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Page 13
If slavery be permitted in Missouri with the climate, and soil, and in
the circumstances of this territory, what hope can be entertained that
it will ever be prohibited in any of the new States that will be formed
in the immense region west of the Mississippi? Will the co-extensive
establishment of slavery and of the new States throughout this region,
lessen the dangers of domestic insurrection, or of foreign aggression?
Will this manner of executing the great trust of admitting new States
into the Union, contribute to assimilate our manners and usages, to
increase our mutual affection and confidence, and to establish that
equality of benefits and burdens which constitutes the true basis of our
strength and union? Will the militia of the nation, which must furnish
our soldiers and seamen, increase as slaves increase? Will the
actual disproportion in the military service of the nation be thereby
diminished?--a disproportion that will be, as it has been, readily
borne, as between the original States, because it arises out of their
compact of Union, but which may become a badge of inferiority, if
required for the protection of those who, being free to choose, persist
in the establishment of maxims, the inevitable effect of which will
deprive them of the power to contribute to the common defence, and even
of the ability to protect themselves. There are limits within which
our federal system must stop; no one has supposed that it could be
indefinitely extended--we are now about to pass our original boundary;
if this can be done without affecting the principles of our free
governments, it can be accomplished only by the most vigilant attention
to plant, cherish, and sustain the principles of liberty in the new
States, that may be formed beyond our ancient limits; with our utmost
caution in this respect, it may still be justly apprehended that the
General Government must be made stronger as we become more extended.
But if, instead of freedom, slavery is to prevail and spread, as we
extend our dominion, can any reflecting man fail to see the necessity of
giving to the General Government greater powers, to enable it to
afford the protection that will be demanded of it? powers that will be
difficult to control, and which may prove fatal to the public liberties.
WILLIAM PINKNEY,
OF MARYLAND. (BORN 1764, DIED 1822.)
ON THE MISSOURI QUESTION'--UNITED STATES
SENATE, FEBRUARY 15, 1820.
As I am not a very frequent speaker in this assembly, and have shown a
desire, I trust, rather to listen to the wisdom of others than to lay
claim to superior knowledge by undertaking to advise, even when advice,
by being seasonable in point of time, might have some chance of being
profitable, you will, perhaps, bear with me if I venture to trouble you
once more on that eternal subject which has lingered here, until all
its natural interest is exhausted, and every topic connected with it
is literally worn to tatters. I shall, I assure you, sir, speak with
laudable brevity--not merely on account of the feeble state of my
health, and from some reverence for the laws of good taste which forbid
me to speak otherwise, but also from a sense of justice to those
who honor me with their attention. My single purpose, as I suggested
yesterday, is to subject to a friendly, yet close examination,
some portions of a speech, imposing, certainly, on account of the
distinguished quarter from whence it came--not very imposing (if I may
so say, without departing from that respect which I sincerely feel and
intend to manifest for eminent abilities and long experience) for any
other reason.
* * * * *
I confess to you, nevertheless, that some of the principles announced
by the honorable gentleman from New York, with an explicitness that
reflected the highest credit on his candor, did, when they were first
presented, startle me not a little. They were not perhaps entirely new.
Perhaps I had seen them before in some shadowy and doubtful shape,
"If shape it might be called, that shape had none,
Distinguishable in member, joint, or limb?"
But in the honorable gentleman's speech they were shadowy and doubtful
no longer. He exhibited them in forms so boldly and accurately--with
contours so distinctly traced--with features so pronounced and
striking that I was unconscious for a moment that they might be old
acquaintances. I received them as a _novi hospites_ within these walls,
and gazed upon them with astonishment and alarm. I have recovered,
however, thank God, from this paroxysm of terror, although not from that
of astonishment. I have sought and found tranquillity and courage in
my former consolatory faith. My reliance is that these principles will
obtain no general currency; for, if they should, it requires no gloomy
imagination to sadden the perspective of the future. My reliance is upon
the unsophisticated good sense and noble spirit of the American people.
I have what I may be allowed to call a proud and patriotic trust, that
they will give countenance to no principles which, if followed out to
their obvious consequences, will not only shake the goodly fabric of the
Union to its foundations, but reduce it to a melancholy ruin. The people
of this country, if I do not wholly mistake their character, are wise as
well as virtuous. They know the value of that federal association which
is to them the single pledge and guarantee of power and peace. Their
warm and pious affections will cling to it as to their only hope of
prosperity and happiness, in defiance of pernicious abstractions, by
whomsoever inculcated, or howsoever seductive or alluring in their
aspect.'
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