Address to Citizens of Houston by Peter Gray on the African Slave Trade, May 30, 1859

Initially Gray demonstrates his opinion on whether or not Judges should involve themselves in political issues. He patently denounces those who deny judges the right of citizenship based on their public service. Gray states that he along with all other judges are able to separate their political tendencies from their impartial stances in court. Gray then gives a lengthy article by article description and history of states rights and the constitution. Gray also briefly discusses the Articles of Confederation and the various reasons for that governments collapse. The purpose of Gray’s discussion is to reaffirm the state’s pro-slavery stance in the upcoming election, while vehemently denying that the issue is a political question, offering rather that it is a fundamentally moral issue free from political bias. The rhetoric employed by Gray is a common argument made throughout the southern states, arguing that the dissension between Southern Democrats and Northern Democrats, Republicans, and Free Soilers is based not on slavery but the issue of the states’ right to choose. Gray is awkwardly poised as a Pro-Slavery Democrat opposed to the continuation of the slave trade. He explains his position by arguing that by allowing the slave treaded to continue slave owners would appear to Northerners as insecure about the justice of slavery. By continuing the slave trade, says Gray, slave owners would be destroying the credibility of the institution on a national level furthering the national opinion against the continuance of slavery. Gray’s pro-slavery anti-slave trade stance was a common platform for many Southern Democrats of the time. Often these Democrats would try to steer political rhetoric away from the hotly contested issue of slavery and towards states rights and popular sovereignty.