HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.
![handle is hein.slavery/fdmvslcy0001 and id is 1 raw text is:
FREEDOM
v. SAAVEIRY.
0-_
SPEECH
OF
JOHN HUTCHINS, OF OHIO.
0
Delivered in the U. S. House of Representatives, May 2,1860
0
Mr. CAiRMA2Mr: When the distinguished
Senator from NewYork, [WIITAM H. SEWARD,]
in his Rochester speech in 1858, defined the
antagonism between free and slave labor to be
an irrepressible conflict, he announced a truth
inherent in the two systems, and coeval with
slavery. The same idea has been frequently
expressed in different forms by the opponents
and advocates of slavery, in their discussions of
the subject. If Mr. SEWARD, in the statement
of this truth, is entitled to the claim of origin-
ality, it is in the use of words expressive of
the idea. He has been represented as originating
the antagonism, instead of defining it. He in
apt words clearly defined what is patent to a
student of history and to a careful observer of
passing events, namely: that there is an irrec-
oncilable antagonism between freedom and
slavery. It is being demonstrated, if it never
were before, by the logic of events now trans-
piring. The words freedom and slavery are
expressive of opposite ideas; and wherever the
two systems come in contact, there must neces-
sarily be conflict and antagonism. A line of
policy which would encourage free labor would
discourage slave labor; hence the conflict as
to measures in the legislation of Congress, af-
fecting the two systems of labor. When, in
fixing a tariff of duties upon imports, with a
view to make the annual revenues of the Gov-
ernment equal its annual expenditures, a dis-
crimination is made upon such articles as free
labor produces, so as to afford incidental pro-
tection, then we find the advocates of free labor
and the advocates of slave labor in antagonism
on this floor. When it is proposed to encourage
free labor by inviting it to occupy and improve
our unoccupied public domain, by the passage
of a homestead law then we encounter the same
antagonism. And so it is with every measure
proposed, having the leaAt relation to either
system of labor. The establishment of the fact
of a conflict between freedom and slavery does
not, as a logical sequence2 determine which is
right or which is wrong. I propose, therefore,
briefly to examine that question, and address
myself to that inquiry.
The advocates of slavery upon this floor have
frankly and ably presented the question for
our consideration; and I propose to meet it.
If i he system of free labor, as it exists in the
free States of this Union, is wrong, we ought,
as honest men, to abandon it, and adopt that
higher type of civilization, as it is claimed,
which exists in the slave States. If tke sys-
tem of slave isbor, as it exists in the slave
States, is right, we ought, under the Constitu-
tion of the United States, to extend to it that
protection which its advocates claim for it. I
maintain thatslavery, as it exists in the slave-
holding States, is wrong in every aspect in
which it can be viewed; wrong to the slave;
wrong to the slaveholder ; an injury to the ma-
terial industrial, political, social, educational
mora!, and religious prosperity of any people
who encourage or tolerate it; and, like all
other sins which afflict society, the sum total of
its results is evil, and only evil. Slavery origi-
nated in motives of selfishness, of avarice, and
of ambition; in an age when, by the teachings
of those motives, might was a synonym for
right-when the weak and unfortunate, and the
conquered, had no rights which the strong were
bound to respect. It is sustained at the pres-
ent day, in and out of this Hall, by the same
logic, and by the same motives.
When the colonists of this country were ex-
periencing the oppressive effects of the tyran-
nical measures of the Parliament and King o£
England, tending to reduce them to political
slavery, they naturally began to inquire into
the inherent rights of man, as a subject of civil
government- and that inquiry, with the dis-
cussion incident to it, in the light of the learn-
ing which the progress of society up to that
time had developed, resulted in the adoption
of a platform of political principles, in har-
mony with the Divine law, which was incorpo.
Reproduced with permission from the University of Illinois at Chicago](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.slavery/fdmvslcy0001&div=1&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)