Nor have we a class born to be our legislators. We have no legislative castes, nor social castes, but we may truly say, that any native-born citizen of the United States may aspire to any position, be it governmental or social.
Nor have we fought so long—though it must be confessed we are ready pupils here—as most of the countries of the old world have; still we begin to make fighting almost a part of the government, and a part of the religion of the land. But all this does not answer the question that many have asked, and that our intelligence and exemption from bias in many things make more remarkable,—why did we suffer slavery to find a place in a constitution in which there are so many good things,—why did we make a garden of healthful fruits and enchanting flowers, and place this serpent in it?
The answer to this question may be easily given by one that well knows the condition of the country that soon followed on the treaty of 1783. Till we were governed by the present constitution we were governed by the Articles of Confederation. The United States, though nominally a nation, had no power to enforce any stipulation she might make. For instance,—if she should promise by a treaty to pay interest on the debt that we had contracted to secure our national independence, each State by its own power and authority were to raise its quota of the whole amount. If a State failed to raise it, the United States had no redress. It had no authority to coerce any State, no matter what was the cause of failure. This is given as only an instance, and did we not think it made our position very plain, others might be given in manifold abundance,—all tending to show the unfaithfulness of the States to the engagements of the United States, and the utter powerlessness of the latter to keep her word. It was owing to this that the main object of the Convention was the more perfect union of the States, and that in this way there might be conferred on the United States the same plenary power to carry out her engagements that a State had to carry out hers.
The Convention did not meet to do away with slavery, but chiefly to form such a union as would obviate the difficulty already mentioned, and so keenly felt by some of the most earnest friends of the country. Although slavery was pretty well understood then, and seen to be opposed to all the principles of freedom asserted, yet as it had been embraced by so many, that if they should be united against the constitution its adoption would be endangered, it was thought best not to insist on its instant abolition. Men as yet had too much selfishness in them, and although reasonable beings, they have too much of the animal in them to see that, in the long run, honesty is the best policy. Many of the opponents of slavery, even from the slave States themselves, took this opportunity of showing the baseness and turpitude of the whole system,—its advocates from the far South defending it as well as they could. These advocates gave it as their opinion, that owing to the Declaration of 1776, one which had already done wonders at the North,—owing to the influence of the principles of liberty inserted into the constitution, and to the feeling of justice pervading all classes of persons, and to the progress of refinement and true civilization, slavery would ultimately disappear.[S]
At the time this opinion was expressed by the conventionists from the South, although we cultivated cotton to a small extent, it could not be regarded as a staple. Soon after making the constitution, it began to be important. It could be produced only at the South. As it grew in value, the notion of abolishing slavery began to wane, till now some of the leading men of that part of the country say it is not only a good thing, but an indispensable one to the highest perfection of the social system.
James G. Birney.