Cotton is King, and Pro-Slavery Arguments / Comprising the Writings of Hammond, Harper, Christy, Stringfellow, Hodge, Bledsoe, and Cartrwright on this Important Subject

by Unknown

These glosses of Mr. Sumner on the history of the times will appear important, if we view them in connection with his design. This design is to bring into doubt the idea that slaves are embraced in the clause of the Constitution which requires fugitives from service or labor to be delivered up. We should not suspect this design from the hints here thrown out, if it were not afterward more fully disclosed. "On the next day," says Mr. Sumner, "August 29th, profiting by the suggestions already made, Mr. Butler moved a proposition, substantially like that now found in the Constitution, not directly for the surrender of 'fugitive slaves,' as originally proposed, but as 'fugitives from service or labor,' which, without debate or opposition of any kind, was unanimously adopted." Was it then unanimously adopted because it was a clause for the surrender of "fugitives from service or labor" only, and not for the surrender of fugitive slaves?

Such appears to be the insinuation of Mr. Sumner. Be this as it may, it is certain that he has afterward said that it may be questioned whether "the language employed" in this clause "can be judicially regarded as justly applicable to fugitive slaves, which is often and earnestly denied.". . . . "Still further," he says, in italics, "to the courts of each State must belong the determination of the question, to which class of persons, according to just rules of interpretation, the phrase 'persons held to service or labor' is strictly applicable."

Mr. Sumner doubts, then, whether this provision, after all, refers to "fugitive slaves." Now, although he has said much in regard to "the effrontery of the Southern members of the convention" that formed the Constitution, we may safely defy him, or any other man, to point to any thing in their conduct which approximates to such audacity. What! the clause in question not designed to embrace fugitive slaves? Mr. Butler, even before he introduced the clause, declared, as we have seen, that such would be its design. It was so understood by every member of the convention; for there was not a man there who possessed the capacity to misunderstand so plain a matter; and it has been so understood by every man, of all parties and all factions, from that day down to the present. Not one of the hired advocates who have been employed, in different States, to argue against the constitutionality of the Fugitive Slave Law, has ever had the unblushing effrontery to contend that the clause in question is not applicable to fugitive slaves. Nay, more, until Mr. Sumner appeared, the frantic zeal of no abolitionist had ever so completely besotted his intellect as to permit him to take such ground. By Dr. Channing, by Mr. Seward, and by Mr. Chase, such application of the words in question is unhesitatingly admitted; and hence we dismiss Mr. Sumner's discovery with the contempt it deserves.

But to return. "The provision," says Mr. Sumner, "which showed itself thus tardily, and was so slightly noticed in the National Convention, was neglected in most of the contemporaneous discussions before the people." No wonder; for it was merely declaratory of the "customary or common law" of that day. "In the Conventions of South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia," he admits, "it was commended as securing important rights, though on this point there was a difference of opinion. In the Virginia Convention, an eminent character,—Mr. George Mason,—with others, expressly declared that there was 'no security of property coming within this section.'"

Now, we shall not stickle about the fact that Mr. Sumner has not given the very words of Mr. Mason, since he has given them in substance. But yet he has given them in such a way, and in such a connection, as to make a false impression. The words of Mr. Mason, taken in their proper connection, are as follows: "We have no security for the property of that kind (slaves) which we already have. There is no clause in this Constitution to secure it, for they may lay such a tax as will amount to manumission." This shows his position, not as it is misrepresented by Mr. Sumner, but as it stands in his own words. If slave property may be rendered worthless by the taxation of Congress, how could it be secured by a clause which enables the owner to reclaim it? It would not be worth reclaiming. Such was the argument and true position of Mr. George Mason.

"Massachusetts," continues Mr. Sumner, "while exhibiting peculiar sensitiveness at any responsibility for slavery, seemed to view it with unconcern." If Massachusetts had only believed that the clause was intended to confer on Congress the power to pass a Fugitive Slave Law, into what flames of indignation would her sensitiveness have burst! So Mr. Sumner would have us to believe. But let us listen, for a moment, to the sober voice of history.

It was only about four years after the government went into operation that Congress actually exercised the power in question, and passed a Fugitive Slave Law. Where was Massachusetts then! Did she burst into flames of indignation? Her only voice, in reply, was as distinctly and as emphatically pronounced in favor of that law as was the voice of Virginia itself. With a single exception, her whole delegation in Congress,[215] with Fisher Ames at their head, voted for the Fugitive Slave Law of 1793! Not a whisper of disapprobation was heard from their constituents. As Mr. Sumner himself says, the passage of that act "drew little attention." Hence he would have us to believe that Massachusetts would have been stirred from her depths if the convention had conferred such a power upon Congress, and yet that she was not moved at all when Congress proceeded, as he maintains, to usurp and exercise that power!

This is not all. Every member from the free States, with the exception of five, recorded his vote in favor of the same law.[216] In the Senate, as we have already said, it was passed by resolution, and not by a recorded vote. No one, in either branch of Congress, uttered a syllable against the constitutionality of the law, though many of the most distinguished members of the very convention which framed the Constitution itself were there. Not to mention others, there were James Madison, and Roger Sherman, and Elbridge Gerry, and Rufus King, and Caleb Strong, and Robert Morris, and Oliver Elsworth; and yet from not one of these illustrious framers of the Constitution was a syllable uttered against the constitutionality of the law in question. Nay, the law was supported and enacted by themselves. What, then, in the face of these indubitable facts, becomes of all Mr. Sumner's far-fetched arguments from "the literature of the age" and from his multitudinous voices against slavery? It is absurd, says Mr. Sumner, to suppose that such men intended to confer any power upon Congress to pass a Fugitive Slave Law. It is a fact, we reply, that as members of Congress they proceeded, without hesitation or doubt, to exercise that very power. It "dishonors the memory of the fathers," says Mr. Sumner, to suppose they intended that Congress should possess such a power. How, then, will he vindicate the memory of the fathers against the imputation of his own doctrine that they, as members of Congress, must have knowingly usurped the power which, as members of the convention, they had intended not to confer?

One more of Mr. Sumner's historical arguments, and we are done with this branch of the subject. He deems it the most conclusive of all. It is founded on the arrangement of certain clauses of the Constitution, and is, we believe, perfectly original. We must refer the reader to the speech itself if he desire to see this very curious argument, since we cannot spare the room to give it a full and fair statement.

Nor is this at all necessary to our purpose, inasmuch as we intend to notice only one thing about this argument, namely, the wonderful effect it produces on the mind of its inventor. "The framers of the Constitution," says he, "were wise and careful men, who had a reason for what they did, and who understood the language which they employed." We can readily believe all this. Nor can we doubt that they "had a design in the peculiar arrangement" of the clauses adopted by them. That design, however, we feel quite sure, is different from the one attributed to them by Mr. Sumner. But let us suppose he is right, and then see what would follow.