Volume I Part 62 (1/2)

”JOHN ADAMS, _Vice-President of the United States, and President of the Senate_.

”Approved--March the twenty-second, 1794.

G'o: WAs.h.i.+NGTON, _President of the United States_.”

In 1797 Congress again found themselves confronted by the dark problem of slavery, that would not down at their bidding. The Yearly Meeting of the Quakers of Philadelphia sent a memorial to Congress, complaining that about one hundred and thirty-four Negroes, and others whom they knew not of, having been lawfully emanc.i.p.ated, were afterwards reduced to bondage by an _ex post facto_ law pa.s.sed by North Carolina, in 1777, for that cruel purpose. After considerable debate, the memorial went to a committee, who subsequently reported that the matter complained of was purely of judicial cognizance, and that Congress had no authority in the premises.

During the same session a bill was introduced creating all that portion of the late British Province of West Florida, within the jurisdiction of the United States, into a government to be called the Mississippi Territory. It was to be conducted in all respects like the territory north-west of the Ohio, with the single exception that slavery should not be prohibited. During the discussion of this section of the bill, Mr. Thatcher of Ma.s.sachusetts moved to amend by striking out the exception as to slavery, so as to make it conform to the ideas expressed by Mr. Jefferson a few years before in reference to the Western Territory. But, after a warm debate, Mr. Thatcher's motion was lost, having received only twelve votes. An amendment of Mr. Harper of South Carolina, offered a few days later, prohibiting the introduction of slaves into the new Mississippi Territory, from without the limits of the United States, carried without opposition.

Georgia revised her Const.i.tution in 1798, and prohibited the importation of slaves ”from Africa or any foreign place.” Her slave-code was greatly moderated. Any person maliciously killing or dismembering a slave was to suffer the same punishment as if the act had been committed upon a free white person, except in case of insurrection, or ”unless such death should happen by accident, in giving such slave moderate correction.” But, like Kentucky, the Georgia const.i.tution forbade the emanc.i.p.ation of slaves without the consent of the individual owner; and encouraged emigrants to bring slaves into the State.

In 1799, after three failures, the Legislature of New York pa.s.sed a bill for the gradual extinction of slavery. It provided that all persons in slavery at the time of the pa.s.sage of the bill should remain in bondage for life, but all their children, born after the fourth day of July next following, were to be free, but were required to remain under the direction of the owner of their parents, males until twenty-eight, and females until twenty-five. Exportation of slaves was disallowed; and if the attempt were made, and the parties apprehended, the slaves were to be free _instanter_. Persons moving into the State were not allowed to bring slaves, except they had owned them for a year previous to coming into the State.

In 1799 Kentucky revised her Const.i.tution to meet the wants of a growing State. An attempt was made to secure a provision providing for gradual emanc.i.p.ation. It was supported by Henry Clay, who, as a young lawyer and promising orator, began on that occasion a brilliant political career that lasted for a half-century. But not even his magic eloquence could secure the pa.s.sage of the humane amendment, and in regard to the question of slavery the Const.i.tution received no change.

As the shadows gathered about the expiring days of the eighteenth century, it was clear to be seen that slavery, as an inst.i.tution, had rooted itself into the political and legal life of the American Republic. An estate prolific of evil, fraught with danger to the new government, abhorred and rejected at first, was at length adopted with great political sagacity and deliberateness, and then guarded by the solemn forms of const.i.tutional law and legislative enactments.

FOOTNOTES:

[627] St. Clair Papers, vol. i. p. 120.

[628] The clause ”three fifths of all other persons” refers to Negro slaves. The Italics are our own. The Negro is referred to as _person_ all through the Const.i.tution.

[629] Madison Papers, Elliot, vol. v. pp. 392, 393.

[630] Ibid., vol. v pp. 391, 392.

[631] Madison Papers, Elliot, vol. v. pp. 457-461.

[632] Madison Papers, Elliot, vol. v. pp. 477, 478.

[633] Examine Hildreth and the Secret Debates on the subject of the ”compromises.”

[634] Travels, etc., vol. ii. p. 166.

[635] M.H.S. Coll., 5th Series, III., p. 403.

APPENDIX.

Part I.

_PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS_.

CHAPTER I.

THE UNITY OF MANKIND.