The representation, ostensibly of slaves, under the name of persons, was in its operation an exclusive grant of power to one cla.s.s of proprietors, owners of one species of property, to the detriment of all the rest of the community. This species of property was odious in its nature, held in direct violation of the natural and inalienable rights of man, and of the vital principles of Christianity; it was all acc.u.mulated in one geographical section of the country, and was all held by wealthy men, comparatively small in numbers, not amounting to a tenth part of the free white population of the States in which it was concentrated.
In some of the ancient, and in some modern republics, extraordinary political power and privileges have been invested in the owners of horses; but then these privileges and these powers have been granted for the equivalent of extraordinary duties and services to the community, required of the favored cla.s.s. The Roman knights const.i.tuted the cavalry of their armies, and the bushels of rings gathered by Hannibal from their dead bodies, after the battle of Cannae, amply prove that the special powers conferred upon them were no gratuitous grants. But in the Const.i.tution of the United States, the political power invested in the owners of slaves is entirely gratuitous. No extraordinary service is required of them; they are, on the contrary, themselves grievous burdens upon the community, always threatened with the danger of insurrections, to be smothered in the blood of both parties, master and slave, and always depressing the condition of the poor free laborer, by compet.i.tion with the labor of the slave. The property in horses was the gift of G.o.d to man, at the creation of the world; the property in slaves is property acquired and held by crimes, differing in no moral aspect from the pillage of a freebooter, and to which no lapse of time can give a prescriptive right. You are told that this is no concern of yours, and that the question of freedom and slavery is exclusively reserved to the consideration of the separate States. But if it be so, as to the mere question of right between master and slave, it is of tremendous concern to you that this little cl.u.s.ter of slave-owners should possess, besides their own share in the representative hall of the nation, the exclusive privilege of appointing two-fifths of the whole number of the representatives of the people. This is now your condition, under that delusive ambiguity of language and of principle, which begins by declaring the representation in the popular branch of the legislature a representation of persons, and then provides that one cla.s.s of persons shall have neither part nor lot in the choice of their representative; but their elective franchise shall he transferred to their masters, and the oppressors shall represent the oppressed. The same perversion of the representative principle pollutes the composition of the colleges of electors of President and Vice President of the United States, and every department of the government of the Union is thus tainted at its source by the gangrene of slavery.
Fellow-citizens,--with a body of men thus composed, for legislators and executors of the laws, what will, what must be, what has been your legislation? The numbers of freemen const.i.tuting your nation are much greater than those of the slaveholding States, bond and free. You have at least three-fifths of the whole population of the Union. Your influence on the legislation and the administration of the government ought to be in the proportion of three to two.--But how stands the fact? Besides the legitimate portion of influence exercised by the slaveholding States by the measure of their numbers, here is an intrusive influence in every department, by a representation nominally of persons, but really of property, ostensibly of slaves, but effectively of their masters, overbalancing your superiority of numbers, adding two-fifths of supplementary power to the two-fifths fairly secured to them by the compact, CONTROLLING AND OVERRULING THE WHOLE ACTION OF YOUR GOVERNMENT AT HOME AND ABROAD, and warping it to the sordid private interest and oppressive policy of 300,000 owners of slaves.
From the time of the adoption of the Const.i.tution of the United States, the inst.i.tution of domestic slavery has been becoming more and more the abhorrence of the civilized world. But in proportion as it has been growing odious to all the rest of mankind, it has been sinking deeper and deeper into the affections of the holders of slaves themselves. The cultivation of cotton and of sugar, unknown in the Union at the establishment of the Const.i.tution, has added largely to the pecuniary value of the slave. And the suppression of the African slave-trade as piracy upon pain of death, by securing the benefit of a monopoly to the virtuous slaveholders of the ancient dominion, has turned her heroic tyrannicides into a community of slave-breeders for sale, and converted the land of George Washington, Patrick Henry, Richard Henry Lee, and Thomas Jefferson, into a great barrac.o.o.n--a cattle-show of human beings, an emporium, of which the staple articles of merchandise are the flesh and blood, the bones and sinews of immortal man.
Of the increasing abomination of slavery in the unbought hearts of men at the time when the Const.i.tution of the United States was formed, what clearer proof could be desired, than that the very same year in which that charter of the land was issued, the Congress of the Confederation, with not a t.i.the of the powers given by the people to the Congress of the new compact, actually abolished slavery for ever throughout the whole Northwestern territory, without a remonstrance or a murmur. But in the articles of confederation, there was no guaranty for the property of the slaveholder--no double representation of him in the Federal councils--no power of taxation--no stipulation for the recovery of fugitive slaves. But when the powers of _government_ came to be delegated to the Union, the--that is, South Carolina and Georgia--refused their subscription to the parchment, till it should be saturated with the infection of slavery, which no fumigation could purify, no quarantine could extinguish. The freemen of the North gave way, and the deadly venom of slavery was infused into the Const.i.tution of freedom. Its first consequence has been to invert the first principle of Democracy, that the will of the majority of numbers shall rule the land. By means of the double representation, the minority command the whole, and a KNOT OF SLAVEHOLDERS GIVE THE LAW AND PRESCRIBE THE POLICY OF THE COUNTRY. To acquire this superiority of a large majority of freemen, a persevering system of engrossing nearly all the seats of power and place, is constantly for a long series of years pursued, and you have seen, in a period of fifty-six years, the Chief-magistracy of the Union held, during forty-four of them, by the owners of slaves. The Executive departments, the Army and Navy, the Supreme Judicial Court and diplomatic missions abroad, all present the same spectacle;--an immense majority of power in the hands of a very small minority of the people--millions made for a fraction of a few thousands.
From that day (1830,) SLAVERY, SLAVEHOLDING, SLAVE-BREEDING AND SLAVE-TRADING, HAVE FORMED THE WHOLE FOUNDATION OF THE POLICY OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT, and of the slaveholding States, at home and abroad; and at the very time when a new census has exhibited a large increase upon the superior numbers of the free States, it has presented the portentous evidence of increased influence and ascendancy of the slaveholding power.
Of the prevalence of that power, you have had continual and conclusive evidence in the suppression for the s.p.a.ce of ten years of the right of pet.i.tion, guarantied, if there could be a guarantee against slavery, by the first article amendatory of the Const.i.tution.
THE ANTI-SLAVERY EXAMINER.--NO. XI
THE
CONSt.i.tUTION
A PRO-SLAVERY COMPACT
OR
SELECTIONS
FROM
THE MADISON PAPERS, &C.
SECOND EDITION, ENLARGED.
NEW YORK:
AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY,
142 Na.s.sAU STREET.
1845.
CONTENTS.
INTRODUCTION.
Debates in the Congress of the Confederation.
Debates in the Federal Convention.
List of Members of the Federal Convention.
Speech of Luther Martin.
DEBATES IN STATE CONVENTIONS.
Ma.s.sachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina,
Extracts from the Federalist, Debates in First Congress, Address of the Executive Committee of the American Anti-Slavery Society, Letter from Francis Jackson to Gov. Briggs, Extract from Mr. Webster"s Speech, Extracts from J.Q. Adams"s Address, November, 1844.
INTRODUCTION.
Every one knows that the "Madison Papers" contain a Report, from the pen of James Madison, of the Debates in the Old Congress of the Confederation and in the Convention which formed the Const.i.tution of the United States. We have extracted from them, in these pages, all the Debates on those clauses of the Const.i.tution which relate to slavery. To these we have added all that is found, on the same topic, in the Debates of the several State Conventions which ratified the Const.i.tution: together with so much of the Speech of Luther Martin before the Legislature of Maryland, and of the Federalist, as relate to our subject; with some extracts, also, from the Debates of the first Federal Congress on Slavery. These are all printed without alteration, except that, in some instances, we have inserted in brackets, after the name of a speaker, the name of the State from which he came. The notes and italics are those of the original, but the editor has added two notes on page 38, which are marked as his, and we have taken the liberty of printing in capitals one sentiment of Rufus King"s, and two of James Madison"s--a distinction which the importance of the statements seemed to demand--otherwise we have reprinted exactly from the originals.
These extracts develop most clearly all the details of that "compromise," which was made between freedom and slavery, in 1787; granting to the slaveholder distinct privileges and protection for his slave property, in return for certain commercial concessions on his part toward the North. They prove also that the Nation at large were fully aware of this bargain at the time, and entered into it willingly and with open eyes.
We have added the late "Address of the American Anti-Slavery Society,"
and the Letter of FRANCIS JACKSON to Governor BRIGGS, resigning his commission of Justice of the Peace--as bold and honorable protests against the guilt and infamy of this National bargain, and as proving most clearly the duty of each individual to trample it under his feet.
The clauses of the Const.i.tution to which we refer as of a pro-slavery character are the following :--
ART. 1, SECT. 2.--Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several States, which may be included within this Union, according to their respective numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole number of free persons, including those bound to service for a term of years, and excluding Indians not taxed, _three-fifths of all other persons_.
ART. 1, SECT. 8.--Congress shall have power . . . to suppress insurrections.
ART. 1, SECT. 9.--The migration or importation of such persons as any of the States now existing, shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress, prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight: but a tax or duty may be imposed on such importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each person.
ART. 4, SECT. 2.--No person, held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor; but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due.
ART. 4, SECT. 4.--The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a republican form of government; and shall protect each of them against invasion; and, on application of the legislature, or of the executive, (when the legislature cannot be convened) _against domestic violence_.