Slavery: letters and speeches

To the Editors of the National Intelligencer;

A communication in your paper of yesterday, from the Hon. Horace Mann, of the House of Representatives, seems to require a brief notice from me.

The honorable gentleman accuses me of having treated him with gross injustice in a recent speech, in which I referred to the closing paragraph of a speech of his, and made some comments thereupon.

Now, in what consists the injustice? I quoted that paragraph from his speech, and he does not deny that it was quoted truly. There is not a word or syllable attributed to him, not a word or syllable alleged or insinuated to have been spoken by him, except that paragraph, and that he admits was spoken and printed by him just as I quoted it. Then, in the statement of his language, I have done him no injustice.

In my comments, I gave “in other words,”—in my own words,—what I deemed a true interpretation of his; and, as I attributed to him no language which he did not use; as every thing to which he objects is, and upon the face of my remarks plainly purports to be, merely my own commentary upon the single quotation correctly taken from the gentleman’s speech, it is very obvious that I have “fabricated” nothing. Whether the interpretation given to the honorable gentleman’s language be correct or incorrect, a just carrying of it out to its true results, or an unfair exaggeration, intelligent men will be able to decide from the reading of my speech, which presents together both the text and the commentary, and to them I am willing to leave it.

But the gentleman says that in his speech he “discussed the question of extending slavery over our territories,” and that “no more slave territories and no more slave states was the exact ground” he took. And what has that to do with the matter of his complaint against me? I referred not to his discussion, or the grounds taken in it. I was not considering the course or validity of his reasoning, but the conclusion at which he arrived. That was set down in his speech in these words:—

Here is no reference to any particular degree, kind, or manner of extending slavery. He speaks not of the “proposed or desired extension,” of “extension into our territories,” or even of “the extension,” but he speaks of “an extension of the bounds of slavery,” without a reference to any thing in the speech or elsewhere by which the generality of his language might be modified or explained. To refer, therefore, to the speech in order to understand the import of this general conclusion, is idle. If the reasoning in the speech be particular, and the deduction general, there would be the logical defect of a conclusion too large for the premises, but the meanings of the conclusion would remain, and the want of reasoning to support it would not abate aught of its unmitigated and sweeping generality.

It is evident, then, that, whether supported by any reasoning, particular or general, the gentleman’s conclusion remains, that disunion, civil war, servile war, with certain undefined judgments of Heaven besides, are preferable to “an extension of the bounds of slavery;” but the indefinite article “an” is here exactly equivalent to “any,” and therefore whatever amounts to “any extension,” however small,—a square mile, or acre, or foot,—is strictly within the meaning of the language which he has thought proper deliberately to retain in his printed speech.

But I accept willingly the explanation now given of his meaning, and only regret that, when writing out his speech, he did not then give the explanation which converts his general into a particular proposition. By this explanation I learn that, in his conclusion, he meant to speak not of any extension, however small, but of an extension of slavery in our territories.

Then the gentleman’s conclusion, as modified by himself, will be thus: “Better disunion,” [the dissolution of our government and destruction of the Union formed by our fathers;] “better a civil or a servile war,” [the most disastrous, ferocious, and cruel of all wars;] “better any thing that God in his providence shall send,” [for example, pestilence and famine;] “than an extension of the bounds of slavery” over our territories!

I cheerfully submit to all “intelligent men,” if they are at the same time humane and patriotic, to pass upon such a sentiment. To his own intelligent, patriotic, and humane constituents, I submit it, with entire confidence that it will not meet their approval; but, on the contrary, that they will regard the honorable gentleman as having been betrayed by the pervading excitement on the slavery question, into an extravagant,—I will not say fanatical,—declaration, which he is not able to defend, or willing, as yet, to retract or qualify.

I had believed that the honorable gentleman had, under the exciting influence of discussion, unconsciously done injustice to my own state, but a remark added to his communication would perhaps justify me, if inclined to judge unkindly, in supposing that the wrong was wilful. But I am not so inclined, and draw no such conclusion. I infer, rather, that the bewildering excitement under which the speech was made has not yet passed away, but still continues to influence unfavorably the otherwise clear understanding and fair and upright purposes of the honorable gentleman.

GEO. E. BADGER.

Washington, March 30, 1850.

Messrs. Editors; Your paper of this morning contains a communication from the Hon. Mr. Badger, in reply to mine of the 29th ultimo. I ask your indulgence while I briefly answer him.

My complaint was, that he had taken half a dozen lines from my speech, and had attributed a meaning to them, in some respects odious, in other respects ridiculous, and in all respects unwarrantable. By his own admission, too, he had done this without reading the speech itself; when, had he accorded to me the justice of hearing me before he condemned me, he would have found that both subject-matter and context confuted his interpretation.

His first reply is, that he did not “attribute” to me “a word” nor “a syllable” which I did not use; and, repeating himself, he adds, that he did not “allege” or “insinuate” a “word” nor “a syllable” that I now deny. In view of this he asks, with an air of triumph, “In what consists the injustice?”

I answer, as before; the injustice consists in giving a false meaning to true “words” and “syllables,”—a meaning which both the subject-matter and context of my speech repudiate. I do not see that it is less unjustifiable to attach false meanings to words correctly quoted, than to forge quotations. Surely, the honorable senator is too good a lawyer to be ignorant of the maxim, “qui hæret in litera” &c.; and too good a theologian not to have read that “the letter killeth” if divorced from the spirit. When Beaumont and Fletcher were closeted together to devise the plan of one of their joint plays, in which a king was to be killed, they were severally overheard to say, “I will kill the king,” and “I will kill the king;” whereupon they were arrested, transported to London, and arraigned for conspiring the death of the reigning sovereign. Suppose them to have been convicted of treason and gibbeted; could not the perjured informer, with a charming and childlike simplicity, have used the exact language of Mr. Badger, and said, I testified to the exact “words” and “syllables.” “In what consists the injustice?”

But the honorable senator goes on to say, that he had no concern with my speech, but only with my conclusion. His language is, “I was not considering the course or validity of his reasoning, but the conclusion at which he arrived.” He then repeats the quotation, and adds, “To refer, therefore, to the speech in order to understand the import of this conclusion, is idle.”

With all deference to the senator,—and mine is unfeignedly great,—I submit that this is false logic and worse ethics. As well may one declare the judgment of a court to be legal or illegal, merciful or tyrannous, without looking back to the allegations and proofs on which it is founded. As well may one affirm or deny the “Q. E. D.” of the geometer, without reference to the problem or demonstration to which it is subjoined. When a discussion exists respecting “an extension of the bounds of slavery,” (and these were my words,) and I say that I would prefer certain enumerated evils rather than the extension in controversy, it surely becomes all-important to know whether that extension is to embrace the whole earth and to extend through all time, or whether it is only the addition of one atom or granule to existing slave territory, or of one respiration, or one heart-beat of an existing slave, on territory now free. I affirm, then, that a knowledge of the premises is indispensable to a judgment on the conclusion.

But he accepts my explanation, and then appeals from me to what he is pleased to call, (and I thank him for the justice that prompted the well-deserved compliment,) my “intelligent, patriotic, and humane constituents,”—“with entire confidence that it will not meet their approval.” I gladly join in this appeal. As “intelligent” men, my constituents foresee that the extension of slavery over our territories will not only be an unspeakable crime in itself, but will be converted into the means of future unspeakable crimes in further extensions. As “patriotic” men, they prefer to bear any calamity that may come upon themselves, rather than to devolve accumulated calamities, growing out of their own dereliction from duty, upon their posterity. As “humane” men, they would deprecate and forefend that greatest of inhumanities, the dooming of increased thousands and millions of their fellow-men to the dreadful inheritance of bondage. And as religious men,—as men who “tremble when they reflect that God is just, and that his justice will not sleep forever,”—they mean to use all constitutional means to arrest the slave-creating and slave-extending policy of this government, let the two or three hundred thousand slaveholders among our twenty millions of people do what they will.

That the bearings of the subject may be rightly understood, it should be remembered that my speech was made on the 15th of February, after ten weeks of threatened disunion on certain specified and not improbable contingencies. “My conclusion,” therefore, was not aggressive, but submissive. I only declared which branch of their proffered alternative I should prefer.

The closing paragraph of the respected senator’s communication alludes to the motives of those wide and painful differences which are made between the whites and the slaves in the criminal legislation of the Southern States. Nothing could be more edifying, as to the demoralizing nature of slavery and its effects upon men, who, like the senator, are otherwise honorable and generous, than a comparison of the two codes of law and the two systems of jurisprudence which the rulers have respectively established for themselves and for their bondmen. The laws or customs known to civilized men and to barbarians are not more diverse. It would be rash and reckless in me to encounter the distinguished senator on any other subject; but on this I would say, as was said by a knight in an old tournament, that he had such confidence in the justness of his cause that he would give his adversary the advantage of sun and wind.

HORACE MANN.

Washington, April 1, 1850.