Page:Andrew Erwin - Gen. Jackson's Negro Speculations (1828).djvu/12

 You have there admitted too much, and yet you presumed too much upon the supposed "profound ignorance" of your accusers, and the imagined weakness of their proofs. Before you venture again to make a public statement on the subject, I advise you carefully to review all those books and papers, which you have now so snugly concealed, but the contents of which may, perhaps, at some future day, be made to rise up in judgment against you. But I repeat it, you have admitted too much, and 1 now quote a sentence from this, your labored defence, as most conclusive against you.

'On the 18th May, 1811, Joseph Coleman, Horace Green and Andrew Jackson entered into articles of agreement with R. Apperson for the purchase of a number of negroes. The terms of payment were, $2,050 in hand, $4000 at the expiration of six, and $4.000 more at the expiration of twelve months.—For the payment of the two last mentioned sums, Coleman, Green, and Jackson, were to give their bills on a house in Philadelphia, and for further security in case the bills were dishonored, they gave their notes for similar sums, payable in the Bank of Nashville. These are the provisions of the contract, on which the charge of negro trading has been preferred against Gen. Jackson.'

"Here, sir, is your own confession, and what more is required to fix upon you conclusively the correctness of the charge? It is no longer necessary to search for old bank books, or papers, or secret memoranda. Here is your own statement published to the world, and founded on a copy of the original agreement, deposited with your printers. You did then, in company with two other persons, enter into a written agreement for the purchase of negroes, amounting to $10,050, and you gave your notes and drew your bills—in the name of the firm I suppose, "Coleman, Green, and Jackson"—for the payment of the purchase money. It is not pretended that these negroes were bought for the permanent use of either of the partners. Neither yourself, nor Coleman, nor Green, intended to keep them. The avowed object of the purchase was a sale for profit. Here then the matter is at rest. You were, according to your own admission, concerned in negro trading. You were a partner to a contract—a deliberate written contract,—for the purchase of negroes amounting to $10,050, which negroes were bought solely for the purpose of being sold again for the sake of profit. It surely then is not necessary to argue further on this subject, nor to search among old rubbish for private papers to prove the charge. You have yourself publicly admitted it. I am not about to enquire into the degree of criminality or impropriety, if any, attendant on such a transaction. The fact is all I have now to do with. Whether it be right or wrong to deal in human flesh with a view to gain, to buy up and transport to a distant market, like so many cattle, unfortunate fellow creatures, who happen to be of a different color from ourselves, is a question which I leave for every man to settle for himself. But that you, Andrew Jackson, were once a partner to a speculation of that kind, cannot now be denied, for it has been admitted by yourself, and is proved by the written contract deposited by you in the hands of your printers.