Slavery: What it was, what it has done, what it intends to do Speech of Hon. Cydnor B. Tompkins, of Ohio — A Closer Reading

A Catalog of Aggressions

Tompkins does not merely accuse; he enumerates. He lists six specific aggressions of slavery against the North, each introduced with the formula "I charge." These include the enforcement of the Missouri Compromise, the annexation of Texas (which he links to the Mexican War and its costs of "more than two hundred millions of money" and "many thousand lives"), the fugitive slave law, the Dred Scott decision, the repeal of the Missouri Compromise line, and the "murders, robberies, and arsons, in Kansas." This numbered structure gives his argument a legalistic, prosecutorial tone. He treats these as "national aggressions" for which the slavery party, controlling the government, is responsible. The specificity of his charges—down to dollar amounts and casualty figures—grounds his rhetoric in concrete grievances rather than abstract principle.

Silence as Despotism

Beyond national policy, Tompkins points to violence against individuals: "tarring and feathering, of whipping—acts of such barbarity and cruelty, that it would chill a man's blood to hear them recited." He describes a community of "moral, peaceable citizens" driven from their homes by slaveholders. But his most striking observation is about the suppression of dissent in the slave states: "There are, no doubt, many good and humane men in slave States, who deprecate these wrongs; but they dare not utter a word—every mouth must be stopped, every lip must be sealed." He calls this "the most inexorable despotism." This passage shifts the focus from Northern grievances to the silencing of Southern moderates, implying that slavery corrupts not only law but free speech itself. The repetition of "every" and the image of a grave underscore his claim that the system tolerates no opposition.

Slave Laws, Not Slaves

In the third section, Tompkins pivots to what slavery "intends to do"—namely, extend into the territories. He concedes that all citizens have equal rights to emigrate, but draws a sharp distinction: "I say you shall not take your slave laws with you." He argues that slavery exists only by local enactment, not by natural right: "no property can exist in a human being, unless it is made so by some law." This was, he claims, the view of the founders and nearly every statesman until recently. He then questions the meaning of the "stereotyped expression" of Southern constitutional rights, suggesting that those who use it do not understand it. This section reveals his rhetorical strategy: he accepts the premise of equal territorial rights but denies that those rights include the power to impose slave codes, thereby reframing the debate as one about law, not property.

Tompkins's speech is a window into the rhetorical and legal arguments of the Republican party on the eve of the Civil War. Readers should note how he blends moral outrage with constitutional reasoning, and how his numbered charges anticipate the language of indictment. The excerpts break off before he fully develops what slavery "intends to do," but his framework—distinguishing between the right to emigrate and the right to bring slave laws—remains central. Pay attention to his use of repetition and his appeals to the founders' authority, as these are key to his persuasive strategy.

Reading Tompkins’s measured anger, I thought of my grandfather’s worn copy of Slavery, and how slowly I turned its pages as a child, sensing weight without comprehension. That same quiet heaviness came back with Shadows and sunbeams: Being a second series of Fern leaves from Fanny's portfolio — A Reader’s Guide, where Fern’s gentle essays hold sorrow the same way—patiently, between ordinary lines, waiting for a reader who sits still long enough to notice.