^6^ F 685 .B63 Copy 1 SPEECH \ .»--* HON. FRANCIS P. BLAIR, JR., OF MISSOURI, THE KANSAS QUESTION; DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, MARCH 523, 1853, WASHINGTON: MtNtED AT THE CONGRESSIONAL GLOBE OFFICE. 1858. SPEECH. The House being in the Committee of the VVliole on the state of the Union- Mr. BLAIR said: Mr. Chairman: The attitude of the present Ad- ministration upon this Kansas question, and upon the question of slavery generally, has been dis- cussed in almost every conceivable aspect. Tliere is, however, one point of view in which it has not been treated in this Hall; and I propose to state, as frankly and candidly as I can, the position I conceive the Administration and the Democratic partyhold upon this question; and also to discuss it in its bearings upon a large class of citizens of the .southern States — the iion-slaveholding peo])Ie of those States. I make no apology for approach- ing this subject. 1 consider that the system of slavery, which has made the last two or three of our Presidents "fetch and carry" at its beck and nod; which has held the legislative power of this Government in its hands for a series of years; which has swayed even the decisions of the Su- preme Court — is of sufficient importance to be dis- cussed, to be grappled with, and to be subdued; and therefore I shall not heed the querulous com- plaint that this subject has been too much dis- cussed. It is this institution which has cast its dark shadow upon ourland,and which threatens the ex- istence of our free Constitution. I know full well that there is an instinct in the hearts of the people of this country whose ken looks beyond that of theniois; acute intellect, and which tells them that from this question they are to apprehend danger to the institutions of our country. I am aware that those gentlemen who were elected to this House as the friends of the President, have suf- ficiently exposed the forfeiture of thb pledges made by hint in bis letter accepting his npmina- tion, made at Cincinnati; and I consider th;\t the violation of his pledges contained in his inaugural address, and in his instructions to Governor Walker, declaring his purpose to secure the peo- ple of Kansas the right to decide for themselves the institutions under which they were to live, have eilso been sufficiently exposed by those who were elected here as Democrats. I never expected him to redeem those pledges. I always supposed they were made to be violated, and shall, there- fore, express no surprise at the result. I al- ways believed that Mr. Buciianan was nominated to carry out the policy of his predecessor, which was to fix slavery upon Kansas by force or fraud; and, in my opinion, not only Kansas, but the whole continent is embraced in this conspiracy. Hateful to me as is the design of forcing upon Kan- sas a constitution abhored by her people, hateful as are the low and mean frauds by which that policy has been pushed, hateful as are the crimes by which, for the last three years, Kansas has been held in subjugation, still more hateful is the design which I believe has been deliberately formed to extend this constitution over the whole country. I shall give the President the benefit of his own language, to define his own position upon this quesUon". I have in my hand his late special message transmitted to us with the Le- compton constitution; and I call the attention of his friends and admirers to this sentence: " Tt has been solemnly adjudged, by the highest judicial tribunal known to our laws, that slavery exists in Kansas by virtue of the Constitution of the United States. Kansas ' is, therefore, at this moment, as much a slave Slate as Geor- gia or South Carolina. Without this, the equality of the sovereign States composing the Union would be violated, and the use and enjoyment of a Territory acquired by the common treasure of all the States, would be closed against the people and the property of nearly half the members of the Confederacy." Kansas is here called a State, and aslcive Stale — made so by the Constitution, says the President, and not by any act of her people. And I desire to know, if the Constitution of the United States makes a slave State of Kansas, the people of which coun- try have never yet given their assent to it, will not that same Constitution carry slavery into those States which acknowledge that constitution now assumed to establish slavery, in State or Territory , wherever the local laws are silent? Tiie argument of the President in this message, and in his annual message, and in the paper pub- lished by him in answer to certain gentlemen in Connecticut, goes to this point. He declares, in effect, that neither Congress, nor the people of a | Territory themselves, have the powcrto prohibit slavery in the Territories. I think his language yoes even to the extent of maintaining that a State cannot prohibit or abolish slavery, for, Mr. Chair- man, if neither the people of a Territory nor Con- gress can prohibit .slavery for the reasons assigned by the President, the same reasoning would em- brace the States made from territory acquired by "the Confederacy of sovereign States." How happens it tliat the people of the State of Iowa can prohibit nlavery.' That was territory acquired iiy the Confederacy of sovereign States. How can the people of the State of Iowa reverse the rule of justice any more tlian the people of the Terri- tory of Iowa.' The whole argument of the Pres- ident, the argument of all who agree with him', the argument of the Supreme Court, all assign that as a reason why the people of a Territory cannot prohibit slavery, and why the Congress of the United Slates cannot exclude slavery from its Territories. It is all grounded on the fact that it is unjust to exclude the. property of the people of nny one portion of the Confederacy from t'nat which was acquired by the people of the whole Confederacy. Now, Iowa was acquired by the people of the whole Confederacy — that is, by the Government, representing the whole Confederacy, and it was i^uite as just and right for lov/a, while a Terri- tory, to exclude slavery, as it v/as when she be- came a State. There is no difference. And how can this be accomplished ? How can Iowa, or any State, prohibit slavery, if the positions taken by tlie President and the Democratic party are correct.' The people of a Territory have not the power to do it; Congress has not the power; and yet, when the people of a Territory form a con- stitution, and Congre.'ss accepts that, constitution — neither of tiiese agencies having the power to lixclude slavery— it is found, by some mysterious process, that the State thus created has acquired a power which neither agency concerned in its creation could impart to it. It strikes me, Mr. Chairman, that, if it be conceded that there is no power in Congress, or in the people of a Terri- tory, to exclude the institution of slavery, it fol- lows, as a matter of cour.se, logically and legiti- mately, that the people of a State cannot do it. And, sir, 1 find that the organ of the Administra- tion — the Washington Union — has taken that ground; and has declared that it drav/s'the con- clusion ](>gitimi\tely from the opinion of the Su- preme Court in tlic Drod Scott case. Mr. J. CLANCY JONES. Will the gentle- man be good enough to tell me what that organ ie? 1 am not aware that the Administration has an organ. Mr. BLAIR. If anybody has a light to know what that organ is, the gentleman from Pennsyl- vania is the man. Mr. J. CLANCY JONES. Be good enough to tell me. Mr. HLMR. I referred to the Washington Union by name. Mr. j; GLANCY JONES. I merely wish to remark that I Icnow of no paper recognized as the organ of the Administration. Mr. ELAIR. Then the gentleman is ignor- ant of what is known by everybody else. 1 say that that paper declared in an article some time ago that no State in the Union could abolish the institution of slavery; that it was unconstitutional to do so; and it grounded itself on the decision of the Supreme Court. I know that subsequently to that, the editor of that paper was elected, by a parly vote. Printer of the Senate of the United States. That goes very far — though the gentle- man [Mr. J. Glanct JoNF.s] repudiates the paper as the organ of the Administration — to fix it in the minds of the people that the Senate of the United States indorses his views on that subject, especially when we know that these offices go by favor, and that it is very seldom the case that a man is elected Printer, or to any other office, whose sentiments do not accord with those of the majority of the body that elects him. I know that last evening, in the other House, a very distin- guished gentleman denied that this was the posi- tion of the Democratic party, and, in his place, called for proof. He denied that anybody from the South claimed that a Stale could not prohibit slavery witliin its limits, But I undertake to say that the claim is embodied in the extract which I have read from the President's special message, in v/hich he calls Kansas a Statc^ and says that it is a slave Stale, and that it tvas mndc a slave Slate by the Federal Constitution, and not by the peo]>le. That is the language of the President, and I have heard from every Democrat that has taken the floor in this or the other House, nothing but eulogy of that message, since it was published; and 1 con- sider that as an indorsement of the doctrines it contains. But that is not all. This doctrine is contained intiie Dred ScoUdecision. Every argument that is made to show that neither Congress nor the people of a Territory has the power to prohibit slavery in the Territory, is equally applicable to a State, and is more api^ropriate as ajiplicd to the Slates, because the Consiituiion was made for the Stales, and not for the Territories, and is the supreme law over the constitutions and statutes of the States. I think that is the doctrine of the Democratic party. They may disclaim it now, when it is proclaimed in all its nakedness; but they will yet come up to it whenever occasion offers to carry their principles to the result in- tended. Now, Mr. Chairman, I ask those gentlemen who have been so clamorous about popular sov- ereignty, whether they accept this doctrine.' I ask them if they propose to deny all that they have said on the subject of popular sovereignty, and if they will submit to have this inslitulion injected into the Territories and States by what is' claimed to be the Constitution of the United States.' Will they do it.' I suppose they will not be able to resist the majority of their own parly in this matter, and they must citlier em- brace this doctrine or be read out. Now, it matters not to me whalground the lead- ers of that parly assume. They may come for- ward to sustain this doctrine, and to sustain the Siolicy of the last Administration in forcing upon Cansas an institution abhorred by a large major- itvof the people, and in forcing this institution on (Hher Slates and Territories. I do not care how many judicial decisions shall -sanction it, or how many regiments inay be called out to enforce it; in my opinion, the attempt will fail. The Terri- tories of this Government cannot be wrested from the freomcn to wliom they belong, to be given up to slaveholders and their slaves, in order to strengthen tht^ oligarchy which rests upon this servile institution. Gentlemen have proclaimed upon this floor that the Leconipion constitution was accepted "by a majority of the people of Kansas. Sir, in my belief, thi'i-e is not a town or county in Kansas where the Lecompton convention could have sat and performed the work of fraiui now before us, without the support of the Federal bayonets. 1 do not know'one town or county in Kansas where they would have had the power to defy the will of the people as they have done, except under the protection of the Federal bayonets. The F'rcsi- dent tells us, and tells the country, in no equiv- ocal language, that the government which he calls the rightful government of Kansas, would long ago have been subverted by these factious people out there, if it had not been supported by t!>e Fed- eral Army. This is a clear admission on his part that the government there is an usurpation; because there can be no government in violation of the sen- timents of the people, unless it bean usurpation. But, sir, that government would have been sub- ! verted long ai^o, but for the interference of the | President of the United States; and, whether the ! fact be admitted by tlie President or not, it cannot be succissfully controverted that the President] has exerted iiis entire energies — he has perverted i the whole power and patronage of the Federal ji Government — to drive free white men out of the ;| Territory of Kansas to make room for negro 11 slaves. Now, sir, there is a parallel to the history of this transai;iioii which took place many centuries ago, and which I find in a book published nearly a century smce. But it is so appropriate to the events that are now transpiring, that 1 hope the House will have the patience to hear me read it jj through. I read from Hook's History of Rome, i to show how the; great Republic of antiquity fell I to decay, when it ceased to cherish the. people as landholderSjatid became an oligarchy, by the very means now being employed in our own: i " It is recorded of Tiberius Gracchus that, in crossing Iletruria in his way to Spain, lie ohserved thattlierc were no otiior linsliaiiihiien or laliorurs in the country than slaves ; and, aceordiMi to ['lutarcli, thi: people — by wriiinjjs affixed | to the porticoes, walls, and tombs— daily exhorted Tiberius [ to procure a rcstiiution of the public lauds to the injured poor. " From the earliest times of Rome," proceeds the his- torian, ■' it had Ill-en tlm custom of the Romans, when they subdued any oi tin; nations in Italy, to deprive them of a part of their tiTntory. A porlion oi' these lands were sold, and IIr' rot iiivcii |o ilir imonr citizens, on condition, says Appiaji. of ilicir paUii^ aiiiuially a tiMitli of the corn and a j fiflli oi' lii-' ('luii-oi' till' ti.Ts. b",v~idcs a certain number of /ircai .:ii ; I. ,:, . i;ii. i ,i p. : . -^ ofiiiiii'. the rich, by va j '•'Tiberius Gracchus, now a tribune of the people, under- took to ressois the piiee of the huiils that wi'ro to bfi taken from them." " Nevr (says I'liitareli) was proposed a law more mild an'd gentle against inniuliy and oppress sion." For those were public lauds of wliicli the rich had taken possession with their slaves ; " yet the rich made a. mighty clamor about the hardship of being stripi of their houses, their lands, their inheritances, the burial places of their ancestors, the unspeakable confusion sueli innova- tions would produce, the estates in i|Uesiiori (aeiuiired by robbery) b(!ing settled upon the wivi's and eliildreii of the possessors; and to raise an odium against Graecbns, they gave out that ambition, not a view to the public good, had put him upon this project." * * » * "The poor, on the other hand, complained of the extreme indi- gence to which they were reduced, and of their inability to bring up children. They eiiumeraied the many battles tliey had fought in defense of the Kepnblie. notwithstand- iiig'wiiich, they were allowed no share of the public lands ; nay. the usurpers, to ciiltii m argument for expati- ating on the danser of iiiiiirj I ciU wiih slaves." 'MJn the day wlien the tribes inel to ileleriiiiiie concerninz the law, the Tribune maiiiKiiiiing his cause, wliieh was in itself just and noble, with an eli„|ih hc.iIkh would have set olfa iiad one, appealed I' I iii - I i . i i i ■ icirihie and irre- sistible. He asked till- I :,:, .1 ii ' i.: ic. red a slave to a cifizvn; a mun loi/ ; , , , , , I::) ,i soldier ; an alien to a membe m :ii: i: r:; i: ; ,.,iil wliieli they, thought would be more zealous mm u , mi, rests.' Then a« to the miseries of the poor, he sai.l : -i'li,- wild beasts ot Italy have caves and dens to shelter ilicm : liut the people who ex|iosp their lives for the ileiViisa of Italy, are allowed iiotliiiiL' Inn the light and air. Tin .\ u ainlir ii]) ami down w nil lliiir wives ami cluldren. uillioiii li.iu-e. and without halHtalinii. < liir generals mock I he suldiei^ ; when in bat- lit I.I any Jtomaii cm/, n to lioiil land, or to have mi his esia and five liuiidrcd ^mall eatt numherofl)r,;ncn!.h,nUi, "Bui, iiolwitliMaiiding I law (obsinvcil lor some n public) tell at leiii;tli nnilc me :w;^ forbidding , e tiuiidreil acres of one hundred great rins ibat a eertaii: I ■nllii-afeUic farms. I ions, the Ueinian eat benefit of the ! ,e. The rich SMid j s of the lands of | : they cm )■ their poor miglihors." " Tj ruUicalc the fu; ployed f J I- ri II, ^l,:rc^. .So that Italy was in danger of losing its inhaliiianis of tree condition, (who had no encourage- ment to many, no uieaiis to educate children,) .init of being overrun witli'slaves,aiid barbarians, ibathad neither affec- tion for tlie Kepublie nor interest in her preservation." Iinii^cliolil jioiis; lor, amongst ail mat L'reai iiiDiiDcr Ot lio- inans, tin le is not one wliohns eitiicr a iloiiicMie allaror u se|iiilelMr tor his ancestors. Tli(»y light and die, solely to luainlain the riches and luxury of others, and are styled the lords of the universe, while they have not a single foot of ground in their possession.' " After much resistance from the Patricians, the Tribune finally procured the passage of the law: " And it being resolved thatTriunivirs, or three commis- sioners, slionhrbe eonstinited for the execution of it, the |ieo|il" nannil to that einj.loyinent, Tiberius himself, his lather III l:i\v .Appius Clnudius, and Cains (iracchus, who al iliis time was in rijiaiii, serving under Seipio in the Nu- inatini^ war. These Tri'invirs were to examine and judge what lands lielon'^edto the piihlic, as well as to make the in- tended distribution, of them." Befoi-e the law could bo put into operation Ti- berius was assassinated in the Senate House by certain Senators " who possessed much of the public lands and were extremely unwilling to part with them." Tiiese Senators, it is said by the historian, were aided by their clients and slaves, and the blow " which probably dispatched him, lie received from a man named L. Rufiis, who afterwards gloried in the action." Cicero, who was the orator and partisan of the oligaicliy,and whose false ghisses in regard to tiiese transactions have been followed by all the historians in the in- terest of the privileged orders, was himself con- strained to admit '= That Tiberius Gracchus came nothing short of the vir- tue of his lalher, or his grandfather, Africanus, but in this, that he forsook the party of the Senate." Sallust, the great and perspicacious historian, iiiH letter to the greatest general and statesman of the* ■Romans, Julius Caesar, exhorting him to re- store tlie Commonwealth, gives in a single sen- 6 tencc the whole history of Rome, after the Ro- man people were robbed of all ownership in the soil to feed the grandeur and employ the slaves of the nobility. He says, and I desire to mark the sentence: " Men of the lowest rank, whether occupying their farms at home or serviiis; in the wars, wore amply satisfied lliem- selves, anil ^'uvc anipli' satislaciion to their country, so long as tliey possessed what was sufficient to subsist them. But when, heins thrust out of possession of their lands by a grad- ual usurpation, they, through indigence and idleness, (hav- ing nothing to do,) could no longer have any fixed abodes, then they began to covet the wealth of other men, and to put their own liberty and the Connnonwealth to sale." The law procured by Tiberius Gracchus has been denounced by all the writers in the interest of the privileged classes from that day to this as an agrarian law, a law to take from the rich and to give to the poor, when the fact is, Mr. Chair- man, that it was a law to distribute among the people the lands which belonged to the public; and now a similar attempt is made by the party of oligarchs in this country to seize the Territories oflhis Government and plant them with slaves to the exclusion of freemen, and they follow the example of their Roman prototypes and denounce those who oppose them in their schemes as F^ree- Soilers. I do not know but that the term " agra- rian," taken in its true sense, might well stand for a translation of the term " Free-Soiler." In that sense, in the sense of distributing to the people the lands which belong to them, I have no hesitation in accepting the designation; and to show that there is as great necessity for this measure now as there was at the time when Ti- berius Gracchus described the destitution of the Roman people, v/ho made that Republic the mis- tress of the world, I will read from some high > authorities in regard tOxthe condition of the non- ] slavehoiding white man of the South, who con- stitute a large majority of its citizens. I shall t quote first the language of the Senator from Ala- 1 buma, [Mr. Clay.] He is giving an account, in a speech made in Alabama, of the condition of his own Slate, and more particularly of his own county. He says: " In traversing that county, one will discover numerous farm houses, once the abode of industrious iind intelligent freemen, now occupied by plavcs or tenantless, deserted, and dilapidated ; he will observe fields, once fertile, now unfeneed, abandoned, and covered with those evil harbin- gers, fox-tail and broonisedge ; he will see the moss grow- ing on the moldering walls of once thrifty villages, and will find ' on» only master grasps the whole domain,' that once furnislied happy homes for a dozen white families." Thi.s is the language of a distinguished Senator from Alabama, describing his own county, and I should suppose that if that gentleman knew any- thing at all, he would know the condition of the county in which he resides. Nor is it to be sup- posed that he would exaggerate that which is by no means flattering to his county or his State. Mr. William Gregg, in a paper before the South Carolina Institute, handling the same subject, re- marks: " Any man who is an observer of things could hardly pass through our country without being struck with the fact that all the capital, enterprise, and intelligence is employed in directing slave labor ; and the consequence is, that a large portion of our poor white people are wholly neglected, and arc suflered to while away an existence in a state but on^; step in advance of the Indian of the forest. It is an evil of vast magnitude, and nothing but a change in public s.;nti- ment will eflecl its cure." I propose to read what was said in tiie Vir- ginia Legislature in 1832, by a gentleman who is now a distinguished member of this House, [Mr. FAtJLKNfER.] He says: " Slavery, it is .idmitled, is an evil. It is an institution which presses heavily against the best interests of the State. It baliishesfree white labor; it exterminates the mechanic, the artisan, the manufacturer ; it deprives them of occupa- tion ; it deprives them Qf bread ; it converts the energy of a community into indolence, its power into imbeciUty, its etficiency into weakness. Sir, being thus injurious, have we not a right to demand its extermination .' Shall society sufler, that the slaveholder may continue to gather his crop of human flesh.' What is his mere pecuniary claim, com- pared with the great interests of the common weal .' Must the country languish, droop, die, that the slaveholder may flourish ? Shall all interests be subservient to one — all rights subordinate to those of the slaveholder.' Has not the me- chanic, have not the middle classes, their rights — rights in- compatible with the existence of slavery .'" And now, sir, I shall conclude these quotations by reading from another very distinguished south- ern gentleman, who has recently been chosen from the very elite of the chivalry of South Car- olina to represent his State in the most august and dignified body in the land — I refer to Gov- ernor Hamm'oxd. Here is his testimony as to their condition, in an address before the South Carolina Institute, in 1830: " They obtain a precarious subsistence by occasiona jobs, by hunting, by fishing, by plundering fields or folds, and too often by what is in its etfects far worse — trading with slaves, and seducing them to plunder for their benefit." I do not know whether this picture is an accu- rate one or not. It is not true when applied to the slave States in which I have resided. It is not true, where slavery obtains nominally, or where the slaves are few; and especially it is not true of the city and county which I represent upon this floor. The working men and mechanics of St. Louis have too just a sense of the dignity of their own employments to permit themselves to be degraded by the competition of negro slaves. A man might as well attempt to educate his negro for the legal profession as to attempt to put him at a mechanical trade in competition with the mechanics of my district. But, sir, if it be true in regard to those remote southern States where the slaves fill every industrial avocation and em- ployment, why did the Carolinian stop short in his heart-rending description.' Why did he not ex- claim with the Roman tribune, " shall we prefer our slaves to the citizens of the Republic; men in- capable of bearing arms to soldiers.'" Unless some voice shall speak that language in tones that will be heard by the people, tiie history of this country will be written in a sentence, similar to that I have read from Sallust. If by gradual usurp- ation the people are thrust out of their lands by this dominating oligarchy, tliey will, as they did in Rome," put their own liberty and the Common- wealth to sale." It is very clear that the Senator from South Carolina does not prefer the citizens of tiie Re- public to hi.s slaves. He has, in his recent speech, shown that he was the moutlipiece of the privil- eged classes — the Cicero of this new oligarchy, and not a tribune of the people. In that speech he says: " The Senator from New York said yesterday that the whole world had abolished slavery. Ay, the name, but not the thing ; and all tlif powers of the earth cannot .abolish it. God only can do it when He repeals the fiat, ' the poor ye always have with you ; ' for the man who lives by daily labor, and scarcely lives at that, and who has to put out his labor in the market and take the bijst he can get for it; in short, your whole class of manual laborers and operatives, as you call them, are slaves. The difference between us is, that our slaves arc hired for life and well compensated ; there is no starvation, no begging, no want of employment among our people, and not too niuch employment either. Yours are hired by the day, not cared for, and scantily compen- sated, which maybe proved in the most deplorable manner, at any hour, in any street in any of your large towns." " Your slaves urn white, of your own race ; you are broth- ers of one blood. They are your equals in natural endow- ment of intellect, and they feel galled by their degradation. Our slaves do not vote. We give them no political power. Yours do vote, and being the majority, they are the depos- itaries of all your political power. If tliey knew the tre- mendous secret, that the ballot-box is stronger than an army with bayonets, and could combine, where would you be.' Your society would be reconstructed, your govern- ment reconstructed, your property divided, not as they have mistakenly attempted to initiate such proceedings by meet- ing in parks, with arms in their hands, but by the quiet pro- cess of the ballot-box. You have been making war upon us to our very hearth-stones. How would you like for us to send lecturers or agitators North ; to teach these people this, to aid and assist in combining, and to lead them ! "Mr. Wilson and others. Send them along. "Mr. Ha.mmond. You say, send them North. There is no need of that. They are coming here. They are thunder- ing at our doors for homesteads of one hundred and sixty acres of land for nothing, and southern Senators are sup- portingit." * * * * "Transient and temporary causes have thus far been your preservation. The great West has been open to your surplus population, and your liordes of semi barbarian emigrants, who are crowding in year by year. They make a great movement, and you call It progress." Sir, he prefers his slaves to the citizens of the Republic, and would have the latter deprived of the right of elective franchise, as his negro slaves are. He denounces the man who lives by daily labor, and the whole class of manual laborers and operatives, as slaves. He characterizes our for- eign population as a horde of semi-barbarous em- igrants, and he would deny them a share of the public lands upon which to build their homes, and educate their children. How would this gen- tleman have appeared leading the Democratic column in the days of General .Jackson's admin- istration .' Why, sir, there would have been some- body else read out of that party— rather different fersons from those who are now being read out. f this is. Democratic doctrine, it is a novel doc- trine to me, though I have been reared a Demo- crat. I make no complaint, however, of having been read out of the party. I should as soon think of complaining of being i-ead out of a chain-gang. [Laughter.] It is not a Democracy which I should wish to sustain, by any means. I have always understood that Democracy concerns itself more about personal rights than about rights of prop- erty — the rights of individuals rather than those of monopolizing institutions. In this I may be mistaken, and certainly I am mistaken, if the revelations under this new dispensation are to be received. Suppose this doctrine had obtained at the time California was acquired. When tie acquired Cal- ifornia, and the gold di-scovcries wero niade there, it is very well known that a working^nan could earn in California $1,000 a year by his labor. That was then the value of an able-bodied slave in the old slave States. Do yoh not suppose duit a great many of them would have been carried i'* California under such a stimulus as that.' A dis- tinguished politician of Virginia, in a letter which he addressed to the public press, or to some indi- vidual, pending the last presidential election, in sp'^nVi.^jr r.f tiiio subject, calculated that Virginia had lost several hundred million dollars by not being permitted to carry her slaves to California; " because," he said, " if a slave could have been taken to California, where ho could earn '>sl,000 a year, instead of being worth $1,000, he would have been worth $5,000. Why, sir, the profit of the business of carrying slaves to California would have been greater than the profits of the African slave trade, without its perils. If the decision of 1857 had been made in 1847, so that slaves could have been removed to California, the whole de- mand for labor in that land of gold would have been supplied by slaves, and the busy marts of trade, and the gold mines of that country, would have been blackened with slaves, and not a foot of land in the whole State would have been left for the white man to stand upon, and in that way the free white men of this country would have been excluded from their own inheritance — the land they won by their own strong arms. That is what these gentlemen call Democracy. They are willing to see the free white men of the country excluded from every Territory, and es- pecially from those where the reward of labor is great; and they claim that it is their constitutional right that it shall be done; and they call it De- mocracy. Why, sir, I want to know whether the white man has not the same right of property in his own labor as the slaveholder has in the la- bor of his slave .' If you exclude the free white man from the Territories, do not you diminish the value of his labor just as you diminish the value of the slave to the owner by excluding them.' Which are we to choose between, the millions and millions of free white men in this j country, or the few thousand slaveholders .' Was the Government founded to protect rights of prop- erty in slave labor, and not to protect the rights of freemen to their own labor.' This Democracy is very tender of the property of the slaveholder, and is utterly regardless of the rights of property of any other class of people in the Territories. Now, I apply another test. The oligarchy say that they have the right to take their slaves into the Territories of the Union, and employ them as they see fit, under the Constitution of the United States, and nobody can take that right from them. They can take them into the Territories and make them mechanics, and work them in the mines, in the Victories, or in any other way; and if white men don't like that sort of competition the De- mocracy will tell them to go somewhere else. In Russia, a man can educate his serf or slave, and they frequently do, and make lawyers, doc tors, and merchants of them. Now, suppose these south- ern gentlemen should exercise their constitutional right of educating their slaves, and put them into the learned professions; do you suppose the peo- ple of this country would submit, for one instant, to this Russian iimovation .' Would there not be a cry raised from one end of this land to the other; and why.' Have they not the same constitutional 'i right to make lawyers, doctors, and merchants, j of their slaves as they have to make them me- jchanics.' Precisely the same. There is no dif- j ference whatever. But the Russian nobles never M engage in those avocations themselves, and there- 1 ''-i-e they do not feel the degradation of putting ' theX- serfs into the professions. But with us j that N'ould be trenching upon the occupation -i of the slaveholders themselves — the oligarchs — \ and here the shoe pinches. They demand that they shall l)e allowed to put their slaves to work side by side with mechanics and laborers; and, in the same breath, they claim that no slave shall be allowed to deg:rade the' employments in which they condescend to engage. I contend that Uiey have no more right tolnflict this degrada- tion on mechanics, by placing slave labor in com- petition with theii- free labor. Not a v/hit more; and, as tliey exercise the right of excluding slaves from the professions in which they are themselves engaged, (as they do by inhibiting their educa- tion,) I say they admit the right of others to ex- clude them from the mechanical trades, and from competition with every freenflan who follows an honest calling. There was a time when this Democratic party was not Democratic in name alone. There was a time when this party took ground against priv- ileged classes, and against every attempt on the part of capitalists to usurp the power of this Gov- ernment, and pervert it to their own purposes. I instance the case of the United Slates Bank, where the stockholders undertook to force this Govern- ment to allow them to bank on the national rev- enue. The Democratic party took issue with them, and put them down. Since that time we - have had the turilTdiscussion, where the manufac- turing interests of the country — a vast aggrega- tion of wealth — undertook to influence legisUition, and effect the passage of laws for their especial benefit, in derogation of the rights and interestd of the working classes of the country. The Dem- ocratic party took ground against the high pro- tective tariff', and defeated it. And now here is another question in which this struggle between capital and laboris presented in its most odious and revolting form. Here is a colossal aggregation of wealth invested in negroes, which undertakes to seize this Government to pervert it lo its own purpose, and to prevent the freemen of the country from entering the Terri- tories except in competition with slave labor; and the Democratic party, instead of standing where it used to stand, in opposition to these anti-Dem- ocratic measures, is as servile a tool of the oli- garchy as are the negro slaves themselves. I This is no question of North and South. It is a question between those who contend for caste and privilege, and those who neither have nor desire to have privileges beyond their fellows. It is the old question that has always, in all free countries, subsisted — the question of i!ie wealthy and crafty few endeavoring to steal from the masses of the people all the political power of the Government. Those gentleman are wrong who say that it is a queijtion of North and South. If there is one class of people on tiiis continent more interested than another in putting a stop to the extension of slavery into the Territories, it is the free while laborers of the South. They have in- finitely more interest ill the matter than any other class of the people, because they liave felt the pressure of the institution. They have been shut out from all ownersliip in the soil, and driven out of all employment in the Slates where slavery now exists; and should we allow the territories of the Government to be closed against Xhem, they will have no escape from the oppression which has ground them to the dust. No, sir, it is not a question between the North and South. It is a question which commends itself especially to the non-slaveholding and laboring white men of the South. Now, sir, this controversy will, in my opinion, end in great good. In the struggle which term- inated the American Revolution, the principles of 'Iberty were so deeply instilled in the heart of the people, that when that struggle endetl, the slaves were emancipated in a large number of the States, from the impulse which the love ofliberty received in that contest. This struggle, which is on the same principle, will terminate in the same way. I know thatthereare as good men in the South now as there were in the days of the Revolution. There are men — slaveholders — now there who burn to emulate tlie noble exanijjles of the illustrious men of the Revolution; and the noble State which I have the honor, in part, to represent on this door, will, in my opinion, have the glory of leading the way in this magnanimous career. Her honor and interest alike beckon her, and that she will not be insensible to these high motives nor regardless of the glorious destiny which awaits her, the le- gend which she bears upon her shield, " salxu populi suprema lex esto," sufficiently attests. LIBRftRY OF CONGRESS 016 089 531 7 # LIBRARY OF CONGRESS II 016 089 5317 • I \