Employee Training and Development 6th Edition Noe Solutions Manual

Employee Training and Development

6th Edition Noe Solutions Manual
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Employee Training and Development 6th Edition Noe Solutions Manual

Chapter 02 - Strategic Training

CHAPTER 2
STRATEGIC TRAINING

The chapter on “Strategic Training” begins with a discussion of how training is evolving. It
discusses the strategic training and development process, organizational characteristics that
influence training, various models for organizing the training department, how to brand training
and market it to the rest of the company, and the advantages and disadvantages of outsourcing
training. The chapter highlights the importance of linking the training function to the company’s
strategy. It first presents an overview of the work roles of employees, managers, and executives.
The later part of this chapter talks about organizational characteristics, such as the extent to
which the company has global operations and business conditions that influence training
practices are discussed. Other human resource functions are highlighted and their relationships to
training described. Trends in the changing role of training are identified as well as the training
implications of various business strategies, from concentration to divestment. Finally, the chapter
presents major models of training function organization, which including the corporate university
model, and the business-embedded model. This is critical information to the reader, for if
training is not tied to business strategy, then its existence may be tenuous and, perhaps, not
justifiable.

Objectives

1. Discuss how business strategy influences the type and amount of training in a company.
2. Describe the strategic training and development process.
3. Discuss how a company’s staffing and human resource planning strategies influence training.
4. Explain the training needs created by concentration, internal growth, external growth, and
disinvestment business strategies.
5. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of centralizing the training function.
6. Discuss how to create a learning or training brand and why it is important.
7. Discuss the strengths of the business-embedded model for organizing the training function.
8. Explain a corporate university and its benefits.

I. Introduction

A. A business strategy is a plan that integrates the company’s goals, policies, and actions.
The goals are what the company hopes to achieve in the medium and long-term future.
There are both direct and indirect links between training and business strategy and goals.
Training that helps employees develop the skills needed to perform their jobs directly
affects the business.
B. Business strategy has a major impact on the type and amount of training that occurs and
whether resources (money, trainers’ time, and program development) should be devoted
to training. Also, strategy influences the type, level, and mix of skills needed in the
company.
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Chapter 02 - Strategic Training

The Evolution of Training: From an Event to Learning

A. As more companies recognize the importance of learning for meeting business challenges
and providing a competitive advantage, the role of training in companies is changing.
B. Learning occurs through training, development, informal learning, and knowledge
management.
C. After attending the training program, employees are responsible for using what they
learned in training on the job.
D. The role of training as a program or event will continue into the future because employees
will always need to be taught specific knowledge and skills.
E. However, the training events or programs will need to be more closely tied to
performance improvement and business needs to receive support from top management.

II. Learning as a Strategic Focus

The Learning Organization

A. Learning organization is a company that has an enhanced capacity to learn, adapt, and
change. In a learning organization, training is seen as one part of a system designed to
create human capital.
B. To learn from failure and success requires providing employees with the opportunity to
experiment with products and services similar to what happens in engineering and
scientific research. Some of the conditions necessary for successful experimentation
include that it involves genuine uncertainty, the cost of failure is small and contained, the
risks of failure are understood and eliminated if possible, there is an understanding that
failure still provides important information, success is defined, and the opportunity is
significant.
C. A single training event or program is not likely to give a company a competitive
advantage because explicit knowledge is well-known and programs designed to teach it
can be easily developed and imitated.

Implications of Learning for Human Capital Development

A. There is recognition that to be effective, learning has to be related to helping employees'
performance improve and the company achieve its business goals.
B. Unpredictability in the business environment in which companies operate will continue to
be the norm.
C. Because tacit knowledge is difficult to acquire in training programs, companies need to
support informal learning that occurs through mentoring, chat rooms, and job
experiences.
D. Learning has to be supported not only with physical and technical resources but also
psychologically.
E. Managers need to understand employees' interests and career goals to help them find
suitable development activities that will prepare them to be successful in other positions
in the company or deal with expansion of their current job.

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Chapter 02 - Strategic Training

III. The Strategic Training and Development Process

The strategic training and development process model shows that the process begins with
identifying the business strategy.

Business Strategy Formulation and Identification

A. Five major components are part of developing a new business strategy.
B. The mission is the company’s reason for existing, the vision is the picture of the future
that the company wants to achieve, and values are what the company stands for.
C. The second component is the company goals, which are what the company hopes to
achieve in the medium to long term; they reflect how the mission will be carried out.
Training can contribute to a number of different business goals.
D. The third and fourth components, external and internal analysis, are combined to form
what is called a SWOT analysis. A SWOT analysis consists of an internal analysis of
strengths and weaknesses and an external analysis of opportunities and threats to the
company that currently exist or are anticipated.
E. The last component is strategic choice. After completing the SWOT analysis, the
company (usually managers involved in strategic planning) has all the information it
needs to consider how to compete, generate several alternative business strategies and
make a strategic choice.

Identify Strategic Training and Development Initiatives That Support the Strategy
A. Strategic training and development initiatives are learning-related actions that a company
should take to help it achieve its business strategy.
B. The initiatives are based on the business environment, an understanding of the company's
goals and resources, and insight regarding potential training and development options.

Provide Training and Development Activities Linked to Strategic Training and Development
Initiatives
Translating these strategic training and development initiatives into concrete training and
development activities is the next step of the process. These activities include:
A. Developing initiatives related to use of new technology in training
B. Increasing access to training programs for certain groups of employees
C. Reducing development time, and developing new or expanded course offerings

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free. The death-blow which had been struck at scarlet vice and
bloated hypocrisy, loosened tongues, and made the talismans and
love tokens of popish superstitions with which she had beguiled her
followers and committed abominations with the people, fall harmless
from their necks.
The translation of the Bible was the chief engine in the great work.
It threw open, by a secret spring, the rich treasures of religion and
morality, which had then been locked up as in a shrine. It revealed
the visions of the Prophets, and conveyed the lessons of inspired
teachers to the meanest of the people. It gave them a common
interest in a common cause. Their hearts burnt within them as they
read. It gave a mind to the people, by giving them common subjects
of thought and feeling. It cemented their Union of character and
sentiment; it created endless diversity and collision of opinion. They
found objects to employ their faculties, and a motive in the
magnitude of the consequences attached to them, to exert the utmost
eagerness in the pursuit of truth, and the most daring intrepidity in
maintaining it. Religious controversy sharpens the understanding by
the subtlety and remoteness of the topics it discusses, and braces the
will by their infinite importance. We perceive in the history of this
period a nervous, masculine intellect. No levity, no feebleness, no
indifference; or, if there were, it is a relaxation from the intense
activity which gives a tone to its general character. But there is a
gravity approaching to piety, a seriousness of impression, a
conscientious severity of argument, an habitual fervor of enthusiasm
in their method of handling almost every subject. The debates of the
schoolmen were sharp and subtle enough: but they wanted interest
and grandeur, and were besides confined to a few. They did not affect
the general mass of the community. But the Bible was thrown open
to all ranks and conditions “to own and read,” with its wonderful
table of contents, from Genesis to the Revelation. Every village in
England would present the scene so well described in Burns’s
“Cotter’s Saturday Night.” How unlike this agitation, this shock, this
angry sea, this fermentation, this shout and its echoes, this impulse
and activity, this concussion, this general effect, this blow, this
earthquake, this roar and dashing, this longer and louder strain, this
public opinion, this liberty to all to think and speak the truth, this
stirring of spirits, this opening of eyes, this zeal to know—not
nothing—but the truth, that the truth might make them free. How
unlike to this is Know-Nothingism, sitting and brooding in secret to
proscribe Catholics and naturalized citizens! Protestantism protested
against secrecy, it protested against shutting out the light of truth, it
protested against proscription, bigotry, and intolerance. It loosened
all tongues, and fought the owls and bats of night with the light of
meridian day. The argument of Know-Nothings is the argument of
silence. The order ignores all knowledge. And its proscription can’t
arrest itself within the limit of excluding Catholics and naturalized
citizens. It must proscribe natives and Protestants both, who will not
consent to unite in proscribing Catholics and naturalized citizens.
Nor is that all; it must not only apply to birth and religion, it must
necessarily extend itself to the business of life as well as to political
preferments.
 Kenneth Raynor, of North Carolina, on
Fusion of Fremont and Fillmore Forces.

Extracts from his Speech at Philadelphia, November 1, 1856.

My brother Americans, do you intend to let these mischief-makers
put you and me together by the ears? [Many voices; “no, no.”] Then
let us beat James Buchanan for the Presidency. [“We will—we will,”
and great applause.] He is the representative of slavery agitation; he
is the representative of discord between sections; he is the man
whom Northern and Southern agitators have agreed to present as
their candidate. If he be elected now, and the difficulties in Kansas be
healed, at the end of four years they will spring upon you another
question of slavery agitation. It will be the taking of Cuba from Spain,
or cutting off another slice from Mexico for the purpose of
embroiling the North against the South; and then, if I shall resist that
agitation, I shall be called an Abolitionist, again.

My countrymen, God forbid that I should attempt to dictate to you

or even advise you. I am not competent to do so. I know that
divisions exist among you, while I feel also confident that the same
purpose animates all your hearts. Do not suppose for one moment
that I am the representative of any clique or faction.
Unfortunately, I find that our friends here are in the same
condition in which the Jews were, when besieged by the Roman
general, Titus. Whilst the battering-rams of the Romans were beating
down their walls, and the firebrand of the heathen was consuming
their temple, the historian tells us that that great people were
engaged in intestine commotions, some advocating the claims of one,
and some of another, to the high priesthood of that nation; and
instead of the Romans devouring them, they devoured each other.
God forbid that my brother Americans should devour each other, at a
time when every heart and every hand should be enlisted in the same
cause, of overthrowing the common enemy of us all.
Who is that common enemy? [Voices, “The Democratic party.”]
Yes, that party have reviled us, abused us, persecuted us, and all only
because we are determined to adhere to the Constitution of our
country. Give Buchanan a lease of power for four years, and we must
toil through persecution, submit to degradation, or cause the streets
of our cities to run blood. But we will submit to degradation provided
we can see the end of our troubles. We are willing to go through a
pilgrimage, not only of four years, but of ten, or twenty, or forty
years, provided we can have an assurance that at last we shall reach
the top of Pisgah, and see the promised land which our children are
to inherit. God has not given to us poor frail mortals the power, at all
times, of controlling events. When we cannot control events, should
we not, where no sacrifice of honor is involved, pursue the policy of
Lysander, and where the lion’s skin is too short, eke it out with the
fox’s [applause]—not where principle is involved—not where a
surrender of our devotion to our country is at stake. No; never,
never!
I know nothing of your straight-out ticket; I know nothing of your
Union ticket; I know nothing of Fremont. I do know something of
Fillmore; but I would not give my Americanism, and the hopes which
I cherish of seeing Americanism installed as the policy of this nation,
for all the Fillmores, or Fremonts, or Buchanans, that ever lived on
the face of the earth.
St. Paul says, “if it offends my brother, I will eat no meat;” and if it
offends my brother here, I will not open my mouth. Nobody can
suspect me. [Voices: “certainly not.”] Then I say, can’t you combine
the vote of this state, and beat Buchanan? [This question was
responded to in the affirmative, with the greatest enthusiasm.]
Repeated cheers were proposed for the straight ticket, but the
responding voices were by no means numerous, and were mingled
with hisses. Such was the universal excitement, that for some
minutes the speaker was obliged to pause. He finally raised his voice
above the subsiding storm, and said:—
Come, my friends, we are all brothers; we are all seeking the same
end. Our object is the same. We are all struggling to reach the same
haven of safety. The only difference of opinion is as to the proper
means by which to accomplish our common end. Will not Americans
learn prudence from the past? Misfortune should have taught us
charity for each other. We have passed through the ordeal of
persecution together; we have been subjected to the same difficulties,
and the same oppression; we have been baptized (I may say) in the
same stream of calumny. Then, in the name of God—in the name of
our common country—in the name of Americanism—in the name of
American nationality—in the name of religious freedom—in the
name of the Union, I beseech you to learn charity for the difference
of opinion which prevails among you. Let brethren forbear with
brethren. Let us recollect that it is not by vituperation, by the censure
of our brethren, that we can ever accomplish this great end of
conquering a common enemy. My friends, how long are we to suffer?
How long will it be before we shall learn that it is only by a union of
counsels, a concentration of energy, a combination of purpose, that
we can destroy the common enemy of every conservative man. [Great
applause.]
I shall not attempt to advise you, for I am not competent to do it.
You have information which I do not possess. You know all the
undercurrents of opinion which prevail here in your community,
with which I am unacquainted; but will you allow an humble man to
express his opinion to brethren whom he loves? May I do it? I am a
Fillmore man—nothing but a Fillmore man, and if I resided here, I
would vote no ticket which had not the name of Millard Fillmore at
its head, and I would advise no Fillmore man to vote a ticket with
Fremont’s name on it; but I would vote for that ticket which would
make my voice tell at the polls.
Now let us look at this thing practically. In reading history I have
always admired the character of Oliver Cromwell. What was the great
motive by which he was actuated in overthrowing the house of
Stuart? It was unfailing devotion to principle. His motto was, “Put
your trust in God, and keep your powder dry.” I admire the devotion
to principle in every man who says that he does not intend to vote
any but the straight ticket, for it shows that Americanism has such a
lodgment in his heart, that he cannot bear even seemingly to
compromise it. That is “putting your trust in God;” but, my friends, is
it “keeping your powder dry?” The enemy may steal into the camp
while you are asleep, and may pour water upon your cartridges, so
that when the day of battle shall come, you may shoot, but you will
kill nobody. I want the vote of every American, on Tuesday next, to
tell. Would to God that you could give the twenty-seven electoral
votes of Pennsylvania to Fillmore. Then vote the straight ticket, if
that will give him the twenty-seven votes. But suppose it will not
(and I am afraid it will not), then the question is, had you better give
Buchanan the twenty-seven votes, or give Fillmore eight, ten, twelve,
or twenty, as the case may be. I go for beating Buchanan.
Gentlemen, you do not know what we Americans suffer at the
South. I am abused and reviled for standing up in defence of you.
When I hear the whole North denounced as a set of Abolitionists,
whose purpose it is to interfere with the peculiar institutions of the
South, I brand such charges as slanders on the Northern people. I tell
them that the great mass of the Northern people are sound on this
question; that they are opposed to slavery, as I should be if I were a
Northern man; but that I do not believe that the great mass of the
Northern people have any idea of interfering with the constitutional
rights of the people of the South. I know that such men as Garrison
and Forney have. I know that Garrison believes the Constitution to
be a “league with hell,” and would therefore destroy it if he could;
and I know that Forney loves office so well, that even at the risk of
snapping the Union, he will keep alive slavery agitation. But Garrison
does not represent New England, and Forney does not represent you.
As much as I have been reviled for standing by you, I am so
anxious to have Buchanan beaten, that were I residing here, if I could
not give Fillmore the whole twenty-seven votes, I would give him all I
could, by giving him the number to which he might be entitled by the
numerical proportion of the votes at the ballot-box. Yet, if there is a
brother American here who feels in his “heart of hearts,” that by
voting that Union ticket, he would compromise his Americanism, I
say to such an one, “do not vote that ticket.” At the same time,
candor compels me to say, that I differ in opinion with him. If I
believed that that ticket was a fusion, or that it called upon any
Fillmore man to vote for Fremont, I would advise no one to vote it. I
would not vote a ticket that had on it the name of Fremont; but I
would vote a ticket with Fillmore’s name upon it, and which would
give him (if not the twenty-seven electoral votes) seven, or ten, or
twenty, just as the numerical proportion of the votes might decide.
 I appeal to every conservative, Union-loving man in this nation,
who is disposed to give to the South all the constitutional privileges
to which she is entitled, and who wishes to rebuke the Democratic
party for the repeal of the Missouri compromise, and for keeping up
the eternal agitation of slavery. I appeal to you as a southern man—as
a slaveholder. I do not ask you to be pro-slavery men, to be the
advocates of slavery, when I say to you that we, your brethren of the
South, expect you to preserve our constitutional rights—and, God
knows, we ask nothing more—against fanatics, either north or south.
Will you do it?
My friends, the election is fast approaching. There is but little time
for deliberation left. Is there no way by which the votes of the anti-
Buchanan party can be concentrated on the same ticket? I would
shed tears of blood—God knows I would—if I could be instrumental
in prevailing on all true Americans to combine. I cannot tell you how
to combine; but is it yet too late? If it is too late to do it throughout
the state, cannot you in Philadelphia do it? The Presidential election
may depend upon the state of Pennsylvania, and the state of
Pennsylvania may depend upon the city of Philadelphia. On the vote
of the city of Philadelphia may depend not only our own rights, but
the rights of our children and our children’s children. I appeal to my
brother Americans, for I have no right to appeal to anybody else; I
cannot address the Fremont party, for I have no affiliation with
them; I cannot address the Buchanan party, for my object is to
destroy them if possible. To my American brethren, then, I appeal,
for God’s sake, do not let the sun rise upon that wrath, which I see
divides you. Your object is the same—to rescue your common
country.
Let me advise you who know nothing of your divisions—who
belong neither to one clique or the other. I say with the deepest
sincerity that I think all parties ought to have concentrated upon the
Fillmore ticket. Mr. Fillmore is a northern man. Your southern
brethren were willing to support him. He had guided the ship of state
safely through the storm, and it was but reasonable to suppose that
in time of difficulty he would again be found the same good pilot. But
if we cannot get all others to unite on Mr. Fillmore, each of us must
inquire, “What is my duty? If the mountain will not come to
Mahomet, shall not Mahomet go to the mountain; and if he will not
go to the mountain, in heaven’s name, shall he not go half way?”
I am fighting for the victory which we may obtain in this contest.
And what an issue is now pending! We read in the Iliad how, for ten
long years, a great people of antiquity were engaged in the siege of
Troy. What was the stake for which they contended? It was nothing
more than a beautiful woman, who had been ravished by a sprig of
the royal line of Troy. What is the stake for which we contend? It is
constitutional liberty—the right of the American people to govern
their own country—the right of every citizen to worship God
according to the dictates of his conscience. The great issue is,
whether the American flag shall still wave in glory when we shall
have gone to our graves, or whether it shall be trailed in dishonor—
whether the “blackness of darkness” which would follow the
dissolution of this Union, shall cover the land.
I do not tell you how to combine: but I urge you to resort to that
mode (if there is such a mode possible), by which you can get
together—by which your votes can be made effectual at the polls—by
which Millard Fillmore can go before the House of Representatives
with the strong moral power which a large electoral vote will give
him.
That is the way in which we must view the question as practical
men. Yet so different are the conditions of our nature, so different
the sentiments which actuate us, that I will not be guilty of such
presumption, as to tell any man what particular course he should
take. You know my opinions; if they are worth anything, receive
them into your hearts, simply as the sentiments of a brother
American; if they are worth nothing, let them pass as the idle wind.
In conclusion I will only say that whether we be defeated or
whether we be victorious, the only reward I ask for in the labor in
which I am engaged is, that you may recollect me as one who had at
heart only the welfare of his country, and who endeavored to
promote it by appealing to the associations of the past, and all the
hopes of the future.
 Religious Test.

Debate in the Convention on that article in the Constitution in

regard to it.
Mr. Pinkney moved that no religious test shall ever be required as
a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.
Mr. Sherman thought it unnecessary, the prevailing liberality
being a sufficient security against all such tests.
Rev. Mr. Backus of Mass. I beg leave to offer a few thoughts upon
the Constitution proposed to us; and I shall begin with the exclusion
of any religious test. Many appear to be much concerned about it;
but nothing is more evident, both in reason and the Holy Scriptures,
than that religion is ever a matter between God and individuals; and
that, therefore, no man or set of men can impose any religious test
without invading the essential prerogatives of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Ministers first assumed this power under the Christian name, and
then Constantine approved of the practice when he adopted the
profession of Christianity as an engine of state policy. And let the
history of all nations be searched, from that day to this, and it will
appear that the imposing of religious tests hath been the greatest
engine of tyranny in the world.
Oliver Wolcott of Conn. For myself I should be content either
with or without that clause in the Constitution which excludes test
laws. Knowledge and liberty are so prevalent in this country, that I
do not believe that the United States would ever be disposed to
establish one religious sect and lay all others under legal disabilities.
But as we know not what may take place hereafter, and any such test
would be destructive of the rights of free citizens, I cannot think it
superfluous to have added a clause which secures us from the
possibility of such oppression.
 Mr. Madison of Va. I confess to you, sir, that were uniformity of
religion to be introduced by this system, it would, in my opinion, be
ineligible; but I have no reason to conclude that uniformity of
government will produce that of religion. This subject is, for the
honor of America, left perfectly free and unshackled. The
government has no jurisdiction over it—the least reflection will
convince us there is no danger on this ground. Happily for the states,
they enjoy the utmost freedom of religion. This freedom arises from
that multiplicity of sects which pervades America, and which is the
best and only security for religious liberty in any society. For, where
there is such a variety of sects, there cannot be a majority of any one
sect to oppress and persecute the rest.
Mr. Iredell of N. C. used this language: “Every person in the least
conversant with the history of mankind, knows what dreadful
mischiefs have been committed by religious persecution. Under the
color of religious tests, the utmost cruelties have been exercised.
Those in power have generally considered all wisdom centred in
themselves, that they alone had the right to dictate to the rest of
mankind, and that all opposition to their tenets was profane and
impious. The consequence of this intolerant spirit has been that each
church has in turn set itself up against every other, and persecutions
and wars of the most implacable and bloody nature have taken place
in every part of the world. America has set an example to mankind to
think more rationally—that a man may be of religious sentiments
differing from our own, without being a bad member of society. The
principles of toleration, to the honor of this age, are doing away those
errors and prejudices which have so long prevailed even in the most
intolerant countries. In Roman Catholic lands, principles of
moderation are adopted, which would have been spurned a century
or two ago. It will be fatal, indeed, to find, at the time when examples
of toleration are set even by arbitrary governments, that this country,
so impressed with the highest sense of liberty, should adopt
principles on this subject that were narrow, despotic, and illiberal.”
 Speech of Henry W. Davis, of Maryland,

On the Mission of the American Party.

Extract from Mr. Davis’s speech in the House of Representatives, on the 6th of
Jan., 1857, on the results of the recent Presidential election:—

“The great lesson is taught by this election that both the parties
which rested their hopes on sectional hostility, stand at this day
condemned by the great majority of the country, as common
disturbers of the public peace of the country.
“The Republican party was a hasty levy, en masse, of the Northern
people to repel or revenge an intrusion by Northern votes alone.
With its occasion it must pass away. The gentlemen of the
Republican side of the House can now do nothing. They can pass no
law excluding slavery from Kansas in the next Congress—for they are
in a minority. Within two years Kansas must be a state of the Union.
She will be admitted with or without slavery, as her people prefer.
Beyond Kansas there is no question that is practically open. I speak
to practical men. Slavery does not exist in any other territory,—it is
excluded by law from several, and not likely to exist anywhere; and
the Republican party has nothing to do and can do nothing. It has no
future. Why cumbers it the ground?
“Between these two stand the firm ranks of the American party,
thinned by desertions, but still unshaken. To them the eye of the
country turns in hope. The gentleman from Georgia saluted the
Northern Democrats with the title of heroes—who swam vigorously
down the current. The men of the American party faced, in each
section, the sectional madness. They would cry neither free nor slave
Kansas; but proposed a safe administration of the laws, before which
every right would find protection. Their voice was drowned amid the
din of factions. The men of the North would have no moderation, and
they have paid the penalty. The American party elected a majority of
this House: had they of the North held fast to the great American
principle of silence on the negro question, and, firmly refusing to join
either agitation, stood by the American candidate, they would not
now be writhing, crushed beneath an utter overthrow. If they would
now destroy the Democrats, they can do it only by returning to the
American party. By it alone can a party be created strong at the
South as well as at the North. To it alone belongs a principle accepted
wherever the American name is heard—the same at the North as at
the South, on the Atlantic or the Pacific shore. It alone is free from
sectional affiliations at either end of the Union which would cripple it
at the other. Its principle is silence, peace, and compromise. It abides
by the existing law. It allows no agitation. It maintains the present
condition of affairs. It asks no change in any territory, and it will
countenance no agitation for the aggrandizement of either section.
Though thousands fell off in the day of trial—allured by ambition, or
terrified by fear—at the North and at the South, carried away by the
torrent of fanaticism in one part of the Union, or driven by the fierce
onset of the Democrats in another, who shook Southern institutions
by the violence of their attack, and half waked the sleeping negro by
painting the Republican as his liberator, still a million of men, on the
great day, in the face of both factions, heroically refused to bow the
knee to either Baal. They knew the necessities of the times, and they
set the example of sacrifice, that others might profit by it. They now
stand the hope of the nation, around whose firm ranks the shattered
elements of the great majority may rally and vindicate the right of
the majority to rule, and of the native of the land to make the law of
the land.
The recent election has developed, in an aggravated form, every
evil against which the American party protested. Again in the war of
domestic parties, Republican and Democrat have rivalled each other
in bidding for the foreign vote to turn the balance of a domestic
election. Foreign allies have decided the government of the country—
men naturalized in thousands on the eve of the election—eagerly
struggled for by competing parties, mad with sectional fury, and
grasping any instrument which would prostrate their opponents.
Again, in the fierce struggle for supremacy, men have forgotten the
ban which the Republic puts on the intrusion of religious influence
on the political arena. These influences have brought vast multitudes
of foreign born citizens to the polls, ignorant of American interests,
without American feelings, influenced by foreign sympathies, to vote
on American affairs; and those votes have, in point of fact,
accomplished the present result.
The high mission of the American is to restore the influence of the
interests of the people in the conduct of affairs; to exclude appeals to
foreign birth or religious feeling as elements of power in politics; to
silence the voice of sectional strife—not by joining either section, but
by recalling the people from a profitless and maddening controversy
which aids no interest, and shakes the foundation not only of the
common industry of the people, but of the Republic itself; to lay a
storm amid whose fury no voice can be heard in behalf of the
industrial interests of the country, no eye can watch and guard the
foreign policy of the government, till our ears may be opened by the
crash of foreign war waged for purposes of political and party
ambition, in the name, but not by the authority nor for the interests,
of the American people.
Return, then, Americans of the North, from the paths of error to
which in an evil hour fierce passions and indignation have seduced
you, to the sound position of the American party—silence on the
slavery agitation. Leave the territories as they are—to the operation
of natural causes. Prevent aggression by excluding from power the
aggressors, and there will be no more wrong to redress. Awake the
national spirit to the danger and degradation of having the balance of
power held by foreigners. Recall the warnings of Washington against
foreign influence—here in our midst—wielding part of our
sovereignty; and with these sound words of wisdom let us recall the
people from paths of strife and error to guard their peace and power;
and when once the mind of the people is turned from the slavery
agitation, that party which waked the agitation will cease to have
power to disturb the peace of the land.
This is the great mission of the American party. The first condition
of success is to prevent the administration from having a majority in
the next Congress; for, with that, the agitation will be resumed for
very different objects. The Ostend manifesto is full of warning; and
they who struggle over Kansas may awake and find themselves in the
midst of an agitation compared to which that of Kansas was a
summer’s sea; whose instruments will be, not words, but the sword.
Joshua R. Giddings Against the Fugitive Slave
Law.

In the House of Representatives, April 25, 1848.

“Why, sir, I never saw a panting fugitive speeding his way to a land
of freedom, that an involuntary invocation did not burst from my
lips, that God would aid him in his flight! Such are the feelings of
every man in our free states, whose heart has not become hardened
in iniquity. I do not confine this virtue to Republicans, nor to Anti-
Slavery men; I speak of all men, of all parties, in all Christian
communities. Northern Democrats feel it; they ordinarily bow to this
higher law of their natures, and they only prove recreant to the law of
the ‘Most High,’ when they regard the interests of the Democratic
party as superior to God’s law and the rights of mankind.
“Gentlemen will bear with me when I assure them and the
President that I have seen as many as nine fugitives dining at one
time in my own house—fathers, mothers, husbands, wives, parents,
and children. When they came to my door, hungry and faint, cold
and but partially clad, I did not turn round to consult the Fugitive
Law, nor to ask the President what I should do. I knew the
constitution of my country, and would not violate it. I obeyed the
divine mandate, to feed the hungry and clothe the naked. I fed them.
I clothed them, gave them money for their journey, and sent them on
their way rejoicing. I obeyed God rather than the President. I obeyed
my conscience, the dictates of my heart, the law of my moral being,
the commands of Heaven, and, I will add, the constitution of my
country; for no man of intelligence ever believed that the framers of
that instrument intended to involve their descendants of the free
states in any act that should violate the teachings of the Most High,
by seizing a fellow-being, and returning him to the hell of slavery. If
that be treason, make the most of it.
 “Mr. Bennett, of Mississippi. I want to know if the gentleman
would not have gone one step farther?
“Mr. Giddings. Yes, sir; I would have gone one step farther. I
would have driven the slave-catcher who dared pursue them from my
premises. I would have kicked him from my door-yard, if he had
made his appearance there; or, had he attempted to enter my
dwelling, I would have stricken him down upon the threshold of my
door.
 Robert Toombs on Slavery,

At Tremont Temple, Boston, January 24th, 1856.

In 1790 there were less than seven hundred thousand slaves in the
United States; in 1850 the number exceeded three and one quarter
millions. The same authority shows their increase, for the ten years
preceding the last census, to have been above twenty-eight per cent.,
or nearly three per cent. per annum, an increase equal, allowing for
the element of foreign immigration, to the white race, and nearly
three times that of the free blacks of the North. But these legal rights
of the slave embrace but a small portion of the privileges actually
enjoyed by him. He has, by universal custom, the control of much of
his own time, which is applied, at his own choice and convenience, to
the mechanic arts, to agriculture, or to some other profitable pursuit,
which not only gives him the power of purchase over many
additional necessaries of life, but over many of its luxuries, and in
numerous cases, enables him to purchase his freedom when he
desires it. Besides, the nature of the relation of master and slave
begets kindnesses, imposes duties (and secures their performance),
which exist in no other relation of capital and labor. Interest and
humanity co-operate in harmony for the well-being of slave labor.
Thus the monster objection to our institution of slavery, that it
deprives labor of its wages, cannot stand the test of a truthful
investigation. A slight examination of the true theory of wages, will
further expose its fallacy. Under a system of free labor, wages are
usually paid in money, the representative of products—under ours, in
products themselves. One of your most distinguished statesmen and
patriots, President John Adams, said that the difference to the state
was “imaginary.” “What matters it (said he) whether a landlord,
employing ten laborers on his farm, gives them annually as much
money as will buy them the necessaries of life, or gives them those
necessaries at short hand?” All experience has shown that if that be
the measure of the wages of labor, it is safer for the laborer to take
his wages in products than in their fluctuating pecuniary value.
Therefore, if we pay in the necessaries and comforts of life more than
any given amount of pecuniary wages will buy, then our laborer is
paid higher than the laborer who receives that amount of wages. The
most authentic agricultural statistics of England show that the wages
of agricultural and unskilled labor in that kingdom, not only fail to
furnish the laborer with the comforts of our slave, but even with the
necessaries of life; and no slaveholder could escape a conviction for
cruelty to his slaves who gave his slave no more of the necessaries of
life for his labor than the wages paid to their agricultural laborers by
the noblemen and gentlemen of England would buy. Under their
system man has become less valuable and less cared for than
domestic animals; and noble dukes will depopulate whole districts of
men to supply their places with sheep, and then with intrepid
audacity lecture and denounce American slaveholders.
The great conflict between labor and capital, under free
competition, has ever been how the earnings of labor shall be divided
between them. In new and sparsely settled countries, where land is
cheap, and food is easily produced, and education and intelligence
approximate equality, labor can successfully struggle in this warfare
with capital. But this is an exceptional and temporary condition of
society. In the Old World this state of things has long since passed
away, and the conflict with the lower grades of labor has long since
ceased. There the compensation of unskilled labor, which first
succumbs to capital, is reduced to a point scarcely adequate to the
continuance of the race. The rate of increase is scarcely one per cent.
per annum, and even at that rate, population, until recently, was
considered a curse; in short, capital has become the master of labor,
with all the benefits, without the natural burdens of the relation.
In this division of the earnings of labor between it and capital, the
southern slave has a marked advantage over the English laborer, and
is often equal to the free laborer of the North. Here again we are
furnished with authentic data from which to reason. The census of
1850 shows that, on the cotton estates of the South, which is the chief
branch of our agricultural industry, one-half of the arable lands are
annually put under food crops. This half is usually wholly consumed
on the farm by the laborers and necessary animals; out of the other
half must be paid all the necessary expenses of production, often
including additional supplies of food beyond the produce of the land,
which usually equals one-third of the residue, leaving but one-third
for net rent. The average rent of land in the older non-slaveholding
states is equal to one-third of the gross product, and it not
unfrequently amounts to one-half of it (in England it is sometimes
even greater), the tenant, from his portion, paying all expenses of
production and the expenses of himself and family. From this
statement it is apparent that the farm laborers of the South receive
always as much, and frequently a greater portion of the produce of
the land, than the laborer in the New or Old England. Besides, here
the portion due the slave is a charge upon the whole product of
capital and the capital itself; it is neither dependent upon seasons
nor subject to accidents, and survives his own capacity for labor, and
even the ruin of his master.
But it is objected that religious instruction is denied the slave—
while it is true that religious instruction and privileges are not
enjoined by law in all of the states, the number of slaves who are in
connection with the different churches abundantly proves the
universality of their enjoyment of those privileges. And a much larger
number of the race in slavery enjoy the consolations of religion than
the efforts of the combined Christian world have been able to convert
to Christianity out of all the millions of their countrymen who
remained in their native land.
The immoralities of the slaves, and of those connected with
slavery, are constant themes of abolition denunciation. They are
lamentably great; but it remains to be shown that they are greater
than with the laboring poor of England, or any other country. And it
is shown that our slaves are without the additional stimulant of want
to drive them to crime—we have at least removed from them the
temptation and excuse of hunger. Poor human nature is here at least
spared the wretched fate of the utter prostration of its moral nature
at the feet of its physical wants. Lord Ashley’s report to the British
Parliament shows that in the capital of that empire, perhaps within
the hearing of Stafford House and Exeter Hall, hunger alone daily
drives its thousands of men and women into the abyss of crime.
It is also objected that our slaves are debarred the benefits of
education. This objection is also well taken, and is not without force.
And for this evil the slaves are greatly indebted to the abolitionists.
Formerly in none of the slaveholding states was it forbidden to teach
slaves to read and write; but the character of the literature sought to
be furnished them by the abolitionists caused these states to take
counsel rather of their passions than their reason, and to lay the axe
at the root of the evil; better counsels will in time prevail, and this
will be remedied. It is true that the slave, from his protected position,
has less need of education than the free laborer, who has to struggle
for himself in the warfare of society; yet it is both useful to him, his
master, and society.
The want of legal protection to the marriage relation is also a
fruitful source of agitation among the opponents of slavery. The
complaint is not without foundation. This is an evil not yet removed
by law; but marriage is not inconsistent with the institution of
slavery as it exists among us, and the objection, therefore, lies rather
to an incident than to the essence of the system. But in the truth and
fact marriage does exist to a very great extent among slaves, and is
encouraged and protected by their owners; and it will be found, upon
careful investigation, that fewer children are born out of wedlock
among slaves than in the capitals of two of the most civilized
countries of Europe—Austria and France; in the former, one-half of
the children are thus born; in the latter, more than one-fourth. But
even in this we have deprived the slave of no pre-existing right. We
found the race without any knowledge of or regard for the institution
of marriage, and we are reproached with not having as yet secured to
it that, with all other blessings of civilization. To protect that and
other domestic ties by laws forbidding, under proper regulations, the
separation of families, would be wise, proper, and humane; and
some of the slaveholding states have already adopted partial
legislation for the removal of these evils. But the objection is far
more formidable in theory than in practice. The accidents and
necessities of life, the desire to better one’s condition, produce
infinitely a greater amount of separation in families of the white than
ever happens to the colored race. This is true even in the United
States, where the general condition of the people is prosperous. But
it is still more marked in Europe. The injustice and despotism of
England towards Ireland has produced more separation of Irish
families, and sundered more domestic ties within the last ten years,
than African slavery has effected since its introduction into the
United States. The twenty millions of freemen in the United States
are witnesses of the dispersive injustice of the Old World. The
general happiness, cheerfulness, and contentment of slaves attest
both the mildness and humanity of the system and their natural
adaptation to their condition. They require no standing armies to
enforce their obedience; while the evidence of discontent, and the
appliances of force to repress it, are everywhere visible among the
toiling millions of the earth; even in the northern states of this
Union, strikes and mobs, unions and combinations against
employers, attest at once the misery and discontent of labor among
them. England keeps one hundred thousand soldiers in time of
peace, a large navy, and an innumerable police, to secure obedience
to her social institutions; and physical force is the sole guarantee of
her social order, the only cement of her gigantic empire.
I have briefly traced the condition of the African race through all
ages and all countries, and described it fairly and truly under
American slavery, and I submit that the proposition is fully proven,
that his position in slavery among us is superior to any which he has
ever attained in any age or country. The picture is not without shade
as well as light; evils and imperfections cling to man and all of his
works, and this is not exempt from them.
 Judah P. Benjamin, of Louisiana,

On Slave Property, in U. S. Senate, March 11, 1858.

Examine your Constitution; are slaves the only species of property
there recognized as requiring peculiar protection? Sir, the inventive
genius of our brethren of the north is a source of vast wealth to them
and vast benefit to the nation. I saw a short time ago in one of the
New York journals, that the estimated value of a few of the patents
now before us in this Capitol for renewal was $40,000,000. I cannot
believe that the entire capital invested in inventions of this character
in the United States can fall short of one hundred and fifty or two
hundred million dollars. On what protection does this vast property
rest? Just upon that same constitutional protection which gives a
remedy to the slave owner when his property is also found outside of
the limits of the state in which he lives.
Without this protection what would be the condition of the
northern inventor? Why, sir, the Vermont inventor protected by his
own law would come to Massachusetts, and there say to the pirate
who had stolen his property, “render me up my property, or pay me
value for its use.” The Senator from Vermont would receive for
answer, if he were the counsel of this Vermont inventor, “Sir, if you
want protection for your property go to your own state; property is
governed by the laws of the state within whose jurisdiction it is
found; you have no property in your invention outside of the limits of
your state; you cannot go an inch beyond it.” Would not this be so?
Does not every man see at once that the right of the inventor to his
discovery, that the right of the poet to his inspiration, depends upon
those principles of eternal justice which God has implanted in the
heart of man, and that wherever he cannot exercise them, it is
because man, faithless to the trust that he has received from God,
denies them the protection to which they are entitled?
 Sir, follow out the illustration which the Senator from Vermont
himself has given; take his very case of the Delaware owner of a
horse riding him across the line into Pennsylvania. The Senator says:
“Now, you see that slaves are not property like other property; if
slaves were property like other property, why have you this special
clause in your constitution to protect a slave? You have no clause to
protect the horse, because horses are recognized as property
everywhere.” Mr. President, the same fallacy lurks at the bottom of
this argument, as of all the rest. Let Pennsylvania exercise her
undoubted jurisdiction over persons and things within her own
boundary; let her do as she has a perfect right to do—declare that
hereafter, within the state of Pennsylvania, there shall be no property
in horses, and that no man shall maintain a suit in her courts for the
recovery of property in a horse; and where will your horse owner be
then? Just where the English poet is now; just where the slaveholder
and the inventor would be if the Constitution, foreseeing a difference
of opinion in relation to rights in these subject-matters, had not
provided the remedy in relation to such property as might easily be
plundered. Slaves, if you please, are not property like other property
in this: that you can easily rob us of them; but as to the right in them,
that man has to overthrow the whole history of the world, he has to
overthrow every treatise on jurisprudence, he has to ignore the
common sentiment of mankind, he has to repudiate the authority of
all that is considered sacred with man, ere he can reach the
conclusion that the person who owns a slave, in a country where
slavery has been established for ages, has no other property in that
slave than the mere title which is given by the statute law of the land
where it is found.
 William Lloyd Garrison Upon the Slavery
Question.

“Tyrants! confident of its overthrow, proclaim not to your vassals,

that the American Union is an experiment of freedom, which, if it
fails, will forever demonstrate the necessity of whips for the backs,
and chains for limbs of people. Know that its subversion is essential
to the triumph of justice, the deliverance of the oppressed, the
vindication of the brotherhood of the race. It was conceived in sin,
and brought forth in iniquity; and its career has been marked by
unparalleled hypocrisy, by high-handed tyranny, by a bold defiance
of the omniscience and omnipotence of God. Freedom indignantly
disowns it, and calls for its extinction; for within its borders are three
millions of slaves, whose blood constitutes its cement, whose flesh
forms a large and flourishing branch of its commerce, and who are
ranked with four-footed beasts and creeping things. To secure the
adoption of the constitution of the United States, first, that the
African slave trade—till that time a feeble, isolated, colonial traffic—
should, for at least twenty years, be prosecuted as a national interest,
under the American flag, and protected by the national arm;
secondly, that slavery holding oligarchy, created by allowing three-
fifths of the slaveholding population to be represented by their
taskmasters, should be allowed a permanent seat in congress;
thirdly, that the slave system should be secured against internal
revolt and external invasion, by the united physical force of the
country; fourthly, that not a foot of national territory should be
granted, on which the panting fugitive from slavery might stand, and
be safe from his pursuers, thus making every citizen a slave-hunter
and slave catcher. To say that this ‘covenant with death’ shall not be
annulled—that this ‘agreement with hell’ shall continue to stand—
that this refuge of lies shall not be swept away—is to hurl defiance at
the eternal throne, and to give the lie to Him that sits thereon. It is
an attempt, alike monstrous and impracticable, to blend the light of
heaven with the darkness of the bottomless pit, to unite the living
with the dead, to associate the Son of God with the Prince of Evil.
Accursed be the American Union, as a stupendous, republican
imposture!”

“I am accused of using hard language. I admit the charge. I have

been unable to find a soft word to describe villainy, or to identify the
perpetrator of it. The man who makes a chattel of his brother—what
is he? The man who keeps back the hire of his laborers by fraud—
what is he? They who prohibit the circulation of the Bible—what are
they? They who compel three millions of men and women to herd
together like brute beasts—what are they? They who sell mothers by
the pound, and children in lots to suit purchasers—what are they? I
care not what terms are applied to them, provided they do apply. If
they are not thieves, if they are not tyrants, if they are not men
stealers, I should like to know what is their true character, and by
what names they may be called. It is as mild an epithet to say that a
thief is a thief, as to say that a spade is a spade. Words are but the
signs of ideas. ‘A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.’
Language may be misapplied, and so be absurd or unjust; as for
example, to say that an abolitionist is a fanatic, or that a slaveholder
is an honest man. But to call things by their right names is to use
neither hard nor improper language. Epithets may be rightly applied,
it is true, and yet be uttered in a hard spirit, or with a malicious
design. What then? Shall we discard all terms which are descriptive
of crime, because they are not always used with fairness and
propriety? He who, when he sees oppression, cries out against it—
who, when he beholds his equal brother trodden under foot by the
iron hoof of despotism, rushes to his rescue—who, when he sees the
weak overborne by the strong, takes his side with the former, at the
imminent peril of his own safety—such a man needs no certificate to
the excellence of his temper, or the sincerity of his heart, or the
disinterestedness of his conduct. Or is the apologist of slavery, he
who can see the victim of thieves lying bleeding and helpless on the
cold earth, and yet turn aside, like the callous-hearted priest or
Levite, who needs absolution. Let us call tyrants, tyrants; not to do
so is to misuse language, to deal treacherously with freedom, to
consent to the enslavement of mankind. It is neither amiable nor
virtuous, but a foolish and pernicious thing, not to call things by their
right names. ‘Woe unto them,’ says one of the world’s great prophets,
‘that call evil good, and good evil;’ that put darkness for light, and
light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter.”
 Theodore Parker Against the Fugitive Slave
Law.

His Protest Against the Return of Simms by the U. S. Commissioner

at Boston.
“Come with me, my friends, a moment more, pass over this
golgotha of human history, treading reverent as you go, for our feet
are on our mother’s graves, and our shoes defile our father’s
hallowed bones. Let us not talk of them; go farther on, look and pass
by. Come with me into the inferno of the nations, with such poor
guidance as my lamp can lend. Let us disquiet and bring up the awful
shadows of empires buried long ago, and learn a lesson from the
tomb.” “Come, old Assyria, with the Ninevitish dove upon thy
emerald crown! what laid thee low? ‘I fell by my own injustice.
Thereby Nineveh and Babylon came with me also to the ground.’”
“Oh, queenly Persia, flame of the nations, wherefore art thou so
fallen, who troddest the people under thee, bridgest the Hellespont
with ships, and pouredst thy temple-wasting millions on the world?
Because I trod the people under me, and bridged the Hellespont with
ships, and poured my temple-wasting millions on the western world,
I fell by my own misdeeds.” “Thou muse-like Grecian queen, fairest
of all thy classic sisterhood of states, enchanting yet the world with
thy sweet witchery, speaking in art and most seductive song, why
liest thou there, with beauteous yet dishonored brow, reposing on
thy broken harp? ‘I scorned the law of God; banished and poisoned
wisest, justest men; I loved the loveliness of thought, and treasured
that in more than Parian speech. But the beauty of justice, the
loveliness of love, I trod them down to earth! Lo, therefore have I
become as those barbarian states—as one of them!’” “Oh, manly and
majestic Rome, thy seven-fold mural crown all broken at thy feet,
why art thou here? It was not injustice brought thee low; for thy
great book of law is prefaced with these words—justice is the
unchanged, everlasting will to give each man his right! ‘It was not the
saint’s ideal; it was the hypocrite’s pretense.’ I made iniquity my law.
I trod the nations under me. Their wealth gilded my palaces—where
thou mayest see the fox and hear the owl—it fed my courtiers and my
courtesans. Wicked men were my cabinet counselors, the flatterer
breathed his poison in my ear. Millions of bondsmen wet the soil
with tears and blood. Do you not hear it crying yet to God? Lo, here
have I my recompense, tormented with such downfall as you see! Go
back and tell the new-born child who sitteth on the Alleghanies,
laying his either hand upon a tributary sea, a crown of thirty stars
upon his youthful brow—tell him that there are rights which states
must keep, or they shall suffer wrongs! Tell him there is a God who
keeps the black man and the white, and hurls to earth the loftiest
realm that breaks his just, eternal law! Warn the young empire, that
he come not down dim and dishonored to my shameful tomb! Tell
him that justice is the unchanging, everlasting will to give each man
his right. I knew it, broke it, and am lost. Bid him know it, keep it,
and be safe.”

The same speaker protests against the return of Simms.

“Where shall I find a parallel with men who will do such a deed—
do it in Boston? I will open the tombs and bring up most hideous
tyrants from the dead. Come, brood of monsters, let me bring up
from the deep damnation of the graves wherein your hated memories
continue for all time their never-ending rot. Come, birds of evil
omen! come, ravens, vultures, carrion crows, and see the spectacle!
come, see the meeting of congenial souls! I will disturb, disquiet, and
bring up the greatest monsters of the human race! Tremble not,
women! They cannot harm you now! Fear the living, not the dead!”
Come hither, Herod, the wicked. Thou that didst seek after that
young child’s life, and destroyed the innocents! Let me look on thy
face! No, go! Thou wert a heathen! Go, lie with the innocents thou
hast massacred. Thou art too good for this company! “Come, Nero;
thou awful Roman emperor, come up! No, thou wast drunk with
power! schooled in Roman depravity. Thou hadst, besides, the
example of thy fancied gods. Go, wait another day. I will seek a worse
man.
 “Come hither, St. Dominic! come, Torquemada; fathers of the
Inquisition! merciless monsters, seek your equal here. No; pass by.
You are no companion for such men as these. You were the servants
of the atheistic popes, of cruel kings. Go to, and get you gone.
Another time I may have work for you—now, lie there, and persevere
to rot. You are not yet quite wicked and corrupt enough for this
comparison. Go, get you gone, lest the sun goes back at sight of ye!
“Come up, thou heap of wickedness, George Jeffries! thy hands
deep purple with the blood of thy fellow-men. Ah! I know thee, awful
and accursed shade! Two hundred years after thy death men hate
thee still, not without cause. Look me upon thee! I know thy history.
Pause, and be still, while I tell to these men. * * * Come, shade of
judicial butcher. Two hundred years, thy name has been pillowed in
face of the world, and thy memory gibbeted before mankind. Let us
see how thou wilt compare with those who kidnap men in Boston.
Go, seek companionship with them. Go, claim thy kindred if such
they be. Go, tell them that the memory of the wicked shall rot; that
there is a God; an eternity; ay, and a judgment, too, where the slave
may appeal against him that made him a slave, to Him that made
him a man.
“What! Dost thou shudder? Thou turn back! These not thy
kindred! Why dost thou turn pale, as when the crowd clutched at thy
life in London street? Forgive me, that I should send thee on such an
errand, or bid thee seek companionship with such—with Boston
hunters of the slave! Thou wert not base enough! It was a great bribe
that tempted thee! Again, I say, pardon me for sending thee to keep
company with such men! Thou only struckest at men accused of
crime; not at men accused only of their birth! Thou wouldst not send
a man into bondage for two pounds! I will not rank thee with men
who, in Boston, for ten dollars, would enslave a negro now! Rest still,
Herod! Be quiet, Nero! Sleep, St. Dominic, and sleep, O Torquemada,
in your fiery jail! Sleep, Jeffries, underneath ‘the altar of the church’
which seeks, with Christian charity to hide your hated bones!”
 William H. Seward’s Speech on the Higher
Law.

In the U. S. Senate, March 11, 1850.

“But it is insisted that the admission of California shall be attended
by a COMPROMISE of questions which have arisen out of SLAVERY! I
am opposed to any such compromise in any and all the forms in
which it has been proposed. Because, while admitting the purity
and the patriotism of all from whom it is my misfortune to differ, I
think all legislative compromises radically wrong, and essentially
vicious. They involve the surrender of the exercise of judgment and
the conscience on distinct and separate questions, at distinct and
separate times, with the indispensable advantages it affords for
ascertaining the truth. They involve a relinquishment of the right to
reconsider in future the decision of the present, on questions
prematurely anticipated. And they are a usurpation as to future
questions of the providence of future legislators.
“Sir, it seems to me as if slavery had laid its paralyzing hand upon
myself, and the blood were coursing less freely than its wont through
my veins, when I endeavor to suppose that such a compromise has
been effected, and my utterance forever is arrested upon all the great
questions, social, moral, and political, arising out of a subject so
important, and yet so incomprehensible. What am I to receive in this
compromise? Freedom in California. It is well; it is a noble
acquisition; it is worth a sacrifice. But what am I to give as an
equivalent? A recognition of a claim to perpetuate slavery in the
District of Columbia; forbearance towards more stringent laws
concerning the arrest of persons suspected of being slaves found in
the free States; forbearance from the PROVISO of freedom in the
charter of new territories. None of the plans of compromise offered
demand less than two, and most of them insist on all these
conditions. The equivalent then is, some portion of liberty, some
portion of human rights in one region for liberty in another.”
“It is true indeed that the national domain is ours. It is true it was
acquired by the valor and the wealth of the whole nation. But we
hold, nevertheless, no arbitrary power over it. We hold no arbitrary
power over anything, whether acquired by law or seized by
usurpation. The constitution regulates our stewardship; the
constitution devotes the domain to union, to justice, to welfare and
to liberty. But there is a higher law than the constitution, which
regulates our authority over the domain, and devotes it to the same
noble purpose. The territory is a part, no inconsiderable part of the
common heritage of mankind, bestowed upon them by the Creator of
the universe. We are his stewards, and must so discharge our trust,
as to secure in the highest attainable degree their happiness. This is a
State, and we are deliberating for it, just as our fathers deliberated in
establishing the institutions we enjoy. Whatever superiority there is
in our condition and hopes over those of any other ‘kingdom’ or
‘estate,’ is due to the fortunate circumstance that our ancestors did
not leave things to ‘take their chances’ but that they ‘added
amplitude and greatness’ to our commonwealth ‘by introducing such
ordinances, constitutions, and customs as were wise.’ We in our turn
have succeeded to the same responsibilities, and we cannot approach
the duty before us wisely or justly, except we raise ourselves to the
great consideration of how we can most certainly ‘sow greatness to
our posterity and successors.’
“And now the simple, bold, and awful question which presents
itself to us is this: shall we, who are founding institutions, social and
political, for countless millions; shall we, who know by experience
the wise and just, and are free to choose them, and to reject the
erroneous and unjust; shall we establish human bondage, or permit
it by our sufferance to be established? Sir, our forefathers would not
have hesitated an hour. They found slavery existing here, and they
left it only because they could not remove it. There is not only no free
State which would now establish it, but there is no slave State which,
if it had had the free alternative, as we now have, would have
founded slavery. Indeed, our revolutionary predecessors had
precisely the same question before them in establishing an organic
law, under which the States of Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin,