James Madison

by Sydney Howard Gay

While these questions were pending, another was thrown into the House which was not disposed of for nearly two months. The debates upon it, Madison said in one of his letters, "were shamefully indecent," though he thought the introduction of the subject into Congress injudicious. The Yearly Meeting of Friends in New York and in Pennsylvania sent a memorial against the continued toleration of the slave trade; and this was followed the next day by a petition from the Pennsylvania Society for the Promotion of the Abolition of Slavery, signed by Benjamin Franklin as president, asking for a more radical measure.

"They earnestly entreat," they said, "your serious attention to the subject of slavery; that you will be pleased to countenance the restoration of liberty to these unhappy men, who alone in this land of freedom are degraded into perpetual bondage, and who, amidst the general joy of surrounding freemen, are groaning in servile subjection; that you will devise means for removing this inconsistency from the character of the American people; that you will promote mercy and justice towards this distressed race; and that you will step to the very verge of the power vested in you for discouraging every species of traffic in the persons of our fellow-men."

The words were probably Franklin's own, and, as he died a few weeks after they were written, they may be considered as his dying words to his countrymen,—counsel wise and merciful as his always was.

A memorable debate followed the presentation of these memorials. Even in the imperfect report of it that has come down to us, the "shameful indecency" of which Madison speaks is visible enough. Franklin, venerable in years, exalted in character, and eminent above almost all the men of the time for services to his country, was sneered at for senility and denounced as disregarding the obligations of the Constitution. But the wrath of the pro-slavery extremists was specially aroused against the Society of Friends, and was unrestrained by any considerations of either decency or truth. In this respect the debate was the precursor of every contest in Congress upon the subject that was to follow for the coming seventy years. The Quakers were the representative abolitionists of that day, and the measure of bitter and angry denunciation that was meted out to them was the same measure which, heaped up and overflowing, was poured out upon those who, in later times, took upon themselves the burden of the cause of the slave. The line of argument, the appeals to prejudice, the disregard of facts and the false conclusions, the misrepresentation of past history and the misapprehension of the future, the contempt of reason, of common sense, and common humanity, then laboriously and unscrupulously arrayed in defense of slavery, left nothing for the exercise of the ingenuity of modern orators. A single difference only between the earlier and the later time is conspicuous; the "plantation manners," as they were called five and twenty years ago, which the Wises, the Brookses, the Barksdales, and the Priors of the modern South relied upon as potent weapons of defense and assault, were unknown in the earlier Congresses.

Mr. Madison and some other members from the South, particularly those from Virginia, opposed the majority of their colleagues, who were unwilling that these memorials should be referred to a committee. "The true policy of the Southern members," Madison wrote to a friend, "was to have let the affair proceed with as little noise as possible, and to have made use of the occasion to obtain, along with an assertion of the powers of Congress, a recognition of the restraints imposed by the Constitution." This in effect was done in the end, but not till near two months had passed, within which time the more violent of the Southern members had ample opportunity to free their minds and exhaust the subject. The more these people talked the worse it was, of course, for their cause. Had Madison's moderate advice been accepted then, and had that example been followed for the next sixty or seventy years, it is quite likely that the colored race would still be in bondage in at least one half of the States. But there was never a more notable example of manifest destiny than the gradual but certain progress of the opposition to slavery; for there never was a system, any attempt to defend which showed how utterly indefensible such a system must needs be. Every argument advanced in its favor was so manifestly absurd, or so shocking to the ordinary sense of mankind, that the more it was discussed the more widespread and earnest became the opposition. Had the slaveholders been wise, they would never have opened their mouths upon the subject. But, like the man possessed of the devil, they never ceased to cry, "Let me alone!" And the more they cried, the more there were who understood where that cry came from.

In one respect Mr. Madison declared that the memorial of the Friends demanded attention. If the American flag was used to protect foreigners in carrying on the slave trade in other countries, that was a proper subject for the consideration of Congress. "If this is the case," he said, "is there any person of humanity that would not wish to prevent them?"[13] But he recognized the limitations of the Constitution in relation to the importation of slaves into the United States, and the want of any authority in the letter of the Constitution, or of any wish on the part of Congress, to interfere with slavery in the States. On these points he would have a decisive declaration, without agitation, and with as little discussion as possible, and there would have dropped the subject. It only needed, he evidently thought, that everybody, North and South, should understand the Constitution to be a mutual agreement to let slavery altogether alone, when the bargain would be on both sides faithfully adhered to.

This was all very well with the numerous persons who were quite indifferent to the subject, or who thought it very unreasonable in the blacks not to be quite willing to remain slaves a few hundred years longer. But there were two other classes to reckon with, and Mr. Madison was not much inclined to be patient with either of them. To let the subject alone was precisely what the hot-headed members from the South were incapable of doing then, as they proved to be incapable of doing for the next seventy years. On the other hand, all the petitioners could really hope for was that there should be discussion. The galleries were crowded at those earliest debates, as they continued to be crowded on all such occasions in subsequent years. Many went to learn what could be said on behalf of slavery, who came away convinced that the least said the better. Agitation might disturb the harmony of the Union, which was Madison's dread; it might lead to the death of an abolitionist, as it sometimes did in later times; but it was sure in the end to be the death of slavery, though its short-sighted defenders could never understand why. They could never be made to see that its most dangerous foes were the friends of its own household, who could not hold their tongues; that for their case all wisdom was epitomized in the vulgar caution "to lie low and keep dark;" that the exposure of the true character of slavery must needs be its destruction, and that nothing so exposed it as any attempt to defend it. Slavery was quite safe under the Constitution, as Mr. Madison intimated, if its friends would only leave it there and claim no other protection.

Advocates are never wanting in any court who believe that the most effective line of defense is to abuse the plaintiff. The Quakers, it was said, "notwithstanding their outward pretenses," had no "more virtue or religion than other people, nor perhaps so much." They had not made the Constitution, nor risked their lives and fortunes by fighting for their country. Why should they "set themselves up in such a particular manner against slavery"? Did they not know that the Bible not only allowed but commended it, "from Genesis to Revelation"? That the Saviour had permitted it? That the Apostles, in spreading Christianity, had never preached against it? That it had been—the illustration was not altogether a happy one—"no novel doctrine since the days of Cain"? The condition of these American slaves was said to be one of great happiness and comfort; yet almost in the same breath it was asserted that to excite in their minds any hope of change would lead to the most disastrous consequences, and possibly to massacre. The memorialists were bidden to remember that, even if slavery "were an evil, it was one for which there was no remedy;" for that reason the North had acquiesced in it; "a compromise was made on both sides,—we took each other, with our mutual bad habits and respective evils, for better, for worse; the Northern States adopted us with our slaves, and we adopted them with their Quakers." Without such a compromise there could have been no Union, and any interference now with slavery by the government would end in a civil war. These people were meddling with what was none of their business, and exciting the slaves to insurrection. Yet how forbearing were the people of the Southern States who, notwithstanding all this, "had not required the assistance of Congress to exterminate the Quakers!"

This was not conciliatory. Those who had been disposed at the beginning to meet the petitions with a quiet reply that the subject was out of the jurisdiction of Congress were now provoked to give them a much warmer reception. They could not listen patiently to the abuse of the Quakers, and, though they might acquiesce in the toleration of slavery, they were not inclined to have it crammed down their throats as a wise, beneficent, and consistent condition of society under a republican government. Even Madison, who at first was most anxious that nothing should be said or done to arouse agitation, while acknowledging that all citizens might rightfully appeal to Congress for a redress of what they considered grievances, was moved at last to say that the memorial of the Friends was "well worthy of consideration." While admitting that under the Constitution the slave trade could not be prohibited for twenty years, "yet," he declared, "there are a variety of ways by which it [Congress] could countenance the abolition, and regulations might be made in relation to the introduction of [slavery] into the new States to be formed out of the western territory."

Gerry was still more emphatic in the assertion of the right of interference. He boldly asserted that "flagrant acts of cruelty" were committed in carrying on the African slave trade; and, while nobody proposed to violate the Constitution, "that we have a right to regulate this business is as clear as that we have any right whatever; nor has the contrary been shown by anybody who has spoken on the occasion." Nor did he stop there. He told the slaveholders that the value of their slaves in money was only about ten million dollars, and that Congress had the right to propose "to purchase the whole of them; and their resources in the western territory might furnish them with the means." The Southern members would, perhaps, have been startled by such a proposition as this, had he not immediately added that "he did not intend to suggest a measure of this kind; he only instanced these particulars to show that Congress certainly had a right to intermeddle in the business." It is quite likely, had he pushed such a measure with his well-known zeal and determination, that it would have been at least received with a good deal of favor; and, as the admirers of Jefferson are tenacious of his fame as the author of the original Northwest Ordinance, so Gerry, had he seriously and earnestly urged the policy of using the proceeds of the sales of territorial lands to remunerate the owners of slaves for their liberation, would have left behind him a more fragrant memory than that which clings to him as a minister to France, and as the "Gerrymandering" governor of Massachusetts. The debate, however, came to an end at last with no other result than that which would have been reached at the beginning without debate, except, perhaps, that the vote in favor of the reports upon the memorials was smaller than it might have been had there been no discussion.