V. The Convention and the Constitution.
The experiment of a Confederation, as contra-distinguished from a more intimate and positive Union, was fairly tried by our fathers. Its only beneficent result was the demonstration thereby afforded of its [42] vital and incurable defects.1 Our country attained under it neither dignity, consideration, security, nor even solvency. The central or national authority, left dependent on the concurrent action of the several States for the very means of existence, was exhibited often in the attitude of a genteel beggar, rather than of a sovereign. Congress attempted to impose a very moderate tariff for the payment of interest on the general or foreign debt, contracted in support of the Revolutionary armies, but was baffled by the Legislature of Rhode Island-then a State of relatively extensive foreign commerce — which interposed its paralyzing veto. Political impotence, commercial embarrassment, and general distress, finally overbore or temporarily silenced sectional jealousies and State pride, to such an extent that a Convention of delegates from a quorum of the States, called together rather to amend than to supersede the Articles of Confederation, was legally assembled at Philadelphia in 1787, George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton,James Madison, Edmund Randolph, and Charles C. Pinckney, being among its most eminent members. John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were absent as Embassadors in Europe. Samuel Adams, George Clinton, and Patrick Henry stood aloof, watching the movement with jealous apprehension. [43] Franklin, then over eighty-one years of age, declined the chair on account of his increasing infirmities; and, on his motion, George Washington was unanimously elected President.The Convention sat with closed doors; and no circumstantial nor adequate report of its deliberations was made. The only accounts of them which have reached us are those of delegates who took notes at the time, or taxed their recollection in after years, when the matter had attained an importance not anticipated at the time of its occurrence; and these reminiscences are not free from the suspicion of having been colored, if not recast, in accordance with the ambitions and ultimate political relations of the recorders. The general outline, however, of the deliberations and decisions of the Convention are sufficiently exhibited in the Constitution, and in what we know of the various propositions rejected in the course of its formation. The purpose of this work will require only a rapid summary of what was done, and what left undone, in relation to Human Slavery.
A majority of the framers of the Constitution, like nearly all their compatriots of our Revolutionary era, were adverse to Slavery.2 Their judgments condemned, and their consciences [44] reprobated it. They would evidently have preferred to pass over the subject in silence, and frame a Constitution wherein the existence of human bondage was not impliedly or constructively recognized. Hence it may be noted, that those provisions favoring or upholding Slavery, which deform our great charter, are not original and integral parts of the fabric, and, as such, contained in the original draft thereof; but are unsightly and abnormal additions, rather fastened upon than interwoven with the body of the structure. Could the majority have made such [45] a Constitution as they would have preferred, Slavery would have found no lodgment in it; but already the whip of Disunion was brandished, and the fatal necessity of Compromise made manifest. The Convention would have at once and forever prohibited, so far as our country and her people were concerned, the African Slave-Trade; but South Carolina and Georgia were present, by their delegates, to admonish, and, if admonition did not answer, to menace, that this must not be.3 “No Slave-trade, no Union!” Such was the short and sharp alternative presented by the delegates from those States. North Carolina was passive; Virginia and her more northern sisters more than willing to prohibit at once the further importation of Slaves; in fact, several, if not all, of these States, including Virginia and Maryland, had already expressly forbidden it. But the ultimatum presented by the still slave-hungry States of the extreme South was imperative, and the necessity of submitting to it was quite too easily conceded. Roger Sherman, of Connecticut, was among the first to admit it. The conscience of the North was quieted4 by embodying [46] in the Constitution a proviso that Congress might interdict the foreign Slave-Trade after the expiration of twenty years--a term which, it was generally agreed, ought fully to satisfy the craving of Carolina and Georgia.5 The modified proposition to prohibit the Slave-Trade now encountering no opposition, the recognition of slaves, as a basis of political power, presented a grave and intricate problem. It was one calculated, at least, to place the antagonistic parties respectively in false positions. If slaves are human beings, why should they not be represented like other human beings — that is, like women and children, and other persons, ignorant, humble, and powerless, like themselves? If, on the other hand, you consider them property — mere chattels personal, why should they be represented any more than ships, or houses, or cattle? Here is a nabob, who values his favorite high-bred horse at five thousand dollars, and five of his able-bodied negroes at the same amount. Why should his five negroes count as three men in apportioning the representatives in Congress among the several States, while the blooded horse counts just nothing at all? We can only answer that Slavery and Reason travel different roads, and that he strives in vain who labors to make those roads even seem parallel. The Convention, without much debate or demur, split the difference, by deciding that the basis alike of Representation in Congress, and of Direct Taxation, should be the entire free population of each State, with “three-fifths of all other persons.” 6 [47]
At length, when the Constitution was nearly completed, Slavery, through its attorney, Mr. Butler, of South Carolina, presented its little Bill for extras. Like Oliver Twist, it wanted “some more.” Its new demand was that slaves escaping from one State into another, might be followed and legally reclaimed. This requirement, be it observed, was entirely outside of any general and obvious necessity. No one could pretend that there was any thing mutual in the obligation it sought to impose — that Massachusetts or New Hampshire was either anxious to secure the privilege of reclaiming her fugitive slaves who might escape into Carolina or Georgia, or had any desire to enter into reciprocal engagements to this end. Nor could any one gravely insist that the provision for the mutual rendition of slaves was essential to the completeness of the Federal pact. The old Confederation had known nothing like it; yet no one asserted that the want of an inter-State Fugitive Slave law was among the necessities or grievances which had impelled the assembling of this Convention. But the insertion of a slave-catching clause in the Constitution would undoubtedly be regarded with favor by the slaveholding interest, and would strongly tend to render the new frame-work of government more acceptable to the extreme South. So, after one or two unsuccessful attempts, Mr. Butler finally gave to his proposition a shape in which it proved acceptable to a majority; and it was adopted, with slight apparent resistance or consideration.7
In these latter days, since the radical injustice and iniquity of slaveholding have been more profoundly realized and generally appreciated, many subtle and some able attempts have been made to explain away this most unfortunate provision, for the reason that the Convention wisely and decorously excluded the terms Slave and Slavery from the Constitution; “because,” as Mr. Madison says, “they did not choose to admit [48] the right of property in man.” 8 It has been argued that this provision does not contemplate the rendition of fugitives from Slavery, but rather of runaway apprentices, persons who, having entered into contracts for their own labor, have repudiated their engagements, and other such Jonahs. The records and reminiscences of the Convention, however, utterly refute and dissipate these vain and idle pretenses. It is sheer absurdity to contend that South Carolina in the Convention was absorbingly intent on engrafting upon the Federal Constitution a provision for the recapture of runaway apprentices, or any thing of the sort. What she meant was, to extort from the apprehensions of a majority, anxious for a more perfect Union, a concession of authority to hunt fugitive slaves in any part of our broad national area, and legally to drag them thence back into perpetual bondage. If the Convention did not mean to grant exactly that, it trifled with a very grave subject, and stooped to an unworthy deception. How much better to meet the issue broadly and manfully, saying frankly to the slaveholders: “This provision is contrary to equity and good conscience; hence we can not obey it. To seize our fellow-man and thrust him into an abhorred bondage may in your eyes be innocent, in ours it would be crime. If, then, you are aggrieved in any case, by our refusal or neglect to return your fugitives, make out your bill for their fair market value and call upon us for its payment. If we refuse it, you will then have a real grievance to allege — this, namely: that we have deprived you of what the Constitution recognizes as your property, and have failed to make recompense therefor. But you surely can not blame us, that, having been enlightened as to the immoral nature of acts consented to, or stipulated for, by our fathers, we are unable longer to commit them. Take our property, if you think yourselves entitled to it; but allow us to be faithful to our convictions of duty and the promptings of humanity.” 9
General Charles C. Pinckney, in laying the Federal Constitution before the Convention of South Carolina, which assembled January 15, 1788, to pass upon it, made a speech, [49] in which he dwelt with reasonable and justifiable complacency on the advantages secured to Slavery by the Constitution;10 and these, doubtless, were among the considerations which secured its ratification, by that body, by a vote of 149 to 73. Other Southern States may have been thus affected.
