piency, and it is bad now. I do not intend
to show at length the inconsistency of that
argument.
But inasmuch as my learned friend in his
argument upon the twenty-third article of
the bill of rights, and also in his argument of
this morning, could not let the occasion pass
without making a great flourish of this
speech of Mr. Pinckney upon the subject
about which ha read, I will also read some
of the sentiments of that distinguished man.
I will not, however, read from the speech
which he made in these halls when, in the
full fervor and glow of his youth, he was
arguing in the house of delegates, and bring-
ing to bear all his youthful eloquence in be-
half of the proposition to repeal the law of
Maryland against the manumission of negroes
in this State. But I will read from a speech
which he made in the years of his manhood,
in the full blaze and splendor of his meridian
glory, when in the Senate chamber in Wash-
ington he enchained listening Senators and
admiring audiences. I will read what he said
upon this question in his speech upon the
Missouri compromise. I read from the same
book from which my friend read, and which
he has kindly furnished me.
"Sir, if we too closely look to the rise and
progress of long sanctioned establishments
and unquestioned rights, we may discover
other subjects than that of slavery, with which
fraud and violence may claim a fearful con-
nexion, and over which it may be our inter-
est to throw the mantle of oblivion. What
was the settlement of our ancestors in this
country but an invasion of the rights of the
barbarians who inhabited it? That settle-
ment, with slight exceptions, was effected by
the slaughter of those who did no more than
defend their native land against the intruders
of Europe, or by unequal compacts and pur-
chases, in which feebleness and ignorance
had to deal with power and cunning. The
savages who once built their huts where this
proud capital, rising from its recent ashes,
exemplifies the sovereignty of the American
people, were swept away by the injustice of
our fathers, and their domain usurped by
force, or obtained by artifices yet more crim-
inal. Our continent was full of those abori-
ginal inhabitants. Where are they or their
descendants? Either" with years beyond the
flood," or driven back by the swelling tide
of our population from the BORDER=0s of the
Atlantic to the deserts of the west. You fol-
low still the miserable remnants, and make
contracts with them that seal their ruin. Yon
purchase their lands, of which they know not
the value, in order that you may sell them to
advantage, increase your treasure, and en-
large your empire. Yet further—you pur-
sue as they retire; and they must continue to
retire until the Pacific shall stay their retreat,
and compel them to pass away as a dream.
Will you recur to these scenes of various |
iniquity for any other purpose than to regret
and lament them? Will yon pry into them
with a view to shape and impair your rights
of property and dominion ?"
Thus it will be seen that this able and elo-
quent lawyer and statesman put the right to
hold slaves in Maryland, upon the very same
ground, and upon the very same title by
which the country now holds the land upon
which stands the Capitol at Washington.
Now upon this question of thief s title, Mr.
Pinckney in the Senate of the United States,
is answering arguments such as those that
have been advanced in this hall. Mr. King,
of New York, had made a speech somewhat
of that character. Said Mr. Pinckney :
" The honorable gentleman on the other
side (Mr. King, of New York,) has told us as a
proof of his great position (that man cannot
enslave his fellow-man, in which is implied
that all laws upholding slavery are absolutely
nullities,) that the nations of antiquity as well
as of modern times have concurred in laying
down that position as incontrovertible.
" He refers us in the first place to the Ro-
man law, in which he finds it laid down as a
maxim; jure natural omnes homines ab initio
libero nascebantur. From the manner in which
the maxim was pressed upon us, it would not
readily have been conjectured that the honor-
able gentleman who used It had burrowed at
from a slaveholding empire, and still less
from a book of the Institutes of Justinian,
which treats of slavery, and justifies and reg-
ulates it. Had he given us the context, we
should have had the modifications of which
the abstract doctrine was, in the judgment of
the Roman law, susceptible. We should have
had an explanation of the competency of
that law, to convert, whether justly or un-
justly, freedom into servitude, and to main-
tain the right of the master to the service and
obedience of his slave."
The convention will pardon me if I read
further upon this subject, and I will com-
mend one portion of it to my friend from
Washington (Mr. Negley,) as an answer to
that part of his argument upon the subject of
nuisance—that slavery was a nuisance and
ought to be abated.
"He next refers us to magna charta, I am
somewhat familiar with magna charta, and I
am confident that it contains no such maxim
as the honorable gentleman thinks he has
discovered in it. The great charter was ex-
torted from John and his feeble son and
successor, by haughty slaveholding barons,
who thought only of themselves and the
commons of England, (then inconsiderable,)
whom they wished to enlist in their efforts
against the crown. There is not a single word
which condemns civil slavery. Freemen only
are the objects of its protecting care, "nullus
liber homo," is its phraseology. The serfs,
who were chained to the sou—the villeins
regardant and in gross, were left as it found |
