Virginia did the same thing by her law adopted in 1778.

Pennsylvania, whose legislature had ceased to be under the control of the Quakers, as they refused to take part in the Revolution, adopted a law in 1780, prohibiting the further introduction of slaves and giving freedom to all children of slave mothers born after its passage.

Massachusetts incorporated a declaration in her bill of rights adopted in 1780, that "all men are born free and equal," and under that declaration it was decided by the Supreme Court of that State in 1783, that slavery was prohibited. It cannot be claimed that this declaration was intended to have that effect, for if such had been the case it would not have been left to judicial interpretation to give it, but an express provision would have been incorporated on the subject. It was a species of judicial legislation which was submitted to because no important interest was at stake. There were a little over 6,000 slaves in Massachusetts at the date of the Revolution, distributed in small numbers among the owners and employed mostly as household servants. The population was largely engaged in commerce, fisheries, manufactures, etc., and the character of the agriculture was not at all adapted to slave labor. Nothing of consequence therefore, was to be gained by contesting the validity of the decision, and it was the easiest way of getting rid of the matter by quiet submission.

New Hampshire adopted a similar clause in her second constitution in 1783, and under that it was held that freedom was guaranteed to all children born after its adoption.

Maryland adopted in 1783, laws in regard to the introduction of slaves similar to those of Virginia.

Connecticut and Rhode Island, in 1784, adopted laws on the subject of slavery similar to those of Pennsylvania.

The effect of these laws and decisions was to put an end to the slave trade in all of the states but North and South Carolina and Georgia; to abolish it in Massachusetts and provide for its gradual extinction in New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Connecticut and Pennsylvania, while it still remained as before in the other states. It has been alleged, and probably was true, that a large number of the slaves in the northern states were carried to the South and sold there, to avoid the operation of the emancipation measures which were initiated. This allegation receives very strong confirmation from a comparison of the free colonies' population at the north at different periods, with the number of slaves known to be there at the date of the institution of emancipation measures, when taken in connection with the increase to that colored population, from freed slaves and runaways from the South.

Notwithstanding the provisions for abolishing slavery in the New England states, the merchants and traders of those states resumed the importation of slaves from Africa to the Carolinas and Georgia immediately after the close of the war. North Carolina, however, had denounced the trade as impolitic, and imposed a duty on future importations which furnished an impediment to it, so far as that state was concerned.

The confederation which, during the war, under the pressure of the public danger, had answered the purpose, was found to work very badly when peace ensued and the states were no longer stimulated to comply with the requisitions of Congress by immediate necessity. Though the states were all vested with full powers to regulate their domestic affairs, yet there was a large debt contracted in common which it was necessary to provide for, and as the states were forbidden by the Articles of Confederation to make treaties, and Congress had no power to impose taxes or duties on imports or exports, which power rested entirely in the state legislatures, there was a very great derangement of the finances, commerce and business of the country, entailing very ruinous consequences upon all classes and interests. It became, therefore, necessary to provide a remedy for existing evils, and a convention of delegates from the states assembled at Philadelphia in the year 1787, for the purpose of revising the Federal system. This convention was assembled in accordance with the recommendation of a previous one, that had assembled at Annapolis on the invitation of Virginia, but found its powers inadequate.

The deliberations of the Philadelphia convention, which were presided over by General Washington, resulted in the adoption of the Constitution of the United States, for recommendation to the states for their ratification, and by the terms of the Constitution, it was provided that it should go into effect when ratified by nine states, as to the states ratifying it.

There were many difficulties in the way of the formation of the Constitution by reason of conflicting views and interests, and the instrument as framed by the convention was the result of a compromise of those views and interests. The only questions arising in regard to slavery was in relation to the basis of representation in Congress and taxation, the foreign slave trade and the restoration of fugitive slaves. The questions in regard to representation and taxation were settled by compromise, as was that in regard to the slave trade. Virginia and Maryland were in favor of an absolute and immediate prohibition of the foreign slave trade, while South Carolina and Georgia opposed any interference with it. With the two latter states some of the New England delegates sided, and after much discussion a compromise was finally effected, by adopting a provision prohibiting Congress from preventing, prior to the year 1808, the importation of any persons the states might think proper to admit, but giving the power to impose a duty on such persons in the meantime, not to exceed $10 per head. This compromise was effected by an arrangement between the delegates of South Carolina and Georgia on the one side and the New England delegates on the other, by which it was agreed to insert a provision vesting Congress with the power to pass navigation laws by a majority vote—which was earnestly desired by New England but was opposed by some of the other states—and to adopt the restriction prohibiting any interference with the slave trade until the time designated.

For the provision in regard to the slave trade as adopted, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Connecticut, the only New England States represented, voted, while Virginia voted with some of the other states against it in all its stages—the final vote being, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Maryland, North and South Carolina in the affirmative, and New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware and Virginia in the negative; absent or not voting, New York, Rhode Island and Georgia.

The clause in regard to the restoration of fugitive slaves was adopted without any objection from any quarter, and it was worded in almost the identical language of the provision on the same subject contained in the old compact of "The United Colonies of New England." Without the provision for the return of slaves escaping into any of the states or the public territory, not a solitary Southern State would have accepted the Constitution, and its necessity, propriety and justice were conceded on all sides without question. When the Constitution was submitted to the states for ratification, it met with a good deal of opposition because it was thought to impose too great restrictions on the rights of the states, but it was finally ratified by the end of July, 1788, by eleven states, and steps were taken to organize the government under it, which was done in April, 1789, by the meeting of the first Congress under the Constitution and the inauguration of General Washington as President.

North Carolina did not ratify the Constitution until November, 1789, nor Rhode Island until May, 1790, and until they did ratify it they remained as foreign nations to the other states. When the ratification was under consideration, there was much discussion as to the construction of various clauses, and most of the states were induced to give their assent by the hope of adoption of amendments explaining all ambiguities and objectionable clauses, and the ratification was accompanied with the recommendation of such amendments as were desired.

In passing the ordinance ratifying the Constitution, the Virginia convention adopted an explanatory preamble, declaring that when the powers delegated should be abused they would be resumed, and the New York convention accompanied the ratification with a declaration of the right to withdraw it. It is curious in view of subsequent events, that Massachusetts proposed as an amendment "That all powers not expressly delegated to Congress should be reserved to the states," and another "That no person be tried for any crime (cases in the military and naval service excepted) without previous indictment by a grand jury; and that in civil cases the right of trial by jury be preserved." The first of these was recommended by Virginia and South Carolina also, and the last by Virginia, and both were subsequently adopted as amendments to the Constitution on the recommendation of the first Congress, with only a change of phraseology not at all effecting their import. Massachusetts has changed her views since she asserted these doctrines of states' rights and civil liberty.

The Constitution of the United States left slavery in the states precisely where it was before, the only provision having any reference to it whatever being that which fixed the ratio of representation in the House of Representatives and direct taxation; that in reference to the foreign slave trade, and that guaranteeing the return of fugitive slaves. Had it been proposed to insert any provision giving Congress any power over the subject in the states, it would have been resisted, and the insertion of such provision would have insured the rejection of the Constitution. The government framed under this Constitution being one of delegated powers entirely, those powers were necessarily limited to the objects for which they were granted, but to prevent all misconception, the 9th and 10th amendments were adopted, the first providing that "The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people," and the other that: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people."

It has now been shown how slavery originated in the United States and that the Federal Constitution left its regulation in every particular, where it belonged, that is to the several states where it existed, save only in regard to the foreign slave trade and the guarantee for the return of fugitive slaves as mentioned.

State action had already provided for the removal of slavery from several of the northern states, and this was followed, later, by a law adopted in New York in 1799, providing that all children of slaves born after the 4th of July of that year should be free, males at 28 and females at 25 years of age, and a law adopted in New Jersey in 1804, providing that all children of slaves born after the 4th of July of that year should be free, the males at 25 and the females at 21 years of age. This was the last of the acts for the emancipation of slavery where it previously existed and therefore, so far as regarded the original thirteen states, slavery was confined to Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North and South Carolina and Georgia, except as to the remnants left in the other states by the acts for gradual emancipation, which lingered in some of them for a long time.

If African slavery was a crime, who was responsible for it? Did the sole guilt or the greater part of it rest upon the shoulders of the colonists who purchased the slaves already ravished from their homes in the plains and wilds of Africa, or on the shoulders of the descendants of the original purchasers who found the institution already established as a settled policy, or did it rest with those who procured the enslavement of these ignorant and degraded barbarians and reaped the enormous profits resulting from their sale in their persons?

Treating it as national or individual sin, where does the guilt lie? The mercantile marines of Great Britain and New England are monuments to the African slave trade, upon the profits of which they were mainly built up.

It has been often said that the assertion contained in the Declaration of Independence "That all men are created equal, etc.," was entirely inconsistent with the continuation of slavery in any of the United States; and that the states which continued it were guilty of a great inconsistency. Who had then a right to make this criticism? Was it the Englishman, with Lord Mansfield's decision staring him in the face, and his boast of liberty under the common law on his tongue, while his heel was upon the neck of Ireland, his ships ploughing the main, freighted with human merchandise packed to suffocation, and his writs of execution levied upon the bodies of human beings to satisfy his demands? Was it the Frenchman, who, equally guilty in the traffic in human flesh, in the name of "Liberty, Equality and Fraternity" glutted the guillotine with the blood of his brethren, until he himself was forced to take refuge from his own "Liberty" under the protection of a despotism that kept watch upon his very thoughts? Was it the Dutchman, whose ships had carried the traffic in slaves to every clime and who landed the first cargo within the limits of the United States? Was it the Russian, who had bleeding Poland under his feet and caused order to reign in Warsaw, while he peopled Siberia with every age and sex, and his ears were gladdened by the sound of the well-plied knout? Was it the Prussian, the Austrian, the Dane, the Swede, or the Italian? The Portuguese, the Spaniard and the Turk have not troubled themselves about the matter.

The fact is that the assertion of independence was made by the Continental Congress, by a resolution adopted on the 2d of July, 1776, in the following words:

"Resolved, That these United Colonies are, and, of right, ought to be, Free and Independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved."

That was the authoritative assertion of the independence of the colonies, and the Declaration of Independence adopted afterwards was merely a manifesto put forth to the world to show the reasons which impelled them to the step and to justify it. The assertion that "all men are created equal," was no more enacted by that declaration as a settled principle than that other which defined George III to be "a tyrant and unfit to be the ruler of a free people." The Declaration of Independence contained a number of undoubtedly correct principles and some abstract generalities uttered under the enthusiasm and excitement of a struggle for the right of self-government.

The portion of it in question was not designed for the wide application which is sought to be made of it, nor is it capable of that application. The intention of it was to assert the right of the people, on whose part the declaration was made, to equality under the law with all other British subjects, and to maintain their right to set up a new government for themselves, when the one under which they had been living had been perverted to their oppression. If it was intended to assert the absolute equality of all men, it was false in principle and in fact.

Taken in its literal sense, it might be construed to mean that all men are created equal in every respect, but does any one believe, or will any one ever believe, that the native Congo, the Hottentot or the Australian negro, is the equal, mentally, physically and morally, of the Caucasian?

Whatever construction the words quoted and those following them may admit of, let it be borne in mind, that they belong to the argument and not to the fact. The separation and independence were asserted by the resolution adopted on the 2d of July, and not by the declaration adopted on the 4th, and the latter was no more a part of what was authoritatively established, than the obitur dictum of a judge is a part of his decision.

The truth is, that several of the statesmen of the South and especially of Virginia, deplored slavery as an evil and expressed the hope that at some future time, in some way that might be desired, the institution might be abolished in such manner as to secure the welfare of both races, but none of them could suggest any mode for doing so, and though perfectly sincere, they contented themselves with expressing the hope that the way might be discovered.

Slavery was a fixed fact, fastened upon the colonies by the mother country, and in the South, the slaves bore such a proportion to the white population and the whole business of the country was so identified with their labor, that it was impossible to emancipate them, without entailing on both races evils far greater than those supposed to result from the existence of slavery itself. It was a practical question with which the statesmen of the country had to deal as practical men, and all they could do, was to allow the system to remain, as the best for all parties under the circumstances, without reverting to the dangerous experiment of the ideal schemes of a false philanthropy.

As to the slave trade, Delaware, Virginia and Maryland had already put an end to it as soon as they were vested with the power to do so, and North Carolina followed suit very shortly after the adoption of the Constitution, and the prohibition would probably have been made general, but for the combination of the New England states with the two southern states that were in favor of having the trade continued.

It would not be amiss to notice what was transpiring in England on this subject at the time the Federal Constitution was being adopted. Clarkson, Wilberforce and others were agitating the question of the slave trade at this time, and the utmost that the younger Pitt, then at the head of the government, would venture to do, was to procure the passage of an act of Parliament, for the mitigation of the atrocities of the "Middle Passage" by which it was provided that slave ships should not carry beyond a certain number of slaves in proportion to the tonnage.

Even this bill met with strong opposition and among others, from Lord Chancellor Thurlow "the Ruler of the King's conscience." In opposing the bill he said: "It appears that the French have offered premiums to encourage the African trade, and that they have succeeded. The natural presumption therefore is, that we ought to do the same." He further said: "One witness has come to your Lordship's bar with a face of woe, his eyes full of tears and his countenance fraught with horror, and said 'My Lords, I am ruined if you pass this bill! I have risked £30,000 on the trade of this year! It is all I have been able to gain by my industry, and if I lose it, I must go to the hospital! I desire of you to think of such things, my Lords, in your humane frenzy and to show some humanity to the whites as well as the negroes.'"

The bill, however, passed with amendments to grant compensation for losses, and this was as far as English statesmanship would venture to go at that time. Was it to be expected that American statesmen should be better, wiser and more philanthropic than English statesmen?

Shortly after the close of the war, Virginia had ceded to the Confederation for the common benefit of all the states, the territory northwest of the Ohio river; and Massachusetts, New York and Connecticut had ceded their rights. (?) The claim of Connecticut skipped over Pennsylvania and that state made a very good bargain for herself by securing the title to the lands in what has since been known as the "Western Reserve," though no officer or soldier or, so far as is known, citizen of hers, had even been in the northwestern territory.

Virginia's original charter, the oldest of all covered the country, but independent of that, it had been conquered from the Indians and British by the forces of Virginia under George Rogers Clarke. It was a magnificent empire which Virginia thus surrendered for the common good and for the cause of the Union of the states, and the only compensation she asked was, that the land grants pledged her own soldiers should be ratified.

During the sitting of the convention which framed the Constitution, the Congress, which was in session, adopted the celebrated ordinance of 1787, for the government of the territory northwest of the Ohio river, in which ordinance was contained a prohibition of slavery in that territory forever, and also a provision for the recovery of slaves escaping into the territory similar to that incorporated into the Constitution.

At the first session of the first Congress, under the new Constitution, an act was passed for the government of the territory northwest of the Ohio river, by which the ordinance of 1787 was recognized and confirmed.

In 1787, South Carolina had surrendered her claim to all territory west of the present limits, and in 1790, North Carolina ceded to the United States that part of her territory which subsequently became the state of Tennessee, with a stipulation, "that no regulation made or to be made by Congress shall tend to the emancipation of slaves."

In 1791, Vermont, formed out of part of the territory of New York, with the consent of the legislature of that state, was admitted into the Union as one of the states and came in without slavery, which was forbidden by her constitution.

Kentucky (formed out of the territory of Virginia, south of the Ohio river, with the assent of her legislature) in 1792 was admitted into the Union, and came in with slavery as it existed in Virginia and with similar laws on the subject.

In 1793, Congress passed an act to carry into effect the provision of the Constitution for the restitution of fugitive slaves, providing for their delivery to the owners by order of any United States judge, or any magistrate of the city, town or county where they might be arrested, on due proofs of ownership, etc.

In 1796, Tennessee, formed out of the territory which had been ceded by North Carolina, was admitted into the Union, and came in with slavery as it existed in North Carolina and with similar laws in regard to it.

In 1798, Georgia adopted a new Constitution, in which was a clause forbidding the importation of slaves from "Africa or any foreign country." In this same year Congress passed an act for the establishment of the Mississippi territory out of the territory acquired from Great Britain, which constituted that part of British West Florida lying between a line drawn due east from the mouth of the Yazoo to the Chattahoochie river and the 31st degree of latitude. The act provided for the government and organization of the Mississippi territory in every respect like the North Western territory, except that slavery was not to be prohibited, but an amendment was incorporated into the act without opposition, on motion of a representative from South Carolina, prohibiting the introduction of slaves into the territory from without the United States.

Immediately after the adoption of the Constitution, South Carolina had passed a law prohibiting the introduction of slaves from foreign countries for a limited period, which was continued by renewal from time to time, and as North Carolina had adopted a permanent law on the subject, the foreign slave trade was now prohibited in all of the states as well as in the public territories, but it continued to be carried on by English, New England and New York traders within the limits of South Carolina and Georgia despite the laws.

In 1802, Georgia ceded to the United States all of her territory west of her present limits, including her claim to the Mississippi territory. This cession including in it the Mississippi territory, embraced all of the states of Mississippi and Alabama which was north of the 31st degree of latitude and the compact made with Georgia stipulated that when the population reached the number of 60,000, the ceded territory should be erected into a state on the conditions contained in the ordinance of 1787, "That article only excepted which prohibits slavery."

In 1803, on the complaint of South Carolina of the importation, in violation of her laws, of slaves from Africa, as well as of free persons from the French West Indies, Congress passed an act imposing a fine of $1,000 on the captain of a vessel for the importation of such persons in violation of the laws of a state, with forfeiture of the vessel. Next year, however, South Carolina repealed her laws against the African slave trade, and it continued to be lawful there until 1808.

In the same year Ohio, erected out of part of the northwestern territory, was admitted into the Union and came in without slavery.

In this year Louisiana, which had been re-ceded to France by Spain, was ceded to the United States by the French government, with a stipulation in the treaty of cession that the inhabitants should be secure in their liberty, property and religion and should be admitted, as soon as possible, according to the principles of the Federal Constitution to the enjoyment of the rights of citizens of the United States. The territory thus ceded, embraced as claimed by the United States, all of the territory west of the Mississippi and south of the 31st degree of latitude to the western boundary of the old Spanish province of Florida. Slavery existed in Louisiana at the time of its acquisition, having been established there by the French government, and there could be no question as to the meaning of the guarantee to the inhabitants of security in their property, as the right of property in slaves was universally acknowledged in all of the civilized world, and both of the contracting parties recognized it.

In 1804, Congress passed an act organizing the ceded province of Louisiana into the Territory of Orleans and the District of Louisiana, the former to embrace all of the territory south of the 33rd degree of latitude; the latter to embrace that part north of the same degree. A provision was embraced in the act that no slaves should be carried into the Territory of Orleans or the District of Louisiana, except from some part of the United States by citizens removing thither as actual settlers, and this permission was not to extend to negroes brought into the United States since 1798. This was a direct admission of the right of the people to remove into the territory with all of their property, including slaves, and the restriction as to negroes brought into the United States since 1798 was in consequence of the fact that, from that time to the passage of the act, the introduction of such persons was prohibited by the laws of all of the States, showing that the right to introduce slaves was regarded as resulting under the constitution from the rights under the laws of the several States and from no other.

By an act passed at the same session, all of the territory ceded by Georgia was included in the territory of Mississippi.

In 1805, by Act of Congress, the Territory of Orleans was given a similar government to that of Mississippi, and the District of Louisiana was made a territory of the second class, that is with the power of legislation vested in the governor and judges of the territory. Settlements had been previously made within the limits of the District of Louisiana on the Arkansas River and within the present limits of Missouri, and slavery had been carried there by settlers from the slave States. The act organizing the territory of Louisiana provided for continuing in force all of the existing laws and regulations until repealed by the legislature, and thereby gave direct recognition of the system of slavery, as it had not only been protected by the law organizing the District of Louisiana, but existed by operation of the old French and Spanish laws still in force.

In 1807, at the second session of the 9th Congress, on the recommendation of Mr. Jefferson, then President, an act was passed for the prohibition of the slave trade from foreign countries to the United States, to take effect on the 1st day of January, 1808. Up to that time the trade had been continued by English, New England, and New York traders to South Carolina and Georgia by evading the laws against it, when such were in force, but it ceased after the United States law went into effect; many slaves were introduced into the port of Charleston within the last four years prior to the time when the law went into effect, brought in by English and Northern vessels.

In the same year and about the same time that the United States law was passed, under the brief ministry of Lord Grenville, the Parliament of Great Britain passed the act to abolish the trade on the part of British subjects, though not without serious opposition. Among the opponents of the measure was another Lord Chancellor of England, Lord Eldon, at that time for a short period out of the office which he had held for many years, and to which he returned in about two months after the passage of the bill to continue in it until the year 1827. In opposing the bill, Lord Eldon said: "I do not believe the measure now proposed would diminish the transport of negroes, or that a single individual would be preserved by it, at the same time, that it would be utterly destructive of the British interests involved in that commerce." He asked "was it right because there was a change of men and of public measures in consequence, that the interests of those who petitioned against the bill should be disregarded and what was before considered fit matter of enquiry should now be rejected as immaterial and inapplicable?"

In the argument of Wilberforce and others, in favor of the measure, it was shown that there had never been any natural increase of the slaves in the British and West India Islands—the excess of deaths over births in Jamaica being as follows:

The supply had therefore been kept up by constant importations to meet the growing demands and the advocates of the measure urged the following reasons for its adoption:

"The grand, the decisive advantage which recommends the abolition of the slave trade is, that by closing the supply of foreign negroes to which the planters have hitherto been accustomed to trust for all of their undertakings, we will compel them to promote the multiplication of the slaves on their estates; and it is obvious that this cannot be done without improving their physical and moral condition. Thus not only will the inhuman traffic itself be prevented in so far at least as the inhabitants of this country are concerned, but a provision will be made for the progressive amelioration of the black population in the West Indies, and that too on the securest of all foundations, the interests and selfish desires of the masters in whose hands they are placed."

It seems from this that "slave breeding" was not considered a crime by the philanthropists of that day but this discovery was reserved for those of a later time.

Slavery in the United States has now been brought down to the time of the abolition of the slave trade by both the United States and Great Britain, and it will be seen that the former government had no jurisdiction over the matter in any way, except to give protection to that species of property in the states where it existed, in the same way that it was bound to protect every other species of property within the scope of its delegated powers. Slavery existed in the states prior to the creation of the government and independent of it, and the states in forming that government as sovereign states, reserved to themselves the exclusive power of continuing or discontinuing it at their option. Not only was this so with regard to the original states, but by express stipulation with the states of North Carolina and Georgia at the time of their cession of territory. Congress had bound itself not to interfere with slavery in that territory.

Kentucky had been formed out of part of Virginia and was admitted into the Union upon the same footing as that state, and by the treaty with France upon the acquisition of Louisiana, the faith of the United States was pledged to respect and protect the right of property in slaves within the limits of the acquired territory in the same way that it was pledged to respect and protect the right of property in every thing else. This embraced all of the territory within the limits of the United States except the northwestern territory, and to that the prohibition against slavery had been extended by the ordinance of 1787, prior to the adoption of the Federal Constitution. The validity of that ordinance has been disputed, and certainly if it had any validity, that was given by the assent of Virginia from whom the territory was acquired. The act for the organization of the government of the Northwestern territory recognized the validity of the restriction contained in the ordinance, and did not create it.

The states which had thought proper to abolish or exclude slavery because it was not to their interests to have it, had no right to complain of its existence in other states. If they did not desire to be allied to states which tolerated slavery, then they should have refused to ratify the Constitution. Having ratified it, the faith of those states became pledged by every consideration that can bind states as communities, or men as individuals, to respect the institutions, rights and property of the other states and to faithfully abide by all of the compromises and guaranties of the Constitution. They were bound to respect and abide by them not only in the capacity of states, but they were bound by the exercise of their just powers of legislation and restraint, to compel their citizens to respect and abide by them. This obligation extended not merely to abstaining from all violent interference and active measures of wrong, but from all agitation or incitement to others to do wrong, by disturbing the peace, property or rights of other states and the citizens thereof.

The Constitution did not make the general government censors over the morals or domestic institutions of the several states, nor did it make the states or the citizens thereof censors of the moral or domestic institutions of each other. It was merely a compact formed between sovereign states for the common defence and protection of each other in their rights and liberties, as they existed before its formation.

CHAPTER IV

Causes Leading to Secession—Secession of the Cotton States

Very shortly after the organization of the government under the new Constitution, petitions upon the subject of the slave trade began to be presented to Congress, mostly from the Quakers of Pennsylvania, that "non-resisting" sect "conscientiously opposed to all war." Some of the petitions were very inflammatory in their character, and caused much excited debate in the early Congresses, and one presented by Warren Mifflin, a Quaker of Delaware, urging the injustice of slavery and the necessity for its abolition, was returned to him by order of the House at the second session of the second Congress on account of its incendiary and mischievous character.

In January, 1805, the first proposition for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia was made. It was made by Sloan, a democratic representative from New Jersey, and was "that all children born after the ensuing 4th of July should be free at certain ages," but it was refused a reference to a committee and was then rejected by a vote of 77 to 31. It is a little remarkable in view of subsequent events that 26 of the 31 were Northern Democrats, and that only 5 constituting the remainder of the vote for the proposition were Northern Federalists.

After the passage of the acts in the United States and Great Britain abolishing the slave trade, the agitation on the subject of slavery abated very considerably for a number of years, only, however, to be revived at a later period in a more virulent form.

In the year 1812, the state of Louisiana, erected out of the territory of Orleans, was admitted into the Union as a slave state, and that part of the territory east of the Pearl river and bordering on the Gulf of Mexico, was added to the territory of Mississippi. The name of Mississippi was then given to the territory of Louisiana.

In 1816, Indiana was admitted into the Union as a free state, and in 1817, Mississippi was admitted as a slave state, the residue of the territory of that name taking the name of Alabama.

In 1818, Illinois was admitted as a free state and in 1819, Alabama came in as a slave state. This increase of the number of slave states did not increase the number of slaves, as the slaves introduced into them came from the older slave states. If any slaves were introduced from Africa or any foreign country, it was by such evasion of the laws as will take place under any government, and they were not so introduced to any appreciable extent.

In 1819, towards the close of the 15th Congress, a bill was introduced into the House of Representatives to authorize the erection of the state of Missouri out of part of the territory of that name, and on motion of Tallmadge, of New York, a clause was inserted in the bill prohibiting the further introduction of slaves and granting freedom to the afterborn children of those already there, on arriving at the age of twenty-five, the proposition being carried by a vote of 87 to 76. This proposed restriction caused a very excited debate, in the course of which Cobb, of Georgia, said that "a fire had been kindled which all the water of the ocean could not put out, and which only seas of blood could extinguish;" he did not "hesitate to declare that if the northern members persisted, the Union would be dissolved." The bill, however, passed the House with the restriction, but in the Senate, the latter was stricken out, the clause prohibiting the further introduction of slaves by a vote of 24 to 16, and the one freeing the children by a larger vote, there being only 7 votes for retaining it. The House refused to concur with the Senate and the bill was lost.

At the same time the Missouri bill was introduced, another bill was presented for establishing Arkansas territory out of that part of the Missouri territory south of 36° 30´, and a clause was inserted into it granting freedom to all afterborn children of slaves, at the age of twenty-five, but a clause prohibiting the further introduction of slaves was defeated by a vote of 70 to 71 and the clause for freeing the children of those already in the territory was stricken out. Taylor of New York then proposed to add a proviso to the bill that neither slavery nor involuntary servitude should exist in any of the territories of the United States north of 36° 30´, but his motion was defeated and the bill for organizing Arkansas Territory passed both houses without any restriction.

Before the meeting of the next Congress, Massachusetts authorized the formation of the District of Maine into a state and a Constitution was adopted by the people in that district for that purpose. In the meantime there was much agitation in the North upon the subject of excluding slavery from the territory west of the Mississippi. Upon the meeting of the 16th Congress, a bill was introduced to authorize the people of Missouri to frame a State Constitution, but on motion of Taylor, the author of the proposed proviso excluding slavery from the territories north of 36° 30´, a committee was appointed to consider the subject of prohibiting slavery west of the Mississippi, and the Missouri bill was postponed to await the action of the committee.

A bill had been introduced for the admission of Maine—and after the defeat of a motion to postpone it until the Missouri bill came up—was passed. When this bill came up in the Senate, a clause for the admission of Missouri, was attached to it, after the defeat of a motion to insert in the latter a proviso for the prohibition of slavery, and Thomas, a senator from Illinois, then proposed an amendment prohibiting the introduction of slavery into any of the remaining territory north of 36° 30´, which was adopted by a vote of 34 to 10; the senators from Virginia, South Carolina, Georgia, Indiana, and one senator from North Carolina and Mississippi each voting in the negative. The bill was then passed by a vote of 24 to 20, all the senators from the slave states and the two from Illinois voting in the affirmative, and those voting in the negative being from the free states.

The House refused to concur in the Senate's amendment, and the Senate adhered, therefore a committee of conference was appointed. In the meantime, the House had been debating the Missouri bill, and pending the conference it was passed by a vote of 93 to 84 with a clause prohibiting the further introduction of slaves. When this bill went to the Senate, the prohibition was stricken out and the Thomas proviso attached, and it was then passed and returned to the House. The Committee of Conference at the same time reported recommending that the Senate recede from its amendment to the Maine bill and that the House pass the Missouri bill as amended by the Senate. The House agreed to the amendment to the Missouri bill, striking out the clause for prohibiting slavery, by a vote of 90 to 87, and to that inserting the Thomas proviso, by a vote of 134 to 42, 35 of the latter being Southern members who objected to the proviso as unconstitutional, and 5 being Northern men who objected because it did not go far enough. The Senate receded from its amendment to the Maine bill and both bills were thus passed.

President Monroe signed the Missouri bill after much hesitation, upon having his scruples as to the constitutionality of the proviso removed, and upon being assured that the restriction as to the territories extended to them only while in the territorial condition.

The bill in relation to Maine admitted that state into the Union at once, but that in regard to Missouri was a mere act enabling the people to frame a Constitution, and a joint resolution for the admission of the state after the formation of the Constitution was still necessary.

When the Constitution was presented at the next session of Congress, it was found to contain a clause requiring the legislature to pass laws to prevent free persons of color from settling in the state, and as the admission of Maine was complete, the Northern members took occasion to object to the admission of Missouri because of this clause, though Ohio and Indiana had passed laws forbidding the settling of free persons of color in those states, and there was an old law of Massachusetts to the same effect, still unrepealed. A resolution offered in the House for the admission of Missouri, with its Constitution as it stood, was defeated by a vote of 78 to 93, those voting in the negative being Northern members. After much discussion and excitement and the defeat in the House of an effort to compromise the question, on motion of Mr. Clay, a joint committee was appointed to take the subject into consideration, and this committee reported a joint resolution for the admission of Missouri, after the state legislature should have given a solemn pledge, that the Constitution should not be construed to authorize any act and that no act should be passed "by which any of the citizens of either of the states should be excluded from the enjoyment of any of the privileges and immunities to which they are entitled under the Constitution of the United States." The President being authorized to announce by proclamation, the adoption of the pledge, and Missouri then to become a state in the Union, this resolution was adopted, the vote being 86 to 52 in the House, all the votes in the negative, excepting four, being given by Northern members and the four Southern members not being willing to submit to the concession. Since the rejection of the proposition for compromise in the House on the same basis, news had been received of the final ratification by Spain of the treaty for the cession of Florida, and as by that treaty the United States relinquished all claim to Texas, thus reducing the whole of the territory south of 36° 30´ and west of the Mississippi to the Territory of Arkansas, comprising the present state of Arkansas and the small tract of Indian country west of it, while there remained an immense domain north of that parallel, stretching across the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific, a few Northern members were induced to cast their votes for the last proposition, thus securing its passage.

The required pledge was given by the legislature of Missouri, and that state was thus admitted into the Union in 1821. For a long time, the arrangement by which the passage of the enabling act for Missouri was secured, was called compromise, and the line of 36° 30´ was called "The Missouri Compromise Line." The subject was fully explained by Mr. Clay in the Senate in 1850, and it will be seen that the arrangement was no compromise at all, but was merely one of those legislative expedients often adopted to secure the passage of a measure. As it passed, the restriction was merely a legislative enactment, liable to repeal at any time like any other law. But few of the Northern members agreed to the arrangement, and at the very next session of Congress, the great mass of them repudiated the idea of its being a compromise by voting against the admission of Missouri, upon a mere pretext.

The only compromise made at all was that made with the state of Missouri about the construction of her Constitution. Nevertheless, the Southern States were always to regard this legislative adoption of the line 36° 30′ as a settlement of the question of slavery in the territories, provided it was adhered to as such in principle and spirit, but it was not accepted by the Northern people in that light and was made by them the ground-work for new demands and encroachments.

The proposition for the prohibition of slavery in the territories, was not one in favor of the freedom of the slaves themselves, as their introduction into those territories would not increase the number of slaves, but would expand them on a wider sphere, thus rendering it easier to adopt measures for emancipation, at least in some of the states if that was desirable, and making the condition of the slaves more comfortable if emancipation did not take place; while the restriction of the institution to the states where it existed, would forever close the door on any steps for its voluntary abolition and render the condition of the slaves much less desirable. Diffusion was much the best policy for both masters and slaves, and the opposition to the introduction of the latter into the territories was only a political manœuvre for the purpose of obtaining a sectional preponderance of power, and in all of the debates, the views expressed by the advocates of the restriction tended to the furtherance of that object.

By the final ratification of the treaty between the United States and Spain in the year 1821, Florida became a territory of the United States and a territorial government was soon formed therefor.

After the admission of Missouri into the Union, there was a subsidence in the agitation upon the subject of slavery for a number of years, though every now and then a petition from some Quaker meeting was received and quietly disposed of.

In the year 1834, the British parliament passed an act for the abolition of slavery in the British West Indies, her colonies in those islands being all of the slave colonies left to Great Britain. These colonies had dwindled into insignificance and formed but a very inconsiderable part of her gigantic colonial system. Canada, Australia, New Zealand and her possessions in the East Indies furnished an ample field for British settlement and colonial trade, which dwarfed into very diminutive proportions the British interests in the West Indies. Great Britain could therefore afford to be philanthropic and at the cost of £20,000,000 (about $96,000,000) she gave liberty to a very few more than 600,000 slaves, who were placed in a condition of apprenticeship for several years to enable the planters to accommodate themselves to the new order of things by degrees. She had abandoned the slave trade after, by the loss of the American colonies, she had ceased to have a large interest in the subject of slavery, and this grant of £20,000,000 for the freedom of all of the negro slaves left in her dominions, was the final atonement she made for the millions she had consigned to slavery, and the millions who had been cast overboard, to meet a watery grave, on their route to slavery.

To make her own gracious act more conspicuous, she turned propagandist and commenced denouncing the system of slavery which she had been so instrumental in fixing upon the world, as un-Christian, inhuman and barbarous. Having, as she considered, cast the beam out of her own eye, she could see more distinctly the mote in that of others, but she made no restitution of the hundreds of millions she derived from the profits of the inhuman traffic as she now styled it, and which had assisted in building up her marine, manufactures and commerce. Having thus washed her hands of the sin, as she imagined, she became most intolerant in her opinions and denunciations of those upon whom she had entailed the institution of slavery by her avarice and power, furnishing another example of those,