Cydnor Bailey Tompkins

“ Six million white men, women, and children, who have to obtain their living by labor, are condemned to perpetual degradation and ignorance, by which three hundred and fifty thousand slaveholders can govern and control the destinies of the millions of people in the slave States; and not only of those people, but of this great country of ours. They not only claim the right to take their negroes into the Territories, but they claim to take laws there that will deny to every man the freedom of speech and the liberty of the press. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Is not a great party now engaged in the ungrateful task of forging chains for a large portion of the people of this country? Instead of supporting freedom, does it not advocate slavery and oppression? Have we not reason to suspect that too many of our countrymen have ceased to be virtuous? ”

“ If the slaveholder is permitted to go into the Territories, and take his slave laws, habits, and customs, the people of the free States are to a great extent excluded therefrom, and deprived of all rights therein.
But slaveholders say they will go; they will take their slaves, and their slave code; they will establish there such a despotism as reigns in some of the slave States; they will poison the air that surrounds the fertile plains of the West, until freedom shall sicken and die ”

“ Forty years ago, a slave Territory applied for admission to the Union as a State. The friends of freedom objected that its reception would be contrary to the policy of our Government. "Admit it," it was urged, "with its present Constitution, and we will consent to a line of demarkation, north of which slavery shall never pass." This was solemnly agreed to before the whole world; and this compact, forced upon the country by the slave power, was claimed by it as a great triumph of slavery. Men at the North felt that this was a great aggression, a great outrage upon freedom ”

“ The section they represent would still remain under the Constitution and laws of the United States, and our glorious flag would still wave over its fertile plains and lofty mountains, its woody dells and shelving rocks, its gurgling fountains and rippling rills. Good, loyal, and patriotic men would come here to fill the vacant places, ready and able to discharge their duty to the country, and to the whole country. ”

“ There are, I presume, not more than one hundred thousand men in this country who feel any desire to extend the boundaries of slavery, or who would, had they the power, add one other slave State to the Union. ”

“ Take from place and power the men whose hands and faces are reeking and smoking with the blood of our people in Kansas, and put them to death. Punish the thousands of others who have committed acts of violence against free-State men, and are yet unwhipped of justice. ”

“ What would be said if a body of men, equally wise, good, and patriotic, should now meet in the Old Dominion, and attempt to pass such resolutions? They would be scourged, driven by violence from the State, and might be considered fortunate should they escape with their lives. At a meeting in New Bern, North Carolina, August, 1774, numerously attended by the most distinguished men of that region, it was resolved that they would not import any slave or slaves, or purchase any slave or slaves imported or brought into that province by others from any part of the world. ”

“ If a citizen of any slave State leaves it, and goes into a free State or Territory to reside, he takes with him none of the rights or powers with which his State clothed him while he remained therein. He can take with him such articles as, by the universal consent of mankind, are considered property, and exercise ownership over them. When at home, I am a legal voter; I can vote for any State or county officer, or President of the United States. ”

“ George Mason, of Virginia, stigmatized the slave trade as an "infernal traffic!" He said that "slavery discouraged manufactures; that it produced the most pernicious effect on manners." Without intending to be personal or offensive, I think I can pause here and properly remark, that if the effects of slavery are changed in every other respect, the effect on manners is the same now that it was in the last century. The epithets used by men on this floor, their arrogant bearing towards their peers, is abundant proof that there is no change in that respect. ”

“ Legislative bodies in the slave States have so far forgotten what should be due to the standing and dignity of a Legislature, as to call a certain party, in their official proceedings, the "Black Republican party." Why are men betrayed into such violations of the proprieties of life? There can be no other reason than the one given by George Mason eighty years ago: slavery produces a most pernicious effect upon manners. I know it is claimed, by men in the slave States, that slavery is necessary to the highest development of human society ”

“ It is our privilege, it is our duty, to repel those assaults, that the world may know that when the advanced guard of freedom is attacked, "our feet shall be always in the arena, and our shields shall hang always in the lists." ”

“ If the Republicans here shall feel it to be their duty to discuss this subject now; to lay bare its weakness and its wickedness; to expose the madness and the folly of those who sustain, support, and cherish it; if the great interests of the country have to be neglected for a time; if ordinary legislation must be put aside, no complaint can be made against the Republican party. ”

“ A negro population is one by no means desirable, but a free white man could live where there are negroes, and maintain his freedom; but no white non-slaveholder can live where slave laws, customs, and habits, pertain, and retain the rights that belong to free men in free States. ”

“ To show the world that we are not influenced by any contracted and interested motives, but a general philanthropy for all mankind, of whatever language or complexion, we hereby declare our disapprobation and abhorrence of the unnatural practice of slavery in America—a practice founded in injustice and cruelty, and highly dangerous to our liberties. ”

“ Men who commit acts declared by the whole civilized world to be piracy, you permit to escape, while you say you will hang the man who circulates Helper's book. Before you complain of the free States, arrest and punish the scoundrels who so cruelly treated the Irishman at Columbia, South Carolina, for no offence but saying that slavery was detrimental to free labor. ”

“ But men whose lives are but a series violations of the dearest rights that God has bestowed on man cannot be expected to be bound by pledges of national faith and national honor. This time-honored compact was annulled, the barrier between freedom and slavery broken down. ”

“ Does the gentleman believe, or does he but attempt to lead us to believe, that the ethics of those men "without fear and without reproach" had no sounder foundation than this: that while slaves were few and cotton scarce, slavery might be a wrong, but with four million slaves and four million two hundred thousand bales of cotton, [4] it becomes just, humane, moral?—that while negroes and cotton fill one side of the scales, Christian truth must kick the beam on the other, and slavery thus becomes a great "humanitarian fact?" ”

“ Take Indiana and Illinois—States that have large populations from the slave States—Indiana, one in every fourteen cannot read; in Illinois, one in every twenty-one and a half; and if any one will take the trouble to examine, it will no doubt be found that this ignorance exists almost entirely where the population from the slave States largely predominates. I will venture the assertion, that there can scarcely be a man found in the State of Ohio, that was born there, who possesses intellect capable of cultivation, that cannot read ”

“ I know that all the States are a part of my country; but when I hear of the wrongs and outrages perpetrated on men merely because they will not subscribe to the doctrines you hold, and hear you complain of us for not doing our duty as citizens, I will let you know that you, too, "are made of penetrable stuff." ”

“ They will hold no intercourse, they will have no dealings, with any person or State that does not approve of slavery, and yield to its intolerant and despotic demands; if any man, not thus approving and yielding, chances to travel through the slave States, and there to express his sentiments, he is subjected to the degradation and cruelty of the lash, and is driven from the State. ”

“ The Republican party proclaims no doctrine so ultra as theirs, uses no language so strong as that of those Southern statesmen from whom it gains so much information, and whose views, to a great extent, it conscientiously accepts. We desire only to confine it within its present limits; we ask that it shall not pollute territory now free; we know the utter folly of appealing to the morality or humanity of a pro-slavery party, where the rights of a black man are involved ”

“ The statements, and doubtless convictions, of the honorable member from Mississippi, differ singularly from those of Senator Clay, of Alabama, who tells us that, in his State, "we may behold numerous fine houses, once the abode of intelligent freemen, now occupied by slaves, or else tenantless and dilapidated; that we may see fields, once fertile, covered with foxtail and broom-sedge—moss growing on the walls of once thrifty villages, and may find that 'one only master grasps the whole domain' which once furnished homes for a dozen white families." ”

“ He also informs us that after the cotton, corn, and potatoes, are raised, the strong, brave man drives the plow through the fallow ground. It will be seen that work during the summer has not produced the lassitude and enervation that it has been claimed is produced in white men by labor. We are still further informed, that the fallow ground turned up by the strong, brave man, discloses something more valuable than the gold of California—"'Tis the sparkles of liberty!" We have heard of the sparkles of liberty that are made manifest to the non-slaveholders of the South. ”

“ We are now asked to discredit those men, and give ear to a modern creed, that slavery is not only necessary, but beneficent—a divine ordinance—and that Southern non-slaveholders, even, are prosperous and elevated just in proportion to the number of slaves owned by their neighbors. ”

“ The nationality of the Democratic party consists in devoting all the energies and power of the Federal Government to advancing the interests, aims, and ends, of about one hundred thousand men. Its conservatism consists in its avowed determination to dissolve the Union, should a majority of our people, in the exercise of their legal and constitutional rights, elect a President not acceptable to that party. ”

“ But despotism is ever restless and grasping; but twenty-five years rolled by—a very short period in the life of a nation—ere Texas was admitted to the Union, that slavery propagandists could have a wider field for their operations. ”

“ It will not be conceived, from these observations, that it is my wish to hold these unhappy people (negroes) in slavery. I can only say that there is not a man living who wishes more sincerely than I do to see a plan adopted for the abolition of it. ”

“ Depraved, corrupt, and polluted presses exerted themselves to the utmost in the work of slander and detraction; hireling scribblers for worse than hireling presses glutted themselves and made their meals on good men's names. ”

“ I have also endeavored to show what are the aims and objects of the Republican party; and if they cannot be tolerated—if such principles cannot be sustained by the people of any section of this country—it is the misfortune of that people. They are the principles that ought to be sustained by all people that are fitted for civil liberty ”

“ Was it a mere speculation when Jefferson wrote, and his colleagues signed, "we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal?" No one then doubted the truth of this declaration. More than a generation passed away before any man dared raise his voice against it. ”

“ The agricultural, the manufacturing, the great commercial interests of this country, are entirely ignored, neglected, and forgotten, that the interests of one hundred thousand slaveholders may be advanced. The great pursuits by which twenty-five million people live, are not considered worthy the attention of this Democratic party ”

“ The charge is frequently made, that nothing but slavery occupies the attention of the National Legislature. That this charge is true to a great extent, that this subject is constantly kept before the country, and that there is constant excitement about it, is not the fault of the Republican party. ”