The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Part 4 of 4

by American Anti-Slavery Society

The manner in which the 9th Section was agreed to, by the national convention that formed the constitution, is thus frankly avowed by the Hon. Luther Martin,[[91]] who was a prominent member of that body:

"The Eastern States, notwithstanding their aversion of slavery, (!) were very willing to indulge the Southern States at least with a temporary liberty to prosecute the slave trade, provided the Southern States would, in the return, gratify them by laying no restriction on navigation acts; and, after a very little time, the committee, by a great majority, agreed on a report, by which the general government was to be prohibited from preventing the importation of slaves for a limited time; and the restrictive clause relative to navigation acts was to be omitted."

[Footnote [91]: Speech before the Legislature of Maryland in 1787.]

Behold the iniquity of this agreement! How sordid were the motives which led to it! what a profligate disregard of justice and humanity, on the part of those who had solemnly declared the inalienable right of all men to be free and equal, to be a self-evident truth!

It is due to the national convention to say, that this section was not adopted "without considerable opposition." Alluding to it, Mr. Martin observes—

"It was said we had just assumed a place among the independent nations in consequence of our opposition to the attempts of Great Britain to enslave us; that this opposition was grounded upon the preservation of those rights to which God and nature has entitled us, not in particular, but in common with all the rest of mankind; that we had appealed to the Supreme Being for his assistance, as the God of freedom, who could not but approve our efforts to preserve the rights which he had thus imparted to his creatures; that now, when we had scarcely risen from our knees, from supplicating his mercy and protection in forming our government over a free people, a government formed pretendedly on the principles of liberty, and for its preservation,—in that government to have a provision, not only of putting out of its power to restrain and prevent the slave trade, even encouraging that most infamous traffic, by giving the States the power and influence in the Union in proportion as they cruelly and wantonly sported with the rights of their fellow-creatures, ought to be considered as a solemn mockery of, and insult to, that God whose protection we had thus implored, and could not fail to hold us up in detestation, and render us contemptible to every true friend of liberty in the world. It was said that national crimes can only be, and frequently are, punished in this world by national punishments, and that the continuance of the slave trade, and thus giving it a national character, sanction, and encouragement, ought to be considered as justly exposing us to the displeasure and vengeance of him who is equally the Lord of all, and who views with equal eye the poor African slave and his American master![[92]]

[Footnote [92]: How terribly and justly has this guilty nation been scourged, since these words were spoken, on account of slavery and the slave trade! Secret Proceedings, p. 64.]

"It was urged that, by this system, we were giving the general government full and absolute power to regulate commerce, under which general power it would have a right to restrain, or totally prohibit, the slave trade: it must, therefore, appear to the world absurd and disgraceful to the last degree that we should except from the exercise of that power the only branch of commerce which is unjustifiable in its nature, and contrary to the rights of mankind. That, on the contrary, we ought to prohibit expressly, in our Constitution, the further importation of slaves, and to authorize the general government, from time to time, to make such regulations as should be thought most advantageous for the gradual abolition of slavery, and the emancipation of the slaves already in the States. That slavery is inconsistent with the genius of republicanism, and has a tendency to destroy those principles on which it is supported, as it lessens the sense of the equal rights of mankind, and habituates to tyranny and oppression. It was further urged that, by this system of government, every State is to be protected both from foreign invasion and from domestic insurrections; and, from this consideration, it was of the utmost importance it should have the power to restrain the importation of slaves, since in proportion as the number of slaves increased in any State, in the same proportion is the State weakened and exposed to foreign invasion and domestic insurrection: and by so much less will it be able to protect itself against either, and therefore by so much, want aid from, and be a burden to, the Union.

"It was further said, that, in this system, as we were giving the general government power, under the idea of national character, or national interest, to regulate even our weights and measures, and have prohibited all possibility of emitting paper money, and passing insolvent laws, &c., it must appear still more extraordinary that we prohibited the government from interfering with the slave trade, than which nothing could more effect our national honor and interest.

"These reasons influenced me, both in the committee and in the convention, most decidedly to oppose and vote against the clause, as it now makes part of the system."[93]