Page:The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade.djvu/453

 the house that slavery was an evil of very great magnitude, he agreed with that gentleman that it was so. He regarded slavery in the United States as the greatest of evils — an evil indirect hostility to the principles of our government; and hie believed the government had a right to take all due measures to diminish and destroy that evil, even though in doing so they might injure the property of some individuals; for he never could be brought to believe that an individual could have a right in any thing that went to the destruction of the government — a right in a wrong. Property in slaves is founded in wrong, and never be be right. The government must, of necessity, put a stop to this evil, and the sooner they entered upon the business the better. He did not like to hear much said about the rights of man, because of late there had been much quackery on that subject. But because those rights and the claim to them had been abused, it did not follow that men had no rights. Where legislators are chosen from the people and frequently renewed, and in case of laws which affect the interest of those who pass them, the rights of man are not likely to be often disregarded. But when we take upon us to legislate for men against their will, it is very proper to say something about those rights, and to remind gentlemen, at other times so eloquent upon this subject, that men, though held as slaves, are still men by nature, and entitled, therefore, to the rights of man — and hence his allusion to those rights in making the motion.

"We are about to establish a government for a new country. The government of which we form a part originated from, and is founded upon, the rights of man, and upon that ground we mean to uphold it. With what propriety, then, can a government emanate from us in which slavery is not only tolerated, but sanctioned by law? It has indeed been urged that, as this territory will be settled by emigrants from the southern states, they must be allowed to have slaves; as much as to say that the people of the south are fit for nothing but slave-drivers — that, if left to their own labor, they would starve!

"But if gentlemen thought that those now holding slaves within the limits of the proposed territory ought to be excepted from the operation of his amendment, he would agree to such exception for a limited period."

Thacher's amendment was lost. Only twelve votes were, given in favor of it A day or two after, Harper, of South Carolina, offered an amendment, which was carried without opposition, prohibiting the introduction into the new Mississippi territory of slaves from without the limits of the United States.

In this year, 1798, the constitution of Georgia was revised. Following the example already set by the assembly of the two Carolinas, the further importation of slaves "from Africa or any foreign place" was expressly prohibited. By a further provision, any person maliciously killing or dismembering a slave, was to suffer the same punishments as if the acts had been committed on a free white person, except in cases of insurrection, or "unless such death should happen by accident, in giving such slave moderate correction." But while these concessions were made to the antipathy to slavery, that institution was sustained by a clause copied from the constitution of Kentucky, but still more stringent, by which the legislature was forbidden to pass laws for the emancipation