Abraham Lincoln by George Haven Putnam (win 10 ebook reader txt) 📖
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Dr. Ramsay, a member of the Convention of South Carolina, in his history of the United States, vol. 3, pages 36, 37, says: "Under these liberal principles, Congress, in organizing colonies, bound themselves to impart to their inhabitants all the privileges of coequal States, as soon as they were capable of enjoying them. In their infancy, government was administered for them without any expense. As soon as they should have 60,000 inhabitants, they were authorized to call a convention, and, by common consent, to form their own constitution. This being done, they were entitled to representation in Congress, and every right attached to the original States. These privileges are not confined to any particular country or complexion. They are communicable to the emancipated slave (for in the new State of Ohio, slavery is altogether prohibited), to the copper-colored native, and all other human beings who, after a competent residence and degree of civilization, are capable of enjoying the blessings of regular government."
[12]
—The Act of 1789, as reported by the Committee, was received and read Thursday, July 16th. The second reading was on Friday, the 17th, when it was committed to the Committee of the whole house, "on Monday next." On Monday, July 20th, it was considered in Committee of the whole, and ordered to a third reading on the following day; on the 21st, it passed the House, and was sent to the Senate. In the Senate it had its first reading on the same day, and was ordered to a second reading on the following day (July 22d), and on the 4th of August it passed, and on the 7th was approved by the President.
[13]
—The "sixteen" represented these States: Langdon and Oilman, New Hampshire; Sherman and Johnson, Connecticut; Morris, Fitzsimmons, and Clymer, Pennsylvania; King, Massachusetts; Paterson, New Jersey; Few and Baldwin, Georgia; Bassett and Read, Delaware; Butler, South Carolina; Carroll, Maryland; and Madison, Virginia
[14]
—Vide note 3, ante.
[15]
—Chap. 28, § 7, U.S. Statutes, 5th Congress, 2d Session.
[16]
—Langdon was from New Hampshire, Read from Delaware, and Baldwin from Georgia.
[17]
—Chap. 38, § 10, U.S. Statutes, 8th Congress, 1st Session.
[18]
—Baldwin was from Georgia, and Dayton from New Jersey.
[19]
—Rufus King, who sat in the old Congress, and also in the Convention, as the representative of Massachusetts, removed to New York and was sent by that State to the U.S. Senate of the first Congress. Charles Pinckney was hi the House, as a representative of South Carolina.
[20]
—Although Mr. Pinckney opposed "slavery prohibition" in 1820, yet his views, with regard to the powers of the general government, may be better judged by his actions in the Convention:
FRIDAY, June 8th, 1787.—"Mr. Pinckney moved 'that the National Legislature shall have the power of negativing all laws to be passed by the State Legislatures, which they may judge improper,' in the room of the clause as it stood reported.
"He grounds his motion on the necessity of one supreme controlling power, and he considers this as the corner-stone of the present system; and hence the necessity of retrenching the State authorities, in order to preserve the good government of the national council."—T. 400, Elliott's Debates.
And again, THURSDAY, August 23d, 1787, Mr. Pinckney renewed the motion with some modifications.—T. 1409. Madison Papers.
And although Mr. Pinckney, as correctly stated by Mr. Lincoln, "steadily voted against slavery prohibition, and against all compromises," he still regarded the passage of the Missouri Compromise as a great triumph of the South, which is apparent from the following letter:
CONGRESS HALL, March 2d, 1820, 3 o'clock at night.
DEAR SIR:——I hasten to inform you, that this moment we have carried the question to admit Missouri, and all Louisiana to the southward of 36° 30', free from the restriction of slavery, and give the South, in a short time, an addition of six, perhaps eight, members to the Senate of the United States. It is considered here by the slaveholding States as a great triumph.
The votes were close—ninety to eighty-six—produced by the seceding and absence of a few moderate men from the North. To the north of 36° 30,' there is to be, by the present law, restriction; which you will see by the votes, I voted against. But it is at present of no moment; it is a vast tract, uninhabited, only by savages and wild beasts, in which not a foot of the Indian claims to soil is extinguished, and in which, according to the ideas prevalent, no land office will be opened for a great length of time.
With respect, your obedient servant,
CHARLES PINCKNEY.
But conclusive evidence of Mr. Pinckney's views is furnished in the fact that he was himself a member of the Committee which reported the Ordinance of '87, and that on every occasion, when it was under the consideration of Congress, he voted against all amendments.—Jour. Am. Congress, Sept. 29th, 1786. Oct. 4th. When the ordinance came up for its final passage, Mr. Pinckney was sitting in the Convention, and did not take any part in the proceedings of Congress.
[21]
—By reference to notes 4, 6, 10, 13, 15, and 16 it will be seen that, of the twenty-three who acted upon the question of prohibition, twelve were from the present slaveholding States.
[22]
—Vide notes 5 and 17, ante.
[23]
—"The remaining sixteen" were Nathaniel Gorham, Massachusetts; Alex. Hamilton, New York; William Livingston and David Brearly, New Jersey; Benjamin Franklin, Jared Ingersoll, James Wilson, and Gouverneur Morris, Pennsylvania; Gunning Bedford, John Dickinson, and Jacob Broom, Delaware; Daniel, of St. Thomas, Jenifer, Maryland; John Blair, Virginia; Richard Dobbs Spaight, North Carolina; and John Rutledge and Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, South Carolina.
[24]
—"The only distinction between freedom and slavery consists in this: in the former state, a man is governed by the laws to which he has given his consent, either in person or by his representative; in the latter, he is governed by the will of another. In the one case, his life and property are his own; in the other, they depend upon the pleasure of a master. It is easy to discern which of the two states is preferable. No man in his senses can hesitate in choosing to be free rather than slave.... Were not the disadvantages of slavery too obvious to stand in need of it, I might enumerate and describe the tedious train of calamities inseparable from it. I might show that it is fatal to religion and morality; that it tends to debase the mind, and corrupt its noblest springs of action. I might show that it relaxes the sinews of industry and clips the wings of commerce, and works misery and indigence in every shape."—HAMILTON, Works, vol. 2, pp. 3, 9.
"That you will be pleased to countenance the restoration of liberty to those unhappy men, who, alone in this land of freedom, are degraded into perpetual bondage, and who, amidst the general joy of surrounding freemen, are groaning in servile subjection; that you will devise means for removing this inconsistency from the character of the American people; that you will promote mercy and justice toward this distressed race; and that you will step to the very verge of the power vested in you for discouraging every species of traffic in the persons of our fellow-men."—Philadelphia, Feb. 3rd, 1790. Franklin's Petition to Congress for the Abolition of Slavery.
Mr. Gouverneur Morris said: "He never would concur in upholding domestic slavery. It was a notorious institution. It was the curse of heaven on the States where it prevailed.... The admission of slavery into the representation, when fairly explained, comes to this—that the inhabitant of South Carolina or Georgia, who goes to the coast of Africa, and, in defiance of the most sacred laws of humanity, tears away his fellow-creatures 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 or New Jersey, who views with a laudable horror so notorious a practice.... He would sooner submit himself to a tax for paying for all the negroes in the United States than saddle posterity with such a constitution."—Debate on Slave Representation in the Convention. Madison Papers.
[25]
—An eminent jurist (Chancellor Walworth) has said that "The preamble which was prefixed to these amendments, as adopted by Congress, is important to show in what light that body considered them." (8 Wend. R., p. 100.) It declares that a number of the State Conventions "having at the time of their adopting the Constitution expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added," resolved, etc.
This preamble is in substance the preamble affixed to the "Conciliatory Resolutions" of Massachusetts, which were drawn by Chief Justice Parsons, and offered in the Convention as a compromise by John Hancock. (Life Ch. J. Parsons, p. 67.) They were afterward copied and adopted with some additions by New Hampshire.
The fifth amendment, on which the Supreme Court relies, is taken almost literally from the declaration of rights put forth by the Convention of New York, and the clause referred to forms the ninth paragraph of the declaration. The tenth amendment, on which Senator Douglas relies, is taken from the Conciliatory Resolutions, and is the first of those resolutions somewhat modified. Thus, these two amendments, sought to be used for slavery, originated in the two great anti-slavery States, New York and Massachusetts.
[26]
—The amendments were proposed by Mr. Madison in the House of Representatives, June 8, 1789. They were adopted by the House, August 24, and some further amendments seem to have been transmitted by the Senate, September 9. The printed journals of the Senate do not state the time of the final passage, and the message transmitting them to the State Legislatures speaks of them as adopted at the first session, begun on the fourth day of March, 1789. The date of the introduction and passage of the act enforcing the Ordinance of '87 will be found at note 9, ante.
[27]
—It is singular that while two of the "thirty-nine" were in that Congress of 1819, there was but one (besides Mr. King) of the "seventy-six." The one was William Smith, of South Carolina. He was then a Senator, and, like Mr. Pinckney, occupied extreme Southern ground.
[28]
—The following is an extract from the letter referred to:
"I agree with you cordially in your views in regard to negro slavery. I have long considered it a most serious evil, both socially and politically, and I should rejoice in any feasible scheme to rid our States of such a burden. The Congress of 1787 adopted an ordinance which prohibits the existence of involuntary servitude in our Northwestern Territory forever. I consider it a wise measure. It meets with the approval and assent of nearly every member from the States more immediately interested in slave labor. The prevailing opinion in Virginia is against the spread of slavery in our new Territories, and I trust we shall have a confederation of free States."
The following extract from a letter of Washington to Robert Morris, April, 12th, 1786, shows how strong were his views, and how clearly he deemed emancipation a subject for legislative enactment: "I can only say that there is no man living who wishes more sincerely than I do to see a plan adopted for the abolition of it; but there is but one proper and effective mode by
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