Xxxvii.
At the period of the Declaration of Independence, upwards of half a million colored persons were held as chattels in the United States. These unhappy people were originally stolen from Africa, or were the children of those who had been stolen, and, though distributed throughout the whole country, were to be found chiefly in the Southern States. [205] The Slavery to which they were reduced was simply a continuation of the violence by which they had been originally robbed of their rights, and was of course as indefensible. The fathers of the Republic, leaders of the war of Independence, were struck with the inconsistency of an appeal for their own liberties while holding in bondage fellow-men only ‘guilty of a skin not colored like their own.’ The same conviction animated the hearts of the people, whether at the North or South. Out of ample illustrations, I select one which specially reveals this conviction, and possesses a local interest in this community. It is a deed of manumission, made after our struggles had begun, and preserved in the Probate records of the County of Suffolk. Here it is:
Such was the general spirit. Public opinion found free vent in every channel. By the literature of the time—by the voice of the Church, and by the solemn judgment of the College, Slavery was condemned, while all the grandest names of our history were arrayed openly against it. Of these I might dwell on many; but I am always pleased to mention an illustrious triumvirate from whose concurring testimony there can be no appeal. There was Washington, who at one time declared that ‘it was among his first wishes to see some plan adopted by which Slavery might be abolished by law,’ and then at another, that to this end ‘his suffrage should not be wanting.’ There also was Jefferson, who by early and precocious efforts for ‘total emancipation,’ placed himself foremost among the Abolitionists of the land—perpetually denouncing Slavery—exposing the pernicious influences upon the master, as well as the Slave—declaring that the love of justice and the love of country pleaded equally for the Slave, and that ‘the abolition of domestic Slavery was the greatest object of desire.’ There also was the [206] venerable patriot, Benjamin Franklin, who did not hesitate to liken the American master of black Slaves to the Algerine corsair with his white Slaves, and who, as President of the earliest Abolition Society——the same of which Passmore Williamson is now the honored Secretary——by solemn petition, called upon Congress ‘to step to the very verge of the power vested in it to discourage every species of traffic in the persons of our fellow-men.’ Thus completely, by this triumvirate of Freedom, was Slavery condemned, and the power of the Government invoked against it. By such men, and in such spirit, was the National Constitution framed. The emphatic words of the Declaration of Independence, which our country took upon its lips as baptismal vows, when it claimed a place among the nations of the earth, were not forgotten. The preamble to the Constitution renews them, when it declares the object of the people of the United States to be, among other things, ‘to establish justice, to promote the general welfare, and to secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and posterity.’ Thus, according to undeniable words, the Constitution was ordained, not to establish, secure or sanction slavery —not to promote the special interest of slave-masters, bound together in oligarchical combination—not to make Slavery national in any way, form or manner; but to ‘establish justice,’ which condemns Slavery— ‘to promote the general welfare,’ which repudiates every Oligarchy— and ‘to secure the blessings of liberty,’ in whose presence human bondage must cease. Early in the Convention, Gouverneur Morris broke forth in the language of an Abolitionist: ‘He never would concur in upholding domestic Slavery. It was a nefarious institution. It was the curse of Heaven.’ In another mood, and with mild juridical phrase, Mr. Madison, himself a slaveholder, ‘thought it wrong to admit in the Constitution the idea of property in man.’ The discreditable words, Slave and Slavery, were not allowed to find a place in the instrument, while a clause was subsequently added by way of amendment, —and, therefore, according to the rules of interpretation, particularly revealing the sentiments of the founders,—which is calculated, like the Declaration of Independence, if practically applied, to carry Freedom everywhere within the sphere of its influence. It was specifically declared that ‘no person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property, without due process of law,’ that is, without due presentment, indictment or other formal judicial proceedings. Here is an express guard of personal Liberty, and a prohibition of Slavery everywhere within the national jurisdiction. [207] In this spirit was the National Constitution adopted. In this spirit the National Government was first organized under Washington. And here there is a fact of peculiar significance, well worthy of perpetual memory. At the time this great chief took his first oath to support the Constitution of the United States, the National Ensign nowhere within the National Territory covered a single slave. On the sea, an execrable piracy, the trade in slaves, was still, to the national scandal, tolerated, beneath the national flag. In the States, as a sectional institution, beneath the shelter of local laws, Slavery, unhappily, found a home. But in the only territories at this time belonging to the Nation—the broad region of the North-West—it had already, by the Ordinance of Freedom, been made impossible, even before the adoption of the Constitution. The District of Columbia, with its Fated Dowry, had not yet been acquired.
