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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Slavery Question, by John M. Landrum
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Slavery Question
+       Speech of Hon. John M. Landrum, of La., Delivered in the
+       House of Representatives, April 27, 1860
+
+Author: John M. Landrum
+
+Release Date: March 23, 2011 [EBook #35662]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SLAVERY QUESTION ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Bryan Ness and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive.)
+
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+
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+
+
+
+THE SLAVERY QUESTION.
+
+SPEECH OF HON. JOHN M. LANDRUM, OF LA., DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF
+REPRESENTATIVES, APRIL 27, 1860.
+
+
+The House being in the Committee of the Whole on the state of the Union--
+
+Mr. LANDRUM said:
+
+Mr. CHAIRMAN: That we are now threatened with great and alarming evils, no
+one who will take a calm and unprejudiced survey of the condition of the
+country can for a moment doubt. In the formation of this Government there
+existed a spirit of harmony and concession from the citizens of each State
+in this Union towards the citizens of every other State; and this spirit
+was so plainly exhibited in the convention which framed the Constitution
+of the United States--that it was so adjusted, so adapted to the wants of
+all the States entering into the Confederacy--that it received the almost
+unanimous support of the Convention. Harmony and concord and good feeling
+reigned throughout the whole Confederacy. The citizen of South Carolina
+rejoiced in the prosperity and commended the virtues of the citizen of
+Massachusetts; and the citizen of Massachusetts responded to the feeling
+of the citizen of South Carolina. That was the feeling which pervaded the
+citizens of this common country when the Constitution was formed; and that
+was the spirit which pervaded it for the thirty years afterwards during
+which the Government was administered by the fathers of the Republic.
+
+But now, Mr. Chairman, what state of things does this country exhibit? A
+people discordant; a great sectional party formed, and the whole history
+of the country ransacked in a search for subjects of denunciation on the
+part of citizens of one portion of the Confederacy against citizens of the
+other.
+
+In that convention which framed the Constitution, which is the basis of
+our Government, slave States were admitted without objection. Concessions
+were made to slave States on every point that they demanded, and which
+they deemed essential to the preservation and protection of their rights
+in this Union. Ay, there was no objection then to the admission of a State
+into the Union because she permitted slavery. So far from that, the
+Constitution abounds with express provisions for the protection of their
+property, and for the security of their rights. It was not objected to a
+free State that she should form a member of the Confederacy because she
+did not tolerate slavery. But the patriotic founders of the Republic
+looked to the interests of the whole country, and sacrificed prejudices
+whenever sacrifices were necessary, "_in order to form a more perfect
+union_."
+
+Contrast that state of feeling and that state of facts with the condition
+in which we now see the country. Mutual denunciation is the business even
+of the Representatives of the people on the floor of this Hall. Members of
+Congress recommend the circulation of books calculated to sap and
+undermine the foundations on which the whole fabric of wealth, of
+respectability, and of civilization, of one-half the Union is based. We
+meet here, not to strengthen the bonds that bind us together in the Union,
+but to weaken them, as far as human ingenuity can do so. To such a point
+has this state of things culminated, that the people of State after State
+in the Southern portion of the Confederacy have met in convention and
+declared their belief that there is a probability that the time is rapidly
+approaching when they "_must provide new guards for their future
+security_." The State which I have the honor in part to represent has made
+that declaration. And it is charged here on the floor of this Hall, by
+almost every member of the Republican party who has addressed this
+committee on the subject of the state of the Union, that it is the
+Democratic party which is responsible for this condition of things; that
+the Democratic party have departed from the lessons of wisdom taught us by
+the example of our forefathers, and have thus precipitated on the country
+all these evils, by the manner in which they have treated the slavery
+question.
+
+It shall be my purpose, Mr. Chairman, in the short time allotted to me, to
+endeavor to vindicate from the charge that party of which I am an humble
+member. The district which I represent, and the State in which that
+district is situated, are Democratic by an overwhelming majority; and I
+assert here, and am prepared to prove incontestibly, that the Democratic
+party are not the authors of the mischief under which the country labors.
+I am prepared to prove that they have not departed from the lessons of
+wisdom inculcated by the example of the founders of the Republic. I will
+show, if history does not lie, that it is the Republican party, the
+anti-slavery party, that is the cause of all the evils with which the
+country is afflicted; and it is they, and not the Democratic party, who
+have abandoned the legislative precedents and examples of our fathers.
+
+Why, sir, how are we responsible for the slavery agitation that has
+produced all the evils and mischief which afflict the country?
+
+How is the Democratic party responsible for that excitement, and for the
+difference of opinion which pervades the Republic on that subject,
+threatening a dissolution of the Union? Why, we are responsible for it
+because we do not join the Republican party to exclude slavery from the
+Territories? We are responsible for it because we do not oppose the
+admission of a State into the Union when her constitution tolerates
+slavery. We are responsible for it because we do not join in the
+declaration that all men are created free and equal, and apply that
+doctrine to the African slaves of the South; because we do not declare
+that those slaves are equal to us, and therefore of right free.
+
+We are required by the Republican party to unite with them in advocating
+that doctrine, and to declare besides that slavery and polygamy are twin
+relics of barbarism. If we join them in all these declarations of
+principle; if we join them in advocating these measures, then, of course,
+the country will be quiet. But, sir, who is responsible for the agitation?
+Is it not the party that calls for legislation? Has the Democratic party
+ever asked the national Legislature to establish slavery in her Territory?
+No, sir; but the Republican party comes into this Hall and demands that
+the power of the Government should be interposed to exclude slavery from
+the Territories. Because we do not agree with them; because we do not
+think as they do; and because we do not vote as they do; because we do not
+acquiesce in these propositions, why, then we are responsible for this
+agitation, and they are not! They ask us to adopt the maxim that no more
+slave States shall be admitted into the Union, and because we do not agree
+with them on that subject, we are the agitators, and they are not.
+
+Mr. Chairman, from what source do we learn this new doctrine? Do we find
+it in the legislation of our forefathers? Are there any restrictions in
+the Constitution of the United States on the subject, or any grant of
+power to prohibit slavery in a Territory when that Territory is organized?
+Is there anything in the Constitution of the United States to justify
+it--and I appeal to that as the very first example of our forefathers in
+the administration of this Government--is there anything in that
+instrument which authorizes you to say that a State shall not be admitted
+into the Union because its constitution tolerates slavery?
+
+I differ from gentlemen upon the Republican side of the House as to the
+manner in which I would learn a lesson front the example of our
+forefathers. I would not search for it in their private declarations. I
+would search for their legislative record. We are legislators, and for our
+legislation we want legislative precedents. I care not whether the
+opinions of the founders of the Republic were for slavery or against it,
+if the legislation of which they were the authors corresponded with the
+views I entertain. What judge of any court, what lawyer who wished to
+ascertain the true doctrine of a case, would search for the private
+opinions of the judge when the reports bristled with adjudicated cases
+from which he could learn the true doctrine which he had expressed under
+oath and in the discharge of his duties? When you search for the opinions
+of our ancestors to guide us as legislators, look at their conduct as
+legislators, and not their private opinions. Every lawyer, every sensible
+man, every rational man, knows that that is the true test of the opinions
+of our ancestors upon a given subject. When they legislate under oath;
+when they legislate for the good of the whole country, they lay aside
+their private opinions and their peculiar prejudices.
+
+Now, sir, what do we find in the Constitution of the United States which
+inculcates the doctrine that slavery must not be extended into the
+Territories? I call the attention of gentlemen to the first clause of
+section nine, article one of the Constitution:
+
+"The migration or importation of such persons as any of the States now
+existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the
+Congress prior to the year 1808, but a tax or duty may be imposed upon
+such importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each person."
+
+In order, Mr. Chairman, that there may be no mistake about the meaning of
+that clause of the Constitution, I send to the Clerk's desk, to be read,
+an extract from Elliott's Debates.
+
+The Clerk read from Elliott's Debates, (Yate's Minutes,) pages 35 and 36,
+as follows:
+
+"By the ninth section of this article, the importation of such persons as
+any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be
+prohibited prior to the year 1808, but a duty may be imposed on such
+importation not exceeding ten dollars for each person.
+
+"The design of this clause is to prevent the General Government from
+prohibiting the importation of slaves, but the same reasons which caused
+them to strike out the word 'national,' and not admit the word 'stamps,'
+influenced them here to guard against the word '_slaves_.' They anxiously
+sought to avoid the admission of expressions which might be odious in the
+ears of Americans, although they were willing to admit into their system
+those things which the expressions signified: and hence it is that the
+clause is so worded, as really to authorize the General Government to
+impose a duty of ten dollars on every foreigner who comes into a State to
+become a citizen, whether he comes absolutely free, or qualifiedly so as a
+servant, although this is contrary to the design of the framers, and the
+duty was only made to extend to the importation of slaves.
+
+"This clause was the subject of a great diversity of sentiment in the
+convention; as the system was reported by the Committee of Detail, the
+provision was general, that such importation should not be prohibited,
+without confining it to any particular period. This was rejected by eight
+States; Georgia, South Carolina, and I think North Carolina, voting for
+it.
+
+"We were then told by the delegates of the two first of those States, that
+their States would never agree to a system which put it in the power of
+the General Government to prevent the importation of slaves, and that
+they, as delegates from those States, must withhold their assent from such
+a system.
+
+"A committee of one member from each State was chosen by ballot to take
+this part of the system under their consideration, and to endeavor to
+agree upon some report which should reconcile those States; to this
+committee also was referred the following proposition, which had been
+reported by the Committee of Detail, namely: 'No navigation act shall be
+passed without the assent of two-thirds of the members present in each
+House;' a proposition which the staple and commercial States were
+solicitous to retain, lest their commerce should be placed too much under
+the power of the eastern States, but which these last States were as
+anxious to reject. This committee, of which also I had the honor to be a
+member, met and took under their consideration the subjects committed to
+them. I found the _eastern_ States, notwithstanding their _aversion to
+slavery_, were very willing to indulge the southern States at least with
+temporary liberty to prosecute the _slave trade_, provided the southern
+States would in their turn gratify them, by laying no restriction on
+navigation acts, and after a very little time, the committee, by a great
+majority, agreed on a report, by which the General Government was to be
+prohibited from preventing the importation of slaves for a limited time,
+and the restrictive clause relative to navigation acts was to be omitted."
+
+Mr. LANDRUM. Now, Mr. Chairman, we are asked to legislate to exclude
+slavery from the Territories, because slavery is a moral wrong, because it
+is a sin against God, and because it is a crime against humanity. And we
+are invoked to adopt that legislation by the example of our forefathers.
+
+Now, what precedent do they furnish us in this clause of the Constitution?
+The Constitution of the United States did make regulations in regard to
+the slavery question. One of those regulations was to permit the African
+slave trade until the year 1808. Now, sir, was there anything so morally
+wrong in the African slave trade; was it any such crime against humanity
+as to deter the ancestors of those gentlemen from coming into a Union
+which permitted the African slave trade? Why, sir, Massachusetts,
+Connecticut, and New Hampshire, voted to extend the limitation against the
+prohibition of that traffic from 1800 to 1808. Does the honorable chairman
+of this committee (Mr. BUFFINGTON) blush for his ancestors because they
+knew so little of the primary truths of common morality, as expounded by
+the gentleman from Connecticut, (Mr. FERRY,) in the commencement of this
+debate, soon after the organization of this House, in voting such a
+provision as that?
+
+The State of Massachusetts was a sovereign State before she entered into
+this Confederacy, unabridged by any limitation. She could have prevented
+her citizens then, as the United States does now, from participating in
+the slave trade even between foreign ports in foreign nations; and yet
+your ancestors not only voted with South Carolina and Georgia, who refused
+to come into the Union unless the African slave trade was permitted so
+long as they desired it, but in coming into that Union, it gave to the
+citizens of Massachusetts, too, a like authority to engage in that trade.
+
+What a sin against God, what a crime against humanity, did these
+Massachusetts legislators vote to perpetuate! And yet, I imagine, the
+honorable Chairman is proud of his ancestors; and we are told now that
+because we will not join you in the hue-and-cry against slavery, and do
+not legislate to exclude slavery from the Territories, we are the authors
+of the evils with which the country is afflicted. You are not satisfied
+with our silence, our inaction; you say that we want to perpetuate a crime
+against humanity, and have departed from the lesson of wisdom inculcated
+by our ancestors.
+
+Sir, I believe in the teachings of the ancient patriots. I take their
+precedents, and although not _now_ in favor of the reopening of the
+African slave trade, because it is inexpedient, (though, as I do not
+consider the question before the country, I confess I have not studied
+it,) yet I venerate those legislators who sacrificed their prejudices in
+order that they might get South Carolina and Georgia into the Union, who
+refused to come in without it.
+
+The gentleman from Connecticut, who first opened this debate, and who, I
+believe, is not now in his seat, remarked in his speech, that evil,
+disguised in whatever form it might be, would only produce evil; and
+therefore you must first lay down a moral code, and no matter what results
+it apparently leads you to, you must never violate it. Sir, his ancestors
+told a different tale. They said, in admitting South Carolina and Georgia
+into the Union, that, although they objected to the slave trade, more good
+would be accomplished than by prohibiting the slave trade and losing those
+two States.
+
+That is the policy which guided our ancestors; and now, what do we ask?
+What does the Democratic party ask? Do we ask this Government to legislate
+slavery into the Territories? We have never made any such demand. We have
+never _yet_ asked anything of this Government but to let it alone. And I
+assure you, that New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Connecticut, voted to
+perpetuate the slave trade, and to give her citizens the right to engage
+in it from 1800 to 1808, by that clause in the Constitution which gives
+the citizens of each State the rights of the citizens of every other
+State. She relinquished the power which they had to forbid her own
+citizens from participating in the slave trade, and opened the door to
+them. That is what your ancestors did in the Constitution under which this
+Government was formed, and which is the basis of all its legislation. And
+yet, you can give no legislative encouragement to slavery; you must
+exclude it wherever you have the power to exclude it, not as a matter of
+policy--at least that is not the ground upon which you base your
+action--but because it is a moral wrong, and a crime against humanity.
+
+But is that all the legislation in the Constitution about slavery? Why,
+sir, they inserted a clause in the Constitution authorizing the recapture
+of fugitive slaves when they entered the sovereign territory of these New
+England States which have now such an aborrence of the doctrine. As the
+meaning of that clause has been a subject of dispute, I ask the Clerk to
+read a short extract from the debates in the Virginia convention which
+adopted the Constitution, in which Mr. Madison explained the meaning of
+it. I hope I shall be able to show that we have some first-rate
+pro-slavery legislation in the Constitution before I get through with this
+argument.
+
+The Clerk read, as follows:
+
+"At present, if any slave elopes to any of those States where slaves are
+free, he becomes emancipated by their laws. For the laws of the States are
+uncharitable to one another in this respect. But in this Constitution, 'no
+person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof,
+escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation
+therein, be discharged from such service or labor; but shall be delivered
+up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due.' This
+clause was expressly inserted to enable owners of slaves to reclaim them.
+This is a better security than any that now exists. No power is given to
+the General Government to interpose with respect to the property in slaves
+now held by the States. The taxation of this State being equal only to its
+representation, such a tax cannot be laid as he supposes. They cannot
+prevent the importation of slaves for twenty years; but after that period
+they can. The gentlemen from South Carolina and Georgia argued in this
+manner: 'We have now liberty to import this species of property, and much
+of the property now possessed has been purchased or otherwise acquired in
+contemplation of improving it by the assistance of imported slaves. What
+would be the consequence of hindering us from it? The slaves of Virginia
+would rise in value, and we would be obliged to go to your markets.' I
+need not expatiate on this subject. Great as the evil is, a dismemberment
+of the Union would be worse. If those States should disunite from the
+other States, for not including them in the temporary continuance of this
+traffic, they might solicit and obtain aid from foreign Powers."
+
+Mr. LANDRUM. Yes, Mr. Chairman, those were the motives that influenced the
+framers of the Constitution. The several States of New England which,
+according to the testimony of Mr. Madison, had up to that time refused to
+deliver up fugitive slaves, voluntarily renounced the right of prohibiting
+it, and voted that the slave-catcher should have authority to enter
+therein, and carry back his slave to bondage. Do I want any better
+pro-slavery men than these? Where, sir, was this notion of "a sin against
+God and a crime against humanity" when they voted for that clause?
+
+I will again refer to the remark of the gentleman from Connecticut, which
+I know he will not apply to his ancestors in Connecticut who voted for
+this pro-slavery provision--that "evil, disguised under whatever form it
+may be, can be productive only of evil." He would not denounce his
+ancestors as hypocrites because they left out of the Constitution the
+weird "slave;" for Mr. Roger Sherman says that the expression was
+objectionable "to ears polite," I suppose. Mr. Madison and Mr. Yates tell
+us what they meant by the description "held to service or labor." I know
+the gentleman would not say that his ancestors were disguising in a
+particular name an evil, and thereby adopting it.
+
+No, sir; slavery was a good thing; but it had a bad name, according to the
+polite phraseology of the day, and, knowing that "a rose by any other name
+would smell as sweet," they changed the term "slave" to that of a "person
+held to service or labor."
+
+But, sir, in regard to this African slave trade provision, it was esteemed
+so important that, although provision was made for an amendment to the
+Constitution, applying to almost everything else within its compass,
+except, I believe, to the clause, that no State should be deprived of her
+equal representation in the Senate without her consent, this precious
+article of the slave trade clause was not to be interfered with, under any
+circumstances, prior to the year 1808.
+
+I think, Mr. Chairman, I have disposed of the religious argument, the
+moral argument, the conscience argument against slavery, derived from the
+lessons taught by the example of our forefathers. Do not tell me any more
+that Mr. Madison thought slavery was an evil; because these thoughts
+controlled not the action of his public position. Do not tell me that
+Washington and Jefferson were opposed to slavery abstractly, after that;
+because we find even New England men, with all their prejudices, as good
+pro-slavery men as South Carolina and Georgia wanted--for they were the
+only States that made a question on this African slave trade. Whatever
+future congressional protection to property may become necessary, all that
+we have ever _yet_ asked, Mr. Chairman, is that Congress shall not
+legislate at all on the question of slavery in the Territories. But your
+patriotic forefathers did legislate. They legislated to protect the
+African slave trade. They gave permission to the citizens of Massachusetts
+to enter into the slave trade along with the citizens of South Carolina
+and Georgia, and they gave us a fugitive slave law. That is the sort of
+legislation which they gave us in the Constitution, which is the basis of
+the Government under which we live.
+
+There are other clauses in the Constitution, sir, which show that this
+matter of slavery was not neglected. In the apportionment of direct
+taxation and representation, it was stipulated that three-fifths of the
+slaves should be represented on this floor. They were noticed, and noticed
+as a degraded class, as unequal to free men; because, if they had been
+considered equal to free men we would have been entitled to full
+representation for them on this floor. But, sir, they were treated as a
+degraded class--as a class unequal to free men. Their masters were given a
+representation in this House in proportion to three-fifths of their
+numbers, and the direct taxation was to be assessed at the same ratio on
+the slave States. Now, I allude to this subject, not to show boastingly,
+as it has been said on this floor, that we have a slave representation
+here. In that very provision of the Constitution the people of the
+northern States derived all the advantage--the people of the southern
+States all the loss; for no money, scarcely, has ever been raised by
+direct taxation. The money for the support of the Government is collected
+in an entirely different manner. If taxes were assessed on that principle,
+by a system of direct taxation, we would have derived some benefit from
+the three-fifth provision; but, as it is, you derive all the advantage,
+and we none of it.
+
+The principle which governed the convention in inserting that provision
+was the belief that this was the proportion in which the labor of the
+slave contributed to the wealth of the country, comparatively to that of
+the free man; and as, according to the political doctrines of that day,
+taxation and representation went hand in hand, and as a slave produced
+only three-fifths as much annual income as a free man, their masters were
+only entitled to that much representation. So it is in the electoral
+college. There the slaves are enumerated in the same proportion, and their
+masters are deprived of a voice to that extent.
+
+In that connection I want to have read the opinions of a venerable
+gentleman, whose authority will not be disputed upon this floor by the
+Republican party--the opinions of Mr. John Adams. The Clerk will read from
+the Madison Papers, page 29.
+
+The Clerk read, as follows:
+
+"Mr. John Adams observed, that the numbers of people were taken by this
+article as an index of the wealth of the State, and not as subjects of
+taxation. That as to this matter it was of no consequence by what name you
+called your people, whether by that of freemen or of slaves. That in some
+countries the laboring poor were called freemen, in others they were
+called slaves; but that the difference as to the State was imaginary only.
+What matters it whether a landlord employing ten laborers on his farm
+gives them annually as much money as will buy them the necessaries of
+life, or give them those necessaries at short hand? The ten laborers add
+as much wealth annually to the State, increase its exports as much, in the
+one case as the other. Certainly five hundred freemen produce no more
+profits, no greater surplus for the payment of taxes, than five hundred
+slaves. Therefore the State in which are the laborers called freemen,
+should be taxed no more than that in which are those called slaves.
+Suppose, by any extraordinary operation of nature or of law, one-half the
+laborers of a State could, in the course of one night, be transformed into
+slaves, would the State be made the poorer, or the less able to pay taxes?
+That the condition of the laboring poor in most countries--that of the
+fisherman, particularly, of the northern States--is as abject as that of
+slaves. It is the number of laborers which produces the surplus for
+taxation; and numbers, therefore, indiscriminately, are the fair index of
+wealth. That it is the use of the word 'property' here, and its
+application to some of the people of the State, which produces the
+fallacy. How does the southern farmer procure slaves? Either by
+importation or by purchase from his neighbor. If he imports a slave, he
+adds one to the number of laborers in his country, and proportionably to
+its profits and abilities to pay taxes; if he buys from his neighbor, it
+is only a transfer of a laborer from one farm to another, which does not
+change the annual produce of a State, and therefore should not change its
+tax; that if a northern farmer works ten laborers on his farm, he can, it
+is true, invest the surplus of ten men's labor in cattle; but so may the
+southern farmer working ten slaves. That a State of one hundred thousand
+freemen can maintain no more cattle than one of one hundred thousand
+slaves; therefore they have no more of that kind of property. That a slave
+may, indeed, from the custom of speech, be more properly called the wealth
+of his master, than the free laborer might be called the wealth of his
+employer; but as to the State, both were equally its wealth, and should
+therefore equally add to the quota of its tax.
+
+"Mr. Harrison proposed, as a compromise, that two slaves should be counted
+as one freeman. He affirmed that slaves did not do as much work as
+freemen, and doubted if two effected more than one. That this was proved
+by the price of labor, the hire of a laborer in the Southern Colonies
+being from £8 to £12, while in the Northern it was generally £24."
+
+Mr. LANDRUM. If we had a representation on this floor, as we ought to
+have, on a total population basis, we should have sixteen additional
+members, and the same additional number in the electoral college.
+
+Well, sir, the Republican party has attempted to incorporate an additional
+provision into the Constitution. Those clauses which have especially
+provided for African slavery it is impossible to repeal; but into those
+where slavery is not mentioned, they have attempted to interpolate a new
+clause. The Constitution has provided that new States may be admitted into
+the Union. In a Confederacy of one-half slave States and one-half free
+States, or nearly in that proportion, and when there is a provision in the
+Constitution that new States may be admitted into the Union, _without
+qualification_, one would naturally suppose that there would be no more
+restriction upon the admission of a slave State than upon the admission of
+a free State.
+
+Yet, sir, gentlemen on the other side propose to construe the Constitution
+as if there were really there a restrictive clause against the admission
+of any more slave States. And when we oppose that step they turn around
+and say to us that we are the cause of all this excitement. It is they who
+have caused the trouble. Like the old English gentleman in the play, they
+say they are the best natured men in the world if we will only give them
+their own way. All they want is to be permitted to have their own way, and
+then there will be no excitement. We say that, as the Confederacy
+consisted originally of free States and slave States, each new State, when
+applying for admission, has the right to regulate the matter for herself.
+You, gentlemen of the other side, say that, unless the new State prohibits
+slavery, she shall not be admitted.
+
+Look at another clause of the Constitution:
+
+"The Congress shall have power to dispose of and make all needful rules
+and regulations respecting the territory or other property of the United
+States."
+
+There is not a word there as to whether slavery shall be tolerated in
+these Territories or not.
+
+Such are the views, Mr. Chairman, and such the example of our forefathers
+when they framed the Constitution. I take those examples of our
+forefathers, and their legislative action under it, for my precedents. I
+care not what their private opinions may have been; I want to know what
+their legislative conduct was when they were acting on oath, for they were
+men who regarded their oaths. They were men, sir, who did not believe that
+the Constitution they framed would be contrary to the higher law, and that
+it would be consistent with their oath of office to violate it.
+
+Well, Mr. Chairman, what further was the action of the fathers under the
+Constitution of the United States. I will refer back to one memorable
+example which goes behind that instrument. In the treaty with the British
+Government it was stipulated that the British should not carry away any
+negroes or _other property_ of the American citizens. John Jay, John
+Adams, and Benjamin Franklin signed that treaty; and this, sir, was the
+language they used:
+
+The British "shall not carry away the negroes or other property belonging
+to the people of the United States."
+
+Yet we are told that, according to the doctrine of our forefathers, there
+can be no such thing as property in man. The language I have quoted occurs
+first in the preliminary articles in 1782, and again in the treaty of
+peace which was signed in 1783.
+
+Kentucky was admitted into the Union as a slave State, without objection,
+on the 4th of February, 1791. Now, if you had the right to exclude
+Missouri because she tolerated slavery, why did you not have the same
+right to exclude Kentucky? Why were conscientious scruples abandoned in
+the case of Kentucky, and the Territory of Virginia given, by the
+detaching of Kentucky, four Senators in the Senate of the United States,
+instead of two? Our forefathers--yours and mine--voted for the admission
+of Kentucky as a slave State. It will not do to say that slavery already
+existed in Kentucky; because, if slavery be a sin and a crime and a curse,
+then, according to your doctrine, it ought not to have been extended by
+giving the slave States additional representation and power in the Senate
+of the United States.
+
+Why, sir, if it would have been bad faith to have excluded Kentucky, was
+it not bad faith to exclude Missouri? Because in the ordinance
+establishing the territorial government of Missouri, in 1812, there was no
+Wilmot proviso, no prohibition of slavery? But slavery was permitted, as
+we ask it shall be permitted now; it was protected by the courts, and no
+complaint was urged within the Territory of Missouri, in regard to this
+question of slavery until she applied for admission into the Union. If
+your anti-slavery party, which I charge is the cause of all the evils with
+which this country is afflicted, was right then in excluding Missouri,
+because she did not abolish slavery, your forefathers were wrong in
+admitting Kentucky. Either they were wrong and you are right, or you are
+wrong and they were right. Between the two I have no hesitation in my
+choice. Regarded as patriots, regarded as intelligent men, considered as
+men who regarded their oaths, I have no hesitation in saying I believe
+they were equally as honest as the Republican party of the present day.
+
+In 1793 they gave us the fugitive slave law, there being only seven votes
+in opposition to it, and some of those were from the South, I think--a
+law, which if we attempt to enforce in the northern States we are met by
+mobs, and bloodshed frequently follows. No southern man dares go into some
+portions of the northern States and attempt to execute this law, except at
+the peril of his life.
+
+Such was the action of the founders of the republic, whose example we are
+constantly called upon to imitate. Tennessee was admitted in 1796, with
+slavery. The Territory of Mississippi was organized in 1798, by the
+application of the ordinance of 1787 to that Territory, and the
+restriction as to slavery removed. That was legislation under the
+Constitution. These are the precedents we are to follow; and we are not to
+go behind the Constitution and follow the precedent of 1787, when the
+relation of the States to each other was entirely different from what it
+is now under the Constitution.
+
+Ah! but you say, Mr. Jefferson thought slavery was a great wrong. But the
+acquisition of Louisiana in 1804 was a great right. Mr. Jefferson was then
+President of the republic. He represented the people of the free States,
+and he represented the people of the slave States; and no matter what his
+private opinion might have been upon the question of slavery, or upon the
+question of religion, or upon any other question, we, as legislators
+sitting in this Hall, acting under oath, as he did, have nothing to do
+with your private opinions upon the subject; but we have something to do
+with your legislative action; and I call upon you, acting under oath, as
+Jefferson did, to imitate his example. He acquired Louisiana through the
+instrumentality of Livingston and Monroe, who signed the treaty. Slavery
+existed in the Territory of Louisiana by the treaty by which she was
+acquired, and by that her inhabitants were guarantied their rights of
+property.
+
+Louisiana was admitted into the Union, in 1812, as a slave State. I know
+that specious objections are made in these cases. The objection has been
+made that in Tennessee, in Kentucky, and in Mississippi, slavery already
+existed; but, acting upon the principle upon which gentlemen here propose
+to legislate, that whatever is wrong and evil can produce nothing but
+evil--and you must follow it to its results, no matter where it leads
+you--no question of policy can be entertained. Why did these eminent
+opponents of slavery, as they are called, and to whose opinions we are
+constantly referred, increase the slave power, and encourage slavery
+aggression, as you term it? The only aggression slaveholders have ever
+made upon the free States is a demand that they should let this matter
+alone. Why do not members of Congress, assembled within these Halls,
+imitate the legislation of these men? I assure you, there was no such
+restrictive legislation in the Constitution, nor under the Constitution,
+up to 1820; for in 1813, under the administration of Madison, I believe,
+slaves were recognized as property, and taxed by the Government; and in
+1814, in the treaty of peace with Great Britain, it is again expressly
+stipulated that all slaves and other _private property_--I use the very
+language of the treaty--in the possession of either of the belligerent
+parties, should be returned to the other, which shows that they had no
+constitutional or conscientious scruples against _protecting_ slave
+property.
+
+And yet we are told that we are the cause of all these mischiefs, because
+we do not join with you in the declaration that there can be no such thing
+as property in man; and that we have departed from the example of our
+forefathers in not joining in that declaration. Sir, I would not use an
+unparliamentary phrase; I would not say one word calculated to widen the
+breach which now exists between the different members of this Confederacy,
+for God knows no one deprecates it more than I do; but I do say that
+intelligent gentlemen who stand upon this floor and make that declaration,
+ignore the whole legislation of this Government, from the formation of the
+Constitution up to the Missouri difficulty, in 1820. I say, if they are
+familiar with the legislative acts of their forefathers, they must know
+they are uttering that which is not true, when they say their example
+teaches us that we should oppose slavery in every shape and form in which
+we have legislative power.
+
+Mississippi was admitted into the Union in 1817, and no objection was
+raised that she was a slave State. But it was in 1819-'20 that the
+struggle began for which you propose to hold us responsible. Why, sir,
+after the Government had gone on thirty years without question, having
+never asked, when a State applied for admission, whether she was free or
+whether she was slave; while the whole country was living in harmony and
+brotherly love and affection; while the southern State was proud of the
+prosperity and happiness of the northern State, and the people of the
+northern States rejoiced at the prosperity of the people of the South,
+this hydra-headed monster of anti-slavery was then first produced; and
+from that day to this, it may be said,
+
+  "Black it stood as night,
+  Fierce as ten furies, terrible as hell,"
+
+and has shaken the bonds of this Union from one end to the other.
+
+What was the cause of the agitation of 1820? After you had encouraged the
+citizens of Virginia and Kentucky and other States to settle in Missouri,
+by protecting slave property in the courts of justice, you turned round
+and said that Missouri should not be admitted unless she relinquished the
+right thereafter to hold slaves; and you kept her out of the Union for one
+year. The South, with that compromising and generous spirit which has ever
+characterized them--I say so in no spirit of egotism, for I am describing
+the people whom I represent--came forward and executed that memorable
+relinquishment, agreeing that slavery should not go north of 36° 30´ if
+you would permit Missouri to come into the Union. While we have voted for
+the admission of free State after free State, without making it a
+question; while we were then ready to vote for the admission of Maine, you
+turned round and ungenerously--what your motives may have been God only
+knows; whether to promote your political power or not it is not for me to
+say--forbid Missouri coming into the Union unless she relinquished the
+right to hold slaves.
+
+Now, sir, who departed from the lessons of wisdom taught by the fathers of
+the republic? Most of them slept in their tombs, and a wiser and purer and
+holier race (in their own estimation) had supplanted them; and "the sin
+against God and the crime against humanity" had to be blotted from
+Missouri, or she could hold no place in the Union.
+
+However, you made a good trade, and then the objection to the "sin against
+God and the crime against humanity" was waived for a consideration. You
+excluded the people of the South from all the territory north of 36° 30´,
+and then Missouri was admitted into the Union with slavery.
+
+[Here the hammer fell.]
+
+Mr. LANDRUM. I would thank the committee to extend my time for ten minutes
+longer.
+
+General assent was given.
+
+Mr. LANDRUM. I shall have to pass over a number of points which I should
+have liked to touch on, and will only make this remark: that having all
+the time a majority in the House of Representatives, and having secured an
+ultimate preponderance in the Senate, you passed the tariff bills of 1824
+and 1828, in which the southern section, now securely in the minority,
+were to be made tributary to promote and pamper the industry of the North.
+Then came the opposition to the annexation of Texas, because it was a
+slave State. Then came the Wilmot proviso for Oregon, and for the
+territory acquired from Mexico. Then followed the struggle of 1856, when
+you boldly inscribed on your banner, "No more slave States to be admitted
+into the Union." At all events, you insisted on "prohibition to slavery in
+the Territories," and announced that our system of labor was a "twin relic
+of barbarism" with polygamy. Then followed the enunciation, in the
+platform of a great popular party, which struggled almost successfully for
+the government of the country, that the whole people of the South who
+owned slaves were living in that state of pollution and degradation which
+characterizes the polygamist.
+
+Yet we are told that we are the cause of all the trouble, because we do
+not join in the hue-and-cry. Now, sir, what is the state of parties? The
+greatest man, perhaps, of the Republican party--certainly the greatest in
+influence, and the one whose prospects are first for the Presidency--has
+declared that the three billions of property which we own must be
+destroyed, stating that "you and I must do it," meaning that it must be
+done by the present generation. Then follows the resolution of the
+gentleman from Ohio, [Mr. BLAKE,] voted for by sixty members of the House,
+declaring that slavery ought to be abolished wherever the Government has
+the power to do it.
+
+The gentleman from Connecticut [Mr. FERRY] will recollect his declaration
+that some of us may live to see the day when this Confederacy may consist
+of fifty sovereignties; and when that day comes, it will be their duty,
+according to the principles of the Republican party, to change the
+Constitution and to abolish slavery. And yet gentlemen seem to wonder that
+the people of the South are talking about new guards for their safety.
+Sir, the maxim laid down by Jefferson, that governments should not be
+abolished for light or transient causes, is most true; but no less true is
+the maxim that a people are always disposed to endure evils so long as
+they are endurable, rather than right themselves by abolishing the forms
+of which they are accustomed. Sir, what may be the action of Louisiana, in
+any contingency that may arise, it is not for me to state.
+
+I believe that the people of my State have too much at stake to attempt to
+change their present institutions, or to make any new arrangement for
+light or transient causes. We have an immense wealth, a vast commerce, a
+city trading with all the States of the Union, whose forests of masts,
+from which float the flags of all nations, denote that her commerce is
+coextensive with the globe. The levee of her commercial emporium literally
+trembles, in a frontage of nine miles, beneath the superincumbent masses
+of merchandise. Reluctantly, most reluctantly, would that people take any
+steps which by possibility could involve us in civil war and commotion;
+and great, indeed, must have been their apprehension when they adopted, in
+convention, March 15, 1860, the following resolution:
+
+"That, in case of the election of a President on the avowed principles of
+the Black Republican party, we concur in the opinion that Louisiana should
+meet in council her sister slaveholding States, to consult as to the means
+of future protection."
+
+I have no idea that I am mistaken, when I state that no action will be
+taken under that resolution, except on the most mature deliberation. But,
+sir, whenever the people of Louisiana believe that their institutions are
+in danger, and that it is the deliberate purpose of those who may get
+control of the Government to spread over them that dark and benighted pall
+which hangs like an incubus over the Central and South American republics
+and the West India Islands that have emancipated their slaves, I tell you
+they will act, and act effectually, too, for their protection and
+security. And whatever course the majority of her people may choose to
+take, her sons will sustain it with their lives, their fortunes, and their
+sacred honor.
+
+THOS. MCGILL, Print.
+
+
+
+
+
+
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Slavery Question, by John M. Landrum
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
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+
+
+Title: The Slavery Question
+       Speech of Hon. John M. Landrum, of La., Delivered in the
+              House of Representatives, April 27, 1860
+
+Author: John M. Landrum
+
+Release Date: March 23, 2011 [EBook #35662]
+
+Language: English
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+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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+
+<p class="center"><span class="big"><span class="u">THE SLAVERY QUESTION.</span></span></p>
+<p class="center"><span class="huge">SPEECH</span><br />
+<small>OF</small><br />
+<span class="giant">HON. JOHN M. LANDRUM, OF LA.,</span><br />
+<small>DELIVERED IN</small><br />
+THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, APRIL 27, 1860.</p>
+
+
+<p><br />The House being in the Committee of the Whole on the state of the Union&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>Mr. LANDRUM said:</p>
+
+<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Chairman</span>: That we are now threatened with great and alarming evils, no
+one who will take a calm and unprejudiced survey of the condition of the
+country can for a moment doubt. In the formation of this Government there
+existed a spirit of harmony and concession from the citizens of each State
+in this Union towards the citizens of every other State; and this spirit
+was so plainly exhibited in the convention which framed the Constitution
+of the United States&mdash;that it was so adjusted, so adapted to the wants of
+all the States entering into the Confederacy&mdash;that it received the almost
+unanimous support of the Convention. Harmony and concord and good feeling
+reigned throughout the whole Confederacy. The citizen of South Carolina
+rejoiced in the prosperity and commended the virtues of the citizen of
+Massachusetts; and the citizen of Massachusetts responded to the feeling
+of the citizen of South Carolina. That was the feeling which pervaded the
+citizens of this common country when the Constitution was formed; and that
+was the spirit which pervaded it for the thirty years afterwards during
+which the Government was administered by the fathers of the Republic.</p>
+
+<p>But now, Mr. Chairman, what state of things does this country exhibit? A
+people discordant; a great sectional party formed, and the whole history
+of the country ransacked in a search for subjects of denunciation on the
+part of citizens of one portion of the Confederacy against citizens of the
+other.</p>
+
+<p>In that convention which framed the Constitution, which is the basis of
+our Government, slave States were admitted without objection. Concessions
+were made to slave States on every point that they demanded, and which
+they deemed essential to the preservation and protection of their rights
+in this Union. Ay, there was no objection then to the admission of a State
+into the Union because she permitted slavery. So far from that, the
+Constitution abounds with express provisions for the protection of their
+property, and for the security of their rights. It was not objected to a
+free State that she should form a member of the Confederacy because she
+did not tolerate slavery. But the patriotic founders of the Republic
+looked to the interests of the whole country, and sacrificed prejudices
+whenever sacrifices were necessary, &#8220;<i>in order to form a more perfect
+union</i>.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Contrast that state of feeling and that state of facts with the condition
+in which we now see the country. Mutual denunciation is the business even
+of the Representatives of the people on the floor of this Hall. Members of
+Congress recommend the circulation of books calculated to sap and
+undermine the foundations on which the whole fabric of wealth, of
+respectability, and of civilization, of one-half the Union is based. We
+meet here, not to strengthen the bonds that bind us together in the Union,
+but to weaken them, as far as human ingenuity can do so. To such a point
+has this state of things culminated, that the people of State after State
+in the Southern portion of the Confederacy have met in convention and
+declared their belief that there is a probability that the time is rapidly
+approaching when they &#8220;<i>must provide new guards for their future
+security</i>.&#8221; The State which I have the honor in part to represent has made
+that declaration. And it is charged here on the floor of this Hall, by
+almost every member of the Republican party who has addressed this
+committee on the subject of the state of the Union, that it is the
+Democratic party which is responsible for this condition of things; that
+the Democratic party have departed from the lessons of wisdom taught us by
+the example of our forefathers, and have thus precipitated on the country
+all these evils, by the manner in which they have treated the slavery
+question.</p>
+
+<p>It shall be my purpose, Mr. Chairman, in the short time allotted to me, to
+endeavor to vindicate from the charge that party of which I am an humble
+member. The district which I represent, and the State in which that
+district is situated, are Democratic by an overwhelming majority; and I
+assert here, and am prepared to prove incontestibly, that the Democratic
+party are not the authors of the mischief under which the country labors.
+I am prepared to prove that they have not departed from the lessons of
+wisdom inculcated by the example of the founders of the Republic. I will
+show, if history does not lie, that it is the Republican party, the
+anti-slavery party, that is the cause of all the evils with which the
+country is afflicted; and it is they, and not the Democratic party, who
+have abandoned the legislative precedents and examples of our fathers.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span>Why, sir, how are we responsible for the slavery agitation that has
+produced all the evils and mischief which afflict the country?</p>
+
+<p>How is the Democratic party responsible for that excitement, and for the
+difference of opinion which pervades the Republic on that subject,
+threatening a dissolution of the Union? Why, we are responsible for it
+because we do not join the Republican party to exclude slavery from the
+Territories? We are responsible for it because we do not oppose the
+admission of a State into the Union when her constitution tolerates
+slavery. We are responsible for it because we do not join in the
+declaration that all men are created free and equal, and apply that
+doctrine to the African slaves of the South; because we do not declare
+that those slaves are equal to us, and therefore of right free.</p>
+
+<p>We are required by the Republican party to unite with them in advocating
+that doctrine, and to declare besides that slavery and polygamy are twin
+relics of barbarism. If we join them in all these declarations of
+principle; if we join them in advocating these measures, then, of course,
+the country will be quiet. But, sir, who is responsible for the agitation?
+Is it not the party that calls for legislation? Has the Democratic party
+ever asked the national Legislature to establish slavery in her Territory?
+No, sir; but the Republican party comes into this Hall and demands that
+the power of the Government should be interposed to exclude slavery from
+the Territories. Because we do not agree with them; because we do not
+think as they do; and because we do not vote as they do; because we do not
+acquiesce in these propositions, why, then we are responsible for this
+agitation, and they are not! They ask us to adopt the maxim that no more
+slave States shall be admitted into the Union, and because we do not agree
+with them on that subject, we are the agitators, and they are not.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Chairman, from what source do we learn this new doctrine? Do we find
+it in the legislation of our forefathers? Are there any restrictions in
+the Constitution of the United States on the subject, or any grant of
+power to prohibit slavery in a Territory when that Territory is organized?
+Is there anything in the Constitution of the United States to justify
+it&mdash;and I appeal to that as the very first example of our forefathers in
+the administration of this Government&mdash;is there anything in that
+instrument which authorizes you to say that a State shall not be admitted
+into the Union because its constitution tolerates slavery?</p>
+
+<p>I differ from gentlemen upon the Republican side of the House as to the
+manner in which I would learn a lesson front the example of our
+forefathers. I would not search for it in their private declarations. I
+would search for their legislative record. We are legislators, and for our
+legislation we want legislative precedents. I care not whether the
+opinions of the founders of the Republic were for slavery or against it,
+if the legislation of which they were the authors corresponded with the
+views I entertain. What judge of any court, what lawyer who wished to
+ascertain the true doctrine of a case, would search for the private
+opinions of the judge when the reports bristled with adjudicated cases
+from which he could learn the true doctrine which he had expressed under
+oath and in the discharge of his duties? When you search for the opinions
+of our ancestors to guide us as legislators, look at their conduct as
+legislators, and not their private opinions. Every lawyer, every sensible
+man, every rational man, knows that that is the true test of the opinions
+of our ancestors upon a given subject. When they legislate under oath;
+when they legislate for the good of the whole country, they lay aside
+their private opinions and their peculiar prejudices.</p>
+
+<p>Now, sir, what do we find in the Constitution of the United States which
+inculcates the doctrine that slavery must not be extended into the
+Territories? I call the attention of gentlemen to the first clause of
+section nine, article one of the Constitution:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The migration or importation of such persons as any of the States now
+existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the
+Congress prior to the year 1808, but a tax or duty may be imposed upon
+such importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each person.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>In order, Mr. Chairman, that there may be no mistake about the meaning of
+that clause of the Constitution, I send to the Clerk&#8217;s desk, to be read,
+an extract from Elliott&#8217;s Debates.</p>
+
+<p>The Clerk read from Elliott&#8217;s Debates, (Yate&#8217;s Minutes,) pages 35 and 36,
+as follows:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;By the ninth section of this article, the importation of such persons as
+any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be
+prohibited prior to the year 1808, but a duty may be imposed on such
+importation not exceeding ten dollars for each person.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The design of this clause is to prevent the General Government from
+prohibiting the importation of slaves, but the same reasons which caused
+them to strike out the word &#8216;national,&#8217; and not admit the word &#8216;stamps,&#8217;
+influenced them here to guard against the word &#8216;<i>slaves</i>.&#8217; They anxiously
+sought to avoid the admission of expressions which might be odious in the
+ears of Americans, although they were willing to admit into their system
+those things which the expressions signified: and hence it is that the
+clause is so worded, as really to authorize the General Government to
+impose a duty of ten dollars on every foreigner who comes into a State to
+become a citizen, whether he comes absolutely free, or qualifiedly so as a
+servant, although this is contrary to the design of the framers, and the
+duty was only made to extend to the importation of slaves.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span>&#8220;This clause was the subject of a great diversity of sentiment in the
+convention; as the system was reported by the Committee of Detail, the
+provision was general, that such importation should not be prohibited,
+without confining it to any particular period. This was rejected by eight
+States; Georgia, South Carolina, and I think North Carolina, voting for
+it.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;We were then told by the delegates of the two first of those States, that
+their States would never agree to a system which put it in the power of
+the General Government to prevent the importation of slaves, and that
+they, as delegates from those States, must withhold their assent from such
+a system.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;A committee of one member from each State was chosen by ballot to take
+this part of the system under their consideration, and to endeavor to
+agree upon some report which should reconcile those States; to this
+committee also was referred the following proposition, which had been
+reported by the Committee of Detail, namely: &#8216;No navigation act shall be
+passed without the assent of two-thirds of the members present in each
+House;&#8217; a proposition which the staple and commercial States were
+solicitous to retain, lest their commerce should be placed too much under
+the power of the eastern States, but which these last States were as
+anxious to reject. This committee, of which also I had the honor to be a
+member, met and took under their consideration the subjects committed to
+them. I found the <i>eastern</i> States, notwithstanding their <i>aversion to
+slavery</i>, were very willing to indulge the southern States at least with
+temporary liberty to prosecute the <i>slave trade</i>, provided the southern
+States would in their turn gratify them, by laying no restriction on
+navigation acts, and after a very little time, the committee, by a great
+majority, agreed on a report, by which the General Government was to be
+prohibited from preventing the importation of slaves for a limited time,
+and the restrictive clause relative to navigation acts was to be omitted.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Mr. LANDRUM. Now, Mr. Chairman, we are asked to legislate to exclude
+slavery from the Territories, because slavery is a moral wrong, because it
+is a sin against God, and because it is a crime against humanity. And we
+are invoked to adopt that legislation by the example of our forefathers.</p>
+
+<p>Now, what precedent do they furnish us in this clause of the Constitution?
+The Constitution of the United States did make regulations in regard to
+the slavery question. One of those regulations was to permit the African
+slave trade until the year 1808. Now, sir, was there anything so morally
+wrong in the African slave trade; was it any such crime against humanity
+as to deter the ancestors of those gentlemen from coming into a Union
+which permitted the African slave trade? Why, sir, Massachusetts,
+Connecticut, and New Hampshire, voted to extend the limitation against the
+prohibition of that traffic from 1800 to 1808. Does the honorable chairman
+of this committee (Mr. <span class="smcap">Buffington</span>) blush for his ancestors because they
+knew so little of the primary truths of common morality, as expounded by
+the gentleman from Connecticut, (Mr. <span class="smcap">Ferry</span>,) in the commencement of this
+debate, soon after the organization of this House, in voting such a
+provision as that?</p>
+
+<p>The State of Massachusetts was a sovereign State before she entered into
+this Confederacy, unabridged by any limitation. She could have prevented
+her citizens then, as the United States does now, from participating in
+the slave trade even between foreign ports in foreign nations; and yet
+your ancestors not only voted with South Carolina and Georgia, who refused
+to come into the Union unless the African slave trade was permitted so
+long as they desired it, but in coming into that Union, it gave to the
+citizens of Massachusetts, too, a like authority to engage in that trade.</p>
+
+<p>What a sin against God, what a crime against humanity, did these
+Massachusetts legislators vote to perpetuate! And yet, I imagine, the
+honorable Chairman is proud of his ancestors; and we are told now that
+because we will not join you in the hue-and-cry against slavery, and do
+not legislate to exclude slavery from the Territories, we are the authors
+of the evils with which the country is afflicted. You are not satisfied
+with our silence, our inaction; you say that we want to perpetuate a crime
+against humanity, and have departed from the lesson of wisdom inculcated
+by our ancestors.</p>
+
+<p>Sir, I believe in the teachings of the ancient patriots. I take their
+precedents, and although not <i>now</i> in favor of the reopening of the
+African slave trade, because it is inexpedient, (though, as I do not
+consider the question before the country, I confess I have not studied
+it,) yet I venerate those legislators who sacrificed their prejudices in
+order that they might get South Carolina and Georgia into the Union, who
+refused to come in without it.</p>
+
+<p>The gentleman from Connecticut, who first opened this debate, and who, I
+believe, is not now in his seat, remarked in his speech, that evil,
+disguised in whatever form it might be, would only produce evil; and
+therefore you must first lay down a moral code, and no matter what results
+it apparently leads you to, you must never violate it. Sir, his ancestors
+told a different tale. They said, in admitting South Carolina and Georgia
+into the Union, that, although they objected to the slave trade, more good
+would be accomplished than by prohibiting the slave trade and losing those
+two States.</p>
+
+<p>That is the policy which guided our ancestors; and now, what do we ask?
+What does the Democratic party ask? Do we ask this Government to legislate
+slavery into the Territories? We have never made any such demand. We have
+never <i>yet</i> asked anything of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span> this Government but to let it alone. And I
+assure you, that New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Connecticut, voted to
+perpetuate the slave trade, and to give her citizens the right to engage
+in it from 1800 to 1808, by that clause in the Constitution which gives
+the citizens of each State the rights of the citizens of every other
+State. She relinquished the power which they had to forbid her own
+citizens from participating in the slave trade, and opened the door to
+them. That is what your ancestors did in the Constitution under which this
+Government was formed, and which is the basis of all its legislation. And
+yet, you can give no legislative encouragement to slavery; you must
+exclude it wherever you have the power to exclude it, not as a matter of
+policy&mdash;at least that is not the ground upon which you base your
+action&mdash;but because it is a moral wrong, and a crime against humanity.</p>
+
+<p>But is that all the legislation in the Constitution about slavery? Why,
+sir, they inserted a clause in the Constitution authorizing the recapture
+of fugitive slaves when they entered the sovereign territory of these New
+England States which have now such an aborrence of the doctrine. As the
+meaning of that clause has been a subject of dispute, I ask the Clerk to
+read a short extract from the debates in the Virginia convention which
+adopted the Constitution, in which Mr. Madison explained the meaning of
+it. I hope I shall be able to show that we have some first-rate
+pro-slavery legislation in the Constitution before I get through with this
+argument.</p>
+
+<p>The Clerk read, as follows:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;At present, if any slave elopes to any of those States where slaves are
+free, he becomes emancipated by their laws. For the laws of the States are
+uncharitable to one another in this respect. But in this Constitution, &#8216;no
+person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof,
+escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation
+therein, be discharged from such service or labor; but shall be delivered
+up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due.&#8217; This
+clause was expressly inserted to enable owners of slaves to reclaim them.
+This is a better security than any that now exists. No power is given to
+the General Government to interpose with respect to the property in slaves
+now held by the States. The taxation of this State being equal only to its
+representation, such a tax cannot be laid as he supposes. They cannot
+prevent the importation of slaves for twenty years; but after that period
+they can. The gentlemen from South Carolina and Georgia argued in this
+manner: &#8216;We have now liberty to import this species of property, and much
+of the property now possessed has been purchased or otherwise acquired in
+contemplation of improving it by the assistance of imported slaves. What
+would be the consequence of hindering us from it? The slaves of Virginia
+would rise in value, and we would be obliged to go to your markets.&#8217; I
+need not expatiate on this subject. Great as the evil is, a dismemberment
+of the Union would be worse. If those States should disunite from the
+other States, for not including them in the temporary continuance of this
+traffic, they might solicit and obtain aid from foreign Powers.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Mr. LANDRUM. Yes, Mr. Chairman, those were the motives that influenced the
+framers of the Constitution. The several States of New England which,
+according to the testimony of Mr. Madison, had up to that time refused to
+deliver up fugitive slaves, voluntarily renounced the right of prohibiting
+it, and voted that the slave-catcher should have authority to enter
+therein, and carry back his slave to bondage. Do I want any better
+pro-slavery men than these? Where, sir, was this notion of &#8220;a sin against
+God and a crime against humanity&#8221; when they voted for that clause?</p>
+
+<p>I will again refer to the remark of the gentleman from Connecticut, which
+I know he will not apply to his ancestors in Connecticut who voted for
+this pro-slavery provision&mdash;that &#8220;evil, disguised under whatever form it
+may be, can be productive only of evil.&#8221; He would not denounce his
+ancestors as hypocrites because they left out of the Constitution the
+weird &#8220;slave;&#8221; for Mr. Roger Sherman says that the expression was
+objectionable &#8220;to ears polite,&#8221; I suppose. Mr. Madison and Mr. Yates tell
+us what they meant by the description &#8220;held to service or labor.&#8221; I know
+the gentleman would not say that his ancestors were disguising in a
+particular name an evil, and thereby adopting it.</p>
+
+<p>No, sir; slavery was a good thing; but it had a bad name, according to the
+polite phraseology of the day, and, knowing that &#8220;a rose by any other name
+would smell as sweet,&#8221; they changed the term &#8220;slave&#8221; to that of a &#8220;person
+held to service or labor.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>But, sir, in regard to this African slave trade provision, it was esteemed
+so important that, although provision was made for an amendment to the
+Constitution, applying to almost everything else within its compass,
+except, I believe, to the clause, that no State should be deprived of her
+equal representation in the Senate without her consent, this precious
+article of the slave trade clause was not to be interfered with, under any
+circumstances, prior to the year 1808.</p>
+
+<p>I think, Mr. Chairman, I have disposed of the religious argument, the
+moral argument, the conscience argument against slavery, derived from the
+lessons taught by the example of our forefathers. Do not tell me any more
+that Mr. Madison thought slavery was an evil; because these thoughts
+controlled not the action of his public position. Do not tell me that
+Washington and Jefferson were opposed to slavery abstractly, after that;
+because we find even New England men, with all their prejudices, as good
+pro-slavery men as South Carolina<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span> and Georgia wanted&mdash;for they were the
+only States that made a question on this African slave trade. Whatever
+future congressional protection to property may become necessary, all that
+we have ever <i>yet</i> asked, Mr. Chairman, is that Congress shall not
+legislate at all on the question of slavery in the Territories. But your
+patriotic forefathers did legislate. They legislated to protect the
+African slave trade. They gave permission to the citizens of Massachusetts
+to enter into the slave trade along with the citizens of South Carolina
+and Georgia, and they gave us a fugitive slave law. That is the sort of
+legislation which they gave us in the Constitution, which is the basis of
+the Government under which we live.</p>
+
+<p>There are other clauses in the Constitution, sir, which show that this
+matter of slavery was not neglected. In the apportionment of direct
+taxation and representation, it was stipulated that three-fifths of the
+slaves should be represented on this floor. They were noticed, and noticed
+as a degraded class, as unequal to free men; because, if they had been
+considered equal to free men we would have been entitled to full
+representation for them on this floor. But, sir, they were treated as a
+degraded class&mdash;as a class unequal to free men. Their masters were given a
+representation in this House in proportion to three-fifths of their
+numbers, and the direct taxation was to be assessed at the same ratio on
+the slave States. Now, I allude to this subject, not to show boastingly,
+as it has been said on this floor, that we have a slave representation
+here. In that very provision of the Constitution the people of the
+northern States derived all the advantage&mdash;the people of the southern
+States all the loss; for no money, scarcely, has ever been raised by
+direct taxation. The money for the support of the Government is collected
+in an entirely different manner. If taxes were assessed on that principle,
+by a system of direct taxation, we would have derived some benefit from
+the three-fifth provision; but, as it is, you derive all the advantage,
+and we none of it.</p>
+
+<p>The principle which governed the convention in inserting that provision
+was the belief that this was the proportion in which the labor of the
+slave contributed to the wealth of the country, comparatively to that of
+the free man; and as, according to the political doctrines of that day,
+taxation and representation went hand in hand, and as a slave produced
+only three-fifths as much annual income as a free man, their masters were
+only entitled to that much representation. So it is in the electoral
+college. There the slaves are enumerated in the same proportion, and their
+masters are deprived of a voice to that extent.</p>
+
+<p>In that connection I want to have read the opinions of a venerable
+gentleman, whose authority will not be disputed upon this floor by the
+Republican party&mdash;the opinions of Mr. John Adams. The Clerk will read from
+the Madison Papers, page 29.</p>
+
+<p>The Clerk read, as follows:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Mr. John Adams observed, that the numbers of people were taken by this
+article as an index of the wealth of the State, and not as subjects of
+taxation. That as to this matter it was of no consequence by what name you
+called your people, whether by that of freemen or of slaves. That in some
+countries the laboring poor were called freemen, in others they were
+called slaves; but that the difference as to the State was imaginary only.
+What matters it whether a landlord employing ten laborers on his farm
+gives them annually as much money as will buy them the necessaries of
+life, or give them those necessaries at short hand? The ten laborers add
+as much wealth annually to the State, increase its exports as much, in the
+one case as the other. Certainly five hundred freemen produce no more
+profits, no greater surplus for the payment of taxes, than five hundred
+slaves. Therefore the State in which are the laborers called freemen,
+should be taxed no more than that in which are those called slaves.
+Suppose, by any extraordinary operation of nature or of law, one-half the
+laborers of a State could, in the course of one night, be transformed into
+slaves, would the State be made the poorer, or the less able to pay taxes?
+That the condition of the laboring poor in most countries&mdash;that of the
+fisherman, particularly, of the northern States&mdash;is as abject as that of
+slaves. It is the number of laborers which produces the surplus for
+taxation; and numbers, therefore, indiscriminately, are the fair index of
+wealth. That it is the use of the word &#8216;property&#8217; here, and its
+application to some of the people of the State, which produces the
+fallacy. How does the southern farmer procure slaves? Either by
+importation or by purchase from his neighbor. If he imports a slave, he
+adds one to the number of laborers in his country, and proportionably to
+its profits and abilities to pay taxes; if he buys from his neighbor, it
+is only a transfer of a laborer from one farm to another, which does not
+change the annual produce of a State, and therefore should not change its
+tax; that if a northern farmer works ten laborers on his farm, he can, it
+is true, invest the surplus of ten men&#8217;s labor in cattle; but so may the
+southern farmer working ten slaves. That a State of one hundred thousand
+freemen can maintain no more cattle than one of one hundred thousand
+slaves; therefore they have no more of that kind of property. That a slave
+may, indeed, from the custom of speech, be more properly called the wealth
+of his master, than the free laborer might be called the wealth of his
+employer; but as to the State, both were equally its wealth, and should
+therefore equally add to the quota of its tax.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Mr. Harrison proposed, as a compromise, that two slaves should be counted
+as one freeman. He affirmed that slaves did not do as much work as
+freemen, and doubted if two effected more than one. That this was proved
+by the price of labor, the hire of a laborer in the Southern Colonies
+being from &pound;8 to &pound;12, while in the Northern it was generally &pound;24.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span>Mr. LANDRUM. If we had a representation on this floor, as we ought to
+have, on a total population basis, we should have sixteen additional
+members, and the same additional number in the electoral college.</p>
+
+<p>Well, sir, the Republican party has attempted to incorporate an additional
+provision into the Constitution. Those clauses which have especially
+provided for African slavery it is impossible to repeal; but into those
+where slavery is not mentioned, they have attempted to interpolate a new
+clause. The Constitution has provided that new States may be admitted into
+the Union. In a Confederacy of one-half slave States and one-half free
+States, or nearly in that proportion, and when there is a provision in the
+Constitution that new States may be admitted into the Union, <i>without
+qualification</i>, one would naturally suppose that there would be no more
+restriction upon the admission of a slave State than upon the admission of
+a free State.</p>
+
+<p>Yet, sir, gentlemen on the other side propose to construe the Constitution
+as if there were really there a restrictive clause against the admission
+of any more slave States. And when we oppose that step they turn around
+and say to us that we are the cause of all this excitement. It is they who
+have caused the trouble. Like the old English gentleman in the play, they
+say they are the best natured men in the world if we will only give them
+their own way. All they want is to be permitted to have their own way, and
+then there will be no excitement. We say that, as the Confederacy
+consisted originally of free States and slave States, each new State, when
+applying for admission, has the right to regulate the matter for herself.
+You, gentlemen of the other side, say that, unless the new State prohibits
+slavery, she shall not be admitted.</p>
+
+<p>Look at another clause of the Constitution:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The Congress shall have power to dispose of and make all needful rules
+and regulations respecting the territory or other property of the United
+States.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>There is not a word there as to whether slavery shall be tolerated in
+these Territories or not.</p>
+
+<p>Such are the views, Mr. Chairman, and such the example of our forefathers
+when they framed the Constitution. I take those examples of our
+forefathers, and their legislative action under it, for my precedents. I
+care not what their private opinions may have been; I want to know what
+their legislative conduct was when they were acting on oath, for they were
+men who regarded their oaths. They were men, sir, who did not believe that
+the Constitution they framed would be contrary to the higher law, and that
+it would be consistent with their oath of office to violate it.</p>
+
+<p>Well, Mr. Chairman, what further was the action of the fathers under the
+Constitution of the United States. I will refer back to one memorable
+example which goes behind that instrument. In the treaty with the British
+Government it was stipulated that the British should not carry away any
+negroes or <i>other property</i> of the American citizens. John Jay, John
+Adams, and Benjamin Franklin signed that treaty; and this, sir, was the
+language they used:</p>
+
+<p>The British &#8220;shall not carry away the negroes or other property belonging
+to the people of the United States.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Yet we are told that, according to the doctrine of our forefathers, there
+can be no such thing as property in man. The language I have quoted occurs
+first in the preliminary articles in 1782, and again in the treaty of
+peace which was signed in 1783.</p>
+
+<p>Kentucky was admitted into the Union as a slave State, without objection,
+on the 4th of February, 1791. Now, if you had the right to exclude
+Missouri because she tolerated slavery, why did you not have the same
+right to exclude Kentucky? Why were conscientious scruples abandoned in
+the case of Kentucky, and the Territory of Virginia given, by the
+detaching of Kentucky, four Senators in the Senate of the United States,
+instead of two? Our forefathers&mdash;yours and mine&mdash;voted for the admission
+of Kentucky as a slave State. It will not do to say that slavery already
+existed in Kentucky; because, if slavery be a sin and a crime and a curse,
+then, according to your doctrine, it ought not to have been extended by
+giving the slave States additional representation and power in the Senate
+of the United States.</p>
+
+<p>Why, sir, if it would have been bad faith to have excluded Kentucky, was
+it not bad faith to exclude Missouri? Because in the ordinance
+establishing the territorial government of Missouri, in 1812, there was no
+Wilmot proviso, no prohibition of slavery? But slavery was permitted, as
+we ask it shall be permitted now; it was protected by the courts, and no
+complaint was urged within the Territory of Missouri, in regard to this
+question of slavery until she applied for admission into the Union. If
+your anti-slavery party, which I charge is the cause of all the evils with
+which this country is afflicted, was right then in excluding Missouri,
+because she did not abolish slavery, your forefathers were wrong in
+admitting Kentucky. Either they were wrong and you are right, or you are
+wrong and they were right. Between the two I have no hesitation in my
+choice. Regarded as patriots, regarded as intelligent men, considered as
+men who regarded their oaths, I have no hesitation in saying I believe
+they were equally as honest as the Republican party of the present day.</p>
+
+<p>In 1793 they gave us the fugitive slave law, there being only seven votes
+in opposition to it, and some of those were from the South, I think&mdash;a
+law, which if we attempt to <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span>enforce in the northern States we are met by
+mobs, and bloodshed frequently follows. No southern man dares go into some
+portions of the northern States and attempt to execute this law, except at
+the peril of his life.</p>
+
+<p>Such was the action of the founders of the republic, whose example we are
+constantly called upon to imitate. Tennessee was admitted in 1796, with
+slavery. The Territory of Mississippi was organized in 1798, by the
+application of the ordinance of 1787 to that Territory, and the
+restriction as to slavery removed. That was legislation under the
+Constitution. These are the precedents we are to follow; and we are not to
+go behind the Constitution and follow the precedent of 1787, when the
+relation of the States to each other was entirely different from what it
+is now under the Constitution.</p>
+
+<p>Ah! but you say, Mr. Jefferson thought slavery was a great wrong. But the
+acquisition of Louisiana in 1804 was a great right. Mr. Jefferson was then
+President of the republic. He represented the people of the free States,
+and he represented the people of the slave States; and no matter what his
+private opinion might have been upon the question of slavery, or upon the
+question of religion, or upon any other question, we, as legislators
+sitting in this Hall, acting under oath, as he did, have nothing to do
+with your private opinions upon the subject; but we have something to do
+with your legislative action; and I call upon you, acting under oath, as
+Jefferson did, to imitate his example. He acquired Louisiana through the
+instrumentality of Livingston and Monroe, who signed the treaty. Slavery
+existed in the Territory of Louisiana by the treaty by which she was
+acquired, and by that her inhabitants were guarantied their rights of
+property.</p>
+
+<p>Louisiana was admitted into the Union, in 1812, as a slave State. I know
+that specious objections are made in these cases. The objection has been
+made that in Tennessee, in Kentucky, and in Mississippi, slavery already
+existed; but, acting upon the principle upon which gentlemen here propose
+to legislate, that whatever is wrong and evil can produce nothing but
+evil&mdash;and you must follow it to its results, no matter where it leads
+you&mdash;no question of policy can be entertained. Why did these eminent
+opponents of slavery, as they are called, and to whose opinions we are
+constantly referred, increase the slave power, and encourage slavery
+aggression, as you term it? The only aggression slaveholders have ever
+made upon the free States is a demand that they should let this matter
+alone. Why do not members of Congress, assembled within these Halls,
+imitate the legislation of these men? I assure you, there was no such
+restrictive legislation in the Constitution, nor under the Constitution,
+up to 1820; for in 1813, under the administration of Madison, I believe,
+slaves were recognized as property, and taxed by the Government; and in
+1814, in the treaty of peace with Great Britain, it is again expressly
+stipulated that all slaves and other <i>private property</i>&mdash;I use the very
+language of the treaty&mdash;in the possession of either of the belligerent
+parties, should be returned to the other, which shows that they had no
+constitutional or conscientious scruples against <i>protecting</i> slave
+property.</p>
+
+<p>And yet we are told that we are the cause of all these mischiefs, because
+we do not join with you in the declaration that there can be no such thing
+as property in man; and that we have departed from the example of our
+forefathers in not joining in that declaration. Sir, I would not use an
+unparliamentary phrase; I would not say one word calculated to widen the
+breach which now exists between the different members of this Confederacy,
+for God knows no one deprecates it more than I do; but I do say that
+intelligent gentlemen who stand upon this floor and make that declaration,
+ignore the whole legislation of this Government, from the formation of the
+Constitution up to the Missouri difficulty, in 1820. I say, if they are
+familiar with the legislative acts of their forefathers, they must know
+they are uttering that which is not true, when they say their example
+teaches us that we should oppose slavery in every shape and form in which
+we have legislative power.</p>
+
+<p>Mississippi was admitted into the Union in 1817, and no objection was
+raised that she was a slave State. But it was in 1819-&#8217;20 that the
+struggle began for which you propose to hold us responsible. Why, sir,
+after the Government had gone on thirty years without question, having
+never asked, when a State applied for admission, whether she was free or
+whether she was slave; while the whole country was living in harmony and
+brotherly love and affection; while the southern State was proud of the
+prosperity and happiness of the northern State, and the people of the
+northern States rejoiced at the prosperity of the people of the South,
+this hydra-headed monster of anti-slavery was then first produced; and
+from that day to this, it may be said,</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8220;Black it stood as night,<br />
+Fierce as ten furies, terrible as hell,&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>and has shaken the bonds of this Union from one end to the other.</p>
+
+<p>What was the cause of the agitation of 1820? After you had encouraged the
+citizens of Virginia and Kentucky and other States to settle in Missouri,
+by protecting slave property in the courts of justice, you turned round
+and said that Missouri should not be admitted unless she relinquished the
+right thereafter to hold slaves; and you kept her out of the Union for one
+year. The South, with that compromising and generous spirit which has ever
+characterized them&mdash;I say so in no spirit of egotism, for I am describing
+the people whom I represent&mdash;came forward and executed that memorable
+relinquishment, agreeing that slavery should not go north of 36&deg; 30&acute; if
+you would permit Missouri to come into the Union. While we have voted for
+the admission of free State after free State, without<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> making it a
+question; while we were then ready to vote for the admission of Maine, you
+turned round and ungenerously&mdash;what your motives may have been God only
+knows; whether to promote your political power or not it is not for me to
+say&mdash;forbid Missouri coming into the Union unless she relinquished the
+right to hold slaves.</p>
+
+<p>Now, sir, who departed from the lessons of wisdom taught by the fathers of
+the republic? Most of them slept in their tombs, and a wiser and purer and
+holier race (in their own estimation) had supplanted them; and &#8220;the sin
+against God and the crime against humanity&#8221; had to be blotted from
+Missouri, or she could hold no place in the Union.</p>
+
+<p>However, you made a good trade, and then the objection to the &#8220;sin against
+God and the crime against humanity&#8221; was waived for a consideration. You
+excluded the people of the South from all the territory north of 36&deg; 30&acute;,
+and then Missouri was admitted into the Union with slavery.</p>
+
+<p>[Here the hammer fell.]</p>
+
+<p>Mr. LANDRUM. I would thank the committee to extend my time for ten minutes
+longer.</p>
+
+<p>General assent was given.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. LANDRUM. I shall have to pass over a number of points which I should
+have liked to touch on, and will only make this remark: that having all
+the time a majority in the House of Representatives, and having secured an
+ultimate preponderance in the Senate, you passed the tariff bills of 1824
+and 1828, in which the southern section, now securely in the minority,
+were to be made tributary to promote and pamper the industry of the North.
+Then came the opposition to the annexation of Texas, because it was a
+slave State. Then came the Wilmot proviso for Oregon, and for the
+territory acquired from Mexico. Then followed the struggle of 1856, when
+you boldly inscribed on your banner, &#8220;No more slave States to be admitted
+into the Union.&#8221; At all events, you insisted on &#8220;prohibition to slavery in
+the Territories,&#8221; and announced that our system of labor was a &#8220;twin relic
+of barbarism&#8221; with polygamy. Then followed the enunciation, in the
+platform of a great popular party, which struggled almost successfully for
+the government of the country, that the whole people of the South who
+owned slaves were living in that state of pollution and degradation which
+characterizes the polygamist.</p>
+
+<p>Yet we are told that we are the cause of all the trouble, because we do
+not join in the hue-and-cry. Now, sir, what is the state of parties? The
+greatest man, perhaps, of the Republican party&mdash;certainly the greatest in
+influence, and the one whose prospects are first for the Presidency&mdash;has
+declared that the three billions of property which we own must be
+destroyed, stating that &#8220;you and I must do it,&#8221; meaning that it must be
+done by the present generation. Then follows the resolution of the
+gentleman from Ohio, [Mr. <span class="smcap">Blake</span>,] voted for by sixty members of the House,
+declaring that slavery ought to be abolished wherever the Government has
+the power to do it.</p>
+
+<p>The gentleman from Connecticut [Mr. <span class="smcap">Ferry</span>] will recollect his declaration
+that some of us may live to see the day when this Confederacy may consist
+of fifty sovereignties; and when that day comes, it will be their duty,
+according to the principles of the Republican party, to change the
+Constitution and to abolish slavery. And yet gentlemen seem to wonder that
+the people of the South are talking about new guards for their safety.
+Sir, the maxim laid down by Jefferson, that governments should not be
+abolished for light or transient causes, is most true; but no less true is
+the maxim that a people are always disposed to endure evils so long as
+they are endurable, rather than right themselves by abolishing the forms
+of which they are accustomed. Sir, what may be the action of Louisiana, in
+any contingency that may arise, it is not for me to state.</p>
+
+<p>I believe that the people of my State have too much at stake to attempt to
+change their present institutions, or to make any new arrangement for
+light or transient causes. We have an immense wealth, a vast commerce, a
+city trading with all the States of the Union, whose forests of masts,
+from which float the flags of all nations, denote that her commerce is
+coextensive with the globe. The levee of her commercial emporium literally
+trembles, in a frontage of nine miles, beneath the superincumbent masses
+of merchandise. Reluctantly, most reluctantly, would that people take any
+steps which by possibility could involve us in civil war and commotion;
+and great, indeed, must have been their apprehension when they adopted, in
+convention, March 15, 1860, the following resolution:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;That, in case of the election of a President on the avowed principles of
+the Black Republican party, we concur in the opinion that Louisiana should
+meet in council her sister slaveholding States, to consult as to the means
+of future protection.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I have no idea that I am mistaken, when I state that no action will be
+taken under that resolution, except on the most mature deliberation. But,
+sir, whenever the people of Louisiana believe that their institutions are
+in danger, and that it is the deliberate purpose of those who may get
+control of the Government to spread over them that dark and benighted pall
+which hangs like an incubus over the Central and South American republics
+and the West India Islands that have emancipated their slaves, I tell you
+they will act, and act effectually, too, for their protection and
+security. And whatever course the majority of her people may choose to
+take, her sons will sustain it with their lives, their fortunes, and their
+sacred honor.</p>
+
+<p><small><span class="smcap">Thos. McGill</span>, Print.</small></p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Slavery Question, by John M. Landrum
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Slavery Question, by John M. Landrum
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Slavery Question
+       Speech of Hon. John M. Landrum, of La., Delivered in the
+       House of Representatives, April 27, 1860
+
+Author: John M. Landrum
+
+Release Date: March 23, 2011 [EBook #35662]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SLAVERY QUESTION ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Bryan Ness and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE SLAVERY QUESTION.
+
+SPEECH OF HON. JOHN M. LANDRUM, OF LA., DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF
+REPRESENTATIVES, APRIL 27, 1860.
+
+
+The House being in the Committee of the Whole on the state of the Union--
+
+Mr. LANDRUM said:
+
+Mr. CHAIRMAN: That we are now threatened with great and alarming evils, no
+one who will take a calm and unprejudiced survey of the condition of the
+country can for a moment doubt. In the formation of this Government there
+existed a spirit of harmony and concession from the citizens of each State
+in this Union towards the citizens of every other State; and this spirit
+was so plainly exhibited in the convention which framed the Constitution
+of the United States--that it was so adjusted, so adapted to the wants of
+all the States entering into the Confederacy--that it received the almost
+unanimous support of the Convention. Harmony and concord and good feeling
+reigned throughout the whole Confederacy. The citizen of South Carolina
+rejoiced in the prosperity and commended the virtues of the citizen of
+Massachusetts; and the citizen of Massachusetts responded to the feeling
+of the citizen of South Carolina. That was the feeling which pervaded the
+citizens of this common country when the Constitution was formed; and that
+was the spirit which pervaded it for the thirty years afterwards during
+which the Government was administered by the fathers of the Republic.
+
+But now, Mr. Chairman, what state of things does this country exhibit? A
+people discordant; a great sectional party formed, and the whole history
+of the country ransacked in a search for subjects of denunciation on the
+part of citizens of one portion of the Confederacy against citizens of the
+other.
+
+In that convention which framed the Constitution, which is the basis of
+our Government, slave States were admitted without objection. Concessions
+were made to slave States on every point that they demanded, and which
+they deemed essential to the preservation and protection of their rights
+in this Union. Ay, there was no objection then to the admission of a State
+into the Union because she permitted slavery. So far from that, the
+Constitution abounds with express provisions for the protection of their
+property, and for the security of their rights. It was not objected to a
+free State that she should form a member of the Confederacy because she
+did not tolerate slavery. But the patriotic founders of the Republic
+looked to the interests of the whole country, and sacrificed prejudices
+whenever sacrifices were necessary, "_in order to form a more perfect
+union_."
+
+Contrast that state of feeling and that state of facts with the condition
+in which we now see the country. Mutual denunciation is the business even
+of the Representatives of the people on the floor of this Hall. Members of
+Congress recommend the circulation of books calculated to sap and
+undermine the foundations on which the whole fabric of wealth, of
+respectability, and of civilization, of one-half the Union is based. We
+meet here, not to strengthen the bonds that bind us together in the Union,
+but to weaken them, as far as human ingenuity can do so. To such a point
+has this state of things culminated, that the people of State after State
+in the Southern portion of the Confederacy have met in convention and
+declared their belief that there is a probability that the time is rapidly
+approaching when they "_must provide new guards for their future
+security_." The State which I have the honor in part to represent has made
+that declaration. And it is charged here on the floor of this Hall, by
+almost every member of the Republican party who has addressed this
+committee on the subject of the state of the Union, that it is the
+Democratic party which is responsible for this condition of things; that
+the Democratic party have departed from the lessons of wisdom taught us by
+the example of our forefathers, and have thus precipitated on the country
+all these evils, by the manner in which they have treated the slavery
+question.
+
+It shall be my purpose, Mr. Chairman, in the short time allotted to me, to
+endeavor to vindicate from the charge that party of which I am an humble
+member. The district which I represent, and the State in which that
+district is situated, are Democratic by an overwhelming majority; and I
+assert here, and am prepared to prove incontestibly, that the Democratic
+party are not the authors of the mischief under which the country labors.
+I am prepared to prove that they have not departed from the lessons of
+wisdom inculcated by the example of the founders of the Republic. I will
+show, if history does not lie, that it is the Republican party, the
+anti-slavery party, that is the cause of all the evils with which the
+country is afflicted; and it is they, and not the Democratic party, who
+have abandoned the legislative precedents and examples of our fathers.
+
+Why, sir, how are we responsible for the slavery agitation that has
+produced all the evils and mischief which afflict the country?
+
+How is the Democratic party responsible for that excitement, and for the
+difference of opinion which pervades the Republic on that subject,
+threatening a dissolution of the Union? Why, we are responsible for it
+because we do not join the Republican party to exclude slavery from the
+Territories? We are responsible for it because we do not oppose the
+admission of a State into the Union when her constitution tolerates
+slavery. We are responsible for it because we do not join in the
+declaration that all men are created free and equal, and apply that
+doctrine to the African slaves of the South; because we do not declare
+that those slaves are equal to us, and therefore of right free.
+
+We are required by the Republican party to unite with them in advocating
+that doctrine, and to declare besides that slavery and polygamy are twin
+relics of barbarism. If we join them in all these declarations of
+principle; if we join them in advocating these measures, then, of course,
+the country will be quiet. But, sir, who is responsible for the agitation?
+Is it not the party that calls for legislation? Has the Democratic party
+ever asked the national Legislature to establish slavery in her Territory?
+No, sir; but the Republican party comes into this Hall and demands that
+the power of the Government should be interposed to exclude slavery from
+the Territories. Because we do not agree with them; because we do not
+think as they do; and because we do not vote as they do; because we do not
+acquiesce in these propositions, why, then we are responsible for this
+agitation, and they are not! They ask us to adopt the maxim that no more
+slave States shall be admitted into the Union, and because we do not agree
+with them on that subject, we are the agitators, and they are not.
+
+Mr. Chairman, from what source do we learn this new doctrine? Do we find
+it in the legislation of our forefathers? Are there any restrictions in
+the Constitution of the United States on the subject, or any grant of
+power to prohibit slavery in a Territory when that Territory is organized?
+Is there anything in the Constitution of the United States to justify
+it--and I appeal to that as the very first example of our forefathers in
+the administration of this Government--is there anything in that
+instrument which authorizes you to say that a State shall not be admitted
+into the Union because its constitution tolerates slavery?
+
+I differ from gentlemen upon the Republican side of the House as to the
+manner in which I would learn a lesson front the example of our
+forefathers. I would not search for it in their private declarations. I
+would search for their legislative record. We are legislators, and for our
+legislation we want legislative precedents. I care not whether the
+opinions of the founders of the Republic were for slavery or against it,
+if the legislation of which they were the authors corresponded with the
+views I entertain. What judge of any court, what lawyer who wished to
+ascertain the true doctrine of a case, would search for the private
+opinions of the judge when the reports bristled with adjudicated cases
+from which he could learn the true doctrine which he had expressed under
+oath and in the discharge of his duties? When you search for the opinions
+of our ancestors to guide us as legislators, look at their conduct as
+legislators, and not their private opinions. Every lawyer, every sensible
+man, every rational man, knows that that is the true test of the opinions
+of our ancestors upon a given subject. When they legislate under oath;
+when they legislate for the good of the whole country, they lay aside
+their private opinions and their peculiar prejudices.
+
+Now, sir, what do we find in the Constitution of the United States which
+inculcates the doctrine that slavery must not be extended into the
+Territories? I call the attention of gentlemen to the first clause of
+section nine, article one of the Constitution:
+
+"The migration or importation of such persons as any of the States now
+existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the
+Congress prior to the year 1808, but a tax or duty may be imposed upon
+such importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each person."
+
+In order, Mr. Chairman, that there may be no mistake about the meaning of
+that clause of the Constitution, I send to the Clerk's desk, to be read,
+an extract from Elliott's Debates.
+
+The Clerk read from Elliott's Debates, (Yate's Minutes,) pages 35 and 36,
+as follows:
+
+"By the ninth section of this article, the importation of such persons as
+any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be
+prohibited prior to the year 1808, but a duty may be imposed on such
+importation not exceeding ten dollars for each person.
+
+"The design of this clause is to prevent the General Government from
+prohibiting the importation of slaves, but the same reasons which caused
+them to strike out the word 'national,' and not admit the word 'stamps,'
+influenced them here to guard against the word '_slaves_.' They anxiously
+sought to avoid the admission of expressions which might be odious in the
+ears of Americans, although they were willing to admit into their system
+those things which the expressions signified: and hence it is that the
+clause is so worded, as really to authorize the General Government to
+impose a duty of ten dollars on every foreigner who comes into a State to
+become a citizen, whether he comes absolutely free, or qualifiedly so as a
+servant, although this is contrary to the design of the framers, and the
+duty was only made to extend to the importation of slaves.
+
+"This clause was the subject of a great diversity of sentiment in the
+convention; as the system was reported by the Committee of Detail, the
+provision was general, that such importation should not be prohibited,
+without confining it to any particular period. This was rejected by eight
+States; Georgia, South Carolina, and I think North Carolina, voting for
+it.
+
+"We were then told by the delegates of the two first of those States, that
+their States would never agree to a system which put it in the power of
+the General Government to prevent the importation of slaves, and that
+they, as delegates from those States, must withhold their assent from such
+a system.
+
+"A committee of one member from each State was chosen by ballot to take
+this part of the system under their consideration, and to endeavor to
+agree upon some report which should reconcile those States; to this
+committee also was referred the following proposition, which had been
+reported by the Committee of Detail, namely: 'No navigation act shall be
+passed without the assent of two-thirds of the members present in each
+House;' a proposition which the staple and commercial States were
+solicitous to retain, lest their commerce should be placed too much under
+the power of the eastern States, but which these last States were as
+anxious to reject. This committee, of which also I had the honor to be a
+member, met and took under their consideration the subjects committed to
+them. I found the _eastern_ States, notwithstanding their _aversion to
+slavery_, were very willing to indulge the southern States at least with
+temporary liberty to prosecute the _slave trade_, provided the southern
+States would in their turn gratify them, by laying no restriction on
+navigation acts, and after a very little time, the committee, by a great
+majority, agreed on a report, by which the General Government was to be
+prohibited from preventing the importation of slaves for a limited time,
+and the restrictive clause relative to navigation acts was to be omitted."
+
+Mr. LANDRUM. Now, Mr. Chairman, we are asked to legislate to exclude
+slavery from the Territories, because slavery is a moral wrong, because it
+is a sin against God, and because it is a crime against humanity. And we
+are invoked to adopt that legislation by the example of our forefathers.
+
+Now, what precedent do they furnish us in this clause of the Constitution?
+The Constitution of the United States did make regulations in regard to
+the slavery question. One of those regulations was to permit the African
+slave trade until the year 1808. Now, sir, was there anything so morally
+wrong in the African slave trade; was it any such crime against humanity
+as to deter the ancestors of those gentlemen from coming into a Union
+which permitted the African slave trade? Why, sir, Massachusetts,
+Connecticut, and New Hampshire, voted to extend the limitation against the
+prohibition of that traffic from 1800 to 1808. Does the honorable chairman
+of this committee (Mr. BUFFINGTON) blush for his ancestors because they
+knew so little of the primary truths of common morality, as expounded by
+the gentleman from Connecticut, (Mr. FERRY,) in the commencement of this
+debate, soon after the organization of this House, in voting such a
+provision as that?
+
+The State of Massachusetts was a sovereign State before she entered into
+this Confederacy, unabridged by any limitation. She could have prevented
+her citizens then, as the United States does now, from participating in
+the slave trade even between foreign ports in foreign nations; and yet
+your ancestors not only voted with South Carolina and Georgia, who refused
+to come into the Union unless the African slave trade was permitted so
+long as they desired it, but in coming into that Union, it gave to the
+citizens of Massachusetts, too, a like authority to engage in that trade.
+
+What a sin against God, what a crime against humanity, did these
+Massachusetts legislators vote to perpetuate! And yet, I imagine, the
+honorable Chairman is proud of his ancestors; and we are told now that
+because we will not join you in the hue-and-cry against slavery, and do
+not legislate to exclude slavery from the Territories, we are the authors
+of the evils with which the country is afflicted. You are not satisfied
+with our silence, our inaction; you say that we want to perpetuate a crime
+against humanity, and have departed from the lesson of wisdom inculcated
+by our ancestors.
+
+Sir, I believe in the teachings of the ancient patriots. I take their
+precedents, and although not _now_ in favor of the reopening of the
+African slave trade, because it is inexpedient, (though, as I do not
+consider the question before the country, I confess I have not studied
+it,) yet I venerate those legislators who sacrificed their prejudices in
+order that they might get South Carolina and Georgia into the Union, who
+refused to come in without it.
+
+The gentleman from Connecticut, who first opened this debate, and who, I
+believe, is not now in his seat, remarked in his speech, that evil,
+disguised in whatever form it might be, would only produce evil; and
+therefore you must first lay down a moral code, and no matter what results
+it apparently leads you to, you must never violate it. Sir, his ancestors
+told a different tale. They said, in admitting South Carolina and Georgia
+into the Union, that, although they objected to the slave trade, more good
+would be accomplished than by prohibiting the slave trade and losing those
+two States.
+
+That is the policy which guided our ancestors; and now, what do we ask?
+What does the Democratic party ask? Do we ask this Government to legislate
+slavery into the Territories? We have never made any such demand. We have
+never _yet_ asked anything of this Government but to let it alone. And I
+assure you, that New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Connecticut, voted to
+perpetuate the slave trade, and to give her citizens the right to engage
+in it from 1800 to 1808, by that clause in the Constitution which gives
+the citizens of each State the rights of the citizens of every other
+State. She relinquished the power which they had to forbid her own
+citizens from participating in the slave trade, and opened the door to
+them. That is what your ancestors did in the Constitution under which this
+Government was formed, and which is the basis of all its legislation. And
+yet, you can give no legislative encouragement to slavery; you must
+exclude it wherever you have the power to exclude it, not as a matter of
+policy--at least that is not the ground upon which you base your
+action--but because it is a moral wrong, and a crime against humanity.
+
+But is that all the legislation in the Constitution about slavery? Why,
+sir, they inserted a clause in the Constitution authorizing the recapture
+of fugitive slaves when they entered the sovereign territory of these New
+England States which have now such an aborrence of the doctrine. As the
+meaning of that clause has been a subject of dispute, I ask the Clerk to
+read a short extract from the debates in the Virginia convention which
+adopted the Constitution, in which Mr. Madison explained the meaning of
+it. I hope I shall be able to show that we have some first-rate
+pro-slavery legislation in the Constitution before I get through with this
+argument.
+
+The Clerk read, as follows:
+
+"At present, if any slave elopes to any of those States where slaves are
+free, he becomes emancipated by their laws. For the laws of the States are
+uncharitable to one another in this respect. But in this Constitution, 'no
+person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof,
+escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation
+therein, be discharged from such service or labor; but shall be delivered
+up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due.' This
+clause was expressly inserted to enable owners of slaves to reclaim them.
+This is a better security than any that now exists. No power is given to
+the General Government to interpose with respect to the property in slaves
+now held by the States. The taxation of this State being equal only to its
+representation, such a tax cannot be laid as he supposes. They cannot
+prevent the importation of slaves for twenty years; but after that period
+they can. The gentlemen from South Carolina and Georgia argued in this
+manner: 'We have now liberty to import this species of property, and much
+of the property now possessed has been purchased or otherwise acquired in
+contemplation of improving it by the assistance of imported slaves. What
+would be the consequence of hindering us from it? The slaves of Virginia
+would rise in value, and we would be obliged to go to your markets.' I
+need not expatiate on this subject. Great as the evil is, a dismemberment
+of the Union would be worse. If those States should disunite from the
+other States, for not including them in the temporary continuance of this
+traffic, they might solicit and obtain aid from foreign Powers."
+
+Mr. LANDRUM. Yes, Mr. Chairman, those were the motives that influenced the
+framers of the Constitution. The several States of New England which,
+according to the testimony of Mr. Madison, had up to that time refused to
+deliver up fugitive slaves, voluntarily renounced the right of prohibiting
+it, and voted that the slave-catcher should have authority to enter
+therein, and carry back his slave to bondage. Do I want any better
+pro-slavery men than these? Where, sir, was this notion of "a sin against
+God and a crime against humanity" when they voted for that clause?
+
+I will again refer to the remark of the gentleman from Connecticut, which
+I know he will not apply to his ancestors in Connecticut who voted for
+this pro-slavery provision--that "evil, disguised under whatever form it
+may be, can be productive only of evil." He would not denounce his
+ancestors as hypocrites because they left out of the Constitution the
+weird "slave;" for Mr. Roger Sherman says that the expression was
+objectionable "to ears polite," I suppose. Mr. Madison and Mr. Yates tell
+us what they meant by the description "held to service or labor." I know
+the gentleman would not say that his ancestors were disguising in a
+particular name an evil, and thereby adopting it.
+
+No, sir; slavery was a good thing; but it had a bad name, according to the
+polite phraseology of the day, and, knowing that "a rose by any other name
+would smell as sweet," they changed the term "slave" to that of a "person
+held to service or labor."
+
+But, sir, in regard to this African slave trade provision, it was esteemed
+so important that, although provision was made for an amendment to the
+Constitution, applying to almost everything else within its compass,
+except, I believe, to the clause, that no State should be deprived of her
+equal representation in the Senate without her consent, this precious
+article of the slave trade clause was not to be interfered with, under any
+circumstances, prior to the year 1808.
+
+I think, Mr. Chairman, I have disposed of the religious argument, the
+moral argument, the conscience argument against slavery, derived from the
+lessons taught by the example of our forefathers. Do not tell me any more
+that Mr. Madison thought slavery was an evil; because these thoughts
+controlled not the action of his public position. Do not tell me that
+Washington and Jefferson were opposed to slavery abstractly, after that;
+because we find even New England men, with all their prejudices, as good
+pro-slavery men as South Carolina and Georgia wanted--for they were the
+only States that made a question on this African slave trade. Whatever
+future congressional protection to property may become necessary, all that
+we have ever _yet_ asked, Mr. Chairman, is that Congress shall not
+legislate at all on the question of slavery in the Territories. But your
+patriotic forefathers did legislate. They legislated to protect the
+African slave trade. They gave permission to the citizens of Massachusetts
+to enter into the slave trade along with the citizens of South Carolina
+and Georgia, and they gave us a fugitive slave law. That is the sort of
+legislation which they gave us in the Constitution, which is the basis of
+the Government under which we live.
+
+There are other clauses in the Constitution, sir, which show that this
+matter of slavery was not neglected. In the apportionment of direct
+taxation and representation, it was stipulated that three-fifths of the
+slaves should be represented on this floor. They were noticed, and noticed
+as a degraded class, as unequal to free men; because, if they had been
+considered equal to free men we would have been entitled to full
+representation for them on this floor. But, sir, they were treated as a
+degraded class--as a class unequal to free men. Their masters were given a
+representation in this House in proportion to three-fifths of their
+numbers, and the direct taxation was to be assessed at the same ratio on
+the slave States. Now, I allude to this subject, not to show boastingly,
+as it has been said on this floor, that we have a slave representation
+here. In that very provision of the Constitution the people of the
+northern States derived all the advantage--the people of the southern
+States all the loss; for no money, scarcely, has ever been raised by
+direct taxation. The money for the support of the Government is collected
+in an entirely different manner. If taxes were assessed on that principle,
+by a system of direct taxation, we would have derived some benefit from
+the three-fifth provision; but, as it is, you derive all the advantage,
+and we none of it.
+
+The principle which governed the convention in inserting that provision
+was the belief that this was the proportion in which the labor of the
+slave contributed to the wealth of the country, comparatively to that of
+the free man; and as, according to the political doctrines of that day,
+taxation and representation went hand in hand, and as a slave produced
+only three-fifths as much annual income as a free man, their masters were
+only entitled to that much representation. So it is in the electoral
+college. There the slaves are enumerated in the same proportion, and their
+masters are deprived of a voice to that extent.
+
+In that connection I want to have read the opinions of a venerable
+gentleman, whose authority will not be disputed upon this floor by the
+Republican party--the opinions of Mr. John Adams. The Clerk will read from
+the Madison Papers, page 29.
+
+The Clerk read, as follows:
+
+"Mr. John Adams observed, that the numbers of people were taken by this
+article as an index of the wealth of the State, and not as subjects of
+taxation. That as to this matter it was of no consequence by what name you
+called your people, whether by that of freemen or of slaves. That in some
+countries the laboring poor were called freemen, in others they were
+called slaves; but that the difference as to the State was imaginary only.
+What matters it whether a landlord employing ten laborers on his farm
+gives them annually as much money as will buy them the necessaries of
+life, or give them those necessaries at short hand? The ten laborers add
+as much wealth annually to the State, increase its exports as much, in the
+one case as the other. Certainly five hundred freemen produce no more
+profits, no greater surplus for the payment of taxes, than five hundred
+slaves. Therefore the State in which are the laborers called freemen,
+should be taxed no more than that in which are those called slaves.
+Suppose, by any extraordinary operation of nature or of law, one-half the
+laborers of a State could, in the course of one night, be transformed into
+slaves, would the State be made the poorer, or the less able to pay taxes?
+That the condition of the laboring poor in most countries--that of the
+fisherman, particularly, of the northern States--is as abject as that of
+slaves. It is the number of laborers which produces the surplus for
+taxation; and numbers, therefore, indiscriminately, are the fair index of
+wealth. That it is the use of the word 'property' here, and its
+application to some of the people of the State, which produces the
+fallacy. How does the southern farmer procure slaves? Either by
+importation or by purchase from his neighbor. If he imports a slave, he
+adds one to the number of laborers in his country, and proportionably to
+its profits and abilities to pay taxes; if he buys from his neighbor, it
+is only a transfer of a laborer from one farm to another, which does not
+change the annual produce of a State, and therefore should not change its
+tax; that if a northern farmer works ten laborers on his farm, he can, it
+is true, invest the surplus of ten men's labor in cattle; but so may the
+southern farmer working ten slaves. That a State of one hundred thousand
+freemen can maintain no more cattle than one of one hundred thousand
+slaves; therefore they have no more of that kind of property. That a slave
+may, indeed, from the custom of speech, be more properly called the wealth
+of his master, than the free laborer might be called the wealth of his
+employer; but as to the State, both were equally its wealth, and should
+therefore equally add to the quota of its tax.
+
+"Mr. Harrison proposed, as a compromise, that two slaves should be counted
+as one freeman. He affirmed that slaves did not do as much work as
+freemen, and doubted if two effected more than one. That this was proved
+by the price of labor, the hire of a laborer in the Southern Colonies
+being from L8 to L12, while in the Northern it was generally L24."
+
+Mr. LANDRUM. If we had a representation on this floor, as we ought to
+have, on a total population basis, we should have sixteen additional
+members, and the same additional number in the electoral college.
+
+Well, sir, the Republican party has attempted to incorporate an additional
+provision into the Constitution. Those clauses which have especially
+provided for African slavery it is impossible to repeal; but into those
+where slavery is not mentioned, they have attempted to interpolate a new
+clause. The Constitution has provided that new States may be admitted into
+the Union. In a Confederacy of one-half slave States and one-half free
+States, or nearly in that proportion, and when there is a provision in the
+Constitution that new States may be admitted into the Union, _without
+qualification_, one would naturally suppose that there would be no more
+restriction upon the admission of a slave State than upon the admission of
+a free State.
+
+Yet, sir, gentlemen on the other side propose to construe the Constitution
+as if there were really there a restrictive clause against the admission
+of any more slave States. And when we oppose that step they turn around
+and say to us that we are the cause of all this excitement. It is they who
+have caused the trouble. Like the old English gentleman in the play, they
+say they are the best natured men in the world if we will only give them
+their own way. All they want is to be permitted to have their own way, and
+then there will be no excitement. We say that, as the Confederacy
+consisted originally of free States and slave States, each new State, when
+applying for admission, has the right to regulate the matter for herself.
+You, gentlemen of the other side, say that, unless the new State prohibits
+slavery, she shall not be admitted.
+
+Look at another clause of the Constitution:
+
+"The Congress shall have power to dispose of and make all needful rules
+and regulations respecting the territory or other property of the United
+States."
+
+There is not a word there as to whether slavery shall be tolerated in
+these Territories or not.
+
+Such are the views, Mr. Chairman, and such the example of our forefathers
+when they framed the Constitution. I take those examples of our
+forefathers, and their legislative action under it, for my precedents. I
+care not what their private opinions may have been; I want to know what
+their legislative conduct was when they were acting on oath, for they were
+men who regarded their oaths. They were men, sir, who did not believe that
+the Constitution they framed would be contrary to the higher law, and that
+it would be consistent with their oath of office to violate it.
+
+Well, Mr. Chairman, what further was the action of the fathers under the
+Constitution of the United States. I will refer back to one memorable
+example which goes behind that instrument. In the treaty with the British
+Government it was stipulated that the British should not carry away any
+negroes or _other property_ of the American citizens. John Jay, John
+Adams, and Benjamin Franklin signed that treaty; and this, sir, was the
+language they used:
+
+The British "shall not carry away the negroes or other property belonging
+to the people of the United States."
+
+Yet we are told that, according to the doctrine of our forefathers, there
+can be no such thing as property in man. The language I have quoted occurs
+first in the preliminary articles in 1782, and again in the treaty of
+peace which was signed in 1783.
+
+Kentucky was admitted into the Union as a slave State, without objection,
+on the 4th of February, 1791. Now, if you had the right to exclude
+Missouri because she tolerated slavery, why did you not have the same
+right to exclude Kentucky? Why were conscientious scruples abandoned in
+the case of Kentucky, and the Territory of Virginia given, by the
+detaching of Kentucky, four Senators in the Senate of the United States,
+instead of two? Our forefathers--yours and mine--voted for the admission
+of Kentucky as a slave State. It will not do to say that slavery already
+existed in Kentucky; because, if slavery be a sin and a crime and a curse,
+then, according to your doctrine, it ought not to have been extended by
+giving the slave States additional representation and power in the Senate
+of the United States.
+
+Why, sir, if it would have been bad faith to have excluded Kentucky, was
+it not bad faith to exclude Missouri? Because in the ordinance
+establishing the territorial government of Missouri, in 1812, there was no
+Wilmot proviso, no prohibition of slavery? But slavery was permitted, as
+we ask it shall be permitted now; it was protected by the courts, and no
+complaint was urged within the Territory of Missouri, in regard to this
+question of slavery until she applied for admission into the Union. If
+your anti-slavery party, which I charge is the cause of all the evils with
+which this country is afflicted, was right then in excluding Missouri,
+because she did not abolish slavery, your forefathers were wrong in
+admitting Kentucky. Either they were wrong and you are right, or you are
+wrong and they were right. Between the two I have no hesitation in my
+choice. Regarded as patriots, regarded as intelligent men, considered as
+men who regarded their oaths, I have no hesitation in saying I believe
+they were equally as honest as the Republican party of the present day.
+
+In 1793 they gave us the fugitive slave law, there being only seven votes
+in opposition to it, and some of those were from the South, I think--a
+law, which if we attempt to enforce in the northern States we are met by
+mobs, and bloodshed frequently follows. No southern man dares go into some
+portions of the northern States and attempt to execute this law, except at
+the peril of his life.
+
+Such was the action of the founders of the republic, whose example we are
+constantly called upon to imitate. Tennessee was admitted in 1796, with
+slavery. The Territory of Mississippi was organized in 1798, by the
+application of the ordinance of 1787 to that Territory, and the
+restriction as to slavery removed. That was legislation under the
+Constitution. These are the precedents we are to follow; and we are not to
+go behind the Constitution and follow the precedent of 1787, when the
+relation of the States to each other was entirely different from what it
+is now under the Constitution.
+
+Ah! but you say, Mr. Jefferson thought slavery was a great wrong. But the
+acquisition of Louisiana in 1804 was a great right. Mr. Jefferson was then
+President of the republic. He represented the people of the free States,
+and he represented the people of the slave States; and no matter what his
+private opinion might have been upon the question of slavery, or upon the
+question of religion, or upon any other question, we, as legislators
+sitting in this Hall, acting under oath, as he did, have nothing to do
+with your private opinions upon the subject; but we have something to do
+with your legislative action; and I call upon you, acting under oath, as
+Jefferson did, to imitate his example. He acquired Louisiana through the
+instrumentality of Livingston and Monroe, who signed the treaty. Slavery
+existed in the Territory of Louisiana by the treaty by which she was
+acquired, and by that her inhabitants were guarantied their rights of
+property.
+
+Louisiana was admitted into the Union, in 1812, as a slave State. I know
+that specious objections are made in these cases. The objection has been
+made that in Tennessee, in Kentucky, and in Mississippi, slavery already
+existed; but, acting upon the principle upon which gentlemen here propose
+to legislate, that whatever is wrong and evil can produce nothing but
+evil--and you must follow it to its results, no matter where it leads
+you--no question of policy can be entertained. Why did these eminent
+opponents of slavery, as they are called, and to whose opinions we are
+constantly referred, increase the slave power, and encourage slavery
+aggression, as you term it? The only aggression slaveholders have ever
+made upon the free States is a demand that they should let this matter
+alone. Why do not members of Congress, assembled within these Halls,
+imitate the legislation of these men? I assure you, there was no such
+restrictive legislation in the Constitution, nor under the Constitution,
+up to 1820; for in 1813, under the administration of Madison, I believe,
+slaves were recognized as property, and taxed by the Government; and in
+1814, in the treaty of peace with Great Britain, it is again expressly
+stipulated that all slaves and other _private property_--I use the very
+language of the treaty--in the possession of either of the belligerent
+parties, should be returned to the other, which shows that they had no
+constitutional or conscientious scruples against _protecting_ slave
+property.
+
+And yet we are told that we are the cause of all these mischiefs, because
+we do not join with you in the declaration that there can be no such thing
+as property in man; and that we have departed from the example of our
+forefathers in not joining in that declaration. Sir, I would not use an
+unparliamentary phrase; I would not say one word calculated to widen the
+breach which now exists between the different members of this Confederacy,
+for God knows no one deprecates it more than I do; but I do say that
+intelligent gentlemen who stand upon this floor and make that declaration,
+ignore the whole legislation of this Government, from the formation of the
+Constitution up to the Missouri difficulty, in 1820. I say, if they are
+familiar with the legislative acts of their forefathers, they must know
+they are uttering that which is not true, when they say their example
+teaches us that we should oppose slavery in every shape and form in which
+we have legislative power.
+
+Mississippi was admitted into the Union in 1817, and no objection was
+raised that she was a slave State. But it was in 1819-'20 that the
+struggle began for which you propose to hold us responsible. Why, sir,
+after the Government had gone on thirty years without question, having
+never asked, when a State applied for admission, whether she was free or
+whether she was slave; while the whole country was living in harmony and
+brotherly love and affection; while the southern State was proud of the
+prosperity and happiness of the northern State, and the people of the
+northern States rejoiced at the prosperity of the people of the South,
+this hydra-headed monster of anti-slavery was then first produced; and
+from that day to this, it may be said,
+
+  "Black it stood as night,
+  Fierce as ten furies, terrible as hell,"
+
+and has shaken the bonds of this Union from one end to the other.
+
+What was the cause of the agitation of 1820? After you had encouraged the
+citizens of Virginia and Kentucky and other States to settle in Missouri,
+by protecting slave property in the courts of justice, you turned round
+and said that Missouri should not be admitted unless she relinquished the
+right thereafter to hold slaves; and you kept her out of the Union for one
+year. The South, with that compromising and generous spirit which has ever
+characterized them--I say so in no spirit of egotism, for I am describing
+the people whom I represent--came forward and executed that memorable
+relinquishment, agreeing that slavery should not go north of 36 deg. 30' if
+you would permit Missouri to come into the Union. While we have voted for
+the admission of free State after free State, without making it a
+question; while we were then ready to vote for the admission of Maine, you
+turned round and ungenerously--what your motives may have been God only
+knows; whether to promote your political power or not it is not for me to
+say--forbid Missouri coming into the Union unless she relinquished the
+right to hold slaves.
+
+Now, sir, who departed from the lessons of wisdom taught by the fathers of
+the republic? Most of them slept in their tombs, and a wiser and purer and
+holier race (in their own estimation) had supplanted them; and "the sin
+against God and the crime against humanity" had to be blotted from
+Missouri, or she could hold no place in the Union.
+
+However, you made a good trade, and then the objection to the "sin against
+God and the crime against humanity" was waived for a consideration. You
+excluded the people of the South from all the territory north of 36 deg. 30',
+and then Missouri was admitted into the Union with slavery.
+
+[Here the hammer fell.]
+
+Mr. LANDRUM. I would thank the committee to extend my time for ten minutes
+longer.
+
+General assent was given.
+
+Mr. LANDRUM. I shall have to pass over a number of points which I should
+have liked to touch on, and will only make this remark: that having all
+the time a majority in the House of Representatives, and having secured an
+ultimate preponderance in the Senate, you passed the tariff bills of 1824
+and 1828, in which the southern section, now securely in the minority,
+were to be made tributary to promote and pamper the industry of the North.
+Then came the opposition to the annexation of Texas, because it was a
+slave State. Then came the Wilmot proviso for Oregon, and for the
+territory acquired from Mexico. Then followed the struggle of 1856, when
+you boldly inscribed on your banner, "No more slave States to be admitted
+into the Union." At all events, you insisted on "prohibition to slavery in
+the Territories," and announced that our system of labor was a "twin relic
+of barbarism" with polygamy. Then followed the enunciation, in the
+platform of a great popular party, which struggled almost successfully for
+the government of the country, that the whole people of the South who
+owned slaves were living in that state of pollution and degradation which
+characterizes the polygamist.
+
+Yet we are told that we are the cause of all the trouble, because we do
+not join in the hue-and-cry. Now, sir, what is the state of parties? The
+greatest man, perhaps, of the Republican party--certainly the greatest in
+influence, and the one whose prospects are first for the Presidency--has
+declared that the three billions of property which we own must be
+destroyed, stating that "you and I must do it," meaning that it must be
+done by the present generation. Then follows the resolution of the
+gentleman from Ohio, [Mr. BLAKE,] voted for by sixty members of the House,
+declaring that slavery ought to be abolished wherever the Government has
+the power to do it.
+
+The gentleman from Connecticut [Mr. FERRY] will recollect his declaration
+that some of us may live to see the day when this Confederacy may consist
+of fifty sovereignties; and when that day comes, it will be their duty,
+according to the principles of the Republican party, to change the
+Constitution and to abolish slavery. And yet gentlemen seem to wonder that
+the people of the South are talking about new guards for their safety.
+Sir, the maxim laid down by Jefferson, that governments should not be
+abolished for light or transient causes, is most true; but no less true is
+the maxim that a people are always disposed to endure evils so long as
+they are endurable, rather than right themselves by abolishing the forms
+of which they are accustomed. Sir, what may be the action of Louisiana, in
+any contingency that may arise, it is not for me to state.
+
+I believe that the people of my State have too much at stake to attempt to
+change their present institutions, or to make any new arrangement for
+light or transient causes. We have an immense wealth, a vast commerce, a
+city trading with all the States of the Union, whose forests of masts,
+from which float the flags of all nations, denote that her commerce is
+coextensive with the globe. The levee of her commercial emporium literally
+trembles, in a frontage of nine miles, beneath the superincumbent masses
+of merchandise. Reluctantly, most reluctantly, would that people take any
+steps which by possibility could involve us in civil war and commotion;
+and great, indeed, must have been their apprehension when they adopted, in
+convention, March 15, 1860, the following resolution:
+
+"That, in case of the election of a President on the avowed principles of
+the Black Republican party, we concur in the opinion that Louisiana should
+meet in council her sister slaveholding States, to consult as to the means
+of future protection."
+
+I have no idea that I am mistaken, when I state that no action will be
+taken under that resolution, except on the most mature deliberation. But,
+sir, whenever the people of Louisiana believe that their institutions are
+in danger, and that it is the deliberate purpose of those who may get
+control of the Government to spread over them that dark and benighted pall
+which hangs like an incubus over the Central and South American republics
+and the West India Islands that have emancipated their slaves, I tell you
+they will act, and act effectually, too, for their protection and
+security. And whatever course the majority of her people may choose to
+take, her sons will sustain it with their lives, their fortunes, and their
+sacred honor.
+
+THOS. MCGILL, Print.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Slavery Question, by John M. Landrum
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