Speech of Hon. J. M. Ashley of Ohio, in the House of Representatives, April 11, 1862, on the bill for the release of certain persons held to service or labor in the District of Columbia

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"I^i^ITIATE EMANCIPATION."

SPEECH

OF

HON. J^ M. ASHLEY,

OF OHIO,

In the House of Representatives, 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.

SCAMJIELL & CO., PRINTERS, CORNER OF SECOND & INDIANA AVENUE.

1862.

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 locality. 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
ehown 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 concuiTcnce. 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 v/hlch 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 upon as a
Representative to decide is, has Congress the
power and is it our duty to pass such a bill a^
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 Congress, become the seat of Govern-
ment of the United States."

r need not go into a labored argument to
show that Congress has power to banish slavery
from this District. It is not necessary 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 poiver 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 Distfict 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 opponents of emancipa-
tion that the proper and natural condition of all
colored races is that of slavery to the white race;
that the people of color, not only in this District,
but throughout the country, are unfit 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 sincerity, "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 inevitable 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 years ago, when I
said that —

"I exempt, with pleasure, from any sweeping
denunciations which I may make, thousands of
good and true men who find themselves born to
this inheritance, and whose whole lives give as-
surance to the world that their hearts are better
than the system. Intrust a class of men in any
society or 'Government with absolute power over
a servile race, and the bad 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 prevent. It
is not that southern men and slaveholders are
worse than other men, but because they are no
better, thatt it is unsafe, if it were not in itself

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an indefensible wrong, to intrust them with ab-
solute power over any part of the human race."

Sir, the origin and autliority for all the do-
minion man of right possesses in this world
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 writings 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 by human wicked-
ness ; but God advocates liberty by the nature
which he has implanted in the breast of every
man." — Fortesciie.

" If neither captivity 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 rights of individuals."

" If any human law shall require us to com-
mit crime, we arc bound to transgress that hu-
man law, or else we must offend both the natural
and divine." — Blackstone.

"What the Parliament doth shall be holden
for uaui;-ht whenever it shall enact that which is
contrary to the rights of nature." — Lord Coke.

" The essence of all law 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 m ay 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." — Pilt. »

"American slavery is the vilest that ever saw
the sun; it constitutes the sum of all villanies."
— JoIdi Wesley.

"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 efi'ect the emancipation of mankind."

" 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 O'Connell.

" 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 deprivinsr 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
therebj' 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 country 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 unhajipily introduced in their infant
state." — Jefferson.

"It is wrong to admit into the Constitution
tlie 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

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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, we find men professing a religion tlie
most mild, humane, gentle, and generous, adopt-
ing such a principle, as repugnant to humanity
as it is inconsistent with the Bible, and destruc-
tive to liberty?" — Pi/lricJ: Henri/.

" 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 Main -
iUon.

"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 finally abolished in all of them." — John Jay.

"It is among the evils of slavery, that it taints
the verj- 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?" — John Quincij 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 we alone cling to slavery
and the dead past, while all Christian nations
are keeping step to the marclf> of human pro-
gress, and the demands of a higher civilization ?
Let us hope not, and so act and vote as to secure
a realization of that hope.

I am for the liberation, not 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 black, 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, ''ihei/ are men by the grace of God,
and tins is enough.''' Free institutions will
gain strength everywhere by a decree of emanci-
H pation at the national capital, while slave insti-
tutions %vill 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 with
joy by the people everywhere in 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 in 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 satifactlon of leaving
the enduring record of an action of which my
children cannot but be proud, and of which
no true man in p,ny 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
emancipation in the British or Danish West
Indies. S.uch, I am sure, will not be the result
in this District. Why, sir, with all the disabil-
ities 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
earth, that colored population will compare,
advantageously 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 informed,
is valued to exceed one hundred iliousand dol-
lars. They are taxed for the support of schools
from which their children are excluded, and
maintain separate schools of their own. They
have societies for the support of their sick and
disabled, and never permit one of their number
to be buried at public expense. In thirty years
not one of their number has been convicted of

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a capital ofience. 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
proceedings of Congress that there is a proba-
bility of the peaceful and final abolishment of
slavery in the District bf Columbia : Therefore,

" Be it re-solved, 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 Almighty
God, that if this great boon of freedom is vouch-
safed to our people, we may receive it in a he-
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 iur
habitants thereof."

Need I say to this House and the country
that the men who could draft and 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 their 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 pi'O-
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
apd 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 dissolved. 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 ^-e 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 array 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 jjolities until it is diposed of,
and that 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 peoj)le, 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, wc can h^^e
but two formidable parties straggling for the
ascendency and control of the Government.
The one, no matter what its name or designa-

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tion, will be the representative of nationality
and freedom ; the other, 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-
slavery 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 l)older leaders will
be chosen by the people ; for no generous and
noble people will ever knowingly trust timid
and time-serving leaders, knowing full well, as
they do, tliat 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
bat two armies and two battle-fields and two
banners, that of the stars and stripes, represent-
ing liberty and union, or that of the serpe«t
and pelican, representing slavery and disunion.
There can be no question as to the position
which 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 j'our 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, 0 Lord; how long?" is to be answered
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 axd 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 friends 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 jurisdiction,
where Congress has constitutional power to pro-
hibit it, shall slavery be tolerated. The nation
is to-day entering 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 seat :
Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Himl be jubilant

my feet !

Our God Is marching on.
In the beauty of the lillies, Christ was born

across the sea,
With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you

and me ;
As He died to make men holy, let us die to make

men free,

While God is marching on."