“Thirteen governments, thus founded on the natural authority of the people alone, without a pretence of miracle or mystery, and which are destined to spread over the northern part of that whole quarter of the globe, are a great point gained in favor of the rights of mankind.”[149]
Here is a plain assertion that our Thirteen States were founded “on the natural authority of the people alone,” and that they were destined to spread over all North America.
Charles Pinckney, in a speech on the adoption of the Constitution, speaks for South Carolina:—
“The doctrine of representation is the fundamental of a republic.… As to the United Netherlands, it is such a confusion of states and assemblies, that I have always been at loss what species of government to term it. According to my idea of the word, it is not a republic; for I conceive it as indispensable in a republic that all authority should flow from the people.… A republic is where the people at large, either collectively or by representation, form the Legislature.”[150]
Luther Martin, an able representative of Maryland in the Convention, while vindicating a prohibition or tax on the importation of slaves, said:—
“The privilege of importing them was unreasonable; and it was inconsistent with the principles of the Revolution, and dishonorable to the American character, to have such a feature in the Constitution.”[151]
Afterwards, in his address to the Legislature of Maryland, he announced that both in the Committee and in the Convention he was influenced by the argument,—
“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 us to tyranny and oppression.”[152]
Thus was a “sense of the Equal Rights of mankind” one of the principles on which Republicanism rested.