Part 4 (1/2)
[Illustration: Charles Cotesworth Pinckney]
In reply to Pinckney, however, Morris grew bolder ”It was high time,”
he said, ”to speak out” He caood of America He hoped and believed that all would enter into such compact If they would not, he was ready to join with any States that would But as the compact was to be voluntary, it is in vain for the Eastern States to insist on what the Southern States will never agree to It is equally vain for the latter to require what the other States can never admit, and he verily believed the people of Pennsylvania will never agree to a representation of negroes;” of negroes, he s, not for their own representation, but, as shi+ps ht be counted, for the increased representation of those who held them as property The next day he ”spoke out” still roes,” he said, ”were to be viewed as inhabitants,they ought to be added in their entire number, and not in the proportion of three fifths If as property, the word 'wealth' was right,”--as the basis, that is, of representation The distinction that had been set up by Madison and others between the Northern and Southern States he considered as heretical and groundless But it was persisted in, and ”he saw that the Southern gentlemen will not be satisfied unless they see the way open to their gaining a majority in the public councils
Either this distinction [between the North and the South] is fictitious or real; if fictitious, let it be dismissed, and let us proceed with due confidence If it be real, instead of attes, let us at once take a friendly leave of each other”
But could they take ”a friendly leave of each other”? Should a union be secured on the terms the South offered? or should it be declined, as Morris proposed, if it could not be a union of equality? The next day Madison again set forth the real issue, quietly but unmistakably ”It seemed now,” he said, ”to be pretty well understood that the real difference of interests lay, not between the large and small, but between the Northern and Southern States The institution of slavery and its consequences forreat power, as he well knew, in fir as slavery lasted, the lesson he then inculcated was never forgotten
Thenceforward, as then, ”the line of discrimination,” in Southern politics, lay with ”slavery and its consequences” One side would abate nothing of its demands; there could be no ”friendly leave” unless the determination, on the other side, to overcome the desire for union and take the consequences was equally firain came up, however, Morris had not lost heart His talk was the talk of a modern abolitionist:--
”He never would concur in upholding domestic slavery It was a nefarious institution It was the curse of Heaven on the States where it prevailed Coions of the Middle States, where a rich and noble cultivation marks the prosperity and happiness of the people, with the inia, Maryland, and the other States having slaves Travel through the whole continent, and you behold the prospect continually varying with the appearance and disappearance of slavery Proceed southwardly, and every step you take through the great regions of slavery presents a desert increasing with the increasing proportion of these wretched beings
Upon what principle is it that the slaves shall be computed in the representation? Are they men? Then make them citizens, and let them vote Are they property? Why then is no other property included?
The houses in this city [Philadelphia] are worth more than all the wretched slaves who cover the rice swamps of South Carolina And what is the proposed compensation to the Northern States for a sacrifice of every principle of right, of every impulse of humanity? They are to bind themselves to march their militia for the defense of the Southern States, for their defense against those very slaves of whom they con attack The legislature will have indefinite power to tax them by excises and duties on imports, both of which will fall heavier on them than on the Southern inhabitants; for the Bohea tea used by a Northern freeman will pay more tax than the whole consu s that cover his nakedness Let it not be said that direct taxation is to be proportioned to representation It is idle to suppose that the general government can stretch its hand directly into the pockets of the people scattered over so vast a country
He would sooner subroes in the United States than saddle posterity with such a Constitution”
So much of this as was not already fact was prophecy Yet not many weeks later this ih it had grown er pro-slavery proportions There was undoubtedly soeneral feeling was e of South Carolina, in the debate on the continuance of the African slave trade ”Religion and hu to do with this question Interest alone is the governing principle with nations The true question at present is, whether the Southern States shall or shall not be parties to the Union If the Northern States consult their interest, they will not oppose the increase of slaves, which will increase the commodities of which they will become the carriers” The response ca: ”Let every State import what it pleases Theto the States themselves What enriches a part enriches the whole,”--especially Newport and its adjacent coasts, he ht have added, with its trade to the African coast
But a Virginian, George Mason, had another tone He called the traffic ”infernal” ”Slavery,” he went on, ”discourages arts and manufactures
The poor despise labor when perforration of whites, who really enrich and strengthen a country They produce the most pernicious effect on manners Every ment of Heaven on a country As nations cannot be rewarded or punished in the next world, they must be in this By an inevitable chain of causes and effects, Providence punishes national sins by national cala But Ellsworth retorted with a sneer: ”As he had never owned a slave, he could not judge of the effect of slavery on character” He said, however, that, ”if it was to be considered in a o farther, and free those already in the country” But, so far froht it would be ”unjust toward South Carolina and Georgia,” in whose ”sickly rice swa to prevent the importation of fresh Africans to labor, and, of course, to perish there Perhaps it was this shrewd arguested, half a century afterward, to a Mississippi agricultural society, the econoroes every few years, and supply its place by a fresh gang froinia, than rely upon the natural increase that would follow their huer Sherht, the duty of the general governn trade in slaves, and, should this be left in its power, it would probably be done But he would not, if the Southern Statesto the Constitution that the trade should be protected, leave it in the power of the general governed that it should and probably would do
Delegates froia and the Carolinas declared that to be the condition,--a them C C Pinckney of South Carolina ”He should consider,” he said, ”a rejection of the clause as an exclusion of South Carolina from the Union” Nevertheless he said to the people at hoether to consider the Constitution: ”We are so weak that by ourselves we could not forh for the purpose of effectually protecting each other Without union with the other States, South Carolina a The first lesson in the South Carolinian policy was given in the Constitutional Convention Of the result, this was Pinckney's su up to his constituents:--
”By this settleroes for twenty years; nor is it declared that the importation shall be then stopped; it overnranted We have obtained a right to recover our slaves, in whatever part of Aht we had not before In short, considering all circumstances, we have made the best terms, for the security of this species of property, it was in our power to make We would have made better if we could, but on the whole I do not think thenificant staten slave trade Madison had little to say, but, like ates north of the Carolinas, he was opposed to it
”Twenty years,” he said, ”will produce all the mischief that can be apprehended fro a term will be more dishonorable to the A about it in the Constitution” The words are a little ah he is his own reporter But what he meant evidently was, that any protection of the trade would dishonor the nation; for at another point of the debate, on the sa to admit in the Constitution the idea that there could be property in reat Southern interest, so long as it lasted; but he was not willing to strengthen it by per the continuance of the African slave trade for twenty years longer under the sanction of the Constitution But he held it to be, as he wrote in ”The Federalist,” ”a great point gained in favor of humanity that a period of twenty years may ter and so loudly upbraided the barbarism of modern policy” He added, ”The attempt that had been ainst the Constitution, by representing it as a criminal toleration of an illicit practice,” was aof an answer
It was, in fact, a bargain which he had not approved of, and did not now probably care to talk about It was estion of Gouverneur Morris, who ation act, and a duty on exports be referred for consideration to a co the Northern and Southern States” When the committee reported in favor of the slave trade, C C
Pinckney proposed that its limitation should be extended from 1800 to 1808 Gorham of Massachusetts seconded the motion, and it was carried by the addition of the votes of New Hampshi+re, Massachusetts, and Connecticut to those of Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia
The committee also reported the substitution of ato commerce The concession was ate and three of the four South Carolina delegates favoring it, two of the latter frankly saying they did so to gratify New England It was, C C Pinckney said, ”the true interest of the Southern States to have no regulation of commerce;”
but he assented to this proposition, and his constituents ”would be reconciled to this liberality,” because, a other considerations, of ”the liberal conduct [of the New England States] towards the views of South Carolina” There was no question of theJefferson relates in his ”Ana,” on the authority of George Mason, a ia and South Carolina had ”struck up a bargain with the three New England States, that if they would admit slaves for twenty years, the two southern the clause which required two thirds of the legislature in any vote”
The settlement of these questions was an opportune itive slaves Butler of South Carolina immediately proposed a section which should secure their return to their masters, and it was passed without a word As Pinckney said in the passage already quoted, when he went back to report to his constituents, ”it is a right to recover our slaves, in whatever part of Aht we had not before”
It is notable how complete and final a settlement of the slavery question ”these compromises,” as they were called, seemed to be to those who made them They were meant to be, as Mr Madison called them, ”adjustments of the different interests of different parts of the country,” and being once agreed upon they were considered as having the binding force and stability of a contract The evils of slavery were set forth as an eleotiation, but no question of essential ory of forbidden wrong Whatever results ht, by the terms of the contract; whereas, in fact, the actual results were not foreseen, and could not be guarded against, except by the refusal to enter into any contract whatever
On all other questions involving political principles,--the just relations of the federal governoverner and the sulation of the functions of the executive, the legislative, and the judicial departovernht to bear the profoundest wisdonitude and character of the work, Madison's conclusion see to these considerations the natural diversity of human opinions on all new and coree of concord which ultimately prevailed as less than a ravest and most anxious doubts how far the Constitution would stand the test of tiovernment for a nation of freeed But where its architects thought theht they had settled forever was the one thing which they did not settle Of all the ”adjustments” of the Constitution, slavery was precisely that one which was not adjusted