Charles Sumner: his complete works, volume 03 (of 20)Sumner, Charles
History
Charles Sumner: his complete works, volume 03 (of 20)
Sumner, Charles
Slavery -- United States; Speeches, addresses, etc., American
Two props and stays of Slavery are weakened and undermined by
Congressional legislation. Without the _slave-trade_ and without the
_lash_, Slavery must fall to earth. By these the whole monstrosity
is upheld. If I seem to exaggerate the consequence of these measures
of Abolition, you will pardon it to a sincere conviction of their
powerful, though subtile and indirect influence, quickened by a desire
to find something good in a Congress which has furnished occasion for
so much disappointment. Other measures there are which must be regarded
not only with regret, but with indignation and disgust. [_Sensation._]
Two broad territories, New Mexico and Utah, under the exclusive
jurisdiction of Congress, have been organized without any prohibition
of Slavery. In laying the foundation of their governments, destined
hereafter to control the happiness of innumerable multitudes, Congress
has omitted the Great Ordinance of Freedom, first moved by Jefferson,
and consecrated by the experience of the Northwestern Territory: thus
rejecting those principles of Human Liberty which are enunciated in
our Declaration of Independence, which are essential to every Bill of
Rights, and without which a Republic is a name and nothing more.
Still further, a vast territory, supposed to be upwards of seventy
thousand square miles in extent, larger than all New England, has been
taken from New Mexico, and, with ten million dollars besides, given
to slaveholding Texas: thus, under the plea of settling the western
boundary of Texas, securing to this State a large sum of money, and
consigning to certain Slavery an important territory.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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