THE SOUTH AND THE CONSTITU

TION

THE honorable gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Webster] has gone out of his way to pass a high eulogium on the State of Ohio. . . . In contrasting the State of Ohio with Kentucky, for the purpose of pointing out the superiority of the former, and of attributing that superiority to the existence of slavery in one State and its absence in the other, I thought I could discern the very spirit of the Missouri question, intruded into this debate for objects best known to the gentleman himself. . . . Mr. President, the impression which has gone abroad, of the weakness of the South, as connected with the slave question, exposes us to such constant attacks, has done us so much injury, and is calculated to produce such infinite mischiefs, that I embrace the occasion presented by the remarks of the gentleman of Massachusetts, to declare that we are ready to meet the question promptly and fearlessly. It is one from which we are not disposed to shrink, in whatever form or under whatever circumstances it may be pressed upon us.

We are ready to make up the issue with the gentleman, as to the influence of slavery on individual and

national character on the prosperity and greatness, either of the United States or of particular States. Sir, when arraigned before the bar of public opinion, on this charge of slavery, we can stand up with conscious rectitude, plead not guilty, and put ourselves upon God and our country. If

slavery, as it now exists in this country, be an evil, we of the present day found it ready made to our hands. Finding our lot cast among a people whom God had manifestly committed to our care, we did not sit down to speculate on abstract questions of theoretical liberty. We met it as a practical question of obligation and duty. We resolved to make the best of the situation in which Providence had placed us, and to fulfill the high trusts which had devolved upon us as the owners of slaves in the only way in which such a trust could be fulfilled, without spreading misery and ruin throughout the land. We found that we had to deal with a people whose physical, moral, and intellectual habits and character totally disqualified them from the enjoyment of the blessings of freedom. We could not send them back to the shores from whence their fathers had been taken; their numbers forbade the thought, even if we did not know their condition here is infinitely preferable to what it possibly could be among the barren sands and savages tribes of Africa; and it was wholly irreconcilable with all our notions of humanity to tear asunder the tender ties which they

had formed among us, to gratify the feelings of a false philanthropy.

Sir, I have had some opportunities of making comparison between the condition of the free negroes of the North, and the slaves of the South, and the comparison has left not only an indelible impression of the superior advantages of the latter, but has gone far to reconcile me to slavery itself. Never have I felt so forcibly that touching description, "the foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man hath not where to lay his head," as when I have seen this unhappy race, naked and houseless, almost starving in the streets, and abandoned by all the world. Sir, I have seen, in the neighborhood of one of the most moral, religious, and refined cities of the North, a family of free blacks driven to the caves of the rocks, and there obtaining a precarious subsistence from charity and plunder.

When the gentleman from Massachusetts adopts and reiterates the old charge of weakness as resulting from slavery, I must be permitted to call for the proof of those blighting effects which he ascribes to its influence. I suspect that when the subject is closely examined it will be found that there is not much force even in the plausible objection of the want of physical power in slaveholding States. The power of a country is compounded of its population and its wealth, and in modern times, where, from the

very form and structure of society, by far the greater portion of the people must, even during the continuance of the most desolating wars, be employed in the cultivation of the soil and other peaceful pursuits, it may be well doubted, whether slaveholding States, by reason of the superior value of their productions, are not able to maintain a number of troops in the field, fully equal to what could be supported by States, with a larger white population, but not possessed of equal resources.

It is a popular error, to suppose that in any possible state of things, the people of a country could ever be called out en masse, or that a half, or a third, or even a fifth part of the physical force of any country, could ever be brought into the field. The difficulty is not to procure men, but to provide the means of maintaining them; and in this view of the subject, it may be asked whether the Southern States are not a source of strength and power, and not of weakness to the country? whether they have not contributed, and are not now contributing, largely to the wealth and prosperity of every State in this Union? From a statement which I hold in my hand, it appears that in ten years from 1818 to 1827, inclusive-the whole amount of the domestic exports of the United States was $521,811,045; of which, three articles (the product of slave labor), viz., cotton, rice, and tobacco, amounted to $339,203,232-equal to about two-thirds of the

whole. It is not true, as has been supposed, that the advantages of this labor are confined almost exclusively to the Southern States. Sir, I am thoroughly convinced, that at this time, the States north of the Potomac actually derive greater profits from the labor of our slaves, than we do ourselves. It appears from our public documents, that in seven years, from 1821 to 1827, inclusive, the six Southern States exported $190,337,281, and imported only $55,646,301. Now the difference between these two sums (near $140,000,000) passed through the hands of the Northern merchants, and enabled them to carry on their commercial operations with all the world. Such part of these goods as found its way back to our hands came charged with the duties, as well as the profits, of the merchant, the shipowner, and a host of others, who found employment in carrying on these immense exchanges; and for such part as was consumed at the North, we received in exchange Northern manufactures, charged with an increased price, to cover all the taxes which the Northern consumer has been compelled to pay on the imported article. It will be seen, therefore, at a glance, how much slave labor has contributed to the wealth and prosperity of the United States, and how largely our Northern brethren have participated in the profits of that labor. .

But, Sir, whatever difference of opinion may exist as to the effect of slavery on national wealth and