throughout the union. The gentlemen in opposition were justifiable in supporting the interests of heir constituents, but their warmth had been excessive. Yet even that warmth was not without excuse. It was an arduous task, in this enlightened age, to prove the legality of slavery. Winn gentlemen attempt to justify this unnatural traffic, or to prove the lawfulness of slavery, they ought to advert to the genius of our government and to the principles of the revolution. 'If it were possible for men who exercise their reason to believe,' says the declaration of 1775, setting forth the causes and necessity for taking up arms, 'that the divine author of our existence intended a part of the human race to hold an absolute power in and an unbounded property over others, marked out by his infinite goodness and wisdom as the objects of a legal domination never rightfully resistible, however severe and oppressive, the inhabitants of these colonies might at least require from the parliament of Great Britain some evidence that this dreadful authority over them had been granted to that body.' By the declaration of independence, in 1770, congress declare 'these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, and that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.' Such was the language of America in the day of her distress.
"But there was a wide difference between justifying the African slave-trade and supporting a claim vested at the adoption of the constitution and guaranteed by it; nor would he be understood as contending for any right in congress to give freedom to those who are now held as slaves, or, at the present time, to prohibit the slave-trade. It would be a piece of inhumanity to turn these unhappy people loose, to murder each other or to perish for want of the necessaries of life. He never was an advocate for conduct so extravagant."
After an elaborate vindication of the Quakers, Boudinot denied that the petition signed by Franklin asked any thing contrary to the constitution. The request "was to go to the utmost verge of the constitution," not to go beyond it.
Jackson was by no means satisfied with the distinction attempted to be set up between the African slave-trade and the case of the slaves already in the country. "I am for none of these half-way consciences; if I was disposed to do any thing, I should be for total abolition. Let charity and humanity begin at home; let the gentlemen in the northern states who own slaves and advocate their cause, set the example of emancipation. Let them prove their own humanity; let them pull the beam out of their own eye previous to discovering the mote in their neighbor's. That is an argument that would speak for itself. Gentlemen have talked of our raising alarms; but it is at a reality, not at a bug-bear. The whole tenor of the resolutions has been contrary to southern interests; and manumission, emancipation, and abolition have been their intention. I give the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Scott) credit; I admit his candor; he has boldly spoken out. I wish the same might be done by other members, who appear to me to conceal their real designs under the specious pretext of concern for the interests of the southern states."
