said, "but the question remains"; and for four hours he described slavery with a thoroughness seldom, if ever, equalled, as, with affluence of facts, force of argument, and strength of language, he set before the nation such a picture of the monster as had never been before drawn. "The Barbarism of Slavery," he said, " appears first in the character of slavery, and secondly in the character of the slave-masters." The character of slavery he considered, first, by reference to its origin and laws, and, second, by its results as witnessed in the slave and free States. The character of the slave-masters he considered as shown by their laws; as shown in their relations with slaves, in their relations with each other, with society, and government; and in their unconsciousness. Starting with this announcement of his general plan, he proceeded to establish and illustrate in detail the postulates of his discussion. After quoting from the laws of the slave-codes of several of the States, he epitomized in a single paragraph what could be done with the slave viewed as property alone. "He may," he said, "be marked like a hog, branded like a mule, yoked like an ox, hobbled like a horse, driven like an ass, sheared like a sheep, maimed like a cur, and constantly beaten like a brute, — all according to law." He said that slavery painted itself in five particulars, — by its impossible pretension of property in man, by its abrogation of marriage, by ignoring the family relation, by closing the gates of knowledge, and by appropriating all the toil of the victim. He then proceeded to draw a contrast between the free and slave States, physically, morally, and intellectually; and he showed the barbarizing tendencies of the system in the slavecodes, in the relations of the slave-masters to their slaves, to cach other, to society, and to the government. The relation of masters to their slaves could be inferred, he said, from the laws, from the whip, the thumb-screw, bloodhounds, and maiming. The relation of masters to each other could be learned from street-fights, duels, and other like demonstrations. He depicted their relations to the government by a somewhat full adduction of particulars, setting forth their violent and lawless conduct, especially in Congress and towards any who were in the least identified with opposition to slavery and its interests. He specified the names of John Quincy Adams, Mr. Giddings, and Mr. Lovejoy, as affording memorable examples of what men were compelled to endure and expect who spoke for freedom, or who in any way demurred to the continued domination of the Slave Power. He spoke of the new dogma, that the Constitution carried slavery wherever its power was acknowledged as a purpose to Africanize the Constitution, the Territories, and the national government. In closing he spoke of "the sacred animosity of freedom and slavery," which could "end only with the triumph of freedom." "The same question," he said, "will be carried soon before that high tribunal, supreme over Senate and Court, where the judges are counted by millions, and the judgment rendered will be the solemn charge of an awakened people, instructing a new President, in the name of freedom, to see that civilization receives no detriment." Immediately on the close of the speech, Mr. Chesnut of South Carolina made a short and abusive response, under the guise of giving reasons for not replying thereto. Its spirit and purport were compressed into the two remarks that it had been left for the Abolitionists of Massachusetts "to deify the incarnation of malice, mendacity, and cowardice"; and that, as a reason for sitting quietly and silently under the speech, "we are not inclined again to send forth the recipient of punishment howling through the world, yelping fresh cries of slander and malice." Mr. Sumner in response said: "Only one word. I exposed to-day the Barbarism of Slavery. What the Senator has said in reply I may well print as an additional illustration." Several Senators participated in the debate; but the Democratic members persistently refused to put the bill on its passage. A final effort was made by the Republicans, the 7th of June, on a motion of Mr. Wade, to take it up; but the motion was defeated by a vote of twenty-six to thirty-two, Mr. Pugh being the only Democrat who voted with the Republicans. Kansas, thus remanded to her Territorial condition, was compelled to bide her time, and to wait for deliverance from a source that had not then entered into the calculations of any. Nor did she wait long before that deliverance came. Among the marvels of her early and strange history was this, stranger than all, that at the last Kansas was indebted to the madness and violence of her imbittered enemies for what the wisdom and earnestness of her warmest friends had failed to obtain; that treason wrought better for her than loyalty; and that again was seen how the wrath of man was made to praise God. Among the designed results of the election of the Republican candidate in the Presidential election of 1860, secured by the disruption of the Democratic party, was the secession of several Southern States, who made this the occasion and plea for their revolt, and who immediately led off in that" dance of blood" which afterward filled the land with suffering and sorrow, and which marked the most important epoch in the nation's history. By the retirement of those Senators who had so persistently opposed her application, a vote was secured for her admission, with this noticeable and pleasing coincidence, that the same day, January 21, 1861, witnessed both the departure of the retiring Senators and the incoming of the new and long-waiting State. And there were many who noted and appreciated the poetic justice of the Divine arrangement, by which it was left for the same hand that had borne so heavily and cruelly upon the struggling Territory to open the door it alone had kept closed, and by a suicidal violence to destroy itself. CHAPTER L. IRREPRESSIBLE CONFLICT IN THE FREE AND SLAVE STATES. New departure. Indian Terri ham's bill. Douglas's boast. - A bill to divide California. tory. Action of Kansas and Nebraska. Position of the administration. Action thereon. Convention in Maryland. Free colored population. - Hostile action defeated. injustice thereof. Similar -- Success in the legislature. Gross cruelty and legislation in other States. - Virginia, Louisiana, North Carolina, and Georgia. Decision of courts. Important decision in Virginia. Refusal of passports. Decision of Secretary of Treasury. Violent and revolutionary Southern utterances. - Northern action. - Personal liberty bills. - Vermont, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Maine, Michigan, Massachusetts, Wisconsin, Kansas, and Ohio. - Purpose of such bills. Action of Massachusetts concerning separate schools. Dred Scott decision. Decisions in Maine, Kentucky, and New York. - Court of Appeals. Argument of Charles O'Connor. -- THE new departure of the propagandists, inaugurated by the compromise measures of 1850 and completed by the Kansas-Nebraska legislation and the Dred Scott decision, necessitated other and supplementary action in the same direction. Public sentiment must be further debauched to accept more kindly, or with less reluctance, the new dogma. New legislation and new decisions of courts were demanded to carry out and render effective what had been purchased at such enormous cost, and for which such persistent and protracted struggles had been necessary. Laws and decisions, adapted to the condition of things when slavery was regarded as the creature of local law alone, an evil to be tolerated because entailed and believed to be temporary, were found to be entirely inadequate under the new dispensation, when slavery was deemed national and no longer sectional, a creature of the Constitution, a good to be cherished and perpetuated. To secure the adjustment of municipal rules to this new order of things, legislatures and courts were at once assailed, and demands were made for the needful laws and decisions to meet the new wants and provide for the new contingencies thus created. This was specially true during Mr. Buchanan's administration. Failing in their efforts to make Kansas a slave State, the propagandists turned their eager eyes to New Mexico, Southern California, and the Indian Territory. Near the close of 1858, Mr. Otero, delegate in Congress from New Mexico, wrote from Washington to the secretary of that Territory, urging him to draw up a law, or laws, for the protection of slavery there. He claimed, indeed, that the Constitution and the laws of the United States, especially as interpreted by the Dred Scott decision, did " establish slavery in the Territories"; and yet, he thought, "advantages would result to the Territory" from such legislation. His counsel was taken, and such laws were enacted, a slave code, in the language of Mr. Sumner," most revolting in character, . . . . not only establishing slavery there, including the serfdom of whites, but prohibiting emancipation." The next year after its enactment, on motion of Mr. Bingham of Ohio, the House of Representatives passed "a bill to disapprove and declare null and void" these "Territorial acts." The Senate did not pass the bill; but, while it was on the table, Mr. Douglas took occasion to refer to it, and he boastingly pointed the propagandists to it as one of the fruits of his doctrine of popular sovereignty. "Under this doctrine," he said, "they have converted a tract of free territory into slave territory more than five times the size of the State of New York. Under this doctrine slavery has been extended from the Rio Grande to the Gulf of California,. . . . . . giving you a degree and a half more slavery than you ever claimed." In 1859, a bill was introduced into the legislature of California for the division of the State into two parts, with the purpose of making the portion south of the thirty-sixth parallel of latitude slave territory; but it failed to become a law. In the Indian Territory there were four tribes of Indians, Cherokees, Choctaws, Chickasaws, and Creeks. Under |