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Slavery as Established by Law - Judah P. Benjamin · Classic Speeches

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  Section fifty six of the World's Best Durations, Volume one. This is a
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  LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information
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  or to volunteer, please visit libyvox dot org. The World's Best Durations from
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  the Earliest Period to the present time, Volume one by David J. Brewer
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  and Edward A. Allen. Slavery as established by law delivered in the United
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  States Senate, March eleventh, eighteen fifty eight. Examine your Constitution? Are
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  slaves the only species of property there recognize as requiring peculiar protection? Sir,
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  The inventive genius of our brethren of the North is a source of vast wealth
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  to them and vast benefit to the nation. I saw a short time ago
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  in one of the New York journals that the estimated value of a few of
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  the patents now before in this capital for renewal was forty million dollars. I
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  cannot believe that the entire capital invested in inventions of this character in the United
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  States can fall short of one hundred and fifty or two hundred million dollars.
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  On what protection does this vast property rest? Just upon that same constitutional protection
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  which gives a remedy to the slave owner when his property is also found outside
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  of the limits of the state in which he lives. Without this protection,
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  what would be the condition of the Northern inventor, Why, sir, the
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  Vermont inventor, protected by his own law, would come to Massachusetts and there
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  say to the pirate who had stolen his property, render me up my property,
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  or pay me value for its use. The senator from Vermont would receive
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  for answer if he were the counsel of this Vermont inventor, Sir, if
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  you want protection for your property, go to your own state. Property is
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  governed by the laws of the state within whose jurisdiction it is found. You
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  have no property in your invention outside of the limits of your state. You
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  cannot go an inch beyond it. Would not this be so? Does not
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  every man see at once that the right of the inventor to his discovery,
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  that the right of the poet to his inspiration, depends upon those principles of
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  eternal justice which God has implanted in the heart of man, And that wherever
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  he cannot exercise them, it is because man, faithless to the trust that
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  he has received from God denies them. The protection to which they are entitled,
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  Sir, follow out the illustrations which the Senator from Vermont himself has given.
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  Take his very case of the Delaware owner of a horse riding him across
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  the line into Pennsylvania. The Senator says, now, you see that slaves
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  are not property like other property. If slaves were property like other property,
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  why have you this special clause in your constitution to protect a slave. You
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  have no clause to protect a horse, because horses are recognized as property everywhere.
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  Mister President, The same fallacy lurks at the bottom of this argument,
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  as of all the rest. Let Pennsylvania exercise her undoubted jurisdiction over persons and
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  things within her own boundary. Let her do as she has a perfect right
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  to do. Declare that hereafter, within the state of Pennsylvania there shall be
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  no property in horses, and that no man shall maintain a suit in her
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  courts for the recovery of property in a horse. And where will your horse
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  owner be then? Just where the inklish poet is now, just where the
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  slaveholder in the inventor would be of the Constitution. For seeing a difference of
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  opinion in relation to rights in these subject matters had not provided the remedy in
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  relation to such property as might easily be plundered. Slaves, if you please,
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  are not property like other property in this that you can easily rob us
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  of them. But as to the right in them, that man has to
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  overthrow the whole history of the world. He has to overthrow every treatise on
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  jurisprudence. He has to ignore the common sentiment of mankind. He has to
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  repudiate the authority of all that is considered sacred with men. Ere he can
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  reach the conclusion that the person who owns a slave in a country where slavery
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  has been established for ages has no other property in that slave than the mere
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  title which is given by the statute law of the land where it is found.
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  End of section fifty six. End of the World's Best Durations From the
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  Earliest Period to the Present Time, Volume one by David J. Brewer and
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  Edward A. Allen