[1]

SLAVERY: WHAT IT WAS, WHAT IT HAS DONE, WHAT
IT INTENDS TO DO.

SPEECH
OF
HON. CYDNOR B. TOMPKINS, OF OHIO.

Delivered in the House of Representatives, April 24, 1860.

Mr. TOMPKINS said:

Mr. Chairman: The charge is frequently made,that nothing but slavery occupies the attentionof the National Legislature. That this charge istrue to a great extent, that this subject is constantlykept before the country, and that thereis constant excitement about it, is not the faultof the Republican party. In the first hour of thepresent session of Congress, it was thrust uponthe House by a member of the slavery party; fortwo months a discussion was continued uponthat subject, and almost exclusively by thatparty—a discussion unparalleled in point of violenceand virulence in the history of Parliamentarydebate. Charges the most aggravated wereunscrupulously and shamelessly made againstthe best and purest men of the country, and honorablemembers on this floor. Calumny andvituperation held high carnival in the legislativehalls of this great nation. The columns of theDaily Globe teemed with fierce and fiery denunciationsof all who would not bow to the behestsof pro-slavery power. Depraved, corrupt, andpolluted presses exerted themselves to the utmostin the work of slander and detraction; hirelingscribblers for worse than hireling presses gluttedthemselves and made their meals on good men'snames. These spacious galleries were filled withdisloyal men, ready to applaud to the echo everythreat uttered against the Government, and everydisloyal sentiment heard from this floor.

If the Republicans here shall feel it to be theirduty to discuss this subject now; to lay bare itsweakness and its wickedness; to expose themadness and the folly of those who sustain, support,and cherish it; if the great interests of thecountry have to be neglected for a time; if ordinarylegislation must be put aside, no complaintcan be made against the Republican party. Thatparty, its principles, its men, and its measures,have been misrepresented, and most unjustly assailed.It is our privilege, it is our duty, to repelthose assaults, that the world may know thatwhen the advanced guard of freedom is attacked,"our feet shall be always in the arena, and ourshields shall hang always in the lists."

I intend to review this question for the timeallowed me. I hope to do so with fairness andcandor, and not with the passion and excitementthat have characterized many speeches madethis session by pro-slavery members. I shallendeavor to show that the fathers of this Republic,both of the North and South, were morethoroughly anti-slavery than any political partynow in the country; and that, for more than fortyyears after its organization, a large majority ofour prominent men were strongly opposed to theextension of that "patriarchal institution."

The debates in the Federal Convention showthat the Constitution was framed, adopted, andratified, by anti-slavery men; that they regardedit as an evil, yet were ashamed to acknowledgeits existence in words—thus virtually refusing torecognise property in many Resolutions, addresses,and speeches, now to be found, establishthis very important fact, as I will show byquotations from them.

At a general meeting in Prince George county,Virginia, it was

"Resolved, That the African slave trade is injuriousto this colony, obstructs the populationof it by free men, and prevents manufacturersfrom Europe from settling among us."

At a meeting in Culpeper county, Virginia, itwas

"