Class. Book. 4.. \ i i ^^i / INITIATE EMANCIPATION. SPEECH tA' HON. J. M. ASHLEY, OF OHIO, In the House of Regresentatives, April 11, 1862, ON THE BILL FOR THE RELEASE OF CERTAIN PERSONS HELD TO SERVICE OR LABOR IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA. WASHINGTON, D. C. 3CAMMELL & CO., PRINTERS, CORNER OF SECOND & INDIANA AVENUE. 1862. .HLh'Z \ \ SPEECH. •0 — Mr. ASHLEY said : Mr. Chairman : I intend to vote for this bill as a national duty, and not as the Representa- tive of a localit3\ I shall vote for it without apology, and without disclaimer. I have no excuses to offer here, or elsewhere, for doing an act which even-handed justice demands. From the first I have been earnest and persist- ent in pressing this question of emancipation. It became my pleasing duty, in obedience to the request of the District Committee, to meet and confer with the Senator who had charge of this subject in the other branch of the national Legislature, and I may say, I trust, without im- propriety, that the Senate could not well have confided it to a truer and more earnest friend of the measure. After several meetings and consultations with leading members of. both Houses, and citizens of the District, we agreed upon a bill, which was approved by each committee, and ordered to be reported in both Houses. This was the bill which I reported to the House on the 12th day of March last. I deem it due to myself, in this connection, to say that the bill then report- ed by me was not in all respects what I could desire ; and I need hardly add that some of the Senate amendments are of a character to make it still more objectionable. But I am a prac- tical man, and shall support this bill as the best we can get at this time. I have been shown a number of amendments which some of my friends on this side of the House desire to offer, and which I would prefer to the provisions which are proposed to be amended ; but if of- fered I shall vote against them, as their adop- tion would greatly delay, if not endanger the passage of the bill at this session, because their adoption would necessarily return the bill to the Senate for their concurrence. I trust, there- fore, that all friends of emancipation will decide to accept the Senate bill as it is, and vote against all amendments, so that the practical end aimed at by the earnest men of this House, the immediate liberation of all slaves in this District, shall at once be accomplished. The object to be attained, and not its particular mode of attainment, is what we ought all to have most at heart. If I must tax the loyal people of the nation $1,000,000 before the slaves at the national cap- ital can be ransomed, I will do it. I would make a bridge of gold over which they might pass to freedom, on the anniversary of the fall of Sumter, if it could not be more justly accom- plished. The people of the United States must be relieved from all responsibility for the exist- ence or longer continuance of human slavery at the capital of the Republic. The only ques- tion which I conceive I am called iipon as a Representative to decide is, has Congress the power and is it our duty to pass such a bill as the one before us ? Part of the sixteenth clause of the eighth sec- tion of the first article of the Constitution reads thus : " Congress shall have power to exercise exclu- sive legislation in all cases whatsoever over such district (not exceeding ten miles square) as may, by cession of particular States and the accept- ance of Cdngress, become the seat of Govern- ment of the United States." I need not go into a labored argument to show that Congress has power to banish slavery from this District. It is not necessai'y to be a constitutional lawyer to comprehend the extent of the power here granted. The meaning is plain enough. This clause confers upon Con- gress all the legislative power that can be ex- ercised by both national and State governments combined. If Congress cannot abolish slavery in this District, no power on earth can. A few years ago, one of freedom's distin- guished orators startled the country by declar- ing " that Congress had no more power to make a slave than to make a king." If, then, there is, as I claim, no constitutional power in Congress to reduce any man or race to slavery, it certainly will not be claimed that Congress has the power to legalize such regulations as exist to-day, touching persons held as slaves in this District, by re-enacting the slave laws of Maryland, and thus doing by indirection what no sane man claims authority to do directly. I know it is claimed by some that if Congress has power to abolish, it must necessarily have power to estab- lish slavery. I will not insult the intelligence of this House by discussing such a proposition. If Congress could not constitutionally re-enact the slave laws of Maryland for this District, then slavery could not exist even for a single hour after the cession of the territory became complete. But whether slavery constitutionally exists in this District or not, that it does exist is a fact, and because it exists and has existed by the sufferance and sanction of the national Government, for which the entire people of the United States are justly responsible, it is more than even the imperative duty of this Congress to abolish at once and forever so unnatural and unjustifiable a wrong. And, sir, if it be neces- sary to employ gold to do it, let gold be employed. Gold — which has corrupted statesmen, perverted justice, and enslaved men, can never be more righteously used than when it contributes to re-establish justice and ransom slaves. It is claimed by the oppononts'of emancipa- tion that the proper and natural condition ofall colored rac(;s is that of slavery to the white race; that tlic pooi)le'of color, not only in this District, but throughout the country, are unlit for free- dom ; that they cannot take care of themselves, and must, of necessity, if liberated, become a public charge. We are asked with apparent horror, and an air of sincetity, " if we intend to let this slave population loose amoung the whites ;" and we are told if we do that, it will be destructive alike of the interests of both races ; that the prejudices against persons of color are so implacable they cannot live in peace, and a war of races will be the inevitaljle result of free- ing them among the whites — evils far more to be dreaded than any which can ensue from their continued enslavement. I have no such appre- hension. Experience teaches me that all such fears are groundless. While I deny the doc- trine that the normal condition of any race is that of slavery, or that there can be rightfully such a thing as property in man, under any Government or constitution, I will not and can- not believe that the restoration of any race to freedom will produce antagonisms that shall culminate in a war between those whose rela- tionships are changed from that of gross injus- tice and oppression to that of self-dependence and freedom. God made of one blood all the nations that dwell together on the face of the earth, and gave man "dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that creepeth upon the earth;'" but man over man, never. The distinction here made between persons and animals is clear and marked. It is the dis- tinction recognised in the jurisprudence of all civilized and Christian nations ; and when a slave master stands up here and claims that his title to his fellow-man rests upon the same re- cognised rights that give him a title to his horse, I see and feel the blighting effects of slavery, and realize the justice of the remarks which I submitted on this floor two ycars^go, when I said that — "I exempt, with pleasure, from any sweeping denunciations which I may niiiko, thousands of good and true men who find themselves born to this inheritance, aiul who.^e whole lives give as- surance to the world that their hearts are better than the system. Intru.'^t a class of men in any . society or Goverinncnt with absolute power over a servile race, and the bud men will not only use it and abuse it, as I shall show, but, by their clamorous cry of danger to the State, will per- petrate and give sanction to outrages that good and true men will be powerless to ])revent. It is not that southern men and slaveholders are worse than oilier nu'u, but because ihoy arc no better, that it is unsafe, if it were not in itself an indefensible wrong, to intrust them with ab- solute power over any part of the human race." Sir, the origin and authority for all the do- minion man of right possesses in this werld comes direct from the Father of all, and has been so recognised, not only by the great Eng- lish commentator, but by the law-givers of every civilized nation on earth. There is no right outside of His authority, much less in violation of it. The great epic poet of England writes — "He gave us only over beast, fish, fowl. Dominion absolute ; that right we hold By his donation ; but man over man He made not lord ; such title to himself Reserving, human left from human free." I ask the indulgence of the House while I read a few extracts from the wi-itings of the great men of the past, which will suffice to show how slavery was regarded by them. " Slavery is a system of the most complete in- justice." — Plato. " Slavery is a system of outrage and rob- bery." — Socrates. " By the grand laws of nature all men are born free, and this law is universally binding upon all men." " Eternal justice is the basis of all human laws." " Whatever is just is also the true law ; nor can this true law be abrogated by any written enactment." " If there be such a power in the decrees and commands of fools, that the nature of things is changed by their votes, why do they not decree that what is bad and pernicious shall be regarded as good and wholesome, or why, if the law can make wrong right, can it not make bad good?" " Those who have made pernicious and unjust decrees, have made anything rather than laws." — Cicero. " The law which supports slavery and opposes liberty must necessarily be condemned as cruel, for every feeling of human nature advocates lib- erty. Slavery is introduced bj' human wicked- ness; but God advocates liberty by the nature which he has implanted in the breast of every man." — Fortescue. " If neither captivit}' nor contract can, by the plain law of nature and reason, reduce the pa- rent to a state of slavery-, much less can they re- duce the offspring." " The primary aim of society is to protect in- dividuals in the enjoyment of those absolute rights which were vested in them by the immu- table laws of nature. Hence it follows that the first and prime end of human laws is to main- tain those absolute riHits of individuals." "If any human law shall require us to com- mit crime, we are bound to transgress tha* hu- man law, or else we must offend both the natural and divine." — Blackstone. " What the Parliament doth shall be holden for nauglit whenever it shall enact that which is contrary to the rights of nature." — Lord Coke. " The essence of all km is justice. What is not justice is not law, and what is not law ought not to be obeyed." — Hampden. "No man is by nature the property of another. The rights of nature must be some way forfeited before they can justly be taken away." — Dr. Johnson. " If you have the right to make another man a slave, he has right to make you a slave." — Dr. Price. " It is injustice to permit slavery to remain a single hour." — Pitt. "American slavery is the A'ilest that ever saw the sun; it constitutes the sum of all villanies." — John Weslei/. "Man cannot have property in man. Slavery is a nuisance, to be put down, not compromised with, and to be assailed without cessation and without mercy, by every blow that can be leveled at the monster." "Ireland and Irishmen should be foremost in seeking to effect the emancipation of marlkind." " The Americans alleged that they had not perpetrated the crime, (that of enslaving the blacks,) but inherited it from England. This, however, fact as it was, was still a paltry apol- ogy for America, who asserting liberty for her- self, still used the brand and the lash againts others." — Daniel 0' Cqiinell. " In regard to a regulation of slavery, my de- testation of its existence induces me to know no such thing as a regulation of robbery or a re- striction of murder. Personal freedom is a right of which he who deprives a fellow-creature is criminal in so depriving him, and he who with- holds is no less criminal in withholding." — Charles James Fox. " I would never have drawn my sword in the cause of America, if I could have conceived that thereby I was founding a land of slavery." — La Fayette. "I never mean, unless some particular circum- stances should compel me to it, to possess an- other slave by purchase, it being among my first wishes to see some plan adopted by which slav- ery in this countrj^ may be abolished by law." "But there is only one proper and effectual mode by which it can be accomplished, and that is by legislative authority, and this, as far as my suffrage will go, shall never be wanting." — Wash- ington. "The abolition of domestic slavery is the greatest object of desire in these colonies, where it was unhappily introduced in their infant state." — Jefferson. "It is wrong to admit into the Constitution the idea that there can be property in man." — Madison. "We have found that this evil has preyed up- on the very vitals of the Union, and has been prejudicial to all the States in which it has ex- isted." — Monroe. " Is it not amazing that at a time when the t rights of humanity are defined and understood with precision, in a country above all others fond of liberty, that in such an age and in such a country, -wefind men professing a religion the most mild, humane, gentle, and generous, adopt- ing such a principle, as repugnant to humanity as it is inconsistent with the liible, and destruc- tive to liberty?" — Patrklc Henry. " Sir, I envy neither the heart nor the head of that man from the North who rises here to de- fend slavery on principle." — John Randolph. " The sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummaged for among old parchments or musty records. They are written as with a sunbeam in the whole volume of human nature by the hand of Divinity itself, and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power." — Alexander Ham- ilton. "Little can be added to what has been said and written on the subject of slavery. I concur in the opinion that it ought not to be in- troduced or permitted in any of the new States, and that it ought to be gradually diminished and final)}' abolished in all of them." — John Jay. "It is among the evils of slavery, that it taints the very sources of moral principle. It estab- lishes false estimates of virtue and vice ; for what can be more false and more heartless than this doctrine, which makes the first and holiest rights of humanity depend upon the color of the skin?" — Joh7i Quincy Adams. Thus, sir, spoke some few of the great men of the past, and the just principles by them pro- claimed control and direct to-day all the civil- ized Governments of Europe. Shall the Amer- ican Government be less just than monarchical Governments? Shall Ave alone clin^ to slavery and the dead past, while all Christian nations are keeping step to the march of human pro- gress, and the demands of a higher civilization ? Let us hope not, and so act and vote as to secui-e a realization of that hope. I am for the liberation, iiot only of all slaves in this District, but wherever national jurisdic- tion extends and the national Constitution con- fers power. I am for it, because I believe it an act of justice to white as well as l^lack, to mas- ter as well as slave; and, if no other reason could be given, I am for it because, in the lan- guage of the distinguished Senator from Massa- ■chusetts, '"then '■'^''"^ '^^^'^ ^'J '^'* (p'ace of God, and this u" enough." Free institutions will gain strength everywhere by a decree of emanci- pation at the national capital, while slave insti- tutions will everywhere be weakened. Such a triumph for the cause of freedom, as the passage of this act to-day, will be welcomed with grati- tude not only by the ransomed slave, but witli joy by the people cverywhtre iu the loyal por- tions of our country. In Europe it will be hailed by the friends of liberty and progress as the dawning of a new era iu the United States, and it will make the line of demarkatiou at home more distinct between the supporters and oppo- nents of the Government. I rejoice that I am about to be permitted to record my vote in favor of this humane and beneficent measure. It is a day which, in com- mon with millions of my countrymen, I have long hoped to see ; and if I never give another vote in this House or elsewhere, I shall not have lived in vain, especially if I have hastened, even a single hour, the adoption by Congress of this act of national justice and national liber- ation. I shall have the satifaetion of leaving the enduring record of an action of which my children cannot but be proud, and of which no true man in any Christian nation could be ashamed. It is said, if the slaves in this District are at once emancipated, that society and domestic regulations will be greatly deranged ; that peace, order, security, industry, and content- ment will be banished, and violence, disorder, robbery, idleness and crime will increase ; that such an act can do no possible good, while it would be unjust and a great hardship to both master and slave. Such is not my view of this \ act, nor such, sir, as I read it, the history of jemancipation in the Bi'itish or Danish West ilndies. Such, I am sure, will not be the result pn this District. Why, sir, with all the disabil- nties imposed upon the colored population of this District by congressional enactments, cor- poration regulations, and blind prejudices — ■• and they are sufficient to weigh down and de- 'Stroy the worthy and energetic, and encourage [the vicious and indolent — with all these disa- bilities, without a parallel in any nation on *i earth, that colored population will compare, ladvantageously to themselves, with the color ed population of any city in the free States They have amassed property beyond belief. Their church property alone, as I am inforirod is valued to exceed one hundred thousand dot 'errs. They are taxed for the support of schools from which their children are excluded, and maintain separate schools of their own. ^ They liave societies for the support of their sick and fdlsaliled, and never permit one of thoir number to 1* buried at public expense. In thirty years not one of their number has been convicted of a capital offence. As a body, they are indus- trious, frugal, orderly, trustworthy, and religious. Instead of an increase, I venture to pre- dict, as the earliest result of this great measure, a decrease in disorder, theft, idleness, and crime; and as an earnest that this prediction is not made without some foundation, let me read to you the preamble and resolution adopted the other day at a meeting of the colored ministers and leading members of the several colored churches in this city : * " Whereas we have learned by the published pTOceediijgs of Congress that there is a proba- bility of the peaceful and final abolishment of slavery in the District of Columbia : Therefore, " Be it resolved, That we recommend to the churches and congregations we represent that they set apart Sunday, the 13th day of April, 1862, in connection with the usual religious ser- vices, as a day of special prayer to Almight^y God, that if this great boon of freedom is vouch- safed to our people, we may receive it in a be- coming manner, and by our orderly behavior, our devotion to our Christian duties, our obedi- ence to the laws, we may show how worthy we are to enjoy it ; and that He would be pleased, in His own way and in His own time, to proclaim liberty throughout all the land, unto all the in- habitants thereof." Need I say to this House and the country that the men who could draft {#id adopt such a preamble and resolution will receive their free- dom with heartfelt joy, and not with riotous and offensive demonstrations ? Before the President can sign this bill, they will have assembled in all their churches to receive with prayer and thanksgiving to the Almighty this ransom at your hands, and tears of gratitude will obliter- ate from their hearts the memory of the many and grievous wrongs they have suffered from this Government and th^ir masters, and ming- ling with the echoing shouts on the sea and on the land, their voices will unite in gladness, with the generous hearts who everywhere will join the grand anthem, " Glory to God in the highest, peace on earth, and good will to men." Mr. Chairman, the bill which we are about to pass could not have passed but for this pro- slavery rebellion. The sagacity and wisdom of many of our statesmen, who in vain warned the nation that slavery and freedom could not for- ever live together peaceably, is being practical- ly demonstrated. Jefferson and Jay, Franklin and the Adamses, garrison and Calhoun, have all warned the people of the impossibility of long-continued peace with slavery. Speaking of the probable occurrence of a rupture between ;the North and the South, some ten or twelve years ago, in the United States Senate, John C. Calhoun said : " The war will last between the two sections while there is a slave in the South. The conflict will never terminate. The South, I fear, will not see it until it is too late. They will become more feeble every year, while the North will grow stronger and stronger." No longer ago than in 1858, in a speech at Springfield, Illinois, Abraham Lincoln, now President of the United States, made this pro- phetic declaration, which is passing into history ; " ' A house divided against itself cannot stand.' I believe the Government cannot endure half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be diaeolved. I do not expect the house to fall, but I do expect that it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind will rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction, or its advocates will push it forward until it shall alike become lawful in all the States, old as well as new. North as well as South." How truly prophetic ! To a man who com- prehends that slavery, and slavery alone, is the cause of this rebellion, the duty of the Govern- ment is plain. Such a' man understands that there can be no permanent or lasting peace un- til the people of the free States are no longer responsible for the existence and continuance of slavery, either at the national capital, or in any territory or place where Congress has con- stitutional power to abolish it. Hence I rejoice at the introduction and certain passage of this timely measure. Others, I doubt not, will soon follow, and the people. North and South, will gradually ari'ay themselves on the side of free- dom or on the side of slavery. There is, and there can be, but this one all-absorbing question in our national politics uutil it is diposed of, and-ihat will continue to be agitated until the people "rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction." Until that time there can be but two great parties in this nation. The great mass of a free people, in a Govern- ment such as ours, must of necessity be divided into two, and into but two leading political par- ties ; and in the present, as in all coming con- tests on the question of slavery, we can have but two formidable parties struggling for the ascendency and control of the Government. The one, no matter what its name or designa- 8 tlon, will l3e tlie representative of nationality and freedom ; the otlier, that of privilege and slavery. As to other parties, representing, or professing to represent, the various shades of political opinions existing in the country, they cannot long continue, but must, as the Whig, American, and other parties have, in all the States, fade away before the advancing parties representing the cherished sentiments of a pro- slavei-y privileged class on the one hand, and the aspirations of the people for liberty on the other. Individuals, however distinguished and worthy in all their relations in private life, who fail to co-operate earnestly with either the one or the other of the leading parties representing justice and freedom, or privilege and slavery, -will con- tinue to disappear, as they have done, from public life, and new and bolder leaders will be chosen by the people ; for no generous and noble people will ever knowingly trust timid and timeserving leaders, knowing full well, as they do, that in such a contest as the party of privilege and slavery have forced upon this na- tion by their treason and rebellion there can be but two armies and two battle-fields and two banners, that of the stars and stripes, represent- ing liberty and union, or that of the serpent and pelican, representing slavery and disunion. There can be no question as to the position Tsrhich the people occupy. Let us, then, pro- crastinate no longer the hour which they have so long in vain looked for. Let the news go forth on the wings of the wind that the national capital is ransomed from slavery, and it shall nerve the arms of your soldiers, and strengthen the hold of the Government in the hearts of the people. Mr. Chairman, the struggles and hopes of many long and weary years are centred in this eventful hour. The cry of the oppressed, " how long, Lord ; how long ?" is to be answ^Trcd to-day by the American Congress. A sublime act of justice is now to be recorded where it will never be obliterated, and, so far as the action of the Representatives of the people can decree it, the fitting words of the President, spoken in his recent special message, '^ initiate and eman- cipate," shall have a life coequal with the Re- public. God has set his seal upon these price- less words, and they, with the memory of him who uttered them, shall live in the hearts of the people forever. The golden morn, so anxious- ly looked for by the frieyds of freedom in the United States, has dawned. A second national jubilee will henceforth be added to the calendar. The brave words heretofore uttered in behalf of humanity in this Hall, like '' bread cast upon the waters," are now " to return after many days" and find vindication of their purposes in a decree of freedom. The command of God to let the oppressed go free, is declared to be our duty, not only by our patriotic President, but by both branches of our national Congress ; and let us hope that from this time henceforth and forever, this nation is never again to be humil- iated and disgraced by being responsible for the existence and continuance of human sla- very. No longer within our national j urisdiction, where Congress has constitutional power to pro- hibit it, shall sla«rery be tolerated. The nation Is to-day entei'Ing upon a policy which cannot be reversed; and justice Is vindicated, human- ity recognised, and God obeyed. In the beau- tiful words of Mrs. Howe : " He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat ; He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment scat : Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! be jubilant my feet 1 Our God is marching on. In the beauty of the IfUies, Christ was born across the sea, With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me ; As He died to make men holv, let us die to make men free, While God is marching on." I I I I i i