government by contributions which they had not the power to make good, because their commercial condition did not admit of heavy taxation; how they endeavored to pass from this system to a grant of temporary revenues and temporary commercial regulation, to be vested in the federal Union; how they found it impracticable to agree upon the principles and details of a temporary power; how they turned to separate commercial leagues, each with its immediate neighbors, and were disappointed in the result or frustrated in the effort; and how at last they came to the conception of a full and irrevocable surrender of commercial and fiscal regulations to a central legislature, that could grasp the interests of the whole country and combine them in one harmonious system.

The influence of the commercial and revenue powers thus obtained by the general government, on the condition of this country, has far exceeded the most sanguine hopes which the framers of the Constitution could have indulged. No one can doubt that the people of America owe to it both the nature and the degree of their actual prosperity; and as the national prosperity has given them importance in the world, it is just and accurate to say that commerce and its effects have elevated republican institutions to a high dignity and influence. Let the reader consider the interests of commerce, in their widest relations with all that they comprehend the interests of the merchant, the artisan, and the tiller of the soil being alike involved as the chief purpose of the new government given to this Union; let him contemplate this as the central object around which are arranged almost all the great provisions of the Constitution of the United States, and he will see in it a wonderfully harmonious and powerful system, created for the security of property and the promotion of the material welfare and prosperity of individuals, whatever their occupation, employment, or condition. That such a code of civil government should have sprung from the necessities of commerce is surely one of the triumphs of modern civilization.

It is not to be denied that the sedulous care with which this great provision was made for the general prosperity has had the effect of impressing on the national character a strong spirit of acquisition. The character of a people, however, is to be judged not merely by the pursuit or the possession of wealth, but chiefly

by the use which they make of it. If the inhabitants of the United States can justly claim distinction for the benevolent virtues; if the wealth that is eagerly sought and rapidly acquired is freely used for the relief of human suffering; if learning, science, and the arts are duly cultivated; if popular education is an object of lavish expenditure; if the institutions of religion, though depending on a purely voluntary support, are provided for liberally and from conscientious motives-then is the national spirit of acquisition not without fruits of which it has no need to be ashamed.

The objection that the Constitution of the United States and the immense prosperity which has flowed from it were obtained by certain concessions in favor of the institution of slavery results from a merely superficial view of the subject. If we would form a right estimate of the gain or loss to human nature effected by any given political arrangement, we must take into consideration the antecedent facts, and endeavor to judge whether a better result could have been obtained by a different mode of dealing with them. We shall then be able to appreciate the positive good that has been gained or the positive loss that has been suffered.

The prominent facts to be considered are, in the first place, that slavery existed, and would continue to exist, in certain of the states, and that the condition of the African race in those states was universally regarded as a matter of purely local conern. It could not, in fact, have been otherwise, for there were slaves in every state excepting Massachusetts and New Hampshire; and among the other states in which measures had been, or were likely to be, taken for the removal of slavery there was a great variety of circumstances affecting the time and mode in which it should be finally extinguished. As soon as the point was settled, in the formation of the Constitution of the United States, that the state governments were to be preserved, with all their powers unimpaired which were not required by the objects of the national government to be surrendered to the Union, the domestic relations of their inhabitants with each other necessarily remained under their exclusive control. Those relations were not involved in the purposes of the federal Union.

So soon, also, as this was perceived and admitted, it became a necessary consequence of the admission that the national author

ity should guarantee to the people of each state the right to shape and modify their own social institutions; for without this principle laid at the foundation of the Union there could be no peace or security for such a mixed system of government.

In the second place, we have to consider the fact that, among the political rights of the states anterior to the national Constitution, was the right to admit or prohibit the further importation of slaves-a traffic not then forbidden by any European nation to its colonies, but which had been interdicted by ten of the American states. The transfer of this right to the federal Union was a purely voluntary act; it was not strictly necessary for the purposes for which it was proposed to establish the Constitution of the United States; although there were political reasons for which a part of the states might wish to acquire control over this subject, as well as moral reasons why all the states should have desired to vest that control in the general government. Three of the states, however, as we have seen, took a different view of their interest and duty, and declined to enter the new Union unless this traffic should be excepted from the power over commerce for a period of twenty years.

It is quite plain that, if these facts had been met and dealt with in a manner different from the settlement that was actually made, one of two consequences must have ensued:-either no Constitution at all could have been adopted, or there would have been a union of some kind, from which three at least of the states must have been excluded. If the first, by far the most probable contingency, had happened, a great feebleness and poverty of society must have continued to be the lot of all these states; there must have been perpetual collisions and rival confederacies; there certainly would have been an indefinite continuance of the slave-trade, accompanied and followed by a great external pressure upon the states which permitted it, which would have led to a war of races, or to a frightful oppression of the slaves. Most of these evils would have followed the establishment of a partial confederacy.

CHAPTER XXVII.

REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE OF DETAIL, CONTINUED. THE REMAINING POWERS OF CONGRESS. RESTRAINTS UPON CONGRESS AND UPON THE STATES.

In the last preceding chapter the reader has traced the origin of the revenue and commercial powers, and of certain restrictions applied to them in the progress of those great compacts by means of which they became incorporated into the Constitution. We have now to examine some other qualifications which were annexed to those powers after the first draft of the instrument had been prepared and reported by the committee of detail.

That committee had presented a naked power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises,' with a certain restriction as to the taxation of exports, the final disposition of which has been already described; but they had designated no particular objects to which the revenues thus derived were to be applied. The general clause embracing the revenue power was affirmed unanimously by the Convention, on the 16th of August, leaving the exception of exports for future action. At a subsequent period we find the words, "to pay the debts and provide for the common defence and general welfare of the United States," added to the clause which empowers Congress to levy taxes and duties; and it is a somewhat important inquiry, how and with what purpose they were placed there.

While the powers proposed by the committee of detail were under consideration, Mr. Charles Pinckney introduced several topics designed to supply omissions in their report, which were thereupon referred to that committee. The purpose of one of his suggestions was to provide, on the one hand, that funds appropriated for the payment of public creditors should not, during the

'Art. VII. § 1 of the first draft of the Constitution. Elliot, V. 378.

time of such appropriation, be diverted to any other purpose; and, on the other hand, that Congress should be restrained from establishing perpetual revenues. Another of his suggestions contemplated a power to secure the payment of the public debt, and still another to prevent a violation of the public faith when once pledged to any public creditor.' Immediately after this reference Mr. Rutledge moved for what was called a grand committee,' to consider the expediency of an assumption by the United States of the state debts; and after some discussion of the subject, such a committee was raised, and Mr. Rutledge's motion was referred to them, together with a proposition introduced by Mr. Mason for restraining grants of perpetual revenue.' Thus it appears that the principal subject involved in the latter reference was the propriety of inserting in the Constitution a specific power to make special appropriations for the payment of debts of the United States and of the several states, incurred during the late war for the common defence and general welfare; and not to make a declaration of the general purposes for which revenues were to be raised. Both committees, however, seemed to have been charged with the consideration of some restraint on the revenue power, with a view to prevent perpetual taxes of any kind. The grand committee reported first, presenting the following special provision: "The legislature of the United States shall have power to fulfil the engagements which have been entered into by Congress, and to discharge, as well the debts of the United States, as the debts incurred by the several states during the late war for the common defence and general welfare." On the following day the committee of detail presented a report, recommending that at the end of the clause already adopted, which contained the grant of the revenue power, the following words should be added: "for payment of the debts and necessary expenses of the United States; provided that no law for raising any branch of revenue, except what may be specially appropriated for the payment of interest on debts or loans, shall continue in force for more than years."

1

995

August 18th. Elliot, V. 440. A committee of one member from each state.

3 Elliot, V. 441. To the same grand committee was afterwards referred the subject of the militia. See infra.

4

August 21st. Elliot, V. 451.

5

August 22d. Ibid., 462.