Charles Pickney's Speech to Congress, 1820

From Annals of Congress, the Sixteenth Congress First Session, V. 2 (1820). Washington: Governmental Printing Office, 1855. 1323-1328.

A great deal less has been said on the subject of slavery--that it is an infamous stain and blot on the States that hold them; not only degrading the slave, but the master, and making him unfit for republican government; that it is contrary to religion and the law of God; and that Congress ought to do everything in their power to prevent its extension among the new States.

Now, sir, I should be glad to know how any man is acquainted with what is the will or the law of God on this subject. Has it ever been imparted either to the old or the new world? Is there a single line in the Old or the New Testament, either censuring or forbidding it? I answer without hesitation, no. . . .

From the opinions expressed respecting the Southern States and the slaves there, it appears to me most clear that the members on the opposite side know nothing of the Southern States, their lands, products or slaves. Those who visit us, or go to the southward, find so great a difference that many of them remain and settle there. . . . Sir, when we recollect that our former parent State was the original cause of introducing slavery into America, and that neither ourselves or ancestors are chargeable with it; that it cannot be got rid of without ruining the country, certainly the present mild treatment of our slaves is most honorable to that part of the country where slavery exists. Every slave has a comfortable house, is well fed, clothed, and taken care of; he has his family about him, and in sickness has the same medical aid as his master, and has a sure and comfortable retreat in his old age, to protect him against its infirmities and weakness. During the whole of his life he is free from care, that canker of the human heart, which destroys at least one half of the thinking part of mankind, and from which a favored few, very few, if indeed any, can be said to be free. Being without education, and born to obey, to persons of that description moderate labor and discipline are essential. The discipline ought to be mild, but still, while slavery is to exist, there must be discipline. In this state they are happier than they can possibly be if free. A free black can only be happy where he has some share of education and has been bred to a trade or some kind of business. The great body of slaves are happier in their present situation than they could be in any other, and the man or men who would attempt to give them freedom, would be their greatest enemies.

All the writers who contend that the slaves increase faster than the free blacks, if they assert what is true, prove that the black, when in the condition of a slave is happier when free, as in proportion to the comfort and happiness of any kind of people, such will be the increase; and the next census will show what has been the increase of both descriptions, free and slave, and will, I think, prove the truth of these opinions. . . .

In pursuing the arguments of some gentlemen, on this subject, I have omitted to notice one of their arguments, springing from that part of the third section of the fourth article, which says, "the Congress shall have the power to make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory, or other property, belonging to the United States," because this article certainly refers only to the territorial state, to which I have already referred, and in which, I do not hesitate to aver, that, in making such regulations for the government of the territory, they are no more authorized to inhibit slavery in the territory than they are in the State-for, if the should have the power, it would indirectly effect the same thing. . . .

It ought to be remembered, Mr. Chairman, that the greatest part of the debt due for Louisiana is still unpaid, and that, if the mode I have asserted, by which your Treasury is now furnished, and must be in the future, is true, then the slaveholding States will have more than half of the purchase to pay; but, suppose we have only one half of it to pay, is it not fair, is it not just, that the use of this purchase should be as open to the inhabitants of the slaveholding, as to the inhabitants of the non-slaveholding States? And how can this happen, if you say to the inhabitants of the Northern States, you may go there with your families, and all your properties, but if you, from the Southern or slaveholding States, choose to go there, it must be without your slaves, these shall not go? Thus denying to these the instruments of their agriculture and the means of their comfort, and completely preventing the possibility of their removing. . . .

Have the Northern States any idea of the value of our slaves? At least, sir, six hundred millions of dollars. If we lose them, the value of the lands they cultivate will be diminished in all cases one half, and in many, they will become wholly useless, and an annual income of at least forty millions of dollars will be lost to your citizens; the loss of which will not alone be felt by the non-slaveholding States, but by the whole Union. . . .In a pecuniary view of this subject, therefore, it must ever be the policy of the Eastern and Northern States to continue connected with us. But, sir, there is an infinitely greater call upon them, and this is the call of justice, of affection and humanity. Reposing at a great distance, in safety, in the full enjoyment of all their Federal and State rights, unattacked in either, or in their individual rights, can they, with indifference, or ought they to risk, in the remotest degree, the consequences which this measure may produce. These may be the division of this Union and a civil war.