DANIEL D. TOMKINS-ANDREW JACKSON.

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sessions of 1809, 1810, and 1811, exhibits proofs of Mr. Clinton's great usefulness. Under his auspices, the New York Historical Society was incorporated-the Orphan Asylum and Free School Societies were fostered and encouraged. He introduced laws to prevent kidnapping, or the further introduction of slaves, and to punish those who should treat them inhumanly.-De Witt Clinton's Life in Delaplaine's Repository.

DANIEL D. TOMKINS.

To devise the means for the gradual and ultimate extermination from amongst us of slavery, that reproach of a free people, is a work worthy the representatives of a polished and enlightened nation.

Allow me here to observe, that the law which authorizes the transportation of slaves convicted of offences, is very generally considered impolitic and unjust. Impolitic, because it cherishes inducements in the master, to whom alone these unfortunate creatures can look for friendship and protection, to aggravate, to tempt, or to entrap the slave into an error--to operate upon his ignorance or his fears, to confess a charge, or to withhold from him the means of employing counsel for defence, or of establishing a reputation which is frequently the only shield against a criminal allegation. This inducement will be peculiarly strong, where the slave is of that description, the sale of which is prohibited; for a conviction will enable the master to evade that restriction, and to make a lucrative disposition of what might otherwise be a burthen to him. It is unjust, because transportation is added to the full sentence which may be pronounced upon others. To inflict less punishment for the crimes of those who have always breathed the air of freedom, who have been benefited by polished society, and by literary, moral, and religious instruction and example, than to the passions and frailities of the poor, untutored, unrefined, and unfortunate victims of slavery, is a palpable inversion of a precept of our blessed Redeemer. The servant "that knew not, and did commit things worhty of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes; for unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required."-Speech to New York Legislature, Jan. 3, 1812.

ANDREW JACKSON.

[On December, 18, 1814, GENRAL JACKSON issued in the French language the following.]

ADDRESS TO THE FREE PEOPLE OF COLOR.

Soldiers! When on the banks of the Mobile, I called you to take up arms, inviting you to partake the perils and glory of your white fellow-citizens, I expected much from you; for I was not ignorant that you possessed qualities most formidable to an invading enemy. I knew with what fortitude you could endure hunger and thirst, and all the fatigues of a campaign. I knew well how you loved your native country, and that you had, as well as ourselves, to defend what man holds most dear-his parents, relations, wife, children, and

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JOSEPH STORY-DANIEL WEBSTER.

property. You have done more than I expected. In addition to the previous qualities I before knew you to possess, I found, moreover, among you a noble enthusiasm, which leads to the performance of great things.

Soldiers! The President of the United States shall hear how praiseworthy was your conduct in the hour of danger, and the Representatives of the American people will, I doubt not, give you the praise your exploits entitle you to. Your general anticipates them in applauding your noble ardor.

The enemy approaches; his vessels cover our lakes; our brave citizens are united, and all contention has ceased among them. Their only dispute is who shall win the prize of valor or who the most glory, its noblest reward.

The President of the United States, is also authorized to employ our armed vessels and revenue cutters to cruise on the seas for the purpose of arresting all vessels and persons engaged in this traffic in violation of our laws; and bounties as well as a moiety of the captured property are given to the captors to stimulate them in the discharge of their duty.

Under these circumstances, it might well be supposed that the slavetrade would in practice, be extinguished-that virtuous men would by their abhorrence, stay its polluted march, and wicked men would be overawed by its potent punishment. But unfortunately the case is far otherwise. We have but too many melancholy proofs from unquestionable sources, that it is still carried on with all the implacable ferocity and insatiable rapacity of former times. Avarice has grown more subtle in its evasion; and watches and seizes its prey with an appetite quickened, rather than suppressed, by its guilty vigils. American citizens are steeped up to their very mouths (I scarcely use too bold a figure) in this stream of iniquity. They throng the coast of Africa under the stained flags of Spain and Portugal, sometimes selling abroad "their cargoes of despair," and sometimes bringing them into some of our southern ports, and there under the forms of the law defeating the purposes of the law itself, and legalizing their inhuman but profitable adventures. I wish I could say that New England and New England men were free from this deep pollution. But there is some reason, to believe, that they who drive a loathsome traffic, "and buy the muscles and the bones of men," are to be found here also. It is to be hoped the number is small; but our cheeks may well burn with shame while a solitary case is permitted to go unpunished.-From Judge Story's Charge to the Grand Jury of the U. S. Circuit Court, in Portsmouth, N. H., May Term, 1820.

DANIEL WEBSTER.

If there be, within the extent of our knowledge and influence, any participation in this traffic in slaves, let us pledge ourselves upon the

N. Y. LEGISLATURE-W. WIRT-J. RANDOLPH. 19

Rock of Plymouth, to extirpate and destroy it. It is not fit that the land of the pilgrims should bear the shame longer. Let that spot be purified, or let it be set aside from the Christian world; let it be put out of the circle of human sympathies and human regards; and let civilized men henceforth have no communion with it.

I invoke those who fill the seats of justice, and all who minister at her altar, that they exercise the wholesome and necessary severity of the law. I invoke the ministers of our religion, that they proclaim its denunciation of those crimes, and add its solemn sanction to the authority of human laws. If the pulpit be silent, whenever or wherever there may be a sinner, bloody with this guilt, within the hearing of its voice, the pulpit is false to its trust.

NEW YORK LEGISLATURE.

On the 20th day of January, 1820, the following preamble and resolutions were taken up in the senate (having passed the house) of the New-York Legislature, and unanimously passed. [Mr. Van Buren, who was then in the senate of that state, voted in favor of them.]

Whereas, the inhibiting the further extension of slavery in the United States, is a subject of deep concern to the people of this state: and whereas, we consider slavery as an evil much to be deplored, and that every constitutional barrier should be interposed to prevent its further extension; and the constitution of the United States clearly gives congress the right to require new states, not comprised within the original boundary of the United States, to make the prohibition of slavery a condition of their admission into the Union: Therefore,

Resolved, (if the honorable senate concur therein) That our senators be instructed, and our members of congress be requested, to oppose the admission as a state into the Union, of any territory not comprised as aforesaid, without making the prohibition of slavery therein an indispensable condition of admission.

WILLIAM WIRT.

Slavery was contrary to the laws of nature and of nations and that the law of South Carolina, concerning seizing colored seamen, was unconstitutional. * * * * Last and lowest, a feculum of beings called overseers-the most abject, degraded, unprincipled racealways cap in hand to the dons who employ them, and furnishing materials for their pride, insolence, and love of dominion.—Life of Patrick Henry.

JOHN RANDOLPH.

Dissipation, as well as power or prosperity hardens the heart, but avarice deadens it to every feeling, but the thirst for riches. Avarice alone could have produced the slave-trade. Avarice alone can drive, as it does drive, this infernal traffic, and the wretched victims, like so many posthorses, whipped to death in a mail coach. Ambition has its cover-sluts, in the pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war; but where are the trophies of avarice? The handcuff, the manacle,

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THOMAS JEFFERSON RANDOLPH.

and the blood-stained cowhide! What man is worse received in society for being a hard master? Who denies the hand of a sister or daughter to such monsters ?-nay, they have even appeared in "the abused shape of the vilest of women." say nothing of India or Amboynaof Cortez, or Pizarro.-Southern Literary Messenger.

[In March, 1816, John Randolph submitted the following resolution to the House of Representatives:] "Resolved, That a committee be appointed, to inquire into the existence of an inhuman and illegal traffic of slaves, carried on in and through the District of Columbia, and to report whether any, and what measures are necessary for putting a stop to the same."

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Virginia is so impoverished by the system of slavery, that the tables will sooner or later be turned, and the slaves will advertise for runaway masters."

Sir, I neither envy the head nor the heart of that man from the North, who rises here to defend slavery upon principle.”—Rebuke of Edward Everett, in Congress, 1820.

"3. I have upwards of two thousand pounds sterling in the hands of Baring, Brothers & Co., of London, and upwards of one thousand pounds of like money in the hands of Gowan and Marx; this money I leave to my executor, Wm. Leigh, as a fund for carrying into execution my will respecting my slaves."

"I give to my slaves their freedom, to which my conscience tells me they are jy entitled. It has a long time been a matter of the deepest regret to me, that the circumstances under which I inherited them, and the obstacles thrown in the way by the laws of the land, have prevented my emancipating them in my lifetime, which it is my full intention to do in case I can accomplish it."

The codicil goes on to make provision for his servants John and wife, and for Juba and his wife, and another woman :-"And I hereby request (says he) the General Assembly (the only request that I ever preferred to them,) to let the above named and such other of my old and faithful slaves as desire it, to remain in Virginia; recommending them each and all to the care of my said executor, who I know is too wise, just and humane to send them to Liberia, or any other place in Africa or the West Indies."-Cod. Jan. 1826.

THOMAS JEFFERSON RANDOLPH.

I agree with gentlemen in the necessity of arming the state for internal defence. I will unite with them in any effort to restore confidence to the public mind, and to conduce to the sense of the safety of our wives, and our children. Yet sir, I must ask, upon whom is to fall the burden of this defence? not upon the lordly masters of their hundred slaves, who will never turn out except to retire with their families when danger threatens. No, sir; it is to fall upon the less wealthy class of our citizens; chiefly upon the non-slaveholder. I have known patrols turned out where there was not a slaveholder among them, and this is the practice of the country. I have slept in times of alarm quietly in bed, witho having a thought of care, while these indi

GOVERNOR RANDolph.

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viduals, owning none of this property themselves, were patrolling under a compulsory process, for a pittance of seventy-five cents per twelve hours, the very curtilage of my house, and guarding that property, which was alike dangerous to them and myself. After all, this is but an expedient. As this population becomes more numerous, it becomes less productive. Your guard must be increased, until finally its profits will not pay for the expense of its subjection. Slavery has the effect of lessening the free population of a country.

The gentlemen has spoken of the increase of the female slaves being a part of the profit; it is admitted; but no great evil can be averted, no good attained, without some inconvenience. It may be questioned, how far it is desirable to foster and encourage this branch of profit. It is a practice, and an increasing practice in parts of Virginia, to rear slaves for market. How can an honorable mind, a patriot, and a lover of his country, bear to see this ancient dominion, rendered illustrious by the noble devotion and patriotism of her sons in the cause of liberty, converted in one grand menagerie, where men are to be reared for the market, like oxen for the shambles. Is it better, is it not worse, than the slave-trade; that trade which enlisted the labor of the good and wise of every creed, and every clime, to abolish it? The trader receives the slave, a stranger in language, aspect and manner, from the merchant who has brought him from the interior. The ties of father, mother, husband and child, have all been rent in twain; before he receives him, his soul has become callous. But here, sir, individuals, whom the master has known from infancy, whom he has seen sporting in the innocent gambols of childhood, who have been accustomed to look to him for protection, he tears from the mother's arms, and sells into a strange country, among strange people, subject to cruel taskmasters.

He has attempted to justify slavery here, because it exists in Africa, and has stated that it exists all over the world. Upon the same principle, he could justify Mahometism, with its plurality of wives, petty wars for plunder, robbery and murder, or any other of the abominations and enormities of savage tribes. Does slavery exist in any part of civilized Europe? No sir, in no part of it.-Speech in the Virginia Legislature.

GOVERNOR RANDOLPH.

The deplorable error of our ancestors in copying a civil institution from savage Africa, has affixed upon their posterity a depressing burden, which nothing but the extraordinary benefits conferred by our happy climate, could have enabled us to support. We have been far outstripped by states, to whom nature has been far less bountiful. It is painful to consider what might have been, under other circumstances, the amount of general wealth in Virginia, or the whole sum of comfortable subsistence and happiness possessed by all her inhabitants.— Address to the Legislature of Virginia, in 1820.