Read Ebook: The Slavery Question Speech of Hon. John M. Landrum of La. Delivered in the House of Representatives April 27 1860 by Landrum John M John Morgan

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it, for my precedents. I care not what their private opinions may have been; I want to know what their legislative conduct was when they were acting on oath, for they were men who regarded their oaths. They were men, sir, who did not believe that the Constitution they framed would be contrary to the higher law, and that it would be consistent with their oath of office to violate it.

The British "shall not carry away the negroes or other property belonging to the people of the United States."

Yet we are told that, according to the doctrine of our forefathers, there can be no such thing as property in man. The language I have quoted occurs first in the preliminary articles in 1782, and again in the treaty of peace which was signed in 1783.

Kentucky was admitted into the Union as a slave State, without objection, on the 4th of February, 1791. Now, if you had the right to exclude Missouri because she tolerated slavery, why did you not have the same right to exclude Kentucky? Why were conscientious scruples abandoned in the case of Kentucky, and the Territory of Virginia given, by the detaching of Kentucky, four Senators in the Senate of the United States, instead of two? Our forefathers--yours and mine--voted for the admission of Kentucky as a slave State. It will not do to say that slavery already existed in Kentucky; because, if slavery be a sin and a crime and a curse, then, according to your doctrine, it ought not to have been extended by giving the slave States additional representation and power in the Senate of the United States.

Why, sir, if it would have been bad faith to have excluded Kentucky, was it not bad faith to exclude Missouri? Because in the ordinance establishing the territorial government of Missouri, in 1812, there was no Wilmot proviso, no prohibition of slavery? But slavery was permitted, as we ask it shall be permitted now; it was protected by the courts, and no complaint was urged within the Territory of Missouri, in regard to this question of slavery until she applied for admission into the Union. If your anti-slavery party, which I charge is the cause of all the evils with which this country is afflicted, was right then in excluding Missouri, because she did not abolish slavery, your forefathers were wrong in admitting Kentucky. Either they were wrong and you are right, or you are wrong and they were right. Between the two I have no hesitation in my choice. Regarded as patriots, regarded as intelligent men, considered as men who regarded their oaths, I have no hesitation in saying I believe they were equally as honest as the Republican party of the present day.

In 1793 they gave us the fugitive slave law, there being only seven votes in opposition to it, and some of those were from the South, I think--a law, which if we attempt to enforce in the northern States we are met by mobs, and bloodshed frequently follows. No southern man dares go into some portions of the northern States and attempt to execute this law, except at the peril of his life.

Such was the action of the founders of the republic, whose example we are constantly called upon to imitate. Tennessee was admitted in 1796, with slavery. The Territory of Mississippi was organized in 1798, by the application of the ordinance of 1787 to that Territory, and the restriction as to slavery removed. That was legislation under the Constitution. These are the precedents we are to follow; and we are not to go behind the Constitution and follow the precedent of 1787, when the relation of the States to each other was entirely different from what it is now under the Constitution.

Ah! but you say, Mr. Jefferson thought slavery was a great wrong. But the acquisition of Louisiana in 1804 was a great right. Mr. Jefferson was then President of the republic. He represented the people of the free States, and he represented the people of the slave States; and no matter what his private opinion might have been upon the question of slavery, or upon the question of religion, or upon any other question, we, as legislators sitting in this Hall, acting under oath, as he did, have nothing to do with your private opinions upon the subject; but we have something to do with your legislative action; and I call upon you, acting under oath, as Jefferson did, to imitate his example. He acquired Louisiana through the instrumentality of Livingston and Monroe, who signed the treaty. Slavery existed in the Territory of Louisiana by the treaty by which she was acquired, and by that her inhabitants were guarantied their rights of property.

And yet we are told that we are the cause of all these mischiefs, because we do not join with you in the declaration that there can be no such thing as property in man; and that we have departed from the example of our forefathers in not joining in that declaration. Sir, I would not use an unparliamentary phrase; I would not say one word calculated to widen the breach which now exists between the different members of this Confederacy, for God knows no one deprecates it more than I do; but I do say that intelligent gentlemen who stand upon this floor and make that declaration, ignore the whole legislation of this Government, from the formation of the Constitution up to the Missouri difficulty, in 1820. I say, if they are familiar with the legislative acts of their forefathers, they must know they are uttering that which is not true, when they say their example teaches us that we should oppose slavery in every shape and form in which we have legislative power.

Mississippi was admitted into the Union in 1817, and no objection was raised that she was a slave State. But it was in 1819-'20 that the struggle began for which you propose to hold us responsible. Why, sir, after the Government had gone on thirty years without question, having never asked, when a State applied for admission, whether she was free or whether she was slave; while the whole country was living in harmony and brotherly love and affection; while the southern State was proud of the prosperity and happiness of the northern State, and the people of the northern States rejoiced at the prosperity of the people of the South, this hydra-headed monster of anti-slavery was then first produced; and from that day to this, it may be said,

"Black it stood as night, Fierce as ten furies, terrible as hell,"

and has shaken the bonds of this Union from one end to the other.

What was the cause of the agitation of 1820? After you had encouraged the citizens of Virginia and Kentucky and other States to settle in Missouri, by protecting slave property in the courts of justice, you turned round and said that Missouri should not be admitted unless she relinquished the right thereafter to hold slaves; and you kept her out of the Union for one year. The South, with that compromising and generous spirit which has ever characterized them--I say so in no spirit of egotism, for I am describing the people whom I represent--came forward and executed that memorable relinquishment, agreeing that slavery should not go north of 36? 30? if you would permit Missouri to come into the Union. While we have voted for the admission of free State after free State, without making it a question; while we were then ready to vote for the admission of Maine, you turned round and ungenerously--what your motives may have been God only knows; whether to promote your political power or not it is not for me to say--forbid Missouri coming into the Union unless she relinquished the right to hold slaves.

Now, sir, who departed from the lessons of wisdom taught by the fathers of the republic? Most of them slept in their tombs, and a wiser and purer and holier race had supplanted them; and "the sin against God and the crime against humanity" had to be blotted from Missouri, or she could hold no place in the Union.

However, you made a good trade, and then the objection to the "sin against God and the crime against humanity" was waived for a consideration. You excluded the people of the South from all the territory north of 36? 30?, and then Missouri was admitted into the Union with slavery.

Mr. LANDRUM. I would thank the committee to extend my time for ten minutes longer.

General assent was given.

Mr. LANDRUM. I shall have to pass over a number of points which I should have liked to touch on, and will only make this remark: that having all the time a majority in the House of Representatives, and having secured an ultimate preponderance in the Senate, you passed the tariff bills of 1824 and 1828, in which the southern section, now securely in the minority, were to be made tributary to promote and pamper the industry of the North. Then came the opposition to the annexation of Texas, because it was a slave State. Then came the Wilmot proviso for Oregon, and for the territory acquired from Mexico. Then followed the struggle of 1856, when you boldly inscribed on your banner, "No more slave States to be admitted into the Union." At all events, you insisted on "prohibition to slavery in the Territories," and announced that our system of labor was a "twin relic of barbarism" with polygamy. Then followed the enunciation, in the platform of a great popular party, which struggled almost successfully for the government of the country, that the whole people of the South who owned slaves were living in that state of pollution and degradation which characterizes the polygamist.

Yet we are told that we are the cause of all the trouble, because we do not join in the hue-and-cry. Now, sir, what is the state of parties? The greatest man, perhaps, of the Republican party--certainly the greatest in influence, and the one whose prospects are first for the Presidency--has declared that the three billions of property which we own must be destroyed, stating that "you and I must do it," meaning that it must be done by the present generation. Then follows the resolution of the gentleman from Ohio, voted for by sixty members of the House, declaring that slavery ought to be abolished wherever the Government has the power to do it.

The gentleman from Connecticut will recollect his declaration that some of us may live to see the day when this Confederacy may consist of fifty sovereignties; and when that day comes, it will be their duty, according to the principles of the Republican party, to change the Constitution and to abolish slavery. And yet gentlemen seem to wonder that the people of the South are talking about new guards for their safety. Sir, the maxim laid down by Jefferson, that governments should not be abolished for light or transient causes, is most true; but no less true is the maxim that a people are always disposed to endure evils so long as they are endurable, rather than right themselves by abolishing the forms of which they are accustomed. Sir, what may be the action of Louisiana, in any contingency that may arise, it is not for me to state.

I believe that the people of my State have too much at stake to attempt to change their present institutions, or to make any new arrangement for light or transient causes. We have an immense wealth, a vast commerce, a city trading with all the States of the Union, whose forests of masts, from which float the flags of all nations, denote that her commerce is coextensive with the globe. The levee of her commercial emporium literally trembles, in a frontage of nine miles, beneath the superincumbent masses of merchandise. Reluctantly, most reluctantly, would that people take any steps which by possibility could involve us in civil war and commotion; and great, indeed, must have been their apprehension when they adopted, in convention, March 15, 1860, the following resolution:

"That, in case of the election of a President on the avowed principles of the Black Republican party, we concur in the opinion that Louisiana should meet in council her sister slaveholding States, to consult as to the means of future protection."

I have no idea that I am mistaken, when I state that no action will be taken under that resolution, except on the most mature deliberation. But, sir, whenever the people of Louisiana believe that their institutions are in danger, and that it is the deliberate purpose of those who may get control of the Government to spread over them that dark and benighted pall which hangs like an incubus over the Central and South American republics and the West India Islands that have emancipated their slaves, I tell you they will act, and act effectually, too, for their protection and security. And whatever course the majority of her people may choose to take, her sons will sustain it with their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor.

THOS. MCGILL, Print.

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