can trace the stream of human history from
its upper fountains down to this day, and
yon may follow it until it empties into the
vast ocean of eternity; but never will you
find this principle varied, that wherever
wrong is perpetrated there retribution is sore
to follow. Look at the history of slavery in
all times. Take it among the Oriental na-
tions, among the Hebrews, the Greeks, the
Romans, wherever it has been. I tell gen-
tlemen, if they choose to turn historical stu-
dents, they will find that never a nation
cherished the institution of slavery that did
not have to give it up, or come to ruin.
Some gentlemen have read quotations here
going to show how horribly slaves were
treated in the Roman empire; they were put
in caves, made to work in chain gangs, and
this, and that, and the other. They can find
other instances of worse treatment. Slavery
among the Chians was worse; that among
the Spartans wag worse. But wherever it
ever existed, it went out in national calamity
and blood. Every "here, where humanity
was crushed into the dust, in time came up
some Drimacos, some Eunus, some Spartacus,
who demanded and had in blood the price of
his fellows' bondage and degradation. That
is history.
Mr. BILLINGSLEY. May I ask the gentleman
what was the cause of the downfall of the
Roman empire?
Mr. SANDS. Upon this very question of
slavery.
Mr. BILLINGSLEY. I beg your pardon; that
is a mistake.
Mr. SANDS, I beg your pardon. Slavery
was the beginning of the civil wars. Slavery
had so increased in the Roman empire, that
the slaveholders had absorbed all the land.
Mr. BILLINGSLEY. I do not so read it,
Mr. SANDS. These are the facts of history,
which gentlemen can go to the books and
learn. I am glad the gentleman has asked
the question. Slavery had increased in the
Roman empire until there were, as some gen-
tlemen have said here, 80,000,000 of slaves.
The result was that the land had all been ab-
sorbed by a few slaveholders. The mudsills
of Rome were reduced to a degree of degra-
dation, only paralleled perhaps by the mud-
sill of South Carolina to-day. Then, and on
the question of dividing up the lands of the
Empire, so as to destroy slavery, arose the
civil wars which lasted so long, and in the
end left the Romans a prey to the barbarians
that overran them.
I wish I had time to treat this subject as it
deserves, I say that history teaches this one
lesson, that wherever the institution of
slavery fastened upon a nation it never let
go its hold until the nation was tottering in-
to ruin from it. I mean nothing offensive,
but I fell you that the class of slaveholders,
as history proves, hold on to their peculiar
institution, to age one of their refined and |
delicate expressions, " like grim death on to
a dead nigger." They hold on, and hold
on, and—over they go into the maelstrom of
ruin.
Now, if these very scriptural gentlemen
want an instance in point, I will give them
one from the Bible, because that is good au-
thority on this subject with them. In the
inscrutable providence of God, the Hebrews
had been reduced to slavery in Egypt, and
there are some statistical facts connected with
that matter, which gentlemen might take into
consideration, in regard to the increase of
slaves. They have always increased. Why
that old heathen, Pharoah, found that these
Hebrew slaves, even though he treated them
so tyrannically, increased so rapidly that he
published an edict commanding the destruc-
tion of all the male babes of the race. He had
not studied Malthus, had he? Still they
went on increasing and increasing.
Now, look at Pharoah's case. I will tell
yon how Egypt was emancipated. Study
the parallel. There arose a great abolitionist
of the name of Moses. You have all beard
of him. He was one of those whom
Pharoah doomed to destruction. Now, Mo-
ses escaped, and was more favored than
slaves under your system are. Why, sir,
bistory blushes at this fact, that slavery in
America is what slavery never was before in
any part of the earth; what it never was
even in Algiers, never anywhere else. You
have the testimony of John Wesley to this
fact; of General Baton, who, during the
presidency of General Jackson, was United
States consul at Algiers. The books are fall
of these facts.
Now, think of the temptations that Moses
had not to be an abolitionist He could have
been the son of Pharoah's daughter, for in
many of those eastern countries it was the
practice of slaveowners, especially if they
had no children of their own, to adopt their
slaves as their heirs. Moses could have been
the son of Pharoah's daughter, but he pre-
ferred to be an humble abolitionist. He went
to Pharoah and said: "Thus saith the Lord
God, let my people go." But Pharoah did
not see it in that light, and said no. Then
Moses told him what was coming, and there
was one plague after another, of frogs, and
locusts, and lice, and thick darkness that
could he cut with a knife. Well, when Pha-
roah felt the plague a little heavily, he would
say to the Hebrews, "go." But as soon as
they started, he would change his mind and
bring them back again.
Last of all came that terrible night when
in every house in the land, there was the
cry of lamentation and Weeping, because in
each house there lay the first-born, a cold, stark
corpse. And then Pharoah said to the He-
brews: "Get yon up out of the land, you
and your wives and your little ones; take
your cattle and everything else, and go." |
