Speech of Hon. Thomas L. Clingman, of North Carolina, Against the Revolutionary Movement of the Anti-Slavery Party: Delivered in the Senate of the United States, January 16, 1860 (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from Speech of Hon. Thomas L. Clingman, of North Carolina, Against the Revolutionary Movement of the Anti-Slavery Party: Delivered in the Senate of the United States, January 16, 1860 Slavery is the sin of not some of the States only, but of them all; of not one nation only, but of all nations. It per verted and corrupted the moral sense of mankind deeply and universally, and this corruption became a universal habit. Habits of thought become fixed principles. No American State has yet delivered itself entirely from these habits. We, in New York, are guilty of slaverystill by withholding the right of suffrage from the race we have emancipated. You in Ohio, are guilty in the same way by a system of blaclt laws still more aristocratic and odious. It is written in the Constitution of the United States that five slaves shall countequal to three freemen as a basis of representation; and it is written also, in violation of Divine law, that we shall surrender the fugitive slave who takes refuge at our fireside from his relentless pursuer.' You blush not at these things, because they'have become as familiar as household words and your pretended Free - Soil allies claim peculiar merit for maintaining these miscalled guarantees of slavery which they find in the national compact. Does not allthis prove' that the Whig party have kept up with the spirit of the age? That it is as true and faithful to human treedonras the inert conscience of the American people'will permit it to be What, then, you say, can nothing he done for free dom because the public conscience remains inert? Yes, much can'be done, everything can be done. 'slave_ry can be limited to1 its present bounds: It can be ameliorated. 'lt can be endmast be abolished, and you and I can'nnd must. Do it. The task is siniplqand easy, as its consummation will be beneficent and its rewards glorious. It requires only to follow this simple rule of action To do everywhere and on ev'ery occasion what we can, and not to neglect-or refuse to do what we can at any time, because at that pre: else time and on that particular occasion we. Cannot do more. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.