Daily National Intelligencer

MR. J. BARBOUR'S SPEECH
CONCLUDED.

By what course of argument this conclusion is arrived at, am at a loss to discover. There is but one distinction acknowledged in the constitution between the then existing states & those thereafter to be admitted, and that is confined to the importation of slaves. This shows that in all other respects they were to be on an equal footing with the old states; for, had such not been the design of the convention, as they discriminated in the one case, they would have done so in every particular where it was intended.

In addition, it may be remarked, that in the 3d clause of the 2d section of the 1st article, the same principle of representation, as it regards slaves, was to be extended to such states as may be admitted; pointing directly to the clause, of course, that new states might be admitted into the Union.

The gentleman from Massachusetts, (Mr. Mellen) says that we impose no condition; but that the people of Missouri, if they accept it, impose it on themselves. And he illustrates his idea by a comparison of this case with that of the Bank of the United States. I regret to find that gentleman placing the great privilege of a people to govern themselves, upon so humble a footing as an equality with a bank corporation. Where is the resemblance?

Congress has the right to refuse to incorporate a bank; if, however, it dispenses this privilege, it may impose what terms it pleases. If they be acceptable or otherwise, none can complain. But Congress is bound by the constitution, in this case, to admit Missouri into the Union; if it refuse, it will do an immeasurable injury to the people of Missouri, because it deprives them of the great privilege of self government. If you impose conditions as a sine qua non to her admission, however severe these conditions may be, she may, possibly, to obtain possession of the inestimable blessing of self government, accede to them; but her consent is obtained by a species of force. Justice claims of power its rights—power grants a part only, and requires, before that part be given, a relinquishment of the remainder. Is this no condition, although justice, despairing of the whole, should acquiesce in the terms presented by power? It is unnecessary to add any thing to a proposition so palpable.

The gentleman from Pennsylvania says this is no restriction, but a blessing. Let the people of Missouri decide for themselves. We do not ask that Missouri shall admit slavery. All that we require is, that she may decide for herself. If it be, as gentlemen assert, a blessing, what have you to fear from the good sense of the people of Missouri? You have pronounced them capable of self government in all the important concerns of life, except in this particular. Why not trust to her discretion in this? Send out your go-carts of pamphlets, the substances of speeches made in the Senate; pronounce before them your long Jeremiads against slavery, long as a Scotch coronation prayer, and can you doubt the success of your endeavors to prevent the introduction of slavery among them? Why leap the boundaries of the constitution to force upon them that which you say is a blessing?

But, the gentleman from Pennsylvania asks, shall we suffer Missouri to come into the Union with this savage mark on her countenance? I appeal to that gentleman, to know whether this be language to address to an American Senate, composed equally of members from states precisely in the condition that Missouri would be in, were she to tolerate slavery. Are these sentiments calculated to cherish that harmony and affection so essential to any beneficial results from our Union? But, sir, I will not imitate this course, and I will strive to repress the feeling which such remarks are calculated to awaken.

Permit me here to notice an observation made by the gentleman from Massachusetts, (Mr. Otis) who, in this instance, departed from his usual urbanity. Were he to visit Europe, he fears that, on his landing, his country being known, he might be upbraided by some Spaniard, for example, who might tell him he was from the land of hypocrites—with freedom on their lips, and the bloody scourge brandishing in their hands. Would the gentleman be without an answer? Might he not say, how dare you thus defame, you slave? Do you not bow the knee before the bloody sceptre of cruelty and superstition? Is not the emblem of your power the wheel of the inquisition? Are you not the first people to have commenced the barbarous traffic in slaves? Are you not the last to surrender it? Have you not received a price to abandon it, and do you not at this time add perfidy to cruelty, by pursuing it to the utmost extent of which you are capable?

Should the gentleman extend his tour to England, and there meet with the same accusation—feeling as he ought, and speaking as he felt, would he not indignantly denounce the insolence of the slanderer, by telling him, to take the beam from his own eye before he attempted to remove the mote from his neighbor's. Might he not ask, to whom are we indebted for slavery at all; is it not to England? Have you not been engaged for centuries in this horrible traffic, and against the remonstrance of the people whom you now abuse? Did not Virginia, of all the civilized world, first lift up her voice against this trade? But she lifted it in vain. Gain was your object; you weighed that against the peace and happiness of both hemispheres, and accepted it as an equivalent. Nor was it yielding to a momentary impulse of cupidity or ignorance of its moral consequences. But you pursued it for centuries: and, although you were warned, by the glowing eloquence of your Wilberforce and your Clarkson, who thundered in your ears the sighs and lamentations of the suffering victims of your wickedness, and spoke, like angels trumpet-tongued, the deep damnation of your crimes, you turned a deaf ear, deaf as an adder, and found your indemnity for all this in dollars and cents.

'Tis but yesterday you ceased, and to-day you assume the moral chair, and pronounce homilies against the unfortunate effects of your crimes. For, what have the American people not done? Have they not, whenever any regard to their own peace would permit, emancipated the slave? and where that was impracticable, have not the masters, by their kindness and affection, deprived slavery of its horrors? Cease, then, your defamation—turn your eye to every region of the earth, where you bear sway, and, when you shall have relieved the wretched and oppressed, then, and not till then, presume to preach reformation to others. With such materials as these, delineated by his masterly hand, the blush he dreaded on his own account might be transferred to his accuser.

But both the gentlemen from Pennsylvania and New Hampshire have called to their aid the Declaration of Independence, and the sacred principles it consecrates. What has that to do with this question? Who were the parties—the slaves? No. Did slavery not exist in every state of the Union at the moment of its promulgation? Did it enter into any human mind that it had the least reference to this species of population? Is there not at the present moment slaves in the very states from which we hear these novel doctrines?

How has it happened, that these doctrines have slept till this moment? Where were they at the adoption of the constitution, in which slavery is recognized, & the property guaranteed by an express clause? And shall we, the mere creatures of that instrument, presume to question its authority? To every other sanction imposed by our situation, is the solemn oath that we will support it. Where are the consciences of gentlemen who hold this language?

But, they assure us, that they do not mean to touch this property in the old states. What, this eternal, and, as they say, immutable principle, consecrated by this famous instrument, and in support of which we have appealed to God, is to have no obligatory force on the very parties who made it; but attaches instantly you cross the Mississippi! What kind of ethics is this, that is bounded by latitude and longitude which is inoperative on the left, but is omnipotent on the right bank of a river? Such doctrines are well calculated to excite our solicitude; for, although the gentlemen, who now hold it, are sincere in their declarations, and mean to content themselves with a triumph in this controversy, what security have we, that others will not apply it to the south generally?

This sir, is no longer matter of speculation; you have heard the doctrine contended for already not at cross roads, or in the city taverns, but in the legislative hall of a state. When it shall be resorted to by faction, who can pretend to prescribe its limits! Every page of history is full of melancholy proofs of the feebleness of that security, which reposes upon the moderation of the ambitious and designing. The means are always made to yield to the end. I, therefore, heard the doctrine with unmingled regret. I fear it is the beginning of new counsels, whose disastrous effects no one can foresee.

Sir, there is one view of this subject, which I wish to present to the Senate; if you have the pretended power, why not exercise it in the ordinary and only legitimate mode, by making it the subject of legislative enactment? Why seek, by compact with Missouri, to bolster your authority? If you have the power, is her consent necessary? If you have it not, can that consent give it you? What should we think of any man, when the bankrupt law was under consideration, if he were to propose, before he acted, to obtain the consent of one or more of the states? And yet it would be as rational as in the present case, supposing you have the authority, to require the consent of Missouri to give it effect.

But the principal feature in a legislative act is, that it is in the power of our successors to change it; here, on the contrary, you seek to make the regulation immortal. The constitution itself contains a principle of alteration, so as to adapt itself to the progress of human affairs, and yet you place a legislative act beyond all human power of change or modification. I will forbear any further remarks on this branch of the subject, and proceed in the order I proposed. I will now enquire, whether, by treaty, we are not restrained from restricting Missouri?

By the third clause of the treaty, by which we acquired this country, the inhabitants are to be incorporated, &c. I consider it not of moment to enquire, whether their admission, according to the principles of the federal constitution, relates to the time or the terms of such admission, because they are, when admitted, to enjoy all the rights, privileges, and immunities, of American citizens.

An attempt has been made to discriminate between federal and state rights, in a celebrated tract denominated, "the substance of two speeches," &c. For my part, I have been utterly unable to comprehend the meaning of the author. Does he mean to assert that there may be one or more citizens entitled to federal privileges, and not to state privileges? On the converse, to me it has always appeared as not admitting of a question, that these were indissolubly united in an American citizen. A citizen of the United States must be a citizen of some one of the states, and, as such, entitled to every right or privilege secured by the federal or state government. If there be any right pertaining to citizens of the United States, it is that of fashioning their government according to their own will and pleasure. This right was, therefore, secured by compact to the inhabitants of the territory in question, and any attempt to impair or abridge it, is in violation of that treaty.

In the same tract it is said, slaves are not property; the gentleman from Massachusetts, (Mr. Otis) frankly admits, that this is an unwarrantable assertion, and such must be the award of all mankind. Did not both the contracting parties recognize slaves as property? Were they not known to abound in the territory ceded, and constituting the largest proportion of the property of the people? Is it consistent with reason to suppose that, when such care was taken to secure the people of the territory in the undisturbed enjoyment of their property, the principal part was intended to be excluded? It is mortifying to have to contend with such a shadow.

The whole territory ceded was to be admitted into the union. The letter of the treaty required, that it should have been admitted as a whole. You thought proper to divide it; but you suffered the Louisiana part to come in without restriction, in this regard. Upon what principle can you reconcile with good faith the distinction you now set up between Missouri and Louisiana?

The gentleman from Massachusetts, (Mr. Otis,) advances the proposition, that, were this a conquered country, Congress might impose what terms they pleased—one, instead of two Senators; and, in short, whatever modification it pleased. As this is a question which for the present may be said, in law language, to be coram non judice, and as we have our hands full without it, I shall not discuss it. I shall dismiss it by denying its truth, and declaring that it is essential, in all cases, no matter by what method the territory may be acquired, whenever it becomes incorporated into the Union, it must be, in the language of all our precedents, on an equal footing with the original states, in all respects whatsoever.

It is asked, who are the parties to the treaty, and who is there to punish its infraction? Why propound this question? The honor of the American people is the guaranty of its faithful execution. Our own brethren have become interested in its execution; for they have mingled with the original inhabitants: they are entitled to the most liberal interpretation of the treaty, as well on the score of national law as the principles of justice and a liberal and enlightened policy.

The gentleman from Massachusetts, in illustrating his views of the powers of Congress on this subject, has enquired, whether Congress could not exclude a religious sect from inhabiting the intended state, the principles of whose faith were unfriendly to population; an example of which he furnished in the shaking quakers? Whatever else may be said of this view, it will at least be entitled to the credit of candor. It, without disguise, displays the undefinable and unconstitutional power now asserted; it assumes that Congress has a right to regulate their whole internal polity—for, if their religion and their connexion by matrimony are just subjects of Congressional authority, what subject of social regulation would be beyond the reach of their control?

Lest I weary you, sir, I will now proceed to the last branch of this interesting subject, which I proposed to discuss: Is it expedient or just?

The first objection that presents itself is its immeasurable injustice. By whom was the country acquired? By the common treasure of every part of the Union, and by the exclusive counsels of that portion which you seek to interdict by your measure. Yes, sir, I say the exclusive counsels. The opposition which was made to the treaty by which we acquired it, is too recent and too notorious to require proof. Nay, sir, so inveterate is the opposition, that we have a portion of its leaven mingled with the present discussion.

The gentleman from Rhode Island has told us that we acquired it by treaty with a man who has become a private gentleman, and who had no title himself. A country thus acquired, of boundless extent, is to be shut against us. Were our opponents not under the influence of an insatiate ambition, they would content themselves with the enjoyment of a large and disproportionate share of this country, to which they would exclusively succeed, independently of any legal regulation on this subject. This is too obvious to be denied, when we take as our guide the history of our own country, which furnishes indubitable proof that slaves, to any considerable number, are never seen beyond a given parallel of latitude.

When you cast your eye on the map of the country in question, it is palpable that much the largest portion would never be occupied by a slave. Why are they not content with this great natural advantage? Can you bring your minds to believe that we shall sit quietly under this act of iniquity, as insulting as it is injurious? Sir, no portion of the United States has been more loyal than the South. Amid all the vicissitudes of party and the violence of faction—in peace and in war—in good and in evil report, we have respected the laws, and rallied around the constitution and the Union. To the Union we have looked, as the ark of our salvation and the resting place of our hopes. Is this your reward for our loyalty?

Sir, there is a point where submission becomes a crime, and resistance a virtue. In despotic countries even the despot is obliged to keep some terms with his subjects: in free states you more readily arrive at the point to which I allude. Beware how you touch it, in regard to the South! Our people are as brave as they are loyal. They can endure any thing but insult. The moment you pass the Rubicon, they will redeem their much abused character; they will throw back upon you your insolence and your aggression.

But, let us suppose they will quietly submit to the wrongs you inflict, what must be their feelings friendly to Union—to that harmony so essential to our common prosperity? What is the foundation of our connection? The Federal compact. He must, indeed, be profoundly ignorant of human nature, if he suppose the Union reposes on such a foundation. No, sir, it is a common interest, and those kind and affectionate sentiments which the preservation by a parental government of that interest generates, that form its prop and security. Withdraw these, you may preserve the form, but the vital part is gone.

To what end do you encounter this great risk? To exclude slavery from Missouri? That cannot be your object. You have slaves there already. These, you say, you do not mean to touch. The principle, then, is given up: the stock they have already there will multiply and fill the land. But we are gravely told, and upon it all the changes have been rung to excite the prejudices of the non-slave holding states, that the political influence resulting from the slaves which will be carried to this country is the principal ground of objection to Missouri's coming in without restriction. You reduce, say they, the white man to an equality with the slave. What sophistry is this! Will not the slave have the same influence in Georgia or Virginia as in Missouri? His removal to the latter state is in no way to increase it.

But they will, we are told, multiply faster in Missouri than in the old states. Mark the dilemma in which gentlemen are placed: at one time they weep over the condition of the slave; their tender souls are overflowing with kindness and compassion to their sufferings. To ameliorate their condition is their professed object. What course do they pursue to accomplish it? To pen them up, as my honorable friend from North Carolina has justly remarked, and cut them off from those benefits which await them in a new and fertile country; the enjoyment of which produces that increase they so much affect to dread.

Let us hear no more of humanity; it is profaning the term. Their object is power. They assume the mask of humanity for the purpose of seducing tender consciences, and they, as far as their policy can effect it, devote the very beings whose welfare they pretend to urge as a reason for the measure of which we so justly complain. Yes: humanity is their motto. The interest, the peace, the happiness of the whites, form with them the dust of the balance; their affections are alive only to the condition of the slave.

They speak of their measures with great deliberation, and invite us to be calm. They are afar off while this new drama is performing. Turn out comedy or tragedy, they are equally unaffected. On the contrary, we are to be involved in the catastrophe. It is not left to us to stand aloof as mere spectators. We shall have to act a part. We may lose, but cannot gain. We furnish the stakes; and they are nothing less than the vital interests of our country.

The gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Otis) has been edifying in his suggestions as to what we are to fear from St. Domingo, unless we adopt his counsels. The mention of St. Domingo calls up a train of unpleasant recollections. Its history is replete with instructive lessons upon this subject. Let us alone, and we have nothing to fear. It is your pretended solicitude for our welfare that constitutes our danger. It is the doctor, and not the disease, we dread.

Yes, sir, the pseudo friends of humanity, in France, far beyond the reach of the effects of their own policy, in the spirit of fanaticism issued the celebrated decree that involved the fate of that devoted island. Its caption was "liberty and equality." It no sooner reached its object than the bands of society were dissolved. Monsters stalked over the face of this wretched country, and their footsteps were every where traced by conflagration, and rapine, and murder, and lust, and all the unutterable horrors which the most ferocious passions, coupled with unbridled power, could inflict.

The few wretched survivors, who fled before the fury of the storm, carried to every part of Christendom their tale of suffering and of woe, which, by its irresistible pathos, drew tears of pity from every eye. But, where or when has it been known that fanaticism has paused to reflect on consequences? Experience, the lessons of prudence and of caution, are presented to it in vain.

But, sir, let us analyze this argument of the gentleman from Massachusetts, if, indeed, argument it may be called. If, says he, you extend slavery to Missouri, the emissaries of St. Domingo will penetrate this interior region, and preach the doctrines of insurrection. Indeed! If, then, according to the logic of this gentleman, the slaves be retained in the Atlantic states, to which the access is the most easy, and swell to a disproportionate number, we have nothing to apprehend; but, if removed to the interior, and so diffused as to be entirely out-numbered by the white population, then, and not till then, are we in danger. Can any thing be necessary to refute a proposition, when to state it is to destroy it?

But gentlemen defend the course they pursue, on the ground of charity and benevolence to this unfortunate species of population. Charity, sir, in its just sense, is one of the first of virtues; it bears upon its face the impress of its celestial birth; it prompts the man, at the expense of his own comforts, to give food to the hungry and clothing to the naked. If his scanty means deny him this privilege, he acts the good samaritan—pours balm in the wound, and binds up the broken heart. His reward is ample here and hereafter. Here, in the uplifted and thankful eye of wretchedness relieved; there, it is a ministering angel at the throne of eternal justice.

But that charity which seeks to gratify itself at the expense of another; which subjects the actor to no sacrifice, to no danger, is mere hypocrisy—'tis the reluctant homage which vice pays to virtue. In which predicament my opponents stand! It is my property they seek to take; it is my peace, my safety, my happiness, that are put to hazard. I exempt the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Otis) from any part of these allusions: he has frankly told us that he is actuated by no benevolent consideration; he justifies his course on the score of policy.

We are continually reproached with having on our side every advantage from the union; that we have contrived to gain an unjust portion of power through our slaves, and have given in return no equivalent. Let us analyze this charge, and test its justness. According to the principles of those who hold all men equal, it is we who have made the sacrifice, rather than gained an advantage, in the ratio of representation, as it regards our slaves. In submitting to the deduction of two-fifths of this species of population, we have surrendered precisely that proportion of our just claims.

Independent sovereignties, entering into federal association, agree that their voice in the union shall depend on their relative numbers. What right has one of the parties to enquire into the condition of any portion of the inhabitants of another? That is an affair exclusively belonging to the contracting sovereign. In the spirit of compromise, however, the sacrifice was submitted to. Gentlemen say they do not mean to disturb it. Why harp continually upon it? Is it to instil incurable hostilities into the body politic; to array one portion of the United States against another?

The parties heretofore existing in the United States, formidable as they were, especially at one time, lost all capacity for mischief by being broken up in fragments. Each state, each neighborhood, was more or less divided; and thereby the force and effect of their violence was rendered comparatively harmless. Such will not be the case when you divide by latitudes. In their collisions, the Union will shake to its foundations.

The gentleman from New Jersey, on another subject, expressed a partiality for parties; their existence he supposes essential to the health of the political body. Being myself fond of calm, I am willing to dispense with them altogether. His views might possibly be correct, could you regulate its extent as does the doctor his means by drachms and scruples. But I fear, sir, if I am not greatly deceived by the signs of the times, that this gentleman will have to acknowledge, by melancholy experience, that his remedy has of itself become a dreadful disease.

But, sir, I have wandered from the point, which is—that we have an advantage for which we have given no equivalent. No. Take it for granted, however, that it is a favor, (our ratio of representation,) and not a sacrifice. Do we not pay in solid bullion for it? Is not taxation directly in proportion to our representation? But is this all? What have we not done for the navigating interest, and for the manufactures of our eastern brethren?

Three years past, at the suggestion of the latter, did we not unanimously pass a law, in conformity to their wishes, which interdicted the intercourse between this country and the British West India Islands in British ships, with a view to the encouragement of the shipping interest of the East? Have we not also passed a navigation act, at their instance, and, in short, have we not done whatever we have been requested to do which could lead to their advantage in this regard? Had the South been influenced only by the sordid consideration of their own interest, they would have been content to employ the cheapest carriers, whether alien or domestic. They were influenced by a more magnanimous policy.

We held our brothers of the East as ourselves, and, in promoting their particular interest, at our immediate sacrifice, we looked at the subject in a national point of view only. And, although a continual clamor has been kept up against us upon the subject of manufactures, yet the laws which have been passed for their encouragement indicate the very liberal feelings of the South upon this subject, not to say an extravagant partiality.

In the opposition which has taken place to the unreasonable demands (or, at least so esteemed by many) made by the manufacturing interest, no hostility to the North or East mingles therewith; it results from a conviction that a system, which can be sustained only by taxing extravagantly the productive labor of the country, cannot be founded in a proper regard to the suggestions of true political economy.

We are asked, why has Virginia changed her policy relative to slavery? That the sentiments of our most distinguished men thirty years past entirely corresponded with the course which the friends of restriction now advocate; that Mr. Jefferson has delineated a gloomy picture of the baneful effects of slavery; and that the Virginia delegation, one of whom was the late President of the United States, voted for the restriction on the north-western territory.

When it is recollected that the Notes of Mr. Jefferson were written during the progress of the Revolution, the mind operated upon by its incidents, as novel as stupendous, it is no matter of surprise that the writer, who was performing so distinguished a part, should have imbibed a large portion of that enthusiasm which such an occasion was so well calculated to produce. With the eye of benevolence, surveying the condition of mankind, and a holy zeal for the amelioration of their condition, he gave vent to his feelings in the effusion to which our attention has been called. It is palpable these are the illusions of fancy. Sad reality has since taught him, as his example shows, that the evil, over which he wept, is incurable by human means.

By which will you be influenced, the undisciplined effusions of a benevolent heart, or the sober suggestions of cool deliberations, and ripened judgment? As to the consent of the Virginia delegation to the restriction in question—whether the result of a disposition to restrain the slave trade indirectly, or the influence of that enthusiasm to which I have just alluded; or, as is said by some, a political measure to counteract certain schemes then going on, whose object was, according to the rumor of the day, a severance of the Union, it is now not important to decide.

We have witnessed its effects. What might have been speculation before, is now matter of experience. The liberality of Virginia, or, as the result may prove, her folly, which submitted to, or, if you will, proposed this measure, has eventuated in effects which speak a monitory lesson. How is the representation from this quarter, on the present question? Virginia is constrained to cry out, And you, too, my children! I appeal to the Senators from that quarter—to their filial affection, and conjure them, by the kindness we have shown them, to arrest the unfeeling injustice meditated against us.

Did we not give you the land which now constitutes your home, and which you liken, in your own language, to a Paradise? Did we not protect you in your infancy? Did we not arrest the policy of the east, which sought to fetter your mighty river, for no matter what purpose, whether disunion or to repress your growth. Did we not place you by our side in this and the other hall, and impart to you the high privileges of self government? You have now become powerful: will you, in the first moment we have ever solicited your aid, abandon us and go over to the enemy? Will you surrender yourselves to the seductive influence of an envious step-mother, who sought to strangle you in your infancy? Dare you lift your parricidal hand against your natural parent? In the face of the most unpromising symptoms, I will continue to hope better things.

We have heard much of the moral and political effects of slavery. Instead of the picture furnished by the visionaries and enthusiasts on this subject, let us consult the testimony of history from the first to the present age. In the master states of antiquity, Greece and Rome, it existed in its worst form. And, yet, such was the march of the human mind, in these distinguished republics, in all that was ennobling in morals and science, that, it continued to shine through the long eclipse of interposing darkness. And, in the modern world, the lamps of science and of liberty were lighted up from its yet unexpired embers.

I will not pretend to retouch the picture delineated by the masterly hand of my distinguished friend from Maryland. His glowing and sublime eloquence, the exclusive companion of superior genius, lifted the curtain which separates us from past ages, and caused to pass in review the heroes of Marathon, Salamis and Thermopylae—splendid achievements, that lose nothing in comparison with all that has since intervened.

If you descend to modern times, the result of experience in our own country is no less opposed to the suggestions of theory. I will not enter into the invidious task of contrasting the south with the north. How disastrous must be that question, whose discussion permits a member of this body, in recounting the splendid monuments of American skill and bravery, to content himself with naming Bunker's Hill, Bennington and Saratoga! Could not the gentleman from New-Hampshire permit his national feeling to survive so long, as to have recounted the Cowpens—King's Mountain, Guilford, Eutaw, York, and finally the victory of New-Orleans, whose memory will live co-extensively with the flood on whose margin it was achieved?

Why this invidious distinction? Does the honorable gentleman imagine, I take a less interest in indulging my pleasing recollection of the prowess of my country in the first, than in the last? No, they were my countrymen—the fame they acquired was a common stock; my portion of the inheritance I will not surrender.

Let it not however be supposed, that in the abstract I am advocating slavery? Like all other human things, it is mixed with good and evil—the latter, no doubt, predominating.

The gentleman from Massachusetts, (Mr. Mellen) tells us, he is legislating for after ages. His view disdains the limited horizon of the present. Poor arrogant man, not content to act well his part in the little span assigned him by his creator, he builds his mole-hill, and challenges immortality for his labors! A few revolving years, they are erased with the same facility, as are the characters by the flood, on whose sandy margin they have been inscribed.

Tell me at what pure fountain of knowledge, have you drank in the holy inspiration, which enables you to penetrate the dark cloud which hangs on the future, and to adapt your counsels to the endless vicissitudes of human affairs? Satisfy me on this, before I surrender present happiness. I fear you have commenced this distant voyage under the most unhallowed auspices. You violate the constitution; you trample under feet the plighted faith of the nation; you do an immeasurable act of injustice to one half the nation; you lay the foundation of incurable hatred; and all this, for consequences which none can see, but that Providence in whose hands is the destiny of nations.

Sir, reflections of this kind call up a fearful subject of contemplation. Your government upon its present scale, is as yet, but an experiment. While the people are virtuous, it may equal all our fond hopes and anticipations: but, when it shall reach from ocean to ocean, become populated to excess, and poverty and vice shall have shed their baneful influence; when materials of this kind shall be subjected to the intrigues of the wicked and ambitious who, judging even from the present time, is sanguine enough to hope that we alone are to be exempt from the calamities, to which man has been born heir.

Who can pretend to predict, that the present order of things will be able to ride out the storm? And if, conforming to all human things, we too, shall experience adversity: if this last hope of afflicted humanity shall, as the precursor of its final doom, be rent in twain; what then will be the fruits of your policy? On this side the Mississippi, a black population: on the other, a white. The latter, you tell us, is feeble, inadequate to its own defence, we present only a temptation to conquest. Instead of presenting a rampart, you have surrendered us, by your policy, an unresisting prey to our now hostile neighbors.

It may perhaps be consistent with retributive justice, that, our country overrun, you in turn may severely feel the terrible effects of your present injustice. Let me conjure the gentleman to return from his distant voyage, and unite with us in consulting the happiness of the present generation.

Whether slavery was ordained by God himself, in a particular revelation to his chosen people, or whether it be merely permitted as a part of that moral evil, which seems to be the inevitable portion of man, are questions I will not approach: I leave them to the casuists and the divines. It is sufficient for us, as statesmen, to know that it has existed from the earliest ages of the world, and, that to us has been assigned such a portion, as, in reference to their number and the various considerations resulting from a change of their condition, no remedy, even plausible, has been suggested; though wisdom and benevolence united have unceasingly brooded over the subject.

However dark and inscrutable may be the ways of Heaven, who is he that arrogantly presumes to arraign them? The same mighty power that planted the greater and the lesser luminary in the Heavens, permits on earth the bondsman and the free. To that Providence, as men and christians, let us bow. If it be consistent with His will, in the fullness of time, to break the fetter of the slave, he will raise up some Moses to be their deliverer. To him commission will be given to lead them up out of the land of bondage. At his approach, seas will subside and mountains disappear.

When this revelation shall be made, & the jubilee of emancipation be proclaimed, philanthropy will lift its voice to swell the joyful note, which, sweeping the continent and the isles of the new world, and resounding through the old, shall cause the oppressor to let go his prey, the dungeon to surrender its victim, and give emancipation to the slave. Till then, let us draw consolation from the reflection that, however incomprehensible this dispensation may be to us, it is a link in that great concatenation which is permitted by Omnipotent power and goodness, and must issue in universal good.

I will not weary the patience of the Senate by detaining them any longer on this subject. It is the speaker, and not the theme, that is exhausted. However threatening the political horizon may now appear, I will not suffer myself easily to be cast down. No, sir, when I reflect upon our ancestors, who, flying oppression, braved a waste of waters, bringing with them nothing but their household gods and an unextinguishable thirst for freedom, taking root on a barbarous shore, growing up with a rapidity unexampled in the annals of mankind—uniting against the attempts of tyranny, and consummating the glorious Revolution: when I reflect on the spirit of concession and brotherly love in the formation of the constitution; and when I finally contemplate the glory and happiness it has produced, I will not now distrust that Providence which has been pleased to dispense to us so many & such distinguished blessings.

I will not permit myself to believe that this mighty scheme of political salvation, in which all nations are interested, will pass away like the grass of the field. I will rather continue to indulge the hope, that we shall remain united and free; that we shall advance to that height of prosperity when all nations shall resort to us, whence to draw the oracles of political wisdom and the sublime truths of civil and religious liberty. That such may be our fate is the prayer I will unceasingly address to the Great Disposer of all human events.

[Debate to be continued.]