighty fabric, with all that it upholds, topples and tumbles to its fall.” These were his very words, uttered in debate here. And his colleague, [Mr. Mason,] who has never hesitated where slavery was in question, has proclaimed that it is “ ennobling to both master and slave”—a word which, so far as the slave was concerned, he changed, on a subsequent day, to “elevating,” assuming still that it is “ennobling” to the master—which is simply a new version of an old assumption, by Mr. McDuffie, of South Carolina, that “ Slavery supersedes the necessity of an order of nobility.” Thus, by various voices, is the claim made for Slavery, which is put forward defiantly as a form of civilization—as if its existence were not plainly inconsistent with the first principles of anything that can be called Civilization—except by that figure of speech in classical literature, where a thing takes its name from something which it has not, as the dreadful Fates were called merciful because they were without mercy. And pardon the allusion, if I add, that, listening to these sounding words for Slavery, I am reminded of the kindred extravagance related by that remarkable traveller in China, the late Abb6 Hue, of a gloomy hole in which he was lodged, pestered by mosquitoes and exhaling noisome vapors, where light and air entered only by a single narrow aperture, but styled by Chinese pride the Hotel of the Beatitudes. It is natural that Senators thus insensible to the true character of Slavery, should evince an equal insensibility to the true character of the Constitution. This is shown in the claim now made, and pressed with unprecedented energy, degrading the work of our fathers, that by virtue of the Constitution, the pretended property in man is placed beyond the reach of Congressional prohibition even within Congressional jurisdiction, so that the Slave-master may at all times enter the broad outlying Territories of the Union with the victims of his op-3 pression, and there continue to hold them by lash and chain. Such are the two assumptions, the first an
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