Slavery: What It Was, What It Has Done, What It Intends to Dospeech of Hon. Cydnor B. Tompkins, of Ohio

Delivered on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives as the nation teetered toward civil war, this is the voice of a congressman arguing that America had betrayed its founding principles. Cydnor B. Tompkins builds his case from the ground up: the founders meant to extinguish slavery, he argues, and every subsequent expansion of the institution represents a departure from the Republic's true origins. He invokes Founding Fathers and historical resolutions. He warns that slavery's push into new territories threatens to permanently entrench an institution that already strangles American liberty. But Tompkins also makes a startling argument for his era, that slavery damages not only the enslaved but white workingmen, creating a permanent underclass of poverty and illiteracy. This is not abstract philosophy but congressional combat, a politician staking his career on the conviction that the nation's soul depends on resolving this question now. For readers interested in primary sources from the Civil War era, this speech offers a window into how anti-slavery arguments were actually framed inside the halls of power.