Page:The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade.djvu/487

 uttered an unfriendly personal remark on this floor; but I wish it distinctly understood, that the immutable laws of self-defense will justify going to great lengths, and that, in the future progress of this debate, the rights of defense would be regarded.

Sir, has it already come to this, that in the congress of the United States — that, in the legislative councils of republican America, the subject of slavery has become a subject of so much feeling, of such delicacy, of such danger, that it cannot safely be discussed? Are members who venture to express their sentiments on this subject to be accused of talking to the galleries, with intention to excite a servile war; and of meriting the fate of Arbuthnot and Ambrister? Are we to be told of the dissolution of the Union, of civil war, and seas of blood? And yet, with such awful threatenings before us, do gentlemen in the same breath insist upon the encouragement of this evil — upon the extension of this monstrous scourge of the human race? An evil so fraught with such dire calamities to us as individuals, and to our nation, and threatening, in its progress, to overwhelm the civil and religious institutions of the country, with the liberties of the nation, ought at once to be met, and to be controlled. If its power, its influence, and its Impending dangers have already arrived at such a point that it is not safe to discuss it on this floor, and it cannot now pass under consideration as a proper subject for general legislation, what will be the result when it has spread through your widely-extended domain? Its present threatening aspect, and the violence of its supporters, so far from inducing me to yield to its progress, prompt me to resist its march. Now is the time. It must now be met, and the extension of the evil must now be prevented, or the occasion is irrecoverably lost, and the evil can never be controlled.

Sir, extend your view across the Mississippi, over your newly-acquired territory — a territory so far surpassing, in extent, the limits of your present country, that that country which gave birth to your nation, which achieved your revolution, consolidated your Union, formed your constitution, and has subsequently acquired so much glory, hangs but as an appendage to the extended empire 07er which your republican government is now called to bear sway. Look down the long vista of futurity; see your empire, in extent unequaled, in advantageous situation without a parallel, and occupying all the valuable part of one continent. Behold this extended empire, inhabited by the hardy sons of American freemen, knowing their rights, and inheriting the will to protect them — owners of the soil on which they live, and interested in the institutions which they labor to defend; with two oceans laving your shores, and tributary to your purposes, bearing on their bosoms the commerce of our people; compared to yours, the governments of Europe dwindle into insignificance, and the whole world is without a parallel. But, sir, reverse this scene: people this fair domain with the slaves of your planters; extend slavery, this bane of man, this abomination of heaven, over your extended empire, and you prepare its dissolution; you turn its accumulated strength into positive weakness; you cherish a canker in your breast; you put poison in your bosom; you