Page:The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade.djvu/421

 exports. As the shipping was principally owned in the eastern states, their delegates were equally anxious to prevent any restriction of the power of congress to pass navigation laws. All the states, except North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, had prohibited the importation of slaves; and North Carolina had proceeded so far as to discourage the importation by heavy duties. The prohibition of duties on the importation of slaves was demanded by the delegates from South Carolina and Georgia, who declared that, without a provision of this kind, the constitution would not receive the assent of these states. The support which the proposed restriction received from other states, was given to it from a disposition to compromise, rather than from an approval of the measure itself. The proposition not only gave rise to a discussion of its own merits, but revived the opposition to the apportionment of representatives according to the three-fifths ratio, and called forth some severe denunciations of slavery.

Mr. King, of Massachusetts, in reference to the admission of slaves as a part of the representative population, remarked: "He had not made a strenuous opposition to it heretofore, because he had hoped that this concession would have produced a readiness, which had not been manifested, to strengthen the general government. (The report of the committee put an end to all those hopes. The importation of slaves could not be prohibited; exports could not be taxed. If slaves are to be imported, shall not the exports produced by their labor supply a revenue to help the government defend their masters? There was so much inequality and unreasonableness in all this, that the people of the northern states could never be reconciled to it. (He had hoped that some accommodation would have taken place on the subject; that at least a time would have been limited for the importation of slaves. "He could never agree to let them be imported without limitation, and then be represented in the national legislature. Either slaves should not be represented, or exports should be taxable."

Gouverneur Morris, of Pa., pronounced slavery "a nefarious institution It was the curse of Heaven on the states where it prevailed. Compare the free regions of the middle states, where a rich and noble cultivation marks the prosperity and happiness of the people, with the misery and poverty which overspread the barren wastes of Virginia, Maryland, and the other states having slaves. Travel through the whole continent, and you behold the prospect continually varying with the appearance and disappearance of slavery. The admission of slaves into the representation, when fairly explained, comes to this, that the inhabitant of Georgia and South Carolina, who goes to the coast of Africa in defiance of the most sicred laws of humanity, tears away his fellow-creatures from their dearest connections, and damns them to the most cruel bondage, shall have more votes in a government instituted for the protection of the rights of mankind, than the citizen of Pennsylvania or New Jersey, who views with a laudable horror so nefarious a practice. And what is the proposed compensation to the northern states for a sacrifice of every principle of right, every impulse of humanity? They are to bind themselves to march their militia for