Address on the annexation of Texas, and the aspect of slavery in the United States, in connection therewith: delivered in Boston November 14 and 18, 1845 Page: 33 of 56
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33
free neighbours to make her desirous of emulating them,
why is she not free ? With her once lofty character and
proud spirit, how can she stoop to slave-breeding as her
principal resource and her disgraceful distinction ? The
fact is against the economist, but the reason is plain to any
inquirer; Virginia can be only what slavery has made her.
Obliterate, if you can do so, every vestige of slavery; exterminate
alike the master and the slave; leave none upon
the soil, except the free laborers who have begun to till the
western border; let them be joined by the hardy and intelligent
emigrants from the North, who will carry with them
liberty and every social and political blessing in its train,let
Virginia in time thus become Massachusetts upon a larger
scale, and she will be free, and prosperous, and happy. But
without such an extermination of the master and the slave,
what can be expected, but that they will remain together, the
master, from his position, becoming more and more
dependent upon the slave, and the slave, from his treatment,
less and less qualified for freedom, and both contributing to
the utmost their joint influence to secure their mutual degradation
? In this unfortunate condition, so long as the
opening of new slave-markets shall render slave-breeding
lucrative, they must remain together; and when this last
resource shall fail them, then, and perhaps not till then, will
the deep mystery of their fate be solved.
Of Maryland, in regard to her condition and prospects, I
need only repeat what I have said of Virginia. In consequence
of the greater irruption of a free population, and the
smaller number of slaves, it seems a more probable and
practicable result that in time she may become a Free State.
Still, upon her western and eastern shores the worst and
most incurable effects of slavery may be distinctly traced;
and there seems to be but little, in the indications of public
sentiment on the part of her free citizens, to encourage us
to look to them for prompt and energetic action in favor of
any adequate system of emancipation. Her position makes
her the depot of the domestic slave-trade for the whole
neighbouring region; and while this slave-trade shall continue,
so long as the interior country shall furnish a surplus
of slaves for coastwise exportation, and the extension of
slavery into foreign territory shall keep up the demand for
them, Maryland will be, and in the exercise of her political
influence will prove that she is, identified with the Slave
States.
As for Kentucky, a hasty glance at her past course and
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Phillips, Stephen C. Address on the annexation of Texas, and the aspect of slavery in the United States, in connection therewith: delivered in Boston November 14 and 18, 1845, book, January 1, 1845; Boston. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth2361/m1/33/: accessed April 19, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Special Collections.