The House being in the Committee of the Whole on the state of the Union–

Mr. Lovejoy said:

Mr. CHAIRMAN: The House has been occupied for several days in the discussion of the subject of polygamy. The Republican party, of which I am a member, stands pledged since 1856 to the extermination, so far as the Federal Government has the power, of the twin relics of barbarism, slavery and polygamy. We have this power in the Territories of the United States.

Now, sir, as we anticipate a death blow having been given to one of these twins, I propose to pay my respects to [discuss] the other. I want to see them both strangled and go down together, as they both richly deserve.

Mr. COBB. I rise to a question of order.

The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman will state his question of order.

Mr. COBB. I was going to raise a question of order upon the right of the gentleman to discuss the question of the “twin relics,” under the new rule we have adopted. However, I will not interfere; the gentleman may go on with his speech.

Mr. LOVEJOY. I am entitled to the floor; I do not yield to the gentleman; and I will proceed with my remarks within my hour, with the gentleman’s permission, or without it.

Mr. STANTON. I would be glad to know what is the understanding of the Chair, and of the chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means, as to what is the course of discussion upon this bill, whether the “twin relics” are in order or not, or whether the discussion is to be confined to the bill itself? The questions properly involved in the bill itself are sufficiently comprehensive, in my judgment, to command the entire attention of the committee, and I think we should confine the discussion strictly to it. When we are [shall be] in the Committee of the Whole on the state of the Union upon the President’s message, the gentleman from Illinois will be strictly in order. I have no special interest about the matter, except that, if the question is to be opened to this general discussion, I am afraid the whole time will be taken up with it, and the important subjects connected with the bill itself overlooked.

Mr. SHERMAN. I will state that, as I understand it, the debate may be as general upon this bill in its present condition, as upon the president’s message. It is within the power of the House, however, at any time to make the bill a special order; after which, the debate must be confined strictly to the questions under consideration. If it be the pleasure of the House, I propose in the course of about a week to submit that motion to the House.

The CHAIRMAN. The Chair supposes that general debate is in order upon this bill, the House now being in the Committee of the Whole on the state of the Union, and no special order pending.

Mr. LOVEJOY. I was about to say, when interrupted, that I am aware that the practical question presented to this House and to the country is, whether slavery shall be extended beyond its present limits, as that is the only question over which they have exclusive jurisdiction. And if slavery were contented to remain restricted, and had its future where it now is, we might perhaps forbear this discussion. But when it is proposed to extend [expand] what is termed an institution—but which is not an institution; which is simply a practice—the question naturally arises, what is the nature, what are the influences, and what are the elements of this practice, and what will they prove to be if allowed expansion?

I am aware it has been stated upon this floor that the morale [morality] of slavery is settled; that its ethics are no longer to be discussed; that they were settled ages ago by the [pagan] Stagyrite of Greece, and have been reaffirmed and reestablished by the chanticleer of Ohio, [Mr. Cox,] in rhetoric gorgeous as sunsets glow. We are told that where slavery will pay, slaveholding will go. Precisely upon the same principle we might say that where robbery will pay, robbery will go; where piracy will pay, piracy will go, and where adipose human flesh is cheaper than that of beeves [beef], cannibalism will go, because it will pay. Sir,

Slaveholding has been justly designated [by Rev. John Wesley, founder of Methodism] as the sum of all villainy. Put every crime perpetrated among men into a moral crucible, and dissolve and combine them all, and the resultant amalgam is slaveholding. It has the violence of robbery.

A MEMBER. You are joking.

Mr. LOVEJOY. No, sir; I am speaking in dead earnest, before God, God’s own truth. It [slavery] has the violence of robbery, the blood and cruelty of piracy; it has the offensive and brutal lusts of polygamy, all combined and concentrated in itself, with aggravations that neither one of these crimes ever knew or dreamed of.

Now, Mr. Chairman, the justification of slavery is placed, so far as I know, mainly upon these grounds: the [falsely alleged] inferiority of the enslaved race; the [false] fact [claim] that enslaving men imparts Christianity and civilization to them; and, thirdly, the [alleged] guaranties of the Constitution. These are the three main arguments presented to justify slavery, and consequently to justify its expansion. And, by the way, I hold that the extreme [radical] men, as they are called, on this question, are the only men who have the logic of it. I am right, or the fire-eaters [pro-slavery advocates] are right. If slavery is right in Virginia, it is right in Kansas. If it is wrong in Kansas, it is wrong everywhere.

Now; sir, in regard to the first point—the [falsely alleged] inferiority of the enslaved race. We may concede [arguendo that] it as a matter of fact, that it is inferior; but does it follow; therefore, that it is right to enslave a man simply because he is inferior? This, to me, is a most abhorrent doctrine. It would place the weak everywhere at the mercy of the strong; it would place the poor at the mercy of the rich; it would place those that are deficient in intellect at the mercy of those that are gifted in mental endowment.

The principle of enslaving human beings because they are inferior, is this: If a man is a cripple, trip him up; if he is old and weak, and bowed with the weight of years, strike him, for he cannot strike back; if idiotic, take advantage of him; and if a child, deceive him. This, sir, this is the doctrine of Democrats [pro-slavers, tobacco lobbyists], and the doctrine of devils as well, and there is no place in the universe outside the five points of hell and the Democratic party

[Mr. Lovejoy had advanced [walked] into the area, and

Mr. PRYOR, (advancing from the Democratic side of the House toward the area where Mr. LOVEJOY stood.) The gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Lovejoy] shall not approach this side of the House, shaking his fists, and talking in the way he has talked. It is had enough to be compelled to sit here and hear him utter his treasonable and insulting language. But he shall not, sir, come upon this side of the House, shaking his fist in our faces.

Mr. FARNSWORTH. It is not for the gentleman to say what is treason and what is not.

Mr. POTTER. We listened to gentlemen upon the other side for eight weeks, when they denounced the members upon this side with violent and offensive language. We listened to them quietly, and heard them through. And now, sir, this side shall be heard, let the consequences be what they may.

Mr. PRYOR. The point I make is this.—

The CHAIRMAN. The Chair will receive no motion, and hear no gentleman, until members resume their seats, and order is restored in the House.

Mr. COX. I rise to a point of order. I insist that the gentleman from Illinois shall speak from his seat.

Mr. PRYOR. That is the point I make. Let the gentleman speak from his seat, and say all under the rules he is entitled to say; but, sir, he shall not come upon this side, shaking his fist in our faces and talking in the style he has talked. He shall not come here gesticulating in a menacing and ruffianly manner.

Mr. POTTER: You are doing the same thing.

The CHAIRMAN. Gentlemen will resume their seats.

Mr. COX. If the gentleman from Illinois goes on as he has, a guardian will have to be appointed for him.

Mr. BARKSDALE, (addressing Mr. Lovejoy.) You shall not come upon this side of the House.

Mr. ADRAIN. To avoid all further difficulty, I suggest to the gentleman from Illinois to speak from his seat. We all know him to be a man of courage, and that he cannot be intimidated.

Mr. PRYOR. No one wants to intimidate him.

Mr. LOVEJOY. Nobody can intimidate me.

Mr. ADRIAN. I know that. I suggest to the gentleman that he continue his speech from his seat.

(Thirty or forty of the members from both sides gathered in the area about Mr. LOVEJOY and Mr. PRYOR, and there was increased confusion.)

Mr. JOHN COCHRANE. I move that the Committee rise, as it is the only way we can get rid of this disturbance.

Mr. POTTER. I do not believe that side of the House can say where a member shall speak; and they shall not say it.

Mr. SINGLETON. The gentleman from Illinois shall not make that speech upon this side of the House.

Mr. BURNETT. There is a rule of this House which requires each man to speak from his seat. The gentleman from Illinois was not in his seat when he was speaking. He cannot and he shall cross this Hall to this side in a menacing

Mr. GROW. I move that the Committee rise.

The CHAIRMAN. Gentlemen must resume their seats.

Mr. COX. Let the gentleman from Illinois take his seat.

Mr. WASHBURNE, of Illinois. Let others be seated, and let my colleague proceed.

Mr. POTTER. The gentleman from Illinois can take care of himself, without the assistance of the other side.

Mr. KELLOGG, of Illinois. I say to gentlemen that my colleague shall speak; that he is in order, and will not commit a breach of the rules of the House; if he does, I will be the first to rebuke him; but he shall have his rights according to the rules of the House, and in no wise shall they be abridged or interfered with. He shall be heard upon this floor, and at this time.

Mr. BRIGGS. Then let him go upon his own side.

The CHAIRMAN. The Chair calls the Committee to order; and if gentlemen do not come to order, he will call the Speaker to the chair, and report the disorder to the House.

Mr. FLORENCE. I move that the Committee rise. It is impossible to quell the disturbance without doing so.

The CHAIRMAN. The Speaker will take the chair.

The Chairman [Mr. WASHBUIRN, of Maine) vacated the chair, and the Speaker resumed it.

The SPEAKER. The Chair calls the House to order. I desire gentlemen of the House to take their seats.

Mr. FLORENCE. Every one, upon either and all sides.

Mr. JOHN COCHRANE. The Committee has risen; has it not?

The SPEAKER. The Chair requests gentlemen to respect the authority of the House, and take their seats.

Mr. BARKSDALE. Order that black-hearted scoundrel and nigger-stealing thief to take his seat, and this side of the House will do it.

Mr. McQIJEEN. We will allow nobody to come over from that side of the House and bully us [Cries of “Sit down!” “Sit down!” from all sides of the House.]

The SPEAKER. The Chair desires gentlemen to take their seats.

Mr. BOCOCK. I, for one, will do so with pleasure, promptly, when the Speaker requires it. I only ask that everybody shall do so. I think this whole matter can be settled, if the gentleman speaking, and every other gentleman will take his seat.

Mr. BURNETT. I rise to a privileged question.

The SPEAKER. The Chair cannot recognize anybody, until gentlemen take their seats.

Mr. BURNETT. Then, let everybody, take his seat, and let order be enforced.

The SPEAKER. Gentleman will take their seats, without distinction.

Members gradually withdrew from the open area in front of the Speaker’s chair, and resumed their seats. Order being at length restored,

Mr. WASHBURN, of Maine, (Chairman of the Committee,) said: In the Committee of the Whole on the state of the Union, disorder arose,

Mr. ELY. I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. WASHBURN, of Maine. The Chairman of the Committee states that if order is likely to so that proceedings can go on, the Chairman of the Committee will resume the chair.

Mr. SHERMAN. We are now in very good order, and I think we had better proceed and give the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. LOVEJOY] an opportunity to finish his speech. I move that the House resolve itself into the Committee of the Whole on the state of the Union, and I hope every gentleman will keep his seat.

The SPEAKER. Order having been restored, the Speaker will leave the chair, and the Chairman of the Committee will take it.

Mr. WASHBURN, of Maine, resumed the chair, and announced that the gentleman from Illinois was entitled to the floor.

Mr. LOVEJOY. Mr. Chairman, I desire to violate no rule of the House.

Mr. BOYCE. Then behave yourself.

Mr. LOVEJOY. I wish to learn whether it is a violation of the rules to occupy this space in front of the Speaker's chair, or any portion of it? If so, I will cheerfully yield; if not, I claim the right to choose my own position.

The CHAIRMAN. The Chair understands that the rules require that every gentleman shall speak from his seat.

Mr. CURTIS. Or from the Clerk’s desk.

Mr. BURNETT. The gentleman has the right to do that.

Mr. McCLERNAND. Let him speak from the Clerk’s desk.

Mr ASHLEY. It has been the habit of gentlemen to come into the aisle and choose their own position.

Mr. ADRAIN. It is a very bad habit, and we had better change it.

The CHAIRMAN. The Chair is aware that such has been the custom; but if the rule is insisted on, it is the duty of the Chair to enforce it.

Mr. ADRAIN. I hope it will be insisted on.

The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Illinois will speak from his seat.

Mr. LOVEJOY. I have no seat.

Mr. ASHLEY. Nor any other member.

Mr. LOVEJOY (taking his place in the Clerk’s desk) resumed. Mr. Chairman, I was about stating, when interrupted, that the principle upon which slaveholding was sought to be justified in this country would, if carried out in the affairs of the universe, transform Jehovah, the Supreme, into an infinite Juggernaut, rolling the huge wheels of his omnipotence, axle-deep, amid the crushed, and mangled, and bleeding bodies of humans, [laughter on the Democratic side] on the ground that he was infinitely superior, and that they were an inferior race.

Mr. GARTRELL, (in his seat.) The man is crazy.

Mr. LOVEJOY. The second ground upon which it is attempted to justify slavery, or slaveholding is, that it is a mode of imparting Christianity and civilization to the slaves. Mr. Chairman, I would like to know how slaveholding communities can impart that of which they are not in possession? The truth is, that the practice of slaveholding has a powerful tendency to drag communities back to barbarism. It is actually having that effect upon the slave States of this Union; and were it not for the Christian

It is simply from that infiltration–

Mr. SINGLETON. I wish to know if the gentleman intends to cast any insinuation or slur on the women of the South. I want know that, distinctly and emphatically; because if he does, I will hold him personally accountable for it.

Several MEMBERS. Oh, no. He gives all praise to the women of the South. He compliments them.

Mr. SINGLETON. I repeat, that if he intended to asperse southern women, or to compliment the women of the North at their expense, I will hold him accountable for it.

The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Mississippi is not in order. The gentleman from it Illinois will proceed.

Mr. LOVEJOY. It is simply by this contact with free communities; it is, as I said, from the fact that Christian women went from free States, and that the Christian women of slave States—who have not the poor privilege that Sarah of old had—of sending the Hagars and Ishmaels to the wilderness–maintained their purity and Christian character, and their testimony against the system, that they were prevented from that retrocession toward barbarism.

Several Members. That is what he said before.

Mr. LOVEJOY. Sir, if you step into the Smithsonian Institution, or into the Patent Office, you will find implements of husbandry imported from Japan and China, showing just about the same development in civilization as the implements that you find on the plantations. Now, sir, the truth is, that the practice of slaveholding drags slaveholding communities further below the plane of the Christian civilization of the age, than the civilization which the slave receives elevates him above the plane of heathenism by being held in these

Mr. Chairman, no community can make one step of progress in civilizing a race till you give them homes; till you protect the sanctity of the home, as we hold it should be protected in regard to these Mormons on the plains of Utah. Christianizing them, sir! Christianizing them by a new process. [!!] The slave States have a right to an exclusive patent for it. Taking them out in the sight of tha church, as one was taken out not long ago in the State of Tennessee, by a Presbyterian elder, and laid down on his face on the groun; his hands and feet extended to their utmost tension, and tied to pickets, and the Gos-

A Democratic MEMBER. Did he get the Gospel in? [Laughter.]

Mr. LOVEJOY. Christianized as a young girl was Christianized in this city since the session of Congress [began], by being whipped and sent to the garret, and found dead in the morning, with blood oozing from nose and ears.

A Democratic MEMBER. Where does that authority come from?

Mr. LOVEJOY. I do not know whether religious rites were had or not. I suppose some pro-slavery priest was invited in to utter impious prayers before God, that the last flagellation might have whipped in Christianity enough to save her precious and never-dying soul. [Laughter.] And now, alarmed, a good black walnut coffin is made and decorated-with white ribbons, and, placed in the hearse, followed by a hack containing, I presume, the murderess; and my attention is called to the cortege:

Look into the coffin! Look into the carriage!!

You say this is horrid. I know it is horrid. I know it is horrid to hold men in slavery. I know it is horrid to doom four million human beings to the condition of chattels [property], to be held pro millis, pro mortuis, pro quadrupedis, taken for no persons, for dead persons, for four-footed beasts—men as much entitled to freedom as you and I. Sir, the testimony of all religious societies in the slave States is, that the slaves are still heathen, and it is an utter impossibility to Christianize them and civilize them by this process [slavery].

The third point that is relied on to justify slave holding is, that it is constitutional—that it is [somewhere supposedly] guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States. Now, Mr. Chairman, I have heard it declared, over and over again, that the Constitution guaranties slavery. I deny it. In no article, in no section, in no line, in no word, in no syllable, can there be [found] any recognition or sanction of human slavery found in the Constitution of the United States. It is not there. It always recognizes human beings as persons, and never as property. It does not use the word “slave” or “slavery.”

Why, sir, when I came up to take the oath [of office] to support the Constitution, a whispered buzz; half in earnest and half jocular, passed around: “How can Lovejoy swear to support the Constitution? How can he take the oath?” I could take the oath to support the Constitution, because I believe in the Constitution, because I hold to it, because my heart is loyal to it. Every part and parcel and portion of it I believe in; but I do not believe in the construction [misinterpretation] put upon it by those who claim [alleged] its [supposed] recognition and sanction of the practice of slaveholding.

Mr. BARKDALE. No, sir; you stand there to-day an infamous perjured villain. [Calls to order.]

Mr. ASHMORE. Yes, he is a perjured villain; and he perjures himself every hour he oc-

Mr. SINGLETON. And a negro-thief into the bargain.

Mr. McCLERNAND. I wish to ask the gentleman whether he has always held that the Constitution deserved to be sustained and accepted—whether, at any time in his life, he held that the Constitution ought to be trodden under foot?

Mr. LOVEJOY. Never; sir; never. I always defended it, and always will, whether it be against the [pro-slavery Southern] Democrats who pervert it, or the disunionists who trample on it.

Mr. McCLERNAND. If the gentlemen says he never said so, I am not prepared to contradict him, for I know nothing, personally, about it; but I had understood [by rumor] that the gentleman once uttered this language: that “the Constitution was a piece of rotten parchment that ought to be trodden under foot.”

Mr. LOVEJOY. Yes; that [rumor] was thrown in my face once before here, and I denied it. It never had the least foundation in truth. I always defended the Constitution, because it was for liberty. It was ordained by the people of United States, not by a superannuated old mummy of a judge—and a Jesuit at that [Roger Taney]—but by the people of the United States, to establish justice, secure the blessings of liberty for themselves and their posterity, and to secure the natural rights of every human being within its exclusive jurisdiction. Therefore I love it.

These men [slavers] can perceive [due to Southern psychosis] nothing in the Constitution but slavery.

A young man leads a blushing bride to the altar, and takes the marriage vow before God and attendant witnesses, to love, cherish, and protect her. There she stands—the divinest thing that God has fashioned and placed upon earth—radiant in the beauty of youth; her cheek glowing with the color of the rose, which expands and fades away into that of the lily; her eyes sparkling like the stars from the depths of blue, and her tresses falling around her neck like the locks of the morning. Is the mole on that fair round neck, or the wart on that plump, soft hand, THE WOMAN whom the bridegroom swore to love and cherish? Say, sir, is it?

So [likewise] there is the Constitution—instinct with freedom, radiant with the principles of universal liberty, seizing the inspired utterances of our Magna Charta; and reducing them to practical and organic realization. Now, sir, I insist that if the clauses that are deemed to refer to the subject of slavery mean all that the wildest enthusiast claims them to mean, they bear no other relation or proportion to the Constitution which I swear to support, than the excrescence on the hand or neck does to the woman whom

So I love the Constitution, not in consequence of these things which are alleged to be in it, but in spite of them. But you will say, the woman has a right to sport an excrescence on her hand if she chose. I concede it; and, as a Federal law-maker, I concede that the States have the right to sport this fungus of slavery, because it is beyond my reach. But time rolls away. This youthful pair have years of middle age upon them. Olive plants have sprung up around the parent stem. The woman has gone mad. She gloats over the excrescence, which has spread and covers her entire hand. She exclaims,

“Husband, this is a dear, sweet darling, a real love of a wart, and I want to engraft it on the hands of all our daughters. I had it when I was married; you vowed

to protect me, and I claim the right to transfer it to all the children. If you do not, I will go to Indiana, and get a divorce. I will dissolve the Union between us.”

“My dear, I have indulged you in this whim about your hand, because I took you for better or for worse and I thought it one of your individual rights, which I was not at liberty to disturb. But if you propose to transfer this deformity to the daughters, I say distinctly and decidedly, it cannot be done. This is my prerogative, and I must exercise it.”

So I say to the slavery propagandists, who desire to transplant slavery to the Territories, and thus fasten it upon the daughters of the Republic [the new states], “My dears, it cannot be done.”

I say, therefore, Mr. Chairman, that there is no justification for this practice of slaveholding, from the fact that the enslaved race are [falsely alleged to be] an inferior race; no justification from the pretended fact that it imparts Christianity and civilization to them; and none in the guaranties of the Constitution. Now, there are some [allegedly] Christian men on the other side of the House; I want to put it to them in all candor—for while I intend to speak of slaveholding with as severe terms of reprobation as I possibly can, I do not intend to offend any individual personally—I want to know of you, Christian gentlemen, how you are going to Christianize men when you do not give them homes?

A MEMBER. Give them what?

Mr. LOVEJOY. Homes—a legal sanction to the conjugal and parental relations. How are you going to Christianize men whom you turn out to herd together like the buffaloes that roam upon the Western prairies? You cannot do it.

It may be asked, sir, when I confess that I have no control over this matter, why discuss it; why talk about it?

Mr. SINGLETON. I want to know if the gentleman gives homes ———

Mr. LOVEJOY. I must decline to yield to the gentleman.

Mr. SINGLETON. I want to answer the gentleman’s question by asking him another. I want to know if he gives homes to the negroes he carries from the South to Canada and other places?

A MEMBER. The negroes he steals?

The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Mississippi is not in order.

Mr. BARKSDALE. I hope my colleague will hold no parley with that perjured negro thief.

Mr. LOVEJOY. It is asked, why discuss this question? Why talk about it, when it is confessed [alleged by slavers] that we [Congress] have no constitutional power to legislate upon it [the subject of slavery]?

I will tell you, Mr. Chairman. It will be recollected that Mr. Webster once said, when speaking of the threatened interposition of Russia to snatch [Mr. Lajos] Kossuth from the protection of Turkey, for the purpose of sacrificing him on the altar of despotism: “Gentlemen, there is something on earth greater than arbitrary or despotic power. The lightning has its power, and the whirlwind has its power, and the earthquake has its power; but there is something among men more capable of shaking despotic thrones than lightning, whirlwind, or earthquake; and that is the excited and aroused indignation of the whole civilized world.”

Sir, before the public sentiment of the Christian and civilized world I propose to hold up to universal reprobation this practice of slaveholding. I propose to hold it up in all its atrocity, in all its hideousness, just as gentlemen have been holding up the practice of polygamy, and reprobating it; and, sir, that public sentiment of the civilized world will burn upon

Mr. Chairman, my time is passing away, and I must hasten on. I want to come to a few things that have been under discussion during the inchoate condition of the House, whilst this Hall was echoing with ululations that would have drowned the lupine chorus of the Alps, of [Hinton] “Helper,” “John Brown,” “incendiarism,” the “torch of the incendiary,” and the “knife of the assassin.” One gentleman from Virginia stood up in his place, and wanted to know where there was a man who would endorse the [Hinton] Helper book.

He wanted such a man, if there was one here, to stand up, that he might look upon the traitor. Mr. Chairman, I, for one, signed the paper recommending the circulation of the Helper book. I signed it intelligently. I was neither engrossed nor abstracted. I did it because I wanted to do it; and now, if the gentleman wants to look upon that kind of a traitor, Me, me, adsum qui feci, in me convertite telum; I did it. I will sign a recommendation for the circulation of any book that I choose, without asking permission of the gentleman from Missouri, [Mr. CLARK,] or of any other gentleman in the House or out of the House. I will sign a paper recommending the circulation of the Bible or the Koran, Young’s Nights Thoughts or Tom Moore’s Anacreon, Jonathan Edwards on the Decrees, or Tom Paine’s Age of Reason, just as I please.

I claim the privilege, as an American citizen, of writing my name and recommending the circulation of any and every book, without being held amenable to gentlemen upon this floor, or anywhere else. That is my answer in regard to it. I have more than that to say. I say nothing about some points in the hook. I have no doubt that there is considerable bombast and fustian and violence of language in it, because the author was educated in a slave State; and

I believe in that doctrine. I do not endorse every expression in the Helper book, for I have not studied every expression; but the philosophy of the book, the idea of organizing a party in the slave States as against slavery, I am in favor of, and I expect to see it accomplished. What is the [South’s] objection to the book? The objection is, that a citizen of the United States, an American citizen, addressed himself to his fellow citizens, in a peaceful way, through the press, and for this you find fault with him, and say that he must be hanged; and that any man who signed a recommendation for the circulation of this book is a “blighting; blasting, burning, withering curse,” and must not occupy that chair.

I want to know if it has come to this? Has not an American citizen a right to speak to an American citizen? I want the right of uttering what I say here in Richmond [Virginia]. I claim the right to say what I say here in Charleston [South Carolina].

Mr. BONHAM. You had better try it.

Mr. LOVEJOY. Yes, sir. I am going to invoke the aid of the General [Federal] Government to protect me as an American citizen, in my rights as an American citizen. I can go to England today, and in London, or anywhere else, discuss the question of Church and State; I can discuss the question of a monarchical government as compared

Mr. MARTIN, of Virginia. No; we would hang you higher than Haman.

Mr. MILES. Can you go to England and incite the laboring classes to murder the aristocracy, or to assassinate the Queen?

Mr. LOVEJOY. I have no desire to; nor have I any desire to incite such things anywhere else; but I do claim the right of discussing this question of slavery anywhere, on any square foot of American soil over which the stars and stripes float, and to which the privileges and immunities of the Constitution adhere. Under that Consti-

Mr. BONHAM. I ask the gentleman why he does not attempt to assert his right?

Mr. LOVEJOY. Yes, sir. The gentleman comes from a slave State, in which they are in the habit of speaking of the laboring classes in the free States as “greasy mechanics,” “filthy operatives,” “small-fisted farmers,” and they jeer at us as more degraded than slaves. This insulting language can be, and is, used in the free States without molestation or injury. Yet they say, “if you come here [down South] and utter the sentiments which you sincerely believe, we will hang you.”

If a mechanic from a free State goes there and utters the sentiment [belief]—that he thinks if they had more white laborers and fewer black ones, that labor in the South would be more respectable—what do you do with him? Denude him, scourge him, and, to intensify the indignity, you drive the knotted thong, by the hand of a slave, deep in his quivering flesh; then tar and feather him; and then put him on the [railroad] cars, still naked, to be sent a long distance, and threaten with violence the man who has the compassion to give him a cup of coffee. And, finally, after being jeered at every station along the route, this victim of your cruelty, a free citizen, crawls into a stable and begs, stealthily begs, the cast-off clothes of an ostler to hide his nakedness. You drive away young ladies that go to teach school, imprison or exile preachers of the Gospel, and pay your debts by raising the mad-dog cry of abolition against the agents of your creditors.

Mr. BARKSDALE. The meanest slave in the South is your superior. [Cries of “Order!” from the Republican side.]

Mr. MARTIN, of Virginia. I hope gentlemen from the South will let him talk as he pleases, but go away and not listen to him.

A MEMBER, on the Republican side. Well, go. “Stand not on the order of your going, but go at once.”

Mr. LOVEJOY. Mr. Chairman, I say I claim the privilege of going anywhere and everywhere within the limits [boundary] of this American Republic, as a free citizen, unmolested, and of uttering, in an orderly and legal way, any sentiment [belief] that I choose to utter; and, yet, are we to allowed do it? Are we, for that, in these United States, to be subjected to violence, outrage, tar and feathers, burning, imprisonment, and the gallows? Answer that question. I know gentlemen say that self-preservation is the first law of nature; but if you cannot keep slavery and allow free discussion, then, I say, in God’s name, before free discussion and all the rights of free citizens are to be sacrificed to that Moloch of slavery, that Moloch must be immolated at the shrine of liberty, free speech, free discussion, and all those rights that cluster around an American citizen.

Why, Mr. Chairman, a citizen of Rome [the Apostle Paul, Acts 22:25-29], when the scourge was already upraised, and about to fall upon him, if he uttered the cry, “I am a Roman citizen,” it arrested [halted] that scourge. Well, sir, is not there more of a charm, is it not a prouder position to be an American than to be a Roman citizen? And are we in the nineteenth century, living under this Constitution, with our free institutions—are our persons and our rights to be less sacred than they were under the old

Now, what about John Brown? [Cries of “Let’s have it!”] This affair of John Brown brings us to the reality of things. This raid confronts us with slavery, and makes us ask, is slaveholding right? and if so, what rights has it? When the curtain rose and startled the nation with this tragedy, John Brown lay there like a wounded lion with his head upon his paws, a sabre cut on his brow, bayonet gashes in his side, the blood oozing out, and life itself apparently ebbing fast; around were certain little specimens of the canine species, snuffing and smelling, and finally one of them yelped out: “Mr. Lion, was the old war- horse that pastures on the Western Reserve with you on this expedition?” The lion slowly raised his head, cast a disdainful side glance upon the inquirer, growled out a contemptuous negative, and reposed his head as before.

In regard to John Brown, you want me to curse him. I will not curse John Brown. You want me to pour out execrations upon the head of old Ossawatomie. Though all the slaveholding Balaks in the country fill their houses with silver, and. proffer it, I wilt not curse John Brown. I do honestly condemn what he did, from my standpoint, and with my convictions I disapprove of his action, that is true; but I believe that his purpose was a good one; that so far as his own motives before God were concerned, they were honest and truthful; and no one can deny that he stands head and shoulders above any other character that appeared on the stage in that tragedy from beginning to end; from the time he entered the armory there, to the time when he was strangled by Governor “Fussation.” [General laughter.]

He [Brown] was not guilty of murder or treason. He did unquestionably violate the [unconstitutional anti-rescue] statute against aiding slaves to escape; but no blood was shed, except by the panic-stricken-multitude, till Stevens [one of Brown’s supporters] was fired upon [by slavers] while [he was] waving a [white] flag of truce. The only murder was that of Thompson [another of Brown’s supporters], who was snatched from the heroic protection of a woman, and riddled with balls [bullets] at the railroad bridge. Despotism has seldom sacrificed three nobler victims than Brown, Stevens, and Hazlitt.

To continue the [then widely known] quotation from Mr. [Daniel] Webster, with a different application and a slight variation of the language, I say, gentlemen, if the blood of innocent men is taken by an absolute, unqualified, unjustifiable violation of natural law, what will it appease, what will it pacify? It will mingle with the earth; it will mix with the waters of the ocean; the whole civilized world will snuff it in the air; and it will return with awful retribution on the heads of those [pro-slavery] violators of natural law and universal justice. I cannot say when, or in what form; but depend upon it, if such acts take place, then slavery must look out for the consequences.]

As I remarked, Mr. Chairman, this brings us to confront slavery, and ask what right this Caliban has upon earth? I say no right. My honest conviction—and I do not know why gentlemen

I want to know by what right you can come and make me a slave? I want to know by what right you can say that my child shall be your slave? I want to know by what right you say that the mother shall not have her child, given to her from God through the martyrdom of maternity? Hear that soft, exquisite warble of a mother’s love:

Now, where is the wretch who would dare to go up and take that fluttering and panting bird from the bosom of its mother, and say, “It is mine; I will sell it like a calf; I will sell it like a pig?” What right had that mother to her babe? was it because she was “Fanny Forrester,” the gifted authoress; was it because she was the wife of a venerable and venerated missionary? No, it was because she was its MOTHER; and every slave mother has just as good a title to her babe as “Fanny Forrester” had to hers. No [politician] laws can make it right to rob her. I say, in God’s name, my child is mine; and yet I have no right to mine that a slave father has not to his child. Not a particle. The same argument that proves my

I tell you, Mr. Chairman, and I tell you all, that if I were a slave, and had the power, and were it necessary to achieve my freedom, I would not hesitate to fill up and bridge over the chasm that yawns between the hell of slavery and the heaven of freedom with the carcasses of the slain. Give me my freedom. Hands off. Unthrottle that man. Give him his liberty. He is entitled to it from his God. With these views, I do not think, of course, it is any harm to help away [rescue] a slave. I told you that a year ago. I need not repeat it.

[A MEMBER. You steal them.]

Who steals, when a man, comes and takes my child from my hearthstone? Who steals, when he comes and takes the babe, flesh of my flesh, and bone of my bone? Who steals? I tell you that I have no mire hesitation in helping a fugitive slave than I have in snatching a lamb from the jaws of a wolf, or disengaging an infant from the talons of an eagle. Not a bit. Long enough has the nation crouched and cowered in the presence of this stupendous wrong. Here and now I break the spell, and disenchant the Republic from the incantation of this accursed sorceress [“psychosis of the South”]. It is simply a question whether it will pay to go down into the den where the wolf is. [Laughter.] If you would only go into your lair, and crunch the bones and tear the flesh of your victims, we might let you alone; but you will not. You claim the right to go with this flesh in your teeth all over our Territories. We deny it.

My time is passing; I must go on. I wanted to say considerable more about John Brown.

Mr. ADRAIN. I propose that we give the gentleman more time.

Mr. LOVEJOY. I will answer all questions, if the House will give me more time. [Cries of “No! no!” “Give him time!” &c.]

Mr. SINGLETON. No, sir; any gentleman shall have time, but not such a mean, despicable wretch as that!

Mr. LOVEJOY. When the Jews could do not do anything else, they spit upon Christ, and said he was possessed of a devil. [Laughter.] One of the earliest settlements of Virginia was made by a fugitive slave. John Smith was captured in war, and sold to a high-toned, chivalrous Turk, and put at the task of threshing. The master rode up to the barn-door one day, and said, “Jack, you rascal, why don’t you thresh faster? Jack—horresco referens—flew at his master, killed him with his flail, (oh, for a Harper’s Ferry committee!), sprang into the vacant saddle and escaped [by self-rescue], and came and settled Jamestown. Oh [sarcastically] for a South-side preacher to admonish John to stay and serve his master, whose money he was, like a good “Christian dog!”

A moment, sir. Let us look at this question, aside from its moral aspects. And I want to know what [legal] right slavery, or a slaveholder, has to go with slaves into the common Territories of the United States? You talk about the equality of the States, and I grant it. The citizens of a slave State have all the rights in the Territories that a citizen of a free State has. You have the right, I concede, to go into the common Territories, and live there, with any kind of property we can take, but you have not the right to take slaves. This is the distinction I make.

At a liberal estimate there are not more than two millions of people in the United States interested in slave labor. There are only four hundred thousand slave holders. There are thirty millions of people in this country. There are twenty-eight millions interested in the system of free [hired] labor [workers], and two millions in that of slave labor. The free system accommodates some eight millions in the slave States better than the slave system. Here is the point. If slavery goes into the Territories [future new states], free [hired] labor [employees] cannot go there [cannot compete].

The presence of slavery without any local law for the purpose is the exclusion of free [hired] labor [workers]. If

I favor the equality of the States. I favor the right of every citizen of a slave State to go into the Territories; but I [and the Constitution] deny that he has the right to practice slaveholding there; for it is not an institution—it was never instituted; never established by law—but a practice, like polygamy. I say that they have not a right to go there and practice this high crime, so injurious to man and so offensive to God. And this is the question: whether these twenty-eight million people shall be accommodated, or two million people shall be accommodated; for, I repeat, the presence of Slavery is the utter exclusion of free [hired] labor [employees] and the institutions of freedom.

I deny no one their rights. The slave States are equal to the free States. It is a poor, pitiful, and paltry patriotism that cannot take in the entire extent of its country; but I [and the Constitution] do deny that slavery has the same right as freedom in this country. Freedom is the Isaac; freedom is the heir of promise. Slavery is the Hagar and Ishmael, and they must go into the wilderness, and freedom shall have the entire inheritance.

God and the [Founding] fathers gave it [America] to freedom and free institutions. It belongs to freedom—not to me; not to the citizens of the free States, but to freedom, to the utter exclusion of slaveholding.

Now, gentlemen, I know you are in a mood to take a little advice. [Laughter.] I tell you, I love you all. [Renewed laughter.]

Mr. McQUEEN. I utterly repudiate your love.

Mr. LOVEJOY. Sinners did that of Christ; but he loved them still. [Laughter.]

Mr. MCQUEEN. I do not think he loves you much.

Mr. LOVEJOY. I am afraid that I am not much like him. He went, however, and preached to the spirits in prison; and I think I never approximated so nearly to him as in this regard, while making proclamation of the holy evangel of God to sinners in this House [of Representatives]. I tell [advise] you of the slave States that you must emancipate your slaves. It belongs to you [that duty], and not to us. You must transform them from slaves into serfs, and give them homes, and protect and guard the sanctity of the family. We shall not push you. If you say that you want a quarter of a century, you can have it; if you want

You who advocate the perpetuity of slavery are like a set of madcaps, who should [would] place themselves on the top of an iceberg which had disengaged itself from the from the frozen regions of the north, and begun to float downward, and downward, through the warm climates. The sun shines, and melts it; the soft winds blow and melt it; the rains descend and melt it; the water ripples around and melts it; and then these wild visionaries, who fancied they could sail an iceberg through the tropics, start up, and blaspheme sunshine and rain and zephyr; and, mouthing the heavens, tell Jehovah [God] that, unless he stops the shining of the sun, and the blowing of the winds, and the falling of the rain, they will crumble his universe “from turret to foundation stone.” [Laughter.]

Do you not think God would feel bad; and would not the archangels tremble at the chivalry? [Renewed laughter.] You may call this extravagant; but you can no more perpetuate slavery, and will no more dissolve this Union, in order to perpetuate it, than you can stop the shining of the sun, or the ripple of the sea, the descent of rain, or the blowing of the wind; ay, no more than you can subdue the ocean, when it lashes itself into fury, and dashes its crested mountain billows against the rocks. It is as preposterous to think of taking slavery down through the civilization of the ages as it is to think of floating an iceberg through the

I say, you can do anything that other men can do. You can preserve and perpetuate this system, if any equal number of men could do it; but the stars in their courses [the flow of history] are fighting against you; God, in his, providence, is fighting against you. The universe was established upon the great principle of justice and truth; it may be jostled out of its place for a little while, but it will, sooner or later, fall back to its grooves. You must sacrifice slavery for the good of your country. Do this, and you will have the sympathy, the prayers, and the cooperation of the entire nation.

Refuse or neglect this; refuse to proclaim liberty through all the land, to all the inhabitants thereof [Leviticus 25:10], and the exodus of the slave will be through the Red Sea. It is a well-known physiological, as well as psychological fact; that ancestral characteristics reappear after a long interval of years, and even of generations, as streams disappear and gush out at a distant point. It is also well known that the Saxon [white] blood is being infiltrated into the veins of the enslaved.

Sir, Virginia cannot afford, the country cannot afford, to continue a practice fraught with so much of peril. It is better to remove the magazine [explosive], than to be kept evermore in dread of a lighted match.

The future glory and. usefulness of this nation cannot be sacrificed to this system of crime. The nations of the earth are to be taught by our example. The American Republic must repose queen among the nations of the earth. Slavery must die. Carthago est delenda. [Laughter.]

The philosophy, therefore, and the lesson which the slave States ought to have learned, from John Brown and from all these events, are not these expressions of rage and vengeance. Instead of being stimulated to revenge, Virginia ought to have learned the lesson of penitence. Instead of arraying herself in sheeps-gray [fighting clothes], she ought to have put on sackcloth and ashes [penitent’s clothing]. Instead of imbibing the distillation of corn mixed with the products of the poultry-yard, she ought to have drunk the waters of bitterness in view of her sin of slave-holding.

Mr. MARTIN, of Virginia. And if you come among us, we will do with you as we did with John Brown—hang you up as high as Haman. I say that as a Virginian.

Mr. LOVEJOY. I have no doubt of it.

[Here the hammer fell. [Time limit expired.]]