THE SLAVERY QUESTION.
SPEECH
OF
HON. JOHN M. LANDRUM, OF LA.,
DELIVERED IN
THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, APRIL 27, 1860.
The House being in the Committee of the Whole on the state of the Union—
Mr. LANDRUM said:
Mr. Chairman: That we are now threatened with great and alarming evils, noone who will take a calm and unprejudiced survey of the condition of thecountry can for a moment doubt. In the formation of this Government thereexisted a spirit of harmony and concession from the citizens of each Statein this Union towards the citizens of every other State; and this spiritwas so plainly exhibited in the convention which framed the Constitutionof the United States—that it was so adjusted, so adapted to the wants ofall the States entering into the Confederacy—that it received the almostunanimous support of the Convention. Harmony and concord and good feelingreigned throughout the whole Confederacy. The citizen of South Carolinarejoiced in the prosperity and commended the virtues of the citizen ofMassachusetts; and the citizen of Massachusetts responded to the feelingof the citizen of South Carolina. That was the feeling which pervaded thecitizens of this common country when the Constitution was formed; and thatwas the spirit which pervaded it for the thirty years afterwards duringwhich the Government was administered by the fathers of the Republic.
But now, Mr. Chairman, what state of things does this country exhibit? Apeople discordant; a great sectional party formed, and the whole historyof the country ransacked in a search for subjects of denunciation on thepart of citizens of one portion of the Confederacy against citizens of theother.
In that convention which framed the Constitution, which is the basis ofour Government, slave States were admitted without objection. Concessionswere made to slave States on every point that they demanded, and whichthey deemed essential to the preservation and protection of their rightsin this Union. Ay, there was no objection then to the admission of a Stateinto the Union because she permitted slavery. So far from that, theConstitution abounds with express provisions for the protection of theirproperty, and for the security of their rights. It was not objected to afree State that she should form a member of the Confederacy because shedid not tolerate slavery. But the patriotic founders of the Republiclooked to the interests of the whole country, and sacrificed prejudiceswhenever sacrifices were necessary, “in order to form a more perfectunion.”
Contrast that state of feeling and that state of facts with the conditionin which we now see the country. Mutual denunciation is the business evenof the Representatives of the people on the floor of this Hall. Members ofCongress recommend the circulation of books calculated to sap andundermine the foundations on which the whole fabric of wealth, ofrespectability, and of civilization, of one-half the Union is based. Wemeet here, not to strengthen the bonds that bind us together in the Union,but to weaken them, as far as human ingenuity can do so. To such a pointhas this state of things culminated, that the people of State after Statein the Southern portion of the Confederacy have met in convention anddeclared their belief that there is a probability that the time is rapidlyapproaching when they “must provide new guards for their futuresecurity.” The State which I have the honor in part to represent has madethat declaration. And it is charged here on the floor of this Hall, byalmost every member of the Republican party who has addressed thiscommittee on the subject of the st