think I am talking any new doctrine; because
you may say it is as novel as you please. I
say it is not novel I say it has been talked
here before, long ago; and by a man—I say
it with all due deference for this Convention,
from its President down—if we were all cut
up and moulded into one man, we would not
make his intellectual peer. He was a Mary-
lander, who in this very Hall said things
about this institution that I am not capable
of saying; I have not the talent to say them.
And above all, I have neat the withering sar-
casm with which he scorched the institution
of slavery upon this floor, as long ago as
1789. And I will tell you who he was, gen-
tlemen; you are fond of quoting him. His
name was William Pinckney; perhaps you
know him by reputation. What said he of
this institution, on this floor, at the first ses-
sion of the Legislature of Maryland, after
the formation of the Constitution of the Uni-
ted States?
"Sir, iniquitous and most dishonorable
to Maryland, is that dreary system of partial
bondage, which her laws have hitherto sup-
ported with a solicitude worthy of a better
object, and her citizens by their practice
countenanced."
Well, this is a very pood speech, and I ad-
vise gentlemen to read it in extenso. Mind
you, now, it is fifty, yes, seventy-five years,
since in this Hall this noble, generous, glow-
ing, eloquent language fell from the lips of
that man you all profess so much to honor.
" Founded in a disgraceful traffic, to which
the parent country lent her fostering aid, from
motives of interest, but which even she would
have disdained to encourage, had England
been the destined mart of such inhuman
merchandise, its continuance is as shameful
as its origin."
"Eternal infamy await the abandoned
miscreants, whose" selfish souls could ever
prompt them to rob unhappy Africa of her
sons, and freight them hither by thousands,
to poison the fair eden of liberty with the
rank weed of individual bondage ! Nor is it
more to the credit of our ancestors, that they
did not command those savage spoilers to
bear their hateful cargo to another shore,
where the shrine of freedom knew no vota-
ries and every purchaser would at once lie
both a master and a slave,"
Now, mark you, gentlemen, there, accord-
ing to William Pinckney, is where your
right to bold your slaves begins, in that dis-
graceful traffic.
And I will pause here to make one further
legal suggestion. Did you ever hear this
principle contradicted in a court of law
—that no property, general or special, could
ever be created in a stolen thing? Did you
ever read such a principle as that in your
text-books? Did you ever hear it in your
courts? That no property, general or spe-
cial, could ever be acquired in a stolen thing? |
Now, if you will follow that doctrine out,
and follow out the rules and practices of your
southern courts, you will find that I was not
so far from the truth, when I said there is not
a legal title to a single slave in Maryland.
Grant that gentlemen here got their slaves
from their fathers; grant that their fathers
got them from their grandfathers. Follow
them back, and you will find that the man
who bought them on board the slave-ship
BOUGHT BUT A THIEF'S TITLE after all.
Mr. BERRY, of Prince George's. Is not
possession prima facie evidence of title? Can
any other person set up a higher title, and
gain it in a court of law?
Mr. SANDS. If the gentleman is satisfied
with the prima /facie evidence of his title, 1
am, so far as he is concerned. I am now
enunciating a principle, and I am following
it to its inevitable conclusion.
And I will tell you another principle upon
which your courts have acted, and another
rule which they have laid down. it is, that
no statute of limitation runs against the
claim of a party to freedom; for freedom is
a dearer right than any right of properly.
Your Maryland courts have decided that no
statute can run against a claim to freedom.
In the matter of your farm, a party holding
it for twenty years in peaceable possession,
holds it against you; there the statute of
limitation operates. In a claim not sooner
presented to the debtor, the statute bars the
recovery of the claim after three years. Bat
a negro's right to freedom—so your courts
have said, and you can find your books
full of it—is above all statutes of limita-
tions, and none can run against it. if he
can show that his mother, or grandmother,
or great-grandmother, or any maternal an-
cestor, even twenty, or fifty, or a hundred
generations back, was a free woman, he is
entitled to his freedom. Now, what binders
every negro, held as a slave in Maryland,
from going into your courts, and claiming
and demanding his freedom, except that
your possession is prima facie evidence of
your title, and he is required to furnish proof
to overcome it? But you all know the/act
that he is the descendant of a woman, once
free
Mr. BRISCOE. Will the gentleman permit
me to ask him one question ?
Mr. SANDS. I would sooner finish without
interruption, as it is now late.
Mr. BRISCOE. Just one question. Mr.
Pinckney said that by the eternal principles
of justice, the aboriginal inhabitants of this
country were entitled to the soil. Now, I
want the gentleman to tell me what title the
State of Maryland has to the very land upon
which this capitol now stands?
Mr. SANDS. Well, upon that point I am
not going to disagree with Mr. Pinckney. I
think the Indian has a natural right to this
soil. And if the party entitled to it ever |
