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of the nation firmly back on to the Declaration of Independence, as the clear and unalterable definition of its principles.

But the nation was to be further humiliated by the persistent determination of the South to provide for the importation of slaves. The grand committee of detail, to whom the project of a constitution had been committed to perfect it, reported against taxing imports, which was so far the triumph of the Southern purpose to steal the bodies and souls of men in Africa, force them across the high seas, and coin money from their sale and unpaid labor. This attempt to render constitutional a traffic so inhuman, and revolting to all the feelings of justice and honor, brought on a storm of indignation. King "denounced the admission of slaves as a most grievous circumstance to his mind; and he believed it would be so to a great part of the people of America." "He had hoped that some accommodation would have taken place on this subject; that at least a time would have been limited for the importation of slaves. He never could agree to let them be imported without limitation, and then be represented in the national legislature." Governeur Morris declared slavery "was a nefarious institution. It was the curse of Heaven on the States where it prevailed." He drew in vivid contrast the desolations of the South by slavery, and the prosperity of the North with the labor of freemen; and then demanded, "Upon what principle is it that the slaves shall be computed in the representation? Are they men? Then make them citizens, and let them vote. Are they property? Why, then, is no other property included?" "The admission of slaves into the representation, when fairly explained, comes to this, that the inhabitant of Georgia and South Carolina, who goes to the coast of Africa in defiance of the most sacred laws of humanity, tears away his fellowcreatures from their dearest connections, and damns them to the most cruel bondage, shall have more votes in a

government instituted for the protection of the rights of mankind than the citizen of Pennsylvania and New Jersey, who views with a laudable horror so nefarious a practice."

Now listen to a voice from the South: "South Carolina," said C. Pinckney, "can never receive the plan if it prohibits the slave-trade. In every proposed extension of the powers of Congress, that State has expressly and watchfully excepted the power of meddling with the importation of negroes." The battle was a severe one; but Southern tenacity again triumphed, so far as to give free license to the infamous traffic in slaves for twenty years. For giving the majority to this wicked act, the North received "the unrestricted power of Congress to enact navigation laws," - a miserable consideration for the utter sacrifice of right in favor of the most consummate villany the human race ever knew.

Still another degradation must be fastened upon. the nation, to appease the foul spirit of slavery. Without debate, the infamous clause went into the Constitution, "bearing," says Hildreth, "the plain marks of a New-England hand,"—"No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due."

We may now place together, as the grand facts of this period of our history which stand out distinctly against the true spirit and aim of the new government, the failure to adopt the motion of Franklin, providing for a solemn recognition of the sovereignty of God by daily prayer in the Constitutional Convention; the entire omission of the name and authority of Jehovah from the Constitution; the recognition of the right of property in man; and the infamous toleration of the slave-trade, and the rendition of slaves. These all show that no moral or political millennium had

come; that sin was yet mighty in the earth; and that years of heroic battle for the right must precede the triumph of those principles of American freedom defined by the immortal Declaration.

But marked progress had been made in the development of national unity. Compared with the old Articles of Confederation, the Constitution was a bold advance in asserting the rights and functions of the nation, as such, in triumphing over local prejudices and sectional demands, advocated under the name of "State rights."

The question sent to the several State conventions, in submitting the plan for approval, was not whether it was perfect or satisfactory in its details, but whether, on the whole, it should be accepted as the best that could be obtained. Four months of desperate efforts to find the true organic unity of the nation had reached this result, and could do no more. Should the Constitution be ratified and tried, or anarchy and civil war be preferred?

Two parties had been developed by the struggles of this trying period. The Federalists wanted a strong, centralized government. Dissatisfied with what they termed the weakness of the plan agreed upon by the Convention, they submitted to it with the hope of amending it in the direction of greater power. The Democrats opposed it, as tending to a central despotism. They would have defeated it; but hoping finally to secure amendments granting more power to the States, and fearing the most calamitous results if it should be rejected, one State after another formally ratified it. The most desperate efforts were made to secure a conditional approval; but, as this would have been fatal, the efforts of a large and powerful statemanship finally secured an unconditional ratification from Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Georgia, Connecticut, Massachusetts. New Hampshire, Maryland, South Carolina, Virginia, and New York. Several of these States, following the lead of Massachusetts, sent forward with their official notice of

ratification various fundamental amendments, which served chiefly to show what concessions the sections had made for the sake of unity. North Carolina imposed conditions; and Rhode Island was too democratic to hold a convention. These two States could not, therefore, be counted; but, as the vote of the nine States was conclusive, the new Constitution became the organic law of the nation.

For three hundred years, God had been steadily and visibly moving the elements of civil liberty and moral power for the accomplishment of this grand result. The most improbable combinations had been formed; the resources of remote islands and continents had been gathered; peoples of distant origin, and tongues unknown to each other, had been drawn together by forces which they little understood; the most formidable arrangements of power had been dashed to atoms; and minds utterly diverse in opinions, prejudices, and culture, had been quietly moulded by invisible agency to render this sublime result possible. But the American people were no longer floating bodies of aimless adventurers; nor mere separate colonies, dependent upon the will of a distant power; nor independent confederate States. They were a new, vigorous, and completely organized nation.

CHAPTER IX.

TRUE CHRISTIANITY AN INDESTRUCTIBLE NATIONAL LIFE.

"The great comprehensive truths written in letters of living light on every page of our history are these: Human happiness has no perfect security but freedom, freedom none but virtue, virtue none but knowledge; and neither freedom nor virtue has any vigor or immortal hope except in the principles of the Christian faith and in the sanctions of the Christian religion."-PRESIDENT QUINCY.

A FORM of government is to be distinguished from the life of a nation. Peoples find themselves thrown into neighborhood relations, and a social order rises up from the very necessities of contiguity, reciprocal wants, and acts of kindness. They may increase so much in numbers, and reach over a territory so far, as to have the magnitude and the outward forms of a nation. They may organize with all the laws of civil society, make treaties, and perform all other acts of national sovereignty; and yet they may be without any essential pervading vitality. Angry disputes and sectional jealousies will separate and destroy them. Their local organizations and civil liberties will become a prey to the ambition of the most powerful chief and his bands of marauders. No national life will appear to rescue the common government from the hand of violence, or preserve the organization from dissolution.

Then a despotic ruler may assert sovereignty over provinces near or remote. Conquered territory may be annexed, by the action of force, to a kingdom of vast resources and military power; but if nothing homogeneous appears, if there are no common bonds of interest and mutual dependence, if no vital force circulates through the

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