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serting, and doing our whole duty as citizens of the United States, desirous of restoring the Union to its original completeness for its true purpose.

This will not be the first time that our Society has endeavored, from the records of the past, to throw light on the path of the Government in the legislative and military action of the present. We were not long since called together specially to contribute, from an historical point of view, our aid in guiding public opinion; and the publication of the Report on the Exchange of Prisoners during the American Revolution," read at that meeting, was warmly welcomed, as a timely and serviceable act.

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Although there is a wide difference of opinion as to the cause of the rebellion, or rather as to the persons on whom rests the responsibility of having brought on this terrible civil war, yet all are agreed, that, if negro slavery had not existed in this country, we should now be in a condition of peace and prosperity.

I have thought that I could not, at this time, perform a more useful duty, as a member of the Society, than by preparing a documentary paper of carefully edited authorities, relating to NEGROES as slaves, as citizens, and as soldiers, in order to show what were the principles and the practice of the Founders of the Republic, and thus to ascertain who have been unfaithful to the "compromises of the Constitution," and to the principles upon which the Union was based, and for which the Government was established.

In doing this, I shall endeavor to act simply as an historical inquirer, without any attempt to enforce sentiments or theories of my own. It is my purpose to present the simple records of the opinion and action of persons who have ac knowledged claims to be considered as authorities.

As an appropriate introduction to the task I have proposed to myself, of producing some of the recorded opinions of

those who were eminently the Founders of the Republic, I proceed to set forth, by authentic citations, the modern doctrine which has given occasion for this research, and also some of the most important refutations of that doctrine which have yet appeared. These, taken together, will exhibit the present state of the great question as to its first two branches; namely, the opinions held in relation to negroes as slaves and as citizens before, during, and some time after, the formation of the Government of the United States.

It is a noticeable fact, that, while the Southern leaders of the rebellion uniformly denounce the North for having denied to them their guarantied rights under the Constitution, they are widely at variance when they come to specify their griev

ances.

Mr. Jefferson Davis, on the 29th of April, 1861, in his Message, says:

Davis.

“When the several States delegated certain powers to the United- Jefferson States Congress, a large portion of the laboring population consisted of African slaves, imported into the colonies by the mother-country. In twelve out of the thirteen States, negro slavery existed; and the right of property in slaves was protected by law. This property was recognized in the Constitution; and provision was made against its loss by the escape of the slave.

"The increase in the number of slaves by further importation from Africa was also secured by a clause forbidding Congress to prohibit the slave-trade anterior to a certain date; and in no clause can there be found any delegation of power to the Congress, authorizing it in any manner to legislate to the prejudice, detriment, or discouragement of the owners of that species of property, or excluding it from the protection of the Government.

“The climate and soil of the Northern States soon proved unpropitious to the continuance of slave-labor; whilst the converse was the case at the South. Under the unrestricted free intercourse between the two sections, the Northern States consulted their own interest, by selling their slaves to the South, and prohibiting slavery within their limits. The South were willing purchasers of a property suitable to their wants, and paid the price of the acquisition without harboring a

Davis.

Jefferson suspicion that their quiet possession was to be disturbed by those who were inhibited not only by want of constitutional authority, but by good faith as vendors, from disquieting a title emanating from them

Alex. H.

selves.

"As soon, however, as the Northern States that prohibited African slavery within their limits had reached a number sufficient to give their representation a controlling voice in the Congress, a persistent and organized system of hostile measures against the rights of the owners of slaves in the Southern States was inaugurated, and gradually extended. A continuous series of measures was devised and prosecuted for the purpose of rendering insecure the tenure of property in slaves.

"With interests of such overwhelming magnitude imperilled, the people of the Southern States were driven by the conduct of the Northto the adoption of some course of action to avoid the danger with which they were openly menaced. With this view, the Legislatures of the several States invited the people to select delegates to Conventions to be held for the purpose of determining for themselves what measures were best adapted to meet so alarming a crisis in their history." National Intelligencer, Tuesday, 7 May, 1861.

It is not necessary for us to go out of the so-called Southern Confederacy, nor far from the presence of its pretended President, to refute this accusation of change in principle or in policy on the part of the North.

The associate of Mr. Davis, Mr. Alexander H. Stephens (Vice-President, as he is called,) thus frankly avows his sentiments in a speech, delivered at Savannah on the 21st of March, 1861:

"The new Constitution has put at rest for ever all the agitating Stephens. questions relating to our peculiar institutions, African slavery as it exists amongst us, the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution. JEFFERSON, in his forecast, had anticipated this, as the 'rock upon which the old Union would split.' He was right. What was conjecture with him is now a realized fact. But whether he fully comprehended the great truth upon which that great rock stood and stands, may be doubted. The prevailing ideas entertained by him and most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old Constitu

tion, were, that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the Alex. H. Stephens. laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally, and politically. It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with; but the general opinion of the men of that day was, that, somehow or other in the order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent, and pass away. This idea, though not incorporated in the Constitution, was the prevailing idea at the time. The Constitution, it is true, secured every essential guarantee to the institution while it should last; and hence no argument can be justly used against the constitutional guarantees thus secured, because of the common sentiment of the day. Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation; and the idea of a government built upon it, — when the 'storm came and the wind blew, it fell.'

“Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite ideas. Its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests, upon the great truth, that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth. This truth has been slow in the process of its development, like all other truths in the various departments of science. It has been so even amongst us. Many who hear me, perhaps, can recollect well that this truth was not generally admitted, even within their day." National Intelligencer, Tuesday, 2 April, 1861.

This ought to be sufficient to put at rest for ever the accusation of change of opinion, and of unfaithfulness to the original compromises of the Constitution and to the spirit of the founders of our Government. But it is a lamentable fact, that there are not wanting amongst us men, claiming to be friends of the Union and the Constitution, who yet, through ignorance or recklessness, continue to violate the truth of history on this subject.

Without referring more particularly to political writers and speakers of this class, I would call attention to the well-known words of the Chief-Justice of the United-States Supreme Court, in the celebrated case of Dred Scott, at the December Term, 1856.

Chief-Justice Taney.

Judge Taney's language is as follows:

"Can a negro, whose ancestors were imported into this country and sold as slaves, become a member of the political community formed and brought into existence by the Constitution of the United States, and as such become entitled to all the rights, and privileges, and immunities guarantied by that instrument to the citizen? One of which rights is the privilege of suing in a court of the United States in the cases specified in the Constitution.

"The question before us is, whether the class of persons described in the plea in abatement compose a portion of this people, and are constituent members of this sovereignty? We think they are not, and that they are not included, and were not intended to be included, under the word 'citizen' in the Constitution, and can therefore claim none of the rights and privileges which that instrument provides for and secures to citizens of the United States. On the contrary, they were at that time considered as a subordinate and inferior class of beings, who had been subjugated by the dominant race, and, whether emancipated or not, yet remained subject to their authority, and had no rights or privileges but such as those who held the power and the Government might choose to grant them.

"They had for more than a century before been regarded as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations; and so far inferior, that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect; and that the negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his benefit. He was bought and sold, and treated as an ordinary article of merchandise and traffic, whenever a profit could be made by it. This opinion was at that time fixed and universal in the civilized portion of the white race. It was regarded as an axiom in morals as well as in politics, which no one thought of disputing, or supposed to be open to dispute; and men, in every grade and position in society, daily and habitually acted upon it in their private pursuits, as well as in matters of public concern, without doubting for a moment the correctness of this opinion." - Howard's Reports, vol. xix. pp. 403-405, 407.

This remarkable assertion is in direct violation of historic truth. It shocked the moral sentiment of our own commu

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