But is that all the legislation in the Constitution about slavery? Why, sir, they inserted a clause in the Constitution authorizing the recapture of fugitive slaves when they entered the sovereign territory of these New England States which have now such an aborrence of the doctrine. As the meaning of that clause has been a subject of dispute, I ask the Clerk to read a short extract from the debates in the Virginia convention which adopted the Constitution, in which Mr. Madison explained the meaning of it. I hope I shall be able to show that we have some first-rate pro-slavery legislation in the Constitution before I get through with this argument.
The Clerk read, as follows:
“At present, if any slave elopes to any of those States where slaves are free, he becomes emancipated by their laws. For the laws of the States are uncharitable to one another in this respect. But in this Constitution, ‘no person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor; but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due.’ This clause was expressly inserted to enable owners of slaves to reclaim them. This is a better security than any that now exists. No power is given to the General Government to interpose with respect to the property in slaves now held by the States. The taxation of this State being equal only to its representation, such a tax cannot be laid as he supposes. They cannot prevent the importation of slaves for twenty years; but after that period they can. The gentlemen from South Carolina and Georgia argued in this manner: ‘We have now liberty to import this species of property, and much of the property now possessed has been purchased or otherwise acquired in contemplation of improving it by the assistance of imported slaves. What would be the consequence of hindering us from it? The slaves of Virginia would rise in value, and we would be obliged to go to your markets.’ I need not expatiate on this subject. Great as the evil is, a dismemberment of the Union would be worse. If those States should disunite from the other States, for not including them in the temporary continuance of this traffic, they might solicit and obtain aid from foreign Powers.”
Mr. LANDRUM. Yes, Mr. Chairman, those were the motives that influenced the framers of the Constitution. The several States of New England which, according to the testimony of Mr. Madison, had up to that time refused to deliver up fugitive slaves, voluntarily renounced the right of prohibiting it, and voted that the slave-catcher should have authority to enter therein, and carry back his slave to bondage. Do I want any better pro-slavery men than these? Where, sir, was this notion of “a sin against God and a crime against humanity” when they voted for that clause?
I will again refer to the remark of the gentleman from Connecticut, which I know he will not apply to his ancestors in Connecticut who voted for this pro-slavery provision—that “evil, disguised under whatever form it may be, can be productive only of evil.” He would not denounce his ancestors as hypocrites because they left out of the Constitution the weird “slave;” for Mr. Roger Sherman says that the expression was objectionable “to ears polite,” I suppose. Mr. Madison and Mr. Yates tell us what they meant by the description “held to service or labor.” I know the gentleman would not say that his ancestors were disguising in a particular name an evil, and thereby adopting it.
No, sir; slavery was a good thing; but it had a bad name, according to the polite phraseology of the day, and, knowing that “a rose by any other name would smell as sweet,” they changed the term “slave” to that of a “person held to service or labor.”
But, sir, in regard to this African slave trade provision, it was esteemed so important that, although provision was made for an amendment to the Constitution, applying to almost everything else within its compass, except, I believe, to the clause, that no State should be deprived of her equal representation in the Senate without her consent, this precious article of the slave trade clause was not to be interfered with, under any circumstances, prior to the year 1808.
I think, Mr. Chairman, I have disposed of the religious argument, the moral argument, the conscience argument against slavery, derived from the lessons taught by the example of our forefathers. Do not tell me any more that Mr. Madison thought slavery was an evil; because these thoughts controlled not the action of his public position. Do not tell me that Washington and Jefferson were opposed to slavery abstractly, after that; because we find even New England men, with all their prejudices, as good pro-slavery men as South Carolina and Georgia wanted—for they were the only States that made a question on this African slave trade. Whatever future congressional protection to property may become necessary, all that we have ever yet asked, Mr. Chairman, is that Congress shall not legislate at all on the question of slavery in the Territories. But your patriotic forefathers did legislate. They legislated to protect the African slave trade. They gave permission to the citizens of Massachusetts to enter into the slave trade along with the citizens of South Carolina and Georgia, and they gave us a fugitive slave law. That is the sort of legislation which they gave us in the Constitution, which is the basis of the Government under which we live.
There are other clauses in the Constitution, sir, which show that this matter of slavery was not neglected. In the apportionment of direct taxation and representation, it was stipulated that three-fifths of the slaves should be represented on this floor. They were noticed, and noticed as a degraded class, as unequal to free men; because, if they had been considered equal to free men we would have been entitled to full representation for them on this floor. But, sir, they were treated as a degraded class—as a class unequal to free men. Their masters were given a representation in this House in proportion to three-fifths of their numbers, and the direct taxation was to be assessed at the same ratio on the slave States. Now, I allude to this subject, not to show boastingly, as it has been said on this floor, that we have a slave representation here. In that very provision of the Constitution the people of the northern States derived all the advantage—the people of the southern States all the loss; for no money, scarcely, has ever been raised by direct taxation. The money for the support of the Government is collected in an entirely different manner. If taxes were assessed on that principle, by a system of direct taxation, we would have derived some benefit from the three-fifth provision; but, as it is, you derive all the advantage, and we none of it.
The principle which governed the convention in inserting that provision was the belief that this was the proportion in which the labor of the slave contributed to the wealth of the country, comparatively to that of the free man; and as, according to the political doctrines of that day, taxation and representation went hand in hand, and as a slave produced only three-fifths as much annual income as a free man, their masters were only entitled to that much representation. So it is in the electoral college. There the slaves are enumerated in the same proportion, and their masters are deprived of a voice to that extent.