Page images
PDF
EPUB

SPEECH OF WILLIAM PINKNEY,

DELIVERED

IN THE ASSEMBLY OF MARYLAND, AT THEIR SESSION IN 1788,

When the report of a committee of the House, favorable to a petition for the relief of the oppressed slaves, was under consideration.

MR. SPEAKER,

BEFORE I proceed to deliver my sentiments on the subject matter of the report, under consideration, I must entreat the members of this House to hear me with patience, and not to condemn what I may happen to advance in support of the opinion I have formed, until they shall have heard me out. I am conscious, sir, that upon this occasion, I have long established principles to combat, and deep rooted prejudices to defeat; that I have fears and apprehensions to silence, which the acts of former legislatures have sanctioned, and that, (what is equivalent to a host of difficulties,) the popular impressions are against me. But, if I am honored with the same indulgent attention, which the House has been pleased to afford me, on past subjects of deliberation, I do not despair of surmounting all these obstacles, in the common cause of justice, humanity and policy. The report appears to me to have two objects in view to annihilate the existing restraints on the voluntary emancipation of slaves, and to relieve a particular offspring from the punishment, heretofore inflicted on them, for the mere transgression of their parents. To the whole report, separately and collectively, my hearty assent, my cordial assistance, shall be given. It was the policy of this country, sir, from an early period of colonization, down to

:

the revolution, to encourage an importation of slaves, for purposes, which, (if conjecture may be indulged,) had been far better answered without their assistance. That this inhuman policy was a disgrace to the colony, a dishonor to the legislature, and a scandal to human nature, we need not, at this enlightened period, labor to prove. The generous mind, that has adequate ideas of the inherent rights of mankind, and knows the value of them, must feel its indignation rise against the shameful traffic, that introduces slavery into a country, which seems to have been designed by Providence, as an asylum for those whom the arm of power had persecuted, and not as a nursery for wretches, stripped of every privilege which heaven intended for its rational creatures, and reduced to a level with-nay, become themselves-the mere goods and chattels of their masters.

Sir, by the eternal principles of natural justice, no master in the state has a right to hold his slave in bondage for a single hour; but the law of the land, which, (however oppressive and unjust, however inconsistent with the great groundwork of the late revolution, and our present frame of government,) we cannot, in prudence, or from a regard to individual rights, abolish, has authorized a slavery, as bad, or perhaps worse than the most absolute, unconditional servitude that ever England knew, in the early ages of its empire, under the tyrannical policy of the Danes, the feudal tenures of the Saxons, or the pure villanage of the Normans. But, Mr. Speaker, because a respect for the peace and safety of the community, and the already injured rights of individuals, forbids a compulsory liberation of these unfortunate creatures, shall we unnecessarily refine upon this gloomy system of bondage, and prevent the owner of a slave from manumitting him, at the only probable period, when the warm feelings of benevolence, and the gentle workings of commiseration dispose him to the generous deed? Sir, the natural character of Maryland is sufficiently

[blocks in formation]

sullied, and dishonored, by barely tolerating slavery: but when it is found, that your laws give every possible encouragement to its continuance to the latest generations, and are ingenious to prevent even its slow and gradual decline, how is the die of the imputation deepened? It may even be thought, that our late glorious struggle for liberty, did not originate in principle, but took its rise from popular caprice, the rage of faction, or the intemperance of party. Let it be remembered, Mr. Speaker, that, even in the days of feudal barbarity, when the minds of men were unexpanded by that liberality of sentiment, which springs from civilization and refinement, such was the antipathy, in England, against private bondage, that, so far from being studious to stop the progress of emancipation, the courts of law, (aided by legislative connivance,) were inventive to liberate by construction. If, for example, a man brought an action against his villain, it was presumed, that he designed to manumit him; and, although perhaps this presumption was, in ninety-nine instances out of a hundred, contrary to the fact, yet, upon this ground alone, were bondmen adjudged to be free.

Sir, I sincerely wish it were in my power to impart my feelings, upon this subject, to those who hear me ; they would then acknowledge, that, while the owner was protected in the property of his slave, he might, at the same time, be allowed to relinquish that property to the unhappy subject, whenever he should be so inclined. They would then feel, that denying this privilege was repugnant to every principle of humanity -an everlasting stigma on our government-an act of unequalled barbarity, without a color of policy, or a pretext of necessity, to justify it.

Sir, let gentlemen put it home to themselves, that after Providence has crowned our exertions, in the cause of general freedom, with success, and led us on to independence, through a myriad of dangers, and in defiance of obstacles crowding thick upon each other, we should not so soon forget the principles upon

which we fled to arms, and lose all sense of that interposition of heaven, by which alone we could have been saved from the grasp of arbitrary power. We may talk of liberty in our public councils; and fancy, that we feel reverence for her dictates. We may declaim, with all the vehemence of animated rhetoric, against oppression, and flatter ourselves, that we detest the ugly monster, but so long as we continue to cherish the poisonous weed of partial slavery among us, the world will doubt our sincerity. In the name of heaven, with what face can we call ourselves the friends of equal freedom, and the inherent rights of our species, when we wantonly pass laws inimical to each; when we reject every opportunity of destroying, by silent, imperceptible degrees, the horrid fabric of individual bondage, reared by the mercenary hands of those from whom the sacred flame of liberty received no devotion?

Sir, it is pitiable to reflect, to what wild inconsistencies, to what opposite extremes we are hurried, by the frailty of our nature. Long have I been convinced, that no generous sentiment of which the human heart is capable, no elevated passion of the soul that dignifies mankind, can obtain a uniform and perfect dominion: to-day we may be aroused as one man, by a wonderful and unaccountable sympathy, against the lawless invader of the rights of his fellow-creatures : to-morrow we may be guilty of the same oppression, which we reprobated and resisted in another. Is it, Mr. Speaker, because the complexion of these devoted victims is not quite so delicate as ours; is it because their untutored minds, (humbled and debased by the hereditary yoke,) appear less active and capacious than our own; or, is it, because we have been so habituated to their situation, as to become callous to the horrors of it, that we are determined, whether politic or not, to keep them, till time shall be no more, on a level with the brutes? For "nothing," says Montesquieu, "so much assimilates a man to a brute, as living

among freemen, himself a slave." Call not Maryland a land of liberty; do not pretend, that she has chosen this country as an asylum-that here she has erected her temple, and consecrated her shrine, when here, also, her unhallowed enemy holds his hellish pandemonium and our rulers offer sacrifice at his polluted altar. The lily and the bramble may grow in social proximity, but liberty and slavery delight in separation.

Sir, let us figure to ourselves, for a moment, one of these unhappy victims more informed than the rest, pleading, at the bar of this House, the cause of himself and his fellow-sufferers; what would be the language of this orator of nature? Thus, my imagination tells me he would address us. "We belong, by the policy of the country, to our masters; and submit to our rigorous destiny; we do not ask you to divest them of their property, because we are conscious you have not the power; we do not entreat you to compel an emancipation of us or our posterity, because justice to your fellow-citizens forbids it; we only supplicate you not to arrest the gentle arm of humanity, when it may be stretched forth in our behalf; nor to wage hostilities against that moral or religious conviction, which may at any time incline our masters to give freedom to us, or our unoffending offspring, not to interpose legislative obstacles to the course of voluntary manumission. Thus shall you neither violate the rights of your people, nor endanger the quiet of the community, while you vindicate your public councils, from the imputation of cruelty and the stigma of causeless, unprovoked oppression. We have never," would he argue, "rebelled against our masters; we have never thrown your government into a ferment by struggles to regain the independence of our fathers. We have yielded our necks submissive to the yoke, and, without a murmur, acquiesced in the privation of our native rights. We conjure you, then, in the name of the common parent of mankind, reward us not, for this long and patient acquiescence, by

« PreviousContinue »