Xxxviii.
The actual number of slaveholders in the country was for a long time unknown, and, on this account, was naturally exaggerated. It was often represented to be very great. On one occasion, a distinguished Representative from Massachusetts, whose name will be ever cherished for his devotion to Human Rights, the Hon. Horace Mann, was rudely interrupted on the floor of Congress by a member from Alabama, who averred that the number of slaveholders was as many as three millions. At that time there was no official document by which this assumption could be corrected. But at last we have it. The late census, taken in 1850, shows that the whole number of this peculiar class—embracing men, women and children, all told, who are so unfortunate as to hold slaves—was only three hundred and forty-seven thousand; and, of this number, the larger part are small slaveholders, leaving only ninety-two thousand persons as the owners of the great mass of slaves, and as the substantial representatives of this class. And yet this small company—sometimes called the Slave Power, or Black Power, better called the Slave Oligarchy—now dominates over the Republic, determines its national policy, disposes of its offices, and sways all to its absolute will. Yes, fellow-citizens, it is an Oligarchy—odious beyond precedent; heartless, grasping, tyrannical; careless of humanity, right or the Constitution; wanting that foundation of justice which is the essential base of every civilized community; stuck together only by [208] confederacy in spoliation; and constituting in itself a magnum latrocinium; while it degrades the Free States to the condition of a slave plantation, under the lash of a vulgar, despised and revolting overseer. There is nothing in the National Government which the Slave Oligarchy does not appropriate. It entered into and possessed both the old political parties, Whig and Democrat—as witness their servile resolutions at Baltimore—making them one in subserviency, though double in form; and renewing in them the mystery of the Siamese twins, which, though separate in body and different in name, were constrained, by an unnatural ligament, to a community of exertion. It now holds the keys of every office, from that of President down to the humblest Postmaster, compelling all to do its bidding. It organizes the Cabinet. It directs the Army and Navy. It manages every department of public business. It presides over the census. It controls the Smithsonian Institution, founded by the generous charity of a foreigner, to promote the interests of knowledge. It subsidizes the national press, alike in the national capital and in the remotest village of the North. It sits in the chair of the President of the Senate, and also in the chair of the Speaker of the House. It arranges the Committees of both bodies, placing at their head only the servitors of Slavery, and excluding therefrom the friends of Freedom, though entitled to such places by their character and the States they represent; and thus it controls the legislation of the country. In maintaining its power, the Slave Oligarchy has applied a test for office very different from that of Jefferson, ‘Is he honest? Is he capable? Is he faithful to the Constitution?’ These things are all forgotten now in the single question, ‘Is he faithful to Slavery?’ With arrogant ostracism it excludes from every national office all who cannot respond to this test. So complete and irrational has this tyranny become, that at this moment, while I now speak, could Washington, or Jefferson, or Franklin, once more descend from their spheres above, to mingle in our affairs and bless us with their wisdom, not one of them, with his recorded, unretracted opinions on Slavery could receive a nomination for the Presidency from either of the political parties calling themselves national; nor, stranger still, could either of these sainted patriots, whose names alone open a perpetual fountain of gratitude in all your hearts, be confirmed by the Senate of the United States for any political function whatever, not even for the office of Postmaster. What I now say, amidst your natural astonishment, I have often said before in addressing the people, and more than once uttered from my seat in the Senate, and no man there has made answer, for no man who sat in [209] its secret sessions, and there learned the test which is practically applied, could make answer; and I ask you to accept this statement as my testimony, derived from the experience of four years which has been my lot under the commission which I have received from our honored Commonwealth. Yes, fellow-citizens, had this test prevailed in the earlier days, Washington—first in war, first in peace, first in the hearts of his countrymen—could not have been created generalissimo of the American forces; Jefferson could not have taken his place on the Committee to draft the Declaration of Independence; and Franklin could not have gone forth to France, with the commission of the infant Republic, to secure the invaluable alliance of that ancient kingdom. All tyranny, like murder, is foul at the best; but this is most foul, strange and unnatural, when it is considered that the States which are the home of the Slave Oligarchy are far inferior to the Free States in population, wealth, education, schools, churches, libraries, manufactures and resources of all kinds. By the last census, there was in the Free States a solid population of freemen, amounting to upwards of thirteen millions, while in the Slave States there was a like population of only six millions. In other respects, important to civilization, the disparity was as great. And yet, from the beginning, they have taken to themselves the lion's share among the honors and trusts of the Republic. But without exposing the game of political ‘sweepstakes’ which the Slave Oligarchy has perpetually played—interesting as it would be—I prefer to hold up for one moment the assumptions, aggressions and usurpations by which, in defiance of the Constitution, it has made Slavery national, when it is, in reality, sectional. Early in this century, when the District of Columbia was fiually occupied as the National Capital, the Slave Oligarchy succeeded, in defiance of the spirit of the Constitution, and even of the express letter of one of its amendments, in securing for Slavery, within the District, the countenance of the National Government. Until then Slavery had existed nowhere on the land within the reach and exclusive jurisdiction of this Government. The Slave Oligarchy next secured for Slavery another recognition under the National Government, in the broad territory of Louisiana, purchased from France. The Slave Oligarchy next placed Slavery again under the sanction of the National Government, in the territory of Florida, purchased from Spain. The Slave Oligarchy, waxing powerful, was able, after a severe struggle, [210] to dictate terms to the National Government, in the Missouri Compromise, compelling it to receive that State into the Union with a slave-holding Constitution. The Slave Oligarchy instigated and carried on a most expensive war in Florida, mainly to recover fugitive slaves, thus degrading the army of the United States to be Slave-hunters. The Slave Oligarchy wrested from Mexico the Province of Texas, and, triumphing over all opposition, finally secured its admission into the Union, with a Constitution making Slavery perpetual. The Slave Oligarchy plunged the country in war with Mexico, in order to gain new lands for Slavery. The Slave Oligarchy, with the meanness as well as the insolence of tyranny, has compelled the National Government to abstain from acknowledging the neighbor republic of Hayti, where slaves have become freemen, and established an independent nation. The Slave Oligarchy has compelled the National Government to stoop ignobly before the British Queen, to secure compensation for slaves, who, in the exercise of the natural rights of man, had asserted and achieved their freedom on the Atlantic Ocean, and afterwards sought shelter in Bermuda. The Slave Oligarchy has compelled the National Government to seek to negotiate treaties for the surrender of fugitive slaves, thus making our Republic assert abroad, in foreign lands, property in human flesh. The Slave Oligarchy has joined in declaring the foreign slave-trade piracy, but insists on the coastwise slave-trade, under the auspices of the National Government. The Slave Oligarchy for several years rejected the petitions to Congress adverse to Slavery, thus, in order to shield this wrong, practically denying the right of petition. The Slave Oligarchy, in defiance of the privileges secured under the Constitution of the United States, imprisons the free colored citizens of Massachusetts, and sometimes sells them into bondage. The Slave Oligarchy insulted and exiled from Charleston and New Orleans the honored representatives of Massachusetts, who were sent to those places with the commission of the Commonwealth, in order to throw the shield of the Constitution over her colored citizens. The Slave Oligarchy has, by the pen of Mr. Calhoun, as Secretary of State, in formal despatches, made the Republic stand before the nations of the earth as the vindicator of Slavery. [211] The Slave Oligarchy has put forth the hideous effrontery that Slavery can go to all newly acquired territories, and enjoy the protection of the National Flag. The Slave Oligarchy has imposed upon the country an Act of Congress, for the recovery of fugitive slaves, revolting in its mandates, and many times unconstitutional; especially on two grounds, first, as a usurpation by Congress of powers not granted by the Constitution, and an infraction of rights secured to the States; and secondly, as a denial of Trial by Jury, in a question of Personal Liberty, and a suit at common law. The Slave Oligarchy, in defiance of the declared desires of the Fathers to limit and discourage Slavery, has successively introduced into the Union, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Missouri, Arkansas and Texas, as slave-holding States, thus, at each stage fortifying its political power, and making the National Government give new sanction to Slavery. Such, fellow-citizens, are some of the assumptions, aggressions and usurpations of the Slave Oligarchy! By such steps the National Government has been perverted from its original purposes, its character changed, and its powers all surrendered to Slavery. Surely, no patriot soul can listen to this recital without confessing that our first political duty is, at all hazards and without compromise, to oppose this Oligarchy, to dislodge it from the National Government, and to bring the administration back to that character which it enjoyed when first organized under Washington, himself an Abolitionist, and surrounded by Abolitionists, while the whole country, by its Church, its Colleges, its Literature, and all its best voices, was united against Slavery, and the National Flag nowhere within the national territory covered a single slave.
