60

1

REJOICINGS OVER RATIFICATION.

amendments. The Maryland convention was, therefore, in some respects quite like that of Pennsylvania; the amendments of the minority in both States failing to pass. But these represented anti-federal sentiment in the State and more or less in other States, and later had weight with Madison's committee in Congress, when it made its report recommending the adoption of twelve amendments.2

The rejoicings in Baltimore over the ratification were a repetition of those which Boston had witnessed. The artisans and tradesmen organized a procession, and the day closed with a public dinner, a ball and the illumination of the city. The most conspicuous object in the procession, as at Boston, was the ship Federalist, which, completely rigged and manned by marines in their holiday attire, represented to the people the new Ship of State, and the new voyage which they were undertaking. Of all the emblematic objects which might have been seen in the processions that usually followed a ratification, this little ship Federalist was undoubtedly the most beautiful to the eye. After the rejoicings were over, it was sent, under command of Captain Barney, to Mount Vernon as a present to Washington, who, in accepting it, remarked on the exactitude of its proportions, the neatness of its workmanship and the elegance of its decorations.3

In South Carolina, the strength of the opposition was chiefly among the people in the rural districts, most of whom favored legal tender acts, installment laws and paper money.1 The insistence of the South Carolina dele

1 For all the amendments see Elliot, II, 549-553.

2 The extent to which the Maryland amendments were incorporated in Madison's report may be seen from the notes to the chapters on the first twelve amendments, Book III, Ch. VI, VII.

3 Washington to William Smith and others. June 8, 1788. Works, IX, 375.

4 Libby, 68.

SENTIMENT IN SOUTH CAROLINA.

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gates in the Federal Convention that the new plan should protect slavery and not bear hard on imports by making discriminating tariff laws, undoubtedly re-echoed the fears of many people in the State. It was divided then, as now, into two regions, known as the upper and the lower division,' the highlands and the lowlands. But the opinions of their inhabitants were not so opposite as those of the like divisions in Virginia. The first serious attention given to the new Constitution was in the House of Representatives, which, on the sixteenth of January, 1788, in Committee of the Whole, listened to Charles Pinckney's account of the origin and development of the new plan.2 The necessity of having a government which would operate upon the people and not upon the States, he said, was conceived to be indispensable by every delegation present at Philadelphia. A system of checks and balances had been incorporated in the plan which would secure the preservation of all rights, public and private. A federal judiciary was necessary to control and to keep the State judiciary within proper limits. No danger was to be apprehended from the executive power, because it was dependent upon the legislative and was guarded by many limitations.

Pinckney agreed with Wilson and McKean that the new government promised to be the best ever offered to the world. Instead of being alarmed at its consequences, the people might well be astonished that one so perfect had been formed from so discordant and unpromising materials. The system was conceived on republican principles and properly distributed powers of government. But the opposition did not take so favorable a view.

Rawlins Lowndes, whose patriotism had been doubted

1 For the importance of this division in 1868, at the time of the adoption of the fourteenth amendment, see Vol. III.

2 Elliot, IV, 253.

62

LOWNDES AND PINCKNEY.

in 1776,1 could see only danger in placing the treatymaking power in the Senate, a quorum of which could consist of fourteen, and the number necessary to negotiate a treaty only ten. The plan discriminated against the South, so that it was not probable that either South Carolina or Georgia would ever furnish a President. Charles Cotesworth Pinckney replied,2 that this mode of reasoning was unfair. South Carolina would have its share in the appointment of the President, and in the election of Senators; so, too, would Georgia; and if either State had a man fit for the Presidency, the fact that he was from the South would not be an objection.3 Rutledge1 corrected the interpretation of the treaty-making power, which Lowndes had made, and scouted the idea that only ten members would ever be left to manage the business of the Senate. A treaty under the Articles of Confederation was no less paramount to local law than one would be under the Constitution, and David Ramsey observed that the country would soon find itself without ambassadors if it did not intend to fulfill treaties after they were made.

5

But Lowndes insisted that the country was already under the government of a most excellent Constitution, which had stood the test of time and carried it through difficulties generally supposed to be unsurmountable, giving it at last the blessings of liberty and independence; why then be so impatient to change it for another, and to pull down a fabric which had been raised at the ex

1 Id., 265.

2 Id., 267.

3 The people of Georgia and the Carolinas at this time seemed to have identified Maryland and Virginia with the North rather than with the South.

4 Elliot, IV, 268.

Charles C. Pinckney, January 17, 1788. Id., 277-278.

LOWNDES OPPOSES THE CONSTITUTION.

63

pense of so much blood. He believed that when the new Constitution should be adopted, the sun of the southern States would set never to rise again. By the new plan, the eastern States would form a majority in the House of Representatives; what safety did this augur for the South? Jealousy of the slave trade and its limitation to twenty years, or, for that matter, any limitation at all, were without cause, and he spoke words destined to be echoed and re-echoed for seventy years,1 that the trade was justifiable on the principles of religion and humanity, for it transported human beings from a bad country to a good one. The North did not like slavery, because it had no slaves, and, therefore, wished to exclude the South from its great advantage.2 At this time North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, as Pendleton observed, permitted the importation of slaves, but he might have added that the constitution of Delaware forbade it.3 Lowndes defended the trade, asserting that, without her negroes, South Carolina would degenerate into one of the most contemptible States in the Union; and he strenuously objected to the taxation of ten dollars which might be levied on each negro imported. Negroes, he said, were the wealth and natural resource of the State, but the North was determined to tie up the hands of its people and strip them of what they had.1

1 For an account of the proposed re-opening of the African slave trade in 1860, see post; Vol. III, index.

2 Elliot, IV, 272, see the Declaration of Causes and the Appeal of the slave-holding States issued by South Carolina in 1860. Post pp. 561-581.

3 1776, Article XXVI. This was the only explicit prohibition in any State constitution. It will be remembered that during the debate on the slave trade in the Federal Convention, it was suggested that Georgia and the Carolinas be prohibited by name in the Constitution from engaging in it.

4 Elliot, IV, 273.

64

LINES OF IMMIGRATION.

Pinckney, in reply, explained that the Convention had found it necessary to give extensive powers to the federal government, over both the persons and the estates of citizens, and, therefore, had thought it right to draw one branch of the legislature immediately from the people, wealth and numbers both being considered in the representation. The best rule for ascertaining wealth, it had been thought, was the productive labor of the inhabitants, and in conformity with this rule and a spirit of concession, three-fifths of the slaves had been added to the whole number of free persons. The first House of Representatives would consist of sixty-five members, of whom South Carolina would send five. This was one-thirteenth of the entire number, and the same proportion that the State had in the Confederation.

At this time it was generally believed that population was likely to increase most rapidly southward and southwestward, as the movement of population was in that direction.1 The prospect, therefore, that the southern States would have an adequate share in representation was encouraging. As yet the South was weak. South Carolina without union with the other States must decay. Lowndes's objections to the restrictions on the slave trade after the year 1808, led Pinckney to explain that the southern delegates, in settling the slave trade, had to contend with the reasons and political prejudices of the eastern and middle States and with the interested and inconsistent opinions of Virginia, which was warmly opposed to the further importation of slaves. Pinckney reasserted his belief that slave labor was essential to the prosperity of South Carolina. He did not hold with the opponents

1 For an account of the lines of migration to the West and a map showing the wilderness roads, see my Constitutional History of the American People, 1776-1850, I, 157-158.