Page:The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade.djvu/527

 had been only 8 per cent.; in North Carolina 21, and in South Carolina 31 per cent The rapid settlement of the southwest had stimulated the domestic slave-trade, and the market was supplied chiefly from Maryland and Virginia, which accounts for the decrease in the former, and the small increase in the latter state. Slavery in Tennessee had increased 79 per cent.; in Mississippi 92, and in Louisiana 99 per cent.

At the session of 1824-6, Mr. King, senator from New York, offered a resolution proposing to appropriate, after the payment of the public debt, the eds of the sales of public lands, to aid in the emancipation of slaves, and also the colonizing of free people of color without the limits of the United States. This resolution was never called up by the mover, being intended, as was supposed, merely for record as his opinion. Similar propositions were sent to congress by state legislatures in the form of resolutions. About the same time, Mr. Wirt, attorney-general of the United States, gave an official opinion that a law of South Carolina, authorizing the imprisonment of colored mariners, was unconstitutional. These acts took place at the time of the famous controversy between governor Troup, of Georgia, and the general government, in reference to the removal of the Creek Indians; and the governor, in convening a special session of the legislature, directed attention to them in his message. As the proceedings of the governor and his legislature were not productive of any brilliant results, they are only referred to as to something especially ludicrous.

These acts of Mr. King and Mr. Wirt, were pronounced by the governor in his message, "officious and impertinent intermeddlings with our domestic concerns." The doctrine of the attorney-general, if sanctioned by the supreme court, "would make it quite easy for congress, by a short decree, to divest this entire interest, without cost to themselves of one dollar, or of one acre of public land. If the government of the United States wishes a principle established which it dare not establish for itself, a cause made before the supreme court, and the principle once settled, the act of congress follows of course. One movement of congress unresisted by you, and all is lost. Temporize no longer, make known your resolution, that this subject shall not be touched by them but at their peril. If this matter (slavery) be an evil, it is our own; if it be a sin, we can implore the forgiveness of it. To remove it we ask not either their sympathy or assistance. It may be our physical weakness — it is our moral strength. If, like the Greeks and Romans, we cease to be masters, we are slaves. I entreat you most earnestly, now that it is not too late, to step forth, and, having exhausted the argument, to stand by your arms."

This subject was referred to a select committee, who presented to the house a report responding to the feelings and sentiments of the governor. "The hour is come," says the committee, "or is rapidly approaching, when the states, from Virginia to Georgia, from Missouri to Louisiana, must confederate, and, as one man, say to the Union: We will no longer submit our retained rights to the sniveling insinuations of bad men on the floor of congress — our constitutional rights to the dark and strained construction of designing men upon