History of American Abolitionism / Its four great epochs, embracing narratives of the ordinance of 1787, compromise of 1820, annexation of Texas, Mexican war, Wilmot proviso, negro insurrections, abolition riots, slave rescues, compromise of 1850, Kansas bill of 1854, John Brown insurrection, 1859, valuable statistics, &c., &c., &c., together with a history of the Southern Confederacy.

by F. G. De Fontaine

1. The importation of African negroes from any foreign country other than the slaveholding States of the Confederated States is hereby forbidden, and Congress is required to pass such laws as shall effectually prevent the same.

2. Congress shall also have power to prohibit the introduction of slaves from any State not a member of this Confederacy.

The Congress shall have power—

1. To lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, for revenue necessary to pay the debts and carry on the government of the Confederacy, and all duties, imposts, and excises shall be uniform throughout the Confederacy.

A slave in one State escaping to another shall be delivered up on the claim of the party to whom said slave may belong by the Executive authority of the State in which such slave may be found; and any case of any abduction or forcible rescue full compensation, including the value of slave, and all costs and expenses, shall be made to the party by the State in which such abduction or rescue shall take place.

2. The government hereby instituted shall take immediate steps for the settlement of all matters between the States forming it and their late confederates of the United States in relation to the public property and public debt at the time of their withdrawal from them, these States hereby declaring it to be their wish and earnest desire to adjust everything pertaining to the common property, common liabilities, and common obligations of that Union upon principles of right, justice, equity and good faith.

In several other features the new constitution differs from the original. The old one commences with the words—“We the people of the United States,” &c. The new—“We the deputies of the sovereign and independent States of South Carolina,” &c., thus distinctly indicating their sovereign and independent character, and yet their mutual reliance.

Again, the new constitution reverentially invokes “the favor of Almighty God.” In the old, the existence of a Supreme Being appears to have been entirely ignored.

In the original, not only was the word “slave” omitted, but even the idea was so studiously avoided as to raise grave questions concerning the intent of the several clauses in which the “institution” is a subject of legislation, while in the new, the word “slaves” is boldly inserted, and the intention of its framers so clearly defined with reference to them that there is hardly a possibility of misapprehension.

Again, contrary to the expectation of the majority of the Northern people, who have persistently urged that the object of the South in establishing a separate government was to re-open the African slave trade, the most stringent measures are to be adopted for its suppression.