13, |Favorable, bill | | | |Relat’s|1862 | | 41|Senate|Mr. Sumner |Foreign|Jan. 20, |Favorable, bill | | | |Relat’s|1863 | | --+------+-----------------+-------+---------+----------------+-------- NO PROPERTY IN MAN: UNIVERSAL EMANCIPATION WITHOUT COMPENSATION. SPEECH IN THE SENATE, ON THE CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT ABOLISHING SLAVERY THROUGHOUT THE UNITED STATES, APRIL 8, 1864. The property in horses was the gift of God to man at the creation of the world; the property in slaves is property held and acquired by crime, differing in no moral aspect from the pillage of a freebooter, and to which no lapse of time can give a prescriptive right--JOHN QUINCY ADAMS, _Speech at Bridgewater_, November 6, 1844. * * * * * Swift with her Pand she issued and unclosed The loathsome sties wherein the swine reposed. … They men became, but younger than before, More beauteous far, and far majestic more. _Odyssey_, tr. SOTHEBY, Book X. 398-407. * * * * * The Christian religion is equal in its operation, and is accommodated to every nation on the globe. It robs no one of his freedom, violates none of his inherent rights, on the ground that he is a slave by nature, as pretended; and it well becomes your Majesty to banish so monstrous an oppression from your kingdoms in the beginning of your reign, that the Almighty may make it long and glorious.--LAS CASAS, _Address before Charles V.: Prescott’s History of the Conquest of Mexico_, Vol. I. p. 379, Note. * * * * * In a clause of his will Cortés expresses a doubt whether it is right to exact personal service from the natives, and commands that a strict inquiry shall be made into the nature and value of such services as he had received, and that in all cases a fair compensation shall be allowed for them. Lastly, he makes this remarkable declaration: “It has long been a question, whether one can conscientiously hold property in Indian slaves. Since this point has not yet been determined, I enjoin it on my son Martin and his heirs that they spare no pains to come to an exact knowledge of the truth, as a matter which deeply concerns the conscience of each of them, no less than mine.”--CORTÉS, _his Testament_: Ibid., Vol. III. p. 345. * * * * *