Page:The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade.djvu/503

 framed their several-constitutions. He would not now discuss the propriety of admitting slavery. It is not now a question whether it is politic or impolitic to tolerate slavery in the United States, or in a particular state. It was a discussion into which he would not permit himself to be dragged. Admit, however, its moral impropriety, yet there was a vast difference between moral impropriety and political sovereignty. The people of New York or Pennsylvania may deem it highly immoral and politically improper to permit slavery, but yet they possess the sovereign right and power to permit it, if they choose. They can to-morrow so alter their constitutions and laws as to admit it, if they were so disposed. It is a branch of sovereignty which the old thirteen states never surrender in the adoption of the federal constitution. Now, the bill proposes that the new state shall be admitted upon an equal footing with the other states of the Union. It is in this way only that she can be admitted under the constitution. These words can have no other meaning than that she shall be required to surrender no more of her rights of sovereignty than the other states, into a union with which she is about to be admitted, have surrendered. But if the proposed amendment is adopted, will not this new state be shorn of one branch of her sovereignty, one right, which the other states may and have exercised, (whether properly or not, is immaterial,) and do now exercise whenever they think fit?

Mr. C. observed that he did conceive the principle involved in the amendment pregnant with danger. It was one, he repeated, to which he believed the people of the region of country which he represented, would not quietly submit. He might, perhaps, subject himself to ridicule, for attempting the display of a spirit of prophecy which he did not possess, or of zeal and enthusiasm for which he was entitled to little credit. But he warned the advocates of this measure against the certain effects which it must produce — effects destructive of the peace and harmony of the Union. He believed that they were kindling a fire which all the waters of the ocean could not extinguish. It could be extinguished only in blood!

Mr. Livermore, of New Hampshire, said: I am in favor of the proposed amendment. The object of it is to prevent the extension of slavery over the territory ceded to the United States by France. It accords with the dictates of reason, and the best feelings of the human heart; and is not calculated to interrupt any legitimate right arising either from the constitution or any other compact. I propose to show what slavery is, and to mention a few of the many evils which follow in its train; and I hope to evince that we are not bound to tolerate the existence of so disgraceful a state of things beyond its present extent, and that it would be impolitic and very unjust to let it spread over the whole face of our western territory. Slavery in the United States is the condition of man subjected to the will of a master, who can make any disposition of him short of taking away his life. In those states where it is tolerated, laws are enacted, making it penal to instruct slaves in the art of reading, and they are not permitted to attend public worship, or to hear the gospel preached. Thus the light of science and of religion is utterly excluded