to the general government and ask compensa-
tion for their properly. The State by its act
of emancipation here destroys the legal status
of slavery; it is the State that does the wrong
to the slaveholder. If the State does it for
the public good, for the public use, and the
State is benefitted by it, let the State pay the
parties from whom this property is taken,
and then under the resolution adopted by
Congress, let the State go to the general gov-
ernment for compensation. The State is do-
ing it in obedience to the wish of the general
government. We have, all along through
this discussion of emancipation, heard that
the abolition of slavery was to benefit the
State, particularly the non-slaveholding conn-
ties of the State, by virtue of the increased
value of their lands. Now, if that is to be the
benefit which you are to delive from this act,
then common justice would require that you
at least should bear your portion of the taxes
to compensate the parties, the taking of
whose property is to confer upon you this
benefit.
I had not prepared myself to make an
elaborate argument upon this question. As I
have already said, I should have left what
argument might be made upon this subject to
what fell from the gentleman from Kent
(Mr. Chambers.) I think he has said almost
all that can be said upon this subject, and
but for what I considered the extraordinary
propositions of the gentleman from Washing-
ton county (Mr. Negley,) I should not have
troubled the convention with any remarks at
all upon this subject.
Mr. SANDS. I do not propose to occupy
my half hour. And I should not have arisen
at all to say anything about this matter, had
not the gentleman from Anne Arundel (Mr.
Miller) asked a question, which he would
not permit me to answer during the course
of his remarks. If he had then permitted
me to answer the question which he asked, I
should not be upon the floor now. But I
must take my opportunity of answering his
question now, as he would not give me anop-
portunity to do so when he occupied the floor.
When, where, and how did slavery become
a nuisance, asked the gentleman. I wanted to
have given him my answer then; and I would
have told him in a few words, that it was
when slavery rebelled against a free govern-
ment that it became a nuisance, the vilest
nuisance everywhere. That was the time.
How long ago that was the gentleman can de-
termine for himself.
Mr. CHAMBERS. Will the gentleman allow
me to—
Mr. SANDS. I cannot permit any interrup-
tions. " Mercy is for the merciful, if thou
hadst been of such, it would be accorded
now."
I say slavery became a nuisance when it re-
belled against free government. That was
the time. The gentleman asks, when was this |
doctrine born, that the title to the negro
slaves was a thief's title. He says it is new.
I say it is older than he and I put together. It
was enunciated upon this floor by one whom
he and I will acknowledge to have been far
our superior, long before the world knew of
us; and who will be remembered when the
world has forgotten both of us. I refer to
William Pinckney. In a speech made in this
hall, in 1789, Mr. Pinckney put forth the doc-
trine, and I got it from him, that the title to
slavery was a thief's title. I got it from him,
and from the text books which the gentleman
uses whenever he goes into court. Here is the
language he uses:
"By an existing law no slave can be man-
umitted by his master during his last sick-
ness, or at any time by last will and testa-
ment."
And he goes on to say what this law is.
"That is when liberty, (the great birth-
right of every human creature,) is to be re-
stored to—'
Now, to whom is liberty to be restored
Liberty, which is the birth-right of every
human creature is to be restored to—whom?
To whom does Mr. Pinckney say it is to be
restored? Why, ''to its plundered proprie-
tor," the negro. Now, is it a new doctrine
that the title to a slave is a thief's title?
Here in this hall in 1787, William Pinckney
told you that every negro was the proprietor,
"the plundered proprietor" of his own lib-
erty. It is no new doctrine. The fact is,
that this whole slave doctrine, in the phrase of
it accepted by the gentlemen with whom my
friend from Anne Arundel (Mr. Miller) is
classed, this whole slave doctrine as they
hold it is a new doctrine, while ours is the
old doctrine of the fathers who fought the
battles of the Revolution and established the
liberties of this country. It is not new at
all; it is old, older by far than those who
call it new. And when my friend asked the
origin of this new doctrine, that the title to
slave property was a thief 's title, I wanted in
my place to answer him, and to tell him where
I found this doctrine, and to say to him that
it was enunciated in this hall almost a cen-
tury ago, as I am very well aware my friend
already knows.
And now to apply a few plain legal princi-
ples here, I would ask my friend if under the
laws of this State any limitation runs against
a claim for freedom, where the party was
ever once entitled toil? He knows that the
court that sits in the room above this hall
has decided that question over and over again.
It is clear law, as he knows, that a man to-
day held in slavery here, who is the descend-
ant of a woman once free, is in law a free
man; and all that prevents his coming into
court and claiming and obtaining his liberty,
is the fact that the poor fellow has been de-
prived by circumstances of the means of |
