CHAPTER IV.
INFLUENCE OF SLAVERY ON THE POLITICS OF THE UNITED STATES.
| Casca. I believe these are portentous things |
| Unto the climate that they point upon. |
| Cicero. Indeed it is a strange disposed time: |
| But men may construe things after their fashion, |
| Clean from the purpose of the things themselves. |
| Julius Cæsar. |
When slave representation was admitted into the Constitution of the United States, a wedge was introduced, which has ever since effectually sundered the sympathies and interests of different portions of the country. By this step, the slave States acquired an undue advantage, which they have maintained with anxious jealousy, and in which the free States have never perfectly acquiesced. The latter would probably never have made the concession, so contrary to their principles, and the express provisions of their State constitutions, if powerful motives had not been offered by the South. These consisted, first, in taking upon themselves a proportion of direct taxes, increased in the same ratio as their representation was increased by the concession to their slaves.
Second.—In conceding to the small States an entire equality in the Senate. This was not indeed proposed as an item of the adjustment, but it operated as such; for the small States, with the exception of Georgia, (which in fact expected to become one of the largest,) lay in the North, and were either free, or likely soon to become so.
During most of the contest, Massachusetts, then one of the large States, voted with Virginia and Pennsylvania for unequal representation in the Senate; but on the final question she was divided, and gave no vote. There was probably an increasing tendency to view this part of the compromise, not merely as a concession of the large to the small States, but also of the largely slaveholding, to the free, or slightly
slaveholding States. The two questions of slave representation with a proportional increase of direct taxes, and of perfect equality in the Senate, were always connected together; and a large committee of compromise, consisting of one member from each State, expressly recommended that both provisions should be adopted, but neither of them without the other.
Such were the equivalents, directly or indirectly offered, by which the free States were induced to consent to slave representation. It was not without very considerable struggles that they overcame their repugnance to admitting such a principle in the construction of a republican government. Mr. Gerry, of Massachusetts, at first exclaimed against it with evident horror, but at last, he was chairman of the committee of compromise. Even the slave States themselves, seem to have been a little embarrassed with the discordant element. A curious proof of this is given in the language of the Constitution. The ugly feature is covered as cautiously as the deformed visage of the Veiled Prophet. The words are as follows: "Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the States according to their respective numbers; which shall be ascertained by adding to the whole number of free persons, including those bound to servitude for a term of years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other persons." In this most elaborate sentence, a foreigner would discern no slavery. None but those already acquainted with the serpent, would be able to discover its sting.
Governor Wright, of Maryland, a contemporary of all these transactions, and a slaveholder, after delivering a eulogy upon the kindness of masters[AA] expressed himself as follows: "The Constitution guaranties to us the services of these persons. It does not say slaves; for the feelings of the framers of that glorious instrument would not suffer them to use that word, on account of its anti-congeniality—its incongeniality to the idea of a constitution for freemen. It says, 'persons held to service, or labor.'"—Governor Wright's Speech in Congress, March, 1822.