Lawrence Herald of Freedom, July 7, 1855

ORATION,

Delivered at Lawrence, Kansas Territory,

July 4th 1855.

By Dr. CHARLES ROBINSON.

Fellow Citizens of Kansas:

This day, the 79th Anniversary of the Declaration of American Independence, finds us in a new and strange country, and surrounded by circumstances interesting and peculiar.

While the echoes of the booming cannon are reverberating among our native hills, and the merry peals of the church-going bells are announcing to the world the rejoicings of a great and prosperous people, that their days of weakness, suffering, and thraldom are past, we are here in a remote wilderness to found a new State, and to plant anew the institutions of our patriotic ancestors. It is a day to us of peculiar significance. While we would pay a tribute of respect to that period which, in the annals of this nation, will ever be regarded as most sacred; while with one accord and one voice we worship in the Temple of Liberty, uncontaminated by party distinctions or sectional animosities, and unite in the endeavor to raise some fitting memento of a nation’s gratitude for the declarations of that day, the most glorious in the history of a mighty people, we sho’d also gather lessons of instruction from the past by which to be guided in the erection of a new State in the heart of this great republic.

But little more than two and a half centuries since, the first successful settlement by the English was made in the United States. . . . This was in Virginia, where they said, “the soil is the most plentiful, sweet, fruitful and wholesome of all the world.”

About ten years later a second settlement was made in Massachusetts, on a sterile soil, and in a climate forbidding; but it was composed of men of sterner material than was the soil or climate.—In these two colonies were to be found the germ of this at present great and prosperous nation. The first sought in the new world gold and affluence, and were the favorites of the Crown; while the second fled from persecution to seek a home in the wilderness, where they might obey the dictates of their own consciences, and establish their own institutions without molestation. . . .

One lesson the history of our government should teach us who have chosen Kansas for our home, and that is especially applicable to the instructions of this day, viz: the more closely the principles of the Declaration of Independence are followed as the basis of government, and the more universal they are made in their application, the more prosperous the government and people. . . .

As the people of Kansas Territory are to-day the subjects of a foreign State; as laws are now being imposed upon us by the citizens of Missouri for the sole purpose of forcing upon this territory the institution of slavery: I surely need make no apology for devoting the few moments allotted me on this occasion to an examination of the effects of that institution upon a State and people, whether politically, morally, or socially. I ask you not to-day to listen to arguments of abolitionists or for abolitionism; I wish now not to wage war upon slavery or slaveholders in any State of this Union, or to interfere in any respect with our neighbor’s affairs, but it is for ourselves, our families, our own institutions and our own prosperity; it is for Kansas we ask your attention. Is it politic, is it for our moral, intellectual or pecuniary advancement, to submit to the dictation of a foreign power in regard to our laws and institutions? This is the question that deeply interests us all, and for the consideration of which this day is most appropriate.

Unfortunately for our country the same year that the Puritans effected their landing at Plymouth, a cargo of slaves was imported into Virginia, and soon after they were introduced to other colonies. Their rights of equality to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness were of course denied by their masters, till about the time of the formation of the Constitution, when the northern States gradually rid themselves of the institution. The south, however, regardless of their professions, continued to refuse to recognize in practice the doctrine that all men are created equal. . . .

The southern or slaveholding States contain an area of 928,894 square miles, while the northern or free States, excluding California, contain but 454,354 square miles, or less than half as much as the slave States. It should be borne in mind that the southern States also have the advantage in soil and climate as well as extent of territory, and are capable of sustaining a much larger population to the square mile than the northern States. In the fifteen slave States, according to the census of 1850, there was a white population of 6,105,217, whilst in the fifteen free States, with one half the area and a less fertile soil, there was a white population of 13,147,029; showing that the free States with less than half the number of acres of land, with comparatively none of the advantages of the South, are sustaining more than double her free population. If, however, we take the “chattels personal” of the south into consideration, strip them of their property quality, whose number is 3,081,234, we shall make the southern population numbered 9,389,441, and if we add the free colored population of both sections, the result will stand thus: Free States, 13,342,325, slave 9,612,969, showing an excess in favor of the free States of 3,729,256. Think of it, the slave States with over three hundred millions of acres of land more than the free States, sustaining a population of near four millions less, and over three millions of these being in the shape of property. . . .

. . . [T]here is no department in what goes to make up a nation’s prosperity in which the north is not far ahead of the south, except, perhaps in the manufacture and use of whisky and kindred drinks. . . .

. . . [I]n agriculture slave labor is proved to be far less productive than free labor, slavery is demonstrated to be not only unprofitable, but deeply injurious to the public prosperity. . . .

Above all, think of Richmond, nature’s chosen site for the greatest manufacturing city in America—her beds of coal and iron just at hand, her incomparable water power, her tide-water navigation conducting sea vessels from the foot of her falls, and above them her fine [illegible] to the mountains, through which lie the shortest route from the eastern tides to the great river of the west and the southwest. Think, also, that this Richmond in old Virginia, “the mother of States,” has enjoyed these unparalleled advantages ever since the United States became a nation, and then think again that this same Richmond, the metropolis of old Virginia, has fewer manufactures than a third rate New England town; fewer, not than the new city of Lowell, which is beyond all comparison, but fewer than the obscure place called Fall River, among the barren hills of Massachusetts; and then, fellow-citizens, what will you think, what must you think of the cause of this strange phenomenon? Or, to enlarge the scope of the question; what must you think has caused Virginians in general to neglect their superlative advantages for manufacturing industry? To disregard the evident suggestions of nature pointing out to them this fruitful source of population, wealth, and comfort? . . .

Such, fellow citizens, are some of the effects of slavery upon the growth and prosperity of a State, as established by the census, and by the testimony, not of abolitionists, not of hot-headed fanatics, but of slaveholders, southern politicians and southern divines, men who speak what they know and testify to what they have seen; and it is for the purpose of planting in this fairest portion of the world the blighting curse of this withering institution, that the late incursion of the border hordes from a neighboring State was made, and that a Legislature elected by foreign votes now sits in Kansas. . . .

Fellow citizens, let us for a moment inquire who, and where, and what, are we?

Who are we? Are we not free-born? were not our mothers, as well as fathers, of Anglo-Saxon blood? was not the right to govern ourselves, to choose our own rulers, to make our own laws, guaranteed to us by the united voice of the United States?

Where are we? Are we not in the most beautiful country that human eye ever beheld? Is it not for surface, soil and productions, worthy to be styled the garden of the world? A wilderness, yet already budding and blossoming like the rose? A new country, yet having the appearance, in its diversity of meadow and woodland, of hill and dale, of a land long inhabited and most beautifully and tastefully laid out into parks and groves? With a mild and salubrious climate, a dry, pure atmosphere, must it not soon become the resort of the invalid from the consumptive East and the ends of the earth?

Our situation geographically is in the center of this republic, at the half-way station between the Atlantic and Pacific, the Gulf of Mexico and British Possessions. The father of waters extends us his great right arm and proffers the commerce of the world and a market for all our productions, and the line of steam and telegraph communication that is soon to encircle the globe will of course pass directly through our Territory, thus bringing to our very doors the commerce of China and the Indies.

What are we? Subjects, slaves of Missouri. We come to the celebration of this anniversary with our chains clanking about our limbs; we lift to heaven our manacled arms in supplication; proscribed, outlawed, denounced, we cannot so much as speak the name of Liberty, except with prison walls and halters staring us in the face. We must not only see black slavery, the blight and curse of any people, planted in our midst, and against our wishes, but we must become slaves ourselves. . . .

And who or what is an abolitionist? Why, everybody is an abolitionist, according to their dictionary, who dares to have an opinion of his own upon the subject of the rights of man, in any respect different from theirs. No distinction is made between the man who is opposed to the establishment of slavery in Kansas, and him who is opposed to its existence in the States, between the free-soiler and dissolutionist, between the man who would return him who had escaped to his master, and him who would direct the fugitive to the land of liberty. Said one the chivalry, whose name is suggestive of hemp factories, “had I the power, I would hang every abolitionist in the country, and every man north of Mason and Dixon’s line is an abolitionist.” This was said with the emphasis and accompaniments peculiar to the individual. These gentlemen and christians “repel the doctrine that it (slavery) is a moral or political evil,” and “hurl back with scorn the charge of inhumanity,” and warn all persons of different views not to come to Kansas, for they shall be “made to leave the Territory” if they do. “Made to leave!” Indeed! Well, a “right smart good time of it” may our neighbors have in making all leave Kansas who will not bow down and worship the calves they set up.

Made to leave! Gentlemen, look at that beautiful banner, think from whence it came, and of the motives which prompted its presentation, and then think about being made to leave your country for no crime! One thing appears evident, if we are made to leave, the ladies will be ashamed to follow, and will let us go alone. . . .

What reason is given for the cowardly invasion of our rights by our neighbors? No good reason is or can be given. They and their apologists say that if Kansas is allowed to be free, the Institution of slavery in their own State will be in danger. That the contrast between a free and slave State will be so great their own citizens will become abolitionists, or the underground railroad will relieve them of their slaves. But from the first cause there is no danger of alarm if their doctrine is correct, that slavery is a blessing and not a moral or political evil. If it is the humane institution they represent, who will want to see it abolished? As to the second cause, there is no ground for fear; provided, the people of Missouri mind their own affairs, and let ours alone; for it is not true that the settlers in Kansas have enticed away a single Negro, or attempted to do so. . . . We say then, officially, that up to the present time not the first rail has been laid of this road in Kansas, but the workmen are in readiness, and will commence operations with a will if our affairs are again interfered with by foreign intruders. If the people of Missouri make it necessary, by their unlawful course, for us to establish freedom in that State in order to enjoy the liberty of governing ourselves in Kansas; then let that be the issue. If Kansas and the whole north must be enslaved, or Missouri became free, then let her be made free.—Aye, and if to be free ourselves slavery must be abolished in the whole country, then let us accept that issue. If black slavery in a part of the States is incompatible with white freedom in any State, then let black slavery be banished from all. As men espousing the principles of the Declaration of the Fathers, we can do nothing less than accept these issues. Not that we are unfriendly to the south, far from it; if there be any true friend of the south in this assembly, to him we say that our love to the south is no less than his. If then such friend demand why we are ready to accept this issue, this is our answer: not that we love the south less, be we love our country more. . . .

Fellow-citizens, in conclusion, it is for us to choose for ourselves, and for those who shall come after us, what institutions shall bless or curse our beautiful Kansas. Shall we have freedom for all the people, and consequent prosperity, or slavery for a part, with the blight and mildew inseparable from it? Choose ye this day which you will serve, Slavery or Freedom, and then be true to your choice.—If slavery is best for Kansas, then choose it, but if liberty, then choose that! . . .