Book: Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. VI, June, 1862

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_THE CONTINENTAL MONTHLY:_

DEVOTED TO

LITERATURE AND NATIONAL POLICY.

VOL. I.--JUNE, 1862.--No. VI.


* * * * *


_THE CONSTITUTION AND SLAVERY._

There are two sections of the United States, the Free States and the
Slave States, who hold views widely different upon the subject of
Slavery and the true interpretation of the Constitution in relation to
it. The Southern view, for the most part, is:

1. The Constitution recognizes slaves as strictly property, to her
bought and sold as merchandise.

2. The Constitution recognizes all the territories as open to slavery as
much as to freedom, except in those cases where it has been expressly
interdicted by the Federal Government; and it secures the legal right to
carry slaves into the territories, and any act of Congress, restricting
this right to hold slaves in the territories, is unconstitutional and
void.

3. Slavery is a natural institution, and not to be considered as local
and municipal.

4. The Constitution is simply a compact or league between sovereign
States, and when either party breaks, in the estimation of the other,
this contract, it is no longer binding upon the whole, and the party
that thinks itself wronged has a right, acting according to its own
judgment, to leave the Union.

5. This contract between sovereign States has been broken to such an
extent, by long and repeated aggressions upon the South by the North,
that the slave States who have seceded from the Union, or who may
secede, are not only right in thus doing, but are justified in taking up
arms, to prevent the collection of revenue by the Federal Government.

These ideas are universally repudiated in the free States. It is not my
purpose to discuss the social or moral relations of slavery, but simply
to consider under what circumstances the Constitution originated, and
what was the clear intent of those who adopted it as the organic or
fundamental law of the country. The last assumption taken by the
seceding States grows out of the first four, and therefore it becomes a
question of vital interest, what did the framers of the Constitution
mean? We must remember that while names remain the same, the things
which they represent in time go through a radical change. Slavery is not
the same that it was when the Constitution was formed, nor are the
original slave States the same. If freedom at the North has made great
strides, so also has slavery South. Our country now witnesses a mighty
difference in free and slave institutions from what originally was seen.
The stand-point of slavery and freedom has altogether changed, not from
local legislation, but from natural causes, inherent in these two
diverse states of society. New interests, new relations, new views of
commerce, agriculture, and manufactures now characterize our country. It
will not do then to infer, from the existing state of things, what was
originally the respective condition of the slaveholding and the free
States, or what was in fact the import of that agreement, called the
Constitution, which brought about the Federal Union. The framers of the
Constitution did not reason so much as to what they should do for
posterity as for the generation then living. As fallible men, much as
they would wish to legislate wisely for the future, yet their very
imperfection of knowledge precluded them from knowing fully what fifty
or a hundred years hence would be the development of slavery or freedom.
Their actions must have reference to present wants, and consult
especially existing conditions of society. While they intended that the
Constitution should be the supreme law of the land, yet they wisely put
into the hands of the people the power of amending it at any such time
as circumstances might make it necessary. The question then at issue
between the North and the South is not what the Constitution should
read, not what it ought to be, to come up to the supposed interests of
the country; but what it does read. How is the Constitution truly to be
interpreted? All parties should acquiesce in seeking only to find out
the literal import of the Constitution as originally framed, or
subsequently amended, and abide by it, irrespective altogether of
present interests or relations. The reason is, in no other way can the
common welfare of the country be promoted. If the necessities of the
people demand a change in the Constitution, they can, in a legal way,
exercise the right, always remembering that no republic, no free
institutions, no democratic state of society can exist that denies the
great principle of the rule of the majority. It becomes us, then, in
order that we may come to a right decision respecting the duties that
grow out of our Federal Union, to consider what language the
Constitution makes use of, in relation to slavery, and how was this
instrument interpreted by the framers. The great question is, was
slavery regarded as a political and moral evil, to be restricted and
circumscribed within the States existing under the Constitution, or was
it looked upon as a blessing, a social relation of society, proper to be
diffused over the territories? It can be clearly shown that there was no
such state of feeling, respecting slavery, as to lead the originators of
our Constitution to look upon it as a thing in itself of natural right,
useful in its operation, and worthy of enlargement and perpetuation.
Rather, the universal sentiment respecting slavery, North and South,
was, that as a great moral, social, and political evil, it should be
condemned, and the widely prevalent impression was, that through the
peaceful operation of causes that evinced the immeasurable superiority
of free institutions, slavery would itself die out, and the whole
country be consecrated to free labor. Never did it enter the minds of
the framers of the Constitution, that slavery was a thing in itself
right and desirable, or that it should be encouraged in the territories.
It was looked upon as exclusively local in its character, the creature
of State law, a relation of society that was to be regulated like any
other municipal institution. It is not to be presumed that the authors
of our government would, in the Declaration of Independence, assert the
natural rights of all men to life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness, and then contradict this cardinal principle of the revolution
in the Constitution. They found slavery existing in the Southern States;
they simply left it as it was before the Revolution, with the idea that
in time the local action of the State legislature would do away with the
system. But so far as the extension of slavery was concerned, the
predominant feeling, North and South, was hostile to it. The security
of the country demanded the union of the States under one common
Constitution. The dangers of foreign war, the exhausted finances of the
different States, the evils of a great public debt, contracted during
the Revolution, made it advisable, as soon as the consent of the States
could be got, to have a Constitution that should command security at
home and credit and respect abroad. It was regarded as indispensable for
union, that slavery should be left as it was found in the States. The
thirteen States that first formed our Union under the Constitution, with
the great evils that grew out of war and debt, agreed, for their own
mutual protection, that slavery should be permitted to exist in those
States where it was sanctioned by the local government, as an evil to be
tolerated, not as a thing good in itself, to be fostered, perpetuated,
and enlarged. Seeing that union could not be had without slavery, it was
recognized as an institution not to be interfered with by the free
States; but not acknowledged, in the sense that it was right, a blessing
that, like free labor, should be the normal condition of the whole
people. There was no such indifference to slavery as a civil
institution, as has been asserted. The reason is two-fold: first, the
States could not be indifferent to slavery, if they wished; and
secondly, they could not repudiate, in the Constitution, the Declaration
of Independence. Thus the word 'slave' is not found in the Constitution.
In the rendition of slaves, they simply spoke of persons held to
service, and as union was impossible, if the free States were open to
their escape, without the right being recognized of being returned, this
provision was accordingly made; and yet by the provision that no person
should be deprived of liberty or life, without due process of law, and
that the free citizens of one State, irrespective of color, should have
the same rights, while resident in any other State, as the citizens of
that State, the framers of our Constitution declared, in language most
explicit, the natural rights of all men. The question is not as to the
consistency of their profession and practice, or how they could fight
for their own independence, and yet deny freedom, for the sake of the
Union, to the slaves; but the question is simply whether, in preparing
the Constitution, they intended to engraft upon it the idea of the
natural right of slavery, and recognize it as a blessing, to be
perpetuated and enlarged. The question is simply, whether the
Constitution was designed to be pro-slavery, or whether, like the
instrument of the Declaration of Independence, it was intended to be the
great charter of civil and religious freedom, although compelled, for
the sake of union, not to interfere with slavery where it already
existed? Great stress is put upon that clause enjoining the rendition of
slaves escaping from their masters; but union was impossible without
this provision. The necessity of union was thought indispensable for
protection, revenue, and securing the dearly-bought blessings of
independence. The question with them was not, ought slavery to be
recognized as a natural right, and slaves a species of property like
other merchandise? but simply, shall we tolerate this evil, for the sake
of Union? Thus, as the indispensable condition of union, the provision
was made for the rendition of persons held to labor in the slave States.
Why is the language of the Constitution so guarded as not to have even
the word 'slave' in it, and yet of such a character as not to interfere
with local State legislation upon slavery? Simply to steer between the
Charybdis of no union and the Scylla of the repudiation of the
Declaration of Independence, teaching that all men are born free and
equal, and that all have natural rights, such as life, liberty, and the
pursuit of happiness. And yet, in the slave States, the interpretation
of the Constitution is such, that the free States are accused of
violating it, unless they acknowledge that it recognizes slavery as a
natural right, and an institution to be perpetuated and enlarged, and
put upon the same level with the blessing of freedom, in the
territories. Slavery virtually must be nationalized, and the
Constitution be interpreted so as to carry it all over the territories
now existing, or to be acquired, or the free States have broken the
Constitution, and the slave States may leave the Union whenever it suits
their pleasure. It is easy to see how time has brought about such a
revolution of feeling and idea respecting slavery. It can be shown that
circumstances have changed altogether the relations of slavery, and
while names have remained the same, the things which they represent have
assumed a radical difference. It can be shown that the introduction of
the cotton-gin, and the increased profits of slave labor, have given an
impetus to the domestic institution that brings with it an entire
revolution of opinion. When slavery was unprofitable to the
slaveholders; when, in the early days of the republic, the number of
slaves was comparatively small; when, all over the country, the veterans
of the Revolution existed to testify to the hardships they endured for
national independence, and eulogize even the help of the negro in
securing it, then slavery was regarded a curse, an evil to be curtailed
and in time obliterated; then the local character of slavery, as the
creature of municipal law, not to be recognized where such law does not
exist, was the opinion universally of the people. But now, with the
growing profits of slavery, with the increase of the power of this
institution, other and far different language is held. Disguise it as we
may, there do exist great motives that have silently yet powerfully
operated within the last thirty or forty years, to change the popular
current of feeling and opinion. Not only have the slave States held the
balance of political power, but the spread of slavery has been gigantic.
The fairest regions of the South have been opened up to the domestic
institution, and Texas annexed, with Louisiana, Arkansas and Florida,
making an immense area of country, to be the nursery of slavery. The
political ascendency of the slave States has ever given to the South a
great advantage, in the extension of their favored institution, and the
result has proved that what our ancestors looked upon as an evil that
time would soon do away with, has grown into a monster system that
threatens to make subservient to it the free institutions of the North.

Slavery has now come to be a mighty energy of disquietude all over the
country, assuming colossal proportions of mischief, and mocking all the
ordinary restraints of law. The question of the present day to be
decided is not whether freedom and slavery shall exist side by side, nor
whether slavery shall be tolerated as a necessary evil; but in reality,
whether freedom shall be crushed under the iron hoof of slavery, and
this institution shall obtain the complete control of the country. It
has been said that the Constitution takes the position of complete
indifference to slavery; but the history of the slave States does not
lead us to infer that they were ever willing that slavery should be
tested by its own merits, or stand without the most persistent efforts
to secure for it the patronage of the Federal Government. Study the
progress of slavery, the last forty years, and none can fail to see that
it has ever aimed to secure first the supreme political control, and
then to advance its own selfish interests, at the expense of free
institutions. The great danger has always been, that while numerically
vastly inferior to the North, slavery has always been an unit, with a
single eye to its own aggrandizement; consequently, the history of the
country will show that so far from the general policy of the government
being adverse to slavery, that policy has been almost exclusively upon
the side of slaveholders. The domestic institution has been ever the pet
interest of the land.

In all that pertains to political power, the slaveholding interests have
been in the ascendant. Even when Lincoln was elected, it was found that
the Senate and House of Representatives, as well as the Judiciary, were
numerically upon the side of slavery, so that he could not, even had it
been his wish, carry out any measure inimical to the South. True, the
South had not the same power as under Buchanan; they could not hope ever
again to wield the resources of government to secure the ascendency of
slavery in Kansas; but for all that, Lincoln was powerless to encroach
upon their supposed rights, even if thus disposed. Is it not, then,
evident, that so far from the slaveholding States holding to the
opinions of the framers of the Constitution, there has been within the
last forty years a mighty change going on in the South, giving to
slavery an essentially aggressive policy, and an extension never dreamed
of by the authors of the Constitution? The ground of the Constitution
respecting slavery, was simply non-interference in the States where it
already existed. It left slavery to be curtailed, or done away with by
the local legislature, but it used language the most guarded, to
preclude the idea that slavery rested upon natural right, and that
slaves, like other property, could be carried into the territories. It
has been said, that the position of the Constitution is that of absolute
indifference, both to freedom and slavery; that it advocated neither,
but was bound to protect both. But how could the Constitution be
indifferent to the very end for which it was made? Was not its great
design to secure the liberty of the country, and promote its highest
welfare? The Constitution simply tolerated the existence of slavery, and
no more. As union was impossible without the provision for the rendition
of persons held to labor, escaping from one state into another, it
simply accommodated itself to an evil that was thought would be
restricted, and in due process of time done away with in the slave
States. To strain this provision to mean that it advocated the natural
right of slavery, and recognized the slave as property, to be sold and
bought like other merchandise, is simply to say that the framers of the
Constitution were the greatest hypocrites in the world, originating the
Declaration of Independence upon the basis of the natural right of all
men to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and yet with full
knowledge and purpose giving the lie to this instrument in the
Constitution. Madison thought it wrong to admit in the Constitution the
idea of property in man. The word 'service' was substituted for
'servitude,' simply because this last encouraged the idea of property.

The constitutional provision for the rendition of slaves was simply a
compromise between union and slavery. Of the two evils of _no union_, or
_no slavery_, it was thought the former was the worse, and consequently
the free States fell in with the measure. But could the patriots of the
Revolution have foreseen the gigantic growth of slavery, and the use
that would have been made of the provision recognizing it, no
consideration would have induced them to adopt a course that has been
prolific of so much misrepresentation and mischief to the country. They
left the suppression of slavery to the States where it existed, but
there was no intention to ingraft the idea of property in man in the
Constitution, or to favor its extension beyond the original slave States
in any way. John Jay, the first Chief-Justice, was preeminently
qualified to judge respecting this. We have his testimony most
explicitly denying the natural right of property in slaves, and
declaring that the Constitution did not recognize the equity of its
extension in the new States or Territories. Who was there more
conversant with the genius of our country than Washington; and yet how
full is his testimony to the evil of slavery; its want of natural right
to support it, and the necessity of its speedy suppression and
abolition? Is it possible that he, himself a slaveholder and an
emancipationist, could utter such sentiments and enforce them by his
example, if he regarded the Constitution as establishing the light of
property in man, and the benefit of the indefinite expansion of slavery
over the country? No, indeed! If we may consider the Constitution in
relation to slaves an inconsistent instrument, we can not prove it an
hypocritical and dishonest one. The hard necessities of the times wrung
out of reluctant patriots the admission of the rendition of slaves, but
they would not by any reasonable construction of language, assert the
natural right of property in slaves, and the propriety or benefit of its
toleration in new States and Territories. It was bad enough to tolerate
this evil in the old slave States, but it would be infamous to hand down
to posterity a Constitution denying the self-evident truths of the
Declaration of Independence. Toleration is not synonymous with approval,
or existence with right. There is a most subtle error in the assumption
of the indifference of the Constitution to freedom and slavery--that it
advocated neither, but protected both. Certainly the framers of the
Constitution were not automatons, or this instrument the accident of the
throw of the dice-box. The great purpose of this instrument was to raise
the revenue, and defend the country. Its end was to protect the
liberties and command the respect of civilized nations. The old
Confederation was to give way to the Federal Constitution. The
independence of the United States had been achieved at a heavy cost. To
say nothing of frontiers exposed, country ravaged, towns burnt, commerce
nearly ruined, the derangement of finances--the pecuniary loss alone
amounted to one hundred and seventy million dollars, two thirds of which
had been expended by Congress, the balance by individual States. The
design of the Constitution was to preserve the fruits of the Revolution,
to respect State sovereignty, and yet secure a powerful and efficient
Union; to have a central government, and yet not infringe upon the local
rights of the States. It will, therefore, be seen that while the subject
of slavery was earnestly discussed, and presented at the outset a great
obstacle to the union of the States, yet it was thought, upon the whole,
best to leave to the slave States the business of doing away with this
great evil in such a manner as in their judgment might best conduce to
their own security and the preservation of the Union.

But no truth of history is more evident than that the authors of the
Constitution regarded slavery as impossible to be sustained upon the
ground of the natural rights of mankind, and deserving of no
encouragement in the Territories, or States hereafter to come into the
Union. It was thought that the best interests of the slave States would
lead them to abolish slavery, and that before many years, the Republic
would cease to bear the disgrace of chattel bondage. It is certainly
proper that the acts and language of the authors of the Constitution,
and those who chiefly were instrumental in achieving our independence,
should be made to interpret that instrument which was the creation of
their own toils and love of country. Because the circumstances of the
present day have brought about a mighty change in the feelings and
opinions of the slave States, it does not follow that the Constitution
in its original intention and spirit should be accommodated to this new
aspect of things. It is easy to get up a theory of the natural right of
slavery, and then say that the Constitution meant that the slave States
should carry slave property just where the free States carry their
property; but when this ground is taken, the Constitution is made, to
all intents, a pro-slavery instrument. It ceases to be the charter of a
nation's freedom, and resolves itself into the most effective agent of
the propagandism of slavery. The transition is easy from such a theory
to the fulfillment of the boast of Senator Toombs, 'that the roll of
slaves might yet be called at the foot of Bunker Hill Monument.' But no
straining of the language of the Constitution can make it mean the
recognition of the natural right of slavery, The guarded manner in which
the provision was made for the rendition of slaves, and all the
circumstances connected with the adoption of the Constitution, show
conclusively that slavery was considered only a local and municipal
institution, a serious evil, to be suppressed and curtailed by the slave
States, and never by the General Government a blessing to be fostered
and extended where it did not exist at the time the Union of the
thirteen States was perfected.

Alexander H. Stephens, Vice-President of the Confederate States, in a
speech at Atlanta, Georgia, said:

'Jefferson, Madison, Washington, and many others, were tender of
the word slave, in the organic law, and all looked forward to the
time when the institution of slavery should be removed from our
midst as a trouble and a stumbling-block. The delusion could not be
traced in any of the component parts of the Southern Constitution.
In that instrument we solemnly discarded the pestilent heresy of
fancy politicians, that all men of all races were equal, and we
have made African inequality, and subordination, the chief
corner-stone of the Southern Republic.'

Here we have the great idea of an essential difference in relation to
the Constitution and slavery existing at the present day South, from
that which did exist at the time of its ratification universally by the
people of the thirteen States. The Vice-President of the Southern
Confederacy frankly admits that slavery is its chief corner-stone; that
our ancestors were deluded upon the subject of slavery; that the ideas
contained in the Declaration of Independence respecting the equality of
all men, and their natural right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness, are only the pestilent heresy of fancy politicians;
consequently that in the Southern Constitution all such trash was
solemnly discarded. Can clearer proof be wanted to show that the
stand-point of slavery and freedom has altogether changed since the days
of Washington? Is it not true that our country at the present day
presents the singular spectacle of two great divisions, one holding to
the Constitution as interpreted by our ancestors North and South, the
other openly repudiating such interpretation? Is it strange, with such a
radical difference existing as to the import of the Constitution upon
the subject of slavery, that we should have such frequent and ever
persistent charges of Northern aggression? If the history of slavery be
kept in mind, it will be seen that it has steadily had its eye upon one
end, and that is national aggrandizement. Thus about two hundred
thousand slaveholders wield all the political power of the South, and
compel all non-slaveholders to acquiesce in their supremacy. But
whatever the South may choose to do, the North is under obligation to
give to slavery nothing more than what is guaranteed in the
Constitution. If more than this is asked for, the North is bound by a
just regard for its own interests and the prosperity of the country to
refuse compliance. It has been seen that even admitting that a State has
a just cause of complaint, or supposing as a matter of fact that the
Constitution is violated, she can not set herself up to be exclusively
the judge in this matter, and leave the Union at her convenience.

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