North Carolina did not ratify the Constitution until November, 1789, nor Rhode Island until May, 1790, and until they did ratify it they remained as foreign nations to the other states. When the ratification was under consideration, there was much discussion as to the construction of various clauses, and most of the states were induced to give their assent by the hope of adoption of amendments explaining all ambiguities and objectionable clauses, and the ratification was accompanied with the recommendation of such amendments as were desired.
In passing the ordinance ratifying the Constitution, the Virginia convention adopted an explanatory preamble, declaring that when the powers delegated should be abused they would be resumed, and the New York convention accompanied the ratification with a declaration of the right to withdraw it. It is curious in view of subsequent events, that Massachusetts proposed as an amendment "That all powers not expressly delegated to Congress should be reserved to the states," and another "That no person be tried for any crime (cases in the military and naval service excepted) without previous indictment by a grand jury; and that in civil cases the right of trial by jury be preserved." The first of these was recommended by Virginia and South Carolina also, and the last by Virginia, and both were subsequently adopted as amendments to the Constitution on the recommendation of the first Congress, with only a change of phraseology not at all effecting their import. Massachusetts has changed her views since she asserted these doctrines of states' rights and civil liberty.
The Constitution of the United States left slavery in the states precisely where it was before, the only provision having any reference to it whatever being that which fixed the ratio of representation in the House of Representatives and direct taxation; that in reference to the foreign slave trade, and that guaranteeing the return of fugitive slaves. Had it been proposed to insert any provision giving Congress any power over the subject in the states, it would have been resisted, and the insertion of such provision would have insured the rejection of the Constitution. The government framed under this Constitution being one of delegated powers entirely, those powers were necessarily limited to the objects for which they were granted, but to prevent all misconception, the 9th and 10th amendments were adopted, the first providing that "The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people," and the other that: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people."
It has now been shown how slavery originated in the United States and that the Federal Constitution left its regulation in every particular, where it belonged, that is to the several states where it existed, save only in regard to the foreign slave trade and the guarantee for the return of fugitive slaves as mentioned.
State action had already provided for the removal of slavery from several of the northern states, and this was followed, later, by a law adopted in New York in 1799, providing that all children of slaves born after the 4th of July of that year should be free, males at 28 and females at 25 years of age, and a law adopted in New Jersey in 1804, providing that all children of slaves born after the 4th of July of that year should be free, the males at 25 and the females at 21 years of age. This was the last of the acts for the emancipation of slavery where it previously existed and therefore, so far as regarded the original thirteen states, slavery was confined to Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North and South Carolina and Georgia, except as to the remnants left in the other states by the acts for gradual emancipation, which lingered in some of them for a long time.
If African slavery was a crime, who was responsible for it? Did the sole guilt or the greater part of it rest upon the shoulders of the colonists who purchased the slaves already ravished from their homes in the plains and wilds of Africa, or on the shoulders of the descendants of the original purchasers who found the institution already established as a settled policy, or did it rest with those who procured the enslavement of these ignorant and degraded barbarians and reaped the enormous profits resulting from their sale in their persons?
Treating it as national or individual sin, where does the guilt lie? The mercantile marines of Great Britain and New England are monuments to the African slave trade, upon the profits of which they were mainly built up.
It has been often said that the assertion contained in the Declaration of Independence "That all men are created equal, etc.," was entirely inconsistent with the continuation of slavery in any of the United States; and that the states which continued it were guilty of a great inconsistency. Who had then a right to make this criticism? Was it the Englishman, with Lord Mansfield's decision staring him in the face, and his boast of liberty under the common law on his tongue, while his heel was upon the neck of Ireland, his ships ploughing the main, freighted with human merchandise packed to suffocation, and his writs of execution levied upon the bodies of human beings to satisfy his demands? Was it the Frenchman, who, equally guilty in the traffic in human flesh, in the name of "Liberty, Equality and Fraternity" glutted the guillotine with the blood of his brethren, until he himself was forced to take refuge from his own "Liberty" under the protection of a despotism that kept watch upon his very thoughts? Was it the Dutchman, whose ships had carried the traffic in slaves to every clime and who landed the first cargo within the limits of the United States? Was it the Russian, who had bleeding Poland under his feet and caused order to reign in Warsaw, while he peopled Siberia with every age and sex, and his ears were gladdened by the sound of the well-plied knout? Was it the Prussian, the Austrian, the Dane, the Swede, or the Italian? The Portuguese, the Spaniard and the Turk have not troubled themselves about the matter.
The fact is that the assertion of independence was made by the Continental Congress, by a resolution adopted on the 2d of July, 1776, in the following words: