The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus

by American Anti-Slavery Society

It is clear, then, that Congress had the power to interdict our trade in human beings with Africa. But, in view of what has been said on that point--in view of the language of the Federal Constitution--of the proceedings of the Convention, which framed it--and of the cotemporary public sentiment--is it any less clear, that Congress has the power to interdict the inter-state traffic in human beings?

There are some, who assert that the words "migration" and "importation," instead of referring, as I maintain they do--the former to the removal of slaves from state to state, and the latter to their introduction from Africa--are used in the Constitution as synonyms, and refer exclusively to the "African slave trade." But there is surely no ground for the imputation of such utter tautology, if we recollect that the Constitution was written by scholars, and that remarkable pains were taken to clear it of all superfluous words--a Committee having been appointed for that special purpose. But, it may be asked, Why, in reference to the taking of slaves from one state to another, use the word "migration," which denotes voluntary removal? One answer is--that it can be used with as much propriety in that case, as in the removal of slaves from Africa--the removal in the one case being no less involuntary than in the other. Another answer is--that the framers of the Constitution selected the word "migration," because of its congruity with that of "persons," under which their virtuous shame sought to conceal from posterity the existence of seven hundred thousand slaves amongst a people, who had but recently entered upon their national career, with the solemn declaration, that "all men are created equal."

John Jay, whose great celebrity is partly owing to his very able expositions of the Constitution, says: "To me, the constitutional authority of the Congress to prohibit the migration and importation of slaves into any of the states, does not appear questionable." If the disjunctive between "migration" and "importation" in the Constitution, argues their reference to the same thing, Mr. Jay's copulative argues more strongly, that, in his judgment, they refer to different things.

The law of Congress constituting the "Territory of Orleans," was enacted in 1804. It fully recognizes the power of that body to prohibit the trade in slaves between a territory and the states. But, if Congress had this power, why had it not as clear a power to prohibit, at that time, the trade in slaves between any two of the states? It might have prohibited it, but for the constitutional suspension of the exercise of the power. The term of that suspension closed, however, in 1808; and, since that year, Congress has had as full power to abolish the whole slave trade between the states, as it had in 1804 to abolish the like trade between the Territory of Orleans and the states.

But, notwithstanding the conclusive evidence, that the Constitution empowers Congress to abolish the inter-state slave trade, it is incomprehensible to many, that such states as Virginia and Maryland should have consented to deprive themselves of the benefit of selling their slaves into other states. It is incomprehensible, only because they look upon such states in the light of their present character and present interests. It will no longer be so, if they will bear in mind, that slave labor was then, as it is now, unprofitable for ordinary agriculture, and that Whitney's cotton-gin, which gave great value to such labor, was not yet invented, and that the purchase of Louisiana, which has had so great an effect to extend and perpetuate the dominion of slavery, was not yet made. It will no longer be incomprehensible to them, if they will recollect, that, at the period in question, American slavery was regarded as a rapidly decaying, if not already expiring institution. It will no longer be so, if they will recollect, how small was the price of slaves then, compared with their present value; and that, during the ten years, which followed the passage of the Act of Virginia in 1782, legalizing manumissions, her citizens emancipated slaves to the number of nearly one-twentieth of the whole amount of her slaves in that year. To learn whether your native Virginia clung in the year 1787 to the inter-state traffic in human flesh, we must take our post of observation, not amongst her degenerate sons, who, in 1836, sold men, women, and children, to the amount of twenty-four millions of dollars--not amongst her President Dews, who write books in favor of breeding human stock for exportation--but amongst her Washingtons, and Jeffersons, and Henrys, and Masons, who, at the period when the Constitution was framed, freely expressed their abhorrence of slavery.

But, however confident you may be, that Congress has not the lawful power to abolish the branch of commerce in question; nevertheless, would the abolition of it be so clearly and grossly unconstitutional, as to justify the contempt with which the numerous petitions for the measure are treated, and the impeachment of their fidelity to the Constitution, and of their patriotism and purity, which the petitioners are made to endure?

I was about to take it for granted, that, although you deny the power of Congress to abolish the inter-state traffic in human beings, you do not justify the traffic--when I recollected the intimation in your speech, that there is no such traffic. For, when you speak of "the slave trade between the states," and add--"or, as it is described in abolition petitions, the traffic in human beings between the states"--do you not intimate there is no such traffic? Whence this language? Do you not believe slaves are human beings? And do you not believe that they suffer under the disruption of the dearest earthly ties, as human beings suffer? I will not detain you to hear what we of the North think of this internal slave trade. But I will call your attention to what is thought of it in your own Kentucky and in your native Virginia. Says the "Address of the Presbyterian Synod of Kentucky to the Churches in 1835:"--"Brothers and sisters, parents and children, husbands and wives, are torn asunder, and permitted to see each other no more. Those acts are daily occurring in the midst of us. The shrieks and the agony often witnessed on such occasions, proclaim with a trumpet tongue the iniquity and cruelty of the system. There is not a neighborhood where these heart-rending scenes are not displayed. There is not a village or road that does not behold the sad procession of manacled outcasts, whose chains and mournful countenances tell that they are exiled by force from all that their hearts hold dear." Says Thomas Jefferson Randolph, in the Virginia Legislature in 1832, when speaking of this trade: "It is a practice, and an increasing practice, in parts of Virginia, to rear slaves for market. How can an honourable mind, a patriot, and a lover of his country, bear to see this ancient dominion, rendered illustrious by the noble devotion and patriotism of her sons in the cause of liberty, converted into one grand menagerie, where men are to be reared for the market like oxen for the shambles. Is it better--is it not worse than the (foreign) slave trade--that trade which enlisted the labor of the good and wise of every creed and every clime to abolish? The (foreign) trader receives the slave, a stranger in language, aspect, and manner, from the merchant who has brought him from the interior. The ties of father, mother, husband, and child, have already been rent in twain; before he receives him, his soul has become callous. But here, sir, individuals whom the master has known from infancy, whom he has seen sporting in the innocent gambols of childhood--who have been accustomed to look to him for protection, he tears from the mother's arms, and sells into a strange country--among strange people, subject to cruel taskmasters."

You are in favor of increasing the number of slave states. The terms of the celebrated "Missouri compromise" warrant, in your judgment, the increase. But, notwithstanding you admit, that this unholy compromise, in which tranquillity was purchased at the expense of humanity and righteousness, does not "in terms embrace the case," and "is not absolutely binding and obligatory;" you, nevertheless, make no attempt whatever to do away any one of the conclusive objections, which are urged against such increase. You do not attempt to show how the multiplication of slave states can consist with the constitutional duty of the "United States to guarantee to every state in the Union a republican form of government," any more than if it were perfectly clear, that a government is republican under which one half of the people are lawfully engaged in buying and selling the other half; or than if the doctrine that "all men are created equal" were not the fundamental and distinctive doctrine of a republican government. You no more vindicate the proposition to enlarge the realm of slavery, than if the proposition were as obviously in harmony with, as it is opposed to the anti-slavery tenor and policy of the Constitution--the rights of man--and the laws of God.

You are perhaps of the number of those, who, believing, that a state can change its Constitution as it pleases, deem it futile in Congress to require, that States, on entering the Union, shall have anti-slavery Constitutions. The Framers of the Federal Constitution doubtless foresaw the possibility of treachery, on the part of the new States, in the matter of slavery: and the restriction in that instrument to the old States--"the States now existing"--of the right to participate in the internal and "African slave trade" may be ascribed to the motive of diminishing, if not indeed of entirely preventing, temptation to such treachery. The Ordinance concerning the North-west Territory, passed by the Congress of 1787, and ratified by the Congress of 1790, shows, so far as those bodies can be regarded as correct interpreters of the Constitution which was framed in 1787, and adopted in 1789, that slavery was not to have a constitutional existence in the new States. The Ordinance continues the privilege of recapturing fugitive slaves in the North-west Territory to the "existing States." Slaves in that territory, to be the subjects of lawful recapture, must in the language of the Ordinance, owe "labour or service in one of the original States."

I close what I have to say on this topic, with the remark, that were it admitted, that the reasons for the increase of the number of slave States are sound and satisfactory, it nevertheless would not follow, that the moral and constitutional wrong of preventing that increase is so palpable, as to justify the scorn and insult, which are heaped by Congress upon this hundred thousand petitioners for this measure.