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1 Henry Wilson, Territorial Slave Code: Speech of Hon. Henry Wilson, of Massachusetts 1 (1860)

handle is hein.slavery/ttslvcsph0001 and id is 1 raw text is: TERRITORIAT SLAVE CODE. SPEECH OF HON HENRY WILSON, OF MASSACHUSETTS. Delivered in the Senate of the United States, January 25, 1860. The Senate proce-ded to consider the follow- ing resolutions, submitted by Mr. BowN on the 18th instant: .solved, That the Territories are the common property of alt, v -ates, and that it is the privilege of the citizens of all th6tates to go into the Territories with every kind or de- Corjtion of property recognised by the Constiturton of the United ftteI and hhl under the laws ofany of the States; and that it is the c,'qiitittional duty of the law-making pow- er, wherever lodged or by whomsoever exercised, whether by thC oungress or the Terlitiorial Legislature, to enact such laws ts may be tfound necessary for the adequate and suf- flcient proteton of such property. llemlwd, That tho Cormitee on Territories be instructed to insert, in any bill they mi' report for the organization of new Territories, a clause doe:aring it to be the duty of the Territorial Le2islature to enact adequate and r!:111cient laws for the protection ftall kinds of property, as above describ. cd, within the limits of tl Territory ; and that, upon its fail- ure or refcsal to do so, it is the admitted duty f Congress to interfere and pass such laws. Mr. WILSON., Mr. President, when the Re- public entered the family of nations, it pro- claimed to kings and princes, to nobles and privileged classes, to toiling freemen and lowly bordmen, the equality of man. Passing now through the eighty-fourth year of national life, America presents to the gaze of nations the hu- piiliating and saddening spectacle of a Republic which began its independent existence by the prQmulgation of a bill of rights as old as crea- tiwi and as wide as humanity, distracted by discordant and angry discussions upon issues growing out of the bondage of four million men. f. Slavery in America-our connections with it, and relations to it, the obligations these connec- tions Ad relations impose upon us as men, as citizens of the States and of the United States- make the issues of'the age, the transcendent Jlagaitutze of which command the profoundest qttention of the country. In the crowded city and the lonely dwelling, the public press and the judicial tribunal, the hall oflegislution and the temple of the living God-everywhere--goes on the irrepressible conflict between the sublime creed of the charter of independence and the aggressive spirit of slavery; between the insti- tutions of freedom our fathers founded and the system of human bondage which now darkens the land, casting its baleful shadows over the Republic, obscuring its lustre, and marring its symmetry and beauty. Within fifteen States of this democratic Re- public, which commenced its career by uttering the ideas of equality and liberty that live in the throbbing hearts of the toiling masses, and nurse even the wavering hopes of hapless bondmen amid the thick gloom of rayless oppression, more than four million human beings, made in the image of God, are held in perpetual bondage. By inexorable laws, sanctioned by the merciless force of public opinion, these millions are de- nied the rights of manhood, and degraded to the abject condition of chattelhood. To them, the hallowed relations of husband and wife, parent and child, are held not by the sacred rights of a common humanity, but by the will of iaters. The laws, the customs, the public opinion, which have sunk these millions from the dignity of humanity down to the degradation of chattels, have founded and developed a privileged class, whioh now controls the slaveholding States. This class now rules these fifteen States, abroga- ting, in support of its interests, the inborn, in- bred, constitutional right of freedom of speech ' and freedom of the press. In these States, the power of this class is overshadowing, resltle., complete. Over the Federal Government this class, tiis slave power, has achieved complete dominion. The slave power this day holds the National' Government, in all its departments, in absolute Reproduced with permission from the University of Illinois at Chicago

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