Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v4.djvu/302

286 after a great deal of difficulty, it was settled on the footing recited in the Constitution.

By this settlement we have secured an unlimited importation of negroes for twenty years. Nor is it declared that the importation shall be then stopped; it may be continued. We have a security that the general government can never emancipate them, for no such authority is granted; and it is admitted, on all hands, that the general government has no powers but what are expressly granted by the Constitution, and that all rights not expressed were reserved by the several states. We have obtained a right to recover our slaves in whatever part of America they may take refuge, which is a right we had not before. In short, considering all circumstances, we have made the best terms for the security of this species of property it was in our power to make. We would have made better if we could; but, on the whole, I do not think them bad.

Dr. DAVID RAMSAY thought our delegates had made a most excellent bargain for us, by transferring an immense sum of Continental debt, which we were pledged to pay, upon the Eastern States, some of whom (Connecticut, for instance) could not expect to receive any material advantage from us. He considered the old Confederation as dissolved.

Hon. JACOB READ looked on the boasted efficiency of Congress to be farcical, and instanced two cases in proof of his opinion. One was, that, when the treaty should have been ratified, a sufficient number of members could not be collected in Congress for that purpose; so that it was necessary to dispatch a frigate, at the expense of four thousand dollars, with particular directions for Mr. Adams to use his endeavors to gain time. His application proved successful; otherwise, very disagreeable consequences must have ensued. The other case was, a party of Indians came to Princeton for the purpose of entering into an amicable treaty with Congress; before it could be concluded, a member went to Philadelphia to be married, and his secession had nearly involved the western country in all the miseries of war. Mr. Read urged a concurrence with those states that were in favor of the new Constitution.

Hon. CHARLES PINCKNEY observed, that the honorable gentleman was singular in his opposition to the new Constitution, and equally singular in his profuse praise of the