The words of Mr. Madison, who "thought it wrong to admit in the Constitution the idea that there could be property in man," are four or five times quoted in Mr. Sumner's speech. As we have already seen,[213] there cannot be, in the strict sense of the terms, "property in man;" for the soul is the man, and no one, except God, can own the soul. Hence Mr. Madison acted wisely, we think, in wishing to exclude such an expression from the Constitution, inasmuch as it would have been misunderstood by Northern men, and only shocked their feelings without answering any good purpose.
When we say that slaves are property, we merely mean that their masters have a right to their service or labor. This idea is recognized in the Constitution, and this right is secured. We ask no more. As Mr. Madison, and the whole South, had the thing, he did not care to wrangle about the name. We are told, again and again, that the word slave does not appear in the Constitution. Be it so. We care not, since our slaves are there recognized as "persons held to service" by those to whom "such service is due." It is repeated without end that the "Constitution acts on slaves as persons, and not as property." Granted; and if Northern men will, according to the mandate of the Constitution, only deliver up our fugitive servants, we care not whether they restore them as persons or as property. If we may only reclaim them as persons, and regain their service, we are perfectly satisfied. We utterly despise all such verbal quibbling.
Mr. Madison was above it. He acted wisely, we repeat, in refusing to shock the mind of any one, by insisting upon a mere word, and upon a word, too, which might not have conveyed a correct idea of his own views. But that Mr. Madison could, as he undersood the terms, regard slaves as property, we have the most incontestable evidence. For in the Convention of Virginia, called to ratify the Constitution of the United States, he said, "Another clause secures us that property which we now possess. 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." He then quotes the provision from the Constitution relative to fugitives from labor, and adds: "This clause was expressly inserted to enable owners of slaves to reclaim them." So much for Mr. Sumner's main argument from the language of the members of the Convention of 1787.
Arguing from the sentiments of that convention with respect to slavery, he concludes that nothing could have been further from their intentions than to confer upon Congress the power to pass a uniform Fugitive Slave Law. He boldly asserts, that if a proposition to confer such a power upon Congress had "been distinctly made it would have been distinctly denied." "But no person in the convention," he says, "not one of the reckless partisans of slavery, was so audacious as to make the proposition." Now we shall show that the above statement of his is diametrically opposed to the truth. We shall show that the members of the convention in question were perfectly willing to confer such a power upon Congress.
The reason why they were so is obvious to any one who has a real knowledge of the times about whose history Mr. Sumner so confidently declaims. This reason is well stated in the language of the Chancellor of New York whom we have already quoted. "The provision," says he, "as to persons escaping from servitude in one State into another, appears by their journal to have been adopted by a unanimous vote of the convention. At that time the existence of involuntary servitude, or the relation of master and servant, was known to and recognized by the laws of every State in the Union except Massachusetts, and the legal right of recaption by the master existed in all, as a part of the customary or common law of the whole confederacy." Hence, instead of shocking the convention, a clause recognizing such right would have been merely declaratory of the "customary or common law," which then universally prevailed. The "history of the times" confirms this view, and furnishes no evidence against it.
Mr. Sumner tries to make a different impression. He lays great stress on the fact that it was not until late in the convention that the first clause relative to the surrender of fugitive slaves was introduced. But this fact agrees more perfectly with our view than with his. There was no haste about the introduction of such a provision, because it was well known that, whenever it should be introduced, it would pass in the affirmative without difficulty. And, in fact, when it was introduced, it "was unanimously adopted." This single fact speaks volumes.
Let us now attend, for a moment, to Mr. Sumner's historical proofs. He quotes the following passage from the Madison Papers:—"Gen. (Charles Cotesworth) Pinckney was not satisfied with it. He seemed to wish some provision should be included in favor of property in slaves." "But," by way of comment, Mr. Sumner adds, "he made no proposition. Unwilling to shock the convention, and uncertain in his own mind, he only seemed to wish such a provision." Now, a bare abstract proposition to recognize property in men is one thing, and a clause to secure the return of fugitive slaves is quite another. The first, it is probable, would have been rejected by the convention; the last was actually and unanimously adopted by it.
Mr. Sumner's next proof is decidedly against him. Here it is "Mr. Butler and Mr. Charles Pinckney, both from South Carolina, now moved openly to require 'fugitive slaves and servants to be delivered up like criminals.' . . . . . . Mr. Wilson, of Pennsylvania, at once objected: 'This would oblige the executive of the State to do it at the public expense.' Mr. Sherman, of Connecticut, saw no more propriety in the public seizing and surrendering a slave or servant than a horse! Under the pressure of these objections the offensive proposition was quietly withdrawn."
Now mark the character of these objections. It is objected, not that it is wrong to deliver up fugitive slaves, but only that they should not be "delivered up like criminals;" that is, by a demand on the executive of the State to which they may have fled. And this objection is based on the ground that such a requisition would oblige the public to deliver them up at its own expense. Mr. Sherman insists, not that it is wrong to surrender fugitive slaves or fugitive horses, but only that the executive, or public, should not be called upon to surrender them. Surely, if these gentlemen had been so violently opposed to the restoration of fugitive slaves, here was a fair occasion for them to speak out; and as honest, outspoken men they would, no doubt, have made their sentiments known. But there is, in fact, not a syllable of such a sentiment uttered. There is not the slightest symptom of the existence of any such feeling in their minds. If any such existed, we must insist that Mr. Sumner has discovered it by instinct, and not by his researches in history.
The statement that "under the pressure of these objections the offensive propositon was quietly withdrawn" is not true. It was not quietly withdrawn; on the contrary, it was withdrawn with the assurance that it would be again introduced. "Mr. Butler withdrew his proposition," says Mr. Madison, "in order that some particular provision might be made, apart from this article."[214] Accordingly, the very next day he introduced a provision, which, as Mr. Madison declares, "was expressly inserted to enable owners of slaves to reclaim them."
