CONGRESS, TL S. 



333 



" for the release of certain persons held to ser- 

 vice or labor in the district of Columbia " was 

 taken up. 



Mr. Davis, of Kentucky, offered the follow- 

 ing amendment : 



And be it further enacted, That all persons liberated 

 under this act shall be colonized out of the limits of the 

 United States ; and the sum of $100,000, out of any 

 money in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated, 

 shall be expended, under the direction of the President 

 of the United States, for that purpose. 



Mr. Davis, in support of his amendment, 

 said: ''Mr. President, whenever any power, 

 constitutional or unconstitutional, assumes the 

 responsibility of liberating slaves where slaves 

 are numerous, it establishes as inexorably as 

 fate a conflict between the races, that will re- 

 sult in the exile or the extermination of the one 

 race or the other. I know it. We have now 

 about two hundred and twenty-five thousand 

 slaves in Kentucky. Think you, sir, that we 

 should ever submit to have those slaves manu- 

 mitted and left among us? No, sir : no, never ; 

 nor will any white people in the United States 

 of America where the slaves are numerous. If 

 by unconstitutional legislation you should, by 

 laws which you shrink from submitting to the 

 test of constitutionality in your courts of jus- 

 tice, liberate them, without the intervention of 

 the courts, the moment you reorganize the white 

 inhabitants of those States as States of the 

 Union, they would reduce those slaves again to 

 a state of slavery, or they would expel them 

 and drive them upon you, or south of you, or 

 they would hunt them like beasts and extermi- 

 nate them. They would not do this from 

 choice, but they would do it from necessity. It 

 will produce such a conflict between the races 

 as will render it inevitable, and there will be no 

 escape from it. 



" I maintain that it is a matter of humanity 

 to the negro in this city, and of justice to the 

 white population in this city, that when you 

 turn three or four thousand negroes who are 

 now in a state of slavery, free, you should re- 

 lieve them from the curse of such a population, 

 from its expense, from its burdens upon this 

 community in every form ; you ought to assume 

 the philanthropy and the justice the philan- 

 thropy to the negro race and the justice to the 

 white race to remove these people from the 

 District. You may refuse to do it. If you do, 

 a few years' experience will tell you what a 

 mistake you made." 



Mr. Hale, of New Hampshire, replied to the 

 objection of the Senator from Kentucky in re- 

 gard to the consequences that might ensue from 

 the passage of the bill. He said : " I may re- 

 mark that of all the forms scepticism ever as- 

 sumed, the most insidious, the most dangerous, 

 and the most fatal is that which suggests that 

 it is unsafe to perform plain and simple duty 

 for fear that disastrous consequences may result 

 therefrom. 



" This question of emancipation, wherever 

 it has been raised in this country, so far as I 



know, has rarely ever been argued upon the 

 great and fundamental principles of right; the 

 inquiry is never put, certainly in legislative cir- 

 cles, what is right, what is just, what is due to 

 the individuals that are to be affected by the 

 measure, but what are to be the consequences ? 

 Men entirely forget to look at the objects that 

 are to be affected by the bill, in view of the in- 

 herent rights of then* manhood, in view of the 

 great questions of humanity, of Christianity, 

 and of duty; but what are to be the conse- 

 quences, what is to be its effect upon the price 

 of sugar, tobacco, cotton, and other necessaries 

 and luxuries of life? The honorable Senator 

 from Kentucky looks upon it in that point of 

 view entirely." 



The Senator then proceeded to examine the 

 effects of emancipation in the British West 

 Indies and St. Domingo, and concluded this 

 portion of his argument by saying: u !sow, 

 sir, I do not question in the slightest degree the 

 very strong convictions which the honorable 

 Senator from Kentucky has upon this question ; 

 but I ask him, and I ask every man who hesi- 

 tates upon it upon the grounds he has sug- 

 gested, to take the trouble not to read the 

 frothy speeches made upon the floor of the 

 House of Representatives or the Senate during 

 the last ten or twenty years, but to go to the 

 facts as they are portrayed by the impartial pen 

 of history. I ask them to look at the statistics 

 which exist to-day as to the condition of the 

 colored population in those islands in which 

 emancipation has been tried. They will find 

 that no such disastrous consequences have en- 

 sued. Sir, the account that was given of the 

 final inauguration of emancipation in the British 

 "West Indies in 1838, ought to stand in all time 

 to be read by every man that wishes to inform 

 himself upon this subject as to the character 

 of this much-abused population, and the effects 

 of this much-abused measure." 



The constitutional objection to the bill, he 

 thus treated : "Sir, I do not ask that the Gov- 

 ernment of the United States should trample 

 upon the Constitution in any one of its provis- 

 ions. I believe that up to a very late period 

 in our history, it was the conceded doctrine 

 of this Republic, by Statesmen north and 

 south, that the constitutional power to legis- 

 late upon the subject of slavery in this District 

 existed in Congress. I know that in late years 

 that has been questioned, and even denied. I 

 know that within the last ten or twelve years 

 this nation has been rent upon a new dogma, 

 which denied the constitutional power of Con- 

 gress to legislate for the Territories ; and, while 

 that question was rending the country, while 

 it was tearing political parties in twain, divid- 

 ing churches, bringing itself home to the hearts 

 and consciences of this people, the Supreme 

 Court of the United States undertook, with 

 their puny efforts, to throw themselves in the 

 way of the great question by the Dred Scott 

 decision, and to say to the surging waves of 

 humanity that, while washing out the stain of 



