I
repeat, therefore, the question: Is it not plain in what direction we are
tending? [Sensation.] In the colonial time, Mason, Pendleton, and
Jefferson were as hostile to slavery in Virginia as Otis, Ames, and the
Adamses were in Massachusetts; and Virginia made as earnest an effort to
get rid of it as old Massachusetts did. But circumstances were against
them and they failed; but not that the good will of its leading men was
lacking. Yet within less than fifty years Virginia changed its tune, and
made negro-breeding for the cotton and sugar States one of its leading
industries. [Laughter and applause.]
In the Constitutional Convention, George Mason of Virginia made a more
violent abolition speech than my friends Lovejoy or Codding would desire
to make here to-day--a speech which could not be safely repeated anywhere
on Southern soil in this enlightened year. But, while there were some
differences of opinion on this subject even then, discussion was allowed;
but as you see by the Kansas slave code, which, as you know, is the
Missouri slave code, merely ferried across the river, it is a felony to
even express an opinion hostile to that foul blot in the land of
Washington and the Declaration of Independence.
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