The Slavery Question Speech of Hon. John M. Landrum, of La., Delivered in the House of Representatives, April 27, 1860

Delivered on the floor of the House of Representatives in April 1860, this speech captures a moment when the nation’s founding ideals of harmony and compromise were being challenged by an intensifying sectional rift. The speaker, a Democratic congressman from Louisiana, argues that the Constitution originally accommodated slave states without objection and that recent political discord stems from recent Republican agitation rather than any fault of his own party.

Listening to this address offers a vivid sense of the language, passions, and political calculations that shaped the final days before the Civil War. It reveals how debates over property, states’ rights, and national unity were framed in the very chambers of government, providing modern audiences a clearer view of the stakes that drove the country toward conflict. The oratory’s cadence and earnest appeal to history make the document both an educational artifact and a compelling glimpse into a turbulent chapter of American politics.