the master, mingling with that of his bondwoman, takes from her the transferable character of chattel, and confers complete freedom upon their offspring. It is not derived from the Spanish Law; for this law contains humane elements unknown to your system, borrowed, perhaps, from Mohammedan Moors who so long occupied Spain; and, besides, our Thirteen Colonies had no umbilical connection with Spain. Nor is it derived from English statutes or American statutes; for we have the positive and repeated averment of the Senator from Virginia [Mr. MASON], and also of other Senators, that in not a single State of the Union can any such statutes establishing Slavery be found. From none of these does it come.

No, Sir, not from any land of Civilization is this Barbarism derived. It comes from Africa, ancient nurse of monsters, from Guinea, Dahomey, and Congo. There is its origin and fountain. This benighted region, we are told by Chief-Justice Marshall in a memorable judgment, still asserts a right, discarded by Christendom, to enslave captives taken in war; and this African Barbarism is the beginning of American Slavery. The Supreme Court of Georgia, a Slave State, has not shrunk from this conclusion. "Licensed to hold slave property," says the Court, "the Georgia planter held the slave as a chattel, either directly from the slavetrader or from those who held under him, and he from the slave-captor in Africa. The property of the planter in the slave became thus the property of the original captor."2 It is natural that a right thus derived in defiance of Christendom, and openly founded on the

1 The Antelope, 10 Wheaton, 66.

2 Neal v. Farmer, 9 Georgia Reports, 580.

most vulgar Paganism, should be exercised without mitigating influence from Christianity,- that the master's authority over the person of his slave, over his conjugal relations, over his parental relations, over the employment of his time, over all his acquisitions, should be recognized, while no generous presumption inclines to Freedom, and the womb of the bondwoman can deliver only a slave.

From its home in Africa, where it is sustained by immemorial usage, this Barbarism, thus derived and thus developed, traversed the ocean to American soil. It entered on board that fatal slave-ship,

"Built in the eclipse, and rigged with curses dark,"

which in 1620 landed its cruel cargo at Jamestown, in Virginia; and it has boldly taken its place in every succeeding slave-ship, from that early day till now, — helping to pack the human freight, regardless of human agony, surviving the torments of the middle passage, surviving its countless victims plunged beneath the waves; and it has left the slave-ship only to travel inseparable from the slave in his various doom, sanctioning by its barbarous code every outrage, whether of mayhem or robbery, lash or lust, and fastening itself upon his offspring to the remotest generation. Thus are barbarous prerogatives of barbarous half-naked African chiefs perpetuated in American Slave-Masters, while the Senator from Virginia [Mr. MASON], perhaps unconscious of their origin, perhaps desirous to secure for them the appearance of a less barbarous pedigree, tricks them out with a phrase of the Roman Law, discarded by the Common Law, which simply renders into ancient Latin an existing rule of African Barbarism, recognized as an existing rule of American Slavery.

Such is the plain juridical origin of the American slave code, now vaunted as a badge of Civilization. But all law, whatever its juridical origin, whether Christian or Mohammedan, Roman or African, may be traced to other and ampler influences in Nature, sometimes of Right and sometimes of Wrong. Surely the law which stamped the slave-trade as piracy punishable with death had a different inspiration from that other law which secured immunity for the slave-trade throughout an immense territory, and invested its supporters with political power. As there is a nobler law above, so there is a meaner law below, and each is felt in human affairs.

Thus far we have seen Slavery only in pretended law, and in the origin of that law. Here I might stop, without proceeding in the argument; for on the letter of the law alone must Slavery be condemned. But the tree is known by its fruits, which I shall now exhibit and this brings me to the second stage of the argument.

(2.) In considering the practical results of Slavery, the materials are so obvious and diversified that my chief care will be to abridge and reject: and here I put the Slave States and Free States face to face, showing at each point the blasting influence of Slavery.

Before proceeding with these details, I would for one moment expose that degradation of free labor, which is one of the general results. Where there are slaves, whose office is work, it is held disreputable for a white man to soil his skin or harden his hands with honest toil. The Slave-Master of course declines work, and his pernicious example infects all others. With impi

ous resolve, they would reverse the Almighty decree appointing labor as the duty of man, and declaring that in the sweat of his face shall he eat his bread. The Slave-Master says, "No! this is true of the slave, of the black man, but not of the white man: he shall not eat his bread in the sweat of his face." Thus is the brand of degradation stamped upon that daily toil which contributes so much to a true Civilization. It is a constant boast in the Slave States, that white men there will not perform work performed in the Free States. Mr. Calhoun and Mr. Waddy Thompson made this boast. Let it be borne in mind, then, that, where Slavery prevails, there is not only despair for the black man, but inequality and ignominy for the white laborer. By necessary consequence, the latter, whether emigrating from our Free States or fleeing from oppression and wretchedness in his European home, avoids a region disabled by such a social law. Hence a twofold injustice practically he is excluded from the land, while the land itself becomes a prey to that paralysis which is caused by a violation of the laws of God. And now for the testimony.

The States where this Barbarism exists excel the Free States in all natural advantages. Their territory is more extensive, stretching over 851,448 square miles, while the Free States, including California, embrace only 612,597 square miles. Here is a difference of more than 238,000 square miles in favor of the Slave States, showing that Freedom starts in this great rivalry with a field more than a quarter less than that of Slavery. In happiness of climate, adapted to productions of special value, in exhaustless motive power distributed throughout its space, in natural

highways, by more than fifty navigable rivers, never closed by the rigors of winter, and in a stretch of coast, along Ocean and Gulf, indented by hospitable harbors, the whole presenting incomparable advantages for that true Civilization, where agriculture, manufactures, and commerce, both domestic and foreign, blend, -in all these respects the Slave States excel the Free States, whose climate is often churlish, whose motive power is less various, whose navigable rivers are fewer and often sealed by ice, and whose coast, while less in extent and with fewer harbors, is often perilous from storm and cold.

But Slavery plays the part of a Harpy, and defiles. the choicest banquet. See what it does with this territory, thus spacious and fair.

An important indication of prosperity is in the growth of population. In this respect the two regions started equal. In 1790, at the first census under the Constitution, the population of the present Slave States was 1,961,372, of the present Free States 1,968,455, showing a difference of only 7,083 in favor of the Free States. This difference, at first merely nominal, has been constantly increasing since, showing itself more strongly in each decennial census, until, in 1850, the population of the Slave States, swollen by the annexation of three foreign Territories, Louisiana, Florida, and Texas, was only 9,612,969, while that of the Free States, without such large annexations, reached 13,434,922, showing a difference of 3,821,953 in favor of Freedom. But this difference becomes still more remarkable, if we confine our inquiries to the white population, which at this period was only 6,184,477 in the Slave States, while it was 13,238,670 in the Free States, showing a difference