Libr. 7-29 46 What Democratic Leaders think of Slavery. "Speaking for myself, slavery is to me the most repugnant of all human institutions. No man alive should hold me in slavery; and if it is my business no man, with my consent, shall hold another. Thus I voted in 1851, in Ohio, with my party, which made the new constitution of my own State. I have never defended slavery; nor has my party." Speech of Hon. S. S. Cox, of Ohio, in the House of Repre sentatives, Jan. 12, 1865. Mr. Brooks, of New York, in defending slavery, "did not pretend to speak for the democratic party. Indeed, he does not profess to speak for it, but rather as an old line Whig, having now his views independent of all machines of party. During the last session he held that slavery was dead. Gentle men should not object to his eulogizing the deceased, but by so doing he does not intend, nor does he if he intends, commit any democrat to his moral convictions." Speech of Hon. S. S. Cox, of Ohio, in the House of Repre sentatives, Jan. 12, 1865. "The democratic party of the free states are neither the advocates nor the apologists for slavery. Democracy and slavery are natural enemies. Impressed with the value of free labor, there is not a democrat in the North who would not resist the establishment of slavery in a free state." Speech of Hon. William S. Holman, of Indiana, in the House of Representatives, Jan. 13, 1865. "I have ever believed slavery wrong. The North have always believed it. Hardly one can at present be found who will claim that slavery is now, or has ever been, other than an evil. * * The South, by rebellion, has absolved the demo cratic party at the North from all obligation to stand up longer for the defence of its 'corner-stone.' They are now using the very system which this amendment proposes to abolish, for the overthrow of our government, founded on the broad principles of right, justice, and humanity." "I cannot but conclude, from the best light I can obtain, that the operation of this measure will be most beneficial to the nonslaveholding white population of the Southern States.. When these poorer laboring classes shall no longer have to contend with and struggle against and be degraded by slave labor, then, and not until then, will they come into the enjoyment of blessings such as are now fully enjoyed by the honest, toiling workingmen of the North. "When labor shall be free at the South, then will it command and have the respect which is its just due. Then will millions of the white men of the North participate and share in the blessings thus secured. The masses of our native and foreign-born laborers, now toiling in the severer climate of the North, will be invited to enter upon these newly-opened fields, for their industry and occupation. The now hidden resources of the States South will be developed by the brain and muscle of the northern laborer. "The existence in our country of antagonistic systems of labor has brought upon the nation the terrible calamity of a wasting civil war, with all its desolations. It has cost the country the lives of hundreds of thousands of its best and bravest sons, and has wasted her material resources. "The day has come when this conflict of labor is to end, and the question is forced upon us by the South. They alone are resposible for it." Speech of Hon. M. F. Odell, of New York, in the House of Representatives, Jan. 9th, 1865. "I am opposed to the re-admission into the Union, with the rights of slave property of any State which our triumphant armies have subjected." Speech of Hon. Elijah Ward, of New York, in the House of Representatives, Jan. 9th, 1865. "I believe, and have ever believed since I was capable of thought, that it is a great affliction to any country where it prevails; and, so and, so believing, I can never vote for any measure calculated to enlarge its area, or to render more permanent its duration. In some latitudes, and for some agricultural staples, |