ember, that, if what is
now proposed to be done by us who resist this amendment is, as he
supposes, unjust and injurious to any portion of this community, or
against its constitutional rights, that injustice should be presented to
the civilized world, and we, who concur in the proceeding, ought to
submit ourselves to its rebuke. I am glad that the honorable gentleman
proposes to refer this question to the great tribunal of Modern
Civilization, as well as the great tribunal of the American People. It
is proper. It is a question of magnitude enough, of interest enough, to
all the civilized nations of the earth, to call from those who support
the one side or the other a statement of the grounds upon which they
act.

Now I propose to state as briefly as I can the grounds upon which I
proceed, historical and constitutional; and will endeavor to use as few
words as possible, so that I may relieve the Senate from hearing me at
the earliest possible moment. In the first place, to view the matter
historically. This Constitution, founded in 1787, and the government
under it, organized in 1789, do recognize the existence of slavery in
certain States then belonging to the Union, and a particular description
of slavery. I hope that what I am about to say may be received without
any supposition that I intend the slightest disrespect. But this
particular description of slavery does not, I believe, now exist in
Europe, nor in any other civilized portion of the habitable globe. It is
not a predial slavery. It is not analogous to the case of the _predial_
slaves, or slaves _glebae adscripti_ of Russia, or Hungary, or other
states. It is a peculiar system of personal slavery, by which the person
who is called a slave is transferable as a chattel, from hand to hand. I
speak of this as a fact; and that is the fact. And I will say further,
perhaps other gentlemen may remember the instances, that although
slavery, as a system of servitude attached to the earth, exists in
various countries of Europe, I am not at the present moment aware of any
place on the globe in which this property of man in a human being as a
slave, transferable as a chattel, exists, except America. Now, that it
existed, in the form in which it still exists, in certain States, at the
formation of this Constitution, and that the framers of that
instrument, and those who adopted it, agreed that, as far as it existed,
it should not be disturbed or interfered with by the new g