March 11, 1850 – William Seward Speaks Out Against the Fugitive Slave Bill

On this day in history, William Seward, at the time a U.S. Senator from the state of New York and later to become Abraham Lincoln’s Secretary of State, spoke out against the proposed Fugitive Slave Bill – to no avail; it went on to become the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. He averred:

We are not slaveholders. We cannot, in our judgment, be either true Christians or real freemen, if we impose on another a chain that we defy all human power to fasten on ourselves. You believe and think otherwise, and doubtless with equal sincerity. We judge you not, and He alone who ordained the conscience of man and its laws of action can judge us. Do we, then, in this conflict of opinion, demand of you an unreasonable thing in asking that, since you will have property that can and will exercise human powers to effect its escape, you shall be your own police, and in acting among us as such you shall conform to principles indispensable to the security of admitted rights of freemen? If you will have this law executed, you must alleviate, not increase, its rigors.”

William Seward in 1851

He further declared, invoking the words of the Declaration of Independence:

I cannot stop to debate long with those who maintain that slavery is itself practically economical and humane. I might be content with saying that there are some axioms in political science that a statesman or a founder of states may adopt, especially in the Congress of the United States, and that among those axioms are these: That all men are created equal, and have inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the choice of pursuits of happiness; that knowledge promotes virtue, and righteousness exalteth a nation; that freedom is preferable to slavery, and that democratic governments, where they can be maintained by acquiescence, without force, are preferable to institutions exercising arbitrary and irresponsible power.”

His whole speech, or the excerpts from it (it is very long) is eloquent, impassioned, and definitely worth reading. You can do so here.