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terrible incendiaries. Signalize your opposition by the most decided action. Stamp their nefarious propositions with unqualified reprobation. Throw the whole authority of this Government against them. Pledge the authority of each Senator in his own State. Say to the abolitionists that this Government will in no event be made an instrument in your hands. Say to the South that this pestilential stream shall not be poured upon you through these halls. Give us the strongest measures. If you cannot adopt the proposition of my colleague, let us know what you can do. The matters before us are of the deepest consequence, and it may, perhaps, not be within the competence of this Government to effect an entire remedy of the evil. Something, however, can be done; you may, at least, save yourselves from becoming either passively or actively accessory to the result. Erect yourselves into a barrier between the opposing sections. Save the Union if you can.

If things go much farther, you may find this no easy matter. Recent experience has, thank God, demonstrated that this Government is not strong enough to produce disunion. Will it be strong enough to prevent it if proceedings go on, which inevitably make two people of us, warring on a question which, on the one side, involves existence, and on the other, arrays all the fury of fanaticism? Think you, sir, that, if you have not the spirit or power to trample out the brand that is thrown amongst us, you can yet bring help when the whole land is wrapped in conflagration? If, however, in your judgment it is not competent or expedient to act decisively, tell us so. Let us know what you can or will do, and we will consider it, and bring to the consideration of it a candid and conciliatory temper, anxious to find safety for the Constitution in

your measures. Our own safety is in our own keeping. I will not more than allude to it for fear of misconstruction; but while with the most painful emotions I have adverted to the dangers of our situation, while with the most profound solicitude I entreat the Senate to guard against them, I know that the South has the power and the will to vindicate its rights and protect itself. Even if it were destitute of the high spirit which characterizes it, if it were without the resources which abound there, it would be forced into a position of self-defence by the inexorable necessities of self-preservation. The South has drawn deep lessons of instruction from the colonial history of France and England. St. Domingo and Jamaica were colonies subject to the dominion of a foreign power, and perished because they were colonies. Their disastrous history is not recorded in vain. I will not pursue this topic. I am here a member of the Senate of the United States, impressed with a sense of my federal duties, and in discharge of them, have felt myself compelled to state my conception of the perilous circumstances in which we are, because I fear there is a fatal misconception in regard to them. It is possible, sir, that I may have conceived them too strongly. I wish it may turn out so. It is erring on the safe side to magnify the strength of the enemy, if you intend to encounter him with fortitude and just preparation. Many friends near me see nothing on the horizon but a floating cloud, which the summer breeze will drive away. I see, or think I see, the gathering of a tempest surcharged with all the elements of devastation. If they be right, it is happy for us all; but if they be wrong, and I right, and the blessed moments of preparation are thrown away until the storm bursts, they incur an awful responsibility.

THOMAS CORWIN.

Born 1794.

SPEECH AGAINST THE COMPROMISE BILL. (1848.)

You say this land was conquered by the common blood of the country; you trace back the consideration which you have paid for this country to the blood and the bones of the gallant men that you sent there to be sacrificed; and pointing to the unburied corpses of her sons who have fallen there, the South exclaims: ,,These these constitute my title to carry my slaves to that land! It was purchased by the blood of my sons." The aged parent, bereft of his children, and the widow with the family that remains, desire to go there to better their fortunes, if it may be, and pointing to the graves of husband and children, exclaim : There there was the price paid for our proportion of this territory!" Is that true? If that could be made out if you dare put that upon your record you can assert that you hold the country by the strong hand, then you have a right to go there with your slaves. If we of the North have united with you of the South in this expedition of piracy, and robbery, and murder, that oldest law known among men ,,honor among thieves" requires us to divide it with you equally. Nay, more, it is only a fitting finale to that infernal tragedy, that after having slaughtered fifty thousand human beings, in order to extend your authority over these one hundred and fifty thousand, the murder should be followed by the slavery of every one that can be made subject to the law of power.

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you have bound in chains and brought to Virginia! Then, in accordance with the brand which it seems the Almighty has impressed upon poor woman - partus sequiyou condemn to Slavery, to the remotest posterity, the offspring of your captive! It is the same right originally in both cases. This right of conquest is the same as that by which a man may hold another in bondage. You may make it into a law if you please: you may enact that it may be so: it may be convenient to do so: after perpetrating the original sin, it may be better to do so. But the case is not altered; the source of the right remains unchanged. What is the meaning of the old Roman word Servus? I profess no great skill in philological learning, but I can very well conceive how somebody looking into this thing, might understand what was the law in those days. The man's life was saved when his enemy conquered him in battle. He became servus the man preserved by his magnanimous foe; and perpetual slavery was then thought to be a boon preferable to death. That was the way in which slavery began. Has anybody found out on the face of the earth a man fool enough to give himself up to another, and beg him to make him his slave? I do not know of one such instance under heaven. Yet it may be so. Still I think that not one man of my complexion of the Caucasian race could be found quite willing to do that!

This right, which you are now asserting to this country, exists in no other foundation than the law of force, and that was Sir, if it be true that you hold this ter- the original law by which one man approritory by conquest, you hold it precisely by priated the services and will of another to the same right that the Virginian holds his himself. Thus far we have been brought slave to-day, and by no other. You have after having fought for this country and stolen the man, and with the strong hand conquered it. The solenın appeal is made torn him from his own home part of to us ,Have we not mingled our blood his family you have killed, and the rest with yours in acquiring this country?"

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Sure, my brother! But did we mingle our blood with yours for the purpose of wresting this country by force from this people? That is the question. You did not say so six months ago. You dare not say so now! You may say that it was purchased, as Louisiana or as Florida was, with the common treasure of the country; and then we come to the discussion of another proposition: What right do you acquire to establish slavery there? But I was about to ask of some gentleman the Senator from S. C. for instance, whose eye at a glance has comprehended almost the history of the world what he supposes will be the history of this, our Mexican war, and these our Mexican acquisitions, if we should give it the direction which he desires? I do not speak of the propriety of slave labor being carried anywhere. I will waive that question entirely. What is it of which the Senator from Vermont has told us this morning, and of which we have heard so much during the last three weeks?

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And it is only about a year ago, I believe, that that officer of the Turkish Empire who holds sway in Tunis, of the old slave markets of the world, whose prisons formerly received those of our people taken upon the high seas and made slaves to their captors announced to the world that everybody should there be free. And, if I am not mistaken, it will be found that this magic line which the Senator from S. C. believes has been drawn around the globe which we inhabit, with the view of separating Freedom and Slavery

36 30, brings this very Tunis into that region in which by the ordinance of God men are to be held in bondage! All over the world the air is vocal with the shouts of men made free. What does it all mean? It means that they have been redeemed from political servitude; and in God's name I ask, if it be a boon to mankind to be free from political servitude, must it not be accepted as a matter of some gratulation that they have been relieved from absolute subjection to the arbitrary power of others? What do we say of them? I am not speaking of the propriety of this thing; it may be all wrong, and these poor fellows in Paris, who have stout hands and willing hearts, anxious to earn their bread, may be very

comfortable in fighting for it. - The problem of Free Government, as we call it, is not, it seems, yet solved. It may be highly improper and foolish in Austria and Germany to send away Metternich and say,„, We will look unto this business ourselves." According to the doctrine preached in these halls in free America instead of sending shouts of congratulation across the water to these people, we should send to them groans and commiseration for their folly, calling on them to beware how they take this business into their own hands informing them that universal liberty is a curse; that as one man is born with a right to govern an Empire, he and his posterity must continue to exercise that power, because in their case it is not exactly partus sequitur ventrem, but partes sequitur pater that is all the difference. The Crown follows the father. Under your law the

chain follows the mother!

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It was a law in the Colonies about '76 that Kings had a right to govern us. George Guelph then said „partes sequitur par“ My son is born to be your ruler. And at the very time when Virginia lifted up her hand and appealed to the God of justice the common father of all men deliver her from that maxim and its consequences, that one man was born as Jefferson said booted and spurred to ride another, it seems that by the Senator's account of it, she adhered to another maxim, to wit: that another man should be born to serve Virginia. I think this maxim of Kings being born to rule, and others being born only to serve, are both of the same family, and ought to have gone down to the same place; hence, I imagine, they came, long ago, together. I do not think that your partus sequitur ventrem had much quarter shown it at Yorktown on a certain day you may remember. I think that when the lion of England crawled in the dust, beneath the talons of your eagles, and Cornwallis surrendered to George Washington, that maxim, that a man is born to rule, went down, not to be seen among us again forever, and I think that partus sequitur ventrem, in the estimation of all sensible men, disappeared along with it. So the men of that day thought. And we are thus brought to the consideration of the proper interpretation of that language of those men which has been somewhat criticized by the

Senator from South Carolina. What did they mean when they said in the Declaration of Independence, that all men are born equally free? They had been contending that, if we on this side of the water were to be taxed by the Imperial Parliament of England, we had a right to say who should represent us in that Parliament. I need not refer gentlemen to the arguments then advanced. I need not refer the Senator from Virginia to his own local history, which informs him that, throughout the whole Revolutionary period, the people in all the shires and towns were meeting and passing resolutions, as that book of American Archives that you have authorized to be perpetuated, will show you, complaining to the Crown of England of the importation of slaves into this country. And why did they complain? Let their own documents tell their own story. Then men in that generation, in Virginia, in Connecticut as the Senator before me will see by referring to that book in MS. everywhere throughout the Colonies, said While we are contending for the common rights of humanity, against the Crown of England, it does not become us to enslave men and hold them in slavery." They objected to the introduction of slaves into this country through the intervention of the slave-trade, because it was a wrong perpetrated upon the slave himself, and especially because it prevented the settlement of the country by artizans, mechanics, and laboring husbandmen. I venture the assertion that not three counties in the State of Virginia can be named in which resolutions of that character were not passed.

In 1784, not far from this Capitol, where we are now engaged in talking about the transfer of the slave-trade to the shores of the Pacific ocean, there was a meeting in Fairfax, at which one George Washington, Esq., presided. Some young gentlemen may know something of him. He was a tobaccoplanter, sir, at Mount Vernon. The resolutions passed on that occasion declared the intention of the meeting to refrain from purchasing any slaves, and their determination to have nothing to do with the slavetrade because the introduction of slaves into this country prevented its settlement by free whites. This, then, was the opinion in Virginia at that time; and it was the opinion in Georgia too.

Thank God, though all should fail, there is an infallible depository of truth, and it lives once a year for three months in a little Chamber, below us! We can go there. Now I understand my duty here to be, to ascertain what constitutional power we have, and when we have ascertained that, without reference to what the Supreme Court may do

for they have yet furnished no guide on the subject we are to take it for granted that they will concur with us. If the Court does not concur with us, I agree with gentlemen who have been so lost in their encomiums upon that Court, that their decision whether right or wrong, controls no action. But we have not hitherto endeavored to ascertain what the Supreme Court would to. I wish then to ascertain in what mode this wonderful response is to be obtained not from that Delphic Oracle, but from that infallible divinity, the Supreme Court. How is it to be done? A gentleman starts from Baltimore, in Maryland, with a dozen black men who have been partus sequitur ventrem burnt into their skins and souls all over; he takes them to California, three thousand miles off. Now I don't know how it may be in other parts of the world, but I know that in the State of Ohio it is ordained that the law is carried to every man's door. What then is the admirable contrivance in this bill by which we can get at the meaning of the Constitution? We pray for it, we agonize for it, we make a law for it, and that it may be speedily known for, if not speedily known, it may as well never be known; if slavery goes there and remains there for one year, according to all experience, it is eternally. Let it but plant its roots there, and the next thing you will hear of will be the earnest appeals about the rights of property. It will be said: ,,The Senate did not say we had no right to come here. The House of Representatives, a body of gentlemen elected from all parts of the country on account of their sagacity and legal attainments, did not prohibit us from coming here. I thought I had a right to come here: the Senator from South Carolina said I had a right to come; the Hon. Senator from Georgia said I had a right to come here; his colleagues said it was a right secured to me somewhere high up in the clouds and not belonging to the world; the

Senator from Mississippi said it was the ordinance of Almighty God; am I not then to enjoy the privileges thus so fully secured to me? I have property here; several of my women have born children, who have partus sequitur ventrem born with them; they are my property." Thus the appeal will be made to their fellow-citizens around them; and it will be asked, whether you are prepared to strike down the property which the settler in those territories has thus acquired? That will be the case unless the negro from Baltimore, when he gets there and sees the Peons there slaves not by partus sequitur ventrem, but by a much better title a verdict before a Justice of the Peace should de termine to avail himself of the admirable facilities afforded him by this bill for gaining his freedom.

does not become me to say that you are free. So, boy, go to your master; you belong to the class partus sequitur ventrem: you are not quite enough of a Saxon." What then is to be done by this bill? Oh! a writ of error or appeal can come to the Supreme Court of the United States. How? The negro, if he is to be treated like a white, taking out an appeal, must give bonds in double the value of the subject matter in dispute. And what is that? If you consider it the mercantile value of the negro, it may be perhaps $ 1,000 or $ 2,000. But he cannot have the appeal according to this bill, unless the value of the thing in controversy amounts to the value of $2,000. But, then, there comes in this ideality of personal liberty: what is it worth? Nothing at all says the Senator from South Carolina to this fellow, who is better without it. And under all this complexity of legal quibbling and litigation, it is expected that the negro will stand there and contend with his master, and coming on to Washington, will prosecute his appeal two years before the Supreme Court, enjoying the opportunity of visiting his old friends about Baltimore!

I had almost believed, after hearing the beautiful, romantic, sentimental narration of the Senator from Mississippi, that God had indeed, as he said, made this people in Africa to come over here and wait upon us, till the Senator from Florida waked me up to a recollection of the old doctrines of Washington and Jefferson, by assuring that wherever that patriarchal institution existed, a rigid police should be maintained, in order to prevent the old women from cutting the throats of somebody! It is then a very

Suppose my friend from New Hampshire when he goes home, gets up a meeting and collects a fund for the purpose of sending a missionary after these men; and when the missionary arrives there he proposes to hold a prayer meeting, he gets up a meeting as they used to do in Yankee times, ,,for the improvement of gifts." He goes to the negro quarter of this gentleman from Baltimore, and says: ,,Come, I want brother Cuffee; it is true he is a son of Ham, but I want to instruct him that he is free." I am very much inclined to think that the missionary would fare very much as one did in South Carolina, at the hands of him of Baltimore. So, you see, the negro is to start all at once into a free Anglo-Saxon in California; the blood of Liberty flowing in every vein, and its divine impulses throbbing in his heart. He is to say: ,,I am free; I am a Californian; I bring the right of habeas corpus with me." Well, he is brought up on a writ of habeas corpus before whom? Very likely one of those,,peculiar" institution! Those who live under gentlemen who have been proclaiming that slavery has a right to go there; for such are the men that Mr. Polk is likely to appoint. He has prejudged the case. On the faith of his opinion the slave has been brought there: what can he do? There is his recorded judgment printed in your Congressional Report; what will he say? You are a slave. Mr. Calhoun was right. Judge Berrien, of Ga., a profound lawyer, whom I know well, was right. I know these gentlemen well; their opinion is entitled to the highest authority, and in the face of it, it

it cannot exist a day without caresses; and on the next, they must provide scores of constables with clubs in their hands, to keep them from cutting each other's throats!

I do not wish to extend that institution into these Territories. Is it pretended that Slave labor could be profitable in Oregon or California. Do we expect to grow cotton and sugar there? I do not know that it may not be done there; for as the gentleman from New York has told us, just as you go west upon this continent, the same line of latitude changes very much, so that

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