A crowd of reflections, suggested by the preceding testimony, presses for utterance. The right of petition ravished and trampled by its constitutional guardians, and insult and defiance hurled in the faces of the SOVEREIGN PEOPLE while calmly remonstrating with their SERVANTS for violence committed on the nation's charter and their own dearest rights! Added to this "the right of peaceably assembling" violently wrested—the rights of minorities, rights no longer—free speech struck dumb—free men outlawed and murdered—free presses cast into the streets and their fragments strewed with shoutings, or flourished in triumph before the gaze of approving crowds as proud mementos of prostrate law! The spirit and power of our fathers, where are they? Their deep homage always and every where rendered to FREE THOUGHT, with its inseparable signs—free speech and a free press—their reverence for justice, liberty, rights and all-pervading law, where are they?

But we turn from these considerations—though the times on which we have fallen, and those toward which we are borne with headlong haste, call for their discussion as with the voices of departing life—and proceed to topics relevant to the argument before us.

The seventh article of the amendments to the constitution is alleged to withhold from Congress the power to abolish slavery in the District. "No person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law." All the slaves in the District have been "deprived of liberty" by legislative acts. Now, these legislative acts "depriving" them "of liberty," were either "due process of law," or they were not. If they were, then a legislative act, taking from the master that "property" which is the identical "liberty" previously taken from the slave, would be "due process of law" also, and of course a constitutional act; but if the legislative acts "depriving" them of "liberty" were not "due process of law," then the slaves were deprived of liberty unconstitutionally, and these acts are void. In that case the constitution emancipates them.

If the objector reply, by saying that the import of the phrase "due process of law," is judicial process solely, it is granted, and that fact is our rejoinder; for no slave in the District has been deprived of his liberty by "a judicial process," or, in other words, by "due process of law;" consequently, upon the objector's own admission, every slave in the District has been deprived of liberty unconstitutionally, and is therefore free by the constitution. This is asserted only of the slaves under the "exclusive legislation" of Congress.

The last clause of the article under consideration is quoted for the same purpose: "Nor shall private property he taken for public use without just compensation." Each of the state constitutions has a clause of similar purport. The abolition of slavery in the District by Congress, would not, as we shall presently show; violate this clause either directly or by implication. Granting for argument's sake, that slaves are "private property," and that to emancipate them, would be to "take private property" for "public use," the objector admits the power of Congress to do this, provided it will do something else, that is, pay for them. Thus, instead of denying the power, the objector not only admits, but affirms it, as the ground of the inference that compensation must accompany it. So far from disproving the existence of one power, he asserts the existence of two—one, the power to take the slaves from their masters, the other, the power to take the property of the United States to pay for them.

If Congress cannot constitutionally impair the right of private property, or take it without compensation, it cannot constitutionally, legalize the perpetration of such acts, by others, nor protect those who commit them. Does the power to rob a man of his earnings, rob the earner of his right to them? Who has a better right to the product than the producer?—to the interest, than the owner of the principal?—to the hands and arms, than he from whose shoulders they swing?—to the body and soul, than he whose they are? Congress not only impairs but annihilates the right of private property, while it withholds from the slaves of the District their title to themselves. What! Congress powerless to protect a man's right to himself, when it can make inviolable the right to a dog! But, waiving this, I deny that the abolition of slavery in the District would violate this clause. What does the clause prohibit? The "taking" of "private property" for "public use." Suppose Congress should emancipate the slaves in the District, what would it "take?" Nothing. What would it hold? Nothing. What would it put to "public use?" Nothing. Instead of taking "private property," Congress, by abolishing slavery, would say "private property shall not be taken; and those who have been robbed of it already, shall be kept out of it no longer; and every man's right to his own body shall be protected." True, Congress may not arbitrarily take property, as property, from one man and give it to another—and in the abolition of slavery no such thing is done. A legislative act changes the condition of the slave—makes him his own proprietor, instead of the property of another. It determines a question of original right between two classes of persons—doing an act of justice to one, and restraining the other from acts of injustice; or, in other words, preventing one from robbing the other, by granting to the injured party the protection of just and equitable laws.

Congress, by an act of abolition, would change the condition of seven thousand "persons" in the District, but would "take" nothing. To construe this provision so as to enable the citizens of the District to hold as property, and in perpetuity, whatever they please, or to hold it as property in all circumstances—all necessity, public welfare, and the will and power of the government to the contrary notwithstanding—is a total perversion of its whole intent. The design of the provision, was to throw up a barrier against Governmental aggrandizement. The right to "take property" for State uses is one thing;—the right so to adjust the tenures by which property is held, that each may have his own secured to him, is another thing, and clearly within the scope of legislation. Besides, if Congress were to "take" the slaves in the District, it would be adopting, not abolishing slavery—becoming a slaveholder itself, instead of requiring others to be such no longer. The clause in question, prohibits the "taking" of individual property for public use, to be employed or disposed of as property for governmental purposes. Congress, by abolishing slavery in the District, would do no such thing. It would merely change the condition of that which has been recognized as a qualified property by congressional acts, though previously declared "persons" by the constitution. More than this is done continually by Congress and every other Legislature. Property the most absolute and unqualified, is annihilated by legislative acts. The embargo and non-intercourse act, levelled at a stroke a forest of shipping, and sunk millions of capital. To say nothing of the power of Congress to take hundreds of millions from the people by direct taxation, who doubts its power to abolish at once the whole tariff system, change the seat of Government, arrest the progress of national works, prohibit any branch of commerce with the Indian tribes or with foreign nations, change the locality of forts, arsenals, magazines and dock yards; abolish the Post Office system, and the privilege of patents and copyrights? By such acts Congress might, in the exercise of its acknowledged powers, annihilate property to an incalculable amount, and that without becoming liable to claims for compensation.

Finally, this clause prohibits the taking for public use of "property." The constitution of the United States does not recognize slaves as "PROPERTY" any where, and it does not recognize them in any sense in the District of Columbia. All allusions to them in the constitution recognize them as "persons." Every reference to them points solely to the element of personality; and thus, by the strongest implication, declares that the constitution knows them only as "persons," and will not recognize them in any other light. If they escape into free States, the constitution authorizes their being taken back. But how? Not as the property of an "owner," but as "persons;" and the peculiarity of the expression is a marked recognition of their personality—a refusal to recognize them as chattels—"persons held to service." Are oxen "held to service?" That can be affirmed only of persons. Again, slaves give political power as "persons." The constitution, in settling the principle of representation, requires their enumeration in the census. How? As property? Then why not include race horses and game cocks? Slaves, like other inhabitants, are enumerated as "persons." So by the constitution, the government was pledged to non-interference with "the migration or importation of such persons" as the States might think proper to admit until 1808, and authorized the laying of a tax on each "person" so admitted. Further, slaves are recognized as persons by the exaction of their allegiance to the government. For offences against the government slaves are tried as persons; as persons they are entitled to counsel for their defence, to the rules of evidence, and to "due process of law," and as persons they are punished. True, they are loaded with cruel disabilities in courts of law, such as greatly obstruct and often inevitably defeat the ends of justice, yet they are still recognized as persons. Even in the legislation of Congress, and in the diplomacy of the general government, notwithstanding the frequent and wide departures from the integrity of the constitution on this subject, slaves are not recognized as property without qualification. Congress has always refused to grant compensation for slaves killed or taken by the enemy, even when these slaves had been impressed into the United States' service. In half a score of cases since the last war, Congress has rejected such applications for compensation. Besides, both in Congressional acts, and in our national diplomacy, slaves and property are not used as convertible terms. When mentioned in treaties and state papers it is in such a way as to distinguish them from mere property, and generally by a recognition of their personality. In the invariable recognition of slaves as persons, the United States' constitution caught the mantle of the glorious Declaration, and most worthily wears it. It recognizes all human beings as "men," "persons," and thus as "equals." In the original draft of the Declaration, as it came from the hand of Jefferson, it is alleged that Great Britain had "waged a cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people, carrying them into slavery, * * determined to keep up a market where MEN should be bought and sold,"—thus disdaining to make the charter of freedom a warrant for the arrest of men, that they might be shorn both of liberty and humanity.

The celebrated Roger Sherman, one of the committee of five appointed to draft the Declaration of Independence, and a member of the convention that formed the United States' constitution, said, in the first Congress after its adoption: "The constitution does not consider these persons, (slaves,) as a species of property."—[Lloyd's Cong. Reg. v. 1, p. 313.] That the United States' Constitution does not make slaves "property," is shown in the fact, that no person, either as a citizen of the United States, or by having his domicile within the United States' government, can hold slaves. He can hold them only by deriving his power from state laws, or from the laws of Congress, if he hold slaves within the District. But no person resident within the United States' jurisdiction, and not within the District, nor within a state whose laws support slavery, nor "held to service" under the laws of such a state or district, having escaped therefrom, can be held as a slave.

Men can hold property under the United States' government though residing beyond the bounds of any state, district, or territory. An inhabitant of the Iowa Territory can hold property there under the laws of the United States, but he cannot hold slaves there under the United States' laws, nor by virtue of the United States' Constitution, nor upon the ground of his United States' citizenship, nor by having his domicile within the United States' jurisdiction. The constitution no where recognizes the right to "slave property," but merely the fact that the states have jurisdiction each in its own limits, and that there are certain "persons" within their jurisdictions "held to service" by their own laws.

Finally, in the clause under consideration "private property" is not to be taken "without just compensation." "JUST!" If justice is to be appealed to in determining the amount of compensation, let her determine the grounds also. If it be her province to say how much compensation is "just," it is hers to say whether any is "just,"—whether the slave is "just" property at all, rather than a "person". Then, if justice adjudges the slave to be "private property," it adjudges him to be his own property, since the right to one's self is the first right—the source of all others—the original stock by which they are accumulated—the principal, of which they are the interest. And since the slave's "private property" has been "taken," and since "compensation" is impossible—there being no equivalent for one's self—the least that can be done is to restore to him his original private property.

Having shown that in abolishing slavery, "property" would not be "taken for public use," it may be added that, in those states where slavery has been abolished by law, no claim for compensation has been allowed. Indeed the manifest absurdity of demanding it seems to have quite forestalled the setting up of such a claim.

The abolition of slavery in the District instead of being a legislative anomaly, would proceed upon the principles of every day legislation. It has been shown already, that the United States' Constitution does not recognize slaves as "property." Yet ordinary legislation is full of precedents, showing that even absolute property is in many respects wholly subject to legislation. The repeal of the law of entailments—all those acts that control the alienation of property, its disposal by will, its passing to heirs by descent, with the question, who shall be heirs, and what shall be the rule of distribution among them, or whether property shall be transmitted at all by descent, rather than escheat to the estate—these, with statutes of limitation, and various other classes of legislative acts, serve to illustrate the acknowledged scope of the law-making power, even where property is in every sense absolute. Persons whose property is thus affected by public laws, receive from the government no compensation for their losses; unless the state has been put in possession of the property taken from them.

The preamble of the United States' Constitution declares it to be a fundamental object of the organization of the government "to ESTABLISH JUSTICE." Has Congress no power to do that for which it was made the depository of power? CANNOT the United States' Government fulfil the purpose for which it was brought into being?

To abolish slavery, is to take from no rightful owner his property; but to "establish justice" between two parties. To emancipate the slave, is to "establish justice" between him and his master—to throw around the person, character, conscience; liberty, and domestic relations of the one, the same law that secures and blesses the other. In other words, to prevent by legal restraints one class of men from seizing upon another class, and robbing them at pleasure of their earnings, their time, their liberty, their kindred, and the very use and ownership of their own persons. Finally, to abolish slavery is to proclaim and enact that innocence and helplessness—now free plunder—are entitled to legal protection; and that power, avarice, and lust, shall no longer revel upon their spoils under the license, and by the ministration of law! Congress, by possessing "exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever," has a general protective power for ALL the inhabitants of the District. If it has no power to protect one man in the District it has none to protect another—none to protect any—and if it can protect one man and is bound to do it, it can protect every man—and is bound to do it. All admit the power of Congress to protect the masters in the District against their slaves. What part of the constitution gives the power? The clause so often quoted,—"power of legislation in all cases whatsoever," equally in the "case" of defending blacks against whites, as in that of defending whites against blacks. The power is also conferred by Art. 1, Sec. 8, clause 15—"Congress shall have power to suppress insurrections"—a power to protect, as well blacks against whites, as whites against blacks. If the constitution gives power to protect one class against the other, it gives power to protect either against the other. Suppose the blacks in the District should seize the whites, drive them into the fields and kitchens, force them to work without pay, flog them, imprison them, and sell them at their pleasure, where would Congress find power to restrain such acts? Answer; a general power in the clause so often cited, and an express one in that cited above—"Congress shall have power to suppress insurrections." So much for a supposed case. Here follows a real one. The whites in the District are perpetrating these identical acts upon seven thousand blacks daily. That Congress has power to restrain these acts in one case, all assert, and in so doing they assert the power "in all cases whatsoever." For the grant of power to suppress insurrections, is an unconditional grant, not hampered by provisos as to the color, shape, size, sex, language, creed, or condition of the insurgents. Congress derives its power to suppress this actual insurrection, from the same source whence it derived its power to suppress the same acts in the case supposed. If one case is an insurrection, the other is. The acts in both are the same; the actors only are different. In the one case, ignorant and degraded—goaded by the memory of the past, stung by the present, and driven to desperation by the fearful looking for of wrongs for ever to come. In the other, enlightened into the nature of rights, the principles of justice, and the dictates of the law of love, unprovoked by wrongs, with cool deliberation, and by system, they perpetrate these acts upon those to whom they owe unnumbered obligations for whole lives of unrequited service. On which side may palliation be pleaded, and which party may most reasonably claim an abatement of the rigors of law? If Congress has power to suppress such acts at all, it has power to suppress them in all.

It has been shown already that allegiance is exacted of the slave. Is the government of the United States unable to grant protection where it exacts allegiance? It is an axiom of the civilized world, and a maxim even with savages, that allegiance and protection are reciprocal and correlative. Are principles powerless with us which exact homage of barbarians? Protection is the CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT of every human. being under the exclusive legislation of Congress who has not forfeited it by crime.

In conclusion, I argue the power of Congress to abolish slavery in the District, from Art. 1, sec. 8, clause 1, of the constitution; "Congress shall have power to provide for the common defence and the general welfare of the United States." Has the government of the United States no power under this grant to legislate within its own exclusive jurisdiction on subjects that vitally affect its interest? Suppose the slaves in the district should rise upon their masters, and the United States' government, in quelling the insurrection, should kill any number of them. Could their masters claim compensation of the government? Manifestly not; even though no proof existed that the particular slaves killed were insurgents. This was precisely the point at issue between those masters, whose slaves were killed by the State troops at the time of the Southampton insurrection, and the Virginia Legislature: no evidence was brought to show that the slaves killed by the troops were insurgents; yet the Virginia Legislature decided that their masters were not entitled to compensation. They proceeded on the sound principle, that the government may in self-protection destroy the claim of its subjects even to that which has been recognized as property by its own acts. If in providing for the common defence, the United States' government, in the case supposed, would have power to destroy slaves both as property and persons, it surely might stop half-way, destroy them as property while it legalized their existence as persons, and thus provided for the common defence by giving them a personal and powerful interest in the government, and securing their strength for its defence.

Like other Legislatures, Congress has power to abate nuisances—to remove or tear down unsafe buildings—to destroy infected cargoes—to lay injunctions upon manufactories injurious to the public health—and thus to "provide for the common defence and general welfare" by destroying individual property, when such property puts in jeopardy the public weal.

Granting, for argument's sake, that slaves are "property" in the District of Columbia—if Congress has a right to annihilate property there when the public safety requires it, it may annihilate its existence as property when the public safety requires it, especially if it transform into a protection and defence that which as property perilled the public interests. In the District of Columbia there are, besides the United States' Capitol, the President's house, the national offices, and archives of the Departments of State, Treasury, War, and Navy, the General Post-office, and Patent office. It is also the residence of the President, of all the highest officers of the government, of both houses of Congress, and of all the foreign ambassadors. In this same District there are also seven thousand slaves. Jefferson, in his Notes on Va. p. 241, says of slavery, that "the State permitting one half of its citizens to trample on the rights of the other, transforms them into enemies;" and Richard Henry Lee, in the Va. House of Burgesses in 1758, declared that to those who held them, "slaves must be natural enemies." Is Congress so impotent that it cannot exercise that right pronounced both by municipal and national law, the most sacred and universal—the right of self-preservation and defence? Is it shut up to the necessity of keeping seven thousand "enemies" in the heart of the nation's citadel? Does the iron fiat of the constitution doom it to such imbecility that it cannot arrest the process that made them "enemies," and still goads to deadlier hate by fiery trials, and day by day adds others to their number? Is this providing for the common defence and general welfare? If to rob men of rights excites their hate, freely to restore them and make amends, will win their love.

By emancipating the slaves in the District, the government of the United States would disband an army of "enemies," and enlist "for the common defence and general welfare," a body guard of friends seven thousand strong. In the last war, a handful of British soldiers sacked Washington city, burned the capitol, the President's house, and the national offices and archives; and no marvel, for thousands of the inhabitants of the District had been "TRANSFORMED INTO ENEMIES." Would they beat back invasion? If the national government had exercised its constitutional "power to provide for the common defence and to promote the general welfare," by turning those "enemies" into friends, then, instead of a hostile ambush lurking in every thicket inviting assault, and secret foes in every house paralyzing defence, an army of allies would have rallied in the hour of her calamity, and shouted defiance from their munitions of rocks; whilst the banner of the republic, then trampled in dust, would have floated securely over FREEMEN exulting amidst bulwarks of strength.

To show that Congress can abolish slavery in the District, under the grant of power "to provide for the common defence and to promote the general welfare," I quote an extract from a speech of Mr. Madison, of Va., in the first Congress under the constitution, May 13, 1789. Speaking of the abolition of the slave trade, Mr. Madison says: "I should venture to say it is as much for the interests of Georgia and South Carolina, as of any state in the union. Every addition they receive to their number of slaves tends to weaken them, and renders them less capable of self-defence. In case of hostilities with foreign nations, they will be the means of inviting attack instead of repelling invasion. It is a necessary duty of the general government to protect every part of the empire against danger, as well internal as external. Every thing, therefore, which tends to increase this danger, though it may be a local affair, yet if it involves national expense or safety, it becomes of concern to every part of the union, and is a proper subject for the consideration of those charged with the general administration of the government." Cong. Reg. vol. 1, p. 310, 11.

WYTHE.

POSTSCRIPT

My apology for adding a postscript, to a discussion already perhaps too protracted, is the fact that the preceding sheets were in the hands of the printer, and all but the concluding pages had gone through the press, before the passage of Mr. Calhoun's late resolutions in the Senate of the United States. A proceeding so extraordinary,—if indeed henceforward any act of Congress in derogation of freedom and in deference to slavery, can be deemed extraordinary,—should not be passed in silence at such a crisis as the present; especially as the passage of one of the resolutions by a vote of 36 to 9, exhibits a shift of position on the part of the South, as sudden as it is unaccountable, being nothing less than the surrender of a fortress which until then, they had defended with the pertinacity of a blind and almost infuriated fatuity. Upon the discussions during the pendency of the resolutions, and upon the vote, by which they were carried, I make no comment, save only to record my exultation in the fact there exhibited, that great emergencies are true touchstones, and that henceforward, until this question is settled, whoever holds a seat in Congress will find upon, and around him, a pressure strong enough to test him—a focal blaze that will find its way through the carefully adjusted cloak of fair pretension, and the sevenfold brass of two faced political intrigue, and no-faced non-committalism, piercing to the dividing asunder of joints and marrow. Be it known to every northern man who aspires to a seat in our national councils, that hereafter congressional action on this subject will be a MIGHTY REVELATOR—making secret thoughts public property, and proclaiming on the house-tops what is whispered in the ear—smiting off masks, and bursting open sepulchres beautiful outwardly, and up-heaving to the sun their dead men's bones. To such we say,—Remember the Missouri Question, and the fate of those who then sold the free states and their own birthright!

Passing by the resolutions generally without remark—the attention of the reader is specially solicited to Mr. Clay's substitute for Mr. Calhoun's fifth resolution.

"Resolved, That when the District of Columbia was ceded by the states of Virginia and Maryland to the United States, domestic slavery existed in both of these states, including the ceded territory, and that, as it still continues in both of them, it could not be abolished within the District without a violation of that good faith, which was implied in the cession and in the acceptance of the territory; nor, unless compensation were made to the proprietors of slaves, without a manifest infringement of an amendment to the constitution of the United States; nor without exciting a degree of just alarm and apprehension in the states recognizing slavery, far transcending in mischievous tendency, any possible benefit which could be accomplished by the abolition."

By advocating this resolution, the south shifted its mode of defence, not by taking a position entirely new, but by attempting to refortify an old one—abandoned mainly long ago, as being unable to hold out against assault however unskillfully directed. In the debate on this resolution, the southern members of Congress silently drew off from the ground hitherto maintained by them, viz.—that Congress has no power by the constitution to abolish slavery in the District.

The passage of this resolution—with the vote of every southern senator, forms a new era in the discussion of this question. We cannot join in the lamentations of those who bewail it. We hail it, and rejoice in it. It was as we would have had it—offered by a southern senator, advocated by southern senators, and on the ground that it "was no compromise"—that it embodied the true southern principle—that "this resolution stood on as high ground as Mr. Calhoun's."—(Mr. Preston)—"that Mr. Clay's resolution was as strong as Mr. Calhoun's"—(Mr. Rives)—that "the resolution he (Mr. Calhoun) now refused to support, was as strong as his own, and that in supporting it, there was no abandonment of principle by the south."—(Mr. Walker, of Mi.)—further, that it was advocated by the southern senators generally as an expression of their views, and as setting the question of slavery in the District on its true ground—that finally, when the question was taken, every slaveholding senator, including Mr. Calhoun himself, voted for the resolution.

By passing this resolution, and with such avowals, the south has unwittingly but explicitly, conceded the main point argued in the preceding pages, and surrendered the whole question at issue between them and the petitioners for abolition in the District.

The only ground taken against the right of Congress to abolish slavery in the District is, that it existed in Maryland and Virginia when the cession was made, and "as it still continues in both of them, it could not be abolished without a violation of that good faith which was implied in the cession," &c. The argument is not that exclusive sovereignty has no power to abolish slavery within its jurisdiction, nor that the powers of even ordinary legislation cannot do it, nor that the clause granting Congress "exclusive legislation in all cases what soever over such District," gives no power to do it; but that the unexpressed expectation of one of the parties that the other would not "in all cases" use the power which said party had consented might be used "in all cases," prohibits the use of it. The only cardinal point in the discussion, is here not only yielded, but formally laid down by the South as the leading article in their creed on the question of Congressional jurisdiction over slavery in the District. The reason given why Congress should not abolish, and the sole evidence that if it did, such abolition would be a violation of "good faith," is that "slavery still continues in those states,"—thus admitting, that if slavery did not "still continue" in those States, Congress could abolish it in the District. The same admission is made also in the premises, which state that slavery existed in those states at the time of the cession, &c. Admitting that if it had not existed there then, but had grown up in the District under United States' laws, Congress might constitutionally abolish it. Or that if the ceded parts of those states had been the only parts in which slaves were held under their laws, Congress might have abolished in such a contingency also. The cession in that case leaving no slaves in those states,—no "good faith" would be "implied" in it, nor any "violated" by an act of abolition. The resolution makes virtually this further admission, that if Maryland and Virginia should at once abolish their slavery, Congress might at once abolish it in the District. The principle goes even further than this, and requires Congress in such case to abolish slavery in the District "by the good faith implied in the cession and acceptance of the territory." Since, according to the spirit and scope of the resolution, this "implied good faith" of Maryland and Virginia in making the cession, was, that Congress would do nothing within the District which should counteract the policy, or discredit the "institutions," or call in question the usages, or even in any way ruffle the prejudices of those states, or do what they might think would unfavorably bear upon their interests; themselves of course being the judges.

But let us dissect another limb of the resolution. What is to be understood by "that good faith which was IMPLIED?" It is of course an admission that such a condition was not expressed in the acts of cession—that in their terms there is nothing restricting the power of Congress on the subject of slavery in the District. This "implied faith," then, rests on no clause or word in the United States' Constitution, or in the acts of cession, or in the acts of Congress accepting the cession, nor on any declarations of the legislatures of Maryland and Virginia, nor on any act of theirs, nor on any declaration of the people of those states, nor on the testimony of the Washingtons, Jeffersons, Madisons, Chases, Martins, and Jennifers, of those states and times. The assertion rests on itself alone! Mr. Clay guesses that Maryland and Virginia supposed that Congress would by no means use the power given them by the Constitution, except in such ways as would be well pleasing in the eyes of those states; especially as one of them was the "Ancient Dominion!" And now after half a century, this assumed expectation of Maryland and Virginia, the existence of which is mere matter of conjecture with the 36 senators, is conjured up and duly installed upon the judgment-seat of final appeal, before whose nod constitutions are to flee away, and with whom, solemn grants of power and explicit guaranties are, when weighed in the balance, altogether lighter than vanity!

But survey it in another light. Why did Maryland and Virginia leave so much to be "implied??" Why did they not in some way express what lay so near their hearts? Had their vocabulary run so low that a single word could not be eked out for the occasion? Or were those states so bashful of a sudden that they dare not speak out and tell what they wanted? Or did they take it for granted that Congress would always know their wishes by intuition, and always take them for law? If, as honorable senators tell us, Maryland and Virginia did verily travail with such abounding faith, why brought they forth no works?

It is as true in legislation as in religion, that the only evidence of "faith" is works, and that "faith" without works is dead, i.e. has no power. But here, forsooth, a blind implication with nothing expressed, an "implied" faith without works, is omnipotent! Mr. Clay is lawyer enough to know that Maryland and Virginia notions of constitutional power, abrogate no grant, and that to plead them in a court of law, would be of small service, except to jostle "their Honors'" gravity! He need not be told that the Constitution gives Congress "power to exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever over such District;" nor that Maryland and Virginia constructed their acts of cession with this clause before their eyes, and declared those acts made "in pursuance" of it. Those states knew that the U.S. Constitution had left nothing to be "implied" as to the power of Congress over the District; an admonition quite sufficient, one would think, to put them on their guard, and lead them to eschew vague implications, and to resort to stipulations. They knew, moreover, that those were times when, in matters of high import, nothing was left to be "implied." The colonies were then panting from a twenty years' conflict with the mother country, about bills of rights, charters, treaties, constitutions, grants, limitations, and acts of cession. The severities of a long and terrible discipline had taught them to guard at all points legislative grants, that their exact import and limit might be self-evident—leaving no scope for a blind "faith" that somehow in the lottery of chances, every ticket would turn up a prize. Toil, suffering, blood, and treasure outpoured like water over a whole generation, counselled them to make all sure by the use of explicit terms, and well chosen words, and just enough of them. The Constitution of the United States, with its amendments, those of the individual states, the national treaties, and the public documents of the general and state governments at that period, show the universal conviction of legislative bodies, that nothing should be left to be "implied," when great public interests were at stake.

Further: suppose Maryland and Virginia had expressed their "implied faith" in words, and embodied it in their acts of cession as a proviso, declaring that Congress should not "exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever over the District," but that the "case" of slavery should be an exception: who does not know that Congress, if it had accepted the cession on those terms, would have violated the Constitution; and who that has studied the free mood of those times in its bearings on slavery—proofs of which are given in scores on the preceding pages—[See pp. 25-37.] can be made to believe that the people of the United States would have re-modelled their Constitution for the purpose of providing for slavery an inviolable sanctuary; that when driven in from its outposts, and everywhere retreating discomfited before the march of freedom, it might be received into everlasting habitations on the common homestead and hearth-stone of the republic? Who can believe that Virginia made such a condition, or cherished such a purpose, when Washington, Jefferson, Wythe, Patrick Henry, St. George Tucker, and all her most illustrious men, were at that moment advocating the abolition of slavery by law; when Washington had said, two years before, that Maryland and Virginia "must have laws for the gradual abolition of slavery, and at a period not remote;" and when Jefferson in his letter to Dr. Price, three years before the cession, had said, speaking of Virginia, "This is the next state to which we may turn our eyes for the interesting spectacle of justice in conflict with avarice and oppression—a conflict in which THE SACRED SIDE IS GAINING DAILY RECRUITS;" when voluntary emancipations on the soil were then progressing at the rate of between one and two thousand annually, (See Judge Tucker's "Dissertation on Slavery," p. 73;) when the public sentiment of Virginia had undergone, so mighty a revolution that the idea of the continuance of slavery as a permanent system could not be tolerated, though she then contained about half the slaves in the Union. Was this the time to stipulate for the perpetuity of slavery under the exclusive legislation of Congress? and that too when at the same session every one of her delegation voted for the abolition of slavery in the North West Territory; a territory which she herself had ceded to the Union, and surrendered along with it her jurisdiction over her citizens, inhabitants of that territory, who held slaves there—and whose slaves were emancipated by that act of Congress, in which all her delegation with one accord participated?

Now in view of the universal belief then prevalent, that slavery in this country was doomed to short life, and especially that in Maryland and Virginia it would be speedily abolished—must we adopt the monstrous conclusion that those states designed to bind Congress never to terminate it?—that it was the intent of the Ancient Dominion thus to bind the United States by an "implied faith," and that when the national government accepted the cession, she did solemnly thus plight her troth, and that Virginia did then so understand it? Verily, honorable senators must suppose themselves deputed to do our thinking for us as well as our legislation, or rather, that they are themselves absolved from such drudgery by virtue of their office!

Another absurdity of this "implied faith" dogma is, that where there was no power to exact an express pledge, there was none to demand an implied one, and where there was no power to give the one, there was none to give the other. We have shown already that Congress could not have accepted the cession with such a condition. To have signed away a part of its constitutional grant of power would have been a breach of the Constitution. The Congress which accepted the cession was competent to pass a resolution pledging itself not to use all the power over the District committed to it by the Constitution. But here its power ended. Its resolution could only bind itself. It had no authority to bind a subsequent Congress. Could the members of one Congress say to those of another, because we do not choose to exercise all the authority vested in us by the Constitution, therefore you shall not? This would, have been a prohibition to do what the Constitution gives power to do. Each successive Congress would still have gone to THE CONSTITUTION for its power, brushing away in its course the cobwebs stretched across its path by the officiousness of an impertinent predecessor. Again, the legislatures of Virginia and Maryland, had no power to bind Congress, either by an express or an implied pledge, never to abolish slavery in the District. Those legislatures had no power to bind themselves never to abolish slavery within their own territories—the ceded parts included. Where then would they get power to bind another not to do what they had no power to bind themselves not to do? If a legislature could not in this respect control the successive legislatures of its own State, could it control the successive Congresses of the United States?

But perhaps we shall be told, that the "implied faith" of Maryland and Virginia was not that Congress should never abolish slavery in the District, but that it should not do it until they had done it within their bounds! Verily this "faith" comes little short of the faith of miracles! Maryland and Virginia have "good faith" that Congress will not abolish until they do; and then just as "good faith" that Congress will abolish when they do! Excellently accommodated! Did those states suppose that Congress would legislate over the national domain, for Maryland and Virginia alone? And who, did they suppose, would be judges in the matter?—themselves merely? or the whole Union?

This "good faith implied in the cession" is no longer of doubtful interpretation. The principle at the bottom of it, when fairly stated, is this:—That the Government of the United States are bound in "good faith" to do in the District of Columbia, without demurring, just what and when, Maryland and Virginia do within their own bounds. In short, that the general government is eased of all the burdens of legislation within its exclusive jurisdiction, save that of hiring a scrivener to copy off the acts of the Maryland and Virginia legislatures as fast as they are passed, and engross them, under the title of "Laws of the United States for the District of Columbia!" A slight additional expense would also be incurred in keeping up an express between the capitols of those States and Washington city, bringing Congress from time to time its "instructions" from head quarters!

What a "glorious Union" this doctrine of Mr. Clay bequeaths to the people of the United States! We have been permitted to set up at our own expense, and on our own territory, two great sounding-boards called "Senate Chamber" and "Representatives' Hall," for the purpose of sending abroad "by authority" national echoes of state legislation! —permitted also to keep in our pay a corps of pliant national musicians, with peremptory instructions to sound on any line of the staff according as Virginia and Maryland may give the sovereign key note!

A careful analysis of Mr. Clay's resolution and of the discussions upon it, will convince every fair mind that this is but the legitimate carrying out of the principle pervading both. They proceed virtually upon the hypothesis that the will and pleasure of Virginia and Maryland are paramount to those of the Union. If the original design of setting apart a federal district had been for the sole accommodation of the south, there could hardly have been higher assumption or louder vaunting. The only object of having such a District was in effect totally perverted in the resolution of Mr. Clay, and in the discussions of the entire southern delegation, upon its passage. Instead of taking the ground, that the benefit of the whole Union was the sole object of a federal district, and that it was to be legislated over for this end—the resolution proceeds upon an hypothesis totally the reverse. It takes a single point of state policy, and exalts it above NATIONAL interests, utterly overshadowing them; abrogating national rights; making void a clause of the Constitution; humbling the general government into a subject crouching for favors to a superior, and that too within its own exclusive jurisdiction. All the attributes of sovereignty vested in Congress by the Constitution, it impales upon the point of an alleged implication. And this is Mr. Clay's peace-offering, to the lust of power and the ravenings of state encroachment! A "compromise," forsooth! that sinks the general government on its own territory, into a mere colony, with Virginia and Maryland for its "mother country!" It is refreshing to turn from these shallow, distorted constructions and servile cringings, to the high bearing of other southern men in other times; men, who as legislators and lawyers, scorned to accommodate their interpretations of constitutions and charters to geographical lines, or to bend them to the purposes of a political canvass. In the celebrated case of Cohens vs. the State of Virginia, Hon. William Pinkney, late of Baltimore, and Hon. Walter Jones, of Washington city, with other eminent constitutional lawyers, prepared an elaborate opinion, from which the following is an extract: "Nor is there any danger to be apprehended from allowing to Congressional legislation with regard to the District of Columbia, its FULLEST EFFECT. Congress is responsible to the States, and to the people for that legislation. It is in truth the legislation of the states over a district placed under their control FOR THEIR OWN BENEFIT, not for that of the District, except as the prosperity of the District is involved, and necessary to the general advantage."—[Life of Pinkney, p. 612.]

This profound legal opinion asserts, 1st, that Congressional legislation over the District, is "the legislation of the states and the people." (not of two states, and a mere fraction of the people;) 2d. "Over a District placed under their control," i.e. under the control of all the States, not of two twenty-sixths of them. 3d. That it was thus put under their control "for THEIR OWN benefit." 4th. It asserts that the design of this exclusive control of Congress over the District was "not for the benefit of the District," except as that is connected with, and a means of promoting the general advantage. If this is the case with the District, which is directly concerned, it is pre-eminently so with Maryland and Virginia, which are but indirectly interested. The argument of Mr. Madison in the Congress of '89, an extract from which has been given on a preceding page, lays down the same principle; that though any matter "may be a local affair, yet if it involves national EXPENSE or SAFETY, it becomes of concern to every part of the union, and is a proper subject for the consideration of those charged with the general administration of the government."—Cong. Reg. vol. 1. p. 310.

But these are only the initiatory absurdities of this "good faith implied." Mr. Clay's resolution aptly illustrates the principle, that error not only conflicts with truth, but is generally at issue with itself: For if it would be a violation of "good faith" to Maryland and Virginia, for Congress to abolish slavery in the District, it would be equally a violation for Congress to do it with the consent, or even at the unanimous petition of the people of the District: yet for years it has been the southern doctrine, that if the people of the District demand of Congress relief in this respect, it has power, as their local legislature, to grant it, and by abolishing slavery there, carry out the will of the citizens. But now new light has broken in! The optics of Mr. Clay have pierced the millstone with a deeper insight, and discoveries thicken faster than they can be telegraphed! Congress has no power, O no, not a modicum! to help the slaveholders of the District, however loudly they may clamor for it. The southern doctrine, that Congress is to the District a mere local Legislature to do its pleasure, is tumbled from the genitive into the vocative! Hard fate—and that too at the hands of those who begat it! The reasonings of Messrs. Pinckney and Wise, are now found to be wholly at fault, and the chanticleer rhetoric of Messrs. Glascock and Garland stalks featherless and crest-fallen. For the resolution sweeps by the board all those stereotyped common-places, such as "Congress a local Legislature," "consent of the District," "bound to consult the wishes of the District," with other catch phrases, which for the last two sessions of Congress have served to eke out scanty supplies. It declares, that as slavery existed in Maryland and Virginia at the time of the cession, and as it still continues in both those states, it could not be abolished in the District without a violation of "that good faith," &c.

But let us see where this principle will lead us. If "implied faith" to Maryland and Virginia restrains Congress from the abolition of slavery in the District, because those states have not abolished their slavery, it requires Congress to do in the District what those states have done within their own limits, i.e., restrain others from abolishing it. Upon the same principle Congress is bound to prohibit emancipation within the District. There is no stopping place for this plighted "faith." Congress must not only refrain from laying violent hands on slavery, and see to it that the slaveholders themselves do not, but it is bound to keep the system up to the Maryland and Virginia standard of vigor!

Again, if the good faith of Congress to Virginia and Maryland requires that slavery should exist in the District, while it exists in those states, it requires that it should exist there as it exists in those states. If to abolish every form of slavery in the District would violate good faith, to abolish the form existing in those states, and to substitute a different one, would also violate it. The Congressional "good faith" is to be kept not only with slavery, but with the Maryland and Virginia systems of slavery. The faith of those states being not that Congress would maintain a system, but their system; otherwise instead of sustaining, Congress would counteract their policy—principles would be brought into action there conflicting with their system, and thus the true sprit of the "implied" pledge would be violated. On this principle, so long as slaves are "chattels personal" in Virginia and Maryland, Congress could not make them real estate in the District, as they are in Louisiana; nor could it permit slaves to read, nor to worship God according to conscience; nor could it grant them trial by jury, nor legalize marriage; nor require the master to give sufficient food and clothing; nor prohibit the violent sundering of families—because such provisions would conflict with the existing slave laws of Virginia and Maryland, and thus violate the "good faith implied," &c. So the principle of the resolution binds Congress in all these particulars: 1st. Not to abolish slavery in the District until Virginia and Maryland abolish. 2d. Not to abolish any part of it that exists in those states. 3d. Not to abolish any form or appendage of it still existing in those states. 4th. To abolish when they do. 5th. To increase or abate its rigors when, how, and as the same are modified by those states. In a word, Congressional action in the District is to float passively in the wake of legislative action on the subject in those states.

But here comes a dilemma. Suppose the legislation of those states should steer different courses—then there would be two wakes! Can Congress float in both? Yea, verily! Nothing is too hard for it! Its obsequiousness equals its "power of legislation in all cases whatsoever." It can float up on the Virginia tide, and ebb down on the Maryland. What Maryland does, Congress will do in the Maryland part. What Virginia does, Congress will do in the Virginia part. Though it might not always be able to run at the bidding of both at once, especially in different directions, yet if it obeyed orders cheerfully, and "kept in its place," according to its "good faith implied," impossibilities might not be rigidly exacted. True, we have the highest sanction for the maxim that no man can serve two masters—but if "corporations have no souls," analogy would absolve Congress on that score, or at most give it only a very small soul—not large enough to be at all in the way, as an exception to the universal rule laid down in the maxim!

In following out the absurdities of this "implied good faith," it will be seen at once that the doctrine of Mr. Clay's Resolution extends to all the subjects of legislation existing in Maryland and Virginia, which exist also within the District. Every system, "institution," law, and established usage there, is placed beyond Congressional control equally with slavery, and by the same "implied faith." The abolition of the lottery system in the District as an immorality, was a flagrant breach of this "good faith" to Maryland and Virginia, as the system "still continued in those states." So to abolish imprisonment for debt, or capital punishment, to remodel the bank system, the power of corporations, the militia law, laws of limitation, &c., in the District, unless Virginia and Maryland took the lead, would violate the "good faith implied in the cession."

That in the acts of cession no such "good faith" was "implied" by Virginia and Maryland as is claimed in the Resolution, we argue from the fact, that in 1784 Virginia ceded to the United States all her north-west territory, with the special proviso that her citizens inhabiting that territory should "have their possessions and titles confirmed to them, and be protected in the enjoyment of their rights and liberties." (See Journals of Congress, vol. 9, p. 63.) The cession was made in the form of a deed, and signed by Thomas Jefferson, Samuel Hardy, Arthur Lee, and James Munroe. Many of these inhabitants held slaves. Three years after the cession, the Virginia delegation in Congress proposed the passage of an ordinance which should abolish slavery, in that territory, and declare that it should never thereafter exist there. All the members of Congress from Virginia and Maryland voted for this ordinance. Suppose some member of Congress had during the passage of the ordinance introduced the following resolution: "Resolved, that when the northwest territory was ceded by Virginia to the United States, domestic slavery existed in that State, including the ceded territory, and as it still continues in that State, it could not be abolished within the territory without a violation of that good faith, which was implied in the cession and in the acceptance of the territory." What would have been the indignant response of Grayson, Griffin, Madison, and the Lees, in the Congress of '87, to such a resolution, and of Carrington, Chairman of the Committee, who reported the ratification of the ordinance in the Congress of '89, and of Page and Parker, who with every other member of the Virginia delegation supported it?

But to enumerate all the absurdities into which those interested for this resolution have plunged themselves, would be to make a quarto inventory. We decline the task; and in conclusion merely add, that Mr. Clay, in presenting it, and each of the thirty-six Senators who voted for it, entered on the records of the Senate, and proclaimed to the world, a most unworthy accusation against the millions of American citizens who have during nearly half a century petitioned the national legislature to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia,—charging them either with the ignorance or the impiety of praying the nation to violate its "Plighted Faith." The resolution virtually indicts at the bar of public opinion, and brands with odium, all the early Manumission Societies, the first petitioners for the abolition of slavery in the District, and for a long time the only ones, petitioning from year to year through evil report and good report, still petitioning, by individual societies and in their national conventions.

But as if it were not enough to table the charge against such men as Benjamin Rush, William Rawle, John Sergeant, Roberts Vaux, Cadwallader Colden, and Peter A. Jay,—to whom we may add Rufus King, James Hillhouse, William Pinkney, Thomas Addis Emmett, Daniel D. Tompkins, De Witt Clinton, James Kent, and Daniel Webster, besides eleven hundred citizens of the District itself, headed by their Chief Justice and Judges—even the sovereign States of Pennsylvania, New-York, Massachusetts, Vermont, and Connecticut, whose legislatures have either memorialized Congress to abolish slavery in the District, or instructed their Senators to move such a measure, must be gravely informed by Messrs. Clay, Norvell, Niles, Smith, Pierce, Benton, Black, Tipton, and other honorable Senators, either that their perception is so dull, they know not whereof they affirm, or that their moral sense is so blunted they can demand without compunction a violation of the nation's faith!

We have spoken already of the concessions unwittingly made in this resolution to the true doctrine of Congressional power over the District. For that concession, important as it is; we have small thanks to render. That such a resolution, passed with such an intent, and pressing at a thousand points on relations and interests vital to the free states, should be hailed, as it has been, by a portion of the northern press as a "compromise" originating in deference to northern interests, and to be received by us as a free-will offering of disinterested benevolence, demanding our gratitude to the mover,—may well cover us with shame. We deserve the humiliation and have well earned the mockery. Let it come!

If, after having been set up at auction in the public sales-room of the nation, and for thirty years, and by each of a score of "compromises," treacherously knocked off to the lowest bidder, and that without money and without price, the North, plundered and betrayed, will not, in this her accepted time, consider the things that belong to her peace before they are hidden from her eyes, then let her eat of the fruit of her own way, and be filled with her own devices! Let the shorn and blinded giant grind in the prison-house of the Philistines, till taught by weariness and pain the folly of entrusting to Delilahs the secret and the custody of his strength.

Have the free States bound themselves by an oath never to profit by the lessons of experience? If lost to reason, are they dead to instinct also? Can nothing rouse them to cast about for self preservation? And shall a life of tame surrenders be terminated by suicidal sacrifice?

A "COMPROMISE!" Bitter irony! Is the plucked and hoodwinked North to be wheedled by the sorcery of another Missouri compromise? A compromise in which the South gained all, and the North lost all, and lost it forever. A compromise which embargoed the free laborer of the North and West, and, clutched at the staff he leaned upon, to turn it into a bludgeon and fell him with its stroke. A compromise which wrested from liberty her boundless birthright domain, stretching westward to the sunset, while it gave to slavery loose reins and a free coarse, from the Mississippi to the Pacific.

The resolution, as it finally passed, is here inserted.

"Resolved, That the interference by the citizens of any of the states, with the view to the abolition of slavery in the District, is endangering the rights and security of the people of the District; and that any act or measure of Congress designed to abolish slavery in the District, would be a violation of the faith implied in the cessions by the states of Virginia and Maryland, a just cause of alarm to the people of the slaveholding states, and have a direct and inevitable tendency to disturb and endanger the Union."

The vote upon the resolution stood as follows:

Yeas.—Messrs. Allen, Bayard, Benton, Black, Buchanan, Brown, Calhoun, Clay of Alabama, Clay of Kentucky, Clayton, Crittenden, Cuthbert, Fulton, Grundy, Hubbard, King, Lumpkin, Lyon, Nicholas. Niles, Norvell, Pierce, Preston, Rives, Roane, Robinson, Sevier, Smith, of Connecticut, Strange, Tallmadge, Tipton, Walker, White, Williams, Wright, Young—36.

Nays.—Messrs. DAVIS, KNIGHT, McKEAN, MORRIS, PRENTISS, RUGGLES, SMITH, of Indiana, SWIFT, WEBSTER—9.

* * * * *



ANTI-SLAVERY EXAMINER. NO. 6.

NARRATIVE OF JAMES WILLIAMS, AN AMERICAN SLAVE.

ONE DOLLAR PER 100] [143 NASSAU ST. N.Y.

* * * * *



PREFACE.

"American Slavery," said the celebrated John Wesley, "is the vilest beneath the sun!" Of the truth of this emphatic remark, no other proof is required, than an examination of the statute books of the American slave states. Tested by its own laws, in all that facilitates and protects the hateful process of converting a man into a "chattel personal;" in all that stamps the law-maker, and law-upholder with meanness and hypocrisy, it certainly has no present rival of its "bad eminence," and we may search in vain the history of a world's despotism for a parallel. The civil code of Justinian never acknowledged, with that of our democratic despotisms, the essential equality of man. The dreamer in the gardens of Epicurus recognized neither in himself, nor in the slave who ministered to his luxury, the immortality of the spiritual nature. Neither Solon nor Lycurgus taught the inalienability of human rights. The Barons of the Feudal System, whose maxim was emphatically that of Wordsworth's robber,

"That he should take who had the power, And he should keep who can."

while trampling on the necks of their vassals, and counting the life of a man as of less value than that of a wild beast, never appealed to God for the sincerity of their belief, that all men were created equal. It was reserved for American slave-holders to present to the world the hideous anomaly of a code of laws, beginning with the emphatic declaration of the inalienable rights of all men to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and closing with a deliberate and systematic denial of those rights, in respect to a large portion of their countrymen; engrossing on the same parchment the antagonist laws of liberty and tyranny. The very nature of this unnatural combination has rendered it necessary that American slavery, in law and in practice, should exceed every other in severity and cool atrocity. The masters of Greece and Rome permitted their slaves to read and write and worship the gods of paganism in peace and security, for there was nothing in the laws, literature, or religion of the age to awaken in the soul of the bondman a just sense of his rights as a man. But the American slaveholder cannot be thus lenient. In the excess of his benevolence, as a political propagandist, he has kindled a fire for the oppressed of the old world to gaze at with hope, and for crowned heads and dynasties to tremble at; but a due regard to the safety of his "peculiar institution," compels him to put out the eyes of his own people, lest they too should see it. Calling on all the world to shake off the fetters of oppression, and wade through the blood of tyrants to freedom, he has been compelled to smother, in darkness and silence, the minds of his own bondmen, lest they too should hear and obey the summons, by putting the knife to his own throat.—Proclaiming the truths of Divine Revelation, and sending the Scriptures to the four quarters of the earth, he has found it necessary to maintain heathenism at home by special enactments; and to make the second offence of teaching his slaves the message of salvation punishable with death!

What marvel then that American slavery even on the statute book assumes the right to transform moral beings into brutes:[A] that it legalizes man's usurpation of Divine authority; the substitution of the will of the master, for the moral government of God: that it annihilates the rights of conscience; debars from the enjoyment of religious rights and privileges by specific enactments; and enjoins disobedience to the Divine lawgiver: that it discourages purity and chastity, encourages crime, legalizes concubinage; and, while it places the slave entirely in the hands of his master, provides no real protection for his life or his person.

[Footnote A: The cardinal principle of slavery, that a slave is not to be ranked among sentient beings, but among things, as an article of property, a chattel personal, obtains as undoubted law, in all the slave states. (Judge Stroud's Sketch of Slave Laws, p. 22.)]

But it may be said, that these laws afford no certain evidence of the actual condition of the slaves: that, in judging the system by its code, no allowance is made for the humanity of individual masters. It was a just remark of the celebrated Priestley, that "no people ever were found to be better than their laws, though many have been known to be worse." All history and common experience confirm this. Besides, admitting that the legal severity of a system may be softened in the practice of the humane, may it not also be aggravated by that of the avaricious and cruel?

But what are the testimony and admissions of slaveholders themselves on this point? In an Essay published in Charleston, S.C., in 1822, and entitled "A Refutation of the Calumnies circulated against the Southern and Western States," by the late Edwin C. Holland, Esq., it is stated, that "all slaveholders have laid down non-resistance, and perfect and uniform obedience to their orders as fundamental principles in the government of their slaves:" that this is "a necessary result of the relation," and "unavoidable." Robert J. Turnbull, Esq., of South Carolina, in remarking upon the management of slaves, says, "The only principle upon which may authority over them, (the slaves,) can be maintained is fear, and he who denies this has little knowledge of them." To this may be added the testimony of Judge Ruffin, of North Carolina, as quoted in Wheeler's Law of Slavery, p. 217. "The slave, to remain a slave, must feel that there is no appeal from his master. No man can anticipate the provocations which the slave would give, nor the consequent wrath of the master, prompting him to BLOODY VENGEANCE on the turbulent traitor, a vengeance generally practised with impunity by reason of its privacy."

In an Essay on the "improvement of negroes on plantations," by Rev. Thomas S. Clay, a slaveholder of Bryan county, Georgia, and Printed at the request of the Georgia Presbytery, in 1833, we are told "that the present economy of the slave system is to get all you can from the slave, and give him in return as little as will barely support him in a working condition!" Here, in a few words, the whole enormity of slavery is exposed to view: "to get all you can from the slave"—by means of whips and forks and irons—by every device for torturing the body, without destroying its capability of labor; and in return give him as little of his coarse fare as will keep him, like a mere beast of burden, in a "working condition;" this is slavery, as explained by the slaveholder himself. Mr. Clay further says: "Offences against the master are more severely punished than violations of the law of God, a fault which affects the slave's personal character a good deal. As examples we may notice, that running away is more severely punished than adultery." "He (the slave) only knows his master as lawgiver and executioner, and the sole object of punishment held up to his view, is to make him a more obedient and profitable slave."

Hon. W.B. Seabrook, in an address before the Agricultural Society of St. John's, Colleton, published by order of the Society, at Charleston, in 1834, after stating that "as Slavery exists in South Carolina, the action of the citizens should rigidly conform to that state of things:" and, that "no abstract opinions of the rights of man should be allowed in any instance to modify the police system of a plantation," proceeds as follows. "He (the slave) should be practically treated as a slave; and thoroughly taught the true cardinal principle on which our peculiar institutions are founded, viz.; that to his owner he is bound by the law of God and man; and that no human authority can sever the link which unites them. The great aim of the slaveholder, then, should be to keep his people in strict subordination. In this, it may in truth be said, lies his entire duty." Again, in speaking of the punishments of slaves, he remarks: "If to our army the disuse of THE LASH has been prejudicial, to the slaveholder it would operate to deprive him of the MAIN SUPPORT of his authority. For the first class of offences, I consider imprisonment in THE STOCKS[A] at night, with or without hard labor by day, as a powerful auxiliary in the cause of good government." "Experience has convinced me that there is no punishment to which the slave looks with more horror, than that upon which I am commenting, (the stocks,) and none which has been attended with happier results."

[Footnote A: Of the nature of this punishment in the stocks, something may be learned by the following extract of a letter from a gentleman in Tallahassee, Florida, to the editor of the Ohio Atlas, dated June 9, 1835: "A planter, a professer of religion, in conversing upon the universality of whipping, remarked, that a planter in G_, who had whipped a great deal, at length got tired of it, and invented the following _excellent_ method of punishment, which I saw practised while I was paying him a visit. The negro was placed in a sitting position, with his hands made fast above his head, and his feet in the stocks, so that he could not move any part of the body. The master retired, intending to leave him till morning, but we were awakened in the night by the groans of the negro, which were so doleful that we feared he was dying. We went to him, and found him covered with a cold sweat, and almost gone. He could not have lived an hour longer. Mr. —— found the 'stocks' such an effective punishment, that it almost superseded the whip."]

There is yet another class of testimony quite as pertinent as the foregoing, which may at any time be gleaned from the newspapers of the slave states—the advertisements of masters for their runaway slaves, and casual paragraphs coldly relating cruelties, which would disgrace a land of Heathenism. Let the following suffice for a specimen:

* * * * *

To the Editors of the Constitutionalist.

Aiken, S.C., Dec. 20, 1836.

I have just returned from an inquest I held over the dead body of a negro man, a runaway, that was shot near the South Edisto, in this district, (Barnwell,) on Saturday morning last. He came to his death by his own recklessness. He refused to be taken alive; and said that other attempts to take him had been made, and he was determined that he would not be taken. When taken he was nearly naked—had a large dirk or knife and a heavy club. He was at first, (when those who were in pursuit of him found it absolutely necessary,) shot at with small shot, with the intention of merely crippling him. He was shot at several times, and at last he was so disabled as to be compelled to surrender. He kept in the run of a creek in a very dense swamp all the time that the neighbors were in pursuit of him. As soon as the negro was taken, the best medical aid was procured, but he died on the same evening. One of the witnesses at the inquisition stated that the negro boy said that he was from Mississippi, and belonged to so many persons he did not know who his master was; but again he said his master's name was Brown. He said his own name was Sam; and when asked by another witness who his master was, he muttered something like Augusta or Augustine. The boy was apparently above 35 or 40 years of age—about six feet high—slightly yellow in the face—very long beard or whiskers—and very stout built, and a stern countenance; and appeared to have been run away a long time.

WILLIAM H. PRITCHARD,

Coroner, (ex officio,) Barnwell Dist., S.C.

The Mississippi and other papers will please copy the above.—Georgia Constitutionalist.

* * * * *

$100 REWARD.—Ran away from the subscriber, living on Herring Bay, Ann Arundel county, Md., on Saturday, 28th January, negro man Elijah, who calls himself Elijah Cook, is about 21 years of age, well made, of a very dark complexion has an impediment in his speech, and a scar on his left cheek bone, apparently occasioned by a shot.

J. SCRIVENER. Annapolis (Md.) Rep., Feb., 1837.

* * * * *

$40 REWARD.—Ran away from my residence near Mobile, two negro men, Isaac and Tim. Isaac is from 25 to 30 years old, dark complexion, scar on the right side of the head, and also one on the right side of the body, occasioned by BUCK SHOT. Tim is 22 years old, dark complexion, scar on the right cheek, as also another on the back of the neck. Captains and owners of steamboats, vessels, and water crafts of every description, are cautioned against taking them on board under the penalty of the law; and all other persons against harboring or in any manner favoring the escape of said negroes under like penalty.

Mobile, Sept. 1. SARAH WALSH. Montgomery (Ala.) Advertiser, Sept. 29, 1837.

* * * * *

$200 REWARD.—Ran away from the subscriber, about three years ago, a certain negro man named Ben, (commonly known by the name of Ben Fox.) He is about five feet five or six inches high, chunky made, yellow complexion, and has but one eye. Also, one other negro, by the name of Rigdon, who ran away on the 8th of this month. He is stout made, tall, and very black, with large lips.

I will give the reward of one hundred dollars for each of the above negroes, to be delivered to me or confined in the jail of Lenoir or Jones county, or for the killing of them so that I can see them. Masters of vessels and all others are cautioned against harboring, employing, or carrying them away, under the penalty of the law.

W.D. COBB. Lenoir county, N.C., Nov. 12, 1836.

* * * * *

"A negro who had absconded from his master, and for who a reward was offered of $100, has been apprehended and committed to prison in Savannah, Georgia. The Editor who states the fact, adds, with as much coolness as though there was no barbarity in the matter, that he did not surrender until he was considerably maimed by the dogs[A] that had been set on him,—desperately fighting them, one of which he cut badly with a sword."

New-York Commercial Advertiser, June, 8, 1827.

[Footnote A: In regard to the use of bloodhounds, for the recapture of runaway slaves, we insert the following from the New-York Evangelist, being an extract of a letter from Natchez (Miss.) under date of January 31, 1835: "An instance was related to me in Claiborne County, in Mississippi. A runaway was heard about the house in the night. The hound was put upon his track, and in the morning was found watching the dead body of the negro. The dogs are trained to this service when young. A negro is directed to go into the woods and secure himself upon a tree. When sufficient time has elapsed for doing this, the hound is put upon his track. The blacks are compelled to worry them until they make them their implacable enemies: and it is common to meet with dogs which will take no notice of whites, though entire strangers, but will suffer no blacks beside the house servants to enter the yard."]

* * * * *

From the foregoing evidence on the part of slaveholders themselves, we gather the following facts:

1. That perfect obedience is required of the slave—that he is made to feel that there is no appeal from his master.

2. That the authority of the master is only maintained by fear—a "reign of terror."

3. That "the economy of slavery is to get all you can from the slave, and give him in return as little as will barely support him in a working condition."

4. That runaway slaves may be shot down with impunity by any white person.

5. That masters offer rewards for "killing" their slaves, "so that they may see them!"

6. That slaves are branded with hot irons, and very much scarred with the whip.

7. That iron collars, with projecting prongs, rendering it almost impossible for the wearer to lie down, are fastened upon the necks of women.

8. That the LASH is the MAIN SUPPORT of the slaveholder's authority: but, that the stocks are "a powerful auxiliary" to his government.

9. That runaway slaves are chased with dogs—men hunted like beasts of prey.

Such is American Slavery in practice.

The testimony thus far adduced is only that of the slaveholder and wrong-doer himself: the admission of men who have a direct interest in keeping out of sight the horrors of their system. It is besides no voluntary admission. Having "framed iniquity by law," it is out of their power to hide it. For the recovery of their runaway property, they are compelled to advertise in the public journals, and that it may be identified, they are under the necessity of describing the marks of the whip on the backs of women, the iron collars about the neck—the gun-shot wounds, and the traces of the branding-iron. Such testimony must, in the nature of things, be partial and incomplete. But for a full revelation of the secrets of the prison-house, we must look to the slave himself. The Inquisitors of Goa and Madrid never disclosed the peculiar atrocities of their "hall of horrors." It was the escaping heretic, with his swollen and disjointed limbs, and bearing about him the scars of rack and fire, who exposed them to the gaze and abhorrence of Christendom.

The following pages contain the simple and unvarnished story of an AMERICAN SLAVE,—of one, whose situation, in the first place, as a favorite servant in an aristocratic family in Virginia; and afterwards as the sole and confidential driver on a large plantation in Alabama, afforded him rare and peculiar advantages for accurate observation of the practical workings of the system. His intelligence, evident candor, and grateful remembrance of those kindnesses, which in a land of Slavery, made his cup of suffering less bitter; the perfect accordance of his statements, (made at different times, and to different individuals),[B] one with another, as well as those statements themselves, all afford strong confirmation of the truth and accuracy of his story. There seems to have been no effort, on his part to make his picture of Slavery one of entire darkness—he details every thing of a mitigating character which fell under his observation; and even the cruel deception of his master has not rendered him unmindful of his early kindness.

[Footnote B: The reader is referred to JOHN G. WHITTIER, of Philadelphia, or to the following gentlemen, who have heard the whole, or a part of his story, from his own lips: Emmor Kimber, of Kimberton, Pa., Lindley Coates, of Lancaster Co., do.; James Mott, of Philadelphia, Lewis Tappan, Elizur Wright Jun., Rev. Dr. Follen, and James G. Birney, of New York. The latter gentleman, who was a few years ago, a citizen of Alabama, assures us that the statements made to him by James Williams, were such as he had every reason to believe, from his own knowledge of slavery in that State.]

The editor is fully aware that he has not been able to present this affecting narrative in the simplicity and vivid freshness with which it fell from the lips of the narrator. He has, however, as closely as possible, copied his manner, and in many instances his precise language. THE SLAVE HAS SPOKEN FOR HIMSELF. Acting merely as his amanuensis, he has carefully abstained from comments of his own.[A]

[Footnote A: As the narrator was unable to read or write, it is quite possible that the orthography of some of the names of individuals mentioned in his story may not be entirely correct. For instance, the name of his master may have been either Larrimer, or Larrrimore.]

The picture here presented to the people of the free states, is, in many respects, a novel one. We all know something of Virginia and Kentucky Slavery. We have heard of the internal slave trade—the pangs of separation—the slave ship with its "cargo of despair" bound for the New-Orleans market—the weary journey of the chained Coffle to the cotton country. But here, in a great measure, we have lost sight of the victims of avarice and lust. We have not studied the dreadful economy of the cotton plantation, and know but little of the secrets of its unlimited despotism.

But in this narrative the scenes of the plantation rise before us, with a distinctness which approaches reality. We hear the sound of the horn at daybreak, calling the sick and the weary to toil unrequited. Woman, in her appealing delicacy and suffering, about to become a mother, is fainting under the lash, or sinking exhausted beside her cotton row. We hear the prayer for mercy answered with sneers and curses. We look on the instruments of torture, and the corpses of murdered men. We see the dogs, reeking hot from the chase, with their jaws foul with human blood. We see the meek and aged Christian scarred with the lash, and bowed down with toil, offering the supplication of a broken heart to his Father in Heaven, for the forgiveness of his brutal enemy. We hear, and from our inmost hearts repeat the affecting interrogatory of the aged slave, "How long, Oh Lord! how long!"

The editor has written out the details of this painful narrative with feelings of sorrow. If there be any who feel a morbid satisfaction in dwelling upon the history of outrage and cruelty, he at least is not one of them. His taste and habits incline him rather to look to the pure and beautiful in our nature—the sunniest side of humanity—its kindly sympathies—its holy affections—its charities and its love. But, it is because he has seen that all which is thus beautiful and excellent in mind and heart, perishes in the atmosphere of slavery: it is because humanity in the slave sinks down to a level with the brute and in the master gives place to the attributes of a fiend—that he has not felt at liberty to decline the task. He cannot sympathize with that abstract and delicate philanthropy, which hesitates to bring itself in contact with the sufferer, and which shrinks from the effort of searching out the extent of his afflictions. The emblem of Practical Philanthropy is the Samaritan stooping over the wounded Jew. It must be no fastidious hand which administers the oil and the wine, and binds up the unsightly gashes.