able to make enough to eat and to wear, and
that of the very poorest sort. That is the
condition of the laboring population in those
countries. And I say mat I may challenge
the world to show any laboring population
so well cared for as our slaves were.
"No compensation for their labor" it is
said; that is the idea. They are now to have
the fruits of their labor. Have they not
had the fruits of their labor? Have they not
had comfortable houses to shelter them, and
abundance of food and clothing, and as light
labor as was compatible with the duties of
the master to provide for his household ?
Have they not had the family physician lo
attend them in sickness? Have not the wives
and daughters of slaveholders nursed them
and cared for them in sickness? Has not the
minister of God come to them and stood
around their beds as they were lying in suf-
fering and pain? And this is the system that
you are to uploot, and in place of which you
are to bring abolitionism to destroy all this
fair prospect, and to plunge this unfortunate
class into idleness, crime and degradation; to
break asunder the ties which bind this un-
fortunate, yet faithful and affectionate class
in many respects, to their owners. I have
seen some of the victims of this delusion.
When the steamboat came with soldiers
sounding the praises of getting food and
clothing at the expense of the United States,
they thought it was a fine life for the negro,
and so they rushed on board the boat to go
where they could get plenty to eat and clothes
to wear and nothing to do. Some of them
tried it for two or three months at Washing-
ton among their particular friends, the abo-
litionists, at $25 a month; and one poor old
man, who worked precisely as he pleased,
who served as manager and overseer to one
of my neighbors, a man about 60 years of
age, who carried his master's keys, had a
horse to ride, and a carriage, too, if he chose,
with as much money as he wanted, be thought
he must go, and he went to Washington and
engaged to groom horses for $25 a month.
He worked there for two or three months
without getting any pay, and finally went lo
the department, where he was put off with
$7.50. He had got enough of that; he went
home to his master, most humbly beseeching
to be received again as a stave; as others
have done in that neighborhood, coming
back to their owners, repudiating this system
which brings them to poverty, disease and
death, praying to be received again in their
homes which they had left tinder a delusion,
and asking to be received under the kind care
of their masters, and into the servitude in
which they lived before.
My learned friend from Howard (Mr. Sands)
asked me this question the other day: if my
slaves run away from Maryland, and went
into the Northern States, to whom would I
look for redress? Well might be ask that |
question. I tell him that the Constitution
clothed the Federal Government with that
authority and made it obligatory upon it to
execute the law. The Constitution has done
more. The Constitution which has been
adopted by New Hampshire, and Vermont,
and Massachusetts, and Connecticut, and 'New
York, and all those western States which
have been admitted to enjoy the blessings of
this Union—that Constitution said to them :
You are bound by the high obligation of
your plighted faith to return to his owner the
fugitive slave that comes within your BORDER=0s ;
it was a part of the compact, and whatever
you may think about it you are not at liberty
to set it aside, for the obligation is there rest-
ing upon you. How has that obligation been
fulfilled, even within the State of Pennsyl-
vania, upon your BORDER=0?
Mr. SANDS. My question related to the time
antecedent to this war, when the slave-
holders looked exclusively to the Federal
Government.
Mr. JONES, of Somerset. Precisely, and
looked in vain. Not because the federal
Government was unable or unwilling,
The PRESIDENT. The gentleman's time is up.
On motion of Mr. SCOTT,
The time of the gentleman was extended
fifteen minutes.
Mr. JONES, of Somerset. I had no idea I
had spoken an hour. I was just going to give
my friend from Howard (Mr. Sands) the ben-
efit of Mr. Clay's opinions about abolition
and its tendencies, in a speech which he.
made in 1850 to the Legislature of Kentucky,
after he succeeded in carrying the compro-
mise measure in Congress. It was Mr. Clay's
testimony lo the patriotism and support of the
democratic party in carrying those measures,
which be said was equal to if not greater
than that he had received from his whig
friends. The vote will show that he was dependant
upon the democratic support which
he received for the success of his measure.
But I shall have to forego that.
I had intended to show that Mr. Lincoln in
his inaugural address, and Mr. Seward in his
despatch No. 3 to Mr. Dayton, said that the
condition of slavery in the several States
would remain just the same whether toe re-
bellion succeeded or tailed. Now see the
change that has taken place in their pur-
poses.
I have another pamphlet here from which
I should have been very happy to read some
extracts. It is a pamphlet filled with the
sayings and doings of that abolition conspi-
racy in the New England States which has
brought about these troubles, it is entitled,
"The abolition conspiracy to destroy the
Union; or, a ten years' record of the ' Repub-
lican' party. The opinions of William Lloyd
Garrison, Wendell Phillips, Abraham Lin-
coln, William H. Seward, Salmon P. Chase,
Horace Greeley," and a great many others. |
