Slaveocracy

“ My feelings are always outraged when I hear them speak of "kind masters,"—"Christian masters,"—"the mildest form of slavery,"—"well fed and clothed slaves," as extenuations of slavery; I am satisfied they either mean to pervert the truth, or they do not know what they say. The being of slavery, its soul and body, lives and moves in the chattel principle, the property principle, the bill of sale principle; the cart-whip, starvation, and nakedness, are its inevitable consequences to a greater or less extent, warring with the dispositions of men. ”

“ I have seen the time when it was the belief of an apparently overwhelming majority of the Southern whites that the “peculiar institution” of slavery was an economic, moral, social and political blessing, while, in fact, slavery as the predominant interest, making everything else subordinate to itself, weighed down, like an incubus, industry, commercial enterprise, popular education—everything that constitutes progressive civilization. ”

“ Resolved, That the institution of slavery is known and recognized in this territory; that we repel the doctrine that it is a moral and political evil, and we hurl back with scorn upon its slanderous authors the charge of inhumanity; and we warn all persons not to come to our peaceful firesides to slander us, and sow the seeds of discord between the master and the servant; for, as much as we deprecate the necessity to which we may be driven, we cannot be responsible for the consequences. ”

“ Would not every slave leap to break his chains? If in any nation, slavery is the most monstrous of inconsistencies, it is in a free republic; and if in any community it is the most flagrant of sins, it is in a Christian community. ”

“ The institution of slavery, wielding a most potent and commanding authority, brought every thing, in politics, science, philosophy, and letters, to bear in support of the slave trade, in maintenance of the institution of slavery, and to uphold the dogma that the Negro was but an inferior animal. ”

“ As I have never owned a slave, I can not judge of the effects of slavery on character; but if slavery is to be considered in a moral light, the convention ought to go further, and free those already in the country. ”

“ Slavery is abolished. The cause of antagonism is removed; and you must see that it is altogether illogical—‘putting new wine into old bottles, mending new garments with old clothes’—to legislate from slave-holding and slave-driving premises for a people whom you have repeatedly declared your purpose to maintain in freedom. ”

“ Say what you will, try to avoid it, if you can, you are compelled to admit that the candidate power is nothing else than organized Slavery, now, in its madness, surrounded by its criminal clan, and led by its felon chieftains, braving the civilization of the age. Any recognition of Slavery is bad enough; but this will be recognition with welcome and benediction, imparting new consideration and respectability, and, worse still, securing new opportunity and foothold for the supremacy it openly proclaims. ”

“ Slavery must speedily be abolished; the blow that shall sever the chains of the slaves may shake the nation to its center—may momentarily disturb the pillars of the Union—but it shall redeem the character, extend the influence, establish the security, and increase the prosperity of our great republic. ”

“ By it, all the horrours of the slave-trade, the whole root and stock and branch of which slavery is the bitter fruit, were firmly sanctioned for thirty tedious years. During this gloomy period, under the sanction of the charter of freemen, and of freemen too, who, in the days of their emancipation from the chains of despotism, appealed to heaven for the sincerity of their intentions, while they declared to the world “that all men are created equal, and endowed by their Creator with an unalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness;” ”

“ When I say that I regard slavery in itself as a great moral, social, and political evil, I only use language which has been adopted by distinguished men, themselves citizens of slave-holding States. I shall do nothing, therefore, to favor or encourage its further extension. We have slavery already amongst us. The Constitution found it in the Union; it recognized it, and gave it solemn guaranties. ”

“ Slavery sanctioned by law among that illustrious people, who for seventy years have measured the progress of civilization by their march, demonstrated democracy by their power, and liberty by their prosperity! Slavery in the United States! ”

“ A people long used to hardship, dependent on the capricious mercy of their masters, subject without appeal to impositions laid on them by the stronger hand, they learned by daily experience that government by laws made without their own consent, and administered by officers imposed on them against their will, was the very definition of slavery. ”

“ Is it possible to form an idea of a slavery more compleat, more miserable, more disgraceful, than that of a people, where justice is administered, government exercised, and a standing army maintained, at the expence of the people, and yet without the least dependence upon them? ”

“ It was an arduous task, in this enlightened age, to prove the legality of slavery. Winn gentlemen attempt to justify this unnatural traffic, or to prove the lawfulness of slavery, they ought to advert to the genius of our government and to the principles of the revolution. ”

“ If, however, slavery is found by a certain generation among them, and it is not right and just nor expedient to abolish it, may we not safely ask, How did the Most High legislate concerning slavery among the people to whom he gave a code of laws from his own lips? ”

“ Does not every slaveholder assume exclusive control over all the actions of his unfortunate victims? Most assuredly he does, as this extract from the laws of a slaveholding State will show you. “A slave is one who is in the power of his master, to whom he belongs. A slave owes to his master and all his family, respect without bounds and absolute obedience.” ”

“ Having made the constitution and the laws subservient to the pleasures of the Slaveholding aristocracy, having declared Slavery to be a national institution, having declared the slave to be but an ordinary article of merchandise — where will they stop? Their present position is but foreshadowing their future policy. ”

“ Constitution, shew us the slaves trebling in numbers;—slaveholders monopolizing the offices and dictating the policy of the Government;—prostituting the strength and influence of the Nation to the support of slavery here and elsewhere;—trampling on the rights of the free States and making the courts of the country their tools. ”

“ The blunting effects of slavery upon the slaveholder's moral perceptions are known and conceded, the world over; and a privileged class, an aristocracy, is but a band of slaveholders under another name. ”

“ That, to the persevering and importunate demand of the slave power for more Slave States, new Slave Territories, and the nationalization of slavery, our distinct and final answer is: No more Slave States, no Slave Territory, no nationalized slavery, and no national legislation for the extradition of slaves.
6. That slavery is a sin against God and a crime against man, which no human enactment or usage can make right; and that Christianity, humanity, and patriotism alike demand its abolition. ”

“ The effects of Slavery on the bond and Colonization on the free. Of the first we shall say but little, but will here repeat the language of a high-minded Virginian in the Legislature of that State, on the recent discussion of the slave question before that honorable body, who declared, that man could not hold property in man, and that the master held no right to the slave, either by a law of nature or a patentee from God, but by the will of society; which we declare to be an unjust usurpation of the rights and privileges of men. ”

“ A slave government is an oligarchy; and one too of the most arbitrary and criminal character. ”

“ The spirit of slavery, stimulated to madness by the indignation of the civilized world, in its frenzy bids defiance to God and man, and is determined to make itself respected by enlisting into its service the entire wealth, and power, and political influence of this great nation. Its encroachments are becoming so enormous, and its progress so rapid, that it is now a conflict for the freedom of the citizens rather than for the emancipation of the slaves. ”

“ First, there are the five millions of mean, non-slaveholding whites. These the system has reduced to a condition below that of the slave himself, in many cases. Slavery becomes at once their curse and their infatuation. It fascinates while it crushes them ”

“ But now, as we read in the writings of the Socialist Democrats, with distinction of classes and the institution of personal slavery opens the first epoch of human civilization. In this slavery period the whole man is an instrument of labor, and with all his faculties he is the property of the owner who commands his entire service. ”

“ To the overthrow of the Slave Power we are summoned by a double call, one political and the other philanthropic,—first, to remove an oppressive tyranny from the National Government, and, secondly, to open the gates of Emancipation in the Slave States. ”

“ Why, that we shall say and vote that we so much approve of the slave-system, that we are willing, not merely that it should exist untouched by us,—that is not the question,—but that it should be taken to our bosom as a cherished national institution. ”

“ The repulsive feature of slavery is the thing, not its name. One needs but to hear an aristocrat speak of the classes that are below him to recognize—and in but indifferently modified measure—the very air and tone of the actual slaveholder; and behind these are the slaveholder's spirit, the slaveholder's blunted feeling. ”

“ He thought, with most others at that day, that slavery must be left to be gradually removed by the progress of civilization, the growth of higher ideas of human nature, and the manifest superiority and hotter economy of free labor. ”

“ So completely has slavery accomplished its mission, depriving the colored people of every opportunity of profit, and every hope of emolument, confining them to the most menial occupations, engendering a timidity to advancement into the higher pursuits, unless supported by some recognized popular element, as to cause them to be at all times painfully alive to their humiliating condition, and to act as though ready to bow apologies to the public for their color. ”

“ In this work he discussed the position of master and slave in ancient and modern times, argued that society and the owners themselves would benefit by free labour and that under existing conditions the slave could not be benefited morally or intellectually, and finally, meeting the various objections that had been made on the ground of the inferiority of the negro, concluded with suggestions which practically meant the abolition of slavery. ”

“ Slavery is the civilizer; you shall neither denounce it as an ‘infernal atrocity,’ nor overthrow it to save the Union. I repeat the word which so moved the gentleman from his propriety, that chattel slavery is an ‘infernal atrocity.’ I thank God that I learned to lisp it at my mother’s knee. ”

“ In the field of federal politics, slavery, deriving unlooked-for advantages from commercial changes, and energies unforeseen from the facilities of combination between members of the slaveholding class and between that class and other property classes, early rallied, and has at length made a stand, not merely to retain its original defensive position, but to extend its sway throughout the whole Union. ”

“ Three years after, in 1846, the General Assembly published the following declaration of sentiment:
1. The system of slavery, as it exists in these United States, viewed either in the laws of the several states which sanction it, or in its actual operation and results in society, is intrinsically unrighteous and oppressive; and is opposed to the prescriptions of the law of God, to the spirit and precepts of the gospel, and to the best interests of humanity. ”

“ Every allusion to the abolition of slavery as a necessity for the preservation of the Union, and as a moral deliverance and a consummation devoutly to be wished and sure to come, called forth outbursts of genuine enthusiasm. ”

“ Beneath its beneficent folds, wherever it is carried, on land or sea, Slavery will disappear, like darkness under the arrows of the ascending sun - like the Spirit of Evil before the Angel of the Lord. ”

“ The labor vote, therefore, first confined slavery to limits in which it could not live, and when the slave power sought to exceed these territorial limits, it was suddenly and unintentionally abolished. ”

“ Indeed, if Slavery existed nowhere within the national jurisdiction, our duty would still be urgent to grapple with that pernicious influence, which, through an Oligarchical Combination of Slave-Masters, unknown to the Constitution, never anticipated by its founders, and in defiance of their example, has entered into and possessed the National Government, like an Evil Spirit. ”

“ Had they been properly educated, and prepared for freedom, they might have turned out well; but those wretches are a melancholy example of what will be found to be the case in other countries where slavery still exists, should the slaves suddenly be made free, or should they rise and win their freedom for themselves. ”