The Barbarism of Slavery

Front matter

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Dedication

DEDICATION.

To the young men or the Unites States, I dedicate this new edition or a Speech on the Barbarism of Slavery, in token of heartfelt gratitude to them for brave and patriotic service rendered in the present War for Civilization:

It is now more than three years since I deemed it my duty to expose, in the Senate, the Barbarism of Slavery. This phrase, though common now, was new then. The speech was a strict and logical reply to the assumptions of Senators, asserting the “divine origin" of Slavery, its “ennobling" character, and that it was the “black marble keystone" of our national arch, Listening to these assumptions, which were of daily recurrence, I felt that they ought to be answered. And, considering their effrontery, it seemed to me that they should be answered frankly and openly by exhibiting Slavery as it really is, without reserve; careful that I should “nothing extenuate, nor set down aught in malice." This I did.

Speech

Mr. President: Undertaking now, after a silence of more than four years, to address the Senate on this important subject, I should suppress the emotions natural to such an occasion, if I did not declare on the threshold my gratitude to that Supreme Being, through whose benign care I am enabled, after much suffering and many changes, once again to resume my duties here, and to speak for the cause which is so near my heart. To the honored Commonwealth whose representative I am, and also to my immediate associates in this body, with whom I enjoy the fellowship which is found in thinking alike concerning the Republic, I owe thanks which I seize this moment to express for the indulgence shown me throughout the protracted seclusion enjoined by medical skill; and I trust that it will not be thought unbecoming in me to put on record here, as an apology for leaving my seat so long vacant, without making way, by resignation, for a successor, that I acted under the illusion of an invalid, whose hopes for restoration to his natural health constantly triumphed over his disappointments.

When last I entered into this debate, it became my duty to expose the Crime against Kansas, and to insist upon the immediate admission of that Territory as a State of this Union, with a Constitution forbidding Slavery. Time has passed; but the question remains. Resuming the discussion precisely where I left it, I am happy to avow that rule of moderation, which, it is said, may venture to fix the boundaries of wisdom itself. I have no personal griefs to utter; only a barbarous egotism could intrude these into this chamber. I have no personal wrongs to avenge; only a barbarous nature could attempt to wield that vengeance which belongs to the Lord. The years that have intervened, and the tombs that have been opened, since I spoke, have their voices too, which I can not fail to hear. Besides, what am I — what is any man among the living or among the dead — compared with the Question before us? It is this alone which I shall discuss, and I open the argument with that easy victory which is found in charity.

The Crime against Kansas stands forth in painful light. Search history, and you can not find its parallel. The slavetrade is bad; but even this enormity is petty, compared with that elaborate contrivance by which, in a Christian age and within the limits of a Republic, all forms of constitutional liberty were perverted; by which all the rights of human nature were violated, and the whole country was: held trembling on the edge of civil war; while all this large exuberance of wickedness, detestable in itself; becomes tenfold more detestable when its origin is traced to the madness for Slavery. The fatal partition between Freedom and Slavery, known as the Missouri Compromise; the subsequent overthrow of this partition, and the seizure of all by Slavery; the violation of plighted faith; the conspiracy to force Slavery at all hazards into Kansas; the successive invasions by which all security there was destroyed, and the electoral franchise itself was trodden down; the sacrilegious seizure of the very polls, and, through pretended forms of law, the imposition of a foreign legislature upon this Territory; the acts of this legislature, fortifying the Usurpation, and, among other things, establishing test-oaths, calculated to disfranchise actual settlers, friendly to Freedom, and securing the privileges of the citizen to actual strangers friendly to Slavery; the whole crowned by a statute — "the be-all and the end-all" of the whole Usurpation — through which Slavery was not only recognized on this beautiful soil, but made to bristle with a Code of Death such as the world has rarely seen; all these I have fully exposed on a former occasion. And yet the most important part of the argument was at that time left untouched; I mean that which is found in the Character of Slavery. This natural sequel, with the permission of the Senate, I propose now to supply.

Motive is to Crime as soul to body; and it is only when we comprehend the motive that we can truly comprehend the Crime. Here, the motive is found in Slavery and the rage for its extension. Therefore, by logical necessity, must Slavery be discussed; not indirectly, timidly, and sparingly, but directly, openly, and thoroughly. It must be exhibited as it is; alike in its influence and in its animating character, so that not only its outside but its inside may be seen.

This is no time for soft words or excuses. All such are out of place. They may turn away wrath; but what is the wrath of man? ‘This is no time to abandon any advantage in the argument. Senators sometimes announce that they resist Slavery on political grounds only, and remind us that they say nothing of the moral question. This is wrong. Slavery must be resisted not only on political grounds, but on all other grounds, whether social, economical, or moral. Ours is no holiday contest; nor is it any strife of rival factions; of White and Red Roses; of theatric Neri and Bianchi; but it is a solemn battle between Right and Wrong; between Good and Evil. Such a battle can not be fought with excuses or with rose-water. There is austere work to be done, and Freedom can not consent to fling away any of her weapons.

If I were disposed to shrink from this discussion, the boundless assumptions now made by Senators on the other side would not allow me. The whole character of Slavery as a pretended form of civilization is put directly in issue, with a pertinacity and a hardihood which banish all reserve on this side. In these assumptions, Senators from South-Carolina naturally take the lead. Following Mr. Calhoun, who pronounced "Slavery the most safe and stable basis for free institutions in the world," and Mr. McDuffie, who did not shrink from calling it "the cornerstone of the republican edifice," the Senator from South-Carolina [Mr. Hammond] insists that "its forms of society are the best in the world;" and his colleague [Mr. Chesnut] takes up the strain. One Senator from Mississippi [Mr. Davis] adds, that Slavery "is but a form of civil government for those who are not fit to govern themselves;" and his colleague [Mr. Brown] openly vaunts that it "is a great moral, social, and political blessing — a blessing to the slave, and a blessing to the master." One Senator from Virginia, [Mr.Hunter,] in a studied vindication of what he is pleased to call "the social system of the slaveholding States," exalts Slavery as "the normal condition of human society," "beneficial to the non-slave-owner as it is to the slave-owner," "best for the happiness of both races;" and, in enthusiastic advocacy, declares, "that the very keystone of the mighty arch, which by its concentrated strength is able to sustain our social superstructure, consists in the black marble block of African Slavery. Knock that out," he says, "and the mighty fabric, with all that it upholds, topples and tumbles to its fall." These were his very words, uttered in debate here. And his colleague, [Mr. Mason,] who has never hesitated where Slavery was in question, has proclaimed that it is "ennobling to both master and slave" — a word which, so far as the slave was concerned, he changed, on a subsequent day, to "elevating," assuming still that it is "ennobling" to the master — which is simply a new version of an old assumption, by Mr. McDuffie, of South-Carolina, that "Slavery supersedes the necessity of an order of nobility."

Thus, by various voices, is the claim made for Slavery, which is put forward defiantly as a form of civilization — as if its existence were not plainly inconsistent with the first principles of any thing that can be called Civilization — except by that figure of speech in classical literature, where a thing takes its name from something which it has not, as the dreadful Fates were called merciful because they were without mercy. And pardon the allusion, if I add, that, listening to these sounding words for Slavery, I am reminded of the kindred extravagance related by that remarkable traveler in China, the late Abbé Hue, of a gloomy hole in which he was lodged, pestered by mosquitoes and exhaling noisome vapors, where light and air entered only by a single narrow aperture, but styled by Chinese pride the Hotel of the Beatitudes.

It is natural that Senators thus insensible to the true character of Slavery, should evince an equal insensibility to the true character of the Constitution. This is shown in the claim now made, and pressed with unprecedented energy, degrading the work of our fathers, that by virtue of the Constitution, the pretended property in man is placed beyond the reach of Congressional prohibition even within Congressional jurisdiction, so that the Slave-master may at all times enter the broad outlying Territories of the Union with the victims of his oppression, and there continue to hold them by lash and chain.

Such are the two assumptions, the first an assumption of fact, and the second an assumption of constitutional law, which are now made without apology or hesitation. I meet them both. To the first I oppose the essential Barbarism of Slavery, in all its influences, whether high or low, as Satan is Satan still, whether towering in the sky or squatting in the toad. ‘To the second I oppose the unanswerable, irresistible truth, that the Constitution of the United States nowhere recognizes property in man. ‘These two assumptions naturally go together. They are "twins" suckled by the same wolf. They are the "couple" in the present slave-hunt. And the latter can not be answered without exposing the former. It is only when Slavery is exhibited in its truly hateful character, that we can fully appreciate the absurdity of the assumption, which, in defiance of the express letter of the Constitution, and without a single sentence, phrase, or word, upholding human bondage, yet foists into this blameless text the barbarous idea that man can hold property in man.

On former occasions, I have discussed Slavery only incidentally; as, in unfolding the principle that Slavery is Sectional and Freedom National; in exposing the unconstitutionality of the Fugitive Slave Bill; in vindicating the Prohibition of Slavery in the Missouri Territory; in exhibiting the imbecility throughout the Revolution of the Slave States, and especially of South-Carolina; and lastly, in unmasking the Crime against Kansas. On all these occasions, where I have spoken at length, IT have said too little of the character of Slavery, partly because other topics were presented, and partly from a disinclination which I have always felt to press the argument against those whom I knew to have all the sensitiveness of a sick man. But, God be praised, this time has passed, and the debate is now lifted from details to principles. Grander debate has not occurred in our history, rarely in any history; nor can this debate close or subside except with the triumph of Freedom.

First Assumption. — Of course I begin with the assumption of fact.

It was the often-quoted remark of John Wesley, who knew well how to use words, as also how to touch hearts, that Slavery was "the sum of all villainies." The phrase is pungent; but it would be rash in any of us to criticise the testimony of that illustrious founder of Methodism, whose ample experience of Slavery in Georgia and the Carolinas seems to have been all condensed in this sententious judgment. Language is feeble to express all the enormity of this institution, which is now vaunted as in itself a form of civilization, "ennobling" at least to the master, if not to the slave. Look at it in whatever light you will, and it is always the scab, the canker, the "bare-bones," and the shame of the country; wrong, not merely in the abstract, as is often admitted by its apologists, but wrong in the concrete also, and possessing no single element of right. Look at it in the light of principles, and it is nothing less than a huge insurrection against the eternal law of God, involving in its pretensions the denial of all human rights, and also the denial of that Divine Law in which God himself is manifest, thus being practically the grossest lie and the grossest Atheism. Founded in violence, sustained only by violence, such a wrong must by a sure law of compensation blast the master as well as the slave; blast the lands on which they live; blast the community of which they area part; blast the Government which does not forbid the outrage; and the longer it exists and the more completely it prevails, must its blasting influences penetrate the whole social system. Barbarous in origin; barbarous in its law; barbarous in all its pretensions; barbarous in the instruments it employs; barbarous in consequences; barbarous in spirit; barbarous wherever it shows itself, Slavery must breed Barbarians, while it develops everywhere, alike in the individual and in the society to which he belongs, the essential elements of Barbarism. In this character it is now conspicuous before the world.

In undertaking now to expose the Barbarism of Slavery, the whole broad field is open before me. There is nothing in its character, its manifold wrong, its wretched results, and especially in its influence on the class who claim to be "ennobled" by it, that will not fall naturally under consideration.

I know well the difficulty of this discussion involved in the humihating Truth with which I begin. Senators on former occasions, revealing their sensibility, have even protested against any comparison between what were called the "two civilizations, meaning the two social systems produced respectively by Freedom and by Slavery. The sensibility and the protest are not unnatural, though mistaken. "Two civilizations!" Sir, in this nineteenth century of Christian light, there can be but one Civilization, and this is where Freedom prevails. Between Slav and Civilization there is an essential incompatibility. If you are for the one, you can not be for the other; and just in proportion to the embrace of Slavery is the divorce from Civilization. That Slave-masters should be disturbed when this is exposed, might be expected. But the assumptions now so boastfully made, while they may not prevent the sensibility, yet surely exclude all ground of protest when these assumptions are exposed.

Nor is this the only difficulty. Slavery is a bloody Touch-me-not, and everywhere in sight now blooms the bloody flower. It is on the wayside as we approach the national capital; it is on the marble steps which we mount; it flaunts on this floor. I stand now in the house of its friends, About me while I speak are its most sensitive guardians, who have shown in the past how much they are ready either to do or not to do where Slavery is in question. Menaces to deter me have not been spared. But I should ill deserve this high post of duty here, with which I have been honored by a generous and enlightened people, if I could hesitate. Idolatry has been often exposed in the presence of idolaters, and hypocrisy has been chastised in the presence of Scribes and Pharisees. Such examples may give encouragement to a Senator who undertakes in this presence to expose Slavery; nor can any language, directly responsive to the assumptions now made for this Barbarism, be open to question. Slavery can only be painted in the sternest colors; but I cannot forget that nature's sternest painter has been called the best.

The Barbarism of Slavery appears; first in the character of Slavery, and secondly in the character of Slave-masters. Under the first head we shall naturally consider (1) the Law of Slavery and its Origin, and (2) the practical results of Slavery as shown in a comparison between the Free States and the Slave States. Under the second head we shall naturally consider (1) Slave-masters as shown in the Law of Slavery; (2) Slave-masters in their relations with slaves, here glancing at their three brutal instruments; (8) Slave-masters in their relations with each other, with society, and with Government; and (4) Slave-masters in their unconsciousness.

The way will then be prepared for the consideration of the assumption of constitutional law. I. In presenting the Character of Slavery, there is little for me to do, except to allow Slavery to paint itself. When this is done, the picture will need no explanatory words.

(1.) I begin with the Law of Slavery and its Origin, and here this Barbarism paints itself in its own chosen definition. It is simply this: Man, created in the image of God, is divested of his human character, and declared to be a "chattel" — that is, a beast, a thing or article of property. That this statement may not seem to be put forward without precise authority, I quote the statutes of three different States, beginning with South-Carolina, whose voice for Slavery always has an unerring distinctiveness. Tere is the definition supplied by this State:

"Slaves shall be deemed, held, taken, reputed, and adjudged in law, to be chattels personal in the hands of their owners and possessors and their executors, administrators, and assigns, to all intents, constructions, and purposes whatsoever." — 2 Brev, Dig., 229.

And here is the definition supplied by the Civil Code of Louisiana:

"A slave is one who is in the power of a master to whom he belongs. The master may sell him, dispose of his person, his industry, and his labor. He can do nothing, possess nothing, nor acquire any thing, but what must belong to his master." — Civil Code, Art. 35.

In similar spirit, the law of Maryland thus indirectly defines a slave as an article:

"In case the personal property of a ward shall consist of specific articles, such as slaves, working beasts, animals of any kind, the court, if it deem it advantageous for the ward, may at any time pass an order for the sale thereof." — Statutes of Maryland.

Not to occupy time unnecessarily, I present a summary of the pretended law defining Slavery in all the Slave States, as made by a careful writer, Judge Stroud, in a work of juridical as well as philanthropic menit:

"The cardinal princeiple of Slavery — that the slave is not to be ranked among sentient beings, but among things — is an article of property — a chattel personal — obtains as undoubted law in all of these (Slave) States." — Stroud's Law of Slavery.p-22.

Out of this definition, as from a solitary germ, which in its pettiness might be crushed by the hand, towers our Upas Tree and all its gigantic poison. Study it, and you will comprehend the whole monstrous growth.

Sir, look at its plain import, and see the relation which it establishes. The slave is held simply for the use of his master, to whose behests, his life, liberty, and happiness are devoted, and by whom he may be bartered, leased, mortgaged, bequeathed, invoiced, shipped as cargo, stored as goods, sold on execution, knocked off at public auction, and even staked at the gamingtable on the hazard of a card or a die; all according to law. Nor is there any thing, within the limit of life, inflicted on a beast which may not be inflicted on the slave. He may be marked like a hog, branded like a mule, yoked like an ox, hobbled like a horse, driven like an ass, sheared like a sheep, maimed like a cur, and constantly beaten like a brute; all according fo law. And should life itself be taken, what is the remedy? The Law of Slavery, imitating that rule of evidence which, in barbarous days and barbarous countries, prevented a Christian from testifying against a Mohammedan, openly pronounces the incompetency of the whole African race — whether bond or free — to testify in any case against a white man, and, thus having already surrendered the slave to all possible outrage, crowns its tyranny, by excluding the very testimony through which the bloody cruelty of the Slave-master might be exposed.

Thus in its Law does Slavery paint itself; but it is only when we look at details, and detect its essential elements — five in number — all inspired by a single motive, that its character becomes completely manifest.

Foremost, of course, in these elements, is the impossible pretension, where Barbarism is lost in impiety, by which man claims property in man. Against such arrogance the argument is brief. According to the law of nature, written by the same hand that placed the planets in their orbits, and like them, constituting a part of the eternal system of the Universe, every human being has a complete title to himself direct from the Almighty. Naked heis born; but this birthright is inseparable from the human form. A man may be poor in this world's goods; but he owns himself. No war or robbery, ancient or recent; no capture; no middle passage; no change of clime; no purchase-money; no transmission from hand to hand, no matter how many times, and no matter at what price, can defeat this indefeasible God-given franchise. And a divine mandate, strong as that which guards Life, guards Liberty also. Even at the very morning of Creation, when God said, let there be Light — earlier than the malediction against murder — He set an everlasting difference between man and a chattel, giving to man dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth:

3that right we hold By His donation; but man over men He made not lord, such title to Himself Reserving, human left from human free.

Slavery tyrannically assumes a power which Heaven denied; while under its barbarous neeromancy, borrowed from the Sourcaof Evil, a man is changed into a chattel, a person is withered into a thing, a soul is shrunk into merchandise. Say, sir, In your madness, that you own the sun, the stars, the moon; but do not say that you own a man, endowed with a soul that shall live immortal, when sun and moon and stars have passed away.

Secondly. Slavery paints itself again in its complete abrogation of marriage, recognized as a sacrament by the church, and recognized as a contract wherever civilization prevails. Under the law of Slavery, no such sacrament is respected, and no such contract can exist. The ties that may be formed between slaves are all subject to the selfish interests or more selfish lust of the master, whose license knows no check. Natural affections, which have come together, are rudely torn asunder; nor is this all. Stripped of every defence, the chastity of a whole race is exposed to violence, while the result is recorded in the tell-tale faces of children, glowing with their master's blood, but doom-. ed for their mother's skin to Slavery, through all descending generations. The Senator from Mississippi [Mr. Brown] is galled by the comparison between Slavery and Polygamy, and winces. I hail this sensibility as the sign of virtue. Let him reflect, and he will confess that there are many disgusting elements in Slavery, which are not present in Polygamy, while the single disgusting element of Polygamy is more than present in Slavery. By the license of Polygamy, one man may have many wives, all bound to him by the marriage-tie, and in other respects protected by law. By the license of Slavery, a whole race is delivered over to prostitution and concubinage, without the protection of any law. Sir, is not Slavery barbarous?

Thirdly. Slavery paints itself again in its complete abrogation of the parental relation, which God in his benevolence has pro for the nurture and education of the human family, and which constitutes an essential part of Civilization itself And yet, by the law of Slavery — happily beginning to be modified in some places — this relation is set at naught, and in its place is substituted the arbitrary control of the master, at whose mere command little children, such as the Saviour called unto hin, though clasped by a mother's arms, may be swept under the hammer of the auctioneer. I do not dwell on this exhibition. Sir, is not Slavery barbarous?

Fourthly. Slavery paints itself again in closing the gates of knowledge, which are also the shining gates of civilization. Under its plain unequivocal law, the bondman may, at the unrestrained will of his master, be shut out from all instruction; while in many places, incredible to relate! the law itself, by cumulative provisions, positively forbids that he shall be taught to read. Of course, the slave can not be allowed to read, for his soul would then expand in larger air, while he saw the glory of the North Star, and also the helping truth, that God, who made iron, never made as lave; for he would then become familiar with the Scriptures, with the Decalogue still speaking in the thunders of Sinai; with that ancient text, “He that stealeth a man and selleth him, or if he be found in his hands, he shall surely be put to death;" with that other text, “Masters, give unto your servants that which is just and equal; "with that great story of redemption, when the Lord raised the slaveborn Moses to deliver his chosen people from the house of bondage; and with that sublimer story, where the Saviour died a cruel death, that all men, without distinction of race, might be saved — leaving to mankind commandments, which, even without his example, make Slavery impossible. Thus, in order to fasten your manacles upon the slave, you fasten other manacles upon his soul. Sir, is not Slavery barbarous?

Fifthly. Slavery paints itself again in the appropriation of all the toil of its victims, excluding them from that property in their own earnings which the law of nature allows, and civilization secures. . The painful injustice of this pretension is lost in its meanness. It is robbery and petty larceny, under the garb of law. And even its meanness is lost in the absurdity of its associate pretension, that the African, thus despoiled of all his earnings, is saved from poverty, and that for his own good he must work for his master, and not for himself. Alas! by such a fallacy, is a whole race pauperized! And yet this transaction is not without illustrative example. A solemn poet, whose verse has found wide favor, pictures a creature who,

3With one hand put A penny in the urn of poverty, And with the other took a shilling out.

Pollok's “Course of Time," Book VIIT. 632.

And a celebrated traveller through Russia, more than a generation ago, describes a kindred spirit, who, while on his knees before an altar of the Greek Church, devoutly told his beads with one hand, and with the other deliberately picked the pocket of a fellow-sinner by his side. Not admiring these instances, I can not cease to deplore a system which has much of both, while, under an affectation of charity, it sordidly takes from the slave all the fruits of his bitter sweat, and thus takes from him the mainspring to exertion. Tell me, sir, is not Slavery barbarous?

Such is Slavery in its five special elements of Barbarism, as recognized by law; first, assuming that man can hold_property in man; secondly, abrogating the relation of husband and wife; thirdly, abrogating the parental tie; fourthly, closing the gates of knowledge; and fifthly, appropriating the unpaid labor of another. Take away these elements, sometimes called “abuses," and Slavery will cease to exist, for it is these very “abuses" which constitute Slavery. Take away any one of them, and the abolition of Slavery begins. And when I present Slavery for judgment, I mean no slight evil, with regard to which there may be a reasonable difference of opinion, but I mean this five-fold embodiment of “abuse" — this ghastly quincunx of Barbarism — each particular of which, if considered separately, must be denounced at once with all the ardor of an honest soul, while the whole five-fold combination must awake a five-fold denunciation.

But this five-fold combination becomes still more hateful when its single motive is considered. The Senator from Mississippi [Mr. Davis] says that it is “but a form of civil government for those who are not fit to govern themselves." The Senator is mistaken. It is an outrage where five different pretensions all concur in one single object, looking only to the profit of the master, and constituting its ever-present motive power, which is simply to compel the labor of fellow-men without wages!

If the offense of Slavery were less extended; if it were confined to some narrow region; if it had less of grandeur in its proportions; if its victims were counted by tens and hundreds, instead of millions, the five-headed enormity would find little indulgence. All would rise against it, while religion and civilization would lavish their choicest efforts in the general war-* fare. But what is wrong, when done to one man, can not be right when done to many. If it is wrong thus to degrade a single soul — if it is wrong thus to degrade you, Mr. President — — it can not be right to degrade a whole race. And yet this is denied by the barbarous logic of Slavery, which, taking advantage of its own wrong, claims immunity because its usurpation has assumed a front of audacity that can not be safely attacked. Unhappily, there is Barbarism elsewhere in the world; but American Slavery, as defined by existing law, stands forth as the greatest organized Barbarism on which the sun now shines. It is without a single peer. Its author, after making it, broke the die.