Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Slavery volume 5 .djvu/35

Rh distant people who never offended him ; captivating and carrying them into slavery…. Determined to keep open a market where men should be bought and sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or restrain this execrable commerce." This clause, says its author himself, "was struck out in compliance to South Carolina and Georgia, who had never attempted to restrain the importation of slaves, and who, on the contrary, still wished to continue it. Our northern brethren also, I believe, felt a little tender under these censures; for though their people have very few slaves themselves, yet they had been pretty considerable carriers of them to others."

These were not the sentiments of a single enthusiastic young Republican. Dr Rush, in the Continental Congress, wished "the colonies to discourage slavery and encourage the increase of the free inhabitants." Another member of the American Congress declared, in 1779, "Men are by nature free;" "the right to be free can never be alienated." In 1776, Dr Hopkins, the head of the New Eng- land divines, declared that " slavery is, in every instance, wrong, unrighteous, and oppressive ; a very great and crying sin."

In the articles of Confederation, adopted in 1778, no provision is made for the support of slavery ; none for the delivery of fugitives. Slavery is not once referred to in that document. The General Government had nothing to do with it. "If any slave elopes to those States where slaves are free," said Mr Madison in 1787, "he becomes emancipated by their laws." In the Convention of 1787, which drafted the present Constitution of the United States, this matter of slavery was abundantly discussed; it was the great obstacle in the way of forming the Union, as now of keeping it. But for the efforts of South Carolina, it is probable slavery would have been abolished by the Constitution. The South claimed the right of sending Representatives to Congress on account of their slaves. Mr Patterson, of New Jersey, contended that as the slaves had no representative or vote at home, their masters could not claim additional votes in Congress on account of the slaves. Nearly all the speakers in that Convention, except the members from South