Part 27 (2/2)

Mr. MADISON, also, in the Virginia Convention, urged the ratification of the Const.i.tution for the following among other reasons, viz.:

”At present, if any slave escape to any of those States where slaves are free, he becomes emanc.i.p.ated by their laws; for the laws of the States are uncharitable to one another in this respect. This clause was expressly inserted to enable owners of slaves to retain them. This is a better security than any that now exists.”

General PINCKNEY, one of the delegates in the Federal Convention, from South Carolina, in a debate in the House of Representatives of that State on the Const.i.tution, said:

”We have obtained a right to remove our slaves in whatever part of America they may take refuge, which is a right we had not before. In short, considering all the circ.u.mstances, we have made the best terms we could, and on the whole I do not think them bad.”

In the speech made by Mr. WEBSTER on the 7th of March, 1850, he remarked that:

”So far as we can now learn, there was a perfect concurrence of opinion between those respective bodies--the Congress and the Const.i.tution--and it resulted in this ordinance of 1787.”

When Mr. WEBSTER had closed his speech, Mr. CALHOUN arose, and among other things, said:

”He, Mr. WEBSTER, states very correctly that the ordinance commenced under the old confederation; that Congress was sitting in New York at the time, while the Convention sat in Philadelphia; and that there was concert of action.... When the ordinance was pa.s.sed, as I have good reason to believe, it was upon a principle of compromise; first, that this ordinance should contain a provision similar to the one put in the Const.i.tution, with respect to fugitive slaves; and next, that it should be inserted in the Const.i.tution; and this was the compromise upon which the prohibition was inserted in the ordinance of 1787.”

This agrees with Mr. MADISON. The idea he conveys could scarcely have been more identical with Mr. MADISON if he had used MADISON'S words.

When the Southern members of Congress voted unanimously for the 6th Article, or anti-slavery clause in the ordinance, with the proviso in respect to slaves escaping into the Territory, it was with the understanding that the Convention would insert a similar provision in the Const.i.tution respecting slaves escaping from one State to another; and this--its insertion in both--was the compromise upon which the prohibition was inserted in the ordinance. Such is the concurrent testimony of Mr. MADISON and Mr. CALHOUN.

We will now turn to the ordinance of 1787, and see whether it applies, as the one proposed by Mr. JEFFERSON in 1784 did, to the new States as well as to the Territories, and is the basis of State as well as Territorial Governments, and was so intended. It declares as follows:

”For extending the fundamental principles of civil and religions liberty, which form the basis whereon these republics, their laws and const.i.tutions, are erected; to fix and establish these principles as the basis of all laws, const.i.tutions, and governments, which forever hereafter shall be formed in the said Territory; to provide also for the establishment of States and permanent governments therein, and for their admission to a share in the Federal councils, on an equal footing with the original States, at as early periods as may be consistent with the general interest.

”It is hereby ordained and declared by the authority aforesaid: That the following articles shall be considered as articles of compact between the original States and the people and States in the said Territory, and forever remain unalterable, unless by the common consent.”

Then follows six articles of compact. Part of the fifth and the sixth are in these words:

”ART. 5.... Whenever any of the said States shall have sixty thousand free inhabitants therein, such State shall be admitted, by its delegates, into the Congress of the United States, on an equal footing with the original States, in all respects whatever; and shall be at liberty to form a permanent Const.i.tution and State Government; _provided_ the Const.i.tutional Government, so to be formed, shall be republican and in conformity to the principles contained in these articles.”

”ART. 6. There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said Territory, otherwise than in the punishment of crimes, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted; _Provided, always_, That any person escaping into the same from whom labor or service is lawfully claimed in any one of the original States, such fugitive may be lawfully reclaimed, and conveyed to the person claiming his or her labor or service as aforesaid.”

Such is so much of the ordinance as bears directly upon the point I am discussing. And the Convention, as if for the very purpose of giving the unequivocal sanction of the Const.i.tution and of the country to this compromise, and of establis.h.i.+ng it as the permanent policy of the Government, expressly provided that the ”engagements entered into before the adoption of this Const.i.tution shall be as valid against the United States under this Const.i.tution, as under the Confederation.”

This ordinance, then, which was an unalterable compact, prohibiting slavery, and fixing and establis.h.i.+ng freedom as the basis of all laws, const.i.tutions, and governments in the Territory forever--State Const.i.tutions and Governments of course included--was made valid by the Const.i.tution itself. And on this point I refer to the highest Southern authority, the late Judge BERRIEN, who was thoroughly pro-slavery in his views, and should certainly be ranked among the ablest lawyers and statesmen Georgia has ever produced, who spoke to this precise point during the compromise discussion in the United States Senate in 1850, as follows:

”Validity was given to their act by the clause in the Const.i.tution, which declares that contracts and engagements entered into by the Government of the Confederation, should be obligatory upon the Government of the United States established by the Const.i.tution.”

It is the ”act” of Congress in pa.s.sing the ordinance referred to here.

This being so, it was the same in effect as though the ordinance had been written word for word in the Const.i.tution itself. A contract can be made valid, only by making it binding and obligatory upon the parties to it, according to its terms and meaning. To make an unalterable compact valid is to make it perpetually binding.

Having shown that the articles of compact in the ordinance were unalterable; that validity was given to them by the Const.i.tution itself; that in express terms they applied to States as well as to Territories, and must, therefore, being made valid by the Const.i.tution, necessarily have been understood and intended by Congress and the Convention to prohibit slavery as effectually in one as the other, I will now show very briefly that they were also so understood in all parts of the country.

Mr. WILSON, of Pennsylvania, a prominent member of the Federal Convention, and also of the State Convention for ratifying the Const.i.tution, remarked in the latter as follows:

”I consider this clause as laying the foundation for banis.h.i.+ng slavery out of the land.... The new States which are to be formed will be under the control of Congress in this particular, and slavery will never be introduced among them.”

Mr. WILSON speaks of the clause authorizing the prohibition of the African slave trade.

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