I cannot make any comment on this. It does not tally with my notions of justice and propriety, and I believe that when you come back to the sober second thought you will agree with us in our opinion, and you will say that we are entitled to these lands in Kansas.

"Proceedings of the Democratic State Convention. "AUSTIN, TEXAS, January 8, 1858. "On motion of Colonel L. T. Wigtall, the following platform was adopted:

Resolved, That the Democratic party of the State of Texas heartily concur in, and unanimously reaffirm, the principles of the Democratic party of the Union and the Constitution, as embodied in the platform of the national Democratic convention, held in Cincinnati, in June, 1856, and the State convention of Texas, at Waco, on the 4th of May, 1857, as a true expression of their political faith and opinion, believing them to embrace the only doctrines which can preserve the integrity of the Union and the equal rights of the States.

"Resolved, That recent events in the United States Senate create in our minds a serious apprehension that the great doctrine of non intervention, as set forth in that platform, is in danger of being repudiated by Congress through the instrumentality of members of the national Democratic party, distinguished alike for their political influence over the pub lic sentiment of the North, and their past declarations in favor of said doctrine; and that we now consider it our duty to set forth to the country the course that we shall be com pelled to take in that serious and deplorable emergency.

"Resolved, That we request the representatives of the people of Texas, in Legislature assembled, to provide, at the present session, for the Executive of the State appointing suitable delegates to a convention of the southern States, which may be hereafter assembled for the purpose of consultation and advice for the general welfare of the institutions of the South.

"Mr. Brown offered the following resolution: "Resolved, That the chairman appoint one member from each judicial district as members of the State Democratic committee.

"Pending which, the convention, on motion of Mr. Britton, adjourned to Monday, three o'clock, p. m."

"MONDAY, three o'clock, p. m. "Convention met-roll called-quorum present. "The Chair announced that the question before the convention was the motion of Mr. Brown appointing the State Democratic committee.

"Mr. Rainey moved to amend by adding, the chairman of which shall reside in the city of Austin.' Adopted. • Mr. moved that each judicial district inect and designate the name of the party they wish to act for their respective districts; which motion, it was moved, should lic on the table; but the president informing the convention that he wished that course pursued, it was adopted. "General T. J. Chambers offered the following resolu

I see upon the other side of the House a neigh-reference to one branch. When I heard the gen bor of mine, [Mr. HATCH,] whose vote, I know, was counted upon in favor of freedom; and permit me to address to him a few observations. A few days ago, in this Hall, the gentleman boasted that he had a larger foreign constituency than perhaps any man in Congress. What are your constituents doing? You will tell me, perhaps, that they are digging your wells and cellars, carrying your hods, and building your stores. What will their children do, twenty-five or fifty years from now? That is a pertinent question. There will not be room and employment for them and their children in your city. Where will they go to find homes? If the gentleman permits slavery to spread itself over the whole of the northern Territories, they will find no homes there. I can point the gentleman to hundreds in his district to-day, who, perhaps, thirty years hence, will be walking over the fields of Kansas, to see there probably the richest soil in the world, but to find, perhaps, that country occupied by an institution which crowds out northern free labor. I can point the gentleman to hundreds in his district who, fifty years hence, in walking over those beautiful fields, will say, "if my father had not voted for a Democratic || Representative from Buffalo, and given him a seat

35TH CONG....1ST SESS. Conflict between Religious Truth and American Infidelity-Mr. Giddings. Ho. OF REPS.

THE CONFLICT BETWEEN RELIGIOUS TRUTH
AND AMERICAN INFIDELITY.

SPEECH OF HON. J. R. GIDDINGS,

OF OHIO,

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,
February 26, 1858,

Upon the great issue of freedom or slavery
ing before the American people.

[WRITTEN OUT BY HIMSELF.*]

among men to secure their enjoyment. Thus our Republic was founded on religious truth, and it was thus far emphatically a religious Government. It has ever been sustained by the religious sentiment of the nation; and it will only fail when this element shall be discarded by the people. The attempt now made to overthrow these religious truths demands the severest condemnation. pend-istence of a Supreme Being, or that He is clothed There are but few men who openly deny the ex

The House being in the Committee of the Whole on the state of the Union

Mr. GIDDINGS said:

Mr. CHAIRMAN: Questions of mere economy, those which relate to banks, to internal improvements, or protective tariffs, no longer occupy the public mind. These subjects have given place to questions of more transcendent importance, to those which relate to the rights of mankind, to the religious, moral, and political elevation of our race. The discussion of these subjects has in all past time been attended with agitation and excitement. It brings the rights of the people into conflict with despotism, whatever may be the form of government under which the discussion takes place. Such is now the condition of this mighty nation; our Union is shaken to its very center by the agitation of great and undying truths. Our Government is vibrating between freedom and tyranny, and it becomes us thoroughly to examine the religious basis on which we found our political action.

with the attributes of infinite wisdom, truth, and
justice; or that men are religious in degree as
they bring themselves into harmony with those
divine qualities, make them their own, and as-
similate their characters to that of Deity. This is
the sense in which I use the term "religion." I
do not speak as a sectarian. Indeed, sectarians
do not regard membership as religion, but merely
as the evidence of religious feeling on the part of
the individual. All admit that those who are wise,
truthful, just, and pure, of all denominations, and
men who, possessing these attributes, belong to
no particular sect, are the truly religious men of
earth.

I will here remark that I am conscious this ex-
amination of the religious character of our Gov-
ernment will subject me to the criticisms of all who
deny the existence of man's inalienable rights:
gious character of our institutions is unsuited to
they will insist that an examination of the reli-
this forum; that laymen should not tread on this
holy ground; but I assert, if there be a place on
earth where religion, where wisdom and truth and
justice and purity of purpose, should be observed
and practiced, this Hall constitutes that place. If
there be a class of men on earth who ought to be
religious, who ought to be wise and truthful and
just and pure of purpose, the members of this

The late message of the President in relation to Kansas is without precedent in the history of executive communications to this body. Its tone of contempt for the people of that Territory finds no precedent in our Government; while the lan-body ought to sustain that character. guage of the people of Kansas, expressed by her Legislature, is most extraordinary for sovereigns to use towards a servant already arraigned before the tribunal of the popular mind for high crimes and misdemeanors.

Under these circumstances, I have thought that the best service I can render the people on the present occasion would be to analyze the subject which now absorbs the popular mind; and, so far as able, to define the issue now pending before the nation.

That issue is founded upon fundamental reli. gious truths, which are maintained by one political party and denied by the other.

Immediately after the last Congress adjourned, the men who wield the judicial and executive powers of Government publicly denied the great primal doctrine of our Government," that all men are endowed by their Creator with inherent, equal, and inalienable rights." They essayed to obliterate the line of demarkation drawn by our patriot fathers between the despotisms of a darker age, and the rights of mankind as understood in this nineteenth century.

The annual message of the President, in its leading positions and in its details, wholly disregards those rights of human nature, and speaks of men created in the image of God, with undying spirits, with eternal destinies, as transformed into property, in direct contradiction of those truths which the American people have long regarded as "self-evident."

It will be my object to render this issue more distinctly obvious. Its importance is transcendent; and, however fully other gentlemen may have appreciated it, I feel constrained to admit that I have failed to comprehend its vastness, or set bounds to the consequences naturally resulting from its decision; yet every member of society is bound to examine and to act upon his own responsibility.

Our fathers, recognizing God as the author of human life, proclaimed it a "self-evident" truth that every human being holds from the Creator an inalienable right to live, to sustain and protect life, attain knowledge, elevate his moral nature, and enjoy happiness.

These prerogatives were recognized as "gifts of God," lying behind and above human legislation; and the founders of our institutions proceeded to declare that governments are instituted

*For the original report, see page 894 Cong. Globe. NEW SERIES-No. 5.

God. They deny that the right to live, to protect life, and to attain moral elevation and happiness, is derived from Heaven, or is superior to human enactments. The denial of these fundamental religious truths I can characterize by no other term than "American infidelity." This issue literally separates the religious from the infidel portion of our people. In using this language, I honestly disbelieve the religious truths which do not seek to cast opprobrium upon those who

Jefferson and Adams and Franklin and their associates termed "self-evident." I have no unkind feeling towards them. I regard them as brethren, entitled to my best wishes, my earnest prayers; and I apply the term "infidel" to them as the only expression by which I can characterize them as a class.

The outworking of this great primal issue is witnessed in almost every important question that comes before Congress. One portion of the members adhere to the central proposition, that man holds natural and inalienable rights from the Creator, which are not to be invaded by human enactments; that they cannot be violated except by incurring the penalties of that law which was ordained by Him who bestowed them upon our race; that every individual who invades these rights of his fellow-man is guilty of crime, and should be punished accordingly; that all human enactments professing to authorize the invasion of these rights are outside the just powers of human governments, are impious invasions of God's prerogatives, are despotic in their character, impose no moral obligation upon any individual, but involve those who enact and those who support them in the same degree of guilt with those who perpetrate the crimes; that such statutes can in no degree modify the moral guilt of those who trample upon the rights which God has bestowed upon their fellow-men. The other portion of the American people, maintaining a corresponding infidelity, deny the existence of these rights, deny that God has bestowed them upon mankind; they claim unlimited sovereignty for human governments over human rights.

But I desire to call attention to some of those

specific rights which are included in the general proposition. Christians and patriots hold life to be the gift of God. They regard it sacred; they look upon its invasion as a crime; that, as the Creator bestows existence upon those who bear His image, it becomes the duty of individuals, of associations, and of governments, to protect each and every human being in the enjoyment of life; that at this point human legislation commences, limited in its appropriate powers to the protection of life, and not to its destruction; that human governments hold no other rightful pow

I repeat, we all acknowledge the existence of a Supreme Being; that he is the Creator; that we are brought into life by His will. At this point, the American people separate into two great parties-one holding that sovereignty dwells alone with the Creator, and not with men; that kings, potentates, and all human governments, are subjected to the "higher law" of the Creator, and authorized to legislate only for the protection of the rights which God has conferred on mankind. Another portion deny the existence of this "higher law," and insist upon the perfect and unlimited sovereignty of human Governments over the lives and liberties of the people. To be more ligious portion hold, that, as God gave life to explicit on this point, I will remark that the rethe human race, He conferred on each a right to that liberty which is necessary to become wise, truthful, just, and pure; to bring himself into harmony with the law of God, and enjoy the happi-ers in regard to life than to protect its enjoyment; ness resulting therefrom; that these rights are equally self-evident as the existence of our race; that they are inherent, inalienable, and common to all men; that they constitute the great moral ligament which binds man to his Creator, connects earth with heaven, and unites the human race in¦ one common brotherhood, bound by the most sacred obligations to love, revere, and obey our Universal Father. Of the possession of these rights every sentient being is conscious. When God created man, and breathed into him the breath of life, when man became a living soul, this consciousness formed a part of his moral nature; and never, in any age or in any clime, has man, even in his rudest, his most barbarous state, been unconscious of his right to live, to nourish, and pro- In our slaveholding communities enactments tect life, and seek his own happiness. have been passed, and are now supported, proThese rights constitute an element of the hu-fessing to authorize masters to murder their slaves. vidual; nor can any association of men, or any man soul; they cannot be alienated by the indi- For instance, in those States the slave is denied the right of self-defense; the right to protect his earthly power, separate the humblest of the hu- ⠀⠀ life or his person. If he attempt to defend himman race from them. Men may rob their fellow-self against the master, the master is authorized Iman of the food which he gathers for his own to slay him in any manner he may be able; if he support; they may deprive him of the power of his body; they may prevent him from attaining self-defense; they may bind his limbs and scourge knowledge; but his right to the food which he gathers, to defend his person, to attain knowledge, will remain unchanged. Their crimes will in no degree affect his right.

This relation of man to the Creator is repudiated by a portion of the American people. They deny that we hold any inalienable rights from

that the execution of pirates and murderers, and those who invade our country, is allowed only for the purpose of protecting society; that these powers are ordained of God, sanctioned by religion, by philosophy, by the common sense of mankind. They believe that that command which was proclaimed from Sinai in tones of thunder, saying to every human being, "THOU SHALT NOT KILL,' was truly the voice of God; that it is repeated in all His works and in every revelation of Himself, and is binding on all our race. This commandment of God, this entire doctrine, is denied by the President and by all American infidels: And this constitutes the first collateral issue.

run from the master, after being ordered to stop, the master is authorized to shoot him; if he die

under the scourge, the master is not held respons ible. American infidels believe that no moral turpitude attaches to these statutory murders; while Christians hold that God's moral law remains unchanged by such enactments; that the guilt of the murderer is in no degree modified by such statutes; that the perpetrator stands unvailed before God and all good men, guilty as he would be

35TH CONG....1ST SESS. Conflict between Religious Truth and American Infidelity—Mr. Giddings.

if no such laws existed; that all who enact, and all who support such enactments, make themselves accessory to the crimes committed under them, are guilty as such, and ought to be subjected to the same punishment with those who murder their slaves.

But this power of the master over the life of the slave constitutes the vital element of the institution, without which slavery could not exist. It is exercised wherever slavery is maintained. Every master exercises the privilege of driving his slave, in sickness or in health, just so severely as he thinks will best subserve his own interests. It is on this principle that slaveholders openly declare it profitable to work their slaves so hard as to produce the death of the whole gang on an average of five years upon sugar plantations, and of seven upon cotton plantations; and to supply their places by other victims imported from the slave-breeding States. From official documents, it is estimated that thirty thousand human victims are thus sacrificed annually within the United States and Territories.

Ho. OF REPS.

intellect, the degradation of the moral nature of

man.

ging and murdering them under State laws, into
our Territories; and the President, and those who
sustain him, declare that the Constitution extends By the established laws of our existence, the
and protects these crimes wherever Federal author- body requires food, raiment, and habitation. To
ity exists. They declare that this system of mur- each individual are given limbs to bear him forth
der is established by the Federal Constitution; from place to place; hands to cultivate and gather
that neither Congress nor the people of the Ter- the fruits of the earth, to feed the body, provide
ritories have the right to punish those who perpe- raiment and habitation for its protection; eyes to
trate such crimes. Not content with this avowal guide him, and ears to detect danger. These are
of doctrine, however, we are at this time sustain-all held in subjection to the mind, and are put in
ing a code of laws for the government of this Dis-operation only by the will of the individual. The
trict which holds to the blasphemy that men may mind itself is constrained to action by an inflexible
become the property of their fellow-men-may be law which God has ordained for its early unfolding.
bought and sold like swine. In these, and in other Its first care is to nourish, and feed, and clothe
modes, is the transcendent question of Christian- the body, to render it a comfortable and pleasant
ity, or slaveholding heathenism, made the absorb- habitation during occupancy. The spirit is con-
ing political issue in the nation.
strained, in seeking food, to put the limbs, and
hands, and all the physical faculties into opera-
tion to satisfy the hunger and thirst of the body,
to provide raiment and habitation for its protec-
tion. That God has endowed each member of
the human family with the inherent and inalien-

But I shall be told that the Supreme Court of
the United States have decided that our fathers
did not intend to avow those self-evident truths
which they solemnly proclaimed; that they really
held to the doctrines of slavery which they did
not avow. Our fathers could no more changeable right to use his own limbs and hands and
the law of eternal right and wrong than we can.
The ordained will of Heaven has existed through ||
the eternity of the past, and will continue through
all the future. Men may conform to this law, but
they can never modify it or make it conform to
the human will. Our fathers sought to make no
such modification of the Creator's law.

In the slave States it is not uncommon to see advertisements in the public papers offering a bounty for the head of a particular slave, who has absconded from his master. Even in Ohio, during the past year, a Government official deliberately murdered an absconding slave, and is yet protected from the gallows by those who administer the State laws in the county were the murder was perpetrated. Our Federal troops are often employed in the work of murdering those who are supposed to be fugitive slaves. A signal instance of this character occurred many years since. In a time of profound peace, General Jackson directed our Army to invade Florida, at that time a province of Spain, for the purpose of murdering a people who were born free, but whose ancestors had been slaves; and in one day nearly three hun-dering our fellow-beings; and woe to the nation, dred men, women, and children, were barbarously and wantonly murdered by American troops.

This system of murder is encouraged and maintained by the present Executive, and by all who support his Administration. They insist that the people of a State or Territory may rightfully enact laws giving to one man power over the life of his fellow-men who have committed no offense; that popular sovereignty is not limited by God's higher law; that it extends with propriety over the life, the liberty, and the happiness of a portion of the human family; that the whites may, with moral impunity, subject the colored people of a State or Territory to degrading servitude, close up the windows of their souls, shut out knowledge from their understanding, hold them in ignorance, and murder them if they assert the rights which God has given them.

Had such infidelity characterized their action,
it would have imposed no obligation upon the
present generation to sustain this system of mur-
der. They have passed to that tribunal which
will do them justice. They must answer for their
conduct; we must account to God and posterity
for our own stewardship, and not for theirs. God,
through all his works, in all his laws, by every
revelation to man, has prohibited us from mur-

to the statesman, the legislator, the despot, the
oligarch, the murderer, who disregards this law
of the Most High! I feel humbled and morti-
fied when I see statesmen, ministers, teachers of
religion, in this land of bibles and Sabbaths and
churches, maintain the doctrine that human au-
thority can repeal this law of Heaven. To me, it
is downright blasphemy; derogatory to the char-
acter of the Creator and offensive to the religious
sense of mankind. Yet, this absurdity is the le-
gitimate outworking of that infidelity which de-
nies" that God has endowed all men with inalien-
able rights." If He has endowed our race with
any right whatever, it surely is the right to live.
If this right be denied, no other can be acknowl-
edged. If there be exceptions to this central, this
universal proposition, that all men, without re-
spect to complexion or condition, hold from the
Creator the right to live, who shall determine
what portion of the community shall be slain?
And who may perpetrate the murders? The Ex-
ecutive and his supporters say that white men
may murder black men. The blacks deny this;
God and Christianity and nature, and all reli-
gious, all just, all moral men, deny it.

This infidelity, within the last half century, has consigned more than a million of innocent and unoffending victims to untimely graves. The number is far greater than has perished under the infidelity of France in all past time. But this comparison of American with French infidelity does great injustice to the latter. In France, the victims were sent to the guillotine under pretense Yet this denial of the right of men to live, conthat it was necessary for the public safety. They stitutes the mildest and least offensive phase of suffered but little: there was no flogging, no tor- American infidelity. No intelligent person would ture. But American infidelity consigns its vic-desire to have the life of his body prolonged for tims to years of torture and suffering, and finally the purpose of being subjected to physical torture, to death, for no higher purpose than to gratify while his intellect shall be paralyzed, his soul enthe sordid passions of their individual oppressors. shrouded in ignorance, and his moral nature bruThese wholesale murders are but the outwork-talized. Therefore the right to enjoy liberty, physings of that infidelity which denies that God has ical, moral, civil, and religious, is regarded even endowed all men with the inalienable right to live. more important than life. Indeed, it is obvious The enactments referred to, and their results, that life itself cannot be protected unless the inclearly demonstrate the views of those who sus-dividual be permitted to support and defend the tain them, and are laboring in this Hall, and else-physical existence with which God has endowed where, to extend them over our Territories, and wherever Congress holds exclusive jurisdiction. It is most obvious, that while the present Administration openly lends its influence to such crimes, every intelligent man who sustains and upholds its policy, or fails to oppose it so far as able, becomes involved in the guilt of the murders which it sanctions.

him.

Religious and reflecting men regard the body as merely the temporary habitation of the spirit, the soul which constitutes the man; to be occupied during its infant state of existence, and used for the purpose of developing the mental faculties extending the sphere of thought and elevating his moral nature, thereby preparing him for a higher and But I shall be told that these enactments are holier state of existence. And when the body shall confined to the slave States, and that Congress have performed this service, it is laid aside to holds no power to repeal or modify them. I re-molder and return to its mother earth, while the ply that the people and statesmen of our southern spirit shall live on and on while God himself States insist that slaveholders may carry their exists. No injury to the body can, therefore, slaves, and all privileges which they hold of flog-bear any comparison to the enslavement of the

bodily faculties for these purposes is, literally, a "self-evident truth.” It is a truth that cannot be rendered more clear by argument; its force cannot be increased by logic, or made more beautiful by eloquence. But this care of the body constitutes the first lesson, the lowest exercise of the intellect, and is introductory to that eternal unfoldment which was designed by the Creator as the means of elevating man to higher and still higher happiness; for I lay it down as a religious axiom that in degree as man becomes wise, just, pure, and truthful, he approximates that happiness which consti tutes the final design of his existence.

That God has endowed every human being with the right thus to enlarge this sphere of thought, and elevate his moral nature, is so obviously, so self-evidently true, that he must indeed be a most arrant infidel who denies it. It constitutes a part of the fundamental proposition that "all men are endowed by their Creator with inalienable rights." Its existence is, however, denied by "American infidels;" and this constitutes the second collat eral issue between the religious and irreligious portions of our people. This enslavement of the soul presents infidelity in its most revolting features. It paralyzes the moral nature of man; renders the soul sterile and unprepared for heaven. We must wait the day of final retribution to dis close the extent of its enormities.

Yet the body can only be held in bondage by enslaving the spirit, by surrounding it with mental darkness. Permit a man to understand the duties which he owes to himself, to mankind, and to God, and he cannot be a slave. Hence, the whole policy of slaveholding governments is arranged and adapted to the purpose of first enslaving the minds of their bondmen. In most slaveholding communities it is a statutory offense, punishable by fine and imprisonment, to teach slaves to read the gospel. They are not permitted to read the words of "Him who spake as never man spake;" who declared His mission on earth to proclaim liberty to the captive;" to raise up the bowed down; enlighten the ignorant; who taught His disciples and followers to do unto others as they would have others do unto them.' 99 A distinguished jurist of North Carolina, while discharging official duties, declared, "a slave is one doomed in his own person and posterity to live without knowl edge." He is not permitted to understand the object of human existence. He can have no conception of justice, or wisdom, or purity, or truth. Slaves can have no correct idea of the duties which children owe to their parents; nor of those which are due from parents to children. The parent is not permitted to teach or govern his child; nor is the child permitted to honor or obey his parent.

It follows that the freedom of speech must be restricted among the free people of slaveholding communities. The public mind must be there enslaved in order to maintain the institution, and no man be permitted to assert the doctrines I have referred to. They are not permitted publicly to utter the truths which lie at the basis of our Gov. ernment. The policy of those communities is to edge of the duties which men owe to themselves circumscribe human thought, prevent a knowl and to their fellow-men. This policy was for

35TH CONG....1ST SESS. Conflict between Religious Truth and American Infidelity—Mr. Giddings.

many years enforced in this body. Members were prohibited from speaking of the crimes and iniquities of slavery, lest the people should understand the subject, and refuse to sustain such infidelity.

The right of legal marriage is unknown among the slaves. They are not permitted to understand the relation nor the duties of husband and wife. The master sells him who is called husband, or her who calls herself wife, while he retains the other. He sells the parent, and retains the child; or he sells the child, and retains the parent. These separations are but the practical workings of that infidelity which denies to parents and children those inalienable rights which God and nature have bestowed upon them.

Slaves can have no proper conception of the rights of property. Robbed of their own earnings, told they have no claims to the food which they gather, it were impossible for them to conceive of any such right in others. Nor is it possible that such a state of society could exist among our southern population without greatly affecting the morals of the free people. Indeed, the existence of three millions of slaves among six millions of free people must, of necessity, characterize the morality of the entire population. One of the prominent vices of slaveholding communities is the rapid amalgamation of races. The evidence of this vice meets the eye of the traveler at every step in his progress through our southern States.

The legitimate heir of a plantation, on coming into possession of his estate, often sells the children of his father-his brothers and sisters of the half blood-denying that they "have any rights which white men are bound to respect. 39 This infidelity denies the right of six hundred thousand females of our land to protect their own virtue and consigns them to practical prostitution. This state of society is but the outworking of that infidelity which denies the existence of man's inalienable right to liberty and to moral elevation.

It would be in vain for us to say to the Christians of Europe, or even the Mohammedans of Turkey, that religious men of our country support such a system of pollution. Yet thousands of church members, in the slave States, impiously charge Deity with authorizing these crimes, and sacrilegiously endeavor to pervert the holy Scriptures to the support of this infidelity. Newspapers professedly religious lend a silent, and some an active, support to these crimes; while others, even in our free States, openly oppose and denounce all who resist the extension, or expose the enormities, of slavery.

ject of their toils and labors, the great design of their existence. This beatitude can only be attained by moral culture; by extending the sphere of thought; by understanding the laws of nature, and of nature's God; by attaining a knowledge of His attributes, and conforming to them. To be wise, truthful, pure, and just, is to insure happiness in this life, and in the life to come; and it is a most beautiful feature in the law of our being, that to attain this happiness ourselves, we must respect the right of others to enjoy it; that, as we elevate our own moral natures we necessarily influence others; and as we labor for the welfare and the happiness of others, we most rapidly promote our own. The religious man delights in doing good; he seeks to instruct the ignorant, to elevate the degraded, to relieve the oppressed, to enlighten those who sit in moral darkness, to give to all that elevation of soul which alone can qualify them for happiness. For this purpose schools and academies are established, colleges are founded, tract and Bible and missionary societies are organized, teachers and ministers are employed; indeed, this work of elevating our race constitutes the highest and holiest employment of mankind. For success in this work, prayer is daily made at every family altar; and on the Sabbath our pulpits resound with the solemn, fervent supplication, that God will aid this work; that He will, by the irresistible power of His grace, convert the irreligious, enlighten those whose minds are enshrouded in the darkness of infidelity; that He will relieve the oppressed, comfort the afflicted, and hasten the day when all shall know His will, obey His law, and enjoy His favor.

The infidelity which denies the right of men to attain happiness, that dooms a portion of our race to degradation and torture, to vice and crime and misery, which shuts out hope from the human soul, shocks the conscience and awakens the sensibilities of all religious men.

While Government legislates for the protection of these natural, these God-given rights, they will receive the approval, the support, of all good men, and their laws will be respected and obeyed; but when they legislate for the invasion of these rights, they call up the hostility, the resistance of those whom they seek to oppress. The just and wise and pure of all parties, sects, and denominations, feel the outrage and sympathize with the down-trodden. The great heart of Christendom now beats in sympathy with the enslaved of our land. We feel that sympathy in this Hall; and when we speak for justice and for freedom, we utter the voice of nature; we proclaim the law of Heaven, written in letters of living light upon || the tablet of the moral universe.

The difficulties respecting Kansas, which now
shake our Union to its very center, constitute the
legitimate outworkings of this infidelity. The
right of all men in Kansas to live, to nourish and

had been asserted by congressional law; and un-
der this enactment peace blessed our nation. In-
fidels, however, said this was wrong; that such
rights did not pertain to man; that one portion of
the people there hold the power, and may if they
choose rightfully enslave another, rob them of their
toil, their intelligence, their hopes, their man-
hood, and murder them if they refuse to obey their
masters. And this law of liberty was repealed,
and men were enslaved, brutalized, sold like
swine. The public conscience was outraged, and
all good men sympathized with the oppressed.
Usurpation and brute force were resorted to for
the purpose of extending and supporting slavery;
civil war, devastation and bloodshed followed, and
will continue until justice be done, and the rights
of human nature enjoyed in that unfortunate Ter-
ritory.

The number of heart-broken mothers, and the torture which they suffer on being separated from their children, the physical suffering from floggings, thumbscrews, and all the various means of torture practiced in slaveholding communities, are matters of which we can speak, but of which we can form no estimate. This degradation and suf-protect life, attain moral elevation and happiness, fering constitute the legitimate sequence of American infidelity. If these God-given prerogatives of our race be abandoned, the mother can have no right to the child of her body; no right to the food which she gathers by her toil; no right to the intellect which God has given her; no right to be virtuous, pure, wise, and good; no right to live. I repeat that the religious men of our nation insist that these rights of human nature shall be held sacred, and their enjoyment secured to every individual; while the supporters of American infidelity deny their existence, and proclaim the duty of human governments to disregard them; and each party will, of course, carry their views into their moral, social, and political conduct. Mr. Jefferson well exclaimed: "Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have destroyed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that they are the gifts of God?—THAT THEY This line of demarkation, which separates the ARE NOT TO BE VIOLATED BUT WITH HIS WRATH?" natural rights of all men from human legislation, I now pass to the third collateral issue-the was clearly drawn by the founders of our Repubright of all men to enjoy happiness. I need not re- lic. They established the point at which the appeat that the ultimate beatitude of the race con- propriate, the just powers of all human governstituted the evident design of Deity in creating ments commence, whatever may be their form. mankind. Such I understand to be the instinct-They defined the boundaries of human authority; ive conviction of all men. This purpose, this they acknowledged God as the author of life, the hope, this intuition, is found in every human donor of liberty, the fountain from which human heart. Men in all ages, in all countries, of all happiness is derived. On the denial of these relanguages, have regarded this as the ultimate obligious, these self-evident truths, American sla

HO. OF REPS.

very is founded. The slaveholder denies the right of his slave to cherish and protect his own life, to gain intelligence, to unfold his moral nature, to understand God's attributes, and enjoy that happiness for which he was created. To those primal truths he is infidel. To the rights of his fellowmortal he is infidel. To God's higher law he is infidel. Against these he wages unceasing war. He seeks to rob Deity of His attributes, and man of his God-given prerogatives. He claims for human legislation that supreme sovereignty over the life, the liberty, and the happiness of mankind, which belongs only to the Creator. He thus places himself in hostility to Christianity, to civilization.

This contest is not confined to the United States. These truths are operating upon the hearts of the Russian people. Their Government is in advance of ours. Measures have already been taken for the emancipation of the serfs of that vast Empire, although their condition is far better than that of American slaves. Holland is also moved by these doctrines, and is giving freedom to her oppressed people in her West India islands. England and France have abolished slavery, regarding it as an institution unsuited to the age in which we live. We assert the rights of man wherever he exists. Ours is the cause of Christian civilization throughout the world. Our doctrines apply with equal force to other Governments, to other nations and people. The most illustrious monarch who sways the scepter of human power is really as much bound to respect the inalienable rights of every individual as is the President of the United States. Kings, potentates, and emperors, become despots whenever they invade the rights of the most humble to life, liberty, property, or happiness.

The mere name of "republicanism" gives us no claim to respect, so long as one sixth part of our population is held in degrading bondage. I assert, without fear of contradiction, that if the liberty enjoyed by one portion of our people, and the slavery suffered by the other, could be brought into common stock, and each individual constrained to take his aliquot proportion of each, ours would be regarded as the most perfect despotism among civilized nations. The only advantage which we possess over other nations consists in that feature of our Government which vests all political power in the people. They may, by use of the ballot-box, so modify and shape the administration of Government as best to secure the inalienable rights of each and of every individual.

It is with emotions of gratitude to God, and profound respect for the memory of those who established our Republic, that we refer to the period when, at the very font of our national baptism, our fathers vindicated their claims to national independence, solely upon the religious truths which constitute the central proposition referred to at the commencement of my remarks. They claimed for themselves no special privileges. They spoke, they fought, they bled to establish this universal, this eternal principle of man's right to live, to nourish his body, protect his life, to elevate his moral nature, and attain happiness. This they proclaimed the basis, the corner stone, not merely of our Republic, but of human Governments generally. The Constitution was framed and adopted upon this then universally admitted principle; but such was the anxious solicitude of our early patriots that, in two years after its adoption, it was amended, by declaring in explicit language: “ That no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, except by due process of law;" that is, except on trial and conviction before some judicial tribunal. In accordance with these truths one half of the States of our Union proceeded to give liberty to all their people, to protect the inalienable rights of all; but the other States embraced and cherished this infidelity which has at length infused itself into our Federal Government. Our teachers, our politicians, our statesmen, became unwilling to offend those who had embraced this infidelity. They were received into churches, elected to civil office, and finally obtained control of the Government. All classes of men became affected by this disbelief in God's law and in human rights. It was regarded as disreputable to examine the crimes which this system of oppression upheld; social and political