GOVERNMENT OF THE TERRITORIES. SPEECH OF HON. RICHARD BRODHEAD, OF PENN., in the House of Representatives, Saturday, June 3, 1848. Upon the Subject of Slavery in the Territories, and in Support of the Resolution of the Baltimore Convention in Relation to Slavery.
[Washington]: Congressional Globe Office, 1848. Unbound. Very Good binding. Item #8449
Octavo. 7, [1] pp. First edition. Folded signature, never bound; opened, but untrimmed. Some loss to the bottom corner, limited to the margin, nowhere near the text; lightly toned; wrinkling to the final leaf.
Brodhead was a Representative and Senator from Pennsylvania. In this speech he recognizes the inherent inequality between black and white people, even in free states, "we deprive them of the right to take part in the government; and, in truth, they are much less cared for, and enjoy less of the comforts of life, than in the South. They render menial service, seem to be the slaves of the neighborhood in which they live, and have no person to care for them in infancy and old age" (p. 3). Moral failings of the government aside, Brodhead argues for what he feels is a pragmatic compromise, something akin to the Missouri compromise in which some territories are allowed to determine whether they will be slaveholding or not. This speech constitutes one of many voices during a fraught time as the expanding nation tangled with question of slavery. Sabin 8180.
Price: $125.00