Jefferson Davis, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government

“ [496] to have as few objections as possible to the proposed scheme of government, he thought it best to leave the matter as we find it.”¹

Mr. Baldwin had conceived national objects alone to be before the Convention: not such as, like the present, were of a local nature. Georgia was decided on this point. That State has always hitherto supposed a General Government to be the pursuit of the central States, who wished to have a vortex for everything; that her distance would preclude her from equal advantage; and that she could not prudently purchase it by yielding national powers. From this, it might be understood in what light she would view an attempt to abridge one of her favorite prerogatives.

“If left to herself, she may probably put a stop to the evil. As one ground for this conjecture, he took notice of the sect of ——, which, he said was a respectable class of people who carried their ethics beyond the mere equality of men, extending their humanity to the claims of the whole animal creation.”²

“Mr. Gerry thought we had nothing to do with the conduct of the States as to slaves, but ought to be careful not to give any sanction to it.”³

“Mr. King thought the subject should be considered in a political light only. If two States will not agree to the Constitution, as stated on one side, he could affirm with equal belief, on the other, that great and equal opposition would be experienced from the other States. He remarked on the exemption of slaves from duty, while every other import was subjected to it, as an inequality that could not fail to strike the commercial sagacity of the Northern and Middle States.”⁴

Here, as will be observed, everywhere was recognized and admitted the doctrine of community independence and State equality—no interference with the institutions of a State—no interference even prospectively save and except with their consent; and thus it followed that at one time it was proposed to except, from the power to prohibit the further introduction of Africans, those States which insisted upon retaining the power; and finally it was agreed that a date should be fixed beyond which, probably, none of them desired to retain it. These were States acting in their sovereign capacity; they possessed power to do as they pleased; and that was the view which they took of it. I ask, then, how are we, their descendants, those holding under their authority, to assume a power which they refused to admit, upon principles eternal and lying at the foundation of the Constitution itself?

If, then, there be no such distinction or discrimination; if protection be the duty (and who will deny it?) with which this Government is charged, and for which the States pay taxes, because of which they surrendered their armies and their navies; if general protection be the general duty, I ask, in the name of reason and constitutional right—I ask you to point me to authority by which a discrimination is made between slave-property and any other. Yet this is the question now fraught with evil to our country. It is this which has raised the hurricane threatening to sweep our political institutions before it. This is the dark spot which some already begin to fear may blot out the constellation of the Union from the political firmament of mankind. Does it not become us, then, calmly to consider it, justly to