he must work for his master, and not for himself. Alas! by such a fallacy, is a whole race pauperized! And yet this transaction is not without illustrative example. A solemn poet, whose verse has found wide favor, pictures a creature who, With one hand put A penny in the urn of poverty, And with the other took a shilling out. Pollok's "Course of Time," Book VIII. 632. And a celebrated traveller through Russia, more than a generation ago, describes a kindred spirit, who, while on his knees before an altar of the Greek Church, devoutly told his beads with one hand, and with the other deliberately picked the pocket of a fellow-sinner by his side. Not admiring these instances, I can not cease to deplore a system which has much of both, while, under an affectation of charity, it sordidly takes from the slave all the fruits of his bitter sweat, and thus takes from him the mainspring to exertion. Tell me, sir, is not Slavery barbarous? Such is Slavery in its five special elements of Barbarism, as recognized by law; first, assuming that man can hold property in man; secondly, abrogating the relation of husband and wife; thirdly, abrogating the parental tie; fourthly, closing the gates of knowledge; and fifthly, appropriating the unpaid labor of another. Take away these elements, sometimes called "abuses," and Slavery will cease to exist, for it is these very "abuses" which constitute Slavery. Take away any one of them, and the abolition of Slavery begins. And when I present Slavery for judgment, I mean no slight evil, with regard to which there may be a reasonable difference of opinion, but I mean this fivefold embodiment of "abuse "—this ghastly quincunx of Barbarism—each particular of which, if considered separately, must be denounced at once with all the ardor of an honest soul, while the whole five-fold combination must awake a five-fold denunciation. But this five-fold combination becomes still more hateful when its single motive is considered. The Senator from Mississippi [Mr. DAVIS] says that it is "but a form of civil govern ment for those who are not fit to govern themselves." The Senator is mistaken. It is an outrage where five different pretensions all concur in one single object, looking only to the profit of the master, and constituting its ever-present motive power, which is simply to compel the labor of fellow-men withoul wages! If the offense of Slavery were less extended; if it were confined to some narrow region; if it had less of grandeur in its proportions; if its victims were counted by tens and hundreds, instead of millions, the five-headed enormity would find little indulgence. All would rise against it, while religion and civilization would lavish their choicest efforts in the general warfare. But what is wrong, when done to one man, can not be right when done to many. If it is wrong thus to degrade a single soul—if it is wrong thus to degrade you, Mr. President →it can not be right to degrade a whole race. And yet this is denied by the barbarous logic of Slavery, which, taking advantage of its own wrong, claims immunity because its usurpation has assumed a front of audacity that can not be safely attacked. Unhappily, there is Barbarism elsewhere in the world; but American Slavery, as defined by existing law, stands forth as the greatest organized Barbarism on which the sun now shines. It is without a single peer. Its author, after making it, broke the die. -- If curiosity carries us to the origin of this law-and here I approach a topic often considered in this Chamber we shall confess again its Barbarism. It is not derived from the common law, that fountain of Liberty; for this law, while unhappily recognizing a system of servitude known as villeinage, secured to the bondman privileges unknown to the American slave; protected his person against mayhem; protected his wife against rape; gave to his marriage equal validity with the marriage of his master, and surrounded his offspring with generous presumptions of Freedom, unlike that rule of yours by which the servitude of the mother is necessarily stamped upon. the child. It is not derived from the Roman law, that fountain of tyranny, for two reasons: first, because this law, in its better days, when its early rigors were spent-like the common law itself-secured to the bondman privileges unknown to the American slave-in certain cases of cruelty, rescued him from his master-prevented the separation of parents and children, also of brothers and sisters and even protected him in the marriage relation; and secondly, because the Thirteen Colonies - were not derived from any of those countries which recognized the Roman law, while this law, even before the discovery of this continent, had lost all living efficacy. It is not derived from the Mohammedan law; for under the mild injunctions of the Koran, a benignant servitude, unlike yours, has prevailed where the lash is not allowed to lacerate the back of a female; where no knife or branding-iron is employed upon any human being, to mark him as the property of his fellow-man; where the master is expressly enjoined to listen to the desires of his slave for emancipation; and where the blood of the mas ter, mingling with his bond-woman, takes from her the transferable character of a chattel, and confers complete freedom upon their offspring. It is not derived from the Spanish law, for this law contains humane elements unknown to your system, borrowed, perhaps, from the Mohammedan Moors who so long occupied Spain; and besides, our Thirteen Colonies had no umbilical connection with Spain. Nor is it derived from English statutes or American statutes; for we have the positive and repeated averment of the Senator from Virginia, [Mr. MASON,] and also of other Senators, that in not a single State of the Union can any such statutes establishing Slavery be found. From none of these does it come. No, sir; not from any land of civilization is this Barbarism derived. It comes from Africa, ancient nurse of monsters; from Guinea, Dahomey, and Congo. There is its origin and fountain. This benighted region, we are told by Chief-Justice Marshall in a memorable judgment, (The Antelope, 10 Wheaton R. 66,) still asserts a right, discarded by Christendom, to enslave captives taken in war; and this African Barbarism is the beginning of American Slavery. And the Supreme Court of Georgia, a Slave State, has not shrunk from this conclusion. "Licensed to hold slave property," says the Court, "the Georgia planter held the slave as a chattel; either directly from the slave-trader, or from those who held under him, and he from the slave-captor in Africa. The property of the planter in the slave became, thus, the property of the original captor." (Neal v. Farmer, 9 Georgia Reports, p. 555.) It is natural that a right, thus derived in defiance of Christendom, and openly founded on the most vulgar Paganism, should be exercised without any mitigating influence from Christianity; that the master's authority over the person of his slave- over his conjugal relations-over his parental relations-over the employment of his time over all his acquisitions, should be recognized, while no generous presumption inclines to Freedom, and the womb of the bond-woman can deliver only a slave. From its home in Africa, where it is sustained by immemorial usage, this Barbarism, thus derived and thus developed, traversed the ocean to American soil. It entered on board that fatal slave-ship "built in the eclipse, and rigged with curses dark," which in 1620 landed its cruel cargo at Jamestown, in Virginia, and it has boldly taken its place in every succeeding slave-ship from that early day till now-helping to pack the human freight, regardless of human agony; surviving the torments of the middle passage; surviving its countless victims plunged beneath the waves; and it has left the slave-ship only to travel inseparable from the slave in his various doom, sanctioning by its barbarous code every outrage, whether of mayhem or robbery, of lash or lust, and fastening itself upon his offspring to the remotest generation. Thus are the barbarous prerogatives of barbarous half-naked African chiefs perpetuated in American Slave-masters, while the Senator from Virginia, [Mr. MASON,] perhaps unconscious of their originperhaps desirous to secure for them the appearance of a less barbarous pedigree-tricks them out with a phrase of the Roman law, discarded by the common law, partus sequitur ventrem, which simply renders into ancient Latin an existing rule of African Barbarism, recognized as an existing rule of American Slavery. Such is the plain juridical origin of the American slave code, which is now vaunted as a badge of Civilization. But all law, whatever may be its juridical origin, whether English or Mohammedan, Roman or African, may be traced to other and ampler influences in nature, sometimes of Right, and sometimes of Wrong. Surely the law which blasted the slave-trade as piracy punishable with death had a different inspiration from that other law, which secured immunity for the slave-trade throughout an immense territory, and invested its supporters with political power. As there is a higher law above, so there is a lower law below, and each is felt in human affairs. Thus far we have seen Slavery only in its pretended law, and in the origin of that law. And here I might stop without proceeding in this argument, for on the letter of the law alone. Slavery must be condemned. But the tree is known by its fruits, and these I now shall exhibit-and this brings me to the second stage of the argument. (2.) In considering the practical results of Slavery, the materials are so obvious and diversified that my chief care will be to abridge and reject; and here I shall put the Slave States and Free States face to face, showing at each point the blasting influence of Slavery. The States where this Barbarism now exists excel the Free States in all natural advantages. Their territory is more extensive, stretching over 851,448 square miles, while the Free States, including California, embrace only 612,597 square miles. Here is a difference of more than 238,000 square miles in favor of the Slave States, showing that Freedom starts, in this great controversy, with a field more than a quarter less than that of Slavery. In happiness of climate, adapted to productions of special value; in exhaustless motive power distributed throughout its space; in natural highways, by more than fifty navigable rivers, never closed by the rigors of winter; and in a stretch of coast along ocean and gulf, indented by hospitable harbors— the whole presenting incomparable advantages for that true civilization, where agriculture, manufactures and commerce, both domestic and foreign, blend-in all these respects the Slave States excel the Free States, whose climate is often churlish, whose motive power is less various, whose navigable rivers are fewer and often sealed by ice, and whose coast, while less in extent and with fewer harbors, is often perilous from storm and cold. But Slavery plays the part of a Harpy, and defiles the choicest banquet. See what it does with this territory, thus spacious and fair. An important indication of prosperity is to be found in the growth of population. In this respect the two regions started equal. In 1790, at the first census under the Constitution, the population of the present Slave States was 1,961,372, of the present Free States 1,968,455, showing a difference of only 7083 in favor of the Free States. This difference, at first merely nominal, has been constantly increasing since, showing itself |