4-45 
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Class X_4AB_ 
 Book H < b Vi 1 6 
 
Uxcbang-e 
 West. £ee. Hlftt. Soo. 
 
 SPEECH 
 
 JOHN P. HALE, 
 
 'i 
 
 Of Ne\v Hampsliire, 
 
 ABOLITION OF SLAVERY 
 
 DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA. 
 
 DELIVERED IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, MAKCH 18, 1862. 
 
 The bill for the release of certain persons held to service or labor in the 
 District of Columbia being under consideration, Mr. HALE addressed the 
 Senate as follows : 
 
 Mr. President: I fear, from the long time that I have been entitled 
 to the floor upon this subject, the expectation may have been indulged 
 by some that I proposed to make some extended remarks on it; but I 
 do not, I propose in a very brief manner to notice one of the objections 
 raised by the honorable Senator from Kentucky [Mr. Davis] to this 
 bill ; and that is in regard to the consequences that are to ensue upon 
 the enactment of the bill now before the Senate. I may remark that 
 of all the forms skepticism ever assunied, 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 tbe great 
 and fundamental principles of right ; the inquiry is never put, certainly 
 in legislative circles, 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 inherent rights of their man- 
 hood, in view of the great questions of humanity, of Christianity, and 
 of duty ; but what are to be the consequences, 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 
 
.5 
 
 
 it in that point of view rntirely. Let me here read from his statement, 
 for I shall not trust myself to state what a man said, after the censure 
 I had from the Senator from Illinois, without reading from his own 
 remarks. The Senator from Kentucky said, when this bill was last 
 under consideiation : 
 
 " The negroes that are now liberated and that remain ia this city, will become 
 a sore and a burden and a charge upon the white population. They will be 
 criminals; they will become paupers. They will be engaged in crimes and in 
 jietty misdemeanors. They will become a charge and a pest upon this society, 
 and the power which undertakes to liberate them ought to relieve the white 
 community in which they reside, and in which they will become a pest, from 
 their presence. This is a poor city at any rate. The total amount of wealth 
 here is very inconsiderable for the number of the white population. The bur- 
 dens and charges upon them are heavy, onerous, oppressive ; and this measure 
 will make those burdens greatly more so." 
 
 I would thank the honorable Senator from Kentucky, if I misrepre- 
 •sent him, to state so now, I do not misrepresent him. The honorable 
 Senator went further, and not only expressed this as his firm and un- 
 doubting conviction; but he added in his own emphatic manner, "I 
 know that it is so." Now, it does not become me to say that I know 
 to the contrary ; it does not become me to venture my opinions against 
 the opinions of that Senator who has lived among the population of 
 which he speaks; but it is as much my prerogative as it is the honor- 
 able Senator's to read a little of history, and to know what is its 
 teaching upon this question, and by that test to compare the predic- 
 tions of the honorable Senator with some other predictions of a different 
 character that have been made elsewhere on other occasions. 
 
 With those who assume the ground that is taken by the honorable 
 Senator from Kentucky, the effects of emancipation in the British West 
 Indies and St. Domingo are pointed at continually, as if they furnished 
 unerring proof of the accuracy with which they estimate the conse- 
 quences that are to follow emancipation. I ask the attention of the 
 Senate for a few moments to some facts in relation to that matter. I 
 know very well that upon the island of Jamaica, so far as that island 
 is concerned, there has been a constant deterioration and diminution 
 of its productive industry in regard to the great staples which formerly 
 constituted its wealth ; and that is pointed at triumphantly as proof 
 that it is unsafe, unwise, and inexpedient to adopt any such measure. 
 But, sir, if gentlemen wdl look at the statistical history of the island 
 of Jamaica," they will find indisputable figures taken from the highest 
 authority, to wit, the colonial reports made to the Imperial Parliament 
 of Great Britain, that the deterioration of Jamaica had commenced 
 long and long before emancipation was even thought of, and that it 
 went down in a constantly decreasing ratio until emancipation, and 
 subsequently. To prove what I say, I will give you a series ot statis- 
 tics, going back as far as the year 1801. 
 
 During the seven years ending in 1807, the exports of sugar from 
 Jamaica amounted to an average of 133,000 hogsheads per annum. 
 For the succeeding seven years, from 1807 to 1814, the annual exports 
 of sugar fell off to an average of 118,000 hogsheads. During the next 
 seven years, from 1814 to 1821, the annual average was 110,000 hogs- 
 
heads. From 1821 to 1828, it ran clown tl> 96,000 hogsheads, and 
 from 1828 to 1835, it got down to 90,000 hogsheads ; and it has been 
 constantly decreasing ever since. More than "one hundred estates had 
 been abandoned on account of being overrun with debt lono: before the 
 scheme of emancipation had been applied to Jamaica. The evils of 
 this depreciation in the exports, and the abandonment of the estates 
 of the planters, were attributed, in the official reports that were made 
 to the mother government and by writers upon the subject, to the fact 
 that the island was holden and managed by absentee proprietors. The 
 proprietors were rich, lived distant from their estates, and they were 
 managed by their slaves, guided by overseers. The consequence of 
 this system was a constant decrease in the exports, and a diminution 
 of the wealth of the island and an abandonment of its estates long and 
 long before the measure of emancipation had been applied to it. But, 
 sir, since emancipation, and since this diminution of the exports of 
 its former great staple, the island has been divided into small proprie- 
 torships, and ihe pi'oprietors of these estates have got up a system of 
 exports of other things, such as cocoanuts, &c., which now amount to 
 a very considerable sum. I have not taken the trouble to bring the 
 tables with me, but there is a very considerable amount of exports 
 from small propiietors of small articles of which the island exported 
 none at all until after emancipation. 
 
 But, sir, Jamaica is almost the only island that shows a compai'a- 
 tive decrease of wealth from the effect of emancipation. It is different 
 in the island of Barbadoes. That island has increased in its exports, 
 in its value, in its wealth, more than double since emancipation, and I 
 have before me a table taken fiom a recent writer, who has travelled 
 in that country and whose figures are compiled from the Parliament- 
 ary reports; for I have taken the pains myself to go to the Congress 
 Library and compare them with the official refgsrts, and therefore I 
 know that the tables are coirect. They give this satisfying result in 
 regard to the leeward islands, Antigua, Dominica, Nevis, Montserrat, 
 and St, Kitts, from the year 1820 to 1832, taking an average of twelve 
 years immediately preceding emancipation, the total exportations of 
 sugar from these islands averaged 45,420,000 pounds, while in 1858 
 the expoits of sugar from these same islands amounted to 48,145,000 
 pounds, being an increase of nearly 3,000,000 pounds of sugar in the 
 annual exports from the leeward islands. The imports show a much 
 more favorable result. From 1820 to 1832 the average annual value 
 of imports was £298,000 sterling, while the imports' into the same 
 islands in 1858 were £514,835 sterling, showing an excess of annual 
 imports under free labor of £216,835 sterling. 
 
 That is the practical result of emancipation as applied to those five 
 West India islands; and if gentlemen who think that the experiment 
 of emancipation will not compare so favorably as that in other islands, 
 will go to the Library of Congress, and look at the official reports 
 made by the governors of those islands, they will see that the result is 
 even more favorble in many of the islands than that which is here ex- 
 hibited with regard to the five leeward islands. It is a mistake, a very 
 great mistake, and I hope that it will be gratifying to the humane 
 feelings of the honorable Senator from Kentucky to find that he is 
 
altogether mistaken as to the eftects that emancipfltion will profluce 
 upon this lahoiiug cIhss of populatioti. I hope that it will do s mie- 
 thing to ex])«l from his miml that ske])ticism whii-h mahts him shiink 
 from looking at this measure in the light in which an e'llightened and 
 philanthropic statesman ought to look at it, and that is in ngard to its 
 bearings upon the great question of human r'glits. 
 
 Mr. President, it setms to me ttiat, in the good providence of God, 
 He presents to this nation to-day an opportunity nevtr presented be- 
 fore. If the rebellion which is now rending this republic, and which 
 is strewing our plains with the dead of our young men who have gone 
 out to do battle on the field, has horrors — if it has miseries — if it has 
 everything, or almost everything, to make humanity weep — it is not 
 without some aspects that relieve the dark shade ot the picture. If 
 this rebellion — I trust ere long to be crushed out — shall, in the pro- 
 irress of the great injury that it is doing, affnid this republic, these 
 United States, the opportunity of trying here, in this little District of 
 less than ten miles square, the experiment which other nations are 
 trying upon a great scalf, and if we are enublfd to show to the world 
 that it is sometimes safe to do right, and not alwa)s inexpedient, then, 
 sir, we shall have achieved something at which humanity will rejoice, 
 and something for which our posterity, to the latest geneiations, will 
 bless us. 
 
 Sir, the Governments of the world the world over are trying this 
 experiment. The Em])eror of Russia on his tin one and over his vast 
 dominions, is now striking the bands of oppression from his long trod- 
 den down millions of serfs. The ameliora ing influences of better piin- 
 ciples and purer Christianity than have yet prevailed in the monarchies 
 of the Old World are melting those iron despotisms, and carrying into 
 practical effect that great lesson of Christianity, "to loose the bonds 
 of wickedness" and " let the oppressed go free;" and it would be a re- 
 proach that ought to man"tle the check of every citizen of this Repub- 
 lic with burning shame, if, at this day and this hour, when the mon- 
 archies of the earth are waking up to the great question of human 
 rights, and making Christianity, instead of being a barren speculation, 
 a practical and efficient principle of their government, this nation, at 
 a time when the providence of God presents this opportunity to it, 
 should, from any skepticism or fear of consequences, fail to meet the 
 question and do justice by the oppressed. 
 
 Sir, I do not ask that the Government of the United States should 
 trample upon the Constitution in any one of its provisions. I believe 
 that up to a very late period in our history, it was the conceded doc- 
 trine of this Republic, by statesmen North and Soutli, that the consti- 
 tutional power to legislate upon the subject of slavery in this Dstrict 
 existed in Congress. I know that in late years tliat has been question- 
 ed, 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 consti- 
 tutional power of Congress to legislate for the Territories; and, while 
 that question was rending the country, while it was teaiing political 
 parties in twain, dividing churches, bringing itself home to the hearts 
 and consciences of this people, the Supieme Court of the Uniied States 
 undertook, wi^h their puny efforts, to throw themselves in the way of 
 
\.,r iha VtrcA Spott decision, and to say to the surg- 
 
 1 5rS-rv:rrxr:^\^^^^^^^^ 
 
 •wan 
 
 the issue is settled 
 
 Bu i wh by this decision the Territories o^ the United States 
 .1 'aken IheoretLlly from the management of the Federal Gove n- 
 !ntT believe though I never read the Dred Scott decision m refer- 
 :::^\ ^^^ ';X view of it, it did not go to tl;e ext.nt^of^;|;g 
 h t Congresl had no constitutional power ;o^g>f^^;^;"/^^f ,^ ^^^^ 
 nf r.,luml.ia Tliev did not say it, I am told. 1 am glad ^"^y '"" 
 not hi" they would if they had thought of it. [Laughter.] But, 
 :^-thit is left t^ us. Over [his little spot of ten ^^J^^ 
 o,- what there is left of it after the retrocession o the P^' ^ ced«d by 
 Vir^ima we have confessedly the right of legislation ; and heie in our 
 IdTt amrby our laws, this system' of human slavery exists, and we 
 Tre called upL to-day 'to abolish it, to repeal the laws upon wh^h it 
 rests and to the most limited extent to try what will be the eftect of 
 pmancination upon the few slaves that are in this District. 
 
 No?s "l do not question in the slightest degree the very strong 
 convicaions' which the\onorable Senator from Kentucky has upon th 
 nuestion • but I ask him, and I ask every man who hestates upon it 
 rnurhe has suggested, to take the trouble not to read the trohy 
 p eches made upon fife floo^- of the House of Rq--entatives or the 
 sLate during the last ten or twenty J^ars b'.t^o go to th^^ct as 
 they are portrayed by the impartial pen «* history I ask the.n to 
 ook at the statistics ^hich exist to-day as to the condition of the col- 
 ored population in those islands in which emancipation has b n tned 
 Thev w II find that no such disastrous consequences have ensued, bir, 
 the Llount that was given of the final inauguration oi eniancipaUon 
 in the British West Indies in 1838, ought to st^nd in «; 1 t « ^ o be 
 read by every man that wishes to inform himself upon h s subject ,8 
 to the character of this much abused population, and the etieets ot 
 Jhis much Xised measure. Twelve o'clock midnight that ushered m 
 the 1st of August, 1838, to the British West India I^'^^d^— 
 Mr. Wilson, of Massachusetts. Do you not mean 183d < 
 Mr Hale. No. The system of slavery was partially ended in 18dd, 
 but there was a system of apprenticeship from 1833 to Ifb ; ami on 
 the 1st of Augusl, 1838, the whole system was wiped out; ^^^^'1 
 not a slave left in the islands. That was known ; it ^^^ P^ '' '' ^^;^* ^ 
 the islands long before the event occurred. n tact, the «"-' b ow o 
 the system of slavery was given, not by ihe Imperial I^'bament. but 
 by the Colonial Legislature themselves, tired ^^ ^he systerri of ap en- 
 ticeships which the- Parliament had inaugurated W hen the m i. ght 
 clock ishered in the 1st of August, 1838, the last "^^l^''^^^*;^*;;' ^^^ 
 the last slav« in the British West India Islands T^ns popu a on 
 knew it, and what was the aspect they exhibited? Riots, d.ink ng, 
 acts of degradation and crime ; such scenes as you might expect tioui 
 
what the Senator from Kentucky said when he predicted that they 
 would become pests to society? Was there anything of that kind ex- 
 hibited ? No, sir; but on the preceding night almost the whole pop- 
 ulation gathered themseU^es together in their churches, in their places 
 of worship, and when the hour of twelve struck, which told them that 
 the slaves had been converted into British freemen, they rose and sent 
 up one united shout of thanksgiving to Almighty God for the great 
 boon He had conferred upon them; and the conduct that these eman- 
 cipated slaves have'exhibited in most if not all the islands since, has 
 been such as indicates not only the wisdom and the justice but the 
 expediency of this measure. Yes, sir, it justifies the expediency of the 
 measure ; and the situation which the islands present at this time, by 
 the most abundant and incontrovertible evidence, is such as to show a 
 state of facts very much like what I have read of in these tables. 
 
 Now, sir, if raising sugar, and distilling molasses into rum were the 
 chief end, the highest end for which human labor and human ingenu- 
 ity can be employed, I concede that, in relation to some of these islands, 
 the result would be disastrous to emancipaitou. They have made less 
 rum and exported less rum than they did before; but they have establish- 
 ed in place of irresponsible, ignorant baibariana, as the slaves were said 
 to be, an industrious, happy, contented, and prosperous peasantry ; and 
 those immense estates even in the island of Jamaica which were aban- 
 doned by their proprietors because they were burdened with debt, have 
 been divided up into small proprietaries of a few acres, where peace and 
 comfort and comparative industry reign, and a new system of things 
 in regard to exports bas been inaugurated^ and they are now constantly 
 increasing. 
 
 Mr. President, there is nothing on earth that is more unjust, nothing 
 more unkind — of course I do not attribute personal unkindness to the 
 Senator ; I speak of a class, and I speak of it as a philosophical truth — 
 than for this boasted white Caucasian race to enslave the colored race, 
 to keep them in a state of ignorance, to keep them in a state where it 
 is a penal offense to teach them to read so much out of the Bible as 
 that they may learn that God made them and Christ die J to redeem 
 them; I say it is cruel and unjust to such a people, denied the right 
 ot bringing a suit in court, denied the right of testifying as to their 
 own personal rights and wrongs, the whole intelligence of the world 
 shut out by the bar of an inexorable penal statute from enlightening 
 their understandings ; to pronounce them as degraded, ignorant, in- 
 capable of representation, because under the crushing weight of all these 
 disabilities they have not made such progress as to enable them to step 
 at once on an equality into a condition which their masters have 
 enjoyed for many years. It is cruel. The injustice of it cannot be 
 winked out of sight. It is as unjust as it would be to put out the eyes 
 of a man and then taunt him with his blindness, as unjust as it would 
 be to reproach any man with a personal deformity. It is as unjust as 
 it is possible for perverted human iutelle'ct to be. Take off these bur- 
 dens, give them a fair chance, let the light of science shine into their 
 minds, make it no longer a crime punishable with imprisonment to 
 open to them the pages of God's eternal truth, let them read something 
 of the world that is about them, and something of the hope which leads 
 
to the world beyond them, give them the elevating influence of some 
 of the motives that have elevated you, and then if against all that they 
 fail to rise and fail to improve, then, and not till then, will it be time 
 to reproach them with their inability to cope and contend with their 
 white masters. 
 
 Sir I have a great many times felt for the colored people the injus- 
 tice of such accusations and such reproaches as these. We have it 
 now in our power to put this experiment to the test. We have it in 
 our power to satisfy the Senator from Kentucky, and those who sympa- 
 thize with him, whether his apprehensions are well or ill founded ; but 
 let me tell him that there arc predictions of a very difterent character. 
 Any man who will read the old prophets will see that if there be any 
 one sin ao-aiost which they invoked the judgments of God, for the 
 ropeutauce of which they promised the divine blessing, it was this very 
 sin of slavery. Strike that out of the old prophets, and there will be 
 nothing of them left. I know that generally we do not read the 
 prophets with any such idea. Let me tell you an incident which shed 
 a good deal of light on my mind in regard to the manner in which men 
 read the beautiful and eloquent denunciations of the old prophets 
 against oppression. I was once in a small village in my own State, 
 where there was to be a meeting in the evening, and the gentleman 
 who conducted it asked me if I would not talk to the people in the 
 evening. He was a clergyman. I told him I would if he would read 
 out of the Scriptures what I suggested to him. He said he would ; so 
 I gave him one of the chapters of Isaiah, in which this patriarchal 
 institution is pretty roughly handled. The old gentlemen read it, with 
 his spectacles on ; and after a while he turned round and said : " Why, 
 this seems to be against the national siii." Said I, " Exactly ; that is 
 what it was written for." " Well, I declare," said he, " I never thought 
 of it before in that light." He never did. He had read the Bible for 
 some seventy years, and the fact that the judgments of God were de- 
 nounced against oppressions practiced in our nation never occurred to 
 that poor old soul ; and that is the way the Bible is read. 
 
 But now, sir, let me close by reading to the Senator from Kentucky 
 predictions ofthe consequences that will follow emancipation exceedingly 
 ditferent from those which he has predicted. He predicts pauperism, 
 degradation, crime, burdens upon society. That is the dark picture 
 which fills his imagination as the consequences that are to follow the 
 putting away of oppression from the midst of us. Let me read to him 
 a diS"erent prediction : 
 
 " 6. Is not this the fast that I have chosen ? — to loose the bands of wickedness; 
 to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break 
 every yoke?" 
 
 " 7. Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor 
 that are cast out to thy house? Wheu thou seest the naked, that thou cover 
 him ; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh ?" 
 
 What are to be the consequences ? Not pauperism, degradation, 
 and crime, but — 
 
 " 8. Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thine health shall 
 spring forth speedily ; aud thy righteousness shall go before thee: the glory 
 of the Lord shall be thy reward. 
 
8 
 
 "9. Then shalt thou call, and the Lord shall answer; thou shalt cry, and he 
 shall say, Here I am. If thou take away from the midst of thee the yoke, the 
 putting forth of the finger, and speaking vanity." 
 
 " 10. And if thou draw out thy soal to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted 
 soul ; then shall thy light rise in obscurity, and thy da4i^ness be as the noon- 
 day. 
 
 "11. And the Lord shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in 
 drought, and make fat thy bones ; and thou shalt be like a watered garden, 
 and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not. 
 
 " 12. And they that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places: thou 
 shalt rise up the foundations of many generations ; and thou shalt be called 
 The repairer of the breach, The restorer of paths to dwtU in." — Isaiah, 
 chapter 58. 
 
 Now, sir, this nation has an opportunity, if I may say so — and I 
 say it reverently — of putting the Almighty to the test, and of seeino- 
 whether the consequences that his prophet has foretold or his Senator 
 has predicted will follow as the result of this measure. 
 
 L. Towers <fe Co., Pi'inters.