[103]
Charles James Faulkner's opinion.
“If slavery can be eradicated,” said Charles James Faulkner, “in God's name let us get rid of it.” Again:An era of commercial intercourse is thus fondly anticipated, in the fancy of these gentlemen, between the east and the west [of the State]. New ties and new attachments are now to connect us more closely in the bonds of an intimate and paternal union. Human flesh is to be the staple of that trade, human blood the cement of that connection. And in return for the rich products of our valleys, are we to receive the nicely measured and graduated limbs of our species a Sir, a sagacious politician in this State, on the evening of the debate upon the presentation and reference of the Hanover petition, remarked to me, “Why do you gentlemen from the west suffer yourselves to be fanned into such a tempest of passion? The time will come, and that before long, when there will be no diversity of interest or feeling among us on this point — when we shall all equally represent a slaveholding interest.”
An eloquent protest against slavery extension.
Sir, it is to avert any such possible consequence to my country, that I, one of the humblest, but not the least determined of the western delegation, have raised my voice for emancipation. Sir, tax our lands, vilify our country, carry the sword of extermination through our now defenceless villages, but spare us, I implore you, spare us the curse of slavery,
