SPEECH OF TALLMADGE. 667 XXXI. of Georgia, not content with the care of overseers, to CHAPTER legislate to secure the oppression and ignorance of her slaves. The man who teaches a negro to read is liable 1819. to a criminal prosecution! The dark, benighted beings of all creation profit by our liberality-save those on our own plantations. Where is the missionary of hardihood enough to venture to teach the slaves of Georgia? Here is the stain, the stigma which fastens on the character of our country, and which, in the appropriate language of the gentleman from Georgia, not all the waters of the ocean, only seas of blood, can wash out! "If it is not safe now to discuss slavery on this floor, if it can not now come before us as a proper subject for general legislation, what will be the result when it is spread through your widely-extended domain? Its present threatening aspect, and the violence of its supporters, so far from inducing me to yield to its progress, prompt me to resist its march. Now is the time! The extension of the evil must be now prevented, or the opportunity will be lost forever! "Look down the long vista of futurity. See your empire, in extent unequaled, in advantageous situation without a parallel, occupying all the valuable part of our continent. Behold this extended empire inhabited by the hardy sons of America, freemen knowing their rights, and inheriting the will to maintain them; owners of the soil on which they live, and interested in the institutions which they labor to uphold; with two oceans laving your shores and tributary to your purposes, bearing on their bosoms the commerce of your people-compared to yours, the governments of Europe dwindle into insignificance, and the world has no parallel. But reverse the scene. People this fair domain with the slaves of your planters. Spread slavery, that bane of man, that abomination of XXXI. CHAPTER heaven, over your extended empire! You prepare its dissolution; you turn its accumulated strength into posi1819. tive weakness; you cherish a cancer in your breast; you put a viper in your bosom; you place a vulture on your heart-nay, you whet the dagger, and thrust it into the hands of a portion of your population, stimulated to use it by every impulse, human and divine. The envious contrast between your happiness and their misery, between your liberty and their slavery, must constantly prompt them to accomplish your destruction. Your enemies will learn the source and the cause of your weakness. As often as external dangers shall threaten, or internal commotions await you, you will then realize that, by your own procurement, you have placed amid your families, and in the bosom of your country, a population at once the greatest cause of individual danger and of national weakness. With this defect, your government must crumble to pieces, and your people become the scoff of the world. "It has been argued, with great plausibility, that we should rather spread the slaves now in the country than confine them to their present districts, thus diminishing the danger from them, while we increase the means of their living, and augment their comforts. Since we have been engaged in this debate, we have witnessed an elucidation of this argument. A slave-driver, a trafficker in human flesh, as if sent by Providence, has passed the door of your Capitol, on his way to the West, driving before him some fifteen of these wretched victims of his power; the men, who might raise the arm of vengeance, handcuffed and chained to each other; the women and children marching in the rear, under the guidance of the driver's whip. Yes, such has been the scene witnessed SPEECH OF TALLMADGE. 669 from the windows of Congress Hall by the members who CHAPTER compose the legislative council of republican America! XXXI. "Rest assured that this reasoning is fallacious. While 1819. slavery is permitted, the market will be supplied. Our extensive coast, and its contiguity to the West Indies and the Spanish possessions, render the introduction of slaves easy. Our laws against it are already highly penal, and yet it is a well-known fact that about fourteen thousand slaves have been brought into our country this last year. "But we are told that any attempt to legislate on this subject is a violation of that faith and mutual confidence upon which our Union was formed and our Constitution adopted. If the restriction were attempted to be enforced against any of the slaveholding states, parties in the adoption of the Constitution, this argument might seem plausible. But it can have no application to a new district of country recently acquired, never contemplated in the formation of the government, and not embraced in the mutual concessions and declared faith upon which the Constitution was agreed to. The Constitution concedes to the slaveholding states a representation according to numbers, counting three fifths of the slavesan important benefit yielded to them as one of the mutual sacrifices for the Union. On that subject I consider the faith of the Union pledged. But none of the causes which induced that sacrifice, producing such an unequal representation of the free population of the coun try, exist as between us and the newly-acquired territory west of the Mississippi. That portion of country has no claim to such an unequal representation, unjust in its results toward the other states. Are the numerous slaves in extensive countries which we may acquire by pur chase, and admit as states into the Union, to be repre CHAPTER sented on this floor under a clause of the Constitution XXXI. specially granted as a compromise and a benefit to those 1819. Southern States which had borne part in the Revolution? Such an extension of that clause would be unjust in its operation, unequal in its results, and in violation of its original intention. "As an evil brought upon us, without our fault, before the formation of our government, through the sin of that nation from which we revolted, we must of necessity legislate upon this subject; and it is our business so to legislate as never to encourage, but always to restrict it. "You boast of the freedom of your Constitution and your laws. You have proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And yet you have slaves in your country! The enemies of your government, the legitimates of Europe, point to your inconsistencies, and blazon your alleged defects. Confine slavery to the original slaveholding states, where you found it at the formation of your government, and you stand acquitted of these imputations. Allow it to pass into territories whence you have the lawful power to exclude it, and you take upon yourselves all these charges of inconsistency. "We are told, however, that, from the long habit of the Southern and Western people, the possession of slaves has become necessary to them; that, from the nature of the climate and soil, the lands can not be cultivated without slaves; that the slaves thrive, and are much better off than in their own native country. We have even been told that if we prevent slavery from crossing the Mississippi, we shall greatly lessen the value of property there, and shall retard the settlement of the country. SPEECH OF TAYLOR. 671 XXXI. "If the Western country can not be settled without CHAPTER slaves, gladly would I prevent its settlement till time shall be no more. By this sort of argument all morals 1819. are set at defiance, and we are called upon to legislate on the mere ground of personal interest. Repeal, then, all your laws prohibiting the slave trade! Throw open this traffic to the commercial states of the East! If it better their condition, invite the dark population of benighted Africa to be translated to the shores of republi can America! But I will not press upon gentlemen the conclusion to which their arguments necessarily tend. I do not believe any gentleman on this floor would here advocate the slave trade, or maintain, in the abstract, the principles of slavery. I will not outrage the decorum nor insult the dignity of this House by attempting to argue in this place, as an abstract proposition, the moral wrong of slavery. How would the legitimates of Europe chuckle to find an American Congress in debate on such a question!" Tallmadge found a supporter, not less able and earnest, in John W. Taylor, who had moved the proviso to the Arkansas bill. "How often," he said, "and how eloquently, have I heard Southern gentlemen deplore the existence of slavery! What willingness, nay, what solicitude have they not manifested to be relieved from this burden! How have they wept over the unfortunate policy that first introduced slaves into this country! How have they disclaimed the guilt and shame of that original sin, and thrown it back on their ancestors! I have heard with pleasure this avowal of regret, I have confided in its sincerity, and have hoped to see its effects in the advancement of the cause of humanity. Gentlemen have now an opportunity of putting their professions into practice. If they have tried slavery, and |