The article of the Constitution which provides for the restoration of fugitive servants to their masters could hardly have been considered a concession to any particular section, since slaves were then held in every State of the Union except Massachusetts, though insignificant in numbers at the North compared with those at the South. The rights of the smaller body of owners in one part of the country were as clear as those of the more numerous class in the other. The actual question at that time was not in regard to the continuance of slavery, but how to make the apportionment of direct taxes and representation between the Northern and the Southern States. The solution of the difficulty was reached by compromise. It was agreed to consider the slaves as both persons and property, and that three-fifths of their number should be added to the enumeration of free persons in the apportionment. There was no other way of determining this point. By reckoning the slaves as mere property, the South would have lost largely in representation; by considering them persons only, the burden of taxation would have fallen unequally upon the North. There can be no doubt that the permission for the slave trade to continue twenty years longer entered into the final agreement as an important consideration.' To show how this question was regarded in the several sections, it is only necessary to cite the vote upon its determination by the Convention of 1787. The history of this matter is curious. The provision on this point, as finally inserted in the Constitution, is as follows: "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. I, sec. 9." This provision was duly ratified, with the other clauses of the Constitution, by all the States in turn. It was not 1 See remarks of Hamilton (Elliott's Debates) on the compromise between Northern navigation and the Fugitive Slave law. LIMITATIONS OF THE SLAVE TRADE. 13 that, however, which was originally proposed to the Convention by the committee appointed to draft that instrument. This committee consisted of Messrs. Rutledge of South Carolina, Randolph of Virginia, Gorham of Massachusetts, Ellsworth of Connecticut, and Wilson of Pennsylvania. It will be observed that, of this committee of five, three members were from the Northern States. The following is the proposition submitted by them upon this point: "No tax or duty shall be laid by the Legislature [meaning Congress] on articles exported from any State; nor on the migration or importation of such persons as the several States shall think proper to admit; nor shall such migration or importation be prohibited." This clause was subsequently referred to a special committee, consisting of one member from each State represented in the Convention. Mr. Livingston, of New Jersey, reported from this committee the following proposition, by way of substitute for the clause recommended by the committee of five: "The migration or importation of such persons as the several States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Legislature [meaning Congress] prior to the year 1800; but a tax or duty may be imposed on such migration or importation at a rate not exceeding the average of the duties laid on imports." When this report came up for consideration, a motion was made to substitute the year "1808" for the year "1800.” This amendment passed in the affirmative by the following vote, which deserves consideration: YEAS-New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia-7. NAYS-New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Delaware-4. The three New England States which were represented in the Convention, therefore, voted for the extension of the slave trade to the longest proposed period. Rhode Island, the other New England State, was at that time largely engaged in the traffic, and hence what would have been the action of its delegates, had any been present from that State, may be inferred.' The proceedings of the Convention upon this clause are also interesting, as a manifestation of scruples about a word, by men who permitted and sanctioned the thing clearly signified by that word. The question had been before the Convention in the following shape: "The importation of slaves into such of the States as shall permit the same shall not be prohibited by the Legislature of the United States until the year 1808." This measure was lost in the vote taken upon it, which stood thus: YEAS-Connecticut, Virginia, Georgia—3. NAYS-New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Delaware, North Carolina, South Carolina-6. The delegation of Maryland was divided. From this statement it will be seen that, while the Connecticut members thought it as well to have the name with the thing, and those of Virginia, who had stood out against the extension of the traffic, had no objection to calling things by their right names, South Carolina exhibited scruples upon this point. The matter was finally adjusted by agreeing to the circumlocutory language retained in the standing clause of the Constitution, in lieu of using the word "slaves;" and the measure passed in the affirmative by the votes given below, the New England States assenting, and Virginia returning to its first position, namely: YEAS-New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia-7. NAYS-New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Virginia—4. In fact, it must have appeared clear to the minds of those sagacious gentlemen, that the rhetoric, if not the argument, of the Declaration of Independence would remain a standing protest against the word slaves, as applied to the subject Rhode Island adopted the Constitution May 29, 1790, nearly two years after the ratification of the Constitution by the number of States prescribed as requisite to the formation of the new Union. THE VIRGINIAN BILL OF RIGHTS. 15 race, if introduced into the body of the Constitution. Under a multitude of circumstances, permitting the use of more passionate phraseology than could be employed in an instrument so solemn as that manifesto, they and their associates had been in the habit, during the struggle for independence, of denominating the contest a mighty effort to free themselves and their compatriots from the burden of slavery. As a jubilant, poetical utterance of a period, when the sentiments and feelings of the revolutionary struggle were fresh in the popular heart, expressed it "The British yoke, the Gallic chain, Were urged upon our necks in vain; But the whole contemporaneous and subsequent action of our ancestors shows conclusively, that the negro race was never even thought of as coming within the somewhat broad compass of the elementary principle of the Declaration, namely, "that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." That Declaration was promulgated on the fourth day of July, 1776. But it was based in essential respects upon the "Declaration of rights made by the Representatives of the good people of Virginia," unanimously adopted in Convention, June 12, 1776, more than three weeks earlier. Of the latter instrument the first article reads: "That all men are by nature equally free and independent, and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot by any compact deprive or divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety." But at the very time that Bill of Rights was unanimously adopted by the Convention of Virginia, the number of slaves held under the jurisdiction of Virginia amounted to not far from two hundred and fifty thousand.' The inference, there 'Slaves held in Virginia in 1790 293,427. a denial of the obligation of those laws. It was alleged by the advocates of the movement, that man could not rightfully hold property in man. Hence, they aimed from the first at the abrogation of the Constitution; or, in the alternative of failure in that object, at the dissolution of the Union. There was no concealment of either of those purposes. The right which they denied was one of very ancient standing in prac tice. It never seems to have occurred to them, or, if it did, they soon learned to disregard the obligation, that this right is expressly recognized in the Moral Law. The injunction: "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's man-servant, nor his maid-servant," can no more cease to be binding, so long as that relation exists under the law of the land, than either of the other commandments of the Decalogue. A civil community may lawfully authorize a condition of bondage for a portion of its population which is unsuited for the exercise of civil rights, if the apparent well-being of the whole requires it. Under ordinary circumstances, and in a state of advanced civilization, it is obvious that the public welfare demands no such condition to be maintained. Wherever such a system of bondage exists, however, although no citizen is under any obligation to hold either man-servant or maid-servant, according to the unquestionable Scriptural sense of those terms; yet so long as one jot or one tittle of the Moral Law remains to be fulfilled, his neighbor cannot interfere with his legal rights without sin. And he who destroys his neighbor's property, or deprives him of it in any unlawful manner, though not appropriated to his own use, nevertheless covets it. He who burns another's dwelling, without intending theft, is equally guilty of arson with him who sets it on fire for the express purpose of plunder. The Abolitionists, indeed, declared that human slavery, so far as it had received Scriptural sanction, had only been permitted to former ages, for inscrutable reasons, just as polygamy was then allowed. The Republican Convention, which nominated candidates for the support of its party in 1856, denounced slavery and polygamy together, as “twin |