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; And shout, 'Long live America!'" 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 happiThat 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: ness." "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 1 Slaves held in Virginia in 1790 293,427. fore, is inevitable, that negroes were not contemplated at all in the several declarations. But objection might well occur, under the circumstances, to the insertion of the term slave into the phraseology of the Constitution about to be submitted to the consideration of the several States; as well those in which the slaves were few, and where the institution was evidently dying out, as those in which the negro popu lation was rapidly multiplying and slave labor was becoming more and more profitable. Undoubtedly, many persons of that day apprehended a certain political inconsistency between the sentiments of liberty, vindicated by the freedom from foreign domination just achieved by the young republic about to be created, and a system of bondage maintained for any portion of its inhabitants. It is well known, also, that there were those who entertained vague ideas of the eventual abrogation of the system. These ideas took no practical turn, however, except as some benevolent master occasionally liberated his slaves by his final testamentalways, in such case, making some suitable provision for their support when aged or helpless, and for their start in life when more able to secure their own maintenance. But, there was the fact of the existence of the slaves themselves in large numbers, dependent and needing oversight, as well as bound to perform the labor required; and, as time went by, the thought of liberating so vast a body as they had become, which seemed scarcely less than an abandonment of them to want and misery and crime, passed also away, except as economical considerations began, at length, to have their influence in certain of the border slave States. In this connection the remark may be permitted, that the language of the Virginian Bill of Rights is much more philosophical, and in accordance with fact, than the correspondent phraseology of the Declaration of Independence. That all men in a state of nature, could such a state exist for a moment where even not more than two persons live side by side, are equally entitled to the personal rights defined by the Virginian Declaration, is indisputable. But the freest commonwealth CONDITION OF NEGROES, NORTH AND SOUTH. 17 neither is nor can be a state of nature. Under the most favorable circumstances it can only be alleged in the vaguest and most inconsequential sense that "all men are created equal." At their entrance into the world, all human beings are so far on a level, that they are uniformly incapable of exercising or enjoying any right for which they are not entirely dependent on the will of others. Upon quitting the world, the proudest king is stripped to the indiscriminate nakedness of the meanest beggar. Between the two conditions, society in its best estate can recognize no fixed law able to do more than to regulate, in some convenient and useful manner and measure, the infinite diversities and inequalities of human life-its chances and changes, its capacities and dispositions. And superior to all the decrees and ordinances of man, will forever stand the immutable laws of Nature, which he must implicitly obey, or suffer and make others suffer with him the consequences of resistance. It is also to be remarked, that, at the period of the Revolution, there was a generally more tender sentiment in regard to slavery and its subjects at the South, than at the North. Leading persons in the slave States, in Virginia especially, among whom were Washington, Jefferson, and Madison, expressed earnest hopes for the abrogation of the slave system, on both humane and political considerations. They saw that it had its evils, and they desired to remove all evils from the face of the country and the earth. Without proposing any specific remedy for this particular phase of mortal ill, those great men still hoped that a time would come, when white labor could be usefully substituted for that of the blacks, and the country could be relieved from an ostensible inconsistency between the principles of its institutions and its practice, though one for which it was itself in no wise responsible. But while in the North the negro was in a condition of unqualified degradation, whether he was nominally bond or free, his general state in the South was bettered by many alleviating circumstances. In the one case he had no relation whatever with the white population, except as a |