Discussion on American Slavery. George Thompson

the grandsons, or the great grandsons of the Coxs, the Jays, the Garrisons, the Tappans, and the Thompsons of England and America. After alluding to the treatment he had experienced from the New York Courier and Enquirer, Mr. T. said—let us bear these honors meekly—when calumniated for truth's sake, let us be humble, while we are joyful. One word more as to the odious handful. Seven-eights of the Methodist Episcopal ministers in the New Hampshire Conference, and seven-eights of the New England Conference were abolitionists. The students of the colleges and institutions, academical and theological of the country, known by the names of Lane Seminary, Oberlin Institute, Western Reserve College, Oneida Institute, Waterville College, Brunswick College, Amherst College, and the Seminaries of Andover, were many of them in some, and all of them in others, abolitionists; and yet, when all these societies, and ministers, and men of learning, and students were put together, they were, in their aggregate capacity, but an odious and most contemptible handful! He would now proceed to speak of the Maryland scheme—a scheme of obvious wickedness. When Mr. B. came to Boston to advocate that scheme, he says a placard was published, calling on the rabble to mob him. This placard he attributes to Mr. Garrison and the abolitionists, as he says it was of the same size and appearance as the type and columns of the Liberator newspaper, and that therefore Mr. Garrison was the publisher. This he (Mr. T.) most pointedly, and distinctly, and solemnly denied, and challenged Mr. B. to the proof. Did Mr. B. show the placard? No. Did he demonstrate its identity with Mr. Garrison's paper? No. He had not done so. To make Mr. Garrison the author or publisher of such a placard, was to publish him a coward and a villain; for he who could point out any man, still more a Christian minister, to the fury of a mob, was a moral monster, a coward, and a villain. He called on Mr. B. by his regard for truth and justice, and his reputation as a minister of Christ, to adduce the proofs necessary to sustain so grave an accusation, and he (Mr. T.) pledged himself to cast off the dearest friend he had, if a crime so base could be fixed on him. To return to the Maryland scheme. In the month of July or August, 1834, Boston was visited by his respected opponent, his brother, Dr. J. Breckinridge, and an agent of the Maryland Colonization Society, and a meeting was convened to enable those gentlemen to set forth and recommend the scheme of that Society, in aid of which the legislature of Maryland had made an appropriation of $200,000. He (Mr. T.) was fully prepared to show, that the object of the Society was to get rid of the free colored population, and that according to their design the state legislature had, in immediate connection with the grant of money, passed most rigorous and cruel laws. The Colonization Society was the net cast for the colored people—the laws of the state were the means devised to drive the devoted victims into its meshes. This was called helping them out of the country with their free consent. He (Mr. T.) would bring forward abundant proofs when he next addressed them—he would then read the laws which he could not now produce for want of time. Mr. Breckinridge might or might not notice these general charges against the Maryland scheme; but he (Mr. T.) would hereafter fully support them, and show, too, that the National Colonization Society was equally culpable, having at its ensuing annual meeting fully approved of the plan, and recommended it as a bright example for the imitation of other states.

      Mr. BRECKINRIDGE then rose. He had last night understood Mr. Thompson to say, that this evening he would take up and expose the colonization scheme. It was possible that he had been wrong in this; but such was certainly the impression made upon his mind. Instead of adopting such a course, however, Mr. Thompson had treated them to a second edition of his last night's speech the only difference being that the one they had just heard was more elaborate. If they were to be called on to hear all Mr. Thompson's speeches twice, it would be a considerable time before they finished the discussion. He congratulated Mr. Thompson on his second edition, being in some respects an improvement, on his first. It was certainly better arranged. In the observations he was about to make, he would follow the course of the argument exhibited in Mr. Thompson's two speeches; but he, at the same time, wished it to be understood that he would not be cast out of the line of discussion every night in the same manner. As to what had been said about the 'handful,' he did not think it necessary to say much. He would simply remind Mr. T., that however great or however small the 'handful' might be, one pervading evil might pollute it all. A dead fly could cause the ointment of the apothecary to stink. But to come to the point. Mr. Thompson had said that the question was national as it respected America, because slaveholding states had been admitted into the confederacy. The simple fact of these states having been admitted members of the Union, was, in Mr. Thompson's estimation, proof sufficient, not only that slavery was chargeable on the whole nation, but that there had been a positive predilection among the American people in favor of slavery. In clearing up this point, a little chronological knowledge would help us. He would therefore call the attention of the audience to the real state of matters when the confederacy was established. At that period, Massachusetts was the only State in which slavery had been abolished; and even in Massachusetts its formal abolition was not effected till some time after. For in that State it came to an end in consequence of a clause inserted in the Constitution itself—tantamount to the one in our Declaration of Independence, that freedom is a natural and inalienable right. Successive judicial decisions, upon this clause, without any special legislation, had abolished slavery there; so that the exact period of its actual termination is not easily definable. This recalls another point on which Mr. Thompson would have been the better of possessing a little chronological information. He had repeatedly stated that the American Constitution was founded on the principle, that all men are created free and equal. Now, this was not so. The principle was no doubt, a just one; it was asserted most fully by the Continental Congress of 1776, and might be said to form the basis of our Declaration of Independence. But it was not contained in the American Constitution, which was formed twelve years afterwards. That Constitution was formed in accordance with the circumstances in which the different states were placed. Its chief object was to guard against external injury, and regulate external affairs; it interfered as little as possible with the internal regulations of each state. The American was a federative system of government; twenty-four distinct republics were united for certain purposes, and for these alone. So far was the national government from possessing unlimited powers, that the Constitution itself was but a very partial grant of those, which, in their omnipotence, resided, according to our theory, only in the people themselves in their primary assemblies. It had been specially agreed in the Constitution itself, that the powers not delegated should be as expressly reserved, as if excepted by name; and, amongst the chief subjects, exclusively interior, and not delegated, and so reserved, is slavery. Had this not been the case, the confederacy could not have been formed. It had been said that the American Constitution had not only tolerated slavery, but that it had actually guaranteed the slave-trade for twenty years. Nothing could be more uncandid than this statement. Never had facts been more perverted. One of the causes of the American Revolution had been the refusal of the British King to sanction certain arrangements on which some of the states wished to enter, for the abolition of the slave-trade. At the formation of the Federal Constitution, while slavery was excluded from the control of Congress, as a purely state affair, the slave trade was deemed a fit subject, by the majority, for the executors of national power, as being an exterior affair. And at a period prior to the very commencement of that great plan of individual effort, guided by Wilberforce and Clarkson, in Britain; and which required twenty years to rouse the conscience of this nation—our distant, and now traduced fathers, had already made up their minds, that this horrid traffic, which they found not only existing, but encouraged by the whole power of the King, should be abolished. It was granted, perhaps too readily to the claims of those who thought, (as nearly the whole world thought) that twenty years should be the limit of the trade; and at the end of that period it was instantly prohibited, as a matter course, and by unanimous consent. How unjust then was it to charge on America, as a crime, what was one of the brightest virtues in her escutcheon. Mr. Thompson had next asserted, that slavery of the most horrid description existed in the Capital of America, and in the surrounding District, subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of Congress. He (Mr. Breckinridge) did not hesitate to deny this. It was not true. Slavery did exist there; but it was not of the horrible character which had been represented. It was well known that the slavery existing in the United States was the mildest to be seen in any country under Heaven. Nothing but the most profound ignorance could lead any one to assert the contrary. Mr. Thompson had a colleague in his recent exhibitions in London, who seemed to have taken interludes in all Mr. T's speeches. In one of these, that colleague had said, he knew of his own knowledge