Slavery: What it was, what it has done, what it intends to do: Speech of Hon. Cydnor B. Tompkins, of OhioTompkins, Cydnor Bailey
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Slavery: What it was, what it has done, what it intends to do: Speech of Hon. Cydnor B. Tompkins, of Ohio
Tompkins, Cydnor Bailey
Slavery -- United States -- Speeches in Congress
All these things I have charged as aggressions of slavery are national
aggressions, for which the slavery party, having control of the
administration of this Government, are responsible. I charge them as
direct, positive aggressions, on the rights of the free people of the
North. In addition to these great national aggressions, there are
numerous similar infringements upon the rights of individuals of the
North--of tarring and feathering, of whipping--acts of such barbarity
and cruelty, that it would chill a man's blood to hear them recited.
Recently, a whole community of moral, peaceable citizens were driven
from their homes, compelled to abandon their property, and seek refuge
in a free State, from the violence of slaveholders. There are, no doubt,
many good and humane men in slave States, who deprecate these wrongs;
but they dare not utter a word--every mouth must be stopped, every lip
must be sealed, every voice must be hushed, all must be silent as the
grave--the most inexorable despotism reigns supreme.
Having endeavored to show what slavery was, and what it has done, I now
propose to show what it intends to do. Its advocates claim that the
territory now belonging to the Government is the common property of all
the States, having been acquired by the common blood and treasure of
all; that, therefore, the inhabitants of the slave States have a right
to emigrate to the Territories, and take with them their slaves. I am
willing to admit that the inhabitants of one section of the country have
just the same rights in the Territories that the inhabitants of another
section have. I say it would be an act of injustice to deny one man any
right in the Territory that another man has, and would be just cause of
complaint. But I am not willing to give to a man from a slave State any
greater rights than to a man from a free State. And when I have admitted
that all have the same constitutional rights in the Territories, I have
by no means admitted that men from the South have a right to hold slaves
in the Territories. You may go, and take your slaves with you, if you
have a mind to run the risk; I say you shall not take your slave laws
with you.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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