Letter of Gerrit Smith to Hon. Henry Clay
(New York: American Anti-Slavery Society, 1839)
by
Gerrit Smith
Table of Contents
| Introduction | 3
| The First Amendment Right of Petition | 3
| Federal Power to Regulate Commerce | 4
| Expansionism vs. Republican Government Clause | 8
| Abolition of Slavery in District of Columbia | 9
| Founder's Intent | 16
| Higher Law | 19
| Answering Clay's Charges Against Abolitionists | 19
Anti-Property Rights19
The Dollar Issue22
The Compensation Issue24
The 'No Business of Theirs' Issue24
South Against Teaching Slaves to Read30
South Causing Heathenism30
South Blaming Abolitionists31
The Colonization Issue33
The Insincerity Issue33
The Amalgamation Issue35
Variation of the Amalgamation Issue37
The Competition Issue37
Abolitionists' Anti-Slavery Goal39
The Rage-Stimulation Issue42
The Consequences, Civil War, Issue44
The "Non-Persuasion" Issue46
| The Prosperity Issue | 50
| An Analogy | 51
| The Patriotism Issue | 51
| Asking Henry Clay to Repent | 53
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
LETTER.
PETERBORO [N.Y.], MARCH 21, 1839.
HON. HENRY CLAY:
DEAR SIR,
IN the Annual Meeting of the American Colonization Society, held in the Capitol in the city of Washington, December, 1835, you commented on a speech made by myself, the previous autumn. Your objections to that speech formed the principal subject matter of your remarks. Does not this fact somewhat mitigate the great presumption of which I feel myself guilty, in undertaking, all unhonored and humble as I am, to review the production of one of the most distinguished statesmen of the age?
[The First Amendment Right of Petition]
Until the appearance of your celebrated speech on the subject of slavery, I had supposed that you cherished a sacred regard for the right of petition. I now find, that you value it no more highly than they do, who make open war upon it.
Indeed, you admit, that, in relation to this [constitutional] right, "there is no substantial difference between" them and yourself. Instead of rebuking, you compliment them; and, in saying that "the majority of the Senate" would not "violate the right of petition in any case, in which, according to its judgment, the object of the petition could be safely or properly granted," you show to what destructive conditions you subject this absolute right. Your doctrine is, that in those cases, where the object of the petition is such, as the supplicated party can approve, previously to any discussion of its merits—there, and there only, exists the right of petition.
For aught I see, you are no more to be regarded as the friend of this right, than is the conspicuous gentleman* who framed the Report on that subject, which was presented to the Senate of my state [New York] the last month. That
____________ *Colonel Young.
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gentleman admits the sacredness of "the right to petition on any subject;" and yet, in the same breath, he insists on the equal sacredness of the right to refuse to attend to a petition. He manifestly failed to bear in mind, that a right to petition implies the correlative right to be heard. How different are the statesmen, who insist "on the right to refuse to attend to a petition," from Him, who says,
| "Whoso stoppeth his ears at the cry of the poor, he also shall cry himself, but shall not be heard."
[Proverb 21:13].
|
 And who are poor, if it be not those for whom the abolitionists cry? They must even cry by proxy. For, in the language of John Quincy Adams, the champion of the right of petition,
|
"The slave is not permitted to cry for mercy—to plead for pardon—to utter the shriek of perishing nature for relief." |
It may be well to remark, that the error, which I have pointed out in the Report in question, lies in the premises of the principal argument of that paper; and that the correction of this error is necessarily attended with the destruction of the premises, and with the overthrow of the argument, which is built upon them.
I surely need not stop to vindicate the right of petition. It is a natural right—one that human laws can guarantee, but can neither create nor destroy. It is an interesting fact, that the [1st Bill of Rights] Amendment to the Federal Constitution, which guarantees the right of petition, was opposed in the Congress of 1789 as superfluous [unnecessary]. It was argued, that this is
| "a self-evident, inalienable right, which the people possess," and that "it would never be called in question."
|
What a change in fifty years!
| Ed. Note:
We see this deterioration in knowledge of peoples' rights now too, in the 21st century. For example, the "right to pure air," and the "right to put out fires," are questioned, disputed, denied! Ask someone about these rights, they demand to know where they are listed! They act as though they have never heard of the Ninth Amendment, incorporating and guaranteeing all the otherwise unlisted rights we have!
|
[Federal Power to Regulate Commerce]
You deny the power of Congress to abolish the interstate traffic in human beings; and, inasmuch as you say, that the right "to regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states," does not include the right to prohibit and destroy commerce; and, inasmuch as it is understood, that it was in virtue of the right to regulate commerce, that Congress enacted laws to restrain our participation in the "African slave trade," you perhaps also deny, that Congress had the power to enact such laws.
The history of the times in which the Federal Constitution was framed and adopted, justifies the belief, that the clause of that instrument under consideration conveys the power, which Congress exercised. For instance, Governor Randolph, when speaking in the Virginia Convention of 1788, of the clause which declares, that
|
"the migration or importation of such persons as any of the states now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by Congress prior to the year 1808,"
|
said,
|
"This is an exception from the power of regulating commerce, and the restriction is to continue
|
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| only till 1809. Then Congress can, by the exercise of that power, prevent future importations." |
Were I, however, to admit that the right "to regulate commerce," does not include the right to prohibit and destroy commerce, it nevertheless would not follow, that Congress'might not prohibit or destroy certam branches of commerce. It might need to do so, in order to preserve our general commerce with a state or nation. So large a proportion of the cloths of Turkey might be fraught with the contagion of the plague, as to make it necessary for our Government to forbid the importation of all cloths from that country, and thus totally destroy one branch of our commerce with it, to the end that the other branches might be preserved.
No inconsiderable evidence that Congress has the right to prohibit or destroy a branch of commerce, is to be found in the fact, that it has done so. From March, 1794, to May, 1820, it enacted several laws, which went to prohibit or destroy, and, in the end, did prohibit or destroy the trade of this country with Africa in human beings. And, if Congress has the power to pass embargo laws, has it not the power to prohibit or destroy commerce altogether?
It is, however, wholly immaterial, whether Congress could prohibit our participation in the "African slave trade," in virtue of the clause which empowers it "to regulate commerce." That the Constitution does, in some one or more of its passages, convey the power, is manifest from the testimony of the Constitution itself. The first clause of the ninth section says:
| "The migration or importation of such persons, as any of the states now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not bo prohibited by the Congress prior to the year 1808." |
Now the implication in this clause of the existence of the power in question, is as conclusive, as would be the express and positive grant of it. You will observe, too, that the power of Congress over "migration or importation," which this clause implies, is a power not merely to "regulate," as you define the word, but to "prohibit."
It is clear, then, that Congress had the power to interdict our trade in human beings with Africa. But, in view of what has been said on that point—in view of the language of the Federal Constitution—of the proceedings of the Convention, which framed it—and of the cotemporary public sentiment—is it any less clear, that Congress has the power to interdict the inter-state traffic in human beings?
There are some, who assert that the words "migration" and "importation," instead of referring, as I maintain they do—the former to the removal of slaves from state to state, and the latter to their intro-
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duction from Africa—are used in the Constitution as synonyms, and refer exclusively to the "African slave trade." But there is surely no ground for the imputation of such utter tautology, if we recollect that the Constitution was written hy scholars, and that remarkable pains were taken to clear it of all superfluous words—a Committee having been appointed for that special purpose.
But, it may be asked, Why, in reference to the taking of slaves from one state to another, use the word "migration," which denotes voluntary removal?
- One answer is—that it can be used with as much propriety in that case, as in the removal of slaves from Africa—the removal in the one case being no less involuntary than in the other.
- Another answer is—that the framers of the Constitution selected the word "migration," because of its congruity with that of "persons," under which their virtuous shame sought to conceal from posterity the existence of seven hundred thousand slaves amongst a people, who had but recently entered upon their national career, with the solemn declaration, that "all men are created equal."
John Jay, whose great celebrity is partly owing to his very able expositions of the Constitution, says:
|
"To me, the constitutional authority of the Congress to prohibit the migration and importation of slaves into any of the states, does not appear questionable."
|
If the disjunctive between "migration" and "importation" in the Constitution, argues their reference to the same thing, Mr. Jay's copulative argues more strongly, that, in his judgment, they refer to different things.
The law of Congress constituting the "Territory of Orleans," was enacted in 1804. It fully recognizes the power of that body to prohibit the trade in slaves between a territory and the states. But, if Congress had this power, why had it not as clear a power to prohibit, at that time, the trade in slaves between any two of the states? It might have prohibited it, but for the constitutional suspension of the exercise of the power. The term of that suspension closed, however, in 1808; and, since that year, Congress has had as full power to abolish the whole slave trade between the states, as it had in 1804 to abolish the like trade between the Territory of Orleans and the states.
But, notwithstanding the conclusive evidence, that the Constitution empowers Congress to abolish the inter-state slave trade, it is incomprehensible to many, that such states as Virginia and Maryland should have consented to deprive themselves of the benefit of selling their slaves into other states. It is incomprehensible, only because they look upon such states in the light of their present [morally deteriorated] character and present
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interests. It will no longer, be, so, if they will bear in mind,
- that slave labor was then, as it is now, unprofitable for ordinary agriculture, and
- that [Eli] Whitney's cotton-gin, which gave great value to such labor, was not yet invented, and
- that the purchase of Louisiana, which has had so great an effect to extend and perpetuate the dominion of slavery, was not yet made.
It will no longer be incomprehensible to them, if they will recollect, that, at the period in question [esp. 1787], American slavery was regarded as a rapidly decaying, if not already expiring institution.
It will no longer be so, if they will recollect, how small was the price of slaves then, compared with their present value; and that, during the ten years, which followed the passage of the Act of Virginia in 1782, legalizing manumissions, her citizens emancipated slaves to the number of nearly one-twentieth of the whole amount of her slaves in that year.
To learn whether your native Virginia clung in the year 1787 to the inter-state traffic in human flesh, we must take our post of observation, not amongst her degenerate sons, who, in 1836, sold men, women, and children, to the amount of twenty-four millions of dollars—not amongst her President Dews, who write books in favor of breeding human stock for exportation—but amongst her Washingtons, and Jeffersons, and Henrys, and Masons, who, at the period when the Constitution was framed, freely expressed their abhorrence of slavery.
But, however confident you may be, that Congress has not the lawful power to abolish the branch of commerce in question; nevertheless, would the abolition of it be so clearly and grossly unconstitutional, as to justify the contempt with which the numerous petitions for the measure are treated, and the impeachment of their fidelity to the Constitution, and of their patriotism and purity, which the petitioners are made to endure?
I was about to take it for granted, that, although you deny the power of Congress to abolish the inter-state traffic in human beings, you do not justify the traffic—when I recollected the intimation in your speech, that there is no such traffic. For, when you speak of "the slave trade between the states," and add
| —"or, as it is described in abolition petitions, the traffic in human beings between the states"— |
do you not intimate there is no such traffic? Whence this language? Do you not believe slaves are human beings? And do you not believe that they suffer under the disruption of the dearest earthly ties, as human beings suffer?
I will not detain you to hear what we of the North think of this internal slave trade. But I will call your attention to what is thought of it in your own Kentucky and in your native Virginia. Says the "Address
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of the Presbyterian Synod of Kentucky to the Churches in 1835:"—
| "Brothers and sisters, parents and children, husbands and wives, are torn asunder and ermitted to see each other no more. Those acts are daily occurring in the midst of us.
"The shrieks and the agonys often witnessed on such occasions, proclaim with a trumpet tongue the iniquity and cruelty of the system. There is not a neighborhood where these heart-rending scenes are not displayed.
"There is not a village or road that does not behold the sad procession of manacled outcasts, whose chains and mournful countenances tell that they are exiled by force from all that their hearts hold dear." |
Says Thomas Jefferson Randolph, in the Virginia Legislature in 1832, when speaking of this trade:
|
"It is a practice, and an increasing practice, in parts of Virginia, to rear slaves for market.'
"How can an honourable mind, a patriot, and a lover of his country, bear to see this ancient dominion, rendered illustrious by the noble devotion and patriotism of her sons in the cause of liberty, converted into one grand menagerie, where men are to be reared for the market like oxen for the shambles.
"Is it better—is it not worse than the (foreign) slave trade—that trade which enlisted the labor of the good and wise of every creed and every clime to abolish? The (foreign) trader receives the slave, a stranger in language, aspect, and manner, from the merchant who has brought him from the interior.
"The ties of father, mother, husband, and child, have already been rent in twain; before he receives him, his soul has become callous.
"But here, sir, individuals whom the master has known from infancy, whom he has seen sporting in the innocent gambols of childbood—who have been accustomed to look to him for protection, he tears from the mother's arms, and sells into a strange country—among strange people, subject to cruel taskmasters." |
[Expansionism vs. Republican Government Clause]
You are in favor of increasing the number of slave states. [See details.] The terms of the celebrated [1820] "Missouri compromise" warrant, in your judgment, the increase.
But, notwithstanding you admit, that this unholy compromise, in which tranquillity was purchased at the expense of humanity and righteousness, does not "in terms embrace the case," and "is not absolutely binding and obligatory;" you, nevertheless, make no attempt whatever to do [explain] away any one of the conclusive objections, which are urged against such increase.
You do not attempt to show how the multiplication of slave states can consist with the constitutional duty of the "United States to guarantee to every state in the Union a republican form of government," any more
than if it were perfectly clear, that a government is republican under which one half of the
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people are lawfully engaged in buying and selling the other half; or
than if the doctrine that "all men are created equal" were not the fundamental and distinctive doctrine of a republican government.
You no more vindicate the proposition to enlarge the realm of slavery, than if the proposition were as obliously in harmony with, as it is opposed to the anti-slavery tenor and policy of the Constitution—the rights of man—and the laws of God.
You are perhaps of the number of those, who, believing, that a state can change its Constitution as it pleases, deem it futile in Congress to require, that States, on entering the Union, shall have anti-slavery Constitutions.
The Framers of the Federal Constitution doubtless foresaw the possibility of treachery, on the part of the new States, in the matter of slavery: and the restriction in that instrument to the old States—"the States now existing"—of the right to participate in the internal and "African slave trade" may be ascribed to the motive of diminishing, if not indeed of entirely preventing, temptation to such treachery.
The Ordinance concerning the North-west Territory, passed by the Congress of 1787, and ratified by the Congress of 1790, shows, so far as those bodies can be regarded as correct interpreters of the Constitution which was framed in 1787, and adopted in 1789, that slavery was not to have a constitutional existence in the new States. The Ordinance confines the privilege of recapturing fugitive slaves in the North-west Territory to the "existing States." Slaves in that territory, to be the subjects of lawful recapture, must in the language of the Ordinance, owe "labour or service in one of the original States."
I close what I have to say on this topic, with the remark, that were it admitted, that the reasons for the increase of the number of slave States are sound and satisfactory, it nevertheless would not follow, that the moral and constitutional wrong of preventing that increase is so palpable, as to justify the scorn and insult, which are heaped by Congress upon this hundred thousand petitioners for this measure.
[Abolition of Slavery in District of Columbia]
It has hitherto been supposed, that you distinctly and fully admitted the Constitutional power of Congress to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia. But, on this point, as on that of the right of petition, you have for reasons known to yourself, suddenly and greatly changed your tone.
Whilst your speech argues, at no small length, that Congress has not the right to abolish slavery in the District, all, that it says in favor of the Constitutional power to abolish it, is that "the language (of the Constitution) may possibly be sufficiently comprehensive to include a power of abolition."
"Faint praise dams;"
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and your very reluctant and qualified, concession of the Constitutional power under consideration, is to be construed, rather as a denial than a concession.
Until I acquire the skill of making white whiter, and black blacker, I shall have nothing to say in proof of the Constitutional power of Congress over slayery in the District of Columbia, beyond referring to the terms, in which the Constitution so plainly conveys this power.
That instrument authorises Congress "to exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever over such District."
If these words do not confer the power, it is manifest that no words could confer it. I will add that, never, until the last few years, had doubts been expressed, that these words do fully confer that power.
You will, perhaps, say, that Virginia and Maryland made their cessions of the territory, which constitutes the District of Columbia, with reservations on the subject of slavery. We answer, that none were expressed;* and that if there had been, Congress would not, and in view of the language of the Constitution, could not, have accepted the cessions.
You may then say, that they would not have ceded the territory, had it occurred to them, that Congress would have cleared it of slavery; and that, this being the fact, Congress could not thus clear it, without being guilty of bad faith, and of an ungenerous and unjustified surprise on those States.
There are several reasons for believing, that those States, not only did not, at the period in question [1780's], cherish a dread of the abolition of slavery; but that the public sentiment within them was decidedly in favor of its speedy abolition.
At that period, their most distinguished statesmen were trumpet-tongued against slavery. At that period, there was both a Virginia and a Maryland soci-
________________________
| * There is a proviso in the Act of Virginia. It was on this, that three years ago, in the Senate of the United States, Benjamin Watkins Leigh built his argument against the constitutional power of Congress to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia.
I well remember that you then denied the soundness of his argument.
This superfluous proviso virtually forbids Congress to pass laws which shall "affect the rights of individuals" in the ceded territory. Amongst the inviolable "rights" was that of holding slaves, as Mr. Leigh contended.
I regret, that, in replying to him, you did not make use of the fact, that all the members of Congress from Virginia voted in favor of the Ordinance, which abolished slavery in the North-West Territory; and this too, notwithstanding, that, in the Act of 1784, by which &he ceded the North-West Territory to the Confederacy, she provided, that the "citizens of Virginia" in the said Territory, many of whom held slaves, should "be protected in the enjoyment of their rights."
This fact furnishes striking evidence that at, or about, the time of the cession by Virginia of her portion of the District of Columbia, her statesmen believed, that the right to hold slaves in those portions of our country under the exclusive jurisdiction of Congress, was not beyond the reach of the controlling power of Congress. |
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ety "for promoting the abolition of slavery;" and, it was then that, with the entire consent of Virginia and Maryland, effectual measures were adopted to preclude slavery from that large territory, which has since given Ohio and several other States to the Union.
On this subject, as on that of the interstate slave trade, we misinterpret Virginia and Maryland, by not considering, how unlike was their temper in relation to slavery, amidst the decays and dying throes of that institution half a century ago, to what it is now, when slavery is not only revivified, but has become the predominant interest and giant power of the nation.
We forget, that our whole country was, at that time, smitten with love for the holy cause of impartial and universal liberty. To judge correctly of the view, which our Revolutionary fathers took of oppression, we must go back and stand by their side, in their struggles against it,—we must survey them through the medium of the anti-slavery sentiment of their own times, and not impute to them the pro-slavery spirit so rampant in ours.
I will, however, suppose it true, that Virginia and Maryland would not have made the cessions in question, had they foreseen, that Congress would abolish slavery in the District of Columbia:—and yet, I affirm, that it would be the duty of Congress to abolish it.
Had there been State Prisons in the territory, at the time Congress acquired jurisdiction over it, and had Congress immediately opened their doors, and turned loose hundreds of depraved and bloody criminals, there would indeed have been abundant occasion for complaint. But, had the exercise of its power in the premises extended no farther than to the liberation of such convicts, as, on a re-examination of their cases, were found to be clearly guiltless of the crimes charged upon them, the sternest justice could not have objected to such an occasion for the rejoicing of mercy.
And are not the thousands in the District, for whose liberation Congress is besought, unjustly deprived of their liberty? Not only are they guiltless, but they are even unaccused of such crimes, as in the judgment of any, justly work a forfeiture of liberty.
And what do Virginia and Maryland ask? Is it, that Congress shall resubject to their control those thousands of deeply wronged men? No—for this Congress cannot do.
They ask, that Congress shall fulfil the [unconstitutional] tyrant wishes of these States. They ask, that the whole people of the United States—those who hate, as well as those who love slavery, shall, by their representatives, assume the guilty and awful responsibility of perpetuating the enslavement of their innocent fellow men:—of chaining the bodies and crushing the wills, and blotting out the minds of such, as have neither transgressed, nor even been accused of having transgressed, a single human law.
And the crime, which
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Virginia and Maryland, and they, who sympathise with them, would have the nation perpetrate, is, not simply that of prolonging the captivity of those, who were slaves before the cession—for but a handful of them are now remaining in the District. Most of the present number became slaves under the authority of this guilty nation. Their wrongs originated with Congress: and Congress is asked, not only to perpetuate their oppression, but to fasten the yoke of slavery on generations yet unborn.
There are those, who advocate the recession of the District of Columbia. If the nation were to consent to this, without having previously exercised her power to "break every yoke" [Isaiah 58:6] of slavery in the District, the blood of those so cruelly left there in "the house of bondage," would remain indelible and damning upon her skirts:—and this too, whether Virginia and Maryland did or did not intend to vest Congress with any power over slavery.
It is enough, that the nation has the power "to deliver them that are drawn unto death, and those that are ready to be slain [Proverb 24:11]," to make her fearfully guilty before God, if she "forbear" to exercise it.
Suppose, I were to obtain a lease of my neighbor's barn for the single and express purpose of securing my crops; and that I should find, chained up in one of its dark corners, an innocent fellow man, whom that neighbor was subjecting to the process of a lingering death; ought I to pause and recall
President Wayland's, "Limitations of Human Responsibility," and finally let the poor sufferer remain in his chains; or ought I not rather, promptly to respond to the laws of my nature and my nature's God, and let him go free?
Ed. Note:
Full Citation: Francis Wayland (1796-1865), The Limitations of Human Responsibility (New York: D. Appleton, 1838; and Boston: Gould, Kendall & Lincoln, 1838)
Wayland was President of the American Colonization Society.
Wayland took the viewpoint of the sinner, murderer, Cain, who slew his brother Abel, and demanded, "Am I my brother's keeper"? [Genesis 3:8-9]. Wayland, like Cain, rejected the notion of "love thy neighbor as thyself" [Leviticus 19:18;
Matthew 5:43,
Matthew 19:19,
Matthew 22:39,
Mark 12:31, 33,
Luke 10:27,
Romans 13:9,
Galatians 5:14, and
James 2:8].
Cain, of course, did not pretend to be Christian. Wayland did.
For more on Wayland, see pp
13,
16,
39,
40,
41,
and
42.
|
But, to make this case analogous to that we have been considering—to that, which imposes its claims on Congress—we must strike out entirely the condition of the lease, and with it all possible doubts of my right to release the victim of my neighbor's murderous hate.
I am entirely willing to yield, for the sake of argument, that Virginia and Maryland, when ceding the territory which constitutes the District of Columbia, did not anticipate, and did not choose the abolition of slavery in it. To make the admission stronger, I will allow, that these States were, at the time of the cession, as warmly opposed to the abolition of slavery in the District as they are said to be now: and to make it stronger still, I will allow, that the abolition of slavery in the District would prove deeply injurious, not only to Virginia and Maryland but to the nation at large.
And, after all these admissions, I must still insist, that Congress is under perfectly plain moral obligation to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia.
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They, who are deterred from favoring the abolition of slavery in the District by the apprehension, that Virginia and Maryland, if not, indeed, the nation at large, might suffer injurious consequences from the measure, overlook the fact, that there is a third party in the case.
It is common to regard the nation as constituting one of the parties—Virginia and Maryland another, and the only other. But in point of fact, there is a third party.
Of what does it consist? Of horses, oxen, and other brutes? Then we need not be greatly concerned about it—since its rights in that case, would be obviously subordinate to those of the other parties.
Again, if such be the composition of this third party, we are not to be greatly troubled, that President Wayland and thousands of others entirely overlook its rights and interests; though they ought to be somewhat mindful even of brutes.
But, this third party is composed, not of brutes—but of men—of the seven thousand men in the District, who have fallen under the iron hoofs of slavery—and who, because they are men, have rights equal to, and as sacred as the rights of any other men—rights, moreover, which cannot be innocently encroached on, even to the breadth of one hair, whether under the plea of "state necessity"—of the perils of emancipation—or under any other plea, which conscience-smitten and cowardly tyranny can suggest.
If these lines shall ever be so favored, as to fall under the eye of the venerable and beloved John Quincy Adams, I beg, that, when he shall have read them, he will solemnly inquire of his heart, whether, if he should ever be left to vote against the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, and thus stab deeply the cause of civil liberty, of humanity, and of God; the guilty act would not result from overlooking the rights and interests, and even the existence itself, of a third party in the case—and from considering the claims of the nation and those of Virginia and Maryland, as the only claims on which he was called to pass, because they were the claims of the only parties, of which he was aware.
You admit that
| "the first duty of Congress in relation to the District of Columbia, is to render it available, comfortable, and convenient as a seat of government of the whole Union." |
I thank you for an admission, which can be used, with great effect, against the many, who maintain, that Congress is as much bound to consult the interests and wishes of the inhabitants of the District, and be governed by them, as a State Legislature is to study and serve the interests and wishes of its constituents.
The [voluntary] inhabitants of the District have taken up their residence in it, aware, that the paramount object of Congressional
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legislation is not their, but the nation's advantage.
They judge, that their disfranchisement and the other disadvantages attending their residence are more than balanced by their favorable position for participating in Governmental patronage and other benefits.
They know, that they have no better right to complain, that the legislation of Congress is not dictated by a primary regard to their interests, than has the Colonization Society, of which you are President, to complain, that the Capitol, in which it holds its annual meetings, is not constructed and fitted up in the best possible manner for such occasions.
They know, that to sacrifice the design and main object of that building to its occasional and incidental uses, would be an absurdity no greater than would Congress be guilty of in shaping its legislation to the views of the thirty thousand white inhabitants of the District of Columbia, at the expense of neglecting the will and interests of the nation.
You feel, that there is no hazard in your admission, that the paramount object in relation to the District of Columbia, is its suitableness for a seat of Government, since you accompany that admission with the denial, that the presence of slavery interferes with such suitableness.
But is it not a matter of deep regret, that the place, in which our national laws are made—that the place from which the sentiment and fashion of the whole country derive so much of their tone and direction—should cherish a system, which you have often admitted, is at war with the first principles of our religion and civil polity;* and the influences of which are no less pervading and controlling than corrupting?
Is it not a matter of deep regret, that they, whom other governments send to our own, and to whom, on account of their superior intellect and influence, it is our desire, as it is our duty, to commend our free institutions, should be obliged to learn their lessons of practical republicanism amidst the monuments and abominations of slavery?
Is it no objection to the District of Columbia, as the seat of our Government, that slavery, which concerns the political and moral interests of the nation, more than any other subject coming within the range of legislation, is not allowed to be discussed there—either within or without the Halls of Congress?
It is one of the doctrines of slavery, that slavery shall not be discussed.
Some of its advocates are frank enough to avow, as the reason for this prohibition [of First Amendment rights], that slavery cannot bear to be discussed.
In your speech before the American Colonization Society in 1835, to which I have referred, you distinctly take the ground, that slavery is a subject not
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* "It (slavery) is a sin and a curse both to the master and the slave."—Henry Clay.
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open to general discussion.
Very far am I from believing, that you would employ, or intentionally countenance violence, to prevent such discussion.
Nevertheless, it is to this doctrine of non-discussion [of slavery], which you and others put forth, that the North is indebted for her pro-slavery mobs, and the South, for her pro-slavery Lynchings.
| Ed. Note: Details:
H. B. Stowe, Key (1853), pp 186ff
Rev. S. Foster, Thieves (1843), pp 68-70. |
The declarations of such men as Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun, that slavery is a question not to be discussed, are a license to mobs to burn up halls and break up abolition meetings, and destroy abolition presses, and murder abolition editors [e.g., Elijah Lovejoy].
Had such men held the opposite doctrine [i.e., been pro-First Amendment], and admitted, yea, and insisted, as it was their duty to do, that every question in morals and politics is a legitimate subject of free discussion—the District of Columbia would be far less objectionable, as the seat of our Government.
In that case the lamented Dr. Crandall would not have been seized in the city of Washington on the suspicion of being an abolitionist, and thrown into prison, and subjected to distresses of mind and body, which resulted in his premature death. Had there been no slavery in the District, this outrage would not have been committed; and the murders, chargeable on the bloodiest of all bloody institutions, would have been one less than they now are.
Talk of the slaveholding District of Columbia being a suitable locality for the seat of our Government!
Why, Sir, a distinguished member of Congress was threatened there with an indictment for the crime of presenting, or rather of proposing to present, a petition to the body with which he was connected!
Indeed the occasion of the speech, on which I am now commenting, was the impudent protest of inhabitants of that District against the right of the American people to petition their own Congress, in relation to matters of vital importance to the seat of their own Government!
I take occasion here to admit, that I have seen but references to this protest—not the protest itself. I presume, that it is not dissimilar, in its spirit, to the petition presented about the same time by Mr. Moore in the other House of Congress—his speech on which, he complains was ungenerously anticipated by yours on the petition presented by yourself.
As the petition presented by Mr. Moore is short, I will copy it, that I may say to you with the more effect—how unfit is the spirit of a slaveholding people, as illustrated in this petition, to be the spirit of the people at the seat of a free Government!
| "To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States:
"The petition of the undersigned, citizens of the District of Columbia represents—That they have witnessed with deep regret the attempts |
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which are making to disturb the integrity of the Union by a BAND OF FANATICS, embracing men, women, and children, who cease not day and night to crowd the tables of your halls with SEDITIOUS MEMORIALS—and solicit your honorable bodies that you will, in your wisdom,
henceforth give neither support nor countenance to such UNHALLOWED ATTEMPTS, but
that you will, in the most emphatic manner, set the seal of your disapprobation upon all such FOUL AND UNNATURAL EFFORTS, by
refusing not only to READ and REFER, but also
to RECEIVE any papers which either directly or indirectly, or by implication, aim at any interference with the rights of your petitioners, or of those of any citizen of any of the States or Territories of the United States, or of this District of which we are inhabitants." |
A Legislature should be imbued with a free, independent, fearless spirit. But it cannot be, where discussion is overawed and interdicted, or its boundaries at all contracted.
Wherever slavery reigns, the freedom of discussion is not tolerated: and wherever slavery exists, there slavery reigns;—reigns too with that exclusive spirit of Turkish despotism, that, "bears no brother near the throne."
| Ed. Note: Likewise, with tobacco. Where tobacco exists, it reigns, and bans free discussion, via the "tobacco taboo." |
You agree with [Colonization Society] President Wayland, that it is as improper for Congress to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, as to create it in some place in the free States, over which it has jurisdiction.
As improper, in the judgment of an eminent statesman, and of a no less eminent divine, to destroy what they both admit to be a system of unrighteousness, as to establish it!
As improper to restrain as to practice, a violation of God's law!
What will other countries and coming ages think of the politics of our statesmen and the ethics of our divines?
But, besides its immorality, Congress has no Constitutional right to create slavery.
You have not yet presumed to deny positively, that Congress has the right to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia; and, notwithstanding the intimation in your speech, you will not presume to affirm, that Congress has the Constitutional right to enact laws reducing to, or holding in slavery, the inhabitants of West Point, or any other locality in the free States, over which it has exclusive jurisdiction.
I would here remark, that the law of Congress, which revived the operation of the laws of Virginia and Maryland in the District of Columbia, being, so far as it respects the slave laws of those States, a violation of the Federal Constitution, should be held of no avail towards legalizing slavery in the District—and the subjects of that slavery, should, consequently, be declared by our Courts unconditionally free.
[Founder's Intent]
You will admit that slavery is a system of surpassing injustice:—
-16-
but an avowed object of the Constitution is to "establish justice." You will admit that it [slavery] utterly annihilates the liberty of its victims:—but another of the avowed objects of the Constitution is to "secure the blessings of liberty."
| Ed. Note: See Lysander Spooner's analysis of the Preamble, pp 90-94. |
You will admit, that slavery does, and necessarily must, regard its victims as chattels [non-persons].
The Constitution, on the contrary, speaks of them [victims of slavery] as nothing short of persons.
Roger Sherman, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, a framer of the Federal Constitution, and a member of the first Congress under it, denied that this instrument considers slaves "as a species of property."
Mr. [James] Madison, in the 54th No. of the Federalist admits, that the Constitution "regards them as inhabitants."
Many cases might be cited, in which Congress has, in consonance with the Constitution, refused to recognize slaves as property.
It was the expectation, as well as the desire of the framers of the Constitution, that slavery should soon cease to exist in our country, and, but for the laws, which both Congress and the slave States, have, in flagrant violation of the letter and spirit and obvious policy of the Constitution, enacted in behalf of slavery, that vice would, ere this, have disappeared from our land.
Look, for instance, at the laws enacted in the face of the clause: "The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States"—laws too, which the States that enacted them, will not consent to repeal, until they consent to abandon slavery. It is by these laws, that they shut out the colored people of the North, the presence of a single individual of whom so alarms them with the prospect of a servile insurrection, that they immediately imprison him.
Such [anti-slavery view] was the view of the Federal Constitution taken by James Wilson one of its framers, that, without, as I presume, claiming for Congress any direct power over slavery in the slave States, he declared that it possessed "power to exterminate slavery from within our borders."
It was probably under a like view, that Benjamin Franklin, another of its framers, and Benjamin Rush, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, and other men of glorious and blessed memory, petitioned the first Congress under the Constitution to "countenance the restoration to liberty of those unhappy men," (the slaves of our country).
And in what light that same Congress viewed the Constitution, may be inferred from the fact, that, by a special act, it ratified the celebrated Ordinance, by the terms of which slavery was forbidden for ever in the North West Territory. It is worthy of note, that the avowed object of the Ordinance harmonizes with that of the Constitution: and that the Ordinance was passed the same year that the Constitution was drafted, is a fact, on which we
-17-
can strongly rely to justify a reference to the spirit of the one instrument for illustrating the spirit of the other.
What the spirit of the Ordinance is, and in what light they who passed it, regarded "republics, their laws and constitutions," may be inferred from the following declaration in the Ordinance of its grand object:
| "For extending the fundamental principles of civil and religious liberty, which form the basis wherever these Republics, their laws and constitutions are erected;
"to fix and establish those principles as the basis of all laws, constitutions, and governments, which forever hereafter shall be formed in the said territory, &c.;
"it is hereby ordained and declared that the following articles, &c." |
One of these articles is that, which has been referred to, and which declares that
| "there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said territory." |
You will perhaps make light of my reference to James Wilson and Benjamin Franklin, for I recollect you say, that,
| "When the Constitution was about going into operation, its powers were not well understood by the community at large, and remained to be accurately interpreted and defined." |
Nevertheless, I think it wise to repose more confidence in the views, which the framers of the Constitution took of the spirit and principles of that instrument, than in the definitions and interpretations of the pro-slavery generation, which has succeeded them.
| Ed. Note: See a similar defense of the 'Founding Fathers' anti-slavery view of the Constitution by Abraham Lincoln; and
see indication of the moral deterioration thereafter by Charles Sumner. |
It should be regarded as no inconsiderable evidence of the anti-slavery genius and policy of the Constitution, that Congress promptly interdicted slavery in the first portion of territory, and that, too, a territory of vast extent, over which it acquired jurisdiction. And is it not a perfectly reasonable supposition, that the seat of our Government would not have been polluted by the presence of slavery, had Congress acted on that subject by itself, instead of losing sight of it in the wholesale legislation, by which the laws of Virginia and Maryland were revived in the District?
If the Federal Constitution be not anti-slavery in its general scope and character; if it be not impregnated with the principles of universal liberty; why was it necessary, in order to restrain Congress, for a limited period [until 1808], from acting against the slave trade, which is but a branch or incident of slavery, to have a clause to that end in the Constitution?
| Ed. Note: See Lysander Spooner's analysis of that clause, pp 81-87. |
The fact that the framers of the Constitution refused to blot us pages with the word "slave" or "slavery;" and that, by periphrase and the substitution of "persons" for "slaves," they sought to conceal from posterity and the world the mortifying fact, that slavery existed under a government based on the principle, that govern-
-18-
ments derive "their just powers from the consent of the governed," contains volumes of proof, that they looked upon American slavery as a decaying institution; and that they would naturally shape the Constitution to the abridgment and the extinction, rather than the extension and perpetuity of the giant vice of the country,
It is not to be denied, that the Constitution tolerates a limited measure of slavery: but it tolerates this measure only as the exception to its rule of impartial and universal liberty.
Ed. Note: Actually, the Constitution was wholly anti-slavery, tolerated no slavery. Smith in 1839 was a pioneer, not familiar with all the then future other writings on the subject, as most were not written yet!:
George Mellen (1841),
Alvan Stewart (1845),
Lysander Spooner (1845),
Benjamin Shaw (1846),
Joel Tiffany (1849),
William Goodell (1852),
Edward C. Rogers (1855), and
Frederick Douglass (1860).
Years later, Smith endorsed Lysander Spooner's more developed book, that made no such concession.
|
Were, it otherwise, the principles of that instrument could be peaded to justify the holding of men as property, in cases, other than those specifically provided for in it. Were it otherwise, these principles might be appealed to, as well to sanction the enslavement of men, as the capture of wild beasts. Were it otherwise, the American people might be Constitutionally realizing the prophet's declaration:
| "they all lie in wait for blood: they hunt every man his brother with a net" [Micah 7:2]. |
But mere principles, whether in or out of the Constitution, do not avail to justify and uphold slavery. Says [Chief Justice] Lord Mansfield [1705-1793] in the famous Somerset case:
| [As per the Common Law:] "The state of slavery is of such a nature, that it is incapable of being now introduced by courts of justice upon mere reasoning or inferences from any principles, natural or political; it must take its rise irom positive law; the origin of it can in no country or age be traced back to any other source. A case so odious as the condition of slaves, must be taken strictly." |
[Hugo] Grotius [1583-1645] says, that "slavery places man in an unnatural relation to man—a relation which nothing but positive law can sustain."
All [except slaves] are aware, that, by the common law, man cannot have property in man; and that wherever that law is not counteracted on this point by positive law, "slaves cannot breathe," and their "shackles fall."
Ed. Note: See similar analyses by, e.g.,
George Mellen, Unconstitutionality of Slavery (Boston: Saxton & Pierce, 1841), pp 431-432
Lysander Spooner, Unconstitutionality of Slavery (Boston: Bela Marsh, 1845), p 23
Abraham Lincoln, Peoria Speech (1854),
p 221.
Thus common law followed Biblical principles against the slaver "property in man" heresy. See, e.g., Rev. John G. Fee, Anti-Slavery Manual, (1851),
pp 35,
38,
39,
41,
47,
53,
54,
and 174.
Gerrit Smith later wrote about the Thirteenth Amendment: “I never liked [it]. It implies or, at least, seems to imply, that the [original] Constitution did not forbid the greatest of crimes—whereas by the canon of legal interpretation (,and no other was admissible,) it did forbid it. I should [would] have preferred an Amendment, that simply disallows a Pro-Slavery interpretation of an already Anti-Slavery Constitution.”—Letter to Senator Charles Sumner (5 February 1866). |
I scarcely need add, that the Federal Constitution does, in the main, accord with the common law. In the words of a very able writer:
| "The common law is the grand element of the United States Constitution. All its fundamental provisions are instinct with its spirit; and its existence, principles, and paramount authority, are presupposed and assumed throughout the whole." |
To argue the anti-slavery character of the Federal Constitution, it is not necessary to take the high ground of some, that whatever in the Constitution favors slavery is void, because opposed to the principles and general tenor of that instrument.
[Higher Law]
Much less is it necessary to take the still, higher ground, that every law in favor of slavery, in whatever code or connection it may be found, is utterly invalid because of its plain contravention of the law of nature.
To maintain my position, that the Constitution is anti-slavery in its general character, and that
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constitutional slavery is, at the most, but an exception to that general character, it was not necessary to take either of these grounds;—though, had I been disposed to take even the higher of them, I should not have lacked the countenance of the most weighty authorities.
| The law of nature," says [William] Blackstone [1723-1780], "being coeval with mankind, and dictated by God himself, is of course superior in obligation to any other. It is binding over all the globe, in all countries, and at all times: no human laws are of any validity if contrary to this." |
The same writer says, that
| "The law of nature requires, that man should pursue his own true and substantial happiness." |
But that slavery allows this pursuit to its victims, no one will pretend.
| "There is a law," says Henry Brougham, "above all the enactments of human codes.
"It is the law written by the finger of God on the heart of man; and by that law, unchangeable and eternal, while men despise fraud, and loathe rapine, and abhor blood, they shall reject with indignation the wild and guilty phantasy, that man can hold property in man."
| Ed. Note: For corroboration, see Rev. John G. Fee, Anti-Slavery Manual (1851), pp
35,
38,
39,
41,
47,
53,
54,
and 174. |
|
I add no more to what I have said on the subject of slavery in the District of Columbia, than to ask, as I have done in relation to the inter-state slave trade and the annexation of slave states, whether petitions for its abolition argue so great a contempt of the Constitution, and so entire a recklessness of propriety, as to merit the treatment which they receive at the hands of Congress.
Admitting that Congress has not the constitutional power to abolish slavery in the District—admitting that it has not the constitutional power to destroy what itself has established—admitting, too, that if it have the power, it ought not to exercise it;—nevertheless, is the case so perfectly clear, that the petitioners for the measure deserve all the abuse and odium which their representatives in Congress heap upon them?
In a word, do not the three classes of petitions to which you refer, merit, at the hands of those representatives, the candid and patient consideration which, until I read your acknowledgment, that, in relation to these petitions, "there is no substantial difference between" yourself and those, who are in favor of thrusting them aside undebated, unconsidered, and even unread, I always supposed you were willing to have bestowed on them?
[Answering Clay's Charges Against Abolitionists]
I pass to the examination of your charges against the abolitionists.
[Anti-Property Rights]
They contemn the "rights of property." This charge you prefer [allege] against the abolitionists, not because they believe that a Legislature has the right to abolish slavery, nor because they deny that slavey are legally property; for this obvious truth they
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do not deny. But you prefer [allege] it, because they believe that man camot rightfully be a subject of property [be owned].
Abolitionists believe, to use words, which I have already quoted [p 20], that it is
| "a wild and guilty phantasy, that man can hold property in man." |
They believe, that to claim property in the exalted being, whom God has made in His own image, and but "a little lower than the angels [Psalm 8:5; Hebrews 2:7]," is scarcely less absurd than to claim it in the Creator himself.
You take the [heathen, or untermenschen] position, that human laws ["traditions of men"] can rightfully reduce a race of men to property; and that the outrage, to use your own language, is "sanctioned and sanctified" by "two hundred years" continuance of it.
Abolitionists, on the contrary, trace back man's inalienable self-ownership to enactments of the Divine Legislator, and to the bright morning of time, when he came forth from the hand of his Maker, "crowned with glory and honor [Hebrews 2:7]," invested with self-control, and with dominion over the brute and inanimate creation. [Genesis 1:28].
You soothe the conscience of the slaveholder, by reminding him, that the relation, which he has assumed towards his down-trodden fellow-man, is lawful [but you conceal its unconstitutionality].
The abolitionist protests, that the wickedness of the relation is none the less, because it is [supposedly] legalized.
In charging abolitionists with contemning "the rights of property," you mistake the innocent for the guilty party. Were you to be so unhappy as to fall into the hands of a kidnapper, and be reduced to a slave, and were I to remonstrate, though in vain, with your oppressor, who would you think was the despiser of "the rights of property"—myself, or the oppressor? As you would judge in that case, so judges every slave in his similar case.
The man-stealer's complaint, that his "rights of property" in his stolen fellow men are not adequately respected by the abolitionist, recalls to my mind a very similar, and but little more ludicrous case of conscientious regard for "the rights of property."
| A traveler was plundered of the whole of his large sum of money. He pleaded successfully with the robber for a little of it to enable him to reach his home.
But, putting his hand rather deeper into the bag of stolen coins than comported with the views of the robber, he was arrested with the cry, "Why, man, have you no conscience?" |
You will perhaps inquire, whether abolitionists regard all the slaves of the South as stolen—as well those born at the South, as those, who were confessedly stolen from Africa?
I answer, that we do—that every helpless new-born infant, on which the chivalry of the South pounces [targeting youth then with slavery; now, with tobacco], is, in our judgment, the owner of itself—that we consider, that the crime of man-stealing, which is so terribly denounced in the Bible [e.g.,
Exodus 21:16;
Deuteronomy 24:7;
I Corinthians 5:10;
I Timothy 1:10],
does not consist, as is alleged, in stealing a slave from a third person, but in stealing
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him from himself—in depriving him of self-control and subjecting him, as property, to the absolute control of another.
Joseph's declaration, that he "was stolen [Genesis 40:15]," favors [corroborates] this definition of man-stealing. Jewish Commentators authorise it.
Ed. Note: For more on Joseph's being stolen, see
Samuel Sewall, The Selling of Joseph (Boston: Green and Allen, 1700), and
Rev. John G. Fee, Anti-Slavery Manual (New York: William Harned, 1851), pp 27-30. |
Money, as it does not own itself, cannot be stolen from itself. But when we reflect, that man is the owner of himself, it does not surprise us, that wresting away his inalienable rights—his very manhood—should have been called man-stealing.
[The Dollar Issue]
Whilst on this subject of "the rights of property," I am reminded of your "third impediment to abolition." This "impediment" consists in the fact of the great value of the southern slaves—which, according to your estimation, is not less than "twelve hundred millions of dollars." I will adopt your estimate, and thus spare myself from going into the abhorrent calculation of the worth in dollars and cents of immortal man—of the worth of "the image of God [Genesis 1:26]."
I thank you for your virtual admission, that this wealth is grasped with a tenacity proportioned to its vast amount. Many of the wisest and best men of the North have been led into the belief, that the slaveholders of the South are too humane and generous to hold their slaves for the sake of gain. Even Dr. [William Ellery] Channing [1780-1842] was a subject of this delusion; and it is well remembered, that his too favorable opinions of his fellow men, made it difficult to disabuse him of it.
| Ed. Note: The "overly favorable" view of human nature derives from disregard of Jeremiah 17:9. |
Northern Christians have been ready to believe, that the South would give up her slaves, because of her conscious lack of title to them.
But in what age of the world have impenitent men failed to cling as closely to that, which they had obtained by fraud, as to their honest acquisitions? Indeed, it is demonstrable on philosophical principles, that the more stupendous the fraud, the more tenacious is the hold upon that, which is gotten by it.
I trust, that your admission to which I have just referred, will have no small effect to prevent the Northern apologist for slavery from repeating the remark, that the South would gladly liberate her slaves, if she saw any prospect of bettering the condition of the objects of her tender and solicitous benevolence.
I trust, too, that this admission will go far to prove the emptiness of your declaration, that the abolitionists
| "have thrown back for half a century the prospect of any species of emancipation of the African race, gradual or immediate, in any of the states," |
and the emptiness of your declaration, that,
| "prior to the agitation of this subject of abolition, there was a progressive melioration in the condition of slaves throughout all the slave states," |
and that
| "in some of them, schools of instruction were opened," &c.; |
and I further trust, that this admission will render harmless your intimation, that this "melioration" and these "schools" were intended to prepare the
-22-
slaves for freedom.
After what you have said of the great value of the slaves, and of the obstacle it presents to emancipation, you will meet with little success in your endeavors to convince the world, that the South was preparing to give up the "twelve hundred millions of dollars," and that the naughty abolitionists have postponed her gratification "for half a century."
If your views of the immense value of the slaves, and of the consequent opposition to their freedom, be correct, then the hatred of the South towards the abolitionists must be, not because their movements tend to lengthen, but because they tend to shorten the period of her possession of the "twelve hundred millions of dollars."
May I ask you, whether, whilst the South clings to these "twelve hundred millions of dollars," it is not somewhat hypocritical in her to be complaining, that the abolitionists are fastening the "twelve hundred millions of dollars" to her?
And may I ask you, whether there is not a little inconsistency between your own lamentations over this work of the abolitionists, and your intimation that the South will never consent to give up her slaves, until the impossibility, of paying her "twelve hundred millions of dollars" for them, shall have been accomplished?
Puerile and insulting as is your proposition to the abolitionists to raise "twelve hundred millions of dollars" for the purchase of the slaves, it is nevertheless instructive; inasmuch as it shows, that, in your judgment, the South is as little willing to give up her slaves, as the abolitionists are able to pay "twelve hundred millions of dollars" for them; and how unable the abolitionists are to pay a sum of money far greater than the whole amount of money in the world, I need not explain.
But if the South must have "twelve hundred millions of dollars" to induce her to liberate her present number of slaves, how can you expect success for your scheme of ridding her of several times the present number,
| "in the progress of some one hundred and fifty, or two hundred years?" |
Do you reply, that, although she must have "four hundred dollars" a-piece for them, if she sell them to the abolitionists, she is, nevertheless, willing to let the Colonization Society have them without charge?
There is abundant proof, that she is not. During the twenty-two years of the existence of that Society [1817-1839 at that point], not so many slaves have been emancipated and given to it for expatriation, as are born in a single week.
As a proof that the sympathies of the South are all with the slaveholding and real character of this two-faced institution, and not at all with the abolition purposes and tendencies, which it professes at the North, none of its Presidents, (and slave-
-23-
holders only are deemed worthy to preside over it,) has ever contributed from his stock of slaves to swell those bands of emigrants, who, leaving oar shores in the character of "nuisances," are instantly transformed, to use your own language, into
| "missionaries, carrying with them credentials in the holy cause of Christianity, civilization, and free institutions." |
But you were not in earnest, when you held up the idea in your recent speech, that the rapidly multiplying millions of our colored countrymen would be expatriated.
What you said on that point was but to indulge in declamation, and to round off a paragraph.
It is in that part of your speech where you say that
| "no practical scheme for their removal or separation from us has yet been devised or proposed," |
that you exhibit your real sentiments on this subject, and impliedly admit the deceitfulness of the pretensions of the American Colonization Society.
[The Compensation Issue]
Before closing my remarks on the topic of "the rights of property," I will admit the truth of your charge, that Abolitionists deny, that the slaveholder is entitled to "compensation" for liberating his slaves.
Abolitionists do not know, why he, who steals men is, any more than he, who steals horses, entitled to "compensation" for releasing his plunder. They do not know, why he, who has exacted thirty years' unrequited toil from the sinews of his poor oppressed brother, should be paid for letting that poor oppressed brother labor for himself the remaining ten or twenty years of his life.
But, it is said, that the South bought her slaves of the North, and that we of the North ought therefore to compensate the South for liberating them.
If there are individuals at the North, who have sold slaves, I am free to admit, that they should promptly surrender their ill-gotten gains, and no less promptly should the inheritors of such gains surrender them.
But, however this may be, and whatever debt may be due on this score, from the North to the South, certain it is, that on no principle of sound ethics, can the South hold [on] to the persons of the innocent slaves, as security for the payment of the debt.
Your state [Kentucky] and mine [New York], and I would it were so with all others, no longer allow the imprisonment of the debtor as a means of coercing payment from him.
How much less, then, should they allow the creditor to promote the security of his debt by imprisoning a third person—and one who is wholly innocent of contracting the debt?
But who is imprisoned, if it be not he, who is shut up "in the house of bondage?" And who is more entirely innocent than he, of the guilty transactions between his seller and buyer ?
[The "No Business of Theirs" Issue]
Another of your charges against abolitionists is,
that, although "ut-
-24-
terly destitute of Constitutional or other rightful power—living in totally distinct communities—as alien to the communities in which the subject on which they would operate resides, so far as concerns political power over that subject, as if they lived in Africa or Asia; they nevertheless promulgate to the world their purpose to be, to manumit forthwith, and without compensation, and without moral preparation, three millions of negro slaves, under jurisdictions altogether separated from those under which they live.
I will group with this charge several others of the same class.
1. Abolitionists neglect the fact, that "the slavery which exists amongst us (southern people) is our affair—not theirs—and that they have no more just concern with it, than they have with slavery as it exists throughout the world."
2. They are regardless of the "deficiency of the powers of the General Government and of the acknowledged and incontestable powers of the States."
3. "Superficial men (meaning no doubt abolitionists) confound the totally different cases together of the powers of the British Parliament and those of the Congress of the United States in the matter of slavery."
Are these charges any thing more than the imagery of your own fancy, or selections from the numberless slanders of a time-serving and corrupt press? If they are founded on facts, it is in your power to state the facts.
Ed. Note: Note press pro-slavery data, critiqued by Rev. Beriah Green, What Northen Men Can Do (1836), p 11; and Rev. John G. Fee, Anti-Slavery Manual (1851), p 122.
Note the "tobacco taboo" on the vestige of slavery, tobacco. |
For my own part, I am utterly ignorant of any, even the least, justification for them [the accusations against abolitionists].
I am utterly ignorant that the abolitionists hold any peculiar views in relation to the powers of the General or State Governments. I do not believe, that one in a hundred of them supposes, that slavery in the states is a legitimate subject of federal legislation. I believe, that a majority of the intelligent men amongst them accord much more to the claims of "state sovereignty," and approach far more nearly to the character of "strict constructionists," than does the distinguished statesman, who charges them with such latitudinarian notions.
There may be persons in our country, who believe that Congress has the absolute power over all American slavery, which the British Parliament had over all British slavery; and that Congress can abolish slavery in the slave states, because Great Britain abolished it in her West India Islands; but, I do not know them; and were I to look for them, I certainly should not confine my search to abolitionists—for abolitionists, as it is very natural they should be, are far better instructed in the subject of slavery and
-25-
its connections with civil government, than are the community in general.
It is passing strange, that you, or any other man, who is not playing a desperate game, should, in the face of the Constitution of the American Anti-Slavery Society, which
| "admits, that each state, in which slavery exists, has, by the Constitution of the United States, the exclusive right to legislate in regard to the abolition of slavery in said state;" |
make such charges, as you have done.
In an Address "To the Public," dated September 3, 1835, and subscribed by the President, Treasurer, the three Secretaries, and the other five members of the Executive Committee of the American Anti-Slavery Society, we find the following language.
| 1. "We hold that Congress has no more right to abolish slavery in the Southern states than in the French West India Islands. Of course we desire no national legislation on the subject.
"2. We hold that slavery can only be lawfully abolished by the legislatures of the several states in which it prevails, and that the exercise of any other than moral influence to induce such abolition is unconstitutional." |
But what slavery is it that the abolitionists call on Congress to abolish? Is it that in the slave states? No—it is that in the District of Columbia and in the territories—none other.
And is it not a fair implication of their petitions, that this is the only slavery, which, in the judgment of the petitioners, Congress has power to abolish? Nevertheless, it is in the face of this implication, that you make your array of charges.
Is it true, however, that the North has nothing more to do with slavery in the states, than with slavery in a foreign country?
Does it not concern the North, that, whilst it takes many thousands of her voters to be entitled to a representative in Congress, there are districts at the South, where, by means of slavery, a few hundred voters enjoy this benefit [disproportionate representation].
Ed. Note: Abraham Lincoln, Peoria Speech (1854), pp 233-234, elaborated.
See also
Lewis Tappan, Address (1843), pp 50-52, citing the South's disproportion over the North in the Electoral College
Rev. William Goodell, Slavery and Anti-Slavery (1852), p 224, citing the disproportionate number of slavers as President
Charles Sumner, Barbarism of Slavery (1860),
p 230, citing the South's "property" representation while limiting the North to persons only. |
Again,
since the North regards herself as responsible in common with the South, for the continuance of slavery in the District of Columbia and in the Territories, and for the continuance of the interstate traffic in human beings; and
since she believes slavery in the slave states to be the occasion of these crimes, and that they will all of necessity immediately cease when slavery ceases—
is it not right, that she should feel that she has a "just concern with slavery?"
Again, is it nothing to the people of the North, that they may be called on, in obedience to a requirement of the federal constitution, to shoulder their muskets, to quell "domestic violence?"
| Ed. Note: But see the alternative analysis by Lysander Spooner, Unconsitutionality of Slavery (1845), pp 87-90. |
But, who does not know, that this requirement owes its existence solely to the apprehen-
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hension of servile insurrections?—or, in other words, to the existence of slavery in the slave states?
Again, when our guiltless brothers escape from the southern prison-house, and come among us, we are under constitutional obligation to deliver them up to their stony-hearted pursuers. And is not slavery in the slave states, which is the occasion of our obligation to commit this outrage on humanity and on the law of God, a matter of "just concern to us?"
Ed. Note: Harriet B. Stowe would soon elaborate.
See also rebuttal data, including the analysis by Lysander Spooner, Unconsitutionality of Slavery (1845), pp 67-73. |
To what too, but slavery, in the slave states, is to be ascribed the long standing insult of our government towards that of Hayti? To what but that, our national disadvantages and losses from the want [lack] of diplomatic relations between the two governments?
To what so much, as to slavery in the slave states, are owing the corruption in our national councils, and the worst of our [politicians'] legislation?
But scarcely any thing should go farther to inspire the North with a sense of her "just concern" in the subject of slavery in the slave states, than the fact, that slavery is the parent of the cruel and murderous prejudice, which crushes and kills her colored people; and, that it is but too probable, that the child [prejudice] will live as long as its parent [slavery].
And has the North no "just concern" with the slavery of the slave states, when there is so much reason to fear that our whole blood-guilty nation is threatened with God's destroying wrath on account of it?
| Ed. Note: Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia (1787), p 298, had raised the same concern. |
There is another respect in which we of the North have a "just concern" with the slavery of the slave states.
We see nearly three millions of our fellow men in those states robbed of body, mind, will, and soul—denied marriage and the reading of the Bible, and marketed as beasts.
We see them in a word crushed in the iron folds of slavery.
Our nature—the laws written upon its very foundations—the Bible, with its injunctions
| "to remember them that are in bonds as bound with them [Hebrews 13:3]," |
and to
| "open thy mouth for the dumb in the cause of all such as are appointed to destruction" [Proverb 31:8]— |
all require us to feel and to express what we feel for these wretched millions.
I said, that we see this misery.
There are many amongst us—they are anti-abolitionists—who do not see it; and to them God says:
| "but he that hideth his eyes shall have many a curse [Proverb 28:27]." |
I add, that we of the North must feel concerned about slavery in the slave states, because of our obligation to pity the deluded, hardhearted, and bloody oppressors in those states: and to manifest our love for them by rebuking their unsurpassed sin.
And, notwithstanding pro-slavery statesmen at the North, who wink at the iniquity of slave-holding, and pro-slavery clergymen at the North, who cry, "peace, peace" to the slaveholder, and sew "pillows to armholes [Ezekiel 13:18, meaning clergy not warning people against sin]," tell us, that by our
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honest and open rebuke of the slaveholder, we shall incur his enduring hatred; we, nevertheless, believe that "open rebuke is better than secret love [Proverb 27:5]," and that, in the end, we shall enjoy more Southern favor than they, whose secret love is too prudent and spurious to deal faithfully with the objects of its regard. "
He that rebuketh a man, after-ward shall find more favor than he that flattereth with the tongue." [Proverb 28:23].
The command, "thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy neighbor and not suffer sin upon him [Leviticus 19:17]," is one, which the abolitionist feels, that he is bound to obey, as well in the ease of the slaveholder, as in that of any other sinner.
And the question: "who is my neighbor," is so answered by the Savior [Luke 10:30-37 Good Samaritan Parble], as to show, that not he of our vicinity, nor even he of our country, is alone our "neighbor." [The Samaritan was of a different nation].
The abolitionists of the North hold, that they have certainly as much "just concern" with slavery in the slave states, as the temperance men of the North have with "intemperance" at the South.
And I would here remark, that the weapons with which the abolitionists of the North attack slavery in the slave states are the same, and no other than the same, with those, which the North employs against the vice of intemperance at the South.
I add too, that were you to say, that northern temperance men disregard "the deficiency of the powers of the General Government," and also "the acknowledged and incontestable powers of the states;" your charge would be as suitable as when it is applied to northern abolitionists.
You ascribe to us "the purpose to manumit the three millions of negro slaves." Here again you greatly misrepresent us, by holding us up as employing coercive, instead of persuasive, means for the accomplishment of our object. Our "purpose" is to persuade others to "manumit." The slaveholders themselves are to "manumit." It is evident, that others cannot " manumit" for them.
If the North were endeavoring to persuade the South to give up the growing of cotton, you would not say, it is the purpose of the North to give it up. But, as well might you, as to say, that it is the "purpose" of the abolitionists to "manumit."
It is very much by such misrepresentations, that the prejudices against abolitionists are fed and sustained. How soon they [such prejudices] would die of atrophy, if they, who influence the public mind and mould public opinion, would tell but the simple truth about abolitionists.
You say, that the abolitionists would have the slaves manumitted
"without compensation and without moral preparation." I have already said enough [p 24] on the point of "compensation."
It is true, that they [abolitionists] would have them [slaves] manumitted immediately:—for they believe
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slavery is sin, and that therefore the slaveholder has no right to protract the bondage of his slaves for a single year, or for a single day or hour;—not even, were he to da so to afford them "a moral preparation" for freedom, or to accomplish, any other of the kindest and best purposes.
They believe, that the relation of slaveholder, as it essentially and indispensably involves the reduction of men to chattelship, cannot, under any plea whatever, be continued with innocence, for a single moment.
If it can be—if the plain laws of God, in respect to marriage and religious instruction and many other blessings, of which chattelized man is plundered, can be innocently violated—why credit any longer the assertion of the Bible, that "sin is the transgression of the law [1 John 3:4]?"—why not get a new definition of sin ?
Another reason with abolitionists in favor of immediate manumission, is, that the slaves do not, as a body [whole, group], acquire, whilst in slavery, any "moral preparation" for freedom.
To learn to swim we must be allowed the use of water. To learn the exercises of a freeman, we must enjoy the element of liberty, I will not say, that slaves cannot be taught, to some extent, the duties of freemen.
Some knowledge of the art of swimming may be acquired before entering the water.
I have not forgotten what you affirm about the "progressive melioration in the condition of slaves," and the opening of "schools of instruction" for them "prior to the agitation of the subject of abolition;" nor, have I forgotten, that I could not read [your melioration claim] it without feeling, that the creations of your fancy [tobacco-caused hallucinations], rather than the facts of history, supplied this information.
Instances, rare instances, of such "melioration" and of such "schools of instruction," I doubt not there have been: but, I am confident, that the Southern slaves have been sunk in depths of ignorance proportioned to the profits of their labor.
I have not the least belief, that the proportion of readers amongst them is one half so great, as it was before the invention of Whitney's cotton gin.
Ed. Note: For more on the South's anti-reading policy, see
Rev. John Rankin, Letters (1823), pp 21-23
Rev. Stephen Foster, Brotherhood (1843), p 35
Charles Sumner, Barbarism of Slavery (1860), p 134
Rev. Parker Pillsbury, Acts (1883), p 436
This reading-ban subject is expanded, p 30, infra. |
Permit me to call your attention to a few of the numberless evidences, that slavery [like a Nazi concentration camp] is a poor school for "moral preparation" for freedom.
1st. Slavery turns its victims into thieves.
| "Who should be astonished," says Thomas S. Clay [1801-1849], a very distinguished slaveholder of Georgia, "if the negro takes from the field or corn-house the supplies necessary for his craving appetite and then justifies his act, and denies that it is stealing?" |
| Ed. Note: Full citation: Thomas S. Clay (1801-1849), Detail of a Plan for the Moral Improvement of Negroes on Plantations, Read before the Georgia Presbytery (Printed at Request of the Presbytery, 1833) |
What debasement in the slave does the same gentleman's remedy for theft indicate?
| "If," says he, "the negro is informed, that if he does not steal, he shall receive rice as an allowance; and if he does steal, he shall not, a motive is held out which will counteract the temptation to pilfer." |
2nd. Slavery reeks
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with licentiousness.
Another son of the South says, that the slaveholder's kitchen is a brothel, and a southern village a Sodom. [Details].
The elaborate defence of slavery by Chancellor Harper of South Carolina justifies the heaviest accusations, that have been brought against it on the score of licentiousness.
Ed. Note: Full Citation of Chancellor Harper's Two Books: Hon. William Harper (1790-1847), Anniversary Oration at The South Carolina Society for the Advancement of Learning: Delivered in the Representative Hall, on December 9, 1835 (Columbia, S.C.: Telescope Office, 1836; reprinted, Washington, D.C.: Duff Green, 1836)
Memoir on Slavery Read Before the Society for the Advancement of Learning, of South Carolina, at its Annual Meeting at Columbia, 1837 (Charleston: J.S. Burges, 1838) |
How could you blame us for deeply abhorring slavery, even were we to view it in no other light than that in which the Dews and Harpers and its other advocates present it?
| Ed. Note: Full citation of Dew's Book: Thomas R. Dew (1802-1846), Review of the Debate [on the Abolition of Slavery] in the Virginia Legislature of 1831 and 1832 (Richmond : T.W. White, 1832; reprinted, Washington, D.C.: Duff Green, 1833; and Washington: The Political Register, 1833) |
3rd. Slavery puts the master in the place of God, and the master's law in the place of God's law!
| "The negro," says Thomas S. Clay, "is seldom taught to feel, that he is punished for breaking God's law! He only knows his master as law-giver and executioner, and the sole object held up to his view is to make him a more obedient and profitable slave.
"He oftener hears that he shall be punished if he steals, than if he breaks the Sabbath or swears; and thus he sees the very threatenings of God brought to bear on his master's interests.
"It is very manifest to him, that his own good is very far from forming the primary reason for his chastisement: his master's interests are to be secured at all events,—God's claims are secondary, or enforced merely for the purpose of advancing those of his owner.
"His own benefit is the residuum after this double distillation of moral motive—a mere accident." |
[South Against Teaching Slaves to Read]
4th. The laws of nearly all the slave states forbid the teaching of the slaves to read [see p 29, supra].
The abundant declarations, that those [reading-ban] laws are without exception, a consequence of the present agitation of the question of slavery are glaringly false. Many of these laws were enacted long before this agitation; and some of them long before you and I were born.
Say the three hundred and fifty-three gentlemen of the District of Abbeville and Edgefield in South Carolina, who, the last year, broke up a system of oral religious instruction, which the Methodist Conference of that State had established amongst their slaves:
| "Intelligence and slavery have no affinity for each other." |
And when those same gentlemen declare, that
| "verbal and lecturing instruction will increase a desire with the black pop-ulation to learn"—
that "the progress and diffusion of knowledge will be a consequence"—
and that "a progressive system of improvement will be introduced, that will ultimately revolutionize our civil institutions," |
they admit, that the prohibition of "intelligence" to the slaves is the settled and necessary policy of slavery, and not, as you would have us believe, a temporary expedient occasioned by the present "agitation of this subject of abolition."
[South Causing Heathenism]
5th. Slavery—the system, which forbids marriage and the reading of the Bible—does of necessity turn its subjects into heathens. A Report of the Synod of South Carolina and Georgia,
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made five years ago, says:
| "Who could credit it, that in these years of revival and benevolent effort—that, in this Christian Republic, there are over two millions of human beings in the condition of heathen, and in some respects in a worse condition?
"They may be justly considered the heathen of this Christian country, and will bear comparison with heathen in any country in the world." [Ed. Note: See also Rev. Patton's 1846 analysis.] |
I will finish what I have to say on this point of "moral preparation" for freedom, with the remark, that the history of slavery in no country warrants your implication, that slaves acquire such "moral preparation."
The British Parliament substituted an apprenticeship for slavery with the express design, that it should afford a "moral preparation" for freedom.
And yet, if you will read the reports of late visitors to the British West Indies, you will find, that the planters admit, that they made no use of the advantages of the apprenticeship to prepare their servants for liberty. Their own gain—not the slaves'—was their ruling motive, during the term of the apprenticeship, as well as preceding it.
[South Blaming Abolitionists]
Another of your charges is, that the abolitionists "have increased the rigors of legislation against slaves in most if not all the slave States."
And suppose, that our principles and measures have occasioned this evil—are they therefore wrong ?—and are we, therefore, involved in sin? The principles and measures of Moses and Aaron were the occasion of a similar evil. Does it follow, that those principles and measures were wrong, and that Moses and Aaron were responsible for the sin of Pharaoh's increased oppressiveness? [Exodus 5:10-19.]
The truth, which Jesus Christ preached on the earth, is emphatically peace: but its power on the depravity of the human heart made it the occasion of division and violence. That depravity was the guilty cause of the division and violence.
The truth was but the innocent occasion of them.
To make it [Christ's truth] responsible for the effects of that [anti-Christ] depravity would be as unreasonable, as it is to make the holy principles of the anti-slavery cause responsible for the wickedness which they occasion: and to make the great Preacher Himself responsible for the division and violence, would be but to carry out the absurdity, of which the public are guilty, in holding abolitionists responsible for the mobs, which are got up against them. These mobs, by the way, are called "abolition mobs."
A similar misnomer would pronounce the mob, that should tear down your house and shoot your wife, "Henry Clay's mob." Harriet Martineau, in stating the fact, that the mobs of 1834, in the city of New York, were set down to the wrong account,
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says, that the abolitionists were told, that "they had no business to scare the city with the sight of their burning property and demolished churches!"
No doubt the light of truth, which the abolitionists are pouring into the dark den of slavery, greatly excites the monster's wrath: and it may be, that he vents a measure of it on the helpless and innocent victims within his grasp.
Be it so;—it is nevertheless, not the Ithuriel spear of truth, that is to be held guilty of the harm:—it is the monster's own depravity, which cannot
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Welcome to this site reprinting the Letter of Gerrit Smith to Hon. Henry Clay (1839).