Page:Report of Senate Select Committee on the Invasion of Harper's Ferry.pdf/25

Rh though not "implicated" in this affair, yet hold such opinions and pursue such courses on the subject of slavery as are dangerous to the national tranquillity, even although Congress has no power to take any action in relation thereto. This we regard as a departure from the duty and proper power of the committee. Upon this view of the committee, by its majority, great latitude and range of inquiry has been taken in the examination, and equal latitude of remark indulged in the report. Witnesses, and especially those known or suspected of ultra abolition sentiments, have been freely examined as to their personal sentiments, theories, purposes, conduct, charities, contributions, lectures, and speeches on the subject of slavery. They have even called a witness to prove that he and others had conspired to be guilty of the charity of providing for a poor, wounded prisoner, in a land of strangers, the necessary counsel able to secure him a fair trial, as if that was evidence of their complicity with his guilt. We feel bound to protest against all the conclusions which the same spirit of suspicion which could call such testimony will seek to deduce from it.

So long as Congress, in the exercise of its power over the Territories, is invoked to exert it to extend, perpetuate, or protect the institution of slavery therein; so long as the policy of the government is sought to be so shaped as to aid to extend its existence or enlarge its power, in any way, beyond its present limits, so long must its moral, political, and social character and effects be unavoidably involved in congressional discussion. Hence, it is equally unavoidable that the people in all parts of the Union will discuss this subject, as they are to select those who are to represent them and their sentiments in congressional action. So long as slavery is claimed before the world as a highly benignant, elevating, and humanizing institution, and as having Divine approbation, it will receive at the hands of the moralist, civilian, and theologian the most free and unflinching discussion; nor should its vindicators wince in the combat which their claims invite. In this discussion, it is true, as in other topics of exciting debate, wide latitude and license are, at times, indulged, but it seldom or never exceeds in severity the terms of reprehension on this subject which were long since indulged by Washington, Madison, Jefferson, Mason, and, in later times, by McDowell, Faulkner, and their worthy compeers, all of Virginia, whose information and opinions, on this as well as other subjects, the people of the free States have not yet learned to disrespect. We insist, however, that there is no such matter presented in the testimony or existing in fact, as is more than intimated in the report, that even the abolitionists in the free States take courses intended, covertly, to produce forcible violations of the laws and peace of the slaveholding States, much less that any such course is countenanced by the body of the people in the free States. We cannot join in any report tending to promulgate such a view, as we regard it unfounded in fact and ill calculated to promote peace, confidence, or tranquillity, and a departure from the legitimate purpose for which the committee was appointed.