‘Degrading influence of slavery’—Reply of Judge Critcher to Mr. Hoar.
In the debate on Education in the House of Representatives,
Mr. Hoar, of
Massachusetts, remarked that slavery in the
South was not so observable in the degradation of the slave as in the depravity of the master.
Mr. Critcher, of
Virginia, replied: Reminding the gentleman from
Massachusetts that every signer of the
Declaration of Independence, except those from his State, and perhaps one or two others, were slave-owners, he would venture to make a bold assertion; he would venture to say that he could name more eminent men from the parish of his residence, than the gentleman could name from the
Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
He would proceed to name them, and yield the floor to the gentleman to match them if he could.
On one side of his estate is
Wakefield, the birth-place of
Washington.
On the other side is
Stratford, the residence of Light Horse
Harry Lee, of glorious Revolutionary memory.
Adjoining
Stratford is
Chantilly, the residence of
Richard Henry Lee, the mover of the
Declaration of Independence, and the Cicero of the
American Revolution.
There lived
Francis Lightfoot Lee, one of the signers of the
Declaration of Independence.
Charles Lee, at one time
Washington's
Attorney-General; and
Arthur Lee, the accomplished negotiator of the treaty of commerce and alliance between the Colonies and
France in 1777.
Returning, as said before, you come first to the birth-place of
Washington; another hour's drive will bring you to the birth-place of
Monroe; another hour's drive to the birth-place of
Madison, and if the gentleman supposes that the present generation is unworthy of their illustrious ancestors, he has but to stand on the same estate to see the massive chimneys of the baronial mansion that witnessed the birth of
Robert E. Lee.
These are some of the eminent men from the parish of his residence, and he yielded the floor, that the gentleman might match them, if he could, from the
Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
