April 8th, the last day of debate, Mr. Sumner made the speech which follows this Introduction.
During the discussion there were several votes. Mr. Davis moved as a substitute, “No negro, or person whose mother or grandmother is or was a negro, shall be a citizen of the United States, or be eligible to any civil or military office or to any place of trust or profit under the United States.” This was lost,—Yeas 5, Nays 32. Mr. Davis then proposed to add to the first section of the proposed article: “But no slave shall be entitled to his or her freedom under this Amendment, if resident, at the time it takes effect, in any State the laws of which forbid free negroes to reside therein, until removed from such State by the Government of the United States.” This was rejected without a division. Mr. Davis further proposed to add at the end of the second section, that, “when this Amendment of the Constitution shall have taken effect by freeing the slaves, Congress shall provide for the distribution and settlement of all the population of African descent in the United States among the several States and Territories in proportion to the white population of each State and Territory.” This also was rejected without a division, as was another Amendment by him concerning the election of President and Vice-President. Mr. Powell moved to add to the first section: “No slave shall be emancipated by this article, unless the owner thereof shall be first paid the value of the slave or slaves so emancipated.” This was rejected,—Yeas 2, Nays 34.
Mr. Sumner offered his substitute in these terms:—
“All persons are equal before the law, so that no person can hold another as a slave; and the Congress may make all laws necessary and proper to carry this article into effect everywhere within the United States and the jurisdiction thereof.”
Concerning the Amendment of the Committee he remarked:—
“It starts with the idea of reproducing the Jeffersonian Ordinance. I doubt the expediency of reproducing that Ordinance. It performed an excellent work in its day, but there are words in it which are entirely inapplicable to our time. They are the limitation, ‘otherwise than in the punishment of crimes whereof the party shall have been duly convicted.’ Now, unless I err, there is an implication from those words that men may be enslaved as a punishment of crimes whereof they shall have been duly convicted. There was a reason for that at the time; for I understand that it was the habit in certain parts of the country to doom persons as slaves for life as a punishment for crime, and it was not proposed to prohibit this habit. But Slavery in our day is something distinct, perfectly well known, requiring no words of distinction outside of itself. Why, therefore, add the words, ‘nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted’? To my mind they are entirely surplusage. They do no good there, but absolutely introduce a doubt.
“In placing a new and important text in our Constitution we cannot be too careful. We should consider well that the language adopted in this Chamber to-day will in all probability be adopted in the other House, and it must be adopted, also, by three fourths of the Legislatures of the States. Therefore we have every motive, the strongest inducement in the world, to make that language as perfect as possible. I do not hesitate to say, that I object to the Jeffersonian Ordinance, even if presented here in its original text. But now I am brought to the point that the proposition of the Committee is not the Jeffersonian Ordinance, except in its bad feature. In other respects, it discards the language of the Jeffersonian Ordinance, and also its collocation of words.”
Mr. Trumbull replied, that the Committee, upon discussion and examination, had come to their conclusion. “I do not know,” he said, “that I should have adopted these precise words, but a majority of the Committee thought they were the best words; they accomplish the object; and I cannot see why the Senator from Massachusetts should be so pertinacious about particular words.” He hoped Mr. Sumner would withdraw his proposition.