3 assumption of fact, and the second an assumption of constitutional law, which are now made without apology or hesitation. I meet them both. To the first I oppose the essential Barbarism of Slavery, in all its influences, whether high or low, as Satan is Satan still, whether towering in the sky or squatting in the toad. To the second I oppose the unanswerable, irresistible truth, that the Constitution of the United States nowhere recognises property in man. These two assumptions naturally go together. They are 11 twins ” suckled by the same wolf. They are the “couple” in the present slave hunt. And the latter cannot be answered without exposing the former. It is only when Slavery is exhibited in its truly hateful character, that we can fully appreciate the absurdity of the assumption, which, in defiance of the express letter of the Constitution, and without a single sentence, phrase, or word, upholding human bondage, yet foists into this blameless text the barbarous idea that man can hold property in man. On former occasions, I have discussed Slavery only incidentally; as, in unfolding the principle that Slavery is Sectional and Freedom National; in exposing the unconstitutionality of the Fugitive Slave Bill; in vindicating the Prohibition of Slavery in the Missouri Territory ; in exhibiting the imbecility throughout the Revolution of the. Slave States, and especially of South Carolina; and lastly, in unmasking the Crime against Kansas. On all these occasions, where I have .spoken at length, I have said too little of the character of Slavery, partly because other topics were presented, and partly from a disinclination which I have always felt to press the argument against those whom I knew to have all the sensitiveness of a sick man. But, God be praised, this time has passed, and the debate is now lifted from details to principles. Grander debate has not Occurred in our history ; rarely in any history; nor can this debate close or subside except with the triumph of Freedom. First Assumption.—Of course I begin with the assumption of fact. It was the often-quoted remark of John Wesley, who knew well how to use words, as also howto touch hearts, that Slavery was “the sum of all villainies.” The phrase is pungent; but it would be rash in any of us to criticize the testimony of that illustrious founder of Methodism, whose ample experience of Slavery in Georgia and the Carolinas seems to have been all condensed in this sententious judgment. Language is feeble to express all the enormity of this institution, which is now vaunted as in itself a form of civilization, “ ennobling ” at least to the master, if not to the slave. Look at it in whatever light you will, and it is always the scab, the canker, the “ bare-bones,” and the shame of the country; wrong, not merely in the abstract, as is often admitted by its apologists, but wrong in the concrete also, and possessing no single element of right. Look at it in the light of principles, and it is nothing less than a huge insurrection against the eternal law of God, involving in its pretensions the denial of all human rights, and also the denial of that Divine Law in which God himself is manifest, thus being practically the grossest lie and the grossest Atheism. Founded in violence, sustained only by violence, such a wrong must by a sure law of compensation blast the master as Well as the slave; blast the lands on which they live ; blast the community of which they are a part.; blast the Government which does not forbid the outrage; and the longer it exists and the more completely it prevails, must its blasting influences penetrate the whole social system. Barbarous in origin; barbarous in its law ; barbarous in all its pretensions; barbarous in the instruments it employs; barbarous in consequences; barbarous in spirit; barbarous wherever it shows, itself, Slavery must breed Barbarians, while it develops everywhere,« alike in the individual and in the society to which he belongs, the essential elements of Barbarism. In this character it is now conspicuous before the world. In undertaking now to expose the Barbarism of Slavery, the whole broad field is open before me. There is nothing in its character, its manifold wrong, its wretched results, and especially in its influence on the class who claim to be “ ennobled ” by it, that will not fall naturally under consideration. I know well the difficulty of this discussion involved in the humiliating Truth with which I begin. Senators on former occasions, revealing their sensibility, have even protested against any comparison between what were called the “two civilizations,” meaning the two social systems produced respectively by Freedom and by Slavery. The sensibility and the protest are not unnatural, though mistaken. “Two civilizations!” Sir, in this nineteenth century of Christian light, there can be but one Civilization, and this is where Freedom prevails. Between Slavery and Civilization there is an essential incompatibility. If you are for the one, you cannot be for the other; and just in proportion to the embrace of Slavery is the divorce from Civilization. That Slave-masters should be disturbed when this is exposed,, might be expected. But the assumptions now so boastfully made, while they may not prevent the sensibility, yet surely exclude all ground of protest when these assumptions are exposed. Nor is this the only difficulty. Slavery is a bloody Touch-me-not, and everywhere in sight now blooms the bloody flower. It is on the way side as we approach the national capital; it is on the marble steps which we mount; it flaunts on this floor. I stand now in the house of its friends. About me while I speak are its most sensitive guardians, who have shown in the past how much they are
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