The Liberator (newspaper)/September 18, 1857/Speech of Hon. N. P. Banks

Speech of Hon. N. P. Banks.

The following extracts from Mr. Banks’s speech at the Worcester Ratification Convention contains all of it that relates to the subject of slavery:—

It is not indispensable that the sentiment of our people upon the subject of slavery should be made broader or deeper. We suffer as much from overzeal as from indifference. Nor is it necessary that we should give it a more constant attention. The government under which we live will not at present allow us to forget it. * * * *

We may admit, as we all do, that slavery, in itself, is a crime—that it is at war with the precepts of Christianity—that it is the legitimate champion of barbaric usage, as against the institutions of modern civilization—the natural enemy of the diffusion of knowledge—of the freedom of the press, of speech, and even of thought, Yet it is equally the foe of all industrial progress, and of the highest material prosperity. Its supremacy demands possession of every avenue of human power, whether of thought or action. For instance, in our government, no legislative enactment—no appropriation of money—no executive vigor is given to any measure until its effect upon the institution has been carefully considered. There can be no free importation of the raw materials used in our manufactures, though not produced here at all, as in France or England, because it would enure to the benefit of Northern men, and strengthen the Free States. The rates of postage, in a business that is not necessarily monopolized by the government, cannot be regulated according to the natural laws of transmission, because lean and hungry routes of one part of the country must draw a sustenance from the fat mails that press their way through the domains of free labor. Liberal and extravagant appropriations of money are constantly made for the education, by the government of the officers of the army and navy, where the South finds a liberal and congenial source of patronage, but in the greater interest of the American fisheries, the greater development of our national industry, and the original and only practical school of the sailor, the bounty paid by the government, from its organization, is to be withdrawn, because its recipients dwell north of an undefined geographical line. If a river or harbor is to be improved, machinery to be constructed or a national capitol to be erected, it is chiefly to be done under the supervision of army officers, who are more immediately identified with the government than civil engineers or native mechanics. If the tide of events forces us to the establishment of a mail route across the western continent to the Pacific, its point of departure on the Atlantic side is not the populous cities of the free States—Boston, New York, Buffalo, Chicago, or even St. Louis—but an inferior Southern town with eighteen or twenty thousand people, and commerce corresponding to its population. And the route itself is made to circumvent the points of the compass, trailing its long line, not Westward upon the paths of the pioneer and the settler, but Southward, through Louisiana and Texas and the purchased land of the Messilla villey, and thence Northward to California and Oregon and Washington, because the political interests of the South demand it.

The South possesses, as we are often told, the avenues of industry and trade. It holds the production of the richest cotton fields on the face of the earth, and it can make its supply plenty or scarce. The cotton manufacture is advancing here, in England and in France, with all the impetus that free labor and inventive genius can impart: but the supply of the raw material does not keep pace with the increased consumption! Commercial men and manufacturers are speculating upon advances in cotton, consequent upon increased demands of free labor in manufactures, and the inadequacies of slave labor in supply, which may in another year carry the cost from sixteen, as now, to eighteen and twenty cents per pound. Under such circumstances, the manufacture must be checked, if it does not, for a time at least, cease. Ought civilization to rest its advancing labors, at this advanced stage of its progress, until the negro bondman can toddle along up to its standard? Should the civilized world say to the cotton-grower, recuperate your worn-out lands—seek new ideas and new mechanical agencies to your culture, as wo have to our manufacture—what will be the answer—not now, but soon—not from the cotton-grower, but from the Southern politician? If you seek cheaper cotton, give us more negroes and cheaper land! Was the continent of America and its rich cotton fields created as a theatre upon which the negro, in a state of bondage, was only to test his capacity for the production of the cotton plant, and there to rest? Who believes it? Did we pursue a like policy with the aboriginal inhabitants of the continent, or has the civilized world ever recognized such laggards in labor as an eternal barrier to industrial advances?

Is there not in these things—and they are but examples—a common basis of action for men who look only to the industrial and practical, and those who regard only the moral aspect of a cause? Let us but once, upon such grounds, effect a combination of such men and such material and moral interests, and we should see again what has never been seen but once—a united and triumphant North! We should then see that which has never been seen at all—a divided South! We would set up a government that should stand like adamant against every measure for the extension of slavery or the expansion of its power, and directing its vast influence to the development of the industrial interests of the continent; it would silently but surely pave the way for the extinction of slavery itself.

A united North, under a policy of this character, would bring into the arena a new ally—an ally in the spirit and form of free labor fighting to recover its own hearthstone against its unchangeable enemy, which would in the end drive involuntary servitude from the continent, though Northern men should never again speak the word slavery. There is no servitude like that which rests upon a portion of the white men of the South. The free utterance and advocacy of their opinions, as fixed as their ideas of the existence of God, would expel them from the hearthstones of their children and the tombstones of their fathers.

The union of the North upon a broad and practical basis—a basis that, while it should fully represent its moral sentiments, should also embrace and represent the industrial and conservative interests—would afford to thousands at the South the protection they have a right to demand of us; and an opportunity to settle the question, not of extension merely, but of the existence of slavery upon its own soil and by its own people. Missouri has always led the way, and other States are panting to share in the perils of the fight, and the glory of the triumph. It was to this future that I alluded when I said that the struggle of last year would never be repeated in form. The result is not doubtful, if the North does its duty. Divided, we strike them down; united, we triumph in their success. The exultation of the North at a final emancipation of the continent, would differ from the joy of the South, only as the lustre of one star differs from the glory of another.

There is another reason, Mr. President, why we should hold attention and position now, upon this great subject. This very year is to determine whether slavery is to be extended not only to territories where it does not exist, but where it had been prohibited by Southern men. The fate of Kansas is not yet sealed. Last year, the South fought for its slavery, the North for its freedom. The South triumphed, and this year determines whether it will give up what it then won. The Convention that is to frame a Constitution for Kansas is already chosen. It is entirely in the hands of pro-slavery men. They can make it a free compact, or a slave compact, as they choose. They can submit the instrument to just such a constituency as they choose.

The remarkable speech of Mr. Douglas, in the early summer, and the late extraordinary letter of President Buchanan to Prof. Silliman, indicate with great clearness what that constituency and what the result will be. If the Constitution recognizes slavery either by express provision or by a silence equally effective, and the administration does not oppose its admission into the Union, there is no power to defeat it in Congress. It thus becomes a slave State, and gives to the South the equilibrium in the Senate, for which it has been long contending, from which it can successfully defend its interests against all coming events. No future free State can be admitted but with the consent and upon conditions imposed by the South. And do you think they will yield this power? I hope they may. I hear it said, that, admitted to the Union as a slave State, the people can at once abolish slavery: but I remember, also, that the men who make the Constitution can also establish the conditions upon which it may be amended. And do you think they will surrender that power? I hope they may. How, then, is it to be said that this year we have no interest in national affairs? ****** I intend religiously to support the union of the States; the principles upon which it was organized, and the Constitution by which it is maintained. I demand for the North, and I will accede to the South, all that can be claimed under the Constitution. I regard free labor as the corner-stone of our prosperity, and the observance of the reserved rights of the States as the foundation of our success as a government. I resist an interference with slave labor in the States where it exists, but I am inflexibly opposed to its extension; to the admission of other slave States, or the acquisition of territory for the formation of slave States. I entertain no doubt of the power of Congress to prohibit slavery in the territories, or that it ought to exercise that power. I protest against the usurpation of the Courts, in assuming to decide as judicial questions propositions which are in their nature, and from the foundation of the government have always been regarded as popular and political questions. As your representative, I will demand that something of the power of the government of the States shall be directed to the development of Christian-like and civilizing industrial interests, rather than to the re-institution of barbaric customs and the propagandism of African slavery. And if we are compelled to pass upon of the further acquisition of Southern territory, even though it bring upon us dishonor and war in the process, upon the stale pretence of imperfect national defences, we will demand that the requisition of of fertile and free territory on the North, by honorable and peaceful negotiation, shall, acre by acre and province by province, keep step with the extension of our borders on the South.’