Discussion on American Slavery. Thompson George
able to tell what they were. It must, however, be very clear, that to accuse my country, in one breath, for treating the negroes, bond and free, as if they were not human beings at all – and to accuse her in the next, of fostering and encouraging slavery, for allowing so large a proportion of the blacks to be a part of the basis of national representation in all the states, and then, in the third, because the whole are not so treated, to be more abusive than ever – is merely to show plainly, how earnestly an occasion is sought to traduce America, and how hard it is to find one. He came now to the last charge. He himself, it seems, had admitted, on former occasions, that slavery was a national evil. He certainly did believe that the people of America, whether anti-slavery or pro-slavery, would be happier and better, in conscience and feelings, were slavery abolished. He believed that every interest would be benefited by such an event, whether political, moral, or social. The existence of slavery was one of the greatest evils of the world, but it was not the crime of all the world. Though, therefore, he considered slavery a national evil, it was not to be inferred that he viewed it as a national crime. The cogency of such an argument was equal to the candor of the citation on which it was founded. He would now come to matters rather more personal. In enumerating the great numbers of anti-slavery societies in America, Mr. Thompson had paraded one as formed in Kentucky, for the whole state. Now, he would venture to say that there were not ten persons in that whole State, holding anti-slavery principles, in the Garrison sense of the word. If this was to be judged a fair specimen of the hundreds of societies boasted of by Mr. Thompson, there would turn out but a beggarly account of them. He found also the name of Groton, Massachusetts, as the location of one of the societies in the boasted list. He had once preached, and spoken on the subject of slavery, in that sweet little village, and been struck with the scene of peace and happiness which it presented. He afterwards met the clergyman of that village in the city of Baltimore, and asked him what had caused him to leave the field of his labors. The clergyman answered, that the anti-slavery people had invaded his peaceful village, and transformed it into such a scene of strife that he preferred to leave it. And so it was. The pestilence, which, like a storm of fire and brimstone from hell, always followed the track of abolitionism, had overtaken many a peaceful village, and driven its pastor to seek elsewhere a field not yet blasted by it. He would conclude by remarking, that Mr. Thompson and he (Mr. B.) were now speaking, as it were, in the face of two worlds, for Western Europe was the world to America. And it was for England to know – that the opinion of America – that America which already contained a larger reading population than the whole of Britain – was as important to her, as hers could be to us. What he had said of Mr. Garrison and of Mr. Wright, he had said; and he was ready to answer for it in the face of God and man. But he had something else to do, he thanked God, than to go about the country carrying placards, ready to be produced on all occasions. Nor where he was known, was such a course needful, to establish what he said. When those gentlemen should make their appearance, in defence or explanation of what he had said, he would be the better able to judge – whether it would be proper for him to take any notice – and if any, what – of the defence for which Mr. Thompson had so frankly pledged himself. In the mean time, he would say to that gentleman himself, that his attempts at brow-beating were lost upon him.
Mr. THOMPSON said he should commence with the end of his opponent's speech, and notice what that gentleman had said in regard to the charges brought by him against William Lloyd Garrison and Elizur Wright. It appeared as if Mr. Breckinridge expected that, because in his own country his character for veracity stood high, that therefore, he was entitled, if he chose, to enter an assembly of twelve hundred persons in Great Britain, and utter the gravest charges against certain individuals 3,000 miles away, and when called upon as he had been for proof, that he had nothing to do but turn round and say, 'Why, I am not bound to furnish proof; let the parties accused demonstrate their innocence.' This was American justice with a vengeance. This might be Kentucky law, or Lynch law, but could hardly be called justice by any assembly of honest and impartial persons. Such justice might suit the neighborhood of Vicksburg, but it would not recommend itself to a Scotish audience. He (Mr. T.) would not undertake at this time the task of justifying the men who had been calumniated. He knew these gentlemen, and had no doubt when they heard the charges preferred against them in this country, they would be able and ready to clear themselves before the world. He would not say that Mr. Breckinridge did not himself believe the allegations to be true, but he would say that had that gentleman possessed a knowledge of the true character of those he had spoken against – had he known them as he (Mr. T.) knew them, he would have held them incapable of the dark deeds alleged against them. With regard to Mr. B's remarks upon the number of the slave population, the amount of the troops in the United States, and the existence of slavery in the district of Columbia, he must say that they were nothing but special pleadings; that the whole was a complete specimen of what the lawyers termed pettifogging. He (Mr. T.) was not prepared to hear a minister say that because only 1500 troops out of 6000 were found in the southern states, that, therefore, the nation was not implicated – that because, if the slavery of the district was abolished, there would be no fewer slaves in the country – that, therefore, the seat of government should not be cleansed from its abomination. He would remind his opponent that they were discussing a question of principle, and that the scriptures had declared that he who was unjust in the least, was unjust also in the greatest. Mr. Breckinridge had still cautiously avoided naming the parties in the United States who were responsible for the sin of Slavery. They were told that neither New Hampshire nor Massachusetts, nor any other of the Northern states were to blame; that the government was not to blame, nor, had it even yet been said, that the Southern states were to blame. Still the aggregate of the guilt belonged somewhere; and if the parties to whom reference had been made were to be exculpated, at whose door, he would ask, were the sin and shame of the system to be laid. The gentleman with whom he was debating had repeatedly told him (Mr. T.) that he did not understand 'the system.' He frankly confessed that he did not. It was a mystery of iniquity which he could not pretend to fathom; but he thought he might add that the Americans themselves, at least the Colonizationists, did not seem to understand it very well neither, for they had been operating for a very long time, without effecting any favorable change in the system. A word with regard to the representation of slaves in Congress. Mr. B. had spoken as if he had intended to have it understood, that the slaves were themselves benefited by that representation – that it was a partial representation of the slave population by persons in their interest. How stood the fact? The slaves were not at all represented as men, but as things. They swelled, it was true, the number of members upon the floor of Congress, but that extra number only helped to rivet their bonds tightly upon them, being as they were, in the interest of the tyrant, and themselves slaveholders, and not in the interest of the slaves. What said John Quincy Adams in his celebrated report on the Tariff: —
'The representation of the slave population in this House has, from the establishment of the Constitution of the United States, amounted to rather more than one-tenth of the whole number. In the present Congress (1833,) it is equivalent to twenty-two votes; in the next Congress it will amount to twenty-five. This is a combined and concentrated power, always operating to the support and exclusive favor of the slave-holding interest.'
Here was a mighty engine in the cause of oppression. It was a wicked misrepresentation to say that the slaves were benefited by such an arrangement. Instead of being a lever in their hands to aid them in the overthrow of the system which was crushing them, it was a vast addition of strength to the ranks of their tyrants, who went to Congress to cry down discussion, to cry up Lynch law, and shout Hail Columbia. Mr. Thompson then proceeded to give some account of the Maryland Colonization scheme.
The first movement on the subject was in March, 1831, when Mr. Brawner submitted the following resolutions to the Maryland Legislature, which were by that assembly adopted. He begged particular attention both to the letter and spirit of this document, exhibiting as it did, the feelings of 'the good people of the state' towards the colored population: —
Resolved, That the increased proportion of the free people of color in this state, to the white population, the evils growing out of their connection and unrestrained association with the slaves their habits and manner of obtaining a subsistence, and their withdrawing a large portion of employment from the laboring class of the white population, are subjects of momentous and grave consideration to the good people of this state.
Resolved, That