Rebellion Record: a Diary of American Events: Documents and Narratives, Volume 1.
Frank Moore, Ed.

[422] firmed and approved the right of the master. That right is now denied. Great and unquestionable as I regard this right, it would sink in my estimation far below its present position, if it did not involve the high considerations of humanity, the great consideration of political and domestic economy. The race is now too numerous, and it is increasing too rapidly to be confined within its present limits. Though divided into families, and domesticated with white families, it is a distinct nation of near 4,000,000 of people, and constitutes a part of the American people. The institution of African slavery forms part of our political system of government. It is entitled, then, to a higher consideration than the mere right of the master to property in the slave. The institution of slavery must now be considered in its relation to the American people, in its relation to our constitutional government, and in relation to the American Union, whose safety it has placed in jeopardy, and whose ruin it may yet accomplish. Slaves must be considered in their personal relation; they must be considered as both persons and property. Slavery never can be confined within its present limits. It is freed from that confinement by the granted freedom of the Constitution of the United States. If it were otherwise, the bonds of the Constitution are not strong enough, with all their reverenced power, to resist the energies of the imperative necessity which demands its expansion. It must expand with the extension of the white race, into every region congenial to its nature and possible for its labor Each has its sphere of action — each its place of usefulness in accomplishing the great design of Providence. The African, in the humble inferiority of his nature, must ever, as he has done, give place to the European race. They commenced their labors together in the wilderness of Massachusetts; and from time to time, as the white man, from the increase of population, has required the place, the labor, and the head of the African, it has been yielded. The African has gone with the pioneer of the forest, over rivers, mountains, hills, and valleys, from State to State, until his arrival at the present boundary. But his destiny is not yet fulfilled, his career of usefulness not yet completed. A vast unmeasured wilderness lies yet before him. He must go into that wilderness, to make room again, as ho has done before, for the white man, who will want his present place in a few years in many, and in time in most of the present slaveholding States. He must go into new territories, open new cotton, sugar, and tobacco-fields. I-e must drain other swamps, to form new rice-fields, to supply the increasing demands of commerce, and relieve the increasing necessities of nations. The productions of slave labor are carrying commerce into every land, navigation over every sea: civilization and Christianity are going hand in hand with commerce and navigation into every barbarous country. The institution of slavery is doing more in the agency of the world's great progress, more for the improvement and comfort of human life, more for the preaching of the Gospel to heathen nations, more for the fulfilment of prophecy, than any other institution on earth.

This institution cannot be stopped in its career of usefulness to the whole world. It cannot be confined to its present limits. Dire and uncontrollable necessity will impel the master and the slave to cut their way through every barrier which may be thrown around it, or perish together in the attempt. The consequences of confinement are too terrible to be borne. The attempt to confine the explosion of gunpowder, or stop the eruption of the burning volcano, would not be more perilous and unavailing. If the institution of African slavery was not already in existence, with its immediate connection with the interests and necessities of all nations, it could not now be established. I would not bring one other African to this continent. The principles and prejudices of the whole world are against it. But the entire world has helped to build up the institution, through the progress of centuries. The whole world is deriving advantages from its continuance, and the whole world has not the right to abolish it, if, by doing so, they should destroy (as I have endeavored to prove that they would) 4,000,000 of people, or render their condition far worse than it is, and destruction or ruin to the master. If the institution is beneficial to mankind; if it has elevated a part of the African race to a position in civilization, intelligence, morality, religion, and the comforts of human life, which have never been attained by any other portion of that degraded race; and if the discipline of slavery is essentially necessary to sustain this improved position, and prevent a recession to its original condition of indolence, ignorance, superstition, and depravity — the whole world should unite in sustaining it, and give every encouragement in raising it to a still higher degree of civilization, intelligence, and respectability, and a still higher degree of usefulness to mankind. It may be in the Providence of God that the American Union, which has cheered the whole world with its promises, like the star which stood for a while over the cradle of Bethlehem, may fall and lose its light forever. It may be in his dispensation of human events, that the great American family shall be divided into many nations. But divided or united, the path of destiny must lead the Anglo-Saxon race to the mastery of this whole continent. And if the whole column should not advance, the division of this race will, with the institution of African slavery, advance from the banks of the Rio Grande to the line under the sun, establishing in their march the waymarks of progress, the altars of the reformed religion, the temples of a higher civilization, a purer liberty, and a better system of human government. And when this great work shall be done, as all the